Articles - Religious Education en-us http://www.sces.uk.com N/A http://www.sces.uk.com director@sces.uk.com 20 http://www.sces.uk.com/articles/74/1/Feast-of-All-Saints/Page1.html The Feast of All Saints is one of the greatest of all the feasts because it celebrates what could have been impossible. director@sces.uk.com (Michael McGrath) Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.sces.uk.com/articles/72/1/Halloween-and-All-Saints-Day/Page1.html THis article provides a wonderful explanation of the Christian roots of Halloween. Father Saunders shows how All Saints Day arose only from a Christian devotion, independent of pagan practices. director@sces.uk.com (Michael McGrath) Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.sces.uk.com/articles/65/1/Pope-Benedict-XVI-on-educating-in-faith/Page1.html ZENIT provides this Vatican translation of the address Benedict XVI gave to Rome's diocesan convention on June 11 2007 at the Basilica of St. John Lateran.* * *Dear Brothers and Sisters,For the third consecutive year our diocesan Convention gives me the possibility of meeting and speaking to you all, addressing the theme on which the Church of Rome will be focusing in the coming pastoral year, in close continuity with the work carried out in the year now drawing to a close.I greet with affection each one of you, Bishops, priests, deacons, men and women religious, lay people who generously take part in the Church's mission. I thank the Cardinal Vicar in particular for the words he has addressed to me on behalf of you all.The theme of the Convention is "Jesus is Lord: educating in the faith, in the "sequela', in witnessing": a theme that concerns us all because every disciple professes that Jesus is Lord and is called to grow in adherence to him, giving and receiving help from the great company of brothers and sisters in the faith.Nevertheless, the verb "to educate", as part of the title of the Convention, suggests special attention to children, boys and girls and young people, and highlights the duty proper first of all to the family: thus, we are continuing the programme that has been a feature of the pastoral work of our Diocese in recent years.It is important to start by reflecting on the first affirmation, which gives our Convention its tone and meaning: "Jesus is Lord". We find it in the solemn declaration that concludes Peter's discourse at Pentecost, in which the head of the Apostles said: "Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified" (Acts 2:36). The conclusion of the great hymn to Christ contained in Paul's Letter to the Philippians is similar: "every tongue [should] confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (2: 11).Again, in the final salutation of his First Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul exclaimed: "If any one has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Maranàtha: Our Lord, come!" (I Corinthians 16:22), thereby handing on to us the very ancient Aramaic invocation of Jesus as Lord.Various other citations could be added: I am thinking of the 12th chapter of the same Letter to the Corinthians in which St Paul says: "No one can say "Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (I Corinthians 12:3).Thus, the Apostle declares that this is the fundamental confession of the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit. We might think also of the 10th chapter of the Letter to the Romans where the Apostle says, "if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord" (Romans 10:9), thus reminding the Christians of Rome that these words, "Jesus is Lord", form the common confession of the Church, the sure foundation of the Church's entire life.The whole confession of the Apostolic Creed, of the Nicene Creed, developed from these words. St Paul also says in another passage of his First Letter to the Corinthians: "Although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth..." -- and we know that today too there are many so-called "gods" on earth -- for us there is only "one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist" (I Corinthians 8: 5-6).Thus, from the outset the disciples recognized the Risen Jesus as the One who is our brother in humanity but is also one with God; the One who, with his coming into the world and throughout his life, in his death and in his Resurrection, brought us God and in a new and unique way made God present in the world: the One, therefore, who gives meaning and hope to our life; in fact, it is in him that we encounter the true Face of God that we find what we really need in order to live.Educating in the faith, in the sequela, and in witnessing means helping our brothers and sisters, or rather, helping one another to enter into a living relationship with Christ and with the Father. This has been from the start the fundamental task of the Church as the community of believers, disciples and friends of Jesus. The Church, the Body of Christ and Temple of the Holy Spirit, is that dependable company within which we have been brought forth and educated to become, in Christ, sons and heirs of God.In the Church, we receive the Spirit through whom "we cry, "Abba! Father!'" (cf. Romans 8:14-17). We have just heard in St Augustine's homily that God is not remote, that he has become the "Way" and the "Way" himself has come to us. He said: "Stand up, you idler, and start walking!". Starting to walk means