13th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Mersey Leven Catholic Parish

OUR VISION

To be a vibrant Catholic Community 

unified in its commitment 

to growing disciples for Christ 

Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney 

Mob: 0417 279 437 

mike.delaney@aohtas.org.au

Priest in Residence:  Fr Phil McCormack  

Mob: 0437 521 257

pmccormack43@bigpond.com

Deacon in Residence: Rev Steven Smith

Mob: 0411 522 630

steven.smith@aohtas.org.au

Postal Address: PO Box 362, Devonport 7310

Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street, Devonport 7310 

(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)

Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160 

Email: merseyleven@aohtas.org.au

Secretary: Annie Davies

Finance Officer: Anne Fisher

Pastoral Council Chair:  Felicity Sly

Mob: 0418 301 573

fsly@internode.on.net

Mersey Leven Catholic Parish Weekly Newsletter: mlcathparish.blogspot.com.au

Parish Mass times for the Month: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au

Weekly Homily Podcast: mikedelaney.podomatic.com 

Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.

         

PLENARY COUNCIL PRAYER

Come, Holy Spirit of Pentecost.
Come, Holy Spirit of the great South Land.
O God, bless and unite all your people in Australia 
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another 
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other 
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future, 
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age.   
Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.

Parish Prayer

Heavenly Father,

We thank you for gathering us together 
and calling us to serve as your disciples.

You have charged us through Your Son, Jesus, with the great mission

  of evangelising and witnessing your love to the world.

Send your Holy Spirit to guide us as we discern your will

 for the spiritual renewal of our parish.

Give us strength, courage, and clear vision 
as we use our gifts to serve you.

We entrust our parish family to the care of Mary, our mother,

and ask for her intercession and guidance 
as we strive to bear witness

 to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.

Amen.

Our Parish Sacramental Life

Baptism: Arrangements are made by contacting Parish Office. Parents attend a Baptismal Preparation Session organised with a Priest.

Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist: Are received following a Family–centred, Parish-based, School-supported Preparation Program.

Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: prepares adults for reception into the Catholic community.

Marriage: arrangements are made by contacting one of our priests - couples attend a Pre-marriage Program

Anointing of the Sick: please contact one of our priests

Reconciliation:  BY APPOINTMENT ONLY

THE FOLLOWING PUBLIC ACTIVITIES ARE SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

Eucharistic Adoration Devonport, Benediction with Adoration Devonport,

 Legion of Mary,  Prayer Group.

DAILY AND SUNDAY MASS ONLINE: You will need to go to the following link and register:  https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gHY-gMZ7SZeGMDSJyTDeAQ

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. Please keep this confirmation email as that will be your entry point for all further Masses or Liturgies.

Sun 28th June     9:00am  LIVESTREAM ONLY 

Mon 29th June    No Mass   ... Sts Peter and Paul

Tues 30th June   Devonport   9:30am - ALSO LIVESTREAM 

Wed 1st July       Ulverstone  9:30am 

Thurs 2nd July    Devonport   12noon - ALSO LIVESTREAM

Fri 3rd July         Ulverstone  9:30am ... St Thomas

Sat 4th July         Devonport   6.00pm Vigil

Sun 5th July        Devonport 10:00am       ALSO LIVESTREAM

If you are looking for Sunday Mass readings or Daily Mass readings, Universalis has the readings as well as the various Hours of the Divine Office - https://universalis.com/mass.htm 

                

Your prayers are asked for the sick:  Graeme Wilson, Kevin Hayes, Rex Evans, Athol Bryan, Jill Murphy, Roberto Escobar, Robert Luxton, Jane Fitzpatrick, Marlene Heazlewood, Mark Aylett, & …

Let us pray for those who have died recently: Max Last, Phylis Murphy, Danny Sheehan, Teresa Durkin, Carole Quinn, Shane Yates, Reg Hinkley, Veronica Murnane,

Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 24th - 30th June, 2020

Dean Mott, Rhys Tobin, Dylan Burgess, Max Stuart, Anne Morton, Leslie Constable, Ruth Edillo, Dudley McNamara, Patricia Barrenger, Herbert Coad, Dorothy Smith, Robin Millwood, Bill Wing, Basil Triffett, Terry Charlesworth, Fr Michael Fitzpatrick, Herbert Smith, Andrew Mitchell, Rosslyn Wilson, Leonard Hamilton, Donald Wilson, Eileen White, Hazel Gaffney, Kathleen Edwards, Geraldine Roden, Josephine Stafford, Pat Griffin, Mary Hoye, Patricia Landers.

May the souls of the faithful departed,  

through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Amen

                                               

PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY’S GOSPEL:

As I enter slowly into prayer, I become aware of God’s gentle presence within me and 
let his love embrace me. 
I ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten me as I read the Gospel prayerfully. 
I linger over anything that touches me.
Perhaps some of these words challenge me. 
I take time to reflect. 
Are there times when I might have put other things before God? 
I share these with the Lord, remembering that I am always loved and forgiven.
Jesus says, ‘Follow in my footsteps’. 
How might he be inviting me to do this now … in my work, my family, my community?
Maybe I feel drawn to ponder what might be my own cross right now. 
Is it perhaps a particular situation in which I find myself? 
Or is it perhaps simply in accepting my own weaknesses? 
I remember that Jesus is walking alongside me and loves me just as I am, my unique self.
Perhaps I can imagine being welcomed with a cup of cold water in the heat – 
how refreshing and good that is! – such a little gesture, but meaning so much. 
I reflect with gratitude on the little gestures that I have seen, given or received myself.
What might the Lord be saying to me now? 
How would I like to respond … 
whether in words from my heart, or just resting in his presence?
When I am ready, I end my prayer with a slow sign of the cross.

