|
Post by Askel McThurkill on Nov 19, 2010 9:30:17 GMT
Brian D'Arcy a prophet? In regard to Garry, he seems to be stuck in the Capuchin formation he got. How did he blunder into journalism?
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Nov 20, 2010 21:53:48 GMT
Once you invoke the Holy Spirit in this context all debate ends. You simply ask whether Garry O'Sullivan has considered the possibility that it is the critics of Fr D'Arcy and Bishop Walsh who are inspired by the Holy Spirit, and then it becomes an exchange of "I'm the Holy Spirit", "No, I'm the Holy Spirit" ad nauseam. What O'Sullivan is really doing is insinuating that Fr D'Arcy is obviously right without deigning to address the substance of the criticisms made against him. Here is a suitable entry from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montanism
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Dec 1, 2010 12:43:23 GMT
Some comments on this week's IRISH CATHOLIC (25 November 2010): Garry O'Sullivan makes the interesting point that many Dublin priests, who are being paid less than pastoral workers (E26k v. E40k) are being asked to take a cut in their already modest salaries, and suggests that the Eucharistic Congress, which in his opinion is entirely pointless, should be cancelled as a cost-cutting measure. I think he is unduly dismissive of the Eucharistic Congress, but doesn't this disparity in payments of priests and pastoral workers (and the latter are not being asked to share the cut experienced by the former) give a sense of which are seen as more important by the administration? (OK priests are celibate and should be able to live on less, but secular priests are not supposed to take vows of poverty either.)
A good reflection on the anniversary of the Murphy Report by Archbishop Martin - but I wonder how his comments about the Church having had excessive power in the past will be used by certain people? (Get this straight. It was an example of excessive power when the Gardai deferred to the Church authorities, allowing priests to escape the punishment they deserved for serious crimes and to commit others with impunity. It was not an example of excessive power to enshrine Catholic teaching in law, or to have all professing Catholics going to Mass. It is not excessive power to have a Catholic school system - it was excessive power when a clerical manager could arbitrarily dismiss a teacher without the latter having access to higher authority, and when such dismissal led to the teacher being blacklisted countrywide. Archbishop Martin would presumably draw this distinction, but the IRISH TIMES and RTE brigade will do their best to blur it.)
David Quinn very well discusses the continuing attack on denominational education, which is much further advanced than most of us realise. "They are being told that it is unacceptable to employ teachers on the basis of what they believe. Religious parents are being told that their children cannot be taught their religion during class time in State schools, and soon religion teachers will have to look over their shoulders for fear of a professional misconduct charge" [because the new code of practice for teachers could be interpreted as saying that to state that one religion is more true than another amounts to discrimination).
Fr Peter McVerry reported as declaring at launch of THE DUBLIN/MURPHY REPORT: A WATERSHED FOR IRISH CATHOLICISM? that Rome enabled abusers by blunting people's capacity for independent critical judgement by controlling how they think; he says priests will be drawn late into the revolution and the bishops will not do so "because they, just like Jesus, would be crucified for 'abandoning and betraying' the traditions of their faith'." He calls for "the revolution which will make our Church a more human, and therefore a more divine, institution". The contempt for the very concept of hierarchy and the equation of the Pope and the Vatican with Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin gives a good idea where the Association of Irish Priests are headed.
Mass reductions and parish clustering in Clonfert presented as opportunity to build community. A great example of acquiescing in decline rather than seeking to reverse it. Long extracts from the new book-length interview with the Pope. Very interesting.
Eamon Maher calls for "real renewal" in the Church. He is utterly dismissive of the visitation and ridicules the idea that the Murphy report might be subject to any sort of legitimate criticism. Quoting a statement by Andrew Madden which blames the abuse he and others suffered on the idea that the ordained have legitimate authority over the laity and which claims this is contrary to "the church founded by Jesus Christ", Maher proclaims: "Can anyone ever see this sound advice being adopted by Rome? Could Pope Benedict ever accept a situation whereby the laity and the ordained would go forward side by side? Celibacy, the ordination of women, the use of artificial contraception and the sinfulness of homosexual acts are not up for discussion, even though the Church's stance on these issues is considered inhuman and impracticable by a high proportion of the clergy and the laity alike. Is it not time to enter dialogue with the modern world in the way that was recommended in the documents of Vatican II? But who would initiate such a renewal? The bishops, because their first loyalty is to Rome, are incapable of independent thoguht or action..." Clearly Dr Maher's idea of dialogue is that everyone should accept his own heterodoxies. What an article for a professedly Catholic paper to publish!
