A new 40-million euro Church complex near Paris Disney will include a new church that can hold up to 900 people and a private school that can accommodate more than 1,500 students.

And in the US, a US$100 million Christian ad campaign for Jesus has commenced and will expand in the months leading up to the Super Bowl.

Funded by the Signatory, a Christian foundation based in Kansas, the "He Gets Us" campaign hopes to rescue the message of Jesus from the misdeeds of Christians, especially those who say one thing and do another.

Disneyland Paris

Opened 30 years ago, the Disneyland Paris theme park is currently attracting nearly 15 million visitors per year.

Since it opened, the population of the Val d'Europe area has grown from 3,000 to over 35,000 inhabitants. It's projected to keep growing.

The multi-million euro project comes at a time when many churches in France are being closed or abandoned and Catholicism is losing ground. '

But Bishop Jean-Yves Nahmias says the planned new facility isn't a big risk.

"It's a gamble on a future that is already here," he says.

"There is a missionary logic: we are affirming our faith. But, concretely, the demands of the families and young people on the spot are pressing. The school will be full, as will the church," he predicts.

Father Gérard Pelletier, who is pastor of the Val d'Europe missionary cluster, says the village churches in the cluster are too small and too far from Disneyland for the current and future needs.

"We lack space and a parish house to carry out our activities," Pelletier says. "Beyond 30 people, it becomes complicated very quickly. In addition, the churches are too small for gathering the entire parish, for instance, on Christmas Eve."

Nahmias remembers celebrating confirmations in crowded churches where not everyone could fit. The new church and the school — ranging from kindergarten to post-baccalaureate — are eagerly awaited - even by people who are not Catholic.

The Super Bowl

The US Super Bowl isn't an event many would imagine advertising loving your neighbour and other Christian virtues.

Yet that's exactly what's happening.

Ads featuring online videos about Jesus as a rebel, an activist or a dinner party host have been viewed over 300 million times. Billboards with messages like "Jesus let his hair down, too" and "Jesus went all in, too," have been posted in major centres.

Still to come are an updated website, an online store where people can get free gear if they forgive someone or welcome a stranger, and an outreach programme for churches.

The campaign has done extensive market research and found that, while many Americans like Jesus, they are sceptical of his followers.

The behaviour of Christians is a barrier to faith, say many.

The He gets Us campaign hopes to change this view.

Source

• Religion News Service
• La Croix

Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, Cardinal Tagle, says Francis "is not against efficiency and methods" that could help the church's missionary activities.

"He is warning us about the danger of 'measuring' church mission using only the standards and outcomes predetermined by the models or schools of management, no matter how good and useful these may be.

"The most efficiently run church organization may end up being the least missionary."

Mission societies raise awareness and promote prayer for the missions and also raise money to fund projects in some of the world's poorest countries. Francis's message warned the societies not to make fundraising their first priority.

Francis sees a danger in donations becoming "merely funds or resources to be used, rather than tangible signs of love, of prayer, of sharing the fruits of human labor.

"The faithful who become committed and joyful missionaries are our best resource, not money per se, Tagle says.

"It is also good to remind our faithful that even their small donations, when put together, become a tangible expression of the Holy Father's universal missionary charity to churches in need. No gift is too small when given for the common good."

Francis also warned of "pitfalls and pathologies" that may threaten the missionary societies' unity in faith, such as self-absorption and elitism.

"Instead of leaving room for the working of the Holy Spirit, many initiatives and entities connected to the church end up being concerned only with themselves," he said in his message to the missionaries.

"Many ecclesiastical establishments, at every level, seem to be swallowed up by the obsession of promoting themselves and their own initiatives, as if that were the objective and goal of their mission."

Tagle says God's gift of love is at the heart of the church and its mission in the world, "not a human plan." If the actions of the church are separated from this root, they "are reduced to mere functions and fixed plans of action.

"God's surprises and 'disturbances' are considered destructive of our prepared projects. For me, to avoid the risk of functionalism, we need to return to the spring of the church's life and mission: God's gift in Jesus and the Holy Spirit," he says.

In calling for church organizations to "break every mirror in the house," Tagle says Francis is also denouncing a "purely pragmatic or functional view of mission".

This view leads to narcissistic behavior that makes the mission more about one's success and achievements "and less about the good news of God's mercy."

