The Record Newspaper 03 November 2010

W E S T E R N A U S T R A L I A’ S A WA R D - W I N N I N G C AT H O L I C N E W S P A P E R S I N C E 1 8 7 4

THE RECORD

We d n e s d a y, 3 N o v e m b e r 2 0 1 0

CONVERSION

 T H E P A R I S H . T H E N AT I O N . T H E W O R L D . 

$2.00

THERECORD.COM.AU

Muzzled Cath-

How I came Home If the Church operates Catholic media, what’s if the media isn’t9 A former radical feminist tells why she embracedthe thepoint Church PAGE

Perth men savour the experience of Rome studies

Special dash of MacKillop colour for Schools Mass

Travelling with Fr John Jegorow and Ballajura pilgrims, Record journalist ANTHONY BARICH caught up with Perth seminarians studying at the Pontifical North American College in Rome ...

T

he ten Australian seminarians staying at the Pontifical North American College (PNAC) in Rome witnessed an estimated 8,000 of their countrymen descend on the Eternal City with something approaching a sense of wonder last month for St Mary MacKillop’s canonisation.

While Rome was filled with over 50,000 pilgrims from Spain, Italy, Australia, Poland and Canada for the canonisation of six beati from their respective countries, the major event was yet another fascinating day in a constant stream of events the seminarians get to witness while studying for the priesthood in the Eternal City.

On a clear day, when the Rome smog is penetrable by the eye, they watch pilgrims mill around on the balcony of the St Peter’s Basilica dome from their dormitory rooms.

PNAC first-year Mark Baumgarten reckons he’s got the best view in the whole college, but Brennan Sia may beg to differ.

“It only hit me for the first time that I’m actually living in Rome when I woke up and looked out the window as I brushed my teeth Please turn to Page 3

MacKillop Tartan: Trinity College pipers Luke Geoghegan, left, Jack Kay, Peter Walsh and Gerard Ryan outside St Mary’s Cathedral shortly before entering for the beginning of the Catholic Mission Schools Mass, which saw 79 Catholic schools participate. The red tartan worn by Mr Walsh is MacKillop clan tartan, worn over the shoulder especially for the occasion.

PHOTO: PETER ROSENGREN

Perth seminarian Brennan Sia in the Pontifical North American College chapel in Rome. He and other Perth and Australian seminarians are enjoying immensely the experience of preparing for the priesthood in Rome. PHOTO: ANTHONY BARICH

More than 740 students representing 79 Catholic schools gathered on Wednesday, 20 October for the annual Catholic Mission Schools Mass.

It wasn’t a record, but it was a significant gathering of Catholic student leaders expressing their solidarity and concern for the suffering children of the world, and drawing inspiration for their missionary leadership through the example and intercession of St Mary MacKillop, said Perth

Catholic Mission Director Francis Leong.

“Bishop Donald Sproxton’s compelling challenge to those gathered, reinforced by by Sr Maree Riddler’s final words and the recessional hymn, Go, make a Difference, reminded us that our baptismal call to Mission is the liturgy after the liturgy, and that as our Holy Father recently put it; “… those who eat the Bread of Christ cannot remain indifferent before those who lack daily bread …”

“As evident in this year’s turn out for yet another vibrant Eucharistic celebration after eight years on the trot, the Mission Mass continues to be a tangible sign of the strength and vitality of our missionary identity as an Archdiocesan community as manifest and affirmed in the presence and participation of the youth from our schools, our parishes and the various agencies ministering to them,” he said.

Please turn to Page 6

After 25 years, God’s Sanctuary is doing OK BORN of a vision and an array of happy meetings, a Pemberton retreat house is marking 25 years of existence by doing what it has always done; inviting people in.

Karriholm God’s Sanctuary, the motherhouse of the Holy Spirit of Freedom Community, will hold a retreat, candlelight procession and dinner dance on the weekend of the Feast of Christ the King (19-21 November) to celebrate their quarter century.

Situated high on a hill in Pemberton in the southwest of Western Australia, Karriholm has been a spiritual hub of activity since it was blessed and opened by Bishop Peter Quinn in 1985.

The seeds for the retreat house were planted a few years earlier when a young man named Steve moved to the town; sharing his experience of Christ with a small group of locals.

They formed into a prayer group made up of Mick and Jo Bendotti and Ernie and Connie Tartaglia under the leadership of Parish Priest, Fr Hubert Kelly.

Early in 1985, Connie told the group a vision she believed Christ had given her of a healing centre among tall trees.

Two weeks later, when Connie and her husband Ernie were at early morning Mass, out of nowhere the word Karriholm popped into her mind.

All she knew about Karriholm was that it was a run down guesthouse and motel somewhere up the road, which had been passed in at an auction. After sharing it with Ernie, she promptly forgot about it.

Later in the day when they were working at their supermarket, Connie overheard two women speaking.

One of them said: “Have you heard that the Orange People [Rahjneeshes] have taken over Karri Valley and they want to take over the Gloucester Motel and Karriholm Lodge?”

Hearing the word “Karriholm” twice in a few hours, Connie told The Record she knew it was no coincidence.

Connie and Ernie gathered the prayer group to discern whether God was calling them to buy Karriholm and use it for His service.

By 12 February they had purchased Karriholm and following a blessing from Fr Kelly, the first prayer meeting to be held there took place on 5 March.

After months of scraping, cleaning, repairing, painting and sewing, Karriholm was ready for its official opening in December.

By God’s grace and without Please turn to Page 4

Page 2

3 November 2010, The Record

THE PARISH AT A GLANCE

SAINT OF THE WEEK

A roundup of events in the Archdiocese Catholic Mental Health Support Group Celebrating the meaning of Christmas Bring a plate of finger food to share. For more information, contact Ann 9291 6670 or Barbara 9328 8113.

When: 6-8pm on 17 November at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish Hall, Lesmurdie, 207 Lesmurdie Rd, Lesmurdie.

Youth Ministry scholarship 2011 Catholic Youth Ministry is offering two full time scholarships to the Acts2 Catholic Bible College of Mission and Evangelisation to Cert IV to eligible candidates.

Send applications stating name, age, parish, educational accomplishments and why you would like to study at the college to Anita Parker at admin@cym.com. au or get more information from www.acts2come.wa.edu.au. Applications close 19 November. Enq: 9422 7912.

LIVE YOUR

Travel Dream • CRUISING • FLIGHTS • TOURS • FW OO3 12/07

Michael Deering 9322 2914

The Parish. The Nation. The World. Find it in The Record.

RECORD New Contacts THE

Editor Peter Rosengren

The General meeting of the Council of Churches was held on Saturday, 30 October 2010.

The meeting was hosted by the Syrian Orthodox community and was held at the Norbertine Priory in Queens Park.

The programme started with opening worship led by Very Rev Fr Boutros Touma Issa and assisted by the Deacons

Men as fathers, husbands, sons MenAlive Catholic Men’s Ministry presents a talk

by Robert Falzon.

When: 6pm supper then talk at 7pm on 24 November in the Michael Keating Room,University of Notre Dame, 10 Cliff St, Fremantle.

according to the rites of the Syrian Orthodox Church. The meeting discussed a number of business items and the guest speakers were His Grace Archbishop Roger Herft and Very Rev Fr Boutros Issa.

Archbishop Herft spoke about his experience of the dialogue between the Anglican and the Orthodox Churches.

OFFICIAL ENGAGEMENTS 2010

6

Chain of Mary Dinner – Archbishop Hickey

7

Attendance at Syro-malabor Mass, Maddington – Archbishop Hickey Confirmation, Shenton Park - Mgr Brian O’Loughlin VG

8

WA Bishops’ Meeting St Charles’ Borromeo Mass for Clergy, St Charles’ Seminary

9

Appreciation Service and Schools’ Memorial Dedication, St Mary’s Cathedral –Archbishop Hickey, Bishop Sproxton

bookshop@therecord.com.au

10

Chain of Mary Mass, Northbridge – Archbishop Hickey

Eugen Mattes

11

Council of Priests Meeting, Cathedral Presbytery – Archbishop Hickey, Bishop Sproxton

baspinks@therecord.com.au mreidy@therecord.com.au abarich@therecord.com.au

production@therecord.com.au

accounts@therecord.com.au

office@therecord.com.au

Record Bookshop Bibiana Kwaramba

Reconciliation, praise and worship, exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Benediction, anointing of the sick and special blessing. All welcome. Enq: Priscilla 0433 457 352, Catherine 0433 923 083, Mary-Ann 0409 672 304.

When: 7pm on first Friday of the month at St Peter’s Parish, Wood St. Bedford.

Visit to St Charles’ Seminary – Archbishop Hickey

Classifieds/Panoramas/Subscriptions Bibiana Kwaramba

Healing Mass

5

Accounts June Cowley

Have you ever thought about doing a year of mission? Without leaving Australia?

Youth Mission Team Australia offers a 12 month opportunity for those aged 18-35 to spread the Gospel to between 3,0004,000 high school students throughout Australia.You would be based in one of Perth, Sydney, Melbourne or Wollongong. This is an amazing opportunity to grow personally in faith and character as well as developing your leadership potential. Information night: Wed, 3 Nov, 7.30pm-9.00pm at 67 Howe St, Osborne Park. Call Marty 0417 637 040 for more information.

Perth Norbertine honoured by churches

Advertising/Production Mat De Sousa

Songs of Praise, sharing by a priest followed by Thanksgiving Mass and then light refreshments. All welcome to attend and bring your family and friends. Enq: Kathy 9295 0913, Ann: 0412 166 164 or catholicfaithrenewal@gmail.com.

When: 7.30pm on first Friday of the month at Sts John and Paul Parish, Pinetree Gully Rd, Willetton.

NOVEMBER editor@therecord.com.au

Journalists Bridget Spinks Mark Reidy Anthony Barich

Youth Mission Team Australia

Image right, sighted at Bassendean.

A division of Interworld Travel Pty Ltd ABN 21 061 625 027 Lic. No 9TA 796

200 St. George’s Terrace, Perth WA 6000 Tel: 9322 2914 Fax: 9322 2915 michael@flightworld.com.au www.flightworld.com.au

Catholic faith renewal evening

Proofreaders Chris Jaques Contributors Debbie Warrier Karen and Derek Boylen Christopher West Bronia Karniewicz Guy Crouchback

John Heard Anthony Paganoni CS Catherine Parish Fr John Flader

The Record PO Box 3075 Adelaide Terrace PERTH WA 6832 21 Victoria Square, Perth 6000 Tel: (08) 9220 5900 Fax: (08) 9325 4580 Website: www.therecord.com.au The Record is a weekly publication distributed throughout the parishes of the dioceses of Western Australia and by subscription.

The Record is printed by Rural Press Printing Mandurah and distributed via Australia Post and CTI Couriers.

RECORD New Contacts THE

12-14 Parish Visitation, Spearwood – Bishop Sproxton 13

Confirmation, Como – Mgr Brian O’Loughlin VG

14

Visitation, New Norcia – Archbishop Hickey

16

Blessing of new buildings, Trinity College – Archbishop Hickey

18

Presentation to LifeLink Competition Winners, Cathedral Parish Centre – Archbishop Hickey, Bishop Sproxton Acolytes’ Institution Mass, St Mary’s Cathedral – Archbishop Hickey St Vincent de Paul Christmas Appeal – Mgr Brian O’Loughlin VG

The R ec ord The Parish. The Nation.

The World.

Fr Issa thanked the Archbishop for his remarks and gave a brief historical view of the relationship between the two Churches.

Towards the end of the meeting, the Council presented the Lund Award for 2010.

The winners for this year were: Rev Fr Peter Stiglich

OPraem for his genuine commitment to the ecumenical work in Western Australia. Fr Peter is part of the Norbertines family in Queens Park who are also responsible for the parish of East Cannington; Rosemary Hudson-Miller for her commitment to the ecumenical work in Western Australia.

in brief Pope praises women who inspire VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope Benedict XVI praised the millions of Catholic women in the world who inspire their husbands and children to live truly Christian lives. At his weekly general audience on 27 October, the Pope said he wanted to recognise “the many women who, day after day, enlighten their families with their witness of Christian life. May the Spirit of the Lord raise up holy Christian spouses today to show the world the beauty of marriage lived according to the Gospel values: love, tenderness, mutual help, fruitfulness in generating and educating children, openness and solidarity with the world, and participation in the life of the Church,” he said. The Pope’s remarks about women in the Church and in family life were part of his main audience address about the life and influence of St Bridget of Sweden who lived in the 14th century.

Bridget and her husband, Ulf, were the parents of eight children and were models of “an authentic conjugal spirituality,” the Pope said. “Often, as happened in the life of St Bridget and Ulf, it is the woman who, with her religious sensitivity, delicacy and sweetness, is able to make her husband mature in the faith journey,” he said.

Spain visit will highlight traditional, modern faith VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope Benedict XVI has said he’s heading to Spain from 6-7 November as a pilgrim, and the trip will give him an opportunity to participate in the most popular foot pilgrimage in Europe, the camino or journey to Santiago de Compostela. It will also give him an opportunity to pay homage to a more modern expression of a Spaniard’s faith when he travels to Barcelona for the dedication of Antoni Gaudi’s Church of the Holy Family, more widely known by its Spanish name, Sagrada Familia. As a pilgrim, the Pope is expected to highlight the virtue of hope and the Church’s mission of charity in an increasingly secularised nation. Spain has embarked on a number of policies that have caused Catholics much concern. Since Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero came to power in 2004, Church leaders have protested the scrapping of religion classes from the State school curriculum and cuts in funding for Spain’s private schools. They also have taken issue with the government over its relaxation of divorce laws, legalisation of gay marriage and legislation to make abortion more accessible. Pope Benedict obviously has something to say about the direction Spain is moving and the trip - the Pope’s 18th visit abroad - is likely to include remarks that Spaniards recognise how much the faith has and continues to contribute to the country, a theme Pope Benedict has continually shone the spotlight on during his pontificate.

3 November 2010, The Record

Page 3

THE PARISH

Bassendean’s Fr Jim leaves Perth to work abroad

BY BRIDGET SPINKS St Joseph’s Bassendean parish priest of five years Fr Jim Shelton celebrated his last Mass at the parish on 31 October before departing on the same day for an extended period working abroad.

Fr Jim, who grew up in Ohio in the United States, came to Perth in 2000.

He was ordained at St Mary’s Cathedral where he served as assistant priest for 12 months before his appointment as chaplain at All Saints Chapel in Allendale Square in July 2001.

In 2005, he was first appointed Priest-in-Charge of Bassendean parish and then parish priest from 1 April 2007.

Fr Jim was well travelled before he became a priest because he was ordained over 40 years after he finished school.

He likened this time in his life to the 40 years of the Israelites in the desert.

He said that the way he came to live in Perth was something

he would never have planned.

“It was providential,” he said.

As a young man on the cusp of his third decade, the future priest would visit Australia for two

months on a round the world trip in 1963.

But he missed out on a visit to Perth because it was too far and said he left Australia thinking he had missed the best part.

Before the trip, he had studied at the local university, fulfilled his four-year military obligation in the US in the navy, visited Europe and the Holy Land and taught history, English and Spanish for three years. He learnt Spanish in Mexico, he said.

He said that after the trip, he worked with a community action programme for six years before it was curtailed under President Nixon’s administration.

He then went to Rome and later to Manila for studies.

He took Bachelor degrees in philosophy and theology at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas, known as the Angelicum,

and a licence to teach at the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas in Manila.

After teaching English as a second language in Asia for several years he returned to Rome to do further study and took classes at the Gregorian University and at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.

While studying there, the future priest met Archbishop Hickey and that was how it came to pass, he said, that he came to be in Perth at All Saints Chapel.

In 2005, Fr Jim was appointed parish priest of St Joseph’s Bassendean where he supported the continuance of the Chapel of Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration, which was started the year before his arrival.

He set up the parish library, which holds over 1,000 books and is open from Tuesday to Friday.

Aussie boys enjoy the Rome study experience Continued from Page 1

and saw St Peter’s. It’s just surreal,” he told The Record which visited the young Perth men last week.

While he’s not complaining, Mark does have to shut his windows at night as St Peter’s bells toll every 15 minutes throughout the night. The college, up on a hill overlooking Rome, is less than 15 minutes walk from the Basilica.

Pilgrim groups in their dozens are taken through St Peter’s Basilica

by PNAC students, one of whom is Brennan, an Aquinas College graduate from Perth, one of four seminarians from WA at the college.

Twenty PNAC students work as tour guides in the highly regarded Scavi [arachaeological excavations] Tour of St Peter’s, training for six months beforehand so that they know this key historical tour back to front.

The pay they receive is pooled and is donated to a variety of charitable causes. Recently, it helped victims of the devastation caused by the Haiti earthquake.

