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Pope Francis arrived in Ireland on Saturday morning for a highly charged visit to a society transformed since the last papal trip 39 years ago and beset by the kind of abuse scandals that have mired the Catholic Church in crisis.
Ireland has traditionally been a Roman Catholic stronghold but decades of abuse scandals have damaged the church’s reputation and weakened its influence.
“The Catholic Church is still very much part of our society but not at the center of it as it was 40 years ago,” Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who last year became Ireland’s first gay leader, told the BBC ahead of the visit.
“Ireland has become a very different place in the last 40 years and our relationship with the Church has changed principally because of so many revelations that have occurred around child sex abuse.”
The pope touched down in a sunny Dublin early Saturday morning, where he was greeted by a small official delegation mostly composed of clergy, but no public crowd as would be the norm, especially in a Catholic country.
This is Francis’ first visit to the country, and the reception is expected to be mixed.
He will begin the two-day trip by meeting Ireland’s President Michael D. Higgins and Varadkar, who has promised to challenge the pope to do more in dealing with the abuse crisis.
A Mass scheduled in Dublin’s Phoenix Park on Sunday is expected to attract 500,000 worshipers. The turnout will only be half of that seen in 1979 when Pope John Paul II visited.
Scandals involving the church in Ireland have been rampant. In addition to thousands of instances of child abuse, a mass grave was discovered in 1993 at secretive Catholic institutions of confinement for unmarried mothers, prostitutes and other “fallen” women.
Amnesty International Ireland is organizing a protest to coincide with Sunday’s event. A Facebook campaign “Say Nope to the Pope” opposing the visit has also attracted the interest of over 10,000 participants.
The Vatican has said Francis will meet Irish victims of clergy sexual abuse, but the pope will also be under pressure to address the recent scandals that have led to the Church’s worst credibility crisis in more than 15 years.
A damning report last week into abuse in Pennsylvania, combined with scandals in Australia and Chile, have formed what one Vatican official called “a perfect storm” and already overshadowed a trip where the main purpose is to close a week-long international Catholic gathering.