Carrying on in the same old way won't achieve this, he points out. But churches can be "sparring partners for those seeking meaning" or "midwives of hope" in a world filled with fear, he suggests.

Catholic without attending Mass

Zulehner sees a future where the usual worship gatherings in ageing parish communities won't be sufficient.

The Catholic Church is in the midst of a "turning point" he says. It's going from a church of priests to one of baptismal vocations.

He refers to an online survey which the Austrian Partners Initiative set up and conducted earlier this year.

Kathpress says Zulehner presented the study's first results in lectures in Vienna and Salzburg. He found in the "priestly church" the parish community centres on the priest, while in the "baptismal vocation church" it centres on the people of God.

Those who represent the former prove to be far more resistant to structural reforms.

The image of the Church has changed, he says.

The study pointed to strong agreement with the statement "You can be a good Christian even without Sunday Mass" - a blatant contradiction to the teachings of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

In the baptismal vocation Church, celebrations of the Word led by women and men were accepted enthusiastically he says. The celebration of the Eucharist was called into question as the "source and culmination of Christian life" according to the Vatican Council.

Get on with it, reinvent

Zulehner would like to see more honesty in the Church.

It is better to admit that the main motive for structural reforms is a lack of money than to conceal dwindling resources and to put forward religious reasons, he says.

As the Kathpress press agency reported on Tuesday this week, the Viennese theologian and sociologist of religion explained: "Then it will be easier to be honest about who decides and what priorities play a role in the decisions".

He also notes the Church is losing its political power, which harms people and society.

The Church must not "manage the downfall", but must "shape the transition". In this way, he opposed an "exhausting, even paralysing church depression".

Challenges like wars, the climate crisis, migration and "robotisation" are issues Churches should engage with from a political perspective, he suggests.

To achieve this, Zulehner says "convinced Christians" are needed.

Their role will be to go into municipal councils, the Council of Europe, and the UN and bring the Gospel into concrete politics.

"Churches are not party-political, but politically partisan" he says.

Source

• Katholisch.de
• Katholisch.de
• CathNews NZ

Meanwhile, other studies have shown that until about 2010, men were more likely than women to be politically active. Other than voting, men outstripped women in every aspect of political engagement, from volunteering for campaigns to running for office themselves.

Gen Z women

What if Generation Z is upending both of those old assumptions?

Born from the late 1990s to the early 2010s, Gen Z, also called "Zoomers," are now in their teens and 20s. And according to political scientist Melissa Deckman, they look quite different than previous generations did at this same age.

For one thing, these young women are more likely to drop out of religion than men are. Several different studies from the last two years have pointed to the same surprising conclusion:

After decades of men leading the way in becoming "nones," or religiously unaffiliated, young women are now taking up that charge.

In PRRI's data, nonreligious Gen Z women outnumber nonreligious Gen Z men, 39 percent to 31 percent. in Barna's, it's 38 percent to 32 percent and in a study from the Survey Center on American Life, it's 39 percent to 34 percent.

Deckman, who is the CEO of PRRI and author of the new book "The Politics of Gen Z: How the Youngest Voters Will Shape Our Democracy" (Columbia University Press), says that in addition to the classic reasons why Gen Zers are dropping out of religion (e.g., that they stopped believing), there's a political element at work as well.

More than 60 percent of young adults who had left organized religion said they did so in part because of its poor treatment of LGBTQ individuals.

Perceiving a hostile church

"For a lot of Gen Z women, the current intermingling of religion and politics on the political right is very unappealing because they're more progressive on many issues, including support for LGBTQ rights and abortion rights," Deckman said.

"I think many young women see the church or organized religion as being — if not hostile, then certainly not supportive of their political values."

As these young women witness the GOP opposing abortion rights and LGBTQ rights, and then see how deeply tied that opposition is to conservative religion, "they're not nearly as inclined to want to go to church," Deckman explained.

So if the first sea change is that Gen Z women are leaving religion at higher rates than young men, the second is that they're not going quietly.

They're channeling their values into political action.

The degree to which they're doing this is new.

