New Plymouth woman Alana Brough faces a $1000 fine with an additional $50 added every day if she doesn't remove a fruit and vegetable garden she planted in her berm.

But a senior lecturer at the University of Western Australia's school of agriculture and environment, Natasha Pauli, said research she had done over almost a decade showed improved community well-being was "an accidental consequence" of allowing "verge gardens" as they were called in Australia.

"So the research that we've looked at is predominantly around low growing vegetation. Read more

On Sunday morning, instead of attending their regular church service, the congregation shared breakfast of bacon sandwiches and coffee before being anointed with oil and the words from Matthew 10, "freely you have received, so freely give".

And with that, they left the building to serve the neighbourhood.

In an initiative called "Go! Sunday", vicar Tim Bustin sent out five groups to serve in different areas of Nelson, while the remaining church members stayed behind in a service of prayer for the city. Read more

A print era, that is.

Print edition will be missed

"I liked the NZ Catholic because I could catch up with current news about Catholic NZ ... seminarians, Vinnies, ordinations, school successes, photos and so on. They aren't in mainstream media" Mary told CathNews.

"I hope the new publication will cover the range of news."

"I loved the letters" said Veronica.

These points are backed up by former editor Pat McCarthy who regrets the loss of NZ Catholic.

NZ Catholic was the only consistent source of national news coverage for Catholics. It recorded events, issues, opinions and the highs and lows of Catholic life.

McCarthy is concerned that a potential news vacuum will encourage further fragmentation of the Church

He said NZ Catholic's quality was recognised by over 100 awards from its peers in the Australasian Catholic and interdenominational press.

Communication builds community

McCarthy told CathNews that his understanding of Catholic media's importance developed while he was managing editor.

He elaborated - "Communities come into existence through communication, and the Catholic Church needs Catholic media to hold it together."

David McLoughlin expressed concern. He is journalist who has worked in media for many years and is also a member of the Australasian Catholic Press Association.

He wrote to CathNews - "I find the diminishing and fragmentation of both Catholic and secular media of great concern.

"In a world of rapid change, I believe it is very important that as many people as possible have access to reliable, professional journalism to give them accurate and timely news and other information about what is happening locally, nationally and internationally.

"Professional, curated news can of course be found online, and there are many very good online news services including Catholic ones."

However, he told CathNews that he is worried that surveys in New Zealand and overseas indicate fewer and fewer people trust mainstream professional news services.

He finds it alarming that many people get their news from social media which he describes as "a fragmented, largely uncurated whirlpool".

"I don't think these are good developments" he said.

To allay this vacuum and social media "whirlpool" McCarthy wants to see an online national news service.

However, as well as a visionary he's also a realist.

"The institutional Church is unlikely to provide this in a time of general retrenchment. So it must be done independently - as with major Catholic media outlets in the United Kingdom, North America and Europe.

"Such a service will never pay its way. News is not a commodity but a public good, something essential for a community's life, and its value is not related to whether or not it makes a profit."

McCarthy says he has circulated a proposal for establishing such a service and that expressions of interest have come from around the country.

He notes however that major financial backing will be necessary.

Bishop Lowe upbeat

However the publisher of NZ Catholic, Bishop Steve Lowe, is upbeat about the possibility of the new digital format.

He says the first edition could be expected before the end of the year.

"We intend developing a new monthly digital publication with enhanced use of video" he says.

"This will allow us to continue to share news, comment and reflections to inform, record and inspire our community in the Diocese of Auckland and beyond.

"This role will focus initially on producing videos that include prayer, homilies, event highlights, appeals, teaching, explaining and helping to encourage a healthy dialogue [that] our world so desperately needs."

Farewell and thank you

"At this time, it is right to give thanks for the work of the NZ Catholic staff, past and present" says Lowe.

"They have been amazing.

"They have told the stories of our Church and society. They have published the joys and the sorrows of people's lives.

"They have sincerely used the written word to point to Jesus Christ the Word.

"Thank you also to the contributors from across the country and the promoters in parishes.

"Your stories of people and communities will remain a treasure of the Church's history in New Zealand."

Possible printed version

NZ Catholic understands that people who cannot access the free digital content will be able to receive a printed version of the new digital NZ Catholic.

There is no mention of the cost.

Source

• NZ Catholic
• Interviews

Hana Makin, a lead member of the garden's management team, remains optimistic about the garden's role in the community.

"This hasn't changed the fact that we have this beautiful space and great people who keep it going," she stated.

Makin encouraged the thieves to return the stolen items, including wheelbarrows, a lawnmower, and gardening tools, no questions asked.

The garden continues to serve as a hub for community bonding and learning. It contributes produce to local food initiatives, fostering a spirit of sharing and resilience in Featherston.

With an open invitation for community involvement and ongoing police investigations, there remains hope that the garden will recover and continue to be a beacon of community spirit and cooperation in Featherston.

Source

• Wairarapa Times-Age

I have spent three weeks at the South Pole Station with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, which is looking to detect tiny particles called neutrinos which come from cosmic events in deep space and help us learn more about our universe!

The South Pole Station is like a larger International Space Station.

There are only about 150 people here in a single, two-story building, which means you can get to know pretty much everyone and form an awesome community.

The downside is that there is less infrastructure, such as organised religious gatherings.

Holidays like Christmas and Hanukkah are celebrated with fancy dinners from the galley staff, but there aren't religious services, unless you organize them yourself.

McMurdo Station, on the other hand, is more like a small town.

Located on the Ross Sea, McMurdo, or "Mactown", is the largest of the U.S. stations and hosts up to 1,000 people during the summer months.

McMurdo Station boasts more "real-world" amenities like a coffee house, recreation department, multiple bars, and even a chapel.

I got to spend about 10 days in McMurdo Station on my way to and from the South Pole and experience the religious offerings of the station.

On my first trip through McMurdo, I was first struck by the beauty of the continent, and the second was how every high point on station was designated with a cross.

Each cross was a memorial to those who had died on the continent.

The crosses were sobering reminders of the extreme conditions people have and still face here and how lucky I am to be here.

But they were also comforting reminders of faith as I adjusted to my new life for the next month, thousands of miles away from home and anything familiar.

Even from town, I can see the silhouette of crosses against the constantly lit sky and know that someone is looking out for me.

My absolute favourite place on Station is the Mary Shrine on the Hut Point Ridge Trail, affectionately nicknamed "Rollcage Mary" due to the roll cage that attempts to protect her from the harsh winds and weather that unexpectedly sweep across the peninsula she sits on.

It was a beautiful place to chat and pray with my heavenly friends.

