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Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland

Catholic church preparing for priestless parishes

The Irish Catholic newspaper has reported that Catholic bishops are drawing up radical new plans for laypeople-led Sunday services.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH in Ireland is laying down plans for parishes that may be left without a priest as the number of clergymen continues to decline.

According to an exclusive report in The Irish Catholic newspaper, bishops are drawing up proposals for parishes to hold Sunday services led by laypeople for the first time.

Deputy Editor Michael Kelly says the problem in larger parishes will become more acute in future as churches who used to have a number of priests will be left with just one. “As the number of priests continues to decline and faced with an increasingly older age profile, Church leaders are being forced to take radical action that just a few years ago would have seemed unthinkable.”

Citing sources, the newspaper said the matter is to be discussed at a meeting of the church’s hierachy in Maynooth in October. Prior to that, a discussion document which will set out ideas for what parishioners can do when there is no priest to say Mass will be circulated to senior leaders.

Laypeople will be expected to take a lead role but married deacons, eight of whom have already been ordained, will co-ordinate liturgies in the absence of a priest.

Nun-led ‘Mass’

Today’s report comes after it emerged that a nun was not granted permission to lead a communion service at a county Wicklow parish last weekend.

RTÉ’s Liveline reported that a religious sister led a liturgy, preached a homily and distributed Holy Communion after a priest failed to turn up for the Sunday evening mass in Blessington. One listener described the celebration as “absolutely lovely and very moving”.

A spokesperson for Archbishop Diarmuid Martin told The Irish Catholic that the liturgy in Blessington was “unprecedented” and described it as a “one-off event”.

She confirmed that for Sunday celebrations to take place in the absence of a priest, the explicit permission of the archbishop ought to have been sought.

Such services are commonplace in parts of continental Europe where the vocations crisis has left many parishes without priests. However, Church leaders in Ireland have been reluctant to adopt the plan, seeing it as a last resort.

Exceptional circumstances

It is understood Irish bishops are keen that the term ‘communion service’ is not used to avoid confusion among parishioners who may think they are attending Mass.

It will also be made clear that such services should only happen in exceptional circumstances where there is no possibility of getting a priest. While the hierarchy will make provision for services with Communion on a Sunday, it is understood that weekday celebrations with the distribution of Holy Communion will not be sanctioned. Instead, parishioners will be trained to lead services with readings from the Scriptures.

Church leaders are increasingly faced with the dilemma of what to do when there is no priest to celebrate Mass. The average age of priests in Irish parishes is 64 and as scores retire each year, just a handful of newly-ordained men are available to take their place. This compares to the 1960s and 1970s when a newly-ordained Irish priest would have to spend the first few years of his priesthood abroad, having no hope of securing a vacancy at home.

The Irish bishops would have to apply to the Vatican for the plans to be approved, something that the Holy See has already done for several other countries including France, Belgium, the United States and Australia.

The Irish Catholic is out today.

Read more in the Irish Catholic>

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    Mute Craig Clancy
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:18 PM

    They haven’t paved the way with any incentives to be carbon neutral in 100 years time never mind 2050..no planning, no decent ideas just going with the flow and tax tax tax hoping it will work.

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    Mute Geoff Bateman
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:34 PM

    @Craig Clancy: correct

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    Mute Quoka
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:44 PM

    @Craig Clancy: Exactly. Policies like this are all fart and no poo. The threshold temperature rise for continued planetary warming has been passed irreversibly by many accounts. We didn’t heed the warnings decades ago. The damage has for the most part been done there’s just a lag in consequences. Moreover we literally have exactly zero idea how to stop it, let alone reverse it. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try but we literally have no idea how to maintain our present lifestyle and halt what’s coming.

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    Mute John Mulligan
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 4:26 PM

    @Craig Clancy: 6,000 forestry licenses held up by a bungling bureaucracy. So many obstacles now to planting trees that new planting is running at a tiny fraction of target.
    If we can’t do the simple things, and if a random crank can stop farmers planting trees, how will we manage the big stuff?

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    Mute Kipper O Keeffe
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:22 PM

    All this is another way to tax people

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    Mute The Bolt
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:14 PM

    That man would give an Anadin a headache

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    Mute Derek Baldy Head Baldrick
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 5:17 PM

    @The Bolt: I’d imagine some of the electorate are clamoring for the next election when as far as they’re concerned it might be time to see who’s who. I’m sure the opposition will increase the pressure and that there will no doubt me some crass comments getting bandied about :)

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    Mute Dave Byrne
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:49 PM

    Could the Journal do a story on why sleepy needs so many advisors 8 I believe.

