Quest’anno l’Irlanda ha appena 13 nuovi sacerdoti. La Chiesa cattolica potrà salvarsi?

As a missionary priest in Sierra Leone during the civil war in the 1990s, Father Michael Hickey experienced many terrible things: he saw a military truck dragging corpses behind it, was shot at while driving through the countryside and listened as child soldiers clinically discussed the mechanics of decapitation.

After three decades of clerical abuse scandals and sweeping social change, the Catholic Church’s standing has collapsed. The 2022 Irish census showed 69% of the population identified as Catholic, down from 79% in 2016 — and 93 per cent 40 years ago.

The collapse in trust is visible in every parish. Fifty years ago, nine in ten Catholics in Ireland went to Mass every week. A survey earlier this year by the Iona Institute in Dublin put the figure at just 16%. Among the 40% who view the Catholic Church unfavourably, 73% said it was because of the abuse scandals.

There is now a chronic shortage of priests to minister to the dwindling congregations. In the past 30 years the number of working priests has halved to about 2,000. Vocations have also plummeted. In the 1950s, hundreds of new students would enter seminaries in Ireland

Should we start a captive breeding program?

How much natural habitat have they lost?

I was raised RC, am completely atheist, and work in a CoI church. Fuck me, the protestants have it right. Every time I go back to an RC church for a wedding or funeral, they seem so boring, stuffy, the priests seem to lecture you, act superior to you, just…shit.

A whole load of congregational singing, tea and cake and chats in the church after service, and the priest at the door checking in with the parishioners as they leave, it’s so much more community focused. The curate we had for the last four years got his own parish about a month ago, and fuck me, it was like the entire city turned out for his last service. I’ve often called him the happiest man in Ireland, he’s SUCH a dote. There were people there from every faith and none, just to see him off, and dinner in the church afterwards too with near a hundred at i. A load of homeless and alcoholics too came to the service, he’d made friends with a load of them during his time with us.

It’s surprised me a lot, that I’d ever like such a thing. I’m still a godless heathen, but if I were to ever choose to go back to religion, I’d not pick the RC church, I’d go CoI.

There’s a hall in St Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth where they have a list of graduates framed on the wall for each year, and you can visually see the decline of the Catholic church in Ireland as you walk down it.

To see it go from 500 at its peak down to 13 is very striking, but i do think its a wonderful thing to see an institution that’s done so much damage on a sharp decline.

Maybe if they stopped diddling kids. Just throwing it out there

This article might provide a clue. But they’d rather implode from their own piggish ignorance and desire for power than ever let it happen.

“When Soline Humbert announced her vocation to be a priest, she got threats and abuse”

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025/10/12/rite-and-reason-when-soline-humbert-went-public-with-her-vocation-to-be-a-priest-she-got-threats-and-abuse/

A lot of those trainee fellers bypass the whole ordination thing and set themselves up on OnlyPriests

It can’t be saved at this rate, I wouldn’t have thought.

But it’ll survive as long as it’s still taught in schools. However it is not the entity it once was.

Which is a good thing, in my book. It is a rotten institution historically, although I will accede that there are parts of it that do good.

Next is to see the reduction in the power and influence of Opus Dei.

In the midst of the Irish housing crisis, I’d have thought a job where you get a free place to live from the diocese and only work about an hour a day would be more popular. You’re essentially getting paid to hang out with your grandparents and their friends based on the average age of regular massgoers at this stage 😄

The catholic church doesn’t give a shit about Ireland. Go to pretty much any African country or parts of Asia and you’ll see that their grift is doing better than ever. The church could lose every catholic in Europe and still be growing in numbers. Plus these are often places where they can get away with preaching their extremist bile about sex, sexuality, and gender roles. The collapse of Catholicism in Ireland is a very minor setback for them. When considered globally, the average catholic message is ultra conservative, and possibly getting worse as they shed followers in developed countries in favour of people from countries with fewer opportunities and weaker institutions.

My dad physically can’t go to mass, but they livestream it on the internet, so I hook up the laptop to the telly and he can watch away.

They forgot to turn on the camera last night and it was panic stations, he was ringing the sacristan and everything to try to watch it. We found another church streaming at the same time but he insists we have to put on our local church again this morning. Hopefully they have the camera on this time.


Why is the church allowed to continue operating?

Great news, the fewer the better.

Hopefully it dies out.

I think the current concept of the church and full time priest etc is dead. With some major changes, spiritually still has a role in society. But it requires a carrot method instead of the stick method.

Make it 14, there’s no good paying jobs nowadays. Where do I sign up?

Very controversial take, possibly trigger warning too. But honestly if we had no choice but choose between priests or imams running the country. It would be priests without a doubt.

That would be an ecumenical matter.

With South Americans and other catholic cultures coming into Ireland there will still be a need.

But I can’t imagine many Irish will be there in any numbers for the future.

Church going by Philip Larkin always comes to mind when I hear/read about the declining church attendance numbers. Soon churches in the not so distant future will be relics.

The Catholic church’s influence in Ireland is long dead, they don’t tell us what to do anymore and I’m all for it

Great!
I think Church personnel is a dying breed.
Just think of all the real estate that will be available soon!

It is interesting that without economic deprivation and the promises of a powerful position the number of “callings” and “”vocations” is rock bottom.

Almost like if people have literally ANY other options they will choose them.

Beyond that it is hilarious that the church will choose a slow lingering death than women. The bigotry goes through it like letters on a stick of rock

Locally in West cork I’ve heard of churches doing one mass a month and some being closed for the whole summer due to lack of priests.

Probably more priests than we currently need anyway. From what the few mass goers i know are telling me the churchs are empty on sundays anyway. Maybe time to consolodate a few parishes where possible.