THE IRISH BISHOPS have decided yo hold a national synod of the church in the next five years.

They believe that this will revive the Irish RCC which is on its death bed.

If the past record is anything go by, it will be a process and an event, costing millions.

It will produce a big bound report that will sound good but it will be placed on diocesan and presbytery shelves gathering dust.

Nothing will change UNLESS

1. The bishops listen to massive criticism and advice from people whom tgey would not normally associate with – people like Getman theologian Hans Kung.

As below:

Kung in controversial in Irish tour 1985.

by Jack O’Sullivan Catholic Herald 1985.

Swiss theologian, Dr Hans Kung, last week called on the Church to accept civil divorce, the ordination of women and married men and to leave issues of sexual morality to individual conscience.

Speaking during a week-long Irish lecture tour, Dr Kling argued that the Church should stand up for the indissolubility of marriage, but said that couples whose marriages had failed and who remarried should be readmitted to the Sacraments for the sake of their children.

It was a “contradiction” to oppose abortion and contraception, he said, adding that such a view was –like being against the fire and the fire department”. Such issues should he left for individuals to decide on according to conscience.

Dr Kung, 57, said that all women should he able to become deacons and exercise the full ministry and that in the light of the shortage of priests, the Church should admit married priests, thus following rules laid out by the Protestant and Orthodox Churches.

Dr Kung was bitter about the Vatican’s revocation in 1979 of his right to teach as a Catholic theologian. He called the banning “the most cruel experience of my life” and said that he did not believe that Pope Paul VI would have made the same decision.

Pope John Paul II came in for repeated criticism from Dr Kung. who continues to be allowed to say Mass, preach and distribute the Eucharist. There was now “an impasse in ecumenism”, said Dr Kung, who identified the Pope as a stumbling block to reform. He was sceptical about the chances of November’s Extraordinary Synod of Bishops confronting the problems facing the Church and said that he would have preferred an convocation of a third Vatican Council.

Dr Kung spoke in Belfast, Dublin and Cork, delivering a lecture entitled Where are the Church and Theology Going?

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2. The bishops and Rome allow celibacy to be optional.

3. The bishops and Rome ordain women at least to the diaconate whereby they can baptise, preach and celebrate marriages and funerals.

4. The bishops and Rome seriously revise the RC approach to sexual morality and homosexuality.

5. The clergy fade into the background, concentrate on being pastors and place power into the hands of the laity.

I see no hope of the bishops and Rome doing any of this.

Abd therefore, numbers will drop and the RCC will continue to shrink.

So why waste millions on a PR stunt that is going to achieve nothing?

https://www.rte.ie/archives/2020/0506/1136800-hans-kung-theologian/

AND A THOUGHT