The Record Newspaper 02 April 2008

do so many love this fat man?

Celebrating His victory

Our special edition: Throughout Holy Week, Western Australian Catholics in parishes and communities relived the events of the Passion and Resurrection that occurred in Jerusalem approximately 2000 years ago. Even more, they tried to connect with the person at their centre - Jesus Christ

Perth parishes report Easter attendances this year were ‘through the roof.’

■ By Sylvia Defendi

Thousands flocked to their local Church over Holy Week to attend ceremonies throughout the city of Perth, where parish priests noted unprecedented attendance.

According to Dean of St Mary’s Cathedral, Monsignor Thomas McDonald, the closure of St Mary’s due to construction works made very little difference; hundreds spilled out of St Joachim’s Pro-Cathedral at each Easter ceremony.

Although St Joachim’s is a slightly smaller church building, Mgr McDonald said crowds had definitely increased since last year’s Easter celebrations.

He said he was surprised by the numbers, even more so by the overflowing crowd that congregated for Holy Thursday’s Mass of the Last Supper.

“Typically, Holy Thursday Mass receives smaller numbers, however this year many flooded the Pro-Cathedral at Victoria Park.

“It was good to see how many appreciated the centrality of the Holy Thursday celebration as the installation of the Holy Eucharist, and Holy Orders,” he said. Mgr McDonald said many who had previously attended the Cathedral’s Holy Week celebrations were pleased to see the ceremonies had not changed despite the change in location.

“Keeping the ceremonies as they were celebrated within the Cathedral was a must, and even those who were loyal parishioners of St Joachim’s truly appreciated the processions, full choir and intricate details that made each ceremony special,” he said.

Other parishes throughout the Archdiocese commented similarly on record attendances.

Parishioners at Applecross were pleased to utilise the newly built Church of St Benedict with attendance doubling for each Holy Week celebration. “The new Church already holds an extra 130

seats, and yet crowds were still flowing out of the Church,” parish priest, Fr Peter Whitely said.

The attractive new Church was certainly a draw-card, according to Fr Whitely, who said it drew people inside and, much like the many beautiful churches of the world, lifted

spirits to God. Speaking at Masses on Easter Sunday morning, Fr Whitely described the Church building before it was consecrated as an empty shell and that without Christ we too would be just an empty shell. One other Perth Church that was not an empty shell over Holy Week was Bateman

parish, which determined that approximately 14,000 people attended services during Holy Week. At Bateman’s 3pm Good Friday service, over 4,000 attended alone. Tents were required outdoors to accommodate all those attending and four priests offered the Sacrament of Reconciliation for

one and a half hours prior to the Masses. Parish priest at Bateman, Monsignor Michael Keeting welcomed 22 adults into the Catholic community from his parish alone Continued Page 3 HOW WA CATHOLICS CELEBRATED EASTER: stories and photos: Pages 4-11

Sister beats knife attack in convent

Wooden

■ By Cindy

LAHORE, Pakistan (CNS)

- A member of the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary has survived a knife attack at her convent in the southern outskirts of Lahore.

Two young men broke into Sister Nuzrat Shafi’s convent and slashed her throat on March 8. The convent is in Youhanabad, the largest Christian area in Pakistan, on the outskirts of Lahore.

The 34-year-old nun received nine stitches and has badly damaged vocal cords. Sister Shafi told the Asian church news agency UCA News that she was alone in the convent when she heard a knock on her door at about 3 pm. Suddenly, two young men, about 25 years old, burst into the room.

“First they asked for money and then for keys to the cupboards of other nuns. When I told them I was the youngest and had no idea where money is kept, they became furious, wrecked my cupboard and then slapped me. I cried for them not to touch me but was thrown on the bed,”she said.

She said the last thing she recalls before passing out was hearing her attackers say “Finish her.”

Other attacks have occurred in Youhanabad.

Last year, in separate incidents, a religious sister was beaten and had her teeth broken, and a missionary priest was attacked and tortured.

Muslim baptised by Pope says he wanted to show others not to fear

Journalist opted for public ritual as a sign to inspire others.

■ By Cindy

Wooden

ROME (CNS) - The Muslim-born journalist baptised by Pope Benedict XVI at the Easter Vigil said he wanted a public conversion to convince other former Muslims not to be afraid of practicing their new Christian faith.

But a representative of a group of Muslim scholars who recently launched a new dialogue with the Vatican

said the prominence given to the baptism of Magdi Allam, a frequent critic of Islam, raises disturbing questions. Allam, 55, was one of seven adults baptised by the Pope on March 22 in St Peter’s Basilica. Aref Ali Nayed, a spokesman for the 138 Muslim scholars who initiated the Common Word dialogue project last October and who established the Catholic-Muslim Forum for dialogue with the Vatican in early March, said conversion is a private matter, but the very public way in which Allam was baptised appeared “deliberate and provocative.”

In a front-page editorial on March 25, the Vatican newspaper said Allam’s baptism was given no greater emphasis during the vigil than the baptism of the other six adults Pope Benedict received into the church that night. Allam’s decision to be baptised and the Vatican’s decision to include him in the papal ceremony did not carry with it any “hostile intention in the face of a great religion like Islam,” said the article signed by Giovanni Maria Vian, the editor of L’Osservatore Romano “For decades the Catholic Church has shown a desire to

meet and dialogue with the Muslim world despite a thousand difficulties and obstacles,” he wrote. “But difficulties and obstacles must not obscure what we have in common.”

In a March 25 interview with Il Giornale, an Italian newspaper, Allam said thousands of Italian Christians have converted to Islam with no repercussions. “On the other hand, if a Muslim converts it is the end of the world and he is condemned to death for apostasy. In Italy there are thousands of converts who live their faith in secret for fear they will not be protected,” Allam said.

“I publicly converted to say to these people: ‘Come out of the catacombs, live your faith openly. Do not be afraid,’” he said.

In a March 23 article in Corriere della Sera , the newspaper for which he writes, Allam said, “His Holiness has launched an explicit and revolutionary message to a church that, up to now, has been too prudent in converting Muslims.” He said Catholics were “abstaining from proselytism in countries with a Muslim majority and being silent about the reality of converts in Christian countries out of

fear - the fear of not being able to protect the converts in the face of their condemnations to death for apostasy and for fear of reprisals against Christians living in Islamic countries.”

“Well, with his witness today, Benedict XVI tells us we need to conquer our fear and not be afraid to affirm the truth of Jesus even to Muslims,” Allam wrote in Corriere Allam told Il Giornale that although his mother was a devout Muslim she sent him to Catholic preschool, ele-

Continued - Page 2 Why I chose Christ - Page 12 Lutheran comes home - Page 2

INDEX

News - Pages 2-3

Easter WA 2008 - Pages 4-10

Easter in Rome - Page 13

Opinion - Page 14

Official dates - Page 15

Panorama - Page 15

Classifieds - Page 15

AN IRISH EASTER

SIAN WHITE spent a day visiting a little-known site in Ireland associated with the great St Patrick. Barely big enough to hold several people, the chapel of Maum Turk is believed to be one of Patrick’s resting places on his journeys throughout the

Pages 11-12

Come, Holy Spirit: Archbishop Barry Hickey prays over the jars containing the Oil of Chrism at Mary MacKillop Parish in Ballajura. The Oil, used for baptisms, confirmations and anointing of the sick, was later distributed to parishes for use through the coming Church year.

PHOTO: SYLVIA DEFENDI

Welcome: Journalist Magdi Allam, centre, was baptised a disciple of Jesus by Pope Benedict XVI. The baptism has caused controversy because Allam was born a Muslim; he has lived under threat of death for the last five years.

Saints for the month

Pope says Risen Christ conquers

Walking with Him Daily Mass Readings

8 Tuesday White Acts 7:51-8:1 Resisting the Spirit Ps 30:3-4.6-8.17.21 Rock of refuge Jn 6:30-35 The bread of God

9 Wednesday

White Acts 8:1-8 Proclaiming Christ

Ps 65:1-7 See God’s works Jn 6:35-40 My Father’s will

10 Thursday

White Acts 8:26-40 Good News explained

Ps 65:8-9.16-17.20 Bless our God Jn 6:44-51 The bread of life

11F St Stanislaus, bishop and martyr (M)

Red Acts 9:1-20 Heavenly light

Ps 116:1-2

12

13

14M

Risen Christ vanquished sin, death: Benedict XVI.

■ By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -

In the darkness of night in St Peter’s Basilica as well as under dark skies unleashing torrents of rain on St Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict XVI said the risen Christ vanquished the darkness of sin and death.

“It is true: In the solemn Easter Vigil, darkness becomes light, night gives way to the day that knows no sunset,” he said on March 23, giving his Easter blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city of Rome and the world) in St Peter’s Square during a storm.

“We pray that joy will be present among us despite these circumstances,” he said at the end of the blessing, which capped a Mass punctuated with thunder and lightning.

“Even this darkness today is like light,” the Pope said of the slate black sky.

Tens of thousands of people packed into St Peter’s Square armed with umbrellas. Members of the Swiss Guard stood at attention despite the rain dripping off their helmets and sending red dye trickling down their backs from the helmets’ soggy red plumes.

The night before, Pope Benedict celebrated the Easter Vigil in St Peter’s Basilica, lighting a fire and the large Easter candle in the darkened church. During the Mass, he baptised five women and two men, including Italian journalist Magdi Allam who was born in Egypt to a Muslim family. The Vatican did not release the names of the other six adults who joined the Catholic Church at the Pope’s Easter Vigil Mass, but said they came from Italy, Cameroon, China, the United States and Peru.

During his homily at the vigil, Pope Benedict said that in baptism, Jesus “comes to you and joins his life with yours, drawing you into the open fire of his love,” and, therefore, into communion with all who profess faith in him.

“Believers - the baptisedare never truly cut off from one another,” he said. “Continents, cultures, social structures or even historical distances may separate us. But when we meet, we know one another on the basis of the same Lord, the same faith, the same hope, the same love, which form us.

“Thus faith is a force for peace and reconciliation in the world,” Pope Benedict said. After celebrating the Easter morning Mass in St Peter’s

Square, which was decorated with thousands of mostly white roses, tulips and pansies, the Pope prayed for peace in the world, especially in the Holy Land, Iraq, Lebanon, Darfur, Somalia and Tibet. “The astonishing event of the resurrection of Jesus is essentially an event of love: the Father’s love in handing over his Son for the salvation of the world; the Son’s love in abandoning himself to the Father’s will for us all; the Spirit’s love in raising Jesus from the dead in his transfigured body,” the Pope said in his Easter message. Easter, he said, is a call for all people to reject hatred and selfishness and be converted to love. “Let no heart be closed to the omnipotence of

this redeeming love,” he said. Selfishness, injustice, hatred and violence “are the scourges of humanity, open and festering in every part of the planet,” the Pope said. “They are waiting to be tended and healed by the glorious wounds of our risen Lord and by the solidarity of people who, following in his footsteps, perform deeds of charity in his name, make an active commitment to justice” and bring hope to areas of the world “bloodied by conflict.” Rainstorms accompanied the Pope for the entire weekend, forcing him to stay under a tent on March 21 during the Good Friday rite of the Way of the Cross at Rome’s Colosseum.

The meditations for the rite were written by Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong and were marked by prayers for those who live their faith in the midst of persecution as well as prayers for their oppressors. At the end of the ceremony, Pope Benedict said, “The cross is the source of immortal life, the school of justice and peace, the universal patrimony of forgiveness and mercy (and) the permanent proof of a self-giving and infinite love.”

The Pope said that by becoming human, dying and rising from the dead, Jesus restored full dignity to humanity, a dignity that must be claimed, defended and promoted for all people.

Ncube admits to affair

Admission comes in video interview

■ By Bronwen Dachs

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS)Zimbabwean Archbishop

Pius Ncube, who resigned as archbishop of Bulawayo last year after a sex scandal, has admitted he had an affair with a woman.

