C&SI - Rediscovering the Church - Learning from the Church in Kenya with Bishop Paul Dempsey - 30 Mar 2025 (S05E18)

On this Laetare Sunday we are delighted to have + Paul Dempsey, one of the auxiliary bishops of Dublin join John and Shane on the podcast to share his journey to priesthood and to becoming a bishop but also what he learnt on a visit to Kenya in January 2024 and what the people of the diocese of Marsabit in northern Kenya could teach the Irish church about sharing the faith. 

We have our regular run through the liturgical odds and ends including the upcoming saints of the week and prayer space in part one. In part three we have our weekly reflection on the Sunday gospel which this week is the great parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32).

Rediscovering the Church

Bishop Paul Dempsey is one of the current auxiliary bishops of Dublin although he started out his episcopal service as the bishop of Achonry in the west of Ireland until Pope Francis decided to move him to assist Archbishop Farrell in Dublin as part of the reorganisation of the dioceses in the west of Ireland. He shares with us some of his vocation story and about what he ministers to now in Dublin. But he also shares with us his experience of visiting the diocese of Marsabit in January 2024 and what he learnt about being church in that vast space in northern Kenya. He takes us through the role of the catechist in the small Christian communities and how key they are where there are no priests, reflects on the basic nature of missionary work and what we can learn from that in Ireland where the assumed role of the faith in the fabric of society has come under so much strain and rupture. Taking the work of the theologian and missionary Fr Vincent Donovan, Bishop Paul reminds us that as a church we are called to work with people "not to call them back to where they were......not to try and call them to where you are, as beautiful as that place might seem to you. [We] must have the courage to go with them to a place neither you nor they have ever been before".