26.1: The confrontation between Attila and Leo over Rome... We return today to take up Tom Lee's exploration of the origins of Christianity in its first 500 years. Many today reach a point of disenchantment with what the institution has been telling us. Tom's response was to go off and explore for himself the origins of his faith. In today's extract from his manuscript he examines the confrontation between Leo the Great and Attila the Hun over Rome. [more]

Building sustainable communities... So often in our journey through life we see examples of communities, families or even whole societies breaking down. It might be argued that in Western society the Church is breaking down as less and less people are attracted to regular participation in a Church community. Each of us need a sense of community though as desperately as we need food and shelter for our survival. Our Sunday Forum today seeks to start an extended conversation on how we build better and more sustainable communities. We invite readers to share their experiences — both the positive ones, and the 'lessons learned' ones — that help us build better communities. [more]

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 23 "Music" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of last week's chapter: Last week, Rackham and Phoebe pulled off a bit of industrial espionage, aided by some clever technology. In Msgr. Hawkslaw's Wilshire Boulevard high-rise on a Saturday night when Hawkslaw is out to dinner, they download the entire contents of Hawkslaw's personal computer and discover records that reveal kickbacks that Hawkslaw has been getting from a number of major textbook publishers, plus a file labeled Pretty Young Men and another marked FOG. They make a narrow, harrowing escape. Then he and Phoebe decide to go directly to the beach house at Malibu where Mahony and the A-team have been spending the weekend—to face the music. Now here's Chapter Twenty Three... [more]

The Parish of Tomorrow... George Ripon, in his delightful way, has been getting his knickers in a knot again about the sad state of the Church. Partly what got him fired up was a news item back in September last year where it was reported that Pope Benedict said that "when dioceses are faced with a lack of priests they should not resort to 'a more active and abundant participation of the laity' since it would detract from the lay calling" (See the original report on CathNews HERE.) In this "from the heart and from the pews" commentary, George puts forward some thoughts about how we ought to deal with the looming (and present) crisis in participation and the institutional slide into societal irrelevance. He presents a plan for re-juvenating the Church from the 'bottom-up'. [more]

Did Jesus consider himself a Eunuch? Remember when they employed castrati in the Vatican choir? Most of us are too young to remember but there would be some still alive today when the last Castrati died. Eunuchs have been a feature of many civilisations. Dr Ian Elmer's commentary today delves back to explore what Jesus and Paul had to say on the subjects of eunuchs, castrati, celibacy and marriage. What is the meaning of all this today? Civilised societies do not expect men today to castrate themselves to serve the Emperor or the Church. Do we stop at the physical, or should we consider others non-physical forms of castration? [more]

Reaching out to the Lapsi... There are now a lot of ex-Catholics and lapsi in the world—at least 30 million of them in the United States alone. Tom McMahon would like to begin the year by saying hello to all of them. Obviously the cost of doing that would be prohibitively expensive but we're making our small effort here through Catholica. We need a sense of hope though. Tom suggests that ultimately we find that hope in Jesus. We're a pilgrim people searching for a new understanding of Jesus no longer being provided by the institution — an understanding that better fits with all the other things we are learning about ourselves and our world. [more]

Celibacy — a problem for priests AND laity! Richard Sipe, the well-known campaigner against sexual abuse, has kindly sent us this update report on the problems with clerical celibacy. He points out that priest leaders have themselves been writing about the problem for decades — even back to the late 1920s/early 1930s. The lack of resolution of the problem has led to problems for lay people as well — many simply do not listen to the clergy anymore on a whole range of issues so much has clerical credibility been damaged by the lack of an effective response to the challenges posed by celibacy... [more]

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]

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 22 "Caper" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of last week's chapter: In the last chapter, we see that Cardinal Grandeur's dirty tricks department has come up with proof that Cardinal Mahony's campaign for a people's Church is being financed out of a numbered $75 million account in Zurich held by Pike and the Obregón woman, money raised from the TV networks by Para los Otros. Grandeur tells Hawkslaw, "This damn movement is being financed with blood money, pulled together by one of the boldest kidnapping plots of all time." Grandeur has Hawkslaw give Mahony an ultimatum. Grandeur's information will be given to a federal grand jury (which could mean long prison sentences for Pike and Juana Margarita Obregón) or Mahony can just stop his campaign. Mahony, who feels he has been betrayed by his own A-team, has a tearful showdown with Juana Margarita Obregón, learns the total truth behind his kidnapping and its aftermath, and forgives her because he loves her. He cannot accept either of the ultimatums that Grandeur has given him. Instead, he asks the A-team for ideas: how can they stop Grandeur? After a long and fruitless brainstorming session, Rackham says they have to focus not on Grandeur, but on Hawkslaw, Grandeur's spy in Los Angeles. He recruits Phoebe to help him break into Hawkslaw's Wilshire Boulevard apartment and hack his computer. Now here's Chapter Twenty Two... [more]