St Patrick S Church

FRI 6th January - the Feast of The Epiphany - is a Holyday of Obligation. Vigil Mass on Islandeady-Glenisland Parish Newsletter THUR 5th in Glenisland at 7 pm. Mass in Islandeady on FRI 6th Jan at 11 am and at 7 pm. + * St Patrick’s Church, Islandeady and Holy Rosary Church, Glenisland. Ballintubber Half Tóchar Walk MON 26th departing Abbey by bus to Aughagower at Parish Priest: Fr Pat Donnellan- 094-9024125 or 087-2311236. Email: [email protected] 11am after registration in the Abbey. Pilgrims will then walk back to Ballintubber Abbey. Web sites: islandeady.ie / glenislandnewsflash.ie / mayo.ie / tuamarchdiocese.org * Remembering in Mass: Christmas Eve Glenisland 7 pm - For all the people and rem Frank & Annie Moran,  ‘Parish Voices’ is sold out - a publication by Islandeady-Glenisland Pastoral Council. Drumnaguncan, & son Paddy & daughter-in-law Anne.  World Meeting of Families Prayer Cards & booklets available FREE at church door. Christmas Eve Islandeady 9 pm - For all the people and rem Alan Joyce, Ranaghy, & Gary Cafferkey, Bray & Belmullet (M Mind).  Browse the lovely Advent Calendar link on our parish website at www.islandeady.ie Christmas Day Mass in Islandeady 11 am - For absent faces at the Christmas Table –  Two Christmas Eve Masses SAT 24th Dec - Glenisland 7 pm and Islandeady 9 pm. those away from home & loved ones who have died. SAT 31st (Gl.) 7 pm:  One Christmas Day Mass in the parish SUN 25th Dec - in Islandeady Church at 11 am. Maureen & Agnes & James McLoughlin, Beltra. / Mary & Dan Murray, Tavnaculawee.  NO Adoration of The Eucharist in Church on Christmas Day or St Stephen’s Day. SUN 1st (Is.) 11 am: Anniv. Mary & Michael Philbin, Carrowbeg, & Tom & Kevin Basquill. / Bridie & Alfred  Marian Movement ‘Praying for Priests’ in Glenisland Church every SUN evening 7 pm. Sammon, Ballinamorogue. / John & Bridie Sammon & son Jackie & Dec Family. / * Paul & Bridie Joyce, Keelogues. / Michael McLoughlin & Mena & Paddy Burke. The Islandeady-Glenisland Church weekly Parish Newsletter is on the web every week. * Please inform people away from home that it can be read at: islandeady.ie OR mayo.ie RIP - Margaret Hoban, nee McHale, England (wife of Seán Hoban, native of Lappalagh). Many extra items of interest on the web as there is not enough room in the printed edition. - Terry O’Malley, Cleveland (husband of Kathleen O’Donnell, Derrycooraune). * * Islandeady Comm Council Parish Annual is on sale after Christmas Masses. A round-  With Sick Calls attended to just before Christmas there will be NO sick calls in up of parish events celebrating the 40th year of its existence. Not to be missed. Only €5. January. *

* St Stephen's Day Family Walk starts at the Key West 2 pm. €10 per Family. Well Done to Islandeady Foróige Club & your Leaders on a wonderful Youth Mass last Refreshments on return. Proceeds to Mayo Parkinson’s Association and Islandeady SUN & sincere THANKS to the Folk Group & others & all the proud parents for helping. Foróige Club. * * With PP off sick any parish burdens that can wait please leave them. If important phone Family Carers (Mayo Branch) are looking for participants to take part in our Operation PP at 087-2311236. For Masses, Baptisms etc .. just text or email or phone & leave Transformation Fundraiser starting on Jan 9th. We provide a fitness plan, dietary and details. nutrition advice, sponsor card sheets & makeover after the 7 weeks. For more information, * please contact 094 9060305/086 3775702. Funds go to supports for family carers in Mayo. Pobal Dé – People of God helping / ministering in CHURCH next week: * Readers: Gl. – Michelle Lavelle (Mary, Mother of God. P137) Is. – Seán Rice.  100th Issue of Glenisland ‘Newsflash’ - a special souvenir edition - available early Jan. Min of Euch: Gl. – Agnes O’Donnell. / Is. – E Jennings, L Keaveney, A McCormack. Mass Servers: Gl. – Cornanool NS. / Is. – Xmas day Team 1 & 2. / SUN 1st Jan Team 3.  Card Game every MON night in Islandeady Comm Centre at 9 pm. All welcome.  Lists of Glenisland Altar Society, Min of Eucharist & Readers in Sacristy.  Card Game every FRI night in Glenisland National School at 8.30 pm. All welcome.  Offertory Collectors Jan: Is. Brendan Gibbons, Liam Lennon, James O’Malley.  Islandeady GAA Lotto on SUN 1st Jan at 8.30 pm in Marty’s Halfway. Jackpot €3,800.  Finance Committee helping for January: Team A.  Altar Society for January: Dooleague. + * Priests Christmas Collection takes place on Christmas Eve & Christmas Day. Please be as generous as you can afford to be when making a contribution to the Priests Collection. May we all enjoy Christmastime in the company of Family & Friends. * Go mbeirimid beo ar an am seo arís …… and Happy Christmas !! But my life now as parish priest in Moygownagh couldn’t be more different. And it isn’t just that there’s no live-in housekeeper, no china cups or neatly presented sandwiches but Fr Pat Donnellan (Christmas 2016) that the safe, secure, confident clerical world that Ben inhabited has imploded completely. + Then PPs could expect to have curates who did most of the work – if they couldn’t or didn’t want to do it themselves. Now curates are an endangered species. Then PPs could expect comfort and companionship in their declining years. Now, in Items for the Islandeady-Glenisland weekly Parish Newsletter should be in by THUR the Killala diocese, not one priest in the diocese has a live-in housekeeper. And the statistics latest each week – Email & Phone Number details above or post or deliver to the Priest. indicate that most of us may well die on our own. * Then PPs took for granted that they were admired, respected and supported by their Priests Christmas Collection: Priests are conscious that many people are still experiencing parishioners. Their words were infallible; their decisions confident and unquestioned. In financial difficulties. All we ask is that you try to do your best. Sincere THANKS. the society and culture of the day they had the wind on their backs and could dictate the * play with embarrassing ease. They were like Real Madrid, both respected and feared. Two contributions from the AGM of the Association of Catholic Priests in Athlone on Now, we’re often pitied, patronised, reviled, insulted, disrespected, ignored and resented. th 16 Nov can be read on the web edition of this Newsletter. As can other items of interest To continue the sporting metaphor, a gale-force wind is now in our faces, it’s the middle of each week (when there’s no room in the printed edition) at www.islandeady.ie or the second half and we’re 6 – Nil down. Now we’re the equivalent of Plymouth Argyle, mayo.ie struggling to stay in the third division. 50 years ago there were plenty of vocations, almost everyone went to Mass (and those who + didn’t were rounded up by the Redemptorists at the Parish Mission), almost everyone paid the collection and if they didn’t, as we used to say, they were read off the altar. A contribution from the AGM of the Association of Catholic Priests - Now times are different: no vocations, congregations melting away before our eyes, th in Athlone on 16 November 2106 collections declining by the year, morale at an all-time low. Was it any wonder that, in Ben McLoughlin’s time, PPs only retired if it suited them to A Lost Tribe: Priests at risk – by Fr Brendan Hoban retire, because to quote Harold Macmillan in another context, they never had it so good. Now PPs often long for retirement, because they can’t wait to get off the stage, despite the First, I want to make it clear that what I have to say has to do with the world of fact that their guilt in retiring in such difficult circumstances can be manipulated to get diocesan priests. Whether it applies to others – non-diocesan priests, if you’ll pardon that them to continue past our 75th year and our sell-by date. expression – that’s for them to judge. I speak out of my own experience. Do I exaggerate? Yes, a bit for emphasis. But only a bit. The tide has gone out and only In recent decades the Care of Priests has become a regular item on the agendas of Priests those out of sync with the times can imagine that it’s ever going to come in again. Councils and in the conversations priests have about our future lives. I may be accused of presenting a bleak picture, but it is bleak and we do no one any Paddy Sweeney has an excellent article in a recent edition of The Furrow and I’ve written favours by pretending that everything is fine and that we’re about to turn some mythical about it myself. Séamus Ahearne alluded to it in a recent contribution to the corner when everything will be sunshine and roses. website (associationofcatholicpriests.ie). We need to stop playing that game. The average age of priests in Ireland now is climbing towards 70 years of age. So we’re Fifty years ago no one talked about the care of priests or priests at risk. mainly in the senior bracket of the population. Donald Cozzens has written about ‘The What’s different now from fifty years ago? Well, everything or almost everything. Last Priests in Ireland’ and he’s exaggerating, but only slightly. I was ordained forty three years ago, and I was appointed a curate in Crossmolina parish. But the problem is not that the Church in Ireland won’t survive or adapt to changed and My parish priest was Ben McLoughlin, a lovely man, who was around my age now. (I’m changing circumstances – I have no doubt it will – the question is even more urgent for us 68, he was 70 then). here today. It’s this: how can the last priests in Ireland survive the final years of their lives Every time I visited him, his house-keeper of over 40 years, Mary Forde, carried out a long with comfort, esteem and affection? practised liturgy with its rubrics hallowed from time immemorial: she took out the china Because it isn’t just the depressing scenario that I’ve outlined. There are a number of other cups, cut the crusts off the sandwiches, handed me a cloth napkin, she left the room and factors exacerbating our growing sense of unease. returned discreetly every five minutes to ‘heat up the tea’. I was 25 at the time and I imagined that when I was Ben’s age, my circumstances would be (1) Work like his. We’re expected to work longer and harder. Clustering parishes is offered as if it’s some kind of solution to the crisis in vocations when the dogs in the street know that (at it’s best) clustering is merely a short-term managerial strategy and at its worst a form of denial camouflaging the reality. Of two men in a field, Matthew 24 tells us, one will be taken and one left. The same is true of the policy, now apparently official, of bishops automatically reporting Where there were two priests in the past one has already been taken away by the bishop to the Garda authorities anonymous accusations of child abuse against priests, a practice and one is left. Where there are 5 priests in a cluster, one will be taken and then another that would be unconscionable and much resisted if applied to teachers, lawyers, Gardaí or one and then another until only one will be left. any other professional group. The reputation and peace of mind of priests, it now seems, In Ben McLoughlin’s time work declined as age increased. Now work increases the older can be damaged forever by someone with a grievance, a sheet of paper and a 72 cent we get. And moving the deck chairs is no solution. stamp. The effect of our increased