“Pope John Paul II’s tomb is a particularly popular part of the tour for some reason,” Brennan says. “People always want to stop at it and pray.”

Mark is not surprised. “A whole generation grew up with JPII,” he says. “He’s the only Pope I knew before Benedict XVI. I was in the womb when JPII was elected.”

Kneeling in the beautiful, reflective college chapel having one’s eyes irresistibly drawn to a large mosaic of Mary seemingly being assumed into heaven at the back of the sanctuary, the Perth men – Mark, Brennan, Mark Payton and Christian Irdi - are indistinguishable amidst a sea of black jackets and Roman collars – all 230 of them, immaculately dressed for voluntary adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction followed by Evening Prayer.

During a break in Evening Prayer, two new formation faculty members stride to the front of the sanctuary, place their hands on the Bible and make a Profession of Faith and a vow of fidelity to the Church including a solemn promise to believe and proclaim the truths of its teachings on faith and morals.

While they dress the same as their American confreres, the 10 Australians from Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Wagga Wagga at PNAC are almost always an object of interest to the Americans.

“The Americans seem to be particularly interested in us,” Brennan says as we walk the corridors

The views are great: Brennan Sia, left, and Mark Baumgarten share a moment on the roof of the Pontifical North American College, the residential college where 10 Australians are staying as they study for the priesthood in various pontifical institutes around Rome. St Peter’s Basilica can be seen in the background, barely 15 minutes’ walk away.

lined with portrait paintings of US Nuncios, Cardinal Protectors of the college and icons of the Archangel Michael and Our Lady of Guadelupe.

“We’re unique; we come across to them as people from this farflung country. We’re just a curiosity, I think.”

The Australians also get to teach the Americans how to play rugby, which Americans reckon is not unlike their gridiron, minus the padding. They practise in the field on the college’s sumptuous, green grounds, watched over by a large representation of the crucified Christ.

“It’s like an oasis from the madness of Rome,” Brennan said of the rolling, spacious college grounds.

From the college’s roof – a popular social spot – the full vista of Rome opens out before us.

On “the fifth floor” – also a roof area – there is a kitchen with tables where students can impress their visiting family and friends by cooking up a storm while they watch the sun set over the Eternal City.

“There are quite a few unique things about living in Rome. This is one of them,” Brennan says on the roof. “At night, with all the lights, the city takes on a different feel.”

The students are accustomed to strange faces walking their halls.

The college recently commenced a sabbatical programme for priests from other countries, and family

and friends often visit. “It’s good having those different priests around. They’ve invariably spent a few years in ministry already, and we can draw on their expe-

JOHN HUGHES

riences and get to know them,” Brennan said.

Brennan’s mother is also in town at the same time as our visit and he can’t wait to show her what he’s

been doing with himself for the past one and a half years. After the canonisation Mass, he took her out for dinner at one of his favourite haunts.

Students walk past us, sweating from the gym where Brennan had completed a session just before meeting The Record.

The canonisation came at an especially frenetic moment for the Australians. All had significant roles in the Thanksgiving Mass for the canonisation of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop at the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls the day after the ceremonies, right when it was ‘crunch’ time for study.

Brennan and Michael processed with candles and escorted Mark as he proclaimed the Gospel during the Mass, while Mark Baumgarten held Cardinal George Pell’s crosier, or pastoral staff.

While all this gives the Australians a busy time, Mark Baumgarten’s plate is especially full. He’s been given responsibility for organising the college’s annual variety show on Thanksgiving Day in late November – an American holiday.

He will command a crew of some 60 students to put on a grand show, and it’s a big distraction from study.

After their studies are over, the Archdiocese of Perth will undoubtedly be enriched once these young men return to be ordained.

Choose your dealer before you choose your car...

Absolutely!!

WA’s most respected car dealer JH AB 027

Just over the Causeway on Shepperton Road, Victoria Park. Phone 9415 0011 PARK FORD 1089, Albany Hwy, Bentley. Phone 9415 0502 DL 6061

Page 4

3 November 2010, The Record

THE PARISH

Good Shepherd students the stars at Music night Students from Good Shepherd Primary School in Kelmscott put their best feet ... and voices and instrumental talent on show for parents and families on Thursday, 28 October.

The school’s annual music night, under the direction of Music teacher Diana Newman, showcased the remarkable talents of the young from Years 3 to 6.

Hundreds of parents and family friends, together with the school and its stars crowded the Lumen Christi College theatre in Gosnells to enjoy an evening including individual instrumental performances,

class choral recitals and award presentations for the year.

Principal Gabrielle Doyle presented awards and certificates to students and congratulated the winners after earlier welcoming parents to the evening.

One of the delights for parents is to see their children performing confidently and happily on stage at events such as annual school evenings.

Last Thursday, the talented performers from all classes sent hundreds of parents home very proud indeed.

PHOTOS: PETER ROSENGREN

The real stars: Good Shepherd Primary students wowed everyone with their talent at the school’s annual Music Night on Thursday, 28 October. A variety of performances directed by Good Shepherd’s Music teacher Diana Newman revealed an ocean of talent, whether singing as ‘Fireflies’ at top, or in individual instrumental pieces. Helping keep the performance train on track for the evening was Maureen Hansen on piano, whose accompaniment, above at left, helped thread everything together. Students also displayed a talent for adding drama and comedy to their performances, as in a song about hats, top right, or in choral speaking, centre photo. The school band impressed all with its performance, as did the clowns.

4HE WORLD S LARGEST BUILDER OF #HURCH ORGANS Represented in WA by Ron Raymond at

ALLEN DIGITAL COMPUTER ORGAN STUDIOS (WA) 14 AMERY ST., COMO

9450 3322

ww w.a om llenorganswa.c

Karriholm readies for 25th anniversary Continued from Page 1

funding from government or the diocese, many hundreds of people have come since 1985.

No one is ever turned away because of lack of finance as there is no set charge and people are invited to contribute on a totally voluntary basis.

Connie and Ernie and their seven children lived at Karriholm from 1985-1997, opening their home and hearts to all who came.

Jo Bendotti handled the bookings from her home, travelling to and from Karriholm.

By another set of coincidences, The Holy Spirit of Freedom Community was founded only months later in April 1986 on the other side of Australia in Melbourne by Deacon Frank Feain.

Frank and his wife, Lu, were travelling across to Western Australia in early 1994. They believed that God was urging them to visit Karriholm but, because it was out of their way, they were reluctant.

However, as they were driving over Lu felt inspired by an old Christian hymn and felt that, in spite of the inconvenience, they should visit Pemberton. They called in and had afternoon tea

and a prayer with Connie. A few months later, several members of the Holy Spirit of Freedom Community came to Karriholm for personal retreats.

It wasn’t until November 1994, when the whole community made a visit, that they believed the Lord was calling them to stay. Connie’s response was: “I know, He has already told us.’

The new community saw the coming together as a sort of marriage; a union brought about by God’s hand.

Karriholm continues to be

open to all who are seeking what community members describe as a place of healing and blessing.

Many come from far and wide for a few days of prayer and retreat; others visit on a daily basis.

Community member Betty Namnik said the jubilee will be a celebration of God’s love touching many people in a particular place.

“Everyone is most welcome to join the celebrations. Anyone who has had an association with Karriholm in the last 25 years, please take this as a personal invitation to celebrate with us.”

An invitation All are invited to attend a weekend retreat to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of Karriholm, God’s Sanctuary in Pemberton from Friday, 19 to Sunday, 21 November.

Details: Friday - begins 7.30pm. Saturday - 9.30am-4pm. Mass in the Sacred Heart Church 7pm followed by a Eucharistic Candlelight Procession to Karriholm where Benediction and Blessing of the Sick will follow. Supper provided. Sunday - Mass at Parish Church 8.30am. Retreat continues 10.30am-1pm.

Registrations: hsofpemberton@gmail.com or Joyce 9776 1397.

Childminding available. Dinner/Dance at the Gloucester Motel Sunday, 21 November, 6.30pm. Bookings 9776 1266 by 17 November.

Details: www.hsof.net.

3 November 2010, The Record

Page 5

THE PARISH

Monsignor stumbles on 1895 Cardinal’s letter in archives

Seton College marks 25th anniversary 2010 has been a silver year for Seton Catholic College ...

In his own hand: Archdiocesan Historical Commission chairman Monsignor Brian O’Loughlin with the letter by Cardinal Moran of Sydney dated 6 April 1895 which he found inside a copy of Cardinal Moran’s history of the Catholic Church in Australasia.

A historical find was made by Monsignor O’Loughlin VG while sorting through library books put in storage during the recent Cathedral Presbytery’s renovations.

Monsignor O’Loughlin, Chairman of the Archdiocesan Historical Commission, found tucked away in pages of the classic text of Cardinal Moran’s History of the Catholic Church in Australiasia a letter written in the Cardinal’s own hand and addressed to the printer, Mr Frank Coffee, dated 6 April 1895.

In this letter, Cardinal Moran, who was the Australian ecclesiastic appointed a Cardinal, congratulates Mr Coffee “on bringing to completion in such an admirable manner the History of the Catholic Church in Australasia”.

The Cardinal continues: “The illustrations appear to be excellent. It must have cost you a deal of money and outlay to collect so many rare and interesting subject and sketches for the illustrations.

It is particularly gratifying to me to

learn that the work in all its details of printing, illustration and binding has been carried out so successfully in Australia”.

Enquiries so far have failed to reveal how the text came to be located in the house library. Many presbyteries and convents had copies of Cardinal Moran’s classic text.

Some older Catholics may remember the well bound book so highly commended by Cardinal Moran alongside their family Bible.

Cardinal Moran was associated with at least two important events in the life of the Church in WA. The first was the consecration of Bishop Gibney on 23 January 1887.

Bishop Gibney is remembered for acquiring so many of the prominent Catholic sites around Perth: the Catholic Education Centre in Leederville, St John of God Convent and hospital in Subiaco, the Redemptorist Monastery in North Perth and the parish and Catholic Pastoral Centre in Highgate.

These buildings were matched

with personnel, as Bishop Gibney introduced to the then Diocese of Perth the Sisters of St John of God, the Redemptorist Fathers, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Missions, the Presentation Sisters and the Christian Brothers.

Bishop Gibney also established The Record and gave it its founding charter. Bishop Gibney’s acumen was eclipsed in his later life and he resigned the See of Perth in 1910.

Cardinal Moran returned to Perth for the consecration of his successor, Fr Patrick Clune, CSsR. on 17 March 1911.

The Archdiocese has commissioned Fr Christopher Dowd OP to research and write a biography of the colourful life of Patrick Clune which will commemorate his accession to Perth, first as Bishop and then in 1913 as Perth’s first Archbishop.

The History of the Catholic Church in Australasia by Cardinal Moran was published in 1895 and, at 1,008 pages, was a considerable tome.

Seton Catholic College has marked 20 years of preparing students for the world, celebrating the diversity of its students and welcoming back its graduates.

Although many reunions and meetings of ex-students have occurred over the past 150 years, 2010 saw the formal establishment of the College Alumni.

Alumni from Seton and its predecessors, De Vialar College, St Brendan’s and St Joseph’s, were welcomed to a special reunion on the morning of 12 March.

Three generations of graduates and some returning Sisters were shown around the college

by Seton’s Year 11 and Year 12 student leaders, taking in a tour of the former St Brendan’s campus which is now Christ the King School.

Three metre high banners, depicting aspects of Seton’s heritage dating back to 1855, were displayed throughout the school.

School is old, and new While 20 years young, Seton Catholic College is effectively the second oldest Catholic school in WA and the oldest in the Fremantle area.

On 25 May 1855, four French Sisters of the Congregation of St Joseph of the Apparition arrived in Fremantle on the Lady Amherst. They soon established a school on Lot 66 in Henry Street to serve the needs of the small Fremantle settlement. By 1863 this St Joseph’s School had transferred to a rented house on the corner of High and Queen Streets and then to the site in Adelaide Street which was adjacent to the Catholic church in Fremantle.

In 1968, St Joseph’s was renamed De Vialar College and relocated to Samson where the

ACU forms student team to evangelise campuses

BY ANTHONY BARICH AUSTRALIAN Catholic University has established a national cadre of students in tertiary education to evangelise its six campuses in the faith.

Therese Nichols from Melbourne, recently appointed ACU’s national formation coordinator, has created a six person cadre of Faith and Justice Ambassadors to be witnesses of the Catholic faith on their campuses.

For the team, consisting of Gemma Green (Melbourne), Shinta Kirpalani (North Sydney), Luke Fonkalsrud (Strathfield), Casey McLoughlin (Ballarat), Eliza Kerklaan (Brisbane) and Matthew Cassidy (Canberra), the 17 October canonisation of St Mary MacKillop in Rome was an integral part of their formation.

The Ambassadors’ mission is that spelled out by the late Servant of God, Pope John Paul II – to be “builders of the civilisation of love, architects of the culture of life and witnesses of faith”.

While they will run retreats and other events, their central focus is “being a presence and being a community of faith open to all”, Miss Nichols told The Record in Rome.

“This trip to Rome is just the beginning,” said Miss Nichols, who was appointed to her newly created post in July.

“In Rome, in their first week as Ambassadors, they received formation in the heart of the Church to go back to be witnesses of faith on campus.”

As part of their formation while in Rome, the team met Dominican Sister Mary Madeline from Nashville, US, one of a group of nuns Bishop Anthony Fisher OP brought to Australia to help invigorate youth prior to World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney.

While in Rome, the group also met with New York Basilian Father Tom Rosica, the founder of Salt + Light Television, the Catholic TV station of Canada that has created award-winning documentaries and has over two million viewers in the country.

Displays of memorabilia from the College archives proved popular and led to much animated reminiscing over photos, honour boards, shields, banners, yearbooks and previous uniforms and a video presentation.

In the afternoon, students and staff assembled on the school oval for an aerial photo before the evening gave way to an international food and cultural festival attended by over 3,000 people.

The second phase of Anniversary celebrations took place in August and centred on the traditional Seton Week.

To celebrate the annual Seton Day Mass, all students and staff travelled to St Mary’s Cathedral on 19 August where Mgr Michael Keating welcomed the College and outlined the Cathedral’s history and many of its features.

Seton College was formed in 1990 by the amalgamation of De Vialar College, founded by the Society of African Missions in 1964 and St Brendan’s College, formed by the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition in 1968 from their previously existing school of St Joseph’s in Fremantle.

Sisters built on more spacious grounds in Marchant Road, adjacent to Winterfold and Stock Roads.

In 1962, Archbishop Prendiville invited the Society of African Missions to establish and staff a new college which was to be built in York Street, Hilton on land donated to Catholic education by the Australian Government. The foundation Principal, Fr Elisha O’Shea SMA, named the College in honour of a well-known Irish saint – Brendan. St Brendan’s College was opened in February 1964 with 30 students who were enrolled in Grades 4 and 5.

In 1990, Seton Catholic College was formed by the amalgamation of De Vialar with St Brendan’s College.

What comes next?

ACUs new Faith and Justice Ambassadors Casey McLaughlan and Gemma Green at a concert in Rome about St Mary MacKillop’s life performed by their fellow ACU students on 16 October.

PHOTO: ANTHONY BARICH

Available Now from The Record Bookshop 9220 5900 bookshop@therecord.com.au

Page 6

3 November 2010, The Record

THE PARISH

Benedict XVI to pray for addicts

Students mark a global mission

VATICAN CITY, 31 Oct 2010 (Zenit.org) - Benedict XVI is dedicating the month of November to pray for those who use drugs, or who are dependent on other substances.

The Apostleship of Prayer announced the intentions chosen by the Pope for November.

His general prayer intention is: “That victims of drugs or of other dependence may, thanks to the support of the Christian community, find in the power of our saving God strength for a radical life-change.”

The Pontiff also chooses an apostolic intention for each month.

In November he will pray: “That the Churches of Latin America may move ahead with the continent-wide mission proposed by their Bishops, making it part of the universal missionary task of the People of God.”

The annual Catholic Mission Mass saw hundreds of students from Catholic schools gather to focus on the Church’s global evangelisation agency and those it serves, especially children

Learn to love truly, Pope tells youth VATICAN CITY, 31 Oct 2010 (Zenit.org) - Benedict XVI is encouraging adolescents and young people to learn what it means to truly love, explaining that the secret is to be a gift to others.

The Pope stated this Saturday in a question and answer session with representatives of Italian Catholic Action. Some 50,000 children, 30,000 youth and 10,000 educators of the organisation were present in St Peter’s Square for the meeting with the Pontiff.

The youth, ages 4-18, represented all the dioceses of Italy and, after the meeting with the Holy Father, participated in events throughout Rome focused on the theme: “There Is More. We Become Great Together.”

While mainly for Italian youth, the gathering also included participants from Catholic Action in Romania, Argentina, Burundi, the Holy Land and Spain.

