THE tenacity and vitality of Irish Catholicism in the past despite persecution, referred to by one of the contributors to this book, contrasts very sharply with some of the pictures presented here from Irish Catholicism today uncommitted youth, consumer driven parents, baffled clergy, laity seeing unbelief as maturity. The people of God seem to be abandoning Him not so much in revolt as in apathy and self sufficiency, growing away from religion as one grows out of childhood.

These essays attempt to tackle the many faceted problem of a church in decline, not just in numbers but in morale, in the commitment of its membership, in the courage and precision of its witness.

Today's crisis begins in yesterday's success, as Sean MacReamoinn points out in a learned and spirited introduction. The line from Paul Cullen to John Charles McQuaid is a straight one. It is also a bishop cent red, clericalist authoritarian line presuming and creating a passive laity. This model of church lasted from 1850 (Synod of Thurles) to 1966 (close of Vatican II). Indeed, it was no fault of the then Irish Hierarchy that the line did not survive this reforming Council, which appeared to many Irish bishops of the time as unnecessary for Ireland. Their preoccupation was not reform and change but rather, to paraphrase one of them, not to disturb the tranquillity of people's Christian lives.

The book is written in the main by lay people not a bishop in sight. This may account for the fact that all through it there resounds a call for prophecy. Not the Nostradamus kind but to tell it as it is kind that marks the scriptures, or the life of Jesus in his conflict with the priestly authorities of the Jews.

For several of the essayists, the Irish Catholic Church is an institution committed to institutional values seeking to save itself by institutional means. Its own survival in its present form is its major goal. Authoritarianism, clericalism, selective deafness, and, indeed, selective dumbness along with many other weapons, such as the repression of legitimate internal comment, are its chosen means to self preservation, to keeping change to a minimum, to holding the laity at bay or, more precisely, in their place.

Writing as long ago as 1985, Peadar Kirby said of the pre-Vatican II Irish Church. "It couldn't find within it alternative resources for giving people a different understanding of being Christian, one more adapted to the new needs of Irish society. A highly institutionalised, clericalised, devotionalised church could find few resources for adaptation."

The history of the last decade reinforces that view. There has been lots of adaptation but of the organisational kind, and too little adaptation of thinking, too little power transfer, too little movement from Closed Church to Open Church, from clerical to lay, from institution towards prophecy.

Prophecy is where institution meets Spirit. It is the means by which God calls to account the institution which offers to act in His name. Prophecy invites authority to be silent and to listen, reminding it that it has no monopoly of the Spirit. Prophecy relativises authority and allows God to speak with a second voice. Without it, the institution stagnates and rigidities. Prophecy is the challenge from within, the unwelcome vision.

Perhaps the emergence of individual leaders among the bishops prepared to bypass (at least in their own dioceses) the dead weight of the collectivity and to share their doubts, their fears and their aspirations with us all, is already prophecy if it submits the institutional shape of the Irish Church to the scrutiny of the Spirit.

Such hope as there is in this book looks to the dismantling of church defences built for past battles. It argues for the devaluation of the institutional style and for attention to the prophetic element in the church. It looks for a listening church attuned to the Spirit. It refuses to participate in the domestication of the Gospel and to support the struggle for sameness. It welcomes the unwelcome voice.

Scripture notes that a prophet is not honoured in his own country. It remains to be seen how the institution they call to account will hear the message of these modern prophets. {CORRECTION} 96071200104