LINK Unholy Catholic Ireland: Despite secular shift, many cling to Catholicism
For much of the past century, Ireland was practically synonymous with the Catholic Church. The Church was arguably the most powerful institution for generations of Irish people. But all that began to change in recent years and it’s happened faster than anyone could have anticipated. “Holy Catholic Ireland” is quickly turning unholy.
Ireland is now a place where the fastest growing “religious” demographic is people with no religious affiliation. The government is secularizing the default-Catholic school system to the point where they’re phasing out Christianity as the default option in many secondary schools. Abortion has been legalized. Same-sex marriage has been legalized. The blasphemy law has been repealed.
Maybe the biggest change, though, has been the reputation of the Catholic Church itself. It’s no longer seen as an influential, relevant institution. You’re far more likely to hear it referred to as the problem rather than the solution.
Dr. Hugh Turpin is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Oxford’s School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography who has been studying this phenomenon for years, using a variety of methods to examine the rejection of Catholicism in Ireland. His new book, Unholy Catholic Ireland: Religious Hypocrisy, Secular Morality, and Irish Irreligion (affiliate link), is a culmination of his research up to this point, looking closely at the causes and effects of a post-Catholic Ireland. ...
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Hopefully Ireland is a bellweather.
Flyingsaucesir
Level 8
Oct 8, 2022
2
For what? Nations that stay allied with The Vatican or other dogmatic terrorists?
@rainmanjr ""Holy Catholic Ireland” is quickly turning unholy."
@Flyingsaucesir maybe
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hoalai3493
Level 1
Oct 8, 2022
1
It’s true what they say…….every dog has his day.
Organized religion as a whole more and more appears to be that dog now. Boo hoo for you Jesus freaks
CuddyCruiser
Level 8
Oct 8, 2022
4
I wouldn't break out the Guinness just yet. Pope John Paul demonstrated how a charismatic Priest can revive a desire to join up and become pedophiles. If I were a pedophile (I'm not, incidentally) a Mission would still be where I'd try to go. Remaining allied to The Vatican makes it possible for them to reinvigorate those outposts.
Catholics are losing the sexually and monetarily corrupt organization but retaining the basic ideas. That would suggest the organization can make a comeback unless something else pretty quickly fulfills the spiritual/community needs of people.
rainmanjr
Level 8
Oct 8, 2022
4
I don’t think that is actually correct…this disenchantment with the Catholic Church has happened over a very short couple of decades due to the large number of clerical scandals which have come to light, perpetrated on alter boys and the atrocities committed on unmarried mothers & their babies by the nuns in the Magdalen laundries. These are still relatively recent scandals and have shocked the Catholic population to the core. It has been the catalyst for all the reforms to happen so quickly, such as divorce, abortion, and same sex marriage and almost all the disaffected Catholics are in the generations who are aged 50 and under. Ireland has a large, young, educated population, many of them admit they no longer believe because they think the church has lost all moral authority and are only still Catholic in name only because they know it would hurt their parents to openly say they were atheist or even agnostic. It’s the older more conservative generations who really still identify as Catholic in any real way, and when they die off the majority of their children and grandchildren will probably not have any reason to even identify themselves nominally as Catholic. I know many Catholic families here in Northern Ireland and know for a fact this to be true up here too, although because of the political situation here and how religious affiliation is connected to national identity…Catholic = Irish, Protestant = British - its more likely that younger Catholics will continue to identify as such in larger proportions for some time than they do in the Republic.
@Marionville That's pretty much what I wrote but I'm not in Ireland so will concede your personal knowledge.
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