The Record Newspaper 02 November 2011

the R

Royal stamp for Clontarf

By Juanita Shepherd

THE QUEEN’S arrival in Perth produced a flourish of activity, including the opening of a boarding house in Waterford.

Clontarf Aborginal College, a co-educational Catholic school originally established by the Christian Brothers and catering for Indigenous students in Years 7 to 12, was the only school in WA to receive a visit from Her Majesty.

For St Mary’s Cathedral Dean Monsignor Michael Keating, who blessed a newly built 80-bed boarding house on campus, it was the second time meeting the Queen.

“I meet her in 1960 when she was much younger - and I was much younger,” Mgr Keating told The Record after the royal visit, noting that his first meeting with her Majesty was also during a Commonwealth occasion in Rome.

The boarding facility officially opened by the Queen is called Ngulla Mia meaning ‘Our Home’ at Clontarf College.

Since 1986 when Clontarf was first established as an Aboriginal College, students have been housed at two external hostels. With the opening of Ngulla Mia, college administrators are hoping it will become a true home to the students.

Built around a central courtyard and offering an open learning environment, the new boarding facility

Continued on Page 4

Thanks given to God in Fremantle fishing festival

By Bridget SpinkS

A 12TH CENTURY devotion from the south-east coast of Italy brought hundreds to Fremantle for an annual cultural and Catholic traditional Blessing of the Fleet.

Fresh from his ad limina trip to Rome, Archbishop Barry Hickey visited the Fishing Fleet Festival in Fremantle on 30 October to bless the fleet.

Archbishop Hickey celebrated Mass for the festival in St Patrick’s Basilica on 30 October and took part in the procession of Our Lady of Capo d’Orlando, accompanied by hundreds down to the port where he boarded the lead boat and blessed the fleet.

Some small children dressed up as Carabinieri (Italian policemen), others wore traditional Italian costume, while still more were dressed in their First Communion attire and all formed part of the procession.

The fishermen and their families were placed under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title, Stella Maris - Our Lady, Star of the Sea.

Fireworks rocketed through the afternoon sky, temporarily enveloping onlookers in dense smoke and the crowd processed back to the Basilica where Archbishop Hickey led the congregation in benediction, bearing religious statues and banners.

The religious significance of the blessing was twofold, Archbishop Hickey explained in his official Message for the 63rd Annual Blessing.

“The religious meaning of the Blessing of the Fleet is to give thanks to God for the bountiful harvest of the seas and to pray for the safety of the fishermen and their families who brave the elements to bring us that harvest,” Archbishop Hickey

Continued on Page 5

Queen Elizabeth is presented with Kangaroo stew and homemade scones in the kitchen of Clontarf College in Perth.

PHOTO: © THE WEST AUSTRALIAN

The patroness of Molfetta , Mary, Our Lady of Martyrs, is processed down Fremantle’s cafe strip as part of the Fishing Fleet Festival on 30 October.

110 years for CBC Fremantle

By Glynnis GrainGer

LIFE is like a game of cricket according to businessman John Hughes, guest speaker and major sponsor of the Christian Brothers College Fremantle Old Boys’ Association 110th anniversary reunion held on Saturday, 22 October.

The college opened in 1901, continues to thrive and has long waiting lists, school principal Shaun Kenny told the gathering of about 300, mainly men, at the South Fremantle Football Clubrooms.

President of the Old Boys’ Association George Ayres said the Association carries out numerous works including the James McGowan bursary for a needy child; sending boys to Edmund Rice camps; contributing to the music committee, and holds 10 and 25-year reunions for former students to keep in touch.

Mr Hughes, one of the true success stories of the school, employs more than 550 people in his business which turned over $500 million last year.

“Life is about the future, not about the past,” he told attendees, adding the reunion was a very happy one. “It is great to get together and look back and see what you have got from your association with CBC Fremantle.”

Mr Hughes mixed humour and wisdom in his speech reflecting on the important things in life. He had, he told listeners, made some mistakes during his school days and after.

“I got into the finals of a flyweight boxing competition at school and was beaten by Johnny Miller (who became a jockey).”

Mr Hughes said he had, among other things, wanted to be an

accountant but couldn’t add up figures, and might have been a schoolteacher but missed out on enrolment by three days. But one factor that had made a big difference in his life was the experience of serving in the armed forces.

In 1953 he did National Service and said: “I went in as a boy and came out a man. The discipline I have came from CBC and National Service.”

He then worked at a panel shop and loved used cars, later working

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as a car salesman. “I was about 32 when I had a knot in my gut,” he said.

He bought a block of land in Victoria Park (where his car sales yard stands today), borrowed 120% and the knot in his gut went away.

Mr Hughes said, “I was not designed to work for other people.”

Life is like a game of cricket, he said, because you don’t strike every ball with your bat. “On average, one of six balls is a good ball, and you deal with it - one is a loose ball you

can score from,” he said. The school had helped give him perspective on what’s really important in life.

Often people were worried by what seemed like problems looming. “But by the time it comes along it is not so serious,” he said, adding “I am proud of what CBC did for me.”

Christian Brothers Terry Cant and Kevin Faull were among attendees who mingled with ex-students, including men from seemingly every profession and trade.

St Peter’s to offer healing Mass

Fr Hugh Thomas CSsR and Fr Dat Vuong will celebrate a First Friday Healing Mass on 4 November at 7pm at St Peter’s Parish, Wood St Inglewood. Confessions will be available from 6.40pm. Refreshments and blessings to follow. Fr Thomas will be leaving for Sydney in December.

Spring Dinner Dance

The Malaysian Singaporean Catholic Community of Australia is hosting a Spring Dinner & Dance on 26 November starting at 7pm at the Vasto Club, Balcatta and all are welcome. Feature band: WAAPA graduates, FUNKSTA. Raffle draw, prizes, BYO. Tickets: $40 (includes dinner). Proceeds to youth and homeless. The MSCCA was founded in mid-2008, in the lead up to WYD in Madrid by Fr Roy Pereira to raise funds to help support youth, orphans, needy families and members of the Indigenous community. In the wake of WYD, its focus has shifted to deepening, strengthening and nourishing the Catholic faith among the MalaysianSingaporean community. For tickets, contact Fr Roy Pereira – 0417 936 449 or Brian Pereira – 0419 565 996 or Colin Nunis – 0438 643 070.

Whitford Dance

Dance on 11/11/11 for $11 ticket with Surprise at 11pm. Tickets are now on sale at Our Lady of the Mission, Whitford, for a fundraiser dance, “A Night to Remember” – to be held at 7pm on 11 November in the gymnasium at Whitford Catholic Primary School. Surprise at 11pm. Feature DJ: Jun Orance. Proceeds to Overseas Mission. Enquiries: Jo on 9403 2763.

John Hughes and his wife Margarita at the CBC 110th Anniversary on 22 October. PHOTO: COURTESY G GRAINGER

Christians join in CHOGM prayer

OVER 200 Christians came together in St Mary’s Cathedral on 22 October to pray for the success of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting taking place in Perth.

For over a year before last week’s CHOGM gathering a combined churches Commonwealth Prayer Initiative’ prayed for a successful, safe, event for the leaders and 54 nations involved.

Two relatively new Catholic groups, one a branch of the international Focolare Movement, the other Perth’s own Flame Ministries

International, joined forces to make the Initiative known within the Catholic Church locally.

In the leadup to the meeting, Auxiliary Bishop Donald Sproxton asked Focolare’s Tes Lee and FMIs Kaye Rollings to approach parishes and schools, inviting them to join the Initiative. Catholic organisations were encouraged to adopt a nation and pray for its leaders’ and peoples’ needs.

St Charles’ Seminary in Guildford opted to pray for Queen Elizabeth, while Sacred Heart College in Koondoola was the first school to

offer to participate. School children were encouraged to write prayers incorporated into a permanent sculpture of the Tree of Life commemorating CHOGM near Wesley Uniting Church on the corner of Hay and William streets in the city.

A Commonwealth Christian Assembly from 20-22 October marked the end of the prayer for ‘adopted’ nations with a series of worship events entitled ‘Shine,’ culminating on 22 October, when St Mary’s Cathedral was the venue for a combined churches celebration.

The bells of the cathedral rang

out as approximately 200 people from different denominations met to pray for a blessing on the city as CHOGM leaders gathered.

Monsignor Michael Keating, the cathedral dean and administrator, presided over the service attended by over 200 people from various Christian denominations.

Kaye Rollings coordinated the service under the theme ‘Unity Commands the Blessing’ while FMIs music ministry lead praise and worship. During the service Mgr Keating recalled how people of many races

came to WA after the Second World War and how their customs and practices have contributed to a cosmopolitan society of Western Australia today.

Seven candles on St Mary’s altar were lit to symbolise unity and the ceremony was followed by quiet prayer and reflection.

Kaye Rollings and non-Catholic speaker, James Goss, spoke on how unity in Christ bestows God’s blessing. Wendy Yapp, the director of the Commonwealth Prayer Initiative, led the congregation in a prayer for the city and the nations.

Willetton celebrates as the nations come together

By Andre SequeirA

AS PERTH geared up for CHOGM, Sts John and Paul Parish in Willetton organised a multicultural Mass to celebrate the 80-plus nationalities which make up the parish community.

Flags of parishioners’ countries of origin hung over the altar, creating a welcoming and colourful scene while a banner bearing the words “Thy Kingdom Come” in gold lettering on a bright red background were draped around the altar in the church.

Parishioners were invited to dress in the national attire of their country of their origin and bring

a plate of finger food for a shared morning tea afterwards. Before Mass commenced, representatives from various countries came to the front of the church in their national costume, led by an Australian family bearing a twig of wattle.

Symbols chosen by parishioners included an orchid from Singapore, the chaconia flower from Trinidad and Tobago, an Englishman dressed in a suit, hat and umbrella in hand, and an Indian family who offered a thali (plate) of gifts and little lamps as a symbol of God’s presence.

Vietnamese-born Fr Thai Vu described how different he was when he first arrived in Australia 20 years ago and how Christians

must continue to welcome others, even though they may be different.

“Our Willetton Catholic community reflects this great diversity of nations; parishioners who have arrived from different parts of the world, working together and striving to grow in our faith and integrate into the Australian way of life,” said Lilian Kee, a long time parishioner and organiser of the celebration.

“They have enriched the parish with their many gifts, by the way of their time, talents, culture, skills and abilities,” she said.

After Mass a smorgasbord of sweet and savoury finger foods in the hall was enjoyed by all.

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The colourful flags of the 54 nations attending CHOGM are held high as the year of prayer preceding the event ends on a high note at St Mary’s Cathedral. PHOTO: COURTESY KAYE ROLLINGS

Beautifully and nationally dressed ladies attend the multicultural Mass celebrated at Sts John and Paul Parish. PHOTO: STS JOHN AND PAUL PARISH

Bible study programmes run locally

PERTH’S only Catholic Bible College is offering two courses in a Catholic study programme authored by one of the most wellknown converts to Catholicism in recent decades, Dr Scott Hahn.

The foundation course, Genesis to Jesus, commences 3 November at Acts 2 Bible College in Osborne Park and leads on to another three.

The second course, The Bible and the Mass, commenced 26 October at Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Karrinyup and will run for six consecutive Wednesday evenings.

Both are components of the Journey Through Scripture programme, a Catholic parish-based Bible study programme designed by Dr Hahn’s St Paul Centre in Ohio to help ordinary Catholics both grow in their knowledge of the scriptures and deepen their understanding of the riches of their faith.

The two other components are The Bible and the Sacraments, and

The Bible and the Virgin Mary

The courses incorporate live presentation along with multimedia, written materials and opportunities to discuss individual study experience within small groups.

The Journey Through Scripture series is designed to be given by faithful Catholics living an active sacramental life who want to grow in their knowledge of the Bible and are willing to make an effort to study, read, and pray - to enter into the Word of God and share it with fellow Catholics.

Each study involves a 40-50 minute live presentation, followed by small discussion groups and fellowship. Genesis to Jesus is a seven-week course; other courses are six weeks in duration. Up until late 2009, access to these courses within parishes had been limited by the requirement for presenters to receive training from a member of the St Paul Centre team in the US.

Having completed these requirements, the first presenter training was delivered in Perth by Act 2 Bible College.

A number of opportunities now

exist for parishes to have these studies introduced within their parishes. Anyone interested can attend one of the upcoming Journey Through Scripture courses (see below). They can also attend the Genesis to Jesus course option in Osborne Park and receive training as a presenter.

Parishes can also contact Acts 2 Bible College and request a trainer visit the parish to conduct one of the courses, with presenter training incorporated.

Dr Hahn commenced his working life as a Presbyterian minister and theologian and was regarded in the US as one of the most prominent anti-Catholic evangelical Protestants in the country.

Convinced as a young theologian that the Catholic Church was in error, he boasted of having converted some Catholics to a more pure form of Christianity.

However, he and his wife Kimberley became convinced that

contraception was contrary to God’s will on scriptural grounds; both were bothered by the fact that the Catholic Church was the only church upholding the ancient belief of Christianity in this matter.

After rigorous scrutiny, both eventually decided to enter the Catholic Church, Dr Hahn being received into the Church in 1986.

Courses:

Genesis to Jesus

Thursday, 3 Nov for seven Thursdays, 8-9.30pm

Acts 2 Bible College

67 Howe St, Osborne Park

Contact : Jane Borg, 0401 692 690, principal@acts2come.wa.edu.au

The Bible and the Mass

Wednesday, 26 October for six Wednesdays, 7.30pm

Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish, 27 Thomas Way, Karrinyup

Contact: Anna Hugi 0403 091 109, or Michael Archer 0412 959 563

Joyful spirit pervades Clontarf celebrations

Continued from Page 1 will enhance the sense of community at the College. Celebrations and activities on display for the royal visitors and dignitaries greeted the opening.

Clontarf students produced traditional dishes at the Home Economics Centre, displayed skills in basketball and Australian Rules football, and performed a traditional ‘Welcome to Country’ combining Aboriginal dance and music.

“She was really interested in the young people,” Mgr Keating told The Record. “The head boy and girl gave her a lovely bouquet of native flowers.” He said while she shares most of the flowers she receives with hospitals and others, there was something very special about the ones she was presented with by the Clontarf students.

“I noticed she hands her bouquets to her lady-in-waiting, but when she got to the car she must have said ‘oh, I want that one.’ The lady-in-waiting went flying down

to get it back. It was a particularly nice bouquet. The event was a great boost for reconciliation,” Mgr Keating said.

The official opening of Ngulla Mia was also an acknowledgement of sponsor contributions.

Major sponsors, BHP Billiton and Indigenous Land Corporation, each contributed AU$3 million. Other supporters were the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Government of Western Australia and Catholic Education Commission of Western Australia.

“There was a joyful spirit among the top echelons of the government, industry and Catholic Church,” Mgr Keating said.

“The Christian brothers owned the land at Clontarf but were handing it over to the Aboriginal people which the Queen thought was a lovely affair. She was very gracious and lovely, it was a great privilege, a great thrill and all was well with the world,” he said.

Mirrabooka parish to host tournaments

Whitford, Ellenbrook and Kelmscott are among ten parishes competing in a netball tournament at Mercy College this Sunday, 6 November.

St Gerard’s Mirrabooka parishioner, Vanessa Franse, 22, a third year education student at ECU, is coordinating a netball tournament in collaboration with St Gerard’s assistant parish priest, Fr Bonaventure Echeta who is running a soccer tournament in which 13 parishes are competing. Through camaraderie on the sporting field, the tournaments are expected to bring together Catholics and non-Catholics alike. This event is a follow on from last year’s tournament, which drew up to six parishes.

Depending on team numbers, the event will run over two Sundays, 6 and 13 November at Mercy College. This event is open to the wider community, registrations still being open. Teams can be mixed with up to nine players. Teams and individuals welcome. Registration: $5 per player which includes a light feed. Contact Vanessa for more information on 0413 096 715.

