By Joanna Kiernan
Sunday Jan 31 2010

'I remember, at the back of my mind as a young person -- and when I say young person, maybe a young teenager -- thinking for the first time, 'God, I really would like to be a priest.' I think it's like an attraction. It's a longing for fulfilment; it's something within us. It's like a vision; not a vision in terms of something miraculous, but a vision of a way of life, and I was attracted to that."

Fr Paddy Byrne is just 35 years old. He was ordained as a Catholic priest at the tender age of 26.

He is warm, engaging and possesses a phenomenal energy. When we meet, he takes me to a small bar for coffee. As we walk from his church in Bagnelstown, Co Carlow, he is greeted fondly by passersby in cars and on foot.

"Looking back on it, I was very young to make a big life choice at that age and to be already after doing seven years in the seminary," he continues. "It wasn't that I was different, but it was part of who I was: both of my parents practised their faith."

Still, Fr Paddy feared that his ambition might be viewed as a bit odd at the turn of the century, all things considered.

"I certainly was afraid to say I wanted to be a priest, particularly among my own peers at the time. I said 'Jesus, they'll think this guy is . . . there's something wrong with him.'''

Perhaps the reason many people are shocked by a young man's decision to enter the priesthood these days is not because of what awaits him, but rather because of the opportunities he is surrendering -- travelling, falling in love, having a family, owning a home.

I inquire, gently, whether I would be correct in thinking that the priesthood can sometimes be a lonely life.

"I find it lonely when I'm doing weddings, when I go and work," Fr Paddy admits. "You're invited and couples say: 'Will you come to the wedding, Fr Paddy?' and you go in on your own and you feel like a right tool and you're so awkward. You just look around and, you know, you feel -- you're looking at people out dancing and you'd love to be able to get out and dance, but then you feel, 'Oh, they're getting out to dance with the priest!' and you don't go over and ask an attractive-looking lady out to dance!"

He thinks for a split second, before adding frankly; "On the other hand, you'd want a very tolerant wife because, I mean, I work fierce long hours . . . but I think a lot of that could be because you don't have anyone in your own house, you spend a lot of time outside it.

"I'm a twin, as well, and I suppose being a twin, it's a sacred relationship too, but it's sort of, you have always a longing for someone else, you know?"

So, marriage and children were never a part of his plan?

"Yes, of course they were, but I think for most lads, when you're 18 or 19, it's something down the road. Now it's more of an issue, I think," he says.

"Now, when you're marrying your comrades and you're marrying people who you're friendly with yourself, then the question becomes more alive. Obviously when you make a promise at 25 years of age or 24 years of age to be celibate for the rest of your life, that's a huge promise and it's certainly something humanly impossible without God's grace in it -- and I'm not spiritualising it, but the Lord has to give you some bit of help in that department."

For almost the past two decades, the Catholic church in Ireland has been in turmoil, dogged by scandal, abuse and cover-ups. This blight has not gone unnoticed by young priests, who have spent most of their priesthood in a church under siege, much of the time with just cause, crumbling from within, collapsing under the weight of the very sins that it condemned for so long.

"My whole priesthood has been in the milieu of scandal," Fr Paddy says. "The Catholic church that was once identifiable in terms of priests holding a very high place in society, a sacred place in terms of trust, has gone.

"I think that initially when I was discerning it, it made me quite frightened, about what other people would say, including my family," he continues. "I try not to hold onto it, I got very freaked out the time of the Ryan report, I just found it overwhelming almost.

"I thought the church was pathetic how it responded to that report. I think we need to show more heart. Perhaps we need to be less PR- and media-conscious and just be ourselves. You know, come out with a spirit that is open and accountable and genuine. I think a positive thing is that the pedestal is gone. I think a positive thing is that child protection is now a fundamental in all our parishes.

