Saturday, September 24, 2016

Vocations a priority for Ireland’s newest bishop

Image result for Bishop-elect Fintan MonahanIreland’s newest bishop has said the Vatican’s ‘baby bishops’ course was a valuable opportunity for networking and learning best practice from elsewhere in the world.

Bishop-elect Fintan Monahan, who will be ordained Bishop of Killaloe this Sunday, September 25, said that the annual training course was “great – a very good experience, probably more so from the point of view of just meeting the other 150 guys who were on it and in the same boat, and establishing contact with the guys from the English speaking world”.

Content

While praising the content of the course, Bishop-elect Monahan said that encounters with his fellow new bishops were probably even more advantageous than the course’s official content. 

“It was great to meet the guys and establish what issues they have, and what’s working well in those dioceses and what’s not working and what the problems are, that sort of things,” he told The Irish Catholic, adding, “from that point of view it was fantastic”. 

Among these, he said, were bishops with Irish connections, not least the new Cork-born Los Angeles auxiliary bishop, Dr David O’Connell.