Year: 2016

Pádraig McCarthy draws our attention to reports of Pope Francis completing his year of ‘Mercy Fridays’, Pope Francis chose to visit priests who have left active ministry to marry and also met their families, in order to give a sign that the Church does not judge people but embraces all.

Stan Mellett, a Redemptorist priest, suggests we have a problem with our identity as catholics.
Stan is suggesting we begin to make an attempt this Advent to forge a new catholic identity for ourselves, even if “With our age profile coupled with ill health, weary with poor response and poor participation in the parish, it is an effort to muster up enthusiasm for a new start. Our attending faithful flock is also ageing and weary. But they are regular – in this lower income parish we count about 700 at three Masses between Vigil and Sunday. Politicians, Summer Schools and other organisations make headlines with that kind of attendance. Surely the alarming prospect of losing our identity totally, will rake the embers to stir up new life in our old bones! There’s fire in the grate still even in our eighties!”

EL PAÍS, the Spanish newspaper, carries an interesting article about an intervention by the Papal Nuncio to Mexico in that country’s debate about plans to enshrine same-sex marriage in the Constitution.

Brendan Hoban in his Western People column takes another look at the recent regulations issued by the CDF about cremation.
Brendan wonders ‘How is it that Vatican departments, and not least the CDF, get it so exactly wrong so often?’

‘It isn’t just that the rules don’t make sense at almost any level, apart from the arcane reasoning of the CDF, but that the whole debacle, almost anyone can see, is not only excruciatingly embarrassing for the Catholic Church but will damage its reputation, annoy many of its loyal adherents and frustrate priests left to deal with unreasonable and inoperable regulations.’