Why is the Catholic Church against IVF?

Posted: 5 May 2013

If you take a quick poll of the next ten strangers you encounter and ask them about the Catholic Church and its attitude towards in vitro fertilization (IVF) you are likely to get two responses: half will not realise the Church has a concern with IVF and the other half will state how ridiculous it is that the Church is concerned about a process that can bring children to couples who are unable to conceive. Actually the Church has more than a concern; the Church has taught since IVF came about, that the process is “gravely immoral”. Not that the Church just made up this teaching when IVF began in the late 1970s, rather it applied its ongoing understanding of sexuality to this particular question. None the less, couples considering IVF as a last hope don’t like being told that their choice is gravely immoral so it’s worth considering just what the real problem is.

IVF presents a host of problems. First, it has no guaranteed success. The success rate of IVF is generally 50% for women under thirty but falls to just 20% for women under 40. Second, IVF costs a lot of money. Each treatment cycle can cost a couple around $3000 (after government assistance) whether there is success or not. Third, IVF has health risks. About 30% of IVF patients experience at least a mild case of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) which causes swollen, painful ovaries. While mild cases can be treated with over-the-counter pain medication a small percentage develop severe OHSS which may require hospitalisation. Fourth, IVF creates a life by destroying others. A usual cycle of IVF produces multiple embryos to assist with the success rate and also to store if a couple wishes to try for more children further down the track. However the truth is these embryos are mostly unused. There are 120,000 embryos sitting in frozen storage in Australia, the majority of which will be eventually destroyed with about 90% of IVF couples choosing to discard them. It is worth remembering that an embryo is no longer just an egg or a sperm, it is a new human life. A couple must ask themselves if the birth of one of their children justifies the deliberate creation and destruction of a few of their other children.

Another real concern with IVF is the physical and emotional cost. And while the actual physical process of IVF is difficult enough perhaps even more serious is the emotional toll that must be borne in the relationship. A book well worth reading is The Hollow Heart by Irish journalist Martina Devlin; it is subtitled ‘The true story of one woman’s desire to give life and how it almost destroyed her own’. In three attempts at IVF Martina lost nine embryos but in the process she also lost her marriage and was driven to the depths of despair. While Martina and her husband began with the very natural desire for children this eventually became all encompassing for Martina so that everything else in her life (including her husband) became worthless. Children are a great blessing but if we cling too tightly to any blessing it can become for us a curse.

Perhaps surprisingly, even the reason above is not the Church’s primary concern with IVF. The fundamental problem with IVF is that it separates the sexual act from the procreative act. The child is not conceived out of the self-giving act of love between husband and wife in union with God. Rather, the power of life is entrusted to doctors and biologists while the couple is effectively reduced to providers of physical matter and mere observers. The sexual union though is not just an incidental action of marriage but the very action that makes marriage real and unites it to God’s love. IVF has no regard for the sexual union and thus has no regard for God’s plan around life and love.

The Church understands the great suffering of sterility and encourages good science into reducing the condition; and to highlight one example, there has been great success for couples in naprotechnology, which combines medical science with the proper dignity owed to married love. However, the Church is conscious that a child is always a gift, not something owed. When a couple vow before the priest to accept children lovingly from God there is always the inverted and somewhat harder aspect of the vow which infers that children may not be sent even after years of doing all the right things and saying all the right prayers. Couples who are struggling with fertility are called to work together with each other and with God to discover the unique way in which their marriage is called to a life of fruitfulness.

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How Wealthy is the Catholic Church?

Posted: 28 April 2013

With the new Pope naming himself after arguably the most renowned beggar who ever lived – Francis of Assisi – some commentators are hoping that the Catholic Church will at last divest itself of the wealth it has been clinging to for thousands of years and begin to preach the authentic Gospel of Christ. These calls though are reminiscent of the Apostle Judas who protested at Mary Magdalene’s use of costly ointment on the feet of Jesus’ which was followed by the Gospel writers’ astute comment, “he did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief”. How many of those who criticise the Church for her alleged wealth are concerned about the poor rather than simply desiring to bring down the influence of Christianity in society? It is not wealth in and of itself that is evil but an inordinate attachment to it. None the less the Church does and should have a preferential option for the poor and Pope Francis has rightly expressed his desire for a Church that is poor and for the poor. So just how wealthy is the Catholic Church?

