ince then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
From the Letter to the Hebrews, 4: 14-16
“Be indefatigable in your purpose and with undaunted spirit resist iniquity and try to conquer evil with good, having before your eyes the reward of those who combat for Christ.” -Bishop Matthew Gibney 1874
It’s been 36 years since the US Roe v Wade decision effectively legitimised abortion around the globe. But the pro-life movement’s successes have been few and far between. Often, pro-life groups seem highly motivated but not well organised and small in number. Is it time for the movement to begin re-assessing goals, strategy and tactics? Robert Hiini talks to key Western Australian pro-lifers about how the effort to end the killing of our children is faring.
Monsignor Sean O’Shea can recall the night 50 years ago when he lost a best friend, who died in a tragic accident together with three Presentation Sisters. Their deaths shocked Perth’s Catholics, Anthony Barich writes. Page 8
A Latin Mass bishop caused shock and outrage as a Holocaust denier, apparently ignorant that the father of his society’s founder died in a Nazi concentration camp.
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10 School Staff Commissioning Masses: Western Region, DoubleviewArchbishop Hickey Northern Region, WhitfordBishop Sproxton
11 Opening Mass, Mercedes CollegeArchbishop Hickey School Staff Commissioning Masses: South Central Region, Aquinas CollegeArchbishop Hickey North Eastern Region, LeedervilleBishop Sproxton South Eastern Region, GosnellsFr Brian O’Loughlin VG South Western, SpearwoodMgr
Vatican orders study of women religious institutes in US.
■ By Chaz Muth WASHINGTON (CNS)-
The Vatican has initiated an apostolic visitation of institutes for women religious in the United States to find out why the numbers of their members have decreased during the past 40 years and to look at the quality of life in the communities.
The announcement was made on January 30 in Washington by Sister EvaMaria Ackerman, a member of the American province of the Sisters of St Francis of the Martyr St George.
Cardinal Franc Rode, prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, appointed Mother Clare as the apostolic visitor.
The cardinal sent letters detailing the task to both the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, the two major organisations representing heads of women's religious orders in the US.
It is too early to know how many volunteers will be enlisted to visit nearly 400 Catholic institutes for women religious in the US, how much it will cost or who will pay for the study, Sister Eva-Maria said during the press conference at the national shrine.
Current trends show a general decline in the number of women religious in the U.S.
out and what prompted the Vatican congregation to order it, she said. "I don't even want to speculate."
Once the study is concluded, a "comprehensive and confidential" report will be given to Cardinal Rode, but its findings are not expected to be made public, Sister Eva-Maria said.
"First, [the inquiry] will solicit voluntary input from the superiors general through inviting them to make personal visits in Rome or in the United States," she said.
"During the second stage, the major superiors in the United States will be asked for information such as statistics, activities and community practices. Selected on-site visits will be made during the third stage."
Catholic women religious have been involved in education, health care and a variety of pastoral and social services in the US since before the nation was founded in 1776.
A Web site, www.apostolicvisitation.org, has been launched to provide basic information about the project.
Sister Eva-Maria acknowledged that the population of women religious has significantly dropped during the past several decades, and that fewer nuns have chosen to teach school in the past 30 years in favour of doing social outreach.
"Recruitment is of great concern for every (religious) community," she said.
Bishop Sproxton
"We hope to discover and share the vibrancy and purpose that continue to accomplish so much, as well as to understand the obstacles and challenges that inhibit these individuals and institutions, thus limiting their growth and/or redirecting their resources and outreach," she said.
In the news
The study - which is expected to be completed by 2011 - is in no way connected to the apostolic visitation of more
Unions important in resolving financial crisis, Pope says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope Benedict XVI said labour unions have an important role to play in finding a way out of the global financial crisis and establishing a new culture of solidarity and responsibility in the marketplace. “The great challenge and the great opportunity posed by today’s worrisome economic crisis is to find a new synthesis between the common good and the market, between capital and labour. And in this regard, union organisations can make a significant contribution,” the Pope told directors of the Confederation of Italian Labour Unions on January 31.
The Pope emphasized that the inalienable dignity of the worker has been a cornerstone of the Church’s social teaching in the modern age, and said this teaching has helped the movement toward fair wages, improvement of working conditions and protection of vulnerable categories of employees. Workers are facing particular risks in the current economic crisis, and unions must be part of the solution, he said. - CNS
Peter Rosengren cathrec@iinet.net.au
JOURNALISTS Anthony Barich abarich@therecord.com.au Mark Reidy reidyrec@iinet.net.au Robert Hiini cathrec@iinet.net.au
than 200 US seminaries and formation houses in 2005 and 2006, which was ordered in response to the sexual abuse crisis that hit the US church, Sister Eva-Maria said.
It was not known why the Vatican chose to do this study now, why the US was singled
Love, not euthanasia, eases the suffering of the dying
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Love is the only thing that can ease the suffering of the terminally ill and it is the only worthy response of those who value the life that is ending, Pope Benedict XVI said. Christians must have the courage to say publicly and clearly that “euthanasia is a false solution to the drama of suffering, a solution unworthy of the human person,” the Pope said on February 1 during his midday Angelus address. Marking the Italian Catholic Church’s celebration of Pro-Life Sunday, the Pope said helping a terminally ill person die might give the impression of easing that individual’s suffering, but the only authentically human response to the suffering of another is the witness of “love that helps one face pain and agony in a human way.” Pope Benedict said, “Of this we are certain: No tear - not of one who suffers, nor of one who is near to that person - goes unnoticed by God.” The Pope entrusted to Mary all those who are suffering and all those who care for them, “serving life at every stage: parents, health care workers, priests, religious, researchers, volunteers and many others.” - CNS
"We live in a very different society," she added, than that experienced by many of the US saints who were nuns - Sts. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Frances Xavier Cabrini, Katharine Drexel, Rose Philippine Duchesne and Mother Theodore Guerin.
Pope defends the family, right to religious education
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope Benedict XVI criticised “aggressive social and political policies” that threaten to undermine the traditional family based on marriage between a man and a woman. “In much of modern Europe the vital cohesive role that the family has to play in human affairs is being called into question and even endangered,” the Pope told Janos Balassa, Hungary’s new ambassador to the Vatican. Welcoming the new ambassador on February 2, the Pope expressed his hope that ways would be found to safeguard the family. The family, he said, is an essential element of society, the “heart of every culture and nation,” and helps build peaceful community relations at every level. One way to support the family, the Pope said, is to make sure parents can be the primary educators of their children, which includes being able to choose whether their children attend a religious school. The Pope said many European countries have been questioning the nature of or endangering the family because of “misguided ways of thinking that at times find expression in aggressive social and political policies.” - CNS
much alive: Alan and Raleane “Rae” Kupferschmidt
CNS PHOTO/ANDREW WALLMEYERBrain death raises questions, from US to the Vatican.
■ By Nancy Frazier O'BrienWASHINGTON (CNS) - Don't talk to Raleane "Rae" Kupferschmidt about brain death.
The 66-year-old woman from Minnesota was declared brain dead nearly a year ago after a massive cerebral hemorrhage. She was removed from a ventilator, following her wishes, and her family took her home to die.
But when Kupferschmidt began responding to family members, they rushed her back to the hospital, where she regained what her husband called "98 per cent" of her earlier vigour.
In late September she experienced another health crisis and went into a coma. Although doctors were not as hasty to term it brain death this time, they offered little hope of her survival - a prediction she defied again in October.
"I keep thinking that God saved me a second time so I could inspire people and let them know they shouldn't give up, even when things look hopeless," she told the Stillwater Gazette in a January 13 interview.
Coincidentally, the newspaper's interview with Kupferschmidt took place the day after the President's Council on Bioethics issued "Controversies in the Determination of Death," a 144page white paper on what the council prefers to call total brain failure.
The topic also has attracted a great deal of attention at the Vatican over the years. Most recently, an article in L'Osservatore Romano last September said the acceptance of the cessation of brain activity as death would seem to equate the human person with brain function, contradicting Catholic teaching about the dignity of every human life from the moment of conception.
But a Vatican spokesman later said the article reflected only the views of the author, Lucetta Scaraffia, a professor of contemporary history and frequent contributor to the Vatican newspaper.
In 1985 and 1989, the Pontifical Academy of Science recognised brain death as "the true criterion for death." The council's white paper
Pope asks religious to model St Paul VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Catholic men and women who have consecrated their entire lives to serving God and the Church must live like St Paul, “for, with and in Christ,” Pope Benedict XVI said. The Pope greeted men and women religious on February 2, joining them in St Peter’s Basilica after a special Mass marking the feast of the Presentation of the Lord and World Day for Consecrated Life. Pope Benedict said St Paul is a model of living for all Christians, but especially for those who have taken vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. “In the life of poverty he saw the guarantee of a proclamation of the Gospel conducted with total gratuity, while expressing at the same time concrete solidarity with his brothers and sisters in need,” the Pope said.
recognises the timeless nature of the question. "Knowing when death has come, along with what can and should be done before and after it has arrived, has always been a problem for humankind, to one degree or another," it said.
"But the nature and significance of the problem have changed over time, especially in the wake of medical technologies that enable us to sustain life, or perhaps just the appearance of it, indefinitely."
After brain death occurs, several key bodily functions can continue, including maintenance of body temperature, elimination of wastes, wound healing and sexual maturation of children, the council notes.
Fifteen of the 18 members of the President's Council on Bioethics concluded that the neurological standard for defining death was ethically defensible and clinically valid.
"The majority reaffirms and supports the well-established dictates of both law and practice in this area, on grounds that patients with total brain failure ('brain death') have lost - and have lost irreversibly - the ability to carry out the fundamental work of a living organism," they said.
"If there are no signs of consciousness and if spontaneous breathing is absent and if the best clinical judgment is that these neurophysiological facts cannot be reversed, (this) would lead us to conclude that a once-living patient has now died," the white paper says.
"Thus, on this account, total brain failure can continue to serve as a criterion for declaring deathnot because it necessarily indicates complete loss of integrated somatic functioning, but because it is a sign that this organism can no longer engage in the sort of work that defines living things," it added.
But three other council members - including its chairman, Dr Edmund D. Pellegrino - included personal statements in the white paper indicating their disagreement with some of the paper's conclusions.
"Ultimately, the central ethical challenge for any transplantation protocol is to give the gift of life to one human being without taking life away from another," said Pellegrino, a former president of The Catholic University of America in Washington and former director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. -CNS
DEEPLY saddened by the crisis engulfing Christianity in the Middle East, Pope Benedict XVI has asked the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) to provide urgent help.
In many parts of the land Our Lord Jesus Christ knew so well, the faithful now live in fear as increasing poverty and growing extremism threaten the survival of these ancient communities.
A mass exodus of Christians from the Middle East is now taking place. For some it is a question of escaping bloody persecution. In the Holy Land for example, the proportion of Christians has plummeted from 20% to as little as 1.4% in the last 40 years.
ACN is helping to keep faith and hope alive throughout the region by providing urgent aid to priests, religious and lay people, offering subsistence help to refugees and building and repairing Churches and convents. Please help us strengthen and rebuild the Church in the land of Christ’s birth.
A beautiful, olive wood crucifix, handcrafted in Bethlehem, will be sent to all those who give a donation of $20.00 or more to help this campaign. Please tick the box below if you like to receive the little olive wood crucifix*.
I/We enclose $.................. to help keep Christianity alive in the Middle East.
Yes please send me the little olive wood crucifix* Made of olive wood from the Holy Land, this small crucifix is powerfully evocative of Christ’s passion and death. The crucifixes are lovingly handcrafted by poverty stricken families in Bethlehem and your donation helps them survive. Comes in a display box with accompanying religious image. (Size 12cm x 7cm)
If Catholics want to change society they had better start living out their baptismal vocation: ethicist.
n By Anthony BarichCatholiCs need to radically live out the Gospel to change the culture of death rather than stand aghast at “frightening” abortion statistics, Perth’s top Catholic bioethicist says.
Responding to data released last month by Melbourne’s Royal Women’s hospital on the circumstances of women who had approached its Pregnancy advisory service for abortions, lJ Goody Bioethics Centre director Rev Dr Joseph Parkinson said its results are “tragic, frightening and disappointing”. among the results, the Pas data showed most women reported that their pregnancy was at “the wrong time”, and very rarely had anything to do with rape and everything to do with individuals and cou-
ples being unwilling to accept the consequences for their actions, he said.
But these results are not surprising, he said, to anyone who has realised that “we have become a
‘me-first’ culture in which everyone has to be free to do whatever they want as long as no one else – ie no one who has been born –gets hurt”.
“We see it in our suburbs, on our roads, in our public and private institutions, so it is not surprising that it has also infiltrated the bedroom,” he said.
the solution, he said, starts with the faithful becoming the Church God created us to be, to build among ourselves a core community of Christians committed to living in and with Jesus Christ”.
“it is not enough to critique the direction our society is taking - we need to create and give witness to an alternative way of living. so trying to live the values of the Gospel as friends and disciples of the lord would be a good start.”
he said that the report reveals important questions that need answering.
While it said that between 20-30 per cent of women aged 18-59 have accessed abortion, rev Dr Parkinson noted that abortion is not just a women’s issue as there is also a man involved in every unwanted pregnancy. “Where are
the men?” he said. “(the report said that) 70 per cent of women seeking abortions report that their partners are ‘aware and supportive’ of the woman – but not, apparently, supportive of the pregnancy.
“We are told that access to ‘safe’ abortion is necessary so that women can exercise choice but the strange thing is, it seems that many men and women simply don’t want to accept the consequences of their choice to have sex in the first place.”
Violence was reported as a factor in seeking an abortion in 16 per cent of cases, mental health issues figure in 10 per cent of cases, and a combination of drug, alcohol and disability issues figure in another six per cent. “But what about the 68 per cent of remaining cases” Rev Dr Parkinson asks. “are these just ‘elective’?”
he said the fact that rape figures as a factor in just one per cent of cases “explodes the myth that access to ‘safe’ abortion is necessary primarily in order to deal with the unwanted effects of unwanted intercourse”.
he noted with disbelief that despite less than 30 per cent of
women reported use of contraception, 40 per cent of these said that their method of contraception was ‘reliable’.
the key, Rev Dr Parkinson said, is to “overlook our horror” at the abortion toll and make greater efforts to provide practical options for women facing unwanted pregnancy, adding that one such organisation that does this, Pregnancy assistance, deserves “personal and professional support from everyone concerned at these figures”. Catholic hospitals also invest in ongoing counselling and social support, and also deserve to be supported and promoted, he said. “ then we need concerted action at all levels of civic life – government, education, health, social services – so that every person is encouraged to become more responsible at every level of their life,” he said.
“our Church and our schools continue to play a part here, but we can always do better. as a Church we are called to be a power for good in the world, and that has to start with the conversion of our own lives.”
Divided we Fail?
Oblate tradition continues with appointment of chaplain who is also a qualified mining engineer.
n By Anthony BarichFatheR Gerard Conlan oMi has been appointed as the new Chaplain for the University of Notre Dame australia’s Fremantle Campus. he replaces Fr Greg Watson oMi, who is yet to be reassigned by the oblates after serving as UNDa chaplain for nearly five years.
