He revealed that more people are seldom going to Mass and many didn’t return after the churches were forced to close their doors during the Covid lockdown.
He said it is very clear that many no longer attend on Sundays and he wonders if they even pause during any given week to consider the presence of God?
“It seems that more and more people rarely go to Mass,” Bishop Browne stated.
He said some people might consider returning during Lent to get that important sense of practicing their faith.
Bishop Browne said the situation regarding the shortage of priests is another major challenge with many of those currently ministering reaching retirement age and just four priests in the entire diocese are aged under 50.
“That tells you our situation,” he said.
There are currently five priests from Kenya helping out in parishes around the county but that number will be exceeded by the number of retirements in a few years.
Bishop Browne, speaking on the Horizons radio show, said some people will remember 25 or 30 years ago when there were 120 priests in the Diocese of Kerry with three in every town parish and two in many rural parishes while secondary schools also had a full-time priest either as chaplain or teaching religion.
Only Killarney and Tralee now have three priests and thee have been just three men ordained in the diocese over the past six years.
Parish secretaries and sacristans have had to take on considerably more work but there is a need to get the laity more involved in the day-to-day running of parishes.
To that end, 25 lay pastoral leaders were commissioned recently, having completed a two-year course, and they will help out in their parishes for a few hours every week.