Francis wants the Church to embrace the challenge of helping "our faithful see that faith is a great gift of God, not a burden," and it is a gift to be shared.

Source

• Catholic San Francisco
• UCA News
• Images: Catholic Mission

We know how to be Christian when we are poor, under-educated, and culturally marginalized, but we struggle to be Christian when we are affluent, educated, and have a full place in the culture.

These over-simplifications speak volumes about the state of the church in the Western world.

Simply put, today we are better at dealing with someone already sitting in our church pews than we are at getting anyone there in the first place.

Our churches are strong on maintenance, weak on being missionary.

This is everywhere evident.

We look at our churches today and we see so many wonderful things:

• faith-filled individuals,
• good liturgies,
• good preaching,
• good music,
• wonderful programs sensitivity to justice,
• faith-sharing groups,
• excellent theology,
• ecumenical openness,
• soul-work in our renewal centres,
• beautiful church buildings, and
• an ever-increasing lay involvement.

It has been centuries since we have done so many things so well and maintained church life with such quality and balance.

But we see something else too, less positive:

• One-half of all baptized Christians rarely enter a church,
• our churches are greying,
• the culture is increasingly marginalizing the church, and, most serious of all,
• too often we cannot pass on our faith to our own children.

Even as so many good things are happening within the church we are losing ground.

The crisis, it seems, is not in the area of parish program, liturgy, or theology but in the area of the missionary dimension of Christianity.

We know how to run a church, but we don't know how to found a church.

What's needed?

We need to become more deliberately, reflectively, and programmatically missionary within our own culture, to our own children.

We need to send missionaries into secularity in the very same way as we once sent them off to faraway countries.

The church in the secularized world needs a new kind of missionary.

What will this new kind of missionary need to bring?

Before anything else, real faith.

What we need are men and women who can walk the workplace, the marketplace, the academy of learning, and the arts and entertainment industry, and radiate a faith that is not infantile, over-protective, paranoid, colourless, or compromising.

We need men and women who are post-affluent, post-sophisticated, post-liberal, post-conservative, and post-fearful in their faith.

Their faith needs to have a double strength: It must be strong enough not be defensive in the face of secularity, even as it has the capacity to sweat the blood of self-renunciation rather than compromise the great future for present consolation.

Beyond personal faith, the missionary to secularity will need these things too:

• A new language for a post-ecclesial generation,
• a new gospel-artistry to refire the romantic imagination of a secularized mind,
• a new way to connect the gospel to the streets,
• a new way of moving beyond personal gift and charism to the building of lasting community,
• a new way of connecting eros and spirituality, justice and piety, energy and wisdom, and
• a new way to combine God's consolation with prophetic challenge.

No easy task.

In all these areas we are, right now, still searching for new ways.

Perhaps the person we can look to for guidance is Henri Nouwen.

To the extent that our age has had a missionary to secularity, he fits the bill. His life and his writings touched people in all walks of life and not just inside church circles. His approach was deliberate and faith-filled, he was trying to speak to the heart of secular culture from the perspective of the gospel.

Slowly, through many years of writing, he developed his own language.

He re-wrote his books many times over in an attempt to be simple without being simplistic; to carry real feeling without falling into sentimentality; to speak the language of the soul without falling into psychological jargon; to be personal without being exhibitionist; to put forth Christ's invitation and challenge without being preachy; to challenge towards community without being churchy; and to offer God's consolation without falling into mushy piety.

He didn't always succeed, but he did it better than the rest of us.

And more so even than the popularity of his writings (that unique appeal and effectiveness of the language he developed) Nouwen is a model to us in terms of the quality of his faith.

He walked inside secularity with a visible faith, raw, without fear and without compromise (albeit not without tears, heartache, and breakdown).

In the end, what shone through was faith, his belief that God's existence is real and is the most important thing of all.

We need to learn from people like him, learn the difference between providing church-maintenance and being missionaries.

We know what to do with people once we get them into a church but we must learn again how to get them there.

• Used with permission of the author, Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser. Currently, Father Rolheiser is serving as President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio Texas. He can be contacted through his website, www.ronrolheiser.com. Now on Facebook www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser

In the current environment of secularity within the first world, where all belief systems compete for adoption, the Christian faith has distinct advantages.

Much like the day of Elijah calling down fire as visible proof of the superiority of his God, the climate of secularity demands a new apologetic—one that moves from the theoretical to the actual.

