Syro-Malabar lay delegation presents rebel liturgy case to Pope

A lay delegation from the Syro-Malabar Church met Pope Francis in Rome earlier this month, to present the case of opponents of the “uniform rite” of the Church’s liturgy sanctioned by the Church’s hierarchy.

The four-member delegation visited the Vatican on 6 May, a week before the Syro-Malabar primate Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil of Ernakulam-Angamaly and other members of its synod had an audience with the Pope.

“During our meeting with Holy Father on 6 May we apprised him of the truth behind our opposition to the uniform mode of Holy Qurbana or Holy Mass,” said Kurian Joseph, a retired Supreme Court justice, who led the delegation.

“Thus far, the pontiff was aware of only the perspective of the bishops. Our four-member laity delegation laid all things threadbare in front of him in a 10-page memorandum,” he told The Tablet.

Besides Justice Joseph, the delegation comprised K.P. Fabian, a former Indian ambassador to Italy, Monamma Kokkad, a former Kerala State Women’s Commission member and Lida Jacob, a retired bureaucrat.

The synod has threatened to expel the roughly 300 priests who have refused to celebrate the uniform rite. Another member of the delegation, who did not wish to be named, said these priests represented thousands of the laity in the southern Indian state of Kerala who were unwilling to give up their cultural identity.

These priests and lay groups, largely in the Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly, the Church’s primatial see, believe the entire Holy Qurbana should be celebrated versus populum, facing the congregation. In the synod’s uniform rite, the priest faces the congregation during the liturgy of the word but celebrates the liturgy of the eucharist ad orientem, facing the altar.

“The battle of ideologies has hit a stalemate with the synod, the supreme decision-making body of the sui juris or self-governing church, taking recourse to the whip of forced obedience to further its obstinate and regressive stance of non-inclusiveness,” said the delegation member.

The Syro-Malabar Church is the second largest eastern rite Churches in communion with Rome, after the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, with five million members. It has 35 eparchies in India and abroad and its headquarters in Kerala, where St Thomas the Apostle began his mission in 52AD.

The liturgy dispute has lasted since August 2021, when the synod voted to enforce the uniform rite on all eparchies.

Opponents of the reform said that the versus populum liturgy reflected local tradition, in keeping with the liturgical teachings of the Second Vatican Council. The delegation member said that their opposition was not disobedience but a matter of “sheer helplessness” of the people who have followed their tradition for more than 50 years.

The dispute has resulted in occasional violent confrontations, forcing the closure of St Mary’s Basilica in Ernakulam on several occasions.

Pope Francis sent Archbishop Cyril Vasil as a delegate to the eparchy to address the situation, and also sent a video message to opponents of the liturgy urging them to accept the synod’s ruling.

However, a group of clergy and laity organised as the Archdiocesan Protection Committee of Ernakulam-Angamaly have still refused to relent.

Riju Kanjookaran, spokesman of the Archdiocesan Movement for Transparency, a group of lay people and priests associated with the committee, told The Tablet this had been presented as outright disobedience to the Holy See, but he said their opposition was only to the rubrics of the uniform rite, not the text of the liturgy itself.

The lay delegation told Pope Francis that the decision to mandate the uniform rite was “not a unanimous decision but an ill-informed one by the synod”. They said there were many opponents of it outside Ernakulam-Angamaly too.

Kanjookaran said the Pope had been given to understand that the synod’s decision was unanimous, but 10 bishops had opposed it.

Since 1998, the Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly has recognised three options for celebrating the Holy Qurbana – ad orientem, versus populum and partly each (as in the uniform rite). When the synod issued the rubrics for the uniform rite in 1999, several eparchies had dispensations to continue with these variations.

Justice Joseph said the bishops had decided to end the dispensations in August 2021, during the Covid pandemic. The synod met online, and not all stakeholders were taken into confidence, he claimed.

Pope Francis has emphasised the need for unity and obedience in the Church, but Kanjookaran said this did not require “uniformity” in the rubrics, referring to the diversity of the Church the Kerala.

Justice Joseph said there was no question of disobedience, as the people could only be obedient to the Truth, to Christ, to the exhortations of the Second Vatican Council, and above all to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit in following Christ’s instruction to “do this in memory of me”.

Quoting the text of Pope Francis’ speech to the synod on 13 May, Kanjookaran said he had asked the bishops why they did not work for “unity as the most important thing”. Kanjookaran blamed the “obstinacy” of the bishops for “ruining” the Church and “fuelling” a fight over a non-issue.

He said it had fractured the face of the Church, driving away young people and discouraging many from participating in the Holy Qurbana.

In his address to the bishops, Pope Francis said that fighting over the Eucharist was “incompatible with the Christian faith”. He said Syro-Malabars should cultivate their sense of belonging to the Church “so that its great liturgical, theological, spiritual and cultural heritage may shine forth even more”. Division, he said, was the work of the devil.

Justice Joseph insisted that none of the parties desired division, and said he “sincerely hoped” the synod would return from Rome with “a Glasnost”, shedding its rigid and opaque stance.

Kanjookaran said that the Pope had refrained from interfering in the dispute as the Church is sui iuris, so it was now the bishops’ responsibility to act.

“If they really love the church, they will agree to the laity’s demands. From our side there will be no dilution in the demand for traditional Holy Mass, if the bishops don’t agree we will go ahead and establish a Metropolitan Church,” he said.

