THE Catholic bishop of Cork and Ross has said the future of the Catholic Church in the diocese will require lay people and priests to work closely together in new ways.

Last year the diocese of Cork and Ross, which is geographically the largest in the country, introduced a new system of resource management which reflects changed circumstances for the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Under the new arrangements, parishes will work together in groupings, with priests ministering across the “family of parishes” and lay people playing a greater role in parish life.

Speaking to The Echo, the Bishop of Cork and Ross, Fintan Gavin, said it was important that the narrative around the introduction of the “family of parishes” innovation would reflect an opportunity for lay people to take a greater role in the church.

“This isn’t about the shortage of priests, this is about the lay participation, priests and people working together,” Bishop Gavin said.

“If we keep looking to an older model, we’re always going to be disappointed.

“We have restructured in such a way that we do have enough priests to work but that means that it does mean that all of us who are baptised, all of us who are members of the church, need to take another level of responsibility that has been taken for too long by our priests,” he said.

“We’ve kind of gone beyond saying ‘We’ve not got one for here or there’, we’re looking at the bigger picture, we have 12 families of parishes there, we’re looking at four more coming on board, I’m actively working on populating them and putting structure on them now for the summer.” The bishop said that two gatherings to discuss the challenges facing the diocese are planned for the weekend of Pentecost Sunday, 28 May, one in Cork and one in Ross.

“Part of what the Pentecost weekend is really about doing is bringing it beyond the priests to the people, and that was always the vision I would have put out in the pastoral this time last year, it’s priests and people working together, it’s our church,” he said.

“It’s just the demographics and how we’re trying to build the families of parishes to bring that equity, something that maybe we never did since the parishes were formed, we just had so many priests in each and now we’re looking at populations and needs and how they can just be served with the resources we have, one of which we have is the challenge of a diminishing number of priests.” 

The bishop said the challenges of the future would offer greater opportunities for lay people and faith communities to work together in the disocese.

“It’s that co-responsibility, collaborative ministry, not helping ‘Father’ to run his parish, but we’re running the parish with ‘Father’, and I think people get that,” Bishop Gavin said.

Parishioners will be invited to attend a gathering on Saturday 27 May in the Celtic Ross Hotel, Rosscarbery or on Sunday 28th May in Clayton Silversprings Conference Centre, Tivoli, with pre-registration is required.

Each gathering will begin with tea/coffee at 2pm and the meeting takes place from 2.30pm – 5.30pm.