Archbishop Diarmuid Martin Refers to this Blog
At the Irish Bishops’ Media Briefing on 7th March His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin was asked by a reporter:
And in the week that’s coming up to St. Patrick’s Day, what is your response to the American-Irish media’s description of you as the greatest living Irishman?
He responded:
Well, I can go to two other blogs, one which said that the Archbishop of Dublin has gone mad*, because of the article I wrote in, I gave to Mater Dei, and the other one (this refers to The Heeler’s Diaries – Shane) which regularly says that I’m actually, along with my brother, a spy for the former Soviet Union. So I take all these blogs very seriously.
*This refers to this post: Has Archbishop Diarmuid Martin gone bonkers?
You can listen to the whole interview here. Go to Part 2, and fast forward to 16.13.
Nice to know that the Archbishop is a reader of Lux Occulta!
Do keep it up Your Grace, it’ll do you the world of good!
Posted on March 9, 2012, in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. 11 Comments.
Lux Occulta 
A very interesting, perhaps Freudian, comment of the Archbishop comes in part two, at 8.53, where he says (amidst the constant “you know”s and poor grammar) that he expects we will be able “to come forward with a different Church”. Now I know, tie the man down and interrogate him, and he will profess undying allegiance to the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. But deep down, or not that deep at all really, there seems to be a desire for a New Church, one that is Ecumenical, Holistic, Irish, and Martinesque. Cf. the steady use of the phrase “the Irish Church”, not the Church in Ireland. As the good bishop might himself say, this is not just playing with words – eh, you know! Anyhow, Shane, congrats on coming to his Grace’s attention, and I hope he will start quoting you more accurately (bonkers is more than mad) and without the mockery.
Perhaps he doesn’t read Lux and it was a Soviet spy informed him about your blog!!! lol – Rene
Congratulations! It must be gratifying to know your public. 😉
If he’s consulting the CTS pamphlets along the way, he won’t go far wrong.
Well whatever he is, the truth will eventually come out.
Do these bishops take blogs seriously? I doubt it. Are they to blame for the state of the Church? I don’t think so.
Everyone is to blame and we have the bishops we deserve. I am from the UK and I caught a glimpse of the BBC’s “Question Time” during which they pulverised Archbishop O’Brien of Edinburgh for his ‘stand’ on homosexual marriage in the UK.
The game is up guys and perhaps Cardinal George of Chicago summed up the future when he suggested that “he would die in his own bed”. He went on to explain, however, that his successor would die in prison and his successor would be martyred.
Shane, leave the Archbishop alone.
One of the worst and most traitorous Archbishops in Ireland’s long history.
One really despairs of the state of the Church in this country.One one hand we have the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) openly preaching dissent and disobediance against Church teaching and traditions,openly challenging the Church authorities here and not even a peep of public censure from one Irish Bishop,and on the other hand we have Protestant clergy invited into our churches to preach to, and lecture us on Ecumenism when we all know that this issue is going absolutely nowhere.Really,the vision that some clergy in this country have for the Church,is one that I could not be a member of and remain a Catholic.There is not one Bishop in this Country with the guts to stand up and fearlessly preach undiluted Catholic faith.And that my friends is at the kernel of the problem in Ireland
@D Finnegan – I can’t let that go – there is one, who from the very beginning when it was released, preached on Humanae Vitae; Bishop Philip Boyce, O.C.D., Bishop of Raphoe. I’m not an “insider” but from bits and pieces I have gleaned over the years he is not popular with his fellow Bishops. They have smirked at him behind his back. – he is a hero – Rene
He was also a member of the team that gave up the new Missal. That’s an irredemable bad mark against him in the eyes of the “Irish Church” camp.
Doh!! Gave “us” the new Missal, of course. That was the Vox Clara committee, established in 2001 and Bp. Boyce was a member right from the beginning. We owe him much.
We shouldn’t forget, however, that Abp. Martin did establish the Dublin Latin Mass Chaplaincy, and has celebrated an EF Pontifical High Mass. That is considerably more than his brothers have done – I refer particularly to my own Archdiocese (Armagh) where I have the impression that certain lower regions would get rather chilly before such a model of being Church would be allowed. There!! You see, you even begin to talk in NuChurchspeak after constant exposure to the glories of the New Springtime over the past 40+ years 😦
BMCP4tr01 says “we have the Bishops we deserve”.
No, we don’t actually. We have the Bishops who were given to us by Rome, chosen from among priests produced by the Irish church (I know you’re from the UK) which they themselves and the Bishops before them deliberately – yes, deliberately – shaped over almost 50 years of dreadful catechesis, or more likely total neglect of any genuine Catholic catechesis whatsoever, liturgical aberrations, craven bending to the zeitgeist and popularity-seeking and a two-faced attitude towards Papal authority, if not outright criticism of it – again on the popularity bandwagon. The laity were not consulted and had no part in all of this. Indeed those of us of a conservative (don’t like that word really) bent learned at a very early stage to keep our heads well and truly down. So no, we do not have the Bishops we deserve. We deserve very much better, but we certainly ain’t going to get it anytime in the near future, if the calibre of the majority of clergy is anything to go by.