Economist calls for a week of prayer

Ireland needs a national week of prayer culminating on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, on December 8, a leading economist has said.

Writing in The Irish Catholic, Prof. Ray Kinsella of UCD called for the week of prayer, saying it should be all-encompassing.

''It should embrace all faith groups and those of goodwill. It should embrace contemplative communities whose calling is to prayer. It should embrace parish and other communities.

''It should embrace the Judaic faith who understand the faithfulness of God; it should embrace our Islamic communities for whom prayer is a way of life.''

Professor Kinsella said Ireland was in fateful days.

''We will need these prayers in these most fateful days in the history of modern Ireland so that our parliamentary democracy is seen to act with calmness and courage and belief in resilience of the people they are privileged to represent.

''The great Dom Vonier, second Abbot of Buckfast Abbey, once wrote 'It is a law of the universe that some things are granted only through prayer'.''

Prof. Kinsella's call comes on foot of a call by a Government minister and a well-known Wexford priest for people to pray for divine help in the country's economic turmoil.

Professor Kinsella, a leading economist, also advocates that the Dáil rejects the four-year plan and the EU-IMF bailout.

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