austraLasia
1804Christ is
Risen! He is truly Risen! (and this is my Easter card to all those who
have sent Easter greetings!)
News roundup (some of these items may be extended in the
coming days)
Miyazaki, Japan: The annual Youth Catholic
Camp was held in Miyazaki's Hyuga Gakuin (Salesian secondary school) seaside
cottage from 27-30 March. The YCC offers faith education to youth attending
Catholic schools in Kyusyu region. The theme this year was the Sacrament of
Reconciliation - being loved and loving each other! There were 47 participants
from 9 Catholic schools run by 9 Congregations of male and female religious.
Many alumni of previous YCC came along to help as leaders. Some Catholic schools
used this camp as an induction experience for new teachers. YCC has become a
model of faith education for young and old and is now extended to Fukuoka and
Nagasaki Diocese.
Tokyo, Japan: Fr Compri, director of the Cimatti
museum at Chofu, but also an 'afficiionado' of the Holy Shroud of Turin
announces that one of Japan's major publishing companies will be releasing a
book next month on the Holy Shroud, in Japanese. The author is none other than
the incomparable Compri himself. Meanwhile he continues with the important work
of electronic transcription of the 6,000 letters of Mons. Cimatti with a view to
publishing these certainly on CD but also in book form. Fr Compri will be 50
years a priest in March 2008. He has dedicated many of those years of priestly
service to the 'cause' of Mons. Cimatti.
Melbourne, Australia:
Whoever said that prophets are not recognised in their own country? Australia
has been by far the most generous in its recognition of the value of The Gospel
According to Judas, especially in bringing people back to reading the real
gospels! Yesterday we noted an interview with Stephen Crittendon of Radio
National (ABC). Today, Australia's only truly national newspaper, The
Australian (could it be other?) has a comment-cum-interview style review, noting
that the National Geographic story on the apocryphal gospel, and the
Archer-Moloney effort together 'bookend' the period from Easter last year to
this. You will find still more information on this fascinating theme, or is it a
collection of themes, if you read Jill Rowbotham's version of it all. It
is available to download from the Bosconet homepage 'what's new'
section.
Honiara, Solomon Islands: Archbishop Adrian Smith writes
to give an update on the tsunami situation - number deceased between 24-30 but
upward of 100 missing. 900 homes down, 5,000 homeless. Many wounded, 12
have arrived in
In all Churches on Easter Sunday there will be a special collection for the Tsunami Victims. The news is going around that the scientists are saying within two weeks another big quake. Dear Lord spare us!
Cyberspace: Don
Botsco: the charism takes yet another turn! He is not yet open to public
conversation but he does exist! Don Botsco is a lovingly-kind 'chat bot'
or a construction of artificial intelligence capable of holding a conversation
with you. HE will be available on Bosconet once we have him geared up for
a less generic conversation than he presently manages :-) . You can help and really, your help is
absolutely necessary to ensure a really useful Don Botsco! Could you give
me, in ordinary language, a conversation snippet betweeen DB and a young person
(let's say the overall theme is 'vocation', to give it some direction).
Believe me, creating the bot is no difficulty (the famous XML rides again; it
really is the super development of the century). The difficulty is in ensuring
we have a natural conversation in real language consisting of either a question
and a response or a statement and a response (or many questions/statements and
responses). It helps to think in snippets, or memes (A meme is a unit of
cultural information). You can help by sending your contribution to me
directly, using the address below (email or email
attachment).
Click here to comment on this item.
_________________
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