'Engineer brothers down tools for life in the priesthood'

Ten years ago I did mission appeals on behalf of the Columbans in the Diocese of Lancaster in the north-west of England. I met two of the three Burns brothers who, like the Doyle brothers, gave up very successful careers to become priests. I met two of the three Foulkes brothers who were also priests of the diocese. The third had already died.

We Columbans have been blessed with sets of three brothers, from Australia, Ireland and the USA. But in today's Ireland, where so many have left the Church, where so many are disheartened by scandals involving priests, it is very heartening to read about the Doyle brothers who  have one sister, Judith, who married last year. It is particularly heartening to read about it in the most widely read daily newspaper in Ireland.

It was seeing Dominican friars in their white habits in St Saviour's Church, Dublin, where my father used to take me occasionally for High Mass, that first stirred an interest in the priesthood in my heart. I was around seven at the time. Though I never seriously considered being a Dominican I am grateful to God for that early 'signpost', which has also been a signpost to many young men in Ireland in recent years, including two Irish diocesan priests who have joined the Order of Preachers. Here is a video from the Irish Dominican Vocations Blog that features that 'signpost'.