I have now got to the stage that, whenever a discussion about what to do with the water network in Ireland comes on radio or television I immediately either switch over or turn off.
Proper preservation and care for the vital resource of water is essential; with climate change accelerating, and large areas of the world turning into desert, before long water will become a matter of life or death for many millions of people.
Last Sunday evening, on the RTE programme ‘Meaning of LIfe’, Gay Byrne interviewed the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown. In the course of the interview, Gay asked the Nuncio about the situation regarding Brian D’Arcy and myself. Did he talk to us at any stage? Gay was clearly surprised when he said he hadn’t, and he pressed him further. The Nuncio fell back on the excuse that I have become very familiar with over the past four years.
Catholic priests in Ireland: A ‘lost tribe’
Guilt by association is unfair and unjust
The lot of the Irish Catholic priest has rarely been more difficult. It might be argued that even in the persecuted past they were in a better place. Then they were revered as heroic for bringing spiritual comfort to the faithful at the risk of dungeon, fire and sword. Not so today.
As Fr Brendan Hoban of the Association of Catholic Priests memorably put it at their annual general meeting in Athlone on Wednesday, they feel “reviled, insulted, disrespected”.
