42 Comments

• hermitTalker | Feb 28, 2012, 12:38 PM EST

  UNBELIEVABLE CRUD. Just spotted this. There is one cadinal alive and active in Armagh, where the cardinal has been based for a long time, Cdl Connell was an exception. The current number is 120 for voting for Pope several of the new ones are over the age for electing the Pope which is 80- the Pope decides whether to hang on or resign at age 80. cannot believe this story was used as an attack on Abp. D Martin.

• stephen1553 | Feb 03, 2012, 02:31 PM EST

  test msg

• cynicus | Jan 28, 2012, 05:16 PM EST

  I see this 'snub' as another begrudging and unchristian 'recognition' of the honesty, humility and righteousness of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. Obviously he is not duplicitous and dishonest enough for promotion! It would be worse if his reputation were to be ruined by being appointed as another yes-man cardinal to parrot the party line from Rome! The Vatican is probably the oldest secret society in existence. After 2.000 years of perfecting its worldly self-preservation, it is apparent that truth and honesty- the teaching of Jesus - have been well and truly suppressed in the interest of a worldly corporate, financial and devious political dictatorship. Archbishop Martin must at all costs steer clear of being aligned with the 'spooks' and 'crooks' in the Vatican Secret Society.

• EditorCT | Jan 14, 2012, 02:51 PM EST

  I don't hate anyone, eiramach, and I'm not trying to wreak vengeance on anyone. But I'm puzzled at your attitude. After all, if you think that one religion (or none) is as good as another, why not "tolerate" those of us who think differently? As for your claim to deal in "substance and facts" -I'm afraid I don't see any substance and no facts in anything you've written so far. However, I respect your decision to end the discussion. God bless you.

• eiriamach | Jan 14, 2012, 08:25 AM EST

  Like I said earlier, EditorCT, tolerance is not your métier! Perhaps you've won over some people who are searching for the one-and-only true cult of the one-and-only true religion. But as for me, I work with substance and facts, rather than generalities, and I'm particularly disinclined to discuss who hates and wants to wreak vengeance on whom, so I'm done with this discussion.

• EditorCT | Jan 13, 2012, 03:33 PM EST

  eiriamach,I did not come on here pushing any website. I didn't even provide a link to our website. I merely mentioned it in passing. I rather think that might fall under the heading of "freedom of speech." I believe you said somewhere that you are not a Catholic, which explains why you are so hostile to authentic Catholicism, favouring instead contemporary "reformers" in the school of Martin Luther et al. If you understood anything of the nature and purpose of the Catholic Church you would know how far removed from the truth are your assertions. I have not tried to "silence" you - I merely responded to your comments to correct your false understanding of Catholicism. If words mean anything, then the Catholic Church has to be understood as she describes herself, not as her enemies describe her. You did not write facts about our website - you gave a prejudiced view of our website that reveals you to be a homosexual sympathizer (one of the four sins that cry to heaven for vengeance) and a supporter, as I've just said, of modern day Protestant reformers like the members of the ACP. There is nothing on our website that contradicts Catholic doctrine and morality. That, I'm afraid, is your problem. By expressing your hatred of the content of our website, you reveal your hatred of Catholic doctrine.

• eiriamach | Jan 13, 2012, 07:09 AM EST

  EditorCT: again I explain for the benefit of people like you who use these blogs to advertise their web sites along with religious rationales for their narrow-mindedness: I have a strongly American sense of freedom of speech. As I wrote below, the Internet brings folks like you out to places like this. You have the right to spout your venom here, but when you do, please remember that everyone else has the same freedom of speech that you exercise. And some of us are motivated by a sense of moral obligation to reply to the bigotry that others spew on the Internet. If, indeed, God "blesses" me soon, there are many others like me, who are offended by your willful blindness to the documented facts of history, your intolerance, and some of us are willing to say why these are offensive. You have the right to speak and to write, but no right to silence others who disagree with you. Name-calling does not drive us away. I wrote below accurate facts about the web site you're pushing; people should be warned about the slants, distortions of history, and multifarious biases lurking there. "Nasty"? Maybe. But "ignorant"? No, and easily verifiable.

• EditorCT | Jan 13, 2012, 06:58 AM EST

  eiriamach, since you don't (I presume) know or appreciate my sense of humour I ought to make clear that when I refer to "my opinion of YOU" (in my previous comment) I restrict my opinion to the facts about your beliefs/lack of truly Catholic beliefs. I have no idea about you, as a person, and I am sure that you are a very nice person. There's no law says you have to like me, and you clearly don't, but I don't want to break my lifetime record of never saying that I dislike anyone - I disagree with you (and all "liberals") about what is going on in the Church, but that isn't personal. I'm straight-talking in the newsletter reports and editorials, as you know, and I LOVE to annoy the mods, but it's not personal. I just that I have character defects and I'm not afraid to use them - true - but I wouldn't want you to confuse that with personal nastiness. I don't know you, as a person, but most people are nice enough on a personal level. You've told me your views on the state of the Church, the ACP and other matters, so that is in the objective data domain and I am therefore free to tell you that you are way off the wall when it comes to understanding the true nature and purpose of the Church and the priesthood. However, I shouldn't have given the impression that I had an even worse opinion of you than you have of me, because that is misleading. I don't know you but I like you enough to tell you that if you ever visit Scotland, avoid eating haggis. It's not what it's cracked up to be!

