Catholic Voice 26th March 2021 Issue 313

CatholicVoice Omnia possum in eo, qui me confortat

26 March - 8 April 2021

Issue 313

Only 50 Ire land/ NI £2 U K

€/£1.

Happy Easter, Let Us Celebrate The Birth, Death, And Resurrection Of Our Saviour Jesus Christ

Altarpiece Triptych - Frans Hals Museum, Netherlands - Hans Memling follower - Circa 1510-1520)

St Joseph’s Cord Available now - see page 7

2 EDITORIAL

Catholic Voice

26th March 2021

Blessings In Disguise the part of Irish bishops has been appalling. There are no recorded cases of transmission of the virus in churches and bishops should be pushing much more forcefully to restore public worship in Ireland.

In particular the recent comments from the Archbishop of Dublin and his banning of Holy Communion have left me dismayed - more on that in John Lacken’s column.

Anthony Murphy As readers will know we are currently living and working in England, we are very keen to return to Ireland but this will not be possible until Kim’s back has healed well enough to cope with the journey home, progress is steady but slow and it is likely we will have to stay here until the summer.

One of the advantages of being in England is that I am able to attend Mass several times a week. The spaces are limited with tickets necessary via an online booking system but so far I have managed to attend most Sundays and I have tickets for the Easter Triduum. Of course it should not be necessary to have to acquire tickets for Mass but such are the times we live in and at least the bishops of England and Wales have been forceful in ensuring that public worship continues.

It is a great tragedy and very wrong that readers in Ireland will be denied access to the sacraments this Easter and the lack of leadership on

CatholicVoice

Editor: Anthony Murphy editor@catholicvoice.ie Telephone: 059 8627268 ROI 00353 59 8627268 Outside ROI Keep up to date with news and articles via The Lumen Fidei website www.lumenfidei.ie

Thankfully the local priest here is very friendly and I am able to receive Holy Communion on the tongue though this has not been without difficulty. A few weeks ago the priest spoke to me before Mass and explained he had been approached by several parishioners who were concerned that giving me Holy Communion on the tongue was a breach of the bishop’s advice and risked spreading infection of the Chinese virus.

I still receive Holy Communion on the tongue but now I wait behind at the end of Mass until the busy bodies and snoops have left the Church. It is very sad that some people view Communion in this way and once again highlights the failure of catechesis in our Church.

All the most extraordinary graces and blessings are contained in the MOST HOLY EUCHARIST! Jesus complained to Saint Faustina saying that many people treat Him in the Eucharist as if He were a mere object! How horrendous the sad reality that Jesus is treated as a mere object! One Holy Communion is worth more than the whole created universe. Why? For the simple reason that Holy Communion is truly and substantially God Himself, Jesus Himself in His BODY, BLOOD, SOUL, AND DIVINITY. Every time you approach to receive Holy Communion, “The Bread of the angels”, receive it as if it were your first, last and only Holy Communion! If done you will make huge strides on the highway to holiness!

I do not believe God would allow His sacrament, His greatest gift to mankind to become contaminated with a man made Chinese virus and therefore I will continue to receive His Body with confidence and faith and I am thankful for the priest who makes this possible despite the agitation he is subject to for doing so.

So as we approach the great feast of Easter let’s remember that in spite of all the troubles and turmoil inside the Church and within society Christ has had the final victory over death and in Him we are promised a new life. But a victory is never gained without a battle being fought and while we should enjoy the Easter eggs and Easter bunnies we should not forget that we are called to join this battle and engage in the daily struggle to proclaim God’s Kingdom here on earth.

The First Letter of St. Peter strikes the tone and helps us prepare for battle: “Do not be surprised, beloved, that a trial by fire is occurring in your midst. It is a test for you, but it should not catch you off guard.

Rejoice instead, in the measure that you share Christ’s sufferings. When his glory is revealed, you will rejoice exultantly. Happy are you when you are insulted for the sake of Christ, for then God’s Spirit in its glory has come to rest on you ….

The season of judgment has begun, and begun with God’s own household. If it begins this way

POSTAL DELAYS Please note we are experiencing postal delays which have, and continue to be, delayed for up to as much as 3 weeks.

Please bear this in mind if you are posting payments to us.

EDITORIAL 3

26th March 2021 Catholic Voice with us, what must be the end for those who refuse obedience to the gospel of God? And if the just man is saved only with difficulty, what is to become of the godless and the sinner? Accordingly, let those who suffer as God’s will requires continue in good deeds, and entrust their lives to a faithful Creator….

Stay sober and alert. Your opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, solid in your faith, realising that the brotherhood of believers is undergoing the same sufferings throughout the world. The God of all grace, who called you to his everlasting glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish those who have suffered a little while. Dominion be his throughout the ages! Amen (1 Peter 4:12-5:14).

The choice we have is simple. We can either remain silent while God is mocked in the public square and people are led into confusion or we can speak up and proclaim the unchangeable truths of the `Gospel.

The Easter message is not that there is no battle, but rather that the battle is a glorious one whose outcome has already been decided. Let us choose sides wisely, for we must make a choice, as Christ tells us “He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathers not with me, scatters.” (Matthew 12:30) Jesus is risen from the dead and He is not going away. Let us make sure that we are still on His side when we get that final call.

CatholicVoice

Is Now Available In The Following Tesco Stores _____________________________________

Abbeyfeale Ashbourne

Ennis Kilbarrack Baggot St Upper Kilcoole Ballina Kildare Ballinamore Kilrush Ballinrobe Kinnegad Ballyfermot Lisduggan Bettystown Mitchelstown Birr Naas Bray Newbridge Cabra Newcastle West Cashel Park Pointe Clane Phibsboro Clondalkin Rathmines Drogheda

Roscommon Rush Sandymount Shannonbanks Stillorgan Swinford Temple Bar Terenure Thurles Tipperary Tralee Square Tullow Westport Wicklow Youghal

Could you consider leaving a bequest for CatholicVoice?

As a not for profit registered organisation we rely on the generosity of our benefactors for financial and prayerful support.

A bequest from you in your Last Will and Testament would help us to continue growing the publication of Catholic Voice and the dissemination of Catholic Truth If you are in a position to leave a bequest, however large or small, you are assured that it will be used to promote and strengthen Catholic teaching.

May God bless you for your generosity.

4 GOOD SAINT JOSEPH

Catholic Voice

26th March 2021

Men Need St. Joseph Constance T. Hull

Men need St. Joseph. Women also need St. Joseph, but we live in a time when men are under constant attack. Masculinity is repeatedly labelled as toxic, misogynistic, and aggressive. Men are told they must either become more like women or sit down and be quiet. They are mocked and berated. For decades, we have seen men portrayed by Hollywood as children in need of mothering from domineering women who “know” better.

We ourselves within the Church have absorbed and even accepted many of the lies our culture tells us about men. Within our parishes, men and women are pitted against one another in power struggles or offered sentimental versions of the Faith, which has led many men to disengage. Women complain that they don’t have enough of a role in the Church, and yet, it is women who dominate most parish staffs and ministries. Men have taken a back seat within our ranks lest we seem to be sexist. At times, the priesthood gives into societal pressure since they don’t want to be seen as a part of the corrupt patriarchy our culture is constantly telling us exists, especially within the Catholic Church.

After decades of attacks on men and masculinity, the Church has declared a Year of St. Joseph. A year to celebrate a man, the holiest of men, who was the earthly father of Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and the husband of the most perfect woman to ever life, Our Blessed Mother. The Holy Spirit is guiding the Church through the stormy seas of our present age, and Our Lord has asked us to turn to his fosterfather as a guide. This is especially true of men. Now is the time to reclaim authentic masculinity.

We need men to rise up and embrace their God-given masculinity. To lead with a manly heart burning with the zeal and love of God that will help transform our families, our parishes, the Church, and the world. This is not an easy task in a time when so many men come from broken homes and who have been

taught their entire lives that their masculinity is a threat, as opposed to a tremendous gift from God given for humanity’s sake.

St. Joseph is the saint to lead men on the path to holiness and into an authentic masculinity that enters into the depths of the Most Sacred Heart. Men devoted to prayer, hard work, sacrifice, spiritual warfare, truth, love, and the deep desire to lead souls to Christ. St. Joseph is not only the intercessor men need within family life, he is the masculine saint our priests need to lead as spiritual fathers called to lay down their lives for the Church.

How do men come to a deeper understanding and filial love for a man who said absolutely nothing in Sacred Scripture? As Fr. Calloway tapped into in his book Consecration to St. Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father, men can come to know St. Joseph through his titles, as well as in how he acted in Sacred Scripture. In looking at the titles the Church has given to St. Joseph, men can meditate on the virtues and masculinity St. Joseph lived as the head of the Holy Family.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Noble Offspring of David, pray for us.

Light of Patriarchs, pray for us.

Spouse of the Mother of God, pray for us.

Chaste Guardian of the Virgin, pray for us.

Foster-Father of the Son of God, pray for us.

Zealous Defender of Christ, pray for us.

Head of the Holy Family, pray for us.

This first section listing St. Joseph’s titles in the Litany of St. Joseph, tells us something crucial about St. Joseph. His entire identity was rooted in Christ, salvation history, and Our Blessed Mother. He was first and foremost a man of God. Authentic masculinity—as well as authentic femininity—can only be lived in relation to God. It is through our profound union with God that He can transform men into the holy men we need.

A man who does not have God at the dead centre of his life will not be able to live his vocation fully.

Our culture is divorced from a properly ordered understanding of masculinity because it has abandoned God. Once we are cut off from God, the understanding of man and woman becomes disconnected as well. Catholic men must be men of prayer, penance, and a desire to follow God’s will at all costs.

We can also see that St. Joseph’s masculinity was fully realised in relation to Our Blessed Mother.

In Mulieris Dignitatem, St. John Paul II explained how women draw masculinity out of men and help them to live their vocations. St. Joseph’s manhood was perfected through his intimate spiritual union in marriage with Mary. This is also why priests need Our Blessed Mother, as well as holy women united to her, to draw out their masculinity in a profound and beautiful way.

Masculinity is always lived in relation to femininity — spiritually and/or naturally — but it should never become effeminate. The same is true for women in relation to masculinity.

St. Joseph is a defender and protector of the Holy Family.

These attributes of masculinity are very often under attack. From a man simply holding a door for a woman to the men who run into save others, men are accused of being aggressive because of their God-given drive to defend and protect others. Regardless of what our culture tells us, men are meant to defend and protect. The titles go on in the Litany: Joseph Most Just, pray for us.

Joseph most Chaste, pray for us.

Joseph Most Prudent, pray for us.

Joseph Most Courageous, pray for us.

Joseph Most Obedient, pray for us.

Joseph Most Faithful, pray for us.

26th March 2021 Catholic Voice This next section lists virtues St. Joseph emulated throughout his life. He was just, chaste, prudent, courageous, obedient, and faithful.

Men are called to be strong and gentle, pure and passionate, humble and courageous, and to submit always to God’s will in faith. Masculinity is not simply either/or. A father has to be both firm and gentle with his children at times. Men must defend the truth courageously, but do so in a loving way that is a reflection of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. St. Joseph helps men live this both/and aspect of masculinity that has become blurred in our culture.

The last titles in the Litany are reflections of a life of Christian discipleship and how St. Joseph leads men to holier lives lived in union with the Most Holy Trinity and in the service of others.

Mirror of Patience, pray for us.

Lover of Poverty, pray for us.

GOOD SAINT JOSEPH 5

Model of Workmen, pray for us.

Glory of Domestic Life, pray for us.

Guardian of Virgins, pray for us.

Pillar of Families, pray for us.

Comfort of the Afflicted, pray for us.

Hope of the Sick, pray for us.

Patron of the Dying, pray for us.

Terror of Demons, pray for us.

Protector of Holy Church, pray for us.

attack. Men fight and defend in battle. It is one of the awesome and difficult responsibilities of men in this life to wage war when necessary. In the spiritual life, it is always necessary and we need men in our families and our priests calling us to fight for the salvation of souls. St. Joseph will lead men to fight the spiritual battles that will win souls for Christ.

