austraLasia #1851

Take a Tablet - and find out what the region is up to

ROME: 21st May 2007 --  On the 41st World Communications Day, (and as already noted, Ascension Day and the 90th anniversary of the VDB Institute's foundation), I was relaxing briefly and catching up on some reading.  Could not help but be struck by the 'communications' activity of our region as represented in the Catholic Press, and particularly by that long-standing, outstanding International Catholic Weekly, The Tablet!
    From the 'Oceania' end of the region, The Tablet's Letters section has been busy with post - and riposte - on that Judas novel!  It has been partly a Jesuit-Salesian tussle, and a touch internecine, at least as far as Australia is concerned, since the protagonists in the discussion have been Fr Frank Moloney, naturally, and Fr Gerry O'Collins SJ, a well-known academic and helluva good bloke also of international repute. Not sure who's winning or even if it is about that, but if you have read The Gospel According to Judas, it certainly livens up the subtext a bit to follow this debate.  One correspondent, who felt he might have joined the wrong Church as a convert sixty odd years ago, was dispatched with a quick thrust.
    But it has not only been Judas.  That was an April debate.  Now it is May, and Fr Norm Ford, also from Australia, has weighed in on discussion of the difficulty facing pregnancy counselling centres in Germany. The problem is that these centres must by law issue certificates to pregnant women who want to have an abortion, and church-run counselling centres are caught up in the dilemma.  The issue is not that women are being counselled to have an abortion - they would, it as assumed, be counselled otherwise - but the certificate they get after counselling looks like a ticket to abortion.  Fr Ford, an eminent moral philosopher who has never lost the common touch and is still associated with the Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health Ethics in Melbourne, suggests shifting the onus from the centres to the women themselves.
    Further north in the region, in Hong Kong, Cardinal Zen is reported as being delighted with the Alpha Course, a faith course which has participants meet weekly to discuss the Christian faith after a shared meal. Zen says it suits the Chinese style, and calls it 'a wonderful tool to offer our country's communities'.
    There are other Salesians sprinked through a month's reading of The Tablet. Cardinal Bertone, of course, and Archbishop Farina, who announces that the Vatican Library is closing for three years!  Apparently the weight of books on one floor is such that the entire building is in danger of collapse. He thinks that a three year hiatus is better than plunging civilisation back to the state it was (or might have been but for the Irish monks) at the barbarian invasion.
    And finally, but not The Tablet this time, a printed collectioin of reflections called 'Reflections for the working soul' has been published in Manila.  It is the combined work of Bishop Cantillas sdb and Sr Teresa Tunay, a Carmelite. These reflections have been regularly appearing in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Philippines largest national daily, since 2000. Bishop Cantillas, who prior to his episcopal appointment had much experience at Cebu's Boys Town, is currently chair of the Episcopal Commission on Migrants and Itinerant People, and a member of the Vatican Pontifical Council for Migrants. He is in close touch with Filipino migrant workers at home and abroad.
    Quite a profitable Sunday afternoon's reading, methinks!
GLOSSARY
riposte: French, and belongs to the art of fencing, you know, the parry and thrust with the 'sword' stuff  (they don't actually call it a sword, of course). I am using here more as a play on words, but it is appropriate to the particular debate in question.
internecine: refers to struggle between people of the same nation or brotherhood or community or.... in this case two Australians.
helluva good bloke: pure Australian this one.  Means a well-liked person
hiatus: gap
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