THE Catholic Church needs to encourage debate and give more power to lay people, according to a Corkman who is being ordained a priest today.
Brother Colm O’Mahony  from Magazine Road  was to be made a priest with the Augustinian Order today at 4pm in the church on Washington Street.
It is the first time in 25 years that the city  church has seen an ordination —  and the first time in 18 years that a priest has been ordained into the Augustinian Order in Ireland. The 34-year-old’s friends and family, including his parents, who are from Dunmanway, were due to be in the packed church today for the ceremony, which takes place on  the last day of the Annual Novena to the Mother of Good Counsel.
“My parents and my friends were surprised when I told them I wanted to be a priest, but they were fully supportive.” he explained.
Brother Colm  had considered the idea of going into the priesthood for a while,  but always put it to one side.
“I went to college and studied Social Science in UCC.
“While there I did all the things you would expect of a student — studying, socialising, going out with girls. Afterwards I still had the idea about joining the priesthood,  but said I would get a job first and see if that feeling would still be there.”
As a Brother of the order he has been working in the inner-city area of the Liberties in Dublin and as a prison chaplain: “What attracted me to the priesthood was the community life. We don’t have a parish in Cork,  so our main service is to the community. Augustinian priests work in schools and prisons and with the community where they are based,” he explained.”
On the recent survey conducted by the Association of Catholic Priests  on attitudes to the Church among followers, Brother Colm  said: “Anything that provokes debate is welcome. For too long people have kept their mouths shut within the Church.
“We need to face up to the reality that society has changed in the last 20 to 30 years,  and  we need to close the gap that there seems to be between the Church and its followers. There has been a big problem with communication,  which needs to be addressed.”
Brother Colm  sees involving lay people more as the best way to deal with challenges caused by the dwindling numbers entering the priesthood.
“We need to give lay people a proper voice and that now needs to be the focus. That needs to be our role, getting them involved. People don’t seem to have that sense of ownership of the church which they should have.
“It is theirs and not the priests or bishops who are only the servants.”