The Record Newspaper 03 October 2007

CHILDREN: Archbishop issues Pastoral Letter on caring for kids Page 4

SMASH HIT! Whitfords raises $20,000 for WYD Parish Pilgrims Page 6

SCARLET WOMAN: Who was Mary Magdalene? VISTA 4

Overseas pilgrims can relax as New South Wales confirms venue for global gathering will be available

■ By Anthony Barich

The NSW Government has once and for all quashed any doubt that World Youth Day will go ahead after a media frenzy over the Australian Jockey Club’s public spat with WYD organisers had some pilgrims concerned.

Headlines like those in The Australian last month screaming “Trainers’ ultimatum on papal visit”, had some WYD pilgrims worried that the event itself, set to draw 300,000 from around the world, was in jeopardy. But the NSW State Government owns Randwick and leases it to the Australian Jockey Club for a “peppercorn rent” – almost nothing.

■

By Peter Rosengren

“If prostitution is a free choice [for women and girls] why is it that those with the

fewest choices are the ones who end up in it?”

The uncomfortable question, not the sort the State Government wants to hear at the moment much less know

about the expertise of the person asking it, was posed at the University of Notre Dame in Fremantle on the evening of Thursday September 21.

More than 300 people had

turned out to hear visiting Swedish expert Gunilla Ekberg, a leading European government advisor on combating the sexual exploitation of women in prostitution analyse why some governments feel so overwhelmed by prostitution’s tenacity that they decide to give up trying to control it.

Ms Ekberg was Special Advisor on Prostitution and Human Trafficking to the Swedish Government for five years and helped introduce and fine-tune its innovative policy, which has since become a model for other nations in the region; she also helped establish shelters for battered women. She now works in the EU’s headquarters in Brussels.

As such she is possibly the most senior bureaucrat in the world when it comes to understanding and dealing with prostitution’s perplexing tenacity. There are two philosophies vying with each other over the issue of prostitution, she said. One, the neo-liberal, sees it only as an issue of choice; it

Continued - Page 2

School leavers get special offer from UNDA

Eighty-one Western Australian school leavers have been granted a place at the University of Notre Dame Australia Fremantle’s Campus for 2008 as part of the University’s new Early Offer Program.

The EOP was introduced last year to give secondary schools the opportunity to nominate academically strong students who have made an outstanding contribution to school and community life.

This year Notre Dame Fremantle received 147 applications from 60 schools around WA, including country schools such as St Luke’s College, Karratha and Manjimup Senior High School. Rommie Masarei, manager of UNDA’s

Admissions Office said: “We are delighted to see the number of applications increase.

“This is a great opportunity for outstanding students to be acknowledged for their contribution to school and community life and their strong academic results.”

The University’s Vice Chancellor, Dr Peter Tannock congratulated the students at the EOP award ceremony. “It is a great pleasure to welcome to Notre Dame such high calibre students who have made a great contribution to their School community,” he said.

The offers are conditional on them completing Year 12 and meeting the academic requirements for each course.

Visiting expert unveils nastiness that is prostitution’s global reality

Continued from Page 1 is based on the old libertarian analysis that women are only exploited by men if they don’t consent. If they do then there is nothing wrong. It follows that those who consent should be placed in brothels, she added.

However the problem with this approach is that in order to be able to choose freely one must have options – yet poverty, homelessness, drug dependency, physical, sexual and emotional abuse are the standard backgrounds from which

prostitutes come. Women and girls lured or trapped into prostitution are the ones with the least options of anyone in the trade.

In Canada, she said, approximately 85 per cent of the women in prostitution are from aboriginal backgrounds.

“When a woman has been abused, especially since childhood, she will believe she is only good for sex,” she told an audience with a surprisingly high component of young people.

Meanwhile the language that is used is also important – to call

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prostitutes ‘sex workers’ dignifies the violence that is done to them.

In her experience well over 90 per cent of the women involved in the trade would get out if they thought they could but feel trapped with nowhere to go.

“The prostitution industry is the most violent place – ever – that a woman can be,” she said.

“Not only is she raped and beaten regularly but there is also the act of prostitution which means waking up every day knowing she will be penetrated anally, orally and vaginally and have to smile and be

‘It’s a form of abuse’

She is so small you could pick her up and throw her over one shoulder, so softly spoken it’s hard to hear her voice even over the microphone.

Yet Sarai’s story gripped the audience who strained to hear her speak during the public meeting at Notre Dame University in late September.

Sarai, (pictured) a former prostitute feeling deeply nervous about speaking to such a large crowd, gave those present an insider’s glimpse into the oldest form of exploitation. She later told The Record prostitution attacks a girl’s sense of self worth.

“It’s a form of abuse every time you let someone overstep the boundaries; it can be hard to stand up for yourself, it can be dangerous,” she said.

“It lowers your chances of escaping and becomes a vicious circle.”

Girls with low selfesteem are the most likely to get into the business,

EDITOR

touched throughout,” and to pretend she is enjoying it, she said.

Meanwhile, “pimps are very careful to ensure that women are drug dependent – because they’ll last longer and feel less,” she said.

Long and short-term consequences include memories and flashbacks of their experiences.

Calling prostitution work is to give it legitimacy rather than to see its violent exploitatative nature.

Huge financial incentives run the business.

The City of Amsterdam now makes five per cent of its total annual income from prostitution, also providing a huge incentive to retain it.

those who are most vulnerable. You can’t do that by legitimising the prostitution industry,” she said.

On WAs approach, she said, she was “stunned and amazed” by what the State is proposing because there is no analysis of what any other country has done apart from New Zealand.

And yet Holland now has a union for the buyers of women who negotiate with brothel owners so fees don’t rise too steeply.

In 2006 Holland had to close street prostitution tolerance zones because approximately 15,000 of those involved were under-age or children, she said.

The alternative philosophy, Ms Ekberg said, is the feminist analysis that sees prostitution as male violence against women and girls by pimps, male clients and owners.

Women are recruited into prostitution because of the absence of real choices and one of the consequences is the relationship between pornography and the trade.

she said. To cope, girls sion, a fake self-esteem, that they are the ones with the power.

“In a way you feel like you’re abusing the man; they’re paying,” she said.

“But [the girls] have no power,” she said.

Sarai got into the industry escaping an abusive male partner and because she needed the money.

She’d been a receptionist in an escort agency earlier for approximately 18 months.

She told The Record she liked what she saw of the Swedish approach.

“It’s got great points; other ways just haven’t worked. Throwing her into jail just because she’s a prostitute – she can’t go any lower,” she said.

ADMINISTRATION

“All the women I’ve met tell me they have been used for porn. When you’ve got work it follows automatically,” she told her audience.

Internationally the median age for entry into prostitution is 14 years of age.

The digital revolution has facilitated the explosion of porn – in Nevada there are websites in existence where web surfers can pay $20 and watch women being used in brothels.

The feminist vision is committed to gender equality. It rejects the proposition that women and girls can be bought and sold as commodities.

“When you have this vision all that you do will lead you in that direction,” she said.

In Sweden the ongoing goal is that no one can be purchased or sexually exploited – and this is absolutely possible.

This model focuses on preventative measures, preventing harm before it is done.

“You have to strengthen the social and political situation of

In the same year two-thirds of the ‘pride of Amsterdam’ brothels displaying the women and girls for sale in streetside windows were shut because they had been taken over by organised crime.

“Here in Western Australia, if you legalise prostitution you will have the same thing, with mafias fighting over territory and so on,” she said.

“And when you normalise the idea that men have a right to purchase women, all women will be seen as sex objects.”

Ms Ekberg said the key question to ask when looking at decriminalisation or legalisation of prostitution is simple but effective: who benefits?

The global prostitution industry is well organised, she pointed out, and glosses over the realities such as the culture of rape and the root cause – the men who pay money to other men for the use, abuse and torture of others.

“We have to know who are the prostitution defenders,” she said.

“We must show solidarity with those women who live in and survive male violence against women and children.”

Latvia and Finland have adopted the model successfully introduced by Sweden, and Norway will shortly be following.

The BBC has also reported the British government has begun considering the Swedish approach as a way of addressing the problem.

Peter Rosengren cathrec@iinet.net.au

JOURNALISTS

Anthony Barich abarich@therecord.com.au

Sylvia Defendi sdefendi@iinet.net.au

Paul Gray cathrec@iinet.net.au

Mark Reidy reidyrec@iinet.net.au

Caroline Radelic administration@therecord.com.

Cathy Baguley recaccounts@iinet.net.au

Justine Stevens production@therecord.com.au

Achievers: School leavers accepted into the Notre Dame’s Early Offer Program.

Photo: courtesy of UNDA

Restoring churches part of our obligation: Mayor

■ By Anthony Barich

Town of Vincent Mayor Nick Catania has a special connection to two particular churches in his constituency. So to him, the Town granting two Catholic churches $20,000 each to put towards desperately needed restoration works was a no-brainer.

The way Mr Catania sees it, local councils, corporates and the community have a responsibility to maintain important symbols of our society’s Christian heritage.

As a student at Christian Brothers College Highgate, he enjoyed having then-Father Barry Hickey as parish priest, and still has a connection with the vibrant Italian community in that parish.

As for St Mary’s, Mr Catania says it has been “part and parcel” of the history of the very town itself.

“It has a huge cultural significance,” he said.But this isn’t just a case of one unashamed Catholic in a local council pushing his barrow

ticultural flair – he himself emigrated from the southern Italian island of Sicily when he was four.

“The fact that we’re (council members) Catholics and Christians gives us a greater impetus to help the Church,” he said. “St Mary’s has formed such a central part of the town, even aside from recognising the significance of the town’s Christian history. I don’t care if I’m biased.

“A community is measured by how it treats mankind at both sides of the spectrum – the youngest and the oldest, and by its treatment of the important symbols of Christian culture.”

St Mary’s was the most urgent, requiring a five-year project.

Parish priest Fr Oswald Lewis, ordained in Burma, says the main stained glass window at the front would have collapsed if work was not done immediately. The sidestreet behind it has had so many cars driving through it that it’s actually lowered, causing the adjacent wall it sits on to crack and be on the verge of collapse. This main stained glass window, depicting the Last Supper and the Crucifixion, will cost $100,000.

installing the four stained glass windows of the sanctuary, which cost $9,000 each, and there are four more in the section on the other side of the altar. New lights, electrical rewiring worth $110,000, new carpets and floor polishing

are required, adding up to a further $650,000 needed to be raised.

As for Highgate, all the windows in the church must be taken out, as the frames have rusted and are unsafe. The big ones at the back are the worst, and even the cords

needed to be taken off the windows so no one can open and shut them or they’d fall out. Parish priest Fr Peter Bianchini says he’ll need to replace all the gutters among other things, as nothing has been done for a long time.

Moved by the desperate plight of Christians in the Holy Land and throughout the Middle East, the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has been supporting the country’s beleaguered Christian population. Sadly, due to ongoing violence and oppression, the proportion of Christians in the Holy Land has plummeted from 20 percent to as little as 1.4 percent in the last 40 years.

The scaffolding alone for the job costs $70,000. Related problems

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Big job: Fr Oswald Lewis observes the structural job ahead at his parish church, St Mary’s in Leederville. PH OTO: ANTHONY BARICH

Families called to celebrate their worth

Archbishop Barry Hickey has issued a Pastoral Letter on the care of children to coincide with the family gathering weekend at Queen of Apostles Parish in Riverton organised by the Archdiocesan Committee for Family and for Life

My dear people, On this family weekend I wish to call attention to the need to protect and care for children whom the late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, referred to as “a precious gift”.

The purpose of this weekend is to affirm the irreplaceable role of families in society and in the Church. Families give society strength and stability and affirm the dignity of every human person, especially children whom they have a God-given responsibility to raise and nurture for the enrichment of society.

The Church recognises their unique role in passing on the Catholic faith to their children and the witness they give to others of love, fidelity and generous self-giving.

Today we recognise the special role families play in our parish communities and we assure them of our admiration and love.

I wish to take this opportunity to draw attention to the proper care and nurturing of children and to address some of the destructive forces that have caused such tragic consequences in the lives of children here in Australia and throughout the world.

Let us be convinced in the words of Pope John Paul II that each child is a precious gift, and, as believing people, let us be the first to love them, the first to defend them and the first to stand by their parents, acknowledging their generosity and spirit of sacrifice.

Our parishes, schools and other Christian communities should be places where families are made welcome, where the joy of children is shared and where help is offered especially when families face special difficulties.

Here I wish to commend those parents who are asked by God to raise children with special needs. We know the struggles, the sleepless nights, the emotional and financial pressures with which they are burdened. We admire them and we thank them, because they are carrying these heavy burdens, often

with a joyful and loving acceptance of God’s will, on behalf of us all.

“We must also be aware of the other burdens that families bear, the absence of father or mother for whatever reason, the financial stresses of modern life leading often to sudden and severe poverty, and the problems of mental health that are unfortunately so common in our modern society.”

We must also be aware of the other burdens that families bear, the absence of father or mother for whatever reason, the financial

stresses of modern life leading often to sudden and severe poverty, and the problems of mental health that are unfortunately so common in our modern society.

These must be the concerns of all our parishes and communities. We are called to recognise the family struggles in our neighbourhood, and be ready to include families, affirm and support them and reach out to them in love.

When we look around at the fearful problems that children face in today’s world our hearts go out to them. Apart from those whose tiny lives are snuffed out in what Pope John Paul called the “holocaust of abortion”, millions of children grow up in poverty and in the midst of violence and war. Some children are sold into the slavery of prostitution, others are exploited by being drawn into the workforce at a very early age, with little or no education or family life.

We think too of the innocent victims of family breakdown and their feelings of

Prayer for the Family

Heavenly Father

We praise you and thank you for this day. Look with love upon our family. Bless us and keep us safe. Guide our coming and our going and all that we do. We turn to you in times of joy and sadness, knowing you are always there.

We welcome Jesus, Your Son, as the unseen guest in our home, our constant companion, our light and our salvation. Keep us together as a close and loving family.

We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Amen.

insecurity and abandonment. So many of our young people are targets of commercialism. Some are destroyed by drugs, and others lose respect for the dignity of women and the proper use of human sexuality through easily available and morally corrosive pornography. Others are damaged for life by the terrible crime of sexual abuse.

This is a time for action.

The Christian Community must give priority to the nourishing of families to care properly for their children. The Church through her parishes and agencies can strengthen family life spiritually and nurture them within an accepting community of brothers and sisters, like an extended family.

