8 August 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 third edition of the digest.   It is important to appreciate that it is not a re-incarnation of our much-missed journal THE MIX which ceased publication in 2007.  It is different in format, has a different editor, is much briefer and, at least at this stage will be available only on-line.  It will appear at irregular intervals with the objective of keeping our supporters informed about Catalyst activities and other evolving issues. We hope that the digest will retain and expand the network of friends so splendidly established over the years mainly through THE MIX.

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

Postscript to WYD

A prediction in the London-based Tablet magazine by Andrew Thomas Kania, an expatriate Australian research fellow at Oxford University, that the great majority of his young Catholics  countrymen  might not even choose to watch Benedict XVI on television “if there was a sporting event being televised at the same time or if the weather is good” would appear to have been hugely astray.  In an article published on July 12, Kania implied that if this did happen the Pope should not be surprised because he had said in July 2005 (quoting the religion commentator Paul Collins) that Australia was a “Godless” nation in which the mainstream churches appeared to be “moribund”.   In fact, by any assessment the Pope’s visit was an extraordinary success, and hundreds of thousands of young Australians eschewed their TV sets and their passion for sport to get involved in the World Youth Day celebrations, as indeed did older members of the community.    Kania’s comments attracted criticism, not least from Ascot Vale (Victoria) Tablet reader John Papworth.  Clearly, Papworth wrote in the next issue on July 19, Kania “was a long way from the reality of the World Youth Day experience in Sydney ,” and went on to argue that the absence of your people of various age groups from the institutional Church was “a terribly narrow interpretation of research data.”  “The Church of the young, as in early colonial days, was out on the streets.  Just as Irish nuns and brothers devoted themselves as true servants to the needs of struggling families, providing education and health care, so also are the young out there in their thousands.  Not just whooping it up during WYD but faithful to their regular rosters of duty in soup kitchens, nursing homes, refugee tutoring centres and dozens of similar examples of generous service, the young church witnessing to loving service.”

The Pope as Abbott MP sees him

On the eve of World Youth Day, federal parliamentarian and one time seminarian Tony Abbott wrote an article headed The Mission —Benedict and Us in the Australian newspaper.  It frankly discusses the challenges that faced the Pope when he came to Australia and poses questions that deserve our pondering.   For example: To the modern western mind, a proposition can or can’t be shown to be true. If it can’t be proven by logic or by demonstration, it’s just a supposition which can be accepted or rejected at will. To Benedict, the problem with this line of thinking is that it degrades much of what is necessary for people to be truly human.  Love, duty, honour, sacrifice, indeed all the traditional virtues lose their merit except as comforting superstitions.  These are no longer ideals to sustain the kind of life really worth living but inventions to mask the essential meaninglessness and randomness of human activity. Benedict thinks that the emblematic problems of the modern west – family breakdown, social alienation, substance abuse and the sexual exploitation of children – spring from this loss of the sense of the inherent value and dignity of human life.  To Benedict, this is the central insight of Christianity: that God so loved the world that he sent his only son, which truly ennobles and validates every person.  From this flows the fundamental moral precept to treat others as you would have them treat you.  On this foundation, the Pope holds, rests the whole edifice of western civilisation: equality before the law, the presumption of innocence, universal suffrage, limited government, and religious, cultural and political pluralism.  The question haunting Benedict is whether our civilisation can maintain these principles while rejecting the religious insights on which they rest.  Australia ’s best-known historian, Manning Clark, may have been groping towards a similar conclusion when he finished A Short History of Australia with the question: “Just as Samson after being shorn of his hair was left eyeless in Gaza , was this generation, stripped bare of all faith, to be left comfortless on Bondi Beach ?” Perhaps it’s our prosperity, near absence of natural catastrophes, general social harmony and lack of enemies that is responsible for extracting much of the seriousness (if not the rancour) from the national conversation. Our country’s problems may be relatively trivial but Australians’ individual personal problems still hurt, as our suicide rates show.  The full text of Tony Abbott’s article can be viewed on his website http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/Pages/Article.aspx?ID=3595

