NCR interview with Diarmuid O'Murchu...

Thanks to an email alert from one of our readers, Jeannie, the other day I learned of a series of podcast interviews Fr Diarmuid O'Murchu has given in recent days to Tom Fox of the new National Catholic Reporter web initiative NCRcafe. All I can say is "wow". I'm already booked to be attending one of Fr O'Murchu's workshops in Melbourne this coming January and in fact am in the course of trying to arrange with the sponsors of the workshop and Diarmuid to try and provide some daily web coverage of the workshop through Catholica. Listening to these three interviews has increased my enthusiasm substantially.

He comes across in these interviews as a really gentle and beautiful man. I'm already familiar with most of his major books but this was the first time I've heard his own voice. These interviews also provide what I suspect might be one of the best introductions for anyone not familiar with his work to obtain a quick overview. Tom Fox conducts the interviews in such a way that a lot of material is covered in the hour and a quarter it takes to listen to the whole series.

Here's a short segment from close to the end of the third interview. Listening to this I'm sure those of you who are familiar with my own arguments will understand why I've chosen it.

If you enjoyed that and want to hear the entire series I suggest you go to the NCRcafe site where you can listen live via streaming broadband or dial-up versions or you can download the podcasts to your computer, ipod or mp3 player to listen to them at your leisure.

Here's the link for the podcasts:

www.ncrcafe.org

You may remember that the visit of Fr O'Murchu to Australia attracted some controversy a few months ago following the decision of the Archbishop of Melbourne, Dennis Hart, to withdraw his endorsement of the workshops being sponsored by the Edmund Rice Centre at Amberley. Fortunately the Wellspring Centre in Melbourne has taken over the sponsorship of the workshops and it looks as though Fr O'Murchu's visit to Australia is now going to attract far more interest thanks to the free publicity provided by those who lodged the complaint with Archbishop Hart. The two workshops will now be held at Melbourne University. The two courses are:

1. Catching Up With Jesus January 22-25
2. Consecrated Religious Life – Changing Paradigms January 26-28

If you want further details of the O'Murchu workshops in Melbourne you can find them on The Wellspring Centre website at:

www.wellspringcentre.org.au

One Body in Christ — New CD of Amanda McKenna's music

Finally for today, we received in the mail yesterday final copies of the new cd which is to be sent by the Australian Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Pastoral Life to all parishes to encourage better integration of people with disabilities into the life of the Church. The music has been written and recorded by our own Amanda McKenna and will be officially released at a National Conference to be held in Canberra in early December. Here's a short extract from the main theme song "One Body in Christ". I understand copies of the CD — which features 7 tracks — can be ordered through parishes. The CD is being released with a book, We Have A Story, which is a collection of stories from people with disability, their families and faith communities participating fully in the life of the Church in Australia.

Blessings, Tom

Tom Scott is the pen name of the editor of Catholica, Brian Coyne.

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