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.
- The Blasphemy of Christian Imperialism in 2022ACI Website March 2022
How could Vladimir Putin have learned nothing from the scandals of Christendom and global Christian imperialism? - Salvation and Social MediaACI website, Oct 2021
From what exactly do we all need 'saving' right now? Transformed in their own time by the total experience of Jesus, the earliest Christians would be unimpressed by our humdrum, next-life-only understanding of 'salvation'. Do we now need 'saving' above all from the oppressive delusion that it is electronic media of all kinds that determine our importance? - What is it to be Holy?ACI website, Aug 2021
Vatican II (1962-65) called all Catholics to holiness - in the document Lumen Gentium(1964) - but the story of Lumen Gentium is itself key evidence of an historic debate and conflict between Catholic clergy over what holiness is, how it is best sought and how it is most fully manifested - and these differences have not yet been fully resolved. This story is exhaustively told in The Charismatic Structure of the Church: Priesthood and Religious Life at Vatican II and Beyond (2021) by Michael McGuckian SJ - The Creed is for Whistle-Blowers, not DogmatistsAcireland Site Oct 23rd 2021
The Creeds were originally narratives - summaries of the life , death and resurrection of Jesus - to remind believers of Jesus's defeat of the intention behind Crucifixion: to shame the victim and delete him completely from memory. They were therefore also centrally an assurance to believers of their own immortality. - How White Men Lost the Meaning of RedemptionACI website, Oct 2020
'Redemption' for the earliest Christians meant liberation from all fear of the future - but almost lost that meaning under Christendom. It is time to recover that meaning for the children of today. - The Frustrated Potential of the Alienated ChurchNov 30, 2019
Martin Ridge, one of two investigating Garda officers who painstakingly compiled the testimony of victims of the Donegal clerical child abuser Eugene Greene, exemplified the common priesthood of the people of God that Ireland's Catholic clergy failed to understand or explain in his lifetime.
- St Mary’s, Dunboe on YouTubeThis Website August 2019
Video was not my 'thing' until the summer of 2019 - so why did I suddenly take this 'turn for the worse'? St Mary's, Dunboe, Co. Derry, one of many small rural Irish churches now under threat of disuse due to the denial of dialogue, over decades, by the clericalism that expects lay people only to pay, pray and obey. - ‘Holy Sacrifice?’This Website Aug 2019
Why we must now strive to make holy sacrifice ... in keeping open all Irish chapels currently in use. - Lumen Gentium 37 and Meeting with Bishop Donal McKeown, Fri 26th July 2019This Website Nov 2017
My 2019 campaign 'pitch' to Bishop Donal McKeown, Bishop's House, St Eugene's Cathedral, Friday July 26th, 2019. It was both a warm occasion, and memorable, as the bishop heard my appeal for recognition of the full vocation of the common priesthood of the people of God - and the honouring of the promise of Lumen Gentium (1964) - of structures in the church through which the people can speak. - High Time for Lumen Gentium 37!ACI Website July 2019
From 1964, how different might the story of the Irish Catholic Church have been if Ireland's bishops had quickly obeyed both the spirit and the letter of Lumen Gentium's 37th article? - A Priesthood of All Believers?The Irish News July 2019
How can Irish bishops believe that the seminary-trained priest is best placed to explain to lay people the 'common priesthood' that is theirs by Baptism - when this calling is almost always a total mystery to them - and their own grandparents had known far more? - 21st Century ‘Status Anxiety’ is Gospel ‘Worldliness’ACI Website Mar 2019
Why Hollywood celebrities were ready in 2019 to spend whatever it took to get their teenagers into Stanford and other frontline US universities. This 'status anxiety' is the 21st century equivalent of the religious snobbery of the clerical enemies of Jesus - 'the world' that tried and failed to condemn him. - Brian and Vera O’ConaillDec 13, 2018
Brian and Vera O'Conaill 1912-2006 - Parents of Sean O'Conaill and a major influence on his life and thought. - Catholic Education and the Future: Insights from René GirardThe Furrow Nov 2018
