A couple of weeks ago I attended my daughter’s Confirmation ceremony. It was a sunny spring morning, the kids were immaculately dressed, the church beautifully decked out. Parents and teachers hovered, mindful and proud of their charges. The service went without a hitch: the children sang hymns, presented gifts, delivered readings and took the pledge.

All in all, it was a spirit-lifting event – until the archbishop took to the pulpit to preach. Before a congregation of blank-faced 12-year-olds, he took it upon himself to bemoan the evils of binge drinking on Leaving and Junior Cert results night. He spoke of how he hoped the credit crunch might drive us all away from the evils of secular spending and back to a more frugal spiritual existence. Most bizarrely of all, he decided to take a swipe at Richard Dawkins and the humanists. It was a ludicrous performance – the sound of a joyless and judgemental scold lecturing children about subjects they could barely comprehend. It bespoke an individual far more concerned with venting his own spleen than commemorating the occasion at hand.
Hardly a word was spoken of the joys that await these children, whether they choose to live in the Catholic faith or not. Little mention of how the Holy Spirit might manifest itself in the pleasures of work, art, food, wine, music, prosperity, courtship, love, marriage or family. Just doom and gloom, and a sense that we should all be ashamed of ourselves for being a part of this earthly realm. I left the service embarassed and angry.
I am not what anyone would call a practising Catholic, but I try to spend a few moments in the St Aidan’s cathedral once a week, to light a candle and say a prayer, and to soak in the still, meditative atmosphere. I don’t attend mass anymore, because despite the beauty of the service, the sermons leave me irritated and depressed. Even now, after its decade of disgrace, the church insists on preaching the gospel of shame and guilt. If this is how the institution seeks to keep youngsters in its fold, by browbeating them over the ills of the world, ills for which they are not responsible, how can it hope to survive?
There are great priests, missionaries and teachers who inspire and elevate, but evidently there are still as many who would make Catholicism into a misery cult. God will survive. It’s the church that should
be worried.