Pope Benedict, Aboriginal people, and walking a kilometer in another's thongs?

The Catholic Church in Sydney is hosting World Youth Day - a major international Catholic fest - in Sydney in June this year. It is planned that Tall Ships will be in evidence and that Sydney residents, as they do very often, will take to the harbour in everything from yachts to bath tubs to welcome Pope Benedict who will arrive on a sailing ship.

Now this event has not been noted for its consideration of other people. Little or no consideration was given to those in the racing industry when the Catholic Church showed its take-no-prisoners attitude to staging the papal mass at Randwick. Negotiations took what seemed like forever and have resulted in Federal and State Government intervention with Australian and New South Wales taxpayers footing the bill.

One wonders how the Catholic Church will handle another hiccup in its planning agenda. Aboriginal people are concerned about the arrival of Pope Benedict on a sailing ship. Too reminiscent of the beginning of white settlement they say. Presumably, the Pope will be clad in his usual white so it just might be a case of looking like Great White Father, Miss Eagle thinks.

When you can do nothing else: bear witness.

Miss Eagle is not alone.........

Miss Eagle is not alone in finding praying for rain a dubious pursuit. She is in good company - with Father Bob. Father Bob is a major identity in Melbourne: a humourous man posing and imposing as the old fashioned Catholic parish priest in his parish at the inner city suburb of South Melbourne. You can hear him on the radio, see him on TV, and now he's podcasting from his blog.

Have the gates of hell prevailed in Catholic Ireland?

If you don't want your heart touched with sadness, don't go here. The Knitter writes in the blog titled Days in the Life of Ireland's Child Care Institutions n the 20th century. Miss Eagle was raised in a pre-Vatican II background of Irish-Catholicism, Australian-style. We hear of the great fall away from the Roman Catholic faith in Ireland which is stunning for those who, like Miss E, were taught by nun after nun with an Irish accent who had left far-away Ireland as teenage girls and never saw their homeland again.

The Knitter shows us why in stark terms. Like this:

LOVE is never having to say you're sorry, but if you do, you don't have to mean it.

LOVE is never having to admit to physical abuse.

LOVE is never having to admit to sexual abuse.

LOVE is never having to admit to psychological abuse.

LOVE is never having to admit to illtreatment of abandoned children.

LOVE is never having to admit to cruelty to children.

LOVE is never having to admit to the starvation of children.

LOVE is never going to win any part of the argument.

and then there are graphics like this:

On a collision course: political ministry and social justice

Business interests like to use their clout to buy individual politicians and buy governments. Newspaper interests can manage the media in their own self-interest. But in the end and on the day, each person has one vote. Corporate entities do not vote. The Australian and The Daily Telegraph and The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald don't vote. We do.

John Howard pretends that he ignores opinion polls but he doesn't. He is very attuned to them. The one that seems to have his fullest attention at the moment is the poll indicating the majority of Australians don't think much of his new IR laws and that this point of view could impact on the sensitive seats of those Liberal politicians in marginal electorates. Oooh-wah!

The point of democracy is that when the electorate is not happy, politicians get the pointy end of public opinion delivered where it can hurt the most - in their own hip pocket.

Middle-class Liberal politicians who have been in their seats forever or who are business or professional people clearly don't have a clue about the life of working people in factories, and small business, and offices and call centres. If they had the beginning of a clue, these new IR laws would not have seen light of day in their current form.

And now the Libs find that their slimey Kevin Andrews (who interfered with the affairs of the Northern Territory some years ago without any consultation with Territorians and what they wanted) can't sell their latest dogma - and it's beginning to hurt. So they have called in the jovial public face of Joe Hockey to assist the undertaker look of Kevin Andrews.

These two Liberal ministers are good Catholic lads: Andrews, from a family with a trucking business in Gippsland, was educated at St Patrick's in Sale in conservative, Irish Catholic Gippsland. Hockey's family was well heeled enough to afford the school fees at posh Jesuit school, St Aloysius' College at Kirribilli (Joe has not moved far geographically). Middle-class well-heeled Catholics moving against the social justice teachings of their church!