Is Ireland (and all Catholics) going to break from Rome?

When a person is afraid, that person gives the power to others to control his/her life, but once he/she is not afraid anymore, he/she regains control of his life. This is what is happening in many parts of the world where many people observed the church in the past because they were afraid of burning in hell. Today people have changed in many ways. One of them being their attitude about God and the church. It’s useless to try and use old tactics of fear or warning about hell. The Catholic Church, which is still a big asset in the world notwithstanding some shortcomings, needs to practice really dialogue skills. Most of the priests or bishops need to shut up and listen to the word of God which is not simply a book but the living experience of the community. If so many people are agreeing on something, can’t they take it as a sign of God? Do they really understand that God may use any person to give us a message?     The present attitude in the church where it stubbornly refuses to accept criticism unmasks the real Pope who is coming out after more than 7 years!

It’s not a solution to dump one priest who was courageous enough to admit getting married, but rather think if the time is right for married priests. But it’s not only about married priests but rather a general view about religion and God which needs an overhaul change!! If we don’t listen to the people of God, maybe we’ll find empty churches and no communities!

Another bishop is giving the reason why the churches should be changed…in a radical way! ‘‘Arrests are not arrests anymore,” Packard said as we talked Friday in a restaurant overlooking Zuccotti Park in New York. ‘‘They are badges of honor. They are, as you are taken away with your comrades, exhilarating. The spirit is calling us now into the streets, calling us to reject the old institutional orders. There is no going back. You can’t sit anymore in churches listening to stogy liturgies. They put you to sleep. Most of these churches are museums with floorshows. They are a caricature of what Jesus intended. Jesus would be turning over the money-changing tables in their vestibules. Those in the church may be good-hearted and even well-meaning, but they are ignoring the urgent, beckoning call to engage with the world. It is only outside the church that you will find the spirit of God and Christ. And with the rise of the Occupy movement it has become clear that the institutional church has failed. It mouths hollow statements. It publishes pale Lenten study tracts. It observes from a distance without getting its hands dirty. It makes itself feel good by doing marginal charitable works, like making cocoa for Occupy protesters or providing bathrooms from 9 to 5 at Trinity Church’s Charlotte’s Place. We don’t need these little acts of charity. We need the church to have a real presence on the Jericho Road. We need people in the church to leave their comfort zones, to turn away from the hierarchy, and this is still terrifying to a lot of people in the church and especially the church leadership.

We surely agree on one point, many bishops and priests are living in the comfort zone. Consequently they are never going to ask for a revolution. Many of them still cling desperately to the power game and this what hinders their true conversion to the voice of the Holy Spirit. It is the laity (those who are not priests nor nuns), who should start the ball rolling. It’s very difficult for a big organisation or corporation such as the Catholic Church to change its thinking.

I think that the National Catholic Reporter has hit the nail on its head with a powerful and exact wording……

For decades now, the power of the Catholic monarchy to control the social, spiritual, and political lives of its members has been in decline. While Humanae Vitae, the 1968 papal encyclical that upheld the church’s traditional ban on artificial contraception, placed Catholic dissension (or perhaps spiritual maturation) in relief in the late 1960s, the sexual abuse crisis returned it to center stage throughout the past decade. In fact, Humanae Vitae was only superficially about birth control and the sexual abuse crisis was only partially about sexual abuse. Both crises were fundamentally about power: who holds it, over whom, to what extent, in what areas of life.

When a large group’s identity is threatened and power is lost, the healthy group will mourn before reworking their sense of self to accord with a new reality. When mourning goes well, there is a cleansing of mind, spirit, and psyche to go on after loss; to reconstitute self, relationships with others, hopes, dreams and beliefs in a renegotiated engagement with the real and the possible. There is self-examination about our own contribution to the control we are losing, perhaps ending in a rueful recognition that we never should have had that much control. The crisis of mourning well done can morph into a kairos leading to deeper connection with self, others and the Divine.

