Masses Today

6.30: Michael, Breege & Paraic Hanley, (Anniv)
11.00: Joe Dolan (Bowling Green), (2nd Anniv)
6.30: Vincent Mitchell, (Anniv)





Events This Week






AS I WAS SAYING...

For many years now the effective leader of the Irish Church has been the Archbishop of Dublin rather than his counterpart at Armagh. (The latter has had his own unique set of issues to deal with.) The style and substance of the Dublin leader seems to affect the entire Irish Church. "If Dublin sneezes....." Whether by accident or design, the Dublin Archbishops tended to give strong, austere, authoritarian leadership. Of course the authoritarian shenanigans of John Charles McQuaid have sprouted legendary legs since his death some 30 years ago. Despite the fact that he has long gone, he is still regarded as the béte noire of liberal Catholicism.

His immediate successor, Dermot Ryan, emerged from a very different stable. A Professor of Eastern Languages at UCD, he came to office with supposedly liberal credentials. However, it would appear that these liberal spurs were purchased cheaply. He was a (sotte voce) critic of his immediate predecessor. Within a very short time the liberal veneer had been well and truly shed. By the time he left office he was regarded as every bit as authoritarian as John Charles had ever been.

The present incumbent, Cardinal Desmond Connell, was also plucked from the academic groves of UCD. His area of specialisation was the pastorally unpromising paddock of medieval philosophy. It was a most surprising appointment. And he was singularly unfortunate in that the child abuse scandals broke on his watch. By his own admission, the scandals 'ruined his reign' as archbishop. By this, we must presume he meant that he was distracted from dealing with other vital issues. But he handled the child abuse issue badly. He responded in the manner in which he was trained: concede and reveal as little as possible. He looked uncomfortable in front of the camera. He came across as hounded, harried. The wrong man was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

His successor, Diarmuid Martin, gave his first major speech since his appointment this week. He differs radically from his predecessor in style at least. He is very much at home in front of the cameras and he fields questions in a very self-assured manner. He comes across as confident without being arrogant, whereas his predecessor came across as arrogant without being confident. Obviously, his 25 years experience as a high-flying diplomat have not been wasted on him!

He was critical of what he called 'an ecclesially correct' church, a clerically closed church. He spoke of the need for a humble church, a listening church, a 'mission' church. He was explicit in naming the most obvious deficiency in today's church:
Today the Church must have a masculine and a feminine face. People should be surprised if women are not there at the centre of its evangelising mission. I am acutely aware of the expectations of so many women in the Church today, of their impatience and at times their anger at promises not being fulfilled. ....A Church deprived of the evangelising contribution of women is working on less than one cylinder. Our parish communities and diocesan structures need to change. Prejudices and fears by men, especially need to be addressed.

It was a comprehensive, 15-page statement, touching upon the important issues facing the Irish Church today. It was an informed, nuanced talk, and you got the sense that he wasn't looking over his shoulder to Rome. May he continue down this promising path!

-Dick Lyng.




AUTHORITY AND CONTROL

At the moment the control of the Church is exclusively male and is in the hands of old, or at best older, people. Yet whatever theological opinions may exist on the question of making priests of women, there is no theological opinion that restricts jurisdiction or authority to men. Women are however effectively excluded from the general running of the Church, mainly for unexamined historical reasons that have not taken the massive entry of women into education into account or the new sensitivities to gender roles that have grown among both women and men. Not least, the refusal to permit public discussion of the ordination of women goes on being a running sore on the side of the Church: on the one hand, the refusal fails to understand that the ordination of women is a new question that cannot be resolved from the past, and, on the other hand, the heavy-handedness of the refusal damages the credibility of freedom of thought and expression in the Church. It must sadly be said that while the thrust of Vatican II was to engage with the world, thus ending a long period of disengagement, today the Church's leaders seem on the way back to a pre-conciliar position that disowns many of the advances that have been made.

Coming back to the question of organisation: there is no sacramental or jurisdictional reason for structures that perpetuate the role of the old in a modern world where changes in roles are the norm and not the exception. Once bishops were required to hand in their resignations at the age of seventy five, the principle of limited terms of office for bishops was accepted. But it makes much more sense to have severely limited, if under certain conditions renewable, terms of office for bishops as has been the case for long in religious orders and congregations. Not only would such changes open up offices for new blood and get rid of manifestly bad appointments but they would prevent the conflation of office and person that is the bane of much ecclesiastical exercise of authority today.

-James O'Connell, The Furrow, January, 2004.




LIAM MELLOWS HURLING CLUB

The annual Mass for deceased club members will take place in the Clubhouse on Wednesday next, February 18th at 8.00pm. All members, together with their families are invited. Refreshments will be served afterwards.






MEMORABLE QUOTES






PERSEPHONE

I

I see as through a skylight in my brain
The mole strew its buildings in the rain,
The swallows turn above their broken home
And all my acres in delirium.

II

Straitjacketed by cold and numskulled
Now sleep the welladjusted and the skilled
The bat folds its wing like a winter leaf,
The squirrel in its hollow holds aloof

III

The weasel and ferret, the stoat and fox
Move hand in glove across the equinox.
I can tell how softly their footsteps go
Their footsteps borrow silence from the snow.

-Michael Longley.






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