Irish Catholic Culture Before and After Vatican II

Abstract

Abstract The Catholic Church by virtue of political and socio-historical circumstances held a dominant position in southern Irish society from the time of independence. Its precepts were upheld by legislation and in the constitution. The prevailing Catholic culture was devotional and compliant. Church leaders’ dogmatic approach was accepted by politicians and the wider community, leading to complacency on the church’s part. However political, social, and economic factors, which developed from the late 1950s, brought considerable change and from the 1960s onwards the status quo unravelled steadily. The influence of Vatican II (1962–65) was crucial and the fall-out from Humanae Vitae, arguably more so. Increased access to education, travel, and communications media led to questioning of previous taken-for-granted assumptions. The Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’, the emphasis on freedom and civil rights—political, religious, and gender-related—all cross-fertilized, leading to a decline in religious practice and increasingly a rejection of Catholic precepts of sexual morality.