The liberal revolution, where there is room for every view on earth - except the teaching of the Church.
Today in Dublin the Association of Catholic Priests will meet, with a membership claiming to represent a quarter of priests in Ireland, according to Radio 4's "Today" programme this morning. They include among their objectives: allowing the divorced to remarry; the election of bishops; change in liturgical language and practice to be "inclusive and accessible to all"; married clergy and the ordination of women; and a general liberalisation of the Church's teaching on a variety of matters to fall into line with norms and mores of secular society. You can read their "Objectives" here couched in seemingly innocuous and polite terms but in fact calling for a revolution.
Some might think that a large group of priests calling for such a revolt has come out of nowhere quite suddenly but I think you would find many similar views long held by many priests in the UK as well. My own experience is that they are not uncommon views among many priests. Those of us who try to hold to the Church's official teaching have long been branded as "traditional", "conservative" and "reactionary" precisely because the centre "opinion" has long ago shifted to a stance far from what you will find actually written in the Code, the Catechism, the rubrics, or orthodox teaching.
These revolutionary views have been propagated at the seminaries and disseminated in parishes to the laity, quietly and unobtrusively for years without being challenged by the hierarchy - and in fact, often encouraged. Now in Ireland they are organising and banding together to formally lobby for these now entrenched revolutionary views. So prevalent that they now feel strong enough to come out fully into the open and make an outright challenge to Orthodoxy.
10 comments:
These people are clearly cancerous fraudsters - happy to take the money of the faithful and then feed them stones instead of bread whilst spreading their vile ideas. Now might be a good moment to say to the whole lot of them - thank you, but no thank you. If you don't like the rules go elsewhere. The Church in Ireland is rotten from top to bottom. Some serious pruning and weedkilling is needed in the vineyard of the Lord there.
Patrick Cannon
Clericalism alive and well in Ireland, in spite of Vatican II. I stand to be shot down but I have to ask why it is that whenever there are problems with fidelity to the faith in the English speaking world there's frequently an Irish connection.
It breaks my heart to hear and see dissent such as is proposed (Austria too).
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis
Getting a full airing on BBC both radio and TV. A Carmelite nun friend of mine [RIP] let me have tape of a conference given to them by a diocesan clergy worthy - it was appalling and they were clearly being misled. But as they were 'Enclosed' they had no other source of information. An exception, a local ex parish priest was available to them, he so persecuted when he 'retired' chose to live in a council flat, than abide in a clergy house.
At the silver ordination anniversary of a priest friend, his bishop preached against the ordained priesthood and for a lay priesthood. He had been rector of a major seminary.
During my last visit some ten years ago, it was obvious then that the Catholic Church in Ireland had long since collapsed. Congregations had dwindled and quasi- religious groups were spreading.
Liberal/Modernist ideas flooded in to Ireland after Vatican II. The clergy, including those now agitating in the Association of Catholic Priests, did little counter this and probably contributed to it. The rigidity of traditional Irish Catholicism has proved to be a profound weakness. The recent abuse scandal, a symptom of these ideas, has been but the last straw.
The ACP, ranging from the confused to outright dissenters, and obsessed with the “Spirit of Vat 11” argument, when the rest of us have long since moved on, are now appalled by the mess their philosophy has created, but their solution is to apply more of the same old poison. Sadly these priests and their lay followers are probably now lost to the Church, but such a cleansing may not be a bad thing.
What is important now is care for the remaining intuitive Catholic faithful, dispirited and probably heterodox as they are, through no fault of their own.
It is to them that the Vatican and the Church in Ireland must direct attention by offering inspired spiritual renewal and leadership, in continuity with the teaching of the Magisterium.
I always thought that priests took a vow of obedience! Where is their obedience to the Magisterium of the Church when ALL Popes have said that women priests are NEVER to be on the agenda?
Thanks to Almighty God there are still some good and holy Priests and Bishops.We must remember our Blessed Lords promise that the gates of hell will not prevail.
As is usually the case it is the ‘squeaky wheel that gets the grease’. I question the membership numbers the ACP claims. Has anyone seen a listing of the supposed 800+ priests in this movement? I haven’t. The media are only too willing to talk up the agenda of the movement as it suits their anti-Church and secular agenda. Regardless, even one member is one too many.
But let us not be taken in by this agenda and the media’s exploitation of it. The majority of priests in Ireland are faithfully carrying out their vocations and taking care of their flocks. You won’t read about them in the media because this is not ‘news’. It is not headline making and it doesn’t sell newspapers.
The vocal, dissenting priests are lionized by the media and those with no love for the Church. They have been enabled by pusillanimous bishops and religious superiors who have had neither the will nor the courage of their convictions to rein them in – or, worse still - tacitly agreed with them. And while Mass attendance would seem to indicate a loss of faith by the majority, don’t conclude that the faith is dead there. Far from it!
In 1968 when it seemed like a ‘majority’ of clergy, theologians and bishops dissented from Pope Paul VI’s mere reiteration of Catholic Dogma with Humanae Vitae, it seemed like the dissenters had taken over the Church. The Church was severely damaged but She weathered that storm then. She will weather this one too. Judas too, was vocal and initially seemed to prevail – but he was the one who lost.
“…et portae inferi non prevalebunt.”
I went on their site and left a comment begging them not to persist in their disobedience and schism, but some coward deleted it. So much for the dialogue they talk about...
Dear and Blessed Mother please bring them back!
maryclare :-)
As an Irish Catholic I find this very sad. However, there is hope, Fr. Flannery (founder of the ACP) has said that he is part of a dying breed, the new priests coming out of the seminary are much more conservative.
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