A five month old girl died yesterday after the child's mother left her in the family car while she collected her other children from a Toowoomba Catholic school.
[More]
Abuse victims plan protest for pope
Support groups for victims of clerical abuse are joining together to hold protests during Pope Benedict's Australian visit.
[More]
Defend religious freedom: Jesuit calls on Muslims
Muslims must defend religious freedom if dialogue between Christianity and Islam is to progress, a German Jesuit expert on Islam has said.
[More]
Rudd cites community hub need
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd cited a St Vincent de Paul Society proposal for community hubs in his 2020 Summit summary, Vinnies president Dr John Falzon says.
[More]
US honour for Notre Dame's Tannock
Notre Dame University Vice Chancellor Dr Peter Tannock has received a prestigious award, the Christus Magister Medal, from an American university.
[More]
45 dead in Brazilian Pentecost festival disaster
At least 45 people are dead after a ferry carrying pilgrims to a Brazilian Pentecost festival capsized on a remote Amazon tributary.
[More]
Feature - Our common links
We live in a linked-up world! We might not think about the links very much but they are there. There are the physical links likes pipes, wires, roads and railway lines. There are radio and televisions links and the World Wide Web. There are other kinds of links in our life too, such as marriage and family links, school and town links, national links, worldwide links. People even speak of being linked with others in a "global village". - Fr John Martin, The Majellan
[More]
Featured Website - CathCommunity.org
Another week passes and another Catholic social networking site pops up on the web. CathCommunity.org is an initiative of the England and Wales Catholic Bishops' Conference and was launched only two days ago. It is designed as a forum where people can explore their faith, be challenged by those who disagree and dispel myths about Catholicism.
[More]
Film Review - What happens in Vegas
The title of this film plays with the common and contemporary throwaway line, "what happens on tour stays on tour." The idea that we can become a different moral person away from home without any effect on our daily lives is as naive as it is immoral. We are our behaviour at home or on tour, and, in a sense, our integrity is more to be judged when we think no one is looking then when we are under the usual scrutiny. - Fr Richard Leonard, Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
[More]
Opinion - What to do when feeling bored at Mass
We do not primarily come to the Eucharist in order to derive pleasure out of it for ourselves. We come to give ourselves to God no matter what it costs. We are not seeking our own pleasure but, like Jesus, both in worship and outside of worship, we always try to do what pleases the Father rather than what pleases ourselves. - Fr John Kelly, Marist Messenger
[More]
OPINION
Beyond knowledge to wisdomI believe this is one of the crisis points for contemporary Christianity. Put bluntly, its representatives do not seem wise. Yes, those representatives can give you any amount of information, some of them can even speak knowledgeably of Christian teachings. Wisdom is another thing altogether. - Fr Michael Whelan [More] - Aquinas Academy
FEATURE
Connected across bordersIt is time for leaders of nations to see their national interests as connected with the interests of people on the other side of the globe. We have reached the point where human existence is at stake and our destiny is inextricably linked. If we are to overcome this crisis of climate change we need to think beyond the confines of national states. - Just Comment [More] - Edmund Rice Centre
FEATURED CATHOLIC WEBSITE
Catholic Education Diocese of ParramattaReturning to our education theme, we shine the spotlight on arguably the most innovative Catholic education website in the country. In addition to all the standard features of any CEO site, Parramatta's includes some interactive opinion polls and a competition for students to attempt to ''Become the Executive Director for the day''. The site is also well regarded for its RE and curriculum resources.
- www.parra.catholic.edu.au
Warning: main(http://www.cathnews.com/cgi-bin/ad_management.pl) [function.main]: failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found in E:\hshome\eureka0\cathnews.com\news\406\88.php on line 131
Warning: main() [function.include]: Failed opening 'http://www.cathnews.com/cgi-bin/ad_management.pl' for inclusion (include_path='.\;C:\HSphere.NET\3rdparty\PHP\4.4.7\PEAR') in E:\hshome\eureka0\cathnews.com\news\406\88.php on line 131
Cardinal's "Primacy of Conscience" comments still drawing flack
Despite having more carefully nuanced his controversial comments of a few years ago on "primacy of conscience", Cardinal Pell's controversial proposal to overturn this element of Catholic teaching is still drawing flack. Fr Frank Brennan SJ delivered a paper to the Australian Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs on 10th June challenging the Archbishop's point of view.
The Archbishop first aired his thoughts at a seminar at Latrobe University some years ago and these were picked up and published in The Bulletin magazine. More recently at an address to the Catalyst for Renewal Bishop's forum on 31st May last year he was even more forthright in calling for this element of Church teaching to be overturned saying "In the past I have been in trouble for stating that the so called doctrine of the primacy of conscience should be quietly dropped. I would like to reconsider my position here and now state that I believe that this misleading doctrine of the primacy of conscience should be publicly rejected.".
That particular address led to considerable discussion in academic and intellectual circles in Australia and a strong article by Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ, published in Eureka Street challenging the proposition put forward by the Archbishop.
Subsequent to that, Cardinal Pell delivered an address in Philadelphia where he seemed to more carefully nuance his comments saying:
"My basic object is twofold: a) to explain that increasingly, even in Catholic circles, the appeal to the primacy of conscience is being used to justify what we would like to do rather than to discover what God wants us to do; and b) to claim that conscience does not have primacy. One should say that the word of God has primacy or that truth has primacy, and that a person uses his conscience to discern the truth in particular cases. Individual conscience cannot confer the right to reject or distort New Testament morality as affirmed or developed by the Church. To use the language of Veritatis Splendor, conscience is 'the proximate norm of personal morality' whose authority in its voice and judgement 'derives from the truth about moral good and evil'"
Unfortunately the copies of the full addresses the Archbishop made are no longer available on the Sydney Archdiocesan website.
Fr Frank Brennan has now renewed the debate with an address on "A Catholic Social Conscience: Can it be Reclaimed in Our Time?" where he argues "Presently, there is a conflict in the Australian Catholic community about the primacy of conscience. It may simply be a difference of perspective, some seeing the glass half-full and warning against the limits of conscience in coming to truth, and others seeing the glass half-empty and espousing the potential of conscience in living the truth."
Fr Brennan goes on to argue: "The Church teaching on conscience gives no consolation to the uninitiated thinking they can simply do their own thing. But neither does it accord religious authorities the liberty of insisting upon wooden compliance with their instruction or view of the world. Good conscience must always be accorded primacy even by bishops who would act differently in the circumstances, bearing in mind John Henry Newman’s observation that 'conscience is not a judgment upon...any abstract doctrine ... but bears immediately on something to be done or not done'."
Some might argue that this has been the most interesting, stimulating, and possibly invigorating debate to go on in the Catholic Church in Australia for more than forty years.
SOURCE – FULL ADDRESS:
ACMICA/UNIYA – A Catholic Social Conscience: Can it be Reclaimed in Our Time? Symposium, ACU, North Sydney, 10th June
SEE ALSO:
Eureka Street – Debates about primacy of conscience illustrate the necessity for a passion both for truth and for freedom
ACMICA website
Unfortunately the Cardinal's addresses no longer seem to be available online.
16 Jun 2004