and ever-increasing workload is that as we morph into (4) Isolation sacrament-dispensing machines, we find pastoral work less and less satisfying with We elderly priests live increasingly isolated lives, a condition exacerbated by age. We live progressively little or no engagement with our parishioners. alone. We often have few enough close friends, diminishing as we grow older. There are two very prestigious dioceses in Ireland: Dublin and Killala. Both have to my Local resentments, envy and gossip often dissuade us, especially in rural parishes, from mind only one thing in common. Both have just one diocesan priest under 40 years of age. making firm friends. Eccentricity is an ongoing and perhaps inevitable condition. A In twenty years time both dioceses will have one or maybe a few priests under 60. That’ll growing fearfulness and anxiety, born out of isolation, can mark our later years and create be a real problem for Fr Tommy Doherty in Killala trying to cover 22 parishes, from a vulnerability and a nervousness we hadn’t experienced heretofore. Ballisodare to Newport. I dread to think what it will mean for his equivalent in Dublin Compounding this problem is a growing disillusionment among priests in their fifties and dealing with 199 parishes. sixties and a consequent drift out of priesthood, not because of celibacy but in search of (2) Complexity companionship and what might be more generally called ‘normality’. It’s the isolation, I More work is one thing. Complexity is another. We’re struggling at a pastoral level with think, that gets to us in the end. issues beyond our training and probably our competence. The older we get, the more Compounding this drift is the often ritual acceptance in clerical company that many others complicated life is and parish is. Take, one example, how to minister to parents of same- would opt for the equivalent of early retirement if such was offered to them. More and sex couples who may be upset or worried or confused? How to respond to an invitation to more, still clinging to the wreckage, seem to be hanging on to a life that’s no longer a same-sex marriage of parishioners? What does pastoral care mean in this situation? experienced as satisfying because they haven’t the energy or the courage or the money to We were never there before and we never expected to be here now. opt for a different, more amenable existence. As priests age and become more aware that life is closing in around us and as the (3) Bishops experience of isolation is exacerbated, the culture of distraction that helped us cope in our Irish priests traditionally liked to stay a healthy distance from their bishops. A certain earlier years no longer delivers. reserve in regard to someone who exercised so much control over our lives seems entirely Golf days, poker schools, pilgrimages to Medjugorje, breeding pedigree cattle, travelling appropriate. But that distance or reserve allowed for a fundamental respect for the office the world, writing books, attending Charles de Foucauld prayer groups and similar bishops hold and the function they represent. obsessions that helped distract us in the past no longer deliver. As life closes in, interests Now, the level of distrust between priests and bishops is such that a build-up of resentment diminish and eventually melt away. Priests who attended the Wexford Opera Festival for and anger is increasingly obvious in some dioceses. Situations vary, as we know. But some decades wouldn’t cross the road if Pavarotti rose from the dead and was singing Nessun bishops, not many I have to say, some bishops are using their positions to force their Dorma in the local hall. Or whatever. personal authority on priests who haven’t the confidence to face them down because of the In the last century in the parish of Kilcommon Erris in Mayo, Fr John Lavelle – poet, level of control bishops exercise over their priests’ lives. teacher, intellectual, antiquarian, member of the Royal Irish Academy and a noted member I hesitate to use the word abuse because it has unhappy associations but I think sometimes of the literati – was once described by a parishioner as ‘above there in the house, looking the word bullying is not inappropriate. out the window, mad at everything’. Recently in one diocese a priest retiring was asked to vacate his house with no prospect of (5) Loneliness alternative accommodation being provided. It is, at any level, an appalling attitude. It’s Loneliness is a by-product of isolation. A celibate lifestyle presumes a certain isolation and scandalous and should be named and shamed as scandalous if a bishop, taking advantage loneliness is part of it. This factor is particularly difficult for priests with highly developed of a vulnerable priest, can dictate terms and conditions that infringe the individual rights of social skills, priests who are ‘good mixers’ as we say. Loneliness is for them a particular priests to equity and justice. It is unacceptable that some priests because of their perceived burden. More so, I think, than for the rest of us, eccentrics, bachelors and curmudgeons, loyalty to a bishop are treated differently than others who are perceived as disloyal. among whom I’m happy to place myself. This distrust in the leadership of our Church is exacerbated by the policies being pursued Loneliness in priesthood depends on a number of factors: personality, life skills, hobbies, by the present nuncio in ignoring the traditions of dioceses, the preferences of priests and self-esteem, mobility, identity and, of course, health and even from that cursory list it’s the rights of people to genuine as distinct from the present mock consultation. Frustration clear that loneliness