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Gospel – If your brother sins against you

15 “If your brother sins against you, go, show him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained back your brother.

16 But if he doesn’t listen, take one or two more with you, that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.✡

17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembly. If he refuses to hear the assembly also, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector.

18 Most certainly I tell you, whatever things you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever things you release on earth will have been released in heaven.

19 Again, assuredly I tell you, that if two of you will agree on earth concerning anything that they will ask, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven.

20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the middle of them.”

– Gospel of Matthew 18: 15-20

SOURCE

World English Bible

USCCB Daily Readings

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/091017.cfm

Review questions

Have you had an experience where someone offended or hurt you? Failed to listen to you?

How did you react?

What is Jesus calling us to do in such circumstances?

What does Jesus mean when he say that “anything you bind/loose on earth will be bound/loosened in heaven”?

What does he mean by saying that if anything is asked  by two people, it will be done for them?

What does he mean when he says he will be in the midst of people who gather in his name?

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Australia – The same sex marriage survey

No doubt the  biggest issue under discussion in Australia right now is the upcoming same sex marriage (SSM) survey, which will now go ahead after the High Court ruled that there are no constitutional obstacles in its path, SBS News reports.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the decision would mean all Australians would now get to have their say.

“And that is as it should be, we encourage every Australian to vote in this survey and have their say,” Mr Turnbull said.

“The effect of the decision of the court is that there is now no legal impediment to that postal survey proceeding and all Australians having their say on this important social question,” Attorney General Senator George Brandis told Parliament.

In response, Opposition Leader, Bill Shorten, called for a “yes” vote in favor of same sex marriage.

See

What are the issues at stake in the same sex marriage survey?

Judge

What do you think about same sex marriage?

What other issues are involved? Social welfare for same sex couples? Children?

Have you discussed the issue with your friends, work colleagues? What do they think?

What are the views of different community groups?

Political parties? Churches? Other religions?

Here are several Catholic views:

Prof. Eamonn Conway and Dr Rik Van Nieuwenhove, Where does Pope Francis stand on same-sex marriage? (Irish Catholic)

Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney, Between ideal and reality: What future for marriage in Australia? (Archdiocese of Sydney)

Frank Brennan SJ, Catholics and the marriage equality plebiscite (Eureka Street)

Act

Do you plan to vote in the SSM survey?

How will you vote?

Will you discuss your views with your family, friends, colleagues?

Do you plan to become involved in the campaign either for or against? How? Social media? Rallies? Writing to political leaders?

CREDITS

Photo: Guy of taipei / Wikipedia / CCA BY SA 3.0

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World – The plight of the Rohingya people

A social enquiry on the Rohingya issue

This month’s news bulletins are overflowing with stories of Myanmar’s Rohingya people fleeing violence and seeking refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh.

“Baby X was born nine days ago just after his family lost everything they owned,” a United Nations High Commission on Refugees report says.

“They burnt our house and drove us out by shooting. We walked for three days through the jungle. That’s where he was born,” said his father Mohamed, gesturing to the puckered bundle of life.

270,000  people have already fled their burning villages, according to this SBS report.

Now Rohingya Muslim insurgents in Myanmar have declared a one-month unilateral ceasefire to ease the humanitarian crisis in northern Rakhine state, BBC News says.

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa) said the truce would start on Sunday, urging Mynamar’s army to lay down weapons as well.

Arsa attacks on police on 25 August led to a ferocious military response.

Watch raw footage of the events on YouTube here:

Burning Rohingya villages

New fires in empty Rohingya villages

See

What information do you have about these events? Do you know anyone from Myanmar/Burma? Or from neighbouring countries, e.g. Bangladesh, India, Thailand… How  do they explain what has happened?

Judge

What do you think about these events?

What are others saying?

Pope Francis calls for end to violence against Rohingya (Vatican Radio)

U.N. Chief Antonio Guterres Urges Myanmar to Give the Rohingya Legal Status (Time)

Kevin Rudd, Aung San Suu Kyi Faces An Almost Impossible Dilemma. Don’t Give Up On Her. (Buzzfeed)

Britain Betrayed Rohingya After They Helped Them Defeat Japan in World War II (Muslim Stories)

Act

What can we do?

