Thursday 11 September 2014

"A CHURCH THAT IS HUMBLE" - "A CHURCH ON ITS KNEES"

"A CHURCH THAT IS HUMBLE" - "A CHURCH ON ITS KNEES"

The new Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh - Eamon Martin said this week that he wants to create:

"A CHURCH THAT IS HUMBLE" - "A CHURCH ON ITS KNEES"


Eamon Martin

He could start off by giving the outfit he is wearing above to The Abbey Theatre in Dublin or to a charity shop.

He wore this outfit during his ordination as archbishop in 2013. It makes him look like the Roman Emperor Caligula

and not a modern Christian bishop - and certainly not a humble, on his knees modern Christian bishop.

Let us first of all look at the roots of the word humble.

"Humble" is from the Latin word humilis - lowly, humble, literally on the ground - from humus "earth". It means to be "not self asserting".

Eamon Martin is going to have to take the Irish Roman Catholic Church on a long journey if he is to bring it to a place where it will be lowly, humble, on the ground and not self asserting.

The history of the Roman Church in Ireland is a history of domination and control.
Women telling domineering bishops where to go

Tim Pat Coogan said on one occasion that Ireland had suffered two forms of colonialism - one British and one Roman.
Guess which one was the prime minister

In the 26 counties we have got rid of the British one after 800 years.

But we still have to get rid of the Roman one - after 1600 years.
JP 11 bullying Ernesto Cardenal
Thankfully their influence has waned in the past 30 years. But they did not voluntarily give up their domination and control. It had to be dragged from them kicking and screaming.

They helped us greatly themselves with the exposure of their inner rottenness by the outpouring of the scandals.

There was Bishop Eamon Casey who had a secret lover and child.
Eamon Casey

There was Father Michael Cleary who was a public hitman for the Church but who behind the scenes was living a secret life with a woman and children.
Michael "Rasputin" Cleary


There was the string of paedophile priests - Father Brendan Smyth, Father Ivan Payne, Father Tony Walsh, Father Sean Fortune, Father Danny Curran, Father James Donaghy and on and on and on.
Brendan Smyth

Then there was the bishops who covered up for the abusers.

Chief among these is Eamon Martin's immediate predecessor, Cardinal Sean Brady who interviewed Brendan Smyths victims and swore them to secrecy thereby enabling Brendan Smyth to keep on abusing.
Sean Brady

Bishop Brendan Comiskey of Wexford covered up for the seriel abuser Father Sean Fortune.

Bishops Eamon Walsh and Raymond Field of Dublin had to resign for their parts in the cover up.

Bishop James Moriarty of Kildare had to resign for his role.

Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick had to resign for his role.

Cardinal Cahal Daly of Belfast covered up for Brendan Smyth.
Cahal Daly in Purgatory rediscovering his sexuality

Bishop John Magee of Cork had to resign over his cover up.

It took years to make Bishop Patrick Walsh of Belfast take any action about Father James Donaghy.
Paddy Walsh

So let no one pretend that the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland has seen the light and has voluntarily stopped trying to dominate and control.

It was their own scandals that have caused them to be thought so little of by the Irish people.

But they stil have not learned their lesson:

1. They still want Ireland not to have full gay marriage.

2. They still want Ireland not to allow suicidal women, raped women or women in danger of death to have abortion.

3. They still want to control education, children, teachers and parents.

Eamon Martin himself has marched on the street about these issues.

It sounds very nice for Eamon Martin to say that he wants a humble church on its knees. But does he really? And even if he does will his episcopal brothers allow him have it?

Recently Eamon Martin wrote 10 Commandments for the Internet.

Let me give you, Eamon, a plan of action for your future:

1. Re-evangelise yourself and your brother bishops and become true men of faith and prayer.

2. Have the Irish Bishops run their diocese with the help of Diocesan Councils in which lay people have a real say.

3. Have Irish bishops responsible for the monies they spend to diocesan finance councils.

4. Let the bishops, having been re-evangelised themselves - re-evengelise the priests.

5. Petition Rome for a change in compulsory celibacy.

6. Petition Rome for the ordination of women.

7. Work with Rome for a new theology of sexuality - that celebrates sexuality and doesn't demonise it.

8. Ask bishops to follow Pope Francis and get rid of their palaces and live more modestly in presbyteries or apartments suitable for one man / woman. You could start this by reviewing the money Bishop Noel Treanor is apending on his palace in Belfast.
Noel Treanor

Bishop Treanor, according to reports is installing door handles worth £350 each


And wallpaper reported to be starting at £100 a roll:


9. Get the Irish bishops to stop interfering in Irish political life.

10. Ask Rome to start appointing pastors - and not canon lawyers - as bishops.

This Eamon - will be you creating a humble church that is on its knees praying.