Rather than mourn, the Catholic nobility send their minions out to battle against SNAP, the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, a powerful voice for those harmed by the bishops. While the attack on SNAP may have legal currency, it is awfully tough to find the Gospel passages that undergird it.

Rather than mourn, the pope appoints a trio of lords to rein in those galling daughters of Eve, the nuns who dare to take the Gospels seriously, thinking they focus mostly on service rather than control.

Rather than mourn, Benedict lashes out at his weary priests who shout that others than celibate men might be needed and effective in spreading the Good Word.

Rather than mourn, Bishop Daniel Jenky pours venom, twisted history, and incoherent verbiage on a president who appears to think the poor need as much of a break as the rich guys.

Homily {Every Sunday}

Is it because of the ‘rebel’ priests or because of the signs of the times?

We all had our prophets in our lives. They are the people who are trying to tell us something. It might be the wrong time or their way of telling us is not so nice. We might simply discard their message because we already had problems in the past or simply because they have a really bad image of themselves.

Time is surely the best answer. Time waits for no one. Yet it uncovers our previous thought as accurate or as totally false. Everybody, if given the opportunity to go back in time, won’t take the same decisions or else would reverse some of his decisions. Now this happens as well in the Catholic Church. Surprisingly it has been proved beyond any doubt that the Catholic church has a notorious history of killing prophets and not listening to their message. Galileo Galilei was not just a one time accident but rather a tradition in the church where it’s so difficult to move along the times. We feel comfortable in repeating the same acts and/or thinking. We feel that we are on the right track.

Now this habit of doing the same thing for many years might be the most inappropriate thing to do. God might send us some people to let us know that we need to update our thinking. It could be a discussion with our friends which might trigger this thought or it might be just an innocent question which makes us uncomfortable…..in any way we cannot continue doing the same thing for many years because no institution can survive without updating or changing. Now in a church there are always those who wish to stay repeating the same ideas and those who wish to move forward.

There has never been an easy relationship between the two schools of thought. But surely the Catholic church has the big advantage of 2000 years of experience so it should handle differences in a mature way. Alas this is not the case as we are hearing of censure and of silencing priests who dare to voice a different opinion than that of the official church. It’s very clear that while the Catholic church condemns the communist era but it uses practically the same manner of trying to silence all opposition! Are they rebel or are they the voice of God calling for a change? Is the problem going to be solved just by silencing these ‘odd’ priests or is the problem much bigger which sooner or later it’s going to be like a time-bomb and damages the church? I think that the priests’ ideas are going to survive and one day the church has to answer for not reading the signs of the times.

The son of a priest is not afraid of labeling and he tries to make a point by showing that things cannot go unnoticed for ever. One cannot hide a problem forever. Priests are human beings. Priesthood and celibacy should NOT be forced to go together. We are for an optional celibacy.                          

Homily {in Maltese}

Listen to the living Catholic community.

It’s very easy to stay closed in a monastery, close to God and forget all about other human beings. A life full of prayer, silence and work in the monastery. That was a good model for the middle ages in the church. Today’s world is challenging not only faith but everything. The way the official catholic church speaks gives the impression that it has all truth and that it’s still closed behind the fortifications. It has forgotten one of the most important documents of Vatican II (meeting for all bishops which took place between 1962-1965): the Church in the World where it looks for dialogue and not condemnation. It tries to hear what the contemporary world has to say.

On the contrary, how the Pope behaved on maundy Thursday shows an FBI tactics. He tried to sow fear in the heart of those who hear God’s call. The Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC) is discouraged that the Pope would use this sacred time in our religious tradition to attack his fellow priests, who in good conscience, support women’s full inclusion in the Roman Catholic Church. It is not these priests who are disobedient, it is the hierarchy who has lost touch with the people of God. 

More than 63 percent of U.S. Catholics, and millions of Catholics worldwide, support the ordination of women. The Vatican’s own Pontifical Biblical Commission found in 1976 that there is no scriptural reason to prohibit the ordination of women.  The Bible describes how women were prominent leaders in Jesus’ ministry and early Christianity.  In all four gospels, Mary Magdalene was the primary witness to the central event of Christianity-Christ’s resurrection. Some priests are brave enough to withstand the storm of criticism and tell the truth!

