BY HARRY WALSH

FOR the first time in living memory there will be no Sunday morning Mass in Kilcar this weekend. It brings into sharp focus the falling number of priests ministering in rural parts of Donegal.

The congregation has been told there will be no Sunday morning Masses in St Cartha's Church in the coming weeks because Parish Priest, Fr John Gallagher, has a hospital appointment and the Raphoe Diocese can not supply stand-in priests.

The cancellation means parishioners will have to make a twelve mile round trip to attend Mass in either Killybegs or Carrick on a Sunday morning.

There are 33 parishes in the Raphoe Diocese, taking in 71 churches and a Catholic population of approximately 79,500 (prior to the most recent census). Kilcar is the home town of Bishop of Derry, Dr Seamus Hegarty.

A spokesman for the Bishop of Raphoe, Dr Philip Boyce, said yesterday (Thursday) there was an ongoing "crisis" in the low numbers of vocations and hinted at the possible future amalgamation of churches and parishes in Donegal.

"We need to prepare our parishioners and explain to them what will happen in the future, because there are so few new priests being appointed.

"Unfortunately, this type of thing is going to happen more and more as there are not as many priests as there once was. His colleagues are trying to rearrange things so that the people of Kilcar will be able to attend Mass in their local Church on a Saturday and Sunday evening," he said.

Fr Colm Ó Gallchoir (Parish Priest of neighbouring Killybegs) has agreed to celebrate a Saturday evening Mass (6pm) is St Cartha's Church while Fr Gerard Cunningham (CC, Fintown) who is a native of Kilcar, will come 'home' to celebrate a Sunday evening Mass (7pm) for the next number of weeks.

However, local people have expressed concern at the decision to drop the traditional 11am Sunday morning Mass.

The number of ordinations for each of the last three years nationally was only eight, reflecting the low number of uptakes of the vocation in the 1990s.

Reasons for the drop in vocations include smaller families, and increased alternative options, while the scandals to hit the Catholic Church in Ireland also had a devastating effect, and coincided with the periods of lowest uptake in Maynooth.

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