One night, I felt overwhelmed and needed to escape the bustling McMurdo Station and my cramped isolation quarters.

I walked up to Mary and just sat in her shelter, cocooned in my parka, watching the skuas float on the windy air streams.

The very first place I went after arriving at the station was the Chapel of the Snows.

It sits prominently at the end of the road overlooking the Ross Sea, with the Royal Society Mountain Range peeking behind on a clear day.

You can't miss it.

Anyone going to or from the dorms, galley, or science lab pass by the unique white and blue building.

The current Chapel of the Snows was dedicated in 1989 after the previous building burnt down.

It is a non-denominational building that serves as a gathering and worship space for all residents of McMurdo Station, as well as the nearby New Zealand Scott Base.

My favourite part of the chapel is the stained-glass window, which features the continent's outline, a chalice, bread, and a penguin!

There are also two cute painted penguins saying goodbye as you exit.

There are chairs, cushions, and lots of books for use by all faith groups residing on station.

Each summer season, the religious communities of McMurdo Station are supported by chaplains provided by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. National Air Guard, or the Diocese of Christchurch, New Zealand.

Usually, the chaplains work out of the Chapel of the Snows, but we had a rare visit from Chaplain Donny Chamberlin when I was at the South Pole Station.

It was amazing to connect and talk faith over a meal, who was passionate about connecting with people.

Each week, residents of McMurdo Station will organize religious gatherings.

There's Shabbat on Friday nights, an interfaith worship service on Sunday mornings, followed by a Catholic service afterwards.

I got to spend one Sunday on station and I was thrilled to attend service.

There were about ten of us gathered, including two volunteers who led us in a lay service since there was not currently a priest on station.

We said the prayers, read the readings and even had a communion service with hosts consecrated by a visiting priest from earlier this season.

Mass has always been a tricky part of my Catholic faith.

It was one of the things I was forced to do as a kid growing up, and it's the main thing other Catholics will tell you you have to do to be a "good Catholic."

Mass often feels mundane, boring, and disconnected from my spirituality, and the parish community tends to drive my will to attend each Sunday.

However, this time, it was AMAZING to reconnect with something so familiar in a faraway place and unfamiliar in every way.

Ten strangers became an instant community in our shared bond of faith.

Staring past the stained-glass window to the Royal Society Mountains behind the Ross Sea, I felt full of peace; I felt at home on this distant continent.

It was definitely one of the most meaningful services of my life and I was grateful for the experience.

• Elaine Krebs is a Roman Catholic Christian currently living in Los Angeles. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a Master's Degree in Marine and Environmental Biology, and now works as both a science teacher at a local museum, as well as Confirmation Coordinator at her local parish. Elaine was first introduced to interfaith work as a member of USC's Interfaith Council, and continues to be involved, especially surrounding the intersection of science and religion. She also enjoys studying and experiencing diversity within religions, especially the different rites within Catholicism.
• First published in Interfaith America.

Then those players started tuning their instruments; the concert hall filled with discordant noise.

My granddaughter thought this was the first item.

The pain on her face was relieved when I explained what was happening.

We both settle back in our seats, and I thought we had just created an interesting parable.

We are all sacred instruments.

Each of us needs God's tuning so that we can be together in harmony.

What instruments were we in our parable?

Thoughts roamed through favourite instruments that reminded us of people we knew and we decided that an instrument on its own was inadequate. It needed company.

The richest sound came from a full orchestra well-trained and well-tuned. The music that held it together, celebrated all instruments.

And the conductor?

In my parable, it was Jesus.

It always is Jesus the Word made flesh.

That thought brought me back to the Gospel of Matthew and the words "Jesus spoke all things in parables…"

The NZSO had brought a meaningful parable about the work that goes into the harmony of the community.

How do I value each individual?

How do I regard my need for personal tuning?

I think of the gifts in my Parish, sacred instruments of different shapes and sounds, who come together in the oneness of Faith.

I name the string instruments, the mellow wind instruments, and the lively percussion groups, and offer a prayer of gratitude for the way we come together in the music of the Mass.

But what about a prayer of thanks for all the other parables in our lives?

Doesn't Jesus' example encourage us to find parables in God's creation?

A tree may look dead in Winter. Yet winter is preparation for the season of greatest growth.

How do we see that in our lives?

The wind blows across the sea. The shallow water is disturbed but out in the deep, only the surface is ruffled.

How do the winds of change affect my Faith?

The horizon appears to be a straight line with nothing beyond it. So it seems, does death.

Is death a limitation of vision? Is death actually about restored sight beyond death?

That brings me back to the orchestra. The concert is over. The instruments are silent, packed for another time and venue.

That reminds me that all music comes out of silence.

So it is with prayer.

Let us follow Jesus' example, and find our own parables in God's creation They are usually exactly what we need for the moment.

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

In so many ways, it has replaced the pub as a meeting place, a stop-off point for anyone and everyone to pause a while over a hot coffee, to read or have a chat.

Across the world, café names have become an integral part of the High Street, an international brand that is immediately recognized.

The café has become commonplace, each with its own character, furnishings and specialities.

Even though they are not quiet places, maybe, in fact, because of it, they do provide a comfort zone where words arrive and stories develop.

Often an overheard phrase finds its way into something I am writing, sparks a movement, and stimulates an idea, only to re-emerge in a poem or article phrase sometime later.

I always carry with me a book to read and a notebook for writing, for they are part of what I do when I find a comfortable seat and order a cappuccino.

I have met a good many and varied people in the café, a passing nod of ten minutes conversation, unlikely to be repeated again, but informative and enjoyable while it lasted, some help on the way.

The staff who serve become familiar faces and, with frequent visits, have remembered names.

The history of the café goes back hundreds of years.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the café was a well-established, cosmopolitan meeting place, not only for social exchange but as a place where business might be conducted.

The world-renowned London Stock Exchange started trading in Jonathan's Coffee House in 1698 in the City. Other well-known establishments, such as Christies and Sotheby's, developed from the café gathering of interested merchants and businessmen.

It is not uncommon nowadays for laptops to be set open on tables, with a tapping of keys heard between sips of coffee and the person using it to be illuminated by the screen.

Apart from the convivial meeting place after the school run or an alcohol-free zone for a relaxing chat, they can also be places for serious exchange, for stories to be told and a time of careful listening.

"Meet me for a coffee sometime soon" can be another way of saying, "I have something to say, will you listen with me?"

Nourished by the Eucharist

Those churches that have a parish hall where groups can gather after sharing the Eucharist are indeed fortunate.

It raises the question as to whether or not community arises from Eucharistic sharing or does our Eucharist spring from the gathering we often call parish.

