Crisis does not mean the end

The Archdioceses of Armagh is reorganizing itself to respond to the declining number of priest and Sunday Mass attendance. In a Pastoral Letter to all the parishes and a press conference, on November 3, in the Armagh cathedral, Cardinal Sean Brady, Primate of All Ireland, explained how different churches will be clustered for the purpose of sharing facilities and priests to guarantee Mass in each parish. The first step towards the creation of true pastoral communities. “A crisis that can also be considered an opportunity. The decline in priest vocations we are experiencing can also been seen as an opportunity to involve all the baptized people in Christ’s mission in the community and Church,” Cardinal Bardy told his dioceses followers. Declining number of priests. “In the last decade we have been experiencing a decline in the number of priests in the western world and in Ireland”, the cardinal said. “In 1964 there were 186 diocesan priests, while today they are 138, 26 of which are retired. In the next ten to fifteen years the numbers will continue to drop”. How can we respond to this problem? “It is important to involve in a positive way each member of the parish in the church’s mission and decide how many priests are to serve in each parish. We have the opportunity of benefiting from the seed planted by the Church’s Bishops during the Second Vatican Council in Rome in the ’60s”.New role for lay people. “In the early centuries the Church had many gifts and services and many baptized people lived serving the community and society- archbishop of Armagh said – with passing of time the service role disappeared and was replaced by the idea that only ordained people have the adequate gifts to take care of the community. The Second Vatican Council will be remembered especially for the revival of the significance of baptism that invites us to participate in the life and mission of the parish community and society”.Clustering not merger. In his letter to the dioceses cardinal Brady gave a detailed explanation of how according to the new plan “between November 2008 and June 2009 different parishes will be clustered, not merged, for the purpose of sharing resources. At the beginning the decision on how many and which parishes will be in each cluster will be taken through meetings with representatives of each parish including priest, pastoral councils, members of schools and people involved in parish ministries.” Thus, each member of the parish will have its say, and when the first draft of the plan will be ready, again in Lent 2009 they will be involved in a meeting. Subsequently, the cardinal explained how problems due to decline in the number of priests must be tackled. There will also be novelties in Mass timetables and presence of priests in some parishes. Parishes of the same cluster will decide how many priests are to serve in each parish and what resources will be allocated to the employment of lay leaders in the cluster, the number of Masses to be celebrated at the weekend and on weekdays in each Church in the cluster. All the decisions taken in the two steps will be enforced in September 2010, after the archbishop’s approval. In the third step new parish structures and ministries will be developed and created enabling parishes to continue to function as Christian communities. Some of these ministries might include the employment of lay people to administrative or pastoral roles and the establishment of a pastoral co-ordination council for the cluster.Community communion. Quoting the words of John Paul II on the spirituality of communion the cardinal concluded by saying “the Armagh archdioceses is a communion of faith communities that support each other. As we embark on this process of renewing our structures we rely on this spirituality of communion to strengthen our parishes as vibrant faith communities in this 21st century”. Fact FileAccording to the latest issue of the “Statistical January of the Church”, (2006), 87% of the 4,339,000 inhabitants of the Republic of Ireland are Catholic. The rest of the population is divided as follows: 4.2% Protestants, 4.2% atheists or non-religious, 0.8% Muslim while 2.9% belong to other Christian confessions and religions. There has been an ongoing flow of immigrants since the mid 1990s.A single bishops conference (www.catholicbishops.ie) represents the 26 dioceses that are run by 2 Cardinals, 7 archbishops and 36 bishops. There are 6.202 diocesan priests, distributed among the 1,366 parishes and pastoral sees. There are 4,405 school establishments run by the Catholic Church, attended by a total of 796,464 pupils. 26.821 students attend catholic universities and higher education institutes. Catholic charity organizations amount to 360, divided into 52 hospitals, 25 ambulatories, 93 nursing homes, 16 orphanages, 34 kindergartens, 80 marriage counselling centres, 50 special hospitals and 10 more institutes.