moving along the path that is Christ himself, in the company of believers; it means while walking, helping one another to become truly friends of Jesus Christ and children of God.Daily experience tells us -- as we all know -- that precisely in our day educating in the faith is no easy undertaking. Today, in fact, every educational task seems more and more arduous and precarious. Consequently, there is talk of a great "educational emergency", of the increasing difficulty encountered in transmitting the basic values of life and correct behaviour to the new generations, a difficulty that involves both schools and families and, one might say, any other body with educational aims.We may add that this is an inevitable emergency: in a society, in a culture, which all too often make relativism its creed -- relativism has become a sort of dogma -- in such a society the light of truth is missing; indeed, it is considered dangerous and "authoritarian" to speak of truth, and the end result is doubt about the goodness of life -- is it good to be a person? is it good to be alive? -- and in the validity of the relationships and commitments in which it consists.So how would it be possible to suggest to children and to pass on from generation to generation something sound and dependable, rules of life, an authentic meaning and convincing objectives for human existence both as an individual and as a community?For this reason, education tends to be broadly reduced to the transmission of specific abilities or capacities for doing, while people endeavour to satisfy the desire for happiness of the new generations by showering them with consumer goods and transitory gratification. Thus, both parents and teachers are easily tempted to abdicate their educational duties and even no longer to understand what their role, or rather, the mission entrusted to them, is.Yet, in this way we are not offering to young people, to the young generations, what it is our duty to pass on to them. Moreover, we owe them the true values which give life a foundation.However, this situation obviously fails to satisfy; it cannot satisfy because it ignores the essential aim of education which is the formation of a person to enable him or her to live to the full and to make his or her own contribution to the common good. However, on many sides the demand for authentic education and the rediscovery of the need for educators who are truly such is increasing.Parents, concerned and often worried about their children's future, are asking for it, many teachers who are going through the sad experience of the deterioration of their schools are asking for it, society overall is asking for it, in Italy as in many other nations, because it sees the educational crisis cast doubt on the very foundations of coexistence.In a similar context, the Church's commitment to providing education in the faith, in discipleship and in witnessing to the Lord Jesus is more than ever acquiring the value of a contribution to extracting the society in which we live from the educational crisis that afflicts it, clamping down on distrust and on that strange "self hatred" that seems to have become a hallmark of our civilization.However, none of this diminishes the difficulties we encounter in leading children, adolescents and young people to meet Jesus Christ and to establish a lasting and profound relationship with him. Yet precisely this is the crucial challenge for the future of the faith, of the Church and of Christianity, and it is therefore an essential priority of our pastoral work: to bring close to Christ and to the Father the new generation that lives in a world largely distant from God.Dear brothers and sisters, we must always be aware that we cannot carry out such a task with our own strength but only with the power of the Spirit. We need enlightenment and grace that come from God and act within hearts and consciences. For education and Christian formation, therefore, it is above all prayer and our personal friendship with Jesus that are crucial: only those who know and love Jesus Christ can introduce their brothers and sisters into a living relationship with him. Indeed, moved by this need, I thought: it would be helpful to write a book on Jesus to make him known.Let us never forget the words of Jesus: "I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide" (John 15:15-16).Our communities will thus be able to work fruitfully and to teach the faith and discipleship of Christ while being in themselves authentic "schools" of prayer (cf. Apostolic Letter "Novo Millennio Ineunte," n. 33), where the primacy of God is lived.Furthermore, it is education and especially Christian education which shapes life based on God who is love (cf. I John 4:8,16), and has need of that closeness which is proper to love. Especially today, when isolation and loneliness are a widespread condition to which noise and group conformity is no real remedy, personal guidance becomes essential, giving those who are growing up the assurance that they are loved, understood and listened to.In practice, this guidance must make tangible the fact that our faith is not something of the past, that it can be lived today and that in living it we really find our good. Thus, boys and girls and young people may be helped to free themselves from common prejudices and will realize that the Christian way of life is possible and