To become truly counter-cultural Christian educators need to understand the inevitable role of unconscious imitation in all aspects of culture and history - and especially in the origins of violence. - What underlies René Girard’s ‘Mimetic Desire’Contagion Feb 2018
How the fear of what others think - our status anxiety - especially in our early years - impacts upon our desires - as explored especially by Charles Dickens. - 2018: A year of rescue from the belly of the whale?ACI Website Nov 2017
The Bible story of Jonah is a sacred allegory about the paradoxical nature of apparent disaster. It tells us that the radical recovery of the Irish church needed to begin with the catastrophe of scandals that would reveal its faults. Thrown from its pedestal in Irish society the church may soon be ready to realign itself with the interests of the poorest and respond to the call from Pope Francis to resume its missionary tradition. - Is Archbishop Diarmuid Martin failing Dublin?ACI Website Dec 2017
Justly respected for his handling of the clerical abuse issue since coming to Dublin in 2003, Archbishop Martin must nevertheless accept some responsibility for the fact that the church in Dublin has not changed to meet his own hopes. - The Scandal of the 2011 MissalACI Website Nov 2017
A review of 'Lost in Translation' - an invaluable account of the origins and shortcomings of the new English-language Missal introduced in 2011. - ‘A Lost Tribe’ – a story that should not have ended this wayACI Website Nov 2017
Review of 'A Lost Tribe' - a novel by William King. Tracking the disillusioned lives of Dublin seminarians who watched the opening of Vatican II on TV in 1962, this novel suggests that the meaning of the Council did not 'catch fire' for those who stayed with the priesthood, to any life-changing degree. This helps to explain what followed not only in Dublin but throughout Ireland - the disgracing of a model of church that refused to change. - The ‘war’ against Pope Francis: where do Irish bishops stand?ACI Website Oct 2017
A Guardian article describing Pope Francis as an 'extrovert' misses the mark. The pope is opposed by some because he models a way of leading the church that abandons the role of exalted rule-maker and seeks to accompany us as we travel towards the kingdom of God. Just like the church's founder! - The Mass: a ‘Holy Sacrifice’?ACI Website Sep 2017
A review of an article (by Anthony Lusvardi SJ) that argues strongly against opposing the idea of the Mass as Sacrifice to the 'communal meal' aspect. When Christian sacrifice is understood as self-giving - following René Girard - the apparent dissonance of these ideas disappears. - Faith Formation and Fear of ShameThe Furrow July/August 2017
Why has the Irish Catholic Education establishment published no research on the drift from religious practice of school-going teenagers - noticed over a decade ago by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin? In a media climate of opposition to faith schools, is there a fear that such research would be exploited by media as an 'own goal'? - Resurrection?ACI Website Easter 2017
Is it persuasive to speak of the Resurrection of Jesus, a foundational belief of the Church, as though it happened only in the minds of those who bore witness to it - and only because they wanted to believe in it? Must we agree now that there was in truth no 'raising of Jesus by a higher power, the Father in whom Jesus believed? For me this is ruled out by the insistence of the witnesses that they had encountered a physically verifiable bodily Jesus, not an interior vision - and by their readiness to die in affirmation of this. They had been transformed by some experience, and some power, that was way beyond their own powers of recall and imagination. - Was Jesus a whistleblower too?ACI Website Feb 2017
Where does integrity come from? The moral strength to stand alone against injustice is so often absent today that we need to wonder if it can happen at all without the inspiration given by 'whistleblowers' of the past. Standing alone against the injustice of an oppressive religious system in his own time, Jesus should be seen in that light. - No research, ever, on school-centred faith formation in Irish Catholic Schools?Sourcing 2017
How a letter in the Irish Catholic in June 2016 received no response from the Irish Catholic Education establishment - prompting the question why?
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