Rome-based Downings priest to lead workshop for vocations directors from Ireland

Monsignor Eamon McLaughlin will host a delegation of vocations directors from Ireland in Rome next week.

The Downings-born priest is the Vatican official responsible for seminaries and the formation of priests.

Monsignor McLaughlin will conduct the workshop, which begins next Tuesday, with Cardinal Lazzaro You Heung-sik, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy.

The workshop will centre the promotion for priestly vocations.

Monsignor McLaughlin is involved in pastoral duties at Santa Maria Maggiore, the oldest Church in the western world dedicated to Our Lady and the final resting place of the recently-deceased Pope Francis.

Last year, Pope Francis appointed Monsignor McLaughlin as the Undersecretary for the Dicastery for Clergy, Seminary Section, meaning he became one of the senior officials in the congregation of clergy around the world.

He previously served in Fintown, Lettermacaward, Doochary and Letterkenny before moving to Rome.

Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan, the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, and chair of the Council for Vocations of the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference, said: “Our visit will enable us to seek insight into our continuing efforts to promote vocations to the priesthood in Ireland.  It will be interesting to hear of efforts to promote priestly vocations in other countries. 

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“The Dicastery for Clergy has an international vision from which we can learn.  When vocations directors collaborate, there is a greater harmony, networking, sharing of experiences and ideas and praying together, and all the more so during these days with our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV.”