To begin to find an answer to that question, please join me at a recent gathering of parish delegates from the two adjacent Welsh dioceses of Cardiff and Menevia.

It was in a parish hall in Miskin, outside the Welsh capital, at the urging of Archbishop Mark O'Toole (named in April 2022 as both Archbishop of Cardiff and Bishop of Menevia) who wanted us to consider the prospect of formally merging the two dioceses into one.

No surprises there.

Faced with nosediving numbers, such mergers are being considered across England and Wales, with Rome's blessing.

The point of this shake-up is not just to rationalise and cut costs.

No one quite articulates this, but something bigger is afoot: a reset, a shake-up.

For a long time we've been in "emergency mode", is how the archbishop explains it, and we can't go on like this.

We have to consolidate and cooperate for the sake of mission, in a Church where parishes are both spread out over a large and diverse territory (Menevia includes Welsh-speaking Catholics, Cardiff the English periphery of Herefordshire) and shrinking and ageing.

The crisis is not a shortage of priests, but a shortage of people.

England and Wales have one of the highest ratios of priests to lay people in the world.

The archdiocese of Cardiff, spread over 1,180 square miles, has 131,280 Catholics (8.4 per cent of the population) but just 8,276 at Mass, down from roughly 20,000 in 1990 and 14,000 in 2019, just before Covid snatched more than a third of them, never to return.

The ancestral rural diocese of Menevia, spread over 3,590 square miles, has just over 26,000 Catholics (three per cent of the population) and 4,650 at Mass, compared with roughly 12,000 in 1990 and 6,000 in 2019.

The trend will continue to slump.

So you'd imagine that this meeting on 10 February would be sombre, even grumpy: competing narratives to explain the decline and to vindicate agendas; sadness about the future; a painful sense of loss, especially of the young; a sense, perhaps, of failure.

I've often found such desolation in our parishes these days, speaking around the country about the Synod.

Yet the Miskin meeting had none of those craters: it was upbeat, and creative.

No magic wands were waved, but we saw change coming, and the grace in welcoming it.

Horrified at the prospect of ageing, beleagured enclaves, we sat round tables imagining a future of mucking in together for mission.

People said this would need a culture change: you can't go on in the same way, can you?

You have to go out, learn to listen, hear from the young who don't want to come in, and the elderly who since Covid stay away.

We have to learn to share ministries and resources for mission, go beyond boundaries, build bridges and synergies.

We need to create means of decision-making in common, through strong local deaneries and a diocesan pastoral council.

One person at my table said synodality had re-energised her parish, and she now realised how key it was to the future.

I doubt anyone in Miskin that day had read Tomáš Halík's Afternoon of Christianity: The Courage to Change, published in English this week.

It's been swirling around inside my head for many months: the Czech priest-prophet has penned the most compelling, thorough account of what Pope Francis means by this being a "change of era" in the Church.

The shift is much bigger than most realise, one that requires re-imagining much of what we take for granted.

But before letting Halík himself explain that change, let's name the key spiritual move being made here. Continue reading

• Austen Ivereigh is a UK-based Catholic journalist, author, commentator and biographer of Pope Francis. His latest book is "First Belong to God: On retreat with Pope Francis."

It was an interesting question, and if it had been asked in a room full of people, we could have had many answers.

My response is that both are important, but Belief belongs to the head and Faith belongs to the heart. The journey from head to heart can be called "devotion.".

Let us open that up in a reflective way.

We can say that belief is the introduction to faith - "belief" means to cling or hold on to. Belief is composed of teachings we hold to be true.

"I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth…"

On the Christian journey, belief is is our basic Church teaching, a set of maps to guide us on life's pilgrimage.

Sometimes, people will describe our church teaching as Catholic Faith when they really mean Catholic Belief. They are talking about strictures and rules.

Belief and Faith are connected, but they are not the same.

So how do we describe faith?

We know that Catholic teaching is a one-size-its-all but, at the same time, the Church recognises that no two people are made exactly alike and we are encouraged to mature as spiritual individuals.

Maturity comes when we recognise this and step out in Faith.

We stop hugging the signposts and journey as God made us.

Faith is the fruit of Belief.

