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Fáilte, Welcome

to the website for the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne, Ireland

Bishop William Crean

04 October 2025

Bishop William Crean meets Pope Leo on recent pilgrimage to Rome

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Bishop Crean meets Pope Leo

Pastoral letter from Bishop William Crean

on pastoral planning for the future

My dear people,

To live is to change, is a pearl of wisdom from St. John Henry Newman, a convert to the Catholic faith in the 19th Century. To live in the 21st Century is an experience of constant change, social, cultural and technological. Viewing “Reeling in the Years,” the television series depicting life in former times is a dramatic reminder of the extent of the change we have experienced.

The Church whose life and presence within our communities and parish has had to adjust to and
manage the change taking place in society. One particular pattern has been evident for some years
now is the decline both in profession of Christian faith and its practice through the attendance at Holy Mass,
which, for the believer, is an obligation in faith. The consequence of this generational shift from family and
parish community attendance has seen a similar decline in responding to the call to Priesthood and Religious life. Despite this pattern in the Diocese of Cloyne, in all the parishes there are faithful practicing prayer congregations who witness to and support one another in faith.

Pastoral Letter

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June 2026
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October 2025
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September 2025
- "Behold I'm doing a new thing" says the Lord (Isaiah 43)
February 2025
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October 2024
- Light a Candle at St. Colman's Cathedral

Coram Fratribus

Sts Peter and Paul

You can find an English version by scrolling down a little.
Apg 12.1-11: Der Engel stieß Petrus in die Seite.
2 Tim 4.6-18: Mein Sohn, ich werde schon geopfert.
Mt 16.13-19: Du bist Petrus – der Fels.
Zur Vesper gestern sangen wir eine rührende Read More

Coram Fratribus

How to see Asked to contribute to The Tablet’s annual Summer Reading supplement, I was happy to spread the word about a lovely book I took away with me on holiday: ‘Having gone (twice) to see the marvellous Zurbarán exhibition at the National Gallery, I turned to Jeremy Robbins’s Francisco de Zurbarán and the Fabric of the World. It’s a terrific read, both a monograph on Zurbarán and an introduction to the Spanish Golden Age. It is, too, a treatise on the art of seeing, which we need to practise these days, when all we seem able to do is scroll.’ ‘It is hardly surprising’, Robbins writes, ‘that certain of Zurbarán’s figures have been likened to still lifes, for the effect of his style is to render all life stilled.’ Just how illuminating and beneficial this is you can find out for yourself simply by pausing for ten minutes or so before one of the master’s painting while dropping (but really dropping) everything else.

Coram Fratribus

Qui cantat bis orat The Black Madonna of Einsiedeln draws a million pilgrims a year. People kneel before her carrying their hopes and fears, wounds and triumphs, aspirations and disappointments. A fire on 21 April 1465 destroyed the original image. The present statue has been in place since then, with the exception of a few years after the French Revolution, when the Madonna was hidden to preserve her from Revolutionary violence. One of the lovely things about staying at Einsiedeln is to hear the monastic community sing the Salve Regina before the Black Madonna after vespers. The tone is Gregorian, early medieval. The four-part harmony was written up in modern times, but bears resemblance to old devotional songs from different contexts. Listen to this Tantum ergo, for instance. The harmonies are different. The tonal quality drawn forth on a sun-scorched island is unlike that which resounds in the Alps. But somehow the sentiment is the same. It speaks of man’s spontaneous inclination to utter his soul in harmony with others, in song, beautifully. These days, when we feel the menacing vibrations of artificial intelligence, one sensible response would be to sing more.

Coram Fratribus

Wise Virgins ‘The gospel offers more than a moral code. It proposes the transformation of the human person. [For St Seraphim of Sarov, this proposition is at the heart of the parable of the wise and foolish virgins (Matthew 25.1-13): the oil the virgins needed, he explains, stands for the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.] The foolish virgins did not lack virtue. On the contrary, they possessed a great deal of it and, therefore, were prone to overestimate its importance. What stood between them and wisdom was their assumption that virtue was all they needed to get access to the marriage feast: in their spiritual ignorance they supposed that the Christian life consisted merely in doing good works. ‘Having done a good deed, they said to themselves: “Hereby we have accomplished the work of God”. As for the grace of the Holy Spirit, they did not bother to acquire it.’’ From The Shattering of Loneliness.

