August 17 2012 - Association Of Catholic Priests

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17 August. Friday of Week Nineteen

A Heroic Level of Love

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3 comments
07 Dec 2023 – Thursday of Advent, Week 1
December 7 2023
Joe O'Leary
Sean, I fear the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater. Compare Mozart — his reliance on princes or prince-archbishops — does it render his music worthless? Well, the centuries of Christendom produced many saints and doctors, poets and architects who were the equivalent of Mozart. They emerged within a richly varied human world which awaits our rediscovery. I have a book on my knees just now that I have never read: R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm: A Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge UP, 1990). “A legalist demanding satisfaction for sin – understood primarily as defiance of the 6th commandment” is hardly fair to one of his great texts, the Cur Deus Homo. When he says “divine honour” he means cosmic order (in which honour was a key principle in that feudal culture). He gets away from older theories of the Devil’s rights and answers afresh the question that Athanasius discussed in his De Incarnatione, facing “the Jewish criticism that Christianity unnecessarily exposed God to the pain and indignities of human life”; “the gross indignities offered to God in Christ could only be justified if they were necessary for the rectification of the universe under the will of God” (p. 212). Many critics of (a mostly imaginary) Anselm today are really rejecting the proposition that “Christ died for our sins.” Anselm dares to ask for a rational account of why this should be so, and he comes up with a deep meditation on the harmony of justice and mercy within divine providence. something much more wide-reaching and intelligent than “a legalist demanding satisfaction for sin – understood primarily as defiance of the 6th commandment.” If we had time to study this great thinker and attempt to think along with him, I have no doubt that we would find many things to edify, enlighten, or at least stimulate.
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Synodal Pathway Update: National Steering Committee Report plus Irish Synodal Pathway Research for the Development of a Facilitative Leadership Programme
December 6 2023
Sean O’Conaill
How many of us shout ‘Hallelujah' at the arrival of yet another long synodal report? Of course the steering committee did need to report and to sketch its proposals for what happens next. Of these the plan to expand the steering committee into six separate working groups - one of which would focus on 'theology and sociology' - could be the most important. Given that 'mission' must have a clear grasp of the 'good news' of the Gospel, and so many of the 2022 diocesan reports confessed some bewilderment as to what that is in 21st century Ireland, a theological focus is vital. It fits in also with Pope Francis' recent appeal for theology to be pastoral and contextual - i.e. suited to the needs of those to whom it is addressed. In the end however, long and detailed reports of this kind are not in themselves vitalising and ‘missionary’. As they accumulate they increase the ‘chore’ of ‘getting one’s head around’ synodality. Perhaps another of those six working groups - that for ‘communications and outreach’ could address this by producing a running radical summary of progress so far - a ready shortcut to the vital essence of it. What a tragedy if synodality were unnecessarily to suffer ‘suffocation by self-documentation’ - and I do now seriously fear that this could happen.
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3 comments
07 Dec 2023 – Thursday of Advent, Week 1
December 7 2023
Sean O’Conaill
If ever there was a house built on sand it was Christendom - the church’s long reliance upon the states of Europe. Ruled primarily always by the covetousness of their rulers, they necessarily imposed a blinding of the church’s eye to covetousness itself, and eventually a hopelessly blinkered notion of God the Father. For the early church the Father who had freed them from fear of Rome by overturning the verdict of crucifixion of Jesus became something different in the High Middle Ages - a legalist demanding satisfaction for sin - understood primarily as defiance of the 6th commandment. Those breaches of commandments 9 and 10 committed freely by competing princes had to be overlooked, culminating in the world wars of the 20th century and the collapse of Christendom. Now a far more secure house needs building, recognising the warning against covetousness as the only key to a sustainable lifestyle and a sustainable peace. It is not too late to heed the call to a life founded on the simplicity and compassion of Jesus - but it is very late indeed.
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Following Seán O’Conaill’s article on “The Myth of Redemptive Violence”, Pádraig McCarthy urges us to read “The War Prayer” by Mark Twain
December 4 2023
Sean O'Conaill
So many thanks for this Pádraig. Mark Twain is next to Dickens in my list of favourite authors. 'Tom Sawyer' especially foreshadows the ascent of American capitalism in Tom's feigning absolute satisfaction in whitewashing his Aunt Polly's fence - to persuade his friends to part with their valuables, including vouchers for their knowledge of bible verses - just for the privilege of wielding his brush. As for Huckleberry Finn - nobody should miss reading that for Huck's development of a conscience re the runaway slave, Jim. As for Twain's drawing on the classic family feud between the Hatfields and McCoys for another episode in that novel - that foreshadows the absurdist self-destructive polarisation in US politics right now. I hadn't known of the above piece on the US's 'neo-imperial' wars in 1904/5 - and of course it was prescient of what would again happen in Europe in 1914 - dooming Christendom finally - the four Christian empires plunging the world into the war 'to end war'. Twain (Sam Clemens) also sent up his own participation in the US Civil War of 1861-65, capturing the heroic posturing that tends to break out when wars loom - and I once remember reading with pleasure 'A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur' too, an experiment in science fiction and time travel. What literary treasures are missed now by younger generations with the ascendancy of visual fiction!
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