ACP Statement on Refusing Holy Communion to a Public Representative
Association of Catholic Priests Statement
On Refusing the Eucharist to a Public Representative
14 July 2024
The refusal of the Eucharist to a public representative in the Diocese of Cloyne is unambiguously condemned by the Association of Catholic Priests.
The Eight Amendment to the Bunreacht na hÉireann was repealed in 2018. Previously to this, Irish women were travelling abroad to avail of abortion services, while legislators and citizens looked the other way. Procurement of an abortion is complex, morally and medically. Legislators have to balance two sets of rights, the right of the unborn child to life and the free decision-making right of the mother. Public representatives are tasked with finding a balance between both.
Like every member of the Catholic Church, public representatives must act in accordance with their conscience. It is not the role of the priest to judge the conscience of another person. The priest does not own the Eucharist and would do well to ponder the statement of Pope Francis that he has never refused the Eucharist to anyone.
A particularly aggravating factor in this incident was that the dismissal of a public representative occurred in the context of a funeral Mass.
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Tim Hazelwood 087-1337164; Roy Donovan 087-2225150;
Gerry O’Connor 087-2320295; Tony Flannery 087-6814699.
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For verification: Liamy Mac Nally, ACP Admin Secretary, 087-2233220.
I believe Fr. Burke has acted correctly.
When you freely break communion with the Church of Jesus Christ and her teachings, you can’t pretend to be in communion when it’s convenient.
If Fr. Burke refused Holy Communion to Archbishop Vigano on the basis of his recent excommunication by the Holy Office, he would be acting correctly.
If Fr. Burke refused Holy Communion to somebody who has publicly stated that the Dogma of Original Sin isn’t true, he would have acted Correctly…
Reference is made to the Holy Father saying he has never refused anyone Holy Communion. This is fine: it is a statement of fact.
It isn’t a statement from the Sensus Fidei, the Ordinary and universal magisterium or indeed an ex Cathedra Teaching. It isn’t the teaching of any ecumenical Council.
Priests should be prepared to lay down their Lives for the Holy Eucharist. They should not be afraid of being Stricklanded or receiving the Sean Sheehy treatment. Some priests offer invalid Masses by inserting references to GAA cups into the actual words of consecration. It is beyond me how this happens.
I agree with many of the sentiment above. Priests have authority given to them by God, that is guard the sacred Eucharist and insure it is received properly. Fair play to him. Many priests are not doing their job properly these days and are mot preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ which calls for repentance and often reform of our lives whilst still loving us.
Am I correct in thinking that under canon law a Priest is not obliged to give any warning or justification when publicly denying someone the Blessed Eucharist? If that is the case then where is the concern for truth and justice?
There are priests who dictate how communicants receive Communion and some who refuse Communion on the tongue or to those standing rather than kneeling and vice versa. I respect the priest and comply. Ditto in Kerry Diocese where Extraordinary Ministers of Eucharist are not permitted to offer a blessing at Communion time. Interestingly in Kerry when Fr Sean Sheehy proclaimed Church teaching he was silenced in accord with the stated wishes of a Cloyne priest speaking on Radio Kerry as a rep of ACP.
Our Catholic Catechism states ‘2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offence. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. “A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae, 77 “by the very commission of the offence,”78 and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law.79 The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.”
Priests should be proclaiming the commandment ‘thou shalt not kill’, remind people of the grave repercussions for your eternal soul and call souls to repent and seek God’s forgiveness of their sins. Reference to the repeal of the 8th is of no consequence to God. If he states the deliberate murder of another is a sin, then our opinion doesn’t matter. We either have rules in our faith or we do not. Priests must feed the sheep, as Jesus himself stated. The salvation of souls is at risk and people need to hear the explicit truth of God. Instead of berating a priest for upholding the Catholic teachings, berate those who sin and are culpable for every unborn child who has been slaughtered in the womb on Irish soil, call them to confession and denounce their support for the killing of preborn babies.
Was coming here to reference the same. The Catechism is very clear. “Procurement of abortion” is NOT complex morally at all.
I am shocked that the Association of Catholic Priests has condemned a Catholic priest for being a Catholic priest. The priest is a guardian of the Eucharist, the body of our beloved lord Jesus Christ, he absolutely has the right to refuse Communion to someone…
As a mother and as a Catholic I am scandalised by the lack of support the church is giving the pro-life movement. The lack of support they are giving grieving, bereaved mothers who have lost their children during miscarriage and stillbirth while we are told by society our children were not children, their lives were not real and our grief and pain is not valid.
