Edward, in a moment you will promise respect and obedience to me, as your Bishop, and to my successors. You will become the Bishop’s Man. This is a profound undertaking for which I thank you. Obedience, from ob-audire, means to listen to. You are promising to listen to what God wants of you, not only interiorly through your own prayer and reflection, but externally through Christ’s Church and what legitimate authority asks of you. This is countercultural, for we live in a world that prizes individualism, innovation and initiative. Yet here again, the Blessed Mother is a perfect example. She shews us how to be obedient. For every day She listened out for God’s Word; She welcomed It when It came, believed It, pondered It and put It into practice.”
PAT SAYS
Without intending to, Philip Egan let it slip what he thinks priests should be
They should become THE BISHOP’S MAN.
Not CHRIST’S MAN.
THE BISHOP’S MAN.
What a disgraceful theology of priesthood Egan & Co have.
But that’s what they expect.
They expect you to be the bishop’s man.
They expect you to say yes, my Lord. Three bags full my Lord.
This was the understanding of priesthood Cahal Daly had when I knew him.
He asked me one day
Do you believe the voice of the bishop is the voice of God?
I answered
Cahal, does that mean that when you break wind, God breaks wind?
RC bishops think they are God.
That’s a big part of what has f..cked up the RCC and continues to f..ck it up.
HAUSCHILD HIMSELF
He strikes me as sincere enough.
For his age, he is very naive?
I think he will probably sucked into the whole current / Egan thing – especially with his Mammy on the £ 100,000 payroll.
I wonder what the sinful life he lived was – the one he confessed in Westminster Cathedral – the one he cried about for two hours?
Will he now be drawn back into all of that?
I think so……
BISHOP PAT BUCKLEY 
140 replies on “EGAN- “YOU WILL BECOME THE BISHOP’S MAN.””
He’s an aficionado of Mother Burke, undoubtedly of the antique disposition. Did Mammy get him the NHS manager job and now the diocesan one too? I don’t know about being the bishop’s man, more like Mammy’s boy.
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Edward will be a safe pair of hands if he resists the Portsmouth boiler houses, defers to his power executive Mammy Heather and the Bishop Ego Egan on everything. He’ll climb the ladder quickly enough, why not, take a closer look at the competition, oh no, can’t see them, can’t find them because they don’t exist! Haven’t been snared yet. Compromised recruits are preferred, easier to MOULD into the Mafia. Kids of payroll and voluntary laity are an obvious hunting ground for Bishops seeking fresh blood.
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How do you know he’s a fan of Mother Berk (not a typo)?
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Kissing his ring.
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Abuse.
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Cue a chorus of clerics protesting that they’re not like that and would never dream of obeying the bishop, because they stand up to him all the time despite never having done anything substantive to change anything and devoting their lives to propping up the ‘cult’ because they are, in fact, a bishop’s man.
Had they been anything but the bishop’s man they would be in Pat Buckley’s position or in secular life.
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11:47 any priest genuinely committed to change, looks around, realises it’s impossible and jumps ship. Any clerics remaining are an integral part of the problem, they won’t challenge the Bishop, they know that their life won’t be worth living if they do.
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9:03, Connell is a bishop’s man. Phonsie is an abbot’s man. Connell is being rewarded.
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9:54
So Phonsie is not his own man? Why is Phonsie an abbot’s man? Very odd.
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Yes, they all are bishops ‘ men. Not one of them is a Christman, despite the title of that silly book on priesthood by Fr Gerard McGinnity.
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The Independent ministry allows a freedom that the institutional exoteric church can never have. It cannot change. It is stagnant. It is dying. We don’t think like people 2000 years ago. To be a Christian today means that, we have to be willing to be radically different. We have to be different from how we were in the past. To take the deposit of faith which we were given and to find ways to make it reach people today.
Individuals change, societies change, we can’t take an outdated blueprint and expect it to fit once and for all time. The spirit grows and adapts, it reaches people where they are, not where they were or we’d like them be.
We don’t think like they did 2000 years ago, our lived experiences are not what they were back then. We are one people but our lived experience is both similar and yet vastly different.