Both are members of the Religious congregation the Missionary oblates of Mary immaculate (oMi). the University has a strong
adelaide-based traditional anglican Communion archbishop John hepworth says that he is “quietly and optimistically waiting for an answer” after The Record broke the news that Rome may establish a personal prelature for the group. the second Vatican Council decree Presbyterorum Ordinis recognised “special personal dioceses or prelatures” could be established outside of the Church’s existing structures to deal with “particular pastoral works as are necessary in any region or nation anywhere on earth.” informed Vatican officials emphasised that no offer has been made, and the establishment of a personal prelature is only one of the options under consideration.
the taC claims a membership of 400,000 faithful. one problem facing the group’s aspirations to the personalprelature status lies in the fact that several taC bishops are married.
connection with the oblates who arrived in Perth in 1894. an oblate has been the Chaplain to Notre Dame, Fremantle, from its foundation.
Fr Conlan, who was relatively late in starting his vocation aged 35, first came into contact with the oblates through Mazenod College, lesmurdie, in Western australia (Wa) as a boarding student.
a fter finishing Year 12, he completed a Bachelor of engineering (Mining) degree at the West australian s chool of Mines, Kalgoorlie, and spent the next 15 years working in the mining industry in Wa, New south Wales, Victoria, Northern territory and as a professional consultant overseas.
he first considered the priesthood aged 25 after a sunday homily on vocations in Kalgoorlie in 1986.
after a few weeks he decided he “wasn't good enough to be a priest” and kept working. then in 1991, he took six months off work and spent three months working in the oblate mission in Cilacap, indonesia, during which he spent much time seeking direction and discernment, coming to terms with the death of his best friend two years earlier.
During his time in indonesia, he experienced “a sense of wonder at the great disparity of material wealth between our two countries, while at the same time the sense of joy, faith and hope shown by the indonesian people was more than in australia”. he was ordained in 2003, working with the oblates in australia and in parishes overseas. Most recently he had a dual role of chaplaincy at iona College in Brisbane, with 1300
A full time person with a social work degree or relevant tertiary qualification is required to coordinate the support of a community of religious sisters in Perth and to manage the ministries of this community. The person should have good communication and facilitation skills, and demonstrate an ability to relate and work well with elderly people and to manage a ministry centre efficiently and effectively. For a position description, e-mail christine.wong@goodshep.com.au
by 9 February 2009 to: The Province Leader, Sisters of the Good Shepherd, P O Box 182, Abbotsford Vic 3067 or e-mail:christine.wong@goodshep.com.au
boys, and with Rosies (oblate) Youth Mission, inc, a street outreach ministry that has more than 10 outreaches including Youth Detention Centre, Prisons and Court support, stretching from the Gold Coast up to the sunshine Coast and Cairns. in august, 2008 he moved to Mazenod College, Melbourne, as relief for the resident oblate priest who was on sabbatical, where he offered pastoral support for 1200 students and their families, to support the religious education teachers, sport and sacraments. UNDa Deputy Vice Chancellor, Professor Mark McKenna said that the oblates have been “valued supporters of the University since its beginning” in 1989. it is with gratitude that we thank Father Greg for his great contribution to the full life of our University Community,” he added.
tuesday 9.30am-12pm the letters of
with Sr Shelley Barlow
1.00pm – 3.30pm Introduction to the old testament with Stephanie Woods
1.00pm -3.30pm Beginning theology with Sr Philomena Burrell thursday 9.30am -12pm the Public Prayer of the church with Fr Peter Stiglich
1pm – 3.30pm the History of the early church ( the origins of our story) with Michelle Jones friday
9.30am-12pm Ministry to those who Grieve level I with Gerry Smith
Bruno Lanciamo shows how it’s done when it comes to promoting The Record in his parish.
Benedict reaffirms solidarity with Jews following Latin Mass bishop’s comments in interview.
■ By Carol GlatzVATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope Benedict XVI renewed his "full and unquestionable solidarity" with the world's Jews and condemned all ignorance, denial and downplaying of the brutal slaughter of millions of Jewish people during the Holocaust.
The Pope's comments on January 28 came a day after the Chief Rabbinate of Israel postponed indefinitely a March meeting with the Vatican in protest over the Pope lifting the excommunication of a traditionalist bishop who has minimised the severity and extent of the Holocaust.
Speaking the day after International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Pope Benedict said he hoped "the memory of the Holocaust will persuade humanity to reflect on the unpredictable power of evil when it conquers the heart of man."
The Jews were "innocent victims of a blind racist and religious hatred," he said at the end of his general audience in the Paul VI hall.
The Pope recalled his many visits to Auschwitz, calling it "one of the concentration camps in which millions of Jews were brutally slaughtered" by the Nazis.
"May the Holocaust be a warning to everyone against forgetting, denying or minimising" what happened to millions of Jews "because violence waged against just one human being is violence against everyone," he said.
"May violence never again humiliate the dignity of mankind," he said.
The Holocaust should be an important lesson for old and new generations, teaching them that "only the arduous path of listening and dialogue, love and forgiveness leads the world's peoples, cultures and religions to the hoped-for goal of fraternity and peace in truth," said the Pope.
British-born Bishop Richard Williamson of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X has claimed that reports about the Holocaust were exaggerated and that no Jews died in Nazi gas chambers.
He repeated his position in a Swedish television interview recorded last November but aired on January 21 - the same day Pope Benedict lifted the excommunication against him and three other bishops who had been ordained against papal orders in 1988 by the
French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. The Vatican made the decree public on January 24.
In a letter posted on his blog on January 30, Bishop Williamson apologised to Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos for "having caused to yourself and to the Holy Father so much unnecessary distress and problems." Cardinal Castrillon heads the "Ecclesia Dei" commission, which oversees the reconciliation of Lefebvrite Catholics with the Church.
Jewish groups expressed shock that after Bishop Williamson's comments were televised the Vatican would still lift the excommunication against him. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel postponed a March 2-4 meeting in Rome with the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews.
Rabbi David Rosen, a member of the delegation of the Chief Rabbinate, said on Israeli television's IBA News that the meeting with the Vatican had been postponed indefinitely "until a response comes from the Vatican that's satisfactory to enable us to resume our relationship as before."
The director general of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, Oded Wiener, told Catholic News Service the Pope's January 28 statement condemning the denial of the Holocaust was "extremely important ... for all humanity" and that it was a "great step forward" in resolving the current embroilment between the Vatican and the rabbinate.
He said a letter he sent on January 27 to the pontifical commission's chairman, Cardinal Walter Kasper, in the name of the Chief Rabbinate was not intended to sever the ties, which were created in 2000, but simply to express deep disappointment at the reinstatement of Bishop Williamson.
The letter asked for a public apology from the bishop and for a postponement of the joint commission's planned meeting in March until the matter was clarified.
He told CNS he was certain that members of the rabbinate's commission would be meeting for further discussion by early February in light of the Pope's statement. Wiener emphasised that, concerning Bishop Williamson's remarks, "We don't for one second believe this is the position of the Pope."
The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, told reporters on January 28 that Vatican officials hoped the rabbinate would resume dialogue with the pontifical commission so that its concerns could be addressed with "further and deeper reflection." Father Lombardi said Pope Benedict's remarks condemning the Holocaust on January 28 and on previous occasions Continued on Page 6
INTRODUING this month’s champion Record seller, Bruno Lanciamo of St Matthew’s Parish, Narrogin.
Bruno has made selling The Record his personal vocation in the parish of St Matthew’s Narrogin.
In a role he has undertaken for over twenty years, Bruno proudly notes that the only time The Record is not sold out is when he is on holidays.
Bruno’s background is far more exotic than his role as super-salesman in Narrogin might indicate.
His father was a politician in Italy, imprisoned by the fascists during World War Two, leaving his mother alone to support Bruno and his young brothers.
Although Bruno grew up in Boidolato CZ, he left for Australia from Zurich in Switzerland.
Before leaving in 1965, he married Nicolina and they arrived in Narrogin in 1967. He found work immediately on the railways and has since also worked as a builder.
Bruno and Nicolina’s daughter, Assunta, lives in Perth with her husband Ray, a painter and their children Vincent and Julian. Their son Andrea is a lawyer in Perth; according to Bruno he is not married yet.
Bruno is just one of the thousands of Australian Catholics who volunteer their time and effort to make our parishes and our faith one of service and community. Remember to thank someone in your parish next Sunday.
If you have a champion Record seller in your parish, please let us know at The Record, preferably with a photo.
Indian archbishop: Orissa government is needed to first stop tensions.
n By Mark PattisonWASHINGTON (CNS)The government of Orissa state in eastern India needs to put a halt to Hindu extremists terrorising Christians, said Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of CuttackBhubaneswar, India.
Religious leaders from India's historic faiths must be brought into dialogue on the issue, Archbishop Cheenath said in a January 29 interview with Catholic News Service in Washington. Grassroots efforts at reconciliation also are required.
But until government officials "really go after the people who perpetrated the crime... which has not taken place," Archbishop Cheenath said, "there will be little hope of settling the matter."
Extremist Hindu-led rioting and violence that began in Orissa state in August and lasted about seven weeks displaced 50,000 people, mostly Christians. The violence claimed more than 60 lives.
Christians make up less than 3 percent of India's population, the archbishop said.
Early in January, India's highest court told the Orissa government to award about US $6,000 each to the family members of those killed in the violence.
The Orissa government had claimed it could not do so on the basis that India was a "secular" nation.
"The Christian community has always believed in the judicial system of the country, which has been in the forefront when it
comes to the protection of rights of minorities in the country," said a January 7 statement from Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil of ErnakulamAngamaly, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India.
Archbishop Cheenath told CNS that thousands of Christians still live in refugee camps, afraid of returning to their homes for fear of death. He added he had only recently made his first visits to some of the camps because of death threats lodged against him.
He said some of the camps had dissolved and re-formed into new camps because of the prospect of Hindu attacks on the camps themselves.
The archbishop was in Washington to address a forum at the headquarters of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The forum was sponsored by the bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace.
"The failure of the state machinery to intervene effectively and prevent promptly the riots of the religious zealots and fanatics of the Hindu faith" is one reason for Hindu-Christian conflict in India, Archbishop Cheenath told the forum.
"Sometimes the state also sponsors religious violence like the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat" state, where a wave of Hindu versus Muslim violence killed more than 1,000 people, about three-fourths of them Muslims.
Other reasons Archbishop Cheenath gave included:
l The "stranglehold" Hinduism has "even over the well-educated middle and upper castes and classes."
l "Lack of political will and (an) indifferent attitude to secularism and democracy and to other religions than one's own on the part of the ruling social class."
l "A serious erosion of secularism" in a nation where four major world religions claim a birthplace.
l The equating of religion with nationalism and when "belief in a religion is termed as patriotism."
But for Catholics "violence is never a proper response" even when it is the group being targeted, Archbishop Cheenath said.
"It can never indulge in violence, even in self-defence," he added. "It can only request the state machinery to ensure peace and justice."
Archbishop Cheenath told CNS that it was almost possible to predict the violence.
"We knew something was going on for many years," he said, pointing to a variety of attacks in Orissa over the past 20 years.
He added that it should not be portrayed as ethnic violence, as the Orissa government maintains, because members of more than one group are being attacked, and those people are all Christians.
Archbishop Cheenath criticised Orissa government leaders for saying only "that this should not happen" while doing little to prevent the attacks.
-cns
BHUBANESWAR, India (CNS) - Local police have filed charges against 10 men for the rape of a Catholic nun during the anti-Christian riots in Orissa state in August, but church people said they expect more charges.
The Asian church news agency UCA News reported that charges were filed against the men on January 29.
Father Alphonse Baliarsingh, vicar general of the CuttackBhubaneswar Archdiocese, said on January 30 that "at least some justice can be expected."
But he noted that the police have "not yet arrested the main culprit," the one who actually raped the nun on August 25, a day after Hindu extremists unleashed a wave of terror against Orissa Christians that lasted seven weeks.
The violence claimed 60 lives and displaced 50,000 people, mostly Christians. Fr Baliarsingh said the police have made assurances they would arrest a few more people involved in the crime against the 28-year-old nun.
"We expect the main culprit (to be) arrested soon," the priest said.
Manas Ranjan Singh, one of the nun's lawyers, declined to comment on the charge sheet, since the lawyers "have not seen" the file. "We have applied for a copy. Only after studying it can we comment on the merit of it," he said. However, he described the filing of charges as "posi-
tive" and "a logical step." Singh said the 10 men, arrested four months ago, were among about 90 people in a lineup that police arranged on December 5 for the nun to identify her violators. The nun could identify only two among them but did not see the rapist, UCA News reported.
The men reportedly were charged with gang rape, he said, noting that Indian law considers a person abetting rape just as culpable as the one committing the crime.
The nun's case made national headlines after she addressed a press conference in New Delhi in late October and said she had no faith in the Orissa police investigation, since police did not help her when she was attacked.
A nun working in Orissa said the police have "not yet arrested the real culprits" in the case. "They may not do it at all because people in authority are supporting" such crimes against Christians, she said.
Montfort Brother Thomas Thannickal, who accompanied the nun to the police lineup, shared similar sentiments, saying the charges aim to show "the police are working and the issue is not buried."
"Nothing much can be expected now. All these will be forgotten once the elections are over" in a few months, Brother Thannickal said.
Federal elections are scheduled for April and a state election is scheduled for May, UCA News reported. Orissa is ruled by a coalition including the proHindu Bharatiya Janata Party. The party is considered the political wing of groups trying to make India a Hindu theocracy. -cns
Continued from Page 5 “doubt concerning the Pope and the Catholic Church’s position” on the Holocaust.
The spokesman said only with continued dialogue could relations between the Jewish world and the Catholic Church “successfully and serenely continue.”
To further underline the many occasions the Pope has publicly condemned anti-Semitism and expressed his closeness to the Jewish people, the Vatican posted archived footage of the Pope
on its new YouTube channel on January 28.
The three video clips give excerpts of the Pope’s talks during his visit to a synagogue in Cologne, Germany, in 2005; his visit to the Nazis’ Auschwitz-Birkenau camps in Poland in 2006; and his general audience at the Vatican after his trip to Auschwitz.
Cardinal Kasper said the traditionalist bishop’s remarks were unacceptable, “foolish” and in no way reflect the position of the Catholic Church.
“Such gibberish is unacceptable,” the German cardinal said in an interview with the Italian daily La Repubblica on January 26.
“To deny the Holocaust is unacceptable and is absolutely not the position of the Catholic Church,” he said.
The Vatican released a statement on January 27 from the head of the Swiss-based Society of St Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay, who apologised for the damage caused by Bishop Williamson’s remarks and said they in no way reflect the positions of the Society of St Pius X.
"We ask forgiveness of the pontiff and of all people of good will for the dramatic consequences of this act," Bishop Fellay wrote.
He said he had prohibited Bishop Williamson from speaking publicly on political or historical questions "until further orders."
"While we recognise that these remarks were inopportune, we cannot help but note with sadness that they have directly struck our society, discrediting its mission," he said.
He also pointed out that the father of Society of St Pius X founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre had died in a Nazi concentration camp.
Cardinal Kasper, who co-chairs the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee with Rabbi Rosen, told La Repubblica he could see how Bishop Williamson's opinions could "cast a shadow over (Vatican) relations with Jews, but I am convinced dialogue will continue."
The cardinal said removing the excommunication against Bishop Williamson and the bishop's comments were two completely separate issues.
By lifting the excommunication, he said, the Pope was removing an obstacle to the Vatican's dialogue with the society.
"We will need to see in what way they accept the (Second Vatican) Council" before further steps toward reconciliation and unity can be taken, he said.
