Ireland Reff/ Marriage

[superblue]

What stick? Your average parish priest has his hands tied to such an extent that he is afraid to denounce anyone over any so-called hot button issue whatsoever. Forget denouncing; some of them will not even preach the whole truth for fear of offending someone. There is no stick. There has not been for decades.

​exactly when is the appropriate time for your average parish priest to denounce what the secular world is doing in this regard and exactly who are " they " afraid of and why ?

[superblue]

Every priest who did not speak out against this development should be formally warned. The ones who publicly supported it should be suspended or defrocked. Parishes that resist those acts of justice should be interdiction. 

I bet not a single priest will be warned about not doing their duty. Not one will be reminded that they will answer to God for every single soul they lose to the Enemy.

​ i can appreciate the sentiment, but what good would this actually accomplish ? Not saying that if any Catholic who supported this bill in Ireland or any where should not be counseled and educated on why their decision is wrong, but with a lack of priests as it is, to then put current priests on a formal warning, i do not think is the way to go nor would have any positive outcome. And again it is time consuming a priests' life; there are only so many hours in a day, so time has to be budgeted wisely, we can not expect a parish priest to do all the  work for us.  I would of if anything expected Bishops to support and motivate their priests to not be afraid to speak up when possible and to work with their parishes to form some kind of out reach to the gay community to not only bring the Gospel to them but to open up communications about what the church really is.

 

Maybe the Church has been mocked enough, but to think it is ever going to stop , i doubt that, and it isn't a discussion of compromising it should have never been from what ever the start was, but to peacefully bring change. As much fun as it is to rain down fire and hell what all good does it accomplish other than burning and damning people.  Fear is hardly a tactic worth pursuing in this. It only leads to more resentment that is already unnecessarly there.

 

We need better leadership from our bishops on this topic is what i am seeing.

[Nihil Obstat]

​exactly when is the appropriate time for your average parish priest to denounce what the secular world is doing in this regard and exactly who are " they " afraid of and why ?

Homilies would be a good start. They are afraid of many things. Angering parishioners, losing donations, being marked as a troublemaker or as unpastoral. Being given all the punishment assignments.

​I can appreciate the sentiment, but what good would this actually accomplish ? Not saying that if any Catholic who supported this bill in Ireland or any where should not be counseled and educated on why their decision is wrong, but with a lack of priests as it is, to then put current priests on a formal warning, i do not think is the way to go nor would have any positive outcome. And again it is time consuming a priests' life; there are only so many hours in a day, so time has to be budgeted wisely, we can not expect a parish priest to do all the  work for us.  I would of if anything expected Bishops to support and motivate their priests to not be afraid to speak up when possible and to work with their parishes to form some kind of out reach to the gay community to not only bring the Gospel to them but to open up communications about what the church really is.

 

Maybe the Church has been mocked enough, but to think it is ever going to stop , i doubt that, and it isn't a discussion of compromising it should have never been from what ever the start was, but to peacefully bring change. As much fun as it is to rain down fire and hell what all good does it accomplish other than burning and damning people.  Fear is hardly a tactic worth pursuing in this. It only leads to more resentment that is already unnecessarly there.

 

We need better leadership from our bishops on this topic is what i am seeing.

But that is the attitude that brought us here to begin with. Leave well enough alone because it could still get worse.

No. We cannot afford that. The Church is too weak right now. The faith is too weak.

[Ark]

Anti-Catholic social engineering coupled with Irish Jansenist tendencies made toppling their Catholic culture easy.

[superblue]

Homilies would be a good start. They are afraid of many things. Angering parishioners, losing donations, being marked as a troublemaker or as unpastoral. Being given all the punishment assignments.

 

But that is the attitude that brought us here to begin with. Leave well enough alone because it could still get worse.

No. We cannot afford that. The Church is too weak right now. The faith is too weak.