increases steadily as each of the above come under greater stress. at the unhappy and sometimes bizarre choice of bishops is adding unnecessarily to the Another factor is that living on our own, unnoticed by ourselves, our standards drop. burden of priests as is the unjust manipulation by some bishops and dioceses of the There’s often no trusted companion to tell us to throw out that gansie (sweater) we’ve been commitment to priesthood of elderly priests in an effort to persuade them to postpone their wearing for years or to buy a new suit for God’s sake or to take a bath. retirement beyond 75. Loneliness it can be said, is just part of old age but my contention is that for those of us To live in the midst of the world without wishing its pleasures; to be a member of each who live into old age without the supports of a ‘normal’ life, loneliness brings an added family, yet belonging to none; to share all sufferings; to penetrate all secrets; to heal all difficulty. I suspect that there are many of us in our Seventies and Eighties who, no longer wounds; to go from men to God and offer him their prayers; to return from God to men to able to distract ourselves, and in the silence and isolation of large presbyteries, mull over bring pardon and hope; to have a heart of fire for charity and a heart of bronze for what seem the progressively limited satisfactions of a priest’s life. chastity; to teach and to pardon, console and bless always. My God, what a life! The issue of loneliness in priesthood is rarely mentioned in dispatches and is sometimes And it is yours, O priest of Jesus Christ. regarded as an effete and self-indulgent consideration for us brave warriors. Some years Forty or fifty years ago, mesmerized by that intoxicating power, we had all the answers to ago, a retired priest in England confided in his bishop that he was lonely. The bishop every last one of life’s problems but with power came responsibility and many priests of replied, ‘Get a budgie’. that generation are left with a deep-seated conviction that somehow it’s all our fault. (6) Health (And week after week we’re reminded that we no longer really matter, that at best we’re The American novelist, Richard Ford, has his famous chronicler, Frank Bascombe, muse, now little more than a ceremonial presence on the sidelines of life. We’re a bit like Henri ‘When you grow old not that much is happening, except on the medical front’. Old age Nouwen who was on the deck of a huge liner that in dense fog was edging its way into a brings ill-health in some shape or form. And we sometimes lack the support of trusted busy harbour. The captain, who was under extreme pressure, tripped over Nouwen in the companions to accompany us through the bewilderment and helplessness of a chronic fog and told him to get lost. Then he paused for a moment and said to him, ‘No. Father, condition and the regression almost to a state of childhood dependency that can ensue. don’t get lost, this just might be the one time we actually need you’.) How to cope then when we find ourselves sitting in a hospital waiting room, being told A retreat master recently told a group of diocesan priests that priests tend to be what needed to happen ‘surgery-wise’, and what the percentages might offer in terms of a ‘dangerously other-centred’. We believed not wisely but too well in intimations of our own future life, and then going home on our own to mull over life’s probabilities. infallibility and now it’s coming back to haunt us. We were too good for our own good. Whatever about our physical well-being and its manifestations, our mental health is of a We continue to carry burdens of unrealistic expectations of ourselves. different order entirely, its absence sometimes unnoticed and often denied. With the implosion of our Church, the unease and inconvenience and isolation of our lives, (7) Esteem with the regrets and ambivalences that disturb our waking hours and with our singular As old age beckons with its myriad inconveniences and disabilities and as we begin to lifestyle, we’re prone to depression in one or other of its malevolent manifestations. contemplate, calmly and coldly, what’s left of our lives a number of truths begin to dawn. Often masked by crankiness and oddity, we can build a moat around our presbyteries, One is that, as we age, there’s a growing sense almost of desperation when we realise how where our disorientations are regarded by our people as mere eccentricities resulting from little care, esteem or affection may be in our lives. what is perceived as an abnormal life. The indicators of a line being crossed may only Another is that some of the anchors on which we had depended – friends, family members, become apparent in retrospect. parishioners – are no longer there. It’s instructive and worrying that suicide among priests in Ireland has increased in recent Another is that we’re continually reminded through an avalanche of criticism in the media years. There’s significant anecdotal evidence that this figure masks a wider and deeper that even though we feel we’ve done our best to carry the Good News we’re now ritually reality of depression and despair that we ignore at our peril. presented as Bad News people, controlling, oppressing, limiting, obsessing . . . As we age and decrepitude in some form becomes a crucial factor and the normal Another is the sense that, even though for years we didn’t want to admit it to ourselves, we disabilities of ageing – ill-health, immobility, isolation and so on are experienced – all of come to realize that we truly are, in Donald Cozzens’ memorable words ‘the last priests in that becomes hugely problematic and burdensome, when we’re on our own. Ireland’. The