In cooperation with Bishop Geoffrey Robinson and his publisher, John Garratt Publishing, we have pleasure in presenting the end chapter meditations from his book which has created so much interest around the world. Today the reflection comes from Chapter Thirteen.

"A Government in which All Participate"

"I will be your God and you shall be my people." This idea, expressed time and again in the First Testament, expresses the essence of the Covenant, the great bond that united God and the people of Israel.

No people, however, can live its life with only a vast idea to guide it. People demand concrete expressions of the larger idea, homely, down-to-earth things with which they can identify. So the Covenant was made concrete in priest, prophet, king, law and land.

In the same way, beautiful ideas concerning participatory government, service of the reign of God within the hearts and minds of all people and the sensus fidei of the entire church will remain nothing but beautiful ideas unless they are given concrete expression in the daily life of the church.

It is, unfortunately, all too possible to accept the beautiful ideas, but reject all proposals for their concrete expression.

And yet a denial of imperfect and contingent expressions quickly becomes a denial of the beautiful ideas themselves.

Credit: These meditations are taken from the end of chapter reflections in Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book, Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church — Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus, published by John Garratt Publishing. We thank Bishop Robinson and John Garratt Publishing for permission to reproduce these meditations on Catholica Australia.

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson who has degrees in Philosophy, Theology and Church Law, was Auxiliary Bishop in the Archdiocese of Sydney from 1984 until his retirement in 2004. In 1994 he was elected by the Australian Bishops to the National Committee for Professional Standards, coordinating the response of the Catholic Church in Australia to revelations of sexual abuse, and from 1997 until 2003 he was co-chairman of this committee..

We welcome your thoughts in response to Bishop Robinson's reflection in our forum.

©2007 Geoffrey Robinson

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