RNZ has unwittingly acted as a Kiwi branch of the Russian propaganda machine, Stuff reporting has been off-balance, and TVNZ is pulling the Hitler card.

There are many good media professionals working hard to sort out the polluted pond, but what can we do in the meantime?

At times like these, I turn to my trusty field guide on fallacious fishes, and I thought I would share a few of the most common culprits with you.

So pull on your waders and grab your rods; we're going to take a look at some basic principles on what to reel in and what to chuck back in the murky blue depths of political reporting.

Arguing that something is true because a particular person or media outlet reported it is an example of a Latin fish called Ad Verecundiam or "appeal to authority."

Just because a purported Reuter's or BBC article says it doesn't make it true.

It could, in fact, be propaganda dressed in Reuter scales.

Always interrogate your catch and verify facts with other sources.

Check for slanting.

This virulent infection has spread through schools of journalism—shaping the tone of the article to reflect the reporter's bias and influence the way you respond to the facts provided.

Consider the difference between "only 600 protestors" and "a crowd of 600 protestors."

If we can become better consumers of the news, we can protect ourselves against inaccuracy and manipulation.

A fleet of little fishes all agreeing with one another does not make a scientific consensus, as Stuff has found out this week in its failed attempt to use Ad Populum (appeal to the masses) to convince the NZ Media Council that they didn't need to provide both sides of the argument in their article on puberty blockers.

Always check that you hear both sides of the story; if the particular source you are tuning into only appears to present unified voices, throw out a wider net.

Finally, if a fish quotes Hitler, outside the context of World War II, abandon ship.

Cushla Norman's Lebensborn reference was a collective catch of red herring (irrelevant points distracting from the argument), loaded question (asking a question to which there is no acceptable answer), genetic fallacy (undermining an argument by reference to unsavoury characters who may have held a similar view) and strawman (creating an effigy of an argument in order to dispute it) among others.

The media are responsible for providing accurate and balanced reporting.

We are responsible for considering what is on our hook before we take it home to the kitchen.

There are a great many more fallacious fish in the sea.

Fortunately, there are some excellent resources out there to help us to identify them.

If we can become better consumers of the news, we can protect ourselves against inaccuracy and manipulation.

The media are responsible for providing accurate and balanced reporting. We are responsible for considering what is on our hook before we take it home to the kitchen.

• Natasha Baulis and her young family moved from the remote Ikuntji community in Haasts Bluff, NT, to join Maxim Institute in 2022. She comes from a background in anthropology, with six years of experience in the not-for-profit sector in East Africa and several years working in training for political engagement in Australia.
• First published by the Maxim Institute. Republished with permission.

We are bombarded on all sides by masses of information, misinformation, expert opinions, and the relentless, strident voices of social media browbeating us into accepting the dogmatic conclusions of leading influencers.

Amongst the cacophony of voices striving to be heard, contending for attention and recognition, truth is the first casualty since, in contemporary Western society, it is no longer important. Echoing Pilate (John 18:38), the modern world asks, 'What is truth?' It is subjective feelings that rule.

The genesis of the contemporary estrangement from truth is the post-modern rejection of Modernity and the Enlightenment project in which the hope of humanity was taken to lie in reason and science alone.

Theology, once the queen of sciences, was quarantined from the Enlightenment project and banished to the private sphere of individual religious belief.

The Enlightenment project expressed confidence in the power of human reason and the natural sciences alone to uncover the secrets of nature, replacing superstition and credulity with knowledge.

Faith in human progress through the discoveries of science replaced belief in God. Religion, along with theology, became a private matter, an individual pursuit with little relevance in the public arena.

In reaction to the Enlightenment elevation of reason and its faith in an objective discoverable scientific reality, the nineteenth century witnessed the beginning of the turn to the subject.

German idealism, represented by such figures as Hegel, Schiller and Goethe, later by Brentano and Husserl, sought to re-introduce the human subject into discourse about the nature of the world.

Taking his lead from Descartes, at the beginning of the twentieth century Husserl developed phenomenology as the study of experience from the first-person point of view, that is, the study of the nature of perception, memory, imagination, emotion, desire, bodily awareness, embodied action, social activity and language activity from the perspective of the self-conscious individual.

To be suspicious of grand narratives

In another development of the nineteenth century, Marx and Engels introduce historical materialism to theorise the relationship between capital and labour as one of conflict.

In the hands of Lenin, it becomes a class struggle, a war between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. What emerges from these great currents of thought is firstly the marginalisation of religion, which enabled Nietzsche to declare that human beings have killed God and to warn that this had consequences.

The most obvious of these is that human beings themselves become the absolute authors and arbiters of their own destinies.

The connection between the eternal law, natural law and human law is broken and only human law remains.

Secondly, phenomenology, since its subject matter is an individual subjective experience, allowed individuals to not only focus on their subjective experiences but also falsely assume that these experiences reflect what was real.

In contrast, Husserl's development of phenomenological or transcendental reduction was meant to enable us to have an intuition of the essential structure of the object experienced.

That is, to apprehend the objective world. What things are does not lie in the phenomenological experience of them, a proposition rejected by post-modernism.

