The newly installed Archbishop of Tuam has said he sees “no alternative” to the synodal pathway which Pope Francis has moved the Church onto worldwide with “great enthusiasm and conviction”.
In his homily following his installation at the Cathedral of the Assumption in Tuam, Archbishop Francis Duffy described the synodal journey as timely, good and exciting. “It is the way to go,” he told the congregation, which was tightly restricted in response to the surge in Omicron cases.
It presents people with “a way being Church and of living out our baptism”, he said and added that with the Holy Spirit present, “who knows where that combination of listening, walking together and prayer and discerning will lead?”
However, the former Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois, who succeeds Archbishop Michael Neary, emphasised that the synodal pathway was “not an instant solution. We have to remember it is a pathway not a runway.”
He said the future of the Church depends on the faith and enthusiasm of parishioners as well as the diminishing number of clergy and religious.
On the decline in vocations, the new leader of the West of Ireland diocese said that while many had answered the call to priesthood and religious life for service at home and abroad in the past, the number answering that call had “plummeted” in recent decades.
Because of the continuing decline, there were not enough priests to maintain present parish arrangements.
“We have heard all the facts and figures. We just have to look around and see parishes where there were two or three priests, there is now one and increasingly there are none, with parishes sharing a priest.”
“Structures have already been modified to meet the current needs and more changes will be necessary,” he warned.
The Archbishop will be based in Tuam, the town where the mother and baby home run by the Bon Secours Sisters was located. Referring to the scandal, he said: “Tragically for some people daily life was anything but happy or joyful. Judgement prevailed and set the scene for harshness, not homeliness. Human dignity was not there for the living or the dead or the bereaved.”
He reiterated his statement that “to move forward we must listen to all who have been hurt by their experience of Church” and pledged: “Truth and justice are important and, in pursuit of both, I am willing to listen and to learn.”
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