St. Joseph shows men how to be providers by holding up both work and family life in his person. He is a man of patience and poverty in an age of materialism and excess. He leads men back to their true centre through a life of simple dedication to their families, communities, and serving God in every moment of the day.

Men truly need St. Joseph. In this time of virulent attack on men, we women need to be leading the men in our lives—husbands, brothers, priests, friends, brothers in Christ—to St. Joseph and to embrace their masculinity. We cannot continue to engage in the disordered power struggles that are celebrated in our culture. We must seek to live our God-given masculinity and femininity side-byside in order to reveal to the world the complementarity of the sexes, not just in marriage, but as human beings. St. Joseph, ora pro nobis.

One of his titles that is fitting for our times is Terror of Demons. We are at war. We are engaged in a spiritual war and the souls of our families, parishes, and our nations are under

Childhood of Christ - Gerard van Honthorst (1592 - 1656)

6 FORWARD THROUGH CRISIS

Catholic Voice

26th March 2021

A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward by Ralph Martin Monsignor Charles Pope

I am very pleased that Dr. Ralph Martin has published ‘A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward’. It is a revised and updated version of a critically important book he first published in the early 1980s. I call it a critically important book for personal and important reasons. Permit a brief story before we examine the book.

When I entered the seminary in 1984, it was a very dark time in the Church; darker even than now. At that time there was no official and agreed upon Catechism of the Catholic Church (that would come in 1994), there was no internet, and very few periodicals that presented a voice differing from the prevailing progressive views that dominated among parish priests, chanceries, Catholic colleges and seminaries. In a way it was like the wild West. Anyone could claim almost anything was Catholic and “in the spirit of Vatican II.” Upon entering the Seminary, I was often shocked by what I was taught. Many of the priest-professors (not all) denied that Jesus really worked miracles, claimed to be God, or even knew he was God. They taught” that most of what he is recorded as saying, he never really said, most of what he was recorded as doing he never really did, he did not rise bodily from the dead, and there is little we really knew about the “Jesus of history;” he barely existed at all! Many of us were also treated to a steady diet from certain faculty of things such as why women should be ordained and that

the rosary and Eucharistic Adoration were vestiges of the “pre-Vatican II Church.”

I was poorly catechised, having come through the terrible sentries of beige Catholicism, but I knew something was deeply wrong here. To say that I was dismayed, alarmed, and angered would be an understatement. I surely did not come to seminary to have my faith snatched away or have my vocation questioned by faculty who didn’t even seem to believe in the Nicene Creed or the veracity of Scripture.

The few of us who questioned such things were labelled as “rigid” and considered poor candidates for the priesthood.

Many were run out of the seminary by poor evaluations from the faculty. Others learned to stay silent and take counsel with the faithful and orthodox faculty we could find, or to look for other sources of truth often published by what many faculty considered then, as “renegade” publishers such as Tan Books or the Wanderer newspaper.

A Book that Saved my Vocation and Faith: It was at this time that someone alerted me to a book published by Ralph Martin in 1982 called A Crisis of Truth: The attack on Faith Morality and Mission in the Catholic Church (Servant Books, Ann Arbor, Michigan). This was a book that I credit with saving my vocation and, frankly, my faith! Over the years I have repeatedly thanked Dr. Ralph Martin for his voice in those days of confusion, ambiguity and outright dissent. He concisely and clearly laid out the roots and branches of dissent and error: • • • • • • • • •

The denial that there was one truth to which all were summoned.

The undermining of the authority and infallibility of the Word of God The silencing of the Gospel.

The remaking of the biblical Jesus.

The denial that Jesus is the only way.

Secular influence and the emergence of a merely social gospel.

The dismissal and undermining of sexual morality The minimising of the Day of Judgment and the need for repentance Pastoral passivity

And many other topics as well.

It was a masterful treatment and very credible as well. Ralph Martin was a leader in the Charismatic “wing” of the Church and could hardly be labelled as part of some reactionary and reflexively conservative movement. Like a wise steward he drew from his storehouse the best of the new and the best of the old. (cf Matt 13:52). The book was a guide to all that was wrong, stated the clear and defined teaching of the Church and announced the way back through courage and action.

I joyfully heard the news last year that Ralph was going to publish an updated version of the book. Many of us have observed to our great dismay the resurgence of the confusion and open dissent that marked the 1970s through the 1990s.

Dr. Martin notes this himself in the opening chapter of his revised, expanded and new book: A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward: …The doctrinal, moral and pastoral problems that have emerged during Francis’ pontificate are not unique to him or

26th March 2021

FORWARD THROUGH CRISIS 7

Catholic Voice

this time. In many ways they are a recurrence of very similar confusions that my original book back in 1982 identified.

And going back even further the issues connected with the “modernist heresies” are once again with us. They are now back, sometimes in very similar appearance as they had many years ago, and sometimes in new forms but bearing with them the same underlying infidelities and rebellions.

In A Church in Crisis, Martin does not, like some, merely criticise the Pope. He praises what is good, true and beautiful in Pope Francis’ writings, statements and actions. But it is a sober reality that Pope Francis has been ambiguous on many occasions and seemingly signalled that old doctrinal and moral dissent can safely be reasserted. As Catholics, both clergy and laity, we have the right and duty to enter into a vigorous analysis of resurgent errors and to both clarify and denounce where necessary such errors. A Church in Crisis both describes the resurgent errors, sets the record straight about the true and proper Church teaching and thereby corrects erroneous notions confirms the true faith for believers of every rank. Dr. Martin does this with a great confidence in the inerrant truth of God’s word and the definitive teachings of the Church through the centuries.

The book is well footnoted, scholarly but also very readable.

While the fundamental topics are similar to his 1982 book as listed above, they are freshly treated with their current manifestations described and critiqued. We are indeed a Church in crisis and too many of us are either complacent or complicit in the spread of error and confusion. Clergy are too silent but so are the laity in their homes and in their witness to the world.

Dr. Martin expands his treatment on universalism which has grown worse since the 1980s.

Universalism is the error that states all or the vast majority of souls, will go to heaven; that Hell is a remote possibility.

This conflicts with hundreds of verses of Scripture, and Jesus’ clear and consistent teaching that many are on the road to damnation, and “few” are on the road to salvation.

This sober teaching by Jesus himself is rejected by many out of hand. Obviously, it damages our understanding of the need for on-going repentance and living a moral life, the need for sacraments, prayer and the Word of God. It turns religion into a hobby and simply promotes all to heaven whatever their beliefs, lifestyle, actions or character.

Universalism makes evangelisation largely unnecessary, summoning people to repentance is also unnecessary, even a form a hate. Universalism stabs urgency in the heart and makes preaching the gospel and calling others to repentance pointless and even cruel. It is clear that unless we get the doctrines of judgement and Hell right, we aren’t going to make much progress.

You need to read A Church in Crisis and get fifty of your closest friends to do the same. I am going to use the book for my Young Adult study group after Easter. Frankly most of them “get it” more than my generation and others even older. They have grown up in the wasteland created by the iconoclastic generation of my “baby-boomer” confreres.

Thanks be to God that Ralph Martin has republished and updated his book from the 1980s. I pray that many others, like I did on the awful 80s will now benefit in very dark times from these rays of truth and clarity. I do not exaggerate when I say Dr. Ralph Martin saved my vocation and faith back in the 1980s and I pray he will reach many others in this important reissue and update. It is an essential work to be read by all.

The devotion to the Cord of St. Joseph took its rise in Belgium, in 1637, in consequence of a miraculous cure effected by the wearing of this precious girdle. During this year of Saint Joseph you may wish to wear the cord to avail of the GRACES ATTACHED TO THE WEARING OF THE CORD. Graces precious to the piety of St. Joseph’s servants are attached to the wearing of this cord. They are: 1. St. Joseph’s special protection 2. Purity of soul; 3. The grace of chastity; 4. Final perseverance; 5. Particular assistance at the hour of death.

The Cord Of Saint Joseph

The pack containing a St. Joseph’s Cord, a prayer card, St. Joseph’s medal and an information leaflet is available now for €/£10 (inc. p&p).

To order your cord/s please complete the form below or visit www.catholicvoice.ie/shop.

Please send me ___ (insert number required) St Joseph’s cord/s

Name: _________________________________________________________________ Address: _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Telephone: _________________________________________________________________ Eircode ____________________ Credit/Debit Card No:__________________________________ Expiry Date:_________ C.V.V. ____________ Please send completed form with cheque or postal order made payable to Catholic Voice to; Catholic Voice, Castlemitchell South, Athy, County Kildare

8 THE GIFT OF A MOTHER

Catholic Voice

26th March 2021

The value of stay-at-home Mothers? Priceless Jessica Kramer

‘The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only—and that is to support the ultimate career,’ C.S. Lewis That famous C.S. Lewis line (which is actually just a paraphrase of his original quote) comes to mind every time I see a headline about what the market rate value of a housewife should be. And while some on the right may argue there is a market rate value to be figured and that domestic work should be honoured (i.e., compensated for and thereby ‘recognised’ as real work by the government), I am not convinced that is the best way to honour such work.

While the reason why my generation continues to put off marriage and children is a far more complex moral question and less of an economic one, perhaps it is time we mirror our economic policies to our aspired values and see if that would not prove to be more fruitful for the future.

One place to start would be getting our economy back to a place where one income is enough to raise a family, in the hope that we might once again value the life or ‘career’

(as Lewis calls it) that all other careers are meant to financially support.

Now, I am not against all women working. That is a very nuanced topic and not the focus of this article. However, in principle, I am against women having to work out of necessity since they already bear their own burden in the family equation, being the primary caregiver of children.

post-industrial workforce (which changed family dynamics forever) was obviously designed for men in mind as primary providers (even while occupations have since opened to women), and it breeds careerism.

Giving women a second responsibility and expectation on top of that? Hardly equal.

Don’t believe me? Consider what the highest priority and decisionmaking factor of an average college graduate is: what their profession is and where they can do it. Moving somewhere new for a job is considered normal and responsible.

Moving somewhere for community, family, friends, love — less so.

But to return to that economy would require a massive heart change in the culture, something far harder to accomplish than pushing public policy. Our current culture is no longer relational and defined by family life but is rather heavily task-oriented and defined by the productivity of our workforce.

To put it another way, it’s highly focused on profession and less so on vocation, and this is to the detriment of both genders. Our

It’s almost as if human relationships are thought to be secondary — mere accessories in one’s life rather than a priority or the highest good (apart from God). Think about how our culture prioritises education and career pursuits but seldom does the same for marriage and children. Thus, older generations start to wonder why young people aren’t dating and having families anymore. What they fail to realise is that they, in part, created a culture

THE GIFT OF A MOTHER 9

26th March 2021 Catholic Voice that doesn’t honour and elevate relationships to their appropriate status.

labour! Like everything in this throwaway culture, they want you to know that you’re replaceable.

A priest friend once told me that “pre-Cana” (or “marriage prep” for Catholics) is not something that you get around to after you’re engaged.

It’s a process of preparation that needs to start at birth. Marriage is a vocation, not an afterthought.

It needs a place of priority in the family and in the greater society as a whole.

When modernists attempt to celebrate the work done at home that is so often overlooked, they make a mistake by placing a monetary value on this work, as if that would make the world appreciate it all the more. I mean, nothing says appreciation more than a taxed income, am I right?

But liberalism, on its never-ending quest for total egalitarianism, demands that women stay in the workforce like men (even though it goes against the desires of many).

And their solution for what to do with the kids? Daycare, which when I was little, I un-ironically called the orphanage. To them, spending your time earning a wage is more valuable to society than making a home and raising your own children — which is nothing that can’t be sourced out to cheap

But what’s wrong with this approach is that it demeans the vocation of motherhood and care-giving by placing a price on work that is invaluable. But this shouldn’t come as a surprise since the culture doesn’t see it as invaluable. It looks at motherhood through a market lens. It’s seen as a common “job,” a series of tasks and chores to be compensated for. But we instinctively know our mothers are not simply drivers, babysitters, cooks, maids, psychologists, etc.

