The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland

Subject: The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland Fri Aug 20, 2010 11:22 pm

This is from today's Irish Independent newspaper:

Friday August 20 2010

Irish Catholics should establish a home-grown church by demanding that the bishops "get the hell out of your cathedrals", a leading author said yesterday.

Former 'Newsweek' journalist Robert Blair Kaiser also said that a grandmother who is urging women to boycott Mass in protest at the way women are treated in the church has started a revolution

He called on Irish Catholics to fix their "broken church" by making it "more Irish, less Roman" at the opening of the Humbert Summer School in Co Mayo.

Mr Blair Kaiser, who reported on the second Vatican Council for 'Time' magazine, said that the battle for the Irish Catholic church had already been started by 80-year-old Jennifer Sleeman, who has called on women to boycott Sunday mass on September 26 "to let the Vatican and the Irish church know women are tired of being treated as second-class citizens".

The US author said that the Cork grandmother had probably started the revolution.

"I have every reason to believe that you can take back your church -- your church, not the Pope's church, your church -- not the bishops' church", said Mr Blair Kaiser who recommended that Irish Catholics create a "autochthonous" or local and from-the-ground-up church.

In a keynote address 'Church Reform: No More Thrones', the author said he was not attacking the Catholic faith but the "special and corrosive tyranny that popes have been exercising over Catholics everywhere".

He said that in the 1800s, Ireland's first cardinal, Paul Cullen, had built a two-tiered clerical Irish church which marched in total loyalty to Rome and his own over-reaching authority. Later, Dublin Archbishop John Charles McQuaid had "put his own special twists" on Cardinal Cullen's authoritarian model, imposing his iron will on Irish politics and Irish society.

"The cardinal and the archbishop established the clerical culture in Ireland that Judge Yvonne Murphy identified as the root cause of the Irish scandals that have sent your nation reeling," said Blair Kaiser.

Irish Catholics could establish a home-grown church by demanding bishops "get the hell out of your cathedrals" and elect their own bishops who would serve the people as listeners, not lords," he suggested.

Rejected

In a response to the US expert, 'Irish Catholic' deputy editor Michael Kelly rejected the comparison between England's occupation and the "colonising power" of the papacy.

He said that while he shared the keynote speaker's sadness that the church in Ireland had been unwilling and unable to embrace the teachings of the second Vatican Council, he could not accept that the council intended a rupture of the Catholic tradition of the church.

"What I have experienced in Ireland is a Catholicism that has betrayed the best tradition of our church, he added. He said it was more consoling to blame Rome than to search Irish Catholicism for what had gone wrong and he called for an "honest investigation" into the culture of the church here.

The dreadful truth about the "cabal of egomaniacal clerics" who failed Irish Catholics so dreadfully, is that these bishops did not come from Rome or Constantinople -- but from Caherciveen, Tullamore, Cavan, Roscommon and Castlebar.

The school continues today with an examination of the response by the Pope and the Irish hierarchy to the abuse scandals.

- Marese McDonagh

The Irish R.C. Church fought hard to retain its independence from Rome in earlier times but eventually surrendered to papal rule. I wish this old lady great success in her protest over the second-class status of Catholic women. Can you imagine a church where bishops learned from their flocks instead of dictating to them?

User Posts : 339 Join date : 2010-05-12

Wow---thats like an Irish "Carrie Nation" Reformation movement!

I never was a Catholic, but I would suspect that those folks are just as enslaved as JW's. Id like to hear someones perspective on this, that is, a Roman Catholic "mind" perspective.

I have a book Ive been reading, working on for over a year now, its called "Windswept House: A Vatican Novel" written by a former Jesuit Priest and Personal Advisor to JP2, Malachi Martin. It is so detailed, historically, geographically, religiously, politically that I have had to accumulate several referrence works just to understand what this guy is talking about. But, Im getting there. It is simply unbelievable, and whats more, Ive listened to several hours of Radio interviews with this Priest and he has said that the things in this "novel" are essentially "true", in that, they actually happened in real life, and the only way he could write about it was to place everything in a fictional setting. With that in mind...the book opens with a phone linked-Vatican Chapel to Masonic Lodge Charleston, SC "mass" taking place in which 'Prince' Lucifer is enthroned in the Vatican chapel...it gets even "weirder" from there...

