Archbishop Martin: Church in Ireland on brink of collapse

THE Catholic Church in Ireland is on the brink of collapse and must be resigned to continuing as a minority culture, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said.

The country’s second most senior cleric said sacraments had become social events rather than celebrations of the Church and it would have to relinquish control of primary schools.

He hit out at his peers, claiming there was a lack of proper thought and debate about how the Church should deal with its present difficulties, but, in an extraordinarily frank admission, he also said he had failed to lead the Church in the changes it needed to make to survive.