How the middle classes captured the Irish Church
Irish Catholicism is paying the price for neglecting its authentic roots, says Oliver Rafferty SJ
16 May 2008

History suggests that the wealthier societies become, the less of a role they allow for God. Some have argued that the Catholic Church hindered Ireland's economic modernisation. This is not in fact the case. Rather, the Church encouraged the growth of the middle class by providing a quality education, which offered a gateway to prosperity. As they grew richer, those who had benefited from Catholic education adopted the values of their secularised counterparts in Europe and North America. This was particularly evident in the 1950s and 1960s, when Ireland began to share, hesitantly at first, in the growing prosperity of the industrialised world.

It was precisely at this point in the transformation of Irish society from a largely rural and agricultural economy to an industrialised one that a failure of imagination occurred in the Irish Church. That failure was evident in the hierarchy's lack of preparation for the Second Vatican Council. Irish bishops scarcely made an impact in the Council's debates. Only three spoke in the four years of the Council's deliberations (though it must be said that Dr William Philbin, Bishop of Down and Connor, made one of the best speeches of the second session of the Council on the Church in the modern world). Archbishop John Charles McQuaid's infamous declaration that nothing had happened at Vatican II to disturb the tranquility of Irish Catholicism was emblematic of the failure of Church leadership to deal with the profound changes taking place in Irish society in the 1960s.

Another problem for which the Council was responsible is what one might call the "gentrification" of Catholic culture. The fact that Europe's working classes had largely abandoned Catholicism by the late 1950s enabled Vatican II to concentrate on constructing an essentially middle-class model of what it is to be a Catholic. A new middle-class elite had arisen in the Church which rejected what it took to be the over-sentimentalised and essentially "peasant" approach to Catholicism which had marked the faith of previous generations. Now the demand was for a "rational" approach which would appeal to the intellect rather than the senses. This gave rise to an overly verbalised presentation of the faith, with concomitant ideas of "active participation" in the liturgy, including reading in public by the laity at Mass, and what seemed like endless preparations for baptism, marriage and the other sacraments.

The practice of Catholicism became verbose. Within the English-speaking world this meant domination by the linguistic dysfunctionalism of contemporary American society, where nothing is to be left unarticulated. For Irish Catholics, who in the 1960s and 1970s were still mostly working-class, this produced a sense of bewilderment and incomprehension. Only with the erosion of Irish culture and the growing hegemony of Anglo-American culture generally did any of the changes begin to make sense at all.

At the opposite end of the spectrum there was a failure of nerve in the catechising and acculturation of children to the practice of Catholicism. The instruction of children in religious matters became at times almost entirely separated from ideas of the content of the Christian faith and Catholic practice, so that teenagers matured into young adulthood without any clear and distinct idea of what it meant to be a Catholic.

This was coupled with what one might term the "professionalisation of Catholicism". Rather than taking their place in civil society and being a leaven for Christianity in the workplace, committed lay people increasingly sought jobs within the institutional Church. They often engaged in activities which had been traditionally reserved to the clergy. Some of this was justified by the institutional Church on the basis of the "shortage of priests". But compared with other areas of the world, Ireland was very well off for priests, some of whom could have been more energetic in their pastoral activities, In addition, the outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland brought large sections of Northern Catholicism into direct confrontation with the Irish hierarchy as it set its face resolutely against IRA violence. This was its duty, but too often the institutional Church was perceived by Catholics in the North as being an instrument of British Government policy in helping to contain the demands of the more militant sections of Northern Catholicism. Just as individuals questioned the authority structure of the state, so now the authority structure of the Church was put under scrutiny as bishops excoriated individuals and organisations that posed as the defenders of the Catholic community.

The government and the Church challenged IRA/Sinn Fein with the taunt that it had no popular support. When Sinn Fein took up that gauntlet and was seen to make inroads into the electorate, the response of one prominent bishop was that anyone voting for Sinn Fein was "committing a serious sin". The cosy relationship between Church and state, and the growing sense of frustration with ecclesiastical leadership, caused Gerry Adams on one occasion to tell Cardinal Cahal Daly: "It's our Church, too." The process of middle-class "ownership" of the Church was now being challenged from a different sector of Irish society.

Of course, we cannot overlook the impact of clerical sexual scandals on the public perception of Irish Catholicism. No one can underestimate the pain inflicted on the innocent by the sexual pathologies of individual priests. The Church as a whole must rightly suffer because of the betrayal of trust and the evident and misguided attempts at cover-up. But it is a mistake to see the relative collapse of Catholic influence in Ireland as somehow caused by such scandals. At most they have accentuated a tendency that was already in place. The scandals also made for a greater righteous indignation on the part of some journalists and commentators, some of whom were already hostile to institutional Catholicism.

Those hoping for some sort of restoration of triumphalist Catholicism will wait in vain. Equally, those who are ready to glory in the demise of a discredited institution will view the Ireland of the future with some horror. The Church will continue, in reduced circumstances, to influence the religious and cultural development of the Irish people. This is by virtue of the fact that, for better or worse, Irish identity is inextricably bound up with Catholicism.

But identities can change over time: witness English national identity in the 16th century or that of the French in the light of 1789. The early years of the 21st century are a crucial matrix for the future of Irish Catholicism and Irish culture. Institutional Catholicism must learn from the mistakes of the past. We must hope that bishops, and bishops manqués, will see their role less in terms of the exercise of power and will truly attempt to be instruments of service for Irish society as a whole.

Fr Oliver Rafferty SJ is a historian. His latest book, The Catholic Church and the Protestant State: 19th-century Irish Realities, was published in February by Four Courts Press, Dublin