That’s the problem with the exoteric Church, the Church of Peter today, it expects people to never change, to never grow and to fit a blueprint. When people don’t live up to the expectations of psychologically and spiritually immature people with huge barriers between themselves and the living Christ. The Church of John, who learned from the heart of Christ doesn’t expect that. It knows that people change and grow, that people are unique and not unique at the same time. Those with a direct, experiential spiritual knowledge are free to live and grow, to develop and flow with the Spirit, the divine feminine, wisdom and power of God, are able to meet people where they are, without expectation or judgment. To bring those they come into contact with into union with the Godhead.
There will always be problems with the Nicean Church of Constantine, it will never be reformed and will always fail to meet people because, it isn’t guided by the Spirit, by the Mother. It’s dying because it can’t keep up with where people are in their individual and collective lives. It can’t speak that perennial truth to them. It will always try to force them into a box and make them fit its expectations. So, far from being a small Church as Ratzinger hoped for, it will die. A tree without roots can’t grow.
It can proclaim growth in this continent and then that continent but, without the inspiration of the Spirit, a non judgmental openness to the Godhead and to the lived experiences of the people, it can’t meet them where they are.
The Church can’t fit current societal expectations, they change as freely as the waters. What seems true to people today may not always seem true. But it has to allow the Spirit to guide it. It can’t judge or condemn but love, accept and be open. It has to flow with the currents of the wind and always find a way to meet each new generation.
The Holy Spirit of Love is unchanging but never stops connecting. The Body of Christ must be willing to follow its head. To speak gently and authentically. To meet people where they are and not where it expects them to be.
Only the true church can do that. Rome is neither the way, the truth nor the life. Religio challenges and facilitates to connect with the divine, not to attempt to control and force to fit expectations. Humans aren’t that simple.
There is no future for Rome until it learns to learn from the heart of Christ and to be as gentle as the Spirit. Until the Rock hears Christ’s voice, Christ does not know them and they do not follow Him.
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You might have a point if you didn’t keep using the word exoteric to let us know that you think what you are talking about is esoteric.
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No, I don’t mean esoteric. The RCC is very much exoteric not esoteric. I’m very aware of the term I used.
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1 – You don’t get converted unless you become a priest – same old same old since Augustine. I thank God I didn’t hear about Augustine in my young day.
2 – Did FEH in the intervening 3 years learn (from outside seminary) I ) how not to gabble, II ) how to have any conviction in what he is saying, III ) how to repent of false modesty, IV ) how to repent of people pleasing, V ) how to stand up for himself – because someone that can’t stand up for themselves can’t stand up for others
3 – The veiled argument is at most about a reason to become a despised layman.
4 – The VEC made a public example of him 3 years ago to pressure him into not quitting, the same way that the Irish and English seminary inmates always get paraded. The VEC and Dominicans are deliberately talking him for a fool by coaching him to give these “reasons” just when seminarians are rare and in a goldfish bowl, when it is more humane to get the spotlight off them. In my young day no-one heard of the hundreds of seminarians; those were assumed to be just normal. Are the VEC and Dominicans, none of whom have any worries, “mission creeps”?
5 – 21 year olds get (sometimes wrongly) told it’s their fault they didn’t repel the advances of someone older, so I’m now proffering the far more plausible thought that it’s FEH’s fault he didn’t refuse to go on you tube.
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ref 4.24 a.m
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i – I talked a man into entering (but I was not the only one on at him) a seminary in another country. Maybe he isn’t doing badly by their standards.
ii – I have never understood the priest or sacrament side of catholic religion, those do get hyped in intense “movements” – I now think it more relaxing to go back to the cafeteria arrangement we were allowed in my young day: Lord’s Prayer and hope God will help us.
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This warped understanding of ‘obedience’ is what enabled abuse and cover-ups.
Seeing how the bishop of Portsmouth is responsible for a number of questionable decisions and acts, I’m sure he needs the clergy to do as they’re told and keep quiet.
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Being labelled ‘the bishop’s man’ is dangerous and as has been said here before, will enable cover-up of all kinds of corruption.
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EGAN thinking this, is one thing. Saying out loud, in public, in a homily that ‘ from now on you are the bishop’s man’ is something else!