We must use our voices to protest against the exploitation of children by calling on those with power and influence in Australia and elsewhere to stop the practices that do so much harm to children.

Finally and habitually we must pray for families that they receive the spiritual, economic and social means to care for their children. In this I praise the efforts of groups that lobby hard at political and policy making bodies for the welfare of families and children. We must keep their welfare in mind in our Prayers of the Faithful at Mass and provide happy experiences for children within the family of the Faith.

“I urge all families to recover family prayers. Prayer at home, initiated by the father or the mother, binds and unites the family together under God. Family life will be strengthened when prayer is part of its daily life.”

I urge all families to recover family prayers. Prayer at home, initiated by the father or the mother, binds and unites the family together under God. Family life will be strengthened when prayer is part of its daily life. Prayers at mealtime, before going to bed, at birthday celebrations, at wedding anniversaries, at times of sorrow and death, and at times of rejoicing and thanksgiving, will lead children to sense the abiding presence of God, of Jesus and the saints in their lives and develop in them deep love for one another, forgiveness and mutual care.

Family prayer will help them grow as full and active members of the Church, witnesses to others of Christ’s love and effective members of society in which they will mirror the ethical standards without which no country can thrive.

Sacred images exposed in the home will also be a constant reminder that Christ is our inspiration and hope.

I call on our priests and religious to be Good Shepherds of families and show them the immense love that God has for them for the indispensable role of life and love they have been given.

I conclude with a Prayer for the Family.

Most Rev B J Hickey Archbishop of Perth 22 August 2007

Padre Pio’s feast brings followers to Toodyay

By Sylvia Defendi

Four busloads of people left Spearwood, Victoria Park, Glendalough and Bassendean on September 22 and trekked to the small town of Toodyay for the feast of St Pio of Pietrelcina.

One of the organisers, Des Scully, said he was surprised at the multitude of people who had turned up to celebrate the contribution of the contemporary saint.

Indeed over 250 people came for the day of prayer and meditation, which took place at the Franciscan of the Immaculate retreat centre in Toodyay.

Guests within the appropriately named St Pio chapel watched a video on the life and works of Padre Pio and stayed on for Holy Mass, celebrated by Fr Tiziano Bogoni, Fr John Cook FI, Fr Dominic Murphy FI, and Fr Andre Feian FI.

“Fr Bogoni spoke to all on the many gifts of Padre Pio and how he exercised them with heroic charity.

“He explained that his gifts of reading hearts, performing various miracles, bilocating to various places and prophesying future events were not the reason he was canonised a saint but rather, because he had lived the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity to a heroic degree,” Fr Murphy FI said.

A luncheon was shared by all after Mass, followed by exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in the Saint’s chapel.

With a bell ringer, incense distributor, four lantern bearers and a small canopy over the monstrance, the 250 strong congregation processed through the town of Toodyay.

Commenting on the grand attendance, Fr Murphy FI said “many spoke of the uplifting feeling of having made a worthwhile pilgrimage in honour of the great Franciscan saint who has so immensely inspired the world over with his holy life and example.”

For further information on Padre Pio, or to start a Padre Pio prayer group contact Des Scully on: 6278 1540.

works of

Christ in his daily life.

in brief

the

Chinese cautious on waltzing

A brainwave in China’s Ministry of Education that will see the introduction of compulsory dancing in schools has already run into trouble. Some parents are worried that if boys and girls dance the waltz, physical contact may stir the wrong emotions. The ministry has given assurances that

“four students will be grouped together to perform the waltz and they will change partners regularly as soon as one song finishes. This way, the risk of young love will be lowered.”

The dancing classes are an attempt to address inactivity and obesity. A report last year said that between 1985 and 2000, the number of overweight and obese children had increased 28-fold. One-fifth of the world’s overweight and obese people live in China.

Celebrating a worthy contribution: Over 250 people process with the Blessed Sacrament through Toodyay (above) as part of a day-long celebration on the feast of Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. Earlier all those visiting Toodyay for the feast day gathered in the St Pio chapel (top left) where Fr Tiziano Bogoni celebrated Mass alongside the Franciscans of the Immaculate. A view from the back of the St Pio chapel in Toodyay (middle left) shows the many who travelled to the small town for a day of prayer in remembrance of the contemporary saint. Fr Tiziano Bogoni (bottom left) speaks to the congregation on the life and

Padre Pio and

often unrecognised simple way in which the great saint followed

OF

Day of festivities sends youth to WYD

By Sylvia Defendi

Our Lady of the Missions Church in Whitford made use of a sunny spring day in September with an all-day festival that raised over $20,000 for the parish’s World Youth Day pilgrims.

Over 80 pilgrims will be venturing to Sydney for WYD and funds raised from the spring festival will go towards assisting these pilgrims as well as seven youth from one of Mother Teresa’s missions in India. Planning for the parish’s spring festival, which was held on September 23, began at the beginning of the year, with assistance coming from many groups within the parish.

The day was also well supported by local businesses and Catholic high schools and primary schools within the surrounding area.

Parish priest at Our Lady of the Missions Fr Joseph Tran said the primary purpose of the festival was “to foster parish community, as well as promote the parish to people in the local community.”

The festival featured an international food hall, over thirty stalls and live entertainment. Parish

youth led by Jane Pike and Konrad Gagatek ran many stalls and activities including face painting, laughing clowns, bouncy castles, fishing pond, chocolate toss, craft activities and traditional games such as apple bobbing.

“A baby animal nursery and pony rides, budgerigar display provided by long time parishioner Betty Rae and clowns who walked around the oval giving away heli um balloons and making balloon sculptures were a hit with fami lies,” parishioner and coordinator of the festival Pauline Egan said.

“It is both humbling and affirm ing to all of us in the leadership team, those preparing for WYD in 2008 and to me as a parent, whose sons are among those going, that so many would support us in our endeavour to have as many of our youth as possible answer the call to join Catholic youth from all over the world in Sydney next July.

“The youth from our parish who attended WYD in Germany in 2005 found the experience lifechanging and they are members of the leadership team working hard to send their peers to Sydney,” Mrs Egan said.

Got it!: Bobbing for apples was a popular event at the Spring Festival.

Food and festivity: The owner of the Hogs Breath Cafe in Joondalup brought along the Pink Hog Costume. Fr Joseph (dressed as the hog) and Mario Mendis, member of the Whitford WYD 08 team and festival catering team and chef at the Hog’s Breath are pictured with him.

Cute and cuddly: Children enjoyed holding the baby animals in the animal nursery. Some lucky animals even enjoyed a feed and a good pat.

Clowning around: Adam Magno (rear), Matthew Russell, Annabel Seow (right) with a friend in the middle dressed up as clowns and entertained the crowd throughout the day.

Claire wins PM’s award for taking care of business

■ By Sylvia Defendi

Santa Maria student Claire Wells was recognised as the highest achieving vocational education student in Western Australia with a Prime Minister’s Award for Skills Excellence on September 17.

The Award recognises exceptional Year 12 students who are the top recipients of the Australian Vocational Student Prize, for demonstrated exceptional skills in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) in school program.

In 2005, the Australian Government introduced the Award for Skills Excellence, with each winner receiving a framed certificate signed by the Prime Minister and $2,000, in addition to their Australian Vocational Student Prize.

17-year-old Claire is currently completing a Certificate IV in Business Studies at Stirling Business College and is one of only a minority of secondary students to be studying at this level.

Santa Maria College Principal, Anne Pitos, praised Claire’s abil-

ity to study a West Australian Certificate of Education and a Certificate IV and achieve outstanding results in both.

“It is clear Claire applies qualities of enterprise and initiative to her studies and work. Her commitment and motivation combined with her vocational skills will see her make a valuable career choice,” she said.

Choicez Perth-bound

The Doyles are coming back to Perth for another installment in the Choicez saga.

Fast growing Australian Catholic media company Choicez Media has received over 25,000 orders for copies for its new Year 12 publication, The Road Ahead.

And they’re on their way to Perth – again.

To unlock the power to be the local leader all Catholics are called to be by the very act of their Baptism Choicez are running a Youth Leadership Summit on October 8-9 from 7-10pm at the Catholic Pastoral Centre on Mary Street in Highgate for $30. There is no age limit.

At a time when many graduating Catholic students are contemplating their plans for ‘Schoolies Week’ and other end-of-year activities, The Road Ahead provides an authentic Catholic input on sex and relationships at a time when many young people are at risk of making poor decisions in this area, and their heads are being filled with ideologies that don’t work.

Choicez national director

Jonathan Doyle said: “We wanted this document to be an attractive publication that spoke to senior students in a way that would be easy for them to access.

“It is obvious to many parents and to many school communities that while the end of formal schooling is a wonderful time of excitement, new found freedom and fun, it is also fair to say that for a significant number of young people it can also be a time of unnecessary regrets.”

The document emerged from the post graduate work undertaken by key Choicez staff at Melbourne’s John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family.

“At Choicez, much of what drives us is a belief that John Paul II’s work on human sexuality represents a profoundly attractive approach to the human person and to human relationship,” Mr Doyle said.

“For many Year 12 students, poor sexual and relationship decision making at this time in their life can have significant impact going forward.

“Behind all the partying is a deep human desire for connection and relationship and The Road Ahead seeks to make that simple

truth accessible and attractive to our young people via the deep riches of the Catholic tradition.”

Within days of the first draft being made available to Catholic Education Office executive staff across the country the document was being ordered in bulk by many dioceses.

One Archdiocese alone placed an order for six thousand copies.

The runaway success of the document highlights the awareness of numerous Catholic leaders, principals and teachers that there is a large need for quality resources in this area.

Choicez Media DVD programs have already been rolled out in over 500 Australian secondary schools and every Catholic school in New Zealand and are making rapid inroads into South East Asia.

According to Doyle, “2008 will see a much more comprehensive document made available covering a wider range of issues relevant to graduating students”.

An online version of The Road Ahead is viewable at http://www. choicez.com.au/brochure/.

For info on the Youth Leadership Summit, contact 9422 7912 or email cym@highgate-perthcatholic. org.au.

2 IN THE BEGINNING 2

COMING SOON

A special edition of The Record

How the Catholic church began in Perth, the people who created it, the controversies, the struggles, the triumphs and how a tiny courageous group of ordinary women and men created a Western Australian tradition that has grown and lasted more than 150 years

Claire Wells with her award

editorial

The pure of heart

Archbishop Barry Hickey’s reflections on the Beatitudes are available on www.perthcatholic.org.au

Welcome to the sixth beatitude, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.”

The pure of heart will no doubt see God in eternity, but this beatitude tells us that the pure of heart will see God on earth … but not in visions.

The pure of heart are able to see past the symbols of the physical world, whether nature or mankind, to see the presence and life of God within.

By learning to be always aware of the life of God flowing within us, the pure of heart come to experience the truth of God’s words, “I have called you by name; you are mine. You are precious to me and I love you.”

With the blessing of that experience, the pure of heart can see that God speaks these words to everybody and to all creation, and thus they can see God in his word and in his works.

Purity of heart is often – and rightly – associated with our attitude to human sexuality.

Sexuality is a powerful force within us, and impurity of heart and mind rapidly distorts our understanding of ourselves and our recognition of the true value of other people.

This has always been a problem, but it is particularly so today when distorted versions of sexuality are pushed at us from all directions and from a very young age. Prayer to Our Blessed Mother, Our Lady of Purity, is a great defence.

It will give us the freedom to develop our ability to see each person as an individual expression of the love of God. That does not come easily; we must work at it. St Francis of Assisi’s loving embrace of a leper is one of many recorded examples of how great saints worked diligently to develop this beatitude.

Blessed Mother Teresa kneeling in the gutter to cradle in her arms a destitute and dying man is another and more modern example.

letters to the editor

With friends like these...

The French convert/poet/philosopher Paul Claudel once remarked that Protestants have produced the miracle of turning wine into water.

But who needs Protestants when we have got theologians like the Dutch Dominicans?

Matt Bruekers Lesmurdie.

in brief

Higher education without borders

Two student representatives and the Dean of Education from The University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle recently attended the 15th conference of the Association of South East and East Asian Catholic Colleges and Universities (ASEACCU) in Manila, The Philippines.

The theme of the conference, ‘Higher Education without Borders: Learning to Live Together’ was discussed amongst 45 different Catholic universities focussing on

the role of higher education in the context of increasing globalisation.

Fremantle Campus Student Association president James Scanell and vice president Nour Huenidi said being at the conference was a huge eye opener and an incredible experience.

“All the students participating in the conference were so welcoming and friendly. On the first day we were split up into groups and asked what our concerns were as student leaders.

PO Box 75, Leederville, WA 6902

Tel: (08) 9227 7080, Fax: (08) 9227 7087 cathrec@iinet.net.au

The pure of heart can see past obstacles of appearance, circumstance, attitude and behaviour to see God within.

Their reward is found in realising what a great grace it is to know God.

The Rosary, the family and Mary

October is the month of the Rosary. This weekend is Perth’s great family celebration at Our Lady Queen of the Apostles at Riverton. And the following Saturday, October 13, is the 90th anniversary of Our Lady’s final appearance at Fatima. All three are closely interwoven.

The Rosary has long been the prayer that has kept the faith alive in families, parishes and nations, particularly when priests have not been available to say Mass and give people the Eucharist and other Sacraments. It was the Rosary that kept the faith alive in Japan for more than three centuries when priests were banished, and similarly in groups separated from the Church for long periods in India and, only recently, China. It was the great support of the faith in Ireland when English persecution deprived them of priests, and even here in Australia when priests were few “on the outer Barcoo” as Banjo Paterson expressed it in his poem “The Bush Christening”.

With its deep scriptural content, the Rosary is not only a great way to pray, but also a great vehicle to carry forward from generation to generation the central events of the earthly life of Jesus.

The link between the Rosary and the family is not merely something that happened. Rather, it is something that belongs. Like the Rosary, the family is not merely a convenient structure. It is the central element of the story of humanity. It provides the life of new generations and the love that people require if they are to achieve the fullness of their humanity.

In our own society, we can see the pain that arises from our all too common inability to develop the love that holds families together. That is why the Church puts so much effort into encouraging and helping people to strengthen their families. It is the essence of our faith that God is love, that we are made in the image and likeness of God, and that families (beginning with parents) are the source of the love we all need and the opportunity for the expression of love that will eventually enable us to form our own families.

October 13 fits this combination because it is the day of the great miracle of Fatima. Our Lady told the children in July, August and September that in her October visit she would provide a great sign that all could see. The promise spread by word of mouth throughout Portugal and about 90,000 people turned up to witness it.

