A TEAM of investigators has been appointed by Pope Ratzinger to clamp down on liberal secular opinion in Ireland as part of an intensive drive to re-impose traditional respect for clergy, according to informed sources in the Catholic Church.
The nine-member team led by two cardinals will be instructed by the Vatican to restore a traditional sense of reverence among ordinary Catholics for their priests, according to this report.
Among other things, priests will be told not to question in public official church teaching on controversial issues such as the papal ban on birth control.
Pope threatens to throw the book at Irish Catholics who have gone soft
Theologians will be expected to teach traditional doctrine by constantly preaching to lay Catholics and to return to the practice of regular confession, which has been largely abandoned by adults since the 1960s.
An emphasis will be placed on an evangelisation campaign to overcome the alienation of young people scandalised by the spate of sexual abuse of children and by later cover-ups of paedophile clerics by leaders of the institutional church.
A major thrust of the Vatican investigation will be to counteract materialistic and secularist attitudes, which Pope Benedict believes have led many Irish Catholics to ignore church disciplines and become lax in following devotional practices such as going on pilgrimages and doing penance.
Bishops and priests will be instructed to preach to their congregations the unchanging central message of Jesus Christ about love, healing and repentance.
While the restoration of church discipline and pious practices such as praying to Our Lady and the saints will be welcomed by regular church-goers, the Vatican investigation is likely to face a backlash from liberal Catholics who want more accountability and democracy in church decision-making.
Vatican officials are finalising the precise terms of the instructions for the investigators named last week by Pope Benedict, who initiated an “Apostolic Visitation” last March in his pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland.
At a meeting held in Maynooth last month, Archbishop Dolan told a gathering of priests “to return to basics” and to ground their ministry in
Prayer, humility and a rediscovery of identity.
Archbishop Dolan’s address, titled “God is the only treasure people desire to find in a priest”, was the high point of the Irish church’s celebration of The Year of the Priest, a campaign to encourage vocations to the priesthood.
The hardline address was enthusiastically endorsed by Cardinal Sean Brady, the Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
June 9th, 2010 at 8:32 am
Stable door, horse long gone. Not a chance. Bye bye.
June 9th, 2010 at 8:33 am
Archbishop Dolan told a gathering of priests “to return to basicsâ€. All their clerical hypocrisy reminds me of John Major’s Back to Basics campaign. We all know how that went. Only total a total religiot would welcome hard-line Catholicism, the others will simply drift away. This is good stuff. The imposition of plainly silly rules and rituals and the usual religious list of “Don’ts” are not a positive take-home message. At least their sticking to their guns but it’s the Papal equivalent of gun turrets firing as the ship goes down. They could have given us more fun and imploded in style like the Anglicans who gave us trendy vicars.
Cardinal Sean Brady, the Primate of All Ireland.
I suppose in terms of evolution, you’d find him somewhere on the scale between lemurs and bonobos. Or if any altar boys a nearby, Homo Erectus.
June 9th, 2010 at 9:09 am
Perhaps if they’d taken a hard line with their revolting paedophile priests in the first place they wouldn’t be desperately trying to claw back some of their lost authority now.
June 9th, 2010 at 9:11 am
The fact is that Ireland was so Catholic out of a need of a sense of self-identity that contrasted with their British oppressors.
Irish rural Catholicism versus British, and particularly English, urban Protestantism.
Of course it was more mythical than anything. Just as the whole Celtic identity of the 19th century, it served as a starting point from which to build an identity as a sovereign nation.
Today the world has moved on and Irish people don’t have such a need.
Sure, there is still that culturally Catholic aspect, with people christening, marrying, and dieing within a Catholic framework, but actually really believing the dogma? Not a chance.
Few people go to Church and many who do go on Sunday stand outside chatting waiting for the Mass to end before they head on to the pub.
Practically all women use birth control. Attitudes towards homosexuality have changed such that young people don’t think twice about coming out and in general are accepted for who they are.
If they think they can turn the clock back they are seriously deluding themselves.
But then, that’s what the religious do best.
