PLease pray for Ireland today, and if you are Irish please vote.
  • bonniebede
    Posts: 756
    Today , may 25th Ireland votes on whether or not to remove the right to life of unborn children from our constitution. Please pray that this bill may be defeated, and our little ones continue to enjoy the protection of the law.
    Thanked by 11Liam M. Jackson Osborn JulieColl CharlesW CHGiffen canadash Carol StimsonInRehab CCooze madorganist Drake
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Praying here, Bonnie.
  • canadashcanadash
    Posts: 1,501
    Prayers!
  • janetgorbitzjanetgorbitz
    Posts: 968
    How is it looking, Bonnie? Any early predictions?
  • David Sullivan
    Posts: 355
    Rosary offered this morning for this intention.
    Our Lady of Knock, pray for us. St Patrick, pray for us.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,096
    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/irish-times-exit-poll-projects-ireland-has-voted-by-landslide-to-repeal-eighth-amendment-1.3508861
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,417
    This is sad.
    A victory for those who are skilled in intellectual dishonesty and have no conscience in the murder of unborn children, a hate crime which is now 'legal' in once-'Catholic' Ireland.
    It would appear that Ireland has gone the way of Spain and other countries who shed their Catholic identity when it's no longer a convenient rallying cry.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,096
    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/abortion-referendum/results
    Thanked by 1MarkB
  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,085
    Not a single constituency had a majority vote against repeal; the vote wasn't even close anywhere in the country. The dense urban areas had about 75% or more vote in favor. Catholic Ireland is gone.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,096
    Now that all constituencies are tabulated, the Donegal constituency (which has the largest voting electorate of any constituency, it seems, though its turnout was lower than average) voted ~52% No and 48% Yes.
  • canadashcanadash
    Posts: 1,501
    May God help us all.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,982
    As the leaders go, so go the people. The Irish church has had troubles for years. What other outcome could there be?
  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,085
    How's the state of liturgical music in Ireland? How's the general quality of the celebration of Mass? I've never been there. How's Mass attendance? Are any parishes or regions thriving or growing? How are catechetical programs for kids and adults? How many men are in seminary? Any prognostications about the Church's future in the country?

    Don't laugh at me or heap scorn on me, but the only exposure I have to what's going on in liturgical music in Ireland is Fr. Liam Lawton, and I don't much care for his music.
  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,259
    Is anyone else waiting to hear if Ireland will soon be flooded and destroyed?
    That may sound doom and gloom-ish, but every time I hear of something else being legalized in Ireland, I wonder if only 7 years remain...
    Thanked by 1StimsonInRehab
  • TimTheEnchanterTimTheEnchanter
    Posts: 206
    How's the state of liturgical music in Ireland? How's the general quality of the celebration of Mass? I've never been there. How's Mass attendance? Are any parishes or regions thriving or growing? How are catechetical programs for kids and adults? How many men are in seminary? Any prognostications about the Church's future in the country?


    I've never been either, but I'm fairly certain these questions have unsatisfying answers across the board -- but as Charles alluded to, I think it's fair to argue that the long, long list of scandals in the Irish Church is likely the primary cause of the loss of faith there. No amount of good liturgy or good catechesis can overcome those terrible examples.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,471
    St Patrick's College, Maynooth is the "National Seminary for Ireland", and a Pontifical University.
    ...
    In the past decades intakes has been decreasing in line with the wider fall in vocations across the Western developed world, with a record low in 2017 of six first year seminarians. This fall was due, in part, to the decision of the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, to transfer Dublin seminarians to the Irish College in Rome. He did not state his reasons, but there had been unease over accusations of inappropriate behaviour among seminarians in Maynooth.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,417
    One can't help but wonder what the result of the Church's lamentable loss of moral authority due to the deeply rooted sexual misconduct scandal and the attempts (yet [predictably] again) to cover it up and hide it has had on the faith of the Irish and their respect for a Church once held high in their personal and societal identity. Though much of the blame is no doubt due to society's inexorably changing mores, these may not have played out the way they did had the Church been perceived to be a bastion of moral rectitude and righteous life - in short, as genuine. That the Church is often its own worst enemy is evident when a society such as Ireland's, which was not too long ago fervently Catholic, pays it no mind.

    Was Ireland perhaps the only country in the world in which the unborn child enjoyed legal recognition as a human person? This was a unique fall of immeasurable proportions. If a country like Ireland can fall this far, what is to be hoped for elsewhere?
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,934
    Any more, my response to the foibles of the Emerald Island is a verbatim quotation of Longshank.

    It's a sad day when the island which helped reconvert a majority of Christendom has fallen to this. It's been resting on its spiritual laurels for too long. More St. Patricks and St. Dymphnas, please. Less stock characters from the John Ford repertory company. More Breastplates, please; less McNamara's Band.

    Prayers are with you, Bonnie - we need good exceptions like you - and St. Walburge's. And St. Mary's Warrington. and Silverstream - to become the rule!
    Thanked by 3bonniebede CHGiffen eft94530
  • bhcordovabhcordova
    Posts: 1,165
    I believe the Isle of Man still forbids abortion and divorce
    Thanked by 2CharlesW M. Jackson Osborn
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,471
    But the lower house of our Manx parliament passed the bill to change the abortion law on May 1st. See.
    And divorce has been permitted for some years. You have to show 'irretrievable breakdown'
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