THE Hierarchy will hold a four day private meeting next week to discuss the effectiveness and future role of the bishops in an increasingly secularised Irish society.
The meeting - half discussion and half retreat - will take place at a hotel in Dundrum, Co Tipperary, from Sunday evening to Thursday afternoon. It has been in preparation for the past year and a half.
The main facilitators will be the auxiliary Bishop of Dublin, Dr Donal Murray, the Hierarchy's leading theologian, and Father Joseph Dargan, a prominent Jesuit and former secretary general of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors.
For the past year, Father Dargan has been charged by the Hierarchy with the task of touring the country to talk to bishops, priests and lay people about the strengths and weaknesses of the Irish church. He has been looking at the role of clergy and laity; the different ways in which people feel they belong to the church; and the potential for evangelisation between now and 2000. He emphasised yesterday that his involvement in next week's meeting is separate from this work.
At Dundrum, the bishops will be looking at how their procedures work - particularly at their three times a year meetings at Maynooth, which are generally seen as being top heavy and inefficient, with overcrowded agendas and too much paperwork.
"We'll be trying to sit down and look at where we are, and particularly at our vocation as bishops. Our regular meetings are so full of business that it's difficult to talk through even all the current problems properly," said one bishop yesterday.
He said there was a feeling that in recent years the pressure on bishops had increased greatly, citing the plight of the Bishop of Ferns, Dr Brendan Comiskey, as an example. "We need to look at our own pastoral care and how we care for each other," he said.
"We don't want to give the impression that we're going into a secret huddle again, but we feel the need for a bit of peace and quiet to reflect on things and try to sort out our priorities for the years ahead.
In September, 1986, the bishops met in a similar fashion at the Emmaus retreat centre, near Swords, Co Dublin. The Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Martini, was the keynote speaker.
According to Father Jerry Joyce in his book The Laity: Help or Hindrance?, a number of areas of importance were identified by the bishops at the Emmaus meeting. They called for pastoral councils in every parish. They stressed adult religious education for lay people and "the need for a concerted effort to train people in methods of prayer".
They also promised to look at the liturgy to make it more relevant to young people.