I'll do a full review of it when I finish it...whenever that will be [its very thick, and detailed, and I look up EVERYTHING I dont understand...]!!!!

Subject: Re: The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland Sun Aug 22, 2010 2:05 pm

I hope you like this letter from today's paper. I thought it was great fun and very perceptive.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/church-makes-rules-2307242.html

Pope Formosus, the ninth century Pope who was dug up nine months after his death and put on trial by his successor, Pope Stephen the Sixth, was the recipient of the application of canon law.

For those who cannot believe their eyes, yes, he was dug up and prosecuted for offending against his rival Stephen, when he was alive and sitting Pope. The new Pope, Stephen, in fairness, complied with due process and appointed legal counsel to defend Formosus' corpse.

I cannot help thinking of the trial of Formosus, surely one of the most absurd episodes in the history of the development of canon law, whenever I hear or read about Irish Catholics expressing upset about the decisions of the powers that be in Rome. Can someone please explain to me why it is that so many feel so unable to shake themselves free of the self-appointed successors of Stephen, and all the other despots that laid down the medieval set of regulations that continue to dominate the administration of the absurd institution that is the Vatican State?

The essential goodness of loyal church followers is matched only by the cynicism of the leaders of a church that cannot be accused of losing touch when, in truth, its interests never really coincided with the followers in the first place. It seems that history's oldest bad habit is the bizarre relationship that exists between the power brokers of Vatican City, and the flock it herds. This relationship is, of course, abusive.

The violently stupid mistake that commentators and victims on the debate about whether or not bishops should resign always make is to forget that the organisation to which they choose to submit can do whatever it wishes with its vassals. So, stop thinking democracy and start thinking like a slave, and you won't be too disappointed.

And for those who want to know, Formosus was found guilty under canon law and his corpse was cast into the Tiber, an unconsecrated end for a recipient of the fair and thorough process of church made law.

Declan Doyle,

Kilkenny

Sunday Independent

User Posts : 364 Join date : 2010-05-02

Hi Brendan,
We Christians know, these patterns of fleshly human behaviour (because that is what they are), will continue until Christ truly liberates the human race by his Kingdom.

Until then, only those loyal to God and his Son, or the brave, or the ones who just cannot conform to societies pecking orders. Will see through this enslavement the human race is under.

Some 'enslavement', we do have to endure, so we can provide for our family...some of us are 'wage slaves' of unjust employers....yes, there are many situations we cannot escape.
Some have to endure the enslavement of poverty or ill health.

There must be Catholics who do have a measure of Christ's freedom, as there may well be J.W's who have become freed in Christ.

However, slave making religions or systems that control us by, fear are not like the Master I serve or what one desires to espouse.

Come Lord Jesus and free your people so we can take on your yolk alone.

User Posts : 364 Join date : 2010-05-02

Hi all,
A few decades ago, a little girl of eight was washing the windows of her mum and dad's shop in the North Ireland. The man leaving the vehicle near her, didn't care when he planted the bomb, about the shard of metal that was about to pierce the little girl's brain and cause her parents undying grief.
She was one of many killed in this and other outrages, in the so called 'troubles' of the North of Ireland.

The man who was responsible for the IRA operation, was a Catholic priest...a Father..in the Catholic Church and a quartermaster in the IRA.

It has been revealed today, that the British Government, the Catholic Primate of all Ireland and the police, colluded in a cover up, because it was expedient and the priest was moved to die in peace in the south of Ireland.
It was judged, if the priest were brought to trial, a religious war would ensue in the North of Ireland.

In the interest of balance, it should be stated, many Catholic priests were vociferously opposed to such violence by the IRA.

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