On Thursday April 12th, the ACP will be holding a press conference at 10.00am in Buswell’s Hotel to present the findings of our major opinion poll on religious attitudes in Ireland. It has many very interesting facts to reveal about the attitudes and beliefs of the ordinary Irish catholics.
Note change of Date: Now taking place on Thursday, April 12th
Bernard Cotter shares the homily he preached at the Month’s Mind of Sean O’Driscoll. Sean was ordained for Cork & Ross on 9 June 1984 and died (from cancer) on 3 August 2013. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the ACP and often contributed comments to this site.
Sheila Mulcahy emails our website to express dismay at the downgrding of the Epiphany and wonders if Irish people have indeed ‘lost their backbone’.
Fr James Martin SJ has written a ‘New Serenity Prayer’ — recommended to ACP and ACI members, bishops etc.
The leadership team of the ACP have issued a strong response to comments made about the state of the catholic church in Ireland by Archbishop Eamon Martin. They say that the Archbishop’s ‘ad limina” comments ‘bear little relationship to the realities of Irish Church life today’.
They have also commented on the letter received from the Irish bishops’ conference. The letter is seen as an attempt to ‘pull the plug’ on engagement with the ACP and ‘to still the voice of an association that represents over a third of Irish priests (1000-plus) who are prepared to name important and difficult truths at a critical time for the Irish Church.’
To highlight the immediate availability of an alternative to the present ‘new missal’ the prayers and prefaces for the seasons of Advent and Christmas and the Order of Mass from the 1998 Missal will be made available at the AGM of the Association of Catholic priests.
Prayers from the 1998 ICEL Missal are also made available on a weekly basis in the liturgy section of this website; see the Presider’s Page of the Liturgy Preparation section.
Meeting of the Association of Catholic Priests in Marianella on November 24, 2010 About sixty priests from the Archdiocese of Dublin, the Diocese of Meath and a variety of religious…
“ordinary Irish catholics”?
As opposed to extraordinary catholics.
No, ordinary locals’ beliefs as opposed to Local Ordinaries’ attitudes.
The local ordinary is the bishop aka a successor of the Apostles. They don’t claim to speak for the beliefs of all Catholics, they simply present and hand on the faith of the Apostles. We can gather with them or we can scatter. Cardnal George of America made this point recently.
”Perhaps this is the time for everyone to re-read the Acts of the Apostles. Bishops are the successors of the apostles; they collectively receive the authority to teach and govern that Christ bestowed upon the apostles. Bishops don’t claim to speak for every baptized Catholic. Bishops speak, rather, for the Catholic and apostolic faith. Those who hold that faith gather with them; others go their own way. They are and should be free to do so, but they deceive themselves and others in calling their organizations Catholic. ”
Cardinal George is not fighting with the Catholic laity about the apostolic faith, but about disputed questions, largely connected with episcopal intervention in politics.
Martin, it’s a very old Maynooth joke. It does not pretend to sum up my relationship with my bishop or with all the successors of the Apostles and nor, I hope, does it portray me as a scatterer rather than a gatherer.