The 2018 visit of Pope Francis to Ireland offers a chance to heal
It will be low key compared to the visit of Pope John Paul II
The visit of Pope Francis to Ireland in 2018 is to be welcomed; warmly so. It will be low key, even modest, by comparison with that of Pope John Paul II in 1979. There will be no chants of “he’s got the whole world in his hands”. That was a different, more innocent Catholic Ireland which marked that first papal visit to these shores with a vast turnout and not a little triumphalism. We’re “older” than that now.
The intervening decades have witnessed massive change in Irish attitudes to Catholic teaching, Catholic practice, and the authority of the Catholic Church. Yet, even in 1979, trends indicated change was under way.