Discussions with Fundamentalists

Over the past few days I have read of attempts to reason with unbending fundamentalist Protestants here and here. Both discussions seem to have turned to the source of scripture and ground to a halt. When I think about this it is one of the (many) reasons I believe the Catholic Church must be the true Church. If Christianity is true then the Catholic Church must be the original and true Christian Church.

The premise on which this is based (that Christianity is true) is somewhat harder to prove and it is something with which I have struggled at times. I have been through periods when I doubted that there was a God, when I doubted that Jesus was truly the son of God, but once I had accepted those two things as true I have never really questioned that my place was within the Catholic Church. The appeal of Protestantism collapses when it comes time to think about where it came from. Look back 700 years and it just wasn't there. Christians of the first 1000 years after the death of Christ were Eucharistic people, they gathered around the table of the Lord and shared in his body and blood. They didn't always call themselves Catholic, as there was no other group of Christians from which they needed to distinguish themselves, but Catholic they were. Though they possessed the sacraments and the grace thereby conferred they were not impenetrable by evil. A great many of them did terrible things, people were killed without cause, great scandal was caused by the sinful actions of the clergy. Yet this does not mean that the Church had ceased to be true Church. From the very beginning the Church was lead by sinners, who were themselves leading sinners. Christ guaranteed Peter, and those who followed him, that the gates of hell would never prevail against his Church, he did not promise that all the children of the Church would be models of perfection throughout all time. Only two humans have ever lived their lives without the stain of sin ever marring the beauty of their souls, Our Lord and his mother.

This imperfect though divinely protected Church was given the job of spreading the Gospel of Christ to all the nations. It was to the Church that God revealed his word, now contained in the New Testament. The Bible did not fall from the sky printed and bound. God inspired the authors of the Gospels and the various epistles to write their words, then by the guidance of the Holy Spirit He revealed to the Council of Carthage which of these writings were to be included in the book of his Word. The Bible as declared by the Church was accepted by Christians until Martin Luther came to disagree with the teachings of a few books. He couldn't challenge the infallibility of scripture as a whole or his whole framework would have come crashing down around him, so he decided to remove those books which caused him difficulty from the canon of scripture.

These two points are where the doctrine of sola scriptura seems unsustainable to me:

1 Where in the Bible do you find the delineation of the canon of scripture
2 Where in the Bible does it say: "Fifteen hundred years from the death of My Son I will send into the world a great leader who shall remove from the book of my Word all the false teachings of that great whore of Bablylon, the Church of Rome" thus spake the Lord.

If anyone can cite scripture in favour of either of those propositions I will willingly contact Nicholas at Remnant of God for instruction in the true faith. Until then I remain convinced that if any Christian faith is true, if the Bible itself is true, then the fullness of truth is to be found only in communion with the successor of Peter.

In other news

My exams finished yesterday. I think they have gone fairly well but I'll just have to wait untill the results come in before I get too excited. Now I have three weeks holiday so I should be able to enlighten you all with my words of wisdom somewhat more frequently!!

A vital moral judgment??


Promoter of the Prostitution Reform Bill Tim Barnett kisses his benchmate, transexual MP Georgina Beyer


Canada's courts and then its government decided to legalise homosexual 'marriage'. Then the US Supreme Court overturned laws forbidding sodomy while giving a thumbs up to the University of Michigan's racist admissions policies. Now New Zealand has claimed its place among the immoral. Our Parliament voted on Wednesday night to legalise prostitution by 60 to 59 with one MP abstaining. That one was, surprisingly to all, New Zealand's first Muslim MP Ashraf Choudhary. The promoter of the law, gay MP Tim Barnett, has described this as the most vital moral judgment since homosexual law reform. I would be more inclined to call it the greatest moral failure since abortion laws were relaxed.

There has been plenty of comment around St Blog's on the US and Canadian measures so I will confine my comments mostly to the NZ situation. The Prostitution Reform Act will officially become law on Monday. I have been unable to track down a free full text version of the act online but this is the gist of it. From Monday prostitution will be legal both on the streets and in brothels. The act requires registration of brothels but allows anyone over 18 to prostitute themselves on the streets. Brothel keepers will have to provide a 'safe' working environment for their workers, quite how this will be interpreted by the courts is unsure but it probably involve compulsory use of condoms.