                            

Weekly Ramblings

On Monday at the Parish Pastoral Team Meeting we discussed the timetable for weekend Masses that will be implemented commencing on the weekend of 4/5th July. We will have a Vigil Mass at 6pm and a Sunday Morning Mass at 10am. Until an assistant priest is officially appointed this timetable will alternate between Devonport (1st & 3rd weekends) and Ulverstone (2nd & 4th weekends). Please note – this is not a division between Mass centres but rather an invitation for the community to gather whilst we only have one priest available as well as providing the greatest opportunity for people to come to Mass.

Indications from ‘email’ conversations with Parishioners, and information from around the State and the world, have made me aware many people won’t be coming back to Mass immediately so the timetable above will be an opportunity for us, the PPT, to better understand our Parish needs at this time. Our next meeting is on 6th July, after our first weekend, to see what we have learnt and what further decisions we might need to make.

Even though the social distancing rules have been relaxed to 2sqm from this weekend we still need information for contact tracing. We are asking people to either ring the Parish Office to inform us which of the Masses (Vigil or Sunday Morning) as well as any weekday Masses they will be attending. For weekend Masses you can also go online and book through Eventbrite. These are the links to the online booking - https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/vigil-mass-4th-july-2020-tickets-110709972508 or https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/sunday-mass-5th-july-2020-10am-tickets-110928399830. If you can access the online version of the Bulletin (http://mlcathparish.blogspot.com/) the links are easier to follow. The links are live from Thursday, 25th from midday.

We will be continuing to provide Livestream into the future – because of some technical challenges we will not be able to provide a livestream everyday but we will be including updated details on the Bulletin each week or at http://mlcpmasstimes.com.au.

Apologies for not posting a Wednesday Ramblings this week – my computer was playing up, again, and I couldn’t get internet access when I needed to but was back on Friday. I have invested in a new computer so hopefully it won’t happen again – at least for a short time.

Needed: greeters, ushers and cleaners for OLOL and Sacred Heart Church during this return to some ‘normality’. If you can help please contact the Parish Office and we will organise a training session so that you are aware of responsibilities of these new roles.

Stay safe, stay sane and, if you can, stay at home

Mersey Leven Catholic Parish would like to wish 

Mary Webb

a belated happy 80th birthday!

Thank you Mary for your years (and years and years) of serving us

and your witness to God by your life.

                                 

SUPPORTING THE PARISH FINANCIALLY:

To continue supporting the Parish you can ...

Drop your contribution into the Parish Office during our usual office hours

(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am -3pm)

Make an electronic transfer of funds directly into the CDF – Commonwealth Bank

Account Name: Mersey Leven; BSB: 067 000; Acc No: 1031 5724 and in the

description simply add your name and/or envelope number thank you.

                              

PLANNED GIVING PROGRAMME:

New envelopes are being distributed from this weekend. If you are not already part of this programme and would like to join, please contact the Parish office 6424:2783.

Please do not use the new envelopes until the starting date – Sunday 5th July. Thank you! 

                                

Letter From Rome
A Growing Chorus For Creatively Re-Thinking Church Ministry

A female theologian and a Catholic archbishop add their voices to calls for change

-  Robert Mickens, Rome, June 26, 2020. 

This article is from the La-Croix International website - you can access the site here but complete full access is via paid subscription

"We need to revisit the issue of ministries in the Church."

That's a quote from French biblical scholar Anne-Marie Pelletier, a Catholic lay woman that Pope Francis appointed some months ago to the Vatican's new "Study Commission on the Female Diaconate".

Hers is just the most recent voice in a growing chorus challenging the current Catholic leadership to engage the whole Church in better discerning the Holy Spirit's gifts among the members of God's household.

In an exclusive interview with La Croix's Céline Hoyeau, the 74-year-old Paris native and mother of four basically said the Church needed to be more creative about how it commissions or ordains people, both men and women, for ministry.

Her point was that being an ordained deacon or presbyter is not – or, at least, should not be – the only form of legitimately recognized and officially commissioned ministry in the Church.

Pelletier, who won the Ratzinger Prize for Theology in 2014, said more must be done to make this a reality.

Catholics tend to be lousy at group discernment

And that will require some serious discernment as a community. However…

"Catholics, particularly those in the clerical caste, tend to be pretty lousy at group discernment – especially when it comes to identifying those in the community who possess the unique spiritual gifts ordered to the various ministries of service in the Church."

Thus began the Nov. 8, 2019 "Letter from Rome".In light of Anne-Marie Pelletier's comments and in the context of what is usually the "ordination season" for new priests, let's refresh our memories about the current crisis surrounding Church ministry and ecclesial leadership's inability or unwillingness to reform a system that is broken.

*************

There is lack of true discernment when it comes to charisms.

The ordained priesthood (presbyterate) is a good example.

Generally, the process begins through the initiative of a male adult who believes (or his mother believes) that God is calling him to be a priest. The man will then seek to affiliate with a diocese or join a religious order.

If he can tie his own shoelaces and is not a convicted felon, he'll likely pass his initial audition. Unfortunately, that's no joke.

The most important thing in order to get to the next stage is to manifest the will to be celibate and convince the Church authorities that he does not "practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture.'"

If all that checks out, our man with the vocation will likely have more interviews, undergo psychological testing and be subjected to other background checks.

Jumping through hoops

If there are no glaring signs of mental illness or personality disorders he will then be admitted to a seminary or novitiate program. At this point, the standard trope is that the seminarian is discerning and the diocese or religious order is discerning, as well.

Thus begins a series of "hoops" the candidate for priesthood will be expected to jump through in order to make it to ordination. He will learn that very special and necessary skill – creativity with the truth.

There are elaborate programs of priestly formation that are drawn up by national episcopal conferences. They must receive the Vatican's seal of approval before being implemented.

The daily regime differs somewhat from one seminary to another. Every house of formation has its own variation of a dress code, liturgical schedule and style, types of pastoral experience, curfew (or not) and a number of rules and regulations.

Then after three or four years of theological studies the candidate must face his first major hurdle. Will the seminary staff recommend him to be ordained to the transitional diaconate?

Occasionally, one or two don't make the cut. But that is rare.

