I am thankful for the invitation to be here today and for your welcome. This is a very special occasion for the diocese of Kilmore. It is a great achievement for you, Bishop Leo, and for all associated with this magnificent project. I congratulate all of you most heartily on bringing it to completion.

I congratulate you and your priests on the vision, which has inspired the decision to provide this Pastoral Centre. I applaud all those who saw the wisdom that lay behind it and who supported it with their encouragement and resources.

I congratulate all the representatives from the various parishes who will benefit from the activities which will be promoted from this Centre. You and your children and your grandchildren will derive many blessings from the services that will be provided - I am certain of that. My hope is that they will be fully availed of and if so, I am confident that they will be the occasions of great graces and favours. I pray God's blessings also on Father Gerry Kearns and Sister Susie Duffy, and the other members of staff

We stand here in the townland of Cullies - not a big townland, by any means, in size and yet it is big in its impact on many people and in the emotions it holds for them.

In Cullies graveyard the parents, grandparents and great grandparents of many people sleep the sleep of the just as they await the Second Coming of the Lord. It is a place to which the thoughts of many families turn often during the year.

The townland of Cullies is also home to Cavan Vocational School and St. Patrick's College - just two of the many fine post-primary schools in this county. It is in the schools that the human capacity of the students is developed, the presence of God is discovered and celebrated and their faith is nourished.

Of course Cullies is also synonymous with the Bishop's House - a focal point in the life of the Diocese and a point of reference for all the parishes.

Now Cullies has yet another claim to fame. It is now the proud possessor of the Diocesan Pastoral Centre, which will be, at the service of the families, the schools and the parishes of this diocese. Here, I imagine, ordained and non-ordained ministers will work side by side, responding to the spiritual needs of the people they serve. The family, the school and the parish are the three great islands involved in the noble enterprise of Christian Education and Faith Formation. No one of these can function effectively without the support and the active assistance of the other two. The education scene has changed so dramatically in recent times that many may feel that they are not in a position to play their part. So, for their own sakes, first of all, and for the sake of others, I would hope that the courses in this Centre will be well supported. For they will have, as their aim a deepening of faith and of co-ordinating faith formation.

I am looking forward eagerly to hearing Ronan Mullen address us. I have known and admired Ronan and his work for a number of years. My hope is that this Pastoral Centre would play a part in enabling every parish, better still every townland, having their own Ronan Mullan or their Breda O'Byrne. That is to say, a spokesperson who speaks from the heart of their faith in Jesus Christ and who is not afraid to do so and who sees it as part of their grace of baptism to do so.

The recently published Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church repeats what the Church has often stated, namely, that the media are there to be used to build up and sustain the human community. It goes on to say that the information provided by the media is at the service of the common good because society has a right to information based on truth, justice, freedom and solidarity. Truth, justice, freedom and solidarity also happen to be the pillars upon which true peace is based.

I believe that the excellent and extensive coverage given by the media to the situation in south-east Asia certainly served well to make people more responsible and more open to the needs of the unfortunate victims of that terrible disaster.

I would hope that one of the objectives of this Pastoral Centre might be to prepare well-informed and articulate people who would be prepared to go onto the media and by their contribution help to make people more spiritually mature and more aware of the dignity of their humanity.

Recently I got a letter from a Parish Priest in New Hampshire in the United States. One of its outstanding parishioners is the singer Tommy Makem who is a native of Keady, in County Armagh - the native parish of the late Bishop Austin Quinn. In his letter the Parish Priest told me that in 1830, there were some Ulster women - Armagh women to be precise - working in the Mills of Dover. When they discovered that they could not get to Mass on Sundays they decided to give up their jobs and return home. The mill owners got wind of their plans and they were so keen to hold on to these skilled women that they donated the land and had a chapel built. The first Mass was celebrated in it on 26 September 1830. The memory of their faith is so strong that many people in that parish are currently busy, preparing to celebrate their 175th anniversary this year.
My hope is that 175 years from now, people in this diocese will celebrate the fact that in this Year of the Eucharist, the Diocesan Pastoral Centre was opened and that they will recall, with gratitude, the wide range of services which it organised and provided over the years.

This Pastoral Centre is located in St. Patrick's College - designed by the outstanding Cavan architect, William Hague. I am reminded of his work every day of my life. He designed the sacristan's house at the Cathedral of St. Patrick, Armagh.

