Diocese of Ferns - Vocations

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Welcome to the Ferns Diocesan Vocations website!


The Diocese of Ferns is in the south east of Ireland and includes most of County Wexford, the south of County Wicklow and a small bit of County Carlow. It serves a population of about 105,000 catholics, and has forty nine parishes and eighty churches. It has about ninety fully active priests, who assist Bishop Denis Brennan in the pastoral and spiritual care of the people of Ferns.

Ferns has a very proud history in the service of its people and in the service of the wider Church. It was founded in 600ad by its first bishop, St. Aidan, but it is believed that Christians lived in this area even before the time of St. Patrick. Since its foundation, the diocese has survived through good times, like the building of monasteries in the 13 century, and bad times, like the Cromwellian persecution. It can boast of several martyrs and saints, both ancient like St. Ibar, and modern, like St. Columba Marmion. Until recently it also had its own diocesan seminary, St. Peters, from where priests went out into all parts of the world. In fact Ferns diocese has been a rich soil for vocations to many parts of the Church and can boast of a great legacy in bishops, priests and religious.

Currently, like all the dioceses in Ireland, Ferns is beginning to feel a shortage of priests but it still has one of the youngest age profiles of any of the dioceses in Ireland. What’s more, it still has priests on mission in Brazil and the USA as well as in the Irish College in Rome, and as a chaplain in the Irish Army. From this you might notice that even though the primary work of a diocesan priest is in his own diocese, opportunities do exist for mission and studies outside of the diocese in accordance with the wishes of the bishop.




We hope that you find this vocations website interesting and informative, and that if you have any, even vague, ideas of becoming a priest that the Lord will be with you in your discernment.


Ordinations to the Priesthood of
Pat Duffy and James Cullen

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Last Update Feb 08 2016

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