When people think of the supposed wealth of the Church they most likely picture the grandeur of St Peter’s Basilica and the works of art within the walls of the Vatican. It is wise to recall though that the Church does not consider itself the owners of these items but rather the custodians of them for all humanity. For if the Catholic Church had not safeguarded the great treasures of culture for two thousand years through war and through peace, who do we suppose was going to do it? Something else worth remembering is that many of the pieces that are today regarded as great works of art were originally created as works of devotion, and the only reason they have existed long enough to be considered so valuable, is again because the Catholic Church has watched over them with solicitude across the centuries.

The Vatican has for some years publically released its annual budget, although as a sovereign nation it is under no requirement to do so. The Vatican runs with an annual operating budget of around $300 million but keep in mind that the Vatican employs close to 3000 people and supports 1000 retirees. With that same money it keeps St Peter’s Basilica and the key Churches of Rome in operation, it maintains the Vatican museums and provides important missionary services such as the Vatican radio and newspaper. This budget does not include the monies that are sent in from the lay faithful around the world to support the charitable works of the Pope known as ‘Peter’s Pence’. Totaling around $70 million each year, Peter’s Pence is used to support ecclesial communities most often in mission countries who have no one else to turn too. The Vatican Bank, or more properly, the Institute for the Works of Religion, controls a much larger amount of money estimated to be around $6 billion, however most of it is not the money of the Vatican but religious orders, dioceses and Catholic organisations which use the money for their particular work of ministry and charity.

The specific ‘wealth’ of the Vatican does not cover the many dioceses in individual nations which essentially manage their own expenditure. As an example, it has been estimated by The Economist that the Catholic Church in the USA spends collectively in excess of $170 billion each year but this is not on caviar and fine wine. The money goes to fund healthcare, universities, schools, parishes, charities and the payroll of the one million people who work for the Church and make it all happen (this includes the tens of thousands of priests and religious who give their lives for Christ and the service of the Church and must be thus housed and provided for).

Those who think the Catholic Church has a lot of money are correct but those who think the Church holds onto money for the sake of it are incorrect. The Catholic Church is not a ‘fly by night’ organisation that is flippant about money. Working to bring the message of Jesus Christ to every generation and to serve the needs of humanity requires funds, and as the single most charitable private organisation on the planet the Catholic Church uses its money as a wise steward should.

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Is childcare good for children?

Posted: 5 April 2013

The Australian Federal Government recently announced that it will introduce a package of new measures to provide more flexible and accessible childcare to better meet the needs of what it calls “modern families”. The $11 million trials will include overnight and weekend care for the children of shift workers, extended weekday hours and more out of school hours care to “remove the barriers to workforce participation”. The media release, issued by the Minister for Childcare, was seasoned with references to how the trial responds to the needs of families and helps parents in the “work/family juggle”. The Minister spoke about the way in which the significant growth in women’s workforce participation in recent decades had created extra demand for childcare.

And demand it has created. There are around 6500 childcare centres in Australia offering long day care (from early morning to early evening) and the number of centres is increasing by about 250 centres per year. That of course means the number of clients are on the rise with 1.9 million children in 2011 attending one or more types of childcare, which was just over half of Australian children aged 12 or younger.

Without a doubt childcare is seen as an acceptable and even a socially responsible path. Reports are seen in the media from time-to-time extolling the value that quality childcare can bring in the well being of children. The studies seem to indicate that the more time childcare staff spend being actively engaged with the children, the better their social and emotional development. One expert on child development was quoted as saying the highest quality childcare is provided in those centres where the children are “loved to bits”. What? Have we reached such a place where the most obvious data seems to surprise us? The fact that children need to be loved and given attention is the most basic piece of human programming yet it is as if we are discovering it afresh.