"I think, fundamentally, it's a good church that I belong to," he adds with an illuminating intensity. "I really feel passionate about that. The fundamental message of the church is to uplift, I think it's to encourage. I think it's very important that we embrace people where they're at and that we are slow to make categorical judgments of peoples' lives, because we're all different. I was pleased to see the funeral that Stephen Gately got, for instance. I thought that was a positive thing."

With the onset of the Celtic Tiger, Ireland -- like much of the western world -- experienced a wave of consumerism which is widely accepted as having usurped the role of religion in the lives of many.

Nothing captures the essence of this sentiment more than a recent comment by Goldman Sachs boss Lloyd Blankfein, in which he suggested that he was, as a banker, "doing God's work".

This, coupled with the turmoil which has repositioned the church in society so drastically, has made Catholicism, or indeed religion in general, a choice rather than a given.

But equally, many people are now getting back to the simple things in life; staycations, growing vegetables, spending time with their children, God. Some are looking for hope, some are looking for a way to pass the time; others are rediscovering religion -- a religion that perhaps was potent in their youth, but has petered out over the years.

Fr Paddy does not delight in the misfortunes which may have led to this revival. "I wouldn't want to see it in a triumphant way, saying: 'Oh, it's great we have nothing again so we'll all go back to God.' I think that's a foolish thing. I think that it'll ground us.

"I'm worried about the generation who have not worked on their spirituality," he adds gently, "and because of that, now, when the ground is taken from under them, what have they got to hold onto? I personally think that to have a spirituality is far more important than to be 'churchy'."

He admits, looking back, that he was incredibly young to be ordained.

"Would I change it? In my heart of hearts, I wouldn't. Now I may not say that if you come back to me, if I'm still alive, in 10 years time. But I have given my enthusiasm and my youth. You can give great witness in your youth. Being a young priest is a very, very good thing to be," he concludes.

Life as a young Catholic priest has been similar for Fr Paul Dempsey, 38, of Two Mile House, Co Kildare.

"I was about 11 or 12," he says of finding his vocation. "I'd no intention of being a priest, it hadn't crossed my mind or anything like that, but I remember being at this mass and looking up at the priest and something came over me, or struck me, that said: 'God, there's something about his way of life and what he does that's kind of fascinating.' From that moment, the thought around priesthood never left me," he remembers.

Like Fr Paddy, Fr Paul was conscious of how others would react to this choice.

"I would never have mentioned I was interested in priesthood because, I suppose, when you're coming into your teens, it wouldn't have been the most popular thing to start talking about," he says.

Fr Paul is aware of the preconceptions some people might have about him.

"Some people sort of see someone entering -- like, 'Paul Dempsey "entered" the priesthood' -- and the priesthood is kind of defined, like: 'He wears black, he's dry, he's holy' and all that, you know, that kind of stuff. This preconceived image of what a priest is. So Paul Dempsey enters the kind of image of priesthood. But I always thought it was the other way around; that it was the priesthood entered me. You know, I always look on it like, you take me as I am, I don't become something.

"I drink, I enjoy life, I go on holidays, I have fantastic friends," he adds.

But what of sex, marriage and children, other areas that people may view as fundamental?

"When I was going into seminary, I'd say the whole area of celibacy wouldn't have been a huge issue," he responds. "Certainly the whole area of sexuality and celibacy would have been worked through in group work and so on and so forth. It was very healthy because I think in the past you kind of existed from the neck up. It was all the head stuff, not our heart stuff."

He stops for a second and asks me if I have seen the old soutanes -- the long black robes that seminarians were once required to wear. I tell him there's a photograph at home of my dad wearing one in his own seminary days.

A suitably amused Fr Paul then alludes to how gloriously out of sync with such young men the church was in the past.

"I often used to think that was almost so that you'd nearly forget about your body, but of course we're all body, you know what I mean? We're men, in our case, obviously, and you have the same desires and feelings as any other man. There's no doubt about it, being a human being, it is an issue. It's a very important issue. It's very important that I'm honest with myself around it and I'm aware of my feelings and so on in that area.

