EDITOR'S ROUND-UP

Saturday, 06 December 2008

The Catholica Christmas Online Gift Shoppe...

Dear Friends,

CHRISTMAS ONLINE SHOPPE: In conjunction with two of the leading Christian publishers in Australia, John Garratt Publishing and Willow Publishing, we are about to open an online shop offering a range of titles and inexpensive Christmas gifts. Obviously one of the main reasons we're trying to do this is to provide a bit of income for the writers, artists and musicians whose offerings we are able to bring you, as well as for Catholica and the publishers. At the same time though we've tried to select items that might be of particular interest to our readership. We're also endeavouring to offer the convenience of ordering online and the publishers will look after the delivery to those whom you'd like the presents sent to.

I've been working on this initiative for about three weeks but the pressures of recent stories have delayed me completing the programming so I do apologise that you'll have to get in quickly to have any presents delivered before Christmas this year. Nevertheless, you should have at least a week or ten days. Hopefully I'll have the shoppe online either later tonight or sometime tomorrow. We'd welcome feedback of other items you'd like to see offered.

TODAY'S COMMENTARY: There's probably a good film script in the series of commentaries Dr Ian Elmer has brought us in recent weeks exploring in some detail the fighting that went on in the early Church around the time of the first Council at Jerusalem. Unfortunately the Scriptural record is actually not clear about what actually transpired. As becomes clear through reading Ian's commentary today, to make sense of what was going on "back then" we are largely reliant on scholarly conjecture. Studying this material though is important because it has fairly direct relevance to the disputes we see still going on within the Church today. Enjoy the next thrilling instalment of the contest between the goodies and the baddies at Antioch and Jerusalem. Whose side are you on? <Link to Ian's commentary>

Reinvigorating Christian spirituality… Dick Westley is a now retired teacher of philosophy from Loyola University, Chicago. Over the next four Fridays we are going to publish the papers from a provocative workshop he conducted in Chicago in October which, perhaps surprisingly, we got to hear about via one of our Australian readers. This is a provocative series which looks both at the decline of Christianity but with a view to re-invigorating our spirituality. His workshop series was entitled: "Live Life as it Comes!" <more>

A love song dedicated to Mary MacKillop… It's a pleasure to bring you today the third of our video commentaries. Today the contribution comes from Amanda McKenna and a small part of the address she gave to the Church Mice community at St Vincent's, Redfern, last Sunday. In this ten-minute reflection today Amanda explores the spiritual outlook of Australia's first saint, Mary MacKillop, in both words and music. <more>

The dilemmas in discussion about refugees… Today's offering by Andrew Kania is a "from-the-heart" exploration — or is it defence? — of any person who, at any point, has reason to consider themselves a refugee. And aren't we all, at some stage or other of our life journeys? Although born and raised in Australia, Dr Kania is the son of a Ukrainian refugee, who had to flee his native Poland with his parents and siblings, because of the violent oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Soviets after World War II. Perhaps it is equally true to say that at some stage or other of our lives all of us sit on the other side of the fence and "use" people who are different to us as a battering ram, or in order to elevate our own sense of worth at their expense. In this essay Andrew attempts to distil some of the wisdom that some of the great minds have sought to apply to the challenges posed by those who are forced, for whatever reason, to flee their homelands. His title for the essay is "Cunning as Snakes, Meek as Doves" which is adapted from some words Jesus used. <more>

Today is World AIDS Day… As a commentary we have another of those "the corner stone rejected by the builders..." stories to add to the stories of St Mary's South Brisbane, St Vincent's, Redfern and even Catholica itself. It's the story of journalist Brian Haill's endeavours to establish a charitable initiative to assist sufferers of HIV/AIDS. The establishment doesn't like any of these initiatives that don't comply to their neat little picture of what Catholicism ought to be with all the "sheep" neatly corralled in a pen, and being totally obedient. Line up and place your bets folks: "who's gunna be the next Archbishop of Westminster — who's likely to score a seat in Paradise?" That's the choice that things are rapidly degenerating into for all thinking Catholics. <more>

The gauntlet ... a review ... "the good old days" Tom McMahon responds today to a question the editor put to him a couple of weeks ago. He argues signs and ritual are important but only if they have meaning. The sacraments of Trent have lost their meaning to most of the population today. He writes "every generation writes its own response to Jesus … its own gospel". <more>

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

Brian Coyne
Editor and Publisher