‘Great change’ needed in Dublin’s ageing Catholic Archdiocese, says report
Patsy McGarry from The Irish Times reports:
Almost half of the 312 priests in Dublin’s Catholic Archdiocese are more than 70 years old, with just two students preparing for priesthood.
Catholic priests retire at 75, which means that the 139 now more than 70 will have retired by 2026, leaving 173 ageing clergy to serve Dublin’s 1.1 million Catholics.
According to the last census in 2016, 70 per cent of Dublin’s 1.57 million population identified as Roman Catholic. Of those aged 25-29 then, just more than half identified as Roman Catholic, while a fifth of Dublin’s total population recorded no religion.
Link to article:
Link to the Building Hope Task Force report:
https://dublindiocese.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Building-Hope-Task-Force-Report.pdf
Report on Dublin’s ageing Catholic Archdiocese…
From Page 1 of this Report:
“We also acknowledge that some issues raised in the consultation are beyond the scope of this Task Force and thus are not reflected in this strategy.”
Left to guess at what those issues might be we must read the whole report to make a deduction.
Result:
No mention of the canonical ligatures that strangle parish co-responsibility at birth and feed alienation also, to the detriment of volunteering.
No frank acknowledgement of the complete inadequacy of the school-reliant model of faith formation and sacramental preparation, and the consequent need to move decisively towards the parish-and-parent model already pioneered in Dublin. .
So why is the term ‘strategy’ employed here, when all it can do is feed cynicism?
When realism is beyond the scope of a Task Force what hope has Hope?
Report on Dublin’s ageing Catholic Archdiocese…
Is this all there is about women in the 26 page document? “6. Women’s role in the life of the Church, and the sense of marginalisation expressed by many women, must be recognised and addressed to ensure their full participation at both central and local levels”.
What is needed in Dublin and in every parish in Ireland is more women/men married priests. That is a very simple answer. Otherwise every can is going to be kicked down the road for several more months and maybe a year or two. Meanwhile, we go through all theses meaningless hoops and everybody ends up even more exhausted and disillusioned!