The Mass culminates with stealing the St. Patrick statue from the church at 3 p.m. It's blessed and then carried along a short parade route through the streets of Mt. Adams, accompanied by men wearing kilts and carrying bagpipes.

Stealing the statue has its roots in the fact that, historically, German and Irish Catholic congregants were often at odds in Cincinnati. On Mt. Adams, where Irish and German working-class families lived, there were two Catholic churches, the Church of the Holy Cross for the Irish and Immaculata Church for the Germans.

Holy Cross parish was established in 1873 to serve the Irish immigrants on the hill. Immaculata was dedicated in 1860, fulfilling a promise made to God by a fearful and distraught Archbishop John Baptist Purcell when he crossed the Atlantic on stormy, tossing seas. With a German congregation, Immaculata was part of Purcell's adroit handling of the ethnic differences in the 19th-century Cincinnati archdiocese. Read more

In a statement Nov. 25, the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse said the number of children housed in the institutions was approximately 42,000, about a quarter of the 170,000 previously cited in the 2009 Ryan Report.

The commission was mandated to report on the extent of abuse in institutions supervised by the state but run by 18 religious congregations. It found that physical abuse was widespread and sexual abuse was endemic in many institutions for boys run by members of religious congregations. More than 1.4 billion euros has already been paid out in compensation to people who say they suffered abuse while living in the homes.

In a statement on the commission website, Justice Sean Ryan said, "The commission's report published in May 2009 contains a seriously erroneous statistic according to the general agreement of relevant experts and bodies." Continue reading

Martin has also called for a radical overhaul in the training of priests.

Outlining his vision for renewal which would include a "reduction and rationalisation of dioceses" and a "revision of the arcane workings of the Irish Episcopal Conference", Martin recalled the Apostolic Visitation to Irish dioceses announced by Pope Benedict XVI in his 2010 ‘Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland'.

Martin said: "It is well known that I was unhappy with many aspects of the Visitation and its results."

Despite being well-intentioned, Martin said "the visitation froze the renewal of the Irish Church for some years" and the results were "disappointing."

This led a number of dioceses being left vacant for years. In addition, some of the ideas of the visitation were put on hold, including the rationalisation of the number of dioceses.

"We need to take a radical new look at the formation of future priests. A culture of clericalism is hard to eliminate. It did not come out of nowhere and so we have to address its roots in seminary training. There is no way we can put off decisions regarding the future," Martin said.

At present Irish bishops are preparing to draw up a new programme for the formation of priests. The new programme will see seminarians spend more time working alongside priests in parishes.

Martin says at present the Church in Ireland is coming out of one of its most difficult moments in its history.

He said the Irish Church would have to live with the fruits of its actions and its inaction and with the grief of its past, "which can and should never be forgotten or overlooked."

While there was "no simple way of wiping the slate of the past clean, just to ease our feelings", he also stressed that the Church in Ireland cannot be imprisoned in its past.

From being the culture of an enlarged faith community into a heavily secularised culture, in Ireland faith no longer plays a major role in people's lives, Martin noted.

He also sounded a note of caution over Catholic education, which despite investment in the structures of school-based religious education and enormous goodwill, was not producing the results that it set out to achieve.

"We have great teachers in our faith schools. The system is also such that teachers who do not share the faith find themselves at times teaching something of which they are not convinced.

"There are fundamental fault-lines within the current structure for Catholic schools that are not being addressed and unattended fault-lines inevitably generate destructive energies," he said.

He added that future leadership must represent lay, clerical and religious, women and men, young and old.

"We all agree on this, but nothing seems to happen." As a result, he stressed, "The alienation of so many women only increases."

Source

• The Tablet
• Image: The Irish Times

They run in serried ranks down the length of its nave, making it the largest choir chapel in the world.

The church itself is a masterpiece of Gothic Revival, and the ceiling of the church offers a kind of visual catechism, taking worshippers through salvation history by means of painted images.

Since St. Patrick's College's founding in 1795 in County Kildare as the national seminary for the Catholic Church in Ireland, it has trained over 11,000 priests—not just for Ireland, but for the global church.

The seminary also inspired two major missionary societies, the first directed to China and the latter to Africa.