Paganism in Poland: Native Faith on the rise

While traces of Poland’s pre-Christian, pagan belief system are embedded in Polish culture and traditions, practice of the faith itself largely disappeared in the centuries following the country’s adoption of Christianity. 

However, a small but growing number of Poles are now reviving such ancient beliefs in a modern pagan religion known as Rodzimowierstwo – Native Faith.

Just as other religions have denominations or branches, so too exist different groups of believers within Native Faith. In order to be officially recognised, such groups must register as a religious organisation with the interior ministry in Poland.

This provides members with various legal rights, including to request days off work for religious holidays and for their children to be taught their beliefs during religion classes offered in schools. It also enables the state statistical agency (GUS) to collect data about the organisation.

According to the latest GUS report about religious denominations, published in 2022, there are four Native Faith organisations in Poland, with a total of between 3,300 and 3,400 members. The largest – the Native Church of Poland (RKP) – has been growing year-on-year since 2011 and has 2,723 members as of 2021.

Additionally, at the end of January a new Native Faith organisation – the Religious Association of Polish Native Believers “Ród” – was registered with the interior ministry.

Native Faith is thus a small but growing religion, although it is difficult to estimate its true size as not all of its followers – Rodzimowiercy in Polish – belong to registered organisations.

The faith has survived multiple turns of history, from the original Christianisation of Poland in 966, to the arrest of faith leaders during the Stalinist period, to the vandalism of a religious monument in the present day.

What is Native Faith?

Native Faith is a polytheistic religion emphasising connection with several deities, as well as with one’s ancestors and with nature. Its followers view it as a continuation of the religious beliefs and ritual practices of Slavs living in pre-Christian Poland.

“Its main foundations are based on respecting and living in harmony with the nature around us, derived from traditions passed down over generations,” says Ratomir Wilkowski, a representative of the RKP council and a żerca – a Native Faith priest.

According to their tradition, the fate of the world is determined by the supreme god, a cosmic force surrounding the universe. In the RKP, this god is referred to as Świętowit, but other names are used among different Native Faith organisations. Rather than being defined by a good-evil dichotomy, Świętowit is believed to transcend what Rodzimowiercy view as subjective, man-made criteria.

Followers also believe in a pantheon of several other deities, who derive from the supreme god’s unifying force and can serve as patrons of specific elements, places or phenomena. These include Mokosz, a mother goddess associated with women’s destiny and fertility, and Swaróg, the god of fire, the sky and the sun.

At the end of the 10th century, Poland entered a period of Christianisation and political transition, characterised as “a time of turbulence, strife, and bloodletting” by historian Anita Prazmowska in her A History of Poland.

At least one pagan uprising against the Roman Catholic church took place in the 1030s, destabilising the church and the country. The Northern Crusades of the 12th century saw the violent suppression of pagan religion, both in Poland and the wider Baltic region.

Or, as the RKP puts it, this was a period in which the church “tried to brutally destroy everything that was connected with the spiritual world of our ancestors”.

A process of reconstruction began alongside the folk revival of the Romantic Era in the 19th century. Eventually, in the interwar period, the first modern Native Faith organisations began to appear in Poland, but their leaders were arrested amid the Stalinist repression of the postwar communist period.

What now constitutes Native Faith began in the 1990s, when organisations such as the RKP and the Polish Slavic Church (PKS) were founded, bringing the faith into the modern day and slowly gaining a larger following.

Native Faith today

Centuries of Christianity being the dominant religion mean that modern paganism is a “kind of act of reconstruction”, says Scott Simpson, a lecturer at the Jagiellonian University who specialises in ritual studies and contemporary paganism in Central and Eastern Europe. “Some bits and pieces of tradition are damaged, fragmentary or completely lost.”

However, followers of the faith emphasise that they are not reenacting history or resurrecting a “dead” mythology.

“Slavic Native Faith – as a living, contemporary faith – is not so much about returning to an earlier, pre-Christian culture, but about its continuation, maintenance, development and popularisation,” says Wilkowski.

This means that what cannot be reconstructed from 10th-century chronicles or academic sources is instead developed from choices made by Rodzimowiercy and from “sincere religious inspiration”, explains Simpson.

Culture and identity are also vital to Native Faith. “The basis of all this is Slavicness, this culture, this common core that connects us all,” says Szymon Bronimir Gilis, a żerca from the new organisation Ród and a member of its management body, the Elders.

Religious celebrations follow the cycles of nature, including solstices and equinoxes, each of which marks a holiday. Among these is Noc Kupały (Kupala Night) – the summer solstice – which celebrates love, fertility, the sun and the moon.

During Kupala Night, Rodzimowiercy jump over bonfires to cleanse and protect themselves from evil and participate in mass bathing in nearby bodies of water. Other rituals include singing and the wearing of wreaths made from wildflowers and herbs.

While Native Faith does have leaders, the collective contribution to worship is a key part of its religious practice.

“One of the central elements of a ritual is the passing around of a horn of alcohol alongside toasts. Each person throws in some little piece of theology, and the group praises it as acceptable and good,” says Simpson. “It’s almost the opposite of an authority telling you what you should believe.”

Paganism and Polish identity

For many in Poland, the Roman Catholic faith has become synonymous with the country’s culture and identity. Even though religious participation is in steep decline, the most recent census data show that 71% of Poles still identify as Roman Catholics.

