Blog

Life After Death

Garry Everett

The Christian view of life after death owes everything to the Christian view of God, writes Garry Everett. Our experiences of love are foretastes of God’s greater love for us.

In that wonderful stage production and movie, The Lion King, the opening song is entitled, The Circle of Life. Like the verses of our favourite psalm, we should ponder the words of this song also.

The lyrics by Tim Rice touch into the eco-spirituality theme of the inter-connectedness of all things. The music by Sir Elton John conveys the feeling that every ending is a beginning of something new.

These two concepts, inter-connectedness and new beginnings, are also doorways which open to allow us to talk about the rich religious reality of life after death. Most major world religions offer limited commentary on the topic, usually in the expressions of some form of reincarnation or some form of a place called heaven.

Church without Clergy

Dr Harald Prinz

There are situations in which history overtakes itself and developments unfold a dynamic that was hardly conceivable a short time ago. This is shown by the current discussion on the role of the priest in the Catholic Church, which has broken out on a large stage.

It is less than two years ago that I put forward a cautious conditional thesis on this topic in this magazine: “If the Church is not in a position to adapt the image of the priest to today’s requirements and convictions and thus to provide the faithful with sufficiently good priests, an alternative path could be to train a Church that no longer needs clergy, but only more pastors (women & men) who understand people’s lives”.

LGBTQ+ Issues and Catholic Doctrine

Dr. John A. Dick

July 10, 2024

After my Values Clarification post on July 3rd, a number of people have asked me for a clarification about Catholic teaching about LGBTQ issues past and present. By way of response, here is my brief summary…

The Bator Week: The impact and the Legacy

Michael Gill

He arrived on Wednesday, flew out the following Tuesday. An amazing gift to us in so many ways.

For most of us, an “unknown”. Who would turn out to listen and contribute?

Fr Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, SJ aka Bator. Nigerian convert, coming from a community where the various brands of Christian abused him and his Animist family and neighbours.

He grew up in a family of his father, 7 wives and 27 siblings ( I hope I recall the numbers correctly).

We Are Historical: We Grow in Knowledge and Understanding

Evolution is a fact not a theory. Evolution of life on earth has been going on for 3.5 billion years. Anthropologists have discovered that the first humans (Homo Sapiens) most likely developed in the Horn of Africa between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago. Cave paintings and rock paintings began to emerge on multiple continents some 30,000 years ago. The physical universe, our planet, and all living organisms are still evolving.

Baptism

John A. Dick

The Synoptic Gospels (Mark 1:9–11; Matthew 3:13–17; Luke 3:21–23) mention the ritual immersion practiced by John the Baptizer in which Jesus himself participated. Matthew 29:18–20 also portrays the risen Lord, in a post-Resurrection narrative, commanding his disciples to baptize using a Trinitarian formula. The words came not from the historic Jesus, biblical scholars suggest, but from early church practice around the year 80 CE.

Ordination

John A. Dick

Our understanding of priests, bishops, and deacons has changed dramatically in the church’s long history.

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, the disciples of Jesus (c. 4 BCE – 30 or 33 CE) understood their role as one of ministry and service to others. Sent out to spread the Good News of the Way of Jesus, they were called “apostles” from the Greek word apóstolos, meaning “one who is sent out.”

In the earliest Christian communities, men and women were apostles. There was a variety of ministries; but ordained priesthood was not one of them. Contrary to what one occasionally hears, the historical Jesus did not ordain anyone at the Last Supper. In the medieval period, many thought he did. But ordination did not exist in his lifetime.

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ACCCR Response to Pope Francis' On Promoting Theology

Catholic theology is at a turning point. On 1 November 2023, Pope Francis endorsed a major evolution. It is, as it always has been, a search for understanding but it is no longer restricted to Scripture and Tradition as sources. Francis is clear; the experience of human living is an essential source of theological reflection. The traditional description, “faith seeking understanding” has been declared inadequate and has been superseded.

The human experience of the faithful, the concrete situations in which we live, and the knowledge we gain through our relationships with one another are genuine sources of mature theology.

No official English translation has been issued to date (18/5/24). The button below leads to an an unofficial translation by Daniel Madigan S.J.