In other news, Nuncio is a Catholic

Or, when is news not news? I note with bemusement this article from the Irish Independent that tells us There will never be any women priests, insists Papal Nuncio. If you take the bother to read the story, you'll see that the actual news part of the article doesn't appear until the 9th paragraph of the story when we learn that the Archbishop Charles Brown (Papal Nuncio to Ireland) was in Killarney for celebrations commemorating Msgr Hugh O'Flaherty's 'escape line' in war-time Rome. So much for the WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN and WHY being given to us promptly. We're eventually given a short quote about the nuncio's assessment of the Church in Ireland, but that just squeaks in at the very end. We're never even given a hint that the nuncio might have said anything about Msgr O'Flaherty. And we're never told why and in what context the nuncio made his statement about women priests. Was it a question fired to him by a journalist? Was it in the context of a speech or homily? Did the nuncio raise the question or did someone else. Now, the article as it stands is certainly factual - I have no doubt but that the nuncio's words are being recorded correctly. But is it news? It's not news in the sense that any half-informed reader will already know that the Pope's man in Ireland is almost certain to follow the orthodox line on things. If the nuncio were to say other than he did, THAT would be news. Now, I would imagine that most readers who have an interest in the Church in Ireland would actually rather learn what assessment the nuncio has of his 9 months in the country. They might or might not agree with it, but it'd certainly be more worthy of the word 'news' than the non-news the Indo prefers to serve up. Personally, I'd also like to know what Archbishop Brown had to say to the people at the celebrations about Msgr O'Flaherty and his wartime exploits. Both O'Flaherty and the nuncio both worked in the same Vatican department. Perhaps that'd be an interesting angle to interview the nuncio about.

I suppose the question I would have is what purpose the article has. I really don't think it's supposed to inform us. Consciously or unconsciously, the editorial team at the Independent seem more interested in reinforcing the picture of a hierarchy who have little to say about a limited range of issues rather than giving a full and accurate picture of what's going on and what church leaders actually say. Is it that the journalistic and editorial staff lack the knowledge to report on the real news here, or is it that they just don't want to?

I came across this lovely story today - an account of the Pope visiting some senior citizens at a home for the elderly in Rome. He speaks to those present as 'an elderly man visiting his peers' and gives a beautiful reflection on old age. If you were to only read the Irish secular press, you'd get the idea that pretty much all the Pope does is talk about 'sex', and when he does, it's usually to 'condemn' something. I'm sure that if this story IS picked up by the secular press, it'll probably be spun as the Pope 'slamming euthanasia'. I guess the 'love one another' angle doesn't sell papers.

It's important that we be aware how our news is filtered for us by media organizations and how one of the great benefits of the internet is the opportunity it gives us to circumvent the concious or unconscious ideological filters of the mainstream media. We need to question why particular stories are presented for our attention and why others are not. And we need to realise that in Ireland the vast majority of practising Catholics rely on the mainstream media to let them know what's happening in the church beyond the bounds of their own parish.

A final comment - I feel obliged in justice to the reporter whose byline appears in the Independent to point out that I've noticed her report reasonably well on religious and regional news before. One can never be sure whether a news article reflects the work of the journalist or the editorial staff.

Fr Brendan Hoban & the Eucharistic Famine

Fr Brendan Hoban wrote an article in the Irish Times a couple of days ago entitled 'We priests have earned right to say what needs to be said about state of church'. (I hadn't noticed that anyone was denying him that right...) Anyway, it's more of the same, throwing out buzz-words (as he says himself!) about the 2nd Vatican Council (a people’s church, co-responsibility, collegiality) rather than engaging with the actual intent and documents of the Council. Anyway, Fr Hoban claims the right to put out some of his suggestions about how the Church might. In particular, he suggests female Cardinals and female heads of Vatican Congregations in order, seemingly, to give women 'a lift'. (Is that really his best argument? Then he argues ordaining 'viri probati' (men of proven worth) as priests 'with minimal formation or instruction, as presently with ordained deacons' in order to solve the problem of their not being enough clergy to celebrate Mass in our parishes in the next few years.

Now, I don't want to dismiss Fr Hoban's suggestions out of hand entirely. Personally, I would argue that his idea of 'Female Cardinals' is a non-runner as the office of Cardinal carries with it the idea of being part of the clergy of Rome and, by virtue of that, one of the Pope's close collaborators. Even the so-called 'Lay Cardinals' of previous centuries had received tonsure and minor orders making them clergy - even if for all intents and purposes they lived as laity. As the office of Cardinal is not of apostolic origin, but rather arose in medieval times, one could certainly imagine an evolution of the Cardinalate in such a way that it was open to laypeople (male or female). However, given that the meaning and purpose of the office is rooted in the concept of being a member of the Roman clergy, I don't quite see whether such a development would be wise or natural.

Likewise, the question of women heading up Vatican Congregations is something that could well happen. The key issue is not whether women can be appointed to these posts, but whether laypeople in general can be. Without going into the canonical and theological side of things, some posts in the Vatican can only be held by clergy because they carry with them authority over areas of Church life that belong properly to those who have received ordination. (The clearest example is that of the Apostolic Penitentiary who deals with issues to do with the confessional, but there are plenty of other examples.) Other posts do not involve that authority and would be open to laypeople - male or female.
As a matter of historical fact, laypeople have been appointed Undersecretaries at a number of Vatican Congregations - that's the No.3 spot in the organizational chart. Whether a layperson could be appointed to a higher position is a matter of debate - particularly given what Vatican II has to say about the way in which the task of Church governance belongs to those in Holy Orders. This is an issue that commentators such as Fr Hoban don't seem to wish to address. Vatican II taught very clearly on the role of the clergy (and Bishops in particular) and their responsibility in governing the Church in such a way that the idea of assigning particular roles and offices to laypeople runs directly counter to the teaching of the Council.
Despite articulating the vision of the Church as People of God, the Council also clarified the respective roles and responsibilities of clergy and laity, whilst many of those claiming to speak according to the 'spirit of the council' seem to want to clericalize the laity and laicize the clergy. Additionally, Fr Hoban's suggestion of appointing women as Cardinals or Heads of Congregations to give women a life strikes me as tokenism. I'd much rather a serious engagement with the questions of how we clergy can empower our parishioners in fulfilling their Christian vocations in the world, exploring ways in which we can collaborate more effectively with our parishioners and draw on their expertise and insights in such a way that our own ministry is more effective.

Fr Hoban's suggestion that viri probati (laymen of proven worth) should be ordained priests in order to cope with the shortage of priests is also an idea which might be worth some consideration, but not in the manner suggested by him.
To be frank, I wonder what regard Fr Hoban holds his own priesthood in if he believes that in the future he should be replaced by someone suitable chosen from his parish who is given 'minimal formation or instruction'[!!!] and is then ordained.
(I should also point out that his suggestion that the 4 year training programme candidates for the permanent diaconate receive is 'minimal' strikes me as hugely offensive to the candidates and their formators.)
Anyway, regarding this question of viri probati, it should be recognised that in the first centuries of the Church, men of worth in the local Christian community were chosen and ordained for ministry. (St Ambrose wasn't even baptised when the people of Milan picked him as their bishop!)  This stands in contrast to the model whereby men discern a calling or attraction to the priestly life, spend years in training and formation, are ordained and then assigned by the Bishop to serve a particular local community. One can certainly see the attraction of communities being led by one of their own whose integrity of life and suitability for ordination is shown by a lifetime of Christian witness (perhaps as a husband and father) and a demonstrated commitment to the Church and the Church's mission as a layperson.
There is certainly food for thought there, and the advantages and disadvantages of such a model of priestly ministry should certainly be discussed. There are plenty of theological and practical reasons not to re-adopt that model as well.
The point I would made is that the particulars of Fr Hoban's suggestion are ill-founded. Fr Hoban makes the suggestion that the viri probati model be adopted in order to prevent a Eucharistic famine - the prospect of there not being enough priests to celebrate Mass. The fact that he believes that the ordination of these men can happen with 'minimal formation' suggests that he sees ordination in this context as being something that facilitates the valid celebration of sacraments and little more. The picture he's putting forward is of these men getting enough training to say Mass, whilst presumably the ministry of leadership and teaching in the parish is entrusted to someone else. One would have thought that Fr Hoban could offer a better picture of priesthood than that of 'sacramental dispenser'. I would challenge Fr Hoban to find anything in the Second Vatican Council's theology of Holy Orders to justify such a vision of priesthood.
If he looks, he'll find that our sacramental ordination is intended to conform us to Christ the Head and Shepherd of the Church and that our vocation is to assist in that ministry of teaching, governing and sanctifying that Christ entrusted to the Apostles, their successors the Bishops and, through them, to priests as co-workers with the Bishops. Fr Hoban's idea of ordaining minimally trained laymen as priests in order to keep the Mass schedule going reminds me of the worst caricature of medieval clergy who had just enough Latin to enable them to celebrate Mass after Mass in the chantry for the souls of the dead.

