The decline of Christianity in Ireland is leaving a dangerous vacuum that is being filled with “pagan spiritualty, religion and worship”, the Fr Billy Swan, the Administrator of Wexford parish has warned.

Pope Francis recently said the Church must confront forms of paganism in secular culture, describing the air we breath as “a gaseous pagan god”, while in Ireland, a recent report from the Iona Institute shows people are increasingly ditching traditional church weddings for ‘New Age’ style ceremonies.

Writing in the Irish Catholic, Fr Billy Swan said that “there is evidence that Ireland is ‘re-paganising’ or reverting to the worship of false gods like it did before we accepted the Christian faith back in the 5th Century”.

Echoing his warning, Prof. Patricia Casey, cited the risks of people “dabbling in the occult”.

“The occult is very dangerous because it takes people into all kinds of things like devil worship, witchcraft, pornography – people actually working in tandem with the devil. It leads people into very dark things and into a very dark perspective on life that worships evil, because that’s what devil worship is about, it’s worshipping evil and that’s obviously very concerning.”