Europe | A modern country

Ireland votes solidly to allow abortion

The power of the Catholic church has faded away

|DUBLIN

IN 1979, when Pope John Paul II visited the Republic of Ireland, 1.2m people attended his open-air mass in Phoenix Park in Dublin—more than a third of the population of the country at that time. As many again turned up at other smaller venues.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “A modern country”

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