The archbishop, one of the most outspoken critics of Zimbabwe’s political leadership, made the admission to Frontier Africa TV, an independent film production company, in Zimbabwe before he boarded a plane for Rome in November 2007.

One of the directors of Frontier Africa TV, Fred Bridgland, released the archbishop’s remarks from the interview in a March 23 story in the Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald.

In the piece, Archbishop Ncube also spoke out against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who was widely expected to win re-election March 29.

“It is true, I do admit that I did fail in keeping God’s commandment with regard to adultery,” Archbishop Ncube said.

“Having failed in keeping the Seventh Commandment ... I would like to apologise to you (the people of Zimbabwe); I’d like to apologise that so many of you were praying for me, for the fact that so many of you standing with me in fact suffered so much,” he said.

Ex-Lutheran was ‘suspicious of anything Catholic’

Evangelical who joined church at Easter Vigil says he feels he’s home.

■ By Angelo Stagnaro

WOODSIDE, N.Y. (CNS)

Thirst for God Jn 10:11-18 The good shepherd

- At the Easter Vigil at St Sebastian’s Parish in Woodside knelt 40-year-old Ramon Montero, who stood out from the adolescents around him. Dressed in a flowing white robe and clutching a Rosary, Montero seemed sedate but later admitted to being nervous. Immediately behind him were his mother and his sponsor, Paula Bennett, his aunt. Montero was one of nearly 40 catechumens and candidates entering into full communion with the Catholic Church at St Sebastian’s on Holy Saturday, March 22. And when it was over he said he felt like he was home.

Across the country people of all ages and from all walks of life joined the church

that day. Catechumens were baptised and confirmed, and they received their first Communion; candidates, who already had a valid baptism, entered into full communion with the church. The figures for this year are not yet available, but last year, according to the Official Catholic Directory, almost 64,500 catechumens and almost 93,000 candidates joined the church. Montero grew up in the Evangelical Lutheran Church. He was “suspicious of anything and everything labeled Catholic,” he said in an interview.

“But after awhile, when I started meeting Catholics and noticing how deep their faith was and how a lot of existential and obtuse theological questions didn’t bother them, I became curious,” he said. Last year, as he was walking around on a lunch break from his job at the Hunter College Graduate School of Social Work, a heavy downpour forced him to take refuge

in St Jean Baptiste Catholic Church on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. “I stumbled about in the darkness waiting for my eyes to adjust,” Montero explained. “I’ve seen some of the most incredible churches in Europe but I’ve never come across anything as beautiful as St Jean Baptiste.”

It’s a jewel box of a church, built in the Italian Renaissance style. The inside is decorated with a collection of French motifs.

As his eyes adjusted, “the first thing that came into focus was a brilliant white statue set in a sky-blue alcove,” he said. “I walked closer and saw it was a smiling old woman with a little happy, chubby cheeked girl pointing up at her.

“You don’t usually see such cheerfulness in religious statuary,” he said with a laugh. He said he “walked closer to read the inscription. It turned out to be St Anne. I never stopped to think that Jesus would have had to have a grandmother.”

Montero said he felt inexplicably drawn to Mary and her mother, Anne, and quickly learned all he could about these two holy women.

He frequently stopped by the church to pray. “Even though I was Lutheran, I felt that this was right,” he said. He came to rely more and more upon that parish for spiritual help. Montero suffers from numerous ailments, including acute cardiomyopathy and a form of muscular dystrophy that causes him much pain and restricts his movements. Eight years ago doctors gave him a pacemaker and defibrillator.

“My faith is very important to me. It’s kept me alive and hopeful despite my condition. Without my faith,” he said, motioning to his Rosary, “I would have killed myself a long time ago.”

In the summer of 2007, his pacemaker gave out when he was blocks away from his office. He collapsed in the street and was rushed to a

nearby hospital. Fearing the worst, he asked for a priest from St Jean Baptiste to give him the sacrament of the sick.

When his cardiologist, Dr Marie-Noellle Langan, immediately came to see him, he told her why he had called for a priest. In turn she told him she was a parishioner at St Jean Baptiste, the pastor was a friend of hers and her son was an altar boy there.

“God was clearly telling me something,” Montero said. He quickly made a full recovery and resolved to become a Catholic, entering the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults program at St. Sebastian’s Parish.

“I chose St Sebastian’s because I love the energy here and the incredible ethnic mix,” Montero said looking around the church. “This is what heaven must look like.”

Prior to the Easter Vigil, he noted, he received the sacrament of reconciliation at St Jean Baptiste.

When it came time to choose a sponsor, he immedi-

ately thought of his aunt. She had been his sponsor when he was baptised in the Evangelical Lutheran Church, but after the Second Vatican Council she had become a Catholic.

“I recall the first time I went with some of my Catholic friends to their church and was greeted at the sign of peace.

I’ll never forget it. I converted right after that,” Bennett said.

Several times during the Holy Saturday ceremony at St Sebastian, Montero quickly wiped away tears. To honor Mary, he chose “Maria” as his confirmation name.

As she watched her nephew receive Communion for the first time as a member of the Catholic Church, Bennett said, “I’m so proud of him.”

When the Mass ended, Montero, still dressed in his confirmation robe and clutching his Rosary, embraced the RCIA “team,” the priests of the parish, his mother and his aunt. “I feel I’m home, now,” he said.

- CNS

Continued from Page 1 -mentary and high schools. In the Corriere article, he said he even had gone to Communion once, which demonstrates how he had been attracted to the church for a long time.

He told Il Giornale his mother later regretted sending him to Catholic schools

“because I never shared a certain zeal in practicing Islam; I always had a lot of autonomy. And, so, I became aware that Catholicism corresponded perfectly to the values that I held.” Allam also said his Easter baptism marked a total and definitive turning from “a past

in which I imagined that there could be a moderate Islam.”

He said Islamic “extremism feeds on a substantial ambiguity found in the Quran and in the concrete actions of Mohammed.” While he moved definitively away from Islam five years ago, Allam said it was Pope Benedict’s teaching

that convinced him to become a Catholic.

“He has said the basis for accepting a religion as true is how it accepts the basic rights of the person, the sacredness of life, freedom, choice (and) equality between men and women,” Allam said. In a written statement

reacting to Allam’s baptism by the Pope at the globally televised Easter Vigil, Nayed said, “It is sad that the intimate and personal act of a religious conversion is made into a triumphalist tool for scoring points.”

In addition, he said, “It is sad that the particular person chosen for such a highly public gesture has a history of generating, and continues to generate, hateful discourse.” Nayed said it would be important for Pope Benedict and the Vatican to distance themselves from Allam’s stance on Islam.

“The whole spectacle with its choreography, persona and messages provokes

genuine questions about the motives, intentions and plans of some of the pope’s advisers on Islam,” he said, adding that the Muslim scholars would continue their dialogue with the Vatican.

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, told the Italian news agency ApCom on March 23 that he did not know how Allam came to be among the people baptised by the Pope at the Easter Vigil “or who promoted it.”

However, he said, freedom of conscience is a basic right and “to whomever knocks the door of the church is always open.”

Worship: Pope Benedict XVI celebrates a chrism Mass on Holy Thursday, in St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. PHOTO: CNS/DARIO PIGNATELLI.

Renovated church will ‘escort’ UNDA med school

New facilities are welcomed by UNDA Sydney’s students and staff.

The University of Notre Dame Australia’s Sydney Campus opened the doors to its new state-of-the-art facility for its medicine and nursing schools in Darlinghurst on 2nd March 2008.

Located opposite St Vincent’s Hospital, the new seven storey building has been designed to join and complement the restored historic Sacred Heart complex, of Church, School, and Presbytery.

The University has also successfully undertaken the major restoration of the 1912 Church, which replaced an earlier 1852 church on the site designed by architect Charles Hansom.

Hansom’s work was inspired by the famous English architect, Augustus Pugin, said to be responsible for the ‘gothic revival movement’ which began in the 1840’s in England.

Sacred Heart’s fascinating history began when, under instructions from the Archbishop of Sydney, John Bede Polding (1842 - 1877), Hansom designed, not only the Church, but also a school located in the under-storey.

A later school was constructed in 1880 adjacent to the Church, to house up to 500 girls on the upper level

and up to 500 boys on the lower level. It was connected to the Church by a timber bridge. That school now houses the University’s Medical library on the upper level, and tutorial rooms on the lower level. The under-storey to the church now houses a student common room and new Parish facilities.

To cater for a rapidly growing congregation, a new and larger church was constructed between 1910 to 1912, over the foundations

of the first church, utilising some of the original stonework. It was designed by architect James Nangle who went on to become the head of Technical Education in NSW from 1913 to 1933.

In 1958, in response to a still growing congregation, architect Elsa Davey was commissioned to lengthen and modernise the Church.

The new works included a new sanctuary and apse, lined with a large mozaic depiction of the Risen Christ, designed by Enrico Gaudenzi, and

constructed by the famous Vatican Mozaic studio. Other works included additional confessionals, and replacing the original timber windows and leadlights, with aluminium frames and orange glass.

In 1970 a new presbytery was built on the site, replacing two earlier ones, which were located on the other side of Victoria Street, where St Vincent’s Hospital is now located.

By 2005 the Sacred Heart Church, the Presbytery, and

Easter attendances ‘through the roof’

Continued from Page 1 and reminded his rather gigantic congregation on Easter Sunday that each year the equivalent of a small city (80,000 – 100,000) is received into the Catholic faith worldwide.

“Christ is risen and we too, like these adults being accepted into the faith, need to rise in our faith,” he said.

Those 22 from Bateman only formed part of the 83 who became Catholics throughout the Archdiocese over the recent Easter period.

Director of Perth’s Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults program, Eddie Brett, said it was pleasing to see so many aged between 20 and 30 looking to be received into the Church.

At Sts Simon and Peter’s Church in Ocean Reef 10 RCIA candidates were welcomed at the Easter vigil.

Assistant priest Fr Derek Krzysztalowicz, said attendance at the Ocean Reef Church had definitely increased since last year and that outdoor reenactments, such as the Palm Sunday procession using a real pony, had really drawn families with children.

Easter Sunday received the greatest crowds at St Simon and Peter Church, where congregations filled the church to capacity at each of the five Masses.

Close by in Whitford, parishioners of Our Lady of the Mission Church also noted record numbers with over 9,000 attending during Holy Week.

Parish priest, Fr Joseph Tran said the increase was partly due to many families in the area staying at home with Easter occurring out of the school holiday period this year.

Like many other parishes, parishioners at Whitford prepared for Easter celebrations by posting copious amounts of leaflets with Mass times in surrounding mailboxes.

But it was not only Archdiocesan parishes that recorded an increase in attendance and interest in the Easter message this year.

Parishioners packed Our Lady’s Assumption Church in Inglewood, Perth’s only Melkite Rite Catholic Church

the School were in poor physical condition, either underused or empty.

It was suggested by Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, that it might be possible for Notre Dame to restore the Church, and develop the balance of the site as a facility for its medical and nursing schools.

The rest, as they say, is history. Work commenced in 2006.

The 1958, now discordant extensions and ‘modernisa-

tions’ to the Church were demolished, except for the 65 tonne mozaic and apse, which was lifted back to the reconstructed 1912 end of the nave. This was a major engineering feat given the weight of the concrete apse and the fragility of the artwork.

It won engineer, Elwyn Berchowitz, the 2007 NSW Engineering Award, both for the heritage category, and for the overall winner for all categories. The University’s architect, Marcus Collins

explains, “The restoration of the Sacred Heart Church to its 1912 configuration and detailing has given back to the Church its original architectural integrity.

