Garry O’Sulllvan
Editor
The Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan has written to his priests asking them to invite representatives of each parish to a service of Reparation in the Cathedral on Palm Sunday, March 28th, at 3.00pm.
In the letter Bishop Drennan told the priests – “We’ll be asking God’s forgiveness for crimes of physical, sexual and emotional abuse that have brought shame on all of us. In our prayer we’ll remember all who are survivors of abuse, all in need of healing, in need of the peace that only God can give.”
Bishop Drennan goes on to ask that each parish would place a sprig of palm on the altar at the service “to express the penitential mood of the day”. “It would be ideal” he...










No matter what gesture the Church or the Pope come to make in an attempt to address recent revelations about clerical abuse in the Irish Church, it is unlikely to satisfy a society in which many forces are at play which the Church does not appear to understand.
This year, my attempt at Lenten discipline was a little more farcical than usual. I gave up tea and coffee, because I felt I was addicted to drinking cup after cup. For the first few days, I whinged on an hourly basis, subjecting my nearest and dearest to my acute sense of martyrdom.
