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unexpected alliances are forming between previous opponents as more and more people are alarmed at what children are being exposed to on the Internet. Doing nothing is not an option, say
■ By Paul Gray, Melbourne
Australia’s bishops have voiced their support for increased restrictions on public internet access to extreme violence and pornography.
The bishops’ intervention, announced in a media statement issued last Thursday March 23, will increase the political pressure on the Australian Government to take a tougher stance with internet service providers, who have strongly resisted previous calls for increased anti-pornography regulation.
Since late 2004, activists from the right and the left of the political
spectrum have combined in opposing the ready availability of violent internet pornography.
The merging of conservative and liberal voices on this issue reflects an increased recognition by experts of the damage caused to children by exposure to internet pornographic material.
A survey by the Australia Institute in 2003 found that 84 per cent of boys and 60 per cent of girls had been accidentally exposed to pornographic material on the internet.
Until now the Australian Government has resisted calls for imposing any legal requirements on internet service providers (businesses which sell internet access) which would force the ISPs to “filter out” extreme violence and porn before selling their product to customers.
However the release of a new
Catherine Smibert went to Rome to study. She ended up married to a Roman guy, and living and working as a journalist in the eternal city. MICHELLE JONES reports...
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Labor Party policy last week has opened divisions within Government ranks over whether pornography filtering should be imposed by law.
These divisions became obvious within hours of the announcement of a compulsory internet filtering policy by Labor Party Leader Kim Beazley.
Responding to Mr Beazley, the Government first announced that it would have nothing to do with such a policy.
The Communications Minister, Senator Helen Coonan, re-iterated the Government’s previous line that the problem of internet pornography is best handled by parents buying internet filters and installing them on the family computer themselves.
“(Home) PC-based filters are more effective at blocking all man-
GAY MARRIAGE: ACT goes for it, French reject it Pages 2&3 INDEX
ner of offensive content, provide greater control to parents of the content their children are exposed to, and do not affect the performance of the internet for all users,” Senator Coonan said.
But a day later, Senator Coonan voiced a markedly different line on the controversy.
She now said the Government “has not ruled out ISP-based filtering,” and indicated that a trial is taking place, suggesting that the result of this trial may influence the Government’s future thinking on the issue.
Following Senator Coonan’s remarks, the bishops’ committee for the media released a statement in which the committee’s chairman, Archbishop Barry Hickey, welcomed moves by the political continued on page 2
Editorial/Letters - Page 6
I say, I say - VISTA 4 The World - Pages 8-9
Friendship between husband and wife is one of the key ingredients in a Catholic marriage, a leading Catholic scholar has told a student magazine.
Dr Michael Casey, a founding organiser of Australia’s Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, also said Catholics are in a strong position to save Australian society over the next three to four decades because of their belief in “transcendent values.”
Dr Casey, a sociologist who is also private secretary to Cardinal George Pell, told the Australian Catholic student magazine Sentinel that when discussing the importance of family life, friendship between husband and wife should be remembered.
“Friendship between husband and wife is the critical thing to a happy marriage and a good family life,” he said.
“There are happy marriages among couples who have no religion but a real friendship. Faith is a huge blessing and help to marriage and family life, but unless there is real friendship between the spouses faith alone won’t guarantee a happy marriage.
“Friendship makes all the difference, and is deepened through friendship with God.”
Dr Casey said the present work being done around the nation in preparation for World Youth Day in 2008, which it is hoped Pope Benedict XVI will attend, is critical to the future of Australian society.
“We are currently at a crossroads (in Australian society,)” he said. “Over the course of the second half of the continued on page 7
Journalists and economists watch China’s economic indices like hawks - but the real upsurge in China is in people’s search for faith, especially in Christianity.
continued from page 1 parties to ensure that children are protected from exposure to extreme images and content on their homebased computers.
Cost issues for families are highly relevant to the debate, the Archbishop said.
“Many families struggle simply to afford a computer, let alone to buy filtering equipment to block these sites out,” Archbishop Hickey said.
“Those with little technical know-how might not even know that such filtering equipment exists. It is much more effective to have ISPs block sites promoting violence and pornography before they ever reach home computers.”
Archbishop Hickey noted that similar systems were already in place in some other countries.
“We welcome any moves by political parties to make home computers safer for children and less worrying for parents,” he said.
A key role in the politics of the pornography filtering issue is being played by Tasmanian Liberal Senator Guy Barnett. Late last year Senator Barnett wrote to the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, proposing a ban on internet pornography and violence.
The letter was co-signed by 62 Coalition members of the national parliament. It proposed restrictions on the freedom of internet service providers to sell internet access which includes violent and porno-
graphic material. Senator Barnett also pressed the Government on the issue in parliament. Speaking in the Senate in December, he acknowledged the Government’s initiatives in setting up a national internet monitoring agency, NetAlert, and in commissioning a “safety audit” of internet providers. However Senator Barnett also called for further action from the Government.
“I do believe our government should regulate the internet at home and in public places to ensure the best interests of children are protected,” he said.
In his speech, Senator Barnett cited a survey reported by a Canberra-based advocacy organisation, the Australia Institute, which found that a large majority of boys and nearly two-thirds of girls had been accidentally exposed to pornographic material on the internet.
The survey also found that two in every five boys had deliberately used the internet at some stage to see sexually explicit material, Senator Barnett said.
“The survey found that 93 per cent of parents were in favour of filtering out pornography available on the home computer,” he said.
The Australia Institute has been widely linked with the Left side of politics.
Its executive director, Dr Clive Hamilton, is co-author of the book Affluenza, which castigates Australian society for an over-reliance on consumerist values.
In a statement last year, Dr Hamilton slammed the lack of Government action against internet pornography.
“It’s not only child pornography that sexualises children and young people,” he said. “Adult porn sites on the internet often invite users to view pictures described as ‘barely
legal’ or ‘just 18’ and dress young women in school uniforms and pigtails.
“It is easy and perfectly legal to view such material in Australia.”
Dr Hamilton said that after years of industry hype politicians have a starry-eyed view of the internet but that it is just another form of communication and, like television and print media, should be regulated for the public good.
“We should not have to wait for a generation of politicians who grew up with manual typewriters to hand on the reins to a tech-savvy generation before we address the dark side of the internet”, he said.
Dr Hamilton also said that contrary to claims by some spokespersons, there are no technological barriers to Internet Service Providers filtering pornography.
Dr Hamilton said that according to one of the Government’s own reports, ISP filtering that excludes “blacklists” of websites and web addresses is “technically feasible at the ISP or server level.”
He also predicted that more developed technologies to allow ISP filtering would be available by 2007 or 2008.
Last week members of the commercial internet industry reacted negatively to these developments in Canberra, with one industry spokesman saying that present regulation of the internet in Australia was “world-class” and rejecting the need for further Government action.
The first official legal recognition of gay marriage in Australia is to be introduced in Canberra, after a new civil union bill was introduced to the parliament of the Australian Capital Territory this week.
ACT chief minister and attorneygeneral Jon Stanhope said that the bill will make the the ACT the first jurisdiction in Australia to allow for civil unions for same-sex couples.
Similar moves to grant legal recognition to same-sex unions have been made in recent times by legislatures in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and France, and in some states of the USA.
ples who are, for various reasons, currently denied it,” he said.
According to the ACT Government’s website, civil unions would not replace marriage.
However the bill would allow same-sex and opposite-sex couples to enter into a civil union which would have the same status as marriage in the ACT.
The new law would also have no residency requirement, meaning that other jurisdictions, such as states or territories, “could recognise an ACT civil union as evidence of a ‘marriage-like relationship’.”
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The Catholic bishops, led by Pope Benedict XVI, have strongly opposed these moves, with Pope Benedict saying in January that it is “a serious mistake to obfuscate the value and functions of the legitimate family based on marriage by attributing legal recognition to other forms of union for which there is no real social demand.”
Introducing the ACT bill, Mr Stanhope said that his government was committed to equality.
“Civil union legislation will give social and legal recognition to cou-
The ACT Government says that the process envisaged for the proposed civil union process is that a couple would give notice of their intention to an authorised celebrant, at least one month before the event.
The couple would then make a declaration in front of the celebrant and at least one witness, that they were entering into a civil union, and doing so by their own free will.
Overseas, similar ceremonies involving high-profile individuals, including the singer Elton John, have attracted enormous media coverage.
French reject gay unions - Page 3
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General intention: “That the individual, social and political rights of women may be respected in every nation.”
Mission intention: “That the Church in China may carry out its evangelising mission serenely and in full freedom.”
Artists from Perth and the Kimberley have donated works for auction to raise funds for the international missions of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions.
The exhibition and auction will be officially launched at Our Lady of the Mission Catholic Pastoral Centre, 40A Mary St, Highgate, at 2pm, on April 23.
Among the artists featured are Denise Walker, Kerry Stokes and Tina Higgins. Also included are works by renowned Melbourne sculptors Pauline Clayton, Martin Quinlan and Filip Toth.
“One of our main desires as an international missionary order is to offer an education that supports self determination of women in developing countries, said Sr Helena Brabender RNOM, convenor of the Art Exhibition/Auction.
“We particularly seek to develop the potential for leadership in young women and children,” she said.
An artist and art educator at St Mary’s College in Broome, Sr Helena believes art has enabled indigenous students in Broome to express themselves, take pride in their aboriginality and share their rich cultural heritage with others.
Affirming: art that will help girls and develop leadership.
Proceeds from the art auction will assist the education and care of young women who would otherwise have no opportunity for education, and the professional development of young women who seek to join the congregation of Sisters in developing countries. The Art Exhibition/ Auction is dedicated to Euphrasie Barbier the young French woman who established the international missionary order of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions in 1861.
An exquisite Faberge egg, handcrafted by St Columba’s, Bayswater, parishioner William Barker will be raffled on Easter Sunday, to raise funds for Church restoration, in preparation for the parish’s 50th anniversary.
Mr Barker, who has made 129 Faberge eggs since he began in 1990, said he has always been very artistic and interested in art.
“It runs in the family - my father and grandfather, John Barker, were great pioneering Western Australian artists,” he said. The donated egg, named “Mary’s Crystal Grotto,” is made from a goose egg, standing on a marble base, supported by natural, synthetic and glass crystals, with a figure of Our Lady of Lourdes as the focal point.
Mr Barker developed his passion for Faberge eggs in 1990 when he attended classes in egg decoration in Guilford. Since then he has exhibited at the Royal Show, where he won first prize in 1995 and 1996.
“More recently I have received
a lot of commissions for eggs, be it for a baptism, confirmation or wedding,” said Mr Barker.
Using either quail, hen, goose or ostrich eggs, Mr Barker takes approximately one month to complete an egg, “although it varies according to the intricacy of the design and the size of the egg,” he said.
“I love creating the eggs; each one is so different from the rest. Most of them are commissioned, so each has a very personal and individual attribute, a memory that can be encased within.”
In 1992, Mr Barker’s talent for Faberge eggs was featured on both channels seven and nine, on their respective lifestyle programs, “Perth Extra,” and “Real Life.”
An avid member of the Bayswater parish community, Mr Barker is thrilled to have his two hobbies coming together. “I am very excited to be aiding the restoration of the parish Church through my love of Faberge eggs,” he said.
“Faberge eggs will always be a passion of mine. They are affordable, handmade, individual, and artistic,” commented Mr Barker.