Shame on the Association of Catholic Priests for attacking a Catholic priest instead of supporting him. Shame on them for betraying the unborn child, the blessed fruit of the womb, the Holy Spirit of life, the grieving mother and the truth and the life. I urge the Association of Catholic Priests to review their scandalous position and take a stance in defence of life, innocence, children. Mothers and families. Padre Pio denied Communion to those who were not in a state of grace to receive, as did many other saints, priests and confessors.
It is the priest’s duty to defend the Eucharist, the mother, the child, the truth and the church herself. Cease behaving like a liberal modernist lobby group of secularists concerned with politics and public opinion, stop courting sin and paganism and defending abuses of the church and her holy sacraments. Remember your vows and who you are in the service of, not the government, not king Herod, not politicians or pagans or unrepentant sinners.
I urge you as a wounded mother to defend the fruit of the womb. The truth and the life, the child and the mother, this is your duty as holy Catholic priests. May the Holy Spirit enlighten you and lead you to wisdom and truth in this matter, in the name of Jesus I pray. Amen ????
I agree one hundred percent with the rest of the comments on this page. This incident put abortion top of the discussion agenda yesterday as much as the All-Ireland semi-finals and Euro final. The leaders of our church much continue to put protecting our faith and value at the forefront of our lives and challenge all who claim to be practicing Catholics to spread the faith. Priests today are not going far enough and insidious politicians are setting the agenda, controlling hearts and minds more than our spiritual leaders.
I was horrified reading the statement. It’s like something you would expect to see from Marie Stoops or Planned Parenthood. The referendum was so disappointing and many good Catholics are battling to keep abortion conversation going. Just as people campaigned for repeal we must not see the issue as settled and we must continue to work and campaign for an eventual reversal. It might take a while but we must stay true to God’s laws not laws from this current crop of dubious politicians.
Shame on you for not supporting pro-life Priests and encouraging more Priests to protect the sacraments in line with their conscience.
The statement read out in the north before the UK election was very weak in challenging us to vote for candidates with Christian values.
“Who am I to judge?”
I believe that the sacrament of the Eucharist is our Saviour God in the form that he instituted and left for us. It must of course be approached reverently and should be available for every sinner including me!!
I never considered myself called to be a priest but if I were so ordained I would be so besotted with the mystery of consecration and Eucharist that I would be impelled to share the grace and mystery with all comers.
That someone would receive Christ unworthily is a problem that I trust the Lord to handle but I could not bear the idea that I had withheld the freely given gift of God from someone who’s soul thirsted for the grace of Christ. In Christ’s ministry; was the woman taken in adultry “worthy” or the thief on cross?
I would like to congratulate the ACP for issuing such an enlightened and pastoral statement with regard to the shameful behaviour of Fr. Burke .
Having acted as he did at a funeral Mass made it all the more despicable.
I am, however, encouraged that it would appear that more than we had realised engage with this site.
Abortion is always the intentional killing of an unborn child, the most vulnerable in our society, it is always pre-mediated. Virtually all abortions are carried out now as a means of contraception. Abortion treats no disease as pregnancy is not a disease, and deliberately killing an unborn child is never healthcare. The sanctity of life is a fundamental principle, Bunreacht na hÉireann does not change that, no matter what it says. The ACP statement includes the words “free decision-making right of the mother”, is this a tacit approval of “pro-choice”? (Editor – No)
Is it also that a public representative is more important and should be more favoured than anyone else? With regard to the funeral Mass, the situation could have been avoided by the public representative not choosing to seek Communion, particularly in the light of reports that this situation arose previously.
Was Fr Burke really judging the conscience of another person? Isn’t the ACP doing just that with their condemnation of his actions?
Sometimes one reads this website and one goes away in sadness and despair.
Finally there is some sense of others who have put their hand up and defended our faith and for that I say thank you for having the courage.
I have no doubt that the letters pages of the print media will cover this episode with all sorts of very well meaning view points. Of how many Masses the writers will attend is another subject but they will use the chance just as social media has today to attack the Catholic faith.
Following my first reading of this statement I felt sad today. I feel deeply hurt and sad I desperately want to avoid anger. As we have seen in another far off land anger has only cost life and pain this weekend. But I would find it very sad if the politician concerned failed to take the opportunity to approach the priest or bishop and discuss their concerns, which is a pastoral matter…
Finally, yes abortion is a truly difficult decision to make but to tell the truth is also a very difficult decision to speak but sadly there are priests and members of the ACP who would rather be popular rather than being honest in passing on the faith they proclaim.
