Irish Times: Some Catholic teaching is ‘rancid’ and needs updating, says Mary McAleese
Ms McAleese was speaking in a podcast with Mollie Rodgers (18) and Kathryn Reynolds (17), who are students at her former school St Dominic’s in Belfast.
A bunch of celibate male bishops will not make required changes, says former president
By Patsy McGarry Sat Jan 31 2026 – 06:00
Some Catholic Church teaching “is rancid, has gone off and needs to be updated”, former president Mary McAleese has said.
“But it’s not going to be updated by a bunch of, a tiny and increasingly small number of celibate male ordained bishops,” she added.
There were “lots of wonderful young women who would make a great job of priesthood and of diaconate” with “lots of intellectual energy that could really inform church teaching”, she said. Instead of this, there was “pushback against the ordination of women, whether it’s as deacons or as priests”.
This, she said, was “as strong today among the hierarchy, among the magisterium of the church, as it ever was”.
Last month a report from a Vatican commission reiterated its ban on women deacons in the church. A deacon can perform all the functions of a priest except hear confessions or celebrate the Eucharist.
Pope Leo was “no champion of women, unfortunately, and that’s tragic”, said Ms McAleese. Women look at that “and say: ‘You’ve got a problem of relevance here, you’ve got a problem of credibility here, and you don’t see it’”. The new pope “looks to me more like a stopgap than a reformer”, she said.
Ms McAleese was speaking in a podcast with Mollie Rodgers (18) and Kathryn Reynolds (17), who are students at her former school St Dominic’s in Belfast.
She was also critical of a document presented to church representatives attending a Synod on Synodality in Kilkenny last October.
It was “so boring, and depressing and trite and Pollyannish and not really related to the world of faith that I live in. The dynamism wasn’t there that I would love to see, that could galvanise the church and probably is not going to during Leo’s lifetime anyhow.”
On Friday, clarifying what she meant by “rancid” teachings in the church, Ms McAleese said she was referring in particular to its teachings on human sexuality, the ban on artificial means of contraception in its 1968 “Humanae Vitae” document, and the ban on women deacons and women priests.
She “doesn’t know” Pope Leo but finds him “enigmatic” and believed he was elected last May as “a safe pair of hands, to continue with the same old witter as a cover for doing nothing”.
She believed Leo “was deliberately chosen to follow the Pope Francis line on immigrants, the poor, climate and the environment”, while disregarding those other issues.
[ Catholicism may be raising its head high but the body underneath is ailingOpens in new window ]
I was already experiencing the Synodal process with its controlling exclusions as trying to put new wine into the old patriarchal wineskins, but now I also picture rancid butter being spread on freshly baked bread… Definitely not very appetising!
I am in agreement with Mary McAleese on one point. Leo XIV is most definitely a stopgap. However, I strongly suspect that the type of Pontiff that I wish to see whenever Pope Leo’s successor is elected, is probably not what Ms. McAleese wishes for.
It may not be her fault, but Ms. McAleese is cited as objecting to teaching under mostly generic headings. For example, it would have been helpful for her to list one by one, what teachings she has issues with. Of course, the newspaper report may not contain everything she said.
For myself, I believe in everything contained in the Credo of Nicea and the Deposit of Faith.
Recently life in Japan has taken a sombre hue. New blood is needed but the country has become more wary of foreigners and immigrants than ever. 80% of applications for permanent residence are turned down. The “problem” of foreigners is discussed negatively, with no effort to understand the country’s need of them, the enrichment they would bring on every level. Short of money, the government whittles down pensions and taxes them heavily (about 10% for health insurance, and now a new ecology tax). Creeping inflation, shocking devaluation of the currency, making travel abroad impossible, a relentlessly aging population, a general lowering of expectations. Japanese speak of their country as in decline and foresee financial doldrums continuing for the next decade at least. But you don’t change a winning team! And even if Japan dies for lack of immigrants, it will not have lost its identity and way of life. So let’s just close our eyes and trust that the past will sustain us safely into the future.
