An Irish newspaper has reported that 1 in 5 of the country’s priests and religious brothers have died in the past three years.
The Irish Examiner said on Jan. 8 that “more than 21% of Ireland’s entire population of parish priests and brothers — both serving and retired — have died in just three years.”
The Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference was unable to confirm the figure as the statistics are recorded locally by Ireland’s 26 dioceses and its religious orders.
The Irish Examiner, a national daily newspaper based in Cork, said that at the end of 2018, there were around 1,800 active priests and 720 retired clergy in Ireland, or approximately 2,520 in total.
Referring to figures in the official Irish Catholic Directory, it noted that 166 priests and brothers died in 2019, 223 in 2020, and 131 up to September 2021. The figures added up to a total of 520 deceased priests and brothers.
The newspaper said that “the figures from the directories are likely to be conservative, because not every religious order or diocese reports the death of its clergy to Veritas,” the publisher of the directories.
Ireland, a country of almost five million people, has seen a decline in the number of citizens identifying as Catholic in recent years.
The 2011 census found that 84.2% of the population identified as Catholic. That figure fell to 78.3% in the 2016 census. The next census will take place in April.
The Irish Examiner reported last month that the number of active priests is likely to plummet when the country emerges from the pandemic.
Clergy postponed their retirements to support colleagues struggling to serve the Catholic community during the crisis, it said.
The newspaper gave the example of the Diocese of Cork and Ross, where nine out of 94 pastors are aged over 75.
But no newly ordained priest has joined the diocese in the last four years and only one is expected to in 2022.
Diocesan secretary Father Michael Keohane said: “Several factors, including the COVID pandemic, meant many of the priests who were due to retire in recent years continue to hold full-time appointments.”
“As a result, the number who have passed retirement age is higher, and it is hoped that many of these priests will be permitted to retire in the coming year.”
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A scene from the trailer promoting Liberty University’s campus ministry production of “Scaremare.” / Scaremare on YouTube
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 29, 2022 / 10:55 am (CNA).
This October some churches and ministries in the United States are once again hosting Christian versions of haunted houses, and nonbelievers and believers alike are lining up for some rather existential spine-tingling for the first time since the pandemic.
Popular among evangelical Protestant churches in the South, these “judgment houses” typically stage dramatic representations depicting what happens after people die, leaving visitors to ponder whether they themselves are headed for heaven or hell, and presumably, to act accordingly.
Is this a good way to save souls? Some Catholics experts in evangelization who spoke to CNA have reservations.
A different way to evangelize
The late Jerry Falwell, the Baptist televangelist, and founder of Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Virginia, is credited with hosting the first judgment house in 1972, “Scaremare.”
Scaremare is still going strong in Lynchburg, where the university’s campus ministry stages a production every year around Halloween that draws people from all over the region attracted by the lure of “fun-house rooms and scenes of death in order to confront people with the question ‘What happens after I die?’”
The performance does not disappoint those looking for the sort of adrenaline surge a horror movie produces. As many as 4,000 visitors a night witness gruesome death scenes including a massacre at a movie theater and a camper who is mauled by a wild animal.
According to Josh Coldren, the director of the 2022 production of Scaremare, the scenes are intended to make people think about their fears and their mortality.
“We talk about how everyone faces death, but how there is hope beyond our fears and hope beyond death, and that hope is in Jesus Christ,” Coldren told CNA.
According to Scaremare’s website, over 26,000 people who visited over the years “have made decisions for Christ over the past two decades. Ironically, this House of Death points to the Way of Life!”
While judgment houses can function as memento mori, efficacious reminders of the inevitability of death, some judgment houses, also known as “Hell Houses,” have become controversial for taking the idea to an extreme. Graphic scenes such as abortions, extramarital sex, and drug use are sometimes depicted along with the consequence of these actions as the sinners are shown condemned to spend eternity in hell.
Scaremare doesn’t get into these issues or talk about hell at all, Coldren told CNA.
“We don’t have a scene of hell, and we stay away from demons. We believe those things are real, we just make sure we stay away from them,” Coldren said.
Tom Hudgins, is the owner of Judgement House, a company based in Seminole, Florida, that provides scripts to churches to stage dramas. Before COVID, he told CNA, they helped as many as 350 churches at a time hold Judgement Houses. They are slowly getting back to business, he said, and about 50 participating churches are listed on their website.
Hudgins explained to CNA that, unlike more extreme Hell House productions, his scripts never talk about social issues. Small groups of visitors walk through scenes meant to encourage self-reflection. Each production begins with death, by a car crash or cancer, for example, and then the audience sees what happens after death.
“They see what hell would be like, but they also see what heaven will be like, and everyone can make their own decisions,” Hudgins said.
A scene from a production of a Judgement House script. Decaturville Pentecostal Church YouTube
Bonnie Gilliland, the dramatic director at Morningside Baptist Church in Tallahassee, Florida, is staging a play with the help of Judgement House this October. She told CNA that the productions are a way of sharing the Gospel.
