First major move to tackle vocations crisis announced

Church leaders will this month open a new national office dedicated exclusively to promoting vocations to priesthood as the shortage of priests continues to bite and some dioceses are no longer able to staff parishes.

Bishop Phonsie Cullinan admitted that the Irish Church is playing ‘catch up’, telling The Irish Catholic that Ireland is “behind the curve” in not having had a national office for vocations until now.

The Waterford and Lismore bishop, who heads the Irish bishops’ council for vocations, praised the work of vocation directors around the country, but pointed out that a lack of clerical manpower means that priests often cannot dedicate themselves full-time to their roles as vocational directors.

The new office, he said, will coordinate the national vocations strategy, “helping vocations directors in each diocese, keeping the vocations question to the top of the agenda, providing training for vocations directors and encouraging vocations initiatives”.

Funding for the project has been provided by the Knights of St Columbanus, with Supreme Knight Barry McMahon telling The Irish Catholic the knights have agreed to provide funding of €25,000 a year for the next three years.

Adamant that the funding is to be used for specific initiatives, rather than wages or equipment, Mr McMahon said the funding “will help them go out and do the initiatives, and will help vocations because we’re so short of priests at the moment”.

Commenting on Ireland’s lack of a national vocations office before now, Mr McMahon observed that “each diocese would have had a vocational director, but there was no joined-up thinking between them”.

One of the knights has been appointed to a committee to oversee the actions of the new office, he added, explaining, “We do that now anywhere we put money into – we need control and accountability.”

While Dr Cullinan says it could take time for the fruits of this attempt to build a culture of vocation to show, he maintained that Irish people are still called to the priesthood. “There are people out there, of that I am convinced, and it’s a question of having the courage to ask,” he said.