i'll admit this comes as bit of surprise to me -of any member-state in the European Union, Ireland seemed the least likely to succumb to secularism. given this, i wonder if Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe will be next:
Catholicism Losing Ground in Ireland
-Secularism, prosperity and sexual abuse scandals are weakening the church's influence.
By John Daniszewski, Times Staff Writer
MAYNOOTH, Ireland — The black-and-white class portraits arrayed along the nearly deserted corridor of the seminary at St. Patrick's College here tell the tale.
Year by year, the group of graduating seminary students gets smaller. Slowly, the number of young men willing to replenish the priesthood of the once-mighty Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is shrinking. In the future, the priests celebrating Mass in the Emerald Isle's churches may well be from South America or Africa, not Cork or Kerry.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-ireland17apr17,0,5254747.story?coll=la-home-headlines