reasonable, indeed, is by far the most reasonable.The entire Christian community, with all its many branches and components, is challenged by the important task of leading the new generations to the encounter with Christ: on this terrain, therefore, we must express and manifest particularly clearly our communion with the Lord and with one another, as well as our willingness and readiness to work together to "build a network", to achieve with an open and sincere mind every useful form of synergy, starting with the precious contribution of those women and men who have consecrated their lives to adoring God and interceding for their brethren.However, it is very obvious that in educating and forming people in the faith the family has its own fundamental role and primary responsibility. Parents, in fact, are those through whom the child at the start of life has the first and crucial experience of love, of a love which is actually not only human but also a reflection of God's love for him.Therefore, the Christian family, the small "domestic Church", and the larger family of the Church must take care to develop the closest collaboration, especially with regard to the education of children (cf. "Lumen Gentium," n. 11).Everything that has matured in the three years in which our diocesan pastoral ministry has devoted special attention to the family should not only be implemented but also further increased.For example, the attempts to involve parents and even godparents more closely, before and after Baptism, in order to help them understand and put into practice their mission as educators in the faith have already produced appreciable results and deserve to be continued and to become the common heritage of each parish. The same applies for the participation of families in catechesis and in the entire process of the Christian initiation of children and adolescents.Of course, many families are unprepared for this task and there is no lack of families which -- if they are not actually opposed to it -- do not seem to be interested in the Christian education of their own children: the consequences of the crisis in so many marriages are making themselves felt here.Yet, it is rare to meet parents who are wholly indifferent to the human and moral formation of their children and consequently unwilling to be assisted in an educational task which they perceive as ever more difficult.Therefore, an area of commitment and service opens up for our parishes, oratories, youth communities and above all for Christian families themselves, called to be near other families to encourage and assist them in raising their children, thereby helping them to find the meaning and purpose of life as a married couple.Let us now move on to other subjects concerning education in the faith.As children gradually grow up, their inner desire for personal autonomy naturally increases. Especially in adolescence, this can easily lead to them taking a critical distance from their family. Here, the closeness which can be guaranteed by the priest, Religious, catechist or other educators capable of making the friendly Face of the Church and love of Christ concrete for the young person, becomes particularly important.If it is to produce positive effects that endure in time, our closeness must take into account that the education offered is a free encounter and that Christian education itself is formation in true freedom. Indeed, there is no real educational proposal, however respectful and loving it may be, which is not an incentive to making a decision, and the proposal of Christianity itself calls freedom profoundly into question, calling it to faith and conversion.As I said at the Ecclesial Convention in Verona: "A true education must awaken the courage to make definitive decisions, which today are considered a mortifying bind to our freedom. In reality, they are indispensable for growth and in order to achieve something great in life, in particular, to cause love to mature in all its beauty: therefore, to give consistency and meaning to freedom itself" (Address, 19 October 2006; L'Osservatore Romano English edition, 25 October 2006, p. 9).When they feel that their freedom is respected and taken seriously, adolescents and young people, despite their changeability and frailty, are not in fact unwilling to let themselves be challenged by demanding proposals: indeed, they often feel attracted and fascinated by them.They also wish to show their generosity in adhering to the great, perennial values that constitute life's foundations. The authentic educator likewise takes seriously the intellectual curiosity which already exists in children and, as the years pass, is more consciously cultivated. Constantly exposed to, and often confused by, the multiplicity of information, and by the contrasting ideas and interpretations presented to them, young people today nevertheless still have a great inner need for truth. They are consequently open to Jesus Christ who, as Tertullian reminds us, "called himself truth, not custom" ("De virginibus velandis," I, 1).It is up to us to seek to respond to the question of truth, fearlessly juxtaposing the proposal of faith with the reason of our time. In this way we will help young people to broaden the horizons of their intelligence, to open themselves to the mystery of God, in whom is found life's meaning and direction, and to overcome the conditioning