| Volume 7, Number 3, July 2010 |
Jacques Maritain on the Church’s
Misbehaving Clerics
by Bernard Doering 伯纳德·多林 |
The History and Future of the
Taiwan Issue
by 河西 He Xi |
IN recent months the rash of disturbing revelations concerning sexual abuse of children by priests that dates back over many years has resulted, for a great number of Catholic laity and their priests, in a serious crisis of confidence in the institutional Church. The daily accounts in newspapers of clerical sexual abuse and of hierarchical secrecy and cover-up to protect the reputation of the institution have led the laity to question the nature of their relationship to their priests and to the hierarchy of their Church. In this tragic situation it may be of considerable benefit to recall the insightful reflections of Jacques Maritain during his last years concerning the priests and the hierarchy of the Church he loved and revered.
Six years after the closing of Vatican II, when the Pope placed in the hands of Jacques Maritain the Council’s message to the intellectuals of the world, and two years before his death at ninety-one, the aging philosopher published his last book On the Church of Christ. This book is a free and loving meditation on the Mystery of the Church, from his own... [ Read more ] |
ON January 8th 2009, responding positively to Hu Jintao’s New Year’s Eve speech on “promoting the peaceful development of cross straight relations”, Ma Ying-jeou said that despite the existence of different voices within Taiwan, from an overall perspective, the majority of people support the current situation of development between the two straights, the further warming of their relations, and that there is no comparison between the situation of today and that of 30 years ago.
On January 1st 1979, the day that Sino-American relations became normalized, the National People’s Congress issued the “Message to Taiwan Compatriots”, marking the end of the mainland’s coastal bombardment of the Kinmen and Matsu Islands, as well as ensuring the “inevitability of considering the reality… of solving the question of reunification and at the same time respecting the status quo of Taiwan… in adopting fair and reasonable measures and policies”. Today, a more practical Taiwan policy has replaced... [ Read more ] |
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| Issue 7.3 |
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Make a Better City Life
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