The great majority of practising Irish Catholics favour the ordination of women, marriage for priests who want it, greater roles for divorced and remarried people or couples and single parents, and more respect for LGBTQI+ people.
They also want better-prepared, shorter sermons and the removal of bloodthirsty Old Testament readings from Masses and other liturgies, according to a survey of tens of thousands of believers across the church’s 26 dioceses on the island.
Similar surveys to the Irish one, which will be considered by an 160-strong national assembly in Athlone, Co. Westmeath on Saturday, are under way across the Catholic world in preparation for a synod in Rome next year.