The second and final hurdle is ordination to the presbyterate. The seminary rector and his staff can advise a bishop not to ordain a man for reasons they deem to be serious.

But, again, and for a variety of reasons, there are few people who are blocked.

Usually a questionable candidate has been weeded out already in the first couple of years. If he is not, it is because he enjoys the favor of his bishop…

Where is the voice of the community?

During the Rite of Ordination a priest presents the candidates to the bishop.

"Most Reverend Father, holy mother Church asks you to ordain these, our brothers, to the responsibility of the priesthood," he says.

"Do you know them to be worthy?" the bishop asks.

And the priest responds: "After inquiry among the Christian people and upon the recommendation of those responsible, I testify that they have been found worthy."

How, exactly, have the "Christian people" been questioned or involved in the process of finding these men worthy? And which people – their parents, their friends?

Every diocese and house of formation is unique, of course. Some involve the laity in the task of reviewing applicants for seminary or preparing them for ministry. But the origins of a man's path to the priesthood – or at least the exploration of it – is mostly of that man's own initiative.

Obviously, there are people – especially priests – who encourage certain men (usually young men) to consider the priesthood.

Hopefully, they see qualities in these men that would make them good presbyters. But, again, this is the initiative of an individual.

What if an entire community – say, a parish – were able to do something similar?

Rather than waiting for someone to come forward on his own initiative, what if the community engaged in prayerful discernment to identify those in their own midst who have the charisms of service?

The system of seminary selection and formation is broken

The truth is that the Church's system of selecting and preparing presbyters is seriously flawed.

We've known this for a very long time. And in light of the clergy sex abuse crisis, which has been like an ever-replenishing Pandora's box of horrors, the bishops have been emphatic that they have improved the screening of candidates and tightened standards of well-rounded formation.

But the system is still not working.

Just in the past several weeks, two priests from archdioceses in the United States and England were charged with sexual abuse of minors. One of them was ordained five years ago and the other only four. The Englishman has been sentenced to four years and three months is prison. Both will likely be booted from the priesthood.

How did they ever make it to ordination? Who discerned they had a vocation to the priesthood? Was the community involved in this decision in any meaningful way?

The recurrence of sexual abuse – even if it involves only a small percentage of the clergy – is just one proof that the system of selection and formation remains inadequate.

There are other indicators, as well. Among them are pathologies that stem from deep-seated tendencies – not only towards homosexuality, but also and especially towards clericalism; even when the candidate for Holy Orders tries to deny or hide them.

Synodality could lead to communal discernment of the charisms

Pope Francis is trying to implement synodality at every level of the Church. And why should that be any different for identifying the best candidates to serve the community in various ministries and positions of leadership?

But rather than focus on the ministries or the leadership roles themselves, the work of a community engaged in group discernment might aim to do something even more profound. It would seek, through the help of the Holy Spirit, to identify those persons who have been graced by the same Spirit with charisms proper to the various ministries.

"There are many different gifts, but it is always the same Spirit," St. Paul tells the Christian community in Corinth.

"There are many different ways of serving, but it is always the same Lord… The particular manifestation of the Spirit granted to each one is to be used for the general good" (cf. 1 Corinthians 12).

Paul tells the Romans:"Since the gifts that we have differ according to the grace that was given to each of us: if it is a gift of prophecy, we should prophesy as much as our faith tells us; if it is a gift of practical service, let us devote ourselves to serving; if it is teaching, to teaching; if it is encouraging, to encouraging. When you give, you should give generously from the heart; if you are put in charge, you must be conscientious; if you do works of mercy, let it be because you enjoy doing them" (cf. Romans 12).

Bishops confirm what the community has discerned

In a synodal Church the entire body of believers would engage in communal discernment to identify those with specific gifts. The pastors (bishops) would then ratify and "ordain" these people to exercise their charisms – God's gifts – for the general good.

"To some, his 'gift' was that they should be apostles; to some prophets; to some, evangelists; to some, pastors and teachers; to knit God's holy people together for the work of service to build up the Body of Christ" (Cf. Ephesians 4)

As it is now the presbyters and the bishops are expected to fulfill almost all the tasks. But there are currently non-ordained people – men and women, celibate and married – who clearly have the charisms of preaching, presiding over prayer, being in charge, healing and so forth.

However, the authorities of the Church, the bishops, rarely allow these people to officially share these charisms with the rest of the community because, for centuries, they have been reserved to the ordained.

The Second Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution on the Church says the bishops "know that they were not ordained by Christ to take upon themselves alone the entire salvific mission of the Church toward the world.

"On the contrary, they understand that it is their noble duty to shepherd the faithful and to recognize their ministries and charisms, so that all according to their proper roles may cooperate in this common undertaking with one mind" (Lumen Gentium, 30).

But the bishops cannot and must not take upon themselves alone the task of recognizing the ministries and charisms of the faithful, either. That is something for the entire Church.

As Pope Francis told the crowd in St. Peter's Square right after his election: "We take up this journey, bishop and people."

It is a journey that must be made together.

********

It was heartening to read Archbishop Pascal Wintzer of Poitiers (France) say similar things in an essay he penned several days ago for La Croix, which we translated and re-published.

"The exercise of a decision-making role, which is the prime responsibility of the bishop, with priests as his co-workers, cannot dispense with the calling and training for other ministries in the Church," he said.

"Men and women receive - or would receive - ministries of charity, preaching and presiding at common prayer. These would not be conferred by substitution, but by right; not by delegation, but in view of worthiness. And the community must be the first to recognize this, not in subordination, but in full and complete responsibility," he added.

The Holy Spirit lavishes the diverse charisms among the entire body of the baptized. And it is the responsibility of the entire body – not just the bishops or priests – to discern which of its members have been given the various spiritual gifts for service and leadership.

More and more Catholics (including some bishops and priests) are seeing this. They join a growing chorus of faithful believers in Christ that clamors for more creative ways of envisioning Church ministry.

Indeed, this is one of the Signs of the Times.

