Catholic News 2

Longford, Ireland, Mar 30, 2017 / 12:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In one Irish diocese, the number of active priests may halve in fewer than 15 years. As a result, Bishop Francis Duffy of Ardagh and Clonmacnois has aimed to prepare his flock to take on more active roles.

“This ongoing development will impact every parish in the diocese and will bring about considerable change in how the parishes are organized and also in the way the Good News of Jesus Christ is passed on to succeeding generation,” he said in a new pastoral letter. “Critically, there will also be an impact on the workload of priests and their welfare is our concern in this changing context.”

Bishop Duffy’s March 24 pastoral letter focused on sustaining the Catholic faith community in the diocese.

“Many of you will fondly remember when there were two or three priests working in your parish and where now there is only one. Three of our parishes do not have a resident priest,” he said. “This trend of a declining number of clergy is set to continue.”

The diocese is located in the northern area of the Republic of Ireland. At present, its 53 diocesan priests serve 41 parishes. The diocese has four priests serving from abroad and from missionary congregations.

The diocese has no seminarians in formation.

By 2030, 28 of the diocese’s 53 diocesan priests will have reached the retirement age of 75.

Bishop Duffy said that soon parishes may lack a resident priest or have to share a priest with a neighboring parish. This will affect every parish in the diocese and bring “considerable change.”

He offered his blessing and “heartfelt gratitude” to deacons, parish catechists,  religious educators, lay ministers, and volunteers and workers in parish support roles.

These are “positive developments” amid the decline in the numbers of priests, Bishop Duffy said.

But the decline in priests’ numbers make it important that some responsibilities of the clergy will be shared with parishioners “even more so than at present.”

“At this time you and our priests have a unique and precious opportunity to serve the Lord by encouraging and engaging with each other to prepare for and take on responsibility for the formation, promotion and practice of the faith at local level in changing circumstances,” Bishop Duffy continued.

“We continue to pray for and promote vocations to priesthood and religious life. A time of decline in one area can be an opportunity for growth in other areas. I firmly believe the Lord is with us in change and will provide opportunities for the local church communities to continue to flourish in new ways.”

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Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mar 29, 2017 / 08:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Political unrest and uncertainty about the future have grown in the Democratic Republic of Congo, following the Catholic bishops’ withdrawal from mediation talks aimed to resolve national political tensions.

“We think that there’s no longer anything to do,” Msgr. Donatien Nshole, secretary general of the Congolese bishops’ conference, told Reuters on Tuesday. “We have given all our time and all our energy.”

The bishops’ conference helped negotiate a Dec. 31 agreement that aimed to avoid political crisis through securing a 2017 election that would choose the successor of Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila.

The agreement brought the country back from the brink of renewed civil war.

After the bishops’ latest announcement, the president’s opposition announced a nationwide protest for April 10. The largest party in the opposition coalition, UDPS, called on its supporters to hold “a big, peaceful march” and to “resist the dictatorship taking root.”

President Kabila’s office announced on television that talks would continue, saying “the current impasse must in no way signify a definitive rupture of the dialogue.”

Sporadic unrest and protests also broke out after the bishops’ announcement. Police fired shots and tear gas to dissuade some protesters.

Political unrest in Congo under President Kabila has been increasing since January 2015, after a bill proposed that the president could remain in power while a national census was conducted, potentially delaying presidential and parliamentary elections.

Protesters who saw the bill as a power grab by President Kabila took to the streets in what sometimes turned into deadly clashes with the country’s security forces.

In January 2017, the bishops had warned that the Dec. 31 agreement was at risk of unraveling unless political leaders worked quickly to compromise and implement it.

In February, Cardinal Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa, the country’s capital, reported an arson attack on a seminary and a gang attack on a church that overturned a tabernacle, ransacked the altar, smashed some pews, and tried to set fire to the church. The cardinal told the pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need he thought the Church was being targeted deliberately “in order to sabotage her mission of peace and reconciliation.”

 

 

 

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