in brief ...

As the Sisters of St Joseph continue to await news of the canonisation of their foundress Blessed Mary MacKillop, they have formed a joint committee to oversee the immediate preparation for and the celebration of the canonisation.

Congregational leader Sister Anne Derwin RSJ told the November meeting of the Catholic Religious Australia National Council that along with her, other members of the committee were the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, the President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Philip Wilson (right) and the Postulator of the Cause, Sister Maria Casey RSJ.

The joint committee has appointed a working party chaired by Sister Judith Sippel RSJ to execute the planning and preparations for the canonisation.  Committees -- Liturgy, Education, Youth, Indigenous Participation, Finance, Roman/Pilgrimage Matters and Media -- were assisting the working party.

The committees comprised women and men from across the Australian Church, Sr Anne said.

Chiang Mai, Thailand:   Salesian priest Fr Ambrose Pereira (left in the photo) has been elected President of the Pacific Region of  SIGNIS, the World Association of Catholic Communicators, at the organisation's recent world congress.  The congress, with the theme Media for a culture of peace - children's rights, tomorrow's promise, attracted more than 650 participants from around the world.

Fr Pereira has been involved with spreading Catholic values through the media for many years, having arrived in the Solomon Islands in 1999, as Director of Catholic Communications Solomons.  He has been involved in the production of programmes for SIBC, the national network and articles for the Solomon Star. He is responsible for raising the standard of Voice Katolika, the quarterly newspaper for the Catholic Church of Solomon Islands.  He has organised and conducted several media education programmes in different dioceses in the Solomon Islands and Papa New Guinea. He believes that "these courses have given students and people the ability to become critical viewers and consumers of the media.  It has also encouraged them to network in media for a value-based society."


The members of Signis Pacific are scattered through 20 countries, including Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, and Guam, he said. The distances separating these islands made communication a challenge.  SIGNIS Pacific strives to network to bring the culturally diverse populations together through the use of media.

The Madeleine Sophie Barat programme is a leadership programme for women 25 - 50, aimed at promoting leaders for society who will bring feminine values to the fore. The programme, in its ninth year, has attracted women who are interested in developing the spiritual dimension of their lives; who are passionate about justice and peace; who recognise the importance of setting aside time for self. 

Involvement calls for a commitment of three live-in weekends spaced throughout the year at Kerever Park Spirituality Centre, in NSW's Southern Highlands, and  six Thursday nights throughout the year, at Sancta Sophia College, Camperdown.

further information and/or application pack:  Sr Susan, 02 48611744 or suerkiwi@gmail.com

Australian Catholic University (ACU National) will host a conference to celebrate and explore the third Encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate or Charity in Truth, which discusses the application of the Church's social teaching on globalisation and international development. 

The conference will enable Australian scholars from the academic fields of economics, politics, theology and philosophy to engage with those working in the area of social justice. The two-day closed conference will involve representatives from Caritas Australia, John Paul II Institute, Yarra Theological Union and Catholic Theological College, Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture and ACU National.
 

However, two public sessions will allow members of the public to learn more about and discuss the content of the document.  The first public session will be a panel discussion highlighting the significance of the papal document. The second will be a lecture by Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, President of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum.

public sessions:  Ryan Auditorium , ACU National North Sydney Campus, North Sydney, NSW; November 27, from 4pm

Washington, USA:    Bishop Donald W. Trautman has called for a last-minute measure by the U.S. bishops to save American Catholics from new Mass prayers full of grammatical errors and unproclaimable texts.

The bishops are set to approve the last four segments of a new U.S. English translation of the Roman Missal at their annual fall meeting November 16-19. Bishop Trautman, of Erie, Pa., is urging the bishops to reject at least one of these segments, he told National Catholic Recorder.

He said he believed the only procedural way the bishops could halt the process and gain a new review of texts they have already approved (including Vatican reversals of many of their amendments to earlier texts) was to vote down at least one of the final segments up for review and form a committee to go to Rome and consult with the Vatican on what he considered the questionable texts approved by the Holy See.

There's simply no doubt that the bad grammar he declaims is there in prayers already approved by the U.S. bishops, or subsequently modified by Rome, which the priest or people are expected to pray during Mass. Which start, like this sentence, with a relative pronoun, making the entire sentence a subordinate clause. Which, he says, is no way to try to make people pray. And entire sentences, like this one, with no subject or verb.

The three non-sentences in the preceding paragraph exemplify what Bishop Trautman, a former scripture professor, finds typical of one of the most disturbing issues in the new missal translation facing English-speaking Catholics around the world: a lack of plain, everyday English grammar in liturgical prayers with which Catholics are supposed to express their worship of God.

The Australian Catholic Bishops also are meeting in the second half of November.  pathways understands that most of the translation has already been approved but some aspects are likely to be raised at the ACBC November meeting.