061 :
01 Feb 2010

Communication in a digital age... To kick off our new publishing year, Catholica editor, Brian Coyne, has some good news with which to start the year. There's a whole heap of questions too. We call ourselves 'a pilgrim people' — pilgrims on our way to discovering truth and love as it is understood by our Creator-God. How do you find truth, or love, in a digital and three-sentence attention span age? On Twitter you're not even given that luxury. You have to find it in 140 letters or less! [more]

060 :
10 Nov 2009

A serious writer on spirituality and religion or an entertainer? Catholica editor, Brian Coyne, has spent the last couple of days absorbed in Dan Brown's latest thriller, The Lost Symbol. Not unexpectedly it's a great read but Brian asks if we should treat a writer like this primarily as an entertainer or is he someone who has an important contribution to make to the great discussions going on in society at the moment about the place and meaning of religion and spirituality in our lives? [more]

059 :
23 Sep 2009

A History of the Knights of the Southern Cross At the beginning of this month the Knights of the Southern Cross in Australia celebrated their 90th birthday. Cliff Baxter was commissioned to write the history of the Order in New South Wales to mark the milestone. Catholica editor, Brian Coyne, who has a number of associations with the Knights, reviews the book... [more]

058 :
17 Sep 2009

What sort of ecclesial leadership do we need? The rumours are circulating again of changes at the senior leadership level of the Church in this country. In today's commentary the editor of Catholica, Brian Coyne, poses questions regarding both the leadership and what, precisely, they are seeking to teach or preach... [more]

057 :
21 Aug 2009

Understanding Fundamentalism... In some senses the very existence of Catholica could be considered to be a response to fundamentalist thinking. Catholica itself might be characterised as a search for an alternative way of looking at religion, spirituality, theology and God to fundamentalist perspectives. Perhaps it is no surprise then that the editor, Brian Coyne has been deeply impressed by a study he recently came across by Karen Armstrong which explores Fundamentalism in the three great monotheist faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Today's lead commentary is a review of Karen Armstrong's book, The Battle for God. [more]

056 :
27 June 2009

A Good News Commentary... Catholica editor, Brian Coyne, today provides an introduction to two exciting adult faith learning experiences being promoted by the Archdiocese of Canberra-Goulburn and the Diocese of Broken Bay. One of the initiatives — a National On-Line Conference for the Year of St Paul — takes place this coming Tuesday, and he proposes we follow this conference and conduct our own online forum in parallel with the many meetings in physical space that will be conducted around the nation at the same time. [more]

055 :
01 June 2009

Film Review: Angels and Demons... Brian Coyne reviews the controversial Ron Howard film, Angels and Demons. His conclusion is that there is much that is worth watching in this film beside the entertainment. [more]

054 :
09 May 2009

Living out of our anger! The publishers of Catholica husband and wife team, Amanda McKenna and Brian Coyne, have had our regular Wednesday commentator, Tom McMahon, as a house guest for the past five days. Tom is visiting Australia from his home in San Jose, California. Today's commentary flows out of the experience and sharing of perspectives. [more]

053 :
25 Apr 2009

Truth Conquers! The Editor of Catholica, Brian Coyne, in this commentary explores some important territory: what's the ultimate objective of our institutional and personal life quests? It's a question linked to some questioning going on in the back room at Catholica at the moment as we endeavour to discern the objective of our endeavour or mission. [more]

052 :
11 Apr 2009

What will "church" look like in the future — Part V In the last commentary, Brian Coyne ended by suggesting there are three principal tools in communication that someone needs to be aware of if a message is to be successfully transmitted. He begins today with a re-capitulation of those principles before exploring where we (the institution is presently falling short) before concluding with some thoughts on the future character of the Church. [more]

051 :
04 Apr 2009

What will "church" look like in the future — Part IV In the fourth part of this extended series, Brian Coyne turns from discussion of what the objectives of the spiritual quest are to consideration of more practical issues. If we are to rebuild an effective Church we firstly need some consensus or agreement on what we're trying to communicate, then we need some agreement about our methodologies in how we get the message across. [more]

050 :
28 Mar 2009

What will "church" look like in the future — Part III The first two parts of this commentary were originally posted on the Catholica Forum on 24 and 25 March 2009. Overall the commentary is seeking to discern what the Church of the future might look like given some of the forces we see at work in society. This first part looked at the changing perceptions of the objective of belief. Part 2 looked at the consequences of the removal of a major incentive that operated in the past to draw people to Church. In this third part, Brian Coyne presents two arguments, one secular and the other spiritually based, that might be used to encourage increased liturgical participation again. [more]

049 :
28 Mar 2009

What will "church" look like in the future — Part II The first two parts of this commentary were originally posted on the Catholica Forum on 24 and 25 March 2009. Overall the commentary is seeking to discern what the Church of the future might look like given some of the forces we see at work in society. This first part looked at the changing perceptions of the objective of belief. This second looks at the consequences of the removal of a major incentive that operated in the past to draw people to Church. This part begins with a summary of the argument from Part I. [more]

048 :
28 Mar 2009

What will "church" look like in the future — Part I The first two parts of this commentary were originally posted on the Catholica Forum on 24 and 25 March 2009. Overall the commentary is seeking to discern what the Church of the future might look like given some of the forces we see at work in society. This first part looks at the changing perceptions of the objective of belief. Part 2 looks at the consequences of the removal of a major incentive that operated in the past to draw people to Church. In part 3, which has not been previously published on the forum, Brian Coyne looks at some possibilities of how we might "be Church" in the future. [more]