I first came into this College in 1952 - a year easily remembered in the annals of Cavan football at least - as the year in which we last won the Sam Maguire, and also contested the All-Ireland Minor title. I spent eighteen happy years here - five as a student and thirteen on the staff. My visits now are, of necessity, less frequent but certainly no less happy nor less emotional. In fact they call to mind the words of the French writer, Mauriac when he said:

"No love, no friendship can ever cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever - for we are moulded and remoulded by those who have loved us and though that love may pass we remain, nonetheless, their works".

I think of the friendships I formed here as a teenager and an adult. They have moulded and remoulded me and they have left their mark and for that I am truly grateful.

The College and the Pastoral Centre are under the Patronage of St. Patrick. In a powerful passage towards the end of his Confessions, Patrick prayed for perseverance, for himself and for his people. He was very concerned not to lose God's people, won by God for himself at the end of the earth.
"This sun" - says Patrick - "which we see rises daily at His command for our benefit but will never reign nor will its brilliance endure. Those who worship it will be severely punished - we on the other hand, believe in and worship Christ - the true Sun who will never perish nor will any who does His Will".

The temptation to worship the world of the Creator instead of the Creator of the World is not a new temptation. May this Pastoral Centre play its part in ensuring that Patrick's prayer is fulfilled.

Thank you

Excerpts from Bishop O'Reilly's address:

Speaking at the launch of the Kilmore Diocesan Pastoral Centre at St. Patrick's College, Cavan, on Sunday, Bishop O'Reilly paid tribute to all who were involved in the refurbishment of the building and in setting up the Centre. He recalled the Diocesan Congress, which took place in October 2000. That was a gathering of lay people, religious and priests from every parish in the diocese to discuss the issues of concern for the Church in Kilmore. He went on:

Many issues were discussed, many recommendations were made, but one that came up time and time again was the need for adult faith formation, for courses, retreats, bible study, for a whole range of services to meet the needs of the new models of parish and Church where there was full lay participation. People wanted to learn more about their faith and to deepen it.

There were several calls for a pastoral centre for the diocese to begin to meet some of these needs and so we decided to set up a Centre and to locate it in recently vacated boarding wing of the College. I am proud and happy today that this goal has finally been achieved and that the Centre is officially opened. But of course that goal is only the beginning. The real work of meeting those needs for faith enrichment courses, retreats, training courses is ahead. But a very good start has been made. And once again I congratulate Fr. Gerry Kearns and the staff of the centre on the excellent work they have done and are doing here.

Speaking to the priests of the diocese and the representatives from all the parishes present, Bishop O'Reilly said:

The Kilmore Diocesan Pastoral Centre is your brainchild. It was conceived at the Diocesan Congress, where you expressed your desire for it in the clearest terms. It is there to serve your parishes and to meet your needs. The Pastoral Centre team has already visited all the parishes to assess those needs and as a result have organised many programmes and training courses. These range from leadership training, to pre-sacramental programmes, school retreats, faith enrichment programmes, training for parish pastoral councils, liturgy groups and so on. The Accord Centre, which provides marriage preparation programmes and marriage support, is also located here.

The Bishop continued:

…the biggest difficulty for us in this may be, not the work, but embracing a new model of Church, a new way of working. Working with people rather than for them. Working collaboratively rather than alone. If you go around most of the rooms in this Centre you will find the chairs arranged in a circle and that is symbolic of the new model of Church at work here - a circle rather than a pyramid. Interaction in a circle rather than dictation from the top. It doesn't mean we abandon authority, but it does mean that we learn to listen and to respect the Spirit present in every person who is baptised. Most of us grew up in a different model and changing is not easy. But the encouraging thing is that some of the oldest men are the ones who have embraced this new way of being Church with the greatest enthusiasm. We are blessed in this diocese with a wonderful body of priests, dedicated religious and extraordinarily committed lay people. Our future is working together and together we will succeed.

Concluding his remarks, Bishop O'Reilly said:

The motto we chose for the Diocesan Congress in 2000 was, "Set your hearts upon the deep", from the Gospel we heard a little while ago. The theme of that Gospel is the mission of the Church to evangelise - to launch out into the world and embrace the whole of humanity by offering it the Good News of Christ. Pope John Paul took that very text as the theme of his great encyclical for the new millennium at the beginning of 2001. In that letter he said:
"Launch out into the deep! These words ring out for us today, and they invite us to remember the past with gratitude, to live the present with enthusiasm and to look forward to the future with confidence."

It's very appropriate then that the logo of the new pastoral centre is a boat in full sail upon the waves. The Church here in Kilmore diocese launches out into the deep of a new millennium, a new culture, and an increasingly secularised, pluralist society. We confidently offer it the message of Christ, the Good News of freedom and salvation. We offer it once again the offer of Christ to his first disciples: "Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men."