Together with the essential and long overdue maintenance undertaken, the upgrading of the fabric, the new services, and with the additional facilities constructed, the future of Sacred Heart, as the Darlinghurst parish church, has been ensured.” Semester One is well underway in the Medical

Easter fire: Archbishop Barry Hickey blesses the fire that lit the Paschal candle as part of the ceremony before Holy Saturday Mass outside St Joachim’s Po-Cathedral in Victoria Park.

for the annual Easter vigil. Perth’s growing Latin Rite community also received record numbers as they utilised some larger facilities. Operating out of St John’s ProCathedral and the much larger St Brigid’s in Northbridge people came from as far as Esperance and Albany to attend the Latin Rite

Easter Tenebrae.

Speaking to the large congregation, chaplain to the Latin Rite community, Fr Michael Rowe reaffirmed the reality of the resurrection amidst the recent allegations that claimed otherwise. The West Australian had published a feature before Easter where

Anglican bishops openly refused the reality of the resurrection.

“As St Paul said, ‘If Our Lord did not rise from the dead then our faith is in vain.’ Likewise, if those bishops do not believe in the resurrection than their faith is also in vain,” Fr Rowe told his Easter congregation.

and Nursing schools, and the restored Church with its new facilities is promising to be in great demand.

The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, was one of the first visitors to the newly restored Sacred Heart Church. He visited the first cohort of medical students on their orientation day. Cardinal Pell congratulated the University on the new Darlinghurst site.

“Sacred Heart Parish Darlinghurst retains its historic Sydney parish church, and it is very good to see the parish site restored so beautifully with office and meeting facilities for the parish as well as the university buildings.

“The University has built a superb new facility for educating doctors and nurses and for supporting university medical research.

“It has also made ingenious use of the existing parish buildings for teaching and administrative purposes.

“The parish church, in particular, has been magnificently restored.

“The mosaic of the Sacred Heart has been returned to its original splendour.

Once the furnishing of the sanctuary is completed satisfactorily, the parishioners of Darlinghurst and the University Community will have a beautiful church in which to pray and worship.

Vatican dismisses bin Laden claim

Thavis

■ By John

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - The Vatican spokesman dismissed Osama bin Laden’s accusations of an anti-Islam campaign by Pope Benedict XVI, noting the Pope’s efforts to dialogue with Muslims.

Bin Laden, citing the controversy over cartoons ridiculing the prophet Mohammed, said the Pope was part of a “new crusade” against Islam.

“The content of the accusations makes no sense,” Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican

spokesman, told Catholic News Service on March 20. “But these kinds of allegations are not new,” Fr Lombardi added. The Vatican responded to similar accusations by al-Qaida’s deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, last December.

The Vatican spokesman said it was not surprising for bin Laden to name the Pope among his many “perceived enemies,” but said the more moderate Muslim world knows the Pope’s commitment to good interreligious relations. Fr Lombardi pointed out that the

Pope, responding to a letter from 138 Muslim leaders, had recently opened a new channel of dialogue with Islam and scheduled a major Catholic-Muslim meeting in Rome this fall. Bin Laden’s five-minute audio message was posted on a militant Website March 19. The al-Qaida leader also threatened Europe with punishment for publishing the cartoons. Bin Laden said in the message, “The response will be what you see and not what you hear,” reported The Associated Press.

Grandure: The newly renovated Sacred Heart Church in Darlinghurst, Sydney stands tall in front of the new University of Notre Dame medical campus in the background.

PHOTO: COURTESY UNDA

Almighty: Inside the newly renovated Sacred Heart Church, which will be used by students and staff of Notre Dame University in Sydney.

PHOTO: COURTESY UNDA

PHOTO: ANTHONY BARICH.

WA celebrates the victory of Christ across the state

Thousands gathered in churches across the state to recall the sacrifice of Jesus and to celebrate the mystery of our salvation this Easter. Metropolitan and country parishes welcomed record numbers of parishioners this year - many of whom spilled out of the church buildings.

Captured in the following pages are the shared experiences of those accross WA, who celebrated Easter in their own unique way.

Armadale appreciates Easter - and a new church building

This year those at Brookdale (Armadale) parish were able to appreciate the gift of their new church building as they celebrated Easter. A local parishioner speaks on the trials and excitement of preparing for Easter on unfamiliar grounds.

As we approached Holy Week, for those involved in the liturgy and church preparation there was quite a bit of excitement and also concern.

In our old church building every thing was familiar.

Along with all the practical matters we wanted to focus on what Easter really meant. The wonderful readings and rituals over Lent and Holy Week spoke to our hearts, reminding us of God’s unconditional love.

Many in the parish began the preparation for Easter by attending Lenten groups, or attending the Stations of the Cross. We also had a very beautiful parish Second Rite of Reconciliation evening, prior to Holy Week.

This presented an opportunity to join others of the parish in this Sacrament, and celebrate the healing and forgiveness offered.

In the week prior to Easter we experienced the Chrism Mass.

Twentysix parishioners formed a group from

the Armadale Parish and accompanied parish priest Fr Kazimierz Stuglik to this very significant Mass. On Good Friday many members of our parish attended the Stations of the Cross and ceremonies both here and at Serpentine and Jarrahdale. It was uplifting to see so many children involved in the Easter preparations. Both the Chi Rho (after school religious education group) and Xavier School children this year prepared a dramatised Stations of the Cross, which was both prayerful and well prepared. Easter is not only about having a holiday and giving one another Easter Eggs, it is about us understanding our personal and community responsibilities as part of the body of Christ. We as a parish thank Fr Stuglik, Rev Patrick Moore, those who assisted on the altar as acolytes, special ministers and altar servers, as well as those who prepared the church, organised the flowers and decorated the church, prepared the music and sang.

‘Lord

Augusta/Margaret River

Augusta/Margaret River

Bayswater

Armadale

Praise and worship: Parishioners of St Francis Xavier in Armadale venerate the cross on Good Friday.

Armadale

The great outdoors: Fr Gayan Thamel celebrates Easter Sunday Mass at the Leeuwin Estate Winery in Margaret River.

Faith: Fr Gayan Thamel and acolyte John O’Dwyer bless the fire at the Easter Saturday Vigil service at St Thomas More Church in Margaret River. Community: Parish priest, Fr Kazimierz Stuglik and deacon Patrick Moore prostrate themselves before the altar at St Francis Xavier Church in Brookdale during the Good Friday service.

Full house: Fr Nguyen welcomes the parishioners to the Easter Mass at St Columba’s in Bayswater.

Bayswater

Aflame: Fr Nguyen lights the Paschal candle at Bayswater parish.

Bayswater

Blessing: Palm Sunday Fr Huynh Nguyen blesses the palms and parishioners at St Columba’s in Bayswater.

Bencubbinn

of the Harvest’ parish

Middle-school students from St Mary Star of the

Catholic school in Carnarvon wowed their audience with a performance like no other during this year’s Easter season.

The performance was prepared by their drama teacher, Olga Konstantouras, in conjunction with the students themselves and was

based around the 15 Stations of the Cross.

“The performance portrayed the sorrowful journey of Christ from his trial to his crucifixion at Golgotha and to his final triumph over death,” Mrs Konstantouras said. Mime, scripted drama, dance, songs, music, liturgical movements and devised theatre were all used to depict the last moments of Christ’s death and

resurrection. Brechtian techniques were also used to enhance the message of each Station of the Cross, calling on audience members to employ self-reflection throughout the production. “The technical part of the production – lights, special effects and split level multiple staging – contributed immensely to ‘setting the mood’ and left our audiences mes-

merised. “We received many positive comments from students and staff members about the quality of the performance and the professionalism of those involved,” Mrs Konstantouras said. Fourteen budding actors and actresses brought the production to life and were assisted by seven fellow students who took charge as the production crew.

St

Disciples of Jesus City Beach

Passionate: Members of the Disciples of Jesus Covenant Community perform their annual and well-known Passion play on the City Beach parish grounds on Good Friday to several hundred onlookers.

Peacful

ways

We

Kambalda

Reverent: Fr Nelson Po blesses Elizabeth Browner as she is baptised during the Easter Vigil Mass.

Throughout the Easter weekend, the attendance of parishioners and

in

of Kalgoorlie-Boulder was above average. This included the outlying parish centres of Coolgardie,

Kambalda and Norseman. In the city, seating at St Mary’s Church in Kalgoorlie and All Hallows Church in Boulder were at a premium during some of the Easter weekend Eucharistic celebrations. The RCIA catechetical program formed Elizabeth

Browner, Debra Thomson, and Leah Brady for baptism into the Catholic Church. The baptisms took place during the Easter Vigil Masses at St Mary’s Church in Kalgoorlie and St John Vianney’s Church in Kambalda. - report courtesy Kambalda parish

Kalgoorlie

Margaret

Candle-lit: Fremantle parishioners pack the

of

during the

Welcome: Debra Thomson is baptised in St Mary’s Church in Kalgoorlie by Fr Joseph Rathnaraj as Godparent and Acolyte, Harry Argus lays his hand on her shoulder.

Kalamunda

Tradition: The Italian Catholic community have been celebrating the Stations of the Cross, or ‘Via Crucis,’ for over 30 years in Kalamunda, where they process outdoors to each station.

PHOTO: MONICA DEFENDI.

Kelmscott Stations

Fresh air: Parishioners at Good Shepherd church in Kelmscott process the Stations of the Cross outside.

Kelmscott Stations

Prayer and worship:

PHOTO:

Monastic town celebrates Holy Week in tranquility

■ By Joan Oakland New Norcia oblate, staff member and editor of New Norcia’s newsletter, The Chimes

The parish of Holy Trinity Abbey at New Norcia is unique. Comprised of the nine Benedictine monks in residence and a small group of locals, it likely boasts the most liturgical offerings for one of the smallest parishes in the state: six rounds of daily prayers in the Monastery Chapel and Daily Mass, attended by as few as one parishioner or as many as a few dozen, depending on the number of visitors in town.

Even so, at Easter the pews are packed. Friends and associates of the monastery regularly make their annual Easter pilgrimage to New Norcia to partake in the bounty of rich music and liturgy that has become a hallmark of the monastery’s 162-year history. A two-hour drive from Perth, the small monastic town welcomes day visitors as well as those who come

on retreat, spending the entire Easter Triduum in quiet reflection and fellowship with other guests. A few, like Simona Roberti of Margaret River, stay for the entire Easter Octave, relishing in the peace and daily rhythms of monastic life: her one opportunity in the year to slow down, move inward and nourish her spiritual life. Others make a point of incorporating St Benedict’s strong work ethic into their annual Easter pilgrimage. Friends Barry Preece, Andrew Walton, Brian Marriott and Cliff Wignall have been coming to New Norcia for the past six Easters to volunteer their services in preparation for and during the Easter celebrations. Arriving at the beginning of Holy Week, the four men make themselves available for whatever tasks need doing. This year found them polishing brass, cleaning church windows, greeting guests and handing out pew sheets at all services.

Barry Preece, a singer with the WA Opera Company, contributed his rich vocal talents to the Easter schola and various solos.

Sue McMullen, an old girl from St Gertrude’s College, has been volunteering for the past 20 years, regularly coming at Easter to offer Guesthouse Manager Bernadette Taylor the opportunity of a break. “Working in the Guesthouse gives me some good spiritual insight,” Sue says of her experience of Easter.

“And it’s fun. There’s a good atmosphere and sense of camaraderie between people.”

The monks of New Norcia aren’t adverse to an early rise and Easter Sunday is no exception.

The 4.30am Vigils Mass starts around an open cauldron of fire, followed by a candlelight procession into the Abbey Church and a solemn Liturgy of the Word facilitated by guest readers and a schola of volunteer singers.

This year Abbot Placid Spearritt invited the congregation to welcome

two candidates into full communion with the Catholic Church.

Robyn Watson from Moora and a former employee of the Benedictine Community, and Mandy Smith from Castlemaine in Victoria were received following their profession of faith and an anointing by the Abbot.