After a question from a young woman of Catholic Action, Benedict XVI responded, “It is very important, I would say fundamental, to learn to love, truly to love, to learn the art of real love!”

He continued: “In adolescence, we stop before the mirror and we notice that we are changing. But if you continue to look at yourself, you will never grow up!

“You grow up when you no longer let the mirror be the only truth about you but when you let your friends tell you.

“You will grow up if you are able to make your life a gift to others, not to seek yourselves, but to give yourselves to others: this is the school of love.”

The Pope added, “This love, however, must bring you into that ‘more’ that today shouts to everyone: ‘There is more!’”

Pure air He recalled, “I too, in my youth wanted something more than what the society and the mentality of the time presented to me.”

“I wanted to breathe pure air,” the Pontiff said. “Above all I desired a beautiful and good world, like our God, the Father of Jesus, wanted for everyone.”

“And I understood more and more that the world becomes beautiful and good if one knows this will of God and if the world

“Catholic Mission organises the Mission Mass in the Archdiocese every year as a way of saying thank you for the support we receive to sustain and strengthen the unassuming and tireless work of our Catholic Missionaries in caring for and protecting poor and disadvantaged children in over 160 countries throughout the developing world,” Director Francis Leong told The Record.

PHOTOS: PETER ROSENGREN

corresponds to this will of God,” he added, “which is the true light, beauty, love that gives the world meaning.”

“You cannot and must not adapt yourselves to a love reduced to a commodity to be consumed without respect for oneself or for others, incapable of chastity and purity,” the Holy Father urged. “This is not freedom.”

He noted that “much of the ‘love’ that is proposed by the media, on the internet, is not love but egoism, closure, it gives you the illusion of a moment, but it does not make you happy, it does not make you grow up, it binds you like a chain that suffocates more beautiful thoughts and sentiments, the true desires of the heart, that irrepressible power that is love and that has

its maximum expression in Jesus and strength and fire in the Holy Spirit, who enflames your lives, your thoughts, your affections.”

“Of course it demands sacrifice to live love in the true way - without renunciation one does not find this road - but I am certain that you are not afraid of the toil of a challenging and authentic love,” Benedict XVI stated.

He added, “It is the only kind that, in the final analysis, gives true joy!”

“There is a test,” the Pope said, “that tells you whether your love is growing in a healthy way: if you do not exclude others from your life, above all your friends who are suffering and alone, people in difficulty, and if you open your heart to the great friend Jesus.”

3 November 2010, The Record

THE PARISH

Cathedral hosts concert Music lovers have enjoyed a series of concerts in the newly completed St Mary’s St Mary’s Cathedral was filled with over 500 enthusiastic concertgoers on Sunday, 31 October for the third concert in the inaugural Cathedral Concert Series. This was a historic concert presented jointly by the Lay Clerks of the Cathedral Choir and the Collegium Symphonic Chorus – the first time in many years the Cathedral Choir has presented a formal joint concert in the Cathedral with another choral ensemble.

The main piece on the programme was Maurice Duruflé’s stunning Requiem conducted by Dr Margaret Pride. This piece was written in 1947 and features an eclectic combination of elements of plainchant melodies (taken from the chant Requiem Mass) and impressionistic harmonies and colouristic organ figurations. The organ accompaniment was played by the Cathedral’s Director of Music, Jacinta Jakovcevic, and also featured solos by Ruby Philogene MBE and the Cathedral’s Principal Cantor, Daniel Mullaney.

The programme, presented on the eve of the month of Holy Souls, was also a celebration of the great Solemnity of All Saints - this was reflected in other works in the programme such as Duruflé’s Tota pulchra es Maria sung by the Perth Young Woman’s Chorale and two organ solos, La Banquet Celeste of Olivier Messiaen and Litanies of Jehan Alain, also played by Jacinta Jakovcevic. The concert also featured the now-traditional Miss Maud afternoon tea served in the Cathedral’s undercroft courtyard.

Page 7

Future priests absorb realities of disability CJ Millen, from St Charles, reports on what’s happening at our Archdiocesan Seminary During 2010, several seminarians from St Charles’ Seminary have visited the Emmanuel Centre in Windsor Street, Perth.

These pastoral visits helped the future priests to understand, support and learn from people with disability.

Each week, Barbara Harris and Fr Paul Pitzen engaged seminarians in various learning sessions that give them a variety of opportunities. Meeting people with disabilities is a priority experience for all seminarians.

They also meet people who support the person with a disability such as parents and professional support workers. The seminarians have the opportunity to engage with facilitators from other agencies, many of which are Catholic-based. Every week, the seminarians participated in several programmes on offer alongside the person with a disability, giving assistance, encouragement and friendship.

A wonderful new experience for each seminarian has been learning some sign language with Geoff Scott. This has enabled them to communicate in a special way with people who are deaf. Such simple experiences demonstrate consideration and respect for people with disabilities.

Barbara Harris said that the relationship between the Seminary and the Emmanuel Centre is very important. The programme provides “an opportunity and experience for seminarians to know people with disabilities and their families as part of the parish. The priest is a role model and sets the example to the parish.

His acknowledgment and inclusion of people with disabilities in the life of the parish begins in seminary formation ... enabling him to reflect and understand how disability fits into society.”

St Charles’ Seminary looks forward to sending seminarians to the Emmanuel Centre in the future so they can also meet and know people with a disability.

The process is a two-way experience. It involves learning how people with disability can assist seminarians in their future ministry as priests.

Ruby Philogene sings the Pie Jesu from Duruflé’s Requiem during the concert in St Mary’s Cathedral last Sunday. The Collegium Symphonic Chorus, below, were accompanied by Bronwyn Wallis on harp.

PHOTOS: FR ROBERT CROSS

Seminarians met staff of the Emmanuel Centre on several occasions this year, learning more in the process about the problems faced by those with PHOTOS: FR ROBERT CROSS disabilities.

Seminary opens for potential vocations

BY PATRICK TOOHEY

Trinity’s former head cuts 90th cake

BY GLYNNIS GRAINGER In the first event held in the new boardroom at Trinity College, the school welcomed Br Tony Kelly back to the College on Wednesday, 22 September to celebrate his 90th birthday.

Br Kelly was Headmaster at Trinity from 1960-65 and from 1978-84 and, during his first period of time at the College, he oversaw the move from CBC in the Terrace to East Perth, being instrumental in the development of the new campus.

Br Kelly was also responsible for introducing his much-loved Pipes and Drums Band to Trinity.

Thirty invited guests gathered in the John Brophy Boardroom

Former Trinity College Principal Br Tony Kelly surrounded by friends and well-wishers for his 90th birthday.

located on the top floor of the new Br P L O’Doherty Cultural Centre.

Guests were pleased Mr John Brophy (class of 1941), who was the first Board Chairman in 1986,

could attend the function. Br Kelly was taken on a short tour of the four storey building and was impressed by the new state-of-theart facilities provided for students and staff.

The Br P L O’Doherty Cultural Centre will be officially opened by the Archbishop next month.

Trinity Headmaster Mr Ivan Banks presented Br Kelly with an inaugural edition of Oral History CDs containing Br Kelly’s recorded memoirs of CBC and Trinity, and a crucifix carved from wood redeemed from one of the original Trinity buildings built in 1962.

After a short speech from Br Kelly, he blew out the candles on his cake, then enjoyed catching up with friends.

On Sunday, 31 October around 15 men attended St Charles’ Seminary for vocations day. They were welcomed by the seminarians and then invited to join in praying Morning Prayer.

Following this, three seminarians – Grant Gorddard, C J Millen and Mariusz Grzech - gave their testimonies as to how God called them to the Seminary.

Fr John O’Reilly, Dean of Seminary Life, then spoke to them about the vocation to priesthood.

The Rector, Mgr Kevin Long, spoke about the practicalities of entering the Seminary. Solemn Sung Mass followed which was

celebrated with a sung Latin Proper and hymns.

A barbeque lunch in the splendid grounds of the seminary overlooking the Swan River followed. This luncheon was marked with fellowship between the present seminarians and men considering possible priestly vocations.

A tour of the seminary was then conducted by seminarians.

It highlighted the historic environment of St Charles as well as a visit to the Seminary chickens. The day concluded with Sung Vespers and Benediction.

Friendships were formed and possibilities created.

Please pray that St Charles will be blessed with many vocations.

The Record Bookshop

Now open Resourcing Catholic families in complex times

Page 8

editorial

Way of the Family

O

dd thought it might sund, the supreme duty of Christians in Australia today is to be countercultural.

Last week, this editorial canvassed the five major factors or formational influences which can decisively influence whether children from Catholic families will eventually embrace the faith that their parents wish to pass on to them. This matter is at the very heart of Catholic family life and therefore of the future of the Church. It should be a matter of the highest priority for the Church at every level in this country and, if necessary, this message should be repeatedly registered into the consciousness of the Church at every level in this nation.

These influences are: Mother Father Television, the Internet, mobile phones School, peers, peer pressure The media and culture.

As this editorial asserted, what has been happening over several decades of an extraordinary transition in the history of this nation is that the positive and life-affirming influence and desire of parents for their children’s lives and faith is not only generally being neutralised by the malignancy of tools of communication, peer pressure, media and our culture, but now being actively attacked by these in a way that has not previously occurred in Australian life.

In effect, affluent consumerism, what Pope Benedict XVI termed “the dictatorship of moral relativism” and radical isolation from communion with others, including one’s own family, is apparently winning the battle for the vast majority of our children’s hearts and minds.

The end result of this in the lives of children all too often leads to failure to find fulfilment in life, PO Box 3075 whether through vocation, marAdelaide Tce riage and family or in the deeply PERTH WA 6832 human and most noble quest to editor@therecord.com.au find a satisfactory answer to the reason for one’s own existence Tel: (08) 9220 5900 in the world. All too often, this Fax: (08) 9325 4580 process leads to a kind of selfannihilation of one’s own life.

Our society has become toxic to our children and families in a way not previosuly experienced in this country.

If the above premises are more or less true, what this new situation in Australian family life means is that, treated purely as a couple, any Catholic parents are less likely than ever before to succeed in the task of raising children who come to experience and see serious Christianity as normality and as the most credible answer to the profound questions of the meaning of our lives. In effect, the problem which has afflicted the Catholic Church and Catholic families in Australia since approximately the Cultural and Sexual Revolution of 1968 may be simply defined as one of isolation. How? As they grow older and more independent, children are increasingly isolated from the faith and values of their Christian parents by almost every known and measurable societal factor and influence. Catholic families are also increasingly isolated from each other. This means that the best efforts of parents will be received by children in their youngest years but are increasingly likely to be rejected as other antithetical forces become more dominant in informing the outlook of the young.

Parents, in short, are now less likely to succeed in the primary task of passing on faith and values to their children.

The answer to this very real crisis of Catholic family life and marriage is to be found in resourcing parents to be able to neutralise the malignancy of contemporary culture towards our children so that they have space in their lives to come to see Christianity as normality and to be truly free as individuals to grow up. This should be one of the common tasks of parishes, the Religious vocation and the Sacrament of Marriage Essential practical elements of the answer might therefore include the following: ● An initial conscious decision by parents to take seriously their responsibilities as spouses and parents in the Christian faith to children who, like themselves, have an eternal destiny, by trusting in the Lord in everything. ● A conscious decision, as a natural result of understanding the critical importance they play as parents to begin exercising the gifts and authority they jointly share in the best interests of their children and their family. ● A decision to begin associating regularly on a social basis with other families who share the same faith and values, so that their children and the children of the fmailies with which they associate are allowed to experience Christianity as normality. Such associations can be regular without being onerous and should have a purely social element so that children and parents develop their range of friendships and social activities. ● A decision to monitor carefully the friendships on offer to our children and to assess these in light of the known faith and values of the families from which other children come. This means assisting children to discern the real nature of relationships they are offered. ● The decision to regularly gather together for formation in Christianity, which can take numerous forms, and to identify those clergy, Religious and laity who will be useful and willing to assist in the serious task of Christian formation leading to an adult faith.

A first task in putting these elements into practice is to identify those families in one’s immediate circle who may also be open to seeing the nature of the crisis of Australian life and willing to subvert an often malignant culture indifferent to whose children it harms spiritually and morally.

It is clear that what counts is parents willing to take control of their families away from the empty sterility of Australian culture in order to give their children the air they need to breathe as human beings.

THE RECORD

3 November 2010, The Record

THE PARISH App delivers correct Mass translation iFaith with Tom Gourlay

New Mass

Compare old and new translations New Mass As people everywhere in the English speaking world eagerly await the introduction of the now approved and corrected translation of the English text of the Mass, there are a number of initiatives underway to educate the people and enable us to participate in the corrected versions of the Mass as it begins to be used.

Whilst the title of the app is perhaps somewhat of a misnomer (it is in fact the same Norvus Ordo Mass with a corrected translation much closer to the official Latin text), ‘New Mass’ is a wonderfully simple

app for your iPhone that gives you access to the texts of the Mass currently in use and the newly corrected version. These you can compare side by side, and then access a brief but sufficiently detailed explanation for the change. For example, the response to the greeting at the beginning of Mass, which changes from “And also with you”, to “And with your spirit” is given a detailed, but not onerously lengthy explanation which points not only to the biblical roots of the liturgy, but also the official Latin text of the Norvus Ordo.

With the introduction of the new corrected version of the Mass comes a wonderful opportunity for all Catholics in the English speaking world to learn anew what is truly happening upon the altar. In the months immediately following the introduction of this new and improved text, will we be able to rely solely on our memory to participate vocally in the Mass.

Hopefully, this will serve as a fantastic opportunity to delve into the real meaning of the prayers we recite, and it is here that this app may prove useful.

“Simply wonderful” is how Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto, Canada, described this

app. And you’re most likely bound to arrive at the same conclusion.

The app will cost users a one off payment of $1.19 Ave Maria!

A PILGRIM’S PROGRESS Camino Salvado Journal

Weary pilgrims rest and recuperate at Peace Be Still retreat lodge in the Chittering Valley. PHOTO: COURTESY DUNCAN JEFFERSON

Day Three Dr Duncan Jefferson, who trod the Camino Salvado with other pilgrims in August and September, continues his pilgrim’s diary for The Record Wednesday, 1 September, 24km

T

he thunderous overnight rain had stopped and the last remaining clouds were clearing from the morning sky. Everything was clean and fresh … except our boots that we reluctantly had to pull onto some very tired feet! Then we climbed sleepily onto the bus to be taken back to our starting point in Walyunga Park, in order to continue our pilgrimage.

To say that the park is a unique experience is a massive understatement: kangaroo, emus and echidna startle and amaze us. The spring flowers are jewels of delight in the wild, scrubby bush. The steep ascent of the track silenced us as we struggled up the slope: the valley views appeared and the glimpses out over the vast plain towards the ocean were breathtaking.

As we stood atop the high first hill in the clear calm air, a wind burst up from the valley, shaking the trees and sending hats flying: it felt like the very breath of God saying, “My creation is a gift for you”.

It was an extraordinary moment of beauty, joy and humility. But like most things in life, we had to move onwards and upwards, which demanded much from tired, sore legs and hot and blistering feet.

Lunch was delivered by our two “guardian angels’, Sue and Paul: then the final 10km which are always the hardest. The weather was glorious, but the road walking was hard on the feet. The upside

was that we had to walk single file, and this engendered silence and reflection.

Often a walker would stop to take a photo of a beautiful scene.

This made me think that all of us experience those “wow” moments – the ones we attempt to capture on film.

But what struck me was that we humans have the ability to appreciate beauty, just as we have the ability to read, to sing, to play sport and so on: and if we practise enough we can get really good at reading, singing, sport etc. Just imagine if we practised really hard at looking for things of beauty in our everyday life: flowers, sunsets, starry skies, baby’s fingers, old peoples smiles – how much more would our lives be enriched by nurturing the ability to see beauty.

Tonight the sharing was easier with less nervous laughter: we are beginning to cast off our burdens and our “protective” shells and life feels lighter. But tomorrow we have to walk 28km and bed calls early!

3 November 2010, The Record

Page 9

VISTA

Journey of

the Heart

churches, but was not connecting there. I remember being on my knees and asking God, “Which Church?” but in the back of my head saying, “Just not the Catholic Church.” I wasn’t at all resolved about Catholic sexual teachings and abortion at that point, though even as a feminist I had started to see problems with abortion.

Then someone got me to come to Mass, and that was it. There was something beautiful there. I went to Confession right away. The priest who eventually helped me through Confirmation had me begin by reading much of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I started with the section on prayer and worked my way through all the doctrines I had trouble with, whether it was Mary or the Pope or contraception or the priesthood. I spent two years studying St Thomas and St Augustine and other doctors of the Church.

