Bishop says fewer priests means churches will close

The Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh, yesterday raised the prospect of the diocese having to close churches and reduce the number of Masses in future years in response to declining numbers in the clergy.

Bishop Walsh also said one more parish was likely to be left without a resident priest in the diocese this summer when he made the annual diocesan appointments.

This is on top of the so-called "priestless parish" in the diocese, in north-east Clare at Killaneana-Flagmount.

Speaking on the issue of declining clergy numbers in February, Bishop Walsh estimated that the diocese would lose on average two priests a year through retirement. However, three priests have since died. Bishop Walsh acknowledged that their deaths make "the need all the more urgent to examine the distribution of priests in the diocese".

Bishop Walsh remarked yesterday: "We have too many churches and too many Masses."

He said closing churches and reducing the number of Masses would be done throughout the diocese, rather than singling out individual parishes. He said: "There will be a look at the diocese and how best to serve the people of the region." Bishop Walsh said that the closure of churches "is an issue we will have to face".

He said that in the parish of Kinnity in Co Offaly, there were four churches to serve a parish of 1,000, while in smaller parishes such as O'Callaghan's Mills and Broadford in Co Clare, there were three churches in each.

He said that the prospect of the closure of churches would happen in the next five to 10 years.

On reducing the number of Masses, Bishop Walsh said: "It is not the number of Masses, but the quality of the liturgy that the emphasis should be on. That is becoming more and more important."

Dr Walsh also raised the prospect, in response to the isolation some priests experience, of ending the practice of the priest living alone in a parochial house in a rural parish, and replacing it with small groups of priests from different parishes sharing a house.

Bishop Walsh said that "those priests not great at social contacts can be very isolated and that worries me".

All the issues cited by Bishop Walsh are expected to be debated at a diocesan priests' assembly in the autumn.