Could I please encourage the faithful to move away from limited, self centred, uneducated and popular piety in thinking and identity? Canon law is clear on this issue and Fr Gabriel has no right to refuse the Eucharist.
He is not the custodian of the Eucharist, he is a servant of the people of God. His role is one of service, communicating the love, compassion and all encompassing presence of Jesus, the Christ. The Eucharist is not political and for those who are followers of the way of the Gospel of Jesus it is worth remembering that the only people Jesus ever condemned were the Pharisees. Those who held the law in such a way to condemn and burden the people of God.
Maybe the Holy Spirit could open our eyes and work Her way to our hearts.
Hello,
“Who am I to judge?”
I believe that the sacrament of the Eucharist is our Saviour God in the form that He instituted and left for us. It must of course be approached reverently and should be available for every sinner including me!!
I never considered myself called to be a priest but if I were actually ordained I would be so besotted with the mystery of consecration and Eucharist that I would be impelled to share the grace and mystery with all comers.
That someone would receive Christ unworthily is a problem that I trust the Lord to handle but I could not bear the idea that I had withheld the freely given gift of God from someone who’s soul thirsted for the grace of Christ. In Christ’s ministry was the woman taken in adultery “worthy” or the thief on cross?
I want to add my voice to those who support the statement of the ACP condemning the refusal of a priest to give Communion to a person who presented to receive. The condemnation was not because the ACP somehow supports abortion, as some comments seem to suggest. It was because the Eucharist is God’s gift to give, not the gift of any person to give or withhold as he sees fit.
It appears to have reignited the whole abortion issue. I reread an article I had written about it before the vote – an article which garnered a lot of responses – to which I wrote a follow-up. I have saved my own article and my follow-up to the responses, but I don’t know how to find it on the website so I could reread the things I was responding to. Is there any way I can find the whole thing again?
The whole thing caused me a lot of really hard soul-searching, and I still feel torn about it, but I stand by the conclusions I came to.
Jo
Jo, this may be what you’re looking for. Your comment is #43
https://associationofcatholicpriests.ie/acp-statement-on-the-upcoming-referendum-on-the-eight-amendment/
Nearly every house today has an alarm system. It seems that many of us have not one but several inbuilt alarm systems around ‘Holy Communion’! It has becomes an object that is so invaluable that if you approach it in the wrong way alarm systems go off. Some of the responses to our ACP statement state that a priest must be prepared to die to protect ‘Holy Communion’. So some are very disappointed that the ACP aren’t complying.
The Eucharist is primarily an action; not so much words. It is the action of Jesus around the most universal of symbols – a Table. Jesus gathers us around the Table, gives thanks to the Father, takes a loaf, breaks it and gives everyone a piece. We become a community; we are transformed into the Body of Christ. The Table of Jesus doesn’t have an ounce of exclusivity. It is a Table of overflowing hospitality – where everyone is welcome. It is a Table of unbounded generosity. This Table of Jesus also represents the Table of his many meals of sitting down with diverse kinds of people. The good religious people of his time told him you should have nothing to do with some of these so called public sinners. Jesus insists that his Table is a Table of utter inclusivity.
The Way of Jesus goes against all our natural instincts especially the instincts to exclude and create our own Club with our own rules. The Rule of Jesus is – love one another as I have loved you – the way of the Beattitudes – the way of a Father who causes the sun to fall on good and bad alike. There isn’t an ounce of exclusivity in the God of Jesus.
Trump builds bigger and bigger walls of exclusivity and divisions. One could say that the Synod in Rome this October is falling back into old ways of exclusivity by removing so many of the ‘hot’ issues from the agenda. We have a Church that has huge issues around inclusivity. It finds itself unable to treat all women and men as equals in every way. This is not reflective of the ‘Open Table’ of Jesus.
Teilhard de Chardin SJ had hoped that Jesus Christ and his Way would help us take a jump forward in evolution. That the Open Table of Jesus Christ would bring everyone on our planet together; where everyone would be welcome and we share our resources with all. This would be an evolved new way of living on our planet. He said that we might discover fire for the second time.
Our various alarm systems around Holy Communion can’t contain the Open Table fellowship, inclusivity and generosity of the Risen Jesus.
