Ireland’s youngest Catholic bishop, Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin Paul Dempsey (53), believes “something new is emerging” in the Church.
He doesn’t know what it is yet but believes it will be “a far more real and exciting time” to be part of the church than 50 years ago when “everything was very much black and white and staid”.
He thinks it will be a “smaller church”, maybe modelled on basic, small Christian communities, back to where it “should have been always … on the margins”.
He says the gospel offered “a very radical vision of the way life can be lived” and that the church’s social teaching is “very, very radical” but that “unfortunately, because of the sad chapter of the abuse, maybe that voice is not heard at the moment”.
“Our moral authority has been damaged but, as we work our way through that and hopefully gain a bit more credibility as we go forward, I think that voice will be very important in society,” he said.
Dublin may have “huge challenges” but “there are great things happening”. Immigration is bringing “so many from Brazil, from India, the Philippines, African nations. Catholic people, who are bringing great new life and energy into so many parishes”.
He came “from a family of emigrants” – “I’m the youngest and my brother and two sisters emigrated to the US in the 1980s, when things were bad here.”
They were there “as ‘illegal aliens’ and we expected that they would be welcomed in the US. They eventually got the Morrison Visa and their Green Card, but they went for years not being able to come home. I saw the heartbreak in my own mother and my father.”
He said many Irish people expected a welcome when they emigrated and that Irish people should now welcome immigrants too.
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“We have a responsibility if people are from war-torn situations and are traumatised. We need to provide dignified facilities for people if we are welcoming them in. Putting them into tents is not good enough, the Government needs to step up on that one,” he said.
Since being appointed a bishop in January 2020, he misses parish life “terribly”. He wasn’t expecting to be appointed a bishop, nor did he want it. He was given some time to think about it, and following a week of sleepless nights, he accepted.
In Dublin since April last, he said, “What I love about the role of auxiliary is that it is a very pastoral role.
“I’ve more time to be visiting parishes, schools. That gives me great scope and that’s what I was ordained for in the first place, to be pastoral. It’s a lovely role from that perspective.”
The Rev Seán Hanily (34), rector of Rathmichael Parish Church, Co Dublin,since 2020, is believed to be the youngest Church of Ireland rector on the island.
Prior to ordination as deacon in 2017, Archbishop of Dublin Michael Jackson told him: “The church you retire out of will bear no resemblance to the church you’re being ordained into – and certainly, if it’s doing what it should, it shouldn’t bear any resemblance.”
His earliest possible retirement date is 2058 and he will have to retire by 2065.
In Rathmichael, Mr Hanily is seeing “completely the opposite of what we’re hearing” – that’s “growth”. In the parish “we meet people where they’re at, so we’re putting on afternoon services on Sundays, building community”, he said.
At harvest time, Christmas and Easter, “we run these trails, utilising our beautiful [church] grounds, as an outreach event”.
Earlier this month their ‘Nativity Express Christmas Trail’ took place, involving “a real train (hired and paid for by donation) and real sheep, for children and young families. We went back in time to meet the early prophets, then back to the train again to be taken to the Nativity story.”
The church “was turned into Bethlehem. Following which there was Christmas tree decorating and card making for children”, with 40 to 50 parish volunteers involved. The event “was attended by 320 over two hours, mainly young families”.
The Nativity Trail was all about “getting the real meaning of Christmas across”, he said.
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He believed in taking things “bit by bit, bite-sized pieces, working in the here and now”.
About 60 per cent of attendance at the recent Nativity Trail, “we didn’t know”. They were “from the wider community”.
“Among younger lay people there’s an open-mindedness and positive attitude towards the church, despite the awful things perpetrated by the churches” in the past, he said.
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“Ultimately we have the greatest story ever told” and the challenge was how to communicate that story. “It’s about communication, to people today, tomorrow,” he said.
He believes “this Christian Ireland thing is a myth. There’s a lot of people, 40 and under, who didn’t grow up in a church, don’t have a religious affiliation, wouldn’t actually know the story of the Bible. We need to be able to accommodate, meet people where they’re at,” he said.
He described as a “wonderful phrase” – and a reminder – that “people don’t care how much we know until they know how much we care”.
Theirs is an “open, very, very welcoming parish. Word spreads”, he said.
It helps that he is a young rector with a young family. He and his wife Cherith have two children, Marcus (5) and Felicity (3). “Cherith came up with the idea of the trails.”
It was all about “how to be relevant to people in our context today, where they can engage and also have some fun. Christianity is not meant to be dour and miserable.” It is “about joy and hope, what we aim to encapsulate”.
His goal in Rathmichael “is to create church that, if I was a lay person working in a nine-to-five job, I would want to go to on a Sunday”.