Coram Fratribus

On Freemasonry To be a Christian is to make fundamental choices. Our speech is to be ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’ (cf. Mt 5.37), not ‘A little bit of this and a little bit of that’.
Today, on the feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul, staunch upholders of Christ’s truth who were faithful to that truth unto the shedding of their blood, the Nordic bishops are addressing to all priests of our territories a letter. It states the Church’s unambiguous teaching on freemasonry. We are obliged to tell our priests that no Catholic can be a freemason; so that our priests in turn can guide and direct the faithful with clarity and charity – for the preaching of the truth in love is a high form of charity.
Below you can find the text of the letter.
It is followed by a summary of a most precious document the German Bishops’ Conference issued in 1980 on the subject of freemasonry. We can be grateful to the German bishops for speaking so clearly, 46 years ago, about the objective truth of Catholic teaching and for denouncing as falsehood the notion that a putative ‘Copernican revolution’ had, with the Second Vatican Council, replaced the notion of objective truth with a notion of human dignity by which each individual might be thought empowered to evaluate subjectively what truth is and is not.
The truth that liberates and saves is the truth revealed by God in Christ, none else.
***
Letter of the Nordic Bishops’ Conference to Parish Priests [PDF]
ON FREEMASONRY
29 June 2026
Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul.
Dear brothers in the priesthood and in the care of souls,
Saint Paul provides valuable instruction to all those who shepherd the People of God when he writes: “proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favourable or unfavourable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching” (2 Tim 4.2).
For us bishops, this instruction is further affirmed by the teaching of the Church, which calls us as shepherds to “bring forth from the treasury of Revelation new things and old, making it bear fruit and vigilantly warding off any errors that threaten their flock” (Lumen Gentium, 25). In fact, we are “bound to propose and explain to the faithful the truths of the faith which are to be believed and applied to morals” (CIC can. 386, §1).
We write to you at this time as shepherds to clarify a matter that for many years, if not decades, has generated uncertainty, speculation and diverging opinions in our countries: the question of whether or not Catholic faithful in the Nordic countries may be freemasons or belong to a masonic lodge.
In the light of differences sometimes perceived to exist between the various strands of freemasonry, an opinion took hold in our countries supposing that freemasons in the Nordic countries are distinct in such a way that membership might be permitted for the Catholic faithful in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
This supposition has given rise to many questions of a pastoral and sacramental nature.
It has caused disquiet, indeed a degree of uproar in our local churches, where many of our faithful come from countries where the Church’s teaching on freemasonry is well established.
To clarify the matter, the Nordic Conference of Bishops held a meeting with superiors and officials of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith during a plenary assembly held in Rome from 1 to 5 September 2025.
The response of the dicastery was crystal clear.
Based on that response, and to share with all the faithful, and you as their parish priests, this clarity, we the bishops of the Nordic Bishops’ Conference state and affirm together:
1. There exists no exception, no particular norm or rule, and in consequence no dispensation in the Church that distinguishes adherence to freemasonry in the Nordic countries from the provisions of the universal law of the Church.
2. Therefore, the provisions of universal law and the specific norms and guidance issued by the Apostolic See on the question of freemasonry apply in full and without exception in the territory of the Nordic Bishops’ Conference. The most recent such guidance was offered by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Note for the Audience with the Holy Father of 13 November 2023, reaffirming the validity of the Declaration on Masonic Associations of 26 November 1983, issued by the then Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