To my mind, if we want to tackle the vocations problem we need to tackle the faith problem first. I'm in my mid-30s - a pretty rare demographic for priests in today's Ireland. If things carry on as they do, in a couple of decades time, I'll have the pastoral responsibility for an area currently served by (probably) 3 or 4 priests at the moment. However, I do not see the Irish Church's problem as being primarily one of vocations - it's one of faith. I don't have the figures to prove it, but I would estimate that the number of vocations to the priesthood and religious life in the under-40 age group is proportionate and reasonable when you consider how few of that age-group are sincere, involved and practising Catholics.
 That's the first and primary problem - forming people to be followers of Jesus Christ who believe and worship with the Church. Certainly we still have a majority of people who engage occasionally with the Church - for First Communions, weddings, funerals and so on, but if we don't form genuine disciples, then we have no reason to expect that there will be priests. As Pope Benedict said to the American Bishops, "Let us be quite frank: the ability to cultivate vocations to the priesthood and the religious life is a sure sign of the health of a local Church." We need to deal with that problem first.

Looking positively 
Rather than just carp about what Fr Hoban wrote, I feel as though I should add something positive to the discussion. I don't have the same number of years of priesting under my belt as Fr Hoban does, but just as the young man Elihu 'has his spake' in the Book of Job after his elders have said their peace, I'll put forward a few observations as one of the younger priests in the country and someone whose faith was formed in the 1980s and 1990s and who discerned a vocation to the priesthood as some of the most shameful chapters of our history as a Church in Ireland came to light.
1. Time to Re-read Gaudet Mater Ecclesiae
We need to put the so-called 'Spirit of Vatican II' to bed. Pretty much every un-theological and counter-productive idea bubbling up these days is attributed to the Spirit of the Council rather than being rooted in the teachings of the Council itself. When Bl. John XXIII opened the council he put forward a vision of a historically aware, confident and informed Catholicism that was capable of both learning from and leavening the modern world so that people are brought to Christ. At the core of the Council was the idea of a re-discovery of scripture and the Church Fathers so that the treasure we have received from our ancestors might be passed on to the future. The Council did not ask us to develop amnesia about the teachings of the Church promulgated before 1962, but consolidated and developed them in a way which demands we understand them properly before facing into the future. In other words, we need to understand the Council according to the Hermeneutic of Continuity - the only possible & worthy hermeneutic if we believe in the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church.
2. Lessons to be Learned from the Eucharistic Congress
This year saw the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin. There has been criticism of the Congress from various viewpoints and there will be some truth in most criticisms. However, I would argue that on the whole, the Congress was a huge positive for the Church in Ireland and - if we choose to learn lessons from it - will bear much fruit.
Firstly, attendance at the Congress exceeded the figures expected by the prophets of doom. Talks and workshops were packed out and there was a great 'buzz' around the RDS during Congress week. There was a genuine desire amongst those present to learn more about their faith and to celebrate it. The lesson to be learned is as follows: If we put the effort in to it, our people do want to deepen their faith and celebrate it.
Secondly, I was quite involved in Congress preparations in my diocese. As a general pattern, in parishes where clergy and one or two interested laity were enthusiastic in promoting the Congress, people tended to make the journey to Dublin for it. In places where the clergy were cynical and didn't encourage and support their parishioners to take part, turn-out tended to be low. Probably the greatest tragedy of the Congress was meeting cynical clergy who showed up at the RDS to see what was happening, had a great time and were personally converted.
This 'conversion' happened much too late for them to be able to invite their parishioners to 'come and see' what was happening at the Congress. If those clergy of Ireland who were cynical or apathetic about the Congress had a change of heart 6 months before the Congress, the RDS wouldn't have been half big enough for the attendees. As we face into the Year of Faith, the clergy of Ireland cannot afford to be cynical about it or will will be complaining about it as a 'lost opportunity' at the end of 2013. We also need to make sure that our key lay collaborators are involved in planning and promoting activities for the year of Faith.
3. Share the Good News
Last year, the Episcopal Conference launched a National Directory for Catechesis called Share the Good News. I don't think it's made much of an impact yet, but I think it demands serious attention. It sets out a 10 year plan for parishes so that they can more effectively teach the faith. In my judgement, the content of the Directory is excellent and deals precisely with this problem of teaching the faith that is at the heart of so many of our current problems. Along similar lines, the Archdiocese of Dublin is taking steps in the right direction regarding the formation of children and parents for the sacraments. (I especially like the fact that they're encouraging parents to re-discover the sacrament of reconciliation.) More can and will need to be done, of course, but it's a positive move. Again, clergy need to 'pull together' and be supportive of these efforts to make the most of these pastoral opportunities.

I could write more about the opportunities that are out there, but I need to get an early start on my 'First Friday Calls.' If I could sum up what I want to say about the Church in Ireland in two sentences, it'd be as follows.  We need to understand that the problem we face is a problem of faith, and we won't bring people to faith unless we teach the faith. Our parishes and our pastoral activities need to have that mission of teaching as a priority these days, and Pope Benedict's calling of a Year of Faith comes at a providential time for the Church in our country.

The Princess & the Cardinal...

A few days ago, Seraphic mentioned that it was the Dianaversary - the anniversary of the late Princess Diana of Wales. The public response to her death was enormous and is popularly perceived as somehow changing the relationship between the British Monarchy and the people.  The popular narrative is that the official behaviour of the traditionalist Royals was deemed inadequate by the general public.  The press judged that the populace's grief at the loss of the 'People's Princess' was more authentic than that of the Royal family and put pressure on them to leave Scotland and come to Buckingham Palace where floral tributes were stacked high outside the railings.  Headlines such as Where is our Queen? Where is her flag? and Show us you care challenged the traditional protocol and in response, Queen Elizabeth gave orders for the Union Flag to be flown at half-mast on the day of the funeral - a break from the traditional protocol, but (more importantly) touted by press and politicians as a sign of some sort of seismic shift in relations between the Monarchy and People in Britain. It was taken to represent the public will overcoming the traditions of the Royal family and forcing the Monarchy to engage in a new way with its subjects.

Not being British, I'm not sure I can comment intelligently on the extent to which that narrative is true -  it certainly suited the newspapers to congratulate themselves as the influential and powerful mouthpieces of the British people capable of bending the will of the Queen herself and I suspect that the self-consciously modernising 'New Labour' government of Tony Blair found it a useful story as well. Regardless of whether it effected change within the Monarchy or not, that's the accepted story out there and I suspect that newspaper editors everywhere are looking to repeat the job again - to seize on something that strikes a chord with the public and seem to play an influential role bringing about change and progress.

