Some serious issues that our bishops need to address...
Wednesday, 18th October 2006

Dear friends,

Firstly can I extend a big note of appreciation for all of our readers who have made a concerted effort in recent days to make our discussion forum really start to sing. I am really thrilled from the point of view of what we're trying to achieve with this initiative but I also know from the feedback that comes to my desk that our readers do really appreciate the efforts that are put into this.

I suppose it was always going to be inevitable that we'd cop some criticism and opposition. I should point out that the level of vitriol now being directed at myself and other members of this endeavour has reached new depths this morning on the CathNews discussion forum. Sadly I do not expect any defence by our bishops or those in positions of authority. When I was attacked 15 years ago in similar fashion in a way that literally did end up stripping me of nearly everything in my life and I went to priests and bishops not seeking someone to protect me but merely a "sounding board" as I tried to find someone who would listen to my story and provide guidance as to whether I was going out of my mind or not. There was almost total indifference. An incapacity to even understand what in the foggiest I was talking about. Sadly that is a characteristic of our Church these days. Is it any wonder that ordinary people have lost confidence today in our spiritual guides and leaders?

Gentlemen, if you are listening, what you see happening on the CathNews discussion board today is why you have very few people left in your pews today. It is why independent Catholic media like OnLine Catholics, Catholica Australia, and the other similar ventures being established at the international level are rising up. You stand there like petrified sheep and do absolutely nothing. Some of you actually encourage the behaviours one sees going on over there out of some misguided sense that you are going to re-evangelise the Western world through these abominations of Christian teaching and doctrine. It is time you pulled your fingers out and did something about this tiny minority. Ultimately those behaviours lead to the terrorism that we see today manifest in the extremes of Islam.

The behaviours of some individuals on the CathNews board today is actually in serious moral error. Are you going to allow that to stay there or are we going to have to start taking legal action so that you begin to understand what is acceptable fair comment and what is not? Do you think what is going on on the CathNews discussion board is a seriously good advertisement for Catholicism? These people cannot even see that their behaviours are morally flawed. What are you going to do in order to try and educate them? Give them another lecture on Sixth Commandment issues — LOL — or when are you going to start addressing some of the moral behaviours that can bring us to grief in the other commandments? Do any of you even know what is going on on the CathNews discussion board? Do you care? Do you understand what advertisement that sort of behaviour provides for our Church? Where are you defending Ian Elmer, Linda, Cliff Baxter, myself from these scrurrilous personal defamations? And this morning we have a very serious example of unauthorised identity disclosure by an individual who should know better. Do you wonder why the great majority of the population do not rock up to Mass anymore when these people simply do not understand the most fundamental details of moral law and yet preach at the world as though they are holier than anybody? That is what people are running away from — the hypocrisy of it all. And our spiritual leaders stand up there and do absolutely nothing.

What the Papal Envoy to the United Nations had to say yesterday is packed with insight. But you also need to deal with the verbal terrorism that is manifest today within a sector of your own flocks.

Standing in contrast to all that most unpalatable stuff, Peregrinus today applies his fine mind to some further considerations of this difficult issue of forgiveness taking as his starting point recent reflections by Rosemary and Milly.

I'm also pleased to report that I'm now starting to get quite a few entries in to name our new character. If you haven't done so yet make sure you submit an entry to be in the running for some great prizes.

Further thoughts on Forgiveness? Peregrinus has another look at the Christian notion of forgiveness following on from Rosemary and Milly's reflections on the same subject in the wake of the Amish tragedy in Pennsylvania. [more]
 

On the address by the Papal Nuncio to the United Nations Assembly... Our cloistered friends are today quite elated by the address given my Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Papal Envoy to the UN, on the subject of terrorism and the means that are legitimately able to be applied to counter it. [more]

Best wishes for a great day wherever you happen to be ... in life, and in our world.

Brian Coyne
Editor and Publisher
Catholica Australia