This concluding paragraph from a review of "The Irish College, Rome, and Its World" [Catholic Historical Review 2009/4] may interest readers.
The most startling statements are made in the chapter on the college and Vatican II. Michael Smith, the present bishop of Meath, who was a student during this period, offers some very frank insights into the Irish hierarchy of the time. He states that the Irish bishops did not expect the Council to last long nor make any impact on the life of the Church, said very little at the Council itself and did not try to communicate what was happening, did not seek briefings from theologians nor from other bishops, had a minimal relationship with the Irish journalists assigned to the Council, and only encountered their fellow Irish-born bishops at a dinner toward the end of the Council.
The letter of the Council came to Ireland, but not the spirit. The Irish College is no longer full of Irish seminarians.
[Fergus O'Donoghue S.J.
Irish Jesuit Archives, Dublin]
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Featured Post
Venue for Mayo team celebrations looked sad
Across the world everyone is talking about the Mayo All Ireland win and Sam finding its way to County Mayo. Did anyone notice the after matc...
-
An interesting quote from Napoleon Bonaparte: “The honest man never doubts the existence of God’.
-
In the current edition of the Irish Catholic David Quin writes about the controversy happening between US Catholic politicians and the US hi...
-
This is a worrying story. It’s written by Conor Pope and appeared in The Irish Times on Monday. It becomes ever more worrying how large org...
No comments:
Post a Comment