Queen Elizabeth II and Monsignor Keating share a reflective moment at Clontarf Aboriginal College.

Convert Dr Scott Hahn is bringing Bible study programmes to the faithful. PHOTO: P HARING/CNS

Thousands support Catholic tradition

Continued from Page 1 said in his message. The Fishing Fleet Festival was brought to WA shores from Molfetta on the Adriatic sea coast of Italy and has been part of Fremantle’s culture for 63 years.

The custom dates back to the 12th century when wounded crusaders were brought back to Molfetta from the Holy Land carrying paintings of the Madonna and Child and told about the protection they received on the battlefield while carrying the pictures.

The custom of bearing the statues of Our Lady as part of the Festival was established in the 50s, when the people of Capo d’Orlando donated the statue of Maria SS di Capo d’Orlando (Our Lady of the Cape of Orlando) to their fellow Sicilians in Fremantle.

This statue joined the procession in 1954.

The Maria SS dei Martiri (Our Lady of Martyrs) statue was crafted by Con Samson of Subiaco and processed through Fremantle as part of the Festival in 1950.

According to Boating Western Australia, these two statues are representative of the two towns from which the majority of fisherman migrated.

They are housed in the Marian Chapel in the Basilica in Fremantle. A Triduum of Masses were celebrated as part of the Festival preparation from 26-28 October in St Patrick’s Basilica at 7.30pm.

Minister for Fisheries, the Hon Norman Moore MLA; three Fransiscan Friars from Molfetta, Italy, Fr Giuseppe, Fr Andrea and Br Geraldo; and Oblates of Mary Immaculate who are the custodians of St Patrick’s Basilica were among those members of the community who attended the Festival on 30 October.

More than 60 Fremantle businesses supported the Festival.

Catholic schools trump others in Tournament

By Natasha QuiNN

CATHOLIC schools in WA came up trumps at the Australasian Pacific Tournament of Minds in Hobart.

Of a potential eight awards, involving 800 primary and secondary students from all over Australia as well as from New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore they won five.

Iona Presentation Primary School won the primary division in Mathematics and Engineering, Our Lady of Grace Catholic Primary School won the primary division in Language and Literature, and John XXIII College won the secondary division in Applied Technology.

Di Rundus, WA Tournament of Minds committee member and former president, said, “our WA teams made us very proud not only with their outstanding results but also in the way they were ambassadors for their schools and the state.”

Tournament of Minds is a problem-solving programme and competition.

Students are required to solve demanding, open-ended challenges from one of the disciplines of Applied Technology, Language and Literature, Maths and Engineering or Social Sciences.

It is an opportunity for students with a passion for learning and

problem solving to demonstrate skills and talents in an exciting, vibrant and public way.

Tournament of Minds “values creativity, teamwork and divergent thinking. Students work in crossage teams to solve challenging problems and present their solutions to a team of judges and their enthusiastic audience,” said Mrs Monica Mulcahy, team facilitator for Our Lady of Grace.

“These skills are invaluable in setting students up to be lifelong learners,” remarked Rebecca Neesham of Iona.

Tournament of Minds, one of the fastest growing national interschool programmes to challenge Australian youth, has now caught on internationally which demonstrates that Tournament of Minds is not only a worthwhile investment in education but also an integral part of our collective future.

Sponsors from WA include BHP Billiton, Engineers Australia, Curtin University, The University of Western Australia, Edith Cowan University and Freemasons WA. For more information, contact Natasha Quinn, Communications Consultant, Catholic Education Office on 0438 933 044 or 6380 5380 or email her at quinn.natasha@cathednet.wa.edu.

Respects paid to previous President

THERE was a solemn note from incoming President of the Fishing Fleet Festival Association, John Minutillo, when he paid his respects to former president John Minervini who passed away suddenly while in Molfetta last year.

The former president was a club stalwart, having served on the committee for 45 years, including 35 as president.

Mr Minutillo credited Mr Minervini with keeping the religious tradition going and ensuring the Festival stayed reverent and meaningful to all.

Italian-born John Minervini from Molfetta arrived in Perth in 1937 at age five. He went to Christian Brothers College Fremantle and at age 14 began work at a corner grocery store.

By working his way up, Mr Minervini became an integral part of the Rock Lobster Industry in WA and sat on several committees associated with seafood. He was first a member and then President of the Fishing Fleet Festival Association from 19652010.

He contributed much to the local Italian community in Fremantle and in 1976 was awarded a Knighthood of the Order of Italian Star of Solidarity by the Italian Government for his services to the Italian Community of WA.

He was also the first Italianborn member to be elected to the Fremantle City Council, which he served for more than 20 years.

CLOCKWISE: Archbishop Hickey with local boys dressed as Carabinieri at the Festival; the statue of Our Lady of the Martyrs; the badge of former festival President John Minervini pinned to the cape. PHOTO: FR ROBERT CROSS

Children learn cultural customs by participation.

PHOTO: FR ROBERT CROSS

Former President John Minervini had held office for 35 years prior to his death. PHOTO: FR ROBERT CROSS

MILESTONES

Over six decades Foales create ... a tribe

By Mark reidy

THE BLESSINGS of 60 years of marriage were on show when Peter and Vera Foale gathered with their family to celebrate their diamond anniversary at St Patrick’s Church in York on 16 October.

Surrounded by most of their 10 children (nine of whom survived), 36 grandchildren and seven great

grandchildren, Peter and Vera received a blessing from local priest Fr Stephen Cooney before the celebrations moved to the parish hall.

“It was a wonderful family occasion,” Jane McCabe, one of the couple’s daughters, told The Record

She said that her parents were entertained for the entire day by Irish and Scottish dancing and

musical performances by various family members, before being honoured by many speeches that highlighted their dedication to their family and the Church.

The Foales were married in St Paul’s Church, Mt Gambier, in South Australia on 16 October 1951 and have lived in several parishes in WA since 1975, including Cloverdale, Queen’s Park, East Cannington and, more

recently, Kellerberrin, which is 200km east of Perth. Ms McCabe said her father had recently graduated, at the age of 81, from Notre Dame University with a Diploma in Theology, that he is a Knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem and that the family have been dedicated readers of The Record for as long as she could remember.

Sister followed in St MacKillop’s steps

Obituary

Sr Julie O’Sullivan

Born: Bunbury

Entered eternal life: 30 September 2011

By Glynnis GranGer

THE REQUIEM Mass for Josephite Sr Julie O’Sullivan rsj saw the congregation overflowing into the gardens at St Joseph’s Convent Chapel in South Perth on Wednesday, 5 October.

Sr Julie passed away on 30 September of an aneurism in her 90th year and 65th year of religious profession.

In her death notice, her Josephite sisters said “she was a devoted and committed religious and a woman of deep faith with a great heart for people and for life.”

“She was blessed with a lovely sense of joy and of humour, interested in ... all,” her sisters said.

Sr Julie was born in Bunbury, the fifth child of a family of seven. When she was three, the family moved to Manjimup where she had a “particularly happy, carefree childhood.”

Her father was a forestry officer until he retired.

According to Julie, God was always a part of the family.

When the Second World War broke out, four of Julie’s brothers joined the forces and in 1942 she joined the Army as a signals woman intercepting Japanese code.

Within 12 months of her Army discharge, she entered the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart. She made her first profession in 1951 and began her ministry as a

teacher, teaching a variety of grades from Year one to Year 10. Her administrative ability was noticed and she was appointed Principal of St Columba’s School, South Perth, St Mary’s School, Merredin and St Joseph’s School, Pinjarra.

After 30 years of teaching, Julie felt called to another area of ministry and in 1983 at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, com-

pleted a course in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE). Thus equipped, she commenced duties as Assistant Chaplain to Fr John Ryan at Royal Perth Hospital and later as assistant to Fr Trevor Simons, a position she held for 10 years. A sister of diverse talents, Julie was appointed to Mary MacKillop Place, North Sydney, as Pilgrimage Hospitality Person.

On her return to WA, semi-

Tess’ life spent helping and comforting

Obituary

Mary Teresa Haylock

Born: 16 March 1933

Entered eternal life: 19 September 2011

By Juanita shepherd

FROM a dairy hand to 30 years of administering to the needs of seafarers as well as becoming one of the first female eucharistic ministers in Australia in 1982, Mary Teresa Haylock, fondly known as Tess, passed away on 19 September.

Together with husband Fred, Tess visited Bunbury Wharf as representatives of Stella Maris, the Catholic equivalent of Missions to Seaman.

Bunbury was home to many Indian and Filipino sailors. Tess would always try and provide them with interesting reading material and make them feel welcome.

For nearly 30 years there

retired, she went as pastoral worker to Manjimup and Pemberton. The beginning of the new millennium saw her back in South Perth where her time was spent visiting old acquaintances, volunteering at South Perth Senior Citizens, and participating in numerous activities. The “Joy of the Lord is My Strength” seemed to be her theme song as she celebrated the Golden and Diamond Jubilees of her religious profession and as she went around everywhere in her gopher in her latter years.

Her main route at all hours was to the chapel where she felt so much at home in the presence of her Lord, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, St Joseph and St Mary MacKillop.

May she rest in peace.

were fresh flowers delivered to Centrecare in Bunbury with never a demand for payment as Tess’ garden had provided the flowers.

Born on 16 March 1933, the daughter of Mary and Joe Hynes, Tess devoted her time to helping others after being brought down by diphtheria at an early age. As she lay recuperating in hospital, Sister Hope, a nun from the Anglican Order of St Elizabeth of Hungary, visited Tess regularly.

Appreciative of this kind act, Tess embarked on a mission to help as many people as possible and comfort those in need.

Growing up in Waterloo, a small settlement on the outskirts of Bunbury and the gateway to the Ferguson Valley, Tess developed a natural affinity for dairy farming, and later was in constant demand in the district as a relief milker when dairymen needed a break.

With Fred, she spent much of her time in hospitals and nursing homes of the Bunbury district as an unpaid assistant.

In 2009, Tess took part in a pilgrimage to Greece and Turkey “in the footsteps of St Paul” with visits to Istanbul, Troy and Ephesus.

Upon her return, her condition was diagnosed as terminal, which she accepted with good grace. Her last days were spent surrounded by family, friends and neighbours. Her funeral on 26 September at Church of Christ the Living Vine, showed the measure of regard not only for Tess, but her work.

The church was filled to capacity for her concelebrated requiem with Fr Ian Johnson, Tess’ parish priest as principal celebrant, her cousin Fr Pat Rooney of Manjimup, Fr Jess Navaro of Bunbury’s St Patrick Cathedral, and Katanning parish priest, Father T Rogation.

Peter and Vera Foale, at centre, with the Foale clan outside St Patrick’s Church in York. The couple celebrated 60 years of marriage.

PHOTO: COURTESY JANET MCCABE

Julie O’Sullivan as a signals woman during the Second World War, left, and later in her life as a Josephite, above. PHOTOS: COURTESY JOSEPHITE SISTERS

Teresa Haylock with husband Fred.

Call for global fiscal authority

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY – Catholic social teaching and the Occupy Wall Street movement agree that the economy should be at the service of the human person and that strong action must be taken to reduce the growing gap between rich and poor, Vatican officials have said.

“The basic sentiment” behind the protests was in line with Catholic social teaching and the document on global finance issued on 24 October by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said the council’s president, Cardinal Peter Turkson.

The protesters had focused on

Americans divided over call to rein in greed

By Carol zimmermann

WASHINGTON – American Catholics have mixed feelings about the Vatican’s ideas on how to fix today’s troubled global economy.

The proposals in the document, “Toward Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority,” include overhauling the world’s financial systems, establishing a global authority to manage the economy and creating a “world reserve fund” to support poor countries.

Catholic reaction in the United States to the document was immediate, with critics and supporters of the ideas issuing statements soon after the document was released.

The document doesn’t entirely break new ground, because much of it reiterates the development of Catholic thought on economic disparity and need to work for the common good. It highlights encyclicals from Pope John XXIII’s 1963 Pacem in Terris (“Peace on Earth”) to Pope Benedict’s 2009 Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”).

Those disliking the document pointed out it was not officially signed by the Pope and thus did not have the weight of an encyclical.

Others saw it as a direct link to the current frustration about the economy and speculated it could be a manifesto of sorts for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Voices in between acknowledged the document was consistent with Catholic social teaching and noted that, even though it addresses some similar themes to the Occupy movement it was hardly jumping on the protestors’ bandwagon. CNS

Wall Street because it was considered “a big engine house, a big financial structure whose power extends all over the world,” he said.

People who suffered from the way the financial markets operated had a right to say, “Look at the way you’re doing business because this is not leading to our welfare and our good,” the cardinal said.

“If people can hold their government to account, why can we not hold other institutions in society to accountability if they are not achieving or not helping us live peacefully or well,” he said.

“The Vatican is not behind any of these movements, but the basic

inspirations can be the same.”

The secretary of the pontifical council, Bishop Mario Toso, told reporters the Vatican’s new document “appears to be in line with the slogans” of Occupy Wall Street and other protest movements around the globe, but “even more it is in line with the previous teaching of the Church,” including Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”).

At the Vatican news conference to present the document, Leonardo Becchetti, a professor of economic policy at Rome’s Tor Vergata University, explained why the Vatican saw the need for an

international authority to govern the global financial market and why individual government interventions to bail out banks had not helped the global economy.

“The problem of international finance is a problem of self-control,” he said. There were very few hard and fast rules in place to save both investors and innocent bystanders, mainly the poor of the world.

It was like “someone in a car going 400 miles an hour”. Even with a seatbelt, serious accidents were bound to happen if there was no speed limit imposed.

In a globalised economy, he said, no one could pretend that one

nation’s financial actions would impact only that nation, which was why a global authority was needed to establish balance and promote the economic growth and development of the whole world.

The continued wellbeing of the more developed nations also depends on helping the poor, Dr Becchetti said.

The presence of an enormous mass of the poor and disinherited on a global level, “ready to work for salaries that are much lower than those of our workers with the same qualifications”, meany jobs were also threatened in richer countries, the professor said. CNS

Persecution of Christians in Egypt ‘worst in centuries’

CHRISTIANS in Egypt are currently experiencing their worst time in recent centuries, the Coptic Orthodox Bishop Stephanos of Beba and Elfashn has told the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

Christians were being violently killed under the eyes of the international media, he said.

Also, for the first time in many years, churches were being systematically burned and destroyed. The

police were taking no action and nobody was punished for it.

In the Egyptian media, the bishop said, “the facts are systematically covered up in order to keep the international media from reporting the truth and bringing pressure from outside”.

However, videos of the massacre of demonstrators on 9 October were broadcast by three television stations operated by the Coptic Church. These had found their

way to the international media, so this time the attacks on Copts had “been better documented”. Calls were often made in the Egyptian media not to buy from Christian merchants or to sell anything to Christians, he said, while Christians were indirectly excluded from employment, for example by job advertisements specifying “a female employee with headscarf”.

Attempts were being made “to drive the Christians out”.

The bishop warned against placing too much hope in the elections planned for the end of November. The future was “absolutely unclear”, he said. Nevertheless, Copts could “play a major role” because they are “numerically strong”.

Egypt has a total population of some 76 million, of whom 12 million are Christians. The majority of these belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church. Nearly 200,000 are Catholics.

God’s love a guiding star out of valley of despair

By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY – Remembering God’s love is forever helps lead the faithful out of darkness and despair and toward a future of hope, Pope Benedict XVI has said.

It was important to remember all of God’s gifts to humanity, from creating the earth to giving humanity his only son, because it was that very recollection that “becomes the strength of hope,” he said during his weekly audience on 19 October.

