Tag Archives: worship


Centre from left: Michael Healy-Rae TD, Mattie McGrath TD, John Hanafin (general secretary of the Rural Independent Group), Carol Nolan TD, Michael Collins TD and Danny Healy-Rae TD this morning

This morning.

Leinster House, Kildare Street, Dublin 2.

Masked and visor-wearing members of the Rural Independent Group of TDs  supporting the call for priests to be deemed essential workers.

More as we get it.

Leah Farrell/RollingNews

This morning.

Via Irish Times Letters:

Just a few weeks ago, the Court of Session in Scotland ruled that government closure of houses of worship was unconstitutional and a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

In essence, the court held that, while coronavirus restrictions are necessary, they must be proportionate.

This may not be the product of a court gone rogue.

Indeed, courts around the globe have reached similar conclusions. In the US, the Supreme Court has tossed out restrictions on religious worship in several recent cases (see, for example, Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v Cuomo).

Closer to home, last November the French Conseil d’État overturned limits on religious worship, calling them disproportionate and a “manifestly illegal attack” on freedom of religion.

It is important to add that judicial scrutiny of Covid-related laws has been more frequent internationally and not simply limited to religious rights.

Indeed, the Conseil d’État in France has been particularly hawk-eyed when it comes to restrictions. For instance, it ruled just over a month ago that a total ban on senior citizens leaving their nursing homes was “disproportionate” because it would, among other reasons, “alter their physical and psychological state”.

The global cases cited above should be food for thought for courts here, and especially for Irish citizens, whose physical and psychological states may be similarly “altered”.

If we are to live under changeable restrictions for the foreseeable future, more exacting scrutiny by the judicial branch could be brought to them, ensuring they are above all proportionate.

Irish Times Letters

Yesterday: Get Off Your Knees

RollingNews

St Peter’s, Phibsborough, Dublin on Good Friday

This morning.

Via Irish Times Letters:

At long last the Roman Catholic Church has expressed concern about the criminalising of public worship in the Republic (“Catholic archbishop criticises ‘provocative’ law on services”)

The Government does not seem to care that in this respect the country is out of step with most other countries in Europe. At Easter, we had a ludicrous situation that churches in the North were able to celebrate Easter while in the South they were bolted and barred.

Irish Times Letters

Meanwhile…

This morning.

Faith! Fight!

Mullahoran parish in County Cavan

Free Sunday?

Cavan-based?

KN writes:

…any of your readers opposed to restrictions living within 5km of Mullahoran, County Cavan? The parish priest there [Fr PJ Hughes] has bravely promised to celebrate mass on Sunday despite a fine and further threats for holding a service earlier this month. I believe he is within his rights to say mass for his parishioners  and wish other priests would follow his lead. I think anyone who is opposed to lockdowns – whatever your denomination or none – should  go to his mass!

PRAY! Fight!

Previously: Mass Delusion

Meanwhile…

This afternoon.

Leinster House, Dublin 2.

Independent TD for Cork South West Michael Collins (above) along with a coalition of  TDs speaking to media outside Leinster House today, as they call on the Government to ensure that churches are reopened for worship by Easter.

Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews

At the weekend.

Fr Seán Mulligan, parish priest of Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, speaks out (starts @2minutes ) from the pulpit against rona restrictions…

“We are gradually moving towards a totalitarian approach to government where are freedom is slowly being stripped away from us.

Our freedom to travel, to come and go as we please, the freedom to come together as a family with friends in our own home, our freedom to peaceful protest. And even our freedom to practice our faith in public.

So what has happened to Catholic Ireland.

If we look at the preamble to the 1937 Constitution which states as follows:

‘In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred, We, the people of Éire,Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial, Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation, And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations,Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.’

And in Article 44 of that same Constitution

‘The State acknowledges that the homage of public worship is due to Almighty God. It shall hold His Name in reverence, and shall respect and honour religion.’

So what has happened to our country in the intervening 80 plus years?”

Anyone?

And we wish Fr Sean the very best in his new career outside the church, probably abroad.

That’ll learn him.

Paul McEvoy (Facebook)


Thanks SOQ


A ‘homework assignment shot in two afternoons’ by Vania Heymann – a first year at Bezalel School Of Art and Design in Jerusalem.

It’s a clever and colourful take on the unquestioned power accorded to icons as addressed in Bertrand Russell’s celestial teapot analogy, which is still used in discussions – especially discussions about religion – where the philosophical burden of proof must be based upon unfalsifiable scientific claims rather than simply shifted to others to disprove.

The celestial teapot watering can is available from IKEA for 99c by the way.

awesomer