Immigrants in the Irish church

national | history and heritage | news report Tuesday May 23, 2006 18:07 by Liam Ó Maoláin - Freelance Journalist

Whilst making a TV documentary on the effects immigrants are having on the Irish church, I interviewed Father Kevin Doran of Glendalough Parish. Kevin is also one of the Vocation directors of the Dublin diocese, and he has previously spoken on behalf of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Q. Do people from other cultures have anything to teach us?

A. I think people of other cultures always have something to teach us. In particular what we find in Ireland is perhaps in the last 15-20 years our society has become much more materially focussed and sometimes people coming from other cultures where there is actually a lot less material wealth have a more spiritual focus and are more open to the message of the gospel and maybe they can help us to rediscover our sense of mystery and openness to the spirit.

Q. How should the Irish respond?

A. I think its very important for the Irish to respond generously and professionally to immigrants because our own tradition has been very much one of being an immigrant in other cultures. It’s interesting if we look at the old testament when God gave Moses the ten commandments one of the things we find in the discussion of the bible was the argument that the Jewish people should treat the immigrants very kindly and generously because they themselves had been immigrants in a foreign country in Egypt, and I suppose the same applies to us.

Q. The Polish community in Dublin have their own services. In St Michan’s church. Right?

A. I know FrPyka; the parish priest of Sallynoggin looks after the faith of the Polish people. It’s obviously very important to them to pray and to celebrate in their own language. One of the difficulties always facing the church when we have large numbers of immigrants is whether to provide special services for them, which in some sense may cut them off from the larger population, or alternatively whether to try and to integrate them into the wider population of the diocese which may in some sense mean that they aren’t able to pray and celebrate the liturgy, but it is difficult to get that balance right.

Q. How influential was John Paul 11?

A. Pope John Paul 11 was pope for most of the time that about half of the population were alive and in that sense he had a significant influence. I think when you look at the number of young people who turned up at his funeral and the numbers who constantly turn up at World Youth days, you can see that even though they may not always understand his message, they were attracted by his integrity. One of his own papal letters, the Encyclical Verita Splendour, means the splendour is attractive, and I think the young people of today respond to this.

Q. He left a very rich legacy?

A. Absolutely! Yeah. His legacy to the future I suppose is somebody who was able to in one sense to be quite traditional and to respect and to preserve tradition and of the other sense he was well able to think and act outside the box. He was never short of a surprise.

Q. His successor has a hard act to follow?

A. In one sense a pope is a pope, and Pope Benedict is following a long line of tradition. On the other hand he is certainly his own man and his way of being pope will gradually take shape…we have to wait and see. Even in World Youth day in Germany we would have seen some differences in the sense that at his presentation at the mass was…his style was a bit different.

Q. Any final thoughts?

A. Whether we’re talking about immigrants or people who have lived in Ireland all their lives, the one challenge facing the church is to make sure that we pass on something of real value to the generation that comes after us. Pope John Paul once said “every generation is a new continent to be won for Christ”, and I suppose the challenge for the church is to find ways of presenting the ancient truths in a way that the new generation can understand it, be inspired by it, live by it.

Q. And do you think they’ll succeed?

A. I think there’s plenty of signs…sometimes we can be a bit discouraged by the large numbers who are not there, and its often said that the big mistake preachers sometimes make is to give out to people who are there about the people who are not there, but for all the ones who are not there there a lot of younger people involved in prayer groups, praying with the scriptures, there are a lot of young people involved in studying theology and I think in the future when we get out of the period of negativity which we seem to have got stuck in of late, there will be a more mature and perhaps a more participatory church.