Doubtful we are less Christian today than 65 years ago

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

I’m interested in words and how we put them together. I’m forever casting my eye over adverts, whether on billboards, on buses, wherever. I’m regularly intrigued by the meanings of words and how new words enter the language. 

The dictionary definition of gentrification is the process whereby the character of a poor urban area is changed by wealthy people moving in, improving housing, …… The word has been on my lips these last days. 

A new fashionable café has opened near the estate where I live. The queues have been out the door. All I can see in the neighbourhood is people walking about with delicacies in paper bags emblazoned with the smart café logo.

Sixty five years ago who in Ireland knew what a latte or a flat white was? But that same 65 years ago there was a successful petition to the then CIÉ, to provide a Sunday bus service to the same estate to bring people to Mass in their parish church.

I imagine the majority of people drinking flat whites and lattes today are not regular Mass goers. I’m wondering could one say that moving from the church to the café is another aspect or element of gentrification? But I think it’s accurate to say that 65 years ago our churches were visited by a cross-section of Irish society. 

The majority of women and men, rich and poor, young and old were attending church services. Churches in poor parishes were as busy as churches in rich parishes. Indeed, at the time, the church was a place where rich and poor felt they belonged. That has changed in the era of the coffee shop. While the clerical sex abuse scandals have not helped church attendance it is only part of the story.

Has it something to do with gentrification, something to do with style and fashion or something to do with faith and belief?

How much of our lives is decided by the prevailing fashions, opinions and styles? I think far more than we realise. 

We talk about people losing their faith. What actually does that mean? What exactly was the faith of the people 65 years ago? Are people genuinely further away from God today than they were 65 years ago? I keep thinking, no we are not. To say anything about God, the dissimilarity is greater than the similarity. It’s easy and lazy to use clichéd language about God. 

Fashions and styles have changed. Our way of expressing our faith and belief has changed. I look at gentrification with a jaundiced eye. 

I’m inclined to laugh at the nonsense that surrounds it. And at the same time I also look with a jaundiced eye at those who bemoan the loss of our faith. I don’t for a moment believe we are any less Christian today than we were 65 years ago. 

Today we wrap it up in a different type of package. Whatever about the current style being right or wrong I certainly don’t want to go back to the bleakness and control of 65 years ago.

Guess what, right now there seems to be a growing new nostalgia for the church of 65 years ago. It’s confusing, worrying too.