When Fr Martin O'Reilly stood up to give the homily at the funeral of Gary McCormick and Ciarán Hagan in Threemilehouse on Monday, he did not expect that his words would start a debate about the way society treats its young people.
The priest from Threemilehouse was thinking of his friends, Paul and Kathleen Hagan, who were burying their 20-year old son. Ciarán's death, together with four friends, struck a chord with him.
"In the 12 years since I was ordained, I have buried more people from the generation after me than the generation before me," he said. "Why?"
The 40-year-old youth director with the Diocese of Clogher had been growing increasingly concerned at the number of young people dying in road crashes, the number of young suicides and the loss of a sense of community.
These worries were the spark for his comments that we were throwing iPods and expensive consumer goods at our children instead of spending time with them.
Reflecting on the homily yesterday, he told The Irish Times he was not calling for a return of the days before the Celtic Tiger. "We don't want to go back there, where people are begging and scraping to make ends meet. That's not what it's about. There's a lot of good that has come out of the economic boom. But the other side is that we have left so much good stuff behind."
He said we had lost that "connectedness" between neighbours. When children asked now if they could play with a child in the same housing estate, the parent might find themselves saying: "I don't know that family."
"For a lot of young people growing up, the only adult influences were their parents, or teachers. And they are good strong influences but both of those are often disciplinarian. What they also need is the befriending influence, may that be from the football club, the athletic club, whatever."
He has been involved in the youth Foróige movement and said it had gone from about 25 clubs in Monaghan to about six now. "We just don't have time anymore." He believes people without children should get involved in such organisations.
"I believe there is a moral obligation there that we should take an active part in the personal development of our young people."
But because of child abuse cases, a culture of fear had grown, making priests and lay people afraid to befriend young people.
"Oftentimes I would feel among many of my brother priests there's that sense of fear that you just do what it is you have to do and you do no more because there's a sense of paranoia that people will say: 'why is he getting involved, or what's his interest'? That's something that the Church has to seriously look at and I don't think it has," he said.
"What are we about? Is it just saying Mass? Is it just attending the sick? Is it just marrying the people and baptising their children or is there more to the ministry than that? And I would firmly believe there's more to the ministry."
People doing voluntary work in sports clubs had the same child abuse fears, he said, but there was no need to be afraid once good child protection guidelines were in place. "We can't allow fear to rule our lives, because if we do allow that, then our young people are being left to the wilds of the world." The Government also had obligations and putting checkpoints at every crossroads to catch young people would only result in a game of cat and mouse, he said.
Fr O'Reilly called for professional driving courses within the school system and mandatory courses for provisional licence holders who do not get a driving licence within a year.
Fr O'Reilly taught in Beech Hill College in Monaghan for eight years before studying youth ministry in All Hallows and becoming youth director for the diocese three years ago. He has met with groups of young people and said the one thing that struck him was that young people still wanted to be a part of the Church.
"But not the Church as we have it, not the Church of their parents or grandparents.
"It's not that they want to change it but they want an active part in it, a part in creating what happens."
