Day: Dec 3, 2018

OVER THE WEEKEND I DISCOVERED SOMETHING THAT I ALREADY SUSPECTED. THE IRISH RC CHURCH HAS EMBARKED ON A WELL FUNDED CAMPAIGN TO SILENCE ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE INTERNET.

I’m told that Diarmuid Martin does not approve of this action?

Amy and his Episcopal friends like Lugs Monahan of Killaloe feel differently.

The censoring of my blog began some time ago. This is what happened.

1. Eamon Martin reported me to the Police Service of Northern Ireland for a comment (not written by me) that appeared on my blog. The police contacted me and asked me to attend at Larne Police Station for a formal, tape recorded interview. Of course I co-operated. The police told me that they would be in touch with me within 14 days to let me know the outcome. After ELEVEN MONTHS they wrote to me to say that there would be no further action.
2. On six occasions, always on a Sunday morning – 10 minutes before my Sunday Mass began – an anonymous caller called the police to report that day’s blog. Generally the police apologised for troubling me. There was no further action.
3. Various individual and collective entities have lodged dozens of complaints to Google Blogger about individual blogs. A number of blogs have been taken down.

4. Last week I had a notice from Blogger that my blog had been locked and that it may be permanently deleted i9n 89 days. I have appealed but have heard nothing. It is still down

5. I have several anonymous emails and comments to tell me that Catholic individuals and entities have already been in touch with WordPress to take this blog down.

6. I have had general threats against my personal safety and a number of death threats. All reported to the police.

7. At the weekend my Twitter account was locked after several complaints from Gorgeous – Deacon Michael Byrne.

There is a rumour circulating among the Dublin clergy that Gorgeous, who is living in a presbytery, will be ordained in 18 months time?

In any event, it seems that Gorgeous is trying to erase all mention of his various “travails” on social media – maybe with a view to ordination?

8. I have had solicitor’s letters from Paul Prior, Conor Gannon and Eamon Martin.

9. Over the weekend a senior and well known Irish cleric informed me by email that he had knowledge of a well funded plan within the Irish RC Church to silence me on all social media.

WHY?

The organised Irish media is afraid to carry all the scandals that are going on in the Irish RC church at all levels. They are afraid of the power, influence and money of the RC crowd.

This blog has been one of the few, if not the only place that these matters can be aired in public, commented on, debated and condemned.

We have only heard a small percentage of what is really going on among the clergy and priests.

They do not want me to tell the whole story and for you to read it and know about it.

In more crude times they would have prepared a fatal accident for me. Some of them are still capable of doing that – or of getting or paying someone to do it for them.

In the meantime they are concentrating on attacking the blog and my social media accounts.

They are powerful and wealthy.

I have no power and no wealth.

Its like dealing with the regimes in Russia, China, Iran or Saudi Arabia – although the Romans these days try to be more hidden and subtle about their tyrannies.

I’ll continue to blog and speak out.

If they suppress me on social media I will still speak out – in O’Connell Street in Dublin or at the gates of Maynooth.

I will accept being a voice in the wilderness.

Many better men and woman than me had to live like that.

 

UPDATE 2 PM

COUNTRIES WHERE BLOG HAS BEEN READ  TODAY:

ONE COUNTRY IS NOT IN THE PIC – HONDURAS         1 READER

 

Pope Francis says ‘there is no place’ for gay priests in clergy
Sofia Lotto Persio PINK NEWS