Remembering God’s goodness and mercy “also opens up the path of light toward the future during times of darkness”, the Pope said.

In his talk to about 15,000 people gathered in St Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict spoke about praising God for His everlasting love, an attitude reflected in Psalm 136.

The psalm praises “God’s mighty deeds in the creation of the world and in the history of Israel”, saving his people from their enemies and leading them to the Promised Land,

the Pope said. After each recollection of something God has given or done for his people, the psalm repeats the refrain “God’s love endures forever”.

Human history had been marked by periods of darkness and light, and the lives of individuals, too, had been coloured by difficulties and great happiness, the Pope said.

While it might be hard to imagine the difficulties endured by the early Israelites as recounted in the Psalms, there were plenty of recent

episodes in history like the “dark period of Nazi and Communist persecution,” the Pope said. Yet no matter how dark the world got, “God came to us, He showed He is good, has strength and that His mercy lasts forever”.

One could “survive in these valleys of darkness and death” because one remembered that the Lord’s goodness, power and mercy never died and that enduring love was like a guiding star leading out of the darkness toward hope, he said.

Everybody had a personal experience of salvation and that experience of God’s mercy had always be remembered in order to hold strong to one’s trust in God and to know that “if today I am in the darkness of night, tomorrow I will be free because his mercy is forever”.

At the end of the audience, Bishop Arthur Roche of Leeds, in England, presented Pope Benedict with a copy of the British version of the new English translation of the Roman Missal. CNS

Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna takes part in a protest in the Austrian capital condemning violence against Christians in Egypt.

PHOTO: CNS/HEINZ-PETER BADER

US mass rates down: survey

By Mark Pattison

WASHINGTON – Mass attendance continues to decline among American Catholics though loyalty to Catholic identification remains strong, according to the results of a survey commissioned by the National Catholic Reporter

Mass attendance by “pre-Vatican II” Catholics, born before 1941, slipped to 54 per cent, down 10 percentage points from a high recorded in the 1999 survey.

The rate for “Vatican II” Catholics, born between 1941 and 1960, was 31 per cent; for “postVatican II” Catholics, born between

Arsonists destroy Catholic radio station

SAN JOSE – A fire that destroyed a Catholic radio station and the records section of the chancery’s finance office in the Philippines’ Mindoro Occidental province was arson, according the local bishop.

“It was deliberate,” said Bishop Antonio Palang of San Jose. He told the UCA News agency the 26 October attack was timed for when several members of the clergy were out of the province attending various events.

No injuries were reported but it was estimated the damage could top 10 million pesos ($227,000). The destroyed radio transmitter was built with money from the archdiocese of San Francisco and other foreign sources, according to UCA News.

Someone had tried to set the station on fire five days earlier, but employees were able to contain the blaze, which damaged the building housing the station’s generator and part of the finance office, Bishop Palang said.

Police have yet to identify any suspects or motive for the attack.

Station manager Lito Vallador said the station’s FM and AM services broadcast a variety of programs centered on implementing Church teachings, including commentaries speaking out about social concerns.

The station claims at least a million listeners on Mindoro Island and eight neighbouring provinces.

Bishop Palang said it could take many months before broadcasting could resume. CNS

1961 and 1978, it was 29 per cent; for “millennial” Catholics, born since 1979, the rate was 23 per cent.

Older Catholics cited “I’m just not a religious person” as the reason they didn’t go to Mass more often. Younger Catholics cited family responsibilities as the main reason.

Majorities in all age groups agreed with the statements “I cannot imagine being anything but a Catholic” and “being a Catholic is a very important part of who I am”.

But no majority in any age group agreed with the statement “Church is among the most important influences on my life”.

Sixty per cent of respondents

said one could be a good Catholic without adhering to Church teaching on birth control. On the matter of helping the parish, the figure was 56 per cent; on having a valid marriage, 48 per cent; on weekly Mass attendance; 48 per cent; on divorce and remarriage, 46 per cent; on helping the poor, 39 per cent; and on abortion, 31 per cent.

A majority in each age group said they believed “at the consecration the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ”.

Majorities also agreed that the following things were very important to them as Catholics: the sacraments, belief in Jesus’s resurrection,

helping the poor and the Church’s teaching on Mary – although in smaller percentages than in 2005. But no majority in any age group considered “teaching authority as claimed by the Vatican” to be “very important”. Teaching authority ranked behind prayer, opposition to abortion, devotions, and opposition to same-sex marriage – none of which garnered majority support in the survey – but ahead of opposition to the death penalty and of a celibate male clergy.

The survey was conducted online and involved 1,442 Catholics, with the results having a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points. CNS

Good things come in three

Mining no boon for indigenous Papuans

JAYAPURA – Contracts between the Indonesian government and multinational mining companies gave no benefit to indigenous peoples from the exploitation of mineral resources, according to the Communion of Churches in Papua. Instead they had created many problems related to safety, environmental sustainability and theviolation to ancestral rights, the churches said in a statement calling for revision of a contract signed

with the American mining company Freeport McMoran.

“The indigenous people of Papua are holders of customary rights in the territories that are completely ignored,” the statement says.

The presence of foreign companies had also increased the problems of security in the region.

In the past, Freeport has been accused of involvement in the killing of locals protesting against the company’s presence, Fides says.

The Indonesian government has strong economic ties with Freeport: The company recently paid a tranche of $US678 million to mine in Indonesia. Since 1992 the company has paid the government more than $US12.1 billion.

After a joint conference between the civil and religious leaders, the Churches of Papua submitted 22 recommendations to the government, including a revised contract with Freeport. CNA

Stolen bell avoids date with scrapyard

By GeorGe raine

SAN FRANCISCO – A historic bell stolen on 23 October from the grounds of the city’s St Mary’s Cathedral was recovered three days later near a scrap metal yard near the Port of Oakland docks.

The theft of the bell received widespread news coverage. Given to the church in 1889, the bell was in service at the former St Mary’s Cathedral until it burned to the ground in 1962, when it was moved to the current cathedral site.

An informant notified San Francisco Police inspectors that the bell, which weighs 5,330 pounds (about 2,400 kilograms) was resting on beams in a field, police said. A police spokesman said the bell was in an open public area and covered with a tarpaulin when inspectors found it. They then made

plans to have it shipped back to San Francisco. There had been no arrests and the police investigation was continuing.

The archdiocese said in statement that police had said the bell could have been very close to being broken down for its metal value.

“This is wonderful news, a minimiracle of sorts, for the parishioners of the cathedral and all Catholics in the archdiocese of San Francisco,” said a spokesman. “The wide press coverage of the theft helped make it harder to get away with this.

“Now we need to find a way to bring the bell back to its place at the cathedral,” he said.

The archdiocese is offering a reward in the case.

The bell – which the size of the famous Liberty Bell, about 158cm in diameter – was forged by McShane Bell Foundry in Baltimore. It was

given to the church by a San Rafael man, Duriham Carrigan, who was born in New York in 1839 and died in San Rafael in 1889.

After the 1962 fire at the former cathedral, the bell was moved to the grounds of the new cathedral and placed in an outside garden.

The estimated replacement value of the bell is $US75,000 ($72,400).

The current scrap value of copper is approximately $US2 to $US2.50 a pound. The genuine bell-metal component of the stolen item is 80 percent copper and 20 per cent tin, making the bell worth about $US8,500 to $10,660 as scrap.

Copper theft had become a plague in the Bay Area, according to San Francisco Police Inspector Brian Danker.

“The worst nightmare going for a contractor in San Francisco or the Bay Area is to make the mistake of

BRITAIN

Vatican orders review of Benedictine abbey

At the request of the Vatican, a review of child protection procedures has been conducted at a Benedictine abbey following a number of high-profile child abuse cases. Auxiliary Bishop John Arnold of Westminster and Abbot Richard Yeo, president of the English Benedictine Congregation, conducted the apostolic visitation at Ealing Abbey and the neighbouring St Benedict’s School during September and have reported to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which ordered the visitation. The purpose was to ensure the English and Welsh church’s child protection procedures, put in place in 2002 and revised in 2007, had been followed to the letter, said statement from the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.

PHILIPPINES

Global campaign to pray for nation

A “God Bless the Philippines Global Prayer Movement” has been launched by the founder of Jesus Is Lord (JIL) Church Worldwide, Br Eddie Villanueva. The campaign is calling on Filipinos worldwide to say a small prayer of blessing on the nation every day at 12pm, according to their respective time zones. The prayer movement, accessible online at www.GodBlessThePhilippines. com, also provides a space for Filipinos to post their prayers for the Philippines through its Post-A-Prayer feature. “Prayer is actually joining forces with the unlimited awesome power of God,” Br Villanueva said. He said he believed God would bless the nation if only people would learn to “humble themselves and pray and seek God’s face and turn from their wicked ways”.

NETHERLANDS

Praise for Dutch over drugs and prostitution

Pope Benedict has XVI praised efforts by the Dutch government to reduce drug abuse and prostitution. “While your nation has long championed the freedom of individuals to make their own choices, nevertheless, those choices by which people inflict harm on themselves or others must be discouraged for the good of individuals and society as a whole,” the Pope told the new Dutch ambassador to the Holy See. “While recognising with humility that her own members do not always live up to the high moral standards that she proposes, the Church cannot do other than continue to urge all people – her own members included – to seek to do whatever is in accordance with justice and right reason and to oppose whatever is contrary,” the Pope said.

CANADA

going on a three-day weekend. You come back to your job site and see copper has been ripped out of your building,” he said. CNS

Confidence expressed in development agency

The new leader of Canada’s bishops has expressed confidence in the renewal of the bishops’ international development agency, Development and Peace, which has been under fire from pro-life websites and blogs since 2009, when reports accused it of funding projects through partners that were pro-abortion. Blogs in support of the agency have pushed back against elements of the Canadian bishops’ call for renewal within the organisation. Archbishop Richard Smith of Edmonton, Alberta, said some of the information he had seen indicated that there “seems to be a real inflated hysteria that has developed around this issue.”

Pilgrims from Cameroon attend the canonisation Mass of three new saints at the Vatican on 23 October. The new saints are: St Guido Maria Conforti, the Italian founder of the Xaverian Foreign Missionary Society; St Louis Guanella, the Italian founder of the Servants of Charity, Daughters of St Mary of Providence and Confraternity of St Joseph; and St Bonifacia Rodriguez Castro, a Spanish cord maker who gathered working women for spiritual encounters. PHOTO: CNS/PAUL HARING

The historic bell stolen from the grounds of St Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco, in happier times PHOTO: CNS

From Assisi, a common cry for peace

By Cindy Wooden

ASSISI – Taking 300 religious leaders with him on pilgrimage to Assisi, Pope Benedict XVI said people suspicious of religion could not be blamed for questioning God’s existence when they saw believers use religion to justify violence.

“All their struggling and questioning is, in part, an appeal to believers to purify their faith so that God, the true God, becomes accessible,” the Pope said during an interfaith gathering in the Basilica of St Mary of the Angels.

Leaders look past war to highlight wider crisis

By John Thavis

ASSISI – A common thread ran through many of the speeches and invocations of this year’s “prayer for peace” encounter in Assisi: the uneasy sense that the world is facing not merely conflicts and wars, but a much broader crisis that affects social and cultural life in every country.

Environmental damage, the richpoor divide, erosion of cultural traditions, terrorism and new threats to society’s weakest members were cited as increasingly worrisome developments by speakers at the interfaith gathering in the Italian pilgrimage town on 27 October.

Pope Benedict XVI, addressing the 300 participants, echoed those points in his own analysis of the state of global peace 25 years after Blessed John Paul II convened the first Assisi meeting.

In 1986, he noted, the world was caught up not only in simmering armed conflicts but also in a cold war between two opposing blocs.

Now there was “no threat of a great war hanging over us” but “nevertheless the world is, unfortunately, full of discord”, he said.

This discord had taken on “new and frightening guises”. He singled out two forms: terrorism, including acts of violence that were religiously motivated; and the spiritual erosion in highly secularised societies.

“The worship of Mammon, possessions and power is proving to be a counter-religion, in which it is no longer man who counts but only personal advantage,” he said.

He cited the illegal drug trade and drug dependency as examples of how the desire for happiness could degenerate into “an unbridled, inhuman craving.”

The success of the Assisi prayer summit 25 years ago was measured in part by how many warring parties respected Pope John Paul’s call for a one-day truce.

In the 2011 edition, there was no truce call and no mention of specific conflicts by participants, with the exception of a brief reference to Jerusalem as a contested city.

That’s not because wars have disappeared from the horizon, but because world harmony is seen as threatened in alarming new ways:

At Assisi 2011, it seemed clearer than ever that building world peace will require much more than eliminating armed conflict.

That sense was reflected among the thousands of pilgrims who turned out to pray and accompany the interfaith participants.

As Pope Benedict passed by, one man appeared to capture this “spirit of Assisi” with a hand-lettered sign that read “New World Order”.

Marking the 25th anniversary of the first Assisi interfaith gathering for peace, hosted by Blessed John Paul II in 1986, Pope Benedict brought together religious leaders and, for the first time, four philosophers describing themselves as humanists or seekers who did not identify with any single religion.

The Pope condemned the use of religion to excuse violence and the use of violence to impose a religion, as well as the violence resulting from “the loss of humanity” that came from denying the existence of God and of objective moral standards.

“As a Christian, I want to say at this point, yes, it is true, in the course of history, force has also been used in the name of the Christian faith. We acknowledge it with great shame,” he said.

Christian leaders, like all religious leaders, he said, must work constantly to help their followers purify their faith and be “an instrument of God’s peace in the world, despite the fallibility of humans”.

But a lack of religion was not the answer to world peace, he said.

The Nazi death camps clearly proved “the denial of God corrupts

man, robs him of his criteria (for judging right and wrong) and leads him to violence,” the Pope said.

On the other hand, he said, many non-believer were also “pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace”.

“These people are seeking the truth, they are seeking the true God, whose image is frequently concealed in the religions because of the ways in which they are often practised. Their inability to find God is partly the responsibility of believers with a limited or even falsified image of God,” he said.

“They challenge the followers

of religions not to consider God as their own property, as if he belonged to them, in such a way that they feel vindicated in using force against others,” the pope said.

The general secretary of the Indonesia-based International Conference of Islamic Scholars, Hasyim Muzadi, could not attend, but sent a speech. In it he said people of different faiths must work together to build on something they all share: “a hope for the creation of human harmony, justice, prosperity and an improved standard of human life”. CNS

Pope gives ground to non-believers

By John Thavis

ASSISI – It isn’t every day that the Vatican shares the papal stage with a non-believer.

Then again, Julia Kristeva was no flame-throwing atheist. Some sentences of her speech could have been lifted from a papal discourse.

For “humanism to develop and re-establish itself, the moment has come to take up again the moral codes constructed through the course of history”, Ms Kristeva told Pope Benedict XVI and about 300 religious representatives in Assisi.

Ms Kristeva, a Bulgarian-born philosopher and psychoanalyst, was one of four non-believers the Pope

invited to the Assisi interfaith meeting for peace. Their presence was an innovation that sparked questions and even criticism in some conservative quarters.

The program gave Ms Kristeva and the Pope the same podium and a global audience. Both spoke in bridge-building language.

The Pope said he invited the non-believers because he was convinced they were seekers who, by looking for truth, were in effect looking for God.

Ms Kristeva said cooperation was needed between Christian humanism and the humanism of the Enlightenment – a risky path but one worth taking, she said.

Calling Blessed John Paul II “an apostle of human rights,” she quoted his words “Do not be afraid”. That appeal, she said, applied not just to Christians called to witness their faith but for the Church “not to fear European culture”. Her assertion that “humanism is feminism” might have raised some eyebrows among Vatican officials in attendance. But she followed it up with an intriguing argument that the modern secularised culture needed to better appreciate the unique relationship between mother and child. If her speech was challenging in its language and philosophical turns, it left church leaders with food for thought.

