The Record Newspaper 07 April 2005

The Lion of Rome

“I sense that the moment has come to commit all of the Church’s energies to a new evangelisation and to the mission ad gentes [the people]. No believer in Christ, no institution of the Church can avoid this supreme duty: to proclaim Christ to all peoples… If we look at today’s world, we are struck by many negative factors that can lead to pessimism. But this feeling is unjustified: we have faith in God our Father and Lord and in his mercy… God is preparing a great springtime for Christianity, and we can already see its first signs.”

- John Paul II the Great 1920-2005 Anno Domini

YOUTH LOVED HIM

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The Parish. The Nation. The World.

The full story of JPII

Much has been written about John Paul II since his death was announced to the world on Sunday. The Pope died at 9.37pm Saturday night Rome time.

From all accounts he died a peaceful death, which has been followed by a worldwide outpouring of grief.

But is has also been a time to celebrate the man that was Karol Wojtyla.

He brought many great gifts to this world, a lot of which have been lauded in the media, but there are also many more that have in some ways been overlooked.

This was a man who in his frail later years still had a profound connection with youth. He never once talked down to them - a fact that millions of young people have always appreciated. He gave them an understanding of their faith in a way that no one else seemed able to. This was not a dumbed down version of Christianity but the true Gospel as told by Jesus.

John Paul II was not shy in broadcasting the Church’s teaching on sexuality, which he consolidated in his Theology of the Body. For the uninitiated this has been a breath of fresh air in a world that uses sexual gratification in such a demeaning and destructive way.

He listened to women’s concerns and endevoured to address past problems within the Church. He proposed a new feminism - contrary to what he saw as a macho feminism which values women only who live up to their male counterparts.

It is these less reported triumphs which we have tried to focus on in order to bring the full picture of this great man to you.

For he surely was the Lion of Rome.

We hope that this small offering of ours will encourage you to seek out his writings. Many have been moved in a profound way by his teachings and these gifts are there for those who are willing to open their hearts to his message.

For those who may find original texts daunting there are many great teachers like Christopher West who can provide a good starting point to understanding the Pope’s teachings on sexuality, for example.

Here at The Record, we have always had a deep respect for the man we considered our counsel. And for most of us it feels like we have lost a personal friend. But we trust that he has, as many Italian newspapers put it, “Gone home with the Angels.”

Farewell great man, you leave big shoes to fill, but you have proved to all what can be achieved with Jesus in this lifetime.

Young at heart

■ By Derek Boylen

“[Tell them] I have always tried to be near to you” Pope John Paul II murmured in his final hours when he heard that young people had gathered in St Peter’s square to pray for him.

Any young person who has met John Paul or listened to him speak at a World Youth Day will understand the intimacy with which those words were extended. John Paul II loved young people. In a church that is often criticised for losing touch with the young John Paul loved them and they loved him back. At World Youth Day in Denver, as in nearly every other similar event, he was greeted to the main stage by thousands and sometimes millions of young people calling “JPII we love you!”

In Toronto in 2002 he returned the gesture saying “JPII he loves you!” much to their amusement.

He is the only Pope this generation has known and he has had a marked impact.

Wherever he went during his pontificate, young people flocked to him - drawn like a magnet to hear him speak and in turn be listened to. Like a magnet they left him positively charged, becoming his greatest advocates and advocates of the gospel.

Even before becoming Pope in 1978, John Paul had an affinity with the young. As a priest in Poland and later as bishop and archbishop of Krakow he always made time to spend with youth. During his early years as a priest his contemporaries noted that he always felt a need to connect with young people.

Young people enjoyed spending time with him too. Indeed it was in his early years as a priest that John Paul, then Karol Wojtyla discovered what he refers to as the fundamental importance of youth. Youth he believed was a stage given to every person as a responsibility.

It is a time when we are like the young man in the Gospel searching for answers. Not only for the basic meaning of life but also for a concrete way to go about living this life. It was for these reasons that John Paul had a heartfelt conviction that every adult, beginning with parents and pastors needed to recognise this essential quality in the young. Further, they needed to love this fundamental aspect of youth.

As auxiliary bishop of Krakow he frequently ran retreats with the students in his diocese. These retreats continued even after he had taken on the role of Cardinal. At these retreats he spoke to young people on a wide range of issues including; the human

person, conversion, being male and female, prayer, forgiveness, Eucharist, love and human development. Many of his talks at these retreats remain. The inspired young people would often record them to listen to and many have now been transcribed.

Even after taking on his pontificate John Paul II sought to spend time with the young whenever possible.

Every priest in Rome new that every parish visit had to conclude with a meeting between John Paul and the parish youth. Not only in Rome did this rule apply though. Wherever he went during his pontificate he always sought the youth. Frequently in these encounters he would remind them that they were the hope of the Church and his own personal hope.

In 1984, he embarked on a series of regular engagements with young people around the world which have come to be known as the World Youth Days. But what did John Paul see in the young people of the world?

John Paul II saw, in the faces of the world’s Catholic youth, the joy that should be the gospel lived daily. Young people are for the Church a “special gift of the Spirit

it was like spending time with a loving grandfather.

In speaking to young people and listening to them John Paul II was never one to wallow in pity. He had grown up in a harsh world and continually challenged young people to address the hardships they faced armed with the Gospel. In doing so he shared with them his absolute conviction that they could change the world.

John Paul frequently spoke about our culture of death and he charged the young with the responsibility of bringing about the culture of life.

He communicated clearly that he would be walking with them and wherever possible equip them with the knowledge and experience needed to confront the world. John Paul never mixed words.

Director for the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry in the United States, Bob McCarty, has said the Pope presents young people with a noble adventure, a worthy cause.

“I have always tried to be near to you,” as some of his last words attest, John Paul was a Pope who loved the young and in turn was loved by them. I remember at

of God” he said. In speaking to young people he often told them that they are the sign of hope for the Church and the world. John Paul was also familiar with the sufferings of young people around the world. A part of every World Youth Day celebration was spent listening to the hardships and persecution endured by young people on every continent. He would meet personally with a couple of representative young people from every country present, listening to their stories.

In 2002 at Toronto, an aboriginal young person from Broome had the opportunity to meet John Paul II with several others. Afterwards I asked him what the encounter was like; he said that

World Youth Day in Toronto he said to the amassed youth “You are young and the Pope is old.” It was a simple observation but one that has stuck with me. While he may have been old he was young at heart.

His passion for Christ, the Church and the World was as powerful as the passion of youth. Instead of squashing the passion of the young around him by justifying the way of the world he gave their passion direction and confidence.

In the 26 years of his pontificate John Paul has addressed literally millions of young people; affirming them, challenging them, inspiring them. Every one of them today is an ongoing testi-

Pope John Paul II embraces a young man.

Photo: CNS

World Youth Day

Thousands flocked to World Youth Days

In 1984 the Pope asked Vatican officials to organise the first international gathering of youth.

While they expected a couple thousand young people to attend no-one expected the many thousands who came. Following this event the Pope announced another gathering to be organised the following year.

It was to coincide with the International Year of Youth which also happened to be the United Nations International Year of Youth. Vatican officials nearly had a heart attack.

This second gathering was attended by well over 100,000 young people. After this occasion John Paul called for an international gathering of young people every two years to be held in a different host country each time. It was an occasion when young people from over 168 countries would come together to celebrate, listen to the Pope and prominent Catholic speakers and participate in a vast range of activities.

It was an event when the Pope would spend time listening to the young. None could have guessed what an awesome phenomena of the contemporary Church World Youth Day would become. In 1998 1.4 million young people attended World Youth Day in Paris.

In 2000 2.1 million young people celebrated World Youth Day in Rome. The largest gathering of people in one location for a single event in the history of the world was World Youth Day in Manilla (1995) which was attended by over 5 million young people. These events have transformed the

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In 1998 1.4 million young people attended World Youth Day in Paris.

countries, towns and cities where they have been held. In 2002 the number of young Australians flooding to Toronto Canada for World Youth Day, (approx. 3000) saw the population of Australians in Canada reach an all-time high.

World Youth Day is an initiative attributed to John Paul however it is interesting to note that he saw it differently. Rather John Paul said that it was an initiative of the young.

In his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope he says that “no-one invented the World Youth

Days. It was the young people themselves who created them… The World Youth Days have become a great and fascinating witness that young people give of themselves…

It is not true that the Pope brings the young from one end of the world to the other. It is they who bring him. Even though he is getting older, they urge him to be young, they do not permit him to forget his experience, his discovery of youth and its great importance for the life of every man. I believe this explains a great deal.”

Pope John Paul II will be sadly missed at this year’s celebration of World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany but it will be an opportunity for our new Pope to meet the world’s young people face to face.

Youth have a longing for values

From Novo Millennio Ineunte (2001)

“… how could we fail to recall especially the joyful and inspiring gathering of young people?

If there is an image of the Jubilee of the Year 2000 that more than any other will live on in memory, it is surely the streams of young people with whom I was able to engage in a sort of very special dialogue, filled with mutual affection and deep understanding. It was like this from the moment I welcomed them in the Square of Saint John Lateran and Saint Peter’s Square.

Then I saw them swarming through the city, happy as young people should be, but also thoughtful, eager to pray, seeking “meaning” and true friendship.

Neither for them nor for those who saw them will it be easy to forget that week, during which Rome became “young with the young”. It will not be possible to forget the Mass at Tor Vergata.

Yet again, the young have shown themselves to be for Rome and for the Church a special gift of the Spirit of God. Sometimes when we look at the young, with

Greeted by youth at World Youth Day in Denver 1993.

the problems and weaknesses that characterise them in contemporary society, we tend to be pessimistic.

The Jubilee of Young People however changed that, telling us that young people, whatever their possible ambiguities, have a profound longing for those genuine values which find their fullness in Christ.

Is not Christ the secret of true freedom and profound joy of heart? Is not Christ the supreme friend and the teacher of all genuine friendship? If Christ is

PHOTO: CNS

presented to young people as he really is, they experience him as an answer that is convincing and they can accept his message, even when it is demanding and bears the mark of the Cross.

For this reason, in response to their enthusiasm, I did not hesitate to ask them to make a radical choice of faith and life and present them with a stupendous task: to become “morning watchmen” (cf. Is 21:11-12) at the dawn of the new millennium.”

- by John Paul II

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An emotional meeting for three youths at World Youth Day in Denver 1993.

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In touch with the feminine

■ By Bronwen Clune

In many of the outpourings since the world was informed of the Pope’s death, much has been said about his conservative views on abortion and women’s ordination.

But the secular press has little understanding of the wonderful and powerful writings of John Paul II on the subject of women and femininity.

During his reign the Pope saw many changes in the way that womens’ roles were viewed in society, a lot of which the Pope applauded as progressive.

In a 1995 Letter to Women JPII thanked women for all they have done, apologised for the Church’s failure to always recognise their contributions and condemned the “long and degrading history” of sexual violence against women.

Evaluating the women’s liberation movement as being generally positive, the Pope called for changes to make women’s equality a reality in the world. He called for equal pay for equal work, protection for working mothers and

fairness in career advancement.

It has been during Pope John Paul II’s pontificate that women have taken over pastoral and administrative duties in parishes, have been appointed chancellors of dioceses around the world, and began swelling the ranks of “experts” at Vatican synods and symposiums.

In 2004, for the first time, the Pope appointed two women theologians to the prestigious International Theological Commission and named a Harvard University law professor, Mary Ann Glendon, to be president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

As significant as his 1995 Letter to Women was it is only a small part of his much larger contribution to the debate on the role of women in society.

While equality has been the driving force behind so much of the feminist movement, for the Pope the true power of femininity lies not in women’s likeness to man, but in their difference.

This sentiment is being echoed by many younger women these days who can see that by downplaying motherhood women are devaluing that which makes them innately female.

What makes John Paul II’s writings on women so appealing is that they are philosophically based in reality.

For women this has been a particularly fresh approach from the Church – because they can identify the practical implications in their own lives.

While the Pope carefully avoided discussing women exclusively

in terms of their possible roles as virgins or mothers, he exalted the virtues of both.

He repeatedly pointed to women’s potential as bearers of life as part of the “feminine genius” that the world so desperately needs as it struggles against the “culture of death” marked by war, abortion and euthanasia.

The Pope taught that women and men have complementary natures and their “diversity of roles” in the Church and in the family are a reflection of that reality.

This “genius” is something the Pope said women have all on their own.

“[It] is vitally essential to both society and the Church…[She] is endowed with a particular capacity for accepting the human being in his concrete form

Even this singular feature which prepares her for motherhood, not only physically but also emotionally and spiritually, is inherent in the plan of God who entrusted the human being to woman in an altogether special way,” the Pope said.

