Sir, – It is a pity that some of your letter-writers, and perhaps even some of your reporters and commentators, are not more familiar with the physical reality and atmosphere of Maynooth College, where anyone is free to enter the grounds, walk the main corridors and mingle with the students of both seminary and lay university in what is a totally integrated campus.
They might then have a better understanding of this institution, where the seminary and pontifical university share a chief administrative/financial officer who is female, a support staff of 12 that is entirely female, an academic staff of 18 including four females and a spiritual formation staff that also includes a female religious.
A seminary is not a perfect universe of absolute values; it is a testing ground where attrition rates have always been historically high. Despite the inevitable blips in any such intense endeavour, the fact is that for centuries Maynooth has assembled each September a group of young people of the most sincere, genuine and selfless motives in consoling, teaching and inspiring the people they believe they are called to serve. We endanger that situation, however flawed it may be or irrelevant it may seem, at our peril. – Yours, etc,
DENIS BERGIN,
Co Offaly.
Sir, – Rather oddly for an author of a book on modern Irish diocesan priests, sociologist Dr John A Weafer (“Scope for trial and error on the road to celibacy”, August 9th) makes quite a number of highly questionable statements. As an ex-seminarian I wish to refute two in particular.
One occurs in his opening: “Thousands of Irish men have entered through the gates of Maynooth College with the intention of becoming diocesan priests”. Only the mistaken had that intention. Those with cop-on entered (as I did, though not through the Maynooth gates) to check if they were called to be such priests.
The other occurs in his concluding words, “Perhaps now would be a good time for the church to acknowledge the diversity within priesthood and to distinguish between sexual orientation and sexual activity”. Again, only the mistaken have ever not so acknowledged and distinguished. – Yours, etc,
JOSEPH FOYLE,
Ranelagh, Dublin 6.
Sir, – I feel I must correct Seamus McKenna (August 9th). He refers to transubstantiation as an old chestnut when, in fact, it’s bread and wine, to begin with. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN AHERN,
Clonsilla, Dublin 15.
Sir, – I read with astonishment the proposition of a former insider of the Catholic Church, the “former director of pastoral formation at Allen Hall Seminary in Westminster Archdiocese, London” (August 9th). He wrote that seepage of the modern world into Catholic seminaries is only to be expected, and his remedy involves the radical steps outlined, namely, “Only the ordination of women, the ending of mandatory celibacy, and the acceptance of homosexuality within the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church can ‘normalise’ the seminaries – and let us just imagine what a difference that would make.”
Let us imagine indeed, and perhaps while they are about the above list, they might also dispense with all claims of the supernatural. They might disavow the notion that humans were created and not evolved. They might also apologise for the genocidal spread of disease in Africa arising out of their “Aids is not as bad as condoms” policy. And, if they did all of that they might finally recognise themselves as the increasingly irrelevant anachronism they have become and simply disband. We can always imagine. – Yours, etc,
JIM BRILLY,
Dublin 8.
A chara, – The Irish bishops should be careful about withdrawing all the students from Maynooth, for the British might reclaim it since they originally bought and paid for it.
The British funded the original seminary to make sure that the Irish church of the future would not be influenced by those radical republican ideas from France. They wanted to ensure that the Irish Catholic church would be servile and obedient and promote a right-wing view of the world. It must be said that it admirably fulfilled its purpose from their point of view. With few exceptions most priests toed the party line and accepted the political status quo.
The present crisis is an opportunity for the whole Irish church to review the role of a national seminary in the Irish church. If there is going to be a national seminary it should have as a priority its prophetic calling to train future priests and deacons to make a preferential option for the poor and oppressed in Ireland.
The biggest problem with Maynooth, as I see it, is its middle class culture and bias. There have always been disciplinary problems. I knew a fella once who was severely censured for not wearing a biretta. It did not get much coverage in the media. – Is mise,
Fr JOE McVEIGH,
Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh.
Sir, – Dr John Weafer (August 9th) is confused about the Catholic Church’s position on sexuality when he states that the requirement of celibacy for seminarians stems from their promises as deacons.
All Catholics are called to be chaste, which means that sexual activity should be confined to validly married heterosexual couples where the act of intercourse is open to new life.
This may sound like a hard teaching, but Pope John Paul developed a very attractive theology of the body around it. God in himself is characterised by the state of permanent union between the three divine persons, and by the activity of the Father begetting the Son, and the activity of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father an the Son. Man, created in the image and likeness of God, mirrors these divine attributes in the sex act when it is between a couple indissolubly joined together and open to the gift of new life.
It is an ideal, but one worth aspiring to. Those who find this teaching too difficult can take consolation in Thomas Aquinas’s dictum that sexual sins are the sins that God finds it easiest to forgive. – Yours, etc,
COLM FITZPATRICK,
Castleknock, Dublin 15.