After 20 years, four newspaper editors, and 1000 questions about the Catholic faith you’d think Fr John Flader has pretty much covered it all.
This 9 March, The Catholic Weekly proudly publishes Fr Flader’s 1000th Question Time column and asks one of our own: will he ever run out of questions?
Actually, he gets that one a lot.
“Heavens no. There are far more questions to answer than I could possibly get to in a year.”
Since 2005, the American-born priest of Opus Dei has engaged our readers on myriad aspects of Catholicism and ways in which people can grow in faith.
Orthodox, clear and compassionate, the columns—also published as a series of books by Connor Court—are valued by people who want to know more about Jesus Christ and the church’s life and teachings, want advice on moral issues and growth in prayer, or help with explaining their faith to others themselves.
He has either put people’s minds to rest, or challenged them, over issues including whether clapping in applause is ok during Mass (not really), and whether one can in good conscience vote for a law that goes against Catholic faith and teaching (in certain cases given bad or no other options, yes).
How to live a good, Godly life, evidence for life after death, inspiring tales of saints and miracles, encouragement in prayer and other devotional practices have all come under Fr Flader’s pen and in The Catholic Weekly pages.
“I know I’m doing a lot of good. I love giving doctrine and I know it’s being received both by readers in Australia and also overseas,” Fr Flader says.
The former director of the Catholic Education Centre in Sydney had already begun collecting his responses to people’s questions about the faith when he wrote his first column at the request of then-editor Kerry Myers in 2005.
“At that time The Catholic Weekly ran a syndicated column and occasionally they were not good,” he offers.
“Before Christmas in 2004 I was sitting with Kerry at a lunch for catechists and I offered to write that column for him.
“His eyes just lit up. He said he’d already approached one person who told him he couldn’t do it, and now here I was offering to write it for him. So that seemed a Godsend.”
At first inundated with large bundles of posted letters each month, Fr Flader now receives most questions by email. He also notes those he’s asked as part of his regular pastoral ministry or any conversations across the week.
Each question is painstakingly written in tiny print into a small notebook he keeps in his pocket. Then he carves three hours out of his busy schedule to choose one, do any necessary research, write a response, and send it through.
The Question Time books are published in several languages and have many loyal readers include priests and lay people—they have even been used in seminary formation in the US.
Early on, after being “inundated” with questions about the Mass and liturgical abuses, Fr Flader decided to strike a balance across aspects of Catholic belief and practice, in much the same way as the Catechism of the Catholic Church does.
Recent years have seen a rise in questions about euthanasia and gender-transitioning.
“It’s in the news, so people want to know what the church teaches about it, and why,” Fr Flader explains.
At times he treats topics in depth by writing a series over several weeks. A clutch of columns were even used for background material in the euthanasia debate in the New South Wales parliament.
Fr Flader says his most difficult ones to write, and most controversial, were two responding to Catholic parents agonising over attending their adult child’s wedding outside the church.
Most recently it was about a gay wedding, but the first was from a parent wanting clarity about whether it was permissible as a Catholic to attend their child’s garden wedding conducted by a civil celebrant.
“I’d been asked that many times but resisted writing about it because it was so sensitive. But then, I had a light, you might say, that one can apply the general criteria in the church’s teaching for what is called ‘cooperation in evil’,” he explains.
“We can assume the person asking about attending the wedding does not agree with garden weddings.
“Secondly, their attendance is not immediate cooperation, as would be the case with the celebrant or the best man and bridesmaid, and you also have a proportionate reason, that is, ‘I don’t want to lose connection with my child’.
“So I said, you can go.
“I’ve had opposition from some fellow priests about those ones, but I stand by them.”
About the blessing of same-sex couples by priests, Fr Flader is satisfied there is clear instruction in the 2023 Vatican declaration Fiducia Supplicans supporting the blessing of the people involved, not the relationship itself.
“Anyone can ask for a blessing,” he says.
So what’s his 1000th column about?
Fittingly it’s about the point of it all, the future God desires for every person.
“To be in the presence of the Blessed Trinity and to experience the infinite love of God is to be overwhelmed with joy. There can be no sadness in heaven,” he writes.
