The Catholic Church in Ireland Today [Hardcover]

[The Catholic Church in Ireland Today] showcased both a broad range of perspectives and a lively exchange of ideas designed to reach various audiences, from teachers and students to pastors and parish workers. . . .Throughout the essays, the writers agree the potential is great for an Irish Catholicism that otherwise stands liberated from long relationships to political power and social privilege. Using various approaches, the contributors assert that this is a time of tremendous opportunity for Catholicism, a time when it can discover both a more authentic and prophetic voice in Irish belief and practice.The volume is of great value to anyone desiring an understanding of the Irish Church today. It addresses the situation in a nonpolemical way and suggests that there is a way forward that requires recognizing the changes in Irish society. Highly recommended for college, university, and seminary libraries, and larger parish libraries, especially those which have large Irish-American populations.This collection is a clarion call. Intelligent and wide-ranging, it clearly demonstrates that the Irish Catholic Church?needs a new kind of leadership and thinking.Through international and interdisciplinary perspectives, The Catholic Church in Ireland Today considers the problems facing the contemporary Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. This book offers a thorough analysis of the Churchs present condition and indicates directions the Church could take to begin addressing the multiple challenges it faces.From a Church that once enjoyed devotional loyalty, political influence, and institutional power unrivaled in Europe, the Catholic Church in Ireland now faces collapse. Devastated by a series of reports on clerical sexual abuse, challenged publicly during several political battles, and painfully aware of plunging Mass attendance, the Irish Church today is confronted with the loss of its institutional legitimacy. This study is the first international and interdisciplinary attelã‘