A HANDWRITTEN sign outside the RDS on Saturday read: "Faith of Our Fathers: You've heard the CD, now read the book."
It turned out to be a reprint of Archbishop McQuaid's "penny catechism", published in 1951 as a guide to everything you always wanted to know about Catholicism.
Due to inflation the cost of the catechism had shot up 25,000 per cent to £2.50 but 100 copies had been sold to delegates to the Silver Jubilee Charismatic Renewal Conference by lunchtime on the first day.
Some 2,500 charismatics from 400 prayer groups around the country were in Dublin to celebrate the occasion in song, prayer and, sometimes, dance. The movement was started by Quakers and is multidenominational.
In an age of uncertainty, the archbishop's absolute conviction clearly had a nostalgic appeal for some of those in attendance. "The chief dangers to chastity are idleness, bad companions, improper dances, immodest dress, company keeping and indecent conversation, books, plays and pictures," says the archbishop at one point, decimating the social life of large sections of the population with one pointed sentence.
Quite what the archbishop would have made of the literature on offer inside the conference hall was open to question. There were books for Christian feminists, New Age Christians, even Christian gardeners (A Gardener looks at the Fruits of the Spirit)
One book on the dangers of contraception even contained an illustration of the female reproductive system, albeit one that appeared to have been drawn by a passing child.
The delegates were made aware that some of the Roman Catholic certainties of the archbishop's day had been replaced by the doubts of their own age. Father Pat McArdle, one of the keynote speakers, told the conference that the church of the majority had to "update its maps" and said he pitied people who were clinging to the past.
"The church we have known is finished and religious life as we know it is finished," he said. He declined to pray for vocations as the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Desmond Connell, had earlier suggested, since then the laity would never get the church back, and instead spoke of the need for greater relevance to today's world. He received a considerable round of applause.
Outside, the woman with the catechisms had called it a day.