Hierarchy Criticised at Association of Catholic Priests Meeting in Ireland/ Advocate "Married Priests and Women Priests"/Irish Times/Patsy McGarry

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/1005/1224305259164.html
The Irish Times - Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Hierarchy criticised at priests' first agm
PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent
"THE FIRST annual general meeting of the Association of Catholic Priests was told last night that if people had a vote on such matters church leaders would be swept out of office.
If Irish Catholics had a democratic way of reflecting their feelings “church leaders would suffer a defeat as cataclysmic as that administered to Fianna Fáil in the recent general election”, Fr Kevin Hegarty said.
What was needed was a church which would open its doors to “married priests and women priests”. It would benefit from secular insights like, for example, on human intimacy and democracy, he said. It would work at developing a “healthy and holistic theology of sexuality”.
The Mayo priest said church leadership now seems divided and rudderless. Not since the 19th century “has there been such public disagreement among the bishops. Cardinal Cullen’s Tridentine temple has come tumbling down”.
Fr Hegarty is a priest of Killala diocese who serves in Carne parish on the Mullet peninsula. He was speaking at the gathering in the Green Isle Hotel on the Naas Road, Dublin, where the attendance was put at 300 – including some lay people who wished to give support.
There was “a torpidity about the Catholic Church in Ireland today. .."
Bridget Mary's Reflection:
Did you ever hear the old Irish joke that nothing good came out of Mayo? Obviously, not true!! Way to go, Fr. Kevin Hegarty, in speaking truth to power to the Irish hierarchy! Get ready for an invitation to the Vatican!
The Irish Priests Association are part of a growing number of priests who are advocating a renewed Catholic Church that treats women as equals and is open to women priests. They are in solidarity with 400 Austrian Priests, 250 German theologians, and 200 U.S. priests who support Maryknoll Roy Bourgeois' stance of primacy of conscience in his support of women priests. It appears obvious the Vatican is the emperor with no clothes on this issue! The church cannot claim to be a just church while treating women as second class citizens. Now, we are witnessing the disconnection and discontent with the institutional church's sexism among the male priests. Like the Wall Street demonstrations, maybe this will have a snowball effect and grow to a worldwide revolt against the Vatican's prohibition of women's ordination! We are experiencing a "holy shakeup" that may lead the church to affirm women priests in a renewed Roman Catholic Church in our life time.
Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP
Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests
www.associationofromancatholicwomenpriests.org
sofiabmm@aol.com