Disgusted by waves of scandal, Ireland’s Catholics are boycotting Mass and
turning their backs on the church
"It used to be easily the most Catholic country in the world. The church's connection to the
island nation dates to St. Patrick's conversion in the 5th century.............In 1984, nearly 90 percent of Irish Catholics went to Mass every week. But by 2011, only 18 percent did. It's a massive cultural shift. The scale was greater in Ireland than in any other country.
Across the world, the Vatican routinely protected individual priests who were raping boys and, to a lesser extent, girls, responding to complaints of abuse by transferring offenders to other parishes. Ireland had hundreds of such cases, but because of
the church's enormous power there, it was not just individual priests who were
involved, but large institutions.
Until the 1990s, the church ran orphanages and
industrial schools that warehoused 30,000 children deemed delinquents —
pickpockets, or the poor, or those with unmarried parents.
The 2009 Ryan Report found that thousands of children were savagely raped or molested in these homes, while thousands more were beaten and starved and forced to work. Boys described nights of terror, lying in bed waiting for priests to come and molest them...................
A new scandal has rocked the church, with the recent discovery that up to 4,000 infants and children — many malnourished and poorly treated — had been buried in
unmarked graves at homes for unwed mothers run by Catholic nuns.
The string of revelations has undermined the very legitimacy of the church...............
has deeply shaken Irish faith. The priesthood has lost
its luster, and enrollment at seminaries has plummeted.
In Dublin, there are just two priests under the age of 40. Across the country,
two thirds of priests are over 55. Some towns are already sharing priests,
having Mass at the local church only every other week. Well over 80 percent of the Irish still identify as Catholics, but now they practice their religion privately.
Tourism at Station Island, where St. Patrick had his religious epiphany in the 5th century, is way
up. Disaffected Catholics are using the site as a kind of private church, a way
to worship unmediated by the hierarchy.
.............. Father Gerard Moloney wrote in The Irish Times. "The
church has provided its enemies with weapons of mass destruction. It has no one
to blame but itself."
Could the Society be setting itself up for a big falling out?