The Record Newspaper 02 June 2010

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Notre Dame theologians declare fidelity

UNDA marks the 20th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s key document for Catholic universities

BY ANTHONY BARICH

THE four resident theologians at the University of Notre Dame Australia’s Sydney campus made a profession of faith and swore an oath of fidelity to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church on 20 May.

Mercy Sister Moira Debono of the Alma, Michigan congregation, Canadian Dr John Lamont who completed Philosophy of Religion at Oxford University, Scripture scholar Peter Holmes and Paul Morrissey, who coordinates the Master of Arts Theological Studies (MATS) at UNDA, made the declarations during a Mass that Cardinal George Pell celebrated at St Benedict Church, Broadway.

The Mass was held to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Constitution on Catholic Universities, Ex Corde Ecclesiae (“from the heart of the Church”), which urged all theologians at Catholic universities to take such a pledge.

Ex Corde Ecclesiae, issued in 1990, aimed to define and refine the Catholicism of Catholic institutions of higher education, and taught that “the education of students is to combine academic and professional development with formation in moral and Please turn to Page ???

the Parish. the Nation. the World.

The Buddhist who found Christ

Why I Became Catholic

with Debbie Warrier

Trang Quach

Icome from a Buddhist family and was into ancestral worship. So as well as praying to Buddha in the temple, we worshipped our grandparents and great grandparents by making an annual offering to them on the anniversary of their deaths as a way of remembering them. Afterwards, the whole extended family gathers for a meal. My mother was familiar with Catholicism because she was from a village in Vietnam where everyone was Catholic except for her family. As a child, I remember going with my friends to their church despite not really understanding what was going on.

I migrated to Australia in 1984 and married in 2001. My husband is Catholic. Initially, this was an issue for my parents but they came to accept it. I mainly decided to become Catholic because of my family. I wanted to enquire about the religion to help my kids under-

stand their faith. However, as I went along the RCIA journey I decided I liked to pray to God and Jesus. Through prayer, I felt close to them. I also began asking Mary to help me through the hard times of being a mother to three young children. It fitted with where I was going and seemed quite natural.

When I first decided to convert, I apologised to Buddha and my ancestors by praying, “I am sorry but I am thinking of becoming Catholic.” I felt like what I was about to do was a betrayal. I found that really hard and that is why it took me so long.

I spoke to a priest and he explained that my current belief was not conflicting because I could still respect Buddha and my ancestors, just not worship them like gods. I feel that my spirituality is growing instead of completely forgetting what I was brought up to do. It was a breakthrough when I found that out. I no longer feel the guilt.

Telling my parents I wanted to convert was stressful as we were such strong Buddhists. It was something that I wanted to do but I didn’t want to upset them.

I decided to ask their permission. My mother said, “It is up to you.” I wanted to confront my father personally but it was easier to have mum tell him.

In the end I thought, “I can’t

do this. I have to talk to him.” I was so glad that I did. He didn’t say anything but I knew how he felt. He wishes that I didn’t convert but he accepted it. My husband was worried as well because he didn’t want his good relationship with my father to change and it hasn’t. I appreciate dad understanding and from that I realised how much he loves and respects me. Throughout my life I have always thought that there was Someone higher watching over me. I always believed there was a God. When life worked out well unexpectedly I would think Someone is taking care of me and I couldn’t plan it any better. I was baptised this year at the Easter Vigil Mass. It was beautiful as it is a very special time of the year. I was really glad my kids were there to witness the occasion and didn’t fall asleep. They went right through to the celebration afterwards over at the parish centre.

On my baptism candle I had inscribed as a reminder for me, “I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit” [John 15:5]. I believe if you try to do good in your life, have strong faith and pray, then things will work out for you eventually. All your hopes and dreams can come to fruition. Do you have a story? You can contact Debbie at: dwarrier75@gmail.com

“Be indefatigable in your purpose and with undaunted spirit resist iniquity and try to conquer evil with good, having before your eyes the reward of those who combat for Christ.”

Concert to recall the great Communicator

BY BRIDGET SPINKS

A NEW documentary on the life of Archbishop Fulton J Sheen, who has been hailed as "John the Baptist of the 21st century," will be previewed in Perth on 24 June as part of the annual Hour for Sheen Concert

As well as the documentary preview, the evening in Sheen's honour will include performances by soprano Yann Kee; pianist John Meyer and poet and raconteur June Glen, as well as the newly formed St Joseph's Chamber Choir from Subiaco directed by Trinity College Director of Music, Dr Robert Braham.

The Hour for Sheen Concert is organised by the Perth-based Fulton J Sheen Society co-founded 10 years ago by father and son duo, Daniel and Martin Tobin. The two were joined by Yolanda Nardizzi who subsequently became a founding member.

Fulton Sheen was Bishop of New York from 1951 to 1965. He started preaching by starring in a television series Life is Worth Living which aired on Tuesdays at 8pm Please turn to Vista 4

Western Australia’s award-winning Catholic newspaper since 1874 - 2 June 2010

Perth, Western Australia - $2

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SERVITE FINDS A SIGN

College uncovers missing link to its past

RUBY WIVES

Perth women team up for successful marriages push

GOD AND CATHOLIC TENNIS

Priest reflects on life as a missionary in Africa, and the suburbs of Perth

KALAMUNDA LOVES FR RAJ

Parish, school honour priest in Year for Priests

Trang Quach, above, tells The Record's Debbie Warrier why she decided to become a Catholic. For her, the journey was long, partly because of the difficulty of telling her devout Buddhist family that she wanted to become a Catholic. However, she says, she always felt that someone was watching over her. PHOTO: DEBBIE WARRIER

Sister Moira Debono and Mr Paul Morrissey, two of the four theologians who marked Ex Corde Ecclesia’s 20th anniversary together with students at UNDA’s Sydney campus last week.

PHOTO: COURTESY UNDA

Archbishop Fulton Sheen, above, in an undated photo. Sheen Society founders Martin and Daniel Tobin, below. PHOTOS: TOP: CNS; BELOW: B SPINKS

SAINT OF THE WEEK

Crosiers

The story of this early missionary, a Cypriot Jew called Joseph, is told in the Acts of the Apostles. He was named Barnabas (?son of encouragement) by the Twelve Apostles when he sold property and gave them the money (4:36-37). He introduced the convert Paul to the apostles (9:27), was officially sent by the Jerusalem church to Antioch (11:22-26), was set apart with Paul by the Spirit for a mission to Cyprus (13:2), attended the Council of Jerusalem (15:12), and returned to Cyprus with Mark (15:36-41). By tradition, he was martyred there.

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Kalamunda honours Fr Raj to close out Year for Priests

BY JO DOYLE

KALAMUNDA parishioners seized the opportunity last week to thank and celebrate Holy Family Church’s Fr Paul Raj as the Year for Priests draws to a close.

On 16 May, special prayers were said during Mass for Fr Paul and all priests, past, present and future.

The parish children took an active role in reading and taking up the gifts.

After the 9am Mass a big and delicious morning tea was held which parishioners hoped sped up Fr Paul’s recovery from a cold.

On 20 May, Mary’s Mount Catholic Primary School Year 5s dedicated their class Mass to Fr Paul.

During his homily in that Mass, Fr Paul discussed the priesthood and said perhaps some of the assembled children would become priests.

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After Mass, all Mary’s Mount pupils formed a sunlit guard of honour through which Fr Paul walked as the children cheered and clapped.

Bassendean library to form families

BY ANTHONY BARICH

BASSENDEAN parish has opened a library to help equip families with Catholic formation.

Uniting Church member Glenys Hyde recently completed ordering the library with the Dewey system with the help of parishioner Amy Papaila, who has since left as she suffers from cancer, and Brenda Jones-Sanusi.

Mrs Hyde undertook the project under the guidance of St Joseph’s Bassendean parish priest Fr Jim Shelton, who wanted the library to utilise the many books and other resources like DVDs and magazines which had, until now, been piled up randomly in the spare room at St Michael’s Catholic Primary School that joins onto the parish church – the room that is now the parish library.

It is not an entirely new idea for Fr Shelton – he started a similar library when chaplain at All Saints Chapel in Allendale Square, Perth city, from 2000-05, which Fr Tiziano Bogoni maintains to this day.

The library, open from 9.30am to 1.30pm Tuesday to Friday and after weekend Masses, also runs catechesis by screening DVDs of US apologist Fr John Corapi on Thursday nights.

The library has texts including Church history, biographies, books by prominent authors like Cardinal John Henry Newman, who is soon to be canonised, and catechetical resources for adults, teens and children, and is always expanding.

Fr Shelton gave the library a gift of personal significance – The Encyclicals of John Paul II, edited by Michael Miller,

in brief...

SVDP opens new homeless house

UP to 40 homeless single men in Goulburn, NSW will have a safe place to stay after St Vincent de Paul Society’s Kennedy House officially opened in its new location last month.

The men’s shelter has been operating

which was gifted to him at his ordination to the priesthood on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1996.

All involved in the project believe it is essential to have a resource to equip parents to form themselves and their families. It was also seen as a tragic waste of space to have all those texts piled up, unused and unloved.

“I’ve always felt it’s important to have something like this,” said Brenda, a volunteer like all involved in the library.

for the past 30 years but, with only eight beds, it was turning away an average of 50 men a month. St Vincent de Paul Society Canberra-Goulburn president Mr Evan Brett said Kennedy House has the potential to make a “real impact on the unique issues that exist within the Goulburn community and surrounding region”.

Kennedy House assists single men over the age of 18 through their crisis into stability, and then provides opportunities for ongoing and appropriate accommodation, employment, support

“The texts here can help parents educate their children at home.

“For such a small collection, it’s a very fine collection; and it’s very broad.

“It was a hideous waste to see them just all piled up like that.”

Glenys added that she “nearly cried” when she saw such quality texts scattered so randomly.

They have now been put to good use, and are open to the public in the Bassendean parish library.

and community. “We have had a real battle on our hands to get where we are today,” Mr Brett said. “But this opening is all about remembering that there are some things worth fighting for.”

Speaking at the official opening of the new facility on Friday, CanberraGoulburn Auxiliary Bishop Patrick Power said that, thanks to initiatives like Kennedy House, “no longer is homelessness spoken of as something abstract, but the people searching for somewhere to sleep or to eat are met with the welcoming love of Jesus”.

Mary’s Mount Catholic Primary School students swamp Kalamunda parish priest Fr Paul Raj as part of the community’s Year for Priests celebrations.

PHOTO: GISELLA MASELLA, YEAR 6 TEACHER

Bassendean parish priest Fr Jim Shelton with Glenys Hyde and Brenda Jones-Sanusi, who volunteered to help him organise the new parish library.

PHOTO: ANTHONY BARICH

Vincentian urges renewal of Society

Vincentian Father says that the St Vincent de Paul Society must constantly renew itself, as does the Church

BY ANTHONY BARICH

THE St Vincent de Paul Society needs to constantly remember that the pro-life vision of the Church depends on the fact that each person is created in the image and likeness of God, a visiting Vincentian moral theologian told staff and supporters last week.

Before he addressed a congregation at the St Thomas More College Chapel in Crawley on 24 May and ran a silent retreat for the Society’s national fraternity in South Australia a week later, Fr Richard Benson CM told The Record that the Society must constantly review and renew its Catholicity, “otherwise you’re just another social worker”.

“The Church sees itself as always reforming – whether it be at a diocesan, societal or individual level – demanding more, to root out vice and to become people of faith,” said Fr Benson, Dean of Academics at St John’s Seminary in California where he teaches bioethics, Catholic social teaching and moral theology.

Clément Astruc, the Society’s WA State president, told The Record during the interview with Fr Benson at the Society’s Ozanam House in Belmont that “we are not going to dilute our Catholicity”, adding that “you wouldn’t last long doing this work without a firm spiritual foundation”.

True spirituality, Fr Benson said, stems from the baptismal calling of all Catholics, not just Vincentians – to move from “affective love” of God through devotions such as the Rosary, to “effective love” for God in seeing Him in others and loving them as such.

“A true Society member is one who says ‘look how God has fed me through the poor’, not ‘look at what good I have done’,” Fr Benson

Santa Clara acolyte rewarded for Alzheimer’s research

BY GLYNNIS GRAINGER

WA Australian Citizen of the Year, Santa Clara parish Bentley acolyte and devout Catholic and family man, Professor Ralph Martins, has been awarded the Lions International Melvin Jones Fellowship for dedicated humanitarian services, including his world-breaking research on Alzheimer’s disease.

It is the second award in 25 years for the club and Prof Martins was presented with a plaque at the Claremont/Nedlands Lions Club on 23 March, after his speech on Alzheimer’s disease to club members.

Melvin Jones founded Lions in Chicago USA in 1917 and it is now the world’s biggest service club. The Melvin Jones Award recognises outstanding individuals and is Lions’ highest award, given to those who give service over and above the norm in either Lions or in the general public.

Since 2006, the Claremont/ Nedlands Lions Club has raised $35,000 for Prof Martins and his team in their search for a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. All the Lions Clubs in WA have raised more than $70,000 for this cause.

said. He cautioned that the trap is to see those who need help as less than others, quoting St Vincent who once told his followers to “pray that the poor forgive you the good you do them”.

He said that 20 year old Frederic Ozanam founded the Society in 1833 in France as he was “captured” by the same vision that captured Pope John Paul II when the late pontiff wrote Evangelium Vitae (“The Gospel of Life”) in 1995.

This vision is that the whole ethic of the life vision of the Catholic Church depends on it teaching the anthropological reasons that support the pro-life movement – the concept of Imago Dei (“image of God”).

“When society forgets this, it opens up a whole plethora of ills: in the West, we don’t recognise the foetus as created in the image and likeness of God so we abort it; seniors and the elderly are euthana sed; Aborigines in Australia were historically maltreated as were the Indians in America,” he said.

“Almost every major moral ill comes down to attacking the concept of man made in the image of God, from conception to natural death. If you teach people their own dignity in this regard, then other problems can be dealt with – in sex, marriage, divorce, drugs, everything.”

St Vincent de Paul (1580-1660), he said, captured that understanding and brought it into 17th century France – he could not get the wealthy ladies to deal with babies born outside of wedlock as they’re the result of sin; he also took care of Protestant victims of the Catholic-Protestant wars and converted one of the Muslims who held him captive for five years.

Similarly, Fr Benson said, Blessed Ozenam saw that true charity was not limited to the Catholic sphere and does not discriminate.

Confronted by agnostics while a student at the University of Paris who said the Church is hypocritical as it was not caring for the poor despite its pious devotions, he founded the Conference of Charity – which evolved into the St Vincent de Paul Society in 1835 – for Catholics to live out their faith in a way in which they are enriched.

Prof Martins is Edith Cowan University’s Foundation Chair of Ageing and Alzheimer’ Disease and noted to The Record that Leo McManus and Patsy Wyndham of the Claremont/Nedlands Lions Club spearheaded the work of the Club’s support of Alzheimer’s disease.

He said the Lions Club International Foundation money is used to help communities –people suffering from blindness in developing countries; young people build a better life, those fighting depression.

“It is a wonderful thought that you have been picked and the benefit for others – it makes me proud and humbled to be associated with this award,” Prof Martins told The Record

“My life’s work (is) with Alzheimer’s and I encompass so many things for the wider community – activities for Santa Clara parish and helping members of our community who are in need of assistance and support.

“Since the last article appeared

in The Record earlier this year, the McCusker Foundation had no accommodation, but LotteryWest has generously provided funds, so that we now have a permanent home in Nedlands – 142 Stirling Highway near Chelsea Village”, which he says is better premises with easier public access. He expects to move in September, though it needs to be renovated to meet the needs of the Professor’s research programme. “It is worth $1.6 million and we have some Foundation money, and a large proportion is Lottery money,” he said.

“We can now forge ahead with our project towards achieving our research goals, particularly with respect towards developing an early diagnosis for Alzheimer’s disease, with the hope that it will enable us to intervene early to ensure that the disease is effectively halted before there damage to the brain is suffered.

“That has been the problem until now. Currently, there is no blood test to pick up the disease early, before clinical symptoms appear.

“We have currently embarked on a major international study, which is based in 10 sites around the world, to study families where

the disease is inherited, due to mutations in known genes.

“Unfortunately, in most of the people who are affected in these families, the disease is very aggressive and people can show symptoms as early as their mid20s and usually succumb to the disease within a period of five years from the onset of symptoms.

“Where this form of Alzheimer’s disease is devastating to the families involved, these people hold the key for enabling us to develop a blood test for Alzheimer’s disease earlier.

“A longer-term aim of the study is to evaluate drugs in the study’s participants – they hold the best hope of identifying a drug that will be highly effective in stopping the disease. We are hoping to have 400 or more participants throughout the world – 40 here.”

Channel 7’s story The Vanishing featuring Prof Martins on Sunday Tonight on 9 May can be seen at http://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunday-night/investigator/article/-/ article/7260231/the-vanishingtranscript/.

The McCusker Alzheimers Research Foundation website for donations is: www.alzheimers.com. au and can be contacted on 9347 4200.

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Vincentian Fr Richard Benson, a moral theologian who runs academia at Los Angeles’ diocesan seminary, told St Vincent de Paul Society members that a true member is one who sees Christ in the poor.

PHOTO: ANTHONY BARICH

Professor Ralph Martins with his Lions Club award. PHOTO: GLYNNIS GRAINGER

JPII’s legacy is that youth see themselves as part of solution

SIX young men from Sydney’s Seminary of the Good Shepherd will be ordained priests in early June - the biggest number in 27 years.

Another two who have been studying at the seminary will be ordained in Africa in July before returning to take up positions in parishes of the Archdiocese.

While the number of young men entering the seminary has fallen sharply since the 1960s, numbers have gradually increased since 1978 and today, Good Shepherd Rector Fr Anthony Percy says “the tide has turned”, which he believes is a legacy of the late Pope John Paul II.