WYD pulpit wisdom

Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, at the opening Mass at Barangaroo on July 15:  We Christians believe in the power of the Spirit to convert and change persons away from evil to good, from fear and uncertainty to faith and hope…our task is to be open to the power of the Spirit, to allow the God of surprises to act through us…whatever our situation we must pray for an openness of heart, for a willingness to take the next step, even if we are fearful of venturing too much further.  If we take God’s hand, He will do the rest.  Trust is the key.  God will not fail us.

Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Fisher, at St Benedict’s Church Sydney, on July 4, the feast of Blessed Pier Georgio Frassati in the presence of his relics:  What’s this thing with Catholics and bones?…[it] proclaims the importance of the flesh, and of the unity of body and soul, in every human life now and in the world to come...Especially today perhaps we need to retrieve a proper sense of the place of the body after a century when  more and more terrible things have been done to human bodies by way of torture, genocide, abortion, drugs and self destruction, and pornography, prostitution and medical mutilation...we need to be recalled to reverence of the body. 

Benedict XVI, in an address at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Darlinghurst, on July 18:  to disadvantaged young people participating in the Catholic Alive rehabilitation program:  Perhaps you have made choices that you now regret, choices that led you down a path which, however attractive it appeared at the time, only led you deeper into misery and abandonment.  The choice to abuse drugs or alcohol, to engage in criminal activity or self-harm may have seemed at the time to offer a way out of a difficult or confusing situation. You now know that instead of bringing life it brings death.  I wish to acknowledge your courage in choosing to turn back on to the path of life…Dear friends, I see you as ambassadors of hope to others in similar situations.  You can convince them of the need to choose the path of life and shun the path of death because you speak from experience..it was those who had taken wrong turnings who were particularly loved by Jesus because once they recognized their mistake they were all the more open to his healing message.   It was those who were willing to rebuild their lives who were most ready to listen to Jesus and become his disciples.  You can follow in their footsteps; you too can grow particularly close to Jesus because you have chosen to turn back towards him.   You can be sure that, just like the father in the story of the prodigal son, Jesus welcomes you with open arms.

Editor’s note:  Further extracts from WYD homilies will be published in our next issue.  The complete homilies can be found on www.zenit.org

Robinson at St Stephens

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson will attend the last session of a lunchtime study series held at St Stephen’s Uniting Church, 197 Macquarie Street, Sydney on August 26 to discuss his best-selling book Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church.   The series began on July 15 and will continue every Tuesday for seven weeks.   Discussion begins at 1.10pm and lasts for 40 minutes, with each session concentrating on one chapter of the book.

Spirituality in the Pub Grows   

The Catalyst-initiated SIP movement is now attracting audiences in 28 venues in Australia and one in Boston in the USA , and two new groups are in the process of being established.  There are now active SIP groups in four states— New South Wales (14), Victoria (11), Tasmania (2) and South Australia (1).  Two more are on the way in New South Wales (Wagga Wagga and Warners Bay ).  Twenty of the existing or proposed Australian groups are in the country and 10 in the city.  Want to know more about SIP including where groups meet?  Check the Catalyst website where you will find a great on it article by Fr Andy Hamilton SJ.