Post-modernism, and its close relative, post-structuralism, emphasise the fallibility of knowledge and invite us, as Lyotard counselled, to be suspicious of grand narratives.

That is, we should critique the great institutions of society, such as its justice system, education system, democracy, social structures and market capitalism and where necessary, replace or, more radically, do away with them entirely.

Hence, if we are dissatisfied with the police force, some ideologues insist, we should defund it and either let anarchy rule or accept a new social and political order in which they hold power.

This is because social structures, such as our system of justice and law enforcement, post-modernism claims, are humanly constructed and there is nothing about them that is necessary or essential. The narrative can be changed.

The Australian justice system, for example, Critical Race Theorists argue, is the product of white British colonialism in which injustice towards non-whites is structurally embedded. Social justice can only be achieved if the current holders of power, the oppressors, are replaced by the oppressed.

Another key tenet of post-modernism is scepticism about the nature of knowledge. According to post-modernity, all knowledge claims are embedded in particular historical, cultural and social contexts and are determined through the exercise of power by elites.

Knowledge claims, therefore, express a particular hegemonic conception of the world imposed by a powerful ruling class.

A claim to know is an expression of power and in its most tyrannical aspect, it is a demand that others agree to a particular proposition or standpoint or face the wrath of public opinion, manipulated through the media.

Whether something is actually true does not matter, because all that is in important is whether it suits our purposes to affirm or deny something.

If it does not suit us, we assert that it is fake news, misinformation or media bias. The claim that truth is the correspondence between how the world is, how we experience it and what we say about it in language, is explicitly denied in post-modernism.

The post-modern rejection of Modernity and the Enlightenment

Since post-modernism sees knowledge as inextricably bound up with a particular context, it reduces to a particular view held by the subject at a particular time.

The opinion or view will be reinforced by those who are persuaded by that same view or opinion. Knowledge is replaced by received opinion.

There is no longer the need to offer evidence, but to use a variety of methods to persuade.

Power can be deployed to coerce through threats and intimidation to achieve compliance, but there are a variety of other methods, more subtle, in the armoury of the persuader, called a sophist by Plato more than 2000 years ago. One of these is the use of language.

If we assume that language describes the world, that is, that words and sentences refer to existent states of affairs in the world, then when someone makes various statements about the world, we will assume that these are about what is actually the case.

If, however, language is an expression of our subjective experiences and not anchored or connected to referents in the world, then there is no external world, only subjective experiences which are what validate what we say in language.

Moreover, language itself creates descriptions and since words are what enable us to describe the experiential or phenomenal world, language creates the world itself.

There are plenty of examples to be observed. Euthanasia, for instance, is redescribed as 'assisted dying', abortion is redescribed as 'family planning' or 'termination of pregnancy'. The killing of civilians in war becomes 'collateral damage'.

We could, perhaps, redescribe genocide as 'targeted population reduction'.

Other methods in the armoury of the sophist will include the use of flattery, appeal to authority, statistics and the weight of public opinion.

Knowledge is not about what is true about the world, but about what is useful for the achievement of desired ends.

The remedy to the post-modern malaise is well-known. It can be found firstly in the great canons of Western philosophy and theology. Plato insisted long ago that it is not opinion that matters, but knowledge and truth since these enable us to live in the light.

The great Church Fathers, especially Augustine, urged us to seek wisdom and truth, to live by that great light that is God.

What this means is that what is real does not lie in self-absorbed love of our feelings and satisfaction of our desires, but beyond us, in a transcendent, objective world.

The way to this for Christians is Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth and Life. (John 14:6) Secondly, it can also be found in other religious traditions, including Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander religious traditions.

For the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, life was regulated by kinship relationships and adherence to the Law laid down by the Creator when the world was created.

The pursuit of wisdom and truth is not exclusive to particular traditions but is the common heritage of all human beings.

This demands that we should be open to the truth to be found in other traditions, other ways of thinking. This will include post-modernism critiqued here.

• Janis (John) T. Ozolinš is Professor, College of Philosophy and Theology, University of Notre Dame Australia, former Professor of Philosophy at Australian Catholic University, and permanent Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, University of Latvia. He is Reviews Editor for Educational Philosophy and Theory.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

The proposal, which the Government "agrees to in principle", is to make illegal "hate speech" against a range of different groups of people.

This is a very dangerous step for any society to make.

It seems incongruous, doesn't it? Surely protecting people from hatred is a good thing, especially if those people are a vulnerable minority.

The trouble comes, as the 20th century has so violently taught us, that the moment governments take the authority away from people to speak freely and openly (even forcefully) about things we disagree on, is the moment we open the door to tyranny.

Jim Flynn eloquently stated before his death last year, that in the pursuit of truth, you either have a contest of ideas or you have a contest of power.

"When you forbid certain ideas, the only way you can be effective is by being more powerful. So it becomes a contest of strength," Flynn said.

He is right.

It doesn't matter if the ideas outlawed come from the left or the right of the political spectrum, the end result will inevitably be violence.