support systems in normal family living are not present to sustain us in our homes and We’re a lost tribe, we’ve come at the end of a long line. But for all that we need to find a we find ourselves joining the queue for the nursing home before our time. I’m not voice and a courage to name our truth. As the last priests in Ireland we have a right to knocking nursing homes because it will be good to have them, when we need them, that’s consideration, acknowledgement, support, encouragement and, above all, respect. if the diocese can afford them – another terror added to old age. Priests who have served the Church for so long deserve no less and it’s time to start a (6) Failure and responsibility reasonable conversation about this. When I was ordained there were full churches, plenty of priests, supportive parishioners, I paint a bleak picture. And no doubt I will be accused of being negative by the usual the church was a confident, respected and influential presence in Irish society. Now we’re suspects. not, as I said earlier, Real Madrid anymore, we’re a tired version of Plymouth Argyle. And (Accusing one of being negative, of course, is always a useful response because it excuses it has all happened on our watch, on my watch. And even though some of us know that those who say it from responding to what has been said.) priests are not saviours or messiahs, that we’re not responsible for other people’s salvation But I think the question that needs to be asked is not whether my presentation of the or indeed or the future of the Church, the truth is that some, possible many priests, feel landscape of our lost tribe is bleak or negative but is it true? responsible, feel that they’ve failed and will go to their graves with that belief. + This is the generation, we need to remind ourselves, who often wrote on their ordination cards, Lacordaire’s famous statement about priesthood: A contribution from the AGM of the Association of Catholic Priests - in Athlone on 16th November 2106 where you live) or can you find the Rock that will keep you strong …. and maybe even A Priesthood Imprisoned - by Marie Keenan thrive through such apparent adversity. How can this be achieved? What I think is necessary is the capacity to think outside the box – to think and feel deeply Last week I got an email from an elderly Australian Priest who is working on a monograph about what is happening to priesthood in your times… to mourn the loss of what has gone, on priesthood and he wanted my comments on his text. The time could not have been more individually and collectively so that it can be let go without trying to cling on, and to opportune for this text to arrive as it reminded me that the struggles that clergy face in enable the new Light of renewal to shine. Renewal comes in the wake of our grieving. Ireland have universal features – certainly in the Western World. Interestingly the Psychologists and psychotherapists teach that abnormal or complicated grief reactions monograph is titled ‘A Priesthood Imprisoned’. I borrowed his title for my talk today … as occur when we cannot grieve and let go … when we want to cling on to what is no longer my own view is that I am not sure whether we are Killing our Priests as is the title of this there, when we pretend that the past is the present and we can see no future, when we live AGM but I am sure that we are imprisoning them in a prison of invisibility, silence and to out of outdated philosophies and approaches to our lives. In essence, complicated grief a great extent impotence. reactions occur when we are defensive and when those wonderful defence mechanisms Philosophy is Not a Luxury that protect us so well at times of acute crisis start to turn into our enemy. In essence we I was also helped in preparing for today by the writings of a colleague in the US, Jeff become the Living Dead. Carreira, a writer whose work I read often, who was reflecting on the outcome of the Maybe it is time for collective grieving for clergy …. for the Church they once knew, for Presidential election. Jeff has been writing a blog for the past decade called ‘Philosophy is the priesthood they originally entered, for the congregations they once served, for the not a Luxury’ because he believes that in challenging times philosophy is the first thing we relations with bishops and superiors they once lived …. so that they can emerge refreshed, need… and it is not a luxury. He maintains, rightly in my view, in the face of challenging renewed and invigorated, with increased depth of wisdom and gratitude that we know times we are often tempted to think that philosophy is a luxury for which we don’t have come in the wake of our grieving and the letting go and letting in. New ways of seeing and time, and instead we often prefer to jump into action to address the perceived threat. new ways of being can be born. Perhaps priesthood needs to be re-imagined for the He and I share the view that in challenging times the challenges can only be successfully 21st century, but this cannot occur without the necessary grieving for what has gone and met with a level of thinking that is deeper than what we have been doing so far. And that is without making room for new insights and philosophical perspectives to emerge. what we must do today in relation to priesthood. If our current thinking didn’t avert the So what I want to offer today are three streams of thought that are guiding my thinking in crisis then why would more of it bring resolution? relation to this matter [and that is from one who has never been a priest but a mere Philosophy, as you well know, is not just an academic subject taught in universities and observer – which is of course a very