Showing posts with label Ireland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ireland. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Pope convenes Irish bishops for talks on priestly sex abuse

By Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has convened Ireland's bishops for a two-day meeting at the Vatican to discuss the ongoing fallout from the priestly sex abuse scandal in the country.

Link to original...

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Laicization is the Heroin of Ecclesiastical Life

Lay involvement is like spiritual heroin for Catholic communities. It may address the pain, but not the disease and ultimately it impedes the recovery of the patient. We might point out which the following article also mentions that before Vatican II and the "Active Lay Participation" it called for, or was called for in its name, there was no vocations crisis. We almost had more priests in the early sixties than was good for us, and many of them fled (or in many cases, thrown out) in the cultural haze of the 60s to find sustainance where they could. You might say they were Aggionamentized (Bl. John XXIIIs word to describe what he was doing to the Church in 1963)

Lay involvement in Church life has been an increasing factor in the last few hundred years anyway, what with laymen getting positions teaching in Catholic Theology faculties and ultimately, taking over the running of Church-related businesses like the making of altar breads (once made exclusively by priests chanting the Psalms) presses and newspapers in the United States during the 30s, much, we might add, to the detriment of the latter.

While attending the New Mass, or seeing it on television, it's common to see a rather well-dressed layman or laywoman, doing the readings, approaching the tabernacle and handling the Sacred Species with an air of self-importance that's hard not to generally notice. Like a Nun working at an abortuary, they seem to understand that they don't belong their; but rebellion is in the air, even for the elderly as is often the case. They are generally indifferent to their surroundings and the importance of the things they're handling or of what they represent. This Ecclesistical Dictatorship of the Proletariat is conceived and impelled to demean the sacredness of holy places and events; there is a pedestrian feel to the whole thing, like going to listen to a sales meeting by Monks, getting married at the post-office or to purchase a new car in a church as Huysman's reports:

Ah! far off was the time when Radegonda, Queen of France, had with her own hands prepared the bread destined for the altars, or the time when, after the customs of Cluny, three priests or deacons, fasting and garbed in alb and amice, washed their faces and hands and then picked out the wheat, grain by grain, grinding it under millstone, kneading the paste in a cold and pure water and themselves baking it under a clear fire, while chanting psalms.


Laicization poses as a solution and is really part of the problem. Parishes which do not have these kinds of pseudo-clerical ministries, by the way, not only produce more vocations, but produce more children as well.

But we can't expect an author, educated no doubt, by a secular faculty with all kinds of false notions about philosophy and religion, to do anything else than perpetuate the propaganda now being levelled at the Irish Church by a bevy of vindictive journalists, washed up rock stars and laity, eagerly and so bravely joining in on the kicking of one who has momentarily fallen.




By 2015 Catholics will be familiar with lay people in priestly roles. [But the laity generally always have been familiar with those roles, which is why they were generally unwilling to usurp them, even at great need]

PATSY McGARRY

ANALYSIS: In the second of our series looking at what things might be like five years hence, we consider the future of the Catholic Church in Ireland, where ordinations have collapsed along with its moral authority [Is this wishful thinking or a guilty conscience?]

THERE WAS a poignancy in the air at the ordination of three men as Redemptorist priests in St Joseph’s Church, Dundalk, on Sunday December 6th. In the front pew a female relative of one of the men wept copiously as the ceremony progressed.

It was conducted by the Catholic primate Cardinal Seán Brady, who was clearly still reeling from the findings of the Murphy report, published on November 26th, while also attending to his duties. He seemed exhausted. In a momentary lapse he forgot the name of one of the young men. Then, remembering, he commented it was “Seán, the same name as my own”. There was a laugh from the congregation.

The three men made up the largest number to be ordained at once for the Redemptorist congregation in more than 10 years. They were Brian Nolan (31) from Limerick, Tony Rice (31) from Belfast, and Seán Duggan (30) from Galway.

They are no starry-eyed neophytes. Brian Nolan, a former electronics student at Limerick Institute of Technology, admitted that when he told people that he was in the religious life, “it can be a conversation stopper”. But still, he didn’t “feel the need to hold back from telling people what I’m doing”.

Tony Rice worked in a bank for four years. He said the difficulties in the church were symptomatic of a general lack of leadership in a number of areas in our society. “People have reason to be disappointed with several institutions right now – banks, politicians, the church and so many others . . . We need strong, just and accountable leadership to renew our vision and our hope in humanity,” he said.

