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Home / 2013 / June / 06

Day: June 6 2013

Irish Examiner reports on apology received by Kerry priest

June 6 2013 ACP News, Articles

Saurya Cherfi reports in the Irish Examiner on the High Court apology received by Fr Liam O’Brien

Read More Irish Examiner reports on apology received by Kerry priest

Statement from ACP Leadership re Fr. Liam O’Brien

June 6 2013 ACP News

The ACP Leadership Team welcomes the apology a Kerry priest has received in the High Court for a false allegation

Read More Statement from ACP Leadership re Fr. Liam O’Brien

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5 comments
Presider’s Page for 15 September (Ordinary Time 24)
September 10 2024
Sean O'Conaill
"Could anyone enlighten me, Why did God send his only son to die to save us when knowing the outcome?" Not quite sure what Edward means by 'the outcome' I wonder if that for him is the Crucifixion or the Resurrection. There is a whole universe of difference between thinking of the life of Jesus as ending in death or, on the contrary, in the promise of life after death. For the early church it was the Resurrection that gripped the Christian imagination - and made e.g. St Paul convinced that a New Creation was in process. In the Middle Ages that firm belief began to recede. Allied with the state the church had generally little interest in the coming of a different kingdom without violence - and eventually the crucifixion was explained in terms of Jesus repaying a debt owed by us humans to the Father - a circular and fundamentally nonsensical theology that is still reflected in article 615 of the Catechism. To recover a firm belief in the Resurrection of Jesus we need to go - or to be taken - to a place we tend to avoid at all costs: what Psalm 23 calls the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Only then do we truly pray as though our lives depend on the outcome - because they truly do. Only in that place can we truly bond with the person who stood alone before Pilate - and realise why he did that: to be spiritually with every one of us in our own terminal crisis. I would know nothing whatever of this if I hadn't had an experience of a cancer that could have been terminal in 2003. Otherwise I would never have discovered where persistent prayer can take us - to the complete lifting of our fear of death. The 'worse state of sin' that Edward sees nowadays has largely to do with a loss of belief in any possible life after death - and the sins of the churches have a lot to do with that. So has the 'satisfaction' theology of atonement summarised above, the bedrock of Christian fundamentalism. Paradoxically it is those in most current danger of death who are most likely to discover what can happen in that Dark Valley when we pray. The world crisis that is now gathering will intensify that experience - so those who carry with us a tenuous belief in the Resurrection will find then a greater readiness to listen than exists just now in Ireland - when unexpected wealth from the multinationals tell us we have 'never had it so good'. Jesus needs to be taken seriously when he tells us how difficult it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, and why it is the poor in spirit who are blessed. We need to run totally out of other resources to learn to pray seriously - and there is no other route to that kingdom of heaven. 'Sin' is another day's work. When in December 2021 Pope Francis said, correctly, that there are worse sins than the sins of the flesh he was challenging the fixation with sexuality that causes so many professed Christians to be indifferent to social injustice, the root of all violence. He was also challenging his most obdurate opponents in the church, those who tell us that we do not need synodality. Nothing is more needed nowadays than synodality - the human context in which Edward could ask his good questions in hope of a sensible answer. Don't stop Edward - you are 'doing theology' as it needs to be done.
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5 comments
Presider’s Page for 15 September (Ordinary Time 24)
September 10 2024
Margo Morin
Your statement that God "sent his son to die" is the window of possible new insight into your question. Did God send Their Son to die? Or did they send Him to live and invite all into the salvation that was, until then, only presumed to be for the Jewish people? And/or was Jesus' message of love over rules and His charismatic ability to challenge leadership and draw followers create such a conflict among the religious leaders of the time, that they partnered with the Romans to take away that threat to their power? "Sent His Son to Die" is St. Anselm's theory, and one that is most often taught these days, but it is not definitive. Check out Duns Scotus' atonement work, referred to here: https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-nonviolent-atonement-2017-07-24/ I hope this helps!
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5 comments
Presider’s Page for 15 September (Ordinary Time 24)
September 10 2024
Peadar O Callaghan
The remedy for sin is the Sacrament of Confession.
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1 comments
Brendan Hoban: We’re richer for religion, so why abandon it ?
September 12 2024
Alan McGill
Even apart from a crisis of meaning and personal faith, this rings of a crisis in religious literacy. It might be argued that one cannot be culturally competent in terms of Western culture without some knowledge and understanding of biblical and Christian motifs. Imagine trying to read Patrick Kavanagh or Shakespeare, not to mention Hopkins, or make sense of Mozart without such a grounding. And perhaps this extends to an ability to even begin to appreciate the other world religions, critiquing lazy stereotypes and appreciating the religious sensibility. I would argue that many self-proclaimed atheists are reacting against grotesque, literalistic, straw-man, cartoonish versions of God and of religion that almost nobody believes in (Ricky Gervais epitomizes this) If, for example, someone had a decent level of religious literacy and a basic understanding of Vatican II (especially Nostra Aetate), would they be less likely to buy into Islamophobia or indeed the moronic caricatures of Catholicism that go largely unchallenged? At this rate, "Father Ted" will soon be too nuanced for general audiences to understand. The situation adds urgency to the task of religious education/religious studies both in terms of religious instruction and in terms of learning about religion.
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