Readers of this blog will know by now that I have a soft spot for St. Andrew's church in Westland Row, in the centre of Dublin city. After all, this is where, at a very tender age, I first joined the Mystical Body.
Readers will also know that there is wide international interest in this church and that I have responded to this interest by uploading some pictures of St. Andrew himself on his lofty perch.
Well, I passed the church again today and saw the sign in the above photo.
"Aha", I thought, "the universal church has seen the error of its ways in allowing that scurrilous rag ALIVE to engineer the rejection of the Lisbon treaty and it is now praying to the Lord to give the people of Ireland a second bite at the cherry. Not only that, it is invoking the biggest gun in the church's armoury, the mass, to this end."
So I decided to call into the parish office to test my divine theory. Imagine my surprise, and disappointment, to be told that these masses were a regular fortnightly occurrence and were simply a chance for those who had left the church to return to the fold.
So be warned - this is your last chance to square up your account before you are run over by the proverbial bus.
"Rubbish", I hear you think, "In this gridlocked city? No chance!"
But beware the QBC. Bus Átha Cliath are way ahead of you on this one.
"a chance for those who had left the church to return to the fold"
ReplyDelete--
You ARE kidding?? And if someone wanted to "return to the fold" why on earth would they need a special mass (and location) to do it?
Nonsense. They're desperate.
Hi Her,
ReplyDeleteYou'd have to admit it's a pretty eye catching advertisement. Desparate or not.
I see that Cardinal Brady was before an Oireachtas Committee yesterday (5/11/08) defending the Roman Catholic Church's position in not coming out positively in favour of the Lisbon Treaty.
ReplyDeleteIn response to criticism of the paper ALIVE, mentioned above, he said:
Alive! was not a church publication but it had been distributed "without so much as a by your leave" to the church.
This is not good enough. The paper emanates from the Dominican Priory and while the Orders may not be under the direct control of the Bishops they are presumably part of the "Church".
This paper has legs on the basis that it is seen to emanate from a church source and is distributed in the churches.
It does not take a line purely on moral issues but also stokes up hatred of the EU. It even seems to gloat, in the current issue, that the Union was not in a position to offer a collective response to the global financial crisis.
Lisbon might have improved that situation, if only slightly, but it would certainly not have changed the score on issues like abortion which are the bread and butter of this paper. If all of what ALIVE says were true, the church would have been obliged to come out strongly against the Lisbon Treaty.