Loss of reverence part of Church decline
Dear Editor,
I note in Fr Joe McDonald’s interview (IC 05/10/2017) that he doesn’t hazard a guess as to why he thinks time is running out on the Church in Ireland. There is, however, one interesting passage in the article with which I agree wholeheartedly: “Instead of asking (he says) how many people go to Mass in a certain place…maybe we should be doing more to ask why – even if the answers might be uncomfortable for individual priests.”
One possible reason, in my view, has to do with the way our church buildings are being used. I notice a tendency over the past number of years to turn our church buildings into entertainment venues where musical shows are put on so that they now risk becoming associated in people’s minds, not as houses of prayer and worship (as the Lord explicitly says), but as places where people expect to be entertained. One stand – out example of this is the use of a church in my town as a cinema to project a film that has no association whatsoever with prayer or worship.
Another possible reason is the manner in which the Eucharist is being celebrated. Very often it is rushed through as if on automatic pilot and when communion is being distributed it is done as if handing out sweets.
I’m sure there a number of reasons for the present state of the Church in Ireland, but I think if more reverence for the place of worship and more reverence for the act of worship were shown, perhaps we would go some way to slowing the decline.
Yours etc.,
John Cleary,
Redmondstown,
Co. Wexford.
Only Church’s institutional structure that is not fit for purpose
Dear Editor,
As a priest of some thirty years’ service and having spent the last three year reflecting on the nature of the Church at KU Leuven, I offer my response to Fr Joe McDonald’s sentence of death for the Church (IC 05/10/2017). First off, what’s dying is an institutional structure no longer fit for purpose and not the Church, this process has a way to go yet. Second, the off repeated statement that priests are unaccountable would be truer in the past, in my experience parishioners are quite willing to offer criticism and a mountain of letters in the chancellery testifies to this. Thirdly, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has put in place many systems of accountability and will and does act if the need arises. My modest proposal is the model offered by St Francis of Assisi “start with what’s necessary, then go on to the possible and finally yes we can do the impossible”. In short the Church in Ireland needs to rediscover the absolute necessity of God’s Grace.
Yours etc.,
Rev. Peter O’Reilly,
Portmarnock,
Co. Dublin.
Public needs to hear more balanced debate on abortion
Dear Editor,
I agree with TD Toibin (05/10/2017) that the pro-choice advocates appear to be dominating the debate around the Eighth Amendment. A debate can only be a debate if both sides are given equal air time and the chance to defend their opinions.
With this in mind, Julie Christie’s inspiring story was very welcome and proved that good can overcome evil; light shines in the darkest of situations. I fully appreciate that not everyone would have had her positive attitude to her unborn baby who certainly wasn’t conceived in love but, however he may have been conceived, is a gift from, and was created by, God out of love. If the general public were given the opportunity to hear more stories like Julie’s the debate wouldn’t be stifled but allowed to flow freely, and so enable to people to make their own informed decision as to how to vote next May.
Yours etc.,
Christina Coakley,
Ballyhaunis,
Co. Mayo.
Where did celibacy rule come from?
Dear Editor,
In the epistle of St Paul to Titus, chapter one, verses five to seven, there is no mention of presbyters having to be celibate. So how did anyone come to the conclusion that this had to be so? As my cousin said to me with regard to this, most men would like to have a female companion.
Yours etc.,
Colm O Connor,
Dublin 14.
Consequences of choice to terminate
Dear Editor,
I was in Dublin City Centre during the recent March for Choice. While I disagreed with the sentiments expressed by the marchers, I was profoundly glad that we live in a country where their voices could be freely expressed and freely heard.
It struck me later, however, that if the mothers of the men and women who took part in the march had made the choice to terminate those marchers lives before they were even born, then their bodies, their choices, their hopes and dreams and of course their lives would have been forever lost.
And for those of us who know and love people who took part in the march, the absence of those lives, never touching ours, is difficult to contemplate.
Yours etc.,
Brendan Conroy,
Windy Arbour,
Dublin 14.
Dear Editor,
As a Manor Hamilton man I am writing to you from Japan where for the past 47 years I have the privilege of sharing the great gift of the Faith I inherited from the people of Leitrim.
I read in The Japan News recently that there is going to be a referendum in Ireland on the question of abortion. I am at a loss to understand how anybody can be silent when the State is asking people to agree that it is all right to pass the death sentence on the weakest member of society, the child in the womb?
We all know that one day we will stand before God and give an account of our lives. There will be no excuses because we will be in the presence of ‘Truth’ itself. We know what the basis of each one’s judgement will be. How did you look after the sick, the poor, the hungry, the elderly, the prisoner, the refugee, the migrant and the unborn child? He tells us “What you did to one of these small ones you did to me”.
So the conclusion is very clear. Every single vote to legalise the killing of the unborn child is in fact once again a roar in the face of Heaven “Crucify Him!
I can see that many people who call themselves Christians might be confused when the political world and the weight of mass media opinion are so vociferous in their support for what is called the ‘liberal agenda’. The presumption is that these are good and intelligent people who would never do anything underhanded. They think that if these people say it’s ok, then it must be so. And so the result is one election after another, which have been an unrelenting attack on and an undermining of the family and life, its transmission and all that supports it.
No court, no state, no politician, no study group, no international organisation, no individual has the right to pass the death sentence on the unborn child. I write to you because silence is taken as agreement and evil flourishes when good people are silent.
Looking at Ireland over these last several years, I am reminded of what they say about the frog. That if you put the frog into boiling water it will jump out, but that if you put it into lukewarm water and turn up the heat slowly it will adjust itself to the rising temperature and eventually be cooked. I would like to be able to shout to the whole of Ireland: “Wake up! You have been lulled into a kind of stupor! You are losing your soul!” The frog is almost cooked! Who do you think is turning up the heat?
Yours etc.,
Fr Harry O’Carroll SSC,
Yatsushiro Shi,
Japan.
