麻豆社

Good morning.

Pope Francis arrives this morning in a very changed Ireland. The most obvious signs of change are the recent referendums to permit same-sex marriage and remove constitutional restrictions on abortion. Strongly contested too are the status of women in the Church and its teaching on sexuality and gender.

Anger and revulsion at the sexual abuse of children by clergy and, even more, at the failure of bishops, have been reinforced by the global extent of the scandal and evidence of cover up. Pope Francis has written an anguished letter to all Catholics, but there鈥檚 a palpable sense of outrage at what the Pope himself calls a self-referential Church.

And yet, I know from my Centre City Parish, Ireland remains a place where faith matters. Parish shapes local identity. Religious ritual marks the milestones of life, while Irish cultural expression is suffused with a Catholic imagination.

Almost 80% of Irish people recorded themselves as Catholic in the last census, and a majority of adults surveyed say they pray at least weekly. My own parish experience is that our many homeless often rely on organizations which were founded by a Jesuit priest, a Sister of Charity and a Capuchin friar.

But I also sense unease that the new Ireland emerging from the shadow of the Church may lose much that is positive. There鈥檚 unease too that in the current international landscape Ireland鈥檚 prosperity may prove fragile.

Francis has a vision of a Church that reads the signs of the times; a poor church focused on the needs of the poor, expressing the radical equality in baptism of all the women and men of the Church. Above all, a joyful Church, which transmits the good news of Jesus Christ, not by imposing heavy burdens, but by a liberating message of hope.

Ireland is living through the death throes of a model of church which grew powerfully, and was used by the powerful. A new way of being Church is struggling to emerge.

Institutions resist change - look at banking ten years on from the crash.

I sense that the crisis brought about by the child abuse scandal will overwhelm institutional resistance to change.

Discerning how to live in faithful witness to Jesus Christ, how to build up the Kingdom of God in respectful dialogue with those of no faith or hostile to faith, will not be easy. The encounter this weekend between Francis and the people of Ireland may be a fruitful place to start.

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