Friday 23 March 2018

WHO ARE THE REAL HERETICS???




A NUMBER OF CONTRIBUTORS YESTERDAY WHO OBJECTED TO MY BLOG ABOUT FRANCIS COMING TO DUBLIN SUGGESTED THAT I WAS A HERETIC AND JUST HAD MY OWN "MAKEY UP" FAITH.

It's very easy to throw abuse at someone for their beliefs and to try and put them down by calling them names. 

But I was fortunate enough to have a Dad who taught me a lot of things when I was a little boy - and one of the things he taught me came in a rhyme:


"Sticks and stones will break my bones,
But names will never hurt me".

And in my last 32 years particularly since I was dumped by the RC Institution I have been called plenty of names and have thus been able to develop a great habit of letting that name calling roll off of me like water off a duck's back.

And so when stupid people call me a "heretic" I respond with a great, big smile.





So many "believers" - whether Christian, Catholic, Muslim etc stay stuck all their lives with a childish version of their religion. 

They do not seem to have the capacity to grow spiritually and so are happy to hang on to childhood beliefs.

Whereas the truly SPIRITUAL person will often start off with children's religious beliefs but by the use of their intellect, life experience AND God's grace will move on to possess a mature and intelligent spirituality.

This growth in spirituality and faith necessarily means questioning absolutely everything you have been taught by others - sifting the grain from the chaff - and coming to have a spirituality, a faith or a set of values that are not unintelligent and childish but rather, is mature, well thought out and capable of at least a basic intellectual defence.

So in fact, such a person is NOT a "heretic" but a thinking believer.

As I ways say to people: "God would not have given us a brain if He intended that we never use it".

I also say: "If God wanted us to be robots he would have replaced our belly button with a little red flashing light".


Why should I believe that Peter was in Rome if his presence there is unprovable or even academically possible?

Why should I believe that popes are infallible when so many of them have been tyrants, murderers, rapists and paedophiles?

Why should a Scottish Catholic be morally guided by Keith O'Brien when he seduced young seminarians and priests and used the Confessional as a pick up joint?

Why should I listen to Bishop Eamon Casey when he pontificated on family life when he disowned his own son and stole £ 70,000 of diocesan money to buy off his mistress?

Why should I believe that Vatican teaching and law is from God when I know that the whole place is full of financial, moral and sexual hustlers?

Why should I send my son to Maynooth when I know that many Catholic seminaries are now gay mega saunas?

Jesus announced Himself as THE TRUTH.


The only real heresy in the world is the denial of the truth.

The only real heretic is he or she who will not listen to the truth or deny it.

FUNDAMENTALISM - whether Protestant, Catholic or Islamic or whatever else, is always a heresy because fundamentalism is always irrational.

Life is not black and white. It is mainly composed of grey.

Personally, I desire to follow Christ and His teaching. Everybody after that, be his pope, bishop, priest or preacher is only a secondary source.













84 comments:

  1. Pat, whatever you're oul'fella may have said you are still one at variance with the teachings of the Catholic church,. You quote GBShaw in your defence, a bit like calling Luther as a character witness. And incidentally as one whose father knew your father I think he would be ashamed of you.

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    1. It's obvious from your comment that your father did not know my father very well.

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    2. @00.18
      1. You sound like a school boy with such comments. Might as well tgreaten that your dad will beat up Bishop Pat.

      2. How does one presume to speak on behalf of a person's father in such circumstances??

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    3. It's extremely bad form 00:18 to bring another person's parents into a dispute. Shame on you.

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    4. 00:18 Disgrace! You little man of straw.

      +Pat has spoken publicly about his parents and you don’t have a clue what your spouting.

      +Pat discribed his childhood and it is far from what you pretend to know from your father.

      It’s a disgrace when someone brings another’s parents or family into disrepute because they either have nothing else to say or what they have to say is otherwise rubbish.

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  2. When I was growing up I was made to believe that the Roman Catholic Church was the first and best. All others were cheap imitations. This belief went draper than logic. Some posters speak of heretics apostates and other defecters. I wonder if this is because they have not worked through issues in their own experience and may feel trapped or jealous of those who appear to be navigating the challenges of life. I think of the quote. The person who saves their life will loose it...

