PAUL MILLER: Two and a half million Irish go to Catholic Church on Sunday -- almost two-thirds of the population. By that measure, Ireland's Church is among the strongest in Europe. But not nearly as strong as it once was.

Dr. TONY FAHY (Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin): When you're trying to explain the position of the Catholic Church in Ireland today, the main thing is not so much to explain why it's coming down as how it ever got up so high in the first place, because there's no doubt that going back to the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, it had an extraordinarily strong position in Irish life.

MILLER: The Church held a special place in Irish life from its founding in the 5th century and the legendary deeds of St. Patrick. Its medieval monasteries thrived.

By the late 19th century, the Church was flourishing, producing enough priests and nuns for parishes, education, and health care, with a large surplus to export for missionary work. The Church became the greatest political force in Ireland.

Reverend ANDREW GREELEY (Author): It ran the country while it was still occupied by Britain because the clergy were the only real local leaders and when the Irish Republic emerged in the 1920s, it would have been smart for the clergy and the hierarchy to back off their political power. They did not do so, and they just stirred up enormous resentment.

MILLER: From 1921 until 1960, independent Ireland was mostly rural, insular, and a place where there was little separation of church and state. The Constitution recognized the Catholic Church as the guardian of the faith. Films and books were censored. Divorce was illegal.
The Church ran the schools and the hospitals. Parishioners such as Honor Smith went to church regularly, but have no nostalgia for that time.

HONOR SMITH (Parishioner): Horrible era . . . it was very introspective and backward, and that's not the way the Church is supposed to be. It's supposed to be changing all the time.

MILLER: After 1960, television was introduced and people saw more of the outside world. There was greater emphasis on the individual. The power of the Church began to slip. The social and cultural upheaval of the Œ70s and Œ80s pitted the Church against women's groups and others over issues such as birth control.

EDDIE HOLT (Dublin City University): I think the Catholic Church, if there is one issue which you can look at and say where did it start to go wrong, it really was in a secular world where birth control became possible and the Catholic Church took a very firm line against this and a lot of people just couldn't obey the pope anymore on this one.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: It's Gertrude from the National Women's Council here.

MILLER: The Council was among those who fought the Church to legalize first contraception in 1979, and then divorce, not until 1995. They helped drive a wedge between government and the Church on key social issues. But most people remained supportive of the Church, even during the sexual abuse scandals of the 1990s.

Many of them involving the sexual molestation of children. The Church says the number of incidents is small. Critics say the Church tolerated pedophiles and did not act quickly enough.

Reverend MARTIN CLARKE (Irish Bishops Conference): There is no doubt about it. But the Church in a sense is also a victim of pedophilia, also a victim of this abuse, not least because its credibility has been damaged.

MILLER: The latest challenge to the Church is the revolution in the economy. Ireland has been nicknamed the Celtic Tiger. It's more American laissez-faire than European social democratic. Disposable income increased 50 percent in the 1990s. Unemployment is the lowest in the European Union. There's been a lot of talk about new values.

Reverend CLARKE: The great image and symbol of the Church is the Lamb of God. And the Celtic tiger and the Lamb of God really don't sit all that comfortably together because what the Church preaches and what the Church stands for tends to be somewhat different to the values of the marketplace.