Universalis

Full Time Workers in Church

Recently, I had this sudden urge of seeking an oppurtunity to work in the church. The thought had come into my head again after a hiatus of a few years. Perhaps something might change.

But I was thinking it wouldn't be different and had even soughted the websites of protestant churches hoping to get some headway.

However, something told me that I should just try asking at the relevant authorities and speak to someone and at the same time send in my resume.

So I went to SPI and spoke with Miss Wendy Louis. I must say that she is encouraging but the fact remains, the situation isn't encouraging.

First of all, SPI has a small team of workers only and there is no budget to increase the workers. Even in schools, those pastoral workers are employed as teachers. In fact, the budget for anything that needs to be done is limited. She gave me the example saying that their website is simply done because there is no money to pay anyone, and so it was done for free.

Then she told me, even if she were to offer me a post, like all jobs interview, she would like to know if I have any 'paper qualifications'. That was a fair question, but I told her that if that is her criteria, then it would seem like she would have problems employing anyone at all for the church since no one would have studied in any Catholic University with any degrees.

We talked about the lack of education and the lack of oppurtunities for interested person to study and come back to serve in the church. And I told her that it would be impossible for anyone to want to go study if there is no guarantee of any oppurtunities. Especially since a theology degree is pretty much useless in secular Singapore.

The bottom line is this, she told me to try out CAYC and see what they have to say.

CAYC said they are not employing. Apparently the 3 of them is enough.

So I guess I should go take a look at the Salvation Army.

Fr. Aloysius' Blog

I chanced upon this blog of Fr. Aloysius Ong. It contains links to many other interesting Catholic blogs. It appears that there are many Singapore Catholic bloggers out there.

I wish to ask:
Should we introduce him to our blog? What do you think he will make of it? Are we ready to 'publicise' this blog in this way?

I'd like to hear your comments. We could discuss the point of this blog, what we're trying to achieve, etc. etc.

Sincerely,
Christopher Yeo

Social Work and the Church

The Salvation Army is a church that runs a gamut of social services - for the prisons, drug addicts, teens, disabled, elderly, etc. There is no denying the good that these services provide. There is also no denying the evangelism that takes place through these good works.
The Catholic Church also runs a range of social services (and I do not deny the good work that they do too), but these are run by the religious, and appear limited in reach and variety.
The Catholic Church does not pay for full-time social workers to contribute to society and the church, and many Catholics who want to work as social workers find no place within the church. It is therefore ironic that so many Catholics are now working in the Salvation Army, rather than in the Catholic services that surely require help.

This interesting factoid came up recently, and I would like to ask for people in the know to elaborate. Many years ago, a priest by the name of Vincent -something, I forget- was investigated by the government and deported because of communist activities. This was a famous case, but people of my generation do not seem to know of it. I remember having heard about this case before because somebody commented that the Catholic church and Archibishop Emeritus lost a lot of its bite after the government arm-twisting in this case.

According to my choir master, the reason why the church does not fund full-time social workers may be linked to this bit of history. Apparently the church did hire full time social workers in the past, and this Fr. Vincent -something- was heading the group. After the clampdown, all funding for lay social workers was stopped, and seems to have remained that way till now.

Today, the church may be gearing up again to fund lay social workers. I hope to find out if there is any truth in this link, but I want to add that after more than 15 years, there really should be no more reason for the church to hold back in this regard. Let's encourage the church to look towards full time social workers, teachers, youth workers, organisers and the like. It is the only way forward.

"If you can't trust a priest, who can you trust?"

In the most recent news on the saga of Fr Joachim Kang's case, Emily Chan was quoted as saying:

"If you can't trust a priest, who can you trust?".

I would like to invite your views on this comment.

Nature's hand or God's?

This is an email sent by my friend in regards to the world's evil. Is it natural order or is this the work of God? Please share your views.

Referring to Ephesians 6, and Revelations (16-17?)


there is so much emphasis in the bible that our fight
is not against fellow creatures, but the principalities/spirits/evil
forces that are around us.. and worse, they are around in an active
manner, almost scheming to plot our fall into temptation? then there is
revelations telling us that our every act is a reflection of our Choice,
our excercising of Free Will to be either for God or not for Him.

sorry am rambling... my question is, is every event
presented before us either a movement of God or not of
Him, is there no randomness, no coincidences? Does
Chaos theory not hold any water? can no event be
interpreted as merely an occurrence of the physical
laws that earthly govern? .. a world where cancer is a
genetic anomaly and a tummy ache is not a signal
psychosomatic spiritual forces at work but mere
indiscretion on the part of the gluttonous soul who
enjoys the myriad of tastes the earthly world has to
offer...? er.. what i am trying to ask is: is
everything that happens to us a direct result of the
choice between a dichotomy, and is every choice we
face, whether seemingly frivolous, really a dichotomy?

Youth Ministry - pic


Appreciate a good design when I see one. Simple yet funky. From St. Joseph's Church.

Forest fires happen - the problem of unnecessary suffering

Forest fires happen, and forest fires kill animals. Some suffer horrible burns and die only after many hours of pain. To me, this pain seems unnecessary. To me, there exist cases of unnecessary suffering.

I've been thinking somewhat about the problem of evil lately, specifically, the question of whether natural 'evil' is really evil. I still think that this poses a problem for a rational person's belief in God. If God were good, it does seem that he would want to prevent unnecessary suffering. So why does unnecessary suffering exist? If you can share your thoughts on the above example, I would be very appreciative, as I cannot get around this problem.

