PROFESSOR McLaughlin’s speech to Catholic school principals reported in CL 13/10/02 makes interesting and thought-provoking reading.
If, as he says, there is a parallel Church, then there must be two Churches and not one.
When Christ said ‘Upon this rock I will build my Church’, he spoke in the singular not the plural.
Where do we look for the Church that can be traced in an unbroken line back to Peter and therefore to Christ? Which Church teaches the same doctrines as that taught in the Apostles’ Creed and by the early Church fathers? Is it the institutional Catholic Church, the Vatican, the Magisterium? Is it the ‘People of God’ Church that apparently sees a new reality that seeks justice, compassion and service but ignores rules and authority?
What do today’s students, more creation focused than redemption centred, see as God’s purpose in creation? They too are part of God’s creation. Are not their eternal lives and immortal souls worth preservation? Both creeds, the Apostles’ and the Nicene, recited every Sunday, are creation and redemption centred.
What was Christ’s chief mission if it were not a sacrifice for redemption? Why else did he come to suffer such deprivation and agony? Was it to save the trees, waters, flowers and birds? ‘Consider the lilies and the birds. Are you not of much more importance than they?’ (Matt 6). Was not Christ’s resurrection the hope of our resurrection to a new and lasting life beyond our physical deaths?
Who or what has taught today’s younger generation to think differently from ‘their institutional Catholic, Vatican, Magisterial Church’? Parents. Surely not the parents, for why would they be holding true to a Church in which they no longer believed?
Maybe Prof McLaughlin’s address was an admission that Catholic schools have lost their way in today’s secular, materialistic, success-grabbing world.
‘You are ‘Christ figures’ to Catholic students,’ the professor told teachers. Then as such, surely they must think, act, teach and live like Christ.
Having ferretted out the truth, the ACU must, in order to act justly and compassionately in its service to Catholic parents and their children, search out and teach teachers to teach the real truth. ‘The truth will set you free’ (Jn 8:12).
Whilst any school can give a secular education, Catholic schools were founded specifically to teach Catholic children the Catholic faith. In justice then, at least the extra half hour asked daily for Catholic school children should be given to teaching the ‘faith of their fathers’.
If current teachers cannot do this perhaps volunteer RE teachers could be used.
Finally, love, honour and respect must be given to the many good and sincere, though aging, priests that we do have for they do not deserve to be condemned for the sins of their brothers.
N. MacKENZIE
Taigum, Qld