Under Lenin and Stalin's Russia, it was the voices on the right who were silenced and exterminated.

Under Hitler's Nazi Germany it was the voices on the left who were silenced and exterminated.

Chris Trotter writing in this page last month (July 2, 2021) described "the urge to suppress ideas and beliefs which contradict what one fervently believes to be the truth is not a healthy urge. It is a totalitarian urge."

Currently in Western culture, the dominant voice on social media that ruthlessly silences opposing voices comes from the political left of centre.

But it will not always be so.

There have been and are currently today, many regimes that are just as dominant on the political right.

It could be argued (if we are allowed to argue) that there is truth in both directions; the left's desire for equality for all people and the right's desire to see freedom for the individual, both need to have their contest of ideas allowed to be voiced / spoken / printed / drawn and sung, for truth to be discovered.

I wonder what Jacinda Ardern means by "hate speech"?

I wonder how our judges will interpret this phrase should it pass into law?

In the discussion document from the Ministry of Justice called: "Proposals against incitement of hatred and discrimination", it is stated that: "Hate speech is a broad term that is not used in Aotearoa law. It is generally defined as speech that attacks an individual or group based on common characteristics, for example ethnicity, religion or sexuality."

Well that doesn't really help me much.

The next question in my mind is what does "speech that attacks" mean? Continue reading

• Stu Crosson is the senior minister of Hope Church, Dunedin.

Peace is the work for justice and the output of charity.

The Church preaches peace because peace is a sign and fruit of the promise of Christ, the Redeemer.

Peace is more than a detente or a passive-aggressive way of being in the world.

Where peace is the avoidance of decisions or of truth it becomes "peace at any price" and is totally utilitarian, another product to be wheeled out when the politics of the home, country, school, or parish require it.

It is not real peace, because the underlying conflict it covers up still remains because truth has been denied.

Peace and truth go together, just as justice and freedom do because these proclaim the presence of God's Kingdom of which we are the witnesses.

Evangelisation: St Pope Paul VI in his 1975 Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi wrote of the Church's role of evangelisation in the world. He asked three questions:

• In our day, what has happened to that hidden energy of the Good News, which is able to have a powerful effect on human conscience?
• To what extent and in what way is that evangelical force capable of really transforming the people of this century?
• What methods should be followed in order that the power of the Gospel may have its effect?

He continues, ‘The Church is born of the evangelizing activity of Jesus and the Twelve'(5).

The Emmaus experience is each persons', as the Scriptures open our eyes to the presence of God. Born of this, you and I go out to "gospel" others in a way that is inviting, welcoming and freeing. The transformation is an ‘interior change' that moves us to see the Other as friend and not as foe and into conversations with them.

Witness is the key for Pope Paul.

"Above all the Gospel must be proclaimed by witness.

"Take a Christian or a handful of Christians who, in the midst of their own community, show their capacity for understanding and acceptance, their sharing of life and destiny with other people, their solidarity with the efforts of all for whatever is noble and good.

"Let us suppose that, in addition, they radiate in an altogether simple and unaffected way their faith in values that go beyond current values, and their hope in something that is not seen and that one would not dare to imagine.

"Through this wordless witness, these Christians stir up irresistible questions in the hearts of those who see how they live:

• "Why are they like this?
• "Why do they live in this way?
• "What or who is it that inspires them?
• "Why are they in our midst?

"Such a witness is already a silent proclamation of the Good News and a very powerful and effective one.

"Here we have an initial act of evangelization." (21)

Pope Paul continues and notes the need to evangelise baptised people ‘who for the most part have not formally renounced their Baptism but who are entirely indifferent to it and not living in accordance with it.

Christian witness is our call.

Witness must become our flesh!

The most profound call to Christian witness perhaps comes in families, where, fully clothed, we are as it were almost naked; known 'warts and all'.

• Joe Grayland is a theologian and a priest of the Diocese of Palmerston North. His latest book is titled: Catholics. Prayer, Belief and Diversity in a Secular Context (Te Hepara Pai, 2020).

One is held by Piers Morgan, who has just left ITV's Good Morning Britain breakfast programme in a huff. It is doubtless shared by millions of less voluble Britons.

According to Mr Morgan, Meghan's contribution to the Oprah Winfrey interview was a ‘diatribe of bilge'.

He declared with characteristically colourful hyperbole that he ‘didn't believe a word she says' and ‘wouldn't believe it if she read me a weather report'.

The opposing view — dominant on Twitter, favoured by the BBC, and supposedly held by most young people — is that Meghan is a victim of racism, and that all her allegations about the Royal Family must be unconditionally accepted.

Some who sign up to this set of beliefs go further.

They maintain that white people either have no right to doubt the Duchess's testimony or, even more tendentiously, that anyone who does so must be racist.

Here are two examples.

In The Sun newspaper, a black journalist, Nana Acheampong, wrote: ‘If Meghan is telling you that she suffered racism in the Palace, then she did. Anyone who suggests otherwise is not black.'

Meanwhile, on the Thought For Today slot on Radio Four's Today programme a young Anglican ordinand, Jayne Manfredi, also nailed her colours to Meghan's mast.

