Went to a fascinating ACTA day with Fr Gerry Hughes SJ (God of surprises). At one point we had an intense debate about the Atonement and people were agreeing that God did NOT send his Son to die for our sins in some sort of angry retribution. The day ended with a hymn and we all sang verse 3 "God his son not sparing, sent Him to die to take away our sin". A powerful lesson that we learn most of our theology not from homilies or even the Bible but from the hymns we sing. Fr Gerry commented that many of the clergy now have very poor theological training and many people in the congregation could give a better homily than they do. What do they do during all those years in the seminary? One hears stories about one session only spent on liturgy, one session only on interfaith, even priests who did not know how to celebrate Mass correctly .......
Surely a different Gerry Hughes (ie the talker not the walker, as they used to say!) unless I missed the general resurrection, or something more particular...
liturgyprof wrote:Surely a different Gerry Hughes (ie the talker not the walker, as they used to say!) unless I missed the general resurrection, or something more particular...
Yes. The "God of Surprises" Jesuit Gerry Hughes died sometime back. The Jesuit Gerry Hughes who teaches at Oxford is who it must have been. They used to distinguish themselves by one being Gerard Hughes and the other Gerard J. Hughes, but I can't be sure which way round it was! I think the one who is still alive is Gerard J.
Southern Comfort wrote:I think the one who is still alive is Gerard J.
Yep, that's the one. He had a nice article in the Tablet a couple of weeks ago on Amoris Laetitia, pointing up the distinction between making a change to a teaching of the Church, and making an improvement on the sensitivity with which it might be invoked.