“There is a very strong sense in Roman Catholicism today in Poland that it is the storehouse of Polish values, and you hear politicians saying that,” says Simpson. Yet “there were things before Roman Catholicism arrived, and there are things today that can sincerely be called Polish values and aren’t Roman Catholic”, such as folk customs and traditions.

Although numbers of Rodzimowiercy are growing, both experts and practitioners say that many Poles are not aware of the existence of such communities and what they believe in.

“I don’t know if society is even that aware that there is such a thing as modern paganism,” suggests Joanna Malita Król of the Institute of Religious Studies at the Jagiellonian University.

“Even the terms paganism or neopaganism carry with them the feeling of ‘otherness’, because they came about among Christians seeking to name those other people around them,” explains Mariusz Filip, an anthropologist at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

Contemporary struggles

While Rodzimowiercy do not face widespread discrimination, their faith is not always welcomed by others in Poland.

In 2009 in the village Babia Góra, a wooden sculpture of a Światowid was vandalised with a saw, and attempts were made to forcibly pull it from the ground. The symbol – a four-sided pillar whose name means “worldseer” – is of similar significance to Rodzimowiercy as the cross is to Christians.

In 2017, a city council member in nearby Choroszcz submitted an official motion to remove the Światowid. Not long after, it disappeared from Babia Góra, which led a few dozen Rodzimowiercy to protest.

“If someone had committed a similar act against a Christian cross or a chapel, there would have been an immediate uproar and the police would have automatically initiated an investigation,” said Wilkowski in a speech during the protest.

Rodzimowiercy can also be stereotyped as political extremists, owing to their faith’s emphasis on Slavicness and nativeness, and the appropriation of pagan symbols by the far-right.

In reality, Native Faith “is an internally diverse movement, where you can find a whole range of political views”, suggests Filip, whose research specialises in right-wing extremism among Rodzimowiercy.

“Some people think that I’m going to start casting spells on them,” says Marcin Józefaciuk, the first Polish MP to identify as a modern pagan, although he acknowledges that this happens “less and less often”.

Spurred by the recent registration of the Ród organisation, members of the faith have made it their goal to promote a wider understanding of who they are.

“This registration does not mean that our work stops here”, wrote representatives from Ród in a post on Facebook. “Instead, it is a signal that we need to roll up our sleeves and intensify our work for the revival of the native Slavic faith in Poland”.

Florida priest defends Eucharist from sacrilege by biting angry lesbian who crushed sacred hosts

A Catholic priest may be arrested for defending the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ from an angry lesbian woman who crushed several hosts and tried to illicitly administer herself Holy Communion, prompting him to bite her arm. 

By all indications, Father Fidel Rodriguez of St. Thomas Aquinas Church in St. Cloud, Florida, acted appropriately when the woman tried to take what she later described to police as “the cookie” from him at a 12 p.m. Mass last Sunday. 

The woman, whose name is Jetty Nique, left a one-star review of the church on Google. In her now-deleted review, she explains that she is a “proudly gay female” and that she attended the Mass because it was the first Communion of her “girlfriend’s” niece. She expressed anger over the fact that Father Rodriguez “disrespect[ed]” her by initially attempting to give her Communion on the tongue. 

Father Rodriguez told police when they arrived after the noon liturgy that he had never encountered Nique before and that his actions had nothing to do with her lesbian lifestyle, which he knew nothing about. 

“I don’t judge nobody,” he told the police.

The priest first interacted with Nique at St. Thomas Aquinas Church’s 10 a.m. liturgy. Video footage from the parish’s YouTube channel shows that he had a 55-second conversation with her when it was evident she wasn’t a practicing Catholic because she hadn’t opened her mouth or replied “Amen” when he said, “Body of Christ.” Father Rodriguez asked but she refused to tell him the last time she received Communion and went to confession. He then gave her a blessing. 

Father Rodriguez recognized Nique when she re-presented herself for Communion at the 12 p.m. Mass, at which point he said he was not judging her but needed to know if she had gone to confession. Nique told him it was “not his business” then extended her arm and “crushed” several consecrated hosts, spilling them on the ground. 

“He wouldn’t give me the cookie. I don’t know if it was the way I was dressed, or if it is what I like,” she later told police. 

“I bit her, I am not denying that. I am defending myself and the sacrament,” the priest informed law enforcement.  

The Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ truly present under the consecrated species of bread and wine, as the Catholic Church teaches. “In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist ‘the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained,'” the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, citing the Council of Trent. Jesus Christ is fully present in each particle of the Eucharist.

The Diocese of Orlando, which is led by Bishop John Noonan, has issued a statement supporting Father Rodriguez’s actions.  

“Having only one hand free, Father Rodriguez struggled to restrain the woman as she refused to let go of the hosts. When the woman pushed him and reacting to a perceived act of aggression, Father Rodriguez bit her hand so she would let go of the hosts she grabbed. The woman was immediately asked to leave.” 

“While the Diocese of Orlando does not condone physical altercations such as this, in good faith, Father Rodriguez was simply attempting to prevent an act of desecration of the Holy Communion, which, as a priest, Father Rodriguez is bound by duty to protect,” the diocese added. 

“It is not something a person can arbitrarily demand and is certainly not a mere ‘cookie’ as the complainant called it,” the statement continued. “The full video and the police report show the woman initiated physical contact and acted inappropriately.” 

Nique eventually went to the police station where the fire department treated her arm. She did not go to the hospital. She plans on filing charges against Father Rodriguez, NBC affiliate WESH-2 reports. 