She spoke of the ‘deeper malaise' evinced by the ‘backlash' against Meghan, who ‘had the audacity to tell her own truth'.

So there we have it.

Many of those who rally to Meghan's cause do so because she is a youngish woman of mixed race, and therefore anything she says must be believed without qualification.

And those who question any part of her account (which, it must be said, was delivered with extraordinary aplomb) are written off as old, reactionary, mean-spirited and bigoted.

How did it come to this?

There have always been hotly contested differences of opinion - between Left and Right, Christians and atheists, pro-abortionists and anti-abortionists, and so on.

But people used often to arrive at these opposing views through the exercise of reason.

No longer.

Many uncritically believe Meghan's very serious allegations against the Royal Family because of her background.

In their view, it's not what she says that makes her right. It's what she is.

I accept, of course, that we all see the world through the prism of our ethnicity, class and age.

But if we do no more than that — if we refuse to consider the facts as dispassionately as we are able to — we will end up with a fractious and divided society.

Despite what Jayne Manfredi says, truth is not something personal to us.

It's not something we can own as individuals.

It's an absolute, always hard to attain and sometimes even to recognise, but nonetheless the lodestar of any civilised community.

Despite what Jayne Manfredi says, truth is not something personal to us.

It's not something we can own as individuals.

It's an absolute, always hard to attain and sometimes even to recognise, but nonetheless the lodestar of any civilised community.

Let's examine what the Duchess said.

I think Piers Morgan was wrong to dismiss her entire interview as ‘bilge', not least because it suggests that her revelations about her suicidal thoughts can be swept aside.

He is saying she is either a fantasist or a liar — or both.

That's rash. Continue reading

To be a representative of institutional Christianity after last week is to feel the weight of that millstone.

Nothing has brought the pain of the victims of child abuse, the distress of church members, and the anger of the community into focus quite as much as the conviction of Cardinal Pell on child abuse charges.

With so much hurt and loss of trust, I've been asking myself: does institutional Christianity have future?

I don't think there's any doubt that Christianity itself has a future, because true Christianity is not its institutions. The true church is not composed of bishops and hierarchies and committees. Jesus Christ did not set up a church in that sense.

In fact, Jesus saved his strongest words for those who were obsessed with the trappings of religious power and who exploited the vulnerable in them.

Religious hypocrites will find no solace in the pages of the Bible. Hell is made for such.

But the true church is the organic, local community gathered around Jesus and trying to live out of his mercy. It's composed of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people. It might meet in a cathedral and belong to a denomination. It also might meet in a living room and belong to no denomination at all.

Institutional Christianity - the "organised" part of "organised religion" - will only survive if it realises that it isn't in itself the true church but the servant of the true church. It doesn't exist for its own sake but for the sake of the local community of faith, and through that, for the nation.

In our history it has done much good, but it needs to rediscover its call to service.

Ironically, the way for institutionalised Christianity to find again its mission to serve is for it to become in some ways more institutional, and not less. Continue reading

• Image: Gospel Coalition

In the last couple weeks, it was revealed that the US Justice department has secretly (ironic) charged Wiki-leaks founder Julian Assange with publicizing government secrets.

Also recently, the US Catholic bishops voted down a resolution which would have encouraged the Vatican to release all its documentation on the disgraced Archbishop McCarrick.

Last month, Harvard University released a cache of classified admissions data in the context of a lawsuit alleging that the school was discriminating against Asian Americans.

The popularity of Assange, Edward Snowden, and other anti-secrecy activists runs parallel to a deep-seated distrust of institutions, particularly prevalent among young people.

The demand for transparency and suspicion of institutions are signs of a desire for truth and goodness, which can so often be absent from human endeavors.

Positive results have come about as a result of pressure by folks who stand up to secrecy in institutions: greater accountability for clandestine government operations, more conversation about the inadequacy of the Church's response to abuse, a facing-up to how we tend to think about race.

Transparency's limits

But is transparency a virtue without limit?

Does prudence demand that some secrets best be kept?

As a millenial (I'll admit it), my gut inclination is to be all about transparency.

The truth will set us free. Shining a light into darkness drives away the evil. Why would the government or the Church or a university have anything to hide?

But some folks I respect deeply, people older and wiser than I, have encouraged me to reconsider the deep commitment I feel to transparency.

As much as I would like to open my heart and history for all the world to see, that would be foolish and an ineffective way of ministering to people.

Keeping secrets helps protect the lives of our military serving overseas.

The seal of confession protects penitents from worry of blackmail or loss of reputation.

A university should keep its admissions policy on the hush-hush so that applicants won't try to game the system.

Prudence

These arguments for secrecy all boil down to the virtue of prudence, which deals with discerning a good and choosing the best means for achieving it.

Sometimes, just given the way that the world works, keeping something secret is the best course of action for saving lives, protecting people's reputations, or preserving fairness in college admissions. Keeping a secret is not an inherently bad thing.

For example, say a friend tells you that years ago she cheated on an exam in high school, you will likely feel obligated as a good friend to keep that secret.

