Instead of a mass boycott, why not a sit-in until the bishop agrees to call?

JENNIFER Sleeman is to be thanked. She has lifted the discourse for us from a debate about the liturgy of lamentation to a debate about action.

But how effective would an abstention be that would be immeasurable? Many of us just stay away anyway. Who counts or cares?

Having read a great deal about protests, sit-ins, occupations, marches, boycotts and the like over the past four decades or so, I wonder if there is more impact in actions that involve an element of physical presence and unavoidable encounter – controlled and peaceful?

Would it not be more effective for those of us who have a commitment to the idea of the church to attend mass on the day and then not to depart to Sunday dinner, but to stay in the church until the local bishop came down from his palace (figurative or otherwise) and engaged in direct dialogue as to how we, the people of God, are to restore the church to Jesus.

Maybe we should even wait till the Bishop of Rome got on a plane and made a two or three-hour symbolic visit to a flock crying to him from the depths.

And what better place for people to bear witness than in their own local church?

Maurice O’Connell

Fenit Without

Fenit

Tralee

Co Kerry