SIP 3D Day Forum

Catalyst’s annual in-service forum for organisers and supporters of SIP—3D (Discernment, Discovery and Development) Day—was held on Saturday August 2 at the Marist Centre, 1 Mary Street , Hunters Hill. Two highlights were the presence of Bishop David Cremin, who presided at the Eucharistic liturgy, and an address by Kate Engelbrecht entitled What’s God got to do with a Conversation in a Pub?  Kate, who is director of Mission Possible Education, is the editor of Why I am Still a Catholic, began her address with an image of the Trinity, an icon showing Abraham with strangers; hence there was a hospitality notion.  She said that the prayerful observer became the fourth person of the triune God, and then went on to compare conversation with debate.  Debate, which she said she enjoyed, assumed that there was a right answer to the question being discussed and the speaker had it.  Kate said that in debate, one attempted to prove that one was right; “you listen to find flaws in the other’s arguments and you are ready with counter arguments, you defend assumptions as truths; you assume before you are told, and you look for a conclusion or a closure to the argument.”  On the other hand, Kate said, a conversation was open-ended.  “You are open to change, you share insights—and it is safe to share them.  At a SIP evening, the two speakers offer insights, then others can offer theirs.  So you take away insights into what is significant.”   She said that a good model of conversation was to assume that lots of people had lots of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.  By putting them together one could get a better idea of the puzzle.  “We find common ground, we find common meanings and we find agreement.  We come to appreciate that other peoples’ thinking can improve or change our own understanding.”  Kate said that people who had engaged in consensus decision-making in the workplace had found this approach very effective.  The requirement to reach common ground gave  them “permission to change their own opinion”—and to let other people have their “Ah Ha!” moments.  It was always important, Kate said, to concentrate on the “heart” of a matter, not on the detail; to listen for the flow of ideas.  In spirituality, to be a disciple required the same qualities as conversation.  “You consider that your true depth is the Christ within you.  In SIP we have Christ speaking in many voices.”

Help from the “opposition”

After a very difficult, controversial Church of England synod in July, the dominant issue at which was the ordination of women bishops, the head of the Anglican communion in England and Wales, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, almost immediately had to face what proved to be an equally trying Lambeth Conference which was torn by division and boycotted by some of his bishops.   As was his wont, Dr Williams decided to seek the peace and solitude of a Catholic monastery for a pre-conference retreat, choosing as his sanctuary the well-known Benedictine-run Worth Abbey in West Sussex; well-known because it was the location for the much-watched BBC television documentary, The Monastery.  At the Lambeth conference itself, the archbishop had beside him, as an adviser, another monk, but not a Benedictine.  It was a Dominican friar Fr Timothy Radcliffe.  Fr Radcliffe, the author of several books including What is the Point of Being a Christian?  Sing a New Song and Seven Last Words, has accepted an invitation to speak at a Catalyst forum in Sydney next year.

Modern UK Catholics analysed

In the absence of recent research in this country, one can only guess at whether the way British Catholics think about their church and its teachings is mirrored in Australia , although it would be surprising if it did not, at least in some aspects so it makes fascinating reading.  A just-released survey in England and Wales by Cambridge University ’s Von Hugel Institute and sponsored by the Tablet digs into many of the issues that are of deep concern to Catholics in Australia , among them declining church attendances, absence from the confessional and more contentious questions such as contraception.  Tablet published the results of the survey in its issues of 12 and 19 July and has recognised their special interest by allowing free access on line.   The magazines website can be reached on www.thetablet.co.uk

Poetry and the spirit—a reflection

Associate Professor Michael Griffith, the author of God’s Fool: The Life and Poetry of Francis Webb published in 1991 and based on his 1981 PhD thesis, will be the presenter at an Aquinas Academy-Catalyst for Renewal reflection on August 23.  He will explore how language, as used in poetry, “connects us more deeply to our physical, emotional and intellectual selves and opens us to an experience of the spirit—a persistent theme of mine through 31 years of teaching literature at what is now the Australian Catholic University ”.  Dr Griffith’s presentation, his third to Catalyst, will be at the Colin Library, Marist Centre, 1 Mary Street , Hunters Hill, commencing at 9.30am .  Entry is by donation and all are welcome.

