We continue to make steady if slow progress.
We will not call a meeting of priests out of ministry until we have an Advisory Board in place.
We have sent out 8 invitations to that Board. It will take time to get replies and meet with each individual invitee.
The main thing is that we are on course and we are getting very encouraging responses.
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”.
Seamus Ahearne attended our AGM this year as a member rather than as one of the leadership team. He shares his impressions of the annual meeting with us.
Jimmy McPhillips reports on the January meeting of ACP priests in Clogher Diocese, where the matter of priests off-duty because of ill-health was discussed.
Despite the recent decisions announced by Pope Francis the issues with the ‘new’ Missal are immediate and ongoing. There was, and is, a ready alternative available.
Report on a meeting of the Leadership Team of the ACP, held on May 5th in Athlone.
This is the report from the latest meeting of the Steering Group working at setting up an umbrella Lay Association. This contains the proposed name of the association, a draft Statement of Objectives, and outlines a period of discussion before final decisions are made. The hope is that as many as possible will get involved in the discussion, both here on the website and at the ACP regional meetings in October.
A relevant interview is at http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/1029/the_truth_about_falsely_accused_priests.aspx.
Just to add my support to the endeavours of the ACP. As a ‘priest out of ministry’, I yearn for the day when the ‘sensus fidelium’ is the true voice of the Church, instead of the patronising, power centred institution that is the Vatican!
Oh rapture! Oh bliss! Stay strong for those of us out of ministry but longing to be in full participation. Good ol’ St Patrick – his grandfather was a married priest. What a history for us…