Large numbers attend priests' meeting

The Association of Catholic Priests held their first AGM in Dublin on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning.

On Tuesday Fr Kevin Hegarty gave an impressive speech, which received coverage in Wednesday's Irish media.

On Thursday morning Fr Brendan Hoban addressed the meeting where he spoke of the importance of the group speaking in a coherent way, with disciplined purpose.
"If we are pigeonholed so be it but it important that we are a voice heard in the Irish church," he said.

There was an open discussion where people spoke about how the new missal had been introduced without any consultation.

The new missal seems to move away from the language that is spoken by people in their day-to-day communication.

Who knows what the word 'collect' means? What was wrong with 'opening prayer'?

The use of upper case lettering tells its own story.

Sociologist Marie Keenan gave a paper on child sex abuse. She expressed concern with the Irish church's setting up a parallel investigative office on sex abuse, when that task should be in the hands of the Garda alone.

Over 300 attended the meeting on Thursday morning and it was widely accepted that the first AGM had proved most successful.