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A French parliamentary commission that spent a year studying changes in the family concluded that France should not allow homosexual couples to marry or to adopt children. The 30-member multi-party commission reported back in late January to the French National Assembly with 100 proposals for adapting the country’s
family law. However, it said that France should not follow the most permissive foreign legislation. Referring to UN instruments, the report affirms that the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society, entitled to protection by society and the State. It focuses on the child: “The best interests of the child must prevail over adult freedoms...even including the lifestyle choices of parents.” The report also rejects
medically assisted reproduction for homosexual couples and single women, saying that “the child needs the judicial and emotional security which is best assured when biological and legal ties are aligned”. It also recommends keeping the current prohibition on surrogate motherhood which, says the report, denies the bond between mother and child during pregnancy and opens procreation to “trade”. - FamilyEdge
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The Catholic Education Office’s push to introduce religious education as a TEE subject is a step towards the revival of Catholic religious education across the state, according to Assistant Director of RE at the CEO, Debra Sayce.
Proposed by the Curriculum Council, the program will allow RE to be taught under the Outcomes Based Education system, making the subject more systematic. “It will inevitably make teachers, students and parents more accountable for the religious education in schools,” commented Ms Sayce.
The RE program, which could come into effect in 2008, was reported by The West Australian and The Australian on March 23, as a “disadvantage” to students, who will have to spend as much time studying for RE as other core subjects, such as maths and English.
Ron Dullard, Director of Catholic
Education, said the program would actually add flexibility for Catholic students because religion could be used to gain tertiary entrance.
Ms Sayce said it has always been compulsory for students at Catholic schools to study the basis of their faith. “The only change will be that
The first Italian Mercy Sister to enter the order celebrated her 50th anniversary recently.
Sr Roma Banducci celebrated the occasion on February 5 together with fellow Mercy sisters of both congregations and family and friends in a Mass concelebrated by Archbishop Barry Hickey, Fathers Jim Petry, Oswald Lewis, Nino Vinciguerra, and Kevin Long.
Born in Perth, Sr Roma grew up in Gwelup, and went to school at St Theresa’s where she first met the Mercy Sisters.
One of five children, her father was originally from Tuscany, Italy and her mother was Australian.
The family were one of the many market gardening families in Gwelup at the time.
Sr Roma told The Record that while she didn’t know Perth very well in those days, the local community was like her family.
“We were one big family of
migrants,” she said. “It was often said that the Irish families tended the cows which gave milk to the community and the Italian families grew the vegetables.”
Sr Roma admits that as a youngster she was fairly mischievous.
“I remember getting caught by the nuns for putting a bob-tail lizard in their car,” she said with a laugh.
“We were fairly poor back then but the nuns were always very generous and shared what they had.”
Sr Roma said that, after leaving school at the age of 14 to help her parents on the market garden until the age of 18, she felt she wanted to enter a religious order where she could help others.
“I just knew that I wanted to help people.”
Sr Roma entered the Mercy order in 1953 and took her first vows three years later, before making her final profession in 1959 at St Mary’s Convent Leederville.
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students will have to do homework, study and actually take it as seriously as any other subject,” she said. “This approach will change the
way RE is taught. “The Curriculum Council has initiated a whole series of subjects aimed at preparing students for the world beyond school. This approach to RE has the same driving force.
“We are opting for a program that will prepare and encourage youth to continue their journey of faith beyond the school classroom,” commented Ms Sayce.
West Australian Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich said parents sent their children to Catholic schools to learn the ethos and traditions of their religion, adding that she “personally would have no problem with the CEO mandating that particular course of study,” reported The Australian.
While the CEO are still in discussions with the Bishops of WA and the Curriculum Council as to whether the course will indeed be implemented, Ms Sayce is confident that the move will “lift the profile of RE, placing it where it should be in Catholic Schools – at the top.”
The University of Notre Dame Australia recently hosted the 2006 Vice Chancellors’ Oration, and was honoured to welcome South African activist and politician, Dr Frene Ginwala, as the orator.
The annual event, organised in conjunction with the Office of Multicultural Interests, rotates around the five Western Australian universities and is held every year on March 21, to acknowledge the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
“Dr Ginwala was an active member of the African National Congress and has earned great respect as a voice for social justice. She has also been widely published on anti-apartheid and gender issues,” said Professor
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Jennifer Nicol, who chaired the event. More than 400 people came to hear Dr Ginwala speak about the defining moments in her country’s history and the similarities between Australia and South Africa.
Dr Ginwala began the oration by saying she was appreciative of the opportunity to speak in Western Australia as we “try to grapple with problems of cultural and religious diversity and the establishment of a common society based on the commitment to human rights.”
Citing examples such as the Tampa crisis, detention centres and the Cronulla race riots, Dr Ginwala said, “to be racially tolerant means to be tolerant of racial differences, not tolerant of racism.”
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Apostles Proclaim Christ, not an idea, says Pope as he explains relationship between Jesus and the Church
The first apostles, like today’s, were not heralds of an idea but rather witnesses of Christ before the world, says Benedict XVI.
The Pope delivered that message on March 22 in his second general audience address dedicated to explain the relationship between Jesus and the Church.
A report of the first audience in the new catechesis being given by the Holy Father appeared in last week’s edition of The Record on Page 1.
In an address before 35,000 people gathered in St Peter’s Square, the Holy Father focussed on Jesus’ call to the Twelve Apostles.
In particular, the Pope recalled the dialogue recounted by John the Evangelist on the banks of the Jordan, when John the Baptizer presented Jesus as the Lamb of God.
To the question: “What do you
seek?”, the future apostles replied with another question: “’Rabbi’which means Teacher - ‘where are you staying?’” Jesus replied “Come and see.”
“Thus, the apostles’ adventure began as a gathering of persons who open to one another reciprocally. A direct knowledge of the Teacher began for the disciples,” Benedict XVI explained.
“They saw where he lived and began to know him. They would not have to be heralds of an idea, but witnesses of a person,” he added.
“Before being sent to evangelise, they would have to ‘be’ with Jesus, establishing a personal relationship with him,” the Pope continued.
Therefore, “evangelisation is no more than a proclamation of what has been experienced and an invitation to enter into the mystery of communion with Christ,” added the Holy Father. “An apostle is someone who is sent, but even before that he is an ‘expert’ on Jesus.”
After his passion and resurrection, Christ “would send the apostles ‘into all the world,’ and to ‘all nations,’ ‘and to the end of the earth,’” indicated the Pope.
“And this mission continues,” he said. “The Lord’s commandment always continues to gather the nations in the unity of his love.
The Disciples of Jesus Covenant Community will once again perform their annual Stations of the Cross drama along the streets of Fremantle, starting at 9:45, on April 15.
Graphic in its depiction of events, the play immerses spectators in the experience of Christ’s passion to create a living portrait of the crucifixion.
The drama will be re-enacted in the afternoon, as part of the annual Gosnells’s Easter Family Festival,
which attracts more than 2000 people.
“Over the last 13 years, public response to the dramatic depiction
of the crucifixion has confirmed its value in highlighting the true message of Easter. We are a unique community, the only one who has taken to evangelising in the streets,” said, community member, Janny Firth.
The 29 actors will also perform a variation of the Easter drama on Good Friday morning, at Holy Spirit Primary School, City Beach.
“The drama vividly demonstrates the immense love of God through the passion and death of Jesus,” said Mrs Firth.
For more details contact Mrs Firth on: 9245 2662.
■ By
Sylvia DefendiThe value of friendship among Christian youth was recently celebrated as three Christian youth organisations in conjunction with Infant Jesus Morley Parish met for a day of indoor rock climbing in Bayswater, on March 19.
Young Christian Workers (YCW), Young Christian Students
(YCS), Infant Jesus Angels (IJ Angels) and parishioners from the Morley Parish, all came together to attend the social event.
Organised by the youth groups, the event aimed to provide young people with an opportunity to make new friends in a fun and healthy environment.
One of the 60 who attended, Young Christian Worker’s President, Marie Raheb said the
atmosphere was fantastic. “It was great to see everyone getting involved and really enjoying the day.”
“Our aim was to facilitate a trust building social event that would build new friendships among all age groups, as a joint effort between our young adults group and the Perth YCW,” said Edwina Smith of the IJ Angels.
“This is our hope and this is also our commandment to contribute to that universality, to this true unity in the richness of cultures, in com-
-ZENIT
“Religions have become an attractive realm where people facing changes can seek new meanings in life”
- Dr Kim-Kwong Chan, executive secretary of the Hong Kong Christian Council■ By Gerald Mercer
The economy is not the only thing that is booming in China. Religious fervour is also pushing the boundaries of official restrictions, according to Hong Kong academic and churchman Dr Kim-Kwong Chan.
He believes that the expansion of the Chinese economy into the world market will also have an impact on Chinese religious believers beyond the borders of China. Chinese emigration, legal or illegal, is considerable. In Dr Chan’s view, the significance of this as the basis of missionary activity should not be underestimated. Dr Chan, who is the author of nine books, mostly on religion in China, is the executive secretary of the Hong Kong Christian Council, and an ordained minister of a Christian evangelical church.
The numbers of Chinese Christians are not small. The Chinese government provides a figure of 16 million Protestants, although local and overseas experts claim there are at least 25 million. Some estimates are as high as 100 million.
The Catholic Church is divid-
ed between the Patriotic Church, which obeys government direction, and the underground Church, but there is a considerable cross-over between the two. The Patriotic Church has a membership of at least 12 million.
As Dr Chan notes, this is much more than the number of Catholics in Ireland, and once ties with Rome are formally re-established, Chinese bishops and cardinals will play an important international part in the Catholic Church.
In the meantime in China, he says: “The influence of Christianity goes beyond the church compound and is also beginning to make an impact amongst intellectuals. More than 20 universities now offer courses in Christianity and most campuses in major cities have Christian fellowships.”
Writing in Religion, State & Society, Dr Chan claims that Protestant Christianity has mushroomed into an influential social force that can be felt, not only in almost all sectors of Chinese society, but also beyond China’s borders.
One factor Dr Chan notes is that in the past, religion was a taboo subject. Now the public’s thirst for religion is driving the availability of a whole range of religious related products.
“The market-driven publishing industry in China seems to have spotted the overwhelming demand
from the public, mostly not religious believers, for books on religion. Currently books on religion, whether doctrinal or devotional, are seen everywhere in bookshops, which was not the case a decade ago; they are usually best sellers.
Newspaper articles on religion, discussions on religion in Internet chat-rooms, religious names on commercial products, and religious music are commonly available to the public as people increasingly search for a transcendent meaning to life.”
Dr Chan has analysed the current policy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) towards religions.
The CCP recognises that religion attracts massive numbers of followers, and may compete with the party in loyalty. The party attempts to contain religious activities within a defined area. “Religion is tolerated so long as it poses no threat to the ruling regime and no challenge to social institutions such as education and marriage.”
The government recognises only five religions in China: Daoism, Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism. These are supervised by a large bureaucracy, the Religious Affairs Bureau. Dr Chan believes the government will feel secure “so long as it feels religion is not get-
remains under government supervision and monitoring.”
Other religions are regarded as evil cults or folk religions, and are dealt with separately. There are officially 16 groups defined as evil cults, the best known of which is the Falun Gong. A special taskforce has been established within the Public Security Bureau to target evil cults.
