church – NZ Catholic Newspaper

Massey professor says shift church resources to north

Rowena Orejana — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 03:25:47 +0000

There is a strong case for the New Zealand Catholic Church to shift its personnel and resources to the north and adopt a “survival strategy” in the south, a prominent commentator on religion in New Zealand has said.

In the recently launched book, “A Church in change: New Zealand Catholics take their bearings”, Massey University Professor of History Peter Lineham laid out the recent demographic trends in the Church which he said “changed radically in the recent years”.

The book, edited by Sr Helen Bergin, OP, and Sr Susan Smith, RNDM, was launched on October 7 at the St Columba Centre in Ponsonby. It is a collection of theological reflections on the realities the Church faces today.

Professor Lineham noted the Church has benefitted from migration, which has boosted the number of Massgoers particularly in Auckland even though “people for whom English is a first language are tending to participate less in Church life”.

Other parts of the country like rural Otago and Southland have very low numbers of Catholics. He said the decline in population in these parts had hit the Church very hard. “There are very significant resource implications facing the Catholic Church,” he said. “Given its limited financial resources and the decline in religious vocations, there is a strong case for a shift in personnel and financial investment to the north, and a survival strategy with a somewhat reduced presence of priests and schools in the south.”

The book touched on topics such as the role of the laity, women and youth in the Church as well as the changing ministry of priests and religious.

It also touched on the Church’s involvement in social justice issues. In another chapter, Auckland Parish and Pastoral Services leader Pat Lythe lamented the lack of a “clear standardised employment policy for lay people in paid positions in parishes”.

“There are neither recognised national formation pathways, nor standard remuneration,” she wrote. Sr Smith said the book does not aim to provide answers but to offer “theological interpretations of our past and present realities”.

“Why are these happening today? What do we need to know about our past and our history and about our present which enables us to move forward into an uncertain future? We invited people with particular competencies to share their reflections on past and present realities and possibilities as we move forward,” she said.

Gore parish priest Fr Damian Wynn-Williams said the book “exposes some of the dramatic changes confronting the Catholic Church” today.

“While immigration from the Pacific and Asia has helped lessen its numerical decline . . . there is no place for complacency, “he said. “These are timely studies for anyone concerned about the future of the Church in this land.”

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How do we see ourselves in Church?

Rowena Orejana — Sun, 21 Jun 2015 23:17:33 +0000

by ROWENA OREJANA When we think about mission, we first need to think about Church and how it relates to us and how we see ourselves in it, according to a Boston University professor. Fr Richard Lennan, Doctor of Theology and Professor of Systematic Theology at Boston University, said in a talk before pastoral workers

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Young Auckland builder’s Solomons sojourn rewarding

Michael Otto — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 04:08:07 +0000

by MICHAEL OTTO AUCKLAND — For one young Kiwi, doing volunteer work in the Solomon Islands as part of a Mahitahi — Catholic Overseas Volunteers programme will have a special poignancy. Matthew O’Sullivan from Glenfield left for the Solomon Islands in mid-June to continue his work building a new church in a remote part of

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Pope prays for Hurricane Sandy victims

Vatican City (CNS) — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 03:04:15 +0000

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI expressed his concern for everyone affected by Hurricane Sandy and encouraged all those working to rebuild from the disaster.
“Conscious of the devastation caused by the hurricane which recently struck the East Coast of the United States of America, I offer my prayers for the victims and express my solidarity with all those engaged in the work of rebuilding,” he said on October 31 at the end of his weekly general audience.
Nearly 1,600 kilometres wide, Sandy’s strong gales reached to the Great Lakes on the US/Canada border. As of October 31, it caused at least 55 deaths in seven states and left more than 8.5 million homes and businesses without power from the Carolinas to Ohio.
In the Caribbean, government officials put the death toll across the islands at 69, with more than 50 in Haiti, where widespread flooding devastated parts of the already impoverished country.
After reciting the Angelus on October 28, the Pope called for prayers and concrete help for the people of Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and the Bahamas, where, he said, the hurricane struck “with particular violence”.
During his main audience talk on October 31, the Pope underlined the importance of the Church in preserving and passing on the faith across generations and throughout history. Some 10,000 people gathered under the rain in St Peter’s Square to hear the Pope’s catechesis.
Though finding Christ is an intensely personal experience that transforms one’s own heart, mind and individual existence, “faith is given in and through the community of the Church”, the Pope said.
The Creed and one’s beliefs are not built upon a “private dialogue with Jesus”, but are the result of a dialogue and a listening that shatter individualism and open one up to God’s love and to others, he said.
“Faith comes to me given as a gift from God through a community of believers, which is the Church,” he said.
People discover through Baptism that they are not only united to Jesus, “but also to all those who walked and are walking the same path” toward holiness.
“Our faith is truly personal only if it is communal: It can be my faith only if it lives and moves in the ‘we’ of the Church, only if it is our faith, the common faith of the one Church,” the Pope said.
It is important to remember that faith is born in the Church and leads people to the Church, he said; “No one can have God as Father who does not have the Church as mother.”
Tradition is “an uninterrupted chain of the life of the Church, the proclamation of the Word of God and the celebration of the sacraments that reaches us” from the past, he said.
Tradition is what “gives us the guarantee that that which we believe in is the original message of Christ, preached by the Apostles”, he said.
This way, every man and woman from every generation and every continent can have access to the “immense resources” of sacred Scripture and the Faith, and “enrich themselves from the treasures of grace” given to humanity by God, the Pope said.
In fact, the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, “Lumen Gentium,” reminded people that God doesn’t seek to make people “holy and save them merely as individuals, without bond or link between one another. Rather has it pleased him to bring men together as one people, a people which acknowledges him in truth and serves him in holiness”.
By radiating the truth of the Church, each person becomes a point of reference for others by passing on the person of Jesus and his message, Pope Benedict said.
Only by “letting oneself be guided and molded by the faith of the Church,” Christians, who despite their weakness, limits and difficulties, become “like an open window” that lets God’s light shine on the world.
Keeping one’s faith closed up inside oneself contradicts the very nature of faith, the Pope said.
“We need a Church in order to have confirmation of our faith and to experience the gifts of God: his word, the sacraments, the support of grace and the witness of love,” he said.
In a world of rampant individualism which only weakens human relations, “faith calls us to be Church, carriers of love and of the communion of God for all humanity,” he said.