Seán Duggan gave up corporate law to become a priest. “The choices I have made are not knee-jerk reactions. They have been thought about and talked about over a period of eight years’ training,” he said. “The questions that people throw to me such as celibacy, inept church leadership, married priests and more, are all questions that I’ve thought about myself. It’s not as if I live in a bubble cut off from reality,” he said.

On Sunday November 15th Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin said his archdiocese will soon have barely enough priests to serve its 199 parishes. “We have 46 priests over 80 and only two less than 35 years of age. In a very short time we will just have the bare number of priests required to have one active priest for each of our 199 parishes,” he said.

Last April he said there were now 10 times more priests over 70 than under 40 in Dublin. It also emerged at the time that the number of priests in Tuam’s Catholic archdiocese will fall by 30 per cent over the next four years, leaving most parishes there with just one resident priest.

Meanwhile, writing in the Furrow magazine last June, Fr Brendan Hoban, parish priest at St Muredach’s Cathedral, in Ballina, Co Mayo, said of his own Killala diocese that “in 20 years’ time there will be around eight priests instead of the present 34, with probably two or three under 60 years of age”.

He continued “the difficult truth is that priests will have effectively disappeared in Ireland in two to three decades”.

For people of a certain age the very idea of an Ireland without Catholic priests is, truly, beyond imagination. This is not hard to understand. Speaking to the Association of European Journalists in Dublin on November 13th the Catholic Bishop of Killaloe, Willie Walsh, recalled that of the 50 students in his Leaving Cert class of 1952, 20 went on for the priesthood. Vocations were so high then that between a third and a half of Irish priests went on the missions. [Then came the Vatican Council II]

But, almost 50 years later, all has changed. The number of priests in Ireland is in serious decline. The average age of the Irish Catholic priest today is put at 63. For those who are members of religious congregations the average age is in the early 70s.

Each priest must retire at 75. As the Americans say, you do the math!

At the end of September last there were 77 men training for the priesthood at Maynooth. Of that number, 36 entered this year, an increase of 12 on the 24 who entered in 2008.

It is believed to be a blip which won’t alter the downward trend. Meanwhile, for every 10 men who begin training for the priesthood, at Maynooth five or six become priests.

All of which means that the coming decade will see profound change in Catholic Church structures and practices on this island. It will also see the end of the clerical caste which has dominated Irish Catholicism since Victorian times. They will give way, of necessity, to a more lay-directed institution with fewer-but-bigger parishes in fewer-but-bigger dioceses.

An indication of what is to come was illustrated in the Catholic diocese of Waterford and Lismore last June. That month saw the first ordination to the Catholic priesthood there in eight years when Fr Michael Toomey (39) became a priest.

That same month in that same diocese sacristan Ken Hackett conducted a Liturgy of the Word with Holy Communion instead of daily Mass at Ardfinnan parish in Co Tipperary. The priest, Fr Robert Power, was away. Mr Hackett is a minister of the Eucharist and a minister of the word and may do as he did according to Vatican norms published in the early 1970s. Women may also conduct such liturgies. [This is a symptom of a bigger problem with entitlement and feminism] The response to him from parishioners was “very, very good”, he told The Irish Times.

Catholic Ireland is embarking on a path others have already taken.

In one diocese in northern France there is only one priest to serve 27 parishes. It means the priest drops by on occasion in each parish to offer Mass and consecrate hosts. The rest of the time parishioners run their own church.

In 2001 the diocese of Nice had to reduce its 265 parishes to 47. The recently created parish there of Nôtre Dame de l’Espérance has five churches.

It had five priests; now there is one. Each church has an appointed lay person, the relais locale, whose duty is to run both church and parish, and perform almost all functions of a priest except celebrating the Eucharist and administering sacraments only a priest can.

A principal function of the relais is to conduct a Sunday Communion service in the absence of the priest, a “Mass” without the consecration. There is frequently no priest at funerals there any more.

Writing about this in The Irish Times on July 8th, former Dominican priest and author David Rice recalled how, at the Église Sacré Coeur in Beaulieu “I attended one such funeral, conducted by the relais locale for the church. She received the coffin. There were words of welcome, the singing of hymns, a short eulogy of the deceased, readings from scripture, a brief reflection by the relais, the lighting of candles beside the coffin, a blessing of the coffin with holy water, and prayers for the deceased. It lasted about half an hour. There was no Mass, as there was no priest.”

He spoke to a woman appointed there as general manager of the parish with its five churches. While her official title was économe, her job was more about administration than money. Unpaid herself, she managed a payroll for nine people, including cleaners, organists and two parish secretaries.

Other lay people – men and women – were active in priestly roles: parish visitation; counselling; pre-marriage instruction; attending the sick; chaplaincies to hospitals and retirement homes; to scout and youth groups. And it is lay people who, almost exclusively, impart the faith to children.