“I think it is the same around the world - one of the legacies of John Paul II who was not only steeped in tradition but also of the modern world,” Fr Percy said. “Another reason is that young people live in a post modern world often devoid of boundaries and there are many who really don’t want to live that way.”

Fr Percy said that the recent traumatic and challenging cases of sex abuse in the Church have not been a deterrent for young men thinking of becoming priests.

“I think young people see themselves as part of the solution, not the problem,” he said. “That’s the goodness of youth. They want to make a difference. Again, this was the vision of Pope John Paul II. He saw youth leading the Church now, not well into the future.”

The young men to be ordained on 11 June at St Mary’s Cathedral are Joseph Gedeon, Kim Ha, Nen Dang, Robert Doohan, Joseph Guinney and Andrew Jones.

Simon Kitimbo and John Ssemaganda will be ordained in Kampala, Uganda in July before returning to parishes in the Archdiocese.

Joseph completed a degree in IT before entering the seminary,

while Kim Ha, 36, converted to Catholicism in 1997. He had been working in the construction industry but spent 18 months in Cebu in the Philippines working with missionaries and discerning a vocation. Kim returned to Australia to enter the seminary. There are currently 48 seminarians studying at the Homebush seminary.

Catholic health board directors to receive formation

BY ANTHONY BARICH CORPORATE and

Canon law obligations will be the first focus of a Guide for Governance of Catholic Health and Aged Care orgnisations that is being drawn up by Catholic Health Australia (CHA) in partnership with the Australian Bishops.

This focus on corporate and Canon law is to ease the transition of governance between Religious congregations and lay people, CHA chief executive Martin Laverty told The Record

“Twenty years ago Catholic hospitals and aged care services were predominantly governed by Religious Sisters and Brothers. Today, the predominant governance is provided by the lay,” he said.

“It’s been an important part of this transition from Religious to lay leadership to ensure that the Church has in place a robust process of balancing responsibilities of Church and State - that’s why getting right the framework of corporate and Canon law obligations is an urgent issue for both Catholic Health and the Bishops.”

New Parramatta Bishop Anthony Fisher OP, who lectures in bioethics at Oxford University, and Brisbane Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Oudeman, OFM Capuchin – both members of Bishops’ Commission for Health and Community Services - are part of a 14-person working group to draw up the guide. CHA and the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) agreed to develop a Guide for Governance of Catholic Health and Aged Care organisations late last year.

The purpose of the Guide will be to assist Directors of Catholic health and aged care organisations in their roles as leaders and stewards of the Church’s healing and care-giving ministries, a 27 May CHA statement said.

It is proposed that the guide will commence by addressing Corporate and Canon law obligations, and the protocols that underpin the role of Bishops in relation to health and aged care services will also be discussed.

Formation opportunities for Board Directors and staff of organisations will be explored in the Guide’s final sections. The Guide will conclude with a Catholic Board Charter that seeks to draw the different elements of Catholic governance together.

“The working group is aware of the challenge of the task ahead,” the statement said.

“Seeking a common understanding on the proper role of governance is difficult in the commercial world, and it will be just as challenging for the Catholic health and aged care community.”

Chaired by Sr Therese Carrol RSJ, the working group also comprises Mercy Health chief executive Victoria John Ballard, ACBC executive secretary Fr Brian Lucas, Sr Antoinette Baldwin RSJ representing Catholic Religious Australia, Little Company of Mary Healthcare national director of Mission Sr Bernadette Fitzgerald LCM, Canon lawyer Sr Helen Delaney RSM, Mary Aikenhead Ministries (the new governing body for Sisters of Charity hospitals, schools and other works) trustee Rowena McNally, Canon lawyer Fr Ian Waters, Melbourne Archdiocese business manger and solicitor Francis Moore, MercyCare WA deputy chair and CHA chair Tony Wheeler, Mr Laverty and Sr Berneice Loch RSM, congregation leader of the Sisters of Mercy Central Queensland.

in brief...

Cosgrove new ACU chief

FORMER Defence Force chief General Peter Cosgrove has been appointed the new Chancellor of Australian Catholic University (ACU). General Cosgrove will be the third Chancellor in the university’s history, succeeding Brother Julian McDonald CFC who retires from the position after 10 years of service.

To help ensure the Guide meets the expectation of the working group, CHA members and the ACBC, the working group has proposed a series of opportunities for interested parties to contribute to and review the content of the Guide as its drafting progresses, including a CHA Seminar on Canon and Corporate law responsibilities at Sydney’s Polding Centre on 6 July.

A preliminary consultation draft will be available mid-July for CHA and ACBC comment, with a second consultation draft available for CHA and ACBC comment in mid-November.

The final draft will be presented to both the CHA Board and the ACBC for formal consideration by January next year.

Aged care future concern

RESIDENTS and providers of aged care around Australia are being urged to join in the Campaign for the Care of the Aged (CCOA) and help put aged care on the national political agenda.

CCOA says it will launch its official election platform at Federal Parliament on 15 June to bring home to politicians the key messages that Australians deserve choice, access and sustainability in aged care.

Seminarians at prayer in Sudan

Yes please send me the Year for Priests Rosary and Holy Card

Seminary of the Good Shepherd Rector Fr Anthony Percy, who said that the equality and number of current seminarians is a legacy of the late Pope John Paul II.

Martin Laverty

Clericalism contributed to abuse crisis: Coleridge

Canberra Archbishop reveals how the subtlety of evil fooled even the highest echelons of the Church, including himself

BY ANTHONY BARICH

CELIBACY needs to be purified, not abandoned, while rigorist notions of sexuality, gaps in seminary training, triumphalism and clericalism must be eliminated from Church culture, Canberra-Goulburn Archbishop Mark Coleridge said in a Pentecost letter on sex abuse.

Archbishop Coleridge, a former chaplain to Pope John Paul II, said the Church’s culture of forgiveness and discretion may have also contributed in part, as the Church struggled to “find the point of convergence between sin and forgiveness on the one hand and crime and punishment on the other”.

“True, sin must be forgiven, but so too must crime be punished,” Archbishop Coleridge said.

“Both mercy and justice must run their course, and do so in a way that converges.”

This relates to how the Church sees her relationship with society more generally, he said – “we are ‘in the world, not of it’ and … the Church insists that it is to God, not to human beings, that final judgement belongs. Yet how does this fit with the need for human judgement when we move within the logic of crime and punishment?”

“We have been slow and clumsy, even at times culpable, in shaping our answers to such questions,” he said. His 23 May letter coincided with the release by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference of the document What the Church has done and is doing for safeguarding children and vulnerable persons drafted during the prelates’ mid-May Plenary meeting.

Archbishop Coleridge, who was for a time the public spokesman for the Archdiocese of Melbourne and had to respond to many questions relating to abuse by clergy, said in his letter that the Church may also have “underestimated the power and subtlety of evil”.

“(Offenders) are in the grip of a power which they can, it seems, do little to understand or control; and it is a power which is hugely destructive in the lies of those they have abused and in their own lives,” he said.

Archbishop Coleridge’s causes of Church sexual abuse crisis

● Clerical celibacy, if separated from the ascetic life it presumes, can be dangerous

● Triumphalism, institutional pride in the Church

● Inadequate seminary formation led to institutionalised immaturity

● Poor understanding, communication of Church teachings on sexuality

● Church underetsimated power, subtlety of evil

● Inability to reconcile forgiveness, sin with crime, punishment that made the Church slow, clumsy and even at times culpable in shaping answers to such questions.

Offenders were also “extraordinarily adept” at concealing their abuse, even from confrere they lived with, the Archbishop said, while offenders were often incapable of recognising the grave harm they had done. “The wrong-doing, indeed the crime, was hidden even from them,” he said.

Archbishop Coleridge’s letter described how his understanding of this evil unfolded over the 36 years of his priesthood. He first noticed it in the 1970s when he was a priest in Melbourne, but he thought it was isolated, and even as more cases unravelled in the 80s and 90s, he refused to believe it was a cultural problem in the Church.

A poor understanding of the Church’s teachings on sexuality also contributed to this culture in the Church, Archbishop Coleridge said, while the discipline of celibacy “may also have been attractive to men in whom there were paedophile tendencies which may not have been explicitly recognised by the men themselves when they entered the seminary”.

This misunderstanding of the Church’s teachings on sexuality was mediated in part, he said, through the formative influence of Irish Catholicism in the life of the Church in Australia, as the Church in Ireland had itself been prey to the “rigorist influence” of Jansenism, which promoted the idea that human nature is incapable of good.

Clericalism understood as a hierarchy of power not service, which he also named as a factor in contributing to the Church’s culture which covered up abuse, was the fruit of seminary training that fostered “institutionalised immaturity” by not giving proper human formation and not making it clear that formation is a life-long process, not something that concludes once a priest is ordained. “Seminaries were

not always seen as schools of discipleship, since faith was taken for granted”, he said, and clergy could be isolated in ways that “were bound to turn destructive”, especially secular (non-Religious) priests. “The authority proper to the ordained could become authoritarian and the hunger for intimacy proper to human beings could become predatory,” he said. Had lay people been involved in shaping a response to sex abuse, the Church’s response was unlikely to be as poor, he said.

A major reason, he added, why the Church is providing better responses to abuse cases is due to the involvement of men and women – some nonCatholic. He stressed that clerical celibacy in itself was not a factor, but – like any form of the Christian life lived seriously – “it has its perils”. “When clerical celibacy works well, it is a unique source of spiritual and pastoral fruitfulness in the Church; when it works badly it can be very damaging all round,” he said.

It becomes especially risky, he said, when sundered from the ascetical and mystical life it presumes.

This is an especially large challenge for secular “non-Religious” clergy who do not live in community he added.

While there is much in Catholic culture and tradition of which to be “justifiably proud”, there can be a dark side to this triumphalism which leads to a determination to protect the Church’s reputation at all costs, he said.

It was also perceived that, in its successful social agencies in education, health and welfare, the Church would not be affected as much by the radical social and cultural changes of the 20th century. “Such hubris will always have its consequences,” he said.

The full text of Archbishop Coleridge’s talk can be viewed at http://www.cg.catholic.org.au/about/ default.cfm?loadref=86

Mandatory reporting to go national

The Australian Bishops plan to make mandatory reporting of abuse compulsory

BY ANTHONY BARICH

THE Australian Bishops’ National Committee for Professional Standards is working on protocols and structures that will ensure Church authorities in every State and Territory pass information of abuse to police even where a complainant insists they will not do so.

In a document called What the Church has done and is doing for safeguarding children and vulnerable persons released on 24 May by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, the NCPS said the Church believes it has an obligation to pass intelligence to police without identifying the complainant.

The Church is also currently working on protocols and structures that will enable this obligation to extend to all States and Territories, the NCPS said in the document drafted at the Australian Bishops’ Plenary Meeting mid-May. The document said the Church complies with all State and Territory laws concerning mandatory reporting of abuse and concerning oversight of investigations, including the NSW Ombudsman’s Office.

While the Archdiocese of Melbourne, however, has its own process for dealing with complaints, the document said that the Victorian Archdiocese “adheres to the general principles set out in this paper”. The Church encourages those with a complaint of criminal abuse to tell the police and will assist them to do so, but it realises that, for many reasons, some victims choose not to do this.

“Nevertheless, the Church will take the complaint seriously” and take its own steps to ensure no one is at risk, the document said. Where it applies, the Church contact person for the complainant will also explain the requirements of the law of mandatory reporting.

Should the complainant tell police, the Church still offers counselling and other assistance and advises the person that they may approach the Church again when any criminal process is finished.

The Church still investigates whether there is any possible risk to children or the vulnerable if the accused were to remain in ministry. However, the Church will stand a person aside from any particular ministry or all ministries, pending investigation, where there is a risk of harm to others should the allegations prove to be true.

“If guilt has been admitted or proved, the response must be appropriate to the gravity of what has happened, while being consistent with civil or canon law which governs the person’s situation,” says the updated Towards Healing document which governs the Church’s response to abuse in Australia.

“Serious offenders, in particular those who have been found responsible for sexually abusing a child or young person, or whose record of abuse of adult pastoral relationships indicates that they could well engage in further sexual exploitation of vulnerable adults, will not be given back the power they have abused.

“Those who have made the best response to treatment recognise this themselves and realise that they can no longer return to ministry.”

However, the Church has not always sought laicisation for some guilty older priests and Religious, but has put in place supervision and support structures, while removing them from situations that might entail risk to others.For claims of abuse that do not go to criminal or civil law processes, the Towards Healing protocols provide a means by which the Church can still respond to those who have been harmed by any of its personnel, the document said.

Archbishop Coleridge, pictured addressing a national liturgical conference in Perth in February, said in a frank pastoral letter at Pentecost that the Church’s culture contributed to the sexual abuse crisis that now engulfs it.

PHOTO: ANTHONY BARICH

Dedicated wives work overtime to defend marriage

BY BRIDGET SPINKS

UP to 50 volunteer groups are gathering in Western Australia, Queensland, NSW and Victoria to make red and gold ribbon rosettes so that 100,000 people can wear one on 13 August across Australia to mark National Marriage Day.

“Our nation’s future depends on restoring a strong culture of marriage,” the National Marriage Day (NMD) coordinator, Mary-Louise Fowler, said.

“It is important therefore that as a nation we encourage couples to embrace the commitment of marriage and to support them throughout their married life.”

This ‘rosette’-making initiative - also known as the ‘Ruby and Gold Project’ is a key part of the preparation for the 13 August event, which the Australian Family Association (AFA) is involved in.

This NMD day was inaugurated in 2009 on the fifth anniversary of the passing of the Marriage Amendment Act 2004, which defined marriage as “a union between one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life”.

The goal of the day, Mrs Fowler said, is to spread the news that “marriage is good for you, good for children and good for society”.

In Belmont, a group of ladies gather at the AFA office every Wednesday from 9.30am to midday to make rosettes together as they share the desire to support

traditional marriages. The process also builds camaraderie.

“It’s not my thing but I like coming and talking to others,” one volunteer lady who has been married 41 years told The Record

AFA WA State secretary Deirdre Lyra, who has been married 40 years, also said that while she has “other things to do too”, she believes it is a worthwhile project.

In Perth, there are a dozen volunteers committed to help make the rosettes from start to finish plus another dozen who are committed to cutting the ribbons, and helping out in the process where available.

Some are working on the rosettes from home, and others drop in on a Wednesday morning when they know there’ll be a pleasant atmosphere over a morning tea or coffee.

The Perth crew of volunteers has made over 1,500 rosettes. The idea is that they’re available to be resold by any parish, school or youth group as a fundraiser leading up the 13 August.

A reseller school, parish or youth group could make a profit of up to $20 on a box of 100 rosettes they sell.

The rosette would be sold to be worn on NMD, uniting with others who believe in traditional marriage across Australia.

Claremont parishioner Dawn Barich and Maida Vale parishioner Deirdre Lyra have been meeting to make rosettes for the past three

months. Gillian Gonzalez, who attends Willagee and Willetton parishes, also joined in as a regular volunteer recently.

These three ladies have been married to their respective husbands for 48, 40 and 42 years, respectively.

They have had four, five and three children, respectively.

The inspiration for the red and gold rosette colour combination is taken from the traditional way society celebrates 40th and 50th wedding anniversaries - ruby and gold, respectively.

The “Ruby and Gold” project is an initiative of the AFA and it is stipulated that the volunteers - while they cut and twirl the ribbon, staple the ribbons together and paste down the sticky-tape backing - pray that God blesses those who wear the rosette with the “gift of fidelity and perseverance”.

The rosettes are being made with love.

Mrs Lyra said that anyone who is interested is welcome to join them on Wednesday mornings or the ribbon making can easily be done at home in front of the TV too.

To get involved in the ‘Ruby or Gold Project’ or to order a batch of ribbons for your next fundraiser, call the Australian Family Association (Perth branch) on 08 9277 1644 and ask for AnneMarie or Deirdre. For more info visit www.marriageday.org.au.

Church converted into library at Applecross

St Benedict’s ‘upper room’ turned into a library to compliment new church

BY GLYNNIS GRAINGER

THE former St Benedict’s Church in Applecross has been converted to a new $2.1 million library and information centre for the school which was officially opened on 18 May.

Two Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions, Sr Shelley Barlow and Sr Regina Naisbitt, were at the event representing the Order, who were the inaugural staff at the school from 1953-74.

It was stage five of the school

building programme and a Building the Education Revolution Project, with $2,116,540 provided by the Federal Government. An additional $87,000 was provided by the Federal Government and the WA State Government provided a low-interest loan of $896,000 to help finance the school.

The school contributed nearly $40,000 towards these buildings which included five new general purpose learning areas, plus the refurbishment of the library, hall, junior primary area and canteen, plus other improvements and upgrades.

“It does seem strange, however, to bless this building in which Mass was celebrated daily over the past 50 years,” Applecross parish priest Fr Peter Whitely quipped during celebrations on the day.

10 Secrets...

to a marriage that lasts

When a handful of Perth wives who had all celebrated their ruby anniversary met to make rosettes on 26 May, The Record’s BRIDGET SPINKS asked them their opinion on what makes for a strong marriage - what worked for them and what advice could they give to young couples just starting out or about to start out on the adventure of marriage?

These TOP TEN TIPS came with one disclaimer: “Like the rosettes, each marriage is different. These points are just reflections from the Ruby wives around the table”

1The first five years of marriage are the hardest; to get through them you have to keep going. Always examine your conscience and your motives. With little failures one needs to be generous. A successful marriage is made up of a long history of little acts of generosity and kindness.

2Self-knowledge is very important. Sometimes what we take offence at can just be thoughtlessness.

3Set an example. The parents’ example is a huge thing. If your children see that you have a good marriage that goes a long way towards helping them have a stable marriage in the future. This could be their ideal.