In the past, the Society of St Pius X has not accepted the liturgical reforms of Vatican II and its concepts of religious freedom and ecumenism.
A front-page article in the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, called Bishop Williamson's remarks on the Holocaust unacceptable, "very serious and regrettable."
The paper underlined the Church's teachings against antiSemitism, which are clearly outlined in the declaration "Nostra Aetate."
The January 27 article said these teachings were "not debatable" within the Catholic Church.
It said the reforms the Church adopted after Vatican II could never be jeopardised or "thrown into crisis by a magnanimous gesture of mercy" by the Pope in seeking to reconcile with the traditionalist society.
French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bourdeaux said that resolving the many dogmatic and ecclesial questions remaining between the Church and the society will be a journey that is
"undoubtedly long." But doctrinal issues are not the only thing making reconciliation difficult, said the cardinal, a member of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei," which oversees the reconciliation of Lefebvrite Catholics with the Church.
Cultural and political attitudes, such as those reflected in the "unacceptable" remarks by Bishop Williamson concerning the Holocaust, also can hamper full reconciliation, he said in a press release on January 24.
The Swiss bishops' conference said the traditionalist bishop's remarks "worsened concerns" over the "deep divergences" between the society and the Catholic Church.
Praying British nurse suspended
Britain’s Telegraph newspaper has reported on the case of a nurse who was suspended from her job after offering to pray for the recovery of one of her elderly patients.
Journalist andrew a lderson reported that Caroline Petrie, from Weston-super-Mare, somerset, is being disciplined for offering to pray for a patient.
Petrie, a committed Christian, has been accused by her employers of failing to demonstrate a "personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity".
she faces disciplinary action and could lose her job over the incident, the newspaper reported.
Mrs Petrie, a married mother of two, says she has been left shocked and upset by the action taken against her.
she insists she has never forced her own religious beliefs on anyone but politely inquired if the elderly patient wanted her to pray for her – either in the woman's presence or after the nurse had left the patient's home.
"i simply couldn't believe that i have been suspended over this. i knew i hadn't done anything wrong. all i am trying to do is help my patients, many of whom want me to pray for them," the paper reported her as saying.
Mrs Petrie, 45, is a community nurse employed by north somerset Primary Care trust to carry out home visits to sick and elderly patients.
n By Anthony Barich
PoPe Benedict XVi’s comment on annulments shows the Catholic Church is “doing what the Lord wants” in upholding humans’ capacity for lifelong love, Cardinal George Pell of sydney has told australian media.
the Pope told members of the tribunal of the roman rota on January 29 that granting marriage annulments too easily and without any real cause plays into a modern form of pessimism that basically says human brings are not able to make lifelong commitments to lov-
ing another person. the australian prelate refuted a question on aBC radio on January 30 that suggested the Church is condemning itself to irrelevance with its stance on annulments given that more than half of all marriages in australia now fail.
“i don’t think we are irrelevant in any sense at all when we are trying to do what the Lord wants, and the big challenge in australia is not to make divorce easier and easier so there is a bigger percentage of marriages breaking up,” Cardinal Pell said.
He said that the Church needs to find a way to have more people
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enter into lifelong marriages that will last, though this is a “big call” because “society is running in a different direction, but that is what we are called to do”. He said that in australia, “all our Canon lawyers work very conscientiously to try to diminish human suffering”.
“it is a difficult business but we are bound to do what we can to help in the sad situations of fre-
quent marriage breakup,” he said.
“a couple of years ago the Pope asked the Canon law sections of the Church annulment courts to decide more quickly, and i am totally in support of that; and also it must be available cheaply and it certainly is here in australia.”
He also defended the Pope’s statement that members of church tribunals see a failed marriage and
grant the annulment on the basis of an ill-defined case of “immaturity or psychic weakness”. Cardinal Pell said that if a person is “genuinely and radically immature, that is grounds for annulment. But because a person is a typical 20 or 21-year-old it’s difficult to see how that would be grounds for a declaration that there wasn’t a genuine marriage”.
One Perth priest can recall a tragedy that shocked the Catholic community in Perth in the 1950s.
n By Anthony BarichRottnest parish priest Monsignor John o’shea remembers receiving the dreadful call telling him his mate had died like it was yesterday.
It was the night of January 28, 1959.
the Monsignor, then 34 and assistant parish priest at e ast Fremantle knew Fr Joseph o’Hara and three Presentation sisters had been down south for too long.
Father o’Hara, from Belfast, had been ordained with the-then Fr o’shea in June 1955 at All Hallows College in Dublin.
the call, from Presentation sisters at their convent holiday house by the estuary in Mandurah, made him fear the worst.
“Word came in the middle of the night that the rescue attempt was bungled somewhat,” he said last week, but even as he drove down to the coastal town on his scooter that night, though he was “apprehensive to go down and face it”.
His fears were confirmed when he got there and greeted two local Japanese fishermen from Yunderup, Joe and Alfred okamoto, to learn they has found the bodies of Fr o’Hara, Mother Patricia Lynch, superior of the Presentation sisters in Iona, Mosman Park; Mother Finbarr tarrant, novice Mistress, and sister Joachim Delahunty, only recently professed.
It was believed a stiff breeze came up and, with the boat apparently overloaded, panic had set in, Mgr o’shea recalls.
they had drowned where the dinghy, which the Monsignor coowned with Fr o’Hara, capsized where the serpentine River intersects with the point where the estuary flows out to sea.
the anchor fell into the water and caught fast in the estuarine mud beneath, preventing it from drifting off to shallower water that was probably just metres away.
Mgr o’shea, was the principal celebrant at a special remembrance Mass for 150 people 50 years later on January 28 at our Lady’s Assumption parish in Mandurah.
Perth Vicar General Fr Brian o’Loughlin, a past pupil of Iona Primary and who was taught by Mother Patricia Lynch and prepared for First Confession and First Holy Communion by her, was one of several priests concelebrating.
Also present at the Mass were the two surviving sisters – sr Augustine Goodchild and sr Aquinas McMahon, who were rescued after spending some 18 hours in the water clinging to the upturned fiberglass dinghy.
“ that night of grief and suffering must have seemed interminable to these two valiant sisters,”
said sister Anna Fewer PBVM, the Presentation sisters’ Congregation leader.
Fr o’Hara, the Monsignor remembers, was very keen on education.
“I recall him going up on his scooter – priests rode scooters in those days - to get the leaving results of Iona College from The West Australian newspaper for the benefit of sister Carmel Ryan, the principal at the time,” he says.
Mgr o’shea, now 83, looks back at the event with more than a tinge of sadness, as he maintains the whole thing could have so easily been avoided. But he’s also more philosophical about it now.
“I was quite apprehensive at the turn of events as I knew that they should have been well and truly back home by then.
“some sisters went down to the eastern side of the estuary, others came back, on the return trip they evidently went out and had a
VAtICAn CIt Y (Cns) - Members of turkey’s tiny Catholic minority must be strong in their beliefs and work closely with other turkish Christians to ensure that the faith remains vibrant in the land where st Paul preached and established
picnic and on the return trip this tragedy happened.
“I still feel that it was a tragedy that shouldn’t have happened, but what can you do in God’s providence?” he said. “You accept it as such.”
“I was very concerned (when they had not yet returned), as Fr o’Hara was very responsible, but evidently didn’t know as much about boats. Had he been able to swim he would’ve pulled anchor and drifted out to shallow water. But you can be wiser after an event.”
nevertheless, he says, the Presentation sisters’ loss was greater than that of the Archdiocese. “It affected the whole Catholic community in a big way,” he said.
sister Anna said that over the years the sisters’ perspective on the tragedy has evolved from mourning to a spiritual boon.
“suffering accepted has redemptive power, and the Presentation
some of the world’s earliest Christian communities, Pope Benedict XVI said. Meeting the four bishops of turkey on February 2, the Pope urged them to strengthen their dialogue with other Christians, with the country’s Muslim majority and with the government. the bishops were at the Vatican for their “ad limina” visits to report on the status of their dioceses.
turkey has an estimated population of close to 73 million people, of whom only about 32,000 are Catholic.
sisters see the tragedy, both personally and collectively, in this light,” she said.
“Many blessings emanated from that night. It is undoubtedly only in retrospect that we perceive this reality.”
the funeral was at st Mary’s Cathedral. the Irish ambassador came from Canberra, and the Mass was led by Archbishop Redmond Prendiville.
For Mgr o’shea, however, it was a year of great sadness for more than just the loss of his friend.
His mother was in Perth on a visit at the time, and “very sincerely condoled with me personally as she felt I had suffered a great loss in this fellow priest who was of my own class, and had gone through college with him”, Mgr o’shea said.
she herself lost her life tragically in a motor accident within a year in Perth. Photos: courtesy of the archdiocesan archives of P erth.
the Catholic community is comprised of three Latin-rite jurisdictions, as well as an Armenian Catholic archdiocese and communities of the syrian Catholic and Chaldean Catholic churches.
Pope Benedict said the diversity of the churches in turkey is a reflection of its history, from the establishment of the first Christian communities by st Paul to the presence of saints, theologians and a procession of holy men and women who dedicated their lives to the Gospel. - cns
his flock in such a tragedyn By Anthony Barich
W HIL e the deaths of three Presentation sisters and a diocesan priest caused hearts to be laden with sorrow, it was also an opportunity to reflect on one’s faith, hope and confidence in God’s Will, Archbishop Redmond Prendiville told the Memorial Mass at st Mary’s Cathedral following the event. the four had died after their small boat capsised in the Mandurah estuary on January 28, 1959. two other Presentation sisters survived. even the oldest of the victims was comparatively young, the Archbishop said – the late Mother Patricia was “only 50”. the others ranged in age from 37 to 26. the late Fr Joseph o’Hara was 29. “All, they may say, were in the prime of life,” he said.
“It had pleased God in His own inscrutable design to call them to Himself, to call them from our midst even though the harvest was great and the labourers were few,” said the Archbishop, whose comments were reprinted in The Record at the time.
“And though their hearts that morning were laden with sorrow, they were also full of faith, hope, confidence and resignation to the Will of God and they uttered that fervent fiat, ‘ thy will be done’. the Archbishop said that while Fr o’Hara was only in the Perth diocese for a short time, he made a “deep and lasting impression by his piety, industry, method, dignified bearing and his intellectual attainments which were of high standard”.
He said the three nuns were all “selfless and efficient teachers in the Presentation nuns”. “But even though they were efficient teachers they were above all loyal and devoted Religious.
“May we not confidently hope that they who left homeland, father and mother, left everything dear to them and heeded the call of our Lord to come to Australia, will receive, if they have not already received, the promise related by our Lord in st Matthew, the reward one hundred fold, and receive eternal life.”
Divided in purpose. Small in number. Almost no wins anywhere that anyone can think of. Is it because the pro-life movement suffers from too many chiefs, not enough Indians and...
In 1998, the pro-life movement in Western Australia stared down the barrel of abortion on demand and lost - big time. Like 2008’s legalisation of abortion in Victoria, the ready availability of abortion that had been a practical reality for decades was officially approved by the people’s elected representatives and codified in law.
Yet despite 1998’s loss in WA a wellspring of hope grew up amidst the devastation.
“It is a matter of some pride that the Church and pro-life people grasped this opportunity and conducted a strong and fearless campaign... I have never before experienced such a groundswell
of faith from all sectors of the Church,” said Perth’s Archbishop Barry Hickey at the time.
“Seeds were planted which will one day grow through the power of the Holy Spirit.”
The sentiment was echoed by Dr Ted Watt, then President of the Coalition for the Defence of Human Life, a pro-life umbrella group prominent in 1998’s legislative fight.
“We’re in a better position than we have ever been before to look for new directions and pursue them, he said.
“We have far more people involved and far more enthusiasm than ever before.”
One newspaper report summarised his comment, saying that: “The pro-abortion lobby had woken a “sleeping giant” and would be surprised by events over
the coming months and years.” But in 2009 that “giant” stands divided, separated in organisation, divided by purpose, leadership and approach.
Some welcome the diversity in unity as good for the cause, but others bluntly call the prolife movement’s current divisions practically hopeless in terms of achieving lasting political effect.
With two separate and unaffiliated organisations carrying the name “Right to Life,” several pregnancy crisis centres separated along sectarian lines and a coalition body that has been the subject of constant political wrangling and manouevre, the pro-life movement in WA is an interesting beast to behold.
How did it get this way? Is the situation problematic or ideal? What aims do its proginators think
it should have, moving forward into challenging and ever treacherous future? I spoke to the main actors throughout Perth to find out.
I’m greeted by the kindly face of Peter O’Meara - a 70-plus year old stalwart of the pro-life movement, and the person who gave the prolife movement its first organised presence in Western Australia.
As he shows me into the meeting room of Right to Life WA’s East Perth premises - a federation style house that doesn’t look like it’s had much done to it in the intervening century - I’m struck by his warm, grandfatherly demeanour, his calming voice and his gentle, winning smile.
He’s the sort of man you might hope any woman could encounter if she were “in trouble” and alone.
He’s also been speaking to women, men, students and media about abortion for over 30 years.
In the mid-seventies Peter was a trade union official in Port Hedland when a Victorian couple involved in the pro-life movement invited him round to view some abortion slides.
With an awareness of escalating family breakups across the Pilbara and repeat abortions performed on minors as his motivation, Peter founded Right to Life WA (RTL WA) in 1976 to be an “educative group” delivering talks in schools, writing letters to the media and, from the early 1980s, offering practical help through a “Pregnancy Lifeline” to women and couples experiencing crisis
pregnancy. Peter tells me that the bulk of his organisation’s membership came from the 8,000 people who crowded into Perth’s now defunct Entertainment Centre to hear Mother Teresa of Calcutta speak in 1981. He approached Mother Teresa, agonising over whether to remain a union official or embrace pro-life work full time, wondering how he would survive.
“She asked me ‘What do you think is more important, Peter?’ In my heart, I said, I discerned that right to life was all about the destruction of unborn children. She said ‘You’ve answered your own question. Go and do it. God will provide’.”
Like all of the players in the Perth movement, he says he holds the dignity of human life to be inviolable while speaking of a commensurate need to “make sure the women know that we love them,” and he has the runs on the board to prove it.
However, sitting across from an RTL WA display board featuring images of developing babies and text that looks as if it was assembled some decades ago, it is impossible to avoid the feeling that the organisation’s heady days are behind it.
Although their membership remains significant, Peter says that they are down to four volunteers in the field with five women staffing their pregnancy lifeline.
With dwindling numbers of church goers and a collapse in volunteering more generally, it would seem surprising continued on Vista 1
This column appeared in the November 16 issue of US Catholic weekly Our Sunday Visitor after the election of Barak Obama and was written by Greg Erlandson, president and publisher of the paper.
In this US election campaign, self-identified pro-lifers seemed to spend as much time fighting with each other as they did working to change the course of the nation’s political discussion in a way that truly benefited the unborn.
If the Catholic pro-life movement is to continue as a vital moral force in American society, I believe it should use the months ahead to rethink and renew its strategies. I would suggest five priorities for reflection and consideration.
Priority No. 1: Retell our story. During this election, numerous Catholics seemed ready to throw in the prolife towel because the movement “had not accomplished anything” or because its efforts to roll back abortion were judged a legislative “failure.”
This is demonstrably untrue. In the face of judicial fiat allowing unrestricted access to abortion from conception virtually until birth, the US pro-life movement has won a host of legal and judicial decisions.
