Diarmuid Martin, 74, the most influential Catholic prelate in Ireland, said in an interview with The Irish Times on April 22 that there's still "a lot of anger" about the way the Church has handled the abuse crisis "but you can't whitewash it." Read more

I'd call that inspiring magnanimity, or even a New Testament moment of be-kind-to-your-persecutors grace.

For the Church has, and still does, consider Norris and his fellow homosexuals a "disordered" crew.

Yet when Norris first saw the newly elected Pope Francis at the balcony in St. Peter's Square, "when he pushed away the man who was trying to decorate him like a Christmas tree and said ‘buonasera‘ (good evening) and commanded silence from that vast audience, that was terribly impressive …. I suddenly had a leap of heart."

So said Norris in an interview last week with Jim Braude and me on our WGBH-Boston radio show.

And his admiration for this "wonderful" pope has only increased as Norris has watched Francis help the homeless and migrants and go after Vatican bank corruption and financial systems favoring the rich over the poor.

"Here is a man who got down in a prison and washed the feet of women prisoners," said Norris, who then called Francis that "beacon of hope around the world — although he's not great on gay rights."

Not great on the cause of Norris's life, the senator conceded, chuckling.

Yet Norris is still willing to publicly call Francis a powerful force for good, no matter how that might irk gay partisans demanding all-or-nothing allegiance.

Norris then lamented the Church's declining influence as a moral force in Ireland, blaming not just its sexual abuse cover-up, but also what he called its dismal mid-level management team.

Both Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI appointed cardinals and bishops who "are very conservative and really pretty mediocre intellectually and out of touch with modern reality." No vision, Norris said.

Francis, however, is both a visionary and a "very humble man." Continue reading

• Margery Eagan, spirituality columnist for Crux, is a writer and commentator on current affairs.

At a Catholic leadership conference in Melbourne last month, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin spoke of a young curate who recently told his parish priest he was not happy with some things the Pope had said.

The young priest felt they "were not in line with what he had learned in the seminary".

And the young priest suggested some of Francis's comments were "making the faithful insecure and even encouraging those who do not hold the orthodox Catholic beliefs to challenge traditional teaching".

Dr Martin said his immediate response was that it was the curate whose security was being upset.

The young priest was not the only one "upset by the way Pope Francis speaks about some things", the archbishop continued.

"There are those who say that he is a communist because of his concern for the poor and his trenchant criticism of some aspects of today's market economy".

However, the archbishop concluded that the problem was "with us, with all of us".

"We all fall into the temptation of reading Pope Francis superficially and selectively.

"All of us are pleased with what Pope Francis says when he says things we like."

But Pope Francis's thought is subtle and full of nuances, as seen in The Joy of the Gospel, and very often people don't pick up on these and miss what the Pope is trying to say, Dr Martin cautioned.

Fr Seamus Ahearne of the Association of Catholic Priests said the Church in Ireland needs to hear more comments like Archbishop Martin's.

He said the archbishop's concern about the "young curate" was a familiar one as many were concerned that the few young priests there are in the Irish Church appear to embrace a very traditionalist view of Church.

They are "so locked into a past model of priesthood" he commented and said this manifested itself in "the way that they dress up, the way they celebrate Mass, and in their views".

Sources

• The Tablet
• The Irish Times
• Image: The Journal

The Irish Church must stop trying to be a "spiritual Tesco", said Bishop Donal McKeown, who was installed as Bishop of Derry in April.

Instead it should re-focus on re-organising itself in order to serve a population who are unaware of the Gospel, Bishop McKeown said.

He told The Tablet the Church can no longer try to offer "all possible services" in order to keep its "market share".

The approach of some dioceses in Austria is a better way, the bishop said.

In these dioceses, priests do not offer Masses for individuals who have died whenever people request them.

Instead, they offer such Masses weekly or monthly.

"What we are looking at is not simply how do we reorganise the structures of Church and the delivery mechanisms," Bishop McKeown said.

"But how do we actually envision a new ecclesiology for a different environment, where the majority of the population in Ireland haven't really heard the Gospel story," he continued.