• EditorCT | Jan 12, 2012, 08:02 PM EST

  eiriamach Nobody who has bought into the Modernism now gripping the Church will like Catholic Truth - either the publication of that name OR the doctrines of the Church. Anyone who thinks of the ACP as "a reform group" (assuming they have any right to reform anything but themselves) is missing the point. The ACP want a new "Church" - they don't like the one established by Christ. Not to their liking. At least you think my "attacks" on those daft clerics were "vituperative" - that's cheered me up; I'd been thinking I was too lenient on those scoundrels so thanks for that. And to describe the SSPX as either "anti-Semitic" or "schismatic" is to show the same desperation that we see in Protestants who insist that it can't be right to pay for Confessions. Nope, you got that right, I tell 'em, cept we don't pay for Confession. Ditto your nasty and ignorant remarks about the SSPX. NOw, don't tell me... you've also swallowed the propaganda about Pope Piux XII and the Jews haven't you? Now, how did I know that? Your entire post is chock full of ignorant and unsustainable allegations. Which is why you chose to end on an even weaker note by personal insult. You say that I give you "the creeps". Luckily for you, I have no intention of sharing my opinion of YOU with the world. The internet might crash! God bless you, eeriemuck, and soon!

• eiriamach | Jan 11, 2012, 01:16 PM EST

  In case someone with literary sensitivity is tempted to critique the next-to-last sentence I wrote below, let me add that I really enjoyed mixing those metaphors! I was inspired by a visit to the Catholic Truth web site, a religious hodge podge as edgy as any I've seen, and I've seen a few!

• eiriamach | Jan 10, 2012, 11:09 PM EST

  LOL! I'm not a papist of any description, EditorCT. Your website is, at first glance, ridiculously anti-ecumenist, savagely anti-gay (you seem not to be able to use the word *gay* without putting scare quotes around it), anti-Catholic Priests Association of Ireland (a reform group), with particularly vituperative attacks on Frs. Tony Flannery and Brendan Hoban, and radically anti-reform. You claim "nothing short of a full restoration of the Traditional Latin Mass will end the liturgical chaos in the Church," and in general you insist that Catholicism can never do anything new, except that it should canonize the anti-Semitic SSPX organization's founder, Marcel Lefebvre! Schisms, heresies, and superstitions of the wildest kinds, along with triumphalism with regard to the Reformation and clericalism with regard to the priesthood, abound in your publication. The Internet provides everyone with a forum, so the splits, fissures, and fractures in today's Catholicism are coming out of their closets, and some of them are way out there on the edge, like yours! You give me the creeps, EditorCT.

• EditorCT | Jan 10, 2012, 04:11 PM EST

  eiriamach The only people who could possibly think I'm a sedevacantist are those people who are totally uninformed. Let me ask YOU a question, eiriamach. Are you a papolatrist? I ask because people who think popes are above and beyond criticism, (papolatrists) often mistakenly think anybody who is properly educated about the extent (and limits) of papal authority are anything ranging from "disloyal" right through to sedevacantist. Silly beggars.

• eiriamach | Jan 10, 2012, 01:35 PM EST

  I tend to think of women as more in touch with the real world than EditorCT seems to be. But whatever.... Now as for the other facts, is EditorCT not a member of one of the many sedevacantist groups that Catholicism harbors? Doesn't EditorCT believe that there has not been a legitimate pope on the chair of Peter since Pius XII?

• EditorCT | Jan 10, 2012, 12:42 PM EST

  eiriamach, you really need to get your facts straight. Start with this one. "He" (EditorCT) is a "she".

• SeamusMartin | Jan 09, 2012, 07:00 PM EST

  Firstly, I must be very thick, because I cannot understand a single word from IrelandNorth... or does that make me normal? Secondlly, Martin's a freakin hero! Saving children or being a Cardinal we ALL know what's right. Maybe the Vat should think long and hard, then should ask itself, "What would Jesus do?" Hey maybe some philanthropist can finance a shipment of those colourful plastic/rubber bracelets that have the letters "WWJD" to Pope Benedict and he can give them to all his cronies. Course with all the wealth at the Vatican he'll prpbably just make his own bracelets that say "WDPD" (What does Pope do?). Thirdly, if Martin had enough interest, maybe he could get an appointment with the World Series Champ the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team or the up n coming Arizona Cardinals football team! Sla'inte.

