I travelled several hours on a bus recently. 50 people all travelling in one direction: a pilgrim people. 50 people all in one vessel. Some in front: others loving the back. Some by the window. Some alone: others in pairs or groups. Some wanting interaction: others seeking ‘personal space’. All adapting to their time in Read more
Anzac Day moves me. I think about the soldiers who went away as members of the British Empire and who came back as New Zealanders. I think about my Grandfather who served in Italy. I think about my shipmates I served with in the Navy and I think about the people I know who are Read more
Pope Francis I’s weekend announcement of a new council, the Group of Eight (G8), to advise him on Catholic Church governance and reforming the Church’s central administration (the Roman Curia) has been called the “most important step in the history of the church for the past 10 centuries” by Church historian Alberto Melloni. The group includes Australian Read more
On Maundy Thursday I was struck by these words from a hymn (133, Common Praise). We strain to glimpse your mercy-seat, and find you kneeling at our feet. In the action of having our feet washed or in washing the feet of another, we acted out concretely the love and very presence of Christ. Christ, then, the Read more
I was thinking about questions in the census concerning religious belief and began wondering how we identify ourselves. Many brought up in traditional faiths now no longer want to identify with these belief systems. Neither do they want to dismiss these systems as they recognise them as pivotal in shaping their worldview. So they tick Read more
The revolution in communications media presents a wonderful opportunity that the Church has been slow to grasp. Until the 1990s, access to the general population through the media was controlled by the gatekeepers of newspapers, radio and television. Now this barrier has been bypassed by the new media — Internet-based, available to everyone, faster and cheaper Read more
I read … “I am amazed how often I meet people who ‘once were Catholics’. You never ask why they left the church. There will be umpteen reasons why just as there are umpteen people. But millions have remained true to their Catholic faith.” Merepeka Raukawa-Tait in The Daily Post, March 19, 2013 I wondered Read more
The catchcry of same-sex marriage proponents is “equality”: gay couples have a right to equal treatment and to deny them legal marriage is blatant discrimination. Yet this claim deflects attention from the real issue: what is the true nature of marriage? Two rival visions jostle for supremacy. The conjugal model says marriage is a lifelong Read more
Bodies are machines, says Associate Professor Geoff Shaw, an intensive care specialist in Christchurch. He’s passionate about bridging the gap between engineering and medicine, using that connection to help unravel the secrets of human machines. There’s truth in what he says about the human body, especially when viewed from the highly mechanized intensive care environment where Read more
As a somewhat old-fashioned, traditional type, I welcomed the engaging presence and comment of Dame Lyndsay Freer to my radio and TV during the recent papal conclave. Long before the advent of television, St Thomas Aquinas said, “faith comes from hearing“, and the Catholic Church in New Zealand, once again, at least for a limited Read more