Robyn teaches at a Catholic primary school and Mandy is a filmmaker, also working on her Master’s thesis in theology, focusing on one of the early Benedictine missionaries who lived and worked at the Drysdale Mission in Kalumburu.

The Easter Triduum at New Norcia offers a wholesome spiritual retreat for guests and visitors to celebrate the one true meaning of their Christian faith.

As retreatants depart refreshed and invigorated, the monks continue their celebrations of Easter week, incorporating some more leisurely activity as well. Their annual Easter Picnic this year took them to the Aquarium of Western Australia at Hillary’s Boat Harbour.

Thousands flock to Our Lady of the Mission for Easter Triduum

Almost 9000 people attended the Easter Triduum at Whitford, which was the culmination of planning that started early in the New Year with a meeting of Our Lady of the Mission parish’s Creative Liturgy Team.

A plan of how the church would be decorated over this period was developed after reflection upon the Sunday scriptures for Lent/Easter by an eclectic bunch ranging from those with an interest in the liturgy, others who are prepared to give things a go, through to artists and those with experience in theatre stage settings.

They met several times to plan and then execute their ideas for the weeks of Lent and for Holy week/Easter, and together with the parish Liturgy Committee and those in the music ministry spend many hours planning and preparing.

Each Sunday during Lent there was a visual focus. These included a life-size Lazarus being brought back to life by Jesus, a well with running water and a focus throughout Lent on the Seven Deadly Sins.

A leaflet drop inviting people along to the Holy Week and Easter services at OLM is delivered to all homes in the parish area by members of the parish.

People were asked to try to dress in the liturgical colour for the day when attending. (white for Holy Thursday, red for Good Friday, yellow/gold at Easter Saturday vigil and Easter Sunday.)

Holy Week began with the blessing of palms on the school oval and the procession complete with a donkey to the church.

Parish priest Fr Joseph Tran and Assistant Priest Fr Bosco Pudhota co-celebrated all the Masses on Palm Sunday and continued this on Holy Thursday for the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, The Lord’s Passion at 3pm Good Friday and for all the Easter Masses.

After Holy Thursday Eucharistic Adoration was

completed, the Creative Liturgy Team came in and weaved their magic. Behind the altar the entire sanctuary wall was covered by a canvas depicting the crucifixion, the life-size resin crucifix forming part of the scene. The scene was one of reds and gold depicting the darkness that fell over Jerusalem and the blood of Jesus.

On Good Friday the youth, together with other parishioners from the parish dramatised the Stations of the Cross, beginning with the Last Supper in the church and then moving out onto the Whitford Catholic School oval for the Agony in the Garden, arrest and trial of Jesus and the Way of the Cross and Crucifixion.

The body of Jesus was then carried into the church and placed in a life size tomb on the Sanctuary. The Stations of the Cross attracted the largest single attendance over Holy Week with a congregation of well over 1,500. A live video feed to television screens at the back and outside the church (along with speakers) and to the screen at the front of the church was set up, so that all the congregation could participate fully in the Holy Week liturgies. This was especially good for the frail and elderly who were unable to get out to the oval and for children who would otherwise be unable to see if they were towards the rear of the church.

The Lord’s Passion at 3pm was attended by approximately 1,200 with people spilling out into the car park. After this service the Creative Liturgy team went into action again, taking down the crucifixion canvas and replacing it with one depicting the Resurrection of Jesus ready for the Easter Vigil on Saturday night. Twelve RCIA candidates were received into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil. All Easter Masses were well attended, with numbers around 800 to 1000 at the Saturday Vigil and three Sunday morning Masses. Another 260 attended the Sunday evening Mass.

Central figure: Jack Watt as Jesus re-enacts the Last Supper at the start of Whitford’s Stations of the Cross celebrations during Holy Week.

PAULINE EGAN

Whitford

Waroona

New Norcia

Welcome: Two new members of the Church received at the Easter Vigil at New Norcia, with their sponsors, including Fr John Herbert OSB.

Fremantle

Reflective: The monks of New Norcia congregate at the monastery gate to commence the celebrations of Holy Week on Palm Sunday.

Whitford

Sombre moment: Jesus (Jack Watt) was laid in the tomb at the end of the Stations of the Cross re-enactment at Our Lady of the Mission parish at Whitford.

Whitford

Shine forth: Parishioners waved light sticks as the Paschal Candle was brought in at the Easter Saturday Vigil Mass at Our Lady if the Mission parish at Whitford.

Whitford

Jesus falls: Jack Watt stumbled with the cross as part of Whitford’s Stations of the Cross re-enactment on Good Friday.

Above: Parishioners of Waroona enter more deeply into reflection of Christ’s passion during Easter Week celebrations.

Below: Fr Michael Rowe (centre), Fr Richard Abourjaily (left) and Fr Terence Naughtin (right) wore traditional black vestments at the beginning of the Commemoration of Our Lord’s Passion on Good Friday for the Latin Mass community.

PHOTO: MATTHEW BIDDLE

Latin Mass community

Chicks and eggs at Lockridge didn’t overshadow Christ’s great victory

With the aid of a whistle Parish priests at Good Shepherd church in Lockridge, Fr Houng Pham demonstrated Morse code for the letter “v” - 3 dots and a dash - in his homily at the Vigil Mass on Easter Sunday.

He explained how in his youth this was the sign for victory and a whistle was used to spread the good news in his native Vietnam.

And so victory was one of the central themes in the Easter celebrations at the parish of Lockridge: the victory of life over death and the victory Christ achieved by dying of the cross. At the Vigil Mass on Palm Sunday, Fr Vinh

Dong rode astride a pony as donkeys were hard to come by at this time. Parishioners crafted 5000 crosses from the fronds of the palm branches and gladly took them to display in their homes.

Tears flowed at the Passion play presented by the young people of the parish on Good Friday, which has become one of the special events of the Easter celebrations at the parish. The sound of the thud of the rock on nails resonated throughout the church, and served as a reminder that Christ bore his sufferings on our behalf; or to use a line from one of the hymns “you took the fall and thought of me above all.” As in past years the partici-

pants and parishioners embraced the presentation with wholeheartedness as witnessed by the number of young people taking part and the size of the congregation.

At three o’clock on Good Friday the parishioners again assembled for the celebration of the Lords Passion and Veneration of the cross, once more the church was filled to capacity.

At the Easter Sunday vigil children’s eyes opened with delight at the sight of chicks on the altar, also by the 600 hundred Easter eggs Fr Dong distributed to aprishioners - old and young alike – after Mass. The music ministry was in good voice and with the congregation joining in enthusiastically,

they sang both traditional and contemporary hymns. They sang “you raise me up so I can stand on mountains” - again the theme of victory uppermost in the minds of the congregations. The four RCIA candidates who were baptised at the Mass were given a rousing welcome to the church, afterwards some of the newly baptised, along with 25 seminarians enjoyed a meal in the parish centre.

Chicks, flowers and eggs heralded regrowth and the continuance of life and the people of Good Shepherd Parish embraced the Easter celebrations with a loving fervour. A victory of faith. report courtesy Lockridge Parish

Hosanna: Lockridge parish priest Fr Vinh Dong rides a rather large pony as he blessed parishioner’s palms during Palm Sunday celebrations at Good Shepherd parish. Bruised for our transgressions: Mirella Korver, as Mary, mourns the death of Jesus, played by Christian DeLuca, the during Passion play reenactment at Good Shepherd parish in Lockridge.

Kununurra

Quiet moment: Parishioners take part in Passion Sunday events at St Vincent Pallotti Church in Kununurra, with the blessing and procession of palms.

Lynwood /Langford

Sacraments: St Jude parish priest Fr Terry Raj baptises Alexandra Shand and gives first Holy Communion to Natalie Rogers during the Easter vigil. He also received into the Church Alice Chong and also confirmed Kerrie Drake. PHOTOS: HERMAN NANTAL.

Lynwood /Langford

Morley

Big moment: Carmelite Friar Fr Paul Maunder, OCD, baptises one of the catechumens at the Easter Vigil at Infant Jesus Church in Morley.

Kununurra

Servant of all: Fr Patrick De Silva washes the feet of local children during Holy Thursday celebrations.

Melkites

Stations of the Cross in City Beach

The faith of the overflowing congregation that participated in the Easter Vigil liturgy was reinforced and celebrated by the affirmation of the 22 adults who were initiated into the Catholic Church during the liturgy.

The 14 adults who were baptised joined the eight adults who were received into the Church, for the reception of Confirmation and Eucharist. All of the twentytwo adults had participated in the process of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults which commenced in late May 2007.

Stations of the Cross in the streets of Fremantle

■ By Reg Firth

The Easter weekend in Fremantle is full of last-minute shopping, and buskers and street performers who draw considerable crowds.

It was into this environment that the message of Easter was proclaimed on Easter Saturday through an animated Stations of the Cross. About 45 Catholics were involved. In the midst of busy

shoppers, the cappuccino strip and tourists, the Stations of the Cross were enacted in dramatic fashion.

Jesus was dragged through the streets, tried by Pontius Pilate, and a huge rugged cross thrust on his shoulders.

He was lead to Calvary, and was crucified. Responses from onlookers and shoppers were mixed.

Some were caught up in the drama of the Stations and followed intently. Most only gave

the event a casual glance and continued shopping.

A few ridiculed the Passion and yelled abuse. After the event a number of onlookers approached the actors and shared how the drama had touched their life.

The drama has been presented in Fremantle streets for the last 12 years by the Disciples of Jesus Community.

For more information on the Disciples of Jesus, who ran the show, call 9202 6857

Easter Vigil at Bateman Parish - St Thomas More

Illuminated: Archbishop Barry Hickey with altar boys during the blessing of the flame that lit the Paschal Candle before the Easter Saturday Vigil.

Sweet: Archbishop Barry Hickey and Mgr Thomas McDonald hand

eggs to children.

St Brigids

St Brigids

St John’s Pro-Cathedral

Tenebrae a fitting Good Friday climax

■ By Rosemary Lorrimar

The Office of Tenebrae on Good Friday is a most fitting climax to the liturgy of Good Friday.

For several years the Latin Mass Community, based at St John’s Pro-Cathedral Perth, have held this Office in the early evening of Good Friday, in various churches – the Pro Cathedral which is really

too small, St Francis Xavier Church East Perth and St Mary’s Cathedral.

This year it was sung at St Brigid’s Church West Perth. To the newcomer, the Office can seem long and repetitive, but to those who have made it their practice to attend each year, it has a rhythm and mournful beauty which draws us into the emotions which must have been experienced by Our Blessed Lady and the

apostles on that apparently tragic night, while at the same time bringing in an indefinable way, deep comfort.

The two choirs consist of various priests, the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, and lay men of the Pro Cathedral community.

The nocturnes are sung by Quartessence, a local group of young men who, having been to school together, have specialised particularly in

Gregorian chant and other church music.

As the Office progresses, at various points, one of the Tenebrae candles is extinguished until there is only one left, and that is removed to a place behind the altar, symbolising the burial of Christ in the tomb.

All the lights are put out and the people make a loud banging to symbolise the rending of the Temple veil, and the

earthquake following Christ’s death. The choirs process out of the church in silence as do the people. It is a very moving ceremony and for those who attend each year the most fitting end to this most terrible day, leaving one in a reflective mood, and more able to enter into the full joy of the Vigil and Mass of the Resurrection the following day.

THANKYOU!

Here at The Record we would like to thank all the parishes and communities for sending in their photos of how they celebrated Easter. Unfortunately, not all photos could be printed. Some photographs were too small in resolution to be able to be used. When sending in photographs by email for publication it is especially important to only send high-resolution pictures.

In procession: Fr Michael Rowe and Fr Terence Naughtin take the Blessed Sacrament under the Umbrellino to the Altar of Repose on Maundy Thursday.

PHOTO: ROSEMARY LORRIMAR

Sacred veneration of that which saved us: Servers and priests genuflect after the Cross is unveiled, singing Venite adorémus (Come let us adore) during the Latin Mass community’s celebration.

