Dublin priests’ morale is at an ‘all time low’

Morale of clergy in the Dublin diocese is at an ”all time low” according to the now resigned chairman of the Priests Council, Fr Aquinas Duffy.

Fr Duffy, who resigned in recent weeks, said he resigned from the position due to time constraints and felt that, as the three year term had just started, it was best to go now and let someone else give it ”the time that it deserves”.

Asked about the morale of the clergy, he said it is at an ”all time low” and he included lay people also.

He added that there is ”frustration at trying to change Church structures so that real change comes about. In some ways we need to start moving to a collaborative style of structure and not hierarchial.”

He said there were some ”beginnings there at parish level” but that at ”structural level there needs to be diocesan councils that have real say”.
The urgency around this, he said, is very real as ”we are moving into a situation in the future where the main function of the priest is to serve sacramentally”.

Asked what needed to be done to raise morale, he said that there is a need to ”encourage and build people up. Many feel disillusioned and sometimes abandoned.
”If only we had good planning for the future. The lack of planning causes disillusionment,” added Fr Duffy.

Full Article HERE!

‘Disobedient’ Austrian Catholics preach message of reform

Disgruntled Roman Catholics in Austria have not only been breaking bread at their weekly masses – they have also been breaking with tradition.

A total of 329 priests – one in ten of all priests in Austria – are openly supporting the call for reform that they say is needed to breathe life back into the church.

The movement calls for male priests to be allowed to marry, ending the church’s celibacy rule. The would-be reformers also want women to be able to enter the priesthood and urge greater acceptance of divorce.

The group wants women, as well as men, to be ordained
Rather than simply appealing for reforms, the group has declared it will break ecclesiastical rules by giving communion to Protestants and remarried divorced Catholics. It will also allow lay people – men and women – to preach and to lead head parishes without a priest.

The dissidents’ main spokesman is Father Helmut Schüller, who claims that a shortage of priests makes reform essential. In the entire southern state of Carinthia, not one single priest will be ordained this year.

“We’re presenting suggestions for how we can continue, when we have no replacements,” said Schüller. “How we can find people from our own ranks – for example our own parish members who can simply continue on? We’ve been thinking about this for years.”

It might be too early to call it a schism but unlike the congregations in Austrian churches, the number of “disobedients” is on the increase.

Moral justification

One woman, a religion teacher who wished to remain anonymous, claims she has right on her side when she breaks church law.

“One can only change a law by breaking the law,” she said. “When we come to a law that is spelt out the way it is now – that does not address our requirements and our rights but actually restricts them – then I believe I have the right to violate it.”

Schönborn has said that Catholics should stick to the rules
Head of the Roman Catholic Church in Austria, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, says he is shocked by the open call to defy church doctrine. In a letter he told the rebels they should leave the Church if they do not wish to play by the rules.

Calls for a more liberal church are not new in Austria, says religion commentator Markus Veinfurter, who claims there are no signs that the establishment will listen. “They are all raising the same issues,” said Veinfurter. “But there is no movement in the church whatsoever, as far as the hierarchy is concerned.”

A public opinion poll shows most Austrians, 76 percent of those surveyed, support the priests’ demands and their disobedience.

“Where does it lead?” said Veinfurter. “I think people will go on leaving the Church, people, even those from the innermost part of the church will lose their allegiance. Maybe in a few years time the bishops will be on their own.”

Full Article HERE!

Upon Return From Vatican, Mexican Bishop Vows To Continue Gay Outreach

Raul Vera Lopez, the Catholic bishop of Saltillo, Mexico has vowed to continue his outreach to the gay community.

The Vatican had summoned the bishop to Rome to inquire about a gay-inclusive group of Catholics headed by Noe Ruiz.

Vera publicly affiliated his diocese with the group and sponsored its film festivals, which lead to harsh criticism from the Peru-based Catholic news agency ACI Prensa.

Vera told El Universal on Sunday that the Vatican had not reprimanded him.
“It is no surprise that the Church supports sexual diversity because there are at least 50 diocese in the United States serving gay communities,” Vera said.
He said that Vatican officials simply made observations about his work, but the bishop did not elaborate.

“I will not abandon these children,” he added, referring to children with gay parents. “We cannot abandon people who depend on us.”

Earlier, Vera chided ACI Prensa, which had claimed Vera supported groups that advocate for marriage between members of the same sex and abortion.
“In the Diocese of Saltillo, we have very clear objectives,” Vera told the Zocalo Saltillo. “We work with [the gay community] to help them recover their human dignity, which is frequently attacked at home and in society, and they are treated like filthy people.”

“Some would like to weaken my work on behalf of vulnerable groups, that is what they want, but I’m going to go ahead in the struggle for human dignity which is the principle of the Gospel,” he added.

Full Article HERE!

Are gay-straight alliances contrary to Catholic teaching?

The next time a news story surfaces on the subject of gay-straight alliances (GSAs) in Catholic schools, see if the following formula applies.

First, some students attempt to establish a GSA (or run some event as a GSA). School officials judge the group or event to be contrary to Catholic teaching, although they arrange some compromise (i.e. naming groups “anti-bullying” instead) so that service to students fits with Catholic teaching. Nonetheless, the GSA members find this decision illogical, and are sufficiently frustrated that they contact the media.

The story finally ends at an impasse: Church teaching on homosexuality is unchangeable, while the students remain steadfast in their initiative to provide a safe space at school for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer (LGBTQ) students.

At this point two questions arise:

1) Is establishing a GSA really contrary to Catholic teaching?

2) If LGBTQ students wish to have a GSA, why don’t they simply leave the Catholic school and enrol at the secular school, where GSAs are supported?

The answers to both these questions bring forth some new considerations that Catholic school officials and students should take seriously if they wish to keep their conversations from hitting an impasse.

The subject of GSAs being contrary to Catholic teaching raises the fact that the Catholic Church loves LGBTQ persons, but disapproves of non-heterosexual acts. If Catholic schools are unwilling to sponsor GSAs on this basis, then one must ask whether GSAs really promote sexual acts. If they did, they would certainly be contrary to church teaching. But these groups limit their scope to promoting peace and safety, providing emotional support, and resisting homophobia and bullying in the name of justice, all of which are in agreement with Catholic teachings on love and human dignity. Being LGBTQ is apparently not a problem in some Catholic schools, but organizing LGBTQ groups is.

So it appears that in some cases there is reluctance to admit the presence of LGBTQ persons because it would send a message that the school also approves of sex acts that are contrary to Catholic teaching. Instead, they are hidden under the heading “anti-bullying” (as is the case in Halton Catholic schools).

In these cases, probably the best argument that the pro-GSA students have at their disposal is to point to inconsistencies between their treatment and the way the school serves students who are pregnant and unmarried parents. The Catholic Church also disapproves of heterosexual acts outside marriage, but currently unmarried students who are pregnant or have children are openly welcomed in Catholic schools, and sometimes are even placed in programs specifically designed for them.

Their public presence is not denied, and any suggestion that the school approves of their sexual activity outside marriage is remarkably absent from public discussion. Priority is instead properly placed on helping these students and their children. Students who are hoping to establish GSAs might ask why their social and political effort to reduce homophobia and bullying fails, but a solidly Catholic reason exists to serve students who have (or are having) children outside marriage.

On the other hand, one could ask why students continue to press unsuccessfully for a GSA in a Catholic school when they could simply enrol instead at a secular school. For most of these students, such a step is simply too drastic. The Catholic school is their community of friends. They desire and deserve Catholic schooling just as much as their heterosexual neighbours and leaving the school is simply not an option. For those students who are Catholic and L, G, B, T or Q, this issue therefore raises serious questions about how they see themselves in the church, and how the church and school see them.

But repeating church teaching to LGBTQ students looking for a mature engagement with their church is insufficient, and is bound to return to the impasse of frustration. Intellectual freedom requires that students who are interested should be introduced to Catholic thinkers who offer reasonable criticisms of church teaching.

Many in the church will not agree with this suggestion, but in addition to working for peace, emotional well-being and justice, Catholic schools also have an obligation to help all LGBTQ students understand themselves in the church. Perhaps a GSA is just the intellectual and social environment that can encompass all these needs.

Full Article HERE!

Bishop of Derry calls for end to celibacy in Catholic church

On Bloody Sunday in 1972 Father Edward Daly faced down the Parachute Regiment responsible for shooting dead 13 unarmed Derry civilians, waving just a white handkerchief as he protected the wounded from the army’s bullets in the Bogside. Now 39 years later the retired Bishop of Derry is confronting an even more powerful force than the Paras: the Vatican.

Dr Daly, who was the Bishop of Derry for 20 years during the Troubles, has become the first senior Irish Catholic cleric to call for an end to celibacy in the church. His intervention in the debate over whether priests should be allowed to marry is highly significant because he is still one of the most respected figures in the Irish Catholic church at a time when faith in the institution has been shattered by the paedophile scandals involving clergy.

Challenging centuries of Catholic theocracy, Daly has said that allowing the clergy to marry would solve some of the church’s problems.

The number of Catholic priests in Ireland is in sharp decline as older clergy die and very few young men take up a celibate life. In some parishes the church has transferred priests from Poland and the developing world to fill the gap.

“There will always be a place in the church for a celibate priesthood, but there should also be a place for a married priesthood in the church,” Daly writes in his new book A Troubled See, Memoirs of a Derry Bishop, which will be launched at Magee College in the city on Wednesday.

“I think priests should have the freedom to marry if they wish. It may create a whole new set of problems but I think it’s something that should be considered,” he says.

“I’m worried about the decreasing number of priests and the number of older priests. I think it’s an issue that needs to be addressed and addressed urgently.”

While Daly accepts he might be out of step with current Vatican thinking he points out that he is “not engaged in a popularity contest”.

He says that during his time as a bishop he found it “heartbreaking” that so many priests or prospective priests were forced to resign or were unable to get ordained because of the celibacy issue.

Many young men who once considered joining the priesthood turned away because of the rule, the 74-year-old cleric argues.

Daly became a recognised figure around the world in 1972 when he was seen waving a bloodied white handkerchief in front of British paratroopers in Derry during Bloody Sunday.

The sight of the priest during the army massacre in the city became one of the most iconic images of the Northern Ireland Troubles.

Daly was also a fierce critic of the IRA’s armed campaign and a strong supporter of the peace process kickstarted by the likes of his friend and confidant, the Nobel peace prize winner John Hume. In the book the former bishop praises Hume who he says is “one of my great heroes”.

He had first-hand experience of the Battle of the Bogside in 1969 and took part in the civil rights demonstrations in the city prior to the Troubles erupting. Daly also played a part in the campaign to free the Birmingham Six. His tenure as Bishop in Derry spanned the years 1974 to 1993 and included some of the worst atrocities of the Troubles.

He accepts that admission of married men to the priesthood could well create new problems and issues for the church.

“However, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, major decisions must be made,” he adds.

In his book he also denounces the paedophile priests whose crimes and the cover-up by the Catholic hierarchy has dramatically reduced the church’s respect and influence in Ireland. He is “heartbroken and appalled” that fellow clergymen were engaged in “such horrible criminal acts against the most vulnerable”.

Catholic priests have been unable to marry since the Gregorian reforms in the 11th century made celibacy compulsory. Historians have contended that the move was partly for spiritual reasons, but was mainly to ensure estates held by clerics would pass back to the church upon their deaths rather than to offspring.

However, in recent years Pope Benedict XVI has made allowances for married Anglican ministers to transfer to the Catholic church after a number made the move in protest at controversial Anglican issues including the ordination of women priests, and acceptance of ministers in same-sex relationships.

The County Fermanagh-born cleric now works as a chaplain in Derry’s Foyle hospice.

Vatican’s view

Bishop Daly’s proposal will meet with dogged silence in the Vatican, but widespread understanding in the Roman Catholic church.

The view from the top is clear. Last year, when the scandal over clerical sex abuse was at its height, the archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Schönborn, suggested part of the problem might be priestly celibacy. His comment was all the more interesting, coming as it did from a conservative theologian andformer star pupil of Pope Benedict. But in case anyone thought his musings had Vatican backing, the pope went out of his way a few days later to praise celibacy as an “expression of the gift of oneself to God and others”. Three months later, he reinforced his defence of the status quo, describing celibacy as a “great sign of faith”.

The debate over whether to admit married men to the priesthood, however, is one not even the pope can stifle. Two developments have refocused attention on the issue in the last couple of years – and one is partly attributable to Benedict himself. The first is the continuing sex abuse scandal, which on Tuesday acquired new life when the US-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests asked the international criminal court to investigate the Vatican for crimes against humanity. The first senior figure to argue the case for a link between an unmarried priesthood and sex abuse was the bishop of Hamburg, Hans-Jochen Jaschke, who in March 2010 told a newspaper interviewer a “celibate lifestyle can attract people who have an abnormal sexuality”.

The other development has been the welcoming into the Catholic church of traditionalist Anglicans, unable to reconcile their faith with the ordination of women or the consecration of openly gay bishops. Their incorporation has been made easier since October 2009 when Benedict issued a controversial ordinance allowing them to retain much of their identity, liturgy and pastoral arrangements.

The reordination into the Catholic church of married Anglican priests has pointed up the fact that priestly celibacy is not a doctrine, but a discipline. In 1970, the decline in priesthood vocations persuaded nine leading theologians to sign a memorandum declaring that the Catholic leadership “quite simply has a responsibility to take up certain modifications” to the celibacy rule. Extracts from the document were reprinted in January. Not least because one of the signatories was the then Joseph Ratzinger, now pope Benedict.

Full Article HERE!