The Record Newspaper - 08 February 2012

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Bishops condemns result of Australian detention policies: mental illness

Imprisoned by indifference

By Sarah Motherwell AUSTRALIA’S Catholic bishops have called on the Federal Government to implement a threemonth limit on the time asylum seekers are held in detention.

The C at holic Bishops’ Commission for Justice, Ecology and Development made the appeal in a recent statement.

Bishop of Broome Christopher Saunders, who signed the statement, said detention should only apply while the identity and security status of asylum seekers were being assessed.

These checks, Bishop Saunders

said, should take no longer than three months.

The bishop is a regular visitor to the remote Curtin Immigration Detention Centre, 40km south-east of Derby.

“The mass protests, self-harm and suicide we have witnessed over the years show that the harsh conditions in detention centres do not ensure a safe and secure environment and, in fact, add to the trauma already experienced by people fleeing war, violence and persecution,” he said.

“One young man, who is at Curtin Detention Centre, told me that he has come to Australia to

avoid the violence that characterises his country and his life’s experience to date. He believes that Australia can offer him the peace

“His greatest crime is that he has dared to seek to enjoy all that Australians take for granted.“ and security that is impossible for him in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But, instead of liberty in Australia,

he has experienced only isolation and incarceration.

“His greatest crime is that he has dared to seek to enjoy all that Australians take for granted – freedom, safety and a peaceful future.”

At the end of November last year, more than 70 per cent of the 5,733 people in immigration detention had been detained for longer than three months with 2,182 people detained for more than a year.

Last year, a number of Australian health organisations called an immediate and independent investigation into the standard of mental healthcare in immigration detention centres.

In 2010, psychiatrist and former Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry said detention facilities were like “factories for producing mental illness”.

Three other bishops who signed the statement also minister directly to asylum seekers in immigration detention centres located in their dioceses.

A spokeswoman for Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Chris Bowen said the government had implemented “a range of measures” to speed up the assessment of claims, including “increasing operational capacity and recruiting and Continued - Page 3

Guild loves to serve the Lord

By Robert Hiini FR DANAI Penollar was happy to return the favour last month, visiting West Australians who attended a national conference for altar servers in Sydney last month.

Twelve West Australians from Pinjarra, Albany and Spearwood attended the Guild of St Stephen’s January 3-6 conference. It was the first conference under Fr Penollar’s directorship since he took up the mantle from the late Mgr John Murphy in 2010.

Perth attendees were led to Sydney by the guild’s West Australian convenor, Chris De Sousa, himself the focus of recent news.

Mr De Sousa recently began exploring a vocation with the Somascan priests who administer his local parish (St Jerome’s, Spearwood).

Mr De Sousa was impressed by the conference’s content but even more so, by its effects on young participants.

The spiritual practice of Adoration, he said, left a big impression: “It surprised me. Some of the kids who in the formal sessions maybe weren’t so attentive, when it came to adoration, were really in deep prayer,” Mr De Sousa said.

Mr De Sousa is considering a statewide conference.

Guild ply their trade - page 4

Fr Penollar preparing to visit altar severs in Albany who attended the Guild of St Stephen conference last month.

PHOTO: ROBERT HIINI

Obama cites faith as reason to care for poorest

By Patricia Zapor WASHINGTON (CNS) - In remarks at the US National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama linked his actions as president to influences of faith, particularly Jesus’ call to care for “the least of these.”

Obama said, “when I decide to stand up for foreign aid, or prevent atrocities in places like Uganda, or take on issues like human trafficking, it’s not just about strengthening alliances or promoting democratic

values or projecting American leadership around the world, although it does those things and will make us safer and more secure. It’s also about the biblical call to care for the least of these - for the poor; for those at the margins of our society.”

Obama’s speech came amid criticism of his administration for policies being described as hostile to religious freedom, notably a new federal mandate that all health plans, including those at Churchrun hospitals, colleges and service

agencies, cover contraceptives and sterilisations at no cost.

The administration has put in place a religious exemption to the mandate, but leaders of various Catholic and other faith-based organisations say it is too narrow and they will be forced to provide coverage they oppose.

Other critics said his address avoided recommendations made by his advisory council for ensuring that faith-based organisations receiving government funding do

not use the money inappropriately.

Rev Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, criticised Obama for praising work done by faith-based groups in providing social services but remaining “silent about essential safeguards on faithbased funding to ensure that when religious organisations receive government funds, this money is not used for sectarian purposes or to discriminate in hiring.”

Obama focused on the idea of shared responsibility to care for

one another as a call that extends across religions.

“When I talk about our financial institutions playing by the same rules as folks on Main Street, when I talk about making sure insurance companies aren’t discriminating against those who are already sick, or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren’t taking advantage of the most vulnerable among us, I do so because I genuinely believe it will make the economy stronger for everybody,” he said.

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8 February 2012, The Record

Healing in lieu of judgement

By Robert Hiini THE FIRST Mass Maureen Kay attended after leaving her marriage of 25 years was an occasion of great internal conflict.

The Gospel reading was from Matthew, Chapter 19 and contained a notorious admonition: “What God has joined together, let no man tear asunder.”

Real or imagined, the experience of judgement, Maureen said, can make life in the Church harrowing for divorced and separated Catholics.

“Sometimes, you know, especially in the Catholic faith, people are quick to judge people who are divorced but they don’t understand the circumstances. They don’t know and that causes more hurt to the wounded person,” Maureen said.

“I did marry initially for life. That was the purpose of getting married.

It wasn’t something I entered into lightly and I certainly didn’t leave it lightly either.”

Maureen’s friend Josie concurs.

She was married for 50 years before divorcing.

“It’s not necessarily that people are particularly saying or doing anything to appear like they are judging us,” Josie said.

“Sometimes we put the judgement on ourselves. We still feel like we are being judged because of our Catholic faith and what we’ve believed in all our lives and it’s a very big step to have to leave and move away.”

Maureen and Josie found the understanding and ongoing healing they were looking for at a Beginning Experience weekend they attended several years ago.

Both women will be sharing their own experiences at the ministry’s

The Beginning Experience weekend offers a place to be heard say organisers.

weekend coming up from 9-11 March and both are putting out the invitation to their wounded peers.

“The weekend is about having the space to talk and be heard; having people hear your story and not try to fix it,” Maureen said.

People can participate at their own pace, and there is no pressure to talk. Talks are followed by quiet reflection time with prepared, guiding questions.

The Beginning Experience weekend is not just for those who have

experienced divorce, both Maureen and Josie were keen to point out.

The ministry is also for widows and widowers, as well as for people who are separated.

Whatever the cause of a relationship’s end - death, separation or divorce - the loss, Maureen said, is still the same.

“While we are still hanging on to those feelings, we are getting caught up and stuck in them; they hold a lot of power over us,” Maureen said.

“We call it “a weekend away for

Editor office@therecord.com.au

Journalists Mark Reidy mreidy@therecord.com.au Robert Hiini rthiini@therecord.com.au Sarah Motherwell s_motherwell@hotmail.com Sub Editor Chris Jaques Advertising/Production

Born in southeastern France, Claude entered the Jesuits at Avignon and completed theology studies in Paris. After ordination, he preached in Lyon. In 1675, he was named rector of the college at Paray-le- Monial and became confessor of the visionary Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque. He helped her spread devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In 1676 he was sent to London and reconciled many Catholics to the church they had abandoned. He was arrested and expelled in connection with an alleged plot to kill the king, and died upon returning to France.

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a lifetime of change”; it’s an opportunity to work through the grief of relationship’s end.”

The 9-11 March weekend is one of two run each year.

While the weekends have had more female participants than male, organisers said men continue to be most welcome, including eventually as part of their organising teams.

For more information, contact Maureen on 9537 1915 or visit: www.beginningexperience.org.

Sunday 19th - Green 1st Reading: Is 43:18-19,21-22,

24-25

A new deed Responsorial Ps 40:2-5, 13-14 Psalm Heal my soul 2nd Reading: 2 Cor 1:18-22

Yes to God’s promises Gospel Reading: Mk 2:1-12

Jesus forgives Monday 20th - Green 1st Reading: Jas 3:13-18

Humility and wisdom Responsorial Ps 18:8-10,15 Psalm: My rescuer, my rock Gospel Reading: Mk 9:14-29

Help my unbelief

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

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Former editor of The Record, Father Patrick Cunningham, celebrated his 60th Anniversary of Ordination to the priesthood last month. A special anniversary Mass was held at Highgate, the parish where Fr Cunningham first heard the call to the priesthood. He was ordained in Rome by Cardinal Fumasoni Biondi in 1952.

Correction In the article ‘A woman’s struggle with grief helps her connect with God’ (1 February, 2012), Rosa Montegrande name was incorrectly written as ‘Rosa Montegra’. This was the result of a production error. The Record regrets the error.

READINGS OF THE WEEK

Claude la Colombiere

Mat De Sousa

Catholic students will learn about leadership from dual Olympic gold medallist and former Hockeroos captain Jenn Morris at the third annual Networking and Leadership Day for Catholic Schools next month.

The event, which will be hosted

by Emmanuel Catholic College on Friday, 9 March, will give two student leaders from each participating school the opportunity to discuss important topics including cyber bullying, how to lead a balanced life and responsibilities in the school yard. Last year, thirteen Perth Catholic schools attended the event when the Western Australian Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan was a guest speaker and shared his experience of being a leader with students. Schools are welcome to nominate students to attend the Networking and Leadership Day. The deadline for registration is Monday, 27 February.

Fr Pat chalks up 60

SAINT OF THE WEEK

Peter Rosengren

Lessons from heart of sporting firmament

Tuesday 21st - Green ST DAMIAN, BISHOP, DOCTOR (O) 1st Reading: Jas 4:1-10

Internal battles Responsorial Ps 54:7-11,23 Psalm: The Lord, our refuge Gospel Reading: Mk 9:30-37

The first must be last Wednesday 22nd - Violet ASH WEDNESDAY 1st Reading: Joel 2:12-18

Come back to me Responsorial 50:3-6,12-14,17 Psalm: A spirit of fervour

2nd Reading: 2 Cor 5:20-6:2

The favourable time Gospel Reading: Mt 6:1-6,16-18

Rewards from the

Father Thursday 23rd - Violet ST POLYCARP, BISHOP, MARTYR (O) 1st Reading: Deut 30:15-20

Life or death Responsorial Ps 1:1-4,6 Psalms: The two ways Gospel Reading: Lk 9:22-25

Christ’s followers Friday 24th - Violet 1st Reading: Is 58:1-9

Which type of fast?

Responsorial Ps 50:3-6, 18-19 Psalm: Have mercy on me Gospel Reading: Mk 9:14-15

The time for fasting Saturday 11th - Violet 1st Reading: Is 58:9-14

Relief to the

oppressed Responsorial Ps 85:1-6 Psalms: You are my God Gospel Reading: Lk 5:27-32

A great reception

Want the readings for every week of the year?

Turn to Page 18 and don’t miss the chance to get a copy of the St Paul Liturgical Calendar for 2012

8 February 2012, The Record

Page 3

Study queries future aged care sector viability A COMPREHENSIVE study into the costs of building and operating aged care facilities has revealed a funding deficit of up to $62 per bed per day for operators of Australian aged care homes and casts doubt over the sustainability of the aged care sector under the current system.

The Australian Cost of Residential Aged Care Research was commissioned by a consortium of industry peak bodies and providers.

The research was undertaken by

accountancy firm Grant Thornton Australia, which recently completed similar research in New Zealand.

The study, released 7 February, focused on modern, efficient aged care homes built throughout metropolitan areas of Australia. For homes providing high care only, the study found: • The cost of construction, land and fit-out for a new facility was almost $226,000 per bed and translated into a capital cost of at least $73 per bed per day.

• Costs associated with the delivery of nursing care and support was approximately $144 per bed per day.

• The deficiency of available revenues to meet these costs was up to $62 per bed per day during the review period.

The study’s purpose was to present independent evidence on funds needed to deliver quality services by modern aged care homes that provide predominantly singleroom accommodation with ensuite

bathrooms. Despite demand for this form of service, investment in modern services has slowed dramatically because of the costs of building and operating them.

Given the recent release of the Productivity Commission report, Caring for Older Australians, the release of the study is timely as the Government considers its response in the context of the 2012 Budget.

Aged Care Association of Australia CEO Rod Young said, “The study affirms the urgent

requirement for reform and the removal of out-of-date regulation which inhibits the provision of new services designed to meet client need.”

