Madam, - With the crisis in priestly vocations showing no sign of abating, and attendances falling at Catholic churches around the country, the trend towards clustering and amalgamation of parishes continues.
For the first time in our history the Hierarchy has called for active lay participation in securing the future of the Catholic Church in Ireland. The laity, as we all know, were once kept at arm's length and informed on a need-to-know basis of "church matters". Now lay people are being trained to play more supportive roles. The pastoral council has developed from being an administrative committee to cover all aspects of parish life.
Parishes will have to group together to share the available number of priests and other resources. The Church is finally recognising - or being forced to recognise - the outcomes of Vatican II and the importance of the laity's role in the Church.
Taking this one step further, the Catholic Church in Ireland is now faced with collaborative decision-making and the Hierarchy can no longer decide what to do without consultation and discussion with its flock. To its credit it is now actively seeking to engage with the laity at many levels.
No doubt thousands of people around the country are saying: "You try living in my parish and you will see who makes the decisions!" This is still true in many places, but realistically the priest is the servant of the people, who together make up the Church. This needs urgently to be understood.
I would like to see a serious debate on the future of the church. Apart from the issues mentioned above, there are questions of ownership. When "it is decided", for example, that there is no future for your local church and it has to close, what do you do? If the land into which your ancestors ploughed all their savings is to be sold off to developers, do you have a say?
In the UK, parishes have sought to retain churches and hire in priests for sacramental duties. The people maintain the church building and ensure it operates as a place of worship for the community. Many lay people lead services and prayer meetings and conduct many of the traditional tasks of a priest.
Is this the future for Ireland? - Yours, etc,
SHANE HALPIN,
Rathmullen Road,
Drogheda,
Co Louth.