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THE PAIN THAT COMES FROM SAYING “NO”.

“Always try and say YES. And when you have to say NO, try and make it sound as much like YES as possible”.

(Archbishop Helder Camara)

A Christian, and especially a Christian priest, should find saying NO painful.

This week I had to say NO to a family who live in England and are members of the Irish Travelling Community.

They arrived with a young couple they wanted married.

Prior to their visit I was told that they two young people were 16.

Currently in Northern Ireland people aged between 16 and 18 can be married with the written consent of both parents.

The normal procedure is to fill out all the necessary forms and to lodge those forms with supporting documents with the state registrar.

After 28 days the Marriage Schedule is issued and the couple can marry.

However, in this case one of the young people was not 16.

The young couple had run away from their families and the girl was pregnant.

In the Travelling Community a young girl in that position, and not married is shamed in the Community forever and her child referred to as a “bastard child” forever.

I had to say no to performing a ceremony for them.

They all went away very sad and downhearted and not knowing where to turn.

The Travelling Community have a very long history of very young marriages and from what I can gather the divorce rate in the Community is very low.

I have been working with their Community for over 40 years.

I do not know how this case will work out.

I find it very difficult not to help, to have to say no.

194 replies on “THE PAIN THAT COMES FROM SAYING “NO”.”

Every priest involved in Daisy Chain NI has a nickname by colleagues, even the ones who are not in the group

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10.48
Child abuse happens in the local community independently of membership of churches. And it is not a thing of the past only.

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2.50
Every priest is a father; but not every father is a priest.
Elementary First Arts logic.

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5.52, he can’t. He’s stuck at First Arts Logic. Wasn’t elementary enough for him. 😀

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Wrong on all scores, 6:07.
I’m not a he, for a start.
Oh, and I’ve got a PhD, not a certificate from a college of further education like you.

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You did the right thing, Pat, legally and morally, however painful this may have been for you.

I suspect the young couple thought that Pat Buckley would make an exception in their case. They must have been utterly desperate, yet hopeful. I don’t mean this in a way critical of anyone. No wonder they wanted to avoid such a terrible social stigma for their unborn baby; I pray that they don’t plump for abortion as the next-best alternative.

The Travelling Community makes my blood boil! They complain of discrimination (they instead call it ‘racism’, which is a misuse of the word) and, yet, they would so cruelly discriminate against an innocent, unborn child. Hypocrites, the lot of them!

When they treat a pregnant young couple in so heartless a way, don’t expect a great deal of sympathy from the wider community.

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I have never known a member of the Travelling Community to have had an abortion.

The “living in sin” thing has been drilled into them by the RCC.

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If you’re telling a minority group they’re using the wrong word for what they’re experiencing it says much more about you than them.

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9.51
Yes, it says that I understand the difference between ethnicity and race.
The Travelling Community may constitute a distinct ethnic group, but they are not a distinct race. Like me, they are what was formerly known as Caucasian.

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11:24 Read my original comment again and try to see what I am saying instead of always seeking to be right and seeing through that filter.

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10.29

It is you who is rantng.

I expressed a prayer and a hope that the young couple, out of desperation, would not plump to have their baby aborted; this was not a rant.

I did not want to be critical of either the young couple, or of Pat for having to decline their marriage request; I said nothing of the Travelling Community.

I have no issues whatever with this community, but I do have issues with blatant moral hypocrisy. According to Pat, a pregnant, young, unmarried girl in the Travelling Community ‘is shamed FOREVER and her child referred to as a “bastard child” FOREVER’.

If this community complains to the wider world of discrimination by this world while similtaneously discriminating against its own (even an innocent, unborn child), then you betcha, buddy, that I have very serious issues with such reeking hypocrisy.

And no, I am not a Catholic cleric.

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10.49

You are being evasive. Answer my request. IF you are sure of your ground, you shan’t refuse.
I am VERY sure of mine.

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‘I am VERY sure of mine.’
Actually I have told you all I have to say which is that you can’t see something here. Thank you for attempting to. However if you still can’t, it means you’re not ready to and wouldn’t appreciate it if I told you.
I intended to give you exactly the impression that there’s something you’re not seeing and it remains sitting in my original comment for when you’re ready to grow to a new stage of understanding and relating.