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I feel really bad for Edward. What a position to be in. Being the bishop’s man and the £100k+++ COO’S son. What a predicament?
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I think we can truthfully say that given what the clergy of the diocese have shown of themselves bitching about the bishop and his mother they’ll make his life a living hell.
If he really must be a priest he’d be better going to another diocese.
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SPOT ON +PAT!
Sums it all up.
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EGAN’S prizing obedience to him above all things, must be how JP’S lack of celibacy didn’t prevent him from ordaining him. Maybe EGAN thought he would just tell JP to keep it zipped up and he would, in humble obedience to him???
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Which seminary did Edward go to?
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Venereal English Cottage
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I’m not sure it’s an appropriate situation having a priest with his COO mother in the same diocese. How’s that going to work?
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Why, of course, when Bishops break wind, God breaks wind!
But only when wind broken is silent but deadly.
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For now, he’s safely tucked away on a tiny Island.
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‘I’ve made a break from what I used to be’ he says in the video. He keeps saying he wasn’t living a ‘Catholic life’. I wonder what he ‘used to be’?
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That phrase, ‘Catholic life’, is telling. Why not ‘Christian life’? After all, isn’t this what its all about? Christ?
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10:00
Because Catholic, by definition, and as the most numerous denomination in the world is Christian.
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In my 51 years intimate association with the RCC I found lorry loads of Catholicism and very little real Christianity.
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The priest will become the bishops man but follow the example of his spiritual Mother, our Lady! Why not follow the example of Our Lord?
Oh, so bishops consider themselves God so when we pray ‘O God come to our aid.O Lord make haste to help us…’ are we praying to bishops?
Forget it!! ‘Houston, we have a problem…’
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Is that bishops man malarkey part of the liturgy or has Egan made that up?
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I suspect he made up most of it. But it does point to the nature of ordination: it isn’t about Jesus; it’s about the bishop.
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Imagine a bishop at a woman’s religious profession saying Sr. Gertrude you will become the bishops woman.
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Time will tell with this seminarian about to be ordained. How long will he last? How long will his Mum be the CEO?
They all stand on the shoulders of anonymous lay people who over the years collectively find everything but everything and everyone ends so what then?
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Many of the priests of my generation and of yours too Pat, made our priestly vows in good faith and seemed truly aware of the significance of the promises we made. As years rolled on, the challenges of living fully the promises we made became very challenging. I believe we sought to be fully faithful but such ideals were always to pose a challenge. Now, 40 years on, I live a simpler life, concentrating on the pastoral responsibilities entrusted to me. I’ve never bought into the politics or machiavellian antics or the temptations to impress anyone except to ensure that Christ is my reference for all things. Not always successful but the parishioners keep me grounded. Yes, I’m answerable to the Bishop but he doesn’t intrude into my daily life. I respect his role and leadership but I know well after 40 years what is essential and where my focus is and it’s not my Bishop! The first prayer each morning is to CHRIST ALONE and the rest of my day is, with effort, lived likewise, albeit with difficulties at times.
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Soooo… why did you promise all those years ago to obey a bishop when you claim your first focus each morning is Christ? Divided loyalties there, and we all, including you, know which master would win were they ever to clash. (Hint: it wouldn’t be Christ, because ‘Father’ would have too much mammon to lose.)
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9.50
It’s amusing to read your jejune shibboleths. They are reminiscent of the fixation of born-again Christian fundamentalists on the language of ‘Are you saved?’ when speaking with one another. If their interlocutor does not employ this expressions to articulate his or her faith it becomes a problem for them, and for God.
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12.52
Hello again, Jejune.
You must be a priest to feel so defensive every time I raise the curious pantomime-cum-anomaly of an ordinand’s promising obedience to a bishop, while reassuring himself that it’s actually to Christ. I mean how could anyone reasonably think otherwise? We could call that strange moment a ‘mystery’: you know, something that, by common sense, is most definitely and discernibly one thing, but, no, is actually quite another. Just look a little harder.
