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Fathers of the Poor
Inferior priests make roadkill. They break hearts and lose souls; we all know that, and we can all think of half-a-dozen ways in which this is so. So, it pays to know about the lives and works of good...
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Good Priests, Largely Forgotten
The more you look to a priest for leadership, the greater is the suffering when that leadership is not given. So, let’s remember some of the priests who were faithful to the end, and then were all but...
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Bishops, Other than the Bad Ones
So…bishops, huh. We’ve all heard a lot about awful bishops, and I’ll admit that in the past few decades we in the West have been rather spoiled for choice as far as slackers are concerned. Still, if...
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Saints – Available for Relationships Other than Marriage
The wrong kind of interminable vocation-discussion can have an unintended side effect; it can reduce persons of the opposite sex to nothing more than potential marriage partners. This does everyone a...
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On Clerical Roadkill
I’ve just realised that I know (or know of) five priests who have left active ministry – of whom two later Died Suddenly, one apostasised, and one disappeared – two priests who, while retaining both...
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In Praise of Bland Clergymen
You know the sort: he rarely smiles; his sermons, though largely inoffensive, are uninspiring recitals of points of catechism we already know, and are delivered in a monotone or in an artificial...
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“We Have to Remain Faithful”
You’ll hear this from the pulpit, sometimes: “When scandal occurs or others fall, we have to remain faithful,” or, “Even when we see others around us losing their faith, we have to remain faithful and...
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Rhapsody Rhapsody
Roadkill of the world! I’ve written elsewhere about the bizarre habit of telling single people that they ought not to live alone as flatting with other people is a necessary approximation of the...
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Oils, Books, Treasure
Well, despite my clarion call to women to resist the temptation to fret about beauty, I found myself this morning experimenting with rosehip oil to see if it would make me immediately beautiful. It...
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The Good Bishop and the Determined Little Girl
I just read this in the biography of St John Neumann, and had to share it: A charming story is told us about two little girls who were on day sent by one of the Holy Cross Sisters with a message for...
View ArticleTangled
There is some talk on social media at the moment about the value of the Consultation Draft of the National Catholic Safeguarding Standards. My experience tells me that it hardly matters. A published...
View ArticleShe Gathers the Herbs for Battle
I have arisen from the bronchitis-that-would-not-die to find that we’re just over a month off the Feast of the Assumption. That means it’s time to start preparing the fruit, herbs, spices, and teas for...
View ArticleIt’s About Power
In the wake of the latest clergy scandal, theories abound. They all fall short. Those who blame religion and/or celibacy forget that the world is full of religious and celibate people who are not...
View ArticleCan We Stop Talking Judas and Start Talking Peter?
It is the custom among conservative Catholics, whenever a scandal surrounds a bishop’s failure, to refer to Judas, and to say something to the effect of ‘Even among the first bishops, there was a...
View ArticleWhat Do We Change if We Stay?
Articles abound urging people who are leaving the Church to remain, so that they can, by remaining, save the Church (I think it’s just assumed that this is someone they’d want to do?) Well, obviously I...
View ArticleIntegroe in Ministry
Integroe Partners reviewed the Archdiocese of Sydney during the time of the Royal Commission. They were chosen by the Archdiocese for the job. You can find the report here. I looked through it, and,...
View ArticleLesson Learned from Facebook
The funniest thing about signing up for Facebook – which momentous thing I did one year ago, and how time flies when you’re reading rubbish – was all the teenagers who said, “Facebook? Who even uses...
View ArticlePell. What it Takes.
Pell was among the first leaders in Australia to introduce child-protection measures and systems for investigating abuse claims into his area of responsibility. His efforts pre-dated the Boston...
View ArticleThe Single Life is Not a Vocation – Part Two
I’ve written already about why the single life is not a vocation and should not be thoughtlessly described as such. Two more thoughts occurred to me today. First: irrespective of any brochure published...
View ArticleIt’s Not a Crisis if It’s Always
I heard a comment recently about the Church being in crisis. I realised that I have been hearing such references since the 1980s, and that they include the twenty years before the ’80s. By this...
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