Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin can talk good sense, as in his use of the phrase ‘credibility deficit’ when speaking of Irish Catholics and the Church, on paedophily, when suggesting that the Vatican deal a little quicker with things and on other occasions. But he is still trapped under the glass ceiling.
Cardinal Burke is not a favourite on this blog, but we have to object to Archbishop Martin commenting on the Cardinal’s recent book, in particular its view that Islam seeks to rule the world and that the only solution is to return to its Christian roots. He was unfortunate enough to remark ‘I don’t think that helps at all ’ ,considering that he also thought that interreligious tensions are caused by inequalities and the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. To be fair, he did add perceptively that long-term solutions would come from education.
Cardinal Marx said he felt the intention of the act of terror in the French church (the murder of the parish priest) was to stir up hatred between religions.
Now is it the long years of training away from the world which they see themselves as the only possible means of changing, or too much brooding about the early Fathers of the Church , but how do churchmen get this way ? Where are all those cynical, world-weary but worldly, sophisticated old clerics like Cardinal Richelieu when you need them?
The two Moslems- and may they rest in peace- who entered the French church, cut the throat of the old parish priest and took hostages , armed only with knives , in a country where every policeman carries a gun and special security units are on high alert, knew what they were doing. They were not interested in inequalities, or the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, or in their lack of education. They were committing suicide in slow motion by security squad , so that each could meet his 72 virgins. They knew that they would not get out of that church alive. And they didn’t care. And what can be done about that ?
And yet, Archbishop Martin , quizzed on TV, did say that the only way to combat evil is ‘by bringing a similar force of goodness into our society’, without expanding on this, adding that ’goodness will always win in a combat with evil’ . Left at that, his statement that ‘I don’t think that helps at all’ is ironic. Especially when he must know that there is a way of ‘bringing a similar force of goodness into our society’ and yet , as a bishop under Pope Francis, he shows little interest like his fellow bishops in bringing it,i.e. ordaining parishioners to provide the Eucharist.
We wonder more and more if the six years of theological education undergone by the Tridentine priesthood is in fact simply a form of celibacy training. They must pick up some other stuff, surely.
Pope Benedict points out :’We cannot approach the Eucharistic table without being drawn into the mission which, beginning in the very heart of God, is meant to reach all people. Missionary outreach is thus an essential part of the Eucharistic form of the Christian life.’
Or as St John says,’..you are in Me, and I am in you’ .
50,000 parishes are without clergy, ie a Tridentine priest, theologically educated, celibate and parish supported, and therefore unable to receive the Eucharist.
And yet Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin and his fellow bishops are unwilling to accept Pope Francis’s invitation to discuss extending ordination to parishioners, and therefore providing the Eucharist to all, and therefore ‘bringing a force of goodness into our society’ and to the world.
We ask, as we have done so often on this blog, why in Heaven’s name, not ? Why can’t the Tridentine priesthood let go ?