Month: May 2013

Brendan Hoban introduces his new book, Who Will Break The Bread For Us? Disappearing Priests, which names the bleak reality for the Irish Church and calls for an end to denial.

Seamus Ahearne responds to Eddie Finnegan’s noting that so few priests write on this site. He suggests that in the life of a priest, words are enormously important – written or spoken.

Alan Hilliard shares a New York Times profile of the Austrian reform leader Fr Helmut Schüller, published on 22 March 2013. Read the original here

Brendan Hoban reflects on the recent appointments to the Irish Bishops’ Conference and wonders if Rome’s new policy of appointing outsiders in each case will work.

Tony Flannery is looking for help on how to deal with an impersonator on Twitter.

Linda Hogan reviews Garry Wills’ latest book, ‘Why Priests? A Failed Tradition‘, in which Wills argues that the most honest position on priesthood would be to seek its abolition altogether, given its lack of biblical justification (first published in the Irish Times: read original article here ). Wills’ target is not the 400,000 individual priests, many of whom, he acknowledges, make a significant contribution to the lives of countless millions worldwide. Rather, his focus is on the institution, which, he argues, has a flimsy biblical heritage and a dubious theological justification and is an impediment to the development of a more egalitarian Christianity.

This account was sent in to the website by a woman whose name is with the ACP Leadership Team.  They decided not to publish her name, so that the church and the priest would not be easily identified.

The ACP has called on the Irish Bishops’ Conference to meet Ireland’s silenced priests as soon as possible and to then negotiate with the CDF. A motion proposing this was agreed by over 250 priests at a meeting in Athlone, and the motion subsequently signed by over a thousand people on this website.