IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

From October 10th to 12th Sean McDonagh and I attended a meeting of renewal and reform groups in Austria. There were people, lay and cleric, men and women, from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, United States and Ireland, — about thirty people in all, at the meeting. It was a great experience, and I was glad to be there.

Among the issues discussed were:

1. How to respond to the new message coming out from the Vatican since Pope Francis was elected. We were generally impressed by what he was saying, though with some reservations. Does he really mean these things? And if he does, will he be able to bring about the necessary structural changes to make them happen? The women among us were disappointed by some of his statements about women, particularly his emphasis on women as mothers (which they saw as traditional…