[Magdalen] Ireland

[Jay Weigel]

As my friend Sheila (formerly RCC, now staunchly Episcopalian) has always
said, "If priests were all like Fr. Greeley, we'd all be Catholic."

On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 4:15 PM, James Oppenheimer-Crawford <
oppenheimerjw at gmail.com> wrote:

> I recall reading Andy Greeley's discussion of RCC members in TUSA.
>
> He said, essentially, that they would mostly never stop being members of
> TRCC, but they no longer felt bound  by most of the specific teachings of
> the Church.
>
> The younger RCC members use birth control as seems right to them.  I don't
> recall him addressing abortion, so I won't comment on that.  I do recall
> that I was at a RCC retreat center and at the end of the session it was
> announced that the chapel would have mass very shortly.
>
> I explained that I was an Episcopalian.  "Oh, we don't care about that
> here!  Please come if you wish!" It was a nice way to round out the day....
>
> His work in sociology was formidable.
>
> James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
> *“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
> except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy
>
> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 12:01 PM, Jim Guthrie <jguthrie at pipeline.com>
> wrote:
>
> > When the Irish republic was established the overwhelming majoroty of the
> >> population were practising Roman Catholics.  As has been onserved before
> >>
> >
> > There's apparently an interesting parallel -- though it's hard to
> > determine the difference among what the RC Bishops believe to be their
> > membership, what people when polled believe to be members, and the actual
> > number of people attending RC parishes. The Bishops know the difference
> > between their official view and boots on the ground, but it is not in
> their
> > political interests to proclaim that practicing RCs constitute about 20%
> of
> > their claimed membership <g>.
> >
> > That said, an fairly substantial majority of U.S. Rc's support same
> > sex-marriage. That's the largest single cohort in favor (if you start
> with
> > the Bishop's "Official" number).
> >
> > Our Canadian friends may fill in the details, but I believe
> overwhelmingly
> > RC Quebec was the first to pass gay rights laws and support same-sex
> > marriage.
> >
> > I won’t get into the European experience since church membership appears
> > to be a pretend number in most countries <g>, but consider the counties
> > that have supported same-sec marriage vs their supposed denominational
> > preference.
> >
> > So I suspect the Irish experience may not be so unique.
> >
> >  This thread is about Ireland, not the USA.
> >>
> >
> > I'm not so quick to dismiss the U.S. experience, given the relatively
> > substantial money from the USA  (based upon US mythology on marriage)
> that
> > went to Ireland to support the "No" campaign.  Now there may have been
> > foreign interference on the "Yes" side as well, but I'm not aware of it.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Jim
> >
>