IRELAND
Irish Central
Niall O’Dowd @niallodowd April 19, 2017
WANTED: Clean-living young men for a long career. Women need not apply. Responsibilities: spiritual guidance, visiting the sick, public relations, marriages (own marriage not permitted).
Hours: on call 24/7.
Salary: basic stipend only.
Such was the way Time magazine a few years back illustrated how the Catholic Church in Ireland needed to regenerate itself. The ads went pretty much unanswered.
At the time Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin said, “If more young priests aren’t found quickly, Ireland’s parishes may not have enough clergy to survive.” …
But even if there were more priests, Mass attendance in Ireland is down sharply, due in part to the string of sex scandals that humiliated the Church. More than one in five people say they are no longer Catholic, a worrying figure for a church that once had close to 95 percent of the population.
We are watching a slow march to oblivion for the Church unless something dramatic changes. It may well be that married priests is the only way to stem the tide.
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