They’re the heart of the home, a

person — the central person in our lives.

What a mother does is out of love, and love cannot and should not be transactional or it ceases to be love.

Love, by definition, does not count the cost, and cannot be farmed out to another for hire. It is a total gift of self to will the good of the other.

To make some economic adjustments in the short term that would aid the flourishing of the family is one thing. To change the heart of a nation and fundamentally reorient its priorities is another. This alteration would require an abandonment of hyperindividualism and an adoption of interdependence, seeing the family not as a collection of independent persons and wills, but of complimentary roles directed toward a common good. Somehow, I think we’re all just too tired for that fight — even though I believe it’s the one worth having.

Originally published by Crisis Magazine. Reprinted with permission.

Catholic Voice Update Dear Readers, During these unprecedented times we are determined to continue publishing Catholic Voice.

Your prayerful and financial support is vital to ensure continued publication as we run a not for profit organization.

With sincere gratitude,

Anthony Murphy

HOW TO DONATE: 1. Online - Visit www. catholicvoice.ie and click Donate.

2. By Telephone call 059 8627268 - (00353 59 8627268 outside ROI) to pay by credit/debit card please leave your phone number and name and we shall return your call.

3. Send a cheque or postal order (made payable to Catholic Voice) with the reply coupon to Catholic Voice, St Michael’s House, Castlemitchell South, Athy, County Kildare, Eire.

I/ We would like to donate towards the ongoing publication of Catholic Voice.

Donation enclosed. Please tick box or enter an individual amount

 €10 €25 €100 €250 €500 Other € _________ Name: ________________________________________ Address: ________________________________________ ________________________________________ ________________________________________ Phone: ________________________________________ Cheques & postal orders made payable to Catholic Voice Please send your cheque or postal order to Catholic Voice, St. Michael’s House, Castlemitchell South, Athy ,Co Kildare

10 LETTERS

Catholic Voice

Letters We received the following poem from and ex-gambling addict who now helps those suffering from addiction. Many people do not realise that recovering addicts are currently denied access to their support groups; they are not allowed to meet. This can lead some of them into despair or to a return to their addictions. Colin tries to give them Hope.

Corona Death The wind has got my number, it’s responding to the dead.

Damn banshees dealing poker from the bottom of my bed.

Withered cards in bony hands are playing for my soul.

There is no higher ante as this virus takes its toll.

Darkness slips across the floor and takes a vacant seat.

Despair is your companion when this demon comes to feast.

Whispered words on fetid breath pollute the rancid air.

Will friend or foe come vanquish me and fill the final chair?

Lose or win with mortal sin I surely will be damned.

Might heaven send a Seraphim to play the final hand?

A hooded figure steals inside as shadows hide his face.

Devils growl beneath their breath, he takes the final place.

26th March 2021

Send your letters to: Letters Page, Catholic Voice, St Michael’s House, Castlemitchell South, Athy, Co Kildare or email to letters@catholicvoice.ie

A Letter to the Archbishop of Dublin My Lord Archbishop, I am writing to convey my astonishment at the announcement of your intention to suppress Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, public recitation of the Holy Rosary, Stations of The Cross and distribution of Holy Communion to the faithful, unless at a funeral, wedding or for those assisting at Holy Mass.

For over a year, Catholics have been deprived of opportunities to practice our Faith by government regulations, which in the opinion of many are disproportionate to the Covid-19 outbreak. During this time, not one case of this virus has been linked to Church attendance. Yet, Catholics complied with instructions, waiting patiently, hoping and praying faithfully for support from our bishops, the Shepherds of the Flock, to take a stand against these restrictions and re open our churches, all to no avail.

Instead, these restrictions are now being increased rather than diminished, despite the roll out of a “vaccine” which is seen as a “ticket to freedom”. Further and tighter restrictions are presently being imposed, not only by a godless government but now, to the horror of Catholics, by our Catholic Archbishop.

Five-stud is the game of choice and soon the cards are dealt.

Earthly goods are worthless here, my soul the only wealth.

No beasts attempt to lift their hands, nor angels care to see, For they have played this game before and know who’s come for me.

This imposition is tantamount to persecution of the Catholic Faith, even more extreme than that of Penal Times, since it now comes from within our Church.

Eyes shut tight, hand closed on hand, silent pleas to stop.

Time will be the doctor now, this game is just his prop.

The cure is not a tablet as the cause has long been known.

For if I’m to win this battle I must do it on my own.

When I learned of your appointment as Archbishop, Your Excellency, my hopes soared. I felt this change would bring back some semblance of Tradition to the Catholic Church. My hope was based on the memory of a younger Father Farrell, who was guest speaker at a Family Ministry Course which I attended in the mid ‘90s in Dowdstown House, Dalgan Park., Co. Meath. After your presentation , you were accosted by a small group of “feminists” who planned in a workshop, to set you up by confronting you on the topic of contraception. As a young priest, with courage and conviction, no person in attendance that night, was left in any doubt as to the Church’s unchanging teaching on the subject.

It was an event I have never forgotten.

Waking light escapes the sun and finds a welcome space.

The dark cannot avoid its gaze and leaves the room in haste.

Curtains drawn by drunken arms with eyes afraid to see.

But hope has come to play this day and hope depends on me.

Colin Walker Monaghan

I am sickened and shocked!

Ecclesiastical Art Restorations

In conclusion to this sombre email, the words from St John’s Gospel resound;

Mobile 087 2203898

“Then Jesus said to them ; Amen, Amen I say unto you : except you eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood : you shall not have Life in you. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath Life Everlasting and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:54-55)

by Dr.Nicholas von Kerckhoff Special Church Statues Repair and Repaint Nationwide www.atelier-nicholas.com

LETTERS 11

26th March 2021 Catholic Voice May I ask, Archbishop Farrell, where and to whom do we turn for the Bread of Life which is our ONLY hope of Life Everlasting, if your instruction to priests is complied with, thus depriving Catholics of our true heritage?

and imperceptibly now reverted back to the “Penal Days” , however , this time not due to the “jack boot” but a combination of state interference and a pathetically rudderless clerical concurrence.

Is mise, le meas,

During this lockdown whilst travelling regularly within my 5km zone I have observed that the most compliant , disciplined and civilised cohort of those adhering rigorously to C19 protocol were the regular “church goers”.

Respectfully yours, in Jesus, Mary and St Joseph, Imelda Tobin (Mrs) Co Meath

Easter Ceremonies Dear Editor, We are in the season of Lent and Easter is fast-approaching. Many, if not most Irish people, have found the last year of the Pandemic quite challenging on many fronts. It has been tough for so many people and a huge challenge for everyone all over the world. For those of us who cherish our Catholic faith, the inability to access the Sacraments, especially the Sacrament of the Eucharist, for so many months has been particularly difficult.

Recently our parish was given a missive from our new Archbishop curtailing further the faithful’s need for spiritual succour by cancelling daily Adoration but allowing “private prayer”. Same parishioners ,same time slot, same altar , but without the presence of their

beloved Host visible anymore. This is impossible to justify either legally or morally plus aside from it being a very mean gesture indeed it also makes no sense.

Our new Archbishop having taken up the limp baton of his predecessor declared “ I think the Lord is probably saying to us at this time: I don’t want you to keep doing the things that you were doing 100 years ago, 200 years ago.” ,he needn’t worry , unlike our ancestors only a small minority apparently place any value our espoused faith, let alone are prepared to stand up for it, as was once the case in far tougher times.

Declan Deeney, Killiney.

The

Dominicans Truth has no Expiry Date!

As the most important week in the Christian Church calendar is nigh, many of us deeply desire to be able to participate in the Easter ceremonies in person this year. Online is just not quite the same. I would ask both our Church and political leaders that for those who wish to participate in, (and are able to), that our places of worship be open for the ceremonies of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. All the safety measures would be in place, as they were before, and our churches were so safe as a result.

Last year we weren’t able to participate and it would be a great sorrow for so many people if we were not to be able to attend again this year. Please open our churches especially in time for Holy week.

God is essential. Thank you.

Aisling Bastible, Clontarf, Dublin.

Penal Times Dear Editor, It seems from the standpoint of worship that Ireland has inexorably

"Opinion is a flitting thing, but Truth outlasts the sun."

- Emily Dickinson www.irishdominicanvocations.com

12 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

Catholic Voice

26th March 2021

In Him Was Life, And The Life Was The Light Of Men. And The Light Shines In Darkness, And The Darkness Did Not Comprehend It. (John 1:4-5) John Lacken In an incredible development, the new Archbishop of Dublin, Archbishop Dermot Farrell, has all but forbidden Catholics in his diocese to worship almighty God. There is to be no Holy Communion; no Eucharistic Adoration; no baptisms unless there is a danger of death; no coming together for the Rosary or Stations of the Cross.

All of this comes about just as Professor Oran Doyle of the Trinity College Law Department has published an article which clearly shows that religious services were never prohibited under Covid-19 legislation because they are not even mentioned in the legislation.

Let us pray for our bishops that they will once again allow the faithful to attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass regardless of any government opposition.

There was an interesting article on LifeSiteNews recently by a priest which was titled “A priest reflects on the morality of abortion-tainted COVID-19 vaccines”.

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

In the LifeSiteNews article the priest puts it this way.

I will be dealing with this issue more comprehensibly in the March - April edition of our “Christ is King” bi-monthly newsletter, which has already gone to the printers and, please God, it will be posted out during the last week of March. This newsletter is one of our primary sources of funding for The Lumen Fidei Institute and contains our Easter Fundraising Appeal.

If you are not already on our Lumen Fidei mailing list and would like to be included, then please send me a note with your name and address on it. We greatly appreciate all the support we get and we are dependent on it to keep our apostolates going and to keep spreading the good news.

It is interesting to note that, for Catholics to morally accept abortion tainted vaccines, there must be no alternatives available.

The impression given by some Catholic sources is, that there must be no morally acceptable ‘vaccines’ available, but this is not correct.

There are ways of treating Corona viruses other than by vaccination, it is a lie to suggest otherwise. Some of these treatments are morally acceptable, therefore, Catholics cannot morally take abortion tainted vaccines because there are ethical alternatives to the vaccines available.

“However, what needs to be clarified is that the moral principle invoked here applies not only to vaccines, but to any therapeutic intervention that would neutralize the COVID-19 health threat in question. To put it more simply, when a safe and effective health intervention that is not tainted by abortion is available to neutralize the health threat, it is sinful to use an abortion-tainted health intervention for the health threat.”

The Irish bishops are giving morally unsound advice to Irish Catholics when they say that they can morally accept any of the abortion tainted vaccines that are currently available in Ireland.

I am sad to say that I have been contacted by several elderly supporters who are coming under tremendous stress from family and

from doctors who are pressuring them to take the abortion tainted vaccines even though it goes against their conscience to do so. Such pressure is opposed to the principle that there must be free consent before a vaccine can be administered. Our elderly Catholic citizens, who have a moral objection to taking the abortion tainted vaccines, need our support in order to help them to stand firm against this immoral pressure that is coming at them from many sources including from misleading government propaganda.

It is dreadful to see our Irish bishops advising people to go to the abortion promoting HSE for advice on vaccines. In their support for the vaccination programme, the Irish bishops tell us that: “Trustworthy and updated information on vaccines is available” from the Irish Health Services Executive (HSE).

This is the same organisation that tells a pregnant woman that she can kill her unborn child. The same organisation that will facilitate the woman and procure the poisons she needs to kill the child, and the same organisation that tells the woman that she can flush the remains of her dead child, who was created in the image and likeness of God, down the toilet.

Our bishops now tell us that this organisation can be trusted!!!

Our Lord tells us something different.

“By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth

26th March 2021

Catholic Voice

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 13

evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them.”

(Matthew 7:16-20) One of the fruits of the work of the HSE is murdered babies — almost 7,000 of them in 2019 alone and I would not be surprised to find that this number has increased during the year 2020.

No good can come from an organisation that promotes the murder of innocent children.

