The Record Newspaper 07 May 2008

Introducing Kids bitz

Miracle number two

Blessed Damien’s intercession officially recognised, clearing the way for Canonisation as ‘Saint Damien’

Vatican theologians see miracle in Hawaiian woman’s cancer cure.

■

By

Anna Weaver

HONOLULU (CNS) - Theological consultors to the Vatican Congregation for Saints’ Causes have ruled that the cancer cure of an Hawaiian woman was due to Blessed Damien de Veuster’s intercession, Honolulu Bishop Larry Silva announced on April 29. The life of Blessed Damien was dramatised in the 1999 movie Molokai - the story of Father Damien, which starred Australian actor and Lord of The Rings star David Wenham.

The decision represents a major step forward in Father Damien’s cause for canonisation. The final actions required to declare the priest a saint are the endorsement of the congregation’s committee of cardinals and bishops and the approval of the Pope.

Father Damien, the 19th-century Belgian missionary of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary who spent the final 16 years of his Continued - Page - 10

EASTERN FIRE

Bringing their own special history and spirituality to bear, Perth’s Ukrainian Catholics celebrated the triumph of Jesus’s resurrection last weekend.

Vista 2-3

GO TRACEY GO

ment of Pope Benedict XVI. It’s already being regarded as a classic. Page 4

Do all of this in memory of Christ, Perth priest says

Mass is not a fastfood, drive-through event, but a sacred meal we are privileged to partake in, says Rockingham priest.

■ By Anthony Barich

ROCKINGHAM par-

ish priest Fr Michael Separovich has confronted head on the issue of parishioners who turn up late to Mass and leave straight after Holy Communion.

Fr Separovich, who took over at Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Rockingham after Fr Finbarr Walsh retired, issued a lengthy statement in the parish’s The Star bulletin on April 20 emphasising exactly when the liturgical celebration begins and ends.

He is appalled that some parishioners even arrive at Mass during the Offertory, saying that the “adopted formula of ‘come in late and leave early, or come

in early and leave early’ is neither the desired attitude nor praxis to have in one’s mind and heart when it concerns our Lord’s invitation to partake in His most sacred and intimate meal”.

Fr Separovich, parish priest since last year, stressed at the outset of his message that what he shared came from “priestly duty, ie to inform and to instruct the faithful with due necessity”.

“It is neither my intent to personally offend nor single out any one person or group of people,” he said, then spelled out the fact that the sacred liturgical celebration begins with the Sign of the Cross after the Gathering Song and ends with the Prayer after Communion, with the bidding prayers and blessing given by the presiding priest.

“To avoid abuse or disrespect of the celebration of the Eucharist, the Church has given us the official ‘goalposts’ in regards to where Mass begins and concludes. We have neither the licence nor the author

Continued - Page 2

INDEX THORNLIE’S FLYING FEET

The Parish - Pages 4-5

The Nation - Pages 6-7

Perspectives - Vista 4 - Pg 9

The World - Pages 10-11

Childrens Page - Page 13

Panorama - Page 14

Classifieds - Page 15

Sacred Heart Parish in Thornlie decided to hold a soccer tournament. Expecting just a few to participate, instead the parish was swamped.

Father Damien de Veuster poses for a photo at the Kalaupapa leper colony on Molokai in the Hawaiian Islands weeks before his death in 1889. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995. The Belgian missionary worked for those with Hansen’s disease (leprosy) from 1873 until his death.

PHOTO: CNS FILE PHOTO FROM DAMIEN MUSEUM

Healed : Audrey Toguchi holds a picture of Blessed Damien de Veuster at her home in AIea, Hawaii, on May 1. Toguchi was cured of cancer nine years ago after she prayed to Blessed Damien, the Belgian missionary who cared for the Hansen’s disease (leprosy) patients of Molokai, Hawaii, and who died of the disease in 1889.

PHOTO: ANNA WEAVER, HAWAII CATHOLIC HERALD

Saint for the week

Blessed Martyrs of England and Wales

1535-1680

feast – May 4

Thornlie scores best goal

Saints for Today Saints

CNS

This feast honors 285 Catholics martyred in England and Wales over a 145-year period. They were men and women, priests and laity, rich and poor. Most were charged with treason for denying the monarch was head of the church, for reconciling with the Catholic Church, for being a Catholic priest entering or remaining in the realm, and for harboring or assisting such priests. Pope John Paul II beatified 85 of them in 1987; earlier popes had beatified the rest. Another Forty Martyrs of England and Wales were canonized in 1970; their feast is Oct. 25.

© 2008 CNS

© 2005

Stewardship

Pentecost

In the second reading today, St Paul reminds the Corinthians, “ There are different gifts, but the same spirit: there are different ministeries, but the same Lord.”

How am I using my gifts for the common good? see 1 Corinthians 12:4

For further information on how stewardship can build your parish community, call Brian Stephens on 9422 7924.

Walking with Him Daily Mass Readings

11 PENTECOST SUNDAY Solemnity Red Vigil Mass

Gen 11:1-9 It was named Babel [Alt.first readings may be chosen]

Ps 103:1-2.24.27-30.35 Bless the Lord

Rom 8:22-27 Spirit helps us

Jn 7:37-39 Come and Drink Mass during the day

Acts 2:1-11 A powerful wind

Ps 103:1.24.29-31.34 Joy in the Lord!

1 Cor 12:3-7.12-13 Variety of gifts

Jn 20:19-23 I am sending you

12M Ss Nereus and Archilleus, martyrs (O) Gr St Pancras, martyr (O)

Jas 1:1-11 Faith and trials

Ps 118:67-68.71-72.75-76 Be kind, Lord

Mk 8:11-13 No sign given

13T Our Lady of Fatima (O)

Gr Jas 1:12-18 Stand firm

Ps 93:12-15.18-19 The Lord teaches

Mk 8:14-21 Be aware

14W ST MATTHIAS, Apostle, Feast Red Acts 1:15-17.20-26 Matthias chosen

Ps 112:1-8 Praise the Lord’s name

Jn 15:9-17 I have loved you

15T

Red Jas 2:1-9 All are equal

Ps 33:2-7 The Lord hears the poor

Mk 8:14-21 You are Christ

16F

Gr Jas 2.14-24.26 Faith and works

Ps 111:1-6 Happiness

Mk 8:34-9:1 Lose your life

17S

Gr Jas 3:1-10 Control the tongue

Ps 12:2-5;7-8 Protect us, Lord

Mk 9:2-13 Transfiguration

EDITOR

Peter Rosengren cathrec@iinet.net.au

JOURNALISTS

Anthony Barich abarich@therecord.com.au

Paul Gray cathrec@iinet.net.au

Mark Reidy reidyrec@iinet.net.au

The

DEACON Pavol Herda has taken a fresh approach to Pope John Paul II’s instruction for the Church to speak to young people by organising youth “Life Nights” sessions at Thornlie parish, along with a dynamic soccer tournament.

During a World day of prayer for vocations, John Paul II said: “This is what is needed: a Church for young people, which will know how to speak to their heart…a Church which is not afraid to require much after having given much.”

Deacon Pavol, who is set to be ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Perth on June 6 at Subiaco Church, and Thornlie’s

music and youth coordinator Sandy Louis desire to build a strong youth group at Sacred Heart Parish.

They started the ball rolling with “Life Nights” after the Saturday 7.30pm Vigil Mass and soccer games every Sunday afternoon.

There was soon a need to bring the majority of the young people together, therefore a soccer tournament was suggested.

There were 64 young players battling it out on the oval of Sacred Heart Primary School with eight teams, including the Green Mean Machines and Red Backs in

under 12 division, plus the Youth Music Group (Rize-Up), Youth Members, All Blacks, Fr Joseph Tran & The Almighty’s from Whitford Parish, The Old Chasers (Parents Mixed team) and Blue Angels (with Deacon Pavol Herda as captain).

For the Record, the All Blacks won the first event.

Deacon Pavol and Sandy also invited youth to attend their First Holy Hour Session that started on May 2 at 7pm. It was organised by the Youth Music Ministry Group Rize-Up and other youth members who have been attending the Life Nights sessions.

ADMINISTRATION

Caroline Radelic administration@therecord.com. au

Cathy Baguley recaccounts@iinet.net.au

Justine Stevens production@therecord.com.au

The Record is a weekly publication distributed throughout

Karen

Dogged defense: Deacon Pavol Herda battles it out on the field

Speed: The Rize-Up & Youth Team plays, with Kayla Francis airborne at right.

Enjoying the view: Parishioners and friends enjoyed watching the matches with refreshments in hand.

Champions: Monsignor Tim Corcoran with the tournament winners ‘The All Blacks.’

Real spirit: Fr Joseph Tran, second left, with Whitford’s Parish players who finished third.

Happy to win: The under 12’s division winners named their team, appropriately, The Mean Green Machines. PHOTOS: COURTESY DEACON HERDA

Vatican approves Marian apparitions

Approval follows in steps of Diocesan bishop

The Vatican has approved Marian apparitions in the French Alps as authentic 343 years after the-then Bishop of Gap officially recognised them.

Catholic News Agency reported that “numerous” bishops and cardinals from around the world gathered for the announcement by the current Bishop last Sunday.

Bishop Jean-Michel de Falco of Gap announced the official approval of the Church of the Marian apparitions to Benôite (Benedicta) Rencurel between 1664 and 1718.

During the Mass, attended by Roman Curia officials including Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, Bishop de Falco noted these are the first Marian apparitions to be approved in the 21st century by the

Approved: A shrine erected at the site of the apparitions in Laus.

Vatican and the Church in France. He called it the most singular event to take place in France since the apparitions of Lourdes in 1858.

“I recognise the supernatural origin of the apparitions and the

events and words experienced and narrated by Benedicta Rencurel. I encourage all of the faithful to come and pray and seek spiritual renewal at this shrine,” the bishop said.

“Nobody is obliged to believe in apparitions,” he continued, “even in those officially recognised, but

if they help us in our faith and our daily lives, why should we reject them?” he asked. Bishop de Falco’s comment was apparently aimed at the French Communist Party, which last week described the announcement of the ceremony as “a marketing ploy of the Church”

and denounced the presence of French government officials at the ceremony as a “violation of the separation of Church and state.”

The shrine of Our Lady of Laus attracts some 120,000 pilgrims each year. The Catholic philosopher

Continued - Page 8

part of fulfilling God’s command and our obligation to “keep holy the Sabbath” and that of Christ’s command, “Do this in memory of me.” He added decisively that a Catholic does not fulfill their obligation of attending Mass if “an individual engages in the poor practices mentioned earlier”.

“In truth, one must say ‘I have not attended the Eucharist, the Mass, in its fullness. I have put other things before God’,” he said.

Fr Separovich acknowledged legitimate calls for absence like sudden illness, “aged related issues” or full nappies; and parents’ difficulties getting toddlers bathed, fed, “booted and spurred” in preparation of going anywhere, but “it is not always these young parents or youth who are falling into these poor habits”. “As

we give importance, due respect and consideration for our hosts, family, and events in daily life, surely the same would be offered from ourselves to our God who has given us His only Son so that we may have life eternal,” he said.

“Our Lord instituted the Blessed Eucharist as spiritual food in the company of his disciples in the upper room.

“After they celebrated the Passover, all stayed but for Judas who, having dipped his hand in the same dish and, having eaten with the Lord, left early for the ‘evil one’ had entered his heart.”

Fr Separovich added that “Our Lord’s gift of Himself to us as spiritual food for our faith journey was wisely set within the context of the family meal, and reminded parishioners that when Jesus proceeded to the Mount of Olives He said to His disciples, ‘can you not stay but one hour in prayer with me’?”

“Mass is not a ‘drive-through, fast food’ event,” Fr Separovich added.

World Youth Day

Anyone able to help this cause will be sent a complimentary Papal Rosary of Pope Benedict XVI, and a Holy card with a prayer for World Youth Day. We ask you to join the Holy Father and the Catholic community in prayer for the success of this unique and faith filled event.

To send your donation please fill out the coupon below and tick the box if you would like to receive the complimentary Papal Rosary and prayer card.

I/We enclose a donation of $ …….....… to help Youth from Poor and Oppressed countries attend World Youth Day 2008

0Yes please send me the Papal rosary and Holy card*

I enclose a cheque/money order payable to Aid to the Church in Need OR please

the Parish

Basilica restored to former glory, and then some

■ By Matthew Biddle

THE restoration of Fremantle’s St Patrick’s Basilica is nearing completion after almost 16 months of extensive repairs.

Fremantle parish priest Fr John Sherman OMI says the restoration of the only Basilica in Western Australia is expected to be completed by the end of May. He said the restorations had taken much time and effort.

“It started around early February 2007, so it’s been going for nearly 16 months,” he said. “But we can see light at the end of the tunnel … we hope that it’s finished for the World Youth Day Cross’ entry – it’s coming on the 21st of May.”

The job is possibly one of the largest restorations of a historic limestone building ever undertaken in WA, and perhaps even in Australia. Fr Sherman said that when he arrived at St Patrick’s he never expected such large-scale work would need to be done during his stay.

“When I was sent here I thought, ‘It’s a lovely Church, I won’t have to worry about a thing’,” he said. “Then I saw the paint peeling off, so I asked why, and it was because the moisture building up behind the concrete was pushing through.”

After consulting the experts on the apparent wear and tear affecting the Basilica, it was decided the church needed to be completely restored.

Fr Sherman said the chief restorer responsible for the interior repairs described the Basilica as “a sick building” before restoration work

was started. Two problems from previous repairs to the Basilica were the main reasons for the deterioration of the building.

“Over the years it had been repaired with concrete internally and externally, and painted, and this was the cause of our troubles because you don’t put concrete or paint on limestone,” Fr Sherman explained. “Limestone is supposed

to breathe but by putting concrete on it you’re stopping the breathing, and when you stop the breathing you start the process of disintegration of the stone. But they did it with the best of intentions because people didn’t appreciate what they were doing, they didn’t know.” The only way to restore damage to the Basilica was to strip all the concrete and paint from the walls and pil-

lars – an extensive job. Amazingly, Mass has been said in the Basilica every weekend despite the ongoing repairs.

“At times it’s been pretty testing; there were five months in which we cancelled all weddings,” Fr Sherman said. The cost of the restoration campaign has been substantial due to the volume of work needed to be done to the Basilica’s structure. “We

A

wouldn’t be doing this except for Government money,” Fr Sherman said.

The Basilica received $1million from the Commonwealth, $600,000 from the State, $100,000 from Lotteries and parishioners raised about $600,000.

