News

Monday November 15, 2010


New Irish priest group: Church must re-evaluate sexual teaching

By Hilary White

November 15, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – About 200 priests were present at the first meeting of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) in Port Laoise on September 15. The group is calling for a “re-evaluation of Catholic sexual teaching and practice that recognizes the profound mystery of human sexuality and the experience and wisdom of God’s people.”

The association’s goals include pressuring the Church for a “re-designing” of the ministry “to incorporate the gifts, wisdom and expertise of the entire faith community, male and female” – likely a thinly veiled call for the ordination of women. The rest of the list includes the full roster of demands of the far left “progressive” wing of the Catholic Church, including demands for a democratising “re-structuring of the governing system of the Church,” and the abolition the Church’s hierarchical organisation, “particularly in the appointment of Church leaders.”

The group also wants “full implementation of the vision and teaching of the Second Vatican Council, with special emphasis on: the primacy of the individual conscience,” language that has been used for decades in other countries to absolve Catholics of the need to obey Church teaching on contraception and even abortion.

Ecumenism and the “promotion of peace, justice and the protection of God’s creation” are also included in the ACP manifesto.

A spokesman for the bishops said they welcomed any initiative to organise “priests’ voices,” especially in these challenging times for Catholics dominated by the clerical abuse crisis.

Although the Irish Catholic reports that interest in the new “reform” group is low among priests, an indicator of the general doctrinal orthodoxy and health of the Catholic clergy and episcopate in Ireland may be judged by a recent interview with the outgoing bishop of Killaloe, Willie Walsh.

Walsh, who retired in May in good standing with the Church upon reaching age 75, told the Irish Times last week that throughout his priestly life, he had barely maintained his faith in the existence of God, the divinity of Christ and the existence of the “afterlife,” never mind the Catholic teaching on homosexuality, priestly celibacy of priests and the ordination of women.

“I suppose at this stage I have decided that I choose to believe to some degree, but I can’t prove from reason these teachings,” he said. Walsh had been the bishop of Killaloe on the west coast of Ireland, population 121,374, since 1994.

In July this year, Walsh told the Irish Examiner that he was “saddened by the deep hurt” the Church has inflicted on homosexuals. Asked for his views on the passing of the Civil Partnership Bill, Walsh said, “I’ve always been hesitant about asking civil authorities to support a particular teaching of our Church.

“I respect people who are of homosexual orientation and I would be always conscious of the fact that very often we in the Church have hurt them and hurt them deeply and I am saddened by that and saddened by the lack of respect for any human being.”

“While I do worry about the apparent breakdown of family life, I equally respect the laws of this country.”

Walsh has been quite open about his opposition to Catholic teaching on a range of issues. In 2002, he told The Nenagh Guardian that he would have no difficulty ordaining women as priests, though he could not see the Church approving this in his lifetime.

In the years that Walsh has been making public statements in opposition to Catholic teaching, none of his brother bishops have publicly corrected him or distanced the Church from them.

The Irish Catholic Church is the subject of much discussion in Rome at the moment, in light of the two damning government reports of clerical abuse of young people that went on for decades unchecked, as well as plummeting vocation rates. Vocations throughout Ireland in the last twenty years have been in freefall with only 22 ordained from the main national seminary in Maynooth in 2001. This year, only 16 men entered the seminary in all of Ireland, down from 39 in 2009, and over 150 during the average year in the 1980s. A report in the Times of London noted that 160 priests died in 2007, while only nine were ordained.

The Vatican announced on Friday the start of the official “Apostolic Visitation” of the Irish Church. A team of four cardinals and archbishops – Cardinals Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Sean O’Malley, and Archbishops Thomas Collins of Toronto and Terence Prendergast of Ottawa – have been appointed to investigate the state of the Church in Ireland, with Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York set to visit the seminaries.

Of a total of 5,467,000, Ireland’s Catholic population numbers 4,161,000 or about 87.4 percent, and has approximately 4,690 priests in 1,312 parishes.

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