LifeSite called St. Thomas Aquinas Church to speak with the priest this morning. Father Rodriguez, 66, serves as the parochial vicar of the church. The receptionist who answered instructed LifeSite to reach out to the Diocese of Orlando’s communication department. LifeSite did so but received a voicemail. 

According to local media, the St. Cloud police department has handed the case over to the Florida Attorney General’s office for further investigation. 

Pope wants new statutes for worldwide missionary organisations

Pope Francis wants the statutes of the Pontifical Mission Societies, which are active worldwide, to be changed. 

These should further develop a "spirituality of missionary communion", he told representatives of Catholic missionary organisations from around 120 countries in Rome on Saturday. 

It is about living communion with God and with people. 

"We should enable the people we meet to experience the fundamental love of God. They will be able to find it in our lives and in the life of the Church," said Francis. Christians must be "shining witnesses" of God.

The Pope exhorted the mission directors to move forward in a spirit of "missionary communion". 

The call to conversion applies to everyone, including the heralds of the message. 

Therefore, the renewal of the statutes of the Pontifical Mission Societies is also important. 

The worldwide statutes of the Pontifical Mission Societies, which were founded in the 19th century, were last amended in 2005 under Pope Benedict XVI (2005-2013). 

The penultimate renewal of the statutes was enacted by John Paul II (1978-2005) in 1980. 

The national and regional missionary organisations in German-speaking countries also work on the basis of the worldwide statutes.

Poland's Bishops' Conference chairman reacts to accusations

The chairman of the Polish Bishops' Conference has himself spoken out for the first time about the accusation that he was negligent in his handling of cases of abuse.  

Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda assured on Friday in a video message published by his archdiocese of Gdansk that the proceedings against a priest of the diocese accused of sexual abuse would be conducted correctly. He is committed to clarifying all allegations and recognises "the need to help the victims".

For those affected by abuse, every return to the suffering they have endured is "a very painful experience that we may not always be fully aware of", said Wojda. "So if this process has lacked the expected and due empathy, then I very much apologise for that."

The archbishop is accused of allowing the priest Adrian G. to continue working with children, even though two young women had reported him to the archdiocese in 2021 for alleged abuse. 

According to Polish media reports, Wojda also allegedly lacked empathy during a meeting with the women in 2022.

Critics of Wojda disappointed by statement

A joint letter from 46 people who claim to have been affected by sexualised violence in the Catholic Church recently caused a stir in Poland. 

In the letter, they call for Wojda to be suspended as chairman of the bishops' conference. The archbishop did not comment on this in the 100-second video message.

One of the authors of the incendiary letter to the Bishops' Conference, Robert Fidura, expressed his disappointment with Wojda's statement in an initial reaction. It was just a lot of empty words and assurances, he wrote on the online platform X.

Wojda (67) has been Archbishop of Gdansk since March 2021; he previously headed the Archbishopric of Bialystok in north-east Poland since 2017. 

Poland's bishops elected him as their chairman in March 2024, although the Catholic weekly "Tygodnik Powszechny" had already accused him of misconduct in both abuse cases in 2022.

For first time, Italian Church nets less than $1 billion in taxpayer funds

For the first time since Italy’s system of public financing for religious and charitable causes was overhauled in 1984, income for the Catholic Church from public tax revenue has fallen below €1 billion, capping out this year at €910,266,000, which represents US $987,957,000.

Last year, the total was €1.3 billion, and in 2022 it was €1.1 billion.

While the declines reflect a gradual long-term drop in the number of Italians opting to direct a portion of their personal income tax payments to the Catholic Church, observers say the decline in 2024 also reflects an overall decline in income tax revenue due to accounting holdovers from the peak of the Covid lockdowns, which are still being reflected in collections.

Under Italian law, 0.8 percent of every taxpayer’s annual payment is devoted either to an organized religions which performs social services, or to a state-funded social assistance program. The system is known as otto per mille, meaning eight for every thousand.

Taxpayers are given a series of options on their tax forms, though only around 40 percent of Italians actually express a preference. The rest of the funds are distributed on the basis of the preferences expressed by those who actually made a choice.

At the moment, beyond the Catholic Church, authorized recipients of the otto per mille funds include the Waldensian Church, the Assemblies of God, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, the Lutherans, the Baptists, the Greek Orthodox, along with the Italian Buddhist Union and the Italian Hindu Union.

If they choose, taxpayers also can opt to direct their contribution to the state.

Although Islam is now the second largest religion in Italy after Christianity, there is no authorized Muslim organization to receive tax funds, in part because of internal difficulties within the Islamic community in terms of identifying an agreed-upon representative.

As has been the case since 1984, the Catholic Church remained by far the most popular choice for otto per mille payments in 2024, selected by roughly 70 percent of those taxpayers who express a preference. The state generally finishes a distant second, followed by other religious groups.

One surprising fact about the otto per mille system is the relatively high share of Italian taxpayers – last year around three percent, representing more than 400,000 individuals – who choose to designate their funds for the Waldensian church, despite the fact that its total national membership is only about 24,000 people.

A Protestant community whose origins predate the Reformation, the Waldensians are indigenous to the northern Italian Piedmont region. Among other things, many observers credit their results in attracting otto per mille funding to a series of highly successful television commercials touting their social works.

During a recent assembly, Italy’s Catholic bishops announced that €275 million of their tax income will be devoted to charitable endeavors, €246 million to upkeep of existing worship spaces and construction of new facilities, €40 million will go to catechesis and education, and €9 million to regional ecclesiastical tribunals.

