The End of Irish Catholicism?

This book offers a unique analysis of the cultural conditions that produced traditional Irish Catholicism and seeks to explain the present, apparently precarious, situation of the Church in modern, secular Ireland. The End of Irish Catholicism? consists of a series of reflections based on the author's wide experience of studying and working in various Catholic cultures in Europe and America. Topics include the crisis of faith, the viability of the institutional Church in Ireland and the relationship between Church and State.

While the author seeks to understand the deeper reasons for the Church's inadequate response to modern, secular Ireland, he looks to the future in hope, convinced that the Catholic Church in Ireland has the resources needed to renew herself as was the case so often in the past. But change is needed. The way forward involves a cultural and intellectual renewal, as well as new ecclesiastical structures.

D. Vincent Twomey lectures in Moral Tehology at the Pontifical Unversity, Maynooth, and is the editor-in-chief of the Irish Theological Quarterly.