PHOTO: MATTHEW BIDDLE

Sorrowful but grand day: The beautiful St Brigid’s Church soon became engulfed in darkness as Christ’s sorrowful death is commemorated.

PHOTO: ROSEMARY LORRIMAR

Easter

Joyful participants: Bishop Christopher Saunders of the Diocese of Broome receives the gifts from (L to R) Sarah Hester, Rabecca Wungundin, May Jorda, Aiden Nyandi and Daniel Wungundin at Wanalirri Catholic School. Gibb River is in the ranges country; a beautiful settlement 450kms north of Derby.

Presbyterate: Bishop Christopher Saunders celebrated the Chrism Mass in Our Lady Queen of Peace Cathedral Broome with all the priests of the Diocese. PHOTO: B KANE

Presbyterate Broome

Cute: Pre-Primary celebrates Easter at Holy Rosary Derby. ‘Jesus is Alive – He is Risen’.

PHOTO: CAS

Derby

Groups criticise violent video games deferral

‘Adults only’ ratings for some video games flagged by Victorian Attorney General

■ By Paul Gray

Advocacy groups have come out strongly in criticism of a decision by Australia’s state and federal Attorneys-General to defer a decision on introducing R18+ as a new classification category for computer and video games.

The Standing Committee of Attorneys-General have decided to involve public consultation on whether an R18+ category should be introduced.

The Attorneys-General should have agreed to reject the R18+ proposal outright, according to the Australian Family Association and the Australian Christian Lobby.

“There are a lot of warning signs about where this computer games technology is heading,” said Angela Conway of the Australian Family Association.

“I hope the AttorneysGeneral come to their senses and hold the line against a new category that would allow high-level violence and suffering to be depicted in games.

ACL managing director Jim Wallace said that if an R18+ classification is introduced, it will inevitably lead to some

children playing R18+ games. This would be to the detriment of their development and the wider society.

Catholic body wants election contributions quarantined

Can giving money to political parties at election time be made more transparent?

■ By Paul Gray

A Catholic business ethics group wants Australian democracy to take a major step forward by requiring donations to political parties to be “quarantined” by the Australian Electoral Commission.

Dr John Sweeney from the Edmund Rice Centre’s Business Ethics Initiative in Sydney has outlined the proposal as a response to nationwide concern over the activities of political lobbyists and donors.

Perceptions of unfair access to governments being bought and paid for via the pathway of donations to political parties have grown after controversies in NSW, Western Australia and Victoria.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and NSW Premier Morris Iemma have both recently commented on the issue, making detailed suggestions about improving the accountability of politicians when it comes to big cash donations.

However the politicians’ proposals do not go far enough, Dr Sweeney suggested in an interview with The Record

He said the perception of an undermining of democracy has been a longstanding problem, particularly in NSW and especially at the local government level.

There have also been problems in other states such as Western Australia where there has been controversy concerning the lobbying activities of former Premier Brian Burke.

Dr Sweeney said as a result, lobbying now has a bad name, with an air of “questionable practices” surrounding the whole area.

The Edmund Rice Centre proposal is that all donations to political parties should be made at arms length through the Australian Electoral Commission.

Under the proposal, any business, union, corporate or individual donor could continue to make whatever

donations they wish to political parties or candidates, but the donations would be made more anonymously. All donations would be paid through the Australian Electoral Commission which would set up an appropriate administrative structure to handle the moneys. Donated money would be made available to the nominated candidate whenever an election was called.

All donated moneys would still reach the party or candidate designated by the donor, but in a significant change, the donor would be unable to produce show proof to a politician or party that they had made a donation to them. They would only be able to prove that they had made it for general political purposes. The administrative structure required for this process at the Australian Electoral Commission could be offset against interest earned on the money contributed by donors.

Dr Sweeney said the quarantining idea began with the Northern Territory intervention into Aboriginal communities, and is now being extended as a general principle of welfare administration by the federal government. Quarantining welfare money is designed to help the government deal with families who are not considered responsible. In the social welfare context, quarantining money means that money which is made available for welfare purposes is not available to be spent on alcohol or drugs, but must be spent directly on physical needs such as housing or food.

Dr Sweeney says he believes that the principle of quarantining can be adapted to public administration as well. He said it is another way to manage a very real problem, namely the perception (and sometimes the reality) of unfair interference in open and accountable government in Australia. In the wake of various controversies, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and NSW Premier Morris Iemma have suggested various changes to political donation rules. These include Mr Rudd’s proposal that the limit for political donations that must be publicly declared would

be reduced from $10,000 to $1000.

Mr Iemma suggested that individual politicians should not be allowed to have personal campaign accounts, but that their campaign donations should be dealt with by the party’s central office.

Dr Sweeney said the problem with all the suggestions made by both Mr Rudd and Mr Iemma is that they still require other people to constantly scan over what would probably be very large numbers of disclosure statements.

“The best place to hide a tree is in a forest,” Dr Sweeney says. In other words, by increasing the red tape around political donations, the problem of lack of transparency may not be improved at all.

Quarantining donations at the AEC, on the other hand, would make a real difference.

He says it is likely that donations to parties would decrease significantly. But this, in fact, may be the point of the exercise, since the community would want to remove donations aimed at securing favours.

The public purse might have to be called if parties were caught short of funds to campaign with as a result of these changes to the political donation system.

The Edmund Rice Centre business ethics initiative exists to promote conversation between business and the community on the subject of ethics in the workplace.

in Brief

Bishops say restrict alcohol advertising

The bishops have supported moves to ban alcohol advertising on TV and radio before 9pm at night.

In a submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee in Canberra, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference have said it is “reasonable” to limit alcohol advertising to adult viewing times, since it is “unacceptable” for young people to be made the targets of ads which seek to increase alcohol consumption. Supporting

“We are aware that the interactive entertainment industry has been lobbying hard on this issue, but the AttorneysGeneral need to be careful not to bow to their demands at the expense of the public good,” he said.

Victoria’s Attorney-General Rob Hulls issued a media release after the meeting of attorneys-general in Adelaide saying that public consultation on the issue of R18+ computer games had been agreed to. Mr Hulls said there has been community interest in reviewing the current classification scheme and said there were “persuasive arguments” to support the introduction of an ‘adult only’ category of computer games.

Mr Hulls argued it was inconsistent that in Australia adults could view ‘adults only’ films but not computer games with an equivalent high level content.

Clearly indicating that the Victorian Government favours R18+, Mr Hulls added: “With the increasing convergence between films and games, the different approach to classification principles is difficult to sustain.

Mrs Conway was scathing in her criticism of Mr Hulls’ statement. She said the current ‘adults only’ film rating

allows for sickening degrees of violence.

In the film Irreversible, for example, she said there was an extended horrific violent anal rape scene.

A character is also shown being bashed within an inch of his life, while in another scene, a character is beaten to death with a fire extinguisher.

The viewers see and hear the victim’s brain being smashed.

In the adults only film Hostel 2, she said, a character is shown being hung from a meat hook and tortured to death. The film indicates sexual arousal in the torturer. Both Irreversible and Hostel 2 have an R18+ film rating in Australia.

Mrs Conway says Mr Hulls and many supporters of increased liberalisation appear not to understand how extreme is the violence which is already allowed in film under an adults only classification.

Mrs Conway said she was pleased that South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson had indicated opposition to the R18+ category proposal. She said she believes Mr Atkinson intends to try to “hold the line” against it.

Mrs Conway says there is a great deal of misunderstanding and misinformation con-

cerning the R18+ proposal for computer games. She told The Record that many gamers and industry insiders seem to believe, mistakenly, that teenagers will somehow miss out on games to which they currently have access, unless a new R18+ category is introduced. But teenagers will not miss out, she said.

“The only thing that would be delivered by R18+ is high level violence, agony and torture.”

She said what gamers want from computer games is high quality strategy, storylines, rendering (such as landscapes,) interesting characters and naturalistic movements. These qualities are not affected by the R18+ proposal, she said.

Mrs Conway said it should be regarded as an open question as to whether it was the computer gaming industry itself or a small group of advocates within the industry – what she called “activists with other agendas” - who are behind the move.

Responding to Mr Hulls’ call for public consultation on the question, Mr Wallace from the Australian Christian Lobby said he urged anyone who cares about the issue to get involved in the consulta-

tion, “even if they are not normally active in the political domain.”

Mr Wallace said if an R18+ category is introduced it could lead to the worst interactive games going on sale in Australia.

“Given what happens with R-rated films we could have no confidence that the classification guidelines would be properly applied. For example, due to loopholes in the guidelines, real sex is sometimes being shown in R-rated films.

“What will happen if we have R18+ computer games which have even greater impact because of their interactive nature?”

Mrs Conway says the computer games technology is used by the defence forces in Australia and the United States.

“The US military spends big money on this,” she says. “They use it for skills development to develop lethal and efficient reflex responses.

“Basically, they use it to train soldiers to have an increased capacity to kill efficiently.”

She said one of the perennial problems facing military trainers is that they need to deal with a perfectly normal and healthy reluctance in human beings to kill other people.

Centenary good enough excuse for conference on Chesterton: admirers

100 years after two of his essential works were published, Australian admirers will meet to talk all things GKC

By Paul Gray

■

The centenary of publication of two classic books by Catholic author GK Chesterton will be honoured at a conference in Sydney before World Youth Day.

Karl Schmude, President of the Australian Chesterton Society, said the apologetics classic Orthodoxy and the novel The Man Who Was Thursday both written by Chesterton and first published in 1908 are still having a major impact around the world.

“Before Chesterton published Orthodoxy, Christianity had been going through a rather rough time, from the Enlightenment right through to the 19th century with its controversies over evolution and biblical criticism,” Mr Schmude says.

“Then in Chesterton, along came a writer who suddenly made Christianity seem irresistibly logical and appealing to the mind.”

International and Australian speakers will explore the lasting influence of the books at the Chesterton Society’s 2008 Conference to be held between June 30 and July 2 in NSW.

The conference title is “Redeeming the Culture: the Reforming Vision of GK

a Family First bill aimed at reducing binge drinking, the bishops say that “alcohol advertising targeting young people is unconscionable.”

Prelate, three priests to 2020 summit

Archbishop Philip Wilson and three other Catholic priests will attend the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s 2020 summit in Canberra later this month. Jesuit academic Fr Frank Brennan, Salesian street worker Fr Chris Riley and Tasmanian parish priest Fr Michael Tate will also sit among the 1000 Australians who have been selected to

Chesterton.” It will be held at Campion College at Old Toongabbie in Sydney.

Speakers at the conference will include Thomas Storck, who is a board member at the GK Chesterton Institute for Faith and Culture at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, USA, and Dr Sheridan Gilley, an Australian scholar who is emeritus reader in theology at Durham University in the United Kingdom.

A comprehensive discussion of the connection between Australia and GK Chesterton will also be explored at the conference.

Mr Schmude says Chesterton wrote about Australia on a

participate in discussions and debates about the nation’s future.

Archbishop Wilson says he will give prayerful and thoughtful consideration to the key issues ahead of the summit, and that he will have “a special focus on the development of family life in this nation and the well-being of its citizens.”

Australians attend Rome family meeting

Cardinal George Pell and grandparents-of-eight Ron and Mavis Pirola were Australian representatives at the 18th plenary assembly

What’s all this? A Catholic monarch?

Ending bans on Catholics might make monarchy more inclusive

■ By Paul Gray

If the Queen or King of England were a Catholic, would the monarchy gain a new lease on life in Australia?

Republican Australians were pondering that question after reports that Britain’s Government may be considering making a Catholic monarch a legal possibility.

number of occasions – not in a flattering way – and never visited the country. Yet it can be argued that in no other country in the world did Chesterton’s ideas, particularly in the political sphere, have such a strong influence as they did “down under.”