Then we might all start respecting you and your colleagues again.

+Pat Buckley
11th September 2014




22 comments:

  1. Love the picture of Daly LOL

    Almost makes him human.

    PP D&C

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    1. This portrayal of the late Cahal Brendan Cardinal Daly is an utter disgrace and should be taken down at once. Shame on you for besmirching the memory of one of Ireland's greatest intellects, academics and pastors.

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    2. I have a lot more to say and tell you about wee Cackle :-)

      Pat

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    3. Please don't. We are not interested in your lies and fantasies. Cahal B had the balls to stand up to you and kick you out.

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  2. Eamon Martin is new. We do not know him.

    We had NO SAY in his appointment.

    Because he was appointed by Rome we have every right to suspect him.

    We will judge him by his ACTIONS and not by WORDS or GIMMICKS like having his photo in the Irish Times having a cup of tea in a kitchen.

    We will wait and see. Let us see what he DOES

    Religious Sister, Dublin.

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  3. Archbishop Martin has a very tight mouth. My mother used to always say: "never trust a man with a tight mouth".

    Margaret (Fermanagh)

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  4. Dear Pat,

    I welcome Archbishop Eamon Martin's remarks vis a vis the church becoming a humble one, however firstly I ask why 2000 yrs after the birth of Jesus, the anointed one, are we discovering the necessity of humility ? Should humility not have been the "bedrock" on which all ministry, and church life was based upon ?!
    How did the church, and clergy in particular miss the importance of humility, when right from the moment of his birth in a stable, Jesus taught us clearly in his actions & words, that only the "humble and gentle of heart would inherit the kingdom of God".

    How was this missed for centuries ? I am almost speechless at how easily these words are spoken by +Eamon Martin. Has he any real concept of the seriousness of his remarks, for it is to admit the Christ, the Saviour of mankind, has been gravely betrayed by those who dare to represent him ? St Bonaventure said that there were 3 great Christian virtues: HUMILITY, HUMILITY, AND HUMILITY !
    Bonaventure got it ! Very sadly so many Popes, Bishops, and Priests did not absorb or practice this key virtue over centuries, and today that omission continues.
    To make the church of the 21st century truly humble, would require a revolution of monumental proportions, and quite honestly I don't see that happening anytime soon.
    Why ? Primarily, because Christ is not the first focus of the Church, but rather the Church 'system' has priority. The SYSTEM IS KING !

    Priest of D&C.

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    1. Dear Priest D&C,

      I agree with your sentiments.

      When Eamon Martin published his 10 Commandments for the Internet one of those who commented on the, on The Catholic Herald, pointed out that nowhere in his 10 Commandments for the Internet was the name of Jesus mentioned!

      I think this bears out your point.

      Even if Eamon Martin is willing for the change will THE SYSTEM allow him? I do not think so.

      Pat

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  5. There is nothing wrong with what Archbishop Martin is wearing. It is perfectly acceptable for the leader of the Catholic Church in our land to wear the robes that are proper to his status. There is nothing outlandish or over-the-top in these sober yet elegant vestments, which were paid for the Archbishop as a gift from his many admirers in Derry. Do I not recall seeing pictures of Bishop Buckley [sic] clad in matching chasuble and mitre carrying an enormous and jewel encrusted crozier, a gold cross and chain around his neck and a mighty fine gold ring on his finger. Come on now be fair. Don't criticise the man for things that you have done yourself. Archbishop Martin is a successor of St Patrick. Long may he serve us in Armagh and beyond. Proud Irish Catholic

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    1. Well said that man or woman. There is too much sniping and carping at the Hierarchy on here.

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    2. Dear Proud Irish Catholic,

      Thank you for your comments. You are quite right to challenge me.

      I am a believer in Liturgy and nice liturgy.

      But good liturgy does not mean tacky liturgy.

      As for my crozier - I never had a bejewelled one.

      I got the crozier I have from a friend who bought it in a second hand shop in London. It had been sold to them by an order of monks.

      By the way - its for sale if you would like to buy it - so that I can pay some debts. You could present it to a "good" bishop.

      My cross was bought on Ebay - metal - which a friend in England silverplated for me for £50.

      My gold ring is made up of a few bits of my mother's jewellery melted down and as scrap gold it is not hallmarked - please come and check.

      As for Eamon being the successor of St Patrick - now thats a very problematic and simplistic approach.

      You are a Proud Irish Catholic. Maybe you'd tell us what you're proud of - Sean Brady secretly interviewing victims; Eamon Casey and his baby; bishops covering up for abusers; 800 babies buried in a septic tank in Galway?????

