Bishop praises the ‘courage’ of ten trainees for priesthood
TEN ‘men of courage’ have begun training to be priests in Ireland, and have been praised by a bishop for ‘going against the cultural norm’.
This is one more than the nine who began clerical studies last year, bringing the total number training for Irish dioceses to 56.
The students are undertaking their propaedeutic [or introductory] programme in the Redemptoris Mater Seminary, Dundalk, the Royal English College in Valladolid, Spain, and the Royal Scots College, in Salamanca, Spain.
Chairman of the Bishops’ Council for Vocations, Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan, said: ‘The men who have gone forward for training for priesthood in Maynooth are to be applauded. ‘They are certainly going against the cultural norm. God is still calling, and there are men of courage who are answering Him.’
Father Willie Purcell, National Diocesan Vocations Coordinator for the Bishops’ Conference, said: ‘These men are counter-cultural and by entering the seminary they show the world that God never ceases to call men to priesthood.’
He noted that the new priests were joining at a time when Ireland and Catholic communities around the world were working for ‘the renewal of the Church in our respective dioceses and parishes’.
Contributors to Ireland’s synod report last month called for penance and atonement at a national level for historical abuse, and the concealment of that abuse by the Catholic Church.
The report also called for sweeping reforms in the way the Church deals with and involves women, LGBTQI+ people, the divorced and separated and single parents.
The new report was based on a widespread consultation with churchgoers, the clergy and the wider community in Ireland’s 26 dioceses starting last autumn, and was forwarded to Rome as part of the worldwide synodal process of listening launched by Pope Francis. Overall, the number of men studying for the priesthood is dwindling year-on-year, with 13 in 2020, 15 in 2019 and 17 in 2018.
The ban on women priests, the continued requirement of celibacy and the loneliness of the vocation have all been cited as reasons for the declining interest in taking holy orders, along with a societal shift away from the current model of organised Catholic religion.
Meanwhile, priests must continue working to the age of 75 before they can retire, with many very elderly priests attempting to run a cluster of parishes, with no one to take over from them.
The number is dwindling yearly