The day after Good Friday.
With no churches open to the public in the State, Good Friday was an ideal occasion to surf church webcams.
Whether or not a good idea, difficult to say. Plenty of reasons to lose one's faith and some moments of inspiration.
I heard a priest talk about misappropriating words. What might that mean? It might be he was trying to sound profound. Maybe profundity and silliness are much closer than we realise.
Below are two links. In each a Catholic priest is talking.
One priest is intemperate, the other priest seems to speak wise words.
Some quotes from each of the men:
"Eternity is a very long time."
"Dialogue is not the answer."
"If he wins I blame the bishops."
"Sacrilege, it just makes me sick."
"Experience is the best school but the fees are high."
"You are mature when you know you are not."
One of the priests quoted from Fr Leo Trese, born in 1902 and a priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit.
"The only epitaph a priest should want on his headstone is that he was kind."
If you watch the two links you will quickly know which priest is saying what.
One thing is certain priests are an eclectic bunch.
3 comments:
WOW! I guess there will be extremes in most organisations and ways of life but that first link does not seem to show the tolerance and understanding that one would want from a God of the people. Difficult for a church to prohibit free speech but to say you cannot be a Catholic and a Democrat is just ridiculous. I was taught by the Marists and even now 50 years later remember Fr. Cochrane playing "Prove to me that you're no fool" from Jesus Christ Superstar. We were scared to laugh until he couldn't contain himself looking at our efforts not to and he burst into the giggles.
The Church should be encompassing, patient and tolerant not exclusive in those terms.
Brian
Ah, good to hear from you Brian and better still, to know you read the blog and in the UK at that.
Yes, Fr James Altman sounds intemperate. imagine if he were as intemperate talking left-wing speech. No doubt his bishop would have him silenced or removed from ministerial priesthood. But it does seem right-wing intolerance and intemperance is far more accepted within the Catholic Church. And that US intemperance and far-right attitude has been imported into the Irish church.
Blessed and happy Easter to you and family.
Michael, you are absolutely correct in respect of intemperate left wing speech -- Fr Altman whould have been silenced immediately. It's his arrogance that is breath taking, as exemplified in his surety as to what God wants. For some peculiar reason, he believes that God did not want Joe Biden as president.
He is utterly blind to the fact that onald Trump, however, exhibited significant anti-life credentials during his time in office. These include his separation of migrant children from their parents, his support for the death penalty, his attempts to expel the dreamers who were born in the US, his efforts to overturn the affordable health care provisions thus leaving leave 20 million US citizens without health insurance, his treatment of women, his teargassing of his own citizens to get a photograph of himself holding up a Bible (a book he clearly does not read) outside a church he does not attend, and his failure to provide adequate leadership in the face of the death of 400,000 Americans from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The alignment of thre US bishops with the dark forces on the Republican right wing in a scandal. Cardinals Dolan & Burke, Bishops Cordileone and Strickland are standouts in their shameful partisan support for Trump.
I think the best thing to do is to i9gnosre the likes of Fr Altman -- most Catholics have moved on.
Michael
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