• Gearoid4 | Jan 09, 2012, 11:54 AM EST

  What a load of ole warlocks concerning Vatican conspiracy about concealing early history of church.

• IrelandNorth | Jan 09, 2012, 08:02 AM EST

  Enda Kenny's Martin Luther impersonation in Dail Eireann re. Holy See Embassy was a payback bleet for British Exchequer loan. Who cares whether a Pro-consul is appointed to the Hibernian province of the Holy Roman Empire. The Tea-shock's Commonwealth Party is too busy angling for peerages rather than gaining Beatification or Canonisations.

• warlocks | Jan 08, 2012, 11:30 PM EST

  Hats off to Martin for speaking out. the Vatican hates the Truth , that old saying and the Truth will Set you Free . never went over with the Vatican. If the Followers knew the Real truth about the cover up in the Early History of the Church they would leave in Droves ! as it is little by little the Church is Decaying from within . Its a house of Evil Cards , about to crumble to Dust! its no longer a church that Jesus Built !

• mamaginnty | Jan 08, 2012, 12:56 PM EST

  When the going got tough Martin stood up, there was/are no innocent Cardinals, Bishops or Priests, they all knew what was going on for decades. A father told us years ago his son was going on for the priesthood, and was approached by a pedophile, the son said he punched the pedo and was not bothered by him again. They both went on to become priests, this son knowing that the other would go on to abuse children turned a blind eye to it all. It will never interest me on who gets a bloody red hat or not, as for nuns being allowed into the priesthood I thank the lord they did not, they have done enough damage to women and babies. Again the so called innocent nuns knew but played blind.

• McNamara31 | Jan 08, 2012, 12:16 PM EST

  Is anyone truly surprised that Martin was passed over and Dolan of New York was made cardinal? Every time Pope Benedict has the opportunity to do something to give "us hope" that he understands, he continues to hold to the Vatican corporate line. Very sad. The political/corporate minded bishops are promoted, and the good men of the church are often passed over.

• seanomelbourne | Jan 08, 2012, 02:56 AM EST

  How strange it is when the right takeover the RCC, the church falls apart.

• patrickomalley | Jan 08, 2012, 02:45 AM EST

  Benedict became pope by protecting pedophiles. If you don't protect pedophiles, you don't advance in the Catholic Church Of Child Rape.

• Collette2 | Jan 08, 2012, 12:07 AM EST

  Don't be too harsh on those who forgot that he told laspsed catholics unhappy with the church to "have the maturity to leave". Maybe they didn't see the article.

• eiriamach | Jan 07, 2012, 07:38 PM EST

  I see a sedevacantist had dropped by for our edification and enlightenment. And, irony of ironies, he complains about some imagined censorship! His Catholic "Truth" site censors, condemns, and crucifies all attempts since 1958 to bring the RCatholic Church into the modern world. The roundup of religious fanatics at the IC corral would not be complete without one of those, so here he is. Like we needed another one, right? IC is still a great idea, but it's also a magnet for the lunatic fringe.

• AustinBarry | Jan 07, 2012, 07:15 PM EST

  Maybe he didn't meet the kiddie-fiddling quota.

• EditorCT | Jan 07, 2012, 06:11 PM EST

  Where's my comment? No censorship, surely, not on a site run by "liberals"?????? Whatever next!

• seanomelbourne | Jan 07, 2012, 05:25 PM EST

  ThePapacy is run by the fascist "Opus Dei" there's no room for free thinkers with this mob.

• EditorCT | Jan 07, 2012, 04:54 PM EST

  You gotta be kidding. The Archbishop of Dublin is about as Catholic as Ian Paisley. He's featuring, right now, in the Catholic Truth newsletter(published in Scotland and read worldwide in both hard copy and on our website) where we report his disgraceful exhortation to the lapsed to effectively "get lost". So much for the Parable of the Lost Sheep. If this rebel archbishop had been given a red hat (if he is EVER given a red hat) it will be yet more evidence that the Church in the 21st century is every bit as apostate in Ireland as it is everywhere else. Such is the loss of Catholic Faith in Ireland,that a faithful bishop is now dismissed as a "YES MAN" (see JOHNTOBIN's post) God (please) help us all!

• JOHNTOBIN | Jan 07, 2012, 04:19 PM EST

  Another anti-Catholic rant by Irish Central.

