However, he said, “At the same time we do have some amazing young teachers who are very very keen. I think we do need to work up our formation for those teachers to encourage them and to help them in their vocation but I have no objections to looking at alternative ways of the sacraments being delivered but we would need qualified trained facilitators for that program and the best thing to do if a priest has an interest in that, is to encourage him and his parish pastoral councils to start something.”
The Archbishop added that the Irish bishops some years ago actually invited parishes to consider new ways of sacramental preparation and some have done so.
“I think that we would probably need to create a new infrastructure within parish settings for this kind of thing. I’ve often thought that perhaps something in the middle of post-primary years for you know middle teenagers say around the age of 15 or so about faith, your faith and making your faith an adult faith which could possibly in time become Confirmation. Confirmation at the moment is at the very end of the national school or primary school journey. It’s very good programme, a lot of teachers and indeed some priests would maintain in some ways that’s the last we sometimes see of young children.”
However the archbishop was clear that he did not welcome any argument to strip the sacraments out of Catholic schools.
“I don’t think that we should strip it out of the schools in fact I think that if we did have an overtly clear intentional catholic school delivering intentionally catholic education then preparation for the sacraments is a natural thing to do.”
He added: “But I suppose we have to accept the reality that certainly in Northern Ireland and in some parts of Dublin a very large number of catholic children are not attending catholic schools so that we already have this issue. In Northern Ireland for example and in a lot of our integrated schools and controlled schools, controlled primary school parents have gotten together, they are providing the sacramental preparation either after the school day or in the parish hall and it’s working. It’s very interesting that when a parent takes on that responsibility or a sense that they have a role it’s like a lot of these things we have perhaps outsourced our catholic sacramental preparation to schools but of course remember they are part of us. If you go back as far as after Pope John Paul II left Ireland back in 1979 in and around the early 1980s the Irish bishops issued a new pastor letter called Handing on the Faith in the Home which was emphasizing this baptismal responsibility of a catholic parent to facilitate the development and formation of children in the faith. Interestingly enough it never saw the home as isolated doing that neither did it ever see the school as isolated doing it, it was part of that triangle of home/school/parish working together so I think a necessary first step would be to restore that that tripartite you know involvement and engagement in faith formation.”
He added: “At the moment some catholic teachers think ‘it’s all being left to us’ and parents are saying ‘we’re not doing it, we can’t do it’ or ‘we don’t know how to teach our children in the faith.’
This issue he said was one of the most serious issues for the Irish Synodal Pathway.
“I’m sure you’re aware that as part of the synodal process the whole family/youth/ formation and catechesis are floating right to the top of the priorities for the Church in Ireland. So that very question you’re asking is a serious question for the Irish synodal process if not the most serious question for the Irish synodal process.”