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Report of recent Clogher meeting:
“We must ask ourselves in all honesty if we are able to work effectively with people, because Priesthood of the future will be relational.”

Sean O Conaill, http://www.seanoconaill.com, states he is totally baffled by the apparent interpretation of some of the ‘Fall’ passages in Genesis as literal history in the recently published ‘Irish Catholic Catechism For Adults’.

Brendan Hoban, writing in the Western People, suggests that the prospect of attracting sufficient male celibate vocations is so remote and that the implications of the crisis so far-reaching that “Doing nothing is not just irresponsible but a counsel of despair. Denial is no longer an option.”

Brendan Hoban, in the Western People, reflecting on current controversies says that what really released the dam of anger and emotion was the revelation of clerical sexual abuse ­ and the failure of Church authorities to understand its enormity and to do something about it. The revelations on clerical sexual abuse gave people the freedom to surface and to name other resentments.

Reporting on the Tuam story has often been wild and sensational, and out of touch with known facts.
Padraig McCarthy

Brendan Hoban, in his Western People column, questions what has effectively become an institutionalised gambling culture in Ireland.

Donal Dorr offers some suggestions of how to deal with the problem of the ‘new Missal’.

This study has been commissioned by the ACP in order to ascertain the views of Irish clergy regarding the New Missal, introduced in November 2011.

» Download the New Missal Survey Results here

Brendan Hoban, in his Western People column wonders whether we’re able at all to use the intelligence God has given us and to assess reasonably what fits or doesn’t fit within the boundaries of our faith, what makes sense and what’s just plain, well, daft.

The death has occured, on Thursday 29 May, at Crofton, Maryland of Fr. Paul Surlis

Brendan Hoban offers his thoughts, in his weekly Western People column, on Mary Kenny’s ‘Something of Myself and Others’. He says it is an entertaining and worthwhile read, surely the best insight there is into the life of the carer. Kenny dissects compellingly, in this brutally honest memoir, the lived experience of a carer’s life.

Hannah Roberts reports from Rome for The Tablet that Italian Bishop Nunzio Galantino wants the church to listen to diverse opinions of topical matters.

This is a summary of the meetings I have had and the impressions I have gleaned from them. I call it my ‘ministry’!

With a total Catholic population in Ireland of 4,635,178, there are 2050 priests active. This means that, on average, there is one priest for every 2,261.06 Catholics.
Pádraig McCarthy

The Dalgan Summer School 2014 is organised by the Columban Ecological Institute, Dalgan Park, Navan, under the direction of John Feehan.

In rejecting a version of Catholicism that diminished human freedom, led to outrageous scandal and that in retrospect is now seen to have diminished people and Church, Irish society seems intent on categorising religion and spirituality as unacceptable, irrelevant, even dangerous in a civilised society.

Brendan Hoban, in this reflection published in the Western People, explores what it is about Good Friday that  still resonates with our lives.

It would be difficult for us to continue operating normally without using banking services. Do we, or should we, have an ethical issue with the banking services we use as individuals and as a church?
Padraig McCarthy

We are grateful to Paddy Ferry for sending us this tribute to a great man and priest, Canon Michael Cassidy

Brendan Hoban in his Western People article reflects on what we can all learn from how authorities handled the whistleblowers in An Garda Siochána.