Church in Ireland ‘on cusp of something new’ says bishop

New Dublin auxiliary Bishop Paul Dempsey has said the Church is not dying but, rather, is “on the cusp of something new”.

Addressing the congregation gathered in St Andrew’s Parish in Dublin’s Westland Row for the ordination of Bishop Donal Roche as an auxiliary in Dublin and to welcome Bishop Dempsey following his transfer from Achonry, he said what is dying is a model of Church.

“We have come through an enormous amount of change as a society and a Church. We have had to confront difficult truths that were necessary to face.”

Though the “prophets of doom” are always “forecasting disaster” saying the Church hasn’t a voice anymore, or that the Church no longer has a place in the public square, he stressed that the Church is in a process of renewal.

Bishop Dempsey’s transfer to Dublin was announced in April as part of Pope Francis’ historic amalgamation of the diocese of Achonry with the diocese of Elphin.

Speaking to The Tablet after Sunday’s ceremony, Bishop Dempsey said his “exact ministry” in Dublin has yet to be worked out, but he had been involved in a lot of youth work since he was ordained in 1997.

Photo by John McElroy

“I get great energy from working with young people. I look forward to meeting the young people of the archdiocese [of Dublin] and trying to encourage them because there are a lot of gaps in society today. There are a lot of struggles, worries and challenges for young people and I think the Gospel speaks to that. The challenge is to make that bridge between the Gospel and the reality of their lives.”

In his homily for the ordination of Bishop Roche and to officially welcome Bishop Dempsey, Archbishop Dermot Farrell explained that his request for two auxiliaries was due to the need for the largest diocese in the Irish Church to respond to the rapidly changing social and pastoral needs of its people.

He said the two bishops’ ministerial lives would help them engage with a society which is “increasingly diverse, mobile, and detached from traditional communities of faith centred on residential parishes”. It would, he stressed, be a mistake to see these challenges as temporary, or as limited in their implications for the life of the Church in Dublin.

“We are called to reimagine our pastoral mission in a creative way and discover and re-discover ways of permitting Christ’s good news, God’s open door, to be received by those who do not yet recognise his face. We can no longer seek to patch an old garment, with new-found fabrics. We need new wineskins,” Archbishop Farrell said.

Photo by John McElroy

Bishop Donal Roche in his address said there were “enormous challenges” for the Church for which there are “no easy solutions”. 

“I don’t come with ready-made answers, but I come with an open heart, a willingness to listen, an enthusiasm for the mission ahead and most of all, I come with hope for the future,” he told the packed church.  

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