of a rationality which trusts only what can be the object of experiment and calculation. Thus, it is very important to develop what last year we called "the pastoral care of intelligence".The task of education passes through freedom but also requires authority. Therefore, especially when it is a matter of educating in faith, the figure of the witness and the role of witnessing is central. A witness of Christ does not merely transmit information but is personally involved with the truth Christ proposes and, through the coherency of his own life, becomes a dependable reference point.However, he does not refer to himself, but to Someone who is infinitely greater than he is, in whom he has trusted and whose trustworthy goodness he has experienced. The authentic Christian educator is therefore a witness who finds his model in Jesus Christ, the witness of the Father who said nothing about himself but spoke as the Father had taught him (cf. John 8:28). This relationship with Christ and with the Father is for each one of us, dear brothers and sisters, the fundamental condition for being effective educators in the faith.Our Convention very rightly speaks of education not only in faith and discipleship but also in witnessing to the Lord Jesus. Bearing an active witness to Christ does not, therefore, concern only priests, women religious and lay people who as formation teachers have tasks in our communities, but children and young people themselves, and all who are educated in the faith.Therefore, the awareness of being called to become witnesses of Christ is not a corollary, a consequence somehow external to Christian formation, such as, unfortunately, has often been thought and today too people continue to think. On the contrary, it is an intrinsic and essential dimension of education in the faith and discipleship, just as the Church is missionary by her very nature (cf. "Ad Gentes," n. 2).If children, through a gradual process from the beginning of their formation, are to achieve permanent formation as Christian adults, the desire to be and the conviction of being sharers in the Church's missionary vocation in all the situations and circumstances of life must take root in the believers' soul. Indeed, we cannot keep to ourselves the joy of the faith. We must spread it and pass it on, and thereby also strengthen it in our own hearts.If faith is truly the joy of having discovered truth and love, we inevitably feel the desire to transmit it, to communicate it to others. The new evangelization to which our beloved Pope John Paul II called us passes mainly through this process.A concrete experience that will increase in the youth of the parishes and of the various ecclesial groups the desire to witness to their own faith is the "Young People's Mission" which you are planning, after the success of the great "City Mission".By educating in the faith, a very important task is entrusted to Catholic schools. Indeed, they must carry out their mission on the basis of an educational project which places the Gospel at the centre and keeps it as a decisive reference point for the person's formation and for the entire cultural programme.In convinced synergy with families and with the Ecclesial Community, Catholic schools should therefore seek to foster that unity between faith, culture and life which is the fundamental goal of Christian education. State schools too can be sustained in their educational task in various ways by the presence of teachers who are believers -- in the first place, but not exclusively, teachers of Catholic religion -- and of students with a Christian formation, as well as by the collaboration of many families and of the Christian community itself.The healthy secularism of schools, like that of the other State institutions, does not in fact imply closure to Transcendence or a false neutrality with regard to those moral values which form the basis of an authentic formation of the person. A similar discourse naturally applies for universities and it is truly a good omen that university ministry in Rome has been able to develop in all the Athenaeums, among teachers as much as students, and that a fruitful collaboration has developed between the civil and Pontifical academic institutions.Today, more than in the past, the education and formation of the person are influenced by the messages and general climate spread by the great means of communication and which are inspired by a mindset and culture marked by relativism, consumerism and a false and destructive exaltation, or rather, profanation, of the body and of sexuality.Therefore, precisely because of the great "yes" that as believers in Christ we say to the man loved by God, we certainly cannot fail to take interest in the overall orientation of the society to which we belong, in the trends that motivate it and in the positive or negative influence that it exercises on the formation of the new generations.The very presence of the community of believers, its educational and cultural commitment, the message of faith, trust and love it bears are in fact an invaluable service to the common good and especially to the children and youth who are being trained and prepared for life.Dear brothers and sisters, there is one last point to which I would like to draw your attention: it is supremely important for the Church's mission and requires our commitment and first of all our