A complete chronological listing of shorter pieces written since 1995.

Any of these articles that are not the copyright of a specified publication may be freely copied and distributed.

Articles are listed in inverse chronological order – i.e. more recent articles first.

• Jesus and Violence: The importance of René Girard II
  ACI Website Mar 2015
  René Girard argues that by revealing the injustice of 'scapegoating' - i.e. punishing one person to save the community from greater internal conflict - Jesus obliges us to find another way to deal with our violence (by repentance and forgiveness). Failure to do that leads to the persistent unpredictable violence of these times.

• Christendom compromised Christianity – and gave birth to Secularism
  Sourcing Dec 2014
  This followed a letter from me to the editor of the Irish Catholic, protesting at the paper's misreporting of Archbishop Michael Neary's declaration that the era of Christendom was over in Europe. Archbishop Neary had not used the word 'secularism', had not said that 'secularism' had won its battle with the church, and had distinguished 'Christendom' from 'Christianity'. Here I summarised the case for welcoming the end of Christendom - essentially an era of merely nominal state adherence to Christian belief - as a deliverance for the Church.

• Time to prioritise Catholic Social Teaching!
  ACI website Nov 2014
  With church leadership focused on 'culture war' issues such as abortion and euthanasia, and clergy apparently absorbed with internal struggles with hierarchy, how can the Church rouse itself to address the social deficits in Irish society, such as homelessness, loneliness and depression? It's surely high time for Catholic Social Teaching.

• Struggling Orchestra in Search of a Maestro
  ACI Website Sep 2014
  In 2014 at a National Pastoral Conference in Athlone there was no master plan for renewal, and more than a little frustration with the insecure status of parish pastoral councils as defined by canon law.

• The Real Root of Inequality?
  ACI Website July 2014
  Staggering income inequality is worrying secular commentators in the USA and the West more generally, but so far secular thought lacks a convincing explanation for the failure of the 18th century Enlightenment's promise of equality. The Gospel is far more helpful - by pointing to our tendency towards rivalrous competition. We are sinfully averse to mere equality: we think we need to 'win' - and money-making is now a global competition too.

• What went wrong? Do Irish bishops want to know?
  ACI Website July 2014
  Some Irish clerics - including Bishop Noel Treanor and theologian Fr Vincent Twomey - have called for an Irish church inquiry into what went wrong in Irish institutions for children and young mother in the 20th century. So far those calls have not been heard by the Irish Bishops' Conference - so don't they want to know?

• Honour and Shame – and Ireland’s ‘Culture War’
  ACI Website June 2014
  Why did Irish clergy of the last century not see the wrongness of the shaming of pregnant yet unwed young women - the social ostracisation that led to the 'Tuam babies' scandal that hit the Irish and international news in 2014? This blindness stemmed from the alignment of Catholic clergy with supposedly 'respectable' social elites, and needs to be recognised as a serious flaw of the churches of 'Christendom' if the Irish church is now to align itself instead with the least powerful, as did its founder.

• Was I uncharitable, scathing, lacking in compassion?
  May 17, 2014
  How the known relationship between Fr Michael Cleary and Phyllis Hamilton - the teenager who became his housekeeper - raises issues of importance for the integrity of the church and the safety of its most vulnerable members.
  
  
• Why are we waiting?
  Sourcing May 2014
  I was wondering here when Irish bishops would hear the call of Pope Francis for a 'missionary option' for the church in Ireland. Will that call be finally heard in 2018?

• Can Pope Francis restore faith in the Irish Church?
  Sourcing Apr 2014
  An appeal to Irish bishops to seize the 'Francis moment' and to lose the 'fear of assembly' that kept them bunkered and uninspiring after decades of scandal.
  
  
• Challenging the Murphy Report?
  © Doctrine and Life Feb 2014
  A critical examination of the argument made in Unheard Story by Fr Padraig McCarthy - for rejecting aspects of the 2009 Murphy Report on the handling by the Dublin Archdiocese of cases of clerical child sex abuse. I argued in reply that the era of ‘cover up’ will not finally be behind us until the Catholic Church leadership has sponsored a thorough independent inquiry into its structural failure to deal responsibly with this issue over seventeen centuries.

• Keeping it in the Family
  © Irish News 21 Nov 2013
  How, in the wake of the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968), Irish bishops had failed to persuade Irish Catholics they knew much about the family. How the encyclical led to the death of dialogue in the Irish Church, and why bishops need to consult Irish families now - on a regular basis - if they are to become wiser.
  
  
• Mimetic Desire: The Importance of René Girard I
  ACP Website May 2013
  As we are so obviously imitative in our desires, why is that issue never addressed by Catholic homilists - and why do we lack, in common use, a term for this 'imitative desire'? The American French academic René Girard calls it 'mimetic desire'. Arguing that biblical 'covetousness' is the same thing, he believes that this human tendency lies at the root of all violence.
  
  
• We need to face up to Five Dysfunctions of the Church
  © Reality Mar 2013
  Here I argued that there could not be Catholic renewal in the West - or a ‘New Evangelisation’ - without a radical change in the management style of the church’s leaders – a shift to stressing their own fallibility. In the month this article was published the church welcomed a new Pope, Francis - who immediately declared that he was a sinner!
  
  
• The Spirit of Vatican II
  © Reality Sep 2012
  Those who denigrate the 'Spirit of Vatican II' show lamentable ignorance of the working of the Holy Spirit to renew the Catholic Church in the early 1960s. The spirit of confidence with which the church faced the world at the ecumenical congress of Vatican II, 1962-65, must be recovered if the church itself is to recover from its current crisis.
  
  
• Trusting the Gifts of the Spirit among the People of God
  © Doctrine and Life May/June 2012
  Given the moral failure of so many Catholic adults to protect children in the past, it is surely time for church leaders to trust in the Holy Spirit to empower everyone to think wisely and act justly - as soon as they are old enough to call on the Holy Spirit to give them the courage and wisdom to do so .

• Endless Deference or Integrity?
  Sourcing Apr 2012
  This was a reaction to the empty summary report of the Vatican visitators to Ireland in the aftermath of the Murphy report of Nov 2009. The summary report, published in March 2012, revealed clearly that the Vatican visitation by four high-ranking clerics had been a 'holy show' - a transparent and dishonest parade of innocent concern, deliberately designed to hide the most important questions raised by the failure of the church’s own unaccountable governing system.

• The Church isn’t the only institution in the dock
  © Reality Jan 2012
  From 1992 Irish secular media had made hay from revelations of the abuse of power by leading figures in the Catholic hierarchy. In 2011 they had no choice but to report that powerful Irish media institutions could also abuse power - as in the case of false allegations against Fr Kevin Reynolds by RTE in May 2011. As the new brokers of honour and shame in Irish society secular media too will prove to be fallible: no one is immune from Lord Acton's warning that power corrupts.

• Can Morality be taught without ‘Myth’?
  © The Irish Times Nov 2011
  The 'New Atheism' contends that morality can be taught without myth - but this seems to be also entirely a matter of faith, since no empirical evidence has so far been presented to prove this.

• The crisis in secular society offers an opportunity for the church
  © Reality Nov 2011
  How well prepared was the Irish Catholic Church for the kind of social turmoil seen in Britain in the summer of 2011? Would it require a shock on that scale to bring home to Irish Church leaders the complete inadequacy of the church system they claimed to lead?

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