Catalyst for Renewal

8 September 2008

Catalyst Digest is a venture of Catalyst for Renewal whose role is to encourage vigorous conversation among Catholics and members of the wider community.  To this end, Catalyst arranges a number of forums each year that focus on issues facing their church and society in general.

This is the fourth edition of the digest which is published at irregular intervals to keep friends of Catalyst in touch with its activities and with other relevant issues.  Our hope is that through the digest Catalyst will provide a worthwhile service to its current network of supporters and extend its reach to others.

If you would like to know more about Catalyst for Renewal please visit other pages on our website www.catalyst-for-renewal.com.au

Chaney to give Common Good lecture

Former federal parliamentarian Fred Chaney AO who has been in the forefront of the fight for justice for Indigenous Australians for three decades will be the second speaker in the Aquinas Academy Common Good lecture series to be held on Wednesday 17 September.  During his lecture, Chaney will pose the question Remote Australia : Does the Common Good Apply?  He will submit that “geographic and racial limits on our sense of whom we identify with can be seen within the Australian state in the abandonment of remote Australia which in the words of some observers is a failed state.”  For all governments it was “the back yard, out of sight and out of mind”.  The lecture, from 6pm to 7.30pm , will be at the Dickson Room at the State Library of New South Wales.  Fred Chaney, who is Chancellor of Murdoch University, left politics in 1993 after 19 years in the Australian parliament during which he held the ministerial portfolios of Aboriginal Affairs, Social Security and Minister Assisting the Minister for National Development.  In 1994, he began a long association with the National Native Title Tribunal, first as a part time member and later as deputy president.  More information about the lecture: www.aquinas-academy.com

Anglican success but a warning

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams emerged last month from the once-every-decade Lambeth Conference with the Church of England that he leads in rather better shape than most of his flock could have hoped for.  The troubling issues concerning the ordination as bishops of men because they are gay and women because they are women and the blessing of gay marriages that threatened to split the Anglican communion irrevocably were dampened down—at least in the short term—by the conference agreeing to the concept of a covenant that bound the autonomous provinces to common commitments and beliefs, and the establishment of a pastoral forum, which Williams would chair, to deal with crises in the church, including conflicts between parishes and dioceses with their bishops.   Anglicans who are looking for closer ties with the Catholic church, however, would have been disappointed, as was the senior Catholic at the conference, Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.  In an address to the conference, Kasper had warned that the position of the Catholic church regarding sexuality, particularly homosexuality, and the ordination of women was immutable.  The cardinal said that Catholic teaching on the ordination of women—that ordination had always been reserved to men alone—had been “clearly set forward” since the beginning of dialogue on unity between the Catholic and Anglican churches. “In our ecumenical relations, while our dialogue has led to significant agreement on the understanding of ministry, the ordination of women to the episcopate effectively and definitively blocks a possible recognition of Anglican Orders by the Catholic church,” Cardinal Kasper said.   The Catholic church hoped, nevertheless, that theological dialogue between the two churches would continue, “but this development affects directly the goal and alters the level of what we pursue in dialogue.”

A prophet in his own land

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson would understand better than most that the lot of a prophet was rarely comfortable, fellow bishop Pat Power of Canberra-Goulburn observed to Catholica Australia after reading Robinson’s controversial book Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus.  Bishop Power said that in many ways Robinson had had no option but to write such a book.  “Since the late 1980s when revelations of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church had begun to surface, Bishop Robinson was in the forefront in addressing the issue,” he said.  “He began by listening to victims, hearing firsthand the stories and witnessing the pain and damage of those most affected.  He saw too the effects on families, parish and school communities and other people involved.  He began to understand something of the complexity of factors which led to abuse…he urged his brother bishops to listen to victims and to deal decisively with complaints of abuse.  But he saw the need to go deeper…to look not just at the causes of individual instances of abuse but to try to understand the systemic weaknesses and failures which underlie such a betrayal of trust and power.”  Bishop Power said that when he read Robinson’s book he had recognised anew the author’s great love for God and his people, his deepest desires for the church to be true to its mission in bringing Christ to the world and his great courage in naming the challenges facing the church today. “There was a faithful son of the church wanting it to be its best self, while knowing it was ecclesia semper reformanda, a church continually in need of reform,” he said.  