Catholic Health Australia CEO Martin Laverty said, “Regulation today limits accommodation payments to high care aged care providers at $32 per day. The study finds the actual cost of accommodation is more than double that amount. This funding shortfall is not sustainable.”

- CHA

UNDA gets $11m clinical school FEDERAL Health Minister Tanya Plibersek officially opened the University of Notre Dame Australia’s newly built Melbourne Clinical School at Werribee, Victoria on 6 February.

Ms Plibersek said the government had invested $11.2 million in the school which will support the education, training and clinical placement of up to 80 medical students from the university.

“This is a cutting edge medical school which includes teaching, training and research facilities that will play an important role in training our future medical workforce,” said Ms Plibersek.

Notre Dame Vice Chancellor Professor Celia Hammond said the new school building demonstrated Notre Dame’s commitment to producing outstanding, ethical and caring doctors in the most up to date facilities.

“The new school further strengthens Notre Dame’s presence in Victoria and will make a valuable contribution to the medical needs of the local community. The building will also support the clinical education unit at Werribee Mercy Hospital which provides training for nurses and allied health professionals,” Professor Hammond said.

The school, located on the Werribee Mercy Hospital campus, includes a lecture theatre, tutorial rooms, clinical skills area, student common room, dry laboratory spaces, office space, library and consulting rooms.

Federal Attorney-General Nicola Roxon; UNDA’s Prof Christine Bennett, federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek and UNDA’s Vice Chancellor Prof Celia Hammond get hands on training in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation at the opening of UNDA’s new clinical medical school at Werribee on 6 February.

COURTESY: UNDA

Sandhurst appointment fills another Australian diocese POPE BENEDICT XVI announced the appointment of the archdiocese of Melbourne’s vicar general as the new Bishop of Sandhurst, a Victorian mining and rural diocese centred on Bendigo.

Bishop Les Tomlinson will take up his position on 1 March.

The appointment fills one of several vacancies that have been wait-

ing for news of a bishop for at least a year or more in Australia.

The Diocese of Sandhurst includes central Victoria and the Goulburn Valley and north-eastern Victoria to the Murray River in the north. Bishop Tomlinson said he was humbled by the confidence the Pope has shown in him and was delighted to accept the

appointment. Bishop Tomlinson was born and raised in Mildura and is no stranger to country life.

He said, “I am looking forward to moving to Bendigo, becoming part of the Church there and fulfilling my role of leadership as bishop, teacher and pastor in the diocese.”

Bishop Tomlinson’s appointment follows the sudden and untimely

death of Bishop Joe Grech just over 12 months ago.

Bishop Tomlinson has been Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Melbourne since 2003 and was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne in 2009.

There is no news as yet of appointments to a number of dioceses, including Perth.

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8 February 2012, The Record

Guild ply trade for the Lord

By Robert Hiini FR DANAI Penollar has just had a thousand medals plated. Perhaps it is a measure of his confidence. It certainly reflects his optimism.

It’s a new springtime for the Church, the Sydney cleric says, and the Guild of St Stephen is ready to rise again; helping altar servers throughout the country realise the significance and dignity of their service.

Back in the early days when the Guild of St Stephen was first established in Australia, their first national conference, held in Hobart in May 1964, attracted 1,200 servers.

While it’s been years since the guild had that kind of pulling power, its annual national conference, held in Sydney last month, was a sign that things were looking up, Fr Danai told The Record.

Fr Danai expects to be placing those medals around the necks of altar servers the country over in years to come.

The bishops’ commission for liturgy appointed him the guild’s national director in 2010 after longserving director Mgr John Murphy was unable to continue due to illness (Mgr Murphy passed away 14 November 2011).

“It’s definitely a new springtime and it’s also helping to focus what we are all about,” Fr Danai said.

“In the absence of a local chaplain or local director, I’m it.”

And, while the guild is “basically beginning anew”, there is a dedicated focus on going right back to the foundation of all Christian service.

“It’s one thing knowing how to serve but let’s start with Christ in prayer,” Fr Danai said.

“Without a prayer life, what does it mean, being so perfect in knowing how to do things. If we are not starting from Christ we are missing the point,” he said, reflecting on the guild’s motto - “We serve the Lord” – inscribed on its medals.

Awarding the Guild of St Stephen Medal to servers who have shown their dedication through at least six months of service is emblematic of the esteem and dignity he wants to instil.

Even more so, he wants to help servers get to know their God. Perpetual Adoration was a conspicuous feature of the recent Guild of St Stephen conference in Sydney.

He and other conference organis-

Servers and their families from Albany with Guild of St Stephen director, Fr Danai Penollar.

PHOTO: SUPPLIED

ers encouraged servers to spend around ten to 15 minutes before the Blessed Sacrament. The results, he said, were surprising.

“Some of the more mischievous ones stayed in front of the Blessed Sacrament the longest. They must have found peace in that prayer.”

Don’t forget, a lot of priests were altar servers once ... I want to make sure we don’t lose sight of that ... with the right approach, they will step forward.

Fr Danai doesn’t mince words when tackling what is a vexed question for traditional Catholics - girls serving at the altar - which the Australian bishops approved in 1995.

Girls and boys were welcome at the guild’s recent conference and are welcome in the guild more generally, Fr Danai said, but the longterm focus of nurturing priestly

The medal of the Guild of St Stephen, given to altar servers who have shown dedication to the service of Christ at the altar.

PHOTO: ROBERT HIINI

vocations remains key. “Don’t forget, a lot of priests were altar servers once,” Fr Danai said.

“You’ve got to look at what came with that approval and it said clearly that the bishops will always encourage associations that encourage boys to serve because it’s a source of priestly ministry and vocations to the priesthood.

“I want to make sure we don’t lose sight of that.”

In many parishes throughout the country, servers were nearly exclusively or wholly female. There had been several responses to the dearth of boys and young men, Fr Danai said.

“One thought is to have a separate conference for girls,” he said, with its own focus on vocations open to women.

Separate rosters for girls and boys is another idea, one which

has been actualised by a bishop Fr Danai knows: “But if the focus is on [priestly] vocations, then that is only half the time,” Fr Danai said.

“In some parishes, it’s almost all girls serving because they don’t know how to encourage the boys,” he said. “They have tried, but for one reason or another - maybe they don’t understand the genders - it hasn’t worked.”

“If the right approach is made, you can encourage young people, whether they be boys or girls, to serve. It’s an opportunity for catechesis as well.”

Fr Danai’s belief that altar serving can help nurture vocations is based on personal experience.

He volunteered to help get a group of young servers in Sydney to the guild’s national conference back in 1997.

One 15 year old boy seemed especially keen and these days lives out his own ministry as a Dominican priest.

Far from being an isolated case, a young woman he once mentored had recently explored the possibility of religious life.

Fr Danai’s own vocation was nurtured in service at the altar.

When he was made an acolyte in 1983, he was the youngest acolyte in the Archdiocese of Sydney.

He left a career in computer security behind when he entered the seminary at age 36 in 2001 and was ordained for the Archdiocese of Sydney in 2007.

In addition to his guild work, Fr Danai is also Sydney’s Archdiocesan Master of Ceremonies and a member of Sydney’s Liturgical Commission.

He was a member of the Catholic Truth Society team that proofread the final draft of the new English Mass translation, as contained in the new missal.

The West Australian convenor of the Guild of St Stephen, Chris De Sousa, told The Record that a state-wide conference was a distinct possibility, possibly at a venue in between Perth and a major regional centre.

The next national conference of the Guild of St Stephen will be held in Canberra-Goulburn For more information about the Guild of St Stephen, contact Chris De Sousa on 0423 550 787 or Fr Danai Penollar on 0417 259 617 or email fr.danai.penollar@sydneycatholic.org.

History of service is global and local for the Guild of St Stephen THE GUILD of St Stephen was founded in London in 1905 by Father Hamilton MacDonald when he formed a society of altar servers in the local parish of Brook Green.

The idea was taken up by Cardinal Francis Bourne who established the Guild at Westminster Cathedral.

This guild was approved by Pope St Pius X in 1905 and, on 4 November 1906, was raised to the status of an Archconfraternity enabling all the parish branches to be linked with it.

The guild spread and, in 1934, the year after the death of Fr MacDonald, Pope Pius XI enabled all guilds of altar servers throughout the British Commonwealth to be affiliated with the Archconfraternity at Westminster.

The guild was established in Australia in 1954 through the efforts of Fr Rex Donohoe of the Archdiocese of Hobart.

The next ten years saw the rapid

spread of the guild throughout the country. Hundreds of parish branches were linked by the magazine The Acolyte, edited by Fr Donohoe, and, in May 1964, over 1,200 servers from all over Australia went to Hobart for the first national conference.

At later conferences, the need was expressed to establish the guild in Australia under its own constitution, to meet more effectively conditions prevailing in our own country.

The Australian Guild of St Stephen was established in 1969 under the direction of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.

Fr Rex Donohoe was appointed as first National Director of the Guild, a position he held until his death in 1989.

Monsignor John Joseph Murphy was appointed and was National Director until he retired in 2010 due to illness. He passed away

in 2011. In 2010, the Bishops Commission for Liturgy appointed Fr Danai Penollar as the third National Director.

Branches of the guild continue to be established in any diocese in Australia with the assent of the local bishop.

Fr MacDonald chose St Stephen as the patron of altar servers because the deacon who was the Church’s first martyr had served the apostles, and would be an ideal inspiration for those who served the successors of the apostles at the altar.

Members of the guild venerate St Stephen for his courageous faith in Jesus Christ, his defence of the Gospel in the face of opposition and example of his dying moments when he prayed for his persecutors and was privileged to see Jesus Christ standing at the right hand of God. COURTESY OF THE GUILD OF ST STEPHEN

8 February 2012, The Record

Page 5

Explaining our universal origins THE director of the Vatican Observatory said the Church is open to the scientific theory that the world began from a cosmic explosion billions of years ago.

“The Big Bang is not in contradiction with the faith”, Father Jose Gabriel Funes said during an announcement of a Vatican exhibit that will feature photos, research tools and minerals from the Moon and Mars.

The exhibit, titled Stories from another world: The Universe within us and outside us, will be on display from 10 March to 1 July in Pisa, the birthplace of Galileo, father of modern astronomy.

Fr Funes told CNA at the event that the Big Bang explanation “is the best theory we have right now about the creation of the universe.”

The theory holds that creation began some 14 billion years ago with a colossal explosion in which space, time, energy and matter were created, and galaxies, stars and planets – which are in continual expansion – came to be.

“We know that God is the creator,” he added, “that he is a good Father who has a providential plan for us, that we are his children, and that everything we can learn by reason about the origin of the universe is not in contradiction with the religious message of the Bible.”

Fr Funes said that as an astronomer and a Catholic, he is open to this explanation of the creation of the universe, despite “some yet

unanswered questions.” He noted, for example, that while there is no proof of other intelligent life in the universe, “we cannot rule it out,” since studies show that there are nearly 700 planets orbiting other stars.

“If in the future it was established that life, and intelligent life, exists, which I think would be very difficult, I don’t think this contradicts the religious message of creation because they would also be creatures of God,” he said.

Ultimately, Catholics “should see the cosmos as a gift of God” and should “admire the beauty that exists in the universe.”

“This beauty we see in some way leads us to the beauty of the creator,” he said.

“And also, because God has granted us intelligence and reason, we can find the logos, that rational explanation that exists in the universe that allows us to engage in science as well.”

The Church’s official interest in astronomy dates back to the 16th century. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII decided to officially create the Vatican Observatory to show that the Church is not against scientific development but, rather, promotes it.

- CNS This diagram traces the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang to the present. Not long after the Big Bang, light from the first stars burned off a cold hydrogen fog. ILLUSTRATION: NASA

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Page 6

8 February 2012, The Record

MILESTONES

moments past, passing and to come

Send your milestones to editor@therecord.com.au

Adversity no match for love A COUPLE who have spent more than half of their married life as parishioners of Sacred Heart Church in Thornlie recently celebrated their Diamond Wedding.

In anyone’s language, 60 years of marriage is a wonderful achievement.

On 5 January 1952, Patrick Antonio and Veronica Joyce made their solemn wedding vows in the Church of the Holy Rosary, Nedlands.

The late Monsignor Edward Moss, then parish priest of Nedlands, offered Nuptial Mass for the couple.

The couple said about 100 relatives and friends came to the church, the ceremony taking place at 8.30 that morning.