Certainly the Pope and Ms Kristeva offered different perspectives. For him, God was the key to every possible solution to problems of peace and injustice. She described the task of renewing culture solely in terms of human efforts.

But they both appeared to agree they needed to talk to each other.

At the closing event, another of the invited non-believers, Mexican philosopher Guillermo Hurtado, said: “We, humanists in dialogue with believers, commit ourselves together with all men and women of good will to building a new world in which respect for the dignity of each and every person ... is the foundation for life in society.” CNS

Indonesian interfaith meetings share in spirit of Assisi

SEMARANG – Interfaith meetings between Christians and Muslims took place in different parts of Indonesia to celebrate and live the “spirit of Assisi”.

Initiated by Archbishop Johannes Pujasumarta of Semarang, the secretary general of the Indonesian episcopal conference, leaders of Christian communities organised with the leaders major Muslim organisations for those of different faiths to come together to reiter-

ate Assisi’s message of peace and coexistence to the nation, the Fides agency reported. Leaders of other religions, notably Buddhism and Hinduism, also participated. In the archdiocese of Medan, Sumatra – a predominantly Muslim area where Islamic movements favour sharia law, Archbishop Situmornag Martinus, the president of the episcopal conference, said the meeting in Assisi had “the force of a symbolic event of dialogue and

peace, which is fully in the spirit of Pancasila”. (Pancasila is the official philosophical foundation of the Indonesian state.)

A major interreligious meeting is planned for January.

In an interview with Agenzia Fides (the information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies), Archbishop Pujasumarta said: “In Indonesia, dialogue is crucial, it is an integral part of everyday life. Our program is to promote a dialogue on

three levels: with religions, cultures and society. This results in three key words: respectively: inculturation, fraternity and development.

“There are many experiences in which this ‘triple dialogue’ is fulfilled: for example, in solidarity with people affected by the eruption of the Merapi volcano, but also in meetings like those ... inspired by the Spirit of Assisi. We are in communion with the Pope and the universal Church.”

Franciscan friars free doves during the interfaith peace meeting in Assisi.

PHOTO: CNS/GIAMPIERO SPOSITO

WHY

A SOCIETY WE NEED OF OWNERS

Down on the street with distributist flyers in hand, Richard Aleman meets union members, press, protestors and the poor, all united in a desire to resurrect family and worker-owned business.

DISSATISFACTION

over our economy is creating popular movements and encouraging radical changes to our social system. Led by the disillusioned young, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protestors are voicing opposition against the heart of American finance, large corporations, and the revolving doors of government. Occupy protests are held in hundreds of cities with the goal of building solidarity amongst citizens against institutionalised injustice which comes at the expense of the poor and middle class. As an elderly Jewish rabbi said to me, “Who did Jesus talk about in the Gospel? The poor. We no longer talk about the poor. We’ve lost our souls.”

One week ago, someone reminded me that if distributism is to leave a mark in the minds of the general public, we could not fail to show up at the OWS protest and offer an alternative model far superior to both capitalism and socialism. Indeed, it can be easy to live in ivory towers and forget how fundamental it is to walk among the common man, listen to him, and recognise that all of us are called to be instru-

ments of the truth. For us to illuminate a tunnel we must walk through it and help carry the crosses of others while balancing our own.

With a thousand distributism flyers in tow, I was not sure what to expect when I approached Cedar Street and Broadway, organisational heart of the movement and the designated spot a few blocks from Wall Street. The site is surrounded by protest signs and worn blankets for those braving cold New York nights. A makeshift kitchen feeds protestors and the destitute and rests alongside the laptop-filled headquarters of the movement. The “People’s Library” sits by a bulkhead stuffed with literature on economic justice and a hodgepodge of political ideas. Facing Broadway, people hold up cardboard signs such as “The People Need a Bail Out.” Pamphlets are out for the curious with material ranging from The Catholic Worker newspaper to The Distributist Herald just a few feet away from pedestrians, protestors and the police, all of whom seem mutually uncomfortable with one another.

Prejudiced by what I saw in the media, I anticipated a group of naïve, fresh-faced suburban kids

standing around in Che Guevara t-shirts, the communist icon ironically made popular by capitalist merchandising. Instead, I discovered serious people asking pertinent questions about the direction of our economy and society. I met with Ron Paul supporters and other libertarians, the poor and destitute,

“As an elderly Jewish rabbi said to me, ‘Who did Jesus talk about in the Gospel? The poor. We no longer talk about the poor. We’ve lost our souls.’”

socialists and capitalists. These protestors are upset with a nation that has forgotten the needy, a government that has left us with an enormous debt and jobless, while “Too Big to Fail” heads of finance make bonuses from taxpayer funds. Based on my conversations with participants, most stood in support of a living wage for employees, job crea-

tion, elimination of corporate “personhood,” affordable health care and re-enactment of Glass-Steagall, all of which are laudable goals. This is not to say the movement is entirely clear about what it wants or how to get it, or that there is any cohesive position among those in OWS about how to fix our problems. “I’m not political. I’m just here because I have a master’s degree, can’t find work and have no place to go,” Justin said. “The system has to change.” I met few who didn’t share political aspirations but the concern amongst critics of the occupiers is that a leaderless movement without key goals will make it susceptible to coercion by status quo political ideologies, as happened with the Tea Party. Nevertheless, these protestors represent the man on the street’s growing dissatisfaction with our political and economic system, and provide an opportunity for distributists to give the direction necessary to solve the mess we are in; goals critics refuse to address face to face and on the street, inevitably losing their relevance and support as a consequence. “THIS is a real alternative to capitalism and socialism,” we said as contributors and readers

of The Distributist Review handed out almost 600 flyers. Whether in conversation with union members, press, or protestors themselves, the surprising interest in resurrecting family and worker-owned, localdriven businesses is encouraging. Indeed, capitalists and socialists talk

Above Left: Demonstrators from the headquarters. Above Right: Debris

a lot about jobs. Few repeat what GK Chesterton said best: “Our society is so abnormal the normal man never dreams of having the normal occupation of looking after his own property. When he chooses a trade, he chooses one of the ten thousand trades that involve looking after other people’s property.”

The problem with the Tea Party and OWS is that one group looks to Big Business and the other to Big Government in an effort to solve our problems. It is certainly true government’s primary task to oversee the common good and, with some exceptions, the OWS crowd is mostly right about what is wrong. They rightly stand against injustice, the overindulgence of corporations at the expense of the American taxpayer and those bordering on and under the poverty line. This appeal to government is natural, because, as Chesterton said: “A Catholic does not complain of there being a County Council or a Post Office, because recognised government has a right to rule; because social order itself has a natural and even a divine authority.

But mere money has not even

Time is here for one world authority

Here is the edited conclusion of the Vatican statement on reforming financial and monetary systems in th context of global public authority, released on 24 October.

UNDER the current uncertainties, in a society capable of mobilising immense means but whose cultural and moral reflection is still inadequate with regard to their use in achieving the appropriate ends, we are invited to not give in and to build above all a meaningful future for the generations to come. We should not be afraid to propose new ideas, even if they might destabilise preexisting balances of power. As Benedict XVI exhorts us, agents on all levels – social, political, economic, professional – are urgently needed who have the courage to serve and to promote the common good through an upright life.

CNS

the smallest human authority.”

The question then becomes, if the collusion between Big Business and Big Government will not, at present, provide occupiers with a top-down approach, what do we expect in the aftermath of OWS? Our flyer was prepared in order to offer a new direction for

”They rightly stand against injustice, the overindulgence of corporations at the expense of the American taxpayer ...”

those attending or passing by the protests. Our message is simple: job creation is a thing of the past. We can create jobs of our own through the bottom-up approach of the distributist programme. Yes, we should discuss economic policy in America and when injustices are perpetuated against the middle class and the poor, it is absolutely right to protest, just as we should when the genocide of abortion is carried out with the

support of private and public sectors. We march, we pray and we counsel. But the debate shouldn’t be over which sector can offer us the sweeter deal.

We should “change the terms of the debate” and ask if the discussion over who gets a job is relevant, and if perhaps creation of an ownership society is the remedy for over 100 years of conflict between capital and labour. Distributism eliminates friction between capitalist and labourer by making them one and the same.

Today, our flyer is being handed out not only on Wall Street, but in cities like Philadelphia and Minneapolis, one more reason why sistributism is viable. It sparks the imagination in the common man and encourages him not only to write, but to act.

After looking over my pamphlet, the same rabbi said to me, “What you are doing is important. This is what we need. Keep doing what you are doing and continue to preach the Beatitudes of Jesus!”

Richard Aleman is the president of The Society for Distributism and resides in New York where he is working on a Distributist anthology of G.K. Chesterton’s newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.

Paul VI emphasized the revolutionary power of “forward-looking imagination.” By freeing his imagination, man frees his existence. Through an effort of community imagination, it is possible to transform not only institutions but also lifestyles and encourage a better future for all peoples. Modern States became structured wholes over time and reinforced sovereignty within their own territory. But social, cultural and political conditions have gradually changed. Their interdependence has grown but a worse form of nationalism has lingered on, according to which the State feels it can achieve the good of its own citizens in a self-sufficient way.

Today all of this seems anachronistic and surreal, and all the nations, great or small, together with their governments, are called to go beyond the “state of nature” which would keep States in a never-ending struggle with one another. Globalisation, despite some of its negative aspects, is unifying peoples more and prompting them to move towards a new “rule of law” on the supranational level, supported by a more intense and fruitful collaboration. With dynamics similar to those that put an end in the past to the “anarchical” struggle between rival clans and kingdoms with regard to the creation of national states, today humanity needs to be committed to the transition from a situation of archaic struggles between national entities, to a new model of a more cohesive, international society that respects every people’s identity within the multifaceted riches of a single humanity. Such a passage, which is already timidly under way, would ensure the citizens of all countries – regardless of their size or power – peace and security, development, and free, stable and transparent markets. As John Paul II warns us, “Just as the time has finally come when in individual States a system of private vendetta and reprisal has given way to the rule of law, so too a similar step forward is now urgently needed in the international community.” Time has come to conceive of institutions with universal competence, now that vital goods shared by the entire human family

are at stake, goods which the individual States cannot promote and protect by themselves.

So conditions exist for definitively going beyond a international order in which the States feel the need for cooperation but do not seize the opportunity to integrate their respective sovereignties for the common good of peoples. It is the task of today’s generation to recognize and consciously to accept these new world dynamics for the achievement of a universal common good. This transformation will be made at the cost of a gradual, balanced transfer of a part of each nation’s powers to a world Authority, but this is necessary at a time when the dynamism of human society and the economy and the progress of technology are transcending borders, which are in fact already very eroded in a globalised world.

The birth of a new society and the building of new institutions

The birth of a new society and new institutions with a universal vocation are a prerogative and a duty for everyone.

with a universal vocation and competence are a prerogative and a duty for everyone. What is at stake is the common good of humanity and the future itself.

An immense amount of work is to be done towards the integral development of peoples and of every person. As the Fathers said at the Second Vatican Council, this is a mission that is both social and spiritual, which “ to the extent that the former can contribute to the better ordering of human society, it is of vital concern to the Kingdom of God.”

In a world on its way to rapid globalisation, the reference to a world authority becomes the only horizon compatible with the new realities of our time. However, it should not be forgotten that this development, given wounded human nature, will not come about without anguish and suffering.The image of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) also warns us that we must avoid a “unity” that is only apparent, where selfishness and divisions endure because the foundations of the society are not stable.

The spirit of Babel is the antithesis of the Spirit of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-12), of God’s design for the whole of humanity: that is, unity in truth. Only a spirit of concord that rises above divisions and conflicts will allow humanity to be authentically one family and to conceive of a new world with the creation of a world public authority at the service of the common good.

Left: A Wall Street sign is seen outside the New York Stock Exchange. Centre: A pamphlet which was handed out to hundreds of pedestrians during the protests in New York City. Above: Mervin Sealy from Hickory, NC takes part in a protest outside the Capitol in Washington.

PHOTOS:

the Occupy Wall Street campaign hold signs as a protest march enters the courtyard near the New York Police Department surrounds a shack near the General Motors headquarters in 2009 in downtown Detroit.

PHOTOS: CNS

THE LOWDOWN ON...

FDoes Hell exist? Perth priest Fr David Watt conducts a scriptural and theological examination and rejoices in a return to orthodoxy, particularly among younger Catholics.

or many modern Catholics, it is mortal sin to believe in mortal sin, let alone to believe in Hell. And yet, could we know, just using general theological considerations (‘we have a loving God’ and so forth), we must reject the infallible teaching of the Council of Trent.

See Chapter 12 of the Decree on Justification and Canon 16 of the same decree, which anathematises those who are sure of their eventual salvation, the only exception being those whose confidence is derived from private revelation (for example, the so-called ‘Great Promise’ of the Sacred Heart via St Margaret Mary, concerning the Nine First Fridays).

Furthermore, arguments for universal salvation, whether as certain, probable, or merely possible, have a habit of proving too much. By parity of reasoning they would support universal salvation for all rebels against God, angelic as well as human. For instance, ‘a loving God would never send anyone to Hell’ — no man nor fallen angel either? ‘The sufferings in Hell would spoil the happiness of the blessed in Heaven’ — includ-

ing the suffering of the demons?

Perhaps that is why those denying the existence of a populated Hell frequently also deny the existence of angels, in flagrant contradiction of both Scripture and Tradition compared with, for example No 393 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church ‘Many are called, but few are chosen’ (Mt 22:14). It is because of texts such as this that the Church has never accepted the hypothesis of an empty Hell. Until modern times, the hypothesis seems to have been upheld by virtually noone. Origen did advance it, which is why, notwithstanding his vast erudition, he is not ‘St Origen’ or a Father of the Church. For proposing, albeit tentatively, that no-one goes to Hell (understood in the Church’s sense as a state which is eternal), he was repeatedly condemned, amongst others by Pope Vigilius and, later, the Second Council of Constantinople (553).

Even in the Old Testament it is clear that not all are saved. Consider, for instance, Dan 12:2: ‘And many of those that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, others to see everlasting reproach’. It is fashionable nowadays to say of ‘apoca-

lyptic language’ that it cannot be taken literally. Well, obviously there is some non-literalness here, ‘sleep’ standing for death; however, if this text does not mean that some are damned, does it also fail to mean that some are saved? For it is exactly symmetrical regarding these two groups. The text is indeed apocalyptic in the true sense of that word, ie revelatory. It reveals something about the future. That is the way the Church

“For many modern Catholics, it is mortal sin to believe in mortal sin, let alone to believe in Hell.”

has always taken it. Many New Testament texts, eg Mt 25:31-46, are likewise symmetrical between the blessed and the damned.

Here is one more Biblical reference to Hell – St Jude’s mention of Sodom and Gomorrah’s ‘punishment of eternal fire’ (Jude 7). Scripture, particularly the New Testament and the Gospels, has innumerable references to ever-

lasting punishment. I will not quote more, for the sake of brevity and also because, as the Second Council of Orange put it in another context, ‘more texts will not profit those for whom a few do not suffice’.

One theologian for whom they do not suffice is Hans Urs von Balthasar. How then does he deal with such texts? He simply admits there are parts of Scripture which exclude universal salvation, but claims other texts say the opposite. In his book Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved? he repeatedly asserts that Scripture contradicts itself on this point. But having asserted that God’s Word is incoherent, von Balthasar, logically enough, gives himself permission to be incoherent in turn. For instance, he claims that Scriptural talk of Hell is just a warning. How can it be just a warning if, according to von Balthasar himself, the Good Book affirms over and over again that men do in fact go to Hell?

