Lay leadership in a parish community
Sr Catherine Seward RSM, describes how parish communities might be maintained without parish priests by creative and innovative leadership as she experienced many years ago in Mansfield Park SA.
First Plenary Council of Australasia 1885
This is the fourth in a series of articles looking at the particular (provincial and plenary) councils of the Catholic Church held in Australia between 1844 and 1937. It examines the 1885 First Australasian Plenary Council, held between November 14 and 29, which officially brought together the Churches in Australia and New Zealand for the first time. Part 2 of this article by Peter Wilkinson will appear in the Spring 2018 edition of The Swag.
Calls for change within the Church will be its salvation
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Post have something important to say about ‘the what’ and ‘the how’ of the Church’s mission, says Sr Patty Fawkner Congregational Leader of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan. This article is reprinted with permission from The Good Oil, the e-magazine of the Good Samaritan Sisters, February, 2018. Two recent award-winning films had something to say to me about the Australian Catholic Church in the wake of the Report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Gilroy – a personal memoir
Edmund Campion offered these reflections on Cardinal Gilroy at The Sydney Institute on April 4, 2018.
Treat women as equals now Pope Francis
Mary McAleese, past President of Ireland, called on Pope Francis to advance the inclusion of women based on God-given justice in this talk given at the Voices of Faith Conference held in Rome on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2018. The conference had to be moved from the Vatican venue because Mary McAleese was banned from speaking within the Vatican by Cardinal Farrell. Other speakers were also banned including Ugandan lesbian, Ssenfuka Joanita Warry and Tina Beattie. The conference was moved to a Jesuit venue outside the Vatican. McAleese full speech with references can be found at Catholic Church Reform Int: https://tinyurl.com/y94fmle2
