This is the week when ‘lapsed Catholics’ and ‘spiritual but not religious’ go to church |
During the Christmas season, people often achieve enough distance from their daily stress to allow room for some kind of spirituality, whether it be a nostalgic trip to Mass on Christmas Eve or something more eclectic.
Manchán Magan, much-loved writer, broadcaster and Gaeilgeoir, died earlier this year. In an interview with Róisín Ingle, his wife, Aisling Rogerson, said “everyone is looking for something at the moment... religion has failed us.” This echoes the opening paragraph of Hugh Turpin’s book, Unholy Catholic Ireland, one of the first systematic studies of non-religious people in Ireland. In 2011, he found the message, “You have 100 per cent failed humanity,” spray-painted in bright yellow on a Catholic church doorway.
The failures of the Catholic Church are extensive and well-documented. It is not just scandals involving the abuse of children by clergy, or the Magdalene laundries. Turpin documents the visceral disgust some feel toward the Catholic Church. They see it as their mission to dismantle the Church’s influence, including persuading cultural Catholics to drop rituals including Baptism and First Holy Communion.
Sociologist........