Sunday 20 September 2015

BISHOP TREANOR - RECEIVES COPY OF BLOG

BISHOP TREANOR RECEIVES COPY OF BLOG

MY BLOG of last Wednesday - September 16th - about the "shortage" of priests in Down and Connor has attracted some 65 comments (many from diocesan priests) and some 5,000+ views or "hits".

I would not be so presumptuous as to believe that Noel Treanor every looks at this Blog. But I thought there was much material in this particular Blog that he could do with reading and thinking about.

So I have today, posted him a hard copy. It is 19 pages long.   I have sent it with the enclosed letter (below):


I have no way of knowing if Noel Treanor will read this Blog or indeed get any food for thought from it. He way well consign it to his waster paper bin.

I remember a bishop once telling me: "The day you become a bishop people stop telling you the truth and start telling you what they think you want to hear".

We can but try.

In spite of all my difficulties with the Church in Down and Connor over these past 30 years (CB Daly gave me my marching orders on 5.10.1985) I still have a great fondness for this part of the world and its people.

The people of my three parishes in the diocese - St Peter's Cathedral, Kilkeel and Larne were very good to me.

I believe that the vast majority of D&C priests - while greatly disagreeing with me - are good priests who believe, pray, struggle with their humanity and serve their people well. The barrell is by no means rotten. It just has a number of bad apples in it.

It also seems that the Orchard Keeper is being less than vigilant.

Cahal Daly did his best to be a good bishop. Paddy Walsh was by personality and practice an unfortunate choice. Noel Treanor seems to be failing to do what needs to be done in 2015.

The Church is never destroyed by its big enemies. It is not destroyed by its teeming millions of members. 

It is far too often undermined by its "shepherds". 

When Napoleon once told a cardinal he was going to destroy the Church, the cardinal answered: "You do not have a chance. We priests have been trying to do that for hundreds of years".

It seems nothing has changed :-(


22 comments:

  1. Anonymous20 September 2015 at 15:45
    Listening to the Pope preaching in Cuba on today's Gospel - causes me to reflect on what ails this diocese, according to many of the comments here.

    1. Men who serve themselves, who pursue their own interests and ambitions, career clerics who suit themselves and even invent self-important roles for themselves, in an attempt to make themselves indispensable and in the hope of further personal aggrandisement.

    These men are not servants of the Gospel but puffed up, conceited worshippers of themselves. They need to be converted or they "will receive very many strokes of the lash"..

    2. Those men who prey upon the vulnerable, who seek sexual gratification from those to whom they are sent as servants, are a ghastly distortion of true priestly identity. They are grotesque spiritual mutants. Monsters and what they do is monstrous!

    These individuals are demonic on account of the ruinous and calamitous damage they can cause and WILL cause! Their actions are the Skandalon and their end will be in the Lake of Fire.

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    Replies
    1. I feel your hurt and anger in this comment.

      We all need God's mercy and forgiveness - but we must attract that mercy and forgiveness by having faith and by doing our best not to hurt God and our brothers and sisters.

      I often ask myself if these priests you speak of have any faith left? Do they pray? Do they not believe in a day of reckoning?

      There is a huge difference between human weakness and human badness.

      Hearts and souls are destroyed by cynicism, selfishness, narcissism and an attitude of not taking responsibility for our acts and actions.

      They only way forward for all - and especially for us priests - is to deepen our faith, improve our prayer and spiritual lives and have hearts full of compassion and love for people.

      There seems no emphasis anymore on priestly spirituality in D&C.

      We do not become holy by clustering parishes, gaining titles, having big surveys, publishing reports and having impressive sounding "programmes" like Living Church, Faith and Life etc.

      The Church is best at parish - priest and people level - not at European or Moderatorship level.

      WE CAN WORK SO HARD FOR GOD THAT WE FORGET THE GOD FOR WHOM WE WORK !!!

      Delete
    2. Sad to say, Pat - and this is the core of the problem: these men are not working for God, so there is no danger they will forget the God for whom they work. I think you are right in saying that many of them do not believe in God at all. What is most dangerous in all of this is - not human weakness (from which we all suffer and which we we all battle constantly) but human BADNESS. These are crass and cynical individuals who do not care about the harm they do. They carry on regardless - whether it is riding the ranch or promoting themselves - they do it ruthlessly and unscrupulously.

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    3. Yes you are right. And they seem to crawl up the hierarchal ladder.

      My Dad used to say: "The higher a monkey climbs the more you see of his objectional parts".

      Delete
  2. Whilst I take your post seriously I couldn't help but smile on reading " they will receive many strokes of the lash"
    According to some reports I have heard there are a few priests in the diocese who wouldn't be averse to that !!'

