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Post by shane on Dec 6, 2010 19:11:33 GMT
The title of this thread is inspired by Stephen Kinsella's book Ireland in 2050. I'd be interesting to read your predictions on what kind of state the Catholic Church in Ireland will be in forty years from now. Last November Archbishop Martin lamented that his archdiocese was rapidly running out of priests: “ We have 46 priests over 80 and only two less than 35 years of age. In a very short time we will just have the bare number of priests required to have one active priest for each of our 199 parishes". He observed that there were now 10 times more priests over 70 than under 40 in Dublin. In Tuam the number of clergy will fall by 30% over the next four years. Fr Brendan Hoban, writing in the Furrow, said of his Killala diocese that “ in 20 years’ time there will be around eight priests instead of the present 34, with probably two or three under 60 years of age”. “ The difficult truth is that priests will have effectively dissappeared in Ireland in two to three decades”. Will this trend continue and will Catholicism in Ireland largely die out or will the Church in Ireland undergo a revival?
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 7, 2010 10:53:52 GMT
I'm with the pessimists on this one. The problems are: (1) The education system has to a great extent been de facto secularised, and the predominant version of Irish hsitory purveyed through it and through the media presents Irish Catholicism as a power-grab by backward rural killjoy hypocrites and defines Irish freedom and modernity in terms of self-emancipation from Catholicism. (2) The state bureaucracy (including the courts) is increasingly becoming dominated by peole who see orthodox Catholicism as contrary to human rights, and to be tolerated only in private as a strictly individual eccentiricity. (3) Large sections of the Church's administrative apparatus (and of the seminary system insofar as it still exists) are dominated by lay and clerical bureaucrats who are actively opposed to orthodox catechetics and much church doctrine, and who want to create an Irish Church which will be congregationalist in structure and pantheist in doctrine. There is no orthdox Catholic third-level base for criticism of this approach, and very little in the way of articulate criticism of it. (4) Western society as a whole is becoming much more expressly secularised; to be an orthdoxo Catholic involves swimming against the stream and increasingly accepting a reputation as isolated and eccentric (if not worse). I hope I'm wrong - any optimists out there?
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Post by assisi on Dec 8, 2010 22:00:29 GMT
It's hard to call this.
All the factors Hibernicus mentions are true and will continue and consolidate as long as the current culture remains the same. But will the culture remain the same?
There are some obvious signs (the economic problems being one) that the secular consumer culture is beginning to crack and may face a reaction. I am quite confident that the West is burning itself out in its present guise. However the decline of such 'empires' can take time and they will struggle to maintain their hold.
The big question then is what type of society, culture or philosophy will replace it? I would hope that it is something more authentic and humble. Something more modest where human expectation was set at a fairer and more achievable level. One where excess was viewed as bad rather than celebrated as it has been. However this may be preceded by social disorder as transformation takes place.
Catholicism in any new dispensation could be viewed as having been generally correct in its disciplined and holy message and be re-embraced. Or it could be viewed, along with other institutions as representative of the old ways and therefore ignored or even supressed.
However as Catholics we do not have to be passive in all this. We can influence things through our actions at a time when the country is crying out for direction. We need new ideas, new movements, new education and new inspiration (and lots of prayer) but always working within the orthodoxy of the Church. We might never reach the influence that Catholicism had in the last few centuries - but that influence in itself, closely allied to the state as it was, eventually brought problems of its own with regard to institutional power.
A humble but fearless church, peopled by authentic and compassionate people and guided by informed and holy priests/bishops/Pope should be our simple aim. To achieve this will always need constant vigilance to ensure that we don't veer from our path.
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 9, 2010 11:40:22 GMT
In relation to Assisi's post; I think it ought to be made clear whether this discussion is about what we WANT to happen or what we think WILL happen. I would very much like to see a great Catholic revival in Ireland and will do what I can to help it; I just don't think it is likely to happen any time soon for the reasons I gave. If it IS to happen those reasons must be addressed. I also think Assisi's disavowal of "institutional power" can be overdone. Clearly, a society dominated by prince-bishops and well-paid clergy could be as corrupt and ungodly as makes no difference (cf numerous historical examples); clearly the early decades of the Irish state saw near-universal Catholic observance combined with horrific cruelties and abuses, some carried out under the cloak of piety (cf the horrific career of Fr Tony Byrne as revealed in recent court reports, the way in which one victim was chastised by his pious and trusting parents for saying such things about "a man of God" and how, according to Mary Raftery's article after the verdict, the failure of the Church authorities to hand him over to the police when they knew of his misdeeds and were struggling to persuade the Vatican to laicise him for them, enabled him to rape more children.) The fact remains, however, that the Church does need "institutional poweer" to carry out its mission - both because the training and education of priests and laity in the faith, the support of the clergy, the administration of works of charity and the sacraments, require a legal, economic and financial infrastructure, but also because we are called upon to "be the leaven in the lump" - to influence the whole tone and ethos of society - and this naturally requires the acquisition and influence of power. (For example, one sign of social sickness was the financial institution which during the boom produced advertisements urging young people to get mortgages to buy their own accommodation so they could fornicate with casual acquaintances without having to worry about their parents' reaction. Such advertisements ought to lose their devisors far more business than they gain, and when Ireland had a well-organised Catholic action movement and a more fervent Catholic population, no-one would have dared to produce such advertisements. I might add that the contempt for deferred gratification displayed therein is one of the factors that has brought us to our current economic state.) Humility is a virtue, but humility and impotence are not the same thing, and a lot of commentators who call for a humble church mean they want an impotent one. (I am not saying this is what Assisi wants; I am saying he is repeating slogans without paying sufficient attention to their possible meanings.)
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Dec 16, 2010 12:28:45 GMT
Well, if present trends continue, I'm with the pessimists - but any of many factors could lead in another direction over the next 40 years.
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