Patsy McGarry pays Tribute in the Irish Times.

Credit, and it is the accurate word, must also go to those articulate women who have trenchantly argued the case for equality for their gender in the church down the years as well as speaking forcefully on behalf of marginalised groups such as LGBTI+ people; women such as former president Mary McAleese, Ursula Halligan of We Are Church Ireland and long-time advocate for women’s ordination Soline Humbert, among others.

Nor should the contribution of the Association of Catholic Priests over the past 10 years be underestimated, particularly of co-founders Fr Brendan Hoban and Fr Tony Flannery, who is himself now 10 years out of public ministry in the church because he called for the changes subsequently repeated in the National Synthesis document.

In a changing Church, how long more will I be left in limbo?

In an article in the current issue of La-Croix, Robert Mickens, the Vatican correspondent, gave three examples of top Church figures, two cardinals and an archbishop, making public statements calling for radical change in Catholic Church teachings and practice, and even in doctrine.

The first was Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich. Cardinal Marx is one of the select group of advisors, and also a close friend, of Pope Francis.The 68-year-old cardinal made a big splash this past week when he said clerical celibacy should be optional.

My Ancestors in the Redemptorists

Professor Brendan MacSuibhne, of NUIG, speaking at the West Cork History Festival in Skibbereen. He spoke about the low rate of Mass attendance among Irish Catholics pre-famine, and now it gradually changed after the famine, until, in the twentieth century Ireland had probably the highest rate of Mass attendance of any country in the world.

As you can see in the quote below, he considered that my ancestors in the Redemptorists had contributed greatly to make the Irish people devoted and devotional.

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