word of life math equals

Love One another brings us to Unity

The Church has been the target of some hard media criticism due to the Child abuse scandals within the Catholic Church. I have been thinking about this a lot and I realised that whatever happened in the context of abuses was a reflection of what was happening in society at large: in schools, in homes in other institutions.

Perhaps, I would suggest that the very reason why we are suffering so much is because we, as a people have such deep faith.

It is like in a family, if one makes a mistake, the whole family should not be blamed for it. In this way, the whole Church should not pay and be blamed further by the media.

This topic came up on the radio, and I rang in to say my opinion. I wanted to remind people about the issue of POWER and its’ consequences. Wherever there is scope for power: In the Health Services, Media, the Church, etc…there is scope for exploitation. But the Church has been targeted in a stronger way precisely because what its stands for are: the principles of love, good, justice, peace, trust…Other Irish institutions have not been so badly targeted because they don’t implicate these values in the same way as the Church does.

We learn from our mistakes and this has definitely taught me something: that despite all this, we have to continue the good work of the Church, to build it up, even more so now at this time.

As Youth for Unity we want to collaborate as much as possible in the preparations for the next International Eucharistic Congress which is being held in June of this year. I am so happy that Run4Unity and Schoolmates are being launched nationally in schools so that many young people have the chance to take part.

I feel that the International community still believe in us, they have selected Ireland to host this important International Eucharistic Congress because our Religion is part of our heritage, part of our culture. The IEC 2012 is for me a symbol of hope!

By Àine 17 years old from Kildare