A monthly celebration of Sunday Mass in Avila Carmelite Centre, Bloomfield Avenue (off Morehampton Road), Donnybrook, Dublin 4, at which all are welcome, with a particular welcome for lgbt (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered) people, their parents, family members, and friends.
Celebrants have included Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and diocesan and religious priests.
Pope Francis gave his customary press conference on his return flight following his trip to Armenia.
America magazine and the Catholic News Agency (CNA) among other news outlets are carrying reports of his comments.
At the request of the Leadership Team of the American Association of Catholic Priests (AUSCP), Jim Schexnayder, of Oakland Diocese, extended an invitation to Archbishop John Wester, Archdiocese of Santa…
Pádraig McCarthy reminds us, and the bishops, that St. John Paul II said “among the many activities of a parish, none is as vital or as community-forming as the Sunday celebration of the Lord’s Day and his Eucharist”.
John Paul also underlined the importance of “ensuring that parish assemblies are not without the necessary ministry of priests”, but according to Padraig ‘the Church is not ensuring this.’
Time has run out for action to be taken but we wait, and wait, and wait……
Soline Humbert brings to our attention a presentation by Sr Jeannine Gramick from 2000 about a document, relevant to the issue of silencing, that was produced by the Second General Assembly of the 1971 Synod of Bishops. Entitled Justice in the World . . .It says: “The Church recognizes everyone’s right to suitable freedom of expression and thought. This includes the right of everyone to be heard in a spirit of dialogue which preserves a legitimate diversity within the Church” (JW 44).
Soline says ‘the importance of this document exceeds the importance of any document produced by a Vatican dicastery because it bears the weight of the world’s bishops in communion with the Bishop of Rome. This fact should be noted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [CDF], which has silenced theologians and pastoral workers even after Vatican II. A higher authority than the CDF has validated free expression and public debate on controversial theological issues.”
Tony Flannery has written an article, published in The Irish Times and on his own website, about the attempted stifling of the debate about the ordination of women.
“The efforts made by the Vatican to silence discussion on the ordination of women over the past 50 years have been both unsuccessful and unwise.”
“Though Pope Francis has said that this door is closed, his consistent call for open discussion and dialogue, and indeed for open doors, has created a climate where the whole issue of women’s place in the church is now centre stage.”
“The effort by the Vatican to stifle debate, often by using methods that should never be part of the Christian community, is doing enormous damage to the church.”
Brendan Hoban in his weekly Western People column reflects on the recent atrocity in Orlando.
Wondering about the influence religion may have in encouraging acts of homophobic violence he writes;
“A Florida bishop, Robert Lynch, lamented the role religion has played in breeding contempt for the LGBT community: ‘Sadly it is religion, including our own, which targets, mostly verbally, and also often breeds contempt for gays, lesbians and transgender people,’ he wrote ‘attacks today on LGBT men and women often plant the seed of contempt, then hatred, which can ultimately lead to violence.”
As Christians called to follow Christ in good times as well as bad, we gather to praise our God who sustains us on that journey. (Today is celebrated as Father’s Day, so in the Mass we remember and pray for our fathers.)
The CDF has issued its first document, “Iuvenescit Ecclesia” or “the Church rejuvenates.” under Pope Francis.
Can a leopard change its spots? Not according to some commentators;
“Much of the text reads like the “desk-bound” or laboratory theology that the 79-year-old pope finds unhelpful.” commented Cindy Wooden, Rome bureau chief of Catholic News Service.
Others such as Massimo Faggioli see it a little differently;
“There is a very interesting admonition about ordained members of new movements that seek ordination to serve only their movement (par. 22) – a very well-known problem that so far has been officially denied by the Church leadership – and an interesting phrasing about the danger of having the movements creating a “parallel” path in the Church (par. 23). This is something that came up at the 1987 Synod, but no pope before Francis had the courage to talk about. There is also the clear intention of Francis not to create new precedents in the recognition process of new movements.”
In seeking to explain Pope Francis, Antonio Spadaro S.J. in Cyber Theology points to 5 traits of the ministry of Francis.
‘Francis is a pope who is living his ministry as a ministry of discernment, of ”incomplete thought”…’
Brendan Hoban, writing in the Western People, welcomes Archbishop Diarmaid Martin’s recent comments about the lack of ‘people of intellect who can address the pressing issues of the day’ in the church in Ireland and the need for ‘competent lay men and women well educated in their faith’.
Archbishop Martin’s comments, read in conjunction with Siobhán Larkin’s research http://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2016/06/nurturing-the-roots/ ,
point to a definite need in church and is a call for urgent action to address this issue.
Thanks to Paddy Ferry for bringing this video by Fr. Jim Martin SJ to our attention.
Fr. Martin is commenting on the attitudes we have towards the lgbt community in the context of the murders at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando.
Siobhán Larkin is a Holy Faith Sister who worked in New Zealand; she has lectured in All Hallows and has recently completed her Doctorate.
In this article she kindly shares some of the conclusions that she has drawn from her research.
Her thesis “puts the spot light on work that is being done by many committed lay people and suggests that education of this group in particular is imperative if this strong force within the Catholic Church is to be maintained and expanded.”
“the renewal of the Church in Ireland is most likely to begin at grass roots level, and that it is in the renewal of parish life that the sense of belonging to the community of the Church will be revived.”
“Official recognition of the place of lay people in ministry roles in Ireland is essential……. At national and diocesan level it is essential that ways of financing the education of adult lay people, particularly those who are undertaking significant roles, is found.”
God’s forgiveness sweeps away all that holds us back. God, who forgave King David and who through the ages took away the sins of everyone who asked, invites us to expererience that same healing power today.
Pådraig McCarthy alerts us to the new feast day for Mary Magdalen.
The announcement has been met with mixed reactions; some welcoming it and others saying it is just another gesture, not real change.
Updated with Bishop Fleming’s address at the launch.
Brendan Hoban is well known as a commentator on current church affairs as well as his commitment to the implementation of the reforms of Vatican II at all levels in church.
Less well known is his remarkable interest in history as demonstrated with the publication of his latest book “Telling the Story, A Dictionary of Killala Clergy” which is the third book of a three volume series of Readings in Killala Diocesan History.
Brendan Hoban, in the Western People, considers the case of the politician who was dismissed from the ministry of reader in Cobh.
“If every priest in Ireland was to examine the consciences of everyone who has a ministry in the Church and decide whether or not they tick the one-size-fits-all Catholic box (and act according to the Cobh dictat) it would clear out our parishes in jig-time. We need to jettison that sniffy, arrogant mentality before it does real damage.”
God’s power is absolute: God is not defeated by death. Jesus shows divine power in today’s Gospel, raising the widow’s son from the dead. We celebrate his compassion and pray for the grace to imitate it.
Sarah Mac Donald writing in this week’s Tablet describes the awful ordeal of Fr Tim Hazelwood who had an anonymous false allegation made against him and who then was left to prove his own innocence while feeling totally abandoned by official church and fobbed off by the National Safeguarding Board.
“I was left feeling very alone”, he says. “I had to fight my accuser but I also had to fight the Church, because it didn’t help in any way.”
This article raises very disturbing questions for church authorities in how they deal with anonymous allegations, questions that should prevent them from sleeping easily until they have been fully resolved.
Robert Dore, solicitor, describes the Church’s protocols on anonymous allegations as “wrong” and “wholly inappropriate”.
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