Dublin in the only one of the 26 Catholic Dioceses in Ireland that has set up an Office of Evangelisation and this office has produced a special edition of the gospel of Luke with beautiful photographs from Dublin Churches and Museums.  Along with the Church of Ireland it has now distributed 250,000 copies of this Gospel. 

The Archdiocese then developed an interactive DVD based on Luke for children, in cooperation with Scripture Union and the Bible Society.  To further Alpha in Catholic Parishes the Office for Evangelisation asked us if we could link Alpha into Luke’s gospel which they felt would help Catholic parishes come on board. 

We have now produced a booklet covering the 15 Alpha talks with scriptures from Luke. To download a free copy click here

Last year Nicky Gumbel, the pioneer of Alpha, came to speak at an Alpha Lunch attended by 180 people.  Afterwards he had a very good meeting with Archbishop Diarmuid Martin which led on to the Catholic Vicar of Evangelisation, Fr. Ciaran O’Carroll and a colleague attending a large Alpha Leaders conference in London attended by over 1,000 leaders, of which the largest denomination was Catholic.  This in turn led to the Office of Evangelisation hosting 6 Alpha Courses for Parish Council members in Dublin and those involved in ministry last Autumn.

These Alpha courses were held in Shankill, Tallaght, Whitehall, Clonliffe, Blanchardstown and City Quay. We had a total of 238 people on the first night and most completed the course. The feedback was superb. One priest participant said:

“I enjoyed the talks. They were light, refreshing and helped me in my ministry. It reminded me to pray with the Scriptures. The Alpha course can revive faith in Ireland; we need to help people form and build a relationship with Jesus Christ. I plan to now run Alpha in my Parish and school”

Questionnaires, filled out at the end of the 6 Courses, showed some interesting results:

·               79% said they read the Bible more as a result of doing Alpha.

·               53% said they would help in running a future Course

·               63% said they would like to participate in some follow on course to Alpha in the Parish

·               27% said there was help available in their Parish for a Follow on to Alpha.

A follow on Seminar for these participants was held in Clonliffe College, Dublin last January on understanding the Eucharist.  The major challenge for Alpha is Parish based followon.  The Alpha course assumes that Parishes running Alpha have small home groups/Parish Cells but they are not in most Catholic Parishes.