Patrick is the elder son of Thomas and Rose (nee Scott) Antonio and Veronica is the elder daughter of William and Sheila (nee Collopy) Joyce. All parents have now passed to their eternal reward.

The couple have three children: Marie-Therese, Stephen and Benedict and also five grandchildren.

Their family is now scattered, one living in Sydney, another in Adelaide and another in Miling in WA’s northern wheatbelt.

For about 25 years, Patrick and Veronica lived on a farm at Southern Brook, about 25km east of Northam.

But, following several disasters, including losing their home in the devastating 1968 Meckering earthquake, the couple decided to leave the farm and since then have lived in Thornlie.

This couple have always considered prayer – jointly and privately

A happy couple, then and now: Veronica and Patrick Antonio.

PHOTO: COURTESY PATRICK ANTONIO

They have faced several disasters ... including losing their home in the 1968 earthquake.

- of paramount importance and especially the rosary which they have recited together virtually every day of their marriage.

When they had young children the rosary was a family affair. Often, the family recited this prayer while travelling in their car.

Apart from prayer, the couple say that one of the essentials of a long and happy marriage is the ability to compromise.

That means the total elimination of selfishness.

Prior to their marriage, Patrick and Veronica attended what

was then known as a Pre-Cana Conference at which couples intending to marry heard various lecturers, including priests, each outlining the difficulties married people may face and how to resolve them.

Patrick and Veronica believe the Pre-Cana Conference helped them considerably in providing a foundation for their journey through married life.

Bishop’s book brooks the fissures of modern age SYDNEY - A book which discusses conscience, relationships and law in relation to modern-day controversies such as stem cell research and abortion, has received high praise from Sydney Archbishop Cardinal George Pell.

Cardinal Pell attended the launch of Catholic Bioethics for a New Millennium written by Bishop Anthony Fisher at the University of Notre Dame’s Sydney campus last month.

Cardinal Pell said advancements in medical technology had created a new moral question for our age, and demanded convincing arguments presented in fresh ways.

“The Bible is not enough. The Church has from a very early age ... recognised we need an intellectual framework to explain to people around us what we’re doing,” he said.

“This book is a wonderful contribution in the struggle to recover Catholic conscience and authority.”

Catholic Bioethics for a New Millennium, published by Cambridge University Press, is written by Bishop Fisher, an Australian Dominican friar and Adjunct Professor of Bioethics at the University of Notre Dame in Sydney.

In the book he uses case studies to discuss controversial topics such

Philadelphia cardinal goes to God CARDINAL Anthony Bevilacqua, retired archbishop of Philadelphia, and a major leader of the Church in the US, died on 31 January at St Charles Borromeo Seminary where he resided. According to the Philadelphia Archdiocese, he died in his sleep at 9.15pm. He was 88.

The archdiocese said he had been battling dementia and an undisclosed form of cancer. Cardinal Bevilacqua headed the archdiocese from February 1988 to October 2003.

“I was greatly saddened to learn of the death of my predecessor, Cardinal Bevilacqua,” said Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia. “I encourage all Catholics in the archdiocese to join me in praying for the repose of his soul and that God will comfort his family as they mourn his loss. Cardinal Bevilacqua has been called home by God; a servant of the Lord who loved Jesus Christ and his people. Cardinal Bevilacqua’s death comes at a time when the archdiocese is facing extraordinary challenges,” he said.

“During this difficult period, I invite all of our people to come together in prayer for a renewal of our church and her mission.”

Following a private viewing at St Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Archbishop Chaput received the cardinal’s body at the Cathedral Basilica of Ss Peter and Paul in Philadelphia in the early evening on 6 February.

A public viewing preceded the funeral Mass on Tuesday, 7 February.

The Record Catholic Clarity for complex times.

REGISTER NOW

www.40daysforlife.com/perthwa Bishop Anthony Fisher at the launch of his new book

as transplants, artificial feeding and euthanasia.

Bishop Fisher said bioethics is about proposing the starting point that every human being should be reverenced, protected and assisted to flourish.

“It is not some rigid moral abso-

PHOTO: UNDA

lutism or abstract ancient formula, but about love for humanity, and grace.”

Bishop Fisher said he hoped the book would serve as a catalyst to discuss some of the most pressing issues of our age surrounding human life.

Daily Prayer Vigil

22 February - 1st April 2012 nd

8 February 2012, The Record

Page 7

No choice for Catholic doctors

By Nancy Frazier O’Brien WHETHER they are just starting out or nearing the end of their careers, Catholics in the US who want to practise medicine in conformity with the Church’s teachings wonder how a new federal regulation requiring health plans to cover contraceptives and sterilisation free of charge will affect their work.

Although the requirement will not directly impact physicians, some said it represents a governmental intrusion into health care that could grow in the future.

Dr Anne Nolte, a family physician with the National Gianna Centre for Women’s Health and Fertility in New York, thinks the mandate represents “such a dramatic violation of such clearly defined civil rights” that it is bound to be overturned in court.

She said: “If Congress failed to pass an act that provides an exemption for the groups affected by this, and the courts in some incomprehensible way allow (the mandate) to stand, then Catholic health care will have to make a decision to practise civil disobedience.”

Dr Kim Hardey, an obstetrician and gynaecologist in Lafayette, LA, said he hopes the decision by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Obama administration will cause Catholics and other Christians to rise up against “the liberal left” and “misguided feminists” who would like to see abortion also become a required part of every medical practice.

“If we can allow the infringement of any group’s beliefs”, everyone’s beliefs are threatened, he said.

The new contraception mandate, with a narrow exemption for religious organisations, is part of implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 which sets up new preventative healthcare coverage specifically for women, at no cost.

That coverage includes services such as mammograms, prenatal care and cervical cancer screenings but it also mandates free contraception, sterilisations and drugs considered by the Church to be abortifacients - all of which are contrary to Catholic teaching.

On 20 January, Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services,

Dr Anne Nolte, right, a family physician with the National Gianna Centre for Women’s Health and Fertility in New York, follows Catholic teaching and guidelines for healthcare in her practice. She said about 40 per cent of her patients are Protestants or have no religious affiliation. She is pictured at her New York office with patient Judith Guzman in 2009.

PHOTO: GREGORY SHEMITZ

announced that non-profit groups that do not provide contraceptive coverage because of their religious beliefs will get an additional year “to adapt to this new rule”.

Sarah Smith is not a doctor yet, but she worries that the HHS mandate will further sour an atmosphere in which she already finds some challenges to her pro-life convictions. “The one safe environ-

that her Catholic convictions prevent her from involvement in abortion, sterilisation or contraception.

She said she has found that “most doctors as individuals respect my beliefs and my conscience; they might not agree with me, but they’ll defend my right to practise medicine”. She noted problems are more likely to arise at the institutional level, where medical students and

“They might not agree with me, but they’ll defend my right to practise medicine.” ment - Catholic hospitals - is not even going to be safe anymore”, if the contraceptive mandate stands, she said in a telephone interview with Catholic News Service from Chicago, where she had just completed the last of “14 or 15” interviews for a residency position in obstetrics and gynaecology.

A fourth-year medical student at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, Miss Smith made clear on each interview

residents are “culturally at the bottom of the totem pole”.

“Some Catholic hospitals make it much easier for medical students and residents to live out their faith,” she said.

At a secular hospital, however, where “they are doing 400 tubal ligations a year, you might have the choice not to participate, but the work flow makes it harder”, she added. A native of Natick, Mass, and a 2007 graduate of

the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, Miss Smith said she enjoys “working with underserved populations” but might not ever be able to work at a federally funded community health centre, since the government requires that all family planning options be offered at those centres.

“I am not at the point in my career where I have experienced” discrimination because of pro-life beliefs, Miss Smith said. “We are kind of insulated in medical school.

But then you get out and you say, wow, all these policies could really affect my practise.”

After assisting in the delivery of about 6,000 babies over the past 29 years, Dr Hardey has the realworld experience that Miss Smith lacks. He believes that some in Washington would like to drive obstetrician-gynaecologists, or OB-GYNs, who will not perform abortions out of business.

“There are not that many of us ... that we’d be too big to go after,” he said. Hardey prescribed contraceptives and even thought they were

beneficial for the first nine years of his medical practice. He began to see some of their effects - not only on his patients but on societal attitudes - and decided to conform his practice to the Church’s teachings in “Humanae Vitae” (“Of Human Life”).

The 1968 encyclical by Pope Paul VI on married love and procreation reaffirmed Church teaching that artificial contraception is morally wrong.

At age 58, Hardey said he is thinking of leaving his work as an obstetrician, “not because of the environment the president has brought about” but because of the long hours and erratic schedule required to deliver babies. “I love my practice,” he said. “But to live the OB-GYN lifestyle, you have to really love it.”

Dr Nolte, who completed her medical training in 2009, focuses her family practise on providing “authentically Catholic” healthcare for women, especially in the areas of gynaecology, infertility treatment and natural family planning.

She sees the Gianna centre as “an alternative to Planned Parenthood” in Manhattan.

“We do exclusively women’s healthcare faithful to the” US Church’s “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,” she said.

The directives, most recently revised by the US bishops in 2001, guide Catholic healthcare facilities in addressing a wide range of ethical questions, such as abortion, euthanasia, care for the poor, medical research, in vitro fertilisation, prenatal testing, and nutrition and hydration.

That doesn’t mean Nolte serves only Catholics. About 40 per cent of her patients are Protestants or have no religious affiliation. “Women come from other states just for their annual exams, and they bring their daughters,” Nolte said. “They see that we treat patients differently.”

Like Hardey, she expressed concern that “this administration is happy to violate civil rights” on the issue of contraception and could then decide to do the same on abortion or other problematic issues. She said nothing will ever put Catholic healthcare out of business, even if civil disobedience is required.

Mexican parish saving teenagers from drug war

By Joseph Kolb IN A Mexican city that has become synonymous with violence and despair during a four-year drug war that has claimed the lives of more than 12,000 residents, parishioners at a small church are trying to change the image of Ciudad Juarez - one person at a time.

Reflecting on the hymn lyrics, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me”, Father Roberto Luna, pastor of Corpus Christi Church, urges the estimated 500 active parishioners in this impoverished and besieged neighbourhood to live the life of Christ to the best of their abilities. He knows how daunting this task can be.

The neighbourhood Corpus Christi is adjacent to the Juarez Valley, where a war is being waged between the Sinaloa and Juarez drug cartels, and the war greatly affects the youth in the parish.

Over the past year, Fr Luna estimates that as many as 50 young people between the ages of 17 and 23 have been murdered, leaving survivors with a sense of anger,

frustration and vengeance. Fr Luna’s counter offensive against these spiritually destructive emotions is immersion of his parishioners in church activities, where he develops a sense of community and teaches the tools of the faith so his people can survive, emotionally and spiritually.

He is a jovial man with a pragmatic appreciation of the local street life which contributes to his close rapport with parishioners.

One of his favourite ministries is the Saturday catechism programme, which is attended by about 100 families. The day involves a potluck lunch in the fenced-in dirt corner lot of the church followed by classes for adults and children. He sees the invaluable responsibility of the family as a deterrent to the violence.

“The family serves as the roots to a blossoming tree, and the more you keep feeding the roots, the stronger the tree will be,” Fr Luna said. “We’re teaching love, peace, respect and tolerance.”

Each Saturday, the families arrive at the church and receive a week’s worth of catechism lessons. The

A local Mexican chaplain can no longer minister at a high-security prison after riot police broke up a fight among inmates in 2010.

PHOTO: CNS/REUTERS

parents then spend the week teaching their children, and assignments are discussed the following week.

“We are teaching parents ... who haven’t even been baptised to go home and teach their children,” Fr Luna said. “Many then become enrolled in RICA and continue the

faith here.” Fr Luna is especially optimistic about the teen ministry which, given the drug and violent distractions in the neighbourhood, is a sign of hope for Ciudad Juarez.

At the core of this work are the 200 young people enrolled in the confirmation programme. The

priest knows temptations abound for the youth in the parish to join with the cartels. With so many people in his parish affected by the violence, Fr Luna finds one of the biggest challenges is reconciliation.

“I see the faces of the families, the damage these young men did in terms of committing violence or other crimes against others, but the victims have to forgive,” Fr Luna said. “We’re trying to break the cycle of violence here through reconciliation.”

David Cano, a first-year seminarian, said he has been overwhelmed by the involvement he has seen among the parents.

