MOST of the commentary on this Synod, to be held later this year, suggests that little will change about the present teaching of the Church.
Catholic Archbishop Mark Coleridge, of Brisbane, together with Bishop Eugene Hurley, of Darwin, will attend the Synod representing the Australian Catholic Bishops.
Archbishop Coleridge who was on ABC’s Q&A last week, fielded questions in a thorough and understandable way. However, it was interesting that no questioner asked the Archbishop a direct question. He answered by way of invitation from the Moderator.
Maybe this is a special deference of Queenslanders to the Archbishop? Or it could just be that a general audience of Australians are no longer that interested in answers that they think the Church has to moral issues. If this is the case, the answers given by the Archbishop should question that assumption.
The idea that the Catholic church is not thinking seriously, and with intellectual rigour, about the moral issues of the day is a nonsense. And these are discussions that we all can share.