The Catholic Church has appointed one of the country's leading marketing experts, Mr Mark Mortell, as chairman of a new advisory board for its Communications Office in Maynooth.
Mr Mortell, (42) is a director of Fleishman-Hillard Saunders and a former Bord Fáilte chairman and commercial director of Aer Lingus.
The board has been set up by the bishops' conference to advise them on media matters, following what can only be described as some disastrous experiences at getting their message across.
The board will comprise of 12 people with other members to be appointed soon.
A former Fine Gael councillor, Mr Mortell has been head of marketing at Bank of Ireland Lifetime, marketing director of Ballygowan Spring Water, marketing manager at Mars Ireland, and brand manager at Guinness.
He was chairman of the Overseas Tourism Marketing Initiative prior to his appointment as chairman of Bord Fáilte in 1996.
Mr Mortell was managing director of Dimension, an advertising agency and consultancy in brand development and marketing within the McConnell's group.
A graduate of Dublin City University, he is married with two daughters.
Meanwhile, the director of the Catholic Communications Office and principal spokesman for the Irish Bishops' Conference, Father Martin Clarke, will become Dublin Diocesan Communications Director in September.
A new director for the Catholic Communications Office in Maynooth will be appointed following open-market recruitment.
A new secretary general of the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI) will assume office in September. Father Michael Drennan SJ, a member of the Clongowes Wood Jesuit community, assists in the formation of seminarians at St Patrick's College, Maynooth.
He will succeed Sister Elizabeth Maxwell, who completes her five-year term as CORI secretary general this summer. She then becomes provincial of the Northern Province of the Presentation Sisters in Ireland.
Sister Elizabeth said one of the highlights of her term was membership of the executive of UCESM, which represents European religious. While in western Europe the trends of ageing and low-recruitment numbers were the same, in eastern Europe the opposite was the case following the fall of communism.