Bishop Paul Dempsey. Ireland’s Catholic leaders have urged for constructive collective discernment to be used across Ireland’s dioceses as the Church in Ireland commences its two-year Synodal Pathway, which will eventually lead to a National Synodal Assembly in Ireland.
Speaking at the launch of a We Are Church online event on the National Synodal Assembly, Bishop Paul Dempsey described the process as “an apt time to reflect upon our experience of Church and face the many questions we are grappling with”.
Expressing reservation, Bishop Dempsey said that he feared that the Synod process would be comparable with a “gathering in a hotel where we will gather for a week or two”, which will eventually lead to participants getting “caught up in their own agendas rather than the bigger picture which is the mission given to us by Jesus Christ.” Bishop Dempsey said he also hopes for a “genuine openness to the Spirit” and for “an opportunity for us to reflect in a prayerful way together on where the Lord is calling us”.
Contemplating on the future of the Church, Bishop Dempsey asked, “What is the Lord saying to the Church in Ireland today? The answer to this question calls for discernment.”
The call for thorough discernment of the current Church and its mission was also advocated by Archbishop Dermot Farrell, who acknowledged the importance of Church-wide engagement from all of its members. “Discernment is needed to know how we can find creative ways to rebalance our internal dynamics as Church, to promote deeper communion, fuller participation, and a more fruitful mission,” he said.
In a pastoral message which called for Church adherents from as far as “Magherafelt in Co. Derry to Drogheda in Co. Louth” to fully and intuitively interact with the Synodal process, Archbishop Eamon Martin and Auxiliary Michael Router announced that the opportunity for lay people to assert their influence was at this present moment and emphasised that their words bore as much significance as ordained members of the Church as they are “witnesses to the gospel”.
“The lay women and men of our diocese, have a vital role to play in this,” they stated. “Sometimes the work of spreading the Gospel and building the Kingdom of God is left to ordained priests and deacons, or to those who are consecrated as religious. You, however, have a special mission in witnessing to the Gospel. As baptised members of the Church, as disciples of Jesus, you are called to act in the midst of humanity to bring the Kingdom of God to life in every facet of society.”
The synodal process, which began on Sunday, will initially be focused on aspects such as prayer, listening, consultation and discernment, with a view to accommodating a national synodal assembly for the Church across the island within the next five years.