The thing I always recommend to people is just really to pray through any issues they have with Church teaching. Sometimes we have problems with the Church and we complain about them or read books that defend our current dissenting view, instead of praying and asking God to enlighten us, to direct us to whatever the truth may be. Early on in my conversion, God gave me the recognition that I could trust the Church. From there, though, I had to satisfy my intellectual scepticism, and that took lots of study — and lots of prayer.

A

t university, ERIKA

BACHIOCHI noticed

that feminists were the only ones who seemed to care about the issues affecting women and children...

One of the key issues facing Christianity today is that it is often perceived, and portrayed, as anti-woman. It’s a powerful stereotype, but is it true? Around the world there is a growing number of women who, initially attracted to the central creeds of modern feminism, eventually reject them in preference for the faith of the Church. And in doing so they are not regressing to fashions of an earlier era when women were confined in numerous ways by social convention. Often the journey is long and fraught with uncertainties ....

PHOTO: BR3AKTHRU / FREEDIGITALPHOTOS.NET

BY JUDY ROBERTS

T

he popular media view of the Catholic Church as antiwoman gets a vigorous challenge in a new book edited

by Erika Bachiochi. In Women, Sex, and the Church: A Case for Catholic Teaching (Pauline Books & Media), Bachiochi and eight other contributors expound upon the Church’s teaching on sex, contraception, marriage, abortion and priestly ordination from a prowoman perspective. Bachiochi, a 35 year old mother of five, lives in Massachusetts, with her husband, Dan. You open the book by saying you were an unlikely candidate to bring together the book’s contributors because you once identified with radical feminists and were antiCatholic. How did you become a faithful Catholic who embraces the Church’s teachings?

I grew up in Rockport, Maine in a broken family. My parents divorced when I was 4. My mother and stepfather then divorced when

I was 12, and my mother went on to marry and divorce again when I was in college. As a young girl, I received my first Communion and then didn’t attend Mass anymore.

The divorce that was hardest on me was the one at 12. The year before, I remember going to a drug and alcohol prevention meeting and nodding my head at everything, but when the divorce hit, I began to act out from the brokenness inside. When I was 16, a friend committed suicide, and then another committed suicide when I was 19. The 19 year old was someone I had always sort of dreamed of marrying, so his death was crushing.

I was in college at that point and was really despairing over that loss and all of life. I was also heavily involved in the women’s centre [at Vermont’s Middlebury College]. I really identified with what I took to be two things from those feminists on campus. One was just a depth about life. Everyone else around me was doing what I didn’t want to do anymore: drink and hook up.

The feminists were doing some of that, but they were also much more introspective about life, about what

was going on on campus, about the lack of self-respect that many women had to just go and live that kind of college scene. The feminists also seemed to care a lot about women and children. No one else was talking about that.

I started to call myself a socialist or Marxist feminist. I had no other philosophical bearings. It was around this time my friend died, and I was brought to my knees in a hard way. God started to lay the pieces. I was praying constantly through all this, not in an overtly Christian sense, but just “Help me, God. I can’t do this.”

Was it a long journey back to the Church?

Alongside the spiritual journey was an intense intellectual journey. Instead of women’s studies and sociology, I started to study political science and philosophy.

I took a course on the Bible and read of Jesus teaching things that I’d experienced as true in life. I started wandering away from my feminist friends and hanging out with Christians. I barraged them with questions.

I began to attend Protestant

Did the idea for Women, Sex, and the Church grow out of your own struggle to understand the Church in these areas?

I had embraced the Church’s sexual teachings well before beginning this project. They had had a lifesaving effect in my life. The immediate inspiration for the book was the irritation I experienced watching the news just after John Paul II died. Most television programmes were reporting on the conclave as though everything the Church taught was up for grabs. Every time they invited a woman on their shows to debate the issues, it’d be a dissenting woman who’d tell the viewers how much the teachings all needed to change. It was so frustrating. And it was not only that I had experienced the freeing truth of Church teachings, but I had scores of friends living the Catholic faith and loving the adventure of orthodoxy. And no one got that.

No one articulated how intelligent, self-respecting, orthodox women understood their faith.

How were the contributors to the book chosen?

Sr Sara Butler (a professor at St Joseph’s Seminary in New York), who wrote the chapter on ordination, was one of the first. I knew she’d previously supported women in the priesthood, but had changed her mind. For the chapters on the sexual teachings, I was looking for smart, faithful women who could give a nuanced defence of Church

teaching without recourse to theological argument. I wanted us to make the secular case as best we could.

Initially, I did not know Cassandra Hough [founding director of the Love and Fidelity Network], who wrote the chapter on premarital sex. She became an obvious choice once I got to know her work. I knew Jennifer Roback Morse’s work and thought having an economist write on marriage was a good idea. She is wellrespected, and her credentials are outstanding.

Angela Franks [author of Margaret Sanger’s Eugenic Legacy] was an obvious choice for the chapter on contraception. Angela could have written on any number of these topics, but she was up for writing on contraception, given her extensive scholarship in this area.

Elizabeth Schiltz’s [St Thomas Law School] essay in the book on “Duelling Vocations” talks about the tension between women’s roles in public life and their vocation as wives and mothers. As the mother of young children, how do you maintain a career while caring for your family?

First, I have a tremendous husband. He sees his role as father and husband as fundamental to who he is. He is an incredible, prayerful man, and I know he sees my work as our work.

How do I do this practically?

Every mum of young children needs a break. When I take my break, I work. I’m otherwise always with my children. I clean, cook and shop with my kids. When I have a break, I pray, study and write. I just say to God, “This is your book.

If you want it to come about, I have two hours to write, so write through me.”

I always beg Him to do that, and He always responds. As a Catholic, that’s how I have to live: just asking God to live through me. There’s not really any other way, as far as I can tell.

Women, Sex and the Church can be ordered fromThe Record Bookshop.

This article first appeared in the National Catholic Register.

Page 10

THE RECORD BOOKSHOP

3 November 2010, The Record

The Record Bookshop Boost Yo

$17.95

$29.95

$9.95

$60.00

For the cheapest prices on a wide selection of books, phone us on 9220 5914 or stop by at 21 Victoria Square, Perth

$19.95

$35.95

$19.95

$3.95

$24.95

$34.95

Pass by The Record Bookshop to find more St Mary of wide selection of books, cds, dvds, c

3 November 2010, The Record

Page 11

THE RECORD BOOKSHOP

our Prayer life Catalogue $5.95

$1.95

Tri votive candleholder

L in n Lapel pin e ffinish fini ish enamel

$10.95 Wooden look key ring - 95mm

Celebrating St Mary of the Cross MacKillop $11.95

$6.95

Bi-fold religious B p l plaque

$14.95 Bevelled edge ge glass plaque

$9.95 S Standing plastic w wooden look p plaque with ggold rim

Visor clip

$10.95 Gold foiled plaque

$6.95 Hanging or H sst standing plaque

f the Cross MacKillop merchandise and see our

clothing, gifts and other items.

$6.95 S Standing plaque w woodgrain look w with gold foiled b border

$7.95 W Woodgrain look h hanging plaque

Page 12

THE WORLD

Vatican signals diplomatic attempt to prevent Aziz execution VATICAN CITY (CNS) - The Vatican hopes the death penalty will not be carried out against former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz (pictured right), 74, said the Vatican spokesman.

“The position of the Catholic Church on the death penalty is known,” the spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, said Oct. 26, the day the Iraqi high court sentenced Aziz to death by hanging.

“Therefore, it is truly to be hoped that the sentence against Tariq Aziz will not be carried out, precisely in order to favor reconciliation and the reconstruction of peace and justice in Iraq after the great suffering it has undergone,” he said.

Father Lombardi said the Vatican might use diplomatic channels to intervene in the case.

The court sentenced Aziz, a Catholic who also served as foreign minister for then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, for persecution of Shiite religious parties.

Aziz is currently in prison and in poor health. He has been convicted for his role in the 1992 execution of more than three dozen merchants found guilty of profiteering and for his role in the forced displacement of Kurds in northern Iraq.

Aziz has 30 days to appeal. His Jordan-based lawyer told The Associated Press they were consulting about their next moves.

In an interview with the British branch of Aid to the Church in Need, the Catholic charity for

persecuted and other suffering Christians, Syrian Catholic Archbishop Georges Casmoussa of Mosul, Iraq, called the decision to execute Aziz wrong.

“We have to ask to save him,” he said. “We have to mount an international appeal calling on the Iraqi government to reverse this decision.”

He noted that Mosul residents launched a petition to ask the government to spare the former defense minister, Sultan Hashim Ahmad, and the death sentence is still pending.

“I will be ready to sign a document asking for this decision to be reversed,” the archbishop said of Aziz.

Noting that the Iraqi Supreme Court reached its decision based on Aziz’s alleged role in “eliminating religious parties,” Archbishop Casmoussa said: “Tariq Aziz was not in security, he was a civil minister. Of course he was part of the regime of Saddam, but that does not mean he was responsible for everything that happened.”

Aziz, who spoke English fluently, was often the face of Saddam’s regime in the 1990s and before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, when he surrendered to U.S. forces.

In 1998, Aziz traveled to the Vatican and met with Pope John Paul II. Aziz told Rome reporters he gave the pope a letter from Saddam asking the Vatican’s help in lifting the U.N.-imposed sanctions on Iraq.

Aziz met with the pope again in 2003, as the Vatican engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity to try to prevent the US-led invasion.

During that same visit to Italy, Aziz was invited by the Franciscan friars in Assisi, to pray at St. Francis’ tomb.

Many Italians complained that the Franciscans were being used by a man who since 1979 had been the No. 2 official of a regime guilty of serious human rights abuses.

In June 1992, when Iraqi officials refused to renew an agreement that would allow Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity to remain in Baghdad, Chaldean Patriarch Raphael I Bidawid appealed to Aziz, and the nuns were allowed to stay.

Advocacy for sanctity of life doesn’t stop, even on Death Row: US bishops

BY NANCY FRAZIER O’BRIEN WASHINGTON (CNS) - As the 2010 edition of Respect Life Month drew to a close, the issue of capital punishment was once again in the world spotlight as the Vatican called on Iraq not to execute former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.

It might not be easy to advocate for the life of a convicted murderer or for someone like Aziz, sentenced to death by hanging for persecuting Shiite Muslims, but it is important to the pro-life cause, said Deirdre McQuade, assistant director for policy and communications in the US bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities.

“It demeans our culture to use violence to answer violence, and it can only further undermine respect for innocent life,” McQuade told Catholic News Service Oct. 27.

“If the state can protect us without committing additional violence, that is the way we are called to go.”

Bishop Robert W. Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., made that point in one of the articles for this year’s Respect Life program, linking the death penalty issue to the Catholic belief in divine mercy.

“God did not abolish justice.

Rather, he intended by the offering of his Son to purge human justice of any sense of wrath or revenge,” he wrote. “As we seek a reason to put aside the practice of the death penalty, perhaps the best motive is our desire to imitate God in his mercy toward those for whom Jesus died.”

Bishop Finn’s call came at a time when many others - including members of law enforcement - were calling for an end to or curtailing of the use of capital punishment.

Police Chief James Abbott of West Orange, N.J., said his six months serving on the New Jersey

3 November 2010, The Record

Death Penalty Study Commission changed his mind about the death penalty. He said he still believes in it in theory, but “no state has found a way to carry out the death penalty quickly and cheaply and also accurately.”

“I ... know that in practice, (the death penalty) does more harm than good,” he said at a mid-October forum at the National Press Club in Washington that brought together representatives of U.S. and European law enforcement.

“So while I hang on to my theoretical views, ... I stand before you to say that society is better off without capital punishment,” Abbott added.

“Life in prison without parole in a maximum-security detention facility is a better alternative.”

Former Detective Superintendent Bob Denmark of Lancashire Constabulary in England said he investigated more than 100 homicides in the United Kingdom and genocide in Africa on behalf of the United Nations. In some of those cases, he was certain a defendant was guilty but was later proved wrong, he said.

He also said he did not think deterrence would have been a factor in the “vast majority” of the cases he investigated.

“If you were to use execution of killers as a deterrent, I think you would end up having to execute every killer in the hope that you might deter some potential killer in the future,” Denmark said.

A national poll of police chiefs last year found that they considered the death penalty an inefficient use of taxpayer resources and would prefer more state and federal funding go to improving law enforcement resources and providing treatment for drug and alcohol problems.

A San Francisco-based group called Law Enforcement and

Judges for Alternatives to the Death Penalty says California could save at least $125 million a year by abandoning the capital punishment option in favor of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

California currently has more than 680 people on death row, and housing a prisoner on death row costs $90,000 more each year than housing that same prisoner in a maximum-security prison, the group says. Other additional costs incurred because of the death penalty are associated with the trials and required appeals in death penalty cases.

In Texas, where 464 people have been executed since 1976, including 17 of the 43 executed in the United States this year, Anthony Graves was freed on 27 October after 18 years in prison including 12 on death row for a crime that prosecutors say he did not commit.

Students and professors from the University of Houston Law School and the University of St. Thomas in Houston helped gather the evidence that led to Graves’ exoneration.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, nearly 140 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence since 1973.

But for Catholics, the central reason for opposing the death penalty does not have to do with the possibility of killing an innocent person, the deterrence factor or the economic costs of capital punishment.

Instead, it is related to respect for the dignity of human life and divine mercy.

Those who believe in Christ “never see anyone as irredeemably wicked,” McQuade said. “God’s mercy extends to all of us.”

The U.S. bishops, who have been

Science can’t answer all questions, Pontiff tells researchers, scientists

BY CAROL GLATZ VATICAN CITY (CNS) Science is never to be feared, yet its discoveries will never be enough to answer all of the world’s questions, Pope Benedict XVI told scientists and researchers meeting at the Vatican.

“Scientists do not create the world; they learn about it and attempt to imitate it, following the laws and intelligibility that nature manifests to us,” he said in an address to members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on 28 October.

The fact that there is a constant, a law or logic that exists outside of human control “leads us to admit the existence of an all-powerful reason, which is other than that of man, and which sustains the world,” he said.

Meeting for a plenary assembly 28 October- 1 November, academy members were discussing “The Scientific Legacy of the 20th Century.”

The pope said that over the last century, many people developed one of two extreme views of what science was all about.

On the one hand, the development and use of nuclear weapons and other disturbing advancements caused some people to fear science and distance themselves from it, he said.

On the other hand, science’s many groundbreaking and lifechanging discoveries led some people to think science was a “panacea” and that science might be able to “answer all of the questions of man’s existence, and even of his aspirations,” he said.

Science represents neither of these extremes; it is “a patient, yet passionate search for the truth about the cosmos, about nature and about the constitution of the human being,” Pope Benedict said.

The church greatly esteems and encourages science, and the pope praised the way many scientists appreciate the role philosophy plays in enriching their work.

Science can benefit from recognizing the human person’s spiritual dimension and the human “quest for ultimate answers” about the world and the meaning of life, he said.

Pope Benedict urged scientists to take on a more “interdisciplinary approach tied with philosophical reflection” and asked that scientific achievements be used to help solve “the great problems of humanity,” promote the true good, and foster integral development around the world.

The science academy also hosted a working group Oct. 27-28 on the latest research looking at “Human Neuroplasticity and Education.”

Participants discussed how education and the unique capacities of the human brain have expanded the cognitive potential of human beings.

Stanislas Dehaene, a French expert in cognitive neuroscience, told Catholic News Service that the human brain wants to make

advocating against capital punishment for more than 25 years, began an ongoing Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty in 2005.

The Respect Life program has been featuring the issue of capital punishment every few years

sense of what it sees and to constantly seek out hidden patterns and rules that govern behavior.

While scientists don’t yet know how the brain is able to “extract” these hidden rules, he said the special ability has enabled humans to make huge achievements in culture and science.

Humans have “exploited the cognitive niche -- getting better knowledge of the world,” he said. Animals have good spatial knowledge, but they are not able to integrate lots of different data in a special way.

Dehaene said such cognitive abilities were an important tool for human survival because someone who could better understand and interpret animal behavior, for example, would be a much more successful hunter, and discovering the cycle of the seasons and how plants grow and make food means humans were able to “develop a much better feeding system.”

Wolf Singer, director of the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, Germany, said there are critical windows of opportunity for mastering certain language and motor skills that are open only during the first two decades of life.

Up until 20 or 25 years of age, the human brain is creating and removing neurological connections that allow for all sorts of unique skills, like riding a bicycle or playing a musical instrument, he said.

When the window closes after 20 or 25 years of age, the brain stops developing and no new pathways can be created, only existing connections can be made more efficient, he said, so “you have to get it right” early in life.

For that reason, parents and teachers are enormously important in transmitting a whole host of skills and knowledge to future generations, Singer said.

“If we had no educational system, our children would behave like cave dwelling Stone Age people” because sophisticated human behaviors and abilities are the result of “intentional instruction,” he said.