Worth digesting

There are social currents today that want to isolate religion from other forms of knowledge and experience in order to marginalise it.  One of the things I challenge is the desire to separate Christianity from rational enquiry.  Many of our “new atheists” seem unable to cope with the notion of an intelligent reflective faith.  But the Christian tradition is characterised by a close relationship between reasoned understanding and religious faith.  Faith for us is a flowering of reason, not its betrayal.  Catholic Christianity is characterised by three things: the richness of its spiritual and mystical traditions; the clarity of its theology which brings theology and philosophy together and gives us an articulate intellectual expression of the knowledge born of faith; and the stability and strength of the structure as a community held in communion and truth by the Pope and bishops.— Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, in a public lecture in London in May.  

20 July 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 second edition of the digest.   It is important to recognise that it is not a re-incarnation of our much-missed journal THE MIX which ceased publication in 2007.  It is different in format, has a different editor, is much briefer and, at least at this stage will be available only on-line.  It will appear at irregular intervals with the objective of keeping our supporters informed about Catalyst activities and other evolving issues. We hope that the digest will retain and expand the network of friends so splendidly established over the years mainly through THE MIX.

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

In Robinson’s defence (1)

Visiting American author/journalist Robert Blair Kaiser (A Church in Search of Itself and Benedict XVI and The Battle for the Future) used a Catalyst for Renewal forum in Sydney on July 4 to sharply criticise what he described as an orchestrated attempt to prevent Bishop Geoffrey Robinson from conducting a lecture tour of the United States to promote his book Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church.  Kaiser, who as a journalist covered Vatican II, told his audience that he was so thrilled to cover Vatican II “in those four shining years” that “if Time Magazine hadn’t paid me I would have paid Time to be there, to hear it and to be a part of it.”   He said, “We had free speech in the church for the first time in history and then after the council they clamped down and we don’t have free speech.  When Geoff Robinson has to be accused of heresy for exercising free speech then that is an indication that we don’t have free speech in the church today.  One must hope, he said, that “Geoffrey Robinson’s standing up will lead to the Australian bishops banding together, and saying to Rome, ‘Stop trying to micro-manage the church in Australia.  We are going to do it ourselves in Australia.  We will still be in the draw but we don’t need Rome to be telling Bishop Geoffrey Robinson or the Australian bishops that he is a heretic because he dared to criticise John Paul II over the way the sexual abuse scandal was handled.”  Kaiser said the Maronites and other Eastern rite churches had their own language, culture and liturgy while being in full communion with Rome.  He hoped that bishops in the West, for example in the USA and Australia, would stand up and start leading their flock so that they could live out their Christian lives in their own cultural context.   Kaiser said that wherever Robinson spoke in America the venues were booked out.  “The people there were Catholics who I imagine were just like the people here tonight.  Bishop Robinson said things that they had been saying themselves for years and finally they were hearing a bishop say them.  So it was very powerful for them.  We in America love our bishops and respect our bishops especially when they are listening bishops and serving bishops who are there to tell the truth instead of covering up.”

In Robinson’s defence (2)

In what was described as a “call to action”, WATAC—Women and the Australian Church—has appealed to members and friends to write to all Catholic bishops in Australia in support of Bishop Geoffrey Robinson whose book was recently criticised in a statement from the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference.  The bishops stated that the book’s “questioning of the authority of the church” was “connected to Bishop Robinson’s uncertainty about the knowledge and authority of Christ himself.”  The WATAC notice to members said that “many of us have read and been inspired by this book,” and some groups were “involved in an ongoing and enthusiastic discussion if it.”  They were “confused by the vagueness of the bishops’ statement of condemnation” and urged the bishops to enter into “honest dialogue on sexual abuse and other issues raised by Robinson.  “We are all responsible for our church, its wonder and beauty as well as its faults, mistakes and failures.  If we are to honestly face this and act upon it we must ask questions and search diligently for some true answers which lead to action.”

Lead in ecumenism

Benedict XVI will reach out to other faith leaders during his World Youth Day visit to Australia this month.  His busy itinerary in the nine days he will be in Sydney will include meetings with Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus.  He will also pray with Christians of other denominations in the crypt of St Mary’s Cathedral. 

Religion discounted?

