I have returned, apologies for my absence only I've been incredibly busy. Ok that excuse was not good enough, I was washing my hair....no? Ok i admit it I'm a lazy blogger, there I have faced my problem and admitted it. Truth be told I have been really busy, and by night the thoughts of pounding on a keyboard doesn't really appeal. Secondly I'm not the type to splatter the screen with every random thought that sluggishly meanders through my cranium, I never intended to post every single day on every single topic.
But here's my thought for today.
Everyone who loves their Faith knows about the problem (understatement) that is the RE congress in the LA archdiocese. This annual heresy fest has long been a very public source of great shame to the Church not only in the States but throughout the world. Not much noticed here in the Emerald Isle was the steady stream of catechetical "experts" and high ranking Irish clerics from these shores who visited and indeed spoke at this apostasy.
Not merely content with contributing, these eminently qualified people decided that what could be better than having an Irish version of the congress. Yours truly attended the first one, which was held in Dublin, several years ago and it was everything I hoped (and feared) it would be. From St. Patrick's Breastplate being used for stretching exercises (I kid you not) to a workshop on dreams hosted by a Jesuit ( who else) which expounded the idea that the Baptism at the Jordan was Our Lord dreaming and then he went in to the desert for forty days to work out this dream!! Another workshop euphemistically called women in scripture which wasn't about the bible, but rather a one woman (nun) rant on discrimination, women priests and the evils of men all coming from an invitee from Canada. The list goes on from a self appointed congress poet (with terrible iambic pentameter) to a call for a pre-Christ christology???
I came away from the congress chuckling but with a sense of foreboding. The one silver lining was that all the delusional souls present were getting on in years and the place stank of desperation. But these were the "experts" who devised and published the "Children of God" and "Alive -O" series for Catholic schools, these cretins are responsible for forty years of devastation and countless lost souls.
But you have to give them credit the next congress they had a youth day planned so as to get more youth in their ranks. I doubt this will work, young people tend to drift to the neo-catholic/new springtime group rather than the lost generation of the council.
Now the next congress hoves into view hosted in the autumn in the diocese of Kerry, the shepherd of which is the head of the catechetical office of the Irish episcopal conference. Need I say more. Perhaps most significantly, the keynote speaker is one Thomas Groome, professor of theology and religious education.
Here are a few snippets of his writings:
" One possible solution (which for this author has seemed successful with younger children) is to interchange the terms 'father' 'mother' and 'loving parent' for God. Then, when teaching a traditional prayer like the 'Our Father' , teachers can take care to explain in the catechesis which follows that Jesus intends us to approach God as a trustworthty, forgiving and loving parent."
" As for all human beings, Jesus has to be one gender or the other, and the Gospels give no indication of any particular significance in his being male. Better, then, to treat this as one aspect of the 'scandal of particularity' that was his life: as a person, Jesus was a man, a Jew, a carpenter, from Nazareth etc. It is through his divinity and hunamity, not particularly his maleness, that Jesus is our Saviour and Liberator."
Note the words stretched to breaking point, all to make Groome's argument for inclusive language in the classroom when teaching religion. I particularly enjoy his own definition of his educational theory.
"A participative and dialogical pedagogy in which people reflect critically on their own historical agency in time and place and on their socio-cultural reality, have access together to Christian Story/Vision, and personally appropriate in their community with the creative intent of renewed praxis in Christian faith towards God's reign for all creation."
There simple, why even a five year old could understand that! Quick get me a five year old I can't make head nor tail of it!!