Teachers should be paid well and they along with parents who do a good job teaching children “should have the highest social prestige of all the professional groups, not the bankers,” he said.

“There is nothing more important than educating children,” he said.

Learning is still possible as an older adult, he said, but age will affect how well the skill is mastered.

“You won’t see a great pianist who started at age 30, for example,” he said.

Adults also learn differently from children, so while children can learn the whole structure of a language “intuitively,” an adult “needs to do it consciously” by focusing on language’s rational aspects like grammar rules and vocabulary lists, Singer said.

■

since the program began in 1972, McQuade said.

But this is the first time a Respect Life article has focused on “the spiritual dynamics” of the issue, she said.

■

3 November 2010, The Record

Page 13

THE WORLD Syrian Catholic Cathedral in Baghdad attacked during Mass

BY CAROL GLATZ VATICAN CITY (CNS) - A deadly militant siege of a Catholic cathedral in Baghdad, Iraq, was a “savage” act of “absurd violence,” Pope Benedict XVI said.

The pope urged international and national authorities and all people of good will to work together to end the “heinous episodes of violence that continue to ravage the people of the Middle East.”

“In a very grave attack on the Syrian Catholic cathedral of Baghdad, dozens of people were killed and injured, among them two priests and a group of faithful gathered for Sunday Mass,” the pope said of the 31 October incident.

“I pray for the victims of this absurd violence, which is even more savage because it struck defenseless people, gathered in God’s house, which is a house of love and reconciliation,” he said after praying the Angelus with pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square on 1 November, the feast of All Saints.

He expressed his closeness to Iraqi Christians, who have suffered another attack in their homeland, and he encouraged the nation’s priests and lay faithful “to be strong and steady in hope.”

Pope Benedict renewed his urgent call for peace in the Middle East.

While peace may be a gift of God, “it is also the result of efforts by people of good will and national

and international institutions,” he said.

“May everyone unite their efforts so as to end all violence,” he said.

Armed militants wearing explosives stormed the cathedral Oct. 31 while an estimated 100 faithful were celebrating evening Mass, news reports said.

The terrorists first set off a car bomb across the street in front of the Baghdad Stock Exchange, which left at least two people dead.

Then they stormed the church, killing another two people, according to reports.

The militants, who said they were part of the Islamic State of Iraq - a group with suspected ties to al-Qaida - held parishioners and priests hostage in the hopes of leveraging the release of prisoners from their network.

The terrorists demanded prisoners linked to al-Qaida be set free from detention in Iraq and Egypt and they threatened to blow up the church if military forces attempted to break the siege, according to Italian state media RAI. Iraqi security forces ringed the church and US military flew overhead in helicopters.

After a standoff that lasted hours, Iraqi forces stormed the cathedral and the ensuing firefight and a series of explosions left a large number of people dead and injured.

The Associated Press reported Nov. 1 that at least 39 people were killed, which included hostages, Iraqi security forces and suspect-

ed militants. Other agencies were reporting 52 people dead and 56 people wounded.

One report said Iraqi church sources included three young priests among those dead.

Syrian Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan was in Canada when the blasts occurred. In an e-mail to Catholic News Service on 1 Novembr while he was en route to Baghdad, he criticized the lack of security for Christian places of worship and called on “Iraqi parties to overcome their personal and confessional interests and look for the good of the Iraqi people who have elected them.”

“There are a few churches and Christian institutions left in Baghdad, not so great a number that it is not unreasonable for them to be protected, security-wise,” he said, noting that the security being provided by the government is “far less than what we have hoped for and requested.”

“Christians are slaughtered in Iraq, in their homes and churches, and the so-called ‘free’ world is watching in complete indifference, interested only in responding in a way that is politically correct and economically opportune, but in reality is hypocritical,” said the patriarch, who served as bishop of the New Jersey-based Syrian-rite diocese in the United States and Canada from 1995 until his election as patriarch in 2009.

The patriarch demanded “that the U.S. Congress, the United Nations, the International

A policeman outside the Syrian Catholic cathedral in Baghdad, Iraq, 1 November. Dozens of hostages and police were killed the day before when security forces raided the cathedral (picutred top) to free worshippers being held by gunmen wearing explosives.

PHOTOS: CNS / MOHAMMED AMEEN, REUTERS

Commission for Civil Rights and the League of Arabic States” condemn the actions at the church and “take the appropriate action to defend innocent Christians brutally singled out because of their religion, in Iraq and some other Middle Eastern countries.”

Chaldean Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni of Baghdad told Vatican Radio on 31 October that at least one child was killed in the incident.

During the siege, he asked people to pray that God would give the hostage-takers the grace to take into consideration the women, children and all the innocent who were threatened by their actions.

Vatican spokesman Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi told reporters at the time of the siege that “it’s a very sad situation, which confirms the difficult situation in which Christians live in the country.”

“Christians live with great insecurity and we express our solidarity

with them,” he said. Iraqi bishops had just participated in a special Synod of Bishops 10-24 October with the pope at the Vatican; the synod drew attention to the challenges facing Christians in the Middle East.

During the synod, Iraqi bishops said kidnappings for ransom, bombings of churches and other Christian buildings and a general lack of security have made life so precarious for the vulnerable Christian community that about half have left their homeland for safer destinations in the past seven years.

At least one bishop raised the question of systematic attacks as part of a “plan” to drive all Christians from the Middle East.

The cathedral and four other churches were the target of a string of bombings on 1 August 2004, when parishioners were leaving Sunday Mass; 15 people were killed in those attacks.

Beatification of Hungarian prelate recalls communist era

BY JONATHAN LUXMOORE WARSAW, Poland (CNS) - The beatification of a martyred bishop on 30 October will be an “important reminder” of the church’s communist-era persecution and serve to boost the country’s Christian faith, the head of Romania’s Catholic Church said ahead of the event.

“We’ve tried to draw the attention of all Romanians to this great event, which will be marked by the ringing of church bells nationwide,” said Archbishop Ioan Robu of Bucharest in advance of the beatification of Bishop Szilard Bogdanffy, the ethnic Hungarian prelate who died after being tortured in a communist-run Romanian prison.

“We must hope the new generations can understand what happened to the church at the time, and what we’re celebrating today,” he said. “Although it all happened in a very different era, today’s young people need links with those who lived before, to see and recognize the witness we share with them.”

The beatification of Bishop Bogdanffy was set for the northern city of Oradea, 47 years after the prelate’s death at age 42.

In a CNS interview, Archbishop Robu said the honoring of a Latin-rite bishop from Romania’s Hungarian minority would focus attention on the fate of Christians from various ethnic and religious backgrounds.

“The idea being faithful to the point of martyrdom is something understandable to everyone which goes beyond matters of identity and belonging,” Archbishop Robu said.

“Although this beatification will draw attention to one part of the church, the church itself is always one. Work is still under way two decades after the collapse of communist rule on acts of martyrdom.

But it’s important we can now begin to recognize what the martyrs did for the faith,” he said.

Christians were persecuted in Romania under communist rule, which lasted from the end of World War II until the December 1989 “Winter Revolution.”

In 2003, commissions from the country’s churches drew up a

Bishop Szilard Bogdanffy PHOTO: CNS/ DIOCESE OF ORADEA

‘’National Christian Martyrology,” a listing of people killed for their faith-based actions. The list includes 340 Christians including 50 Latin-rite Catholics.

Bishop Bogdanffy was born in Crna Bara, now in Serbia, to an ethnic Hungarian village teacher’s family. He attended a Piarist order high school in Timisoara, and later studied theology in Oradea and Budapest, Hungary. Ordained a priest in June 1934 in Oradea, he worked as a tutor at the seminary in nearby Satu Mare as well as spiritual director of St Joseph Institute and Ursuline Pedagogical Institute.

From 1936 to 1943, he served on the faculty of the Peter Pazmany Catholic University in Budapest, where he also earned a doctorate degree. He later returned to Oradea to reorganize Catholic secondary education after World War II. In 1948, when Romania’s Catholic seminaries were nationalized, he set up a secret training course for clergy and was the contact between the dioceses or Oradea and Satu Mare and the Vatican nunciature in Bucharest.

Secretly consecrated a bishop in February 1949, he was arrested two months later by the Romanian secret police, and tortured in the notorious Jilava, Capul Midia and Sighetul Marmatiei prisons.

In April 1953, Bishop Bogdanffy was sentenced to 12 years of hard labor on espionage and subversion charges in a show-trial. Although his family and lawyers obtained an annulment and a retrial was ordered, the bishop died from mistreatment at Aiud prison on 2 October 1953, before it could take place.

Archbishop Robu said he hoped the beatification ceremony would “provide an impetus” for other sainthood causes, including those of the martyred Bishop Anton Durcovici, 63, who died in 1951, and Father Vladimir Ghika, 80, who perished in 1954 in Jilava prison after penning 850 reflections from his cell.

“Each process is different and runs according to diocesan rules, but we can be sure Bishop Szilard Bogdanffy is only the first to be declared blessed,” he said.

Page 14

in brief...

Vatican official urges dialogue, cooperation in message to Hindus VATICAN CITY (CNS) - In a message to the world’s Hindus, a leading Vatican official said interreligious dialogue should ultimately lead to wider practical cooperation in addressing “the grave and unresolved challenges of our times.” Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, wrote the annual message to mark the Hindu celebration of Diwali, the feast of lights, which was to begin on 5 November in most parts of the world. Cardinal Tauran said mutual respect and mutual trust were the “pillars” of interreligious dialogue and the foundation of peaceful coexistence in society. Greater effort in interfaith dialogue, he said, should translate into an increase in cooperation and common action in the world. He quoted the late Pope John Paul II, who said in India in 1986 that interreligious dialogue “paves the way for relationships that are crucial in solving the problems of human suffering.”

Death toll mounts from double disasters in separate parts of Indonesia

Injured victims of an earthquake and tsunami at Sikakap clinic in west Sumatra, Indonesia on 28 October.

PHOTO: CNS/CRACK PALINGGI, REUTERS

WASHINGTON (CNS) - A double dose of natural disasters led Catholic agencies working in Indonesia to mount several efforts to provide emergency services to victims. The disasters, a magnitude 7.7 undersea earthquake on 25 October that triggered a tsunami that swamped coastal villages in the remote Mentawai Islands off the west coast of Sumatra and the eruption of a volcano on Java beginning on 26 October, claimed more than 400 lives and displaced thousands of people. Authorities reported the tsunami killed 408 people and that at least 400 people remained missing on 29 October, four days after 10-foot waves washed away homes and other structures up to 2,000 feet inland. “Entire villages were swept away,” Xaverian Father Silvano Zulian, a missionary priest who has lived in the Mentawai Islands for more than 30 years, told MISNA, the missionary news service. “The toll is destined to rise by the hour.”

Local priests and women Religious were among the first to reach the affected communities, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News. “We came (to the villages) with whatever we had, especially medicine because there was no hospital,” said Fr Fransiskus Xaverius Wio Hurint Pei from the Assumption of Mary Church in Sikakap.

He was accompanied by Charity of Jesus and Mary, Mother of Good Help sisters. The priest said he helped bury dead victims. “It was very sad ... bodies were scattered,” he said. “Survivors are having problems taking care of themselves.”

Church leaders among first to mourn former Argentine president’s death BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (CNS) - The former president of Argentina, Nestor Kirchner (pictured left), who died from a heart attack on 27 October, was not an obviously religious man.

In addition, his relationship with the Catholic Church hierarchy in Argentina often was a difficult one.

On several occasions, Kirchner, 60, criticised the Church for not doing enough to oppose the military dictatorship in power between 1976 and 1983.

When Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires sent a priest to administer the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick when Kirchner was ill in February, the former president’s entourage sent him packing.

Still, Church officials were among the leading voices in honouring the late former president hours after his death was announced. Even the passage in July of laws allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt children, legislation which he and his wife, current President Cristina Kirchner, supported, did not mute the Church’s praise.

Argentina remains a deeply religious country, especially in the countryside, and while many Argentines shared Nestor Kirchner’s views about the Church during the dictatorship, they still expect their presidents to be practising Catholics.

Masses were celebrated across Argentina within hours of Nestor Kirchner’s death. Many churches could not accommodate the overflow crowds and installed speakers so that those gathered outside could hear the services.

3 November 2010, The Record

THE WORLD Intermarriage found more common for Reform Jews, less so for Catholics

BY CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE NEW YORK (CNS) - Religiously mixed marriages are becoming more common among those who practise Reform Judaism but have shown a significant decline among American Catholics in the past 20 years, speakers said at a recent meeting of a Catholic-Jewish dialogue group.

Forty-six percent of married Reform Jews have spouses who identify themselves as having another faith, while 26 percent of Catholic marriages involve partners who are non-Catholic, participants in the semiannual consultation of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Council of Synagogues were told.

The consultation, chaired by Archbishop Timothy M Dolan of New York and Rabbi Alvin Berkun, president of the (Conservative) Rabbinical Assembly, took place on 19 October in New York.

“Whereas 30 years ago a Christian-Jewish couple might have approached a rabbi with embarrassment about their intentions to marry, today they’re asking about spirituality programmes in which both of them can feel comfortable,” said Rabbi Charles Kroloff, who chaired a task force on intermarriage for the Central Conference of Reform Rabbis.

The percentage of Jews in mixed marriages becomes progressively lower as one moves across the spectrum from Reform to Conservative to Orthodox Judaism. Only Reform rabbis can officiate at such weddings without incurring sanctions from their denomination, Rabbi Kroloff said.

“But even in the case of Reform

rabbis, only between 40 and 50 percent are willing to conduct a ceremony under the chuppah,” the canopy used in the Jewish ceremony that symbolises the home that the bride and groom build together, he added.

Sheila Garcia, associate director of the USCCB Secretariat of Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, spoke about mixed marriages in light of weakening sacramental practice among American Catholics over the past three decades.

“The necessary pledge made by the Catholic in a mixed marriage to do all in his or her power to baptise and rear the children as Catholic obviously runs into conflict with the legitimate Jewish desire to pass on Jewish faith and identity,” Garcia said.

“But what Catholics and Jews today are both dealing with is an alarming trend of many in their 20s not to affiliate themselves or their kids with any organised religion,” she said.

The consultation also featured reports on the American Jewish Committee’s CatholicJewish Educational Enrichment Programme, through which about 10,000 Catholic and Jewish high school students since 1993 have learned about the history, teachings and traditions of each other’s faith; the 10-24 October Synod of Bishops for the Middle East at the Vatican; and the status of negotiations between the Vatican and Israel about the economic portion of the 1993 Fundamental Agreement.

Fr James Massa, executive director of the USCCB Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious

Affairs, said that although significant progress was made earlier in the year on issues such as taxation and the juridical status of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, the Israeli side unexpectedly chose not to schedule the next meeting when the two sides met on 21 September.

The New York consultation took place before the 24 October closing message by participants in the Synod of Bishops and a US Bishop’s subsequent comments on the message prompted protests from the Israeli government.

Under the section dedicated to relations with Jews, the Synod message warned against inappropriate use of the words of the Bible. It said that “recourse to theological and biblical positions which use the word of God to wrongly justify injustices is not acceptable.” It was generally interpreted to refer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Melkite Bishop Cyrille S Bustros of Newton, Mass later told reporters at the Synod that Jews could no longer regard themselves as God’s “chosen people” or Israel as “the Promised Land,” because Jesus’ message showed that God loved and chose all people to be His own.

The statement by Bishop Bustros provoked an immediate reaction from Israel. In a statement, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said the Vatican should distance itself from what the Bishop said and that the remarks should not be allowed to jeopardise their relations. The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi, said the final message reflected the opinion of the Synod itself, while Bishop Bustros’ remarks were to be considered his personal opinion.

Vote for supporters of abortion never justified, Vatican official says

BY JOHN T HAVIS VATICAN CITY (CNS) - A US Vatican official said voting for a political candidate who favours legal abortion can never be morally justified.

Cardinal-designate Raymond L Burke who heads the Vatican’s highest tribunal, made the comments in an interview with the US advocacy group Catholic Action for Faith and Family. A video of the comments on abortion were posted online in late October, a few days before the US elections on 2 November.

“No, you can never vote for someone who favours absolutely what’s called the ‘right to choice’ of a woman to destroy human life in her womb, or the right to a procured abortion,” he said.

“You may in some circumstances where you don’t have any candidate who is proposing to eliminate all abortion, choose the candidate who will most limit this grave evil in our country, but you could never justify voting for a candidate who not only does not want to limit abortion but believes that it should be available to everyone,” he said.

Cardinal-designate Burke said Catholic politicians who support legal abortion were perfect examples of “scandal” - leading the faithful into moral confusion or error.

