Editor’s Choice

A speech by Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM Conv, Bishop of Parramatta, Sydney, gives food for thought about the future of priesthood in the church.
“…. these vestiges of the Tridentine Model of priesthood are powerful symbols of the clerical class. It is part of the ecclesiology that emphasises the ontological change and separation of the ordained from the faithful. It is a powerful ingredient and ideal condition for the disease of clericalism to fester.
I hold that it is time for this exalted model of priesthood to be consigned to the past. Instead, we must rediscover the specific and full charism of the priesthood within the matrix of the universal priesthood of the faithful. The priesthood cannot be lived fully apart from the community of disciples.”
…..
“If we are to break open the priesthood and allow the ministries of the baptised to flourish, I think we will need to revisit the clerical and patriarchal culture along with its many institutional dynamics such as titles, privileges, customs, structures etc.”.

Seamus Ahearne writes of “A long weekend of harvesting”;
“I like the extravagance of God. My little eyes and mind are sometimes too small to notice. The Garden of Eden is everywhere – if my dull heart could only see it. What has been brought to the Table of our life? What do we bring to the Table of Life?”

James Martin, SJ, is a Jesuit priest, editor at large of America magazine, and bestselling author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, and Between Heaven and Mirth.
In this article, which he placed on his Facebook page, he describes how a hateful campaign of opposition to him is being waged on social media sites.
He has recently published Building a Bridge, in which he issues an impassioned plea for Catholic leaders to relate to their LGBT flock in a new way, one characterized by compassion and openness.
Pope Francis appointed him to be a Consultor for the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communication.

“Coping International is a voluntary mental health organisation that promotes the well-being of children of Catholic Priests and Religious as well as their parents worldwide.  We work alongside the church encouraging openness toward people affected by this issue.”

Seamus Ahearne looks at the week that was, raids ‘the pockets of God’ and “lifts us beyond the ordinary and the obvious and enables us to see the treasure and the pearl.”

Brendan Hoban, writing in the Western People, says that while it’s good that there is now some recognition of the huge crisis facing the Irish church due to a lack of priests it is past time to take action.
.”Regularly now, in what used to be a listing of priests’ changes in June, we have a listing of parishes who no longer will have a resident priest but will be serviced by a priest in an adjoining parish. Unless something practical is done, that will keep happening until there’s only one priest left with a helicopter trying to cover funerals, weddings and baptisms over several parishes leaving most churches in a diocese without Mass, Sunday or weekday.”

Seamus Ahearne reflects on a recent meeting with some 60 of his fellow Augustinians and on the day to day happenings in his parish and community. “there is still a ladder going up to the heavens. Angels still ascend and descend. God is in this place. And sometimes we don’t sing and dance and laugh and enjoy it as if we knew. The dour Church is not an ambassador for Christ. The clown is a better image for most of us. Life presently needs fun and laughter. God has to be about that something which is more and different. Someone has to stir the music in our souls. I think that is our job.”

Sarah Mac Donald writes in the NCR about recent comments by Bishop Crispian Hollis, the retired bishop of Portsmouth, concerning the ordination of married men to the priesthood which he says “needs to be explored openly within the church in England and Wales at national and diocesan levels.”
With fewer than 40 students in the national seminary at Maynooth it is an issue that is crying out to be explored in Ireland as well.
Liamy McNally is quoted as saying “There is no priest shortage!” ….. “We have many priests, but they are married and so are not allowed to have a public ministry,” ….. “in the early church those with a vocation to priesthood were married, whereas today, those who feel called to priesthood must also have a vocation to celibacy.”

Chris McDonnell reacts to the tragic events in Manchester

Brendan Hoban writes in the Western People that we should not rely on an appeal to the Constitutional offence of blasphemy to quell the ‘populist rantings of those who have no sense of God (and no feel for the religious quest)’.

Gabriel Daly OSA writes about the current controversy concerning the proposed new National Maternity Hospital.
Gabriel says that for the Church it has been “a testing and uncomfortable time and an opportunity to behave as adult Christians aware that the Second Vatican Council has altered the parameters under which previous disputes of this kind had been fought. Here was an opportunity to step away from triumphalist pronouncements and instead to learn humbly how to listen to others before pronouncing the church’s position on reproductive matters. Modern medicine is highly specialised and difficult to understand by those still moralising under the old essentialist moral categories which were thought to be unchanging and were treated as such. Today we may find that there is a legitimate diversity of views, and thus no univocal doctrinal pronouncement is possible.”

Bernard Cotter writing recently in The Tablet noted how “It is a strange feature of those who control the consumer calendar, that every feast is celebrated to the full beforehand rather than on the day itself or indeed on any day in its immediate aftermath. Christmas and Easter share a common fate in this regard.”
“How does one respond to the challenge of sustaining Easter joy over its full season? Communication is the Church’s primary tool. Perhaps instead of making so much of the 40 days of Lent on their own, the 90 days of Lent/Easter should in their entirety comprise the annual springtime renewal for Christians, with 40 days of fasting, prayer and almsgiving followed by 50 days of feasting, prayer and celebration (a time to honour those in parish ministries with social time together, perhaps).”

Seamus Ahearne writes of how current events – among them “Kim Jong-un and Trump. Two bully boys let loose in our fragile world with bombs and nuclear possibilities” – lead him into recalling images from a distant past. Sadly, “We were full of negativity. The Church was full of misery.”
Seamus says we need to “Have fun with faith. Make a splash.”

Rita Fernandez is a member of the Parish Pastoral Council and is also one of the Parish Team in Rivermount Parish, Finglas.
Rita shares some thoughts on her experience of the reality of parish life.

Brendan Hoban, writing in the Western People, suggests it’s time church authorities caught up with the outlook of the vast majority of the membership of the church with regard to the issue of married priests. Brendan says that ‘inevitably, the penny eventually drops’.
Brendan points to the outgoing Papal nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown stating “after his last public Mass in Ireland, that he was alarmed at the age-profile of Irish priests, the few entering seminaries and his fear that the Irish Church was on a cliff edge, ready to go into ‘free fall’. Strangely, while in office as papal nuncio, Archbishop Brown didn’t strike such a pessimistic note; indeed to the frustration of many he kept talking about ‘green shoots of recovery’ in the Irish Church.”

Seamus Ahearne decides to be “totally irreverent”.
“I want less perfect people and more colour and character. We have produced a faith that glorifies perfection and is totally unreal. We spun yarns about the so-called saints and made them very unreal. We did the same with Jesus. We had no taste for the poetry and metaphor and story of Scripture and then deadened everything with literalism.”
“Life is complicated. We get glimpses of insight. Nothing is simple. We need our heroes. We need our colourful characters. We need people who have a go at living. Does it really matter if they fail or fall? “