In the middle of the last century, theologians began speaking of a “Third Church.” The First Church grew in the Mediterranean basin from its birthplace at the eastern end of that sea to include North Africa and southern Europe. It continues a somewhat tenuous existence in the Churches of the East. The Second Church was Continue reading »
Religion and Faith
John Menadue’s dignified and powerful defence of his adopted Catholic faith (‘Why I am Still a Catholic’ reissued 24 December 2022) is made at the expense of his (very respectful) renunciation of the Methodism in which he was brought up. Alas, ‘Methodism’, appearing here in quotes, has no specific identity in Australia since it sacrificed Continue reading »
Why did so many people dislike Cardinal George Pell? It is possibly because he had the opportunity to show leadership but chose instead to reflect power and intransigence. He could have shown compassion and been a unifying force. Instead, he will be remembered as a divisive and damaging figure. At the start of this millennium Continue reading »
The media reaction to the death of Cardinal George Pell is extraordinary. But his contribution to Australian Catholicism is very much a mixed blessing. Australian Catholicism has had its fair share of controversial figures. Melbourne Archbishop Daniel Mannix and Bob Santamaria come to mind immediately. But outstripping them all is Cardinal George Pell, a man Continue reading »
Pell was an ideological warrior that resisted the changes of liberal society and its tolerance for diversity and individualism. Cardinal George Pell died as he lived, a fierce defender of the Catholic church and of conservative Catholicism. He had an agenda and knew how to achieve it. Striding from the back blocks of Ballarat to Continue reading »
Benedict the 16th was not one of my favourite Catholic churchmen. But like his predecessor John Paul II, I always cut them some slack, given their personal encounters with chaos and depravity within their European cultures. A young JPII literally carried acutely weak survivors out of the liberated Auschwitz, in his native Poland in 1944. Continue reading »
Benedict XVI’s life and papacy was a mixed blessing for Catholicism. I actually have a letter personally signed by Joseph Ratzinger. It was the last in a three year-long correspondence between the then Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) and myself focusing on ‘errors’ in my 1997 book Papal Power (London, Continue reading »