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Limerick Diocese Synod ….. a real marker, but the journey goes on

Ainead Ní Mhuirthile gives a personal reaction to her experience as a Synod Delegate in the Limerick Diocesan Synod.
Ainead quotes one priest saying “I thought I’d never see the day where lay people would have a vote in a Church Synod,” adding “should have happened a year or two after Vatican 2 of course…”
and Bishop Leahy “This Synod is a real marker, but the journey goes on..”

Reflecting on ‘The Joy of Love’

Brian Fahy is currently writing commentaries on the Sunday lectionary for Mayhew Publications for a book that will be published later this year. While working on this project and with Sunday B ordinary time in mind he wrote this reflection on the publication of ‘The Joy of Love’.
“The issues of what is right and what is possible can be brought together and in this latest document Pope Francis does exactly that. Justice and mercy can meet. The great thing with Francis is that he speaks our language and before him, the popes too often spoke in a ‘language that the strangers (to church matters) do not know.’ “

The Joy of Love – Pope Francis

Pope Francis –
“No one can be condemned for ever, be­cause that is not the logic of the Gospel!”
“Here I am not speaking only of the divorced and re­married, but of everyone, in whatever situation they find themselves.”

“not all discussions of doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium. Unity of teaching and practice is certainly necessary in the Church, but this does not preclude various ways of interpreting some aspects of that teaching or drawing certain consequences from it. This will always be the case as the Spirit guides us towards the entire truth.”

“We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them.”

Bishops to meet with ACP

Following the Annual General Meeting of the ACP some concerns of members, as expressed in resolutions passed at the meeting, were communicated on 01 December 2015 by letter to the bishops’ conference.
On 05 April 2016 a response was received and the text of their letter is attached.
The proposed meeting is a welcome development that one hopes will not be just a ‘once off’ but will lead to what Pope Francis says he always advises, “Dialogue, dialogue, dialogue!”

‘Fundamentalists are people who don’t understand poetry.’

Seamus Ahearne reflects on recent events and points to the need for real leadership in society and also a need for courageous leaders in church.
Faced by events like Brussels and Lahore, with the seas becoming ‘insatiable cemeteries’ for those fleeing war he asks ‘Where will the needed leadership come from? Who will create the map that we need?
In church Seamus tells us ‘Theology is full of poetic mystery but we were satisfied with crude prose for years and it passed as orthodoxy. It became official and those who stepped outside such thinking were condemned. The New Missal is a monument to fundamentalists who knew nothing of a living God or Grace. Their Liturgy was solemn, static and ignored the incarnation.’
Seamus concludes, ‘Politicians. Church people. Educationalists. Trade-unionists. Society. All need to begin to learn humbly how to live out the Proclamation; the Gospel; the challenge of being a grown up nation and an adult Catholic. There is much to do.’

Women – A potential for ministry in the church today

We publish the text of the talk given by Máire Ní Dhuibhir at the ACI meeting in Galway last Thursday, 31 March. It created an enormous impression among the people who came — long and sustained applause.
It loses something in print, in that Máire sang various parts beautifully, but it is a very worthwhile read.

“I think we would be immeasurably enriched by getting together as women, re-reading the New Testament and try and find the women’s story there and learn about the great women mystics and the independent women of the church who founded orders of nuns and the stories of contemporary women. I think we can articulate like these women before us how the Divine is always with us, just as Jesus promised. I believe we can then change the Church and the communities from within.”

Church Reform; too much, too little, too fast, too slow?

Robert Mickens in his letter from Rome, in globalpulsemagazine.com, writes that “exasperation is also growing over the tortoise-like speed with which Papa Franceso is moving to reform the Roman Curia (and other structures in the Church)”.
Meanwhile ‘reform of the curia is unnecessary’, says Archbishop Gänswein’ . Christa Pongratz-Lippitt reports in The Tablet.
Where are we at? Has all this talk of reform, or lack of reform, or the need, or lack of need, of reform any relevance in the day to day life of an Irish priest in 2016?

Bishop: Irish hierarchy should reach out to priests like Fr. Tony Flannery

Sarah Mac Donald reports in the NCR on comments by Bishop Donal McKeown of Derry who said that unless the bishops are seen to be “willing to go way beyond our comfort zone then people will say you are just a group looking after yourselves.”
Tony Flannery responding said that he has received “great support from many people and priests,” but he has also experienced “how quickly and completely church authorities shut you out as soon as the Vatican moves against you…… All I have ever looked for in relation to myself and others who are accused of ‘dissent’ is a process that is fair, just and transparent.”
He added, “The present CDF process is a scandal, and brings shame on our church.””

“Why are you killing me?”

On the eve of Holy Thursday Pádraig McCarthy reminds us of the cost of true discipleship in many parts of the world with reports of the death of Fr. Vincent Machozi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Coming so soon after the murder in Yemen of four religious sisters, Sisters Anselm, Marguerite, Regina, and Judith, of the Missionaries of Charity, the religious order founded by Mother Teresa, it highlights the immense dangers now faced by so many Christians who seek to practice their faith in a very disturbed world. Twelve others who worked with the sisters as volunteer aides were killed on 04 March by members of ISIS.

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