Such successes have been incremental, but they have both encouraged and sustained a broader grassroots effort to bear prayerful witness at clinics, aid pregnant women and focus the national discussion on the unseen victim. Against all odds, the pro-life witness has not wavered, and young people are increasingly getting the message.
Part of the problem is that the pro-life movement itself is divided on the value of incremental change, and some pro-lifers - both for ideological and for fundraising reasons - can sound the most negative about what has been accomplished.
Priority No. 2: The pro-life movement must stop putting all its eggs in the Republican basket. Even with control of the White House and Congress, the party did little to restrict abortion until election time rolled around, and some of its most prominent leaders are less than wholehearted in their efforts.
But even acknowledging the many dedicated Republican politicians who are ardently pro-life, it does not serve the pro-life movement well to be the captive interest of a party with many other agendas, some less compatible with Catholic views.
Particularly as new generations are informed about life issues, it is in the best interest of the pro-life movement to have advocates in both parties. Pro-lifers need a much more aggressive strategy for promoting pro-life Democratic candidates and giving voice to the many prolife Democrats who remain in the party.
Priority No. 3: The leaders of many of the traditional pro-life organisations have done a yeoman’s work for decades, and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude. But it has been more than three decades since Roe v. Wade, and there is a need for new pro-life leaders who can seek new strategies and new alliances as the movement moves forward.
Priority No. 4: The US bishops must address their own divisions. They have been a mainstay of the pro-life movement, providing it with intellectual, financial and spiritual support for decades. Yet the past two US elections have called more attention to their own divisions than to the pro-life message they seek to promote.
Executive sessions and carefully worded documents cannot paper over these divisions, particularly when one diocese virtually condemns a candidate and anyone who votes for him while another remains silent or stresses that Catholics are not “single issue.” Catholics themselves can become cynical or confused in this environment, and this does not bode well for the future.
Priority No. 5: The abortion battle has not been lost, but it is unlikely to be won anytime soon either.
This is a multigenerational battle more similar to the abolitionist movement or to the civil rights movement than any other social cause.
Education and personal witness are the keys - an ongoing abortion apologetics in word and deed that testify to our belief that abortion is one critical component of a broad spiritual and social struggle on behalf of human dignity and human rights that we will never give up.
continued from Vista 1 then, that Right to Life WA is not the only pro-life organisation in WA to carry the “Right to Life” name.
The presence of a separate and unaffiliated organisation also calling itself Right to Life in a state with a population of just over two million people is testimony to the way debates and political activity in faroff places can have an impact here.
According to Mr O’Meara, pro-lifers in New South Wales and other states in the 1970s favoured state-based Right to Life organisations while Victorians generally favoured a national organisation with state representation. The Victorian push for a national body lead to the establishment of Right to Life Australia by Melbourne pro-life campaigner Margaret Tighe, whom Mr O’Meara describes as “the odd-one out” in her preference for a national organisation.
WA’s Right to Life Australia representative, Dr Watt, channels his pro-life efforts through the Coalition for the Defence of Human Life (CDHL), a body founded in WA 1987 to coordinate the efforts of seperate pro-life organisations.
Right to Life WA, however, declined to join the new coalition which also became the body leading the charge to defeat the abortion on demand legislation that eventually passed through WA’s Parliament in 1998.
Peter O’Meara, however, says the proliferation of prolife groups and associations stems from ignorance of how Right to Life WA came about as the first organised local prolife group in the state.
“People became interested because of what we were doing,” he explains.
“The fragmentation doesn’t come from the originators. It comes from people who want to do their own thing. They could do that within the context of RTL WA. They didn’t seem to want to do that.”
“Without being critical, I suppose they thought they had more expertise and we think we have a program that is working and will work with groups if they want us to but we won’t negate our own aims and objects in doing so.”
Brian Peachey who says he has “a lot of respect for Peter O’Meara” also has a long record in pro-life activism, recounting
the fight against State Liberal MP Dr Hislop’s attempts to decriminalise abortion in the late 1960s.
In 1987 he co-founded the CDHL to bring separate pro-life entities - Catholic, Protestant and others - together after the Australia Labor Party made free access to abortion part of its party platform.
While the Coalition’s present secretary Dr Ted Watt says that “almost everything positive that is happening is happening through the CDHL,” Brian Peachey, a CDHL co-founder, says the organisation “is almost defunct.” He is also still chairman of the board of Pregnancy
Assistance - the crisis pregnancy centre he helped to establish in 1996 - which is still formally a member of the CDHL.
Pregnancy Assistance was established to carry out Archbishop Barry Hickey’s public pledge that no woman would need to be without assistance when facing a crisis pregnancy and pressued to abort. While Mr Peachey and the CDHL parted ways in 1998 with some acrimony, he remains in favour of cooperation. He thinks division is bad news for the cause. “One of my criticisms for a long time has been the disunity of the prolife movement. Many of the organisations do not with each other and that’s a serious problem,” says, sitting in the front of Pregnancy Assistance’s Lord Street property coordinator Lydia Fernandez. Throughout Australia, the pro-life movement fered from personalities ested primarily in “pontificat ing and making statements... there are egos in this There is constant bitterness Victoria and New South where organisations same name fight each While the charisms specialised work of enct organisations should
Key leaders of WA pro-life movements and their organisations
Richard Egan CDHL, Family Voice Australia
Says the diverse nature of pro-life groups is good and reflecting the principle of subsidiarity. Many groups means many gifts to bring to the pro-life cause.
John Barich Australian Family Association
Sees the lack of unity as equalling a lack of clout, but acknowledges there may be a role for numerous organisations: taking on 12 groups is
Peachey Pregnancy Assistance The reality is that the disunity of the pro-life movement has
“We’re not doing well. We’re losing members because of age and death and we’re not getting new recruits. People don’t like joining up. It’s not succeeding. We’re losing all over the place.”
- John Barich, Australian Family Association
cooperate and I think problem,” he front room Assistance’s property with Fernandez. Australia, he says, movement has sufpersonalities inter“pontificatstatements... business. bitterness in South Wales with the each other.” charisms and of differshould be
respected, the pro-life movement would have greater power and influence speaking
...the pro-life movement has suffered from personalities interested primarily in “pontificating and making statements... there are egos in this business.”
- Brian Peachy, Pregnancy Assistance
to parliamentarians and policy makers with one, united voice, Mr Peachey says.
“Politicians are not con-
There is more cooperation than working against each other in WA’s pro-life movement , says Dwight Randall. “We tend to be on the same page more often than not.”
Australian Family Association
An advocacy group dedicated to defence of the family and the dignity of the human person, including the right to life. The AFA agitates for family friendly policies through parliamentary submissions, grass roots advocacy and liaising with media. Founded in 1980 by BA Santamaria. Tel: 9277 1644
Coalition for the Defence of Human Life
Founded in 1987 by Brian Peachey and d wight randall, the CdHL acts as a clearing house for its 11 prolife member-organisations, providing a vehicle for collective action. d wight randall (founder of Pregnancy Problem House) is its current president, Ted Watt (right to Life Australia) is its secretary and richard egan (Family Voice Australia) its treasurer.
Helpers of God’s Precious Infants established in 1997, a group of trained volunteers who witness outside abortion clinics in Midland, rivervale and Balcatta every week. Between 50 - 60 volunteers involved. Founded by nurse Helen Sawyer, its present coordinator.
Pregnancy Assistance
An independent organisation providing emotional and practical assistance - counselling, free pregnancy testing, baby goods and financial help - to women experiencing an unexpected pregnancy. Lydia Fernandez is the organisation’s present manager. Founded by its current chairman Brian Peachey in 1996. in 2007-08, Pregnancy Assistance received 1335 calls for assistance, including 80 seeking accomodation, 514 for help with furniture or baby clothes, 74 for financial help and others needing aemotional, moral and spiritual support. Tel 9328 2929 web www.pregnancyassistance.org. au
cerned about one or two organisations yapping at them, but when they see an organisation with 23 different names on the letterhead, that’s a different ball game.”
The State President of the Australian Family Association, John Barich, says the current situation has its positives and negatives, but agrees that a movement united under one leadership would have greater political clout. On the other hand, there might also be merit in the idea that “the pro-abortionists have 12 targets to deal with instead of one.”
Having so many organisations working in the field, how-
Dr Ted Watt CDHL, Right to Life Australia
Those who promote the ‘pro-woman’ focus can come across as though they’ve just invented the wheel, says Ted Watt, asking ‘who else was running pro-life centres from the beginning?’
Peter O’Meara Right to Life WA
ever, might seem to go against the grain.
As businesses worldwide seek to rationalise in response to dwindling prospects, what sense does it make for the prolife movement to duplicate infrastructure while continuing to exist on separate shoe-string budgets as well as overlapping and competing memberships?
The problem is more acute when considering that the primary pro-life recruiting base of practicing Christians has been devastated in recent decades. Fewer than 51,000 Catholics were counted as attending Mass on Sundays in the archdiocese of Perth in 2006, in
Right To Life paved the way, says Peter O’Meara, but other organisations didn’t seem to want to operate within the context of his organisation - hence the fragmentation.
Lydia Fernandez Pregnancy Assistance
The pro-life message cannot be just about saving the baby, says Pregnancy Assistance’s Lydia Fernandez. “It’s about loving the woman and loving the baby.”
1992 the figure was somewhere between 65-68,000.
I put this question to Richard Egan, strategist and current treasurer of the CDHL which these days has 11 member organisations - less than half its 23-member peak in 1998.
Mr Egan says that the existence of separate local groups is consistent with the Catholic social teaching principle of Subsidiarity, the idea that the smallest organisation capable of doing the job should be given the task in preference to larger overarching monopolies, and the need for specialisation in pro-life work.
Continued on Vista 4
Angela Lecomber Walking with Love
Walking with Love is not a WA organisation, but was established by the nation’s Catholic bishops. It’s central message? The womb really is the place where life begins, she says.
Pregnancy Problem House independent organisation founded by ordained Church of Christ minister, d wight randall in 1986, to provide a vehicle through which evangelical protestants could offer practical help to women and families. Provides counselling, medical and emotional support as well as antenatal training. Tel 9344 8110 web www. pregnancyproblemhouse.org/
Founded in Victoria in 1973 by prominent pro-life campaigner Margaret Tighe. i t lobbies governments at the federal and state level in a range of life ethics areas - abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research and cloning, amongst others. Has representatives in most states. Ted Watt is the organisations WA representative. Tel: 1300 734 175
The first organised prolife organisation in Western Australia, founded in 1976 by Peter o’Meara. runs a pregnancy helpline and provides practical and emotional support to women, couples and families experiencing crisis pregnancy. Has a membership of approximately 1500.
Tel: 9221 7117
Respect Life Office established in 2003 by Claire Pike in conjunction with Archbishop Barry Hickey to promote the Gospel of Life. Convenes annual embrace the Grace conference. Current executive o fficer is Bronia Karniewicz. Tel 9375 2029.
Abortion is available at the request of the woman up to 20 weeks gestation, provided she has given informed consent.
The counselling requirements for informed consent are spelled out in Section 334 of the Health Act. There are additional requirements for informed consent with respect to dependent minors.
After 20 weeks gestation, the performance of the abortion must be approved by a medical panel appointed by the Minister for Health and it must be carried out in an approved facility...
In 2005, there were 7828 induced abortions reported in WA, and the rate of induced abortion was 18.2 per 1000 women of reproductive age (15-44 years). There has been a slight downward trend in the abortion rate since 2002; this trend continued in 2005. An estimate of the proportion of pregnancies ending in induced abortion (abortion proportion) indicates that approximately 23% of pregnancies resulted in termination.
Induced abortions occur across the reproductive age range, with women in their twenties having the highest abortion rates. In 2005, there was a slight increase in abortion rates among women in their early twenties (30.9 in 2004 increased to 32.4 in 2005) and a decrease among women in their late twenties (24.5 in 2004 decreased to 23.0 in 2005). As might be expected, the groups with the highest proportion of pregnancies being terminated are those at the extremes of reproductive age (teenagers and women over 40), and this trend continued in 2005. More than half the pregnancies in WA teenagers were terminated.
The mean age of women having an induced abortion in 2005 was 26.4 years (with a standard deviation of 7.32), unchanged from the mean age in previous years...
Consistent with previous years, over 90% of induced abortions in WA took place in the first three months of pregnancy and were carried out by vacuum aspiration (suction curettage), the accepted method of surgical abortion...
Comparing the rates of induced abortion in WA with other state and national figures, the 2005 WA rates (18.2 per 1000) are somewhat higher than those in South Australia (15.9 per 1000, 2004) but they are comparable with national estimates (19.7 per 1000, 2003).
Excerpted from Straton J, Godman K, Gee V, & Hu Q. (2006). Induced abortion in Western Australia 1999-2005. Report of the WA Abortion Notification System. Department of Health. Perth, Western Australia.
Continued from Vista 3
“I think it’s a good Catholic principle really, a biblical principal that there are lots of different gifts, lots of different parts of the Body and lots of different things to be done,” Mr Egan says. “I wouldn’t be good at crisis pregnancy couselling but I have a gift for analysing legislation and drawing up submissions to government inquiries. And I’m sure that for some of my friends that’s the last thing they’d want to be doing.”
Bronia Karniewicz, the Executive Officer of the Archdiocese of Perth’s Respect Life Office agrees: “Everyone’s doing their own little bits but they come together when it’s important,” she says recalling cooperation between groups last year during the previous Labor Government’s attempt to legalise prostitution; an attempt they very nearly defeated.
But for some of WA’s pro-life leaders the question of whether the movement should be united is irrelevant because, they say, the simple reality is that it isn’t and is not likely to be.
“It’s not the sort of movement that lends itself to a single organisation with a single approach - which is beside the point because you’re not going to get those things anyway,” says the RTL Australia and CDHL’s Dr Ted Watt.
The large number of pro-life groups in Australia is similar to the situation found in most Western countries and is a natural function of differences in personalities and the directions that different leaders think the movement should be taking.
“In this world, if you think about the sort of people who join and take part, they’re people like Margaret Tighe,” he says, referring to the founder of the national organisation he represents in WA. Such people, he says, are “intelligent, opinionated, articulate, and not interested in coming to compromise positions with anybody; if they weren’t like that they’d probably do something that was less like hard work. I think that’s true everywhere.”
Dwight Randall, founder of the crisis pregnancy centre Pregnancy Problem House and an ordained Church of Christ minister agrees:
“It’s the reality. I don’t know that there are all that many groups and I think there is more cooperation rather than working against each other; we tend to be on the same page more often than not,” he says.
“It could be that they represent different groups to begin with and they reach different groups. Could they be melded? No. Should they be? No. Do they all do good things? Yes,”
Mr Randall says.
“It does mean duplication but that also makes the whole thing work.”
Referring to the obvious dividing lines between his organisation and others run by Catholics, he says it would make sense for Protestants and Catholics to run agencies together “if we had one true Church and nothing else.”
“But we don’t, do we?”
But of all the points of division between pro-life organisations, differences in theology would seem the most benign.
When Dwight Randall decided to create a pro-life ministry for fellow evangelical Protestants in Perth in the mid-1980s he turned to a Catholic, Peter O’Meara, and Right to Life WA, for advice. A decade later, Brian Peachey sought the same know-how from Mr Randall prior in setting up Pregnancy Assistance in 1996.
