Gerry O’Connor CSsR, ACP Leadership Team, Weekly Sunday Homily

Sharing Good News Weekly newsletter of the Bishops’ digital platform The Way12 February 2025 – Issue 247Catholic Communications Office, Maynooth Link to Newsletter: https://theway.ie

Rite and Reason column in the Irish Times by Brendan Hoban. Rite & Reason: There is now a new springtime of hope and promise Link to article: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2023/11/19/my-years-as-a-catholic-priest-were-a-long-winter-of-discontent-until-pope-francis-arrived/ In the…

Nine students have begun formal seminary studies for the priesthood for Ireland’s 26 dioceses this month. It is up on the six who entered seminary last year. A further ten…

from the ACP Leadership Team: Gerry O’Connor, Tim Hazelwood and Roy Donovan. Christmas Eve Remembered Patrick Kavanagh I see them going to the chapelTo confess their sins. Christmas EveIn a…

The CDF has issued its first document, “Iuvenescit Ecclesia” or “the Church rejuvenates.” under Pope Francis.
Can a leopard change its spots? Not according to some commentators;
“Much of the text reads like the “desk-bound” or laboratory theology that the 79-year-old pope finds unhelpful.” commented Cindy Wooden, Rome bureau chief of Catholic News Service.

Others such as Massimo Faggioli see it a little differently;
“There is a very interesting admonition about ordained members of new movements that seek ordination to serve only their movement (par. 22) – a very well-known problem that so far has been officially denied by the Church leadership – and an interesting phrasing about the danger of having the movements creating a “parallel” path in the Church (par. 23). This is something that came up at the 1987 Synod, but no pope before Francis had the courage to talk about. There is also the clear intention of Francis not to create new precedents in the recognition process of new movements.”

In his weekly Western People column Brendan Hoban discusses the RTE ‘Meaning of Life’ programme following a recent edition featuring Stephen Fry.
Brendan marvels that ‘in a country immersed in religion, it’s quite extraordinary how few seem to have given little more than a passing thought to the meaning of their lives – and how many still imagine that God is some version of Fry’s caricature, notwithstanding huge unanswered (and probably unanswerable) questions about the problem of evil and suffering in the world.’