“We include a lot of scripture, it’s very biblically based,” she said.
Gilliland explained that this year’s production isn’t just for nonbelievers – it’s meant to give the regular churchgoer a wake-up call.
“The current drama gives people an opportunity to understand and examine whether they have a relationship with Jesus Christ because it’s more than just going to church, it’s about accepting Jesus as your savior and receiving the gift of eternal life,” Gilliland said.
Kelly Armstrong, the director of the judgment house at New Harmony Baptist Church in Albertville, Alabama, told CNA that past productions have depicted scenes of car wrecks, overdoses, and abuse.
Visitors see “how people make decisions that affect their eternity,” he said. “It brings our church together, and makes people think.”
Catholic criticism of “hell houses”
Judgment houses have not found favor among Catholic churches in the United States, and two experts in evangelization and pastoral care told CNA that they don’t think talking about hell attracts people to the Church.
Sherry Weddell is the founder of the Catherine of Siena Institute, an apostolate that helps evangelize Catholic parishes to turn pew-sitters into “intentional missionary disciples.” She told CNA that she advises any Catholics considering introducing hell-related themes to their Halloween decorations or celebrations, to rethink that idea.
“If you live in an area that has a significant number of young adults, especially parents of young children, or in an area that is highly secularized like urban areas of the East or West coasts, many will find it offensive or off-putting. And there is a real chance that sensitive and young children could be upset by it which would fuel their parents’ unhappiness with the sponsoring Catholic community,” Weddell explained.
“You could upset people who might otherwise have been open to attending an Advent or Christmas event at your parish or just open to a friendship with a Catholic like you.
“Instead of building or strengthening bridges of trust, you could be shattering or weakening whatever trust may already exist. There are creative, positive, child and parent-friendly alternatives such as “trunk-or-treating,” costume parties, and community of light events that foster both long-standing relationships and fun,” Weddell said.
Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, the chief exorcist for the Archdiocese of Washington, and a psychologist and researcher at the Catholic University of America, told CNA that the threat of hell isn’t effective in this day and age.
“People today are not convinced or influenced by threats of hell. The Church just really stopped doing that because it just doesn’t work. You know, you can do all the hellfire and damnation sermons you want, but people just kind of yawn, “ Rossetti said.
“We’re trying to emphasize God’s love and God’s mercy, which I think is much more to the point, frankly. And also more of a message that’s needed in our day. And I think that started with Pope John XXIII at Vatican II. He said, today what the message needs to be is of God’s mercy and compassion and God’s love.
“This is what attracts people, and this is sort of the core of our message. God loves us and God has saved us out of his love and compassion in Jesus,” he said.
Pope Francis prays the Angelus on Jan. 7, 2024, and offers pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square a reflection on baptism. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Jan 7, 2024 / 10:04 am (CNA).
Pope Francis said Sunday that if you do not know the date of your baptism, you need to look it up so that you can celebrate the anniversary of becoming a child of God and heir to the kingdom of heaven.
Speaking from the window of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, the pope said on Jan. 7 that the anniversary of one’s baptism should be celebrated each year “like a birthday.”
“At baptism, it is God who comes into us, purifies and heals our heart, makes us forever His children, His people and family, heirs to Paradise,” Pope Francis said.
“Let us ask ourselves: am I aware of the immense gift I carry within me through baptism?” he added.
The pope spoke on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which commemorates Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River by St. John the Baptist.
Pilgrims gather to see Pope Francis deliver the Angelus address at St. Peter’s Square on Jan. 7, 2024. Vatican Media
Earlier in the day, Pope Francis baptized 16 babies in the Sistine Chapel, where he said that baptism is “the most beautiful gift” that parents can give to their children.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes baptism as the “basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit … and the door which gives access to the other sacraments.”
In his Angelus address, Pope Francis said that each sign of the cross is a reminder of one’s baptism that “traces in us the memory of the grace of God, who loves us and desires to be with us.”
Pope Francis urged people to reflect and ask themselves: “Do I acknowledge, in my life, the light of the presence of God, who sees me as His beloved son, His beloved daughter?”
Pilgrims gather in St. Peter’s Square to see Pope Francis deliver his Angelus reflection . Vatican Media
He also encouraged Catholics to thank God for their parents who brought them to the baptismal font and gave them the gift of the sacrament.
“It is important to remember the day of our baptism, and also to know the date. I ask all of you, each one of you to think: ‘Do I remember the date of my baptism?’” he said.
“If you do not remember, when you go back home, ask what it is, so as not to forget it anymore because it is a new birthday, because with your baptism you were born into the life of grace.”
After praying the Marian prayer with the crowd huddled together under umbrellas in St. Peter’s Square below, the pope urged people to continue praying for peace in Ukraine, Palestine, and Israel.
Pope Francis also asked for prayers for “the unconditional liberation” of all people who have been kidnapped in Colombia and expressed his closeness to the people affected by the recent flooding in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The pope wished a merry Christmas to the Eastern Orthodox Christians who are still following the Julian calendar and are celebrating Christmas this year on Jan. 7.