We wish to stress that Catholic Church’s firmness on the question of adherence to freemasonry is not a negative judgement on the good will or good works of individuals. The Church’s position springs from awareness that the theological and philosophical principles of freemasonry are incompatible with confession of the Catholic faith.
With this in mind, the following pastoral and sacramental provisions are to be followed:
a) A Catholic, who is at the same time a freemason or a member of a masonic lodge is to be encouraged to relinquish this membership.
b) A Catholic, who is at the same time a freemason or a member of a masonic lodge is to abstain from receiving Holy Communion and is prohibited from receiving other sacraments.
c) A freemason or a member of a masonic lodge who seeks baptism in the Catholic Church, or who seeks to enter full communion with the Catholic Church as a validly baptised Christian, is to terminate this membership prior to baptism or reception into full communion.
d) No parish, no institute of consecrated life or society of apostolic life, no Catholic organisation or institution in our local churches is to enter into agreements of collaboration with freemasons or masonic lodges or make use of properties belonging to masonic lodges.
The implementation of these provisions will require patience, pastoral care and kind attention. We invite you to study the official documents that account for the Church’s position in order to expound them carefully and correctly.
We have confidence in your gifts and experience, knowing that you will be able wisely to accompany, with clarity of mind and a pastoral heart, those among the faithful who find themselves needing to terminate their bonds with freemasonry and masonic lodges.
The call of our Lord Jesus Christ, “Come, follow me” (Matt 4.19), presupposes readiness to leave behind other attachments that stand in the way of wholehearted discipleship. This has always been, and will always remain, a criterion of Christian authenticity. Let us help each other by word and example to live up to it, trusting in God’s grace.
With the assurances of our prayers for your ministry and for the faithful entrusted to your priestly care, we remain,
Yours in Christ,
+Erik Varden OCSO, President of the Nordic Bishops’ Conference
Territorial Prelate of Trondheim
Apostolic Administrator of Tromsø
+Raimo Goyarrola, Vice President of the Nordic Bishop’s Conference
Bishop of Helsinki
+David Tencer OFMCap
Bishop of Reykjavik
+Anders Cardinal Arborelius OCD
Bishop of Stockholm
+Czeslaw Kozon
Bishop of Copenhagen
+Fredrik Hansen
Bishop of Oslo
Sr. Anna Mirijam Kaschner CPS, Secretary General
***
Can Catholics be Freemasons? No
In the years 1974-80 an official process of conversation took place that involved the Catholic Church in Germany and German freemasonry. The conversation was coordinated by the German Bishops’ Conference and the United Grand Lodges of Germany. The Catholic Church was concerned to establish whether freemasonry had, in the years following World War II, changed to such an extent that Catholics might be freemasons. The conversations took place in an atmosphere marked by openness, concerned to establish facts. The Catholic Church was granted insight into the freemasons’ first three degrees.
Examination of these degrees made it clear that there remain fundamental and insuperable contradictions between the Church and freemasonry. The essence of freemasonry turns out to remain unchangeably the same. To be a freemason is to cast doubt over the whole of Christian existence. The examination of the freemasons’ rituals, ideology and self-understanding was thorough. It clearly showed that it is impossible to be a member of the Catholic Church and at the same time to be a freemason.
Reasons
1. The freemasons’ outlook on life
The freemasons’ outlook on life is not clearly defined, but it tends towards humanism. The words and gestures found in the books of rituals combine to form a frame which each individual mason can fill with personal notions. It was impossible to trace a binding shared ideology. By contrast, relativism is a fundamental conviction of freemasonry. In the Internationales Freimaurer-Lexikon one reads that ‘freemasonry is the only system that over time has managed to keep both ideology and practice far away from dogmas. Freemasonry may therefore be understood as a movement for relativistically inclined human beings in pursuit of humanistic ideals.’ This sort of subjectivism is incompatible with faith in the Word of God who revealed Himself to the world and is rightly expounded by the Church’s magisterium. Further, it confounds Catholics’ view of the Church’s sacred, sacramental actions.
2. Freemasonry’s view of truth
