Commissioning of Dublin Diocesan Pastoral Council

Sunday, May 18, 2025
St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral

Homily of Bishop Donal Roche

There’s a line in today’s First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles that captures the essence of the Building Hope project which has been happening in the diocese over the last couple of years. We’re told that Paul and Barnabas “put fresh heart into the disciples, encouraging them to persevere in the faith”. I love that line because of its positive, encouraging tone, but I also love it because it shows us that the need for encouragement and ‘fresh heart’ is not a new thing: it was there right from the early days of the Church.  In every age, there have been setbacks and difficulties, hardships and crises in the Church. Keeping faith with Christ and staying faithful to his teaching have always been challenging, and so we will always need people like Paul and Barnabas to continue that ministry of encouragement, putting fresh heart into the disciples of our time and continuing the work of opening ‘the door of faith’ to those who have not yet  Christ.

From the earliest times in the church, there have been various ministries – priests, deacons and elders – to assist the bishop in the service of the Gospel. The reading from Acts tells us that in all the churches they visited, Paul and Barnabas appointed elders and ‘commended them to the Lord’. The elders were respected members of the local community who took on various tasks such as assisting at the altar, serving the poor and preparing catechumens for baptism and the other sacraments. In the not-so-distant past, some of these ministries fell into abeyance in this part of the world, due to the fact that we had an abundance of priests. Those who did assist in the church were often seen as ‘helping the priest’ rather than exercising a ministry by virtue of their baptism.

Thankfully that situation has now changed, and there is huge lay involvement in all aspects of church and parish life throughout the country. On this Fifth Sunday of Easter, we celebrate and support all those who contribute so much to the building up of the Church and advance its mission as we mark Lay Ministry Sunday. It is a day when we give thanks for the many lay catechists and funeral ministers who recently completed their training and are involved in their parishes and parish groupings. It is a day when we acknowledge the work of our Parish Pastoral Workers and Permanent Deacons. And we give thanks for the great work being done by our Mission and Ministry Office and the Office for Youth and Young Adult Ministry.

Archbishop Farrell has written to all parishes to highlight these various ministries and to ask for your support, both prayerful and financial, for those who are ‘opening the door of faith’ to others by their generous service in the diocese. He writes:

In this synodal Church of multiple ministries, no one should doubt but that the Lord continues to call people today to share his mission of service of the Gospel. The call to priesthood is born out of that invitation. Thanks to your support at this Lay Ministry collection each year, we are now providing training to build up active lay servant leaders, to work in a co-responsible way with priests, deacons and pastoral workers, in parishes and partnerships of parishes.

Over the past two years lay ministries have been steadily developing; 109 lay people from the Diocese have completed the Diocesan Certificate in Catechesis to become parish catechists, and this year 34 people have participated in our new Youth Ministry Leadership Certificate.  120 lay Funeral Prayer Leaders have been trained across the Archdiocese, and the ‘Pathways into Ministry’ adult education programme continues to help adults develop their faith.

Please join in supporting this mission today, and every day. Ask, what can I do to open the door of faith to others, in practical and life-giving ways, knowing that it is God who makes all things new.  (Full text of the letter).

There is no doubt that we, as a diocese, are blessed with a wealth of committed, generous and talented people who are involved in their parishes and parish groupings in a variety of ways. It is something I witness first hand as I visit parishes, whether for Confirmations or for Sunday Mass. I am always struck by the commitment of parish volunteers who generously serve their parish communities in a variety of ways. It is wonderful to see the way people are growing in confidence as they complete the preparation courses for parish catechists and funeral ministers. We had a wonderful celebration just last Sunday in OLV Ballymun Road where certificates of completion were awarded to 52 participants in this year’s Catechist programme.

Bishop Donal Roche with the new Dublin Diocesan Pastoral Council at St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral. Photo by John McElroy

Today, as well as celebrating all of these lay ministries, we have further cause to celebrate as we commission the Diocesan Pastoral Council. This is a first for the diocese and it is something that has been talked about and planned for a long time. As you are no doubt aware, every parish has a Parish Pastoral Council made up of a representative group of lay people with their priests (and deacon). The PPC is well established now, and it helps to provide a sense of direction for a parish by taking time to reflect prayerfully on the needs and priorities of a parish.

The Diocesan Pastoral Council will play a similar role, but for the whole diocese. They will advise the Archbishop on pastoral initiatives for the diocese into the future. The membership is made up of mostly lay participants who were chosen after a lengthy process of discernment in deaneries and pastoral areas over the past year in order to reflect the entire population of the diocese, rural and urban, young and older, male and female. The people chosen are people of prayer, of strong faith and who are actively involved in various ministries around the diocese.

On behalf of the Archbishop, I thank all those who allowed their names to go forward for consideration for this role, and I especially thank those whose names were put forward but were not included in the final lineup of the Council. Hopefully those not chosen this time will continue to serve in other ways in their parishes and deaneries.

This is an exciting development for the Archdiocese and it comes at a time when there is a great sense of hope in the Church with the recent election of Pope Leo XIV. In his first address from the balcony of St Peter’s, the new Pope said, ‘we are disciples of Christ. Christ goes before us, and the world needs his light. Humanity needs him like a bridge  to reach God’. He calls on us to build bridges with dialogue and encounter, so that we can be one people, in peace.

The members of our new Diocesan Pastoral Council will play their part in this process of building bridges, helping to open the door of faith to those who are searching, acting as a link between the Archbishop and the people of the diocese and hopefully following the example of Paul and Barnabas in today’s first reading, to ‘put fresh heart into the disciples, encouraging them to persevere in the faith’.

Fr Paul Thornton, Orla McCarthy, Canon Liam Rigney, Áine Nolan, Fr Gareth Byrne and Sheila Keegan Groome

The members of the Dublin Diocesan Pastoral Council:

Ms Áine Nolan (West Dublin)

Ms Bruna Frota Mourao (City Centre)

Ms Catherine Hennessy (North Dublin)

Monsignor Ciarán O’Carroll (South Dublin)

Archbishop Dermot Farrell

Bishop Donal Roche

Deacon Eamonn Murray (North Dublin)

Father Gareth Byrne (North Dublin)

Ms Geraldine Tallon (Wicklow)

Mr Kevin Mullally (Southwest Dublin)

Canon Liam Rigney (Kildare)

Sister Liz Byrne (West Dublin)

Ms Maeve Davidson (South Dublin)

Ms Orla McCarthy (South Dublin)

Ms Orla O’Grady Walshe (South Dublin)

Ms Patricia Carroll (North Dublin)

Father Paul Thornton (North Dublin)

Bishop Paul Dempsey

Father Richard Sheehy (North & West Dublin)

Mr Seán Feeney (North Dublin)

Ms Sheila Keegan Groome (City Centre)

Ms Thérèse O’Mahony (West Dublin)

Bishop Donal Roche blessing members of the Diocesan Pastoral Council