Few today seem to be asking the questions of modernity, that is, "What is truth?"

Today's apologetic in many respects is far more practical: "What works?"

"What will help keep my family whole?"

And, "Where can I see truth?"

And it is in the real-world answering of these questions that Jesus-followers corner the market.

And none more than Christ-following parents.

What we are really talking about is revealing the Kingdom of God as a family.

My simple definition of the Kingdom of God is: What things look like when Jesus gets his way.

For a family, the Kingdom of God is often revealed through the faithful way that parents shepherd their children.

It looks much different than the world's shifting ideas that change from generation to generation.

The kingdom effect is both universal and eternal.

This difference is far greater than a weekly polishing up and shuttling of children to church.

It is a difference of kingdom allegiance.

This year, I am preaching through Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) in order to help our church family understand the counter-cultural way that kingdom citizens live.

In Matthew 5:37, Jesus states in bold red letters, "Let what you say be simply ‘Yes' or ‘No'; anything more than this comes from evil."

Many biblical teachings can be difficult to understand, but this is not one of them. It is simple to understand, and simple to apply.

To Christ-following parents, the applications are entirely counter-cultural, and it is in the applying of Jesus' words that we have the opportunity to show the world how well a family works when Jesus gets his way.

Here are six implications of Jesus' teachings for the benefit of thriving missionary families. Continue reading

A French Marist priest, Father Antoine Garin was sent to run the remote Mangakahia mission station on the banks of the Wairoa River.

Living Among the Northland Maori is Garin's diaries recording his experiences from 1844 to 1846 as he gets to know the Maori in the region.

It was launched on Sunday 15 April Read more

Also voxy.co.nz

John Allen Chau's body was found last week on a beach of North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal with arrow wounds.

Dependra Pathak, director general of police of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, says he was told that Chau, 27, lived in the U.S. state of Alabama and was "some kind of paramedic."

"People thought he was a missionary because he had mentioned his position on God and that he was a believer on social media or somewhere online. But in a strict sense he was not a missionary. He was an adventurer. His intention was to meet the aborigines," Pathak said. Read more

Bruce Hill has for many years reported for RNZ and ABC on Pacific issues. He says current secularism in the more developed nations is not exactly looked on with favour by many in the islands.

Christianity, he says, is often seen as a foundation of national identity in most parts of the region, and anything that might weaken it tends to be regarded as a threat.

"Sometimes we in developed nations fail to grasp that not everything we do, no matter how well-intentioned, is entirely welcomed in developing countries."

Hill suggests that NGOs should consider using people of faith when they are delivering their development programmes.

People of faith, he says "Can speak the language of religion and understand the concerns of people.

"And rightly or not, they seem to feel vulnerable about what is sometimes seen as an irreligious Western cultural tide bent on sweeping everything before it."

Hill tells a story about an NGO worker he once met on a flight to a Pacific Island nation.

She was going to facilitate a symposium on gender issues, focusing on boosting the number of women in that country's parliament.

"It turned out that one of her reasons for joining this particular NGO and taking an interest in the Pacific was a sense of needing to make up for her grandmother's work many years earlier.

Her grandmother had been (and here her voice dropped to a whisper) "a missionary in the islands."

"I can still see that NGO worker striding through the airport, off to bring the light to those sitting in darkness, with supreme self-confidence in the correctness of her cause," says Hill.

Source

• lowyinstitute.org
• lowyinstitute.org
• Image: www.wvi.org

He arrived in the Cook Islands with his life-long friend Father John Rovers on November 11, 1957.

His first appointments in the Cook Islands were to Mauke and Atiu.

"Over time, Father John identified with Mauke and Father Damian with Atiu," said Bishop Paul Donoghue speaking at the celebration.

"Father Damian's work had him teaching in the Catholic School on Atiu. When this closed, he continued as a teacher in the government school.

"Damian later took a year of study at a university in Manila in the Philippines.

"He was then appointed to the staff of the Pacific regional Seminary in Fiji where he served for around six years as the one who taught spirituality to those training for the priesthood.

"On returning to the Cook Islands Damian became parish priest of both Sacred Heart Matavera and St Paul's Titikaveka."

He served both parishes for over 20 years. At the same time, he was chancellor (finance officer) of the diocese.