Freemasons deny that there is such a thing as an objective recognition of the truth. During the conversations the well-known words of G.E. Lessing were often invoked:
If God held in his right hand all truth and in his left the constant, lively urge for truth — with the stipulation that I might always, and for eternity, make a wrong choice — and then said to me, ‘Make your choice!’, I would in all humility have cast myself into his left hand and said: ‘Father, give me this! Pure truth is for you alone.’
The freemasons said in our conversations that this was most relevant for them. The proposition that all truth is relative is the foundation of freemasonry. Freemasons refuse commitment to dogma both within and outside the lodge. It is required that the freemason should be one who is ‘free from subjection to dogma and passion’. This implies a rejection in principle of any dogmatic position, as is clearly stated in the Freimaurer Lexikon: ‘All institutions based on dogma (among which the Catholic Church is most prominent) constrain people to believe.’ Such a view of truth is incompatible with the Catholic understanding of truth with regard both to natural theology and the theology of revelation.
3. The freemasons’ understanding of religion
The freemasons’ understanding of religion is relativistic. All religions are seen as competing attempts to express a divine truth that in any way can never be attained. The only apt expression of divine truth are the symbols of the freemasons, which every freemason interprets as he or she can. That is why the lodge strictly forbids religious discussion among freemasons. The constitutions, dated 1723, of the United Grand Lodge of England state in the first paragraph:
A Mason is obliged by his Tenure, to obey the moral law; and if he rightly understands the Art, he will never be a stupid atheist, nor an irreligious libertine. But though in ancient Times Masons were charged in every Country to be of the Religion of that Country or Nation, whatever it was, yet it is now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that Religion in which all Men agree, leaving their particular Opinions to themselves.
The notion of a religion ‘in which all Men agree’ presupposes a relativistic understanding of religion that is incompatible with the fundamental conviction of Christianity.
4. The freemasons understanding of god
The notion of ‘the great Architect of the universe’ is central to the rituals of freemasonry. It must be deemed a deistic notion, even where one endeavours with good will to be open to other religions. There is not, further to this, any objective recognition of the divine that allows for the understanding of a personal God. The idea of ‘the great Architect of the universe’ is neutral, open to all sorts of interpretation. Anyone can fill it with his or her own understanding of the divine, be they Christians or Muslims, Confucianists, Animists, or adherents of whatever cult. According to the freemasons, the ‘great Architect’ is not a personal God. A vague, general religious sentiment is all it takes to recognise ‘the great Architect of the universe’. The idea of a universal architect enthroned on a deistic sideline undermines Catholic faith in a God who speaks to human beings as Father and Lord.
5. The freemasons’ view of god and of revelation
All Christians believe and profess that God has revealed himself. The freemasons’ view of god excludes such belief. Talk of a ‘great Architect of the universe’ takes the relationship of humans to the divine back to a pre-deistic stage. Freemasons consider the astral primal religion of Babylonians and Sumerians a source of Christian belief. This is in flagrant opposition to a faith based on Revelation.
6. The freemasons’ understanding of tolerance
The freemasons’ view of truth also conditions their view of tolerance. A Catholic will uphold that tolerance is a matter of charitably putting up with other people. Freemasons, in contrast, are to tolerate ideas, no matter how contradictory they may be. It may be useful to cite, once again, from Lennhoff and Posner:
Relativism leads directly to the freemasons’ outlook on the world and on the problems of humankind. […] Relativism proposes reasonable arguments for tolerance. Freemasonry is a movement that, since the end of the Middle Ages, reacted against both the absolute teaching of the Church and political absolutism, and against all kinds of fanaticism.
This view of tolerance confounds fidelity to and recognition of the Church’s magisterium among Catholics.
7. The rituals of freemasonry