No good can come from an organisation that will carry out the murder of our vulnerable elderly when the ‘Death with Dignity’ Bill passes into law.

Yet our Irish bishops recommend that we go to this corrupt organisation and trust them to tell us the truth about vaccines.

The HSE lies to men and women about abortion and through their ‘Think Contraception’ campaign, they promote immoral sexual activity amongst young people. But when it comes to vaccines, the Irish bishops somehow believe that the HSE can be trusted.

With this mistaken attitude, it is no wonder that the majority of the young people who were educated in Catholic schools in Ireland, are in favour of abortion. They believe that it is OK to kill a certain class of Irish person if their little existence would inconvenience the mother.

My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love Thee. I beg pardon of Thee for all those that do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love Thee. Amen.

Angel to the Children of Fatima 1916

But difficult as these times are, and regardless of how dark they will become, we, as Catholics, must maintain our commitment to our Catholic faith and we must be resolute in preparing ourselves for the persecution which is undoubtedly coming.

when this used to take place at midnight on account of the darkness. The smell and the crackling of new paschal fire gave a sense of anticipation for what was to come.

In St John’s Gospel, which is the heading for this article, St John describes Jesus Christ as the light coming into the world which could not be overcome by the darkness of the evil one.

Inside, the church was in complete darkness and a hush descended.

Amidst some murmuring sounds from outside the faint glow of a candle would suddenly enter the church and the deacon would sing out, “Lumen Christi”. To which the congregation responded, “Deo Gratias”.

One of my favourite liturgical ceremonies is the Easter Vigil. I loved

On reaching the centre of the Church the deacon sang out again in a higher

NEW ADDRESS FOR THE LUMEN FIDEI INSTITUTE

Contact: John Lacken Ballinlough, Claremorris, Co Mayo F12 TN23 Tel: 085-1208779 Outside Ireland 00353 85-1208779 E-Mail: secretary@lumenfidei.ie

14 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD tone, “Lumen Christi”, and again the congregation responded, “Deo Gratias”.

For a third time on reaching the sanctuary the deacon would sing, “Lumen Christi”, with the response from the congregation “Deo Gratias”.

Now, a tendency I have noticed in the modern liturgy, seems to be to try to get things done as fast as possible.

This is most noticeable in the way that Holy Communion is distributed in the Novus Ordo Mass, often times with great irreverence shown towards Jesus Christ in this most sublime sacrament.

Another example is that, when lighting the candles of the congregation at the Easter Vigil, then send ten or twelve altar servers down the aisles to light the candles.

In my memory, only the candles of those in the first row on either side of the aisle were lit by the servers and then the flame was passed from pew to pew.

If you were situated towards the back of the Church you would slowly see the ‘light of Christ’ begin to dispel the darkness of the Church and I was often amazed and just how much light was generated when everyone’s candle was lit. There is also a quality to candle light that cannot be replicated by electric light.

In these times of modern electronic gadgets, where people spend so much time looking at images on electronic screens of different sizes, we seem to have lost out on the simple yet powerful symbolism contained in our rich traditional Liturgy. For many, these simple things have lost most of their meaning. Many miss the symbolism because they have become hooked on the virtual realities of their electronic devices.

The thought struck me, while I was reflecting on writing this article, that the symbolism of the light being passed from one to another during the Easter vigil, is a strong reflection of how the Catholic Faith should be passed from family member to family member and from one family to another family especially during these darkening times.

As I wrote in my last article, we have recently moved house. During the packing stage in the old house, I came

Catholic Voice

across the box with all of our eight childrens’ baptismal candles. In most cases, (I think we may have misplaced some along the way), we used the same candle for their first Holy Communion and Confirmation as well.

During a Catholic baptism, the child’s baptismal candle is lit from the Easter candle which signifies that “Christ has enlightened the neophyte. In Him the baptised are “the light of the world” (CCC 1243) As parents we are told to guard this light and to nurture the newly bestowed gift of faith in our children. The symbolism, with its connection to the Paschal candle, is powerful. The light is coming once again into the world through the newly baptised Catholic and that light is to be shared for all to see. That light dispels the darkness of sin and it is contagious and spreads to others.

“You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid.

Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house.

26th March 2021 When we realise that a wholesome society is composed of wholesome Catholic families, we have discovered the solution to the problems we are currently faced with.

There are many, who rightly want to ‘take back’ Irish society from those who have stolen and destroyed our Catholic heritage and our Catholic culture. However, I notice a dangerous tendency which seeks to replace one form of totalitarian society with what is believed to be better, but which could quite quickly become an opposite kind of totalitarian society because it is not founded on prayer with a primary focus on the salvation of souls.

We must remember that this world will pass away and that no lasting habitation or society can be built here for man, because our home is in Heaven. The purpose of a right functioning society is to help its citizens to attain the goal of heaven.

If you have ever used a large candle in your home, you will be aware that, every so often you must trim back the wax so that the candle continues to burn brightly. Once again there is a rich symbolism here.

For the Catholic, the solution to the problems we are faced with in our decadent society is Evangelisation, that is, to bring the other to Jesus Christ and to His Catholic Church. The best way to go about this is to first of all reform one’s own life, to lead by example, if married, to help one’s spouse to come to a deeper knowledge of the Catholic Faith; to build up a truly Catholic atmosphere in the home where prayer is a central part and foundation of each day. The family Rosary, is a great way of inviting Our Lady into to your home so that she can assist your family in the journey to holiness and to heaven.

In order to keep the light of our own faith shining brightly, we must go to confession, to rid ourselves of the impurities and sinful tendencies that tend to dim the light of our Catholic Faith. Lent is also a great time for this ‘pruning’ away of vices and bad habits.

We will have to learn to let go of many things and of many ideas along the way. The path to holiness is a simple path, just as God is simple. Do not mistake this simplicity for something easy, when we state that God is simple, we mean that God is without division.

Now, more than ever, we need to make sure that our Faith shines brightly in the world for all to see. This is especially true within the fundamental unit of society, the Catholic Family.

We too must seek to eliminate division from our lives. Our focus must become entirely Christ centred and we must discard anything that leads us to deviate from the path of holiness or that leads to dissipation in our lives.

So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

(Matthew 5:14-16)

The current restrictions that have been unjustly imposed on us, can become a blessing in disguise if we use the time well within our families to nurture and to deepen our Catholic understanding of the Faith.

In society, the central place where this training in holiness takes place is within the Catholic Family home and the primary teachers of this way of life are the Catholic parents.

26th March 2021 For too long Catholic Families have been left without proper guidance in the ways of the Catholic Faith. Catholic Catechesis has been all but absent from our lives these past fifty years, apart from some badly taught religion classes which may have had more to do with social justice and climate change than they did with teaching men how to become saints.

Man is created for holiness because man is created for God. “That they should seek God, if happily they may feel after him or find him, although he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and are.” (Acts 17:27-28) So let us not become disheartened or disillusioned or despairing. Let us not fall into an expectation of some miraculous intervention by God which will sort everything and everyone out.

God of course can intervene in miraculous ways whenever he wants, but there can be a tendency to slacken off our efforts towards holiness if we believe that God is just about to act and

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 15

Catholic Voice

we may then seek to simply ride out the storm without seeking to change the course of history by becoming saints ourselves.

Only saints change the world for the good, so, if we want to see a world changed for the better, let us strive to become saints. Let us take the Gospel message to heart, to live it and to bring it to our neighbour.

Jesus Christ is still hungry, and needs food to eat. He is still thirsty, and in need of a drink; He is still a stranger, looking to be taken in; still naked, and in need of clothing, sick, and looking for a visit. Jesus Christ in still in prison, hoping for us to come to Him. Let us not look upon those who oppose us as our enemies, let us see them as the least of our brethren, lost children of Christ and let us pray for their conversion and go after them to bring them back into the one true fold.

In our family lives, let us strive to raise saints for the Kingdom of God and let us rid ourselves of anything that threatens that goal. Avoid becoming regimented

The Five First Saturdays

This book is a collection of Rosary meditations composed by the celebrated French Dominican, Father Jacques Marie Louis Monsabré, which were translated into English in 1885. Although these were composed before Our Lady visited Fatima, they are perfectly suitable for use with the Five First Saturdays Devotion of Reparation.

The importance of the Five First Saturdays Devotion cannot be over emphasised, Our Lady specifically came from Heaven to Fatima to ask Catholics to honour her in this way. We would appreciate your help in getting this book to as many people as possible. The cost is €10.00 including post & packing to anywhere in Ireland and it would make a great Christmas present.

or authoritarian, seek to build true order which seeks first the Kingdom of God. He has promised us that if we seek first the kingdom of God, and his justice, all these other things shall be added unto us.

If we cannot attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass this Easter, let us invite the Holy Family into our homes and let us ask God to bless us and to provide for our spiritual needs in the sure knowledge that He will do so. We must also challenge our priests and our bishops asking them to give proper spiritual nourishment to our families, especially to our children.

It is now clear that there are no legal restrictions on Catholics attending the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Our government used deceptive tactics to imply that their recommendations were legally binding. Our bishops have fallen for these deceptive tactics and have unnecessarily deprived faithful Catholics from being able to receive Jesus Christ at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Let us prepare ourselves well because our current situation does not look too good.

There’s A Place For Us There’s a Place for Us Homosexuality in the Divine Plan of Redemption Jesus said to those who would stone her: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

Jesus said to the woman: “Woman, where are they that accused thee? Hath no man condemned thee?

Who said: No man, Lord. And Jesus said: Neither will I condemn thee.”

“Go, And Now Sin No More.”

By John Cassidy

There’s A Place For Us: This testimony does not shirk away from difficult Catholic teachings but shows with piercing clarity why the Church teaches as she does in the area of human sexuality. In our lives we are called to a lot more than sexual satisfaction. Rather, we are granted the privilege of living life on the highest possible plane in responding to the call of greatness of being the Sons and Daughters of God.

John Cassidy - Bio Ex-homosexual and New Man John Cassidy has been serving the Catholic Church as a full-time Lay-Man since his conversion in 2014. John has founded the Association of Believing Catholics which is a lay initiative to promote and defend the fullness of Catholic truth.

Paperback

Paperback

€/£10.00 inc p&p in Ireland

€/£6.00 inc p&p in Ireland

€/£15.70 inc p&p outside of Ireland

€/£9.40 inc p&p outside Ireland

To Order please telephone 085 1208779 ROI 00353 851208779 Outside ROI Alternatively, Order Online @ www.lumenfidei.ie/shop

16 GIVE IT UP Catholic Voice

26th March 2021

My Farewell To Tobacco Richard Greene

Around this time of year when we have said goodbye to the old year and welcomed the new one, it has become a ritual with me to search my bookshelves for Charles Lamb’s ‘Essays of Elia’ and, in particular, his essay about New Year’s Eve. I also seek out the essays of another literary journalist, Robert Lynd, and his essay ‘Farewell To Tobacco’.

Lamb does not particularly welcome the New Year, but celebrates the fact that he has survived the old one. Both Lamb and Lynd were addicted to what I might call the minor vices, in Lamb’s case drink, tobacco and snuff and Lynd, like most journalists battling against deadlines, liked a few drinks and his cigarettes.

In fact, both men were not literary repropates but rather kind-hearted Christian souls who wrote openly about their attachments and their never-achieved ambition to do without the dreaded nicotine weed, and to drink less alcohol. Now you see where I am going, and the reason for the annual disturbance of these tomes from their dusty sleep on my bookshelves,around the beginning of the year or Lent.

Lynd writes beautifully about the dangers of attempting to reform oneself in print. You give an open invitation to the intolerant self-righteous horde of puritans or the godless mockers to attack you not just in your own lifetime but for ages to come. Like Lynd, I wish to give up tobacco but also like him, I forget how many times I’ve given it up, and now I fervently want to give up giving it up, before it gives me up.

P.G. Wodehouse, who wrote about an age and a society in which a gentleman who did not smoke was suspect, described cigarettes as coffin-nails. That deadly description has momentarily distracted me from laughing about the antics of Jeeves and Bertie Wooster.