According to David Tacey, associate professor of Arts and Critical Enquiry at La Trabe University, it often seems that “the spiritual and the religious are separating categories of Australian experience”.  Tacey, a much-published author, told a recent Catalyst forum in Sydney that young people especially wanted spirituality without religion.  Many Australians saw spirituality as empowering and religion as limiting and oppressive. This was certainly the emphasis in secular society where religion was “heavily discounted and seen as irrelevant”.  He argued that religious people needed to stop being defensive and instead to seek a creative relationship with the “secular” spirituality of the current times and religions needed to engage with the world.  Tacey insisted, however, that the future of religion was not bleak but “we in the West are living on a depleting stockpile of Christian beliefs and ethics”.

Worth thinking about

The laity has become more mobile, more educated and less passive about their faith.  They no longer define the transcendent as distant or remote but as accessible and intimate. God is no longer away in heaven or the stars.  As well as in the Eucharist, God is found in prayer, loving others, in service of the poor, in study and reflection, in psychological and scientific phenomena, in discussion.  As a consequence many want liturgical celebration not only to be dignified but accessible too—and of course to be beautiful.—The Tablet editorial, June 21.   

SIP 3D Day Forum

Catalyst’s annual in-service forum for organisers and supporters of SIP—3D (Discernment, Discovery and Development) Day—will be held on Saturday August 2 2008 at the Marist Centre, 1 Mary Street, Hunters Hill.  The forum will start at 9.45am.  Cost is $20 with morning and afternoon tea and a light luncheon provided.  Two highlights will be the presence of Bishop David Cremin, who will preside at our Eucharistic liturgy, and an address by Kate Engelbrecht entitled What’s God got to do with a Conversation in a Pub?  Kate, who is director of Mission for Catholic Health Care Services, is the author of Why I am Still a Catholic.  Anyone interested in SIP is welcome to attend the forum.  To register, please email Kevin Grant on kevcar@iinet.net.au

Poetry and the spirit—a reflection

Associate Professor Michael Griffith, the author of God’s Fool: The Life and Poetry of Francis Webb published in 1991 and based on his 1981 PhD thesis, will be the presenter at an Aquinas Academy-Catalyst for Renewal reflection on August 23.  He will explore how language, as used in poetry, “connects us more deeply to our physical, emotional and intellectual selves and opens us to an experience of the spirit—a persistent theme of mine through 31 years of teaching literature at what is now the Australian Catholic University”.  Dr Griffith’s presentation, his third to Catalyst, will be at the Colin Library, Marist Centre, 1 Mary Street, Hunters Hill, commencing at 9.30am. 

Catholic Architecture in Australia

The National Trust has arranged an exhibition that traces the history of ecclesiastical architecture in the Sydney area with particular emphasis on the changing architectural styles and decorative features of Catholic churches from colonial times to the present.  The exhibition is at the trust’s Observatory Hill centre and will be open from 11am to 4pm daily except Mondays until July 25.

1 July 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 first edition of the digest.   It is important to recognise that it is not a re-incarnation of our much-missed journal THE MIX which ceased publication in 2007.  It is different in format, has a different editor, is much briefer and, at least at this stage will be available only on-line.  It will appear at irregular intervals with the objective of keeping our supporters informed about Catalyst activities and other evolving issues. We hope that the digest will retain and expand the network of friends so splendidly established over the years mainly through THE MIX. 

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

Robert Blair Kaiser to speak

The controversial American author/journalist Robert Blair Kaiser (A Church in Search of Itself and Benedict XVI and The Battle for the Future) will be interviewed by ABC religion reporter Stephen Crittenden in front of a Catalyst for Renewal forum in Sydney on July 4.  The forum, at the Sydney Congress Hall (140 Elizabeth Street), will start at 6pm.  Kaiser, who is noted for his forthright commentary on Catholic affairs, will be in Australia to promote his latest book Cardinal Mahoney—a Novel which is described as presenting “an exciting new vision of how the Catholic church could develop by embracing a more democratic and inclusive role for the laity”. 