tentative place to stand and in which I stand in seminaries. It is the process through which we try to make meaning and to figure out the humility]. These thoughts however might help with this process of reimagining… that all way forward. In doing so, it consists of the stories we create to help us understand the of us in this room as philosophers in our own lives might pick up and consider alone and in meaning of events and circumstances … and the stories we tell ourselves about our dialogue with each other. ‘realities’ … and these in turn help shape the unfolding of our future. And there are many The Changing Theology of Priesthood, the Impact of this on Priesthood today stories we can tell about any event or events, such as priesthood today, the challenges and The first stream of thought is on the changing theology of priesthood that has come in opportunities, as the facts can always be made fit many different conclusions depending on direct relationship with the child abuse situation. The once ontological change at how we think about them. In challenging times deep thinking and reflection is not only a ordination that was thought to be forever and of God’s grace is now of man and a necessity, it is unavoidable. So let’s have a philosophical discussion on priesthood … one reversible gift that is dependent on human behaviour. I cannot but imagine that the that might throw new light on events of today and might elevate from the pain of reversing of this most sacred of certainties has created turmoil and turbulence at the very despondency. core of what it means to be an ordained and consecrated member of the Catholic The Rhetoric of Priesthood and the Catholic Church priesthood for many. Irrespective of what side of the argument one was on in relation to With some exceptions the rhetoric of priesthood and the Catholic Church in Ireland today the Ontological Change at ordination – this retrospective seismic shift in what it means to is that they are kind of irrelevant … especially in the Western World. Priests are depicted be an ordained and consecrated minister of the Catholic Church cannot but have created at best as benignly innocent and kind or as evil and cunning, but generally not really ‘despondency’ ‘depression’ and great uncertainty in many who believed what they were relevant to the Modern Ireland – apart from some ceremonial duties that are part of both told in seminaries and places of formation. With the stroke of a pen such a fundamental tradition and/or faith for some. The Catholic Church itself is often depicted as a place of can be wiped away, a position that I believe has created an unspoken rumbling earthquake cover up and political manoeuvrings…. with little to recommend it … perhaps apart from under the very fabric of priesthood as once understood and believed to be. Has this making some of the statements of Pope Francis – for those with the interest to note what he says. secular what was once holy any relevance to the death and depression experienced in Within this perspective and the tone of it – the dominant one in Ireland – it is of little priesthood today? I certainly believe that it has. surprise that priests and religious leaders have and are living through an emotional My belief is that all or most of you in this room took your years of seminary training rollercoaster with extreme lows and some highs and we have heard Brendan articulate the seriously and when you took up your first appointment believed you were well equipped lived reality of many priests in such circumstances in Ireland today. So what can priests with the answers you would need for a life of ministry – or at least you knew where and do? Are you to sink with a ship (the Institution of the Catholic Church) that at times how to find them. Priesthood of the seminary years was presented as secure and stable and appears to be sinking – at least in public support and credibility (in the Western World premised on truths that could serve in all eventualities. The ontological change that occurred at ordination secured this ‘truth’. However my experience of many priests is that their lives were destructive for themselves and others. How often have you felt impotent the security of the knowledge of the newly consecrated and ordained began to be because ultimately despite your best efforts you know it was their choice? Families of challenged by the changing face of ministry in an increasingly complex world of the people suffering from addiction problems know this only too well. They need to reach twentieth and now the twenty first centuries. Add to this the aftermath of Vatican II with their rock bottom before they change. We all do and the same holds for priests. Making the the challenges it posed to the ‘certainty’ of ‘truth’ of seminary training and the new needs choice to change and go for growth is difficult, even when those around you are of priests as they readjusted – or not – to the promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit and encouraging. The shackles of the past, the myth of the good old years, avoiding the pain of all that was to go with this. realizing what has died, keeps us in a kind of ‘frozen limbo of hope’, and it is In Ireland at least, it is my belief that the prime source of what priests need in a changing understandable. world of ministry lies in the hearts and minds of priests themselves, but it is my Many priests with whom I have worked were brought up in a church which cherished the impression, especially today, that you are rarely consulted in the task of identifying what will and intellect. The theology was a rule based one, saturated with reason and law, those needs might be. Too often the ‘formation’ processes of seminary years which were devoid of a theology of love and relational living. These men were further expected to top down, even oppressive, something to be endured, with a kind of censorship of submit their minds and will to authority in obedience. They were rendered dependent – on particular topics such as love, relationship and relational living, sexuality, and especially those above, on bishops and their congregations for affirmation and approval, and on the any questioning of mandatory celibacy or blind obedience has become the mode of public to keep believing in what they were doing. In this, the uniqueness and autonomy of governance and relational living that is leaving priesthood in the Western World in such the individual, God’s individual son, was to be eroded. Feelings and emotion were to disarray. It is little wonder to me that numerous studies on priesthood from the time of become suspect. Love, apart from spiritual love, was for other people. So how has this Vatican II and since then in the United States and Australia always seem to conclude that education left its legacy on priesthood today? Well that is something for you to tell me. while the majority of priests are coping they show signs of needing professional or But I have some observations from my vantage point. I believe this education and way of emotional attention and organized help if they are to adjust adequately to the challenges of life long living has left priests bereft … fearful of intimacy and with the breakdown in modern priesthood. Terms like emotional immaturity, (that does not prevent them from community living feeling isolated and alone. It is devastating to the morale of priests for exercising their priestly function, but precludes them from being happy men and effective them to feel isolated from one another, to feel isolated from the self, not understood by priests) continue to emerge in study after study. Study after study also suggests that a large superiors and left alone before criticism and complaint. We only have to reference Alan proportion of priests are lacking emotional nurturing to enable mature development and Hilliard’s work on the experiences of clergy and my own with senior clergy following the that such incomplete personal development results in distant, unrewarding relationships publication of the Murphy Report to know what isolation is like when standing alone and uneasiness about intimacy. So is this the situation in which you find yourself in today before criticism and complaint. I remember Dermot O’Mahony at this time. Alan’s study … only you know (maybe it is time for a study of priesthood in Ireland – and I would be articulate this point when following the publication of the Murphy report the first item on very happy to undertake such if you were to commission same). the agenda of some deanery meetings was the clustering of parishes! So let us think then what is to be done. How can priests separate from such states of It is not easy to be constantly available to others without recharging one’s own batteries. ’emotional dependence’ on an organization and institution that is not taking care of them – That is a human need. It is never too late to learn how to do it. And it is worthwhile. and maybe never would – that was an adolescent dream and misguided promise that ‘we’ Authentic knowledge of and care for the human self allows us to recharge our batteries would become your ‘family’ – and how can priests become more independent and without any sense of guilt and makes it possible to continue to love others without autonomous within a collective community of the People of God – in such a way that they resentment or fear. are ‘grown up’, are able to exercise ‘voice’, understand their limitations especially in the We know from what Brendan has said and from the comments from many clergy that face of the structural limitations that a diminishing clergy population brings for them. How priesthood is undergoing a professional crisis in terms of the demands made on priests in can priests learn to say yes to God but no to unreasonable human expectation? In all my their everyday ministry and the lack of support offered to them. Many priests report that years of working with priests No is the word I would most like to teach them to say…….. they are extremely stretched by the workloads, feel marginalized from decision-making not a cold No but a warm No … not No as reflex but as part of the language repertoire of processes, and have little confidence in the direction in which those who do make the human skills that comes from the knowing of how to be human and serve God. decisions are taking the church in this country. However, while joining together in solidarity in organizations such as the Association of Catholic Priests can help with this in Human Growth is a Decision in God’s Grace finding voice, this is not an alternative to going for personal growth and development. That My second stream of thought is in relation to human growth and what it means to be is your wellbeing imperative. Clergy suffer depression through inertia. human and work for God. Human growth is possible at every stage of life – and without While we know that the Church needs systemic changes that take account of such matters growth we die – if not physically then emotionally, mentally, spiritually and if you like we and it is good to keep pressure on for same, I now have a question for you. Are you going become like ‘The Living Dead’. While I am sure that many of us agree that human growth to sacrifice more of your precious time and life in waiting for ‘them’ to take care of you? belongs to the dynamic of God’s grace, it also requires courage at