I have to confess that I once returned to smoking at a break during a retreat - of all places - when I innocently accepted a cigarette from a chap who probably has now totally abandoned that habit and is most likely a Carthusian monk half-way to heaven, whilst I am halfway in the other direction.

Lynd and Lamb as brilliant essayists are kindred spirits. Lynd in his essay on Lamb relates a lovely story told by a friend of Lamb about an attempt to

give up his addiction to snuff, which all addicts can relate to. Snuff, I am told, is even more addictive than tobacco.

‘One summer’s evening I was walking on Hampstead Heath with Charles Lamb, and we had talked ourselves into a philosophic contempt of our slavery to the habit of snuff-taking, and with the firm resolution of never again taking a single pinch, we threw our snuff-boxes away from the hill on which we stood, far among the furze and the brambles below, and went home in triumph. I began to be very miserable,and was wretched all night.

In the morning I was walking on the same hill. I saw Charles Lamb below, searching among the bushes. He looked up, laughing, saying, “What, you are come to look for your snuff-box too!”

“Oh, no”, I said, taking a pinch out of a paper in my waistcoat pocket, “I went for a half-pennyworth to the first shop that was open.”’

In times past, every large house and stately home had a smoking-room, and as we could not all live in stately homes because those who did so had taken all our land ,we retired to our shebeens and public houses to enjoy a glass or two, and a smoke. Now those in charge have decided that you may not have a smoke in public places, and soon they will tell us it will be against the law to smoke in private.

The secular puritans are on a roll now. Yet every night on our television screens they tell our young people that they can enter their version of the Garden of Eden - sexual promiscuity if they wear a condom, child-murder or abortion should be made available on demand, homosexual ‘marriages’ to be on a par with normal marriage, homosexuals to be allowed adoption rights, etc.

The powers that be also have plans to legalise a few other mortal sins, such as the ‘right-to-die’ if the suffering gets too much for you, or to let your own flesh and blood or loved ones be starved to death if you and the medics think their quality of life is not good enough, never mind the thought ,that the person whose death they plan may be worth more dead than alive to them!

However, to get back to where I started, Lamb’s essay on New Year’s Eve challenges me to appreciate the good and simple things of life; good food in moderation, a drink or two in good company and excellent conversation, a walk in the Wicklow hills when time permits, or even better still a longer walk by the sea, and good books and literature.

Lamb reminds us to cherish life. ‘Every dead man must take it upon himself to be lecturing me with his odious truism, that “Such as he now is I must shortly be.” “Not so shortly, friend, perhaps as thou imaginest.” In the meantime I am alive. I move about. I survive a jolly candidate for 1821 - another cup of wine.’

Lynd reminds us as we make our New Year’s resolutions or Lenten promises, that it is hard to discipline ourselves and use in moderation the good things in life that the Good God provides us with - yes even tobacco, but in moderation...

For those attempting to give up the deadly weed take heart from an acquaintence of mine who gave up smoking his pipe when he got seriously ill at the ripe old age of seventy-eight.

He asked the doctor treating him would he survive, who mischievously replied: ‘Well you are not a young man, you know!’ He is now approaching onehundred-and-six years, and he saw that doctor down and four more after him!

This same man’s recipe for a long life is to give up smoking when you can and drink a good single malt whiskey in moderation, but only at night-time.

Like Lynd, once again I will try to say a final farewell to tobacco this year but as he says in that wonderful essay: ‘Steep and difficult is the hill of virtue, and on the distant summit of it I descry the tiny figure of a man who does not smoke.’

26th March 2021

BOOKS 17

Catholic Voice

STRENGTHEN YOUR FAITH DURING THIS CRISIS BUY CATHOLIC BOOKS! DON’T GO TO HELL Catholic Church Teaching on Hell

THE CHURCH IN OUR TIMES

This book contains three essays, one in question & answer format, from a time when pastors were more direct and ‘plain speaking’ in presenting the Truth of Catholic doctrine to their flocks.

They were primarily concerned with the salvation of the souls entrusted to their care rather than being overly concerned about whether or not their flocks would find these Truths offensive or difficult.

They sought the Praise and Glory of God, and not the praise of men.

is a series of reflections on topical issues concerning the Catholic Church and the practice of the faith ranging from ‘Faith and Culture’, to ‘GLBT – New thinking’, to ‘Purgatory and Remembrance’. Fr Hahesy’s style is conversational and he weaves through the various topics all the while pointing to the soul’s need for God. “The daily prayers at the end of this book, will ensure the salvation of our soul and a happier life here. Please believe me. It does not seem much to ask for such a great reward. To know and love God is the ultimate good whether people know this or not, accept it or not.”

€/£7 inc p&p Ireland €/£8.50 inc p&p outside Ireland

€/£10 inc p&p Ireland €/£12 inc p&p outside Ireland

EGO EIMI - IT IS I

“May the present book of Rev. Fr. de Malleray FSSP, a beautiful and impressive “paper shrine to the Most Holy Eucharist”, have a wide diffusion and be a practical spiritual aid in order to renew the Catholic Faith, the Catholic Love and the Catholic Worship of the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist.” + Athanasius Schneider.

“This highly readable, informative, and edifying treatise on the Holy Eucharist will enrich the understanding and devotion of Catholics regardless of their prior knowledge of the subject: I recommend it wholeheartedly.” Dr Joseph Shaw PhD,

SCIENCE SAYS NO

In this book, Dr. van den Aardweg debunks many of the myths created by the global homosexualist movement. The argument for gay “marriage” is exposed as a deception in this ground breaking book. For many years the public has been indoctrinated with unfounded assertions which in fact are no more than modern fairy tales sold as science. In other words, as regards homosexuality, people hear and read mostly lies. The book explains why the deception is possible and shows why no assertion of the gay ideology has been scientifically validated. €/£9 inc p&p Ireland €/£10.50 inc p&p outside Ireland

SIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

This really is a fantastic book which presents Catholic teaching on sin in a simple, clear and precise way. You will learn about the nature of sin, about the different kinds of sin, mortal and venial, formal and material sins.

Reflections on the Abortion Issue in Ireland.

Oxf, Chairman of The Latin Mass Society.

The book also teaches us about sins of omission. After discussing sin, the book then speaks of the great graces offered to us in the sacrament of confession, it teaches us about temptations, about Christ’s suffering and death on the cross, and then it finishes with a very hope filled chapter on the joys of the resurrection.

Many countries, including Ireland, have removed the right to life from the Constitution and given the legislature the power to legalise abortion, which by definition is the intentional killing of the unborn child.

The assumption is that unborn babies have no human rights. The essays in this monograph expose the fallacy that unborn babies do not have the right to life and may be ‘terminated’ if that is the ‘choice’ of the mother. In the New Ireland, human killing is now legal. It is estimated that 800 – 900 unwanted unborn babies are ‘terminated’ every month. Abortion has become the murder machine of our time.”

€/£19 inc p&p Ireland €/£22 inc p&p outside Ireland

€/£10 inc p&p Ireland €/£12 inc p&p outside Ireland

€/£13.50 inc p&p Ireland €/£15 inc p&p outside Ireland

Book Title/s: ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Credit/Debit Card Number: __________________________________________________ Expiry Date: _______________________________

C.V.V. ________________

Total Enclosed: €/£__________________________ Name:

_________________________________________________________________

Address: _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Post Code: __________________________________ Daytime Tel: ________________________________

Send completed form with cheque/postal order made payable to Catholic Voice or with credit/debit card details to: Catholic Voice, St Michael’s House, Castlemitchell South, Athy, Co Kildare, Ireland or telephone 059 8627268 (00353 59862726 8 from outside Ireland) Please allow 14 working days for delivery.

18 THE SACRAMENT OF SACRAMENTS

Catholic Voice

26th March 2021

Would The Early Christians Have Left Their Churches Shut?

Christopher Monckton of Brenchley Pliny, the Roman historian and shrewd observer of events, once wrote to his friend the Emperor Trajan: “These Christians are a strange bunch. They make their God and then they eat Him.” This is one of the earliest and most important independent testimonies to the unhesitating belief of the early Church in the doctrine of transubstantiation.

If you try Googling it, it is very likely that the only reference to it that you will find is in an article by me. For censorship of inconvenient truths is now rife.

The diaconate arose so that even those who could not get to Mass could receive the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Him Whom the Council of Chalcedon beautifully described as “perfectly God and perfectly Man”.

Diakonia, in Greek, means “going through the dust”. In the hot and dry Middle East, where travel remains arduous even today, the deacons fearlessly went about and distributed the Bread of Life to the Faithful. So vital was their role that they were the third order of the priesthood, after Bishops and Priests.

Contrast the determination of the early Church to ensure that all who wanted the most immediate and intimate connection between creature and Creator were not denied it with the earliest published decision of the new Archbishop of Dublin, Dermot Farrell.

At first I thought the document was some sort of bad-taste joke. For it purported to be an Ad Clerum from the “Archdiocese of Dublin”.

There is, of course, an Archbishop of Dublin, but, like all bishops, he

presides over a Diocese. There is no such thing as an “Archdiocese”.

This unfortunate circular is written in the bureaucratic Gas-Board language that has today too often replaced the thunderous trenchancy of the early Christians. Here is how it begins: “Clarification for Parishes regarding Level 5 Restrictions 04/03/2020.

Dear Father, Further to questions raised at some of the deanery meetings during the week [at least they weren’t ‘Archdeaneries’], all religious services continue to take place online.

“The sacrament of Baptism must be celebrated only in exceptional circumstances, that is, in danger of death. Under current restrictions all religious services continue to take place online. In the interest of health and safety priests and parishes ought not to succumb to requests to distribute Holy Communion before or after Mass.” And so, drearily, on.

Worse, “Arrangements for the celebration of First Holy Communion and Confirmation

should not be made until Government / HSE / diocesan guidelines indicate that it is safe to do so. Churches remain open for private prayer only. Liturgies and devotions (exposition of the blessed sacrament, rosary, stations of the cross) can take place in closed churches, online only …”. ]For future reference, your excellency, the Blessed Sacrament, the Rosary and the Stations of the Cross are capitalised].

And the leaden clause de style: “I hope these clarifications will help solidarity between confreres and parishes so that together we can overcome the threat of the coronavirus in the community.

Hopefully we will be able to return to public worship and the celebration of the Sacraments as soon as possible thus strengthening and supporting faith communities on our pilgrim journey.”

We shall pass over the lamentable punctuation, the improper use of the adverb “hopefully” and the flatulent cascade of clichés – my old Professor of Greek at

26th March 2021 Cambridge, Sir Denis Page, would have referred to them as “gaseous halations” – with which this dismal communication limps to its turgid close.

The splendid John Lacken, whose muscular Christianity is such a glorious reminder of the cheerful vigour and enthusiasm of the early Christians, thunders: “It seems that Archbishop Dermot Farrell is no longer Catholic. Jesus Christ commissioned His Apostles to feed His sheep. Archbishop Dermot Farrell has issued direct instructions that the sheep are not to be fed.

“This should be a wake-up call to all Christians that we are heading for persecution and that it is being facilitated by those who have been called by Christ to guard His flock.

We are not alone and we know that, in the end, Our Lady’s Immaculate will Triumph.”

The Archbishop could and should have made no less effort than those who struggled through the dust to bring the Blessed Sacrament to the Faithful. And he should certainly not have banned the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction, both of which entail very little risk of transmitting the infection.

Catholic Voice

THE SACRAMENT OF SACRAMENTS 19

Body and Blood, but we obviously eat and drink His Body and Blood by our faith in His presence and our desire to be united to Him in charity, not by our physical chewing and swallowing. These natural functions, like the natural outward forms of bread and wine, are the signs of our deeper, inward spiritual eating of Him. “Our Lord himself, in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, tells us that His presence can be understood only in a spiritual and not in a fleshly way. This does not mean that His Body and Blood are not as really present as any other thing offered to our senses; it means that we lay hold of this mystery by faith and love, not by bodily functions.

So, in both a visible, sacramental Communion and in a spiritual one, we feed on the Body and Blood of Christ by faith and love, and we receive the same effects in either case.

