Fr Michael O’Shea co-PP said that last Thursday he said five Masses, presided over a funeral, had a Pastoral meeting “and looked over the hospital all night,” all at 75 years of age.
Due to the high demand and pressure on the two available priests, Wexford Parish will commence a new reduced Mass schedule on the first weekend of Advent.
Fr O’Shea said the schedule needs to be doable by one priest, in case the other gets sick. “When I came to Wexford in 1988, there were eight priests in the parish, and now we’re just two.”
With Fr Billy Swan being appointed to Rome, and the retirement in Clonard of Fr Denis Lennon and Fr Barry Larkin, Wexford Town now only has Fr Paddy Browne and Fr Michael O’Shea as co-Parish Priests.
“Some people say the Church as it is maybe needs to die before a new Church is born,” Fr O’Shea said. For him, it might be the moment for the lay community to step in.
He mentioned that around 20 lay people are currently “in their second year of training to assist the priest and indeed take a lot of the ceremonies themselves,” and added, “now we’ve reached the stage where we need the baptised with their gifts to do an awful lot of the tasks that priests did in the past.”