I<\/span>t will be the first papal visit to Ireland in nearly 40 years.<\/p>\n W<\/span>hen Pope John Paul II visited in 1979, he was greeted by huge crowds, at a time when the Roman Catholic Church was deeply influential in all aspects of life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But Ireland is now a very different country \u2013 the Church\u2019s reputation has been deeply compromised by sex abuse scandals, divorce was legalized in a referendum in 1995 and in 2015 Ireland became the first nation in the world to make same-sex marriage legal.<\/p>\n The country is due to hold another referendum on its strict abortion rules in May.<\/p>\n \u201cThe number of people attending Mass is down, we have ageing priests, the seminaries are struggling and religious orders are closing down,\u201d said Mrs Collins.<\/p>\n The 81-year-old pontiff will arrive in Dublin on August 25 and will celebrate Mass the next day at Phoenix Park.<\/p>\n H<\/span>e caused outrage during a recent trip to Chile when he questioned the testimony of sex abuse victims and threw his support behind a bishop accused of covering up abuse.<\/p>\n Margaret McGuckin, from the\u00a0campaign group Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse, has led\u00a0calls for a special payment to be made to victims of abuse in Catholic residential homes in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n “I am sure people could get quite angry and irate that the Pope is still coming,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n “Our groups will be there to protest. There still remains a cover-up. We still know there has not been a proper investigation done into the abuses of the Christian Brothers.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n