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	Where to Now for Catholicism in Ireland? By Joe Horgan Irish Post July 9, 2009 http://www.irishpost.co.uk/tabId/321/itemId/4219/Where-to-now-for-Catholicism-in-Ireland.aspx IT is hard to know what to do now with all of that residual Catholicism. What to do with that reflex that wants to make the sign of the cross on passing a grotto. What to do when a priest passes by in the street. Still catch the eye and say hello, Father? What to do when a nun passes by in the street. Still catch the eye and say hello, Sister? Still? Now? After the Ryan Report? After being given full knowledge of what the institutions of that Church did? What to do with it now? If you were writing a short history of the Catholic Church in Ireland now how would you assess it? Would you say it supported and helped the people through an often grim, difficult history? Or would you say it oppressed and manipulated the people? Would you say it was a force for good in Irish life? Or would you say if not good it was at least benign? Or would you say that, on the shocking, overwhelming evidence of the Ryan Report that the Catholic Church has been a malign, divisive force in Irish life? Has been the one consistently proven force for evil? And there is still more to come remember. We have had the Ryan Report and the Ferns Report and those counselling survivors of institutional abuse have now requested that the upcoming report into abuse in the Dublin archdiocese be delayed. They have said that they fear being unable to cope if that report follows so closely on that of the Ryan Report. So what do we do with Irish Catholicism now? One of the creators of Father Ted, surely one of the great works of Irish genius, said after the Ryan Report that he did not think that the series could be written now. He did not believe that Irish Catholicism could be viewed with such comical fondness anymore. Hands up who disagrees with him? In many ways I suppose, we are living in a post-Catholic Ireland. Coming generations are hardly likely to show the mass devotion that existed in the past. The power of the Church, the ideological power, has diminished enormously. The Church still has huge power in education and health but it is hard to see how that can survive. How can the Church be allowed to wield such power in a society that no longer shares its prayers? Quite simply, it can't. But what do we do now? What do we do with Irish Catholicism? Quite clearly we have not replaced the Church yet. We are going to have to but we haven't yet. At the moment we have the ideological vacuum that is shopping and consuming but that only really lasted these past 15 years and has already hit the ropes. The new temples of consumerism, the shopping malls and the label obsessed main streets, are now running scared. Their inherent emptiness is already on display. I'll say one thing for Catholicism. It sure as hell had a lot more staying power than that. I was up in the city recently and I walked from the outskirts into the city centre. I walked down streets I remembered as a kid and I soaked up the rich city accent and the beat and pulse of life there. I passed the street where my grandmother lived even after I'd moved back here and walked the places my mother grew up in. It used to be the very edge of the city where the countryside kissed the streets but it is all urban now, it is all city. I took a walk up to where my grandmother is now buried and I stopped for a while to think. What would she think, I thought? She who had met the black and tans as a child. She who had brought up 13 kids at a time when kids in such homes were so often taken away. She who had always shown such spirit, such working-class pride, such Irish strength. What would she think if she could see all this, the Church in disgrace and the 24-hour Tescos just around the corner from her home? The two rotten temples. She would cast a wary eye on both I reckon. Cut them with some quick remark. She'd have never been fooled by either anyway. The dogs in the street, she'd say. She'd light a fag. Shake her head. Carry on.
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