A young Fianna Fail councillor is to resign his council seat to join the priesthood, he revealed yesterday.
Cllr Mark Nestor, 30, is stepping down from Clare County Council and will start his ecumenical studies next week.
In an interview on Clare FM’s Morning Focus yesterday he said: “We often talk about God’s calling. It was no longer that God was at the door knocking. It was as if he was outside with a megaphone calling.”
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Cllr Nestor became Clare County Council’s youngest councillor when he was elected in the 2019 local elections on his first time contesting a seat.
The position of the Mayor of Ennis was on offer to him earlier this year but he decided to pass up the opportunity.
He said: “Once I really did start to discern my vocation and deepen my prayer life, the decision was quite easy and I knew that I would to forgo the position of mayor and go forward and continue my discernment.”
Cllr Nestor said the calling to become a priest was always there but he did not regret his three years in politics, adding they have “given me a thicker skin… and more life experience”. The Ennis man explained it wasn’t possible to continue the role of councillor and study for the priesthood at the same time.
He said: “Spiritually and logistically, I don’t think it would make sense to follow both roles. Both roles are very consuming.”
He said that to follow a vocation to the priesthood “is to commit oneself to the servitude of God’s people” and you would have very little time to commit to other forms of work.
Cllr Nestor confirmed the first year training will be at the College of St Alban at Valladolid in Spain “and my formation begins there next Wednesday”. He said he accepted that entering the priesthood today “is the road less travelled”.
Cllr Nestor is expected to formally resign his seat at the September meeting of Clare County Council next Monday and Fianna Fail will then begin the process to choose his replacement.
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