Source: The Guardian

Mike McKillen was delighted to have his granddaughter’s help in digging the garden. But as a small creature wriggled out of the damp earth, the retired science professor was less pleased to be told by five-year-old Cara: “God made this worm.”

“She has been in school for a few months only, and already she is imbibing the idea that God created everything. This worries me a lot,” said McKillen, 72, who still teaches bio-chemistry part-time at Trinity College Dublin. “I don’t want her to be indoctrinated.”

Cara and thousands of other Irish children have little choice but to be educated by the Catholic church, which runs more than 90% of Ireland’s primary schools. But with an increasingly liberal and secular population, the church’s control over such huge parts of Irish society is weakening.

Ireland’s last census, in 2011, showed a big rise in the numbers of non-Catholics. Although those identifying themselves as Catholic were still the vast majority of the 4.5m population, more than 6% – 277,000 people – described themselves as atheist, agnostic, lapsed or of “no religion”. The number was an increase of almost 50% since the previous census in 2006; the next census, due in April, is expected to show an even bigger rise.

Migration has also led to significant increases in the numbers identifying as Muslim, Orthodox, Pentecostal, Hindu and Buddhist.

Ireland’s shifting demographics, religious beliefs and social attitudes have major implications for the Catholic church and the state, which have been intertwined since Ireland was partitioned and the south won independence from Britain in 1922. The church’s unyielding views on marriage, divorce, baptism, contraception, abortion and homosexuality are increasingly being challenged or simply ignored.

Yet as the power of the pulpit wanes, particularly with the millennial generation, Catholic influence on the state endures. Despite an astonishing 62% vote in favour of same-sex marriage last May, making Ireland the first country in the world to endorse marriage equality through a referendum, the church still holds sway in spheres such as education and reproductive rights.

Ireland goes to the polls on 26 February in an election dominated by the economy and crime. But candidates are also facing questions about religious education and the prospects of a referendum to repeal the near-universal ban on abortion.

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