In the prologue to his acclaimed book
The Best Catholics in the World
, Derek Scally observes the mood in Dublin when Pope Francis said Mass in Phoenix Park in 2018. Living abroad had given Scally a heightened awareness of changes in his hometown’s atmosphere. He remarks upon the “easy, gentle demeanour of the Mass-going crowd” and recounts a little joke by a tram driver at the last stop on his route—“I can get you no closer to the Pope”—which makes everyone onboard chuckle. Scally then adds: “Like the sing-song voices of the street traders, this softer spirit is part of the atmosphere of my childhood, something that I didn’t notice disappearing.” He moves on from this brief reverie to examine the causes, course, and consequences of the decline of the faith in Ireland in a way that, in measured tones, spares the Church nothing.