The miracle and the foretelling of the miracle are wonderful reminders of the truth of the spiritual world, and indisputable reminders to parents that raising their families in the spiritual way is raising them in the truth.

PRINCIPALSHIPS

BUNBURY CATHOLIC COLLEGE

“We visited Baseco, an area of housing that had been built by students of the local university and corporate businesses for poor families,” he said.

“What amazed me were the children in the area.

“Although they were living is such poor conditions, they never stopped smiling.”

The purpose of the AESACCU organisation is to promote Catholic higher education and to be a support for the local churches.

The University of Notre Dame Australia hosted the 2002 conference in Fremantle and will host the 2009 conference on its Sydney Campus.

“Many listed poverty as being one of their major concerns and it became apparent how lucky we are to be living in Australia,” Mr Scannell said, adding that the highlight of the trip for him was visiting one of the many slum areas on the docks of Manila.

Bunbury Catholic College is located on 8.6 hectares in the coastal city of Bunbury, 190 kilometres south of Perth. The College opened in 1973 following the amalgamation of St Francis Xavier’s (Marist Brothers) and St Joseph’s (Mercy Sisters) and still upholds the Marist and Mercy traditions and values.

The College is co-educational and caters for 930 students from Years 8-12. A comprehensive curriculum provides opportunities for each student to develop fully as individuals within a Christian environment of care and respect. A well equipped Special Education Centre ensures that the needs of all students are addressed. A comprehensive building program has resulted in the provision of excellent facilities, including the recently opened Performing Arts Centre. The College is proud of its holistic education and provides diverse academic, spiritual, sporting and cultural opportunities. Parents are actively involved in the College community through the School Board and the Parents and Friends’ Association.

SANTA CLARA SCHOOL

Santa Clara School, St James, is a single stream co-educational Catholic primary school with a current enrolment of 220 students from Kindergarten to Year 7. The school was established in 1954 by the Dominican Sisters.

The school has been implementing the Raising Achievement in Schools (RAISe) program since 2004 and has a strong emphasis on early intervention and improving the literacy outcomes of all students. Reading Recovery operates along with a strong support program. In 2007 RAISe (Numeracy) was implemented, with an emphasis on Extending Mathematical Understanding (EMU).

Santa Clara has fully embraced the Information Communication Technology program, Primary Connections Science, Instrumental Music, the Arts and Italian (LOTE) as a major focus for effective teaching and learning.

An Out of School Hours Care facility operates before and after school. The School Board and Parents and Friends’ Association have a strong commitment to develop and provide facilities and resources to meet the needs of all students.

ST CECILIA’S CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL

St Cecilia’s Catholic Primary School, Port Hedland, is a co-educational single stream school with a current enrolment of 215 students from Kindergarten to Year 7. The school is located 1600 kms north of Perth and was founded in 1942 by the Presentation Sisters.

The school has a close relationship with St Cecilia’s Parish, Port Hedland, and St John the Baptist Parish, South Hedland, and is involved in a parish based Sacramental program which includes staff from the school, parish members and parish priests.

St Cecilia’s is currently implementing the RAISe program (Raising Achievement in Schools). The development of enhanced learning through Information Communication Technology is a feature of the school, as is the development of an environmental program which involves students working closely with the local community. An Integrated Arts program and a homework centre for Indigenous students operates from Years 4-7.

The School Board works to ensure that the facilities and resources of the school are well maintained. The Parents and Friends’ Association is very active in promoting social events for the community.

ST HELENA’S CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL

St Helena’s Catholic Primary School, Ellenbrook, established in 1999, is a multi-age co-educational Catholic school located in the picturesque Swan Valley. In 2008 the school will have an enrolment of 410 students from Kindergarten to Year 7.

The school has a strong focus on Literacy, Maths, Science and Information Communication Technology, as well as employing specialist teachers in Music, LOTE (Italian), Physical Education and Library/Computer programs. Staff work closely with the students and the school community to provide a variety of learning experiences within a safe and supportive Christian environment.

The school and parish have a strong relationship and work with the School Board and Parents and Friends’ Association to create a positive and supportive school community.

The successful applicants for the above three positions will be required to commence on January 1, 2008. The commencement date for Bunbury Catholic College is negotiable with the Director, Catholic Education Office. Applicants need to be practising Catholics and experienced educators committed to the objectives and ethos of Catholic education. They will have the requisite theological, educational, pastoral and administrative competencies, together with an appropriate four year minimum tertiary qualification, and will have completed Accreditation for Leadership of the Religious Education Learning Area or its equivalent. A current WACOT registration number must also be included.

The official application form, referee assessment forms and instructions can be accessed on the Catholic Education Office website www.ceo.wa.edu.auE nquiries regarding the position should be directed to Helen Brennan, Consultant, Leadership Team on 6380 5237 or email sch.personnel@ceo.wa.edu.au All applications, on the official form, should reach The Director, Catholic Education Office of Western Australia, PO Box 198, Leederville 6903 no later than 19 October 2007.

Vista

The Church in Australia is a sleeping giant waiting to be awoken, and everyone in it from Cardinal Pell down hopes next year’s World Youth Day in Sydney will be the trigger. As the fever builds up to the biggest party in the world, the Cardinal reflects on how the country Pope Benedict XVI has said is in dire need of evangelisation can evolve into a new springtime as of 2008.

Re-evangelising Oz

■ By Nancy Wiechec

As planning for the world’s largest youthfest gathers momentum, Cardinal George Pell said his main concern was the spiritual preparation of young Australians.

Logistical difficulties will be involved in hosting up to a half-million people for World Youth Day 2008, admitted Cardinal Pell of Sydney, but he said he is confident that the July 15-20 celebration will be well organised. “The most important challenge is the spiritual and religious preparation,” he said.

Both young people and clergy told a group of visiting journalists in late September that they feel religion slipping away in their culture. Nineteen per cent of Australians did not claim a religion in a 2006 census, up two per cent from the previous count.

“An increasing minority of young Australians and other Australians are tempted to believe that you can live a good life without God,” said Cardinal Pell. “There’s an erosion of faith and practice.”

Nick Seselja, 23, called the Church in Australia a “sleeping giant” ready to be awakened. Patrick Langrall, 19, said many parts of the country suffer from a “spiritual drought.” But the two said they were encouraged by their own faith experiences and the preparations for the event. They said they are hoping for the spiritual gains that have been realised by past hosts of international World Youth Days.

Bringing together such large numbers of youths has an impact, said Langrall. “It encourages you to witness your faith a lot stronger in the years to come,” he said. “People need that reaffirming of faith.”

Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Fisher, coordinator of the 2008 event, echoed that thought. The dividend of World Youth Day is “a greater connection and commitment to God and the Church,” he said.

Cardinal Pell said he personally saw “deep conversions” in some youths with whom he travelled to World Youth Day in Rome in 2000. “I am very much an enthusiast for the religious potential of World Youth Day,” he said. “One of the great blessings that the World Youth Day will give us is that it will present the one true God to us, remind us of the teaching and the role of Christ, the only Son of God, and generally place spiritual values in the public domain.”

In preparation, the Church in Australia established a comprehensive catechesis program that began in June 2006 and will extend to July 2008. It includes a monthly e-pilgrimage newsletter that can be downloaded from the Web site www.wyd2008.org.

It also established the Holy Hour of Power, which encourages Catholic parishes and schools to hold an hour of Eucharistic adoration each week.

The World Youth Day song, “Receive the Power,” was released this year and has been downloaded

at least 45,000 times from the Web. The Diocese of Wollongong recently appointed its first full-time youth ministry coordinator.

In Sydney, St Mary’s Cathedral has adapted the music and liturgy of its Sunday evening Mass to attract young people.

But probably the most interest in World Youth Day comes with the touring of its two symbols - the cross and its accompanying icon of Mary and the child Jesus.

The cross and icon, entrusted to the youth of the world by the late Pope John Paul II, are on a journey that will cover the island continent.

At the end, Australian youths will have escorted the two symbols thousands of miles to 400 locations in the country’s 28 dioceses. Each stop offers young people and others the chance to join in a prayer service or liturgy centered on the theme of World Youth Day, which discusses receiving the power of the Holy Spirit.

In Cairns a public prayer rally with the cross and icon caught the attention of several passers-by.

“The cross is definitely a draw,” said Daniel Hopper, the Wollongong Diocese’s executive director for World Youth Day. Although the church in Wollongong keeps the World Youth Day program front and centre with little pilgrimages, youth concerts and other activities,

World Youth Day organiser Bishop Anthony Fisher

Happy as larry: US Sisters Mary Rachel and Mary Madeline talk with World Youth Day volunteers at the offices of the Archdiocese of Sydney on September 20. These members of the Dominican Sisters of St Cecilia in Nashville, Tennessee, are among those working on the spiritual and liturgical aspects of World Youth Day 2008. CNS

Cute: Colette Grienke displays one of the tens of thousands of crosses being made by volunteers at the Mary MacKillop Outreach Centre in Sydney on September 16. The tiny crosses stamped with a World Youth Day logo are being distributed across Australia during the tour of the World Youth Day cross and icon. CNS

Five modern women walk into an abbey...

For one, the real challenge is being without her blow dryer and lipstick.

A Benedictine Abbey in NSW opened its doors to five women, including one from Perth, who took up the challenge of living as a contemplative nun for five weeks. An ABC-TV crew was there to film the whole thing.

■

By Geraldine Capp

On a mountain in the southern highlands of NSW, just a couple of hours south of Sydney, there is a Benedictine abbey, surrounded by lush forest with stunning views across the mountain escarpment.

At first, it does not appear to fit the image of an abbey. Instead of an imposing, Europeanstyle building, the abbey looks more like a holiday resort or a day spa – the kind of weekend getaway you might see on a lifestyle television program. The low-level buildings blend in to the natural environment and there is a distinct feeling of harmony between all elements of God’s creation.

The abbey is home to the enclosed order of contemplative nuns who live by St Benedict’s 1500-year-old Rule of silence, obedience and renunciation. But for a few weeks earlier this

year, the nuns opened the abbey to five women for 33 days and nights for the ABC’s Compass program. Part one of the series will be broadcast on October 14.

From different backgrounds and with very different views about spirituality, these women left behind the hurly burly of modern life to look for God inside the abbey walls.

Tammy Solonec, 30, from Perth, is a single mother and practises new age spirituality.

Robyn Vinodolac, 57, from the Gold Coast is a retired mother of three. Lyn, 50, from Tasmania is a lapsed Catholic who knows it’s time to overhaul her life.

Meg from country Victoria is the mother of a child with a severe genetic disease and has some big questions for God. The youngest of the women, Tusa, 23, from Brisbane is a budding musician and songwriter who has grown cynical about religion.

Tammy Solonec heard about the abbey seeking applicants on ABC’s Radio’s Triple-J youth network. A young woman has called in to say she was going to apply. The radio announcers were making fun of the concept so Ms Solonec thought she should apply.

Ms Solonec describes herself as a “new-age spiritual seeker” who juggles the demands of work, study, activism and single motherhood.

Last year she graduated from law school at the University of Western Australia.

She was raised Catholic and educated at Our Lady of Mt Carmel in Mullewa, attend-

ed boarding school at St Brigid’s College in Lesmurdie. She is a descendant of the Nyikina people of the Kimberley and also has Spanish, German and Ukranian heritage with many religious influences. Her indigenous maternal grandmother studied to be a nun. Her maternal grandfather (who was Spanish) trained as a monk. Her paternal grandmother was a Jehovah’s Witness and her aunt was a reiki practitioner.

Ms Solonec said her family moved away from the Church when she was a teenager and her mother started exploring their family history and discovered more and more what happened to her indigenous Australian ancestors.

Ms Solonec now has a keen interest in many therapies and practices that are seemingly in conflict with Christianity including astrology, numerology, crystal healing, chakra healing Feng Shui, Buddhism, tarot, aromatherapy and yoga. But Ms Solonec said she did not see any conflict with her new age beliefs and the discipline of Benedictine spirituality.

“I don’t think those things are at odds with Catholicism. I think there are more similarities than not. This was another avenue to explore,” she explains. “I thought it would be a healing journey for me; a place where I could concentrate on my inner being, God, and spirituality without being distracted by work, paying bills and children.”

Ms Solonec had a few hurdles to clear to enable her to get to the abbey. Her ex-husband agreed to look after her children on weekdays and her parents had them for weekends. She had to arrange unpaid leave from her job and get financial matters under control.

But when she got to Jamberoo, she threw herself into the mentoring process with Sr Hilda and opened all facets of her life to the environment of the abbey. She has seen the series in its entirety and is curious about how viewers will see her.

“I did cry a lot as I delved into my personal stuff,” she explained. “It was like watching me on a home video. I think that I look a bit weak because I cried a lot.

“The main thing the abbey has given me is self-confidence and assertiveness. I stand up for myself a bit more if something is bothering me. I am a lot more driven to do what I want to do with my life. I feel that I can strive to do things that my heart tells me to do rather than what the world tells me.”

As a mother, she feels more relaxed and under less pressure to please her children Jonathan, 10 and Jacinta, 6. She used to feel pressure to entertain them with visits to the zoo and other places but now she is more content to spend time with them at home doing simple things together such as puzzles.

Post-abbey, Ms Solonec is focused on her political aspirations as an indigenous rights activist. She is the convener of NAIDOC in Perth and sits on the Aboriginal Housing and Infrastructure Council, as well as other committees.

She said she was grateful to have been given the opportunity to participate. “It is an experience that every human being would benefit from,” she said. “I would like to go back for a month every year.”

Robyn Vinodolac, from the Gold Coast, who has been married for 30 years, said the experience was life-changing because it forced her to confront many issues. She has recently retired from running a fashion manufacturing business and her children have grown up and left home.

“It was so exciting for me at this point in my life because it really felt like someone wanted me,” Mrs Vinodolac, explained. “When I applied to get on the show, I thought ‘Who would be interested in a 57-year-old woman? Who would be interested in a woman like

myself who is vain and who can’t go anywhere without putting lipstick on?’ No one ever sees me without my lippy. If I don’t have it on I feel like I am dying. I look in the mirror and I look awful. I wake up first thing in the morning and it’s on. But they wanted me just as I am. I did not have to change anything about me. At the abbey I felt that I could be myself and my lippy is a part of who I am.”

