Letters

Toowoomba Diocese (letter)

Maria Lossberg

Contents - Dec 2000 - Buy a copy now Editorial: At the end of the Year of Jubilee: an audit - Michael Gilchrist ACU - when will the 'Statement of Conclusions' be implemented? - Michael Gilchrist Jubilee Congress of Families: Rome report - Anthony Cappello News: The Church Around the World C.S. Lewis: Christian apologist - Sarah Macdonald G.K. Chesterton: fresh and accessible today - Dale Ahlquist The 'new breed' of orthodox seminarians - Carter H. Griffin Australian Foundation to back new Pontifical University New Australian women's religious order - Sr Carmel Doherty Letters: Clarification (letter) - Bishop James Foley Letters: Priest shortage (letter) - Bernard O'Connor Letters: Spiritual Poverty (letter) - Joe Garreffa Letters: 'Creating Our Future' (letter) - Patricia Byrnes Letters: Toowoomba Diocese (letter) - Maria Lossberg Letters: Serious duties (letter) - Myles M. Kehoe Letters: Rainbow Serpent (letter) - Hans Klaver Letters: Positive response (letter) - Geoff Taylor Letters: The Church in China (letter) - Francis Vrijmoed Letters: Corrected translation (letter) - Hugh Henry Letters: Remembrance services (letter) - Richard Grant Letters: Women's ordination (letter) - Dr Frank Mobbs Letters: Misguided (letter) - Joyce Pearson and Marie Kennedy Letters: Wordiness (letter) - Kathleen Murnane Letters: Hell? (letter) - P.J. Jones Letters: Sermons (letter) - Gordon R. Coomber Letters: EWTN programs (letter) - John Lovegrove Books: 200 Years of Faith: A Multimedia Tour of the Holy Land - Catherine Sheehan (reviewer) Books: 'Biblical Holy Places: An Illustrated Guide' by Rivka Gonen - Catherine Sheehan (reviewer) Books: 'John Paul II's Book of Mary', compiled by Margaret R. Bunson - Anthony Cappello (reviewer) Books: 'Anti-Catholicism in American Culture', edited by Robert Lockwood - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Summer School of Evangelisation 2001 Reflection: The coming of Christ on earth - Pope John Paul II

I refer to "Toowoomba's 'Creating Our Future' - or a recipe for further decline?" (November AD2000). This Diocesan Pastoral Plan managed to omit alternative opinions that were expressed at the Diocesan gathering where this plan was "birthed."

The final document, with its chaotic wordspeak masking a questionable agenda, is no more than I would expect, after my distasteful experience at the Diocesan Gathering.

The group in which I participated dealt with Pastoral Leadership. The "shortage of priests" issue was the underlying fuel for calls for greater lay participation in Church affairs. The emphasis was on this direction rather than on suggestions as to how priestly vocations might be increased or reference to any underlying reasons for the declining vocations.

I suggested that priests could be sought or accepted from other dioceses, from inside or outside Australia, where seminary numbers are healthy and priests can be spared - as an interim solution to the imminent dearth of priests in the Toowoomba Diocese. This was rejected outright and not even written down. It seemed that the agenda had been set before the Gathering occurred.

Of the ten people in the group, only myself and one other supported endeavours to assess the reasons for declining vocations. This decline is inexorably linked to the overall crisis of faith due, in part, to poor teaching of our Catholic beliefs and truths in Catholic schools and institutions.

MARIA LOSSBERG
Toowoomba, Qld

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 13 No 11 (December 2000 - January 2001), p. 14