The issue was subject to a conscience vote in parliament, i.e. each MP was able to vote individually without being tied to a party position. Our Catholic leader of the opposition thankfully voted against the bill, but our first Muslim MP abstained from voting after having voted against the bill on its first two readings. If he had have voted against the bill it would have failed. He has provoked anger in the small Muslim community here in failing to oppose the bill as they claim is required by the Koran on which he was sworn in as an MP just last year. The opprobrium which has been poured upon him is however out of proportion as the vote of any other MP could just as easily have changed the outcome of the debate.

The Act has been promoted on the basis that the existing law was hypocritical in that it criminalised soliciting and living off the earnings of prostitution (pimping, brothel keeping etc.) but there was no penalty on the (usually) male clients. The law was denounced as sexist and outdated, which it was. However the solution to a legal problem is not always to give up and allow the market to handle things. Some activities are intrinsically wrong and should never be allowed as legitimate options. On this matter we have seen a rare concordance of opinion between radical feminists and most Christian churches, including the Catholic Church. Bishops have lobbied politicians from a somewhat different perspective to the women's rights groups but the message has been similar. Prostitution is not a career which a woman chooses freely after a rational consideration of her options. It is a last ditch option for the desperate and disregarded. It is NOT acceptable for a woman to rent her body to someone for sex, it goes against the dignity of the human person and is intrinsically degrading to both the woman and the client.

Yet this is now allowed. Those who argued that the changing of the law will not affect perceptions of the sex trade are just plain wrong. The law is a major factor in informing peoples opinions, it is not so simple as to say that whatever is legal must be moral, but in our secular society the majority opinion approaches morality in a way not unlike that. That prostitution is legal will lead to a growing acceptance of it in this country. The same argument was made about abortion in the 1970s and homosexuality in the 1980s. In the years after those were legalised they became widely accepted, with (some of) the churches now practically the only ones opposed to either one.

You're Vatican City!

You're pretty sure that you're infallible in all that you do or say, and
it's hard to say whether you're right.  You have a lot of followers, most of whom will
do whatever you say without question, or line up to see you ride around in your spiffy car.
 Religious and reserved, you have some wisdom, but also a bit much contempt for everyone
around you.  You're also fabulously wealthy, no matter what you say to the contrary.

Take
the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid

Mark Shea on Thomas More

Mark Shea has some reflections on St Thomas More on his website.

Dutch Bring Abortion to Pope's Homeland

First Ireland, now Poland. Dutch NGO Women on Waves has made its mission to bring abortion to those few countries which still uphold the sanctity of life from conception to natural death. They will moor their deathship just outside the country's territorial waters where the laws of the ships home country apply. Then they bring Polish women out to it, kill their unborn children, and drop the women back into Poland.

The country which brought the world Van Gogh (which incidentally is NOT pronounced van go rather the g and the gh are pronounced similar to the ch in the Scottish loch), Rembrandt and the illustrious author of these words now devotes itself to perpetuating evil even beyond its shores. Sad. Sad. Sad.

Saints Thomas More and John Fisher

Were it not for the fact that yesterday was Sunday (and thus the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord (Corpus Christi), it would have been the feast of Sts Thomas More and John Fisher. These two were both martyred for their opposition to Henry VIII's declaration of himself as head of the Church in England. At the time of the divorce controversy More was Lord Chancellor and Fisher was Bishop of Rochester.

St Thomas More was the first layman to hold the office of Lord Chancellor, he succeeded Cardinal Wolsey. Although a layman he proved more faithful to Christ's church than all but one of the bishops of England at the time. He refused to swear the oath of supremacy acknowledgingHenry as head of the Church and for his fidelity to truth was imprisoned for a time and then executed on 6 July 1535. He is patron saint of lawyers, politicians and civil servants. Considering I will in eighteen months graduate with degrees in both politics and law and I am considering civil service as a career he is a saint of particular interest to me. He is also the patron of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, home to Fr Jim Tucker of Dappled Things and erstwhile abode of Fr Dan Gee of The Mission. As posted a couple of days ago the British government is set to abolish the office he held shortly.