Friendship is a good thing and if keeping a secret in that situation is the best way of maintaining that friendship, you ought to keep the secret.

If she was clearly qualified enough to graduate and the effects of her cheating have no bearing on today, it doesn't make sense to risk her reputation and your friendship just to get the truth out there.

Of course, the argument could be made that secrecy is not the best means in a given situation. Continue reading

• Brendan Gottschall, SJ is a scholastic of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus. He is currently studying philosophy and theology at Fordham University in the Bronx.
• Image: Society of Jesus

The choice of the Labour-led government to trample on the human rights of our precious unborn and the right of women to be protected from the violence of abortion, in my opinion, means it forfeits its right to govern.

The report of the Law Commission on recommendations for taking abortion law out of the Crimes Act and treating it as a health issue, was presented on Friday to the Minister of Justice.

The review had been requested by the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern.

Ms Adern claims to be a strong advocate for women and children but with this move has abandoned protecting both.

The government has no mandate from the people of New Zealand to remove women and their unborn from the protection of the Crimes Act.

There is to be no public consultation or debate about the contents of the review prior to the government presenting a bill to Parliament.

The Law Commission advised Right to Life under the Official Information Act that

• 3,419 submissions were received on the review of the abortion laws in New Zealand.
• 1,677 submissions opposed to removing women and their unborn children from the protection of the Crimes Act.
• Only 603 submissions that supported making the killing of an unborn child in abortions a health issue and a choice for women.
• 69%, were opposed to the decriminalisation of abortion.
• 49% specifically supporting retaining abortion in the Crimes Act.
• An additional 20% supporting legal protection for the child in the womb.
• The remaining 13% did not address the issue of decriminalisation.

It is worth noting, that since 1856 the Crime's Act has recognised the killing of an unborn child in an abortion as a serious crime and violence against women.

The authentic feminist position is to oppose the decriminalisation of abortion.

The three legal models presented by the Commission represent an unprecedented attack on the weakest and most defenceless members of our human family.

These proposals constitute an unprincipled denial of the humanity of the child in the womb.

The Law Commission's proposed models provide for the unborn, deemed by the mother as unwanted, to be removed from the protection of Part VIII of the Crimes Act.

Currently, the Crimes Act states that abortion is a serious crime that on conviction the accused may be imprisoned for up to 14 years.

The Law Commission's three models provide for the killing of the unborn, effectively up to birth, and for this to be considered a health issue on part of the woman.

The Law Commission's three models means it no longer be a crime to kill an unborn child, but a health service.

However, it is the duty of the state to protect the lives of every member of our community from conception to natural death and not to preside over their destruction.

The decriminalisation of abortion will allow the government to declare that they have no interest in protecting the lives of New Zealanders in the first nine months of their lives.

The Labour-led government admits that it has no evidence to substantiate the claim that in a modern society it should not be a crime to kill an unborn child; it intends to replace truth and justice with personal opinion.

It is time for the Labour Party return to the high social principles of its founders to uphold the sanctity of life ethic and to protect, rather than destroy, the lives of the most vulnerable members of our community.

• Ken Orr is a spokesperson for Right to Life.

Once we've decided to trust someone, we are likely to believe that whatever they tell us is true.

Even if it isn't.

In human society credibility is power, and that power can be used for good or ill.

Exhibit A: Hitler. The German people didn't embrace Nazi genocide overnight; they were led to it by a man they trusted.

The problem is that he was a man they should not have trusted. But that was revealed only after several years and millions of dead bodies.

Truth does not always carry the day.

Sometimes, we find it easy to believe a lie because the person telling it makes it easy.

We believe them, maybe because they are like us in some way, maybe because they inspire us to greatness or give us hope, maybe because they say what we want to hear, or what we ourselves are afraid to say.

They are credible witnesses who deliver convincing testimony.

So here's my question: what would it take for us to believe the truth of what God has revealed in Christ Jesus?

And more, what would make us credible and convincing witnesses to that truth?

For me to believe what someone says about God, I have to trust the person who is saying it.

Yes, it needs to make rational sense.

Yes, it needs to be beautiful.

But more than anything else, the person saying it must come across as utterly convinced, completely sold-out, to what he or she is saying.

A witness is compelling only when he is certain.

As the writer of Hebrews put it, "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1).

Still, faith can be seen. It is visible in how believers live; in what they do and don't. Lives speak far more eloquently than lips.

It's time we start to consider the possibility that the world doesn't believe our message because it doesn't believe us. Continue reading

• Jaymie Stuart Wolfe is a Catholic, wife, and mother of eight. Inspired by the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales, she is an author, speaker, and musician, and serves as a senior editor at Ave Maria Press. Find Jaymie on Facebook or follow her on Twitter @YouFeedThem.
• Image: National Review

McClellan is the Chair of Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The Commission learned that child sex abuse has occurred in almost every type of institution where children lived or attended.

Furthermore, "it is not a case of a few rotten apples," he says.

"Society's major institutions have seriously failed.

"In many cases those failings have been exacerbated by a manifestly inadequate response to the abused person.