Several pages of very fine material on Frank Duff.
Editorial on the Murphy Report quoting Archbishop Martin and the Pope. Another editorial on the pope and condoms refers to Cardinal Newman on primacy of conscience in a way which suggests the mistaken belief that Newman thought this should be decided by individual convenience without deference to Church teaching.
Lettters include one referring to a 2-page article by Fr Martin Henry on November 4 which I didn't see, but which the letter-writer claims questioned the existence of Hell. (NB it is best to be cautious about this due to the possibility of misunderstanding.) Another letter complains about an article, which I did see and which was IMHO disgraceful, glossing over President Obama's support for legalised abortion.
A fine piece on the work of a Presentation Sister in Peru. Another good piece on the commemoration/prayer for English martyrs. A nice endpiece by Br Andrew O'Connell on the portrayal of the death of a Coronation Street character in terms of religion and marriage.
|
|
|
Post by assisi on Dec 1, 2010 21:55:00 GMT
Eamon Maher calls for "real renewal" in the Church. On the subject of renewal I came across an interesting lecture from American Jesuit priest Edward Oakes. The two main evangelising traits we should employ according to him are good apologetics and not watering down or diluting the message of the gospels. The lecture is at: frontrow.bc.edu/program/oakes/
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jan 1, 2011 19:02:22 GMT
Credit where credit is due - the new issue of the IRISH CATHOLIC (end of year summary) has some very fine material. This includes a tribute by a writer to an old Dublin priest whom he remembers from his childhood (who inter alia used his own money to help keep his poor Dublin parish afloat) which includes the dismaying detail that when he rang the archdiocese for information about tt his priest, they immmediately assumed he was claiming to have been abused by him. So it is that the memory of the good has been tarnished by the crimes of the wicked priests and the criminal mishandling of their cases by the authorities. Brendan O'Regan in his TV/media column has some very sharp and true comments on the wave of pro-abortion propaganda that hit the airwaves on connection with the ECHR ruling on Irish abortion law. David Quinn has a drily forensic analysis of how the Dublin canonist Mgr Gerard Sheehy oposed any action civil or ecclesiastical against abusers because he believed they were the victims of irresistible impulses and as such needed understanding rather than punishment. He might have said a bit more about how outrageous this was - since many of these abusers engaged in planned and premeditated schemes of abuse rather than giving way to momentary impulses, and since (one hopes) Mgr Sheehy would not have advocated the same impunity for axe murderers who committed their crimes under a momentary impulse. I'm afraid there was much more desire not to know in Mgr Sheehy's stance and in those of others (including, I regret to say, myself - I remember how reluctant I was to beleive all these horrors were really true). "Taimse ina codladh is na dhuisigh me" has got us where we are.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jan 11, 2011 18:35:14 GMT
The current issue (came out last Thursday) is very good -some nice reflections on the State Papers by Peter Costello, and a good discussion of "the spiral of silence" by andrew O'Connell in his back-page column.
