Congress will do little to heal divided Church

THE hope expressed by the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, that next weekend’s Eucharistic Congress will begin a process of healing for a deeply divided Irish Catholic Church is likely to prove a vain one.

The congress is little more than a spiritual carnival, and the problems besetting the Church require far more by way of response than an ecclesiastical version of an ard fheis.

Following a series of shocking scandals — of which the last has by no means been heard — the Church leadership is in disarray, and the levels of disenchantment among sections of the clergy and laity are such that require a radical response.