The tactics being used by the church to silence criticism or any suggestion of married priesthood is NOT healthy at all! Again, we married priests know from personal experience with our grown up children that in today’s world one cannot impose one’s ideas. It would be worse. But it’s only through dialogue that we can reach out, and let’s admit it, our children are NOT wrong in every decision with which we do not agree. Sometimes they teach us lessons. Are the unmarried priests capable to understand this ?

I cannot count how many times I hear the same comment, how can a bunch of men, impose their opinion on married people? How can they understand today’s challenges when they have a protected and easy life? Life in the parish is mostly dictated by the pastor. Life in the world is different where parents have to obey or change their timetable according to their working schedule or children’s appointments! They have to do a lot of sacrifices in order to make both ends meet. In most practical cases they loose their own free time because of their own children or because the frenetic pace of life dictates so. This is the big differences the married priest has. The unmarried one most of the time celebrates mass and then he can pick and choose the type (and time) of work.  Just ask those who made the change from living in a monastery to a common married life to speak about the difference.

In fact one of our surprises has been the dialogue going on in the USA about contraceptives. Contraceptives are NOT there simply to stop pregnancy in married couples. There are many other reasons which unmarried priests ARE not seeing. It simply proves that the Catholic Church simply wishes the people to be either naive or else being headless or without any type of reasoning. I still wish to see a couple, with normal reason capabilities, to reason against contraceptives! In the linked article, the intelligent author Edgar Davies, shows that the issue of the contraception (like that of married priests) has been going on for centuries and people have been brainwashed for so long!! Again, we insist: LISTEN to the living Catholic community.

In the context of all the brain washing and fake traditions which have been going on we wish to convey a very clear and crisp message to all priests who are now married. No you are not wrong! Please continue administering your priesthood with the people who ask for your services.   In a Catholic country like Ireland where one expects the people to be so obedient to the church, most are in favour of married priesthood. 

As the Pope Benedict was so strong in his condemnation of our brethren in Austria, we wish to publish again their thoughts. Needless to say we agree 100% (The following was signed by 400 Austrian priests).

Appeal to Disobedience

The Roman refusal to take up long needed reforms and the inaction of the bishops, not only permits but demands that we follow our conscience and
act independently: We priests want to set a mark for the future:

1. WE WILL include a petition for church reform in every liturgy.

2. WE WILL not deny Communion to faithful of good will, especially remarried people, members of other Christian churches, and in some cases those who have officially left the Catholic Church.*

3. WE WILL avoid as much as possible celebrating multiple times on Sundays and feast days, and avoid scheduling priests traveling around or priests unknown to the community. A locally-planned Liturgy of the Word is preferable to providing guest performances.

4. WE WILL use the term Priestless Eucharistic Celebration for a Liturgy of the Word with distribution of Communion. This is how the Sunday Mass obligation is fulfilled when priests are in short supply.

5. WE WILL ignore the prohibition of preaching by competently trained laity, including female religion teachers. In difficult times, the Word of God must be proclaimed.

6. WE WILL advocate that every parish has a presiding leader man or woman, married or unmarried, full-time or part time. Rather than consolidating parishes, We call for a new image of the priest.

7. WE WILL take every opportunity to speak up publicly for the admission of women and married people to the priesthood. These would be welcome
colleagues in ministry.

We express solidarity with colleagues no longer permitted to exercise their ministry because they have married, and also with those in ministry who live in a permanent relationship. Both groups live in accordance with their conscience as we do with our protest. We see in them as we
do in our bishops and the pope our brothers. **

* Here we refer to those who officially leave the Church; some to avoid Church Tax as a means of protest
** This is a reference to the German Word “Mitbruder” instead of “Bruder” (=brother) which is sometimes used by clerics and excludes the
laity.

Today we sent a previous post which was not ready for publication. It seems that we were trigger happy. Sorry.

Homily {in Maltese}

Why do Catholics (and priests) leave Church?