In 10 years, this way of things is likely to be very familiar to Ireland’s Catholic faithful. And that is believed to be likely even if both the mandatory celibacy rule is dropped and women are allowed become Catholic priests.

Patsy McGarry is Religious Affairs Correspondent

Friday, January 1, 2010

The New Irish Blasphemy Laws will Displease Everyone

Even the atheists are right about this one. These laws will restrict even good intolerant speech about false religions and make it even harder for the Catholic Church in Ireland to do its job. This is yet another reason why the Irish Republic was a bad idea when it was first conceived and remains a bad idea today, but so much worse for its execution. It must make laws to appease the invisible authocracy of "consensus" but only does so in the name of a non-existent popular sovereignty.


Secular campaigners in the Irish Republic defied a strict new blasphemy law which came into force today by publishing a series of anti-religious quotations online and promising to fight the legislation in court.

The new law, which was passed in July, means that blasphemy in Ireland is now a crime punishable with a fine of up to €25,000 (£22,000).

It defines blasphemy as "publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted".

Link to remainder of Guardian article...

Friday, December 25, 2009

Two More Irish Bishops Resign: Irish Cathedral Burns

Reuters

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Two more Irish bishops have said they will offer their resignations to the Pope, bringing the total number of church leaders to quit after a damning report into child sex abuse by priests to four.

World

Bishops Eamonn Walsh and Raymond Field, the only two serving auxiliary (assistant) bishops in the archdiocese of Dublin, said they had informed Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of their decision.

"It is our hope that our action may help to bring the peace and reconciliation of Jesus Christ to the victims/survivors of child sexual abuse. We again apologize to them," they said in a statement released late on Thursday.

Like Bishop Jim Moriarty who resigned on Wednesday, both bishops had said the report had shown that they had done nothing wrong.

Moriarty admitted that he should have challenged the "prevailing culture" that allowed criminal acts against children to take place.

Last week Bishop Donal Murray became the first bishop to quit since the publication of the report, which said Church leaders in overwhelmingly Catholic Ireland had covered up widespread sexual abuse of children by priests for 30 years.

The report, issued on November 26, said the archdiocese had been more preoccupied with protecting the Church's reputation than safeguarding children and had "obsessively" hidden child abuse from 1974 to 2004.

Walsh has served as an auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese of Dublin since 1990. Field took up his post in Dublin in 1997.



Link to original...

Related:

Irish Cathedral Burned.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Second Irish Bishop Resigns

Surely the abuse in Ireland isn't more significant than it is in Los Angeles where Cardinal Mahony has been stonewalling for years against frequent lawsuits caused by his close associates and sexual co-conspirators. We don't think that language is too strong. Cardinal Mahony must have done something very special for some very popular people, because no one is asking for his resignation.

Even worse, no one is putting the cause of the abuse where it belongs, that of liberal vampires like Roman Polanski who don't have the slightest moral moorings and think nothing of breaking a few moral or civil laws along the way.

Not quite as bad, but a close second, is the fact that this is the result of public opinion which the Church has been courting now, increasingly, hiring PR Firms to improve its brand image, since the end of the First World War.


Portland Archdiocese Bankruptcy See the Facts of the Case Here


Wednesday December 23 2009

A SECOND Catholic bishop named in the shocking Murphy Report into cover-ups of clerical child sexual abuse in the archdiocese of Dublin is expected to announce his resignation today.

Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin James Moriarty will explain that he is stepping down as head of the diocese in order to give the priests and lay people a fresh start for 2010.

The decision of Bishop Moriarty, a former Dublin auxiliary under Cardinal Desmond Connell, comes six days after Bishop of Limerick Donal Murray's resignation was accepted by Pope Benedict XVI.

Dr Murray stepped aside over his "inexcusable" failings when investigating complaints against notorious paedophile priest Fr Thomas Naughton when he too was an auxiliary bishop in Dublin.

This dramatic second resignation will intensify pressure on two existing Dublin auxiliaries, Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field, to quit as well even though both have told Archbishop Diarmuid Martin that they did no wrong and that it would be a miscarriage of justice for them to resign or be fired.

A fifth former Dublin auxiliary now at risk of losing high office is the Bishop of Galway, Martin Drennan, who until now has put up fierce resistance to going on the grounds that he too did no wrong.

He has also strongly criticised Archbishop Martin's impassioned plea for him to accept collective responsibility for the cover-ups as questioning his personal integrity.

