Brendan Hoban in his Western People article of 14.4.2026 takes issue with The Irish Catholic editor
A few weeks ago in this space, (WP, March 17), I disagreed with comments by Niall Coll, Catholic bishop of Raphoe, that young people in Ireland today are seeking from the Catholic Church what he called ‘clarity, coherence and tradition’ – rather than expecting the Church to adapt to the modern world as Church reformers are currently suggesting. Young people, the bishop said, don’t want ‘a Church that adapts to modern culture’.
I argued that while some young people wanted what Bishop Coll suggested, young people in general in my experience want a Church that’s accepting of life and culture in the modern world, that respects developments in science and above all that’s open to change and reform.
In an editorial in the Irish Catholic (March 26), the writer – presumably the editor, Garry O’Sullivan, came down on my side of the debate: ‘Fr Hoban is right . . . a small, intense cohort (of young people) should not be mistaken for the future of the whole Church.’
I was surprised that O’Sullivan was so affirming of my position – not once but twice in the same paragraph – but my surprise didn’t last long. O’Sullivan suggested that the harder question is ‘what hope Hoban is offering instead’. The sting in the tail followed.
O’Sullivan listed a series of failures among what he called ‘the post-Vatican Two mainstream in Ireland’ and listed them in detail – school catechesis, adult faith formation, neglect of youth ministry, etc. ‘The record’ O’Sullivan wrote, ‘is hard to defend’ and ‘if Coll may be guilty of overestimating a small cohort, Hoban’s camp has often seemed guilty of presiding over drift and calling it maturity’.
Garry O’Sullivan is, of course, entitled to his opinions but he isn’t entitled to use the tired old trope of first ‘damning me with feint praise’, and then adopting the tactic of ‘the straw man’s argument’, painting me into a corner –– setting the terms of a discussion so that my position looks flawed from the start – and then attacking the limited arguments he has decided I have in my bag. I want to call him out on his manipulative framing of my position.
For O’Sullivan, ‘Hoban’s camp’ (whatever that means) has focussed on a vision that was ‘more administrative than evangelical’. And our failure is laid at the door of what the ‘camp’ proposed –‘style’ and ‘ideology’ but not ‘hearts of fire’, like the apostles on the road to Emmaus.
But directly blaming, as O’Sullivan seems to do, a small group of priests and others who campaigned passionately for the implementation of the vision of Vatican Two is to miss the target spectacularly. And, furthermore, the omission is compounded by completely ignoring that, as various reports have demonstrated, the vast percentage of Irish Catholics longed for and continue to long for the full implementation of the reforms envisaged in Vatican Two – something that would really set hearts on fire among many Irish Catholics today. Evangelisation could and would be better served by embedding a synodal church which we have only in recent times come to appreciate and recognize as the only credible way of bringing people to discover the joy at the heart of the gospel.
O’Sullivan’s attribution of responsibility – for the sidelining of church reforms voted by substantial and sometimes overwhelming majorities of the bishops of the world in communion with the pope – is completely misplaced. Those to blame (if blame is to be allocated) are not those who campaigned tirelessly and tenaciously for the implementation of the Vatican Two vision but those popes, bishops, priests, traditional Catholics and, yes, some Catholic media too who successfully blocked that implementation. O’Sullivan’s list of conspicuous failures from ‘the post-Vatican Two mainstream in Ireland’ is directly attributable to that latter cohort.
Garry O’Sullivan shouldn’t dump the failures of the Catholic Church since the Great Council on a ‘liberal or reformist wing’ whose ‘results’ during those years are not, in his estimation, ‘impressive’.
Like most of my colleagues who worked to keep the vision of Vatican Two alive, I was ordained on the cusp of the Second Vatican Council and the vision of that council and the documents it produced have been the guiding light of our lives.
We have argued in print and have striven in practice as priests and others, some for over 50 years, to promote and implement that vision. We’ve waited all our lives for a pope to implement the promise and purpose of the Great Council that had been sidelined and almost shelved for half a century and, to our unapologetic delight, in recent years two popes have arrived in quick succession to embrace once again the almost forgotten legacy of the Second Vatican Council.
My personal contribution involved the publication of four books – multiplecolumns in the Western People over 40 years, multiple articles in The Furrow and including (I would like to remind Garry) one recently in The Synodal Times, a supplement of The Irish Catholic, which he himself edits – in whichI argued ad nauseam for a fair wind for church reform and not least through my recent book Holding Out For a Hero, The Long Wait for Pope Francis, in effect, a paean of delight for his arrival in our rudderless church during the last few minutes to midnight.
My unvarying conviction and focus that the remedy to much of the decline of the Catholic Church in Ireland was there in plain sight in the documents of Vatican Two led me over many decades to argue, plead and beg church authorities to implement them – a fixation that became something of a grand obsession for myself and something of an exasperation for my long-suffering readers.
I write this not because I want to trumpet my own contribution but to underline the way those who remained loyal to the flame of Vatican Two can so easily have their legacy so unfairly re-interpreted. It is unacceptable, unconscionable and egregious that O’Sullivan’s diminishment and disavowal would not be called out.
The Deposit of Faith, as Traditionally taught by the One, Holy, Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church can NEVER Change. It is immutable.
The Fact that Our Blessed Lord, physically Rose from the Dead on Easter Sunday is One such Dogma.
