July 2 2020 - Association Of Catholic Priests

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02 July, 2020. Thursday of Week 13

02 July, 2020. Thursday of Week 13

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Most Recent Comments

8 comments
Irish Times: ‘My proposal was to stop Confirmation’: Ireland’s ageing priests under pressure as numbers drop
September 12 2026
Joe O'Leary
I recommend the Australian horror movie Leviticus, which I saw in the Irish Film Institute on Eustace St. today. It points to the horror of the mental confusion church doctrine on sexual orientation has imposed on teenagers for long centuries. Claude.com says: The setup: Two gay teenage boys, Naim and Ryan, fall for each other in a small, deeply religious Australian town. When their families discover the relationship, the boys are subjected to a church "deliverance" — essentially conversion therapy staged as an exorcism. Reviewers describe it as a haunting metaphor for gay conversion therapy. The horror comes not from the boys' desire for each other, but from the community's attempt to destroy it. The film expresses the violence of queer repression and conversion therapy through a literal curse, following gay teenagers targeted by a demonic entity that appears as the object of their desire. The director is leaning into the idea that repressing who you are does real harm — the demon literally takes the form of your crush, weaponizing lust that the church tried to forbid. The true "monsters" aren't supernatural. They're the adults — parents, caregivers, friends — who turn on vulnerable, scared young men and make them frightened of each other. One review notes a mother who'll pick disliked toppings off her son's pizza but won't accept him kissing another boy — showing conditional, shallow "love" that fails at the moment it matters most. Rather than framing gay desire as sinful or dangerous in itself, the film frames the shame and repression forced onto it as the actual source of suffering. One critic put it directly: Leviticus perfectly captures the horror of homophobia, with gayness as the driving emotional force of the story rather than incidental.
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8 comments
Irish Times: ‘My proposal was to stop Confirmation’: Ireland’s ageing priests under pressure as numbers drop
September 12 2026
M G-B
I say AMEN to your comment Sean. James Fowler's "Stages of Faith" indicates that youth ages 13-18 have the ability for abstract thought marking the stage where a deliberate internalized commitment to a belief system occurs. "It is highly possible and developmentally typical for a young person between ages of 13 and 18 to make a genuine, personal commitment to a religious belief." My hope would be that Catholic young people are provided the opportunity and the information to make this commitment possible. We should lead them to the water. Some may drink!
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8 comments
Irish Times: ‘My proposal was to stop Confirmation’: Ireland’s ageing priests under pressure as numbers drop
September 12 2026
Sean O'Conaill
"Sacramentalised but not evangelised" sums up the deepest problem of the Augustinian Christendom church - with ordination summitting the sacramental batch processing system - and the normal pattern of spiritual development - as well as the Kingdom of God - almost completely lost to view. On the other hand that pattern remains obvious both in the Gospels and the history of the church - the coincidence of the deepest conversion not with any programmed ritual but with adult life crisis, the perfectly natural 'mid life' culmination of youthful optimism and egotism. It is that point that readiness for baptism, a ritualisation of rescue from drowning - and the conscious experience of entry to the Kingdom of God - is at its greatest. This, surely, is why the baptising of children never occurs in scripture, and why the disgracing of the church's governing system has undermined its sacramental system also. The illusion that sacramental progression - begun with infant baptism, and programmed for everyone from then on - must also be spiritual progression has been totally shattered. It was left for two Baptists to recover the full meaning of adult conversion in the AA programme, for any addiction is surely the adult experience of drowning that Baptism then fully explains and copes with. The deepest experience of the Kingdom of God includes the realisation that we are all loved by God as we are, and that social 'success' (and 'failure') are a meaningless mirage. It is not just the timing of Confirmation therefore that needs to be rethought. The entire sacramental system as we know it results from the co-opting of the church by the state and the use of sacraments to solidify a social and political hierarchy. The misunderstanding of John 3:5 initiated by St Augustine of Hippo - referring as that passage clearly does to an experience of the kingdom of God that is only possible in adulthood - needs to be acknowledged. Given the ongoing acceleration of an unprecedented global existential crisis - evidenced by AI, by weapons in space and by terrifying summer temperatures - there can be no shortage of adult life crises anywhere. The church's sacramental system - and its pastoral theology - needs to be reorganised to cope, learning from what the 12-step response to all addictions is so obviously teaching us.
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8 comments
Irish Times: ‘My proposal was to stop Confirmation’: Ireland’s ageing priests under pressure as numbers drop
September 12 2026
M G-B
The foreign-born priests I have spoken with say they plan to return home in the future. May this interlude be a happy memory for them. Confirmation: A catholic Bishop gave a talk to future confirmation candidates. To my ears the theme of his talk was will power. Research on will power is less than encouraging. "Will power gets exhausted from effort and it is a limited cognitive resource." It was mentioned that meditation improves will power skills. Young people need more than will power to refrain from drugs and alcohol today as was encouraged by the Bishop. Cardinal Mercier left us his Prayer to the Holy Spirit. Confirmation is a perfect time to present it to the candidates. It gives real hope, a Presence that will always be with you. This presence makes will-power possible. The prayer requires a personal response!
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