Some web browsing.....

"Blessed, broken and shared" - talk by Fr Peter McVerry SJ to the CORI annual conference.

Some good news this week for the Irish Augustinians with their first ordination in 25 years.

A tribute to the sacrifice of Irish missionaries - "Let's hear it for the uncle Brian's of this world"

"The day after Jon was born, a doctor told Jon’s parents that the first question for them was whether they intended to take Jon home from the hospital. Nonplussed, they said they thought that is what parents do with newborns." - continue reading George Will's tribute to his son Jon has Downs Syndrome.

Is faith the rejection of reality? - Rabbi Alan Lurie reflects.

Breathing in the silence - reflection on finding the Divine in the rush of everyday life

Be quiet: what do you do on a silent retreat?

Why stay in the church? - Fr James Martin SJ reflects

Is there a need for adult catechesis? - Catechesis and....Mojitos

A rare Pope: With a Sense of Humour!

Why I believe in God - A Bad Catholic gives his unusual take on one of the big questions in life. 

Contemplative Christians, Jews, and Muslims have more in common with each other than with the fundamentalists who share their respective faiths - Fundamentalism v Contemplation

Dorothy Day reflects on Love without hypocrisy 

Marriage and religious life are often put on pedestals by folks on the outside looking in. Word on Fire contributor Fr. Damian Ference discusses the tendency to romanticize what we don't have, and highlights the need to accept the cross in both vocations.
Simplify, Simplify

While IEC2012 is not being supported by the Irish State in terms of costs, parishes may have to pick up any short fall.

What makes for a healthy, balanced orthodox faith?

There has been a lot of debate around the issue of the report of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in the USA as well as disciplinary measures against Irish priests. Below are links to articles from various view points on the issues raised:

• Americans and Obedience: Oil & Water - The Anchoress
• The Church and the Sisters: What is really happening? - The Catholic World Report
• When Peter & Paul disagree - The Irish Catholic
• Sister Joan Chittister & Sister Simone Campbell Respond to Vatican Action Against U.S. Nuns - Bondings 2.0
• William Coulson and the LCWR: “We Overcame Their Traditions and Their Faith - Patheos
• "American Nuns, Radical Feminism, and the Fear of “Another Religion” - Patheos
• LCWR, the SSPX and the Vatican - Fun times in Catholicland - The Anchoress
• The Vatican's corrective to liberal Catholics - Wall St Journal
• Crisis between US nuns and Vatican is a long time coming - Vatican Insider
• Notes on the LCWR overhaul - NCR
• LCWR and the Vatican - Word on Fire
• The Prophecy of Sister Laurie - Max Lindenman
• CDF, LCWR and the Gamaliel Principle - Notes from Stillsong Hermitage
• Resurrection, the sisters and the power of the people - NCR
• Vatican reprimand of US nuns divides faithful - radio discussion from NPR
• LCWR and me - Yard Sale of the Mind
• Outspoken clergy must be clear on endgame - David Quinn
• LCWR and Rome: the Opera of Catholicism - The Anchoress
• Authority and dissent in the Catholic Church - Ignatius Insights
• LCWR - Vatican tensions: Fr James Martin SJ sides with American sisters - Vatican Insider
• Rome V the Sisters - Religious Dispatches
• Sisters are doing it for themselves - Patheos
• The Preaching of the Sisters - PrayTell
• Abusive ecclesial authority puts our bishops on the spot - NCR
• De Veritate - Dominicana
• On Brian D'Arcy and Media Hysteria - The Thirsty Gargoyle
• Has the 'real' Ratzinger come out to play? - NCR
• Options facing LCWR stark - NCR

"Since the second Vatican Council much has been written on that elusive ecclesial reality sensus fidelium. The theological literature has focused mainly on its function as a criterion in the reception by the faithful of church teaching. Two texts from Vatican II have been seminal in the discussion. Lumen gentium no. 12 states that, because of its anointing by the Holy Spirit, the whole body of the faithful possesses a sure sense of the faith. Dei Verbum no. 8 states that the Holy Spirit enables the apostolic tradition to progress by means of such a lived sense of the faith, in conjunction with two other factors, the work of theologians and the authoritative teaching of the magisterium.This ecclesiological function of the sensus fidelium as a criterion of theological knowledge will not be addressed here. A full examination of theological epistemology would need to demonstrate the necessary critical relationship of sensus fidelium not only with Scripture and tradition but also with the magisterium and contemporary theology" - Continue reading Sensus fidei: Faith "making sense" of Revelation.