“It’s amazing how humble these people are,” Cano said. “This is a close-knit community that has been deeply affected by the violence, but (parents) still want a better life for themselves and their children.”

A middle-aged man said during an open forum, “We’re trying to send a message of faith through the hurt in our society.”

The majority of the 100 people in the forum said the Church is beginning to make headway.

Page 8

8 February 2012, The Record

Vigil shows remorse for abuse victims

By Carol Glatz Wooden

and

Cindy

A VATICAN cardinal will lead a penitential vigil to show contrition for the sexual abuse of children by priests and for the actions of Catholic officials who shielded the perpetrators from justice.

Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, will preside over the vigil on 7 February during a week-long symposium attended by representatives of 110 bishops’ conferences and 30 religious orders. The

conference, ‘Toward Healing and Renewal’, will launch a global initiative aimed at improving efforts to stop clerical sexual abuse and better protect children and vulnerable adults.

The 6-9 February symposium will be held at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University and is supported by the Vatican Secretariat of State and several other Vatican offices.

During the penitential vigil, to be held in Rome’s St Ignatius Church, a text will be read that is “very profound, clear and explicit”, said Jesuit

Father Hans Zollner, a licensed psychologist and psychotherapist and one of the symposium organisers.

Seven individuals from the Church who represent groups who have been “guilty or negligent will ask for forgiveness”, both from God and victims, while an abuse victim “will be next to Jesus’ cross and will ask for the strength to pardon” the perpetrators who were protected and leaders who were negligent in acting on reports of abuse, Fr Zollner said during a 3 February news conference. Which groups were to be chosen to represent

“guilty or negligent” parties were not yet known, he said, as organisers were in the process of asking representatives to volunteer.

Marie Collins, an Irish survivor of clerical sex abuse, said one of the reasons that abuse victims are still so hurt and angered is that, “despite apologies for the actions of the abusers, there have been few apologies for the protection given them by their superiors.”

She said there seems to be a lack of penalty for anyone who deliberately or negligently covers up abuse, allowing them to continue.

Rome sees red, new cardinals ordained

Policy to make alcoholism a sin Catholic prohibitionists in India’s Kerala state have proposed making alcoholism a sin in the nation’s largest Christian enclave. “Alcoholism is a serious problem in Kerala, and we have to take tough measures to counter it”, Bishop Sebastian Thekethecheril, chairman of the Temperance Commission of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council, told Catholic News Service during the general assembly of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India in Bangalore. More than 100 Temperance Commission delegates from 30 dioceses met in Kerala on 29 January and drafted a policy that says anyone who consumes alcohol moderately should be kept away from the Church at all levels.

CNS

VATICAN

Religious institutions should share wealth Wealthier religious orders should share their resources with struggling religious communities, said the prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. Cardinaldesignate Joao Braz de Aviz said that while religious men and women live a life of poverty and possess nothing, their religious “institution doesn’t always give the same witness. It’s not that we are against holding assets or are saying the Church cannot have all the things it needs,” he said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, on 2 February.

CNS

By Cindy Wooden SOMETHING old, something new, something borrowed and something red will be part of the mix on 18 February when Pope Benedict XVI creates new cardinals.

The general format of the consistory has been maintained, but the ceremony has been modified and will include the use of prayers borrowed from ancient Roman liturgies. Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan will even address the College of Cardinals on the subject of new evangelisation.

Red will be the colour of the day as the new cardinals are reminded that they are called to give their lives to God and the Church, even to the point of shedding their blood.

Tradition and innovation, solemnity and festivity, high honour and a call to sacrifice are key parts of the creation of new cardinals.

The hushed moment when a churchman kneels before the Pope and receives his red hat as a cardinal contrasts sharply with the mood in the Apostolic Palace that same evening when the public - literally anyone who wants to come - is invited in to congratulate the new cardinals.

Pope Benedict will create 21 new cardinals in the morning during an “ordinary public consistory” in St Peter’s Basilica. For health reasons, the 22nd cardinal-designate, German Jesuit Father Karl Josef Becker, 83, will not attend the ceremony and will be made a cardinal “privately at some other time,” said Vatican spokesman Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi.

The evening of the consistory, the Bronze Doors will open and the public will be allowed to swarm up the Scala Regia - the royal stairway - and into the Apostolic Palace to meet and greet the new cardinals.

A consistory is a gathering of cardinals with the Pope. According to canon law, an ordinary consistory is called for consultation or for the celebration “of especially solemn acts,” such as the creation of new cardinals or a vote approving the canonisation of candidates for sainthood.

Immediately after the new cardinals are created, all the “princes of the Church” are scheduled to vote on several new saints - including Blessed Marianne Cope of Molokai and Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha Monsignor Guido Marini, master of papal liturgical ceremonies, told Catholic News Service on 1 February.

Normally, the public consistory for new saints is attended by cardinals living in Rome, but the creation of new cardinals is an opportunity for all of them to exercise their role as advisers to the Pope.

INDIA

VENICE

Pope names new patriarchate of Venice

Snow as thick as seven inches falls around the statue of St Peter at the Vatican on 3 February.

This will be the fourth time Pope Benedict has created new cardinals and will bring his total to 84 cardinals, of whom 79 are still alive; 63 of his appointees in the College of Cardinals will be under the age of 80 and eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new Pope.

Like the consistories he held in 2007 and in 2010, the February ceremony will be preceded by a daylong meeting of the Pope with

ceremony for the 2012 consistory has been changed.

In early January, the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, reported, “The rite used up to now has been revised and simplified with the approval of the Holy Father”, in part to avoid any impression that becoming a cardinal is a sacrament like ordination.

Two ordinations will precede the consistory. Three of the new cardi-

Something old, something new, something borrowed and something red... the College of Cardinals and the cardinals-designate. The Vatican said the theme will be “Proclaiming the Gospel today, between missio ad gentes and new evangelisation” with Cardinal-designate Dolan of New York opening the meeting.

The three-cornered, red biretta the Pope will place on the new cardinals’ heads is traditional, but the

nals named by Pope Benedict are priests, not bishops.

Church law says new cardinals must have been ordained at least to the priesthood and should be ordained bishops before entering the College of Cardinals. In recent decades, however, many of the elderly priests named to the college as a sign of esteem and gratitude for

PHOTO: CNS/PAUL HARING

their service to the Church have requested, and received, an exemption from episcopal ordination.

Maltese Augustinian Fr Prosper Grech, an 86-year-old biblical theologian and one of the co-founders of Rome’s Augustinian Patristical Institute, was scheduled to be ordained a bishop on 8 February in Malta.

Belgian Fr Julien Ries, 91, an expert on the history of religions, told CNS he would be ordained a bishop on 11 February in Belgium.

In keeping with the Jesuit promise not to strive for any dignity in the Church, Fr Becker, a retired professor at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, said he would become a cardinal without becoming a bishop. Another small change made to the consistory this year involves timing. The prelates will receive their cardinals’ rings from Pope Benedict during the consistory, rather than at the Mass they will concelebrate with the Pope on 19 February.

Pope Benedict XVI named Cardinal Angelo Scola’s successor to the patriarchate of Venice, a historically significant archdiocese. Archbishop Francesco Moraglia, 58, had served as bishop of La Spezia-SarzanaBrugnato since 2007 and was named on 31 January as the new patriarch of Venice - a See made vacant when the Pope named Cardinal Scola Archbishop of Milan last June. Born in Genoa, Archbishop Moraglia has a doctorate in dogmatic theology.

He has taught dogmatic and sacramental theology and headed a regional institute of religious studies in Liguria from 1994 to 2007. He is president of the administrative council of the Italian bishops’ “Communication and Culture” foundation and is a consultor for the Congregation for Clergy. Venice is a major See from which three popes in the 20th century have come: Popes Pius X, John XXIII and John Paul I had all served as patriarchs of Venice.

US

Spreading the message of Fatima to evangelise A new Catholic organisation is aiming to live and spread the message of Fatima through recitation of the rosary and the wearing of clothing and patches as an indirect way to evangelise.

The Knights and Dames of the Holy Rosary seek to promote Catholic faith and morals not only by the prayers requested by Our Lady of Fatima in 1917 but also by bearing public witness to their faith through the wearing of Knights and Dames clothing and patches. The organisation’s co-founder Darrell Wright said the public witness of faith is not only an effective evangelical tool, but also “an important antidote and counterweight to the ever-increasing marginalisation of religion from public life in our society”.

CNS

8 February 2012, The Record

Page 9

Vatican dismisses corruption claims

By Francis Rocca IN AN unusually public rebuke of a high-ranking colleague, Vatican officials dismissed as baseless the accusations of “corruption and abuse of power” made in letters by an archbishop who is now apostolic nuncio to the United States.

In a statement released by the Vatican on 4 February, Cardinaldesignate Giuseppe Bertello and Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, the current and immediate past presidents of the Governorate of Vatican City State, described as a “cause of great sadness” the recent “unlawful publication” by Italian journalists of two

A year to adapt? No thanks, Mr President

letters addressed to Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state.

The letters, written by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano when he was the governorate’s secretary general, or second-highest official, contained assertions based on “erroneous evaluations” or “fears unsupported by proof ”, the statement said.

Archbishop Vigano’s letter to the Pope, dated 27 March 2011, lamented “so many situations of corruption and abuse of power long rooted in the various departments” of the governorate, and warned that the archbishop’s departure from

his position there “would provoke profound confusion and dejection” among all those supporting his efforts at reform. Pope Benedict named the archbishop as nuncio to the US in October 2011.

The governorate manages the 108 acres of Vatican City State, including the Vatican Gardens and Museums.During Archbishop Vigano’s stint at the governorate, a budget deficit of nearly $9.8 million in 2009 turned into a surplus of $28 million in 2010.

According to the Vatican statement, which was also signed by the current secretary general and a former vice secretary general of the

governorate, the improved finances during the period in question were “due principally to two factors”: the management of the governorate’s financial investments by a different Vatican office, and, “in even greater measure, to the excellent results of the Vatican Museums.”

Archbishop Vigano’s letter to Cardinal Bertone, dated 8 May 2011, complained of the cardinal’s plans to remove the archbishop from his post, and accused the cardinal of breaking a promise to let the archbishop succeed the then-president of the governorate, Cardinal Lajolo, upon the latter’s retirement.

In the letter, the Archbishop blamed Cardinal Bertone’s change of mind on the effects of “strategies put into action in order to destroy me in the eyes of Your Eminence”, including the planting of libellous stories in the Italian press by several of Archbishop Vigano’s enemies among fellow Vatican officials.

The statement also expressed “full faith” in the “illustrious members” of the governorate’s financial and management committee, its department heads and other officials, in spite of “suspicions and accusations” which have been “revealed - upon careful examination - as unfounded.”

A vocation of craftsmanship: Jose the carpenter

COMMENT

By Stephen Kent Former editor of archdiocesan newspapers in Omaha and Seattle ANYONE looking for validation of the Pope’s frank assessment of the state of the culture in the United States did not have long to wait.

A day after Pope Benedict XVI described to a visiting delegation of American bishops his view of hostility to unchanging moral truths in the United States, the government offered the perfect example to prove his point.

The US Department of Health and Human Services rejected requests from Catholic leaders and institutions to revise the religious exemption from its requirements that all health insurance plans cover contraceptives and sterilisation free of charge.

Showing what was either a gratuitous insult or abysmal ignorance, Kathleen Sebelius, HHS secretary, said groups that do not currently provide contraceptive coverage will have an additional year “to adapt to this new rule.”

The secretary showed no lack of chutzpah to say those who hold to millennia of traditional moral teaching have a year to abandon their beliefs, as if basic truths are some sort of platform issue.

Moral truths are not the same as the flip-flop philosophy of politicians for whom long-held beliefs may extend from one election to another.

At the heart of every culture, the Pope said, is a consensus about the nature of reality and the moral good.

“Today, that consensus has eroded significantly in the face of powerful new cultural currents, which are not only directly opposed to

Carpenter Jose Ernesto Fernandez works on a chair to be used by Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to Leon, Mexico.

core moral teachings of the JudeoChristian tradition but increasingly hostile to Christianity as such,” he said.

These meetings between Pope and bishop, known as ad limina, are usually polite affairs where a pope will comment on certain situations in the visiting bishops’ dioceses to which they respond.

Not often do you hear a pope say, as did Pope Benedict, that “it is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realise the grave threats to

the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres.”

