Statement from the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) responding to the establishment of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes and the appointment of Yvonne Murphy The ACP welcomes…
Brendan Hoban in the Western People maintains that if novelist John Updike believed that God could be found in a perfectly struck five-iron approach shot to the green, then surely there’s a spark of something other-worldly in the impossible swerve of a Messi or the immaculate balance of a Van Persie.
Christians gather this Sunday as pilgrims on a journey, asking God to keep us steadfast until we reach our eternal home. In the Spirit, let us worship God who cares for us according to our needs.
Seamus Ahearne muses about life in the context of the speculation about a new cabinet, the on again off again Garth Brooks concerts, Pat Rabbitte’s 20 second dismissal our own “new” missal and of course the letter from the bishops to the acp.
It reminds him that ‘the Word of God can be heard only when it is soaked up in human life and spoken with human accents.’
Eugene Cullen Kennedy is emeritus professor of psychology at Loyola University Chicago. In the National Catholic Reporter he comments on what motivates the catholic bishops of the U.S.A. under the leadership of Pope Francis.
“We must feel for these men trained to be one kind of bishop now searching for some way to become another. For this and other blessings already beyond counting, we may be grateful to the loving God who gave us Francis.”
Brendan Hoban, in his weekly Western People column, asks is there any silence like the silence of the Irish bishops in response to Francis’ reforming agenda?
The difficult truth is that, while technically Pope Francis is all-powerful and can introduce any changes he wants the reality is, change will be blocked and is being blocked by those who see their power and influence placed at risk.
The response of the Irish Bishops to our meeting of 04 June last (with Bishops Boyce, Drennan and McKeown) is disappointing and disheartening.
Leadership demands a much more open and creative engagement with the issues addressed in the June 4 meeting.
There is much good news in today’s Gospel. We’re told we can bring all our troubles to Jesus and find rest. God will make our burden light. We praise God for the care promised us.
Presiders’ pages for the Sundays of August have now been published on the ACP website
Every year on 29 June we honour St Peter and St Paul, two ‘Founding Fathers’ of the Church. Tradition tells us that on this day, the two met and embraced before marching off toward their deaths. As we honour them now, we ask for a little of their faith and their courage
Brian Eyre, a married Catholic priest, in Recife, Brazil suggests it needs to be clearly stated and explained that marriage and priesthood are not irreconcilable and that obligatory celibacy is a discipline that can be removed without changing the nature of priesthood.
Conclusion
158. The extensive material submitted to the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops is presented in this Instrumentum Laboris to promote the dialogue and development which is expected to take place during the Third Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. Clearly, the richness of what is contained in the responses and observations goes beyond what has been reported in these pages, which are intended to provide an initial reference point in synod discussion. To come to some idea of how to respond to the new demands in the People of God, the following three main areas are under discussion in the Church: how the Gospel of the Family can be preached in the present-day; how the Church’s pastoral care programme for the family might better respond to the new challenges today; how to assist parents in developing a mentality of openness to life and in upbringing their children.
Over 50 years ago, a cardinal asked the Vatican Council: ‘Where’s the other half of humanity?’ In her own inimitable way, Mary McAleese last week posed the same question, writes TP O’ Mahony in The Irish Examiner.
A report on an international network of reform movements.
Report of recent Clogher meeting:
“We must ask ourselves in all honesty if we are able to work effectively with people, because Priesthood of the future will be relational.”
Sean O Conaill, http://www.seanoconaill.com, states he is totally baffled by the apparent interpretation of some of the ‘Fall’ passages in Genesis as literal history in the recently published ‘Irish Catholic Catechism For Adults’.
Brendan Hoban, writing in the Western People, suggests that the prospect of attracting sufficient male celibate vocations is so remote and that the implications of the crisis so far-reaching that “Doing nothing is not just irresponsible but a counsel of despair. Denial is no longer an option.”
Today’s liturgy invites us to reflect on God’s care for the family of faith, especially through the gift of divine nourishment on our pilgrimage through life.
The Catholic News Service carries a story about the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests making their views known to Pope Francis about CDF’s Cardinal Müller’s “self-confessedly blunt” remarks to the leaders of about 57,000 women religious in the U.S.A.
Fr. Gerard Maloney writes in the Irish Times of his reaction to the information, and disinformation, about the mother and baby homes.
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