‘Flame of faith’ still burning says Armagh Bishop

Youth uptick is small and fragile but very real

Even amid crisis and change, the “flame of faith” in Ireland has not gone out a gathering of young people in Armagh have been told.

“Those who have the flame of faith burning… can find a way to reach out once again,” said Bishop Michael Router, Auxiliary Bishop of Armagh, speaking to The Irish Catholic after the Archdiocese of Armagh’s congress on youth, family and faith.

“We’re not the same type of Church that we were in the mid-20th century,” he said, reflecting on a shift from a once-dominant institution to something smaller, and perhaps more fragile. “We have to find a new way of being… maybe that’s no harm either.”

The congress, which brought together around 300 delegates following months of consultation, sought to discern how that renewal might take shape in the years ahead, with participants working through 19 proposals that were recommended (many with suggested changes) for the future direction of the archdiocese.

For Bishop Router, the path forward begins with relationship. “If you try to bring the message… to people you’ve no relationship with, they will reject it,” he said, pointing to a “lack of trust” that must first be rebuilt. The synodal process, he added, is about “building that trust… so that people become open” once again to the truth of the Gospel.

Yet where that trust is rebuilt, something else begins to happen. There remains, he said, “a fear among people about talking about the faith”, even within families, but the work of the Spirit is already helping to overcome it. People are beginning to find “a bit of confidence” to speak, to “blow open the doors” and rediscover their baptismal call to mission.

What is emerging may not yet be visible in large numbers, but in small beginnings and a quiet growth in courage he said.

Others present at the congress pointed to similar signs. One facilitator, Fr Éamonn Fitzgibbon, a priest of the Diocese of Limerick and Director of the Irish Institute for Pastoral Studies, described what is happening as something “small… fragile… but very real.”

At ground level, this fragility is matched by a genuine search. Bethany Doherty, a youth coordinator from the diocese, said many young people are “searching… wanting the truth,” and are quick to recognise whether faith is presented authentically.

The real test now will be whether such moments can take root. A report on the congress is expected in early summer, followed by a pastoral response and a longer-term process of formation and implementation by the Archdiocese of Armagh.