St John Fisher was the only bishop in England who refused to acknowledge the supremacy of the king over the Church. All the other bishops succumbed to the pressure of the king and thus contributed to the establishment of the Protestant faith in England. Both More and Fisher were canonised in 1935, four hundred years after their deaths. Several around St Blog's have noted the memorial of these two saints, Quenta Nârwenion and Ad Altare Dei are among them.

The Church founded by Henry and secured by his daughter Elizabeth I is now in crisis. Gay bishops have been elected in England and the US recently, the Canadian and US Anglicans are struggling with the issue of homosexual marriages or unions. In light of this it would be appropriate and timely to pray through the intercession of these two martyrs that those who find themselves in the Anglican Communion are able to be faithful to Christ, that those who leave that entity in disillusionment will find a warm welcome into their spiritual home, the Church Christ founded.

St Thomas More, ora pro nobis.
St John Fisher, ora pro nobis.

The end of the Lord Chancellor

Who would have thought anyone would accuse the British of paying insufficient regard to tradition. News broke this week that Tony Blair's government has decided to remove the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords and abolish the office of Lord Chancellor. Both of these initiatives are needless.

The appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords is to be removed and a Supreme Court is to be created. The assumption is at the moment that the existing Law Lords will be appointed to the new court. As such it seems to be just renaming of the existing body. There is a perception among some in the current government that the country's top Judges shouldn't continue to sit in the legislature, however the Law Lords have managed to avoid getting involved in party political disputes for many years. It seems to be a superficial change which will have no effect on the law or on politics. Why do it??

The second major change is that the office of Lord Chancellor is to be abolished and replaced by a Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. In my first year at university in Political Studies and Law classes we went over the theory of separation of powers (yes for any Americans reading this, in NZ this is really a theory rather than a reality). We went over this ad infinitum, in fact I was really wondering how people couldn't have understood the fairly simple concept but it seems every year people get the roles confused in exams. Anyway the idea is that there is a legislature, an executive and a judiciary which are all independent and separate. Then we strike the reality that in this country, the UK, Australia and Canada the executive are all members of the legislature. Then one stumbles upon the British Lord Chancellor, if he was a super hero you could call him "Anti-Separation of Powers man". He (and it has always been a 'he') sits in the legislature as a member of the House of Lords, he is the head of the judiciary and sits on the judicial division of the house of Lords and to complete the story he is a senior cabinet minister, akin to an Attorney-General. In his role as cabinet minister the Lord Chancellor is responsible for all judicial appointments. I think it is wise to consider removing this job from the Lord Chancellor, an independent judicial commission to select judges is a great idea.

This is an office which has existed for 1398 years; this is longer than any position in England besides the monarch. It existed centuries before there was a Prime Minister, it precedes even Parliament. This is an office which has been held by at least two canonised saints (St Thomas Becket and St Thomas More). Press reports have suggested that the office of Archbishop of Canterbury is older, but seeing it lapsed in 1558 the Lord Chancellor’s longevity is longer. This from the country where lawyers still have to put a clump of horse hair on their heads when they go into court.

[take the test] - [by krystaljungle.com]

Exam time for me!

Posting will likely be infrequent over the next week or so as I will be sitting my mid year exams soon. I have Pacific History on Wednesday, Legal Ethics on Friday, Personal Property Law on Saturday and Legal History next Thursday. Your prayers would be appreciated.