4Just keep going. Keep persevering; because what annoys you one day very often by the next morning you’ve forgotten it.

5Make the security of your children a priority. Put your children’s needs first. The greatest gift you can give your

Courtesy

BY HILAIRE BELLOC (1870-1953)

children is a sense of security and hope in their future. Don’t have your arguments in front of your children. Discipline lovingly. Make sure it’s part of your parenting style.

6Your spouse has to be your best friend. There has to be complete truthfulness and trust between the couple. Jesus said ‘Love God and love thy neighbour’. Your first ‘neighbour’ is your spouse. Courtesy in marriage is very important. Don’t make decisions on your own.

7Don’t worry too far ahead in marriage. Don’t anticipate the future too much. You have to trust in God’s Providence. Often trouble in marriage is because of anticipating the future; when half the things you worry about never eventuate. Pope John Paul II said ‘Be not afraid!’ - There’s nothing you and God can’t fix up.

8Marriage is a Sacrament. The sacramental graces you receive in marriage, as a gift from God, will help you in your marriage, if you pray for them. Jesus said, ‘Ask and you shall receive, knock and the door will be opened.’ Knock and knock again.

9If you’re going to avoid materialism destroying the family, the children need to learn as well that they can’t have everything. Get the children to save for what they want. Only give them pocket money for what they work for - then they’ll appreciate it. And/or get them involved in the household without payment. They have to be part of the home by doing jobs without payment. This has to start early. They have to contribute without necessarily expecting payment. Teach your children to step aside from competitive consumerism.

10Marriage: it’s a constantly changing dynamic adventure. It’s inappropriate to measure comparatively generosity within the marriage. Generosity without calculation is the key.

“We are, of course, blessing (these facilities) so that their new use will continue to bring glory and praise to God and bring benefit to all who will now use them for their new purpose.

“As a parish we are delighted, now that we have our new church, to have been able to hand the building over for the use of our school community, the continued use by our parish community and, of course, for the use by the wider local community. The building has seen many changes over the past 50-plus years and this latest transformation is something that we would never have thought possible.” Fr Whitely offered prayers of blessing for the library, hall and finally a blessing of the crucifixes which were later hung in each room.

Of Courtesy, it is much less Than Courage of Heart or Holiness, Yet in my Walks it seems to me That the Grace of God is in Courtesy.

On Monks I did in Storrington fall, They took me straight into their Hall; I saw Three Pictures on a wall, And Courtesy was in them all.

The first the Annunciation;

The second the Visitation;

The third the Consolation, Of God that was Our Lady’s Son.

The first was of St Gabriel; On Wings a-flame from Heaven he fell; And as he went upon one knee He shone with Heavenly Courtesy.

Our Lady out of Nazareth rodeIt was Her month of heavy load; Yet was her face both great and kind, For Courtesy was in Her Mind.

The third it was our Little Lord, Whom all the Kings in arms adored; He was so small you could not see His large intent of Courtesy.

Our Lord, that was Our Lady’s Son, Go bless you, People, one by one; My Rhyme is written, my work is done.

Volunteers Dawn Barich, Deirdre Lyra and Gillian Gonzalez at the AFA’s Belmont office making the Rosettes.

PHOTO: BRIDGET SPINKS

Soldier, raconteur, priest still thriving

BY GLYNNIS GRAINGER

“RUMOURS of my death are greatly exaggerated,” says raconteur, former soldier, widower and former Anglican priest Fr Rodney Williams.

In quoting Mark Twain, Fr Williams, 88, reflected that, despite having led an extraordinary life, he isn’t involved in Applecross –where he became something of an institution – like he used to be. He’s just enjoying retirement.

But he remembers key details of his fascinating life like they happened yesterday. He recalled to The Record that was in the British Army until 1951 went to Litchfield Theological College and was ordained a deacon in 1954 and a priest in 1955. In Febraury 1956 he married Mary, a nurse. They had a son, Mark, and a daughter, Deborah, and the family emigrated to WA in January 1965 in 39C heat. Fr Rodney was appointed to the Anglican parish of Carey Park, Bunbury and met Bishop Launcelot Goody in the town when he went for a walk.

By 1968, Bishop Goody received Fr Rodney and his wife Mary into the Catholic Church at St Louis

in brief...

Chapel, Claremont. It made headlines because two other Anglican priests also entered the Catholic Church at about the same time –Fr Geoff Beyer and the late Fr John Lisle.

A four-day stint as sub editor at The Record preceded being appointed editor, before he was

Wiggy at CEO Sleepout

THE 17 June Vinnies CEO Sleepout inWA has just registered its 50th participant and clicked over $50,000 in fundraising efforts.

The latest CEO to sign up is Wiggy (Elizabeth) Saunders of LunchBox List, Perth’s fastest growing network for women in business. The event is an experiential event to be held in all capital cities around Australia at prominent locations. WA’s Society is hosting its event at the WACA.

ordained a Catholic deacon and then in 1969 a Catholic priest. After assisting at the Mt Yokine parish until October 1969 he was appointed to assist Fr Albert Lynch in the parish of St Benedict’s, Applecross. When Fr Lynch retired in 1973, he succeeded him as parish priest.

Then Fr Albert died suddenly in August 1976.

In 1978 Fr John O’Reilly succeeded him as parish priest at St Benedict’s, though Fr Williams and Mary continued to live in the parish, which gave Fr O’Reilly a handy fill-in when he went on annual holidays.

When Fr Rodney’s wife spent seven weeks in hospital after a car accident “in about 1996”, which he said “knocked her very badly”, it affected both of them deeply. She was still working when she was hit, he said, and he retired from active work in the priesthood in 1996 partly because she had a bad heart.

“In the last five months, she became too heavy to nurse - she was a big woman … she went to Castledare nursing home and died in Fremantle Hospital on 29 May 2003,” Fr Williams recalls.

As Mental Health Chaplain –part-time from 1969 – he celebrated Mass until 2004, and also celebrated Mass at Applecross occasionally for Fr O’Reilly.

Now he celebrates Mass on a Saturday morning at the Josephite convent in South Perth and on Sundays “I say Mass on that little table there” (in the loungeroom of his Melville home).

He speaks fondly of his son Mark, head of the Arts Department at Leeming High School, who married a “lovely girl” Patricia, a clinical nurse educator at Hollywood Hospital, two years ago.

Fr Williams’ daughter Deborah married Max Anderson at the age of 17, they have four daughters, and Fr Williams has in total three great-grandchildren.

Silver Chain comes in every morning to look after him but he cooks for himself. He draws the line, however, at “making birthday cakes”, which he says he just can’t do.

He says he is almost blind and “seeing people is half the battle.”

These days, he loves sitting in a coffee shop, reading the paper and chatting to locals at Booragoon’s Garden City shopping centre.

He also loves ancient Greek, which he was brought up on from the age of three.

He is also fond of the Gospels, “particularly St Mark’s”, music, particularly piano music –“I heard Rachmaninov on his last visit to England”.

He spent 17 years as chaplain at Graylands Hospital where he helped patients cover schoolbooks with cellophane, made furniture and bound books to a professional standard and contributed something to the community.

They also did Sculpture, pottery and art, and the colours changed as they got better, he said.

“Heathcote hospital (closure) was a great loss – Bentley replaced it, but it was not the same,” Fr Williams said.

“I watched Graylands disintegrate – they were short of staff because the budget wouldn’t run to it – everything was pared down. Heathcote was always a favourite hospital over Graylands,” said Fr Williams, who also sat on committees for mental health.

Oh, and don’t get him started on military strategy and Byzantine history – he loves discussing them both … and he loves a good laugh.

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Fr Rodney Williams at the February 2008 opening of the new St Benedict’s Church in Applecross with current parish priest Fr Peter Whitely and Fr Peter’s predecessor, Fr John O’Reilly.

PHOTO: ANTHONY BARICH

An information age?

In 1857 the US Supreme Court handed down the decision which underscored the contradictions inherent in a state that proclaimed liberty for all on the one hand and practised the brutality of slavery on the other. The verdict, known as the Dredd Scott decision, found essentially that a black man had no rights that a white man was bound to observe.

The schizophrenic nature of the Dredd Scott decision was ultimately one important contributory cause of the Civil War which was fought over a number of issues, with a not-unimportant one being the issue of slavery. Seen from this time and distance a long-forgotten court decision still offers lessons that can be fruitful.

A week ago, approximately 800 people braved the late autumn chill of a Perth evening to march in support of the unborn. Among the propositions being supported by the protesters was the one that women experiencing crisis pregnancies should be given more information about their unborn child, in the form of a three-dimensional image of the child they are carrying. They were calling for this development knowing perfectly well that it has been found that when a mother sees her child in this way the chances of her continuing in her decision to end its life can diminish significantly because of the clarity that it can bring. The following day it was reported that Premier Colin Barnett said this would not happen in Western Australia. No doubt the Premier, whatever his own views, was speaking with one eye on the media and being politically astute, aware that even the slightest indication of an interest in introducing such a measure would McCarthyise many journalists into action.

THE RECORD

PO Box 75 Leederville WA 6902 cathrec@iinet.net.au

Tel: (08) 9227 7080

Fax: (08) 9227 7087

This is such an interesting thing. The whole of the campaign to legalise abortion in the late 1960s and early 1970s was built on lies, as has been revealed by its architects such as Dr Bernard Nathanson. In an era then partly defined by the struggle for basic civil rights, the push for abortion was couched almost always in terms of it being a right. Phrases such as ‘greater rights’ and ‘more information’ were captured by the pro-choice movement as powerful psychological terminology and weapons of propaganda.

Now that the killing of our children is a seemingly entrenched part of many affluent societies, however, and just as they always have in the past, those who support abortion show that they were never committed to anything other than their totalitarian and suicidal ideologies. For it has apparently come to this: that the last thing any woman should have in making up her mind is the right to more information. As their totalitarian intellectual progenitors have so often done in the past when ideology collided with reality, those who support abortion simply do a U-turn. The irony is that we say we live in an information age but it is not, apparently, an age of information. Only for some of us. When it comes to abortion, the Dredd Scott decision and the grossly ignorant stupidity that wrote it is still alive and kicking in our midst.

It’s all in the balance

Congratulations on such a balanced Catholic paper. I am even doing a crossword (after a comment from a local parishioner) which is refreshing my knowledge of the Catholic faith.

The Record of 12 May was exceptional, including as it did the articles about hundreds gathering at Bove’s farm for the Marian anniversary, St Michael fighting for the faith with Mary, and homeschoolers honouring Mary in the month of May.

My congratulations to the Catholic Youth Ministry Ball 2010 as I’m sure most would agree. It’s a pity such an event happens only once a year.

If all Catholics humbled themselves gathering their families to pray the Rosary together there would certainly be more peace in the world.

My only negative comment would be on the article ‘Voice of dissident Kung causes a stir’ but George Weigel put that right.

Voices and oipinions such as Kung’s cause division in the Church as well as outside.

Mrs Margaret Thomas Mullewa

It’s on for the unborn now

The West Australian has opened the debate on abortion. It is an opportunity for the defenders of unborn children to clearly state the case against what is the worst crime of our age

The legislation should be revisited because it was the worst legislation ever passed by the Western Australian Parliament.

It was the first time in our history that we made it legal to kill an innocent human being.

The unborn child from the time of its beginning is a living, human being, with all the genes it will ever have. It has the software to produce its own hardware, arms, legs, lungs, eyes and brains. Being

young and innocent it had the inherent right to be protected by the Parliament.

The main argument during the debate was that the mother had the right to choose to kill her unborn child. There is no reason in science or philosophy that gives a mother that right, or that she has the right to kill her child after it is born.

Meanwhile, congratulations on your comprehensive coverage of the organised campaign in the media attacking Pope Benedict XVI over the serious matter of sexual assaults of children by priests. You have shown that it is a dishonest, worldwide beat-up, displaying a gross lack of journalistic integrity. Sexual molesting of children by priests is a despicable crime. But the number of paedophilic offences committed by priest is miniscule in comparison to rest of society.

Mako Files Online publishes lists of convicted paedophiles and sex offenders by state. In WA in the past 20 years there were 114 listed. Only one was a Catholic priest.

Brian A Peachey Woodlands

Please explain ... the revised Missal

Recently The Australian newspaper published excerpts from the new Roman Missal.

Practising Catholics can readily adapt to the revised wording but explanation of the theological concepts is a hard task in evangelisation to a sceptical society which views old Christian doctrinal

explanations with incredulity. In the Creed it says that Jesus Christ is “begotten not made”, (what is the difference?) and that He is ‘consubstantial with the Father”.

What does that mean? Is Jesus’ human body the same substance of the Father who is Spirit?

In the consecration of the Mass is the “cup of blood” literally human blood or ‘blood’ of a glorified Divine Body of Christ, a mystical concept?

It may be easier to explain these doctrinal concepts as literary terms rather than literally especially to younger (17 to 30 years) people.

Gerard Tonks

Gooseberry Hill

Crucifixnot a cross

In his letter last week, Cross or Crucifix? Fr John Flynn states that our mother church, St Mary’s Cathedral is setting a standard and example that all churches in the archdiocese would do well to follow, in venerating the Cross and not the Crucifix on Good Friday.

I would like to state that in the years I have watched the Holy Father in Rome celebrate the Good Friday liturgy (live on EWTN), the Crucifix is used, not the Cross.

Again this year, I watched Pope Benedict XVI venerating the Crucifix and not the Cross, on Good Friday.

So therefore isn’t the Church and Holy Father in Rome setting the standard and example for all churches throughout the world to follow?

Eric Natta

Willetton

The Letters page is here for you.

Got an opinion on something? Send a letter. Contact details on Page 2. Remember: brief is best! - Editor

Burmese refugees get a choral hand from musician

Parish man helps Burmese refugees

BY BRIDGET SPINKS

A BATEMAN parishioner and regular Murdoch University Catholic Chaplaincy devotee with a heart for Burmese children living in an unofficial refugee camp is set to host his second “Burmese Refugee Charity Concert” on 13 June at Railway Hotel, North Fremantle.

Perth man Josh Last, 27, is not only about to graduate from his masters in IT from Murdoch University but is also a musician. His music is personal and acoustic - he describes it as “relaxed” and “quite personal”.

At this charity concert he’ll be performing along with musicians from the Catholic and secular music scene including Art in Algebra, Donna Iverson and Lucy Peach.

He is driven with a spirit to help those in Burma because of a series of first hand experiences he’s had in recent years.

After living in Canberra for three years working as a consultant for IBM and Accenture, Josh closed that chapter of his life by making a two-week motorbike trip across the Nullabor plain on his Ducati.

He got a taste for the open road and not long after that in 2007 he visited Thailand, Laos and Cambodia and then began a six-month trip with a friend driving in a Toyota Hilux from India, through Nepal and across the European continent to France, England and Spain.

Toward the end of this trip Josh went to Dubai to visit his parents who introduced him to Maria Conceicao who started the Dhakar Project, a project that

helps educate children in the slums of India as well as equip men and women with skills to earn an income.

For this work, Maria Conceicao was later awarded Emirates Woman of the Year in 2009.

But in 2007, when Maria was looking to initiate a new project on the Thai-Burma border she asked Josh then and there for help by doing fieldwork on the border.

So Josh visited Thailand to help Maria; he saw how much help

these children needed. Twice in the last two years Josh has visited the Khung Jor Shan Refugee camp, an unofficial refugee camp in the midst of a country in the process of ethnic cleansing where small ethnic minorities in Burma are prevented from learning their own language and are forced to speak Burmese.

Being unofficial has its perks; while it doesn’t receive assistance from the Thai government, the UNHCR or other NGOs there is more communication and access to its occupants is more easily gained by outsiders, Josh said.

After his experiences of travelling the globe, Josh knows that Australians are “the luckiest in the world,” which motivates him all the more to reach out to those who are less fortunate.

“The young generation (there) don’t have the opportunities that we have; they don’t have the chance to build a future for themselves because they can’t work and they can’t really get an education without outside assistance,” he said.

He added that those who come to hear the music at the benefit concert would be helping build a future for children in the Burmese refugee camps.

This concert on Sunday will be the second Josh has run.

He hosted a similar benefit

concert last year which raised $2000 that went towards Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) projects, funding fuel costs for the school bus in Burma and medicines.

The funds from this second concert will again go towards JRS projects including the Khung Jor Shan refugee camp.

On his February trip to Burma, Josh met 12 students studying for a business administration scholarship to study at Chang Mai, a course which helps locals develop skills to self-direct projects in their own community.

“The projects up there are about providing education and giving the young people hope and a chance for the future,” he said.

“I just feel a need to contribute because we are so lucky here in Australia. I’ve been to Thailand, India ... and they definitely don’t have the opportunities we do. By helping provide an education does give them hope for the future,” he said.

“(We’re) not just providing a future for these kids but for their children’s children as well. And having hope is one of the things we have as Catholics: the Resurrection, life after death; having hope is something that I value as a Christian,” he said.

For more info on the Burmese Refugee Charity Concert head to www.whereongodsgreenearth. com - $10 entry + starts at 4.20pm

Josh Last teaches children in a Burma refugee camp how to play the guitar.

before he jet off to Cork, Fr Michael Evans SMA spoke frankly of his life as a priest and a missionary to The Record’s Bridget Spinks, imparting wisdom from his childhood, his life in Africa and how the spark between his parents was ignited at a dinner dance organised by a Catholic Tennis Club in England.

It’s Friday afternoon and there’s a pile of thank you cards on his right. A cheery Fr Michael Evans SMA sits behind his desk.

Before long he will be saying Mass at Beaconsfield’s Christ the King parish. It’s a special Mass tonight, preceding one of the many farewell celebrations his parishioners have organised.

He says he’s retiring because he’s noticing that his “faculties, capabilities are in the state of decline”.