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10:55
I never said you are a cleric, buddy. The attitudes you point out regarding the shunning of a pregnant young unmarried girl in The Travelling Community “shamed forever and her child referred to as ‘a bastard child’, forever” was common, the norm, a social mores in Irish society up until relatively recently. As Bishop Pat pointed out, such attitudes were indoctrinated by RCC, another legacy of the clerical caste, i.e.The Magdalene Laundries.
Since you claim to have serious issues with reeking hypocrisy, I’m sure you must have serious issues with so much reeking hypocrisy from so many clerics, all funded by the sheeple.

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So, you’re backing down.
You are right about one thing, though: I could see nothing … absoluetly nothing … in your original post.

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1:03 Not backing down at all. I don’t feel the need to turn this into a conflict, am not arguing and have not moved at all. I will repeat that there is a hint in my original comment as a different way of approaching relating to others and you can’t see it.
Actually if you thought about it, your reaction to this would give you another hint.

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12.45
Forgive me for believing that you were calling me a Catholic cleric. It’s just that your post went into a very steep, digressive broadside on these men, and I thought you were hinting that I was one of them.
The RCC never, officially, referred to a child born outside marriage as a ‘bastard child’. If today’s blog on the issue is reliable, that vile pejorative seems peculiar to the Travelling Community.
No; the shaming of unmarried mothers on the island of Ireland was more a feature of the Republic than of Northern Ireland, where I was born and raised.
My sister was made pregnant outside marriage and gave birth to a beautiful, dearly loved baby girl. Guess which side of the community here predominantly rallied round my sister? The ‘black Prods’, with their money and other gifts.
When I think of those who label these children in the way travellers apparently do, well, you really don’t want to know what happens next.
Change your ways, people, and others will change towards you. It is that simple.

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1:54
The word bastard and illegitimate are synonyms. The notion of illegitimacy is grounded in canon law. The vile pejorative word, bastard, is not peculiar to the Travelling Community. To the best of my knowledge there were a number of Magdalene Laundries in Northern Ireland. Buddy, think of how clerics raped, abused, and protected abusers, while bishops covered up abuse. Think of the number of reports into child rape perpetrated by clergy. Think of the number of reports to come. The hypocrisy of so many clerics reeks. Change your ways, clerics, and others will change towards you. Start living a life of holiness. It is that simple.

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Absolutely howling at this exchange. 8:10, can you really not see the very obvious point that 9:51 has clearly made? Or are you just trying (and failing) to wind him up?

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6:13

Oh, yes they are synonyms! Bastard is a synonym for illegitimate in kin topic. You can use ‘bastard’ instead of the word illegitimate as an adjective or a noun, if it concerns topics such as bastardy, born out of wedlock. Don’t forget to challenge reeking clerical hypocrisy.

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3.35
No, they aren’t synonyms. Far from it. ‘Bastard’ has a mean and nasty, judgemental connotation.

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8:10

So, you didn’t want to be critical of anyone!
Why, then, did you go on a rant about abortion calling all members of the Travelling Community hypocrites? You seem to have issues re. The Travelling Community. What is extremely blood boiling is the hypocrisy of the supposedly educated professional Christian clerical caste, included bishops, with their do as I say not as I do mentality. For starters,
how many religious sisters have had abortions following rape by a priest or a bishop? Not to mention the heartless way the church treated children and continues to treat survivors of church related abuse. Christians are called to love others. Take the plank out… buddy.

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What a nightmare.
Obviously they can’t be married in any legal way but if it’s not acceptable to live in sin I wonder if a pagan handfasting would be acceptable to them. Again obviously they won’t find a pagan priest or priestess to do it but the beauty is the couple can do it themselves. Also because it’s pagan they can choose their divinities (even Yhwh).
There are rituals online they could borrow.

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9:29am Our Limerick Travelling Community have the majority of their sacraments administered around Christmas time when they are in residence. A Christmas Wedding is lovely & often better than being cooked in a big wedding dress in the summer time or being unfortunate enough to fall foul of a very wet summers day. There’s a lot to be said for dry & frosty sometimes.