Belief has given Faith the certainty of Trust.

In the Gospels, we see this movement in Jesus.

When Jesus sent his disciples out, he told them not to go to Samaria or the Pagan territories. He believed his mission was to the lost people of Israel.

But later, thanks to a couple of women, Jesus stepped out in faith and preached to the Samaritans and to the pagans of the Decapolis.

That was a big movement in Jesus' ministry.

Belief found the freedom of Faith.

On a Sunday morning, I look at the pews around me and see people as a beautiful forest, every tree different, and yet all rooted in the same rich soil.

That is one way of describing the relationship between Belief and Faith.

Or I could put it in a personal way:

I believe that Belief and Faith are different.
Belief is what I pack for the journey
and carry with me from day to day.
It's the map I've been given.
It's also a pair of boots for steep hills,
a coat for a change in weather,
and a first aid kit should I need it.
I regard Belief as essential
even though I don't always unpack it.
It is that which gives me confidence
to go forward in the beautiful freedom
of Faith.

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

Christensen explains that successful companies are those that can meet not only their customers' current needs but anticipate their future ones too.

Disruptive innovators - disruptors - are more likely to displace established companies, even when they are small and have relatively fewer resources.

According to Christensen, a disruptor often begins by either attracting the dominant businesses' less-demanding customers or by creating an entirely new market.

Disruption creates both a new market and a new "value network".

"Innovation" describes the ways companies find to enhance their customer's experience, so the customer knows they are valued and cared for.

The customer experiences the value of belonging to the "family" of the company and the experiential value of belonging to the "community of customers" keeps them faithful and attracts others.

The business world speaks well of leaders who are "movers and shakers", disruptors because they achieve what others cannot - change.

In church circles, change leaders are often vilified because they challenge the established, sacred cows.

The application of disruptive-innovation to our current experience of liturgical practice helps us see why the fundamental presumption of liturgy as a communitarian event, where the ritual elements of a priest, people, Sunday, church, music, eucharistic prayer and communion that once made sense, no longer do.

The disruption to the concept of community has created innovative forms of worship; forms that no longer presume the use of all or most of the ritual elements of catholic worship.

Liturgical disruption: What it looks like

Let's consider what liturgical disruption is by looking at the world around us.

In the world of taxis, Uber is described as a disruptor, but this might not be entirely accurate. While Uber has challenged the taxi business it hasn't moved the concept of personal transport in a radically new direction.

When we look at the movie industry and Netflix, we see a different effect.

I first discovered Netflix while living in the United States when DVDs were delivered to our homes. I remember thinking why would I do this when I can walk to the local video shop?

Now, I watch streamed movies and news programmes in a variety of languages from across the world.

Initially, Netflix didn't disrupt the supply of movies - video shops continued to exist.

However, Netflix capitalised on the advent of the internet and disrupted the fundamental behaviours of movie watching people around the world.

The disruption of customer behaviours matched with innovations in customer services has seen the growth of the Netflix community (customer base) and the death of the local video shop's customer base.

The death of video shops and the morphing of cinema's into bars and cafes with movies attached, to survive, is indicative of the disruption-innovation needed to survive significant behavioural change.

Applying these considerations, I suggest that the proliferation of online masses is not the key disruptor - it is more Uber than Netflix.

Online masses predate COVID and the sheer volume of them now should not distract us. The volume is not the key disruptor because it has not brought a change in foundational behaviours.

The transference of the mass' performance-based ritual from the sanctuary to the screen did not disrupt already existing liturgical behaviours; priests did what they normally do - perform the rituals - and believers did what they normally do - watch the rituals being performed.

Thus, the ritual behaviours didn't change because the already dominant operative, behaviours were not disrupted.

The behavioural disruption came with the inability to recreate the physical presence of the community and physical participation in the shared eucharistic meal - even to the point where concelebrating presbyters uses separate chalices and individually consecrated host rather than sharing these elements.

If anything, the online mass has unwittingly contributed to the liturgical disruption of the physical liturgical community by taking the viewer from the pew to the couch.

The disruption-innovation of the liturgical community

Liturgical life during COVID offers three considerations of disruption-innovation:

First, habitual worshipping practices have been disrupted and behaviours that have been central to liturgical and parish life have radically changed.

