We are now just a few months away from the October 2023 assembly of the Synod on the “synodal process”. A second assembly is scheduled for October 2024. Both will be held at the Vatican. The working document for this first assembly is to be unveiled to the press on June 20 and the names Read more
My wife took Christ off our living room wall earlier this year. It was a postcard image of a mosaic Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik created. She couldn’t bear to have it up. Rupnik is a remarkably gifted artist. His mosaics adorn chapels and buildings from the St John Paul II National Shrine in Washington to Read more
I wanted to start by acknowledging that what the Church calls Good News and what journalists call good news are entirely different things. The Christian Gospel, which is a word meaning, ‘good news’ – is that the Creator of all things, God, so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that all Read more
Poet Robert Burns wrote: “Oh that would the Giftie gie us, to see ourselves as others see us.” But we all have that gift, whether we know it or not. We call it projection. A wise woman once told me: “Projection is the greatest evil.” However, projection can be positive. Years ago, an Australian nun Read more
The Dicastery for Communication at the Vatican recently released Towards Full Presence, a pastoral reflection on engagement with social media. Although a Catholic can only appreciate the pastoral value of this document, its numerous insights, and biblical inputs, it is hard not to see its neo-liberal approach and question its partial way of addressing challenges raised Read more
The solution has been found to save the Church from its predicted demise, we need more “sacrality”, a return to the Traditional Latin Mass, and a “more traditional discourse” on social issues. Then all will be right with the Catholic world… Obviously, I’m just caricaturing. But this was the tenor of some of the comments Read more
French President Emmanuel Macron made a promise last Monday while visiting Mont-Saint-Michel for the millennium celebration of the iconic hilltop abbey in Normandy. He said the State would help villages and municipalities throughout France finance the upkeep and restoration of their empty churches. As part of his commitment, the president intends to launch a new Read more
The word synodality has been around a year or so now and people are still asking what it really means — for them, of course. The last time the church said it was going to make changes was in 1965. Fifty-eight years ago. In the meantime, all the changes to be seen were basically meaningless Read more
Australia’s treasurer, Jim Chalmers is not the only one looking to Mariana Mazzucato for ideas about reforming our global economic system, so is Pope Francis. The pope commends Mazzucato’s thinking for offering a compelling analysis of problems in the global economy and what can be done to build a more sustainable and fairer world. This Read more
The ongoing synodal process is not only the most important moment in the life of the Catholic Church since Vatican II. It’s also the most important moment about Vatican II, because it’s happening just as hard-to-ignore rifts over the council are emerging in global Catholicism. As Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the Synod of Read more