New Bishop Michael Router ‘delighted to be in Derry’

A native of County Cavan, Bishop Router was installed in a ceremony in St Eugene's Cathedral on Sunday. He now becomes the ninth Bishop of Derry since the Cathedral was opened in 1873.

Archbishop Eamon Martin led the installation ceremony in front of a packed Cathedral. Bishop Router said he was delighted and honoured to become the new Bishop of Derry.

“I'm delighted to be in Derry,” Bishop Router said. “It's hard to believe that it's nearly two months now, or it is over two months since my announcement as the Bishop of Derry.

“I've been coming up and down here most weeks for a day or two days and the people have been exceptionally warm and welcoming and hospitable so I'm really happy to be here now and I really believe that this is a very special place and a very special diocese.

“I'm truly honoured and privileged to be Bishop of this diocese and I look forward to working with the clergy and the people and getting to know everybody over the course of the coming months and years.”

Despite the excitement of taking over the Diocese, Bishop Router did admit to having some nerves on taking on the role.

“It was a little bit overwhelming when I heard the news first,” he said. “I was quite shell-shocked. Particularly when you're coming to a place that you don't know terribly well.

“I'm a Cavan man originally and I've worked for the last seven years in Armagh. So I wouldn't know Derry terribly well. I visited maybe Derry City about five times in my life before this. I wouldn't know very many of the clergy or the people.

“So, yeah, it was quite overwhelming to have been asked to take on this role and there was a lot of anxiety and nerves about that. But as I say, since that day that it was announced, the people here working here in the Bishop's office and the St Eugene's Cathedral parish have put my fears to rest a little bit.

“You know there's still a lot of challenges and there's going to be a lot of things I'll have to take on board right from the start so yeah from that point of view, there's always a bit of anxiety, but I'm looking forward to it now.

“I'm looking forward to get to know the people of Inishowen and North Tyrone and the Derry County area. There's a lovely mix in the diocese, which I'm quite looking forward to between the city life and then the rural country areas, which are very vibrant as well.

“It's such a beautiful diocese geographically, with the Inishowen peninsula and the the Sperrins. Even the drive up from Dundalk that I've been doing, driving across the Glenshane pass, I mean a spectacular countryside.”

Praising his predecessor, Bishop Router said he has ‘big shoes’ follow but will give it his all.

“We're all different people and we have different gifts and characteristics, but there is no doubt that Bishop Donal left a huge impression here around the city.

“He is so well known. The day I was announced in the Cathedral, he brought me for a walk after lunch. I thought it would be just a half an hour down the street. It was nearly three hours because so many people stopped to talk to him and knew him, knew him by his name. He knew them as well, which was remarkable.

“It was a blistering hot day. But that didn't seem to bother him the slightest, you know. He was very, very much involved in the local community, very visible, very well known and highly respected.

“So this will be a difficult act to follow. But I would hope that... I don't think you can't do this role anymore, either as a priest or as a bishop sitting in an office.

"You know you have to get out there, you have to get to meet people, to be visible, and to talk to people and to reach out to people and to really understand what they're going through. You can't do that just sitting in front of a screen all day you know.

“Now there is a huge amount of administrative work that's involved in being a bishop or a parish priest or whatever it may be. And unfortunately, that has to be done as well. But we can't let it take over. We have to have that missionary outreach.

"That has to be very much front and centre of everything that we do. So it is so important to get out and about and to meet people.

“So I hope that, yes, I will get to know people around the city, but also we have to remember, that this is a big diocese, a big geographical area, from Malin Head down to Bellaghy, you know, and down to Omagh and Drumquin and all that area.

“So it's a big area and I would hope to be able to try and get out around to those different parishes and communities, not just for the big occasions like confirmation or whatever, but maybe ordinary Sunday Mass to come along and to celebrate with the with the local community people.”

Acknowledging the challenges facing the church, particularly declining clergy numbers, Bishop Router said his priority would be to encourage more lay people to help the Church in whatever way they could.

“We need to help people to realise that they have a vocation through their baptism to be involved in the local parish and to take responsibility,” he explained.

“Now for some people that may be reading on a Sunday, it may being a Eucharistic minister. For other people though, there would be maybe a smaller number of people who would hope to be pastoral assistants who could help to run and administer parishes and keep the parishes alive, which is so important.

“People are very worried when they see that there's less priests. They worry about what's going to happen to their own parish in the years ahead. 'Are we still going to have a priest in the parish?' 'Are the churches going to be closed?' All of those things are in people's minds and that's unfortunate because a parish is so crucial to the faith of most people. That's where they have their connection. That's where they have their roots.”

He continued: “I think one way of helping to keep the parish vibrant, to keep the parish alive, is to empower lay people to take on roles which previously maybe the priests were seen very much as the priests were, but can be done by lay people.

"And providing that formation for the laity to give them the sense that they have a calling to help administer and run their local parish and to be involved in the liturgy and in catechesis, passing on the faith to the next generation.

“That's going to be very important as well. So organising that and making sure that people are getting the formation they need to take on those roles and take on that responsibility is going to be one of the big tasks that I'm going to face here over the next hopefully 14 or 15 years.”

Bishop Router added: “There is a core of people that are there who are volunteering, who are involved, who are faithful Mass goers and come to the various different services that are held in the parish you know that the faith is very strong with them and they're very supportive of the clergy and the clergy in my interaction with them they expressed their gratitude to lay people for the support that they have given to them particularly in what have been very difficult years you know over the last 20 to 30 years and so that gives great hope.

“I think that's what we need and that's what people need in today's world more than anything else is hope for the future and Christianity that gives us hope and abundance.”

A guard of honour was provided by post primary schools from throughout the diocese and primary schools from the Templemore parish. Bishop Router was greeted at the door of the Cathedral by: Dr Anne Friel, Chairperson of the Derry Diocesan Pastoral Council and Father John Farren chairman of the College of Consultors.

People from every parish in the Diocese carried banners of their parish name at the beginning of the ceremony. The readings of the Mass were led by a member of Bishop Router’s niece and Sean O’Kane representing the Derry Diocesan Trust and the prayer of the faithful by young people from schools in the diocese and other young people.

The gifts were brought to the altar by members of the youth pilgrimage group and the Lourdes group.

Father Michael Canny, PP Waterside, read the Papal Bull and presented it to Bishop Router who showed it to the College of Consultors and to all of the people who gathered for the occasion.

During the Mass, a crozier, was presented to Bishop Router by his predecessor Bishop Donal McKeown. Significantly, this crozier belonged to Bishop McHugh and was presented to him at his Episcopal Ordination in 1907.