CO MAYO priest Fr Brendan Hoban has accused the former professor of
moral theology at Maynooth Fr Vincent Twomey of an “unseemly and
supercilious assault” on the membership of the Association of Catholic
Priests.
He was responding to Fr Twomey’s criticism of the absence
of any of the association’s members at a conference in Cork 2 weeks
on the controversial new Roman missal, which the association has
opposed.
Fr Twomey said: “Not one of them turned up”, and he
expressed disappointment that “none of those who criticised the
translation had the courage to come and enter into honest debate with
those responsible for the new English translation”.
He said he
took the association’s criticisms “very seriously because they reflect
the disturbingly low level of theological knowledge in Ireland about the
liturgy”.
That remark was described by Fr Hoban as “arrogant and disparaging”.
Fr
Twomey chaired last week’s Fota IV International Liturgical Conference
in Cork city on the new missal which is to be introduced in some
parishes next month.
In attendance were three members of the Vatican’s
Vox Clara Committee, representing Catholic bishops of English-speaking
countries who advised Rome on the new translation.
They were
Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Bishop Arthur Serratelli of New Jersey
and Msgr James Moroney of Worcester diocese in Massachusetts.
In a
statement last Friday, Fr Hoban, a parish priest in Ballina, said the
association, of which he is a founder member, was unaware of the
conference and had not been invited
“I don’t wish to be unkind to
Fr Twomey when I say that among our membership are theologians and
liturgists who have shone much more brightly than he in the theological
firmament, even though they may not be as well regarded by the members
of Vox Clara or have not, through an accident of history, had the
opportunity to visit [papal residence] Castel Gandolfo,” he said.
He
added that the association “does not share in the Irish media’s
presumption that having tea with the pope once a year confers by osmosis
some kind of creeping infallibility on Fr Twomey or anyone else”.
Every
summer Fr Twomey and others who had been postdoctoral students of Pope
Benedict XVI when he taught at Regensburg university in Germany, meet
the pontiff at his retreat near Rome.
The new missal “has more to
do with living in the past that ministering in the present or preparing
for the future”, Fr Hoban said.