New Zealand's Adoption Chief Opposes Adoption

This would be funny if it wasn't so sad. 16,000 abortions take place in this country every year, to an American that might sound like a small number but keep in mind that our population is a little under 4 million. With that many children killed how can one be opposed to adoption, it really beggars belief. Adoption is exactly what we need, every young woman who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant should be told that adoption is a viable option, that there are many many couples out there who are unable to have children of their own for some reason or other. For those facing a crisis pregnancy who seek counsel from somewhere outside a religious organisation they are likely to be given two options: have an abortion or have the baby and ruin your life. Adoption is rarely recommended by the Family Planning clinics, I have seen comments from them that they think adoption is a traumatic option as the mother will constantly be wondering what happened to her child, what is happening to the child.

Undoubtedly that is difficult, but is it really more difficult than having to deal with the fact that your child is dead, and that it happened at your command. Mot women who have abortions don't think about it in that way, they buy into all the euphemisms that are thrown at them by the Family Planning people and the abortionists. The process is a termination, not a killing. The thing terminated is a foetus or an abstract "pregnancy", never a child or baby. They manage to justify to themselves that they are doing no wrong, but most will come one day to see what really happened, how they were manipulated when they were at their weakest and neediest. At this point they will wish they had given their child up for adoption, they would give up anything to have the knowledge that their child is alive and well, even if living away from them in an unknown locale. Abortion is surely not an option taken easily by any woman, and I refrain from judging the moral culpability of any who do as the pressure on them and the hormonal factor means they are often not thinking clearly. However to say that the women cannot be judged does not mean that the process cannot be judged. Abortion is one of the greatest evils facing today's world and anything which might reduce the number of women and children who suffer from it must be considered a good thing, and adoption is clearly going to be the best alternative for many women who are considering abortion. As such adoption must be promoted formally and informally.

St Blog's Parishioner Ordained

Please pray for Todd Reitmeyer of Musings of a Catholic Seminarian who was ordained on June 13. May the lord grant him the strength and wisdom he needs to make an impact for Christ in the world. Pictures of his ordination are available here.

Excommunication Down-Under (the Melbourne Age)

The Bishop of Wollongong has excommunicated a priest who went to Germany and sought episcopal ordination without papal approval. It is a little disturbing that this sort of nuttiness is this close to home. We tend to think of this sort of thing as something that happens in Montana, not Australia.

After posting a few days ago that freedom of the press was under threat in Tonga I am pleased to be able to report that the NZ Herald this morning carried a small piece saying that the ban on the Taimi o Tonga had been lifted. Hopefully this turns out to be the case as there have been several false alarms.

The Canadian Bishops stand up to be counted in oposition to the nonsense coming out of the Ontario Courts. Pray they will be heeded.

Canadian Bishops stand up for Truth


Canadian Bishops' Letter on Redefinition of Marriage
"The State Has a Fundamental Interest in This Social Institution"

OTTAWA, JUNE 11, 2003 (Zenit.org).- Here is the text of a letter from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to Federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon regarding the Ontario Court of Appeal's decision to redefine marriage in order to allow same-sex unions.

* * *

The Honourable Martin Cauchon, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada

…

Dear Mr. Cauchon:

On behalf of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, I urge you to appeal the recent decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal in the case of Halpern et al. v. The Attorney General of Canada that redefined marriage to be "The voluntary union for life of two persons to the exclusion of all others."

Marriage as a public commitment between a man and a woman has profound cultural, religious and social significance. As a word and as an institution marriage is full of history, meaning and symbolism. The State has a fundamental interest in this social institution where most children are procreated and nurtured and, according to recent statistics, continues to be the most stable environment in which to raise a family.

The reasons for the Court's finding that "the Attorney General of Canada did not demonstrate any pressing and substantial objective for maintaining marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution" are unconvincing and disappointing. We know that not every married couple has children, that not all children are born in marriages, and that not all marriages lead to stable and nurturing environments for children. We also recognize that, with the help of new technologies and the intervention of a third party of the opposite sex, same-sex unions can have children. Exceptions, however, do not invalidate but prove the rule; individual practices and choices do not determine the objectives of an institution such as marriage which plays such a pivotal social role.

The Court's conclusions about the objectives of marriage should concern Canadians about the future of our country and Members of Parliament who are ultimately responsible for the development of social policy in this country.