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Please God that things will work out for this young Couple and that they can have their nuptials next year and perhaps the christening before then. We wish them well. Sure, God Love Them, they are doing no harm to anybody and they can be making their preparations for a great day out when it is legally possible for you to officiate at their wedding. + ⛪️ +

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+Pat,
Given their culture would you not perform a blessing and confirm their betrothal? Schedule them for a formal wedding with parental consent, and fulfilling legal requirements. This private act goes a long way.

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I want to apologise for my earlier comment and withdraw it. I would of course be obliged to contact the diocesian safeguarding officer and do as instructed.

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If the lassie was not far off 16 could you not have bent the rules a wee bit Pat, maybe as HG suggested above?

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I’m afraid that does not work. They would all arrive dressed to the hilt, with camera man and video man and it would be publicly presented as a wedding of a 15 year old.

She had just turned 15.

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The father was 16.

Technically it would be statutory rape.

The police generally do not prosecute when people are a similar age.

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By Post Author

Can confirm what Pat says, if close in age, no position of responsibility or coercion involved this would not now be prosecuted. Otherwise most of the teens in the world would be prosecuted.

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Having dealt with members of the Travelling Community in the past, being part of a Diocesan initiative to have a team of priests as chaplains, I found the experience for 4 years a most difficult experience. The demands, expectations, strange norms, codes of behaviour re: baptisms, weddings, funerals were beyond awkward. Time keeping was horrendous, thus almost always having to officiate outside the normal parish times. While wanting to feel incmuded they caused havoc. I witnessed much aggravation at funerals, with my own life put in serious danger when fights erupted in the Church…A family I helped weekly stole all my musical equipment and CD’s and one night a van arrived to collect all my potted plants – about 70…some very precious plants…I never pushed any charges once they were caught on CCTV…I have an empathy for their struggles. I will always respond to any callers to my door. While the 4 years were tough, they gave me incredie insights into traveller culture, poverty, family pride and family shame, their religious beliefs and their identity. I understand more clearly how they feel marginalised and excluded..I would never bend marriage rules to simply meet their needs. Ever. Civilly, it’s impossible. Sometimes we just have to say NO but with charity, compasdion and love. Treat the Travelling Community with respect and tough live. They are God’s people.

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8:49am Indeed, We are all Gods People but The RCC Mafia treat only their influential & moneyed cronies like God. Birds of a Feather.

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And if you do it for 15 year olds why not 14 ?

I was once asked to do a blessing for a 12 year old.

So I suppose that’s why society has laws?

And it gives us guidance to work from.

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9.20

You did NOT fail them: you did the right thing.

Listen, that you did indeed do the right thing means that you can now surrender the welfare of all three into the merciful hands of God. He can complete what you rightfully began.

You have faith, right? Then allow this to carry you forward. God will take care of them, I promise you.

Allow God to act now by surrendering to him this heavy burden of yours. Let… it… go. So that he may deal with it. Just keep the young couple in your prayers. I shall, too.

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8:18am The traveller community cherish their children. The RCC & their teams of lay cover up merchants exposed over the past decades could learn a lot from them.

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10.49
‘The Traveller Community cherish their children.’? Really? How do you square this with Pat’s claim that a pregnant, young unmarried girl in the Traveller Community ‘is shamed in the Community FOREVER and her child referred to as a “bastard child” forever’?

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11:34am +Pat The Travelling Family were using dramatic and persuasive language in the futile hope that you would break the law to accommodate their perceived self-view of their own predicament. Perhaps they were unaware that it is the mainstream Irish Roman Catholic Church that consistently facilitates circumvention of the law on various well documented matters of Public Interest.

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Irish religious hierarchy and their lay Cathbots can be interestingly “selective” on what they choose to be judgemental about. Indigenous Irish Travellers whilst some of them are no angels are nevertheless moving forward in trying to help themselves and to bring social inclusion and progression to their communities by harnessing education as a first and vital step in this process. it was inspiring the see all the female traveller graduates on RTE last week. Onwards & Upwards. Giddy Up!