Dr Chan says that much has changed in China since the 1980s, when virtually all religions were in survival mode, trying to re-emerge from the ruins of a hostile environment. After the haunting experiences of the Cultural Revolution, it was hard to imagine that they would be able to conduct religious activities again. The 1990s were a period of consolidation as they built up their clerical ranks, reclaimed confiscated properties, and so on. Today things look more positive.
“Currently, Chinese religious organisations are all heading for expansion demonstrating their faith by reaching out into the community through social or charitable programs”, Dr Chan said. “This form of silent witness is a subtle political defiance of the government’s policy of restricting religious activi-
ed religious venues while yet remaining ries, and may become a powerful means of extending religion into secular society.”
With widespread socio-economic upheaval and many people moving from the countryside into the industrialised cities, Dr Chan said that people tended to look for forms of permanency such as religion. Although the official ideology comes from the CCP, this is not widely accepted. “Religions have become an attractive realm where people facing changes can seek new meanings in life”, he said.
How all this will develop in future is difficult to predict. The CCP does not appear to have the flexibility to deal with religious issues which have major social and international consequences. However, Dr Chan closes on an optimistic note, invoking the words of the Hungarian Jesuit, Father Laszlo Ladany, whose China News Analysis had a welldeserved reputation from the 1950s to the 1980s. In the last issue, Fr Ladany said that as far as China is concerned, we should “expect the unexpected”. Dr Chan hopes for some pleasant surprises.
Gerald Mercer is a freelance journalist in Melbourne, Australia
■ By
Michelle Jones, in Rome“Laudetur Iesus Christus!” So begins 26-year-old Australian Catherine Smibert’s broadcast of the World News on Vatican Radio. This Latin praise of Jesus Christ is no trite pious formulation. In fact, it captures the essence of Vatican Radio and Catherine’s work there.
Vatican Radio began broadcasting on February 12, 1931, making it one of the world’s first radio stations. At about that time, Pope Pius XI had come to an agreement with Mussolini whereby Italy recognised the independence of Vatican City State and the Pope’s sovereignty over it.
The Pope knew that in order to fulfil his mission as “Universal Pastor” he would need more than 109 acres. So he turned to Guglielmo Marconi, one of the fathers of radio telegraphy, and together they established Vatican Radio.
The station would be the “Pope’s Radio,” carrying the Pope’s voice, tidings of Holy See activities and the Good News of Jesus to all corners of the world.
“During the Second World War the station broadcast information about prisoners of war and denounced the existence of concentration camps. Such activity provoked the wrath of Hitler, who attempted to bomb the station.”
Throughout its 75 years, Vatican Radio has fulfilled its mission in unexpected, and often poignant, ways.
During the Second World War, for instance, the station broadcast information about prisoners of war and denounced the existence of concentration camps. Such activity provoked the wrath of Hitler, who attempted to bomb the station.
Furthermore, the station transmitted vital and otherwise inaccessible news - such as information about human rights violations - and provided spiritual input into Eastern Europe during the Communist era.
Move over, penguins. There’s a new band of hardy heroes on the Antarctic pack ice who brave cold and hunger in Eight Below, a winning Antarctic adventure about friendship and canine courage.
Based on the Japanese movie Nankyoku Monogatari (which in turn was inspired by true events), the film stars Paul Walker as Jerry Shepard, a survival guide who pilots scientific expeditions from a South Pole research station.
With winter approaching, Jerry, against his better judgment, agrees to convoy a visiting geolo-
Defying Communist prohibitions, the faithful maintained a sense of connection with the Church by bravely listening to Vatican Radio; in fact people where shot during this era while kneeling before their radios to receive the Pope’s apostolic blessing.
Today, Vatican Radio daily transmits Church and world news, liturgical celebrations, in-depth programs, music and more in 47 languages via radio waves, satellites and the internet; indeed, in some isolated locations around the globe, it is the only radio station received. During his visit to Vatican Radio in early March, Pope Benedict XVI highlighted the ongoing importance of the station when he referred to it as a “chorus of voices” radiating the Christian message which can dialogue with different cultures and
religions and can thus be a “powerful force for peace.”
So how does a young Australian woman come to be working for this illustrious international entity?
According to Catherine, “Divine Providence would be the short answer.” Undoubtedly, a thread of grace weaves Catherine’s story together. After completing her degree in media, Catherine, responding to a vocation to evangelise through the media, began working with the Catholic Communications Office of the Archdiocese of Sydney.
Catherine gradually sensed the Spirit prompting her to visit Europe in order to gain a deeper appreciation of how she could make a difference through the media industry.
When Catherine told her boss of her plans she laughed, said that she “felt God calling her there too” and
pointed out the impossibilities of the proposal.
However, doors began to open and Catherine’s desire was realised beyond her expectations: a month long visit turned into a five year adventure that has included organising pilgrimages at the Vatican, working as an executive producer and public relations manager of an independent Catholic production company, taking up journalistic positions at the Vatican news service Zenit and Vatican Radio’s English Section – not to mention marrying Mirko, a Roman who works for the Italian Section of Zenit!
In addition to interviewing cardinals and heads of State, Catherine finds speaking with missionaries from various parts of the world one of the most fascinating aspects of her work at Vatican Radio. “I
gist (Bruce Greenwood) to a more remote site to look for asteroid samples. Unpredictable ice conditions require that they forgo heavy snowmobiles in favour of Jerry’s faithful
and sure-footed team of sled dogs. Their trip is cut short by an advancing storm. Averting neartragedy, they return to base only to be told that they must evacuate
immediately, and, with the small aircraft filled to weight capacity, must leave the dogs behind. Jerry reluctantly agrees, provided the plane will promptly return to pick
find myself particularly moved by people’s struggles for peace and freedom,” Catherine explains, “and what the Church is doing to help them.”
“It is only a shame that these stirring stories are not so easily available through the secular media,” she adds.
From the initial vision of Pope Pius XI to the station’s work today, in which Catherine Smibert plays such a vital role, Vatican Radio has been permeating the world with the Gospel message.
And so from a small spot in the Vatican City State, the exhortation “Laudetur Iesus Christus” has become a living global reality.
For more information about Vatican Radio, visit: http://www.vaticanradio.org
up his fur-coated friends, whom he secures with leashes to prevent them from running off.
An even bigger storm cancels the planned doggy deliverance, leaving the eight assorted huskies and malamutes - who break free - to fend for themselves as the temperatures plunge. Guilt-wracked, Jerry desperately tries to organise a rescue mission.
Combining the tearjerker elements of Lassie Come Home and with dollops of Jack London ruggedness, Eight Below is solid, if unabashedly sentimental, familyfriendly entertainment. However, the film takes its time setting up the main dilemma and includes an extraneous romantic subplot as well as some unfunny comic bits provided by Jerry’s cartographer buddy (Jason Biggs).
continued on Page 7
Westerners see Islam as a monolith, writes Mercatornet editor Michael Cook, but one expert says it’s more like a mosaic
■ By Michael CookAlthough articles on Islam appear every day in Western newspapers, it is normally treated as a political phenomenon. But Islam is a religion and its characteristics flow from its theology. To get an understanding of the underpinnings of the religion of one-sixth of today’s world, I consulted Dr José Morales, a Spanish theologian and Catholic priest who has recently published a book on Islam in contemporary Europe.
Question: The Islamic world and the West have very different ways of looking at the nature of man and society. What are the fundamental reasons for these differences? Are they theological or sociological?
Morales: The Islamic world and the West are very broad realities and concepts which have very different ways of understanding man and society. It is often said that Islam is not a monolith but a mosaic. It is a very fragmented and divided world and only the Western habit of drawing concepts together can treat it as a unity. On the other hand, the Western Enlightenment and Western modernism do not accept a Christian understanding of man either.
With these caveats, let me give my impressions. Islam holds that man and woman have been created by God and owe to Him absolute submission of intellect and will. The word Islam actually means “submission to God”. The principal obligation of every human being is to accept God’s revelation in the Qur’an. This revelation is so self-evident that only someone with a bad will can reject it. Fulfilment or non-fulfilment of the revealed Law of God (sharia) determines man’s eternal destiny and this is not to enjoy the vision of God, as Christians have it, but Paradise or Hell.
In Islam, the individual is subordinated to the Islamic community (the ummah) and to Muslim traditions. The whole truth has already been found and is formulated in the past, so no development is possible. The whole vocabulary of human rights, of freedom and equality and so on, is regarded as a kind of foreign Western discourse. It may have its own validity, but it is not applicable to Islamic culture and the Muslim frame of mind. The personal dignity of each man and woman, who must never be considered as means, but as ends in themselves, is the key point of the Western view of man, which ultimately derives from Christian concepts. In the Christian tradition, a person is a unity of body and soul which has been restored by grace after a fall from grace through original sin. Other Western thinkers claim that the foundation of human dignity is man himself and that he does not necessarily have a transcendent end. Broadly speaking both of these views are more or less foreign to the Muslim mind.
Question: Do Muslims believe that they are made “in the image
It is often said that Islam is not a monolith but a mosaic. It is a very fragmented and divided world and only the Western habit of drawing concepts together can treat it as a unity.
and likeness of God”. If not, does this make a difference?
Morales: Such language is quite incomprehensible for a Muslim. In Islam the relationship between God and man is purely extrinsic. What man can and must do is submit to God. No other relationship is believed to be possible, except in a few mystical and esoteric sects which tend towards pantheism. But this has nothing to do with Islamic orthodoxy.
Question: In the West, we tend to think of religion as a well-organised “church”. Is Islam a church in this sense?
Morales: In Islam, the “community of believers”, the so-called ummah, is very important. This is the gathering of all men and women who have accepted the preaching of Mohammed and try to live according to the precepts and spirit of the Qur’an. It is not an organisation, nor is it a church in the Christian sense of the word. The task of the ummah is not to sanctify or save. It is simply a religious fact which gives Muslims a feeling of belonging to a reality which transcends the individual. The ummah is the religious equivalent of the “nation of Islam”.
Question: Does the fact that their religion is based on a book and not
on the teachings of a Church make a difference?
Morales: There is a big difference. A Christian Church, and especially the Catholic Church, has a “magisterium”, a teaching role, which sets down a unified doctrine on faith and morals, what is to be believed and how men are to behave. This teaching is proclaimed authoritatively. In the Catholic Church the so-called “ordinary magisterium” clarifies doubts and resolves differing interpretations. This does not happen in Islam, because there is no single magisterium or authority, nor is the Muslim community as organised as a Christian Church. Within Islam there are authoritative voices which, down through the centuries, have interpreted the revealed law in a more or less consistent way according to a certain consensus.
Hence there is such a thing as Islamic orthodoxy. But this orthodoxy co-exists with very different parallel interpretations of important issues. This is what is happening with jihad and the so-called martyrs.
Question: What accounts for the rage with which Muslims react when they hear that their religion has been insulted? Is it just the frustration of being an oppressed minority?
Morales: The Enlightenment has never been very good at understanding Islam. In fact, it cannot understand it. When rationalist writers like Voltaire, Carlyle or Renan examined Muslim religious attitudes, they praised them as courageous or scorned them as fanatical. But the Enlightenment has generally looked upon Islam mainly as something to be studied with a detached scientific eye. So the study of their sacred books, their history, their creeds, their rites and their art has been the province of orientalist scholars, who are, in the main, agnostics. Christians have suffered at the hands of Islam and sometimes they have attacked Muslims. Today, it seems, people want to sweep all this history into the dustbin. But I feel that a Christian today is better able to understand the religious values of Muslims than Enlightenment scholars, because if he understands his own religion, he will find it easier to grasp the values which exist in Islam. The documents of the Second Vatican Council are very good on this point, such as Lumen Gentium and Nostra Aetate.
