Dear Editor, It was most heartening to read the report in your last issue about the NfRCE conference, where Dr Mullaly stressed about the importance of a holistic education. This is very timely for all schools and especially for the Department of Education and the country’s ETB boards.
I have written to your paper before about the spiritual and faith formation and neglect of post primary pupils in ETB schools, in spite of excellent teaching staff and open and willing youngsters, to receive faith formation. It is a form of neglect. They salve their ill informed consciences by doling out mindfulness, wellbeing and wellness, which the Conference stressed, remains incomplete, neglecting the spiritual dimension despite clear links between faith and human flourishing.
When will these people who run ETB schools on ETB boards wake up? Many will call themselves practising Catholics, but how do they live with their consciences in the face of this neglect. I have made protests and suggestions to our ETB, locally, but they say they cannot change. I have asked bishops to make some incursions into this malaise and they tell me the ETBs won’t engage with them. This is futile.
It must change as the youngsters are growing with no faith or morals, living confused lives, as adults, without God or decency of living and are on a road to perdition. I meet them as young adults and they do not know the difference between a civil wedding and a God sanctioned Sacramental Marriage, Blessed bread and the Holy Eucharist.
I wish Dr Mullaly could address all the ETBs. She may succeed where my efforts and those of others, are put in the shredder.
Yours etc,
Fr Patrick A. Moore
Castlepollard, Co. Westmeath
Renewal and co-responsibility central to the future of the Church
Dear Editor, Perhaps the doctrinal insights pertinent to renewal of ministry and leadership offered in the Mass of St Luke on the Saturday of the Kilkenny Synod (The Irish Catholic, October 16) might have benefitted the Synod.
The Preface: “For You have built your Church to stand firm on apostolic foundations, to be a lasting sign of your holiness on earth and offer to all humanity your heavenly teaching.” The Entrance Antiphon hails the “heavenly teaching” as glad tidings of peace, good news and the announcement of salvation. Warily, the Gospel reveals evangelisers as lambs among wolves. St Paul testifies that the wolves he encountered included believers misrepresenting him. (First Reading) But the Lord “stood by me and gave me power so that … the whole message might be proclaimed,” making “known the glorious splendour of Your reign” (Responsorial Psalm).
Many baptised Catholics are quite in thrall to the spirit of the age and deem many Church teachings unacceptable or resting on flawed theological groundings. How to promote the vital salvation of all in a divided Church? Providence does not coerce. John Henry Newman expressed conviction that Christianity was a dogmatic faith; that doctrine stands prior to and is formative of all institutional or personal exercises in “walking the walk.” St Ignatius of Antioch believed Church unity lies in the episcopate, and Newman speaks of inhabiting that unity with an energised and informed laity.
Given our individual, historical inadequacies, informing and energising us laity must be embedded in doctrine, arousing positive response to God’s offer of “heavenly teaching” rather than seeking doctrinal accommodation; in renewal through grace; in co-responsibility in truth; in tending towards some level of blessedness understood as a state of being favoured by God. Organisation and managerial structures must serve this larger melody and harmonise themselves with it.
Yours etc,
Neil Bray
Cappamore, Co. Limerick
Support for Nigerian Catholics
Dear Editor, For the Vatican Secretary of State to say that the Nigerian violence against Catholics is not religious is as ridiculous as his Chinese agreement. The clue is in the words Islam and Jihad. Get real Cardinal and support Nigeria’s oppressees.
Yours etc,
McKenna
Dumbarton
Clarification on the ordination of women
Dear Editor, Fr Twomey’s letter (October 23, 2025) gives me the opportunity to clarify my views on the ordination of women.
I am not advocating ordination. Rather I am proposing that, in the light of the considerable unease among the ‘sense of faith of the faithful’ around current teaching and the reasons given to support it, that the Magisterium revisit this issue.
This revisiting is entirely in line with the protocol suggested by the International Theological Commission in its document on the sensus fidei in the Life of the Church (2017), signed off on by Cardinal Gerhard Mueller. The document envisages that the outcome might be clearer communication of existing teaching, its reformulation, or, even, its revision.
In the case of consubstantiality, there was reformulation. This was entirely appropriate and indeed necessary in the context of the ‘signs of the times’ of the 4th and 5th centuries. It has permanent validity. I mentioned it because it was a development, as Fr Twomey confirms, accompanied by considerable controversy. Some of this was due to Arius and his close followers. But some of it too was due to ultra-conservative bishops who saw in it a departure from the apostolic faith, not least in its use of an ‘unbiblical’ term. Indeed, as Newman concluded, it was often the bishops who went astray over this period, and the ‘sense of faith of the faithful’ (in particular the laity) that ensured that the apostolic faith survived and developed.
We are all free to hope, as I do, that in this instance an open-minded and open-hearted revisiting of the current teaching on ordination may result in its revision.
Yours etc,
Fr Gerry O’Hanlon SJ
Cherry Orchard, Dublin 10
Prayers for the deceased
Dear Editor, Over the last couple of years sadly I have attended many funeral services. Most of the services were done with great reverence and respect. However I am concerned that some priests do not appeal to the congregation to pray for the soul of their deceased friend after the service. I don’t know why this approach appears to have become all too common now.
I suspect that some priests might be influenced by the fact that the congregations would also include lapsed Catholics and others who would be ignorant of the doctrine of Purgatory. However, whatever the reason for the silence, it will not help the deceased. I think it should be a regular part of the service to encourage all to continue to pray for the soul of the deceased person.
I am sure that there are many prayers available that can be offered up for the Holy Souls. Your readers may be interested in the following prayer published in the ‘Read Me Or Rue It’ Booklet.
“Eternal Father, I offer Thee the most Precious Blood of Jesus, with all the Masses being said all over the world this day, for the Souls In Purgatory.” Our Lord showed St Gertrude a vast number of souls leaving Purgatory and going to Heaven as a result of this prayer, which the Saint was accustomed to say frequently during the day. (I am over 80 and I had never heard of St Gertrude until a friend gave me the Booklet).
Yours etc,
Jim McCarthy
London, United Kingdom
‘Be not afraid’ of facing difficult questions
Dear Editor, Fr Gerry O’Hanlon left the Kilkenny Assembly “feeling strangely flat and disappointed” and suggests the emphasis should now be on two issues: “co-responsibility” and “women” to enhance the visibility and decision-making of the role of women in our Church at all levels. He goes on to state that “there is little acceptance in Ireland of the notion of a permanent glass ceiling” – in insistence by the Church that a woman can never be ordained simply because she is a woman.
His suggestion is somewhat offensive in using the term “glass ceiling” as if the Church was a corporate body instead of a spiritual one, instituted by Jesus Christ and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I fail to see the problem regarding the priesthood. Jesus was man as well as God and priests are in the place of Jesus. Women have different roles in the Church and, only for them, the Church would be much poorer. He refers to the baptismal equality of women but I can see no reason why that is harmed in any way by being denied priesthood, and surely, we have more than enough difficulty nowadays with equality now being deemed to be the same, as evidenced in the gender sphere.
Garry O’Sullivan aptly refers to renewal. “Renewal will not come through process or policy alone. It will come when prayer leads to courage, when education rekindles formation and when synodality means facing hard questions, not avoiding them. A Church that knows who it is and dares to be it.” As St John Paul II said, “Be not afraid” and Jesus has promised to be with us till the end of time.
Yours etc,
Mary Stewart
Ardeskin, Co. Donegal