June 9th, 2010 at 9:46 am
Traditional respect for clergy? Not a chance, after all that has been revealed they will never get that unconditional respect ever again, now each clergy will have to earn their own personal respect, which is as it should be.
June 9th, 2010 at 10:11 am
Good, let him keeping digging himself and his miserable church into ever deeper holes, eventually the whole scandalous edifice will disappear.
June 9th, 2010 at 10:25 am
Oh,and according to the Daily Mail, Lord Patten has been appointed as the new lackey for the popes visit and they are extremely happy about it.
June 9th, 2010 at 10:57 am
Inquisition anno 2010 with the church’s reputation down the toilet? Good luck with this little project, Josef! Looking forward to the same thing happening over here.
June 9th, 2010 at 11:16 am
I take it that this is (Archbishop) Timothy Dolan: Thin moot lady!
June 9th, 2010 at 11:46 am
Urmensch, everything that you said from “Sure, there is still that culturally Catholic aspect” to the last line is valid to Catholicism in Brazilian cities too. :p
June 9th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Back to the past. Too bad the Inquisition isn’t available. They are still in a fantasy world.
June 9th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
AngieRS: “Oh,and according to the Daily Mail, Lord Patten has been appointed as the new lackey for the popes visit and they are extremely happy about it.”
Well the prize twat damian thompson really got his knickers in a knot about it so I’m guessing it must have been the right thing to do. Anything that pisses DT off is fine with me!
June 9th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
For a long time I’ve followed the Rat’s career. At each step I thought that he would be unable to equal the last folly but he always surprises me. His latest attempt on Ireland is like a man who stomps on your foot so you’ll forget the headache that he gave you. As he floats ever deeper beneath contempt he gets less interesting. Beside the Rat, Bozo the Clown stands out as gentleman and a scholar.
June 9th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
He probably thought he was in with a chance, sailoer1031, you know how spiteful that lot get when they don’t get their own way.
June 9th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Hitler reincarnated as The Pope. He will soon be asking to crucify those who do not agree with him and his Church.
Seems to me a bit like Sharia law.
June 9th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
As I understand it, the traditional Irish Catholic attitude toward their priests is to regard them as otherwise unemployable halfwits whose lunacy is indulged for an hour or so every Sunday, as otherwise they’d be begging in the street.
Hardly needs a couple of cardinals to enforce that view, though with other social problems in Ireland these days and EU money gone elsewhere such charity may not last much longer.
June 9th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Cameron has appointed Patten to oversee Papa’s visit as a deliberate snub to the Foreign Office. This all stems from the sending of certain emails!
http://freethinker.co.uk/2010/.....ndom-memo/
June 9th, 2010 at 10:02 pm
for the latest jesus and mo take on this.
http://www.jesusandmo.net/2010/06/08/
June 10th, 2010 at 3:03 am
The threadhead said,
Bishops and priests will be instructed to preach to their congregations the unchanging central message of Jesus Christ about love, healing and repentance.
Exodus 20:4: You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Ten commandments, yet catholicism is steeped in idols of Jesus on the cross, and the madonna and child. They don’t even believe their own bullshit, and, yet, they are trying to sell it to others.
Broadsword said:
“At least their sticking to their guns but it’s the Papal equivalent of gun turrets firing as the ship goes down.”
The tighter you grip the sand, the more it slips through your fingers. An insane return to their roots is not only the worst possible strategy, it is an indicator of desperation. If they had evolved with the times, instead of thwarting science and social progress, they would still own some credibility with the throngs moving toward scientific enlightenment.
Hitler blew his own brains out when his plan had no hope of succeeding. I think Ratzi should take that under advisement. The reaper is coming for all of us, when your purpose in life is spent, why delay the inevitable? Guns may be expensive, but bullets are pretty cheap.
NeoWolfe
June 10th, 2010 at 10:14 am
I’ve just realised. The pic above shows Ratty holing aloft a Necronomicon. Maybe he should abdicate so Bruce Campbell can take over the role.
Watch out Ratty, the muzzies want their book back.
June 10th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Investigators to clamp down on liberal secular opinion! I wonder how they think they can do that? very puzzling.