|
|
|
Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jan 12, 2011 14:44:49 GMT
I'm afraid there was much more desire not to know in Mgr Sheehy's stance and in those of others (including, I regret to say, myself - I remember how reluctant I was to beleive all these horrors were really true). Taimse ina codladh is na dhuisigh me has got us where we are. The difference is you held no office in the church and had no responsibility. Archdeacon Sheehy did.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jan 13, 2011 15:05:53 GMT
I agree there is a difference. I, and many others, grossly underestimated the extent of abuse. (In retrospect, I think Doris Manly's old BALLINTRILLICK REVIEW in its legitimate criticism of STAY SAFE and similar programs was too inclined to underestimate the actual incidence of sexual abuse, and this has been used in hindsight by comentators like Fintan O'Toole to discredit valid criticisms of that program and others like it.) Mgr Sheehy knew full well what these people had done and his offence was in not facing up to its implications and in showing no concern for the victims - I believed in the "innocent till proven guilty" principle and thought the book should be thrown at them if they had done it
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Apr 6, 2011 12:46:42 GMT
I have only recently seen the IRISH CATHOLIC special issue about religious orders from a month or two back. Two points came to mind about it: (1) Garry O'Sullivan's commentary seemed to assume that the disappearance of the religious orders was both natural and inevitable and that their place could be taken by lay Catholic volunteers. This completely ignored the fact that there were Catholic lay volunteers (probably more than there are now) when the religious orders were flourishing, and it seemed to assume that the particular functions of consecrated religious life were of no particular importance.
(2) One of the articles ws headed by a photograph of American nuns demonstrating en masse in favour of the preservation of wetlands; the context suggests that this was presented as an inspiring example of religious fulfilling their mission. It so happens that that photograph was also published by CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT recently as an example of how many American religious had become deflected from their real mission to go chasing fads and nostrums! The marchers were overwhelmingly elderly - liberal orders tend not to attract vocations because they don't do much that couldn't be done as a social worker or political activist - they were of noticeably large proportions and wore unflattering t-shirts and pantsuits, with never a habit nor veil in sight!
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Sept 2, 2011 16:12:40 GMT
The 1 September issue of the IRISH CATHOLIC is quite good, with the predictable exception of a piece by Garry O'Sullivan which responds to the recent exchanges between Frances Fitzgerald and Cardinal Brady over the seal of the confessional by calling on them to drop the issue and just discuss implementing the 99% of anti-abuse measures they do agree on. With all due respect, that's not good enough. The Seal is under attack and to present it as if the Cardinal who is defending it and the minister who is attacking it are equally to blame is just letting the side down - a Catholic paper should take a firmer stand. [There is an editorial on the subject which is somewhat better.] Mary Kenny discusses the Cloyne report and thinks it is a bit lawyerly and lacking in proportion. Unfortunately the many years of wilful neglect by the Church in Ireland on this issue make this pretty much inevitable. (BTW she asks if we are going back to the days of John Charles McQuaid when nosy parkers regularly reported unpriestly behaviour by priests - it might be better if we had never left them.) John Waters has a very fine piece on the Communion and Liberation meeting in Rimini. David Quinn defends Bishop Boyce's recent comments about aggressive secularism attacking the church, incidentally pointing out that the numerous commentators who accused Bishop Boyce of obscuring the fact that the attacks on the Church derive from the sins and crimes of priests and religious failed to mention that Bishop Boyce said exactly that in the very same sentence of his talk. Fr Twomey reports on Pope Benedict's meeting with former pupils. An interesting article on the Dutch priest who refused a funeral to a man who committed suicide by euthanasia, with the interesting detail that the lay parish council publicly denounced the priest (an example of the problems this form of organisation can pose) Rory Fitzgerald has an interesting and depressing piece on entering third level and the pastoral issues involved. Several commenters ask what follow-up is in place for Irish participants in World Youth Day. There is a reasonably fair review of Donal Foley's anti-Medjugorje book
|
|
|
Post by assisi on Sept 12, 2011 20:42:57 GMT
John Allen's article from the 25th August 2011 issue is well worth reading. In the article called 'It's the Evangelicals stupid!' he sees the Evangelical movement of the Catholic church as the predominating one, not only within the papacy since John Paul II but also among the core of younger committed Catholics considering the priesthood, doing theology courses or acting as lay ministers. He concludes: Given the double whammy of Evangelical Catholicism as both the idée fixe of the Church's leadership class, and a driving force among the inner core of younger believers, it's destined to shape the culture of the Church (especially in the global north, i.e. Europe and the United States) for the foreseeable future.
One can debate its merits, but not its staying power.
In the real world, the contest for the Catholic future is therefore not between the Evangelicals and some other group -- say, liberal reformers.
