Michael Kelly: Down and Connor can expect Bishop Alan McGuckian to lead a journey of reform

Michael Kelly

In just three weeks, Bishop Alan McGuckian SJ will turn 71. His appointment as the new Bishop of Down and Connor comes at a time when most men his age are dividing their time between the garden and the golf course.

Bishop McGuckian will have no such luxury. He takes over a diocese with almost a million inhabitants, four out of 10 of whom describe themselves as Catholic – up from just 30% at the turn of the Millennium.

But, while the number of Catholics has grown on paper, Mass attendance has declined and crucially, the number of active priests has fallen dramatically. Many of the priests are elderly, and while Down and Connor has done better in terms of attracting vocations than many Irish dioceses, it is rapidly running out of priests.

With 86 parishes and 146 churches the diocese now has only 84 priests in active ministry, down from around 200 in the year 2000. Only seven priests in the diocese are aged under 40, and so, in just over 10 years the number of priests in active ministry will be almost half what it is today.

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Projections suggest that 20 years from now, in 2044, there will only be around 24 priests available for those 86 parishes.

So, if Stormont’s new ministers are facing a busy inbox, across the city at diocesan headquarters on the Somerton Road Dr McGuckian has no shortage of challenges of his own.

Though not a priest of Down and Connor, the Cloughmills native does have a home advantage having worked in Belfast for many years. He also knows the dynamics among the clergy, often the most challenging thing for a new bishop to work out.

Despite the challenges, there are plenty of green shoots in Down and Connor. Many parishes are supported by very active and engaged lay communities

Known as personable and hard-working, Bishop McGuckian was a close adviser to the somewhat more distant Bishop Noel Treanor, who never gave any strong indication that he enjoyed being in Down and Connor as bishop from 2008 until his 2022 appointment as the Pope’s ambassador to Brussels.

A Jesuit like Pope Francis, Dr McGuckian is more conservative than the Argentine Pontiff. He has been an enthusiastic promoter of the Pope’s vision of a reformed Church where laypeople, priests and bishops share responsibility for the parish and make decisions collectively. However, he has also staunchly defended the Church’s traditional teaching on controversial topics, insisting that not everything is on the table when it comes to reform.

Despite the challenges, there are plenty of green shoots in Down and Connor. Many parishes are supported by very active and engaged lay communities. In contrast to parishes south of the border, many in the north have retained younger families and newcomers have energised some ailing parishes

In his current role as Bishop of Raphoe, Dr McGuckian has prioritised youth ministry and recently led a delegation to a huge Catholic youth event in the United States. A former university chaplain, Dr McGuckian has correctly discerned that without young people the Church has no credible future.

He was the lead facilitator in a diocesan-wide listening process in Down and Connor in 2011, and wrote the final report that emerged from that listening. None of the challenges will be new to him, but with the passage of time they will have taken on a new urgency.

His previous experience both as a bishop and familiarity with the situation in Down and Connor means he can hit the ground running. He will have to - he is only four years away from the mandatory retirement age of 75 for prelates in the Catholic Church.

Expect movement quickly, and not all of the changes will be popular: some parishes will have to close, others will be without a priest and the Church will no longer be able to be as present to people as it is now. But, if he can convince people to come with him on the journey of reform, the new bishop can help birth a partnership model of the Church that will sustain faith for generations to come.

Michael Kelly is a commentator on religious affairs, and a former editor of The Irish Catholic