Former Newsweek journalist Robert Blair Kaiser has made a dramatic call for Irish Catholics to establish their own home-grown church by demanding that the bishops "get the hell out of your cathedrals."

Blair Kaiser, who was speaking at the opening of the Humbert Summer School in Co Mayo, also said he believes that the Irish grandmother who is urging Irish women to boycott Mass in protest at the way women are treated in the Irish church has started a revolution.

The controversial author and journalist said he believes that for the Irish to fix what he calls their "broken church" they need to make it "more Irish, less Roman."

Blair Kaiser, who reported on the second Vatican Council for Time magazine, said that the battle for the Irish Catholic church has already been started by 80-year-old Jennifer Sleeman, who has called on Irish women to boycott Sunday mass on September 26 to let the Vatican and the Irish church know women are tired of being treated as second-class citizens.

Said Blair Kaiser: "I have every reason to believe that you can take back your church - your church, not the Pope's church, your church - not the bishops' church."

To accomplish this takeover the author suggested that Irish Catholics create what he called an autochthonous or local and from-the-ground-up church.

"Irish Catholics could establish a home-grown church by demanding bishops get the hell out of your cathedrals and elect their own bishops who would serve the people as listeners, not lords,' the author argued.