THIS is not, as one might imagine from the title, a theological treatise on the inner religious life of today's Ireland, but a collection of the author's articles for Hot Press, where Liam Fay is self-styled Theological Correspondent in Chief, though better known to his colleagues as (in his own words) Big Drunk Lad from Meath.
The focus is mainly on the wilder shores of Irish Catholicism and those who dwell there, and the tone stops a long way short of respectful.
There should be something in this book to offend most Catholics. If there isn't, the author will almost certainly be disappointed:
Knock? "A bizarre and distasteful place, its nose at once sanctimoniously high in the air and greedily deep in the greasy till."
Accord's pre-marriage courses? "The only folk obliged to partake in their courses are those sufficiently gullible or malleable to want a Catholic wedding."
Lough Derg (St Patrick's Purgatory)? "A mystical netherworld where the most fanatical of Catholic die-hards go to suffer for their religion so that they'll feel better about making the rest of us suffer for it when they get home."
Other topics include Good Friday ("an Olympic-standard yawn-athon"), the Rathmines folk Mass ("the biggest holy show in town"), Daniel O'Donnell and the Vatican (not simultaneously).
Even if these are all fairly soft targets for the satirist, Fay can be very funny indeed. He is not a man for the detached tone, the tolerant, bemused air. Instead, he plunges straight into the deeper seas of credulity, inviting us to share his occasionally outraged disbelief in what he sees and hears in the name of religion. (And if we don't want to share it, we are in effect invited to bugger off).
Fay is an accomplished funster, and a serial punster. His puns are good, bad and downright actionable. Try this for category: "Like most priests, the only celibacy I know is the one who sang the theme song from Goldfinger." (Think about it). Rather better in the same account of his day as a mock priest is Fay's avowed wish to offer communion bread to Howth's best-known resident, so that he might be allowed utter the immortal line: "Here is your host, Gay Byrne!"
If you don't find that funny, this is not a book for you.
The author is sympathetic to well-known clerical outlaws like Bishop Michael Cox (on whose phone hotline callers are absolved of sin), and gives an even easier ride to the Hare Krishna ("These people could give Matt Talbot lessons in how to beat yourself up for the Almighty") and the pagans who gather on the Hill of Tara ("Pagan ritual may be every bit as idiotic as Christian ritual, but at least it's quicker").
His piece on "the manic street preacher", Mary Margaret Doyle Dunne, the elderly lady who stands in O'Connell Street covered in crucifixes, quoting scripture, is a very fine piece of journalism, easily the best in the book.
In an admirable effort to be fair, the author is also rude about Protestants, noting their "traditional values" of "hard work, frugality, self-reliance and enormous deposit accounts".
It's a pity that at times the sneer element overpowers the genuine humour. Fay's account of the Edmund Rice beatification ceremony in Rome, for example, is wildly comical, but spoiled by his none-too-original demonisation of the Christian Brothers.
Like many of these pieces, it would also have benefited from some serious editing. But taken in the right spirit (Fay favours Cork dry gin), Beyond Belief is a very funny compendium of socio-religious reports from today's Ireland, an outrageous lay breviary for our times.
