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More moves than a Swiss watch!
Dear Friends,
There's a great story in today's Age newspaper about the latest little exploit of that entrepreneurial Jesuit, Michael Kelly SJ. His latest little endeavour is little short of brilliant although I'm not sure how much Church Resources has to do with the Gospel and turning the tide on the great drift out of Catholicism these days. That's the excuse rather than the objective it seems. I've written about it all, and provided a link to the Age story by Barney Zwartz in our forum. I find individuals like Kelly an enormous paradox. Catholicism would never have become what it became without them down through the centuries. Guys like this helped create the infrastructure that enabled institutional Catholicism to do so much good in the world in the realms of education, health, social welfare and all those other great utilitarian benefits the insitutional Church brings to the service of humankind. His latest venture is in genius territory albeit, as he himself says, it might take 25 years to pull it all off. What worries me though, as I wrote in one of the posts: "There might not be anyone left in the Church at the end of it all but it'll sure be worth a friggin' motza to someone! This really takes the old notion of 'builder-priests' familiar to any of us brought up in the 1950s to a whole new level. This is 'empire builder priests'! You've got more moves than a Swiss watch, Mick." <Link to the Forum article about the latest little venture from Church Resources>
WIN A COPY OF "CARDINAL MAHONY – A NOVEL": Someone from Redfern sent me through variation of the Sponsor a Lion bumper sticker I featured yesterday to promote our competition. Here it is.
You too can enter our competition to win a copy of Robert Blair Kaiser's racy new novel that outlines an exciting future vision for Catholicism. The prize is being offered courtesy of John Garratt Publishing who are bringing Robert Blair Kaiser to Australia next month. (He's currently wanting to get banned from a few dioceses downunder to help emulate Bishop Robinson's success in the US. Any takers to reciprocate the real Cardinal Mahony's ban on the Aussie Bishop?) Click the ad at the bottom of this page for details about how to enter our competition.
BISHOP ROBINSON VIDEO: And talking of Bishop Robinson, I put a video on our forum yesterday of his address at Temple University. What a powerful address it was. The whole video runs for 90 minutes but is a "must watch" for anyone serious about where Catholicism is heading. You'll need a broadband connection to watch it. <Link to the Bp Robinson video>
TODAY'S LEAD COMMENTARY: Over the next few Monday commentaries we are going to spend some time looking at the detail of the early outreach efforts of the embryonic, still largely Jewish, Christian Church. Tom Lee argues today that much of the early outreach was a virtue forced of necessity as the early followers of Jesus faced various forms of persecution… <Link to Tom's commentary> |
