Mission can come from different ministries and merely changing who can be ordained will not make the Catholic Church into a missionary Church, a bishops has warned.
Bishop of Derry Donal McKeown, speaking on the theme, “the harvest is rich, but the labourers are few”, said that there was a temptation to think that this refers only to more clergy and religious.
“There are thousands of people waiting to see signs of hope and resurrection. With different ministries, the whole Church is called to be on a mission,” he said in a homily.
Feedback from the Irish Church’s 26 dioceses to the universal synodal has indicated strong support for greater involvement of women including ordained ministry.
However, Bishop McKeown said that renewal is “not merely about new ideas to get us higher in the popularity ratings nor about taking on secular agendas in order to be appear up to date”.
He said that couples and families can proclaim God’s love “in a world where trust and hope are in short supply, and where many cultural icons are emotional pygmies”.
He also suggested that parish communities can be welcoming and caring in an age where “we risk breaking down into small sub-cultures”, while people of all ages can be agents of reconciliation in a culture where “victimhood and anger are seen as virtues which are used to ward off any criticism of our actions”.
Elsewhere Bishop McKeown, who is chairman of the Council for Pastoral Renewal and Adult Faith Development, said that there is plenty of talk about love in today’s culture but that it was easier for people to believe that they can expect little more than temporary attachments in culture of ex-partners, ex-wives, ex-husbands, and people who have experienced “shattering emotional situations”.
“Believing in the eternal love and compassion of God is difficult,” he said, when people believe that they can expect to give their body but not their heart.
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