Catholic Priests’ Association Calls for Radical Change at Agm, The Journal, October 7, 2011

Catholic Priests’ Association Calls for Radical Change at Agm

The Journal
October 7, 2011

http://www.thejournal.ie/catholic-priests-association-calls-for-radical-change-at-agm-247891-Oct2011/

Fr Hegarty described a complacency and hubris in the Catholic Church after the papal visit of 1979.

THE ASSOCIATION OF Catholic Priests (ACP) has called for radical change in the Catholic Church – including an overhaul of how bishops are chosen and and its theology of sexuality.

At its annual general meeting, held over the past two days in Dublin, the ACP also discussed priestly life.

Fr. Sean McDonagh told TheJournal.ie that members examined other models of priesthood, including ones which could include married men and women.

In one of the keynote speeches of the meeting, Fr. Kevin Hegarty told the 350-strong audience that he believes there are two versions of the Catholic church in Ireland – one that is community-based where he has found fulfilment and the other is institutionalised, from which he is alienated.

Fianna Fail-style annihilation

After describing a church in crisis with plummeting church attendances and a sharp drop in people taking up vocations to the priesthood, Fr Hegarty claimed that if Irish Catholics had a democratic way of reflecting their feelings, church leaders would suffer a defeat “as cataclysmic as that administered to Fianna Fail in the recent general election”.

“For over 30 years the Church has recoiled from reform and returned to the incense-filled ghettoes in defence of its traditional hierarchical structure,” he said. “Its procedures are archaic and cumbersome and precious, utterly out of sync with the ways of the democratic world. It is also suspicious of lay involvement.”

Calling for a new way to choose Catholic bishops, Fr. Hegarty told the audience, which included lay men and women, as well as priests that “only those who are seen to conform to the [Church's] narrow views are admitted to the temple”.

He added:

So bishops are chosen on the basis of being in favour of compulsory celibacy, adherence to clerical dress, docility to papal teaching and above all against contraception and the ordination of women. Loyalty is defined in old narrow terms. And it is so fearful of the feminine. Misogyny is dressed up in theological abstractions.”

A narrow sexual morality

Fr Hegarty also said that since his ordination 30 years ago, he has been working in a “crumbling church” that became complacent after the papal visit in 1979.