The appointment of a successor to Cardinal Desmond Connell as Archbishop of Dublin could make or break the Catholic Church in Ireland.
Such is the historic moment at which Archbishop Diarmuid Martin assumes his responsibilities as Coadjutor in Dublin. With the secularisation of society, the fall in Church attendance, and the damage to the very fabric of the Catholic Church from the handling of abuse cases, he has an awesome task.
With its 1.03 million Catholics spread over the city and county of Dublin and nearly all of Wicklow, as well as parts of Kildare, Carlow, Wexford, and Laois, Dublin is by far the biggest diocese in Ireland and one of the largest in Europe. What happens there has a profound effect on the rest of the Irish Church. As does its Archbishop.
The Catholic Church in Ireland has not been at such a low ebb for over 200 years. With 66 seminarians, St Patrick's College Maynooth has its lowest number of students since foundation in 1795. Morale among clergy is very low, not least in Dublin, and public confidence in Chuch leadership is almost at crisis point.
A major survey last summer found that weekly Mass attendance in Ireland is now down to 48 per cent - a drop of 43 percentage points in the 30 years since 1973, when 91 per cent attended. And this drop is expected to continue with attendance now lowest among the young, particularly the urban young.
Weekly attendance is said to be as low as six per cent in some working-class Dublin parishes, and down to two per cent in one.
Christian belief itself is also in decline. The same survey found that just 52 per cent of 15 - 24 year olds in Ireland saw Jesus as "the son of God with whom I have a personal relationship". The figure was 44 per cent among students, 38 per cent of whom saw Jesus as "merely a historical figure".
A still more recent survey, conducted last January by the Amárach group, found that religion was "very important" for just 29 per cent of Irish people, compared to 33 per cent of people in Britain, and 60 per cent of people in the US. Some 87 per cent of the Irish believed in God - down from 95 per cent in 1981. However, just 69 per cent of Irish people believed in the soul, 66 per cent in sin, and 65 per cent in Heaven, while only 56 per cent believed in life after death.
This rapidly increasing secularisation is of course a problem for all Churches and faiths but particularly for the dominant Church, especially in Dublin where it has the largest numbers by far and where those trends are at their most pronounced.
With his wide experience, attractive personal qualities, deep faith, and comparative youth many have greeted news of Archbishop Martin's appointment with great hope. Despite recent disillusionments there is still great goodwill towards the Catholic Church in Dublin and in Ireland. The new Coadjutor faces a major challenge to restore confidence in the Catholic Church.