Curtailing the proclamation of truths by “suppressing it in the name of political power or majority rule,” he said, is a “threat not just to Christian faith but also to humanity itself.”

Assaults on the freedom of religion will not come by big things - jackbooted soldiers ransacking churches before locking their doors.

It will come from the erosion of so-called little things such as these HHS regulations, easily overlooked as technical rule-making, their significance not grasped.

Religious freedom means more than freedom of worship. It means the freedom to practise beliefs. It is meaningless without respect for freedom of conscience, as the Pope said.

“The Church has a critical role to play in countering cultural currents which, on the basis of extreme individualism, seek to promote

Humanity to find freedom in God, Pope

By Carol Glatz ONLY by fully following God’s will can humanity find true freedom and the strength to bear the fear or suffering in one’s life, Pope Benedict XVI said at a weekly general audience this month.

“Only by conforming one’s own will to the divine does the human person reach his true greatness becomes divine,” he said. Only by shedding one’s own interests and goals for God’s does humanity obtain what everyone wants: “to be completely free,” the Pope said.

Speaking at his weekly general audience on 1 February, Pope Benedict continued his catechesis on prayer by highlighting Jesus’ intense prayer to his father in the garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus understood the hour of betrayal and death was near, and his prayer “reveals his human fear and anguish”, the Pope said.

Though he implored God to “take this cup away from me” and spare him, Jesus quickly showed his complete obedience to his father’s will when he added, “not what I want, but what you want”, the Pope

said. It’s not always easy to discern and comply with what God wants, he said. It will help, he said, if people “learn to trust more in God’s providence” and pray every day for the strength to step out of oneself and step up to God’s plan.

When praying the “Lord’s Prayer” every day, one is asking that God’s “will be done on earth as it is in heaven”, the Pope said.

The prayer shows that not only does God have a plan for everyone, “we also recognise that it is in heaven where God’s will is done and that the earth becomes heaven - a place

where there is love, goodness, truth, divine beauty - only if the will of God is done”, he said.

Just as Jesus used prayer to draw strength to sustain him through times of immense suffering and anguish, so must men and women today use prayer to sustain them and “bring before God our troubles, suffering, the daily task of following (God), of being Christian and also the burden of evil that we see in us and around us”.

The text of the Pope’s audience remarks are available at the Vatican’s website.

PHOTO: CNS/REUTERS

notions of freedom detached from moral truth,” the Pope told the US delegation.

“There can be no doubt that a more consistent witness on the part of America’s Catholics to their deepest convictions would make a major contribution to the renewal of society as a whole,” challenged the Pope.

Government grants “a year to adapt.” That can also become a “year to reject” and to provide that witness that freedom of conscience will prevail.

Vatican talks to Palestine THE VATICAN and the Palestine Liberation Organisation are continuing talks aimed at a formal agreement regulating and promoting the presence and activity of the Catholic Church in the Palestinian territories.

Vatican and PLO representatives met on 28 January at the headquarters of the Palestinian president in Ramallah, according to a statement released at the Vatican on 30 January. Talks are said to have taken place in a positive atmosphere.

Page 10

8 February 2012, The Record

G DHouse’s Zeal for

Something vital has been lost in Catholic church architecture, often obscuring any indication that God is truly present there, writes architect Henry Harding Menzies.

T

he sun was setting over the vast Valley of Mexico as I climbed up to the flat roof of a building at the Montefalco Conference Centre to do a painting. The shades of brilliant scarlet from the sunset to the west threw the distant mountain range into waves of blue. I was anxious to get set up fast in order to capture this strange beauty before it vanished. I wanted, especially, to capture at sunset the snow-capped Mt Popocatepetl, (pictured below).

Unfortunately, it was enshrouded in clouds. I fumbled to get everything ready. The eerie silence was broken only by the faint distant sounds of a mariachi band. A breeze came up.

The sky darkened. I thought I had missed my chance.

Then, all of a sudden, I looked up and saw, high above the hills to the north, the majestic snow-covered peak of Mt Popocatepetl, emerging slowly from behind the lavender clouds, completely dwarfing the western mountains. Brilliantly

illuminated in pale pink, the peak appeared like some ancient god towering above the lesser mountains in its distant majesty. No wonder the pagans worshipped this mountain. Its very silence seemed to say that it had been there, hidden all the time, towering above our little, mundane world—watching, waiting, and suddenly deigning to show itself in its own good time to those whom it chose. It was awesome. I threw my brushes down in dismay. My poor abilities could never, even for a second, capture that silent, terrible splendour.

Is it any wonder the natives worshipped this mountain? They may have been ignorant of Christianity, but they respected what they could see of the Creator in his works. At least, they had a “sense of the sacred,” something which seems to be lost today in many Catholic churches.

Normally, we go to church to worship him, to participate in the liturgy. We go there not only for holy Mass, but to confess our sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, to be

baptised, to get married and for our funeral Masses. These are the most private, personal acts a person can perform throughout his life. But even when there’s no liturgy going on, we go there to pray before his living presence in the tabernacle.

Since the creation of the world, invisible realities, God’s eternal power and divinity, have become visible, recognised through the things he has made.

And yet, today, when you walk into many Catholic churches, they look like huge, cold auditoriums, warehouses, shopping malls or circus fun houses. Some are just confusing in their “modern” contortions. Where is the sacrifice? There

is no apparent indication of sacrifice but only comfort and provision for every human convenience.

And worship? There is no sign of reverence in that bland, antiseptic atmosphere. And God’s presence?

Just try to find the tabernacle. It is usually hidden out of sight behind a column and given little more importance than a plaster statue.

It is difficult to find anything of awe and reverence that would give any indication God himself is truly present.

Certainly, something vital has been lost in Catholic church architecture today, so much so that many of the faithful wonder, “What happened to the glory?” Hand-inhand with the loss of the sacred is the loss of the sense of beauty. So many new and renovated churches are just plain ugly and barren. Some border on the grotesque. It is not a question of style. What has been lost is not a classical or gothic architectural style but a total vision of the church edifice as a sacred space infused with beauty.

Sacred Space But before considering “sacred space”, perhaps we Americans don’t appreciate any special place, much less “sacred” places. Possibly, we live in such an immensely large country with so much space that we have lost the sense of the uniqueness of any one place. Historically, we have always been moving westward. On the other hand, we all reverence the sites of Civil War battlefields. We sense the special significance of Plymouth Rock or of Independence Hall, or “Ground Zero.” We like to return to the places of our childhood. So, perhaps, the loss of unique space is not really totally lost but hidden somewhere, deep down inside all of us. However, there are indications that this loss of the sense of special places can be more harmful than we think.

Edward T Oakes, in an essay, The Apologetics of Beauty, recalled the massacre at Littleton’s Columbine High School on 20 April 1999. After the event, one native of Littleton wrote an essay describing how the

8 February 2012, The Record

Page 11

something ordinary, but has to do with the extraordinary. Nor is it necessarily very pleasant, either.

To us mortals, there can be something terrible and fearful about divinity. In almost every encounter mortal men have had with God in the Old Testament, there was both a radiant splendour but also terror, precisely because it was the “Other.” After Moses received the Ten Commandments, he had to cover his face since the brilliance of experiencing God emanated from him and was too terrifying for the people to experience. Each time Christ appeared after the resurrection, the initial reaction was fear.

Otherwise, why did he say to them: “Be not afraid?” Peter was so overcome while witnessing the glory of the Lord at the Transfiguration that, in his bewilderment, he impulsively blurted out something as irrelevant as building three tents there! In other words, he panicked. Perhaps, one unknown poet summed it up best: Let the Archangel In terrifying grandeur Step but a pace hitherward From behind the stars Our own heart In violent beat Would destroy us!

Architecture as if God matters: the interior of the early 13th century Salamanca Cathedral in Spain. PHOTO: ROMANESQUE, R TOMAN (ED), ULLMANN & KONEMANN, 2004, P205.

town had changed from the quiet village of his childhood into just part of the suburban sprawl of Denver.

I grew up, however humbly, in a town with a character and sense of place, and I had those things, too. What sense of place can there be in the Littletons of America now, in these mall-lands: where each Gap and McDonald’s is like the next, where the differences between things are neither prized nor scorned, but are simply wiped from existence? Growing up in an anonymous landscape, how can anyone escape his own encroaching sense of anonymity?

In this world, meaning evaporates. In a world of monotonous getting and spending, the need to shake things up, to make a mark, any mark, may overpower everything else, including sense. The trenchcoat Mafias’ particular brand of evil may have stemmed from a terrible absence, a loss of perspective, that might be one of the unforeseen consequences of the loss of place.

Long before Christianity arrived, mankind had reverenced certain

places in nature as sacred. Mt Fuji in Japan is sacred to the Shintoists who must make a pilgrimage to its peak at least once before they die. There are groves sacred to the early Druids, as can be seen at Stonehenge. There are people in the Far East who make a festival of going to some vantage point to simply watch the sunset! Even people who have no religion occasionally have a “spiritual” experience when they walk through California’s redwoods, or peer into the Grand Canyon at sunset. St Paul chastises those who ignore the creator in his creation: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against the irreligious and perverse spirit of men, who, in this perversity of theirs, hinder the truth. In fact, whatever can be known about God is clear to them; he himself made it so. Since the creation of the world, invisible realities, God’s eternal power and divinity, have become visible, recognised through the things he has made. Therefore, these men are inexcusable” (Rom 1:18-20).

The sense of the sacred lies precisely in the fact that it is not

But how is he there, more than anywhere else, since we know that he is everywhere, and that without him, all places would simply cease to exist? What makes any place sacred is that God is present there in some special way, the opposite of Gertrude Stein’s famous quip about Oakland, “There’s no ‘there’ there.”

Certainly, the Jewish people always considered the Temple the most sacred space of all places. When God spoke to Moses in the burning bush, he told him: “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground”(Ex 3:5). Obviously, God himself is very much concerned about sacred space, as A Frossard has written: “The Lord gave Moses very detailed instructions concerning the dignity to be accorded divine worship. He laid down specifications for the construction of the tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, and the altar. He gave Moses guidelines for sacred utensils and priestly vestments. God wanted to give his people a profound respect for the sacred. Jesus Christ underlined this teaching with a new spirit. His zeal for the house of God is fundamental to the Good News.”

In St John’s Gospel (2:15-17), we read: “He made a [kind of] whip of cords and drove sheep and oxen alike out of the temple area, and knocked over the money-changers’ tables, spilling their coins. He told Continued on Page 12

How the Church can ‘cut through’

By Paul De Maeyer

I

S IT possible to talk about the life of the Church in a brilliant and fascinating way? Can the magisterium of the Pope, his encyclicals and homilies be explained without boring readers?

Can the Good News still attract interest and conquer people’s hearts?

Does it make sense to speak of journalism and Catholic communication workers?

In what way is it possible to overcome the prejudices linked to the Catholic Church?

To respond to these and many other questions, the eighth Professional Seminar for Church Communication Offices is being organised by the faculty of Institutional Communication of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. The international seminar will be held in Rome from 16-18 April, with the theme Church Communication: People, Faces and Stories.

Registration for the seminar is open until 31 March and, to learn more, ZENIT interviewed Prof Father José María La Porte, dean of the faculty of communication at Santa Croce.

Is the subject of faith an issue that is of interest to the mass media?

Faith has an overwhelming fascination and informative force that has not changed in the course of the centuries.

If the media dedicated more space to what really counts with the public, the radical questions on man’s existence would be an issue of great interest and news.

Some believe the media’s interest in this pontificate is less than in the previous one. What do you think?

That it’s not true. Suffice it to think of World Youth Day in Madrid (1.5 million) or the interesting debate on the common good generated in the course of the Pope’s trip to Germany or the last meeting in Assisi with representatives of several religions, agnostics and atheists. If there has been a change, it has to do with the way the media has reacted to the topics proposed by Pope Benedict XVI. What are the objectives of the seminar that will be held in April?

The seminar hopes to offer ideas, share experiences, give answers to the challenges communication professionals in ecclesiastical institutions are facing. The debate will go deeper from the scientific and university point of view.

What are the novelties?

For this eighth edition we decided to concentrate on the a burning topic: that is, Christian witness in the course of a profession. We hope to discuss the way to incarnate the communication of the Church

in personal living, faces and stories.

Why concentrate on this?

The Holy Father has reminded that the truth of the “Gospel demands to be incarnated in the real world and linked to the real faces of our brothers and sisters, those with whom we share our daily lives.”

