Religion in Exile— A Spiritual Homecoming
“I have never read a more fiery and convincing criticism of all religions than this,” William Cleary writes of Religion in Exile. He, author of a dozen books on prayer, explains: “For [Diarmuid] O’Murchu, spirituality is primary and healthy, but religion takes you out of your instinctive spirituality—which should be based on your natural and personal experiences of the scared—and out of your soul’s native land into exile.”
As a social psychologist, O’Murchu, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, where now he lives, writes: “Whereas religion was an inherited cultural wisdom, spirituality was an innate endowment. We are born into the world as spiritual people, and ironically it seems that the existence of religion is largely responsible for inhibiting, or even preventing people from taking a more direct ownership and responsibility for their spiritual lives….”
A priest of the Sacred Heart Missionary Order, O’Murchu is “certainly destined for trouble with Rome,” Cleary once predicted. And, sure enough, Catholic Online states that his “underlying presuppositions” (albeit in a different book) are in “open conflict with the teachings of the Church.” Nevertheless, last year he won the Catholic Press Association’s Book Award for Faith and Science. Interesting figure, Diarmuid O’Murchu.
Religion in Exile—A Spiritual Homecoming, by Diarmuid O’Murchu
Crossroad Publishing Company, 2000