Pope Francis leads a special audience with members of a volunteers association from Sardinia island in Paul VI hall at the Vatican November 30, 2018. REUTERS/Max Rossi Pope Francis has been quoted as saying that “there is no place” in the clergy for gay people and that the issue of homosexuality “worries” him.
Several Italian news outlets have published excerpts from a four-hour interview between Pope Francis and Spanish Missionary Fernando Prado, soon to be published as a book titled The strength of vocation. Consecrated life today.
The book addresses various issues regarding serving in the Catholic Church, including who is best placed to enter the clergy.
Catholic newspaper Avvenire published on November 29 the full excerpt in which Prado asks the Pontiff specifically addresses the inclusion of “people with homosexual tendencies.”
Francis begins his answer admitting that the issue is “something that worries me, because perhaps at some point it has not been dealt with well.”
“In our societies it even seems that homosexuality is fashionable.”
— Pope Francis
He then proceeds to describe homosexuality as “a very serious matter, which must be discerned adequately from the beginning” with those who seek to become part of the clergy.
“We must be demanding. In our societies it even seems that homosexuality is fashionable and this mentality, in some way, also affects the life of the Church,” Pope Francis said.
Pope Francis Upholds traditional teachings on homosexuality
The official teaching of the Catholic Church reject homosexuality as an “objective disorder” and “intrinsically disordered.”
Despite his reputation as a progressive force within the Church, having previously voiced support for embracing LGBT+ Catholics, Pope Francis upheld these teachings in the interview with Prado.
The pontiff, who recently suggested that LGBT+ children should be taken to see a psychiatrist, said that the existence of gay priests is an issue that he has discussed with other members of the clergy.
He recalled a religious leader telling him that, in his congregation, there were “good young students and even some already professed clergymen” who were gay.
“He himself had doubts about the thing and asked me if there was anything wrong with this,” Francis recalled, adding that the religious leader told him that perhaps it wasn’t a serious issue and that ultimately it was only “an expression of affection.”
But the pontiff disagreed with such position, telling Prado the religious leader was mistaken.
“It is not just an expression of affection. In the consecrated life and in the priestly life there is no place for this kind of affection,” Pope Francis said, adding: “For this reason, the Church recommends that people with this rooted tendency are not accepted in the ministry or in the consecrated life. The ministry or the consecrated life are not their place.”
Pope Francis has previously expressed opposition to gay men entering the clergy in closed-door remarks to the Italian Bishops’ Conference quoted in CNN. “If in doubt, better not let them enter,” the pontiff reportedly said at the time.

PAT SAYS:

I do not agree with Pope Francis and the RC Church on their teachings about homosexuality. To them it is an objective disorder. I think that homosexuality is a perfectly normal sexual orientation.

Their teaching on this is also hypocritical as most bishops and priests are gay and many of them are sexually active.

But I do think that, as long as you want to stay in the Church as a cleric who has promised to be celibate you must keep that promise – either that or leave the Church. Leading a double life is neither good or healthy.

When they fired me out and deprived me of the “privileges” I no longer felt bound to the “obligations”.

The problem is NOT gay priests or seminarians. The problem is that many gay bishops, priests and seminarians are not only sexually active but are as promiscuous as tom cats!

The authentic moral position for such bishops, seminarians and priests is to either observe celibacy or get out!

Doing the double is dishonest and hypocritical.

——————————————————————————————————–

IS FR RYAN MC ALEER LEAVING THE PRIESTHOOD?

A well connected Catholic parishioner from Dungannon telephoned a Sunday newspaper in the last few days to tell them that Fr Ryan McAleer, Eamon Martin’s religious advisor for primary schools, was leaving the priesthood.

One of my clerical contacts in Armagh has said that this rumour is unfounded.

The newspaper called me back and I was able to tell them that the rumour had been denied.

The caller quoted said she had heard this from a member of Dungannon Parish Council.

For a long time now, in my opinion, Ryan has given many people the impression, in many ways, that he is a round peg in a square hole.

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AN ADVENT REFLECTION

Some Blog readers have been complaining that I had not published an Advent reflection – and asked me to be more “spiritual”.

Here is a very inspirational one:

ANNUNCIATION

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lectern, a book; always
the tall lily.
Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage.
The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent.
God waited.

She was free
to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness.

____________________

Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from

in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.

____________________

She had been a child who played, ate, slept
like any other child–but unlike others,
wept only for pity, laughed
in joy not triumph.
Compassion and intelligence
fused in her, indivisible.

Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,
only asked
a simple, ‘How can this be?’
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel’s reply,
the astounding ministry she was offered:

to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power–
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.
Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love–

but who was God.
This was the moment no one speaks of,
when she could still refuse.

A breath unbreathed,
Spirit,
suspended,
waiting.

____________________

She did not cry, ‘I cannot. I am not worthy,’
Nor, ‘I have not the strength.’
She did not submit with gritted teeth,
raging, coerced.
Bravest of all humans,
consent illumined her.
The room filled with its light,
the lily glowed in it,
and the iridescent wings.
Consent,
courage unparalleled,
opened her utterly.

(Denise Levertov)