011 :
09 Oct 2008

Lessons from St Francis... Last Saturday our occasional lead commentator, Fr Dan Donovan, was to be found blessing the animals at the festival held in the plaza outside St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney for World Animal Day. He sent this commentary in yesterday as a post-event reflection. [more]

010 :
01 Oct 2008

Teaching the Faith or Memorising the Catechism? There is a putsch on coming from some political sectors, and others searching for certitude and simplistic answers within the Catholic Church to take religious education back to methodologies that might have been successful in earlier epochs in history where the broad body of the faithful had far more limited education, and where different social conditions prevailed. Fr Daniel Donovan has been searching around in the archives also. In this commentary he brings to our attention a pioneer from the early 20th Century, Canon Francis H. Drinkwater, still lauded in professional education circles for his insights into the problems facing religious educators, parishes and parents today in the challenge of "passing on the faith". [more]

009 :
18 Sep 2008

How official Church attitudes to suicide have changed, and why… Last Sunday night our occasional lead commentator, Fr Daniel Donovan, was one of the featured guests on John Cleary's program on the ABC discussing the vexed subject of suicide. For our commentary on Catholica today we republish a short segment from the hour-long broadcast in which Fr Donovan discusses the ways in which the Church has modified its approach to dealing with the moral considerations surrounding suicide and also its pastoral response to the grieving families and friends of suicide victims. [more]

008 :
16 May 2008

A Case Study… Following on from his commentary yesterday Fr Daniel Donovan today shares the approach he used recently when called in to assist a parish community when their priest left as a result of feeling called to marriage. The approach Fr Donovan used was modified version of the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross process that is used for bereavement counselling. [Part 2 of 2]

007 :
15 May 2008

The pastoral care of the people in times of turmoil caused by the loss of a pastor… Fr Daniel Donovan shares his very personal feelings when one of his close priest friends decided to leave the priesthood. That experience, and being called in to help communities regain their equilibrium in situations where a priest suddenly leaves is what led to this valuable two-part commentary which we are running today and tomorrow. It might serve as a long-term resource available to any community that faces this kind of situation but hopefully it might help also in the development of pastoral strategies at the national and international levels that in time, communities and the people might find valuable. [Part 1 of 2]

006 :
12 Feb 2008

Will this Pastoral Plan do more harm than good? Fr Daniel Donovan sees enormous shortcomings in the new Pastoral Plan for the Archdiocese of Sydney beginning with criticisms of its underlying Christology (understanding of of Christ's message and mission) and going through to criticisms of its understanding of what the pastoral mission of the Church is. He provides a detailed critique in this commentary. [more]

005 :
10 Aug 2007

Does the Latin Mass help reconcile the divisions with the Church? Two of our recent commentators, Frs Daniel Donovan and Kevin Murphy, have written to the editor drawing attention to some comments Sr Joan Chittister has voiced in her regular column in National Catholic Reporter regarding Pope Benedict's recent decision regarding the Latin Mass. Here are their further thoughts… [more]

004 :
27 July 2007

The crisis facing the Church... In this detailed commentary Fr Daniel Donovan endeavours to break apart the nature of the crisis in participation and morale being experienced by the Church, both locally and internationally, at the moment. It is a potentially explosive analysis with his revelations of a recent Open Letter to the Priests of the Archdiocese of Sydney from Dr Dennis Dubro, the former Bursar at the Opus Dei-managed Warrane College whose letter "warns of the dangers of Opus Dei and its unbridled activity and power in the structures (and worship) of the Local Church". Fr Donovan is concerned at the appeasement that seems to be underway at a high level in the Church for dissident elements who at every turn have endeavoured to undo the work of the Second Vatican Council. Fr Donovan charts how at a number of significant levels there has been a decisive shift away from the spirit and intent of what the collective Church Fathers charted as the future for the Church at the Second Vatican Council. He concludes by arguing that the responsibility of the Church's bishops is "to uphold with courage and imagination the work of Vatican II so that God's Spirit might continue to renew the whole earth" and not be engaged in this constant "appeasment of the disaffected". [more]

003 :
22 June 2007

Further thoughts ... Fr Daniel Donovan takes a further critical look at the draft pastoral plan for the Archdiocese of Sydney. In the interests of encouraging intelligent discussion within the Church community that is to the overall enhancement of the Church, Catholica would welcome informed responses or rebutals from those who drafted the plan, or writers with expertise who disagree with Fr Donovan's criticisms. [more]

002 :
18 June 2007

Our changing perceptions of belief and practice... Fr Daniel Donovan was recently interviewed on The Religion Report on ABC Radio National concerning the comments he first aired on Catholica over the Draft Pastoral Plan for the Archdiocese of Sydney. We invited him to provide us with a debrief following the interview. In overview his commentary ends up essentially being a critique of how and why our views on religious belief and how we practice them have changed in the last half century. [more]

001 :
18 May 2007

Draft Pastoral Plan needs serious re-write suggests Academic... The Archdiocese of Sydney recently circulated a Draft Pastoral Plan for public discussion. A pdf copy of the draft document is available on the Archdiocesan website. The feedback being picked up by independent religious journalists and commentators around Sydney is that at the parish level there is disquiet about the draft plan. Fr Daniel Donovan, a lecturer at the School of Religious Education at ACU National was approached by a number of parishes to provide a critique of the Draft Plan. His conclusion is that the draft is seriously flawed and needs to be taken back to the drawing board for a major re-write. He argues the document is theologically flawed and needs to pay far greater heed to official Vatican documents and the accepted teaching of the Catholic Church. In his critique, Fr Donovan cites a number of significant Vatican level documents which would urge a different approach to be taken to what has been proposed in the Draft Pastoral Plan for Sydney. We publish here the critique Fr Donovan has provided to the parishes that requested it. [more]