prayer. I am referring to vocations to follow the Lord Jesus more closely in the ministerial priesthood and in the consecrated life.In recent decades, the Diocese of Rome has been gladdened by the gift of many priestly ordinations which have made it possible to bridge the gap in the previous period, and also to meet the requests of many Sister Churches in need of clergy; but the most recent indications seem less favourable and prompt the whole of our diocesan community to renew to the Lord, with humility and trust, its request for labourers for his harvest (cf. Matthew 9:37-38; Luke 10:2).With delicacy and respect we must address a special but clear and courageous invitation to follow Jesus to those young men and women who appear to be the most attracted and fascinated by friendship with him. In this perspective, the Diocese will designate several new priests specifically to the care of vocations, but we know well that prayer and the overall quality of our Christian witness, the example of life set by priests and consecrated souls, the generosity of the people called and of the families they come from, are crucial in this area.Dear brothers and sisters, I entrust to you these reflections as a contribution to the dialogue of these evenings, and to the work of the next pastoral year. May the Lord always give us the joy of believing in him, of growing in his friendship, of following him in the journey of life and of bearing witness to him in every situation, so that we may be able to pass on to those who will come after us the immense riches and beauty of faith in Jesus Christ. May my affection and my blessing accompany you in your work. Thank you for your attention!© Copyright 2007 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana director@sces.uk.com (Michael McGrath) Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.sces.uk.com/articles/58/1/True-Religious-Education-leads-to-an-opening-of-minds/Page1.html Homily Notes of Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of IrelandChurch of the Annunciation, Rathfarnham,25th September 2007I remember well the occasion on which I, as archbishop of Dublin, celebrated this annual Mass for the opening of the school year for the first time. It was a dark evening at the end of a dark rainy day. I remember well that the atmosphere at the Mass in the pro-cathedral was one of a certain tiredness and fatigue.Then it came to the moment of the singing of the responsorial psalm and one of the young boy singers of the Palestrina Choir appeared, stood confidently at the microphone and began singing the psalm with a forceful, stunning voice, perfect diction and without the slightest sense of strain.Suddenly from the missalettes, heads popped up, full of curiosity and attention. They were the heads of teachers shaken awake as only a good teacher can be by the immediate recognition of talent. You could see this in the expression of the faces of teachers. It was not just the recognition of talent, but recognition of talent that had been properly tutored and that was full of hope for the future.There have been many words spoken and printed in these weeks about our educational system and its problems, its teething troubles and its challenges. I would like this evening to turn our reflection toward what is of excellence in our system and to render our thanks to God and to those who for years have been the protagonists of our education and for what they have achieved. We thank God above all for the talent of our young people recognized, encouraged, enhanced and indeed rejoiced in by our educational community.The Gospel which has just been read is about vines. Vines are notoriously difficult plants to grow and tend. They grow slowly. They are highly sensitive to changes in the weather and the damage done in a few hours can take years to fully recover from.Vines require much attention if their growth is to be successful and if the fruit of the vine is to be quality fruit. That is the task of pruning, which city people like me look on primarily as a process of breaking off unwanted shoots. The process is of course much more complex. It is not just about cutting off this or that particular branch. It is a real art, the art of trimming and tending the plant so that its growth potential becomes optimal. It is work which requires knowledge, technique and love. Becoming a mature human person is something that is never fully achieved but is worked on over an entire lifespan. This applies to the pupils but also to teachers and also all of those in the school community. All require renewal. All are required to take a look at themselves and their role to see whether they are formed in such a way as to ensure -- to continue with the analogy -- optimal growth and productivity, to ensure that our children encounter an educational process which brings out the best in them.Teaching, like any of the caring professions, is not just about technology, techniques and training. The prime instrument of any teacher is himself or herself.I am constantly amazed by the dedication of our teachers I meet around this diocese, young and old. At a time when it is commonplace to accuse young people of being short on idealism, vision for life and responsibility, our young teachers belie that myth and they do it with a vengeance. I meet young teachers who opt immediately after college to go to the more problematic areas