Michael Kelly“For many Irish people, being Catholic no longer means to them what it meant in 1979”, writes Michael Kelly
The enthusiasm around the probable visit of Pope Francis in 2016 is palpable. It’s been interesting in Dublin in the last few days to hear people talk about the visit with anticipation. Many people still remember with fondness St John Paul II’s 1979 pilgrimage.
I’ve been in a lot of taxis over the past week going to television and radio studios to discuss the prospects for the visit and the audience granted to Taoiseach Enda Kenny and his wife by Pope Francis at the Vatican on Monday.
Taxi drivers are the Dublin equivalent of the famous ‘man on the Clapham omnibus’ and can be a good way to gauge the public mood. And if taxi drivers are anything to go by, there’s huge enthusiasm for Pope Francis.
Nostalgia
There’s also an enormous amount of affection and nostalgia for the 1979 trip. Several taxi drivers, based on nothing more than the papal visit being a headline on the radio, shared their memories of being in the Phoenix Park with more than a million others and seeing the jumbo jet carrying the Pope fly over the park by way of an arriving salute. Others recalled being at Galway Racecourse to hear the Slavic Pope proclaim “young people of Ireland, I love you”.
A lot has changed in Ireland since 1979: socially, economically and ecclesiastically. Tragically, many Irish people have drifted away from the faith that once helped give meaning to their lives. Some have found meaning in other spheres, others have just drifted away. One thing struck me when talking to the taxi drivers: all of the conceded that they would no longer describe themselves as religious, but there was more than a hint of mourning in those admission.
It was as if the memories of the visit of John Paul II and anticipation of the visit of Francis had – even if only fleetingly – aroused of memories of a faith that was missed.
I don’t want to overstate a few brief conversations in taxis, but people of faith in Ireland need to take heart from the fact that the vast majority of Irish people have not categorically rejected faith: the latest census figures will be out early next year and will show that the overwhelming majority of people still continue to self-identify as Catholic. For some non-Massgoers, this will be laziness or pure convention – for others, though, it will be proof of some attachment to the faith of their childhood.
The challenge for the Church is to find the language to be able reanimate this faith and rekindle the embers that may even lay buried. For many Irish people, being Catholic no longer means to them what it meant in 1979: it would be enriching to find spaces where this could be explored and – in the language of Francis – people could be accompanied.
In the build-up to the papal visit, there will be much talk and work around faith formation – this should not neglect people who are on the margins from a faith point of view.
We have already seen, as papal biographer Austen Ivereigh has observed, how Francis’ actions, words, and gestures can awaken in Western culture a dim, often unconscious, yet powerful memory of someone once loved but since lost. Why not in Ireland, too?