Mr Peachey in turn has assisted Mr Randall’s Pregnancy Problem House, helping him to find new sites for the organisation when councils have sought its relocation.
The crisis pregnancy centres they operate continue to see thousands of women every year providing pregnancy testing, couselling, financial support and the affirmation that the continuation of their pregnancies is possible.
Quite apart from questions of organisation, local pro-lifers are also divided in the approach they take to combating abortion, down to the way way they talk about the issue and in their political targets.
A debate that has raged amongst prolifers worldwide since the mid-1990s has long since found its way to Australian shores. The debate is between those who favour a primary emphasis on the child and those who adopt a ‘new’ pro-woman approach to the issue of unwanted pregnancy.
Traditionally, the pro-life movement focussed on the right to life of the child,
trying to convince the public at large, individual women and couples of the humanity of the unborn. Winning this argument, it was believed, would generate widespread opposition to abortion.
But in Australia, this has not transpired. A 2004 study conducted by the Adelaide-based Sexton Marketing Group on behalf of the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute found that whereas 58 per cent of respondents said the unborn child or foetus constituted a person - a statistic the pro-life movement can count as a
...we need to be able to match it with the sort of PR campaigns that our opponents put together. The truth by itself is not sufficient. The pro-life camp need to be politically savvy.” -
Senior Pro-life Strategistsuccess - 70 per cent of participants believed that legal access to abortion should remain.
In a seminal article published in the respected Catholic journal First Things in 1998, Paul Swope, the director of a network of pregnancy crisis centres across the US argued that the traditional pro-life focus on the child was a colossal turn-off for the majority of women.
“We have made the error of assuming that women, especially those facing the trauma of an unplanned pregnancy, will respond to principles we see as self-evident within our own moral framework, and we have presented our arguments accordingly,” Swope wrote then.
“This is a miscalculation that has fatally handicapped the pro-life cause.”
Research conducted by his organisation, he argued, revealed that most women view the choice of whether to continue with an unplanned pregnancy as one between the child’s death or their own: “either “my life is over” or “the life of this new child is over.””
The child focus of the traditional movement has engendered resentment among the majority of women, he argued, who perceive the movement as “uncaring and judgemental.”
According to Bridget McKenna, Policy Officer of the Archdiocese of Sydney’s Life Office, the common assertion of pro-woman approaches is that “most women neither want nor benefit from abortion - that most women do not really ‘choose’ abortion but are pressured into it by others, only to experience a range of negative physical and pyschological effects after abortion.”
In practical terms, this manifests itself in an emphasis on the negative effects that abortion may have on women, on emotional and practical support for women experiencing crisis pregnancies and on post-abortive healing initiatives.
Like its national peers in Sydney and Melbourne, Perth’s Respect Life Office has been a bastion of this approach.
The office was set up in 2003 to undertake the rather fluid task of building “an authentic civilisation of truth and love.”
Executive Officer, Bronia Karniewicz, describes their approach:
“We really do need to focus on the woman
to support her to make the decision not to have an abortion but it is her decision fundamentally - we can’t change her mind and force her to do anything - but we can help support her to make the right choice.”
Lydia Fernandez, the Coordinator of Pregnancy Assistance shares that view:
“It’s understanding the person that’s involved; the woman herself who is thinking “what am I going to do?” Why is she even contemplating abortion? It’s not just because it’s legal and she can go to a clinic,” Ms Fernandez says.
“What is she actually going through? What are her circumstances and what support is there for her? It’s not just about saving the baby. It’s loving the woman and loving the baby.”
Perth’s pro-life veterans say they welcome the approach as one of many, while staying wedded to the traditional movement’s primary concern: the right of the unborn child to survive and come to life.
Richard Egan explains in reference to Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical, Evangelium Vitae:
“That’s certainly the prime way I think that Evangelium Vitae approaches the question; a moral, social and legal question that involves the right to life of the child,” Mr Egan says.
“The reality, though, is that the unborn child is living its life for the time being within the womb of its mother and so obviously any approach to protect the life of the unborn child has to in some way pass through the woman.”
“I think it’s always been a part of the pro-life movement but I think some elements in the movement have, usefully and very creatively, developed what they call a ‘pro-woman’ focus. They’ve not talked a lot about the rights of the unborn child but focused on the abortion decision itself, explaining notions like the lack of choice in the abortion decision.”
Some pro-life leaders, however, clearly resent the implication, explicit or inferred, that concern for the welfare of women is a new development in the movement.
“My only real objection to them is that they do sometimes come across as though they had only just invented the wheel,” says the CDHL’s Ted Watt referring to pro-woman advocates nationally.
“If people are convinced that this approach really is new and that before that the traditional movement had no interest in the women, well, who’s been running these crisis pregnancy centres for all these years.”
Ms Karniewicz says that while she does not doubt the care and concern that prolifers have given practical expression to for many decades, she says a language capable of expressing empathy with women is a recent development.
“Why have women felt so judged and disconnected from the Church when they’ve been through that experience? Pro-life groups have done a great job and people aren’t trying to take over, they’re just trying to add something new to what our culture is today, and that’s important. We need to add to what’s been happening.”
Some pro-life veterans worry that some
incarnations of the pro-woman approach sail dangerously close to complicity in crowding out discussion of the unborn child by focusing exclusively on the negative effects abortion may have on the mother.
They see at as risking buying into the “choice” mentality, that the only thing that matters in decision making is the effect it will have on the decision maker.
“I think there are some newcomers to the movement, although not so much in Perth, who have mistakenly thought that the pro-woman emphasis should override or lead to a minimisation of talking about the life of the unborn child. I think it’s very mistaken to think that the two things are mutually exclusive,” Richard Egan says.
“If all that we are saying is that abortion is very bad for women, well that’s one thing, but then smoking is very bad for women also and we want to say something more than that. We want to say that abortion is, in every case, wrong because it takes the life of an innocent human being.”
However Bronia Karniewicz says that the intention of authentically pro-woman, pro-life approaches is not to diminish the status of the child as a person in their own right.
“Sometimes, some people see prowoman approaches as forgetting the unborn and forgetting that that’s murder, but it’s not. It’s just changing the focus slightly because we don’t want any woman to feel ostracised by the Church either but instead that she is loved by God and needs forgiveness.”
Despite some very definite points of disagreement, all of those I spoke to agreed there was a place for both approaches.
“I think there’s got to be a mutual respect between those whose primary focus is highlighting the harm to women and those whose focus is primarily on highlighting the human rights abuse against innocent human beings: the unborn child,” says Richard Egan.
Challenges and the Bishops’ response
Wanting a perspective from outside of Western Australia I spoke on condition of anonymity to one senior strategist in pro-life politics; somebody on the east coast who has followed the fortunes of the pro-life movement since the late 1970s.
Apart from the essential ongoing job of offering help to unexpectedly pregnant women, he sees the main challenge as being one of changing public opinion.
He says the days of a “winner takes all” approach to politicking are over.
“In the last 30 years our entire political strategy has been futile, we haven’t had one lasting significant victory on the east coast,” he says, referring to the
“punishment politics” approach of trying to unseat pro-abortion MPs and of refusing to negotiate compromises on abortion bills that were, on voting numbers, a fait accompli.
“I think its quite important that if we are going to have any success at all it must be based on research. We do have to know where the community is.”
“In addition, we need to be able to match it with the sort of PR campaigns that our opponents put together. The truth by itself is not sufficient. The prolife camp need to be politically savvy.”
“There is no point if all we get is a warm inner glow,” he says bluntly.
Pro-life groups must bring the community with them. With a diminishing base of membership, political success is out of reach without impacting public opinion.
“Unless you educate the community you won’t go anywhere. If you want politicians to change laws we have to be able to claim that we have some community support.”
“We are called to walk with love, we are called to respond better; 60 per cent of people do not know where to go and where to start,” - Angela Lecomber, Walking With Love
John Barich of WA’s Australian Family Association branch says that whatever pro-lifers do, they have to try something different.
“We’re not doing well. We’re losing members because of age and death and were not getting new recruits. People don’t like joining up. It’s not succeeding. We’re losing all over the place.”
Will Australia’s bishops show the lead?
In 2007, the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference Taskforce on Pastoral Responses to Abortion set about ensuring that Catholics at least had the practical understanding they need to make a difference in the concrete situations around them.
The Walking With Love initiative was what eventuated - a series of symposiums throughout Australia and an accompanying DVD resource with three areas of focus:
l Pregnancy counselling: assisting women to make good decisions
l Practical assistance to women during pregnancy and after birth
l Post abortion healing: to embrace those who are suffering after an abortion.
Angela Lecomber, Walking With Love’s Project Officer, says that the initiative is about popularising the pro-life effort, empowering lay people “to make abortion unthinkable” by providing many different avenues of support.
“We are called to walk with love, we
are called to respond better; 60 per cent of people do not know where to go and where to start,” Ms Lecomber says.
“Persuasion is all about changing hearts. There are many ways to access people and some people are persuaded by one approach or another, but the central message is that the womb is a sacred place where life begins.”
“If you want to be radically pro-life you must support the woman who is carrying that life. In any way you can.”
The Walking With Love initiative has received support from Pregnancy Assistance and the Respect Life Office locally in WA, with most other WA prolifers that I spoke to saying that they recognised its value.
The initiative is not designed to reach the mass market however and does not feature a popular advertising campaign.
In the wake of the 1998 defeat, the late WA independent MP Phillip Pendal called for a summit to draw up an action plan, part of which would be to ensure the better use of media, describing pro-life efforts in that area as “positively amateurish.”
With an explosion of new media in the past decade and escalating advertising costs, in 2009 it remains to be seen whether the myriad of pro-life organisations in Western Australia are up to that task.
Prolife websites of Perth Groups:
Coalition for the Defence of Human Life - no website
Pregnancy Assistance
http://www.pregnancyassitance.org.au
Right to Life Federation
http://www.righttolife.asn.au/
Right to Life (Ted Watt)
http://www.righttolife.com.au/
Pregnancy Problem House
http://www.pregnancyproblemhouse.org/
Australian Family Association
http://www.family.org.au. Under Construction
National Civic Council
http://www.newsweekly.com.au/index.html
Walking with love
http://www.walkingwithlove.org.au/ Perthcatholic as a gateway to PA www.perthcatholic.org.au
Family Voice Australia (Richard Egan) http://fava.org.au
n By Darren Sproats
Harnessing the power of the internet is something that most pro-life organisations have yet to learn.
A 17-year-old girl discovers she is pregnant. She is no longer dating her boyfriend and feels scared and alone. Rather than turn to her parents for advice and support, she logs onto Google and searches for ‘unplanned pregnancy’. The websites she finds will heavily influence whether or not she continues with her pregnancy.
What is the outcome of her searching? At the time of writing, not one of the websites presented will encourage her to keep her unborn child. In fact, seven of the first ten results are links to abortion providers or websites supported by pro-choice organisations (eg, Marie Stopes International). Similar results are produced for searches on ‘abortion help’ and ‘abortion information’.
Pro-choice organisations are vitally aware of the importance of the internet in a pregnant woman’s decision making process. For example, Marie Stopes International opened their online ‘abortion information chat service’ after feedback showed that “when it comes to seeking out information on sexual health services, women have nominated the internet as their second preferred avenue for information after their GP.”
As it stands today, the pro-choice movement is winning the abortion war. By moving with the times and harnessing the power of the internet, these organisations are ensuring their message is heard.
Regaining Lost Ground: Investing Online
For pro-life organisations, a dramatic shift in campaigning priorities is required. It is no longer enough to simply publish a template-driven website, created by an untrained operator, and then direct all attention to ‘taking action on the streets’. Funds need to be invested online, which one could say is now the ‘frontline’ in this war against abortion.
First impressions count: Design is important
Firstly, the website. To be taken seriously, the site should have an appealing design and provide informative content that is easy to navigate. It is recommended that a professional designer be engaged for the initial development. A professional, custom website can be acquired for as little as $1000-$2000 (depending on the number of pages required). It will likely be the most ‘influential’ campaigning investment the organisation ever makes.
Be Visible in Google: Implement Basic SEO Techniques
Secondly, if the website is to have any chance of being effective, it must rank highly in the major search engines - namely, Google, Yahoo! and nineMSN. Of these, Google is by far the most important with 88% of the search market in Australia.
Many pro-choice organisations are well funded (e.g. GetUp.org.au and Emily’s List). They therefore have the advantage of being able to commission professional Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) firms. However, it is still possible for non-profit, pro-life organisations to rank well if they focus on implementing optimisation techniques found by searching Google.
In this digital age, a high ranking website is worth thousands of flyers or placards. To remain relevant, pro-life organisations must start directing a significant proportion of campaign funds to online initiatives - starting with a professional website that is carefully structured to rank highly in Google.
To an extent I’m often in a state of prayer. When you’re thinking consciously about things, I’d call that prayer. I am an electrical engineer and when things go wrong, I often think to myself, “Please let this work.” It helps me begin problem solving.
If the problem is with a colleague, I usually consult a friend without mentioning names. It gives me another perspective. I often try to tap into this perspective when I reflect and pray about the issue at hand.
I was a special minister in high school. After that I became an Acolyte because I wanted to serve the Church and my parish further. Through being an Acolyte I find I can pray at a much deeper level during Mass, than when I’m with the family or friends. I find I’m able to ‘zone in’ on the Word and Father’s words. This helps me apply them to my own life. I find I get more out of the Mass if I play an active role.
with Debbie Warrier
Everyday I ask myself, “What does my faith mean to me?” Some days I feel I could die for my faith. Other days I feel I’ve come up against a brick wall. It’s so dynamic, constantly growing and evolving. It is very precious to me. I feel like I have achieved something spiritually so far. However, there is so much more to learn.
Some people find their faith goes out the door when the realities of the material world hit them. They don’t seek the answers to life’s questions.
Yet these are the questions that God can answer for you, if you let Him. Recently I attended the Theology of the Body course which helped put a number of things into a neat little box and answer some of those deeper questions.
I realise now that God is Love and understand what love between humans could ideally be like. It’s helped realign my goals in this area.
My parish youth group and I went to WYD08. Our faith has grown deeper as a result. At WYD08 there was this young boy who was rebellious and mischievous.
We were going to the Stations of the Cross at the main docks and had got separated from the main group with a few others. He started punching the air and he accidentally hit me in the nose.
I grabbed his fist, looked him straight in the eye and said, “Don’t do that again!” It was like I had this connection with him. He stopped showing off and took my hand so that together we could get to the docks safely. We joined hands with the others too because the crowd was so intense and fast moving.
I guess it was amazing because I began to understand what Christ had done when he was leading His disciples. It was as though I was seeing the Gospel fulfilled. It was an amazingly warm experience. In that split second the boy had grown up and was a bit wiser then he was before.
During the Stations of the Cross I could only see the top of the Cross coming through the crowds. However, I could hear the sound of the Cross scraping against the bitumen floor and it made the hairs on my back stand up.
That was all I needed to make it feel real. debwarrier@hotmail.com
It is funny how apparently unrelated things can all speak to you of the same reality. A page in The Australian recently (January 8) illustrated eloquently the tragic consequences of denying who and what we are, with a big article about Shere Hite’s latest book The Hite Report on Women Loving Women, a piece by satirist AA Gill about embracing our ancient heritage as fur wearers; and an unretouched photo of Australian actress Naomi Watts, looking not like an airbrushed doll but like a real woman with minimal make-up and showing a few lines and shine, like the rest of us.