Shame on the ACP for condemning Fr. Burke for defending the Eucharist. Irish priests have presided over the decline of our faith and church for too long and this is another example. The ‘softly softly’ cowardly approach of trying not to offend popular culture is the rot at the heart of the Irish church today. Stand strong Fr. Burke. Nobody is ‘entitled’ to receive the host. One must humble themselves and examine their conscience prior to receiving communion. The ACP could do better and re-catechize themselves on the basics of Catholic teaching.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resource/55757/denying-holy-communion-a-case-history
Saint Paul said: “This means that whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily sins against the body and blood of the Lord. A Man should examine himself first, only then should he eat of the bread and drink of the cup. He who eats and drinks without recognizing the body eats and drinks a judgment on himself.” (1 Corinthians 11:27-29) The prohibition found in the declarations of the Magisterium is based on this divine revelation. The Church is not free to enact positive ecclesiastical laws which would oppose this revealed doctrine.
“Therefore it is the shepherd’s task not to keep silent, and it is your task, even if we the shepherds are silent, to hear the words of The Shepherd from the Scriptures.” (St. Augustine, Sermo 46, 20-21)
Fr. Sean Fagan SM, a humble, brilliant, pastor and theologian was called to his eternal home eight years ago this week.
He had this to say, inter alia, about the Eucharist, in response to some strident criticism of president Mary Mc Aleese for taking Holy Communion at a Church of Ireland service. (Letter The President’s Communion. January 1998; The Irish Times; The Irish News; Belfast Telegraph)
‘When I celebrate the Eucharist with a community of Catholics, I hope that we are united in faith; but we are certainly not united in theology, or in our understanding and acceptance of all Church law. The Eucharist is not a reward for good behaviour, but the daily food of sinners in the struggle to become saints.’
There is always an Irish solution to everything.
As recounted by Éamonn Ó Carragáin, in chapter xxv of ‘Navigatio Sancti Brendani’, St. Brendan and his companions on their voyage: “encounters Judas Iscariot, ‘of all plotters the most wretched’ (‘Ego sum infelicissimus Judas atque negociator pessimus’) on a spot in the ocean where “his loving Saviour” grants him respite from his punishment on the island of infernal smiths, i.e. hell. The respite is: “from first to second vespers of every Sunday, from Christmas to Epiphany, from Easter to Whitsun” and a few other days as well. Poor Judas begs Brendan to lengthen his respite, from vesper-time on Sunday (when liturgically speaking, Sunday ended), until Monday morning, and Brendan agrees.
For Roman Catholic pronounced: EXCOMMUNICATED, this should come as good news as it would allow, if implemented, their full participation in Sunday liturgies. And in times when civil elections are taking place the EXCOMMUNICATION could also be lifted for a longer period to allow would-be candidates (if applicable) to go-to-door canvassing without having them slammed.
Sadly, as Éamonn Ó Carragáin relates, this act of mercy by St. Brendan towards a former misguided apostle enraged the demons in hell. Because, their prince, Satan, had flogged them savagely for not returning Judas after vesper-time on Sunday, on time for his tortures.
Hopefully, the fine weather will come soon, and we will all be able to get out a bit more – like St. Brendan.
Source: Éamonn Ó’Carragáin, Not by Bread Alone: St. Brendan Meets Paul, the Irish Spiritual Hermit (Navigatio Sancti Brendani, Chapter xxvi) p.17-29, in ‘Prayer and Thought in Monastic Tradition – Essays in Honour of Benedicta Ward SLG’, Bloomsbury, 2014.
Just in case he/she/they may have been at some stage “unambiguously condemned” before coming for Baptism I think it best that I continue in the preparatory rite with the EXORCISM.
The word EXORCISM is unambiguous in the Rites of Baptism for Children and the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.
I hope to heaven that bell, book and candles won’t be used if anyone is shocked or surprised when they hear about it.
I must look up The Book of Common Prayer to see if I can find the word EXORCISM anywhere there.
Mary @19, it’s great to hear from you again, Mary and thank you for reminding us of the enlightened wisdom of Fr. Sean.
I wonder did any of our co-contributors above shout and scream at Rome for the appalling and inhumane treatment they meated out to Sean as they are now doing above.