What then is the right way to deal with the texts von Balthasar sees as denying Hell? By the ageold technique of harmonisation, unmodish though it may be. Von Balthasar admits, and his critics

vigorously assert, that Scripture repeatedly rejects universal salvation. This then is a datum, and other texts are to be read in the light of it. Take for example the “universalist” text 1 Cor 15:22: ‘For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive’. If this affirms salvation for all, why does St Paul say in the very same letter (3:17): ‘If anyone destroys God’s Temple, God will destroy him’? Why does he warn in this letter (6:9-10, 8:11, 9:27) and elsewhere about the danger of eternal damnation? And if St Paul is universalist, what sense can it make to speak as he does (eg Rom 2:5) of the ‘day of wrath’?

Von Balthasar gives statements such as ‘all shall be made alive’ a mathematical interpretation, as if ‘all’ means every single one. But in ordinary speech ‘all’ need not bear this sense. Suppose I say ‘it has been raining all day’. I am not thereby necessarily saying rain has fallen every single second. And indeed there is clear evidence that in 1 Cor 15:22, ‘all’ does not mean ‘every single human being’. We need only read a single verse further: ‘But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits; then at His coming those who belong to Him’.

here ’s no Heaven, it’s easy if you try. No Hell below us ... ”

So it is those who belong to Christ who shall be ‘made alive’.

What then do we make of God’s universal salvific will, as expressed in such texts as 1 Tim 2:4: ‘God our Saviour ... desires all men to be saved ...’? The traditional answer distinguishes God’s will antecedent to man’s choice, which is a salvific will, from God’s will consequent on man’s choice. Against this distinction, von Balthasar offers no argument; only mockery. Yet clearly there is a kind of Divine Will that is infallibly fulfilled and a kind that is not. Contrast, for example, God’s will to create the universe with His will that we not sin. God’s universal salvific will surely is of the second sort.

Von Balthasar, like others, tries to argue from the premise that we don’t know any particular individual is damned to the conclusion that we don’t know there are any people in Hell. The premise can be impugned: if Judas Iscariot was saved, how would it have been ‘better for that man that he not be born’ (Mt 26:24)? But even were the premise true, the conclusion would not follow; it is like saying, ‘because I don’t know of any individual who comes from Iceland, I

don’t know there are any individuals who come from Iceland’.

Belief in universal salvation, as abetted by the likes of von Balthasar, has white-anted the Church in her missionary endeavours. If everyone will attain to Heaven anyway, what becomes of traditional ‘zeal for the salvation of souls’? Why be a St Francis Xavier, baptising so many that his arm ached? And let us also ignore Our Lady’s request (Fatima

“How the devil must laugh to hear people, even priests, denying his reality or the existence of Hell.”

in Lucia’s own words, 12th edition, Jan 2002, Secretariado dos Pastorinhos, Fatima, vol 1, p180): ‘Pray; pray very much and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to Hell because there is no one to pray and make sacrifice for them’.

Does God no longer love those in Hell? The answer is that He does; however, He loves the bless-

Complete, everlasting happiness in heaven

Dear Father, I was trying to explain heaven to my daughter recently and, among other comments, she said she would like to go to heaven but that it sounded boring. How can I answer her?

LET me first explain the Church’s teaching on heaven and then I will answer the question of whether it might be boring.

We can begin by looking at what Scripture has to say. St John writes that in heaven we shall see God as he is: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:2). St Paul is more graphic, saying that “now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Cor 13:12). So heaven consists in being with God and seeing him “face to face”.

Moreover, in heaven we will “see” not only God in the three divine persons, but also the Blessed Virgin Mary, the angels and all the saints; that is, all the people who have finished their earthly journey and are now enjoying eternal life with God.

When we say “see” we are referring to a vision that is not done with the eyes, since we will not have our body when we arrive in heaven, nor will the others there, except Jesus and Mary. The spiritual soul will be able to “see” God and the other spiritual beings through a special help from God that St Thomas Aquinas and other theologians call the “light of glory” (cf STh I, 12, 5).

Q&A

By Fr John Flader

nor is it lasting. In heaven, our happiness will be complete and everlasting. In the words of the Catechism, it is “the state of supreme, definitive happiness”.

The happiness of heaven is so great it cannot be described in human terms.

The Catechism teaches: “This mystery of blessed communion with God and all who are in Christ is beyond all understanding and description. Scripture speaks of it in images: life, light, peace, wedding feast, wine of the kingdom, the Father’s house, the heavenly Jerusalem, paradise: ‘no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the

ed much more. Here some would object: ‘If God is infinite, His love must be infinite, so He can’t love one more than another’. This objection displays an ignorance of the logic of infinity. Since Cantor’s celebrated proof, mathematicians have known that some infinities are larger than others. For example, the entire set of counting numbers is smaller than the set of so-called real numbers, even just those in the interval from zero to one.

A sign of Divine Love for the damned is in ending their earthly probation when He did, to stop them adding sin to sin and hence clocking up more severe punishment. As Vatican II points out, there are degrees of suffering in Hell depending on the degree of guilt (Lumen Gentium 14, towards the end).

How the devil must laugh to hear people, even priests, denying his reality or the existence of Hell. Nevertheless, praise God, there is a return to orthodoxy, particularly among the younger generation of Catholics; so the future of the Church looks bright.

As Our Lady prophesised at Fatima, in the end Her Immaculate Heart will triumph.

This light is a perfection of the intellect, as are the lights of reason and faith, so that the intellect can know God as he is in himself.

Church teaching on heaven is summarised in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “This perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity – this communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels and all the blessed – is called ‘heaven’. Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfilment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness” (CCC 1024).

Heaven is the fulfilment of our deepest longings. Man was made for love, for happiness, and he finds his complete fulfilment only in the infinite love of God, who alone can satisfy this longing. This is what St Augustine had in mind when he wrote: “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you” (Conf 1, 1, 1).

Our human experience bears this out. We search for happiness and, to a greater or lesser extent, we find it here on earth. But such happiness never satisfies us completely,

This perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity – this communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels and all the blessed – is called ‘heaven’

heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him’” (1 Cor 2:9; CCC 1027).

Will heaven be boring? If we conceive of it as endless succession of time, we might be forgiven for thinking even though it is a state of indescribable happiness, it will always be the same and possibly boring.

But eternal life is not endless succession of time. In heaven there is no time, it is all simultaneous, one great eternal instant. In the words of Boethius, eternity is “the simultaneously whole and perfect possession of interminable life” (De consol V).

In this sense Pope Benedict XVI writes that eternal life “would be like plunging into the ocean of infinite love, a moment in which time no longer exists” (Enc Spe Salvi, 12).

With that description, there is no way heaven would be boring! And it is worthwhile sacrificing everything and struggling for holiness so one day we will be there with God forever.

MOVIE REVIEWS

A remarkable tale of art and suffering

A story that emerges from Protestant-Catholic conflicts of the 16th century is also a profound appeal for tolerance, writes John McCarthy.

INSPIRED by a book-length study of Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel’s The Way to Calvary, director Lech Majewski has created an absorbing blend of art history and feature filmmaking.

In The Mill & The Cross (Kino Lorber), Polish-born Majewski re-imagines Christ’s passion, dramatises a dark episode in the history of the Catholic Church, experiments with pictorial representation and issues an appeal for religious tolerance - all without pretension or bias.

The movie will be of special interest to Catholics because it addresses the sectarian strife that arose when armies loyal to the church invaded the Low Countries in the 16th century to suppress Protestant reform.

In his book The Mill and the Cross, Michael Francis Gibson details how Bruegel used allegory to comment on the state of affairs in his native Flanders circa 1546, the year he finished the painting.

The intricacies of The Way to Calvary, a canvas populated with more than 500 figures, don’t seem amenable to cinematic treatment. But Gibson believed Majewski

was up to the task and they collaborated on an English-language screenplay.

Visually ingenious, the resulting film offers a multilayered panorama encompassing, and imaginatively expanding upon, the painting’s genesis and content.

Rutger Hauer plays Bruegel and Michael York portrays his friend and collector, Nicholas Jonghelinck, who commissions a piece that will express his out-

foreshadowing the Passion, they set upon one young man for no apparent reason, whipping and beating him before lashing his body to a wagon wheel and hoisting it atop a pole.

This cruel act occurs on the movie’s most literal level, alongside quotidian episodes from the seemingly bucolic world Bruegel depicts. These scenes have no dialogue, including those in which the miller, representing God, sur-

The overall experience is something akin to watching a lithograph by Dutch graphic artist MC Escher spring to life.

rage at how Spain’s occupying forces are “violating our bodies and souls.” Ambitiously and with purposeful misdirection, given the risk of being branded a heretic, Bruegel conceives a complex artwork with meanings concealed inside numerous pastoral tableaux, processions and agrarian symbols.

Meanwhile, Spanish militiamen astride horseback and wearing red tunics are shown violently mistreating peasants. In an incident

veys the countryside from his mill built on a giant rock.

On the movie’s more conceptual plane, Bruegel moves in and out of his painting while explaining his intentions to his patron and sketching preparatory drawings. Eventually, the film adopts the perspective of the Virgin Mary (Charlotte Rampling), who delivers plaintive monologues as her Son and two thieves are executed.

The overall experience is akin to watching a lithograph by Dutch

Rutger Hauer, above, stars as Pieter Bruegel in The Mill & the Cross Bruegel’s masterpiece, The Procession to Calvary, right. PHOTO: CNS

graphic artist MC Escher spring to life. Majewski employs computer technology without disrupting the period feel or the story’s timelessness - and while remaining true to Bruegel’s visual aesthetic. The sound effects, which serve a vital function since there’s so little dialogue, are equally expressive.

Majewski’s tone is calm and evenhanded. You don’t sense he favours one Christian denomination or is eager to indict the church or Catholicism per se. Instead, he seems intent on conveying a universal message against religious intolerance and human rights abuses. His film is grounded in the connection between the paschal mystery and social justice, yet since that linkage informs the bedrock of the Catholic faith, Catholic viewers won’t find anything radical from a theological standpoint.

Though it lasts less than a minute, arguably the most chilling sequence in The Mill &

Mum steps into the spotlight

The Cross shows a presumably heretical woman being put in a freshly dug grave and buried alive. Although harsh, such episodes are in accord with the historical record. Therefore, when the cam-

While raising a family can affect a mother’s self-confidence in the world outside the domestic scene, one mother of eight juggled family life and learning her lines to star on the stage, writes Bridget Spinks

Every evening, before walking out on stage to perform the role of a woman being driven mad by her husband, Sydney mother Donna Fernandez would contemplate the quote she had pinned on her dressing room mirror: “With God all things are possible,” (Matthew 19:26).

The part she was playing in the amateur production of Gaslight, Bella Manningham, is the central character in a psychological thriller. Bella, after noticing the gas light in the house dimming strangely each evening, is convinced by her husband Jack that she is going ‘mad’.

The story is a long way from Donna’s real life in which, in a very sense, she is already a star: the mother of five daughters and three sons under the age of 13.

While some might regard raising eight children as an allconsuming burden, demanding a woman sacrifice all her own personal hopes and dreams, Donna has shown it doesn’t have to be that way, thanks in large part, she

says, to her husband Alex, who rather than driving her mad has helped keep her acting dreams alive in the face of her own selfdoubt.

The role of motherhood, in fact, was the stepping stone to Donna discovering her latent passion for the stage.

Her eldest daughter Clara, now 13, started taking speech and drama classes at the age four. A few years later, Donna started sitting in on her daughter’s classes.

After a change of teachers, however, Donna was informed she would only be allowed to continue to sit in on the class if she was willing to study herself. So she began acting classes.

In late 2009 she sat her first exam with the International Music Examinations Board at Grade 7 level, skipping the first six grades. She scored top marks – though felt she did not fully deserve them.

Encouraged by her teacher and family to continue her studies, last year she sat exams for her associate teacher’s diploma just weeks

after giving birth to her youngest, Lucia. Despite sleepless nights beforehand caring for a sick child, she scored distinctions.

Donna still doubted her ability to perform on stage but, encouraged by her husband Alex, she overcame her doubts and fears

There was not better audience than her family: “They love you to bits despite all your shortcomings.”

that she was too old, auditioned for the role of Bella in the production of Gaslight being staged by the Castle Hill Players in Sydney, and won the part.

In between her household chores and other parental responsibilities, she learnt her lines and rehearsed for 14 weeks.

“I substituted my Susan Boyle music for my lines on tape,” she

explains. “In the morning I drove my kids to school and we did our prayers. On the way back I put the nursery rhymes on for the kids in the back and I put my lines on in the front.”

Her husband and eldest daughter helped her rehearse by taking on other parts in the script.

What it came down to was determination and a positive attitude, Donna says.

She also prayed to St Genesius, the third-century Christian martyr who is the patron saint of actors, for help to put together a good performance.

Ten stellar performances over three weeks to full houses in the 150-seat theatre last month followed. “I’m never going to doubt myself again,” Donna says.

She attributes the perseverance, determination and time-management skills required in having a large family as helping to get her through. Her husband’s support and encouragement was also crucial.

“Without him here to look after

the kids and encourage me I wouldn’t have had the self-confidence,” she says.

Receiving constant encouragement was particularly important, Donna says, because being at home could really take its toll on a woman’s confidence.

“You can lose it just because you’re not around people so much, like you are in the workforce, and you’re not getting regular feedback on how well you’re doing.”

Alex came to four of her 10 performances, and there was no better audience than her family, she says. “They love you to bits, despite all your shortcomings.”

She now hopes to be in more productions, including the Castle Hill Players’ productions next year of Romeo and Juliet (she has her eye on the parts of Juliet’s mother, Lady Capulet, or nurse) and Dickens’ A Christmas Carol

“My ultimate goal is to be paid for it,” she laughs, “because then you get costumes that fit you properly and someone does your make-up.”

The real deal for fathers

Men usually think of courage as being needed in unusual situations such as war or competition. A new movie looks at the kind needed to be a husband and dad.

Anew movie set to screen in Belmont in early November contrasts the kinds of courage required in daily work with the courage to be a husband and a father, offering insights into men and the priority they give – or don’t give - to their wives and children.

Viewers will recognise the similarities between this movie, Courageous, and a 2008 film, Fireproof, which analysed the underlying spiritual dimensions of a marriage on the rocks.

Neither the current film nor its 2008 predecessor are products of Hollywood. Filled with drama, Courageous is the fourth film from Sherwood Pictures, the moviemaking ministry of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia.

To both Australian and Catholic eyes Fireproof was unusual, a born again Christian movie offering born-again Christianity as the answer to a marriage breakdown.

closer to God ... and to their children?

Courageous may resonate with women who recognise the ‘good enough’ attitude into which husbands can easily lapse, however its real focus is men. Clearly, the movie and its producers are hoping to both challenge and inspire men to be the everyday heroes who make a lifelong impact on their wives and children.

The title comes from a simple concept, bravery as a law enforcement officer is second nature to these men, but raising their children in a God-honoring way? That’s courageous.

Courageous is being released around Australia and New Zealand in November. Like every other movie, how long it runs will depend on its popularity. While its Christian background could be treated as a handicap in the eyes of the film industry and secular Australian viewers in general it may turn out to be more popular than expected.

When released in the US it

However its analysis of how a happy marriage can slide into disaster, especially the psychological and spiritual factors at work such as internet pornography, materialism and making career more important than the daily mutual self-sacrifice every marriage depends on to succeed was unusually perceptive by any standard.

In Courageous, four men share one calling to serve and protect as police.

Adam Mitchell, Nathan Hayes, David Thomson, and Shane Fuller are confident and focused. Yet at the end of the day, they face a challenge that none of them are truly prepared to tackle: fatherhood.

While they consistently give their best on the job, good enough seems to be all they can muster as dads. But they’re quickly discovering that their standard is missing the mark.

