This "confronts us with something new, but something we do not clearly understand.

"There are hardly any priests or practising Catholics.

"We feel perplexed, even that the Lord has abandoned us. We feel that we have lost our way" Archbishop Dermot Farrell told a group of Catechists.

"These are important parts of our journey."

The "memory of huge numbers, and of a secure, strong Church" can be "a very painful learning for us". He said this during a ceremony where 45 lay people received certificates after completing a year-long course in Catechesis (teaching Christianity).

"Generously, you have given of your time - to engage with your faith" he said.

But the ceremony - and the need for it in the first place - is something new for the Church, he pointed out.

"Even 20 years ago, hardly anyone here could have imagined an evening like this.

We've changed

"Our country has changed, our lives have changed, and the expression of our faith - which is an expression of our lives - has changed" the archbishop said.

The Church "happens in our lives. As we change, our Church changes. We are called to recognise how the Church is changing and discern where the Good Shepherd is leading us" he said.

Farrell compared human life to a journey. Our faith lives are also journeys he commented. And, "the Church is our journey in faith together".

The journey's current stage is in a new environment with a diminishing number of priests available to serve in the Archdiocese's parishes and other ministries.

At the same time, there are fewer and fewer people who celebrate the sacraments regularly, and a need for increased resources required to maintain the existing parish infrastructure, he said.

Parish cooperation

The changes in priestly and congregational numbers, combined with today's infrastructure costs mean "it is no longer possible for me to appoint a resident priest to every parish" the archbishop said.

That means parishes will have to step up their cooperation to provide sacraments and pastoral care, Farrell explained.

Lay Catholics will need to help out.

It will require "a much greater involvement of the lay faithful in the partnerships of parishes to enable them to fulfil their mission and ministry".

It would always be "a little flock that takes the way of Jesus to heart; it will always be a little flock that will have the courage to follow him, and the generosity to give as he gives" he said.

New generations are needed to "lead new generations on the way of Christ, to guide and empower their peers to receive the gift of God".

It was "not about who will say our Masses, or who will teach the faith" he said.

"Let us pray for people - young women and men who would ‘hear his voice,' entrust themselves to it, witness to it and show us all how God is near" he said.

Source

• The Irish Times

Martin made the comment after attending Ireland's national pre-synodal assembly this week.

"The question is — what next?

"We are still not entirely certain, but we are open to what the Holy Spirit might be saying and to a quiet and gentle renewal of the faith. We are moving from maintenance to mission.

"In order to make space for something new, we have to accept that there is no point in trying to maintain a particular form of the life of the Church which was for a different time."

The facts are clear. In 2016, people identifying as Catholic in Ireland made up 78.3 percent of the population (approximately 3.7 million people), down from 84.2 percent in the 2011 census. It's predicted the 2022 census will show a further decline.

Ireland also has an ageing clergy and few vocations to the diocesan priesthood or religious life.

Martin noted the past year's synodal conversation with people all over Ireland culminated in the assembly, which was a moment to hear the fruits of that conversation.

"One of the things that is coming across is the (pre-)synodal conversations - an awful lot of people are very passionate about their faith in Jesus Christ ... with the Church. But they want the church to be open to something different," he says.

There are some big barriers to renewal though.

Feedback to the assembly revealed "a despair among a lot of our young people, a lack of hope, and a lack of a sense of purpose" and at the same time "a belief in faith, in hope and in love". This is "what we are trying to rekindle in the life of the Church," Martin says.

His confrere, Archbishop Dermot Farrell, says clerical sexual abuse had irreparably damaged the church's reputation in Ireland. This could spell the end for Catholicism in Ireland if major changes were not implemented within the church, he warned.

He said evidence of Christian belief in Ireland today "has, for all intents and purposes, vanished" and this "underlying crisis of faith was particularly acute among the younger generations". He added, "The current model of the church is unsustainable".

Martin has a more hopeful view.

"We are moving into a new period of evangelisation, recognising that many people - even those who have been baptised in the faith - perhaps don't have a personal relationship with Jesus, don't have a personal sense of God, and indeed maybe don't have a sense of direction in their lives," he says.

"We are trying to find new ways of communicating the joy of the Gospel, which is very much a theme that Pope Francis has been revealing to the Church during his pontificate."

He stresses the importance of reaching out to young people who "are living in a very different space," suggesting the Church play an important pastoral role among an increasingly disaffected youth.

Source

• The Tablet
• Catholic News Service