ONE OF the great challenges facing the Irish Catholic Church was “that of inherited clericalism”, the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has said. He has pointed out that, though business thrives in good times, “when the good times die it is often someone else who picks up the bill”.
He was speaking at the Dromantine centre near Newry to a Breathing Spaces conference, on the theme Beyond Boom and Bust - What Next?' It was organised by the Irish Peace Centres.
He said “clericalism can only be eliminated by fostering a deeper sense of the meaning of the church and that understanding of the nature of the church will come, not from media strategies or simply by structural reforms, but by genuine renewal in what faith in Jesus Christ is about.
“If we focus only on structures and power there is a risk that clericalism might be replaced by neo-clericalism.”
He said that “personally, I grow every day in my conviction that there is no way in which the church in Ireland can adapt a business as usual policy, as if there has not been radical change in Irish society and religious culture in Ireland.”
The church of the future in Ireland “will be very different”, he said. It would be “more focused on its task of transmitting faith in Jesus Christ and helping people to encounter Jesus and his message in their lives”. This would mean “that the Catholic Church will relinquish many of the institutional roles it has held in Ireland”.
But it did “not mean that the church will retreat into sacristies or into the private values systems of those who profess faith in Jesus, whether they be few or many. It means a vigorous presence in society in a very different manner.”
The way forward would be “especially that of evangelising” while the principal contribution of the churches would be as “a witness of life which will always be counter cultural”.
Reflecting on the current state of the economy, he recalled how in the early 1990s there was a strong sense “that it was not governments which created jobs, but business. Business, however, thrives in good times, and when the good times die then it is often someone else who picks up the bill.”
He continued: “I believe that it was the current chairman of the Bank of England who said that ‘banks live globally yet when they die, they die locally’.”
He emphasised, however, that he was “a strong believer in the importance of the free market”.
It had “produced a system for the supply of goods and services which has worked better than any other system”.
He added, however, that “the market is not a totally rational instrument. People’s fears and anxieties, and not just their reasoning, are part of the reality of the market system.”
That was why “regulatation and transparency” were “a necessary part of a market equation”.
For the market to be fair “there must be clear rules about competition and these rules must be enforceable and must be fair”.
The Presbyterian Moderator, Rev Dr Norman Hamilton, told the conference that he welcomed Pope Benedict’s statement in Westminster Hall last Friday evening on the role of religion in public affairs in the western world.
He also said that, more generally, it did seem to him “that church leaders must accept there is a direct responsibility on them to accept the challenge of leadership and not merely see it [the role] as an honour”.
Eleanor Gill, former director of the Northern Ireland Consumer Council, observed that “a leader takes people where they want to go”.
“A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.”
It was this latter type of leadership which was “needed at this moment in time”, she said.
