Links to "The Two Popes" interviews with Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce and director Fernando Meirelle.

Sir Anthony Hopkins - “…. The religious politics of two opposing forces coming together, opposing opinions. Today we are not allowed to have an opinion, you have to be this or that, if you’re not this you are the enemy and it’s pathetic. This is what we live with today in this world …. You don’t believe what I say, then you’re bad, …. come on , grow up, we are all going to die, no one is perfect ….”

Every member of the Irish Bishops' Conference received a copy of the ACI report Exploratory Pilot Study of Lay Involvement and Co-Responsibility at the December 2019 meeting of the conference.

Wishing you every blessing in the new year

Chris McDonnell shares his thoughts on a divided Bethlehem and his hope for the new year that may "see the removal of the many walls, both real and figurative, that still divide us."

Pope Francis' annual address to the Roman Curia.
"there is a need to be wary of the temptation to rigidity.  A rigidity born of the fear of change, which ends up erecting fences and obstacles on the terrain of the common good, turning it into a minefield of incomprehension and hatred.  Let us always remember that behind every form of rigidity lies some kind of imbalance.  Rigidity and imbalance feed one another in a vicious circle.  And today this temptation to rigidity has become very real."

Pope Francis on the meaning and importance of the nativity scene.

Fr. Peter Daly, writing in the National Catholic Reporter, has some stern remarks about ambition being "one of the worst and most destructive features of clericalism. If we are going to reform the priesthood, we need to tame the demon of ambition and substitute the idea of servant leadership"

 The Association of Catholic Priests is now on Twitter.
 @ACPinIreland

Seamus Ahearne is thinking about recent happenings and the season that's in it. "Beware. Be aware. We cannot set up an elitist version of faith where some belong and the rest don’t.  Faith is messy.  Advent is a search and an awareness of the presence of God in everyone and everywhere."