Not a time for D&M's

Dear Friends,

My experience acquired over many years now is that the lead-up to Christmas seems somewhat ironically the worst time for deep and meaningful discussions about religion and spirituality. Our minds tend to be focussed elswhere in cleaning up our desks, Christmas shopping, end-of-year parties, etc.. There's less time to read the newspapers, sit down and watch documentaries that demand too much concentration, or to be engaging in too much d&m conversation. In the remaining days between now and the end of the year I might try offering some cartoons and shorter material in amongst our regular commitments. Andrew Kania's commentary todays is a shorter one rounding off his commentary from last week looking at our attitudes to wealth and material possessions. I should also point out that last night I finally published the next instalment of Professor Len Swidler's series on Democracy. When people do finally get to look at it I suspect they'll agree with me that it is one of the most interesting yet despite it's rather off-putting title. (I can't imagine in Australia, let alone anywhere else in the world, people getting too excited at the prospects of trying to to introduce democracy and constitutions into parishes. That's almost as foreign a notion in Catholic culture as a proposal to submit a provocative petition to the bishops.) Nevertheless, I do highly recommend your having a look at what Len Swidler had to say in the essay we published last night. There is stuff there about the internal politics that went on in the time of our recent Pope to thwart ideas about democracy that most readers will find quite eye-opening. <Click HERE to read Andrew's commentary> <Click HERE to read Len Swidler's commentary>

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

Brian Coyne
Editor and Publisher