Many young people generously offer themselves for volunteer service and are actively involved in movements for social justice and care of the planet. This involves both personal sacrifice and personal satisfaction. There is a direct link between what we personally become and what we do to help others become. Our own existence is a gift Read more
“Character” is mainly about moral strength, or strength of will. It is more than just personality and social skills. Our becoming is a life-long partnership with God. God didn’t just bring the world into existence and then leave it to itself. Every moment of its existence depends on God just as much as its first Read more
The wonderful thing about our journey with God is that it always starts from where we are – not from where we should have been or could have been! Our experience of weakness and failure and of making wrong choices does not have to weigh us down. If we know how greatly we are loved Read more
Part of our becoming is the process of sexual differentiation. Sexual differentiation begins during our life in the womb, and continues during our formative years. Here too, we take seriously both our faith and the human sciences. When the parents of a new-born baby delight to tell you they have a baby boy or girl, Read more
When you were conceived, there were millions of sperm competing to fertilize a waiting ovum. One did so. Every other combination of sperm and ovum would have been a different person. The one moment in the whole history of the universe when any of them could have come into existence passed at that moment. They Read more
Searching for truth sometimes involves a bit of hard work. But it’s worth it. Superficial understanding leaves us vulnerable to other people’s spin – commercial spin, political spin, agenda-driven ideologies, etc. Scientists work hard to establish facts. They know we need to act on what is objectively true. Solving crimes, the judicial system, and research Read more
The emeritus bishop of Palmerston North, Peter Cullinane, has written a letter to senior secondary school students. Entitled It’s All About Becoming, Cullinane says the letter is aimed at closing the gap that often exists between Church language and people’s lived experience. He believes it is easier for young people to experience the wonder and Read more
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 Emeritus Bishop of Palmerston North, Peter Cullinane, was the keynote speaker at a gathering to mark International Workers Memorial Day. About 50 people gathered at Memorial Park in Palmerston North last week to remember those workers who have been killed whilst at work. Last year 47 people died at work in Aotearoa New Zealand; in 2013 Read more
The Emeritus Bishop of Palmerston North, New Zealand, in a letter to The London Tablet, says that there should be an overhaul of the English missal. Bishop Peter J Cullinane says critics describe the present translation as clunky, awkward and a too literal translation of the Latin original. However, Cullinane believes no purpose will be served Read more