“It remains true, however, that with the sacraments the grace is greater

and more precise if we participate in the sacrament in fact and not only in desire. So our spiritual Communion is always a desire to receive the Lord sacramentally, but it is still in virtue of the Sacrament that we receive the grace of a spiritual Communion. A spiritual Communion is a genuine, though less sacramentally perfect, sharing in the Body and Blood of the Lord.

“Holy Church grants a partial indulgence for each spiritual Communion, and we can apply this indulgence to the departed, who cannot receive Communion any more. What a wonderful way to assist those who long to see God in the banquet of heaven!”

Next time an “Archdiocese” becomes vacant, step forward Fr. Hugh Barbour. In these difficult times, through the mercy of God we may, after all, receive the grace of the Sacrament of Sacraments in a manner that would have puzzled Pliny still more. We may make our God and eat Him in our hearts.

Meanwhile, it is worth recalling the concept of the Eucharist of Desire.

Here is Fr. Hugh Barbour of the Premonstratensians, discussing the difference between the actual Eucharist and spiritual Communion.

“According to Aquinas, the difference is not as great as one might think. Let us consider that our access to Christ’s real and substantial presence in the Holy Eucharist is by our faith and charity directed toward this mystery. Our eating of Christ’s Body and Blood is an eating by faith and love, since the appearances of bread and wine are consumed. These appearances are the sign of the presence of His

“Offer up everything within your power as a sacrifice to the Lord in an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended; and of supplication for the conversion of sinners. Thus invoke peace upon your country. I am her Guardian Angel; the Angel of Portugal. Above all, accept and bear with submission the sufferings that the Lord may send you.”

(The Angel of Portugal to Fatima children 1915)

20 BE OF GOOD CHEER

Catholic Voice

26th March 2021

BE OF GOOD CHEER! Mary Kearns

During Holy Week we feel overwhelmed by Our Blessed Lord’s immense sufferings and as the week progresses, we hear the account the Passion, making us aware of the pathetic inadequacy of our own penances and prayers during Lent. In the liturgy, the Church brings us face to face with what Jesus was experiencing.

When we read St. John’s Gospel we are given the privilege of listening to the last conversation Jesus had with his closest friends when he knew he was very soon to enter into his suffering and death. The apostles were perplexed; they sensed the growing hostility to the Lord in Jerusalem; he had foretold what would happen to him, but now he claims to have overcome the world and is offering them peace!

“Peace I leave with you, my own peace I give you; a peace the world cannot give, this is my gift to you.

Let not your hearts be troubled or afraid.”

The reality of the exhortation of Jesus when he knew he was shortly to enter into his passion and death, underlines the absolute difference between the peace of the Lord and the peace of the world.

“These words are divine words, words which have the same creative force as the words that brought the sky and the earth from the void, they carry the same weight as the

words that quieted the storm, the words that healed the sick and brought the dead back to life.” (Fr. Jacques Philippe.)

What is peace then if it is not something we can do for ourselves?

It is likely the apostles failed to understand this too. During the Last Supper discourse Jesus told them “Apart from me you can do nothing.” So it follows that the peace he imparts, is his own gift to us.

Nonetheless the Gospels do not always show Jesus as being peaceful. We hear how he cleansed

“Do not be afraid…” he said as he gave them this precious gift. This gift of peace is the gift we receive at every Mass, but do we understand what that really is? We are inclined to think of peace as our state of mind when everything is going well and we have no particular worries or concerns. We are on good terms with everyone and it is tempting to view the Sign of Peace at Mass as just an outward expression of this peace. How wrong we are! How like us to bring everything down to our own level!

The peace of the Lord is entirely different. It has absolutely no connection with any kind of impassivity or with any of the tenets of yoga or Buddhism where some people end up in search of peace.

It is not stoicism or the extinction of sensitivity nor indifference to suffering, particularly the suffering of others. The peace of the Lord is the peace of love and when we accept it, we are liberated from our own self-seeking and become sincerely interested in and available to our neighbour.

The Agony in the Garden - Heinrich Hofmann (1824 – 1911)

26th March 2021

Catholic Voice

the temple with vigour and anger; we hear his accusations as he denounced the Pharisees. This of course was righteous anger. Above everything else, as he departed for the Mount of Olives after the Last Supper, Jesus began to be distressed with a sorrow that expanded and deepened as he entered into his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.

These examples should console rather than confuse us.

Let us not forget that Jesus was completely a human man and like any human person, he experienced the depth of human misery and sorrow. At the same time, Saint Athanasius exhorts us never to forget that Jesus is God. Even while he was undergoing his Passion he was still directing the entire universe. That doesn’t take away from the reality of his suffering as he experienced in his humanity.

Jesus suffered emotionally as we do. But his emotions are always brought to God the Father. We hear from the evangelists that he often spent whole nights in prayer.

This is where he obtained the strength and the peace necessary to carry out his mission. As he prayed in the garden he was seemingly overcome with anguish but as St. Luke tells us, an angel came to minister to him.

Afterwards it is with a peaceful countenance that Jesus was able to rise up and conduct himself with peaceful dignity before Annas and Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate and ultimately to offer the prayer of forgiveness to his Father.

BE OF GOOD CHEER 21 the Paschal Mystery which we enter into with Jesus.

A necessary condition for our gaining the peace of the Lord, is our own goodwill. This was the song of the angels at Bethlehem “Peace on earth to people of goodwill.” Believing this gives us consolation because no matter how many times we fail and experience doubts, we are still on track when we have the goodwill to want to follow and imitate our Divine Master.

In one of the revelations of St. Gertrude the Lord said: “In all things and above all else have goodwill; only this disposition will give your soul the light and the special merit of all the virtues. Whoever has goodwill, the sincere desire to maintain my glory, to be thankful to me, to share in my suffering, to love me and serve me as well as all creatures, such a person will undoubtedly receive compensations that are worthy of my generosity and his desire will sometimes be more profitable to him than other peoples’ good works are to them.”

Our inadequacy only disposes us to ask for help which is always forthcoming.Therefore it appears that if we find it hard to live in peace and to be of good cheer, it is always possible for us to have goodwill.

For catechesis and liturgical formation: marykeenankearns@gmail.com

Our Blessed Mother watched Jesus die and of all the apostles who had dined with him the previous evening only John was a witness to the crucifixion. The Gospels never show anything but peace in Mary, although we know of the sorrows that pierced her Immaculate Heart. Was she the only person who believed that her Son would overcome the world and rise from the dead on the third day? “Blessed is she who believed that the promises made to her would be fulfilled” her kinswoman Elizabeth was inspired to say and Mary remembered that God would give her Son the throne of his ancestor David as Gabriel had announced. It did not look like that now.

Could Mary have been of “good cheer” in the face of the evil that surrounded her on Good Friday? We cannot know for sure but nonetheless this is the challenge we all have to deal with although we have the advantage of knowing about the Resurrection and the ultimate victory of Jesus Christ. It is not entirely a question of faith for us.

However our faith is severely tested when we live in a world where we are surrounded with spiritual and moral degradation. It is difficult to be at peace, even more difficult to be of good cheer. It is one of the strategies of Satan to discourage us and make us want to give up. As against this, we always have one defense.

That is our goodwill. We believe that real peace, real joy and real love are gifts from the Lord, purchased by

The Crucifixion - Titian (1488/90 - 1576)

22 PREGNANCY LOSS AND MENTAL HEALTH

Catholic Voice

26th March 2021

Global Mourning: Study Finds Link Between Pregnancy Loss And Mental Illness Theresa Burke, Ph.D

Abortion not only aggravates preexisting mental illness but also can mark the onset of problems for women with no history of psychiatric disorders, according to a new study.

The study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health revealed that “pregnancy loss prior to a first live birth increases the risk of post-partum psychiatric disorders,” regardless of a woman’s prior mental health history. This risk is most elevated for women who have given birth within 90 days.

Researchers who examined medical claim records for more than 1.9 million women found that induced abortion or miscarriage of a first pregnancy increases the risk of post-partum mental health problems by 10 to 35 percent. The risk of post-partum psychiatric care requiring hospitalisation increased by 83 percent.

It is the first peer-reviewed study to carefully control variables related to a prior history of mental illness and the timing of the first episode of mental health problems specifically within the six months following delivery of a living child.

This notable report comes as no shock to me. The lead author of the study is David Reardon from the Elliot Institute, with whom I collaborated in Forbidden Grief – The Unspoken Pain of Abortion (2002) by combining studies from my clinical practice with his data as a researcher.

Dr. Reardon explains his new study: “This interaction between pregnancy loss and prior mental health underscores the importance of looking at causality in a broader way. There is no question about the fact that abortion can aggravate pre-existing mental illness. But there are also women who report that the abortion marked the onset of problems that did not previously exist. Our data confirms that both pathways are true.”

Unresolved memories and feelings about pregnancy loss can lead to post-partum depression and even psychosis during a subsequent pregnancy. Unresolved emotions will demand one’s attention sooner or later.

I have spent the last 35 years treating pregnancy loss and unresolved grief for those struggling in the aftermath of an abortion which left them shattered with sadness, heartache, guilt, shame and anger.

Many learned to numb themselves with alcohol and drugs. Some reenact their abortion experience with promiscuity and repeat abortions, trapped in traumatic cycles of abandonment and rejection.

Others suffer eating disorders, panic attacks, depression, anxiety, and thoughts of suicide. Some have permanent physical and reproductive damage that rendered them unable to have children in the future.

The excruciating level of pain I have witnessed inspired me to establish a treatment model to address the unique and complicated grief for both women and men who have lost a child through abortion.

That program, Rachel’s Vineyard, is a psychological and spiritual journey for healing after abortion that has spread to more than 80 countries and is offered in dozens of languages throughout the world.

Pregnancy loss is a death experience. It is the demise of human potential, relationship, responsibility, maternal attachment, connectedness, and innocence.

Such a loss is rarely experienced without conflict and ambivalence.

However, when it comes to abortion, many women chose not to talk about it, even in mental health settings. Because abortion is legal, it is presumed to be safe. Indeed, it is commonly identified as a woman’s “right.” This right, or privilege, is supposed to liberate women from the burden of unwanted pregnancies. It is supposed to provide them with relief — not grief and depression.

But problems occur when women are assaulted by their own natural reactions to their loss. Many women go into treatment for depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation or addictions, but simply don’t understand the root of their pain.

After all, abortion was their choice.

Others spoke of their grief only to be told by friends, counsellors and even in psychiatric units, that abortion was not the problem. They may be given prescriptions and diagnosed with a mental illness, but never led on a path to healing and recovery.

The findings of this study allow us to see that pregnancy loss is an independent risk factor for post-partum psychiatric illness.

Clinicians and family members should identify those at risk and refer for appropriate counselling

26th March 2021

Catholic Voice

to help address underlying issues of loss and grief, hopefully before the next pregnancy. It’s been my experience that most women won’t bring up an abortion history unless invited to do so because in reality, abortion is a deeply private and complex experience. A gentle invitation to speak about their experience is often an effective way to give permission and can open the door to help process their feelings about the abortion.

Abortion touches on three central issues of a woman’s self-concept: her sexuality, morality and maternal identity. It also involves the loss of a child, or at least the loss of an opportunity to have a child. In either case, this loss must be confronted, processed and mourned.

We know how to debate and fight over abortion as a political issue but we don’t know how to talk about it on an intimate and personal level.

There is no social norm for dealing with an abortion.

One of the reasons we don’t want to talk about the grief and regrets of women and men who have had abortions is that we, as a society, are deeply troubled by the issue. While the vast majority believes abortion

PREGNANCY LOSS AND MENTAL HEALTH 23

should be legally available in some circumstances, most are morally troubled by it.

In a 2020 Gallup poll, 44% of Americans said abortion is morally acceptable, while 47% believe it’s morally wrong.

Other findings suggest that most Americans put their own moral beliefs about abortion “on hold” for the sake of respecting a “woman’s right to choose.”

