EDITOR'S ROUND-UP

Saturday, 14 February 2009

Does infallibility mean non-accountability?

Dear Friends,

As explained in the forum my apologies for the lateness of today's email. I was hoping to bring you an audio-visual special today but the editing is not quite finished. Hopefully I'll have it online tomorrow. IN its place I do have a provocative commentary from Frank Purcell calling for greater accountability in how the Catholic Church is governed and administered. In his commentary he reveals that the Australian Catholic Bishops have recently revealed they have not yet implemented procedures called for in the 1983 new Code of Canon Law that help protect the rights of ordinary Catholics. <Don't miss Frank Purcell's challenging commentary>

"The Christology of St Paul" If you were uplifted by the essay we pointed you to yesterday by Dr Jerome Murphy-O'Connor on Paul the Pastor, you will more than probably find this first of Dr Ian Elmer's 2009 commentaries on St Paul equally interesting and uplifting. What Dr Elmer is essentially looking at today is the Christology of St Paul — what did Jesus mean to St Paul and what was the picture of Jesus that St Paul was endeavouring to communicate through his writing and his missionary activities? <more> <See also further discussion in Friday's email>

The relevance of Paul to today! Rather than bring you our own commentary today I would like to draw to your attention an essay by Fr Jerome Murphy-O'Connor OP which has been published on the website of the British Jesuits, Thinking Faith. First brought to our attention by one of the participants in our forum, the essay has since drawn very positive comment by others in the forum. It's an essay that seems not only valuable in terms of providing succinct insight into the mind and life of St Paul, it is a timely essay that cuts like those winds we get up here at Linden that drive all the pollution and haze out of the air and leave the picture of the city looking dazzlingly clear. At five or six different levels we see what our faith and our Church is supposed to be about in a very clear way. This is one of those essays that everyone ought read this year in the Year of St Paul. See the further introduction I wrote in the forum early this morning which provides links to the essay and to some of the comment generated on our forum. This essay might also serve as a re-focus event before we resume Dr Ian Elmer's more detailed series examining Paul. We'll resume Ian's series tomorrow. <more>

Penance – Part 4 Today on Catholica Tom McMahon concludes his series of commentaries on the Sacrament of Penance. He'd penned this commentary before I posed the question last week "A question for the psychologist in Tom McMahon..." — it's now on page 3 of our forum and he's obviously missed it such is the pace of discussion at the moment — so I'll endeavour to get him to respond to that question in coming days in the forum. Does this sacrament still have value? If so how might it be reformed, or if it has been already reformed enough, how might it be better promoted or encouraged? <more>

What can we learn from Sweden about religion and spirituality? Today's commentary from Dr Andrew Kania intersects at a number of valuable points with on-going discussions we're having here on Catholica. The main one is the challenge facing institutional religion in maintaining its relevance in Western society. His commentary is drawn from the research he's been engaged in at Oxford University into the Mystical Theology of the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld. A second point of intersection then might be the on-going discussion we have about the value of mysticism to spirituality. Dr Kania doesn't give much away here on that subject but maybe we might induce him to open up on the question, with this serving as the introduction to a later commentary examining the place of mysticism either from the perspective of his research, or from his equally steeped interest in Eastern Catholicism. This is quality adult discussion of spirituality at its very best. <more>

11.2: The European Dimension… Today's commentary from Tom Lee is a bit of a potpourri. It starts looking at Roman suspicions towards the early Christians and their religious beliefs and practices, moves into a discussion of Christian suspicion towards heretical beliefs in their own ranks and ends with a look at how the Christian attitude to Revelation changed over time. <more>

A critique of Church Communications In today's Sunday Forum, Kerry Gonzales, critiques a recent brochure put out by the Life, Marriage & Family Centre of the Archdiocese of Sydney to drum up support for Humanae Vitae. She argues that surely there are far more important, and relevant, issues the institution ought be addressing today if it is to remain a relevant force in society. <more>

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

Brian Coyne
Editor and Publisher