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  3. Conventional catholicism is based on blind obedience to a hierarchy. Over the years I have read this blog i have always found you to base your beliefs on a compassionate understanding of Jesus's teachings, informed by a God-given conscience. Where there is doubt you have been fundamentalist with offering compassion.

    Your stance cannot be reconciled with childish catholicism, so the immature in faith thrown religious-stone by calling you a heretic. St. Peter may have other names for you in eternity, such as buddy, Pat, mate, fisherman. For those who think you are heading for the fires, i say they should be careful, as your compassion may see you sitting with Peter by a campfire sharing fish and bread.

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    1. "Conscience is the aboriginal vicar of Christ"

      Cardinal J H Newman.

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  4. Gay couples. Trick the Church of England into blessing your civil partnership by sneezing in front of a vicar.

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    1. how old are you? 12?

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    2. what a ridiculous thing to assert.

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    3. This is typical of Maggie Cartar. A grown individual who espouses childish behavior

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    4. MC is just a controversialist.

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    5. 18:48, Magna CarTAR is an impostor; Magna CarTA (moi!) is the real thing.😆

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    6. Actually MAgna CArta is the real thing. I am he.
      Where were you dragged up, Duckie?

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    7. Magna Carta has in one post insulted both the Church of England and gay couples seeking a blessing. Typical.

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    8. 21:55, no, you plonker! That was Magna CarTAR. Can't you people read?😆

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  5. The real heretics in no particular order are the Anglicans, Lutherans and Presbyterians (esp the Frees and the Wee Frees), Southern Baptists, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Elim Penetecostal, Moravians, Lutherans and Cooneyites and the Plymouth Brethren.

    Joining them are the URCs, the Non-Subsribing Presbyterians and the Primative Methodists.

    These are a few of the more than 22,000 Protestant denominations. Protestants are quick to say the Catholic Church is in error. It's great craic to ask a Northern Ireland Presbyterian why I should prefer them over, say, the Reformed Presbyerians across the street.

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    1. So where do you focus on faith? Worship God or telling others they are in the wrong?

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    2. Mormons are apostates not heretics. They do not believe in a proper God. To them God is a resurrected man who cannot live in our hearts who was once a sinful normal man. There are many gods. This religion is basically occult for its God is a man with limited powers. E.g. He can't create from nothing and if other gods decide to defrock him then he's out of luck

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    3. Fex sake even football teams play ball with the opposition. People are people and Christ is Christ. Start from there. What did St Paul say about bickering. I'm glad I'm in an environment where denominations respect each other for the most part Easter School and Retreat I am attending will be held in an R C owned centre where we have full use of the chapel.

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    4. 16.06 Technically not correct. Apostate refers to someone who was a Christian and who changed to another religion. Heretics is more correct but no longer a helpful term.

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  6. I'm sure that in all of those churches there are true Christians.

    Just like you meet occasional Christians in Roman Catholicism.

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  7. Is Michael Byrne working as a Garda now? - there is a photo of a guy very like him on the "Garda College Templemore" Facebook page (see "172 Passing Out).

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    1. 11.02: Who cares about MB. Leave him alone. Move on you idiot. Or do you fancy him????

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    2. No Michael Byrne was fat that man isn’t him. Anyway he didn’t “disappear” in time to be passing out this time round. It takes two years as far as I know.

      I’d say Michael Byrne is preparing to make a comeback to ministry. He is still a transitional deacon.

      Maybe AB Martin will bring him into the Pro Cathedral and wash his feet this and cleanse him of his sins.

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  8. I'm sure that you meet occasional Christians in the Larne Oratory.

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  9. A heretic is a peddler of half truth as if it was the full truth. There are none so “black and white” in their thinking as heretics. You’re talking through your hat, Pat, as usual, in your self-serving attempts to justify yourself.

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    1. And how can you be sure that truth was 'possessed' in the first place, 11:28? Because Jesus told his disciples that the 'gates of hell would not prevail against' the church? Actually, Jesus could not have used these very words, as the word 'church' (note the small 'c'...Jesus wasn't thinking of the Roman Catholic Church) comes from the Greek for 'assembly'. Jesus would have addressed his disciples in Aramaic, not in Greek, since Aramaic was their mother tongue.

      You should know, too, that some very serious untruths have been (and still officially are being) taught by the Roman Catholic Church, in direct contravention of Jesus' own express teaching.