​For the life of me i can not off hand even contemplate how one could work in how homosexual marriages are wrong and what anyone can do about it into a homily after the reading of the Gospel, that would take some considerable stretching considering the homily is to be focused on the Gospel , not just any particular current event less one can tie the two together, If the attitude is that the Bishops need to be better leaders, i wouldn't so much call that leave well enough alone, but more of a lack of what could have 38% of the voting public of Ireland of told their bishops, or what in the world can lay people write to their bishop about to then turn to his priests and go look, speak up about this, stop worrying, leave the worrying to me.

 

because in the worry department, at least on topics like this, to me it seems the weight of the worry should be taken off the parish priest and left to the Bishop, start printing out notes in bullitens after mass that read, have a problem with todays homily, write your bishop, got a complaint, or are you just generally a complainer go complain to your bishop, i am doing my job.

 

How to put that in a more polite manner with hitting that point is also out of my league.

I do think though for hot topic buttons like this, parishes need more of our own town hall meetings,or call it what ever you want there are tons of regular retreats for marriage counseling , youth retreats, etc.  so perhaps the question is why doesn't our respective parishes have such things to address issues like these and come up with ways your average Catholic can make a difference .

The only other thing i know of is for Ireland Catholics to start praying to ST. Patrick once again.

[truthfinder]

​For the life of me i can not off hand even contemplate how one could work in how homosexual marriages are wrong and what anyone can do about it into a homily after the reading of the Gospel, that would take some considerable stretching considering the homily is to be focused on the Gospel , not just any particular current event less one can tie the two together, If the attitude is that the Bishops need to be better leaders, i wouldn't so much call that leave well enough alone, but more of a lack of what could have 38% of the voting public of Ireland of told their bishops, or what in the world can lay people write to their bishop about to then turn to his priests and go look, speak up about this, stop worrying, leave the worrying to me.

 

 

​This is part of the problem.  Faithful priests often think they are hamstrung to the Gospel in their preaching.  They aren't, if they've read the various instructions.  And in cases like a universal vote in matters that affect society and morals, it is incumbent on the clergy to preach on these matters.  They absolutely can preach on matters of faith, moral and catechesis, not just the Gospel - although the bible contains all of it anyways. There are ways to link the the readings and preaching together.    The bishops should have absolutely been stronger, but in the end, it is the priest who has more regular interaction with the parishioners (even they attend church at all). Considering there were at least a couple priests who openly stated that they were voting yes, it's not just the Bishops. 

[superblue]

​This is part of the problem.  Faithful priests often think they are hamstrung to the Gospel in their preaching.  They aren't, if they've read the various instructions.  And in cases like a universal vote in matters that affect society and morals, it is incumbent on the clergy to preach on these matters.  They absolutely can preach on matters of faith, moral and catechesis, not just the Gospel - although the bible contains all of it anyways. There are ways to link the the readings and preaching together.    The bishops should have absolutely been stronger, but in the end, it is the priest who has more regular interaction with the parishioners (even they attend church at all). Considering there were at least a couple priests who openly stated that they were voting yes, it's not just the Bishops. 

​The two I highlighted i did not know about, for the few priests who did vote yes, i guess one can only hope that their bishop will speak to them and clear the matter up.  

 

Now at least here in the states and i am very roughly speaking of what i think i have heard, priests are not allowed to preach about which candidate to vote for and why, i have no idea if that pertains to voting in general. How that goes for other Countries/States i am not sure either ,  but for Ireland at least it seems evident now they had the opprotunity to speak up more than they could have.

 

So then why are they so scared to lose money and anger parishoners if that is the case ? They can not be fired, is the goal to keep the church open no matter the cost, or is it to spread the Gospel, and bring people to Christ ?   I cant for the life of me figure out how managers in a company be it home depot, or what ever, can get their kicks out of treating their employees poorly, and get away with it, as long as they keep their customers happy and bring in a big bucket of cash at the end of the day, versus your parish priest,  which now seems to be railroaded by his laypeople , to appease them , just as long as donations keep coming and pews are filled.  ( i seriously doubt Mosques and Temples are run this way i would be very surprise if they were )

Is the Bishop hammering the priest to keep the money coming in, and it is a major problem if money has so corrupted our lives that we hear do not let money be a false god and run your life, to now it is literally tieing a preists hands behind his back because he doesnt want to make someone mad and or his bishop ?

