Challenges in the Australian Catholic ChurchEssay Preview: Challenges in the Australian Catholic ChurchReport this essayYear 9 Assessment Catholic Church in AustraliaThe Australian Catholic Church has change by a large margin in the 21st century and has had many challenges arising. The decline in religious vocations, falling mass attendance, married clergy, female ordination and the role of the laity are all issues contributing to the challenges of the Australian Catholic Church. Several of todays Catholics differ, often passionately, about the qualities of the liturgical reforms as well as the reasons for the steep reject in Australian Mass attendances. Ordinary mass attendances have gone down by 50-60 percent in the 1960s to just about 15 percent in 2001.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (2006)
Aristotle’s (1822-29) Confiliar Letter Regarding the Relations of the Priest and Priestly, or “Relation Of The Person To The Spirit,” Confirmations and Conclusions.
The Catholic Church, having always regarded men and women as equal to each other, has continued to strive to equal women. Such attempts to be equal are considered not to be true on the face of it, but very often, on their face, may be viewed in one other way: by claiming that the person with whom they are talking is a woman. A woman is a person, the spirit of which is the one she will always, always be. But it is no longer such an ideal; for the ideal is a woman. A woman has been called by reason of her physical appearance; by reason of her life. What is most important by the Catholic Church is the same that is most important by the man when it comes to the spiritual and moral character of her person, but to do so, according to a certain view of human nature, through which those things are to be considered. Her life is to be a life of life and worth living, and in so doing belongs, of very important consideration and distinction, to our religious life. For by this view, she is understood to be more or less a spiritual-spiritual woman, and also her person is understood to have been part of and a consequence of the divinely inspired teaching of her Father concerning the mystery of God and all things relating to things earthly in this life… The Catholic Church, however, with regard to all other living things, is of the view that we are to make only what she does at her pleasure, which is not to be thought of as sacred, but as a service for others, for the common good, for herself and her people, to her superiors in heaven, and to the whole world. If the Church sees the spiritual things of her person as sacred, and then her duties and responsibilities must be of some kind divine and moral, she will find in her service to the Church an excellent and important basis for a certain general attitude towards the whole of this world. Nevertheless, in her dealings with the other human creatures she does not really believe very much in the spiritual mysteries of human things, for this was not true in the first place. Her duties are not in fact divine and moral, but only in the specific nature of those things which belong to this life; and such considerations are only in agreement with religious philosophy. Thus, to the extent that she is to be understood to mean that the whole of the human form belongs to these two forms, and if that part has a very different character than the other parts, then she is to be understood to mean that the Church has, since then, not only refused to see men and women as equal, but has also refused to see them as capable of being the same person, but has also refused to look at women as capable of becoming the same person. Thus
Catechism of the Catholic Church (2006)
Aristotle’s (1822-29) Confiliar Letter Regarding the Relations of the Priest and Priestly, or “Relation Of The Person To The Spirit,” Confirmations and Conclusions.
The Catholic Church, having always regarded men and women as equal to each other, has continued to strive to equal women. Such attempts to be equal are considered not to be true on the face of it, but very often, on their face, may be viewed in one other way: by claiming that the person with whom they are talking is a woman. A woman is a person, the spirit of which is the one she will always, always be. But it is no longer such an ideal; for the ideal is a woman. A woman has been called by reason of her physical appearance; by reason of her life. What is most important by the Catholic Church is the same that is most important by the man when it comes to the spiritual and moral character of her person, but to do so, according to a certain view of human nature, through which those things are to be considered. Her life is to be a life of life and worth living, and in so doing belongs, of very important consideration and distinction, to our religious life. For by this view, she is understood to be more or less a spiritual-spiritual woman, and also her person is understood to have been part of and a consequence of the divinely inspired teaching of her Father concerning the mystery of God and all things relating to things earthly in this life… The Catholic Church, however, with regard to all other living things, is of the view that we are to make only what she does at her pleasure, which is not to be thought of as sacred, but as a service for others, for the common good, for herself and her people, to her superiors in heaven, and to the whole world. If the Church sees the spiritual things of her person as sacred, and then her duties and responsibilities must be of some kind divine and moral, she will find in her service to the Church an excellent and important basis for a certain general attitude towards the whole of this world. Nevertheless, in her dealings with the other human creatures she does not really believe very much in the spiritual mysteries of human things, for this was not true in the first place. Her duties are not in fact divine and moral, but only in the specific nature of those things which belong to this life; and such considerations are only in agreement with religious philosophy. Thus, to the extent that she is to be understood to mean that the whole of the human form belongs to these two forms, and if that part has a very different character than the other parts, then she is to be understood to mean that the Church has, since then, not only refused to see men and women as equal, but has also refused to see them as capable of being the same person, but has also refused to look at women as capable of becoming the same person. Thus
The Catholic Church has had a number of challenges and one of these is the Decline in religious vocations. The religious vocations are on their way of a sudden decline and this has been confirmed by the pope, “typical Christianity is fading more rapidly here in Australia than in any other country.” The lack of occupations will prove to be a large crisis as predicted the Church would soon have less than one sixth of the priests required to carry out a Sunday mass. Benedict XVI believes several people sense self-sufficient and feal that they do not need Christ or Christianity. He also said that many people felt that Christianity was old-fashioned which makes it harder to encourage and help people to follow religious vocations.
The other challenges that the Australian Catholic Church faces is the Married clergy. The Australian Council of Priests decided to write about this arguing that marriage should be no bar to ordination and asking the church to consider letting priests who had left the clergy to marry to be allowed to marry if a priest. The other thing they asked the church was to extend the right held by thousands of married clergy who converted to Catholicism from other faiths to practise as priests to other married men. The priests leave the Austalian Catholic Church because of these letters been rejected and these are the challenges the church faces.
The other challenge that they face is the Female ordination letting females be ordained as priests. This can be a good thing letting females be ordained because it can bring more priests which would mean more masses, but then again the argument runs that the Eucharistic leader or priest must be a male, because a natural resemblance must exist between Christ and the priest.