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Has Faith any chance in a tabloid culture?

Seamus Ahearne once again challenges us with his musings on the interaction, or lack of interaction, between our faith and modern culture.
“How can a tiring priesthood be pioneers of a new way of sensitising hearts, minds and imaginations? In a world devoted to celebrity culture and to tabloids and to Bake offs and to cheap politics – what hope is there for faith? Brexit and Trump are extremes of the crudity of our culture but they do infect us. Give me poetry. Give me art. Give me music. Give me the privileged half-door into the hearts of people. Give me God. May the colours of autumn stir our souls.”

Honouring the Dead: More respect or just more rules?

The CDF has issued new instructions ‘regarding the burial of the deceased and the conservation of the ashes in the case of cremation.’
The text is included for your information.
Are these instructions needed or is the cdf instructing people on an issue they have long since decided for themselves? Will these instructions impinge on how priests interact with bereaved parishioners?

Time to Break Out

Pope francis urges bishops to be vigilant over who they admit to the seminary as world needs “mature and balanced” clergy according to a report by Christopher Lamb in www.lastampa.it
The report continues ‘Priests must leave their “fortresses” ‘ says Francis and also quotes him as saying ‘the Church should stop reducing Catholicism to a “recipe of rules” while clergy needed to break out of their closed worlds.’

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CHRISTOPHER LAMB

3rd International Conference of Church Reform Network; Chicago, October 2016

Tony Flannery reports from Chicago on the recent 3rd International Conference of Church Reform Network.
” A wide range of issues were discussed and worked on. The one I myself was most involved with had to do with the need for some type of Declaration of Rights in the Church. We believe that at all levels in the Church there is a lack of accountability in the exercise of authority, and little or no means of appeal or redress. A group, of which I am a member, was set up to work on this over the next year.”

Ground-hog day in abortion debate

Brendan Hoban in his Western People column takes a look at the debate on abortion and how current opinion polls are indicating outcomes to the ongoing discussions and disagreements in society. But, as he says, ‘ who knows how extremists on both sides of the debate will eventually, by campaigning not wisely but too well, alienate their own ‘supporters’, as they are prone to do.
In any event, I suspect we have a long way to go.”

The (s)elect .0004% of church members

How bishops are appointed remains a very topical item of interest. That the system of choosing bishops remains problematic and a cause of concern cannot be ignored.
Robert Mickens, writing in the National Catholic Reporter, gives his observations on the process in the light of remarks made by Pope Francis to newly appointed bishops.
“‪Francis says he wants to promote a healthy decentralization of the church. And it is hard to think of anything that currently is more centralized that Rome’s appointment of bishops around the world.”
“‪If Francis is right and the holy people of God really do have a “scent” — or God’s “nose” — for what is right and good in a bishop, then we must find a way to include them more fully in the selection process.”

Laudato Si and the Path to COP 22

Seán McDonagh, SSC reports on a Joint Consultation on ‘Laudato Si’ and the Path to ‘COP 22’ organised by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences.
He quotes Prof. Ramanathan Veerabhadran as saying “the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming is the most important environmental issue facing the world today.”
“At the end of the meeting the group released this document in preparation for the COP 22 which will take place in Marraakesh from November 7 to 18th 2016.
“ The Paris Climate Agreement is historic. For the first time since the signing of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), all countries have agreed to act in order to protect the planet. The core goals include: (1) keeping warming to “well below 2-degrees C” and “to pursue efforts to keep below 1.5-degree C”; (2) enabling countries to adapt to the adverse impacts already underway; and (3) ensuring the flow of fair and equitable financing to achieve the climate goals.”

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