Conspiracy of Silence - Directed by John Deery - Brenda Fricker - Hugh Bonneville - John Lynch - Sean McGinley - Jonathan Forbes and Jim Norton
This is a link to a website which gives more information about an event taking place in London at the Odeon Cinema, Leicester Square, on Tuesday, 14th September. After a screening of John Deery's film, Conspiracy of Silence, there will be a debate on the motion 'Celibacy should no longer be a compulsory requirement for the Roman Catholic priesthood'. Those debating for the motion will be Helena Kennedy QC, Fr. John McGowan and myself. Those debating against it will be Bishop Malcolm McMahon, Frank Skinner, Jack Valero and Fr. Stephen Wang. The debate will be chaired by Ernie Rea.
Good luck with this Tina .
ReplyDeleteAs I live in Cornwall I won't be there in person - too expensive to get there !! but I think that I will be able to follow it on BBC Radio 4 as they are broadcasting it live on Tuesday. It looks interesting.
@Philomena EwingMany thanks Philomena. It's a good panel. I think it will be an informed debate about an important issue.
ReplyDeleteI can't find it in the Radio 4 schedule for Tuesday and because of a prior engagement won't be able to attend. Good luck anyway. It should be an interesting debate (Malcolm MacMahon is bishop for our diocese and a jolly fellow!) I know you will hold your own, just hope I get a chance to hear it.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if they might broadcast highlights, but I'm not sure what the arrangements are. Thanks for the message - I think it will be fun! Malcolm MacMahon and I are doing a live debate on Sky News tomorrow after which you might be able to catch. I think it's probably going out at 3.00.
ReplyDeleteSorry - should read tomorrow afternoon.
ReplyDeleteI've written up my thoughts on the celibacy debate. Please go to the Digby Stuart Research Centre blog to read about it: http://digbystuartresearchcentre.blogspot.com/.
ReplyDeleteBishop Tom Burns of Menevia 2011 Diocesan Yearbook
ReplyDelete"For priests who offended, I’m not sure that their abuses grew out of the rule of celibacy; abuse happens within otherwise good families too. I’m more convinced that it grew out of the clericalism of the past. That clericalism risks raising its head today among those who again are looking for identity in status, not service. They want to be treated differently. There are those who set high standards of morality for lay people, while they blatantly violate those same standards themselves. There are those who go to extremes to express the Mass in a particular way, whether it is in the Ordinary Form or Extraordinary Form, in a so-called VAT II rite or Tridentine Rile, through the “People’s Mass” or the “Priest’s Mass”. Some want to put the priest on a pedestal, whilst the people are consigned to be privileged spectators outside the rails. Flamboyant modes of liturgical vestments and rubrical gestures abound. Women are denied all ministries at Mass: doing the Readings, the serving, the Bidding Prayers, and taking Communion to the Sick. To many in our Church and beyond, this comes across as triumphalism and male domination. This clericalism conceals the fact that the Church as an institution has often acted in collusion with what I can only regard as structural sinfulness. It has paid dearly for it and is untrue to its humble Founder, Jesus Christ."