Religion and Faith
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Michael Kelly SJ. On being a Priest.
I’ve been a priest for thirty years and for perhaps the past two decades, I have known that when I walk into an unfamiliar setting or join a new group of people and tell them what I am, a goodly number are thinking to themselves: “What sort of a weird, psychologically deficient, sexually repressed and Continue reading »
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Frank Brennan SJ. The Vatican Synod has let the genie out of the bottle. Deo Gratias
Let there be no doubt. There is change, and a great deal of uncertainty, in the air in Rome. And it is not just coming from Pope Francis. The Catholic Church retaining some of the attributes of a royal court in its mode of governance provides its senior prelates with every opportunity to emulate the Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell: The Catholic Cafeteria
On 29 July 2011, Cardinal George Pell gave a speech in which he accused many Catholics of being “Cafeteria Catholics”, by picking and choosing from the doctrinal menu. Having moved to Rome, he is now attending the Synod of Catholic Chefs de Cuisine to decide what is wrong with the menu at the Catholic Cafeteria, Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Asylum seekers – institutionalised cruelty, the banality of evil and immorality.
You might be interested in this repost. John Menadue The recent statement by the Australian Catholic Bishops on asylum seekers says ‘The current policy has about it a cruelty that does no honour to our nation … Enough of this institutionalised cruelty … We call on the nation as a whole to say no to Continue reading »
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Michael Kelly SJ. A new magazine – Global Pulse.
Global Pulse Magazine brings together the rich editorial resources of some of the world’s leading independent publishers in the Catholic Church for an international English readership. Global Pulse provides insights into the Church and in the wider world of politics, religion, ethics, society and culture. Visit www.globalpulsemagazine.com In October, access is free so you can Continue reading »
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Edmund Campion. Australian Catholic Lives.
Fr Edmund Campion has just published a new book. A book review and information about the book can be found on the following link. John Menadue. http://tintean.org.au/2014/10/06/australian-catholics-lives-by-edmund-campion Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell: The Holy See’s Newly Found Sensitivity to National Sovereignty
In January 2014 the United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Insiders and Outsiders.
You might be interested in this repost. John Menadue. As social beings, we usually like to be part of the group, an insider. We are cautious about being outsiders, on the periphery. Yet being outsiders has some real advantages. Growing up in country towns in South Australia, I felt what it was like to Continue reading »
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Robert Mickens. Letter from Rome.
As I was saying last time, before I was interrupted, Pope Francis is facing resistance to the fresh air and change of ethos he’s trying to bring about inside the Church. And those with eyes to see can detect this opposition especially among the current crop of seminarians and younger priests, as well as a Continue reading »
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Peter Day. The Middle East: it’s important to talk.
David was a good Jewish man: faithful to his God; devoted to his family, and deeply connected to his land. Khalid was a good Palestinian man: faithful to his God; devoted to his family, and deeply connected to his land. Each year, in early spring, David and Khalid would meet for a chat at a Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Postcard from Copenhagen – I went to the ‘wrong’ church.
I fronted up for Mass last Sunday – or so I thought. The web had described the cathedral as small case ‘c’ catholic rather than upper case ‘C’ Catholic. It was the Protestant/Lutheran cathedral in Copenhagen. I missed the Eucharist but it was a moving encounter with my ‘separated brothers and sisters’. In 1536 when Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell: Lawyers under the Spotlight at the Royal Commission
The John Ellis Case Study (No 8) at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse concerned the experience of John Ellis with the Towards Healing protocol in dealing with his complaint about being sexually abused by Fr Aidan Duggan. The case was unusual for its revelations about the relationship between Cardinal Pell Continue reading »
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Peter Day. An Open Letter to Cardinal Pell
Dear Cardinal Pell, In the lead-up to next month’s Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family you and a number of your confreres are re-asserting the church’s longstanding exclusion of divorced and remarried people from communion. Your foreword to The Gospel of the Family appears to leave us with little doubt: outsiders are not welcome. Continue reading »
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Eric Hodgens. Will the Synod on the family work?
Pope Francis has changed the focus of the Catholic Church from doctrine and rules to care and compassion. If people are at odds with the rules they should be supported and encouraged rather than condemned. Since many of the rules causing complications in today’s society are associated with marriage he has called a special Synod Continue reading »
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Michael Kelly SJ. Pope Francis is a game-changer.
There’s no doubting that Pope Francis is a game changer and not just for the Catholic Church. The question remains whether he can pull off the changes he’s foreshowed and many Catholics want. Three decades of people being made bishops more for reasons of their readiness to comply with directives from Head Office than for Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Keep trucking!