He said he was talking about “Catholics who would betray their Catholic faith in political life, legislators or judges or whatever it may be, leading other people to believe that abortion must not be the great evil that it is, or that abortion is in fact a good thing in some circum-

Cardinal-designate Raymond L. Burke, who heads the Vatican’s highest tribunal, pictured arriving for a session of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East at the Vatican on 19 October.

PHOTO: CNS/PAUL HARING

stances.”

In 2004, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, and at that time the Vatican’s top doctrinal official, wrote a memo to US Bishops on the issue of politicians and Communion. In it, he briefly addressed the question of voting for candidates who support legal abortion.

The memo said a Catholic who deliberately voted for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s pro-abortion (or pro-euthanasia) stand would be guilty of “formal cooperation in evil” and should exclude himself from receiving Communion.

It said that when a Catholic does

not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abortion but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered “remote material cooperation,” which is “permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”

Vatican officials later said that defining what constitutes “proportionate reasons” for a Catholic in such cases might be extremely difficult.

One possible example, they said, was when Catholic voters face a choice between two candidates who support legalised abortion but to widely differing degrees, and do not want to renounce their responsibility to vote.

3 November 2010, The Record

THE WORLD Judge says committed Christians Bishops must should not be afraid to embrace faith

BY GEORGE P MATYSEK JR ANNAPOLIS, Md (CNS) Although the sophisticated may deride them as simple-minded, US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said committed Christians should have the courage to embrace their faith.

Scalia spoke to members of the St Thomas More Society of Maryland who gathered on 21 October at the Westin Hotel in Annapolis following the 52nd annual Red Mass, held at nearby St Mary Church. The liturgy, celebrated by Baltimore Archbishop Edwin F O’Brien, marked the beginning of the judicial year.

During a hotel banquet, the St Thomas More Society honored Scalia with its “Man for All Seasons Award,” given to members of the legal profession who embody the ideals of St Thomas More.

Scalia outlined a long list of Christian beliefs that he said are greeted with derision by the worldly, dogmas including Christ’s divinity, the virgin birth and Christ’s resurrection.

“Surely those who adhere to all or most of these traditional Christian beliefs are regarded in the educated circles that you and I travel in as, well, simple-minded,” Scalia asserted.

The Catholic justice cited a story in The Washington Post that described Christian fundamentalists as “poorly educated and easily led.”

“The same attitude applies, of course, to traditional Catholics,” Scalia said, “who do such positively peasant-like things as saying the Rosary, kneeling in adoration before the Eucharist, going on pilgrimages to Lourdes or Medjugorje and, worst of all, following indiscriminately, rather than in smorgasbord fashion, the teachings of

the Pope.” Scalia said believers should embrace the ridicule of the world.

“As St Paul wrote to the Corinthians,” he said, “we are fools for Christ’s sake.”

Scalia noted that Christ described His followers as sheep and said no one will get into heaven without behaving like “little children.” Scalia warned, however, that reason and intellect must not be laid aside where matters of religion are concerned.

“Assuredly, a faith that has no rational basis is a false faith,” Scalia said.

In a sarcastic reference to cult leader David Koresh, he added: “That is why I am not a Branch Davidian.”

It isn’t irrational to accept the testimony of eyewitnesses to miracles, Scalia said.

“What is irrational,” he said, “is to reject a priori, with no investigation, the possibility of miracles in general and of Jesus Christ’s resurrection in particular, which is, of course, precisely what the worldly wise do.”

Scalia cited the 10 year old case of a priest in the Washington Archdiocese who was said to have the stigmata.

Statues of Mary and the saints appeared to weep in his presence.

Reporters for The Washington Post did a story and were unable to find an explanation for the strange phenomena.

“Why wasn’t that church absolutely packed with non-believers,” Scalia asked, “seeking to determine if there might be something to this?”

The answer was obvious, he said with disdain: “The wise do not investigate such silliness.”

While he may take his personal faith seriously, Scalia told The Catholic Review he doesn’t allow it

to influence his work on the high court.

“I don’t think there’s any such thing as a Catholic judge,” Scalia said in an interview with the newspaper of the Baltimore Archdiocese.

“There are good judges and bad judges. The only article in faith that plays any part in my judging is the commandment, ‘Thou Shalt Not Lie.’” Scalia said it isn’t his job to make policy or law, but to “say only what the law provides.”

“If I genuinely thought the Constitution guaranteed a woman’s right to abortion, I would be on the other way,” said Scalia, who has held that abortion is not guaranteed in the Constitution. “It would do nothing with my religion. It has to do with my being a lawyer.”

Scalia never thought he would see a time when there were six Catholic justices on the high court.

“But, as I say, it doesn’t make any difference,” he asserted.

“I don’t think there’s such a thing as a Catholic justice.

There’s a justice who happens to be Catholic and there are some Catholic justices who have been on the other side of the abortion thing.

(Former Justice) Bill Brennan was the initiator of the whole thing.”

He was referring to the late Justice William J Brennan, who was considered a key architect of the court’s decisions legalising abortion on demand, including the 1973 Roe vsWade decision, saw a clear constitutional right to legalised abortion. Brennan’s vote in favor of the Roe v Wade ruling that legalised abortion.

Asked whether he and the other Catholic justices ever discuss or share their faith with one another, Scalia smiled wryly.

“No,” he said. “We don’t have a Bible study.”

Page 15

educate faithful to vote against abortion: Pope

BY CINDY WOODEN

VATICAN CITY (CNS) Bishops must guide their faithful to use their vote to oppose efforts to legalise abortion and euthanasia, Pope Benedict XVI told Bishops from Brazil.

“Dear brother Bishops, to defend life we must not fear hostility or unpopularity, and we must refuse any compromise or ambiguity which might conform us to the world’s way of thinking,” the Pope said on 28 October during a meeting with Bishops from northeast Brazil. The Bishops were making their ad limina visits to report on the status of their dioceses.

Pope Benedict did not mention the fact that Brazilians were to vote on 31 October in a presidential election, but said he wanted to discuss with the Bishops their obligation to give their faithful the information and moral guidance they need to ensure their political decisions contribute to the true good of humanity.

Both of Brazil’s presidential candidates, Dilma Rousseff and Jose Serra, have said they oppose lifting restrictions on abortion, but Brazil’s anti-abortion laws still have been a recurrent theme in the campaign.

Pope Benedict told the Brazilian Bishops that while direct involvement in politics is the responsibility of the laity, “when the fun-

damental rights of the person or the salvation of souls requires it, pastors have a serious duty to make moral judgements even in political matters.”

Certain actions and political policies, such as abortion and euthanasia, are “intrinsically evil and incompatible with human dignity” and cannot be justified for any reason, the Pope said.

While some may claim they support abortion or euthanasia to defend the weak and the poor, “who is more helpless than an unborn child or a patient in a vegetative or terminal state?” he said.

“When political positions openly or covertly include plans to decriminalise abortion and euthanasia, the democratic ideal, which is truly democratic only when it acknowledges and safeguards the dignity of every human person, is betrayed at its foundations,” Pope Benedict told the Bishops.

Bishops and priests have an obligation to help Catholic laity live in a way that that is faithful to the Gospel in every aspect of their lives, including their political choices, he said.

“This also means that in certain cases, pastors should remind all citizens of their right and duty to use their vote to promote the common good,” the Pope said.

■

Traditional rituals await BXVI at end of Camino

BY CAROL GLATZ VATICAN CITY (CNS) - When Pope Benedict XVI heads to Spain on 6 November, he will follow some of the traditional rituals that pilgrims engage in when visiting the popular pilgrimage site of Santiago de Compostela.

It will be his first time to the ancient pilgrimage city and to Barcelona where he will consecrate the partially completed Church of the Sagrada Familia, or Holy Family.

“He’s very happy to go (to Compostela) because it’s something he has wanted very much,” said the Vatican’s chief spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, during a press briefing on 29 October.

Before becoming Pope, “he and his brother also once talked about them going together, but it never happened,” said Fr Lombardi.

Though he will not have walked the miles of roadsides and pathways other Compostela pilgrims travel when going on foot or by horse, the Pope will still carry out some of the traditional pilgrimage rituals at the Cathedral.

The Pope will walk through the Cathedral’s Holy Door which was opened at the start of the year.

The feast of St James, 25 July, fell on a Sunday this year, making 2010 a holy year.

Tradition holds that the remains of the apostle St James the Greater, Santiago in Spanish, are buried in the city’s Cathedral. The Pope will head to the crypt and pray at the apostle’s tomb and he will embrace a statue of St James, another pil-

Pope Benedict XVI who will be in Spain 6-7 November, above greets the crowd gathered for the recitation of the Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on 31 October.

PHOTO: CNS/PAUL HARING

grim tradition. Finally, the Pope will incense the Cathedral in an unusual method particular to the Santiago church.

A giant incense burner, about the size of an adult human being, hangs from a rope wrapped around a double pulley in front of the main altar.

At special pilgrim Masses and events, the incense burner is swung across the church in a trajectory similar to that of a trapeze per-

former in a circus. The burner is called a botafumeiro in Galician, the Spanish dialect spoken in Santiago de Compostela, and it means “smoke thrower.”

In medieval times, its function was not just liturgical.

It was also filled with perfumes to deodorise the smells from the hordes of sweating and unwashed pilgrims who went straight to the Cathedral after days on the road.

■

Pilgrims wait in line in late July to enter cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Pope Benedict XVI has said he is heading to Spain Nov. 6-7 as a pilgrim, and the trip will give him the opportunity to participate in the most popular foot pilgrimage in Europe, the camino or journey to Santiago de Compostela.

PHOTO: CNS PHOTO/MIGUEL VIDAL, REUTERS

Page 16

PERSPECTIVES

Accompanying the elderly is like walking with God

A mixed bag of the Good and the Bad

@ home Sister Angela Meaney

with Catherine Parish

As a Little Sister of the Poor, my times of prayer are woven like a thread throughout the day, giving it rhythm and a sense of peace.

They support my service of the elderly and I find that my service draws me to a deeper relationship with Christ through prayer. The love of Christ in prayer overflows into my mission lived out in direct care of the elderly.

How I Pray with Debbie Warrier

3 November 2010, The Record

Accompanying the elderly is like walking with God. As a Little Sister, I am following in the footsteps of Saint Jeanne Jugan who was canonised on 11 October 2009. She is known as the patron saint of the elderly.

Care of the aged is our one and only apostolate. We focus on the elderly who are on the lower income bracket and without many resources. The charism of Jeanne Jugan is the spirit of littleness. Little Sisters are taught to love God, love others and forget self.

As a community, our day begins with meditation and Morning Prayer. We come together at the end of the morning to participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with the residents and others who wish to join us. During the day we pray the Rosary and Midday Prayer. We seek the Lord in Lectio Divina and in another half hour of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. Evening Prayer is sung at the end of the afternoon and the residents may pray this with us.

The final prayer of the day is Night Prayer, prayed together. It’s lovely to relish the Psalms which speak of daily life; whether it be joys or sorrows, the psalms console and strengthen you.

Jeanne wanted our communities and homes to reflect the love, unity and peace of the Holy Family. She had a strong devotion to St Joseph to whom she would present the needs of those under her care. St Joseph continues his care of our homes through our many friends and benefactors.

One of the privileges of the Little Sisters is the happy death of our residents. Extra time is spent with those on palliative care, attending to their spiritual and physical needs. The service of the Aged Poor is our heritage received from our Mother Foundress. This requires of us diligence in the exercise of the Corporal works of mercy which open the way to the benefits of the spiritual works of mercy.

It is a great grace to keep vigil with the dying. Through our faith, we know that this person is preparing to meet God. Being with the dying has enriched my life journey. Sometimes I might think that it is me helping them but on the whole it is them helping me.

Some of the elderly have never believed in any religion and yet they have been very good people and led good lives. When death is approaching, most elderly realise that there must be something more in life than this world we are living in.

Once I looked after a man who was an agnostic. However, when he was dying he asked to see a priest because he wanted to be “… with the little man on the cross.” When people are dying you have to let them know of the great love and mercy of God for each one, no matter what challenges they have been through in life.

Mad Men Having heard so much about the wonderfulness of the TV series Mad Men, we settled down eagerly and watched the first few episodes, waiting to have our socks knocked off. Well, they are still well and truly on.

A disclaimer at this point: I only watched the first three or four episodes of the first series so I don’t know where it goes from there, but judging from snippets read about various later episodes, it doesn’t really change much in its general point of view.

Sure, it looked great and the period detail I am sure was up to the mark (though there was a scented candle in Don Draper’s office in the first episode). But I couldn’t like it; there was something about it that didn’t quite fit.

So I hunted round and found a couple of reviews that began to answer my question, one overwhelmingly positive, the other negative.

The first, “Why Mad Men is TV’s most feminist show” by Stephanie Coontz in The Washington Post on Sunday, 10 October points out that it is a feminist critique of the 60s,

showing how uniformly dreadful and oppressive it was for women back then, and showing what turned people like Betty Friedan into militant feminists.

The second, “You’ll Love the Way It Makes You Feel” by Mark Greif in the London Review of Books on 23 October 2008, says that it looks good but says little of substance, using shallow stereotypes rather than rounded characters. And that it is repulsively smug in its assumption that absolutely everything back then was dreadful compared with the way society is now.

Both are right. Mad Men is a thoroughly, doctrinally correct feminist critique of the era, an apologia for the militant feminism that burst forth in the late 1960s and brought us to our current social nirvana.

Like any polemic, there is no middle ground that might leave a chink for legitimate question.

Thus, the men are uniformly, crassly chauvinistic, patronising and generally unpleasant towards women – though I did wonder whether the conventional good manners and rather more polite ways of speaking of the 50s and 60s (like not swearing or making sexual remarks in front of women) might have precluded the extremely blatant, continual and unsubtle sexual harassment depicted in the show. I’m sure it was there, but am not convinced it could have been quite so ‘in your face’.

There are no happy women at all. Full stop. The only women who

appear to have any personality or self-awareness are the hard-boiled, single, office girls, the local divorcee, the mistresses and the wealthy single woman. There are no strong married women or mothers; they all sit round gossiping vapidly in the kitchen, slap their kids and plonk them in front of the TV (horror) and quietly have nervous breakdowns.

There is no love, no giving, no generosity of spirit, no determined permanent commitment in action in any of the relationships in those few early episodes, thus setting them up for justifiable failure. Was it really that bad? I do believe there might have been a few happy marriages based on recognition of different roles in an equal partnership with each respecting the other. But hey, I wasn’t in New York in the 60s so I don’t know.

It is disappointing that the writers don’t seem able to look in a balanced way at the last 40 years and say, this and that had to go and thank goodness it did; but this and the other were good and it is a shame we have lost them.

Feminism has achieved a mixed bag of things, some very good and some very bad and some somewhere in the middle. Why can’t we see a little more light and shade in the lives of these characters that reflects that?

No, Mad Men is just a shiny, soapy, one-dimensional, modernist, feminist polemic. Given a choice of amusing TV shows about advertising execs in the 60s, I’ll take Bewitched any day.

All souls called to be saints Salvation open to rich and poor alike, Pope says

BY JOHN T HAVIS CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope Benedict XVI said Scripture illustrates how conversion and salvation are open to everyone, rich and poor alike.

Speaking at his noon blessing at the Vatican on 31 October, the Pope cited the Gospel account of Jesus’ meeting with the tax collector Zaccheus, a rich man whose encounter with Christ led him to change his way of life.

“God excludes no one, neither rich nor poor. God does not allow Himself to be conditioned

by our human prejudices. He sees in every person a soul to save and is especially attracted to those who have been judged as lost and who consider themselves to be lost,” the pope said.

While sin is always recognised for what it is, God “always aims at saving the sinner, and offering him the possibility to redeem himself, to begin again, to convert,” he said.

The Pope recalled Jesus’ words elsewhere in the Gospel about how difficult it will be for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.

“In the case of Zaccheus, we see precisely that what seems impossible is realised,” the Pope said.

The Pope then quoted St Maximus of Turin, an early Church writer, about wealth and

salvation: “For fools, wealth feeds dishonesty; for the wise, it is an aid to virtue. For the wise, wealth offers an opportunity for salvation; for fools, it creates an obstacle that ruins them.”

At his noon blessing on 1 November, the feast of All Saints, the Pope said it was a good moment for people to meditate on the call to holiness that forms the core of every Christian’s vocation. In a similar way, he said, the feast of All Souls on 2 November reminds people that death is also part of the path toward God. “The separation from earthly affections is certainly painful, but we shouldn’t fear it, because this separation, accompanied by the intercessory prayer of the Church, cannot break the profound bond that unites us with Christ,” he said.

3 November 2010, The Record

PERSPECTIVES

What better place for this to happen than my street, my backyard?

