Welcome to our November edition of New Springtime. Last month we passed our one-year anniversary. We hope that there will be many more publications to come.

In this, our first post-WYD edition, we reflect on that blessed time, with three of our contributors describing their experiences at WYD. David Collits was listening closely to the words of Pope Benedict, and provides us with a contemplative piece on Pope Benedict and St Augustine’s teachings on the Holy Spirit. Our Francophile Zac Vermeer was speaking French to beautiful women and thinking of cellos and three hundred types of cheese. Br Mannes Tellis O.P. was serving as a chaplain to university students and discusses how best to gather the fruits of WYD.  He briefly mentions his experience of singing the gospel at the final Mass with Pope Benedict watching on. (He is too humble to tell readers what a beautiful job he did – we can assure you that he did us proud.)

While WYD was a blessed time of co-operation between Church and State, we know this to be all too rare a union.  Xavier O’Kane discusses the recent Abortion Law Reform Bill in the context of the history of abortion in Victoria.  Aaron Russell discusses the origins of Catholic Action, and how its principles have been exemplified in the lives and work of three high-profile Australians.

No edition of New Springtime is complete without a book review, and in this edition we bring you two! James Baxter reviews a recent book about St Thomas More and his daughter, Margaret Roper, two courageous lay Catholics who lived in very difficult times.  Chris Shea reviews a book by Fr Robert Taft SJ on Byzantine liturgy, and in doing so teaches us some things we ought to know about the Eastern Catholic churches.

So we hope you enjoy our November edition. Be sure to click by again in the summer for our second annual Summer Reading Edition.