I have just finished reading From the Outside in just two sessions, and I found it a most insightful look at the modern Church both here in Ireland and elsewhere. You raise so many good points with whichI agree. The points, on which we might diverge, pale in comparisonwith what is truly pressing.
You will be aware of the phrase “You can lead the horse to water, but you cannot make it drink”, and it is one which constantly comes to mind when I look at the Church in Ireland.
Brendan Hoban
Many years ago, at an inter-church meeting, a Protestant minister who later became a great friend asked me the question: ‘Can you tell me this? Is it true that Catholics believe there are four persons in one God – Father, Son, Spirit and Our Lady?’
Once he asked the question, I understood why he asked it because we were at the time in the midst of an outbreak of what theologians sometimes call ‘Mariolatry’, the tradition of devotion to Mary that can lose the run of itself.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has said that Redemptorist Fr. Tony Flannery must affirm the church’s official positions on male-only priesthood, LGBTQ relationships, civil unions and gender identity.