“But if it hadn’t been tackled when it was, it would have been a lot more expensive than it has been to repair it,” Fr Sherman said.

The initial estimated cost has also increased as the restoration team discovered many additional problems during their work.

“There have been over 75 variations – that means they’ve struck something which they didn’t foresee,” Fr Sherman said, adding that he wanted to ensure the same problems don’t occur again. “My goal now is to raise enough money over the next ten years for a fund … to maintain [the Basilica].

“We have to make sure this never happens again – if you see some moisture coming through causing damage, you get it repaired straight away.

“Buildings like these have to be cared for if you want to preserve them.” St Patrick’s Basilica was designed by renowned architect Michael Cavanagh.

Its foundation stone was laid on St Patrick’s Day in 1898, and initial construction was completed in 1900. However, it was not until 1960 when its new sanctuary was built that the Basilica was finally complete.

The church was elevated to the status of a minor Basilica in 1994, and was placed in the State Register of Heritage Places in 1996.

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Glorious: After almost 16 months of work and plenty of parish fundraising, Fremantle’s historic Baslilica of St Patrick is nearly complete. Seen here from Solomon Street with all the obtrusing scaffolding gone, it has been restored to its former beauty, and then some. PHOTOS: MATTHEW BIDDLE

Interior: Basilica walls were stripped of existing concrete and paint before limestone plaster and a ‘stain’ was applied.

Old-school: The Basilica was built in 14th century Gothic style, and its restoration has revived this, particularly the part built in 1900.

Look up: Work on the outside of the Basilica included restoring the mortar joints on the church’s tower.

the Parish

Clergy, religious, key to involving young women

■ By Anthony Barich

THE key to reviving the role of young women in the Church is for priests and Religious to engage them by their mid-teens, encouraging them to utilise their skills by engaging in Church-sponsored organisations.

This was the message from two prominent young women working within the Catholic Church – World Youth Day coordinator for the Archdiocese of Perth Anita Parker and Perth-based Young Christian Workers national secretary Sara Kane – who addressed about 20 women at the Mary MacKillop Centre in South Perth on April 6.

It was the first attempt by Kerry Macfarlane, the Commission for Australian Catholic Women’s new Perth liaison, to rejuvenate the organisation in Perth by facilitating events to inspire women to reconnect with the Church.

For both Miss Parker and Miss Kane, it was their local parish priest who approached them to encourage them to use their skills in more active participation in the Church.

Though working in “male-dominated” areas most of her life, Miss Parker says they functioned well because of female support. In turn,

by her parish priest, Mgr Michael Keating; music is still a driving passion for her.

Miss Kane also worked in youth and community services for local government, and was approached by her parish priest at a surf life saving function.

Stations ‘relate to our real lives’

■ By Mildred Rego

Willetton parish connects key liturgical event with children.

she always felt supported by clergy and religious. From her experience, she believes the roles of men and women in the Church are complementary and her advice to women is to “think laterally” to achieve success.

As a music, maths and religious education teacher and army reservist, she advised that youth need to be involved in church-sponsored groups like Young Vinnies and youth councils before year 11 (age 16), encouraging an active connection with the Church before their lives get too busy with other priorities and distractions.

Miss Parker was involved in school councils and was invited to join the parish music ministry

Impressed by the action youth were taking, motivated by their faith and YCW’s “see, judge, act” motto, Miss Kane said she developed a greater understanding of the Gospels and how they relate to her own life that she had not experienced in her Catholic school religious education.

Her advice is that the “feminine voice” needs to be heard at all levels of the Church so “we can bring our complementary gifts to the table”.

Good Shepherd Sister Anna Warlow and Sister Mary Shanahan RSCJ will run retreats from May 9-11 at Nazareth House and St John of God Hospital, Geraldton as part of a conference called “We dream a Church: Women walking together, clustering around a story”.

Also addressing the forum will be Kimberly Davis, director of the Office for Participation of Women that advises the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, and whose focus is on education possibilities for women in the Church.

A hundred children of Willetton parish joined with their parents for a prayerful re-enactment of the Stations of the Cross on March 11, an event which proved a practical evangelical tool to link parishioners’ faith with their everyday lives.

Parents and students gathered together at 4pm to walk with Jesus along the Stations of the Cross at the parish of Sts John & Paul in Willetton.

The children were welcomed into the church and explained what the Stations of the Cross is all about before being led into them by the Year 6 Catechist Joan Rodricks. Each Station had a reflection at children’s level with a picture on the Powerpoint presentation and all joined in prayer.

Cherilee, a parent of one of the children, said she found the prayers very meaningful and relevant and watched the children thinking about them as they joined in. Another Mum, Maria, said that she found the reflections and prayers easy to relate to and did not feel distracted.

Paul, a Year 7 student, related that he learned “a lot” about Jesus

and what he went through; while another Year 7 student, Joshua, said he had thought up until then that Jesus fell only once and realised that he actually had three falls on his journey towards Calvary before being crucified.

One of the parents commented on how practical the reflections were and it helped them relate it to their everyday life.

Following this the children gathered outside on the lawn area and formed groups along with their Catechist and shared hot cross buns together.

This practice has been going on for the past three years as part of the parish program and has always helped the children to understand more fully Christ suffering, death and resurrection.

It has been well received and creates a great sense of community for all the families involved and the Catechist team at Willetton who are passionate about sharing their faith with the children.

Mildred Rego is Catechist Co-ordinator at Sts John & Paul Parish in Willetton.

Bringing gifts to bear: Anita Parker, left, and Sara Kane both called for priests and religious to interest young women in the Church before their lives become too busy.

Academic clears muddy waters around Benedict

When Oxford University Press wanted a book to publish on the thought of Pope Benedict XVI, it turned to one of Australia’s leading Catholic intellectuals.

■ By

Paul Gray

THE day after Joseph Ratzinger’s election as Pope Benedict XVI, Melbourne author and theologian Tracey Rowland received a startling email from one of the world’s most prestigious publishers.

They wanted her to write a book on Karl Rahner, the influential Jesuit theologian who was leader of one of the “progressive” factions at the Second Vatican Council.

Dr Rowland replied that she was no specialist on Rahner, but that she would be wellcredentialled to write a book on another influential Vatican II “progressive,” Joseph Ratzinger.

And by the way, she added, Ratzinger “was elected Pope last night.”

More than two years later and Oxford University Press has just released Dr Rowland’s book Ratzinger’s Faith, a study of the personal theology of the man who is now Pope Benedict XVI.

The book was launched by Bishop Peter Elliott in Melbourne in April.

Dr Rowland, who is Dean of the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne, a Vatican university branch, says the idea behind Ratzinger’s Faith was not to pen another biography of the Pope, but to present the key ideas and principles of his theologi-

cal outlook. While Pope Benedict is a famous intellectual – even his critics acknowledge the theological depths of his thinking – Dr Rowland’s approach is based on making that thinking accessible to a broad reading public.

Among the many books already written about the Pope, the only comparable volume to hers is The Thought of Benedict XVI by Aidan Nichols. That book, which Dr

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Rowland admires, is a re-release of one Nichols wrote in the 1980s.

Dr Rowland told The Record last week that in her book she attempts to “discredit the idea that there are three Ratzingers: a young radical Ratzinger, a middle-aged conservative Ratzinger and now a ‘grandpa Ratzinger’ who writes pastoral letters as Pope.”

The idea that Joseph Ratzinger’s thinking has changed according to

in brief Anglican backs Rudd on marriage commitment

Sydney’s Anglican Archbishop congratulated the Federal Government for reaffirming its commitment to the principle that marriage is between a man and a woman.

After Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced there would be approximately 100 changes to laws to remove discrimination against homosexual couples, some Christian lobby groups attacked the Government for undermining marriage. But Archbishop Peter Jensen of the Anglican Church was more positive.

He said it was “excellent” that the Government had made it clear that marriage is between a man and a woman, and welcomed any changes that removed discrimination.

“I hope this is not just pro-gay but pro-people,” Dr Jensen said of the planned changes to the laws.

Archbishop Jensen also said he hoped any discrimination in the law will be removed against other people living in committed relationships which are not sexual, for example brothers and sister caring for each other.

age and circumstance is false, she says. “I want to show there is an organic unity in his theological outlook that hasn’t changed over time.”

A key historical ingredient in Dr Rowland’s book is the assessment of Vatican II and the role of the socalled progressives at that landmark event in the life of the modern Church.

Subsequent controversies and clashes around the key ideas that were discussed at the Council have been much mythologised in the decades since.

In reality there were three main “factions,” or tendencies, among theologians at Vatican II, Dr Rowland says. One group favoured the status quo which had existed in church thinking before the Council, which can be labeled “neo-scholastic.”

A second group favoured “ressourcement” or a return to patristics, the teachings and inspirations of the early Church of the first centuries after Christ.

A third group was strongly influenced by modern philosophy, including the ideas of German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Fr Karl Rahner was the leader of this group.

Dr Rowland says the “progressive” victory at Vatican II was essentially the fruit of collaboration between the latter two groups, and the young Fr Joseph Ratzinger played a key role in it.

In effect, Ratzinger formed an intellectual bridge between the thinking of Rahner and that of Henri de Lubac, who was the leader of “ressourcement” faction.

A much-written about division between Ratzinger and Rahner developed in the years after the Council. Although Ratzinger helped found the “progressive” journal Concilium with Rahner, the future Pope eventually left that journal and founded another, Communio.

Both theological journals are still in existence. Dr Rowland is an editorial board member of the North American edition of Communio.

She says that after Vatican II,

Pope Benedict to spend eight days Down Under

POPE Benedict’s eight-day visit to Australia for World Youth Day will be the longest overseas trip taken by the pontiff.

The Pope will arrive in Australia on Sunday 13th July, giving him several days to rest and prepare for the festivities in Sydney, announced Sydney’s archbishop, Cardinal George Pell, last week.

Like Pope John Paul II before him who

“the differences between Rahner and Ratzinger become more and more pronounced,” eventually leading to a split. This was not about personality issues at all, but matters of theology.

Another key historical issue exposed by Dr Rowland is the difference in the thinking of the two Popes, Benedict XVI and John Paul II.

She says there is a liberal agenda to make it appear that the theological differences are huge: in particular, that John Paul II was a Thomist (a follower of St Thomas Aquinas) while Benedict XVI is an Augustinian (following the thought of St Augustine.)

The significance of this claim is that, according to the liberal agenda, Thomists are “open to the world” while Augustinians are “closed to the world.”

Again, in reality too much has been made of these differences between the Popes, Dr Rowland says. “Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul are not in any way different in their attitudes to the world.”

The alleged Thomist-Augustinian division between the two Popes is based on “simplistic caricatures,” she says.

Where there does lie a difference is in some of the “polarities” in the thinking of the two Popes.

Whereas John Paul is interested in the relationship between truth and goodness, Benedict is more interested in that between beauty and love.

And where John Paul wrote extensively about the interplay between faith and reason, Pope Benedict is more concerned with the relationship between reason and love.

Unlike George Weigel’s major biography of Pope John Paul II, Dr Rowland’s book has not been written with active encouragement from or contact with the subject of the work.

She says she did not attempt to win Pope Benedict’s support for her book. However she intends to send him a copy.

was once photographed with a koala, Pope Benedict will have the chance to interact with some of Australia’s unique flora and fauna while visiting the country, said World Youth Day co-ordinator Bishop Anthony Fisher OP.

“We were asked to nominate a suitable location for his stay and have recommended somewhere serene, beautiful and suitable for the leader of the world’s Catholics,” Bishop Fisher said.

The bishop added that the location will remain secret because the pontiff is a head of state and has requested that his privacy be respected.

Perceptive: Dr Tracey Rowland’s book on Pope Benedict dispels some of the popular mythology that has surrounded the pontiff over the decades. Dr Rowland is the Dean of the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne. PHOTO: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Dr Rowland’s latest book.

the Nation

Hart prepares clergy for euthanasia campaign

As Greens move to facilitate killing of the dying, Archbishop urges Catholics to lobby on behalf of defenceless.

■ By Paul Gray

THE danger that Catholic hospitals might be forced to allow the suicide of patients in their care has been flagged by Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart in a letter to priests.

The Melbourne Archbishop has

asked priests in his diocese, which is Australia’s largest, to encourage all Catholics to lobby parliamentarians against new euthanasia proposals.

The proposals are contained in a Bill to be proposed shortly before Victoria’s state parliament by two MPs, one from the Opposition Liberal Party and the other from the Greens.

Meanwhile a separate private Member’s Bill by Greens Senator Bob Brown, also supporting euthanasia, is being considered by a parliamentary committee of inquiry in Canberra.

In a letter to priests dated April 24, Archbishop Hart says the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted

Dying) Bill 2008 being proposed in Victoria is “manifestly unsafe.”

The Archbishop says there is no “drive” from the medical profession behind the Bill, which seeks to impose the minority agenda of a small euthanasia lobby over the majority values of Australians.

Among other dangers, the Bill would “impose obligations on Catholic institutions to allow staff to practise physician-assisted suicide,” Archbishop Hart says.

The archbishop says a clause in the proposed Bill would make it unlawful for a Catholic hospital, aged care facility or hospice to require those operating within it to abide by the Catholic institution’s code of ethical standards. Catholic

health and aged care institutions have a code of ethical standards prohibiting euthanasia, which the code defines as deliberately ending life by action or omission or to assist suicide.

A major problem with the euthanasia Bill is that it that it is not restricted to those who are dying but includes those with incurable illnesses.

This “basically means all those with chronic illness,” he says.

A key danger is that the Bill intends to include “psychological, existential and social suffering” within its definition of “intolerable suffering.”

Therefore intolerable suffering, according to the proposed law,

Pell opposes rights charter and warns of relativism from the judicial benches

Cardinal warns Bill of Rights could have opposite effect

■ By Paul Gray

AUSTRALIA’S most senior Catholic Church leader has spoken out against a national charter of rights, in a landmark speech praising the role of parliaments and warning against rule by “relativist” judges.

The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, said in a Brisbane Institute speech that religious liberty in Australia could be under threat from the charter of rights proposal, which was endorsed at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s 2020 summit in April.

The cardinal warned that involuntary euthanasia and compulsory eugenics are two dangers to human life which may soon emerge because of bio-technology, and the Church’s ability to fight against these evils could be compromised by a rights charter.

Cardinal Pell said supporters of a charter of rights regularly point to Britain’s Human Rights Act as a model to be adopted by Australia. But he said the British experience shows that would be a mistake.

In a case typifying the dangers to religious free speech, a pro-life campaigner in Britain, Mrs Veronica

Connolly, was convicted of infringing the rights of others when she mailed “offensive” photographs of aborted fetuses to pharmacies selling the morning-after pill.