Priests start their journey of faith in the church with a lot of enthusiasm. At one moment they wish to convert the whole wide world. They work many hours, they do a lot of sacrifices, they hear people at all hours, they study and work all the time. Then all of a sudden they announce that they are going to leave…..the shock on the flock, their friends, family…and the rest of the people of God. What went wrong? Some of the priests who leave are the most passionate about their priestly work.

As in other departments of life, it’s one thing studying the theory and it’s another thing the daily challenges in real life. Priests do withstand the pressure of work but they do not withstand the loneliness. Most of the priests are working all alone in most of the Western European parishes. They seem to be robots. Work, work and work. They are trained NOT to care about feelings, especially about significant others. Then working in the parish one day or another they meet caring and loving people. They see their lives as totally insignificant because although they preach about love to others, they don’t feel loved and appreciated. In most cases (especially the ones we receive through emails), the fact that the priest has fallen in love seems to be the most important change in his life because he seems to be a changed person. He works much more and people do notice the positive change in his approach with other people. Yet after sometime he realizes the conflict within. He is supposed to be celibate. Yet he feels so lively with a living partner who encourages him to work more. He reads the bible and he sees that most of the apostles were married……

Others they are in great difficulties to preach the official teaching of the church especially when it comes to marriage. They cannot simply pass on the teaching without listening to the common people. Sexuality is one of the areas which does a very bad publicity to the church as it is still tied with medieval thinking! We still teach that sins in this area are really bad but we still don’t preach about relationships, about caring for others…..

On the other hand the married priest sees a different picture in the church. He has a family and he testifies to the gospel not by preaching but by living in his own family. People would be interested to see him living the gospel in daily life. People see his own children and their relationship with their own father. This could be the contemporary homily when they see him living in a normal family and facing all challenges.

People leaving the parish are not only priests but baptized people too. Why do Catholics leave the church? There has been an interesting study recently inspired by a person who said that any business corporation who is losing people would simply ask why. Let’s see what the second part of the study (the consequence or practical part) is going to be.

We’ve been insisting that the word of God is not just a book. It goes much more beyond. If we listen to the people of God there might be not only questions but answers as well as to what we need to do. But are we ready to listen? A very well know theologian has gone to the point in calling the Pope a heretic because he is making sure that the church does not do the changes asked for by the last general episcopal meeting at the Vatican, known as Vatican II ! It’s very true that the church itself rarely speaks about Vatican II. We see many changes which go back in time before Vatican II. We cannot hide our questions and feelings of uneasiness. The documents of Vatican II make the Catholic Church shine before the whole world. If we throw them outside the windows we would be committing the most banal mistake of all.

Homily {in Maltese}

Jesuit advocates ‘do-it-yourself church’

A church is part and parcel of one’s soul. Leaving a church is never an easy job. But nobody leaves it for simple reasons. One starts to ponder on several things before coming to the conclusion that one has to leave. The catholic married priest knows a lot about internal conflicts or faith conflicts because he has studied theology and the bible and on the other hand he sees the common conflicts in everyday life, in the church and in his personal life.

Because we firmly believe in our church (Catholic Church), we cannot leave, yet we form up our communities in order to nourish our faith and thinking in our contemporary walking journey. It’s not that we like to go out from the main community but it’s rather the main community’s blockage to accept some contemporary thinking by believing communities, that makes people form up their own communities. This is what makes others call to leave the church.

One of the main stumbling blocks is the area of sexuality. Many unmarried priests, in private say that the church needs to change. Yet nobody dares speak so in public as otherwise those in top would silence the priest. In fact this is one of the reasons many priests just leave the parish because they know that they are living in totalitarian state – the Catholic church! Others prefer to use the official language of the church in order to walk the safe route!

The married priest knows very well that there is a war going on against the women in the church. He feels he cannot support this war as he knows the amount of work and energy they donate to the church! Being married to a woman serves to understand woman better. He is not afraid of woman and he is not afraid to say that the woman in his life is the best spiritual experience! On the other hand, the fact that a man is allowed to become a priest when he is 80 years old, just after his wife died, is an insult to humanity! What’s so wrong with living with a woman as the apostles did after all?

