Jogging our memories, I’m sure we can recall the liturgical branding for the new translation of the Mass. “New words, deeper meaning, same Mass.” Initially prepared to go with the flow, after a little while I found the cognitive dissonance became too apparent. What we got were old words with foreign meanings and a Mass Read more
The greatest pastoral challenge facing New Zealand today is to keep the distinction between what is essential and what is secondary. We risk substituting God with good things… Faith continually evolves. How we understand aspects of our faith today is different from a year ago or five or ten. We grow in insight (cf. Dei Read more
Four Kiwis who went to last year’s synod on the family have welcomed Pope Francis’s wide-ranging new apostolic exhortation on marriage and the family. In a statement released through the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference, Cardinal John Dew, Bishop Charles Drennan, Dr John Kleinsman and Sharon Cole spoke on Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love). Read more
The head of the Polish bishops’ conference has lumped New Zealand in with the German bishops in terms of contributions at last year’s synod on the family. Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki discussed the synod in a recent interview with EWTN Germany. The archbishop was asked about if there had been a “German-Polish” war at the synod. Read more
Summaries of family synod interventions by Bishop Charles Drennan and Cardinal John Dew were posted to the Polish bishops’ conference website last week, but were subsequently removed. Summaries of interventions by several dozen synod fathers were posted. This appeared to be in violation of rules at the synod. The Vatican is only releasing short summaries Read more
In his intervention at the synod on the family in Rome, Cardinal John Dew reinforced the message that when families are struggling, they need friends. In an interview with the Catholic News Service, Cardinal Dew said that during his intervention he quoted from a letter issued by the Oceania bishops in 1994. Cardinal Dew said Read more
Bishop Charles Drennan has called for theologians to engage with the science that says sexual orientation is neither a matter of choice nor of conditioning. In his intervention at the synod on the family in Rome last week, Bishop Drennan appealed for mercy for a particular category of people who feel rejection – persons with Read more
Bishop Charles Drennan of Palmerston North has acknowledged talk of factions at the synod on the family, but he has a different take on the supposed splits. In a blog post on the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference website, Bishop Drennan said there is a “marked air of openness” at the synod and no topics are Read more
The last time I protested was during university days. That’s, shall we say quite a while ago! But recently I have felt a stirring within me to bring my faith into the public forum in a visible way. There is a growing brittleness in our world. Russia’s bullying of Ukraine, atrocities in the Middle East, Read more