As a society we have chosen to tolerate abortion for the purpose of improving the lives of women.

complex and troubling issue. The collusion of ignorance and denial perpetrates negligence against women, facilitating the potential for deep and scarring trauma.

Women have a right to know the risks they face when making an elective decision for abortion. It is imperative that counsellors and mental health professionals are familiar with the risk factors that predict trauma after abortion and the profound array of complicated mourning that may follow.

This moral compromise, however, is disturbed when women complain about their broken hearts after an abortion. They make their listeners uncomfortable and confused.

Moreover, women and men who have suffered the loss of a child through abortion need to know that there are programs that address this specific grief. They need to know that they are not alone, that their pain is legitimate and they have a right to heal.

Depression over a past abortion forces us to look not only at the pain of an individual, but the angst of our society. It is a deeply

Dr. Theresa Burke is a full-time pastoral associate of Priests for Life and founder of Rachel’s Vineyard, a ministry for healing after abortion.

Rachel’s Vineyard Ireland Bernadette Goulding, Director: Rachel’s Vineyard Ireland Contact Us: In complete confidence please call: Bernadette on 087 8592877 or by email: bergoulding1@gmail.com CHARITY NUMBER: 13617. CHARITY REGULATOR NUMBER: 20042905.

24 SEEK GOD MORE

Catholic Voice

26th March 2021

Cardinal Sarah: ‘The Only Thing That Counts Is to Seek God Ever More Deeply’ Edward Pentin

Speaking with an Italian newspaper in his first comments since Pope Francis accepted his resignation, the African cardinal highlights the central importance of the liturgy and debunks claims of a rift with the Holy Father.

“If God is not at the centre of the Church’s life, then she is in danger of death,” he says, suggesting that the Church is “currently experiencing a Good Friday,” but adding that “Christ’s victory always comes through the Cross.”

In his first interview since Pope Francis accepted his resignation as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments last month, Cardinal Robert Sarah has revealed how ideological struggles over worship were a source of “great suffering” for him.

Below is an English translation of the interview:

In comments to Matteo Matzuzzi of the Italian daily Il Foglio, Cardinal Sarah says that in the Church today “too often we act as if everything is a question of politics, power, influence and the unjustified imposition of a hermeneutic of Vatican II that totally breaks and is irreversibly at odds with Tradition.”

The solution, he argues, is for the Church to return to placing God at the centre of the liturgy, beginning by celebrating Mass ad orientem.

Your Eminence, everyone was surprised by your departure from the Congregation for Divine Worship.

What does this timing mean?

Like all cardinals, according to the rule in force, I had given the Holy Father my letter of resignation as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments last June on the occasion of my 75th birthday. At that time he asked me to continue my work in the service of the universal Church ‘donec alter provideatur’, in other words “until the Holy Father decrees otherwise.”

A few weeks ago, however, the Pope informed me that he had decided to accept this request. I immediately replied that I was happy and grateful for his decision.

I have often said: Obedience to the Pope is not only a human necessity, it is the means of obeying Christ who put the Apostle Peter and his successors at the head of the Church.

I am happy and proud to have served three popes: St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, in the Roman Curia for more than 20 years. I have tried to be a loyal, obedient and humble servant of the truth of the Gospel. Even though some journalists continually repeat

the same nonsense, I have never opposed the Pope.

What did you learn from your service in the dicastery for the liturgy?

Some see this dicastery as an honorary position, but of little importance. On the contrary, I believe that the responsibility for the liturgy puts us at the heart of the Church, of her raison d’être. The Church is neither an administration nor a human institution. The Church mysteriously prolongs Christ’s presence on earth. “The liturgy,” says the Second Vatican Council, “is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows,” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 10), and “because it is an action of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others; no other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree.” (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 7).

The Church exists to give men to God and to give God to men. This is precisely the role of the liturgy: to worship God and to communicate divine grace to souls. When the liturgy is sick, the whole Church is in danger because her relationship with God is not only weakened but deeply damaged.

The Church then runs the risk of cutting herself off from her divine source to become a self-centred institution that has only herself to proclaim.

I am very struck by the fact that there is much talk about the Church, about her necessary reform.

26th March 2021 Catholic Voice

SEEK GOD MORE 25

But are we talking about God? Are we talking about the work of Redemption that Christ accomplished mainly through the paschal mystery of his blessed Passion, his Resurrection from hell and his glorious Ascension, the paschal mystery by which “dying, he destroyed our death and, rising, he restored our life” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 5)? Rather than talking about ourselves, let us turn to God! This is the message I have been repeating for years.

If God is not at the centre of the Church’s life, then she is in danger of death. That is certainly why Pope Benedict XVI said that the crisis of the Church is essentially a crisis of the liturgy because it is a crisis of the relationship with God. That is also why, following Pope Benedict XVI, I insisted: the purpose of the liturgy is not to celebrate the community or man, but God. This is very well expressed in the oriented celebration [ad orientem]. “Where direct orientation towards the East is not possible,” says Pope Benedict XVI, “the cross can therefore serve as an interior orientation of faith. It must then take its place at the centre of the altar and concentrate the gaze of the priest and the praying community. In this we conform to the ancient invitation to prayer that opens the Eucharist: ‘Conversi ad Dominum’: “Turn to the Lord. Then we look together to the One whose death gives us life, to the One who stands for us before the Father, takes us in his arms, and makes us living and new temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19).’” When everyone turns together towards the Cross, we avoid the risk of a face-

Cardinal Robert Sarah - (Photo credit François-Régis Salefran) to-face encounter that is too human and closed in on itself. We open our hearts to the outpouring of God. “The idea that, in prayer, the priest and the people should face one another was born only in modern Christianity, it is completely foreign to ancient Christianity. It is certain that the priest and the people pray not towards each other, but towards the one Lord,” Christ who, in silence, comes to meet us. (Joseph Ratzinger, Preface to

Volume XI: The Theology of the Liturgy — of the Complete Works, Paris, Parole et Silence, 2020). This is also why I have never ceased to return to the place of silence in the liturgy. When man remains silent, he leaves a place for God. On the contrary, when the liturgy becomes chatty, it forgets that the cross is its centre, it organises itself around the microphone. All these questions are crucial because they determine the place we give to God. Unfortunately they have been transformed into ideological questions.

“To forestall this [the second world war], I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.

“If they heed My requests, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace. If not, she shall spread her errors throughout the world, promoting wars and persecutions of the Church; the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated; in the end, My Immaculate Heart shall triumph.

(Our Lady - Fatima July 13th 1917)

26 SEEK GOD MORE

Catholic Voice

26th March 2021

You seem to be expressing regret.

What do you want to say? What do you mean by “ideological”?

Today in the Church, too often we act as if everything is a question of politics, power, influence and the unjustified imposition of a hermeneutic of Vatican II that totally breaks and is irreversibly at odds with Tradition. It has been a great suffering for me to witness these factional struggles. When I spoke of liturgical orientation and sense of the sacred, I was told: “You are opposed to the Second Vatican Council”!

This is false! I don’t believe that the struggle between progressives and conservatives has any meaning in the Church. These categories are political and ideological. The Church is not a field of political struggle. The only thing that counts is to seek God ever more deeply, to meet Him there and humbly kneel down to adore Him.

her Founder “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). She goes towards God, she directs us towards him.

From the profession of faith of Saint Peter to Pope Francis through Vatican II, the Church turns us Pope Francis, when he appointed towards Christ. me, gave me two instructions: first, to implement the Constitution on Giving the liturgy its sacred the Liturgy of the Second Vatican character, leaving room for silence, Council and second, to bring to life and even celebrating at times the liturgical legacy of Pope Benedict towards the East, as Pope Francis XVI. I am firmly convinced that did in the Sistine Chapel or at these two directives form a single Loreto, is the profound and spiritual direction. Indeed, Pope Benedict XVI fulfilment of the Council. is certainly the one who understood Vatican II most deeply. Continuing An extraordinary coincidence: on the liturgical work of Pope Benedict the very day of the announcement XVI is the best way to implement of my departure, Pope Emeritus the true Council. Unfortunately, Benedict XVI sent me the French some ideologues want to set the pre- edition of his works on the liturgy.

Council Church against the post- I saw in it an invitation from Council Church. They are dividers; Providence to continue this work to they are doing the work of the devil. restore a liturgy that puts God back The Church is one, without rupture, at the heart of the life of the Church. without changing course, because O Jesus, it is for the love of Thee, in reparation for the offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and for the conversion of poor sinners [that I do this]. Amen.

Our Lady of Fatima - June 13th, 1917.

How was working with Pope Francis? Were there not difficulties?

Some people insinuate without reason or even being able to provide concrete and credible proof that we were enemies, it’s not true!

Pope Francis likes frankness. We

have always worked together with simplicity, despite the fantasies of journalists. For example, Pope Francis understood very well and received the book for which I had collaborated with Pope Benedict XVI, ‘From the Depths of Our Hearts’. I did not hide from him my concern about the ecclesiological consequences of questioning the celibacy of priests. When he received me after its publication, when press campaigns accused me of lying, he supported and encouraged me. He had read and appreciated, it seems, the autographed copy that Pope Benedict XVI, in his delicacy, had sent him.

On that occasion I realised that truth always triumphs over lies. There is no point in getting involved in big communication campaigns. It is enough to have the courage to remain true and free. The support of Pope Francis, the constant affection of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, and the thousands of messages of thanks from priests and lay people from all over the world helped me to understand the depth of the message of the Risen Jesus: Do not be afraid!

How do you see the future of the Church?

26th March 2021

SEEK GOD MORE 27

Catholic Voice

I am a member of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. There I see with immense joy how the Church is bursting with holiness.

There, I am happy to see with her eyes the impressive number of so many daughters and sons of the Catholic Church who take seriously the Gospel and the universal call to holiness. Truly “it was from the side of Christ as He slept the sleep of death upon the cross that there came forth “the wondrous sacrament of the whole Church’” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 5). In spite of what the “blind from birth” say, in spite of the many sins of her members, the Church is beautiful and holy. She is an extension of Jesus Christ. The Church is not a worldly institution; her health is not measured by her power and influence. The Church today is experiencing a Good Friday. The boat seems to be taking on water

from all sides. Some betray her from within. I think of the drama and the horrible crimes of paedophile priests. How could the mission be fruitful when so many lies cover the beauty of Jesus’ face?

Others are tempted to betray when they leave the ship to follow the fashionable powers. I think of the temptations at work in Germany on the synodal journey. One wonders what will remain of the Gospel if all this reaches its end: a real silent apostasy.

But Christ’s victory always comes through the Cross. The Church must go towards the Cross and towards the great silence of Holy Saturday.

We must pray with Mary beside the body of Jesus. Watch, pray, do penance and make reparation so that we can better proclaim the Victory of the Risen Christ!

LIBERALISM IS A SIN Don Félix Sardà y Salvany: – was

How is the future for you?

I don’t intend to stop working! And in fact I am happy to have more time to pray and read. I will continue to write, to speak, to travel. Here in Rome, I continue to receive priests and faithful from all over the world.

More than ever the Church needs bishops who speak clearly, free and faithful to Jesus Christ and to the doctrinal and moral teachings of his Gospel. I intend to continue this mission and even amplify it.

I must continue to work in the service of the unity of the Church, in truth and charity. I humbly wish to continue to support the reflection, the prayer, the courage and the faith of so many Christians who are disoriented, confused and perplexed by the many crises that we are going through at this time: anthropological crisis, cultural crisis, crisis of faith, priestly crisis, moral crisis, but above all, crisis in our relationship with God.

CATECHISM

born on May 21, 1844 in Sabadell, Catalonia, Spain. He was a Catholic priest and writer who wrote against Liberalism which he considered a grave sin. He was the editor of the weekly Spanish Catholic magazine ‘La Revista Popular’ for over forty

Holiness Pope Pius X, issued the Encyclical ‘Pascendi Dominici Gregis’ which translates as “Feeding the Lord’s Flock”. Pope Pius X was aware that the Catholic Church had been infiltrated by modernists who were seeking to undermine her doctrines from within.

