WAC Zoom Thurs 18 April @ 7.30pm with Bishop Brendan Leahy
The Zoom will be in three parts:
Free admission – to register click on the link:
https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/synod-2024-tickets-861425405577?aff=oddtdtcreator
Jo O Sullivan takes time to write her reflections on the request from the Dublin Archdiocese that Parish Pastoral Councils discuss what kinds of new ministries are needed if our church is to “thrive into the future”.
Click on the link below for audio of the ACP AGM 2022, held in the Radisson Blu Hotel, Athlone, Wed 19 Oct 2022. The guest speaker was Julieann Moran, General…
Jo O Sullivan outlines the journey from ‘slumbering’ catholic to ‘revolting’ catholic, from agonising ‘over continuing to participate in shoring up the dysfunctional Institutional Church by continuing to give of my time and talent to the Church’ to the decision that ‘I could come back into the fold with all my heart and all my soul, provided I sought out every opportunity available to me to bring about change.’
‘I find that the passion that drives me these days is to open Catholic hearts and minds here locally into a welcoming acceptance of our LGBT brothers and sisters.’
Seamus Ahearne’s riverside reflections lead him to conclude that “Like Jeremiah this weekend; we all have to speak up and speak out…. I call on our leaders and our ministers to speak up and to speak out. With a new vision of parish, church, priesthood and sacrament. There is a new place for God and the Word, to be heard.”
Western People 3.9.2024 Patsy McGarry, a proud native of Ballaghaderreen, has followed his recent retirement as the Religious Correspondent of the Irish Times, with a compelling retrospective account of his…
The Leadership of the ACP would like to extend sincere sympathy to our founding member Tony Flannery, CSsR, on the death of his sister, Geraldine, RIP. We would like to…
It is great to have an opportunity to listen to another Irish bishop speak on Synod 2024 and maybe on the process of synodality as envisaged by pope Francis. Sadly, at the beginning of this month the death was announced of Gerhard Lohfink (2 April). Writing in 2013 he had this to say about the role of synods (in general) and the pastor, bishop, and pope.
“[In the same way,] a bishop today must represent the will of God. ‘whether the time is favorable or unfavorable’ (2Tim4.2), even against resistance in the local church itself. An official structure that is set up in such a way that the majority can decide the truth by vote is absolutely unbiblical. That is why in the Roman Catholic Church the synodal principle, which plays an important role (consider, for example, the election of a pope), is always augmented by the personal principle. The final assent to or dissent from decisions reached by a synod belongs to the pastor or the bishop or the pope. They are obliged to uphold the truth of the Gospel, the truth of the tradition, but they must listen with the greatest intensity to the ‘counsel’ they receive.” cf. No Irrelevant Jesus – On Jesus and the Church Today p.135.
I just add: having the ‘counsellors’ – the People of God actually at one’s elbows in the room is a start, but only so. As in the upper-room, knowing, cherishing, and accepting whose breath is on us needs an awareness and acknowledgement first of their presence. But for this exercise on the 18 April – ZOOM is ok!