Love’s Betrayal: the Decline of Catholicism and Rise of New Religions in Ireland

Book Announcement

SMA Member Peter Mulholland announces the publication of his new book Love’s Betrayal: The Decline of Catholicism and Rise of New Religions in Ireland.

Book Description

After discussing the relatively sudden emergence of new and exotic religious movements in ‘Catholic’ Ireland Mulholland traces the accelerating decline of Catholicism back beyond the clerical child sex abuse scandals of the 1990s and down through the decades-long campaign against corporal punishment in Church-controlled schools into the heart of the theology and anthropology that helped the institution to become a dominant force in Irish society.

He goes on then to apply attachment theory and related psychological insights in explaining how growing up in what was a religiously valorised, authoritarian and often abusive regime of primary and secondary socialization could undermine children’s psychological and relational development and contribute to incidence of schizotypy and a susceptibility to magical ideation and mystical, occult or otherwise extraordinary ‘religious’ experiences in later life.

Love’s Betrayal is available for Purchase

Review copies of Love’s Betrayal can be requested via the publisher’s order form (here) and the book is available for purchase in both digital and hard copy formats from order@peterlang.com and on Amazon.

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