Just for fun: Youth ministry is like herding cats

The relationship between the Church and the University...?

You may have heard that Pope Benedict decided not to offer an invited lecture at Sapienza Universita in Rome (student population: 138,000!) due to some student unrest at that school (the majority of students wanted him to come, and apparently he will be "reinvited"). The text of the lecture was released anyway, and it's an interesting reflection on the Catholic notion of faith and reason working together toward a common goal: Truth. It ends like this:

And so let me go back to the initial point. What does the Pope have to do or say in a university? He certainly should not try to impose in an authoritarian manner his faith on others, which can only be freely offered. Beyond his ministry as Pastor of the Church and on the basis of the intrinsic nature of this pastoral ministry, it is his task to keep alive man’s responsiveness to the truth. Similarly he must again and always invite reason to seek out truth, goodness and God, and on this path urge it to see the useful lights that emerged during the history of the Christian faith and perceive Jesus Christ as the light that illuminates history and helps find the way towards the future.

...and an amusing (yet true) line, especially for your philosophy majors/minors...

Theology and philosophy are an odd couple; neither can be totally separated from the other and yet each must keep its own purpose and identity.

The whole lecture can be found here. Comments welcome.

p.s. We're going to have a major lecture on this general topic in April 2008, with a national speaker. More coming later....

"The Other 6"

Hi folks!
People are doing interesting things to encourage people to pray through online resources. I've mentioned Sacred Space before, which is Lectio Divina in interactive online format. Here's a new initiative from Loyola Communications, called "The Other 6: where does God bubble up in your life?" It challenges you to think of where God was present to you in your day, and where you felt needed to see God. Worth checking out:

The Other 6 (as in praying the other six days of the week beyond Sunday)

More on the project in this article at Busted Halo:

Food, water and shelter are universal needs that transcend borders, age, gender, race, class and religion. But a visit to www.Other6.com is enough to demonstrate that human beings hunger and thirst for something less tangible but more profound: the presence of God.

On any given day at the site, you’ll find a South African man seeking conversation and inspiration, or a grieving Chicagoan asking for strength following the recent deaths of three family members. They—and hundreds of other people—are finding hope, enlightenment and solace on Other6, an innovative web site launched by Loyola Press for people of all faiths who desire deeper meaning in their daily lives. Father Paul Campbell of the Jesuits’ Chicago Province says he modeled Other6 after the Examen of St. Ignatius Loyola, a daily spiritual reflection. “I wanted to capture the heart of the exercise and put it out on the Web,” he says....

Tell me what you think. Clever evangelization? Prayers and computers don't mix? What?