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Of course he is, he’ll be a deacon through eternity.
That’s why it’s important not to give out major orders like Smarties or because you feel sorry for the recipient.

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10.00
There’s great demand in Heaven for deacons and priests; they’re indispensible. God couldn’t function without ’em.

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10:14 Don’t mock. There will be exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in heaven and so the clergy will still have a role and special chair.

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10:50am Laura will get in touch with Pat herself if need be when Fr Ger Fitzgerald reveals his true colours just like Yvonne & Carole had to turn to +Pat when Ger & his cronies turned on them & Bishop & Safeguarding Officer sided with Ger.

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With regard to Yvonne, Ger is guilty as charged, however with Carole he is only guilty of taking advantage of her generosity.

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1.24: And Carole is guilty of being utterly foolish in her decision making. Takes two to tango and by God, she surely tangoed to the point of getting very hurt.. She doesn’t deserve abuse but she contributed to her own downfall.

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2:02pm So why is Killaloe making a mockery of the Faithful by leaving his name on Website?? Ger is having his cake & eating it, yet another arrogant & overprotected RCC Cleric.

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@ 2:02 Again I ask if Ger’s sports injury has been disclosed to the new girlfriend. She deserves to know about it beforehead. oh. Excuse the typo. I meant “beforehand”.

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Sure the parish priest of st Michaels accepted a request by a parishioner to bless his new pup, the world has gone mad

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10:52am Many churches have animal Blessings. My neighbour always took her poodle to the grooming parlour in preparation for Ennis Parish Blessing of animals by Fr Ger Fitzgerald.

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I don’t think 10:52 is referring to an actual animal blessing but to a pup in puppy role play. Don’t look it up if you’re easily freaked out. 🐶

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Sympathies, thoughts and prayers for all involved in this difficult situation.
Bishop Pat, I’m sure you don’t and neither do you or should you feel obliged to share every private detail of your ministry and the life of The Larne Oratory community, however, I think you have made it very clear over the years the seriousness and sacred charge before God that you hold and approach your ministry as a Priest and especially as a Bishop. I’m sure you would agree that where Ordination is concerned and somebody representing themselves as a Priest Ordained in Apostolic Succession at your conferring, that this is a public matter and one you would stand by or refute strongly were it not true. To that end, there is a guy called Stuart Abram from Preston, UK, who recently celebrated Mass at my friends house. When my friend related to me this occasion, they said he (Stuart) had been Ordained by Pat Buckley. I was concerned because I thought you would probably have mentioned it on this blog and I’ve been following this blog fairly closely for some years. Please Pat, would you mind stating here publicly whether or not Rev Fr Stuart Abram was Ordained by you or not?
Thanks.

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10:58 Our last PP would go to the Opening of a Brown Paper Bag. A refugee from St Pats, Carlow. Hangs with a retired teacher in the Golden Vale for the shits & giggles.

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If you Google Stuart Abram Preston you get someone of that name who was director of a since dissolved tutoring business in Preston. Interestingly there are no references online to a cleric of that name in Preston.

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Priests don’t tend to have a high sex drive, so are the ones in relationships in open relationships or how do they satisfy their boyfriends? It’s very uncanny that this type of conversation is even normal but it’s widely accepted amongst clergy that it is rife.

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Do you think giving priests nicknames or female names appropriate? I find it rude Pat, I don’t know how you assign them but they are fitting of the priest also, cheeky chap you are

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Oh Roy, so naive. Every seminarian gets a drag name. This is a tradition of long standing and as far as I know happened in every seminary in the UK and Ireland.

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12:05 I think we can all see why. You’re so scary, ‘father’.

And they wonder why they’re treated with extreme caution.

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Bullshit, 10.26! Not in my time there. If it did happen to me, it was behind my back. They would have known better than to say to my face anything of that kind.

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We all feminised each other when I went through Maynooth, I was known as Freddie Cus I have a moustache

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Roy you posted at 11:17 but 10:26 replied to you. Very odd. Happened last week or week before with someone else. Or perhaps that was also you

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2:56 I have noticed that my replies often appear before the comments I’m replying to. It’s not easy being gifted.

