Patsy McGarry

1 week ago | irishtimes.com | Patsy McGarry

A Church of Ireland bishop has criticised the decision of Dublin’s Christ Church Cathedral to invite an American lesbian bishop to be guest preacher at its annual Pride service last Friday. Bonnie Perry is a bishop in Michigan. Bishop of Down and Dromore, David McClay, said the invitation to Bishop Perry “very clearly signifies a departure from the historic faith, the teaching and the discipline of the Church of Ireland”. Church members were “concerned and confused” by the invitation", he said.

1 week ago | irishtimes.com | Patsy McGarry

Redress proposals for abuse survivors by the Spiritan congregation, which runs Blackrock College and other leading schools in Ireland, “urgently needs to be substantiated by actions”, survivors’ group Restore Together has said. It represents people who were sexually abused at Spiritan-run schools. Group spokesman Philip Feddis said “urgent delivery of a victim-centred, non-adversarial redress scheme is critical”.

1 week ago | irishtimes.com | Patsy McGarry

The head of the religious congregation behind Blackrock College and other prominent schools has made a public commitment to paying redress to survivors of abuse in the schools. In an open letter to survivors of abuse by members and employees of the Spiritan congregation, Provincial Fr Brendan Carr announced “a restorative framework which we hope can help all to arrive at a different place in this painful and difficult journey”.

1 week ago | irishtimes.com | Patsy McGarry

Ah yes. James Joyce. No getting away from him today. The great artificer. Some smithy. Some soul!Joyce “could have been persuaded to become a Jesuit but for one essential element in his personality which precluded this possibility,” the Benedictine priest said. And that essential element was “his unusually precocious sexuality,” the speaker explained. So the 2012 Catholic Church’s 50th Eucharistic Congress in Dublin was told.

2 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Patsy McGarry

The Catholic Church’s safeguarding board received the highest number of abuse allegations in a single year since it began publishing annual reports 16 years ago. There was a 50 per cent increase in the number of new clerical abuse allegations received by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the year to March 31st, according to its latest annual report which has just been published.