                                

Soul Knowledge

This article is taken from the Daily Email sent by Fr Richard Rohr OFM from the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the email by clicking here 

When Western civilization set out on its many paths of winning, accomplishment, and conquest, the contemplative mind seemed uninteresting and even counterproductive to our egoic purposes. The contemplative mind got in the way of definable goals for progress, science, and development, which were very good and necessary in their own way—but not for soul knowledge. We lost almost any notion of paradox, mystery, or the wisdom of unsayability—which are the open-ended qualities that make biblical faith so dynamic, creative, and nonviolent. Instead, we insisted on “knowing,” and even certain knowing all the time and every step of the way! This is no longer the enlightening path of Abraham, Moses, Mary, or Jesus but a rather late and utterly inadequate form of religion, which is probably why so many individuals, especially in the West, now say they are “spiritual but not religious.” I cannot fault them for that, though it sounds like the dualistic mind speaking. 

We must remember that Christianity in its maturity is supremely love-centered, not information- or knowledge-centered. The primacy of love allows our knowing to be much humbler and more patient and helps us to recognize that other traditions—and other people—have much to teach us, and there is also much we can share with them. This stance of honest self-knowledge and deeper interiority, with the head (Scripture), the heart (Experience), and the body (Tradition) operating as one, is helping many to be more integrated and truthful about their own actual experience of God. 

Contemplation allows us to see things in their wholeness and thus with respect (re-spect means to see a second time). Until Richard recognizes and somehow compensates for his prejudicial way of seeing the moment, all Richard will tend to see is his own emotional life and agenda in every new situation. This is the essential letting-go lesson (kenosis) of Contemplation 101, but such self-emptying does not yet feel much like “prayer” to the average person, which is probably why many give up too soon and frankly never truly meet otherness—much less the Other. They just keep meeting themselves over and over again. Only at a deeper level of contemplation do we begin to see the correlation between how we do anything and how we do everything else. We take the moment in front of us much more seriously and respectfully. We catch ourselves out of the corner of our eye, as it were, and our ego games are exposed and diminished. 

Such knowing does not contradict the rational, but it’s much more holistic and inclusive. It might be called trans-rational although many think it is pre-rational. It goes where the rational mind cannot go, but then comes back to honor the rational, too. In our Living School, we call this “contemplative epistemology”—a contemplative theory of how we know what we know. Contemplation is really the change that changes everything—especially, first of all, the seer. 

Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe (Convergent: 2019), 210, 214, 215-216.

                                 

Our Deep Failure In Charity

This article is taken from the archive of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find this article and many others by clicking here 

Saint Eugene de Mazenod, the founder of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the Religious Congregation to which I belong, left us with these last words as he lay dying: “Among yourselves, charity, charity, charity”. I don’t always live that, though I wish I could, especially today.

We are in a bitter time. Everywhere there is anger, condemnation of others, and bitter disagreement; so much so that today we are simply unable to have a reasonable discussion on any sensitive political, moral, or doctrinal issue. We demonize each other to the point where any attempt to actually reason with each other (let alone to reach agreement or compromise) mostly just deepens the hostility. If you doubt this, simply watch the newscasts any evening, read any newspaper, or follow the discussion on most moral and religious questions.

The first thing that is evident is the naked hatred inside our energy and how we tend to justify it on moral and religious grounds. This is our protest: we’re fighting for truth, decency, justice, God, family, church, right dogma, right practice, for Christ himself, so our anger and hatred are justified. Anger is justified, but hatred is an infallible sign that we are acting in a manner contrary to truth, decency, justice, God, family, church, right dogma, right practice, and Christ.  It would be hard to argue that this kind of energy issues forth from God’s spirit and does not source itself elsewhere.

Looking at Jesus we see that all his energies were directed towards unity. Jesus never preached hatred, as is clear from the Sermon on the Mount, as is illustrated in his great priestly prayer for unity in John’s Gospel, and as is evident in his frequent warnings to us to be patient with each other, to not judge each other and to forgive each other.

But one might object: what about Jesus’ own (seemingly) bitter judgments? What about him speaking harshly of others? What about him losing his temper and using whips to drive the money-changers out of the temple? Indeed, what about his statement: I have come to bring fire to this earth?

These statements are perennially misinterpreted and used falsely to rationalize our lack of genuine Christian love. When Jesus says that he has come to bring fire to this earth and wishes it were already blazing, the fire he is referring to is not the fire of division but the fire of love. Jesus made a vow of love, not of alienation. His message provoked hateful opposition, but he did not self-define as a cultural or ecclesial warrior. He preached and incarnated only love, and that sometimes sparked its antithesis. (It still does.) He sometimes triggered hatred in people, but he never hated in return. Instead, he wept in empathy, understanding that sometimes the message of love and inclusivity triggers hatred inside of those who for whatever reason at that time cannot fully bear the word love. As well, the incident of him driving the money-changers out of the temple, forever falsely cited to justify our anger and judgment of others, has a very different emphasis and meaning.  His action as he cleanses the temple of the people who were (legitimately) exchanging Jewish currency for foreign money in order let foreigners buy what they needed to offer sacrifice, has to do with him clearing away an obstacle in the way of universal access to God, not with anger at some particular people.  

We frequently ignore the Gospel.  Factionalism, tribalism, racism, economic self-interest, historical difference, historical privilege, and fear perennially cause bitter polarization and trigger a hatred that eats away at the very fabric of community; and that hatred perennially justifies itself by appealing to some high moral or religious ground. But the Gospel never allows for that. It never lets us bracket charity and it refuses us permission to justify our bitterness on moral and religious grounds. It calls us to a love, an empathy and a forgiveness that reach across every divide so as to wish good and do good precisely to those who hate us. And it categorically forbids rationalizing hatred in its name or in the name of truth, justice, or right dogma.