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Can someone explain Pagan Easter please? Is it true that bunnies and eggs are fertility symbols and the church took over the feast. I knew about other feasts being taken over but I never gave pagan Easter much thought until the other day. Is anything sacred at all? Are Christians brainwashed the way some would think pagans were?

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It’s confusing because there were two different pagan celebrations that got conflated:
1. The Spring Equinox
2. The celebration of the Germanic/northern European goddess of Spring. Her name had various spellings but usually modern pagans will call both her and the festival Ostara.
It’s one of the eight modern pagan festivals. As always Ronald Hutton is a great historian of this.
Easter eggs can’t be traced back beyond mediaeval times and the bunny/fertility thing can’t be traced before the eighteenth century.
As always the basic rule in these things is the ancient pagans in western Europe left next to no explanation. Any account of what was going on is usually written by Christians. Then the Christians reacted to the pagans either by co-opting stuff or demonizing it. Then people tried to reconstruct paganism in a fanciful way and the result is the confusion you feel.
Hope this helps.

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A little learnng is a dangerous thing, “Know all”.
In many Romance languages, the word for the Feast of the Resurrection is tied directly to Passover: Pâques (French), Pascua (Spanish), and Pascha (Latin) all come directly from Pesach, the Hebrew word for Passover.
To understand why, we first have to go back to the Hebrew Bible and the story of the first Passover. Moses tells the Israelites to slaughter a passover lamb and paint its blood on their door lintels. Then, when the Lord strikes down the firstborn of every Egyptian family in retribution for the enslavement of the Israelites, he “will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you down” (Ex. 12:23).
Paul was the first to connect the risen Christ to Passover. In 1 Corinthians 5:7, he refers to Jesus as the paschal lamb who has been sacrificed for his people’s salvation. Add to that the fact that Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples during Passover and it makes sense that even today the Feast of the Resurrection is connected with the Jewish holiday.
In English, this tie remains in our practice of lighting the Paschal candles and celebrating the Paschal mystery. But the meaning of the holiday’s name itself is a little more unclear: Where in the world did the word Easter come from?
The short answer is that nobody really knows. Some historians suggest that it came from the phrase hebdomada alba, Latin for “white week,” used to describe the white garments new Christians wore when they were baptized during Holy Week. In Old German, the word became esostarum and, eventually, Easter.
The Venerable Bede, a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon historian, writes that the word Easter comes from the goddess Eostre, an ancient goddess of fertility and the goddess of the dawn who originated in what is now Scandinavia. Over time, early Christians started referring to the Feast of the Resurrection by the name of the month in which it was celebrated—Eosturmonath (what we now call April). This theory neatly ties in with some of our other Easter customs. Easter eggs and the Easter Bunny, for example, are also considered ancient symbols of fertility and tied to the worship of Eostre.
Another, related theory suggests that Easter comes from an old German word for “east,” which in turn is derived from a Latin word for “dawn.” In the past, the word easter could mean “to turn toward the east” and didn’t necessarily have any implied religious meaning.
Historians are never going to figure out exactly where or when Easter was first used. It is one of the oldest Old English words and has been in use for over a millennium, making it impossible to detangle the strands of its history. And, in the end, it is unimportant whether Easter comes from the goddess of the dawn or the Latin word for dawn. In whatever language and whatever etymology, Easter is a time of resurrection and rebirth, a time to celebrate the risen Christ and God’s promise of eternal life.

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4.50, a very longwinded, irrelevant post
The word ‘Easter’ is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘Eostre’.

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Fr John McCarthy retired PP, Roundstone has passed away. Funeral & Burial in County Clare. RIP

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5.29: No, I’m just so intelligent. Parishioners though love my homilies. Blah, Blah, Blah…😄😅😃🤤🤤🤤🤓🤓🤓🤓……think your level of intelligence is pretty low…😲😲😲🤤🤤🤤..

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12.50 as was said at another transgression of due process and right justice “ quod scripsi scripsi.” And I have stated it before on this blog….. oh yes, it’s much further than Ukraine…. so there won’t be the same application of our right and righteous abhorrence of what is taking place.