Either way, humans are gathering creatures, anxious to share in so many ways.

It is natural for us to share with each other and, along with company, to eat and drink together. It's what we do.

So our journey goes on day by day, nourished by the Eucharist, our presence helps others with their problems and difficulties.

Look around at the other tables the next time you are in a café; watch the expressions on the faces of those who sit and drink and talk, who stretch out a gentle hand in comfort to a friend.

Friendship is about both laughing and crying together, sharing the load.

I have just received a new collection of poems by the young Irish poet, Kerrie O'Brien. One of them, entitled "Hemingway" concludes with these lines:

How could he be so close
And I not know it
The worst time to search
Whiteout, blizzard sleet
I hadn't eaten
The hunger raw and persisting
But he led me
And right where he lived
A café
Rose star
In the wilderness
Warm jewel
Run by an American woman
Big hearted
Who took me in
And gave me a muffin
Flooded with raspberry
Bloodsweet, glittering, hot.
It then came
A thudding chant
Be still, still
In the howling
Have faith
Just a little longer

Maybe her last two lines — Have faith, Just a little longer — form the core of the Epiphany we live when sharing the Eucharist, nattering in the parish hall or being with strangers in the café.

It is the daily expression of our being Christian.

• Chris McDonnell is from England and is a regular contributor to La Croix International.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

This process of making changes in our lives, having a new outlook, repenting, converting, turning over a new leaf — all render the command, metanoeite — that we find at the beginning of the mission of Jesus as it is presented in Mark's gospel (1:15): "Repent (metanoeite) and believe in the good news."

Renewing our language

Renewal can take many forms: fasting, prayer, and alms-giving. These are the three classic Lenten practices.

But renewal can also take the form of becoming less sloppy with our language.

Language, as we use it in our everyday conversation, is usually imprecise. We use words without thinking about whether or not we are being true to what we mean or just using familiar short-hands.

Moreover, a word I associate with one meaning can convey a very different impression in the mind of the one listening to me.

Therefore, being careful with our language is a type of ascetic practice that can be an important part of our Lenten renewal.

But do we need to do this?

Surely most of the words we use, even within Christian discourse, are clear and unambiguous!

But it is a simple fact that words often become tired!

What might be a life-giving word that communicates the mystery in one age, is just religious jargon in another.

I suggest we just think about these two words: "Christ" and "Church".

"Christ"

For many people, this is just a name or a surname! It answers the question "who is the central figure in Christianity?"

So we say: "in Christ's time" or "as Christ said" or "Christ is".

But the name of One whom Christians look to as their Lord is Jesus. His name was Jesus and he came from Nazareth.

So let us call Lord by his name when we want to name him: Jesus. Jesus is the name of the saviour "for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

What we declare to be the heart of our belief is that Jesus is the Christ - the anointed of the Father. The Christ, Jesus, is the one who presents us to the Father.

"The Christ" along with "the Lord" are the fundamental titles we give to Jesus.

The sloppiness of using "Jesus Christ" as the equivalent to "John Smith" results in our forgetting that when we want to refer to a historical individual, a rabbi from Nazareth, we should use his historical name.

But when we want to confess and relate to him as our hope and the one who presents us to the Father, then we should make our confession that he is, for us who are baptized, the Christ/the Anointed One/the Messiah.

At Eastertime the lectionary presents us with a continuous reading of the Acts of the Apostles, so let us note this "ideal sermon" that Luke — the author of Acts — places on the lips of Peter.

This is the first sermon preached on the day of Pentecost and its conclusion is worth quoting:

Therefore let all the house of Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ' (Acts 2:36).

"Church"

The word means an assembly of people, a gathering, a group with a common identity.

But as we often use it, it means a building, an organization, or a shorthand for an ideology.

Well, surely, only those outside would confuse the community of the baptized - either in one place or the whole oikoumene - with a building!

Here is a little test.

Watch and listen for all the uses of the word "church" you hear or read between now and Easter.

How many times will it be for a building?

"The Easter ceremonies will not take place in this church but only take place in the parish church this year," said a message on a notice board I saw yesterday.

How many times will it be used as an abstraction? For instance, "we must guard the separation of Church and state".

How many times will it be used for the structures that minister to the churches? "The Church should speak out clearly," we might say when, in fact, we mean the pope or a bishop should speak out.

Watching our language

I recall the number of times I was told as a child, "Watch your language!"

It was far more profound advice than I realized because sloppy language is often a sign of sloppy thinking.

Sloppy thinking in matters of faith can be a betrayal of the good news.

If we all are careful in how we use these two words — Christ and Church — we might find that we have helped people deepen their understanding and overcome their denominational fears - if they are already Christians.

And we might discover that we have helped those who are not Christians get a better insight into what Christians actually believe.

• Thomas O'Loughlin is a presbyter of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton and professor-emeritus of historical theology at the University of Nottingham (UK). His latest book is Eating Together, Becoming One: Taking Up Pope Francis's Call to Theologians (Liturgical Press, 2019).

We've learnt that we need to think about "the team of five million" and what is good for us all, and not just for each of us as individuals.

But we've also had times when we've been isolated in our homes.

Many people have felt cut off from family and friends because they haven't been able to travel.

Others have wanted to swim against the tide.

The early Christians had a very strong sense of community.

They seem to have been able to bridge significant ethnic and social divides, and often formed resilient and cohesive groups.

How did they sustain this strong sense of community? What might we learn from them about community in these difficult days?

The early Christians met in each other's homes in small groups of perhaps 10-15 people.

They didn't own buildings for about 200 years, so the home was the primary focus for their gatherings.

Their meetings involved regular meals together.

In the culture of the first century, eating together created a strong bond of belonging and of being a close family, even if there was no biological connection between many members. And so they called each other "brothers and sisters", seeing themselves as strongly connected to each other.

They also saw their community as a body, with many different parts.

The apostle Paul applied the idea of a group as a body (an idea that had been applied by others to "the body politic"), to the group of believers.

It emphasised that, although everyone was different, each person was important.

Paul asked: "If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?

If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?"

Each person was different — but all were part of the one body. Everyone was valued. No matter how insignificant they seemed, the body metaphor emphasised that everyone mattered.

All belonged together.

Because all belonged together, they used the language of "we" and "us", and not of "I" and "me".

The early Christians also believed that God had given each of them a gift or an ability and these gifts were to be shared with everyone else.

The gifts varied from wisdom and teaching to service and encouragement. "To each one," God gave a gift, meaning that each had a contribution to make.

No-one was a passenger; all contributed to the welfare and life of the group.

This involved a re-evaluation of what was important.

