Sydney
23 June 2002
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St Pio – newest saint
US calls in Australian archbishop
Order pays $3.6 million
Fund for ‘tragic cases’
Shame and sorrow for all in Church, says schools head
‘Humble, but delighted’
Church stands alone in war on poverty
Giving and receiving
Religious urge Govt to sign Kyoto treaty
Appointee ‘daunted’ but committed
New employment relations commission installed
Call to keep tough embryo laws
Editorial: In search of a better life
Letters: Back to the ‘bad old days’
Conversation: No platitudes – ‘all our teaching has to be real’ - Sybil Dickens, school principal
Reflections: ‘Welcome’ in a new faith family
Rosary peace plan spreads in schools
Students, teachers prepare for Youth Day pilgrimage
St Charbel’s students welcome bishop
Opinion: A role for entertainment and media in ‘new evangelisation’
A new beginning for Tampa refugees
Inspirations: Good hair day for young Maronites
Opinion: A role for entertainment and media in ‘new evangelisation’
By Christopher Clancy
It is not just individual parishes that need to devote more energy to creating visions of our Catholic future (Message is loud and clear – parishes must do more to attract young people, CW 19/5).
The Australian Church as a whole should invest more time, more creative energy and more physical space in ongoing renovation of our Catholic tradition.
One institutional instrument to help us here might be to set up a Catholic cultural centre housing our archives, a Catholic theatre space and auditorium, media facilities, etc, with a program of lectures, training courses and so on.
The arts should have a key role in the work of the centre.
We urgently need to develop awareness and skills in using entertainment and the media in the “new evangelisation” thrust.
We need to expose ourselves as a community committed to cultural engagement on the local scene through the work of such a centre.
Today, music is a spirituality for most young people. Exploring and developing the Christian potential of that spirituality would be a key work of the centre.
Better training in music and singing in general could make a world of difference in the life of our parishes. For example, we would certainly become more welcoming communities, I believe, if we began our community singing half an hour or so before the Sunday liturgy began.
People might be more “ready” for the celebration of the Eucharist through the ‘agape spirit’ generated by the singing.
The evangelisation potential of a singing Church is, I believe, incalculable.
We still need to get our music right 40 years after Vatican II began.
A cultural centre could provide the resources and training to support the musical/singing development of the local Church.
Another possible instrument for local Church renewal might be to establish an Institute of Evangelisation at the Australian Catholic University, the Catholic Institute or independently. It should focus on developing awareness and skills in an essential area of Christian life where we Catholics remain underdeveloped.
Our young people can rarely hold their own here by comparison with their well-trained evangelising non-Catholic peers.
Such an institute would also help RE programs to integrate skills in evangelisation into their composition and delivery, something sadly – and inexplicably – lacking in current programs, in my view. Here, too, the arts are vital. The role of women especially in evangelisation might be a special focus of the work of the Institute.
Migrant Christian traditions could also be actively and creatively explored for potential avenues of renewal in the local Church.
For instance, we could do with a little of the liturgical lyricism of the eastern Christian churches in our public prayer life. A singing faith!
And we still do not have an Australian version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to help with the ‘new evangelisation’ locally, although Rome encouraged this development.