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Ireland’s Catholic Church down to one priest per parish

By
DONAL THORNTON
,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Monday, November 16, 2009, 8:07 AM
Updated Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 12:14 PM

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Ireland’s Catholic Church down to one priest per parish | Irish News | IrishCentral




Read more: Dublin, Christianity, Culture and Lifestyle, Religion, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin
There is only one priest per parish in Ireland
There is only one priest per parish in Ireland

There are barely enough priests to preach in Dublin's 199 parishes.

According to Dublin's Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who spoke about the challenges the Church faces at Dublin's Pro-Cathedral on Saturday, “We have 46 priests over 80 and only two less than 35 years of age. In a very short time we will just have the bare number of priests required to have one active priest for each of our 199 parishes."

Highlighting that an aging clergy was the biggest challenge the Church faced, he said that priests over 70 years of age outnumbered priests under 40 by 10 to one.

Several members of the clergy have voiced their concerns about the declining number of priests in recent months.

Father Brendan Hoban, parish priest at St. Muredach's Cathedral in Ballina, County Mayo, said there will be only eight priests out of the current 34 with only two or three of them under the age of 60.

"The difficult truth is that priests will have effectively disappeared in Ireland in two to three decades," Hoban said.

Martin also hinted at having to ration Masses if the problem worsens.

“The future will require different structures and different planning,” he said. “Parishes will have to work more closely with each other and share facilities. The number of Masses will have to be rationed. Some of these changes will cause pain.”

Ireland was renowned for having a massive priest population, but since the 1980s there has been a marked decline in those wishing to join the priesthood. The revelations of child abuse and the issue of celibacy have contributed to a lack of interest in the priesthood and a declining congregation.

Acknowledging that the child abuse scandals have had a detrimental effect on the Church's congregation, Martin says the Church has “to repent for the failings of its own members who betrayed their mission of shepherd.

“Shepherds have failed through a sheer lukewarmness, through negligence, through lack of real commitment to Jesus and His message. The abuse of children is a heinous crime, especially when it was perpetrated by those entrusted with the mission of the Good Shepherd.

“The Church and its institutions must repent, but that repentance must result in renewal, and in a renewal which may not produce conformity and symbioses with the thought patterns of the day,” he said.

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Posted by vincentruane on Nov 24, 2009, 07:36 PM EST
Your lack of knowledge plasticpaddy or your pretend lack of knowledge of the Catholic Church's contribution to world history and to Irish history raises sincere questions about one,your knowledge base, or two:your integrity. It was the Catholic Church more than any other organization that held the Irish nation and the Irish people together for the last 1500 years or more.
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Posted by plasticpaddy on Nov 24, 2009, 06:19 PM EST
Replace one illusion with another no thanks Ulster1, the Catholic church is bad enough, no need to bring in organisations who allowed for and actively encouraged the murder and starvation of millions of innocent Irish men and women over the last 900 years. Also Vincent the Catholic Church has doen nothing but hold the country back physically and mentally on an individual and societal basis.
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Posted by vincentruane on Nov 22, 2009, 05:04 PM EST
My God: How quickly you rush to deny the Catholic Faith that done so much to shape the character of Ireland or Europe for over 1500 years or more.It is interesting that only one of you even briefly refers to the Bible. Your display of ignorance of the Catholic Faiths contribution to the Irish people is an enlightening light on where your true interests lie. I have no doubt your anti-Catholic views would have brought a smile to the face of Cromwell. It is time for all of you to be getting your Rosary beads and to start reading about the coming warning at Garabandal.
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Posted by Ulster1 on Nov 19, 2009, 03:58 PM EST
It's time to reform this Roman church to become protestant and Christian. It has happened recently in Guatemala,where 40% of the people are now Protestant.
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Posted by DwaineOD on Nov 19, 2009, 10:36 AM EST
Its high time priests were allowed to get married. Ordaining women is long past due also.
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Posted by Watereskhill on Nov 17, 2009, 11:15 PM EST
All this schlock and syrup about 'shepherds' in this report. Martin saying that the Church 'needs to repent' I don't see or hear of any of them asking forgiveness? Since children and retarded people in Catholic Institutions(rent the movies The Magdaleen Sisters and Song For a Raggie Boy) are protected by these days by alert parents and guardians--they are probably on the hillsides shaggin' sheep. This 'Celibacy' crap has wreaked more havoc than divorce, contraception, or any gay boy shocking his family that he wants to marry his best buddy at school.'Catholic' Ireland and it's granite monuments are destined for the guide-books in my opinion. Like the ancient stone Maya temples in South America. And God knows there was enough slaughter of innocents an 'holy sacracifices' offered there. Whimpering here that there will only be one priest to a parish if that? The number of Masses 'rationed' and such changes will bring pain? Then the exquisite tour-de-force "A renewal that will not bring conformity and symbioses with the thought patterns of the day". They still want to sit in their ivory towers of mysticism and power--that have collapsed. Slainte.


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