The Catholic Church throughout New Zealand made serious mistakes in its approach to Māori, and using te reo during Eucharist helps us become more inclusive even in our daily lives. The comments about parish sacramental celebrations come from Palmerston North’s Bishop emeritus, Peter Cullinane, in an article published in Tui Motu. Citing examples of the Read more
The café is a place where I not only find a drink and a croissant but also the convenience of somewhere to write. 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 Read more
James Joyce once described Kingstown Pier as a “disappointed bridge”. Now known as Dun Laoghaire, it is also where most passenger ships arrive at and leave from Dublin both then and now. The idea of the Kingstown Pier as a disappointed bridge, unable to go all the way across the Irish Sea, says much about Read more
Shutting small parish communities and merging them with a larger one is leaving people stranded. Covid’s remnants also leaves some people feeling vulnerable. For others, and for a possible range of reasons, the local parish is no longer spiritually nourishing. One woman, Betty Ann Asaro, and has become a remote parishioner at Saint Cecilia Church Read more
By now we should have adjusted to the idea and talk of a synodal Church and the meeting of a Synod of Bishops to discuss synodality. Pope Francis dropped the proposal out of the blue, really, last October, although he had been hinting at the notion for years. We have a date and place, critical Read more
Father Jean-Luc Gebelin leads a cluster of parishes in a large rural area of the Diocese of Nîmes in Southern France. He explained to Mélinée Le Priol how he embraced a more collaborative view of ministry and being Church through the parish missions carried out by visiting religious order priests. La Croix: Your parish extends Read more
Some Church groups are pressing for a post-pandemic opening up, others, who have already opened up, are sounding a lament as they find it is not business as usual. There are signs of grieving for the parish – an institution on its knees. World War II changed Western history. The post-war Catholic parish was an Read more
Most parish bulletins are ugly. This has been obvious for some time: In 2015, Catholic Creatives, an online community of artists and entrepreneurs, met specifically to diagnose the issue of important information getting lost in bad bulletin design. A parish bulletin redesign does not have to be a daunting task. I combed through dozens of Read more
Pope Francis is a pastor of the borders. On Feb. 17, 2016, during his visit to Mexico, Francis prayed and laid flowers at a memorial for the thousands of migrants who have died trying to reach the United States. Its towering cross, built on a concrete platform overlooking the militarized international bridge between Ciudad Juárez Read more
During Holy Week 2016, an obituary written by a woman in Duluth, Minnesota caught national media attention. Eleni Pinnow wrote the obituary for her young adult sister Aletha. She began, “Aletha Meyer Pinnow, 31, of Duluth (formerly of Oswego and Chicago, Illinois) died from depression and suicide on February 20, 2016.” There it was, front Read more