With safety defining liturgical behaviours believers are more prepared to stay away from church gatherings, to pray at home, or even celebrate a "lay Eucharist" with family instead of going to Mass.

Second, online masses and worship groups have innovated choice; as a colleague suggested online ‘worship has become promiscuous.'

The dynamic of choice is not new - for example, in my experience people move between parish masses based on a variety of reasons such as a convenience, the liturgical style of the mass, or the music.

Now the choice includes legitimately worshipping at home.

While the church (corner video shop) is the place to find "spiritual communion" our attention is now turning to the innovation of the "domestic church" and home worship as the new locus of authentic liturgical prayer.

Third, and most importantly, the behaviours of the physical liturgical community have been radically disrupted and innovated. Community is a threat (disruption) as well as something we want (innovation).

While believers can search the web for a community, they can feel safe in, this is not always the case for physical community.

Profound disruption to liturgical behaviour has come through social and physical distancing, wearing masks, communion from behind a screen, prohibitions on singing, restricted numbers, and closed churches.

These have altered our behaviours and changed the way we experience the liturgical community; they have changed our shared understandings of the community itself.

When we stand in the car park, chatting after mass, we realise implicitly that our physical behaviours inside the church say; "worship and church community are dangerous and it's safer not to participate".

The foundational disruption to the physical community has changed our liturgical behaviours, and, therefore, our experience of prayer itself, which the phrase lex orandi, lex credendi summaries: we pray (orandi) what we believe (credendi).

Because we are a community who pray what we believe and who bring our belief to prayer, the disruption of prayer will have an impact on the belief.

When we pray online and reduce Mass to spiritual communion for the viewer the potential danger is to extenuate the clerical aspect of Mass and formalise visual participation as "sufficient" for belief.

When a family prays a "lay eucharist" at home they exclude the presbyterial ministry. In both instances, the disruption to the community has changed our behaviours and along with it our presumptions of authentic liturgical prayer and ministry.

The foundational disruption to the communitarian aspect of lex orandi/lex credendi will show itself in accommodations to "liturgical masks" and "liturgical distancing".

Such accommodations have the potential to move the physical celebration of liturgy from "we" to "I", thereby returning worship to a privatised, or self-isolated ritual action.

Thus, the most significant disruption to liturgy is the disruption of the physical community and the most important innovation to the liturgy are the new ways of being a liturgical community.

I suggest, the disruption-innovation to communal prayer (lex orandi), will likely impact not only the church's communitarian framework but also its presumptions of authentic ministry.

Liturgical innovation - future changes

The disruption-innovation of the COVID-liturgical period can only be sketched.

Liturgical history shows that naming disruptors is not easy because liturgy evolves over a longer timeframe and generally does not anticipate social and cultural shifts, it reflects them.

However, liturgy's formal struggles with adaptation and innovation are always related to changes in behaviours and theological contexts.

If we are to benefit from the disruption-innovation to the community we are creating, I suggest understanding this current change will require a more sophisticated concept of the church as people in God and worship as people in God at prayer.

It will require a higher level of ecclesial leadership and a much higher calibre of liturgical leadership and insight than we have seen recently from Vatican departments.

The disruption to the physical community is greater than online, virtual worship and the effects on who we worship with, who we are as Christian people and, ultimately where we belong, remain to be considered.

• 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).
• Article first published in La Croix International. Republished with the author's permission.

This research, much deserving of greater exposure, intrigued me, since I have engaged atheism's most prominent modern proponents.

I chaired three of atheist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins's debates with his Oxford University colleague, the mathematician and Christian John Lennox.

I debated Christopher Hitchens on stage, chaired a number of his debates, and wrote a book about those encounters. And I debated Tufts University cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett on Al Jazeera television with a Muslim tossed into the mix.

I even had a lively exchange with agnostic John Stossel on the "God question" on Fox News.

In each of these discussions, much was made out of the evidence — or, as some would have it, the lack of evidence — for God's existence. Belief in God (or a god, if you prefer), they say, is a product of environment, wishful thinking (like belief in fairies or Santa Claus), or a "mental virus."