At the hearings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Melbourne last week, Cardinal George Pell is reported as saying that if the driver of a (trucking company) sexually assaulted a passenger they picked up along the way ‘I don’t think that it is appropriate for the .. leadership of Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The Bishop and the Prime Minister
In August 1987 The Bulletin published an account by Tony Abbott of why he left the seminary. A link to Tony Abbott’s account is below. Following Tony Abbott’s account, Fr Bill Wright on August 25, 1987, replied. He was a priest at that time in the Archdiocese of Sydney and Vice Rector of St Patrick’s Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Those pesky nuns.
I was taken with an article by Nicholas Kristof. It was first published in the New York Times and yesterday in the SMH. The link to the article is below. In this article there is a quote from an American nun “Let me get this straight. Some priests committed sex abuse. Bishops covered it up. Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell: The Royal Commission on the Melbourne Response
Next Monday, 18 August, 2014, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will commence Case Study No. 16 on the Melbourne Response that operated within the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne. In 1994, Bishop Geoffrey Robinson had been appointed by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference to draw up a protocol for dealing with Continue reading »
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Paul Collins. Much ado about nothing?
The 2014-15 Synod on ThePastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization Around Christmas 2013 there was much ado in the Australian Catholic community about the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Family called by Pope Francis for October 2014 and 2015. In preparation for this synod, for the first time ever, the Continue reading »
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Frank Brennan SJ. A Jesuit Bicentenary
Everyone knows that we Jesuits have had a rocky history. We were fabulously successful in educating the European elite for quite some time. Things went off the rails badly in the eighteenth century. We lost out to the Vatican Curia over the dispute about accommodating some Confucian and Hindu traditional rites in prayer and liturgy Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Suffer the little children to come unto me…
Well, not so if they are Palestinian children or asylum seeker children in our detention centres. At last counting there were 1,230 Palestinians killed in Gaza as a result of 3,000 or more air and artillery strikes. 56 Israelis have died. Close to 1,000 of those Palestinians killed were civilians, including children. Only three Israeli Continue reading »
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Michael Kelly SJ. Today’s Totalitarianism’s Powerful Forms.
Australian eyes are focused on the unspeakable brutality and pointlessness of the downing of MH 17. But alongside this event, Australian minds and hearts are assailed daily by barbarism across the Middle East and in different parts of Asia. It’s the paradox of liberalism that pluralistic secular democracies like Australia afford citizens far greater freedoms Continue reading »
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Bruce Duncan. Pope Francis: economic system is failing millions.
A blog in the Economist accused Pope Francis of following the founder of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin, in adopting an “ultra-radical line” on capitalism. The blog, “Francis, capitalism and war: the Pope’s divisions”, was reacting to the Pope’s interview on 9 June in the Spanish journal, La Vanguardia, in which he linked an earlier Continue reading »
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MH 17-Light a candle rather than curse the darkness
In the horror and sense of evil we all feel about the downing of MH17 how should we respond? Perhaps out best response is summed up in the above exhortation which is attributed to Peter Benenson the founder of Amnesty International. The candle cycled by barb wire has become the emblem of Amnesty. The quote Continue reading »
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Elenie Poulos. Morrison’s Vision of the ‘National Interest’ Does Us No Good.
The parable of the Good Samaritan from the Bible (Luke, chapter 10) has become common place and almost clichéd in Christian conversations about the current Australian Government’s increasingly cold-hearted and abusive responses to asylum seekers. Christian conversations in the public space about this issue matter because the Minister for Immigration has made much of his Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. Rolf Harris and the Vatican.
Rolf Harris, aged 84, was found guilty of sexual assaults on children in the long distant past, and was sentenced to 5 years jail. The judge took into account his age in determining the sentence. Many people still thought it was inadequate, and there is talk of an appeal by the Attorney General to increase Continue reading »
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Garry Everett. Where angels fear to tread in the Catholic Church.
One of the significant and pressing pastoral theological issues currently dividing opinion among the hierarchy and among the laity of the Church, is the issue of divorced and remarried Catholics, and their access to eucharist, writes Garry Everett. Pastoral theology is a tricky undertaking. It is easier, and certainly safer, to discuss theological matters in Continue reading »
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Michael Kelly SJ. Catholic Church needs to show more than legal compliance
It’s been a big few weeks for the clergy and their dealings with the police across the world. In legal matters in countries covering four continents – India, the Dominican Republic, Italy and Australia – clerics are being held to account by police and civil courts. Two priests in India have been charged with murdering Continue reading »
