Although you wont see it mentioned much on anti-Catholic, hibernophobic websites, a statistic from the preliminary results of the 2011 Republic of Ireland Census shows that the population, the biggest in the “26 counties” since before the Famine in the 1840s is 84% Catholic.

Well of course people are not obliged to believe a Census……especially when a more comforting “Life and Times” Survey in the Belfast Telegraph will eventually emerge to please anti-Catholic hibernophobes. Yet 84% of 4.6 million is hard to dismiss, even allowing for the fact that 10% of the Republic’s population is now born outside the Republic, not all of course from Catholic Poland.

Indeed as noted in a report on Education on last night’s RTE News………in Killarney, County Kerry…..that most Irish of Irish towns……there are five primary schools and one of them St Olivers has pupils from forty seven nations. Ireland is changing. And will change a lot more.

Yet two decades of child abuse by some priests, dwindling vocations, a culture of cover-up and an unequal relationship with the Vatican has hardly dented the numbers self-identifying as “Catholic”. Bad news for northern “lets get alongerist” websites and the RTE Newsroom.

It raises the question of course who exactly is a Catholic? How can a “Catholic” be defined?

Well in the olden days……or fifty years ago……most Catholics were taught that a Catholic is someone who receives worthily the “Blessed Sacrament” during the Easter season. As I recall this is the period from Ash Wednesday to Trinity Sunday (the first Sunday after Pentecost).

Just over a year ago I attended a seminar for Catholic priests and lay people. It is perhaps a cliché that there are three generations of Irish priest…Father Jack, Father Ted and Father Dougal. Actually the three generations might be better defined as “My name is Monsignor M*****”, “my name is Father John” and “Just call me John”. At the seminar lunch, I was chatting to Father John and John. Father John baptised our second son, twenty six years ago. I reckon he is about 53 years old. John is 31 years old.

I put the 1960s definition of Catholic to them both……receiving worthily the Blessed Sacrament at Easter time. John had not even heard of this definition. Father John vaguely recalled it. But both felt that neither of them were proper persons to define a Catholic.  It was not their business. Their business was merely to facilitate those who claim to be Catholic.

I have since talked about this conversation to other priests. Many agree. Other “conservative” or “Marian” priests think it is dangerous nonsense. That it effectively re-defines “Catholic” to a point where it becomes meaningless.

Yet I think Father John and John are right on the money with this. Pope Benedict XVI is a conservative. Not much different from Pope John Paul II. But the Polish Pope had a degree of charisma and gravitas. The Bavarian Pope is a dullard and remote. More importantly he is 85 years old.

A second successive long papacy seems unlikely. And I think that the Conclave of Cardinals in 2005 were very clever. It would have been impossible in 2005 to elect a “liberal” Pope……..but they practically insured the election of a “liberal” Pope next time around by simply choosing a conservative who is risible.

Of course, many conservative cardinals who also rallied behind Pope Benedict XVI are unable to vote thru age (indeed many have died since 2005) so seven years later, the electorate are very different. It would be a mistake that the cardinals created since 2005 are “conservative”. Ultimately they will be pragmatic.

Where does this leave the Irish Catholic Church? Empowered…….more or less. More thru Archbishop Martin in Dublin. Less thru Cardinal Brady of Armagh who has been damaged by the scandals. More importantly the attrition rate among priests (and other religious) since the 1970s has meant that there are actually more priests in their nneties than there are in their thirties. People from religious orders…including those who are “liberal” are working in parishes undermining traditionalists and empowering “liberals”.

I am not totally convinced about the Association of Catholic Priests. It is only in recent months that they have gone “public” and those with less to lose (members of religious orders who are beyond Vatican discipline and patronage) being more vocal than those ordained for parish work. Yet there are nearly four million Catholics in the Republic of Ireland the most ver in nearly two hundred years and probably the lowest number of priests to serve that population.

Something has to give. Priests and indeed Laity are in a unique bargaining position with Church authorities.

Catholicism will outlive Pope Benedict XVI.