Courtney McGrail“Ireland – particularly Dublin – is becoming a cold house for Catholics”, writes Kieron Wood
Kieron Wood
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin has often complained that, in some parishes of his archdiocese, Mass attendance is as low as 3%.
A couple of generations ago, Sunday Mass attendance in Ireland was around 95%. Today, in socially-deprived areas of the capital, Mass attendance has dropped to under five per cent and, even in middle class areas, it may be less than 40%.
Ireland – particularly Dublin – is becoming a cold house for Catholics. A report issued recently by the Dublin Council of Priests predicted that even the parishes where Mass attendance is highest could see a drop in attendance of one third by 2030.
Yet Dublin archdiocese, which includes more than a million Catholics in its 1,230 square miles, seems to do little enough to stem the flow.
One of the efforts to inform people about Mass in the computer age is the diocesan website. The front page, which most visitors land on, offers the opportunity “to share with you Daily mass from the St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral” (sic).
It has a clickable link to ‘Your Nearest Parish’ and ‘Mass Times’. (Related pages include one entitled “Sorry IP Blocked” which says “We are sorry your IP address range is temporary (sic) blocked from accessing this site due to suspicious behaviour”.)
Under the Mass times link is a list of the diocese’s almost 200 parishes, ranging from Ardlea to Yellow Walls. In days gone by, if you wanted to find a Mass at, say, 4pm, you could put in the time of the Mass and see a list of churches which offered Mass at that time. That facility “is no longer available”, said an unsigned email from the diocesan information office on February 22, with no further explanation.
Instead, you can look up your own parish and find out the times of Mass (if you don’t already know them). At least, you can do that if you have access to a computer and are English-speaking, which many of Ireland’s newer Catholics from countries like Spain, Brazil or Poland may not be.
Church closed
Our family currently hosts a young Spanish student who – unlike many Spaniards – faithfully attends weekly Mass. Every Sunday, she goes to evening Mass at our local church, the Servite parish of Marley Grange in Rathfarnham, Dublin.
On Easter Sunday, she set off as usual for the church, but returned shortly afterwards, very agitated. “The church is closed,” she explained. “There is no Mass and I cannot find out where I can go.”
I used my computer to try to find another evening Mass for her in the diocese, but to no avail. Mass was over in our nearest parishes and there seemed no way of checking other Mass times for Easter Sunday, so she missed Mass on the most important feast day in the Christian calendar.
Marley Grange did announce on its website that the church would be closed on the evening of Easter Sunday. But our student didn’t check – even if her English was good enough. She could have contacted the Spanish community through the website at St Saviour’s Church in Dominick Street (www.stsavioursdublin.ie) but she didn’t know about it – and anyway, St Saviour’s is on the other side of the city.
Unless she contacted other Spaniards well in advance, she was going to miss Sunday Mass.
Use the ‘frontage’
Another way of getting people into church might be to use churches’ great street frontage to hang a sign on the railings advertising the times of the Holy Week or Easter ceremonies and Masses. Many cradle Catholics who go to Mass only once or twice a year might pay attention to such signs. But few churches took the opportunity to do so, though the signs could have been used year after year.
What’s wrong with “Holy Week ceremonies on here all this week at XXpm” or “Easter Sunday Mass here at XXam”?
After all, evangelical churches make the most of their notice boards with memorable captions. Why not Catholics?
Kieron Wood is a former Religious Affairs Correspondent with RTÉ.