IRELAND
Irish Examiner
By Seán McCárthaigh
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
The town of Ballina has been rocked by the sudden death of a local priest in what is believed to be the first case in recent years of a Catholic cleric in Ireland taking his own life.
Residents in the Co Mayo town yesterday expressed shock at news of the death of Fr Muredach Tuffy, a popular curate and director of the Newman Institute — an educational centre known as Ballina’s “Catholic university”. …
Enniskillen-based priest and well-known broadcaster Fr Brian D’Arcy spoke earlier this week about the pressures of being a priest in Ireland amid the fallout of various clerical sexual abuse scandals, as well as grappling with controversial Church teaching on issues such as clerical celibacy, contraception, and homosexuality.
The Association of Catholic Priests yesterday expressed disappointment and sadness at the response of the Hierarchy to their request for greater engagement with the group about the future of the Church.
The organisation claimed there was often a “palpable sense of dejection, depression and sometimes almost despair when clergy gather as a group”.
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