Letters: Pack your bags

Sydney
27 April 2003

Tears as Canadians part with the World Youth Day cross

3 million live in poverty: Vinnies

At lunch with theWiggles

Two Australians in planning for Cologne youth day

Prelates and priests bid Fr Les farewell

Govt urged to act on reconciliation

Warsaw Ghetto uprising will underscore Holocaust service

Govt can’t put failed asylum seekers away

Why John looked ‘to join Catholic faith’

Women’s groups and religious join forces in peace move

Project Rachel - healing retreat or ‘just someone to talk to’

Editorial: Vanishing dream

Letters: Pack your bags

Conversation: Allan McFadden, actor, musician, composer, teacher - ‘Cheap guitar’ led to a life of theatre, music

Voice of Youth: Tolerant? Why not try forgiveness?

Book honours ‘sons’ of Pius X

Fr Michael’s life of friendship, respect

LaSalle College to open its doors to girls

Relationships at heart of religion and humanity, graduates told

‘Space for prayer’ in the heart of the city

Letters: Pack your bags

My sympathy to Daniel Hill, author of Renaissance of thinking about the Middle Ages (CW 6/4).

Had he had the good fortune to sit in the lecture rooms at Macquarie University a few years ago, instead of the University of Sydney, he would have heard lectures and enjoyed tutorials which would have fostered his obvious appreciation of the history of medieval Europe.

There he would have been lectured by and discussed the history with three wonderful academics - John Walmsley, Barry O’Dwyer and John Kilcullen.

Prof Walmsley was an expert on the history of monasteries in Normandy;

Dr O’Dwyer was a world authority on the Cistercians; Dr Kilcullen gave the most absorbing lectures on medieval philosophy and was an authority on William of Ockam.

I was disappointed not to find in Daniel’s Hall of Fame the tutor of Thomas Aquinas in Cologne and later co-lecturer in Paris, Albert the Great, of whom it was said that “he knew all there was to know”. I would also have expected him to include the magnificent Chartres Cathedral.

Might I recommend that, if he has not already done so, Daniel reads James J Walsh’s The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries (New York 1937) and Norman F Cantor’s Inventing the Middle Ages (New York 1991).

Pack your bags, Daniel, and go walk through Europe, absorbing the atmosphere of the medieval centuries in the Gothic cathedrals, the libraries and monasteries that remain.

Dr Joe Morley
Lane Cove, NSW

BIGGER ARMY?

Dark, dark side of ‘Good Queen Bess’ (CW 13/4) makes a genuine effort to be objective about a very troubled time in English history.

Nevertheless it is written from the Catholic viewpoint and as a consequence Elizabeth Tudor turns out to be the villain who did awful things to Catholics.

The article ends with the comment, “Good Queen Bess gave the Catholic Church an army of martyrs”.

It is interesting to speculate that in some future ecumenical time The Catholic Weekly might publish an objective article on the troubled times of Mary Tudor and the awful things she did to Protestants and conclude with the comment, “Good Queen Mary gave the Protestant Church an even bigger army of martyrs”.

John Campbell
Rockdale, NSW

DAY OF THE ROSARY

As this year is dedicated to the rosary I think it would be most appropriate and timely if each parish had one day devoted to the rosary to ask Our Lady’s intercession for world peace.

S Duffy
Wollongong, NSW

IRRITATED

As a Catholic priest I get irritated by articles such as Celibacy, the Church’s ‘brilliant jewel’ (CW 30/3).

Among other things it argued, at least implicitly, that (a) celibacy is a more worthy vocation than marriage, (b) that the choosing of celibacy allows people to be more dedicated to God than those who choose marriage.

I have yet to hear a convincing argument to support these two propositions.

I was even further irritated when I read that the key difference between the two vocations is that celibate priesthood “frees me to include parish, family and friends” whereas marriage involves “a commitment between two people at the exclusion of others”.

Apart from showing a complete misunderstanding of the nature of Christian marriage this argument flies in the face of everyday experience.

Indeed, the reverse could well be argued, that married people, through the very nature of their commitment, are more open, welcoming and inclusive than people who live celibate lives.

Fr John Crothers, PP
Penshurst, NSW

‘NEW AGE’ PRACTICES

I was pleased to see E Baulman (Legitimacy, Letters CW 6/4) and Frances McEniery (‘Ambiguity’, Letters CW 6/4) responding to Fr John Dietzen’s Insights (Different retreat? CW 2/3) on the legitimacy of the enneagram in Catholic retreats.

However, there has still been no mention of the recent Vatican document on the New Age - Jesus Christ the bearer of the water of life: A Christian reflection on the ‘New Age’.

This clearly lists the enneagram in the wide range of practices that the New Age covers, viz: practices from crystals, psychic healing and the enneagram.

The document warns about movements that are self seeking - placing man at the centre of the universe instead of God.

I hope and pray that Catholic retreat houses will take notice of this document and stop using the enneagram in Catholic retreats.

Margaret Ryan
Castle Hill, NSW

MEDJUGORJE

Congratulations and thank you to The Catholic Weekly on your objective coverage of the Medjugorje story.

Any terrible divisions and disobedience on the part of past/present bishops of Mostar, pale into total insignificance when one knows of the background and their reasoning as opposed to the fruits and goodwill coming out of Medjugorje.

Our Lady has told us via the seers to continue to pray for enlightenment re the Mostar bishop.

She’s also quoted as saying: “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe.”

Also, we’re told the Church’s worst enemies are from within.

It truly is a spiritually invaluable, blessed experience to be invited to this oasis of peace, especially in these troubled times.

Mrs Mary Kelly
Valentine, NSW

JG Wilson (Tabernacle, Letters CW 16/2) questions whether moving the tabernacle makes for “better Catholics”. If he/she means Catholics who are more informed and better able to live their faith as members of an active, alive community who, modelling themselves on Christ, aim to take the Good News he preached out into the wider community, then the answer has to be YES!

Using words like, traditional position, hundreds of years, popular piety displays one view of being Catholic, which for me, implies a very personal, one to one relationship with God which I agree is absolutely essential in our faith life. Since Vatican II, the emphasis on the liturgy as an expression of being Catholic has encouraged us to develop a relationship with God as part of a faith community in which we work together, sustaining each other in our faith and enabling us to reach out to those around us. I believe that the Holy Spirit, working through Vatican II has taken us back to the basics of what it means to be followers of Christ. When we come together as a faith community to celebrate the Eucharist we are not meant to be pious individuals praying alone to our personal God for our own personal intentions. We become one community just as Jesus wanted us to be, joining with the priest in giving thanks and praise to God.

I cannot understand why there is so much outcry about giving the tabernacle its own special place in a Blessed Sacrament chapel where quiet, passive, personal devotion, outside of mass times, is encouraged. This leaves the main body of the church for the faith community to focus on each other as the body of Christ, as we gather together to celebrate the Eucharist in which we are nourished by both the word of God and the body and blood of Christ.

Mrs Patricia McNamara
Punchbowl, NSW