Crisis of priesthood claim ‘simplistic’ – Archbishop

Archbishop Michael Neary has dismissed as “simplistic” claims that Ireland is experiencing a crisis of priesthood.

The Archbishop of Tuam insisted that the real issue facing the Church in Ireland was a “crisis of faith”.

“Many people today speak of a crisis in the priesthood. This I consider to be a rather simplistic view of the situation. The real crisis is a crisis of faith,” he said.

Archbishop Neary said faith was the antidote for “very powerful and crippling human emotion” of fear.

“In spite of the expressions of confidence with which we are very familiar in our culture, one has only to scratch a little beneath the surface to recognise that fear is a very powerful and crippling human emotion.

“Fear causes us to recoil, to become stagnant, to look for false supports. Faith, by contrast enables us to take risks, to go forward, to face the future courageously,” he said.

Speaking at the 10th anniversary of World Priest, Archbishop Neary said people “are now beginning to acknowledge the fact that in many places priests are getting fewer and older and that many seminaries have vacant rooms”.

However, he said that in a “paradoxical way this is beginning to have a positive impact on the people of God”.

“In parishes throughout the country men and women are committing themselves to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and imploring the Lord of the harvest to send labourers to his harvest,” he said.

“Priests, as they visit the sick and housebound on First Friday calls are reminded of the way in which those to whom they minister are praying for priests and religious,” he added.

During the course of his homily, Archbishop Neary described as “liberating and edifying” the celibate life if lived “honestly and positively”.

“Celibacy allows the priest to give himself to Christ with an undivided heart and to love others with an inner freedom,” he said.

The archbishop acknowledged however that “some priests who should have been bringers of hope and healing have brought harm and hurt and have left a trail of brokenness, betrayal and disillusionment”.