The single largest expense, at €389 million, will go to supplement priest salaries, which works out to a contribution of about €800 per month for the country’s roughly 40,000 Catholic priests.

French court sentences ex-priest to 17 years for sexual abuse

The jury of the central French department of Loiret sentenced a former priest, Olivier de Scitivaux de Greische,  to 17 years in prison for hundreds of cases of violence and sexual abuse, Sputnik quoted French media reports.

The defendant unequivocally admitted hundreds of incidents of sexual abuse of young boys over a period of more than ten years, the BFMTV broadcaster reported on Saturday.

The 64-year-old will not be eligible for parole for 10 years, the report read, adding that the court examined cases of abuse committed from 1990 to 2002.

Story of patriot priest in Cork told in book on U.S emigration

AN American author, whose great-grandfather came from Cork, has compiled a new book which brings together speeches and articles exploring the lives of famous Irish emigrants throughout history.

The American Irish Experience, by Frank McGinity, President of the California Branch of the American Irish Historical Society, is a compendium that highlights the renowned and lesser-known Irish men and women who who went to the U.S over the last few centuries.

Among the articles is a piece on a fascinating Capuchin priest who served and was buried in Cork, Fr Albert Bibby.

Born in 1877 in Carlow, he started attending College at the Capuchin friary in Rochestown aged 13, and later attended the Irish college in Ballingeary, where fellow students included Thomas MacDonagh and Tomás MacCurtain.

A hundred years ago, in June, 1924, Fr Bibby was transferred to California, where he did great work in restoring Mission Santa Inés, a Spanish Catholic mission founded more than 100 years earlier.

However, he was in failing health and died in 1925. Fr Bibby was buried outside the chapel of Mission Santa Inés, but decades later an extraordinary event took place, recounts The American Irish Experience.

Bibby was a hero in Ireland, where he was known as the ‘Patriot Priest’ for his involvement in the country’s fight for freedom against the British. So, in 1958, Bibby’s body was exhumed and taken back ceremoniously to Cork.

The book hears from an elderly Irish priest, Fr Gerald Barron, who witnessed the re-burial in Rochestown in 1958 first-hand and was one of the young priests “who led the procession from the city of Cork up a rural road to the Capuchin monastery, where Bibby was interred”.

The book adds: “Though his body went home, Bibby’s gravestone was left intact at Mission Santa Inés out of deference to his brief, but strong, influence. It still sits there gathering moss and is visited often by mission-goers.”

The chapters in The American Irish Experience are based on talks given to the California Branch of the American Irish Historical Society down the decades. One, entitled ‘How Irish Convicts Help Found Australia’, tells the story of the transportation system used in England in the 1700s. Convicts were originally sent to America but more than 162,000 would be sent to Australia.

Another story which McGinity is proud of, is about Nicholas Den, who was studying medicine at Dublin’s Trinity College until his parents ran out of money supporting him.

He set sail to Santa Barbara, California and early on, became the town’s doctor. Eventually he would become a successful cattle farmer.

Den also became Santa Barbara first mayor and help lead the transition to peaceful times after the Mexican American War. His finest achievement was saving the Santa Barbara Mission from take over and sale by the Mexican government.

The American Irish Historical Society was founded in Boston in 1897, and Teddy Roosevelt was among its founders. The Society owns a historical building on Fifth Avenue in New York, containing an extensive library of old books and manuscripts. One of its prized possessions is a flag which hung during the Easter Rising.

The Irish government has supported the Society over the years, contributing to the maintenance and improvements to the building.

The Society’s purpose originally was to keep the record straight regarding the Irish accomplishments in America.

As President of the California branch, McGinity - whose Cork great-grandfather was either Eugene or Frank Hurley - says the Society’s aim is to demonstrate “that the reality of early Irish immigrants proved far more complex than the prevailing stereotype of drunken, illiterate brawlers”.

As the fourth generation son of a Cork immigrant, McGinity bristles at phrases like ‘the luck of the Irish’, believing it could only have been coined by the English. 

“It’s their way of saying that the Irish couldn’t do it their own way - that they needed luck,” he writes.

Another successful immigrant to California, John Mackay, had a huge impact on the development of the American West, particularly San Francisco and Virginia City.

Born in Dublin in 1831, he moved with his family to the Five Points neighbourhood, a slum in New York, when the famine was raging.

After hearing incredible stories of big discoveries of gold in California and Nevada, he migrated there in 1851 and was part of major discovery of gold. Mackay would rise to become one of the most formidable and richest people of the U.S west.

When he died died in 1902, his fortune was estimated to be as high as $40 billion.

The ‘draft riots’ in New York in 1863 are also recalled.

The Irish, rebelling against conscription into the Union army, targeted an even more outcast group - blacks, mostly refugees from southern slavery, whom immigrants viewed as competition for low wage jobs. The convulsion left 119 dead and thousands injured.

Another excerpt tells the story of a group of immigrant soldiers, mostly Irish, who deserted from the U.S. Army in 1846 because of religious and ethic persecution and to seek a better life. There is a plaque commemorating them in Mexico City.

Priests must embrace new era of synodality (Opinion)

A Dublin parish priest recently took exception to what he regarded as critical comments about priests by Pope Francis and Fr Tony Flannery in The Tablet, a weekly Catholic periodical. 

He concluded that both of them seemed "to hold the view that diocesan priests were into ‘power and control’" and concluded that both shared "a low opinion of diocesan priests".