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    2. Magna, you are very intelligent and very familiar with scripture.

      Jesus did not know of the Catholic Church. That’s correct. Why do people believe this is the true church ?

      If Jesus went to the Vatican today he would be kicked down the steps of St. Peter’s by the cabal who run the place.

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    3. 14.03 More wikipedia theology.

      Of course the Greek New Testament does not give us the ipsissima verba of Jesus whose mother tongue was another language. After 2,000 years who is claiming otherwise? But it does give us the ipsissima vox.

      You miss the whole point of the literary double meaning of ‘autes’ the feminine pronoun which can refer both to petra (rock) and ekklesia (assembly). - the Aramaic word would most likely have been qahal - which if you had got as far as I Divinity liturgy you would know.

      At what stage you parted company with seminary is not known but it’s unlikely you got as far as theology.

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    4. 21:56, rendering simple English phrases in Latin ('the very words', ipissima verba; and 'the very voice', ipissima vox) really adds nothing to your post, but it does reveal something about you: that you are a pretentious and insecure 'dolt' who knows that his points are weak and therefore hopes to distract readers from this by peppering his comment with phrases from a dead language.

      On the contrary, Greek translations of the Canonical Gospels likely do provide us with the very words of Jesus, on at least some occasions, since they take the trouble to preserve such Aramaic expressions as Eloi, Eloi, Lama sabachthani ('My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?'). These words appear in the gospels of Matthew and Mark.

      As for your unqualified claim that the Greek translations express the very voice (or thinking) of Jesus, this is naive, since it ignores the fact that the New Testament was composed, written, edited, and sub-edited not by Jesus, but by exclusively human authors, and that their 'take' on Jesus' teaching was inevitable (and, indeed, is obvious to anyone with more than a modicum of biblical scholarship).

      Your third paragrah is meaningless, since it has no bearing whatever on the statement I made in my post at 14:03. The words attributed to Jesus in Matthew's gospel were, at least in part, a licence taken by its author, since he has Simon-Peter proclaim Jesus as Christos (a Greek word that means 'Anointed One') rather than Mashiach (a Hebrew word that means 'Messiah'). You might think: 'So what? Christos is the Greek translation of Mashiach, and the author of Matthew's gospel was a Hellinized Jew writing in Greek for other such Jews.' On the face of it, this is a reasonable point, but the two words are not semantic co-equivalents. In the post-Ressurrection period, Christos had a fundamental christological component that Mashiach did not: post-Ressurrection, Jesus was understood to be divine, whereas beforehand, he was not. The Jewish understanding of messiahship, familiar to Simon Peter and his fellow disciples, had no expression of the Messiah as divine; the Messiah was expected to be human, not divine. Indeed, any acceptance to the contrary would have been blasphemous and punishable by death. So Simon-Peter, in this pre-Resuurection scene in Matthew's gospel could not, and would not, have proclaimed, as thebauthor ofbthis gospel has him do, Jesus as Christos: God incarnate, died, and raised from death.

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    5. A few points:
      1. No one knows who the author of Matthew was. It’s an enresolved issue. That you trot out an answer in the way you do shows you have zero awareness of the complexities involved or the current state of the question.

      2. Ipsissima (note spelling) verba/vox are elementary terms of biblical/theological foundation courses - part of the jargon of the discipline just as every discipline has its own.

      3. ‘The Jewish understanding of messiah’ is a misnomer. Anyone using this phrase gives the game away after five words. There was no such thing. There were multiple Jewish understandings.

      4. As for the rest of your writing - a diarrhoea of words and a constipation of erudition.

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    6. 09:35, I did not identify, by name, the author of Matthew's gospel. But because of its familiarity with Judaism, along with its excellent Greek and the fact that its author did not have to explain to his readers those features of Judaism he mentions, certain, reasonable inferences may be drawn: first, that the author himself was Jewish; second, that he was a Hellinised Jew because of his command of Greek; and third, that his readers were themselves Hellinised Jews, since they required no explanations of Judaistic beliefs, practices and customs. (Oh! And we may infer also that the author was male, given the strict patriarchy of the time.)

      I repeat my point about (your?) pretentious insecurity: this blog is not a 'biblical/theological foundation' course, so use of such Latin phrases was totally unnecessary, even vulgar, and succeeded only in revealing an immature and unappealing aspect of your psychology, while adding not a jot to your argument.

