Catholic Voice

 Only when Pope John Paul II's teaching on the Sacrament of Marriage in "Theology of the Body" is mandatory study in every seminary will priests know how to give effective homilies to their congregations and how to prepare couples for true Christian marriage ' as it was instituted by God the Creator, in the beginning."  Had the bishops and priests of the Church in Ireland paid attention to him from 1981 onwards in the midday Angelus talks he gave to those gathered in St. Peter's Square; had seminarians been taught from the books containing these talks on celibacy and matrimony the church would not now have to deal with clerical child abuse or a degradation of the human body in recreational sex which is destroying bodies and souls. Instead they listened to Father Curran and Enda Mc Donagh and now reap the whirlwind they could have prevented had they been united with Christ's Vicar and passionate for the salvation of souls. Neither would there be a group of priests, totally unrepresentative of the great majority of Christ's true priests in Ireland, now presuming to demand that the Pope's Magisterium should sanction adultery, fornication and even sodomy - sanction the sins which Christ, in the Gospels they must never have studied and certainly don't obey, condemned outright as leading to hell.  Do they ever consider that Jesus will hold them responsible for souls lost through their betrayal of the priesthood he called them to, to lead his people to heaven?

I have rarely seen anything which saddened me so much as the recent photo in the Irish media of a group of men, all but one in secular dress, claiming to know better than the Pope. The same Pope who just recently took the United Kingdom by storm simply because he told them Gospel truths and stood rock-like, under the promised guidance of the Holy spirit, against the very things they, priests who don't even want to appear in public as priests, advocate and support.  How much time do they spend in prayer, daily?  What do they think they are doing when they celebrate Mass in such a frame of mind alien to Catholic and Christian faith?  What kind of counsel do they give in the Sacrament of Confession? The pride of Lucifer created hell for the rebel angels and the pride of priests has brought a bit of that hell to the people of God in the Church founded to lead them to heaven. It's time for the Association of old Priests to ‘sit up and think’ before it's too late. God's Mercy is available even for betrayal as St. Peter knew and accepted but Judas refused.

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