With the millennial generation, women first closed the gender gap in political engagement, achieving parity with men. With Gen Z, though, a reverse gender gap has appeared in which young women now surpass young men's political involvement.

Deckman's book explores which Gen Zers are more likely to be politically involved and why. The picture looks very different from the usual story that says churchgoing evangelicals are more likely to be politically active than nonbelievers.

"Historically, political scientists who look at the relationship between political engagement and church attendance have actually found a positive correlation," she said.

Religious people have long tended to be more politically active than nonreligious people, the theory being that people might be more likely to get involved in political campaigning or community organizing if they've already developed social networks and social skills at church.

Deckman says that hasn't been true for Gen Z women so far. The ones who remain involved in religion are actually less likely to be active in politics than the ones who have dropped out.

The catalysts

In this illustration from the book, we see on the right side of the red line which "ingredients" had an effect in catalysing young women into political action.

Some of these are no-brainers, like the fact that the most predictive ingredient is whether they were politically active in high school.

Other findings echo decades of political science research, like that kids from educated, higher-income families with solid partisan identities are more likely to be politically engaged than those raised without those backgrounds.

But church attendance? That's actually depressing political activism for this generation, especially for women.

Gen Z women have taken "a very abrupt move to the left" politically, Deckman said.

She cites a key Gallup study released earlier this month that shows Gen Z women as trending more liberal than young women have been in the past, particularly on issues like abortion, the environment, gun control and race relations.

It used to be just over a quarter of young women who considered themselves to be politically liberal; now it's 4 in 10, which is 15 points higher than for young men.

"Looking at trends, Gen Z women are very distinct," Deckman said. "They're distinct from Gen Z men, who are more ideologically moderate and diverse. But they're also distinct from older women in that they're openly embracing feminism."

• First published by RNS
• Jana Riess is a senior columnist at RNS and the author of many books, including "The Prayer Wheel" (Random House/Convergent, 2018) and "The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church" (Oxford University Press, 2019). She has a PhD in American religious history from Columbia University.

The unusual burial upset the parish priest, who distanced himself from the family's wishes because the burial did not correspond to the Catholic Christian ritual, Read more

Bloomfield defended limits on the size of faith-based gatherings.

Allowing churches to have larger gatherings was deemed to be too risky as the country moved out of lockdown, he said.

"I know many people, including those of faith, want to move as quickly as possible to increase the size of these gatherings.

I know how important it is for people to be able to practise their faith together," he told reporters.

Bloomfield said he believed New Zealanders understood the need for the limits, despite days of very low new COVID-19 cases.

He said health officials had generally received "fantastic support" from church organisations throughout lockdown and into alert level 2.

He said the specific issue of whether to raise the maximum number of people who can gather from a limit of 10 would be considered by Cabinet on Monday.

It won't specifically relate to religious gatherings.

"We're getting closer" to increase those numbers, with today's zero-result reinforcing that the country was on the 'right trajectory'", Bloomfield said.

The specific issue ignored.

In an open letter to the prime minister, cabinet and members of parliament over 75 major Christian Leaders of Denominations / Movements / Churches, across the spectrum of the church in New Zealand suggested churches are an essential service, as the spiritual health of a nation is just as important as physical health.

The letter noted most businesses, schools, restaurants, movie theatres, cafés and retail outlets have now been given the freedom to operate with the necessary restrictions and safety measures in place.

Bloomfield did not specifically address this question: "What's the reason alert level 2 allows more people to attend strip clubs than religious gatherings?" as a Stuff editorial writer put it.

Lack of Faith in Churches

The Stuff writer went on to say: "The answer does appear to be that the Government has more trust in the denizens of the clubs than in churchgoers to respect physical distancing and hygiene requirements."

Last week, when National MP Simon O'Connor asked Health Minister David Clark why the clubs were deemed safer to open.

The response was that people often church attended services not only to worship but to gather and intermingle.

Earlier the prime minister had said some of the feedback received indicated church communities were places for fellowship. "It is a place for a community to come together," she said.