"The problems have been so widespread, and the nature of the abuse so heinous, that it is difficult to comprehend."

More than 15,000 survivors or their relatives have contacted the Royal Commission since it was created in 2012.

McClellan says each of the more than 8,000 personal stories told to Commissioners in private sessions had a profound impact on them and their staff.

It has been "a privilege for the Commissioners to sit with and listen to survivors," McClellan says.

"The survivors are remarkable people with a common concern to do what they can to ensure that other children are not abused.

"They deserve our nation's thanks.

"Alleged perpetrators were often allowed to have access to children even when religious leaders knew they posed a danger."

Rather than reporting the crimes when they came to light, alleged perpetrators were often transferred to other locations where they had further access to children.

Furthermore, McClellan says the Royal Commission received evidence that "at least in Sydney and Melbourne there was for many years an understanding that the police would protect members of the Church who may have offended".

The Royal Commission is due to have its last public sitting in Sydney next month.

It will then deliver its final report to Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove.

At the same time, it will be thanking the community for its support.

Francis Sullivan, the CEO of the Catholic Church's Truth, Justice and Healing Council, says the report is likely to comprise up to 17 volumes.

At least three of those volumes concern the Catholic Church.

It is not yet known when the report will be made public.

Usually this occurs only after tabling in Parliament.

It may not be released to the public until Australia's federal and state legislatures sit again in early 2018.

Source

• The Tablet
• The Times
• Image: The Australian

"It should be read as a whole, in any case, adultery is always a mortal sin and the bishops who stir confusion on this should study for themselves the doctrine of the Church. We must help the sinner to overcome the sin and to repent."

The unity of Christians? "It is important, but it cannot become relativism, one can not sell out the sacraments instituted by Jesus."

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, weighs in with utmost clarity upon the hottest topics of ecclesial debate and beyond. We met him in the rooms from which he directs what once was the Holy Office, the place with custody of sound doctrine. We were greeted with great cordiality.

His role of defender of Catholic orthodoxy, combined with an imposing physique and Teutonic [German] origins elicited a certain reverence, but it was quickly overcome by the Cardinal's cheerfulness and accessibility. We sit around the table; the theme is doctrine, the role it has in the Christian life, knowing we were broaching an unpopular topic.

Your Eminence, let us go straight to the heart of the question. What is doctrine?

Aristotle says at the beginning of his Metaphysics, that all men seek the truth. The nature of the intellect is love for the truth. That is why God gave has given us an intellect and will, the one ordered towards the truth and the other towards love as the center of existence of all being, of God himself in his nature.

For us God is the origin and the end of our existence, and for this reason it is necessary to know what God has revealed: it is the most important thing for a human creature—to know from where I came and to where I am going, what it is the meaning of suffering, of death.

It is a sign of a hope that goes beyond the limits we experience in our weak and finite lives. The Catechism tells us what to believe in the Creed, what to do in the Commandments, how to unite ourselves to God in faith, hope and charity, through the prayer (the Our Father), how to receive sanctifying grace in the seven sacraments. Continue reading

Sources

• The Catholic World Report
• Image: La Croix

After the first space flight, the Flat Earth Society quietly disappeared, and in new editions of the Bible, most flat earth statements became blurred or lost in translation.

But the ghost of the Flat Earth society still haunts Christian churches. We are still using language that suggests 'layer cake' theology, God and Heaven above, Satan and Hell below, and us somewhere in between.

This three-tiered structure is no longer credible. Beyond the gravitational pull of our planet, there is no 'up' or 'down,' yet our theology still speaks of God up there and us down here. We take literally, the Biblical metaphors of "descending into hell" and "ascending to heaven." We have used teachings of reward in heaven and punishment in hell to ensure social order.

A survey in America showed that 60% of the population had left the religion they grew up with. For most, the reason was not external distraction but because people could no longer believe what they were being taught. The credibility gap was too wide.

We cannot live our faith backwards. If churches are trying to adhere to 2000 years old theology based on reward and punishment, they will die. This should be of concern to us all; but what can we do about it?

In Judaism there is a saying: Fix the old and do not block the new.

If we are to learn from that, how do we fix the old? We can read the Bible as parable rather than law, so that the Holy Spirit speaks to us through it. We can value the old theology as history, as we build the new on its foundations.

What will be the new that will replace the old vertical three-tiered structure? I believe it will be a lateral "heart" theology that sees God everywhere and in everything, a theology that recognises we all exist in God's love. We will not try to limit God in man-made structures.

Our souls come from God and return to God. In our new theology, we will see that the old divisions caused by fear, belong to human thinking. In the expanse of God's love, the only hell we might experience is on this earth, and we know God went through that before us, to show us the light of resurrection.

A faith that comes from God's love is credible. It will live because it is the truth within us. Beliefs that come from human ideas about God are not credible. They will wither and die.

Isn't it time we put the Flat Earth Society finally to rest?

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

The circle, of course, has no circumference because it is God, and the paths are our awareness of God through religious teaching and life experience. When we near the centre where the paths converge in light, we break through to the mystical stage where all religions leave behind their cultural differences, and say the same things: There is nothing outside of God, and God is unconditional love.

