Praxiteles

That is exactly the advice given to the princpal Trustee on the morning of the Oral Hearing by a member of the Cobh Cathedral Restoiration Fund so as to save himself further embarrasment. It was not taken and the embarrassment followed both at the hearing – by the level of mendacity uncovered – and subsequently by the ABP decision. Tough you know what as they say…

@Sirius wrote:

The difference is that freedom of worship is enshrined in the Constitution as is the right of religious denominations to manage their own affairs.

Sirius:

How can there be a transgression of the right to freedom of worship and freedom for religious denominations to organise their own affairs when the Cobh Cathedral project is NOT required by the liturgical law of the Catholic Church?

Introducing the question of religious freedom into the Cobh debate is a piece of eye-wash concocted by McCutcheon and Mulcahy in their report of last November to ABP when they simply could not come up with a convincing reply to the position advanced by the FOSCC. Clearly, McCutcheon and Mulcahy did not have the best Canonical advice available to them when they were baking in the pastery kitchen – if indeed they bothered to consult any canonist. That little oversight left them groping in the ark for they did not quite know what they were at.

Also, Sirius, keep in mind taht in the irish constitution the right to religious freedom and the right of religious denominations to organise their own affairs are not ABSOLUTE rights but CONDITIONAL rights subject to the demands of public order. It might not be such a good idea in the present climate to want to tease out the implications of that.

@Dieter wrote:

The folly was surely the responsibility of whoever asked for the oral hearing, which I assume in this case was the appellants. If the appeal was decided by written correspondence the fees would have been less than one tenth of the cost of the hearing.

Dieter:

I think that you are engaged in a defective if not a selective application of the principle of causality. If we are to take that approach to the planing case of Cobh Cathedral, then I think thta you might move the cause another degree further back – to the Applicants who lodged a disgraceful and deeply unpopular plan to wreck Cobh Cathedral without consulting anyone in Cobh.

If we must use the causality principle to understand this process, then, I am inclined to think that the unmoved mover in the process must be the Applicants.

That an Oral hearing was needed to serve transparencey and the public interest was more than adequately proven by the degree of mendacity exhibited by the Apllicants (e.g. that they had the approval of the Holy See when they had not; that they had a letter of approval from Cardinal Arinze when it transpired that they had a letter of commendation for those involved on the project of drawing up the plans: that all of the 214 objections lodged against the planning application had been read when in fact 95 had NOT). This list could be extended.

Do, Dieter, you see, in ireland, cartogra[phic efficiency is not always the most cost effective.

@Thomond Park wrote:

This is where you seem to miss the entire point it is the works that are the issue and not the bishop however it would appear that if the proponent of the works refuses to accept the views of the majority of his parishioners, the majority of the people in Cobh, the National Trust, a leading architectural heritage organisation and the statutory planning appeals bord then it is reasonable to consider that in fact he is wasting copious amounts of funds.

How much has been spent to date on

Architects fees
Planners Fees
Solicitors fees
Barristers Fees

In this case, it is rumoured that the bishop of Cloyne has been charged something in the region of 50,000 Euro for the barrister’s fee alone.

The solicitor’ fees are likely to be something in the region of another 60,000 Euro since Ronan Jermyn and Daly have been retained on almost a daily basis to draft replies to the FOSCC for the bishop.

McCutcheon and Mulcahy have been working on this project for over a year. Even a conservative estimation of their fees must leave the bishop with a bill of soemthing around 100,000 Euro.

It is difficult to say what was paid to the great Professor O’Neill for hie various doodlings but in the returns made to the Registrar of Companies by the St Colman’s Cathedral Restoration Fund there is an item of something in the region of 34,000 Euro which may have been a down payment.

All told,Bishop McGhee’s folley must have generasted a bill of something in the region of 250,000 Euro.

The curious thing about this bill is that it was incurred by the TRUSTEES of the St. Colman’s Cathedral.

During the course of the Oral Hearing, it was mentioned that the bill would be picked up be another entity: The St. Colman’s Cathedral Restoration Fund which is a public company with charitable status and therefore is non tax paying.

The question is: is a company such as the St Colman’s Cathedral Restoration Fund (which collected money for the RESTORATION of the Cathedral) entitled to pay out funds to cover debts incurred by another independent company, The Trustees of St. Colman’s Cathedral?

An another question; is the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cloyne, which is a registered public charity, entitled to dispurse funds to pay debts incurred by a another independent group just like the Trustees of St. Colman’s Cathedral?

Put another way: why are the Trustees of St. Colman’s Cathedral not paying the debts incurred by themselves as a result of the planning debacle?

Should this matter be submitted to the Coorporate Enforcement Agency so taht they can investigate the various ins and outs of teh matter?

Does anybody have any ideas on this subject?

Praxiteles is an ordinary joe-soap with a minimum of education just interested in ensuring tht one of the most important buildings in the country is not wrecked.

Praxiteles cannot speak for the others.

Now, perhaps, Churck, you might tell us who you are and what you are up to when not trying to improve the standard of spoken English (and/oor Irish) in Belfast.

Regarding Gianloremzo’s posting of Fr. Jones’ article from to-day’s IT, I would like to make a few comments:

1. Fr. Jones refers again to that oft quoted little phrase that the bishop is the chieft stewart of the mysteries of God in his diocese. At the oral hearing and throughout the planning process, an interpretation of this claim was put forward that would have the Bishop of Cloyne look like the Maharaja of Maharafelt, answeable to no one, either in civil or ecclesiastical law. It seems more than strange that he has not said one single word about Cobh Cathedral since 2 June. What business is Cobh Cathedral to the Irish Bishops Conference and why is Bishop McGhee so willing to allow this body trespass over what he claimed to be his private domain? Or, are they fronting for him in an attempt to pressurise ABP?