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    Replies
    1. Point taken - the difference in this case is though - when this particular lash descends - they WILL NOT ENJOY IT! Jesus Christ does not indulge fetishes (Luke 12:47-48).

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    2. Nice bedtime reading for +Noel tonight then? You should also send a copy to the Nuncio, +Pat.

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    3. I was thinking same thing . The nuncio should read it also

      Delete
    4. Does Charlie Brown really care? Is he not a professional cleric and a diplomatic careerist.

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  3. That he may well be. But for a highly damaging media expose to occur in his patch and on his watch might be a blot on his copy book. And believe me a media expose there will be........in fact if what is being said around the doors is correct it will be a feeding frenzy. The nuncio won't want to look like a proper Charlie.

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    Replies
    1. Indeed! Also, heaven knows what line of BS Charlie is being fed about D&C by the likes of Timo Bartlett! "Your Excellency, there are, of course, a few minor problems in Down and Connor but I'm just the man to fix them. Or so others keep telling me, Your Excellency, because, to be perfectly frank and utterly honest, Your High Highness, all I really crave with all my heart and soul, all I have ever dreamed of, is to a be a humble little curate in Twinbrook". Or words to that effect! :-)

      Delete
  4. And why not send to Eamon Martin too?
    After all D & C diocese is part of his watch, so when the manure strikes the fan, he can't claim to be unaware.
    And the more it is made public that the info on the wrongdoing has been given to those with responsibility to act, the more pressure is put on them to act.

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    Replies
    1. Is it true that Charlie is much sought after by the Church of England for his private seminars on "How To Appoint Colorful Bishops and Get Away With It"?

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  5. I am very disturbed at what I read on this Blog. It seems the diocese of Down and Connor is in meltdown.

    Fr Aenas OCSO

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  6. I can just imagine the thinking going on behind closed doors in Lisbreen. They know the game is up and they know the media is onto this now. But the last thing they will want to do is give the appearance or impression that Buckley's Blog and the fall out from it is driving the agenda for change. So face saving strategies will now need to be employed. The spin doctors will be climbing over each other to invent phrases to "soften" the message. Add into the mix the role saving antics of Timmo and his fellow travellers all trying to protect their own positions as they stab each other in the back and you have a scenario akin to the famous "Night of the long knives" from the Harold Macmillan era. Only in this case it will be the night of the long brown envelopes! Perhaps the late Jeremy Thorpe's twist on the old biblical quotation will ring true again as Timmo and the "good boys"go into self preservation mode "Greater love hath no man than this, that he should lay down his friends for his life"
    Dalriada Dick

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    Replies
    1. DD, It is an interesting picture you paint of the possible goings on in Lisbreen.

      I am not sure there is or will be any effort to cause change.

      D&C is a "Titanic". Some of the crew are doing their jobs well but others are messing about in a serious way.

      The captain - in this case Noel Bobbio Treanor - leaves the bridge a great deal and indeed is often absent from the ship completely.

      He seems, either, to have no control over the mutinous crew, or has no interest or desire in bringing them into line.

      Why is this?

      In Paddy Walsh's case he SEEMED to be compromised - especially in the case of the Reverend James Donaghy.

      So what's the story?

      In any event the iceberg is only inches away and its full steam ahead!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous21 September 2015 at 15:26

      Could someone please elaborate on what "events in Dunloy" refer to? Also, what was the general opinion on Fr Vincent McKinkley, sorry McKinley??

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    3. The "events" in Dunloy are well known to Bishop Treanor. Members of the Dunloy Parish Council had a meeting with the good bishop to speak about them.

      For now I am afraid that I will have to redirect you to Bishop Treanor.

      As for Father Vincent McKinley? He was my boss in the cathedral from 1978 to 1983 and he was very aggressive. On one occasion he seriously assaulted me in the presbytery dining room.

      He was like a rabbit in headlights when in the company of attractive women. There were rumours.

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    4. Pat for your information the Dunloy Parish Council had no idea what happened in Dunloy, they could have been told anything by Bishop Treanor. Bishop Treanor has never asked to speak to the people who were sadly privy to the "events",

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    5. It is only a matter of time before the events in Dunloy appear in the Sunday Life or Sunday World.

      Delete
  7. Dear Bishop Pat,

    Thank you so much for your recent communication, the contents of which have been noted.

    Bishop-elect-hopeful, Timio Bartlettensis (hopeful-soon-to-be titular bishop of Ballyintrigue, Lisnatalltales and the Islands of Fantastic Ego), is frantically drafting an in depth response, in between his busy schedule of rehearsing for Ecclesiastical X Factor (the new talent show produced by the Holy See for wannabe episcopabile).

    I hope the weather is nice up there in Larne and not too wet. As always, it is nice and hot here, in Lisbreen.

    Yours affectionately,

    +Noel.

    ReplyDelete