In the detailed conversations the rituals of the degrees of apprentices, fellows, and masters were discussed. The actions indicated in these rituals by words and symbols resemble sacraments. They give the impression that these symbolic actions objectively transform a person. The stand for a symbolic initiation set to compete with the transformation of human beings by the Church’s sacraments.
8. The perfectibility of man
The rituals show that freemasonry envisages the ethical and spiritual optimisation of the human being. In the ritual for the master’s degree one can read: ‘What virtues must a true master possess? Purity of heart, truth in speech, prudence in action, fearlessness faced with unavoidable evils and persevering zeal in good deeds.’ This kind of ethical optimisation, by being proposed as an absolute, is disconnected from God’s grace. It leaves no space for the idea of man’s justification as a Christian understands it. What is the point of Baptism, Penance, and the Eucharists, had man already been illumined and brought to conquer death through the first three degrees?
9. The spirituality of freemasonry
Freemasonry makes a total claim on the whole human being, requiring adherence in life and death. Even if one grants that the first three degrees are principally intended to form consciousness and character, it remains an open question whether the Church’s mission admits this sort of formation exercised by another institution. This total claim shows clearly that freemasonry is incompatible with the Catholic Church.
10. Different directions within freemasonry
There are within freemasonry a majority of lodges representing a humanitarian, ‘believing’ tendency. Alongside them are extreme orientations like, on the one hand, the atheistic fraternity of the ‘Grand Orient de France’ that also has lodges in Germany and, on the other hand, the ‘Große Landesloge’. The latter further calls itself ‘the Christian order of freemasonry’. So-called ‘Christian freemasonry’ is in no way outside the basic constitution of freemasonry; it is motivated simply by the wish to reconcile freemasonry with subjective Christian faith. Such a position is theologically untenable. The facts of Revelation (God’s incarnation and his communion with humankind) are recognised as one possible variant within the general outlook of freemasonry — and it is one that only a minority of freemasons will recognise.
11. Freemasonry and the Catholic Church
Different forms of freemasonry relate to the Church in different ways: some are friendly, some are neutral, some are hostile. These differences matter; but they mislead if they make people think that the membership of Catholics is impermissible only when it comes to lodges hostile to Christianity. The investigation that has been carried out has been based, precisely, on freemasonry well-disposed to the Church. Even here the incompatibility of Catholic faith and freemasonry is of a fundamental nature.
12. Freemasonry and the evangelical church
In 1973 there were conversations between freemasonry and the [German] evangelical church. The results of these conversations were presented in a final report on 13 October 1973. The representatives of the evangelical church left it to the conscience of individual Christians to evaluate the possibility of membership in freemasonry. A really remarkable point is made in the report’s fifth paragraph:
It was impossible for the church’s representatives to reach a final conclusion regarding the meaning and significance of rituals. But the question kept arising whether the rites and activities of freemasonry would not reduce the significance for the evangelical Christian of justification by grace.
Conclusion
The basic attitudes and activities of freemasons have remained exactly the same, even if persecution under Nazism led to greater openness to other societal groups. The contradictions displayed touch the very foundation of Christian life. Detailed investigation of the freemasons’ rituals and spirituality made it patently clear that simultaneous membership of the Catholic Church and of freemasonry is impossible.
[Summary of essential points from the Erklärung der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz zur Frage der Mitgliedschaft von Katholiken in der Freimaurerei from 1980]
***
Here is the above summary in PDF, with notes to relevant sources. It is followed by the German original. Another helpful reference is the volume produced by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2015, with a preface by Cardinal Luis F. Ladaria SJ and an introduction by Cardinal Gerhard L. Müller: Dichiarazione circa le associazioni massoniche (Rome, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2015). You can also find pertinent statements by the Holy See here and here.

