Liturgy Preparation - Association Of Catholic Priests

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Roy Donovan ACP Leadership Team responds to Bishop Coll on Synodality…
March 4 2026
Paddy Ferry
Joe@19, that is a really wonderful overview and analysis of the history of scriptural study and debate and we all should be so grateful to you for your great learning and for continuingly sharing it with us. Where else would we find such indept analysis? I have read your post @19 once and I am sure I will read it again and again. Definitely something for the archives. Seán@20, thank you as well. You have both contributed so much to us in your conversations on this ACP site. Joe, I have read the three books by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, The First Christmas, The Last Seven Days and the First Paul and I thought they were absolutely wonderful. They certainly brought my theological education to a new level just as you yourself have been doing for many years on this site. I wonder is John Dominic still with us. He was born in Nenagh two years before my mother-in-law, Agnes Meelam, who was 90 last week. She had never heard of John Dominic Crossan. Some scholars are now convinced that the Last Supper was not a Passover Meal because there is no way the Sanhedrin would have convened to discuss Jesus or anyone else if it was the Passover. One of the first scholars to express this point of view was an eminent German called Joseph Ratzinger.
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Roy Donovan ACP Leadership Team responds to Bishop Coll on Synodality…
March 4 2026
Neil Bray
In his book on Maurice Blondel Robert Coerpel spends a significant time dealing with the relationship between Firmin Loisy and Blondel. They had a common issue with Scolasticism. Blondel synpatised with Loisy but seriously disagreed with his orientation. Coerpel translates the aphorism written in French “Jesus preached the Kingdom, but it was the Church that came” in two different ways. He substitutes the word "parousia" for kingdom in one translation. Blondel linked the statement to the oft held opinion among the first century Christians that the final judgement (parousia) was imminent. When it didn't materialise they had to continue cooperation with God to found the Church. I adapted the following from a French article somewhere referencing Loisy. Loisy's aphorism in fact can serve as a reminder of something important. Whatever Loisy intended his words remind people that as soon as Jesus proclaims the coming of the Kingdom, He calls disciples to follow Him, whom He will gradually teach, before entrusting the flock to them. In other words, from the beginning of His preaching, Jesus summons what is already the Church, even in its visibility and, in an inchoate way, its institutional character. The Church is not a last resort, to which Jesus would have resigned Himself because he did not see the arrival of the Kingdom he announced. The Church is not an intermediary reality between Jesus and the Kingdom to come. The Church is, as the Second Vatican Council affirms, "the Kingdom of God already present in mystery" (Lumen Gentium, n. 3). When Jesus proclaims to His contemporaries that the Kingdom of God is among them, he is equally affirming that He, Jesus, is among them, and that the Church which is His body is among them. It is because Jesus is, in His own person, the Kingdom that he proclaims, that He can call the disciples with this laconic invitation: "Follow me!" Jesus is the only one who can say: "Follow me!" with this authority, because Jesus is the only one who can legitimately say like YHVH to the burning bush (Ex 3:14): "I am." As some Irish Synodal leaders say, Jesus calls people to a new life in his Kingdom, but it is Catholics, with their personal history and all that they are, that He is calling. And the Kingdom is indeed a completely different reality because it is a reality of grace, but the Kingdom flows into the reality of people's lives.
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Roy Donovan ACP Leadership Team responds to Bishop Coll on Synodality…
March 4 2026
Sean O'Conaill
“Those with faith find the whole concept beyond the powers of reason. How does one blame the Father? Faithful Catholics were once trained to blame themselves individually because they were reminded repeatedly that The Blessed Trinity regarded the Passion, with Christ as sacrificial victim and priest as necessary for the salvation of each. It’s in the Bible.” (Neil Bray) What is also in the Bible - very clearly - is the psychology of those who rejected the kingdom offered by Jesus - their envy and resentment of Jesus' critique of religious ostentation and petty legalism - and Pilate's insecurity faced by the protests of those same enemies. This is not lust on anyone's part - and yet this fact was ignored in all of our younger days by a penitential preaching that focused even on miniscule breaches of the 6th commandment as the 'Sin' that put Jesus on the Cross, via the Father's 'dissatisfaction'. From the murder by Cain of Abel, through the murder of Uriah by David to the opposition to Jesus by the Herods and the Jewish elites of his time, a consistent human weakness is exposed: the fragility of human self-respect - especially on the part of those wielding power - and their consequent fear and intolerance of the negative judgement of others. This is well captured in Proverbs 29:25: “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” Even the mandatory priestly celibacy rule speaks of the misidentification of sexuality as the prime moral danger. No bishop anywhere has yet identified the 'fear of man' as the snare that trapped the hierarchy in the cover up of clerical abuse. Nor do we ever hear it preached that Jesus overcame this same fear, in accepting the Cross, as he tells us himself in John 16:33. YouCat itself 'blames the Father' by denying the role of anything but the will of God in the death of Christ. It is surely no accident that YouCat also blanks 'superbia' throughout, given that 2011 - the year of first publication - was also the year of the Vatican visitation of Ireland. That visitation ignored the 'superbia' of hierarchs but still found scapegoats for the Ryan and Murphy reports' revelations of 2009. Yes, God willed Jesus' acceptance of the cross but for the reason given by Simeon - so that the hidden thoughts of many would be revealed (Luke 2:34-35). To dismiss the 'tragic external circumstances' that reveal those hidden thoughts in scripture is to prefer oblivion on the roots of all violence and concealment and scandal. This is a betrayal of both biblical revelation and the young.
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23 comments
Roy Donovan ACP Leadership Team responds to Bishop Coll on Synodality…
March 4 2026
Joe O'Leary
While I accept the huge changes historical-critical study of Scripture has brought, I also resist its extremes (Dominic Crossan, the Jesus Seminar, for example). 1 Corinthians 11 states: 23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” This is already 25 years after the event, but I see no reason not to accept that Jesus spoke some such words. The book that was most prominent in post-Vatican II seminary teaching was Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, which can be read online: https://archive.org/details/eucharisticwords0000jere_o1v9 . This book dates from 1935. Chat GPT says: Major theses of Jeremias: what survived and what did not 1. The Last Supper tradition is extremely early Jeremias’s claim: The tradition quoted by Paul the Apostle in First Epistle to the Corinthians 11:23–26 goes back to the earliest Jerusalem church and probably within a few years of Jesus’ death. Status today: ✅ Largely accepted. Many scholars agree that Paul is transmitting a very early liturgical tradition. Supported by later scholars such as: James D. G. Dunn John P. Meier 2. The words of institution go back to Jesus himself Jeremias’s claim: Despite liturgical shaping, the sayings “This is my body” and “This is my blood of the covenant” originate with Jesus. Status today: ⚠️ Many scholars still accept some authentic core, but with more caution. Modern scholarship generally says: Jesus probably performed a symbolic meal action The exact wording in the Gospels is liturgically shaped 3. The Last Supper was a Passover meal Jeremias argued strongly that the meal described in the Synoptics reflects the Passover seder. Status today: ❌ Widely disputed. Problems: chronology conflict with Gospel of John several Passover elements are missing. Many scholars now think it was: a festive covenant meal held near Passover but not the seder itself This is the position of: Raymond E. Brown John Dominic Crossan though scholars like N. T. Wright still keep Passover symbolism central. 4. Aramaic reconstruction of Jesus’ words Jeremias reconstructed the supposed Aramaic original behind the Greek texts. Example: “this is my body” explained via Semitic idiom meaning “this represents my body”. Status today: ⚠️ Methodologically outdated. Reasons: reconstruction of hypothetical Aramaic originals is now viewed as too speculative we cannot reliably reverse-translate Greek Gospel traditions. 5. “Do this in remembrance of me” (anamnesis) Jeremias interpreted the phrase as drawing on Jewish memorial sacrifice language. Status today: ⚠️ Debated but still influential. Some scholars accept the connection with Jewish memorial language. Others think the interpretation is too liturgical and cultic. 6. The cup saying echoes Exodus covenant language Jeremias connected “blood of the covenant” with: Book of Exodus 24:8 covenant sacrifice imagery. Status today: ✅ Still widely accepted. Many scholars see a deliberate echo of covenant theology here.
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Roy Donovan ACP Leadership Team responds to Bishop Coll on Synodality…

Roy Donovan ACP Leadership Team responds to Bishop Coll on Synodality…

Roy Donovan ACP Leadership Team responds to Bishop Coll on Synodality…

Roy Donovan ACP Leadership Team responds to Bishop Coll on Synodality…