Damian's expertise was acknowledged recently when the Te Koreromotu Ou - Reo Maori Kuki Airani (CIMRNT) version of the New Testament was published.

The translation has been done by a committee of which Father Damian was a long-serving member.

Father Damian now lives in retirement.

"When Father Damian retired, many people commented that the road was safer with the absence of the red motorbike he rode." said Bishop Paul.

"On very wet days he would take the bus, and the kindly drivers would add in a special stop in St Joseph's road at which only Father Damian was allowed off the bus."

Source

• cookislandsnews.com
• Image: cookislandsnews.com

The three days program will begin this Wednesday 18th July and concludes on the 20th July. Read more

Sister Patricia Fox has been living in the Philippines for 27 years as a missionary.

Sister Fox says the Bureau of Immigration has "no right to define and delimit the scope of our missionary and apostolate works."

The bureau says it revoked her visa because she attended protest rallies of farmers and workers demanding justice from the government.

As a result, it said the Australian nun's actions violate the conditions of her visa that require no involvement in politics.

Her lawyer argues that it seems like an attempt to dilute the interpretation of the nun's religious vocation. He has submitted a 25-page rebuttal of her deportation order.

He says the order violates the country's laws as they guarantee the "free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship."

The 71-year-old Australian nun says the bureau should have consulted a religious person. She demands therefore that they talk to a bishop or a priest to understand better the role of a missionary

"Wherever we are, we must become involved in the situation in which we live," she says.

Church support

Bishop Deogracias Iniguez convenes the Ecumenical Bishops' Forum. He says the church especially "defines the word 'missionary' by defining Christ's life."

"A missionary of the church is a missionary for Christ. As missionaries, we are invited to immerse ourselves with the poor."

The bureau meanwhile says the prosecutor will review the nun's arguments against deportation. The case is pending.

Sister Fox's activities appear especially to have angered the Philippines president.

Last month President Duterte admitted that he had personally ordered the investigation into her status.

"You do not have the right to criticize us.... just because you are a nun," reporters quoted him.

Source:

• UCA News
• Image: UCA News

Cox says sectarian violence in the Republic urgently calls for "showing mercy" and to "being ready to forgive, to help people to overcome terrible things such as death of a loved one or the destruction of their village." Read more

Among her past pupils is Japan's Crown Princess Masako.

Following Sister Paschal's 100th birthday, her young cousin, James Creedon—who works in Paris as the media correspondent for the television news channel France24—became interested in her life and experiences and decided that they should be preserved.

From the time they spent together over the following year, before Sister Paschal's death, a documentary film is in production, directed and produced by James, which bears witness to the values and extraordinary experiences of one of Ireland's missionary daughters born in another epoch, a film with much to say to the Church and to the world of the 21st century.

A trailer for the film can be viewed here; a fundraising page for those interested in helping Creedon complete the film is here.

Catholic World Report interviewed James Creedon about his initiative.

CWR: James, presumably you did not know Sister Paschal as you grew up. How was she regarded in your family? What did you learn of her as a boy and young man?

James Creedon: There were around a dozen missionary priests and nuns in my extended family going up three or four generations. I knew of Sister Paschal via my grandmother's correspondence with her.

Jennie, as she was known to her family, was a wonderful letter-writer, and despite the fact that she spent 75 years on the other side of the world, she maintained close family ties with extended family members, many of whom were born after her departure.

My grandmother, for example, was just three years old when Jennie left Ireland, yet somehow a bond was established and maintained. That alone says a lot about the kind of person she was and how big her heart was. Continue reading

Sources

• Catholic World Report
• Image: Irish Examiner

Fr Thomas Schwiedessen had been sent to the centre for counselling after reportedly behaving strangely.

He had been referred to a psychiatrist and was scheduled for a review.

The priest was connected with the Spiritan University College at Ejisu.

Authorities at the Spiritan University College did not want to comment about the incident.

Lifeline 0800 543 354

Continue reading

He was only wearing a light brown pair of shorts, no shirt and carried a stick but no bible.

Holland is a New Zealander who is jointly charged with a Ms. Vaioleti Stowers with 12 charges of selling rental cars that had been rented from National Car Rentals and Samoana Rentals.

One of the houses he visited belongs to To'omaga Pati Leapai of Tulaele.

To'omaga's daughter Paulua Suni knew who Holland was from the pictures in the newspaper, but because she was curious, she allowed Holland to state his business.

