I am delighted to join you here in All Hallows for this  opening session of your annual conference in the year of  the Great Jubilee.

  You gather to reflect on tomorrow rather than yesterday,  to attempt together to discern the shape of Ministry in this changed and changing Ireland. The focus is on collaborative ministry, on working with the laity, on  reaching out to young people, all contemporary  touchstones, maybe even raw nerves.

  I remember my first visit to All Hallows. It was over thirty years ago. I was a teenage lay Catholic, an enthusiastic member of the St. Vincent de Paul and the Diocesan Youth Council. We gathered here, young people from all over Ireland, to contemplate a new vision for our Church. Blessed John XXIII had said emphatically - I have come to cultivate a garden not to guard a mausoleum. We queued up to join his Ground Force Team! All Hallows demise as a seminary held no fears. The world was changing. We would not only change with it but we would become instruments of change. The future was collaboration, priests and laity, men and women; the future was ministry broadened, redefined, the future was ecumenical, a sisterhood of Christian Churches, a family of world faiths respectful of each other, the future was egalitarian, all God's creatures equal in his eyes and entitled to equal respect.

  We began to perceive the divine rallying call to unity as unity in diversity not uniformity. The future was a place we could not wait to get to. And so here I am once again in All Hallows, much of our future already lived. Some of it has been lived well. Some of it wasted. 

  So to this conference we bring the accumulated successes and sadnesses, the debts and disappointments, the trials and errors, the fresh hopes and distilled wisdom out of which we hope and pray will come an educated, maybe even an inspired, insight to inform the next bit of future... the contribution made by priests and religious to so many important fields of endeavour would take up a sizable space. Yet we don't find them in celebratory or contented mode, nor do we generally find the public in gratitude mode.

  The prevailing temper tends more towards disquiet, criticism and uncertainty. Much has been said in the media, in the newspapers and in our own homes about the devastating impact of church-related scandals and betrayals in recent years. There is little doubt about the palpable anger and bitter disappointment they have generated to say nothing of the awful human toll they have exacted on those directly hurt by such criminal acts and omissions. The indirect fall-out, the collateral damage has been extensive too and among its range of victims have been the priests and religious who honoured their vocation, lived it to the best of their ability, contributed to the well-being of our people, but who today experience a personal desolation and distrust which can be overwhelming and draining. Yet we know that these things alone do not explain the mood and the deep concerns about the future; rather they compound them. 

 Against the background of growing prosperity, growing peace, growing confidence, against a backdrop of a youthful Ireland, vocations plummet, seminaries close quietly and the faces grow older and older at conferences of priests. When we talk of the marginalized who fear being marooned as prosperity sweeps others to a better life it is worth remarking that among those who face an uncertain future are many clergy and religious. Is this how you imagined it would be in the heady sixties? 

  In the wake of a very bloody and hate-filled first half of the 20th century, it was hoped that the Second Vatican Council would lead to a revitalised Church comfortably adapted to the modern world yet a profound centre of spiritual gravity, helping us to radically understand the commandment to love one another. 

  There has been change, massive change. The Church has absorbed the vernacular Mass, lay readers, lay ministers of the Eucharist, female altar servers, parish councils, a permanent diaconate in some places though not in Ireland, ground-breaking ecumenical dialogue, in particular the painstaking work of the Anglican and Roman Catholic International Commission. 

  The Pope has responded several times now to calls for dialogue with women. He has been in the vanguard of the discourse on liberty which infused the velvet revolutions. He has apologised for the many failures and faults of the church and attempted to mend fences with the other great Abrahamic traditions of Judaism and Islam. His appeal to the young at the huge Jubilee rally recently in Rome no doubt brought comfort and reassurance to many and indeed great pride to Ireland as we watched a young Irishwoman read the first Lesson. 

  So yes, there has been change but set against the huge changes that have permeated daily life in the Western world in the same period the Church's own institutional adaptation to the signs of the times looks considerably less dramatic. 

  The law and language of equal opportunities has promoted an inclusive, meritocratic culture... Authority structures have become flatter. Multi-directional communication, upward evaluation and appraisal have reshaped all sorts of power-based relationships. Automatic deference is out. In-your-face scrutiny is in. Hidebound, arcane, institutional structures of all sorts and the attitudes which supported them have loosened. For many it was change or perish. Yet in changing many found to their surprise that they released huge new reservoirs of creative energies which had been untapped and hidden by the poverty of their old imaginations. We only have to think of the Peace Process or the Social Partnership here in Ireland to see the extent and the potential of those new energies. The attitudes and expectations now driven by these new energies are crafting the future, economically, politically, socially and spiritually. 