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Helping young people discover God in their lives

Michael Otto — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 04:16:28 +0000

by LYNDSAY FREER AUCKLAND — Logos was founded in 2000 by the Society of Mary as a Marist Youth Development organisation, and became a Charitable Trust in 2010. I did not know a great deal about this agency that works with young people in Auckland diocese, and was amazed when I heard that their 10

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Gunmen kill at least 19 churchgoers

Michael Otto — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 22:53:01 +0000

ABUJA, Nigeria (CWN) — Gunmen killed at least 19 people and left an unknown number wounded in an August 7 attack on a Christian church in central Nigeria.
The armed assault on Deeper Life Bible Church in Okene came on August 6 as members were gathered for a prayer service. At least three gunmen entered the church, turned off the lights to prevent easy escape, and sprayed the congregation with fire from automatic weapons.
The initial death toll of 19 was likely to rise, as a number of people were gravely wounded. In the confusion following the attack police were uncertain about the exact number of victims.
The attack is believed to be the work of the Boko Haram terrorist group, which has made multiple violent assaults on Christian targets in the region.

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Survey shows why Catholics quit the Church

Michael Otto — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 21:56:24 +0000

RADNOR, Pennsylvania (CathNews) — In an unusual study whose main results were released at a Catholic University of America conference at the end of March, Villanova University in Philadelphia asked former Catholics in the Trenton, New Jersey, diocese why they left the Church, reports NCR Online.
Although the results were not surprising, the researchers said, the study suggests new ways the Church can approach Catholics who are dissatisfied with what the Church teaches or how it acts — including those so dissatisfied that they have decided to leave.
One of their key recommendations was for pastors, bishops and other Church officials to respond consistently to questioning or angry Catholics with constructive dialogue rather than a simple reiteration of Church rules or policies.
Jesuit Fr William Byron, a professor of business at St Joseph’s University in Philadelphia — who collaborated in the study with Charles Zech, founder and director of the Center for the Study of Church Management of Villanova’s School of Business — several times cited a response of one disaffiliated Catholic who complained, “Ask a question of any priest and you get a rule; you don’t get a ‘Let’s sit down and talk about it’ response”.
Byron and Zech told conference participants at the Catholic University of America that many of the responses from lapsed or disaffiliated Catholics in the Trenton diocese matched what researchers have known from other surveys:
They object to what they see as the Church’s unwelcoming attitude toward homosexuals or towards the divorced and remarried, they find homilies uninspiring, the parish unwelcoming, the pastor arrogant or parish staff uncaring, or they have suffered bad personal experiences with a priest or other Church official, such as rejection for being divorced.
Some of the former Catholics complained of priests being too liberal, while others cited “the extreme conservative haranguing” they heard in homilies — reflecting the intra-Catholic political divisions that reflect similar divisions in broader society.

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Contraception killing parishes, says bishop

Michael Otto — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 01:08:49 +0000

MARQUETTE, Michigan (CWN) — In an interview with Catholic World Report, Bishop Alexander Sample of Marquette, Michigan, sees contraception as a major cause for the deterioration of American Catholic parishes.
Bishop Sample, who was ordained a bishop at the age of 50, describes himself as a member of “the first lost generation of poor catechesis”. He spoke with Catholic World Report about the critical need to restore proper religious education in order to bring young people back to the active practice of the faith.
When asked if the prevalence of contraceptive use is a problem for the Church, Bishop Sample responded clearly:
“Absolutely. Not everyone wants to talk about it, but that is a clear factor in the decline of the Catholic community. When I speak to my pastors, I hear them ask, ‘Where are the children?’ We’re struggling to keep our Catholic school population up. This is true in our public schools as well.
“My pastors want to have flourishing schools, but the children just aren’t there to fill them. Couples are using artificial contraceptives to limit the size of their families, and sterilisation is also becoming a common practice.
” Families think they have the number of children they want, and then close off any further openness to life that God might want to bring into their family.”

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Irish Church works with government to close schools in 10 urban areas

Michael Otto — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:00:00 +0000

DUBLIN, Ireland (CNS) Plans are underway to close Catholic primary schools in 10 urban areas in a joint effort involving the Church and the Irish government. With Catholic schools making up 90 percent of the primary schools in the country, the goal is to reduce the number to 50 to 60 percent of the total,

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Church schools might add “Catholic” to their names

Michael Otto — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

AUCKLAND A significant number of Catholic schools could soon have the word Catholic in their names to make clearer their connection with the Church. Bishop Patrick Dunn of Auckland wrote to his representatives on boards of trustees earlier this year asking that boards consider supporting having Catholic in the school name or subtitle. This would

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