      I'm afraid people like you are part of the problem. You are a blind follower of a man made institution. I'm afraid that you have the Catholic Disease :-(

      Pat

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    3. Dear Pat you are very kind to reply to me, but everything you say proves me right and also proves how deluded you are. I may well have got the provenance of your "episcopal" regalia wrong, but the principle remains the same. The point I was making was that you are a man who takes pride in your appearance and who likes to dress as if he were a bishop. My simple point is: Don't criticise Eamonn Martin for doing what you do as well! I seem to recall seeing you somewhere wearing a purple shirt (an absurdity, in my opinion). Now that is something that not any self-respecting Catholic Bishop would do, be they bishop, archbishop, nuncio or cardinal. My point is that you constantly seem to be condemning priests and bishops for doing things that you do also. Thats all. It is a historically proven fact that Archbishop Eamonn is the Successor of St Patrick. All educated and cultured people agree with that, whether believer or not. It is not simplistic, it is historical fact. I am proud of Sean Brady. A good and holy man who made a mistake and has apologised for it. We cannot judge the world of 1975 by the standards of today. Do you read the newspapers, look at the news? Rotherham Council, the BBC, Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris? Eamon Casey is an old decrepit man lost in alzeimers. Show me a priest who hasnt made a mistake. I'm sure you have made many, though as a gay man you have not fathered a child. Even if you had I would be compassionate towards you. The Irish Times and all other reasoned commentators have exposed the hype and downright lies of the so-called 800 babies in the Septic tank lie. The local historian who brought this "story" to the media's attention has publicly retracted it. I suppose you may think that she has been "got at" by the hieracrchy. Well you may well think that, but it is not true. What is true is the Catholic Faith and I am proud to uphold it and I am proud to support and give my total obedience to our new Archbishop. I know that will make you sad, but I would say that that reaction is one that is truly to be expected from you. In fact I would be very surprised if you reacted in any other way. Proud (and Loyal) Irish Catholic

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  6. Pat,

    1 - The Priesthood in Ireland is in crisis and soon demand will outstrip supply. This year 12 men entered Maynooth for the whole of ireland. With the average age of Irish Priests in their mid-sixties within 10 years there will be a crisis that will hit the layity hard. Even within the priesthood there are several crises - a lack of leadership among the hierarchy that is out of touch with people and its priests and the cancer of cynicism that has existed for decades and which is polluting any chance of revival to true gospel values.

    2 - Bishops and priests talk about love and compassion, but in many of the teachings they profess the language goes beyond the fringes of right-winged opinions - Most notably the language used to called gays 'psychologically disordered - intrinsically evil in expressing their love - inclined to evil - calls for families and communities not to recognise loving same sex unions - calling for healing etc... This language is hurtful, lacking in love and compassion and as Mary McAleese herself has stated it has been responsible for the deaths of many young gay men in Ireland who have taken their own lives while their thoughts and consciences are in trumoil.

    3 - Under 30's see the church as irrelevant and unfortunately the message of jesus as being irrelevant to their lives. They see the church as hypocritical, power hungry, sex obsessed and power hungry. Spin doctors can create websites with youth teams visiting lourdes and posing for selfies with their bishops, but its an illusions that there is hope for the future. In Rio 1.5 million youth turned up to see Pope Francis, and they blasted the hymns while bishops danced and more selfies were taken, but i remember reading an article by Hans kung in that they never reported the tonnes of empty alcohol bottles, drugs paraphernalia and condoms that were removed from the beach the following day.

    4 - 80% of Catholics don't practice because they see the church as irrelevant. Within the remaining 20% the majority are indifferent to evangelisation, a tiny minority want to evangelise and most dangerously there is a tiny minority who are prepared with a bunker mentality of right winged extremism to excluded the undesirables and to prepare for the future of bunker mentality.

    5) Catholic schools - This is the biggest illusion of them all. Its the product of Irish history when Christian Brothers and Mercy Sisters began free education for the poor. Within a decades Parishes built poor schools. Successive educational acts saw money pumped in, so Churches provided lands and the government spend 90% building schools while the church maintained the other 10% (Often Not) of the bill. Thus there came real power to local clergy and it still remains to this day even though Catholic Maintained schools are no longer maintained by church but 100% by the government. In Northern Ireland alone 250million pounds is wasted every year maintaing a segregated education system when we all know that integration is and has to be the way forward. We use the word Catholic Schools but the dogs in the parish streets know that within the school there are remarried teachers, gay teachers, divorced teachers, teachers living in unmarried relationships etc... and yet they are doing a fantastic job educating our children. Children are prepared for sacraments as a near rite of passage with many of them never grace the door of a church after confirmation unless its for a funeral or a wedding.

