IRELAND
Irish Times
Patsy McGarry
Mon, Aug 11, 2014
The work of a priest is “almost impossible unless there is humour, humanity, honesty”, a member the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) leadership team has commented.
Augusinian priest Fr Séamus Ahearne was expressing his support for a recent observation by the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, who said the willingness of Pope Francis “to break away from accepted traditions” was a cause of disquiet among some priests.
In an address last month at the Catholic Leadership Centre in Melbourne, Archbishop Martin spoke of a curate in Dublin who was “not at all happy with some of the utterances of Pope Francis, which he felt were not in line with what he had learned in the seminary, and he felt that this was making the faithful insecure and even encouraging those who do not hold the orthodox Catholic belief to challenge traditional teaching”.
Fr Ahearne said the archbishop’s observations were “apt”.
He said younger priests were “very few and some embrace a very traditionalist view of Church. It is understandable too because there is great insecurity among the young. They need certainties. We don’t have them.”
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