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I wish to express my concern and disappointment that The Catholic Weekly (21/1) included in an advertisement for a conference at Santa Sophia College an invitation to attend a
Buddhist meditation workshop.
The Catholic Weekly is sold from Catholic Church porches and promotes evangelisation of our faith so why does it advertise Buddhism? When The Catholic Weekly and the Catholic
College at the University promote the Buddhist religion it is no wonder that the following of Jesus Christ is declining.
Mrs K Stinson
Wagga Wagga, NSW
ETERNAL WORD VIA TV
I am fortunate and very happy to be able to receive Mother Angelica’s EWTN TV program from the free-to- air satellite station from her monastery and her new chapel in
the USA.
I want to promote her TV program, the only worldwide Catholic network. I have never heard a more orthodox and traditional Catholic teaching. You cannot imagine how valuable her broadcasting is for
myself and my friends in our prayer group, and everywhere else. I am making tapes for them, so they too can have that high quality spiritual experience, teachings by orthodox, traditional priests, bishops and
professors from the university of Steubenville. Some of them are ex-Protestants who explain the Bible so beautifully and admit, that through the study of the ‘early Church Fathers’ they found their way home, back to
the Catholic Church.
In these dark times of our Church we find such teaching very rarely. This is the real teaching of the Church, which leads us to Jesus through Mary.
If you can afford the money for
a satellite dish and receiver, it is money well spent and you can receive the word of God and the truth about our faith. I love Mother Angelica and her work.
Don’t be discouraged if your local priest isn’t
that fond of Mother Angelica and her network, only ‘modernists’ are against it! Mother Angelica’s TV program runs 24 hours, 7 days a week. Your monthly TV guide you can get from the Internet: www.ewtn.com.
Georg Graf
Korora Bay, NSW
AVOIDING BANK FEES
There is a recurrent avalanche of
complaints about the ingenious variety of charges imposed by the banks; charges that are going up and up with a seemingly mandatory regularity.
Should we be astonished however, by that never-ending procession
of pocket-numbing charges? After all, financial deregulation, plus the sale of the once publicly-owned Commonwealth Bank constituted a blatant invitation for the banks to print money, a pastime they have indulged in
ever since with increasing zeal. And why not? It’s all perfectly legit!
Is there anything we, as frustrated banking dupes, can do about this ghastly free-market manifestation?
Well, we could join a
credit union, an institution which treats customers as human beings rather than as vertebrates to be divested, in the fastest way possible, of any savings they managed to scrape together.
Also, one could
start agitating for this government – or the next – to open a bank that is again owned by the public rather than by inventive profit makers, takers, and silent shareholders.
Henk Verhoeven
Beacon Hill, NSW
PRAYERS OR SUPERSTITION?
In The Catholic Weekly (4/2) you publish a letter from Fr John Alt of Lidcombe in which he rightly upbraids
you for printing pious, garbled, chain letter prayers promising fulfillment, for example “by the ninth day so long as publication was promised”.
Yet on page six of the same edition you publish two such
private advertisements, “Prayer to the Virgin Mary (never known to fail)” and “Prayer to St Jude, Saint of the Impossible”. Both of these prayers are couched in florid, over-the-top, ungrammatical, or archaic
language which is theologically suspect to say the least. Both these prayers “must be published” which will add to Fr Alt’s problems as he and his fellow priests “already have enough of these to throw out from our
churches every week”.
John McDonald
Longueville, NSW
Ed’s comment: The Catholic Weekly has decided to cease publishing prayer advertisements
appealing to St Jude as well as other similar advertisements. This is because, while not challenging the sincerity of those so devoted, there is a concern that expectations of a result connected to some activity,
such as ‘publishing’ the prayer, can border on superstition.
APPLYING SOCIAL JUSTICE
Social justice is an ideal held by most of the community. One aspect of social
justice concerns the fair distribution of the national wealth. Many people believe – mistakenly – that this is solely the responsibility of government. Certainly government is obliged to act compassionately,
honestly and prudently in the distribution of funds under its control. Additionally, it must promote and establish in society the order in which citizens are enabled and encouraged to carry out their duties in
establishing and maintaining social justice.
Basically, there are two elements of justice binding the citizen. The first is simple (or commutative) justice, which demands honesty and fairness between
individuals; between employers and employees; between insurer and insured etc. Then there is legal (sometimes called social) justice, which obliges the citizen to contribute to the maintenance of community structure
and commitments. An example is paying taxes.
Observance of these rules of right order and proper conduct will result in a better, more compassionate society. It will make Australians more willing, more
capable and (in the eyes of the world) more credible in our efforts to promote peace and justice in those areas of the world where tyranny, oppression and disorder now exist.
John Le Breton
Leura, NSW
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