Collar Stories #1

November 30, 2010 1 Comment

Is was sitting in a cafe a few nights ago with a few seminarians, having a quiet coffee after a busy weekend. It was a little late and most of the other guest were finishing their meals, paying bills and moving on.

After we had been there about 15mins a table near by started to leave, as the rather large group was reaching the door an elderly man, stoped and returned and came up to our table. As he approached he looked at me and in a thick Irish accent asked if I was a Catholic Priest? I said yes and his face lit up and he explained that he was in Australia visiting family, and would be returning to Ireland soon and how wonderful it was to see a ‘young’ Catholic Priest and that I should keep up the good work. He was equally happy when he realized that the two young men with me were seminarians.

After all the problems the Church in Ireland has faced in the past year, here was one man who was still overjoyed to see a Catholic Priest.

On Zenit today you can read a homily given by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin.

We face real crisis of vocations to the priesthood. Last Saturday here in Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral I remembered at Mass 20 priests who had ministered in the Archdiocese and who had died in the previous twelve months. A further dozen or so priests retired from active ministry in the same period. And yet in the past year I ordained just one new priest for the diocese.

Let us Pray for the Church in Ireland, that many young men will have the courage to head the call of Christ to the Priesthood, and that amidst adversity, pain and the occasional uncomfortable moment, the Priests of Ireland will be a visible sign of the Love of Christ for his people.

Filed under Uncategorized Tagged with

Context of condom-gate.

November 29, 2010 Leave a comment

Fr Z has posted the fuller text of the Popes recent comments regarding Condoms which lead to what I have name Condom-gate.

Pope Benedict: As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work. This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.

There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward discovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.

Seewald: Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?

Pope Benedict: She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.

The Pope says that “the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality”, I think the media’s treatment of this issue has proved this point, has it not?

Check out Fr Z’s comments at his blog WDTPRS

Filed under Links, News Tagged with , ,

Anglican Ordinariate of Australia by Easter

November 29, 2010 Leave a comment

Cathnews is reporting this morning that the Anglican Ordinariate will be established in Australia by next Easter.

The first Anglican ordinariate is expected to be established in Australia by next Easter, according to Bishop Peter Elliott, the Australian Catholic Bishops’ delegate for assisting lay Anglicans join the Church, reports The Catholic Weekly.

“We’re yet to work out with the Vatican what would be the best procedure, but it ought to focus around Easter and Pentecost,” said Bishop Elliott, auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne.

“We would hope by then to have specific churches designated for the ordinariate and, also the most important thing, to have some clergy who have been privately reconciled and ordained to the priesthood ready to welcome their fellow former Anglicans.”

Bishop Elliott said: “I hope the structure can begin next year in Australia and that it will expand.

Filed under Day to Day, Links, News Tagged with , ,

Confessions of an Anti-Feminist

November 29, 2010 1 Comment

Since Advent has a Penitential character, I thought it only right to re-post some of the Confessions of an Anti-Feminist that appeared in The Punch this morning.

Renowned Australian neurosurgeon Charlie Teo believes men and women have different roles “set not only by society but set by physiology”.

“The current trend is for dads to be more hands on. But for all we know it may be proven in a hundred years time that that may be a negative thing for the upbringing of children,” he said recently on Seven’s Sunday Night program.

“They’re there to be protective. A man has to have a good job; he has to do well at school so he can get a good job and support his family. A woman has to be loving and caring,” he said.

Then

As a 29-year-old single woman, many of my peers don’t appreciate my traditionalist views. I’d rather dodge a flying pair of high heels thrown at me in anger than pin a man under a pair of mine.

Feminism has achieved victories for women, but could it be at the expense of femininity, chivalry and attributes of the opposite sex that instinctively attract us to each other?

Its an interesting read, on which I’ll hopefully find time to comment on a little later in the week, I would be interested to hear your views.

Find the full article here.

 

Filed under Day to Day, Links, News Tagged with ,

The Year of the Caretaker

November 27, 2010 Leave a comment

Well, maybe we go to bed tonight under the care of a caretaker state Government.

 

Filed under Day to Day Tagged with ,

Looks like a new State Government.

November 27, 2010 Leave a comment

Just come in from Mass, and it seems like we are going to have a new State Government tonight.

Looks like a swing away from Labour to the Coalition, and not the Greens as in the Federal Election.

 

Filed under Day to Day Tagged with

Before you vote.

November 26, 2010 1 Comment

Victorians go to the poles tomorrow in our state election. This is an important opportunity for all of us to make clear to our elected representative what we think of their policies, in particular their stance on important moral issues.

This is the first time we get to vote since the Abortion Law Reform Act was passed in Victoria allowing for legalized late term abortion, without pain relief, removing the rights of health care professionals to refuse to participate in religious or moral grounds.

Before you vote tomorrow see here how your politician voted on the Abortion law reform bill.

If you have not read this already, have a look at the Victorian Bishops Statement here before you go to the polls.

Let’s show them that the decisions they make on behalf of us, the people they are elected to represent, have their own consequences at election time.

Filed under Day to Day Tagged with ,

Theology of the Bodybuilder.

November 26, 2010 Leave a comment

Well, the time has come to rid myself of those few extra kilos gained whilst writing a theological synthesis, and celebrating an ordination, and through general laziness.

Found the local gym today and signed myself up and have recommitted to some form of physical exercise every day.  Now it is up here, there is also some form of accountability.

For my next book review I am going to read and report back on a book I brought for someone else, but never gave them.

Fit for the Eternal Life by Kevin Vost PSY. D, a Catholic psychologist, veteran bodybuilder, Mensa member (?), and an amateur Thomist and classicist.

It claims to be

A Christian Approach to Working Out, Eating Right, and Building the Virtues of Fitness in Your Soul

Well if he can convince me, he can convince anyone.

Filed under Uncategorized

Advent approaches:

November 26, 2010 Leave a comment

When the Church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior’s first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming. By celebrating the precursor’s birth and martyrdom, the Church unites herself to his desire: “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

524, Catechism of the Catholic Church

Filed under Uncategorized

“Dissatisfied conservative Catholics” ?

November 26, 2010 Leave a comment

The editors of Cathnews have gone and upset me this morning. In their daily dispatch, they’re running with another story on the condom comments of the Holy Father. It is not the content of the story so much that has got me going, but rather their decision to use these two phrases:

“Dissatisfied conservative Catholics in the US …..”

And

“Right-wing Catholics are not satisfied by the statement of the Vatican spokesman”

For an organization that represents the Catholic Church, who are they to begin polarizing and dividing the members of Christs flock. Are we not all Catholic, who is Cathnew (even if they are reporting on someone elses reporting) to start dividing the One Holy And Apostolic Church.

What exactly does Cathnews mean when it calls some of the members of the Church right wing and others conservative?

I would appreciate if they could clarify this, as I would be interested to know if I fit into this category?

As a daily reader of Cathnews, I would suggest that they be a little more careful if they do not wish to alienate their readership, or at least the conservative? right wing? part of it.

Filed under News Tagged with , ,

← Older posts

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 296 other followers