These three disparate stories all refer ultimately to our loss of connection with our cultural and social heritage, and our very sense of human identity.
Shere Hite writes this time for women growing older and living alone. She is desperately seeking a satisfactory solution for the deep loneliness of these single women. First she comes up with some hokey pop psychology about mothers being to blame for their children’s inability to consistently be a loving, giving and committed partner in a relationship, (why not blame us for that as well as everything else?).
But the fact remains that whatever the cause of this unprecedented number of unattached women, whether marital breakdown, inability or disinterest in committing to permanent relationships, or never having met anyone desirable enough to marry, it has obviously turned out to be less than ideal for many women.
Poor Shere rattles about seeking new ways of ameliorating that loneliness that she seems to vaguely feel some responsibility for having a hand in caus-
ing. She appears, sadly, to have given up on men (it still seems to be a battle for dominance to old Shere) as the possible answer to women’s loneliness by this time, telling women that they ought to be looking to their female friends for love and support. It is so sad that she, and the thousands of women of her ilk, have had to discover the hard way that if you smash down traditional institutions and social mores, like monogamous marriage, fidelity, chastity before marriage, you actually hurt women more than men.
If you destroy the complex network of social relationships based around the strong family unit, people will be lonely, unhappy and disconnected.
She is searching rather ineffectually for new ways of finding intimacy with others that still enable the individual to remain autonomous. Perhaps she should be looking back instead, to try to understand what has gone so wrong and to try to reconnect to our quite recent past to see why it appeared to work so well for so long. She could, in fact do worse than take to heart AA Gill’s exhortation to ignore the PETA terrorists and embrace fur as part of our natural, ancient heritage.
Though he speaks with the satirist’s voice, yet he makes a salient point –technology cannot take the place of
our human heritage, and we should embrace anew a love and reverence for the real and natural rather than the laboratory produced. This applies as much to human social organisation and reproduction as it does to fur.
Just as Gill has found synthetic no substitute for seal, so too are we finding that it is not so easy to replace with a test tube or tablet that requires no love or commitment, the authentic human experiences of committed and selfless love to be found in strong families that were so organic to society that they were wrongly thought to be easily dispensed with. Which brings us to Naomi Watts, who was not afraid to be photographed as she is, an attractive woman with the normal little bits of human wear and tear one would expect to have at her age.
What was so striking about it is that you actually notice she has a few little lines; ten or fifteen years ago it wouldn’t have been a talking point that a mature woman looked like precisely that; but in these days of plastic perfection and photoshop magic, a normal looking female actor or model is worth remarking upon.
We are beginning to hear the questions – now what about the answers? Happy New Year.
Catherine Parish - production@therecord.com.au
There is a moment in John Patrick Shanley’s play Doubt when the fixated nun (Sister Aloysius) rounds on her quarry (Father Flynn) and admonishes him: “And cut your fingernails”.
It is a climactic moment, coming at the close of an intense sequence. The audience has witnessed the headmistress and the priest wrangling – him obliquely, she always crisp and direct –about the possibility of child sex abuse in their school.
Father Flynn’s fingernails, suddenly so prominent in the sequence, serve as a hook. On that exquisite detail, Shanley hangs all the contradictory, ambiguous, disquieting attributes that coalesce around his highly complex characters. When I saw the play on Broadway, at the Walter Kerr Theatre, Brian F O’Byrne’s Father Flynn was a working class hero in a dog collar. Here was a reassuring presence, a masculine foil. He was used to full effect in the scenes with delicate boys and Shanley’s vacillating younger nun (Sister James).
The more disquieting scenes, where the character first shows his fingernails to a group of miffed boys, where he tells them that “I wear them a little long… but that’s okay, because I keep them clean” - came as a creepy shock.
In Shanley’s new film Doubt, Philip Seymour Hoffman takes a different route. His Father Flynn is physically rounder, certainly, but he is also softer around the emotional edges. When we first see Father Flynn’s fingernails in the
film, then, they seem of-a-piece with his general moral construction.
Why? Primed by Meryl Streep’s Aloysius – who thinks Frosty The Snowman is heretical, and the use of ballpoint pens, inter alia, a sign of the decline of civilisation – the detail certainly seems to provoke our worst suspicions… but of what, exactly?
This question has intrigued me since seeing the play in 2005.
It came back to me while watching the slightly inferior film.
What does such a detail, a priest’s longer-than-average fingernails, mean to us?
Certainly, when contrasted with the vim, and the strictness of Aloysius, Flynn’s fingernails speak of laxity, flabbiness, and what the nun repeatedly characterises as an ill wind. This wind, those fingernails, the “it” that she breathes in the heartbreaking line: “so it’s happened” referring to the sexual abuse of a boy at the Catholic school – are tied up with the great upheavals of the sexual liberation, and the historical period that Francis Fukuyama has called the Great Disruption.
Audiences resonate to such nuances because they align with our experiences.
As Catholics, attuned to mystery and sign, even a minor detail appears to hold outsized influence.
The length of a priest’s fingernails, then, especially a certain kind of priest’s fingernails, can suggest alarming things about his moral character.
I cannot believe I’ve just written that line, but it must be true. How else to parse the peculiar genius of Doubt?
It seems right, of course, to suggest that the detail only has force because of its associations with effeminacy: Father Flynn’s fingernails are prissy. Effeminacy in males has, since ancient times, been associated in literature and art with urbanity, transgression, and decadence.
Beyond that, there is the association, easy to make, and often confirmed and celebrated by homoactivists and bigots alike, of effeminacy with homosexuality.
It is not much of a leap, from there, to discern a specious link between homosexuality and ephebophilia / paedophilia, but that leap is not made in Doubt.
Rather, Father Flynn’s fingernails work so evocatively because they give the audience a grip on all of these whirling impressions, without alighting on any one explanation for his suspect behaviour. The impressions build a picture in the mind, and the picture seems to confirm, or at least suggest, a link between Flynn’s relative doctrinal leniency, odd personal hygiene, his sexual inclinations, and his complicity (or otherwise) in evil.
This interplay, and the ambivalence
British atheists have paid to have buses carry advertisements saying:
“There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Professor of Atheism Richard Dawkins, a geneticist by training, is a major supporter of this campaign and has put quite a lot of his own money into it (a much humbler figure, a bus-driver, has possibly made a bigger sacrifice by refusing to drive buses bearing the message, but that’s another story).
Writing in the Daily Express, former Conservative government minister and Catholic Ann Widdecombe has remarked that this advertisement is somewhat baffling. She says: “To most believers that is baffling because the existence of God is the main reason why we do enjoy our lives and expect to go on enjoying life, in a different form, for all eternity, but let us lay that aside and concentrate on other aspects of this very odd message.
“What exactly are we to stop worrying about? And what is the joy that belief kills? Presumably the answer to the first is judgment and the second is undue indulgence. In other words this advertisement is urging a society already steeped in selfishness, materialism and cheap celebrity towards even greater hedonism and moral anarchy … No real joy is banned by belief. What is prohibited is lack of restraint: casual and promiscuous sex, obsession with money and drunkenness, but not healthy relationships, material well-being and a glass or two of wine … the essence of the message is ‘lay aside conscience and do what you like.’ But even non-believers recognise that if we lived by the Ten Commandments, life for all would be better. If my neighbour believes ‘Thou shall not steal’ I can leave my door open. The bus campaign… is advocating a selfish lifestyle at a time when we all need the opposite.”
These are words worth thinking about.
If, as C S Lewis said in The Weight of Glory, we believe that we and our neighbours were created by God to live forever, we will treat ourselves and one another differently. But it actually goes further than this. If Man had in the past taken to heart the injunction that “There’s probably no God,” not only would there be no hope of eternal Salvation, and no fixed ground for morality, but there would also be no art, science or civilisation.
Our Western art grew from our religion and a striving to illuminate and understand Mankind’s relationship with God. Belief produced Michelangelo’s Pieta and the Sistine Chapel, Leonardo’s The Last Supper, the great Cathedrals of Europe, the works of Dante, Shakespeare, Mozart, Bach, and virtually every great masterpiece. Modern atheist art has produced the pickled cows and sharks of Damien Hirst and, in literature, the mumblings and ravings of Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, attempts to illustrate a meaningless world. Socrates and Plato, Pagans but believers in a God, laid the foundations of Western philosophy. Atheism produced the meaninglessness and worse of Sartre, spiritual father of the Pol Pot Genocide, as
atheism produced Communism in general, responsible for about 100 million deaths and ruined lives beyond count.
Further, Western sciences and technology are the products of Judaism and Christianity, the one religious tradition which welcomed and exhalted Reason, as it exhalted Art, for the Greater Glory of God.
The first industrialisation of Europe, with water-wheels replacing slaves driven by the lash, was the work of monks. Monks also put books into their modern form, replacing scrolls, and making possible printing. They instituted public clocks and raised agriculture to a science.
They preserved the heritage of the classical world through the Dark Ages: the art and science of Greece and the technology of Rome (previously, when in ancient times civilisations had fallen, all the small store of knowledge which they had painfully scraped together had been lost with them – the Greeks of Homer’s time and of classical antiquity had not the faintest idea that civilisations had existed in the Mediterranean before them). The monks of Europe were responsible for not only innumerable inven-
it sets up in the audience – people are usually split on the question of Flynn’s guilt – is a miraculous achievement of art.
It is also deeply troubling, even hard to take because, like Aloysius, we think we know what evil looks like. In its vanity, in its decadence, in its self-satisfaction we recognise its cruel vigour. We know it beyond the shadow of a doubt. We doubt its
claims. And yet, like the Aloysius of other interpretations, too often we go off half-cocked, and we mistake our emotional certainty for objective proof of wrongdoing. Still, any of us can become “crippled by doubt”. When we do this, we risk making room in our Churches for those who would equivocate over shameful acts. How to proceed? Because virtue is a habit, we
can – as it were - start by cutting our fingernails.
But we can also pray for hardy moral heroes after the model of Sister Aloysius, and we can pray for the courage to doubt ourselves.
Sometimes, in some situations, when we have no hard evidence, and no clear direction, making it any easier than that would invite moral hazard.
tions but for their application to improve life. At Glastonbury in England and elsewhere the monks pioneered metallurgy. There is strong archeological evidence that at the time when Henry VIII destroyed the English monasteries the monks of Britain had begun to develop blast-furnaces. The Church set up and nurtured the University system to not only preserve but, for the first time, to accumulate knowledge, lifting Mankind for the first and only time above the “ceiling” of slave-labour, animal-power and sails, and, eventually, above an average life-expectancy of about 30 years.
Professor Dawkins’s own discipline of genetics was created by Gregor Mendel, a 19th Century Abbott. It was the glory of God that inspired and drove onwards Copernicus, Newton, Boyle, Max Planck and countless other great scientists, as well as, later, the lay preacher Buzz Aldrin. Adam Smith, the great genius who founded modern economics, said relatively little about religion, but he said enough, including on his death-bed, to show he believed.
The Catholic Church was, for most of history, a greater patron of Astronomy than all other institutions combined, for it took knowledge seriously.
It was a Catholic Priest who discovered the asteroid Ceres in 1800 and made Palermo, a backward Sicilian village, into one of the world’s greatest observatories, and another Catholic priest who was responsible for probably the greatest astronomical discovery possible to be made: the Big Bang.
It is still the church as an institution – far more, I think, than any atheistic scientists –which stands against the coming together of bad religion, bad reason and bad science in the so-called “New Age.”
There was, as Chesterton put it, a certain inevitability in the fact that the civilization which believed in the Trinity also discovered steam. One of the great ironies of atheism is that by denying God it insults Man. Atheists often call themselves “humanists,” but it is religious belief that is the only true humanism, for it is only religious belief that holds Man is something more than dust, and holds the human brain to be more than a chance assembly of atoms.
For another odd thing is that if you believe in God, you get belief in Man added in.
News Servive serves
nEW YoRK (CnS) - at the start of the new year, and with the academy awards fast approaching, the office for Film & Broadcasting takes its annual look back at the past year in movies, singling out the worthiest for commendation. as it happens, not all the choices correspond to those of the oscar folks and the other seasonal awardgivers. naturally, in addition to artistic excellence, each film needs to be evaluated for its overriding spiritual and moral values, as well as how it presents the characters’ ethical choices.
Since most of the top 10 are adult viewing - or at least for older teens and up - the office has also compiled a top 10 list of familyfriendly fare. Those choices follow the primary list.
The o ffice for Film & Broadcasting classification and Motion Picture association of america rating are noted after each movie’s description.
In alphabetical order, here’s the first top 10 list:
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”: Director David Fincher’s expansion of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story about a man born old who ages backward, has fine performances by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, and presents an often profound perspective on the transience of human life (a-III, PG-13).
“The Express”: an inspiring factbased sports drama, set against the background of the civil rights movement as a hard-driving coach (Dennis Quaid) hones the skills of a gifted african-american football player. Director Gary Fleder highlights the role of faith in shaping the player’s values (a-III, PG).
“Flash of Genius”: Greg Kinnear plays the real-life inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper who sued Ford Motor Co. over infringement of his patent. The story of an individual standing up for his rights is irresistible and the film beautifully underscores the importance of family and human dignity (a-II, PG-13).
“Happy-Go-Lucky”: a likable, nearly plotless comedy from Mike Leigh, about a persistently goodnatured grade-school teacher (Sally Hawkins) with unshakable optimism and deep compassion for others (a-III, R).
“Henry Poole Is Here”: a moving fable of a depressed loner (Luke
Wilson) whose life is changed when his kind neighbours discern an image of Christ’s face on his stucco wall. Director Mark Pellington sustains a delicate mood, and Wilson’s path to redemption is fully believable (a-II, PG).
“The Secret Life of Bees”: a beautifully produced adaptation of the best-seller about a spiritual beekeeper (Queen Latifah) who takes in a young runaway (Dakota Fanning). Writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood elicits welljudged performances, and the compassionate story includes forgiveness and reconciliation (a-III, PG-13).
“Slumdog Millionaire”: a vibrant drama in which a Mumbai street kid (Dev Patel), suspected of cheating on a TV quiz show, tells his incredible life story to the police. Director Danny Boyle’s sweeping panorama, though harrowing, stresses the dignity of the underprivileged and the primacy of spiritual values (a-III, R).
“Son of Rambow”: a touching chronicle about the unlikely friendship between a reserved schoolboy and a rambunctious fellow student as they collaborate on a homemade sequel to “Rambo.” Writer-director Garth Jennings’ warmly humorous film affirms faith as well as friendship (a-III, PG-13).
“The Visitor”: a sensitive drama
in which a repressed professor (Richard Jenkins) discovers a couple of undocumented aliens unwittingly squatting in his long-vacant apartment. Writer-director Tom McCarthy’s affecting film makes its political point with intelligence, subtle humour and compassion (a-III, PG-13).
“WaLL-E”: a deeply touching animated futuristic fable about a soulful-eyed robot. Director andrew Stanton mixes sharp humour, honest sentiment and potent romance with a timely environmental warning (a-I, G). and in the honorable mention category: “Boy a” (a-III, R); “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” (a-II, PG-13); “The Counterfeiters” (“Die Fälscher”) (a-III, R); “Frost/ nixon” (a-III, R); “Frozen River” (a-III, R); “Last Chance Harvey” (a-III, PG-13); “The Longshots” (a-II, PG); “Miracle at St. anna” (a-III, R); and “Under the Same Moon” (“La Misma Luna”) (a-III, PG-13).
