Fr Brendan Hoban also criticised a "religious media more anxious to protect its pockets than engage with the realities of faith in the world".

Fr Hoban is the co-founder of the Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland.

He made these criticisms in a local newspaper column.

He noted that Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin recently lamented the dearth of Catholic intellectuals in Ireland.

Fr Hoban warned of the consequences "if bishops or priests or intelligent ‘lay' Catholics are not prepared to reflectively engage in the public market-place".

In that case, "that space is left open to obsessive Catholic extremists who seek to psychologically bludgeon anyone who doesn't agree with them".

"[They] do untold damage to the Catholic faith in Ireland," he said.

The priest added that there is little institutional support for intellectual debate in the Catholic Church.

This is "as distinct from cheerleading".

He cited the Church's lack of support for several prominent theologians.

These include Enda McDonagh, Gabriel Daly and Sean Fagan.

On the other hand, the Church backs "others of whom great things were expected, but who now seem often to use every opportunity to ingratiate themselves with Church authorities, with an eye to promotion".

Fr Hoban also slated the Vatican silencing of five Irish priests.

The silenced five were "sacrificial lambs hunted down by the Catholic ‘stasi', the equivalent of the East German secret police, who wouldn't know their theological arm from their elbow".

The priests were condemned for effectively helping explain in ordinary words the insights of theologians and biblical scholars, he added.

Fr Hoban queried the lack of Catholic intellectuals in Ireland, given the huge investment in Catholic education.

Sources

• Irish Times
• Image: Irish Central

The Church needs "competent lay men and women educated in their faith", Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said, according to a report in the Irish Times.

The archbishop referred to a statement by Pope Benedict XVI at the beatification of Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman in 2010.

"He said: ‘The service to which Blessed John Henry was called involved applying his keen intellect and his prolific pen to many of the most pressing ‘subjects of the day'," the archbishop recalled.

A lack of people capable of doing such tasks today contributes to the Irish church becoming increasingly marginalised in terms of contributing to social and political discussion, Archbishop Martin said.

Such marginalisation is not simply due to "some sort of external exclusion".

"[I]t is also because the Church in Ireland is very lacking in ‘keen intellects and prolific pens addressing the pressing subjects of the day'," Archbishop Martin said.

This is "a role especially for competent lay men and women well educated in their faith".

"The contribution of the Church to the improvement of society will not be attained simply by negative political commentary.

"It will not be attained by morbid and depressive analysis of the woes of the Church.

"It will never be attained by religious media which allow themselves to be reduced to mere blogs of clerical gossip.

"It cannot be attained by creating a neo-clerical Church, focussed just on priests."

What is needed, Archbishop Martin said, is "a vibrant affirmation of the ‘Joy of the Gospel'".

Without such an affirmation by lay people, the Church will not produce priestly vocations, he added.

Sources

• Irish Times
• Image: Catholic Ireland

Catholic intellectuals should weigh into public debate, along with the bishops, he said.

"If you send an aircraft carrier out without a destroyer flotilla, you deserve everything you get," he told guests at a dinner at the Sheraton Hotel on Saturday to mark the assembly of the Order of Malta.

"We've always been a nursing and military order; is it perhaps that we began to reflect on the notion of military fervour," Prof Craven said, "acknowledging that the battle today is intellectual not physical ... we, as an order, have a fund of intellect and resource that as a base can be used intellectually as well as physically."

In the past, he said, there have been great English speaking intellectuals, such as Chesterton and Waugh in England and BA Santamaria in Australia.

"We tend to rely on the bishops to carry the whole weight of the argument in public," he said.

"But If you look around the lay Church for Catholic public intellectuals, where are they? How many are there?

"Is it not remarkable that we are the only organisation in Australia that when media seek a comment on Catholicism up pops an opponent of Catholicism.

"It's a bit like Julia Gillard being asked to explain the Coalition policy on climate change as favourably as she can."

Prof Craven said he does not see the Church as losing in the public debate.

"And I don't think our opponents see themselves as winning; otherwise they would not be so frightened or so aggressive. Or they wouldn't be seeing the Catholic Church as their chief stumbling block, which is precisely what it should be.

"We should revel in their opposition and take it for what it is."

Sources

• The Catholic Weekly
• Image: Australian Catholic University