• Robbie69 | Jan 07, 2012, 04:09 PM EST

  It's no wonder that Dublin's Archbishop Diarmuid Martin was not elevated to a cardinal. Dr. Martin is too honest. If he had become a "YES MAN" like Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, he would be getting his red cap and become a cardinal. But Dr. Martin was critical of the Vatican and its role in covering up the priest-pedophile problem. Martin said there could be a cabal in control of the church right now. I certainly think so. One of the few "conspiracies" I actually believe in is the murder of Pope John Paul I, the 33-day pope. John Paul I would have: sold all the Vatican treasures to "feed the poor and care for the sick" as Jesus had commanded; allowed nuns to become ordained priests; allowed married priests; blessed the unions of committed gay couples so they could adopt children; and allowed birth control, while ramping up the effort to stop abortions. All of this was too much for the Curia and Church conservatives. In one swift act, they had a coup d'etat, and went from the most progressive pope in Church history to the most conservative, all the time mocking approval of the first John Paul by taking his name. But John Paul II was anything but progressive as he swiftly moved to cancel the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, along with his henchman Ratzinger, now Benedict.

• cillowen | Jan 07, 2012, 03:38 PM EST

  The pope - No knightings for Dubliner - he may have a chance with England's Protestant Pope, the queen.

• Carroll09 | Jan 07, 2012, 12:19 PM EST

  Get real, Mr Roberts - Archbishop Martin was not "snubbed" by Pope Benedict. As Cluideman said, Ireland already has a cardinal for a country with a Catholic population of about 4 million. In fact, we have 2 cardinals - Desmond Cardinal Connell being the other. Cardinal Brady, being under 80, would be eligible to vote in the event of a papal conclave, while Cardinal Connell would not because of his age. So, in terms of the number of Cardinals, Ireland is actually punching well above its weight by even having one. Although not impossible, I think it would be unprecedented in the case of Ireland to have a cardinal-elector in both Armagh and Dublin anyway. The suggestion that Dr Martin is the most popular clergyman in Ireland shows just how out of touch you are with the situation, Mr Roberts. He is to be commended for adhering to state and Church guidelines on abuse, but (i) recent audits of Irish dioceses show that Dr Martin is not the only bishop who is doing "the right thing" with regard to child protection and (ii) he is not just Archbishop of Dublin in order to deal with the abuse scandals - he has a flock of over one million Catholics that he is supposed to be leading. Also, the Vatican did not "walk back" his decision to suspend two auxiliary archbishops (bishops actually), since only the Pope can accept or reject resignations - the Archbishop of Dublin overstepped the mark when he presumed to possess any authority on that particular issue.

• Gearoid4 | Jan 07, 2012, 10:56 AM EST

  This is typical of the negative spin which IC columnists put on any decision by the Catholic Church regarding appointments or decisions which go against their ideological bias. There is no conspiracy here. Ireland already has two red hats in the Vatican and thus on account of the Church being a global organization and the reality of multiple candidates for the limited number of Cardinal posts from more populous countries, it was deemed that Ireland has a fitting number of cardinals at this particular time.

• bunkerisland | Jan 07, 2012, 10:40 AM EST

  Vatican appointments are essentially irrelevant to most of us regardless of our religious preference. All of that pomp with elegant robes of gold simply illustrates their disconnection from the rest of us. Have them all learn to wash their own clothes, make their beds and cook their meals the clean up the kitchen.

• CLUIDEMAN | Jan 07, 2012, 05:03 AM EST

  Ireland is a small country. It already has a cardinal. It does not require another another cardinal. Ireland has too many bishops which is currently being addresses by the Vatican.

• mfinucane | Jan 07, 2012, 12:42 AM EST

  no surprises here.

• Collette2 | Jan 06, 2012, 06:15 PM EST

  I meant to say, he's still a bishop isn't he.

• Collette2 | Jan 06, 2012, 06:12 PM EST

  He's still a cardinal isn'the? They never stop being "men of he Vatican" and retain their red hat. Surely everybody knows that.

• lvox131958 | Jan 06, 2012, 05:19 PM EST

  I think of it this way: if he had been promoted, Archbishop Martin would have to leave Ireland and go live at the Vatican. Could this be God's way of paying back 100-fold for choosing the better path? I, for one, would be quite happy to stay in Ireland and forget any promotion that would send me to live at the Vatican these days.

• McNamara31 | Jan 06, 2012, 04:37 PM EST

  At the end of the day I don't think Christ is going to be impressed with who wore a red hat or not.

• Rebelforce | Jan 06, 2012, 03:52 PM EST

  Is this the first time in modern history that Ireland has no Cardinals at the Vatican? Let's not pretend like the Irish government's reckless decision to close its embassy at the Vatican had nothing to do with Ireland being overlooked with this coveted honor.

• snakehips | Jan 06, 2012, 03:51 PM EST

  Authority, whether corrupt or not, will always punish those who do not conform to the party line. If there is a heaven, however, and we all do have to meet with Saint Peter at the gates of heaven, who would you rather be;Archbishop Martin or Pope Benedict and the myriad caste of perverts and their protectors? I think that the answer is a "no brainer", don't you all?