Mick Peelo is Irelands leading Religion journalist/broadcaster. RTE showed the first of a two parter (in their “Would You Believe?” series) made by Peelo on the condition of the Irish Catholic Church in 2011. The programme featured how three churches/parishes were coping.

The parish of Rivermount in North Dublin is perhaps notorious for being the parish with the lowest level of Catholic observance…..the figure of three per cent was mentioned…….THREE PER CENT!

The parish priest Fr Seamus Aherne, middle aged, bearded and slightly hippy-ish and no clerical collar was very upbeat. He welcomed the demise of the “clerical church”. If people dont come to Church, then he welcomes that all engagement with his flock is on the basis that they are letting him into THEIR lives. The Church is really too small for GOD. The Church structures try to tame GOD. Holy Mass every morning seems like good fun ……an interactive experience. As a parishioner says they are there for “life”, the priests come and go.

Fr Ahernes assertion that the Church is not the Popes Church or the Bishops Church is undermined by Archbishop Martin….it is a structured Church

Jesuit theolgian Fr Gerry O’Hanlon suggests that it is just too difficult to call yourself a Catholic in Ireland (because primarily of abuse scandals and the structure). Archbishop Diarmuid Martin argues that it is not specifically a matter of the Church itself collapsing but rather the structures within which Irish Catholicism worked are collapsing.

The Association of Catholic Priests is the radical wing of the Irish Catholic Church. They believe in married priests, women priests and all the good liberal agenda and they want accountability. “The Bishops are chosen for Orthodoxy not Leadership”. There are no priests under 40 in the Diocese of Killala in the West of Ireland. The average age of an Irish priest is almost 60. The position cannot be sustained.

Peelo visits the Parish of Killinenagh in County Clare. In 1998……around the world there were eight parish natives who were priests in various parts of the World and the parishioners were a proud people. The small village even produced a Bishop in its history. Now it is a “priestless” parish. A priest from a neighbouring parish says Sunday mass and there is no longer daily Mass. The people are “hurt” that the Bishop took away their priest to fill in gaps in his diocese. Yet oddly, the people seem not to have formed prayer groups or risen to the challenge. They seem the proverbial lost sheep in need of a pastor/shepherd. Their Bishop……Bishop Kieran O’Reilly is a relatively young man….a man ordained for African Missions. He talks about involving the Laiety and seems to mean it.

In Porterstown, in County Dublin……..the priest is on leave. And the Women have taken over. They conduct services without a Consecration……….but lead the prayers recognisable as a Mass…..including the distribution of Communion. They are after all eucharistic ministers.

And perhaps thats the way things have to go. More Laiety. More Women. More Accountability.

And refreshing to see a film about the Irish Catholic Church which did not have “abuse” as a central theme. There are effectively two reasons for a person to distance him/her self from the Church. One is an intellectual reason….based on the direction the Church has taken since the late 1970s….a swing away from the Spirit of Vatican II and towards a conservative Church ….this has led people to leave the Church. Especially Liberals. There was a time in my lifetime when liberals in the Church were in the ascendency. The second reason to leave the Church is of course……paedophilia…………and the inadequate response to it. But essentially this is an emotional response rather than intellectual.

The second part in Peelo’s documentary is next Sunday.