What is most discouraging though is that in all the talk of childcare – from government ministers to journalists to university academics – no one seems to be able (or willing) to annunciate the elephant in the room. And that elephant is that children fare best within the care of their parents, and in most circumstances that primary care is usually given through the mother. Yet instead of highlighting the essential nature of parents in the direct raising of their children, the federal government assigns a special minister to childcare and proceeds to undertake trials that will essentially allow parents to be more absent from their children than ever before.

Allow me to say that I am not criticising those who work in childcare, the families who opt to use childcare or mothers who work. What I want to point out is the strange disconnect that seems exists. Too many people seem very intent on making us all feel good about childcare and as far as I can see the reason for this is simply to keep women in workforce participation. Without a doubt our society needs women in various positions of employ meaning that there will be times when the children of these mothers will need to be looked after, hence the genuine need for childcare. But with half of Australian children in some form of regular childcare one can’t help but wonder if we have inverted our priorities as a nation.

Childcare is not the sign of a healthy nation. If all the mothers of Australia went to work tomorrow that would not be an asset. Any nation is best served by having young children with their parents. The government boasts about its investment of $23.1 billion into early childhood education and care, but where is the allocation to assist mothers to stay at home to be with their children? A mother may opt to work and that is her prerogative but too many find themselves having to work to pay the bills. Too many mothers receive subliminal messages that their value and worth is to be found in paid employment. This is an unfortunate lie. Children need their mothers, not part time, but full time. A healthy nation needs its mothers being mothers. We speak of childcare as if it is normal to take a toddler and leave them in the care of strangers (however genuine and well trained they might be) in their most formative years. A nation that is overly proud of its achievements in burgeoning childcare numbers has truly missed the point.

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Lent and the Cross

Posted: 5 April 2013

We are rapidly progressing through the season of Lent and if we have been taking the season seriously, the physical and spiritual efforts we have undertaken are probably being felt. This exercising of the spirit is much like exercising the body.  Initially when we start a fitness regime, maybe running or swimming or a particular group sport it can be tough, we cannot go as far as we would like, but as we keep working at it, little by little, our ability becomes greater, the distractions and bothers fall away.  This is the Church’s hope for us, that by now we are starting to grow stronger in virtue, but we must keep the cross before our eyes to remind us of why we are suffering and of whom we suffer with. Everything done in Lent has to be done for Christ and with Christ. One might live on bread and water for forty days but if that suffering is not united with Christ’s suffering then all that has been achieved is most probably significant weight loss.

Each one of us is called during this Lent to wait on the Lord, for our sufferings are not meaningless, but the very opportunities that God allows to unite us to him. Sure, we were not created to suffer but we live in a fallen world and now the only way to overcome our fallenness and be united with the Trinity is through the cross. There is no other method; no pill, no book, no website, no self-help DVD and not even another person. By allowing himself to be hung nailed to a tree Christ wanted to show us that happiness in this life – and salvation in the next – comes through waiting on God.  The cross is the exact opposite of what happened with our first parents in the garden.

Consider what happens when we believe that we are not being fulfilled as we should. When we are unable to stand with Mary at the foot of the cross, we turn to our first parents and grasp at our own happiness. We reach out to take the fruit because we do not trust God will provide. All sin is us grasping at what we think will make us happy although we know from experience it only leaves more emptiness than before.  Think of any sin, adultery, fornication, pornography, masturbation, contraception, homosexuality, jealousy, theft.  When we give in to one of these temptations we are grasping at the happiness we think they will bring. We confuse the very good desire for happiness with the correct way to find it.  So what is the answer?  It is the cross. There can be no other answer.

God does not want us to suffer and God does not want us to be lonely. It is from the cross we are reassured that from death comes life, from crucifixion comes resurrection, from the battle comes the crown.