The few ‘accepted’ married catholic priests who have converted from other religions, know really well, that the problem is a financial one as their pay pockets have been reduced drastically. So is it a problem of money for not accepting married priests in the church?

Today, the feast of St. Joseph, let’s say a happy feast to some married priests who accepted their beloved woman and their child or children as St. Joseph did. It’s against the common thought to accept a woman and her child yet this is a big mission done by some married priests. It’s a living testimony to the gospel. It’s another proof that God provides and in a surprising way!

Homily {in Maltese}

Silence in the Catholic Church

Browsing the internet one finds an infinite number of discussions, opinions etc….but when touching the Catholic Church, notwithstanding the thirst for the truth and the new social phenomena such as Facebook or blogs, one still encounters a big silence. People may have many prejudices when it comes to the church. In part this is the fault of the church as it still does not feel at home with journalists and adult questions. It’s very rare that the church answers some of the most popular questions in a practical way. The church has a long tradition of teaching children. Now children, even the most intelligent and outspoken ones, cannot ask adult questions or read between the lines. So facing adults with awkward questions is still something new in the church.

I feel this when explaining to Catholics the benefits of a married priesthood. Shall I tell them how many priests are sexually active gays? Shall I tell them how many priests abuse their role in the parish and lead an active sexual life after 18 years living in the monastery? I don’t feel at home speaking badly about priests….yet somebody has to tell the truth as otherwise people would think otherwise! The general public is mostly unaware of what happens behind the monastery walls….

This is why the Catholic church has been using silence in its favour by avoiding talking at all. The good point is that avoiding a problem is possible, but deleting the problem is NOT possible, simply by ignoring that it exists!! One day or another, with the inquisitive and social media of today, priests having sexual relationships, will be uncovered. Then we will hear the same answer…they are anti-catholic journalists, atheists etc……but the truth is that the vow of silence would have been broken. We are not inventing the facts but these have been happening for a very long time and nobody dared to report them to the general public.

A good manager sees the problem before it is uncovered. Hence he prepares on how to deal with it. We’ve been insisting that priests are human beings. They face a lot of lonely moments and difficult decisions. They are never prepared, on a human level, to face life all alone. Now during these fragile moments, sexual abuse becomes very attractive. If priests are let to speak freely we would be at least acknowledging the problem! Yet whoever starts the discussion is quietly urged to solve it on his own in private! And we know what that means…go and find a woman but not in your parish!

On the other hand, marrying a woman is not just for sexual hunger but rather for facing life challenges together. We always acknowledge that women have been very important in the history of the church, so in a way, married priesthood is acknowledging their role in the life of a priest. There are numerous advantages for those who interested to discuss the challenge!

Is contraception still an issue in the church?

We never thought that the bishops would make one big step back by calling contraception as something immoral. We are sure that 98% of Catholics do not listen to the bishops on this issue. Yet the bishops wish to create a storm in a teacup and call it immoral. We don’t want to enter into the merits of the present situation between the USA president and the Catholic bishops but surely trying to stop contraception from the part of the bishops is surely total nonsense.

We always believe that the people of God have every right to spell out God’s Word according to their own experience and intuition. Now most Catholics believe that they cannot have so many children or that they have to refrain from sex in order not to have children. In other cases the so called natural method is very risky. So what do the bishops want from their own flock? Who is going to provide to children when the family is without a job security? This shows again that the Catholic bishops are out of touch with today’s world!

Is the battle of the contraception a cover up of the present crisis of the church? Many parishes are closing or being amalgamated into bigger parishes. The contact between priests and the lay people is diminishing. Who cares? How can one educate the people of God if priests are not present?