What was interesting was that the Dublin priest didn’t attempt to respond to what Francis and Tony had actually written but dismissed it on the grounds that neither "had held an appointment as a parish priest".

What seems to have irked the Dublin priest was the recent news that dioceses in the west of Ireland (Killala and Achonry) were to be merged, that both had 38 and 36 priests respectively, and that he and another priest were under great pressure in Dublin as they were struggling to serve 20,000 Catholics in their united parishes.

The Tablet exchange comes at a time when there’s a particular focus on priests, especially the challenge we face in adapting ourselves to a new way of being church. 

Up to now, ordination was the governing sacrament – only the ordained were ‘in charge’ – now, with baptism as the fundamental sacrament, the new way of being church is ‘a synodal way’.

Once the clergy – priests, bishops, cardinals – were in charge; now with synodality the baptised and the ordained work together. For instance, up to now, the parish priest made decisions for parish councils, which were merely consultative bodies. 

Now, priests and people will together follow a synodal pathway: together listening attentively to one another; together discussing issues; together discerning what God wants them to do; and together making decisions.

Most priests, it seems, are struggling to make the transition from ‘being in charge’ to ‘becoming synodal’. 

Hence the focus now on the role of the priest. 

And why, a few weeks ago, 200 parish priests were called to Rome – two from each country – to share their experiences of the transition to synodality.

The main speaker was Fr Tomas Halik, an eminent philosopher, who described the transition to synodality as a conversion ‘from the old and the present to the future God is preparing for us’. 

We must, he suggested, have ‘the courage to change much in the Church’. Priesthood, he said, is going through ‘a time of trial’ when a number of crises show us that ‘we can no longer (as a church) continue on our current path in our thinking, living and working style’.

Halik repeated what has become a mantra of Pope Francis, the need to dismantle what he calls ‘clericalism’ – effectively, an elitist and exclusivist understanding of vocation, as a power to be exercised rather than a service to be given. 

Halik described it in direct terms: "We priests are not called to be the ruling class but the servants of all." There are still places, he writes, ‘where the parish priest sees himself as the pope of his parish’ rather than part of a co-responsible community of equals.

Halik’s focus is on the need for change. We have to try new and fresh approaches, he argues. If the nets remain empty, is it because we remain in the shallows and haven’t the courage to push off from the shore, to go to the deep? Or because we are ignoring ‘prophetic voices’? Or is it a refusal to move from ‘the unchanging certainties of the past’? Or because we are not listening to the people? For Simone Weil, the French mystic, attention is the greatest form of generosity.

In talking to the parish priests, Halik pointed out that adapting to the synodal way didn’t just apply to them or to parishes but to the wider life of the Church. This surfaces a series of questions, for example, about how bishops will adapt their structures and their practices in becoming more synodal.

What effect will the synodal pathway have on the present dynamics of operation that bishops take for granted? On the format and make-up of their meetings? On the way decisions are made and on who makes them? And on the culture of what a recent report from Durham University called ‘hierarchicalism’, which was defined as ‘the exclusive power culture of the episcopacy.’ 

And indeed on the titles and practices that serve to confer an exaggerated and unreal status, station and rank, whether ‘Your Eminence’, ‘Your Grace’ or the dreadful Americanism ‘Your Excellency’. Or the lesser titles of ‘Monsignor’, ‘Canon’ and ‘Archdeacon’ bishops distribute among priests often as a reward for unquestioning obedience and deference? Or distinctions like ‘Reverend’, ‘Very Reverend’ and ‘Most Reverend’?

While popes, cardinals, bishops and priests can see their lives as serving the people, an old comment from the late Enda McDonagh places that in context: "It is still very difficult for laypeople to recognise in the privileges and practices of priests, bishops and popes their proclaimed status as servants."

But to get back to the Dublin parish priest I mentioned at the top of this column. I think he was very unfair to both Tony Flannery and Pope Francis. 

To Tony Flannery, by suggesting that because he has never been a parish priest he has no right to comment on diocesan matters – even though he has spent over 40 years leading missions in parishes. 

To Francis, in suggesting that he has no right to challenge parish priests – even though he is only the pope.

I have every sympathy for the Dublin parish priests and their ‘exhausting efforts’ to minister to huge numbers of Catholics – practising and disinterested – and for the ‘increasing number of priests taking sick leave for stress-related illnesses’.

The real tragedy, of course, is that all of that need not be happening. 

If sensible decisions could be made to moderate mandatory celibacy and to allow women priests – both of which now rest on increasingly unsettling foundations – the present agonies and illnesses of priests would decline significantly.

Even some parish priests are beginning to recognise the inevitable and are adding their voices to the gathering acclamation.

Bishops of England and Wales issue document on disarmament

“Called to be Peacemakers” is the title of a new document released this week by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales which presents a Catholic approach to arms control and disarmament amid ever growing international tensions.

The International Affairs department of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (CBCEW) issued a new important document on disarmament and the ethical use of weapons this weekurging Catholics to advance the cause of global disarmament, and calling on the British Government to forsake its nuclear arsenal and work towards multilateral disarmament.

Church teachings and Christians' moral obligation to promote disarmament

Titled “Called to be Peacemakers”, the document   presents a Catholic approach to arms control and disarmament, drawing upon several Papal encyclicals and Church documents.