"And if we were building rules, it is ultimately, we are trying to stop people, on large scales, interacting with one another closely, then that is where that fell into the same category."

"Quite so. But unless we've been sorely misinformed, certain sorts of mingling haven't been altogether unknown at strip clubs either," the editorial writer commented.

"The emphatic rules restricting public gatherings during level 4 and 3 needed to be enforced, and it remains true that the greater flexibilities of level 2 carry equally important rules of their own.

But there is something unedifying in the distinctions being drawn as if churchgoers - en masse - are simply incapable of modifying their behaviours."

Source

• rnz.co.nz
• thespinoff.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• newshub.co.nz
• thespinoff.co.nz
• https: scoop.co.nz
• nzcatholic.org
• Image: newshub.co.nz

The figures were quoted in the church's newsletter, The Proclaimer, in the main article titled "Pre-election homily reflection on economic justice."

"My sincere apologies, my statistics on poverty and VAT was based on Warden Narsey's study on Poverty in 2008 and therefore it is out of date," said Archbishop Peter Loy Chong on Facebook.

"VAT was reduced to 9 percent in 2016 and poverty according to United Stations Development Programme 2014 has declined, but remains a concern."

An article published in the Fiji Sun Online on October 12 says the Archbishop's statement contained "wildly inaccurate information."

And, "While an apology has since been issued, the record must be fully corrected."

Making use of information provided by the Office of the Attorney General, the writer states:

• Poverty is declining in Fiji
• The gap between the rich and the disadvantaged is decreasing
• Fiji's human development status is at a record high

The Attorney-General and Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, said: "It is unfortunate that the archbishop has chosen to make comments in perhaps areas that are not his expertise, using outdated figures."

The household income and expenditure survey, Sayed-Khaiyum said, was the only authoritative source that measured poverty statistics in Fiji which was available from 2013-2014.

Rural poverty in Fiji, he said, had decreased by 43 percent in 2008 to 2009 and 36.7 percent in 2013 to 2014.

Sayed-Khaiyum said urban poverty had also decreased by 28 percent in 2002 to 2003 and 19.8 percent in 2013 to 2014.

He said claims that tax reforms were benefitting the wealthy in Fiji were false.

Source

• fijisun.com.fj
• fijisun.com.fj
• fijitimes.com
• facebook.com
• Image: facebook.com

His words were directed at an Australian nun, Sister Patricia Fox, who was detained by immigration authorities last week.

"You nun, why don't you criticise your own government, the way (they) handled the refugees hungry and dying and turned them back to the open sea?

"Why don't you rant there?" Duterte said during a change-of-command ceremony of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

He has personally ordered an investigation into Fox's activities for "disorderly conduct" and "violation of sovereignty."

"I ordered her to be investigated, not deported at once, not arrested, but invite her to an investigation for a disorderly conduct," Duterte said.

"It was upon my orders, implemented by the BI (Bureau of Immigration), and I take full responsibility, legal or otherwise, for this incident."

The president said only Filipinos are entitled to criticize his administration.

He said he would personally order the arrest of Fox if she is caught attacking the government in demonstrations and protest rallies.

The 71-year-old superior of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion in the Philippines was arrested by six immigration officials on Monday last week and held for 24 hours.

She was accused of conducting illegal political activities in breach of her visa and of being an "undesirable alien".

Fox has denied the allegations and said pictures produced as evidence were actually taken of her during an international fact-finding mission into alleged abuses and displacement of indigenous people in Mindanao under the current military operation there.

Source

• ucanews.com
• theaustralian.com.au
• philstar.com
• Image: The Star/Miguel De Guzman

Bolger was interviewed by Guyon Espiner as part of the RNZ series The Ninth Floor in which Espiner conducts extended interviews with former New Zealand Prime Ministers.

"That was the value system that I grew up with. And what it is - I mean the Catholic church fails many times but - it teaches a very strong message of social justice," Bolger said.

"And if everyone was to follow the teachings of the church on social issues then we would have a much more socially just world than we have at the moment."

Bolger admits some of the decisions he had to make, such as benefits cuts, jarred and challenged his values.