In May 2000, the Pontifical Athenaeum “Regina Apostolorum,” in Rome held an international Congress on the

topic “A New Feminism for a New Millennium.”

Mary Ann Glendon, who was the Vatican representative at the UN Beijing Conference, presided over the Congress. The Pope said this new feminism had to be free of “macho’ constraints. This meant that women would not be evaluated against masculine virtues.

At the time, UN groups were calling for the ratification of agreements reached at the Beijing conference, which included doing away with “Mother’s Day.”

Glendon explained that women must be able to discern a new feminism, separate and distinct from much of the current feminist ideology.

“A new and better feminism means aiming for a higher end to free every woman in the process of perfecting her nature, with the objective of transforming culture in terms of support of life,” she said.

“The great limitations of the feminist movement of the 70s stem from the dogmatism of its ideology.

The idea of freeing yourself from the responsibilities of woman and mother to replace man was an error. The result has been to confuse feminine identity, leaving women alone to face the difficulties of work and family,” Glendon explained.

“At present the majority of young women of the new generations reject the feminists’ definition. They reject the idea of living in constant antagonism with men. They do not accept the necessity of being closed to marriage and

the family, and they are especially opposed to the intolerant and radical attitude that is typical of some feminists,” she continued.

This new feminism also translates to the Pope’s Theology of the Body, which talks about the innate differences of men and women and how they compliment each other.

The Pope taught that women and men have complementary natures and their “diversity of roles” in the Church and in the family are a reflection of that reality.

The Pope’s teaching on complementarity formed the basis for a 2004 document by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on male-female collaboration in the Church and society. Describing discrimination against women and male-female rivalry as results of sin, the document said the differences between the sexes are part of God’s plan for creation - not social constructs - and that Church and society benefit when the gifts of both are recognised.

The passing of John Paul II has been lauded by some as a new opportunity for women in the Church. Ironically unless we embrace new feminism we are only continuing to be constrained by the machoisms of secular society.

By measuring ourselves against masculine desires we are only continuing to devalue our unique feminine genius. It is up to women now to understand the true power of the Pope’s message.

During his reign as Pope, John Paul II saw many changes in the way that womens’ roles were viewed in society. He believed the true power of femininity lies not in women’s likeness to man, but in their difference.

Photo: CNS

Champion of the Family

■ By Derek Boylen

The family and the Body of Christ were the bookends of John Paul II’s pontificate. Over two thirds of what the Church has written on sex, marriage and the family has been written during the pontificate of John Paul II.

Last Sunday the world kept vigil as the Pope became united fully with Christ in death. It seems providential that it occurred in the Year of the Eucharist, having spent his life helping families to better understand what it means to be the Body of Christ as “domestic church”.

In 1980 John Paul called the first General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in his pontificate and the theme was the Church’s responsibility toward families and family life.

The result of this synod was the papal exhortation Familiaris Consortio. Even toward the end of his pontificate following an exhaustive list of papal exhortations, letters, speeches and encyclicals, John Paul II considered Familiaris Consortio to be a personal favourite. John Paul taught that marriage was much more than a mere contract and that the family could not be simply considered a convenience for its members.

Familiaris Consortio recognised family as the domestic church, its mission to “guard, reveal and communicate love” noting that the mission is a “real sharing in God’s love for humanity and the love of Christ the Lord for the Church.”

The words of Familiaris Consortio were in many ways prophetic of the messages that he would continue to challenge the world with for the next 24 years of his pontificate. Words that affirmed the dignity of women, the role of the husband and father, the rights of children, the elderly, rights of parents and the value and sanctity of marriage. Most

importantly it established the need for the Church to be an advocate and pastoral provider for the family in a challenging ‘often-hostile’ cultural climate.

John Paul II was a champion of the family. In numerous speeches and documents he criticised a culture that is hostile to the family and encouraged the Church to take action to support families.

John Paul II had clearly been reflecting on marriage and family long before taking up the papacy His first book was titled Love and Responsibility. Bringing together his experience helping couples through marriage preparation and his knowledge as a philosopher he wrote Love and Responsibility while a professor at the Catholic University of Lublin. His real impetus for writing Love and Responsibility though was his work with students. As George Weigel, the Pope’s biographer, notes John Paul felt that “young men and women had a right not simply to instruction, but to an affirmation and celebration of their vocations to marriage, which included a vocation to sexual love.”

From the beginning John Paul II wanted to elucidate the Church’s teachings on sexuality, marriage and the family. Between 1979, shortly after taking office and towards the end of 1984, he gave a series of homilies at his Wednesday General Audiences.

In recent years these homilies have come to be known as his

Photo: CNS

Theology of the Body though perhaps more accurately; a theology of the person. George Weigel describes them as a theological time bomb waiting to go off. Already these writings have inspired numerous initiatives around the world.

While the World Youth Days have come to be known as an amazing global phenomenon John Paul II began another remarkable event called the World Meeting of Families.

Like the World Youth Day events, these great gatherings take place around the world in different countries drawing families from around the globe. Indeed, they were the inspiration for our own two national family gatherings.

John Paul II was a champion of the family. In numerous speeches and documents he criticised a culture that is hostile to the family and encouraged the Church to take action to support families.

Outside of the Church he was an outspoken advocate for families too. In December 2004 he addressed the new ambassadors from Malawi, Thailand, Luxembourg, Kenya and Norway calling for efforts to strengthen families.

Earlier that year he criticised the world media, challenging parents, communicators and public authorities to fight an agenda “hostile” to family values.

It is difficult to underestimate the value of the family to John Paul II. He saw it as critically important to developing the culture of life in both the Church and the world. In speaking about the development of a unified Europe in June 2004 he said, “the future depends on the family. One can say that family is the mirror of society, and that is also true in the new Europe being constructed… The evolution of the family is and will be the most important indicator of the cultural and institutional development of the continent.”

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John Paul II wrote about marriage and family long before taking up the Papacy. In numerous speeches and documents he critisised the culture that is hostile to the family and encouraged the Church to take action to support families.

Theology of Body is a cure for the world

■ By Mark Reidy

While tributes pour in from the secular world highlighting the indelible imprint Pope John Paul II has left on the world few, if any, have given recognition to one of his his most profound and powerful legacies. The contribution he made to the demise of communism, the healing of interfaith wounds, the globe trotting messages of peace, hope and love, have all been well documented. However when history looks back and measures the impact of this extraordinary man, US theologian George Weigel believes that it won’t be for any of these achievements that he will be most remembered.

In his 2003 Witness to Hope, the biography of Pope John Paul II, Weigel stated, “I came to the conclusion that John Paul’s longest-lasting theological contribution to the Church and the world might well be something that very few people have ever encountered: his innovative ‘Theology of the Body’.”

Weigel believes that this work, a compilation of 129 general audience addresses given between 1979-1984, constitutes a “theological time bomb set to go off with dramatic consequences sometime in the third millenium of the Church”. So inspired is Weigel by these teachings that he predicts that when the world does truly embrace them, it will be a critical moment not only in Catholic theology but in the history of modern thought.

“It is no exaggeration to say that the Pope’s ‘Theology of the Body’ will leave the Church reeling in self-discovery for centuries to come”, he writes.

‘Theology of the Body’ was Pope John Paul’s II response to a world at the cultural crossroads of life and death. He knew that the attempt to address sexual issues within the Church by Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968 had polarised believers. He realised that many had perceived the authoritarian and impersonal tones of Human Vitae as an indicator of a stagnant Church out of tune with the modern world. He could see that the true beauty of God’s gift of sexuality was hidden from His people and that this was occuring in a sexual environment of ever-increasing selfindulgence.

John Paul II was well aware that the Church needed to redesign its presentation to allow people to gain a more immediate and personal experience of the Church’s teachings on sex.

He approached this challenge by drawing from his early experiences of confronting Communism where he saw “the pulverisation of the fundamental uniqueness of each human person”, and

also from his time as a pastoral priest working with young people which had inspired his first book Love and Responsibility. His desire even then was to inspire self-dignity and to, “educate in love” the sexual urges and sensualities of men and women.

Influenced by the spiritual penetration of St John of the Cross and refined by his time as a professor at the Catholic University in Lublin, Poland, Bishop Wojtyla emerged from the Second Vatican Council pondering how to engage an ever changing world with the unchanging truth of Jesus Christ. He witnessed the lukewarm response to Pope Paul VI’s attempts to address the imbalance that was shaking the sexual foundations of world and realised that a more personal and appealing unveiling of the Church’s truth was required.

Christopher West, a US theologian and author of The Theology of the Body Explained who has spent a number of years digesting and ‘unpacking’ the profound revelations of this Pontiff, points out that he has produced over twothirds of what has been professed on sexuality in the entire history of the Church. West believes that after 2000 years of Christian reflection and after stumbling through periods of darkness and misunderstanding, the Church has finally come up with a winning formula. He believes that it is no coincidence this 263rd successor of St Peter arrived in an era when the world was beginning to embrace a culture of death. With the unprecedented rise of contraception, adolescent sex, pre-marital pregnancies, unwanted children, sexual disease, abortion, rape, euthanasia and marriage breakdown, there has never been a more crucial moment in history for the Church to fully understand and embrace its God-given wisdom.

Sin, the Pope explains, enters the world as a corruption of genuine self-giving, which is motivated by love. When that self-giving is experienced as restraint rather than fulfillment, love decays into lust. Consequently the difference between male and female, once a source of identity in communion, becomes a source of confrontation. “The human heart”, he says, “becomes a battlefield between love and lust, between self mastery and self assertion, between freedom as giving and freedom as taking – which is often at the expense of women”.

West refers to this disharmony as “the great divorce”- the estrangement between divinity and humanity, soul and body, spirituality and sexuality, sacredness and sensuality, masculinity and femininity. These separations, he believes, had become so embedded in the fabric of society that they had created a “culture of death”.

This divorce of the spiritual and the material was one of the obvious flaws that John Paul II recognised at the beginning of his pontificate, and he attempted to address it in his catechetical teachings. He understood the necessity of reintegrating the spirit and the

flesh. He was aware that an either/ or scenario was manifesting itself. There was a choice of either spiritual value deprived of earthiness or an earthiness blind to spiritual value - there seemed to be no balance. He believed, however, that both contributed equally to the disintegration of man and culture. West points out that the Pope was well aware that both platforms have failed over the last century. We had gone from widespread prudishness where the sight of a woman’s ankle would cause scandal, to widespred permissiveness where there seemed to be no boundaries.

John Paul II knew that he needed to find a link between the body and the spirit.

He began by calling men and women to fully embrace their sexual natures and then, by sharing with one another in marriage, the gift of complete self-donation. He then invites them to relate this union to the eternal consummation of the marriage between Christ and the Church. By sharing in this life-giving communion we are, he claims, participating in the ‘great mystery’ of the life-

giving encounter of the Trinity which is the eternal exchange of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The spousal theology he uses has strong roots in both the Old and New Testaments but the Pope is firm in his warning that we must always respect the mysterious and infinite difference between the human and the divine.

As West states, “John Paul II unveils and demystifies what has for so long been misunderstood: that the Catholic Church does not, in fact, want to suppress the joy of sex, but rather elevate it to what it was always meant to be – a foretaste of Heaven”. George Weigel is less subtle in his analysis. “Some will, no doubt, find it odd that the Catholic Church takes human sexuality far more seriously than the editors of Playboy or Cosmopolitan. But that’s the plain truth. And the ‘Theology of the Body’ shows why and how.”

The impact of such revelations is far-reaching and culturechanging. A true understanding for example, of St Paul’s teaching on the submission of women to men, as clarified by John Paul II,

is not tarnished by patriarchal repression as many believe. But rather, it advocates for the provisions of freedom for women to be loved, respected and understood in ways far beyond what any “women’s liberation” movements could ever promise. While such teachings have been undermined throughout history by both abuse and misunderstanding, in its purest and intended form, a man must give himself as totally and unconditionally to his wife as Christ gave Himself to the Church. This, as the Pope defines it, indicates that a husband must sacrifice all of his personal desires and self-instincts for the glory and honour of his wife and to serve her needs.

The Pope’s teachings delve deeply into the treasure chest of wisdom that has for so long been submerged in the murky waters of misunderstanding. We discover many aspects of Church wisdom that are virtually unknown:

• The Church does not teach that sexual intercourse is soley for the pupose of procreation, but that once stripped of lust and self-gratification, is also the

Christopher West, here seen at the Catholic Education Office of WA in 2003, is pperhaps the best-known promoter in the English speaking world of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

Photo: Peter Rosengren

most intimate expression of love between husband and wife.

• Chastity is not repressive, but is in fact liberating. It frees one from the tendency to use another for selfish gratification and enables them to love others as Jesus did.