So as we continue to move through Holy Lent it is the time to remind ourselves that we cannot solve every problem ourselves. God knows where our heart aches and he is there with us. You might know the story of Job (he has a whole book dedicated to him in the Old Testament).  When everything goes wrong in Job’s life when he loses his land and his cattle and his family, he sits down in the ashes and from that place he worships God. From the very centre of his pain, he is able to say ‘The Lord gives and the Lord takes, blessed be the name of the Lord’. Can you do that? Each of us is called to be like Job. To sit at the foot of the cross in our sufferings and look up knowing that he who hangs on the cross knows all our sufferings.

The philosopher Peter Kreeft used these words to relay the way the suffering Christ dwells among his people. “Christ sits beside us in the lowest places of our lives. Are you broken? He is broken too. Are you rejected? He is rejected too? Do you weep? He weeps too. Was your love betrayed? Jesus loved and he was betrayed by the ones he loved. He sits with us not only in our sufferings but in our sins. No matter how much we turn our face from him he will never turn his face from us; all he does is constantly call us back to him. Every tear we shed becomes his tear. He may not wipe our tears away but he makes them his own.”

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Living for the Weekend

Posted: 26 March 2013

We all know people – in fact you may be one of those people – who live for the weekend. Every work place has people who function like countdown clocks perennially sharing the news of how much time is left before Friday rolls around. Mondays are the most painful day of the week because it is the longest time until the weekend, on Wednesdays relief is in sight and Friday…the whole day is a bustling excitement awaiting the clock to strike five. It is the weekend that gives such people hope and keeps them focused. Now of course everyone enjoys resting from work, that is natural, but are we really supposed to live our work lives just waiting to be set free like prisoners on weekend release?

For most of us, work will occupy a third of the prime years of our lives, and about a fifth of our entire lifetime will be spent working in some capacity. Work is therefore a fairly dominant part of most lives. The question is, should we understand work as something that merely gets in the way of our real lives, an activity that allows us to survive, or, should we consider work as a more valuable occupation, something that defines who we are and builds us up as people?

I was recently watching a documentary on the making of potato chips in the largest chip factory on earth. From the potatoes that arrived fresh from the farm we were led by one of the workers through the processes that churned out pallets of chips to soon be consumed from parties to playgrounds. What struck me was the commitment this man had to his work, he clearly felt a great passion for what he was doing and he took his responsibility seriously in doing his part to producing their particular product line. While at the end of the day, the man is not working to nurse the sick or relieve hunger (in fact his product is more than likely contributing to obesity in many places), that man in that chip factory is finding dignity in what he is doing. His work helps defines him and our work helps define us. While our value is not dependent on our ability to work or what type of work we do, our work allows us to contribute to humanity in some way. Work helps us to be included in the community of mankind. So long as the work is honest and upholds the dignity of the person, it does not even matter how great or small it might seem. From shoe shining to raising children to designing buildings, all work serves to build up ourselves and those around us.

To work is actually a privilege, just ask someone who due to disability or circumstance is unable to work. Few things are more harmful to the human spirit than the inability to contribute. Ongoing unemployment brings about a feeling of uselessness and can be debilitating. For those who do work, periods of rest are most certainly needed, but without work those periods of rest can become laziness and an unfair reliance on others to meet our needs. Even those who don’t need to work to survive are most often engaged in some sort of activity; no one can sit by the pool drinking cocktails their whole life.

Now of course not everyone can spend their career in their dream job and some jobs are most certainly less ‘interesting’ than others, but to know that in some sense we are contributing to society should allow us to find a goodness even in the most menial tasks. It is our capacity as human beings to work that distinguishes us from animals who only ‘work’ to fulfill their immediate needs. When we are engaged in fair and just work we provide for ourselves and our families, but perhaps even more importantly, we identify ourselves as part of the human family with the ability to offer something to others.

To live for the weekend, to see work as simply a means to pay the bills and have a good time turns work into something that more closely parallels the animal kingdom (of course one can also go too far the other way and worship work as if it is the sole purpose of their lives). Work is not a ball and chain that is bolted around our ankles for fifty years. Work is a unique opportunity to live within the human community and to leave our mark, however large or small on humanity.

