Susan Wilson
Early in February the Wellington Catholic Education Centre hosted a web conference. The actual conference was held at Trinity Church in New York, and was transmitted to Wellington via the internet. So, by the wonders of technology, we were able to participate in an event on the other side of the world. This was a first for the Catholic Education Centre and hopefully we will be able to offer other web-conferences in the future.
The topic of the conference, reconciliation, has great relevance to our time. There is much misunderstanding between different religious and cultural groups in our world. All the speakers noted the difficulties inherent in establishing genuine reconciliation and the necessity of working towards this.
The two presentations that stood out for me were those given by James Alison, a priest and theologian, and Helen Prejean CSJ who is well known for her work with prisoners on death-row in the United States and for her book, Dead Man Walking [1994 and Death of Innocents 2006].
Central to James Alison’s work is an understanding of grace and the giftedness of life offered to us by God. For him this is experienced as a spaciousness and abundance. He suggests that it is not whether we are right or wrong that is of the highest importance but how we treat those we disagree with.
Sr Helen spoke of the need to protect all life – not just innocent life. A central theme in Sr Helen’s lively presentation was her commitment to the poor and those excluded from our communities.
If any parish is interested in exploring reconciliation further, we have a DVD with half-hour talks from each presenter which could be shown over a few weeks and discussed. Please contact me on 4961755 if you would like to know more.
More details produced about reported abuse in New Zealand Catholic Church
WelCom June/July 2022 Continuing research has produced further details of where and by whom much of the reported abuse in the Catholic Church in Aotearoa New Zealand was committed. The…
A compliment Christians pay to one another
WelCom June/July 2022 + John A Cardinal Dew, Archbishop of Wellington Archdiocese, Apostolic Administrator of Palmerston North Diocese The Acts of the Apostles recounts, among other things, the story of…
Pope Francis appoints Bishop Michael Gielen as Bishop of Christchurch
WelCom June/July 2022 Pope Francis has appointed Bishop Michael Gielen (50) as the new Bishop of Christchurch. Bishop Gielen has been the Auxiliary Bishop of Auckland since March 2020. He…