      Like virtually all institutionalised faiths, there is 'official' and 'unofficial' teaching and understanding. Within Judaism itself, there were multilpe sects, so one might reasonably expect multiple understandings and expectations of messiahship. Nevertheless, there were core elements to all of this, chief among them the belief that the Messiah would be exclusively HUMAN. It is why, you utter bonehead and dilettante, the Sanhedrin sought Jesus' death...because he claimed oneness with God duing his interrogation by that body.

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    7. It’s not for you to vet the contribution of anyone to this blog. It’s clear that many here are theologically literate, your good self not included. If you want to vet comments set up your own blog. I’d suggest calling it Drinking Catholicism.

      You wouldn’t know ‘excellent Greek’ if it hit you, or excellent any other language for that matter.

      What the author of Matthew chose to explain or not to explain is in the case of the latter an argument from silence. A flimsy basis for any case.

      Again your limitations and lack of nuance in this field are all too apparent in your poppycock about ‘the Messiah’ being human. There were multiple messiahs expected. Stick to a subject you know something about. Wikipedia for instance.

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  10. Eamonn Casey, Keith O’Brien, Maynooth, is that the best you can do Buckley?

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    1. 11.37 That's a bishop, a cardinal and a national seminary supported all their lives by the teaching church. Perhaps, that is not much as you seem to infer.

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  11. How are ye all today girls?

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    1. Hiya @ 11.52.
      We are tired walking round the town searching for new jeans for one of us who is fussy about her rear view. We got some and are having a fish supper... Not so bad..

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    2. New jeans! A fish supper!

      How typically working class!

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    3. Both the jeans and the fish supper were to cheer one of our number who is sofa-living(homeless) at the moment. So I suppose you can say you are right..

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  12. I’ve seen many Heretics come and go: Hate filled Priests, Weird Evangellicals, fake healers etc.

    The fundamental process of discernment given by Jesus in the Gospel is “by their Fruit we shall know them”. In Bishop Buckley’s case all the fruit I have seen is compassion, love and kindness.

    When the Catholic Church kicks you to the kerb and refuses you access to the Sacrament of Marriage (for either your sexuality or a host of dubious regulations) they’re quite prepared to leave you out there in the cold.

    Bishop Buckley brings hope to Couples in this positon: takes a feeling of bitterness and rejection and allows Couples access to the Sacrament. To forgive the Catholic Church and attempt to move forward in their walk with God.

    By their Fruit you shall know them... you can intellectually believe every word of Canon Law and still have no compassion, no Love. You’ll never be accused of Heresy but you’ll also be missing the entire point of Christianity.

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  13. I am not going into a numbers game but 1.2 Billion cannot all be brain washed and as for others Churches let them get on with it as the teaching of the Church will last for ever.
    +Pat you seem a very Holy Caring and Genuine Man and remember your early teaching as a Child you do keep a lot of Catholicism in your Life.
    Sadly you had a bad time with the Church but really now we as a Church want rid of the Bad Apples.

    I wish to let you all know the Funeral of Keith Patrick O'Brien was his wish in a parish he attended and wanted beside his parents so the Church can play the Media Part if it wants.
    As he said to his friends he has caused enough her to the people of Scotland and beyond and just wants to rest in peace.
    I wish the others involved would look at themselves in the mirror and say oh I took Vows.
    But time will tell as surely as Clergy continue to lead double lives the laity are NOT stupid.

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  14. Pat, your reflections today are ok! Compartmentalising Christians into boxes is never a good idea as there are truly wonderful Christians in all denominations. Dancing around the meaning of words is counter productive. Whatever faith tradition we each follow should be respected. Name calling is immature. However, I believe that "faith" and "spirituality" are intertwined. For me as a Catholic that means being faithful to the central truths of my faith and above all ensuring that in my everyday life the inspiration for my life's vision is the gospel of Christ. My Catholic faith is both nourishing and inspiring for me. Nothwithstanding the abhorrent scandals which can shake anyone's faith, I still seek for the essence and the essentials of my Catholic faith. I believe the deliberate hate filled venom directed at all things Catholic, especially at priests - Magna Blue being the chief offender - is unacceptable and imbalanced mostly. We cannot each make up our own rules as we go along, just like no member of a golf club or a political party cannot do either. There has to be a focus of unity and authority, one which is of true service and in imitation of Christ. This is something I try to aspire to and which the deeper essence of Catholicism gives me. Respect, support and tolerance are hallmarks of Christians towards one another, little of which are found here. Sadly.