The written argument filed in the Ontario Court of Appeal by you as the Attorney General of Canada echoed this concern very well: "The Charter was never intended to effect a wholesale alteration of the fundamental societal structures and institutions within which it emerged."

As you know, members of the House of Commons affirmed on 9 June 1999, by a vote of 216 to 55, "That, in the opinion of this House, it is necessary, in light of public debate around recent court decisions, to state that marriage is and should remain the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, and Parliament will take all necessary steps within the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada to preserve this definition of marriage in Canada."

We respectfully ask you to live up to this resolution and do everything necessary to preserve the definition of marriage, including appealing the recent decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal. Millions of Canadians, who have invested a great deal of hope and meaning in marriage, are counting on you.

Sincerely,

Msgr. Peter Schonenbach, P.H.
General Secretary
Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops

CC: Members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights
ZE03061122

Canada reminds us that not all of North America is run by the religious right (link via Mark Shea)

Canada follows in the same path as my ancestral homeland (The Netherlands) and makes homosexual "marriage" legal. If you took at face value everything you read and see in the New Zealand press you would think North America was a theocratic state under the iron fist to Mr Bush. Canada makes a big mistake in proving them wrong. Unlike the several European states where this has been implemented or at least contemplated in Canada it was done by judicial sleight of hand. This is NOT a decision that the courts should be making, it just isn't within their competence. I don't think that anyone should make this particular decision, but it should not be even entertained in the courts. This is a matter for Parliament/Congress to decide.

Several years ago here in New Zealand a lesbian couple sued the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages for refusing them a marriage licence. Thankfully a majority of our Court of Appeal decided that the legislative intent behind the marriage law, passed in the 1950s, was that marriage was to be a union between a man and a woman. It seems that when Parliament considered the issue they gave no thought to the idea that anyone could think otherwise and thus didn't place any mention of male or female in the act. Only one judge thought that omission was sufficient to allow them to effectively rewrite the marriage law. Parliament has since moved to devalue marriage in this country by giving equal rights to de facto and same sex couples. Apart from as a social indicator marriage has no effect in New Zealand law any more.

This only goes to show that neither the courts nor the legislature can be trusted to uphold any values where they aren’t held by the community. Both the courts and the legislature are driven by policy, not principle, public opinion, not truth.

Pray that the Supreme Court of Canada will overturn this morally and legally incorrect decision.

Pray for Canada, pray for New Zealand, pray, pray, pray.

More on Conscience

Related to my post on Archbishop Pell's thoughts on conscience someone sent me a quote from J.H. Newman. This shows that the topic is not at all new and is something the church has grappled with for many years, and will continue to struggle with for many to come.

"Conscience has rights because it has duties; but in this age, with a large portion of the public, it is the very right and freedom of conscience to dispense with conscience, to ignore a Lawgiver and Judge, to be independent of unseen obligations. It becomes a licence to take up any or no religion, to take up this or that and let it go again, to go to church, to go to chapel, to boast of being above all religions and to be an impartial critic of each of them. Conscience is a stern monitor, but in this century it has been superseded by a counterfeit, which the eighteen centuries prior to it never heard of, and could not have mistaken for it, if they had. It is the right of self-will. "
- Venerable John Henry Newman, C.O., from A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation

Archbishop George Pell of Sydney made an address on Vatican II and its effects. Here are some extracts that struck me as particularly cogent, though I think the document as a whole is well worth a read

On Catholic liberalism:

"Catholic liberalism seems to be dying and there are only small pockets of Catholic radicals. It is hard to find a Catholic dissident under fifty years of age. There are a few people in Australia who speak loudly of "loyal dissent", a new category which has been introduced into the conversation since the Council. When does loyal dissent become unacceptable disloyalty?"

On primacy of conscience:

"In Chapter 3 of the first letter of St. John, read at Mass some weeks ago, St. John spells out the link between conscience and the commandments, between freedom and truth. He explained that the way to love God is to follow his Commandments. This is basic. Christians have no entitlement to define sins out of existence, to deny or ignore fundamental teachings of faith, by claiming that their consciences are free or that they believe in the primacy of conscience. There is no substitute for personal sincerity, and we honour striving for the truth. But our consciences can be mistaken, sometimes mistaken through our own fault. And in any event we have to take the public consequences for our positions. It will not help me in a court of Law to claim that I did not realise I was driving on the right hand side of the road!"

