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AN IRISH PRIEST has warned that the future of the Catholic Church in Ireland is in jeopardy as the number of priests in the country continues to dwindle.
Fr Brendan Hoban said that the church is “in denial about vocations to the priesthood”.
“When we try to pretend that everything is just as it used to be, that nothing has gone wrong, we do what the orchestra on the Titanic did, we keep playing, we pretend that everything is normal,” he said in an article for the Association of Catholic Priests. “That’s what denial is.”
In Mayo’s Killala diocese, there are now just seven priests under the age of 55 years old for 22 parishes. Tuam will have just 50 priests for 55 parishes by 2020, Hoban warned.
In 1984 there were 171 ordinations or religious professions in Ireland compared to the more recent figure of just 22 in 2006. There are now just 70 people studying for the diocesean priesthood in Ireland, with just 12 in Maynooth.
“We don’t need to have 20/20 vision to see this particular train coming down the track,” Hoban said. “All we need to do is to be able to count.”
The priest said a number of things could be done to address the problem, such as ordaining married deacons who already work in parishes as priests or fast-track education and formation for ‘men of proven faith’ in parishes. We could also invite priests who left to get married to return, he said.
“The reality is that in 20 years there will be few priests in Ireland and those that are still standing will be mainly in their 70s,” Hoban added. “So there is an inevitable logic with asking the question, Who will break the bread for us?”
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The air corps operate PC-9 aircraft, not “PT-9 aircrafts”
@Y U no spell good?: plus it’s Corps – nor Corp
They were used quite extensively during World War 1 I’m led to believe. Of course that was before they became solar powered.
@Awkward Seal: But once moving , they can revert to wind power .
@Ken Hayden:
As long as they’re flying downwind…
Pathetic. Finland with a comparable economy and population size to ours have 54 x F18 Hornets super sonic jet fighters as their main Air Defence capability and are (like us non aligned). We have 7 (yes just 7) PC 9 piston engine basic training aircraft. As our main Air Defence capability.
@Mick Jordan: Finland’s Neighbour is a little less benign than Teresa May….
@Mick Jordan: If Ireland went off and bought a few jets Paul Murphy would have a field day. I’d rather defend our country with biscuit tins than listen to that muppet again.
@Mick Jordan: A. They have Russia (who has attacked them before) on their doorstep. B. Enlighten us on how you figure the PC9 has a piston engine?
@Mick Jordan: 54 hornets isn’t much of a deterrent to the Russian airforce, however I take your point, we don’t need an air core really.
@Mick Jordan: F18 Hornets have a unit price of $70.5 million new. How many do you want us to buy?
@Chemical Brothers: if your talking about ww2 your going to have to give Germany a mention , Russia’s the big bad wolf these days they didn’t help beat Germany , they didn’t battle the brown lads , there just commis , we have the uk on our doorstep who invaded us before , don’t bloody forget
@Mick Jordan: we dont have, and dont claim to have, an air defense capability. Having said that we do have sam sites on key buildings in main city centres. Take a close look at liberty hall in dublin next time you’re there
@Keith Fay: Sam sites in Dublin city centre ?? You’re talking through your tin foil hat.
@Mick Jordan: they’re turbine engines but I get your point
@An bhearna: i read it in an irish air corps book, pictures in there too
@Keith Fay: they may deploy portable air defence options when there is a significant security risk e.g. EU council meetings but there are no permanent air defence installations in Dublin city
@Mick Jordan: Take a look at the size of the Finnish Airspace, and compare it to Irish Airspace
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: My point is that a country with approx the same size population and similar size economy to ours can afford to have a decent sized military as well as a much higher standard of living for the ordinary populace than we do. We should learn from them how they manage it, because our lot most certainly can’t.
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: we have a much greater fiscal space, we can’t control that either
turboprops- jet engines with props on the end…not pistons to be fair
@Mick Jordan: So you’d like 54 multimillion jets lying idle in Baldonnell ? Just to satisfy your juvenile envy ? Finland is next to Russia in case you didn’t notice. And how do you think they can afford it. ? High taxes. But you’d be first to bitch about that too.
@Paul Mc Nulty: If the High taxes were being spent to give us a far superior standard of living then there would be very little bitching as you put it. But as it is we already have some of the highest Income tax rates in the EU and very little to show for them.
What’s in that stuff, will Goldfinger and his team raid the banks when we’re all out cold?
Are the Irish air corp cape able of shooting down a aircraft??
@Conor O’Neill: 2 x Rocket Pods – Holding x 2.75” (70mm) ‘FN LAU 7’ Folding Fin Aerial Rockets
2 x .5” FN HMG – Each gun with a 250 round belt
@Conor O’Neill: that can be done from the ground with a handheld device
@Conor O’Neill: only someone like batman is cape able.
@Conor O’Neill: Yeah they are but they’d have to try catch up with them first, which would never happen.
@Conor O’Neill: Yes they have the RAFs phone number
@Conor O’Neill: No. We don’t have an air force that would do that type of thing. We have and air corps attached to the army who’s primary role is flight training, transport and fishery protection. In the 70′s the US offered us free F4 phantoms and the means to take care of them, we said no unfortunately. We still have a fighter squadron that exists on paper that was very modern during ww2, at that time we operated hawker hurricanes and others i can’t remember but today …. no air force.
Imagine the hassle of trying to use the DART if you are a wheelchair user this weekend in Bray
Just travel while the air show is on, sounds as though you’d have the train to yourself. Not saying that any wheelchair user has an easy time of it in Ireland. I know they don’t. I’ve heard tourists getting upset and frustrated by the lack of promised facilities. People don’t want extra help, they want basic aids so they can get around by themselves. I wish wheelchair users could take that much for granted.
What time?
@Jason Kilroy: 11am, literally says it in the first paragraph.
@Mark L: Literally ?
@Boganity: literally
ˈlɪt(ə)rəli/
adverb
in a literal manner or sense; exactly.
“the driver took it literally when asked to go straight over the roundabout”
synonyms: verbatim, word for word, line for line, letter for letter, to the letter.
informal
used for emphasis while not being literally true.
“I have received literally thousands of letters”
@Mark L: This was added later, I looked at the article first at about 6.45… Articles do get edited sometime..,
@Boganity: Numerically
@Lad: I literally read your comment
Typical. You wait all year for an air show and then two come along at the same time.
Sacred Heart – what next
If they call that ‘flying up the liffey’, I’m glad we’ve no plans to invade anyone at the moment
@Robert Gormley: How do they spare the petrol?
Was that it? Flew past with no real trail of smoke once! Are they coming back? That’s not really much of a treat now to be fair!
What a display of flying skill. If you blinked you missed it. A total joke. I ve seen more impressive flying displays in Stephen’s Green.
Time for an upgrade think a few f 35s are for sale on some deal
@P: Easily hacked as well costs 100 million each with a 50 million per jet to fix… So 150 million each then?
There’s some extremely amateur footage of it on my Twitter for anyone that missed it: https://twitter.com/RikMon23/status/887977997076238337
Hope it keeps fine for them, understand they are not too good in bad weather.
Total waste of taxpayers money, for a glorified ministerial air taxi service.
Scrap it & re- assign the funds to our navy, with heli pad vessels, & expanded fleet.
We already have to contract in our air emergency service, so what purpose does it serve?
No jets, they just call the RAF up for that lol.
have your say