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Paddy Ferry offered the following as comments concerning the latest attempt by Cardinal Sarah to undo reforms to the liturgy and his challenge to the recent decision by Pope Francis granting authority to local conferences of bishops over the translation of liturgical texts.
These comments are carried here as a separate item due to the importance of the issue but also to highlight the opposition Pope Francis faces as he tries to decentralise decision making processes from departments in Rome.
Also attached is commentary by Fr. Anthony Ruff from his praytellblog.com
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As God’s family in this place, we gather to worship. God is our king, we heed his Word and share the Bread of Life.
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We Are Church International is asking all WAC Groups around the world to take part in an international action to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.
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Seamus Ahearne gives his thoughts on “mission” informed by his own life experiences.
“I’m a believer:
My Mission here may distract me, out to the byways and highways where the Church is forgotten and where the gibberish of sacred language is irrelevant. But I cannot go out there, unless I am enjoying the living God, where I am. I need to be taking off my shoes, seeing the burning bush, hearing the gentle breeze and finding the teasing- God of the caster-oil plant (Jonah.) I need to be telling people and showing people that God and Church, isn’t like the scarcely remembered version, which is a caricature of the Christ-picture from the Gospels. But I shouldn’t tell anyone, anything, if I am not alive myself. Possibly, the only Mission I have now, is to create some kind of oasis, where the refreshment of God, makes a little sense in the desert of our modern world. I have to do this with total humility and must exude some personal serenity, believing that nothing can ever happen, that is beyond the goodness and love of God. Mission now might just mean: Believing and living as if I/we believe.”
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We gather as fellow-pilgrims at this Sunday’s Eucharist, all journeying to the great banquet of heaven. In our Communion today, we get a taste of what is to come.
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Bishop Lobinger (South America) has written creatively about the future of ministry in the Catholic Church, in view of the impending, or real, shortage of priests in many parts of…
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With acknowledgement to La Croix, this article is a disturbing account of the impact of clerical sex abuse on the Australian Church. It is crystallised in the trial of George…
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Phil Greene, an occasional commentator on this site, attended the conference, and has sent us these notes to give some idea of what went on. Like Phil, I too found…
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Seamus Ahearne reflects on life and death, and threats of death, amid all the other day to day happenings in a busy life.
“The brush strokes of nature are also hints and whispers of life. They scatter the colours carelessly. They ask us to notice them and not to forget them. But maybe like nature and autumn, we need to throw around the unruly and incomplete brush strokes in our ministry. The unfinished days; the little celebrations; the Godliness of daily life; the laugher among us; the colours that we cannot take for granted. Possibly nature is talking to us. We too can be so serious (so immersed in the quicksand of problems). What are we doing to God’s world? Is that love song wasted on us?”
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Songs at Mass (Suggestions) ‘Praise to the Holiest’; ‘Eat This Bread’; ‘Holy God We Praise Thy Name’; ‘Make me a Channel of your Peace’. Opening Comment There are reassuring sentiments…
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What happened to God’s policemen When we sense that there’s something strange going on under the surface and we’re not quite sure what it is, we often turn to writers…
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Gerry O’Hanlon alerts us to a new publication that intends to spark a real and “constructive engagement and dialogue between secularists and religious believers, in order to imagine an alternative narrative” to one where “conventional economic models have failed, politics is fractured, what it means to be human is contested, and there is a Punch and Judy show of opposition between secularists and believers.”
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Statement issued by Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan on HPV vaccines, 02 October 2017
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Statement from The Association of Catholic Priests (Acp)
Responding to Comments made on the HPV Vaccine
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We carry a transcript of an interview between Brendan Hoban and radio presenter Monica Morley on ‘Faith Alive’ on Mid West Radio concerning the intervention by Bishop Alphonsus Cullinane in the debate on the HPV vaccine for young girls.
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Songs at Mass (Suggestions) ‘Here I Am, Lord’; ‘Be Not Afraid’; ‘Make me a Channel of Your Peace’; “How Great Thou Art”. Opening Comment God’s love is displayed for us in…
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A speech by Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM Conv, Bishop of Parramatta, Sydney, gives food for thought about the future of priesthood in the church.
“…. these vestiges of the Tridentine Model of priesthood are powerful symbols of the clerical class. It is part of the ecclesiology that emphasises the ontological change and separation of the ordained from the faithful. It is a powerful ingredient and ideal condition for the disease of clericalism to fester.
I hold that it is time for this exalted model of priesthood to be consigned to the past. Instead, we must rediscover the specific and full charism of the priesthood within the matrix of the universal priesthood of the faithful. The priesthood cannot be lived fully apart from the community of disciples.”
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“If we are to break open the priesthood and allow the ministries of the baptised to flourish, I think we will need to revisit the clerical and patriarchal culture along with its many institutional dynamics such as titles, privileges, customs, structures etc.”.
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Brian Eyre, writing from Brazil, outlines his vision of how priesthood may evolve in the (near) future.
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Download Tim Hazelwood’s interview with Joe Duffy on Liveline.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/world/australia/australia-catholic-church-child-abuse.html
The New York Times carries an interesting article about a study that examines child sexual abuse worldwide in the Roman Catholic Church that has found the Australian church has done less to safeguard children in its care than its counterparts in similar countries have.
The report, released on Wednesday by the Center for Global Research at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, also found that the church’s requirement that priests be celibate was a major risk factor for abuse.
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