Donate to UNHCR relief efforts?

Can we ask our government leaders to take action?

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Singapore’s Tony Tay wins 2017 Magsaysay Award

Asia’s Nobel Peace Prize equivalent, the Ramon Magsaysay Award has gone to Singaporean former YCW leader, Tony Tay, for his work in creating the Willing Hearts movement.

Tony grew the movement from 11 volunteers in 2003 to some 300 volunteers at present. It has one  one vision: to provide the underprivileged and marginalized with hot, packed meals every day – even during Christmas and New Year, the Rappler reports.

He described it as a secular, non-affiliated charity that operates a soup kitchen where volunteers prepare and cook thousands of daily meals to be distributed to over 40 locations in Singapore.

“Food keeps families together, and it gives strength, it gives energy, and without food, it will be a big problem. So food comes to unite people,” Tony said.

“Our volunteers will be very, very happy, and they are recognized not only back home but also in Southeast Asia. We feel that they will be happier, and they will come more often [to volunteer],” Tay told Rappler in an interview.

The movement began following his mother’s death when Tony started collecting bread and vegetables and bringing these to the Canossian convent, as inspired by his mother’s own charity work with the Canossian Sisters.

“One day, my wife asked one of the needy, ‘Why you don’t take…the vegetable, you only take bread?’ He said, ‘I don’t cook.’ So my wife said, ‘Can I bring you a meal?'” Tay said.

“And then my wife brought two meals. [Another] one saw it, so he asked, ‘Can you give one meal to him?’ And then people asked more, and then they keep on going.”

In Manila for the award, Tony met with current YCS leaders.

“He approached them and was so happy that they belong to YCS. He introduced himself as a YCW member,” wrote CCI member, Kins Aparace on the CCI Facebook page.

READ MORE

Singapore’s Tony Tay wins 2017 Magsaysay Award (Cardijn.info)

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Race Mathews: Of Labour and Liberty

Race Mathews’ new book, Of Labour and Liberty, Distributism in Victoria, 1891 – 1966, was launched in April this year.

It is an excellent historical account of the role of Catholic social teaching and social activists in general, and of the YCW, in particular, in the development of the cooperative movement in the Australian state of Victoria.

Moreover, it’s not just history. Race Mathews, who was once chief of staff to Australian prime minister, Gough Whitlam, as well as a parliamentarian and government minister in his own right, also sets out some important pointers for the future development of Mondragon style worker cooperatives.

The key, Mathews finds, is the need for formation – formation based on that given by the YCW itself but also carried further as it was by Fr Jose Maria Arizmendiarrietta, the founder of the Mondragon cooperatives.

Read more about the new book in the review that I wrote for the Catholic Weekly:

https://www.catholicweekly.com.au/book-review-race-mathews-fascination-with-the-rise-and-fall-of-distributism-in-victoria/
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Labor priests make comeback

The “labor priest” is making a comeback, according to US Catholic magazine.

Leading the charge is Father Clete Kiley, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago. As a young priest, Kiley had many opportunities to help workers and to learn from the previous generation of labor priests. He eventually received the permission of Cardinal Francis George, Chicago’s archbishop at the time, to pursue this work full time as the director of immigration policy for the labor union UNITE HERE.

In 2012, Kiley followed in his mentors’ footsteps by organizing a new generation of priests in the labor movement. Working with the National Federation of Priests’ Councils, Kiley founded the Priest-Labor Initiative, a group of bishops, priests, and scholars committed to supporting worker justice.

In this interview from the September 2015 issue of U.S. Catholic, Kiley discusses the history of the labor priests and their role in the church today.

Among the many priests, he mentions are early Chicago YCW chaplains, Reynold Hillenbrand and Jack Egan.

FULL STORY

Catholic priests and the labor movement (US Catholic)

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