Mrs Connolly appealed to Britain’s highest court, claiming her nation’s Human Rights Act guaranteed her a right to free speech on this issue. But the court ruled against her, instead finding that the “distress and anxiety” caused to those who saw the photos was a violation of their rights.

The case, Cardinal Pell said, “shows how little protection religious people can expect from any-

thing like the UK Human Rights Act if it were to be implemented in Australia.”

As well as commenting on recent cases, Cardinal Pell’s speech addressed the underlying moral and philosophical questions which are at stake in the charter of rights debate.

He said there are four “fictions” which dominate discussion about the rights question in Australian political debate today.

These “fictions” include the common belief that human rights are a matter of moral beliefs, or consensus, rather than of moral truth.

Cardinal Pell said the scholar John Finnis drew attention to this problem nearly three decades ago.

Finnis argued that in modern times, lawmakers had rejected “natural law” as the basis for legal decisions, turning instead to the idea of a “moral consensus” in society.

This has led to the creation of “new rights,” Cardinal Pell said, such as rights to abortion, euthanasia and the cloning and destruction of human life for research purposes.

Though popular with society’s political and legal elites, the “moral consensus” approach is dangerous even for them, Cardinal Pell stated.

Political and legal elites in Australia are only at ease with the approach because they assume they will always be in charge of it, but this is not guaranteed.

“This is one of the reasons for the despair and panic that was discernible in some places when very different, deeply held and widespread moral beliefs about limiting the rights of asylum seekers came to the fore in 2001 and seemed poised to take the ‘consensus’ on rights in a different direction,” the Cardinal said.

Three other fictions that clutter the rights debate in Australia, Cardinal Pell says, are:

● The idea that courts are simply following the law when in fact they are “legislating without opposition on fundamental questions”

● The idea that courts are forums of principle while parliament, the elected body of the people, is merely “a forum of political power,” and

● The idea that decisions made by majority vote, such as parliamentary elections, automatically mean that the rights of minorities are excluded.

In fact, argued Cardinal Pell, principle is particularly important in parliamentary decision-making on fundamental issues.

This has been demonstrated by parliamentary debates in recent years over refugees and asylumseekers, RU-486 and cloning and euthanasia, he said.

Cardinal Pell said the present “gay marriage” push is one example of a minority increasingly getting its way through legal activism rather than through majority votes.

would not only mean physical suffering such as pain, weakness and breathlessness.

Another danger is that if passed into law, the Bill would make protection of the lives of the chronically ill dependent on “the strength of their will to continue,” says Archbishop Hart. A key objection to euthanasia proposals is that people may request death for non-medical reasons, the archbishop suggests in his letter.

“Medical research in this area indicates that the desire for euthanasia is not confined to physical or psychosocial concerns relating to advanced disease, but incorporates hidden existential yearnings for connectedness, care and respect,” he writes.

in brief

Levada opens Queensland seminary

A new seminary has been opened to serve the Church in Queensland. Cardinal William Levada, who succeeded the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith when Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, opened the new seminary at Banyo in Brisbane two weekends ago. Cardinal Levada urged Queensland Catholics to “take pride in your seminary, and take pride in your priests,” the Catholic Leader reports.

The Holy Spirit seminary at Banyo is on the same site as Pius XII Seminary.

Pius XII Seminary was established in 1941, with the decision by the Queensland bishops to name it after the war-time pontiff being taken on the day of election of Pius XII as Pope.

Seven years ago, the Queensland bishops decided to divide the functions of the previous seminary into two institutions, St Paul’s Theological College and Holy Spirit Seminary.

The name ‘Holy Spirit Seminary of Queensland’ was chosen by the bishops of Queensland in 2001.

New buildings for the Holy Spirit seminary were blessed at Banyo by Brisbane’s Archbishop Bathersby last year.

Holy Spirit seminary at Banyo will serve the state’s five dioceses of Cairns, Townsville, Toowoomba, Rockhampton and Brisbane.

UKRAINIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH OPEN DAY

SATURDAY, 17 MAY @ 20FERGUSON ST, MAYLANDS.

THE UKRAINIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH,PARISHOF ST JOHNTHE BAPTISTISINVITINGEVERYONETO EXPERIENCEINAPRACTICALWAYTHEFAITHOF EASTERN CATHOLICS

1pm: Mingle, meet the guest speakers and browse our cultural displays

2pm: Presentations Begin: history of our Church, customs & traditions of Eastern Catholics, explanation of icons & a tour of our Church, followed by the Holy Liturgy. Our special guest speaker: Rt. Rev. Mitrat Olexander Kenez (Chancellor/Protosyncel of our Ukrainian Eparchy in Australia, based in Melbourne)

Light refreshments will be available during the day. PLEASE RSVP!

FORMOREINFO: CALL NICK 0401 232 894

OREMAIL PETER: PETER VALEGA@KBR COM

Early sex brings regret: survey

Young teenagers who engage in sexual activity are likely to regret it later, an Irish survey of 7441 adults shows. Of those who first had sex at 16, 43 per cent of women and 19 per cent of men said they “should have waited longer”. The figures rose to 59 per cent and 37 per cent for those who had sex before they were 16.

In the government-backed study - by the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland and the Economic and Social Research Council - 16.6 per cent of men and 14.5 per cent of women reported engaging in sex for the first time at 16, while 14.9 per cent of men and 7.9 per cent of women said they first had sex before they were 16. 

Cardinal George Pell

Only Christ will bring lapsed youth back

■ By Anthony Barich

WORLD Youth Day 2008 could transform many youth who have been disconnected from the Church from as early as year six back into active Catholics, if an ongoing study’s early results prove fruitful.

A survey commissioned by WYD08 organisers and carried out by Associate Professor Ruth Webber and Dr Michael Mason of Australian Catholic University and Monash University’s Dr Andrew Singleton has found that the majority of pilgrims intending to attend WYD in Sydney in July are genuinely interested in learning more about their faith.

The survey was carried out via in-depth face-to-face interviews with teenagers from schools, university students and those in the workforce, and as one of the largest online surveys ever conducted in Australia.

It revealed that seeing the Pope, feeling part of a huge crowd united by shared beliefs and learning more about their faith are high on the participants’ priorities in anticipation of WYD08.

The online component opened on May 1 at wyds.com.au with more than 160,000 intending pilgrims invited to have their say about WYD08, sharing why they are coming, what they hope for and details about their ‘style of spirituality’.

Findings from the first phase of the study also revealed that the event is drawing a significant number of young people who have not been much involved with their church in recent years.

The results surprised the researchers, who

Charity announces plans for Marian statue in London

■ By Simon Caldwell

LONDON (CNS) - A charity has announced plans to erect a statue of Mary in London in memory of the medieval Catholic shrines destroyed in the Reformation.

The work will be called “Mary Most Holy” and will stand on land once owned by St Thomas More, alongside the Thames River at Chelsea. St Thomas was the lord chancellor of England and was beheaded in 1535.

It has been commissioned by the Art and Reconciliation Trust, a

had previously carried out the study that resulted in the document on youth spirituality called “The Spirit of Generation Y” that painted a grim picture of youth participation.

“We were surprised that so many who we would have called ‘marginal Catholics’ due to very little involvement with their local church - probably from families of faith who have

charity set up to promote awareness of the negative effects iconoclasm has on culture; the work will cost approximately $3 million.

The sculptor who will make the statue is Paul Day, whose previous work includes a memorial of the Battle of Britain in central London.

The proposed work, a bronze triptych on a granite plinth, will feature a statue of Mary holding up the child Jesus against the backdrop of ruins. Two side panels show reformers beheading the statues of saints and destroying a crucifix.

Unveiling a model of the sculpture in London on April 29, Day said its purpose would be “to recall events in Chelsea’s local history that were of national importance and whose effects can still be powerfully felt in present-day Britain.”

“The destruction of England’s medieval shrines and devotional images, conducted by Thomas

dropped out under peer pressure in secondary school from about year six – are taking another look, which is great.

“This presents a terrific opportunity for the Church to communicate to these youth a taste of the Gospel that might send them looking for more.”

He said the “Generation Y” study revealed that barely a fraction of youth living in any

Cromwell, was part of Henry VIII’s program for reform,” he said, noting that Cromwell ordered “the most important Marian shrines in England be brought to Chelsea so that he could witness their destruction.”

Day expressed hope that the statue could be situated “on or near the location where the foremost Marian shrines were burned.”

Day said the sculpture would create a place for faith communities to reflect on reconciliation by confronting the truth of the past.

Eighty-four shrines were destroyed in England and Wales during the 16th century; hundreds of statues of Mary were burned.

Frances Scarr, chairman of the Art and Reconciliation Trust, said it is hoping to unveil the memorial on October 13, 2009, the feast of St Edward the Confessor, patron of England.  CNS

Rosary reviving: Pope

■

By

John Thavis

particular area are involved in their local church, “as any parish priest would know”, and said it is extremely positive that many youth who appear to be from families of faith are leaving the question open for the time being.

While hesitant to release findings of an ongoing survey as the results don’t necessarily reflect the majority of the youth actually attending WYD08, Dr Mason described it as a “very positive result”.

The survey will continue during and after WYD08. Early findings will be presented to WYD organisers in June and a more comprehensive overview will be completed next year.

“If youth have already drifted from the Church once they leave school, the most likely course they take is that they stay uninvolved,” Dr Mason said.

“It used to be that young women were more religious than men, so when young Catholic men and women got together she’d ‘sort him out’ spiritually, they’d have kids and christen them, and the Church would get a high ‘rate of return’ of young people when they got married.

“Now they marry and have kids later, and the girls that young men meet, if they are Catholic, are likely to be just as non-religious as they are. WYD08 is the last chance the Church has to connect with these young people, so it needs to be good.”

Dr Mason said the focus must not be to “get them to join an institution, it’s really got to be about Christ and the message and Gospel, and it’s got to come through to them in a way they can relate to”.

times to be remembered with nostalgia.”

“The rosary, on the contrary, is experiencing almost a new springtime. This is undoubtedly one of the most eloquent signs of the love that younger generations have for Jesus and for his mother, Mary,” he said.

ROME (CNS) - Praying the rosary is enjoying a revival among Catholics and can be a profound way to relive the events of Christ’s life, Pope Benedict XVI said.

The pope led the recital of the rosary with hundreds of Catholics in Rome’s Basilica of St.Mary Major on May 3. US Cardinal Bernard Law, archpriest of the basilica, welcomed the pontiff and prayed with him.

Speaking at the end of the encounter, the pope said the rosary was “not a pious practice relegated to the past, like a prayer of former

The papal event took place on the first Saturday of May, the month the church dedicates to Mary, at Rome’s pre-eminent Marian basilica.

In his talk, the pope emphasised that devotion to Mary through the rosary always has Christ at its centre.

Nor should praying the rosary be considered a merely private practice, with no relationship to others, he said.

“When it is prayed in an authentic way, not mechanically or superficially but in a profound way, it can in fact bring peace and reconciliation,” he said.  CNS

Vatican approves Mary’s apparitions to Benoite at Laus

Continued from Page 3

Jean Guitton called it “one of the most hidden and powerful shrines of Europe.”

Benedicta Rencurel was born on September 16, 1647 in SaintÉtienne d’Avançon in the southern French Alps, and suffered the death of her father when she was 7 yearsold. She never learned to read or write and her only education came from the homilies at Sunday Mass.

One day in May, 1664, Benedicta was caring for the animals of some neighbours and praying the rosary when she saw a dazzling lady standing on a rock, holding a beautiful child in her arms.

“Beautiful Lady!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing up there? Do you want to eat with me? I have some good bread which we can soften up at the fountain.” The girl’s simplicity brought a smile to the Lady’s face, but she said nothing.

“Beautiful Lady! Could you give us that child? He would make us so happy.” The Lady smiled again without responding. After remaining a few minutes with Benedicta, she took the child in her arms and disappeared into a cave. For

four months, the Lady appeared to Benedicta every day, talking to her and preparing her for her future mission. Benedicta told the woman who owned the flock she cared for about the visions, but was met with disbelief.

However, the woman secretly followed her to the Fours valley. She didn’t see the vision, but she did hear Mary’s voice, who told Benedicta to warn her that her soul was in danger.

“She has something on her conscience,” Mary said. “Tell her to do penance.” The woman was deeply moved by the message, returned to the sacraments and lived piously for the rest of her days.

On August 29, Benedicta asked the Lady what her name was.

“My name is Mary,” said the lady.

During the winter of 1664-1665, Benedicta went up to Laus frequently, each time receiving a vision of the Blessed Mother, who told her to “pray continuously for sinners.”

News of the apparitions spread throughout the entire region.

On September 18, 1665, when Benedicta was 18 years old, the

apparitions were officially recognised by the diocese and that autumn, construction began on a small church to receive the hundreds of pilgrims coming to visit.

Mary revealed herself in Laus as the reconciler and refuge of sinners, and therefore she offered signs to convince them of the need to repent. She told Benedicta that the

oil from the sanctuary lamp would work miracles with the infirm if they received the anointing with faith in her intercession. Benedicta took the mission she received from Mary seriously and dedicated herself to preparing others to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. She encouraged the two priests at the shrine to receive

penitents with charity and kindness in order to help them convert.

Mary asked Benedicta to admonish women and girls about living lives of scandal, especially those who commit abortion, the unjust wealthy and the perverse.

She also encouraged priests and religious to be faithful to their vows.

Between 1669 and 1679, Benedicta received five visions of the suffering Christ. On a Friday in July, 1673, the suffering Jesus told her: “My daughter, I show myself in this state so that you can participate in my Passion.”

After more than two decades of suffering and continual apparitions of the Blessed Mother, Benedicta received Communion on Christmas Day 1718.

Three days later she made her Confession, received the last rites and around 8pm farewelled those around her. She kissed a crucifix and passed away peacefully.

Today the shrine is run by diocesan clergy with the assistance of a community of the Brothers of St John who are dedicated to promoting the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Loving being Catholic: US Dominican Sisters Mary Rachel Capets and Mary Madeline Todd pose with World Youth Day volunteers in Sydney, Australia, in September. The nuns were in Sydney at the invitation of Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Fisher, chief World Youth Day 2008 coordinator.

PHOTO: CNS/NANCY WIECHEC

Site of the apparitions: The Sanctuary of Laus, high up in the French Alps.

Vista

The affair that changed my life

How John Paul II’s wisdom grounded this priest’s inner journey of healing

Taking the love affair of celibacy seriously; my experience with Theology of the Body.

