Clip of Sinéad O’Connor tearing up photo of the Pope met with cheers at film festival 30 years after controversy
It’s been 30 years since Sinéad O’Connor famously tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II, and things have changed.
The act led to Sinéad becoming blacklisted and mocked across the US and, indeed, at home in Ireland, where the country was still deeply Catholic and held huge respect for the Church.
In the years following, the child sexual abuse scandal within the church became well-documented, as did the horrors of the Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland, and Ireland today is almost unrecognisable, with liberal laws including the legalisation of abortion and same-sex marriage.
The public’s opinion on Sinéad’s views at the time – and her defiant act on SNL – has also changed, as was made clear at a recent film festival.
At the 34th Galway Film Fleadh festival this week, director Kathryn Ferguson’s new documentary about Sinéad, titled Nothing Compares, won the award for Best Irish Documentary.
The documentary looks at Sinéad’s life and career, and at one point showed the moment she ripped up the photo of Pope John Paul.
And, according to The Irish Times, this time, instead of silence and anger, the clip was met with cheers and applause.
https://metro.co.uk/2022/07/12/sinead-oc...-16985010/
Bishop says he can no longer guarantee Sunday mass in every church in diocese due to shortage of priests
The Catholic Bishop of Limerick has said he can no longer guarantee that mass will be celebrated in all churches in the diocese every Sunday due to a lack of priests.
Bishop Brendan Leahy warned his flock to prepare for “new arrangements” that will also see lay people say prayers at funerals.
“The ageing profile of clergy is now very evident. It is clear at this stage that we can no longer guarantee the celebration of a Mass in each church in the diocese each Sunday,” he said.
A number of pastoral units in the west of Ireland diocese are set to lose a priest this autumn and he appealed to parishioners to face the challenges with realism and determination.
The diocese of Limerick is one of a number of Irish dioceses challenged by an aging and declining clergy.
In a recent address to a plenary meeting for clergy in the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin, Bishop Denis Nulty told his priests that he would issue a pastoral letter to every parish in the diocese on September 5 outlining a draft plan on the reduction of masses and parish clusterings.
Meanwhile, 13 parishes in the Diocese of Kerry no longer have a resident priest and the diocese is now focusing its structures around 12 pastoral areas, in which clergy and resources are shared.
Similarly, the Diocese of Ossory, which has 42 parishes, is now focusing on 13 pastoral areas, rather than its parishes.
The Archdiocese of Dublin is also set to introduce radical measures in a bid to offset the impact of its declining and aging clergy, including appointing parish priests to oversee multiple parishes.
Some 40pc of the 312 priests serving in the country’s largest diocese are over 70 years of age and most of these will retire at 75 over the next four to five years. The diocese has just two students preparing for the priesthood.
https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/news...35018.html
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"