Not in my Street A reflection on the struggles of those forgotten in society and Church

By Barbara Harris

By Barbara Harris I remember Chris when he first came to Emmanuel. It was dusk and, as I looked out into the parking area, I saw this very big man striding across the parking area. Up and down. Up and down with head bent. My first reaction was, “I’m here alone”. My mind went through various scenarios: the window will be smashed, the door will be bashed down, the building set alight, I will be raped.

I had better lock all the doors and windows. After an hour, Chris left. I felt safe again and so the doors were opened. It wasn’t till the fourth time in the following week that Chris made a similar appearance that I began to reflect on my paranoia. I had created a fantasy in my mind rather than operating from fact.

I ventured out into the parking area and introduced myself.

It took a short while for my approach to be acknowledged and during this time the pacing continued. I noticed that the steps that were being taken seemed to be avoiding something on the ground, something I didn’t at first notice. Then the pacing stopped.

“I’m Chris, you have to watch the ants, you know” he replied.

“Ants?” I said. “Yeah, see the ants, don’t want to kill the ants.”

Amazing! I peered down and, sure enough, there they were, rows and rows of ants scurrying back and forth across the parking area with their loads.

Chris shared his story with me.

He told me he had schizophrenia.

Page 17

Chris lived in a hostel near the city centre. He was going through a bad patch. The medicine he was on was giving him the shakes and he could not stop himself from pacing. “I pace in the city and I’m picked up by the police and taken off to Graylands and locked up. I know I’m different and people are frightened of difference”. Chris added, “This is a nice place. It’s peaceful. Will you call the police?

Is it ok for me to come here?” My paranoia, my fear, disappeared. I felt a new person. I had certainly allowed my fear of difference to cripple me for a while.

Many years ago, it was only 1983 yet seems like the dark ages, when Emmanuel Centre was setting up its second house of accommodation for people with disabilities, there was a strong push that we be required to erect signs saying that that is what we intended to do and anyone with objections would be invited to lodge an objection with the Perth City Council. Needless to say, we did not conform. When was the last time you needed permission from your prospective neighbours before you were allowed to move house?

I think that many of us feel it is a good idea that we show more openness to those in need.

Goodness only knows how much we appreciate a helping hand when we are down.

It just seems to be that while I might favour giving a helping hand, sometimes there is the added on statement, NOT IN MY STREET. “I’m as compassionate as the next person but NOT IN MY STREET or NOT IN MY BACKYARD!” The enthusiasm for good quickly wanes, and opposition sets in.

In discussing these issues recently with a couple, I sensed a real fear about people with disabilities and people with mental illness in particular. In the discussion, we jumped from the drop in property value to increased traffic and change in the character of the neighbourhood. Quickly, we

BOOKS FOR THE FAMILY THE RECORD BOOKSHOP OPEN NOW!

moved to property rights, to fear of intimidation and violence and onto fear for the sake of their children, to ex-drug addicts, ex-sex offenders and paedophilia.

My mind went back to my experience with Chris. I don’t think confronting the couple’s fears with the numerous studies disputing a drop in property values will remove the deep fear.

It would be of little benefit to discuss the concept and value of people living in a “group home”these words in themselves are discriminatory. If four of five people decide to share a house, should that be termed a “group home?”

There are plenty of studies that show that there are no more arrests of residents from houses where people with disabilities are living together in comparison with any other resident figures.

Similarly, labelling the couple as prejudiced or unjust or quoting Scripture will not alleviate the “not like us” concept or “psychological discomfort” they feel.

Fear is a natural emotion for all of us when we enter the unknown but how do we address those fears, that paranoia? How do we stop ourselves from thinking that every person with a mental illness will rob us, stab us, hurt us and destroy us?

Yes, there have been instances of disturbances when people with mental illness do not take their medication, when they are dislocated from their natural environment for whatever reason. It is especially true that people who are hurting are not inclined to think about others too much.

What is needed is a ‘healing balm” of love, not the acid bath of recrimination and rejection.

Hurt people don’t often trust others and it requires time in a supportive atmosphere for that trust to return.

What better place for this to happen than my street, my backyard? The words I will want to hear are, “I was a stranger and you made me welcome” (Matthew 25:35).

The changing of a Feast

Q&A

By Fr John Flader

The feast of Mary, Mother of God Q: I notice that the feast of Mary, Mother of God, has been moved from 11 October to 1 January when we used to celebrate the feast of the Circumcision of Jesus. When was this done and why?

The feast has a long history, going back many centuries.

It commemorates, of course, Mary’s divine motherhood. That is, since Jesus is true God and true man and Mary is His mother, Mary is the mother of God. Mary’s divine motherhood was defined in the Council of Ephesus in the year 431 against the errors of Nestorius who was patriarch of Constantinople from 428 to 431.

He had taught that in Jesus there were two persons, one divine and the other human, and that Mary was the mother only of the human person and was therefore not the mother of God. This went against the popular belief that Mary was truly theotokos, a Greek word meaning “God-bearer”. Christians had called Mary by this name since at least the 3rd century, the earliest documented usage of the term being in the writings of Origen of Alexandria in the year 230.

The Council of Ephesus, in condemning the errors of Nestorius, taught: “If anyone does not confess that the Emmanuel (Christ) in truth is God and that on this account the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God – since according to the flesh she brought forth the Word of God made flesh – let him be anathema” (DS 251).

The exact origin of the feast of Mary, Mother of God, is unknown but around 500AD the Eastern Church celebrated a “Day of the Theotokos” around Christmas.

Over time, the feast came to be celebrated on 26 December in the Byzantine calendar and on 16 January in the Coptic calendar.

In the West, the Gregorian and Roman calendars of the 7th

century gave a strong Marian emphasis to the octave day of Christmas, 1 January. With time, the feast of the Circumcision of Jesus came to be celebrated on this day.

It seems that the push for a special feast of Mary’s divine maternity began in Portugal. In 1751, Pope Benedict XIV allowed the Church in that country to commemorate Mary’s divine maternity on the first Sunday of May. The feast was gradually extended to other countries and, in 1914, it was celebrated on 11 October . It became a feast of the universal Church in 1931 under Pope Pius XI. After the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI decided to change the feast on 1 January from the Circumcision of Jesus to the commemoration of Mary, Mother of God, in order to reclaim the ancient Marian emphasis on that day.

In the Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus on 2 February 1974, he wrote: “The Christmas season is a prolonged commemoration of the divine, virginal and salvific motherhood of her whose inviolate virginity brought the Saviour into the world.”

He went on to say: “In the revised ordering of the Christmas period, it seems to us that the attention of all should be directed towards the restored Solemnity of Mary, the holy Mother of God. “This celebration, placed on 1 January in conformity with the ancient indication of the liturgy of the city of Rome, is meant to commemorate the part played

by Mary in this mystery of salvation” (MC, 5).

He added: “It is likewise a fitting occasion for renewing adoration of the newborn Prince of Peace, for listening once more to the glad tidings of the angels (cf Lk 2:14), and for imploring from God, through the Queen of Peace, the supreme gift of peace.

“It is for this reason that, in the happy concurrence of the Octave of Christmas and the first day of the year, we have instituted the World Day of Peace, an occasion that is gaining increasing support and already bringing forth fruits of peace in the hearts of many” (ibid).

The feast of the Divine Maternity of Mary is a good occasion to renew our love for our blessed mother, who brought the Son of God into the world, and to honour her as both Mother of God and Queen of Peace.

Page 18

THE PARISH

3 November 2010, The Record

Panorama entries must be in by 12pm Monday.

Contributions may be emailed to office@therecord.com.au, faxed to 9325 4580, or mailed to PO Box 3075, Adelaide Terrace, Perth WA 6832.

FRIDAY, 5 NOVEMBER Cancellation of Healing and Anointing Mass at OLMC Parish, Hilton until further notice.

SATURDAY, 6 NOVEMBER Love Ministries - Charismatic Healing and Mass 6pm at All Saints Church, 7 Liwara Pl, Greenwood. Get prayed over and healed from past and present issues or stand in for a loved one who may be ill or facing problems at this time. All welcome. Enq: Fr Giosue 9349 2315, Gilbert 0431 570 322 or Fr Michael Brown ofm 0417 175 796.

Day With Mary 9am at St John and St Paul Church, Corner Pinetree Gully Rd and Wainwright Cl, Willetton. Day of prayer and instruction based on the Fatima message. 9am Video. 10.10am Holy Mass. Reconciliation, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament, Eucharistic Adoration, Sermons on Eucharist and Our Lady, Rosaries and Stations of the Cross. BYO lunch. Enq: Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286.

Witness for Life 8.30am at St Augustine’s, Gladstone Rd, Rivervale.

Commencing with Mass celebrated by Fr Paul Carey, followed by Rosary procession and prayer vigil at nearby abortion clinic. All welcome to come and pray for the conversion of hearts. Enq: Helen 9402 0349.

SUNDAY, 7 NOVEMBER All Souls Day Memorial Service 2.30pm at Pinnaroo Valley Memorial Park, Crematorium Chapel. Please note the Memorial Service will not include Mass. Everyone welcome. Enq: Whitford Parish Office 9307 2776.

Schoenstatt Spring Fair 9.30am-2pm at 9 Talus Dr, Armadale. A family affair with entertainment for the children, international food, a variety of stalls, prizes, silent auctions and lots more.

Bring all the family and help support the Schoenstatt Sisters, and visit our beautiful shrine where you can leave all your requests and petitions. Enq: 9455 3140.

Divine Mercy 1.30pm at St Francis Xavier Church, 25 Windsor St, Perth.

An afternoon with Jesus and Mary. Fr Sharbel will give Homily on All Saints and Holy Souls. Refreshments afterwards. Enq: John 9457 7772.

MONDAY, 8 NOVEMBER What’s the Purpose of Life and Family Holy Hour 7 -8.30pm at Saints John & Paul, 5 Ingham Court, Willeton. Talk lead by Fr.Antoine Thomas, csj. All welcome to attend. Enq: Anna 0411 952 233 or email eac.perth@ yahoo.com.au.

TUESDAY, 9 NOVEMBER Council of Christians and Jews WA Inc – Commemoration of Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) 4pm at Perth Synagogue, Freedman Rd, Menora. Guest speaker Fr Stephen Astill SJ, Senior Lecturer, Notre Dame University. Light refreshments served. All welcome. RSVP

by Friday, 5 November. Enq: 9271 0539 or ccjwa@aol. com.

Children of Hope Tour – Children Eucharistic Adoration 4-4.30pm at Saints John & Paul, 5 Ingham Court, Willeton. For children 4 & up, 4.30-5.00pm for children 10 & up. All children and parents are welcome. Enq: Anna 0411 952 233 or email eac.perth@yahoo.com.au.

WEDNESDAY, 10 NOVMEBER Children of Hope Tour – Mass, Holy Hour and Talk 5.30-8.30pm at Catholic Youth Ministry, 40/A Mary Street, Highgate. All young adults welcome.

Parenting - Understanding and Dealing with your Teenager 7.30-9pm at MacKillop Room, John XXIII College. Cost $10 (donation unwaged). Pay on Entry. Registration

required. Enq: Murray 9383 0444.

Starlight Hotel Choir Fundraiser 7.30pm at Fremantle Town Hall. The Starlight Hotel Choir presents an evening of singing and celebrations.

Tickets - $20 suggested donation at the door. All proceeds go to support St Patrick’s Community Support Centre, Fremantle, for the homeless.

THURSDAY, 11 NOVEMBER Children of Hope Tour – Talk and Formation.

7.30-9pm at St Bernadette’s Church, 49 Jugan Street, Glendalough. Children Eucharistic Adoration in the Third Millennium and formation of children Adoration leaders

by Fr.Antoine Thomas,csj. Leading children into the mystery of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

All welcome to attend. Enq: Anna 0411 952 233 or eac. perth@yahoo.com.au.

FRIDAY, 12 NOVEMBER Children of Hope Tour – Talk and Holy Hour 7.30 -9pm St Judes Church, 20 Prendiville Way, Langford.

What’s the purpose of our Life followed by Family Holy Hour lead by Fr.Antoine Thomas, csj. Light Refreshment afterwards. All welcome. Enq: Anna 0411 952 233 or eac. perth@yahoo.com.au.

Sacred Heart of Jesus Pioneers Meeting 7pm at Bioethics Centre, corner Jugan and Leeder Streets, Glendalough. To find out more about the pioneers please come and join us. Refreshments will follow. Enq: John 9457 7771.

SATURDAY, 13 NOVEMBER St Padre Pio Day of Prayer 8.30am at Little Sisters of the Poor, 2 Rawlins St, Glendalough. DVD followed by Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Rosary, Divine Mercy, Silent Adoration and Benediction at 10am. 11am Mass, St Padre Pio Liturgy, Confessions available. Bring a plate for shared lunch. Tea and coffee supplied. Enq: Des 6278 1540.

Children of Hope Tour – Children and Families Eucharistic Adoration 9 -10am at Christ the King, 61 Lefroy Road, Beaconsfield.

Fr. Antoine will lead a Holy Hour for children 4 and up and teenagers, followed by a cup of tea. A great secret for family unity. All welcome. Enq: Senka 0438 403 100 or Yvonne 9430 7509 or eac.perth@yahoo.com.au.

Divine Mercy 2.30pm at St Francis Xavier’s Church, Windsor Street, East Perth. Main celebrant will be Fr Marcellinus Meilak, OFM. Prayer followed by Veneration of First Class Relic of St Faustina Kowalska. Reconciliation in English and Italian will be offered. Refreshments afterwards. Enq: John 9457 7771.

Legion of Mary – Annual Mass 11.30am at St Joachim’s Church, Shepperton Rd, Victoria Park. Celebrating the Life of Frank Duff, Servant of God 1889-1980. Legion Prayers and Rosary followed by Mass.

Celebrant Rev Fr Timothy Deeter. Shared Lunch to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the First Legion Meeting.

All welcome.

FRIDAY, 26 NOVEMBER TUESDAY, 16 NOVEMBER

Medjugorje – Evening of Prayer

Children of Hope Tour – Talk & Formation.

7.30 -8.30pm Saint Judes Church, 20 Prendiville Way, Langford. Challenges of Teenagers in the Third Millennium and formation of children lead by Fr.Antoine Thomas,csj. Dedicated to leading children/teenagers into the mystery of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. All welcome to attend. Enq: Anna 0411 952 233 or eac.perth@yahoo.com.au.

7-9pm at Sacred Heart Parish Church, 50 Ovens Rd, Thornlie. An evening of Prayer with Our Lady Queen of Peace. Adoration, Rosary, Benediction concluding with Holy Mass. Celebrant Fr Bogoni. Free DVD on Donald Calloway’s life of sexual promiscuity, drugs and crime through to his conversion and priesthood available on evening. Enq: 9402 2480 or medjugorje@y7mail.com.

WEDNESDAYS  17 NOVEMBER, 24 NOVEMBER AND 1 DECEMBER

MenAlive Retreat 8am at Infant Jesus Catholic Parish, Morley. Registration followed by Retreat at 9am, followed by Mass. BYO lunch.

Barbeque dinner provided. Registration required. Enq: 9276 8336.

The Bible and the Mass 7.30pm-9pm at St Paul’s Church undercroft, 106 Rookwood Street, Mt Lawley. A study of the origin of our Mass texts in Sacred Scripture, presented by Fr Tim Deeter. Please bring a Bible. Enq: 9273 5253 or casapgf@ iinet.net.au.

FRIDAY, 19 NOVEMBER  SUNDAY, 21 NOVEMBER Christ the King - Retreat Celebrating Karriholm’s 25th Anniversary Presented by the Holy Spirit of Freedom Community will be held at Karriholm-God’s Sanctuary. Enq: Joyce 9776 1397 or hsofpemberton@gmail.com or www.hsof.net.

FRIDAY, 19 NOVEMBER Divine Mercy Thanksgiving Mass 2 to 4pm at St. Jerome’s Church, 36 Troode Street, Munster.Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament followed

by Mass celebrated by Fr. Bogoni. There will be Divine Mercy Chaplet and Talk on Divine Mercy. All Divine Prayer Groups and everyone are invited to this celebration. Enq: Connie 9494 1495 or Edita 9418 3728.

SATURDAY, 20 NOVEMBER The Annual Holy Mass at the Grotto 10.30am at Richard and Judy Priestley’s Farm. Directions – take Great Eastern Hwy to El Caballo Blanco, turn south into Wariin Rd, turn east into Chinganning Rd, travel 2.2km; the farm gate is on the right. Bring a chair and a hat. BBQ meat will be provided at no cost for lunch. All welcome. Enq: 0428 502 749.

SATURDAY, 20 NOVEMBER AND SUNDAY, 21 NOVEMBER MenAlive Retreat 8am at Willetton Catholic parish. Registration followed by Retreat at 9am, followed by Mass. BYO lunch. Barbeque dinner provided. Registration required. Enq: 9332 5992 or www.johnpaulwilletton.org.au.