Mrs Vinodolac said that she might come across as a typical loud and flashy Gold Coast resident, but her life in reality was much deeper. She had the typical “Bride of Christ” type of education with the Faithful Companions of Jesus in Melbourne in the 1960s. “In those days, we were told it was a mortal sin to skip Mass on Sunday, the consequence being an eternity burning in the fires of Hell,” she said. As the young Robyn grew up, she always felt at odds with religion wondering where God was after looking after children with mental disabilities each Saturday during her school years. She felt their condition “just wasn’t fair”. Also, having nursed both her parents in their later years and experiencing the death of her older brother through suicide made her question “everlasting life and all its mysteries”.

“Five weeks of praying made me very churned up and I have a new fervour,” Mrs Vinodolac explained. “But I kept worrying that I might become a God-botherer. I did not want to be the person who does not get invited to dinner because I was always talking about God.

“It was intense because I found myself looking at blades of grass and droplets of water and thinking, ‘That is so beautiful’. I felt like an old hippie. Normally I would look at nature and say, ‘that’s nice’, and move on with what ever I had to do.

“The experience certainly was not a holiday. I loved the regimentation. I loved being told where to go and what to do. It has renewed my faith. I thought I would be going to Mass every morning but it is not like that for me. The more and more that I am in the world, the more and more I slip back into my old ways. I don’t want to lose it. I have a tape of the sisters singing in the chapel and I play it every day because it is so beautiful. I just love it.”

Sr Hilda, who was the main mentor for the five women, said they were a delight to have in the abbey. “What we saw was a real grace, a real gift and it never ceases to amaze me to see how people grow,” Sr Hilda said. “Robyn had a zillion masks and when she discovered

that God loved her, the real Robyn came out. It was stunning.”

The women had to give up laptops, mobile phones and other personal possessions.

Mrs Vinodolac had a hairdryer that Sister Hilda asked her to surrender.

“I asked her to give up the hairdryer and she nearly died,” Sister Hilda said.

“She wanted to keep it. We are a silent order and hair dryers are noisy. But I went to the Abbess to discuss it and she said let Robyn keep the hairdryer. Robyn thanked me for that. It was too hard for Robyn to give it up and if we forced her then she would have put a lot of energy into thinking about it and that would have prevented her getting into deeper things.”

Sr Hilda said hospitality was a big part of Benedictine spirituality and one of the key messages she hoped people got from the show was that anyone was welcome at the abbey.

“After the women left, it was a bit of a relief for me because the pressure was off. I was no longer responsible for them. But as soon as they had gone, we missed them and I think they miss something about us.

“The experience has changed us all and we just hope we have given them some tools to make life more user-friendly.”

The series

Eerie presence: A Benedictine Sister lights candles at the abbey.

Curious: Tammy Solonec was on a journey.

Traditional: A Benedictine nun stands quietly.

Needs answers: Robyn Vinodolac.

Posing: Varcha Sideell, the producer, director and writer of the show, with Sr Hilda, Sr Magdalen and Sr Mechtild at the abbey.

Happpy days: Tammy with Sister Hilda at the abbey.

Hear ye: A Benedictine nun preaches the Word.

All together now: Robyn Vindolac, Tammy Solonec, Lyn O’Grady, Meg Holmes from country Victoria and budding musician Tusa Sinau at the abbey. HOTOS COURTESY OF ABC PUBLICITY

Opinion Prosperity Gospel fraught with danger

I Say I Say

■ By Mark Reidy

Before I understood the true beauty of the Catholic Church I would often suggest to God that He adopt a more attractive public relations campaign.

I didn’t believe that concepts like the acceptance of suffering were conducive to drawing new converts.

The “Prosperity Gospel” on the other hand, which was being advocated by an increasing number of US television evangelists, seemed to offer a significantly more appealing alternative. And not surprisingly, this phenomenon, which promotes the idea that health and wealth are indicators of God’s favour, was, and still is, the stream of Christianity that is drawing the largest crowds.

At the time I was confused. Could two such contrasting ideals co-exist or was this an either/ or proposition? The reality was that there were extremely faithful Christians who endured great suffering, while others rarely faced hardship.

Similarly, there were both moral and immoral Christians who were ‘blessed’ with material wealth.

It became increasingly obvious that there was no black and white answer, but I was still unsure of how the two concepts could be reconciled.

“My answer, as I should have expected, lay in the pages of the Bible.”

My answer, as I should have expected, lay in the pages of the Bible. St Paul tells us in his letter to the Philippians that he had learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether in abundance or want. He could endure all things, he revealed, in Christ who strengthened him.

(4:12-13).

In this one brief passage lies the answer to the simmering tensions that have long dogged these two schools of thought. It is possible,

How many Marys are there, and which is who?

Q & A

■ with Father John Flader

Q:I have occasionally wondered whether Mary Magdalene, Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus, and the sinful woman who anointed our Lord’s feet with ointment were the same person. Can you shed any light on this?

You are not the first person to ask the question. Let us begin by looking at what was believed in the early Church. It seems that in 591 AD Pope St Gregory the Great preached a sermon in which he identified the three women you mention as being one and the same.

He was reflecting a tradition that had gained some ground in the West, even though it was rejected by many of the Church’s early theologians.

The Greek Fathers – that is, the great saints of the early Church in the East who wrote in Greek – consistently maintained that Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany and the unnamed repentant sinner were three distinct women.

That remains the tradition in the Orthodox churches.

What can we make of all this?

First of all, St John tells us that Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, did anoint Jesus shortly before his passion and death in

their home in Bethany, close to Jerusalem. It was six days before the Passover.

“Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair.” (Jn 12:3)

This anointing is clearly distinct from the anointing towards the beginning of Christ’s public life by a sinful woman at the home of Simon the Pharisee in Galilee, related by St Luke in Chapter 7, verses 36-50.

St Luke does not give the name of the woman but a certain tradition grew up that because this woman was sinful, she must have been Mary Magdalene, from whom

sarily equate with being a public sinner. In any case, St Luke, in the following chapter, mentions Mary Magdalene as having had seven demons cast out of her (cf Lk 8:2), but he does not say that it was Mary who had anointed Jesus in the previous chapter.

This makes it most likely that the sinful woman was not Mary Magdalene.

The belief that the sinful woman was Mary Magdalene was undoubtedly strengthened by the fact that until 1969 the Gospel reading for the feast of St Mary Magdalene on July 22 was St Luke’s account of the anointing by the sinful woman.

But the Church obviously wanted to distance itself from this association and in 1969 it changed the Gospel reading to that of Jesus’ appearance to Mary Magdalene after his Resurrection.

So it seems clear that the two anointings of Jesus were done by different women: one by Mary of Bethany and the other by an unnamed sinful woman who is almost certainly not Mary Magdalene.

Moreover, there is no reason to identify Mary of Bethany with Mary Magdalene, most importantly because the first Mary was from Bethany, a small town some three kilometres from Jerusalem in Judaea, while Mary Magdalene was from Magdala, a town on the Sea of Galilee near Capernaum.

in fact inevitable, St Paul tells us, that we will both prosper and suffer throughout our lives and we are expected, as Christians, to respond to each in the same manner - to remain focused on Christ.

One of the problems, it seems, is that some advocates of the “Prosperity Gospel” have imposed today’s secular values onto the Divine promise of “life to the full” by equating God’s blessing with material wealth and bodily health.

It is true that God can and does allow Christians access to worldly riches, so that they can be used for His glory, but to use this precept as a gauge for one’s faith is fraught with danger.

Not only can it instil a sense of failure and hopelessness amongst believers who do not receive the health and wealth that they may personally pray for, but it also opens the door for our inherent desire of self-gratification.

The concept of a Heavenly Father providing for all our needs, in actual fact, is central to our Catholic faith. However, because of our human frailties, it becomes too easy to interchange our wants with our needs and this creates a propensity to seek God within our circumstances, rather than in spite of them.

This understanding is beautifully depicted in the testimony of young Australian Nick Vujicic who was born without limbs. He would, in times of great darkness, plead to God for arms and legs, but now as he travels the world speaking to thousands about the love and mercy of God, he is thankful that his desire was never granted. If his prayers had been answered, he says, then he would never have been able to witness, as St Paul has done, to the reality that God’s love, peace and joy can transcend all things.

The Record well travelled - to USA

Perth’s Archdiocesan archivist Sr Frances Stibi has received in the mail from the US a copy of The West-Australian Record dated Saturday July 17, 1915.

The paper was not needed for her uptodate files, but she was intrigued by the paper’s survival.

According to a very brief note, the sender was Janice Speth, of 4300 Napa Loop, Roseville, California, 95747.

She said that in 1976 as she and her husband renovated their home (then at 7772 Magnolia St, Fair Oaks, 95628) the paper was found beneath the floor boards in one of the bedrooms.

Mrs Speth did not say why the paper had been retained for so long or why it was being forwarded now, except to say “I hope it is of interest to you.”

We publish the story in the faint hope that someone may have a family connection that might explain how the paper got to California in 1915.

The paper is, of course, vastly different from the current version of The Record. It was published on Saturdays and sold for threepence (3d.) a copy.

There was a considerable amount of news from World

in brief

seven devils had been cast out. This is a completely unwarranted assumption.

To be sinful does not equate with being possessed by devils, nor does diabolical possession neces-

Also, there is no suggestion that Mary of Bethany ever had devils cast out of her. And finally, whereas Mary Magdalene accompanied Jesus on his travels (cf Lk 8:2), Mary of Bethany seems to have stayed home and was there when Jesus visited on several occasions. In conclusion, as the Navarre Bible puts it in its commentary on John 11:2: “The best-grounded and most common interpretation offered by exegetes is that they are three distinct women.”

Nature backs drugs

The world’s leading science journal, Nature, has endorsed performance-enhancing drugs in sport. Its argument is based on the growing acceptance of drugs by ordinary people to help them cope with life.

“If spectators are seeking to reset their body mass index through pharmacology, or taking pills that enhance their memory, is it really reasonable that athletes should make do with bodies that have not

War I (1914-18), from the other States and from England. Among items of local news was a tribute by Bishop William Kelly of Geraldton (first appearing in his paper The Sower) to the late Fr P.J. Gibney, the brother of Bishop Matthew Gibney who had died after serving 50 years as a priest, much of it in the very large district of York, which had been the young William Kelly’s home.

The Bishop said of Fr Gibney, “He beheld the passing of the old order and the incoming of the new.” One part of “the new” was the way priests could get around “in easy motor car or luxurious railway carriage”.

Fr Gibney was succeeded in York by his nephew, Fr P.J. Sheridan.

The paper also recorded the death of Rev Mother Peter Murphy at Victoria Square Convent of Mercy, and noted that in her death, “that illustrious community loses one of its saintliest and most valuable members”.

On a happier note, the paper reported, “The Catholic residents of the pretty suburb of Nedlands are making an effort to raise funds to secure a site for the building of a church.”

seen such benefits?” Nature asks. The editorial sparked a couple of indignant letters. Pharmacologist Piero Dolara, of the University of Florence, responded that increased physical performance because of drugs is often associated with serious side effects. He also worries it could lead to “wild drug experimentation”.

“To my knowledge,” he writes, “the rule primum non nocerefirst, do no harm - has not yet been abolished for the medical profession”.

Grace: The head of St Mary Magdalene is depicted in a sketch by artist Leonardo da Vinci. According to the Gospels, Mary Magdalene was a leading disciple of Jesus and used her resources to support him and the apostles. PHOTO: ALINARI/ART RESOURC E

The World FEATURE

It’s euthanasia, which ever way you slice it

As the living wills Bill is debated in WA Parliament that could deny doctors the ability to save suicidal patients, Rome-based Father John Flynn, LC analyses what we have learned when society opts for the apparently compassionate but, in reality, misguided approaches to euthanasia.

The issue of euthanasia came to the forefront of news again recently, with the publication of a note on September 14 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The statement, written in reply to questions sent to the Vatican by US bishops, stipulated that providing nutrition and liquids to people who are in what is often termed the vegetative state is, with rare exceptions, morally obligatory.

After the fierce debate over the 2005 Terri Schiavo case in Florida, news came from Arizona a few months ago about a man who unexpectedly woke up from a coma.

Jesse Ramirez suffered brain injuries in a May 30 car crash,

newspaper on June 27. On June 8 his wife, Rebecca, had asked his doctors to remove the tubes providing him with food and water. Jesse’s parents objected and obtained a court order to reconnect the tubes. Subsequently, Jesse suddenly woke up from his coma.

Earlier this year another case was reported, from Denver, Colorado. Christa Lilly had been in coma since the mid-’80s in the wake of a heart attack and stroke. In the past, Lilly had woken up for brief periods, but until this year the last time was on November 4, 2000, reported the Denver Post newspaper on March 8. According to the article, a neurologist from the University of Colorado Hospital, James Kelly, thinks that Lilly might have been in a “minimally conscious state” during these years, as opposed to a persistent vegetative state.

Euthanasia came up for debate in Germany recently, after the announcement by Roger Kusch, exjustice minister in Hamburg, that he has designed a machine to help people commit suicide.

According to a report in the September 9 edition of the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, a simple push of a button injects a lethal solution into the terminally ill patient. German federal law prohibits helping someone commit suicide, but does not make illegal the actual act of suicide by the person involved. So with his

legal difficulties in helping people die. News of the invention drew immediate criticism, both from politicians and Archbishop Werner Thissen of Hamburg. Kusch is a candidate in Hamburg’s October elections.

Meanwhile, in Switzerland, protests by residents in a Zurich suburb have forced the assisted-suicide group Dignitas out of its premises, according to a July 13 report on the Web site of the German magazine Spiegel Online.

Since 1998, around 700 people have come to the Dignitas centre to put an end to their lives. According to the article, the largest group of clients is from Germany, with Britain in second place.

“To permit the killing of the disabled, frail, sick or suffering, even if motivated by a misplaced compassion, requires a prior judgment that such lives are not worth living,” Canada’s bishops said. “No one forfeits the right to life because of illness or disability.”

Earlier, in June, the Swiss Senate called on the government to draft a law aimed at improving controls of organisations offering assisted suicide. The National Commission on Biomedical Ethics, a government advisory panel, has also recommended increased state supervision of organisations such as Dignitas.

July also saw a court in the Swiss city of Basel sentence Peter Baumann to three years in prison for having helped three people with psychological problems commit suicide, the agency Swissinfo reported on July 6. Baumann, a retired psychologist, helped the people die between January 2001 and January 2003. According to the court, Baumann acted out of egoistic motives, hoping to obtain public recognition of his methods. The judges, however, defined his conduct as “inhuman,” and criticised his behaviour as negligent.

