In-person meeting for Irish Bishops in Maynooth this week
Members of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference gathered in-person this week in Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, for their Autumn 2021 General Meeting. Due to public health restrictions arising from the Covid-19 pandemic, the Bishops’ Conference had hosted its previous five plenary meetings via video link. The President of the Conference is Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh and the Vice-President is Archbishop Dermot Farrell of Dublin. The main issues discussed by the bishops during their Autumn General Meeting included:
- Bishops’ pilgrimage to Knock and Mass in memory of all who died on the island during the Covid 19 pandemic
- Housing and homelessness
- Bishops call for climate action and support for the ‘Healthy Planet, Healthy People’ petition ahead of COP15 and COP26
- (i) Pope Francis to open Universal Synod on 9 and 10 October (ii) Update on the Synodal Pathway in Ireland
- Bishops call for funding for Family Addiction Support Networks
- RTÉ to broadcast Mass for World Mission Sunday on 24 October
- Bishops special appeal on 6 and 7 November to support Trócaire’s work to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in East Africa
- Appointments
Link to press release:
Bishops Meeting in Maynooth…
As usual it is utterly impossible to deduce from the bishops’ statement what their primary focus of concern might be, especially in relation to synodality.
Most importantly there is never any frank ‘state of the Irish church’ analysis. It is always an agenda-heavy ‘business as usual’ situation – as if the situation in 2021 was much the same as the situation in 1951. As if!
Dr Nicola Brady’s Irish Times statement on the Irish synodal pathway (Oct 4th) was equally ‘deadpan’ and gnomic. If the bishops are intent on maintaining the reign of apathy and decline – and this is what synodality is all about – they have hit upon exactly the right formula.
Has anyone noticed that while they told us in 2017 that they were researching youth attitudes to the church in Ireland (in preparation for the 2018 Synod on Youth) – they have not yet published any results or analysis of that?
https://www.catholicbishops.ie/2017/10/04/statement-of-the-autumn-2017-general-meeting-of-the-irish-catholic-bishops-conference-2/
How is synodality to find a focus that could build some kind of consensus around agreed priorities if crucial data is either never compiled or is deliberately suppressed?
There seems to be an expectation that no one will ever notice or question this endless devotion to the Three Wise Monkeys – so have I missed anything else?