    The Disease is being cured.

    Jesus didn't call us to be catholic, protestant, orthodox or even Christians. He called us to be disciples of love. So, when Churches close, and the priesthood dries up, when it's power is removed and schools are allowed to simply educate, when people can live and love whoever they want without the Archbishop of Armagh's opposition being heard then i will be happy disciple who's against power and control and who simply tries to love my God and my Neighbour as best i can.

    Gerry.

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    1. Gerry what about "the Truth"? Do you believe in objective right and wrong? Or do you think that the situation dictates how you should respond to any give moral dilemma? If so you can make even murder morally justifiable.

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    2. My truth is to follow the teachings of Jesus and every day I try, I succeed, I fail and then I try harder - I simply cannot find jesus in modern religion. I find very little love in religion, especially Roman Catholicism.

      "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Jesus

      .If we allow this teaching to become engraved ever more deeply into our hearts then we have all the answer to the meaning if our lives. This doesn't include justifying murder of any kind... And it doesn't need any church to elaborate upon it. Jesus came to set us free from religion that makes us slaves and to be accept a truth that sets us free and if lived completes the fullness of humanity. Remember he came to give us the Kingdom of Heaven - but we ended up settling for a corrupt religion.

      Gerry

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  7. A valid comment - well argued.
    Dromore priest and struggling disciple

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  8. I had an email from a colleague in my old parish of St Annes Sligo. The congregation at the Sunday Evening Mass now varies from 50 to about 150 I believe. The larger " fortnightly massgoers" is made up of 25 + adults. Druums, guitars are frowned upon. Mass is something of a spectator event. Any inkling of living Christianity I presume is lacking and again I am presuming that the parish council (talking shop) is slow to engage with these hungry young Christians. I believe Christianity and Roman Catholicism in southern in Southern Ireland have parted company. Your pic of the new archbishop reminds me of Ming in Flash Gordon. Perhaps with all its pain Christianity in Northern Ireland is more alive. In the South the R C Church reminds me of a church that is tranquilised. Sean

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  9. The people that Jesus confronted most vigorously, face to face were the Pharisees. Why ? Because they had replaced LOVE with FORCE, SERVICE with POWER, and TRUE FREEDOM with CONTROL
    The present day church is a mirror image of this, and is NOT the way of life and growth that Jesus invites us to participate in.
    As a Priest I have had a " ringside seat" to view this situation closely, and how I wish it were radically different.
    Our churches are emptying, especially of young people, because the church has betrayed Christ, and refuses to repent and reform. Until the spirit of conversion reaches deep into the church, nothing will change.
    We 'worship' a system, and though Christ is there we struggle to reach him.

    Priest of D&C.

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    1. Fr I agree with you. I also ask myself if I were in an Irish Parish now I wonder if I would shut my mouth and go with the flow. When I was in Sligo I was afraid of the bishop and hid in a brandy bottle. Now I am not afraid and I dont drink. Its easy for me to shout at Ireland from the safety of Manchester. I wonder whose role is it to be a modern prophet and how should they deliver their message in modern Ireland Sean

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  10. Good comment Gerry, and very true in many respects.
    If I may make comment to Anonymous of 21:48:
    Friend: there is no objective right or wrong. Such objectivity presupposes absolutism from some static unchanging entity, which simply does not exist.
    All matter is in a process of change. Humankinds' rights and wrongs are the broadly agreed evolved codes of interactive behaviours embedded in the human psyche through countless generations of natural selective evolution. As such they have evolved into moral imperatives thought of as right or wrong. This is the broad flow of the mighty river of our evolution within which there regular ebbs and flows of individual, tribal and occasionally national aberrations.
    Organisations, such as religion, which promote their perspectives on behaviour, interpersonal and otherwise, have only arrived much later in the evolutionary chain.
    MournemanMichael

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    1. Religion is like a bus that should help transport us to our destination of Gods Kingdom. However many religions have concentrated so much on the bus and how passengers should behave they have forgotten where the bus should be going. Sean

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  11. Good analogy Sean. If I could piggyback the analogy, I'd add that the totalitarian "winner takes all" exclusivity mindset of the RC church, relying on a now discredited Thomistic based absolutism, remains completely convinced that they alone are entitled to drive that bus.
    They drive that bus down the B roads of blind alley oblivion, unable and/or unwilling to look over the hedges to the motorways where intelligent informed drivers use intelligence to seek sensible, experienced based routes to their final destinations.
    MournemanMichael

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