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What do they mean "the truth will set you free"?
Dear Friends,
There's been much discussion on Catholica recently as to the nature of truth. Dr Ian Elmer in fact wrote a couple of thought-provoking posts in the forum yesterday responding to some of this discussion. Is it serendipity or God-incidence but Dr Andrew Kania's commentary today — which he submitted a couple of weeks ago — is tackling this big issue of "Truth"? Andrew examines it from two perspectives: the first is the plot of that great classic of Russian literature, Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov; the second is through the thoughts of Cardinal Newman in the struggle he went through in his conversion from the Anglican Church to Catholicism.
Throughout my own life I have remained a great fan of Cardinal Newman albeit that I appreciate him today in a completely different light to the way I appreciated him when I saw life primarily through an exclusively (conservative) political lens. I honestly believe today that "truth" ultimately transcends politics. All of our lives are complicated. "Truth", in the final analysis, is about being able to view life and its meaning beyond the constaints of our political straight-jackets, our egos, our need to be loved and stroked, in fact beyond all those things that "complicate" our lives. Dr Kania's insights today take us to that place where we can examine some of the paradoxes or contradictions we face in our search for ultimate truth. <Read Andrew's commentary>
 COMING UP: Yesterday afternoon I had an unexpected visit from Barry Sinclair. Barry is a fascinating person, albeit a terror of the internet at times, who has led a fascinating life since his time as a young man up at the old seminary close to here at Springwood in the Blue Mountains. It must have been a fascinating time to be at that seminary because today Barry is on first name terms seemingly with most of the bishops in NSW from the friendships he developed back in his seminary days. During the course of our "catch-up" yesterday Barry started telling me of his years working for the Archdiocese of Sydney and his involvement with those developments back in the 1970s and 1980s that led to a virtual revolution in the institutional Church's attitude to divorce. I stopped him shortly into the conversation and asked him if I could get my minidisc to record what he was saying. He said yes and so I ended up recording a fascinating interview of about 20 minutes duration about what I am sure many readers will find an intriguing piece of Church history. I have to confess that even though I lived through that era, until the conversation yesterday I was largely ignorant of what people in failed relationships had to endure prior to access being made available to ordinary Catholics to the Marriage Tribunals in the mid 1970s. As well as being a valuable part of our history that ought to be on the record somewhere, I am sure the information that Barry imparts will also be useful to many people today who find themselves in situations of distress through a failed marital relationship. I certainly wish I had been aware of this background information through my own travails of the last decade in this area of life. I will publish the interview/conversation on Thursday.
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