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Catholic World News News Feature

Irish Church looks to revival, archbishop says August 17, 2007

Archbishop Sean Brady of Armagh, the Primate of All Ireland, told an American audience that although the Catholic Church has seen a decline in practice in Ireland, there are signs of hope for a religious revival.

“It may be smaller Church in future but it may also be a more authentic one," the archbishop said, continuing that "ironically, a smaller but more authentic Church may have more influence, more impact because of the integrity of its witness."

Archbishop Brady spoke in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on August 17 to a crowd at the Irish Fest. He told the audience that Ireland has seen a dramatic overall change, with traditional authorities such as government and the Church on the wane, and the media playing an ever more powerful role. The archbishop said that he was troubled by a lack of cohesion in society, by family breakdown, and by a "shift to superficiality in Irish culture."

However, the Irish prelate observed that the trend toward secularism in Ireland appears exhausted, with many people rediscovering their need to spiritual sustenance. The Church, he observed, has been battered by doctrinal disputes in the 1960s and 1970s, suffered political defeats on political questions in the 1980s and 1990s, and more recently rocked by the impact of sex-abuse scandals.

Still, Archbishop Brady said, many faithful Irish Catholics are mindful "amidst the challenges of change in Ireland-- of those powerful words of St. Peter: 'Lord to whom shall we go; you have the message of eternal life.'"