It’s another reason why we need married priests. Married priests are all the time in the battlefield. They do not simply listen or visit some people. They are all the time facing the same difficulties as normal people do. We can testify ourselves in many examples how in married priesthood it puts us in a better position to understand married couples. We thought that sending children to catechism lessons in the parish is easy. Well, children take time to put on clothes, they take time to go to the parish, the catechism class and then they’ll come back. They never start doing their studies immediately. So just one hour of catechism classes is not just one hour but normally it means 3 to 4 hours!!! Most of the children once they go out, they can never concentrate again on their studies. We are not saying that we should not send our children to catechism classes but that it makes us aware of so many things as a married couple with children.

Homily

Leading priest predicts the end of forced celibacy in the Catholic Church

Another priest had the guts to name the big challenge for the church: that of forced celibacy. He is no ordinary priest but he is a priest who has earned three Nobel Peace Prize nominations for his work about saving hundreds of children from a life of sexual abuse in the Philippines. So surely he knows what he is talking about. He knows many hidden stories. He knows many secrets. He knows the effects of a sexual abuse. He knows the powerful hand of the oppressor. He knows the innocence of so many children. If he makes such a statement we need to take heed. We need to listen. We are on the brink of a disaster.

Priests are NOT celibate at all. Don’t think it’s just a few. Many of them are turning around the celibacy rules in many ways and means. Many people know that many non-married priests are gay.

Celibacy and priesthood should not be tied together especially when reading the gospel and finding out that priests were married!! Maybe the only problem is money? Maybe we don’t have enough money to give to the priest in order to support his family too?

A priest is lost because of NOT following the book (the missal or book used for mass). No it’s not gossip nor glamour. It’s not light news but a true one. It happens that bishops sometimes make it such a big problem because they want the mass to be a mystery. If the priest tries to make it more understandable, then it’s very wrong. Now we have one less priest. Who won?

Other priests, because they care for the church, they see the need for a change. Anything in life needs to change. If we just see the creatures and all creation, it proves this theory. All animals or living things which did not change, they did not survive. Some priests are not only open to change but they try to listen and read people’s comments.

Keeping the tradition is very important for this bishop. Well we do agree 100% but which tradition? Is it that of married priests or to exclude girls from the altar? Who is right? Who is holding the true tradition? This is what this bishop misses completely! The gospel of today speaks about the mother in law. Did he preach the gospel of today, Sunday the 5th of February? Or did he preach his own interpretation of the gospel? Did he think that by acting in that particular way he was going to silence criticism or of those adhering to a different way of life in the church?

Homily {in Maltese}

Have you fallen in love with your priest?

It was unthinkable until some years ago to mention marital love and priesthood! Everybody was of the opinion that the Vatican won’t change celibacy. Most people lost their faith. Yet the Holy Spirit gives us his unique surprises. More and more anglican priests are becoming Roman Catholics and are coming inside the church together with their wives!! See below….

The Vatican has erected since January 1st of last year, a personal ordinariate
(similar to a diocese) in the territory of the United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops for the ministers and the faithful Anglican converts to the
Catholic Church. The married priests will be able to get together en masse. The
Vatican has stressed that this condition of married priests is only one
exception (like other similar dispensations made in the past by the Vatican)
and in no way a permanent condition of the priesthood.

However, the Roman Catholic Church is willing to get back into his house
the highest number of married priests. Numbers not seen in previous years to 1123, when the
First Lateran Council in canon 21, forbade the marriage of
priests.

History about the exclusion of the wife of the priest.

The church is not decisively enacted legislation on priestly celibacy
mandatory until the 11th century reform movement. At that point, the main
purpose of priestly celibacy was to clearly distinguish and separate the
priests from the laity, and to elevate the status of the clergy. In this scheme,
the mere presence of the priest’s wife confused this goal, and then the
wife of the priest aroused suspicion, and often the aversion of many
parishioners and clergy. We can understand such sentiments raise today?