Question: You have just published a study of Islam in contemporary Europe. Apart from demographic growth, do you think that Islam will attract many converts amongst Europeans? Who will be most attracted to it?
Morales: Islam is a civilisation which is very proud of its religion and of its past. It feels offended and humiliated by the West. Islam contains an almost incurable resentment towards the Western world. In some respects it has good reason to feel this way, even though a good measure of this is due to lack of information and excessive emotion. And then there are politicians who manipulate these feeling for their own purposes.
Question: Why are they so sensitive to blasphemy, as in their reaction to the Danish cartoons or Salman Rushdie’s novel “The Satanic Verses”?
Morales: Insults to the “Messenger of God” wound Muslims in the deepest part of their being. They feel that their beliefs are more important than themselves and they are part of their personal identity. This feeling is linked to patriotism, to family bonds and communal roots.
Question: The “West” is hardly united in its views. Apart from the division between Catholics and many types of Protestantism, there is an even more fundamental division between Christian views and Enlightenment views of man and society. Which has the better chance of understanding Islam: the Enlightenment or Christianity?
Morales: My feeling is that it cannot attract many real converts. The notion of converting to Islam has little to do with what Christians mean by converting. Europeans who become Muslims do so, broadly speaking, out of a desire for experimentation and a hankering after exotic experiences. The fact that Islam can attract people in Europe is due basically to the crisis in Christian churches, especially amongst Protestants and Anglicans. There have been two or three thousand Spanish converts and most of them come from the radical left or from greens who have embraced ecologism as a kind of ideology. It is not really a religious phenomenon.
Question: Is the presence of Muslim communities in the heart of Europe an opportunity for Christians to win converts, as well? Are many Muslims attracted to Christianity?
Morales: I don’t think that the present moment is a good time for Muslim conversions to Christianity. But there will always be a few cases here and there.
Dr Jose Morales teaches theology at the University of Navarra in Spain. His survey of Islam was published in 2001 and his most recent book, “Muslims in Europe” was published earlier this year. He is also an expert on the
atholics can expect a torrid time in the media for the next two months while the movie version of the Da Vinci Code comes and, thankfully, goes.
The only bright spot on the horizon is that what may well be the most banal part of the forthcoming media coverage was published in the West Australian on Tuesday morning. Everything that is to come must surely be some sort of improvement, although it is not likely to be worthwhile.
On Tuesday morning the West devoted two-thirds of page 3 to a review of an advertisment for the movie. It may be the first time in history that any self-respecting newspaper (presuming it still is) has reviewed an advertisment for a movie. It would be unkind, but not untruthful, to say that to give such a review most of page 3 is breathtakingly asinine, banal, cretinous, fatuous, inane, stupid and stultifying, so we won’t say it. Readers might like to choose other related words for themselves. For once, “incredible” seems appropriate.
The West can treat its readers with whatever disregard it likes, but there is a bit more to this one. Even if we take the extreme step of accepting that a free page 3 advertisment for an offence against almost all Christian sensibilities is okay for our morning daily, we are still left with the fact that The Da Vinci Code is an outright fraud.
Leaving aside the plagiarism case currently before a British court, the fact is that ever since the book was published, historians and art specialists have demonstrated over and over again that the only thing true in the book is the statement on the publisher’s page that it is all fiction. Some 40 million readers have flooded their minds with endless falsehoods about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, the Catholic Church, Sunday worship, Leonardi da Vinci, a swag of paintings, and various other bits of history.
PO Box 75, Leederville, WA 6902
Tel: (08) 9227 7080, Fax: (08) 9227 7087 cathrec@iinet.net.au
You just have to wonder why a newspaper that claims its primary functions are truth and accountability would devote page 3 to promoting a promo for this trash, even to the extent of telling readers where to look for the promo on the web.
Perhaps the answer to that lies in the fact that the other one-third of page 3 was devoted to a story about another TV program that claims Jesus and Judas planned his betrayal. Their source for this fantasy is a document allegedly discovered in the 1970s that has been dated to the 4th Century and has therefore been “authenticated” as the Gospel of Judas. Can you feel another Dan Brown novel coming on?
Deeper down, however, is the problem that once people distort their relationship with God by imagining they can ignore him, or they are equal to him, or even better than him and can therefore tell him how to be God, all sorts of things get distorted.
Online social networks such as MySpace and Facebook are a “virtual mosh pit” leading millions of teenagers to waste massive amounts of time, says a Washington dad in a recent Time magazine’ cover story.
Michael Duffy says he has tried to restrict internet use by his own 15year-old son, who is a Facebook fan, but suspects he is failing. “Facebook is one giant time vortex - a black hole of chatter - and for many kids it’s hard to find an exit,” writes Duffy.
“Under its influence, 90 minutes of homework ends up taking four to five hours...” - FamilyEdge
Older people working as volunteers in some American schools have been doing themselves a favour as well as the children, research has shown. In Baltimore the non-profit group Experience Corps has been training older people to help urban, public elementary schools improve student literacy and behaviour.
They put in a minimum of 15 hours a week and receive a monthly stipend to cover expenses.
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Centre on Ageing and Health studied 1194 junior children from six schools in the program and found the volunteers - mostly African-Americans aged 60 to 86 - increased their own physical, mental and social activity.
Third-grade children in the program had significantly higher reading scores than peers in control groups, and behaviour improved. Children in the program also did much less television watching.
■ By Anna Krohn
The mainstream news services give the distinct impression that the world is finding it difficult to pin a ready label or a zippy storyline on Pope Benedict XVI. His first encyclical on love, his inspirational Christmas messages, his address on peace and his popular and beautifully crafted Wednesday audiences and his personal impact on those who meet him have been witnessed with minimal comment.
Even Catholic commentators from the neo-conservatives to the liberals seem rather non-plussed. Why is he writing on love when there are so many people to set straight? What the heck are the indulgences about?
According to media, in the past months Pope Benedict has done only two headline worthy things. One was to revive the wearing of the red velvet-fur trimmed papal cap - the camauro. (Some articles almost suggest that this is a clever ploy by him to capture the Father Christmas market!). The other is his happy reception of an i-Pod as a gift from Vatican Radio.
I like to think of a fantasy story fusing these two headlines which reveals that the Pope is really hiding his i-Pod buds under his red hat and is easing the dreary round
of Vatican meetings by streaming Mozart.
For even the laziest reporter knows that the Pope likes Mozart, particularly that he relaxes playing Mozart’s piano concertos. And everyone knows that this year is the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus’ birth.
Cardinal Meisner of Cologne remarked on his election that Papa Ratzinger is the Mozart of theology. If the Cardinal’s observation is correct it may explain why the world of sound bites and pretty pixels cannot quite get a fix on this Pope.
Unlike the titanic and dramatic John Paul II, Pope Benedict conveys a quieter and more reserved personal presence. He is not striking like a Mahler or a Stravinsky. Pope Benedict in both his writing and personal presence conveys a precise lightness and joyful elegance that seems to be more at home in the classical culture of the 18th century than in our own where the overt, the blunt and the pushy prevail. He is gentle without weakness, attractive without “glamour”, he is an intellectual virtuoso without being esoteric and obscure. Somewhat like Mozart he mastered his discipline early and seems to compose prodigiously without effort.
Writing in the Asia Times, the commentator Spengler though troubled by Benedict’s devotion to Mozart and beauty, says: “Benedict is one of the most cultivated men alive, with a mind that no surviving school could have trained.” Mozart’s clarity and lightness was judged by the Romantics and Modernists who followed him in musical history as “light-weight” even by some as froth and bubble. It is said that Beethoven thought Mozart’s operas were too lighthearted and playful to be quite
moral.
One of Pope Benedict’s favorite words is “light” (not to be confused with “lite”). As Chesterton might say, he has levity because he is humble, he does not take himself too seriously- because he trusts in God’s providence.
Mozart’s genius included his ability to mine and understand the inner form of the music traditionrepresented by the musical giants Handel, Hayden and Bach. But instead of being merely imitative he could infuse the classical form with a freshness that transcends his time. His music touches the truth of such realities as love, sadness and contemplation with radical newness.
Pope Benedict is showing something of the same ability he mines the Early Church, the Scriptures and his great patrons Sts Augustine and Benedict not to mention the mind of his great predecessor, John Paul. He too synthesises their genius with his profound and accessible eloquence.
Pope Benedict believes that the beauty of art and music is more than mere wallpaper or life-style “ambience”. He urges the Church to reject the glitzy banality of mass culture and to promote the perennial beauty which leads us to redemption and transcendence because it leads us to Christ.
“Next to the saints, the art which the Church has produced is the only real “apologia” for her history… The Church is to transform, improve, “humanise” the world but how can she do that if at the same time she turns her back on beauty, which is so closely tied to love?
For together beauty and love form the true consolation in this world, bringing it as near as possible to the world of resurrection” (J. Ratzinger Feast of Faith, 1981).
At a cost of $3,613 per volunteer per year, the program would be cost effective if just 12 children graduated who would not have otherwise, the study concluded.
- FamilyEdge
“Pope Benedict believes that the beauty of art and music is more than mere wallpaper or life-style ‘ambience’.”
John the Baptist receives surprisingly little attention in Lent, which is strange because his whole life was a preparation for Christ’s mission. According to the Gospel of Luke, Mary, the Mother of God, and Elizabeth, John’s mother, were first cousins, thus Jesus and John were second cousins. John’s father, Zachary, was a member of the hereditary Jewish priesthood, which served in the Temple in Jerusalem.
John’s parents, Elizabeth and Zachary, were quite old and had given up hope of having a child. This caused them great shame, as the Jewish people at that time thought that barrenness (along with serious illness and disability) was a punishment from God.
Then an angel appeared to Zachary when he was sacrificing in the Temple and told him that his elderly wife would have a son. Zachary was struck dumb because he did not immediately believe the angel. Thus John followed the tradition of Isaac, Samson and others in the Old Testament who were conceived by older mothers after giving up hope of ever having children; this makes one rather wonder about the persistent tradition of barrenness being a punishment from God.
As John is regarded as the last of the Old Testament prophets, it is
fitting that his conception should follow an Old Testament tradition.
As the last Old Testament Prophet, John was the first person (aside from Mary) to recognise and greet the Messiah; something he did before either of them was born.
Mary went to visit Elizabeth after she had conceived Jesus, “And it came to pass, that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the child (John) leaped for joy in her womb”. This moment is almost the ‘handshake’ between the old Covenant and the New.
As an adult, John went into the
desert to pursue the life of a hermit, fasting and wearing garments of camel hair.
When God called him to begin preaching – to prepare the people for Jesus’ public ministry – his austerity and appearance added authority to his words and he rapidly gained a large following.
He propounded the usual message of repentance and obedience to God’s laws, but he also baptised his followers in the Jordan River – something which drew so much attention that he was described as ‘The Baptist’, even by Jesus.
It is often thought that John, and even Jesus, may have had some dealing with the Essenes – the other major Jewish sect in Israel at the time, along with the Sadducees and the Pharisees.