■ By Fr Mark Toups

There’s a line from the movie The American President that states: “When people are thirsty enough they’ll drink the sand in the desert when they see a mirage.”

How true. While our culture cannot deny the innate thirst deep within, we have grasped at the mirage, drinking it impetuously.

And, as a product of our culture, I too drank the mirage - I drank it as a teen, I scoffed at it in the seminary, and I fought it half-heart-

edly as an ordained priest. Yet, what I could not deny was John Paul II ‘s wisdom when he said, “the truth of the Gospel is confirmed in the wounds of the culture”. While a product of the “mirage”, the wounds of my own life were so deep that I was in need of healing.

This last January, I attended the Theology of the Body Institute’s Head and Heart Immersion Course.

It articulated truth that pierced the mirage, letting me taste the “living giving water” within those aforementioned wounds. The truth of the Theology of the Body grounded my journey of inner healing, for it was one of the keys that Jesus Christ used to unlock my spiritual handcuffs.

I have been a priest for nearly seven years now and I am imploring my brother priests to step into the fullness of their priestly identity. Because of the teachings of Theology of

the Body, I have taken my love affair of celibacy seriously - and that renewal continues to transform my priesthood. Now, Mass is more intimate, people are more sacred, and God is more personal.

Since the Institute’s Head and Heart Immersion Course, I feel as if there is a deeper dimension to my priesthood - as if I’m now experiencing spiritual fatherhood in “3-D HD”, whereas before it was merely a functional “silent film”.

I can’t encourage priests enough to take up a personal study of Theology of the Body, or to attend a TOB Institute class.

Whether you are newly ordained, ready for retirement or knee deep in the trenches with too many things pulling at your calendar... what more do you want from your priesthood? What more do you want from your celibacy? What more do you want in your relationship

with God? God knows the answers, for God already knows your questions.

And He’s inviting you to dine with Him at the banquet.

Fr Mark Toups is the Director of Seminarian Formation for the Diocese of Houma/Thibodaux Louisiana. He is the cofounder and Spiritual Director of ADORE Ministries (www.adoreworship. com) which promotes Eucharistic adoration and formation across the US in response to John Paul II’s prophesy for a New Springtime in the Church. He is also Parish Priest of St Luke’s Catholic Church in Thibodaux, and St Lucy’s Catholic Church in Houma, Louisiana.

As a response to his dream of the renewal of Catholic priesthood, Fr Mark is an adjunct faculty member of the Institute of Priestly Formation, working with the distinct spirituality of Diocesan priests and seminarians. A college graduate of Nicholls State University; he is a native of Houma, Louisiana.

As anniversary looms, the baby in the bottle still speaks volumes

Organisers are calling everyone to come and commemorate the tenth anniversary of abortion’s legalisation

■ By Andrew Lansdown

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the great abortion battle that ended in the great pro-life defeat in Western Australia in May 1998. Do you remember how it all began?

There was a baby in a bottle on a shelf in a fridge. This baby had only lived several months from conception, so in death it was

little, little enough to fit into a bottle—or, more precisely, a jar. A jar just emptied of jam, perhaps, or pickled onions.

The baby’s sister told about her bottled sibling for news at school. It was something unusual and worth telling. Goodness, that’s news, all right—a baby in a bottle in a fridge! None of the other children had anything half as interesting to tell. Everyone was captivated, including the teacher.

The teacher told the police and the police found the news difficult to ignore. They knew about the 8000 or so yearly killings of babies in Perth abortion “clinics” and they knew that these killings were against the law, but they had no concern for the law that was intended to protect them. But this, this bottled body, this preserved evidence, this inconvenient

truth, was simply too much for them to ignore.

So the police charged the doctor who had killed the baby in his abortion clinic. They used the state’s long-neglected abortion law to bring the charge. It was in the news. It caused a stir.

Of course, the assorted ideologues immediately wept and raged at the injustice and hard-heartedness of the whole affair. How appalling to punish a doctor for helping a woman to exercise her right to choose!

The trauma he must be suffering! And he had been so considerate, too, to comply with the woman’s request to keep the aborted products of her conception! And yes, the woman did request the remains. She was not, it seems, completely without maternal feelings and

human conscience. She knew her baby was her baby. It was not a blob of protoplasm or an expendable part of her body, like an appendix. It was a baby, and it was hers. That knowledge ought to have stopped her from seeking an abortion, certainly. And yet, to her credit, she did not want her baby’s body unceremoniously disposed of along with the bodies of the other babies that had been aborted that day. She wanted to give her baby a proper burial, in her homeland, New Zealand. And so she put it in the refrigerator until she could respectfully lay its mortal remains to rest. It was in the news and the news frightened the Premier and his government. It might not be practical to prosecute the doctor who

Rejoicing: Fr Mark Toups, above, says he drank the mirage of human love that dominates our culture as a teen and only fought it half-hear tedly as a priest - until he encountered the Theology of the Body.

Ukrainian rise up for rise up for

■ By Anthony Barich

The grandchildren of the migrants who flooded Australia in the post-World War II exodus are rekindling the fire of both their patriotism, and with it their Christian heritage.

This is most obvious during one of the most important events in the Ukrainian Church’s calendar, Easter.

When post-war Labor Prime Minister Joseph Benedict (“Ben”) Chifley’s Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell, regarded by some as the ‘father of multiculturalism’, initiated a massive drive for migrants of war-ravaged Europe, the Ukrainians responded in droves.

Once here they relished the chance to participate in a Catholic Mass in their native tongue and established Christian buildings and communities always with the aim of one day returning home once the Communists left their country.

But they stayed, and stayed, and stayed...for so long that the immigrants’ children became well entrenched in Australia, married Australians and made the country their home, with no desire to return home to a homeland savaged by conflict between war-time

Easter message, The year of Our Lord, 2008.

To the priests, deacons, sisters and faithful of the Eparchy of Ss Peter and Paul, peace in the risen

occupiers Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union during and between the two world wars.

As WA’s Ukrainian Catholic chaplain Fr Wolodymyr Kalinecki tells it, this caused some tension between generations, and many of these second-generation Ukrainians have lost the faith, “though we always pray for them”; but many of them still come at Christmas and Easter. “But the grandchildren are now growing up and are fascinated with the stories of their pioneering grandparents, and are interested to learn more about them and their lives,” Fr Kalinecki said.

Bright and elaborately embroidered clothing, exciting traditional dances, the blessing of specially-made traditional paska bread and specially-decorated colourful Easter eggs are traditions that are relished especially by the grandchildren of the pioneering immigrants and trigger a fascination in their Catholic heritage that contributed to who they are today.

With this surge of interest comes knowledge of the Catholic faith that underpinned much of their pioneering spirit, especially after what their motherland suffered during the two world wars. With the country invariable occupied by some oppressive regime, be it Nazism or Communism, Easter became

Lord. Christ is Risen. The preparation for nacxcar has been going on for twelve weeks now with the pre-Lenten and Lenten Sundays. To get to this point we have been engaged in repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, prayer and fasting. All this has been done so that we can clear our minds, so that we can really understand the significance of God coming into our lives at the Resurrection. The whole point of the Lenten discipline is expressed in the beginning of Resurrection matins.

Keeping watch: Members of the Catholic Youth Ministry guard the tomb of Jesus during the Good Friday service. PHOTO: PETER VALEGA

Joy of Easter: Fr Kalinecki and the servers process out of the church in preparation of the blessing of the baskets.

PHOTO: MATTHEW BIDDLE

Taking part: : Members of the congregation lead the procession outside as Fr Kalinecki blesses the people.

PHOTO: MATTHEW BIDDLE

Patience: A young boy waits patiently for Fr Kalinecki to bless the baskets before he can en ensuing treats.

PHOTO: PET

Easter tells us the Christian lifes

Bishop Stasiuk

Catholics

rEASTER

more than just an event on the Church’s calendar. It inspired a hope that just as Christ had risen and defeated death and evil, so too would Ukraine one day rise from its oppressors and be free once more.

Traditional Easter celebrations, then, were a significant part of what kept the immigrants going when they came to Australia after WWII in the hope of one day returning to a free Ukraine.

Now, as the older generation reminisce about the good and not-so-good old days, the young sit fascinated, and get involved in an Easter ceremony during which they kiss an artificial tomb representing that which Christ was buried in, thanking Him for saving them not only from death but from the ravages of war.

Identical ceremonies are held at both St John the Baptist parish in Maylands and in Northam, with Fr Kalinecki traveling between the two in an exhausting week. The Passion of Our Lord is celebrated on Thursday with 12 Gospels of Christ read out.

On Friday a 10am service at the Nativity of the Mother of God Church in Northam is followed by a 3pm one at Maylands, where the faithful recall Jesus being taken down from the Cross and sing about Joseph of Arimathea, and an icon of Jesus lying at the foot of

the Cross is venerated. On Saturday the faithful meet at the ‘tomb’ and sing “He Rose” then the priest lifts the shroud from the ‘tomb’ and carries the icon above his head and places it on the altar in the church as the congregation process around the church three times. When they reach the door they then start singing “Christ is Risen”.

The priest then knock on the door three times and the doors are opened from the inside and everyone goes into church where the tomb has been removed and replaced by the Tetrapod (table in the aisle) as is normal.

The Icon (Plastanytsia) stays on the altar for 40 days, symbolising the 40 days Jesus appeared to His disciples for before ascending into Heaven.

The blessing of the baskets follows, containing the traditionally-decorated eggs (pysanky), cooked eggs, sausages, paska, salt, horseradish, beetroot and ham - all sybolic.

On Easter Sunday, everyone greets each other with “Christ is Risen” and reply is “Indeed He is Risen”.

After Holy Liturgy everyone goes outside and those who didn’t have their baskets blessed on Saturday night, and have it blessed on Sunday.

It is a very joyous time with families coming together and then go home to share the contents of the blessed basket.

“O day of Resurrection! Let us beam with God’s own pride! Let everyone embrace in joy! Let us warmly greet those we meet and treat them all like brothers, even those who hate us! Let all the earth resound with this song: Christ is risen from the dead, conquering death by death, and on those in the grave bestowing life!”

St John makes it clear that God is necessary to the process of us becoming human. God and Christian lifestyle are not optional extras to our lives; they

are an essential part of our process of living if we are to be happy.

It is impossible to live a fulfilled life without knowing God through Jesus Christ. Our Lord said it very straightforwardly, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God,” (Matt 4:4).

That is essential to the full development of humanity Peace in the Risen Lord, +Bishop Peter Stasiuk Eparch of Ss Peter and Paul

Blessings rain down: Parishioners are blessed with holy water by Fr Kalinecki as the servers watch on.

PHOTO: PETER VALEGA

Happy but hungry: Some younger members of the parish prepare to tuck into an array of special Easter foods. PHOTO: PETER VALEGA njoy

Happy Easter: Parishioners receive an Easter blessing from Fr Kalinecki.

Perspectives

Alleluia what?

By Fr John Flader

One of the things I like most about the Easter season is the increased use of the word “Alleluia” in the Mass. I know it has a joyful meaning, but could you tell more about it? What does it actually mean and where does it come from?

The word “Alleluia”, sometimes spelled “Halleluia” or “Halleluja”, means essentially “Praise the Lord” or “Hail the one who is”. It is made up of the Hebrew verb for praise (“Allelu”) and the proper name of God, “the One who is” (“ia”), as in the name Yahweh. The latter recalls the answer God gave when Moses asked him for his name: “I am who I am” (Ex 3:14), Yahweh.

The word “ia” is thus not the generic name for God, but the specific name for the God who revealed Himself to the Israelites as “I am”.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church comments on the name of God: “In revealing his mysterious name, YHWH (‘I AM HE WHO IS’, or ‘I AM WHO I AM’), God says who he is and by what name he is to be called.

This divine name is mysterious just as God is mystery... God, who reveals his name as ‘I am’, reveals himself as the God who is always there, present to his people in order to save them.” (CCC 206-207)

The expression “Alleluia”, incorporating this specific divine name, is found in the Old Testament in several places.

For example, in the Book of Tobias we read: “The gates of Jerusalem will sing hymns of joy, and all her houses will cry, ‘Hallelujah! Blessed be the God of Israel!’ and the blessed will bless the holy name forever and ever.” (Tob 13:17)

The English translation used here renders “ia” as “the God of Israel”. And it is clear that “Hallelujah” is a cry of praise, of great rejoicing, of blessing God’s holy name. The expression appears again at the begin-

ning and end of Psalm 113, or in other versions of the Bible such as the Vulgate or Septuagint, at the beginning of Psalm 114.

At the end of Psalm 113 we find: “He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord!” (Ps 113:9) Again, the expression “Praise the Lord”, or “Halleluja”, comes at a time of particular rejoicing, when a barren woman has conceived a child.

The expression “Praise the Lord” comes as the last verse of the so-called “Hallel” psalms, or psalms of praise: Psalms 113118. It also occurs frequently in Psalms 146-150 at the end of the psalter.

In the New Testament, “Hallelujah” occurs only in the Book of Revelation, in the description of the praise given to God in the heavenly liturgy.

For example, “After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, ‘Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power to our God, for his judgments are true and just...’”

(Rev 19:1-2)

The expression comes several more times in the same chapter, including: “Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals, crying out, ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready...’” (Rev 19:6-7)

As we see in these texts, “Alleluia” or “Hallelujah” is always used as a hymn of praise of almighty God in the context of worship and great rejoicing.

It was used in the Hebrew liturgy and it was incorporated untranslated into the very earliest Christian liturgical texts.

For Christians, especially at Easter time, the word takes on the added meaning of a hymn of praise to God for the glorious Resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ.

“Alleluia” is thus our supreme expression of rejoicing, praise and thanksgiving. We should unite our hearts and minds with our lips when we pronounce this word, lifting up our hearts in exultant praise of God.

‘How does baby get out?’

Family is the Future

with Karen & Derek Boylen

Karen recently gave birth to our fifth child Zechariah. A few weeks before he was born our two eldest children (Elijah 6 and Isaiah 4 1⁄2) asked one of those questions parents dread. “Mummy, how does the baby get out?”

Talking to children about the beginnings of life and where babies come from is an awkward job, guaranteed to create self doubt for any parent. How much do they need to know? How much is too much? How do I be truthful to my child while at the same time protecting their innocence? It’s not a simple process and every parent approaches it a different way.

As Catholic parents it is vital that we engage with our children on these topics. If we don’t educate, guide and provide wisdom, society and peer influence most certainly will. As Catholics we share very particular views on the significance

Fix a heart without a

I say I say

By Mark Reidy

In 1994 I spent three months working in a refugee camp in Bosnia with those who had escaped the vicious conflict that raged there. I’ll never forget the “welcoming” I received when I returned to Melbourne to my employment as a youth worker in a government hostel. It was a place that provided temporary accommodation for young people who had been removed from their homes, for reasons ranging from neglect to abuse.