The commenter at 10.37, being more creative than I, calls it ‘cognitive dissonance’, or, more specifically, its avoidance through priests’ lying to themselves about the true nature of that Gethsemane experience, which priests courageously spin as heroically binding themselves to Jesus. Tch! It’s obvious. If it helps, just think of the total absence of kiddie-fiddling in the RCC, and of there being no need for its deliberate and systemic concealment. Why? Because priests were all obeying Jesus, and not some bloated presbyter in a heretic’s hat. Yes, that point of view would win the argument every time. And, of course, it does. Convincingly.
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Justin Welby’s a King’s Man. He said so himself, at the coronation.
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3.43
The resolution of your quandry lies in the theology of sacrament. Inform yourself.
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7:41 Thank you for showing us how one priest at least deals with the cognitive dissonance of being a servant of a criminal organization: by persuading himself he isn’t.
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Like Karl Lagerfeld said, “As gay as a daisy in May”.
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Fr Edward: A very fine young man. With that articulate interview any diocese would be blessed to have him. God Bless him for the future as a “missionary” back home in England.
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You can tell Edward’s a ‘very fine’ person from a short video clip?
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The Nigerian and Indian priests in our parishes are the new missionaries
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A temporary little arrangement until vocations dry up in Nigeria and India.
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This is a most uncharitable post. You seem to be using this blog to attack his whole family.
He deserves a chance to truly conform his life to Christ as a priest without thousands of people gossiping about him because of a blog post.
Most uncomfortable to read.
I also think it’s most unjust to take some of his Lordships words completely out of context too. It was in fact a most spiritually uplifting homily. But this is because this Bishop you attack so often is in fact a true man of Christ and a deep man of faith.
God bless
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His family? Given that only Edward and the bishop are mentioned in this post you’re giving away some very strange ideas about the bishop. 🤪
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8:08: what the church did to us affected our whole family and the rights of privacy of others not directly connected wasn’t respected either. Any port in a storm for the corrupt Padres and their cohorts in persistently defending the indefensible.
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Into a bit of lace? EGAN will be happy with his new man.
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I’ll COO for an Irish diocese if terms conditions salary and expenses
are reasonable. I have experience with Irish Health Service (HSE).
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8:21 Ah! BUT are you a “safe pair of hands” in the context of RCC requirements? Sell yourself a bit, they’re on here listening!
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What are the RCC requirements? Do you possess a job description,
job specification? terms and conditions? Tell me more if you do.
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8:21 Your experience of being swabbed is unlikely to prepare you for a senior management role.
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When you think of all that Phil could have said in his homily for an ordination! Instead he focuses on obedience to himself. WEIRD.
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Weird? Really? Not weird at all.
Ordinations are not about Christ; never were; never will be. They’re about serving an institution ‘corrupt, and riddled with corruption’, with a bishop as its local figurehead.
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9.54
Did you forget to pretend you care about the victims of CSA?
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Still no word from John-Paul’s solicitor then +Pat? How embarrassing for all involved!
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I recall being a seminarian in Maynooth. Fr Donal O’Neill was our Director of Formation. He told us that to get on we should respond to him with obedience as if he was our Bishop.
… all these years later this methodology has served neither us seminarians, him nor the church any good. Those ordained with his training have largely either left, been in scandal or left after scandal. They were not adequately formed. Donal himself has left, albeit to more lucrative private ministry. Those who were not ordained often chat about the damage he did. Those who put money in the plate for our training got a shoddy return and the church has fewer and fewer priests.
… we get one shot at life. Maynooth damaged that experience and I encourage any man thinking of a priestly vocation to learn from the experience of others who have suffered. Walk away. God loves you without a collar as much as he’d love you with that collar.
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8:37
Of course God loves all regardless of clerical collars. The methodology you describe, apart for preparing seminarians for life in priest-bishop role, is an unhealthy dependency power imbalanced- bishops man – dynamic promoting immature subservient relations. It’s small wonder abuse and abusive dynamics were/are acted out by a considerable number of very immature men who were ordained. If nowadays formators don’t have a problem with sexual and bodily exploration in seminary it’s sounds like
the pendulum has swung from one extreme to the other.
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An unhealthy power-imbalance involving poorly formed people with ever random immaturity levels is how I would sum up “The Priesthood”. All men should avoid it. Women should stop seeking it.
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1 – “I was born in Poole, Dorset, in 1991 (making me 30, for those who are as bad at mental maths as I am)” No-one is as bad at mental maths as you are.