The Essenes generally lived in the desert, and practiced many forms of ritual washing, some similar to baptism. Both the Pharisees and Sadducees also required ritual washing, and even today some orthodox Jewish sects require specific ritual bathing to maintain religious cleanliness. Baptism was not a completely new concept to John’s followers.
John the Baptist preached in Perea and Galilee, which were part of the kingdom of Herod Antipas, a son of Herod the Great from the Christmas story. Herod Antipas had fallen in love with, and married his niece, Herodias. Marrying one’s niece was not a problem, in fact it was very common – Herodias was already married to another uncle,
Philip. Divorce was also common, so Herodias divorced one uncle to marry the other.
However, by the Law of Moses, marriage to a sister-in-law was forbidden.
According to the Gospels, John criticised them publicly for committing adultery. Fearing popular uprisings Herod arrested John and imprisoned him in the fortress of Machaerus on the shore of the Dead Sea.
John seems to have been in regular contact with Jesus, until he was executed, before the crucifixion.
While it is possible that Salome and her mother, Herodias, were responsible, the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ doesn’t seem very likely behaviour for a little Jewish princess; the political requirements of the Herod family are more likely reasons for John’s execution.
Dr Skerritt, an archeologist, is currently lecturing at Acts2Come Bible College (see advertisement elsewhere in this edition).
Caritas Australia is supporting the Bethany Centre in Papua New Guinea (PNG) which continues to provide counselling and support for those living with HIV and AIDS.
The number of infected people in PNG is rapidly escalating. While there are no accurate statistics, the prevalence of the virus is almost doubling every two years.
In 2004, the Holy Spirit Sisters, with support from Caritas Australia, opened the Bethany Centre in Madang where people at risk of contracting HIV can receive free counselling and be tested for the virus.
Before the Bethany Centre opened, there was no available
continued from Vista 2
Otherwise, director Frank Marshall tells a strong story, one that appeals to both the eyes and emotions of his audience.
Filmed in northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland, cinematographer Don Burgess’ breathtaking photography provides a spectacular, if inhospitable, stage for the drama, capturing both nature’s beauty and indifference.
(Hand warmers should be included with the admission price.)
Walker is appealing, but the real star is the ensemble of noble four-footed creatures, who display distinct, almost human personalities, conveying a one-for-all-andall-for-one bond that anthropomorphically suggests something deeper than mere pack instinct, staying alive by hunting seagulls and scavenging off the dead carcass of a killer whale. (“Never underestimate a living spirit’s will to survive, especially when
support system for HIV positive people, or potential sufferers, and their families. In fact, not much was
they’re surrounded by family,” an old man tells Jerry.)
Parents should know that there is a frightening scene in which the dogs must fend off a vicious leopard seal, as well as several three-hanky moments which, though not quite as traumatic as “Bambi,” will leave even hardened viewers misty-eyed.
In fact, only the most frostbitten cynics will not have a lump in their throats during the hearttugging, bittersweet climax.
As warm as its setting is cold, this action-packed dog tale will leave moviegoers wagging theirs.
The film contains some intense human and animal peril, brief, mildly crude language, predatory violence, and a few sad scenes that may upset the youngest of children.
The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is AII - adults and adolescents.
- CNS
publicly known about the virus and many people living with HIV were not being tested.
The team of volunteers at the Bethany Centre is not only working towards combating HIV/AIDS through counselling and treatment but through raising awareness and changing people’s perception of the virus.
Judy Michael, an HIV positive mother of five, is a counsellor at the Bethany Centre. She contracted HIV from her husband in 1997, at a time when no counselling or support system was available.
“I just had the test and they told me that I had HIV. They did not tell me what that meant, they just sent me away”, Judy said.
The lack of support and information that existed at the time motivated Judy to take action and help others in her situation.
“I knew what it was like to have HIV so I started going to schools, churches and community groups to increase awareness about HIV and then I trained to be a counsellor.
“I am just a mother but I try my best,” Judy said.
Despite the humble way in which she talks of her contribution, Judy’s volunteer work for the Bethany Centre has done much to help many people.
When someone comes to the Bethany Centre they are given an HIV test using rapid test strips. This method allows for results to be
obtained in just 15 minutes. Judy or another trained counsellor is there to provide pre-test counselling for the patient and, if tested positive, ongoing support.
Those who test positive are also given advice so they can turn their lives around through good nutrition, treatment of opportunistic illnesses and behavioural change, thereby minimising the spread of the virus.
Your donation to Project Compassion will ensure this support for people living with HIV continues.
Donations can be made by phoning 1800 024 413, on-line at www. caritas.org.au or by posting to GPO Box 9830 in your capital city.
continued from pagge 1 and treated as common sense, has eroded significantly.”
Increasingly, it is secular values on issues such as gay marriage, abortion, divorce and euthanasia which are setting the “default position” for Australians - those Australians who have had little contact with religion.
Consequently, the next 30-40 years will be decisive for Australia, Dr Casey said. In this period, Catholics must “try to turn things around, to reset the default positions, to align culture and society with Christian values and all the good things we can bring to society.”
“World Youth Day will help us immeasurably in this effort,” he added.
As part of the evangelisation of Australian culture, Catholic stu-
dents in secular universities should show sensitivity towards people who they disagree with, Dr Casey said.
But Catholics should also be conscious that they have an advantage in intellectual discussions because, unlike many people in the “postmodern” intellectual environment, Catholics believe in transcendent values.
“Post-modernism is relativism on speed,” Dr Casey said. “After World War II, people began to doubt the triumph of reason, freedom, progress and equality. The radical attempts to remake human society undertaken by Nazism and Communism resulted only in huge piles of corpses.
“As the hopes held especially for Marxism and communism were not validated, theorists seeing this failure began to argue that there are
no grand projects or ideals worth pursuing.
“Usually with a surrender like this, theorists take stock and see where things went wrong. In postmodernism, however it is argued that because the grand secular projects failed, every project with universal ambition must fail, and that whatever else the grand narratives were wrong about, they were right about religion.”
Dr Casey said that for post-modernists, there exists “no transcendant meaning.”
Catholics, by contrast, “believe that the longing for transcendence is inherent in people and directs us first to others and ultimately to God.
“We believe this is not just an accident, that it is part of the human condition, present in all cultures even if imperfectly.”
Inducting 15 new members into the College of Cardinals, Pope Benedict XVI called on them to be even stronger witnesses of God’s love for the world and their own love for the Church.
At the March 24 ceremony in which the prelates from 11 countries became cardinals, he prayed that the red garments they now wear would inspire them to an even more “passionate love for Christ, for his Church and for all humanity.”
Giving them rings during a March 25 Mass, he told them they are called to serve the Church “with the love of a spouse.”
Cardinal Levada, the former archbishop of San Francisco, addressed the Pope on behalf of the new cardinals on March 24.
In accepting their new status, Cardinal Levada said, the new cardinals renewed their commitment of “total love and unconditional fidelity to Christ the Lord and to the Christian people.”
“This love for Jesus Christ and his Church, this fidelity to humanity which has a burning thirst for truth, we want to place into your hands,” he told the Pope. At the March 24 prayer service, Pope Benedict told the entire College of Cardinals, which now numbers 193 members, that he counted on them “to proclaim to the world that God is love.”
“Ensure that the principle of love will spread far and wide and will give new life to the Church,” he said.
At Mass the next day, the Pope slipped a ring on the finger of each Cardinal saying, “Receive the ring from the hand of Peter and know that with the love of the prince of the apostles your love for the Church will be reinforced.”
Among the most applauded of the new cardinals at the Mass were Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow, Pope John Paul II’s longtime personal secretary, and Chinese
Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong.
After the ring Mass, Pope Benedict hosted a lunch for the new cardinals and the 140 other members of the College of Cardinals who came to the Vatican for a March 23 meeting with the Pope and for the two days of ceremonies for their new peers.
During the consistory, all of the new cardinals were supported by groups of family, friends and the
faithful, who cheered and waved flags when their Cardinal went forward to kneel at the Pope’s feet.
Cardinal Zen was cheered by some 300 Chinese Catholics who gathered at the Vatican from around the world. The group included 100 clergy and nuns from mainland China studying in Rome, reported UCA News, an Asian Church news agency. The delegation from Hong Kong numbered 141 people, includ-
ing the Cardinal’s oldest and youngest sisters, the agency added.
During the March 24 ceremony a special prayer was offered in Chinese “for all those who still suffer because of their Christian faith.”
The crowd prayed that “in prayer they would experience the certainty of communion with the whole Church and that one day they will harvest in joy that which they have sown in patience and love for long years.”
The oldest of the new cardinals, 87-year-old Cardinal Peter Poreku Dery, retired archbishop of Tamale, Ghana, was seated in a wheelchair and was carried up the steps of St. Peter’s Square to the Pope.
Pope Benedict stood to place the red hat, called a biretta, on Cardinal Dery’s head and caressed the Cardinal’s cheek after offering him the sign of peace.
The last Cardinal created was 82-year-old French Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, a noted biblical scholar.
Cardinal Vanhoye told the Catholic newspaper Avvenire that he got a call from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, a couple of days before Pope Benedict announced the new cardinals.
“I asked myself, Why are they looking for me? What exegetical errors did I make in my writings?” he said.
The news that Pope Benedict was about to name him a Cardinal, and not that he was about to be called on the carpet, “fell from the sky; I could not believe it,” he told the newspaper.
● Benedict XVI told the delegation from Hong Kong that he will visit communist China but the trip’s timing depends on “God’s wish”, AP reports.
One year ago in April, the city of Rome saw record numbers of crowds when millions of people flocked to the Vatican and St Peter’s Basilica for the funeral of Pope John Paul II, the conclave of cardinals and the subsequent election of Pope Benedict XVI.
In just one week, more than 3 million people descended on the Vatican to honour Pope John Paul, who died on April 2, 2005.
According to the Vatican, the crowds have just kept coming.
In just the first eight months of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI drew nearly 3 million pilgrims to public events.
According to the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household, more than 2.8 million people attended the weekly general audiences, the Sunday blessings, special papal audiences or liturgical celebrations at which Pope Benedict presided.
Also, the number of visitors going through the doors of the Vatican Museums in 2005 broke all records, even surpassing the huge crowds that came during the jubilee year when the museums extended opening hours into the afternoon.
Last year, more than 3.8 million people squeezed through the turnstiles. That number was up from more than 3.4 million people in 2004.
Some speculate the unprecedented global media coverage the Vatican received during last April’s papal transition had a hand in putting Rome and the Vatican back on the map as a sought-after tourist destination for both secular globetrotters and Christian pilgrims.
While curiosity about the new Pope and the desire to pay homage to the late pontiff with a pilgrimage to his tomb have accounted for some of the boom in visitors, one tour guide said there are other factors involved. While the number of visitors “has definitely increased since last April, it was already on the rise from two years ago,” he said.
“I would say having a new Pope accounts for about 5 percent” of the increase in the number of visitors who use the company, said Encinias. The Colorado native said while tourists want to see Rome’s religious sites their motives are different.
The time is ripe for improvement in Vatican-China relations, said a top Vatican official.
In interviews with a Hong Kong television station and local newspaper, South China Morning Post, the Vatican’s foreign minister, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, said there was hope for an eventual normalisation of relations between the two states.
“The fact itself of entering into unofficial contacts is an attitude not of closure but of openness,” the archbishop told the Hong Kong-based newspaper.
While official diplomatic ties have been severed since 1951, some sort of improvement may be on the horizon, he added.