I'm inclined to think that today's Leading Article in London's Independent newspaper is an attempt to stir up some of same emotions that swirled about at the time of Princess Diana's death.  The occasion is the death of the Archbishop Emeritus of Milan, Carlo Cardinal Martini SJ, and in particular the international attention given to his last interview (text here in Italian) where (a month before his death) he argued that the is Church behind the times and urged a re-thinking of some areas of Church life. Non-Italian speakers will find this automated translation a help in understanding what the Cardinal said.  The juicier parts of the interview have been widely reported and put out there as a challenge to Pope Benedict.  Shorn of their context, they seem to have become a rallying cry for people who had probably never heard of Cardinal Martini until last week.

The article in the Independent begins with a challenge, trying to set up its Diana-moment:

If Pope Benedict does attend the funeral in Milan of Cardinal Martini, whose body, robed and mitred, crosier at his side, was laid out for the veneration of the faithful at the weekend, it will surely be with mixed feelings. The danger of not attending the last obsequies of such a high-ranking prince of the Church is that it might appear cowardly, tantamount to a public admission that a rift had grown up between them.          

 A nice opening, but one totally detached from reality. The protocol - no matter how well-regarded or important a Cardinal might be - is that the Pope sends a delegate to funerals on his behalf.  In this case, Cardinal Comastri will attend on the Pope's behalf and read a message at the funeral. Cardinal Marini's successor, Cardinal Scola will celebrate the funeral Mass. The Independent would like to have us think that this might appear cowardly and a public admission of a rift between Pope and Cardinal - but that's only the case if you know nothing about the protocol surrounding these funerals and the absurdity of the idea that the Pope's attendance was ever a possibility.
If you look at this list of the Cardinals who have died during Pope Benedict's papacy, you'll see that between 5 and 10 Cardinals die each year. Some were close collaborators of the Pope in the Roman Curia. Others headed important dioceses throughout the world. Some were retired scholars or churchmen who were honoured by the Holy Father for their life's work. Some were men whose thought was close to that of Pope Benedict, others might called part of the 'loyal opposition' or have theological opinions which differ from the Popes.  All were - for one reason or another - significant in the life of the Church.  To the best of my knowledge, the Pope didn't attend the funerals of any of them - not even the funerals of those who worked in the Vatican and had their funeral Mass in St. Peter's with the exception of doing some of the prayers for Cardinals whose funerals were celebrated in St Peter's Basilica. The Pope was represented at all of them and he mourned their passing, but he doesn't celebrate their funeral Masses and doesn't attend them in person. I suspect that one of the reasons why he doesn't attend these funerals is precisely so as to avoid the kind of insinuation made by the Independent article - if one Cardinal is honoured by the Pope's presence at his funeral, then the Cardinal who does not have the Pope attend is immediately presumed to have been snubbed and dishonoured by the Pope. As it is not practical or possible for the Pope to honour all Cardinals with his personal presence at their funeral, then the protocol must be that he honours them all equally by sending a representative and by offering Mass himself each November for the Cardinals who died during the year.
There is also a practical point to consider - a Papal trip to Milan for Cardinal Martini's funeral would, in effect, be a pastoral visit of the Pope to that North Italian city with all the attendant diplomatic and security hullabaloo. Is it really to be expected that the necessary preparations could be accomplished in a couple of days? Or that it would even be appropriate for the Pope to take away from the funeral liturgy by the fuss which would inevitably accompany his own presence?
No, this whole false question of whether the Pope would attend Martini's funeral in Milan is either the ill-informed pondering of someone who knows next-to-nothing of Church affairs or a speculation dishonestly raised by someone who knew it was not a possibility, but wanted to fling some mud in Pope Benedict's direction with the expectation that it would stick.

The rest of the article is the usual boiler-plate criticism of the Church.

The rest of the Catholic hierarchy is afraid of its authoritarian leader, and seems unwilling even to question, let alone oppose, his hard-line views on contraception, homosexual relationships, the remarriage of divorced people in church, the admission of women to the priesthood, the abolition of clerical celibacy and a lot of other issues.

It's very easy to fulminate about Pope Benedict the 'hard-liner' and 'authoritarian leader' if you approach these issues with the presumption that the tradition of the Church has nothing to add to the discussion. It's easy to paint Pope Benedict as the big bad wolf if you set aside his evident humility and the fact that as a theologian and a Cardinal, he did indeed scrupulously and seriously question the Church's position on many of those issues. The trouble with Benedict from the Independent's point of view is that when Ratzinger/Benedict raises these questions and seriously discusses them, he doesn't come up with the answers the Independent was looking for. For example, just last June at the 'World Meeting of Families' in Milan, as part of a Q&A session, the Pope dealt with the question of Divorced and Re-married couples. Interestingly, both Cardinal Martini and Pope Benedict see engagement with and support of families in just that situation as being a key pastoral priority for the Church. In his final Cardinal Martini asked:

 The question of whether the divorced can take Communion should be reversed. How can the Church get to help with the power of the sacraments to those who have complex family situations?

 Speaking in Milan, Pope Benedict XVI dealt with precisely this problem and said:

 As regards these people - as you have said - the Church loves them, but it is important they should see and feel this love. I see here a great task for a parish, a Catholic community, to do whatever is possible to help them to feel loved and accepted, to feel that they are not “excluded” even though they cannot receive absolution or the Eucharist; they should see that, in this state too, they are fully a part of the Church.

Certainly Pope Benedict and Cardinal Martini were not in full agreement on this matter.  However, responsible journalism would do more to make clear that Pope Benedict is exercised by the same concerns for people's situations and their relationship with the Church that troubled Cardinal Martini. It is not fair to imply he is blind to these problems and that he hasn't encouraged Catholic thinkers and pastors to do their best to bring the love of Christ and His Church in seeking to respond to these pastoral situations.
I think too that the media has a responsibility to the memory of Cardinal Martini as well. Even though I profoundly disagree with some of the things said by the Cardinal and frankly believe some of them to be irresponsible and in error, it would be fairer to him and to those who hold him in high regard to report what he said fully and in context, rather than mining his interviews for stones to throw at the Pope.  At times I believe the Cardinal spoke out of line and spoke in error. I fear that in some ways he misled a great many people.  At other times, however, he raised genuine and serious questions to assist the Church in responding to the challenges of the world in a manner faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Accurate and nuanced reporting would enable us better to sift the wheat from the chaff in Martini's contribution to the debate. (Blog post corrected to take account of more accurate information received about Cardinals' funerals in St Peter's.)

Priestly Vocations in Ireland - Quick & Dirty Calculations

The Catholic Communications Office issued a press release earlier this week with the news that 12 new seminarians were beginning their studies at St Patrick's College in Maynooth this year. Needless to say, our best wishes go to these new seminarians and we pray that the Lord will lead them to discern His will for them.  However, even though their entry into seminary is 'good news' for them, their families and their dioceses, I have to agree with the point made by both Fr Gerard Dunne OP and Shane of Lux Occulta that the Irish Church has little reason to be content with these figures. Whilst, as I say, it's good news for the individuals concerned, the figure of just 12 new seminarians for the Church in Ireland is pretty pathetic.

I've discussed the figures with people off-line and I know that some dioceses (my own included) have done proper projections of priest numbers over the next couple of decades and made their clergy aware of what's down the line.  However, in my experience, when the figures are put before members of the laity there tends to be a refusal to accept them - a sort of pious state of denial and the expectation that 'things will turn around again.'  In my experience, many people don't believe there is a problem until their own local area loses a priest in the diocesan changes and even then the attitude persists that the Bishop has some kind of 'priest factory' from whence he can produce men to plug the gaps, or that the developing Church (in Africa, etc.) should be asked to provide us with clergy or even that elderly and sick priests be taken out of their nursing homes and hospitals and shuttled around the diocese every Sunday morning.

Anyway, for the sake of contributing something to the discussion, these are the 'quick and dirty' figures I put before people to give them an idea of where we're headed.
Let's look at the numbers entering Maynooth over the past 6 years:

12 in 2012, 13 in 2011; 10 in 2010; 24 in 2009; 14 in 2008; 18 in 2007.

