Just one person is studying to become a Catholic priest in Dublin, it has emerged.
Father Séamus McEntee, vocations director for the archdiocese of Dublin, confirmed The Sunday Times’ report, and said the low number of successful applicants to the priesthood showed a broader ‘crisis of faith’ in the city.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin, which includes the city itself as well as most of the counties of Dublin and Wicklow, as well as parts of counties Carlow, Kildare, Laois and Wexford, is made up of more than a million believers.
With the total population in the area being nearly 1.6million, that means that more than two-thirds of the region is Catholic.
But the falling numbers of those willing to answer the call to service has resulted in massive changes to the individual parishes that make up the archdiocese.
Just one person is studying to become a Catholic priest in Dublin, it has emerged (File image of St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin)
The lack of priests in Dublin is reminiscent of hit TV show Father Ted, which follows the escapades of three lonely priests on a remote island
Last week, two parishes were forced to merge because neither had enough priests to continue regular services.
Father Niall Leahy, whose parish church on Gardiner Street just north of the centre of the city was forced into the merger, told the newspaper that older churchgoers would be left reeling from the loss of ‘capacity or power’ in their parish.
‘You can give all the reasons why it makes sense for us to no longer function as a city-centre parish, but the hard part is that it’s a community and an identity’, he said.
‘Regardless of function, people have a sense of attachment and belonging to their parish. That’s the loss, I would say. It’s people no longer feeling that this is their parish’, he added.
Part of the issue, Catholics say, is the long process for selecting candidates for priesthood.
Father McEntee said: ‘I have to discern with them for up to two years before I judge them fit to apply even.
‘Then they go forward for panel interview and different assessments and so forth before they go into propaedeutic [preparatory study] year in Valladolid in Spain.’
‘That seems to be it for the moment. There are a number of men in discernment. I am hoping over the next year or two years that more will put themselves forward.’
Father Gerry O’Connor, who is part of the leadership team of the Association of Catholic Priests, suggested that many people have been put off by previous scandals, including the systemic coverup of child sexual abuse across the world.
O’Connor recommended that the Catholic Church relaxes its rules on ordination, and should allow women to become priests.
‘There are good, married men of faith in each parish that could be excellent priests, part-time. There are probably way more women with the same skills and empathy,’ O’Connor said.
‘If you work in any of these parishes, you can’t quite see what the plan is by the diocese.
‘If they don’t ordain married men,’ he asked, ‘if they don’t ordain female deacons, where is the leadership going to come from?’
