The Future of the Catholic Church in Ireland: Synodality and the Wounds of Abuse

Abstract

‘Where does thinking get us?’ she said. ‘All thinking does is bring you down ... If you want to get on in life, there’s things you have to ignore, so you can keep on’ – Eileen in Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan1 ‘Commendable efforts have been made to prevent a recurrence and, in many ways, the social conditions which gave rise to those realities have passed away. However, the reckoning with these truths has yet to happen for the Church as a whole, and for Irish society as a whole’ – Dermot McCarthy2 ‘Reconciliation depends on everyone getting around a table and agreeing to reconcile ... The shared question for everyone is: how did we take for granted something that now seems obvious to have been brutal and monstrous? And the question for each of us now is: what is present today that I am overlooking in the same way?’ – Judge Sean Ryan3 The three quotations above can serve as pointers to the argument which Derek Scally makes in his thoughtful and well-received book The Best Catholics in the World (2021).4 For my part I want to argue here that Scally’s approach is of central relevance to the attempt at reform and renewal of the Catholic Church initiated by the Irish bishops (and by Rome) in their 2021 launch of a ‘synodal pathway’ for the Church. This reform has implications for the whole of Irish society, believers and non-believers alike.