The late Michael J. Buckley, looking at the bitter polarization in our churches, suggests that nothing justifies our current bitterness: “The sad fact stands, however, that it is frequently no great trick to get religious men and women to turn on one another in some terrible form of condemnation. Wars, even personal wars, are terrible realities, and the most horrible of these are often self-righteously religious. For deceived or split off under the guise of good, under the rubrics of orthodoxy or liberality, of community or of personal freedom, even of holiness itself, factions of men and women can slowly disintegrate into pettiness or cynicism or hostility or bitterness. In this way the Christian church becomes divided.”

We need to be careful inside our cultural and religious wars. There is never an excuse for lack of fundamental charity.

                             

The Coming War Against Online Church

This article is taken from the weekly Blog of Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Timoneum, Baltimore. You can read his blog here

Everyone is excited about the prospect of getting back to church. Here at Nativity, we are reintroducing live streaming this weekend and inviting our staff to join us physically for Mass. If all goes well, we can begin welcoming back parishioners after a few more weeks of testing of our safety measures. But we do not expect everyone to come rushing back. That’s why we want this time of re-entry to be slow and steady, with each step a sure and certain one, raising everyone’s confidence and comfort levels.

Meanwhile, our online services, including weekend Masses, remain our central services, more important now than ever. This seems about as obvious as any fact could be. But I suspect, and fear, a temptation away from church online could be coming our way.

I’ve seen some pastors this past week actually celebrating an end to their online Masses with the reopening of their church buildings.  For them, a return to physical attendance means the end to the temporary problem that online mass was supposed to fix, namely, the government-imposed quarantine.  Now that the problem is gone in many jurisdictions, so too the solution.

There were even some church leaders in North America last week threatening to forbid online Masses in their dioceses. Many pastors and parishioners besides never even wanted to close their churches for the quarantine in the first place. They resented what they saw as an undue burden and never really embraced whatever online presence their parish was able to cobble together during the interim. Now, they are losing no time in abandoning those online efforts and returning to the past. While this view seeks to promote what they see as authentic worship, I believe it is ultimately misguided. 

The fact of the matter is that church online is not just a temporary solution to a temporary problem. Online church is here to stay, it is not going away. Any attempt to vilify it (it will keep people away from the Sacraments), or criticize it (it doesn’t “count”), or even mock it (it’s church “lite”) is really unhelpful, misdirected, and flat out wrong, in my view. But it is happening and I would not be surprised if this issue becomes a new litmus test for who is and who is not “authentically” Catholic.  Anyone who wants to move their parish forward through this crisis will have to reject the temptation to feel that online ministry is any less valuable or authentic or ‘Catholic’ than the physical ministry we were doing before everything changed.

We should see online church as an exciting opportunity, one unprecedented in the history of the church.  Your parish has a direct link to every home and family in your community, even those who have never before heard your message. To that end, I want to encourage everyone who has been tirelessly working over these past few months to learn new technologies, patiently lobby their pastors, and implement new ministry teams. Your work will pay dividends in the lives of the unchurched and unevangelized.

Despite the war being waged around you, stay true to your path. Church online is here to stay and here are just a few reasons why:

Your congregation is simply not coming back anytime soon.

From the limited anecdotal evidence that I have found, many parishes were lively and busy the first weekend that they reopened.  However, the excitement disappeared for the second weekend, as numbers dropped significantly once the initial desire to return to mass was sated and replaced by a recognition by mass-goers that the experience was not the same. Then there are some people, like the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions and their close friends and family, who simply cannot safely attend your church at this time.

It is a pastoral necessity to maintain online Mass. Softening government regulations will not be the sole determinant of whether the masses return to church.  Rather, the decision to return will be made on the basis of safety. Is this a safe environment for me and my family? For those that prudently answer “no,” we must have a strategy to engage them. To keep them, and to keep them engaged you’ve got to be online. And let’s not discount the economic consequences of this. If your parish is simply unavailable to large numbers of your congregation, it is unlikely they are going to continue to give.

This crisis is an accelerator of patterns we were already experiencing pre-pandemic. One of those pronounced patterns was the eroding of weekly Mass attendance.

One of the greatest fears of those in ministry right now is the question of “What if they never come back?”  This fear reveals a truth that we’ve been pushing under the rug: many of our ‘regulars’ were never really engaged or evangelized. Statistically, even those who self-identify as ‘regular’ attendees were probably in your building no more than twice a month. And maybe there are things that can be done to reverse this trend (I hope so).

But it’s important to note that online church did not create this reality. It was already with us when COVID-19 shut down our buildings. And, I do not believe it is fair to argue it encourages it. Those who use online church as an excuse to stay home from mass were already looking for an excuse to stay home. Instead, I would suggest it overcomes it, in the sense that it can keep parishioners informed and engaged in the weeks they are not actually in the pews. Surely everyone would concede that, though certainly not ideal, that is a good thing.

Online church is your front door for the unchurched, visitors, and newcomers.

It is the place where anyone who visits your church for the first time is going to start. It ensures your church is accessible. After all, most people start all major decisions online. Buying a car begins by looking at pictures online, choosing a school for your children school starts with a thorough examination of online material, and even going to eat at a restaurant starts by reading online reviews. Online church is an opportunity for those curious about your church to ask: “Would I feel welcome here?” Without the online experience, they might have assumed the answer to the question to be “no.” Why in the world would you deprive yourself of this game-changing opportunity?

The war against online church is a holy war, filled with righteousness in defense of the Sacraments, the Eucharist, the Real Presence. One commentator noted that the Real Presence demands “presence.” I’ll gladly concede that point.

But church holds other values as well, like fellowship and support, inspiration and insight, hope and help. If our parishes can effectively deliver these things online, surely we will awaken a hunger for what more their presence in church can provide.

                                

The World After Covid-19: A Typology Of Crises

While certain restrictions may be easing in the UK, the prospect of a world after Covid-19 still seems to be remote, if it is possible at all. When it comes to shaping the post-virus world, how do we even frame the right questions, and from which perspectives do those questions need to be asked? In the first of a two-part article, Frank Turner SJ surveys the complex political, economic, environmental and civic terrain to which coronavirus has directed our attention, and from which decisions must be made.

