In case you missed it…RTÉ television documentary The Last Priests in Ireland…
This is the link to RTÉ Player to watch the programme…
Don’t forget Programme 2 – The Last Nuns in Ireland is on Tues 16 Jan at 10.15pm on RTÉ 1 television.
This is the link to RTÉ Player to watch the programme…
Don’t forget Programme 2 – The Last Nuns in Ireland is on Tues 16 Jan at 10.15pm on RTÉ 1 television.
Notice from We are Church Ireland about two upcoming lectures and their AGM
Sunday 26 Oct 2025 – 30th Sunday Year CTheme: ‘Hashtag Spirituality’ Link:
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The National Catholic Reporter carries a robust editorial on Cardinal Ouellet’s response to Archbishop Viganò. It challenges the role of those U.S. catholics “whose primary ambition, it seems, is to convince the rest of us that the Christian Gospel was actually promulgated to justify the most extreme expressions of American-style capitalism.”
It concludes “The work ahead will require more than bluster and misappropriated slogans. It will require accessing the deepest levels of our sacramental tradition. It will require the imposition of unprecedented accountability from bishops. It will also require bishops with the will to confront the toughest questions about how the clerical culture arrived at this point.”
You know, I don’t think I found that very good. Roy Donovan and Soline were very good and the former priest in the audience who left to get married was very moving in expressing his sadness that he can no longer be a priest. The man –Pascal, I think, — who spoke very well about the Synod was good as was the woman in the same sex marriage.
The low point for me was when the woman to the bishop’s right — who seemed very pleased to be studying theology –asked why Jesus did not call his mother to the priesthood. This was part of her argument against the ordination of women. Despite her knowledge of theology she obviously thinks that Jesus called the apostles as the first priests. I wonder why was she on the panel.
If I remember correctly the first ordinations were dated on 220ad in what had begun as a priestless movement.
Why were men like Brendan and Tony not part of the program? I thought they would have at least been on that panel.
Perhaps tomorrow night will be better.
Beannachtaí agus oiche mhaith.
(Ed’s Note: RTÉ’s weekly Upfront programme, hosted by Katie Hannon, which followed the documentary, was also given over to the question about the future of the church in Ireland. It featured a broad array of issues discussed by a panel and invited studio guests.)
Irish Times review:
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio/2024/01/15/the-last-priests-in-ireland-an-absorbing-documentary-about-the-decline-of-the-irish-clergy/
Irish Independent review:
https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/television/tv-reviews/the-last-priests-in-ireland-review-father-teds-ardal-ohanlon-contemplates-why-priests-are-a-dying-breed/a750489106.html
Wonderful and inspiring to watch in the past two nights young and not so young priests, religious and lay People of God bearing witness before TV audiences to the radical nature of celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church and its relevance for today.
Choosing the way of the Cross is difficult to ‘advertise’ when seeking vocations: “,,, the Cross … is the expression of the radical nature of the love that gives itself completely, of the process in which one is what one does and does what one is; it is the expression of a life that is completely being for others.” (cf. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, p.282)
Let’s have more radical lovers on the island.