Papal Nuncio asks Irish to reflect on their ancestors' Catholic faith during tough times

(…more) and leave the indifferentism of videos, internet, Gaga or Justin Bieber and mobile/cell phones alone for enough time to reflect on what they’re all leading them from... from the fact that they are all going to die someday and where they might find videos, internet gambling and pronography, Mario Lanza or Madonna and ET’s phone home to call back to earth in their next life. To paraphrase Charles Schulz’s peanuts wise Charlie Brown character: “… (Our Faith is) a historical gem to this country… Ignoring it is dangerous”. Or how about: “We’re here because we love him. We here because we hurt and that’s OK” or “God, we trust you to take care of Erin”. I don't think that A/B Charles Brown’s comments are short of Charlie Brown’s wisdom.

Our Christ was the first person to fight for real justice in his land of birth, challenging the ‘status quo’ of his time. That caused a revolution that has lasted 2000 yrs so far, with sign of it ending (despite what church-bashers allege). In these times of ours, there is a ‘status quo’ that Nuncio A/B Brown is challenging us all on. He’s right to do so… and he’s right about the numbness and even ignorance perpetrated by music, tv, internet, video games and texting habits of people of today. He’s right too, to quote Maximilian Kolbe saying that he “diagnosed the spiritual disease of our times as indifferentism . . . that it really doesn’t matter too much what a person believes”. I think it’s very important that people ask themselves what they believe in today to avoid diseases such as Kolbe spoke of and… (More...)

WoundedKnee - Well said indeed and a priest gave the speech at the Kilmichael commemoration? Times sure are changing! I remember the day when that would never have happened!

@Mortimer74 - "Meanwhile, the Church has put its house in order, and continues to do its good work - in Ireland" - No not yet, but I have enough faith and belief that it will do so, eventually; but not before the institutional church has shown true and sincere remorse for the untold damage and ruination it has wrought, and which has resulted in so many broken lives, broken bodies, broken minds, and worst of all, broken souls!!

It has become dreadfully apparent over the past 20 to 30 years that a viscious and hostile trend has grown in the Irish 'modernists'. Along with their expressed ignorance of history and fact they chatter like the 'Hollywood Set' and are about as empty of truth and reality. They do not appear to be able to distinguish between the Church as founded by Jesus Christ (which I follow) and the the members of the clergy who have sinned and failed to live the Christian way so therefore they just throw the 'baby out with the bathwater'. It seems to be fashionable for many Irish to grab onto the 'hate the church' garbage and so they can forget there is right and wrong, good and evil, and go their merry way oblivious to the thousands of charitable works done by real members of the Church. These people do not go about blowing their own trumpets but they are in every city and town supporting people in need, our brothers and sisters in Christ.

misneac, you're absolutely right. But I fear your message will be wasted on most of the pathetic bigots below. seanomelb, for example, doesn't realize the irony of his comment, bless his addled brain. The anti-Catholic cabal (neo-atheistic media, SNAP, and the likes of the losers below) are desperate to make a decades-old issue seem topical. Meanwhile, the Church has put its house in order, and continues to do its good work - in Ireland and around the world. Love the faith, live the faith!

Six Pint`s Of Porter and a Basket of Fried Fish and Potatoes the Real, Charlie Brown !

The Papal Nuncio talks like a politician

Misneac ignores"recent historical facts"

Most of the comments posted are totally hostile to the Catholic C Church and have no basis in historical fact .The work of the Church goes on ,and despite the wishful thinking of bigots it continues to do amazing work to feed and help those in need .Thousands of free meals are fed free of charge to needy people each day in Dublin by Catholic institutions ,and no questions are asked !I wouldnt bother seeking to answer some of the stupid and insulting comments ,suffice to say that none of you will live to see the Catholic Church dissappear from Ireland !

It's likely true that many of the Irish have forgotten their faith, but that's true worldwide. A number of the comments here sound like someone who's met a bad bank teller or two and then withdrawn all their money. Ultimately faith has little to do with how one views their religion's clergy. I've met many good and faithful priests and nuns, but I've met some who disappointed me. So what! In the scheme of things that does not matter. To address one specific comment, women were arguably treated like chattel before Christianity, better afterwards. People in general have never been treated ideally, religion or not. Catholics especially revere a woman's role. In fact Catholics and other Christians have lately taken to protecting women's lives even before they are born.

It was the total committment of the Irish to their faith that caused them to accept every turn of phrase by their Bishops. WE now know we were lied to and treated like peons by the church. The papal Nuncio can take his woprds back to Rome and tell the Chief priest the Irish are finished and do not trust their bulls##t anymore

I just realized that today in the Anniversary of the Kilmichael Ambush, that cold November Sunday when a small and poorly equipped detachment of patriots from West Cork made a stand against the foreign presence in Ireland and demonstrated that British military and special forces could no longer terrorize, torture and murder with impunity. I was interested to read that a priest gave the speech at the commemoration last Sunday. Maybe a new and democratic Church is indeed being born in Ireland.

culchiewoman: "it was the Church itself responsible for much of the misery of those times." So the Church was responsible for the Penal laws? For the persecutions instituted by England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? For the ethnic cleansing of Catholics? You're a complete nut, culchiewoman. Grow up and learn a little history. By all means remain a bigot, but at least be a smart one.

IF the Irish DID reflect on our ancestors' deep Catholic faith, we'd revolt or leave the Church. The faith and the people hasn't changed; the Church has. As a youth, the Church had NOTHING in common at at all with the fundamentalizt Christian Churches or the Mormons. Now the only difference between them is their religious rituals!