It's inside the Evangelical movement, between an open and optimistic wing committed to 'Affirmative Orthodoxy' i.e. emphasising what the Church affirms rather than what it condemns, and a more defensive cohort committed to waging cultural war.The whole article is here: www.irishcatholic.ie/site/content/its-evangelicals-stupid-john-allen
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Sept 30, 2011 10:50:10 GMT
The following appeared in the editorial of the IRISH CATHOLIC of 15 September 2011 EXTRACT ...This [Bishop Edward Daly's suggestion that abolishing the clerical celibacy requirement might lead to more priestly vocations - HIB] is a clerical view of Church, and with the greatest respect to Bishop Daly, it is to be expected that a bishop would want more men to join the ranks of the clergy. Yet other questions present themselves such as do we need more clergy? The current clergy are overworked so divest some of their responsibilities to laity. Let's free up the existing clergy to do what they were ordained to do and lay people do all the rest and we might just find that we have plenty of priests. Certainly pre-independence, our numbers of priests were lower. It may well be that in the future married men will be allowed to be priests but they will need to come from strong parish communities that have new structures and processes that contribute to the building up of a new Catholic community in Ireland. END I must say this is a very dubious claim, not only because it is dismissive about the vocations crisis and seems to suggest that we need very few clergy and that nobody but a cleric could think otherwise, but because it obfuscates the nature of that crisis. The problem is not that there are too few clergy at present in terms of raw numbers - though that is already visible in some areas - but that the small number of current vocations, and the age structure of priests currently in ministry, means that unless there is some dramatic development, within 20 years there will be far fewer priests than there are now. This will not be a return to the situation "pre-independence" as the editorial disingenuously puts it - it will be a return to the numbers of Penal days, or replicating the situation on the nineteenth-century American frontier where priests had to travel over wide areas and significant numbers of the faithful might only have access to a priest and the sacraments every few months. The inevitable consequence of that was heavy lapsation (already I think the lapsation in urban areas is partly connected to the fact that there are not enough clergy to get to know the people and be there for them when they are needed). The assumption that lay activists can substitute for priests in every respect except administering the sacraments is a very risky one (for one thing the point about priests is that they are supposed to be there full time whereas lay volunteers have their own concerns to attend to, for another the number of lay volunteers is also in decline and the financial situation will make the employment of lay professionals as priest-substitutes prohibitively expensive, not to mention the other limitations associated with such a course). The line about "strong parish communities" strikes me as wishful thinking, given that the population is more urbanised and mobile than ever before and has fewer ties to the parochial system - unless he means something like the old Protestant Nonconformist idea of the "gathered church", which produces a small subculture of zealots while ignoring the rest of the population. This is very like the sort of stuff Garry O'Sullivan puts out, and like that it gives the impression that the author is not being honest with himself and with his audience about the state of affairs he actually wants and the extent to which it is incompatible with Catholicism as commonly understood. www.irishcatholic.ie/site/content/new-missal[Although the editorial is entitled "New missal", the passage I quote is towards the bottom of the column under the sub-heading "Married priests".
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Oct 4, 2011 14:34:07 GMT
The current IRISH CATHOLIC (29 September) actually has some pretty good material, including a fine column by Br Andrew O'Connell (rear page) about acknowledging the trauma we feel and how the scandals have left many people feeling they can't acknowledge their sense of loss over the secularisation of IReland etc. David Quinn and Patsy McGarry have an exchange on whether the media is biased against the church which actually has some pretty good stuff on both sides (though I note that McGarry when discussing media coverage of the Church talks exclusively about the scandals and about the cover-up; on which he says some painfully true things - and suggests that an agnostic religious affairs correspondent is somehwo more "impartial" than one with a religious commitment, as if agnosticism wasn't a religious position in itself. David Quinn's comment on the Pope in Germany is quite good. Special dishonourable mention to Fr Gerry O'Hanlon for a piece implying Vatican I's emphasis on "collegiality" amounted to virtual abolition of the hierarchical nature of the Church and its teaching authority. An interesting piece by a priest about the lack of financial accountability on where church collections go in Dublin. I know that some dioceses, such as Down and Connor, give out collection envelopes which explain where each specific collection is going (e.g. retired priests, seminarians etc). Perhaps an example to copy?
