McAleese: Church is driving youth away

Former President Mary McAleese has said the Catholic Church must reform or the current generation in Ireland will “walk away”.

Mrs McAleese was speaking at the Voices of Faith conference in Rome, at which she said the patriarchy, misogyny, and homophobia of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church “has drained respect” from the Church as an institution and also threatened to drain respect from the Gospel itself.

She made the comments at a panel discussion, having earlier claimed it was “pure codology” that women cannot be ordained as priests. She also ignited international debate with her comments about the Catholic Church being an “empire of misogyny”.