In what way can this topic be included in the dioceses’ communication programme?

We believe the task of communicators who work for the Church and the Christian community is to go beyond the writing of press releases. The idea is that they must publish brilliant and attractive information and news. To do this, it is necessary to communicate the meaning of the experienced lived, to make known the passion, love and charity with which the life of the Church is described and to give voice to the many activities of Christian communities.

Which is the most effective means of communication?

Audio-visual means seem to be particularly important (including radio) and the comprehensive social network; however, we wish to specify

Faith has an overwhelming fascination and informative force that has not changed in the course of the centuries. that the technical means are not the main topic of the symposium but, rather, the communicative relationship between faith and personal stories.

Why this insistence on personal experiences?

Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have always insisted on the concept: faith is not something abstract, it has to do with me, with you, even if we meet on Twitter or Facebook.

Does this idea of personal encounter not clash with the globalisation of the anonymous?

Increasing, with the spread of digital processes, are contacts between persons, even if often we witness a reduction in the quality of relationships which fosters a certain anonymity. The challenge is to humanise these relationships, filling them with contents.

In this way an anonymous existence can become novelty.

The experience of faith, lived and recounted personally, is a powerful instrument to make Christianity known and to transmit it.

ZENIT

Page 12

Continued from Page 11 those who were selling doves: ‘Get them out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!’

His disciples recalled the words of Scripture: ‘Zeal for your house consumes me.’”

Architecture Therefore, it is apparent both from the Old and New Testaments that the Creator of all has never been indifferent to the places of worship that his children have built for his glory. Although it is he who sanctifies places, he has given his children the freedom and creative ability to give them form. So, it is in the art of architecture that we must search for the answer to the question, “What is sacred space?”

Architecture is fundamentally “the art of space.” Etienne Gilson has written: “What distinguishes architecture from painting and sculpture is its spatial quality. In this, and only in this, no other artist can emulate the architect.”

Therefore, we can say that architecture is not the art of “something” like sculpture or painting but it is the art of “nothing.” That is, it is the space surrounding the “somethings.”

Except in unusual circumstances, architecture provides the setting, the backdrop and the atmosphere for our lives. But it is never the main event, except in monuments, world fairs and Disney World, which must shout to be noticed. There is a kind of humility in architecture which does not call attention to itself. It must be discovered personally.

I quote Etienne Gilson again: “Architecture, being an art of space, attracts all the other arts of space, which obtrude to adorn it, but also to disfigure it, or, in any case, live off it parasitically.”

Or, as Lao Tse put it much earlier: “We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel, But it is on the space where there is nothing that the utility of the wheel depends.

We turn clay to make a vessel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the utility of the vessel depends.

We pierce doors and windows to make a house; and it is on these spaces where there is nothing that the utility of the house depends.

Therefore, just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognise the utility of what is not.

And in more modern terms: Space constantly encompasses our being.

Through the volume of space, we move, see forms and objects, hear sounds, feel breezes, smell the fragrance of a flower garden in

8 February 2012, The Record

bloom.

Yet, it is inherently formless. Its visual form, quality of light, dimensions and scale, depend totally on its boundaries as defined by elements of form. As space begins to be captured, enclosed, moulded, and organised by the elements of form, ARCHITECTURE comes into being.

The purpose of sacred architecture is to offer the Church a fitting space for the celebration of the mysteries of faith, especially the Eucharist.

(DK Ching, Form, Space and Order).

Architecture is also mute. Others make words to describe it, to study it. Words are even needed to build it. But, once built, it simply is.

Gilson states: “Architecture does not speak. IT IS. It is developed in a great silence, but man, being a talker, strains his ingenuity to make it speak.” This silence is most apparent when architecture is used to serve the Church. It should be silent. It is not supposed to call

A variety of styles but always based upon architecture speaking of God: St Maria im Kapital, Cologne, above, and the Study Centre, at Kenthurst in NSW. PHOTOS: TOP: ROMANESQUE, R TOMAN (ED), ULLMANN & KONEMANN, 2004, P52; ABOVE: CNS

attention to itself because it is not at the heart of worship. The liturgy is the heart of worship. Architecture plays only an auxiliary role. It is the setting. It provides the space for the sacred actions of the liturgy, and, in so doing, becomes “sacred.”

Although its role is auxiliary, it is extremely important because it has

the ability to help or detract, to contribute or mitigate against the liturgy itself.

Pope Benedict XVI has written that: “Here it is fitting to remember that the purpose of sacred architecture is to offer the Church a fitting space for the celebration of the mysteries of faith, especial-

ly the Eucharist” (Sacramentum Caritatis). Certainly, it cannot play its part properly unless it somehow shares in the great religious mysteries it expresses and serves.

There is nothing more sacred than the liturgy of the holy Mass and the real presence of Our Lord in the tabernacle. Furthermore, it is challenged to somehow incarnate God’s glory with a glimpse of heaven. Man “strains his ingenuity” to incarnate that vision in a human way. This striving is always intrinsic to the nature of the architectural design process. Architects are always striving to incarnate some kind of vision: whether it’s Mrs Jones’ vision of her new kitchen or a mayor’s vision of the new city hall.

It encompasses the real tension that is found in any creative effort. In sacred space, it happens to be God’s vision or, put the other way around, it is the believers’ vision of God in his effort “to capture the Unseen in the materiality of the Seen” … silently.

Sense of Beauty But along with the loss of the sense of the uniqueness of any space—much less, sacred space— we have lost the sense of beauty; and that might be the connection.

As the Austrian poet, Rainier Maria Rilke, stated: “For the beautiful is nothing but the first degree of the terrible.” Beauty is a powerful thing.

It must be the primary goal of sacred architecture. Pope Benedict XVI suggests that: “Beauty, then, is an attribute of God himself and his revelation. The profound connection between beauty and liturgy should make us attentive to every work of art placed at the service of the celebration” (Sacramentum Caritatis). Many will agree, but maintain that beauty is only a marginal, relative thing, or merely a matter of “taste” or ornament, or private opinion. However, the Holy Father disagrees: “Beauty, then, is not mere decoration, but rather an essential element of the liturgical action, since it is an attribute of God himself and his revelation.”

There have always been changing “fashions” in beauty throughout history, but God has instilled in all human beings, in all times, a sense of the beautiful.

Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote: “Beauty is the neglected sister of Truth and Goodness, the three transcendental properties of Being.

Without her, we lose them, too.

But no longer loved and fostered by religion, beauty is lifted from its face as a mask, and its absence exposes features on that face which threaten to become incomprehensible to man.” To fail to produce beauty in sacred art is to rob God of his glory. The building structure may be in place, the creature comforts may be in abundance—

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Page 13

Accepting His will opened the door Overcoming addiction and surrendering to God’s will where what opened Dr Gerard Goldman up to the love and grace of God.

S

including airconditioning, padded pews, the latest technology may be there, together with plenty of parking spaces—but God’s glory is not.

Finally, this loss of the sense of the sacred place and beauty could be caused by the sad fact that many Catholics have lost faith in God’s real presence in the Eucharist. Pope

Benedict XVI had quite a bit to say about the Eucharist in his apostolic exhortation, Sacramentum Caritatis (22 February 2007): “It’s within this great sacrament that the sacred and beauty come together. Certainly, an important element of sacred art is church architecture, which should highlight the unity of the furnish-

ings of the sanctuary, such as: the altar, the crucifix, the tabernacle, the ambo and the celebrant’s chair.

Here, it is important to remember that the purpose of sacred architecture is to offer the Church a fitting space for the celebration of the mysteries of faith, especially the Eucharist.

ince 2003 I have been the Director of The Broken Bay Institute (BBI). BBI brings our faith to thousands of Australians and now over 20 countries through our eConferences held in partnership with the Australian Catholic Bishops conference. We give people the means to engage with others studying online theology whenever they wish.

BBI has been in partnership with The University of Newcastle since 2009. It has been an honour to be part of this important step for the Church moving into the public university domain. I have doctoral qualifications in ministry and missiology and a background in teaching. I am 48 and live in Sydney with my wife and two daughters. I remember at 12, I made my first bet. It was 25c on a greyhound and I got 35c back. I was hooked.

I believe our faith is centred on taking up your cross and surrendering to God’s will. I can particularly relate to this as I am a recovering alcoholic and compulsive gambler. Part of the 12 Step programme of AA is acknowledging spiritual powerlessness over your habit and that your life has become unmanageable. The habit continued through my school and university years. I was a daily Massgoer at the same time and still couldn’t control my gambling.

Looking back, I can see I was dedicated to prayer, contemplation and the Eucharist, yet the compulsive gambling would often take over. Then I had a wonderful experience at 24 when I was studying under the Columban Fathers. It was 1987 and that year I got sober.

I shared with my spiritual director a dream I had. I identified one of the characters in it as an alcoholic and, when he asked me what that meant to me, I had an out of body experience. I felt I was leaving my body and looking down on the room. I could see myself sitting on the chair. I held onto the armrests and felt like I was going to levitate. I quickly ended the session and was terrified by what had happened.

But through that experience I got an insight into my drinking patterns and have not had a drink since. Unfortunately, my gambling continued. I started winning and rationalised it was only because I was drinking that I lost that much!

After losing $400 one day, I was invited by my sister to the horse races. I was filled with self-loathing but despite this I went on to lose another

How I

Pray

with Debbie Warrier

$350 on bets. I was finishing a Graduate Diploma in Ministry, living with religious, and yet felt an absolute fraud.

Gambling had reduced my life to a pathetic state.

I told God, “I will put my last $50 on this horse and if it wins I will never make another bet in my life.” I had never bargained with God before. As the horse won, I had a sensation of all the addictions of the past 12 years physically draining out of me.

On that day I experienced the love and grace of God. I don’t know how long it lasted. I felt changed, cleansed, relieved of the need to chase more

There are times when you can find God’s presence and others when there is a felt absence but you just have to trust God’s love. money. It felt like God saying, “You have suffered enough, Gerard. I will relieve you of this.”

There are times when you can find God’s presence and others when there is a felt absence but you just have to trust God’s love. Now I like to meditate in the morning.

Sometimes it is quite powerful and at other times just to be still is more than sufficient. It takes time for all the “junk” to empty out.

I also love to pray the Psalter and, if time permits, do this once or twice a day. The psalms help open me up to bringing my cares and concerns to God. The Psalter also connects me with the universal Church, knowing I am joining our worldwide community through this prayer.

I have a love for sitting with scripture, allowing Jesus to be revealed through the power of the Gospel. It is often like learning something new about a friend – taking time to listen to what Jesus may be trying to share with me.Through my experience and the Scriptures I have come to understand that in my powerlessness there lays God’s strength.

Page 14

8 February 2012, The Record

Joy

The The I

n 2008, we decided to adopt.

At first, like many couples who hear of the dreaded “one child” policy, I wanted to adopt from China. However, when we contacted our agency, the wait for a Chinese baby was four years. Instead, we decided to go the quickest and most affordable route.

And so, several months — and a lot of paperwork — later, we got our referral photo from Ethiopia.

She was a 14 pound two year old with a large head and twiggy arms.

She was wearing camouflage, and it was noted on her file that she had experienced “extreme starvation.”

In retrospect, she wasn’t that cute but we were blinded by love and adoration. My son, who was eight at the time, printed off her photo and took it proudly to school.

“Is that a girl?” a classmate asked.

“Are you sure?”

On the way home from school, my son was devastated. “Why does she wear boys’ clothes if she’s really a girl?” he asked, his pride pricked by his friends’ doubt. “Are we sure?”

We weren’t. As with everything adoption-related, it’s hard to know much with certainty. Information is hard to come by. Language barriers and other factors make it hard to really figure out the truth. It’s an exercise in trusting God’s sovereignty.

A year and a half ago, my family travelled to Africa and met two year old Konjit, an apt name which means “beautiful.” My blondeheaded kids were amazed at her rich, brown skin and dark-brown fuzz on the top of her head. The orphanage had shaved her hair off almost completely. It was probably a good thing — so much was changing in our family. I cannot imagine actually getting a new kid

of

Pretty Plucked from the firmament of famine and conflict, already seen too much. But a little girl’s

A juxtaposition of Konjit while she was at an orphanage in Ethiopia and then, years later, in her new mother Nancy French’s care.

PHOTO: ONLINE SOURCE

and learning how to feed, bathe, and take care of her exotic hair without sharing the same language.

I’ve always been the type of mother who resists pink for girls.