“Abortion is always the intentional killing of an unborn child”. I was fully 32 years old (1981) when I learned that the zygote cannot reasonably be called an “unborn child” in the first two weeks of its existence, since it can fuse with another zygote or split into two zygotes. And I learned this from my Bishop! It cost me nothing to have a cut and dried attitude to abortion until well after that. It was a topic that I had never discussed with anyone, least of all with any woman. When I suggested to my bishop, in the 1990s, that before pontificating on the topic we should dialogue with women he was miffed (“he took issue with me” he commented). At the prompting of Fr LIam Swords I reviewed a book by the French Bishops on abortion in 1979 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/27660753 ) and to my astonishment it was reprinted in An Irish Reader in Moral Theology, III, in 2013. I don’t recall any other essays on this topic (one that is of huge importance to the laity and especially to women) in the three volumes of this anthology. I am not qualified to say anything about this topic, except to suggest that open discussion would be a precondition for saying anything about it.
Fr Burke has shown a profound respect for the Eucharist, a profound respect for human life, and great moral courage. I have already contacted him with a message of support, and I have contaced his Bishop urging him to offer Fr Burke support for his stance.
The ACP statement is in stark contrast to the excerpts from the Catechism posted by Virgila Killigrew @4. The staement looks very shallow in comparison with the official teaching of the Church. It also comes across as harsh and judgemental. The second paragraph of the statement borders on the naive, when it talks about politicians “balancing rights” of mother and child. What balance? All rights up to 12 weeks gestation were taken away from the unborn by this awful legislation, and all rights were taken away from babies with disabilities for the duration of pregnancy, even the right to be terminated with pain relief.
It seems to me utterly inadequate to describe the politcians, who campaigned for this, as “acting according to their conscience”. Would the ACP say the same thing if politicians were to enact legislation to enable, say, female genital mutilation?
I would like to congratulate the ACP on their clear statement regarding the refusal of Communion and the complex issue of abortion. I believe that all are welcome to celebrate the Eucharist. I don’t see Jesus standing at the door of each church with a checklist of parameters allowing people to participate. Communion is not a reward for the virtuous, but food for the journey.
Reading these comments, it is clear there is little support for ACP on this issue
If the issue is one of “conscience”, ACP should reflect on why Irish political parties don’t give politicians a free vote on abortion issues, and impose the party whip! Irish politics excludes Pro-Life voices! In other countries elected reps are given a free vote on abortion issues
Well, Peadar,@21 your mention of EXORCISM certainly brought back memories for me.
When our first child, Jemma was born over 30 years ago now my wife, Fiona and I — both of us were very active in the parish, involved in various “ministries” — planned a very special occasion in our parish to welcome our newborn child into the family of God. Special music was chosen — we were both part of our music ministry — we composed our own bidding prayers and so on and many friends were delighted to be invited to share in this joyous occasion.
Our wise and wonderful PP, Fr. Tommy McNulty – he died only recently well into his 90s and we remained his friend right to the end—-asked us to prepare the liturgy with him and, I expect, he realised we would be shocked by the bombshell he was about to introduce us to, Exorcism!!
And, shocked we were. What utter nonsense, bunkum, Infact, that our lovely, innocent, newborn child should need to be exorcised.
Fiona and I thought we knew everything of an ecclesiological nature, real knowalls but this was a big news to us.
I think Tommy also knew it was all nonsense and after our good humoured chat we went along with it.
And, the exorcism was also part of the baptism of our next two children, Orla and Patrick.
But, of course, nobody had a clue what was going on and we certainly made nobody the wiser.
I had, of course, already baptised each child minutes after they were born in the delivery room. I couldn’t risk Limbo for any of them— how innocent was I—- and that was before Ratzinger abolished it when he was Pope, probably the only decent thing he did as Pope.
I can already hear some of our co-contributors above, who are so supportive of the unfortunate Fr. Burke and who are obviously much better Catholics than the rest of us can ever hope to be, shouting “sacrilege “ in my direction for my double baptism of our children.
When some of those comments about are so repellent to many of us who are lifelong, “devout” practitioners of our faith is it any wonder at all that young people today decide to give the whole idea of church a very wide berth.
I was reading Patsy McGarry in the Irish Times yesterday and how Francis has never refused communion to anyone while he was a priest or bishop — those supporters of Fr. Burke above, I am sure , believe Francis to be infallible in matters of faith and morals — and I wondered again how we were so blessed to get a sensible, decent and enlightened man like Francis after the two who went before him and the damage they inflicted on our church.
