[caption id="attachment_71278" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Minister of State Paul Kehoe backs Enniscorthy anglers' rights. "]
TIPPERARY PRIEST SLAMS VATICAN
"The challenge of every Christian generation is to make the Gospel relevant to this generation - not the previous generation." So said the Rev. Sean McDonagh in a searing critic of the Vatican's current position on a number of issues.
The Nenagh-born McDonagh, who has served for many years as a Columban missionary in the Philippines, said teenagers he has spoken to in schools could not understand why the Vatican would not allow women to be ordained as priests and why it forbid clerics from marrying.
McDonagh, who has published a number of books on theology, added that his own mother, a long-serving primary school teacher in St. Mary's Boys National School in Nenagh and "a very pious woman" who died 10 years ago, could not fathom those stances either
"I wonder are people giving that feedback to the Vatican because things have changed," the Nenagh Guardian reports him saying. "Things have changed because the Spirit of God leads people, and very often it's through their experience."
Fr. McDonagh said Pope Paul VI had advocated that the way of the Church was through dialogue. That was a reality of Vatican II, which addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world in the 1960s. However, he said that in the Catholic Church at present there was, in his view, "a total reversion to top-down leadership.
"Rome is the central office, the CEO [the Pope] is there; they devise policies and send them out to the branch managers, who are the bishops, and they hand them out to the rest of us," he said.
"That is a caricature of what the Church of Jesus should be," he said, speaking on RTE Radio's "Drivetime" program.
He said people with views like his were not just a small minority in the Church. There was "a huge percentage of Catholic people who made
these decisions in the whole area of sexuality."
McDonagh said that policies once deemed "sacrosanct" have been overturned. He said that for almost 1,900 years Catholics were not allowed to enter a Jewish synagogue to pray, as it was believed to be a breach of the First Commandment. "Things have changed," said the priest.
CARLOW PROTESTERS DISRUPT OPENING
Anti-household charge protestors jeered and heckled Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan at the opening of Carlow Museum last Wednesday.
Up to 150 protestors armed with placards and loudspeakers surrounded the environs of the museum as they voiced their fury at the €100 charge, which is being imposed on all homeowners nationwide.
What was billed as "a peaceful protest" by organizers quickly turned nasty, with many of those attending the opening of the museum left "distraught," according to the Carlow Nationalist.
Members of the school band from Scoil Mhuire Gan Smál, who were due to perform at the opening, were removed from the scene by their parents and teachers after the young girls became frightened by the protesters.
Members of the clergy, including Msgr. Brendan Byrne and Fr. John McEvoy, formerly of Tinryland parish, were verbally attacked by a small minority of protesters who had gathered in the grounds of Carlow Cathedral after the minister had left. The protesters also jeered and heckled members of the crowd who were invited to the opening of Carlow museum.
A County Carlow man, believed to be from Bagenalstown, was escorted out of the cathedral by gardaí after he began to heckle Minister Hogan's speech, which was given from the pulpit. Up to 20 gardaí, including detectives, were on duty, with the crowd initially cordoned off before a small number entered the grounds of the cathedral.
Their shouts and chants could be heard from inside as the speeches were going on. Addressing the situation outside, Minister Hogan told the crowd: "I respect people's right to protest but people should respect, in a democratic society, that I have a right to speak as well."
As the minister left the cathedral, his silver Audi was hit by a small number of protesters holding placards. The chairman of Carlow Town
Council, Tom O'Neill, who spoke at the opening of the museum, bitterly condemned the protest methods used.
"The majority of people there were very disappointed with the protesters - they lost a lot of respect," he said. "People have a right to protest, but we were disappointed they chose today. It was a disgrace the language used by some of them, especially when there were young children around."
LEITRIM 'CLOSURE MEANS EXPOSURE'
There are fresh calls to reconsider the closure and downgrading of Garda stations in the county following the publication last week of statistics revealing that burglaries in Counties Sligo and Leitrim have increased by 30 percent - among the very highest increases in the country.
Senator Marc MacSharry of Fianna Fáil told the Leitrim
Observer, "This is not the time for closing Garda stations - it is the time to protect our communities by having a strong and visible Garda presence."
Local Gardai have repeatedly advised locals to take care of their valuables and not to keep large quantities of cash in their homes.
The Garda Representative Association this week said gardaí are on the brink of a crisis and called on Justice Minister Alan Shatter not to shut any more rural stations at the annual conference entitled "Station closure - community exposure" in Athlone.
Last month Kiltyclogher Garda station closed its doors and Drumkeerin's station is set to close by the end of this month, despite repeated calls from Leitrim County Council and over 900 signatures to save the barracks. But there are further worries that more closures are on the way as Minister Shatter has confirmed he wants more Garda stations closed by 2013.
ROSCOMMON TURF TENSIONS MOUNT
The fallout from the ban on turf-cutting shows no sign of abating, following a stand off between turf-cutters and the authorities in Ballymoe last week.
It is understood that gardaí and representatives from the National Parks and Wildlife Service rangers traveled to where the turf was being cut
in a bog in the Corliskea area of Ballymoe on Tuesday last. However, the bog in question was not one of the 55 SAC bogs and the authorities subsequently left the scene.
The state conservation agency has the authority to enter bogs where it believes that illegal cutting has taken place and it can bring the gardaí as well. It can halt a person bringing home turf from a bog in a tractor and trailer, and it can bring prosecutions that can result in a fine of up to €1,500
or a six-month jail sentence.
WEXFORD ANGLERS FORCE LAW CHANGES
Enniscorthy Angling enthusiasts are claiming victory after they forced a major re-think in an earlier ruling by the Department in Dublin. Enniscorthy Local Anglers Association was formed in January in response
to new regulations introduced by Inland Fisheries Ireland.
The new bylaws were announced via advertisements in the national media, but not in local newspapers like the Enniscorthy Echo, and the fishermen were "incensed," according to that publication, at discovering them "in a second-hand way."
The group campaigned against infringements on the rights of those who fished along the banks of the River Slaney as it runs through Enniscorthy Town, mainly from the old bridge (St. Senan's Bridge) downriver past the Promenade area.
The group's campaign led to a meeting in Enniscorthy last week with locally-based TD and Minister of State Paul Kehoe, who supported the ELAA's fight and acted as facilitator and in the group's liaising with Minister of State Fergus O'Dowd in attempts to help negotiate a solution.
All parties came away from the meeting in the Riverside Park Hotel happy with the final agreements made, and, the Enniscorthy Echo reports, are now working hand-in-hand to ensure the future of salmon stocks on the River Slaney for the benefit of all involved.
According to ELAA spokesperson Kris Murphy, his organization has shown how standing up and fighting for what someone believes in can yield results, after it succeeded in overturning the by-laws banning the use of shrimp bait in fishing.
Now, he says, the ELAA is working with IFI to implement a management strategy on the River Slaney that will allow 15 salmon rods on-river from the old bridge to the area of the Riverside Park Hotel when water levels drop below a certain extent.
The by-law change came just in time for the start of the new fishing season, allowing salmon anglers freedom to fish for salmon on a catch-and- release basis from the first day.