“The time is ripe,” the archbishop said on March 25 on a Hong Kong cable television program.
“We hope for an opening on the part of the Chinese authorities, who cannot ignore the expectations of their people or the signs of
the times.” While unofficial talks with China have been marked by “highs and lows, as happens in any negotiation,” discussions so far “have not been without fruit,” he said.
The archbishop’s comments were made the day after Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen Zekiun was inducted into the College of Cardinals. Archbishop Lajolo said the appointment was “intended to be a recognition of the high values of culture and wisdom of the great Chinese tradition and of the role of modern China in today’s world.”
The Diocese of Hong Kong should serve as an example of what granting full religious freedom to all people in mainland China could mean, he added.
The “harmonious presence” of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong, its peaceful religious activity in the city, and the “intellectual vivacity” of Cardinal Zen should be seen as an example of what the Catholic Church and its leaders are about, the archbishop said.
The positive example of the church in Hong Kong “could break down the walls of prejudice and
fear toward the Catholic Church” still present in China, he said.
Archbishop Lajolo said the work of normalising Vatican ties with China has been contradictory because although top officials seem to “have the will to regularise the relations” some intermediate officials “row against it.”
Last year, relations showed signs of improvement when several new Chinese bishops chosen by the Vatican received government approval.
But last October, Chinese officials did not grant travel permission to Chinese bishops invited to the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican. Church sources also reported Chinese authorities continued to arrest and harass bishops, priests and seminarians, primarily from the underground church.
The underground church has been in existence since the 1950s, when China tried to force Catholics and other Christians to join government-approved patriotic associations. Cardinal Zen has said that today up to 85 percent of the government-approved bishops have reconciled secretly with the Vatican. CNS
The director of the Vatican Observatory called the concept of intelligent design “absurd” and part of a religious fundamentalist movement in the United States, which wants science to show that God exists.
“They are using the Bible as science, as a source of scientific knowledge. This is wrong,” Jesuit Father George Coyne told Catholic News Service after a March 27 lecture in Washington.
The earliest date given for the start of modern science is the 13th century, more than 1,000 years after all of the books of the Bible were written, he said.
“How could biblical writers draw on science when modern science didn’t exist yet?” said Father Coyne.
He also discussed intelligent design in his speech on the evolution of the universe and in a subsequent question-and-answer period. His talk was sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
“Intelligent design is a religious movement based on fear that if you don’t teach an alternative to evolution, we will have a lot of little atheists running around,” he said.
Since Charles Darwin in the 19th century advanced the concept of the biological evolution of the human species there has been “a fear in religious cultures that if evolution is true then there is no place for God,” he said. “Why evolution denies God, I can’t understand.” Science is neutral regarding atheism or belief in God, he said. The aim of science is to deal with material things in a methodical way to verify or falsify principles, he said.
Supporters of intelligent design say there
are gaps in evolutionary theory and those can be better explained scientifically by their own theory that there are a design and purpose inherent in life-forms which spring from an unnamed intelligence.
Father Coyne said pitting intelligent design as an alternative to evolution is a “serious problem” that belittles God and science.
People who look to science first to find signs of God’s existence reverse the process by which believers can use the world around them to learn about God, Father Coyne said.
Faith is a gift from God which involves his personal relationship with believers and with communities of believers, he said. Once believers have this personal relationship, a “second reflection” leads them to seek insights in creation, he said. “We have to see God’s relationship with us first and then see that this
is the same God who created the universe,” he said. The Old Testament teaches this, he said.
The Jews first had a personal relationship with a God who did things for them such as freeing them from Egyptian slavery, he said.
“It was upon second reflection that they realized that this was the God of creation,” he said. When asked if life exists elsewhere in the universe, Father Coyne said, “We don’t know.” He held out the possibility that life exists on other planets but said the only thing science can prove is that there is life on earth and that it is continually evolving.
If life were to be discovered elsewhere “then the universe is fertile with life,” he said.
Science has shown that “life is so hard to come by on earth,” as a series of chemical reactions over billions of years were required before the first life-forms appeared, he said.
In its fourth design in the past decade, Opus Dei has launched a new version of its Web site at www.opusdei.org.
The Web site, which was visited by more than 3 million people in 2005, offers information about Opus Dei as well as news about the Catholic Church and the Pope. It is now available in 22 languages.
“’The Da Vinci Code’ has definitely increased the number of visitors to our Web site,” said Peter Bancroft of the Opus Dei communications office in New York. “In 2005, we had 15 million page hits, from 3 million different visitors. Just on the U.S. version of the site, we have had a million visitors to our page about ‘The Da Vinci Code.’”
An improved press room section of the site offers contact information for Opus Dei press offices around the world, as well as backgrounders, press releases and audiovisual materials on the organization.
Visitors also may subscribe to a new message-of-the-day service, offering a daily e-mail with an excerpt from the writings of St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the founder of Opus Dei. The site already offers a newsletter, which has more than 40,000 subscribers.
Founded in Spain in 1928, Opus Dei now has more than 87,000 members in more than 60 countries, including 3,000 in the United States. Its name is Latin for “God’s work.”
Move over Bach, Mozart and Stravinsky: A modern new musical version of Christ’s Passion will be performed in England on Good Friday to the sound of rock music.
The Manchester Passion will dramatise the final hours of the life of Jesus with songs from local rock groups, including Oasis, Joy Division, New Order, James, the Smiths and
M-People. However, in this production, the songs will be accompanied by a 16-piece string orchestra, arranged by Philip Sheppard, cello professor at London’s Royal Academy of Music. The play will be produced and televised by the British Broadcasting Corp. The production has been criticized by some Christian groups because of the sex and drugs often associated with the Manchester rock-and-roll scene. The event, however, has the broad support of the mainstream church-
The Vatican will this week host a series of ceremonies and events to observe the anniversary of John Paul II’s death.
Catholic World News reports that special Masses, exhibitions, concerts, and meetings will be held in Rome and also in Krakow, where Cardinal Karol Wojtyla once served as archbishop. The central event at the Vatican will be a prayer vigil in St Peter’s Square in the evening of April 2, recalling the vigil held there on the night Pope John Paul died. Pope Benedict XVI will participate in that vigil and preside at an anniversary Mass the following day. The evening ceremony will begin with the reading of several texts written by the late Pontiff, followed by the
es, including the Catholic Diocese of Salford. Bishop Terence Brain of Salford said he plans to meet the producers of the play. Father Denis Clinch of St. Mary Church, near the city centre, said producers want young people to be “touched by the Passion, which they will graphically illustrate.” “Our approach is to say that if it gets people interested in the Passion and Resurrection, it sounds positive to us,” said Father Michael Walsh, communications officer for the Salford Diocese. “It is aimed at
Rosary and meditations. Benedict XVI will address the crowd in St Peter’s Square to mark the hour at which the death of John Paul II was announced.
The ceremony will be linked to a gathering in central Krakow by a live television broadcast.
Several exhibits will be held in Rome to mark the anniversary, including a photographic exhibit that will show pictures of the late Pope’s last trip to his native Poland. - CNS
Despite millions of pounds spent in Britain on getting girls on an equal footing with boys in science education, new research shows that girls are simply not interested in the same scientific world as boys. Interviews
younger people, the 16 to 30 age group. It wouldn’t suit everybody, but we are certainly not against it.”
In the statement, the BBC said the “contemporary retelling” of the biblical account of the death of Christ took its “inspiration from the way Bach and other composers fused music and the Passion story.”
The production will begin in the city’s red light and gay district, where the character playing Jesus will sing “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division, a punk band from the
with 1200 15-year-olds showed that boys want lessons about bombs and chemical warfare, while girls want to learn about anorexia, abortion and dreams.
For boys, the most dreaded topic was alternative therapies.
However, they agreed with girls about other turn-offs: few of either sex were interested in the benefits and possible hazards of modern farming methods, or “famous scientists and their lives”.
The findings, from a study by the Centre for Studies in Science and Mathematics Education at the University of Leeds, suggest that separate syllabuses may have to be drafted for each sex, say the researchers.
They found the “persistence of gender differentials” in what pupils wanted to study “disappointing” in view of the money spent on ensuring equity of access.
Boys like: Explosive chemicals; how it
1970s and 1980s, during a re-enactment of the Last Supper.
The character of Judas, about to betray Jesus, will then sing “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” by the 80s band The Smiths. The characters, dressed in contemporary fashions, will then slowly make their way to Albert Square in the city centre. On the way, Jesus will sing “Sit Down” by the band James, as he urges the apostles to sit on a street wall during a scene re-creating his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. CNS
feels to be weightless in space; how the atom bomb functions; biological and chemical weapons and what they do to the human body; black holes and other spectacular objects in outer space; how meteors, comets or asteroids can cause disasters on earth; the possibility of life outside earth; how computers work; the effects of strong electric shocks and lightning on the body; brutal, dangerous and threatening animals.
Girls like: Why we dream and what it means; cancer, and how we can treat it; first aid and basic medical equipment; keeping fit; how we can protect ourselves against sexually transmitted diseases; HIV/Aids and how to control it; life and death and the human soul; biological and human aspects of abortion; eating disorders; how alcohol might affect the body.
When Eugenio Pacelli was still a cardinal in 1935 he wrote an open letter to the bishop of Cologne in which he described the Nazis as false prophets with the pride of Lucifer. His judgment was no doubt influenced by his experience during his already stellar ecclesiastical career, including as papal ambassador to the entire German empire for 12 years from 1917. During that period he gave 44 speeches, 40 of which denounced some aspect of the emerging Nazi ideology. In fact, Pacelli’s opposition to the Nazis was so well known that the Nazis actively lobbied against him during the 1939 papal elections. Germany was the only European nation not to send a delegate to his coronation as Pope Pius XII.
Six years later and by the end of WWII the Nazis had slaughtered approximately 80 per cent of Europe’s Jews, while 85 per cent of Italy’s 40,000 Jews had survived. Clerics who were declared righteous gentiles by Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial, including a Capuchin Monk who ran off thousands of counterfeit baptism certificates so that Jews could travel safely as Catholics, denied any right to such plaudits on the grounds that they were only following Pius XII’s direct orders. After WWII the acclaim for Pius XII’s efforts against the Nazis was universal, ranging from the future prime minister of Israel to the Israeli Philharmonic orchestra, which played at the Vatican in 1955.
This is just a sample of a multitude of facts in Rabbi David Dalin’s short book that obliterate any remaining shred of credibility that allegations that Pius XII was a Nazi collaborator ever had. Of course, such facts will never be enough for those with an axe to grind against the Catholic Church and Pope Pius XII especially. Indeed, such indifference to the facts is no more amply demonstrated than by the liberal media’s scant attention to the about face by John Cornwell, author of the now infa-
mous “Hitler’s Pope”, published in 1999. In 2004 Cornwell said he was wrong to have ascribed evil motives to Pius XII and that he now found it impossible to judge him.
Starting with an overview of papal efforts against anti-Semitism ranging from Pope Gregory the Great to Pius XI, Dalin also summarises Pius XII’s career from its inception. By the time the book actually gets to the outbreak of WWII and Pacelli’s coronation, Dalin has provided so many exam-
ples and authorities spelling out Pacelli’s active and mutual disdain for the Nazis, that the reader can do little but expect to read of his efforts to thwart the Nazi’s final solution. Dalin then moves into a historiography and theory behind why Pius XII was ever labelled a Nazi collaborator in the first place and argues that Pius XII should be declared a righteous gentile.
