St Mary’s Pro Cathedral, as viewed from Marlborough Street The Bishops of Derry and Dublin have both announced that parishes in their respective dioceses are to be merged in recent days in order to better manage the prevailing challenges impacting parishes, namely the falling numbers of priests in active ministry.
The Bishop of Derry, Donal McKeown has announced that three Catholic parishes in counties Tyrone and Donegal are being combined to deal with the decline in priest numbers and Mass attendances.
Diocesan spokesman Fr Michael Canny said the Camus (Strabane), Clonleigh (Lifford) and Leckpatrick (Strabane and rural) parishes were being brought together in a new cross border “administrative” unit.
In Dublin, St Francis Xavier parish church and the Pro-Cathedral parish merged on Wednesday. Outlining the reasoning behind the mergers, Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell cited a number of factors which prompted his action, including “changing demographics in the area; the steep decline in the Catholic population; concerns regarding individual pastoral vitality; financial situations and limited resources, and the declining numbers of available clergy to provide pastoral care”.