Irish Catholicism
The Catholic Church in Ireland is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, the Christian Church with full communion with the Pope, currently Benedict XVI. The Catholic Church in Ireland, with its primatial seat in Armagh, ministers to Catholics in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland under the spiritual leadership of the Pope, the Roman Curia, and the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference. 84.2% of the citizens of the Republic of Ireland and 43.8% of the estimated workforce of Northern Ireland are Catholic.
Christianity had come to Ireland by the early 5th century, and was spread through the works of early missionaries such as Palladius, and more famously Saint Patrick.
Read more about Irish Catholicism: History, Popular Traditions, Organisation, Influence in The Irish Free State and Republic (1922–present), Influence in Northern Ireland
Famous quotes containing the words irish and/or catholicism:
“The next forenoon we went to Oldtown.... The Indian is said to cultivate the vices rather than the virtues of the white man. Yet this village was cleaner than I expected, far cleaner than such Irish villages as I have seen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Protestantism has the method of Jesus with His secret too much left out of mind; Catholicism has His secret with His method too much left out of mind; neither has His unerring balance, His intuition, His sweet reasonableness. But both have hold of a great truth, and get from it a great power.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)