• Sex was intended to be pure and holy. Therefore, the choice by religious and priests to sacrifice it to God is a great gift of love.

• That God created sexual drive as a “love instinct”, that is designed to lead to life, but when it is cut off from God - who is the source of love and life - it becomes a selfish instinct that leads to death.

• Contraception is a part of this death culture as it doesn’t embrace the possibility of life. It is, effectively, one person saying to another ‘I will not give myself to you unconditionally. I will withhold my potential to create life.’ True love is total surrender to one another, not selective surrender.

• We learn how sexual attitudes and behaviours have the power to orient, not only individuals, but entire nations - which is relevant to us today in an era when abortion, prostitution and homosexuality are continually being embraced by our laws.

• There will be no renewal of the Church and of the world without a renewal of marriage and family and there will be no renewal of marriage and family without a return to the full truth of God’s plan for the body and sexuality.

• The “freedoms” promised by the “sexual revolution” serve not to liberate, but to chain men and women to their appetites and passions.

• The yearning for a radical giving of self and receiving of another is the foundation of our humanity. It carries with it the blessing of fertility, one way in which human persons are images of God, for procreation reproduc-

es the mystery of creation. The body makes visible the invisible, the spiritual and the divine.

• Sexual love, lived in purity of heart, will become a means of sanctification and Christians, once they understand this significance, will be motivated to live accordingly, because the human body was the vehicle through which God became man and through which Christ completed the redemption of the world.

And there are so many more.

George Weigel predicted that the Pope’s Theology of the Body would only be seriously engaged when he had exited the historical stage. That time has now come. Once people begin to discover these treasures, it is likely that they will be just as surprised by the sexual revelations of a celibate Pontiff as they will by the fact that nothing that what he presents is new.

He has “merely” unpackaged the teachings of Christ, albeit with the hindsight of 2000 years of reflection and given them historical context. As West suggests, he has had the courage to, “forthrightly say to the world that human sexuality is far greater than you could imagine”. He has attempted to take people from “What am I forbidden to do?” to “How do I live a life of sexual love that conforms to my dignity as a person?”

He has, as West proclaims, given the world a timely gift that is both the antidote to the culture of death and the theological foundation of the culture of life.

The spirit of Pope John Paul II, it seems, is destined to mould many generations to come.

Prayer is a powerful way to aid vocations

Next Sunday, April 17, is the world day of prayer for vocations and an apt reminder that the late Pope’s pathway to the papacy began with the priesthood.

Fr Corran Pike, the Acting Vocations Director in the Archdiocese, urged young men to think deeply about the late Pope’s instruction “Put out into the deep” and “trust the Lord to guide your life.” In the turmoil and confusion of the Nazi and Communist control of Poland, Karol Wojtyla knew the reality of Jesus and entrusted his life to him with spectacular results.

Our own times and circumstances were not so hazardous, but spiritually they were at least as distracted and confusing.

The reality of Jesus Christ must be at the centre of our lives if we were to know whatever vocation he was calling us to.

Fr Pike urged parents and

The Sanctuary of the Theology of the Body

The roof of the Sistine Chapel: during the restoration, John Paul II insisted on removing several of the loin cloths that clerics had ordered painted over Michaelangelo’s original nudes. In turn, when he dedicated the restored Sistine Chapel he described it as “the sancuary of the theology of the human body.” The Record offers resources (tel: (08) 9227 7080) on the Theology of the Body. Another resource is Christopher West’s website at: www.theologyofthebody.com

PRINCIPALSHIPS

Aranmore Catholic Primary School

Aranmore Catholic Primary School, Leederville, is a double stream co-educational school, with an enrolment of 500 students from K-7. The school was established by the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers in 1986. The school receives excellent support from the Parish and Aranmore Catholic College.

Aranmore has a proud tradition of valuing children from many nationalities and reflects the multicultural face of Australia. The dedicated staff also reflects this diversity. Aranmore is involved in the RAISe program (Raising Achievement in Schools) and offers specialist programs in Physical Education, Music, Information and Communication Technology and LOTE (Italian).

Astrong, supportive School Board and Parents’ and Friends’ Association enhance the school’s sound educational reputation in the district.

Our Lady of Fatima School

Our Lady of Fatima School, Palmyra, is a single stream, co-educational school, with an enrolment of 270 students from K-7. The school was established by the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions in 1925.

Apositive relationship exists between the school and Parish.

Our Lady of Fatima School offers specialist programs in Physical Education, LOTE (Italian) and Information and Communication Technology. The staff works hard to keep abreast of educational changes and is supportive of the Performing Arts Festival. The school is supported by a vibrant parent community.

Our Lady of Lourdes School

Our Lady of Lourdes School, Nollamara, is a single stream co-educational school, with an enrolment of 246 students from K-7. The school was established by the Sisters of Mercy in 1958.

grandparents to redouble their prayers for vocations and to make it clear to the young how highly they valued the priesthood as the way to take the reality of Jesus to others, in teaching, in example and in the sacraments.

Every Catholic in every family ought to make clear their respect for the priesthood, not to put pressure on young people to choose it, but to ensure that young people realise it is natural to consider it, pray about it, and allow God to direct them.

Life is God’s gift, and happiness is living it the way God wants us to.

All young men who want to think about their life with God are invited to the Salvatorian Reflection Day from 3pm Saturday April 16 till 1pm Sunday April 17 at the Salvatorian Community House, 2 Caledonia Ave, Currambine. Contact Fr Karol 0418 189 917, or 9304 2907.

The school and Parish have strong links with one another and work together in evangelising the community. Our Lady of Lourdes School is involved in the RAISe program (Raising Achievement in Schools) and offers specialist programs in Music, Information & Communication Technology and LOTE (Italian). The school is supported and enriched by an active Board and Parents’ and Friends’ Association who work in promoting the school to the wider community.

St Joseph’s School

St Joseph’s School, Queens Park, is a double stream, co-educational school, with an enrolment of 454 students from K-7. The school was established by the Sisters of Mercy in 1936.

The school is significantly involved in the life of the Parish and the Parish Priest takes an active role in the school through Sacramental Programs and visitation.

St Joseph’s School supports the Performing Arts, Information and CommunicationTechnology and LOTE (Japanese) as well as Reading Recovery.

The School Board and Parents’ and Friends’ Association are very supportive in promoting the school in the wider community.

Nagle Catholic College

Nagle Catholic College, Geraldton, is a co-educational secondary day and boarding school which was established in 1994 following the amalgamation of Stella Maris College and St Patrick’s College. The current enrolment is approximately 800 students from Years 8 to 12.

The College provides a Christian education, founded in the teachings and traditions of the Catholic Church. The formal and informal curricula at the College are designed to address the academic, spiritual, social, cultural and physical needs of each student.

The College strongly encourages the active participation of parents and friends within the college community.

Applicants need to be practising Catholics and experienced educators committed to the objectives and ethos of Catholic education. They will have the requisite theological, educational, pastoral and administrative competencies, together with an appropriate four-year minimum tertiary qualification and will have completed Accreditation B or its equivalent.

Acurrent Federal Police Clearance/100 Point Identification Check must also be included. The appropriate Police Clearance Consent Form is available from the Department of Education and Training website (www.eddept.wa.edu.au/ HRRecruitment/Downloads/PoliceClearance.pdf).

The official application form, Referee Assessment forms and instructions can be accessed on the Catholic Education Office website www.ceo.wa.edu.au Enquiries regarding these positions should be directed to Nadia Maso, Coordinator, Leadership Team on 9212 9233 or sch.personnel@ceo.wa.edu.au

All applications, on the official form, should reach The Director, Catholic Education Office of Western Australia, PO Box 198, Leederville 6903 no later than Friday 29 April 2005.

Photo: CNS

Nothing like this seen before

■ By Fr Kevin Long

No pope, in the history of the Catholic Church, worked as tirelessly and as creatively as did John Paul II for the restoration of unity between Christians, and for the development of peaceful and cooperative relationships with the major religious traditions of the World.

Speaking in St Peter’s Basilica during an Ecumenical Service last November to mark the 40th anniversary of Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism, John Paul declared:

“The implementation of this conciliar decree has been one of the pastoral priorities of my pontificate from the outset.”

The Pope constantly affirmed as irreversible the deep commitment of the Catholic Church to ecumenism despite slow progress and ever new ethical and theological difficulties: “Rather than complaining about what is not yet possible, we must be grateful for and cheered by what already exists and is possible. A Christian can never give up hope, lose heart or be drained of enthusiasm.”

John Paul’s 1995 Encyclical Letter Ut Unum Sint (That They Be One) remains the most radically creative gesture by any Bishop of Rome towards the full restoration of communion between Christians. This encyclical is unusual in that it cites reports from non Roman ecumenical sources - notably from the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. In this Encyclical the Holy Father invited other Churches and Communions to reflect with him on the role and structure of the Petrine ministry as that of first servant of Christian unity; he also invited Catholics to acknowledge and to apologise for the sinfulness and human weakness of their predecessors. Such sinfulness and weakness contributed towards the tragic and lasting divisions of the European and

English Reformations, and at the dawn of the second Millennium towards the schism between the Eastern and Western Churches. Again during the Great Jubilee Celebrations in Rome on Ash Wednesday 2000, Pope John Paul sought forgiveness from other Churches and Communions for sins committed against them by representatives of the Catholic Church. I have often speculated on how Christian History might have been so very different if some of the Holy Father’s predecessors on St Peter’s Throne had adopted the same conciliarity and humble approach. One of the direct results of Ut Unum Sint was the Anglican/Roman Catholic International Commission’s statement The Gift of Authority issued in 1998.His pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral in May 1982 remains a profoundly significant moment in ecumenical history. Another, somewhat unexpected, fruit of the Pope’s abiding commitment to ecumenism with the Churches of the Reformation was the Common Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification issued in October 1999 by the Lutheran World Federation and Catholic Church. This Pope from Eastern

Europe always cherished a warm affection for the ancient Christian Churches of the East, insisting that the Catholic Church must again breathe with both its eastern and western lungs. His Apostolic Letter of 1995, Orientale Lumen, acknowledged the sinfulness and insensitivity of many Western Christians towards the Eastern Churches. He returned to this theme during his 2001 visit to Athens. At his meeting with the Orthodox Archbishop of Athens and Primate of all Greece he sought forgiveness for the sins of Catholics against the Eastern Churches. Last year he returned the icon of Our Lady of Kazan to the Patriarchate of Moscow, and the relics of St Gregory Nazianzen and St John Chrysostom to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. Sadly, John Paul II never fulfilled his deep desire to visit Russia.

The Pope also turned his pastoral ministry towards establishing better relationships with believers from other World Religious Traditions. His World Days of Prayer for Peace, when believers from Non-Christian and Christian Communities gathered in Assisi in 1986 and 2002 still remain

controversial. Representatives from the Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, Jewish, Islamic and other world religious traditions sat in a circle of peace and silence with Protestants, Anglicans, Orthodox and Catholics, each world tradition having firstly worshiped with its own rituals and customs.

John Paul II was the first pope since St Peter to visit a synagogue when in 1986 he visited Rome’s Grand Synagogue. His visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau at the beginning of his Pontificate foreshadowed his visit to the Wailing Wall and Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem in 2000. Again he sought God’s forgiveness, and that of the Jewish People, for Christian complicity in the Holocaust and for nearly two thousand years of antiSemitism. He reminded Catholics that God’s Covenant with the Jews remains irrevocable.

One of the last acts of his Pontificate was his message to those gathered at AuschwitzBirkenau to commemorate the 60th anniversary of its liberation, “Never again, in any part of the world, must others experience what was experienced by these men and women whom we have

mourned for sixty years.”

While visiting Syria in May 2001, he became the first Pope to visit a Mosque. There within the ancient walls of the Great Mosque of Damascus he sought Muslim forgiveness for Christian hatred and intolerance and pleaded for a new relationship with Islam: “ I give heartfelt praise to Almighty God for the grace of this meeting. It is my ardent hope that Muslim and Christian Religious leaders and teachers will present our two great religious communities in respectful dialogue, never more as communities in conflict. It is crucial for our young people to be taught the ways of respect and understanding, so that they will not be led to misuse religion itself to promote or justify hatred and violence.”

The moderator of the Central Committe of the World Council of Churches, the Armenian Catholicos of Cilicia, Aram I, paid this tribute to the Pope on hearing of his death: “His Holiness Pope John Paul II will remain an outstanding figure in the modern history of world Christendom. In fact, his relentless effort to make the Gospel of Christ a living reality in the life of people, his unyielding prophetic witness to make moral values the guiding principles of human societies, his firm commitment to the cause of Christian unity, his openness to other religions with a clear vision of living together as a reconciled community in the midst of diversities, and his continuous advocacy for justice, human rights and freedom made him an exceptional figure of great achievements.”

