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Condolences to Brendan Hoban
The ACP offers sincere sympathy to our colleague Brendan Hoban and to his extended family on the death of his brother, Seamus.
It mattered then, It matters now.
Chris McDonnell in writing about the murder of George Floyd reminds us that true leadership comes at a cost; “Colin Kaepernick. When he first protested against racial injustice and police brutality by kneeling down during the United States national anthem in the summer of 2016, he did so paying a high personal price but his actions gained him respect.”
‘Latest Comments’ update…
To sidestep the inactive link from the Latest Comments box at the bottom of the homepage the following are the most recent comments linked with the relevant article. On a…
Séamus Ahearne: An Olympian at heart…
The Minister as an Olympian Wally the Walrus and the Heron: Wally the Walrus is an intrepid traveller. He is very sensible to make Ardmore his holiday venue. He drops…
Rushing back to the past
Seamus Ahearne and his congregation find inspiration in the sporting figures of the past week and get a little distracted by royalty.
He wonders because the newly appointed Irish soccer team manager Mick McCarthy is back. “He once was the past. Now he is the future.” With regard to church Seamus tells us “We cannot get lost in the past. The past has to be distilled. The best has to be retained. The packaging can be discarded.”
History is history, and truth must be told
Updated with Bishop Fleming’s address at the launch.
Brendan Hoban is well known as a commentator on current church affairs as well as his commitment to the implementation of the reforms of Vatican II at all levels in church.
Less well known is his remarkable interest in history as demonstrated with the publication of his latest book “Telling the Story, A Dictionary of Killala Clergy” which is the third book of a three volume series of Readings in Killala Diocesan History.
Roy Donovan, is a breath of fresh air within a staid Catholic Church.
He identifies the growth and consolidation of clericalism , as Pope Francis constantly reiterates , as a man made structure which has fostered injustices in the Church such as the exclusion of women from ministry .
He states that priests have been taught to consider themselves as the ‘ special ones ‘ while the priesthood of the non – ordained is disregarded.
This hierarchical gap is reinforced by the practice of priests being called ‘ fathers’ while lay- people are identified as their ‘ children ‘ – both descriptions totally unacceptable in our 21 century as these titles reinforce inequality .
A fist step to dismantle clericalism which creates a barrier between priests and people would be to eliminate the practice of calling priests ‘fathers’ and to address them by the names they received, like the rest of us, at Baptism.
This alone would not dismantle clericalism but would help to create a sense of equality and mutual respect between priests and the non-ordained people of God.
Sincerely,
Brendan Butler
I see “Parasite” comes flanked by pedagogic commentaries, which to my mind do not remove the suspicion of meretriciousness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci-gFovSJf0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kx-gSK2C2Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhEgGxaeCqM
PS The “visitation” of US nuns was not done by the CDF, but they did do an “assessment” of the leadership, which was a distinct process.
“At a Dec. 16 Vatican press conference, Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, the prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, presented his congregation’s response to the report and explained that the 2009-2012 visitation was initiated because women religious are “experiencing challenging times.” There was a need to “gain deeper knowledge” of their contributions, he said, as well as the difficulties that “threaten the quality of their religious life” and, for some, their very existence.
“The visitation, not to be confused with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s four-year doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), was an unprecedented and enormous task, involving 341 religious institutes and approximately 50,000 women religious. It did not include cloistered nuns, but the Vatican stressed that its outcome is addressed to the Church’s pastors and faithful as well as women religious themselves.”
Thanks, Colm Holmes, for that great video. Everything Fr Roy says is right, but I can hear the clericalist voices dismissing it. I wonder if some of them are still saying, “You don’t change a winning team”! I paused at 29.00 to say AMEN about the oppressive new translations.
Unwise to give a shout-out to the Korean film Parasites without having seen it. It’s a morally very dubious piece. My impression is that the social comment of the film is a fatuous pretext for a nasty celebration of deception, theft, murder, all for fun. I see people lauding it for production values, the sort of thing one might learn in film school, comparing it with Hitchcock in this respect. I don’t think it has anything like Hitchcock’s cinematic magic.
View the VIDEO of Fr Roy Donovan’s fearless talk to We Are Church on Youtube: https://youtu.be/fpMjDwNQOnY