an individual level and Is it not now the time for you to go for personal growth, healing and well being with all an infrastructure of support. However, no one can make an individual grow, probably not that this entails within the context of working for the God that you love without your even God, as it is basically an individual’s choice and decision. How often have you heard sacred life being sacrifice to an institution that is so much in need of reform and parents say to you I wish my son or husband or wife would change their ways, especially if transformation that it has even become an enemy of those who set out to serve it. The choice is yours. However, we are reminded in the gospels that unless the grain falls to the found in which to be held. The men in Alan Hilliard’s study found few if any places to be ground and dies it cannot bear fruit while psychologists remind that there is no gain held following the publication of the Murphy report and one would want to be dead not to without pain! Change cannot come from certainty – only from the search that uncertainty be deeply moved, as I was, by the stories of senior clergy and some bishops who told me brings. The time is now. Resisting the change or defending the “status quo” arising from of how some were abandoned and isolated, desolate and in consoled in the wake of the fear and/or reluctance to face the challenge of change, will not enhance your life but may publication of these reports. I often wondered if sickness and illness would take hold on cause you more stress and strain as everything changes all around you and nothing changes the bodies of such unsupported men – including yourselves – if the trauma was not in living your sacred life. acknowledged. And it is never too late. Something to think about ….. Maybe a project of Trauma Healing Circles round the country for clergy could be next on the agenda of ACP? I will My third and final stream of thought concerns trauma and its impact and how the body help you if you need. keeps the score. I don’t know if you have felt traumatized by events that have occurred in the revelations about child abuse in the Catholic Church in the past decade or more. From And so to Conclude my vantage point the stories told by victim survivors of what they had endured brought In this paper of looking back and looking forward I encourage you to go for growth and reality into sharp focus of a Church that had failed them and human experiences that no healing. I urge you to consider a nationwide campaign of healing circles involving clergy – children should have had to experience. Irish society was shocked by hearing their and later involving laity, victims and offenders. I urge you to reinstate forgiveness and accounts and rightly Irish society eventually got behind the victim survivors in joining in redemption as being of God and something which we might all work to with courage. And solidarity with their outrage. This is as it should be … as we know for these victim most of all I urge you to take care of yourself in this time of uncertainty and challenge. survivors the body held the score and many of them brought the trauma of the abuse that they suffered into adulthood and into old age. With love, help and the grace of God thankfully many have and are finding peace and healing in their lives. Love is always the antidote to trauma. Psychiatrist Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk’s 2014 publication ‘The Body Keeps the Score’, shines fresh light on the effects of trauma and abuse, based on brain imaging and neuroscience, and other scientific research in the field of trauma, which greatly helps those of us who study the long-term effects of trauma and are trying to develop strategies to minimise and even stem those effects. Some of this work involves the talking therapies and others bypass speech with some techniques from Mindfulness and Yoga. The basic premise of all of this work is that trauma leaves an imprint of the events on body, mind and soul – that trauma lives on in the body while the mind and brain try to manages the perceptions. For real change to occur the body needs to learn that the event has passed and that the world is safe again. However, sometimes trauma stuff attracts trauma stuff …. and we are catapulted back there without sign or warning. But with healing comes the change in the memory card and the knowledge that the world is safe. Sometimes trauma is also referred to as ‘the unexperienced experience’, ‘unassimilated happenings’ or in the words of Prof Ivor Brown ‘the frozen present’. So why am I mentioning this today? Well I am mentioning this because I feel certain that many clergy and many church leaders have been traumatised by the events that have unfolded in their lifetime in relation to child abuse. And that trauma is unacknowledged – the unexperienced experience’, ‘unassimilated happenings’ ‘the frozen present’. In addition how has it been for you to be accountable for the sins of your father, for the sins of your brother, for the sins of neglect by your church? Difficult I would imagine …. and the body holds the score. And how has it been for you to accept or live with some of the inaccuracies of the various reports, some of the injustices in the name of justice that were done to some participants, without redress, unlike Alan Shatter this week for whom the courts found that he was wronged in the Geiran report? The body holds the score. I was always concerned that in the wake of the Murphy Report, Ryan Report and Cloyne report that clergy [as well of course as victim survivors and offenders] would need spaces in which the trauma of what was unfolding could be held. I am not sure what spaces you