A sixth former Dublin auxiliary, Dermot O'Mahony, who is in retirement, resigned from the presidency of a body which organises annual trips to Lourdes for the disabled and has been ordered by Archbishop Martin not to administer Confirmation to children next spring.

Last night four informed sources in Dublin and Kildare separately said that "Bishop Moriarty will resign tomorrow in order to give his diocese a fresh start for 2010".

Intense

One source suggested that over the weekend Bishop Moriarty (73) decided after intense consultations with trusted colleagues and friends at his residence in Carlow that he would go quickly.

An announcement of acceptance of his resignation by Pope Benedict could come as early as midday today, Rome time.

Other sources, however, questioned this timescale and suggested that Bishop Moriarty plans to say today that he has offered his resignation to the Holy Father.

- John Cooney

Irish Independent



http://www.independent.ie/national-news/second-bishop-to-step-down-over-abuse-coverups-1985712.html

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Holy Father Accepts Irish Bishop's Resignation

ROME — The Vatican on Thursday accepted the resignation of an Irish bishop who had been criticized in a scathing report by the Irish government on systematic child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests.

The same day, the Vatican also defrocked a contentious African former bishop, Emmanuel Milingo, 79, of Zambia, known for performing exorcisms and advocating a married clergy, to prevent him from continuing to ordain priests.

In a one-sentence statement issued Thursday, the Vatican said that the pope had accepted the resignation of the bishop of Limerick, Donal Brendan Murray, 69, under a provision that allows bishops to step down before the mandatory retirement age of 75 if they are considered “unsuited” to the job.

Link to originl...

Friday, December 11, 2009

Pope Considers a Response to Irish Situation

It will be fascinating to see what the Holy Father says in his upcoming pastoral letter to Ireland about this abuse case.

We can only note that given the last years of the apotheosis of corporate guilt and abeyance of personal sanctity and devotion that it should be hardly surprising that the Bishops look at their "vocations" in a more or less worldly sense.

When St. Thomas Becket came to Canterbury from France after his exile, he walked the 20 Miles to his Episcopal throne on the bare souls of his feet, and after he'd been dispatched by Henry's assassins and his retainers were preparing him for burial, they discovered his hair shirt and the marks on his body from the "discipline".

Given the Holy Father's emphasis on personal sanctity and Benedictine reform, it wouldn't surprise us indeed if he didn't expect his Bishops to make more clear, personally costly, and public, displays of personal penance on the part of Bishops. Many Catholics do not believe in the sanctity of their Bishops, but they're more than willing to expect the worst; what would be even more surprising indeed would be evidence of deep, personal holiness on the part of Ireland's Bishops, Priests and Religious, and a return to a severe but deeply human asceticism. People are moved by sincerity and if you put your heart on your sleeve, people will follow you anywhere. Indeed, they followed Robert the Bruce's heart all the way to Jerusalem.


Pope Benedict shares Irish "child abuse outrage"

Pope Benedict said he shared Irish outrage over a damning abuse report
The Pope shares the "outrage, betrayal and shame" felt by Irish people over a report that said clerical child abuse was covered-up, the Vatican has said.

In a statement, issued after Pope Benedict XVI met Irish Church leaders on Friday, the pope was said to be "disturbed and distressed".

A report found church leaders covered up child abuse in Dublin for decades.

He will write a pastoral letter to the Irish people about sexual abuse and the Vatican's response to the crisis.

"The Holy Father was deeply disturbed and distressed by its contents," the Vatican statement said.

"He wishes once more to express his profound regret at the actions of some members of the clergy who have betrayed their solemn promises to God, as well as the trust placed in them by the victims and their families, and by society at large."

The Pope summoned the Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, to Rome after the Vatican was criticised for failing to respond to the Murphy inquiry.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Homosexuals within Prevent the Church from Reacting to Moves to Oppose Homosexual Legistlation: Ireland

Homosexual marriage legistlation is a way to promote acceptance for homosexuals while their Episcopal enablers air their concerns about Global Warming and the press vents its synthetic rage on the "medieval secrecy" of the Church.

Tue 08 Dec, 2009


Despite being rocked by strikes, scandals and financial collapse, Ireland’s social transformation continues unabated. Thursday December 3 saw the latest rupture from the past as the Republic of Ireland became the latest country to begin the process of affording recognition to same-sex couples. Dáil Éireann, Ireland’s parliament, read and debated the Civil Partnership Bill 2009 introduced by Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern.

The Bill would, if passed, grant same-sex couples rights in relation to domestic violence, residential tenancies, succession, refugee law, pensions, medical care, access to state benefits and immigration.

