Teacher formation and adult education key to Church renewal, Pope says

A time of renewal lies ahead for the Church in Ireland, Pope Francis has assured the country’s bishops.

Addressing members of the hierarchy before returning to Rome, the Pope said that while upheavals of recent years have tested the faith of the Irish people, they have also “offered the opportunity for an interior renewal of the Church in this country and pointed to new ways of envisaging its life and mission”.

The Pope recalled how Vatican II had said God constantly impels Christians to pass beyond the familiar and set out anew to the fringes and beyond. He encouraged the gathered bishops to trust humbly in God’s grace and “set out on new paths for these new times”.

Speaking in the Dominican Sisters’ convent beside the Papal Nunciature on Dublin’s Navan Road, the Pontiff pointed to Ireland’s missionary heritage as a sign that the Irish Church would find creative ways to bear witness to the Gospel’s truth and to build up the community of Christian believers.

“As St John of the Cross teaches us, it is in the dark night that the light of Faith shines purest in our hearts,” Pope Francis said. “And that light will show the way to the renewal of the Christian life in Ireland in the years ahead.”

According to a text released by the Vatican, the Pope noted that the World Meeting of Families had given hope that families are growing increasingly aware of their “irreplaceable” role in passing on the Faith, while saying that Catholic schools and formal catechetical programmes continue to be “indispensable”. The formation of “faithful and joyful teachers” and the expansion of adult education programmes would be, he said, “essential for the future of the Christian community”.

These comments were, he said, intended as a continuation of his conversation with Ireland’s bishops during their ad limina visit to Rome in January 2017, and sought to encourage the bishops to persevere in their ministry.  He thanked them for their care for the homeless and marginalised, as well as their support for clergy who have been hurt and discouraged by various scandals.

Noting how a recurring theme of the visit has been the need for the Church to acknowledge and remedy “with evangelical honesty and courage” previous child protection failures, Francis thanked the bishops for having undertaken paths of reconciliation and purification with victims and survivors of abuse and for establishing stringent child protection norms.

“In these years, all of us have had our eyes opened to the gravity and extent of sexual abuse in various social settings,” he said. “In Ireland, as elsewhere, the honesty and integrity with which the Church chooses to confront this painful chapter of her history can offer an example and a warning to society as a whole.”