It is our common prayer that Pope John Paul II may now know that peace and communion which he desired for all God’s people.

Fr Kevin Long is Rector of St Thomas More College. He lectures at Notre Dame University and is Chairperson of the Archdiocesan Ecumenical Affairs Committee.

How long before we perceive the scope of JPII?

The world may have yet to appreciate John Paul II for being the “greatest Christian witness” of the 20th century, says papal biographer George Weigel.

In this interview with ZENIT, George Weigel, a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Centre, in Washington, and author of “Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II,” put the life of the Pontiff, who died Saturday, in perspective.

Q: What did John Paul II do for the prominence of the Church in world affairs?

Weigel: The papacy has long claimed a universal “reach.” John Paul II gave this claim real meaning by becoming a kind of one-man moral reference point for the entire world. And in doing so, he reminded the world that “world affairs” are always under the scrutiny of moral judgment.

Contrary to what the foreign policy realists teach, international politics is not an

“amoral” arena; nothing human is outside the boundaries of moral reason - even politics among nations. I doubt that the world has quite caught on yet, but that’s what John Paul II insisted upon.

Q: What were his greatest achievements in the field of geopolitics? social doctrine? theology? ecclesiology?

Weigel: John Paul II’s pivotal role in the collapse of European communism - igniting a revolution of conscience that eventually produced the non-violent political revolution of 1989 - was a tremendous achievement.

But we shouldn’t forget the Pope’s role in helping settle the Beagle Channel dispute between Argentina and Chile - which threatened to break out into a hot war; nor should we forget his role in helping prepare the way for democracy in Latin America, and his support for democratic transitions in the Philippines and South Korea.

John Paul’s defence of the universality of human rights in his 1995 UN address was also a very important contribution at a time when the idea of “universal human rights” was being denied or ridiculed by postmodernists, Islamists, the world’s remaining communists, and East Asian authoritarians.

In social doctrine, “Centesimus Annus,” the Pope’s 1991 encyclical, gave Catholic social doctrine a new empirical sensitiv-

ity, particularly with regard to economic questions.

Some social-action Catholics had long held out the possibility of building a “third way” that was neither socialist nor capitalist; “Centesimus Annus” recognised that a market-centred economy, properly regulated by law, was in fact this “third way.” Although, again, I’m not sure that the believers in a mythical “third way” have accepted the point.

The “theology of the body” seems to me to have been John Paul II’s most creative theological accomplishment, although there is a tremendous amount of rich theological material for the Church to digest in John Paul’s encyclicals, apostolic letters, postsynodal exhortations and audience addresses.

His theology of divine mercy, for example, remains to be thoroughly explored, as does his Marian theology and his teaching that the “Marian profile” in the Churchdiscipleship - is the most fundamental reality of the Church, even more constitutive of the Church than its “Petrine” profile, its structure as an authoritative community.

As for ecclesiology, I think it’s important

George Weigel

Interfaith prayer gathering in the Italian town of Assisi, which brought world religious leaders together to pray for peace in the face of the Cold War.

Photo: CNS

Meeting the man himself

Meeting the Pope can be just as awesome for a bishop as for a lay man or woman. Archbishop Barry Hickey wrote this article for The Record’s special edition marking the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s pontificate in 2003

■ By Archbishop Barry Hickey

One of the privileges of being a Bishop is that one must visit the Holy Father every five years. It is called the “Ad Limina” (literally “To the Threshold”) visit.

At that visit each Bishop sees the Pope personally for about 15 to 20 minutes and is able to discuss with him anything at all. The purpose of the visit is to present a report on the Diocese and to affirm the unity of all the Bishops with the Bishop of Rome.

As Bishop of Rome the Pope sees his Bishops as brothers, with himself as Peter. This is the unity Christ wanted among his Disciples and it is the unity he wants today among their successors. I have seen the Pope not only on the Ad Limina visits but on other occasions as well. Perhaps the most contact I have ever had with him was during the Synod of Oceania in 1998 when the Pope attended sessions of the Synod every day for a number of hours. I was seated one up from him and often spoke to him between sessions.

There was and still is a sense of awe in me when speaking to the Pope because of what he represents and who he is. I become aware that the position he holds as Head of the Church on earth was given to us by Jesus himself

when he gave St Peter “the power of the keys”.

Nevertheless the Pope tries to put us at ease. He sees us as brother Bishops of the Bishop of Rome and always makes time to see us.

When I see him privately he speaks to me in English. He asks about the Diocese, and offers advice if I ask it.

I spoke to him once about the youth and how to hold them in the Church, knowing that he has a particular affinity with young people. I can’t use the excuse that I am too old to relate to young people because he has an extraordinary rapport with the young even though he is much older than me. Age doesn’t matter apparently.

He suggested I look at France where great numbers of young people are flocking to the Church very loyal and joyful in their acceptance of the Christian Way of life...

He suggested I look at France where great numbers of young people are flocking to the Church, very loyal and joyful in their acceptance of the Christian Way of life in a very materialistic and secular culture. There are signs, small at present but clearly discernible that we can expect such a revival here too.

The Pope comes across as completely authentic, full of faith, holy and uncompromising in his support of Catholic truth. His courage is evident in his writings, his speeches and in his call to world leaders to submit to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is my personal impression of this unique figure, a father, guide and spiritual tower of strength.

that John Paul “re-balanced” the Church at a time when national conferences of bishops might have become virtually autonomous “synods” on an Orthodox model. This, of course, is the precise opposite of what the Pope’s critics have charged for more than 20 years.

Q: What do you think John Paul II considered to be the greatest “work undone” of his pontificate?

Weigel: I certainly wouldn’t suggest that I could speak for the late Pope, but as his biographer, it seems to me that the great “work undone” in the pontificate involved John Paul’s ecumenical initiatives, particularly with Orthodoxy.

He really seemed to have believed, in 1978, that the breach of the second millennium between Rome and the Christian East, which formally opened in 1054, could be closed by the opening of the third millennium. It obviously didn’t happen.

Why, I suggest, may have a lot to do with the fact that Orthodoxy is not in the same theological or psychological condition as it was in 1054; “not being in communion with the Bishop of Rome” has become, for

John Paul II The Great

25th anniversary edition - The Record

The Record has a limited number of copies remaining of the commemorative edition of John Paul II’s 25th anniversary as Pope. If your parish would like to order some please contact Eugene Suares at the Record on (08) 9227 7080.

many Orthodox, a part of their very selfdefinition.

Until that changes, and until Orthodox Christians feel the passion for being one with Rome at the Eucharistic banquet that John Paul felt toward the Orthodox, there isn’t going to be a great deal of progress ecumenically between the Christian East and Rome. This is all very sad.

But it’s an instance of John Paul perhaps being too far ahead of history, and what history could bear at the moment.

Q: Has the world been capable of appreciating this extraordinary pontificate?

Weigel: He’s been appreciated as a man of culture, a man of great human sympathies, a man of great courage and integrity and compassion. I wonder, though, if he’s been appreciated for what he in fact was - the greatest Christian witness of the past century?

Everything else the Pope accomplished flowed from that one supreme fact: This was a man who believed with every fibre of his being that Jesus Christ is the answer to the question that is every human life.

Q: That John Paul II had a role in bringing down Communism in Eastern Europe; that he helped to deepen the Church’s theology on marriage and sexuality; that he brought new pastoral and intellectual vigor to the Chair of Peter - these are all certainly great legacies of his pontificate. Yet, after a pontificate of 26 years, the culture of death has worsened - with abortion, embryonic stemcell research, the rise of euthanasia, etc. Is it too much to expect a Pope to change all that, at least in his lifetime?

Weigel: Yes. And we should always remember, as John Paul always did, that the Church is not the pope alone.

Failures to reverse the culture of death are the failures of all the people of the Church who have an opportunity to build a culture of life - and don’t.

Q: The Holy Spirit inspired the cardinals in 1978 to choose the next pope from Poland. What have been the consequences of breaking the centuries-old tradition of Italian popes?

Weigel: I hope what that’s done is to create a wide-open field of candidates in

which nationality, ethnicity and race will count for very little, and the great question to be asked of any potential pope - Is this a man of God who can inspire others to a similar depth of faith? - rises to the fore in the cardinals’ deliberations.

Q: For you as a papal biographer, what impressed you the most about him?

Weigel: His extraordinary energy, and the fact that he was always looking forward, looking ahead, asking, “What should we be doing now?”

Yet that energy wasn’t the energy of a frantic or excitable man: It was a quiet, steady energy that was born of John Paul’s remarkably rich interior life, his life of prayer.

Q: Now that he is gone, is the world ready to really listen to the message of John Paul II?

Weigel: Let’s hope. There’s a lot to listen to.

- Zenit

A man, a Pope, a whirlwind that affected the world for 26-plus years

■ By John Thavis

Pope John Paul II, who died on April 2 at age 84, was a voice of conscience for the world and a modern-day apostle for the Church.

To both roles he brought a philosopher’s intellect, a pilgrim’s spiritual intensity and an actor’s flair for the dramatic. That combination made him one of the most forceful moral leaders of the modern age.

As head of the Church for more than 26 years he was a tireless evangeliser at home and abroad, but toward the end his frailty left him unable to murmur a blessing.

The first non-Italian Pope in 455 years, Pope John Paul became a spiritual protagonist in two global transitions: the fall of European communism, which began in his native Poland in 1989, and the passage to the third millennium of Christianity.

The new millennium brought a surge in global terrorism, and the Pope convened interfaith leaders to renounce violence in the name of religion. While condemning terrorist attacks, he urged the United States to respond with restraint, and he sharply criticised the US-led war against Iraq in 2003.

As pastor of the universal Church, he jetted around the world, taking his message to 129 countries in 104 trips outside Italy. He surprised and pleased millions by communicating with them in their own languages, until his own powers of speech faltered toward the end of his life.

At times, he used the world as a

pulpit: in Africa, to decry hunger; in Hiroshima, Japan, to denounce the arms race; in Calcutta, India, to praise the generosity of Mother Teresa. Whether at home or on the road, he aimed to be the Church’s most active evangeliser, trying to open every corner of human society to Jesus Christ.

Within the Church, the Pope was just as vigorous and no less controversial. He disciplined dissenting theologians, excommunicated self-styled “traditionalists,” and upheld unpopular Church positions like the pronouncement against artificial birth control. At the same time, he pushed Catholic social teaching into relatively new areas such as bioethics, international economics, racism and ecology.

In his later years, the Pope moved with difficulty, tired easily and was less expressive, all symptoms of a nervous system disorder believed to be Parkinson’s disease. By the time he celebrated his 25th anniversary in October 2003, aides had to wheel him on a chair and read his speeches for him. Yet he pushed himself to the limits of his physical capabilities, convinced that such suffering was itself a form of spiritual leadership. He led the Church through a heavy program of soul-searching events during the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, fulfilling a dream of his pontificate. His long-awaited pilgrimage to the Holy Land that year took him to the roots of the faith and dramatically illustrated the Church’s improved relations with Jews. He also presided over an unprecedented public apology for the sins of Christians during darker chapters of Church history, such as the Inquisition and

the Crusades. In a landmark document, the apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (“At the Beginning of the New Millennium’’), the Pope laid out his vision of the Church’s future and called for a “new sense of mission’’ to bring Gospel values into every area of social and economic life.

Over the years, public reaction to the Pope’s message and his decisions was mixed. He was hailed as a daring social critic, chided as the “last socialist,’’ cheered by millions and caricatured as an inquisitor. The Pope never paid much attention to his popularity ratings.

Pope John Paul’s personality was powerful and complicated. In his prime, he could work a crowd and banter with young and old, but spontaneity was not his speciality. As a manager, he set directions but often left policy details to top aides.

Karol Jozef Wojtyla was born May 18, 1920, in Wadowice, a small town near Krakow, in southern Poland. He lost his mother at age 9, his only brother at age 12 and his father at age 20. Even at a young age, acquaintances said, he was deeply religious and contemplative.

work in 1948, spending weekends on camping trips with young people. When named auxiliary bishop of Krakow in 1958 he was Poland’s youngest bishop, and he rose quickly through the ranks, becoming archbishop of Krakow in 1964. He also came to the attention of the universal Church through his work on important documents of the Second Vatican Council.

Though increasingly respected in Rome, Cardinal Wojtyla was a virtual unknown elsewhere when elected Pope on October 16, 1978. In St Peter’s Square that night, he set his papal style in a heartfelt talk - delivered in fluent Italian, interrupted by loud cheers from the crowd.