Coram Fratribus

Sts Peter and Paul You can find an English version by scrolling down a little.
Apg 12.1-11: Der Engel stieß Petrus in die Seite.
2 Tim 4.6-18: Mein Sohn, ich werde schon geopfert.
Mt 16.13-19: Du bist Petrus – der Fels.
Zur Vesper gestern sangen wir eine rührende Antiphon. Sie berichtet von der vollkommenen Eintracht des Petrus und des Paulus: “Wie die herrlichen Apostel Christi sich zu Lebzeiten liebten, wurden sie auch im Tod nicht von einander getrennt.”
Wahr ist diese Darstellung.
Zugleich ist sie idealisiert — aber manchmal sieht man halt im Nachhinein ein, dass ein Ideal dabei war, sich zu verkörpern in vergangenen Erfahrungen die uns damals einfach nervend oder konfliktgeladen erschienen.
Im Galaterbrief, geschrieben ungefähr fünfzehn Jahre nach der Auferstehung Christi, erzählt Paulus schlicht von einem öffentlichen Streit zwischen Petrus und ihm. “Als Kephas”, schreibt er, “nach Antiochia gekommen war, habe ich ihm ins Angesicht widerstanden, weil er sich ins Unrecht gesetzt hatte.”
Es ging um die Streitfrage des noch nicht geklärten Status der bekehrten Heiden. Sollte ein frommer Jude mit solchen Menschen Mahlzeiten einnehmen oder nicht?
Petrus war unsicher. Eine Weile aß er mit Nicht-Juden zusammen. Dann kamen Glaubensgenossen strenger Observanz aus Jerusalem und sagten: “Du darfst das nicht!” Petrus zog sich zurück. Dann wurde Paulus entsetzt und nannte ihn einen Heuchler.
Ich finde es bemerkenswert, dass die Kirche diese Uneinigkeit der zwei Apostel nie geleugnet hat. Ganz im Gegenteil: Sie machte daraus einen topos zur Betrachtung.
Vor wenigen Tagen befand ich mich in Mailand vor einem wunderbaren Gemälde in der Pinacoteca di Brera. Das Bild, von Guido Reni, trägt den Titel: “Paulus tadelt den reuigen Petrus”. Paulus steht aufrecht. In der linken Hand hält er ein dickes Buch. Mit der rechten gestikuliert er. Petrus, sitzend, stützt seinen Kopf mit der rechten, während er die linke Hand, mit ausgestreckten Fingern, auf dem Knie hält, fragend. Sein Emblem, der Schlüssel des Himmelreiches, liegt auf dem Boden neben ihm.
Man sieht: der Schlüssel ist ihm anvertraut, ist aber nicht sein Besitz. Er soll ihn verwenden im Namen des Herrn, weiss aber im Moment nicht ganz wie.
Keine Aggression ist zu sehen im Bild, nur eine ernste Auseinandersetzung.
Reni hat es gemalt im Jahre 1609. Die Gegenreformation war in Bewegung. Eine ultramontane Tendenz regte sich im europäischen Katholizismus. Reni selbst war ein von mehreren Päpsten beauftragten Künstler. Die Autorität von Petrus und seinen Nachfolgern war ihm selbstverständlich. Dennoch stellte er den König der Apostel dar in einem Zustand von Ratlosigkeit. Und niemand wurde deswegen geschockt.
Petrus hatte jahrelang nahe an Christus gelebt. Er hatte des Herrn Lehre gehört, seine Wundertaten gesehen, seine inneren Kämpfe gespürt. Er hatte Jesus verraten. Zu Ostern wurde er vergeben. Er wusste was Gnade heisst. Zugleich nahm er sich seine vom Auferstandenen gegebene Aufgabe ernst: “Weide meine Lämmer!” Wie sollte er dann neu entscheiden können, wer zur Herde Jesu gehört?
Mit Paulus sah es anders aus. Ihm, dem erstmaligen Behüter pharisäischer Orthodoxie, war, wie er es den Galatern erklärte, direkt von Gott eine Mission auferlegt worden: die Einverleibung der Heiden in den mystischen Leib Christi damit die Kirche im radikalsten Sinne katholisch werde, wahrhaft universell und alle Völker umarmend.
Petrus stand für das preislose Erbe erinnerter Überlieferung. Paulus stand für das ständig Neue, das der Lebendige, immer vorwärts schauende Gott in der Kirche erwirkt.
Es musste zu einer Konfrontation kommen, nicht aber im Sinne eines Zwistes.
Denn beide Perspektive, die petrinische und die paulinische, sind wertvoll und unentbehrlich. Sie bestehen, einander voraussetzend, in dialektischer Spannung. Katholisch sein heisst, diese Spannung aushalten zu können, sie zu lieben und durch sie, in Christus, zu wachsen.
Diese Spannung macht die Kirche erkennbar als heilig und apostolisch jetzt. Sie schützt uns, die Gläubigen, vor der eigenen Zumutung. Sie kann lebensspendende Demut beibringen. Denn durch sie entdecken wir, Gott ist der immerwährend handelnde, schaffende Subjekt der Kirche. Seine Gedanken sind nicht immer die unseren — unendlich grösser, schöner und verheissungsvoller sind sie, die Wirklichkeit verwandelnd, die Schöpfung erneuernd, die Menschheit heiligend.
Gut ist es, daran erinnert zu werden jetzt, da einige, die sich katholisch nennen, Apostolizität zu einem Gepäckstück reduzieren, das sie, nicht ohne Selbstzufriedenheit, rumschleppen in einem versiegelten Koffer, sicher dass sie, und nur sie, die Wahrheit besitzen, als ob sie sich besitzen liesse und nicht allen menschlichen Maß überströmt. Eine solche Stellungnahme ist eine faktische Kapitulation an genau die Art von Subjektivismus die sie zu verachten behauptet.
Ja, absurd ist der Mensch, sich selbst überlassen.
Der Disput, den Petrus und Paulus in Antiochia führten zeigt uns, es gibt nicht immer auf neue Fragen aufgelagerte Antworten. Manchmal muss in der Kirche um Antworten gerungen werden. Das apostolische Depositum entfaltet sich durch solches Ringen wenn sich die Wahrheit in Liebe äussert.