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Pope Benedict XVI and the Papacy

Posted: 26 March 2013

As the Christian world begins the season of lent in preparation for Easter, there could be no greater surprise than the news that Pope Benedict XVI will step down from the Papacy on 28 February. Even though the reasons of deteriorating health are valid for an 85 year old pontiff, having not seen a Papal abdication since Pope Celestine V in 1296, (and even before then they were rare), the decision has met with expected shock.

Pope Benedict is the 264^th successor of the Apostle Peter in a line that has seen empires rise and fall and dynasties come and go. No institution is able to claim a more ancient status than the Catholic Church and the papacy. In modern times the Pope is referred to as the head of the Catholic Church, differentiating him from other Christian Churches and communities, but it is wise to recall that for the first thousand years of Christianity there was no other Church besides the Church led by the Pope. The schism of 1054 between the East (Orthodox) and the West (Catholic) was, and remains, a tragic political blunder which will certainly one day be rectified. The remainder of the Christian world goes by the name of ‘Protestant’ deriving most simply from a protest in the Middle Ages against the authority of the Pope. And so through the peaks and troughs of history, the Papacy has remained a constant.

The scriptural home of the papacy has always been the words of Jesus to his apostle Peter, commissioning him to take charge of the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Peter was to act as the vicar of Jesus on earth and subsequent Popes have done the same. However as with most aspects of Catholicism, the role of the Pope is misunderstood, and we will see plenty of error trotted out as fact in the coming weeks. We will hear Pope Benedict being referred to as a conservative Pope who took a hard line on women priests and contraception, but the truth is every Pope has taken the exact same stance. While it is acknowledged that about eight Pope’s across the last 2000 years have lived morally or politically corrupt lives on a personal level, no Pope has ever, in his office as Pope, contradicted the teaching of the Christian faith. This is simply because the role of the Pope is less about making up rules than it is about preserving what is classically called the deposit of faith. Happily, the vast majority of Popes have been holy Christian men, but in one sense that has been a bonus. The role of the papacy exists to ensure that the official faith given by Jesus Christ is passed on, in its entirety, to every generation.

So out of the one billion plus Catholics on earth no one has less room to move than the Pope. A Pope is not able to wake up one morning and decide to drop the 6^th commandment or add a fourth person to the Trinity. The Pope can create laws for the Church in a particular time and place, such as the tradition of a celibate priesthood which could be changed by any subsequent Pope.  The Pope cannot decide however to ordain women as priests, because most simply, Jesus did not do that and the Pope would be going beyond his mandate. Popes are not liberal and Popes are not conservative; Popes can only pass on what was given to them.

The world witnessed Pope John Paul II struggle through Parkinson’s disease in his later years until his death in 2005. At that time there was calls for him to resign and while that was within his rights to do so, John Paul used his sufferings to demonstrate an inner strength that became more evident as his frailty increased. Pope Benedict in his notice of abdication, while acknowledging the value of suffering, feels he cannot adequately fulfill his enormous task as spiritual head of the Catholic Church. He will no doubt retire to the quite life of prayer, study and piano playing that he had hoped for prior to his election as Pope in 2005. This decision of Pope Benedict need not be turned into more than what it is. If anything we see in this that the Catholic Church is always bigger than any Pope, priest or individual. For 2000 years the Church has been the people of God, following their Lord Jesus Christ, led by the successor of St Peter and nothing will change. The Catholic faithful and all people of good will no doubt wish Pope Benedict peace and health as he takes a back seat for the election of a new shepherd.

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There is only one morality…is it yours?

Posted: 2 March 2013

I was having a conversation with someone the other day and the topic turned briefly to politics. In discussing the various political parties I made the comment that while I don’t have any favoured political party, I would vote for a party on the basis of their stance on moral issues e.g. abortion, same-sex ‘marriage’ etc. After all, if a political party doesn’t understand the nature of marriage or respect the value of human life, I don’t really care how wonderful their economic policy might be. The person I was speaking with, who was also a person of the Christian faith, thought that to vote that way might be good for me, but it was not something that could or should be practiced by those who have no faith. This person believed it was better to encourage people to focus on issues we held in common such as the value of education and the importance of good healthcare.

