WelCom May 2019: Bishop Charles Drennan, Bishop of Palmerston North Leadership and purpose or kaupapa are hot topics in the Church at the moment. That should not surprise us. The Church is by nature perennis reformatio, and naturally enough some people are more attracted to the brake and others to the accelerator. But that pedal metaphor can […]
WelCom May 2019: Peter Thirkell, Secretary of the Care Alliance, welcomed the Justice Select Committee’s statement that the End of Life Choice Bill ‘is not workable in its present state’. The Care Alliance position regarding the legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide, agreed by all its member organisations (who include all of the major providers of […]
WelCom May 2019: Dr John Kleinsman, Director of The New Zealand Catholic Bioethics Centre The long-awaited Justice Select Committee Report on David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill was finally presented to Parliament on Tuesday 9 April. Critically, the Committee, having heard more than 38,700 submissions of which more than 90 per cent were opposed, ‘were unable […]
WelCom May 2019: Cardinal John Dew’s invitation to rethinking how we use our church and parish building and how we go about the ‘work’ of church is a spirit-filled invitation. Nevertheless, there is an impact on people when a church is destroyed or badly damaged, as with the churches in Sri Lanka’s recent bombings and the […]
WelCom May 2019: The annual day of prayer for Vocations is on Sunday 12 May, the 4th Sunday of Easter. It is also known as Good Shepherd Sunday. Alfred Tong, an Archdiocese of Wellington seminarian, shares his call to vocation story. ‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood’. I never knew these were the beginnings of […]
WelCom May 2019: Catholics around the world watched with horror as the roof of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral was engulfed with flames on Monday 15 April 2019. The fire broke out as the cathedral was being renovated. Flames tore through the 860-year-old cathedral’s timbered roofing destroying the roof and spire. The following day, firefighters said the […]
WelCom May 2019: Catholic Church tackles destruction of ‘the lungs of the world’ The Amazon rainforest absorbs carbon for the entire planet, produces more than 20 per cent of the world’s oxygen and is being destroyed by deforestation and climate change. As carbon dioxide levels continue to rise, humanity is choking its own oxygen supply. In […]
WelCom May 2019: Pope Francis met briefly during his general audience April 17 with Greta Thunberg, a Swedish teenager and climate activist who inspired a million students around the world to take part in a global strike in March this year to protest politicians’ inaction on climate change. The pontiff approached Thunberg at the end of […]
WelCom May 2019: Apostolic Nuncio for New Zealand and the Pacific Amanda Gregan Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop Novatus Rugambwa as Apostolic Nuncio to New Zealand and Apostolic Delegate to the countries of the Pacific. Archbishop Novatus’ appointment was announced in the Vatican City on 29 March 2019. He is due to be in New Zealand […]
WelCom May 2019: The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions has commenced its substantive work in early 2019. Commissioners to the Inquiry are Ali’imuamua Sandra Alofivae, Dr Andrew Erueti, Paul Gibson, Sir Anand Satyanand (Chair) and Judge Coral Shaw. On 1 March 2019, the Royal […]