In spite of all the talk about the supposed decline of the Church in Ireland, there are many hopeful signs of new life. That being said, there are also many challenges,such as the indifference of many members of Generation X, and the infiltration of government and media by aggressive secularists intent on removing all traces of Catholicism, and Christianity in general. However, having spent most of August there in the middle of the deluge of endless rain, I could not help but think of our two latest popes and their respective gifts to us. Now is the time to be at our most hopeful.
I plan to post a few reflections on vocations in Ireland and the future of the Church there.
I think it’s true to say that old “Catholic Ireland” is gone, helped in no small part by our recent economic prosperity. That said, I don’t think you’d find many people who’d want to return to the type of Catholic Ireland that we had in the mid-twentieth century - the ‘faith’ that so many people appeared to have was often based on fear. My own parents who are not even in their fifties remember the days when one would often be ‘named and shamed’ by the priest from the pulpit if they had missed Mass or had not been to weekly confession. The ‘powers that were’ in the Church did their best to protect the morals of their flock, but very often the influence in political circles and censorship regulations went beyond what most people would be comfortable with.
There is no doubt but that certain sections of the media do have an agenda against the Church (indeed, often any faith system). The Irish national broadcaster, RTE, has been frequently accused of expressing anti-Catholic sentiments. However, there are very rarely attacks made against the Church based solely on what the Church is doing today - if a bishop speaks out against something perfectly justifiably and honourably he will often be attacked by the media not because of the point he’s making but because of the view that “who is this guy to talk about such and such an issue after what Fr. so and so did a hundred years ago…”. The past gives people a chance to attack the Church and they do not want to let go of it.
On the other hand, while people use the past to attack the Church, there are at least some who hark back to Ireland’s strong Catholic heritage and feel that the Church is worth defending. Every day there are letters to the editor in various newspapers attacking the Church for something - but I find that most of the time it will be followed the next day by a strong and suitable counter-argument. This is quite heartening - as one newspaper reported last year, the Catholic Church in Ireland is beginning to find its voice again.
With regard to vocations, there is evidence that they are slowly on the increase. The national seminary at St Patrick’s Pontifical College, Maynooth, has quite a small number of students studying there (around 80, I think), but the numbers increased slightly last year, and I think are expected to increase this year. Some religious orders are doing better than others - the Redemptorists and the Dominicans seem to be doing ok, I think. For convents, the Poor Clares report strong and constant interest from women in their way of life. It is interesting that it is the traditional orders and contemplatives that are attracting vocations. In a previous thread I suggested that maybe that was because they have the same mission as always (prayer, preaching etc.) whereas other orders such as the Sisters of Mercy, Presentation Sisters, Christian Brothers, Patrician Brothers, who were major players in Education and Health have to some extent lost their identity (temporarily, I hope) with the Church’s declining influence in these areas. In terms of vocations to diocesan priesthood, I feel there is not enough being done - not in my diocese at least. There are vocations directors and occasional notices in Church newsletters that those who feel they may have a vocation should talk to one of these priests. However, I believe that there are thousands of people in Ireland right now who have a vocation to priesthood or religious life, but they are not heeding the call and are not being encouraged to either. I have no doubt that there are plenty of potential vocations among those who do not attend Mass or who have fallen away from the faith. For this reason I think it is essential that vocations directors venture outside their church to attract vocations - they should be visiting schools and presenting the religious life as being as worthwhile as any other occupation - Jesus didn’t sit around and wait for the twelve to come to Him - He went out and picked men from all walks of life.
With that rant out of the way, I must say that I am very hopeful for the future of the Catholic Church in Ireland. While many see the Church as being weak at the moment, I think it is the opposite. My main hope, however, is that the Church here will take a major and active hold on the current vocations issue - we all know that we need priests, and with the majority of our priests over the age of sixty, we need to get moving on this issue and put our thinking caps on!