The pontificate began at a cyclone pace, with trips to several continents, flying press conferences, an encyclical on redemption, an ecumenical visit to the Orthodox in Turkey and several important meetings with world leaders.

His reaction to the mushrooming clerical sex abuse scandal in the United States in 2001-02 underscored his governing style: He suffered deeply, prayed at length and made brief but forceful statements emphasising the gravity of such a sin by priests.

He convened a Vatican-US summit to address the problem, but let his Vatican advisers and US church leaders work out the answers. In the end, he approved changes that made it easier to sack abusive priests. The Pope was essentially a private person, with a deep spir-

tured in some lasting images.

Who can forget the Pope wagging his finger sternly at a Sandinista priest in Nicaragua, hugging a

young AIDS victim in California or huddling in a prison-cell conversation with his would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca?

tined for greater things.”

Following theological and philosophical studies in Rome, he returned to Poland for parish

On May 13, 1981, a Turkish terrorist’s bullet put his papacy on hold for several months. The Pope was soon back on the road, eventually logging more than 1.1 million kilometres. His 14 visits to Africa were part of a successful strategy of Church expansion there; in Latin America he aimed to curb political activism at the expense of Church teaching by clergy and the inroads made by religious sects. He also used one of his US visits to focus on the key issue of dissent. In 1987, he told Americans it was a “grave error” to think disagreement with Church teachings was compatible

with being a good Catholic. The Pope later approved a universal catechism as one remedy for doctrinal ambiguity. He also pushed church positions further into the public forum. In the 1990s he urged the world’s bishops to step up their fight against abortion and euthanasia, saying the practices amounted to a modern-day “slaughter of the innocents.” His sharpened critique of these and other “anti-family” policies helped make him Time magazine’s choice for Man of the Year in 1994. His earlier social justice encyclicals also made a huge impact,

addressing the moral dimensions of human labour, the widening gap between rich and poor and the shortcomings of the freemarket system. The Vatican published an exhaustive compendium of social teachings in 2004. The Pope was a cautious ecumenist, insisting that real differences between religions and churches not be covered up. Yet he made several dramatic gestures that will long be remembered: They included launching a Catholic-Orthodox theological dialogue in 1979, visiting a Rome synagogue in 1986 and hosting world religious leaders

at a “prayer summit” for peace in 1986. In 2001, he made a historic visit to Greece, where he met with Orthodox leaders, then travelled to Damascus, Syria, where he became the first pontiff to visit a mosque. To his own flock, he brought continual reminders that prayer and the sacraments were crucial to being a good Christian. He held up Mary as a model of holiness for the whole Church, updated the rosary with five new “Mysteries of Light” and named more than 450 new saints - more than all his predecessors combined.

- CNS

Witness to the power of love

■ By Bishop Don Sproxton, Auxiliary Bishop of Perth

It came as a surprise to one of the media people who interviewed me on the weekend that Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul, has visited Perth twice.

He came as the Archbishop of Cracow in 1973, primarily to visit

the Polish Catholic Community. My first meeting with the Pope was in the makeshift sacristy at the Belmont Racetrack in November 1986.

Outside, the 90,000 people who had gathered for the Mass had become more and more excited when the helicopters travelling above the Popemobile could be heard as they approached the racetrack.

I was one of a team of MCs who were making everything ready for the celebration of the Mass.

The Holy Father entered the sacristy area and met each of us.

I remember when he was introduced to Monsignor Keating, who was a Vicar General at that time, the Holy Father remarked, “Oh, you are a young vicar general!”

So many people over these 26 years of this pontificate have had

the opportunity to meet or see John Paul II. He has become the most recognised person on the planet. People from over 100 countries have seen him. They have experienced his interest in them, and very often, his sense of humour.

With the passing of John Paul from this life, we feel a mixture of emotions.

There is a deep sadness that he is no longer journeying with us, being that fatherly “witness to hope”. Christian or not, the citizens of the world will grieve for the loss of such an influential and inspirational human being.

We have lost one who valued and worked for understanding, reconciliation, acceptance of one another and unity. There is, as well, a deep sense of gratitude for the gift John Paul

II has been for both the Church and the world: his courage and tireless effort in empowering the Solidarity trade-union movement which began a series of generally non-violent changes to Eastern Europe, and his role in helping change to occur in South America, where dictatorships have been replaced by democracies. We are grateful, too for the gestures and positive steps taken toward healing the bitter animosity between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. John Paul II has enhanced the possibility for more dialogue with the great world religions.

Finally, we are grateful for his personal witness to faith and trust in Jesus Christ. He once wrote, in his first encyclical Redemptor Hominis, that the union between Christ and each person should

be brought about and renewed continually:

“The Church wishes to serve this single end: that each person may be able to find Christ, in order that Christ may walk with each person the path of life, with the power of the truth about man and the world that is contained in the mystery of the Incarnation and the Redemption and with the power of the love that is radiated by that truth” (paragraph 13).

His life is summarised, I believe, in this thought. Personal conversion through crises, constant communion with Jesus Christ, seeking to know and understand humanity in all his stages of life and the personal manifestations of courage will be the gift of John Paul, a great pope.

The pattern of a mystery imprinted on a Pope

■ By Michelle Jones

The spirit pervading St Peter’s Square is almost palpable. A serene and reverent hush envelopes the tens of thousands of pilgrims who have gathered in the piazza to keep watch as the life of Pope John Paul II quietly flickers to its close.

The crowd is almost a microcosm of the universal Church: a small group of Polish sisters tearfully pray the rosary; two hundred young Italians play music and sing; an American woman sits alone, reflectively thumbing through her prayer-book; an African couple with their two small children hold hands in prayer. All eyes are fixed upwards on the windows of the Pope’s private apartments.

That was Saturday afternoon. Now, as I write this article some hours later, Vatican Radio has just announced – with great emotion and solemnity - the death of our Pope. The feelings of anticipa-

tion, awe and privilege of being in Rome at this time that pilgrims and Roman residents shared with me this afternoon have now no doubt dissolved into grief, bewilderment and quiet joy for the Holy Father. Bells of farewell toll sombrely outside my window. Silence has descended on my usually busy street.

I feel numb and deeply saddened while I struggle to comprehend the gift of my proximity to this historic event in the life of the Catholic Church.

As we now enter into a time of mourning, I recall the conversation I had earlier today with an American seminarian who studies in Rome. Having just returned to Rome after celebrating Easter in the Holy Land, he pointed out that the pattern of the Paschal Mystery is imprinted on the life of both Pope John Paul II, and the papacy itself. The 264th Pope dies and soon the 265th Pope will rise for just as John Paul is now with Jesus, Jesus is ever with His Church.

Perth young adults reflect on their experience of John Paul II

Bron Smith (Mobile Phone Sales, 21)

The Holy Father touched many hearts when I heard his words across the crowds over the days of World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto. He had so much joy and praise for God and the love spread. The way he kept changing language that even translators couldnt keep up, to make sure he told us of God’s love in our own native tongue. I pray that he may rest in God’s love for all the good he has done for God, and that he might walk into the gates of heaven with all those souls, especially the ones who have nobody to pray for them. I will never forget the joy and love I experienced from being near him, and the love I felt he had for the world.

Terence Boylen (Student, Politics and Law, 24)

Miracles and such aside, the Pope was a most remarkable model for young adults. He wasn’t naïve, or not in touch with the world. Instead, he was aware of the iniquity of the world, and was prepared to be a hero for the world, and for all men.

He’d speak to leaders of nations earnestly, and the next day, to a man on the street. I think it a testimony, the number of people you meet who have a personal story about the Pope, who he was in their life, how he affected them. He lived as a man, a servant, for all men. He was a model for me, and for many, of integrity, strength and peace.

Clare Pike (Respect Life Office, 26)

‘I don’t remember when the Pope became so important to me but I am certain that his example has been instrumental in getting me back to the faith and then leading me to give my life to God completely on a daily basis. The way he has grown closer to Christ despite the struggles in his life, and his consistent message of love in the face of world struggles, has been a tremendous inspiration for me and millions of other young people. I believe that his fiat to God’s will has brought about the blossoming of a new, unique and unrepeatable charism in the world. His personification of this charism in his radical commitment to strive for holiness provides a powerful revelation of God for everyone and I believe that others (especially those who have been gifted with this charism at creation) will be moved by his example to continue the work God has begun in him. I pray that I will be able to live the gospel as beautifully as this great man.’

Michelle Jones from Perth joins with pilgrims from throughout the world in St Peter’s Square on the day of Pope John Paul II’s death.

Medals for WA ex-MPs

Two retired West Australian State MPs may be the last people to have received the Papal Cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice from Pope John Paul II.

Phillip Pendal, formerly the Independent Member for South Perth, and Bill McNee, formerly the Liberal Member for Moore, were granted the awards on the recommendation of Archbishop Barry Hickey.

The awards were approved in Rome and were received in Perth just before Easter. They will be presented by Archbishop Hickey tomorrow night, Friday April 8.

The Archbishop said he had recommended both men for the award because of their fidelity to Catholic principals and values in the world of politics.

Both lifelong Catholics, they were examples of the way Catholic lay people could take part in community life at all levels without compromising their faith.

While Mr Pendal and Mr McNee were not alone in defending the sanctity of life in Parliament – many others, Catholic and nonCatholic alike, had stood with them – they deserved to be recognised on their retirement

for their fidelity to Catholic life and principles.

The award Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice (For the Church and the Pontiff) is made to clergy and laity for outstanding service.

The current Directory of the Catholic Church in Australia lists only 161 previous recipients.

By Hugh Ryan

A life’s dream come true

It is truly inspiring to witness the touching tributes paid to this outstanding man of our time. There are reports that some of our non-Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ have hailed him as “our Pope too!”. Representatives of other religions, such as Judaism and Islam, have joined in prayer in support for John Paul II at this sad time. Even the secular media has expressed recognition of the passing of a great human being.

It may be pertinent to speak of his upbringing in war torn Poland, his defeat of Communism by peaceful means, and even the athletic and dramatic talents of his youth. The most outstanding attribute of the Pope, however, was surely his Christ centred focus, hailing Jesus Christ as the same yesterday, today, forever.

In a society that minimises an understanding of our Redeemer to fit a culture that has lost a sense of the sacred and sense of sin, this Pope has been outstanding for his Courage, his fidelity to Truth, and his insistence on maintaining Hope.

John Paul II is indeed a Pope of Vatican II. Sadly there is a lack of awareness of what the Conciliar Documents actually said, as distinct from what some people would have liked them to say. His Encyclicals reflect Conciliar values, and focus on a universal call to holiness, a concept of which our culture has little, if any, understanding.

These values of the Pope shine forth in a world confused by moral relativism, and in the face of militant secularism, where freedom of speech is regarded as a privilege for anti-religious propaganda, while denying the same right to people of faith to raise their voices in response.

Let us place our trust in Our Lord’s promise, “I will be with you all days, even to the end of the world”, and in guidance of the Holy Spirit that came upon the Church at the First Pentecost. May we look forward with confidence to a new Pope who will follow in the footsteps of John Paul II.

Anne M. Kirkwood Attadale

In 2000 I was blessed with the opportunity to travel to Rome for World Youth Day (WYD). In the lead up I was excited about the idea of travelling but I had no idea how much meeting the man John Paul II would change my life.

The main event for the week of WYD was the vigil with the Pope. 2.1 million people gathered to sleep out under the stars and share Mass together. I never thought meeting the Pope would be so exciting or emotional. He arrived by helicopter and drove thru the crowd to LOUD cheers and chants of “JP2 we love you” and my favourite “Viva il papa”

Having the opportunity to experience the Holy Father and his personality made me see how real he is and how close to Jesus he is. That night John Paul shed tears at the testimonies of people from war torn countries, he clapped and swayed to the music, he shared his sense of humour with us, smiled, laughed and let people past security to hug him. Even though I was one person among millions I felt like he was speaking to me personally.

That night the Holy Father said “Dear young people, do not be afraid to become Saints for the new millennium.” The way he lived his life, his teachings and his fight for the importance of the truth have inspired me to want to do this.

I am forever grateful for the momentous opportunity God gave me to be on a journey to be with Pope John Paul II at World Youth Day (WYD) 2002 in Toronto. It was an eye-opening and life-changing experience in many ways.

Together with these young people, I am part of the generation that has so far only known one Pope. Pope John Paul II connects with this generation because his papacy was born around the time most of those present at World Youth Day, and it grew up‚ with us. His papal journey was with us from childhood to adulthood. Being in the presence of the Pope, not only did I feel, but I knew and believed the Popes fondness and love for humanity, especially the younger generation as the future of the Church.