At Mass, the Bread and Wine become the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ and his Sacrifice on Calvary is made present.
So, there are immutable truths taught by the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Disciplinary Teachings CAN Change. If Married Men are welcomed back into the Diocesan Priesthood or indeed are welcomed for the first time, this is fine. It is merely a Change in Discipline. Marriage is a Vocation. So is Diocesan Priesthood. The Sacraments conferred by a married male Diocesan Priest are perfectly Valid. I have seen this work well in the UK, when Anglican Clergy move across the Tiber.
When I was a kid, we fasted three hours before receiving Holy Communion. Now, with the exception of carers and the ill, we fast for One Hour. This doesn’t contradict the teaching on what the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is. It is merely a Disciplinary matter.
A wonderful response, Brendan. Well done! All so true!
Indeed.
WAC International – like the ACP – supports reforms outlined by Vatican II. Brendan Hoban has been a respected leading voice for reform for decades. It is the patriarchal hierarchy that has time and again blocked reforms. Will the Irish National Assembly on 17 October 2026 adopt meaningful proposals for reform?
I think we should read and meditate on John XXIII’s opening speech at Vatican II — surely the most epochal speech given in our church in the 20th century. https://vatican2voice.org/91docs/opening_speech.htm John had spent his whole life under the weight of the Modernist crisis and the insistence on unchanging dogma, and was aware of the blind spots this could entail. His speech is quite long and every word is weighted with pastoral and theological discernment.
Note these lines:
“Our duty is not only to guard this precious treasure, as if we were concerned only with antiquity, but to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our era demands of us, pursuing thus the path which the Church has followed for twenty centuries.
“The salient point of this Council is not, therefore, a discussion of one article or another of the fundamental doctrine of the Church which has repeatedly been taught by the Fathers and by ancient and modern theologians, and which is presumed to be well known and familiar to all.
“For this a Council was not necessary. But from the renewed, serene, and tranquil adherence to all the teaching of the Church in its entirety and preciseness, as it still shines forth in the Acts of the Council of Trent and First Vatican Council, the Christian, Catholic, and apostolic spirit of the whole world expects a step forward toward a doctrinal penetration and a formation of consciousness in faithful and perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine, which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another. And it is the latter that must be taken into great consideration with patience if necessary, everything being measured in the forms and proportions of a magisterium which is predominantly pastoral in character.”
I witnessed my parents – as educators, in how they guided us, as Legionaries, as members of a parish community work alongside great priests, laity and religious to bring about change, in a world that struggled to accept it. While no method is perfect, and there were times as a young person that I felt things could have been approached a bit differently, and certain things talked about in greater depth more, to see it undermined, undone, or criticised in the manner some are doing now is so very, very wrong. The elders deserve better….as do the young, some of whom most certainly want the open church their grandparents and their peers collaborated with priests like Fr Hoban, Donal O’Doherty and Fr Fagan in Dundrum before him, and Fr Jim Caffrey helped to build.
In relation to the statement that “a small, intense cohort (of young people) should not be mistaken for the future of the whole Church.”
The small number referred to is itself an enlargement of a yet smaller previous cohort but spread around in pockets.
It is a mistake to disregard a “small number” that is intense. True it may just be a fashion, but the evidence suggests a conviction among some young people that the zeitgeist is not providing fulfilment. It is a mistake to neglect the possibility that is the work of the Holy Spirit improving human nature through grace. The Church itself started small.
I recall a recent weekend when a twentysomething male addressed a parish congregation on the practice of Eucharistic adoration. It is not possible to evaluate what impact his effort had on the issue of Eucharistic adoration. What was clear was that an unexpected input from someone of his age provided a “shot in the arm,” an enhanced sense of hope for congregation members regarding the future.
Joe, thank you for sharing John XXIII’s opening address at the beginning of the Council. I have put it in my archive.
I always thought that his words— this will not be precise— “the hopes and dreams, the fears and trials of humanity — I expect he actually said mankind — will now become the hopes and dreams and the fears and trials of our Church” or words to that effect, were part of that opening address.
Yet, I cannot find it in your link.
Perhaps I have just missed it.
Joe, if you ever published a collection of your best contributions on this site many would want a copy. You have been really amazing.
Dermot, I don’t know what to make of you. You are obviously an intelligent, educated man. Even in my early innocence — I never used the word Jesus, for example, in any context until well into my twenties because I didn’t want “to take the name of God in vain” — but even in that innocence I still had enough common sense as when I first became aware of papal infallibility at an RE class in my first year at secondary school and I immediately realised it was the most amazing piece of nonsense.
Dermot, I would like to quote another great pope to you, Pope Francis. Francis said:
“We must avoid the temptation to present our faith as an incontestable certainty, evident to everyone, in appreciation of a God who creates and respects human freedom”.
God bless the Pope — well, certainly Francis and now Leo (Bob) too.
As a man with an Engineering degree, and a man who though unworthy, has been given the gift of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Faith, I fully accept the definition of Papal Infallibility, as promulgated at Vatican Council I, by Pius IX, of Happy Memory.
I think it is best to let that Council speak for itself. From Pastor Aeternus:
“We teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.
Therefore, such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the church, irreformable.
So then, should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject this definition of ours: let him be anathema.”
Pope Francis didn’t rescind this. No Pope has the Authority to do so.