THE recent death of Archbishop Morris of Cashel at 82 reminds us how long ago the days of Vatican II really are.
This book does also. In its 14 essays it deals with current and specific Church problems like child abuse by clergy. It also, however, looks more deeply into the background of present difficulties to comment on the history of missed opportunities that is the story of the Irish Catholic Church since Vatican II.
The language of the essays is direct and to the point: "A Church fragmenting, does not seem too harsh a description of the present state of the Irish Catholic Church given the various declines and divisions". The state of the Church in Ireland is clearly to be laid at the door of its leaders. Their attempts to deal with the problems confronting them are described as "often fumbling and ineffectual". Church leaders who, in the past, often issued warnings on the decline of Irish society, may now find the duty of commenting on decline, even disintegration, within the Church itself a new, perhaps distasteful role.
There is dissatisfaction with the leadership in the Church itself, and "little evidence of a vision at the top". This last is a serious charge, because without a vision it is impossible to mobilise the believing community and to move it to dynamic action. The failure of imagination suggested here represents a true dearth of leadership.
"Restoration," McDonagh writes, rather than renewal, seems the final remedy. "Repentance, the biblical transformation of hearts and minds, of attitudes, activities and structures has not yet captured the imagination of the Irish Church." And he prophesies that until this happens the decline will continue into disintegration and "the winter darkness will prevail".
It is difficult to convey, within a small compass, an impression of the sweep, depth and richness of this modest book and of the very many significant topics it touches on in its far reaching reflections on inner church problems and problems in the larger world.
In the Church there are the failure of vision and leadership, the continuing scandals, the divisions on issues like married clergy, the ordination of women, the status of women within the Church. There are, further, the discouraging of open debate on Church issues, the long delayed revision of clerical structures and the mere toleration rather than enthusiastic encouragement of real and significant lay sharing in responsibility for the Gospel.
Two striking themes in the book stand out as basic in the author's response to the present Church crisis - the emphasis on the pervasive darkness that accompanies the human, condition and the inevitable suffering that the forging of a true Spirit inspired humanity entails and second, the insistence that the Church needs a serious commitment to scholarship and hard headed intellectual analysis and debate if it is to avoid, superficial diagnosis' and shallow solution's". Resources are needed for this, and real freedom to explore the true dimensions of the crisis and to develop long term strategies.
One cannot dispute McDonagh's conclusion that "a much more open intellectual and theological life is a top priority for the Church in Ireland", These "fragments of five painful years" are frank and critical, but not without hope. It is not easy to acknowledge, the presence of darkness in a Church one loves.