During his trip to Austria, Benedict XVI raised the issue of euthanasia in his September 7 speech to members of government and the diplomatic corps. Saying that the issue was of “great concern” to him, the Pope added that he feared tacit or explicit pressures on the elderly and ill to put an end to their lives. “The proper response to end-of-life suffering is loving care and accompaniment on the journey toward death - especially with the help of palliative careand not ‘actively assisted death,’” the Pontiff stated. He also called for reforms in the social welfare and health systems in order to assist people who are terminally ill.

Some of Canada’s bishops also addressed euthanasia earlier this year. In April the Ontario episcopal

conference published a brochure titled “Going to the House of the Father: A Statement on the Dignity and Destiny of Human Life.”

“It seems a cruel twist of history that societies with such great medical capabilities are turning against the disabled and sick - with lethal results,” the introduction stated.

The bishops insisted that protecting life is not just a Christian or religious argument, but a basic human right.

“To permit the killing of the disabled, frail, sick or suffering, even if motivated by a misplaced compassion, requires a prior judgment that such lives are not worth living,” they said. “No one forfeits the right to life because of illness or disability. Unless the right to life is secure, there can be no sure foundation for any human rights.”

The statement also explained that there is a difference between deliberately causing death and unduly prolonging life. We are not morally obliged, the bishops said, to prolong life if the means used are unduly burdensome or cause additional suffering and when there is little hope of recovery.

The bishops also recommended that Christians not neglect the soul and that they should draw comfort from the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection. Suffering and death for Christians, they continued, is not only a matter for medicine.

Another source of opposition to euthanasia comes from groups representing disabled people, as the Los Angeles Times reported on August 6. According to the article, one of the reasons why legislative proposals to allow medically assisted suicide have failed in California in the past few years is the hostility of the disabled’s rights movement.

A combination of legalised euthanasia and pressure to cut increasing costs in the health care

system could lead to the withdrawal of treatment for the disabled.

The Los Angeles Times quoted a number of disabled people, active in groups who have fought against assisted-suicide proposals.

“The conditions I have are expensive to treat, and it would be a lot cheaper for the health care system to just let my health go to the point where I would want to die,” said Los Angeles activist Laura Remson Mitchell, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, kidney disease and diabetes.

Other concerns arise from the increasing reluctance by some courts to punish family members who help a sick relative commit suicide.

The application of the law in Britain in recent years has been eroded to the point where courts are reluctant to punish those who say they help kill someone out of love, commented Robert Verkaik, law editor for the British newspaper the Independent in an article published on May 8.

Among other examples, Verkaik noted a case from October 2006, when a man who helped his terminally ill wife to die was set free with just a nine-month suspended sentence.

Earlier, in March, a French court convicted a doctor for poisoning a terminally ill cancer patient, reported the Associated Press on March 15.

In spite of his guilt, the tribunal in southwestern Perigueux sentenced Laurence Tramois to just a one-year suspended prison sentence for his role in the August 25, 2003, death of Paulette Druais in the nearby town of Saint-Astier.

Misguided compassion seems destined to lead to the deaths of still more people as pressures to ease restrictions on assisted suicide continue.

Silent witness: Terri Schiavo’s case brought public scrutiny to end-of-life care issues in 2005. Up to her death, pro-life demonstrators held a vigil outside the Florida hospice where she was receiving care. Above, Kelsey Bohlender takes part in a silent protest in support of Schiavo on a day her feeding tube was to be removed. CNS

Wasted lives: Joseph Mayer, a fourth-grade student from St Michael School in Schererville, Indiana, reflects over the 4000 crosses that he helped plant outside St Margaret Mercy Healthcare Center in Dyer, Indiana, in 2002, to mark Respect Life Month. The crosses represent the number of abortions that occur each day in the United States. The US Catholic October campaign emphasises education on threats to human life, including abortion and euthanasia. CNS

The World Vatican ok gives hope to China relations

African Church fights witchcraft

Ordination gets green light

While some tensions remain, the papal ok to the latest ordinations of two Chinese bishops has raised hopes of more of the same.

■ By John Thavis

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - The Vatican said the recent ordination of two Chinese bishops in communion with Rome was a positive sign for the Church and raised hopes of further appointments.

The comment came in an article in the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano reported on the September 21 ordination of Bishop Joseph Li Shan as head of the Diocese of Beijing, the Chinese capital.

The two-hour ordination liturgy, attended by hundreds of local Catholics and a number of government officials, followed the ordination of Coadjutor Bishop Paul Xiao Zejiang of Guizhou, China, earlier in September. The Vatican newspaper indicated that both ordinations had been carried out with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI.

The local Catholic communities, who elected the bishops, had indicated to the Vatican that they were worthy candidates, the newspaper said. At Bishop Li’s ordination, there was no announcement of Vatican approval.

At the Vatican, Archbishop Fernando Filoni, an assistant secretary of state, told reporters on September 21 that Bishop Li’s nomination was a significant step forward in Vatican-Chinese relations. “Undoubtedly this is a positive sign, Archbishop Filoni said. “Let’s hope it continues.”

“We hope it is the first page of a long chapter of a new reality” in Church-state relations in China, he said.

In Beijing on September 21, Fr Sun Shang’en, diocesan spokesman, told the press: “If the Vatican approves Bishop Li, we are happy and welcome it, but we have not yet seen the apostolic bull from the Vatican.”

Bishop Xiao’s diocese is based in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou province.

In 1999, Catholic officials registered with the government merged the Anlong, Guiyang and Shiqian dioceses to form the Guizhou Diocese, which covers the whole province. It has about 100,000 Catholics, mostly scattered in extensive mountainous areas, with 25 priests and about 30 nuns serving them.

Looking good: Bishop Joseph Li Shan walks out of Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Beijing following his September 21 installation as the new head of the Diocese of Beijing. Bishop Li’s installation had the approval of the Holy See. CNS

noted that the principal consecrating bishops at both ordinations were in communion with Rome but said some of the co-consecrators were not - a “cause of regret,” it said.

“In entrusting the difficult mission of these two young bishops and their diocesan communities to the Virgin Mary, there arises the spontaneous hope that all the dioceses can have worthy and qualified pastors, capable of living in full communion with the Catholic Church and with the successor of Peter, and of announcing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Chinese people,” it said.

The article noted that Pope Benedict, in his recent letter to Chinese Catholics, had called for a “respectful dialogue” between church and state authorities, and added: “Catholics in China and in the rest of the world are praying so that this may become a reality.”

The Vatican comments added to speculation that the two ordinations may mark the beginning of a new and improved stage in Vatican-Chinese relations.

The Rome-based missionary news service AsiaNews, which follows events in China closely, quoted a Chinese source as saying the Chinese government was no longer imposing its own candidates as bishops and was now allowing the Church more freedom.

In his letter to Chinese Catholics, issued in July, Pope Benedict said the Vatican “would like to be completely free to appoint bishops.” He proposed a dialogue with Chinese authorities to resolve the problematic situation in which some bishops were selected and ordained without papal approval.

KOENIGSTEIN, Germany (Zenit.org) - On top of the many problems faced in Africa, the Church in the Central African Republic is battling against the idea that suffering and natural disasters are caused by witches.

Bishop Peter Marzinkowski of Alindao spoke with the group Aid to the Church in Need about the lingering belief in witchcraft. About one-quarter of the country is Catholic, one-quarter Protestant.

The prelate explained that many of the people have “no natural explanation for death, sickness or natural disasters.” The people always look for a scapegoat who must, in their view, have caused the misfortune through witchcraft, he said.

Accusations of witchery can be hurled at anyone, Bishop Marzinkowski explained, and the accused can sometimes be killed as punishment.

Even Christians are sometimes guilty of thinking in this way, the German-born Bishop added, given that the faith is not yet deeply rooted and “at the least difficulty they relapse back into their traditional way of thinking.”

Bishop Marzinkowski said that the Church continues to preach the Gospel, and especially tries to instill the Christian concept of forgiveness.

“We must help the people to acquire a new image of God and man,” he said.

The 68-year-old prelate explained that many parishes exclude people who have accused someone of witchcraft until they come to retract their accusations.

The Bishop noted that belief in witchcraft is heightened by a prevailing fear in society.

The social support system is in ruins, he said, and state-run institutions such as schools and hospitals are no longer running.

He said the money that should be flowing in to development aid is mostly used to pay back the debt the country has incurred with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

“The repayments are strangling the country,” Bishop Marzinkowski lamented, and detailed the Church’s struggle to promote education, noting that the first battle is convincing family leaders of the need for literacy. “We cannot proclaim the Gospel while being indifferent to everything else,” Bishop Marzinkowski said. “A society in which there is no education cannot develop.”

Anyone who calls himself a Christian must feel a sense of responsibility for his neighbour, Bishop Marzinkowski emphasised.

Vietnamese diocese record

THAI

BINH, Vietnam (CNS)

- The rural Diocese of Thai Binh in northern Vietnam has become the country’s latest diocese to boast record numbers of newly ordained priests and newly erected parishes.

During the past year, “the diocese erected the greatest number of parishes since it was established in 1936,” said Fr Dominic Dang Van Cau, secretary to the Bishop of Thai Binh, in a September interview with UCA News, an Asian Church news agency.

Bishop Francois Nguyen Van Sang of Thai Binh opened 20 new parishes on December 3, 2006, and created six more parishes in early August, Fr Cau said.

Each of the 26 new parishes has more than 1000 Catholics, he added.

Creating new parishes is part of the three-year jubilee celebration

marking the diocese’s 70th anniversary, Fr Cau added.

Currently, 36 of the diocese’s 90 parishes have no resident priest, and he said that many individual priests serve more than 5000 Catholics.

“It is necessary to establish new parishes to provide pastoral activities for the growing number of Catholics,” said Fr Cau.

He added that the diocese has encountered no problems from the government.

Fr Cau said that in early August the Bishop ordained nine priests, the most since at least 1954 when thousands of local Catholics fled to the South after the Communist victory in the North.

The ordinations took place at the new cathedral in Thai Binh city, which will be officially inaugurated in late 2007.

The new priests, Fr Cau said, “will help reduce the shortage of parish priests of past decades and also mark the development of the diocese.”

The Vatican and Vietnam do not have diplomatic relations, but Vatican diplomats make annual visits to Vietnam to discuss Church-state relations.

Specific questions related to the appointment of bishops, seminary enrollment and the functioning of Catholic institutions are discussed by Vatican diplomats and Vietnam officials.

The Communist government of Vietnam continues to insist on approving the Vatican’s candidates for Bishop before their nominations are announced.

It also sets limits on the number of new seminarians allowed each year.

Faithful: Nigerian children pray at a makeshift shrine inside St Paul’s Church in the city of Lagos, Nigeria in 2005. CNS

The World Ncube dismisses any political ambition Archbishop will keep defending the poor

■ By Bronwen Dachs

CAPE TOWN, South Africa

(CNS) - Although he said he is as committed as ever to defending the poor and working for justice in Zimbabwe, retired Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo said he does not have “the slightest interest in entering into politics.”

“I am a clergyman, and my passion is to work for the Church. As such, I shall continue to stand up in defence of human rights, which are part of the Gospel of Christ,” the Archbishop said after a week of widespread rumours that he was considering running against President Robert Mugabe in next year’s presidential elections.

Considered the most outspoken critic of Mugabe’s leadership, Archbishop Ncube resigned as head of the Bulawayo Archdiocese in early September after being accused of adultery in a case with political overtones.

“Come rain or high water, in a situation where there is gross oppression, as in Zimbabwe, I shall continue to speak out,” the Archbishop said.

“This is part of the prophetic role of the Church, to stand up and strongly defend the human rights of the poor and oppressed people.”

Archbishop Ncube also said he strongly supported church rules against clergy becoming involved in partisan politics. Too often, he said, priests who have taken on political roles have compromised their Christian values.

“Also, I have seen that many

No 4th Fatima secret

There is no fourth secret of Fatima and the third secret in its entirety has already been revealed, says Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. This was confirmed Friday at the official presentation of Cardinal Bertone’s book, “L’Ultima Veggente di Fatima,” (The Last Fatima Visionary). The Pope’s secretary of state wrote the book, released in Italian last May, with the collaboration of journalist Guiseppe De Carli. Benedict XVI wrote the volume’s introduction, saying, “Through the experience of this humble nun one can see the role of the Virgin Mary who accompanies the Christian with a maternal hand.” During the presentation, Archbishop Loris Capovilla, Pope John XXIII’s private secretary, said that there is no fourth secret. He is the only living witness who was present when John XXIII opened and read the third secret in 1959 at Castel Gandolfo. The

politicians are concerned chiefly with the accumulation of power and wealth, rather than with alleviating the suffering of their people,” he said.

In late September, Archbishop Ncube visited the Denis Hurley Peace Institute in Pretoria, South Africa.

Fr Sean O’Leary, director of the institute, said in a September 25 report that Archbishop Ncube believes his life is in danger and said that he frequently has been warned by secret supporters within Zimbabwe’s ruling party “to be very cautious about where he goes.”

Archbishop Ncube, who “sees himself as a human rights advocate and not as a politician,” will stay in Bulawayo and “intensify his commitment to bring an end to the Mugabe regime,” Fr O’Leary said. Archbishop Ncube said that although he no longer is head of his Archdiocese, the archdiocesan administrator had named him “pastoral director” of Bulawayo, “coordinating pastoral work, pastoral structures, training and courses for pastoral works.”

In this new position, the Archbishop said, “I shall work to assist people in coming closer to God, and this includes promoting human rights and defending the disadvantaged.”

Fr O’Leary’s report said the archbishop had explained that he resigned “for the sake of the Church,” citing examples of government refusals to provide services to those in Bulawayo with links to him. Father O’Leary said the archbishop was unable to dis-

91-year-old prelate said: “It never even entered my mind that there could be a fourth secret. No one ever said such a thing to me nor did I ever claim any such thing.”

The third secret is the part of the Virgin Mary’s message given on July 13, 1917, to Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto.

Priest killed in Sri Lanka

A 40-year-old Catholic priest who was delivering aid to displaced refugees is the latest victim of Sri Lanka’s two-decade civil war. Jesuit Fr Nicholaspillai Packiyaranjith, coordinator of Jesuit Refugee Service in the northeastern district of Mannar, was killed when a land mine exploded, reported Aid to the Church in Need. The blast took place on Poonery Road in the Kilinochi district early Wednesday evening, killing Father Packiyaranjith. The priest was on his way to assist people in a refugee camp and an orphanage in Vidathalvu. Archbishop Oswald Gomis of Colombo wrote

cuss the adultery charges because his case is before the High Court of Zimbabwe, but the archbishop said it was “widely accepted in church circles that the case is part of the government smear campaign against him.”