Opposition to the Bill was muted. Minister Ahern has told his colleagues, Fianna Fáil lawmakers, concerned about the Civil Partnership Bill that he is ruling out a “freedom of conscience” amendment that would allow any organisations run people offended by homosexuality, such as Church halls and wedding photographers, to consider same-sex couples unmarried.

The Bill’s passage into law this month is virtually assured because of strong backing by opposition parties. However, reaction to the Bill from gay rights organisations has been mixed.

While many campaigners have welcomed the move, MarriagEquaility, a group that campaigns for full recognition of same-sex marriage, says the bill does not go far enough and promotes discrimination against gays and lesbians.

“Civil partnership without the option to marry sends a clear message out to the public that the government do not consider gay and lesbian relationships to be equal. Civil partnership, without a civil marriage option, promotes inequality and may contribute to homophobia,” said MarriagEquality director Moninne Griffith.


Read more...

Balding Rock Diva and Priestess Comments on Church



What is even more bizarre than her pending comeback, is the elderly rocker's claim to speak for "Irish Aritists" and like a lot of poorly educated media personalities, express her anger and frustration about something in which she seems to have a vested interest, but very little undertanding.

We are angry at the child abuse engaged in by Irish "Artists", whose music corrupts more than it ennobles. Considering their tawdriness, and bad examples, Rock Stars should remain silent on moral issues like this.


IrishCentral editors received an email last night from Irish singer Sinead O'Connor — who once infamously ripped a photo of Pope John Paul II on "Saturday Night Live" in a bizarre protest against the Catholic Church — in which she rips into the Church again, and with seething rage.

In the email, which longtime Irish Voice music writer Mike Farragher verified is genuine in a telephone call with the star, O'Connor, 49, says she speaks "on behalf of all Irish artists" in protest against the child and sex-abuse scandal in which the Irish Catholic Church is currently embroiled.

As angry as her "letter to the editor" is, O'Connor went even farther in her conversation this morning with Farragher.

I feel strongly that we are proud of our faith and feel completely betrayed,” she told him. “They are withholding documents still. When they are asked to produce anything, there has been no reply, not even a refusal.

"'The Pope does not comment on these matters’ is what they say. That has made people even angrier. There is talk about calling for a boycott of Mass next Sunday. It will send a message if no one is in the pews. There is also talk about having the Irish ambassador withdrawn from the Vatican. [If you felt strongly for your faith, you wouldn't be recommending childish displays like this.]


Read further...

Monday, December 7, 2009

Bishop of Limerick to Resign

Now it would be nice to get rid of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin as well for his traitorous comments.

An Irish bishop is expected to resign later today in front of the pope over the clerical abuse scandal in Ireland.

Bishop of Limerick Donal Murray travelled to Rome where he will tender his resignation from the post.

His departure comes after he was singled out for criticism in the devastating report into clerical child sex abuse in the Dublin diocese, Ireland's most populous parish.

The Murphy report found that Murray reacted "inexcusably" to one known case of child abuse. He was also criticised for badly handing complaints and suspicions of further abuse of children in the city.

There has been no official reaction from the Catholic church today but the bishop told parishioners yesterday he was "reflecting on the decision he now has to make".

On Saturday the leader of Ireland's Catholics, Cardinal Seán Brady, called on all named in the report to act soon in light of the commission's findings that cover-ups of clerical child abuse had taken place in the Dublin archdiocese.

Brady is due to travel to the Vatican next week to discuss the Murphy report with Pope Benedict.Brady will be accompanied by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, the head of the church in Dublin.

Brady said that he would resign himself if a child had been abused as a result of any failure on his part.

Meanwhile Ireland's foreign minister, Michael Martin [carpetbagger], has expressed "deep disappointment" at the lack of response by the pope to the Murphy report.

The pope's representative in Ireland, Papal Nuncio Giuseppe Leanza, will be summoned to the department of foreign affairs later this week to explain why he has not responded to the report's findings. [Again, the government was more aware of the immediate situation, but they didn't do anything when they were confronted with the problem. They are just as guilty as the other liberals inside the Church who aided this deplorable situation.

The Church should hand over these liberals to the secular arm for severe temporal punishments in public if necessary.


"I think we will be pointing out that we need a substantive response," [After a while crocodile] Michael Martin said.

Link to original...

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Irish Writer Reflects on Anti-Clericalism

Irish Times

In this edited extract from John McGahern’s 1993 essay, ‘The Church and its Spire’, recently reprinted in the posthumous collection, ‘Love of the World’, the novelist recalls growing up in Ireland at a time when ‘the Church had almost total power’

I WAS born into Catholicism as I might have been born into Buddhism or Protestantism or any of the other isms or sects, and brought up as a Roman Catholic in the infancy of this small state when the Church had almost total power: it was the dominating force in my whole upbringing, education and early working life.

