Day: May 8, 2023

From Pat Kenny NEWSTALK.

The number of new recruits is dwarfed by the number of retirees and Bishop Cullinan believes it is a problem not unique to the Church. 

“We are certainly faced with a problem,” he told The Pat Kenny Show. 

“We all know that but vocations to marriages, vocations to any lifelong commitment in modern society is something that is decreasing – there’s no doubt about that.” 

Bishop Cullinan said women are “essential” to the Church but that the priesthood should stay off limits to them. 

“In the Church of England, the ordination of women hasn’t been a quick fix solution to the number of vocations,” he said.

“In actual fact, they’re going down. 

“So, we can learn from that; it is something that God has – out of God’s wisdom – chosen for the Church, men for this particular role and there are all sorts of roles…. for women. 

“But the specific issue of the priesthood is something that following Jesus in this particular way – and taking the risk for Christ – that he is calling and whom I am to stand and say, ‘Lord, I think you’re wrong.’”

The number of men training to be priests is dwarfed by the number retiring.

Not so long ago, the priesthood was a highly prestigious vocation and Ireland was a net exporter of clergymen to the world. 

In 2023, things are very different and Bishop Cullinan conceded there the numbers studying for the priesthood are “very much less” than previously. 

The number of new recruits is dwarfed by the number of retirees and Bishop Cullinan believes it is a problem not unique to the Church. 

“We are certainly faced with a problem,” he told The Pat Kenny Show. 

“We all know that but vocations to marriages, vocations to any lifelong commitment in modern society is something that is decreasing – there’s no doubt about that.” 

“In the Church of England, the ordination of women hasn’t been a quick fix solution to the number of vocations,” he said.

“In actual fact, they’re going down. 

“So, we can learn from that; it is something that God has – out of God’s wisdom – chosen for the Church, men for this particular role and there are all sorts of roles…. for women. 

“But the specific issue of the priesthood is something that following Jesus in this particular way – and taking the risk for Christ – that he is calling and whom I am to stand and say, ‘Lord, I think you’re wrong.’”

Some believe allowing married men to become priests would boost recruitment but Bishop Cullinan was sceptical about whether a married man could do justice to the role. 

“Does he give his heart to the parishioners or to his wife and family?” he said. 

“And it’s always a dichotomy there and I think, for me and the happy priests that I know, they are free to give themselves fully for their ministry in their parishes, in their chaplaincy, wherever it is.

“I worked for five years as a hospital chaplain and I do not see how I could have done that job if I were married because in the hospital it was full on – especially the night calls.” 

PAT SAYS

If bullying, insulting Phonsie is an example of priesthood, whobin God’s name would want to be a priest.

Who would want to be another Phonsie?

In his interview with Pat Kenny, once again, Phonsie insults bast swathes of the population – women, married men, and priests / ministers of other churches.

Phonsie says that married priests would not be as devoted as unmarried priests.

Because their attentions would be divided between their wives, children and ministry.

Nonsense !

Look at all the excellent married Church of Ireland priests and the Presbyterian and Methodist ministers.

They can be good husbands, fathers and pastors.

In my experience in Northern Ireland I always see far more ministers on hospital corridors than I do RC priests.

Free to GIVE ALL to their parishioners?

Poppycock!

Looking back on many of the priests I lived with, many of them spent their days on:

The golf course.

The racing track.

On the phone to their Bookmakers.

Wining and dining each other in presbyteries.

Getting pissed out of their minds in their presbyteries.

Of course there were notable exceptions.

And celibacy has its own way of making priests very selfish and narcissistic.

And these days, as Phonsie well knows, many priests spend a great deal of their time on Grindr and in the various Boilerhouses.

Really, Phonsie is trying, whether he knows it or not, to preserve a misogynistic, paternalistic, homoerotic priesthood.

And, THANK GOD, most young men will not buy into that.

The Irish RCC Bishops could not have chosen a worse man to make their vocations guru.