I am now thinking of Brendan Hoban’s “40 wilderness years….treading a path between despair and anger” I hope I have got that right and, now, with Francis 10 years of “light”
Peadar this is another book I can highly recommend to you “Holding out for a Hero. The long wait for Pope Francis” (Brendan Hoban);
Donald Cozzens “The Changing Face of the Priesthood” is supposed to be the modern classic on the priesthood but Brendan’s book is, I think, just as good if not better. I know Donald was focusing on one particular issue and it warrants a read as well, Peadar, if you haven’t already done so.
Peadar, thank you for the memories and God bless you. You always sound to me like a very nice man.
My theory has always been if a priest is a nice man the chances are he is a good priest. And, I think you must be that, Peadar.
Paddy.
# 24 Jim, Geoffrey Keating informs us too of another letter writing …
Mo Chua and Colum Cille were contemporaries. And when Mo Chua was in his hermitage, in the wilderness, he had no worldly wealth but a cock and a mouse and a fly. The work the cock used to do for him was to keep matins at midnight. Now the mouse, it would not allow him to sleep more than five hours in a day and a night; and when he wished to sleep longer, being tired from much cross-vigil and prostration, the mouse would begin nibbling his ear, and so awoke him. Then the fly, the work it did was to walk along every line he read in his Psalter, and when he rested from singing his psalms the fly would stay on the line he had left until he returned again to read his psalms.
It happened soon after this that these three treasures died; and Mo Chua wrote a letter afterwards to Colum Cille when he was in Iona in Scotland, and complained of the death of his flock. Colm Cille wrote to him, and this is what he said: ‘Brother,’ said he, ‘you must not wonder at the death of the flock that has gone from you, for misfortune never comes but where there are riches’ …
I’ m sure, you too will rejoice with the choice of the new Papal Nuncio of Nigeria … a holy man in the humble tradition of Mo Chua, Colum Cille and St. Colman.
#27 Paddy, it is always a joy to read your posts; even when they are embarrassingly complimentary – to my good self!
You obviously have a great love of books. And I am always delighted when people read in depth and pass on their recommendations, especially too people like Peter Brown who always acknowledges the influence the books of other scholars have had on his own research and often open up new directions for him (I am even more delighted when I get books free).
It was, for example, when Nora Chadwick at the end of her final lecture in 1961 on the Age of the Saints in the Early Celtic Church (delivered at King’s College in the University of Durham) recommended Eleanor Duckett’s ‘The Wandering Saints’ that I discovered the influence on learning and scholarship of the Irish, Welsh and Saxon saints and scholars on civilizing the ‘Europe’ of their time. This led me to Duckett’s (I guess this pronunciation is like Hyacinth Bucket’s pronounced Bouquet) earlier and readable ‘The Gateway to the Middle Ages’. My edition of the latter is a first ed. with a personal dedication signatured by Duckett to a ‘Dr. H.F. Stewart in gratitude – Christmas, 1938). The last before WW II. In these books I find little gems of stories related. Such as Peter the Deacon, the biographer of Gregory the Great, relating that when a poor man was found dead, hidden away in one of Rome’s dens of misery, Gregory declared that he died of starvation and was so miserable that he would not allow himself to say Mass for several days afterward, regarding himself as his brother’s murderer (p.563).
Gregory was also a great letter writer. His (those that survive), fill no less than fourteen books of his ‘Letters’. Letters of encouragement; letters of instructions; letters of every kind and sort of administrative action sped to one quarter or another of the world – without the Internet.
I just love the physicality of books and loved carrying home the arm-full of the allotted ‘two’ from my local library before the increase to ‘three’ when admitted to the adult section. I love the mustiness of old bookshops and searching the stacks in charity shops.
Paddy, one of my treasured possessions is an old Roman Missal that once belonged to Daniel O’Connell which I found in an antique shop (from the dedication note in copperplate script from his granddaughter). It has a loose prayer leaf in it for the ‘Repeal Martyrs’ asking God to “Direct our legislators to enact laws founded upon thy holy commandments … and as thy servant, Daniel O’Connell, who has laboured with so much zeal and perseverance to promote those sacred objects, is now detained in captivity, give him grace to bear his trials with resignation, and in thy mercy vouchsafe restore him to liberty, for the guidance and protection of thy people.’ I guess we don’t pray like that anymore for our legislators, as all the news seems to indicate.
Paddy, maybe we need to understand exorcism in the context of Jesus’ fasting and prayer. And understand what must have shaken in his innards when a representative of the greatest power on the earth of his time stood before and said: “I have power to CRUCIFY you” (Jn. 19.10).
Paddy, words have so much weight – let us love our books.