Due to my extended absence I did not carry my keys with me so I knocked on the door. I found myself facing a very angry and hostile young woman who had moved in during my time away. She was clothed in darkness, both in dress and demeanour.

“Who the **** are you?” she hissed through clenched teeth. It was my first real understanding of a condition that I have since referred to as the “homelessness heart”.

shaken their world. In a material sense they were impoverished, yet the foundation of familial love on which their lives were built was able to sustain them when everything around fell apart. It was such a contrast to the bitterness that drove the young woman who met me at the door that day.

As I came to know her over the ensuing months and learnt of the abuse that she had endured from her mother and the parade of step dads that had invaded her life, I came to understand why she had cut her heart free from the moor-

home

Sadly, there are many who share her affliction. These are the people that we read about in the newspapers; see on the six o’clock news or even pass in the streets.

They can be violent, dishonest, drug-addicted and often clog up our hospital, police and prison resources with their socially destructive and self abusive behaviour. Many have only known the world to be ugly and vindictive. They have never felt that they belonged.

They respond by blurring their memories with alcohol, pills and solvents or by sticking needles in their arms. They cut themselves in an attempt to release the pain and to give the world an outward sign of what is going on inside them. Young women give themselves to any male that shows them attention, as they desperately search for the love that they never knew. Young men viciously lash out as they battle the unresolved anger that festers within. Their choices are born from hearts that have no home.

But how do we as Christians respond when we see or hear of these selfdestructive behaviours? Do we simply turn the page, switch the channel or just keep walking?

I had just returned from a war torn nation where the young people I worked with had literally been stripped of everything that they owned; houses, possessions and often, family members. Many had left the only place they had ever known with only the clothes on their backs, yet there remained a peace somewhere within them that radiated through the devastating but temporary turmoil that had

ings that should have been her emotional home. It was less painful to detach oneself from a place devoid of love than to live each day under the roof of this reality.

Materially the government provided this woman with everything that she could physically need; a roof over her head, the latest fashion, adequate food, school, training or work opportunities and a selection of counselling options, yet none of these could accommodate a heart that had been set adrift. None could fulfil her need to be loved.

Or do we allow ourselves to experience the discomfort of sharing another’s pain? Whether we realise it or not we are, on a spiritual level, making these choices every day. We are either inviting the hearts of the most wounded into our own, or we are leaving them on the doorstep outside.

Let us never forget the words of Jesus, who was very specific when he told us, “In truth I say to you, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me” (Matt 25:40).

Perspectives

and other awkward questions

of life before birth, reserving sex for a committed married relationship, the dignity of each person regardless of culture, gender, ability or age, etc.

Our society and media don’t miss a beat. They take every available opportunity to bombard us with messages on all these issues. The result of these efforts is the culture we live in. As parents we could learn something.

There are two approaches to questions like “How does the baby get out? How come grandma is not coming back?

Where do babies come from? Why do I have to help other people?” One is to dread them and find a way to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible or palm it off to your spouse, “Ask your mother”. The other is to see it as a special opportunity; a teachable moment.

When children ask these questions they are reaching out to us. Amid all the messages they are receiving they are seeking us out for advice, for guidance. It’s a special opportunity. Often they are feeling as nervous as us.

Not only should we see it as a special opportunity to impart our values and beliefs but to let our children know that the door is always open. Not only do we want to have this particular conversation but we want to invite more of them.

The scary thing most parents are fearful of is what to actually say or saying the wrong thing. We usually start with a

“well...” followed by a deep breath to buy us time. It helps to have had a conversation with your spouse or other significant adults in your child’s life about how much you want them to know.

Have a think about some of the issues your child is most likely to ask at each age and work out what you want to say beforehand so you are prepared. Some of the most common, depending on the age of your child, will include where babies come from, death and dying, life before birth, changes that happen at puberty, why we have to go to church, war, alcohol and drugs.

When thinking about these topics and how you might discuss them with your children try to identify the key messages you want to impart, not the actual words you are going to say. What are the key values and beliefs?

Our five children are very young. Some of the key understandings we want our children to have at this stage is that every person is special and every person is a gift from God; that their bodies are special and good; that every person’s body is different and that they are all special; that it is always safe to talk to mummy and daddy.

Be prepared for the unexpected. Children often ask these questions when we least expect them; at parties, when relatives are around or when visiting friends. It is tempting to brush them off.

Unfortunately, they don’t usually think to ask later or when we try to approach the subject later they have lost interest. Putting children off in these situations sends a subtle message to them that the subject is embarrassing or that we don’t like to talk about it.

The result is that they are less likely to come to us next time. Of course in a public setting we also need to exercise discretion particularly if there are other children present.

Sometimes an enthusiastic “Wow, that’s a really good question! Now’s not a good time but I’d love to talk to you about that later” can do the trick. Make sure you take the initiative to follow up later though.

Making the most of teachable moments and having these conversations are vital. So many other people are talking to your children; they need to hear your voice. Conversations lead to clearer thinking, it helps them to reflect.

Don’t forget to point out situations that give messages counter to yours. Be creative, advertisements on television, billboards and the radio all create opportunities for teachable moments.

A last word, make sure you put your values into action. Your deeds will always have a much bigger influence than what you say. Impart your values and talk to your children but most of all let them see that you live by them too.

Postcard to Vietnam: Still serving the Lord, and loving every minute of it

Here we present part three of our series of testimonies by students of St Charles Seminary in Guildford on how they found their vocation. Quy Lam, whose parents helped him and his siblings escape persecution in Communist Vietnam, has had an extraordinary journey. He presents it here exclusively to The Record.

My mane is Quy Lam and I was born in a small city called Dong Nai, about 80km from Saigon in South Vietnam.

I am the youngest child in a family of seven.

In 1981 my parents let my two brothers and my older sister escape Vietnam by boat in the hope to find freedom and a better future for my family.

Quy Lam

Their escape succeeded and they settled in Australia, with my parents sponsoring my whole family to Perth in 1991.

Soon after arriving in Australia I was enrolled at Sacred Heart Primary School. It was very tough for me because I couldn’t speak English.

I graduated from year 12 in 1999 from Aranmore Catholic College.

My family advised me to continue studying and get a university degree.

However, I felt called to become a priest. They suggested that if I was still interested in becoming a priest after studying for a degree, then it would be a sign that my calling is more authentic.

The idea of priesthood has always been with me since a very early age.

In Vietnam people go to church very early in the morning and I still remember one incident which had happened to me when I was about eight years old, when I first had the feeling to become a priest.

One morning I got up and went to Mass, and on that particular morning during Mass I had a special feeling within me about becoming a priest.

I heard a gentle voice whisper into my ear that priesthood is for me when I grow up.

From that day onward the thought of becoming a priest has always remained in my heart and mind. This is my third year at St Charles’ Seminary in Guildford,

At the moment, my desire to become a priest is as strong as ever, and I will continue to search for this special calling and I hope that St Charles’ Seminary will give me the best opportunity to explore whether a vocation to the priesthood is for me or not.

However, if it is God’s will that priesthood is not for me then I know at least that I did give it a go.

I ask that you please pray for me and all those who are discerning their vocation in life and that God willing, many will offer themselves to serve God as priests and Religious. For seminary enquires call Fr Thai Vu on 9310 1747

It’s all about one on one time with God

Vincent Restifo (on the right!)

MHow I Pray Now

ass is a great experience. It’s community prayer, which I love. I have just started going to Daily Mass at university, although I’ve always gone on Sundays. Reconciliation gives me a sense of wholeness and healing. I often say short prayers of thanks, or pray if I find something challenging in my life. I pray for family, friends or people that I have just met who are going through a rough patch. I pray in the car to find a parking spot or at a particularly dangerous intersection. Sometimes it’s conversational and other times it’s more formalised. Occasionally I go on retreats or say the Rosary. Prayer is not something for which I follow a fixed pattern every day.

with Debbie Warrier

My faith is one of the deepest core parts of who I am and is multi-faceted. It’s the start and finish of life. I value quiet, reflective and reverent prayer. Then there’s going out into the world to bring about social change - to transform it into the kind of world that Jesus would be creating.

I view my faith as a one-on-one relationship, and everyone always has to work on their relationships.

I’ve had some strong role models and support in my faith journey, but ultimately you have to take responsibility for your own spiritual maturity.

I went to a youth leadership conference once and someone said, “The Catholic Church is the best product with the worst marketing department!” There’s a real call to put the messages of the Catholic Church out there to the wider public and to make new teachings more accessible.

I’ve just started studying a Bachelor of Theology at Notre Dame University. I’m trying to decide what career to pursue, but regardless of what it might be I want to bring my faith into it. Theology is a great starting point, as it helps me understand more about myself and the world around me.

I would say that I have small, daily conversions. There are always things that you can improve on. Everyone has had some struggle in their life.

Even if you feel the whole world is against you, there is still one person on your side and He just happens to be the Creator of the world! That’s very helpful and satisfying. Two words that have come to symbolise a lot in my life are ‘hope’ and ‘patience.’ You hope things will improve and are patient until it does.

I belong to a Young Christian Workers group in Morley. Some of our group members have been visiting a young woman in Bandyup for a while now. Recently, I was invited to attend Mass with the male prisoners at Acacia.

The Mass was simple and reverent. Afterwards we all chatted over coffee and biscuits. The people in the prison want to experience and celebrate their faith. They come from so many different backgrounds. I hope to visit monthly.

You hear reports about people that have done terrible things. Since the prison visits the way that I see prisoners has changed. I realise that everyone needs healing. I think that if we are trying to become more like Jesus, we must treat everybody with acceptance, with love and humility. Everybody is entitled to that. We are all equal and have the same dignity.

debwarrier@hotmail.com

the World

Orders highlight little-known role in AIDS care

Around the world approximately one-quarter of all those living with HIV-AIDS are cared for by the Catholic Church. But how many people know that?

■ By Carol Glatz

ROME (CNS) - In an effort to enhance their visibility on the world stage and provide networking support to others, two worldwide organisations of religious released a global “map” of how the Church is combating HIV/AIDS.

Titled “In Loving Service,” the 30-page booklet documents the services religious orders offer to millions of people affected by HIV/ AIDS around the world.

Organisers said the mapping project will be vital for showing the churches, governments, international organisations and potential donors exactly what men and women religious are doing in the areas of prevention, care and education.

A draft of the booklet was released April 30 and at a May 35 international forum sponsored by the International Union of Superiors General, an organisation for women religious, and the Union of Superiors General, an organisation for men religious.

Organisers said the role religious institutes play in fighting the spread

of HIV and caring for those affected by AIDS has either been overlooked or criticised for the Church’s opposition to the use of condoms in prevention programs.

“We’re hoping (the booklet) would make more visible what religious are doing” not only to counteract the “negative perceptions,” but also to help consolidate the efforts of individual religious around the world, Camillian Father Frank Monks told Catholic News Service.

Father Monks is the former superior general of the Camillians and the president of the joint health commission of the two religious unions that oversaw the project.

He said the negative image some international organisations have painted of the Church is not only “very annoying,” it also hinders many religious institutes from getting access to the needed money or resources that could fund or expand their HIV/AIDS projects.

This means many Religious men and women also are overworked and risk burnout, he said, because in addition to providing crucial care to some of the poorest and most remote parts of the world, they also must engage in “time-consuming” canvassing to find money, funding and medicine for their work.

Consolata Sister Simona Brambilla told CNS that the ideal

would be to set up a coordinating office in Rome that can centralise all fundraising efforts and help train people to be more effective in the field in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Concerning the Church’s stance against condom use, Father Monks said like many ethical issues, “it’s not all black and white.”

“There is a conversation under way in the Church and whatever conclusions come out of it, we will accept,” he said.

The Church advocates abstinence before marriage and fidelity during marriage as the best way to prevent the spread of HIV. However, currently there is no official Church position on the use of condoms by married couples to prevent the transmission of HIV, though the Church opposes the use of any artificial means of contraception - including condoms - that would interfere with the creation of life within marriage.

Pope Benedict XVI had asked the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry to draw up a study dealing with the use of condoms within marriage when one partner is infected. The council handed that study over to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2006.

Father Monks said the “In Loving Service” survey results will also help religious “be more effective because our response has been fragmented. The Camillians didn’t know what the Combonis were doing” and vice versa, he said.

Besides distributing the booklet to all the headquarters of all the reli-

gious orders in Rome, some Vatican bodies and the world’s bishops’ conferences, the mapping project will also set up an “informal network” that includes a planned Web site so religious can share ideas and information about HIV/AIDS services.

With the help of UNAIDS and Caritas Internationalis, representatives of men and women religious formulated a questionnaire that was sent to every Catholic religious institute in the world asking them to detail how they were involved in HIV/AIDS care and prevention.

Of the more than 2,100 religious communities in the world, only 446 responded to the survey. The data was then compiled and analysed by faculty and students at Georgetown University in Washington.

Comboni Sister Maria Martinelli said many religious communities did not respond because they are not directly involved in HIV/AIDS programs.

However, she said some orders not involved in health care wrote saying they did teach young people about healthy habits and helped boost their self-esteem, which may help protect them from high-risk behaviours.

She told journalists on April 30 that offering medical care is only a small part of what the Church can do in the fight against HIV/ AIDS; besides offering education and rectifying social and economic injustices, religious can offer “pastoral duties of accompanying” those affected by HIV.

Father Monks said prayers, “a hug and hope are as important as medicine.”

Chinese Patriotic Church in u-turn on Marian pilgrimages

BEIJING (CNS) - Catholic authorities in mainland China have taken the unprecedented step of advising Catholics on how to conduct Marian devotions and make pilgrimage arrangements.

The Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China have urged all dioceses in China to organise pilgrimages locally rather than in other provinces or municipalities, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News.

The five-point notice from the two government-approved bodies also asks the dioceses to implement security measures to ensure pil-

grims’ safety. Anthony Liu Bainian, a vice chairman of the patriotic association, confirmed to UCA News on April 29 that the two administrative organisations had not previously issued instructions on devotions during the Marian month of May.

They decided to do so this year because they “estimated the number of pilgrims would increase and wanted to ease the pressure on Shanghai,” he explained.

Pope Benedict XVI has asked Catholics worldwide to pray for the Chinese Catholic Church on May 24, the feast of Our Lady, Help of Christians.