The adultery lawsuit was made public in July and state-run newspapers published photos they said were of Archbishop Ncube and a woman, taken with a concealed camera placed in the archbishop’s bedroom.

During his visit to Pretoria, Archbishop Ncube “spoke with pain about the deteriorating plight” of Zimbabweans, “the lack of food, the breakdown of the health and education systems, the fact that shops are now empty and (about) the increasing number of desolate poor, living in increasing despair without hope,” Fr O’Leary said.

Zimbabwe is crippled by the highest rate of inflation in the world, unemployment of more than 80 percent, and acute shortages of food, foreign currency and fuel.

Archbishop Ncube is convinced that Mugabe will win the March 2008 elections through intimidation, “using food as a weapon and by mass rigging of the electoral process,” Fr O’Leary said.

The archbishop lamented the split in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change “and placed the blame for this division squarely at the door of Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the larger of the factions,” Fr O’Leary said.

He noted that Tsvangirai rejected attempts by Archbishop Ncube to mediate between the groups.

in a message of condolence: “We are all deeply shocked by the tragic death of Father Nicholas. We condemn these acts of violence which inflict suffering and grief on innocent civilians.

Nuns excommunicated

Six sisters from the Monastery of Our Lady of Charity and Refuge in Hot Springs were excommunicated by the Catholic Church for their involvement in a schismatic association based in Quebec. They have been longtime members of the Community of the Lady of All Nations, also known as the Army of Mary. The excommunicated sisters adopted the teachings of its founder, Marie-Paul Giguere, who believes she is the reincarnation of Mary.

The association is no longer considered a Catholic organisation because of its false teachings on the Trinity and Mary, a Vatican official said. This summer, Fr Jean-Pierre Mastropietro, an association priest, invalidly ordained six men in Canada.

Faith: Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk of Seoul, South Korea, blesses a young girl during Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington on September 22. Commemorating 100 years of their ancestors’ migration, Korean-American C atholic pilgrims filled the basilica for the dedication of two bas-reliefs, “Our Lady of Korea at Cana” and “Our Lady and the Korean Martyrs,” symbolising the permanence of their place in the Catholic Church. CNS

Koreans honour martyrs, celebrate 100 years in USA

WASHINGTON (CNS) - The words “Pyung-hwa-ga Yoroboongwa hahm-ke” (“Peace be with you”) greeted Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl as he welcomed Korean Catholics from Virginia, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Philadelphia, New York and beyond to a special Mass on September 22.

Commemorating 100 years of their ancestors’ migration, KoreanAmerican Catholic pilgrims filled the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for the September 22 dedication of two bas-reliefs that symbolise the permanence of their place in the Catholic Church. Cardinal Nicolas Cheong Jin-suk of Seoul, South Korea, joined Archbishop Wuerl, Bishop Paul S. Loverde of Arlington Virginia, and Mgr Walter Rossi, basilica rector, along with nearly 50 priest concelebrants for the afternoon Mass. “It is significant that the Korean immigrants have endeavoured to dedicate these art pieces here in this most American church,” said Cardinal Cheong. “I understand this as a sign of the fact that Korean-Americans are no longer outsiders but have become active members of the American Catholic Church.” The newly unveiled works of art were installed opposite one another in the shrine’s narthex - with Our Lady of the Korean Martyrs in the west tympanum, which is a semicircular space, and Our Lady

of Korea at Cana in the east tympanum. During the Mass, a prayer was offered for the Korean Martyrs who gave their lives for the Catholic Church, which was established in overwhelmingly Buddhist Korea in 1784. The tradition of martyrdom began almost immediately and claimed more than 10,000 lives over the next 100 years. In 1984, Pope John Paul II canonized 103 martyrs in Seoul.

● The Seoul Archdiocese has cautioned Catholics against meeting or consulting with an excommunicated African Archbishop residing in South Korea. Lay Catholics are to consult with their parish priests if they are invited to any meeting with Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, former Archbishop of Lusaka, Zambia, the Archdiocesan bulletin advised.

UCA News reported the bulletin told Catholics, “Former Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, who married a member of the Unification Church and caused a scandal, was excommunicated by the Vatican.”

The bulletin said the excommunicated Archbishop is promoting his US-based “Married Priests Now!” movement in South Korea. The movement that he founded in July 2006 advocates that the Roman Catholic Church allow married priests in active ministry. Under church law, Latin-rite Catholic priests must remain unmarried and are bound to celibacy.

Spiritual boost as Hour of Power comes to Perth

Hour of Power and invites anyone who wants to see the

Apart from preparing for WYD, CYM hopes to showcase the format contained in the resource kit to local WYD leaders and to anyone who hasn’t experienced adoration before, says CYM director Robert Hiini. “We Catholics are blessed that Jesus gave himself in the Eucharistic form so that no matter how difficult things get in the Church, young people can say with Peter the first Pope, ‘to whom else shall we go Lord; you

The Holy Hour of Power Parish Kit was launched locally at a meeting of Perth WYD group leaders convened by the

Choir in its own league

■ By Anthony Barich

Listening to the St Thomas More College choir, you wouldn’t know it’s being conducted by a med student about to graduate from the University of WA.

As the students practise in the St Thomas More College chapel just off Stirling Highway, they look like exactly what they are - a group of students dressed casually in boardies and t-shirts, not professional singers. But once they open their mouths they may as well be singing at Madison Square Gardens, as professionals.

But let’s not overstate things. The St Thomas More College choir is a group of students from the aforementioned college, plus a couple from St Catherine’s College and Trinity College, the residential campuses across the road from the historic UWA.

And being residents of these colleges, they’re mostly international students from Singapore, Britain and Zimbabwe, with a couple of locals from rural Australia, united for a bit of extra-curricular activity.

Some of them are off to World Youth Day in Sydney next year, which brings us to the purpose of this column.

They’re putting on a performance in the chapel on October 10 at 7pm to raise money to send at least 20 students to WYD.

Some spots have been reserved for this year’s students and for next year’s ‘freshers’ (first-years).

The med student in question is choirmaster Danielle Hewitt, who will co-conduct the choir, with Ericius Tan, to sing a program of devotional music from a variety of traditions, including medieval pieces, gospel, and modern hymns, all under the title “More Youthful Witness.”

The choir hopes to lead liturgical events at WYD, but for now the task is to get there.

Tickets cost $15. Call 9386 0111 or email stmcssec@cyllene.uwa.edu.au.

WYD fears vanquished

-Continued from Page 1

Last year the NSW Government, along with the Federal Government, the Australian Jockey Club, the Sydney WYD Office and the Vatican all signed off on Randwick as the location for the 2008 staging of the event started by Pope John Paul II in Rome in 1984.

Gary Sargent, spokesman for the WYD Coordination Authority of the NSW Government, told The Record that the WYD ’08 events at Randwick are “definitely on”, and that his department is in negotiations “in good faith” with the AJC regarding terms of use and compensation.

The Randwick Trainers’ Association feared that Randwick would go “offline” for up to eight months as negotiations between the NSW Government and the AJC stalled last month.

Trainers threatened to sue in a bid to stop the papal Mass being held at racing headquarters, though WYD organisers had agreed to compensate for Randwick being unavailable for 10 weeks, with reports predicting between $12 million and $50 million.

WYD organisers have now agreed to only make it unavailable for the week of the event, for which up to 700 horses will need to be relocated.

Preparations for WYD are well underway including the preparation of up to 700 schools and other accommodation sites to sleep 100,000 young people. It is understood Food companies have been organised to supply 3.6 million meals across the week of WYD as pilgrims are expected from up to 150 countries, with 11,000 hotel beds understood to have already been booked. This is not the first time Randwick has been used over an extended period. From April 29 to May 20, 1979 Billy Graham held a “Christian Crusade” there and the Rolling Stones held a concert over two nights in 1973. Randwick has also hosted three previous papal Masses.

Randwick was chosen after the Church and the NSW Government assessed 18 sites in Sydney according to the criteria that included transport accessibility and everyone at the papal Mass had to have a direct line of sight to the altar. Central Station is barely a 4km walk from Randwick and has 25 platforms that can accommodate over 90,000 people an hour.

Controversy continued last week when WYD officials were given approval to start work on Randwick, bypassing strict bio-security restrictions by the NSW Department of Primary Industries due to the horse flu that has brought the racing industry to its knees in New South Wales.

Pope feels the power; now we’ll get it for an hour (each week): Pope Benedict XVI carries a monstrance containing the Eucharist during the World Youth Day vigil outside Cologne, Germany on August 20 in 2005. The Pope led hundreds of thousands of young people in adoration at the end of the service. The CYM’s

Angelic: Choristers Mary Castieau, 21, and Genevieve Liu, 19, rehearse.

Decisive: Choir master Danielle Hewitt leads her charges.

Playful: Melody Tan, 20, and Emelyn Goh, 19, enjoy rehearsals. PHOTOS: ANTHONY BARICH

WYD Cross, Icon traverse Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef, an open-air chapel for World Youth Day cross

CAIRNS, Australia (CNS)

- The navy patrol boat HMAS Broome took a break from security operations along Australia’s northern border to transport the World Youth Day cross, icon and Aboriginal message stick to the aqua blue waters of the Great Barrier Reef.

The trip fulfilled another milestone in the epic journey that is taking the symbols around the Australian continent for a year before World Youth Day, July 1520, in Sydney. Anchored off Fitzroy Island, nearly 14 miles east of Cairns in the Coral Sea, HMAS Broome became a rocking open-air chapel for a prayer service on September 22. Deacon Matt Ransom, officiating for the Cairns Diocese, began the service quoting the Book of Genesis about God creating the waters teeming with swarms of living creatures. Deacon Ransom said the Book of Genesis could be describing the abundance of life forms on the Great Barrier Reef and in its surrounding waters.

“People who spend even a few hours exploring the reef become conservationists for life,” he said,

noting that warming sea temperatures and climate change posed the greatest threat to the reef’s biodiversity. Deacon Ransom told the gathered pilgrims that since the WYD Cross had been brought to Cairns, he had witnessed “the depths of God’s forgiving love” and its effects on the local people. “I have seen people touching the cross and afterward they are glowing, their pain is gone. As humans, if we do not turn to the cross to take our pain, then we take it out on our environment,” he said. He led the group in a prayer for “an ecological conversion which grows and spreads to every corner of the earth.” At the service, army Lt. Ivan Yau offered a prayer for God’s blessing on men and women serving in the armed forces. “By your powerful spirit shield them from all harm. Uphold them in good times and bad ... and hasten the day when the human family will rejoice in lasting peace,” he said.

Representing Australia’s indigenous people at the service was 16-year-old Kim Reys, a member of the Yidinji clan, whose members traditionally have lived in the area from the southern plateaus outside Cairns to the reefs of the Coral Sea. Reys held in her hands the message stick made by Sydney’s Aboriginal Catholic Ministry. A message stick is a traditional form

Randwick is the way to go

Addressing concerns about the future of WYD events at Randwick, this statement, obtained by Brisbane’s The Catholic Leader and The Record, was sent to Sydney priests by the WYD Office last week.

WYD

2008 works closely with both the State and Federal governments and abides by their direction and advice. Both governments are strong supporters of this event.

WYD 2008 organisers, workers or contractors have NOT been on Randwick Racecourse to conduct preliminary works. As such, WYD 2008 has not breached any bio-security measures. Only when the NSW Department of Primary Industries suggests it is safe to do so will WYD 2008 staff and/ or contractors enter Randwick Racecourse. At that time, they will abide by the strict quarantine and bio-security protocols in place. We understand (and expect) these protocols will be consistent with or stricter than the protocols in place for employees and contractors currently working at Randwick Racecourse, including racing industry workers.

WYD 2008 is committed to complying with the State and Federal government’s advice on this issue. There is sufficient time to prepare for next year’s WYD. WYD 2008 requires less than 12 months to complete preparatory works. Our contractors have confirmed that given our new, simpler site plan, the preparatory works can be completed in a shorter period. They have requested access in the coming weeks to conduct surveys and settle a timetable for WYD construction.

of greeting used by one indigenous people when entering another people’s country. The World Youth Day stick, decorated in totems of the whale, eagle and footprints, extends an invitation for all indigenous Catholics to come to World Youth Day in Sydney.

The tradition of the message stick was revived by the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference in 2006 when it sent several message sticks journeying throughout the dioceses to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s 1986 address to the indigenous people at Alice Springs. The message sticks were to remind the Church of the unfinished justice work in reconciling white and black Australians with a brutal past in which the indigenous people were dispossessed of their traditional lands and removed to institutions under a policy of assimilation. The legacy continues for Aboriginal people who are still largely marginalised by white society and whose life expectancy is 17 years less than the rest of the population. Reys said she will be going to World Youth Day with other pilgrims from the Cairns Diocese because “as an indigenous young person I want to feel the spirit and meet up with other indigenous people. It’s something I’m really looking forward to.”

Randwick Racecourse is the best place to host the evening Vigil and Final Mass for World Youth Day. This is strongly advised by both the Federal and State Governments.

Eighteen venues were considered, and all had specific challenges. Most of the large sites are simply too far away from the centre of Sydney, and pilgrims could not be expected to walk up to 50 kilometres. The transport system could not move the equivalent of a peak hour crowd through small suburban stations. Randwick Racecourse was considered the best venue for the Vigil and Final Mass primarily because it offered superior lineof-sight (LOS) viewing for up to 400,000 people and had the best transportation rates (in excess of 90,000 people movements per hour). Sydney Olympic Park was considered, but ruled out due to lower LOS (200,000) and transport rates (40,000 people movements per hour). Similarly, Telstra Stadium - one of its major venues - only has a capacity of 80,000.

The official announcement of Randwick as the venue for the Final Mass was made in October 2006 at an event hosted by the AJC. The announcement was made by NSW Premier Morris Iemma, the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull, His Eminence Cardinal Pell and President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko. Since that date, the NSW Government has made it clear that the Vigil and Final Mass will be held at Randwick. The outbreak of equine influenza is a deeply unfortunate occurrence. We hope for a speedy resolution for all parties involved and will ensure that WYD 2008 plays its role in minimising its impact. WYD 2008 is committed to reducing interruption to Randwick Racecourse and its ancillary businesses, and looks forward to celebrating Mass with Pope Benedict XVI at this location in July 2008.

