Galway Bay fm newsroom - The church in Ireland is becoming increasingly marginalised, weakened and despised in our society.
That's according to Archbishhop of Tuam Michael Neary, who this morning delivered his Reek Sunday homily at the summit of Croagh Patrick.
He spoke of the need for the church to return to penance and prayer and take stock of its place - and the message it seeks to deliver - in the modern world.
In his homily, Archbishop Neary made reference to the slow, silent decline of faith in Ireland, and how many feel they are 'strangers in a strange land'.
He said that pilgrimages - like that on Croagh Patrick this morning - offer an opportunity to take stock and discover new heart.
He acknowledged that the Church today is - as it was in the Roman Empire - small, peripheral, suspect and despised in the face of a brilliant, glittering and self-assured society.
Archbishop Neary said it would be easy to avoid the long, hard personal journey that is needed and spend all of our remaining energy on desperately vying for attention in our modern culture.
However, he offered that before we speak, we must have something to say - and the church in Ireland is being called to return to penance and prayer.
He suggested it's best work could yet to be done - and acknowledged this work will be carried out by a smaller Church that has been politically, socially and financially weakened.
He said the Church must get used to preaching on street corners and making the gospel heard over the constant noise of the public arena.
He closed his homily by stating that if the Church in Ireland has one mission - it is to subvert the 'closed shop' that is the Western World and startle it with a renewed message of the generosity and hospitality of god.