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    1. 13:13, so we 'cannot each make up our own rules as we go along'?

      13:13, if you joined (say) a golf club and its rules stipulated that no blacks, no Chinese, no Irish Catholics could join it, would you, as a Christian, accept these rules? Or would you challenge them?

      You believe in blindly following the teaching of Rome, even though it has, at times, clearly not coincided with Christ's words in Scripture.

      Be careful, for you have made the Roman Catholic Church your God rather than the God of this church.

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    2. Magna, typical effort by you to deliberately misrepresent my comments at 13.13. You or I cannot join a golf club and expect to play our own rules, even if you disagree with their rules and conditions. Obviously I would not agree with extreme, discriminatory rules. And in the Church I belong to I vehemently object to discrimination, inequalities and abuse of any kind. My point is despite the many anomalies and much I find unconfortable, I find great nourishment and inspiration in the presence of God in the community of believers and particulatly through the depth of Christian witness that's evident for me to see. I believe in the essence and purity of the gospel of Christ, which, if truly lived, would and can create a better society and make all of us better human beings. That task for me is a daily decision I make and one which can bear fruit only with God's graces! For your info, I do not blindly follow anything or anyone - I discern what is good, acceptable and right and am grateful for the reservoir of wisdom, tradition, teachings, spirituality, mysticism and beliefs of the Catholic Church. Sorry to disappoint you!!

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    3. Er, no, I'd leave.

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  15. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

    That might be you +Pat or it might be the Holy Father the Supreme Pontiff.

    Only God knows.

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    1. 15.00 ... or it could be a prophet of God warning church authorities that a horrendous purification awaits them if they don't change their ways.

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    2. 16:31 - it could be Satan coming to destroy God’s holy and faithful people and his most holy Church.

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    3. 16.31: A horrendous purification awaits all God's people, don't you think? Can you truly absent yourself from such a moment? Then, if you believe in a vicious, vindictive God, you too should amend your ways. We all need God's redeeming, merciful love. And Jesus is the one who reveals a God who is just to each person accordingly.. .

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    4. 16.59 How could satan come 'in the name of the Lord'?

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    5. 18.36 You first specify about the purification and then you lecture me about believing in a vicious God, which I don't believe in. Make up our mind. Or did my comment disturb you so much that you couldn't wait to try and negate it.

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    6. 18.36 accordingly ... according to the way they have shown mercy to others.

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    7. 19:00 you’ll have to learn how to discern the spirits to know how Satan can come pretending to be the Lord.

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    8. 20.04 I didn't ask how satan can come pretending to be the Lord. I'm addressing the post at 15.00 and 16.59. What are you doing?

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    9. 19.03: My question at 18.36 was rhetorical. I was suggesting that if you or any of us believe in a vundictive God, which was preached in to us, then we instil fear and burden others unnecessarily. However, I do believe that as God's people in faith and through baptism, we are called to imitate Christ daily. In this task we need God's graces. I did not intend to lecture you!

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  16. Pat, the word heretic reminds of a line that was given regarding church clergy - 'They wouldn't call a Muslim a heretic today.' And it's true, they wouldn't dare. It seems the heretic judgement is confined to those they can lord over.

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    1. The historical Christian term for someone of another religion apart from Christianity is not heretic but infidel.

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    2. Oh, that made me think of the Novena of Grace about which I haven’t thought in years. Wasn’t there a prayer for infidels therein? By Xavier himself?

      It does not seem to show up in the modern version online.

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  17. Pat, I'm not sure but I think you give too much credence to people like Casey and O'Brien and many others. For the most part they are just functionaries and people just get on with their little prayers and little beliefs. It is only when they use their office to side with one and militate against another that the difficulties arise. No matter what the personal lives or double lives of clergymen, we don't have to be affected by them. We can always be more faithful to God in the church structure despite them. Weeds are generally allowed to grow side by side with the wheat.

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  18. I wonder what Priest those husband and wife morons will be watching today after their carry on yesterday on the blog.

