YOUNG MEN seeking a “job for life”, a reasonable income, four weeks’ holiday a year, free accommodation and the chance to study in Rome were the target of a recruitment fair with a difference at the weekend.
Despite rocketing unemployment, there are “unlimited job opportunities” for prospective priests. The Catholic Church is desperately short of personnel and events were held throughout the country over the weekend to promote vocations to the religious life.
In Kilkenny, members of various religious orders set up a stall on the busy High Street hoping to attract interest from Bank Holiday weekend shoppers and visitors.
Fr Willie Purcell, director of vocations for the Diocese of Ossory, said that the diocese, which has a population of 84,000 and 42 parishes across counties Kilkenny, Laois and Offaly, has only 74 priests but needs “at least 10 vocations a year just to maintain services at current levels”.
However, “it is 17 years since a man from the diocese entered a seminary” and, with many of the priests growing old, “parishes which used to have two or three priests now only have one”.
He said: “We’ll take as many people as we can get – there are unlimited job opportunities.”
Fr Purcell (52), who is a curate in the town of Callan, said the stall was attracting “a very positive response and a lot of young people have picked up information leaflets”.
However, young men – the target audience – were conspicuously absent. At lunchtime, most of those stopping to chat were middle-aged or young children – some attracted by signs which read “Everything Free”. The “goodies” on offer included lapel pins, wrist bands and CDs of the vocations’ song: You Will Be My Witnesses.
A mother, who did not wish to be named “in the paper”, said that she would be “delighted” if any of her children had a vocation – “it’d be a safe life and they’d never have to worry about paying a bill”.
Men who sign up for the priesthood face a seven-year period of study and training which can be undertaken in Maynooth or Rome. Contrary to popular belief, diocesan priests do not take a vow of poverty and can expect to earn about €2,500 per month but are taxed as self-employed. They do, however, get free accommodation.
The day-long event which was visited by Bishop of Ossory, Séamus Freeman, and Mayor of Kilkenny Pat Crotty was the latest effort by the diocese to attract new recruits to the priesthood. Last year Fr Purcell ran a “vocations tent” at the National Ploughing Championships.
Nuns were also promoting their cause. Among them was Sr Lucia Lynch, a Medical Missionary of Mary, who joined the convent in 1958, and recently returned to Ireland after 32 years in Malawi. She said: “I love my vocation” and enjoyed her time in Africa where “the need was great”.
Unlike diocesan priests, she explained that “nuns don’t get a salary” but only “a very small allowance” although the order does look after their needs. She looked shocked when asked if she had retired and said she now works “in a home for the elderly” in south Co Kilkenny.
Yesterday, the Catholic Church held a World Day of Prayer for Vocations, an annual event instituted by Pope Paul VI in 1964.