As I understand it, those numbers are the students beginning seminary studies in St Patrick's Maynooth and their colleagues from St Malachy's in Belfast ('The Wing') who join them for the 'spiritual month' at the start of their formation.  There might also be a seminarian or two beginning his studies at the Irish College in Rome, the Beda in Rome or (occasionally) some other foreign house of priestly formation.
If you average the figure for the past 6 years you get 15 entrants per annum - and to that we can add 1 to take account of those beginning studies in Rome or elsewhere. So, let us presume 16 men begin studying for the diocesan priesthood for Irish dioceses each year.

When I was in seminary, the prevailing wisdom was that that if a man began formation, there was an approximately 50% likelihood that he would be ordained.  That sounds more or less right to me - and I don't think it necessarily reflects badly on the seminary system. Men discover that they're not called to priesthood or that they're not suitable for priesthood. A good seminary system will allow the correct discernment to be made.  In any event, I'd be surprised - even if one had a Rolls Royce seminary set-up - if a significant proportion of entrants didn't discover their vocation was elsewhere. So, for the sake of these calculations, we assume that half of our entering seminarians are ordained.

Finally, we need to make a 'guesstimate' about how many years of active service each newly-ordained priest will give.  Most vocations these days in Ireland tend to be from men who have already done a primary degree and may have spent a few years working.  There will be a few that come directly from Secondary School or from the middle of their undergraduate studies.  There is also a significant proportion who enter seminary in middle-age.  Traditionally, most priests would have been ordained aged about 24 or 25.  Nowadays, I would say that it's more likely that a priest would be ordained in his early/mid-30s, with, as I said, a few men in their 40s and 50s being ordained as well.  Most dioceses have an official retirement age of 70, but priests can and do serve beyond that age.  That being said, by the time a man reaches 75 years or thereabouts it's usually not fair to expect him to continue in parish duties, even if he's in good health. Some priests will retire at a much younger age than that, of course due to ill-health or other reasons.  Inevitably there will also be those who leave the priesthood. So, whilst it's possible that a man might be ordained aged 25 and serve in parish ministry until he's 75 making for a total of 50 years of active service, when one takes into account the possibility of illness, death, and all the other factors and realise that most priests will be older than 25 when they are ordained, I think it's more reasonable to expect the 'average' priest to give 35 or 40 years of service before he retires from full-time ministry.  For the sake of these calculations, we'll take my upper estimate and assume that the average priest ordained these days will serve for 40 years before he retires from active ministry.

If you hold these figures to be constant over the next few decades, you will see that in 4 decades' time, the number of diocesan priests active in Ireland will be...

16 [seminary entrants] X  0.5 [probability of ordination] X 40 [average years of priestly service = 320

That's a quick and dirty calculation.  I don't pretend that it's scientifically accurate and if anyone wants to do the calculations based on other estimates, then that's fine.  I'm just putting that figure out there as an indication of where things are going if the numbers don't change.  Even if you want to be optimistic and assume a doubling of priestly vocations and a  lower 'seminary drop-out rate', you'd struggle to bring the estimated number of active diocesan priests in Ireland in 40 years time up to the 800 mark.

To the best of my knowledge, there are approximately 3,000 diocesan priests in Ireland at the moment, of whom about 75% I understand to be active - in other words, somewhere about the 2,200 mark.  So, if trends remain unchanged, you have to imagine a situation where for every seven active diocesan priests in Ireland today, there will be just one in 40 years' time.

Now, of course the future is not written in stone, and both Shane and Fr Gerard have their own assessment of why things are the way they are.  For myself, I'll just say that in my opinion the level of priestly vocations in Ireland is consistent with the lack of success we are experiencing in forming disciples of Jesus Christ who are knowledgeable and enthusiastic about their faith.     

The Defined Teaching of the Catholic Church...

There is an interesting post up at the Blog of the Association of Catholic Priests.  It's penned by Fr Brendan Hoban who is keen to ditch the dissident label.  It's worthy of a thorough analysis - and it's probably worthwhile asking to what extent it represents the views of ACP members, but the first part of the statement is very telling.  Fr Hoban writes:

(i) Church teaching
The ACP does not seek to overturn the defined teaching of the Catholic Church. Confusion between what the teaching of the Church is and what some present as the teaching of the Church has led to unwarranted assumptions. Confusion between the teaching of the Church and Church governance has resulted in some people suggesting that we do not accept fundamental Church teaching. Like all true Catholics, we know and fully accept the Creed.

That might seem pretty clear, but it's worthy of close inspection.  Firstly, it doesn't say that the ACP accepts the teachings of the Church.  Rather, it speaks about not seeking to overturn the teachings of the Church.  Furthermore, it doesn't simply speak about the teachings of the Church, but rather the "defined teaching of the Catholic Church."  Are we to presume that that portion of the deposit of the faith which hasn't been codified into a Conciliar or Papal definition is - theoretically at least - open to ACP attack? Because not everything we believe as Catholics and not everything that is taught to us through scripture and tradition falls under the heading "defined teaching."
By way of contrast, we might have a look at the Profession of Faith which is sworn by those who are about to be ordained deacons, those who receive the care of a parish as a pastor (parish priest) and those who teach in seminaries.

I, N., with firm faith believe and profess everything that is contained in the Symbol of faith: namely:I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.With firm faith, I also believe everything contained in the Word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by a solemn judgement or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed.I also firmly accept and hold each and everything definitively proposed by the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals.Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act.

It begins with a Profession of the Creed, followed by a statement of faith in "everything contained in the Word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by a solemn judgement or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed."  That's not simply "defined teachings", but also the truths of the Christian faith as passed on by the ordinary and everyday teaching of the Catholic Church.
The next section of the Profession of Faith recognises that the Church occasionally formally makes definitive statements in order to protect the deposit of faith. These must be accepted and held to. One wonders if these are the "defined teachings" that the ACP proposes not to overturn.
Finally, the Profession of faith speaks about the teachings of the Pope and the College of Bishop which are explicitly and legitimately taught, but not as infallible or definitive teachings.  These should be adhered to "with religious submission of will and intellect."  In layman's terms, they might be subject to modification and development in the long run, but they are worthy of the greatest of respect and support. In other words, when the Pope writes an encyclical, if you've sworn this oath, you need to respect it as proper teaching, even if you think it might be improved on.


Switching back to the ACP statement, Fr Hoban talks about confusion between the teaching of the Church and Church governance.  He does have a point.  There is a huge difference between the discipline of the Latin Church regarding clerical celibacy and the teaching of the Church that only males may be ordained to the priesthood.  However, despite the clarity of Church teaching on this point, one often hears that the restriction of ordination to men is a matter of Church discipline and that the question is therefore open to discussion.  That's a form of argumentation that seems palatable to many within the ACP.
Likewise, I've seen it argued that the Church can't really teach definitively on moral matters - that she can only teach dogma (the Creed and the like) and moral teachings are a matter of discipline and therefore subject to repeated revision and erosion.
When Fr Hoban writes, "Like all true Catholics, we know and fully accept the Creed." it sounds as though one can argue what one likes, as long as you don't contradict the creed. I'm pretty sure that anyone who's debated women's ordination, Humanae vitae and the like on-line with people claiming to be Catholic has been met with the question, "Where does it say that in the Creed?"


It's disappointing, but not unexpected, that the ACP has such an impoverished understanding of Church teaching and the work of the Holy Spirit within the Church.


Incidentally, if one were to confine oneself to Fr Hoban's paragraph about Church teaching, one wouldn't be left with much of a reason to value the Second Vatican Council. It's singularly light on what Fr Hoban refers to as "defined teaching".