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  19. God help the wife! His former girlfriends all had one lucky escape.

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    1. The wife sounded just as bad. She made an excuse to go outside to their car so she could see what car the Priest was driving. I never heard the likes of it.

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    2. I’d be careful around Larne Pat because that couple might be watching what you eat, where you eat and the car you drive.

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    3. His wife was his first and only girlfriend.

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    4. I saw a Priest today in a Newry hotel dressed very casually and chilling out. He must have read about that couple yesterday on the blog lol.

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  20. There’s an insightful description of Keith O’Brien’s remorse on the website of the Association of Catholic Priests, including testimony from two of his friends.

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    1. Fr Seamus Ahearne says 'I found it difficult to reconcile a forgiving church with the exile of Keith. ' I can understand Fr Ahearne's sadness for his friend. However, on the law of averages, I think Cardinal O'Brien didn't do too badly. He was nearing retirement anyway when he resigned. He had had a very long life in ministry at the high status end. He wasn't laicised and I'm sure the nuns would have taken good care of him in his final years. He didn't get the boot without
      a roof over his head.That's more than can be said for many poor unfortunates who die alone without family or friends. I think of the many poor Irish emigrants to the UK who were sadly forgotten down through the years. Many of them lived very sad, lonely, dejected lives, totally forgotten and unappreciated. It's all relative. I wish Cardinal O'Brien eternal rest and peace but I don't think it could be said that he was unjustly treated by the church.

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    2. He also enjoyed carnal pleasures throughout his very long life in "ministry". He said so, himself.

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    3. I know of a priest who left and died at relatively young age lonely in the end-sad

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  21. Seamus Ahearne says some interesting things in this ACP comments - you will find it right at the end of his piece which talks about all sorts of other happening, including St Patrick's Day and Twickenham. And he is right. KO'B was a man of big character and faith, and the flip side, as is so often the case, were big failings. But, he was a man who will continue to put Chushley and Nichols in the shadows. They are careful, company men, calculating, cold, and ambitious. They simply would not know how to enjoy themselves in any way as much as KO'B. And people who meet them will come away feeling cold. Meet Nichols at anything, and he is looking over your shoulder for someone more important to talk to. So, give me KO'B anyway, even with his big failings and sins. At least he knew how to live and enjoy himself, and retain his faith. As for the others, cold fish which give me the shivers.

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    1. KOB freely admitted he was active throughout his whole adult life, which means he engaged in sexual activities during the height of the AIDS epidemic.

      Therefore, it is reasonable to assume he used condoms (probably on a daily basis) despite the Catholic church's teachings.

      It's a pity his middle-name was Patrick, instead of... say, Norman.

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    2. Westminster priest in charge24 March 2018 at 22:06

      Nichols is a total cold fish, dead emotionally. He's tempered his accent the better to fit in down south, where he spent most of his desk-bound career.

      Behind the pedestrian home-spun wisdom lies the most ambitious Archbishop of Westminster ever.

      And yes, despite being poor at small talk, he's notorious for looking over shoulders for the more interesting at social events.

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    3. Westminster priest in charge24 March 2018 at 22:14

      I thought the last shall be first and the first shall be last was the injunction, the least seat at the table was to be the norm, and the Lord praised the one who sat at the back seat of the synagogue.

      Why then the ambition for pointy hats, especially in tiny Sees such as Clonfert and Clogher?

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    4. What utter rubbish. He didn’t do penetration. Just heavy petting. Idiot.

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    5. @23.21

      ... followed by some cucumber play.

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  22. Clogher's going to be announced any day now. Joe Mc Guinness already knows that he has got the job so he'll be insufferable now! And his sidekick Shane Mc Caughey will now be looking for a pointy hat too. What a disaster for poor Clogher!

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    1. Clogher Curate what's the word on the ground?

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    2. Sorry, I've been a bit distracted by my new Amazon Echo, also known as Alexa. (A birthday present btw).

      The champagne is on ice in Tyholland, as it has been for months now. The Clogher jungle drums are quiet this evening, though some have suggested that appointments will be speeded up ahead of the Papal visit.

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  23. So were u one of his playthings23.21 seeing as u know so much.
    Pat, why do u allow posts that have inappropriate words.
    The above word beginning with I is now considered politically incorrect.

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