the Vatican

The Pope’s visit revealed a Church at war between left and right and over the authority of the Pope. The result is deadlock

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Two characteristics of the papacy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio emerged more clearly as a result of his brief visit to Ireland, neither of them encouraging. One was the local hierarchy’s relative powerlessness to influence what went on. Over the dashed hopes that he might come North, they talked like onlookers in the crowd. This goes flatly against all I ever assumed about the pledges of collegiality with local bishops after Vatican 2. The second is the relative powerless of the …

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‘A Defeat for Humanity’

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The Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin is reported in the media (Guardian, Irish Independent, Irish Times) today, 27 May, as saying that the ‘Yes’ vote in the recent Irish referendum on equal marriage was ‘a defeat for humanity’. He made this remark to reporters attending a conference in the Vatican. The fuller quote seems to be: This result left me feeling very sad but as the Archbishop of Dublin pointed out, the Church will have to take this …

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The growth of Digital Media between two Papacies…

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Could not be better shown than these two photos (a mock up by Sarah Price here). Who is not online these days? This is also one of the reasons the gap between reality and perception is going to be so hard to reconcile. The Catholic Church is only the most prominent, traditional and self evidently hierarchical of the world’s popular institutions. But what we are seeing here is a shifted perspective from the unilateral to the bi and ultimately multilateral …

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Brady departure in sight

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So this is how they’ll ease him out. According to the Irish Times, a coadjutor bishop may be appointed to administer the archdiocese of Armagh with the expectation of succession. Fr Brady himself was similarly appointed coadjutor to Cahal Daly in 1995 and succeeded him automatically the following year. The questions crowd in. Can they wait that long this time? And in the meantime, will he continue to function as president of the Irish bishop’s conference? This is the more …

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