Letters

Shared guilt

Errol Duke

Contents - Feb 2007 - Buy a copy now Editorial: The Church and globalisation - Peter Westmore Education: Australia's Catholic school systems: the case for radical surgery - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World East Timor: priests threatened with execution - Peter Westmore Fr John Speekman: Vatican orders reinstatement of wrongly removed Sale Diocese parish priest - Michael Gilchrist Priesthood: Orthodox priests in a divided Church - Fr John Trigilio The Church and the environment: address the moral pollution first - Wanda Skowronska Salesians help rebuild post-tsunami Sri Lanka - Br Michael Lynch Why we need holy days of obligation - Joanna Bogle Music: Johann Sebastian Bach and the heavenly choir - Fr Finbarr Flanagan Letters: Shared guilt - Errol Duke Letters: Lost! - Moya and Leo Morrissey Letters: Truth and love - Chris Hilder Letters: Root Cause - Marie Kennedy Letters: Safe-sex? - Jack Blair Poetry: Gender-Bender Autos - Bruce Dawe Letters: Limbo? - Lawrence R. Hurley Letters: Manipulating language - Carol V. Phillips Letters: Obedience - Matthew Buckley Letters: Latin Mass - John Gariano Letters: Religious materials - J.W. Smith Letters: Catholic dolls - Anne Cramer Books: TREASURE IN CLAY: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen - Michael Gilchrist (reviewer) Books: BEGINNING AT JERUSALEM: Five Reflections on the History of the Church - Sr Mariana Handley (reviewer) Books: SPIRITUAL DIRECTION: Who Is It For and What Are Its Benefits? - Michael Gilchrist (reviewer) Books: B.A. Santamaria's correspondence published by MUP Books: New Titles from AD Books Reflection: Why the Church must continue to uphold priestly celibacy - Fr Pat Stratford

Michael Gilchrist, with his recent book Lost! said it all in accurately recording the demise of Catholicism in Australia over the past 30 or 40 years.

Until all archbishops, bishops, priests, religious and lay people collectively accept their share of the blame for accommodating the whims and fancies of a secular culture gone mad, only then can we get on with the task of rebuilding the Kingdom of God here on earth.

This needs a concerted effort to promote the importance of Sunday Mass and the Eucharist as the key legacy left by Jesus for our salvation.

Bishops in particular have to exercise stronger leadership according to the responsibilities entrusted to them and instil unequivocal obedience to the teachings of the Vicar of Christ on earth. The bishops must totally re- prioritise "full-on" Catholic teachings in Catholic schools as their reason for existence.

If this occurs, then the "springtime" of the Faith that John Paul II anticipated may eventually come to pass.

In varying degrees we all share the guilt for what is now upon us. We need to change it all post haste before it is too late.

ERROL DUKE
Elizabeth east, SA

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 20 No 1 (February 2007), p. 14