I have nothing but gratitude for the spiritual remnants of that upbringing, the sense of our origins beyond the bounds of sense, an awareness of mystery and wonderment, grace and sacrament, and the absolute equality of all women and men underneath the sun of heaven. That is all that now remains. Belief, as such, has long gone.

Over many years I keep returning to a letter Marcel Proust wrote to Georges de Lauris in 1903 at the height of the anti-clerical wave that swept through France:

“I can tell you at Illiers, the small community where two days ago my father presided at the awarding of the school prizes, the curé is no longer invited to the distribution of the prizes since the passage of the Ferry laws. The pupils are trained to consider the people who associate with him as socially undesirable and, in their way, quite as much as the other, they are working to split France in two. And when I remember this little village so subject to the miserly earth, itself the foster-mother of miserliness; when I remember the curé who taught me Latin and the names of the flowers in his garden; when, above all, I know the mentality of my father’s brother-in-law – town magistrate down there and anti-clerical – when I think of all this, it doesn’t seem to me right that the old curé should no longer be invited to the distribution of the prizes, as representative of something in the village more difficult to define than the social function symbolised by the pharmacist, the retired tobacco-inspector and the optician, but something which is, nevertheless, not unworthy of respect, were it only for the perception of the meaning of the spiritualised beauty of the church spire – pointing upward into the sunset where it loses itself so lovingly in the rose-coloured clouds; and which, all the same, at first sight, to a stranger alighting in the village, looks somehow better, nobler, more dignified, with more meaning behind it, and with, what we all need, more love than the other buildings, however sanctioned they may be under the latest laws.”

Proust’s plea is for tolerance and understanding that come from a deep love, a love that is vigorous and watchful:

“. . . let the anti-clericals at least draw a few more distinctions and at least visit the great social structures they want to demolish before they wield the axe. I don’t like the Jesuit mind, but there is, nevertheless, a Jesuit philosophy, a Jesuit art, a Jesuit pedagogy. Will there be an anti-clerical art? All this is much less simple than it appears.”

The Church grows in the very process of change, Proust asserts, and he argues that it had assumed an influence even over those who were supposed to deny and combat it, which could not have been foreseen in the previous century, a century during which the Catholic Church was “the refuge of ignoramuses”. He names a number of great writers of the time to show that the 19th century was not an anti-religious century. Even Baudelaire was in touch with the Church, Proust argues, if only through Sacrilege.

There is no danger, even today, of the parish priest being excluded from a school ceremony in Ireland. In any of the small towns it would be as much as a person’s social life was worth to try to keep him away, which does not make Proust’s truth less applicable. If the 18th-century church in France was “the refuge of ignoramuses”, my fear is that the Church in 20th-century Ireland will come, in time, to be seen similarly, and my involvement was when it was at the height of its power.

Read further...

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=29196

Friday, December 4, 2009

Driving all the Snakes Out of Ireland for St. Patrick's Day?

WIDESPREAD condemnation of the way the Roman Catholic bishops of the Dublin archdiocese dealt with paedophile priests over three decades culminated in a call for the expulsion of the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, over the Vatican’s failure to respond to the scandals (News, 27 November).


The independent commission established by the Irish government under Ms Justice Yvonne Murphy of the High Court examined com­plaints against 46 individual priests, involving 320 children, the majority of whom were boys. One priest admitted sexual abuse of more than 100 children.


It found that four Archbishops and several auxiliary Bishops of Dublin, including five now serving in dioceses of their own, seriously failed in their duty of protection towards children.


The Roman Catholic Church’s own rules and structures facilitated a cover-up, the report says, which included the movement of priests who were known offenders from one parish to another, thus allowing them to reoffend. It also failed to report offenders to the Garda Siochána, the police force of the Republic of Ireland, over the entire period of their tenure in office. The Gardaí, in turn, often deferred to the hierarchy by simply advising archbishops of complaints they themselves had received. RC prelates were thus re­garded as being above the law of the State.


The inquiry described the be­haviour of successive Arch­bishops of Dublin as showing “denial, arro­gance, and cover-up” over a period from the 1970s until the 1990s. The Justice Minister of Ireland, Dermot Ahern, described the report as chronicling a scandal on an astonish­ing scale, and pledged that, in the Republic, no organisation or institu­tion would be allowed to regard itself as superior to the State or its people. “A collar will protect no criminal,” he said.

Link to original...

Related Articles:

Irish Church in Trouble: Blame Liberals.