This got me thinking, are moral issues private issues? Are my beliefs in particular key issues of morality dependent on my belief in a Supreme Being and adherence to a religious system? There are plenty of faithful and well meaning people out there who live by a strong moral code and are probably unable to annunciate any reason for their choices apart from their religion. Of course if someone decides to live an upright life because their faith encourages them to do so that is fantastic. However, it seems to me that we really need to be able to give better reason for living a certain way than because ‘God says’. I am not meaning to lessen the importance of God, but in a secular state God does not feature highly, and there is a growing secular movement hinging its success on telling people that certain aspects of morality are specific to religion and therefore not applicable to a large portion of society. If they are correct, if abortion is only a problem for the Pope, and if marriage between a man and a woman is just a venerable tradition, then it is true that believers have no right to encourage their chosen morality upon those who do not share their faith. But what if they are wrong?

This notion of morality needing religion is a commonly held thought out in the marketplace amongst people of faith or of none, but when one stops to think about it, it does not make sense. Morality does not rely on religion for its validity anymore than I feed myself daily because the law says that suicide is wrong. I look after my life (and respect the lives of others) because it is the right and proper thing to do; because I innately identify that life has some sort of value. I do not need a law to tell me that killing is wrong. Similarly, morality is not a set of rules that religions have come up with to either burden or bring joy to their adherents. Religions promote morality because a moral life is the behaviour proper to human beings. Morality is not right because religion says so; religion says morality is right because it is.

It is no coincidence that the bulk of the Ten Commandments of the Judeo Christian faiths form the basis of every developed legal system in the world. A government cannot, for example, decide to hold an election to see if its citizens would like to legalise murder and theft. A government exists to encourage and ensure that right and proper models of behaviour are lived out among its citizens. And the Latin root of the word ‘moral’ means just that – the proper behaviour of a person in society. Even the definition implies that this behaviour is something that is self-evident.

Of course the reason that secularists do not like talking about a moral code being ‘normal’ or ‘self-evident’ is because it leads to questions about how humans have an innate sense that some things are more right than others. If the thought is progressed far enough eventually the matter of God comes up, and those who don’t want to have anything to do with greater being become somewhat frustrated. While we do not necessarily need to take a conversation that far it is imperative that those we come in contact with leave us simply understanding that morality is good for the human person, any human person, and if something moral is worth its weight then it transcends all religion and is common to us all.

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Are you willing to forgive?

Posted: 19 February 2013

As human beings we are an emotionally fragile bunch. That however is not a bad thing. Indeed, it is our emotional state that most readily separates us from the animal kingdom. We perceive love, joy, surprise, anger, sadness and fear, and we can deliver those positive or negative emotions to others in the way we act. These negative emotions when given or received, hurt, and can hurt very deeply. The old school yard response to bullies runs, ’sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me’. It may be a cute rhyme but it’s not true. What affects us most deeply is not the physical insults that come our way but those which offend us on a personal level. To have a trusted friend betray us hurts. To have a sibling insult another sibling hurts. These hurts are very real and they do not easily dissipate.

Society has some plan as to how to deal with physical insults. Courts and prisons are full of people who have caused physical hurt to another in some way. This is not the same with emotional hurt. Sometimes we will be initially unaware that our words and actions (or our response to those words) have offended another. Even those who are most careful may still at some point offend another person. There is no shortage of friendships and families that have broken down because deliberate or indeliberate offence has occurred. These delicate situations are not easy to resolve because all parties may, to some extent, have hurt another by their actions, choices or words. Recall the parable of the Prodigal son who offended his father by taking his inheritance to indulge in a wasted life. In time he returned truly sorry for his actions and his father forgave him but the one person who could not forgive was the older brother who had remained at home always faithful. In the end, by his anger, the older brother became as guilty as the younger.

