Jesuit theologian Fr Gerry O’Hanlon argues that a synodal form of church at all levels is urgently needed to salvage the Catholic faith in Ireland.
A prominent Jesuit theologian has said post-Catholic Ireland need not fall prey to the dominant trend of de-institionalisation and individualistion and he has argued that a synodal form of Church at all levels is urgently needed to salvage the faith here.
Writing in La Civiltà Cattolica, Fr Gerry O’Hanlon examines where the Catholic Church in Ireland is today in the wake of the dramatic decline in its reputation and fortunes. He also looks at where its future potentially might lie.
The former Jesuit provincial warns that without a serious commitment to reform and renewal, an extra-institutional religion that is practised with vitality only outside the institutional Catholic Church, and an institutional remnant that is culturally irrelevant, seems the likely future.
“The crisis is so grave that we need ‘all hands on deck’, we need to come together to tap into all the resources available – clerical and lay – to find a way forward,” he comments.
