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Thinking about some outstanding characters passed a while for Seamus Ahearne on his birthday.
(Happy Birthday, Seamus 🎂)

“Number of children who went through institutions investigated by Ryan Commission is about a quarter of 170,000 previously cited.”
In a statement on the commission website on Monday, Mr Justice Seán Ryan said “the commission’s report published in May 2009 contains a seriously erroneous statistic according to the general agreement of relevant experts and bodies. 

Fr. Michael Toomey of Clonmel has spoken out about the dire need for state resources to be properly deployed to help people with mental health problems. He spoke with Sean O’Rourke and Minister Jim Daly on RTE Radio 1. 
Sarah McDonald has also reported on this issue in the Irish Independent.

This year the WAC Ireland Advent Liturgy will be in the Chapel, Mercy International Centre, 64A Baggot Street, Dublin 2. 
Please join us on Sunday 01 December 2019 at 3.00pm for our Advent liturgy followed by a cup of tea and time to talk about Pope Francis and reform of our church. Our collection this year will be for CONCERN.

In his Western People column Brendan Hoban reminisces about his ‘Late Late’ moment on the famous programme that saw Brian D’Arcy challenge Cardinal Cathal Daly.
“D’Arcy, of course, was right in what he said on that 1995 Late Late Show. I salute his courage in saying it, when so many said nothing, even though they knew he was right and knew too that it needed to be said. And we all know now that what has happened in the last 25 years validates what D’Arcy said on that night.”

Further to the Sunday Independent story today, 17 November, the ACP issued a statement regarding Oliver O’Reilly PP and the position he has adopted in relation to the recent attack on Mr Kevin Lunney.

Jo O Sullivan outlines the journey from ‘slumbering’ catholic to ‘revolting’ catholic, from agonising ‘over continuing to participate in shoring up the dysfunctional Institutional Church by continuing to give of my time and talent to the Church’ to the decision that ‘I could come back into the fold with all my heart and all my soul, provided I sought out every opportunity available to me to bring about change.’
‘I find that the passion that drives me these days is to open Catholic hearts and minds here locally into a welcoming acceptance of our LGBT brothers and sisters.’

Video – We are Church Ireland – Fr Bernard Lynch: The title of his talk was “Vatican hypocrisy and hope for our church” but the title should really be “The Meaning of Life”

The Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region was held in the Vatican from 06 to 27 October 2019.
Br Mark O’Connor FMS, Vicar for Communications, Parramatta Diocese provided regular updates and news from the Synod to his diocese.

Fr Bernárd Lynch is to receive the Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad from President Michael D. Higgins on 21. November 2019!
WAC are delighted that Fr Bernárd Lynch will be addressing our WAC meeting on 11 November 2019 in Trinity College Dublin (School of Religion, Loyola Institute Building)!

praytellblog.com carries an item of new “super” parishes being created in Germany with an average of 35,000 parishioners but in this case with a population of 99,000.
Is this where ‘clustering’ is taking us? Is there any reason the planned structure for administration and pastoral care could not be employed using lay people in our current parishes?

Brendan Hoban, writing in the ‘Western People’, says that “After 40 years writing this column, change in our Church is happening. It’s the best news I’ve heard in 40 years. What a joy it is to share it.”

A short report on the AGM of 2019.

Liam Power offers a very timely insight into the practice of Yoga and how it could enhance Christian meditation and prayer.
“….many Christians find the practice of yoga very beneficial to their health and wellbeing and that it can help them rediscover silence and the richness of solitude in their lives. Paradoxically, it can lead them to a deeper Christian spiritual life and even to a more meaningful participation in the Eucharist.”

Memories of a visit to Auschwitz and the life story of Edith Eger inspire Seamus Ahearne.
“If Edith can parallel her life story with the life stories of her patients,  I wonder where might we go, if we took her methods into our story of faith and church and ministry.   We are so often imprisoned in sadness. We apologise for the past. We are embarrassed by that past. We blame others. We feel that we have failed. …. We can’t let go. We don’t want to get out of prison. We are afraid to wander into freedom and future and hope.”

We express our sympathies to Gerry O Connor, member of the ACP leadership team, and to his family on the death of his father Tom O’Connor.

The National Catholic Reporter carries a report about the conclusions of the Synod on the Amazon.

A prayer by Pope Francis for ‘Those Who Have Died After Leaving Their Homelands in Search of a Better Life’ is posted here as we struggle with the extent of the tragedy that claimed 39 lives in a lorry container in Grays, Essex, U.K. – What must we do to “wake us from the slumber of indifference, open our eyes …” Mattie Long

Dublin diocese website carried the  Homily notes of Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin on the occasion of the canonisation of John Henry Newman.
“A Catholicism of self-defined certainties will lead eventually to a doubt about all certainties and thus to emptiness. A Catholicism of self-defined certainties and self-importance led to an authoritarian and harsh Irish Catholicism, with  consequences we know only too well.”
“I am astonished at the content and tone of daily messages on social media by Catholic pundits on the left and the right that are anything but kindly.  There are those who spend all day attacking and responding and feeling that in this they are defending the integrity of Church teaching.  The kindly light will never be defended by nastiness and bitterness.”

A report from Vatican News about the ongoing Synod; “Amazon Synod Briefing: Role of women, inculturation, synodality:.
How aware is the average parishioner, and the average priest, in Ireland of what is being discussed?