In making the request in his letter to Catholics in China, released last June, he noted that Mary is “venerated with great devotion” at the Marian shrine of Sheshan in Shanghai on May 24.

Liu told UCA News that prospective pilgrims to Sheshan “must contact (the) Shanghai Diocese and arrange a date in advance” for their pilgrimage to avoid overcrowding at the shrine, located in a Shanghai suburb.

He also pointed out that although the Pope’s letter asks Catholics worldwide to pray for the church in China on May 24 it does not equate this with a pilgrimage to Sheshan.

The April 3 notice, addressed to local Catholic patriotic associations, Church affairs commissions, dioceses, seminaries and convents of the government-approved Church community, does not refer to Sheshan or any other mainland Marian pilgrimage sites. It also does not refer to Pope Benedict’s call for the special day of prayer. One of its five points simply asks all dioceses to organise May devotions and pilgrimage activities locally. It also encourages dioceses to make adequate preparations to receive pilgrims at local churches and Marian shrines.

Catholics who wish to travel to another province for devotions should comply with arrangements stipulated by that province’s Catholic patriotic association and Church affairs commission and the destination diocese, the notice says. It also reminds pilgrims to follow instructions given by the respective Church bodies that oversee pilgrimage sites.

Three points of the notice suggest other devotions: reciting the rosary; living prayerfully every day in May and learning about Mary’s virtues; and attending Mass every Saturday as well as on Marian feasts during the month.

Ten years on, the silenced child speaks volumes. Can we hear?

Continued from Vista 1

killed and bottled the baby. So the Premier, who had several years earlier assured pro-life advocates that he was staunchly opposed to abortion (and who, in fact, voted against the Bill), directed his Health Minister to draft a Bill to legalise abortion.

And while the Attorney General did this, he apparently found time to help a member the Opposition draft a second abortion bill.

Both bills were designed to make unborn babies pay for their mothers’ choices, although the Government maintained the pretence that its Bill was somehow less despicable than the private member’s Bill.

The Premier gave over the Parliament almost entirely to the consideration of these two abortion Bills.

They were debated simultaneously in the two Houses of

Parliament: the Government Bill in the Legislative Assembly first, the private member’s Bill in the Legislative Council first.

The debate continued for nearly three months.

During these three months, prolife advocates, among other things, fielded petitions that were signed by tens of thousands and organised protest rallies at Parliament House that were attended by thousands.

And pro-life politicians fought passionately and eloquently in parliament on behalf of the unborn, striving to soften and turn the hearts of their pro-abortion colleagues. All to no avail.

In the end, the private member’s Bill, the Bill put forward by Labor MLC Cheryl Davenport, passed both houses of parliament. Even then, pro-lifers did not give up.

They held candlelight vigils outside Government House in the

hope of dissuading the Governor from giving royal assent to the legislation.

But, sadly, the Governor felt it was his duty to sign off on the Parliament’s legislation.

And he did his duty. The Acts Amendment (Abortion) Act 1998 was promulgated and immediately every protection was stripped from the unborn children of Western Australia.

All this evil came in response to a baby who was aborted but not discarded with the gore of other aborted babies.

A cruel irony, isn’t it? There ought to have been a mass welling up of sympathy for that baby in its glass coffin half hidden behind the milk and the meat in its mother’s refrigerator. Instead, the baby’s killer got the sympathy—and the legal go-ahead to kill even more unborn babies. The Coalition for

the Defence of Human Life (CDHL) has held a protest rally at Parliament House in May every year since the passage of the Acts Amendment (Abortion) Act 1998.

To mark the tenth anniversary of this abortion-on-demand legislation, the CDHL is planning a major rally at Parliament House on Thursday May 22 at 12 noon.

The keynote speak will be Denise Mountenay, the founder and president of Canada Silent No More, a support group for women who suffered guilt and grief after having abortions until they came to know God’s forgiveness.

A significant part of the rally will be the presentation of the inaugural William Wilberforce Awards to members of parliament who have given “consistent service to the defence of human life in the Parliament of Western Australia”.

Please come to the rally and show

by your presence your abhorrence of abortion. Come in remembrance of that baby in a bottle, whose secret betrayal by mother and doctor was compounded by a majority of parliamentarians coming from all sides of politics.

Come with grief for the 80,000 babies aborted with official sanction in the ten years since the Parliament of Western Australia legalised abortion.

Come and show your support for the sanctity of human life and the right to life of the unborn. Come and be encouraged by the speakers. Come and pressure our parliamentarians to repeal the laws sanctioning abortion and restore legal protection to unborn children.

Come and help “Make Abortion History”.

The tenth anniversary rally is on May 22, Parliament House, Perth, 12 noon

Touched by AIDS: Orphans whose parents died of AIDS gather around a waterspout in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya, last November. Pope Benedict XVI offered his prayers at that time for the families of the estimated 2.1 million people who died of AIDS that year and asked all people to work to end discrimination against those who have AIDS and HIV.

PHOTO: CNS/ANTONY NJUGUNA, REUTERS

the World

Down’s Syndrome child gives ‘unspeakable joy’

■ By Joel Davidson

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CNS) -

Local Catholic leaders and advocates for the disabled praised Governor Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, for fully embracing the arrival of their fifth child, who was born with Down syndrome on April 18.

In a statement, the Palin family said they knew, through early testing, that Trig Paxon Van Palin “would face special challenges.”

Despite Trig’s disability, the Palins said they felt “privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives.”

The Palin family’s public comments stand in contrast to the stark reality of statistics showing that more than 90 per cent of women who receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome choose to abort the child. Several Catholic leaders expressed admiration for the way the governor and her family embraced their new baby.

“It is a beautiful witness, especially for someone who is so public like the governor,” Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz told the Catholic Anchor, the archdiocesan newspaper.

“Clearly her actions are a public witness to the fact that every child is a gift. This is what the pro-abortion people don’t want to admit to.”

Mercy Sister Kathleen O’Hara assists people with disabilities at the Joy Community of Providence Alaska Medical Centre in

Anchorage. Two days after Palin gave birth to her son, members of the Joy Community and their families gathered to celebrate Mass at the hospital.

“People who had Down syndrome births were so thrilled with Palin’s response,” Sister O’Hara said.

“It says a great deal for their deep and abiding faith that they knew they were going to have a hard road ahead and they were willing to do this.”

Anchorage resident Natalie Carey has a son in his 30s with Down syndrome and is an active supporter of the Joy Community.

At age 44, Palin was roughly the same age as Carey was when she gave birth to her son three decades ago. Carey was well aware that the chances of having a Down syndrome child increase substantially after age 35.

“When I found out Palin was pregnant, I was concerned about that,” Carey said, “but I had every confidence in her because of her right-to-life stance.”

“They are such untold blessings,” Carey said of children with Down syndrome. “It is a very special world.”

Palin is one of the most popular governors in the country; her decisions are watched closely and scores of media outlets and Internet sites around the country have already reported on the birth of her child.

Several reports noted the governor’s public witness to the dignity of all human life. Last year, the American College of Obstetricians

Catholic laity must show world faith not opposed to freedom

VATICAN CITY - Catholic laypeople are called to study their faith, live it and show the world that faith is not opposed to intelligence or freedom and that it is a powerful force for good in the world, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Addressing nearly 150,000 people gathered in and around St Peter’s Square for the 140th anniversary of Italian Catholic Action on May 4, the Pope said that by focusing on “contemplation, communion and mission” the parish-based organisation helps laypeople fulfill their vocation in the world.

Pope Benedict told the members that the importance of Catholic Action, which formed generations of Italian Catholic politicians and social activists, had not outlived its mission. With the guidance of the Holy

and Gynecologists recommended that all pregnant women receive the option to test for Down syndrome. Previously, only women 35 years and older were offered the test.

The lead author of that recommendation told The New York Times last year, “There are many couples who do not want to have a baby with Down syndrome.” She added that wider testing gives parents a choice on whether to abort.

With the total Down syndrome population in the US now at 350,000, the article stated that many parents worry that dwindling numbers might lead to less medical research and lonelier lives for those who remain.

Judy Waldron is president of the Alaska chapter of the National Down Syndrome Congress, a local support group for families.

“It is a fact,” she said, “that as they detect Down syndrome more, they are being aborted more and more.”

While her organisation does not take a stand on the abortion issue, Waldron said parents should know that many resources are available to help parents of children with Down syndrome.

“We offer parent-to-parent counseling and support,” she said.

Waldron has a 19-year-old daughter with Down syndrome and said she has experienced great joys as a parent.

“It is really rewarding,” she said. “With a lot of the normal developmental things, you have to work harder ... but they are also more rewarding.”

Spirit and fidelity to Church teaching, he said, Catholic Action members are called to find “ever new syntheses between proclaiming salvation in Christ to people of our age and promoting the integral good of the person and the entire human family.”

Returning again to his concern about what he has termed an “education emergency” in Italy, Pope Benedict asked the association to focus particularly on preparing and supporting educators.

And, he said, in a Church called to face the serious challenge of a lack of fidelity or concessions to modern social and political pressures, “be courageous witnesses and prophets of evangelical radicalism.”

“In a Church that daily faces a relativistic, hedonistic and consumeristic mentality,” he said, the Catholic laity must give witness to “a faith that is a friend of intelligence” in the spheres of culture and research.

Before going down into St Peter’s Square to speak to the Catholic Action gathering, Pope Benedict recited the “Regina Coeli” prayer with them and other pilgrims in

the square. Focusing on the feast of the Ascension, which was celebrated on May 4 in Italy, Pope Benedict said Jesus came into the world to lead all men and women back to God the Father.

Bishops directed to hold baptismal records from Mormons

WASHINGTON - In an effort to block posthumous rebaptisms by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Catholic dioceses throughout the world have been directed by the Vatican not to give information in parish registers to the Mormons’ Genealogical Society of Utah.

An April 5 letter from the Vatican Congregation for Clergy, obtained by Catholic News Service in late April, asks

episcopal conferences to direct all bishops to keep the Latter-day Saints from microfilming and digitising information contained in those registers.

The order came in light of “grave reservations” expressed in a January 29 letter from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the clergy congregation’s letter said.

Father James Massa, executive director of the US bishops’ Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, said the step was taken to prevent the Latter-day Saints from using records - such as baptismal documentation - to posthumously ‘baptise’ by proxy the ancestors of church members.

Posthumous baptisms by proxy have been a common practice for the Latter-day Saints - commonly known as Mormons - for more than a century, allowing the church’s faithful to have their ancestors baptised into their faith so they may be united in the afterlife, said Mike Otterson, a spokesman in the church’s Salt Lake City headquarters.

CNS

Second miracle clears way for Blessed Damien’s canonisation

Continued from Page 1

life caring for the Hansen’s disease patients on the Hawaiian Island of Molokai, was beatified in 1995 in Belgium by Pope John Paul II.

“I give thanks and praise to God for the news I received this morning!” Bishop Silva wrote in an e-mail message to diocesan personnel on the theologians’ decision.

In his announcement, Bishop Silva included the name of the Oahu woman, Audrey Toguchi, whose cancer disappeared a decade ago after she began prayers to Father Damien that included pilgrimages to Kalaupapa where the priest worked and died.

It was the first time the diocese had made her name public.

Toguchi, in a May 1 interview

with the Hawaii Catholic Herald, Honolulu diocesan newspaper, said that when she first learned she had cancer “I put everything in God’s hands.”

She decided to pray to Father Damien, who had given his own life in service to others. “Father Damien is not going to let me go,” she thought at the time.

The sainthood process generally requires two miracles, one for beatification and one for canonisation.

An alleged miracle - usually a healing - must overcome two hurdles. First, medical experts must declare it dramatic and unexplainable.

Next, theologians must determine that it was caused through the intercession of the candidate for saint-

hood. In Father Damien’s case, the medical commission of the Vatican’s Congregation for Saints’ Causes ruled last October that the healing was “unexplainable according to available medical knowledge.”

In this latest judgment, the theological consultors determined that the cure was attributable to Father Damien.

The cure in question involved the disappearance of cancer, without treatment, from Toguchi’s lungs in 1999. The case was documented in an article about “complete spontaneous regression of cancer” published by Dr. Walter Y.M. Chang, in the October 2000 issue of the Hawaii Medical Journal.

According to the article, three malignant lung tumours were dis-

covered by X-ray in September 1998.

The cancer was a reappearance of matching malignancies surgically removed earlier from other parts of the body.

Upon learning of her condition, Toguchi began praying to Father Damien and visiting Kalaupapa.

Before therapy could be applied, an X-ray a month later showed that the tumours had decreased in size.

Monthly X-rays revealed further shrinkage until scans in May and October 1999 could find no sign of the cancer. The doctor’s report stated that the “lung metastases disappeared with no therapy at all.”

The Diocese of Honolulu in 2003 convened a tribunal to investigate the miracle. The month-long proc-

ess involved seven meetings and interviews with six medical doctors, the former cancer patient, her husband and sister, and two priests who had counselled the patient. Of the doctors, most of whom were not Catholic, five were connected with the care of the patient and one was independent.

The tribunal’s findings were formally opened at the Congregation for Saints’ Causes on September 11, 2003.

The ensuing process wasn’t all smooth sailing. The congregation asked the Honolulu tribunal to reconvene in 2005 to clarify parts of its original report. And last November, an official at the congregation quietly visited Hawaii for further examination of the case.

Mother’s love: Local Catholic leaders and advocates for the disabled praised Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, above, and her husband, Todd, for fully embracing the arrival of their fifth child, who was born with Down syndrome on April 18.

PHOTO: CNS/JEFF SCHULTZ, COURTESY OF ALASKAN GOVERNOR’S OFFICE

From little things, big things grow

■ By Matthew Biddle

Themoment you reach the address of St Rita’s Catholic Books in Gwelup, you’ll immediately understand why this is no ordinary bookshop.

You’re greeted by several happy, young children who, with their parents Paul and Janice Johnston, invite you into their family home – which doubles as the home of St Rita’s Catholic Books.

The increasingly popular bookshop arrived on the couple’s agenda just before their engagement, when a Victorian-based friend asked if they would consider setting up a bookstall in their parish.

In July 2002, soon after Paul and Janice were married, St Rita’s Catholic Books began in humble fashion.

“We started with one small box of books and we’d take that in the car to the ProCathedral and to another book store,” Janice said.

“Eventually it got to two boxes of books, and then three, and then we decided we’d have a bookcase.”

When the pair moved into their Gwelup home, they decided to expand the venture to much larger proportions.

“We decided to just stock everything and fill up the entire wall space with books,” Janice said.

In addition to running the bookshop, the dedicated Catholics are also raising four children under the age of six.