"Service" and "caring" were regarded as just as important as up-front leadership roles.

They also saw themselves as servants of one another.

The apostle Paul saw himself as a servant or slave of others — by his own choice.

He urged other believers to "do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others" (Philippians 2:3-4).

In doing so, he urged them to follow the example of Jesus, whom Paul regarded as the greatest servant of all.

Through love, they were to become servants to each other (Galatians 5:13).

They were to bear each other's burdens, to weep with those who wept and to rejoice with those who rejoiced. Their care extended to strangers too.

They sought to do good to all.

These groups meeting in someone's lounge also bridged huge ethnic divides.

The early Christians believed that through what Jesus had done for them, Jew and non-Jew alike were now equal and part of the group on exactly the same terms.

They acted this out in eating together, and caring for each other, despite all the social forces that separated them into disparate ethnic factions.

At the heart of their community was their strong sense of belief.

Because they jointly believed in what God had done in Jesus' life, death and resurrection, through which God had created a new reality, they had a shared faith, shared practices and a shared set of values.

The early Christians were small groups and were often given a hard time by others. But in these communities, ethnic and social barriers were being broken down, leading to an inclusive and welcoming community with an outward focus.

The strength of their beliefs, the resilience and values of their corporate life, and the quality of their care for each other got them through decades and decades of challenges and difficulties.

What can we learn from their experience?

They offer some challenges to our way of thinking about community.

An emphasis on "we" and "us", and not on "I" and "me", means we need to think of each other and not just of ourselves.

Thinking of everyone belonging together as a corporate body where we are mutually servants one of another, sharing each other's burdens, means we need to think of responsibilities and not just of rights.

Such lessons are especially apposite as we face the challenge of keeping our community safe during the Covid pandemic.

• Paul Trebilco is professor of New Testament studies in the theology programme at the University of Otago.
• First published in the ODT. Republished with permission.

Rather, we should all be looking for ways to help them experience "the new normal."

That's the argument from Springtide Research Institute, which surveyed 2,500 members of Generation Z (ages 13 to 25) in February 2021 about their experiences of, and attitudes about, the pandemic.

It's not going to be easy for young people to merely pick up where they left off, said Josh Packard, Springtide's executive director.

"There's just a whole lot of things that they missed," he said.

"They're not getting back to some sort of normality. And they need help processing that, to make sense of it and understanding their lives now."

The first step in helping them process is just to catalogue it all unflinchingly: Graduations. Proms. Summer camps. Athletic competitions. Dates. College orientations. Religious youth group retreats. School concerts. First jobs.

The list goes on and on.

And that's to say nothing of the fact many young Americans count loved ones among the nearly 600,000 U.S. citizens who have died so far in the pandemic.

Part of what religion can do is help young people grieve these lost milestones and relationships. "We have lots of really great and rich rituals and traditions that can and should be employed here to help young people,"

Packard said. Religious leaders can draw upon those rituals to help teens and young adults name and mourn their losses.

For example, they might have youth write down their missed milestones, talk about their feelings and then burn the papers to ash.

But here's a problem: Nine out of 10 young people say they didn't hear from a religious leader during the pandemic.

"We were hearing lots of news stories about religious leaders scrambling to put services online. And at the same time, we're hearing from young people that nobody was really checking in on them, especially religious leaders."

• Only 10% of the young people surveyed said a clergy member had checked in to see how they were doing.
• And only 14% reported turning to a faith community when they felt overwhelmed and didn't know what to do.

On the other hand, faith communities scored higher than other institutions in how young people thought they handled the pandemic.

The study found 50% agreed their faith community had done "a great job navigating the pandemic" — which was higher than the report card they gave to the government.

In fact, two-thirds (65%) said the government did not do its best to protect people during the pandemic. And more than half (57%) said they're going to have a harder time trusting others, even their own family and friends, after seeing how they handled the pandemic.

Packard was intrigued that half of young people thought their faith communities had done well managing the COVID pandemic even though 90% reported receiving no personal contact from clergy.

He was also heartened by the study's finding that young people's personal faith more or less held steady despite all the upheaval.

Roughly half (47%) said their faith stayed about the same in the crisis, just over a quarter (26%) that it had grown stronger, and just over a quarter (27%) that they were doubting or had lost their faith.

The Springtide report identifies eight areas to care for Generation Z, including the advice above to help them grieve.

Packard said the data showed not all young people are impatient to go back out into society; remember, it's been a year not just of pandemic uncertainty but also racial protests and a dangerously divided electorate. It has all taken a toll.

"I think coming out of the pandemic, religious leaders and trusted adults would do well to remember that it's going to be stressful coming out just as it was going in," Packard said. "Lots of people told us they were uneasy about coming out of the pandemic, that they felt like they might be asked to be in groups quicker than they were ready to be in."

But here's a silver lining.

Nearly 7 in 10 young people surveyed said they have a new appreciation for relationships, and they "won't take for granted relationships and opportunities the way they did before."

• Jana Riess is a senior columnist at RNS. She has a PhD in American religious history from Columbia University.
• First published in RNS. Republished with permssion.

The past 50 years in the West saw a celebration of unfettered freedom. Citizens on both sides of the Atlantic were encouraged to liberate themselves from the relational constraints of family, history and even nature.

Now Covid-19 has highlighted our mutual dependence on one another and a desire for community.

President Joe Biden is now deploying unprecedented fiscal resources to repair the damage wrought by four decades of market fundamentalism.

First the $1.9tn American Rescue Plan to kickstart the economic recovery from the pandemic. This is to be followed by an enormous programme of investment aimed at infrastructure, research, net carbon zero, childcare, education and health.

Whereas Ronald Reagan in the 1980s saw government as the source of political and social problems, Biden considers it as the solution to them.

It is unclear, however, whether this new age of state activism will address the human need for community and belonging.

If national leaders want to strengthen their country's structural resilience, they need to ensure these transformational policies empower local leaders and civic institutions to revitalise their communities.

A politics that strengthens belonging can reverse the excesses of individualism without succumbing to the errors of authoritarianism.

Since at least the 1980s, citizens in the North Atlantic world believed a myth that individual autonomy, global markets, digital connections and higher incomes would secure individual happiness and aggregate wellbeing.

But the opposite has occurred.

In his New York Times op-ed in November 2020, Pope Francis put this well: "The pandemic has exposed the paradox that while we are more connected, we are also more divided. Feverish consumerism breaks the bonds of belonging."

According to the US sociologist Robert Putnam, civic-minded generations that survived the Second World War were replaced by generations that were "less embedded in community life".

