The work of Catholic priests lauded in the Seanad today
A nice tribute to the work of priests and religious like Fr Jason Murphy in the Seanad today. It follows an RTÉ Prime Time programme on suicide.
A nice tribute to the work of priests and religious like Fr Jason Murphy in the Seanad today. It follows an RTÉ Prime Time programme on suicide.
A visit to the Botanic Gardens gets Seamus Ahearne musing “The beauty of the day; the sun; the shadow; the fading colours of the trees; the flowers, was magnificent. It was indeed another book of Scripture. God was walking in that garden.”
Brendan Hoban writes in his Western People column of his hopes for a new style of leadership in the church in Ireland.
“What we need are bishops who are secure enough in their own skin to be able to live with ambivalence and complexity……who have the imagination, the creativity and above all the courage not to keep looking over their shoulders to Rome and to confront – respectfully but robustly – those who want to lead us back to the nineteenth century. “
An edited version of this article by Peter Stanford about the bishops’ meeting in Rome to discuss clerical sexual abuse appeared recently in The Observer.
“It is an appalling moral failure and needs to end now, but that will involve rethinking an entire approach to sexuality in Catholicism that is peculiar, punitive and often plain perverse. The Jesus of the gospels had almost no interest is such matters. Why does the Church leadership? “
Chris McDonnell writes “The choice of where to pray and when to pray has come down to us through subsequent years; for now, this Spring, we have limited options.” and he reminds us of Teilhard de Chardin who found himself in the Ordos Desert in China in 1923, unable to offer the Eucharist and wrote “Since once again, Lord I have neither bread, nor wine, nor altar,
I will raise myself beyond these symbols, up to the pure majesty of the real itself. I your priest will make the whole earth my altar and on it will offer you all the labours and sufferings of the world.’
Francis wants bishops who are pastors first Western People, Sept 8th 2020 Maureen Kelly, a native of Ballycastle, is a Mercy Sister, in Lima, Peru. She spent most of her…
Link to Newsletter No 3: https://mailchi.mp/synod/synodassemblynewsletter-issue-03-en
Work of Catholic priests lauded in the Seanad…
Nice to see this from Senator Joe O’Reilly in the Senate, prompted by the tragic death of Eden Heaslip and the role of Fr Murphy, a case where tragically a case of extreme bullying included some sectarianism. It needs to be said that there are so many good priests doing great work all the time, taking on greater burdens as they get older with shortage of priests a major issue. Since Covid we have become accustomed to viewing church services online including many funeral services. Priests do a good job here and are a comfort to the bereaved, I know with so many deaths it’s not easy for them to cope with them all, but they somehow manage to do it well, in fact I think this is where they are at their best.T he role of the priest is still a unique treasured part of Irish life and long may it continue.