Seamus Ahearne writes about the necessity of the ACP.
“I think the ACP exists not just to make noise or to be prophetic but to add ballast and communion to the collective in ministry. We are at breaking point as priests. We will fall apart if we stay apart.”
” the ACP is to reach out and call attention to the tiredness and to the ageing of the diocesan priests. What is the support structure for them? Creating clusters and adding on more work to do cannot be the answer. Creative and imaginative ideas are necessary (as Francis said). We cannot go on as we are.”
“The ACP isn’t just a vehicle for the journalists to use or an association of renegades. The ACP cannot be about the big noisy issues – nor can we forever be fighting big causes. It is the essentials of faith that are our interests and the ordinary issues of day to day life.”
Updated to include a translation of Pope Francis’ address. Translation kindly provided by Pádraig McCarthy. Translations of the Popes addresses are very slow to appear in Rome so our thanks to Pádraig.
Joshua J. McElwee reports in NCR on a speech by Pope Francis to a national conference of the Italian church in Florence.
Pope Francis made a fairly strong statement that the Church must continue to face problems of the present in new and culturally relevant ways.
“Before the problems of the church it is not useful to search for solutions in conservatism or fundamentalism, in the restoration of obsolete conduct and forms that no longer have the capacity of being significant culturally,”
“Christian doctrine is not a closed system incapable of generating questions, doubts, interrogatives — but is alive, knows being unsettled, enlivened,” said the pope. “It has a face that is not rigid, it has a body that moves and grows, it has a soft flesh: it is called Jesus Christ.”
As we move into the darker times of the year, the readings at Mass remind us more and more of the end of time, and the glory awaiting believers. We trust that God stays with us always.
Brendan Hoban writes in the Western People about the type of bishop Pope Francis is appointing and longs for bishops in Ireland ‘to take risks, to go forward, to face the future courageously’.
Gathering together in the Lord’s house, we bring simple gifts into God’s presence – our love, our care for each other, our worshipping hearts and voices. We ask for the grace to continue to show love through the coming week.
Soline Humbert recommended this recent article by Joan Chittister OSB in NCR as worthwhile reading.
Joan argues that ‘if Pope Francis takes the question of married men seriously, that could, for a change, lead to real change’.
…”young unmarried women see little or no place for themselves in the male church.” …”So pollsters track them as they go somewhere else seeking spiritual nourishment or, just as likely, go nowhere at all. Disillusioned with the gap between Christian teaching and Catholic practice on equality, religion has little meaning for them now. In a world where secular institutions are more likely to recognize the fullness of a woman’s humanity than the church does, church does not interest them much anymore. “
“I am convinced that until the women’s question is addressed in the church, the numbers will continue to decline, and the church will fail in the 21st century”
Alan Titley wrote a strong article in Irish on page 13 of the Irish Times of Tuesday, 04 November.
Pádraig McCarthy offers his own “rough unpolished translation”, for those not fluent in Irish.
“Compared to most of the states of the world we are as secular a state as you would find within the distance of a relatively long plane trip.
But you’d need to be living under a stone, or live only in the world of television, or inside a cave, if you thought that events of cultural life – among which religion is included – would not take their place in the life of that community.”
Clarification concerning statement issued by the Catholic Communications Office Media Service of November 2nd 2015.
A group of Catholic priests have taken Pope Francis at his word in calling for dialogue in the Church and have called for open discussion on the need for equality of Women in all aspects of Church life, including Ministry.
Their statement is attached for your information.
Luca Badini Confalonieri, Research Director, on behalf of the Trustees, Patrons and Staff of the Wijngaards Institute recently appealed directly to Pope Francis for the Re-instatement of the Ordained Diaconate for Women.
“There should be no room in our Roman Catholic Church today for the rationale which subverted female deacons in the Middle Ages: the phobia concerning menstruation and the conceit that women are innately inferior to men.
The need for the ministry of women deacons is plain in every country. May your hands be the first to restore the diaconal dignity to women.”
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