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William Mulvihill needs to start rebuilding bridges with the travelling community after the way he treated them when he was a Parish Priest.

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12.50: Which Pat are you talking about? It couldn’t possibly be the author of this nasty, pernicious, hate inciting blog? Come in…you have to be joking. My 6 year old niece has more humility and integrity…

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You could solve the young couples problem Todd, dress up as a priest and marry them in a faux ceremony. Then Bishop Pat can quietly do the real thing when the young lady turns 16.

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2.52. ??? Mystified by your comment…. Please do explicitate what you are mistaken over ?

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William when you were app you had a very good relationship with the travelling communities so it’s a wonder you are not telling us all about it.

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The language used on this platform is dangerous and nasty. Pat Buckley you allow good men get lambasted on your moderated blog, and you should hang your head in shame.

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The seminarian with the ‘loose’ past off lust has buckled with a peer and the two should be thrown out

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That’s barely having a present. And a future is out of the question. actually perhaps they’ve finally worked out that that is the point. 😂

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Basically Maynooth has turned into a shelter for homosexuals fed up sleeping around who want a cushy wee number for life

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Yeah they don’t like it when people very reasonably say you should be wary of clergy. Especially around children or anyone vulnerable.

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Many of the clericals who appear on this blog are seemingly unable to say “No” to anything. Greedy and without any iota of self discipline yet hypocritical in their expectations and judgemental treatment of others.

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Pat this piece is quite funny; and I’m surprised nobody has mentioned to you that Ciaran Feeney has recently been nicknamed Tinker because of the caravan that sits in the presbytery grounds.

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The travelling community are the most honest of all communities. Terribly sad to hear on the news over the last few days about the hardship they face. My dealings with them are very honourable.

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3:49pm they not well connected enough to get away with all the wrong doing that clericals & their cronies do.

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The Media is covering Father Stephen Motroni SCJ Sacred Heart Father.
Community Service work and Three years on Sex Offenders List.

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4:05pm reflective of the corruptive power of moneyed RCC & their influential cronies. Shameful but karma reflected in ever decreasing congregations. God Protect us from Toxic Cathbots.

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Despite being from Lisburn, a man screamed out of his car window at me earlier, “go back to your own country you gay lord”, does this constitute a hate crime?

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Legal advice, like health advice, would not really be best sought on a blog about religion.
Or in fact religious advice, at least in the comments.

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On the topic of saying “no”, the Yvonne woman and the “Carole” woman always had the complete freedom of saying “no” to a “friendship” with the wayward padre.
Women know all about saying no. It’s the one thing that the feminised secular world has gotten right! The modern feminised secular world however is unable to take responsibility. When they make choices they later regret or reflect on differently, they try to rewrite history and make themselves out to be victims.

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I tend to agree with you Seamus and Bishop Pat I sincerely respect what this blog accomplishes but I find the Carole/Ger story is just a woman who made a bad relationship choice, listened and believed his lies, spent money on him and when he had enough he dumped her. That’s life Carole

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7.32 Relationships break down and `that is life`…. It is a story of a breakup/down. She met with and was kindly met by the bishop and she was believed. That’s massive knowing the grim history of the RCC. As for Ger, he hasn’t the decency to apologise to Carole.

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7:32pm Not quite, “that’s life” – Carole should be afforded some common decency, manners & respect by Fr Ger Fitzgerald, Bishop Fintan Monahan & Ms Cleo Yates to enable closure. I understand there are monies still owing to Carole, her property has been vandalised and surely Fr Fitzgerald could simply apologise for being proactive in instigating their relationship but failing to end things properly. This excuse for a man has no class. Bottom of the barrel clergy being inflicted on unsuspecting public & protected by their Establishment in all manner of wrong doing. When will RCC Cathbots stop abusing people any chance it gets. There should be a WOrld Health Organisation warning on them at this stage.

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Madre Seamus doesn’t think this at all, any more than he reads a chapter of the gospel each day in Lent. Regular readers with their eyes open will notice that Seamus has a history of throwing out something controversial or annoying. In other words he’s a troll pure and simple. He’s also been caught out copying and pasting from Facebook pages for their Irish language content.