  It would probably be naive to expect the promise of the Second Vatican Council to be realised in such a relatively short period and it would certainly be unfair to ignore the significant changes which are already its legacy. Yet we can all sense disappointment and impatience on many fronts - the mixed messages about ecumenical dialogue with sister Christian churches, and respect for other faith systems, the failure to utilise the full giftedness of women, the paucity of avenues for debate, and the sense of drift rather than direction in the face of the collapse of vocations in the Western world. 

  Disappointment and impatience in themselves are perhaps no bad thing. They are the vital signs of a people who care. As a source of energy they hold the promise of more pressure, more change. Left to fester though, they generate a much worse enemy - indifference. 

  Yet you have resources it would be easy to diminish or downplay. The wellsprings of Christian faith in Ireland are deep and richly veined and strong. They have been immensely challenged in our lifetime by the grim legacy of sectarianism and inter-faith rivalry which has at times been grotesquely violent. This generation has set its face against that legacy. In embracing the Good Friday Agreement so overwhelmingly, a huge majority of the people of this island of all denominations and none, revealed the true nature of their hearts, their willingness to change, their desire for reconciliation to one another. 

  The relatively new phenomenon of refugees and asylum seekers has rigorously tested the Christian credentials of individuals and communities. Champions have emerged from within the family of Christian churches to challenge the fears and prejudices encouraging people to live the gospel, to truly love one another as children of God and to celebrate diversity as God-ordained.

  It is true that there is no shortage of criminality and cruelty, of lovelessness and sheer badness. The worst of them make the daily headlines bringing us anguish and heartbreak. They corrode the fabric of community. Yet it is also true that the irrepressible idealism and Christian altruism of our people of all ages has many, many exemplars. They shine out as an encouragement to those in ministry who may feel dismay and disillusionment. 

  I meet them as I go about my work and so do you - they are carers, they are running youth clubs, respite care facilities, hospices, raising funds for sheltered housing, building homes for the homeless, teaching adult literacy classes, cleaning churches, running choirs, organising prayer groups, challenging sectarianism, promoting peace, organising community development  programmes, setting up cr*ches, homework clubs, they are into drugs awareness programmes, mental health, disability support. They are raising loved children, trying to build nurturing relationships. They give generously to their churches. They care about our poor, our elderly, our bereaved, our young people our lonely. They believe in sharing these good times widely. They want an Ireland to be proud of. 

  They are climbing mountains in Nepal to raise funds, running mini marathons, golf classics, car boot sales, you name it, they are doing it all over the country. They are living the gospel - doing things for others, collaborating with other denominations, carefully building up community, building up hope, building up love. They worry about our young people who fear each other’s aggression, who take the brunt of peer bullying, who are victims of a culture too familiar with alcohol, too casual about sex, our young men who drive too fast, who can’t articulate their worries, who end up taking the devastating and wholly unnecessary road to suicide, our young girls who end up as mothers long before they are ready. They worry about the kids who drop out of school and into freefall. They worry about the kids who are unloved and damaged and about how we seem to be missing them by a mile. They worry about kids growing up in a world without decent values. They worry about how to be good neighbours to those of different colours and creeds. They worry about loneliness, about death, about loss, about life itself. 

  Many of them are repositories of the most appalling chronic suffering, endurance and faith. They trust God to help them carry their burdens. They pray that through their work, through community, through nation we may together find workable answers to these things and offer each other some human comfort on this earthly pilgrimage. They worry enough, hope enough, pray enough and have faith enough, to care deeply that at Conferences like this those who have committed themselves to professional Christian ministry might harness the grace, energy, the insight and the determination to change the future, not entirely on their own, but in genuine, respectful, partnership with this huge lay endeavour that goes on day in and day out, almost unnoticed, largely unremarked. 

  What happens here at this Conference matters to a lot of people. Many people wish you well, not just from within the Catholic Church but from across the many denominations and faiths. 

  The Thesaurus on my word processor offered the following words instead of Ministry - office, bureaucracy, department, organisation. They are particularly suited I am sure you agree to running a mausoleum. There is another image of ministering- caring, tending, looking after, nurturing- these are words a good gardener might use. In this month when Pope John XXIII was beatified may you be inspired to cultivate that great garden we still dare to dream of. To paraphrase the words of one of the best known documents from the Council ? May God help you to carry" the responsibility of reading the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light  of the Gospel" 

  May God Bless your deliberations and may you leave All Hallows full of energy and hope, committed anew to your vocation as Christian Ministers in this changed and changing Ireland.