The decline of the Irish priesthood
by 'S. Armaticus'
DEUS EX MACHINA blog
April 22, 2017
Today from Rorate caeli:
For the first time in nearly 200 (or 50?…) years,
only the traditional Latin Mass to be offered in Irish Diocese
The pathetic tale of the Catholic Church in Ireland continues to unfold. The latest chapter is that, because of a priest shortage, there will be “no Masses” said on Tuesday in the entire Diocese of Limerick — something that hasn’t happened in almost two centuries.
The diocese and the media tell us there will only be “lay-led liturgies of the Word” (God be praised, this Catholic has no idea what that even is, and will die happy never knowing).
Normally, we wouldn’t really care that all the Novus Ordos dried up in a Diocese. Why would we? We pray they all die on the vine around the world. But we did find this a good time to correct the Diocese of Limerick and the media.
There will indeed be Masses said there Tuesday. Two of them, in fact, by the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest.
You can read the full — yet incomplete — story, for the record here by the Irish Times.
So history truly is being made Tuesday in Limerick. This will be there first time in nearly 200 years – or, to be exact, the first time since Paul VI invented and imposed his committee-cobbled new Mass, on the First Sunday of Advent, 1969 — that the only Mass a Catholic can attend in an entire Irish diocese will be the traditional Latin Mass. Deo gratias.
And then there is this, from the SSPX Ireland website:
The Isle without Priests
The numbers of working Catholic priests in Ireland will halve in the next 10 years, a bishop has warned.
Bishop Francis Duffy has issued a letter on the severity of the vocations crisis to all 41 churches in his diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise. He has told how a priest in each parish will be a thing of the past.
Bishop Duffy says a big factor in the decline is how a changing faith in Ireland is down to people becoming more private about their religion.
The bishop’s pastoral letter detailed how the numbers of priests will drop from 52 to 25 by the year 2030.
Bishop Duffy said there are currently no seminarians getting ready to be ordained in the diocese, which covers most of Longford, much of Leitrim and parts of Westmeath, Offaly and Cavan...
To think that Ireland used to send their priests all over the world as missionaries. The Emerald Isle needs a St. Patrick for a 21st millennium peopled by men of little faith. Let us pray for the Church in Ireland - and for all the local churches around the world which are beleaguered by unfaith and rudderless under an anti-Catholic pope.