APPLECROSS PARISH COMMITS TO COMBATTING MODERN SLAVERY
St Mary’s Cathedral have in February held the first of its faith formation and social education sessions while Applecross St Benedict’s Church announced its intention to join the Project with an In-Principle Agreement signing ceremony.
The faith formation and social education session at St Mary’s Cathedral saw 17 participants enjoy a morning tea while learning about the church response to modern slavery and what they could do as individuals to assist.
Cathedral Parishioner Betty says she has worried about modern slavery for a long time – even when she was younger.
“I am so glad we are doing something about it,” Betty said.
The session briefly looked at what the Cathedral Parish was doing to mitigate the risk of unintentionally contributing to modern slavery in its supply chains.
The session also offered a strategy
for how individuals could respond. Information about modern slavery in Australia and Perth was also highlighted.
In Applecross, St Benedict’s Church community committed to their version of the Project by holding a brief signing ceremony after Sunday Mass in February.
Parish Priest Fr Nelson Po said the project is a good way for the Parish to find out if they are contributing to modern slavery.
“Our project will focus on our existing suppliers to see where there might be risk of Forced Labour in the goods and services we enjoy,” Fr Nelson said.
The Parish Modern Slavery Project is a parish-based, agency-assisted, Archdiocesan-supported initiative of the West Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office.
If your parish is interested in joining the Parish Modern Slavery Project (PMSP), please contact the WA Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office at wacmro@perthcatholic.org.au
St Mary’s Cathedral parishioners enjoying a cuppa and learning more about the Cathedral Modern Slavery Project. PHOTO: SUPPLIED.
Applecross St Benedict’s Church Parish Priest, Fr Nelson Po, WACMRO Director Deacon Greg Lowe, Parish Secretary Stefani Chen, Parish Modern Slavery Person Rosa Ranieri at the brief signing ceremony, committing Applecross Parish to the Modern Slavery Project. PHOTO: SUPPLIED.
DOUBLEVIEW PARISH TO CELEBRATE 50TH ANNIVERSARY
Doubleview Parish’s Our Lady of the Rosary Church will next month celebrate it’s half a century mark. The masterpiece in Toodyay stone was designed and built by
Fr Bonaventure Leahy OP (19201990) in the early 1970s.
Doubleview parish will be celebrating the anniversary of the building’s opening and blessing on the weekend
of 13 and 14 May 2023.
Praised by many as one of Australia’s finest modern churches, it is the subject of a new book, Stone of Eternity, commissioned for the 50-year milestone.
Members of Perth’s school and parish communities, especially any who have a past association with Doubleview, are warmly invited to attend any of the upcoming events:
• Saturday 13 May Vigil Mass at 6pm
• 13 May after Mass book launch at the Rosary Community Centre
• Sunday 14 May 10am Mass celebrated by Archbishop Costelloe
• Anniversary morning tea following Sunday Mass
For more information, contact doubleview@perthcatholic.org.au.
LAY SALVATORIANS REJOICE AT INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
By Matthew Biddle
Australia’s Lay Salvatorian community is celebrating its recent recognition by the Vatican as an international association of the faithful.
Sammantha Da Luz, chair of the Lay Salvatorians in Australia, said the 8 February ceremony in Rome, during which the decree of recognition was delivered by the office of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, was a moment of great joy for the community.
“This is something that’s been in the pipeline for the past 16 years or more, to get these statutes recognised and accepted,” she said. “There’s been a lot of hard work from the international Salvatorian community.”
Officially known as the International Community of the Divine Saviour (ICDS), Lay Salvatorians form one of the three branches of the Salvatorian family, along with the Salvatorian Fathers and Brothers, and the
Salvatorian Sisters.
The Vatican’s recognition of the Lay Salvatorians is validation of the community’s significant international spread – there are more than 1,800 Lay Salvatorians in 18 countries –and of the spiritual and apostolic fruits borne by its members around the world.
There are 108 other ecclesial communities that already have this recognition – including the Legion of Mary, Couples for Christ and the Neocatechumenal Way – according to the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life’s website.
The origins of the Lay Salvatorian community in Australia go back about 20 years, when a group of Salvatorian priests began inviting members of their parishes to explore the lay apostolate.
One of the first Australians to commit to becoming a Lay Salvatorian, Anne Cullender, said initially the community members were simply known as “collaborators”.
Deacon Paul Russell proclaims the first part of the Gospel outside at the commencement of the 2023 Palm Sunday Mass, Sunday 2 April at St Mary’s Cathedral. PHOTO: RON TAN/ARCHDIOCESE OF PERTH.