"Part of what I want to say," writes Richard Dawkins in his bestseller The God Delusion, "is that it doesn't matter what particular style of nonsense infects the child brain.

Once infected, the child will grow up and infect the next generation with the same nonsense, whatever it happens to be."

But as Dawkins's archrival, the aforementioned mathematician John Lennox, has said, "Not every statement made by a scientist is a scientific statement."

This appears to be just such an instance. According to Dr. Petrovich, Dawkins' statement lacks scientific evidence. On the contrary, her research strongly suggests that children are "hardwired" to believe in God.

In a cross-cultural study of British and Japanese children who were shown photographs of manmade and natural objects and then asked to explain how those objects came into existence, children predominantly chose the theological explanation. Dr. Petrovich told me,

"The pattern of responding among Japanese children is highly significant in this context seeing that those children live in a culture that does not in any way encourage a belief in God as creator."

"Yet, the most common reply given by Japanese preschoolers about natural objects' origins was "Kamisama [God]! God made it."

"Whilst there is growing research evidence that children from across different religious and cultural backgrounds consistently attribute to god the existence of natural objects, what is so interesting about the Japanese participants is that this particular causal inference is not a product of their education but a natural development in their understanding of the world."

Part of what makes Dr Petrovich's research so interesting to me is the current state of the scientific debate over God's existence.

The current focus is on the "Design Argument," the idea that the universe has a logical design and is governed by immutable laws, and thus it must have a Designer and a Lawgiver.

The incomparable Ben Stein, who is both a contributor to this website and a pop culture icon for my generation, hosted a film on this very subject called Expelled.

That film gets at the heart of the contentious debate. Continue reading

At the time, living with her family in New Zealand, Naomi was a believer but unbaptised, wandering the online wilderness through "anti-Catholic" websites searching for "something more".

"My family's not Catholic," the Queensland University of Technology law and justice student said, "and I never went to church for the first 16 years of my life."

"I always believed in God but couldn't explain it."

She encountered a Catholic writer online who said to pray and go to church.

"‘Pray?'" she remembered thinking, "I'd never thought of that. Okay, I'll do that."

It was Easter of last year, and she was going to church regularly, when the people in the pews around her stood up to renew their baptismal promise and, seeing that, she said she "felt this longing".

"I want to be baptised," she said.

Naomi approached the priest after Mass and asked to be baptised - to the priest's chagrin. "He said, ‘Actually, we baptise people during Easter'."

Naomi couldn't wait a whole year.

She went through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults and, after postponing because of the death of her grandmother, she was baptised, confirmed - with the name Mary - and received First Holy Communion in August 2018.

She had moved from New Zealand, leaving her high school friends behind, to study in Brisbane and lived with her brothers who studied at University of Queensland.

Her brothers were atheists and she lacked family support in her faith.

Her family thought she read her Bible too much, her mum was worried she was getting too involved in her faith and her dad said going to church every week was "extremist".

She struggled with theological roadblocks too.

Online, where she had self-catechised for years, she found many Protestant websites attacking Catholic beliefs about Mary.

"The Protestants would say, ‘They (Catholics) worship Mary - you shouldn't do that'," she said.

That sounds right, she said at the time.

But then the Catholic websites would say they didn't worship her, which would only add confusion.

Naomi struggled, and continues to struggle, with Mary.

At university she joined QUT Freedom ministry, and was soon invited to pray in a Rosary group.

"I don't know what the Rosary is," she remembered thinking but she went along anyway.

Someone there asked if she needed some Rosary beads to pray with and offered her a set.

The shape and the beads looked familiar and she said, "I think I have one of those."

She reached around her neck and pulled off the necklace her mum had given her years ago.

"That was pretty amazing," Naomi said.

"God gives you things that you don't even realise you need until years later".

"God's given you so much already, and I look back on my life, I realise God was always with me; I just didn't see it."

Naomi recently started a consecration to Mary.

"Now I'm at the point where I'm like, ‘Okay, time to pray the Rosary, anyone want to pray it with me?'" she said.

"I think it's nice because I never had a mum I could pray with. And now I have a mum that's in the Church, not even that, she's up there." Continue reading

Esther, whose legal name is Shin Ok-ju', is the founder of the Grace Road Church.