“Mental (capabilities) particularly; I find it very difficult to remember what happens and I find I’m in the middle of a sermon and I find it hard to remember the next line,” he said.

His homilies are much loved by the parishioners but they’re also an in-joke.

“It was often said that you could see people’s hair turn grey during one of Fr Michael’s homilies,” the president of the parish council, Wayne Sgro, says in good humour.

various parts of the Mass as if we the parishioners were there for the first time,” he says.

As a small boy, Fr Michael was a daily Mass go-er. He was one of three boys and a girl born to a Welsh doctor and an Irish mother. Michael Evans was born on 8 July, 1931.

The family lived 100 metres away from the parish church until “the war broke out” when the children were sent away to Surrey and they weren’t near a Church at all.

“From the beginning we were at Mass every day and altar servers every Mass,” Fr Michael says when asked how much of an impact living close to the parish church had on him.

He says his family were the “biggest influence” on his becoming a priest.

His father was converted in Lourdes, he says, where as a young protestant doctor he saw a woman stand up from her stretcher and walk away.

“He’d heard of the place and two of the nurses from the hospital where he trained wanted to go and he drove them there,” Fr

St Bernadette’s Glendalough youth held their inaugural youth group meeting on 30 May at sundown, with a French theme in honour of the parish’s patron saint.

Michael says. His father returned to England, underwent instruction and became a Catholic - a turn of events that ultimately led him to his wife.

“My father felt that as a young Catholic, he had to attend everything Catholic; so he went to the dinner dance of the Catholic Tennis Club and met my mother there,” he says.

His mother was a teacher in the local Catholic primary school and the eldest of 14.

If you think that was a large family, don’t be surprised; Fr Michael’s

grandfather was the younges of 22. He explains as an asid “Immediately after the famin Ireland, when the populatio Ireland dropped from eight to three million, nature took revenge and people began to big families”.

Nevertheless, the witness faith that his mother’s family also influenced the future pr hood of her son, as Fr Mich he harboured desires of prea ing the Gospel in Africa wh saw the youngest of his mot brothers ordained a priest in

Fr Michael Evans SMA in front of Christ the King parish, Beaconsfield. Th

The French themed event involved hot chocolate, baguettes and croissants at the LJ Goody Bioethics Centre on Jugan St, Glendalough. Above: Kate Gibson and Caroline Nevin.

PHOTO: BRIDGET SPINKS

During the session assistant pa his journey to the priesthood story of St Bernadette and discu God and the faith in the parish they said. Above: Siobhán HInto

Photos by Bridget Spinks, Tom Gourlay, Olivia Lavis

The acquiring of

When the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajokull erupted, one Perth priest was poised to return to his beloved Ireland and retire after 56 years on mission. The eruption slowed his return but not long before he jet off to Cork, Fr Michael Evans SMA spoke frankly of his life as a priest and a missionary to The Record’s Bridget Spinks, imparting wisdom from his childhood, his life in Africa and how the spark between his parents was ignited at a dinner dance organised by a Catholic Tennis Club in England.

It’s Friday afternoon and there’s a pile of thank you cards on his right. A cheery Fr Michael Evans SMA sits behind his desk.

Before long he will be saying Mass at Beaconsfield’s Christ the King parish. It’s a special Mass tonight, preceding one of the many farewell celebrations his parishioners have organised.

He says he’s retiring because he’s noticing that his “faculties, capabilities are in the state of decline”.

“Mental (capabilities) particularly; I find it very difficult to remember what happens and I find I’m in the middle of a sermon and I find it hard to remember the next line,” he said.

His homilies are much loved by the parishioners but they’re also an in-joke.

“It was often said that you could see people’s hair turn grey during one of Fr Michael’s homilies,” the president of the parish council, Wayne Sgro, says in good humour.

“He is a great story teller which often led to longer than normal homilies,” he says from experience, having been a Beaconsfield parish acolyte for nearly 20 years and parish council president for about 15.

Beaconsfield’s organist, Germaine Madison, adds that the parishioners “learnt a lot” from Fr Michael who she says is a “very knowledgeable man”.

Germaine asked a few parishioners what they thought of Fr Michael’s presence at the parish and two retired men who attend weekly Mass spoke of him as an “outstanding confessor” and “a very genuine man” while another lady will remember his compassion and patience for her when her husband died.

Wayne adds that Fr Michael had a great love for the Eucharist such that “Each time he celebrated Mass, it was as though he was doing it for the first time. He would explain the various parts of the Mass as if we the parishioners were there for the first time,” he says.

As a small boy, Fr Michael was a daily Mass go-er. He was one of three boys and a girl born to a Welsh doctor and an Irish mother. Michael Evans was born on 8 July, 1931.

The family lived 100 metres away from the parish church until “the war broke out” when the children were sent away to Surrey and they weren’t near a Church at all.

“From the beginning we were at Mass every day and altar servers every Mass,” Fr Michael says when asked how much of an impact living close to the parish church had on him.

He says his family were the “biggest influence” on his becoming a priest.

His father was converted in Lourdes, he says, where as a young protestant doctor he saw a woman stand up from her stretcher and walk away.

“He’d heard of the place and two of the nurses from the hospital where he trained wanted to go and he drove them there,” Fr

St Bernadette’s Glendalough youth held their inaugural youth group meeting on 30 May at sundown, with a French theme in honour of the parish’s patron saint.

Photos by Bridget Spinks,

Gourlay, Olivia Lavis

Michael says. His father returned to England, underwent instruction and became a Catholic - a turn of events that ultimately led him to his wife.

“My father felt that as a young Catholic, he had to attend everything Catholic; so he went to the dinner dance of the Catholic Tennis Club and met my mother there,” he says. His mother was a teacher in the local Catholic primary school and the eldest of 14.

If you think that was a large family, don’t be surprised; Fr Michael’s

grandfather was the youngest of 22. He explains as an aside:

“Immediately after the famine in Ireland, when the population in Ireland dropped from eight million to three million, nature took its revenge and people began to have big families”.

Nevertheless, the witness to the faith that his mother’s family bore also influenced the future priesthood of her son, as Fr Michael says he harboured desires of preaching the Gospel in Africa when he saw the youngest of his mother’s brothers ordained a priest in the

order,

of God.”

“It was an absolutely stupid dream,” he says in hindsight.

“Because when I did actually get out to Africa, I found they were highly developed, (had) a very good education system, mainly run by the Churches and medical facilities run by Irish nuns. We had cars and petrol,” he says, smiling. He was 27 years old and four

Fr Thomas O’Connor SMA. “When my uncle was ordained I started dreaming of cutting my way through the African bush to reach poor people who had never heard

Fr Michael Evans SMA in front of Christ the King parish, Beaconsfield. The sun sets behind him over the Indian Ocean.

PHOTO: BRIDGET SPINKS

The French themed event involved hot chocolate, baguettes and croissants at the LJ Goody Bioethics Centre on Jugan St, Glendalough. Above: Kate Gibson and Caroline Nevin.

PHOTO: BRIDGET SPINKS

During the session assistant parish priest Fr Yosep Remigius Asnabun shared his journey to the priesthood and the young people both learnt about the story of St Bernadette and discussed ways they would like to learn more about God and the faith in the parish. They would also like to do community service they said. Above: Siobhán HInton and Alex Bogoni.

PHOTO: BRIDGET SPINKS

Tom

f priestly wisdom

years an ordained priest in the Society of African Missions (SMA) when he was sent to Nigeria.

Once ordained, Fr Michael was sent to university for a B.A. and diploma in education ready for the missions in Africa and in 1958 he was sent to the province of Ondo in southern Nigeria where he would remain for the next 20 years, working in education until 1978.

Fr Michael was education secretary for the diocese when he first arrived, organising where teachers would work in the diocese and looking after their training.

He did this for five years until his appointment as principal of Aquinas College in Akure in Ondo province, a boys’ secondary school that had 1200 students, 800 of whom were boarders.

The students were mainly from agricultural families. The biggest difficulty was finding accommodation for the number of students who wanted to do secondary school.

“It was the only way of escaping rural activity,” Fr Michael says.

The school, established in 1950, a few years prior to Fr Michael’s arrival, was supported by a large number of Irish lay graduates who came out to teach in the schools and in the face of difficulty, Fr Michael would “beg for money from the Bishops” who obliged because they “wanted to see the schools developing”.

In Akure, Father Michael included daily Mass in the school schedule for the students.

“All the students in my school had come to Mass every day, because that was how I’d been brought up, and I’d preach to them every morning,” he says.

Everybody rose at 6am, even in winter when it would still be dark, he says.

By 7am, it was always light; Mass was held at 7.15, followed by breakfast at 8 o’clock and assembly at 8.30 when school started.

When asked to articulate what he learnt from his experiences in Nigeria Father Michael says “Number one: to accept always the good and the bad in life as a normal part of human life; sickness, physical failure and mental disturbance were to be found in every family.

“Next thing would be ambition. They worked extremely hard in schooling so as to arrive at university levels ... they were prepared to slave away at work in order to achieve a higher level of life for them and their families.”

He says that from the boys that he taught, there have been at least

30 lawyers, 50 doctors and 12 priests.

Thirdly he learnt that the Nigerians have “a deep religious basis to life” which meant that “the teaching of Christianity became much more relevant to the pupils”.

“What we were building on was the explanation of family life surrounded by a spiritual world,” he says.

“All trees, streams, sources of water had their own divinity attached and that divinity had to be assuaged by acknowledgement of its existence ... they may become Christians but it’s on the basis of a very deep appreciation of the world in which they live,” he says.

“When an African wishes to acknowledge a divinity in a tree belonging to the family, it was tradition they would pour out some palm oil they’d normally have used for cooking at the foot of the tree

father and make his father friendly towards humanity ... the sacrifice was a part of their traditional way of life,” he says.

“Now we explain the danger of an unproductive tree: all trees are expected to be fruitful or be useful in building to provide clothing and cover for the family. Every tree that belongs to the family is potentially productive to the family.

“The danger to humanity came from the rejection of God by sin. Christ overcame the rejection of God by sin by offering His life as a member of humanity in order to achieve friendship between God and man (the human race, His creation). That’s what we call ‘salvation’.

“So to achieve productivity they had to make the sacrifice and they understood therefore, obviously and quite clearly, the value of sacrifice. So for them, the idea of a

Fr Michael arrived in Rome in 1978, in time to catch the last of Pope Paul VI’s pontificate, see the incoming and outgoing of Pope John Paul I and to subsequently welcome Pope John Paul II.

Fr Michael was appointed Secretary General for the general chapter before being elected a member of the general council for five years. He was then appointed Procurator General of the Society.

But he suffered three heart attacks due to stress during his four years tenure as Procurator General of the SMA and was “removed from Rome” by the new superior general.

“I felt happy to go back to Ireland because if the doctors permitted I would be allowed to go back to Africa,” he says.

But working for three years as editor of the society’s missionary magazine, African Missionary,

... and in a family, it is the eldest woman who’s responsible for making the sacrifice on behalf of the family,” he says.

The parallel between this and the Catholic faith is Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary, which they were able to understand.

“They were giving up something they enjoy to the divinity, (which) is exactly what Christ did in giving up his life in order to appease his

Christian sacrifice was easy, natural and normal,” he said.

“That was understood, that was what Christ did.”

Fr Michael wasn’t sent on mission to Perth til 1991.

Between his life in Akure and his life here in Perth, Fr Michael was called to Rome on account of his ability to speak the two official languages of the SMA -English and French.

didn’t make use of his best skills and he was moved to the Sacred Heart parish in Stopsley, Luton before finally being called to the diocese of Bunbury in Western Australia.

Fr Michael was based in Albany for five years and then transferred to Beaconsfield on the retirement of Fr Ned Donovan SMA.

While at Beaconsfield, Fr Michael was the Spiritual Adviser

for St Vincent de Paul and “rarely missed a meeting,” Germaine Madison said.

“(He) was instrumental in the reintroduction of prayerful events, such as Stations of the Cross during Lent and May and October devotions to Mary. It was during these times that he officiated in Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament – a devotion sadly disappearing from Catholic Churches these days,” says Wayne Sgro, the acolyte and president of Beaconsfield parish council.

One hundred and fifty friends and parishioners came to Fr Michael’s farewell on 9 April in Beaconsfield - a “reflection of the love and respect that people have for Fr Michael,” says Wayne.

On 9-11 June the Year of the Priest will conclude in Rome.

To be a good priest, Fr Michael offered the following advice:

“Number one - constant, personal prayer; number two - openness to everybody; number three - using the sacraments as the building blocks of a Christian life for each individual; fourthly - the ability to adapt to changing situations in the economic and spiritual lives of members of the community.”

This last point references a trend he noticed while here on the west coast toward “experimental cohabitation”.

He sighted a need to “adapt to modern trends” such as these.

“We expect them to stay away from the sacraments not necessarily to stay away from prayer, until they are ready to undertake a Catholic marriage.”

Ultimately what has Fr Michael learned in all these years?

“A priest has to be an integral part of the community in which he is serving,” Fr Michael said.

“He must neglect nobody in that community. He must use every capacity he has for the uplifting of that community to God”.

It’s early June and Fr Michael Evans SMA has landed in Ireland in late April to take up residence in the Society of African Missions House in Wilton.

The desk and his Beaconsfield office where the map of Australia was sticky taped behind him would be now but a memory.

But the thank you cards he would have taken with him - a tangible reminder of his time in Beaconsfield - are perhaps something he’ll ponder while taking a wander through the glades around Wilton, Cork.

To hear the school song of Aquinas College, Akure, visit: www.aquinasalumni.com

After the Red, White and Blue Feedback session, the newly formed SBG youth group attended the 7pm Youth Mass at St Bernadette’s Glendalough. Above: SBG, the St Bernadette’s Glendalough Youth Group .

PHOTO: TOM GOURLAY

It was all very French. Glendalough youth Clayton Walsh with French pastries.

PHOTO: BRIDGET SPINKS

In the evening, the youth group gathered with the Glendalough Little Sisters of the Poor under the Jugan Street street sign, opposite St Bernadette’s Glendalough. The street’s named after St Jeanne Jugan, the foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Above: SBG Youth with Sr Marie Bernard lsp, Sr Velonika lsp and Sr Catalina lsp.

PHOTO: OLIVIA LAVIS

Fr Michael Evans SMA at the entry to his parish Church of nearly two decades, Christ the King, Beaconsfield.

PHOTO: BRIDGET SPINKS

Poor knowledge leads to flawed journalism

Blind Spot: When Journalists

Don’t Get Religion

Editors: Marshall, Gilbert, Ahmanson

Available from The Record Bookshop

$37.95 + postage

REVIEWED

BY

JOHN BARICH

For years I have been looking for a book that exposes one of the big gaps in our media. Blind Spot is itexplaining how much of the media are not able to interpret many world events because they have an inadequate knowledge of the world religions.

They have a predilection for secularism which GK Chesterton called “a taboo of tact or convention, whereby we are free to say that a man does this or that because of his nationality, or his profession, or his place of residence, or his hobby, but not because of his creed about the very cosmos in which he lives.”

CNN political analyst William Schneider has said, “On the national level, the press is one of the most secular institutions in American society. It just doesn’t get religion or any idea that flows from religious conviction. The press is not necessarily contemptuous of serious religion. It’s just uncomprehending.”

The authors claim that the “purpose of this book is not to make journalists or others into believers, or to convince them or anyone else that religion is good: in fact, most of the authors think that religion can be good or bad.

Their concern is to emphasise that religion is important even in secular news, so that it is vital for journalists to take religion seriously and to know about it in order to properly report the news.

They also want to emphasise that religious beliefs and practices are usually varied and complex, which means that learning about them will take some work, but such work is indispensable to good journalism.

KN Pannikar predicted that Christianity throughout Asia and Africa would collapse once the

coercive pressures of Western colonialism were removed.

Ten years later devout Catholic Solidarity workers in Poland and Kalashnikov-wielding mujahideen in Afghanistan helped defeat atheistic Soviet Communism, leading French Political scientist Gilles Kepel to observe that it was more accurate to talk about the “revenge of God” than about the death of God.

After yet another decade, 19 hijackers transformed world politics and the strategic priorities of the world’s most powerful state

by crashing passenger jets into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, crying “God is great” as they did so.

At the beginning of the 21st century, nearly 64 per cent of the world’s people belonged to one of the four religious groups, although many of the Protestants have morphed into Evangelicals.

The World Values Survey and the European Values Survey suggest that levels of religiosity are not only high but increasing in most of the world.

Religious issues and individu-

als are increasingly shaping the public agenda in “secular” Japan and Canada as well. In Japan, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party announced in 2005 that it would try to change the constitution to relax the traditional separation of religion and state - mostly to deflect domestic criticism of the prime minister’s regular visits to Yasukuni, the controversial Shinto shrine for Japanese war dead. And in Canada, the country’s prime minister since January 2006, Stephen Harper, is an evangelical and arguably the country’s most openly religious politician in decades. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott have not been exactly ashamed of their religiosity.

Far from stamping out religion, modernisation has spawned a new generation of religious movements – such as the Evangelicals, Wahhabis and Catholic Opus Dei and Communion and Liberation.

Contrary to the influential scholarly theories of the 1950s and 1960s, religion plays an independent and powerful role in how people view themselves and how states conduct their affairs. And, contrary to the assumptions of recent US foreign policy, democracy promotion may only increase the political role of religion - including radical religion - throughout the world, most immediately in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. God is winning in global politics. And modernisation, democratisation and globalisation have only made Him stronger.

Al Qaeda has often referred to the US as crusaders but the media rarely mentions this, preferring to refer to their attack on Western values. Al Qaeda also once called for East Timor, which is 80 per cent Catholic, to remain Indonesian and Muslim.

In reporting events focusing on Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the secular media are hampered by the reporter’s lack of knowledge and long-term immersion in the subject as well as reliance on a template which sets the events in political rather than Church categories.