Father J. B. Lemius, produced this ‘Catechism on Modernism’ in the familiar the age of 71. This book, Liberalism question and answer format is a Sin, is particularly relevant to of the time, in order to make the teachings of the the times we live in today where Liberalism permeates every Encyclical more accessible to ordinary Catholics and aspect of our society and has deeply infiltrated the thinking of by way of explaining in a clear and concise manner the many of the Catholic hierarchy. reasons why the Encyclical was published. years. He died on January 2, 1916 at

Paperback €/£13.50 inc p&p Published by Lumen Fidei Press

Paperback €/£13.50 inc p&p Published by Lumen Fidei Press

To Order please telephone 059 8627268 ROI 00353 598627268 Outside ROI Alternatively, Order Online @ www.lumenfidei.ie/shop

28 CATHOLIC EDUCATION?

Catholic Voice

26th March 2021

Is There A Need For A Reformed Education System In Our Country?

Charles Byrne

The time has come for Catholics in Ireland, and by that I mean Catholics in both North and South of the country, to consider the question of schools. Both public and Catholic systems in the South are increasingly coming under very strict bureaucratic Government control, and more subject to the influence of the antiCatholic agendas of both state-supported agencies and organisations funded by the E.U. Now that some level of stability has returned to the Six Counties, the Westminster Parliament wants to limit the control Catholics and Protestants have over their schools, and make them subject to the same strict bureaucratic Government control that operates in Britain. Only last year the mother of all parliaments Westminster imposed the British abortion on demand regime on the six counties with the support of Sinñ Fein, a party that describes itself as a Republican party and calls the North of Ireland as “ the occupied six counties” and yet now supports the surrender of our national Sovereignty to the secular Humanist agenda of the E.U.and dictats of the unelected E.U.Commission led by the German politician Ursula Van Leyden.

HANDS OFF OUR KIDS

PROTECTING PARENTAL CHOICE IN THE CLASSROOM

This CD of the compelling talk given by Charlotte McQuaid-Bruen at Catholic Voice annual conference 2019, sums up the proposed sex education to be taught across schools in Ireland in 2020. Parents, grandparents, friends, family members and clergy need to be informed about what their children are going to be subjected to.

Please help spread this talk TODAY. 4 CDs inc p&p €20

1 CD inc p&p €7.50

Complete coupon and return with cheque/postal order to John Lacken, Ballinlough, Claremorris, Co Mayo F12 TN23 Name: ...........................................................................................

Address: ........................................................................................ ....................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................

Phone No: .....................................................................................

Please send me ______copies of the CD - ‘Hands off our Kids’ Total Enclosed: € ________ To pay by post with credit/debit card please complete: Card number: ______________________________________ Expiry Date: _________________ C.V.V._______________

This is to be brought about under the pretext that doing this will result in a fair, tolerant and peaceful multi-cultural society. What it really means, of course, is that pupils will be targeted by propaganda about contraception and homosexuality, and told that abortion is ‘okay’ if you get pregnant and promotion of the transgender madness. All of this in spite of having been provided with the ‘very best’ of Christian sexeducation programmes. The long-term objective is to undermine parental rights and increase state control of how our children think and act.

A decade ago, I wrote an article in a Catholic newspaper which asked a very fundamental question: how Catholic are so-called Catholic schools? I concluded that many Catholic schools were only Catholic in name, a conclusion supported by many of the readers of the article. This is no fault of the many committed Catholic teachers who work in our education system, along with the ever-dwindling number of heroic religious Brothers and Sisters.

However, the reality is that the State funds our schools and pays the salaries of our teachers, and he who pays the piper calls the tune. Thus the State controls the teachers and can and does dictate what they should teach in the curriculum, as well as when a school should open and when it should close. And, in recent years, the State has expanded the power and the role of the Department of Education’s Inspectorate in order to facilitate its objectives.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI many years ago commenting on the decline of the faith in Western Europe said that if Catholic schools and institutions were not fully Catholic, it would be better if they did not exist at all. In order to promote a vision of education that will offer a radical alternative to the secular-humanist and politically correct education structures promoted by the European Union (leading to the disintegration of our national culture and fifteen centuries of fidelity to the Catholic Faith), Irish Catholics, North and South, should consider the huge challenge of starting completely independent schools and create educational structures with minimal state control. In other words, take what is good from the public system but have the freedom to reject any interference in how you run your schools and what you teach.

A devout Catholic school principal can do a lot of good, but in the end, he is subject to the wishes of the Department of Education who pay his salary and that of his teachers. Additionally, he is depending on the support of many teachers who may not practise their Faith or are ignorant of its doctrine and who are

26th March 2021

CATHOLIC EDUCATION? 29

Catholic Voice

sometimes even anti-Catholic, or he might be opposed by some parents who have succumbed to the new, politically correct secularism. He is like a General fighting a war on three fronts; he cannot win. A house divided against itself falls.

In order for such a school principal to succeed, he needs to be supported by an independent support structure that has a clear, Catholic educational vision with its own independent curriculum development unit. In addition, he or she also needs the support of teachers who have been trained in an independent, orthodox Catholic teacher-training college, and to be supported by parents who want a genuinely Catholic education for their children.

In the nineteenth century, when our people were materially poor, but spiritually rich, the Holy Spirit raised up great men and women of the calibre of Blessed Ignatius Rice and Sr Catherine McAuley to educate a nation ground down by centuries of oppression and injustice. As we advance into the twenty-first century, our nation is physically rich and spiritually poor, with many of our young people drowning in a sea of hedonism and empty agnosticism.

In order for a network of independent schools to be set up it will require much prayer, effort and persistence. The great Irish founders of religious congregations not only answered Christ’s command to bring the good news to the poor, but fulfilled Robert Emmet’s

dictum: ‘Educate so that you can be free.’ They were following in the footsteps of the great monastic founders and missionaries of the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries, men and women like Colum Cille, Columbanus and St Brigid. Let us set up this independent network of schools before the resources of our Church, built up by the generosity and sacrifices of our ancestors, are plundered by the State.

In the last twenty years or so, hundreds of independent schools and a few orthodox universities have been successfully set up in America and Canada. This independent network is also providing curriculum information and resources to many American and Canadian families that have chosen to home-school their

Please Help Us To Promote The Five First Saturdays of Reparation Order Some of Our New Five First Saturday Devotions Cards These cards are designed to help people to complete The Five First Saturdays Devotion of Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary Contact John Lacken 085-1208779 secretary@lumenfidei.ie

children in order to liberate them from a state education system that promotes a culture of death and is permeated with an anti-Christian neo-progressivism. We may have to start from the bottom up; that is, start with an independent network of primary schools in order to feed the secondary schools and then work towards an independent, orthodox Catholic university. In theory, the various churches control the national schools but how Catholic are the Catholic ones?

One could hardly claim that the University which the great Cardinal Newman had a significant role in its foundation is still a Catholic university today, when those who now govern it had to be coerced to send representatives to Rome for this holy and brilliant man’s canonisation.

Fatima Prayer

Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He Himself is offended, and through the infinite merits of His most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary I beg of thee the conversion of poor sinners. Amen.

30 CLASSIFIEDS

Catholic Voice

CLASSIFIEDS Services

Next issue of

CatholicVoice On sale in churches, newsagents & bookshops from

9 April 2021

26th March 2021

TELEPHONE 00353 59 8627268

REGULAR TRADITIONAL LATIN MASSES IN IRELAND (LISTED BY DIOCESE)

DAILY & WEEKLY Armagh: New Mellifont Abbey, Collon, Co. Louth; Every Sunday 3pm.

Cork & Ross: Ss Peter’s & Paul’s, Cork: Sundays 12.00 noon Mon -Sat 10.00am.

Dromore: St.Mary’s, Newry: Sundays and Holydays 09.00.

Dublin: St. Kevin’s, Harrington Street: Sundays & non working Holy Days: 10.30; Mon - Fri 08.00; Sat 09.00.

Working Holidays & First Fridays; 08.00 and 19.00.

Dublin: St. Joseph’s, Newtownmountkennedy, Co Wicklow; Sat 11.00 Limerick: Sacred Heart, The Crescent (ICKSP); Sun10.30; Mon-Thurs 08.00 and 19.00; Friday 19.00; Saturday 08.00 & 12.00 noon.

Meath: Silverstream Priory (Benedictine monks) Stamullen: Sunday 10.00 preceded by Terce, other days 11.00.

Meath: Johnstown, Navan: Sundays 13.00; Holydays as announced.

Ossory: St. Patrick’s, College Rd, Kilkenny; Sundays 17.00.

Raphoe: St. Patrick’s, Drumkeen, Co. Donegal Sundays 11.00am.

Down & Connor: St. Therese of Lisieux, Somerton Rd, Belfast :Sundays at 4pm TWICE MONTHLY Ferns: St. Alphonsus, Barntown, Co Wexford: Second Sunday 17.00 and occasional Third Sundays Derry: St. Columba’s , Longtower: First and Third Sunday 14.00.

Waterford: St. John’s Church, Parnell Street, Waterford City - 1pm on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the Month.

MONTHLY Armagh: St. Patrick’s, Dungannon, Co Tyrone: First Saturday 14.00.

Cork & Ross: St. Francis , Liberty St. Cork : First Saturday 13.00.

Derry: St. Marys, Aughabrack, Co Tyrone: Fourth Sunday 12.45 Elphin: St. John’s, carraoe, Co Sligo ; Last Sunday 15.00.

Killaloe: St. Joseph’s, Ennis, Co Clare: First Sunday 17.30.

Tuam: St. John the Baptist, (Old Parish Church), Knock, Co Mayo; Second Sunday 17.30.

Every effort has been made to ensure this list is up to date. Please contact the Latin Mass Society of Ireland of any changes or errors. email president@latinmassireland.com

Visit our all-new website today!

Mass Cards

Enrollment Books

All Occasion Gifts

It’s now easier than ever to have Mass cards, enrolment books & religious gifts delivered directly to your door.

Web: www.mscmissions.ie Email: info@mscmissions.ie Tel: +353 (0)21 4545704

26th March 2021 Catholic Voice

ADVERT 31

The Book of Revelation - Chapter 1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to make known to his servants the things which must shortly come to pass: and signified, sending by his angel to his servant John, Who hath given testimony to the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ, what things soever he hath seen.

Blessed is he, that readeth and heareth the words of this prophecy; and keepeth those things which are written in it; for the time is at hand.

John to the seven churches which are in Asia. Grace be unto you and peace from him that is, and that was, and that is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before his throne, And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth, who hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, And hath made us a kingdom, and priests to God and his Father, to him be glory and empire for ever and ever.

Amen.

Behold, he cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also that pierced him. And all the tribes of the earth shall bewail themselves because of him. Even so. Amen.

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.

I John, your brother and your partner in tribulation, and in the kingdom, and patience in Christ Jesus, was in the island, which is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus.

I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Saying: What thou seest, write in a book, and send to the seven churches which are in Asia, to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamus, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.

And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks: And in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, one like to the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.

And his head and his hairs were white, as white wool, and as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire, And his feet like unto fine brass, as in a burning furnace. And his voice as the sound of many waters.

And he had in his right hand seven stars. And from his mouth came out a sharp two edged sword: and his face was as the sun shineth in his power.

And when I had seen him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying: Fear not. I am the First and the Last, And alive, and was dead, and behold I am living for ever and ever, and have the keys of death and of hell.

Write therefore the things which thou hast seen, and which are, and which must be done hereafter.

The mystery of the seven stars, which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. And the seven candlesticks are the seven churches. (Revelation 1:1-20)

32 ADVERT

Catholic Voice

26th March 2021

THE HOLY FACE OF JESUS FROM THE IMAGE ON SAINT VERONICA’S VEIL (The veil is kept in Saint Peter’s Basilica, Rome.)

Published by: Catholic Voice Newspapers, St Michael’s House, Castlemitchell South, Athy, County Kildare. Tel 059-8627268 ROI / 00353 - 59 8627268 Publisher: Anthony Murphy.

Layout by: Lumen Fidei