In 2017, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, an expert on the long-term health effects of social connection, testified before the US Senate: "There is robust evidence that lacking social connection significantly increases risk for premature mortality, and the magnitude of the risk exceeds many leading health indicators.

"Social isolation influences a significant portion of the US adult population and there is evidence the prevalence rates are increasing. Indeed, many nations around the world now suggest we are facing a ‘loneliness epidemic'."

The chief promoters of market fundamentalism such as the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek and the US economist Milton Friedman advanced policies that weakened anti-trust law, unleashed monopoly powers and centralised wealth in metropolises - the symbols of individualistic ambition.

The rural towns and smaller cities that were forgotten about became the electoral redoubts for right-wing populist parties, such as Rassemblement National in France or the Republican Party under Donald Trump in the US.

Building on the body of liberal political thought by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and John Stuart Mill, market fundamentalists reduced humans to "homo economicus", a rational, selfish animal in search of happiness in the pleasures of cheap consumer goods and wealth accumulation.

In his work The Master and His Emissary (2009), psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist argues that this reductive view of human beings has led to a "decreasing stability and interconnectedness" and the "destruction of local cultures" across the West.

"Homo economicus" is not only theoretically questionable but empirically flawed.

In 2001, a global study led by evolutionary biologist Joseph Heinrich and economist Herbert Gintis evaluated human behaviour across five continents, 12 countries and 17 different types of societies. It comprehensively disproved the theory of the utility maximising individual.

Humans value fairness and reciprocity just as much as they do their own self-interest.

Yet many of our national and international institutions function on outdated neoliberal models.

Without reform, our economic systems will continue to consolidate power into the hands of the tech monopolies, designed to maximise our selfish traits at the expense of mutual flourishing.

Local communities will continue to lose their main streets and the lifeblood of local employment. Workers will continue to get squeezed out by labour markets with fewer employers.

These results are a recipe for angry, disaffected voters frustrated with the endless failures of democracies to produce better lives.

Covid-19 provides an opportunity to rediscover our natural need for belonging.

Protective isolation and the closing of borders have thrown us back onto family and neighbourhood, community and country.

In 1943, the French philosopher Simone Weil wrote in her Draft for A Statement of Human Obligations, "The human soul needs above all to be rooted in several natural environments and to make contact to the universe through them."

For Weil, tracing a social philosophy back to Aristotle, this included "the real, active and natural participation in the life of the community which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures of the past and certain particular expectations for the future".

To remove people from place and community is to destroy the very soil of their humanity. Continue reading

• Adrian Pabst is a New Statesman contributing writer.
• Ron Ivey is a fellow at the Centre for Public Impact.

As Chicago entered a strict lockdown in March 2020, young members of the community helped the parish transition to broadcasting its liturgies and some of its weekly offerings, like Bible studies, on Zoom.

One young man even visited the home of an elderly parishioner to help her connect to the parish's livestream.

When the pastor of the historically Black Catholic church, the Rev. David Jones, saw how the Zoom liturgies and Bible studies were helping older members of the community overcome their isolation, he challenged the parish team to come up with online programming for every day of the week.

"The beauty that I witnessed was the community that was formed," said Father Jones.

Around 20 people, or 10 percent of the parish's virtual Sunday Massgoers, tune in every day at noon for discussion groups or weekly to pray the rosary.

They also have special events like highlighting of local entrepreneurs, holding Bible studies, a speaker series or a hush harbour, a service featuring spirituals and speeches that dates to slave gatherings in antebellum America.

The daily Zoom group is made up of parishioners who were not well acquainted before the pandemic, but who have become close thanks to daily conversations.

Now, when one person is unable to call in by Zoom, as happened recently when a member was sick, the group works together to make sure the missing member is all right.

"They've gone from not knowing each other's names to knowing each other's medical histories," Father Jones joked.

The parish, like many I contacted for this article, has not seen a significant decrease in Sunday attendance since switching to online liturgies.

In fact, at St. Benedict, some Massgoers who previously attended occasionally now attend online every Sunday, Father Jones said.

The parish also sees new possibilities in using online connections not just for evangelization but for fostering greater involvement of young people, stabilizing parish finances with online giving and creating accessible communities for isolated parishioners.

In dioceses where the coronavirus pandemic forced the suspension of in-person Masses, live-streamed Masses became the de facto replacement for many parishes.

Although no comprehensive data exists on the number of churches that have adopted live streaming, Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate found that almost nine in every 10 dioceses in the United States have helped their churches set up online giving during the pandemic.

This could indicate that churches understand the need to reach out virtually now—both in terms of donations and community-building to keep their doors open in the future.

And Catholics are seeking out spiritual resources.

Google search traffic for "Catholic Mass live stream" and similar terms skyrocketed in mid-March 2020, reaching a peak last Easter.

In Italy, Pope Francis' televised daily Masses reached a million viewers on cable TV.

In the early days of the pandemic, the widespread embrace of streaming liturgies led theologians to publicly debate a number of questions.

Among them were:

• Do live-streamed Masses really allow for the active participation of the laity?
• Does filming Masses hurt decorum?
• Is it clericalist for only priests to be receiving Communion during the pandemic?
• Considering the shortcomings, should we be livestreaming Masses at all?

These were and still are questions worth asking, but one year later, the vast majority of more than 70 Catholics I spoke with by phone, email and social media agreed that they had benefited from the experience of worshiping through a livestream Mass—and hoped to continue to do so.

In particular, individuals who are homebound, have a disability or are immunocompromised, along with their families, expressed gratitude for the services.

Most people I spoke to expressed a deep desire to return to in-person Mass but hoped that online offerings would continue indefinitely for those who are unable to attend even in normal times.

Others found solace in watching live-streamed liturgies from parishes around the country or from organizing their own liturgies of the word in their homes or online.

These Catholics' stories of resilience are a testament to what Archbishop Arthur Roche, secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship, told me in a podcast interview during Holy Week last year.

When I asked what he had learned about worship during the pandemic, he said, "Our Catholics are as creative as our priests are, and they won't let this time pass without celebrating what is the certainty of their faith."

Talking Tech

Early in the pandemic, in those last weeks of March 2020, the parish Livestream landscape was fairly barren.

A handful of tech-savvy priests set up Facebook Live broadcasts, but most parishes went dark, assuming the suspension on public Masses would soon be lifted.

As Easter drew closer, more and more churches hurried to implement Livestream Mass in time for the most important day of the church year.

Many of those parishes ran into two main challenges: the cost of the equipment required for live streaming and a lack of technical expertise.

Nicole Bazis, director of parish services at St. Margaret of Antioch Parish in Narberth, Pa., said her parish was lucky to have adequate funding and a young staff member to help with the parish's new online Masses.