Bearing their Cross: Young people dip the World Youth Day cross in the water near the Great Barrier Reef during a ceremony aboard the HMAS Broome off Cairns on September 22. The pilgrim cross, entrusted to the youths of the world by Pope John Paul II, has been carried more than 7,440 miles across Australia ahead of World Youth Day 2008.

PHOTO: CNS

Thursday October 4

TAIZE MEDITATION SERVICE

PANORAMA a roundup of events in the archdiocese

“In Silence and song we make our Pilgrimage” Starting at 7.30pm. Venue: Our Lady of Grace, 3 Kitchener Street, North Perth. Enq: 9488 4888.

Friday October 5

ALLIANCE AND TRIUMPH OF THE TWO HEARTS

Holy Mass and Eucharistic vigil at St Bernadette’s Church Glendalough. Confessions at 5.15pm. Holy Mass at 5.45pm (Celebrant: Fr Doug Harris) followed by exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, hourly Rosaries, hymns and reflections etc. Vigil concludes with midnight Mass in honour of the BVM (Celebrant: Fr Amando Carandang). Enq: Fr Doug Harris 9444 6131 or Dorothy 9342 5845.

Friday - Sunday October 5-7

THE CELEBRATE FAMILY WEEKEND

Discover new ways to enrich your family life at Our Lady Queen of Apostles Parish, Riverton. Adults: Talks and Workshops on nurturing faith in the family, communications, parenting ideas and more. Youth: bands, drama, dance, student art, youth expo. Children: Creche for little ones, age appropriate programs for those aged 3-12 and 13-17. Cost: $20 per family for the whole weekend. More details at: www.celebrate-families.com or call Barbara/ Su on 9328 8113 or email: familylife@perthcatholic. org.au.

Friday - Sunday October 5-7

BROTHER ANDREW’S SEVENTH

On the Feast of St Francis, 4 October 2000, Brother Andrew completed his tremendous work for God on earth. God’s Farm, 40km south of Busselton is holding Brother’s Seventh Thanksgiving Retreat. Led by Fr Brian Morgan. Brother’s books, tapes, etc still available here. Prompt bookings contact Betty Peaker 9755 6212 or write PO Box 24, Cowaramup, 6284. Farm address 94 Woodlands Road, Wilyabrup, map available.

Friday October 5

PRO LIFE PROCESSION

The First Friday Mass, Procession and Rosary Vigil starting at 9.30am. Mass celebrated at St Brigid’s Church, Midland. The Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate will lead us. All are invited to witness for the sanctity of life and pray for the conversion of hearts. Enq: Helen 9402 0349.

Saturday October 6

WITNESS FOR LIFE PROCESSION

The next First Saturday Mass, Procession and Rosary Vigil starting at 8.30am. Mass celebrated at St Anne’s Church, Hehir Street, Belmont. We proceed prayerfully to the Rivervale Abortion Centre and conclude with Rosary. Led by Fr Paul Cary SSC. Please join us to pray peacefully for the conversion of hearts. Enq: Helen 9402 0349.

Saturday October 6

DAY WITH MARY

St Anne’s Church, 6549 Great Northern Highway, Bindoon, 9am–5pm. A video on Fatima will be shown at 9am. A day of prayer and instruction based upon the messages of Fatima. Includes Sacrament of Penance, Holy Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, Sermons, Rosaries, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Stations of the Cross. Please BYO lunch. Enq: Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286. Bus available – contact Nita 9367 1366.

Sunday October 7

DIVINE MERCY

An afternoon with Jesus and Mary will be held at St Joachim’s Church, cnr Shepperton Road and Harper Street, Victoria Park at 1.30pm. Program: Holy Rosary and Reconciliation, Sermon: Saint Faustina Kowalska by Fr Andre Maria FFI, followed by Divine Mercy Prayers and Benediction. Afterwards refreshments in the Parish Hall, followed by a video with Fr Benedict Groeschel on Saint Faustina Kowalska. Enq: John 9457 7771 or Linda 9275 6608.

Monday October 8

MONTHLY MASS IN HONOUR OF BLESSED MARY MACKILLOP

Starting at 6pm. Venue: Sisters of St Joseph Chapel, 16 York Street, South Perth. Everyone welcome. Enq: Sister Maree Riddler 0414 683 296.

Tuesday October 9

WOODVALE HOSTS SIXTH ANNUAL NOVENA

St Luke’s, Woodvale offers their annual Novena in honour of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. The Novena commences Tuesday October 9 and continues for nine consecutive Tuesdays. Commencing at 5.30pm and takes just under 30 minutes. Private petitions are to be received. Novena booklets provided.

Thursday October 11

ST PEREGRINE HEALING MASS

7pm at SS John & Paul Church, Pinetree Gully Road (off South St) Willetton. A Healing Mass in honour

of St Peregrine, patron of Cancer sufferers and helper of all in need. The celebration will include Veneration of the Relic and Anointing of the Sick. Enquiries: Noreen Monaghan on 9498 7727.

Thursday - Saturday October 11, 12 and 13

TRIDUUM TO CELEBRATE 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FATIMA APPARITIONS

Holy Trinity Church, Embleton. 7pm Holy Mass followed by Rosary, Litany, Marian Prayer and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament on Thursday and Friday respectively. Saturday 13th, Vigil Mass at 6pm followed by devotions as above, concluding with candle light procession and fellowship at the hall to thank and farewell Franciscan Friar of the Immaculate the Preacher Fr John Josep. Please bring a plate. Enq: Mons McCrann 9271 5528 or Judy David 9275 5827 or George Jacob 9272 1379.

Saturday - Thursday October 13-18

SPIRITUALITY IN EVERDAY LIFE

A parish renewal, entitled “Spirituality in Everyday Life” and conducted by a team from the Thomas More Centre for Preaching and Prayer, will be held at Our Lady of the Rosary Parish, 17 Angelico St, Doubleview. All welcome. For details, contact the Parish Office on 9446 2055.

Saturday October 13

RETREAT “LET THE FIRE FALL”

Come and be Blessed by the Holy Spirit. The Apostles For Christ Prayer Group of the Sts John Paul Church is sponsoring a retreat directed by Fr Greg Donovan. Venue: Orana School, cnr Querrin Avenue and Vahland Avenue, Willetton. Start 9am to 5pm followed by Reconciliation at 5.30pm and Mass at 6.30pm at Sts John Paul Church, Pinetree Gully Road, Willetton. All welcome. Enq: Michelle 9456 4215 or 0412 652 827 or Margaret 9332 0087 or 0413 380 338.

Saturday October 13

YMT INFORMATION NIGHT

YMT Australia is now taking applications for 2008. YMT Australia is a national, Catholic organisation that was created to serve the Church in the area of Youth Evangelisation. YMT members defer career or studies to facilitate secondary school reflection days, youth groups and camps. They lead a common lifestyle based on prayer, simplicity and chastity. Held at Integrity House, 67 Howe St, Osborne Park, at 7pm. Further information visit www.ymt. com.au or contact on 0417 637 040 or perth@ymt. com.au.

Sunday October 14

DIVINE MERCY PILGRIMAGE

Bove Farm, Shrine to Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary. 2pm Holy Hour. 3pm Divine Mercy Holy Mass followed by Benediction. 4pm Divine Mercy Way of the Cross. 5pm BBQ and refreshments. Celebrant will be Fr Marcellinus Meilak, OFM. Bus available from Our Lady of Mercy Church, Girrawheen at 8am, St Joachim’s, Victoria Park at 8.30am and St John and Paul Church, Willetton at 9am. Return trip to Perth will depart at 6pm. Enq: Charles 9342 0653 (NOR) or John 9457 7771 (SOR).

Sunday October 14

EUCHARISTIC REPARATION

The World Apostolate of Fatima Aust Inc invites you to attend a Holy Hour of Reparation to mark the 90th Anniversary of Fatima in St Joseph’s Church, Hamilton Street, Bassendean. Start at 3pm. All are very welcome. Enq: 9339 2614.

Tuesday October 16

ANTI-POVERTY WEEK SOLIDARITY LUNCH

Catholic Mission and Caritas Australia. To mark Anti–Poverty Week (14th-20th October), you are invited to share a simple meal with them. To stand in solidarity with the poor and be inspired about practical ways we can make a difference. From 12.30pm to 1.30pm Catholic Pastoral Centre Seminar Room, 40A Mary Street, Highgate (Entry off Harold St). Cost: Gold coin donation. Speaker: Francis Leong (Catholic Mission, Diocesan Director Perth) “What is it to be poor?” Bring a friend and come along!! RSVP: Essential by Thursday October 11, Tel: 9422 7925.

Friday October 19

RIGHT TO LIFE ASSOCIATION WA

Family Quiz Night Venue: Perth Soccer Club. Start 7.30pm. Cost: $10 per person. Bookings call 9221 7117 or PO Box 6087, East Perth 6892.

Friday - Sunday 19-21 October

MARRIAGE ENCOUNTER WEEKEND

When You Care Enough. Looking for a new way to let your spouse know you love them in the midst of your jobs, the kids, sport and trying to keep up with your house, pool and garden? Tell him or her they’re still No. 1 in your life. To love the very best in your marriage, treat yourselves to a Marriage Encounter Weekend. Register now for the last weekend for the

year 2007. Contact Joe and Margaret Cordina on 9417 8750 for further details and bookings.

Saturday October 20

ST JOSEPH’S YOUTH GROUP, QUEENS PARK, 30 YEAR REUNION

All past members of the St Joseph’s Youth Group are invited to attend a reunion. If you would like to attend or know of someone who was a member, please contact Wayne McGoorty on 9351 9563 or email dmcgoorty@upnaway.com or Carolyn Pen on 0411 133 465 or email penpc@optusnet.com.au for further details of this event.

Saturday October 20

MONSTER GARAGE SALE

The new church in Maryville is to be built soon. Our first fundraising even is a monster sale at 1 Station Street, Upper Swan from 10am to 3pm. Items include lounges, large range electrical items, assorted furniture, Christmas decorations, church pews, religious art and many more at bargain prices. Enq: Kathy 9571 1593 or Elisa 0419 045 331.

Sunday October 21

TAIZE MEDITATIVE PRAYER

7pm to 8pm. Venue: Sisters of St Joseph Chapel, 16 York Street, South Perth. Come and join in this beautiful contemplative way of praying in stillness and in peace in a candlelit chapel. This will be our last Taize Prayer for the year. Bring your friends and a small torch. Everyone welcome. Enq: Sister Maree Riddler 0414 683 296.

Sunday October 21

50TH ANNIVERSARY – ST PIUS X CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL

All past students, staff and families are invited to our 50th Anniversary celebrations at Cnr Ley Street & Cloister Avenue, Manning. Celebrations will commence with a concelebrated Mass at 2pm followed by afternoon tea, open classrooms etc. Enq: Margaret Tatasciore 9450 2797 or admin@stpiusx. wa.edu.au.

Thursday October 25

SINGLES RESTAURANT NIGHT

The Bullsbrook parish would like to invite all Catholic singles to a restaurant night in Upper Swan. Cost: $30 for main meal. Enq: Peter 9571 2108.

Friday October 26

HEALING OF THE FAMILY TREE

Our Lady of the Missions Church, 270 Camberwarra Drive, Whitfords. 7.30pm to 9.30pm. Don’t miss this opportunity to be set free from generational sins and sicknesses. Celebrant is Fr Hugh Thomas CSsR. Family Tree Booklets available from the Healing Fire Burning Love Ministry during Service for $2. Enq: Jenni Young 9445 1028.

Friday - Sunday October 26-28

CATHOLIC FAITH RENEWAL: RETREAT BY FATHER GINO HENRIQUES

God and You Inner Self. Fr Gino Henriques CSsR is a Catholic priest of the Redemptorist congregation. Ordained in 1960 and studied Sacred Scripture and Theology in Rome and Mass Media in Canada and the USA. He is an international speaker who has preached to Bishops, Priests, Religious and laity. Enq: Rita 9272 1765, Rose 0403 300 720, Maureen 9381 4498.

Sunday October 28

JENNACUBINE

An invitation is extended to all persons who have any links to St Isidore’s Church, Jennacubbine to attend the 100th Anniversary Celebrations at 10am.

Celebrant: Archbishop B J Hickey. We would appreciate the offer on-loan of any memorabilia or photos of interest. Contact: Joe and Cathie Bowen 9623 2264 cbowen@wn.com.au.

Sunday November 4

ST MATTHEW’S PARISH CENTENARY NARROGIN

A Mass will commence at 2.30pm in the church followed by afternoon tea in the Senior Citizens Centre. Everyone welcome. We would love to see any ex-parishioners. Please come and help us celebrate this great occasion. RSVP: 10 October stmatthews.narrogin@bigpond.com or Jenny 9881 1496 or Evelyn 9881 1774.

Monday November 5

BENDAT FAMILY COMPREHENSIVE CANCER CENTRE

Commencement of Volunteer Program located at St John of God Hospital Subiaco. Those with an interest in volunteering with people suffering from cancer, their families and visitors please contact Susan McGuane 9382 6681

Friday November 17

INTERCESSION FOR WORLD YOUTH DAY 2008

All night prayer vigil. St Bernadette’s, Jugan St, Glendalough. 8pm-6am. Begins with Mass ends with Breakfast. All are welcome to come to pray and

intercede for World Youth Day 2008. Come for an hour, stay the night.

Every First Friday and First Saturday of Each Month

COMMUNION OF REPARATION ALL NIGHT VIGIL Corpus Christi Church Mosman Park 7pm-1am. 46 Lochee Rd, Mosman Park. Mass, Rosary, Prayers, Confessions and silent adoration. Contact: Catalina 0439 931 151.

First Sunday of each month

DEVOTIONS IN HONOUR OF THE DIVINE MERCY

The Santa Clara Parish community welcomes anyone from surrounding parishes and beyond to Santa Clara Church, cnr of Coolgardie and Pollock Sts, Bentley. The afternoon commences with the 3 o’clock prayers, followed by the Divine Mercy Chaplet, reflection and concludes with Benediction.

Last Sunday of every month

HEALING FIRE BURNING LOVE CHARISMATIC MASSES

Worshipping the Father in spirit and in truth John 4:23-24 Holy Spirit Chapel. 5.15pm to 6.45pm, 85 Boas Avenue, Joondalup. Enq: Jenni Young 9445 1028.