Frank Turner SJ is a fellow in political theology at Campion Hall, University of Oxford.

This article is taken from the ThinkingFaith.org website where you can find a wide range of articles by clicking here 

From the earliest stages of the global struggle with Covid-19, firstly in China, then elsewhere, ill-prepared governments were scrambling to formulate policies balancing such intractable imponderables as ‘lockdown versus openness’, weighing the dangers of a health catastrophe against those of wrecking the economy. The stakes could hardly have been higher. Early estimates of possible deaths from Covid in the UK spoke of 500,000. On the other hand, the World Bank judges that the pandemic ‘has triggered the most widespread global economic meltdown since at least 1870 and risks fuelling a dramatic rise in poverty levels around the globe’.

From the outset, too, long-term questions were emerging about the ‘post-Covid’ world. Such questions risk wishful thinking. Will the world indeed ‘emerge from crisis’, or are we now compelled to recognise that the concept of a ‘crisis-free existence’ is mere complacency? A public health specialist estimates that, even given a promising new treatment for those with severe symptoms, we must learn ‘to live with this virus for the months and years to come’. In any case the language of a ‘return to normality’ implies a complacent myopia that can prescind from violence and mass suffering elsewhere: the reality of 5.4 million lives lost by violence over the decade of civil war and its aftermath in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, rarely troubled news media in the UK or USA.

Perspective, too, is crucial. What ‘world’ are we discussing, and seen from where? From China or Central America, or Amazonia? From Wall Street or Westminster? We need a typology of crises. We cannot dispense with the perspective of global poverty and inequality. But urgent security issues also arise. The Council of Europe’s Committee on Counter-Terrorism has warned that the global coronavirus outbreak could encourage the use of biological weapons by terrorists. Their potential harm far outweighs ‘conventional’ attacks and currently the world’s government and security resources are severely stretched. Similarly, imagine the devastation inflicted by a successful cyber-attack on a country’s healthcare system.

The world does not face crises one at a time. If we can postulate ‘a time after Covid’, that time will also follow a US presidential election in November that could profoundly affect geopolitics for the next few decades, and it will postdate the outcome of the Brexit process that will shape the UK’s future no less than will the impact of the pandemic. It may (or may not) postdate the surge in social turmoil provoked by the killing by Minneapolis police of George Floyd. (It seems emblematic of the clash of priorities and perspectives that ‘Black Lives Matter’ demonstrations were themselves criticised for undermining the practice of physical distancing.) Certainly, the crisis will not displace the even more formidable impact of climate change and environmental destruction. All these — and other, still unsuspected, forces – will constantly interact.

Taking a broad view naturally risks becoming unduly abstract, deflecting attention away from facing immediate challenges, especially where they divide countries and/or scientific opinion. Take the British government’s recent decision about whether to curtail or to prolong ‘lockdown’. An extended article of 10 May in The Atlantic argues that ‘minimizing the number of Covid-19 deaths today or a month from now or six months from now may or may not minimize the human costs of the pandemic when the full spectrum of human consequences is considered’. We can judge securely only on hindsight, yet decisions must be made now. In any case, the future on which we speculate depends not least on how we respond in the present, just as the theological virtue of hope differs radically from ‘optimism’, since such hope can only be rooted in God’s faithfulness, as it inspires our own faithfulness.

Nevertheless, there can be no understanding without taking the long view, and without taking multiple perspectives. No one can forecast future outcomes, but it is possible to anticipate future dilemmas and choices, to identify what factors might make a crucial difference.

Politics

Political debates about the responsibilities of the state and about its appropriate limits often proceed according to two traditional polar positions:

a ‘neoliberal’ position: governmental planning is the least effective and the most wasteful way to manage societies. The rightful primary role of the state is to facilitate the more efficient working of the market and then get out of the way;

a ‘social democratic’ position: state responsibility for the economy (as for the maintenance of law and order, etc.) is an inalienable function: only a government, overseeing state institutions, has the mandate and duty to care for the overall public good.

Both positions face the difficulty that, in the modern world, states often find themselves relatively helpless against transnational corporations, globalised finance, and challenges that transcend any state such as climate change, the movement of peoples and transnational taxation. In 2020 we have learned, first, that no one (and no commercial corporation) is a free-marketeer in a crisis. The corporate world accepts that government regulation and control is legitimate and vital. Simultaneously, the same corporations (and citizens) depend on the state to bail them out (for instance by paying furlough), just as citizens depend on the state to support us in our personal need.

We have also discovered that many transnational structures are too shaky to provide either global governance or universal support. Thus, in this crisis, both the power and the prominence of single states has dramatically increased (for better or worse). Maurice Glasman argues that the virus has ‘sounded the death knell for liberal globalisation’.

This thesis needs to be qualified. The crisis has strengthened some of the largest corporate oligarchies (Amazon, Facebook, et al.), and there is no sign that global finance has surrendered its power to avoid reasonable levels of national taxation. We can suppose that the biggest corporations are well-placed to profit, whether vulnerable competitors collapse or are resuscitated.

We also continue newly to realise how much depends on the ethos and competence of each single state. Evidently, some states have managed the Covid crisis far better than others: the governments of South Korea and Taiwan, for example, responded much more effectively than did the UK, though with no additional notice of its dangers. In the Times Literary Supplement (‘Models and Muddles’, 24 April 2020) the economist Paul Collier commented on the sense of British exceptionalism that inhibited the government from learning from the world beyond the anglosphere.

The more fundamental danger remains that of ultra-authoritarian states, or reckless leaders. After a culpably slow start, then a reflex denial mechanism, the Chinese government seems to have responded effectively to Covid. But there are legitimate fears that its efficacy rests on a surveillance capacity that bodes ill for the future. In El Salvador, an initially popular president now seems now ominously out of control.