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Nov 1, 2011 21:40:40 GMT
I have been looking at a couple of recent copies of the IRISH CATHOLIC which I had put aside because of pressure of work, and one thing struck me as showing how despite its many flaws the IRISH CATHOLIC is still often superior to the CATHOLIC VOICE Both the 13 and 20 October issues had articles noting that although David Norris described himself as "pro-life" he had supported the group Choice Ireland which advocates abortion on demand at all stages of pregnancy [I cannot find the IC articles online, but for the Norris connection with CI here is a link to their website:- www.choiceireland.org/node/29EXTRACT In addition to the WRC protests the group held the successful “rally for reproductive rights” outside the central bank on Sunday June 30th 2007 where over 100 people heard speeches from representatives of Alliance for Choice and doctors for choice as well as from Ivana Bacik, David Norris and of course Choice Ireland. END OF EXTRACT It also pointed out occasions on which Michael D Higgins had in the Dail called for legislation in accordance with the X case (i.e. for abortion), giving dates. The CATHOLIC VOICE uttered exhortations in favour of Dana, but didn't give anything so specific as the material above on the real positions of other candidates. Someone put it to me very well recently - that the CATHOLIC VOICE reads more like a religious magazine than a newspaper.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jan 27, 2012 1:36:22 GMT
The 26 January 2011 IRISH CATHOLIC is a mixed bag as usual. Some of the blunders (Garry O'Sullivan's usual witterings against "institutional clericalism" and his empirically false claim that "no institution ever reformed itself from the top down", PEter Costello's review of a Jesuit's book CAN I STAY IN THE CHURCH? have been noted on other threads, so this summary will focus on the positive: In the rear-page column, Br Andrew O'Connell notes the moving tributes paid by many past pupils (including George Hook) to Brother Athanasius, a Presentation Brother who taught in Cork and Bray and died recently at the age of 87. Michael Kelly notes proposed legislation will remove the right of faith schools to veto the transfer to them of teachers who may damage their ethos. David Quinn notes that the politicians have been taken by surprise by the scale of the reaction against the closure of the Vatican Embassy GReg Daly [Thirsty Gargoyle} criticises the recent British pro-euthanasia commission bankrolled by the popular fantasy author Terry Pratchett; what makes this impressive is that while rightly criticising Pratchett's euthanasia advocacy he pays tribute to his talent as a writer and acknowledges that Pratchett's tributes to Chesterton led him to discover Chesterton's work, which strongly influenced his return to the Church. We should always remember that just becausee people may hold wrong beliefs and do wrong things, they are not necessarily devils, and to pay honour where honour is due is an integral part of good criticism. There is a report on the annual American March for Life (pro-life demonstration marking the anniversary of the infamos ROE V. WADE decision) which the secular media greeted with the usual deafening silence and neglect. The letters range widely in quality, but include one pointing out that vocations figures neglecct the phenomenon (whose existence the writer can personally attest) of Irish men and women who leave Ireland to enter new religious orders overseas because they offer a traditional model of religious life which is difficult to find in Ireland, and a writer from Mayo who praises the new Missal translation and criticises the ACPI "they are interested in sacrifice and not obedience" (I suspect a "not" is misplaced somewhere. A convert from Scottish Presbyterianism to a liberal form of post-Vatican II Catholicism, and an anonymous gay reader (who says he practices both his faith and his sexual orientation) contain objectionable views but are basically honest and troubled statements rather than boilerplate liberal propaganda - we should disagree with them but we should also understand how theey came to where they are now, however unsatisfactory that may be. There is an inspiring piece on Emmet Dooley of the Pure in Heart organisation, who discusses chastity promotion among young people and his own decision to remain a virgin until marriage. We should not underestimate the sneers and sniggers he must have enccontered and will encounted for taking this stance. Brendan O'Regan has some characteristically outspoken comments on the TV3 sex-obsessed "reality show" Tallafornia, which RTE has joined in promoting - he says a reference to its "toilet humour" is an insult to toilets.
All in all, this issue is well worth a read
|
|