J.R.R. Tolkein, who knew a thing or two about myth-making, observed that “the term ‘Celtic’ is a magic bag into which anything may be put, and out of which almost anything may come … Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight, which is not so much a twilight of the gods as of reason.”

How right he was. “Celtic Christianity” has become the vessel into which we have poured and projected our dreams of a purer, more open and gentle Church, free of all the nasty things we find in the real-life Church.