The media’s failure to grasp the importance of JPII’s Theology of the Body which integrates sexual

New Sheen documentary unveiled Servite crest saved

Continued from Page 1 and in 1952, he won an Emmy Award for Most Outstanding Television Personality His work and the way he has inspired and influenced the hearts of so many truly inspire Daniel and Martin Tobin.

“Sheen makes it (the society, our work) big; we’re dealing with a dynamo here,” co-founder Daniel Tobin said. “It’s exhilarating. The friendships made are unbelievable. Sheen opens the door for so many things. The more you get to know Sheen, his life and his work and his contribution, the more you realise how incredible a person he was and his influence,” he said.

“He put the faith in such a way that it was attractive without watering it down: Truth never changes as he says, two plus two will always be four, never five.”

Martin Tobin, Trinity College Head of Senior School (Years 10-12), said that he has learnt a lot about teaching, particularly Religious Education, from Fulton Sheen. Teaching is less about simply filling a student’s head with knowledge and more about having an educational philosophy, he said. “It’s more about answering the fundamental questions of existence: ‘Who am I?’ ‘Where am

I going?’ ‘What is the meaning of my existence?’ You’ve got to help them get to know those questions,” Martin Tobin said. He said that he has tried to apply two pieces of advice from Fulton Sheen in his role as teacher: “One, start where people are at, not where you would wish them to be. And two, stay current: know what they’re reading, viewing.

“Through that you get an understanding of the things they’re thinking about; and the prevailing philosophy of the day”. The Fulton J Sheen Society Inc is hosting the concert to introduce Fulton Sheen to new generations of audiences, founders Daniel and Martin Tobin said.

“There’s a lot of people in Australia who haven’t had the opportunity of hearing and reading him. And the clarity of the way he presents the faith and the succinctness of thought just helps you to live a well-adjusted, happy life.”

In 2002, Archbishop Sheen was granted the title “Servant of God” when the Congregation for the Causes of Saints officially opened his cause for canonisation. Tickets for the “Hour with Sheen Concert” are on sale now and may be organised by phone/email - 9291 8224 or sheensociety@globaldial.com

The DVD on Fulton Sheen plus his books and tapes will also be for sale on the night.

BY BRIDGET SPINKS

THE link to Servite College’s religious roots in Chicago and Florence is again on display in the main entry of the new building on campus at Tuart Hill.

The original Servite College terrazzo crest that had been hidden for years was found in the past year under carpet in one corner of the old library building. It was installed in May this year, reminding staff and students alike of the school’s founders and religious tradition.

Servite College principal Philip Cox said that he had heard stories about it but no-one could tell him where it was. Staff with 30 years’ experience at the school knew roughly where it was, but still did not have enough information to find it.

behaviour, marriage and fertility and the comprehensive teachings explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, make their reporting less reflective of every day life.

Amy Welborn, in a chapter on Case Studies, identifies the new movements which have sprung up in the Catholic Church – Opus Dei, the Legionaries of Christ, Saint Egidio, Communion and Liberation, the Nes Catechumenate and Focolare – and with, of course, the YCW and the National Civic Council still soldiering on.

A major failure of the media was the negative reporting of The Passion of the Christ which was an astounding commercial success. (I saw it in Pittsburgh on a protracted visit to USA and Mexico in 2004.)

One senior journalist has admitted that mainstream journalists are different from mainstream America. The media, in reporting that as a rule Catholic priests are not married, fail to mention Eastern Rite Catholic priests who are married and married Anglicans who have continued as priests.

The media have also mistakenly reported that paedophilia is rife amongst the clergy but, in fact, it is much lower than other professions eg teachers, lawyers, social workers, youth leaders and so on.

Indira Gandhi was killed by two of her Sikh bodyguards and the media had not expected this to happen despite increasing tension between the Indian Government and Sikhs.

This book argues that for roughly a half-century now, leading journalists and top media outlets, print and electronic, have frequently missed or misconstrued just about every significant story about religion in everyday life, about religion and science, about religion and politics at home, and about religion in world affairs.

This, at a time when scholars including Penn State’s Philip Jenkins have documented orthodox Christianity as the world’s fastest growing religion. Europe is the secularised exception, not the 21st century rule.

- John Barich is president of the West Australian branch of the National Civic Council and the Australian Family Association

In 2009, a new building was planned and the old library area was to be demolished. Once the library books were removed the search began for the crest. Carpeting was torn up and eventually the crest was found, partly covered by a wall and sadly damaged.

Parents Lee Johnson and Chris McMahon helped cut the crest from the concrete floor and saved it from demolition. Mr Cox said the crest links the school to its roots in Chicago where the Servite Friars, the school’s

founders, came from. The “SM”, the Servants of Mary symbol, and the style of the crest “goes back to the 13th century when the Servites started in Florence in 1233, so it gives us a grounding”.

The crest is also a reminder of the Servite charism, which Mr Cox describes as “service to others” by imitating Mary’s presence at the foot of the Cross, as well as her part in the salvation story and her support for her Son’s crucifixion and death.

He said that, at the school, the children are taught about how they can take their own role “at the foot of the Cross” by helping people who are suffering in the world, at home, at school and in the community.

This, he said, translates to a call to serve and support others who are suffering, pointing to Mary at the foot of the Cross as an example of how, as servants of Mary, Catholics are called to play Mary’s role of supporting those suffering today.

The evangelised return to evangelise us

Missionaries from third world countries who were originally evangelised by the West are not finding the same openness in Europe

BY JOHN T HAVIS Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY

- Even as the Vatican prepares to add an agency to promote “new evangelisation,” the traditional forms of “old evangelisation” - missionary outreach in non-Christian lands - are alive and well around the world.

More than one-third of local Catholic communities today are still in “mission territory,” a geographical area that includes about three-fourths of the world’s population. That explains why evangelisation experts at the Vatican say the task of bringing the Gospel to non-Christians has barely begun.

The Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation has yet to be officially announced, but it is expected to focus on the task of reevangelisation among traditionally Christian populations, for example in Europe and North America.

Pope Benedict XVI spelled out the rationale for the new agency during his recent trip to Portugal, saying the Church’s missionary map today is not only geographical but also anthropological, made up of cultural and social categories of people who have largely drifted away from the Gospel.

With the continuing mobility and mixing of cultures and populations, along with the explosion of global communications, it’s easy to see why the Vatican might be paying less attention to national boundaries in its missionary strategies.

But geography still matters in many parts of the world, said Mgr John E Kozar, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States.

“By virtue of geographic limitations and history, there are still

some peoples who have never experienced any contact with Christ or the Catholic faith. Examples of this might be in the deep jungle areas of Brazil, in Papua New Guinea, in isolated mountainous areas of Malaysia, and other lands,” Mgr Kozar said.

He added that in some countries that lived for generations under communism, there are many people today who have never known Christ. The Church’s outreach to them, too, would be “the old form of evangelisation”: announcing the Gospel for the first time, he said.

At the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, the Vatican department responsible for missionary work, officials said traditional missionary activity remains the model in most parts of the developing world. But even

here, things are changing - sometimes rapidly.

“In a world where populations are so mixed, territory is no longer the main thing,” Archbishop Robert Sarah, secretary of the congregation, told CNS.

The missionary assignments have therefore changed. Many missionaries used to be sent to a country - usually to remote areas - where they learned the local language and immersed themselves in the culture, often remaining for life. Now they are more likely to work in cities and move from country to country.

Missionary formation now focuses in part on dealing with typical urban problems such as lack of housing, broken families, street children and migration. Missionaries are trained to work

with the mass media and new technology, and to promote regional cooperation. Especially with increasing urbanisation in poorer countries, all of this makes sense. But there is a risk, too, Archbishop Sarah said, because missionaries on shorter assignments have less connection with local or tribal cultures, and are sometimes seen as “tourists.” He quoted one African cardinal who joked, “Missionaries were once very willing to go out into the bush. Now they want a big house near the airport.” The decline in the numbers of priests in traditionally missionary religious Orders has also had an impact, Archbishop Sarah said. The days when the Vatican could send out a vast army of foreign missionaries into non-Christian lands are over.

“We try to favour a South-toSouth cooperation, for example priests from one African region evangelising in another part of the continent. We can do this today because we have plenty of new priests and seminarians in missionary countries - there are more than 4,500 seminarians in Nigeria alone,” he said.

The cost of missionary work continues to rise, but the Pontifical Mission Societies, which finance specific evangelisation programmes, operate on an amazingly tight budget.

The amount distributed annually for projects in the more than 1,200 mission-dependent Church jurisdictions in the developing world is about US$150 millionless than this year’s payroll for the New York Yankees.

In recent times, collecting the money has become more difficult for a variety of reasons, including the worldwide economic crisis. Mgr Kozar said another factor is “the tendency of people to respond to spontaneous crises” but to sometimes lose sight of the everyday needs of the universal Church.

As the Vatican turns greater attention to evangelisation in First World countries, missionary territories may be a source of personnel.

Archbishop Sarah noted that Church communities in Africa and Asia are already beginning to send missionaries to work in Europe. They are finding, however, that “re-evangelising” is not an easy task, he said.

“When Europeans went to Africa, they found a very religious people, open to God and to the Gospel. But the same isn’t true when a missionary comes to Europe today,” he said.

He added that while globalisation and the communications explosion has made it more likely that non-Christians have a superficial knowledge of Christianity, that’s never enough.

Real conversion happens not by hearing about Christ on TV or radio, or visiting websites, but with a “real personal encounter,” and for that you need a missionary, he said.

Haiti quake fallout causes mental health concerns

Mental health needs of quake survivors pose risks to Haiti’s recovery

BY DENNIS SADOWSKI Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON - Survivors of Haiti’s 12 January earthquake face growing mental health challenges that pose serious risks to the country’s recovery, said a priestpsychologist working in makeshift tent camps around Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.

“Vulnerable people before 12 January have become more fragile, and their conditions have worsened,” said Fr Eddy Eustache, a Haitian priest who directs mental health and psychosocial services for Partners in Health in Haiti.

People are experiencing depression, sleep disorders, anxiety, alcohol and substance abuse and posttraumatic stress disorder, he said.

Currently, an expanded team of 31 psychologists and social work-

Eustache said. “But we are not the only (organisation) providing psychosocial services.”

The agency also continues its regular counselling programmes in the country’s Artibonite and Centre departments, north of the capital, where thousands of displaced people have relocated since the earthquake. Local townspeople and rural dwellers face growing difficulties from the influx of newcomers and are turning to the agency for assistance, he said.

Fr Eustache and his team have found that being unable to bury a loved one killed in the earthquake is one of the primary triggers of depression and stress.

ers working for the Boston-based Partners in Health serves about 80,000 people in four large camps scattered around Port-au-Prince. A team of locally hired assistants scours the camps daily for people in need of mental health services and informs people about symptoms of mental illness.

“Comparing to the hugeness of the needs, the team is small,” Fr

Thousands of Haitians who died during the 45-second tembler were buried in mass graves in cemeteries and fields outside the city. Many were buried without family members or friends knowing their whereabouts.

“The mourning and grieving process at that point was blocked with the flow of emotions,” Fr Eustache explained.

To help people cope, Fr Eustache created a memorial ceremony for

people “where emotional expression is allowed and Christian hope, faith are enhanced to alleviate the burden of sorrow.”

“Many people tend to misunderstand the two concepts - spiritual and religious. (Some are) trying to scare survivors” to think they are “being punished by God through the earthquake. In my interventions, I always have in mind: catholic, meaning universal, ie for all,” he wrote.

More than four months after the earthquake, the ceremonies continue in the camps, he said.

The priest cited the needs of sick children and people who lost limbs in the disaster as those who pose particular challenges to his staff. Many children - Partners in Health does not track numbershave been orphaned or abandoned to fend for themselves in the aftermath of the quake.

UNICEF works with Partners in Health to find safe shelter for abandoned and homeless children in a foster family or an orphanage.

Fr Eustache said that since the earthquake he has noticed that Haitian Health Ministry officials

have changed their views on the importance of mental health services. Recent discussions between Minister of Health Alex Larsen and Fr Eustache have focused on structuring publicly funded mental health programmes to continue the services offered since the disaster. At the same time, Fr Eustache expressed concern about the future, writing that if conditions remain largely unchanged for people in the camps, their tolerance of their situation might begin to wane.

“Resiliency is very common in Haiti,” he said. “Some people tend to rely on it to justify passivity and inaction. If, over the next six months, any consistent improvement is not seen in the life of the population, the absolute threshold for patience in the survivors could be reached,” he said. “I think it is urgent. Despair may not be too far. Too late could be too bad.”

He also called upon the government to recognise the depth of suffering that Haitians face and to begin to take steps to change how the country has ignored people’s needs for decades.

A crucifix is held up as Pope Benedict XVI meets with young people at Coqueiros Stadium in Luanda, Angola on 21 March. Angola was the second and last stop on the Pope’s pastoral visit to Africa. Celebrations in Angola marked the 500th anniversary of Christian evangelisation in the country. Today, it is the West that needs to be evangelised - often by priests from the subcontinent - a fact recognised by Pope Benedict who is understood to be on the verge of establishing a new agency for such a task.

PHOTO: CNS/ALESSANDRO BIANCHI, REUTERS

Fr Eddy Eustache, a Haitian priest who directs mental health and psychosocial services for Partners in Health in Haiti. PHOTO: CNS

Vatican hosts Eucharistic adoration in reparation for abuse

THE Vatican basilica hosted a two-hour service of Eucharistic adoration “in reparation for abuses committed by priests and for the healing of this wound within the Church” on 29 May.

Mgr Charles Scicluna, the chief Vatican prosecutor in sex-abuse cases, offered a meditation during the Saturday service.

The initiative was organised by university students in Rome who originally intended to hold it in another church. Cardinal Angelo Comastri, the archpriest of St Peter’s, prevailed upon the organisers to use the Vatican basilica.

Italy’s ‘demographic suicide’

IN a 25 May address to his fellow Italian Bshops, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, president of the Italian episcopal conference, lamented his nation’s “slow demographic suicide.”

“Over 50 per cent of families today are without children,” he said; another quarter have only one child, while just 5.1 per cent have three or more.

Canada Bishops plan to sell 400 properties to cover lawsuits

THE Diocese of Antigonish will put up about 400 properties for sale in an effort to raise the money necessary to cover legal settlement and sexual abuse lawsuit costs.

Fr Paul Abbass, diocesan spokesman, told parishioners in a series of talks that the diocese has raised about one-third of the money necessary to cover the legal costs.

“We have commitments of close to 6 million (Canadian) dollars ($5.75 million),” he said.

“That pretty much taps out what we can expect from that particular exercise of the pooling of liquid assets.”

Parishes in the diocese were asked to contribute all but essential money to the legal settlement fund, which meant larger parishes donated much more than others, Fr Abbass said. “It’s hard to say that there’s any fair practice going on here,” he said. “It’s equal to every parish in the sense that every parish is asked for everything.”

The remaining CA$12.5 million must come from the sale of all “non-core assets,” which include all property except occupied churches and Church houses, Father Abbass said. A financial study said the diocese would be able to meet the fiscal responsibilities if all properties were sold, he added.

The Catholic Episcopal Corporation of Antigonish - the corporate arm of the diocese - has contributed about CA$2 million to various legal fees. That amount is not included in the CA$6 million total, said Jim Gogan, a member of the legal and financial settlement committee. Consultant Jeanie McCharles, who will oversee the sale of all properties, was meeting with diocesan representatives in late May to develop a programme and a standard for the sales.

Fr Abbass said parishioners will have the first chance to buy any properties. If parishioners decline to make an offer on a property, it will be listed publicly.

Polish media, Catholics unhappy over prelates’ IVF link to abortion

MEDIA and some Catholics have criticised a Polish Bishops’ family council statement that seemed to equate in vitro fertilisation with abortion. The Bishops issued their statement amid controversy over government plans for a new bioethics law that would allow in vitro treatment to be funded from the state health budget.

“The Church always defends the weakest, especially the totally defenceless, which includes conceived children,” the family council said in a statement. “ Those who kill them, and those who actively participate in this killing or make laws against conceived lifeincluding the life of a child in embryonic state, which is largely destroyed by in vitro procedure - stand in open conflict with the Catholic Church’s teaching. They cannot receive holy Communion until they change their attitude,” the statement said.

In a 24 May article, Poland’s Rzeczpospolita daily said Catholic canon law made no reference to in vitro fertilization and did not “recognise an analogy” between abortion and the in vitro-related destruction of excess embryos.

The chairman of Poland’s Helsinki Human Rights Foundation, Halina Bortnowska, told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily on 23 May, “IVF does not have to lead to the liquidation of embryos, which people value and often have a very emotional attitude to.

“I don’t think you can exclude someone from the sacrament because of their view about something which isn’t dogmatic in character,” Bortnowska said.

A member of the Bishops’ bioethics team, Fr Franciszek Longchamps de Berrier, told the Polish Church’s Catholic information agency on 22 May that no Bishops’ council “had a right to issue doctrinal declarations,” adding that the family council statement should be treated “solely as the view of its members.”

“The Code of Canon Law asserts that those who kill conceived life or participate in its killing exclude themselves from the church community, as does a person who allows such acts,” the adviser said.

“But this is a question of attitudes and the actions of particular people, and above all a matter between these people and their confessors. A confessor can set conditions of penance but cannot declare them publicly,” he added.

Biotech firm to help Vatican educate

Vatican, biotech firm to work together to educate on adult stem cells

BY NANCY FRAZIER O’BRIEN Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON - Foundations affiliated with the Pontifical Council for Culture and an international biopharmaceutical company will work together to educate Catholics and others around the world about the benefits of adult stem cell research.