2 – “It is hoped that, after a period on-assignment in the diocese, I will begin a Licentiate degree in Canon Law sometime in the next few years” Normally, it would be thought foolish to let the public in on any “deal” in advance. The RC has already got more than enough canon laws to last it more than the next 2,000 years, I think you would be onto a better bet to ignore all that.
3 – Pic: borrow the pooch.
4 – I’ve got more than twice the observation you have (though none of it in the Eternal City est ex nihilo 753 BC and featuring in Rev ch 21-22).
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Hi Pat 👋
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If he was taken to Medjugorje quite a lot his upbringing can’t be described as Catholic.
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I am surprised a Burke adherent would give Mega Forgery much credence.
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Explain, please 8.41.
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I recently came across the latest edition of Medjugore Messenger an Irish magazine involving Ms. Bernie O Hara Co. Leitrim. I believe Ms. O Hara
ran as an Independent Candidate for the Sligo-Leitrim constituency in the 2020 General Election. Take a look at her online Medjugore Messenger page sponsered walk with a difference. The latest edition of the Magazine advertised Radio Maria The Trouble with Porn Conference which included a discussion with Fr. Allan Hoffa, Bishop Phonsie,Fr. Hayden and Dr. Kielty.
The podcasts are on Radio Maria.ie under latest podcasts. Pilgrimages were also advertised in Medjugore Messenger including names of spiritual directors to accompany pilgrims.
Do people not know Medjugore is not recognised by the Church?
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@ 8:41am
Absolutely it would have been anything but!
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EGAN is not a man of faith. He’s a man of many things, but not faith. He certainly believes that when he breaks wind, it is loosed in heaven.
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A certain commenter was repeatedly mocked here for showing up the moral anomaly of an ordinand’s promising to obey a bishop while claiming to serve Christ. He was right.
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Monty @8.08 is not only one bishop’s man, but at least two bishops! +Dark Mavis and +Phyllis Egan. He’s a Bishop’s man through and through (@8.08) which is why he finds this blog post so uncomfortable (too close to home!). He’s a bit of a joke here in Shrewsbury. Phil Egan came up for his priestly ordination – they’re very close, hence his leaping to defend ‘his Lordship’. Phil was our VG before heading south- he was a nutter. Certainly not (as @8.08 describes) a man of Christ.
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10.21
How then was he appointed to Portsmouth?
How was Deenihan appointed to Meath?
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Poor Edward is starting off on the wrong foot. No one can “win souls for Christ”, except Christ himself. And this can only be the outcome of a internal dialogue between a person and Jesus in the human heart.
The disciple can only preach the Good News, and leave the rest to other factors.
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10.21
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which He looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are His body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
— St. Teresa of Ávila (attributed)
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But Jesus has his own spirit. He does not require anyone else’s, because such a spirit did not, and could not, redeem the world. Nor can it win over souls to Christ.
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Edward’s what? 31 now, given that he started uni in 2010? (18 + 13 = 31).
I agree. He does come across as extremely naive for his age. Full of fantasy and idealism.
If Ed doesn’t maintain a steady and daily prayer life, he’ll be out of ministry before very long when that bubble of fantasy and idealism he’s in is pricked by pedestrian reality.
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He’s a Bishop’s man, a Mammy’s boy and a Tory boy having campaigned for Robert Halfon, and he likes to kiss Mother Burke’s ring too.
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Oh dear, I could overlook all the rest, but a Tory? I am disappointed.
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To all considering the priesthood I would strongly suggesting googling the ‘Pale Blue Dot’ image and reading the following by Carl Sagan
”Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
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Thank you Canon Todd.
Your Sagan quote aptly gives a realistic perspective on the truth of human existence. Looking beyond the quote’s focus on earth, the vastness of the universe is being increasingly recognised via modern astronomical developments such as the James Webb “telescope.”
And yet many humans still believe in personal gods concerned with us as individuals here on earth, and continue to follow weird placatory practices seeking a rewarding “afterlife !”
Surely gods, and following them via religious practices, are truly ridiculous. And the Christian version…….stable in Bethlehem etc etc: just HOW likely is all that mythology to be “true?”
