Re: Re: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches

As I was passing delighted through Drogheda station and musing on the many merits of Prof. O’Neill’s many architectural triumphs, I was interrupted by my recalling the amazing news that the Bishops’ Conference is taking a concerned interest in the misdoings of Bishop Magee and his HACKs. I would have thought that by now, rather than getting themselves publicly associated with all the extraordinary mess in Cobh – the dire lobbying of public officers, the procedural omissions, the guff about liturgical requirements, the very proposal to destroy such a wonderful piece of Church architecture – they would do better to ponder the tsunami yet to come. For one thing, can you dig up the mosaic floor of a protected building with pneumatic drills and while a planning hearing is actually in course without the forces of law and order coming to call? It seems inevitable that the Bishops will have discussed that question, though behind closed doors. It by a remote chance they didn’t, perhaps they might feel the need to put it on the agenda for the next moot. We don’t need to reflect on liturgical requirements there. I mean, I feel confident that it is not required by any ecclesiastical rule.

And what I say is, DON’T KNOCK PRAXITELES. Without her efforts, our lives in the last while would have been shorn of much beauty. The sort of beauty that even episcopal emissaries can’t get at with a pneumatic drill. I say this with immense serenity in the face of some ungenerous carping of late.