The new funeral ministers are part of Bishop Larry Duffy’s plan to move from a model that is “clergy-dependent” to one where lay people are carrying out many of the roles traditionally performed by a priest.
In a pastoral letter read out at masses across Clogher’s 37 parishes on Sunday, Dr Duffy stressed that the lay funeral ministers would not be a “lessening of service to families and loved ones at the time of a death” but rather, “a strengthening of the local parish commitment to accompany people at such a difficult and sensitive time”.
Traditionally, Catholic funerals are led by a priest as the ceremony usually includes Mass, which can only be said by a priest. However, due to the decline in vocations and the lack of priests in Ireland, the church is introducing new lay ministries and adapting services to offset the lack of manpower.
The 40 funeral ministers in Clogher will operate in 12 parishes. Other parishes in the diocese, which has a wide geographical spread, encompassing all of Co Monaghan, most of Co Fermanagh along with portions of Tyrone, Donegal, Louth and Cavan, have indicated their willingness to nominate people for another training course for lay funeral ministers in the Spring of next year.
Clogher currently has 37 parishes and 85 churches, with 44 priests and two deacons in ministry.
Last July, Bishop Duffy wrote to the people of his diocese warning them that the figures indicated that in less than 20 years there will be fewer than 10 priests covering all of its parishes and churches and at most, there will be just one priest ordained in the next seven years.
Encouraging lay people to embrace a different way of doing things where laity and priests work together, he warned, “We cannot afford to wait any longer!”
Earlier this year, Bishop Donal McKeown warned that very soon it might “no longer be the norm” for every individual to have a Mass as part of their funeral.
He said lay people would begin leading prayers at the graveside or in crematoria in some parishes in the Diocese of Down and Connor in response to the shortage of priests.
A survey carried out by the Association of Catholic Priests last year showed that 547 priests of the 2,100 working priests in the Irish Church are aged between 61 and 75 and nearly 300 or 15pc of working priests are aged 75 or over.
In the 1960s the Church in Ireland introduced lay readers or Ministers of the Word. In the 1980s it introduced Ministers of the Eucharist.
Most Irish dioceses are currently introducing new formation programmes for lay people so that they can perform a range of functions such as presiding at funerals, marriages and baptisms in the years ahead when there are no longer priests available.