When tragedy hits, these men are left wrestling with their hopes, their fears, their faith, and their fathering. Can a newfound urgency help these dads draw

went to No. 4 on the box office lists and was the No.1 movie in the US on its opening weekend.

While artistic criticisms may be made of Courageous (like Fireproof it is a low-budget movie compared to the usual Hollywood fare), it will hopefully fill an important and glaring hole in entertainment culture.

American evangelical Christianity is often derided or ridiculed for its particular beliefs and its strong embrace of a moral code based on scripture.

However Fireproof’s psychological analysis of marital breakdown through factors like infidelity came close to being something straight out of a novel by Dostoyevsky.

If Courageous lives up to Fireproof’s standard, it will be a movie well worth going to see. It may help many fathers to lead better lives and, as a result, have happier families.

Courageous will be playing at Reading Belmont cinemas from 10 November for one week.

Tickets are available from the cinemas.

Javier reads the Bible to his family in a scene from Courageous, a new film only in Perth at Reading Cinemas, Belmont from 10 November.

Donna Fernandez in a scene from Gaslight, left, and during rehearsals, at top. During the day she holds down the fulltime role of being mum to eight children. The Castle Hill production ran for three weeks in October.

PHOTO: LEFT AND TOP: CHRIS

LUNDIE; ABOVE: COURTESY FERNANDEZ FAMILY.

era pulls back from a close-up of The Way to Calvary (now hanging in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum) at movie’s end, we’re reminded that we immerse ourselves in artistic masterpieces

in order to better understand distressing and regrettable facts about real life. The film contains moderately graphic violence, including four crucifixions, several whippings

and beatings and a woman being buried alive; a few instances of groping; and brief frontal and rear female nudity. The Catholic News Service classification is A-IIIadults. - CNS

We Catholicks and our obstinate beliefs about death

FOR those with the time on their hands, James Boswell’s Life of Dr Samuel Johnson, about that remarkable figure of 18th century English life and letters, is a wonderful journey in biography that takes the reader to the heart of Georgian society. The extensive record of conversation and correspondence between Johnson and Boswell also reveals the comparative emptiness of our own electronic age of constant talk without actually saying anything worthwhile. To read Boswell’s biography of his friend is to see how mediocre is a world is addicted to the twitter feed and SMS.

One of the famous exchanges recorded by Boswell highlights the contrast between a society today and then, when religious faith was regarded as an entirely natural subject of conversation:

Boswell: “What do you think, Sir, of purgatory, as believed by the Roman Catholicks?”

Johnson: “Why, Sir, it is a very harmless doctrine. They are of the opinion that the generality of mankind are neither so obstinately wicked as to deserve everlasting punishment, nor so good as to merit being admitted into the society of blessed spirits; and therefore that God is graciously pleased to allow a middle state, where they may be purified by certain degrees of suffering. You see, Sir, there is nothing unreasonable in this.”

Boswell: “But then, Sir, their Masses for the dead?”

Johnson: “Why, Sir, if it be at once established that there are souls in purgatory, it is as proper to pray for them, as for our brethren of mankind who are yet in this life.”

Whatever the shortcomings of Georgian society, at least people conversed extensively with each other and, when not in close proximity, took the time to write letters. In an increasingly globalised 21st century there are undoubted benefits to text messaging and email but the obvious criticism is that like so much of our technical achievements we lapse into allowing the illiterate shorthand they represent to become substitutes for real relationships with each other. People are meant to be with each other.

The modern secular mind is afraid of death and spends its life running away from it in it in endless entertainments.

Christians should not be so afraid of death.

THE RECORD

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In this month of November, Catholics traditionally pray more, or in special ways, for the dead. Generally, this was regarded as one of those clear marks of distinction between Catholics and Protestants, who tended to believe a decisive personal choice of Christ as Saviour was sufficient for salvation; Catholics saw no contradiction between the judgement that comes with death and praying for those who had died, essentially for the same reasons supposed by Dr Johnson.

One of the great advantages of the Christian faith is that where it is taken seriously it is offers real belonging, a relationship to each other rather than the radical isolation spread by contemporary culture. Catholicism is, as much as anything else, tribal because the Church recognises we are all meant to be in communion –with each other and with God.

This is why November can be such a wonderful time of the year for we Roman Catholicks. Not only are we connected tribally with the saints in heaven, we take time to connect or reconnect with those journeying to heaven under the purgatorial state of existence. These days are focused on death and can often be tinged with deep sadness, but really, they are all about life brimming over.

At the risk of earning the ire of the clergy of the archdiocese of Perth and elsewhere, The Record officially urges all its readers to deluge their parish priests and chaplains with requests throughout November to remember in the prayers of the Mass their dead friends and family, especially those who hurt them. There is no being Catholic without forgiveness or asking to be forgiven. Undoubtedly, priests remind their congregations this opportunity exists; but many baptised do not, habitually, remember often enough to take advantage of what our priests have to offer. But pestering clergy to pray for dead members of the tribe is not good enough unless we too join our own prayers to theirs. Catholics seem to have an inbuilt tendency to leave it all to others.

For we of the southern hemisphere it is good that November comes in spring. It helps us to remember that death is really about life returning. We assume those who have died are the ones who are dead. But we are the ones living a life that can so often be one continual act of selfdelusion or a series of nightmarish moments and events. This month, and the wonderful holy days of All Saints and All Souls just passed, offer us the chance to be connected with the rest of the tribe who are undoubtedly yearning for our prayer on their behalf. Two thousand years ago our ancestors in faith scrawled their prayers for the dead as graffiti on the walls of the catacombs in Rome. St Monica, in the fourth century, asked her son Augustine to remember her soul in his masses. The modern secular mind is afraid of death and spends its life running away from it in endless entertainments. Christians should not be so afraid of death. We know that when it comes we will see not only God but, once again, those we have loved in this life. We know that those who have died are not really dead at all.

Criticism not small-minded

GUY CROUCHBACK will pardon me if I opine that he was not his normally lucid self in his article on distributism (The Record, 26 October). He is wrong on two counts.

First, big modern mechanised farms do not produce cheaper food than family farms. They are simply capital-intensive rather than labour-intensive. If you want cheap food it is far more efficient to have small, local farms, as in Indonesia. Indonesians pay one-tenth the price for their food that we do.

Second, small farms don’t work? Only if taxed witless by a topheavy and extravagant government like ours. If small farms were not extremely viable, would the state have to use punitive regulation against them? I rest my case. God Save the Queen.

Peter Gilet BELMONT, WA

Carbon dioxide is good for life

I WAS disappointed with the article by Fr Sean Fernandez on the subject of the anthropogenic warming of the earth. There are hundreds of well-qualified scientists who disagree with the well-funded lot who go on about warming and catastrophe. As for Australia’s “contribu-

Letters to the editor

tion” to this “warming,” it is minuscule. Any carbon tax will be simply a tax, a means of raising revenue for a government that has spent money like it comes from a bottomless pit and is now desperate. Last winter in the northern hemisphere was a very cold one and similar is predicted for this upcoming one. It is said by some scientists that another mini ice age may be looming, as has occurred previously between warming periods. Naturally, we should all look after God’s creation and not pollute the earth and waste water. Not enough is being done in some countries as far as this goes: but to demonise CO2 by calling it a “pollutant” is just dishonest. CO2 is essential for life on earth and occupies a very small part of the atmosphere. A deficiency in CO2 in the atmosphere will cause a decrease in plant life. High levels

of CO2 are maintained in (at least some) greenhouses to increase the plant growth within. Let’s not get carried away by the tide of climate alarmism!

MJ Gonzalez WILLETTON, WA

Families, schools, the evangelisers

“EVERYONE is worth saving” was the headline on the first page of The Record newspaper on 5 October. Catholics must relentlessly proclaim the good news of Christ, Archbishop Barry Hickey was reported as saying at the launch of the archdiocese’s new centre for evangelisation in Perth. The first priority of the Faith Centre was to proclaim the good news of the Gospel to unbelievers.

However, of all that was written in the article, the focus should surely be on this fact: the power houses of evangelistic fever should be Catholic schools and homes. This is not the case. It is evident in the miserably low attendance at weekly Masses and the number of lapsed Catholics, young and old.

Let there be a more concerted move to evangelise the Gospel of Jesus and God’s love to our own and win them back to the fold. This should be a top priority.

Denis Whitely Director, Council for the National Interest BELMONT, WA

Remembering the needs of all brings other benefits

Disabilities can lead to little inspirations, writes Barbara

MY OWN involvement with disability began with a dramatic revelation of how insensitive I was to the needs of another. These moments are often referred to as “a-ha!” moments and can come at the oddest times and in the strangest of ways. Scientists say “a-ha!” moments are marked by a surge of electrical activity in the brain. But no scientist will ever be able to create an equation whereby input x = output a-ha!

Recently I made a wish list of “a-ha!” moments that I wanted regarding people who are deaf. I made a list of questions.

Question: How do people who are deaf communicate on a daily basis? Answer: with sign language, based on using both hands.

Question: If people who are deaf are given a booklet with the materials for a church service, how will they know what is happening? Answer: they won’t, unless someone is next to them pointing out where people are.

Question: Accepting that deaf people can magically know what is happening leads to the next question: how will they actively take part, holding the book at the same time? Answer: they won’t, unless they put the booklet down and lose their place.

After writing the above I realised I was being offered another “a-ha!” moment. Immediately I thought of the apostle Thomas who wanted the facts, visible evidence of nail holes and spear wounds before he would believe Jesus was risen.

But Thomas did not need proof. He had an “a-ha! moment”. He didn’t need to put his hand into the side of Jesus to “know, really know” that Jesus was alive.

Recently I attended a parish meeting. Parishioners were looking at improving accessibility for people with disabilities.

In the middle of the sharing

Bee

in my bonnet

A reflection on the struggles of those forgotten in society and Church

By Barbara Harris

one parishioner shared an “a-ha!” moment.

Vicki said “You know providing texts on PowerPoint is one way of providing deaf and hard of hearing people of our parish with the means to know what is happening. Getting a parishioner to use a laser pointer to show which line is being said/sung will help deaf and hard of hearing people to not only know what is happening but will also free their hands for participation.”

“Begrudgingly, I listened to what she had to say. Later I realised I have a disability.”

Archbishop Barry Hickey’s executive assistant Fr Robert Cross is involved in the new Faith Centre, which has devoted resources to cater for the needs of people with disabilities. Planning made sure there was a lift, a toilet that catered for the physically challenged, a sound-loop in the seminar room and other building-code requirements for people with disabilities.

At one of our meetings, I congratulated Fr Cross on the provisions made for the people with disabilities. He later shared the following reflection: “Puffing up and basking in her congratulations, I was sud-

Harris

denly brought down to earth with her ‘but’ – ‘But why isn’t the video produced by the Faith Centre captioned and why isn’t there Auslan [Australian Sign Language]?’

“Now I felt deflated,” he said. “I told Barbara we had tried our best to cater for people with disabilities at great cost. What more did she expect of us?”

“Begrudgingly, I listened to what she had to say. Later I realised I have a disability, namely, coeliac disease. I get so annoyed at the lack of consideration given to my dietary requirements by priests and other Church people when afternoon tea or a meal is served after a Church function.

“There is almost nothing I am able to eat and if there is, it is not labelled ‘Gluten Free’ and so, to my embarrassment, I have to inquire, ‘Is there anything gluten-free here that I can eat?’

“Don’t get me started on the almost total failure of parishes to cater for coeliacs by providing ‘low-gluten bread’ for Holy Communion.” Fr Cross had an “a-ha!” moment. I was invited to come down for the Faith Centre’s next video shoot of the Archbishop to do the Auslan.

Fr Cross said, “We also captioned the video. Ironically, I found the extra effort required in captioning had an unforeseen benefit, namely, I could now place the video on our advertising screen in the front foyer of the Faith Centre. Now people walking along Hay Street can watch the videos through the front window of the Faith Centre.

“Deafness, expressed by a video playing inside a shop window whose sound cannot be heard has been overcome by captioning. A “win-win” outcome for all concerned!”

May every day bring you an “Aha! moment.”

Barbara Harris is coordinator of the archdiocese’s Emmanuel Centre

When the finger of God touches a child’s soul

Seeing the effect a first confession has on a nine-year-old can be humbling and exalting, writes

Catherine Parish

IF YOU ever doubt the efficacy and immediacy of the action of grace in the sacraments, get close to a child who receives them for the first time.

My youngest has just received the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. He attended preparatory classes run by volunteers in the parish, with a little sketchy tuition from me. You would think from the casual questions he asked that nothing was being taught in the classes. But when “revising” things like the commandments and grace and why we go to confession, and salvation history in general, it was obvious a good deal was taught.

So off went the new penitent to make his first confession, with moral support from family all lining up with him to go “in the box”.

Yet again I was humbled and

with

Catherine Parish

exalted by the beautiful signs of grace worked within by this sacrament. Outwardly little seemed different afterwards. The serious, devout little face bent for a few moments in silent prayer, before loudly intoning the Our Fatherno, not a sudden onset of piety. “I just said my penance, Mum!” he announced in a stage whisper afterwards, beaming proudly.

But the definite signs of the inroads of grace are there: in his obedience in going off to bed

earlier than everyone else, usually a real bone of contention; in the acceptance of meals provided without complaint, or categorically rejected with somewhat tantrumlike behaviour. In a generally more

It is as though the sacraments are the catalyst for the pieces of the puzzles of their lives to fall into place.

mature demeanour - in a nine-yearold way.

The same sort of changes occurred in all my older children receiving the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist

for the first time. It is as though the sacraments are the catalyst for many pieces of the puzzle of their lives to fall into place.

The Church’s wisdom in designating young ages for reception is borne out in parental observation of development of a child’s character. You can see quite clearly when a child realises that some things are right and some are wrong, when they realise that being good and living a good life are a struggle. The sacraments allow us to admit that, and give us the strength and the weapons to fight in that struggle before the bad habits become too entrenched.

I have always felt quite shamefully unequal to the task of adequately preparing my children for reception of the sacraments. But I found out the hard way that parents are often

not the best formal teachers of their children. And I have had to be humble (choke, hardest thing of all) and put it all into God’s hands.

The response of all my children to first reception of the sacraments, however, has always put me in mind of Christ’s promise of recompense far beyond anything ever invested – the full basket running over into the lap.

If, as Christ begged, we let the little children come to him without hesitation and do not stop them, he will look after them as he promised.

I have seen the finger of God touch the souls of all my children at these times in a most tangible, unforgettable way far beyond anything that could humanly be expected. And once he gets a foot in the door, the war is half-won. Deo Gracias

Prudence should be cardinal’s virtue

Cardinal George Pell’s outspoken views on climate change put his intellectual credibility on the line, writes

Tim Wallace

WHY has Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric taken such a stridently sceptical position on global warming? Is his resistance to the consensus scientific view that human activity is driving current warming another example of the same sense of religiious rectitude that once led Church authorities to reject the idea that the earth revolved around the sun or that life had evolved through natural selection?

Cardinal George Pell could take no offence to the question, since he posed it himself in his 26 October address in London to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, one of many groups established in recent times to fan doubts in the public mind about the scientific validity of the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

He had recently been asked, he told his audience, by one of his parish priests as to why he was commenting so publicly on the role of carbon dioxide in the climate given in the past the Church had made a fool of herself in other scientific disputes. “I replied that I was well aware of at least some of these instances and that one reason why I was speaking out was to avoid having too many Christian leaders repeating these mistakes and to provide some balance to ecclesiastical offerings.”

He had first become interested in the question of AGW “in the 1990s when studying the antihuman claims of the ‘deep Greens’, so I had long suspected that those predicting dangerous and increasing anthropogenic global warming were overstating their case”.