Think about it!
MMM
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8:59
God MMM, not gods. Contemplate ‘it’!
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@9:28, do I detect by your comment that you think there is only one “God, ….that in the context of my comment you make no allowance for others beliefs in the myriad gods of humankind throughout history?
But then sure YOUR God is the only one that matters!
Typical!
MMM
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11:50
You can believe in sugar plumb fairies it you wish and consider
sugar plump fairies god but it doesn’t make sugar plumb fairies God.
If you already know God doesn’t exist, why ask for proofs, or have you some other agenda?
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The bishops man! What a load of oul tosh. Is Christianity not about following Christ? Where does a bishop come into this. The RCC is truly a cult. Cabal Daly believing that when he spoke, God spoke. Most certainly not because RUC agent Daly frequently talked crap
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Was he off hours?
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And the spelling of his name Cabal is not a typo
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As we have seen on this blog before, EGAN is as corrupt as they come! He’s a dictator. He’s immature and vindictive. All he can do is keep on instructing the newly ordained to keep quiet and obey.
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Any sensible bishop will know that he needs to build a good relationship with his priests. The bishop needs the good will and cooperation of the clergy otherwise his plans will come to nothing. Demanding obedience actually means you’ve lost the clergy. Any hopes +Egan has for the future will come to nothing if the priests won’t play ball.
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Describing a priest as the bishop’s man sounds like a flawed ecclesiology. It does not reflect the reality of the presbyterium in union with their bishop and true collaboration. The idea that a diocesan bishop is the pope’s man and his vicar has thankfully long disappeared.
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Where can I find the whole of this homily? Edmund M suggests this sick comment is taken out of context and is actually ‘spirituality uplifting’. I’d like to see how ‘the bishop’s man’ sits in context. Any ideas where I can find it?
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I can’t find the entire homily, but there’s a slightly fuller version of it on the diocese’s website.
https://www.portsmouthdiocese.org.uk/congratulations-on-your-ordination-reverend-hauschild/
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I suppose EGAN will expect clergy and laity to humbly obey him and put his plan into action? Let’s see how much they listen to their ‘Chief Shepherd’.
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I do feel bad for Fr Edward. His mother should do him a favour and resign. How do the other priests relate to him?
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I couldn’t agree more. For her son’s sake you’d think £100k+++ COO HAUSCHILD would move on. It’s not healthy, given she is at war with the clergy trying to prove she has some authority when, in actual fact, she doesn’t. She’s an employee.
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Is it not odd to have an ordination during Lent? I realise that the Annunciation is a Feast, but what was the rush? An ordination in March is odd, to my mind anyway?
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Nah, I think it’s actually your mind that’s odd, not the ordination
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You can watch the ordination (and hear the homily) on the Portsmouth Cathedral page on churchservices.tv
25th March 2023
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The June meeting will be very interesting. How will Edward sit and listen to his brother clergy bad-mouthing his mother? It will be awkward to say the least!
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He’ll maybe rat on them? To mummy and Eagan?
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@ 2:00pm
It will indeed be interesting no doubt he’ll have plenty of bad-mouthing to say about his brother clergy and wont be worried about them doing it to his Mammy.
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Why won’t he be worried about them doing it to his mammy?
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“You are promising to listen to what God wants of you, not only interiorly through your own prayer and reflection, but externally through Christ’s Church and what legitimate authority asks of you”.
‘Legitimate’ being the operative word. EGAN misuses his authority and dictates instead. A priest can refuse to obey illegitimate requests made by their bishops.
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But, of course, they won’t disobey : they pledged themselves to the Church, not to Christ, and so do not have the courage of his spirit.
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I bet +Dark Mavis will be thrilled with ‘Edumnd M’ for causing him to be mentioned on this blog again!
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The bishop’s man? That sounds like the role of an Eton Fag.
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It’s probably more similar than you imagine.
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Egan is the Bishop I heard pray for the conversion of England. Such arrogance. In his institution (enthronement in his world, I guess) sermon he said he prayed that he would be an ‘orthodox Bishop’. Having talked to another E and W Bishop, I know that his colleagues thought this was very wrong and arrogant. The implication was that some of them were unorthodox. A very poor start. Egan is a real liability requiring some strong advice from The Vatican. Accept that or retire.
