CRISIS AND CHANGE IN THE IRISH CHURCH

Fr Pat Collins

There is a good deal of evidence to indicate that the Catholic Church in Ireland is in the midst of a long, drawn-out crisis. While about 62% of the population identify as Catholic only about 16% of them attend Mass regularly. So, there is still evidence of a strong cultural affiliation to the Christian faith, but without active religious attendance at church. Data suggests that while institutional religious practice continues to decline in the younger generation, there is a nuanced revival of spiritual interest. Although there are many possible explanations for the crisis in Irish Catholicism, arguably it involves a faith crisis of head, heart and hands.

1)      The faith crisis of the head 

This crisis has to do with knowledge. Many Catholics are not aware of the core teachings of the Christian faith.  Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa has said, “What do ‘Believing Christians’ in Europe and elsewhere actually believe? Most of the time they believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, in a Creator, they believe that something exists beyond the visible universe and beyond death. This is a ‘religious’ faith, not yet the Christian faith, which has the person of Christ as its specific object. Sociological surveys point to this fact even in countries and regions of ancient Christian tradition. Jesus Christ is practically absent in this kind of religiosity.”  

Nominal Catholics often espouse beliefs that are contrary to church teaching. For instance, although scripture asserts that, “There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5) many Catholics believe that all the great religions are equally valid ways to God.  Many Catholics are adopting pagan New Age and occult beliefs and practices such as Reiki, angelology, and reincarnation.   In par. 9 of his apostolic declaration The Church in Europe, St John Paul II said. “European culture gives the impression of silent apostasy on the part of people who have all that they need and who live as if God does not exist.”   

2)           The faith crisis of the heart 

This crisis has to do with experience. Even if some Catholics are aware of the core teachings of Christianity, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are consciously aware of their liberating power in their own lives. While they may know something about the person of Christ, many of them do not know Christ in person. In par. 19 of On Catechis in our Time St John Paul II said that many Catholics have not yet crossed, “the threshold of faith to form an explicit personal attachment to Jesus Christ.” It is as if they are standing outside a door looking into a room where people are chatting, without being part of the conversation.

3)           The faith crisis of the hands

This crisis has to do with Christian action. If the truth of the gospel has not fallen from head to heart, it is not surprising that cultural Catholics often fail to act in a way that would be consistent with the teachings of Christ and his church.  A few years ago, a booklet entitled, Fanning the Flame spoke about, “The disintegration of family life, the decrease in priestly and religious vocations, wasteful consumption, forgetfulness of the poor – these and many other factors are symptoms of the Catholic community’s weakened state. It has left the community prey to the pressures of a secular world where the media repeatedly mock the gospel and cheapen the centrality of a person’s worth as a child of God. Increasingly many Catholics find it difficult to live according to our traditions and the teachings of our Church.”   

The need for a New Evangelisation in Ireland

The acclaimed American TV evangelist, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, commented, “Our Lord’s first word to His disciples was ‘come!’ His last word was ‘go!’ You can’t ‘go’ unless you’ve first ‘come’ to Him.” So, each one of us needs a religious awakening, one which enables us to move from knowing about the person of Jesus to knowing him in person, e.g., as a result of attending a Life in the Spirit Seminar, or an Alpha Course. Then in the words of St John Paul II, we have to find ways that are “new in ardour, methods and forms of expression” in order to get the unchanging message about Jesus across to those who do not yet have a personal relationship with him.  This is what is referred to as the new evangelisation.