Dalin makes the argument that disdain for Pius XII is a thinly veiled attack on Catholicism, Judaism and traditional religion itself. In that respect, rather than allow malignant secularists to stain traditional religion as a whole, Catholics and Jews should instead be focusing on their common heritage and similarities to resist such attacks.
As well as this is Dalin’s point that advocates of the Hitler’s Pope myth are not so worried about using the holocaust to beat the Catholic Church, as making sure that the Catholic Church gets a beating. Their use of the holocaust in such a way, which on the facts is without merit, offends the memory of the 6 million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis more than 60 years ago. According to Dalin, if the Hitler’s Pope advocates were really concerned about anti-Semitism, they have much better material than Pius XII.
In this respect Dalin’s theory as to the real and current source of anti-Semitism is demonstrated by the fact that the one religious leader who actively helped implement Hitler’s final solution, was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Hajj Amin al-Husseini moved to Germany during WWII and was said to have even visited Auschwitz where he encouraged the attendants to work more diligently.
In addition to providing details of the Grand Mufti’s well-documented involvement in the holocaust, Dalin also provides details
of his integral post war involvement in the modern day PLO.
According to Dalin, during the 6-day war in 1967, Egyptian POWs were found with small paper-back versions of Mein Kampf. In 2001 the Palestinian Authority published an Arabic version which soon achieved best seller status throughout the Arabic world.
By presenting credible arguments that telescope Nazism into 21st century politics, Dalin takes readers where they probably weren’t looking to go. I finished reading his book soon after Hamas, whose stated objectives are reported to still include the destruction of Israel, was democratically elected to government.
Dalin ends his book with a comparison between the apologies of Pope John Paul II for the Church’s past transgressions against the Jewish people and current tensions in the Middle East.
Dalin’s book arms the reader with basic facts and conclusive arguments refuting the allegations that Pius XII was a Nazis sympathiser. It also causes you to wonder how any right thinking person could have ever entertained such allegations in the first place. In addition, Dalin’s book also confronts you with issues that you may not have been expecting to deal with. The lesson from Dalin’s own hand in that respect seems to be that one should tread lightly and carefully, rather than uncritically accept the first book that you read, as so many seem to have done regarding Pius XII.
So now, instead of merely sitting back and comfortably waiting for the next poor soul who tries to slander one of the 20th Century’s greatest Popes, I might actually have to investigate and take a side on more immediate and pressing issues, which is something I wasn’t really quite ready for. I wonder, what would Pacelli have done?
The wisdom of Pope Benedict XVI has been pitched at the MP3 generation, with the release of the encyclical letter Deus Caritas Est in CD format.
The double-CD set, read by Catholic radio presenter Peter Byrne, is the brainchild of Melbourne Catholic Communications director Janette Mentha, who is a fan of audio books. “Peter told me he had
MARCH
already recorded the Encyclical for broadcast on 3RPH, which is radio for the print handicapped.
Driving home later, the idea hit me like a bolt: why don’t we buy the recording and put it out on CD?”
The encyclical was then rerecorded, edited and produced to a high level of audio quality by Fraymework, a business run by the Mercy order. “It’s a great example of Catholic agencies working together,” Ms Mentha told The Record
“Before he made the recording,
31-2 April Visitation, Doubleview Parish – Archbishop Hickey Visitation, York Parish – Bishop Sproxton
APRIL
3 Admission to Candidacy, Redemptoris Mater Seminary – Archbishop Hickey
4 Caritas Breakfast, Parliament House – Archbishop Hickey
5 Mass, St Patrick’s Basilica – Archbishop Hickey Reconciliation, Willetton – Bishop Sproxton
Peter prayed about it. He even had a candle burning while he read the Pope’s words.”
Melbourne’s Catholic Communications sought copyright permission to make the recording from the Catholic Bishops Conference, who passed on the request to the papal nuncio in Canberra. Permission for the recording was swiftly received from the Vatican.
The result is a deluxe CD set in blue and red packaging with a play-
ing time of just under two hours.
The recording, which retails for $22 from Catholic Communications Melbourne, is not available in audio cassette.
People with the correct computer hardware and software will be able to convert the CDs to MP3 format for playing in their iPods or other MP3 players.
The Deus Caritas Est CD is available from The Record for $25, inc. postage. Contact The Record on (08) 9227 7080
6 Council of Priests, Glendalough – Archbishop Hickey, Bishop Sproxton Presentation of “Plainsong”, Mercedes College – Archbishop Hickey Reconciliation, Bateman – Bishop Sproxton
7 CEO Staff Breakfast – Bishop Sproxton
8 Council of Churches AGM – Fr Kevin Long
9 Palm Sunday Mass, St Mary’s Cathedral, 10 am – Archbishop Hickey
11 Mass of Oils, St Mary’s Cathedral, 7.30 pm – Archbishop Hickey, Bishop Sproxton
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Sunday, April 2
ETERNAL WORD TELEVISION NETWORK ON ACCESS 31
10 - 11 am This week only, REPEAT of: Exclusive interview with Cardinal Pell / Raymond Arroyo [The World Over] 1 - 2 pm. The Way of the Cross at Lourdes / presented by Bob and Penny Lord, followed by The Reality of Hell / Fr Benedict Groeschel [Sunday Night Live] Regretfully a repeat of the program of March 12, of which the sound was faulty, was not put to air at the time advertised for March 26. However it will be rebroadcast on April 2. The Rosary Christian Tutorial Association, PO Box 1270, Booragoon 6954. Enquiries 9330-1170
Sunday April 2
ACIES CEREMONY
The Legion of Mary cordially invites you to attend the ACIES ceremony to be held at Our lady of Lourdes, Cnr Lesmurdie and Glyde Roads, Lesmurdie at 3pm.
Sunday April 2
TO LIVE AS ST FRANCIS OF ASSISI LIVED!
A day of Reflection on the life of St Francis and Clare of Assisi who followed Jesus so closely; will be held at the Edel Quinn Centre, 36 Windsor Street, East Perth. Starts at 10am and concludes at 3pm with a special Mass to celebrate the life of our beloved Father Alban Mitchell OFM, who was born into eternal life on March 2.
Monday April 3 – Wednesday April 5
ST BRIGID’S PARISH MIDLAND MINIMISSION
7.30pm-8.30pm (Mon & Tues) confessions after Wednesday Session held at St Brigid’s Church, 69b Morrison Road, Midland. There will be three sessions presented by Norma Woodcock on the topic “You are – Chosen, Blessed, Broken, Given”. Norma’s area of expertise is Spirituality specialising in Ignatian Imaginative Meditations on Gospel scenes. Enq: 9274 1495
Friday April 7
ALLIANCE AND TRIUMPH OF THE TWO HEARTS
1st Friday/Saturday All Night Vigil in reparation to the Two Hearts: Holy Mass 9pm Friday evening at St Bernadette’s Church, 49 Jugan St, Glendalough followed by All Night Eucharistic Adoration with Rosaries, Hymns etc and Silent Adoration. All are welcome to join us for any length of time to make reparation to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Saturday Parish Mass is at 7.30am (reconciliation at 7am) Fr Doug Harris 9444 6131, Dorothy 9342 5845.
Friday/Saturday April 7-8
TWO HEARTS DEVOTIONS
All Saints Chapel, St George’s Tce, Perth. Devotions to the Sacred Heart on the first Friday of the month commences 9pm with Holy Mass, Exposition of Blessed Sacrament, Prayers, Hymns and Rosary through the night on the hour concluding on Saturday morning with Mass at 7am to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Please join us even for 1 hour. Ph: 9409 4543.
Saturday April 8
SEVEN CHURCHES WALK
The annual Lenten walk around seven churches will commence with Holy Mass at 7.45am in the Cathedral. The walk is 7.5km and pauses at 1. Pro Cathedral; 2. Sacred Heart, Highgate; 3. Redemptorist Monastery; 4. St Brigid’s, West Perth; 5. Greek Cathedral 6. All Saints Chapel, St George’s
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Tce; 7. The Cathedral for Benediction. Finish at 12.30pm. Bring everything you need. A 30 min break after the Greek Cathedral, will be made for a small lunch in Russell Sq.
Sunday April 9
ALLEGRI CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
The Allegri Chamber Orchestra will present a program of music that is very appropriate for Easter. Well-known baritone Ronald Macqueen will be the soloist in two splendid Bach cantatas that reflect Bach’s faith and calm assurance of life after death. The concert will open with Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue in C minor for Strings, 2.30pm Sunday 9th April in St Thomas’ Catholic Church College Rd, Claremont. Tickets available at the door: $20/15.
Enquiries: Gail Owen 9383 3647.
Sunday April 9
HEALING MASS AND RECONCILIATION BULLSBROOK
SHRINE
2.00 pm The Sacrament of the sick is administered for the Spiritual and physical healing of pilgrims during Holy Mass on every second Sunday of the month at the Shrine of Virgin of the Revelation, 36 Chittering Rd, Bullsbrook. The next ceremony is on April 9. Reconciliation in Italian or English at 1.30pm. All are most welcome to come to the Pilgrim’s Mass and devotions celebrated at the Shrine every Sunday at 2pm. Enquiries Tel. SACRI Assoc. 9447 3292.
Monday April 10
COUNTRY DAY OF REFLECTION
A Country Day of Reflection to be held at St Joseph’s Church, Northam, commencing 10.30am with Rosary, talks, concluding 2pm with Holy Mass. Speaker Rev Fr Hugh Thomas (Redemptorist Monastery). Theme: Preparing for the Risen Christ. BYO lunch, tea/coffee supplied. A spiritual preparation for Easter. Enq: 96 221 259.
Monday April 17
BUSH WALK FOR VOCATIONS
At the Schoenstatt Shrine. 9 Talus Drive, Armadale, 11am Holy Mass (no getting up early this year) 12 noon byo lunch to share, followed by input and instructions for the bush walk reflections (approx 8km rough walking tracks, wear walking shoes) Afternoon tea on return, Adoration/Rosary. Those with weary feet will have adoration during the afternoon 5.30pm Benediction. Phone: 9399 2349, email: shrine@elink.net.au.
May 6 - 26
RETREAT IN DAILY LIFE
CLC WA (Christian Life Community) is conducting a Retreat in Daily Life program in conjunction with the Australian Jesuit community. This year the retreat will commence on Saturday May 6. The retreat will be led by a visiting Jesuit, James Blaettler SJ together with a team of local spiritual Directors. This is a non-residential retreat experience ideally suited for those who need to continue their daily routine and obligations while still seeking to deepen their relationship with God. The retreat is conducted over 3 weeks, meetings with a Director occur twice weekly. For a brochure or more information contact Veronica Reutens (9310 1147) or Anne Zevis (9335 8142 email; zevises@bigpond.com).
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■ REPAIR YOUR LITURGICAL BOOKS
Tydewi Bindery offer handcrafted fine bindings, journals, leather recovering. Repairs fo all your books, liturgical, bibles, missals and statues. Ph. 9293 3092.
Sunday May 7 THE BOVE FARM MAY ROSARY RALLY
Celebration in Honour of Our Lady to be held at the Queen of the Holy Rosary Grotto, Bove’s Farm, Roy Road, Jindong. Hymn singing commences at 12.30pm. Holy concelebrated Mass led by Bishop Gerard Holohan commences 1pm, followed by Rosary Procession and Benediction. Afternoon tea provided. All welcome! Bus bookings from Perth to Bove Farm can be made with Francis Williams on ph 9459 3873 or mob 0404 893 977. (Note: Roy Road runs off the Bussell Highway, halfway between Busselton and Margaret River).