Through his blessing from that WYD pilgrimage, and others that I share this journey with, many doors have been opened for me and many great things have happened.

The Pope spent his life reaching out to people, especially those in need. It gave me great inspiration to see the faithful in St. Peter’s Square reaching out to him in his moment of difficulty.

It was my dream in my life that I would one day get a chance to meet the Pontiff and receive His Apostolic Blessing. My dream finally came true to me on 19th May 2002 when I was there in the Vatican to offer a Holy Mass and to receive this apostolic blessing personally.

A personal encounter with the Pope is an unforgettable and life long memory in my life. My visit to the Holy Father has boosted and energised my personal faith and there is a deepest feeling of joy and fulfilment. I felt that God who has encountered me through the sacraments has uplifted me through the meeting with the Holy Father. I am delighted to reflect on my encounter with him in Rome and refresh my memories.

Holy Mass and Apostolic Blessing: After waiting for a week, I received a phone call the night before the Mass with the Pope. The Mass in his private chapel was a treasure to remember in my life. Priests from seven countries together with some lay people including a disabled person in his wheel chair offered the Mass, which was in Latin. He gave first holy communion to a young girl from Poland. I reflected on the sacraments of Eucharist and priesthood in one service. After the Mass, all of us gathered round in a hall and received his apostolic blessing privately.

Pope John Paul is a charismatic person who draws millions of hearts. I experienced the common bond among the priests who do not know each other and we all had something in common that is our faith in Christ, which united us together. That is the strength of the ONE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. I reflect on the words of St. Augustine who exclaims, “O sacrament of devotion! O signs of Unity! O bond of charity! (St. Augustine, Sermon 272: PL, 38, 1247) Eucharist is a great sign of unity and the centre of Christian life.

Fr Paul Raj Kwinana

Angela Han, (Student, Asian Studies and Commerce)

I think one of the major things that happened to do with the Pope at WYD was something that changed me. I never really paid much attention to the Pope...

I just knew he was the leader of my church, but I didn’t really care. But when I saw him for the first time in real life at Exhibition Centre, something came over me and I realised what an important and great person he was.

During the Mass at Downsview Airport, we were able to see the Pope becoming more lively because of us young people. He really believed in the future of the Church - the young people. And he loves each and every one of us! Even when he was on his death bed he remembered us youths.

He’s an ordinary guy who grew up in harsh times, during the Nazi regime as well as the Soviet oppression. But he’s great and inspiring because he has great faith, integrity... he sticks to his guns on issues and won’t sway just because of popular culture. Another inspiring thing is his ideals on peace, social justice... the dignity of life.

It is sad to see him die 84 yrs young. But even though he has died, he wants us to be happy - it is good to see that God has relieved him from his earthly pains and hopefully receieve him into heaven where JP2 belongs.

“Have no fear on moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you” - Pope

Daryl Pranata (Engineer, 24)

Bronia (Leisure Officer, 26)

Bishop Donald Sproxton displays the medals to be presented to retired MPs Phillip Pendal and Bill McNee.

Pope John Paul II on his visit to Perth in 1986.

Photo: Phil Bayne, CEO Media

A life in union with suffering

■ By Fr Richard Smith

As a priest and a chaplain I have had discussions with a number of folk over the past two years concerning Pope John Paul II. It was interesting that so many people had unsolicited opinions which they wanted to share with me.

Most thought he should at least retire. A few thought he should be released from his suffering by medical means [euthanasia]. After a further discussion with a family member over the weekend as the Holy Father lay dying I could finally put a name to the place where people are coming from. It seems the issue is what we feel about another person’s suffering,

It has to do with what upsets us, rather than the other person’s experience of their own journey. We don’t like to be upset by another person’s suffering.

In one instance quoted to me the person concerned has a degenerative disease. Eleven years ago a feeding tube was inserted directly into the stomach. This person is still alive but is now even more debilitated. Death seems a desirable option to the friend as they watch the other’s suffering. The point I wish to make here is that it is not about our suffering or our uncomfortable feelings, we are to remember that we are companions in the journey of another even if it is a journey of suffering leading to death.

In a very public way the Holy Father shared his suffering with the world and with us. In recent years every time we saw television footage of him or heard a sound byte on the radio news of him, John Paul II was frail and

In September 1985, my daughter Felicity, son Justin and I visited Rome and attended a Papal ceremony in St Peter’s Square.

John Paul II addressed the crowd and then proceeded to shake hands with the people.

However instead of beginning with the 100 or so VIP’s sitting in the front row, he walked to the side and began the contact with a group of Polish nuns.

We just happened to be behind them and the Holy Father shook the hand of my daughter and son and asked Justin “Czechoslovak?” to which he answered, “No, Australian!”

The previous day there were a group of young Czechoslovak people visiting the Vatican.

In July 1989 my wife and I

obviously faced growing physical disabilities. In spite of these difficulties he continued in his responsibilities as our father, pastor and shepherd in the life of Holy Mother Church.

This image of a suffering pontiff was difficult for many people to deal with. We associate leadership with strength, vitality, robustness and an ‘OK’ physical image. The Holy Father was following the way of Jesus in his suffering.

Jesus’ suffering is both obvious and hidden. The obvious suffering leads us to the cross on Good Friday. Jesus publicly suffers and dies on the cross that we may know and discern that

visited Europe. While in Rome we attended one of John Paul II’s Wednesday audiences in the Nervi auditorium.

We were seated next to a Japanese couple.

Thw woman was dressed in her resplendent Kimono.

At the end of the audience we introduced ourselves and the man told us he was an Economics professor from Nagoya.

They were not Catholic or even Christian but had high regard for the Holy Father.

For the next 16 years we exchanged Christmas Cards, Last year one of their daughters responded to our card saying that her father had gone to his eternal reward.

John Barich Claremont

Jesus understands our suffering and he offers another means of dealing with the suffering, pain and destruction that is around us and within us.

We catch glimpses of the hidden moments of suffering in the Gospel pages. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, and he is sorrowful as the rich young man goes on his way after nearly becoming a follower. Jesus struggles to get his disciples to understand his teaching. Jesus weeps over the death of his friend Lazarus, and he is both sorrowful and angry over acts of injustice.

John Paul II’s continued and profound interest and concern in the suffering of humanity was

seen on the world stage in the various meetings he arranged. For example, the meetings he arranged between himself and Muslim and Jewish leaders.

We also witnessed his concern and his suffering in his many writings as he reached out to people and their particular circumstances. Using the gospel image from the Parable of the Good Samaritan John Paul II left us in no doubt how he felt about the suffering of AIDS-affected people of the African continent.

As you and I reflect on the life of our beloved Pope and the legacies he has graced us with, there is much we can learn from his embrace of suffering. He leads

us to see the Suffering and Risen Christ who is at the centre of our faith.

He leads us to understand that we have a role to play in alleviating suffering of others and ourselves. He also directs our attention to the reality that sometimes we can only share the journey with the suffering that is within us and around us. Like John Paul II we must allow Christ to transform this suffering into an Easter experience.

Rest eternal grant unto him O Lord. And let light perpetual shine upon him. Amen.

Fr Richard Smith is the Catholic Chaplain at Royal Perth Hospital.

Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity, their work and those they helped had a special place in John Paul II’s thoughts and prayers.

Photo: CNS/Reuters

We’re only part-way there

■ By Clare Pike, of the archdiocesan Respect Life Office

John Paul II could recognise the greatness of every single human being and in doing so he was able to experience Christ when he encountered people

It was his life’s work to help others to do the same by recapitulating the inviolable mystery of the human person, because he believed that it is only in understanding the truth about the human person that our intelligence is enlightened and our freedom shaped, leading us to know and love the Lord.

From an early age, Pope John Paul II experienced the loss of many whom he loved under the totalitarian occupation of the Nazi regime. In response to the horrific atrocities of World War II, many went mad; others despaired, drifted into depression or turned to communism. But John Paul II committed his life to revealing the sacredness of each person and building a culture of life.

During his pontificate John Paul II coined the phrases ‘cul-

ture of life’ and ‘culture of death’ to describe the battle between good and evil that is raging in our society. The culture of death is increasingly evident in the persistent attacks against the innate dignity of human beings.

The Pope highlighted that while we have developed an increasing sensitivity to human rights on the one hand, on the other, we have not succeeded in applying them to the defense of the weakest and most vulnerable members of our community such as the elderly, dying, disabled and unborn.

JPII believed that the three main causes of the culture of death were:

■ our wrong notion of freedom;

■ a lack of a sense of God (and a moral compass), and

■ the undermining of human life (failing to recognise the dignity of the human person).

These are a result of various factors such as the crisis in the family, widespread ethical confusion, new technologies and a rise in persuasive anti-life ideologies (such as individualism, materialism and utilitarianism). All of these, he says, have prevented the flourishing of humanity.

In order to address this crisis in civilisation the Pope developed the principle of Christian humanism. Integral to this was his issuing of Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) in 1995 (it was the 10th anniversary of this document the day after he passed

away). It is the only papal encyclical ever written on bioethics, and it proclaims the Gospel as it relates to the most fundamental human right - life itself.

It is divided into four parts. It begins by pointing out the modern threats to human life, and it goes on to proclaim the truth about the importance of each life, the inviolability of that life and it then exhorts us to establish a new civilisation of truth and love.

In his call to action, the Pope implores us to bring this message to all spheres of life such as science, medicine, teaching, technology and the family home. One example of such action that he provided was the establishment of a day for the celebration of life each year.

The Perth diocese will celebrate its third Respect Life Sunday on May, 2005. The theme is ‘hope and healing for those who have lost a child.’

One could expect that there would be a few who would react against the Pope’s teaching in this tremendous encyclical, especially because it was with the highest possible level of papal authority, that he clearly declared that the killing of the innocent, abortion and euthanasia are wrong. The Pope also narrowed the circumstances in which he considered capital punishment would be morally justifiable. However, while exposing the greatest evils of our time, this beautiful pastoral letter is steeped in compassion and hope. The Holy Father was

emphatic on the need for love when presenting this truth, and his own words to women who have experienced abortion are an excellent example of this.

During his life, he referred to Evangelium Vitae as ‘a message of hope’. In an ad limina address in 1998 the Holy Father said that “in a culture that has difficulty in defining the meaning of life, death and suffering, the Christian message is the good news of Christ’s victory over death and the certain hope of resurrection.”

In living this message of hope John Paul II has called us to first learn the truth about the human person, that we are a unity of body and soul.

In living this message of hope John Paul II has called us to first learn the truth about the human person, that we are a unity of body and soul made in the image of God and cannot be reduced to the value of our qualities.

Our immeasurable worth is grounded in the Incarnation when God became an embryo. At this moment, He united Himself in a special way with each person and it is through our flesh that he continues to reveal Himself

(thus JPII is able to proclaim that any rejection of human life is in actual fact a rejection of Christ).

It is only in discovering and exploring this mysterious wisdom about the human person (regardless of a person’s condition or appearance) that we are able to truly love one another and bring about a new culture of truth and love.

At the end of the day, the Holy Father’s message about the value of human life is not true simply because it has been central to all of his teaching. This truth has been imprinted in our hearts since the beginning of time and it can be understood in the light of reason.

Therefore it speaks to everyone and not just Catholics.

The Pope has left us with a challenging but exciting mission: “What is called for is a general mobilisation of consciences and a united ethical effort to activate a great campaign in support of life. All together we must build a new culture of life.”

He would traditionally finish off his speeches with a prayer to Our Lady.

We too, therefore, ask our Blessed Mother to join her prayers with those of Pope John Paul II to intercede for us that we might be redeemed, our wounds healed and that the Holy Spirit would be poured into our lives to help us “respect, protect, love and serve life, every human life.”

The D’Orsogna family & company wish to pay their last respects to a great man who accomplished so much that touched the world. May he rest in peace in eternal life.

New movements a sign of renewal

■ By Jamie O’Brien

One of the greatest legacies left by John Paul II is his care and nurture of the new movements of the Church.

The Second Vatican Council had taught that charismatic gifts, or ‘special graces,’ were given by the Holy Spirit to individuals or groups, thus creating a source of renewed spirituality within the Church.

Under the papacy of John Paul II, new movements such as Communion and Liberation and Focolare flourished, as did the personal prelature of Opus Dei.

The-then 82-year old pontiff was also responsible for overseeing the finalisation of the statutes in June 2002 of the Neocatechumenal Way, known not as a movement but as an itinerary of faith, in which followers belong to small parish based communities.

Another much wider movement, which includes not one but numerous groups, and for whom John Paul II had much love, is the Charismatic movement.

Charismatic renewal offshoots such as the Disciples of Jesus and the Holy Spirit of Freedom Community here in Australia

have spread worldwide during the papacy of John Paul II.