Appeals to the “consensual view among qualified scientists” were “a cop-out”, he said, “a way of avoiding the basic issues”. What was important and needed to be examined by lay people as well as scientists was “the evidence and argumentation which are adduced to back any consensus”. The basic issue was “not whether the science is settled but whether the evidence and explanations are adequate in that paradigm”. He suspected too many educated people, including politicians, had “never investigated the primary evidence”.

These points are, with certain crucial minor qualifications, legitimate and reasonable.

Anyone with an interest in the debate about climate change could not have escaped noticing that the

most extreme views invariably come from those with the least concern for accuracy, balance and fairness. In the spirit of not appearing overtly partisan, Cardinal Pell might have acknowledged that is so on both sides of this argument.

Nor could anyone with a regard for truth have failed to note the disquieting tendency of some elements of the environmental movement to over-egg their arguments, blaming every extreme weather event on global warming in what seems like a bid to scare an apathetic populace into action – or at least

within the environmental movement that regards the mere existence of humans, rather than how they consume resources, as a root environmental problem. Rare is the public forum on climate change where someone doesn’t bang the drum for population control; it even happened at a forum last month at the University of Notre Dame’s Fremantle campus. Never mind the fact that the only nontotalitarian way so far found to limit population has been to substantially increase material wealth and to sanction abortion as a matter

accepted claims by sceptics without investigating the primary evidence. It still appears that his understandable concern about certain policy prescriptions in vogue within the environmental movement has led him to adopt the view there is no problem requiring a solution. He continues to wager his intellectual credibility (and to a certain extent his spiritual credibility as a man committed to seeking the truth) on a long-odds bet that the small minority of climate-change contrarians are right and the overwhelming majority of scientists are

Cardinal Pell has good cause to enter the debate around climate change. He has less cause to embroil himself in the debate about climate change.

to score media coverage. If politicians like Bob Brown are bothered by the degree to which the muddled argument of sceptics have muddied the public’s understanding of climate science, they should pause to reflect on how their own exaggerations have been grist to the same mill. Again, in fairness, Cardinal Pell might have noted that sceptics have mirrored “warmist” hysteria with equally far-fetched claims about the economic armageddon likely to ensue from curbing industrial greenhouse gas emissions.

Any humanist, Christian or otherwise, should also be disturbed by an all-too fashionable attitude

of personal autonomy, and that by and large it is those societies with the lowest fertility rates that have the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions. So Cardinal Pell has good cause, as a conscientious prelate, to enter the debate around climate change. He has decidedly less cause, however, to embroil himself in the debate about climate change.

Though optimists might detect a softening in his stated concern about the debate being the adequacy of the explanations proffered to a largely unschooled public, there was much in his recent address sugggesting he has all too readily

wrong.

“As a general rule I have found those secure in their explanations do not need to be abusive,” Cardinal Pell said. One wonders, then, why in March he thought it prudent to describe the head of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Greg Ayers, as “obviously a hot-air specialist”. He had been stung, perhaps, by Dr Ayers (a former chief of marine and atmospheric research at CSIRO with a doctorate in physical chemistry) pointing out that nitrogen was not, as Cardinal Pell had suggested, a greenhouse gas.

“I regret when a discussion of these things is not based on sci-

entific fact,’’ he said at the time. “I spend a lot of time studying this stuff.” Which makes it most inexplicable that, after more than a decade of research he could as late as 2010 still be expressing surprise at discovering carbon dioxide constitutes less than 0.04 per cent of the atmosphere (a fact, he said last week, that seems “a well-kept secret outside scientific circles”).

Equally perplexing is why he would think, in a “coupled, nonlinear, chaotic system”, it is telling that temperature changes are uneven despite carbon-dioxide concentrations generally being the same. Or why he mistakenly believes the global temperature has not risen in the past 10 years. Or why he thinks an estimated 40 per cent rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide over about a century (to a level unprecedented in at least 600,000 years) has nothing to do with burning fossil fuels and land-use changes.

Much of his talk was devoted to arguing that what is called the Mediaeval Warm Period (MWP) was global and warmer than present.

A more cautious analysis would show this as a matter of great uncertainty and dictate there is no compelling reason to regard one study as “particularly significant” while ignoring the rest that contradict it. One might merely note that questions about the global extent of the MWP were posed as early as 1982 by no less than the very paleoclimatologist who first identified it, Hubert Lamb.

Towards the end of his address Cardinal Pell expressed support for the recommendations of Bjorn Lomborg. It is worth noting, therefore, what Lomborg said in an address in Melbourne in March presented by the Australian Institue of International Affairs.

The first point he made was that “global warming is real, man-made, an important problem, something we need to fix. So let’s get the whole denialist argument to rest. I think there’s very little argument left over to say nothing is happening and people have no responsibility.

“I would actually argue this is on the agenda, thanks to Al Gore and many others having put it into the American mind and certainly around the world that this is a problem we need to fix.”

As Cardinal Pell noted, prudence is one of the four cardinal virtues. On this issue, would it not be wise to practise what he preaches?

FRIDAY

FRIDAY, 4 NOVEMBER

Vigil for Life with Archbishop Hickey 9.30am at St Brigid’s Parish, cnr Great Northern Hwy and Morrison Rd, Midland. Begins with Mass followed by a rosary procession to nearby abortion clinic. Peaceful and prayerful vigil witnessing to the dignity of human life. Enq: Helen 9328 2926. Healing Mass and Farewell to Fr Hugh Thomas

7pm at St Peter’s Parish, Wood St, Inglewood. Celebrants: Fr Hugh Thomas and Fr Dat. Confessions at 6.40pm. We will be bidding farewell to Fr Hugh who will be leaving for Sydney in December. Refreshments afterwards. Enq: MaryAnn 9271 3289.

75th Anniversary of St Columba’s School 9.30am at St Columba’s School, 30 York St, South Perth. Includes classroom and memorabilia displays, food and a disco. Begins with Mass at St Columba’s Parish, followed by a Mercy morning tea. Enq: Alison 9271 71 81 or martin.ali@cathednet.wa.edu.au.

“All-Female Concert: Music, Singing, Dancing” Fundraising Concert for Caritas 7.30pm at Irish Club, Townshend Rd, Subiaco. Over 40 performers, including comedy and poetry from Irish and Scottish traditions. Proceeds go to Caritas who will receive dollar for dollar matching funds from the Government. Bookings $15. Enq: Tony 9367 6026.

FRIDAY, 4 TO SUNDAY, 6 NOVEMBER

Prayerful Weekend Retreat for Women

7pm at Little Sisters of the Poor, 2 Rawlins St, Glendalough. Includes prayer, rosary, Mass, reflections and time to experience a life of service. Women aged 18-40 yrs old. Free. Enq: Sr Marie 9443 3155 or admin.perth@lsp.org.au.

SATURDAY, 5 NOVEMBER

Day with Mary

9am-5pm at St Thomas More Parish, cnr Dean and Marsengo Rds, Bateman. 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 by Bishop Sproxton, rosaries and stations of the Cross. BYO lunch. Enq: Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286.

Vigil for Life - Pro-Life Witness

8.30am at St Augustine’s, Gladstone St, Rivervale. Begins with Mass, followed by rosary procession and vigil at nearby abortion clinic led by Fr Paul. Weekly prayer vigils Monday, Thursday and Saturday, 8am to 10am at Rivervale. Enq: Helen 9402 0349.

The Legion of Mary Perth Comitum – Annual Mass

1pm at St Joachim Parish, Shepperton Rd, Victoria Park. Begins with rosary and Mass 1.30pm. Main celebrant Archbishop Hickey. Followed by light refreshment. Enq: 9328 2728 or 042 1580 783.

Alliance of the Two Hearts Seminar

1pm at LJ Goody Bioethics Centre, 39 Jugan St, Glendalough. Followed by 4pm Mass at St Bernadette’s Parish. Rrefreshments provided. Enq: Vicky 9364 2378 or John/Joy 9344 2609.

UPCOMING

SUNDAY, 6 NOVEMBER

All Souls’ Day Memorial Service 2.30pm at Pinnaroo Valley Memorial Park Crematorium Chapel. Please note, the memorial service will not include Mass. Enq: Whitford parish office 9307 2776.

Divine Mercy 1.30pm at St Francis Xavier Parish, 25 Windsor St, Perth. Main celebrant Fr Anthony Van Dyke. “All Saints and Holy Souls” Homily. Refreshments afterwards. Enq: John 9457 7771.

Mary’s Mount Primary School –90th Anniversary Celebration Day 10.30am-2.30pm at the school, Davies Cr, Gooseberry Hill. Begins with a welcome ceremony. Grounds will be open for visitors to enjoy until 2.30pm: historical photos and memorabilia from the school’s 90 year history on display, music performed by the children, local choirs and musicians, and the children’s annual art show. Also bouncy castle, face painting, lucky dips, fairy floss and more. 90th anniversary memorabilia available for purchase. Enq: school office 9293 2800.

WEDNESDAY, 9 NOVEMBER

Council of Christians and JewsCommemoration Kristallnacht

4.30pm at Sylvia and Harry Hoffman Hall, Carmel

Primary School, Woodrow Ave, Yokine. ‘Night of Broken Glass’ - guest speaker Professor Kenneth

PANORAMA

What’s on around the Archdiocese of Perth, where and when

Chern, former US Consul General to Perth. Light refreshments. Enq: Marie ccjwa@aol.com.

FRIDAY, 11 NOVEMBER

Mandorla Art Award Retrospective Exhibition Opening 6-8pm at The Faith Centre, 450 Hay St Perth. RSVP by 7 November to Angela McCarthy on 9433 0214 or angela.mccarthy@nd.edu.au. For more information about Mandorla Art Award visit www. mandorlaart.com

SATURDAY, 12 NOVEMBER

St Padre Pio day of Prayer

8.30am at St Anthony Parish, Dundebar Rd, Wanneroo. Begins with DVD. 10am – exposition of Blessed Sacrament, rosary, divine mercy, adoration and benediction. 11am – Mass with confession available. 12pm – bring a plate to share for lunch. Enq: Des 6278 1540.

Divine Mercy – Healing Mass

2.30pm at St Francis Xavier Parish, 25 Windsor St, Perth. Main celebrant Fr Marcellinus. Chaplet of divine Mercy followed by benediction and veneration of first class relic of St Faustina Kowalska. Reconciliation available in English and Italian. Refreshments afterwards. Enq: John 9457 7771.

St Columba’s School – Dinner Dance 7pm at St Columba’s School, 30 York St, South Perth. Tickets $100 including dinner, drinks and entertainment. Enq: Alison 9271 7181 or Martin ali@cathednet.wa.edu.au.

SUNDAY, 13 NOVEMBER

Balcatta Parish 50th Anniversary Mass and Dinner

4pm at St Lawrence Parish, 392 Albert St, Balcatta. Begins with Mass followed by dinner at 5.30pm at the Sicilian Club, Fortune St, Balcatta. Cost: $70pp. Enq: Office 9344 7066 or office@stlawrence.org. au.

“2013 WYD Brazil Extravaganza”

Sunday Sesh - CYM

5-6pm at St Mary’s Cathedral, 21 Victoria Sq. Perth. Begins with Mass celebrated by Archbishop Hickey followed by the ‘Sesh’ at 7pm in the presbytery. For young people of all ages. Enq and RSVP: admin@cym.com.au or CYM facebook

FRIDAY, 18 NOVEMBER

Thanksgiving Mass in Honour of the Divine Mercy 2-4pm at St Jerome’s Parish, 36 Troode St, Munster. Celebrant: Fr Varghese. Includes: exposition of the Blessed Sacrament; Divine Mercy Chaplet followed by Mass. Enq: Connie 9494 1495 or Edita 9418 3728.

FRIDAY, 18 TO SATURDAY, 19 NOVEMBER

Christ the King Retreat and Healing Rally 7.30pm at Karriholm, Pemberton. Presented by the Holy Spirit of Freedom Community. Enq: Jo 9776 1241 or hsofpemberton@gmail.com.

FRIDAY, 18 TO SUNDAY, 20 NOVEMBER

“Creation - The Web of Life”

Reflective Weekend 6pm at St John of God Retreat Centre, 47 Gloucester Cr, Shoalwater. This reflective weekend will provide you with an ethic of environmental sensitivity as you further develop the model of stewardship in God’s creation. Finishes 1.30pm Sunday. Enq: Sr Ann 9310 8248 or 040 9602 927 or Sr Kathy 041 8926 590.

SUNDAY, 20 NOVEMBER

Solemnity of Christ the King 2pm at the Shrine of Virgin of the Revelation, 36 Chittering Rd, Bullsbrook. Includes Eucharistic procession, Mass and consecration - confessions available before Mass. Main celebrant Archbishop Hickey. Enjoy a family picnic on the lawns afterwards. Enq. Michael at SACRI 9341 6139.

Christ the King Celebration and Procession 8.30am Sacred Heart Parish, Guppy St, Pemberton. Celebrating 10th Anniversary. Includes Mass and morning tea followed by Eucharistic procession to Karriholm. Light luncheon served afterwards. Enq: Jo 97761241 or hsofpemberton@gmail.com.

NEXT YEAR

MONDAY, 9 JANUARY TO MONDAY, 16 JANUARY 2012

Summer School

The Royal School of Church Music in Australia (RSCM) will be hosting a summer school for all denominations next year. The programme will include workshops for church musicians and singers to help them to inspire their congregations towards a more enjoyable and meaningful participation in Church liturgy. Enrolments are now open and interested parties can find out more by going to www. rscmaustralia.org.au. Enq: Deirdre on 9457 4010.

SATURDAY, 25 FEBRUARY 2012

A Reunion for Holy Cross Primary School, Kensington

Any ex-students or family members, please contact Julie Bowles (nee O’Hara) on 9397 0638 or email jules7@iinet.net.au.

REGULAR EVENTS

EVERY SUNDAY

Gate of Heaven Catholic Radio

Join the Franciscans of the Immaculate from 7.309pm on Radio Fremantle 107.9FM for Catholic radio broadcast of EWTN and our own live shows. Enq: radio@ausmaria.com.

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 church and shrine open daily between 9am-5pm. Enq Sacri 9447 3292.

EVERY FIRST SUNDAY

Divine Mercy Chaplet and Healing Prayer

3pm at Santa Clara Church, 72 Palmerston St, Bentley. Includes adoration and individual prayer for healing. Spiritual leader Fr Francisco. All welcome. Enq: Fr Francisco 9458 2944.

St Mary’s Cathedral Youth Group –Fellowship with Pizza

5pm at Mary’s Cathedral, 17 Victoria Sq, Perth. Begins with youth Mass followed by fellowship downstairs in parish centre. Bring a plate to share. Enq: Bradley on youthfromsmc@gmail.com.

EVERY SECOND SUNDAY

Healing Hour for the Sick

6pm at St Lawrence Parish, 392 Albert St, Balcatta. Begins with Mass, exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and prayers. Enq: Fr Irek 9344 7066 or ww.stlawrence.org.au.

EVERY THIRD SUNDAY

Oblates of St Benedict Meeting

2pm at St Joseph’s Convent, York St, South Perth. For all interested in studying the rule of St Benedict and its relevance to everyday life. Afternoon tea. Enq: Secretary 9457 5758.

EVERY FOURTH SUNDAY

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 can hear clearly God’s call.

FIRST AND THIRD SUNDAYS

Latin Mass

2pm at The Good Shepherd Parish, Streich Ave, Kelmscott. Enq: John 9390 6646.

EVERY MONDAY

Evening Adoration and Mass

7pm at St Thomas Parish, Claremont, cnr Melville St and College Rd. Eucharistic adoration, reconciliation, evening prayer and benediction, followed by Mass and night prayer at 8pm. Enq: Kim on 9384 0598 or by email to claremont@perthcatholic. org.au.

The Life and Mission of St Mary MacKillop

9.30-11.30am at Infant Jesus Parish Centre, cnr Wellington Rd and Smith St, Morley. Cost: $15. Enq: Shelley 9276 8500.