The top 10 family films (also in alphabetical order) are:
“Bolt”: Disney’s cute animated tale about the sheltered canine star of a TV show (voice of John Travolta) who learns to cope with the real world. Directors Chris Williams and Byron Howard’s
Book Review
Saintly Men of Modern Times
By Joan Carroll Cruz$33.95 + P/H The Record Bookshop 9227 7080
n Reviewed by Mark Reidy
endearing adventure sees its hero learning to believe in himself and discovering the value of friendship and teamwork (a-I, PG).
“The Chronicles of narnia: Prince Caspian”: The second film in C.S. Lewis’ series has the children returning to narnia to help the title character (Ben Barnes) stage a revolt. Director and cowriter andrew adamson’s faithful adaptation makes robust entertainment (a-II, PG).
“City of Ember”: an imaginative futuristic tale about a doomed underground city and a brave girl who tries to discover the secret way out. With a clever production design and a cast that includes Bill Murray, director Gil Kenan’s film imparts good values and makes suitable entertainment for all but the youngest viewers (a-I, PG).
“Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who”: an enchanting animated adaptation of the classic book about a warmhearted elephant (voice of Jim Carrey) who discovers that a speck of dust is home to the microscopic town of Who-ville. The film, co-directed by Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino, promotes excellent values (a-I, G).
“High School Musical 3: Senior Year”: a breezy musical romance in which a high school basketball star (Zac Efron) and his brainy girlfriend rehearse a show
Joan Cruz has no problem with the number of Saints who lived their lives within cloistered boundaries. However she believes that it is more appropriate for the average Christian to be presented with models of holiness who have endured the everyday struggles and difficulties that confront those living within a secular environment.
In her book, “Saintly Men of Modern Times”, Cruz has provided over 70 such examples of mainly twentieth century men, who were able to successfully weave inspired practical
based on their own lives. Director Kenny ortega’s big screen sequel to the popular made-for-TV films encourages viewers to resist divisive stereotypes (a-I, G).
“Kit Kittredge: an american Girl”: The charming chronicle of a 10-year-old aspiring reporter (abigail Breslin) and her experiences during the Great Depression. Director Patricia Rozema’s pleasingly innocent adaptation of the titular children’s stories fosters persistence and condemns wrongful preconceptions (a-I, G).
“Kung Fu Panda”: a delightful animated fable about an out-ofshape bear (voice of Jack Black) who must transform himself to combat a villain. Co-directors John Stevenson and Mark osborne’s wholesome film, by turns amusing and spectacular, promotes determination and self-confidence (a-I, PG).
“Marley & Me”: The heartwarming, likable true story of a couple (o wen Wilson and Jennifer aniston) who adopt an unruly Labrador. Director David Frankel’s adaptation of John Grogan’s bestseller affirms marriage and parenthood but a bittersweet ending makes it best for adolescents and above (a-II, PG).
“nim’s Island”: a winning yarn set on a solitary South Pacific island where a young girl (abigail Breslin) e-mails a heroic adventurer for help when her father fails to return from an expedition. Directors Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett deftly combine the story’s adventurous, humorous, sentimental and fantastical aspects (a-I, PG).
“The Tale of Despereaux”: a charming animated adventure story about a chivalrous mouse (voice of Matthew Broderick) who is banished to a rat-filled tunnel. Co-directors Sam Fell and Rob Stevenhagen’s painterly adaptation of the novel is both innocent and idealistic as it celebrates its hero’s sense of honor as well as the power of forgiveness (a-I, G).
The Office for Film & Broadcasting classifications for the films listed above are: A-I - general patronage; A-II - adults and adolescents; and A-III - adults. The Motion Picture Association of America ratings for the films listed above are: G - general audiences. All ages admitted; PG - parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children; PG-13 - parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13; and R - restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
living into their faith filled lives, with many having overcome great difficulties in the process. Representatives from a multitude of ethnicities, occupations and levels of physical health, provide the reader with a wide selection of Catholics that they may be able to identify with. From horse traders to Prime Ministers, mechanics and martyrs, alcoholics and architects, gypsies and judges, rich and poor, old and young, married and single, those afflicted with, amongst other illnesses, neurosis, paralysis, meningitis and heart disease … and even a journalist!
Each man has either already become a saint or is at some stage of the canonisation process and Cruz has incorporated details of their families, childhood and adult lives in chapters ranging from two to ten pages long, making it very easy to read in short bursts.
There are stories of exceptional sacrifice and bravery, but they are also blended into lives that could be seen as mundane and unexceptional. This is a wonderful book for those who want to be inspired by examples of great holiness, but it also serves as a reminder that there are saintly people who walk amongst us everyday.
Before He began his work as a preacher, Jesus came to the Jordan River. There He was baptized by John and anoiinted for His special mission.
Picture and words from The life of Jesus Colouring Book. Available from The Record Bookshop 9227 7080
prayer: Loving God, at my baptism I became Your child. Let me always walk in the light of Your love. Amen
Crossword taken from Bible Quotations Crossword Puzzles. Available by order from The Record Bookshop 9227 7080.
ezra
A song theme of the Israelites in praise of God.
Congratulations Maxymilian and Virginia for your beautiful Angels.
Peter receives a vision from God
Cornelius, a gentile, was a centurion in the cohort called the Italica. He and everyone in his family served God faithfully. He also would pray frequently and give generously to the Jewish people.
One afternoon, an angel appeared to Cornelius in a vision and spoke to him. “Cornelius,” the angel called.
Cornelius was gripped with fear at the sight of the angel. “What is it, sir?” he replied.
“Your prayers and almsgiving have ascended as a memorial offering before God,” the angel said. “Now send some men to Joppa and summon one Simon who is called Peter. He is staying with another Simon, a tanner, who has a house by the sea.” Then the angel disappeared. Cornelius immediately sent two of his servants and a soldier to Joppa to find Peter.
On the next day, Peter was on his way to the terrace on the roof of the home where he was staying to say his prayers at noon. He was hungry, and he was thinking about food, and he fell into a trance. He saw a vision of animals, reptiles and birds, and he heard a voice tell him to eat whatever he wanted.
He said to the voice, “Certainly not, sir. For never have I eaten anything profane and unclean.”
The voice said, “What God has made clean, you are not to call profane.”
This happened to Peter three times before the vision ended.
As he was wondering what the vision meant, there was a knock on the door of the house. The servants of Cornelius had arrived.
The voice that had spoken to Peter in his vision spoke to him once again:
”There are three men here looking for you. So get up, go downstairs, and accompany them without hesitation, because I have sent them.”
Peter answered the door and saw the three men the voice had told him about.
“I am the one you are looking for,” he told them. “What is the reason for your being here?”
The men explained why they had come looking for Peter. Peter and some of the other Christians went with the visitors.
When Peter met Cornelius at his house, he said, “You know that it is unlawful for a Jewish man to associate with, or visit, a gentile, but God has shown me that I should not call any person profane or unclean.”
Peter told Cornelius about Jesus and how he had been raised from the dead by God. After Peter baptised Cornelius and the members of his household, they rejoiced and praised God.
Panorama entries must be in by 12pm Monday. Contributions may be emailed to administration@therecord.com.au, faxed to 9227 7087, or mailed to PO Box 75, Leederville, WA 6902. Submissions over 55 words will be edited. Inclusion is limited to 4 weeks. Events charging over $10 will be a put into classifieds and charged accordingly. The Record reserves the right to decline or modify any advertisment.
Thursday February 5 to Sunday February 8
EUCHARISTIC MYSTERIES
9am, February 5 at St Gerard, Mirrabooka, 7pm February 5 at St Bernadette, Port Kennedy, 8.45am February 6 at Sacred Heart, Thornlie, 7pm February 6 at Star of the Sea Cottesloe, 9am February 7 at Infant Jesus Morley, 6.30pm February 7 and February 8 at Our Lady of the Missions, Whitford. All sessions with Fr Erasto Fernandez sss. Enq: Pat 9375 2837 after hours.
Friday February 6
PRO-LIFE WITNESS
9.30am at St Brigid’s Midland, Mass, followed by Rosary procession and prayer vigil at abortion clinic, led by the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. Enq: Helen 9402 0349.
Friday February 6
THE ALLIANCE, TRIUMPH AND REIGN OF THE UNITED HEARTS OF JESUS AND MARY
5.15pm at St Bernadette’s Church, Glendalough. Confessions, 5.45pm Mass, followed by exposition of the Blessed Sacrament; hourly Rosaries, hymns and reflections etc throughout the night. Vigil concludes with midnight Mass in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Enquiries: Fr Doug Harris 9444 6131 or Dorothy 9342 5845.
Friday February 6
CATHOLIC FAITH RENEWAL EVENING
7.30pm at St John and Paul’s Parish, Pinetree Gully Road, Willetton; music and song, talk; Hope in Troubled Times by Fr Richard Rutkauskas, followed by Thanksgiving Mass. Light refreshments after Mass. All welcome, bring family and friends. Enq: Kathy 9295 0913, Rose 0403 300 720 or Maureen 9381 4498.
Saturday February 7
CLUB AMICI WA GET TOGETHER
2pm at Secret Garden Cafe, 64 Angelo Street, South Perth. Club Amici WA is for anyone 18 and above who wishes to socialise with other Catholics in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. RSVP by 5 February to Cathy on 0403 314 285 or clubamiciwa@gmail.com.
Saturday February 7
WITNESS FOR LIFE
8.30am at St Augustine’s, Gladstone Road, Rivervale. Mass followed by Rosary procession and prayer vigil at abortion clinic, led by Fr Paul Carey SSC. Enq: Helen 9402 0349.
Saturday February 7 DAY WITH MARY
9am to 5pm at St Pius X Church, Ley Street and Paterson Street, Manning. 9am Video on Fatima. Day of prayer and instruction based on the Fatima message. Reconciliation, Holy Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, Sermons on Eucharist and Our Lady, Rosaries, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Stations of the Cross. BYO lunch. Enq: Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286.
Sunday February 8
FEAST OF OUR LADY OF LOURDES ST CATHERINE’S CATHOLIC CHURCH, GINGIN 12 noon lunch BYO, 1pm Holy Rosary, Exposition, Hymns, Benediction and Blessing of the Sick; 1.30pm Procession; 2.30pm Mass at the Grotto; 3.30pm tea provided. Pickup points, St Joachim’s Pro-Cathedral, Maddington and Girrawheen Parishes. Bookings: Francis 9459 3873 or 0404 893 877 confirm by 1 February. Cost, $15 per person return. Enq: Sheila 9575 4023 or Fr Paul 9571 1839.
Sunday February 8 to Wednesday February 11
FEAST OF OUR LADY OF LOURDES NOVENA AND MASS IN THREE PARISHES
6pm, February 8 at Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church, Girrawheen Avenue, Girrawheen, Mass celebrated by Fr Vallis and Fr Fernandez followed by Novena devotions, Rosary procession and Benediction. February 9, 7pm Novena devotions, Rosary and Benediction. February 10, 7pm Novena devotions, Rosary, blessing of the sick and Benediction. February 11, 7pm, Feast of Our Lady of
Lourdes, Mass, candlelight procession and Benediction. Burning of petitions. Bring a plate. Enq: Jim 0411 615 239 or 9342 6049.
Wednesday February 11
CHAPLETS OF DIVINE MERCY
7.30pm at St Thomas More Catholic Church, Dean Road, Bateman, a beautiful, prayerful, sung devotion and Benediction. All are welcome. Enq: George 9310 9493 home or 9325 2010 work.
Thursday February 12
ST PEREGRINE HEALING MASS
7pm at Ss John and Paul Church, Pinetree Gully Road, Willetton; a Healing Mass in honour of St Peregrine, patron of Cancer sufferers and helper of all in need. The celebration will include Veneration of the Relic, and Anointing of the Sick. paddyjoe@iinet.net.au
Friday February 13
TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION
7.30pm congregate at Lake Monger, northwest corner of Park end of Dodd Street, Rosary and hymns in honour of Our Lady of Lourdes. Open to everyone, special invite families, those of Rosary Confraternities. Paths are wheelchair and stroller accessible. Take advantage of the parklands for picnic tea before or after the procession. Bring torches no naked flame. Enq: Judy 9446 6837.
Wednesday February 18
TAIZE MEDITATION PRAYER
7.30pm to 8.30pm at St Thomas More Catholic Church, 100 Dean Road, Bateman; all welcome to come and spend an hour in Group Prayer and relax in a candlelight atmosphere of prayer, song, gospel reading and meditation. Enq: Daisy/Barney 9310 4781.
Friday February 20
CATHOLIC FAITH RENEWAL
7.30pm at St John and Paul’s Parish Hall, Fr Greg Donovan will lead you through Scriptures, Genesis to Apocalypse. All welcome. Enq: Maureen 9381 4498, Rose 0403 300 720.
Friday February 20 to Sunday February 22
MARRIAGE ENCOUNTER
8pm at Safety Bay, a weekend for married couples. Take time out of your busy schedule, to invest in your most precious asset; Your Marriage! This is a unique opportunity to recharge your relationship batteries, refocus on each other and fall in love all over again. A few places still available. Enq: Joe or Margaret, WABookings@wwme.org.au or 9417 8750.
Saturday February 21
50 YEARS CELBRATION OF DOMINICAN EDUCATION
6.30pm at Holy Rosary School, Doubleview; Mass followed by picnic tea in the school grounds. Enq: www. holyrosarydblv.wa.edu.au, follow link to Golden Jubilee, or 9446 4558.
Saturday February 21
INNER HEALING RETREAT FOR COUPLES
9am to 5pm at Holy Family Church, Lot 375 Alcock Street, Maddington led by Vincentian Fathers. Prior registration required and is free. Lunch and tea provided. Enq: 9381 5383 or vcparackal@rediffmail.com.
Sunday February 22
CARITAS AUSTRALIA
OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF PROJECT COMPASSION
11am Mass, at St Joachim’s Pro-Cathedral, corner Shepperton Road and Harper Street, Victoria Park, Celebrant: Bishop Don Sproxton.
Monday February 23
CATHOLIC PASTORAL WORKERS ASSOCIATION
EUCHARISTIC CELEBRATION
5.30pm at St Catherine’s House of Hospitality, 113 Tyler Street, Tuart Hill, celebrant Fr Paschal Kearney followed by dinner. Cost $12. RSVP by February 12 to Margaret on 9390 8365 or Maranatha 6380 5160.
Tuesday February 24
CARITAS AUSTRALIA
SHROVE TUESDAY – PANCAKE LUNCH
12noon to 1.30 pm at Catholic Pastoral Centre Seminar Room, 40A Mary Street, Highgate - Parking off Harold Street, Guest Speaker, Dr Haridas from Caritas India. Cost: Gold coin donation, RSVP Essential 9422 7925.
Thursday February 26
ALAN AMES HEALING MINISTRY
7pm St Bernadette’s Catholic Church, Jugan Street, Glendalough, Mass followed by talk and healing service. Enq: Loretta 9444 4409.
Friday February 27
MEDJUGORJE - EVENING OF PRAYER.
7pm at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish, Scarborough Beach Road, Scarborough. An evening of Prayer with Our Lady Queen of Peace, commencing with Adoration, Rosary, Benediction followed by Holy Mass. Evening concludes at 9pm. Free DVD’s on Fr Donald Calloways conversion available on night. Enq: Eileen 9402 2480.