Even though some members of the Church viewed many of the new movements with suspicion and criticism, the support and encouragement of John Paul II brought balance to the situation.

The explosive growth of movements inspired by charismatic individuals caused tensions within the institutional Church wrote Pope John Paul II’s biographer, George Weigel, as parishes and dioceses tried to find a place for renewal groups that sometimes didn’t fit very easily into established patterns of doing the Church’s business.

As Archbishop of Krakow, Pope John Paul II had been willing to live with that tension. Encouraging renewal movements was one of the central aims of his pontificate.

On the Vigil of Pentecost in May 1998, members from these movements, together with half a million people, accepted an invitation from John Paul II to celebrate a new moment of ecclesial maturity.

The crowd spilled out of St Peter’s Square in what is now known as the largest celebration of the Church’s charismatic element in Roman history.

Testimonies were given by Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare movement, which takes fostering the unity of the human race as its mission, by Kiko Arguello of the Neocatechumenal Way, which is dedicated to the evangelisation of the far away and the re-evangelisation of the those already in the Church, and by Monsignor Luigi Giussani, found-

er of Communion and Liberation, an Italian based renewal movement that has spread throughout the world.

In his address, John Paul II spoke of their meeting saying it was “as though what happened in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago was being repeated this evening in this Square.”

“The Holy Spirit is here with us!” John Paul II remarked.

“It is he who is the soul of this marvellous event of ecclesial communion.”

No event like this had happened in the history of the

With a spirit of renewal

These groups in Perth are just some of the many examples of the spirit of the charismatic renewal fostered under John Paul II

Charismatic Movements

In his homily of November 2002 to the Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities and Fellowships, in which the Disciples of Jesus are included, John Paul II encouraged members to make their communities living signs of hope, beacons of Christ’s Good News for the men and women of our time.

According to it’s website, the Disciples of Jesus Covenant Community is a group of Christians who have been led by the Lord to bind themselves to Him and also one another in the form of public commitment.

Their call is to live a Christian lifestyle, in family and single life, through openness to the charismatic gifts, worship and prayer, sharing and teaching, and support for one another. Covenant Communities are

located in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Wollongong, Adelaide, Darwin, Cairns, Canberra as well as Manila and Port Moresby.

“To be authentic witnesses to hope means to be authentic witnesses to the truth and vision of life entrusted to and proclaimed by the Church,” John Paul II said.

Disciples of Jesus founder Colin Sutton, who has met with John Paul II on three occasions, said the Pope was very keen to protect Covenant Communities like Disciples of Jesus because he saw them as a movement of the Holy Spirit and an opportunity for lay people to participate in the life of the Church.

In a meeting with John Paul II in Rome, Mr Sutton was able to ask the Pope for a message to take back to Australia.

“The world is new, go make it new again,” he replied.

Following this, the Pope continued to meet other people at the occasion, but returned to Mr Sutton and said “This is a very hard message for you to give.”

■

The Holy Spirit of Freedom Community

The Holy Spirit of Freedom Community, founded in Melbourne in 1986 by Rev Frank Feain, (a Permanent Deacon within the Perth Archdiocese) with the help of his wife, Lu Feain, Fr Patrick Barry and Elena Reidy, has since become established in Perth and the Philippines.

The movement is particularly committed to serving street kids, and its members live an intense life of prayer.

Holy Spirit of Freedom Community Leader Josephine Bendotti said the HSF community has always felt a deep personal connection to Pope John Paul II.

“His choice to reach out beyond his own suffering to others is and always will be an inspiration in our work with those less fortunate,” she said.

“We are deeply saddened to lose this prayerful and compassionate man of God who was able to reach out equally in love, dedication and service to the most powerful and the most powerless members of our world.”

- Jamie O‘Brien

Church, said Weigel. The lay men and women-led movements and communities, some of whom had taken permanent vows of poverty and chastity while continuing to work professionally in the world, were neither traditional religious orders nor religious societies of the sort usually found in every Catholic parish.

Throughout the Church’s history, it had usually been the popes, rather than the local bishops, who had encouraged charismatic and renewal movements.

As Pope, John Paul II continued that pattern with consequences for the Church in the third millennium that are profound, and may well be surprising.

Opus Dei

Founded in Spain in 1928 by Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Opus Dei counts more than 85,000 members throughout the world.

David Bolton, from the Information Office of Opus Dei for Oceania in Sydney, said Opus Dei’s primary goal is to promote a profound awareness of the universal call to holiness among men and women from all walks of life.

“Particularly in the workplace and at home,” Mr Bolton said.

“This is the message that the Church uses and the task.”

As Cardinal, John Paul II had long been sympathetic to the work of Opus Dei, having spoken at one of its student centres in Rome during the 1970’s.

In his biography, Weigel says it was not surprising when, as Pope, John Paul II was sympathetic to Opus Dei’s request that it be recognised as a ‘personal prelature,’ a jurisdictional innovation in the Church envisioned by Vatican II.

So on November 28 1982, Opus Dei was formally recognised by apostolic constitution as the Church’s first personal prelature by John Paul II.

Furthermore, John Paul II resisted pressure from critics when he beatified its founder, Josemaría Escrivá in May 1992.

“To elevate the world for God and transform it from within:

this is the ideal the holy founder points out to you,” John Paul II said in his homily for the occasion.

“He continues to remind you of the need not to let yourselves be frightened by a materialist culture that threatens to dissolve the genuine identity of Christ’s disciples.”

Joaquín Navarro-Valls, whom many would have seen on television in the final days of John Paul II’s life as papal spokesman and director of the Holy See Press Office, is also a member of Opus Dei.

Focolare

At a meeting with members of the Focolare movement in 1990, John Paul II encouraged “…the charge of fervour which you intend to pass on to all who make up the Focolare and the clarity of the Christian ideal which you propose to reach within your consciences.”

The movement’s main objective is to work for the unity of humanity and it is present in more than 198 countries. It was founded by Chiara Lubich in 1943. Focolare was officially recognised in 1962 by Pope John XXIII under the official name, “The Work of Mary.”

Since becoming Pope, John Paul II has also been present at numerous Mariapolis (meaning City of Mary) gatherings.

During a visit to the Focolare Centre in August 1984, John Paul II said how good it is that the movement was founded.

“This is the source of inspiration for all that is done under the name Focolare, of all that you do in the world,”

“In the history of the Church, there have been many forms of the radicalism of love,”

“There is also your radicalism of love,”

“Love opens the way,”

“I hope that thanks to you, this way may be always more open for the Church,” he said.

The Neocatechumenal Way

For the Neocatechumenal Way,

Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims pack St. Peter’s Square and nearby streets during the canonisation of Opus Dei founder Mgr Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer on October 6, 2002 at the Vatican. Photo: CNS

John Paul II defined its nature when he wrote, “I recognise the Neocatechumenal Way as an itinerary of Catholic formation, valid for our society and for our times.”

The Neocatechumenate functions in small parish based communities, following steps of faith meant to evoke the process of full initiation into the Church, as experienced by the early Christians.

It started in 1964 in the slums of Madrid, Spain, through the work of Kiko Argüello and Carmen Hernandez.

In an address to the initiators of the Neocatechumenal Way on the approval of its statutes in June 2002, John Paul II said “How can we fail to thank the Lord for the fruits the Neocatechumenal Way has borne in the more than 30 years since it came into being?”

“In a secularised society like ours, where religious indifference is spreading and many live as though God did not exist, there are multitudes who need to rediscover the sacraments of Christian initiation, especially Baptism,” John Paul II said.

“The Way is certainly one of the providential answers to this urgent need,” he said.

John Paul II went on to invite those present from the Neocatechumenal Communities to look at their communities and to contemplate how many have “rediscovered the beauty and greatness of their baptismal vocation.”

Communion and Liberation

On the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of Communion and Liberation, in September 1984, John Paul II addressed members of the movement saying, “Looking at your faces, so happy on this festive occasion, I feel an intimate sense of joy and the desire to demonstrate to you my affection for your devotion to faith and to help you to become ever more mature adults

in Christ, sharing in his redemptive love for mankind.”

The movement was founded by Monsignor Luigi Giussani in 1954 and is defined as an ecclesiastical movement of education in the faith.

In the meeting with members of the movement, John Paul II encouraged them to “Go out into all the world as bearers of the truth, beauty, and peace that are encountered in Christ the Redeemer.”

Perth spokesman for Communion and Liberation, Associate Professor John Kinder, was in Rome at the time of John Paul II’s election.

“The Communion and Liberation movement saw in John Paul II someone who grasped the reality that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and everything else flows from that,” Mr Kinder said.

Mr Kinder went on to say that Communion and Liberation warmed to the Pope because he had kept inviting members of the movement to return to the origin of their faith and why Christ has brought them together, “not because we like each other or that we had decided to be together but because Christ is the expression of the infinite mystery.”

Mr Kinder also said that one important trait for the new Pope will be that he should be a person who places Christ at the centre of his own existence and at that of the Church.

“John Paul II helped us to understand that the Church is moving, the movement is towards Christ, and Communion and Liberation only exists to help members meet Christ.”

In his concluding address for the movement’s 30th anniversary,

John Paul II encouraged members of the movement to bring to the whole world the simple and transparent sign of the “event of the Church.”

“Authentic evangelisation understands and responds to the needs of the individual man because it helps him to find Christ in the Christian community,” John Paul II said.

In his concluding statement for the gathering in May 1998, John

Paul II said a new stage is unfolding, in which renewal movements would bring the mature fruits of communion and commitment to the Church, and the institutional Church would be renewed by the vibrant Christian life being lived in movements that hadn’t emerged out of the Church’s standard structures.

The Perth Archdiocese has seen the fruits of this new stage unfold with Opus Dei,

the Neocatechumenal Way, Communion and Liberation, the Focolare, and Charismatic movements such as Disciples of Jesus and the Holy Spirit of Freedom Community and others now forming a strong presence.

While he did not found them, the fostering of the new movements, all very different from each other yet all believing in the same faith, is clearly one of Pope John Paul II’s great legacies.

He held the keys, to open the doors of Heaven

The following testimony is from Chiara Lubich, Foundress of the Focolare Movement.

Truly a great Pope has left us, a great saint! How I would love it if the times of the saints were proclaimed by the voice of the people were to return. The young people would be the first ones in line!

His sanctity. I can give a personal testimony. Often, after an audience with him, I had the impression that heaven opened for me. I found myself directly linked to God, in a very dense union with him, without any intermediaries. It’s because the Pope is a mediator, but once he has linked you with God, he disappears. I seemed to have understood more deeply what the actual charism of the Pope is. The keys to open heaven for us are not only to cancel sins, but also to open heaven to us to union with God.

Wouldn’t this explain that joy, that enthusiasm, that attraction that the Pope always evoked in young people, and in men and women from every race, culture, religion and creed whom he met all over the world? And those historical situations, which he completely reversed in these 27 years? This Pope communicated with God and He “makes new all things”. A “Presence” which became ever stronger, as the suffering borne by the Pope became ever more intense right up to the last hour.

But in this moment I cannot fail to express my deepest gratitude for the many other doors opened by those keys: the Pope has always thrown open widely the doors to the new things of the spirit, which he also recognised in our movement, giving it continual encouragement and support, recognising it as a gift of God and hope for people.

Msgr. Luigi Giussani, founder of the Communion and Liberation lay movement, meets Pope John Paul II, May 30, 1998.

Photo: CNS

Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement, receives an honorary doctorate degree Nov. 10 from The Catholic University of America in Washington. Photo: CNS

WA’s Parliament offers condolences

■ By Hugh Ryan

The Government and Opposition combined in State Parliament on Tuesday to pass a condolence motion for Pope John Paul II.

Moved by the Premier and seconded by the Opposition Leader, the motion read: “This House records its sincere regret at the death of Pope John Paul II and tenders its deep sympathy to all members of the Catholic community on the loss of their spiritual leader.”

The Premier described the Pope as an extraordinary and influential Christian who helped shape the late twentieth-century world.

“He was a spiritual inspiration to Catholics all over the world and, like all great religious leaders, he saw that the rampant materialism and consumerism of the rich countries and the poverty and injustice of the Third World undermined the potentiality inherent within the human conditions,” he said.

“He was also a political inspiration to oppressed peoples all over the world through his strong belief in religious tolerance, human rights and democracy.”

Opposition Leader Matt Birney described the Pope as “truly one of the great leaders of our time”.

The extraordinary public interest in his life and death and the probability of more than two million people attending his funeral

was “a true reflection of the measure of this man”.

Police Minister Michelle Roberts said he was not only the spiritual leader of the world’s one billion Catholics and the world’s most prominent Christian, but was also the world’s most significant and enduring leader in the last quarter of a century.

