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Annual General Meeting of ACP
The first Annual General Meeting of the Association of Catholic Priests will take place in the Green Isle Hotel on Tuesday evening, Oct. 4th and Wednesday morning, Oct. 5th. The…
Clogher group unhappy with ACP leadership and this website
ACP members of Clogher Diocese report on their latest meeting
Councils of Priests – are they relevant?
Tim Hazelwood, reflecting on his own experiences, questions the role and function of the ‘Council of Priests’ in dioceses.
Tim feels this is of particular relevance in light of the letter from the bishops to the ACP following a meeting last May.
Tim says that ‘My experience is that the Council of Priests does not want to deal with the concerns of priests…… For diocesan priests the council is irrelevant in our lives. We get on with it as best we can as the work and weight of expectation grows, dreading the next edict to come from the council or the diocesan office to add to our busy work schedule.’THE EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS IN DUBLIN, JUNE 2012
This extensive article on the Eucharistic Congress was sent to us by John O’Loughlin Kennedy.
Is our child protection system open to grave injustice?
Fr Paddy Banville asks if the leadership of the Catholic Church in Ireland is willing to sacrifice unjustly-accused priests on the altar of child protection, in his article published in The Irish Catholic, 15 March 2012
Priests – Ministers of Religion or Messengers of Joy?
Joe McVeigh ponders the future role of priests in the church.
“In Ireland, we are now in mission territory. We who have been ordained and who have survived this long are missionary priests in our own country. We are no longer maintenance priests in charge of maintaining churches, schools and parochial halls, …. We now need to adjust to the entirely new situation facing us and adopt new practices and a new ways of being church.”
In this case the charges could be proven false by the paternity test. In the vast majority of cases there is no way of proving the charges false. Even when charges are proven false, something sticks. Moreover, even when there is some truth in a charge, the tendency is to exaggerate it and paint things in the blackest possible colours.
Having just listened to the podcast of Friday morning’s edition of Today with Pat Kenny, I wish to congratulate Fr Sean and Fr Liam on an excellent interview. They spoke clearly of the huge injustice done to Fr Reynolds and of the tremendous anguish it caused to him and to all who know him. They spoke too for the need of a more fair approach on the part of RTE’s News and Current Affairs office in the way it reports on matters to do with priests and church. And all of this was said with dignity and in an even-handed way that did not sound either triumphant or vengeful. Well done lads!
Regarding Fr Reynolds defamation case against RTE I am glad that he has had the paternity test and his reputation and integrity are restored to him with that test.The minor who was raped and made pregnant who made accusation and is some one else guilty of this crime .There are many victims of clerical abuse who never had a day in court and were so damaged that their innocent lives were cut short and destroyed.Christ took all the sins of mankind to the cross for our salvation HE did not did not shrink that dreadful suffering but said forgive them Father no day in court !!
Fr Reynalds has had a very large payment in compensation etc and as a follower of Christ will he give this to the many victims of clerical abuse those whose names only the God knows.
I hope RTE continues with investigative journalism but learn from the mistakes in this particular case.
i
The Inquiry called for by Patsy McGarry yesterday (Tuesday), and now set in train by Pat Rabbitte, should be the responsibility of the Minister of Justice, not of Communications. This should not be a merely ‘technical’ inquiry to judge whether RTÉ carried out its remit, but one to decide which heads should roll so that others may learn some lessons. Aoife Kavanagh was no young ingénue, trying to break into investigative journalism by landing a big story, and nor were her producer, editor and director. McGarry is right in that the future credibility of Prime Time and RTÉ will be the main casualty if the investigation is less than thorough and transparent. But the rest of the media, and those who drove their own virulent agendas over the past decade, should be investigated too.