[Nihil Obstat]

Truthfinder is right. While it might often be desirable to link the homily to the readings, that is certainly not a hard and fast rule. The issue is exactly this; if priests feel bound by that then they will never preach on these timely issues, and that is quite simply unacceptable. The homily is the very first place where priests need to be bringing this up.

[truthfinder]

​The two I highlighted i did not know about, for the few priests who did vote yes, i guess one can only hope that their bishop will speak to them and clear the matter up.  

 

Now at least here in the states and i am very roughly speaking of what i think i have heard, priests are not allowed to preach about which candidate to vote for and why, i have no idea if that pertains to voting in general. How that goes for other Countries/States i am not sure either ,  but for Ireland at least it seems evident now they had the opprotunity to speak up more than they could have.

 

​I'm not entirely sure about the States, nor Ireland, and even in Canada.  But there's a big difference between a priest giving a homily saying if you don't vote for candidate X you'll go to hell (which definitely did happen in Canada in the 19th century), and a priest laying out the issues of the election and remind the congregation of the seriousness of voting.  

I certainly see your concern about bishops demanding that collection rates stay up and being priests being afraid to risk the collection by preaching on controversial topics.  

[PhuturePriest]

The best homilies I've ever heard were when the priest forwent the Gospel and preached about Catholic teaching concerning the social issues of today. I remember when one retired priest made a stellar (and very passionate and angry) homily when the HHS Mandate was passed, and then finished off the homily by having us all join together in the Saint Michael Prayer. 

Had it not been a liturgical abuse, I would have clapped.

[Nihil Obstat]

Yesterday my priest gave a brilliant homily on the number of people who will be saved. Not particularly linked to the day's readings, but that does not really matter.

[truthfinder]

Yesterday my priest gave a brilliant homily on the number of people who will be saved. Not particularly linked to the day's readings, but that does not really matter.

​Thinking back, some of the best sermons have been on weekdays because they have even more liberty then than on Sundays.  Fr. gave a superb capital punishment sermon (which I believe he repeated and made longer on a Sunday).  Wish I could have heard this one. 

[Nihil Obstat]

​Thinking back, some of the best sermons have been on weekdays because they have even more liberty then than on Sundays.  Fr. gave a superb capital punishment sermon (which I believe he repeated and made longer on a Sunday).  Wish I could have heard this one. 

I made sure to record this one. Wish I had for the capital punishment one.

[Ice_nine]

Yesterday my priest gave a brilliant homily on the number of people who will be saved.

​somewhere around 2.45 million right? Anything else is heresy

[Yaatee]

So Ireland is patting itself on the back on their recent ruling, and once pandoras box is open, it is near impossible to shut.

 

I am finding it rather odd, I really thought Ireland was a big time Catholic place being St. Patrick and all that history, or at least really religious in general with the fighting between Protestants and Catholics.  The history of Ireland i am not that booked up on.... So an reasons for this taking place other than flat out blaming satan. Could parts of the USA having legalized gay marriage have been a cause...

 

thoughts.

 

​I thought that I had posted a commentary on this post, but I can't find it now.  The people of Ireland were subject to severe abuse by religious, both male and female for at least a century, possibly longer. There was no recourse as the abuse involved young people, mainly orphans.  The abuse of youth by religious was perhaps worst in Ireland.  It will take a long time for the Irish to recover from this, and the Catholic church in Ireland probably never will recover completely, and will certainly never recover its former power.  For centuries they thought that their worst enemies were the English (they were), only to find out that Irish religious were preying on them too.  In this referendum, many expat Irish from Europe and the US actually returned to vote in it.  This referendum is a direct rebuke to the Catholic church.