Lay Salvatorians in Perth gathered to celebrate the Vatican’s official recognition in February. PHOTO: TOM CROLL - PHOTOM.
FREE MENTAL HEALTH TRAINING FOR STUDENTS AT NOTRE DAME
Notre Dame students will be better equipped to recognise mental health disorders and help those who are in crisis with the introduction of free mental health first aid training. 100 students from the Fremantle campus will be given the opportunity to take part in a two-day mental health training course that is akin to a physical first aid course.
The nationally accredited course will teach students how to respond to people who are experiencing a mental health crisis, giving them the confidence to start a conversation that could save a life.
The free training is the result of a university-first partnership between Notre Dame and youth mental health charity 20Talk.
20Talk general manager and Notre Dame student Lachlan O’Donoghue said the training would help students understand the signs, symptoms and early interventions for common mental health disorders.
“Having this training available and made free to young peopleespecially those within a university
environment - not only helps the individual, it also helps all of their peers as well,” he said.
“It creates this ripple effect into the community.
“It’s really encouraging to see a lot of the people in my classes being really open to talking about mental health when I speak about the work that I do at 20Talk.”
The mental health first aid training course was developed by Mental Health First Aid Australia and has been running for almost 25 years.
20Talk will run the training and Notre Dame will promote the course and provide the venue and equipment.
Notre Dame Student Wellbeing Manager Sarah Lovegrove said the training aligned with the University’s early intervention and prevention strategies around the mental health and wellbeing of students.
“Mental health first aid training gives participants the tools and the knowledge to have really valuable conversations about mental health with peers, family members and colleagues,” she said.
Thursday, 20 April 2023
“The skills and knowledge that students will learn in these workshops will be valuable beyond their time at Notre Dame. Students will be able to apply the training in their professional and personal lives after graduation.
“This training has an immediate and ongoing impact not only on our students while they're with us at the university, but also on the community more broadly.”
The partnership between Notre Dame and 20Talk comes as West Australians celebrate Youth Week WA.
The theme of the week is ‘Becoming: with others we dream’ and the celebrations are focused on how young people can flourish both individually and within their community.
Mental health first aid courses at Notre Dame will start next month and will run until December. Students who are interesting in taking part can email studentwellbeing@nd.edu.au
20Talk general manager and Notre Dame student Lachlan O’Donoghue and Notre Dame Student Wellbeing Manager Sarah Lovegrove PHOTO: CNS/JUSTIN MCLELLAN..
SYNOD 2023: CHURCH MUST BE UNITED BUT NOT UNIFORM, SAY SYNOD ORGANISERS
By Justin McLellan
Catholics gathered at the continental level say the Catholic Church must be united, not uniform, and embrace its many forms of expression throughout the world, said members of the synod preparatory commission after a weeklong meeting at the Vatican.
"I think one of the most important things we have experienced during these ecclesial, continental assemblies, is that there is in fact more than one way of being the church," said Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe of Perth, a member of the commission and President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.
"We're beginning to experience a profound unity, which is not grounded in uniformity," he said at a news conference at the Vatican last week, Thursday 20 April.
"There are universal principles that are a kind of positive expression of uniformity, but they all have to be incarnated in context of the local reality."
The commission gathered in Rome to reflect on findings from the continental stage of the process leading up to the assemblies of the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican in 2023 and 2024.
Archbishop Costelloe said that while it's true "some people have struggled with the synodal process" and "don't understand it," he said the synod's global outreach is an invitation for the church to "identify, hear and recognise the voice of the Holy Spirit in this multiplicity of voices that are coming forward" through the synodal process.
"Diversity is already a reality in the church and something we need to acknowledge and begin, more and more, to celebrate and be grateful to God for," he said.
Xavière Missionary Sister Nathalie Becquart, undersecretary of the synod, said the aim of the continental stage of the synod, which brought together bishops' conferences and other church assemblies, was to "to integrate this idea of circularity among all levels of the church."
"We need a new way to relate between the centre of the Roman Curia and the local churches," she said, recalling how during her visit to Oceania's continental assembly a bishop told her, "usually, it's us coming to Rome, this time it's Rome coming to us."
Archbishop Costelloe said that the commission's meetings with the prefects and staff of the Vatican's many dicasteries allowed for an exchange that connected the work of the Curia and the realities of the local church.
Archbishop Costelloe said that while it's true "some people have struggled with the synodal process" and "don't understand it," he said the synod's global outreach is an invitation for the church to "identify, hear and recognise the voice of the Holy Spirit in this multiplicity of voices that are coming forward" through the synodal process. PHOTO: CNS/JUSTIN MCLELLAN..