Brendan Hoban's column

An extract from Brendan Hoban's Western People column.

A senior Catholic churchman recently expostulated on signs of hope in the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Among them he listed a number of organisations, ‘dynamic movements’ he called them. All of them were from the ultra-conservative wing of the Catholic Church. Some of them were, in common parlance, ‘completely off the wall’.

I could sense, as I read his words, Catholics around the country holding their heads in their hands in one great collective movement of disbelief and horror. Was this naivety or just a device for rallying the troops or even a refusal to deal with reality?Whatever was the intention, it’s a dangerous wheeze.

Because it’s leading the Catholic Church into a cul-de-sac and jettisoning those in the middle-ground, who are hanging on to the door-posts of faith and religion with their finger-nails.