I have a new article in Reality magazine, ‘Choice and Uncertainty: Why Secularisation is Good for the Churches.’
Reality is published by Redemptorist Communications Ireland. You can purchase a copy here.
I have reproduced the first few paragraphs of the article below. The article also includes reflections on opportunities in the midst of the tragedy of the pandemic:
Choice and Uncertainty: Why Secularisation is Good for the Churches
The future of Ireland’s churches is uncertain. With church buildings closed for public worship for most of the last year, religious practice has undergone considerable change. Many of us are accessing services online or on television, but some church leaders fear that the pandemic will only hasten our island’s steady decline in churchgoing.
Even before the pandemic, it was common to assert that Ireland’s churches – especially the Catholic Church – were in crisis. I have even written a book with the title Transforming Post-Catholic Ireland, emphasising that the days of a so-called ‘holy, Catholic Ireland’ are well and truly over.
The term ‘post-Catholic’ may conjure up feelings of sadness, loss, or even despair. It conveys the sense that churches have lost their social importance and their political influence. It indicates that people no longer trust church institutions, especially after wave after wave of revelations of abuse.
But as both an academic sociologist of religion and a Christian (Presbyterian by trade), I see ‘post-Catholic’ Ireland as ripe with opportunities for the churches to contribute to the common good in ways that were not possible in generations past.