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@ 3:13p
There was nothing arrogant about the Bishop praying for the conversion of England as it was the right thing to do and indeed an act of charity. He was quite right about his “colleagues” who were probably a bunch of Ecumaniacs with no charity at all and extremely unorthodox.
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Prayers are badly needed for the conversion of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Prayers are also desperately needed for the conversion of so many Irish priests and religious. The island of Ireland is also mission territory.
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8.04
Praying to God for anything, let alone for something so ambitious as the conversion of people, reminds me of Greenshield stamps, oddly: you had to save so very, very many of these for the smallest of gifts, like a teaspoon.
Prayer is similar: so very, very many of them for so very, very little in return, if indeed anything.
The Lord’s bounty knows no limits … beyond the very narrow ones of his famed largesse.
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@ 8:39
What is the will of Bountiful Limitless God for humankind?
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8.39
“. . . More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.”
—King Arthur to Sir Bedivere, in “The Passing of Arthur” from Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson
“Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
—James, the brother of Jesus, in a letter to Jewish Christians outside Palestine
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The comment about being an “orthodox Bishop” was seen by some as a dig at Crispian Hollis , who was said by some critics to have ”lutheranized” the diocese .
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Notice the very telling narrow focus on the bishop and priests in the comments today, with no mention of the credulous, sorry, gullible, sorry, faithful.
It’s almost as if the commenters see ‘the church’ as being restricted to these groups.
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What I can’t understand was priests are self employed (correct me if I’m there ok), they swore obedience to man (bishops), not God.
Self employed implies that he or she’s own boss and dictate their work, sick and holiday leave on their risk cos they get nothing if out sick. Also pay their own pension, taxes et al.
In other words, earn their own living from Independent pursuit of economic activity but not obedience (it’s twisted form).
Simple explanation from Google on self employed –
Meaning of SELF-EMPLOYED is earning income directly from one’s own business, trade, or profession rather than as a specified salary or wages from an employer.
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He may have prayed to be an orthodox bishop but that prayer went unheard. He is heterodox. He likes a bit of high Liturgy but that’s it. He will be remembered in the history of the diocese as THE worst bishop who accelerated the inevitable.
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Deaf guy (3:39), you raise an interesting point. The self-employed fiction ensures no employment rights and benefits, no place of appeal in conflict etc. Priests could never be treated in the cavalier fashion that some bishops utilise if they were correctly classified as employees. It will take a test case to put this to rights!
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Anon at 4.05pm
Working as self employed carries a lot of risks cos of sick as you will get no money. So as self employed, you ensure that you have to be well at all times thus received income or revenue etc. That’s one risk of being self employed. Also holiday pay which you would have to take out of your income instead of any employer propping you up. Same applies to their pensions as well.
Obedience is not one of them as regards to self employed. Any self employed receives instructions from someone to carry out the job that he or she is tasked to do it. Obedience doesn’t come into that equation as opposed to carrying out a specific job to be completed say painting or plumbing or electric et al. Once that task is completely done then they as self employed received monies as part of their work not duties.
No wonder many bishops or cardinals are laughing at their priests. They owe nothing to priests cos Priests have no bragging rights and defenceless.
Then an appropriate question would be asked in that regard, what is the point of joining the priesthood, if where you have no rights practically or otherwise and get treated shabbily just like Egan treating his own priests with contempt as he wants it all to himself a life of luxury and ease just like Byrne of H and N. It’s his own personal fiedfom at the total expense of all priests in Portsmouth diocese as its MAXED out to himself alone.
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This sad era Portsmouth is going through will be long remembered. It’s tragic. You’re correct @3.56pm EGAN is the worst yet, and that’s saying something! (Don’t forget we had WARLOCK for a time going round smashing things up).
No, PHILIP EGAN will never be forgotten, for all the wrong reasons. What will his legacy be?
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There’s still time. Don’t write bishop Philip off just yet. He has time to make some changes and sort the mess out. You never know, he might surprise us and turn things round!
If he made some sound appointments and listened to good advice, he might (just about) do well.
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4:17 Are we soon in for a song ?
