The bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois, Dr Colm O’Reilly, has admitted that the Church may have been too concerned in the past with church attendance as a measure of people’s faith. Dr O’Reilly, who celebrates his silver jubilee as a bishop today (Sunday 13th April) said that people may be living Christian lives even if they do not frequent church services.
In a wide-ranging interview with the ‘Longford Leader’ newspaper, the bishop said that while abstention from Church attendance was “a concern”, the church had to continue to be a “welcoming place”.
“We were probably too rigidly stuck with the idea that the only criterion was Sunday Mass, but there were other dimensions in the Church as well” he conceded.
“I would know, and I’m sure everyone knows people who are living extremely good lives and are not regularly in practice as their parents were, for example” Dr O’Reilly explained.
“Sometimes parents themselves are distressed because they are thinking that we raised these children and they are not going to church”.
“What I would say to them is ‘Are they kind to you?’ and they say that they couldn’t be better”.
“I would say ‘Don’t frighten them off because obviously there’s a lot of good there’" the bishop said.
Dr O’Reilly told journalist Neil Halligan that he was broadly encouraged by the Church’s future and believed it was returning to being the people’s church.
Bishop O’Reilly said that the highpoints of his 25 years as bishop were the Jubilee year, various diocesan days, the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the cathedral and his outreach work to missionary communities of Zambia and Zimbabwe.
He was pleased that his silver jubilee as a bishop coincided with the launch of the Year of Vocation. As a student he wasn’t sure about his vocation, but was affirmed by two things, he said.
“The first was that my class mates assumed I’d become a priest, and the second was that my school principal button holed me one day and put it to me that I should be a priest. We don’t do that enough! I think we should not be shy of saying that to men we think might have vocations.”
The bishop said he expected to retire in two years when he reaches 75 and whoever is chosen as his successor has to have a strong personality, be creative and show “a willingness to try new things”.
He also revealed that though he was strongly tipped– as administrator of St Mel’s Cathedral in Longford – to replace his predecessor, Cahal Daly, who was transferred to the diocese of Down and Connor, it was a “huge shock” when he was actually appointed.
“I was blown away by the whole thought of it at the time – it was a big step, a huge step-up, for me”
And Dr O’Reilly said he did not want to be centre stage at celebrations this weekend to mark the silver jubilee of his episcopal ordination.
“I don’t want to project my own image at all, but I’d much prefer to allow us a chance to celebrate, not just priests’ vocations but all ministries that are carried out by lay people”.
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