Posted on 08/19/2026 10:14:52 AM PDT by ebb tide
Irish television personality Mary Kennedy endorsed “women priests” in a talk she gave during Mass on Friday at the Knock Shrine.
Kennedy, a self-described “à la carte” Catholic, was invited to give a talk after the Gospel at the Knock Shrine in commemoration of the National Public Novena to Our Lady of Knock that takes place annually at the shrine from August 14 to 22.
The bulk of Kennedy’s talk was about her own experience of Catholicism as well as her views on the faith that are heterodox in many respects.
“I love the ritual of Mass. I don’t necessarily tune in all the time,” Kennedy admitted.
“I also love the sound of the Muslim call to prayer. And if there’s one thing I would have liked when I was in a Catholic school and being taught by very committed Presentation Sisters — I really would have loved if part of our religious education would have been to learn about other religions.”
The former newscaster said she felt learning about other religions would have “enhanced” her “experience of spirituality.”
She recalled how she once asked if she considered herself an “à la carte” Catholic, meaning one who picks and chooses what she accepts from the Catholic religion. She believes she was asked this because she is divorced.
“I say yes, probably I am an à la carte Catholic. That’s the kind of Catholicism that suits me. I live what I hope is a good life. I like to help with people,” Kennedy said.
She admitted there are parts of the Catholic faith that she doesn’t “love,” such as the fact that the clergy are all male.
“I would like if it wasn’t such a male-dominated ministry. I think that really the value of having women in important positions in the Church … but I really do feel that women would have a huge contribution to make to the Church,” said Kennedy, as if women don’t already contribute to the mission of the Church through raising children, and through their prayers and works as religious or laywomen.
“And I would love to see women priests. I really would,” she added.
Kennedy’s call for the ordination of women defies the direction of Jesus Christ and the perennial teaching of the Church.
Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has affirmed that the impossibility of women receiving the Sacrament of Holy Orders in each of the three degrees, including the diaconate, is a “dogma” of the Faith of the Catholic Church.
In his book Ministers of Christ, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski pointed out that “All liturgical services within the sanctuary of the church represent Christ, the supreme ‘deacon,’ and therefore, according to the perennis sensus of the Church and its uninterrupted tradition, both the higher and lower liturgical services are performed by male persons.”
In his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Pope John Paul II reaffirmed the perennial teaching that it is impossible for women to validly receive the sacrament of Holy Orders:
Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.
Kennedy told the congregation at the Knock Shrine that she used to tell herself she wasn’t a “good Catholic,” but now she believes that is not the case. “I actually think I am a good Christian and I think a good Catholic,” she said.
Robert Nugent, host of the YouTube channel “Decrevi Determined to be Catholic,” suggested that there have been regular problems with the speakers platformed during the annual novena at Knock Shrine.
“This happens every year. I think it’s intentional,” Nugent said during a podcast released Monday. He believes the shrine purposefully platforms people who stir up controversy in order to attract attention.
In 2023, the shrine hosted the pro-abortion, pro-LGBT former U.S. President Joe Biden during his visit to Ireland.
By contrast, organizers turned off the microphone one year when a “really orthodox priest giving a strong message” spoke at the shrine, Nugent said.
“Knock fails in its mission, in my opinion,” he said.
During the apparition of Our Lady of Knock, 15 people witnessed Our Lady, St. Joseph, St. John and the Lamb of God miraculously appear on the gable wall of Knock church on August 21, 1879.
According to the shrine’s website, one of the visionaries, 11-year-old Patrick Hill, reported that the “figures were round and full as if they were alive.”
The silent vision then faded.
The visionaries reported what they had seen to church authorities, and they were deemed credible. The first pilgrims arrived in Knock soon after word spread, and the first organized pilgrimages began arriving in 1880. In 1935, the Knock Shrine Society was established to make the pilgrim site as famous as other Marian shrines in Europe. In 1976, a new, much larger, church was constructed in the village, and it was elevated to a basilica by St. John Paul II when he visited Knock in 1979. The shrine is so popular that an airport was built near the village; it opened in 1985.
“This happens every year. I think it’s intentional,” Nugent said during a podcast released Monday. He believes the shrine purposefully platforms people who stir up controversy in order to attract attention.
In 2023, the shrine hosted the pro-abortion, pro-LGBT former U.S. President Joe Biden during his visit to Ireland.
By contrast, organizers turned off the microphone one year when a “really orthodox priest giving a strong message” spoke at the shrine, Nugent said.
“Knock fails in its mission, in my opinion,” he said.
Ping
Keep your eyes and ears open, Miss Kennedy. But guard your soul. It won’t be long now before Ireland is overrun with Islam and the Catholicism you grew up is elbowed roughly aside.
If you want girl priests you can just go join another religion , no one is stopping you
Irish TV personality endorses ‘women priests’ during ‘homily’ at Knock shrine. Does this mean she wants to go to Divinity School?
sit down woman, shut up.
And, make me a sammich!
Exactly
Agreed
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