Chrissie at the 'straliaDome

We don't think the Italian staff have quite wrapped their minds around the idea that Christmas is in the SUMMER in the Southern Hemisphere.

Here's a photo of the first-ever Christmas tree at the 'straliaDome in Rome.

The white stuff is fake snow.

Wonder what they'd make of "Six White Boomers"?

Occupy Christmas They Call It...

While I'm struggling with the whole taking Jesus busking thing... it nevertheless has that shall we say "je ne sais quoi"!

This is indeed a troubling feature among some who have embraced the 'new evangelisation'... when in doubt they haul Jesus out!!

Perhaps some good comes of it...

May the Recipe Translate Well...

The Bishop, the lesbians, and the poor little child.

The flip-flop, at the insistence of Bishop Manning, of the decision to not enroll the child of a lesbian “couple” in Sacred Heart School in Broken Hill is troubling, and this Cloistered writer thinks the initial decision by, presumably, the principal and Parish Priest NOT to enrol the child was probably the right one. 

Picture: +Manning is farewelled from the Parramatta Diocese
Catholic Education Office in February 2010.

What would Jesus do? I think he’d bless the child and tell the lesbians to enrol her/him in the local state school.

Enrollment of a child in a Catholic school is about more than reading, writing and arithmetic, because the child and the child’s family are becoming involved in a whole Catholic community and environment.

Is it really fair on a child to enrol them in a school and milieu where they will, when they reach a suitable age, be quite properly exposed to the startling information that there is something truly, madly, deeply, flawed and unnatural about home, Mum and Mum?

I think Mum and Mum were being very unfair to their child by attempting to enroll in a Catholic school. The school and parish community has a duty to promote a healthy Catholic understanding of human sexuality and the parent/child relationship. It would be devastating for the child to be settled in to a school and build up relationships of respect with teachers and so on only to be placed in a really conflicted situation when they get a little older.

The cry has been “how dare the Catholic school discriminate against the child because of the sexuality of the parents!” But in fact it would seem wrong to enroll a child into a situation that is quite foreseeably going to cause confliction in the child and where the “parents” are in fact a living reproach to what the school actually stands for.

Most unfortunately, even Bishop Manning has been running that line, telling the ABC “"There's no way in the world one can penalise a child for what his or her parents do. And in this case, to penalise a five-year-old child because her parents are living in a homosexual relationship is just quite wrong."

The child was not being penalised for what his or her parents “do”, the child was probably being protected from an intolerable situation...and certainly other children and families in the school were being protected from having to turn a blind eye to a real problem.

The decision of the “parents” to adopt a lesbian relationship, presumably knowing that the Church considers this to be inherently wrong, and then to present a child for enrolment in a Catholic school is at best intellectually and morally inconsistent.

The Church teaches these days that one should not discriminate against people simply on the basis of sexual orientation. But a parish school is, or should be, able to protect its community from compromising its beliefs, and in so doing also protect the lesbians’ child from a too-soon disturbance of happiness.

Bishop Manning’s stance appears to be of the simple-minded tomfoolery that so many of his generation of clergy have indulged in. They seem to think that if you ignore the elephant in the room everyone will be happy and blissful, undisturbed, and feeling warm about everything. What happens instead, we have learned, is that the room starts to stink, and the ability of the Church to speak the truth in love is incrementally smothered.

And let’s hope Bishop Manning is eased back into retirement soon, and that his younger brethren are wise enough to guide us through these increasingly confused times.

Bishop Elect Trivia - Armidale #1

"A wounded world is in need of great healing and the greatest healing comes from God himself. This book, ‘The Gift of Confession’ has been endorsed by such well known people as Archbishop Barry Hickey of Perth, Bishop Luc Matthys of Armidale, Fr Michael Kennedy Parish Priest of Leeton in the Diocese of Wagga Wagga, Bishop Peter Connors of Ballarat and Dr Tracey Rowland who is Dean of the JPII Institute in Melbourne."

Connor Court Publishers

"We often hear that the Sacrament of reconciliation is in crisis today. But every crisis is a ‘growing pain’. Indeed, many people today are discovering that this wonderful sacrament does far more than alleviate guilt; it brings the penitent into the loving embrace of the Father. I pray that this gem of a book brings more and more people to this realisation."

Rev Fr Michael Kennedy P.P., S.T.L.

A Bishop elect who favours old style confession... How very interesting!!

But Will He Have a Website?

From the Vatican:

Il Santo Padre ha nominato il Rev.do Michael Robert Kennedy, Vescovo della diocesi di Armidale in Australia.


Il Rev.do Michael R. Kennedy è nato il 13 maggio 1968 a Wagga Wagga. Diplomato in pedagogia, ha conseguito la Licenza in Sacra Teologia presso la Pontificia Università Urbaniana nel 1999 e il Diploma in Mariologia presso la Pontificia Facoltà Teologica "Marianum".


È stato ordinato sacerdote il 14 agosto 1999 per la diocesi di Wagga Wagga. Dopo l’ordinazione sacerdotale ha ricoperto varie mansioni parrocchiali:


Vice-Parroco, Cappellano dei Giovani, Amministratore parrocchiale, Parroco e Vicario Foraneo. È stato membro della Commissione delle Scuole diocesane e del Consiglio Presbiterale. Oltre ad essere Parroco a Leeton, al momento è Membro dell’équipe diocesana per la promozione delle vocazioni, docente di Teologia Morale e Mariologia presso il Seminario diocesano e Membro del gruppo dei direttori spirituali presso lo stesso Seminario. È stato anche Presidente della Confraternita del Clero Cattolico.

Which is all very informative, but will he give Armidale Diocese a website?

'Come As You Are' Bunch Really Just Sad Unholy Bigots...

THREE young men Roland Agrisola, 27, Shelwin Fernandez, 25, and James Foster, 29, will each be ordained priests for the Lismore Diocese tonight, the first time since 1967 three men have been ordained for the diocese on the same day.

However the usual suspects have some misgivings over the Spirit's gift of these three young men...

Well where do I start? 

First of all, the age of this fella would make him younger by decades than many in the parish he will be sent to. What makes him think that these adults need to be lead to God after years of attending Mass and living a Christian life?

Secondly, is this the clericalism being taught these days in seminaries?

Thirdly, no wonder adult Catholics are looking for other ways of experiencing their spiritual life other than relying on being told by 'father' what to think and do.

2 of them are definitely not Australians were taken by the Bishop to gain priests for his diocese because he can't get his parisioners to study for the priesthood. By the time they return to their own country they will be aliens to their former people and will not fit into their former life.

We need to look at getting back the over 100,000 priests who have already left the prieshood rather than "stealing priests" from 3rd world countries. I have been to some of these coutries and have seen what happens in these cases. 

It is not good for the locals or for these men who are forced into our version of the priesthood,

Here in the Cloister we receive the news a little differently... Praise God for the gift of his holy priests. God bless you Roland, Shelwin and James. And may God continue to bless you and to bless us with young men just like you!!!

Look Mum, Both Hands!

We are all indebted to a person named Emmy Silvius writing on the acatholic "Catholica" website for letting us know about Inclusive Catholics, led by "former incardinated priest, Greg Reynolds"


"Greg firmly believes in blurring the distinction between clergy and laity. He is convinced this separation is exaggerated by the use of clerical collars, elaborate vestments, compulsory celibacy and restricting certain tasks to the ordained."

Emmy notes that according to Greg,

" As God has been called Father for the past two centuries, it is now imperative that we call God Mother for the next two centuries; in order to bring back some balance."

Loving the antic gestures with the eucharistic elements, Greg! Nothing exaggerated there.