Pope Francis is due to visit Ireland in August 2018. His trip will probably include a historic journey north of the border. But what he is likely to find is that Irish Catholicism remains in serious long-term decline. Years of scandal have led to dwindling congregations, an increasingly hostile public climate and a Church that seems to have no clear idea of how to turn its fortunes around.
Francis’s personal popularity and celebrity should draw substantial crowds. But enormous crowds turned out for Pope John Paul II on his 1979 visit, and what seemed to be an affirmation of Ireland’s Catholic identity proved in retrospect to be the last hurrah of old-style Irish Catholicism.
