Bishop Paul Dempsey has said the founder of the Legion of Mary Frank Duff would be “appalled” by polarisation in the Church and by those who criticise Pope Francis.
Speaking at Mass at Knock Shrine on Sunday to mark the centenary of the founding of the Legion, Bishop Dempsey praised Mr Duff for his visionary understanding of the need for laypeople to take on responsibility in the Church.
Rejected
However, he also rejected what he described as polarisation among Catholics.
“One worrying trend emerging in the Church today is a sense of disunity.
“Some in the Church want us to go back to the way things were decades, and in some cases centuries ago. Others want the Church to change its Tradition and adapt its outlook in ways that it has never done before,” he said.
Referring to the Pontiff, Bishop Dempsey said that: “Some in the Church are openly critical of the present Pope whereas they decried any criticism of previous popes.
“Pope Francis referred to this himself last week mentioning a large television network that constantly speaks ill of him,” the bishop said. The remark was widely interpreted as a criticism of the US-based Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), though the Pope did not identify the channel.
The bishop continued: “I think if Frank Duff was to appear today, he would be appalled at such attitudes in the Church.
“Frank Duff respected the rich Tradition of the Church, but he was not rigid about it, he was open to doing new and radical things in an imaginative way. In other words, he had a balanced approach that allowed him to involve people in the life of the Church in ways that were never done before,” he said.