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The Children of Priests – Coping International
“Coping International is a voluntary mental health organisation that promotes the well-being of children of Catholic Priests and Religious as well as their parents worldwide. We work alongside the church encouraging openness toward people affected by this issue.”
‘Hope and inspiration’: Brendan Hoban reflects on last Monday’s meeting
With acknowledgement to the Western People, this is Brendan Hoban’s reflection on the great gathering last Monday in Dublin’s Regency Hotel: ‘Towards an Assembly of the Irish Church’. Brendan is a member of the ACP’s Leadership team.
A Plea for Reform from a Lay Woman
The present debate is certainly inspiring people to begin to think out their position in the Church in a way that they may not have done before, and to state it publicly. This time Martina Killeavy takes pen to paper.
Tony Flannery embarks on a lecture tour of Ireland
Tony Flannery announces a series of talks on church reform — and is open to groups wishing to organise such gatherings in March and April,
Can this low moment in church life become an opportunity?
Seamus Ahearne draws inspiration from the Jews at Terezin and asks if we can emerge from ‘all that freezes and destroys the Joy of the Gospel in our lives’.
Guilty until proven Innocent
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”.