Fewer Sunday Masses, a hunger for spirituality and the need
to pay lay people to keep parishes functioning is on the minds of
figures who are attempting to keep religion alive in Ireland.
As families join together to mark Easter, the
spoke to priests, nuns and lay people to hear their thoughts on what
they believe the role of the Church and priests in communities will look
like in the future.
While
the results of Census 2022 have shown there has been a 10% drop in the
number of people who identify as Catholics in Ireland and a 63% increase
in people having no religion since the last census six years ago, Fr
Tom Hayes in Clonakilty, Co Cork, believes people are desperately
searching for a sense of belonging. And he’s not alone.
“I
think the biggest changes there is that when I was a youngster,
practically everybody in the country went to Mass on Sunday and I never
had to ask why," he said.
"I think what's happened in the
interim is that now people who are going to Mass now are not going just
because of social conformity but they're going because they actually
have a deeper connection with what it means and what it's really about.
“I
think at the same time, you know, there's definitely more and more
people kind of searching and looking for a kind of a deeper connection.
“So
I think that makes for kind of a stronger faith community, even if it's
smaller in numbers, and it also has the capacity to grow on that
foundation then, which is a foundation of personal conviction."
Fr
Hayes said the older members of the faith communities are happy with
their beliefs and connection to God. Younger people are now more likely
to have questions, he believes.
“I think a lot of younger people are what I would call questing, you know, it's kind of a mixture of questioning and searching.”
He
said “life has gone into overdrive” particularly post the covid-19
pandemic and people never have time for themselves these days.
He said he believed younger people were realising “that there actually is something missing from their lives”.
Fr
Hayes said he had also noticed the number of people going into church
during the day randomly to stop and say a prayer had actually
significantly increased.
There’s a significant question
being posed by Church leadership about the reality of parishoners' roles
in parishes which is significantly changing. Fr Hayes believes parishes
will not survive into the future if their role remains passive.
“It's
going to be the parishioners that are going to keep faith in our
communities from here on in and the priests will continue to have a very
significant role but our role is going to be much more focused and
others are already stepping up anyway."
However, paying people to do the job needs to happen, Fr Hayes believes.
“We
also have to rethink. Lots of community groups and volunteer
organisations are feeling the pinch as well, given the economy is going
well, comparatively speaking, and we have almost full employment.
Relying 100% on volunteerism isn't always going to be easy.
“We're
also going to have to make resources available to provide a livelihood
for some people, for lay people who work in parishes.
“And
we've not had a great tradition of doing that in Ireland, because we
had so many priests and so many religious that it was never seen as a
need.
He said resources needed to be provided for people to be in the ministry as well as doing administrative work.
But is there money available to do this?
“My answer to that has always been, if there's a hole in the roof in the morning we find the money to fix it,” he said.
“This
is a hole in the faith community that needs to be fixed. So we need to
work to find the resources where you know, parishes have been very good
historically and continue to be very good at funding the maintenance of
buildings. We also need to fund the maintenance of ministry and the
faith life in the parishes,” he said.
Fr
James McSweeney in Carrigaline believes in just six years, the Church
will be hugely different to what it is today. This will include fewer
Sunday Masses due to the high number of priests that are due to retire,
with no replacements in some parishes.
“Simple math will tell you that the number of Sunday Masses will decrease because the priests will not be there to say them.
“The
Church will have to evolve to meet these changes. Within the family of
parishes, lay people will take up more leadership roles.
“There
will be less priests and more people trained to lead faith communities
in joyful occasions but also in the sad occasions such as bereavements
and funerals.
"Will this transition be easy or
straightforward? It certainly won’t. But if the Gospels are stories of
hope and good news, then we must look to the future with hope and
optimism.
“People have to step up and do it and they know that they are stepping up."
Fr
McSweeney also believes there is a “hunger for spirituality” out there,
to believe in something and to be connected to God in whatever ways
work best.
“In the last 12 months we've seen a big kind
of turnaround, more families coming back and younger people as well. I
genuinely do think that people are not walking away.”
He
also noted in the past 12 months there had been a “swing again” in
increasing Mass attendance and offertory collections are increasing,
particularly in Carrigaline.
Someone
attempting to get people to engage and reconnect with their faith is
pastoral worker Sr Karen Kent. She has moved around the country and is
now based in Tralee, Co Kerry, where she aims to get parents and
children involved with the Church.
Sr Kent and the parish
have developed a programme involving parents and children making their
Holy Communion or Confirmation which focuses on the long-term connection
with their faith and not just for the particular occasion. She hails
the programme for attracting parents back getting involved with the
Church, who may have not been to Mass in many years.
There
is a significant programme in place for pupils making their
Confirmation, which includes attending Mass, an online programme and
attending an evening at a local hotel which draws a large crowd.
It
includes round-table discussions where parents and children split into
separate groups to hear from people whose lives have been influenced by
God and the Holy Spirit.
“The children hear from four
different parishioners, each telling them their story and parents hear
from people about moving on their faith in life's journey alongside
their children and another individual will talk about social media and
its use for the good,” Sr Kent said.
Children and parents
also hear from the father of Donal Walsh, the Tralee teenager who shot
to prominence in 2013 for his campaigning against teenage suicide while
battling osteo sarcoma, a terminal form of bone cancer.
Fionnbar
Walsh speaks to the children about living life to their fullest —he is
there to talk about encouraging children and supporting children, Sr
Kent said. Of the 200 children making their confirmation, 180 attend the
hotel event, which “gathers momentum”.
Sr Kent agreed
with Fr McSweeney there is a hunger for connection and faith, however,
she said work needed to continue on giving people the confidence to be
open about their faith.
“A lot of people have faith but confidence to share it is not yet developed.
“People
who have grown up in the Catholic faith, they have faith but sometimes
they’re almost shy talking about it. We need to give them the
confidence."
Fr
Ronan Sheehan, one of the country’s youngest priests and based in
Ballincollig, Co Cork, said there were “critical moments” when he tried
to attract people to continue coming to Church.
Predominantly
this is after they attend a funeral Mass and he always tries to create a
sense of welcome in a bid to encourage people to return, not just for
religious occasions such as Easter.
The parish runs a
course for 10 weeks which gives people the opportunity to explore faith
and meaning together and learn the basics of faith.
“The
problem is how do you meet those people in order to invite them to kind
of participate in this? It’s an ongoing process," he said.
“It's a very basic introduction to Jesus to the Bible, to the church, and to kind of the Christian faith basically.”
Fr
Sheehan indicated he felt there was no longer the feeling of
integration in parishes and communities, which has led to a decline in
connection.
“Certainly when I was growing up, there was a
great integration of, you know, this is your parish. You belong here,
there was a huge culture of integration.
“The priests who
come into the school, everything's fairly neatly sewn up, you know, and
that's probably a lot of it was experienced in the countryside, even up
until maybe now it's probably totally just dying now."
His interaction with his local parish priest is what led him to joining the priesthood.
“I was inspired by the pastoral life by the pastoral life of my parish priest and I created some sort of space through prayer.
“There might have been a little call to action too,” he added.
Sitting at his kitchen table, Fr Sheehan admits it can be lonely being a priest, particularly given he’s a young man.
“You experience moments of loneliness but you can be married in a house full of people and experience loneliness as well.”
For
people who are curious or on the periphery of reconnecting with their
faith, Fr Hayes’ advice is to “dive in and get stuck in”.
“Get
involved in some local community group in a parish group. Join a
pilgrimage as a volunteer — it's a transforming thing to do. I've never
met anybody who said that I regretted doing something like that. It's a
kind of a growth moment for them.”