Peter und Paulus konnten streiten weil sie sich liebten und der Liebe Christi nichts vorzogen. Das Leben beider endete in einer vollkommenen, freien Hingabe für die Kirche.
Darin bewährt sich ihre apostolische Autorität. An diesem Kriterium können wir selbst die eigene christliche Glaubwürdigkeit ziemlich sicher prüfen.
***
At vespers last night we sang a touching antiphon. It speaks of the perfect understanding that united Peter and Paul: ‘Even as the glorious Apostles of Christ loved each other while they lived, they were not separated in death.’
This is a true account.
At the same time it is idealised. But isn’t that how it is? We sometimes see in retrospect that an ideal was taking flesh in past experience that, at the time, seemed to us simply annoying and conflictual.
In the letter to the Galatians, written fifteen years or so after Christ’s resurrection, Paul matter-of-factly recounts a public controversy between Peter and himself.
‘When Cephas came to Antioch’, he wrote, ‘I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned’.
At stake was the still unresolved question of the status of converted gentiles.
Should, indeed could, a devout Jew take meals with such people, or not?
Peter was unsure. For a while he ate with non-Jews. Then some companions of strict observance came from Jerusalem and said: ‘You can’t!’ Peter withdrew. Then Paul was peeved, and called Peter a hypocrite.
I find it remarkable that the Church has never dissembled this disagreement between the two Apostles. On the contrary: she made of it a topos for reflection.
A few days ago I found myself in Milan before a magnificent painting in the Pinacoteca di Brera. The picture, painted by Guido Reni, is entitled: ‘Paul Rebukes the Penitent Peter.’ Paul stand upright. He holds a fat book in his left hand while gesticulating with the right. Peter, seated, supports his head with his right hand. His left rests on his knee with fingers extended in a gesture of questioning. His emblem, the key to the kingdom, lies on the ground next to him.
We realise that the key, for being entrusted to him, is not his possession. He is to use it in the name of the Lord, but there and then doesn’t quite know how.
There is no aggression to be seen in the picture, only earnest confrontation.
Reni painted it in 1609. The Counter-Reformation was in full swing. An ultramontane tendency marked European Catholicism. Reni had had works commissioned by popes. He took the authority of Peter and his successors for granted.
Yet he represented the King of the Apostles in a state of perplexity. And no one was scandalised.
Peter had lived close to Christ for years. He had heard the Lord’s teaching, watched his miracles, felt his inner battles. He had betrayed Jesus. At Easter he had been forgiven. He knew what grace is about. At the same time he took seriously the task entrusted him by the Risen One: ‘Feed my lambs!’ Who was he to decide who did and did not belong to the Lord’s flock?
Paul is a different kettle of fish. To him, as he explains to the Galatians, God had directly given a specific mission: that of incorporating the gentiles into the mystical Body of Christ so that the Church might be, in the radical sense, Catholic, truly universal, embracing all peoples.
Peter stood for the priceless inheritance of remembered tradition. Paul stood for the newness that the living, ever forward-looking Lord realises in his Church.
It had to come to a confrontation, but not in the sense of a fight.
For both perspectives, the Petrine and the Pauline, are valuable, indispensable. Presupposing each other, they subsist in dialectic tension. To be a Catholic is to sustain such tension, to learn to love it so as, through it, to grow to full maturity in Christ.
This tension makes the Church recognisable now as holy and apostolic.
It protects us, her members, from our own presumption. It can be a source of life-giving humility. For through it we discover that God remains the acting, creative Subject of the Church. His thoughts are not always ours. They are infinitely greater, lovelier, and fuller of promise. They can transform reality, renew creation, sanctify mankind.
It is good to be reminded of this right now, when some who call themselves Catholic do reduce apostolicity to a piece of luggage they carry around, not without a degree of self-satisfaction, in a sealed suitcase, certain that they, and only they, possess the truth — as if the truth could be possess and did not exceed every human measure. Such a position is in fact a capitulation to exactly the kind of subjectivism it professes to repudiate.
How absurd human beings can become, surrendered to themselves.
The disputation of Peter and Paul in Antioch shows us this: there are not always ready-made answers to new questions. In the Church we must sometimes struggle to find answers. That is how the apostolic deposit unfolds, as the truth utters itself in love. Peter and Paul could risk conflict because they loved each other, and preferred nothing on earth to Christ’s love.
The life of both culminated in a perfect, freely given offering of self for the sake of the Church. That is how their apostolic authority was borne out.
By that same criterion we can unfailingly test the degree of our own Christian credibility.

