IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests
Seamus Ahearne OSA reflects on the aftermath of the meeting between the ACP and Dublin priests’ council and Archbishop Martin. As a Church, we need to talk, bishops, priests (Nuncio) and people together!
The Independent (Monday 4th February) had a column on the Meeting of the Priests’ Council (Dublin) and the leadership of the ACP. It was a sloppy piece of journalism and a distortion.
We met. We talked. There is nothing extraordinary about that. We shouldn’t be surprised or excited or euphoric. It is what adults do! This is Communion. The Church doesn’t belong to the Bishops or to Rome or to anyone. We are the Church.
It is good that the ACP and the Council of priests meet. It also is a problem: It creates something the ACP never wanted: It spawns administration; More meetings; more travelling; more is dumped on the Leadership. They get sucked into this Bureaucracy of life. It can mean the kiss of death.
People need to talk. The Bishops and the ACP need to talk. Bishops need to talk to each other. Priests need to talk. There needs to be talk all across the Church. There isn’t an Us and Them. The ACP isn’t about dissident priests. They are by definition priests who love the Church; who find their Inspiration in Vatican 2 and who want the Church to face today’s world and not hide away in the past. The catch word of the Council was: Aggiornamento. This bringing-up-to-date is an evolutionary process and never ends. The Incarnation means that the Word has to become Flesh in everyday life but there is a problem.
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