Letters

Rainbow Serpent (letter)

Hans Klaver

Contents - Dec 2000 - Buy a copy now Editorial: At the end of the Year of Jubilee: an audit - Michael Gilchrist ACU - when will the 'Statement of Conclusions' be implemented? - Michael Gilchrist Jubilee Congress of Families: Rome report - Anthony Cappello News: The Church Around the World C.S. Lewis: Christian apologist - Sarah Macdonald G.K. Chesterton: fresh and accessible today - Dale Ahlquist The 'new breed' of orthodox seminarians - Carter H. Griffin Australian Foundation to back new Pontifical University New Australian women's religious order - Sr Carmel Doherty Letters: Clarification (letter) - Bishop James Foley Letters: Priest shortage (letter) - Bernard O'Connor Letters: Spiritual Poverty (letter) - Joe Garreffa Letters: 'Creating Our Future' (letter) - Patricia Byrnes Letters: Toowoomba Diocese (letter) - Maria Lossberg Letters: Serious duties (letter) - Myles M. Kehoe Letters: Rainbow Serpent (letter) - Hans Klaver Letters: Positive response (letter) - Geoff Taylor Letters: The Church in China (letter) - Francis Vrijmoed Letters: Corrected translation (letter) - Hugh Henry Letters: Remembrance services (letter) - Richard Grant Letters: Women's ordination (letter) - Dr Frank Mobbs Letters: Misguided (letter) - Joyce Pearson and Marie Kennedy Letters: Wordiness (letter) - Kathleen Murnane Letters: Hell? (letter) - P.J. Jones Letters: Sermons (letter) - Gordon R. Coomber Letters: EWTN programs (letter) - John Lovegrove Books: 200 Years of Faith: A Multimedia Tour of the Holy Land - Catherine Sheehan (reviewer) Books: 'Biblical Holy Places: An Illustrated Guide' by Rivka Gonen - Catherine Sheehan (reviewer) Books: 'John Paul II's Book of Mary', compiled by Margaret R. Bunson - Anthony Cappello (reviewer) Books: 'Anti-Catholicism in American Culture', edited by Robert Lockwood - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Summer School of Evangelisation 2001 Reflection: The coming of Christ on earth - Pope John Paul II

I was amazed to read in the "Church Around the World" (October AD2000) about the Jubilee celebration liturgy in St Stephen's Cathedral, Brisbane, on 2 August, for primary school students of the Brisbane Archdiocese, during which the children were read a story after the Gospel about the aboriginal Rainbow Serpent.

We all know this is an important story to the indigenous people of Australia, but do Catholic primary school pupils, when they are presumably taught from the Catechism of the Catholic Church and learn the prayers of the Mass, have to be told, "the Rainbow Serpent stirred from the land and set off to create ... With the Rainbow serpent came life and this life is the life of all people"? (My emphasis).

What is the point in confusing those pupils if, as one hopes, in their religious education classes they are taught that God in Heaven is the Creator of all things? Do these Catholic school children now have to believe that there is more than one Creator?

However, Bishop Michael Putney did not seem to have any problem with what went on and what was said in the Cathedral on that occasion when he spoke to the children.

HANS KLAVER
Runaway Bay, Qld

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 13 No 11 (December 2000 - January 2001), p. 14