A NATIONAL assembly of Catholic bishops, priests and laity would present "no difficulty" for the Bishop of Killaloe, Most Rev Willie Walsh, "if people thought it would be worthwhile," he has said.
But he had concerns that such a national assembly "could descend into discussing issues that are outside of our influence, such as the ordination of women and priestly celibacy that may well lead to more frustration," he said.
He continued: "I think the best things happen locally. You could have a national assembly, but, if people in the parishes don't see it as affecting them in the parishes, it won't have a great influence."
In an interview for the current edition of the Irish Catholic weekly he agreed that in the church, while there "has been a lot of dialogue at parish and even diocesan level, dialogue hasn't been there nationally".
Meanwhile, a former secretary of the dissolved National Conference of Priests of Ireland (NCPI), Fr Pascal Scallon, has called on Church leaders to set up a national assembly to address the "major challenges" facing the Church.
Fr Scallon told the newspaper that he felt the Church in Ireland needed "a national assembly that can bring together lay people, priests and bishops to look at the issues facing the church into the future".
"Nobody is held to account in the church," he said, "it's well past time that we had a national assembly."He felt such an assembly would have to meet on a regular basis "to ensure proper accountability" and he suggested that such a gathering should happen once a year.
"A one-off event would be useless," he said, and "it wouldn't matter what it decided, as there would be no comeback with a one-off event, no responsibility, and no one would be reporting back to anyone. A proper forum would have to set an agenda, and report back, say after a year, on progress. And, if there's been no progress, an assembly would have to ask why," he said.
He felt that "lay people in Ireland are very frustrated, there's a growing sense of frustration and unless this is addressed they will drift away. The church has to be serious about consultation. Consultation implies that it will be acted on, there's no use in consultation where people are asked for their input and that input has no impact on decision making."
He warned that "the days of docility are gone, there is tremendous energy in the church, but there's nothing to enable this energy". The NCPI had been calling for such a national assembly for many years before its dissolution last year.