First Sunday of every month

HEALING FIRE BURNING LOVE CHARISMATIC MASSES Worshipping the Father in Spirit and in truth John 4:23-24 St Bernadette’s. 6.30pm to 8pm, Cnr Leeder and Jugan Street, Glendalough. Enq: Jenni Young 94445 1028.

Every Saturday

PERPETUAL HELP DEVOTIONS

4.30pm. The half hour perpetual novena devotions to the Mother of Perpetual Help continue each Saturday at the Redemptorist Monastery Church, 190 Vincent St, in North Perth. Reconciliation available before and after the devotions. All welcome.

Every Sunday

BULLSBROOK SHRINE

Sunday pilgrim Mass is celebrated with Holy Rosary and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament 2pm at the Shrine of the Virgin of the Revelation, 36 Chittering Road, Bullsbrook. Reconciliation is available in Italian and English before every celebration. Enq: 9447 3292.

Every Sunday

RADIO GATE OF HEAVEN

7.30-9pm. 107.9FM. 1. Getting God’s Help w/Fr Benedict Groeschel - “The Gift of Fear of The Lord” Episode #8. Life on the rock w/Fr Francis Mary“Activists & Participants in the Walk for Life on the West Coast” Episode #156.

Every Sunday

LATIN MASS

The Latin Mass according to the 1962 missal is offered every Sunday at Our Lady of Fatima, 10 Foss St, Palmyra at noon. All welcome.

Every fourth Monday

SCRIPTURAL PRAYER PROGRAM

7.30-9pm. Venue: St Mary’s Parish Centre, 40 Franklin St, Leederville. The Council for Australian Catholic Women (CACW) is offering a scriptural prayer program developed in the Jesuit tradition. This form of prayer can lead to more reflective living, greater spiritual depths and promotes lay spiritual leadership in the Church. Led by Kathleen Brennan (ibvm). Enq: Michelle Wood 9345 2555.

Every Wednesday HOLY HOUR, BENEDICTION

4.30pm to 5.30pm. Held at St Thomas, 2 College Road, Claremont. Followed by Evening Prayer and Benediction. Personal prayer before the Blessed Sacrament is Adoration of Jesus’ gift of Himself, of His love for you, for your loved ones and for our world. Come and Thank Him.

Second Wednesday of each month

CHAPLETS OF THE DIVINE MERCY

The Chaplet of the Divine Mercy is a beautiful, prayerful devotion initially brought to us by Saint Faustina Kowalska. This very moving devotion is conducted in song at St Thomas More Catholic Church, 100 Dean Road, Bateman starting at 7.30pm. All are most welcome. Enq: George Lopez 9310 9493.

Every second Wednesday

FORTNIGHTLY BIBLE REFLECTIONS

Workers in the Garden of the Holy Family are conducting Bible Reflections at St Mary’s Church, Parish Centre, 40 Franklin Street, Leederville. Commencing 7pm with Rosary, refreshments provided afterward. Dates: October 17, 31, November 14, 28, December 5. Enq: 9201 0337.

EUCHARISTIC ADORATION

Holy Trinity Church, 8 Burnett Street, Embleton. Every Monday to Thursday after the 8.30am Mass until 10am. Every Thursday night from 11pm to midnight. Every Friday Eucharistic Adoration after the 8.30 Mass

PANORAMA

untill 6pm. Enquiries: Mgr McCrann on: 9271 5528 or George Jacob on: 9272 1379.

Every First Friday

HOLY HOUR FOR VOCATIONS TO THE PRIESTHOOD AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE

At Little Sisters of the Poor Chapel, 2 Rawlins Street, Glendalough. 7pm Mass with celebrant Fr Albert Saminedi. 7.30pm Holy Hour Adoration with Fr Don Kettle. Refreshments to follow in the hall. All welcome.

Every 1st and 3rd Friday of the month

CATHOLIC FAITH RENEWAL

Every 1st Friday - Praise and Worship evening held at St John and Paul’s Church, Pinetree Gully Rd, Willetton at 7.30pm. Every 3rd Friday Catholic Faith Education by Fr Greg Donovan, LJ Goody Bioethics Centre, 39 Jugan Street, Glendalough at 7.30pm. All are welcome. Enq: Rita 9272 1765 or Rose 0403 300 720.

Second Friday of each month

GENERAL PRAYER ASSEMBLY

The Couples for Christ and its Family Ministries welcome all members who now reside or are visiting Perth to join the community in our monthly general prayer assembly 7.30pm, St Joachim Parish Hall, Shepperton Road, Victoria Park. Enquiries: Tony and Dolly Haber (08) 9440 4540.

Every Fourth Sunday

SECULAR FRANCISCAN ORDER

The Perth Fraternity of the Secular Franciscan Order assembles every fourth Sunday at 2.30pm in the Chapel of RSL Care, 51 Alexander Dr, Menora. Enquiries John 9385 5649.

Every Fourth Sunday

WATCH AND PRAY

A Holy Hour is held at Infant Jesus Parish, Morley from 2-3pm with exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. The hour consists of some prayers and Scripture but mostly the hour is silent prayer for Vocations. All are welcome. Please encourage others to come and pray. Prayer - it works! Enq: 9276 8500. We still seek donations of books and thank you and bless you for your kind, generous contributions of Bibles, Missals and Catholic books on the faith. We are now able to offer a selection of second-hand, preloved books to the community in return for a small donation. Enq: 9293 3092.

WINDOW FUND DONATIONS WELCOME

St Catherine’s Catholic Church, Gin Gin Parishioners are currently fundraising to restore the church windows. The cost of each window is $1500. If anyone is able to assist our fundraising efforts please telephone Fr Paul 9571 1839.

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS

Ignatian Volunteers Australia calls for part-time volunteers to respond to the needs of people in the community who live in marginalised circumstances. At the heart of this program is a reflective process based on Gospel values, which supports the volunteers in their work. To learn more: www.volunteers.jesuit.org.au Contact

Kevin Wringe, Perth Coordinator (08) 9316 3469 kwringe@iinet.net.au .

PERPETUAL ADORATION

Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Christ the King Church, Lefroy Rd, Beaconsfield (cnr Livingstone St) is 24hrs per day except Mass times. Entrance is via side porch at front of church on Lefroy Rd side. Enq: Joe 9319 1169 (commenced 01/10/2003). All are welcome.

REUNION

John and Marie Acland are planning to hold a reunion later this year of all past and present members of the Apostles of Christ Prayer Group Willetton and all other persons who took part in their Meetings, Fellowship Nights, Life in the Spirit, and supplementary Seminars, the Alpha Course and other group activities. Further details will be advised when full numbers are known. Enq: Marie Acland. Tel/fax 9537-3390. Email jmacland@bigpond.com or Dianne McLeod 9332-0829. Email danielmcleod@bigpond. com

OUR LADY QUEEN OF PEACE HOUSE OF PRAYER

Archbishop Hickey, at the end of 2006, approved a House of Prayer in the Archdiocese of Perth. The house must be fully purchased or donated and operational by the end of November 2007. All donations may be deposited at the CDF (Catholic Development Fund), 61 Fitzgerald Street, Northbridge. Ph: 9427 0333 Fax: 9427 0379 Email: cdf@archdiocese-perth. org.au. All donations will be fully refunded in the first half of December 2007 should a suitable house not be found and purchased. Please enquire about Tax Deductibility and General Enquiries: 9444 1940.

Have you recently become a parent or grandparent? Is your family about to celebrate the sacrament of Baptism, Communion, Confirmation or Matrimony. We would love to celebrate with you by sharing your news in The Record.

Special New Rates for these new Classifieds.

Official Diary - October

OCTOBER

5 Opening Ceremony of Asia Pacific Conference of Beginning Experience, RossmoyneArchbishop Hickey

7 Mass for Deceased Catenians, Subiaco - Archbishop Hickey

Mass for Committee for Family and for Life Conference, Riverton - Archbishop Hickey

9 Opening of National Conference for Diocesan Coordinators of RE in State Schools, Redemptorist Monastery - Archbishop Hickey

9 -11 National Confraternity of Christian Doctrine Conference 2007Bishop Sproxton

11 Council of Priests’ meeting at the Vietnamese Catholic Community CentreArchbishop Hickey, Bishop Sproxton

Classifieds

ACCOMMODATION

■ DENMARK

Holiday House 3bdr x 2 bath, sleeps up to 8. BOOK NOW. Ph: Maria 0412 083 377.

■ FAMILY GROUP ACCOMMODATION Visit http://www.beachhouseperth.com Call 0400 292 100

BLINDS

■ BLINDS SPECIALIST Call AARON for FREE quotes 0402 979 889.

BUILDING TRADES

■ BRICK RE-POINTING Phone Nigel 9242 2952.

■ PERROTT PAINTING PTY LTD

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

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

EMPLOYMENT

■ BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

Extra income from your own home-based business. Work part-time without disturbing what you are doing now. Call: 02 8230 0290 or 0412 518

318 Events

■ AUTOMOTIVE PARTS SALES PERSON

We sell Auto Parts – Second hand. Recycled from insurance damaged motor vehicles. An experienced Auto Tradesperson would be ideal. We deal with the Trade and DIY customers. We welcome any enquiries. Phone Kevin McAuliffe 9459 4111 or kevin@magnawreck.com.au.

FURNITURE REMOVAL

■ ALL AREAS Mike Murphy 0416 226 434.

HEALTH

■ HEALTH AND WELLNESS

A FREE Sample Pack of wellness, weightloss, and energy products. DVD and product brochure also enclosed. (Only while stocks last - hurry!!) Call 02 8230 0290 or 0412 518 318.

HEALTH

■ ACHES, PAINS, STRESS??? Indian mature male masseur offers Reflex Relax Massage at $30 for 60mins. Phone Jai 0438 520 993.

■ DEMENTIA REMISSION

Do you, or your loved one, suffer Dementia. Get into Dementia Remission like me! http://www. wgrey.com.au/dm/index.htm or (02) 9971 8093.

MIGRANTS

■ MIGRATE TO AUSTRALIA

For guidance and visa processing, Skilled or Family Visas and Study visas. Call Michael Ring or Ajay Trehan Registered Migration Agent – (MARN # 0212024). Phone: (02) 8230 0290 or 0412 518 318 for a no-obligation assessment, please call or email: michael.ring@bigpond.com

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 Road, Canning Vale. Open Mon-Sat.

■ RICH HARVEST – YOUR CHRISTIAN SHOP Looking for Bibles, CDs, books, cards, gifts, stat-

ues, baptism / communion apparel, religious vestments, etc? Visit us at 39 Hulme Court (off McCoy St), Myaree, 9329 9889 (after 10.30am, Mon – Sat). We are here to serve.

SERVICES

■ BOOKS

2ndhand quality Catholic reading at reasonable prices. Also Bibles and Missals. Ph: (08) 9293 3092.

■ KINLAR VESTMENTS

“modern meets tradition” Quality hand-made & decorated vestments, altar cloths, banners Contact: Vickii Smith Veness 9402 8356 or 0409 114 093

THANKSGIVING

■ PRAYER TO THE VIRGIN MARY

Oh most beautiful flower of Mt Carmel, fruit vine splendorous of heaven. Mother of the Son of God. Immaculate Virgin assist me in this my Necessity Oh Star Of The Sea help me and show me herein you are my mother. Oh Holy Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and earth, I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart to succour me in my necessity. There are none that can withstand your power. Oh show me here that you are my recourse to thee (three times). Holy Mary I place this cause in your hands (three times). Thank you for your mercy towards me and mine. Amen.

VOLUNTEERS WANTED

■ THE CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY (CDP) is looking for volunteers who support Christian values and want to improve Australia to work at polling booths at the coming Federal election. If you can help, please contact Paul Connelly (CDP’s Perth Candidate) on 0414 247 286 or pmjconnelly@hotmail.com.

Authorised by Gerard Goiran 4/294 Great Eastern Hwy, Midland

VOLUNTEERS WANTED

■ THE CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY (CDP) is looking for businesses in all areas that support Christian values and want to improve Australia to place CDP Candidate compaign posters (various sizes available) in the shop windows of their businesses for the coming Federal Election. If you can help, please contact Paul Connelly (CDP’s Perth Candidate) on 0414 247 286 or pmjconnelly@hotmail.com.

Authorised by Gerard Goiran 4/294 Great Eastern Hwy, MidlandArchdiocesan

FUTURE OF PARISHES COMMITTEE

■ EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST

This committee is seeking to appoint new members who will contribute to its work of supporting new growth and pastoral opportunities within the Archdiocese by:

• Working with parish priests and parish pastoral councils.

• Making recommendation to the Archbishop on parish matters

• Members are appointed by the Archbishop on a voluntary basis.

The committee meets six times yearly.

For expressions of interest or further details please contact Julie Williams on 9422 7900 or email: padperth@highgate-perthcatholic.org.au <mailto:padperth@highgate-perthcatholic.org.au> by November 9, 2007.

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For Jim McGinty, women clearly have a place in WA’s Labor Party...

Doing exactly what they’re told to do

Attorney General Jim McGinty has a vision for Western Australiawhich will enable men to buy, sell and sexually use women and girls without any hindrance from the law.

In fact, he intends to ram legislation establishing this as the norm through State Parliament.

His proposed legislation has caused deep concerns in his own Party and in the wider community - particularly among women who understand immediately what’s wrong with this idea.

Despite this, Mr McGinty intends to put them all in their place.

No uppity Labor woman MP will be allowed to vote against this Labor boy’s legislation. If she does she can expect to be expelled from the Labor Party and not endorsed before the next State election.

And by decriminalising the business of abuse Mr McGinty will effectively send a message to all women in WA about what they’re really worth in the eyes of the law.

Throughout his push, Mr McGinty has shown himself unwilling to consider alter-

natives, even when they would win support from those who want to make Western Australia a State that is a world leader in addressing this old, old problem.

It’s been done elsewhere, and more countries are joining the trend: Sweden, Finland, Norway and now possibly Britain.

His push has shown no sign of a genuine understanding of the key problem - that prostitution universally depends for its continuation on abusing and destroying women and girls.

Such unconcern and blinkered devotion to the ideology favoured by those who want to profit from the sex slavery business is a big problem for this state - too big to ignore. In an Attorney General it’s a disaster.

It’s an even bigger problem for women in the WA ALP who are urged on the one hand to contribute to building this State through the Labor Party - only to discover that they don’t count on an issue that clearly needs female understanding.

So, Mr McGinty, is this what we call progress?