of the diocese; I meet teachers who at the end of their teaching career, after 30 or more years in the classroom, are filled with the same idealism they brought with them on their first day as teachers. I see teachers who began their careers in a world radically different from ours, as bright and attentive and creative as they ever were in addressing the needs of children today. I see how teachers, who could never have imagined the new configuration of the ethnic and religious make-up of our communities, have risen marvelously to the challenge, well before the pundits had even noticed what was going on in our society. Our nation and everyone in it owes a debt of real gratitude to teachers. Whatever problems we encounter, we should never downplay what we have achieved in our school system, based on a collaborative model rooted in community. Where changes have to be made, let them be made and made in a timely fashion. But this requires that it be done in a reflective and systemic manner so that the final result will be to optimize our school system to face the challenges of today and tomorrow.This is a challenge for all. It is a challenge which requires us to look at the facts as they really are and not to be driven by polemics or ideology. When in education, ideologies win the day, it is children and communities that pay the highest price. The fact is that Catholic schools in North and West Dublin, and indeed in many of the smaller country towns, cater for thousands of children of very different ethnic backgrounds and religions. They have done so quietly and effectively for many years -- notwithstanding the undeniable challenges and tensions. Some commentators have evidently not been in our schools in recent times. In some cases comment has been offensive to teachers and management alike of Catholic schools which have been taking a leading role in integration.Integration is a challenge for all. Integration is not just for the poor. It would be tragic and dangerous if the current debate were to lead parents to consider how they might “opt out” of integrated education by seeking schools that might not have broad ethnic mix. We all -- including providers of Catholic education at primary and secondary level -- have the responsibility to avoid a two tier or elitist education system. The future requires working together. It is a challenge for our communities, for government, for local authorities, for Churches and other patron bodies, for boards of management and indeed for teachers themselves, for school principals, for teachers’ organizations and indeed for structures representing parents. Integration will only take place when we address the needs and interests of all. That will happen only when all of us can work together and rise above sectoral interests so that what emerges is of the greatest benefit for our young people. I have already expressed my views on the way forward in a pluralist society and my willingness to follow through with a changing role for the Roman Catholic Church in Irish education. That will involve divesting much of the current presence of the Church in patronage, but it is not a cry of retreat.There is a viewpoint which tends to look at religious education as something ideological, divisive and doctrinaire and perhaps not really a good thing for young people and certainly alien to what should belong to a school curriculum in a modern pluralist democracy.The contrary is true. True religious education leads to an opening of children's minds and helps them along the first steps to reflection on the meaning of their own lives and values. It stimulates that openness to the transcendent that encourages the young person to go beyond him or herself. It invites young people to experience the love of God which insists on love of one's neighbor.Religious values can be the best antidote to a culture of consumerism and superficiality. A religious sense will help the young person to break through some of the dominant patterns of reflection in our society. Religious education should help overcome the difficulty of understanding community and communion in the face of narrow individualism, or the difficulty of speaking about solidarity and gratuitous love in a market-dominated culture in which everything has its price and you get just what you pay for. We give thanks to God for all that is good in our educational system. We pray that Jesus, who gave himself so that we could have life, will accompany and inspire us all as we give from the riches we have received so that future generations can flourish. [Text adapted] director@sces.uk.com (Michael McGrath) Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.sces.uk.com/articles/56/1/The-Magnificat-Marys-own-prayer/Page1.html Fr. John Hardon reflects on the Magnificat of Our Lady, the longest discourse recorded of Mary. He discusses Mary's gratitude to God, Her praise for His Power, Holiness and Mercy, how God is Mercy, how Mary compares the lot of the humble and proud and how she tells us that God keeps His promises. director@sces.uk.com (Michael McGrath) Wed, 26 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.sces.uk.com/articles/44/1/Real-moral-choices-in-virtual-game-worlds/Page1.html Unstructured, open-ended play gives gamers a great deal of choice about how to behave in videogames - but is that a good thing?.  