Submissions for the Synod
Summary of AUSCP survey Survey release AUSCP
Report from the Association of Catholics in Ireland ACI REPORT DRAFT 4
Summary of AUSCP survey Survey release AUSCP
Report from the Association of Catholics in Ireland ACI REPORT DRAFT 4
Seamus Ahearne reports of an interesting dialogue he had recently about the state of church and liturgy and sacraments.
“Much of Liturgy has evolved from the Monasteries. It has grown fat with the accretions of history. It has become something to endure or admire or look at. Despite all the changes of language; it can still be so passive as a Celebration. ……
The psychological reality is that there are too many words hurled at us. Any real psychology of praying is absent. There is no space for quiet; for sharing; for being still…..
Someone has to shout stop and strip off the accretions and reduce the Mass to its essentials and make space for God to speak and for us to be part of it. It is all noise and fuss and rush.”
Two different, both very interesting, reactions to the interview given by Bishop John Magee. Brendan Hoban reflects on the problem of the language used by some senior clerics. Margaret Lee wonders about saying that people who were abused are ‘destroyed’ or that they ‘can never find peace’
Bernard Cotter writing recently in The Tablet noted how “It is a strange feature of those who control the consumer calendar, that every feast is celebrated to the full beforehand rather than on the day itself or indeed on any day in its immediate aftermath. Christmas and Easter share a common fate in this regard.”
“How does one respond to the challenge of sustaining Easter joy over its full season? Communication is the Church’s primary tool. Perhaps instead of making so much of the 40 days of Lent on their own, the 90 days of Lent/Easter should in their entirety comprise the annual springtime renewal for Christians, with 40 days of fasting, prayer and almsgiving followed by 50 days of feasting, prayer and celebration (a time to honour those in parish ministries with social time together, perhaps).”
Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service, reporting in www.cruznow.com writes about the call made by a Canadian bishop for women deacons.
The issue of the role of women in our church is not going away, and won’t, no matter how many attempts are made to suppress and close down dialogue and debate.
St. John Paul II called for “no more degradation of women” in the world in “Familiaris Consortio”, 1981.
But there is a credibility issue for us with huge numbers of people, in making such calls, when women are still excluded from ordained ministry and from real decision making roles.
Ordaining women as deacons would be seen by many as a very tentative first step in righting a wrong.
Brendan Hoban in his weekly Western People column questions the wisdom of bishops threatening to have priests withdraw from the civil aspect of Catholic marriages in advance of the marriage referendum.
“Let me say, first of all, that in my opinion (for what it’s worth) Archbishop Martin (and other bishops) are unwise to even suggest that priests solemnising marriages in Catholic Churches would, in the event of a YES vote being carried, no longer agree to act in a civil capacity.”
Request: Comments on the substantive issue of the referendum should be directed to the thread ‘The Marriage Referendum: Archbishop Diarmuid Martin explains why he is voting No; Fr. Pádraig Standún explains why he will be voting Yes’
Joshua J. McElwee reports in the National Catholic Reporter on the long running dispute in the Nigerian diocese of Ahiara.
“The priests had complained that Bishop Peter Okpaleke was not from Mbaise, the region surrounding their diocese..”
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There is a longer document (12 pages) of the AUSCP Report at http://www.uscatholicpriests.org/storage/Survey%20Report%20to%20Rome%20final%20040115.pdf.
Is anybody interested in the synod anymore?
Well, Joe the members of the ACI are praying for a “Girardian” society on their site which would make this synod seem less important or unnecessary, I believe.