In touch

Two older women, wives and mothers, were killed in their homes just recently. Were their assailants known, very much known, to them? It’s not for us mere mortals to say.

We’ve ceded the right and duty to our secular, pluralist and democratic court system. We ordinary citizens leave that to others. Thank God, most of us would say.

We may, however, speculate on what unbalances peoples’ lives so they resort to primitive means of redress. Earlier societies, pre-installation of the law and order model chosen by parliamentary democracies, resorted to a restorative justice process. The social balance had priority in the family but, also, in the village and region.

A son of one of the recent victims of violence told journalists that his mother’s death was a salutary reminder to him and, indeed, to us all to keep in touch with one another.

Hey, I said to myself, celibate catholic priest that I am, what about the proliferation of sms, mobile phones, emails. Never before have we been so much in touch!

So close, so far? Gadgetry now means I can track your movements with embarrassing detail. I’ll be able to see where you’re lying on the floor of the house or where you’ve run away to from the deadly boredom of disconnection from family, church or neighbourhood.

Which is why I agree with a protestant pastor in “The Age” letters: Catholics are rejoicing over the huge numbers set to attend their “garden party”. Anglicans are lamenting the huge numbers refusing to attend their “garden party”. Get back, says the pastor, to what Jesus taught – love your neighbour, especially those who feel shut out. And so say all of me.

As an each way bet, here’s my SBS WYD blog.

I confess to reading all the Dan Brown novels. It started with, for a catholic, of course, The De Vinci Code. It was a bit of fun.

Segued into the film. Media came at us catholics exposed, at last, as frauds, cheats and liars.

Opus Dei handled themselves very well, I thought.

I had another look at the Last Supper tableau, beautifully carved into our local church altar, painted allegedly, by a Burley Griffen craftsman.

Was that really Mary Magdalene at Jesus’ right hand? Was Dan Brown right?

Anyhow Dan’s back with “Angels and Demons”, murder and mayhem among senior clerics in Italian cities.

So, imagine my shock when confronted with a WYD endorsed calendar, created to entice American visitors to Rome, portraits of “pretty” priests against the backdrops of the Eternal City’s most beautiful cathedrals. Dan Brown’s angels and demons can go back to heaven and hell.

WYD has its own heavenly creatures on display (at $22.99!).

And, if that wasn’t exciting enough, we got an email from our Melbourne WYD desk, last Friday, reminding us that reverse animation is a catholic preferred marketing style.

Pier Frassati, dead since the 1920’s, will feature in Sydney. Melbourne has bits (relics) of Sts. Maria Goretti, Gemma Galgani and St. Gabriel (presumably not the archangel)

Graphic preaching did bring these remarkable people to life for goggled eyed catholics in previous generations.

WYD, catering for hundreds of thousands of the “wired generation”, may well leave the relics to the elderly and design an “anime” version for young pilgrims’ mobile phones, ipods and laptops.  I wish.

R.J.M.