Engaging with Islam, Pentecostals and Australia's secular culture

One year on from the canonisation of Australia's first saint, Mary Mackillop, Australia's Catholic bishops are here in the Vatican for their Ad Limina visits discussing the challenges facing their Church in an increasingly secular and pluralistic society. The Church leaders are meeting with the heads of the different Curial offices ahead of a joint audience with Pope Benedict at the end of the week.
Among them is Bishop Michael Putney, a long-time co-chair of the international Methodist-Catholic dialogue commission and head of the Australian bishops' department for ecumenical and interfaith relations. He told Philippa Hitchen what he sees as the most pressing challenges facing the Church in his country today....

Listen:

"I think there are three great challenges and they are the secular culture, which Pope Benedict has said at times, in some parts of the world, seems to be winning over Church culture and certainly that's something we have to deal with in Australia.....
The other great challenge in the Christian world is the Pentecostal movement which, like secular culture, is another great movement facing the Catholic Church and which is some parts of the world has led to a loss of our members, particularly in Latin America but also in Australia.....
And the third great movement of the contemporary world which presents a challenge to the Church is Islam.....
And how we deal with these movements will govern how the Church thrives and flourishes in the future - if we don't learn to deal with them in a positive way the Church of the future will be even more diminished."