The ACP has written to the Irish bishops and calls for a National Assembly to discuss 'The Reform and Renewal of the Catholic Church in Ireland'.
It also calls for a ‘constructive’ engagement with the bishops that would also be realistic, ongoing, coherent in terms of time-scale and commitment, and above all that it would engage with key critical issues.

Tony Flannery gives a brief report of his recent trip to the U.S.A. "While the U.S. Church is deeply divided, there are some real signs of light."

Seamus Ahearne writes in this November of death; war, accident, murder; "the news is rotten with criminality; with stabbings; with shootings; with gangland outrages..........I think the culture of faith has to be rediscovered......However, every day is a privileged day. Every day is full of life, despite the dying. Every day is full of surprises. Every day throws around those ‘rumours of angels.’"

At the world remembers the horrors and savagery of war this weekend Pádraig McCarthy draws our attention to an appeal made by Enda McDonagh of St. Patrick's College Maynooth and Stanley Hauerwas of Duke Divinity School, North Carolina for an abolition of war.
The appeal is as valid now as it was when written in 2002

Sean McDonagh notes the end of an era with the decision by Bórd na Móna to "move away from harvesting peat because carbon emissions is having an adverse impact on climate change."
While noting that turf is "one of the least climate-friendly way of producing heat and electricity" Sean acknowledges that the decision "will cost jobs, particularly in the Irish Midlands region where jobs are scarce now, and no other industry is being targeted for the area. Bórd Na Móna believes that 500 jobs will be lost, beginning early in 2019."

Howth Parish Reform and Renewal Group will meet on Monday, 05 November, in St. Columbanus Hall, Howth, at 8.00pm.
Fr. Gerry O’Hanlon SJ will speak on his latest book ‘The Quiet Revolution of Pope Francis’

Fr Michael Ryan  of St James Cathedral Seattle U.S.A. posted a statement on the cathedral website about the latest mass shooting in that fractured land.
"... the brutal attack on worshippers in Pittsburgh was an attack not only on our Jewish brothers and sisters who for far too long have been the victims of the most vicious forms of bigotry and hatred imaginable, it is also an attack on all people whose right to worship God according to their conscience and their tradition came under attack ...."

The leaders of 34 women’s orders in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Luxembourg are calling for the admission of women to all church ministries and offices while calling for a new “culture of dialogue, of participation, and of gender equality.”

An Autumn Day in Dalgan

Life in the Fifth Kingdom
Exploring the World of Fungi
With Dr John Feehan
Saturday 10th November 2018

A group of German, Austrian, and Swiss church people have come together to make an appeal for “pastoral conversion”.
This group have issued a ”mission manifesto” because they say the Church in Germany, Austria and Switzerland is about to cease to play any significant role in society in the years to come.
“ We are aware of the fact that our home countries have become mission territories … We are ready for mission. We wish that our countries may find Jesus. We extend our invitation to everybody who wants to join us in a committed wave of prayer. We wish to bring together all those who have the courage to take extraordinary steps.”