 |
|
 |
|
|
|
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\604\101.php on line 159
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\604\101.php on line 159
Bishop rejects part-time priest proposal
Bishop Julian Porteous of Sydney has said that the Pope would never allow part-time priests, as suggested by a Melbourne priest-statistician in last week's Online Catholics.
The Catholic Weekly reports that Bishop Julian Porteous said that part-time priesthood represents a radical departure from the concept of priestly vocation and is not the answer to the reduced number of priests in the Church.
"I can never see the Pope allowing a part-time priesthood," he said.
Bishop Porteous (pictured) was responding to a call by Fr Eric Hodgens, an expert on priest recruitment trends, who suggested that future generations of priests should be allowed to keep their weekday job and become ordained part-timers.
In the Online Catholics article featured on CathNews last week, Fr Hodgens said: "Let the secretaries and pastoral workers run the parishes and have a roster of ordained part-timers to celebrate whatever number of Masses is needed for the weekend."
He said that priests should be allowed to "stay in their normal career and train for sacramental leadership in a part-time course."
Fr Hodgens said that the proposal is far less radical than allowing the mass to "become an occasional rather than a weekly event". "Critique or condemn the idea," he said. "But, if so, propose an alternative. The problem is not going away."
But Bishop Porteous stressed that priesthood was "not a job or profession or part-time activity". "A priest by virtue of ordination becomes a priest in his whole being," he said.
He said that in the short-term the Church was dealing with low numbers by creating partner parishes and encouraging lay people to become more involved.
"Lay people are taking on more active roles in the Church," he said. "They are being employed in things such as sacramental and youth ministry which can really help parish priests with their loads."
Bishop Porteous said he was confident the number of men wanting to be ordained in Australia would rise.
"In the last four years our numbers have doubled in the Good Shepherd seminary in Sydney and last year the Perth archdiocese ordained nine priests."
"It's certainly not impossible to see that there will be an increase in younger priests in the long term," he said.
SOURCE
Part-time priests aren't the answer: bishop (Catholic Weekly 23/4/06)
LINKS (not necessarily endorsed by Church Resources)
Staunching the clergy haemorrhage (Online Catholics 12/4/06)
Archdiocese of Sydney: Bishop Julian Porteous
National Commission for Clergy Life and Ministry
National Council of Priests
ARCHIVE
Priest shortage puts Mass under cloud (CathNews 31/12/04)
Maitland-Newcastle weighs priest imports (CathNews 23/3/06)
NCP chair says overseas priests will need help to settle (CathNews 16/5/05)
MORE STORIES
Not enough priests for last rites (NZ Herald 9/4/06)
Growing diaconate (Catholic Leader 9/4/06)
Desperate Australian Catholics importing priests (ABC Radio National The Religion Report 22/3/06)
Priests out of Africa (Catholic Leader 19/3/06)
Eight on road to priesthood (Catholic Weekly 12/3/06)
21 Apr 2006