The church has a corporate branch called the GR Group.

Esther was arrested with three other cult leaders when they arrived at Seoul's Incheon International Airport last week.

Cult members began travelling to Fiji in 2014 after Esther predicted there would be a famine across the Korean peninsula.

Once they arrived, their passports were confiscated and many were allegedly subjected to beatings and brutal rituals ostensibly aimed at driving out evil spirits.

GR Group has opened businesses in Fiji in industries ranging from construction to agriculture.

The Grace Road Church and the GR Group have maintained connections at the highest levels of the Fiji government.

Pictures in local media and on the GR website show Fiji Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama personally appearing beside GR Group's president to give the company an award for its business successes in 2017.

When questioned by Fijivillage, Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho confirmed that they have been contacted by South Korean authorities.

The Fijian Police have started preliminary investigations while they await official notification.

Some followers who escaped the farm told journalists that those who attempted to leave the church were subjected to severe public beatings known as "ground thrashings."

This is not the first time Esther has been in trouble with the law. She was sued for $6m in 2014 in Brooklyn by a 27-year-old mentally ill man after she tried to cure his schizophrenia with prayer.

Source

• japantimes.co.jp
• theguardian.com
• fijivillage.com
• edition.cnn.com
• Image: edition.cnn.com

To what degree do you understand the key principles of the world's major religions?

Judaism. Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism?

And how did you develop that knowledge?

Through school? Your parents? The media? Your church, perhaps? Or maybe through your own research?

I'll put up my hand and say that when I entered my 20s, I was religiously ignorant. So ignorant.

I had almost no knowledge of religion, and it was only when I studied journalism that I began to develop a thirst for religious knowledge.

What was central to the Troubles in Ireland?

Why was the Middle East in such a mess?

Why do some Catholics not eat meat on a Friday?

And what on earth is Ramadan?

Early in the 2000s, I moved to Dublin and over the course of the next eight years, lived in Ireland and England.

And I really had to swot up on religion then.

Religion in Ireland was central to life, and later, working at Sky News in London, I realised that so much of what I was reporting on required a sound knowledge of religion - be it in the Middle East, the Russian-Chechen situation, the savage conflicts raging up the eastern coast of Africa, and central Asia too - Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Although 84 per cent of the world identifies with a faith or religion, in this secular country, we receive little or no religious education.

Some parents fear religious studies. I think they're concerned their children will become indoctrinated.

And I was one of those parents, but I'm not anymore.

I want my son to study religion as part of his school curriculum, so that he understands it.

I want him to develop a framework by which he understand other people's values, beliefs or traditions.

Because if he doesn't develop that knowledge, then how will he judge the validity of claims made by the likes of social influencers, politicians and the media?

And when we don't understand something, we fear it - right? Continue reading

• Rachel Smalley is a radio host for Newstalk ZB.

Here is another depressing statistic from the US: 79 per cent of Catholics who lapse, do so before the age of 23.

I learnt this from the blog of Brandon Vogt here.

Vogt is an eloquent and erudite young American who is actively trying to share his faith, challenge the dreary zeitgeist and bring back the lapsed . . . .

Vogt describes six different reasons why young Catholics leave the faith.

The first is that they are merely "cultural Catholics" who go under the label "Catholic" but who have no personal, meaningful faith whatsoever. They might go to Mass sometimes to please their parents, or at Christmas, but the label merely masks "a lifeless and decaying faith life".

Vogt thinks it is easier to talk to an atheist than a cultural Catholic, as the atheist at least knows he/she isn't a Catholic. According to Vogt, most US Catholics are in this category.

The second group are the "shruggers" - complacent people who simply shrug their shoulders at the big questions in life.

They are too mentally lazy to care about faith. They need to be convinced that knowing the purpose of our lives does matter and that responding with "whatever" is ducking their responsibility to engage with profound questions. I suspect this might be a hard category to reconvert.

The third group is "I am spiritual but not religious" - those who reject doctrine or religion but who still believe in a higher power and who still pray.

For this group, watching a sunset is a spiritual experience as valid as anything else; what you feel is all that matters. Continue reading

Sources

• Catholic Herald, by reviewer Francis Philips
• Image: OSV Newsweekly

The uncommitted will listen to them far sooner than to an evangelist or apologist.

