The Primate of All-Ireland, Archbishop Seán Brady, has called for greater efforts to reduce the gap between rich and poor and blamed a culture of greed for the erosion of solidarity with the poor.
In a sermon yesterday, he said the gap between rich and poor in Ireland was second only to that of the US and was "a severe indictment of our failure to achieve a fairer distribution of wealth".
The Archbishop also affirmed the need to pay taxation to contribute to the greater good and questioned what he described as "the dehumanising culture of profit for the sake of profit".
He also challenged the "arrogance and pride" of those who stressed rights over responsibilities in society. There was evidence of growing alienation from "emptiness and transience and irreverence of so much in life today", he said.
Archbishop Brady was speaking at the blessing of Dom Augustine McGregor, the new Abbot of the Cistercian Abbey in Mellifont, Co Louth.
He praised Dom Augustine's vow of poverty and said his entire lifestyle questioned the "frantic search for possessions" as the road to happiness.
"By holding all you have in common, you affirm the obligation to contribute to the common good by taxation, support of neighbours and participation in voluntary organisations," he said.
"You radically challenge the greed, which erodes solidarity with the poor and militates against the just distribution of goods and services."
Such challenge was badly needed in Ireland given the gap between rich and poor, he said.
"Your example of attending to the poor should motivate all of us to an ever-greater simplicity of lifestyle and question radically the prevailing strategies for the accumulation of wealth in Ireland today."
Praising Dom Augustine's "loving obedience", he said this was a challenge to the arrogance of those who acted as if there was no accountability to God or each other.
In addition, he said, the Abbot's commitment to hospitality offered a radical challenge to the disintegration of community life in cities, towns and parishes.
"Your life and and your values are a radical challenge to the increasing number of people who sit easily with attitudes or superiority or suspicion and fear, attitudes which must be utterly rejected by any disciple of Christ."
The Archbishop said it was dangerous for society to forget its spiritual past. Much of what dominated Irish life and culture was specifically directed towards the desire to see what he described as "good days".
Mary and the counsels of religious life offered hope and a radical response to the spiritual listnessness and emotional stress of the modern world.