Saturdays PERPETUAL HELP NOVENA DEVOTIONS
Saturdays 4.30-5pm. Redemptorist Church, 190 Vincet Street, North Perth. No Novena Saturday
April 15 (Easter Vigil).
Every Saturday
ART EXHIBITION
Art exhibition every Saturday and Sunday at the Parish Hall, Star of the Sea church, Cottesloe, cnr of Stirling Highway and McNeil Sts 11am – 4pm. All proceeds from the sale towards the extension of St Mary’s Cathedral, Perth.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
Is alcohol costing you more than just money? Alcoholics Anonymous can help. Ring 9325 3566.
BLESSED SACRAMENT ADORATION
Holy Family Church, Alcock Street, Maddington. Every Friday 8.30 am Holy Mass followed by Blessed Sacrament Adoration till 12 noon. Every first Friday of the month, anointing of the sick during Mass. Enq. 9398 6350.
PERPETUAL ADORATION AT ST BERNADETTE’S
Adoration: Chapel open all day and all night. All welcome, 49 Jugan St, Glendalough, just north of the city. Masses every night at 5.45pm Monday to Friday, 6.30pm, Saturday and the last Sunday Mass in Perth is at 7pm
ST CLARE’S SCHOOL, SISTERS OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD
A short history of St Clare’s School is being prepared to celebrate 50 years of its work in WA. Any past students, staff, families or others associated with the school - from its time at Leederville, at North Perth, at East Perth or at Wembley - are invited to contact us with photographs, or memories. Privacy will be protected, in accordance with your wishes. Please contact Nancy Paterson on 0417 927 126, (email npaters@yahoo.com.au) or St Clare’s School, PO Box 21 & 23 Carlisle North 6161. Tel: 9470 5711.
Wednesdays
SIGN LANGUAGE COURSE
Australian Sign Language (Auslan) Classes are offered free of charge at Emmanuel Centre on Wednesdays at 1pm. If this does not suit you, other arrangements can be made. Please contact Fr Paul or Barbara at Emmanuel Centre, 25 Windsor St Perth 9328 8113.
GOD’S FARM EASTER
Every Easter God’s Farm enjoys a blessed time of total silence, solitude and stillness from Holy Thursday evening to Easter Sunday midday. Our
■ 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-Sat). We are here to serve.
■ WA CATHOLIC TENNIS ASSOCIATION
Invites you to join in the forthcoming season on Saturday afternoons from May to September at the Manning Tennis Club. Anyone aged 17-70 is welcome to fill our A, B and C grades. Just form a group of 5 people (three men, two women) for our doubles competition. Come along, improve your tennis while having great fun and meeting new people. Ph: Warren 9271 4670, Rod: 0409 839 768.
Lady’s Grotto plus 200 acres to walk with Jesus and share His Passion welcomes you warmly. All of the Easter Ceremonies are available at Dunsborough and Margaret River. To maintain this silent pilgrimage the gates of God’s Farm will be closed to visitors from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday as above. All are most welcome as usual after this period. Full details please contact Betty Peaker sfo. PO Box 24, Cowramup, 6284. Tel/Fax 97 556 212.
Sunday September 17 KOORDA CHURCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY
Our Lady of the Assumption Church at Koorda will celebrate its Golden Anniversary this year on September 17. Past Parish Priests and past parishioners are invited to come and join us for the celebrations. Anyone who has any photos they would like to include in a display is welcome to send them to Kath Gosper at PO Box 68, Koorda 6475. You could send copies or we will copy and return them to you. The day will commence with Mass at 10.30am to be followed by lunch at the Recreation hall.
LINDA’S HOUSE OF HOPE APPEAL
To enable us to continue to provide and offer support for girls wishing to leave the sex trade we need your help. We have acheived already with your assistance new offfices which are now complete at the rear of the shelter and are fully functional. Further donations are also required to eable us to complete the internal layout of the shelter itself. Please send donations to PO Box Z5640, Perth, St George’s Tce 6831. Ph: 0439 401 009. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.
Fathers in Families, the policy document currently being serialised in The Record, aims at supporting all dads without distinction to fulfil their role as effective fathers
Fatherlessness and family breakdown cost Australia 1/3 billion dollars per year
• Dr Bruce Robinson, University of Western Australia, and author of Fathering from the Fast Lane, has estimated the cost of fatherlessness in Australia to be over 13 billion dollars per year.30
• In Australia it has been estimated that marriage breakdown costs $2.5 billion annually. Each separation is estimated to cost society some $12,000.29
• Also, Australian industry is reported to lose production of more than $1 billion a year due to problems of family breakdown.31
• Homelessness is also closely linked with family breakdown. A recent Australian study conducted at two Melbourne universities has found that children whose biological parents stay together are about three times less likely to become homeless than those from other family types.32
Fatherlessness increases physical and sexual child abuse
• A 1994 study of 52,000 children found that those who are most at risk of being abused are those who are not living with both parents.33
• A Finnish study of nearly 4,000 ninth-grade girls found that “stepfather-daughter incest was about 15 times as common as father-daughter incest”.34
• In Australia, former Human Rights Commissioner Mr Brian Burdekin has reported a 500 to 600 per cent increase in sexual abuse of girls in families where the adult male was not the natural father.35
• A recent study by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that “a relatively high proportion of substantiations [of child abuse] involved children living in female-headed one-parent families and in two-parent step or blended families.”36
The evidence of the harmful effects of father absence could fill many pages. The above is just a small sampling of a very large body of research findings on the issue. The social science research on the need for children to be raised by both a biological mother and father, preferably cemented by marriage, is vast and growing.
Indeed, the evidence is so overwhelming that the reader is advised to look at recent summaries of the data.37 However, several recent academic studies can be mentioned here, which demonstrate the importance of children growing up with their married biological mother and father.
One American study of 19,000 young people conducted by the Bowling Green State University (Ohio) found that teens fare best when living with two married biological parents: “Adolescents in married, two-biological-parent families generally fare better than children in any of the family types examined here, including singlemother, cohabiting stepfather, and married stepfather families. The advantage of marriage appears to exist primarily when the child is the biological offspring of both parents. Our findings are consistent with previous work, which demonstrates children in cohabiting stepparent families fare worse than children living with two married, biological parents.”38
Another large-scale American study found that there are “overall disadvantages” in not living with both biological parents.39 The author concludes, “My analyses have clearly demonstrated some overall disadvantages of living with neither parent. Among adolescents from all six family types, those in nonbiological-parent appear to rank the lowest in academic performance, educational aspiration, and locus of control. Further, they appear to fare less well in the remaining outcome areas (self-esteem, behaviour problems, and cigarette smoking).”40
Cornell University Professor Urie Bronfenbrenner, a leading expert in developmental psychology, summarises the evidence in this fashion:
Controlling for associated factors such as low income, children growing up in [single-parent] households
“With the rise of fatherlessness Australia and the Western world has also experienced a marked rise in social problems. And the brunt of these problems have been borne by children. We owe it to our children to do better.”
are at greater risk for experiencing a variety of behavioural and educational problems, including extremes of hyperactivity or withdrawal; lack of attentiveness in the classroom; difficulty in deferring gratification; impaired academic achievement; school misbehaviour; absenteeism; dropping out; involvement in socially alienated peer groups; and, especially, the so-called ‘teenage syndrome’ of behaviours that tend to hang together - smoking, drinking, early and frequent sexual experience, a cynical attitude to work, adolescent pregnancy, and in the more extreme cases, drugs, suicide, vandalism, violence, and criminal acts.41
Similar comments can be made about the situation in Britain. After amassing a wealth of data on the negative effects of fatherless in the UK, Rebecca O’Neil makes this concluding remark:
The weight of evidence indicates that the traditional family based upon a married father and mother is still the best environment for raising children, and it forms the soundest basis for the wider society. For many mothers, fathers and children, the ‘fatherless family’ has meant poverty, emotional heartache, ill health, lost opportunities, and a lack of stability. The social fabric - once considered flexible enough to incorporate all types of lifestyles - has been stretched and strained. Although a good society should tolerate people’s rights to
live as they wish, it must also hold adults responsible for the consequences of their actions. To do this, society must not shrink from the evaluation of the results of these actions. As J.S. Mill argued, a good society must share the lessons learnt from its experience and hold up ideals to which all can aspire.42
Wade Horn, the head of the National Fatherhood Initiative in the USA offers this concluding word: “The news is not good when large numbers of children are growing up disconnected from their fathers. It’s not that every child who grows up in a fatherless household is going to have these kinds of difficulties. But it is true that there’s an increased risk of these negative outcomes when kids grow up without fathers.”43 With the rise of fatherlessness Australia and the Western world has also experienced a marked rise in social problems. And the brunt of these problems have been borne by children. We owe it to our children to do better. We urgently need to address the twin problems of fatherlessness and family breakdown. Public policy must begin to address these crucial areas. Until we tackle these problems, our children and our societies will continue to suffer.
29. Kevin Andrews. “The family, marriage and divorce,” The Australian Family 13(4), Dec. 1992.
30. Robinson, Bruce, private research paper by author
of “Fathering from the Fast Lane,” Finch Publishing, Sydney, 2001
31. Milburn, Caroline, “Industry told family splits cost $1 b a year,” The Age, 2 August 1990.
32. Pegler, Tim, “Homeless link to families,” The Age, 29 October 1997, p.9.
33. Catherine Malkin and Michael Lamb, “Child maltreatment: a test of sociobiological theory,” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 25, 1994, pp. 121-130.
34. Keikki Sariola and Atti Uetela, “The Prevalence and Contest of Incest Abuse in Finland,” Child Abuse and Neglect, vol. 20, no. g, 1996, pp. 843-850.
35. Michael Pirrie, “Child Abuse Law Alert.” The Herald-Sun, 28 August 1993.
36. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Child Protection Australia 2002-03. Canberra 2004, p. 22.
37, See for example two research papers, “The Benefits of Marriage” (Melbourne, 2004), and “The Case for the Two-Parent Family” (Melbourne 2004).
38. Wendy Manning and Kathleen Lamb, “Adolescent mall-being in cohabiting, married, and single-parent families,” Journal of Marriage and Family, vol. 65, no. 4, November 2003, pp. 876-893, at p. 890.
39. Yongmin Sun, “The well-being of adolescents in households with no biological parents,” Journal of Marriage and Family, vol. 65, no. 4, November 2003, pp. 894-909, at p. 894.
40. Ibid., p. 905.
41. Urie Bronfenbrenner, “Discovering what families do,” in David Blankenhorn, Steven Bayme end Jean Bethke Elshfain, eds. Rebuilding the Nest, pp. 2738, p. 34.
42. Rebecca O’Neill, “Experiments in living: The fatherless family,” London: Civita, September 2002, p. 14.
43. Wade Horn, in Katherine Anderson, Don Browning and Brian Boyer, eds, “Marriage: Just a Piece of Paper?” Grand Rapids: Eerdmana, 2002, p. 295.
Fathers in Families is available from The Record.
Tel: (08) 9227 7080. Cost $5 plus postage. For further information on the Fatherhood Foundation Phone (02) 4272 6677 or go to www.fathersonline.org