He said he has been in Samoa for more than 30 years doing ministerial outreach work and it was as part of that work that he was doing house to house preaching.

One of To'omaga's relatives, visiting at the time, joined the conversation and pointed out to Holland that church ministers do not go around preaching God's word half naked.

Holland countered by saying he uses the same style and method in New Zealand.

"You are not in New Zealand and it is not Samoan culture for faifeau's [church ministers] to go around preaching to the people half naked," said Ms. Suni.

Holland said the pending court case was "all lies".

Initially he faced 15 charges.

However, three of the charges against him were withdrawn when he appeared in the Supreme Court earlier in the same day.

What the charges are and the reasons behind the decision were not explained in Court during the proceedings.

Holland has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.

Source

• Talamua
• Talamua
• Samoa Observer
• Samoa Observer
• Image: Talamua

He led the 800m final from the front and smashed his own world record, becoming the first man ever to run under 1.41.

In interviews after the race he thanked one man above all others for his success: an Irish Catholic Missionary named Brother Colm O'Connell — a man who had been David's coach since he first began to run.

Colm arrived in Kenya from Ireland as a missionary in 1976. He was on the stff of St Patrick's, a boys' school at the edge of the Rift Valley when he was asked to lend a hand on the running track.

Under Colm's guidance, more than 20 Olympic and World Championship medal winners have emerged from this tiny school. Continue reading

263. We do well to keep in mind the early Christians and our many brothers and sisters throughout history who were filled with joy, unflagging courage and zeal in proclaiming the Gospel. Some people nowadays console themselves by saying that things are not as easy as they used to be, yet we know that the Roman empire was not conducive to the Gospel message, the struggle for justice, or the defence of human dignity. Every period of history is marked by the presence of human weakness, self-absorption, complacency and selfishness, to say nothing of the concupiscence which preys upon us all. These things are ever present under one guise or another; they are due to our human limits rather than particular situations. Let us not say, then, that things are harder today; they are simply different. But let us learn also from the saints who have gone before us, who confronted the difficulties of their own day. So I propose that we pause to rediscover some of the reasons which can help us to imitate them today.[207]

Dr Paula Gerber says "The church is a very broad term. There is certainly some religious bodies that are very anti-homosexuality, and others that are more supportive."

She says lot of the churches that have been in the Pacific for a long time are quite tolerant of homosexuality and transgender.

But, she says, pastors coming from churches outside of the Pacific region are telling families that "if they've got a transgender child, or a gay son or daughter, that they should reject them in order to comply with God's will if you like."

Gerber said the UN has a sort of monitoring role of all countries and their human rights records, and they do this through reviews every three to five years in a process called the universal periodic review.

Some Pacific Island countries have told the UN they are happy to look at repealing the laws of criminalised homosexuality, others have indicated that they will do exactly the opposite.

The countries who say they are willing to change the law are Palau, Nauru and the Cook Islands.

The countries that have said they will not do so are Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Tonga.

Associate Professor Paula Gerber is President of Kaleidoscope Australia Human Rights Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation committed to promoting and protecting the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people in the Asia Pacific region.

Source

• Radio New Zealand International
• GaystarNews
• Image: monash.edu

Maria, a devout Catholic, had worked as a lay missionary in Papua New Guinea after her musical career was over.

Continue reading

The newly founded church is Malamalama Fou, which translates as "New Light Church."

In August, the first-time pastor and his family moved up to Alaska. "We did everything by faith," said Su'e, "Everything is new to us." Challenges have arisen, including the icy roads, but his vision for the church sustains him. Su'e and his family live in Anchorage and commute down to Whittier every weekend for Saturday evening Bible study and Sunday morning service. They hope to move to Whittier early next year.

Source

• TurnagainTimes
• Image: TurnagainTimes

Perry went to Christmas Island - an isolated coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific - in 1966, just a few years after the British stopped using it for nuclear tests, which makes him one of the island's most enduring residents.

He is still there, now 74, slightly stooping, spectacles on nose, with a sharp and intelligent face.

He seemed to revel in his lack of material wealth. He quoted Gandhi to me: "Meet your needs and limit your wants."

He may be poor by Western standards, but surrounded by his island neighbours and his grandchildren he will never fear a lonely old age. Read More on BBC News

Image

BBC News