“The traditional approach to religious practice doesn’t suit everyone,” says Patricia Melvin, a member the Co Mayo parish of Crossmolina.
Ms Melvin is among an increasing number of lay Catholics taking part in masses and other liturgies across the country.
They take part as readers, ministers of the eucharist distributing communion or, due to the absence of a priest, conduct a liturgy of the word. This latter is, essentially, a mass without a consecration, but where communion – consecrated beforehand – is distributed.
For her part, Ms Melvin recently led an Easter prayer walk from the church, through the town and to its graveyard. She last year organised a “Faith Fest” in the parish around St Patrick’s Day, which proved “very popular”.
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But it is in the particularly sensitive area of funeral rites that more lay people are becoming evident, though usually in the company of a priest.
Peter McLoughlin has conducted a funeral for a relative in Co Tipperary as the priest was on leave. He “led the prayers alone” at the home and in the graveyard and says no one took a bit of heed of the cleric’s absence.
However, it was different situation in Co Clare, Mr McLoughlin says. That, too, was a funeral for a relative, but he was declined permission to conduct it.
The result was, he says, “horrific” as another priest, who was unable to pronounce the dead man’s Irish name, took the lead.
Mr McLoughlin is a parishioner in Ballina, Co Mayo, where he is a member of the team of lay people helping to conduct funerals there and in nearby Enniscrone, usually in the company of a priest.
“There’s not even a ripple” from mourners at their presence, he says, also saying that many “really appreciate” having someone they know involved.
Anne Sweeney “looks after the rota” for the nine-strong funeral team in Ballina. It helps to conduct up to 120 funerals a year there, with each member involved in “10 to 12″.
She says she finds mourners “most appreciative” of their presence, with many “delighted to see a lay person present”.
They accompany the priest to wakes in a houses or funeral homes and co-lead prayers on the arrival of remains at the church, the final commendation at the end of the mass/liturgy and at the grave.
The team has set up a bereavement support group to help people deal with grief.
Ms Melvin has also assisted at funerals and has found mourners “remarkably positive” about her presence. She has conducted a liturgy of the word four times due to the absence of a priest and says “it went well” in all cases.
Ms Melvin, Mr McLoughlin and Ms Sweeney were among 64 people formally commissioned at St Muredach’s Cathedral, Ballina, by Archbishop of Tuam Francis Duffy last Tuesday to help out in Killala diocese.
The 42 women and 22 men had completed a two-year course in theology, culture and ministry at the Newman Institute, Ballina.
When put to Ms Sweeney that they might soon be even be conducting baptisms and officiating at marriages, she says: “We’re on a synodal pathway, not a synodal runway.”
The synodal pathway was initiated by Pope Francis in 2021 as a way of actively involving all baptised people in the life of the church.
Fr Brendan Hoban, spokesman for Killala diocese and co-founder in 2010 of the Association of Catholic Priests, has described it “as effectively Vatican II for slow learners”.
In a recent article in The Irish Times, Fr Hoban wrote that the rapid decline in priest numbers meant “change is beginning to percolate out of sheer necessity as inviolable defences thought to be proofed against reform are coming under siege”.
Killala priests, he says, “stumbled on the concept of synodality” in 2015 at “an annual groupthink wondering what we could do to arrest the obvious decline of the church”.
They spent two years thinking about it before deciding to ask the people in February 2017. This led to the first diocesan assembly in Killala in July 2018. What the people wanted was established and priorities were agreed, with an implementation committee set up in January 2020.
It meant that “now in 2025, exactly 10 years after the priest and Bishop [John Fleming, who retired last year] discussions of 2015, the people have found their voice”, Fr Hoban says.
Killala is one of the smallest diocese in Ireland. The largest is the Dublin Archdiocese where, spokesman Peter Henry says, “over the past two years lay ministries have been steadily developing, with over 1,000 people participating in education and training in the past year alone”.
Among these are 109 new lay parish catechists, 34 people who will look after youth ministry and 120 people who will assist with funerals. Many others had completed courses “to help adults develop their faith,” he says.
Next month, a Diocesan Pastoral Council will be commissioned by Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell. It has a lay majority and will advise him on pastoral matters.
Bishop of Limerick Brendan Leahy has said “we cannot postpone difficult decisions” in the diocese.
“We urgently need to take serious steps in terms of lay ministry. For instance, at this point, it should normally only be lay people saying prayers in funeral parlours or leading removal ceremonies.”
In a homily last Thursday at the Chrism Mass in St John’s Cathedral, Bishop Leahy said there was a “need to see lay people as members of pastoral unit teams”.
“We already have 24 out of 60 parishes without a resident priest. We have only one native Limerick diocesan priest aged under 50,″ he said, with “one ordination coming up in May”.
In Limerick, he said, they would “possibly have two ordinations in 15 years”.
“I don’t need to spell it out much more,” he said of the need for lay people to participate in the church’s funerals.