"How do you balance what is necessary against where do you share the pain," he asked.

"You have to make those decisions with the best information you have and to the best of our judgement we made them."

"If you went over them some of them you would probably make them differently, but that is common in all walks of life."

Bolger said that what most people want is a sense that they are being listened to, and that their basic needs, such as housing and employment, are being provided for.

He said one of the great challenges of the measure of a society is,"How are we dealing with those less fortunate... those on the margins."

Bolger thought that, against this measure, New Zealand would received a mixed report.

You judge a society "on whether you are building more prisons to lock people up, or whether you are building more schools or centres of learning to educate them."

He said three strikes and you're out law is "absurdity beyond belief".

Source

• rnz.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: nzhistory.govt.nz

That activism builds on a grand history, from popes defying emperors and kings in the Middle Ages, to modern examples such as clergy in Poland joining the Catholic population in rising up against the Communist system, as well as the vast Catholic mobilization in the Philippines to overthrow the corrupt regime of Ferdinand Marcos.

In recent days, examples from around the world suggest that this tradition of political engagement is alive and well.

The Philippines and the war on drugs

The Filipino House of Representatives on March 10 approved a bill which, if endorsed by the Senate, would reimpose the death penalty for drug-related crimes, among others. Reinstating the death penalty was one of President Rodrigo Duterte's major campaign promises.

On Wednesday, several key Filipino lawmakers were expelled by the House leadership after voting against the restoration of the death penalty.

According to local reports, Duterte's "war on drugs" and extra-judicial killings have generated thousand of casualties since last July, and he's promised to execute "five or six" criminals per day once the death penalty is reintroduced.

If passed by the Senate and signed by the president, death will be carried out by hanging, firing squad or lethal injection for selling, trading and transporting drugs. Possessing drugs would lead to life imprisonment.

The Catholic bishops are having none of it, calling on the faithful to oppose the bill in any way possible. For instance, Bishop Joel Baylon of the Diocese of Legazpi called on the youth to take to social media.

"Use your capacity to post on social media against extra-judicial killings, the death penalty, and be online missionaries of God," Baylon said addressing them during the 8th Diocesan Youth Way of the Cross at Kawa-Kawa Hill in Ligao City, Albay on Saturday. Continue reading

Sources

• Crux article by Inés San Martín, an Argentinean journalist who covers the Vatican in Rome for Crux.
• Image: Pinoy News Today

"They're enquiring, they're confident to ask. At that age, I would never have asked a politician a question, certainly not in public," he said.

"They're watching the world. There was a question about the US elections. When we were that age, we wouldn't have paid any attention to what's happening in the US election."

"I just really enjoy talking with younger people because they're forward-looking and basically optimistic," English said.

"It's a good way to make sure you [as a government] are on track because you're trying to create a country where they feel they have a stake and they can get ahead."

The school's head boy, Liam Gilheamy-Black said he had a better understanding of how politics worked and what the deputy prime minister actually does.

"I learned there is a lot of different structures that go into politics and it's important there is a diverse group of people, that they're not all too similar."

Gilheamy-Black has no political aspirations - he wants to be a doctor - and he's leaning towards voting Labour. But he responded positively to hearing English's life story.

"I thought he would just talk a lot of politics, so I was quite happy that he talked about his experiences growing up.

"I think the boys typically think that what is 'right' is what the general population, what the majority chooses."

"But I think Bill English showed us that being an MP you can have your own voice and your own opinion and that doesn't necessarily have to be the majority's view."

English spoke about going to a catholic school and how a marist education gives the boys, in his opinion, a good set of values to start life with.

He told them about his upbringing in Southland, the fact he couldn't get a job with his English literature degree and how he fell into politics at 28 years old.

He mentioned his views on euthanasia and abortion and that sometimes political decisions aren't popular, but they're necessary.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• Image: facebook.com

St Luke's in Remuera has put up an Easter-themed cartoon which aims to show how Trump's views contradict the messages of Jesus Christ.

St Luke's minister Glynn Cardy said Christ would have been considered a "loser" by the Trumps of his day.