The family said it’s been hard work managing the bookshop and running a hectic household.

“We don’t watch TV – that saves us a lot of time – we try to be organised with how we do things, and have a fairly structured day,” Paul said.

Thestory behind the naming of the bookshop goes back to well before the idea first surfaced.

“I went to a bookstore in the city and I wanted to get my dad a picture of Saint Therese,” Janice explained.

“I saw this picture of Saint Rita, and I had never seen a picture of a nun like that before – holding a crucifix with a thorn – so I asked the lady at the counter who she was, and she said ‘Oh that’s Saint Therese’.

“I said ‘Are you sure?’ and she said ‘If it’s a nun with a crucifix its Saint Therese’.”

Unconvinced, Janice looked through the section of books on saints to confirm her suspicion.

“The last book was on St Rita of Cascia and she looked almost exactly like that. I read the book, and I had to buy it, and then a week later went back and brought the picture,” Janice said.

“Ever since then I’ve had a special devotion to her, and I made a promise to her that I’d make her known.”

Several years later, when the bookshop eventuated, it was the perfect opportunity for Janice to keep her promise.

“The fact that other people have asked us who she is has been wonderful, because she is being made known,” she said.

Paul said St Rita, who is always in the family’s nightly prayers, has provided help from above on numerous occasions.

“She’s clearly helped us in the way this has grown from something so small with fairly modest aims to something much bigger now,” he said.

Paul and Janice Johnston’s four children certainly keep their parents busy, but the family is doing well amidst their chaotic schedule.

The children – Angelica, 5, Ignatius, 3, Camillus, 2 and the most recent addition to the family, Perpetua, five months – are all named after influential saints of the Church.

Janice described the home life as “hectic, happy and noisy”.

Although the children aren’t at school age yet, the Johnstons have already decided home schooling is the best option.

“We just want them to have a truly Catholic education … rather than just have a religious course that’s just a touch on Catholicism,” Janice said.

The children are even involved in the weekly ‘book barrow’ – when the family sets up a bookstall at a parish – which often takes up the majority of the weekend.

“If any priest wants Catholic books in his parish and would like us to do a bookstall, we’re happy to go anywhere,” Paul said.

Running the bookshop doesn’t interfere with the Johnston’s family life, but in many ways enhances it.

“The kids love pushing the boxes around and helping us pack and unpack, so they

actually get quite involved in it,” Janice said. “They don’t know life any differently, to them it’s just the way it’s always been.”

Paul agreed. “We try to make it fun for them … with the books if I didn’t let them push the boxes to the door, there’d be an outcry,” he said.

StRita’s Catholic Books stocks between 1500 and 2000 titles, all of which can be ordered via mail, phone or email.

Both Paul and Janice possess good computer skills, so they were able to create a webpage and an online catalogue – which was produced in unique circumstances.

“When Janice was pregnant with Ignatius, she had quite a serious problem with the pregnancy and as a result had to spend two months in hospital,” Paul said.

“Every morning she’d be up at five and had a laptop there, an Internet connection, and she was doing the descriptions of every single book we’ve got in the catalogue.”

The bookshop has titles covering numerous topics, but also has some specialty areas.

“We specialise a bit on the older traditions of the Church, particularly the Latin Mass, devotion to the saints, and Catechisms,” Paul revealed.

Interest in the bookshop has gradually grown since it started, but not via commercial means.

“We haven’t done a lot of advertising, I think more word-of-mouth … and that’s how it’s grown,” Paul said.

But the family doesn’t see St Rita’s Catholic Books as a business as such.

“It’s more of an apostolate because it’s to do with the family, and we’re not in it to make money,” Janice said. With Paul a full-time senior research fellow in the department of computer science and software engineering at UWA, Janice takes care of all matters regarding the bookshop during the day.

“Janice gets all the phone calls and takes orders, I do the ordering from the publishers, the accounts, and carry heavy boxes,” Paul said with a smile.

Combining work with the bookshop and family life has been a constant juggling act for Paul.

“Once the kids are in bed and we’ve had dinner, then I’ve got an hour or two at night to spend on the books.”

Although the bookshop has filled the family’s lounge room, Janice said operating out of their home has been a significant advantage for everyone.

“It’s convenient, I can answer calls while I’m here and I can see customers while I’m here,” she said.

When things have gotten hectic, Janice said she’s received help from the patron saint of the impossible.

“St Rita knows it’s our apostolate … but she also knows I’m a housewife and a mother, and so she is able to let us balance it as a family nicely, which is fantastic,” she said.

The couple said they were fortunate the bookshop had grown in line with their family situation.

“St Rita hasn’t made it grow so rapidly that we can’t handle it, it’s just been a steady increase that’s been manageable with the growth of the family.”

Paul added: “We wouldn’t even contemplate starting a bookstore today, but God suggested it to us when we had no children, when we could get started.”

Despite the bookshop consuming so much of their lives, the family thoroughly enjoys the apostolate.

“It’s actually very rewarding … and we’re able to sanctify a lot of the things that we do in our home,” Paul said.

“All of that time you’re spending [on the bookshop] is for the glory of God and for the good of His Church.”

As for the future of the bookshop, the Johnstons are happy to leave it in God’s hands.

“The fellow in Victoria who encouraged us to do it, he’s over 70 … and he’s still doing it, that may be us one day, it’s up to God,” Paul said.

Family apostolate: From left to right: Janice Johnston with Camillus (two) Paul Johnston with baby Perpetua (six months), Angelica (five) and Ignatius (three).

PHOTO: MATTHEW BIDDLE

The unknown saint: The picture that was mistakenly believed to be St Therese, and which began Janice Johnston’s devotion to St Rita of Cascia.

Rowdy siblings: Ignatius, baby Perpetua, Camillus and Angelica keep their parents busy but love helping out with the family’s bookshop..

PHOTO: MATTHEW BIDDLE

Kids bitz

WHAT did the chewing gum say to the shoe?

I’m stuck on you

WHAT is black, white and pink all over?

An embarrassed Zebra

WHAT did one mountain say to the other mountain?

Let’s meet in the valley

WHAT did one toilet say to the other toilet?

You look a little flushed

WHY didn’t the hotdog star in the movie?

The rolls weren’t that good

HAVE you heard about the restaurant on the moon?

Great food, but no atmosphere

WHAT do you call a fairy that hasn’t taken a bath?

Stinkerbell

WHAT is a cannibal’s favourite game?

Swallow the leader

WHY are teddy bears never hungry?

Because they are always stuffed

WHO granted the fish’s wish?

The fairy Cod mother

Special Mother’s Day Scrambled Eggs

Great for any occasion, but best of all eaten in bed!

Ingredients:

2eggs

1/4 cup of milk

1/2 cup of grated melting cheese Chopped parsley Salt and pepper

Note:

You could also add into this mixture some chopped ham, bacon or mushrooms.

Method:

In a medium bowl crack the two eggs, pour in the milk and add all other ingredients. Whisk well until all the ingredients are mixed together. Lightly oil a frying pan and pour the contents of the bowl in. Keep to a low heat and with a utensil lightly mix the scrambled eggs until cooked. They should only take a couple of minutes to cook and should be nice and creamy. Serve on its own or on some toasted bread. All the better served with some freshly squeezed orange juice. Enjoy!

Panorama

A roundup of events in the Archdiocese

Panorama entries must be in by 12pm Monday.

Contributions may be emailed to administration@therecord.com.au, faxed to 9227 7087, or mailed to PO box 75, Leederville, WA 6902. Submissions over 55 words will be edited or excluded. Inclusion is limited to 4 weeks. Events charging over $10 constitute a classified event, and will be charged accordingly. The Record reserves the right to decline or modify any advertisment.

Saturday May 10

ST PADRE PIO PRAYER GROUP

St Joseph’s Chapel, Villa Terrenzio, Corner Cabrini and Marangaroo Drive, Marangaroo. 9am St Padre Pio DVD, 10am Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Rosary, Divine Mercy, Silent Adoration and Benediction. 11am Holy Mass, St Padre Pio Liturgy. Confessions available. 12pm BYO Lunch. Tea and coffee supplied. All welcome. Enq: Barbara 9405 7559 or 0423 945 172.

Sunday May 11

THE WORLD APOSTOLATE OF FATIMA DEVOTIONS

Starting 3pm in Our Lady’s Assumption Church, Grand Promenade, Dianella. All Welcome. Enq: 9339 2614.

Sunday May 11 PERTH WYD SUNDAY SESH #4

May’s Theme: “SACRAMENTS”. Youth Mass

5.45pm and Session at 7pm. Whitfords Parish (Our Lady of the Mission), 270 Camberwarra Drive, Craigie. Learn more about each of the Sacraments - understanding why they are so important as Catholics and as WYD Pilgrims. Special Guest Speakers: Archbishop Barry James Hickey and Fr John Fowles (Fly Away to Heaven). All welcome. Enq: Tammy 9422 7944 or www.wydperth.com.

Sunday May 11

ETERNAL WORD TELEVISION NETWORK :

Every Sunday, 1 - 2 pm on Access 31

May 11: The Holy Spirit guides the prayer life of the Church/Fr Andrew Apostoli [The Holy Spirit at Work in the Church] followed by The Gift of Fortitude/Greg Clovis, director of Family Life International in UK with host Barbara McGuigan. Sincere thanks for your support and prayers. Donations: The Rosary Christian Tutorial Association, P.O. Box 1270, Booragoon 6954. Concerned about loss of faith in your family? Consider having a rooftop dish installed to receive EWTN free-to-air 24/.

Tuesday May 13 to Thursday May 15

THE SPIRITUALITY OF DYING

7.30pm. Infant Jesus Parish Centre, 47 Wellington Rd, Morley. Sr. Arlene Einwalter, SSSF from the USA will share her extensive knowledge of the spirituality of the dying process. Sr. Arlene will offer new ways of looking at the dying person’s spiritual needs and the needs of family members and caregivers. All welcome. Enq: 9276 8500.

Tuesday May 13 to Thursday May 15

A MESSAGE FOR OUR TIMES

9.30am, Infant Jesus Parish Centre, 47 Wellington Rd, Morley. Sr. Arlene will share with us her love of the Franciscan spirituality and explore how St Francis of Assisi, a thirteenth century monk, can speak clearly to us today in the twenty-first century. With all the problems we have in our modern world and life, can we afford not to listen? Enq: 9276 8500.

Wednesday May 14

CHAPLETS OF THE DIVINE MERCY

Commencing at 7.30pm. A beautiful, prayerful, sung devotion at St Thomas More Catholic Church, Dean Road, Bateman, will be held on the second Wednesday of each month. All are welcome. Enqs: George Lopez 9310 9493(hm) or 9325 2010(wk).

Thursday May 15

REMEMBRANCE MASS

Starting at 7pm. A Mass for the family and friends of babies lost, before, during or soon after birth, will be held at the Good Shepherd Church. Corner of Altone Road and Morley Drive, Lockridge. Enq: Shirley on 92799165 or Cath 93789806.

Saturday May 17 - Sunday May 18

LITTLE ROCK SCRIPTURE STUDY

Saturday (9am-6pm) in Cantonese and Sunday (1pm-8pm) in Mandarin. Holy Family Church cnr of Canning Highway and Thelma St Como. Acts of the Apostles Saturday and St Paul’s attitude and journey Sunday. Two sessions $30, one session $20 includes tea breaks, lunch and dinner. Book by 11 May. Enq: Susan 0431 443 338 or Teresa 0401 782 486.

Saturday May 17

UKRAINIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH OPEN DAY

From 1pm at 20 Ferguson Street, Maylands. Parish of St John the Baptist is inviting everyone to experience in a practical way the faith of Eastern Catholics. Lightly catered – please RSVP if possible. Enq: Nick 0404 232 894 or email Peter, peter.valega@kbr.com.

Sunday May 18

TAIZE MEDITATIVE PRAYER

7pm-8pm at Sisters of St Joseph Chapel, 16 York St, South Perth.This month we remember Sister Irene McCormack’s Anniversary. You are invited to come and pray in a candlelit chapel with Scripture, song, time for quiet prayer and silence. Everyone welcome. Enq: Sister Maree Riddler 0414 683 926.

Sunday May 18

PERTH WYD SUNDAY SESH #4 May’s Theme: “SACRAMENTS”.

Youth Mass at 6pm and Session at 7.15pm. To be held at Armadale Parish (St Francis Xavier): 279 Forrest Road, Brookdale. Learn more about each of the Sacraments - understanding why the 7 Sacraments are so important to us as Catholics and as World Youth Day Pilgrims. Special Guest Speaker: Bishop Don Sproxton. All welcome. Enq: Tammy 9422 7944 or www.wydperth.com.

Wednesday May 21

TAIZE MEDITATIVE PRAYER

7.30pm to 8.30pm at St Thomas More Catholic Church, 100 Dean Street, Bateman. All welcome to come and spend an hour in Group Prayer and relax after a busy workday in a candlelight atmosphere of prayer, song and meditation. Enq: Daisy/Barney 9310 4781.

Friday May 23

NEW LIFE IN GOD’S SPIRIT SEMINAR

Every Friday night 7.30pm to 9.30pm for eight weeks. St Brigid’s Church, 211 Aberdeen Street, Northbridge. Live the resurrection and be released into a new life by coming to know the tangible presence of God in you by his Holy Spirit. Registration $20.00 students $15.00 includes Booklet with weekly scripture and notes. All welcome. Enq: Jenni Young 9445 1028 or mobile 0404389 679.

Sunday May 25

ST PADRE PIO PILGRIMAGE AND PROCESSION TOODYAY

Holy Mass 10.30am followed by procession 12.30pm. Celebrate St Padre Pio’s birthday by joining the Corpus Christi Holy Mass and procession in Toodyay. Please bring a plate (tea and coffee provided). Buses leaving at 8am from Victoria Park, Mirrabooka and Girrawheen, enq: Nita 9367 1366. From Leederville, Morley and Midland, enq: Des 6278 1540. From Hamilton Hill, Spearwood, enq: Chia 9337 3831.

Sunday May 25

THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Will be celebrated at the Holy Trinity Church, Embleton with a Forty-hour Eucharistic Adoration starting on Friday May 23 at 6pm, right through Saturday and ending with the 9am Holy Mass on Sunday May 25. This will be followed by a Eurcharistic Procession and Benediction. All are Most welcome. Enq: Monsignor P McCrann 9271 5528 or George Jacob 9272 1379.

Sunday May 25

FOOD SAFARI

Starting at 10am and will be held at the Holy Trinity Church hall, Embleton, to raise funds for the celebration of the Silver Jubilee of the Novena of Our Lady of Good Health, Vailankanni which occurs August 30 2008. Enq: Monsignor P McCrann 9271 5528 or George Jacob 9272 1379.