Many American Catholics may also remember that the parish priest of their childhood was from Ireland; that man was likely trained in Maynooth.

When construction on the College Chapel began in 1875, Maynooth was the largest seminary in all of Christendom.

It is no accident that the media portrayal in the United States (and many other countries) of a Catholic priest is of an Irish man with a thick brogue.

In 1899, 82 priests "for Ireland, America, and Australia" were ordained at Maynooth.

In the fall of 2017, a new class of first-year seminarians arrived at Maynooth to begin their training for the priesthood.

There were six men.

Ireland in the Coming Times

In total, there are 36 seminarians living at Maynooth this year (another 25 are assigned to Maynooth but live elsewhere).

The decline in priestly vocations in Ireland is paralleled by similarly stark decreases in numbers for men's and women's religious orders.

"The decline in vocations is not even the biggest problem we face," said Stanislaus Kennedy, R.S.C., known throughout Ireland as Sister Stan, a social justice advocate and founder of the charity Focus Ireland, now the largest voluntary organization in the country.

"The biggest problem is the decline in participation by the laity, especially by the young people."

Recent surveys confirm this, showing steep declines throughout the Republic of Ireland in religious practice and reception of the sacraments.

More than 90 percent of Irish Catholics reported attending Mass at least weekly in the early 1970s; recent surveys put that percentage at between 30 and 35 percent in recent years.

In the Archdiocese of Dublin, it is less than 20 percent, and some urban parishes report weekly attendance as less than 2 percent of the Catholic population.

As many as one in ten Irish now identify as "nones," claiming no religious affiliation.

The numbers augur an uncertain future for the Catholic Church in Ireland, long a place where Catholicism seemed sure of deep roots and high adherence to practice and tradition.

Will Ireland follow the same trajectory as Quebec? Continue reading

• James T. Keane is a Senior Editor at America.
• Image: America Magazine

Towards Peace was launched on May 25 in Cork with a Mass of healing and reconciliation.

The initiative seeks to help survivors re-engage with their faith.

It is being rolled out regionally in Ireland over the next few months.

It aims to provide a "spiritual companion" to accompany an abuse victim in a healing journey.

Another goal is to help survivors find forgiveness for the institutional Church for its failings.

Requests from abuse survivors in Ireland saw the Towards Peace service set up, chair Una Allen said.

Marie Collins, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, said she wished the initiative well.

But The Tablet reported Ms Collins warned it should not be used "to pull people back into the Catholic Church".

Ms Collins, who was abused by a priest when she was a teenager, said the spiritual companions must include some lay people.

This is because some victims of sexual abuse by Church personnel may not be comfortable being accompanied by a priest or religious, she said.

Bishop John Buckley of Cork and Ross said survivors had "suffered terribly and their suffering was compounded by inadequate responses over the years by the Irish church".

He said he believed the survivors were now "very happy with what we are trying to do for them".

The bishop said that was shown by the good turnout at the launch despite European Parliament elections and a sports game involving a local team.

However, he acknowledged that some survivors are unhappy with the new service because it is a Church initiative.

Towards Peace is backed by the bishops (ICBC), the Irish Missionary Union and the Conference of Religious Superiors (CORI).

Last week, Pope Francis announced he will meet a group of clergy sex abuse survivors.

Some of these are expected to be from the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Sources

• The Tablet
• Irish Independent
• Image: BBC

The review was carried out by the Catholic Church's child protection watchdog, the National Board for Safeguarding Children.

It revealed that since 1975, 59 allegations had been made in the diocese.

Three priests have been convicted of offences against children.

The report went on to say that 14 allegations since the appointment of Bishop Noel Treanor five years ago had been properly managed.

In seven of these cases, there was insufficient evidence to proceed.

"All of these seven priests are in good standing in the diocese," the report said.

Of the other seven, all are currently out of ministry, one is in the criminal investigation process and one is in prison.

The report found that the diocese, which covers most of counties Antrim and Down and is the second largest by population on the island of Ireland, complied fully with 46 of 48 criteria.

The review was carried out in May this year.

Its report said: "This is an excellent result and indicates the very successful and effective investment of time and resources by the Diocese of Down and Connor in its child safeguarding services over the last five years."

