Clergy Workshop with Fr Mitch Pacwa

A group of clergy from several dioceses and religious orders were treated to an entertaining and enlightening workshop with Fr Mitch Pacwa SJ at Cathedral House in Sydney on Wednesday, 14 July. The workshop was the fifth in a series organised by the CAEC at the request of Cardinal Pell, beginning in 2009.

Fr Pacwa is well known for his frequent appearances on EWTN as well as for his books, which include Catholics and the New Age and Father, Forgive Me for I am Frustrated.

In the workshop he spoke on the New Age, giving its background, its manifestations and the dangers associated with it.

His second talk, on "Relativism and its ugly sisters", listed individualism, pluralism and multiculturalism, all understood in a particular way, as the offshoots of relativism.

The workshop began with lunch, hosted by Bishop Julian Porteous, and ended with afternoon tea.

Copies of Fr Mitch Pacwa's books are available from the Mustard Seed Bookshop.

Fr John Flader (left), Fr Mitch Pacwa and Fr Peter Joseph enjoy a joke during a break at the Clergy Workshop.

Fr Mitch Pacwa, EWTN TV personality, scholar and author is fluent in 12 languages including Aramaic and Hebrew.

Fr Fleming’s book launched

A full house at the Centre was treated to one of the most fascinating book launches in years when John McCarthy QC launched Fr Fleming’s Convinced by the Truth on Wednesday, May 5.

The book relates Fr Fleming’s conversion from the Anglican priesthood to the Catholic Church and eventually to the Catholic priesthood in 1995.

But it also relates Fr Fleming’s vital assistance to the Traditional Anglican Communion, through its worldwide Primate Archbishop John Hepworth, in seeking the union of the TAC with the Catholic Church. Their discussions in a Parramatta restaurant in 2005 led to the TAC making a formal petition to Rome in 2007 and to Pope Benedict publishing the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus in 2009, setting out the provisions for this union.

This fascinating story was summarised by Mr McCarthy in his launch of the book. He said: " By any measure both Archbishop Hepworth and Fr Fleming are immensely significant and effective Church leaders whose vision, action and writings have shaped some of the most important contours in Church development world-wide. Both have much more to contribute and accomplish but their roles in bringing the Apostolic Constitution to proclamation and operation should be acknowledged and valued by everyone of good will who desires Christian unity."

In his response, Fr Fleming summarised his conversion from his Anglo-Catholic beginnings, in which he always regarded himself as Catholic, through the turbulent years in which he saw the Anglican Church separate itself more and more from its traditional beliefs, to his eventual decision to enter the Catholic Church along with his wife Alison.

A highlight of the evening was the presence of Archbishop Hepworth, who told of his friendship with Fr Fleming as fellow Anglicans and how he sought Fr Fleming’s advice to speed up the entry of the Traditional Anglican Communion into the Church. He related many of the difficult steps along the way and expressed the hope that by the first Sunday of Advent of 2010 seven Ordinariates (similar to dioceses) of the Anglican rite might be established worldwide, with a total of some 200,000 faithful.

Click here for the full text of Mr John McCarthy's launch speech.

Convinced by the Truth is available from the Mustard Seed Bookshop at the price of $22.95.

Mark Shea launches new book in Sydney

Mark Shea, prominent Scripture scholar, author and speaker from the U.S., launched his new trilogy on Our Lady, Mary, Mother of the Son, at the Centre on Tuesday, February 2, 2010.

On introducing the launch Fr John Flader, Director of the Centre, commented on the author’s popularity with youth, mentioning that on the previous evening he had spoken to a standing-room-only crowd of some 600 young people at Theology on Tap in Parramatta.

Peter Holmes, former Manager of Studies for the Centre, introduced the author and commented on how much his earlier book By what authority? had struck a chord with him in his own spiritual journey into the Catholic Church.

The author explained that for many evangelicals, like himself before entering the Church in 1987, Mary is the last big hurdle to overcome. Protestants wonder where the Catholic Church gets its belief in such dogmas as the Immaculate Conception, the perpetual virginity and the Assumption of Mary, when they are not at all clear in the Scriptures. And why Catholics have the audacity to pray to Mary or why they pray the Rosary and what to make of supposed Marian apparitions.

To his surprise, when he asked Catholics about these beliefs, most were unable to give reasons for them. This led him to hope that someone would write a book that addressed all the questions Protestants like himself asked, and that would help Catholics too to know why they believe what they do. Since the years passed no such book appeared, he finally decided around 2000 to write it himself. The book was almost ten years in the making, and significantly the author first began to write it in Australia when he was here in 2004.

The trilogy is intended to be a “one stop shop” on all the commonly asked questions about Mary, addressing modern myths and ancient truths about her, the four Marian dogmas in depth, and Marian devotions and apparitions.

It is available from the Mustard Seed Bookshop at the special price of $44.95 for the three volumes together.

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