Opinion

Patrick Murphy: Catholic Church's last stand - or comeback?

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy is an Irish News columnist and former director of Belfast Institute for Further and Higher Education.

Catholic Primate of All Ireland Archbishop Eamon Martin has sent a report to Rome in response to the Pope’s global consultation on the Church’s future. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire.
Catholic Primate of All Ireland Archbishop Eamon Martin has sent a report to Rome in response to the Pope’s global consultation on the Church’s future. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire. Catholic Primate of All Ireland Archbishop Eamon Martin has sent a report to Rome in response to the Pope’s global consultation on the Church’s future. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire.

The Catholic Church in Ireland has decided that it is better to adapt than die.

That appears to be the message in a report it has sent to Rome, in response to the Pope’s global consultation on the Church’s future.

The document is based on feedback from some of the laity, although the level of response is unknown.

It identifies 15 topics which many felt are not being adequately addressed by the Church. These include abuse, lay ministry, the role of women in the Church and the impact of Covid.

Commendably, the report also identifies issues which might have been raised, but were not. These include the environment and, surprisingly, social justice.

As the Irish Church continues to decline in support and influence, some will see this as a last gasp effort to retain what remains. Others will argue that it represents a new beginning for Irish Catholicism.

So which is it: the Church’s last stand, or the first step in its comeback?

Although the answer depends on the Pope’s response, hopes for a comeback might be rather optimistic, because this report raises three main challenges for the Church: communication, raising expectations and relevance.

The Church has difficulty communicating. It rarely uses the language of ordinary people. The document sent to Rome is referred to as a “National Synodal Synthesis” (hardly a catchy title.) “A Responsive Church” might have been a better idea.

Rather than call the Pope’s consultation process a meeting, or even a conversation, it designated it as a synod. The word was used as part of Church tradition, not for communicating with the real world.

(There have been 67 Irish synods in the past 1,000 years, including the 1850 Synod of Thurles. It planned a National University of Ireland to counter existing ‘godless colleges”, including Queen’s University.)

Even if you know what a synod is, you may have difficulty with the report’s use of “ synodal pathway”, “synodality” and even a “pre-synodal assembly”. (If you do not begin at the level of knowledge and understanding of the class, you are never going to be a teacher.)

The Church’s second challenge is that consultation raises expectations. Whereas the Church can change some of its own rules, it cannot alter its core religious message, which it describes as God’s teaching.

So, for example, it can abandon its rule preventing women from being priests, but it cannot water down the Ten Commandments. Stealing will still be wrong no matter what a majority think, because God does not do democracy. (If religious teachings were based on popular approval, we would all be devout.)

Trying to explain the difference between what it can and cannot change will require a level of communication which the Church has yet to acquire.

Although it has understandably no wriggle room on doctrine, it could be transparent about some of its more worldly activities.

For example, as it disposes of its extensive property interests across Ireland, I have heard of one parish where property paid for by parishioners was apparently sold off by the clergy without explanation or information. (No synodal pathway for that one.).

Doctrine may be unalterable. Transparency is not.

The Church’s final challenge is relevance. In the financial meltdown from 2008 onwards, it sidelined itself from Irish society by remaining largely silent.

At the beginning of Covid, this column said that if the Church did not become relevant during lockdown, it would decline. Some criticised that view, but it is turning out to be true.

With other Christian faiths, the Church now says it is “deeply concerned” about the cost of living crisis. That is welcome, but without a more active participation in addressing the crisis, it is in danger of sidelining itself again.

The Church largely fails to recognise that many are too burdened by the struggle of this life to be overly concerned about the next one. If it wants a new beginning, that is where it must start. It should not take a synod to recognise that.