Fr Tomasz Trafny, an official with the Vatican agency, and Dr Robin L Smith, chairman and chief executive of NeoStem, announced the collaboration at a 25 May news conference in New York.

“Through educational initiatives with NeoStem and sponsorship of scientific research programmes involving cutting-edge adult stem-cell science which does not hurt human life, we come one step closer to a breakthrough that can relieve needless human suffering,” Fr Trafny said.

The culture council’s foundation - called STOQ International, for Science, Theology and the Ontological Quest - had made an initial economic commitment of US$1 million, the priest said. NeoStem’s involvement is through its Stem for Life Foundation.

One of the first fruits of the collaboration will be an international, interdisciplinary conference at the Vatican in 2011 on adult stem-cell research.

The Vatican and NeoStem also hope to develop educational programmes, publications and academic courses that will address the scientific, theological and philosophical questions surrounding stem-cell research.

“We want to be able to deliver to our pastors, to our Bishops” information that will help them respond to the bioethical questions raised by Catholics at the local level, Fr Trafny said. “We need to understand the technologies, the science, many things, in order to know what kinds of answers we need to provide for them.”

He said many see the Church as an authority that demands obedience without question from its followers, but the Church also wants to be able to tell its followers that they should do what the Church says because “we have the experience, we’ve done the research and we discovered this is the best choice.”

The priest noted that the Catholic Church has long been a supporter of adult stem-cell research but opposes embryonic stem-cell research, which requires the destruction of human embryos. “We consider ending suffering, sickness and disability an urgent task,” he said. “A lot of people think the Church is against science, but the official teachings of the Church strongly underline the fact that science and faith are complementary to each other.”

Smith, whose company has offices in the United States and China, said she thought the new collaboration would “have a lasting positive impact on medicine, as well as how patients are treated around the world.”

NeoStem holds exclusive worldwide rights to VSEL (very small embryonic-like) stem-cell tech-

strongly condemns human cloning, whether performed to obtain embryonic stem cells or to produce a genetically predetermined child. The Vatican has now launched a research project for ethical stem cell research with a biotech company to educate the public on its benefits.

nology, which Smith said has the potential of achieving “the positive benefits associated with embryonic stem cells without the ethical or moral dilemmas as well as other negative effects associated with embryonic stem cells.”

“For over 40 years, physicians have been using adult stem cells to treat various blood cancers, but only recently has the promise of using adult stem cells to treat a significant number of other diseases begun to be realised,” she added.

Smith said her company’s alliance with the Vatican would help to “increase public perception of stem cells” and “train a new generation of future academicians and ethicists” by developing bioethics courses for the university and high school level.

“We will be at the forefront of efforts to discover exactly what (adult) stem cells can do,” she said. “We intend to make a difference in the lives of those who need it the most.”

Fr Trafny said the project would likely extend beyond NeoStem to include other bioethical firms and scientists. “We want to develop an extensive collaboration,” he said. “The world is being dominated more and more by science and technology.”

During a question-and-answer period, Fr Trafny fielded questions about exactly where the US$1 million Vatican contribution had come from.

“Lots of donors came and

in brief...

Genetic mug shots approved

LEGISLATION authoring collecting and storing genetic data from people merely suspected of crimes has sailed through the US House of Representatives. Under the Katie Sepich Enhanced DNA Collection Act of 2010, the Federal government would pay state governments

offered support because people are worried about the education of children” and about providing them with “a clear ethical vision” that will serve them in the future, he said. “A lot of misunderstandings in society came about because people were not well informed about science, its relationship with the Catholic Church and why we should work together.”

Fr Trafny said he found it “a very funny thing” that the media in Europe and America had very different questions about the collaboration.

“When you talk to Europeans, it’s difficult to talk to them about religion and science. There is a strong sense of ‘why should the Church be involved?’” he said.

“But for Americans, that is a normal thing. For Americans, everyone talks about the money. Europeans would never ask.”

In a separate development regarding stem cells, the Vatican in April expressed strong support for a new international project for adult stem-cell research. The initiative was announced at a meeting in Rome on 23 April.

The project, led by the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, established a consortium of researchers from several Italian health institutes, including the Vatican-owned Bambino Gesu Hospital in Rome.

The effort will focus on intestinal stem cells, a relatively new field of study.

to require DNA samples, which could mean drawing blood with a needle from adults “arrested for” certain serious crimes. A total of US$75 million would be handed out to the states.

US and UK Civil libertarians say that building up a national DNA database of suspected criminals would be a regressive step. It would be hard to remove the information once it was on the database; link race and genes to crime; and create unwarranted certainty about the reliability of genetic information.

- BioEdge

A cloned embryo shown at the blastocyst stage is pictured in an undated handout photo from Stemagen, a small biotechnology company in La Jolla, California. In 2008, Stemagen reported that it had used human adult skin cells to create cloned embryos. The Vatican’s 2008 instruction on bioethics

PHOTO: CNS/STEMAGEN

Scandal must inspire penance, purification

Abuse scandal must inspire purification, justice, Pope tells Italian Bishops

BY CAROL GLATZ Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY - The scandal of clerical abuse of minors must inspire Bishops and priests to rediscover the need for penitence, purification, forgiveness and justice, Pope Benedict XVI told Italian Bishops.

The Church’s desire to engage in a new evangelisation of the world “does not hide the wounds scarring the Church community, (wounds) caused by the weakness and sin of some of its members,” he said in an audience with members of the Italian Bishops’ conference on 27 May.

While the Pope did not specifically mention the crisis of sex abuse in the Church, he briefly referred to it in his speech to the Bishops during their general assembly in the Vatican synod hall from 24-28 May.

The Pope said the Year for Priests, which closes with an 11 June Mass, has served as a reminder for the need for deep spiritual renewal within the priesthood.

The “humble and painful admission” of the sins of some of the Church’s members should not obscure the good and saintliness of so many others, including lay faithful and priests, he said.

“That which is cause for scandal must translate for us into a reminder of the ‘profound need to relearn penance, to accept purification, to learn on the one hand forgiveness

but also the necessity of justice,’” he said, repeating remarks he made to journalists aboard the papal plane to Portugal on 11 May in reference to the clerical sex abuse scandal.

As Bishops’ conferences across Europe are coming to grips with the sex abuse crisis, the head of the Italian Bishops’ conference said it was possible there were cases of clerical sex abuse in Italy that were covered up.

Responding to reporters’ questions on 28 May, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa said: “It’s possible that there have been cover-ups

of sex abuse in Italy, too.” If the Church ever verifies the coverup of a case of clerical sex abuse, he said, the Church would clearly condemn such concealment as being “something that is wrong and which must be corrected and overcome.”

He said the “natural” person for a victim of abuse by a member of the Church to turn to is the Bishop who “will receive (the victim) immediately, day or night.”

The Italian Bishops’ conference revealed on 25 May for the first time that about 100 cases of alleged

Church names big guns to lead apostolic visitation to Ireland

‘High profile’ Church officials named by Pope Benedict XVI for Apostolic Visitation to Ireland

ROME Italy (CNA/EWTN News) - The first big phase in the renewal process of the Catholic Church in Ireland begins next fall. On Monday, “high profile” Church officials with “great specific experience” from the UK, Ireland and North America were named to head the apostolic visitation the Holy Father promised Irish Catholics last March.

A statement delivered personally by Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi SJ to journalists in the Holy See’s Press Office on Monday outlines Pope Benedict’s nominations for the Visitors to the four metropolitan Archdioceses of Ireland and the country’s seminaries and religious houses. He called those nominated “figures of high profile and great specific experience for the posts received”.

Apostolic Visitors to Ireland’s four Archdioceses are Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Emeritus Archbishop of Westminster for the Archdiocese of Armagh, Cardinal Archbishop of Boston Sean Patrick O’Malley

for the Archdiocese of Dublin, Archbishop of Toronto Thomas Christopher Collins for the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly and Archbishop of Ottawa Terrence Thomas Prendergast for the Archdiocese of Tuam.

Archbishop of New York

Timothy Dolan has been tapped to work along with the Congregation for Catholic Education in examining centres of priestly formation including the Irish College in Rome. The visitation of religious houses will be organised by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life and carried out by four leaders from religious communities who possess what Fr Lombardi called “broad competence in formation and religious government.”

Redemptorist Fr Joseph Tobin and Jesuit Fr Gero McLaughlin will be the Visitors to men’s orders, while Immaculate Heart of Mary Sr Sharon Holland and Jesus and Mary Sr Mairin McDonagh, the only Irish Visitor, will occupy themselves with women’s houses.

According to the statement, the objectives of the visitation are to “more deeply explore questions concerning the handling of cases of abuse and the assistance owed to the victims” and “monitor the effectiveness of and seek possible improvements to the current procedures for preventing abuse.”

It concludes with an invitation from Pope Benedict XVI for prayers of support from Irish Catholics for the initiative and his invocation of God’s blessings for their increased faith and hope and “renewed fervor in the Christian life.”

Fr Lombardi told journalists that the timeframe of the visitation is “not yet determined,” it is noted that the visitation will begin in Autumn 2010.

He also emphasized that Apostolic Visitors are not Delegates, who eventually carry out the service of renewal in areas of need highlighted by the results of visitations.

The Holy Father had told Irish Catholics in his Apostolic Letter on 19 March that an Apostolic Visitation would be forthcoming.

abuses minors needs to be concurrently brought to justice and receive treatment and mercy”.

“Healing cannot replace punishment, let alone remit the sin,” he said, adding that the Church has never sought to underestimate the severity of the sex abuse crisis and called on families “to recognise that we, the Church, will do everything to always, and increasingly, merit their trust.”

The Bishops’ meeting came just as three priests were facing accusations by civil authorities for the sexual abuse of minors.

A 73 year old priest of the Diocese of Lodi was arrested on 25 May on charges of sex with a minor, and a priest in Savona went on trial on 24 May for allegedly sexually violating a young girl.

In late May, at the trial of a Rome priest accused of sexual violence against seven boys, the current Bishop of Porto-Santa Rufina, who was the accused priest’s pastor, said that although he received complaints about the priest, he did not tell the Vatican because he did not think there was sufficient proof.

abuse had been handled by Italian Church courts in the past decade.

“In general and factual terms, there were about 100 cases relative to canonical procedures carried out during the last 10 years,” said Bishop Mariano Crociata, general secretary of the Italian Bishops.

Responding to journalists’ questions on 25 May, Bishop Crociata did not respond to queries about the number of cases that ended in a guilty verdict or how many were turned over to the police.

Cardinal Bagnasco told the general assembly that “a person who

Sign

He said he did not tell Italian police because he was not sure about the procedures to follow.

It was another parish priest who reported the alleged offender to Italian authorities.

The promoter of justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mgr Charles Scicluna, said in mid-March that in Italy, “the phenomenon (of priestly sexual abuse of minors) does not seem to have dramatic proportions, although what worries me is a certain culture of silence, which I feel is still too widespread in the country.”

of the Cross a reminder of Trinity dwelling inside

VATICAN CITY (CNA/ EWTN News) - The Sign of the Cross reminds us of the Trinity which resides in us, of God’s name and of our commitment to the faith from the moment of Baptism, Pope Benedict XVI before the Angelus on 30 May.

He also noted the essential role of the priest in bringing the “Spirit of Truth” to us.

With the arrival of “ordinary time,” the Holy Father said, the Christian commitment should not decrease. Rather, “entered into the divine life through the Sacraments, we are called daily to be open to the action of Grace, to progress in love towards God and neighbour.”

Turning to Trinity Sunday, which “recapitulates” God’s revelation concerning the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Paschal mysteries, Pope Benedict said that despite the inadequacy of human thought and language to explain the One and Triune God, Church Fathers sought to illustrate His mysteries through their lives and deep faith.

“The Trinity, in fact, finds residence in us the day of our baptism,” said the Pope, highlighting the priest’s words, “I baptise you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

And, he added, we are reminded of God’s name, in which we are baptised, every

time we make the Sign of the Cross. Pope Benedict XVI cited the words of theologian Romano Guardini who taught that the Sign of the Cross puts us “spiritually in order” both before prayer and afterwards “so that what God has donated to us remains in us.

“In the Sign of the Cross and the name of the living God, the announcement that generates the faith and inspires prayer is therefore contained,” Pope Benedict said.

Commenting on Jesus’ promise to the Apostles that “when he comes, the Spirit of the truth, he will lead you to every truth,” the Holy Father pointed out that this takes place in the Sunday Liturgy “when the priests distribute, week to week, the bread of the Word and of the Eucharist.”

As St Jean Vianney observed, continued the Pope, it is the priest who welcomes the human soul to the world, strengthens it and prepares it for its return to God.

The Pope closed his preAngelus words by inviting the faithful to recite the prayer of St Hilary of Poitiers for loyalty to the faith which is professed on the day of our Baptism and invoking the protection of the Virgin Mary, “the first creature fully inhabited by the Most Holy Trinity,” for our continued our pilgrimage on earth.

Members of the Conference of Italian Bishops listen to an address by Pope Benedict XVI in the synod hall at the Vatican on 27 May.

PHOTO: CNS/MAX ROSSI, REUTERS

Cardinal Sean O’Malley

A superlative kind of

Christianity

PERSPECTIVES

Same old ‘70s sloganeering can’t cut it anymore

Being Heard

By John Heard

Reading Dante as a younger man, I was transfixed by the descriptions of Limbo. Having discovered the classical world (its literature, philosophy and artefacts) at about the same age I loved any news of the virtuous pagan.

In Dante, my heroes, a collection of people who lived good lives without (indeed, before) Christ, were remembered. They avoided the torments of Hell. It meant something that the things I found good, true, and beautiful in the best of Greek and Roman culture were worthy in Christianity too.

Indeed, Dante’s great synecdoche for this idea, the pagan poet Virgil leading his late medieval Christian Everyman through the thicket of despair, a sage guide through Hell and Purgatory, is one of the most generous and humane metaphors in world literature. It speaks volumes about the nature and sensibility of Christianity.

For a serious young man searching for such things, here were proofs in literary form of an understanding as old as the Church: Christianity completes, it does not readily deface.

The mechanism is sublime. Sometimes called, nowadays, inculturation – it is the expropriation by the Church of preexisting modes and expressions. Christianity, in this cultural sense, is the superlative form of whatever good has gone before. This is also known as conversion and that is a better term. The idea, after all, is that Christians turn the best of pagan culture toward the cross.

So, for instance, the Vicar of Christ (the Holy Father) is also the Pontifex Maximus (the Supreme Pontiff), an ancient title inherited from Roman state religion. Christmas and Easter, the greatest Christian festivals, rest on pagan religious roots. Similarly, instead of destroying the Pantheon (a temple dedicated, literally, to all Roman gods) Christians converted the building. To this day, the Basilica Sancta Maria ad Martyres resounds to the unceasing worship of the One, as do so many other converted temples in Rome and all over the Christian world.

What she does with stone and concrete, the Church extends to purest thought. The Stoic philosophers (Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius) alongside the best of the Greeks (Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle) sought a more humane future. Their ideas were saved, converted and transmitted by Christian scholars. In a sense, these pagan thinkers wrote and reasoned towards cultural Christianity. At the very least, they laid the foundations for systematic Christian philosophy. Reading Epictetus’ Enchiridion, for instance, reveals how much influence the ancient thinkers had on Catholic moral theory. Later, Christianity – via St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas – would repay the favour.

In Christianity, then, a gap is closed between the ancient world and the New Jerusalem. The bridge Christianity builds is active, vivified and holy. This is one of the senses in which the Church is the

“sacrament of salvation for the whole world”.

There are ramifications in this for secular modernity, not least because Western culture often betrays a neo-pagan influence. The hallowing of pagan achievement, indeed, demonstrates how Christianity transforms the very nature of man’s work. What we can achieve ourselves is magnified by grace. In that sense, one answer to Richard Dawkins and his type, so enamoured of the gifts of man, is “all of that and more”. Further, the hypersexual “gay culture” is undone, found wanting by comparison. The Catechism’s teachings on self-mastery, for instance, are a rich source that builds on the scala amoris discussed in Plato’s Symposium. Like hapless tourists who stumble into the Pantheon on Pentecost, Catholics awakened to this rich patrimony often find themselves surrounded by tinkling bells and falling roses. Indeed, we happen at times onto things which express an almost impossible beauty.

For, just as the light of Christ edifies a pagan temple and amplifies its beauty, the Gospel can edify modern man and amplify our happiness. No longer is the Pantheon, for instance, just an architectural wonder, the first true dome in history. Now, and forever, in niches where once idols stood, the triumphant cross and statues of saints prove that, in St Thomas Aquinas’ trenchant formulation, “newer rites of grace prevail”. In the same way, we can seek the ultimate achievement of a life lived well.

Anyone who laments the historical fact of conversion should know that he risks preferring the pagan past with all its brutality and bloody spectacle, a past that the best pagans despised.

Christianity does not readily deface at all. Rather, the Church in this creaturely reality is the superlative form of older, worthy orders. The whole mystery is contained in those enduring images: petals streaming from the oculus of the Pantheon at Pentecost and Virgil leading Dante through Hell and Purgatory, stopping short of the beatific vision.

John Heard is an Australian writer. You can read more of his writing on sex, religion, and politics online (http://johnheard.blogspot.com), and on Facebook join the DREADNOUGHTERS Group.

Life

Matters

By Bronia Karniewicz Archdiocesan Respect Life Office

In the Rally for Life last week, over 400 people walked from St Mary’s Cathedral to Parliament House. This impressive turn out has the community discussing our abortion laws again. It’s a fantastic thing.

At present, the law in Western Australia states that a woman considering an abortion has to see a doctor.

Doctors are then required to give counselling about the medical risks of termination and carrying a pregnancy to term.

A referral to further counselling is offered and women are informed that postabortion counselling is available. A woman is also required to sign a consent form, maintaining that she has been offered counselling.

