Mother Church is paying a terrible price for the sins of the fathers

I AM a lapsed Catholic.

Big deal, you may say. It might have caused a domestic stir three decades ago. But now? Though I know there are members of my family who will be saddened at these words. It is an aspect of religion that’s rarely discussed.

Last year’s census showed the percentage of the population who identified as Catholic fell sharply from 84.2pc in 2011 to 78.3pc, almost 1pc per year. But 78pc is still a high figure.

However, as Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin recently pointed out, on any particular Sunday, only about 18pc of the Catholic population in his Archdiocese attends mass. In some parishes, it is as low as 2pc. Why the gap in these figures? Among the possible reasons is that many see their Catholicism as much a cultural identity as a religious one. But I believe many others are hanging on in there, hoping that the Church will change. They are not attending mass regularly but are still open to returning.

That will only happen if the Church changes and changes fundamentally.

Bad as the hideous catalogue of clerical sex abuse and other horrors are, it is the unfathomable cover-up by the Church authorities that obligates the need for fundamental reform.

I have no desire to kick the Church, which has apologised to its victims.

But an implicit part of apology is the commitment that wrongdoing will cease and a willingness to make amends in the form of compensation and institutionalreform.

I want guidance and spiritual leadership, but I have to respect those I take it from. I don’t now respect the Catholic Church, as power, authority and loyalty are evidently put before simple core values like humanity, honesty and the courage to stand up for what’s right.

The prevailing attitude has been to protect the organisation, a stance which, unfortunately, also prevails across other churches and organisations.

However, while I have limitless sympathy for the victims of clerical sex abuse, I also feel sad for those religious who have done nothing but good and those who have been wrongly accused of abuse.

I think priestly celibacy and ordination of women are now being seen as the barometer of the Catholic Church’s willingness to reform.

On one side, a more questioning and better informed laity is saying: ‘These are obvious solutions to the vocations’ crisis in the developed world. Show you are listening to us, that you really are changing from the bad old days.’

On the other side, a stubborn Church refuses to accept the obvious, fearing that it will be seen as a sign of weakness.

But these rules on celibacy and the ordination of women were made by man, not God.

In the 14th century, a Bishop Pelagio complained that women were still being ordained and hearing confession.

Some early Popes were the sons of religious. Celibacy only really became an issue around the turn of the first millennium and arose from the Church’s desire to hold onto property.

Celibacy might have made some sense when there were plenty of vocations, but not now.

Indeed, if this doesn’t sound indelicate, might I suggest that celibacy is counter-intuitive to the very survival of the Church?

If one were to say that there might be a genetic disposition for vocations, you wouldn’t need Charles Darwin to deduce that stopping religious personnel from procreating effectively selects vocations.

Had priests been allowed to marry, much of the clerical sex abuse that has emerged in recent decades might not have happened, because there would have been a better understanding of its perverse horror. I’m sad to say there is no sign of fundamental reform in the Catholic Church. Back to Diarmuid Martin. He is trying to push for the kind of changes that ordinary people are crying out for. But he is a rare voice in the wilderness.

The time for change is fast running out.