Armstrong says he felt a need to be seen to be “good”. Some, including this reviewer, recall we had not gone to see the Pope in the Phoenix Park on the basis that popular claims of “Catholic Ireland” were triumphalism. To an outsider, Catholic Ireland could be seen to be a dark place indeed. Even as the Pope spoke, many of Armstrong’s generation were questioning priestly vocations and numbers of seminarians were on the cusp of freefall. “Religion demands the submission of the mind, heart, will and body to man-made rules and a man-made god […]but submission is the opposite of personal adult maturity, thinking and deciding for oneself…” he said.

Source: The Irish Times January 16, 2021 05:48 UTC