"It is somewhat misleading also to claim that our conscience is free. Free for what? We do not boast that we are free to tell lies, although usually lies do not put people in gaol. Neither do we boast that we are free to read our watch in anyway we like, to get the time wrong intentionally. So too with conscience. Conscience is at the service of truth; it stands under God's word. Conscience has no primacy. Truth has primacy. The Word of God has primacy. When basic Catholic and Christian doctrines are explicitly and sometimes publicly denied, basic questions of personal integrity then have to be answered."

I think Archbishop Pell is right on the mark here. Conscience is important, it is essential, but it is not absolute. We are under a constant obligation to inform our consciences with truth. A poorly formed conscience is no justification for error, in faith or in life. We should be free from civil or criminal consequence for failing to follow an informed conscience, but we can never be free from the moral obligation to know what is right and to do it, to know what is wrong and avoid it. We will all fail to do so, some often, some less so, but we must identify our failings for what they are - sins. We cannot hide behind a poorly formed conscience, just as we cannot hide behind wilful blindness in the courts. Conscience must always be subject to truth.

On the Catholic Church:

"Membership of the Catholic Church is a wonderful honour. We belong to a proud community of worship and service; flawed and sinful certainly, always in need of purification, but a tradition of truth, beauty and unselfish love."

People often talk of "Catholic guilt", less commonly do we see the Catholic Church portrayed in the media as an entity based on "truth, beauty and unselfish love". This is to my mind a perfect description of the church as I have experienced it. Truth is central to the Church. If it isn't true, what are we doing and why are we doing it? If God is not true, if his word is not true, if his son is not true the Church has no meaning. The Church is beautiful, and not just in an aesthetic way. The beauty of the Church is in its diversity, and its unity. It is in its simplicity and its complexity. The very idea of the Catholic Church, the Universal Church throughout the world, the Church Militant on Earth united with the Church Suffering in purgatory and the Church Triumphant in God's Kingdom is a thing of beauty. Unselfish love cuts to the very essence of the Church. The Church is borne out of the unselfish love of God towards all humanity, a love which leads him to sacrifice his son for our salvation. Christians throughout the ages have shown their unselfish love for each other and for God. We have examples of this in the martyrs who have given their lives to serve God. We see it in the countless saints, those officially canonised and those unknown, who have devoted their lives to the service of the poor and sick, Mother Theresa and Blessed Damien of Moloka'i come to mind, thought they are in good company. We continue to see this selfless love in those who serve the Church today, laity and clergy alike. Parents who raise their children with the knowledge of Christ, couples who base their marriages on the love Christ has for each of us, and countless more. Yes the Church is true, beautiful and loving, it is the very Body of Christ.

Archbishop Pell of Sydney has issued a Pentecost message on leadership. Well worth a read.

You may also want to take a glance at his address entitled From Vatican Two to Today. It traverses the good and bad of the council and its aftermath. I may add my comments later.

After seeing the Casino in the Cloisters (see post below), the Saturday newspaper had a piece on the goings on in a large inner city Anglican Church here in Auckland (unfortunately not available online). It seems that for $200 an hour the vicar will conveniently ignore the fact that the building in his care is supposed to be a church and will let you do … well, just about anything.

“Today’s Anglican Church cleaves strongly to a new calling, to bring the sacred and secular closer together, to blur the lines between inside and outside a church.”

It seems the way they go about this is not to take the sacred outside, but to bring the secular inside. There seems to be no idea of evangelisation in the letting out of the church, and I am talking about the church itself, not the hall or crypt. The pews are moved out and the rock concert, ball, party or banquet moves right on in. I would have thought that the way a Christian should seek to bring the sacred and secular together would be to follow Christ's command: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you." Matthew 28:19-20.