Former Victorian Labor Government minister Race Matthews, an expert in the history of “distributism,” the political system devised by Chesterton and his authorial collaborator Hilaire Belloc, will also speak at the conference.

Mr Matthews will speak on the roots of distributism in Australia, examining the influ-

of the Pontifical Council for the Family which got underway this week in Rome. Mr and Mrs Pirola are foundation members of the Council which was established by Pope John Paul II in 1982. “Grandparents: their witness and presence in the family” was scheduled for discussion at the Rome meeting. “Grandparents are playing an increasingly important role in families,” the Pirolas said before their departure.

Students say pray for religious freedom

Respect for human rights and particularly for freedom

ence of its ideas on prominent historical figures like Cardinal Moran in Sydney. He will also examine the intellectual impact of distributist ideas on various Australians.

The continuing influence of Chesterton, who died in 1936, can be gauged in stories like those of author Dawn Eden, Mr Schmude told The Record

Eden is a contemporary American writer and broadcaster on pop music, who encountered Chesterton’s 1908 novel The Man Who Was Thursday while interviewing a Californian rock musician several years ago.

The musician was reading the book during an interview and recommended it.

Eden, who up until then had led a sexually liberal lifestyle, became engrossed in Chesterton’s writing and read several of his books. Under their influence she eventually converted to Catholicism, and recently published a book advocating chastity which has received extensive publicity in the United States and Britain.

Eden’s book is called The Thrill of the Chaste: finding fulfillment while keeping your clothes on Mr Schmude comments that it is a title GK Chesterton would certainly have appoved of. Further information about the 2008 Chesterton conference and the Australian Chesterton Society can be obtained via email to kschmude@northnet. com.au

of religion has been urged by ACSA, the Australian Catholic Students Association.

“We express particular concern over the violence in Tibet, and in particular the continuing persecution of religious who are crying out for the right to openly practice their religion,” said ACSA President Camillus O’Kane.

ACSA’s media officer Claire

Anthony says that with a short time to go before World Youth Day, students should use the next few months to become a living witness of the teachings of the Church in a world which continues to see the inflicting of suffering based on race, religion and ideology.

To bring about a Catholic king or queen, the British Government would need to abolish the 300-year-old Act of Settlement which forbids the country’s monarchs from being or marrying Catholics. In Australia, the monarchy versus republic debate has divided the Catholic community. Among Catholics prominent in the public eye, for example, Cardinal George Pell has indicated his preference for a republic while Liberal MP Tony Abbott has strongly endorsed the continuation of the monarchy.

Queen Elizabeth: Could a British Catholic monarch ever be legal?

A leader of the Australian Republican Movement says the ban on the English monarch being a Catholic or marrying one has only played a minor role in the constitutional debate in Australia. However it has been a secondary issue for some Australian republicans, said Prof John Warhurst from the Australian National University in Canberra.

Prof Warhurst, who is deputy chair of the Australian Republican Movement, told The Record that if Britain’s ban on a Catholic monarch were lifted, it would help to make the British monarchy more inclusive.

“I think both republicans and monarchists in Australia should welcome that,” he said. But Prof Warhurst said the Catholicism or Protestantism of the monarch is essentially a side-issue in the larger constitutional debate.

“It does not go to the heart of the general unacceptability of the undemocratic nature of an inherited, non-elected monarchy,” he said. The possibility that Britain’s Government will do away with the Act of Settlement was raised by British Justice Secretary Jack Straw, after he unveiled a Constitutional Reform Bill in London. Catholic Labour MP, Jim Devine, who described the Act as “legalised sectarianism which has no role in the 21st century.”

Save the children, missionary style

Prominent Aboriginal leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu earned national attention with newspaper comments that Aboriginal children were better off in the old days living in Catholic missions than they are in present day Aboriginal communities. Mr Yunupingu told the Sydney Morning Herald that missionaries “looked after the kids better than the Government does today.” He also argued that missionary-style dormitories would provide safer and better accommodation for many than present arrangements.

Violent vids: Electronic games such as Grand Theft Auto have alarmed many for the violent nature of their play.

Larger than life: Chesterton was regarded as an intellectual giant by both friend and opponent. He was also the first Englishman to be made a Defender of the Faith by a Pope since Henry VIII.

While parishes in Western Australia celebrated the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, their brothers and sisters in faith were doing the same thing around the world. In Rome, Pope Benedict used the events of Holy week to speak not only to the Church but the world.

■ By Carol Glatz

One’s feelings of hatred must be washed away with forgiveness and humble service toward others - they should never be left to linger long enough to poison the soul, Pope Benedict XVI said.

During his March 20 celebration of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, which commemorated Jesus’ institution of the Eucharist, the Pope reflected on the symbolic meaning of the ritual of the washing of the feet.

While the ritual symbolises the call to imitate Christ by serving one another, it also means people must always and continually offer forgiveness, he said. Through his passion and death on the cross, Jesus died for sins that are “infinitely greater than all the debts others may have with us,” the Pope said in his homily at Rome’s Basilica of St John Lateran.

Jesus’ parable of the unforgiving servant urges everyone “to not let rancor toward others become, deep down, a poison of the soul.”

Holy Thursday, he said, reminds the faithful “to continually purify our memory, sincerely forgive one another, wash the feet of one another,” to be able to gather around the Lord’s banquet. Pope Benedict also washed the feet of 12 priests from the Diocese of Rome for the first time in his three-year pontificate. The last two Holy Thursdays, Pope Benedict washed the feet of 12 laymen during the evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper. The Pope poured water from a golden pitcher onto the foot of each priest and then gently rubbed each foot dry with a white towel. In his homily, the Pope said confession and listening to God’s word are ways the faithful can purify their inner being.

“We need the washing of the feet - the washing of sins - every day and for this we need the confession of sins.”

- Pope Benedict XVI

“We need the washing of the feet - the washing of sins - every day and for this we need the confession of sins,” he said. He said, “Day after day, we are covered in filth of every form, empty words, prejudices, abridged and distorted wisdom; multiple forms of half-truths or blatant lies continually infiltrate our hearts.”

“All of this darkens and contaminates our soul, threatening us with the inability” to discern or strive for the truth and the good, he said.

In addition to the sacra-

Wash hatred away Wash hatred away

ment of reconciliation, God also cleanses his children and “makes us pure with his word and his love, through his giving of himself,” the Pope said. The faithful must welcome the word of Christ with an attitude of “meditation, prayer and faith” so that its healing powers “develop their purifying power in us,” said the Pope. Donations collected during the Mass were earmarked for La Edad de Oro orphanage in Havana, Cuba, where members of the Daughters of

Charity care for people with disabilities.

Earlier in the day, Pope Benedict celebrated the chrism Mass in St Peter’s Basilica, leading more than 1,500 priests and bishops in the renewal of their ordination promises.

He encouraged today’s priests to be honest, righteous and courageous in the face of evil, and at the humble service of God and all humanity.

The Pope blessed the chrism and the oils used in the sacraments of baptism,

confirmation, ordination and the anointing of the sick. Deacons carried the oils in large silver urns to the main altar while catechumens, youths preparing for confirmation, the sick and deacons about to be ordained in the Diocese of Rome wheeled small tables carrying large, artistic urns called “anfore,” which also contained the sacramental oils.

In his homily, the Pope reminded his audience of the vows many of them made when they embraced the

priesthood: to stand before God and serve him.

A priest “must be a righteous, vigilant person, a person who is upstanding” in leading a holy and Christian life, he said.

But he must also be a servant, he added, and all he does must be carried out with that humble attitude.

During the celebration of the Eucharist, for example, the priest is “fulfilling a service to God and a service to all people,” he said.

Christ created an institu-

tion that entailed the giving of oneself even unto death for the good of all humanity, the Pope said. Today’s priests must become part of this faith tradition based on such selfless service, he said. Service also entails obedience, the Pope said. “Humanity’s temptation is always wanting to be completely autonomous, to only follow one’s own desire, and to believe that only by doing so will we be free; that only through something akin to limitless freedom would man

be fully man, would become divine,” he said.

But, the Pope said, the truth is “we have to share our freedom with others and we can be free only in communion with them.” True freedom also comes about only when pursuing God’s will, he added.

While this kind of obedience to God is something expected of all people, it must be made even more concretely evident in the life of a priest, he said.

As priests, “we do not pro-

claim ourselves, but (God) and his word,” said the Pope. “We do not invent the Church in the way we would like it to be, but we proclaim the word of Christ in the right way, only in communion with his body.” Priestly obedience means serving God and the Church and that might mean having to go places or do things that were not part of one’s own plans, the Pope said.

“This letting oneself be led when we do not desire is an essential part of our service and it is exactly this that makes us free,” he said. By letting oneself be led by God and his will, “we experience something new - the richness of God’s love,” said the Pope. He said a priest also must be vigilant against “the persistent powers of evil.” He must help the world always be on the lookout for God, he must be upstanding, hold firm against current trends, stand for the truth, and be dedicated in his commitment to the good, the Pope said.

“The priest must be honest, bold and ready” to withstand insults and abuse for the Lord and be joyous in suffering dishonor for the sake of his name, Pope Benedict said.

Papal preacher: Christians’ divisions will heal with love for Christ

■ By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS)

Christians’ divisions will be healed when there is a fresh outpouring of love for Christ among all Christians, said the preacher of the papal household.

In his March 21 homily during the Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa said “the fundamental distinction among Christians is not among Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants, but between those who believe that Christ is the son of God and those who do not believe this.”

While differences over doctrine exist and must be resolved patiently, there is nothing stopping Christian denominations from uniting immediately through their love for Christ and each other, he said.

“That which will reunite divided Christianity will only be a new wave of love for Christ that spreads among Christians,” he said.

“The extraordinary thing about this way to unity based on love is that it is already now wide open before us,” he told the Pope and hundreds of people in St Peter’s Basilica.

“We can instead be hasty in charity and already be united in that sense now,” he said.

Pope Benedict presided over the Good Friday liturgy, beginning the rite by kneeling in front of the altar in silent prayer.

During the ceremony, the Pope also held aloft for veneration a black wooden cross that had been used by Pope Leo XIII.

The Capuchin priest noted there is a saying that “loving does not mean looking at each other, but looking together in the same direction,” which for Christians means looking at Christ. The closer Christians move toward Christ, the closer they will come to being united and being one with Jesus and God.

He said Christ died on the cross not just for all those who follow him, but for every human.

Joy: A large crowd stands in the rain in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican as Pope Benedict XVI delivers his Easter blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city of Rome and the world) on March 23. PHOTO/A BIANCHI, REUTERS

Around the world: A young Spanish penitent prepares to participate in Holy Week ceremonies, top left; Indonesian children carry a Cross on Good Friday; a Christian pilgrim prays after an Easter Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on March 23; and Pope Benedict XVI greets worshippers in Rome on Easter Sunday morning. PHOTOS: CNS

2008

St Faustina Kowalska

I have some friends who are great devotees of St Faustina and the devotion to the Divine Mercy. Personally I know very little about St Faustina and haven’t managed to embrace the devotion as they have. Can you please tell me something about the saint and the devotion?

The devotion to the Divine Mercy has its origin in private revelations granted to a Polish nun, St Faustina Kowalska, beginning in 1931.

St Faustina was born Helen Kowalska on the 25th August 1905. She was the third of ten children in a poor but religious family. She had only three years of formal schooling.

Q&A

At the age of 16 she left home and went to work as a housekeeper to support herself and help her parents. On August 1, 1925 she had a vision of the suffering Christ, moving her to enter the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, where she took the name Sr Mary Faustina. She lived in the Congregation for 13 years and died of tuberculosis in 1938 at the age of 33.

