The Vatican announced Sunday the union of two new Irish dioceses under a single bishop.
The Holy See press office said Feb. 16 that Pope Francis had named Bishop Kevin Doran of Elphin as Bishop of Achonry, uniting the dioceses in persona Episcopi (in the person of the bishop).
Doran, who is 71, will oversee both dioceses, though they remain juridically separate.
The announcement was no surprise given prior episcopal moves amid an institutional reorganization of the Church in Ireland.
What’s the background to the latest decision? What’s the current state of the Irish Church? And what’s likely to happen next?
What’s the background?
The Catholic Church in Ireland comprises 26 dioceses grouped into four ecclesiastical provinces: Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam.
A restructuring process is taking place in the Province of Tuam, in the west of Ireland, a largely rural area with a relatively low population density. The province consists of the Archdiocese of Tuam and five suffragan sees: Killala, Elphin, Achonry, Clonfert, and Galway, Kilmacduagh, and Kilfenora.
At the start of February 2022, when a series of changes began, the leadership of the Province of Tuam looked like this:
Metropolitan Archdiocese of Tuam: Archbishop Francis Duffy.
Diocese of Killala: Bishop John Fleming.
Diocese of Elphin: Bishop Kevin Doran.
Diocese of Achonry: Bishop Paul Dempsey.
Diocese of Clonfert: Bishop Michael Duignan.
Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh, and Kilfenora: Bishop Brendan Kelly.
By April 2024, it had a new profile:
Metropolitan Archdiocese of Tuam: Archbishop Francis Duffy.
Diocese of Killala: Archbishop Duffy (apostolic administrator).
Diocese of Elphin: Bishop Kevin Doran.
Diocese of Achonry: Bishop Doran (apostolic administrator).
Diocese of Clonfert: Bishop Michael Duignan.
Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh, and Kilfenora: Bishop Duignan (dioceses united in persona episcopi).
That month, Archbishop Duffy raised the prospect of the Province of Tuam ultimately consisting of three bishops, each serving two dioceses united in persona episcopi.
That would leave the province looking like this:
Archbishop Francis Duffy: Archbishop of Tuam and Bishop of Killala.
Bishop Kevin Doran: Bishop of Elphin and Bishop of Achonry.
Bishop Michael Duignan: Bishop of Clonfert and Bishop of Galway, Kilmacduagh, and Kilfenora.
After the uniting of Clonfert and Galway, Kilmacduagh, and Kilfenora in persona episcopi in 2022 and the Feb. 16 union of Elphin and Achonry, all that remains is the union of Tuam and Killala under Duffy.
But that might not be the endpoint. Archbishop Luis Mariano Montemayor, the apostolic nuncio to Ireland, suggested in April 2024 that further consolidation could occur.
“If this process evolves still further, the associated dioceses may then merge fully under their bishop, and, in this way, the six dioceses in the Province of Tuam will eventually become three,” he said.
In November 2024, Doran suggested that the dioceses of Achonry and Elphin could be merged in two to four years.
In a pastoral message, he acknowledged that changes — including the departure of Achonry’s 52-year-old Bishop Dempsey — had “left many people in the Diocese of Achonry feeling shocked and disappointed.”
He said: “People have asked me ‘why is this happening?’ The merging of dioceses is not new and it is not unique to Ireland. It is not easy, in a small diocese, especially with lower levels of religious practice, to find the human and financial resources required to do all that is necessary for pastoral care and good governance.”
“Both Achonry and Elphin are small by the standards of the Church around the world. The hope is that, with our combined resources, we will be able to exercise our mission more effectively.”
According to catholic-hierarchy.org, in 1950, the Achonry diocese served 53,720 Catholics, who accounted for 97.7% of the total population.
In 2020, there were 36,720 Catholics, representing 91.8% of the wider population. So over 70 years, the local Catholic population declined by more than 30%.
According to catholic-hierarchy.org, the Elphin diocese served 100,000 Catholics, who accounted for 96.6% of the total population in 1950.
By 2023, there were 81,750 Catholics, representing 88.9% of the wider population. So over 73 years, the local Catholic population declined by almost 20%.
What’s the Irish Church’s current state?
In recent decades a powerful secularizing trend has transformed Ireland. The once influential Catholic Church has been pushed to the margins of public life following a devastating clerical abuse crisis, and further weakened by declines in Mass attendance and priestly vocations.
According to census data, the proportion of Ireland’s population identifying as Catholic fell from 3,696,644 (79%) in 2016 to 3,515,861 (69%) in 2022. Those ticking the “no religion” category rose from 451,941 to 736,210, out of a population of 5.1 million.
A 2013 study noted that three-quarters of Ireland’s priests were aged between 45 and 74. The largest proportion of clergy were in the 65-74 age group, while the proportion in the under-44 age group was decreasing.
Yet suggestions that Irish Catholicism is in terminal decline may be overly bleak. Twenty-one new seminarians recently began their priestly formation for Irish dioceses, the highest annual intake for more than a decade. In all, there are now 74 candidates preparing for the diocesan priesthood.
Other signs of life cited by Church watchers include an active youth ministry, driven by groups such as Youth 2000, the vitality of the Dominican order, and a revival of the country’s pilgrim paths.