The ideal, of course, is that states will cooperate for the universal good, not least through accepting that their autonomy may be qualified by the international order. That ideal — as shown in the US President’s drastic attack on the World Health Organisation, an attack which will impact tragically on millions of people in Yemen and elsewhere — remains remote.

Economics

Adam Tooze, author of Crashed, a respected book on the financial crisis that exploded in 2008, notes the dynamic of the early phase of the present crisis. Government intervention on a scale unprecedented in peacetime has inevitably threatened governments’ own finances. We suddenly find that at the heart of the global economy (driven by the commercial imperatives of growth and profitability) lies a public institution – the central bank, normally functioning discreetly but now thrust into prominence as lender of last resort even to governments.

In May, for example, after much hesitation, the European Central Bank mounted a ‘pandemic emergency programme’, buying up €750 billion of government and corporate debt. Tooze explains that these central bank instruments of the EU and the USA have so far proved robust enough to cope. However, we are by no means safe: I mention four factors.

We do not know whether these interventions have stoked government debts so massive as to hamstring public policy for decades. Are we doomed again to the ‘austerity’ that has widened wealth inequality even since 2008?

We do not know whether the steps taken so far will suffice to withstand any worsening of the crisis in the West – an outcome that is entirely possible, since no end is in sight. (The World Trade Organization forecasts that world trade could fall by as much as 32% in 2020.)

There is every sign that Covid has exacerbated social inequalities, not flattened them. The Economist has pointed out that the surge in unemployment caused by the decline of heavy industry, mining and so on primarily affected male employment (dramatic inequalities were regional): in the present crisis, however, employed women have been far more at risk than men. They are over-represented in the service and retail sector, where jobs demand personal contact with clients and therefore cannot be done from home, and which have not been deemed essential.

The most pressing question of all: what of poorer countries and the entire developing world? Their central banks cannot possibly support governmental intervention on the required scale. No ‘furlough’ arrangements will be offered to millions of agricultural workers in lockdown. No ‘physical distancing’ is possible in a favela. What scale of sharing might be adequate, who can say? Gordon Brown has called on the G20 to establish a ‘coronavirus fund’ of $2.5 trillion. (By comparison, Brown University in the USA estimates that the USA’s costs in Iraq, from 2003 to 2010, a period covering the war and the subsequent military occupation, were $1.1 trillion.)

In a recent interview with the Quaker Council for European Affairs, Professor Cynthia Enloe pointed out the vapidity of any political rhetoric, in seeking support for painful decisions, that ‘we are all in this together’. We may all be in the same stormy sea. But we are far from ‘in the same boat’: some are in leaky and overcrowded dinghies, others in luxury yachts with well-stocked bars. A shared crisis does not ensure solidarity, governments respond disproportionately to lobbies with power, and the market does not correct anomalies.

Environment and climate change

A common reporting theme over these last months has been an amazing side-effect of Covid-19, as the natural world has reasserted itself with unimaginable speed. Fish swim in the canals of Venice, the citizens of Los Angeles can see the San Gabriel mountains clearly in suddenly unpolluted skies. On 15 May the editorial of the Financial Times noted that the virus may trigger the largest ever annual drop in carbon dioxide emissions. (If we think in terms of ‘integral ecology’, we must add that, in health terms, this fall in emissions is estimated to have assisted some two million patients with lung problems, in the UK alone.) It is both symbolic and prosaically accurate to state that Covid attacks the lungs.

We know that temporary benefits (such as the alleviation of noise levels for those living near airports) are quickly reversible, so in the long run all depends on the prevailing vision of economic development.

The US academic and activist Bill McKibben, in a recent article in the online journal Literary Hub, identifies one hopeful trend that needs to be mainstreamed. Since public transport cannot function as it currently does whilst requiring a sufficient degree of physical distancing (especially in cities the size of London), cities have a choice: permitting unrestricted car use (until the system seizes up); or do what is being planned in Milan, and even in London – establish a central zone closed to traffic fed by enhanced pedestrian and cycle priority, with efficient public transport. (This part-solution, however, seems hardly conceivable yet for the developing world.)

Second, can the millions of unemployed find work in converting our energy systems from fossil fuels? This can happen given the political will, at least up to a point. However, the ‘political will’ itself requires popular support – as Franklin D. Roosevelt is said to have advised a group of lobbyists: ‘OK, you’ve convinced me. Now go out and put pressure on me.’ I shall return to this point. Third, to what extent can the immense government subsidies given in many countries to fossil fuel industries, and extended to the airline industry, be redirected to essential public services such as prisons, care homes and indeed environmental protection?

However, ominous signs are plentiful, and I cite one example. In June 2020, Dominic Preziosi reported in Commonweal (Vol 147, No 6) that the reduction in carbon emissions in the USA in 2020 could be as much as eleven percent, thanks to the effective shutdown of coal-fired power plants, both dirty and hugely expensive to run even in periods of normal electricity demand. Meanwhile, however, in March, as the USA went partly into lockdown, ‘the White House announced the rollback of Obama-era automobile fuel-efficiency standards, a move that will lead to the release of a billion more tons of carbon dioxide’. Worse still, in late May, the director of the Environmental Protection Agency (of all bodies) was drafting ‘new rules that would legally enshrine business interests, not public-health benefits, as the primary measure in evaluating compliance with environmental regulations’; a move that could potentially hamstring even future administrations.

Civic and political culture

The cultural historian, Yuval Noah Harari, recently wrote a stimulating extended commentary in the Financial Times on ‘The World after Corona’. He discusses ‘the biggest crisis of our generation’:

… the decisions people and governments take in the next few weeks will probably shape the world for years to come. They will shape not just our healthcare systems but also our economy, politics and culture. We must act quickly and decisively. We should also take into account the long-term consequences of our actions.