This discovery has been the result of a long journey for me, a Christian brought up in an "us and them" belief system. But divided thinking is usually a part of early journey, and eventually those early attitudes bring understanding of intolerance in others. They also create awareness that every stage of faith journey is a teacher and every stage is right.

At one stage I thought there was harm in learning about other world religions. That was when my own faith was immature. As I grew, I discovered that instead of undermining my faith, other religions actually affirmed it.

Cultural details may be different but in every religion, spiritual growth goes through the same stages and has the same movement from head to heart.

In the fullness of our Catholic teaching, let's look at an example. We can reflect on the growth of wisdom through the choices we make between good and evil.

Reconciliation is also of major importance in the other Middle Eastern religions.

In the Jewish Hassid tradition it is said that people are born with two impulses: yetzer harah, the inclination towards evil, and yetzer hatov, the inclination towards good. Both of these come from God. The yetzer harah in itself is not evil. Rather it is a tendency to evil when it's not balanced with the good impulse yetzer hatov.

One could be called the 'selfish impulse,' and the other the 'selfless' impulse. The first only becomes evil when the unselfish is lacking. When we act for both self and other, the yetzer harah is given direction; it follows the lead of the good and lends its energy to attaining the good.

The yetzer harah in us - which we would probably rename "ego" - is necessary for balanced growth.

From the Sufi tradition of Islam, comes a poem by Jalaluddin Rumi. For me, this beautiful poem expresses a very "Catholic" understanding of God's unconditional compassion in Christ Jesus.

Come, come whoever you are,
wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.
It doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vows
a thousand times.
Come, yet again, come, come.

These writings sound very familiar to us - truth echoing the gospels and Pope Francis. They belong in the light at the centre of the circle.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

Our senses are the doorways. They may be open to birdsong or the dew in the heart of a rose, clouds sculpted by wind, the touch of cat's fur. In an instant the experience enters us and is transformed.

When we are held in such a moment, we may remember lines from a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 'Earth is on fire with heaven/ and every common bush is charged with God / but only those who see take off their shoes.'

We know the movement as taking off our inner shoes. Not only shoes! The clothing of everyday thoughts and words disappears. Our hearts feel naked, newborn. Our breath seems to mingle with sacred spirit and we feel ourselves becoming infinitely, beautifully vulnerable.

The moment passes leaving us in a slightly different place. It's as though a wave has picked us up, carried us and then receded, leaving us further up the beach.

Later, when we analyse one of these graced moments, we realise God has touched us through something quite ordinary.

What made Moses take off his shoes? Nothing dramatic, not heavens filled with fire, nor earthquake or tsunami, not even a decent sandstorm. Just a little bush filled with the fire of God's presence. That's what Moses saw and it was enough to change a nation.

When we reflect on the gospels we see the same pattern in Jesus' teaching - ordinary things containing extraordinary insights: flowers, seeds, sparrows, weeds, candles, yeast, wine, small coins, little fish, children. In fact, we can't find anything in Jesus' good news that comes from grandeur and great human achievement. It's all about encountering God in the little everyday things around us. All that we need is awareness. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning said, "Only those who see take off their shoes."

Having reflected this far, we begin to see God's presence all around us. We tend to

go beyond divisions and understand that everything that happens to us is inherently right, everything is a teacher.

We also see that spiritual journey is not a matter of "here to there" Every part of it is "here."

At this stage too, we sense the playfulness of Jesus within us. Faith is not hard work. It is more like play. We are children in a playground of love that is to be shared with others. If we fall over, love picks us up and kisses our wounds. If we wander too far, love will embrace us and ask us what we learned from those wanderings.

We know it is impossible to be lost from God's love.

Surely this is what Jesus meant when he said, "Except you become as little children you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."

The truth seems so simple!

It's extraordinary in its ordinariness.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

But that doesn't mean a change in Church doctrine, two leading cardinals have said.

"Everybody wants to show God's love and mercy, but it also brings you to very difficult situations and as Christians we follow Jesus," said Australian Cardinal George Pell.

The Church has to be intellectually coherent and consistent, he said, adding that "Catholics are people who stand under the Scriptures, we are people of tradition".

"But we believe in the development of doctrine, not in doctrinal back-flips," the Table reported him saying.

Cardinal Pell added: "I confess that I might have been tempted to hope that Jesus might have been a little softer on divorce; he wasn't, and I'm speaking with him."

Last week, synod members said the Church should stop using "harsh language" such as " living in sin", "intrinsically disordered" and "contraceptive mentality" in aspects of its teaching.

Too often the theology of marriage was "filtered through harsh language", members said.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York said the question of language had been a major part of discussions in the gathering's opening days.

He said it is a question of the consistency and immutability of the Church's truth.

"But our burning desire is to find a language that can present it in a more gracious, compelling and cogent way."

Both the cardinals stressed that bishops at the synod were acutely aware of the problems facing family life in their communities.

Australian Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne told Vatican Radio that what is needed is language that is faithful to Church teaching, but which also engages with the experiences of families.

