Suicide Rates and Professional Morale among Catholic Priests in Ireland

Crux recently reported an uptick in suicides among Catholic priests in Ireland. “At least eight priests in Ireland have committed suicide in the past 10 years,” and there is growing concern for priests’ morale and mental health as they grapple with a drop in vocations, the sexual abuse scandal(s) that came to light in the 1990s, and a drop in religious practice among the Irish people. As Tom Inglis argues, the Catholic Church maintained a “moral monopoly” over Irish society and politics for many years. As the monopoly slowly erodes, the effects redound to clergy in the form of .... 

Read the remainder of the post at Religioninpublic.blog.