When I was a young man, Ireland produced so many Priests they couldn't use them all. Off the top of my head, I can remember three Irishmen I knew who had to immigrate to the States. How low has Ireland fallen!
From the Irish Examiner
Killala diocese is typical of many Catholic dioceses in Ireland. It
consists of 22 parishes in north Mayo and north west Sligo, and
struggles to provide a priest to each of those parishes. The diocese,
unless something changes dramatically, will have just five or six active
priests in less than two decades.
The collapse in vocations is so
dramatic that the diocese has started a process to reflect on a vote
that indicated that 85% of Catholics felt priests should be allowed to
marry, while 81% supported priests who had married resuming ministry.
The survey found that 80% backed women being ordained to the diaconate
and, in opposition to the Vatican, 69% said women should be ordained.
It is hard not to think that those views would not, more or less,
reflect views right across Ireland. The fall in vocations has been
persistent over many years but, even so, it may be hard to appreciate
that in 2018 there were, proportionately, more ordinations in France
than in Ireland.
In France, where religious teaching is
prohibited in public schools, 114 priests were ordained — roughly three
priests per million Catholics. In Ireland, eight men were ordained,
fewer than two priests per million. Ireland’s ordination rate is less
than two-thirds that in a determinedly secular France.
Irish
Catholicism faces a stark choice between purity or presence. It must, it
seems, either pragmatically embrace the once unimaginable, or fade
further towards the margins.
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