The reason rifts do not get resolved is because too many of us feel justified in our positions of hurt or anger at another. People can spend a lifetime explaining the precise way in which they have suffered offence, and this may well be true, but at that point there are only two options. One can remain convinced of the need for the other person to reform and thus remain hurt and angry forever, or make a conscious decision to forgive. Now as soon as people hear about forgiveness they get specific ideas of what that means, for example, ‘I am happy to forgive as long as…’, or, ‘we can only move forward when…’. This is not genuine healing forgiveness. Forgiveness in the truest sense is a highly radical proposition, one not known well by a neo pagan society. Forgiveness involves an unconditional all embracing love of the other regardless of what offence, hurt or anxiety has been given us. This type of forgiveness involves taking our gaze from the other onto our own lives to examine where we may have given offence. It is rare that one person is completely innocent while the other is completely guilty.

True forgiveness brings about a love that is patient, kind and rich in mercy. Even if we are truly the innocent one, forgiveness will be quick to turn the other cheek. Those who follow the Christian faith will recognise the ancient petition in the Lord’s Prayer, ‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’. Here it seems clear that personal forgiveness from God is completely dependent on our willingness to unreservedly forgive others, and be happy about that forgiveness. We must not remain thinking that our forgiveness makes us a better person than the one who we have forgiven. If we remain as the righteous older brother in the story of the prodigal son, we cannot say we have forgiven. If we do not acknowledge that our actions may have offended another, we cannot say we have forgiven. What we are too often looking for is a judge and jury, we want to have our story heard and be told who is guilty and innocent. This sort of mentality will never find peace because mercy is always greater than justice. The person who spends his life looking for justice will always be hurt and never have the opportunity to be truly happy. So go on, in this New Year, reach out in true forgiveness and see your life transformed.

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Are fireworks a waste of money?

Posted: 28 December 2012

As another year comes to a close we will see the usual back and forth commentary about the cost of fireworks displays in all the major cities of the world to herald in the New Year. The largest display in Australia is put on in and around Sydney Harbour with approximately seven tonnes of fireworks launched. It is estimated that 1.6 million people watch the fireworks at vantage points around the harbour, a further 2.3 million people watch them from their homes across Australia and 1.1 billion people around the world also tune in to see the spectacle (I am curious as to how anyone can actually track this latter figure though). The bill for this thirty minute light show comes in at around $6.5 million which as the Lord Mayor of Sydney points out equates to $4 for every person who gathers around the harbour.

Now of course $6.5 million is a fair bit of money and it could be used to upgrade a hospital, feed the homeless or support our brothers and sisters in developing nations, many of whom are surviving on a dollar a day. On face value, fireworks can seem an unnecessary and even selfish expense, especially when so many of the young people watching them end up drinking themselves silly and have to be pulled out of the gutter by friends or the police in the early hours of the morning. Fireworks do not feed the hungry, cloth the naked or teach the ignorant; they provide no genuine service to the physical needs of any person, (except perhaps towards the livelihoods of those who create them).  

What fireworks do demonstrate however is man’s need for more than just food, water and shelter. In some sense our desire to come together at such large community events and mark the end of one period of time and the start of another shows the spiritual nature of the human person. Yes we all have certain physical needs and governments around the globe work to varying levels of success to achieve these goods for their people but we have other needs as well. We have the need to be connected to others; to know that we are not alone on the journey through life. We have the need to experience joy; to realise that amongst the wars and poverty and disease we can still acknowledge that there is good in the world. And perhaps most importantly we have the need to experience hope; to know that even with all our personal, national and global struggles we look to the coming year as a fresh beginning. Even if it lasts no longer than a few days, New Years Eve celebrations offer us the opportunity to lift our heads, acknowledge the time that was and look with optimism to what might be. There are not many times left when secular governments invest money in the spiritual needs of its people but the New Years Eve fireworks are one of those times.