Since the time of the First Lateran Council, the wife of the priest had
become a symbol of lust and contamination. The reason was related to the
pseudo pure theology of consecration during the mass. The priest, who
consecrated the Body and Blood of Christ was to be uncontaminated as not to
contaminate the Eucharist

The priest’s wife was an obvious danger. His lust, the second thesis of
Peter Damian (made a saint, bishop and doctor of the church),
who lived in the 11th century, threatening the effectiveness
of the consecration. He chastised the wives of priests as “vipers that
furious animated by impatient ardor of lust behead Christ, the head of the
priests,” with their love. He wrote about women married to priests as:
“impious tigers, harpies, fierce snakes, charmers of priests, the devil, the
choice morsels Devil, viruses of the mind, soul swords, poison
companions, material of sin, the death, hoopoes, barn owl, night owls, wolves,
blood-sucker.

According to historian Dyan Elliott, the wives of
priests were perceived as rapers of the artal, a desecration not only the
priest but also the whole Christian community.

The family of the priest was also seen as a threat to the stability of the
church. Her children were a threat to the laity, who feared that any
their ordination to holy orders could be absorbed into the hands of the
descendants of the priest to create a rival clerical dynasty. A celibate priest
also would provide substantial donations from high aristocracy. In
addition, the wife of the priest has often been accused, along with her children,
to squander the resources of the church with the extravagance and frivolity.
Pope Leo IX tried to remedy this problem in the 11th century, decreeing
that the wives and children of priests were to work in his residence at the
Lateran Palace in Rome.

We invite the wives of priests (former Anglicans) to start
a real dialogue on the abolition of priestly celibacy, or
a claim that it might be optional.

It would be encouraging if we start a true and sincere discussion about sex and marriage in the Catholic Church.

Let’s not lose more priests because they encounter love in their lives! We’ve been saying for many times that when a priest falls in love he would see the world, God, church and all in a new perspective. A woman walking besides a priest makes him richer and more mature in his spiritual life. Now contrary to what the article says, the priest cannot abandon priesthood especially when he reads the Holy Bible and finds out that most of the apostles were married !!! The church for obvious reasons wants him just to stay quiet and shut up but we urge him to continue exercising priesthood in the footsteps of the apostles and the Anglican ones who are exercising priesthood even though they are married!! It won’t be unfair but biblical and apostolic to work as a married catholic priest!!

Rev Hearne (he is always going to be a Rev because priesthood is forever!!) is praising celibacy. Well in principle we are in favour of optional celibacy as forced celibacy is creating monsters. Does he know about them? Does he know how many go on expensive holidays? How many are drunk? How many wear expensive clothes and other expensive items in their homes? How many have sex with boys, women etc….??

Finally we are so happy that there is going to be the second Maltese Cardinal of the Catholic Church in history. We won’t expect a revolution from a man who is 86 years old. Yet as he studies the early history of the church, maybe he would help others in understanding the biblical priesthood!

Homily {in Maltese}

Is it right to deny priests the right from getting married ?

Father of two, US Catholic bishop quits. This is another sad story where a valid bishop had to hide his love story until it was discovered and had to resign. Why all this emphasis on celibacy? Why do all priests have to be celibate? Who really knows how many priests are not celibate at all? In fact most of them prefer to live a clandestine relationship. Is it right to deprive human beings from getting married?

God created the sex organs to be used. One of man’s purposes is to pro-create. To deny a person the right to marriage is against human nature. Let’s start telling the truth. Many people do freely choose not to get married but it is a free choice. Not legislated by a church or anyone else. Let’s go back to the beginning when Jesus chose his apostles — as far as we know most of them were married. No conditions were imposed by Jesus for his disciples and apostles about marriage except that a bishop should be the husband of one wife. So why do we go against the bible ?

The fact of accepting Anglican priests (who are married) is helping people asking the one million dollar question: why are they married and other priests have to leave if they fall in love and get married ? The family life is not a hindrance to his work but a great help. We can testify to this because our children and wife provide the best feedback to our homilies and to understand people in the parish. Sometimes our wives help us see other angles of a challenge! We can’t preach lies when our families are listening!! They know us inside out as we live together. They give us what they think about our work. They help in all projects and works to be done in the parish. Mostly it becomes the work of all the family. It is surely a great witness to all the parish.

We still think that the Catholic church has a unique asset in the last Vatican Council which was started by Pope John XXIII. Let’s see the impact of it on the Catholic church.

