Church in the World

Outback Mass available only once a fortnight

Australia

DECLINING NUMBERS of clergy and dwindling rural communities are forcing priests to travel several hundred miles to say Mass, according to Peter Connors, the bishop of the predominantly rural diocese of Ballarat.

Bishop Connors told The Tablet that about a quarter of the 53 parishes in his diocese, which covers the western third of Victoria, were able to celebrate Sunday Eucharist only every fortnight. On alternate weekends, parish communities conducted Sunday celebrations, such as a service of the Word, in the absence of a priest.

Bishop Connors cited the case of Ballarat City-based Fr Dan Arundell, who is in his mid-seventies and makes a round trip of more than 400 miles every other weekend to celebrate Mass in three to four centres and visit the sick in parishes at the northern end of the diocese.

A recent study of rural clergy from the Catholic, Anglican, and Uniting (consisting of Methodist, Congregationalist and many Presbyterian) Churches by the Victoria-based Christian Research Association found that 45 per cent of rural church leaders managed three or more congregations.

According to the Professor of Intercultural Studies at Melbourne's RMIT University, Des Cahill, Christian churches were under pressure to adapt to changing demographics in rural Victoria, but that the Catholic Church in particular was paying the price because of its celibate priesthood.

"This is a situation that has been coming for a long time and was very predictable 20 years ago, but the [Catholic] Church has not thought creatively enough in addressing it, nor stood up to Rome in regard to the issue of celibate and married clergy," Professor Cahill said, adding: "It results from the failure to recruit celibate clergy in sufficient numbers over the past 35 years."

Bishop Connors said he was considering the possibility of employing priests from overseas but acknowledged that it was not easy for many of them to "insert themselves into our culture", particularly in rural Australia.

He told Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper: "I don't want to see fellows worn into the ground because they're so exhausted, but if they are young enough and have good people skills then they'll enjoy their ministry."