Sources

• The Tablet
• Vatican Radio
• Image: Crux Now

"Remember, but for the life-giving and loving gaze of God, you are but dust and to dust you shall return.

"In reality there is no profit, no extra, no surplus, because all is God's, and but for God's generosity, there is nothing."

On Monday my Facebook feed revealed that a friendly acquaintance has an article coming out in a prestigious academic journal.

While I wish my first thoughts had been,

"Oh good, some new take on the world that I'll be able to ponder and perhaps learn from,"

they were more in the direction of,

"He hasn't even finished his doctorate yet and he's getting published in this bigwig journal? Jealous… Maybe there's something I could turn into an article and submit?

"That would look really good on my resume, plus I'm closer to finishing my degree than he is." Continue reading.

Bradford Rothrock is a PhD candidate in Theology and Education at Boston College, USA. His research interests are focused on issues related to pedagogy and the doctrine of God.

Source: Daily Theology

Image: Preachers' Institute

"So, Ms. Stapleton Smith," she began rather brashly, "I have a few questions that the guidance counsellor told me I should come to see you about."

My eyes widened with nervous anticipation. She took a long deep breath in and said:

"Is Jesus Christ really the Son of God? How can he be the Father and the Son at the same time? Is there a heaven? Is there a hell? Is Satan really the fallen angel? How did he get to be like that?

"Are we born as good people or as evil people? Would I be here if it wasn't for Jesus? Would God forgive the Devil if the Devil asked for forgiveness? Is Jesus going to come back to earth? When?

"Why do we need churches if Jesus wasn't a priest? Also, this whole Adam and Eve thing - explain that."

I sat there utterly perplexed. Continue reading.

Meg Stapleton Smith is Director of Campus Ministry and a Theology teacher at Notre Dame Cristo Rey High School in Lawrence, Massachusetts. She graduated from Boston College in 2013 with a B.A. in Theology.

Source: Daily Theology

Image: Santa Clara University

Father Wojciech Giertych, who reviews the speeches of Pope Francis for theological accuracy, was interviewed by LifeSiteNews.com, a Canadian pro-life news website.

Asked about the incursion of homosexuality and gay marriage on religious freedom, Father Giertych said "this is not an issue which is reacting against the Church's teaching — this is a fundamental anthropological change".

He described this as "a distortion of humanity which is being proposed as an ideology, which is being supported, financed, promoted by those who are powerful in the world in many, many, countries simultaneously".

"The Church," he added, "is the only institution in the world which has the courage to stand up to this ideology."

The 61-year-old priest of Polish background saidÚ "I've seen the Communist ideology, which seemed to be so powerful, and it's gone! Ideologies come and go, and they have the idea of changing humanity, of changing human nature.

"Human nature cannot be changed; it can be distorted. But the elevation of perversion to the level of a fundamental value that has to be nurtured and nourished and promoted — this is absolutely sick."

Speaking of practising homosexuals Father Giertych said "of course they have to be treated with dignity, everybody has to be treated with dignity, even sinners have to be treated with dignity, but the best way of treating people with dignity is to tell them the truth.

"And if we escape from the truth we're not treating them with dignity."

Drawing an analogy to smoking cigarettes, he said this is also unnatural.

"You can live with the addiction to tobacco, you can die of it, but there are people who are addicted to tobacco, yet they live and we meet with them and we deal with them and we don't deny their dignity," he said.

"So certainly people with the homosexual difficulty have to be respected .… And so the important thing is how to pastorally help such people to return to an emotional and moral integrity."

Source:

LifeSiteNews

Image: LifeSiteNews

The chief executive of the Church's Truth, Justice and Healing Council — which will represent the Church at the royal commission — said the experience will be embarrassing but it is imperative the truth emerges.

"We are going to encourage, wherever possible, individuals to come forward with their experiences so that the truth can come out," said Francis Sullivan.

"The Church leadership in Australia have made it clear that they are going to be open and honest and co-operate fully."

He said any existing confidentiality agreements would be cancelled so victims could tell their stories. On compensation, he said: "We are dead keen on making sure that compensation, and appropriate compensation, is put in place."

Sullivan said the task of the council also involves advising the Church on the best practice changes to protect children and prevent sexual abuse.

"This is a crucial task as the Church demonstrates through its actions that the welfare and safety of children are the highest priority," he said.

When the royal commission opened its sittings on April 3, the chairman, Justice Peter McClellan, said more than 5000 submissions were expected, so it was unlikely that the deadllne of December 2015 would be met.

Justice McClellan said the commission would aim to right the wrongs of the past.

"Although a painful process, if a community is to move forward, it must come to understand where wrongs have occurred and so far as possible, right those wrongs," he said.

"It must develop principles which, when implemented through legislation and changes in the culture and management practices of institutions and the behaviour of individuals, will ensure a better future for subsequent generations."

Sources:

AAP

Catholic Leader

Radio Australia

Royal Commission website

Image: News.com

Sources

• Michael Sean Winters in National Catholic Reporter
• Image: The Washington Times

Michael Sean Winters serves as a political correspondent at the National Catholic Reporter.