So says Philip Yancy in the HuffingtonPost.

He says he decide to write his book Vanishing Grace: What Ever Happened to the Good News? after reading Walker Percy's novel, The Second Coming.

In it one of the characters says about this about Christians, "I cannot be sure they don't have the truth."

"But if they have the truth, why is it the case that they are repellent precisely to the degree that they embrace and advertise the truth?

"A mystery: If the good news is true, why is not one pleased to hear it?" Continue reading

Just like any church service, there is singing, service sheets and meaningful readings. But unlike others, the Sunday Assembly is a godless congregation focussed on inspiring guest speakers.

"We don't say we're anti-God," says Sunday Assembly organiser William Stewart. "We don't say we're anti-religion. We welcome anyone no matter what you believe. We're just going to brush, slide past that topic."

"I know quite a few people who recently transitioned from being religious to being agnostic," he said. "I think no matter what you believe or whereabouts you are, we can provide something for you."

Last Sunday about 30 people attended an assembly themed on urban renewal.

Source

• TV3News
• Image: Facebook

Sunday Assembly Christchurch will formally launch on Sunday September 28th, 2014.

Sunday Assembly is a church without god but it is not necessarily anti god.

Sunday Assembly was founded in London in January 2013, and since then it has exploded across the world with over 30 Assemblies up and running (it's the ‘fastest growing church in the world' according to the Daily Beast).

The Daily Beast may not be factually accurate when they designate Sunday Assembly as "the fastest growing church."

Yet the media hype points to a cultural shift documented by Pew Research where one out of five people in the United States now classify their religious affiliation as "none."

In New Zealand, just under half of the population at the 2013 New Zealand Census declared an affiliation to Christianity. However, regular church attendance is probably closer to 15%

After hearing about the Sunday Assembly on Radio New Zealand's Nine to Noon and via social media, local organisers from Christchurch contacted Sunday Assembly's London HQ for help in setting up their own congregation.

In their press release the organisers say that the Sunday Assembly is all the "best bits of church, emphasising fun, music, togetherness and universal human values, without the religious baggage that so often causes division and derision."

Each service is based around a values-based theme, with a guest speaker, reading and songs all inspired by that idea.

The event takes place at The CBD Bar, 208 Madras St, Christchurch. It kicks off at 11am on the 28th of September and entry is free.

Source

• Scoop.co.nz
• Image: Facebook

It's hard to honestly face criticism, but it's the only way we can grow as human beings, since we are notoriously good at deceiving ourselves about our own competence and knowledge.

That is why I hope theists and atheists will consider shedding attitudes we might unknowingly possess that can hinder productive dialogue. Let's start with three bad attitudes people who believe in God sometimes exhibit.

• No rational person can be an atheist! Do you think we just came from monkeys or something?
• Atheists are immoral
• Failing to empathise with atheists

Read a fuller explanation of these three attitudes

A Greek Chi-Rho symbol can be found "hidden" on the inside of his left arm where the arm bends. The tattoo represents a time before Christianity was accepted and followers had to keep their faith a secret.

Tanksley believes many still hesitate to express their faith..

A knotted Celtic cross on his forearm pays homage to his faith and his Irish heritage. A black cross the size of a quarter can be found on his shoulder.

For Tanksley, the tattoos are an expression of his faith, an encouragement in times of trouble and act as a reminder that there's a higher power watching over him.

Tattoo artist and owner of Midnight Iguana Ron Hendon said faith-inspired tattoos make up a significant portion of his business. At least one person a week comes in asking for a faith tattoo, he said.

In addition to common Christian tattoos like crosses, doves and Bible verses, clients also have requested tribal looking crosses, images of Buddha, Bali images, the Hindu goddess Kali and Hindu symbols.

Hendon said he enjoys creating faith tattoos because they tend to be long lasting. Continue reading.

Source: Online Athens

Image: AJ Reynolds/Online Athens

The irony was lost on my friend.

The only funny thing he'd picked up on was that I could believe in God.

I get it. As a leftie, organic pasta, and free-the-gay-whale type, people tend to think I'm atheist.

