Thanks everyone. I was very confused because it seems to have ringing endorsement from Benny and the Jets, yet everywhere I read about it being heretical. Didn't make sense.

Reading about the influence of such groups as Opus Dei, Neo-Catechumenate etc. makes me wonder if Bishop Morris was not a victim because he forced the founder of the Magnificat Meal Movement to be exposed for the fraud she was. At the time, there was quite a large number of people flocking to Helidon where she had centred the Movement and caused quite a lot of pain to the Catholics of the area.

A few years earlier we had a Conference of Lay Movements in the Church in Brisbane, and some of us became very uneasy about the above-named groups and a few others but they seemed to have approval from higher up so.........

Makes one ask if the REAL criteria for such groups to be accepted is b.ms on seats and dollars in the plate, rather than genuine adherence to faith, especially when you read something like Rick Santorum's conversion etc. and reflect that Opus Dei has large influence in the USA despite the Robert Hanson scandal.

Cartoon says it all really, Desi! But this was the part that jumped out at me -

Among its other new measures are marriage preparation classes for senior secondary school students,

I thought "getting married straight out of the schoolroom" was a dated concept, even in Jane Austen's day.

From an article in the SMH, Pell plans fidelity oath for principals, 04/06/07.

One critic of the archdiocese's plan says it contains "shades of the Opus Dei", the Spanish-founded conservative Christian movement that achieved notoriety as the villain of the fictional bestseller The Da Vinci Code.Writing for the online magazine Catholica, a Sydney priest, Father Dan Donovan, said the plan needed a serious rewrite and failed to take note of the "infiltration" of Opus Dei and the Neocatechumenal Way, a lay movement that heads the turbulent Redfern parish.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pell-plans-fidelity-oath-for-principals/2007/06/03/...

PS Love the cartoon

Pell doesn't see it that way, Judith. He put the NeoCats into Redfern after Fr Ted's death, specifically to clean out the "undesirables".

The Church and adjacent buildings are derelict. It's all Church property, but he doesn't lift a finger.

When the Medical Centre opened next to the Church (incidentally allowing parishioners to have the use of toilets and running water), he dismissed it as just being there to dispense drugs and condoms. He also referred to us as "the rump of Redfern".

Such a warm, caring, pastoral man!

Wasn't Redfern the parish where Father Ted Kennedy did legendary work with the poor and Aborigines? What happened after his death? Have the Neo-Cats. taken on such work or just destroyed anything they do not agree with in the Parish?

If there is a grain of truth in the entries about them on the various links, then why is Cardinal Pell supporting them when they are so at variance with the Catholic Catechism? No wonder everyone looks so glum in the photo at the opening of the seminary.

http://church-mouse.lanuera.com/new/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6...

http://church-mouse.lanuera.com/new/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7...

Posted without comment.

FragrantHeretic

flagrantheretic, I think that you may find this of interest:

http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?mode=printthread&thread=21467

Try reading this article from the Church Mouse site by Gerald Arbuckle. From my own experience of them it is pretty accurate - http://church-mouse.lanuera.com/neocats/Arbuckle.html

As for the picture painted of Aboriginal people, it would be consistent with the way that the Neocats in Redfern would view them.

An interesting link, gemstones!

I'd heard the word but had no idea what/who they were but this is from that site.

Make of it what you will.

BENEDICT XVI HAS SENT A FAMILY FROM CORPUS CHRISTI PARISH, ALICANTE, TO SYDNEY

Andres and Esther and their 4 children, members of the 2nd Neocatechumenal Community, were sent by the Holy Father, Benedict XVI, as a Missionary Family to the city of Sydney on January 11, 2006. At that meeting with the Pope more than 200 Missionary Families were sent to destinations spread over the five continents.

In a celebration in the family’s parish of Corpus Christi, our Bishop, D. Raphael Palmero, confirmed their mission and fully endorsed the Pope’s decision.

On August 23, 2006, Andres and Esther set off with their four children for the antipodean city of Sydney to “give freely what they have received freely” - the Love of Christ in their lives.

The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, entrusted them with a mission in the centre of the city -in the parish of St Vincent de Paul in the suburb of Redfern.

Their mission is to establish the presence of the Body of Christ, which is the Church, given the reality of the parish. For that they rely on the Brazilian Parish Priest, Clesio Mendes, the Australian Assistant Priest, Joe Pelle, two unmarried girls and an Italian family with twelve children.

In order to focus on the reality of this parish it is necessary to know the environment in which the mission must operate. The suburb of Redfern is one of the most troubled of the city, given that Australian Aborigines live there. The social reality of the Australian Aborigines is really disappointing; in spite of the great sums of money that they receive from the government for abuses suffered during the country’s history, these people live immersed in the world of drugs and alcohol. Families are broken, the rate of unemployment amongst them is 95%, and Aboriginals make up 60% of the inmates in Australian gaols. Also, as a consequence of alcohol and heroin use, there is a high incidence of domestic violence and child abuse.

The basic mission of this family is to help and support the parish priests, who are constantly slandered and persecuted for being Catholics, and to visit people’s homes in pairs several days each week in order to, according to the Gospel, bring the love of God and His Word to the people of this tremendously dechristianised suburb.

They also help a little Neocatechumenal community in the parish and realise Christian initiation with them. The community includes only four people who are originally from the parish, but together with the two girls, the two families and the two priests, it numbers 12 adults and 16 children.

Through this missionary family the diocese of Orihuela-Alicante is proclaiming the Gospel in the Australian continent.

The Diocesan News, ORIHUELA-ALICANTE DIOCESE
Year XII, Nº 244 10/17 February 2008

(My emphasis).

Whoever it was, in Alicante in Spain, who wrote this shows a quite remarkable knowledge of the Aboriginal people in Australia.

Just read again what they say...quite astonishing, perhaps they got their information from someone in Sydney?

Hi FlagrantHeretic,

Although I have no personal experience of the NeoCats and their culture, they have been resident in my suburb of Redfern for many years.

As I don't go to Church myself, it might be best if you read the local journal, and see what stories are told there.

(It sounds like a nightmare, but it has possibly ended). Let us hope so.

http://church-mouse.lanuera.com/

Once you press ENTER, you can navigate through Recent Items down the left-hand side.

FragrantHeretic

I was wondering if anyone had any information other than what is on Wikipedia about the Neo-catechumenical way. There was an article in the Catholic Weekly about the opening of their seminary, and Cardinal Pell was there, so it makes me think they must be conservative, but it doesn't read that way, in Wikipedia.

Does anyone have first hand knowledge?