By Fr John Flader

On February 22, 1931, Our Lord appeared to her, bringing a message of mercy for all mankind. She describes it in her diary on that date: “In the evening, when I was in my cell, I became aware of the Lord Jesus clothed in a white garment. One hand was raised in blessing, the other was touching the garment at the breast. From the opening of the garment at the breast there came forth two large rays, one red and the other pale. In silence I gazed intently at the Lord; my soul was overwhelmed with fear, but also with great joy. After a while Jesus said to me, ‘paint an image according to the pattern you see, with the inscription: Jesus, I trust in You.’” This is the familiar image of the Divine Mercy which is now to be found in churches, books and prayer cards all over the world.

Some time later Our Lord explained the meaning of the image to her: “The two rays denote blood and water. The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous. The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls. These two rays issued forth from the depths of my tender mercy when my agonised Heart was opened by a lance on the Cross... Fortunate is the one who will dwell in their shelter, for the just hand of God shall not lay hold of him.”

Sr Faustina was moved to cultivate a child-like trust in God and to show mercy toward her neighbour. She relates the following prayer that she raised to Jesus: “O my Jesus, each of your saints reflects one of your virtues; I desire to reflect your compassionate heart, full of mercy; I want to glorify it. Let your mercy, O Jesus, be impressed upon my heart and soul like a seal, and this will be my badge in this and the future life” (Diary, 1242).

Sr Faustina saw her mission as consisting in three tasks: first, to remind the world of the truth of the merciful love of God toward every human being; second, to implore God’s mercy for the whole world and particularly for sinners, through the practice of new forms of devotion to the Divine Mercy, including the veneration of the image of the Divine Mercy with the inscription “Jesus, I trust in you”, the celebration of the feast of the Divine Mercy on the first Sunday after Easter, the chaplet to the Divine Mercy, recited using Rosary beads but substituting other prayers such as “For the sake of his sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world”, and prayer at the Hour of Mercy (3pm); and third, to initiate the apostolic movement of the Divine Mercy, promoting devotion to the Divine Mercy and striving for Christian perfection through an attitude of child-like trust in God which expresses itself in fulfilling his will and in showing mercy toward one’s neighbour.

Devotion to the Divine Mercy spread rapidly and today it involves millions of people all over the world.

On April 18, 1993 Sr Faustina was beatified by Pope John Paul II, who had been Archbishop of Kracow, where Sr Faustina died and where her remains are venerated.

On April 30, 2000 Pope John Paul canonised her and proclaimed the feast of the Divine Mercy, to be celebrated on the second Sunday of Easter each year. Significantly, Pope John Paul died on the eve of the feast of the Divine Mercy, April 2, 2005. -director@caec.com.au

Resting place of a saint and pilgrim attraction

By Sian White

The day I went it was desolate but beautiful. It may have been the middle of winter but the weather was taken right out of an Australian weather forecast: blue skies, no clouds and sunshine all day long.

I even felt myself getting colour in my cheeks as I walked on past the sheep, the trickling streams, the seeping pools of mud, and the precariously perched stones, to the small church built into the mountainside.

But now, on the one day when it counts - on the holiest of days – it’s raining. Clouds roll over the Connemara mountains on Ireland’s west coast and blanket her beauty to the pilgrims who trace her paths. This place goes by many names and spellings but locals know it as Maumean and for centuries it has seen pilgrims come and go.

Nowadays it remains inaccessible by car and visitors must don their wellington boots and climb over farm gates to navigate their way up to one of St Patrick’s holy mountains. But according to legend, as captured in the walking guides to the Connemara, even St Patrick was a one-off visitor to this place.

He traversed the area around 440 AD, looked in awe at the mountains that surrounded him

but concluded that no Christian soul could inhabit this bleak area. He spent the night there, duly blessed the peaks and returned.

Now, in his place, there stands a tiny chapel, hidden behind a bend. At first it too appears overwhelmed by stark and rugged beauty of the Maam Turk ranges that surround it. Mountain range after mountain range are dotted with the white spots of sheep, potato ridges from times gone by and cementless stone walls which rise up onto the mountainsides to surround almost

vertical fields. The chapel peers silently over the ‘Valley of Birds’, but there aren’t any birds here. Or if there were they are not here now. Below the valleys deep shadows, lies a partially frozen lake which the sun’s rays slowly erode. The chapel is guarded by 12 crosses - the stations, and numerous piles of stones that the pilgrims have carried there over the years.

Nearby the chapel is St Patrick’s bed. The place where he once lay appears grave-like in nature it is adorned in Rosary beads, statues,

pictures and a rather sodden looking Bible.

Rosary beads dangle behind the alter too and entwine themselves in the moss and ferns that grow naturally from its rocky backdrop. But most imposing is the cold stone statue of St Patrick who surely never tires of such a sight.

But this place seems deserted – forgotten.

The holiness of the place now consumed by the wilderness and the cheek of tourists who leave their rubbish as a tasteless offering behind the altar.

On the right hand side of the altar is a confessional with stained glass windows that invite forgiveness but a hefty padlock on the door that tells a different story.

The sealed padlock will remain so for 364 days of the year. On this rainy Good Friday it will finally be opened. It has been every other Good Friday for centuries past and probably will be for centuries to come. On this special day priests and pilgrims will breathe more life into this ancient construction than it has seen all year.

But then after Mass, they will descend its slopes once more, not to return to their dear patron Saint’s bed until Easter next year.

A faith blessed by community and an active daily prayer life for Seamus

Seamus Jordan

In the morning I offer up my day and all my trials and blessings to God. I try to frequent Perpetual Adoration at St Bernadette’s Church, Glendalough. The Eucharist is important to me. I love to attend weekday Masses when I can fit it around my university and work schedule I try to go as often as I can. I study philosophy at Notre Dame University and work part time at Subway. The

DVD

Disciples of Jesus has been a big catalyst for me. One aspect of the faith the Community encourages me with is a serious call to daily prayer. My daily prayer mainly consists of reading Scripture and meditating on it. I usually start with the Psalms, I find them expressive. At the moment I like to reflect on Psalm 91. [Through our faith] it says, “You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day.”

How I Pray Now

Debbie Warrier

with

Australia is secular and we practically live in a Godless society.

If you stand up for your faith you are persecuted. It can be hard to live by the uncompromising principles of Catholicism. The biggest challenge for youth, I think, is to have purity of heart and mind. When I was 14 I joined a Catholic youth

group called 24:7. Although I had been born into a Catholic family my faith didn’t mean much to me.

Through the group I saw the beauty of faith and the happiness it brings. When I finished Year 12 I was just floating around. I didn’t know what to do with my life and lacked motivation. I decided to spend a year at Bible College with the Disciples of Jesus. I came out of that feeling alive, purpose filled and focused. I wanted to work for the Lord.

I have recently done some charity work with the homeless in Darwin with a close friend, Gez. We visited a youth Detention Centre to witness to the kids. It was a boost to my faith. We helped conduct a retreat there where we tried to let these kids know the love God has for them. We were just there to love them. It’s hard to

say what effect we had on them but I believe the Holy Spirit touched some hearts. I admire Pope John Paul II for his contribution to the Church. He had his finger on the pulse and a real love for young people. I am looking forward to World Youth Day in Sydney and I get excited every time I think of a multitude of Catholic youth together as one. The fruits of my faith are my network of beautiful friends. If I didn’t have my faith I would probably still be studying philosophy but would have a different set of morals and values. Without the guidance of faith I would be all over the shop. I would like to study Theology after this.

I love sharing my faith with others. For faith not to become stagnant it has to be shared. My faith is a big part of my identity. My family is Catholic and most of my friends are Catholic. Faith means hope, joy and salvation. It opens my eyes to the Glory of God and inspires me. debwarrier@hotmail.com

Saint Anthony: Miracle Worker of Padua

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Saint Therese of the Child Jesus: An echo of the Heart of God DVD

This is the definitive film on the life of St Therese of Lisieux. Declared the ‘greatest saint of modern times’ and Doctor of the Church, this film follows her life through interviews, dramatization, her writings, commentary by the Bishop of Lisieux and exclusive footage of her family home and the Carmel in which she lived out her ‘Little Way’.

$39.95+postage (DVD requires multizone player)

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The Passion of Bernadette DVD

This sequel to Bernadette continues the story of St Bernadette after the apparitions of Our Lady at Lourdes, and the continuing sanctification of her life through trials, joys and sufferings, which made her the Incorruptible Saint of Lourdes.

$49.95+postage (DVD requires multizone player)

Thursday

Classifieds: $3.30/line incl. GST Deadline: 12pm Monday

the Sick. Enq: Noreen Monaghan on 9498 7727.

Sunday May 17

UKRAINIAN

Saturday April 12 ST PADRE PIO PRAYER GROUP At Holy Spirit Church, Bent Street, City Beach. 9.30am St Padre Pio DVD at Parish Hall. 10.30am Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Rosary, Divine Mercy, Silent Adoration and Benediction. 11.30am Holy Mass. 12.30 BYO lunch. Tea and coffee provided. Books and religious items for sale. All welcome. Enq: Des 6278 1540.

Sunday April 13

THE DAY OF THE UNBORN CHILD CELEBRATION

Come join in the annual celebration for the Day of the Unborn Child at St Joachim’s Pro Cathedral, starting at 11am. Mass, celebrated by Archbishop Hickey, followed by a Holy Hour led by Fr Paul Carey SSC. This day commemorates the day when the Son of God became a tiny unborn child in the womb of His mother. We celebrate the sacredness of every human life and the blessings of parenthood. We offer hope and healing for those who have lost a child. Enq: Helene 9402 0349.

Sunday April 13 ANNIVERSARY AT BULLSBROOK SHRINE

Starting at 2pm, 36 Chittering Road, Bullsbrook. The 61st Anniversary of the Apparition of the Virgin of the Revelation to Bruno Cornacchiola at Tre Fontane, Rome and the 60th Anniversary of the foundation of the SACRI Association will be celebrated at the Shrine. There will be a Rosary procession, followed by Mass and Benediction. The Sacrament of the sick will be administered during Mass. Enq: 9447 3292.

Tuesday April 15 CATHOLIC POLICE OFFICERS AND STAFF MASS & AGM

Police officers and staff, both serving and retired, and their families, are invited to attend Mass and AGM at Our Lady Help of Christians, 43 Camberwell Street, East Victoria Park starting at 7pm. Short AGM and light supper following Mass. RSVP

Monday April 11 to Peter Browne 0409 290 169 or John Bouwman 9268 7507.

Sunday 20 April TAIZE MEDITATIVE PRAYER

7pm to 8pm at Sisters of St Joseph Chapel, 16 York Street, South Perth. Come and be still and pray with the community in the candlelit chapel. Song, Scripture and silence. Everyone welcome. Bring a friend and a torch. Enq: Sister Maree Riddler 0414 683 296.

Thursday April 24 CATHEDRAL PRAISE MEETING CPM

Starting at 7.30pm at 450 Hay Street, Perth. Meet JAMES “BUTCH” MURPHY who carried a 6ft wooden cross over America as a witness to Christ. It took 18 months and 14 pairs of shoes! Catch the excitement of Jim’s testimony and hear his challenge for discipleship - A Love Offering will be received. Enq: Flame Ministries International: 9382 3668 or email: fmi@flameministries.org.

Friday April 25 MEDJUGORJE  EVENING OF PRAYER 7pm-9pm an evening of prayer with Our Lady Queen of Peace at Our Lady’s Assumption Parish, 356 Grand Promenade, Dianella. Program: Adoration, meditation and Rosary, followed by Holy Mass. Enq: 9402 2480.

Saturday April 26 WORLD YOUTH DAY QUIZ NIGHT! Join the young people of Holy Spirit Church to make this quiz night an unforgettable one! Holy Spirit parish hall. 2 Keaney Place, City Beach, 7.15pm. Tables of 8. Tickets - $10. BYO drinks and nibbles. Tea and coffee available. Enq: Melissa 9446 9682.