The Impact of Vatican II (celebrated in Rome, Italy between 1962-1965. It was a meeting for ALL catholic bishops)
(From a Talk by Robert Blair Kaiser with permission).

Before the Council,
we thought we were miserable sinners
when we were being nothing but human.
After the Council,
we had a new view of ourselves.
We learned to put a greater importance on finding and following Jesus
as “the way”
(as opposed to what we said in the Creed,
simply giving voice to a set of doctrines we may or may not have
understood). What mattered was what we did:
helping to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and find shelter for the
homeless. That’s what made us followers of Jesus.

Before the Council,
we were told we were excommunicated
if we set foot in a Protestant Church.
After the Council
(where Protestant observers were welcomed,
given seats of honor, and spoken of no longer as Protestants,
but as “separated brethren”),
we stopped fighting the Methodists and the Presbyterians
and conspired with them in the fight for justice and peace
and marched with them to Selma.

Before the Council,
we thought only Protestants read the Bible.
After the Council,
we’ve seen a new Catholic appreciation of the Scriptures;
they’ve been given a more prominent place at Mass;
and in many parishes, we have groups gathering every week for Bible study.

Before the Council,
we took pride in knowing that we were the only people on earth
who could expect salvation,
according to the centuries-long mantra,
“There is no salvation outside the Church.”
After the Council,
we began to see there was something good and something great in all
religions.
And we didn’t think we had all the answers.
We started thinking of ourselves not as “the one, true Church.”
We were “a pilgrim people.”

It was a phrase that summoned up an image of a band of humble travelers
on a journey who, though subject to rain and snow and high winds and
hurricanes,
subject to thirst and starvation and pestilence and disease
and attacks by leopards and locusts,
keep on plodding ahead with a hope and a prayer
that we will someone reach our destination.

The image was calculated to counter an old self-concept
that hadn’t stood up to scrutiny
a triumphal Church that had all the answers,
lording it over humankind.

Before the Council,
we identified “salvation” as “getting to heaven.”
After the Council,
we knew that we had a duty to bring justice and peace to the world
in our own contemporary society,
understanding in a new way the words that Jesus gave us
when he taught us to pray, “thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Among the most influential figures at the Council,
we encountered two humble souls,
one a woman, Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement,
who wasn’t allowed to speak to the assembled bishops at Vatican II
(no woman was), and a bird-like figure, Dom Helder Camara, the archbishop of Recife, in Brazil.

Both of them went around Rome telling individual bishops
and those who were putting together the Council’s crowning document,
Gaudium et Spes: please don’t forget the poor.
The Council did not forget the poor,
Quoting Gaudium et Spes :
The joys and the hopes, the grief and the anxieties of the men of this
age,
especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted,
these are the joys and hopes,
the grief and anxieties of the followers of Christ.

Before the Council,
we were sin-obsessed.
It was even a sin to eat a hamburger on Friday night after the game.
After the Council,
we had a new sense of sin.
We didn’t hurt God when we sinned.
We sinned when we hurt somebody else.
Or ourselves.
We had a new holy hopeful view of ourselves,
redefining holiness as the famous Trappist monk Thomas Merton did:
to be holy is to be human.

Before the Council,
we were told we were condemned to hell if we made love to our spouses
without at the same time making babies.
After the Council,
we knew we had a duty (and the God-approved pleasure)
to make love even if we could not afford to have another baby.

Before the Council,
we thought God spoke directly to the pope
and that he passed the word down the ecclesiastical pyramid
to the bishops, the priests, the nuns,
and, properly filtered, to us.
After the Council,
we learned a new geometry.
The Church wasn’t a pyramid. I
t was more like a circle,
where we are all encouraged to have a voice.

We are the Church.

We have a right and a duty
to speak out about
the kind of Church we want.

The hierarchy is busy trying to convince everyone
that Vatican II really did not change anything.
Those of us who lived before Vatican II
know otherwise.

by John Chuchman

Homilies [in Maltese]