IRELAND
National Catholic Reporter
Sarah Mac Donald | Dec. 1, 2015
The Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland is to write to the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops expressing its 1,000 members’ “grave disquiet” over the current selection process for bishops in the Irish church.
A resolution was carried unanimously at the association’s annual meeting in Athlone Nov. 24 which criticized the “lack of any credible process of consultation” with priests and people in recent years and the Vatican’s “preference for candidates drawn from a particular mindset.”
Over 100 members of the ACP who attended the meeting backed the statement which said the choice of candidates is “out of sync with the realities of life in Ireland today” and with the openness of Pope Francis to change and reform in the church.
The priests also expressed frustration with the “apparently haphazard policy of appointments to distant dioceses that pays little regard to the traditions and heritage of a diocese.” This policy has been operated by the church in the U.S. but has only really been implemented in the Irish church under the present papal nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown.
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