Cathal Barry
Bishop Brendan Leahy attending The Limerick Diocesan Synod, the first in Limerick in over 80 years and the first in Ireland in half a century. The Synod has been officially blessed by Pope Francis. 400 delegates will discuss 100 proposals, formed after an extensive 18 month process at Mary Immaculate College.
. Picture: Sean Curtin FusionShooters. The director of Limerick’s diocesan synod has said the assembly revealed a desire among participants for a lay-led Church.
Fr Eamonn Fitzgibbon told The Irish Catholic there was a “clear mandate that this is the laity’s moment in the Church and that we are moving into an era which is really going to be a lay-led Church in terms of lay ministry, lay leadership in our parishes and our communities”.
“We knew that was the way we needed to go but there was a clear mandate for that coming out of the synod. That was very strongly encouraged,” he said.
Fr Fitzgibbon warned, however, that “if we are talking about laity taking on roles which were previously carried out by priests then there needs to be formation and training put in place for that”.
“Delegates noted that there needs to be a lot of work done around preparing for that, including formation, catechesis, training. That needs to happen,” he said.
Proposals
Over 100 proposals were voted on by 400 delegates, over 300 of them lay, at the three-day synod in Limerick over the weekend.
Proposals were grouped under themes, including community and sense of belonging, pastoral care of the family, young people, liturgy and life, faith formation and education, and new models of leadership.
Bishop Brendan Leahy, who called the synod in September 2014, told this newspaper the assembly had “breathed new life into the diocese”.
“One of the key things that came out of the synod was a rediscovery of the vocation of baptism which is the primary vocation for us all. The priesthood of the faithful was something that emerged very strongly from the synod,” he said.
Fr Fitzgibbon said the next step was to put together a diocesan plan and a set of statutes that would then need to be approved by Rome.
“The next stage now is to sit down with all the voting across the 100 proposals, to interpret that, analyse it and bring that back to the delegates and ask if we have read it correctly,” he said.
“There is now a body of work to be done to analyse all the voting that took place to try to get a sense of it. The people have spoken and we have to figure out what have they said,” he added.
Picture: Sean Curtin FusionShooters