2. Sending Fr. Paddy Jones, who is nice man, out to do a man,s work is not very convincing. Fr. Jones is the head of a PASTORAL institute for liturgy which concentrates on the finer details of flower arranging and voice pitch. It is not an ACADEMIC institute. Although based in Maynooth, it should be forgotten that this Institute was originally based in Portrarlington before moving to Carlow College and hewnce to Maynooth College where it is a tenant occupying one of the many empty rooms in that establishment.

The Institute, after I do know how many decades, has yet to produce a solid work of academic liturgical research. It certainly comes nowhere near the Liturgical institute of Trier or even of the Catholic Institute in Paris to say nothing of the Santa Croce in Rome.

In the Cospectus Liturgicus, I have failed to find an indication that Fr. Jones has a Doctorate in Canon Law, Theology, Sacred Scripture, Liturgy or even Architecture.

3. Fr. Jones sounds something like the French Bourbons who learned nothing and forgot nothing. Although he has spoken this morning of a “vision” of Vatican II liturgy and liturgical practice, he nowhere mentions even the flimsiest reference to a source for this “vision”.

He also ASSUMES that what he is at is what the Council intended. This is patent nonsense. Fr. Jones has for some time been pushing a certain kind of church architectire that is cleraly a PRIVATE opinion of his own. A clear example of its daftness is St. Mary’s Oratory in Maynooth. Fr. Jones is quite entitled to pursue this opinion but I do not believe that he should try to fob it off on the general public as “the liturgy of Vatican II”.

4. If Fr. Jones had some idea of the Canon Law of the Liturgy, he might be in a better position to state what the OFFICIAL position of the Catholic Church is when it comes to liturgiucal requirements. For example, had he read the Enchiridion Liturgicum, he might have come across Cardinal Lercaro’s letter stating that the use of the High ALtar, even not facing the people, is in accord with active participation in the Mass. That position was also confirmed by Cardinal Medina as recently as 2002 cin an official interpretation published in Communicationes. This list could continue but I wonder if there is much use as I fear it might not be managing to penetrate.

At the Oral Hearing and throughout the planning process, the FOSCC argued their grounds in direct reference to the OFFICIAL position of the Catholic Church on the liturgy as published in the Code of canon Law, the Institutio Missalis Romani, and the Praenotanda of the liturgical books as well as their interpretation given by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. These are the sources that define OFFICIAL Catholic liturgical requirements. As were shown they are not in conflict with the civil requirements of the law nor with the decision of ABP. Can Fr. Jones be accurate in saying that the Catholic bishops are disappointed that a decision was made by ABP that makes full allowence for the OFFICIAL requirements of Catholic liturgy? Can he seriously suggest that the Irish bishops Conference has an agenda which is at variance with the OFFICIAL position of the CAtholic Church? If he is, then someone would want to contact headquarters.

5. Fr Jones states; “The sancturay designed in the 19th century is certainly inadequate. That is a fair mouthful from a know-nothing and a generalisation so sweeping as to be risable. Just what sanctuary is he talking about? Does it apply to a 4th century sanctuary or to an 18th century sanctuary?

6. Back to the bishop being the stewart of the mysteries in his diocese: It has already been pointed out on this thread just how relative that role is and just how subordinate the bishop is to the Roman Pontiff in matters of liturgy. Should the silen bishop of Cloyne wish to devise another mad scheme for the interior of Cobh Cathedral, enough people are now aware of the action they can take against him the Roman law courts which are likely to put manners if not sense on him.

The latest intelligence signalled from Cobh relates the following:

A nun over there who is a feared Gauleiterin on the Cloyne liturgical Soviet has let it be known in public quarters that the decision of An Bord P. is unacceptable and that the catheral just MUST be changed. The same lady was also good enough to communicate that poor bishop McGhee has not the money to take ABP to the High Court and has been advised to let his plan go. However, the same lady says that he is currently involved in drawing up a further set of plans and, according the Eva Braun of Cobh, the plans will be ready and presented in TWO WEEKS time. That, incidentially should coincide with the first anniversary of last year’s presentation to Cobh Town Council and it should yet again coincide with Cobh Town Council’s annual holidays for 2006. If there is any truth in this, then I expect that McCutccheon and Mulcahy, the unhappy bishop’s “advisors” must have lost all semblance of reason and reality. Moreover, should this prove true the FOSCC will once again do it duty without remorse. It might be no harm for the poor bishop to stand down his Gauleiterin, who has lately been bleating in the Irish Catholic about her arthritic knees, before she leads to his being stood down himself. There is only a certain amount of liturgical warefare that will be tolerated after which heads have to roll.

Well, well.

Do I take it that we have a matter of self interest here, Chris? You have my full sympathy and support. I am sure the FOSCC would be glad to advise you on how to conduct a stream line case with an Bord P on a shoe string budget while taking on a commercial goliath – that is if you ask them nicely.

As a help for the Monkstown boetians, I am posting the following about J. B. Lassus and would be glad were someone to take up the question of his first neo-gothic church, St. Nicholas in Nantes:

1807-1857.
Jean-Baptiste Lassus interrompit ses

And, if he really cannot help himself, at least buy a pair of comfortable runners. Speaking of which, has anyone seen our Oswald of late?