Nearby parishes, she said, had not been so lucky.

Some set up GoFundMe pages to raise money for live streaming equipment.

At wealthier parishes, the transition was seamless, according to those with whom I spoke.

But parishes operating on shoestring budgets exacerbated by the pandemic—many of whom could not afford to extend the range of internet coverage in order to reach their church buildings, much less purchase cameras or broadcasting equipment—settled for streaming private Masses from the rectory on the priest's smartphone.

Financial issues aside, many parishes struggled to find someone who could run their livestream.

Bill Trentel, a parishioner at St. Clement and St. James Parishes in Lakewood, Ohio, learned quickly how to set up a Livestream with almost no previous experience.

Each Sunday, he alternates between the two parishes, which share a pastor.

He is one of four people working on the broadcasts. "I embraced the challenge of helping bring our parish Mass to our entire community," Mr. Trentel said. "It has given me purpose during these difficult times."

One important consideration for parishes setting up livestream Masses is whether to create a videoconference, in which parishioners can see one another, or only show the sanctuary area.

At St. Benedict the African in Chicago, choosing the former helped lead to a strong sense of community among those in attendance.

The Catholics I spoke to for this story generally agreed that the Zoom format was more intimate, even if they typically attended the more usual livestream.

Marcus Mescher, a professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a parishioner at Bellarmine Chapel on the university campus, said his family switched from their parish's livestream to a Zoom Mass on Christmas.

"I felt more like a participant than a spectator and felt more solidarity with all those gathered (because I could see their faces) than seeing the viewer count on YouTube if it had been a Bellarmine Mass," Dr. Mescher wrote in an email.

But a Zoom Pro account, which is required for video conferences over 40 minutes long, costs $150 per year for calls with up to 100 participants and more for larger crowds.

That can be cost-prohibitive for some parishes.

Leaving No One Out

The group that perhaps has benefited most from live-streamed Masses is made up of those who had difficulty going to Mass in person even in pre-pandemic times: the homebound, those with disabilities or disabled family members and those whose work schedules prevent them from attending Mass regularly.

Now many of them find themselves connected to parish communities in ways that previously were impossible. Continue reading

In fact, the "not stated or unclear" is a further 9.6%, making the total potential non-religious group more like 39.2%.

But even if we discard this group, "No religion" is now extremely comfortably the largest group in Australia - the next-largest being Catholics, at 22.6%.

However, if you combine them with the Anglicans and "other Christian" segment they are still the largest at 52.2%.

If we average the census results of 2016, 2011, 2006 and 2001, the average growth of "No Religion" is about 3.5% per five years of the total population.

At that rate of growth, we will have no religious people in the country by 2118.

Obviously, this is extremely lacking as a scientific estimate, but it does show you the current trend that this country, along with the rest of the developed world, is on.

The same is even seen in what is traditionally the extremely religious United States.

The Pew Research centre found that people stating their religion as "None" increased in almost every single US state between 2007 and 2014.

In fact between those two periods, the average increase across the entire country was 43%, from 16% to 23%. In 1990 it was only 8.2%, which goes to show how quickly it's changing.

So, religiousness in the West is on a downward trend and has seemingly constantly been on one for an entire century.

Many people are abandoning organised (or unorganised) Christianity and looking for their answers elsewhere.

In fact, a 2013 survey found that only about 8% of Australian Christians even attend church once a month, 47% of non-attendees explaining that it was "irrelevant to my life", 26% "don't accept how it's taught", while 19% "don't believe in the bible".

But, with that established, what happens next?

In the book Why Liberalism Failed (note: not the modern slang term for the left-wing, but classical liberals who were in favour of people governing themselves, i.e.; modern democracy) it is illustrated how much modern western thought was centralised on the individual - that in line with the ideals of the self-determined classical liberal, each individual should be able to do as they please, provided it doesn't harm anyone.

However, this has also been a double-edged sword of sorts.

You see, western society was founded on a very complex, interwoven set of rules and customs and traditions.

When we first set out, much like a young man with a newly-minted credit card, we dig into the vast wealth that's been offered to us.

By pursuing individualism above all else, we've taken those systems and networks that were in many ways forming the glue of our communities and we've pulled them apart.

In many ways, our destruction of this glue hasn't been through intent, but purely by deciding that the previously accepted "God's Law" was no longer valid in many cases, and humans had a very wide-ranging right to challenge religious laws and assertions - from not attending church to gay marriage.

In fact, this increase in the priority of individual thought was initiated by Luther, when he nailed his challenges to the door of the church in Germany and started the Reformation.

This tumbling effect simply never stopped, creating much more liberally-minded states, albeit still religious.

But you can see it's a case of change by degrees, from the initial challenges to Catholic domination, through the Protestant (note they are named after their protesting nature) to those who have then protested Christianity itself.

Slowly we have learned to question what we're taught, and this has grown larger and larger until it has consumed much of our own cultural bedrock.

Human beings are communal, social creatures in many ways. We need the bonds we form with other people, we need that interconnectedness. Continue reading

A self-described "cradle Catholic" and graphic design student at Liberty University, Schneider, now 21, began using her TikTok as "@the_religious_hippie," a fun moniker her friends gave her.

She was posting casually, but had what she calls a "turning point" in her faith, and began posting openly about her beliefs.

"At first, I felt like I was the only Catholic," said Schneider, who now has nearly 90,000 followers. "But then I discovered people like me, from everywhere, with one thing in common: we all love God."

Even as its future in the U.S. remains unclear, the viral social media app continues to grow, especially among young users.

Over half of TikTok's users are between ages 10 and 29.

The app, first launched in China in 2016 before later merging with Musical.ly, showcases a newsfeed of simple, short-form entertainment videos made by creators themselves.

People can also see algorithm-selected videos in their newsfeed, based on people, trends or hashtags they follow.

For young U.S. Catholics like Schneider, TikTok is more than an app for dances, funny memes and challenges in 60 seconds or less. It's a community dedicated to evangelizing and defending the faith as well as a place for networking and recreation, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, as more young people are seeking connection and answers in a particularly divisive year.

Even religious men and women have gotten in on the trend, using the time in quarantine to start posting more content and engage openly with followers: such as "viral" priests Fr. Frankie Cicero of Life Starts Here Ministries in Arizona and Simon Esshaki, a Chaldean priest in San Diego.

Even the Netherlands-based Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart have nearly 243,000 followers; their comment sections are filled with people from other faiths thanking the nuns for their entertaining and wholesome content.

(In a @carmeldjc video from July, when a user asked, "What do you think about the LGBT community?" The nuns' simple reply was, "God loves everybody.")

