ACP leadership to meet diocesan reps
Seamus Ahearne muses on the special moments of life we mark with Sacraments and he wonders how can we help to let the world of God be glimpsed?
Association of Catholic Priests: Annual General Meeting 2019
Wednesday, 30 October, 2019 at 2.00 p.m.
The Bounty, Dubarry Park,
2 Coosan Rd, Cornamagh, Athlone, Co. Westmeath.
Eircode: N37 K0T9
Gerard Moloney, a Redemptorist priest, and former editor of the magazine ‘Reality’ writes of the appalling experience he suffered at the hands of the CDF.
“How can you defend yourself if you don’t know you are on trial? How can you defend yourself if you don’t know who your accusers are? How can you defend yourself when your fate has been decided even before you discover you have been on trial? It is an utterly unjust and unchristian system.
Something is rotten in the state of the CDF, and while the current people and processes remain in place, nothing will change. Priests, sisters and brothers will continue to be treated as less than human, and will have their lives hurt or broken.
… injustice has a price, and I am paying it every day.”
Reflecting on some of the issues that received intense media coverage in recent times Brendan Hoban in his Western People column concludes that “Sometimes institutions, reluctant to reform, need the shock of public humiliation to get their act together, especially when the vulnerable innocent are at risk.”
The plain truth of the matter is, Brendan states, that “In any institution or system, things go wrong, when those in positions of power are not properly supervised.”
This is the text of the talk given by Aoife McGrath at the Vision session of the ACP sponsored gathering: Towards an Assembly of the Irish Catholic Church
Brian Fahy in looking back at years that have passed points to an important lesson. “‘Forgive and forget’ will not do. ‘Remember and forgive’ seems to be a far better way to healthy living today.”
A welcome Spring Initiative, surely. Let’s hope all 26 dioceses will be represented. A meeting of 50 or 60 genuine parish priests from all four provinces should be just right to thresh out those and other issues in a relaxed but businesslike way.
As for “anyone else who would really like to attend”, have the courage for once to tell us members of the Laity (I just love that word!) to stay at home for a change and say our prayers for the rest of you.
Talking of threshing, I’m a divil for real porridge. I go down to the corner shop here in North London and pick up a tin of McCann’s steel-cut oats from Meath & Kildare or a package of Flahavan’s from Waterford – none of your Scotts’ or Quaker rubbish. I’d be leppin mad if I opened it in the morning only to find it full of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies. It’s what it says on the tin: “An Association for Catholic Priests – steel-cut, naturally”.
Which is why I’m full of admiration for my friends in the Irish Confraternity of Catholic Clergy: full membership for diocesan parish priests and deacons; associate membership for those in religious and secular institutes, personal prelatures etc. End of.
Now if the Hodson Bay would just ban Kellogg’s Rice Krispies too, and not leave a chap standing at their Octagon breakfast bar for twenty minutes waiting for a minimalist bowl of mediocre ‘rolled oats’ porridge . . . .!
It has been my experience that “transparency” is not a strong point with the Church anywhere and at any time.