Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and representatives of other Orthodox and Anglican churches accompanied Pope Benedict in lighting a candle to launch the Year of St Paul.
[More]
Volunteers refuse WYD powers
Rural Fire Service and State Emergency Service volunteers will not seek "authorised person" status while assisting with WYD in order to avoid "negative interactions with people".
[More]
Vietnam up, US down on WYD numbers
A record number of Vietnamese pilgrims will attend World Youth Day this year but US numbers are down - and 50 Angola pilgrims are stranded in Sydney instead of Adelaide because tour organisers thought the SA capital was only an hour way.
[More]
Celebrate the living spirit: Bishops urge
Australia's bishops have urged Catholics to "celebrate the Living Spirit" to mark Aboriginal and Torres Islander Sunday this weekend.
[More]
Korean priests in Mass protest against US beef
Two hundred South Korean priests have celebrated a street Mass in Seoul to protest an unpopular government decision to resume beef imports from the US.
[More]
Bees for Benedict
Italian scooter manufacturer Piaggio has presented Pope Benedict with two new specially made three wheeled vehicles.
[More]
Feature - Walking away from what they do not know
"People who leave the Church are not leaving because they are rejecting the teachings of John Paul II or Pope Benedict. Most do so because they go to Catholic schools and they think that the kind of warm secular humanism with Christian gloss that they get in Catholic schools is in fact the Catholic faith and it hasn't captured their imagination, their love or their intellect so they are walking away from something that they do not know." - The Catholic Herald
[More]
Featured Website - First Things
First Things is a monthly ecumenical journal concerned with the creation of a "religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society." It is published by The Institute on Religion and Public Life in the United States of America.
[More]
Film Review - Kung Fu Panda
Kung Fu Panda is essentially a martial arts comedy and is a total action movie. It has striking effects and action sequences and a particularly impressive concluding fantasy sequence which brings DreamWorks to a new level of technological sophistication. There is a strong cultural feel about the movie and it heavily draws on Chinese culture to bring authenticity to its fantasy. - Peter Sheehan, Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
[More]
Opinion - God is without circumference
His challenge was to see the beauty in every face, even when the owner of that face had long given up on it. Surely, that is to love others as Jesus did—Jesus the One who never gives up on us. If we are to love as Jesus loved, we need to be forgiving people. Forgiving people are bridge-builders and reconcilers. - Fr Chris Gleeson, Madonna
[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\503\155.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\503\155.php on line 131
Vatican writer´s fair and balanced assessment of Opus Dei
The National Catholic Reporter´s Rome correspondent John Allen is about to publish a study of Opus Dei that challenges its common depiction as a secretive and sinister cult within the Catholic Church.
An interview with Allen in Newsweek focuses on the book´s role as an answer to the view of Opus Dei in Dan Brown’s best-selling thriller, The Da Vinci Code. Opus Dei, it says, is a secretive society of men and women who have sought political power to further the interests of a wealthy elite.
The book, and Allen, have been praised by conservatives who are normally hostile to the National Catholic Reporter.
Beliefnet´s resident Catholic blogger Charlotte Hays has welcomed the book, anticipating that "it might not get [her] blood boiling."
She quotes Allen´s explanation for widespread hostility towards Opus Dei: "In the 1930s and ´40s [Opus Dei] experienced some enormous, extremely bitter rivalries with the Jesuits [because] some young Spanish men were deciding not to become Jesuits and signed up with Opus Dei instead. And this was, I think, the initial source of tension, that there was this perception that Opus Dei was kind of poaching ... Some Jesuits began circulating, from my point of view, really outlandish charges against Opus Dei, things like they had secret tunnels under their centres, they were engaging themselves in bizarre rituals like crucifying themselves on crosses in Opus Dei centres."
Allen has been quietly urging all parties in the Church to adopt a more open-minded attitude to each other for some time. Following a symposium in San Antonio last year, Allen observed that the liberal Catholics present spoke of the need for dialogue "with secularity, with the young, with different cultures", but were "not even ready for dialogue with the different cultures present in their own Church".
"In one session, it was mentioned that a new bishop in Austria comes from Opus Dei, and the gasps were audible, as if he had said the bishop was a member of the Nazi party or the Klu Klux Klan," he recalled.
SOURCE
Decoding Opus Dei (Newsweek/MSNBC 24/3/05)
A Fair Shake for Opus Dei? (Loose Canon/Beliefnet 29/3/05)
Dialoguing with missionaries in San Antonio (National Catholic Reporter 29/10/04)
LINKS (not necessarily endorsed by Church Resources)
Opus Dei
John L Allen: The Word From Rome (National Catholic Reporter)
Demonising Opus Dei (Online Catholics)
Opus Dei prestige on display at centenary event (National Catholic Reporter 18/1/02)
ARCHIVE
Cause opening for Opus Dei second saint (CathNews 3/3/04)
Opus Dei founder canonised (CathNews 8/10/02)
30 Mar 2005
