cormacburke.me.ke

          Last week, giving the 1992 Warrane Lecture at the University of New South Wales, Mgr. Cormac Burke, Judge of the Roman Rota, the Church's High Court, said that lay Catholics should avoid a clerical mentality, and noted that one is bound to get the role of the laity wrong if it is defined in clerical terms. He insisted that the proper role of the laity, according to the Vatican II, is not to try to "take over" clerical functions by jockeying for "power" in the Church, but to get out into the world - both to sanctify one's own secular job there, doing it out of love for God and to the best of one's human abilities, as well as to sanctify the world itself, drawing people to Christ by example: human honesty, integrity and hard work, sincere friendship, married and family life lived faithfully.

            As my title suggests, I propose to look at several aspects connected with the topic of annulments, none of which has to do directly with canonical procedures. But a prior word may not be out of place on two questions that I am at times asked. One is, if I am in favor or against annulments? Perhaps a somewhat naive question, since naturally I am in favor; very strongly so, when a proper judicial process shows that a declaration of nullity corresponds to the facts. Then one is dealing with a matter of justice, of the upholding of ecclesial rights.

Personalism and self-giving

The Purpose of University Education in the mind of St. Josemaría Escrivá
(Strathmore University, 2002)
John Henry Newman, writing 150 years ago in a famous work entitled "The Idea of a University", held that modern man is instructed, but not educated. In other words, he is taught to do things; and to think sufficiently in order to do them. But he is not taught to think further... And that, in Newman's view, is instruction, not education: "Education is a higher word; it implies an action upon our mental nature, and the formation of a character; it is something individual and permanent, and is commonly spoken of in connection with religion and virtue". Education and especially university education, then, should teach people to think; further, broader and deeper than they have been so far brought up to do.