A Little Gesture

A season to reawaken our childhood wonder Western People 21.12.2021 As we said last year, Christmas won’t be a ‘normal’ Christmas this year. As if we need to be reminded!…

Updated with a link to an interview of Tony Flannery by Monica Morley on Mid West Radio’s Faith Alive programme.

Tony Flannery posted a very interesting start of the year reflection on his personal blog.
It is nothing less than scandalous that Tony still is “withdrawn” from ministry and that this situation is allowed to continue by those in authority.
“I am inclined to believe that if there is to be any change in my situation it will happen this year. If not, then I will have to accept that things will remain as they are for whatever amount of life I have left. I can cope, I think, with not ministering as a priest any more. At my age I wouldn’t be doing much anyway. But living within an institution that acts in such a cavalier and unjust fashion, and is quite happy to sit with that injustice and do nothing about it, will be the difficult part.”

Seamus Ahearne has expanded his exercise zone as per guidelines and gets to observe to behaviour of birds on his walks. But he also considers what the pandemic may mean for us.
“It asks us big questions:  What am I about? What is important? Who matters to me?  Do I matter to anyone? … For us as ministers, it is quite dangerous and can undermine our very existence. Do we need ‘them’ (them=our faith community) more than ‘they’ need us?   We feel very ‘useful’ normally. We are very busy. Now many of us can do very little. We don’t like it.”

Diocesan Appointments 2025 Pope Francis on his final day on the earth, Easter Sunday, showed us what it is to be strengthened by faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ….

Western People 7th May 2024 Recently, the once-well-known BBC literary pundit, Joan Bakewell, was asked: ‘How old is old?’ Now in her 90s, she dismissed the question as ‘old hat’….

Paddy Ferry draws our attention to the coverage in novenanews.com of Pope Francis’ remarks that he intended to deliver to Pontifical Mission Societies. Pope Francis addressed ‘pitfalls’ in the church in his message, including, “The elitist temptation in some organisations connected to the Church can be accompanied at times by a sentiment of superiority and of intolerance towards the rest of the baptised, towards the people of God who may attend parishes and visit shrines, but are not ‘activists’ busy in Catholic organisations”