When my first baby was born, I dressed her in greens and purples.

I didn’t love the smocking and the frilly diaper covers. I didn’t tape bows to her bald head.

But when I first saw Konjit, she was wearing a Batman t-shirt that had come from America’s refuse pile. Although the orphanage was well run and clean, my time in Africa sobered me. I’d never seen

she saw them. She didn’t know English, but that one gasp spoke volumes.

The bright colours, the shape, the sheer beauty of the shoes thrilled her.

That’s when Konjit discovered the joy of pretty things.

Since then, she’s doubled her weight, grown five inches in a year, and learned English. But the one thing that has never changed is her absolute love of clothing. Every day when she comes home from school, she asks, “Can I go change clothes?”

It’s not uncommon to see her in four or five different outfits a day. She loves her skirts depending on how they twirl. She zips her sweaters only to a certain point, to reveal just a smidge of the shirt underneath. She has a favourite pair of boots that clip-clop on our new hardwood floors with every step — something that recently almost drove me to insanity.

“Naomi,” I said sternly. This is the new first name we chose to go with her African name. It means “pleasant.”

“You’ve either got to stand still or take off those boots.”

She stood still, right in that spot for a very long time, motionless.

As I looked at that little brown girl trying too hard to maintain the style and beauty of those little brown boots, I smiled. And I finally said, “Okay, go ahead and run around.”

My reluctant permission was like a gunshot at a race. She smiled and ran around the house with even more joy. And with every clomp, she drove poverty and death a little further back into her past.

“absolute poverty” and couldn’t imagine that my daughter had almost starved to death. I’ve said that thing before (“I’m starving!”) when my meal was delayed by a few minutes.

But I’d never really thought about the hyperbole that so easily came from my mouth. And I’d never seen the inside of an orphanage.

I’d never seen people who literally didn’t even own the ugly clothing on their backs.

Suddenly, I wanted her to have something pink. Something clean.

Something expensive. Something

stunning. I went out to the various stores the city had to offer. I couldn’t find anything that would really work. The only shoes I could find — to replace the generic Crocs all the orphans wore — were these gorgeous floral Swiss clogs. They were so beautiful — yellow flowers with greenery around them. They were also tall and dangerous for a little one to walk in. Not having another option, I bought them and presented them to her at our next meeting.

“Ah!” That’s the sound she made when

iMissal

H20 news

Saint A Day

Available on iPhone

Available on iPhone

The Pope is only one tap of a touchscreen away with this Vaticansanctioned Catholic video news app.

The website of the same name, pope2you.net, is helping young people connect with the Vatican using this trendy app that provides users with the most up to date news from the Holy See. Users can view content in video or audio format or read stories online. This free app will only work when your device is connected to the internet. Available in eight languages - including English, Italian and Chinese - H2Onews is helping people worldwide to follow the travels of Pope Benedict XVI and his teachings and speeches.

Equipped with a calendar and numerous interactive ways to find a saint, Saint A Day is an educational app with beautiful aesthetics. There are prayers for almost anything you can think of and users can browse for a saint via patronage and name; features unavailable on similar apps. You can also email your friends information about saints or prayers with a single touch. Saint A Day is an application that will give you the best value for money and help you incorporate the Catholic faith into your family’s and your life with ease.

— Nancy French is the editor of the Faith and Family portal at Patheos, where this article first appeared.

Portable

Faith

By Sarah Motherwell

E

pitaphs for the book may be overblown but many Catholics are turning to a cheaper and, some say, more convenient way to access Catholic prayers and news.

“Apps” - small programs or applications that run on portable devices such as smart phones and tablets - are slowly making inroads into everyday Catholic life.

From Pope Benedict’s latest

homily to preparation for confession, the Apple Corporation’s marketing slogan, “there’s an app for that”, is rapidly being realised.

Once the exclusive preserve of the iPhone, apps are now widely available on Android, Nokia, BlackBerry and Windows7 phones, and Catholic app developers are slowly following suit, making their apps available to all.

Here are a few of the apps helping mobile Catholics stay connected with their faith:

Cantcha, Inc Available on Android and iPhone

Many months before printed missals with the new Mass translation were available, iMissal was providing up-to-date Mass prayers and daily readings for less than $5.

Once downloaded, the app does not require an internet connection to access daily readings. Videos of each day’s Mass are available with a connection. One important note: the Mass readings are taken from the New American Bible, as used by Catholics in the United States.

Catholic Video News

Cantcha, Inc

8 February 2012, The Record

Page 15

Things Nancy French’s adopted daughter looked like she had love of beauty couldn’t be held down.

St Isidore’s writings like a precursor to the web Dear Father, Is there a patron saint of the internet? I have a vague idea I have read about one being named but I can’t remember who it was.

W

A child delights: Nancy French’s story of adoption celebrates discovering beauty.

PHOTO: CATHOLIC NEW WORLD

iRosary

Stations Of The Cross

Catholic Calendar

Available on iPhone

Available for iPhone

Available on iPhone

iRosary is an easy to use application that displays fully interactive rosary beads on the screen, flowing across the screen as you move your hand, similar to using a real rosary.

Users can choose from a wide variety of crosses, beads and chain combinations to create their ideal rosary. The app lists the same prayers available on the Vatican website, available in English, Spanish, Italian and Latin. iRosary remembers your place between uses and will always provide you with the correct mystery to pray based on the day and time in the liturgical year.

This app is John Paul II’s Bible-based interpretation of the Stations of the Cross, embraced and continued by Pope Benedict XVI. Available in both English and Spanish, the stunning artwork featured in Stations Of The Cross is a highlight with vibrant colours that seem to just lift off the screen of your handheld device. Allowing users the opportunity to pray the Stations of the Cross anytime, anywhere, this app is convenient for prayer on the go.

The Catholic Calendar is one of the top free lifestyle apps available in the Apple app store. Described as having a liturgical calendar for every year from 1970 to 2300 and beyond, this application provides you with daily information about the saint of the day as well as events from the general calendar. Don’t let the bland interface put you off: the Catholic Calendar is a great way to bring you closer to your faith and keep track of the week.

Opicury Software

Ave Maria Press Inc

Universalis Publishing

HEN I set out to answer your question I was sure that the patron saint of the internet was St Isidore of Seville. The internet itself is full of references to him as the patron saint. But when I searched for a date on which the Holy Father had named him, I was unable to find any.

To be sure, when Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his Wednesday audience address on 18 June 2008 to St Isidore, he made no mention of him being the patron saint of the web. What then is the basis for saying that he is?

On 3 April 2001, the Zenit news agency reported that participants at the March plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications had studied the possibility of presenting the Vatican Secretariat of State with several names to proclaim a patron saint for the internet.

St Isidore of Seville had received the most requests from all over the world. Others proposed were the Apostle Paul and two 20th century martyrs: St Maximilian Kolbe, a great communicator, and Blessed Titus Brandsma, a Dutch Carmelite and journalist.

Thus, as far as I am aware, all we can say at this moment is that St Isidore is, at most, unofficially the patron saint of the internet. But why St Isidore, a Spanish saint born around the year 560?

St Isidore, who was Archbishop of Seville from 599 until his death in 636, was one of the most learned men of his age. His greatest and best known work, Etymologies, is an early encyclopaedia covering virtually every area of knowledge and is thus akin to the internet today. It consists of 20 books, each dedicated to a different area. They cover such diverse fields as grammar and rhetoric, medicine, law, God, the Church, languages, man, beasts and birds, the world and its parts, public buildings and road making, stones and metals, agriculture, war, ships, houses, clothes, food and furniture.

The work, which has a structure similar to that of a modern database, was used by almost all schools at the time as the basis of teaching.

In addition to more than 10 other books on theology and commentaries on many books of both the Old and New Testaments, St Isidore wrote a book on science, covering astronomy, geography and physics at the request of the Visigoth King Sisebut.

In his address on St Isidore

Q&A

By Fr John Flader in June 2008, Pope Benedict said that St Isidore’s works reveal an “encyclopaedic knowledge of pagan classical culture and a thorough knowledge of Christian culture … Isidore did not want to lose anything that man had acquired in the epochs of antiquity, regardless of whether they had been pagan, Jewish or Christian.”

In 688, the 15th Council of Toledo paid tribute to St Isidore, calling him “the extraordinary doctor, the latest ornament of the Catholic Church, the most learned man of the latter ages, always to be named with reverence, Isidore.”

He was canonised a saint

His greatest and best known work, Etymologies, which covers virtually every area of knowledge and is thus akin to the internet today. in 1598 by Pope Clement VIII and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1722 by Pope Innocent XIII. Significantly, Isidore had three siblings who were also canonised saints: St Leandro, his predecessor as Archbishop of Seville, St Fulgencio, bishop of Astigi, and St Florentina, a nun.

In these days when the internet can be invaluable in putting information at our fingertips in an instant, but can also lead many people into sin, the following prayer before logging on can be useful: “Almighty and eternal God, who created us in your image and bade us to seek after all that is good, true and beautiful, especially in the divine person of your only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant we beseech you, that, through the intercession of St Isidore, bishop and doctor, during our journeys through the internet we will direct our hands and eyes only to that which is pleasing to you and treat with charity and patience all those souls whom we encounter.

We make our prayer through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

THE RECORD

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At the same time President Obama was announcing the attempt to eradicate Christianity from public life, new figures showed US marriage and therefore society - is disintegrating.

Philip Haydon WOODLANDS, WA

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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ne of the most interesting features of our current society is the degree to which it has been accepted by so many people at apparently most levels that Christianity is somehow behind the times and no longer relevant, on a global scale, to the daily lives of most people. This is the central challenge that Christianity and the Catholic Church face in the present moment and two recent events have thrown this conflict between popular culture and the faith of the Church into sharp relief.

Last week, The Record reported the comments of Pope Benedict XVI made on 27 January at a meeting of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, often simplistically described as the Church’s top doctrinal watchdog. The comments from this characteristically astute diagnostician of society, culture and faith were surprising only for the scope of the problem as he sees it. Beginning his address, the Holy Father wasted no time in coming to the point.

“As we know, in vast areas of the earth faith risks being extinguished, like a flame that is no longer fed. We are facing a profound crisis of faith, a loss of the religious sense that constitutes the greatest challenge to the Church today. The renewal of faith must therefore take priority in the commitment of the entire Church in our time,” he told the participants at the CDF meeting.

The second event which highlighted the global and titanic confrontation between the culture of the Gospel and the anti-culture of modernity was the announcement by the Obama administration in the US that it would mandate the provision of sterilisation and contraception through healthcare plans for all employees of private employers, not excluding employers with clear and long established objections of conscience to such actions. The true intent and objective of the Obama edict were clear from the beginning, to specifically force the Catholic Church in the US to surrender its moral beliefs in such matters as a prelude to forcing it out of public involvement in any field of education or healthcare.

President Obama is perfectly aware that for millennia such matters have been nonnegotiable for Catholic Christianity. If he succeeds, his next step will be to mandate that Catholic hospitals, schools and other institutions actively assist in the procurement or carrying out of abortions and, quite possibly, eventual legalised euthanasia, among other practices.

The Holy Father’s definition of the scale of the problem is quite accurate. Numerous societies once described as ‘christian’ (whatever this term might actually have meant) are undoubtedly now post-Christian.

Australia is a particularly obvious example. For the believing Christian, the paradox is that PO Box 3075 on a global level it has come Adelaide Terrace to be widely accepted in many PERTH WA 6832 places that Christianity is the opposite of what it actually is. office@therecord.com.au It is precisely in a world Tel: (08) 9220 5900 where faith now risks being Fax: (08) 9325 4580 extinguished in many places that an American President can attempt the process of eradicating Christianity from the public square of society. In effect, it would not seem an exaggeration to say that for many people – at least in materially affluent societies – Christianity is viewed as an irrelevance to daily life, while its historical success is usually explained more as an ability to repress true human aspirations and to manipulate populations with concepts such as fear over the course of centuries.

That such beliefs are easily demonstrated to be pure myth and that the entire edifice of western civilisation, including its remarkable and distinctive scientific and technological development sprang from its Judeo-Christian inheritance, as pointed out by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in his speech at the Vatican on 12 December last year, effectively do not matter at all. Modernity, conversely, is seen as the era of final liberation from out-dated and often offensive social practices and moral beliefs erected over the edifice of the Church. But the anti-culture of modernity can only sow the seeds of its own decrepitude.

