"Vox Populi, Vox Dei" - A Discussion of Dissent Within the Modern Catholic Church

The final question is: what happens in the meantime? Is it effective to dissent while conservatives hold power and clearty are not about to make any major changes? What good does it do to repeatedly bang one's head against the wall when progress is not being made? There is no one simple answer to this question, but rather several applicable ones. The first possible answer is that dissent currently does little good. The conservative hierarchy is still the dominant force within Catholicism. This hierarchy has made a habit, evidenced by the birth control debate, of pressing its conservative agenda despite popular opposition. Many people think, that if this hierarchy has not given in to the mass of opinion against it yet, dissent is futile and useless. Why argue with someone who does not listen to your argument?

Rugby league: a game in crisis

This study examines the issue of crisis and reputation management strategies in Australian sporting clubs and finds that not only are individual clubs unaware of the potential impact of such crises on their organizations, but that they also have no training, contingency plans, or strategies to handle crises of any sort either at this or at the national league level. It uses the Australian Rugby League organization as a case study f()r examining these issues and concludes with several recommendations for improving crisis management and communications policies in Australian sporting organizations and for their stakeholders.

Many public and private organizations prefer to ignore the reality that "bad things" can happen, either through denial of their vulnerabilities or through myopia about their successes and strengths (Elliott, 2002). A crisis can be defined as any problem or disruption that triggers negative stakeholder reaction and extensive public scrutiny (Newman, 2003). Effective crisis management lies in continuous learning processes designed to equip managers with the capabilities, flexibility, and confidence to deal with sudden and unexpected problems or events (Robert & Lajtha, 2002). Good crisis leaders are those who can make fast decisions under pressure and who can keep the big picture consequences of actions and words in mind when making these decisions 030in & Lagadec, 20(0). In 2004, the Rugby league in Australia was both ill-prepared and ill-advised to effectively deal with a sex scandal involving a number of their players on an official club tour. In classic crisis escalation, what should have been a serious but easily dealt with problem became a major reputational and institutional crisis for the league, its sponsors, its players, and its fans.

Catholic books : catholic minds

Graham Greene is perhaps one of the first novelists that springs to a contemporary mind when Catholic writing and literature is mentioned. A convert to Catholicism, he, like many converts before him including John Henry Cardinal Newman (one of the most famous converts of them all) discovered that writing as a Catholic attracted attentions they had never received before conversion. For years Newman was under a Vatican cloud for some of his writing, and Greene was at the height of his international fame when his highly acclaimed novel The Power and the Glory received a ‘negative judgement’ from the Holy Office (despite Cardinal Montini, later Pope Paul VI, as the Vatican’s pro-Secretary of State for Ordinary Affairs intervening on Greene’s behalf at the time).

Letters to a young Catholic, by George Weigel

With the Twentieth World Youth Day in Cologne on 16-21 August, this year, scheduled to be the first overseas visit of Pope Benedict XVI, it is timely to consider the latest book from George Weigel, (perhaps best known for his Witness to Hope: The Biography of John Paul II) in which he composes 14 letters specifically aimed at young Catholics, who, like many of their older counterparts, may well be wondering what it means to be a Catholic today.

What does it mean to be a Catholic? Has this changed since Vatican II?

What constitutes a Catholic sensibility? Is this unchanging, or are there differing definitions pre- and post-Vatican II? Is the Catholicism expressed in the writings of Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Henry Newman, Hilaire Belloc, and others before Vatican II, the Catholicism of today?

Into the protecting arms: the League of Nations and the extension of international assistance to unprotected persons in the Middle East and Europe, 1926 - 1928

The refugee dilemma in Europe in the years between the two world wars had a number of aspects: humanitarian, political, and diplomatic. It raised questions of migration, questions of international law, and questions of the fate of hundreds of thousands of individuals. Refugees were visible from the very last days of the war and remained a matter of serious international concern even beyond the outbreak of war again in September 1939. The refugee dilemma in Europe was, firstly, a humanitarian crisis because the size of the refugee population was without precedent. It was also a political problem because national governments had to contend with questions about the refugees' legal status and their legitimacy under national and international law, as well as balance humanitarian concerns with national political interests. The humanitarian and political aspects together created a crisis for the international community newly united in the League of Nations. One of its first great acts-to take these refugees into its protective care-was not even prescribed for it in its Covenant. But the refugee crisis facing Europe was so great that member states were united in the belief that the League had been established precisely to undertake a task of this kind.