Religion
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20th Sunday in ordinary time: It is faith that matters
Today’s readings: Isaiah 56, 1.6-7; Romans 11, 13-15.29-32; Matthew 15, 21-28. Ideally, religions should transcend boundaries and by nature be inclusive, promoting unity in diversity and fraternity. But as we all know, the truth on the ground is...
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Silence is not golden
In a landmark document of 1998, entitled ‘Living the Gospel of Life’, the Catholic Bishops of the US made a fervent appeal for Catholics to fulfil their vocation in the public arena. In the light of unfolding events in Malta, this document is very...
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Quotes and news
Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne emphasised that priests are under an absolute moral obligation to preserve the secrecy of the confessional. The archbishop was reacting to a recommendation by an Australian Royal Commission that would oblige...
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19th Sunday in ordinary time: Living wisely, creatively
Today’s readings: 1 Kings 19, 9.11-13; Romans 9, 1-5; Matthew 14, 22-33. Rough patches come our way unexpectedly. They can be time consuming, they drain our energy and joy of living, they can even upset our belief system. In today’s Scriptures we...
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The power of the Church
A recent article in La Civiltà Cattolica caused a storm of controversy in the US media and beyond. It argued that there is a dangerous religious-political “ecumenism of hate” between “fringe” integralist Catholic groups and a certain type of...
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Quotes and news
The tension between Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro and the Catholic Church continued to increase after his strong disapproval of a recent Vatican statement opposing his government’s plan to rewrite the nation’s Constitution. The plan had...
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The Transfiguration of the Lord: Hindsight interpretations
Today’s readings: Daniel 7, 9-10.13-14; 2 Peter 1, 16-19; Matthew 17, 1-9. One of the major difficulties or challenges we face in a digital age is to distinguish between what is virtual and what is real. It is also the difficulty we all face in...
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Private fulfilment vs common good
Commitment to democracy demands the right balance between allowing for personal freedom and liberty without impairing the common good. But what is the common good? It seems as though the ‘common good’ is a fine but vague-sounding phrase that can...
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Quotes and news
After President Nicholas Maduro’s ‘victory’ in last Sunday’s poll in Venezuela, the country’s bishops prayed for Our Lady’s intercession to liberate the country. The prayer, transmitted via Twitter, read: “Most Holy Virgin, Mother of Coromoto,...
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Seventeenth Sunday in ordinary time: Discovering for ourselves
Today’s readings: 1 Kings 3, 5.7-12; Romans 8, 28-30; Matthew 13, 44-52. It is no secret that D. H. Lawrence, an early 20th century novelist, was not particularly fond of the Church or of Christianity. For him, Christianity was a spent force. In...
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Mother Church and her LGBT children
The ‘coming out’ of LGBT persons is a complex process that is often considered long, bumpy, challenging but liberating. More often than not, the process is a positive experience for LGBT persons. Yet, depending on the circumstances and the...
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Quotes and news
Fr Giulio Cirignano, a Scripture scholar at the Theological Faculty of Central Italy, wrote an article in L’Osservatore Romano saying that the “main obstacle” to implementing Pope Francis’s vision is “closure, if not hostility” from “a good part...
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Sixteenth Sunday in ordinary time: Wisdom in judgement
Today’s readings: Wisdom 12, 13.16-19; Romans 8, 26-27; Matthew 13, 24-43. The God of Jesus Christ is undoubtedly not the God as so often projected in religion and in our churches. If we were to abide faithfully by what the Scriptures say, much of...
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Contemporary Christian martyrs
On the feast of Palm Sunday, a Fedayeen suicide bomber in Alexandria, Egypt, killed at least 17 who were in church and wounded 48, and another blew himself up in the middle of a church service, killing 29 and wounding 78 at Tanta. A few days...
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Quotes and news
Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich said the Church should be more concerned about discrimination and intolerance of homosexuals than same sex-marriage. When asked about the legalisation of same-sex marriage he said it was not a concern for the...
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Phases in our life’s journey
Today’s readings: Isaiah 55, 10-11; Romans 8, 18-23; Matthew 13, 1-23. Our landscape – social, political, and maybe even religious – is that of post-truth. It means that we live in the midst of organised misinformation that creates and...
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Hope for the ‘politically homeless’
In the online edition of La Croix International on July 10, Massimo Faggioli wrote that the growing global political loneliness of world Catholicism was evident in Pope Francis’s message last week to the G20 summit in Hamburg. Perhaps Christians...
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Quotes and news
Canada’s major churches, the Canadian Council for Refugees and Amnesty International Canada are claiming that Canada’s Federal government should abrogate an agreement it has with the US government. According to the agreement, people claiming...
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Warming our hearts
Today’s readings: Zechariah 9, 9-10; Romans 8, 9.11-13; Matthew 11, 25-30. We are indeed at a crossroad when it comes to how and when we believers are to speak fearlessly and pronounce judgement on what enhances and what instead distorts our true...
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A Church in transition
In our country, religion and culture has been very closely intertwined. Our skyline is still a battle between domes, steeples and high-rises, street corners are adorned with saints, and we hang feast decorations in streets. So it is hard to fathom...
