Recent years have seen a number of events commemorating the activities in Ireland of John Henry Cardinal Newman, who was invited to the country in 1851 by the Irish bishops to assist in the establishment of a Catholic university.
The controversy and opposition that Newman dealt with in those years may seem best forgotten, but might have some insight to offer the current challenges to the Irish Catholic church.
At the time of Newman’s visits, Ireland was in the throes of the ‘Devotional Revolution’. Popular home-based observances, local saints and places, and vernacular prayers were being replaced by church-centred, priest-led Mediterranean practices, as parish missions, novenas, sodalities and regular masses were introduced as the norm of what would become thought of as ‘Irish Catholicism’. The Catholic church in Ireland was gradually brought into the Roman line of Paul Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin. Recent years have tested the Irish church on many fronts and challenge it to re-imagine its place in Irish life.
The 1979 visit of John Paul II to Ireland was a significant moment in Ireland’s religious history. Almost every reference to the event includes a depiction of the pope accompanied by Eamon Casey or Michael Clery. The bishop and the priest were two of the most accessible and popular commentators at the time, but are remembered now less because of their charismatic personalities, than because of later revelations; both had secret relationships and children of which the public knew nothing.
The disclosure of their relationships caused great confusion among supporters of the church and much speculation and derision among others. Many see their departure from the public eye as marking the beginning of a slide for the church in Ireland, a slide that would continue with deepening awareness of sexual scandals, inept management and a failure to recognise the mood of public disquiet. The resignation of the once-popular Bishop Brendan Comiskey in 2002, and the later publication of the results of a government enquiry into the administration of his diocese, deepened the questions about the church and its place in Irish society.
Ironically, the loss of each prominent spokesman left no-one to answer the questions that arose. The media became the forum for discussion and was responsible for forming much of the public attitude. The church became quieter, being at best circumspect, but often ‘unavailable for comment’ as questions multiplied.
Some church figures construed the media atmosphere as