Much to think about today...
Friday, 22nd December 2006

Dear friends,

In the wider tide of the affairs or men, women and the angels it's probably not going to be our present frenetic busy-ness preparing for Christmas that's really important but whether the world takes notice of this address Cardinal Ruini gave in recent days to the priests of Rome. It's well worth taking the time to study. At the end of all the analysis though I am not yet convinced that Benedict ultimately has a response that is going to reverse the now almost catastrophic way in which so many in the Western world treat the Church as largely irrelevant in their lives. For one I honestly and sincerely believe Benedict simply does not understand the ways in which the sciences have themselves undergone a revolution in the last 90-100 years in their appreciation of where the ultimate truth and laws lay. I feel, so often, he's tilting at windmills — tilting at arguments and ideas in science that are now largely superceded and from a past mindset. It IS going to be interesting reading his book when it is eventually released which endeavours to represent the "the salvific truth of Jesus Christ" in ways which might intersect with "the mindset of our times".

I do hope that both Cardinal Ruini's lecture, and what Pope Benedict has to say, might lead to a re-invigorated discussion around the world on the central meaning of Jesus Christ. My fear, conditioned by the sad record of the Church leadership for the last century or two, is that it will not. Our Church leaders are sadly way out of touch with "the mindset of our times". They can run around blaming secular culture, and all these philosophers from the Nineteenth Century, as so many cardinals and popes before them have done, but until they come to grips with the way in which discussion is conducted in the modern world they are going to find they cannot impose Jesus Christ on people as emporers of the past might have been able to do. They do have to "sell" what the essential message of Jesus Christ is in language that does truly intersect with where people are at in their lives today. And those people are NOT the 5% or so of the baptised that they seem to keep getting their knickers in a knot about upsetting.

You can find links to the full text of Cardinal Ruin's lecture below and on our webpage.

I've created a new fictional character today, Sister Phoebe, who might provide commentaries from time to time on these sort of matters in the form of a letter to God.

Have a great day wherever you happen to be ... in life, and in our world.

Evaluating beauty... In today's commentary Andrew Kania was partly stimulated by the recent discussion here on self-esteem and self-respect. His commentary is exploring the ways in which we value the beauty to be found in others. He explores a number of places where writers such as Balzac, St John Chrysostom, Naomi Wolf and others have written on the matter. [more]

On Cardinal Ruini's lecture on Pope Benedict's vision... Sister Phoebe is Ruth's sister. She's been a professed nun since Eve was a little girl and she's forever writing letters to God — some of which we are able to bring you from time to time in the pages of Catholica. In her first contribution we reproduce the letter she's written commenting on the vision of Cardinal Ruini and Pope Benedict. [more]

Brian Coyne
Editor and Publisher
Catholica Australia