大象传媒

Ireland's Catholic priests are on the warpath.

They have left their pulpits in their hundreds and marched on Dublin to campaign for reform and modernisation from a church many of them have served for decades, which now, though, has denounced them as traitors.

For Heart and Soul from the 大象传媒 World Service, Ruth McDonald examines how Ireland, once the most loyally-Catholic of countries, has come to a point where its clergy are now at war with the Vatican, over celibacy, divorce and the role of women.

How will this revolution play out in a country still shaken by the scale of sexual abuse, cover-ups by Bishops and an increasing secularisation?

(Image: Pope Benedict XVI blesses the faithful at the end of a Pentecost Mass inside St Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican. Credit: AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)