Holy Week in Two Minutes

 

Shocker…

UPDATE: Priest in gay porn probe leaves parish:

An Irish priest at the center of a gay porn controversy has asked to leave his parish and take sabbatical leave from the priesthood, he said Sunday.

Father Martin McVeigh has admitted he destroyed a memory stick containing “inappropriate imagery” ahead of a church investigation into reports he accidentally showed pictures of naked men to parents of children preparing for their First Holy Communion.

The incident happened at the start of a PowerPoint presentation at a grade school in Pomeroy, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland in March, said the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady…

The BBC is reporting:

An investigation is under way after indecent images were “inadvertently” shown by a Catholic priest during a presentation at a primary school in County Tyrone.

Father Martin McVeigh projected the images onto a screen during a meeting for parents in Pomeroy in preparation for First Holy Communion. One child was also present.

Parents said 16 indecent images of men were displayed. The priest said he had no knowledge of the offending imagery.

Cardinal Sean Brady said the PSNI had indicated that no crime had been committed.

The incident occurred during a meeting at St Mary’s School in Pomeroy on 26 March.

According to a statement from the parents, the images were projected onto the screen from a memory stick the parish priest had inserted into a computer before the presentation.

The parents said Fr McVeigh quickly removed the memory stick.

“He was visibly shaken and flustered,” said the parents. “He gave no explanation or apology to the group and bolted out of the room. The co-ordinator and the teachers then continued with the presentation.

“The meeting continued in his absence, however, the parents who viewed the pictures were horrified and distracted.

“Twenty minutes later he returned, he continued with the meeting and wrapped up by saying that the children get lots of money for their Holy Communion and should consider giving some of it to the church”…

Keep your IT equipment (and your lives) free of filth.

 

France’s Incredible Oak Chapel

France’s oldest tree, serves as the base for two chapels.

More here.

HT

 

Lent is Almost Over. Have you made it to Confession?

Asks Msgr Charles Pope.

It’s Holy Week and Lent is drawing to a close. Have you made a good confession? It just doesn’t seem possible that any Lent can be complete or even proper without going to confession. In many diocese there is a “Light is On for You” outreach wherein confession is available in all the parishes of that diocese every Wednesday night from 6:30 pm – 8:00pm. That is surely the case here in the Washington Area. I’ll be in the box waiting for people this Wednesday! So will all the other priests in the Washington and Arlington Dioceses. I am aware that Boston and other dioceses are doing something similar. But wherever you are it’s not too late to get to confession.

There are a number of reasons people postpone or even refuse to go to confession. Here are a few, plus a helps and suggestions…

Read on here.

 

‘The TAC Is For All Intents and Purposes Dead’

That’s the word on the Anglo-Catholic blog reporting on the visit of Msgr Jeffrey Steenson (the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter) to the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Orlando on Palm Sunday yesterday:

 I have just returned from the Procession and Mass of Palm Sunday at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Orlando, Florida, my home parish.  In addition to the pageantry of this Sunday beginning Holy Week, there was a large class of First Communicants, and perhaps just as special, Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson, the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, was among us.

Having met together with Bishop John Noonan of the Orlando Diocese, Bishop Louis Campese of the Anglican Pro-Diocese of the Holy Family, and other clergy yesterday evening, Msgr. Steenson assisted at Mass in Choir.  He also gave a touching homily for the great benefit of those children celebrating their First Communions.

At the following reception (or as Fr. Barnes would put it, “bun-fight”) in the Royal Hall, Monsignor had the opportunity to meet many of the congregation and First Communion guests.  He remarked several times that he was simply “blown away” by the vitality and youth of the congregation; he had not expected to find such, especially in a parish having its roots in the Traditional Anglican Communion (to which, by the way, the parish and Pro-Diocese have no substantive connection; the TAC is for all intents and purposes dead, though we have chosen not to cover the tragic events surrounding its disintegration over the past months).

While the Cathedral clergy humbly continue in the formation process, the entire parish is looking forward to the moment when the community will be allowed to enter the new Ordinariate.  Everyone is anxious, and folks were queuing up to meet and thank the man who will soon be, God willing, their Ordinary.  Msgr. Steenson was very generous with his time, making a point to speak, sometimes at length, with everyone who wished to meet him.

I had the opportunity to speak alone with Msgr. Steenson for quite some time, and I came away very much encouraged for the future of the Ordinariate.  There are challenges ahead, to be sure, but the good Monsignor is coming to understand the singular needs of the various groups in the United States and Canada waiting to find their permanent home in the Catholic Church and the Ordinariate.  Pray for him.