While we Catholics haven’t been terribly successful in evangelising the culture around us, the Anglicans seem to have hoisted the white flag and surrendered altogether. The altar is no longer a place for celebrating the Eucharist, it is a prop that “adds constant frisson to the sweetness and spice of partying where ‘twas once forbidden”. The church is no longer a building dedicated to God, but a venue for fashion shoots and dance parties.

Casino in a Former Monastery (Dutch)

The Dutch have put a 13,000 sq m casinoin a former Norbertine monastery in Breda. It will be the biggest casino in Europe. The architect claims to have dove everything in the character of a monastery - yes because all fourteenth century monasterys had casinos, of course, what was I thinking!

Excellent article by Mark Shea on the conept of blogging.

This is great news. Meth, P, Pure or whatever you want to call it has been the bane of our society in the last few years and has been implicated in a number of high profile murders. Finally the government and police are starting to take it seriously. We will never be able to completely rid the country of this drug, and if we do another will come, but making a big dent in the supply would be a fantastic start.

While on the topic of Australia, the newspaper this morning carried an op-ed piece by the Dean of the Anglican cathedral on the resignation of Australia's Governor-General Peter Hollingworth, former Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane. Hollingworth resigned after complaints about his handling of sexual abuse by clergy while archbishop and unsubstantiated rape claims against himself. The question arises after this fracas of whether a cleric should ever have been appointed as representative of the queen. I think it was a mistake to do so but not on grounds of separation of church and state. There was never a risk of the church becoming established by the appointment of Hollingworth, just as there was none when former Archbishop of Auckland Sir Paul Reeves was appointed New Zealand Governor-General in the 1980s. However there is a serious disparity between the offices of cleric and vice-regal representative. This is a difficult bridge to cross and I don't see why one would want to do so. Surely it must be a greater honour to serve God than to serve Caesar, quite why one would give up service of Christ and his church (or what you see to be his church) to represent the queen is incomprehensible to me.

In his column Bishop Randerson argues that none should be excluded from public office for their profession. To me this seems to underline the different way the Anglican Church looks at their clergy. He seems to think of the office of Archbishop just like any other job from which one moves in search of a promotion. It is as if he thinks it acceptable for a bishop to put his priesthood and episcopacy to the side for a few years and act as if he wasn’t a cleric. This seems akin to President Kennedy’s claim that his catholic faith would have NO impact on his decision making process. Both of these arguments seem flawed to me.

Oh dear - the bible has been translated into Strine. The Three Wise Men become the "eggheads from out east" and come to say "G'day Your Majesty". Sigh. What will they think of next??

Link via: A Saintly Salmagundi

Who'd have thought that the peaceful Pacific Ocean Kingdom of Tonga would be the site of the latest threat to freedom of the press.

Welcome to my blog and thank you for visiting. I am a 21 year old law student from Auckland, New Zealand and on this blog I will be presenting my views on striving to live a Catholic Christian life to the full in New Zealand. Hopefully these will be of interest to some, and perhaps someone may even find them useful. For those who are unaware (here in NZ we are led to believe here in NZ that most Americans could barely locate Canada on a map) New Zealand is a small island nation in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is next to (thought not part of) Australia. In the latest census (2001) 14% identified themselves as Catholic and 44% as another sort of Christian, mostly Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian. 36% listed themselves as having no religion or objected to answering the question (the only question on the NZ census form for which this is an option). There are small communities of Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Jews, the former three are drawn mostly from immigrant groups. However the major challenge for Christians here is not conversion to other faiths but a drifting away from all faith, a sadly common occurrence. The Anglicans (Episcopalians) are haemorrhaging members and we Catholics are only managing to tread water numbers wise with the support of immigration from the Pacific Islands and the strong Catholic school system. By the next census in 2006 it is likely that Catholicism will be the largest religion in the country, but we can take no pride in that fact. The change will have come from the decline in the Anglican Church and we will still be dwarfed by those who profess no faith at all. In time and with the grace of God (and a lot of hard work) hopefully this land will again be able to call itself a Christian country.