I do not need to tell you about the conflict and confusion that reign in our world, country, and Church. Every day, we see evidence of it.
Tag: doctrine
What is ‘synodality’ and walking the synodal path?
It was a great privilege for me to participate in the Synod on Young People in the fall of 2018.
Synod-2015 revisited
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As I write, just before Thanksgiving, it’s been over a month since Synod-2015 finished its work.
Yet there is still no official translation of the synod’s Final Report into the major world languages from the original Italian (a language regularly used by eight-tenths of one percent of the world’s population).
That’s a shame because, in the main, the Relatio Finalis is an impressive, often-moving statement of the Church’s convictions about chastity, marriage, and the family: biblically rich, theologically serious, pastorally sensitive, and well-crafted to meet the challenge of the cultural tsunami responsible for the contemporary crisis of marriage and the family, which has left a lot of unhappiness in its wake.
How a Catholic should live is the key issue
To the editor:
I’d like to add a few observations to Fr. Robert Barron’s column, “It doesn’t matter what you believe . . .” (Catholic Herald, December 4 issue). He reports that “88 percent of those surveyed said ‘how a person lives is more important than whether he or she is a Catholic.’”
However, if the respondents had been asked, “How should a Catholic live?” the answers would not have been cavalier at all.
The danger of soft atheism
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A very instructive exchange between Gary Gutting, a philosophy professor at Notre Dame, and Philip Kitcher, a philosophy professor at Columbia, just appeared in The New York Times.
Kitcher describes himself as a proponent of “soft atheism,” an atheism distinct from the polemical variety espoused by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Unlike his harsher colleagues, Kitcher is willing to admit that religion can play an ethically useful role in a predominantly secular society.
I would like to draw attention to one move made in this interview, since it shows one of the fundamental misunderstandings of religion common among atheists.
Plurality of religious doctrines
Prompted by Gutting, Kitcher admits that he finds all religious doctrine incredible. He points to the plurality of religious doctrines: Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, animists, etc., hold to radically different accounts of reality, the divine, human purpose, etc.
The danger of soft atheism
|
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A very instructive exchange between Gary Gutting, a philosophy professor at Notre Dame, and Philip Kitcher, a philosophy professor at Columbia, just appeared in The New York Times.
Kitcher describes himself as a proponent of “soft atheism,” an atheism distinct from the polemical variety espoused by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Unlike his harsher colleagues, Kitcher is willing to admit that religion can play an ethically useful role in a predominantly secular society.
I would like to draw attention to one move made in this interview, since it shows one of the fundamental misunderstandings of religion common among atheists.
Plurality of religious doctrines
Prompted by Gutting, Kitcher admits that he finds all religious doctrine incredible. He points to the plurality of religious doctrines: Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, animists, etc., hold to radically different accounts of reality, the divine, human purpose, etc.
Seat of Wisdom courses for the Year of Faith
MADISON — Inspired in this Year of Faith by Pope Francis’ emphasis on charity and social justice, the diocesan Office of Evangelization and Catechesis is sponsoring two new courses on Catholic Social Doctrine, both being taught by Dr. Constance Nielsen.
The six-hour introduction course is being offered in regional parishes and available for local programming at the request of parishes or schools.
The more expanded course is being offered at the Bishop O’Connor Center one Saturday per month throughout the academic year. Remaining dates include November 23, January 25, February 22, March 22, April 26, and May 17.
Seat of Wisdom courses offered for adults
The Seat of Wisdom Diocesan Institute is offering adult-level courses in Catholic doctrine at regional locations across the Diocese of Madison.
New Program grew out of two former efforts
The Seat of Wisdom Diocesan Institute is a new program of Catechetical Certification and Adult Faith Formation in the Diocese of Madison.
New Seat of Wisdom Diocesan Institute
First in a series
MADISON — This fall, the Diocese of Madison’s Office of Evangelization and Catechesis (OEC) is starting the new Seat of Wisdom Diocesan Institute (SOWDI), a program of catechetical certification and adult faith formation in the diocese.
The first course in the institute will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 8, at the Cathedral Parish of St. Raphael at St. Patrick Church in Madison.
To clarify and improve the effectiveness of diocesan catechetical efforts, the OEC hopes to unify the missions of what was previously referred to as the Diocesan Lay Institute and the current Formation of Religious Education Ministers by subsuming both into the “umbrella” of the SOWDI.