Dublin's Archbishop Silent on Catholic Teaching.

Irish Minister "demands" meeting with Nuncio.

Even Golden Brown wants to get in on the feeding frenzy and talk tough about evil in Northern Ireland.

At least Russia is more sensible than Ireland. They want to improve their relations with the Vatican. In our humble opinion, we think that Catholicism is too good for Ireland.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Dublin's Archbishop Silent on Catholic Teaching


Standing firm and joining in the maelstrom of criticism against the Church for the deeds of some of its shepherds who do not accept Catholic teaching, the Archbishop of Dublin, who's unlikely ever to make Cardinal, points an accusing finger at the Vatican, religious orders in Ireland and the Archbishop of Westminster. He is more capable of blaming everything else but the real cause. For if he accuses the Vatican of remaining silent on sex abuse, his silence on the truths the Catholic faith and the obligations of Catholic ministers points to some unsavory associations of his own that link him more closely to the pereptrators of these crimes than it does with the Church he claims to support.

In an earlier interview recorded on Off The Record, he ineptly, if deliberately, fumbles the ball in support of Catholic teaching about homosexuality:

Interviewer: You can say yes or no to my question: do you think that people -- homosexual people -- who engage in homosexual sexual relations are engaged in an intrinsic moral evil?

Archbishop: I would not make a judgment, again, on ... on ... on ... on ... on individual people. I have no idea
.


Following the sports analogy, he seems to have made an assist more recently, since he became the Arcbishop of Dublin in 2004, for government prosecutors who have lain greedy eyes on the possessions of the Church; he's done this while being viewed by the liberal press, whose causes of globalism, "climate change" and social justice, he embraces and supports.

But this recent, irresponsible public statement by his auxilliary Bishop puts him at a war footing with the hierarchy:

Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The Vatican’s failure to cooperate with a panel investigating the sexual abuse of children by priests in Ireland is “very regrettable,” said an auxiliary Roman Catholic bishop of Dublin, Eamonn Walsh.

“I’m very disappointed with this failure to respond” to the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation, Walsh said in a telephone interview today. “I am surprised with the attitude, it is totally unnecessary. It doesn’t tally at all with the approach of the Holy Father,” he said, referring to Pope Benedict XVI.


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This type of talk, which he participates and allows, earns him the praise of dissident voices in the United States, at NCR.

Not only has the Pope received some passive rebuke from the Archbishop of Dublin, but also Archbishop Nichols who said that the "real heroes" were the priests who cam forward and admitted their wrong doing.

He also didn't fail to criticize the religious orders of Ireland either when he began his quest for transparency.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has taken control of the information and is a definitive beneficiary of public acclaim, at least from those liberals within the Church who are using this as a means of further transformation and alteration in its Doctrines.


But perhaps it would be better if he took up the advice of Enda Kenny asking Irish Bishops to resign?

Thursday, November 26, 2009

The Irish Church is in Trouble: Blame Liberals

The furor is broiling and the Bishop of Limmerick is being criticized and so is the Catholic Church by association, but is he criticized for the right reasons and is he held accountable for the things he claims to represent? One of the sad things about this entire issue is that while wrongdoers are punished from time to time for their crimes, the finger of public opinion isn't pointed at the evils of heresy and the fact that all too many of these men are not true to their promise to be Catholic prelates, priests and religious; no, the public would rather point their fingers at the things they mistakenly view as the source of the problem. Damien Thompson has narrowed the problem down to the heresy of Jansenism and we'd point out that some of the Church's most liberal influences came from the Jansenists, particularly at the Council of Pistoia.

Liberalism notwithstanding, since heresy is a common problem, and an ancient one, the sex- abuse problem can be traced from that, and the issue of Clerical abuse is, like the heresy of Modernism, as old as the pyramids of Egypt. Although the crime itself against children is not new, the high level of conspiracy between liberal Bishops and liberal governments is of fairly recent vintage, and the most recent of all is the way that clerical abusers are punished. In olden times, they weren't just arrested, they were often given painful deaths, for as Christ said,

But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.


Yet the blame doesn't just stop there, governments, as in the times of Robespierre and Gilles de Rais,aren't blameless, in fact they aid and abet, as if they had a common interest in corrupting the youth. As the article in the Ireland Times mercifully mentions,

Ironically, the things the liberal abuse enablers in the Episcopacy, media experts and many government officials think will cure the Church are actually those same things that are generally embraced by the men who commit these crimes in the first place. No one talks about the abuse in governmental schools and compares it to the Church, much in the Church's favor.