At a stretch, I'm middle class enough to be a casual Buddhist who found enlightenment in Les Mills' Yoga room.

But in general, I get given the atheist sticker.

In reality, I like going to churches to sit in stained glass sunlit silence.

I have been christened, confirmed, and can recite the liturgy from page one to page eight of the service guide.

I grew up in a Christian house.

Well. What I mean is that my Mum's endless capacity to help others, combined with a firm belief in God, meant she was a significant figure in the local church.

And my Dad knew better than to stand in her way.

So my brother and I went to Sunday school and church weekly, until we were old enough to ask awkward questions. Continue reading.

Verity Johnson is a writer passionate about giving young people a voice. Educated in England and New Zealand, her work has been published in The New Zealand Herald, The Otago Daily Times, and Mizz magazine.

Source: TheWireless

Image: Verity Johnson

"It's always with you," he replied.

"I'm Catholic. Go to church whenever I can. When we were on tour in Italy I stopped into a church with a couple of the other boys and went to confession."

"I said I hadn't been to church for a long time and the priest said being Christian is not just about going to church, it's about having a relationship with God. That was really special and made me feel a bit better because it's hard when you're on tour."

"As I've gotten older in my faith, it's been about the gratitude, being thankful for what I have.

"When you travel around the world as we do, you quickly realise not everyone is as lucky as we are. You might be staying in a five-star hotel, but the poverty is just across the road. I really want to teach my kids to be grateful for all they have," says Mealamu.

Keven Mealamu is the third All Black to play more than 100 games for the national side. He is a father of two and illustrates children's books to raise money for the Starship hospital.

Source

• The New Zealand Herald
• Image: horiwood.files.wordpress.com

My fellow atheists have suggested, not always politely, that I'm not an atheist, that I'm not really praying, and that praying is not acceptable behavior for atheists. As politely as I can manage, I would like to defend myself on all three counts. Continue reading

I like the organ music, the art works and the parables. But the supernatural stuff moves me not a bit. What a miserable place it would be if all explanation ultimately reverted to supernatural belief. The truth and the search for truth are far more interesting than ghostly stories of how we came to be.

It's the human discovery of billions of galaxies, of black holes, dark matter, and the space-time continuum that fills me with awe and wonder.

Hocus-pocus creation stories can't compete with the beauty, the inspiration and the grandeur of the truth that life has evolved over hundreds of millions of years.

For some unfathomable reason religious people invariably want to push their beliefs on to others. The different religions have fought bloody and terrible wars and the religions have splintered, only to unleash holy horror among one another to prove one supernatural belief system superior to the other.

Sadly, the fighting and the terror continues and shows no sign of abating. We now have modern weapons wielded by medieval religious warriors immune to reason and untroubled by their own holy demise. Somehow they are convinced that blowing themselves up along with innocents advances their religious cause and assures eternal bliss. The greatest crimes have always been committed not by evil men doing wrong but by misguided good men believing they were doing right. Continue reading

Sources

• The New Zealand Herald
• Image: Kaitiakitanga

Rodney Hide is a former Member of Parliament and leader of the Act Party.

He said women have always had a special mission in the Church as "first witnesses" of Christ's Resurrection, and because they pass the faith on to their children and grandchildren.

"Faith is professed with the mouth and heart, with the word and love," the Pope told an estimated 50,000 pilgrims at his weekly audience in St Peter's Square.

Pope Francis said the fact that women were recorded as witnesses to the Resurrection is an argument in favour of the historical truth of the event.

"If it had been an invention, in the context of that time it would not have been linked to the testimony of women", since the Jewish law of period did not consider women or children as "reliable, credible witnesses".

"This tells us that God does not choose according to human criteria," the Pope said. "The first witnesses of the birth of Jesus are the shepherds, simple and humble people, and the first witnesses of the resurrection are women."

Pope Francis said Jesus' male apostles and disciples found it hard to believe in the risen Christ.

By contrast, the women "are driven by love and they know to accept this proclamation [of the resurrection] with faith", he said. "They believe and immediately transmit it; they do not keep it for themselves."

Marinella Perroni, a leading member of the Association of Italian Women Theologians, said the Pope's words were "very encouraging".

