Newly appointed Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell has called for a reorganisation of parishes as priest numbers decline. At the mass formerly marking his installation, Farrell noted that the church needed to adapt for the future. Paraphrasing JP Hartley's famous quote, he  said "‘the future is a different country, we must do things differently there’.” He detailed a new outlook for leadership in the church, one where the laity take a pivotal role. "[The Laity] constitute the vast majority of the people of God. Indeed, as St John Henry Newman, remarked perceptively, ‘The Church would seem foolish without them’.” “Leadership in the Church is not about telling people what to do," he continued, "it is about promoting co-responsibility and overcoming the mindset which runs the risk of relegating the baptised to a subordinate role, effectively keeping them on the edges of Church life." “That is what we mean by a synodal Church – a church on the way with each other. The very first place synodality is expressed is at parish level. If it doesn’t happen in the parish, it will not happen at all,”he said. In an interview with The Hard Shoulder on Newstalk following the mass, he said "more and more people will need to take responsibility" at parish level. Hoping to build on the work of his predecessor Diarmuid Martin, he noted that there would be issues facing his diocese. With 197 parishes and 350 priests, he noted the need to adapt the infrastructure of the 19th century to modern needs. “We need to talk to the people on the ground. Eventually we will only have possibly one priest per parish and maybe not even that many priests as we go forward,” he said. “It’s certain that we won’t be able to celebrate Sunday mass in every church in every parish in this diocese,” he added. It's a problem facing "every diocese" in the country, he noted. “I think the Lord is probably saying to us at this time: I don’t want you to keep doing the things that you were doing 100 years ago, 200 years ago.”