Sir – While individual Redemptorists have given public support to their confreres Tony Flannery and Gerry Moloney, letter-writer John Gillen (April 28th) is saddened that no Redemptorist Community has expressed support.
As the Redemptorist Community in Cherry Orchard we now publicly express our support for Tony Flannery and Gerry Moloney. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – If Brian D’Arcy and others don’t like being censured (or is it censored?) they should resign from their orders and then they will be free to say what they think needs to be said.
They will find it well nigh impossible to change an organisation as mighty as the Roman Catholic Church from the inside. – Yours, etc,
A chara, – I am saddened and dismayed by the moves from the Vatican Curia to “silence” some of our finest pastors – all priests of the finest integrity, good-living and grounded in their understanding of the “modern world”.
I believe Jesus Christ to be the head and the “cornerstone” of our Christian faith. As followers of Christ, we struggle to emulate the kind of love and compassion with which he so readily reached-out to all people. There is no indication, anywhere in the Gospels, that Jesus set-out to found a powerful institution that would seek to control people’s thinking and talking. Clearly, his mission was more about freeing people from whatever the bonds that bound them.
Why is there such a yawning gap between me – a committed follower of Jesus Christ – one who is on a journey of faith hope and loving, and what is expected of me as a docile Roman Catholic? Right now, these are incompatible objectives!
This is a critical time for all who want/need the church to be relevant, as we struggle to live Christian lives in a complicated world. – Is mise,
Sir, – I am very sorry for those priests, like Fr Brian D’Arcy and Tony Flannery, chastised by the Holy See recently. They are good men, much loved and highly regarded, doing and having done much good, for the ordinary Catholics of Ireland.
However, they are misguided in their views. The only safe place to be in this modern age, full of confusion and chaos, is close by the side of our beloved Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI.
Our dear Pope has been given to us by God at this moment in the history of the world. If God wants married men to be ordained, if God wants women priests in His Catholic Church, it will happen. We priests and lay faithful need to stay close to Peter’s Successor and agree only with him. His opinion must be our opinion, until God reveals otherwise, which He will only do through our chief shepherd.
Likewise on the tortured and much disputed issue of human sexuality and orientation. The teaching of the church on these matters is absolutely true for ever. Human beings are loved by God with infinite Mercy. Our loving Heavenly Father sees us as we are and He provides for our healing and reconciliation, in His Sacraments, when we fall into sin. He will immediately rescue us. No human being is defined as so-called “gay” or “straight”. What nonsense. This is worldliness. We Christians don’t use such terms. Everyone is God’s beloved child. Infinitely loved.
Benedict XVI has been given by God to the world, at this point in history, because he articulates so well the Truth that stands firm for ever.
We must stand with the Pope. There is no other place to go. Everywhere else is dangerous ground and unsafe territory. Our only safe place is beside the Vicar of Christ on earth. The Holy Father speaks the Truth.
The Holy See has rightly called to order dissenting clerical voices. Let every priest remember that on the day we were all ordained, we resolved to uphold, not our own opinions, but “the faith once and for all delivered unto the saints”.
Let us stop this useless disputing and pour our energies into serving the People of God, nourished by our daily union with the Lord, at the Eucharistic Table. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Those of us who believe in free speech should support alternative candidates in the next general election of the Vatican State.– Yours, etc,