Christ the King - Pemberton Eucharistic Candlelight Procession 7pm at Sacred Heart Parish, Pemberton. In conjunction with the Holy Spirit of Freedom Community, invite you to join the Parish Mass followed by a Eucharistic Candlelight Procession to Karriholm-God’s Sanctuary, Benediction and Blessing of the Sick. Supper served.

SUNDAY, 21 NOVEMBER

SUNDAY, 14 NOVEMBER Children of Hope Tour – Children and Families Eucharistic Adoration 1 -2pm at St. Mary’s Cathedral, Perth. Fr.Antoine will lead a Holy Hour for children 4 and up, teenagers. A great secret for family unity. All welcome to attend. Enq: Anna 0411 952 233 or eac.perth@yahoo.com.au.

Art Show by North Beach Parish Art Group.

10.30am–5pm Our Lady of Grace Pastoral Centre, 3 Kitchener St, North Beach. Christmas bargains from a range of original and affordable artwork. Icons painted by group members displayed in church will be blessed at Sunday Mass, then taken in procession to the centre exhibition opening. Morning tea provided. Enq: Angela 9349 3173 or Parish 9448 4888.

MONDAY, 15 NOVEMBER

WEDNESDAY, 24 NOVEMBER

Children of Hope Tour – Teens Holy Hour 7-8pm at Sacred Heart Church, corner Guppy and Dean Streets, Pemberton. Fr Antoine will lead a Teen Holy Hour in the parish Church. All teenagers welcome. Enq: Bro Robert 9776 1734 or email eac.perth@yahoo.com.au.

6pm at Michael Keating Room, University of Notre Dame, 10 Cliff St, Fremantle. Refreshments provided.

Registration for event required. Enq: 9470 4922 or kswca. office@perthcatholic.org.au.

SATURDAY, 27 NOVEMBER AND SUNDAY, 28 NOVEMBER

Annual Bumper Garage Sale 9am-6pm at Redemptorist Monastery Grounds, 190 Vincent St, North Perth. Homemade Christmas cakes, biscuits, muffins, bric-a-brac, household goods, gift items, books, jams, pickles, plants plus several raffle prizes.

Stock up for Christmas, pick up a bargain and have some fun.

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

Enq Sacri 9447 3292.

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

EVERY SUNDAY IN NOVEMBER New Studio Sale to support the Cathedral 9am-12pm at 213 Yangebup Rd, Yangebup. Work by Margaret Fane at 50% off and offers considered to make way for new work. Enq: Margaret 0432 834 743 or margaretfane.com.au.

THIRD SUNDAY OF THE MONTH Oblates of St Benedict 2pm at St Joseph’s Convent, York St, South Perth. Oblates are affiliated with the Benedictine Abbey of New Norcia.

All welcome to study the rule of St Benedict and its relevance to the everyday life of today for lay people.

Vespers and tea later. Enq: Secretary 9457 5758.

EVERY FOURTH SUNDAY OF THE MONTH Holy Hour for Vocations to the Priesthood, Religious Life 2-3pm at Infant Jesus Parish, Wellington St, Morley. The hour includes Exposition of the Blessed Eucharist, silent prayer, Scripture and prayers of intercession. Come and pray that those discerning vocations to the priesthood or Religious life hear clearly God’s loving call to them.

LAST MONDAY OF EVERY MONTH Christian Spirituality Presentation 7.30-9.15pm at the Church hall behind St Swithan’s Anglican Church, 195 Lesmurdie Rd, Lesmurdie. Stephanie Woods presents The Desert Period of Christianity, 260 to 600AD. From this time period came the understanding of the monastic lifestyle and contemplative prayer. No cost.

Enq Lynne 9293 3848.

EVERY TUESDAY NIGHT Novena and Benediction to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal 6pm at the Pater Noster Church, Marmion and Evershed Sts, Myaree. Mass at 5.30pm. Enq: John 0408 952 194.

3 November 2010, The Record

Page 19

THE PARISH CLASSIFIEDS

Panorama continued from page 18.

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

SECOND WEDNESDAY OF THE MONTH Chaplets of the Divine Mercy 7.30pm at St Thomas More Catholic Church, Dean Road, Bateman. A beautiful, prayerful, and sung devotion will be accompanied by Exposition and followed by Benediction. All are welcome. Enq: George Lopez on 9310 9493(h) or 9325 2010(w).

EVERY THURSDAY Cathedral Praise Meeting 7.45pm at 450 Hay St, Perth. A journey of Intercessory Prayer, Revelation and Healing

by Kaye Rollings, FMI. Please bring a Bible.

Enq: 9382 3668 or 0439 981 515.

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

Divine Mercy 11am at St John and Paul Church, Pine Tree Gully Rd, Willetton. Pray the Rosary and Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and for the consecrated life especially here in John Paul parish, conclude with veneration of the First Class Relic of Saint Faustina. Please do come and join us in prayer. Enq: John 9457 7771.

Rawlins St, Glendalough. Mass, followed by Adoration with Fr Doug Harris. All welcome.

Refreshments provided.

Communion of Reparation All Night Vigil 7pm-1am at Corpus Christi Church, Lochee St, Mosman Park. Vigil consists of Mass, Rosary, Confession and Adoration. Celebrant Fr T Bogoni. All warmly welcomed. Enq: Vicky 0400 282 357.

FIRST FRIDAY OF THE MONTH Holy Hour for Vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life 7pm at Little Sisters of the Poor Chapel, 2

W O R D S L E U T H

ACCOMMODATION

RELIGIOUS PRODUCTS

HOUSE CLEANER REQUIRED

HOLIDAY ACCOMMODATION ESPERANCE 3 bedroom house f/furnished Ph 09 9076 5083.

CATHOLICS CORNER Retailer of Catholic products specialising in gifts, cards and apparel for Baptism, Communion and Confirmation. Ph 9456 1777.

Shop 12, 64-66 Bannister Rd, Canning Vale. Open Mon-Sat.

Stirling area for 2-3 hrs per week. Lady rehabilitating. Police clearance preferred. Anne Ph:

BOOK BINDING NEW BOOK BINDING, General Book Repairs; Rebinding; New Ribbons; Old Leather Bindings Restored.

Tydewi Bindery 0422 986 572.

TRADE SERVICES

Catholic Faith Renewal Evening 7.30pm at St John and Paul’s Parish, Pinetree Gully Rd, Willetton. Songs of Praise, sharing by a priest followed by Thanksgiving Mass and light refreshments after Mass. All welcome to attend and bring your family and friends. Enq: Kathy 9295 0913, Ann: 0412 166 164 or catholicfaithrenewal@gmail.com.

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

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

PERROTT PAINTING Pty Ltd For all your residential, commercial painting requirements. Ph Tom Perrott 9444 1200.

9pm at St Bernadette’s Church, Glendalough. Commences with exposition of the Blessed Sacrament followed by Reflections, Rosary and alternating with healing sessions. Vigil concludes with the Holy Mass at midnight. Come, be healed and be part of the Lord’s Mighty Work. Enq: Fr Doug 9444 6131 or Dorothy 9342 5845.

Healing Mass 7pm at St Peter’s Parish, Wood St, Inglewood.

Reconciliation, praise and worship, exposition of Blessed Sacrament, Benediction, anointing of the sick, and special blessing. Celebrants Fr Sam and other clergy. All welcome. Enq: Priscilla 0433 457 352, Catherine 0433 923 083 or Mary-Ann 0409 672 304.

Taize Prayer and Meditation 7.30-8.30pm at Our Lady of Grace Church, 3 Kitchener St, North Beach. Prayer and meditation using songs from the Taize phenomenon. In peace and Candlelight we make our pilgrimage. All are warmly invited. Enq: Joan 9448 4457 or parish 9448 4888.

Deadline: 11am Monday

AA ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS Is Alcohol costing you more than just money?

Enq: AA 9325 3566.

OPPORTUNITY FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE Emmanuel Self-Help Centre for People with Disabilities is looking for volunteers to transport newspapers and other recyclable paper from its Perth office to a Canning Vale paper mill about every six weeks. Manual car driver’s licence required. Physical fitness

BRICK RE-POINTING Ph Nigel 9242 2952.

PICASSO PAINTING Top service.

Ph 0419 915 836, fax 9345 0505.

LAWN MOWING WRR LAWN MOWING & WEED SPRAYING Garden clean ups and rubbish removal. Get rid of bindii, jojo and other unsightly weeds. Based in Tuart Hill. Enq 9443 9243 or 0402 326 637.

FURNITURE REMOVAL ALL AREAS. Competitive Rates.

Mike Murphy Ph 0416 226 434.

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

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

KINLAR VESTMENTS Quality hand-made and decorated vestments: Albs, Stoles, Chasubles, altar linen, banners etc. 12 Favenc Way, Padbury.

By appointment only. Ph Vicki 9402 1318 or 0409 114 093.

SETTLEMENTS ARE YOU BUYING OR SELLING real estate or a business? Why not ask Excel Settlements for a quote for your settlement. We offer reasonable fees, excellent service and no hidden costs.

Ring Excel on 9481 4499 for a quote. Check our web site on www.excelsettlem ents.com.

9344 1467 after 12 Noon.

FOR SALE BOOK SALE NEDLANDS (WITH COFFEE) Big selection of art, crime, fiction, reference, Religion and children’s books. 30 and 31st October, Holy Rosary Parish Centre, corner Tyrell and Elizabeth Sts, Nedlands. 9am to 3pm. georgeschaefer@hotmail. com.

ART FOR THE CATHEDRAL www.margaretfane.com.au.

DAYBREAK HEALING Each session offers computerised health scan.

ACUPUNCTURE Cupping Massage.

Aroma-oil

CLINIC: Guildford / Morley Ph: 0438-979036.

OPPORTUNITIES BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY Work from Home - P/T or F/T, 02 8230 0290 or visit www.dreamlife1.com

WANTED TO BUY ABORIGINAL & PACIFIC IS ARTEFACTS & ARTWORK. Private collector buying all old shields, weapons, paintings, figures, collections etc. Will travel anywhere 0433 143 278.

.THE RECORD.COM.AU

WWW

Walk With Him

7 S 32nd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Gr 2 Macc 7:1-2.9-14 God’s promise Ps 16:1.5-6.8.15 I shall see your face 2 Th 2:16-3:5 The Lord is faithful Lk 20:27-38 God of the living 8 M Titus 1:1-9 Hope of eternal life Gr Ps 23:1-6 Seek God’s face Lk 17:1-6 You must forgive 9 Tu DEDICATION OF THE LATERAN BASILICA (Feast) Wh Ezek 47:1-2.8-9.12 Life-giving water Ps 45:2-3.5-6.8-9 God is a refuge 1 Cor 3:9-11.16-17 God’s building Jn 2:13-22 Jewish Passover 10 W St Leo the Great, pope, doctor of the church (M) Wh Titus 3:1-7 God’s compassion Ps 22 No evil would I fear Lk 17:11-19 Lepers meet Jesus 11 Th St Martin of Tours, bishop (M) Wh Philem 7-20 A prisoner for Christ Ps 145:7-10 The Lord gives sight Lk 17:20-25 Suffer and be rejected 12 F St Josaphat, bishop, martyr (M) Red 2 Jn 4-9 Live a life of love Ps 118:1-2.10-11.17-18 Blameless life Lk 17:26-37 It will be the same 13 S 3 Jn 5-8 Proof of your charity Gr Ps 111:1-6 Merciful and just Lk 18:1-8 Pray continually

THE LAST WORD

Mercy on show

BY BRIDGET SPINKS

S

ister of Mercy Joan Smith RSM is one of a number of Sisters and associates who are preparing the 1871 Sisters of Mercy convent for a public viewing over the City of Perth heritage weekend 13-14 November.

The Sisters of Mercy have opened over 100 schools and convents since they first arrived in 1846 including the first Catholic school in the Swan River Colony, Mercedes College.

They opened the school the day after they arrived, after a six-month voyage, Sr Joan said. The Holy Cross convent behind the pro-Cathedral was the first Mercy convent.

It is now used by Mercedes College for art classes.

The 1871 Convent of Mercy on Victoria Square is the second convent that was built in the area to accommodate the growing number of religious.

It held 80 sisters at its peak.

During the open days, visitors will be able to enter through the original gate on Victoria Square, stroll through the convent and see the side door, which was once used to receive the poor and afflicted.

Since one of the charisms of the Sisters is hospitality especially to the poor, Sr Joan said, a number of original teacups and saucers in cabinets will be on display.

The kitchen, dining, sunroom, hall, chapel, common room, music room and two reception rooms will all display original

pieces of furniture and even paintings which have been around as long as Sr Joan - professed in 1952 - can remember.

Harkening back to the old days when the Sisters of Mercy used to serve breakfast to the Bishops after 7am Mass at the Cathedral, the Reception Room closest to the Cathedral will be set up as if ready to receive a Bishop for breakfast.

Bishops Brady, Griver and Gibney among others would have all had breakfast here, Sr Joan said.

Five of the founding seven Mercy Sisters are buried on the Perth convent grounds while Mother Ursula Frayne and Sr Anne Xavier Dillon are buried in Melbourne, Sr Joan said.

The ground floor of this religious convent in the heart of Perth now being transformed into the Mercy Heritage Centre will be open to the public during a City of Perth Heritage weekend on 13-14 November from 10am330pm.

Top right: Sister of Mercy Joan Smith RSM above in the common room in the 1871 Convent of Mercy. To her left is a statue of Our Lady of Lujan from Argentina. Some Sisters of Mercy came from Ireland via Argentina to WA to support the mission in Coolgardie during the Gold Rush.

Below: A smattering of original furniture in one of the front reception rooms in the Convent of Mercy that is currently being transformed into the Mercy Heritage Centre. PHOTOS: BRIDGET SPINKS

I

f Christmas is anything, it is a mystery.

God becomes a baby, defenceless, dependant, weak. Just like us. Today, Christmas in Australia is usually about advertising and syrupy sentimental TV shows. Here at The Record we don’t particularly believe anyone should waste money on the shopping that has become part and parcel of Christmas in Australia and other affluent nations.

Christmas gifts should be modest, and encapsulate the simplicity of this great Feast. They should be less about us and more about Him. The Record Bookshop offers a range of products that all have one thing in common: they’re inspired by Him. It’s well worth considering...

Inquiries: Bibiana on (08) 9220 5900, or bookshop@therecord.com.au

College’s heritage of Mercy

M

ercedes College traces its origins back to 1846, the early days of the Swan River Colony, when a community of six Sisters of Mercy arrived from Ireland on the barque Elizabeth.

The Congregation of Sisters of Mercy had been founded barely fifteen years earlier in 1831 by Catherine McAuley, a wealthy heiress. In faith, Catherine had devoted herself and all her resources to bringing hope to the lives of the poor and destitute in her country, through education.

A chance to extend this work came when Bishop John Brady, visiting Dublin to recruit missionaries for the fledgling colony, requested that Catherine send a group of Sisters to assist him in his work there. Thus it happened that, after a long and arduous journey by sea, the small band of Sisters under the leadership of Mother Ursula Frayne, arrived in the Swan River Colony on 8 January, 1846.

After initial difficulties in finding accommodation, Ursula and her community moved into a small cottage on what is now St George’s Terrace, near Victoria Avenue. On 2 February of that same year, the Sisters opened their first school with one student! By the end of that historic day, however, five more students had joined them. Undaunted, the Sisters went out into the community and canvassed for pupils. By the end of 1846 there were one hundred children in the school, which had by that time moved up to the present Victoria Square site.

Those early years were a time of great struggle as well as sadness for the Sisters, as one of their original community had died six months after their arrival in the Colony. Her grave is situated among those of other pioneer Sisters in the garden below the Chapel on the Convent property.

In the period that followed the founding of the first school, the diocese found itself in severe financial difficulty with Bishop Brady unable to provide any real support for the school as well as the Sisters’ other works of mercy among the poor and sick. In order to see them through these early financial troubles, the Sisters were forced to use money sent from Dublin which had originally been set aside for them to return home, together with two hundred pounds given by the father of one of them on her profession. This money was used to build the first Convent of Mercy in Australia. The building now known as Holy Cross, with its Foundation Stone dating from 1847, is still in use today and stands as a testimony to those dedicated pioneers whose love and faith in God inspired them to continue God’s work. Two years later, in 1849, the Sisters began what was the first secondary school in Western Australia – the school now proudly known as Mercedes College. The name Mercedes is Spanish for Mercy.

Mother Ursula Frayne died in 1885. She is remembered as an outstanding educator of great vision and a warm, caring Sister of Mercy. Her work, and that of those early pioneers, has had a profound and lasting effect on the history of Catholic Education in this State. Today we take pride in our history and we continue to commit ourselves to that same sense of vision that inspired Catherine.

- SOURCE: MERCEDES WEBSITE

Christmas giving inspired by a mystery