Out-of-date church may die, priest’s book warns

THE Catholic Church is living in a time warp and is being led by a phalanx of right-wing conservatives, according to a leading priest’s new book.

Fr Brendan Hoban, said the church was slowly dying due to its antiquated practices and attitudes.

"After 30 years in the priesthood, I'm going to say what needs to be said," the 56-year-old based in Enniscrone, Co Sligo, said.

He warned that the church was now like a skier in an avalanche, trying to hold his feet as the ground collapsed beneath him. Seminaries are closing, attendances are dropping and all priests are now being portrayed as "Fr Teds, Fr Jacks or Fr Dougals". Yet the church is still pining for the era of "Corpus Christi processions, mass in Latin and fish on Friday".

His book Change or Decay: Irish Catholicism in Crisis is severely critical of clericalism, the value system which believes that the church knows best.

"We have watched in horror as our own leaders through their... false loyalty to the institution of the Church, further damaged through their actions the victims of clerical sex abuse," he said.

Fr Hoban added that when he entered Maynooth Seminary in 1966, it was an era when "fast food was something you ate during Lent, grass was something you mowed and coke was a cold drink".

But he and the other young priests were optimistic about Vatican II, which was supposed to modernise the church. But, Fr Hoban now says its key recommendations were blocked and betrayed.

Ordinary churchgoers were supposed to have been given real power through parish pastoral councils but this never happened. Without any lay input, the church persisted in transferring priests with a history of abuse to other parishes and ignoring abuse victims.

The priest, has been attacked for his views before. He said people have sent letters "in tiny writing" warning he will burn in hell while other priests openly wonder why he hasn't left the priesthood yet.

"They are people who would prefer if I went away because they don't want the open, accountable, transparent church that I'm looking for," he insisted.

Change or Decay: Irish Catholicism in Crisis, by Fr Brendan Hoban is available from all Veritas bookshops.