Posted on 08/16/2021 7:49:59 PM PDT by marshmallow
Reduced numbers may afford an opportunity ‘to reimagine the institutional Church’
Evidence of Christian belief in Ireland today “has for all intents and purposes vanished,” Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell has said. This “underlying crisis of faith” was “particularly acute among the younger generations,” he said.
“Public commentary in the media in Ireland has not been positive in its understanding of the Church and its need for vocations, and for public support of those trying to preach the Gospel,” he said.
Archbishop Farrell made the comments in an interview with the 2021 edition of ‘Síolta’, the annual journal of the national seminary at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth.
“The challenges facing me are pretty clear. We have an ageing clergy and very few vocations to the diocesan priesthood or religious life. There is a major decline in the number of people who actively practice and live their faith.
“Faith needs ritual, embodiment. One must see in people how faith is lived. Today the visibility of faith has for all intents and purposes vanished. I am also dealing with the legacy of sexual abuse scandals which have damaged the Church’s credibility. Since finance is a function of numbers, financial issues will arise which will be accelerated by the global pandemic and its aftermath,” he said.
“The current model of the Church is unsustainable,” he said. In Dublin there was need “for an effective programme of catechetics throughout the diocese to add to and, eventually, replace the current teaching of faith to the young. With the gradual decline of family socialisation in religion, the role of the qualified catechist will be essential. In my opinion, the handing on of the Faith to the young is one of the most serious challenges facing our Church today.”
(Excerpt) Read more at irishtimes.com ...
You don’t take time to teach the next generation and just assume they will inherit your values, that’s what happens. Just look at the difference in the vote in just the span of a generation on the abortion issue.
The Church will go through a Phoenix event and be rejuvenated. It’s going to be difficult in the meantime, and worse before it gets better.
“Faith needs ritual,
***No, it does not. They should start right there.
The Catholic denomination has shot itself in the foot so many times, it looks like that Monty Python skit.
Three more words:
Second Vatican Council.
Maybe the Church should un-gay itself. Stop teaching/preaching a bunch of faggotry and feminism.
The snakes have returned.
Cromwell rejoices in Hell.
Agree totally with your point.
I’ll add that it’s complicated. Some protestants view the RCC as a misleading agent. Not that the protestants aren’t religious, they just aren’t RCC.
I’m LCMS. I believe the admonition that the path is narrow. I’m not saying RCC is damned, just that “it’s complicated.”
The decline is real, and your theme of teaching (often by example) the next generation should resonate with all, even non-religious, who have some cling to moral or societal absolutes.
James Burnham remarked on all this in his late 1960’s “Suicide of the West” - and FWIW, this is a them that runs for all of human history.
Exactly, Irishjuggler - You know the Novus Ordo Mass has completely eliminated the Last Gospel from the rite?? No more John 1-14, completely gone ... unfathomable!
You do know that the Phoenix is associated with Paganism, Idol worship and Islamic mythology?
Guess it will take a return of snakes to bring back faith to the people of St. Patrick.
They took the soup. Big time.
Yep.
Mrs. Doyle, “Would you be having a cup o’ tea, Father?”
Just as Paul used a pagan Greek temple to make a point when preaching the Gospel in Athens.
The Church is not a denomination.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.