Blurring the distinction between the sacred and the secular
■ In Ireland, there has been considerable anxiety about the so-called loss of faith amongst the young, generally attributed to the advance of secularism.
The steady secularisation of Ireland has been inappropriately seen as a movement whereby religion simply falls away to be replaced by science and rationality.
Too often and too easily it is confused with atheism and/or materialism.
In Ireland there has been a growing tension between the culture of expressive individualism, developed through the 1960s, exploring new forms of spiritual quest while rejecting old patterns of obedience and authority.
Increasing numbers of young people tend to distance themselves from established forms of religion while, at the same time, are unwilling to break fully from them, allowing religious sensibility to continue to influence their lives, seeing themselves as belonging but not necessarily believing.
We now have a number of competing believing and nonbelieving options taken up by those seeking a life of greater spontaneity and spiritual depth.
We are witnessing the transition from a society where it was impossible not to believe in God to one where there is greater personal involvement in decisions about beliefs.
What I find most striking among the young is the intensifying of moral awareness and the commitment to the creation of a more humane world, focusing less and less on maintaining doctrinal orthodoxy and more and more on raising awareness of the needs of the poor and the marginalised.
What we find here is the gradual emergence of an outward-looking church, more obviously attuned to the great variety of religious experience, embodying more convincingly the earthbound teachings of Christ that blur the distinction between the secular and the sacred.
Philip O’Neill Oxford, England