As  per  the  recent  reports  given  at  the  meeting  of  the  Association  of  the  Catholic  Priests (ACP),  the  graph  of  suicides  among  the  priests  in  Ireland  is  increasing  due  to  mental  health  crisis  in  the  country’s  clergy,  states  Crux now,  a  Catholic  news  reporting  site.  Besides  a  shortage  of  vocation,  a  drop  in  the  number  of  priests  has  impelled  the  ACP  to  call  in  for  a  helpline  for  priests  in  the  country  that  could  help  the  priests  to  overcome  their  mental  concerns.

The  shortage  of  Priests  in  the  country  leads  to  a  phenomenon  called  clustering,  where several  parishes  are  combined  together  into  one  but  this  ultimately  ends  up  giving  double workloads  to  the  priests  in  service  and  also  to  the  common  faithful  in  the  country.  And thus  a  helpline  for  the  priest  would  make  them  feel  more  comfortable  in  such  pressures. As  reported  by  Crux  Now,  Fr.Brendan  Hoban,  one  of  the  founders  of  ACP  said,  “These  men  lived  through  a  time  when  there  was  a  plenty  of  vocations  and  their  churches  were  full  at  Mass,  so  now  there  is  a  loss  of  esteem.  Now,  most  are  own  their  own  and  feeling  a  lot  more  isolated  and  lonely,  as  well  as  feeling  more  nervous  and  vulnerable.”

The  senior  members  in  ACP  also  reminded  that  the  priests  need  to  be  better  about  asking  for  help  and  asked  them  to  unmask  and say  “I need help!”  when  needed.

Source: Cruxnow.com

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