More postively

Tomorrow is Good Shepherd Sunday and Pope Benedict's message is well worth a read. He took Vocations, the Gift of the Love of God as his theme for this World Day of Prayer for Vocations.
I always give thanks to the Lord on Good Shepherd Sunday because I am genuinely grateful for the gift of priesthood.  I know I fall short of mark in so many ways, but it is a genuine gift to be a minister of God's presence through priestly ministry.  It's a wonderful thing to welcome a small baby into the Body of Christ through the sacrament of baptism and to comfort the dying with the last sacraments.  It's a delight to prepare young children for Confession and Communion and to share in the wedding celebrations of couples starting out on the journey of married life together.  I also enjoy being part of the life of a Diocese - I'm one of those odd eggs who doesn't mind sitting on a committee or two - and the fellowship of being part of a presbyterate.  Even in these days, the welcome and friendship of parishioners - even those I haven't gotten to know yet personally - is a great privilege.
The great frustration of priesthood today is the sense of having found something - or rather Someone - and realising that so many out there seem unwilling to welcome Him into their lives.  There's seems to be assumption out there that what the Church has to offer, what Christ Himself has to offer is surplus to requirements, something no longer needed, or even something that needs to be left behind in the past.  That's doubly true when it comes to the gift of priesthood itself - there seems precious little interest in faith or in vocation amongst the vast, vast majority of our young people. Having experienced both the joys and challenges of priestly ministry, I would love to see a younger generation of men follow the same path. That'll be the theme of my homily this evening - the challenge to foster a culture of faith and vocation in our parish so that we can hear the voice of the Good Shepherd speaking to us.  As the Holy Father himself puts it:

  It is my hope that the local Churches and all the various groups within them, will become places where vocations are carefully discerned and their authenticity tested, places where young men and women are offered wise and strong spiritual direction. In this way, the Christian community itself becomes a manifestation of the Love of God in which every calling is contained. 

Extraordinary Hyperbole...

The media furore around the CDF keeping an eye on the writings of some Irish priests is continuing with the news that Fr Brian D'Arcy's articles are now being reviewed before they are published. Fr D'Arcy is "saddened and disappointed" at this. Now, it's not a nice thing when a priest's writings have to be reviewed like this - in an ideal world, such a step would be unnecessary.  However, the priest's voice is not his own and the pulpit that is given to us by the Church is not ours by right, but is given to us that we might teach according to the mind of Christ and the Church.

Two points are especially worth making - Fr D'Arcy's newspaper articles have been cleared before publishing since last March.  If you have a look at the archive of his writings over at the Sunday World website you'll see that he's critical of the Irish hierarchy and the Vatican, and writes supportively about the results of the recent Association of Catholic Priests survey. From the looks of things, a "party line" isn't being heavily imposed on him and I would guess that as long as he's not actually contradicting church doctrine in an especially ham-fisted manner, he's pretty much allowed to write what he likes. I don't think he's being dealt with especially harshly here.

Secondly, the reported comments of Fr Peter McVerry caused me much amusement. Fr McVerry is, in many ways, a fine priest and has probably done more good for homeless youngsters in Dublin than anyone else.  I readily and freely admit that in many ways I am unfit to polish his shoes.  However, having heard him speak on a number of occasions, I know that he seems to have a pretty ropey grasp of theology and Church history.  Anyway, Fr McVerry says of priests that “They are terrified that if they speak publicly they will get their heads chopped off.”

Get their heads chopped off? I know he's just using a turn of phrase, but there's no need for that degree of hyperbole.  I know our new nuncio used to work with the CDF, but I very much doubt that he'll be organising dawn raids on the homes of Ireland's favourite priests in order to have them transported to the Vatican for summary execution. 

As I say, if Fr D'Arcy's freedom of expression is anything to go by, we're certainly no-where near the level of super-villain oppression suggested by the CDF's critics.

Losing Stephen to gain Paul...

Today's first reading told of St Stephen's martyrdom & the approving presence of Saul of Tarsus at the stoning.  That reading always reminds me of Newman's introduction to The Church of the Fathers:

  THIS is a world of conflict, and of vicissitude amid the conflict. The Church is ever militant; sometimes she gains, sometimes she loses; and more often she is at once gaining and losing in different parts of her territory. What is ecclesiastical history but a record of the ever-doubtful fortune of the battle, though its issue is not doubtful? Scarcely are we singing Te Deum, when we have to turn to our Misereres: scarcely are we in peace, when we are in persecution: scarcely have we gained a triumph, when we are visited by a scandal. Nay, we make progress by means of reverses; our griefs are our consolations; we lose Stephen, to gain Paul, and Matthias replaces the traitor Judas.
It is so in every age; it is so in the nineteenth century; it was so in the fourth; and about the fourth I am proposing to write. An eventful century, a drama in three acts, each marvellous in itself, each different from the other two! The first is the history of the Roman Empire becoming Christian; the second, that of the indefectible Church of God seeming to succumb to Arianism; the third, that of countless barbarians pouring in upon both Empire and Christendom together. And, as the great convulsions of the earth involve innumerable commotions in detail and local revolutions, and each district and neighbourhood has its own story of distress and confusion, so, in the events of the social world, what is done in the camp or synod vibrates in every town and in every bishopric. From one end of the century to the other, the most momentous changes and the most startling vicissitudes took place; and the threshold of the Apostles was now darkened by messengers of ill, and now lit up with hope and thanksgiving.
So was it in the fourth century; so will it be to the end:
Thus bad and good their several warnings give
Of His approach, whom none may see and live.
    Faith's ear, with awful still delight,
    Counts them like minute bells by night,
Keeping the heart awake till dawn of morn,
While to her funeral pile this aged world is borne.

That Fornication Speech...

In yesterday's parliamentary debate on Abortion legislation in the Dáil, the speech of Mayo TD Michelle Mulherin attracted the most attention. Or, to be more precise, her use of a single word, namely "fornication" attracted people's attention.  It's not a word one hears too often, but it is usefully defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Fornication is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children. Moreover, it is a grave scandal when there is corruption of the young.

Anyway, Miss Mulherin said:

Abortion as murder, therefore sin, which is the religious argument, is no more sinful, from a scriptural point of view, than all other sins we don’t legislate against, like greed, hate and fornication. The latter, being fornication, I would say, is probably the single most likely cause of unwanted pregnancies in this country.

Now, fornication isn't a politically correct word, so this caused all kinds of uproar.  (It also caused Deputy Luke 'Ming' Flanagan to exclaim, "Hurrah for fornication," which could well serve as his next election slogan.) And even though fornication is a perfectly precise and accurate word for a particular sin, it's one that I don't use very often myself because it has an inflammatory effect which detracts from the calm and rational discussion of things.
Anyway, her speech - or at least the reported parts of it - have led to her being subjected to all kinds of online mockery, implying that she's typical of the pro-life Catholic crowd who want to send Ireland into an age of pre-enlightenment darkness.  However, if one actually goes to the bother of reading her speech - a thoroughly confusing contribution - it seems to me as though she doesn't represent mainstream pro-life thinking or Catholic thought and that her position on abortion seems to be a personal opposition, but an unwillingness to legislate for its illegality.  Indeed, reading many of the contributions made to the Dáil yesterday and the day before, many of them seem to base their opposition to Clare Daly's bill on pragmatic political grounds rather than on a principled concern for the life of the unborn.

On another online forum, a commentator made the astute remark about Mulherin's speech that it was written as though "two people with opposing view took turns writing paragraphs."
She starts by welcoming the debate and her concern for the Irish women who travel abroad for abortions.  Then she says:

We are moving and have moved away from an Ireland where morality was shoved down people’s throats. The question is whether responsibility for people’s moral conduct falls on the shoulders of Government or whether we go down the road of talking about the personal responsibility of the individuals involved.

