A few days back the best Catholic weekly in the UK, The Catholic Herald, posted a blurb that the Holy Father might visit Ireland in 2012.
Now I read on CNA:
Four Irish archbishops summoned to Rome to meet apostolic visitors
Rome, Italy, Sep 29, 2010 / 11:27 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Preparing for renewal in the Irish Catholic Church, the island’s four archbishops have been invited to meet with the apostolic visitors appointed to their archdioceses. The visitation is meant to aid the local Church as it works to better respond to cases of sexual abuse.
According to a press release from the Irish bishops’ media office, Cardinal Archbishop of Armagh Seán Brady, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Cashel and Emly Dermot Clifford, and Archbishop of Tuam Michael Neary will make the trip over to Rome next week for discussions led by the Congregation for Bishops.
They will be meeting with the four apostolic visitors designated by the Pope to carry out the visitation he promised in the pastoral Letter to Irish Catholic released last March. A statement dated May 31 later outlined the scope of the visitation and provided the names of the visitors.
The visitors and the respective archdioceses subject to their examination are Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor to Armagh, Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley to Dublin; Archbishop Thomas Christopher Collins to Cashel and Emly and Archbishop Terrence Thomas Prendergast to Tuam. [I am sure that the Holy Father knows what he is doing, but I can’t help but think that perhaps it would have been a good idea to chose visitors from Anglophone regions in, say, Africa… India… men who haven’t necessary been taken out to lunch at the best Roman restaurants or have been regulars at the cool kids’ table.]
No mention was made in the statement of the apostolic visitations planned for Irish seminaries and religious houses.
[…]
Read the rest there. Discuss.
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I must say that seeing Cardinal Murphy O’Connor as the first name did not stir much in the way of hope in my breast.
If His Holiness goes to Ireland in 2012, can he go sometime in late August or early September so I can fit in the Papal visit and Notre Dame vs. Navy in the same trip? Please?
I’m with you Fr. Z., and JARay…sitting at the “cool kids’ table” is a definite deficit in dealing with this super-whopping-God-have-mercy-mess!
A couple of African and Indian (as from the country of India) bishops could maybe do a good b****slap (pardon me!) to the ones who need it. I mean, really; what has gone on there is just “over the top”…especially the violent, and sado-masochistic kinds of abuse, threats, indecency.
I hope this meeting will initiate a real “reckoning”; being of Irish heritage myself, I know that only a good “dressing down” at times does the trick. Mary, help us!
I can attest to the holiness and orthodoxy of both Archbishop Thomas Collins and Archbishop Terrance Prendergast. The Archdioceses of Toronto and Ottawa are truly blessed to have such wonderful men leading their flocks.
For those interested, Archbishop Prendergast has a blog called “The Journey of a Bishop” http://archbishopterry.blogspot.com/
I’m not sure it’s such a bad idea to appoint people who seem a little more like insiders as long as they have the integrity to do their jobs. The Church leaders from Ireland might be more cooperative to someone who doesn’t come across as an adversary.
I notice that almost all the Visitors are of Irish descent.
gio: I think they are all of Irish descent, and I doubt that is by accident.
I am particularly heartened by the choice of Abp. Terrence Prendergast, S.J., as he is a man not only leading his flock well, but also “fighting the good fight” among his, er, more wayward Jesuit brethren.
AMDG, indeed.
gio said: “I notice that almost all the Visitors are of Irish descent.”
That’s to get around all the Irish blarney (and other words that start with b). You send an operator to audit an operator.
Brilliant choices by the Holy Father. And not just because they are all of Irish descent, but because they are all of the Irish diaspora. Ireland has lost her way. These bishops belong to a group that was raised on an Irish heritage based on family stories told down through the generations about the tragedy of laws against Popery, about surviving the starvation, about forced emigration because of poverty or because they were Catholic freedom fighters, about family members who died starving in a ditch or in an English prison because they didn’t “take the soup.” They will go back to Auld Sod, the little island that saved Western Civilization after the Roman Empire fell, and remind Ireland of the reasons why our race has always endured, and when not in bondage, prevailed: our devotion to Holy Mother Church. They will remind the Irish of what they do best: holding on to the one true Faith with an iron fist through war, starvation and unimaginable deprivation. They will remind Ireland of the truth, that being truly Irish and being Catholic are inseparable. Ireland would still be under England’s thumb if there hadn’t been Irish Catholics willing to die for their faith.