Recalling that weapons are fuelling conflicts across the globe with “catastrophic consequences for the most vulnerable people”, it says  Christians in particular have a moral obligation to promote nuclear disarmament, to challenge the arms trade, and to encourage restrictions on the creation of ever more destructive military technology.

The 20-page document argues that if Catholics are to take up Christ’s call to stand as peacemakers in our troubled world, an integral part of this mission involves working to limit the proliferation of weapons and to advance the cause of global disarmament.

“Called to be Peacemakers”, is composed of an introduction, three chapters each examining a specific theme and concluding with a series of action points, and a final reflection.

Pope Francis' call for ethic of responsibility

In the first section, the bishops recall that the Church “has persistently called for those states possessing nuclear weapons to disarm,” and highlight that Catholics a have a particular responsibility to respond to Pope Francis’ call to counter the logic of fear with the ethic of responsibility, to foster a climate of trust and dialogue.

Military expenditure and development

The second section examines the Church’s call for general and complete disarmament. 

This, the document explains, does not mean the removal of literally all weaponry and defence capabilities, but, rather, it is about eliminating weapons of mass destruction, regulating conventional arms, lowering military spending using money to fight poverty and for integral human development instead, and strengthening mechanisms for peace.

Moratorium on drones  and killer-robots

The third section addresses the serious ethical implications of the use of military drones and lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), that is weapons guided by artificial intelligence, rather than by the human mind (the so-called killer-robots). 

It reaffirms the Church’s stance urging for a moratorium on the development and use of such weapons,  and calls for putting emerging technologies at the service of humanity.

Call on UK  to take several actions to support world peace

The document invites specifically the UK government to take several actions to support peace. 

These are: to ultimately forsake its nuclear arsenal, helping to create a world without nuclear weapons; to fulfil its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to pursue an end to the nuclear arms race;  to advance multilateral disarmament, to refrain from expanding its own arsenal, and to work towards reducing it at the earliest opportunity; to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and, until this point, engage meaningfully with the treaty framework including participating as an observer in future meetings of signatories. 

The bihops further ask the UK government to redirect the economic, social and political resources spent on nuclear weapons towards promoting the universal common good.

What can Catholics do

In the concluding reflection “Called to be Peacemakers” urges Catholic throughout England and Wales to heed Jesus’ call to stand as peacemakers in our troubled world, recalling that Jesus himself lived in violent times, but “offered a radically countercultural approach” built on the unconditional love of God and non-violence.  

According to the bishops, there are many practical ways Catholics can advance this mission: for example by joining organizations working for justice and peace; engaging political representatives to ensure that they are held to account; bringing these conversations into parishes and schools, or taking part in public displays of support for peace.

Australia records sharp drop in Mass attendance

The proportion of Australia’s Catholics attending weekly Mass fell from 11.8% to 8.2% between 2016 and 2021, according to figures released this week.

The Australian Catholic Mass Attendance Report 2021 said that the number of Massgoers dropped from 623,400 to 417,350 — a fall around a third — in the five-year period.

Some of Australia’s 33 dioceses saw especially sharp declines. In the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, attendance dipped from 10,465 in 2016 to 5,443 in 2021, a 48% reduction.

The diocese in New South Wales had the country’s lowest Mass attendance rate in 2021, well below the national average at 3.7%.

The Maitland-Newcastle diocese is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Sydney, which had an above-average Mass attendance rate of 10.4% in 2021.

But the Sydney archdiocese — arguably the country’s most prominent — also saw a significant decline in Mass attendance, from 93,365 to 61,247 over the five years, a fall of 34%.

The nationwide Mass attendance rate of 8.2% likely puts Australia at the lower end of the global spectrum, alongside countries such as Brazil and France. 

The new figures are based on a nationwide Mass attendance count held largely in May 2021, when church attendance was subject to COVID-19 restrictions. 

The 32-page report concluded that much of the decline “can be explained by the impact of COVID-19 restrictions and people’s cautious approach towards resuming regular patterns of social interactions in the community.”

“It is crucial to note, however, that the decline in Mass attendance cannot be solely attributed to COVID-19,” it said. 

“Other factors, such as changes in the demographics of the Catholic population, the presence or absence of immigrants, the attendance patterns of different age groups of attenders and other issues affecting the overall Catholic population in Australia, also play a role.”

The Mass attendance count coincided with the Australian Census, which took place in August 2021. The census found that Australia had a total population of 25.4 million, 20% of whom are Catholic.

Australia’s 33 dioceses include five Eastern Catholic eparchies: Chaldean, Maronite, Melkite, Syro-Malabar, and Ukrainian.

Church attendance only increased over the five years in the Chaldean and Syro-Malabar eparchies.

In the Chaldean Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle of Sydney, established in 1973, attendance rose from 3,779 in 2016 to 6,657 in 2021, a rise of 76%.

In the Syro-Malabar Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle of Melbourne, created in 2014, attendance grew from 4,390 in 2016 to 8,352 in 2021, an increase of 90%.

The report said: “Changes in the Catholic population are particularly affected by migration patterns, population movements and other societal changes.” 

“All the Eastern eparchies, with the exception of the Ukrainian eparchy, which remained almost the same, reported increases in their Catholic populations in 2021, which were likely due to immigration patterns, alongside an increased awareness within the local parish community to identify themselves correctly on the Census form (which those not involved with a local community would not know about).”

The report said that throughout Australia, Eucharistic liturgies were celebrated in 42 different languages, including English. The most common languages, apart from English, were Vietnamese, Arabic, Chaldean, and Italian.

The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross, founded in 2012, was the only other Australian jurisdiction to see an increase in Mass attendance. Average attendance in the body for groups of former Anglicans rose from 196 in 2016 to 333 in 2021. 

The personal ordinariate underwent an apostolic visitation in 2022 and its leader Msgr. Carl Reid stood down in 2023.

In a column for Australia’s Catholic Weekly, Philippa Martyr highlighted a potentially significant trend in the age profile of Massgoers.

She wrote: “A quarter of our Sunday Massgoers are now aged over 70, but here’s the good news — people aged 18-29 now make up almost 12% of everyone at Mass. That’s double the figure of 6.5% in 2016.”

She added: “We used to have a weird demographic ‘mushroom’ — a big elderly Mass-going population supported by a thinner and thinner stalk of younger Massgoers. But this is now starting to look more like a young oak tree with a sturdier trunk and a smaller canopy.”

In recent years, the Sydney archdiocese has seen a notable increase in the number of people entering the Catholic Church through the RCIA program, with 107 in 2021, 179 in 2023, and 266 in 2024.

 The Archdiocese of Brisbane also reported its largest number of catechumens, or candidates for baptism, this year.

The next Australian national count of Mass attendance is due to take place in 2026.

The 2021 report said: “By taking a snapshot of Mass attendance in 2021, we have obtained an accurate picture of the extent of participation across the country. Explaining the changes, however, will require data from the 2026 Count to understand whether the sharp decline during this period was an isolated occurrence or part of broader trends occurring in the Church.”

Pope Francis vs. Cardinal Hollerich (Opinion)

In his interview with 60 Minutes that aired this week on CBS, Pope Francis made one thing crystal clear: There is zero chance he will ever approve the ordination of women as priests or deacons.

This in turn makes something else equally evident: With respect to the needlessly contentious issue of ordaining women, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich — the relator general of the Church’s global Synod on Synodality — is substantially out of step with the Holy Father.

Asked by CBS interviewer Norah O’Donnell if a woman could ever become “a deacon and participate as a clergy member of the Church,” Francis tersely replied, “No.” 

Pressed further by O’Donnell, who noted that he had authorized continuing investigations of the possibility of female deacons even though he had earlier ruled out the possibility of female priests, the Pope explained, “If it is deacons in holy orders, no.” 

You can’t get more straightforward than that. 

Contrast this concise response with what Cardinal Hollerich had to say in an interview of his own, published only a few days before CBS aired its papal interview. 

Speaking with Jacqueline Straub, an employee of the online portal for the Church in Switzerland who describes herself as being “called to be a Roman Catholic priest,” the cardinal insisted the ban on ordaining women is “not an infallible doctrinal decision.”

Therefore, he told Straub, while women’s ordination is not likely to happen during the papacy of Pope Francis, given his stated opposition, it could happen further down the road. “It needs arguments and time,” he explained.

To refute Cardinal Hollerich’s specious comments, we need to understand why Francis was so blunt and unequivocal in his remarks to CBS. 

As the Holy Father has pointed out previously, the ordination of female priests was precluded by St. John Paul II in his definitive 1994 apostolic declaration Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. 

“I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful,” John Paul stated at the conclusion of that document. 

Again, you can’t get any clearer than that. 

And, since deacons and priests are, with bishops, degrees of holy orders (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1536), John Paul’s ruling regarding the ordination of priests necessarily extends to deacons too, as Pope Francis indicated to O’Donnell.

For his part, Cardinal Hollerich is very much aware of this papal clarity. That’s why he equivocated about whether he actually backs women’s ordination personally in his latest remarks. It’s also why he stressed the need to advance warily. 

“If you push too much, you won’t achieve much,” he advised the Swiss proponent of women priests. “You have to be cautious, take one step at a time, and then you might be able to go very far.”

The cardinal’s comments are standard talking points for high-level prelates whenever they seek to undermine settled Catholic doctrine and practices in pursuit of secularizing agendas, without seeming to be openly challenging what the Church teaches. 

And as such, they would be of relatively little significance had they been proffered by, say, an obscure European theologian participating in Germany’s heterodox Synodal Way.

But it’s an entirely different matter when these arguments emanate from the Synod on Synodality’s relator general, who has been assigned the lead role in its overall orientation. 

Right from the outset of that synodal process, there have been widespread concerns that a shell game is underway in Rome, with progressives seeking to misuse it as an instrument to advance acceptance of dissenting agendas such as the ordination of women and the approval of homosexual acts.

In fact, proponents of women’s ordination wasted no time in accusing the Pope of having violated the principle of synodality by making his comments to CBS in advance of the synod’s final session in October. 

Such accusations provide further proof that so far as they are concerned, this process very specifically exists to push forward their controversial agendas.

At the synod’s first session last fall, delegates from outside of Europe — particularly those from Africa — pushed back powerfully against these agendas. 

This resistance seems certain to continue at this year’s session. 

But even if that results in a final outcome that doesn’t contradict existing Church doctrines and practices, as seems likely, discussion of these matters is guaranteed to continue afterward, courtesy of the 10 “working groups” that were set up in March to discuss women’s ordination and the other issues that have generated significant controversy during the synodal process. 

So no immediate end is in sight to the progressives’ push at the Vatican for the ordination of women priests and deacons. 

But there is now one very welcome development: Courtesy of the CBS interview, they won’t be able to claim that Pope Francis supports them in any way on this issue.