She's raising a valid question here - albeit in an unsatisfactory manner.  One of the questions faced by legislators is the extent to which morality or good behaviour should be legislated for.  It seems self evident that the state should be allowed to forbid murder or kidnap or theft.  These seem to be the easy cases. Likewise, there is little appetite in modern Western democracies for the State to legislate to outlaw sexual misbehaviour in cases where consent can be responsibly given.   However, there are tougher questions.  What restrictions should the State place on cigarette smoking, drunkenness or pornography? What about drug-taking? The evaluation of what the State and criminal law can and can't do is a non-trivial question.  And whilst morality is often used in a pejorative sense (Is Mulherin doing this?), a legislator MUST reason in moral terms in order to decide what the State does or does not have the right to do.  
Questions of justice are moral questions, as are questions of human rights.  We are comfortable making the moral judgement that such-and-such a foreign state should not imprison political prisoners.  Whether we like it or not, that is a form of moral decision.  Likewise, the pro-life movement would argue that the question of what protection should be afforded to the unborn child is, of course, a moral one, but it is precisely the kind of moral question which the State must get involved in order to justly protect the human rights of mother and child.
Mulherin then goes on to make the fair point that hard cases make bad law.  Anyone with an iota of life experience know that difficult situations arise where we are torn apart by a whole nexus of competing thoughts, emotions and principles. Legal and moral decision making isn't easy and even though particular cases may sway us one way or the other, careful legislation cannot be based solely on particular "hard cases" without regard for underlying principles. She follows this argument (which you could imagine being taken from a pro-life briefing paper) with the following paragraph:

I will be voting against the Bill, which I believe is untimely. However, it does open a debate and I welcome that aspect. There are some questions I would raise during the debate. The major objection to abortion in Ireland is religious but the rest of the Western world has no objections in this way. In the book Free and Female, dating from some decades back, Ms Barbara Seaman put abortion as part of the lifelong struggle of women for effective contraception and to be able to take control of their own bodily integrity. That is both liberal and feminist. When we legislate, we do it with an all-inclusive paradigm for our society. In short, it is not for the majority alone.

Here she sounds, not like a conservative religious pro-lifer, but rather like someone in favour of enshrining abortion rights in legislation.  Her objection to the Daly bill is a question of timing. Her statement about Ireland's objection to abortion being uniquely religious is somewhat of a puzzler.  Yes, the vast majority of those who oppose the introduction of abortion to Ireland are Catholic and are motivated by their faith.  I suspect however that in the Western world, religiously motivated opposition to abortion is far from being uniquely Irish.  (Malta? Poland? The USA?)


However, even though religious people are opposed to abortion, their grounds for doing so are far from being simply religious. It's a question of human rights and the extent and manner to which human life should be protected by the State.  Most arguments against abortion are rooted in philosophical and scientific issues, rather than questions of scriptural interpretation and there are a fair number of agnostics and atheists who make common cause with their religious fellow-citizens in arguing for the right to life.In Catholic terms, opposition to abortion is rooted in the Natural Law and is not a religious stricture which we seek to impose on society, but rather a genuine injustice against another human being which the State has the right and responsibility to prevent. Our opposition to abortion is not akin to our suggesting that everyone should go to Mass on Sundays or face imprisonment, but is based on the exact same principles as the treatment of theft or kidnapping as illegal activities.

Anyway, having put forward an argument which seems to come from the pro-choice playbook, Mulherin then makes a sort of personal profession of faith which seems to be somewhat of a non sequitur: 

I am against abortion in any form. The grace of God is so liberating and provides so many options to get the best out of life despite our fallen nature, and we all have that. Having said that, it is an ideal to aim for. In an ideal world, there would be no unwanted pregnancies and no unwanted babies. However, we are far from living in an ideal world. An honest and a scriptural view is that things are getting harder for people, so what then for the weak in our society?

I'm not sure what Deputy Mulherin's religious background is. Certainly a belief in original sin and the power of God's grace is Catholic teaching, even if some of my online correspondents detect a US-style evangelical accent in her credo.  (I'm a fan of St Augustine & don't think we Catholics think enough about grace or original sin.)  She also makes a clear (personal?) statement of opposition to abortion, but leaves it unclear as to how that opposition should inform her legislative duties.  Likewise, her description of our less-than-ideal world raises questions... Does she mean to imply that because the world is fallen or imperfect that somehow we are held back from striving for the best because it is unattainable?  Are good and evil only relative categories in a less-than-ideal world?  Her self-expression is so unclear that it's hard to see what she's really getting at, but it doesn't sit well with me.  (That thing about "an honest and scriptural view" sounds like something an American fundamentalist would say.)Her next paragraphs speak about the 1st World becoming "freer and more autonomous." She presents a narrative of Ireland moving from a society legislating according to religious principles to one where such legislation is now unthinkable.  She then makes the statement which seems to give the clearest insight into her thinking:

Perhaps the Irish, like the rest of the world, are maturing to the point that they can be trusted with freedom of choice. In fact, although divorce became legal, marriage still remains very popular in Ireland and throughout the world, including the USA. It could be argued that when people are free to abort, they will fight harder to keep their unborn babies by choice and they will value their pregnancies. For those who do not, and I believe them a minority, they will be free to choose what to do with no legal pressure. In other words, any legislation will not make a good Catholic choose abortion against her conscience.

 Deputy Mulherin presents an Ireland where there is "freedom of choice" as being a more mature place.  She seems to loom forward to the day when the minority who do not "value their pregnancies" will be "free to choose what to do with no legal pressure." Despite all the controversy surrounding her, it seems to me that Deputy Mulhern falls into the camp of those who are personally opposed to abortion but who do not want to legislatively forbid it. So, all the mockery of her as representing religious pro-lifers is mis-directed. She sounds a lot more "pro-choice" than "pro-life."
  Finally, she concludes with her notorious fornication paragraph:

Abortion as murder, and therefore sin, which is the religious argument, is no more sinful from a scriptural point of view than all other sins we do not legislate against, such as greed, hate and fornication, the latter - fornication - being probably the single most likely cause of unwanted pregnancies in this country. At the end of the day, however, it is the nature of religion to fuss over appearances above the truth and the inner state of the person.

Mulherin puts abortion into the the category of sin - and based on that paragraph and her speech as a whole, it seems as though she understands "sin" as a purely personal matter, and not something that touches on the question of the human rights of others.  It's telling that she says,  it is the nature of religion to fuss over appearances above the truth and the inner state of the person - hardly the opinion of a mainstream Christian thinker, let alone the right-wing theocrat she is accused of being in various places on the internet. It's not my business to offer spiritual diagnoses over the internet, but it seems as though Deputy Mulherin has a curious understanding of sin and its relation to religion.  Sin seems to be something outlawed by a particular religion, very important to one's personal conscience, but not something at all to do with society in a broader sense or with issues of human rights.  She presents the general thrust of Ireland's social and moral changes in recent years in an unquestioningly positive manner, but above all, I think the weakness of her position - in as much as I understand it - is a total failure to consider the question of abortion as involving the rights of an unborn child.  


It's curious that Deputy Mulherin's use of the word "fornication" had the effect of triggering a tribalistic instinct. I've seen her praised by sincere Catholics (most of whom hadn't read her entire speech) for having the courage to call a spade a spade.  I'm not sure that many of them would have much time for the pro-choice argument Mulherin seems to be making.Similarly, speaking about fornication made her an ideal whipping-girl for many in the pro-choice world who could point to her as an example of pro-life Catholic ignorance from the backwoods of Mayo - an excuse to paint pro-lifers as being ignorant and insensitive zealots.  They totally pass over the fact that her speech seems to be that of someone who doesn't at all seem happy with the idea of legislative restrictions on abortion.     Anyway, I think the real thing to remember from all this is how poor the public discourse is in our country, especially where issues of religion are concerned and how unreliable a picture of things the media can paint.  Is there anyone out there in the mainstream media trying to give a true account of what Deputy Mulherin was arguing?

Draft of a Homily for Domenica in Albis

This Sunday is traditionally known as Domenica in Albis – the Sunday for the taking off of the white clothes.  In the Early Church, adults would have been welcomed into the Church at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night and would have worn their white baptismal robes to Church for the following eight days – the Octave of Easter - as a reminder to themselves and to others of the new life they had received in baptism.  However, this Sunday they would set their white robes and would be reminded that whilst their way of dress would no longer mark them out as new Christians, their way of life should continue to do so as they did their best to keep their baptismal promises and walk in the way Christ taught them.