"Catholic TikTok" is filled with diverse creators; they are mostly teens and young adults posting videos — church teachings and memes, real-life struggles and news takes — often with a filter, set to music or a track. Trending hashtags like #catholic and #catholicsoftiktokhave more than 380 million views.

@faithfullylanahow's self isolation going for y'all? ##fyp ##catholic ##christian ##jesus ##adoration ##eucharist ##veiling ##catholiclife ##rosary ##lovejesuschrist

♬ ricoco bicc aesthetic - Tik Toker

Those hashtags tend to attract TikTokers who identify as "rad-trad" or "traditionally Catholic," said 16-year-old Chris Karroum, who has more than 6,000 followers for his humour. Karroum said he started attending traditional Latin Mass after learning about it on the app. Continue reading

We tell ourselves: "Just another thousand police officers. Just one more prison. It'll be fine after that. We promise we'll stop there. They'll be better. We won't need any more."

Of course, the impacts of our overuse have been pretty harmful.

We spend an enormous amount of money, time and resources on criminal justice measures. There are sustained levels of trauma in targeted communities. There are high reoffending rates. Victims don't sense they are believed or supported. New Zealanders often report they worry about safety.

Maori are by far and wide the most affected by the harms of this system - disproportionately likely to be arrested, charged and incarcerated, and as a group the most likely to experience harm as well.

Amid the emotion, some politicians do their best to convince us of one more "getting tough" hit.

But the dominant talk of late has been focused on rethinking our situation.

Over the past two years, government-established bodies such as Te Uepu Hapai i te Ora - The Safe and Effective Justice Advisory Group have outlined New Zealand's urgent need for this.

It is strikingly clear the current system that relies on disproportionate levels of criminalisation, enforcement and adversarial approaches is not working for us, and cannot remain in place. There has been a lot of talk about how criminal justice should be transformed, decolonised, defunded or radically reformed.

And a radical approach is all the more necessary as we grapple with the impact Covid-19 and the economic hardships it has created will have on marginalised communities, particularly Maori, who have largely been shut out of the government's crisis response.

Yet, what to do next? It is one thing to call for change, another to build new solutions. Our criminal justice habits are hard to break.

One solution explored in a new report by Just Speak lies in the idea and practice of justice reinvestment.

JR programmes have a simple aim: to redirect spending on criminal justice into social justice initiatives that strengthen communities and reduce social harms, including offending behaviours.

Sounds good, right?

There is no "one size fits all" approach to justice reinvestment but successful projects are community-led, place-based and data-driven. What do these three steps mean in practice? Continue reading

Over the past few days, as states have asked houses of worship to suspend services, synagogues have held muted Purim celebrations and other religious meetings and services have been cancelled, people have already begun mourning the loss of community.

It's a good time for people of faith to reflect on how well digital technologies serve faith communities and consider the future of religion, which by definition is that which binds people to one another.

Community has always been one of the internet's significant features.

Last year, I hosted a virtual reality talk show called "You. Are. Here."

On the opening show, I gathered a pastor, a yoga teacher and a rabbi who led meditation and worship via virtual reality.

They talked about the deep experience of connection that their VR congregations experienced.

It struck me that VR allowed anyone to join these meetings regardless of physical ability or appearance, offering a chance to be seen without judgment in ways that offline communities do not.

We worry that the internet has rendered physical presence secondary to manufactured sights and sounds, but for some this can be liberating.

Indeed, all people seem to feel less inhibited online, which can lead to deeply connected and spiritual community.

One of the earliest online Christian communities was founded by the Rev. Chuck Henderson, who started the First Church of Cyberspace in the mid-1990s.

Members met in an HTML chat room on Sunday evenings and "did church" together with what Henderson called an "intimacy" that allowed people to open up and be real with one another.

Digital communities also render proximity secondary to affinity.

When I was serving as an associate dean of religious life at Princeton University, a Buddhist student needed to go home for a semester to West Virginia, where she didn't have a community that shared her spiritual practice.

An online group of like-minded Buddhists in New York City allowed her to join them for weekly meditation, download the teachings and assuage her sense of alienation.

Online communities can sometimes even meet spiritual needs in ways that in-person congregations fall short.

Early in her career, Christian theologian Deanna Thompson had nothing but disdain for the internet.

But when she got a very serious form of cancer, her brother created a page for her on the online community site Caring Bridge, where people could support her and get updates on her treatment.

In her book "The Virtual Body of Christ in a Suffering World," Thompson wrote that her internet community was more "there for her" than her local church.

"I started to realize," Thompson wrote, "I was being surrounded by a cloud of witnesses greater than any I could have imagined before. ... I've been awakened to a new — indeed, almost mystical — understanding of the church universal, mediated through what I've come to call the virtual body of Christ."

In some small way I understand what Thompson means.

My network on Facebook often feels more like a prayer circle, and Instagram posts offer me inspiration, religious and secular alike.

My religious friends on Twitter offer Bible commentary, teach from the Torah and offer wisdom from their Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim traditions.

The ability to learn and commune with people of other faith traditions online is almost unending.

Of course, for many, and perhaps most, of us, virtual contact isn't sufficient — especially for those who live alone, are single or simply get fed by the presence of others.

An avatar doesn't replace human touch, smell or the voices of a crowd.

Virtuality doesn't always overcome the screen.

The online world can also be fraught and even dangerous for those seeking spiritual sustenance.

The ability to delete, unfriend, and unfollow those who do not agree with our theology or politics can make online communities fragile, or ultimately isolating.

Hate too often flourishes unchecked in the digital world.

Fear is promulgated and violence is promoted against individuals and entire communities.

But religion has always existed outside of our physical bounds, and good people need to act against the evil of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, misogyny and targeting of vulnerable communities everywhere.

My deepest prayer is that in the coming years, people of good faith will commit to redeeming the internet for good.

Perhaps the millions of faithful turning in these fearful days to digital spaces for spiritual community might demand that the internet be that for them.

I don't long for a world when my religious practice is purely online.

Certainly, we can't share Eucharist or other traditional rituals online. This crisis, too, demands that we show up for one another in person in brave ways.

But being forced into "social distancing" doesn't mean we can't be present and be a blessing to one another in new ways that digital technology allows.

The most important quality that any religious community can offer is love and comfort in times of sorrow and celebration and gratitude in times of joy.

The resources of the internet can allow us to continue our faith traditions by praying and caring for one another during this time of great need and the other crises that are sure to come.

• Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, a Baptist minister, is senior adviser for public affairs and innovation at Interfaith Youth Core and former president of the Association for College and University Religious Affairs.