Saturday February 28
ST PADRE PIO DAY OF PRAYER
8.30am at St Peter The Apostle, 91 Inglewood Street, Inglewood; St Padre Pio DVD, 10am Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Rosary, divine Mercy Adoration and Benediction. 11am Mass, using St Padre Pio liturgy, celebrant Archbishop Barry Hickey and attending priests welcome to concelebrate.12noon bring plate for shared lunch, tea and coffee provided. Enq: 6278 1540.
Saturday February 28
INNER HEALING RETREAT FOR YOUTHS
9am-5pm St Aloysius Church, 84 Keightlely Road, West Shenton Park. Prayers for inner and physical healing led by the Vincentian Fathers. Prior registration required and is free. Lunch and tea provided. Enq: vcparackal@rediffmail.com or 9381 5383.
Sunday March 1
DIVINE MERCY
1.30pm at St Joachim’s Church Shepperton Road and Harper Street, Victoria Park. Holy Rosary, and Reconciliation. Sermon on St Joseph, by Fr Tiziano Bogoni, followed by Divine Mercy Prayers and Benediction. Refreshments, followed by DVD/Video on, Surrender is not an option with Fr John Corapi. Enq: John 6457 7771 or Linda 9275 6608.
Sunday March 1 to Thursday March 5
LENTEN MINI MISSION - ONE HOUR SESSIONS
SUCCESS: FULL LIVING
7pm, March 1 and 7.30pm March 2-5 sessions commence and sessions repeated from 9.30am on March 2-5, at Our Lady of the Mission Parish, Whitford, with Fr Justin Belitz, OFM. Experience God’s healing love in ListeningSilence-Music, all welcome. Refreshments provided. Enq: 9307 2776.
Friday March 6 to Sunday March 8
SEPARATED, DIVORCED, WIDOWED
7pm at Epiphany Retreat Centre, Rossmoyne, Beginning Experience is running a program designed to assist and support people in learning to close the door gently on a relationship that has ended in order to get on with living. Enq: Helen 6246 5150 or Maureen 9537 1915.
FRIDAY MARCH 20
MEDJUGORJE - EVENING OF PRAYER.
7pm at All Saints Chapel, Allendale Square, 77 St.George’s Terrace, Perth. An evening of Prayer with Our Lady Queen of Peace, commencing with Adoration, Rosary, and Benediction followed by Holy Mass. Evening concludes at 9pm. Free DVD’s on Fr Donald Calloways conversion available on night. Enq: Eileen 9402 2480.
Third Sunday of the Month
OBLATES OF ST BENEDICT
2pm at St Joseph’s Convent, York Street, South Perth; Oblates affiliated with the Benedictine Abbey New
Norcia, welcome all who are interested in studying the rule of St Benedict and its relevance to the everyday life of today for lay people. Vespers and afternoon tea conclude meetings. Enq: 9457 5758.
Every Sunday
DIVINE MERCY PRAYER AS NOVENA
3pm St Aloysius Church, 84 Keightley Road, West Shenton Park. An opportunity for all to gather once a week and say the powerful Divine Mercy, Eucharistic Adoration, healing prayers followed by Holy Mass at 4pm. Enq: 9381 5383.
Every 1st Thursday of the Month
PRAYER AND MEDITATION SERVICE USING SONGS FROM TAIZE
7.30pm at Our Lady of Grace, 3 Kitchener Street, North Beach. The service is a prayerful meditation in which we sing beautiful chants from Taize together, spend time in prayerful, meditative silence, bathed in candlelight reflecting upon themed readings. Enq: Beth 9447 0061.
Every First Friday and Saturday of month. MEMORIES OF AFRICA CHOIR
Calling all to come and join this small but vibrant group. Come let us sing and praise God with the African melody and rhythm. Enq: Bibiana, 9451 6602 after 6pm.
Every First Friday and Saturday of month
COMMUNION OF REPARATION – ALL NIGHT VIGIL
7pm Friday at Corpus Christi Church, Mosman Park, 47 Lochee Road. Mass with Fr Bogoni and concluding with midnight Mass. Confessions, Rosaries, prayers and silent hourly adoration. Please join us for reparation to Two Hearts according to the message of Our Lady of Fatima. Enq: Vicky 0400 282 357.
Every First Friday
HOLY HOUR FOR VOCATIONS TO THE PRIESTHOOD AND RELIGIOUS LIFE
7pm at Little Sisters of the Poor Chapel, 2 Rawlins Street, Glendalough. Mass celebrated by Fr Saminedi. 7.30pm, Adoration with Fr Don Kettle. All welcome. Refreshments provided.
Every Sunday
LATIN MASS KELMSCOTT
The Latin Mass according to the 1962 missal will be offered every Sunday at 2pm at the Good Shepherd Parish, 40-42 Streich Avenue, Kelmscott, with Rosary preceding. All welcome.
Every 4th Sunday of the Month
HOLY HOUR PRAYER FOR VOCATIONS TO THE PRIESTHOOD AND RELIGIOUS LIFE
2-3pm at Infant Jesus Church, Wellington Road, Morley. The hour includes exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Let us implore God to pour an abundance of new life into our Church, open our hearts and those of the young people of the world to hear His Word for us now, today. All welcome! Enq: 9276 8500.
Every Friday
EUCHARISTIC ADORATION
9am to 6pm at Holy Trinity Church, 8 Burnett Street, Embleton. Enq: Office 9271 5528 or George 9272 1379.
Every Monday and Tuesday
ADVENTURES IN EXODUS – 9 WEEK STUDY
Church of St Emilie, 174 Amherst Road, Canning Vale. New and exciting study into the heart of the Bible - ‘Called To Freedom’ is also our story of what God calls us to be. Free. Limited places. Enq: Dominic celestialorchids@gmail. com, 6253 8041 or 0447 053 347.
Every Tuesday
NOVENA TO GOD THE FATHER
7.30pm St Joachim’s Parish Hall, Shepperton Road, Victoria Park; incorporating a Bible teaching, a Perpetual Novena to God the Father and Hymns. Light refreshments will follow. Bring a Bible and a friend. Enq: Jan 9323 8089.
VATICAN CITY, (Zenit.org).-
The list of missionaries killed on active duty in 2008 includes an archbishop, several priests, religious and laypeople, reported the Vatican’s Fides agency.
This list, compiled by the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, includes the names of missionaries as well as all pastoral workers who died violent deaths, sacrificing their lives as a result of hatred of the faith or other reasons. The list avoids using the term “martyrs,” leaving this judgment of merit to the Church.
Nonetheless, Fides affirmed the need to recall and pray for the deceased who were not afraid to risk their own lives on a daily basis, often in situations of suffering, poverty and tensions, so as to offer all those around them the vital force of Christian hope.”
Asia was the continent that saw the greatest number of violent deaths in 2008, including Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, who was killed in Iraq. As well, three priests and one layperson lost their lives in India, and one priest was murdered per country in Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Nepal.
Five priests were killed on the continent of America: two in Mexico, one in Venezuela, one in Columbia and one in Brazil.
Africa lost five missionaries to violent deaths, including two priests in Kenya, one religious brother in Guinea Conakry, one priest in Nigeria and a layperson in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Two Jesuit priests lost their lives in Russia.
The number of slain missionaries decreased from the 21 recorded in 2007. Though, the report clarified that this list is provisional, and does not include the long list of those whom Pope John Paul II called “unknown soldiers, as it were, of God’s great cause.”
FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Like St Paul in the second reading, the good steward can say, “I do all that I do for the sake of the Gospel in the hope of sharing in its blessings.”
See 1 Corinthians 9:23
For further information on how stewardship can build your parish community, call Brian Stephens on 9422 7924.
8 S 5TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Gr Job 7:4.6-7 Life is a breath
Ps 146:1-6 The Lord heals 1Cor 9:16-19.22-23 Slave of everyone
Mk 1:29-39 Devils kept mute
9 M Gr Gen 1:1-19 In the beginning
Ps 103:1-2.5-6.10.12.24.35 Bless the Lord
Mk 6:53-56 All were cured
10 T ST SCHOLASTICA, VIRGIN (M)
Wh Gen 1:20-2:4 Male and female Ps 8:4-9 Work of God’s hands Mk 7:1-13 Jesus quotes Isaiah
11 W OUR LADY OF LOURDES (O)
Gr Gen 2:4-9.15-17 A living being
Ps 103:1-2.27-30 Spirit creates Mk 7:14-23 Do you not understand?
12 TH Gr Gen 2:18-25 They become one body Ps 127:1-5 A fruitful vine Mk 7:24-30 Devil expelled
13 F Gr Gen 3:1-8 You will not die!
Ps 31:1-2.5-7 Offence forgiven Mk 7:31-37 Speech impediment
14 S SS CYRIL AND METHODIUS, BISHOPS (M)
Wh Gen 3:9-24 Sweat for your bread
Ps 9:2-6.12-13 A watch in the night Ml 8:1-10 Nothing to eat
Missionary reflections on this Sunday’s Gospel; Mark 1: 34 “…and he cured many who were suffering from diseases of one kind or another…” Jesus’ healing ministry is being replicated in poor communities throughout the world where our missionaries live and work. The mission where I worked for 4 years was located in a large refugee settlement. It had a make-shift clinic that always ran out of medicine. We resorted to foot massage, reflexology and handouts of vegetable seeds when this happened. It’s amazing how much healing was achieved for people battered and traumatised by their experiences through the human touch, a compassionate ear and the seeds of hope.. Call the Mission Office on 9422 7933 should you want to explore this idea further.
■ NEEDED
Female overseas student, 23 yo, with 3 mth old baby, needs accomm and support with a family, preferably north of the river for approx. 12 mths.
Ph Lydia at Pregnancy Assistance, 9328 2929.
■ AVAILABLE
Willetton single room for female student in family home, on bus to Curtin or Murdoch uni.
$150.00 Ph: 0416 815 804.
■ DUNSBOROUGH
Beach cottage, 3 bedrooms, sleeps 7, 300m to Quindalup beach. Great price for Dunsborough!
Tel: Sheila 9309 5071 / 0408866593 or email: shannons3s@optusnet.com.au.
■ BRICK RE-POINTING
Phone Nigel 9242 2952.
■ PERROTT PAINTING PTY LTD
For all your residential, commercial painting requirements. Phone Tom Perrott 9444 1200.
■ BRICKLAYING
20 years exp. Quality work. Ph 9405 7333 or 0409 296 598.
■ PICASSO PAINTING
Top service. Phone 0419 915 836, fax 9345 0505.
■ REPAIR YOUR LITURGICAL BOOKS
General repairs to books, old bibles & missals. 2ndhand Catholic books avail. Tydewi Bindery 9293 3092.
■ CHRISTIAN SINGLES
Widowed, divorced or never married. All age groups. Meet-for-Drinks, Dinner Seminars and Individual Dates. Phone 9472 8218. Tues-Fri 10am - 6pm. www.figtrees.com.au
English/tutor, primary specialist, reading/writing, spelling and comprehension. Single/group, limit of four. Diagnostic placement test. Maggie 9272 8263 or 0438 946 621.
■ KINLAR VESTMENTS
‘Modern meets tradition.’ Quality hand-made & decorated. Vestments, altar cloths, banners. Vickii Smith Veness. 9402 8356 or 0409 114 093.
■ CATHOLICS CORNER
Retailer of Catholic products specialising in gifts, cards and apparel for baptism, communion and confirmation. Ph: 9456 1777. Shop 12, 64-66 Bannister Road, Canning Vale. Open Mon-Sat.
■ RICH HARVEST – YOUR CHRISTIAN SHOP
Looking for Bibles, CDs, books, cards, gifts, statues, baptism/communion apparel, religious vestments, etc? Visit us at 39 Hulme Court (off McCoy St), Myaree, 9329 9889 (after 10.30am Mon to Sat). We are here to serve.
■ OTTIMO
Shop 108 TRINITY ARCADE (Terrace Level) Hay St, Perth Ph 9322 4520. Convenient city location for a good selection of Christian products/ gifts. We also have handbags, fashion accessories. Opening hours Monday-Friday 9am-6pm.
EFFECTIVE LEGAL, family owned law firm focusing on property settlements and wills. If you are buying, selling or investing in property, protect your family and your investment, contact us on (08) 9218 9177.
FOR EVERYTHING FINANCE – Ph. Declan 0422 487 563, www.goalfinancialservices. com.au Save yourself time, money and stress. FBL 4712
Notice is hereby given that Joanna Lisa Lawson of 6 Sewell Place, Hillarys, WA 6025, being duly authorised by the Branches Project intends to apply to the Commissioner for Consumer Protection on 9.02.2009 for the incorporation of The Branches Project Inc. The Association is formed for the purpose of educating, employing and empowering the exploited working poor.
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 9am - 2.30pm on (08) 9227 7080 or via bookshop@therecord.com.au 587 Newcastle St, West Perth
Seeking an Australian consensus on abortion and sex education
A Mother’s Plea for Maternity and the Unborn
By Marybeth T HaganThe controversy over abortion is an issue that will not seem to go away in our modern culture. This compelling book is the fruit of one woman, who after years of reflecting on the subject, came to a point in life whereby she could no longer sit on the fence.
$22.95+postage
Healing through God’s grace after abortion
By Jennifer O’NeillThrough her story and the stories of dozens of other women (and men) who have been through the anguish of abortion, Jennifer O’Neill encourages post-abortive women to understand that they are not alone, even in their darkest moments, and offers them a step-by-step, Biblically-based process for achieving life-long forgiveness and acceptance. You are not alone! If you or someone you love has experienced abortion accept this invitation to begin your journey to healing and wholeness.
$25.95+postage
Editors John Fleming PhD and Nicholas Tonti-Filippini PhD
The voice of the people can now be heard thanks to the most comprehensive research on Australian attitudes ever undertaken. This research reveals an extrordinary consensus among many Australians about the way these issues should be managed at the level of social policy.
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Looking for alternatives to abortion
By Frederica Mathewes-GreenGIVING SORROW WORDS
Women’s stories of grief after abortion
By Melinda Tankard ReistThis book includes the personal accounts of 18 women and draws on the experiences of more than 200 others. Listen to the voices of women until now silenced in the abortion debate; women who have suffered lasting emotional shock but who have so far not been heard. Compelling reading for everyone, no matter their reading on abortion.
$22.95+postage
Women who resist medical eugenics
By Melinda Tankard ReistToday, pro-life supporters across the country are realising that it is time to move past the polarisation of “women’s rights” versus “unborn children’s rights” to find practical solutions for mother and baby. Supporting this dramatic shift in attitude is Real Choices: an inside look at the reasons women make the tragic decision for abortion - as described by women who themselves chose abortion. Discover how we can help both mother and child to win by ministering to women in their need... with Real Choices.
$26.95+postage
Healing from miscarriage, abortion and other pregnancy loss
By Kim Kluger-BellThis comforting and healing book is a must. A wise and gentle book that will speak to and for all women and men who have experienced pregnancy loss, miscarriage and abortion. By naming these losses as tangible and real, the author affirms their significance and enduring meaning for those of us who have suffered them, helping us in the process of mourning and moving on. This book is clearly a labour of love.
$21.00 +postage
This book tells the courageous stories of women who continued their pregnancies despite intense pressure from doctors, family members and social expectations. These women were told they shouldn’t have their babies because of a perceived imperfection in the child, or because their own disabilities do not fit within the parameters of what should be. In the face of silent disapproval and open hostility, they have confronted the stigma of disability and had their children anyway.
$27.95+postage
PRICE! $22.95
