The abuse of children in the care of the Catholic Church is a tragedy. The way the Irish Catholic Church has dealt with the abuse is descending ever more rapidly into farce. It’s been a tough week for the church, as revelations have emerged about clergy in high places devising oaths of secrecy and pay-offs [...]
Archive | March, 2010
Re-Emergence Conference Belfast: Christianity is ours for the making?
It’s been a hectic three days in Belfast with the Re-Emergence conference. I’m exhausted but left with a singular thought: the future of Christianity is ours for the making. When many people think about Christianity, I suspect they reduce it to the institutions of the church or the doctrines that have been handed down to [...]
The Re-Emergence, and the Insurrection, Start Tonight …
The conference, ‘Re-Emergence: Christianity and the Event of God,’ begins tonight, 15 March 2010, at 8 p.m. in McHugh’s Bar in Belfast. Tonight’s event is also the launch of the ‘Insurrection’ tour. The conference runs until Thursday morning at the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin at Belfast. Organised by post-modern theologian and ‘insurrectionist’ [...]
Does it Matter if Cardinal Sean Brady Resigns? The Future of the Irish Catholic Church
Cardinal Sean Brady, and the Irish Catholic Church, have claimed that it is ‘not fair to judge him by the child protection standards of today.’ Amid the cries that Brady should resign, the Irish Catholic Church has issued a statement ‘clarifying’ his role in the sex abuse case in which he was involved in asking [...]
Cardinal Sean Brady and Sex Abuse: Have we lost our capacity to be shocked?
What will be the next headline when it comes to the Irish Catholic Church? We have now learned that in 1975, a then 36-year-old priest, and now Cardinal Sean Brady, was involved in ‘covering up’ sexual abuse by the infamous priest Brendan Smyth. This is serious: Brady is the archbishop of Armagh and primate of [...]
Fr Enda McDonagh: A 12-Step Recovery Programme for the Irish Catholic Church?
Fr Enda McDonagh, former professor of Moral Theology at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, has devised a 12-step recovery programme for the Irish Catholic Church. I’m not sure if some Catholics would be uncomfortable with what might be considered a comparison of the Irish Catholic Church with Alcoholics Anonymous. But these are desperate times for a [...]
Gene Stolzfus: In Memory of a Christian Peacemaker
Gene Stoltzfus, the founding director of Christian Peacemaker Teams, died Wednesday March 10, 2010, of a heart attack while cycling near his home in Fort Frances, Ontario. Christian Peacemaker Teams aim to ‘get in the way’ of war and violence. They have been prominent recently in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Stolzfus was a Mennonite who [...]
Abuse Scandals in the Irish Catholic Church: What do Young Catholics Think?
What do young Irish Catholics think about their church? There was a fleeting insight into this in today’s Education Supplement in the Irish Times. Brief interviews with four teenage students from Coláiste Cillian in Clondalkin, Dublin, covered a range of topics, including church and going to mass. Seventeen-year-old Clíona Ni Murchu, showing remarkable compassion for [...]
Lessons from the Benedictine Monks on the Life of St Frances of Rome
Yesterday, March 9, was the feast day of St Frances of Rome. Hailing as I do from a Protestant background, my knowledge of saints’ days is pretty thin on the ground. But yesterday I was visiting the Holy Cross Monastery in Rostrevor, and much of the day’s liturgical activities were given over to remembering and [...]
Norman Hamilton, New Presbyterian Moderator: Relationships Matter
This morning’s BBC Radio Ulster edition of Sunday Sequence featured an interview with the newly elected moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Norman Hamilton. Hamilton had a fairly wide-ranging conversation with presenter William Crawley in the ten minute slot which started the programme. One of Hamilton’s more memorable lines was that ‘relationships matter,’ to [...]
About me
Welcome to Building a Church Without Walls, a website for people who are excited about how Christianity is developing in the 21st Century. I am a Lecturer and Coordinator of the Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation Studies Programme at Trinity College Dublin at Belfast (the Irish School of Ecumenics).
Please note this is my personal site. All views are my own and are not representative of TCD.