LAST MONDAY OF THE MONTH

Be Still in His Presence –Ecumenical Christian Programme

7.30-8.45pm at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, cnr Lesmurdie and Glyde Rds, Lesmurdie. Begins with songs of praise and worship, silent time, lectio divina, small group sharing and a cuppa at the end. Enq: Lynne 9293 3848 or 0435 252 941.

EVERY TUESDAY

Bible teaching with a difference

7.30pm at St Joachim’s parish hall, Victoria Park. Exciting revelations with meaningful applications that will change your life. Bring Bible, a notebook and a friend. Enq: Jan 9284 1662.

Novena to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal 6pm at the Pater Noster Church, Marmion and Evershed Sts, Myaree. Mass at 5.30pm followed by benediction. Enq: John 040 8952 194.

Norma Woodcock’s Teaching Session

7-8pm at St Benedict’s school hall, Alness St, Applecross. Be empowered by the Gospel message each week in a personal way. How can we live meaningful and hope-filled lives? AccreditedCEO: Faith Formation for ongoing renewal. Catholic Education staff: $10 for accreditation. Cost: donation. Enq: 9487 1772 or www.normawoodcock. com.

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: 042 3907 869 or hsofperth@gmail.com.

Bible Study at Cathedral

6.15pm at St Mary’s Cathedral, 17 Victoria Sq, Perth. Deepen your faith through reading and reflecting on holy scripture by Fr Jean-Noel. Meeting room beneath Cathedral. Enq: Marie 9223 1372.

Holy Hour - Catholic Youth Ministry

5.30pm at Catholic Pastoral Centre, 40A Mary St, Highgate. Begins with Mass, 6.30pm holy hour of adoration, followed by $5 supper and fellowship. Enq: cym.com.au or 9422 7912.

EVERY FIRST WEDNESDAY OF THE MONTH

Holy Hour Prayer for Priests

7.30-8.30pm at Holy Spirit Parish, 2 Keaney Pl, City Beach. All welcome. Enq: Linda 9341 3079.

Novena to St Mary of the Cross MacKillop

7-7.45pm at Blessed Mary MacKillop Parish, cnr Cassowary Dr and Pelican Pde, Ballajura. Begins with Mass, novena prayers and benediction. Followed by healing prayers and anointing of the sick. Enq: Madi 9249 9093 or Gerry 041 7187 240.

EVERY SECOND WEDNESDAY

Chaplets of the Divine Mercy

7.30pm St Thomas More Parish, Dean Rd, Bateman. A beautiful, prayerful, sung devotion. It will be accompanied by exposition and followed by benediction. Enq: George 9310 9493 (h) or 9325 2010.

EVERY THURSDAY

Divine Mercy

11am at Sts John and Paul Church, Pinetree Gully Rd, Willetton. Pray the rosary and chaplet of divine mercy and for the consecrated life, especially here in John Paul Parish. Concludes with veneration of the first class relic of St Faustina. Please do come and join us in prayer. Enq: John 9457 7771.

St Mary’s Cathedral Praise Meeting

7.45pm every Thursday at the Legion of Mary’s Edel Quinn Centre, 36 Windsor St, East Perth. Includes praise, song and healing ministry. Enq: Kay 9382 3668 or fmi@flameministries.org.

EVERY FIRST THURSDAY OF THE MONTH

Prayer in Style of Taize

7.30-8.30pm at Our Lady of Grace Parish, 3 Kitchener St, North Beach. Includes prayer, song and silence in candlelight – symbol of Christ the light of the world. Taize info: www.taize.fr Enq: secretary 9448 4888 or 9448 4457.

Group Fifty – Charismatic Renewal Group

7.30pm at The Redemptorist Monastery, 150 Vincent St, North Perth. Includes prayer, praise and Mass. Enq: Elaine 9440 3661.

EVERY FIRST FRIDAY

Communion of Reparation All-Night Vigil

7pm-1.30am at two different locations: Corpus Christi Parish, Lochee St, Mosman Park and St Gerard Majella Parish, cnr Ravenswood Dr and Majella Rd, Westminster (Mirrabooka). In reparation for outrages committed against the United Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Enq (Mosman Park) Vicky 040 0282 357 and Fr Giosue 9349 2315 or John 9344 2609.

Healing Mass 7pm at St Peter’s Parish, Inglewood. Praise and worship, exposition and Eucharistic adoration, benediction and anointing of the sick, followed by holy Mass and fellowship. Celebrants Fr Dat and invited priests. 6.45pm Reconciliation. Enq: Mary Ann 0409 672 304, Prescilla 043 3457 352 and Catherine 043 3923 083.

Holy Hour for Vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life

7pm at Little Sisters of the Poor Chapel, 2 Rawlins St, Glendalough. Mass followed by adoration with Fr Doug Harris. All welcome. Refreshments provided.

Catholic Faith Renewal Evening

7.30pm at Sts John and Paul Parish, Pinetree Gully Rd, Willetton. Songs of praise, sharing by a priest followed by thanksgiving Mass and light refreshments afterwards. All welcome to attend and bring your family and friends. Enq: Kathy 9295 0913, Ann 041 2166 164 or catholicfaithrenewal@gmail.com.

Healing and Anointing Mass

8.45am Pater Noster Church, Evershed St, Myaree. Begins with Reconciliation followed by 9am Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, anointing of the sick and prayers to St Peregrine. Enq: Joy 9337 7189.

EVERY FIRST SATURDAY OF THE MONTH

Healing Mass

12.35pm at St Thomas Parish, cnr Melville St and College Rd, Claremont. Spiritual leader Fr Waddell. Enq: Kim 9384 0598, claremont@perthcatholic.org. au.

EVERY FOURTH SATURDAY

Voice of the Voiceless Healing Mass 12pm at St Brigid Parish, 211 Aberdeen St, Northbridge. Bring a plate to share after Mass. Enq: Frank 9296 7591 or 040 8183 325.

EVERY LAST SATURDAY

Novena devotions – Our Lady Vailankanni of Good Health 5pm at Holy Trinity Parish, 8 Burnett St, Embleton. Followed by Mass at 6pm. Enq: George 9272 1379.

GENERAL

Free Divine Mercy Image for Parishes

High quality oil painting and glossy print – Divine Mercy Promotions. Images are of very high quality. For any parish willing to accept and place inside the church. Oil paintings - 160 x 90cm and glossy print100 x 60cm. Enq: Irene 922 1247 or 9417 3267 (w).

Sacred Heart Pioneers

Is there anyone out there who would like to know more about the Sacred Heart pioneers? If so, please contact Spiritual Director Fr Doug Harris 9444 6131 or John 9457 7771.

St Philomena’s Chapel 3/24 Juna Drive, Malaga. Mass of the day: Monday 6.45am. Vigil Masses: Mon-Fri 4.45pm. Enq: Fr David 9376 1734.

Mary Mackillop 2012 Calendars and Merchandise

2012 Josephite Calendars with quotes from St Mary of the Cross and Mary MacKillop merchandise. Available for sale from the Mary MacKillop Centre. Enq: Sr Maree 041 4683 926 or 08 9334 0933.

Saints and Sacred Relics Apostolate Parish Missions - October change of dates Saturday, 5 to Sunday, 6 November - St Bernadette’s Parish, 49 Jugan St, Glendalough - all Masses. Enq: Giovanny 047 8201 092 or ssraperth@catholic.org.

Saints and Sacred Relics Apostolate – Latin Feast of all Holy Relics

SSRA Perth invites interested parties: parish priests, faithful association leaders etc to make contact to organise relic visitations to their own parishes, communities etc. We have available authenticated relics, mostly first-class, of over 200 Catholic Saints and Blesseds, including Sts Mary MacKillop, Padre Pio, Anthony of Padua, Therese of Lisieux, Maximilian Kolbe and Simon Stock. Free. Enq: Giovanny 047 8201 092 or ssra-perth@ catholic.org.

St Denis 60th Anniversary St Denis Catholic Parish in Joondanna will celebrate its 60th Anniversary on 16 December 2011. We are collecting photos, memorabilia and stories for display during the celebration. Enq and arrangements: Barbara on 040 1016 399 or emmanuelcentre@westnet.com.au or 9328 8113 (w).

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.

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 handmade and decorated vestments: albs, stoles, chasubles, altar linen, banners, etc. 12 Favenc Way, Padbury. By appointment only. Ph Vickii on 9402 1318, 0409 114 093 or kinlar.vestments@gmail.com.

TAX SERVICE

Quality tax returns prepared by registered tax agent with over 35 years’ experience. Call Tony Marchei on 0412 055 184 for appointment. AXXO Accounting & Management, Unit 20/222 Walter Rd, Morley.

ACCOMMODATION

HOLIDAY ACCOMMODATION

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

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 web site on www.excelsettlements.com.au.

MISSION ACTIVITIES

Learn how to make rosary beads for the missions and special rosaries for family and friends. Phone: (02) 682 2 1474 or visit our website: OurLadysRosaryMakers.org.au.

BOOK BINDING

NEW BOOK BINDING, general book repairs; rebinding; new ribbons; old leather bindings restored.Tydewi Bindery 0422 968 572.

FOR SALE

CHEAP, VARIOUS CATHOLIC/ PROTESTANT Books new/secondhand DVDs/CDs 9440 4358.

WANTED

ONE TO THREE STATUES.

1-2m high of our Lady, Jesus and saints. Crucifix available (same height) Contact: Brother JohnCarmelite - professed hermit (08) 9853 3112 or johnw9765@optusnet.com.

SERVITE VILLA

THIS WELCOMING FACILITY has several lounge areas, a communal dining room, a lovely community room and small chapel. Surrounded by attractive grounds with barbeque facilities, residents and families can always enjoy a private visit.

At Servite Villa all our food is cooked fresh on site. Every room at Servite Villa has built-in robes, individual access to outdoor patios, a shared toilet between two rooms and a communal bathroom. A podiatrist and hairdresser visit on a regular basis.

Servite Villa organises bus trips each week as part of our active social programme. Catholic Mass is celebrated on Sunday mornings, with a Communion service on Thursday mornings. The rosary is said daily in the chapel. Anglican services are held fortnightly. Individual pastoral care support is available to all residents.

Servite Villa Hostel currently has two vacancies, for a male and female resident. Please contact Joanne Douglas ph: 9444 0867 or email Joanne.douglas@ catholichomes.com.

FURNITURE REMOVAL

ALL AREAS. Competitive rates. Mike Murphy Ph 0416 226 434.

COUNSELLING

THE ASSOCIATION OF EDUCATIONAL COUNSELLING AND RELATIONSHIP EDUCATION

“Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve”. The Psychology and Spirituality of Forgiveness. Resolve past hurt and find peace.

Thu, 3 Nov–8 Dec, 10am12pm, 6 wks, $12/hr, The Faith Centre, 450 Hay St, Perth. Particularly for non-Christians/ friends. For info call Paul 040 2222 578 or www.educationalcounselling.asn.au.

THE ASSOCIATION OF EDUCATIONAL COUNSELLORS AND RELATIONSHIP EDUCATORS OF WA INC working in partnership with the RESOURCE CENTRE FOR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, both charitable, not-for-profit organisations promoting mental and spiritual health and ethical relationships, are offering counselling by donation at The Faith Centre, 450 Hay St for 4 weeks, 10 Nov-1 Dec. Also require volunteers in drop-in centre and op shop in Fremantle. Enq: Eva 0409 405 585.

TRADE SERVICES

BRENDAN HANDYMAN

SERVICES

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

PR OPERTY MAINTENANCE

Your handyperson. No job too small. SOR. Jim 0413 309 821.

BRICK RE-POINTING Ph Nigel 9242 2952.

PERROTT PAINTING Pty Ltd

For all your residential, commercial painting requirements. Ph Tom Perrott 9444 1200.

PICASSO PAINTING Top service. Ph 0419 915 836, fax 9345 0505.

11 This describes Sarah when she gave birth to Isaac

12 Lenten duty

13 Son of Eve

15 “… the will be first …” (Mt 20:16)

16 Adjective for the Bishop of Rome

19 Israel

20 Breaks the eighth commandment

21 Second woman mentioned by name in the Bible (Gen 4:19)

22 Jesus shared this with his apostles the night before he died 23 “___ in terris”

26 Elvis Presley co-star who became a nun

27 John Paul II’s “On Human ___”

28 Merton, for one

30 A priest wears a Roman one

31 Patron saint of Germany

32 ___ culpa

33 Material for Adam and Eve? (Gen 3:7)

34 French-speaking Canadian diocese

35 Direction from the Jordan to Bethlehem

37 Church

1

16-17 God’s building Jn 2:13-22 Zeal for your house

10 Th St Leo the Great, Pope, doctor of the Church (M)

Wh Wis 7:22-8:1 Wisdom pervades all

Ps 118:89-91. 130, 135, 175 God’s word for ever

Lk 17:20-25 A time will come

11 F St Martin of Tours, Bishop (M)

Wh Wis 13:1-9 Victim to appearances

Ps 18:2-5 Work of God’s hands

Lk 17:26-37 As in Noah’s day

12 S St Josaphat, Bishop, martyr (M)

Red Wis 18:14-16; 19:6-9

Peaceful silence

Ps 104:2-3, 36-37, 42-43 Sing God’s praise Lk 18:1-8 I want justice

Advent and Christmas Wisdom from Henri JM Nouwen

A Redemptorist Pastoral Publication

RRP $38

The inspiring words of Henri JM Nouwen guide the faithful on a spiritual journey through the Advent and Christmas season in this book of waiting, hope, anticipation and celebration. Each day of the Advent season (28 days in all in the season) and each day of Christmas contain a pertinent excerpt from the writings of Father Nouwen, a related quotation from Scripture, a prayer for the day, and a suggested activity that offers a concrete response to mark the season.

Advent and Christmas Wisdom from Pope John Paul II

By John V Kruse

RRP $30

Pope John Paul II continues to be remembered and loved for his closeness to all people around the world. Reflections for each day, from the First Sunday of Advent until the end of the Christmas season, begin with selections from talks and statements of the late Holy Father, followed by Scripture, prayer, and a suggestion for an appropriate seasonal activity.

Advent and Christmas Wisdom from Padre Pio

By Anthony F Chiffolo

RRP

$34

Padre Pio was one of the most beloved and intriguing holy men of the 20th century. In this book his own words lead readers to Christmas with a heightened sense of the sacred. Reflections for each day, from the first Sunday of Advent until the end of the Christmas season, begin with selections from letters and messages of Padre Pio, followed by Scripture, prayer, a suggestion for an appropriate seasonal activity, and blessings.

Advent and Christmas Wisdom from St Thomas Aquinas

By Father Andrew Carl Wisdom

RRP

$34

The holy season of Advent and feast of Christmas are a time to reflect on God’s infinite love for us all and how, through the birth of his son, Jesus Christ, Christianity was born. Advent and Christmas Wisdom from St Thomas of Aquinas guides readers on their spiritual journey to be closer to God and understand how to live the life of a Christian.

ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS WISDOM FROM ST BENEDICT

Judith Sutera RRP $49

For over 1,500 years, believers from all Christian traditions have looked to St Benedict, the patriarch of Western monasticism, for spiritual wisdom. And rightly so: his rule has shown how one may experience a simple, holy, and commonsense life, despite the increasingly busy pace of our daily existence. The latest addition to Liguori’s popular series of seasonal meditation books provides not only Scripture readings for the seasons of Advent and Christmas, but pairs them with a daily selection from the cherished writings of St Benedict. This book encourages the reader to set aside time each day to reflect upon a specific Scripture passage and feel the words speaking to their heart. Accessible, direct and practical, this book will guide the reader through the season leading up to the celebration of Christ’s birth in an uplifting, spiritually refreshing way!