"I would have found it more in my 30s," he admits after a momentary pause. "As I settled into priesthood, I became more conscious of it, maybe, that I didn't have a partner in life and I didn't have the potential to have kids, that I had made this choice and this is what I've committed myself to in life.

"I don't think there's any theological problem with a married clergy. I certainly haven't come across it," he concludes.

Yet, interestingly, Fr Paul thinks that some priests can be naive about marriage.

"Like, a marriage commitment is a challenging commitment too. Some people would say to me, 'God, it must be very lonely, going into that big oul' house at night and you're on your own,' but to be honest with you, sometimes when you're so busy out among people all day long, that bit of space to yourself actually can be a welcome thing, rather than coming back into a situation that perhaps, who knows? Could be fraught."

Fr Paul entered the seminary in 1989, before any of the scandals came to light.

He is pensive on the subject; I suggest that such revelations must be disheartening.

"Of course, it would affect me, because it has to affect you, like, you know what I mean? It would anger me in ways as well, that things happened in the past obviously that we're now paying for, even though a lot of it happened before I was born, let alone before I was ordained," he responds plainly.

It's a poignant statement that suddenly emphasises just how strong his pull towards the priesthood must have been to have led him to continue to navigate such wild waters.

Fr Paul is optimistic that the more humbled church emerging from the ashes at present is a better one.

"I genuinely believe that that's a good thing, because I don't believe that was the church of Christ at all, it lost its way. It became, I suppose, obsessed with power."

And although the wider perception may be that the Catholic church is often judgmental, Fr Paul believes that most priests are compassionate and "fairly humble people who understand where people are coming from and try to do their best for them".

"I've never in my 12 years preached about sex off an altar," he elaborates. "I've had people coming to me with issues around sexuality, around their struggle with life, second relationships, or their marriage has broken down and they've fallen in love with somebody else or whatever, and I would never say to somebody: 'Well, sorry, you're wrong; you'll have to break up with that person, that's the official line of the church, goodbye!' I would never ever do that. I would try to listen to the person."

So, there isn't a Vatican hotline installed in all sacristies? No voices of authority, embodying the church's ruling values, bellowing from afar?

"When I wake up in the morning, I'm not thinking about what Pope Benedict might be announcing in Rome this morning," Fr Paul adds with a grin.

"It'd never cross my mind. Nor do I want to worry about what Benedict is doing in the morning or what he's announcing tomorrow morning."

The responsibility that goes with the role of priesthood often goes unnoticed. A la carte Catholics such as myself, who meet priests at times of tragedy, times of joy and on few other occasions, would be particularly blind to it. But in tragic circumstances, we may rely heavily on a priest for answers to intensely complicated questions: 'Where is God now? How could God let this happen?'

"People look to the likes of myself and say: 'Well? We're grappling here, have you got some sort of an explanation?''' Fr Paul says. "And, to be honest, I don't. All I can say is that we are a strength to one another, knowing that from a faith perspective, the Lord will support us in this too and bring us through this. But I don't have answers."

He articulates how dealing with tragedy can feel from the other side of the fence, "The priest arrives. People stop then. The gardai are standing there looking at you, the doctors are standing there looking at you, now it's over to you to say something. So you have the family and all of these professionals around you, and now here's your moment to try to bring something to this situation."

Yet, the gravity of such work has not diminished the infectious sort of contentment that Fr Paul exudes.

"I'm 38 now," he remarks as we finish our conversation, "and, after all I've said to you, I would have to admit that I would be very happy in priesthood. I find it a very fulfilling life. That's not to say I don't have my challenges and some days I wonder what am I at. And should I have done something else.

"Of course, but I think everybody has those doubts at times in life. But definitely, I would be very happy and fulfilled in the priesthood, you know? Thank God."

- Joanna Kiernan

Originally published in

Download our iPhone App Now