Church News: Pastoral Areas combine; Mount Melleray weighs up path ahead
Mount Melleray Abbey in Cappoquin
Four Parish Pastoral Councils have combined to create a new shared Parish Pastoral Area, the first of its kind in Ireland.
The newly named St Carlo Acutis Parish Pastoral area was formed amid a regional shortage in priests and assistants. The area will encompass seven churches across Ardfinnan, Ballybacon, Grange, Newcastle, Fourmilewater, Touraneena and The Nire.
Parish priest and administrator of the seven churches Fr Michael Toomey said: “The benefits of combining our resources under one parish pastoral area is mainly for the more efficient use of our pastoral resources and training and support in ministry, but also in the management of finance, buildings, and clergy across a large area.
“I am so grateful and blessed to be working with so many kind and dedicated parishioners who are serving their communities so well despite the challenges of the lack of priests we face into the future.
"Each church would keep its own identity as is currently the case, but to have it all under one parish pastoral community, the parish councils feel would cement stronger the seven churches and reassure them in sustaining and in keeping each church open into the future with the reality of the lack of priests, which is of grave concern.”
A special report from the Waterford News & Star’s Darragh Murphy shows there are currently 87 priests serving in the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore.
In Census 2022, almost 90,000 people in the county identified themselves as Catholic (71%), down from 81% in Census 2016.
There are an estimated 44,000 Catholic households in the diocese, with a total population of roughly 127,363.
This equates to roughly one priest per 1,464 people.
There will now be a singular parish office in the new Pastoral Area that observes all parish records, finances, and administration.
Each church will have its own sacristan, team for readers and extraordinary ministers, altar servers, and safeguarding.
An image of St Carlo Acutis is installed in every one of the seven churches in the pastoral area.
Saint Carlos Acutis was a devout Catholic as well as being a fan of computer games and football. He was born in London in 1991, before moving to Milan.
He died at age 15 following a battle with Leukaemia. Acutis was beatified in October 2020 after the Vatican claimed he interceded from heaven to cure a Brazilian boy suffering from a rare pancreatic disease in 2013.
He was canonised in the Vatican on September 7.
have reported that Mount Melleray Abbey, a monastery in Cappoquin, is in negotiations with Ave Maria University relating to the potential leasing of the now-vacant property.
Mount Melleray closed in January 2025 as the last remaining monks moved to Roscrea. Ave Maria University, a Newman Guide Catholic University based in Florida, are now understood to be in talks for the takeover of the property.
Ave Maria University was founded by Thomas Monaghan in 2007, the same man who founded Domino’s Pizza and formerly owned the Detroit Tigers baseball team.
In August, the Cistercians confirmed to that they were in discussions with a “like-minded community”.
The Bishop of Waterford and Lismore Father Alphonus Cullinan did not respond to requests to comment from
