The Hobby Horses of Belief (and assorted hazards)

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Since when was Dawkins responsible for elevatorgate?

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Alas, it doesn’t take [director] Fegan long to arrive at the blunt truth that Confession is largely a dying sacrament, observed overwhelmingly by the elderly. Those ominous Confession boxes of our youth? Many have been turned into glorified broom cupboards. A “busy” Saturday of Confessions, one priest says, typically consists of between six and 10 parishioners, all of pensionable age, seeking absolution.

The priests don’t seem too bothered. Father Iggy O’Donovan, in Fethard, laments that the Confessions of yore were all about sexual guilt anyway – “an inordinate emphasis on sexuality”. Often prurient padres would manipulate a confessor into coughing up the steamy details. “Roman rules mixed with Victorian morality,” says O’Donovan. “A lethal cocktail.”

Irish priests, he says “seemed to have a hang-up on it that didn’t exist elsewhere. It was used by many guys, many priests in a very abusive, voyeuristic, not to mention erotic way … drawing people out ... their dirty stories.”

That’s all changed, the clerics suggest. And no bad thing. Priest after priest lines up to bemoan the Church’s inflexibility on celibacy, the hard-hearted hierarchy and the degree to which curates in decades past lorded it over the community they were theoretically serving. They seem even less keen on the trappings of Catholicism than the general populace.

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What the documentary lacks is a dissenting voice. The interviewees come across as united in their regret over the Church’s misdemeanours. But do all priests share this view? Surely there are one or two old school, fire-and-brimstone types still out there and convinced permissive Ireland is bound for hell in a handcart?

In the wake of her fractious encounter with Dr Holohan, some questioned Jemima Burke’s qualifications as a journalist. She is a graduate in journalism from NUI Galway and was one of a small number of young reporters honoured by the Press Council of Ireland in 2018 for the quality of her work. She has frequently published articles in the Connaught Telegraph as has her brother Josiah.
It has been a decade of protest for the Burkes since they first encountered Kathy Sheridan outside the Dáil and Jemima’s actions last week were in keeping with the family tradition.
“Of course there are a thousand other things we could be doing. I could cry coming up,” Martina told Kathy Sheridan in 2010. “But there’s a lot of unrest in the country, and the politicians are not representing the people.”
Whether the Burkes represent the people is certainly open to debate and not too many would conform to their very extreme interpretation of ‘Christian’ ideology.
When Jemima rose to her feet at last Wednesday’s press briefing, she cited a publication most people had never heard of. However, there was a Western News published in Connacht in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was based in Ballinasloe in Co Galway and went out of print in 1926. One suspects the Burkes would have been more at home in the Ireland of 1926 than 2020.

Prior to the scheduled start of the inquest into death of Sally Maaz, Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, at Ballina Courthouse, coroner Patrick O’Connor noted there were more than the 14 people allowed in the courtroom under Covid regulations.

A man at the rear of the court refused to identify himself and was asked to leave by the coroner.

“I am a member of the public. I do not wish to give my name,” the man stated. He was then asked by Mr O’Connor and gardaí to leave the courtroom but he refused. Others accompanying him protested it was “unlawful” to be asked to leave a public hearing.

One of the group, who identified herself as Jemima Burke, was warned she would also be removed from the hearing and was told to wear a face mask.

“We have every right to be here,” she said. At one point, gardaí warned a woman who was filming on her mobile phone to desist.

More than 50 people have been beheaded in northern Mozambique by militant Islamists, state media report.


The militants turned a football pitch in a village into an "execution ground", where they decapitated and chopped bodies, other reports said.


Several people were also beheaded in another village, state media reported.


The beheadings are the latest in a series of gruesome attacks that the militants have carried out in gas-rich Cabo Delgado province since 2017.

Irish Times wrote:

Many of those who attended church services before Covid-19 will never return to public worship, while the Catholic Church will be a “significantly different” entity after the pandemic has passed, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has said.

Speaking during his homily at St Mary’s Pro Cathedral in Dublin on Saturday, Archbishop Martin said the religious culture of Ireland – and especially Dublin – is “at a crossroads”.

Diarmuid Martin wrote:

It is not the crossroads of martyrdom or oppression. Certainly there is hostility towards the church from some quarters. The current change in religious culture is inspired more by indifference, uncertainty and at times voluntary rejection.

The fact that there are in Ireland today more civil weddings than religious marriage ceremonies is not by imposition. The fact that, according to the last census, ‘no religion’ is the second largest population group after Roman Catholics is the fruit of choice.

I believe that the challenges of church life due to the current pandemic are pointing the way towards another challenging moment for the church. Many whose attendance at church services before the pandemic was fragile will never return to public worship.

When churches were reopened for public worship for the summer period, numbers were low and the demographics of those who returned were different. Younger faces were noticeably missing.

The numbers who will attend public worship in the foreseeable future will be significantly lower. It would be foolish to imagine that many of those who do not return to worship will not find themselves also drifting away from wider bonds with church life.

The post-pandemic church will look significantly different to the church we traditionally knew.

A Co Cavan priest has said he will not be “dictated to by a pagan and communist government” about how many people can attend Christmas ceremonies in his church.

Speaking ahead of Tuesday’s relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions to allow 50 people in church, Fr PJ Hughes, parish priest at Mullahoran, said: “So what? Big deal.

“Who the hell do they think they are giving us permission to have 50 people in? They should mind their own business and let us live our lives and let the people be responsible for their own health.”

Fr Hughes, who was warned he could face prosecution if he continued breaching the rules, said the Government never mentioned Jesus when it announced the Christmas Covid-19 plan.

“It would stick in the Taoiseach’s throat if he mentioned Jesus at all,” said Fr Hughes. “All he could talk about the other evening was Mr Fox and Roald Dahl. It is not about Jesus anymore.”

The priest, who will meet his parish council this week to discuss Christmas plans, said he “ didn’t care any more” if he was “condemned because I was practising my faith”.

The Government previously decided that churches were not “essential services”, he said: “They do not recognise what I do as necessary, and what Jesus Christ did, coming into this world, as necessary.”

The authorities are “turning a blind eye” to breaches by sporting bodies and others, while children and parents are “going from parish to parish to play football and soccer and hurling”.

Ministers should accept that “the faith has a role to play in getting out of this virus”, he said. “They have denigrated God plus I must say, the archbishops have let us down.

“They have not spoken up and represented Christ who they signed up to represent. They are giving in to a government who, from where I am standing, don’t believe in God and don’t understand what faith is all about.”

The elderly coming to Mass are “not stupid, they know that they need God, and they come to pray”, he said. “They are not coming to talk to each other, they are not going to spread the virus. They hardly open their mouths.

“When is the penny going to drop with these people in authority that Jesus is the messiah, and that they are not the messiahs, that the CMO or the HSE or Nphet is not the messiah.”

Odhinn wrote: »

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54877202?fbclid=IwAR1A0RmrUd1r_x8mIZlE3GDA57tl2XpSeiCOn0yRiyA83IX4dmJeR4Xt4Zg

Odhinn wrote: »

Worth a watch

https://fb.watch/1J3eJWjG0J/

Between 2001 and 2018, 8,009 child marriages were recorded in the Dominican Republic. Of these, 7,480 involved girls between the ages of 14 and 17.