“With a spirit of joyful fraternity, I wish that the birth of the Lord Jesus fills them with light, charity, and peace,” he said.
A protest of the coup d’etat in Hpa-An, the capital of Karen State, Burma, on Feb. 9, 2021. Credit: Ninjastrikers (CC BY-SA 4.0). / null
Denver Newsroom, Jun 29, 2022 / 11:26 am (CNA).
A Catholic diocese in Burma has ordered two priests to stop participating in politics and posting on social media against the country’s power structure and Church officials. The priests are staunch critics of the junta whose 2021 coup launched an insurgency that the Catholic bishops hope to end.
Father Dominic Wun Kyaw Htwe and Father Clement Angelo Ate both faced rebukes from the Diocese of Kengtung for openly opposing the junta. The two priests are living in exiled communities across the border with Thailand.
“Your active involvement in politics and your posts on social media not only cause great perplexity,” said a June 22 letter to Htwe, charging that his actions divide “public opinion and our Christian community itself.”
The June 22 letter to Htwe from Father Peter Anwe, administrator of the Diocese of Kengtung, cited his active participation in politics through being present at protest movements and through social media posts against political authorities and Church leaders “despite several warnings.”
The Kengtung diocese is in the Shan state of Burma, also known as Myanmar, and is heavily affected by the ongoing civil war, Asia News reports. A junta overthrew the country’s government on Feb. 1, 2021. Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s elected civilian leader, was detained along with the country’s President, Win Myint. Many supporters of the government took to the streets in protest, and some took up arms and formed rebel groups.
Htwe responded to the diocese’s letter, saying, “This situation has been thought of since the beginning of the revolution. You can kick me out at once.” He said he is “proud of being far… from a society that is dominated by fear and enjoys the pursuit of financial riches rather than justice and truth.”
“I have a very strong love of my mother religion,” the priest said, saying the present is a time “when there is a clear distinction between right and wrong.” The warning to him has strengthened his resolve to “fight harder”
Ate, the other priest rebuked by his diocese, said he would continue “fighting and standing with our suffering people” and “do as much as I can for them.”
Some Church leaders have been outspoken. Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Yangon has strongly objected to the military’s death sentences for some activists.
“As cardinal of Myanmar I plead — from the very depths of my heart — with the junta, not to hang these men, and I appeal to the world to act,” he said at an international conference last Monday. “If the regime goes through with this, it marks a new low for this already brutal, barbaric, inhumane and criminal junta.”
In January, Bo told Vatican Radio his country suffers from “spiraling chaos, confusion, conflict, and human agony.” The country’s bishops are trying to accompany the people, advocate for humanitarian access, and urge all parties in the conflict to make peace.
Catholics make up only 1% of the country’s population, which is majority Buddhist.
Some 1,900 people have died and another 1 million have been displaced under the junta’s repressive control of the country, Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva earlier this month. Thousands more have been arrested, she said, and an estimated 14 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian aid.
In the Diocese of Loikaw in eastern Burma, almost half of the parishes have been abandoned because of intense fighting. At least nine churches in the diocese have been hit by government military shelling and airstrikes, according to the report.
Htwe, 34, joined the protests immediately after the coup. After receiving warnings from backers of the coup, he was warned he would be arrested. He fled his parish of St. Anthony of Padua in February 2021 and hid in a border town for six months before crossing into Thailand, disguised as a plantation coffee worker, according to Asia News.
He began to help a Thai priest at a parish in the Diocese of Chiang Rai that mainly serves Akha people, the same ethnicity as Htwe. He ministered the sacraments and gave catechism lessons, but also collected donations of money, food, and clothing for refugees from Burma.
“Our dreams, our hopes and our future have been taken away from us. Our lives were destroyed by terrorist and murderous soldiers,” he told AsiaNews in April.
He denounced the Burmese army and said people in Burma are “tortured, raped and burned alive.”
“We want to see at least the right to life as human beings recognized. Myanmar’s should not only be an internal problem, it should be an international issue because these are crimes against humanity,” he said.
The priest accused the Chinese government of backing the junta in Burma over the democratically elected government.
In an April letter on Holy Thursday 2022, Htwe called for “concrete actions” from the international community.
“Clergy postponed their retirements to support colleagues struggling to serve the Catholic community during the crisis”. Likely many of the deaths are the result of heroic volunteer elderly priests with health issues susceptible to Covid19. As occurred in N Italy during the onset of the pandemic.
The public perception that the majority of priests are bad because of the few needs to be jettisoned.
“Clergy postponed their retirements to support colleagues struggling to serve the Catholic community during the crisis”. Likely many of the deaths are the result of heroic volunteer elderly priests with health issues susceptible to Covid19. As occurred in N Italy during the onset of the pandemic.
The public perception that the majority of priests are bad because of the few needs to be jettisoned.