Not only did he live in a very different time, but his day-to-day existence was quite different from what most of us experience.

We should be careful, though, about being too quick to dismiss his example.

Newman, like all of the saints, is perennially relevant because holiness never goes out of style.

In light of his feast and in celebration of his canonization, here are five ways Newman remains relevant to the world today:

1. He prioritized the education of the lay faithful

   Throughout his life, Newman had a real concern for education.

   He thought it was particularly important that the lay faithful—not just clergy—have a strong understanding of the reasons the church taught what it did. Newman promoted various educational efforts, and this legacy has been preserved through his being named the patron saint of Catholic campus ministries at public universities.

   Thus, thousands, perhaps even millions of U.S. Catholics have experienced the formative years of their intellectual and spiritual development at Newman Centers on college campuses. When adult Catholics think about when they made a personal commitment to their faith—something beyond simply making their parents happy—their mind very likely turns to Newman.

2. He fostered community

   The generation of Americans who are coming of age now highly value community.

   Newman recognized that in the Christian faith, we need the support of others—not only to steer us away from erroneous ideas about God but also to sustain us through the difficult moments that inevitably come our way.

   He was celibate, but this does not mean that he was devoid of love. He developed several close friendships, and in his voluminous collection of letters (now digitally archived in the NINS Digital Collections), we can see just how significant these relationships were in his spiritual journey.

   For young Catholics, the communal life that Newman fostered is a shining example of the kind of shared witness that is sorely needed in our world today.

3. He stood up for the truth

   Newman wrote extensively about conscience—its role in our coming to know God as well as the moral imperative of listening to the promptings of conscience.

   As applied to his life, he firmly believed that he was bound in conscience to adhere to the truth regardless of the personal costs.

   For instance, when Newman, ordained an Anglican priest in 1825, became convinced that the Roman Catholic Church was founded by Christ as the ark of salvation, he felt compelled to enter that communion, even though this decision cost him close friendships and meant giving up his fellowship at Oxford. Continue reading

• Image: America

And in the New Zealand Amateur Sport Association's inaugural national survey of clubs, 22 percent of respondents said their memberships had fallen over the past five years.

The survey was undertaken by the Association in partnership with the Auckland University of Technology.

Chairman of the New Zealand Amateur Sport Association Gordon Noble-Campbell said 77 percent of clubs reported receiving no direct funding from any governing body, despite 90 percent having to pay affiliation fees or levies.

He would like to see the governing bodies put more emphasis on grassroots sport.

"National governing bodies for all sporting codes and perhaps the government itself needs to think about how resources are being provided back into the grassroots of community-based sport.

"It's not necessarily about money, it is also about providing resources whereby time-poor volunteers can get the right type of support around things like strategic planning, financial accounting, managing health and safety."

He said a strong sense of altruism came through.

"Every respondent said a key part of being an amateur was that they're not in it for the money, that they believe in the benefits of sport in the community, that volunteering is a key part of making sport accessible to everybody."

Gordon Noble-Campbell said some sports like football and basketball were bucking the trend. Some football clubs in Auckland, which has a growing Asian population, have had to cap numbers.

Futsal, a variation of football which is played indoors is experiencing strong growth, as it's seen as a convenient option.

But for more of the traditional clubs times are tough.

Shrinking clubs

Robbie Hutchinson is club captain at Upper Hutt United Cricket Club, having been involved in the club for 11 years.

Their membership is declining with just three senior teams, three social 20/20 teams and one women's T20 team.

"Life's changed, especially from a cricket point of view. It's a sport that takes all day and I think player's time is more precious now, maybe jobs are asking more of their employees than they were 15-20 years ago."

He said not enough school leavers were joining clubs.

"There's a finite talent pool coming out of colleges every year and we've got 12 clubs in Wellington that are trying to attract those players to their clubs so it's not a very pretty picture at the moment."

He said New Zealand Cricket should be "panicking" about the effect a weak club system was having on elite cricket. Continue reading

Already the project has created considerable national and international interest and offers of support.

Local parishioner and project architect Mr Fred Van Brandenburg says "Our forefathers built to the best of their ability a church that was contemporary in their time."

The inspiration for the Olive Leaf Centre came from a group of parishioners with a vision to build a place for parish gatherings and for the wider community to enjoy.

Their aim was not simply to build a "church hall" but rather to create a work of exceptional beauty, timeless elegance and functionality.

The Centre will be administered by ‘The Olive Leaf Centre Trust,' an independent charitable body.

The Trust says that work on the project to date has been totally pro bono and it gratefully acknowledges the generosity of spirit it has inspired.

The Trust is optimistic that it will be able to fund the project through grants and donations including those from patrons of the arts.

This will be in a similar vein to the enabling of the completion of Barcelona's Sagrada Familia Cathedral and raising funds for the Hundertwasser Art Centre project in Whangarei.

The Trust has reaffirmed its commitment to delay seeking funding until Resource Consent has been obtained.

The building has been designed to be a low-level structure to minimise its visual impact and to ensure that the church remains paramount on the site.

Sunk into the ground, glimpsed through trees and shrubs, the building is viewed primarily as a series of stone walls reminiscent of the stone structures built by the early settlers.

Even the roof hovering over it will be clad in stone so that the entire structure will be read as one.

This design has it all. Like a Koru revealed by a skilled carver from within the Pounamu - a Taonga of our time.

Click here to read a full explanation of the design

Source

• Supplied

New Zealanders pride themselves on being friendly, but not everyone experiences a sense of community or connection.

The 2016 Quality of Life survey reveals an increasing number of New Zealanders think neighbourliness in on the decline.

The Quality of Life Survey seeks to capture perceptions of well-being in nine to twelve major cities in New Zealand every two years.

Between 2004 and 2016, there is a marked decrease in neighbourliness reflected by respondents.

In 2016, 77 percent of New Zealanders surveyed believe it is important to have a sense of community, but only 58 percent said they actually experience a sense of community

In 2004, 88 percent of respondents said that they had positive interactions with their neighbours such as visiting, having a chat or asking for small favours.

In the most recent survey in 2016, only 42 percent of respondents reported having similar positive interactions with their neighbours.

The 2014 New Zealand General Social Survey reveals that one in seven New Zealanders feel isolated or lonely some or most of the time

Social Justice Week was established by the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference in 1997 as an ongoing commitment in the Catholic calendar for the week beginning the second Sunday of September

It is a time to consider, reflect and take action on a particular current social justice issue in the light of Catholic social teaching.

Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand has prepared a number of resources for Social Justice week including a liturgy resources, a reflection brochure and a power point presentation.

Source

• Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand
• Image: Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand