The catholic Archbishop of Freiburg , Stephan Burger, has said he is opposed to church funeral services for pets. “I am clearly in favour of an ethically responsible treatment of animals and am concerned about animal welfare. But we should not humanise animals. A catholic mourning rite specifically for pets is unthinkable for me,” he told…
Pope appeals for help from journalists as attacks begin on the October synod
At the weekend the Pope surprised a gathering of journalists in the Vatican by making an appeal to them for help, “not for money” he assured them, but to fight against disinformation and the denial of facts and reality. This appeal for help came as a prominent Cardinal in America heavily criticised the proposed Synod…
Bishops have to urgently engage their priests on synodality
The Pope’s idea of co-responsibility for the Church is the mustard seed that may one day grow into a large tree and give shelter to all, writes Garry O’Sullivan Numbers don’t lie, yet we all know the phrase “Lies, damned lies, and statistics” a phrase that is described as “the persuasive power of statistics to…
Time for Accountability
The leadership of the Irish Church needs now to demonstrate clearly that it has heard the voice of the laity and clergy, so clearly expressed in the national synodal listening process. Furthermore it needs to be demonstrably accountable to the laity and clergy as the Archbishop of Dublin has said, ownership is passing from clergy…
Exhausted priests are caught between a rock and a hard place
‘It’s good to talk’…so let’s talk and talk and talk
Why the Limerick synod may not be the template for an Irish synodal process
To get the process right we must listen with respect to those who have something to say born from experience, writes Garry O’Sullivan When Pope Francis in 2013 decided he would eat in the canteen like the rest of the staff, people realised that a different kind of Church was being promoted. I remember being…
Irish diocesan synods and assemblies – angels abound but the devil is in the detail
Inviting people to participate in a process that is really only about erecting scaffolding around old structures will further alienate even the enthusiastic, writes Garry O’Sullivan “Trying to turn the pyramid upside down,” is how Fr Brendan Hoban described what they were doing by organising a diocesan assembly in Killala, one of the smallest dioceses…
Rediscovering a healthy Irish Catholicism for a secular Ireland
Glenstal Abbey offers a road map to living the Faith well in modern Ireland, writes Garry O’Sullivan I was speaking to a prominent Catholic public figure recently who lamented the dramatic disappearance of Catholic life from the public sphere. A bit like predictions around melting glaciers, the decline has evidently become more an avalanche than the…