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I don’t know one priest in Portsmouth who has a single good word to say about the bishop.
Bishop Philip loves flexing his muscles each year when he asks priests to move parish. Each year he moves a large number of priests, destabilising the Diocese, and ensuring no one knows enough of the Parish history to know if the Diocese owes the parish anything or how much the parish has invested in the ‘Investment Fund’.
We’re now facing retirements and large gaps will begin to appear, gaps that won’t be filled.
The priests of the Diocese do not consider themselves ‘the bishop’s man’ no matter how many homilies Bishop Philip preaches on the subject. He would have to be gravely deluded to imagine that Portsmouth Priests consider themselves ‘Egan’s men’!
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Judging by the queeny fits they’re throwing (anonymously, because they’re not about to risk confrontation with the bishop) ‘men’ doesn’t come into it in any way.
Bishop’s toddlers, perhaps?
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Dublin clergy have been debating the self-employed status issue in recent times. There is an appetite among a few for a legal challenge.
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I really hope you get what you want.
However the reason I hope you get it is that if priests are legally employees that means there will be more, not less, liability for them vicariously, for the diocese.
And you know what that means… Standards. Performance measures and management.
You want the legal benefits of being an employee but have once again given away that you have no conception of the duties of being an employee.
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All the things HAUSCHILD loves!!
As it is, priests are not employed so she’ll have to keep her standards and performance measurements for herself as the EMPLOYEE.
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Won’t happen.
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Exactly. No priest would have the guts to take his bishop to court.
Hand-wringing a plenty, but we’ll see no action.
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I did !
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What was Anthony Emery like as a bishop?
And Worlock?
And Hollis?
How do any of the above compare with Egan?
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+Emery and +Hollis were close to their priests. They really cared for them as Fathers.
Warlock, not so much. He was a careerist and a cold character.
+Egan is in a league of his own. He runs the Diocese as if it is his parish, seeing himself as the curate-breaking bully Parish Priest who calls the shots, rather like unpleasant characters of old, dismissing and undermining the priests.
We are Egan-centric in Portsmouth and he, himself, is his only concern.
If you’re useful to his agenda great, if not then he’s not interested.
Rather than an overseer bishop Egan is a micromanage and his interference is beyond belief.
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And he’s bosom buddies with wee Betty Turpin in Paisley – say no more 🤷🏾♂️
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Phil Egan has no experience as a Parish Priest. He’s been a University Chaplain, a hospital Chaplain and Seminary staff member. He has no real understanding of Parish life or how to run a Parish. This, more than anything else is his undoing. An experienced Parish Priest can spot his ignorance a mile off.
Of course, this does nothing to help the priests ‘respect and obey’ someone who clearly has no idea of how Parish life works. (Nor, by the way, does his Chief Operating Officer)
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But ‘father’ at 8:07 the comment above at 8:01 says he runs the diocese like his personal parish.
So obviously he does know how to run a parish.
Incidentally, the comment at 8:01 is an accurate description of many parish priests, and I think leaving anonymous comments online about the bishop certainly comes under the heading of bullying.
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Without doubt, Bishop Egan’s biggest error is the secularisation of the curial offices. Not only has this layer of complexity divided the Diocese, it has also distanced the bishop from the clergy. The curial departments are operating independently from the parishes and schools and in fact they are competing with each other – It’s all very immature. However, it’s not working and honestly, it cannot work.
Inevitably, it will have to change, but whether or not we will have to wait for a new bishop to make the change, well, time will tell.
It is a costly and painful experiment that has gone wrong and only by ending the experiment will the Diocese be able to move on and heal.
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There’s no doubt that HAUSCHILD feels she has a point to prove. She sees the clergy as competition. The whole COO thing might have worked if we employed a different character type, however, the position of COO probably attracts the same type of person. (And I believe we only had to applicants for the job anyway).
Consequentially, there’s not going to be any harmony or peace in the Diocese, unfortunately. It’s just a waiting game.
If only HAUSCHILD would work with the clergy instead of trying to trick them into doing what she wants, and misleading them, then that would have been a different matter, but she is threatened by clergy and as the clergy is essential, there’s not much she can do about it.
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What does Egan think of Elsie? What does Elsie think of Egan?
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