All of this gives me a sense of déjà vu. What can it be reminding me of?
Our eyes have been opened in Canada to a new reality. The “Companions of the Cross” a recent conservative order of Catholic Priests seem to be flourishing. “They are seeing growth and fullness on the backs of full parishes and rising vocations.” (Catholic register, Jan.23/2026.)…cassocks back in fashion!!
Mary McAleese speaks for the majority of Catholics in Ireland when she says that our church is not going to be updated by a small number of celibate male ordained bishops. The key to synodality is equality between laity and clerics.
“Ms. McAleese is cited as objecting to teaching under mostly generic headings. For example, it would have been helpful for her to list one by one, what teachings she has issues with.”
I think it is very clear precisely which teachings she has in mind: “Ms McAleese said she was referring in particular to its teachings on human sexuality, the ban on artificial means of contraception in its 1968 “Humanae Vitae” document, and the ban on women deacons and women priests.”
Just check the documents on sexuality (Persona humana, 1975-6; Homosexualitatis problema, 1986) and on women priests (Inter insigniores, 1976-7, and the recent utterance on deacons). Are these part of the deposit of faith, alongside the Nicene Creed? Or do they belong with rancid utterances like Paul IV’s on Jews in 1555 and Pius IX’s on slavery, 1866? Isn’t it a pity we had no Mary McAleese to challenge the popes back then?
Joe, I haven’t read the Documents you refer to.
So, let me make my position very clear: I believe in everything taught in the Nicene Credo and all teachings that are De Fide.
I think in that one word alone – ‘rancid’ – Mary McAleese hits the nail on the head! I recommend Paul Daly’s very honest Article (a School Chaplain), in the January Furrow. The Furrow is to be commended in giving his thoughts space. He states among other things ‘Our Church carries on as if nothing has changed’, ‘Our current expression of the Mass has been shaped and dominated principally by the uniformity of its clerical, celibate, male, older aged, predominantly white principal celebrants’. ‘Creativity has been crushed’. I think ‘rancid’ is a good description for the dire situation of the Catholic Church in Ireland.
Dermot, I am not aware that Mary McAleese has queried any De Fide teaching. However we must be cautious in invoking this category, given the phenomenon of creeping infallibility to which some CDF Prefects were prone. Let it not be forgotten that that institution began its career with a murder spree.
“The truth cannot convey itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its way into the mind, both gently and with power.”
This principle in Dignitatis Humanae 1 obliges us to recover the Creed not as a checklist of doctrines but as a narrative of the overcoming of Satanic and Imperial power by the utterly non-violent integrity and love of Jesus Christ. (By ‘Satanic’ I mean that mysterious and malign accusatory force that unifies the lynch mob – ‘the scapegoating crowd’ – in all eras.)
Love is more important than knowledge, as St Paul insisted. Dogmatism is the forgetting of this principle and the pursuit of status via reducing truth itself to a checklist of doctrines, to which, of course, the dogmatist always strictly conforms.
How easily then the Great commandments get lost in what tends to become mere competition for intellectual status, as does the force of Jesus’ strict injunction not to Lord it over one another.
The Constantinian arrangement made it possible for professed Christians to join lynch mobs, as a matter of religious duty – and even for popes to become accusers. Jesus never targeted anyone in particular among his enemies, and this is truly revelatory. He knew that none of them truly knew what they were doing.
Even yet has anyone ever heard from an officiating priest a clear account of what it means to renounce Satan in the Easter liturgy, with particular reference to Commandment 8 against ‘bearing false witness’? It is with just one false accusation that all lynch mobs first come into being.
“Mary McAleese speaks for the majority of Catholics in Ireland ”
With respect Mrs McAleese does not speak for me as a Catholic and I would doubt the accuracy of such a statement.