New Article Ideas

This is a sort of scrapbook for ideas of future posts that we are thinking of writing for this website. Writers, please add your ideas by editing this post in Blogger.

Comments and suggestions are welcome!

  1. A candid comparison of Protestant and Catholic Praise and Worship - Chrisyeo
  2. Sister Wendy Ooi defends herself after CN readers attack her for speaking up for Harry Potter - are we too conservative? - open
  3. Should the Church deny condom use in Africa? - open
  4. A new introduction to this blog - where do we want to go from here? - Chrisyeo

The Taizé Community -- the death of Br. Roger

Frère Roger has entered the life of eternity

During the evening prayer on Tuesday 16 August, in the midst of the crowd surrounding the Community in the Church of Reconciliation, a woman - probably mentally disturbed - struck Brother Roger violently with knife blows. He died a few moments later.

This was very shocking news when I first came to know of it yesterday. And it comes amidst the events of World Youth Day too. Br. Alois, who was chosen by Br. Roger eight years ago to succeed him, has left the WYD in Germany for Taize.

As some have speculated, it is possible that the Holy Father would head to Taize after the WYD. After all, Br. Roger is likely personally acquainted with the Pope (Correction: I cannot verify if they were friends as mentioned previously, but certainly the Pope has great admiration for him.)

He was at the funeral Mass of JPII and received Communion from then Cardinal Ratzinger. (Update: Wikipedia suggests this was accidental.)

Extensive coverage of Br. Roger's passing at this blog.

Even the Times of London carries a glowing obituary.

The History of all Christian Denominations

What is the History of Your Church?

By Nick Teo


Church Year Established Founder Where Established

Catholic 33 Jesus Christ Jerusalem

Orthodox 1054 Schismatic Catholic Bishops Constantinople

Lutheran 1517 Martin Luther Germany

Anabaptist 1521 Nicholas Storch & Thomas Munzer Germany

Anglican 1534 Henry VII England

Mennonites 1536 Menno Simons Switzerland

Calvinist 1555 John Calvin Switzerland

Presbyterian 1560 John Knox Scotland

Congregational 1582 Robert Brown Holland

Baptist 1609 John Smyth Amsterdam

Dutch Reformed 1628 Michaelis Jones New York

Congregationalist 1648 Pilgrims and Puritans Massachusetts

Quakers 1649 George Fox England

Amish 1693 Jacob Amman France

Freemasons 1717 Masons from four lodges London

Methodist 1739 John & Charles Wesley England

Unitarian 1774 Theophilus Lindey London

Methodist Episcopal 1784 60 Preachers Baltimore, MD

Episcopalian 1789 Samuel Seabury American Colonies

United Brethren 1800 Philip Otterbein & Martin Boehn Maryland

Disciples of Christ 1827 Thomas & Alexander Campbell Kentucky

Mormon 1830 Joseph Smith New York

Methodist Protestant 1830 Methodist United States

Church of Christ 1836 Warren Stone & Alexander Campbell Kentucky

Seventh Day Adventist 1844 Ellen White Washington, NH

Christadelphian (Brethren of Christ) 1844 John Thomas Richmond, VA

Salvation Army 1865 William Booth London

Holiness 1867 Methodist United States

Jehovah's Witnesses 1874 Charles Taze Russell Pennsylvania

Christian Science 1879 Mary Baker Eddy Boston

Church of God in Christ 1895 Various churches of God Arkansas

Church of Nazarene c. 1850-1900 Various religious bodies Pilot Point, TX

Pentecstal 1901 Charles F. Parkham Topeka, KS

Aglipayan 1902 Gregorio Aglipay Philippines

Assemblies of God 1914 Pentecostalism Hot Springs, AZ

Iglesia ni Christo 1914 Felix Manalo Philippines

Four-square Gospel 1917 Aimee Semple McPherson Los Angeles, CA

United Church of Christ 1961 Reformed and Congregationalist Philadelphia, PA

Calvary Chapel 1965 Chuck Smith Costa Mesa, CA

United Methodist 1968 Methodist and United Brethren Dallas, TX

Born-again c. 1970s Various religious bodies United States

Harvest Christian 1972 Greg Laurie Riverside, CA

Saddleback 1982 Rick Warren California

Non-denominational c. 1990s various United States

How did this phenomenon come about? All stem from Jesus, but yet all so different...

(In)credible "intelligent design" -- what should science teachers be teaching?

Over at Mirror of Justice (described as "A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory."), the creationism/ intelligent design/ evolution debate gets a mention because of another NYT op-ed, not Schonborn this time but Paul Krugman.

I am 100% with Rick Garnett when he writes:

I suspect that their support does not reflect a considered judgment that "evolution is just a theory" or that "God designed the universe" is "science", but rather a concern that "evolution" sometimes serves not as the fundamental (and fundamentally sound) account of the universe's history and development, but as a kind of religio-philosophical creed. That is, I suspect that most who harbor some sympathy with the Intelligent Design movement have no interest in introducing religion into science classes, but simply in making sure that science is not made into a religion.

Whilst this seems to be a non-issue for us here in Singapore, I think it teaches us some important lessons. Perhaps the most important one is the danger of conflating science with scientism -- where philosophical(typically metaphysical) claims are made that aren't warranted by science.

For more reactions to the Cardinal's op-ed, see these articles at Societas and American Thinker.