This need for the spiritual is perhaps more evident in the churches and cathedrals whose spires can be seen dotted between skyscrapers in our cities, or, in museums with beautiful works of art from across the ages. Animals have no need of beauty but man in not only an animal; he is a spiritual being who yearns for those transcendental realties of truth, beauty and goodness. If there is poverty in the modern Western world, it does not come from a lack of physical needs but a distinct lack of transcendence.

If Christianity sold off all its churches and museums sold off all the beautiful objects that they hold, then it is true that a whole lot of people could be fed today. But what would happen tomorrow? They would be hungry again and on top of there being no food, there would be no signs left to remind them of the goodness of the world and that they are capable of a reality beyond themselves.

Similarly, we could cancel the New Years Eve fireworks this year and divert the funds into a physical and more practical project but where would people gather to process the year that was? Where would they gather to look towards what could be? Fireworks are more than just colourful explosions; they are really a sign of man’s search for something greater than himself and without that man descends rapidly to little more than an animal. Wishing you all greetings for a Happy New Year.

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Have Yourself a Very Adult Christmas

Posted: 24 December 2012

Once again, Christmas is upon us; Santa is out in full force, shopping centres are playing Bing Crosby and the ‘spirit of giving’ is in the air. You may be planning to attend the local Christmas Carols at some point. If it is a religious caroling event, the children may be dressing up as shepherds and angels; if they are the larger ‘commercial’ carols you will be more likely to see the little ones dressed as elves and reindeer. However Christmas is celebrated though, it is well and truly a season that lights up the faces of children everywhere.  

From a marketing point of view Christmas is like manna from heaven, the car parks are crowded, the food courts are full and the EFTPOS terminals are running hot. While many families, including my own, go with the ‘Kris Kringle’ method of present giving, (meaning that each adult buys for one other adult in the family), the children always receive individual presents from all the members of the family. Outranking gifts from mum and dad however are the gifts children receive from the jolly man in the red suit. Once based in the historical personage of the gift giving Saint Nicholas, from the early 20^th century he has strangely morphed into a man living at the North Pole with a large team of magical elves and flying reindeer.          

How is it that Christmas has become the preeminent season for children? Is it because the true meaning of the season revolves around a little baby, that we seem to have given over Christmas to those aged under twelve? Christmas is a wonderful time for children and no one would want to take that away from them; it may even inspire children towards good behaviour throughout the rest of the year (for which parents are most probably glad). I wonder though if adults are conscious enough to allow Christmas to carry a deeper meaning for themselves and not fall into the trap of thinking that Christmas is a time for children.

Much more than being a toy party, Christmas is a season for adults and that baby in the manger has more to say to adults than anyone in primary school. The Christian story holds that the child born of Mary is actually God himself, but why would God send his Son to the earth as a child? In one sense it was probably because babies are cute and everyone puts down their defenses with children, but in a deeper sense the coming to earth as an infant indicates a level of humility and childlike trust which most adults need to strive for in pursuing God. And if course as the story reveals this baby was not to remain a baby, but, from the moment of birth he was on a trajectory towards death. Here was a child that was actually born to die. At his presentation in the temple as an infant he was recognised as one who would be responsible for the fall and rise of many and as a sign that would be rejected.

Just listen to the words of the classical Christmas Carols currently ringing out in every shopping Centre in town. One tells us to fall on our knees at the birth of the Christ child and in another we ask to be saved from Satan’s tyranny and the depths of hell! That’s right…in your local department store they are playing hymns about heaven, hell and the mysteries of salvation! And as that happens we think it is all about gift buying and children sitting on the knee of a fat man in red velvet.

More than being a season for children, Christmas is a season for adults. Christmas is about a child but it is not for children. To appreciate the depth of Christmas one must have an adult faith which is open to God’s revelation in the way that a baby is open to the care of its parents. If we overly dress up Christmas as something merely for children then we rob both children and ourselves of the depth of hope that Christmas should inspire in all of us. It is right and proper that Christmas lights up the eyes of little ones but if the birth of the saviour doesn’t also light up the eyes of their parents then it risks being no more than a party without a purpose.

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