At the rally, Liberal MP Peter Abetz made a call for some changes to these present abortion laws, including the viewing of 3D colour

ultrasounds and a 48 hour cooling off period to be given to women considering an abortion.

In the response to these suggestions, there has been a return of the familiar slogans and harsh rhetoric which prevents us from debating this issue with clarity and respect.

Regardless of how people feel about abortion, there is general agreement that counselling should be made available.

It is misleading to believe that women take the decision of abortion lightly. Yet discussing the impact of abortion has been difficult, as the results of various studies are often hotly debated.

There is growing international research linking induced abortion with increased rates of psy-

chiatric illness, depression, substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Very often, any experience of post-abortion trauma goes unrecognised, and is instead attributed to pre-existing circumstances.

Yet we still have women in our communities struggling to cope with the effects of their abortion.

In 2008, at a congress on Marriage and Family, Pope Benedict XVI said about abortion, “Yes the men and women of our day sometimes truly find themselves stripped and wounded on the wayside of the routes we take, often without anyone listening to their cry for help or attending to them to alleviate and heal their suffering. In the often purely ideological debate, a sort of conspiracy of silence is created in this regard. Only by assuming an attitude of merciful love is it possible to help victims to pick themselves up and resume their journey through life.”

While good discussion and debate is needed about scientific research, most importantly we should be reaching out with compassion to grieving women and men who feel traumatised by their abortion experience and offering greater support options to those with an unexpected pregnancy.

These are the people who can be, as John Paul II said in the Gospel of Life, “the most eloquent defenders of life.”

Bronia@perthcatholic.org.au

Not my children - they’re His

I say I say

By Mark Reidy

An unexpected revelation has drastically altered my outlook on life - my children are not mine. Now before I receive a frenzied call from my mother-in-law, let me explain.

Recently my family shifted across town and consequently my children had to attend a new school. Amongst all the struggles and stresses associated with moving house, the social upheaval of my children weighed most heavily upon me.

Despite the best efforts of my wife and I to pray and seek the will of God in relation to our move, I was still wracked with guilt at having to sever them from the only communal network they have known. And so, in desperation, I responded with the composure of any parent who finds themselves hopelessly out of their depth – I used unashamed bribery!

I justified this response by convincing myself that showering them with gifts would ease any emotional pain that they may endure.

It was my inadequate response that led to my life-altering revelation – that I did not own my chil-

dren, but was in fact, only their earthly guardian. These little souls, I realised, are a gift from God, their true Father and were only on loan to me during their earthly tenure. My desire to embrace my children closely and shield them from any pain did, undeniably, stem from a heart of love, but it was also tainted by fear, insecurity and selfishness.

Because, as I discovered when they returned from the first day at their new school with smiles on their faces, it had been my own inner turmoil that I had been trying to appease. I had sought God in the situation, but when it came to the crunch I felt a need to intervene. The reality was that my desire to protect my children from any pain was not born entirely from selfless love, but was founded, rather, on my inability to trust God completely and in all circumstances.

Ironically, it was my bungling attempts to be perceived by my children as a perfect father that was, in essence, blocking them from the only perfect Fatherhood that they could ever know.

My efforts to control every aspect of their lives was effectively telling God that He didn’t know what was best for my children and He needed to step aside so I could compensate for His inadequacies! My Damascus-road moment was a humbling one, because I had to accept that my own love was not pure. However, it was

also a freeing moment because it made me aware that if I always sought God’s will for their lives, then there was less chance that I would try to impose my own desires (and failings) upon them.

The experience gave me a clearer understanding, albeit far less dramatic, of both the anguish and the spiritual wisdom of Abraham as he succumbed to God’s request to sacrifice his only son. I pondered upon the moment when, in obedience to God, he stood over Isaac with dagger in hand, not understanding, but trusting anyway that God knew best.

Abraham passed this ultimate test of trust, because he understood that Isaac did not belong to him, but it is one that I fail regularly. And such failure is fraught with danger, because once I assume ownership of my children then the logical progression is that, as my possessions, I have the right to do with them what I want.

I have then stepped into the realm of moral relativism that Pope Benedict XVI warns of –the seedling that can spawn far greater travesties such as abuse and even abortion, as it allows me to determine, justify and apply my own version of morality.

What a blessing it is then, that I have come to understand that the most loving choice that I can make for my children is to totally surrender them to their rightful owner, because, as much as I love them, it is only God who will love them perfectly and eternally.

Germaine can’t acknowledge feminism’s mixed record

with Catherine Parish

Germaine Greer published an article on 5 May in the Australian Literary Review, the monthly literary magazine of The Australian newspaper. It is supposed to be a look back at the 40 years of feminism since her book The Female Eunuch was published.

Feminism has brought many advantages for women. They can now participate freely in the workforce throughout their lives if they so choose – though economics have rendered that less a choice than a necessity for many. They can choose from the same array of careers that men do, and do not have to marry to achieve financial security. These are so accepted in society today that it is almost unthinkable that not so long ago it wasn’t so for women.

But there have also been difficulties. The chaos wrought by feminism in society in those 40 years, particularly in marriage and family life which Greer notes with some glee, is dismissed by her not just as collateral damage, but as necessary for change. Greer reveals her Marxist roots to assert that “chaos is the matrix out of which viable structures form.” She attributes the decline of life-long heterosexual marriage and stable family life to “women walk(ing) away from relationships that are at worst demeaning or dangerous, or at best unfair and unrewarding.”

This rather gobsmackingly wholesale dismissal of marriage, and the women who embrace it, is probably the most demeaning representation of women in an article filled with explicit and implicit insults to many women.

Greer shows her extremely dated view of the situation of women in the developed world throughout the article, but nowhere more than in this statement. On Germaine Greer’s plan-

et, there are no women who do not regard marriage as an institution fundamentally demeaning and dangerous to women.

Greer has, accurately, noted that many modern western women would appear to have simply exchanged one lot of burdens and perceived injustices for another even more onerous in many ways, yet nowhere admits that her teachings might have had something to do with that.

Increasing numbers of women are making the mature assessment that they cannot succeed at both full-time motherhood and full-time career efficiently. Something has to give in their lives if they wish to attain the level of happiness that is currently eluding them. For many of them, it is the work that takes a back seat and becomes the parttime pursuit. This movement of women back to the family as a valid source of reward, satisfaction and happiness is blithely dismissed by Greer as a typical attack on feminism by male dominated bastions of power, telling stupid women “now that

women could have it all, there was no need for feminist activism or even feminist attitudes”. This simplistic statement is how she explains the inconvenient truth that many of these women have not ditched the family and chosen Greer’s way of resolving their disillusion with the ‘have-it-all’ chimera. She rightly bemoans rampant prostitution, female trafficking and sexual enslavement and freely available hard pornography as terrible and degrading and harmful to women.

However, she completely fails to make any link between the objectification of women and commodification of sex inherent in the advent of available and accepted contraception, especially the Pill.

Ms Greer states facets of continuing female discontent accurately and with insight, but being a clever old stick, she then uses the same specious argument for her brand of feminism that Marxists used to justify the confusion caused in believers by its abject failure - it didn’t fail, it’s just never been tried.

The devil made me do it ...

By Fr John Flader

Primacy of conscience?

What exactly is the Church’s teaching on conscience? Is it true that in the end we can follow our own conscience even if we know it goes against the teaching of the Church?

You ask one of the most important questions in the area of fundamental moral theology and in the daily lives of people today. There is much confusion on the issue. Pope John Paul II dedicated a whole section of his encyclical Veritatis splendor (1993) to conscience.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives us the classical definition of conscience: “Conscience is a judgement of reason whereby the human person recognises the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed” (CCC 1778).

The definition already tells us much about the role of conscience. Conscience is not just a voice within us that somehow mysteriously tells us what to do or avoid doing. It is a judgement of reason, a judgement of the intellect or mind.

A judgement in general involves weighing up a number of factors in order to arrive at a conclusion. In the case of the judgement of conscience, the intellect weighs up the objective truth about the morality, the rightness or wrongness, of the act in question in order to decide whether the act is obligatory, permissible or forbidden.

But where does this objective moral truth come from? The answer is our loving Father God, who created human beings with a particular nature. Some human acts are in keeping with that nature and contribute to human flourishing, and are therefore morally good. Other acts are not in keeping with human nature and lead to harm. They are morally wrong. This is what we know as the divine law.

The simplest and most

well known statement of the divine moral law is the Ten Commandments, which God revealed to Moses and which the Church has safeguarded and passed on over the years.

But while some of these Commandments are easy to understand, such as that killing the innocent, committing adultery, stealing and lying are always wrong, others require a deeper reflection in order to be understood. For this reason, Jesus gave the apostles the assistance of the Holy Spirit to “guide [them] into all the truth” (Jn 16:13), so that the Church down the ages would be able to teach moral truth authentically in His name. Thus, for example, the Church has made clear the immorality of such acts as abortion, contraception, in-vitro fertilisation, euthanasia, etc.

In order for conscience to make correct judgements, it must first learn the objective truth that God teaches through His Church on moral issues, so that it can then apply this teaching to the case at hand.

In this sense, conscience is like a sextant which a sailor uses to determine his position by focusing it on the stars. Without the stars, the sextant is of no use. Similarly, without the light of God’s law, as taught by the Church, conscience has nothing by which to guide itself. It is blind.

Thus, conscience is not a law unto itself; it is not autonomous. Indeed, the Catechism mentions “assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience” as one of the factors that “can be at the source of errors of judgement in moral conduct” (CCC 1792).

Returning to your question, we cannot follow our “conscience” if it leads us to go against the teaching of the Church.

If we did that, our very conscience would accuse us. Really, a “conscience” that disagreed with the Church would not be a conscience at all, but rather the voice of whim, pride, convenience or comfort. A true conscience puts us in touch with God.

In Veritatis splendor, Pope John Paul II quotes St Bonaventure on the binding force of conscience: “Conscience is like God’s herald and messenger; it does not command things on its own authority, but commands them as coming from God’s authority, like a herald when he proclaims the edict of the king. This is why conscience has binding force” (In II Librum Sent., dist. 39, a. 1, q. 3; in Veritatis splendor, 58).

PANORAMA

A roundup of events in the Archdiocese

Panorama entries must be in by 12pm Monday. Contributions may be emailed to administration@therecord.com.au, faxed to 9227 7087, or mailed to PO Box 75, Leederville WA 6902.

FRIDAY, 4 JUNE

PRO-LIFE WITNESS

On Friday 4 June commencing with Mass at St Brigid’s Midland at 9.30am, followed by Rosary procession and prayer vigil at abortion clinic, led by the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. Come and pray for the conversion of hearts. Enq. Helen 9402 0349.

FRIDAY, 4 JUNE AND FRIDAY 11 JUNE

The Alliance, Triumph and Reign of the United Hearts of Jesus and Mary

9pm at St Bernadette’s Church, Glendalough. Eucharistic prayer vigil on the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Each vigil concludes with midnight Mass in honour and thanksgiving of the coming Reign of the United Hearts of Jesus and Mary. There will be a winter break in July and August. Vigils will recommence in September. Enq: Fr Doug Harris 9444 6131 or Dorothy 9342 5845.

SATURDAY, 5 JUNE

Day with Mary

9am-5pm at Holy Family Church, Alcock St, Maddington. Day of prayer and instruction based on the Fatima message. 9am Video; 10.10am Holy Mass; Reconciliation, procession of the Blessed Sacrament, Eucharistic Adoration, Sermons on Eucharist and Our Lady, Rosaries and Stations of the Cross. BYO lunch. Enq: Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286.

A morning Retreat: Inner Freedom and Healing

Talk 2

Presenter: Murray Graham (Inigo Centre Director). Saturday, 5 June, 9am-12 noon. The MacKillop Room, John XXIII College. Donation for the Centre costs. FOr details call Murray on 9383 0444.

WITNESS FOR LIFE

Commencing with Mass at St Augustine’s, Gladstone Rd, Rivervale at 8.30am, celebrated by Fr Eugene McGrath, and followed by Rosary procession and prayer vigil at nearby abortion clinic. Come and pray for the conversion of hearts. Enq Helen 9402 0349.

SUNDAY, 6 JUNE

Food Fair

10am-3pm at the Little Sisters of the Poor, 2 Rawlins St, Glendalough. Lots of food, fun and entertainment. Eat in or takeaway. All proceeds go to the home. Enq: 9443 3155.

Annual Corpus Christi Mass and Procession

10.30am at Our Lady Help of Christians, Franciscan Friary, 36 Stirling Tce, Toodyay. Mass, followed at 12 noon by Procession. Transport from Perth, Des 6278 1540 or Nita 9367 1366.

Secular Franciscan Order Day of Reflection

10am at the Edel Quinn Centre, 36 Windsor St, East Perth. You are invited to join the Secular Franciscan Order in WA, concluding with Mass at 2pm. Topics: Dreams, the Path of Descent and Profession in the SFO. Enq: Angela 9275 2066.

Divine Mercy

1.30pm at St Francis Xavier Church, 25 Windsor St, East Perth. An afternoon with Jesus and Mary, with homily by Fr Anthony Van Dyke on Body and Blood of Jesus. Refreshments will follow. Enq: 9457 7771.

O’Brien Family Reunion

11am at Geraldton Turf Club. Reunion of the descendants of Michael and Honora O’Brien who arrived in WA from Ireland 150 years ago. The evening before there will be a family Mass at St Francis Xavier Cathedral at 6pm. All family and friends are welcome. Enq: Julie 9921 4242.

WEDNESDAY, 9 JUNE

Chaplets of the Divine Mercy

A beautiful, prayerful, sung devotion held at St Thomas

More Catholic Church, Dean Rd, Bateman, on the second Wednesday of each month commencing at 7.30 pm. It will be accompanied by Exposition and followed by Benediction. All are welcome. Enquiries to George Lopez on (h) 9310 9493 or (w) 9325 2010.

FRIDAY, 11 JUNE  SUNDAY, 13 JUNE

Weekend Live In Retreat

6pm at Mary MacKillop Centre, South Perth. Mary MacKillop, Our Australian Saint Retreat, limited numbers. Retreat director Sr Dora Maguire. Enq: Laura 9334 0999 lmccarthy@sosjwa.org.au before 8 June.

SATURDAY, 12 JUNE

Divine Mercy Healing Mass

2.30pm at St Francis Xavier Church, 25 Windsor St, East Perth. Main celebrant Fr Marcellinus Meilak OFM. Reconciliation in English and Italian available. Divine Mercy prayers followed by Veneration of First Class Relic of St Faustina Kowalska. Refreshments later. Enq: 9457 7771.

SUNDAY, 13 JUNE

Eucharistic Reparation

The World Apostolate of Fatima Aust Inc invites you to attend a Eucharistic Hour in Mater Christi Church, 340 Yangebup Rd, Yangebup on Sunday, 13 June at 3pm. We will bring with us the National Pilgrim Virgin Statue of our Apostolate. All welcome. Enq: 9339 2614.

WEDNESDAY, 16 JUNE

Lesmurdie Mental Health Support Group Workshop

6-8pm at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish Centre, 207 Lesmurdie Rd, Lesmurdie. Please bring a plate to share. Guest Speaker: Guido Vogels, Psychotherapist, Life Coach, Mental Health Consultant. Marriage Counsellor. Topic: “Dealing with conflict – discover the formation of your triggers and defences”. All most welcome. For information contact: Barbara Harris 93288113 or Ann Page on 9291 6670.

THURSDAY, 24 JUNE

Morley Mental Health Support Group Workshop

7–8 pm at Infant Jesus Parish Hall, 47 Wellington St, Morley. Please bring a plate to share. Topic: An Introduction to “Taking control of your life”, facilitated by Barbara Harris. Interested in coming along? If so, contact Thelma on 9276 5949 or Darren on 9276 8500 or Barbara Harris on 9328 8113.

FRIDAY, 25 JUNE

MEDJUGORJE-EVENING OF PRAYER

All are warmly invited. 7-9.00pm at All Saint’s Chapel, 77 St George’s Tce, Allendale Sq, Perth for ‘An Evening of Prayer’ with Our Lady Queen of Peace. Evening consists of Adoration, Rosary, Benediction and Holy Mass. Free DVD on Fr Donald Calloway’s conversion from life of sexual promiscuity, drugs, alcohol and crime to priesthood. Enq 9402 2480 or email medjugorje@y7mail.com.

AN HOUR FOR SHEEN CONCERT

7.30pm Trinity College, Trinity Ave, East Perth in Gibney Hall which has recycled airconditioning. Featuring Yan Kee Soprano; John Meyer Pianist; St Joseph’s Chamber Choir and Poet and Raconteur June Glen. All highly trained and talented artists. Special preview of the Film Servant of All, a biography of Servant of God Archbishop Fulton J Sheen. This DVD will be available on the night. Presented by the Fulton J Sheen Society Inc. $27.50 includes warm refreshments. Concessions for Seniors, Pensioners and Students. Enq and Bookings Daniel 9291 8224 . Email sheensociety@globaldial.com.

GENERAL NOTICES

Perpetual Adoration

Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is in its seventh year at Christ the King Church, Beaconsfield. Open 24 hours except at Mass times. All welcome. Enq: Joe 9319 1169.

Perpetual Adoration

Sacred Heart Church, 64 Mary St, Highgate. All that is needed is for each one of us to be willing to spend one hour a week with Jesus so that all the hours are covered with one person in the Chapel. Available times, Monday

2-3am, 4-5am, Saturday 11am-12 noon, Tuesday 11am12 noon, Sunday 2-3pm, 3-4pm; Thursday 7-8pm. Enq: Helen: 9444 7962.

Pilgrimage to the Holy Land

The Church of St Jude in Langford is seeking to put together a visit to Jordan, the Holy Land and Egypt, leaving 8 September 2010. The duration of pilgrimage is expected to be 15 days and could accommodate 28-30 people. Fr Terry Raj will be the Spiritual Director. Enq: Matt 6460 6877, mattpicc1@gmail.com.