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It might be more appropriate for padre Seamus to encourage his colleagues in the priesthood and episcopate to take responsibility for their actions rather than trying to rewrite history and plead ignorance in their handling of CSA, such as pretending to be on a learning curve Bull+++t.

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9:01, I’m all for people taking responsibility for their actions.
Two types of “errant” priests:
1. Priests who are weak and have fallen and failed but who were not engaged in any form of abuse.
2. Cynical priests who are deliberately living a double life without feeling any remorse and with every intention to keep living like that.
Group 2 can be split into abusive and not abusive. Yesterday’s blog story covered both types of Group 2. Firstly, abhorrent abuse in Portugal. Secondly, mutual “friendship” where the “friendship” broke down.
Regards Irish language content, I’m sadly not a fluent Gaeilgeoir. It’s funny how someone can misrepresent one’s use of the correct grammar and wording, that they are seeking to communicate.
Blessed are the padres who use both Irish and English. The Gaelic speaking faithful are appreciative, buíochas le Dia. All it takes is an Ár nAthair or Sé do bheatha, a Mhuire.
Pax.

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Priests are supposed to be professional in dealings with parishioners , supposed to maintain boundaries, and, as celibates, supposed to say ” No” to inappropriate relationships.

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@ 6:59 I am a foreigner here. I had to leave my home, my family and friends to move to Ireland in March 2020. My father then died in August 2020. We were very close. My spouse and I are like roommates and together only b/c of children. Fr. Ger took advantage of my situation while still in ministry and insinuated himself into my life for his own personal gain. He knew all about my circumstances. He was a fucking priest. He baptised my children. He recently threatened said children with Tusla via his cousin the priest. Do you people not understand what it is like to be taken advantage of by someone in a position of authority that you trust? Keep trying to lay blame at the victims’ feet…people who live in glass houses really shouldn’t be throwing stones.

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+Hélder Câmara turned veered between Brazilian integralism (fascism explicitly without the racial elements) to socialism. The former was condemned by by Pius XI with Mit brennender Sorge of 1937and the latter was so often condemned. It suggests a certain instability or messianism. Brazilian bishops models themselves after him, and have presided over the usual collapse, although most move to Evangelical or Pentecostal communities rather than the agnosticism of Europe. People take the Catholic bread or aid, but now get their Bread Of Life from protestant preachers. However, the words you quote are wise.
I thought a judge could allow marriage a year younger, but 15 is pushing it. I seem to be wrong. France and some other places allow with judicial permission.

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Ger Fitzgerald will never apologise so Carole should not expect one and save herself the disappointment. As for the Bishop, he’s acknowledged Carole and believed her so I’m sure the cogs are turning on Ger’s removal paperwork. Moving on and living her best life is the best response to Ger’s silence.

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@ 10:09 At this point, an apology would be meaningless and I do not expect to get one. I intend to go after the Lothario priest where it hurts him the most: in his arse pocket.

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Listen up Diocesan-not-Secretary and any other Ger-bots out there. I hereby swear before the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob that Fr. Ger Fitzgerald will pay through the civil courts for what he did to Yvonne, to me and any other women out there who he has hurt but who have not yet come forward. If I ever see him in the street, he will be sorry because he and anyone else he is with will be lambasted with the truth. I will shout it from the rooftops of Castleconnell and any other place he happens to accidentally cross my path. Corrupt priests who are still getting paid by RCC while they actively meet with other men/women are making a mockery out of canon law and are abusing parishioner’s tithes which pay their salary. I might just have to ring up the Holy See and inform them of the shenanigans going on in the Diocese of Killaloe. Don’t think for a minute that I won’t try. I have connections to people that Ger doesn’t have a clue about. Now put that in your pipe and smoke it all ye depraved minions and your charlatan Kingpin who is trying to prove through DNA tests & genealogy that he is related to the nobility & gentry. Fat chance of that you deluded gobshite.

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Rumour has it that Fr. Ger has been absent from his home in Limerick for a number of days. Has Fintan sent him to an addiction rehab centre or is Ger taking refuge in another vulnerable woman’s home? Let us hope it is the former.

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