At the centenary of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth in 1895, an assembly of a ‘clerical army’ consisting of a cardinal, three archbishops, 25 bishops, some 3,000 priests and 600 students gathered to articulate the triumphalist mood of the Irish Catholic Church at the time. In contrast, if we are to fast track to the present and to understand the comments made recently by Bishop Donal McKeown upon the shortage of priests in Down and Connor, and the effect it will have on the needs to meet the clerical demands in the coming years. The Catholic Church are advising of parishes that no longer will have a resident priest but will be serviced by a priest in an adjoining parish or in some instances from another country. If this continues there will be only one priest left to cover all the church functions – baptisms, marriages, deaths etc. Are we ready to let go of the Catholic Church’s rituals? Baptism, First Communion, Confirmation, marriage and burial are now rites of passage, but do we understand their theological foundations?
The Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) has drawn attention to the catastrophic decline of vocations to the priesthood and its implications for the survival of the Catholic Church in Ireland that is administered on an all-Ireland basis. At present the average age of priests is rising. More has to be done than agree that there is a problem. A decision has to be made on what has to happen. Shamed by the extent of sexual abuse scandals of the past and living in the 21st century, the proportion of the Irish population who identified as Catholics has fallen. In accepting normal vocations will continue, be them small in number, the ACP has suggested three short-term strategies: (1) ordain suitable married men (2) invite back priests who left to get married (3) ordain women deacons and eventually priests. In addition Bishop McKeown has identified how priests can be supported and has called upon lay people to become more involved.
In fairness, the Irish bishops have been seen to be doing something, not just co-ordinating but to study particular initiatives. The days of saying nothing and it might go away are gone. With the popes prior to Pope Francis, the bishops were in denial and Catholics despairing of any change were drifting away. We need vision and leadership, especially from bishops who have accepted the responsibility of leadership in the Church. Thankfully Pope Francis is now in Rome and encouraging every traditional bishop like our own to begin to talk seriously about re-imagining the ministry and priesthood for a very different Ireland. It’s comforting we have young bishops to take the next step and propose some workable solutions. Mark Patrick Hederman, the Benedictine priest and writer, in the past has said that the Catholic Church has not yet moved out of the 19th century and isn’t liberal enough for the modern 21st century. Will efforts be enough to arrest the decline of the Catholic Church in Ireland?
JAMES BARRY
Templeogue, Dublin 6
Catholics should hold on to their schools
The article – ‘Two-thirds of people in the north want integrated education’ (May 23) – has prompted me to put pen to paper once again.
Two-thirds out of how many? Personally, I have absolutely no enthusiasm for so-called integrated education – a nice euphemism for non-Catholic and pro-British ethos.
There are some who say they have experienced integrated education who claim they were encouraged to learn about other countries, cultures and traditions. Really? Did they learn about our own country, Ireland, re Britain’s 800 years of horrendous brutality, starting with the invasion and takeover of our country, bringing in settlers and giving our stolen land and homes over to them? And in order to sustain their forcible occupation of our country, Britain indulged in the penal laws, deportation and starvation, exporting 100,000 tons of wheat out of Ireland while millions of our people were dying of hunger.
Did they learn about Oliver Cromwell’s despicable terrorism here?
The above-mentioned article also states that 78 per cent want teachers to be educated together. This brings to mind Alliance’s Stephen Farry wanting the closure of St Mary’s Catholic teacher training college. No Catholic teacher training?
I suspect the whole idea behind all that is to eventually abolish our Catholic schools, which are conveniently being blamed as the root cause of division here, rather than the superb exam results they achieve.
Let us not forget, it is Britain who is responsible for the division and partition of our country, setting up a sectarian anti-Catholic state within six of the nine counties of Ulster. And that is the actual root cause of our problems here.
Yet, these contradictory pro-British politicians tell us all division must go, while they want to bring us all together under a totally farcical canopy of artificial British culture, all for the purpose of copper-fastening the division of our country. You can’t fool us all.
I strongly advise the Catholic population here to hold on to your schools.
C HUGHES
Belfast BT7
What part of ‘no’ does DUP not understand
The clamour of the election has subsided, the speculation wound down and the dreary spectre of the DUP, its boycott, its novel definitions of ‘democracy’, ‘consensus’ resurface.
And there were some interesting interventions about how this should be addressed. It was suggested to the president of Sinn Féin that that party should run fewer candidates; a Sinn Féin representative was also asked what their party should do to accommodate the DUP.
We ought to recall that the DUP intransigence is nothing to with local parties. It is to do with a deal struck between the British and the EU. Yet the DUP chose to punish citizens that had nothing to do with this deal. The British are unequivocal in saying the Windsor Framework is non-negotiable. What part of ‘no’ does the DUP not understand?
In the final analysis my view is that the time is well past when those who ponder about how the DUP should be got ‘on board’ get to realise that this is not in the gift of people and parties here and begin to emphatically remind the DUP that their actions are punishing people who have nothing whatever to do with its dissatisfactions with the British government.
MANUS McDAID
Derry City
Why is Church in a pickle?
A pastoral letter depicts a Church in a pickle. Now, what is going to replace it? Nothing or something else?
This should have been noticed years ago.
More interesting is why it has happened and when?
More women priests and a bottom-up approach to organisation is needed. Does it even understand what has happened?
J BROWNE
Belfast BT12