EVERY SUNDAY

Pilgrim Mass - Shrine of the Virgin of the Revelation 2pm at Shrine, 36 Chittering Rd, Bullsbrook. Commencing with Rosary followed by Benediction. Reconciliation is available before every celebration. Anointing of the Sick administered during Mass every second Sunday of the month. Pilgrimage in honour of the Virgin of the Revelation, last Sunday of the month. Side entrance to the church and shrine open daily between 9am-5pm. Enq: SACRI 9447 3292.

EVERY SUNDAY AND MONDAY

Extraordinary Form of Latin Holy Mass 11am Sunday and 7.30pm Monday except 3rd Monday of the month, at St Joseph’s Parish, 20 Hamilton St, Bassendean.

EVERY FOURTH SUNDAY OF THE MONTH

Holy Hour for Vocations to the Priesthood, Religious Life

2-3pm at Infant Jesus Parish, Wellington St, Morley. The hour includes Exposition of the Blessed Eucharist, silent prayer, Scripture and prayers of intercession. Come and pray that those discerning vocations to the Priesthood or Religious life hear clearly God’s loving call to them.

LAST MONDAY OF EVERY MONTH

Christian Spirituality Presentation

7.30-9.15pm at the Church hall behind St Swithan’s Anglican Church, 195 Lesmurdie Rd, Lesmurdie. Stephanie Woods will present The Desert Period of Christianity, 260 to 600AD. From this time period came the understanding of the monastic lifestyle and contemplative prayer. No cost. Enq: Lynne 9293 3848.

EVERY TUESDAY

Novena to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal and Benediction

6pm at the Pater Noster Church, Marmion and Evershed Sts, Myaree. Mass at 5.30pm. Enq: John 0408 952 194.

EVERY WEDNESDAY

Holy Spirit of Freedom Community

7.30pm at The Church of Christ, 111 Stirling St, Perth. We are delighted to welcome everyone to attend our Holy Spirit of Freedom Praise Meeting. Enq: 9475 0155 or hsofperth@gmail.com.

Chaplets of the Divine Mercy

7.30pm at St Thomas More Catholic Church, Dean Rd, Bateman. A beautiful, prayerful, sung devotion accompanied by Exposition and Benediction. All welcome. Enq: George (h) 9310 9493 or (w) 9325 2010.

EVERY 2ND WEDNESDAY

Year of the Priest Holy Hour

7-8pm at Holy Spirit Catholic Church, 2 Keaney Pl, City Beach. Reflections on St John Vianney, Patron Saint of Priests. Light refreshments later in the parish centre.

Thank you again may God continue to Bless you and Our Blessed Mother never let go of your hand. Eileen Radford. Medjugorje evening of prayer co-ordinator for Fr Bogoni.

EVERY THURSDAY

Catholic Questions and Answers

7-7.30pm at St Joseph’s Parish Centre, 20 Hamilton St, Bassendean. Catechesis learned easily with questions and answers. The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Adult learning and deepening of the Catholic Faith, with Fr John Corapi DVD series, 7.30-9pm.

EVERY FIRST THURSDAY OF THE MONTH

Group 50 – Catholic Charismatic Renewal Prayer Meeting

7.30pm at Redemptorist Monastery, 190 Vincent St, North Perth. Prayer and Praise, Mass and the Sacrament of Anointing. All welcome.

THURSAYS FROM 27 MAY  10 JUNE

Group 50 - a Catholic Charismatic Renewal Prayer Group

Thursdays, 7.30pm at Redemptorist Monastery, 190 Vincent St, North Perth. 3 June - Prayer and Praise, Mass and Sacrament of Anointing. 10 June - Prayer and Praise, satellite message from Lalith Pereira and Mass.

FIRST FRIDAY OF THE MONTH

Communion of Reparation All Night Vigil

All warmly invited 7pm-1am at Corpus Christi Church, Lochee St, Mosman Park. Mass, Rosary, Confession and Adoration. Enq Vicky 0400 282 357.

Mass for Vocations

7pm at the Sisters of the Poor, 2 Rawlins St, Glendalough. Celebrated by Fr Doug Harris, followed by Holy Hour and Benediction, refreshments will follow.

Healing Mass

7pm at St Peter’s Church, 93 Wood St, Inglewood. Benediction, Praise and Worship followed by Mass with Fr Sam and Fr Joseph Tran as celebrants, later fellowship. Enq: Priscilla 0433 457 352.

EVERY FRIDAY LUNCH TIME

12.15-12.45pm at The Wesley Uniting Church, William and Hay Sts, Perth. Christian Meditation comes to the City. Ecumenical Christian meditation as taught by Fr Laurence Freeman. All Welcome. Enq: CMC WA 9444 5810, Anne 9335 8142 or christianmeditation@iinet.net.au or www.christianmeditationaustralia.org.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

BIRTHS

Jane Doe, 10lb 3 oz

Your announcement of the birth of a child, grandchild, niece, nephew or friend could make this even more special by placing it in the newspaper for everyone to see.

BIRTHDAYS

Happy 21st Birthday Maree

Ivan and Ann Stedul would like to wish their daughter Maree a Happy Birthday for 3 June and wish her all the best with God’s Blessing for her future.

BAPTISMS

MARRIAGES

ANNIVERSARIES DEATHS

Text only: $10.00 Text with photo: $20.00 Limit of 30 words per announcement.

To place an announcment in next week’s issue, please contact production@therecord.com.au.

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ACCOMMODATION

HOLIDAY ACCOMMODATION

ESPERANCE 3 bedroom house f/furnished. Ph: 08 9076 5083.

GUADALUPE HILL TRIGG www.beachhouseperth.com

Ph: 0400 292 100.

HEALTH

PSYCHOLOGY and PSYCHOTHERAPY

www.peterwatt.com.au Ph: 9203 5278.

LOSE WEIGHT safely with natural products. Free ongoing support. 02 9807 5337.

LAWNS

WRR LAWN MOWING and Weed Spraying. Get rid of Bindii & Jojo clovers, city of Stirling only. Enq 9443 9243, or 0402 326 637.B

BOOK BINDING

BOOK REPAIR SERVICE

New Book Binding, General Book Repairs, Rebinding, New Ribbons; Old Leather Bindings Restored. Tydewi Bindery 9377 0005.

TRADE SERVICES

BRENDON HANDYMAN

SERVICES Home, building maintenance, repairs and renovations. NOR. Ph 0427 539 588.

PLASTERING homes and renovations. Phone Neil 9390 6333.

BRICK REPOINTING

Ph: Nigel 9242 2952.

PERROTT PAINTING Pty Ltd

For all your residential, commercial painting requirements.

Ph: Tom Perrott 9444 1200.

Deadline: 11am Monday

RELIGIOUS PRODUCTS

CATHOLICS CORNER Retailer of Catholic products specialising in gifts, cards and apparel for Baptism, Communion and Confirmation. Ph: 9456 1777. Shop 12, 64-66 Bannister Rd, Canning Vale. Open Mon-Sat.

OTTIMO Convenient city location for books, CDs/DVDs, cards, candles, statues, Bibles, medals and much more. Shop 108, Trinity Arcade (Terrace level), 671 Hay St, Perth. Ph: 9322 4520. Mon-Fri 9am-6pm.

RICH HARVEST YOUR

CHRISTIAN SHOP Looking for Bibles, CDs, books, cards, gifts, statues, Baptism/Communion apparel, religious vestments, etc? Visit us at 39 Hulme Ct (off McCoy St), Myaree, Ph: 9329 9889 (after 10.30am Mon to Sat). We are here to serve.

KINLAR VESTMENTS Quality hand-made and decorated vestments: Albs, Stoles, Chasubles, altar linen, banners etc. 12 Favenc Way, Padbury. By appointment only. Ph: Vicki 9402 1318 or 0409 114 093

SETTLEMENTS

ARE YOU BUYING OR SELL

ING real estate or a business?

Why not ask Excel Settlements for a quote for your settlement. We offer reasonable fees, excellent service and no hidden costs. Ring Excel on 9481 4499 for a quote. Check our website on www.excelsettlements.com.

BABYSITTER

TO LET

Mt Hawthorn area 3 x 1 Duplex (unfurnished) $350 PW. Ph 0410 222 398 Approx 3 to 6 months.

BEAUTY

Complimentary facial and skin care update. Ph Rose 0417 905 505.

IN MEMORIAM

Lee-Chi, Mary Rose of Broome. Called to God on 7 May 2010. We have been blessed especially with you in our lives. You will be treasured forever in our hearts. Eternal rest in the Peace of God. Your beloved husband, Francis, and loving family.

THANKS

Thanks to Our Lord and Blessed Mother, Saints Joseph, Anthony, Jude, Therese of Lisieux and Blessed Mary MacKillop for a great favour granted. G.

Lady senior 80s European seeks companionship two or three times per week for tea or espresso coffee, chat for an hour or two. Woodlands NOR offer $5 fuel reimburse for visit. Phone 0418 841 757 afternoon.

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LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION

PICASSO PAINTING Top service.

Ph: 0419 915 836, fax 9345 0505.

MINI EXCAVATOR HIRE

Trenching and civil works. Daniel

Mob: 0428 170 379.

FURNITURE REMOVAL

ALL AREAS Mike Murphy

Ph: 0416 226 434.

Available day or night, 18 year old committed Catholic with own transport. Call Ben McCabe 0451 064 298. USINE

WANTED

Haddons’ translation of St Augustine On the Trinity. Post to 19 Lorikeet Loop, Broadwater WA 6280 or phone 9754 4069.

Your advertisement could be very effective here.

THE R ECORD

BP gives $1m to Diocese

NEW ORLEANS (CNS) - As millions of gallons of oil from an offshore rig explosion fouled hundreds of square miles in the Gulf of Mexico and advanced toward the Louisiana coastline, New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond thanked BP for US $1 million in emergency relief funds. The grant will allow local Church relief agencies to provide emergency food, financial and counseling assistance to needy fishing families. BP, which operated the oil platform that exploded on 20 April and killed 11 workers, earmarked $750,000 to Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New Orleans for direct assistance such as gift vouchers to local grocery stores and $250,000 to a food bank for emergency food boxes. The grant was announced at an 18 May news conference outside the headquarters of St Bernard Parish, a civil jurisdiction equivalent to a county. BP officials were hoping on 28 May

25 May.

to contain the massive spill with a “top kill” procedure on the leaking pipe one mile underwater. Even if the plan was a permanent fix, the deposit of crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico has developed into one of the worst environmental disasters in US history. In response to the catastrophe, Catholic Charities has opened five emergency centres at local churches to distribute the financial aid and offer counselling to fishing families. The $1 million grant will help fund outreach services for three months, and the programme is likely to be extended if the impact of the oil spill grows.

A scientist looks at marsh grass stained with oil on an island impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Louisiana on

PHOTO: CNS/LEE CELANO, REUTERS

The thing with Joshua

April was Autism Awareness Month.

T HERESE BONASERA reflects on the joys and struggles of having a child with autism

On 28 April 2008 we were first told that our son Joshua had an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). He was 2 years 10 months. When the paediatrician said to me in that meeting, “Your little man is autistic”, I was in shock.

The paediatrician also said that Joshua had a speech disorder. I had taken Joshua to the paediatrician because I knew there was something not quite right and had known that for a while as he was not reaching some of the milestones of the other children we knew who were his age. Yet he was excelling in other areas such as beginning to read when he was two years old. Joshua’s brother was 16 months old at the time of Joshua’s diagnosis and had been able to do some things at an earlier age than Joshua.

Other people had other opinions, saying things like ‘he’s fine, don’t worry,’ or ‘he’s just bright and bored’ or that we were not disciplining him enough or parenting correctly.

Even though I am an early childhood teacher, I was unable to put a finger on my gut feeling that something was not quite right. I had suspected ADHD. I still feel guilty that with four years of university training and 15 years of teaching experience specialising in early childhood education, I could not pick up that our son had Autism.

I panicked when the paediatrician said she thought our precious son had ASD. I had no idea what this meant and so began an emotionally and physically tiring journey that was also a guilt ridden and financially difficult daily struggle that affects the whole family.

Added to this is the frustration of waiting lists, the filling in of the same information on so many different forms, inadequate information and resources and the judgements of those who had little knowledge of ASD (apart from “isn’t that what Dustin Hoffman in the movie Rain Man had?”). And then there is all the driving to appointments, some of these being 100km round trips.

I have since learnt that Autism is a spectrum disorder with people displaying vast differences in symptoms. Those with Autism have some degree of difficulty interacting with the world around them. Generally, the three main deficits they experience are verbal and nonverbal communication, social awareness and interactions with others and a fixation on interests and behaviours. Sometimes, people mistakenly think that someone with ASD is just being naughty but their behaviour is always trying to communicate to others when their words can’t.

Some people’s attitude is “well, you chose to have kids so deal

with it,” but the reality today is that one in 100 children have an ASD and this figure is rising. If ASD is already present in a family, that figure is much higher. Many probably already know someone with ASD. Providing children with ASD with needed therapy and support now, therefore, is going to make a difference to families and society in the future.

I researched the different Autism therapies available and we decided on Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) as there is independent research showing it is a proven technique. We were fortunate to find out about The LEARN Foundation for Autism in East Fremantle which was just starting up so had no waiting lists at the time. The ABA programme there for Joshua was very beneficial and helped him in many ways.

Until the end of this year, Joshua will have a three hour session each week at the Autism Association. This has been good at helping him to learn school readiness and other skills. An Autism-specific room was opened in another day care centre this year and Joshua has been attending and making good progress. We are grateful for the supportive staff and great programme in the Centre’s Autism day care room.

Joshua has attended our local Catholic school for almost a year now and has made good progress with socialisation and communication and has become more flexible in his thinking. We are appreciative of the supportive staff and parents. We have also been able to organise structured play dates at home to help Joshua learn social skills with some of the children from his class.

We have found that a gluten and dairy free diet which also avoids preservatives and additives, especially MSG and artificial sweeteners, to be beneficial in helping

reduce autistic behaviours in our son. We have also been seeing a doctor and a naturopath who specialise in vitamins and supplements to help children with ASD. Joshua has had two hair analyses done each year and it is great to see the level of metals such as mercury dropping as they are removed from his body. We were also surprised at how much arsenic was in his body!

We appreciated the $12,000 ($6,000 a year for two years) government funding that is available. However, parents should know that children diagnosed with ASD after the age of seven are not eligible for this funding.

Joshua made great gains in his year of therapy with LEARN even though he was only receiving four hours of therapy a week. I still feel frustrated and guilty as research shows that children with an ASD need a minimum of 20 hours of

people running. I feel some guilt at not being able to do the therapy myself and the government doesn’t provide funding for more ABA therapy for our son.

It is frustrating, as I’ve been told that for every one dollar that is spent now in early intervention, seven will be saved later. It is especially frustrating to know that the governments of some other countries provide children with ASD with the therapy they need.

We love Joshua and our other children so much and are so grateful that they are in our lives; they bring us such joy. People with ASD have a lot to offer their families and society. There is much speculation that some very famous people in history may have had Autism, figures such as Albert Einstein, Vincent van Gogh, Sir Isaac Newton, Wolfgang Mozart, Charles Darwin and Michelangelo.

But the reality is that it is pretty demanding parenting a child with a disability. The workload is unrelenting, exhausting and draining. It is so understandable that families of a child with a disability are often at breaking point.

Without my faith in God and knowing He is taking every step with me, I do not know how I would have had the strength to continue on this Autism journey. By His grace I get through each day, one day at a time. Just when I think it is too hard, He sends me someone to help me through that day. We have been blessed with some amazing people to help us on this journey. One such person is our in home carer, Alyssa. I feel without a doubt she is a gift sent straight from God. I don’t know what I would have done without her in our lives.

Going to Mass with little children can be a struggle but going when one of your children has a disability is a struggle for us each week.

We feel it is important to try to go to Mass as a family and we are grateful that Fr John Daly and the Parish Council were so open and willing to help when we suggested using the confessional as a room for young children during Mass, if needed.

The parish installed a speaker so parents can still hear Mass and cut out a section of the wall and replaced it with glass so parents can still see what is happening.

therapy a week, and ideally 40 hours a week.

If Joshua had the minimum recommended hours of therapy a week, the government funding would have lasted around ten weeks. Some parents pay around $35,000 a year to give their child about 10 hours of therapy a week and it is not uncommon to hear that they are selling their homes to pay for it.

Joshua regressed at the start of this year, partly due to him no longer having the ABA therapy from LEARN each week. He used to have one session at home and one at school to help him learn to socialise and interact with the other children. We have three children under five and we are not physically able to do the therapy ourselves as well as all the other things that need to be done to keep a home of five

We know God welcomes our noisy family at Mass but now we know that we are not as disruptive to those people around us and that makes us feel more comfortable and relaxed too.

This journey so far has taught my husband and me so much about life, including that we need to keep working on being more gentle and understanding as we never know what is going on in other people’s lives.

We need to keep on appreciating all the gifts God has given us as so many other people are doing life much harder than we are.

We need to keep remembering that sometimes the dreams we have for our lives (such as hoping to be a large homeschooling family) change and go in a direction quite different than we anticipated.

But that is fine. Thankfully, God is the One in control.

Therese Bonasera with her husband Renato and their three children. Joshua, their eldest child, at right was diagnosed when he was nearly three with Autism. The disorder has complicated their lives greatly but, she writes, they depend on God. Thankfully, their parish priest, Fr John Daly, and the Parish of St Anthony’s in Wanneroo have been godsends, she writes in The Record this week.

PHOTOS: COURTESY BONASERA FAMILY

Despite being diagnosed with autism, Joshua, above still revels in life, such as this family outing to the beach.