Pope Francis and the Women Deacons.
After all the times I have defended Francis, and praised his efforts at doing something to reform the Church, I now find myself unable to say a word in his defense over his remarks on the report of the commission he set up three years ago to study if women were deacons in the early Church.
First of all, he has this report for some months; he should not have used a casual, informal chat with reporters on a plane as the occasion to give his response to it.
My Problem with the Liturgy of Holy Week.
The traditional Catholic teaching about Jesus is that he came on earth to save us. Our salvation was necessary because the sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve, had angered God, and in his anger he closed the gate of Heaven against humanity. Jesus, by his suffering and death, appeased the anger of God, and restored Heaven to us humans. The liturgy of Holy Week is full of this notion:
“He came among us as a man, to free mankind from darkness”.
My Talk in Edinburgh: Celibacy, Sexuality and the Crisis in Priesthood.
As is usual with my talks in recent years, the make-up of the attendance is very different to what I used speak to at novenas and missions. There were some who are still regular attenders at church; others who expressed their position as hanging on by their fingernails; others who gave up on church but who still have an interest in things religious; and then also a few who were not Catholics, but who came along out of interest.