Sunday May 25

JOURNEY OF THE CROSS AND ICON Pilgrimage Event 12 midday to 3.30pm. Start walking on Pilgrimage 12 noon from Mends St Jetty through Mitchel Park to Mary MacKillop Centre for a beautiful Ritual and Veneration of the Cross in the Sisters of St Joseph chapel, 16 York St, South Perth. Everyone welcome all ages. After the event join the Youth for a sausage sizzle at St Columba’s School next to the centre. Enq: Sister Maree Riddler 0414 683 926.

Sunday 25 May JOURNEY OF THE WYD CROSS AND ICON BALCATTA

4.30pm to 8pm at St Lawrence Church, 392 Albert Street, Balcatta. Come and experience the power of these two symbols of World Youth Day that have touched the lives of millions of youth from around the world! Enq: Linda 9445 2869 or linzf84@hotmail.com

Tuesday May 27

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF PRAYER BEFORE THE BLESSED EUCHARIST

7.30pm to 8.30pm at St Benedict’s new Church, 115 Ardross St, Ardross. Fr Maurice Toop, Parish Priest of Maylands will give a talk and discuss his personal experience of prayer before The Blessed Eucharist. This will be an encouragement to bring Christ more deeply into our life. Coffee and tea will be available after this discussion. Enq: 9364 4658.

Friday May 30

MEDJUGORJE  EVENING OF PRAYER

Commencing 7pm. An Evening of Prayer with Our Lady Queen of Peace at St Joseph’s Parish Church. Salvado Road, Subiaco. Program: Adoration, Meditation and Rosary, followed by Holy Mass. Concluding 9pm. Enq: 9402 2480.

Friday May 30 - Saturday May 31

THE TRIUMPH AND REIGN OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS AND THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY Eucharistic Prayer Vigil at St Bernadette’s Church, Glendalough. Commencing with Parish Mass at 5.45pm, with hourly Rosaries, hymns and reflections; concluding with a special Holy Mass at midnight to celebrate the Feasts of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Enq: Fr Doug Harris 9444 6131 or Dorothy 9342 5845.

Saturday June 7

DAY WITH MARY

9am to 5pm at St James Church, 2 Lagoon Drive, Yanchep. A video on Fatima will be shown. A day of prayer and instruction based upon the message of Fatima. Includes Sacrament of Penance, Holy Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, Sermons, Rosaries, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Stations of the Cross. Please BYO lunch. Enq: Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286. Bus available, contact Nita 9367 1366.

Sunday June 22

GOSPEL CONCERT

1.30pm to 4.15pm at St Patrick’s Basilica, Fremantle. Some of WA’s finest gospel performers will come together for a traditional and ecumenical concert at St Patrick’s. Profits will support the work of Cross Roads Community providing drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Tickets $15 adults and $3 children are ONLY available advance purchase. Enq: erichancock@swiftdsl. com.au or phone 9446 1558.

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS

Jesuit Volunteers Australia calls for part-time volunteers to respond to the needs of people in the community who live in marginalised circumstances. At the heart of this program is a reflective process, based on Gospel values, which underpins the work of the volunteers. To learn more: www.jss.org.au. Enq: Kevin Wringe 9316 3469 or email kwringe@iinet.net.au.

Every Sunday LATIN MASS KELMSCOTT

The Latin Mass according to the 1962 missal will be offered every Sunday at 2pm at the Good Shepherd Parish, 40-42 Streich Avenue, Kelmscott, with Rosary preceding. All welcome.

Every Tuesday

THE GOSPEL OF ST MATTHEW  COURSE

Every Tuesday 7.30pm St Joachim’s Parish Hall, Shepparton Road, Victoria Park. Exciting revelations into the Gospel of St Matthew are being offered free of charge. Conducted by Fr Douglas Rowe S.F.P. Participants will be introduced into an insightful exploration of this fascinating Gospel. Light refreshments will follow. Please bring your bible and a friend.

Every Saturday

VIDEO / DVD NIGHT

Straight after the 6.30pm Vigil Mass: St. Joseph’s Church, 20 Hamilton St. Bassendean. A variety of Videos / DVD’s will be shown. Each video is approx. 30mins. Want to learn more about our Catholic faith? Bring the family along, there is no charge. Saturday 10 May showing ‘The Martyrs of Ireland’. Saturday 17 May presenting ‘St. Teresa of Avila’.

Every First Friday and First Saturday

COMMUNION OF REPARATION ALL NIGHT VIGIL

Friday 7pm to 1am Saturday. St Peter’s Catholic Church, 91 Wood Street, Inglewood/Bedford. Prayers according to The Alliance of the Two Hearts. Father Bogoni will say Mass and hear confessions all night concluding with Mass to honour the Immaculate Heart of Mary at 12am. Please join us even for an hour. Enq: Vicky 9364.

Every Thursday

THEOLOGY AND SPIRITUALITY COURSE

7.30pm Acts 2 College, 67 Howe Street, Osborne Park. Theology of the Holy Spirit with Fr Douglas Rowe SFP continues each Thursday night. This course presents a theology and spirituality for the laity and lays the theological foundation for a prayer life, especially a contemplative prayer life. Ongoing, so join us. It’s free. Enq: 9202 6859.

Every Sunday

SHRINE OF VIRGIN OF THE REVELATION

Sunday Pilgrim Mass 2pm with Holy Rosary and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament at the Shrine, 36 Chittering Road, Bullsbrook. Reconciliation in Italian and English. On the second Sunday of the month, anointing of the sick during Mass. Side entrance open daily between 9am and 5pm. Enq: SACRI 9447 3292.

First Friday of the Month

WITNESS FOR LIFE

Pro-Life Mass at St Brigid’s, Midland starting at 9.30am. Followed by Rosary, procession and prayer vigil at abortion clinic. Led by Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. Enq: Helene 9403 2444.

First Sunday of Every Month

HEALING FIRE BURNING LOVE MINISTRY

Sunday Mass at St Bernadette’s Church, Cnr Jugan and Leeder Streets, Glendalough commencing with praise and worship at 6.30pm and Mass at 7pm. We have healing prayers after the Mass so please invite all those in need of the healing love and power of Jesus. Enq: Jenni Young 9445 1028 or 0404 389 679.

ACCOMMODATION

■ ST ANNE’S CHURCH, BINDOON accom for retreat/family/group or single $25 per night or $100 for family or group. BYO food. Tea/coffee provided. Tel 9576 0975.

HEALTH

■ DEMENTIA REMISSION

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

BOOK REPAIRS

■ REPAIR YOUR LITURGICAL BOOKS

General repairs to books, old bibles & missals. 2ndhand Catholic books avail. Tydewi Bindery 9293 3092.

RELIGIOUS PRODUCTS

■ KINLAR VESTMENTS

‘Modern meets tradition.’ Quality hand-made & decorated. Vestments, altar cloths, banners. Vickii Smith Veness. 9402 8356 or 0409 114 093.

Briefly...

WYD08 releases Papal Vigil hymn for Australian parishes

World Youth Day Sydney 2008 organisers have released the score to Our Lady of the Southern Cross, the hymn that will be sung before His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI at the Evening Vigil on Saturday, July 19.

The score for Our Lady of the Southern Cross is available on the WYD08 website: www.wyd2008.org/wydmass

The score will allow Australian parishes to rehearse the hymn in preparation for the Evening Vigil at Randwick Racecourse.

RELIGIOUS PRODUCTS

■ CATHOLICS CORNER

Retailer of Catholic products specialising in gifts, cards and apparel for baptism, communion and confirmation. Ph: 9456 1777. Shop 12, 64-66 Bannister Road, Canning Vale. Open Mon-Sat.

■ RICH HARVEST  YOUR CHRISTIAN SHOP

Looking for Bibles, CDs, books, cards, gifts, statues, baptism/communion apparel, religious vestments, etc? Visit us at 39 Hulme Court (off McCoy St), Myaree, 9329 9889 (after 10.30am Mon to Sat). We are here to serve.

■ OTTIMO

Shop 108 Trinity Arcade (Terrace Level). Hay Street, Perth Ph 93224520. Convenient city location for a good selection of cards, candles, statues, medals, apparel and gifts for baptism, reconciliation, communion, confirmation and weddings. We also stock a range of Monastique skin care product made by the Carmelite Sisters, fashion accessories, jewellery, handbags and Australian made gifts. Opening hours. 8.30am to 5.30am Monday to Thursday. 8.30am to 7pm Fridays.

The Evening Vigil is a key component of the WYD08 week of events with around 225,000 pilgrims expected to gather before the Pope for prayerful worship and spiritual reflection, followed by a ‘sleep-out’ under the stars.

“Our Lady of the Southern Cross is the Marian hymn for World Youth Day 2008 and we hope parishes around the globe will take the time to become familiar with the song over the coming months,” said Fr Peter Williams, WYD08 Director of Liturgy.

“The hymn is an original composition and it will be a beautiful and deeply moving moment when hundreds of thousands of voices unite to sing the hymn by candlelight before the Holy Father in July,” he said. Parishes can reproduce it for teaching purposes.

The music was composed by Rev. Geoffrey Abdallah, Dean of St Maroun’s Maronite Cathedral in Redfern, Sydney. The text was written by Sr Pauline Smith RSM.

MISSION MATTERS

(Missionary reflections on the Sunday Gospel)

Pentecost is the celebration of God’s gift of the Holy Spirit to the world. It is the birthday of our missionary Church. For missionaries working and living in poor and troubled communities around the world, it is the gift of the Holy Spirit that strengthens their resolve amidst unimaginable suffering and hopelessness. By their example, we too can be empowered by this gift to reach out to the poor and marginalised in our own neighbourhoods. Uncomfortable as this may be, it is what Jesus, in our midst, is calling us to do every day. “Peace be with you.”

BUILDING TRADES

■ BRICK REPOINTING Phone Nigel 9242 2952.

■ PERROTT PAINTING PTY LTD

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

■ BRICKLAYING

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■ PICASSO PAINTING

Top service. Phone 0419 915 836, fax 9345 0505.

CHRISTIAN SINGLES

Meet other Christian singles over small group dinners or on individual dates. FigTrees is Perth’s ONLY genuine Christian dating agency. So, call 9472 8218 to make an appointment or check out our web site figtrees.com.au. 9-328 Albany Highway, Victoria Park. Open Tues-Fri 10am - 6pm.

FURNITURE REMOVAL

■ ALL AREAS

Mike Murphy 0416 226 434.

Briefly...

Indigenous welcome for World Youth Day pilgrims Sydney 2008

Young Catholics from around the world are set to experience Australia’s Indigenous culture first-hand during World Youth Day Sydney 2008.

WYD08 organisers have been eager from the outset to engage Indigenous youth and to ensure appropriate guidance and advice from the Indigenous community.

A 17-person Indigenous Communities Advisory Committee, made up of representatives from across the land, was established in early 2006 to guide the Indigenous elements of WYD08 and to encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to come to Sydney for the event.

“Indigenous themes, symbols and colours will permeate WYD08 events and allow our visitors to experience the wonderful culture

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and history of Australia’s Indigenous,” said committee chairman Bishop Christopher Saunders.

Among the key Indigenous elements planned for WYD08 are:

• A welcome to country by indigenous elders for Pope Benedict XVI

• Vestments featuring indigenous colours and designs for all bishops and cardinals

• Indigenous musicians and dancers performing for Pope Benedict XVI

• Indigenous artists at the Youth Festival, and

• Religious artworks by Gumbaingirr/ Dhungutti artist and Blake Prize finalist Richard Campbell.

To encourage participation and extend an appropriate welcome, an Indigenous message stick from the Sydney community has accompanied the WYD Cross and Icon of Our Lady in their journey around Australia, inviting young Indigenous people to Sydney for the event.

“We welcome Pope Benedict and the many young Catholics coming here to celebrate their faith on this land,” said Sydney community leader Elsie Heiss.

“WYD08 will draw the attention of the world to this Great South Land and its people.

It will be a marvellous opportunity to show the Indigenous face of the Catholic Church in Australia,” she said.

THE R ECORD Bookshop The gift of prayer Resources for all

HANDBOOK OF PRAYERS

By James Socias

Includes commentary and reflection on the Catholic faith as well as guidelines to live a better Christian life through prayer. Instruction on various forms of prayer, such as the Stations of the Cross, the mysteries of the Rosary, explanations on the Eucharist, Confession and devotions are also accompanied by translations of the Mass in its Latin form.

$26.95+postage

THE SUNDAY MISSAL

In either blue or burgandy

Approved for use in Australia and New Zealand, this Sunday Missal is a sturdy hardback edition sure to last until the end of 2017, when readings are no longer valid. Readings cycle through Liturgical years A, B and C and offer a great way to follow the Mass each Sunday.

$36.95+postage

PRAYER BOOKLETS FOR CHILDREN

By Debbie Repp and Steve and Jon Givens

Prayers of Praise and Thanks details numerous prayers for children including ones for school and various family members and situations.

Why Should I Pray highlights the benefits of prayer in daily life and helps children through the process of initiating an active prayer life.

$2+postage

RECEIVING THE LORD

By Bishop Peter Elliott

This booklet is an aid to Eucharistic prayer. It includes passages of scripture, and from the writings of the Saints as well as reflections on the centrality of Holy Communion in our lives.

$7.50+postage

BLESS MY CHILD: A CATHOLIC MOTHER’S PRAYER BOOK

By Julie Cragon

Praying is one of the most vital things we can do for our children. Julie Cragon provides prayers for every stage of a child’s growth, beginning even before they are born and going all the way to the point when they are becoming mums or dads themselves.

$21.95+postage

PRAYING WITH THE CREED

By Fr Benedict Groeschel

These prayerful meditations offer individuals or small groups an opportunity to grow in their faith in God and His Church. The creed that catholics recite every Sunday provides the backdrop for this book.

$24.95+postage

WHAT IS PRAYER?

By Dunstan Adams

In this highly accessible and approachable introduction to a deeper life of prayer, the author shows us that in so many ways we are already at prayer, and that in our first stumblings we already share the depth of simplicity in prayer of some of the Church’s greatest mystics.

$14.95+postage

THE CATHOLIC YOUTH PRAYER BOOK

By Mary Shrader

This book will intoduce youth to the wide and rich scope of the Catholic prayer tradition. Catholic prayer is relevant, ancient, universal, personal, and liturgical. The book develops a deeper understanding of prayer and a greater desire to be in conversation with God.

$24.95+postage