The demise of the NCPI

At a meeting of the NCPI (National Conference of Priests of Ireland), Sister Stanislaus Kennedy has called for the church to give up running schools.
There seems to be a great logic in that. Why should sisters and priests have anything to do with the running of schools, at least at management level. The idea that the church should be involved in subsidising the education of the rich seems most odd.
There might be reason for the church educating poor people, who cannot afford education - the original reason why so many sisters and priests became involved.
At that same NCPI meeting it was decided that the organisation should be disbanded.
Maybe it was never a very effective organisation and while it may have had the name of an organisation that supported the rights of individual priests, it never seemed to have any sort of serious teeth or backbone. But it did highlight issues and often spoke out in a way that challenged people, bishops and civil authority.
Now that it no longer is in existence, priests have really no recognised body to support and speak up for them.
It is also symptomatic of a worrying trend within the hierarchical church. On one hand it displays an inertia that exists, and it also points to a worrying trend where clerical apparatchiks are in the ascendancy. Surely that's the last thing the church needs at present.
These can be lonely days for priests who stay clear of cliques and groups and try to speak in any sort of prophetic language.
May I on this blog call for a strong union for priests to be set up. Anyone out there willing and able enough to pick up from where the NCPI have left off and create a new grouping that will act on behalf of priests.