Tighe-Mooney, Sharon
(2017)
‘Irreconcilable differences? The fraught relationship between women and the Catholic Church in Ireland’.
In:
Tracing the Cultural Legacy of Irish Catholicism. From Galway to Cloyne and beyond.
Manchester University Press, pp. 192-208.
ISBN 978-1-5261-0106-8
Abstract
In the introduction to From Prosperity to Austerity, Eamon Maher and Eugene
O'Brien write, in the context of attempts to voice caution during the Irish
boom, that the consensus between government, the media and business interests
held 'that anyone who opposed the current ideology was against progress, was
rooted in the past, or was incapable of seeing the benefits to all of our exceptional
prosperity' (2014: 5). The Catholic Church was in no position to voice
its concern about these developments at the time, in the wake of the child abuse
and Magdalene laundry revelations. Moreover, the response in the public
forum to the litany of Church-related offences has been to reject the institutional
Church and, consequently, impede the creation of a space for the evaluation of
the cultural legacy of Irish Catholicism. As a result, attempting to explore aspects
of the Catholic Church without falling into outright condemnation of the entire
institution and of its members is deemed insular, 'against progress' and 'rooted in
the past'. It can be argued that the public rejection of Catholic Church teaching
is an attempt at individual reassertion and autonomy in the wake of discovering
that the institution in which we placed our faith and trust has been found undeserving
of that faith and trust. Yet to ignore the legacy of the Catholic Church
in Ireland is to deny the most enduring and forceful facet in the shaping of Irish
society.
| Item Type: |
Book Section
|
| Keywords: |
Irreconcilable differences; fraught relationship; women;
Catholic Church; Ireland; |
| Academic Unit: |
Centre for Teaching and Learning |
| Item ID: |
9160 |
| Depositing User: |
Sharon Tighe-Mooney
|
| Date Deposited: |
18 Jan 2018 14:41 |
| Publisher: |
Manchester University Press |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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