Father Rod has become something of an institution in Australia in recent years thanks to social media. He is the master of the pithy comment. Many, many love him. Many, many loathe him. I am pretty certain that to-day's comment (the Islamic equivalent of Merry Christmas or Happy New Year for Christians) will drive the fanatics and the bigots nuts. However, that doesn't both Father Rod. Go here and you will find a mass of his epigrams for people to enjoy or be driven nutty.But he won't be stopped!
If you want something a little bit longer and meatier than Father Rod's succinct signage, you can get his sermons. They are erudite and meatier and you can get a feel for the man himself in action. People sometimes wonder out aloud what Father Rod's boss, the Bishop, thinks of all this. First of all, I think everyone in the Diocese of Newcastle is used to all this. Second of all, thanks to electronic media, he has acquired as much or more fame than Jesus did in His day and - what is more - he uses it wisely and well.
So, please join me and many other Australians tonight at 9.35pm. Father Rod - or to give him his precise title the Venerable Rod Bower - when he appears on the ABC current affairs television program, Q and A.
Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, once defined the religion as
being in service of ‘a civilisation without insanity, without criminals and
without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and
where man is free to rise to greater heights’.
Almost 60 years since its foundation, though, Scientology has become a
uniquely contentious phenomenon – with many questioning its status as a
religion, cult or business, and with a reputation for fiercely defensive,
litigious and coercive reactions to criticism. One of the first to feel the
Church’s wrath was Paulette Cooper – whose 1971 book,The Scandal of Scientology, saw her become the target of an
elaborate plot which set out to destroy her credibility, frame her and land her
with a 15 year prison sentence. Codenamed ‘Miss Lovely’ by Church operatives,
Cooper is now the subject of investigative journalist Tony Ortega’s book,The Unbreakable Miss Lovely.
Beside the Creek, the blog of the Ballarat Interfaith Network, is but one of many interfaith blogs across the planet. Here is another, Project Interfaith.
Social communication over the past two decades has been transformed by innovation and technology. Ballarat Interfaith Network has recently put its toe into the social media pond - and is interested in what faith figures have to say about these new forms of communication:
Here is the translation of the communique released by the Holy See explaining the theme chosen by Pope Francis for the 48th World Day of Social Communication which will be held next year.
* * * Communication at the service of an authentic culture of encounter
The capacity to communicate is at the heart of what it means to be human. It is in and through our communication that we are able to meet and encounter at a meaningful level other people, express who we are, what we think and believe, how we wish to live and, perhaps more importantly, to come to know those with whom we are called to live. Such communication calls for honesty, mutual respect and a commitment to learn from each other.
It requires a capacity to know how to dialogue respectfully with the truth of others. It is often what might be perceived initially as ‘difference’ in the other that reveals the richness of our humanity. It is the discovery of the other that enables us to learn the truth of who we are ourselves.
In our modern era, a new culture is developing advanced by technology, and communication is in a sense "amplified" and "continuous". We are called to "rediscover, through the means of social communication as well as by personal contact, the beauty that is at the heart of our existence and journey, the beauty of faith and of the beauty of the encounter with Christ." (Address of Pope Francis to participants at the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, 21 September 2013).
In this context, each one of us should accept the challenge to be authentic by witnessing to values, Christian identity, cultural experiences, expressed with a new language and shared with others.
Our ability to communicate, reflected in our participation in the creative, communicative and unifying Trinitarian Love, is a gift which allows us to grow in personal relationships, which are a blessing in our lives, and to find in dialogue a response to those divisions that create tensions within communities and between nations.
The age of globalization is making communication possible even in the most remote parts of the world, but it is also important "to use modern technologies and social networks in such a way as to reveal a presence that listens, converses and encourages." (Address of Pope Francis to participants at the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, 21 September 2013), so that nobody is excluded.
The Message for World Communications Day 2014 will explore the potential of communication, especially in a networked and connected world, to bring people closer to each other and to co-operate in the task of building a more just world.
World Communications Day, the only worldwide celebration called for by the Second Vatican Council ("Inter Mirifica", 1963), is celebrated in most countries, on the recommendation of the bishops of the world, on the Sunday before Pentecost (June 1st in 2014).
The Holy Father’s message for World Communications Day is traditionally published in conjunction with the Memorial of St. Francis de Sales, patron of writers (January 24).