The previous sections have illustrated what an extraordinary demand Harari here makes on governments. He is right to stress that an extraordinary experiment is taking place under pressure. We do not understand the consequences of requiring social and commercial life to proceed only at a safe distance, or through virtual technologies, or for universities to teach online while maintaining student fees at previous levels. We can hardly imagine the long-term implications when governments confine populations to their homes, and subsidise thousands of businesses and millions of salaries for months on end. It is an experiment without a control group. In normal circumstances such steps would seem outrageous – and they may be discredited in retrospect. However, notes Harari rightly, ‘the risks of doing nothing are bigger’. He identifies two structural tensions, with illustrations.

1. The first is between ‘totalitarian surveillance’ and ‘citizen empowerment’. China is manifesting its unique capacity to bring the pandemic under control, notably by means of tracking technology. Harari discusses the imminent prospect of ‘under-the skin’ surveillance, imagining a (hypothetical!) government that required citizens to wear biometric bracelets that recorded body temperature and heart rate. The state would know not only who you met (as it already probably does), but ‘what makes you really, really angry’. If the algorithm shows that some governmental statement infuriates you, what then? Arrest you as a dissident? Harari cites not only China but also Israel, where the government has still failed to withdraw many of the ‘emergency measures’ imposed in … 1948. No doubt the surveillance capacity of the USA or the UK is no less.

To this chilling prospect Harari opposes ‘citizen empowerment’, pointing out that Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea gained widespread civic consent for tracking measures to guard against the virus. He jokes that most of us use soap to defend against infection, without the intervention of the ‘soap police’! He believes that, if citizens can fundamentally trust their governments, citizen enlightenment can rise to the challenge.

However, this ‘if’ is momentous; and Harari does not discuss the twentieth-century history that renders such trust so elusive. Citizens might willingly surrender certain freedoms in the short term, since privacy concerns may be trumped by health concerns: only, however, given the confidence that these freedoms were not permanently at risk. But how could trust be built between citizens and a totalitarian government, the case he postulates? He suggests ‘that the same surveillance technology can usually be used not only by governments to monitor individuals — but also by individuals to monitor governments.’ Really? Whistleblowers suffer a harsh fate. It may be just conceivable that citizens’ movements could track governments. But the governments in question would swiftly crush such movements.

2. The second of Harari’s tensions is that between ‘nationalist isolation’ and ‘global solidarity’. Governments, he suggests, need to learn from each other far more readily than they do, and ‘to be able to trust the data and the insights they receive’. Only governmental cooperation can match skilled personnel to the regions where they are most needed, or facilitate medically essential international travel by pre-screening travellers in their own countries.

The improbable adoption of this suggestion would probably remedy certain glaring failures of public policy. However, its scope is limited. Despite his passing reference to the pooling of medical personnel with the worst-hit countries, Harari nowhere refers to Africa, South Asia or Latin America. When he writes of ‘solidarity’, he seems to mean international cooperation amongst technologically advanced societies, which serves each nation’s enlightened self-interest. Willing cooperation would be far preferable to systemic suspicion. But it is far short of ’solidarity’ which, in the writings of recent popes, implies that others’ suffering is experienced as our own, so that we may stand with them even at great personal cost.

Another element, recently much discussed and crucial in shaping our future, is the quality, of ‘resilience’. In conversation recently, a colleague identified to me three aspects of psychological resilience: (1) the capacity to face squarely whatever challenge or ordeal we face; (2) to find meaning in those realities, and in our responses to them; (3) to respond creatively, showing that we are not deprived of inner resources.

The term ‘resilience’ is also commonly applied in the field of international development. A usefully broad definition is that of USAID: ‘the ability of individuals, households, communities, institutions, nations, or even value chains and ecosystems to withstand crises, recover from them, and adapt so as to better withstand them’. Its dimensions include disaster response, capacity-building, endurance under prolonged pressure. It can be a property of systems, as well as a fundamental quality of the human spirit. In the latter case, as opposed to the former, it is most likely to be found in regions and amongst communities who have not been led by their experience to consider comfort and security as the norm.

In the case of Covid-19, in the article already referred to, Paul Collier characterises resilience as ‘the speed at which an ecosystem recovers after a disturbance’. Crucial are the factors of diversity and adaptability. However, suggests Collier, ‘our economy has rewarded razor-thin efficiency in the recent past’ But ‘razor-thin’ margins ‘offer no buffer in the face of disruption’, as we have seen in the case of some global supply chains. We need, therefore, to shape our social and economic systems to encourage resilience, ‘anti-fragility’. And we need to resist any facile aspiration to return to a ‘normality’ that has become both irrational and unethical.

In these last months, the dignity of labour has been recognised even by governments that traditionally favour business, which often denigrated trade unions. Government ministers have eulogised ‘essential workers’, often the least privileged, poorly paid and politically excluded.

Yet it remains true that workers’ remuneration and negotiating status, over against managements and boards have not been realigned. Amongst the groups hardest hit by Covid have been those euphemistically called ‘self-employed’, meaning contract workers without rights or social protection.

It seems symbolic that, after his Covid illness, Boris Johnson singled out his two closest medical carers for grateful praise; one came from Portugal, one from New Zealand. Yet Mr Johnson’s government almost immediately repeated its insistence that employment visas would favour those immigrants who earned £50,000 or more. About the same time, the government’s rejection of low-paid EU nationals was followed by the scramble to allow them back in temporarily to harvest our crops.

The ‘normal’ that constituted our prosperous Western European social world was itself a problem, an absurd illusion, the very condition of our fragility and vulnerability. What we have admired most during Covid has emerged from social partnership, not market competition. Frances O’Grady, General Secretary of the TUC cited non-controversial examples: ‘people staying at home to protect our NHS, businesses and unions working together to keep people in their jobs, manufacturers switching production to life-saving ventilators, neighbours all over the country shopping for older people nearby.’

Not least, the government brought unions and civil society into policy discussion, as well as business leaders. A return to the so-called normality of a minimum wage that kept workers in poverty, of zero-sum contracts, would dissolve the social capital that has been generated. The radical loss of power experienced by the unions in the last decades has left many workers unprotected against the excesses of corporate power.