Sean O’Conaill

A series of ten articles focusing on key aspects of the current (2004) crisis of Irish Catholicism.  All are copyright of the Irish Redemptorist publication Reality.

1. Crisis – Ten critical problems in the Irish Church in 2004.
2. Clericalism – Priests who need unquestioning deference from lay people are out of time.
3. A Portable Faith – The need to prioritise the truths of the faith – especially the requirement of love.
4. Jesus the Layperson – The need to prioritise the role of those who live in the world, without whose witness God’s kingdom can never come.
5. Snobbery and the Gospels – Jesus’ assault on ‘worldliness’ was essentially an attack on snobberies of all kinds.
6. The World and the Kingdom of God – Jesus’s ideal ‘kingdom’ is entirely compatible with a modern, truly egalitarian, society.
7. The Power of Prayer – Why prayer is necessary for the building of the kingdom.
8. Division in the Church – Why the differences between e.g. ‘progressives’ and ‘conservatives’ must not prevent them from loving one another.
9. Catholicism and Sexuality – Why the church’s central teachings on sexuality are winning the argument, while clericalism is losing it.
10. The Emerging Church – Already the church of the future is beginning to emerge through pioneering witness.