Two items for reflection today…

Dear friends,

Two principal items for your reflection today. Firstly Ian Elmer has a cracker-jack commentary that I am certain is going to create a lot of interest. It's an exploration of our changing perceptions on the nature of sin but he adds the twist of endeavouring to look at "sin" from the perspective of what we can learn from modern biblical scholarship. You might not agree with everything that Ian has to say but isn't that how any adult conversation ought be conducted? I'm sure this commentary is going to lead to an extended conversation that will continue to be part of our discussions even twelve months from now. <Read Ian's commentary>

A dream — could I have your thoughts in response to this?

Secondly, could I also share with you a dream I had last night. I'm not usually the sort of guy that has vivid dreams, or if I do I seem to rarely remember them. Amanda did tell me a week or so ago that one night I was enjoying a good chuckle in my sleep about something but, for the life of me, I haven't a clue what was so amusing that night. I was just glad to learn that these days I'm basically "chuckling" in my sleep rather than raging or weeping or getting depressed.

The dream last night was extremely vivid. I received an email from someone offering us a bequest to set up a Catholica Australia Foundation. I can even vividly recall the amount of money in the bequest. It was for $144,936. Why it should be such a precise number like that I haven't a clue. Recently we have received in some sizeable donations like a thousand dollars at a time and I can tell you I was almost blown away when the emails arrived indicating sums of money of that order.

Until this dream last night I'd never really thought of a Foundation. My thoughts to date have been of setting up some not-for-profit company to own the Catholica Australia endeavour and provide an accountability mechanism back to our supporters but not a Foundation. It is not a dream out of the realms of possibility. Perhaps the notion was planted in my head by the discussion in the media in recent weeks of Noel Pearson's, Cape York Foundation.

Peter Tannock has got an entire Catholic University floated in Australia albeit with major funding from the a number of archdioceses, dioceses and religious orders not to mention the more recent support of the Federal Government. John Menadue and friends a few years ago sought to establish OnLine Catholics principally with the initial financial support coming from religious orders. Do you think it might be possible to establish a completely lay-funded foundation?

In many ways I honestly do think why new initiatives like Catholica Australia are springing up is because lay people have simply become sick to death of waiting for the institutional leadership to act. The commentary by Ian Elmer this morning — and the commentaries by Andrew Kania and Peregrinus on which it was built — are perhaps illustrative of what is happening. We lay people do have a myriad of questions but one goes to a priest these days and they seem honestly too scared to say anthing to us that has real meaning and which does honestly respond to the questions about morality and spirituality that perplex us. As the one who started the Catholica initiative I have honestly been gobsmacked by the entusiasm that has greated our endeavour.

Our objectives and establishing some accountablity structure…

At this stage the idea of building some foundation that might own and provide an accountability structure to what we are doing is little more than the dream I had last night. I throw it open for discussion though. We are still dependent today on a continuing flow of donations, large and small, to consolidate what we have already achieved and to promote our endeavour further afield and we can't afford for those to stop while we think about the particular structure we establish. The questions I'm really throwing open for discussion today are two-fold: firstly there is the general question of the accountability structure. We genuinely do not want to see Catholica Australia as some dissident organisation that is somehow perceived as constraining the "spread of the Good News". We see it as a necessary initiative at the moment doing things the institution itself seems no longer capable of doing effectively. Our initiative is one of endeavouring to support and help in the rebuilding of the institution not one of endeavouring to tear it down. Whatever kind of structure we establish it needs to have a constitution and formal structure which both keeps us true to those objectives and, eventually, when the work of Catholica is done whatever remains in terms of capital or the on-going income it generates this can be returned to the institution we are seeking to support and help re-build. Do we have people out there in our readership who have expertise as lawyers, accountants or business advisers who might help provide pro-bono support in sorting through these questions?

The second question I'd value your feedback on is just more general feedback as to whether you think this might be a good idea and perhaps even, if we did it, you might be able to make some financial commitment to making it a reality by becoming a a founder to a Catholica Australia Foundation? No rock-solid commitments are being called for at this stage. I'm just interested in general feedback as to how you, our readers, view this lay-initiative and how you think it might be structured given what I have written in the paragraph above about our objectives.

We appreciate also the expressions of prayer and spiritual support that continue to fill our inbox. Catholica Australia is not unique. Around the world various different groups seem to be springing up external to the institution but basically seeking to be supportive of the institution even if they believe it is in need of reform and restrucuring. This seems to be a phenomenon that we have never really experienced in the history of the institution before — or perhaps we have and we've merely forgotten about it. What builds initiatives like these is as much the moral and spiritual support — the base will of a significant grouping of people to make something happen.

As I said I don't have vivid dreams that I remember often. When I do it is usually a good omen about something. Let's hope this dream has been another good omen. This idea is not entirely without precedent. What B.A. Santamaria set-up in his National Civic Council was essentially a structure external to the institutional Church and there have been many organisations like that around the world at various times. There are also plenty of examples of secular foundations involved in charitable or political endeavours and during my life time I have been close enough to observe two fellows who established two of these from scratch. Over to you for your thoughts.

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

Brian Coyne
Editor and Publisher