"To the Trumps of his day, and to those who see winners as having money and power, the Jesus of the Bible was a loser who associated with those rejected by society. And he died broke," Cardy said.

"Jesus had an alternative vision of reality, however.

"He was a person who sided with minorities and those who were most vulnerable, and it was this that got him killed."

Trump's comments about Muslims, Mexicans and women were offensive to Christianity, Cardy said.

"For those of us at St Luke's, the cross is about politics. Jesus was killed - violently, publicly and shamefully - because he spoke truth to power and confronted the leaders of his day about their treatment of the outcasts."

Watch interview with Glyn Cardy.

Listen to interview on RNZ

In a freewheeling conversation with reporters on his flight back from his recent visit to Mexico, Pope Francis was asked about Trump and some of his statements, such as vowing to build a wall between the United States and Mexico if he becomes president.

The Pope said, "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian."

Francis said in answer to a specific question about Trump's views, "This is not in the gospel."

Asked if American Catholics should vote for someone with Trump's views, Francis said:

"I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt."

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

He was speaking at the opening of a three day church conference on Rethinking the Household of God in Honiara, Solomon Islands.

Vunagi said corruption had left a paralysing impact on the ability of people to trust.

"In our country, the Solomon Islands, it is unfortunate that corruption has taken precedent over general orders, the normal administrative procedures and to say the least there are elements of corruption even in our political system so we do know how to trust."

Coupled with corruption, Vunagi lamented the ecological damages that was plaguing the Solomon Islands and challenged church leaders to exercise their duty to speak to the destructive impacts of irresponsible development practices and policies promoted by government.

During a working group session, church representatives identified a host of problems that beset the Solomon Islands political leadership.

Some of the problems they named were: self-centred individual interests, lack of transparency, nepotism, non-inclusive decision making processes and little regard or attention to the rule of law.

Church leaders and participants agreed that there was a 'crisis of leadership', and in particular a 'crisis of honesty' in the Solomon Islands.

Vunagi said, "Moral and ethical values that should guide us as a nation is no more."

"Churches are well placed to contribute substantially to Solomon Islands' socio-economic conditions. However, we need to have greater say in the types of economic empowerment programmes created for this end and therefore stand ready to assist in helping to create durable-solutions that affects the lives of our people."

The conference which was co-organised by the Anglican Church of Melanesia (ACOM) and the Pacific Conference of Churches ended on Wednesday June 4.

Source

• The Anglican Church of Melanesia
• PINA
• Image: The Anglican Church of Melanesia

Church spokeswoman Anne Williamson told the New Zealand Herald that Destiny had no intention of inserting itself into this year's election contest, despite its "Enough is Enough" march on Parliament in 2004 in protest against civil unions.

The new headquarters has been developed on a 3.1ha site of an old pillow factory in Druces Rd, Wiri, valued for rating purposes in 2011 for $7.65 million.

Destiny is not disclosing how much it cost to outfit the facilities which includes a school, early childhood centre, gym, recording studio and function rooms as well as an 864-seat auditorium called The Sanctuary.

The church asked each church to donate $1000 to supplement the proceeds from the sale of its previous base in Mt Wellington, valued at $4.9 million.

The complex boasts what is said to be New Zealand's biggest permanent LED wall, a 24-metre-wide screen.

Giant photographs of founders Bishop Brian Tamaki and his wife Hannah hang in several public spaces in between the various buildings.

In his main sermon, Tamaki warned his congregation to watch out for false prophets and to maintain regular church attendance so Destiny elders could help them to detect wolves in their midst in sheep's clothing.

Pastor Hannah Tamaki is the wife of Destiny Church's founder Bishop Brian Tamaki. She denies the complex is "a gated community" and calls it a "gift to the community".

"You don't have to be a [Destiny Church] member to come along to the events here," she says.
"You don't have to be a giving type to come along here. It's just part of what we want to give to our community."Watch interview

10 things you may not know about Destiny Church

Source

• New Zealand Herald
• 3 News
• New Zealand Herald
• Image: 3News