No doubt, clerical pederasts and their Episcopal protectors are a cynical lot and men of this dark age. Secretly or openly, they often support the kinds of things which the Catholic Church has always opposed, or they support liberal causes which are in opposition to or at least are irrelevant to their mission in the first place, like the Irish Bishops Council's support for legislation addressing "Climate Change". In the meantime, while the public complains about the secrecy of the Church, its "outdated" rules and regulations, it is unwittingly gnawing and biting at the very thing that unequivocally condemns these personal sins in the first place, personal sins, frankly, that many liberals are unwilling to admit.

This was evident in the case of Roman Polanski who many liberals and media elites wanted to go on unpunished. It brings to mind that occasion, recounted by Simone de Beauvoir, when Sartre remitted Camus for having a mistress who'd collaborated with the Nazis, saying that all morality is collective, no doubt, he had his own Nazi collaboration in mind.

But never mind all that, no one's going to address the issue of personal sin, heresy and hypocrisy here, at least no one in the courts and the great majority of the victims, they've got their eyes on the wealth and spiritual power of the Church: the one they only dimly understand because they are materialists.

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Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Divisive Liberals over Celibate Priests


In what could be a scene from a Lasse Hallstrom film, a 50 year old Irish priest in an romantic locale, falls in love and tells his congregation who respond with a heartfelt standing-o. He breaks with tradition, like a man who turns his back on the tumult and chaos of a tired but loyal wife and riotous children for another woman, he's turned his back on the priesthood to which he was commited for 20 years.

It would be easy to spit on him in print. Could those who've met his departure with the cheers in the closing scene of an adolescent feel-good coming of age film really understand what this man has done? Do they understand the priesthood?

What is greater in scope in the treatment of this story is that there are others, mostly comfortable elitist journalists and liberal priests, who want to make this issue and others like it, with its subjective emotional mental states, self-realization and betrayals, into something else. These men, many of whom aren't actually Catholic, want to determine how the Church is run. Their spite is palpable and it's what has always given us an inkling of the truth of the Catholic Church's claims to be what She is, "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic".

They say that celibacy is a ridiculous rule and that the new incoming Anglicans will call all of this into question. The only thing that's certain is that any avenue of attack will do. Like the crowd that mocked our Lord at Calvary, a diabolical tumult will sound from the electronic media whose malice and desire to corrupt can reach unto every hearth and twist men's minds and make them unwhole; make them unwholesome.


The decision of Londonde cleric Fr Sean McKenna to leave the priesthood because he is in a relationship with a woman has raised again the issue of celibacy within the Catholic Church. It is obvious from the reception given to Fr McKenna by his congregation when he broke the news to them on Sunday that he was much admired as a priest and that that admiration follows him into his life as a lay person. The sadness that many people feel is that he had to choose between his vocation and his new relationship.

The Catholic Church has for centuries held the view that priests must be celibate. That, like its strict views on issues such as abortion and divorce and the ordination of women, is one of the attractions of the Church to those seeking certainties in their lives. However, others see celibacy as an outmoded restriction on the lives of priests.

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Diogenes comments here...

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Irish Bishops Conference gets Environmental

Wanting to engage the liberal politics of environmentalism, the Irish Bishops give a lending hand to the social engineering implicit in such arrangements. These environmental programs are of dubious value, but contain the seeds of increasing the power of central government and legistlating the false morality of collectivist progressivism. Just who's running these Bishop's conferences anyway?

Archbishop Dermot Clifford, Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, today launched The Cry of the Earth, a pastoral reflection on climate change from the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference. The launch took place in St Francis of Assisi Primary School in Belmayne, Dublin, beside Father Collins Park, Ireland's first wholly sustainable park.

Launching The Cry of the Earth Archbishop Clifford said: “We are all stewards of God’s creation. As political leaders from around the globe meet in Copenhagen next month for the UN Framework Conference on Climate Change to decide on a new global climate change deal, the Bishops of Ireland wish to raise awareness of our vital responsibility toward sustaining the environment. We need to protect the environment today and on behalf of future generations. Our response needs to be at an individual, community and governmental level.

“The Cry of the Earth, with an accompanying DVD, has been sent to all parishes and is available on: www.catholicbishops.ie. It reflects on our Christian responsibility towards the environment and outlines the scientific analysis of climate change, the theological and ethical principles as to why we as Christians have a duty to respond, and practical advice as to how we can act now to sustain the environment.”

Archbishop Clifford continued: “When the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, published his encyclical Caritas in Veritate in July, he reminded us that the ‘environment is God’s gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole … The Church has a responsibility towards creation and she must assert this responsibility in the public sphere.’”

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