Today we celebrate the feast day of St Oliver Plunkett.
Saint Oliver Plunkett (1st November 1625 - 1st July 1681) was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland.
Oliver Plunkett was beatified in 1920 and canonised Read More 4 Comments

Amen🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻✝️Amen 🙏Amen 🙏

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Posted: 15 hours ago

Monday 13th July 2026
A one-day trip to Croagh Patrick, the holy mountain in Co. Mayo
Age range: 13 to 20 years of age
This pilgrimage will suit those who can hike up a mountain (about 3 hours hiking in total, including the Read More 7 Likes

Posted: 2 days ago

Paróiste Ghobnatan
🌞 SCEIDEAL AN tSAMHRAIDH / SUMMER SCHEDULE 2026
Beidh sceideal an tsamhraidh i bhfeidhm ón tseachtain seo ar aghaidh. Tiocfaidh na gnáth socruithe ar ais ar an deireadh seachtaine don 15ú Lúnasa. Leis an sceideal seo, beidh deis ar na Read More 2 Likes

Posted: 2 days ago

Today June 29th we celebrate the Solemnity of St Peter and St Paul. They are the solid rock on which the Church is built.
In a sermon in the year 395, St. Augustine of Hippo said of Sts. Peter and Paul: Read More 12 Likes

Posted: 2 days ago

Today we celebrate The Nativity of St. John the Baptist.
We rejoice at the coming of St John the Baptist, a man of self-denial, integrity of life and purpose, and an uncompromising prophetic voice. John means 'The Lord has shown Read More 2 Comments

Cork Nurses For Life

Glanire Commercial Cleaning Only those who keep their purpose clear through the busiest days truly stay ahead in the long run.

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Bishop Crean meets Pope Leo

Bishop William Crean meets Pope Leo on recent pilgrimage to Rome

"Behold I'm doing a new thing" says the Lord (Isaiah 43)

Pastoral letter from Bishop William Crean

Recent picture of St. Colman's Cathedral, Cobh. Co. Cork

Light a Candle at St. Colman's Cathedral

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