Our First Reading gives us a picture of the Apostles and their followers living as a distinctive community whose teaching and way of life was different from the society around them.  If we look at the history books we see that their distinctive way of life led to both the admiration and the contempt of members of the broader society around them.  Because they recognised that Christ was the Lord and that there is only One God, they would not worship the Roman emperor as a god or take part in the pagan worship of the state.  The fact that Christians were equally accepting of slaves and the nobility as brothers and sisters in Christ led to them being mocked for their disregard of the social order.  Because of the Christian principles of respect for all life and the duty to care for the vulnerable, the first Christians would have nothing to do with the Roman custom of leaving sickly new-born babies to die on the rubbish heap – and indeed, often adopted such abandoned babies.  Those who would have no truck with the Christians dismissed this as weak-mindedness, but this Christian example of compassion gradually won many admirers.  Likewise, Christ’s teaching about marital fidelity was radically counter-cultural when men saw it as their right to cast off one wife and take up with another – but the Christian community stayed loyal to the teaching of Christ in recognising the importance and dignity of marriage as a path to holiness for husbands and wives alike.  In short, part and parcel of the Christian life is living a challenging sort of life, made possible by Christ’s gift of the Holy Spirit and the support of the Christian community.

The challenge to us today is to recognise that we too have received the same Holy Spirit – we have the same religious and spiritual DNA as the Christians of the Early Church, and whether we are a small minority or a majority of the population, the challenge to us is the same – to live lives in Communion with Christ and with one another and to bear witness to the Gospel values taught by Christ and passed on by the Church under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  If we have been baptised, we have been challenged to live a life of faith, basing what we say and do on the Gospel.  St John tells us, “this is what loving God is – keeping his commandants; and his commandments are not difficult because anyone who has been begotten by God has already overcome the world.”

Objectively speaking, God’s commandments are challenging, are difficult.  I don’t think we should understand St John to be telling us that the Christian life is a breeze.  Rather, He is reminding us that if we truly believe in the power of Him who has given us new life, we will have His help in living that Christian life.  And that Christian life, he reminds us, is something that is in opposition to the world.

There was an interesting survey published during the week – the point of it was to show up the differences between the thinking of Irish Catholics and the teaching of the Church.  I suspect the desired intention was to help make the case that the teachings of the Church don’t match up with what is happening in modern life or with the thoughts of Irish Catholics.  To be frank, I wasn’t at all very surprised at the results of the survey which showed Church teaching to be very much the minority opinion, especially where issues of sexual morality were at issue.  It’s not a surprise because our opinions are shaped by the society around us and the opinion makers – the newspaper editors, the advertisers, the writers of soap operas, TV celebrities and journalists and so on, they’re the ones who are talking to us and shaping our thoughts and influencing our opinions.  The question we must ask is whether they are doing so in order to help us follow Christ and live the kind of life He asks of us.  Is it progress if our beliefs and attitudes do not correspond to anything that previous generations of Christians would have recognised as Christianity?

The question we must ask of ourselves as Christians is whether we are making a genuine effort to understand the kind of life that Christ wants of us?  Or are we accepting the common assumptions of society without criticism.  If we are puzzled about something the Church teaches, or puzzled about something that the media tells that the Church teaches, do we make the effort to find out what the Church actually teaches and why?  Do we spend time with the scriptures and with the Catechism of the Catholic Church in order to discern the call of the Lord?  Do we ever balance the hours and hours of television, radio, newspapers and chat with time spent in prayer and the study of our faith?  Have we ever asked a priest we trust to explain something about Church teaching that puzzles us?  Do we believe enough in Christ and His victory over the world to believe that the way of life He calls us to might involve holding values that do not square with the common consensus of that same world?  Is it more important for us to accept the reasoning of the society around us, or to stay in communion with the followers of Jesus throughout the ages who were not afraid to choose a radical way of life above the values of their time?

When ‘doubting Thomas’ saw the Lord’s wounds and made His profession of faith, Jesus blessed all those who would accept the Apostles’ teaching and believe in Him:

You believe because you can see me.  Happy are those who have not seen, and yet believe.

That describes our situation – those of us who have not seen Christ in the flesh, but who know Him through the life of faith.  We know Him in prayer and in the sacraments, in the scriptures and in the life of the Church.  The prayers of this Mass ask that that knowledge and faith be kept alive and life-giving in our lives, in our minds, in our hearts.  We pray that we will have the courage to entrust ourselves to the Lord & the determination to seek His wisdom to sustain us in our Christian lives.

Addendum:  You need to read The Thirsty Gargoyle's take on the ACP survey.

A thought about the Association of Catholic Priests Survey...

There has been a fair amount of discussion today about the Association of Catholic Priests survey which shows the opinions of many Irish Catholics to be at odds the the doctrine of the Church. I suppose we're supposed to think that it's time for the "Institutional Church" to catch up with modern times and revise doctrine so as to fall in line with the opinions of "contemporary Catholics".  (Incidentally, the phrase "Institutional Church" makes me cringe - it almost always betrays a flawed ecclesiology.)
The thinking behind such a point of view is the idea that experience trumps Divine Revelation and a general lack of belief in revealed religion.  Only SOME of the challenges of the Gospel are viewed as politically correct nowadays, so it's acceptable to preach generosity to the less fortunate, but less so to affirm the value of chastity.  There seems to be a sense that Christ's message is take up your cross and follow me in a manner consistent with the values of your age.
I wish one or two other questions had been included in the survey - whether it's okay to work a few hours overtime for an under-the-counter cash wage or whether it's okay to tell a few white lies.  Would we be faced with the argument that the Church needs to change its teaching on honest in order to reflect the values of contemporary Catholics?

Rather than go through the whole survey, one question in particular caught my attention - the fact that only 5% of Catholics expressed the opinion that people who are divorced-and-in-a-second-relationship should not be allowed receive Holy Communion. Given that Christ Himself taught that divorcing and taking up with another partner was adultery and that it's clear from the scriptures that from the time of the Apostles grave sin excludes one from the Eucharist, we're being asked to swallow the proposition that the words of Christ and the teachings of the Apostles need to be reviewed based on the tolerance of the Irish people. [BTW, a study of Church discipline in the early centuries would be an eye-opening project for those people who imagine pre-Constantinian Christianity as some sort of let-it-all-hang-out hippy experiment.]
Any priest who has spent any time in parish ministry will know the pain caused by relationship breakdown and will want to be as sympathetic as possible to someone in such a situation.  However, parish life shows equally clearly that a culture which places little stock in the sacredness of marriage vows and the importance of marriage as the fundamental building block of the family is a society where children suffer from the fallout of this social change.  In modern Ireland the prophetic stance is to stand up for marriage.

The one thing that is clear from the survey is that those of us - clergy and lay - who have been charged with the task of teaching within the Church have done pretty poorly.  It shouldn't be a surprise to us that the cultural mores of those who produce our television programmes and write in our newspapers influence Irish Catholics more than the 10 minutes or so of preaching that church-goers hear every week.  There is very little sense in the Irish Church that one's faith is something that one should spend time in studying and that our religious convictions should lead us to have an understanding of life that is radically different from the culture around us.  Given that so far as social and moral issues were concerned, the values of society and the Church were in harmony until relatively recently, it's a new thing for Irish Catholicism to propose a vision that's at odds with the received morality.  Still, I think we priests should be courageous. Indeed, we must be courageous!  If our vocation means anything at all, it means being configured to Christ the Good Shepherd and there's a long tradition in the Patristic literature which pours contempt on the shepherd who remains silent.  As Pope St Gregory the Great put it:

When a pastor has been afraid to assert what is right, has he not turned his back and fled by remaining silent? Whereas if he intervenes on behalf of the flock, he sets up a wall against the enemy in front of the house of Israel. Therefore, the Lord again says to his unfaithful people: Your prophets saw false and foolish visions and did not point out your wickedness, that you might repent of your sins. The name of the prophet is sometimes given in the sacred writings to teachers who both declare the present to be fleeting and reveal what is to come. The word of God accuses them of seeing false visions because they are afraid to reproach men for their faults and thereby lull the evildoer with an empty promise of safety. Because they fear reproach, they keep silent and fail to point out the sinner’s wrongdoing.