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    Mute Derek Lyster
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 4:05 PM

    @Dave Byrne: because he hasn’t a scooby doo about what he is supposed to be doing?

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    Mute John Mc Donagh
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:34 PM

    It can be done! Everybody has just to stop everything—That includes eating, drinking and traveling.

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    Mute ed w
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:14 PM

    landmark day for greens concreteing the countryside

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    Mute Donal Desmond
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:16 PM

    @ed w: Landmark day for tax increases on behalf of the baby Blueshirts..The Greens.

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    Mute Dave Barrett
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 5:50 PM

    @ed w: All beef to be done away with and replaced with beef tasting veggie burgers. People’s diet to be modified so as to cut down on poo and farting.

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    Mute inflation is coming... buy physical silver.
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 4:12 PM

    A great day for central bankers and corporations as the so called president of people gives the green light for further deficit spending for years to come. Welcome to the debt slave society all.

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    Mute Tim
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 4:16 PM

    Do you still have the big diesel car Eamon?

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    Mute Ciaran O 'Reilly
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:19 PM

    Someone needs to reinvent the airplane so.

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    Mute eoin carroll
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 4:36 PM

    What does this mean? Will Eamon Ryan be arrested if this target isn’t met?

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    Mute DB
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 5:51 PM

    Good auld Eamonn let’s tax the living day lights out of everyone to give him a hard on to be carbon neutral .

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    Mute Padraic McDonagh
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 5:57 PM

    It’s disappointing that Micky D will sign any auld shi’ite that comes his way. He was a public servant with principles, only to retire as a yes man.

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    Mute Eugene Canning
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 4:33 PM

    All the houses he’s going to build after his official retirement will be carbon neutral!

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    Mute Damian Moylan
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 6:22 PM

    Why in this rush to push people to buy new cars is there no account taken at all in how much co2 it costs to actually make a car (of whatever variety) and it is significant. The actual total co2 would be the manufacturing co2 in tonnes divided by the car life span plus whatever comes out the back but this is not considered.

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    Mute Ilarion Cibu
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    Jul 24th 2021, 12:21 AM

    @Damian Moylan: what is also completely disregarded is battery utilisation which causes Humongous pollution in to the atmosphere because there is no technology to utilize Lithium-ion batteries that EV are driven , you know how they are being utilised? BURNT DOWN – thats how. And the battery life is 200-300k km. And when theres going to be enough EV’S its going to be a natural disaster when theres millions of batteries to be burnt.

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    Mute Gerard Heery
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 7:27 PM

    Taxed into the grave ye will go ,meanwhile I wonder how all the six litre SUVs are doing in the oil rich counties

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    Mute john smith iv
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:42 PM

    Need to stop the cows farting.

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    Mute Aido
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:54 PM

    @john smith iv: seaweed

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    Mute brendan o connell
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 11:29 PM

    China puts out more emissions in an hour than Ireland puts out in a year, not to mention the US with their 8 mile per gallon cars , India, Pakistan, Russia south America Africa etc , tis laughable indeed, we don’t amount to a hill of beens but we will suffer as those mentioned have no possibility of conformity .

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    Mute trebloc01
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 6:04 PM

    The biggest producer are the Greens.

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    Mute Gary Kearney
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    Jul 24th 2021, 3:37 PM

    @trebloc01: They do produce a lot of hot air that is true.

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    Mute Geoff Bateman
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:34 PM

    and if we dont?

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    Mute Dónal Ó Keeffe
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    Jul 24th 2021, 10:39 AM

    Have all these proposals been proofed against those on the average industrial wage. Impractical proposals and taxes disguised as green initiatives will do nothing to effect climate change. Global agreements are the only solution. USA/China/india/russia account for 55% of global fossil fuel emissions alone. Unless these 4 have similar proposals then all the rest of the world can only achieve less than half of what is required. Green party needs to live in the realworld and align themselves with greenpeace etc. to make themselves credible, and force real change not just contracts for their supporters.

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    Mute Mairtin Thornton
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 4:52 PM

    Maybe cut down on the planning permission for Data centres!!!

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    Mute Mairtin Thornton
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 4:59 PM

    Maybe focus on reducing planning permission for data centres

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