For the full text of Bishop Power’s statement, see the website of Catholica:  www.catholica.com.au

As a refugee sees us

 People say of Spirituality in the Pub that it is rare, if ever, that one attends one of its meetings without learning something that encourages self-analysis of entrenched attitudes, maybe even self-criticism.  The August Paddington SIP was a case in point.  One of the speakers was Ali Ali, a refugee from Afghanistan , whose experience as a migrant clearly was better than some that are reported.  Responding to the theme The search to become--Belonging--new identity, Ali said that as a Muslim and ethnic Hazara his identity had been forged by experience of persecution and characterised by a sense of need to survive through escape.  He spoke of his challenging journey to Australia as a refugee, the “great positive welcome” he received when he arrived, his letting go enthusiastically of an “old” set of values for a richer Australian culture and values and the encouragement to learn English as a means of absorbing new values, culture and social mores. His experience here had been very positive, he said.  He was glad to have left behind the negative attitude in his home country to women and the exclusive/ fundamentalist religion, and he commended the non-discriminatory treatment of refugees in Australian detention centres.  He felt he now belonged to a nation committed to human rights, tolerance and equal treatment of women.

 Worth digesting

 There are no “one size fits all” answers to…difficult pastoral judgments, and the Church has sometimes made the mistake of imposing from the centre decisions that could better be made locally…This is not to dispute the universal jurisdiction of the papacy [but]…It would be refreshing to hear Pope Benedict utter the words “Rome does not always know best”, and it would go a long way towards encouraging the sort of open theological discussion that does not happen when theologians are preoccupied with looking over their shoulders.—Editorial in The Tablet on 16 August.

New English Mass text closer

The first and most significant part of the much-delayed new English translation of the Order of the Mass has been officially approved by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.  The revision has been in the melting pot for 10 years since Rome ’s rejection of the first attempt to bring the English translation more closely into line with the standard Latin version.  The recognitio, official advice of which has been sent to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, applies to the section of the missal containing the eucharistic prayers and prefaces, the Penitential Rite, the Gloria, the Creed, the acclamations, the Lord’s Prayer and other prayers and responses used daily.  It is not known when the full translation will be completed.  Details of amendments already approved may be found on the US bishops’ conference website   www.usccb.org/whoweare.shtml

More WYD pulpit wisdom

Benedict XVI, in the Mass with the Australian clergy at St Mary’s Cathedral on July 19 to dedicate a new altar in the cathedral:  In today’s liturgy the Church reminds us that, like this new altar we too have been consecrated, set apart for the service of God and the building up of his Kingdom.  All too often, however, we find ourselves immersed in a world that would set God aside.  In the name of human freedom and autonomy, God’s name is passed over in silence, religion is reduced to silent devotion and faith is shunned in the public square.  At times this mentality, so completely at odds with the core of the Gospel, can even cloud our own understanding of the Church and her mission.  We too can make the life of faith a matter of mere sentiment, thus blunting the power to inspire a consistent vision of the world and a rigorous dialogue with the many other visions competing for the minds and hearts of our contemporaries.  Yet history, including the history of our own time, shows that the question of God will never be silenced, and that indifference to the religious dimension of human existence ultimately diminishes and betrays man himself…wherever man is diminished, the world around us is also diminished…what emerges is a culture, not of life but of death.

Benedict XVI at a Vigil Mass for the young people at Randwick Racecourse on July 19: Unity is of the essence of the Church;  it is a gift we must recognize and cherish.  Tonight, let us pray for the resolve to nurture unity: contribute to it; resist any temptation to walk away.  For it is precisely the comprehensiveness, the vast vision, of our faith– solid yet open, consistent yet dynamic, true yet constantly growing in insight–that we can offer our world.  Dear young people, is it not because of your faith that friends in difficulty or seeking meaning in their lives have turned to you?  Be watchful!  Listen!  Through the dissonance and division of our world, can you hear the concordant voice of humanity? From the forlorn child in a Darfur camp, or a troubled teenager, or an anxious parent in any suburb, or perhaps even now from the depth of your own heart, there emerges the same human cry for recognition, for belonging, for unity.  Who satisfies that essential human yearning to be one, to be immersed in communion, to be built up, to be led to truth?  The Holy Spirit!  This is the Spirit’s role: to bring Christ’s work to fulfilment. Enriched with the Spirit’s gifts, you will have the power to move beyond the piecemeal, the hollow utopia, the fleeting, to offer the consistency and certainty of Christian witness!

Creed for new age

Dr Neil Collins will be the keynote speaker, using the title Towards a New Creed for a New Age, at a one-day Australian Reforming Catholics conference and general meeting on Saturday 13 September.  The conference will start at 9am at the Dougherty Community Centre, 7 Victor Street Chatswood.  Cost is $40 which includes lunch and refreshments.  Registration:  Jim Taverne, 4/1035 Pacific Highway Pymble 2073.

ooo000ooo