Catalyst defends Robinson

Catalyst has reacted strongly to a statement of the Australian Bishops’ Conference following an attempt by American bishops to frustrate Bishop Geoffrey Robinson’s plans to promote his book Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church in the United States.  On June 6, Catalyst posted on its website an open letter in which it declared that the Australian bishops’ statement “seems to us too brief and dismissive to provide those under your pastoral care with the adequate information that is their due—especially in the light of the suffering and scandal caused by years of shameful sexual abuse perpetuated by many priests and religious.”  The Catalyst letter notes that the organisation has devoted its efforts for more than 10 years to promoting the spirituality of good conversation in the church, “firmly convinced that it is only by a sincere willingness to listen and share that we will grow in faith and understanding”.  The bishops’ statement allowed for neither listening nor sharing and nor did it examine the grave issues in depth, Catalyst wrote.   After Bishop Robinson’s book was published, Catalyst arranged forums to allow its open discussion.  They attracted large audiences. 

Lead in ecumenism

Benedict XVI will reach out to other faith leaders during his World Youth Day visit to Australia in July.  His busy itinerary in the nine days he will be in Sydney will include meetings with Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus.  He will also pray with Christians of other denominations in the crypt of St Mary’s Cathedral.  

Religion discounted?

According to David Tacey, associate professor of Arts and Critical Enquiry at La Trobe University, it often seems that “the spiritual and the religious are separating categories of Australian experience”.  Tacey, a much-published author, told a recent Catalyst forum in Sydney that young people especially wanted spirituality without religion.  Many Australians saw spirituality as empowering and religion as limiting and oppressive. This was certainly the emphasis in secular society where religion was “heavily discounted and seen as irrelevant”.  He argued that religious people needed to stop being defensive and instead to seek a creative relationship with the “secular” spirituality of the current times and religions needed to engage with the world.  Tacey insisted, however, that the future of religion was not bleak but “we in the West are living on a depleting stockpile of Christian beliefs and ethics.

            Worth repeating

The hunger for meditation and quietness among religious groups and among ordinary people today shows that desire to connect and rediscover more deeply our spirituality….that our world is a sacred place imbued with meaning and joy beyond our comprehension. The challenge now facing us is to stop attempting to control the universe and instead just exist within it.—Sr Mary McGown OLSH, in a talk to North Sydney SIP (Spirituality in the Pub) on June 16 2008

SIP 3D Day Forum

Catalyst’s annual in-service forum for organisers and supporters of SIP—3D (Discernment, Discovery and Development) Day—will be held on Saturday August 2 2008 at the Marist Centre, 1 Mary Street, Hunters Hill.  The forum will start at 9.45am.  Cost is $20 with morning and afternoon tea and a light luncheon provided.  Two highlights will be the presence of Bishop David Cremin, who will preside at our Eucharistic liturgy, and an address by Kate Engelbrecht entitled What’s God got to do with a Conversation in a Pub?  Kate, who is director of Mission for Catholic Health Care Services, is the author of Why I am Still a Catholic.  Anyone interested in SIP is welcome to attend the forum. To register, please email Kevin Grant on kevcar@iinet.net.au

Poetry and the spirit—a reflection

 Associate Professor Michael Griffith, the author of God’s Fool: The Life and Poetry of Francis Webb published in 1991 and based on his 1981 PhD thesis, will be the presenter at an Aquinas Academy-Catalyst for Renewal reflection on August 23.  He will explore how language, as used in poetry, “connects us more deeply to our physical, emotional and intellectual selves and opens us to an experience of the spirit—a persistent theme of mine through 31 years of teaching literature at what is now the Australian Catholic University ”.  Dr Griffith’s presentation, his third to Catalyst, will be at the Colin Library, Marist Centre,

1 Mary Street , Hunters Hill, commencing at 9.30am .