That Patronage Report...

I was interested to read the report produced by the Forum on School Patronage. It's an engaging read and there's much of value in it.  I get the sense that most clergy are in favour of facilitating broader parent choice in terms of school patronage and ethos, in a way that respects the rights of local communities and of the Church.

However, in as much as it addressed the question of what denominational schools might look like I got the distinct sense that the report was written from a perspective that simply doesn't "get" the idea of religious faith.  Whilst our Catholic schools have a long tradition of educating and respecting the children of non-Catholic families, the suggestion that Catholic schools should display the emblems and symbols of other faiths alongside the crucifix or image of Our Lady crosses a line.  That's not the kind of concession that a religious person can in conscience make of someone of another faith.

Were I to receive hospital treatment in a Jewish hospital, I wouldn't be asking for crucifixes on the wall or a statue of the Madonna in the foyer. As long as I could pray my breviary and was treated with respect, I would be very grateful for the care received.

I was interested, therefore, to read today's article by Fr Eamonn Conway and Rik Van Nieuwenhove in the Examiner newspaper. As they succinctly put it, the report subscribes to a truncated understanding of what faith is.  By subscribing to a relativist rather than a pluralist view, the report essentially compromises the ability of any school - Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or Muslim - to maintain a religious ethos whilst admitting pupils of other faiths. 

The forum’s recommendation that the Catholic Church divest itself of some schools is welcome; this facilitates greater parental choice. What it recommends for schools that remain denominational, however, will effectively eradicate the rights of parents who want their children to have a faith-based education. 
The threat takes a number of forms. It calls for an end to rule 68 for national schools, which recognises religious instruction as a fundamental part of the school course and permits a religious spirit to "inform and vivify the whole work of the school". 
The forum is effectively requesting, even for faith-based schools, that no such spirit should characterise a denominational school. It specifically requests that religion be singled out to be taught as a discrete subject apart from the rest of the curriculum although all other subjects are to be taught in an integrated manner. 
Hymns and prayers are to be inclusive of the religious beliefs (and none) of all children. This recommendation would prohibit specific Christian prayer in a Christian school if there was even one atheist or, say, Muslim, enrolled. Similarly, the emblems of various religions are to be displayed and the feasts of different religions are to be celebrated without any allowance for a religious patron’s responsibility to uphold and foster its own specific ethos.

This question of Rule 68 is key.  The Catholic Bishops recognize that the rule could do with re-writing to take into account the existence of multidenominational  or non-religious schools and the like.  However, the deletion of rule 68 fails to recognise that for Catholics, our understanding of who Jesus Christ is lies at the heart of our educational efforts as we provide a rounded education to our co-religionists and to children of other faiths in our schools.  The ethos of our Catholic schools is established by law and reads as follows:

      A Roman Catholic School (which is established in connection with the Minister) aims at promoting the full and harmonious development of all aspects of the person of the pupil: intellectual, physical, cultural, moral and spiritual, including a living relationship with God and with other people. The school models and promotes a philosophy of life inspired by belief in God and in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Catholic school provides Religious education for the pupils in accordance with the doctrines, practices and tradition of the Roman Catholic Church and promotes the formation of the pupils in the Catholic Faith. 

With the removal of Rule 68, the education given is forcibly detached from this core vision and one has to ask in what sense a Catholic school can claim to be Catholic. The spirit or ethos of the school is truncated and the holistic vision of the human person and of education can no longer, of right, motivate the work of the school.  I have no doubt that other religious patronage bodies have similar concerns.

This seems to fly in the face of the principle of religious freedom and mistakes relativism for a healthy and genuine pluralism. Religious bodies can no longer direct their schools according to their own core beliefs.  This is not about the protection of or respect for minority faiths - rather, it's about putting forward the idea that it's no longer to actually believe or have real religious convictions.  It insults religious people and assumes that without the relativization of our own beliefs, we are unable to respect the beliefs of other believers.   

Do read all of the the article in the Examiner.  Beware also of the headlines surrounding this report - some of them give the misleading impression that the content of the report has met with an uncritical welcome from the Irish Bishops.  The Irish Independent makes clear that Fr Michael Drumm of the Catholic Schools Partnership has his reservations about the deletion of Rule 68 and the Iona Institute also make some valuable points.

On the Fr Flannery Case...

There has been a lot of fuss online and in the media about the Fr Flannery case. Fr Tony Flannery is a well-known Redemptorist preacher and writer who is said to have been under investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for the past couple of months.  (Curiously the story only broke during Holy Week, allowing all kinds of comparisons to be drawn between Fr Flannery and Christ... Whoever brought this to the attention of the Irish Catholic knew what they were doing...) As Michael Kelly reports:

Fr Flannery, who is a well-known author and retreat-giver, has ceased writing his regularly monthly column in the Redemptorist Reality magazine. The Irish Catholic understands that this is as a direct consequence of the Vatican’s intervention. It is the first time in 14 years that Fr Flannery’s regular column has not appeared.

To be quite honest, whilst I was aware of Fr Flannery as a "liberal priest" (I'm not a huge fan of that particular euphemism), I don't think I've ever paid enough attention to anything he's written to say definitively whether this CDF investigation is warranted or not.  However, I do have the sneaking suspicion that it probably is and I'm glad that someone finally seems to be exercising reasonable oversight into what we as priests teach from our literal and metaphorical pulpits.
Needless to say, this investigation into Fr Flannery has occasioned some outrage - his superior in Limerick made some extraordinary comments about the Church engaging in FBI tactics.  (Apparently reading what's publicly published and listening to what's preached in church is an 'FBI tactic'.)
The ever-dependable Patsy McGarry in the Irish Times presents a wonderfully unbalanced piece which consists of quotes lifted from an article in Doctrine and Life and the Association of Catholic Priests' website.  Why go to the bother of tracking down someone who might have a different perspective to offer when you can put together a quick article by copying and pasting from the ACP's blog and comment box.
I'll be keeping Fr Flannery in my prayers.  To his credit, I know that he has in his kindness been of great help to a number of people of my acquaintance.  However, if he has been misleading people by his teaching, then it is to his benefit and the benefit of the Church that the situation be rectified.

As a counterpoint to the guff you'll find in so many other places, it's worth reading the actual text of what Pope Benedict said to the priests of Rome in his Chrism Mass last Thursday.  He poses the genuine question as to what Christ meant by telling us that we are "consecrated in the truth".

Two things, above all, are asked of us: there is a need for an interior bond, a configuration to Christ, and at the same time there has to be a transcending of ourselves, a renunciation of what is simply our own, of the much-vaunted self-fulfilment. We need, I need, not to claim my life as my own, but to place it at the disposal of another – of Christ.

Clerical discipline and that sense of self-renunciation is something that sits uneasily with an age that is precisely about self-fulfilment, about the assertion of my rights and my opinions.  It's easy for clergy to forget that whatever authority or regard we might have amongst the faithful, it only makes sense in as much as we are faithful to the Church, conformed to Christ and willing to set aside our own egotism.
When I was studying Canon Law in seminary, our professor used to tell us that whilst the promises or vows of celibacy or chastity that priests and religious make are counter-cultural and a personal challenge, it is in fact the obedience we promise to our bishops, our religious superiors and to the Church that is the most radical gift-of-self.  I think this is a point that is lost on the mainstream media (until cases like Fr Flannery's surface), but one that I never fail to make when discussing priesthood with seminarians.

Finally, on a semi-related note, so much of what the Church has being going through of late reminds me of Cardinal Newman's Biglietto Speech.  I get the sense that even within the Church the idea of religion as opinion has a greater hold on us than our belief in Divine Revelation.