The two outstanding criteria referred to support for and monitoring of priests who have abused and a written plan of action on implementing and monitoring standards.

Bishop of Down and Connor Noel Treanor said his thoughts and prayers were firstly with victims of child abuse and their families.

"They have experienced much suffering and pain and the church will always bear this wound.

"I pledge to continue to put all resources in place to help and support victims.

Source

BBC
Image: BBC

For decades Ireland was looked on as one of the world's most deeply and stably Catholic countries. Today Ireland finds itself, along with other parts of Europe, being classified as "post-Catholic." Everyone has his or her own definition of the term. You can fully define post-Catholic only in terms of the Catholicism that has been displaced. Irish Catholicism has its own unique history and culture. Renewal in the Irish church will not come from imported plans and programs; it must be home-grown.

Ireland does, of course, share the same currents of secularization with other countries of the Western world and thus shares many of the same challenges. There are specific challenges within Europe; there are specific challenges common to the English-speaking world. Yet the fact that Ireland is an English-speaking country does not mean it can be put into the same category as the United States and Great Britain. Continue reading

Sources

• America
• Image: Orbis Catholicus Secundus

Muslims make up just 1.1 per cent of the 4.5 million people in Ireland, but their ranks are swelling due to immigration, births and, in some cases, conversion.

The 2011 census recorded 49,204 Muslims, nearly a quarter of them school-aged children, but the number is projected to reach 125,000 by 2030.

The first Muslims in Ireland began arriving in the 1950s, most to study medicine. The stream of students continued for decades and some stayed, forged careers, married, and had children.

"When we talk about wider Irish society, there is not that much preoccupation within public discourse with the Muslim presence in Ireland," Oliver Scharbrodt, a professor at University College Cork and an expert on Ireland's Muslim population told The Atlantic.

He suggested this might be because the early immigrants integrated relatively easily.

"The articulation of a religious identity in the public arena is not seen to be that problematic," Scharbrodt said. "In Ireland, religion and politics have always been connected together."

In a 2012 European Commission survey on discrimination, 79 per cent of Irish respondents described discrimination based on religion or beliefs as "rare" or "non-existent" in Ireland. Meanwhile, 66 per cent of French respondents described religious discrimination in their country as "widespread".

"[In France], if you have a beard like this you would never find a job," said Riadh Mahmoudi, a 35-year-old Algerian immigrant, gesturing to his chin. "My wife, for example, wears the full niqab. If she wears the niqab [in France], she would be in trouble. She would be fined. You don't see these things happen here."

Other Muslims said they like the numerous single-sex schools offered by the Catholic-dominated education system, and said that school officials typically accommodate the needs of Muslim students, including dietary restrictions and uniform modifications.

Source:

The Atlantic

Image: Muslim Population

In a homily in his pro-cathedral, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said the Church "should be active and present in society, drawing attention to suffering and repression of any kind and being alongside those who suffer".

He suggested that the Catholic Church in Ireland today has "again become too timid in bringing its liberating voice to the ‘demons' of Irish society.

"Scandals within the Church and perhaps a lack of real faith have made us all too timid in bringing the voice of Jesus and his Church to the basic issues of Irish society.

"We are tempted to succumb to the widespread opinion that Christianity is really something private and personal for our own devotion and inspiration and not something that has its relevance in the public square."

Archbishop Martin, who held several Vatican posts before becoming Archbishop of Dublin in 2004, said: "It is not that Christians want to impose their views on others. It is more a challenging question for believers to find ways of presenting and witnessing to the Christian vision in terms which can win over and be respected by those alongside whom we work.

"Each of us is called to ensure that our being a Christian somehow brings an added quality to the way we live and to the contribution we bring to society, through how we live our Christian lives in family, in community and in society and indeed into the complex world of science and economics, of politics and communication."

Referring to the instructions Jesus gave his apostles for their missionary journey, he commented: "The vision they present is the very opposite to a consumerist-driven rushing for the non-essential and the almost divinisation of the superfluous and the transient in life, which in the long term leads to emptiness."

Source:

Iona Institute

Image: Alpha