"Pope Francis is taking up, with a stronger emphasis, the teaching of previous popes about the role of women in the foundation of faith and the resurrection of Jesus," she told Reuters.

"The fact that the Pope acknowledges that the progressive removal of female figures from the tradition of the Resurrection...is due to human judgments, distant from those of God...introduces a decidedly new element compared to the previous papacy."

Sources:

Catholic News Service

Reuters

Rome Reports (video)

Image: CBC

He put a finger on my struggle.

Is it necessary to define the indefinable?

Is it important to name the un-nameable?

Can words ever do an adequate, or even half-hearted, job of capturing the essence; the vitality; the 'otherness' of God?

Do the rituals I participate in reveal God, or obscure the true nature of God? A bit of both, I suspect.

We are human. We get bored. We become impatient. We are creative. We like to add our own stamp. We can't resist the urge to revamp; to change. Perhaps, it is a well-intentioned desire to meet a perceived need in ourselves or in our communities. But what we can end up doing is so cluttering up our liturgies, and our prayers, and our sacred spaces, and our inner self, that we obfuscate the essence of God. Do we seek to be entertained or or educated or distracted? We like to explain things -perhaps over-explain - but "the who-ness of God dwells in inaccessibility." We focus on our self and not on the 'Other'. It becomes about what we feel and not whom we seek.

Consider the chasuble ….

An unadorned piece of finely woven fabric, cut well, will drape sublimely on a presider. With arms outstretched in prayer and praise, the cruciform shape is an immediate reminder of Christ. We are drawn into the mystery - simply, silently becckoned into LOVE.

But we cannot resist the temptation to decorate; to ornament; to embellish; to proselytise; to put a bit of ourselves onto it and into it. So our senses, and therefore our minds and our hearts, are distracted. We consider the workmanship; the design; the symbolism … and forget to whom it points.

On the other hand …

I was privileged to accompany a small, inter-generational family as they experienced for the first time the sacrament of reconciliation, or celebrated it again after a long absence. This was an intimate encounter: a palpable mix of silence, prayer, anxiety, joy, hugs and smiles, thanksgiving. Stripped of formulaic responses and self-consciousness, all we could see and feel was the loving embrace of a 'God-beyond-all-expectations'. A deep inner peace reigned. The experience sustains me still - twenty years later.

I yearn for the simplicity of the disciples going out with nothing extra. I yearn for the silence present when Jesus went away to pray. I seek the essence of God. I catch a glimpse of it in shady forests and beside lakes. I encounter it briefly in my room at dawn. I seek it, too, during public worship. Sometimes, amid the cacophany of images and sounds, I fail to remain engaged, focused, attentive. But then LOVE cames and sits beside me … and I begin again.

Resources:

God Rid Me of God: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzv0TNcTw54

Joel Mckerrow: http://joelmckerrow.com/

Liz Pearce, mother of 3 adult children, loves story, dollmaking, writing and silence.

Stephen Dedalus
Class of Elements
Clongowes Wood College
Sallins
County Kildare
Ireland
Europe
The World
The Universe

Most of us will, no doubt, remember writing a similar extended address as children, following through the logic of this series of ever-larger locations. The last two entries in Dedalus's list are, obviously, redundant in any real address. Only an alien sending a postcard home from another universe would think to add them. We are all, in some loose sense, ‘citizens of the world', or at least its inhabitants.

And yet, as adults, we don't usually think about much outside our immediate surroundings. Typically, it is our nation that defines us geographically, and it is our family, friends, and acquaintances who dominate our social thinking. If we think about the universe, it is from an astronomical or from a religious perspective. We are locally focused, evolved from social apes who went about in small bands. The further away or less visible other people are, the harder it is to worry about them. Even when the television brings news of thousands starving in sub-Saharan Africa, what affects me deeply is the item about a single act of violence in a street nearby.

Life is bearable in part because we can so easily resist imagining the extent of suffering across the globe. And if we do think about it, for most of us that thinking is dispassionate and removed. That is how we as a species live. Perhaps it's why the collective noun for a group of apes is a ‘shrewdness'. Continue reading

Sources

• Aeon Magazine
• Image: Globalization and Autonomy