Are games in which mass murder is possible and allowed harmful? By allowing for (and simulating) destructive behaviours in their games, are developers thus endorsing those behaviours?Alexander Gambotto-Burke asks some important questions in this Guardian article. director@sces.uk.com (Michael McGrath) Thu, 16 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.sces.uk.com/articles/41/1/Pope-Ecology-key-to-teaching-youths-about-Christian-morality/Page1.html The papal intuition is sparked by the fact that ecology is a widely accepted moral concern, but one that points much deeper: Nature itself teaches that some things are naturally right and some are naturally wrong. Appropriately, Pope Benedict had Alpine peaks and meadows as a backdrop when he added the environmental twist to his oft-repeated call for a moral education of the young based on a recognition of natural law. When a priest in northern Italy asked him for suggestions on how to educate the moral conscience of the young, the pope began with a rather philosophical explanation of conscience and natural law. In the Christian view, the natural moral code is not an arbitrary list of do's and don'ts thought up by religious leaders or resulting from a majority vote, but is part of human nature and the result of being created by God, the pope said. Humans are special creatures precisely because they have the ability "to listen to the voice of the Creator and, in this way, know what is good and what is bad." In helping people understand the natural moral law, the pope said, the first step is to help them recognize that within themselves there is "a moral message, a divine message, which must be deciphered" and obeyed. More concretely, "I would propose a combination between a secular way and a religious way, the way of faith," he said, before launching his new idea. "Everyone today can see that man could destroy the foundation of his existence – his earth – and, therefore, we can no longer simply use this earth, this reality entrusted to us, to do what we want or what appears useful and promising at the moment, but we must respect the inherent laws of creation," the pope said. People must "learn these laws and obey these laws if we want to survive," he said. The destruction of the environment, the pope said, is a stark example of how future survival requires that people obey the laws of nature, especially when everyone else is taking shortcuts that may increase their pleasure at the moment, but are obviously damaging in the long term. The first thing young people can learn is that "our earth speaks to us, and we must listen if we want to survive," the pope said. Pope Benedict said it might not be that great of a reach to help young people understand that the same natural voice telling them littering is bad, clear-cutting a forest is a shame, and that water and clean air are precious resources is really saying that life is precious. "We must not only care for the earth, but we must respect one another," he said. "Only with absolute respect for this creature of God, this image of God which is man, only with respect for living together on this earth can we move forward." Pope Benedict said that once people understand human freedom involves the entire human community and not just what one individual feels like doing at any one time they can be led to see how the Ten Commandments also are expressions of truth about human nature and about the regulations needed for living together on this earth. The pope said priests should try to use "the obvious paths" opened up by secular moral concerns, such as ecology, to lead Christian young people to "the true voice of the conscience," which is communicated in Catholic moral teaching.  "Through a journey of patient education, I think we can all learn to live and to find true life," he said. director@sces.uk.com (Michael McGrath) Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.sces.uk.com/articles/37/1/Father-Cantalamessa-on-Jesus-Prayer/Page1.html This is a translation of a commentary by the Pontifical Household preacher, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, on the readings from the Sunday liturgy of 29th July 2007.***Jesus at Prayer17th Sunday in Ordinary TimeGenesis 18:20-21, 23-32; Colossians 2:12-14; Luke 11:1-13Sunday's Gospel begins with these words: "Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.' He said to them, 'When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.'" director@sces.uk.com (Michael McGrath) Mon, 30 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.sces.uk.com/articles/34/1/Atheists-Versus-Believers/Page1.html The attack against religion started by Richard Dawkins in his book "The God Delusion" shows no sign of letting up. In recent months a number of emulators have published books that continue the polemic. This article by Fr John Flynn takes issue with a number of them.22 July 2007 director@sces.uk.com (Michael McGrath) Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.sces.uk.com/articles/33/1/Father-Cantalamessa-on-Friendship/Page1.html This is a translation of a commentary by the Pontifical Household preacher, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, on the readings from the Sunday liturgy of 22 July 2007The Friends of Jesus16th Sunday in Ordinary TimeGenesis 18:1-10a; Colossians 1:24-28; Luke 10:38-42 director@sces.uk.com (Michael McGrath) Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0100