He criticised members of the Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland for what he called their negativity and depressing views about the various challenges facing the Church, such as the decline in priest numbers.

Rather, he said, the trend was evidence of the end of a particular model of Church and ought to be seen as an opportunity.

"I am keen to find new ways forward rather than say it is terrible and all this is going to go wrong."

Referring to Pope Francis's Evangelii Gaudium, he said it was important for the local church to discern its way forward.

He said people in Ireland see the Church as a series of things you do or a series of isolated teachings, but in many cases there was no deep personal commitment to faith.

"We are looking at not just how we deliver the services, but how we are Church in a different way," the bishop explained.

He said his priority for Derry was to have a "diocese talking to itself about its mission".

Sources

• The Tablet
• BBC
• Image: Irish Independent

Consider especially those who are now in their 60s, after a life of service to their church.

They were seminarians in the heady days of Vatican II when everything seemed possible.

They managed to survive the aftermath of was Humanae Vitae and continued to preach and counsel, to lead the sacred rites and to be faithful leaders of their flocks.

Some have directed retreats or preached parish missions; others have ministered to the young in schools and youth clubs; all have lived by the dictum that service to the least — the poor and mentally ill, the prisoners and prostitutes, the homeless and the addicted — is service to their god. But while their life has been exemplary, they cannot help being stained by association with those who have disgraced their calling.

In addition to this many priests see themselves as being under siege from an old guard in the Vatican.

As this is written, six Irish priests have been silenced so that they cannot hear confessions or officiate at baptisms, weddings or funerals.

There is some official term like 'had their faculties removed' but that sounds too painful.

Two are Redemptorists; the others are a Passionist, an Augustinian, a Capuchin and a Marist — all order men.

Tony Flannery, one of the Redemptorists thus silenced, has written of his experience. Continue reading.

Source: Eureka Street

Image: Eureka Street

For decades Ireland was looked on as one of the world's most deeply and stably Catholic countries. Today Ireland finds itself, along with other parts of Europe, being classified as "post-Catholic." Everyone has his or her own definition of the term. You can fully define post-Catholic only in terms of the Catholicism that has been displaced. Irish Catholicism has its own unique history and culture. Renewal in the Irish church will not come from imported plans and programs; it must be home-grown.

Ireland does, of course, share the same currents of secularization with other countries of the Western world and thus shares many of the same challenges. There are specific challenges within Europe; there are specific challenges common to the English-speaking world. Yet the fact that Ireland is an English-speaking country does not mean it can be put into the same category as the United States and Great Britain. Continue reading

Sources

• America
• Image: Orbis Catholicus Secundus

The size of the crowd in part was a response to the recent silencing of Irish priests.

One of those silenced, Fr Tony Flannery, was part of the leadership team of the ACP.

A second, Fr Brian D'Arcy, was a weekly columnist in tabloid newspaper,The Sunday World. It turned out that someone in the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith had been trawling through decades of the paper to check D'Arcy's articles.

Two other stories provided a backdrop to the meeting.

One was a TV program which revealed that in 1975 when he was a bishop's secretary, Cardinal Sean Brady, now Primate of Ireland, was given the names of some boys abused by Fr Brendan Smyth during a canonical investigation, and failed to report this either to the parents or to the police.

Smyth, the abuser being investigated, continued to prey on children for a further 18 years.

In fact the Cardinal had passed all the information up to his bishop and was devastated when he learnt that Smyth had not been stopped.

He rejected calls for his resignation. Several commentators pointed out that had he called for a discussion on women priests the Vatican would have promptly given him his marching orders, as Bishop Morris in Australia found to his cost.

A second story concerned Fr Kevin Reynolds.

RTE, the national broadcaster, had accused him in a program of fathering a child by an underage woman in Africa.

Reynolds denied the charge and offered to take a paternity test in advance of the program.

This was refused.

Eventually, RTE was forced to publish an abject apology, pay an undisclosed sum for libel, and was subjected to a withering public report. Several staff resigned. Continue reading

Sources

• Brian Lennon S.J. in Eureka Street
• Image: Enlighthened Catholicism