The conclave to choose the next head of the Catholic Church has begun, following the death of Pope Francis in April.
While the world waits to hear who will be named the next pope, we asked our readers to submit their views on the Catholic Church.
Bill Fox (66), a retired clinical psychologist from Co Sligo, says he is “very proud to be a Roman Catholic in Ireland today”.
“I have always practised my faith, apart from lapsing for a few months while I was a student.
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“I have been a Minister of the Word for about 30 years and a Minister of the Eucharist for about 23 years ... My religious faith has become more important to me in later life.”
He says he attends Mass on a weekly basis and prays “every day”.
Liam Bairéad (74), from Dublin, experienced a lapse in faith in his 20s but now describes his “sense of God at the centre of everything good” as “very strong”.
A retired secondary schoolteacher, he was “raised in a strongly Catholic household”.
“By the age of 20 I had turned my back on the Catholic Church and religion in general. I lost all faith in God and became, very consciously, a materialist and an atheist.
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“Then a series of incidents and encounters and my reflections on them caused me to become a lapsed atheist by the time I was 25. I returned to the practice of the Catholic faith, particularly the Mass and the Eucharist,” he says.
Michael O’Flanagan (33), from Dublin, believes “the papacy of Pope Francis has opened the doors for a more welcoming and inclusive church”.
“As a young person in my early 30s the papacy of Pope Francis brought me closer to the institutional church, but the humility of Pope Francis brought the institutional church closer to God,” he says.
Concern regarding the continued involvement of religious orders in the Irish education system was one issue that recurred in responses.
Anna McCabe (91), from Longford, says she “joined Atheist Ireland and later the Humanist Association of Ireland” after her belief in Catholic teachings faded.
“I no longer believed what they taught me as a child and what I taught to primary schoolchildren for many years ... I consider teaching religion to young children as a form of child abuse. I think religion should be taught outside school.”
Mike Gogan (62), a copy writer from Dublin, also chose to distance himself from the Catholic Church “as a young man in 1986”, saying he has “not looked back” since.
“At the time my mother questioned my actions, but as soon as the reports of abuse started to emerge, she understood. I have not looked back and have been actively involved in trying to remove the influence of the church in our education system.”
Some felt they could talk more freely without being fully identified, such as Aidan from Dublin, who said: “[I was] baptised by my parents as a Catholic and educated at Willow Park and Blackrock ... I had lost faith long before my fellow students revealed the horrific abuse at the hands of priests, but it really added to my anger thinking of the two-faced piety and sanctimony of pulpit paedophiles being enabled by the Catholic Church omertà which prevailed for so long in Ireland.”
While he no longer practices nor believes “in a man-made religion”, he “still somewhat regret[s] not having a faith of any kind”, adding that “it must be a comfort to those who do”.
Having grown up in south Dublin and now living in Switzerland, Seán Redmond (54) says he “wish[es] that the Catholic church was less Catholic and more Christian”.
“Since I was a child, I have seen the Catholic hierarchy on one side of the current culture war we are in and the priests on another,” says Mr Redmond, describing himself as “more aligned with the poor priests than with the hierarchy”.
I felt cushioned in a blanket of prayers ... The unchanging tenets of my faith are an anchor in these uncertain times
— Breid Carberry
“Why can’t women be priests? Why can’t priests have children? What is wrong with being LGBTQ? Is the command to love one another as I have loved you too complicated in a patriarchal society? Why must the majority cardinals and bishops be over 70?” he asks.
Paul (67), who works in the education sector in Dublin, says despite coming “from a devout Catholic family” his own faith waned and by his early teens he had “ceased to believe the bulk of Catholic teaching”.
“Growing older, I began to witness so much of what I found repulsive about Catholicism,” he says, listing “the wealth of the Vatican and the grandiose pomp and ceremony that accompanies it ... the misogyny and obsession with sexuality ... and then of course, the revelations of the breadth and depravity of physical and sexual abuse perpetrated by so many ordained members of the church” among examples.
For others, like retired secondary schoolteacher Breid Carberry (68) from Co Donegal, Catholicism has offered solace during difficult periods.
“I have had a lot of illness in my life and my Catholic faith sustains and comforts me in good times and bad,” says Carberry, reflecting on her diagnosis of breast cancer.
“I felt cushioned in a blanket of prayers ... The unchanging tenets of my faith are an anchor in these uncertain times.”
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Siobhán Cullen (61), from Kildare says her religious upbringing informed her current relationship with Catholicism.
“I go to Mass on Sunday and my faith is important to me. My parents were very religious, as were most parents of the 1960s, and they passed on that faith to me and my siblings. I left the church for a while in my late teens, but came back to it in my mid-20s and it has been a great source of comfort and joy to me.
“I realise that this has not been the case for a lot of people and can understand how this has turned them against the church. It was truly horrendous what went on and the church should pay recompense to those victims. I have been lucky in that the priests and nuns I met were good people and did great work for the community.”
Ursula (57), a self-described “cradle-Catholic”, also from Kildare, attends Mass daily.
“Through faith and the 10 commandments, I don’t agree with a lot of societal change,” she says, citing abortion as an example, “but we all have free will and I can’t judge anyone.
“My prayer is always ‘let not their sin become mine’. In other words, if I judge others, I am creating a greater sin. This life is where we choose to follow Jesus or not.”
