EDITOR'S ROUND-UP

Saturday, 28 February 2009

Something for the boys and something for the girls!

Dear Friends,

As I explained on the forum a few hours ago, this weekend was supposed to be a "women's view". I have two reflections for you from either side of the Pacific, Dawn Bowie is writing for us from Washington DC today and tomorrow we have another commentary from Kerry Gonzales here in Sydney. Before starting work on the layout of Dawn's contribution I had to go down the shop and get in some supplies. On the way the boy in me got distracted by some blokes operating this herdy great machine changing the ballast on the railway tracks hust across the valley from me. So you're going to get two commentaries today. One is very tender — beautiful in fact given the heartbreak that I know Dawn has been through with the unexpected death of the man she hoped to marry. A little later today I'm also going to bring you a very macho commentary on "the theology of changing railway ballast". Girls, you can all go take a holiday for that one! It's strictly for the train spotters and engineers in our midst. No, you might like to read it because what I saw this morning gave me idea. I reckon they need to run one of these herdy great machines — I've already dubbed it one of the "Seven Wonders of Modern Engineering" right over the top of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and clean out all the ballast it has been riding on.

For our weekly readers could I just point out to you that Catholica is really pumping now. In the past week on three consecutive days we established new daily records for the the number of daily visits. In fact things are pumping so well that we are in great danger today, the last day of the month, of bringing the website down because we will exceed our monthly bandwidth quota. (I'm taking a risk publishing a couple of videos with these commentaries today as they'll put a strain on our bandwidth but I've calculated we should just "wing it through" by midnight. If we do bring the website down though, don't panic, we will be back tomorrow. It will only be a temporary outage. We are presently negotiating to move to a much larger server with much greater bandwidth. So, in summary, don't forget to check out the other commentaries from this week and the discussions in the forum. And, for something more gentle and a great start to Lent spend a few moments in quiet reflection with what Dawn Bowie has to share with us today. <Link to Dawn's reflection>

DON'T FORGET: If any of the links on this email get messed up go directly to our home page where you'll find they definitely work.

"A Universal Church" Dr Elmer introduces his commentary today: "Last week we began an examination of Paul's ecclesiology by noting how Paul responded to his opponents at Galatia by stressing the eschatological character of the Christian family. The image of the Pauline churches that emerges from Galatians and elsewhere in the Pauline corpus is that of small house churches — groups of ordinary people meeting in ordinary homes and sharing a common identity as brothers and sisters 'in Christ' (Gal 2:19-20; cf. Rom 6:3-11; 1 Cor 15:22; 2 Cor 5:14-16). But this was not a form of early congregationalism. Paul and his converts were very much aware that they were part of a larger, universal Church with an inherited tradition of beliefs and an established hierarchy of leadership." <more>

Penance – A final overview: A few week's ago a number of people requested Tom McMahon provide an overview article on Penance following his recent series on the subject. In today's lead commentary Tom provides that overview. It is a commentary that will provoke considerable reader interest from a number of points of view: firstly it provides a good overview of the history and links to further interesting reading. He urges that whatever kind of Christian or Catholic communities emerge in the future undertake a major re-think of the mercy and forgiveness modelled by Jesus. <more>

The Cosmic Mystery of Christ! In what might be his most compelling and provocative commentary yet, Dr Andrew Kania invites you to look at the Mystery of Jesus Christ from an Eastern Catholic and a Cosmic perspective. Part one of a two-part essay with an introduction from Catholica Editor, Brian Coyne. <more>

11.4: The European Dimension… Tom Lee today brings to a close his chapter looking at the European dimension to early Christianity. Compared to the more recent commentaries in this series this will probably attract heightened interest because here Tom brings the commentaries that led up to this into focus. The identity of Christianity is becoming more defined. His section on the role played by Justin Martyr is particularly worthwhile reading. <more>

Getting used to the idea that God created gays and they're not some kind of freaks or an aberration! Today the youngest of our commentators, Daniel Gullotta, chances his life stepping in against the fundamentalist lions. He seeks to open-up an intelligent discussion on the vexed question of where homosexuality fits into God's plan of Creation. Daniel argues we need to start learning that it is part of God's plan and not some aberration... <more>

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

Brian Coyne
Editor and Publisher