Priests vow to keep churches warm as ‘crazy’ bills skyrocket

Despite the exorbitant cost of heating, priests have said churches must be kept warm and welcoming or people won’t come – particularly as Ireland was hit this week with temperatures well below freezing.

Fr Tom Ryan Co-PP of Ennis, Doora-Barefield, Clarecastle-Ballyea, Quin and Clooney in Co. Clare said that priests are “very aware” of the expense of heating churches which has become “extremely high in recent years”.

He told this paper: “I’m also very conscious of the need to have warm churches and welcoming churches, and despite the cost of warming and keeping our churches heated, that is what we will do. A warm church and a welcoming church is very, very important and conducive to prayer.

“Despite the costs, the Lord will provide. Obviously much of our congregations are elderly people who are coming from homes that are well-heated, and they need our churches to be equally well-heated. If you have cold churches, you’ll have very few people,” he said.

Fr John Deignan PP of Ss Peter and Paul parish in Athlone said that regarding heating costs “we are struggling and have been struggling since Covid, since the prices went crazy”.

“We would spend between €700-900 a week in one of our churches for heat. Heat and insurance are the two biggest outlays. But it has to happen. We have to run the heat irrespective because the physical building has to be kept maintained. It has to have at least a welcoming heat when people come in. To keep the cold out – that’s all we can do,” Fr Deignan stated.

Fr Aquinas Duffy PP of Wicklow, Kilbride & Barndarrig, and Ashford & Glenealy in Dublin Diocese said that regarding church overheads heating is “one of the biggest worries”.

“None of the parishes here are in credit in terms of what we spend and what we take in, so there’s a continuing deficit there. Part of that is the rising costs of everything. Here in Wicklow, through a grant from Wicklow County Council and working with the Wicklow Town Scheme, we’re retrofitting the pastoral centre, so we’re trying to adapt to the Laudato Si’ theme to save energy and also help the planet at the same time, so that is an exciting project at the moment,” he said.

“The problem is that some of the churches are very big, and I suppose the reality is we wouldn’t have the finances to do a complete retrofit of all the churches – plus there’s a preservation order on nearly all of them as well. So it’s difficult to heat them,” he added.