CHURCH leaders in Ireland have welcomed a Vatican decision to restructure one of their country’s four Roman Catholic archdioceses, in the face of falling church attendance and changing demographics.

“We know from personal experience that life is a process of adaptation to changing circumstances — although we seek to preserve our essential identity, we also adopt measures to meet new challenges,” the Vatican’s Argentinian Nuncio, Archbishop Luis Mariano Montemayor, explained this week.

“That is true also in the life of the Church, and it’s reflected in what we are doing today. . . With pooled resources and combined endeavours, trusting strongly in the grace of God, we can look to the future with hope and confidence.”

The Argentinian diplomat was unveiling changes in the western Archdiocese of Tuam, where two dioceses will lose their bishops, and be administered instead by neighbouring sees.

The reform was welcomed by the Archbishop of Tuam, the Rt Revd Francis Duffy, as opening the way to the first significant change in Irish diocesan borders since the 12th century.

Ireland has 26 RC dioceses north and south of the border, divided between the provinces of Armagh, Cashel-Emly, Dublin, and Tuam, with 28 bishops serving a total population of five million.

Church attendance among Roman Catholics, 90 per cent in the 1970s, has fallen to one third. A national census in 2022 suggested that the percentage of citizens identifying as Catholic had fallen from 79 per cent to 69 per cent since 2016 across the country’s 2650 parishes.

In his statement, Archbishop Montemayor said that the Pope had agreed to declare the small Killala and Achonry dioceses, covering most of County Mayo and County Sligo, vacant, under the apostolic administration of Archbishop Duffy and the Bishop of Elphin, the Rt Revd Kevin Doran.

Archbishop Montemayor added that a “gradual process of reorganisation” had already begun in February 2022, when the Clonfert and Galway dioceses were also placed under a single bishop, and should point to a future merger, reducing Tuam’s six dioceses to just three.

Although diocesan mergers are rare, many RC bishops in Europe have drastically reduced their parishes over the past two decades, especially in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands, often forming city-based “pastoral centres” staffed by several priests. Many have also closed churches and sold off properties and assets, to cope with rising costs and rents at a time of dwindling attendance and priestly vocations.

Archbishop Duffy told RTÉ Radio: “This is really the Catholic Church in Ireland responding to the signs of the times — looking at what we have, our resources and structures, and asking if these are adequate for the situation we find ourselves in.”

Media reports said that a decision by the Pope to reassign Bishop Paul Dempsey from Achonry to a lesser post as auxiliary bishop in Dublin, was unusual, but reflected a growing focus of resources on the Dublin archdiocese, which has defied wider national trends by doubling its parishes and active membership over the past half-century.