Sunday May 4 THE 2008 BUSSELTON MAY ROSARY CELEBRATION IN HONOUR OF OUR LADY 12.30 pm at Queen of the Holy Rosary Shrine, Bove’s Farm, Roy Road, Jindong, Busselton. Holy Concelebrated Mass led by Fr Tony Chiera commences at 1pm. Rosary Procession and Benediction following Mass. Afternoon tea provided. All Welcome! For Bus bookings from Perth contact Francis 0404 893 877 or 9459 3873. Note: Roy Road runs off the Bussell Highway,

Thursday May 22 BE THE BEST PARENT YOU CAN

At 15 Cambridge Street, West Leederville. How to tackle parenting in this 21st century of enormous change and challenge. Build the healthy, nurturing family you want. A 6 week program providing tools and roadmaps for the way ahead. Survival Skills for Today’s Families is relevant to

Sunday May 25 CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION Holy Mass commencing at 10.30am. Procession starting at 12.30pm, at St John the Baptist Parish Church, 36 Stirling Terrace, Toodyay. The procession will honour the Blessed Sacrament with Prayers, Hymns and Benediction. A reception will follow. Please bring a plate. Bus services will be available: Contact Desmond 6278 1540, Nita 9367 1366, Chia 9337 3831. Enq: Franciscans of the Immaculate 9574 5204.

Friday June 6 to Friday September 26 PASTORAL CARE COURSE

For ministry with the mentally ill. 17 week course will run on Fridays, 8.45am to 3.30pm from Friday June 6 to Friday September 26. This course involves information sessions on schizophrenia, bipolar, suicide awareness, eating disorders etc plus group work and ward visits. Course donation of $100 is invited. Applications close 2nd May. Enq: Bob Milne, Graylands Hospital, pastoral centre 9347 6685 or 0413 325 486.

Every Sunday SHRINE OF VIRGIN OF THE REVELATION

Sunday Pilgrim Mass is celebrated at 2pm with Holy Rosary and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament at the Shrine, 36 Chittering Road, Bullsbrook. Reconciliation is available in Italian and English before every celebration. On the second Sunday of the month, anointing of the sick is administered during Mass. The pilgrimage in honour of the Virgin of the Revelation is on the last Sunday of the month. The side entrance to the church and the shrine is open daily between 9am and 5pm. Enq: SACRI 9447 3292.

Every Saturday VIDEO / DVD NIGHT

Starting straight after the 6.30pm Vigil Mass: at St. Joseph’s Church, 20 Hamilton St. Bassendean. A variety of Videos/DVDs will be shown. The Saints, Conversion Stories, Catholic Teaching etc. Each video is approx. 30mins. Want to learn more about our Catholic faith? Bring the family along, there is no charge. Saturday 29th March - pt. 2 of ‘Four Marks of the Church’. Saturday 5th April - pt. 3 of ‘Four Marks of the Church’.

CALLING PAST YCW MEMBERS

Were you a past member of the Perth YCW, or would you like to be informed about the actions and activities of the YCW today? The Perth YCW is in the process of creating a newsletter to “keep you in touch” with the movement, and we would like to

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PILGRIMAGE

Led by Fr Greg Donovan, 19 Day Pilgrimage to the Holy Land/Turkey 24th Oct - 11th Nov 08. The cost $5500, includes all flights, meals, entrance fees. Confirmation is required by 6th April to secure the booking. For more info pls contact Christina Tan 9332 9881 or Rosemary Yeo 9313 8983.

O

Saint of Modern Times. Now I fervently beseech you to answer my petition (mention here) and to carry out your promises of spending Heaven doing good on earth… of letting fall a Shower of Roses. Henceforth, dear Little Flower I will fulfil your plea “to be made known everywhere” and I will never cease to lead others to Jesus through you. AMEN.

Novena to St Claire. Ask for 3 favours, say 9 Hail Mary’s with lit candle for 9 days. May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be praised, adored, glorified, loved today and every day forever. Amen. Prayers always answered.

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Here

‘The

Benedict XVI at the Easter Vigil Mass in St Peter’s Basilica. Allam sent this

to Corriere della Sera’s director, Paolo Mieli.

Tmable privilege. At almost 56, it is a historical, exceptional and unforgettable event, which marks a radical and definitive turn with respect to the past. The miracle of Christ’s resurrection reverberated through my soul, liberating it from the darkness in which the preaching of hatred and intolerance in the face of the “different,” uncritically condemned as “enemy,” were privileged over love and respect of “neighbour,” who is always, and in every case, “person”; thus, as my mind was freed from the obscurantism of an ideology that legitimates lies and deception, violent death that leads to murder and suicide, the blind submission to tyranny, I was able to adhere to the authentic religion of truth, of life and of freedom.

On my first Easter as a Christian I not only discovered Jesus, I discovered for the first time the face of the true and only God, who is the God of faith and reason.

My conversion to Catholicism is the touching down of a gradual and profound interior meditation from which I could not pull myself away, given that for five years I have been confined to a life under guard, with permanent surveillance at home and a police escort for my every movement, because of death threats and death sentences from Islamic extremists and terrorists, both those in and outside of Italy.

extremism and terrorism that has appeared on a global level, the root of evil is inherent in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictive.

his holiness Pope Benedict XVI, who imparted the sacraments of Christian initiation to me, baptism, confirmation and Eucharist, in the Basilica of St Peter’s during the course of the solemn celebration of the Easter Vigil.

And I took the simplest and most explicit Christian name: “Cristiano.”

Since yesterday evening therefore my name is Magdi Cristiano Allam.

For me it is the most beautiful day of [my] life.

To acquire the gift of the Christian faith during the commemoration of Christ’s resurrection by the hand of the Holy Father is, for a believer, an incomparable and inesti-

I had to ask myself about the attitude of those who publicly declared fatwas, Islamic juridical verdicts, against me - I who was a Muslim - as an “enemy of Islam,” “hypocrite because he is a Coptic Christian who pretends to be a Muslim to do damage to Islam,” “liar and vilifier of Islam,” legitimating my death sentence in this way.

I asked myself how it was possible that those who, like me, sincerely and boldly called for a “moderate Islam,” assuming the responsibility of exposing themselves in the first person in denouncing Islamic extremism and terrorism, ended up being sentenced to death in the name of Islam on the basis of the Quran.

I was forced to see that, beyond the contingency of the phenomenon of Islamic

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At the same time providence brought me to meet practicing Catholics of good will who, in virtue of their witness and friendship, gradually became a point of reference in regard to the certainty of truth and the solidity of values.

But undoubtedly the most extraordinary and important encounter in my decision to convert was that with Pope Benedict XVI, whom I admired and defended as a Muslim for his mastery in setting down the indissoluble link between faith and reason as a basis for authentic religion and human civilisation, and to whom I fully adhere as a Christian to inspire me with new light in the fulfillment of the mission God has reserved for me.

Mine was a journey that began when at four years old,

my mother Safeya - a believing and practicing Muslim - in the first in the series of “fortuitous events” that would prove to be not at all the product of chance but rather an integral part of a divine destiny to which all of us have been assigned - entrusted me to the loving care of Sister Lavinia of the Comboni Missionary Sisters, convinced of the goodness of the education that would be imparted by the Catholic and Italian religious, who had come to Cairo, the city of my birth, to witness to their Christian faith through a work aimed at the common good.

I thus began an experience of life in boarding school, followed by the Salesians of the Institute of Don Bosco in junior high and high school, which transmitted to me not only the science of knowledge but above all the awareness of values.

It is thanks to members of Catholic religious orders that

I acquired a profoundly and essentially an ethical conception of life, in which the person created in the image and likeness of God is called to undertake a mission that inserts itself in the framework of a universal and eternal design directed toward the interior resurrection of individuals on this earth and the whole of humanity on the day of judgment, which is founded on faith in God and the primacy of values, which is based on the sense of individual responsibility and on the sense of duty toward the collective.

It is in virtue of a Christian education and of the sharing of the experience of life with Catholic religious that I cultivated a profound faith in the transcendent dimension and also sought the certainty of truth in absolute and universal values.

There was a time when my mother’s loving presence and religious zeal brought me closer to Islam, which I occa-

sionally practiced at a cultural level and in which I believed at a spiritual level according to an interpretation that at the time - it was the 1970s - summarily corresponded to a faith respectful of persons and tolerant toward the neighbour, in a context - that of the Nasser regime - in which the secular principle of the separation of the religious sphere and the secular sphere prevailed. My father Muhammad was completely secular and agreed with the opinion of the majority of Egyptians who took the West as a model in regard to individual freedom, social customs and cultural and artistic fashions, even if the political totalitarianism of Nasser and the bellicose ideology of Pan-Arabism that aimed at the physical elimination of Israel unfortunately led to disaster for Egypt and opened the way to the resumption of Pan-Islamism, to the ascent of Islamic extremists to power and the explosion of glo-

balised Islamic terrorism. The long years at school allowed me to know Catholicism well and up close and the women and men who dedicated their life to serve God in the womb of the Church. Already then I read the Bible and the Gospels and I was especially fascinated by the human and divine figure of Jesus. I had a way to attend Holy Mass and it also happened, only once, that I went to the altar to receive communion. It was a gesture that evidently signaled my attraction to Christianity and my desire to feel a part of the Catholic religious community.

Then, on my arrival in Italy at the beginning of the 1970s between the rivers of student revolts and the difficulties of integration, I went through a period of atheism understood as a faith, which nevertheless was also founded on absolute and universal values.

I was never indifferent to the presence of God even if only now I feel that the God of love, of faith and reason reconciles himself completely with the patrimony of values that are rooted in me.

Dear Director, you asked me whether I fear for my life, in the awareness that conversion to Christianity will certainly procure for me yet another, and much more grave, death sentence for apostasy.

You are perfectly right. I know what I am headed for but I face my destiny with my head held high, standing upright and with the interior solidity of one who has the certainty of his faith.

And I will be more so after the courageous and historical gesture of the Pope, who, as soon has he knew of my desire, immediately agreed to personally impart the Christian sacraments of initiation to me. His Holiness has sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a Church that until now has been too prudent in the conversion of Muslims, abstaining from proselytizing in majority Muslim countries and keeping quiet about the reality of converts in Christian countries. Out of fear.

The fear of not being able to protect converts in the face of their being condemned to death for apostasy and fear

of reprisals against Christians living in Islamic countries.

Well, today Benedict XVI, with his witness, tells us that we must overcome fear and not be afraid to affirm the truth of Jesus even with Muslims.

For my part, I say that it is time to put an end to the abuse and the violence of Muslims who do not respect the freedom of religious choice. In Italy there are thousands of converts to Islam who live their new faith in peace.

But there are also thousands of Muslim converts to Christianity who are forced to hide their faith out of fear of being assassinated by Islamic extremists who lurk among us.

By one of those “fortuitous events” that evoke the discreet hand of the Lord, the first article that I wrote for the Corriere on September 3, 2003 was entitled “The new Catacombs of Islamic Converts.” It was an investigation of recent Muslim converts to Christianity in Italy who decry their profound spiritual and human solitude in the face of absconding state institutions that do not protect them and the silence of the Church itself.

Well, I hope that the Pope’s historical gesture and my testimony will lead to the conviction that the moment has come to leave the darkness of the catacombs and to publicly declare their desire to be fully themselves.

If in Italy, in our home, the cradle of Catholicism, we are not prepared to guarantee complete religious freedom to everyone, how can we ever be credible when we denounce the violation of this freedom elsewhere in the world?

I pray to God that on this special Easter he give the gift of the resurrection of the spirit to all the faithful in Christ who have until now been subjugated by fear. Happy Easter to everyone.

Dear friends, let us go forward on the way of truth, of life and of freedom with my best wishes for every success and good thing.

Magdi Allam

Easter snapshots: Pope Benedict stands at the Easter Vigil at the Vatican, left;

enters the Church of the Holy Spelchre for