Gerry O’Connor CSsR and ACP Leadership – Holy Thursday Homily
Video homily for Holy Thursday 2025. The Title is ‘Sustaining Grace’.
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Pope Francis is preparing a radical reform of the church’s power structures
Claire Giangrave writes in the NCR online: VATICAN CITY — In 2001, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was a rapporteur for the summit of bishops at the Vatican — and he did not…
Exploring our parishes today – Conference of Laity and Priests of the Diocese of Ossory
An interesting address by Dermot Farrell, Bishop of Ossory, at the Conference with Laity and Priests in the Diocese of Ossory;
“Pope Francis is constantly putting his synodal vision of the church before us. The question he is asking, and that we should ask ourselves, is what kind of church is God calling the priests and all Catholics to be in the longer term – perhaps less self-referential and more a community of missionary disciples, less clerical and more synodical, “……
“We have fallen off a cliff edge in regard to vocations to the priesthood. Many speak of a crisis in this regard…….This time of reduced numbers may well afford us an opportunity to be creative and to reimagine the institutional church.”
COP28 UAE update – deal agreed: THE UAE CONSENSUS
An unprecedented reference to transition away from all fossil fuels. A significant step forward in expectations for the next round of national commitments. Builds momentum in the financial architecture reform…
AGM 2021 Audio + link to text of Kieran O’Mahony’s presentation.
Posting this link again to make for easier access as people still want to listen back to it. AGM 2021 Running Order: Chair Gerry O’Connor CSsR 00.00.01. Welcome and Opening…
‘Women served as deacons for a millennium’
America magazine carries an article on comments by two of the people who have served on the Vatican’s commission to research women deacons in the early church.
Elephant in the Church – a discussion evening on Women’s International Day, March 8th
A discussion evening on the themes of the book, Elephant in the Church, will be held on Women’s International Day, March 8th, in the Avila Centre in Donnybrook, Dublin.
“It will look at the multitude of aspects that make up women’s status in the Church, creating a space for women, a language for women and a ministry for women, all of which are currently ignored.”
A poem generated by AI — plausible but unsettling. Someone played me a poem supposedly in the style of the late Yeats generated by AI and it was horrible. Will AI write our sermons for us? It would be less challenging than poems… but there is a draining away of soul, of real warm human voices. Here in Rome I followed the Holy Thursday: liturgy, with washing of the feet, at Santa Maria degli Angeli e Martiri, the sublime church designed by MIchelangelo in 1562 using the central aula of the Baths of Diocletian, followed later by a thoroughly vibrant performance of Mozart’s Requiem by a choir and orchestra from the region of Molise. For Good Friday, the Via Crucis at the Colosseum was very gentle. Visibility was poor, I mostly gazed at the Arch of Constantine, which I first saw 53 years ago; it’s a book in stone, every detail of which has been pored over by scholars for centuries, and it’s very much in line with the celebration of Nicaea this year (the Council had geopolitical significance as one of Constantine’s great achievements in uniting the Empire after the decades of civil war that he had lived through). The prayers, read chiefly by women, were in the mode of encourage ment, and were clued in to the characteristic pressures of today, very much in the style of Pope Francis. An American seminarian was disappointed — he wanted to hear more about sin, pain, death, and so on, and fewer feel good messages. But the messages made the crowd feel that they were united as brothers and sisters, rather than consigning each to the gloom of private conscience. Each Station ended with the Pater Noster and a sung stanza of the Stabat Mater. For the Easter Vigil Santa Maria Maggiore is recommended. I feel a bit like Cardinal Des Connell, who said one day when here in the Irish College: “You know, I don’t want to go back…”