Born into very humble circumstances … “he was a champion of human rights on the world stage, promoting justice, peace and freedom.”

Deputy Opposition Leader Paul Omodei “a proud Roman Catholic” said there was much to celebrate in the Pope’s life.

The Pope began his life as a Catholic priest at age 26 as a curate in the shadows of the Carpathian mountains at a place where there was no electricity and no running water. He was a bishop by age 38, a cardinal at 47, and Pope at 58.

He survived a shooting by a Turk, an attempted stabbing by a rebel Spanish priest, had an intestinal tumour removed, had a broken leg and broken shoulder, and suffered the visible illnesses of his later years, but was described by world leaders as “a beacon of light and a visionary committed to God’s service”.

Among the many other speakers to the condolence motion, Disability Services Minister Bob Kucera said “there is no doubt … this Polish Pope was the catalyst who toppled the first communist domino in Eastern Europe”.

A pontificate by the numbers

Among the statistics to be released about the life of Pope John Paul II after his death last weekend were some of the following which give an idea of how much he achieved.

The figures were issued by the Vatican Information service.

John Paul II, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, archbishop of Krakow, was elected as the 264th Pope on the second ballot of the second day of the second conclave of 1978, just five months after his 58th birthday. Six days later, on October 22, 1978, his pastoral ministry was inaugurated.

April 2, the day of his death, marked the 9,664th day of his pontificate, calculating from October 22, 1978.

His is the 3rd longest pontificate in the history of the papacy. The longest was that of St Peter (precise dates unknown), followed by Pope Pius IX (1846-78: 31 years, 7 months, 17 days).

In his 26 and a half years as Pope, John Paul II held nine consistories in which he has created 232 cardinals, of whom one is “in pectore.” He has created all but three of the 117 cardinal electors who will enter into conclave.

From the start of his pontificate, the Holy Father named over 3,500 of the world’s nearly 4,200 bishops. He met each of them a number of times over the years, particularly when they fulfill their quinquennial obligation of a visit “ad limina Apostolorum.”

He has written 14 encyclicals, 14 apostolic exhortations, 11 apostolic constitutions, 42 apostolic letters and 28 Motu proprio in addition to hundreds of other messages and letters. In

preparation for the Jubilee Year 2000, Pope John Paul wrote the Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente , dated November 10, 1994, and published four days later. He also created the Committee for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000.

He wrote five books: Crossing the Threshold of Hope (1994), Gift and Mystery (1996), Roman Triptych (poetry, 2003), Arise, Let us Be Going (2004) and Memory and Identity (2005).

Aged 84 when he died Pope John Paul II presided over 15 synods of bishops: six ordinary (1980, 1983, 1987, 1990, 1994, 2001), one extraordinary (1985) and eight special assemblies (1980, 1991, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998 (two synods) and 1999).

Over the years, the Holy Father undertook 104 pastoral visits outside Italy, the last of which was to Lourdes in August 2004. He made 143 trips within Italy and nearly 700 within the city and diocese of Rome, including visits to 301 of the 325 parishes of the diocese of which he is bishop, in addition to religious institutes, universities, seminaries, hospitals, rest homes, prisons and schools.

With his 247 foreign and Italian pastoral visits, Pope John Paul II reached the 1,167,295 kilometre mark (700,380 miles), that is, over 28 times the earth’s circumference or three times the distance between the earth and moon.

While in Rome, the Pope welcomed an average of one million people per year, including between 400,000-500,000 who attended the weekly general audiences in addition to those who came for special liturgical functions such as Christmas and Easter Masses, beatifications and canonisations. He also received approximately 150,000-180,000 people per year

in audiences granted to particular groups, heads of state and governments.

At the start of John Paul’s pontificate the Holy See had diplomatic relations with 85 countries. It now has relations with 174 countries, as well as with the European Union and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. It has relations of a special nature with the Russian Federation and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

According to the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff, over the past 26 years the Pope has proclaimed 1,339 Blesseds in 143 ceremonies and 483 Saints in 52 ceremonies.

He founded the John Paul II Institute for the Sahel in February of 1984, and the “Populorum Progressio” Foundation for the Indigenous Peoples of Latin America in February of 1992. He also founded the Pontifical Academies for Life and for Social Sciences.

In addition, he instituted the World Day of the Sick (celebrated annually on February 11) and World Youth Day (WYD). The 20th youth day will be celebrated this August in Cologne, Germany. The Pope himself chose the themes and developed its contents in an annual Message to the Youth of the World.

Karol Jozef Wojtyla, known as Pope John Paul II since his election over 26 years ago, was born in Wadowice, a small city 50 kilometers from Krakow, on May 18, 1920.

He was the second of two sons born to Karol Wojtyla and Emilia Kaczorowska. His mother died giving birth to a third childstillborn - in 1929. His eldest brother Edmund, a doctor, died in 1932 and his father, a noncommissioned army officer, died in 1941.

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OFFICIAL DIARY

APRIL

8 Presentation of Papal Awards to Hon Philip Pendal and Mr Bill McNee

Archbishop Hickey

8-10 Canonical Parish Visitation, New Norcia - Bishop Sproxton

9 Retreat Talks for “A Day with Mary”, MaddingtonArchbishop Hickey

Mass for 25th anniversary of the death of Mgr Romero, West Perth - Archbishop Hickey

AGM Council of Churches - Fr Kevin Long

12 Heads of Churches Meeting, Wollaston CollegeArchbishop Hickey

13 Public Lecture by Prof John Coleman SJ, UWA - Bishop Sproxton

14 Council of Priests Meeting, Redemptorist MonasteryArchbishop Hickey, Bishop Sproxton

Opening Mass of Catholic Prayer Festival, New NorciaArchbishop Hickey

PANORAMA a roundup of events in the archdiocese

Dear reader

Please be advised that the deadline for Panorama items has been brought forward to 4.30pm on Mondays.

If you would like your notice to be included in the Archdiocesan Panorama please contact Eugene Suares on 9227 7080 or email: administration@therecord. com.au.

Saturday April 9

DAY WITH MARY

Holy Family, 375 Alcock St, Maddington. 9am5pm. Commences with video on Fatima. Includes day of prayer, Sacrament of Penance, Holy Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, Sermons by Most Rev B J Hickey, Rosaries, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Stations of the Cross. BYO. Enq Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate - 9250 8286.

Saturday April 9

DAY OF RETREAT

The Holy Spirit of Freedom Community is having a day retreat, 10am-5pm, St Anne’s Parish Hall, 11 Hehir St, Belmont. Times for praise and worship, sharing, talks, and Sacrament of Reconciliation. Concludes with Charismatic Mass. Please bring and share lunch. Enq Mark/ Peter 9228 1800

Sunday April 10 ETERNAL WORD TELEVISION NETWORK

1 - 2 PM ON ACCESS 31. Tribute to Pope John Paul II, Almost an Autobiography. Be part of the

New Evangelisation by promoting these wonderful programs among your family and friends. Your prayerful and financial support is needed if they are to continue. The Rosary Christian Tutorial Association, PO Box 1270, Booragoon 6954. Enq 9330 1170.

Thursday April 14

HEALING MASS

In honour of St Peregrine patron of Cancer sufferers and helper of all in need, will be held at the Church of SS John and Paul, Pinetree Gully Rd, Willeton from 7pm. There will be Veneration of the Relic and anointing of the sick. Enq Noreen Monaghan 9498 7727

Thursday April 14

MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT GROUP

Hills and Eastern Suburbs Support Group. Next meeting at Kelmscott Church of the Good Shepherd Parish Hall, 42 Streich Ave. Commencing at 12noon with light lunch till 2pm. Enq Barbara Harris 9328 8113, Clive 9495 1919, Charles 9497 7170

Friday April 15

NEW AND DIVINE HOLINESS PRAYER GROUP

All night Eucharistic vigil at St. Bernadettes Church, Jugan Street, Glendalough commencing 9pm. Readings and reflections on the Hours of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ with hourly rosaries and hymns. Concludes Saturday morning with Parish Mass at 7.30am followed by Rosary and Benediction. All welcome. Enq 94446131.

Friday April 15

NEW AND DIVINE HOLINESS PRAYER GROUP

All night Eucharistic vigil at St Bernadette’s Church, Jugan Street, Glendalough, commencing 9pm. Readings and reflections on the hours of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, with hourly rosaries and hymns. Concludes Saturday morning with Parish Mass at 7.30am, followed by rosary and Benediction. All welcome. Enq 9444 6131/9342 5845

Saturday April 16

NEW LIFE IN GOD’S SPIRIT SEMINAR

For spiritual refreshment and growth in living a life empowered by the Holy Spirit. The Holy

Spirit of Freedom Community is presenting a 7 week seminar commencing 16 April, 10.30am12.30pm at St Anne’s Parish Hall, 11 Hehir St, Belmont and continuing each Saturday till 28 May. Enq Mark/Peter 9228 1800.

Saturday April 16

PILGRIMAGE TO NEW NORCIA IN HONOUR OF OUR LADY OF GOOD COUNSEL

Bus to New Norcia visiting all the Chapels, with Holy Mass, Benediction, Litanies, and other devotions. Bus will leave from Mercedes College off Goodrich St, opposite Jewell House at 8.15am returning at 8.30pm. All welcome. Be quick. Enq Fr Michael Rowe 9444 9604

Saturday & Sunday April 16 &17

DREAMS AND SYMBOLS WORKSHOP

With Sr. Pat Quinn Director Portiuncular Centre, Toowoomba, Queensland. Enq: Pauline - (08) 9528 3647

Sunday April 17

GATE OF HEAVEN

Please join us at 7.30pm on 107.9 FM, Radio Fremantle, for more Global Catholic Radio. This week we will feature, Hail Holy Queen with Dr Scott Hahn “The Bible and The Glorious Mysteries”, G.K. Chesterton with Dale Alquist “Eugenics and other Evils.” Donations toward the program may be sent to Gate of Heaven, PO Box 845, Claremont, WA 6910.

Sunday April 17

FINAL PART QUEEN OF ALL SAINTS BIBLE FORUM OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES PRESENTATION

All Saints Chapel, 77 Allendale Square St. Georges Terrace, Perth. Bible Focus 3pm, Church History 4pm, True Devotion to Mary 5:30pm and at 6.15pm Rosary and Benediction.

Sunday April 17

TAIZE MEDITATIVE PRAYER

Each third Sunday of the month from 7pm - 8pm. Come and join in the prayer in a candlelit chapel. At the Sisters of St Joseph’s Chapel,16 York Street, South Perth. Enq Sister Maree Riddler on 9334 0933/9457 3371

Saturday April 23 MERCEDES LEAVING CLASS OF 1975: 30 YEAR REUNION.

Mercedes College Hall. 1-3 pm. Help need to contact as many ex-students as we can. Contact Carol on 9458 6437, or Kathy on 9361 7220, or email: kathymac58@hotmail.com for more info.

Sunday May 1

THIRD ORDER CONVENTION CANCELLATION

I wish to advice that the Convention of Third Orders to celebrate the Year of the Eucharist, which was scheduled for the above date has been cancelled due to unforseen circumstances. An alternative function may be possible at a future date. If you have not been already advised please contact Adrian Briffa phone 9446 2147 or email knight@wa1.quik.com.au

Sunday May 1

THE BOVE FARM MAY ROSARY RALLY 25th Anniversary Celebration in Honour of Our Lady to be held at the Queen of the Holy Rosary Grotto, Bove’s Farm, Roy Road, Jindong. Hymn singing commences at 12.30pm. Holy concelebrated Mass led by Bishop Gerard Holohan commences 1pm, followed by Rosary Procession and Benediction. Afternoon tea provided. All welcome. Bus bookings from Perth to Bove Farm can be made with Francis Williams ph 9459 3873. Roy Road runs off the Bussell Highway, halfway between Busselton and Margaret River DIVINE MERCY HOLY HOURS

The Divine Mercy Apostolate invites you all to come and join us by rolling out the red carpet for Jesus in the following churches, St Mary’s Cathedral each first Sunday of the month from 1.30pm-3.15pm with a different priest each month . St Frances Xavier Church, Windsor St East Perth each Saturday

50TH ANNIVERSARY OF OUR LADY OF HELP OF CHRISTIANS CHURCH

Mukinbudin Catholic Church invites all past parishioners and religious to attend. Names, photographs and memorabilia are needed as soon as possible for a short history. Please inform if attending. Marle McInnes 9048 4011. Box 34, Mukinbudin WA 6479

I have looked for you. Now you have come to me. And I thank you.

(Final words of Pope John Paul II to the young people gathered in St Peter’s Square during his last hours)