@article{RemakingIrishCatholicism:MoralAuthority:3407,
      recid = {3407},
      author = {Robbins, Kelsey London},
      title = {Remaking Irish Catholicism: Moral Authority, Reproductive  Politics, and the State},
      publisher = {The University of Chicago},
      school = {Ph.D.},
      address = {2021-08},
      pages = {256},
      abstract = {This dissertation examines efforts to transform and  revitalize Catholicism in the Republic of Ireland, which  over the past thirty years has largely discarded its  historic reputation for devotion and deference to the Roman  Catholic Church. While the Catholic hierarchy wielded  considerable power in Irish society for much of the  twentieth century, its political influence and moral  authority have been greatly diminished by two phenomena: a  shift in popular attitudes and values associated with  Ireland’s economic growth; and, the revelation of  widespread abuse of children and women in Church-run  institutions. In recent years, the Church’s diminished  influence over Irish society has been seen in the public’s  support for laws that conflict with the teachings of the  Catholic Church. For example, in 2015, Ireland became the  first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage by  popular referendum; just three years later, Irish citizens  voted in a landslide to expand legal access to abortion.  Although international news media have interpreted these  votes as a rejection of Catholicism, this dissertation  contends that what is occurring is not a rejection at all;  rather, Irish people are remaining Catholic, but they are  living their Catholicism in new ways. 

The dissertation  draws on sixteen months of ethnographic research at a  variety of sites, including a Catholic faith formation  group, a series of abortion rights workshops, and the civil  society campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment, Ireland’s  constitutional prohibition on abortion. I show that across  these sites, Irish people are striving to change popular  and deeply-entrenched understandings of Catholic morality  and ethical action that emphasize unquestioning adherence  to the Church’s moral teachings by challenging the moral  authority of the Catholic hierarchy and by reconfiguring  relationships between the laity, the hierarchy, and the  Irish state.

The dissertation makes three interrelated  arguments. First, lay Catholics are mobilizing and  sometimes creatively reworking Catholic sources to make the  questioning of the hierarchy’s moral teachings, including  those on moral authority itself, a legitimate part of being  a “good Catholic”. Second, lay Catholics are framing the  historic entanglement of the hierarchy’s regime of moral  discipline with Irish state governance as an impediment to  the transformations in the Catholic Church they desire to  bring about. They have two ways of challenging that  entanglement: seizing the work of providing moral education  from the hierarchy; and, separating Catholic moral  teachings from Irish law. Finally, because Church authority  in Ireland was historically secured and maintained through  the control of social and biological reproduction, it is in  the domain of reproduction that Catholicism is being  remade. },
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/3407},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.3407},
}