Best Catholics in the World, The
The Irish, the Church and the End of a Special Relationship
The Number One Bestseller
Shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards 2021
'A great achievement . . . Brilliant, engaging and essential' Colm Tóibín
'At once intimate and epic, this is a landmark book' Fintan O'Toole
When Dubliner Derek Scally goes to Christmas Eve Mass on a visit home from Berlin, he finds more memories than congregants in the church where he was once an altar boy. Not for the first time, the collapse of the Catholic Church in Ireland brings to mind the fall of another powerful ideology - East German communism. While Germans are engaging earnestly with their past, Scally sees nothing comparable going on in his native land. So he embarks on a quest to unravel the tight hold the Church had…
Derek Scally has written for the Irish Times since 2000. He is based in Berlin. His first book, The Best Catholics in the World, was a number one bestseller and was shortlisted for Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2021.
The Best Catholics in the World
Derek Scally