On Thursday’s Morning Focus, Alan Morrissey was joined by Clare Author, Marie O’Connell.
A while back we were joined by the Bishop of Killaloe Fintan Monahan to talk about the declining number of priests and what this would mean for the church and traditions such as weddings and funerals going forward.
Fintan spoke about his concern over the situation in the Killaloe diocese, where 27 of the parishes are without a resident priest.
One person who knows only too well about the problem of a lack of priests in the Killaloe diocese is Marie. The Clare author spent a number of years working with the diocese , during which time she addressed the issue regularly at various masses.
Marie discussed how she began working with the diocese and also explained that the unfortunate situation of declining priests inspired her to write a book on the subject titled “Community at Heart: Who Will Bury Our Dead”, which was published last year.
Marie spoke about potential solutions to the declining rate of priests and outlined that the church needs to open up to the community.
She also presented a little bit about her new book “Third Time Lucky”.
You can listen to the full interview below.