At the same time that President Obama and his Secretary of Health, Kathleen Sebelius, were announcing the opening moves in the push to eradicate Christianity from public existence in the US, a little noticed study released by the US Marriage and Religion Research Institute into the effects of divorce on children revealed that in the US only 47 per cent of children will now be in an intact family by the time they reach 17 years of age. In other words, US society is slowly falling apart.

Christians should neither be frightened nor dismayed by the confrontation between their faith and the anti-culture of the present time, accepting that all that is required of us is to adhere to the words of Christ, who warned precisely of such conflicts. Our faith has overcome apparently insuperable odds, often despite itself (or, more accurately, despite its representatives) and will do so again. In fact, the sharper the distinctions between the Gospel of the Lord and the princes of this world, the clearer it will be for many to see - and taste - the difference between the living death they offer and the eternal life of Jesus Christ.

BRAVO Cardinal Pell and Archbishop Hickey! You men of God are willing to publicly challenge the majority views of secular Australia with the Gospel. You are kindly to everyone, apt teachers, forebearing, correcting your opponents with gentleness. You have continued to show courage in taking pastoral care of the true flock of Christ, by word and by example. Yes, this necessitates that you take your share of suffering as good soldiers of Christ Jesus. O how clever are some of our modern day lawyers and newspaper scribes who mock you. Thank you, faithful shepherds. May your wonderful example be abundantly rewarded

by Him who sees all things. And let us pray that our new Archbishop will be a man filled with the same fervour and love of truth.

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The courage to walk the Way of the Lord

Bravo to Church leaders

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Letters to the editor Cathedral is not a venue I SEE that St Mary’s Cathedral is to host a secular concern on 30 March, with performers stationed in the sanctuary (given by WASO: Mendelssohn and Mustonen).

This, I feel, is sacrilege and will give great scandal to the faithful, and indeed to all who hear of it. Can it not be stopped? Is there nowhere else that would do for a venue? Such as the Perth Concert Hall? Why our Cathedral?

Peter Gilet BELMONT, WA

Mercy and compassion IN THIS season of goodwill, it would be appropriate and gracious if all Australian people sent a petition to our federal government asking it to request the Indonesian authorities to let two of their long-serving Australian prisoners, Scott Rush and Schapelle Corby, be released to the care of the Australian government and the nation.

Then these two prisoners could serve out their sentences at the will of the Australian authorities in this country.

The dedicated love given to these prisoners by their families could then be acknowledged in a compassionate and appropriate way in this country.

Our government supports the Indonesian authorities with millions of dollars of humanitarian aid each year.

I ask that people send a request to Kevin Rudd, Minister for External Affairs, asking him to petition the Indonesian government to release these two prisoners into the care of the Australian government.

Mrs Patricia Malone SCARBOROUGH, WA

The hurt, the numbness and the silence that enslave Our society regards abortion as an acceptable solution to a problem, but Genevieve’s* experience powerfully contradicts conventional attitudes.

A

t the age of 16, I was pursued by a 23 year old man who lived nearby. I was flattered by his attentions and within a few months I was pregnant. Terror ... panic ... who could I turn to?

I tried to talk to my mother but her attitude had always been that “girls who get into trouble are BAD and you don’t have anything to do with them or people will think you are like them”.

I wanted to get married so I could have my baby, but my boyfriend refused to even discuss that option.

He kept pressuring me to abort the baby and I was so terrified I just caved in. By this time I would have been about eight weeks pregnant.

The abortion itself was a horrific experience, performed without anaesthetic. About half an hour later I was outside again; the sun

was shining; the birds were singing; and I thought: “It’s over ... it’s all over ... ” and I went home to my family and pretended that nothing remarkable had happened that day.

After the abortion I felt numb.

I felt as though I was completely worthless and it didn’t matter

I went home to my family and pretended that nothing remarkable had happened that day. what happened to me from here on because I was dead inside. For the next 40 years I pushed down the grief and the loss and horror I felt and refused to let it come to the surface. Two years after finding

a brochure on Rachel’s Vineyard’s Retreat, I heard about healing retreats being offered in the US so I attended a Rachel’s Vineyard Healing Retreat, almost 45 years after the abortion.

The healing I found on that weekend was very profound.

There are hundreds of thousands of women and men in Australia who have had to remain silent, with their shame and pain locked away deep inside.

Through the healing power of God I have been given back my voice after so many years of shamefilled silence and now I can speak from my own experience about the horror of abortion, how destructive it is, and how its pain lasts a lifetime unless there is pastoral, spiritual and expert help to process all that has happened. *The name of the author has been changed to protect her identity.

A way through the pain towards healing RACHEL’S Vineyard Retreats is a ministry to people who suffer pain and trauma after an abortion. The retreats have been offered in Sydney for 10 years.

Dr Theresa Burke began Rachel’s Vineyard Ministries in 1994 after realising that people with postabortion stress need spiritual and psychological healing.

She realised that the pain is often unresolved grief and loss, sometimes unacknowledged or denied in women and men who have been through an abortion experience.

A Rachel’s Vineyard retreat uses prayer and scripture to assist women and men to grieve the baby they lost.

Rachel’s Vineyard is now the largest post-abortion ministry in the world, being run in 35 countries and five languages.

Seeking spiritual healing, it is also based in sound grief psychology.

The fourth national conference will take place in Sydney from 9-11

March 2012 at the Mt St Benedict Centre in Pennant Hills.

The conference will include training in grief and loss ministry, sharing of stories both in postabortion experience and in support of those grieving, and talks and workshops by experienced practitioners.

There will be a one day workshop on grief and loss for spiritual directors, chaplains, counsellors, priests and anyone in pastoral care or bereavement counselling.

The theme chosen for the conference is “You are the light of the world” (Matt 5:14) because those working in this field can bring Christ’s love to those in pain.

Many women and men feel they are alone, alienated from the Church and God and many seem unable to talk about their grief.

While they may have spoken to a priest or friend or received the Sacrament of Reconciliation, they still often feel they have not been able to deal with the deeper pain of

grief. There is no funeral, ritual or wider community support for such grief and this can have devastating effects.

In the The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II noted, “I would now like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion. The Church is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed ... do not lose hope.”

It is with this sense of compassion and understanding that Rachel’s Vineyard retreat ministry offers the hope of healing to those in grief.

The retreats are now run in Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra and New Zealand.

Full details of the retreats, the conference and workshop can be found at: www.rachelsvineyard.org.au

8 February 2012, The Record

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Silence of the feminists reveals myopic blindness No-one has been more effective than Melinda Tankard-Reist in intellectually dismantling the lie of harm-free

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he recent attacks by several ‘feminists’ on Melinda Tankard-Reist, a high profile and active campaigner against pornography and the sexualisation of children, who is also openly pro-life, are a manifestation of a global culture war.

Their argument seemed to be along the lines that because Ms Tankard-Reist is a Christian, her views about abortion are invalid and she cannot be called a feminist.

It is a quite bizarre argument – in fact, it is not an argument at all, it is merely a baseless assertion.

It appears that in the world of Australian feminism, you cannot be pro-life and feminist, and you most definitely cannot be Christian, prolife and feminist.

It is ironic – but not surprising – that the strongest voice against the violence, degradation and exploitation of women endemic in the pornography industry is vilified with such malice by so-called feminists.

These same feminists are also notably silent about other forms of violence and oppression visited upon women in various countries around the world.

It appears more important to these women to attack TankardReist for her pro-life views than to ask why is it that the numbers of women feeling they must abort their babies is still increasing?

Much more necessary to attack

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with Catherine Parish

Tankard-Reist for her work against sexualisation of young girls than to work for a genuine equality and freedom for girls where they do not feel pressured to dress as streetwalkers and participate in sexual activity from their teens.

I suspect TankardReist’s crime is that she is actually cutting through and getting a hearing from media.

Much more effective to attack Tankard-Reist than to resist the sexual objectification of women in pornography that normalises deviance and abnormal sexual behaviour and raises expectations in male consumers of pornography that women will naturally perform these services for them.

They attack Tankard-Reist’s Christian beliefs and say they

invalidate her work because they cannot admit that sexualisation of children, pornography, promiscuity and abortion are all part of the same problem – lack of respect for the human person.

If they were truly concerned about human dignity, respect for women and equality, surely they could find it in themselves to work with her to rebuild a society where children can feel safe and remain children for an appropriate time; a society where modesty, selfrestraint and chastity are promoted as valid options for girls and boys rather than as impossible for them to embrace, a radical and often ridiculed choice made and kept to with great difficulty; a society where abortion is considered a tragic last resort rather than a convenient solution to a problem.

I suspect Tankard-Reist’s biggest crime is that she is actually cutting through and gaining a hearing in the mainstream media.

Tankard-Reist is influencing young women and men in her campaigns not only against the abortion industry but against anything that debases women.

She points out what many feminists do not want to admit - that some of our so-called freedoms are in fact licence and ultimately oppressive to the vulnerable of our society.

Tankard-Reist is winning a hear-

ing because she has several powerful means of arguing. She provides hard statistical and visual evidence of the pernicious things she fights.

She garners and publicises powerful anecdotal information from the brave women who are prepared to admit they have suffered from abortion or sexual exploitation.

She also appeals to and empowers the hearts of mothers and fathers – not just Christian parents, but all

If they were truly concerned about human dignity, surely they would work with her to rebuild a society where children can feel safe ... parents - who wish to protect their daughters and sons from lifestyles that can cause them lifelong harm and unhappiness.

And the fight, whilst fought in the public sphere, is ultimately won in the hearts of individuals.

The ideological war that has been waged globally at various levels of aggression for many years means we in Australia cannot be complacent, for precisely the same war is going on here, both state

Time to back the US bishops Over the weekend of 28-29 January, millions of Catholics across the US were read a letter from their local bishop in response to the US government mandate delivered to Catholic healthcare institutions by Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius and President Barack Obama on 20 January.

Under the mandate, religious employers such as Catholic hospitals and schools cannot opt out of a requirement that all employee health plans cover contraception and sterilisation. American Catholic blogger JOHN WHITE sets out how US Catholics can help their shepherds.

P

ray for our bishops. Because they need it, they need lots of it. And they need it now.

Many American bishops have publicly spoken out against the Obama administration’s recent declaration of war against the Catholic Church. So far, the response from the episcopate has been widespread, clear and strong. We should all be encouraged by the readiness on the part of these bishops to lead the American Church in this fight for freedom.

But we ought not to take this leadership for granted. So often it seems, when something Churchrelated gets us upset, we are all too ready and willing to focus our outrage on the local bishop. Granted, the last ten years have certainly reminded us that bishops can make poor, even seriously harmful, decisions. And the accounting for those transgressions is still under way.

But, too often, the bishops suffer our wrath over the fact that the state of the Church (in our parish, our diocese, or our country) isn’t just the way we want it to be.

Expecting faithful leadership from the bishop is one thing. Calling up the archdiocesan office (which you have on speed dial) because Father Bob failed to mention Hell in his homily is something else.

It gets lonely at the top, or so they

by state and federally. For example, the anti-vilification laws in Victoria that were used to silence Christian preachers simply telling truths about another religion; the pressure for pharmacists to provide the abortifacient RU486 with no regard to their private scruples about it; the requirement in some states for doctors to refer for abortion despite their conscientious objection; the pressure on nurses and doctors with conscientious objections to abortion to nevertheless participate in this procedure as part of their training.

If we do nothing else, the least we can do is to carefully consider how we cast our vote in any election, state or federal.

If a party has pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage policies, then probably, even if their local candidate is personally opposed to abortion or gay marriage, if that party wins government they are very likely to pursue these policies and make them law.

If a party does not have an official pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage policy, then it matters more what the personal view of their candidate is, and we need to find out before casting our vote.

We have a serious obligation not to compound harm already done by voting irresponsibly.

Make no mistake; the war is just as aggressive here in Australia.

What girls may need is face time, not Facebook

By Carolyn Moynihan

say. The same thought has been echoed by high-ranking military officers, or their biographers, who speak of the “loneliness of command”. When you’re the top dog, or the top brass, or the top guy in the diocese, you get to call the shots.

But that means that you also bear the responsibility, alone, for the shots you call.

In the case of bishops, it means that every day they are asked to make decisions, issue statements and take actions with one thing in mind – the salvation of hundreds of

just celebrated: “His experiences included well-attested cases of levitation in ecstasy; and the Blessed Virgin appeared to him, comforting him with the welcome news that he would never be a bishop.”

Welcome news indeed. And now things just got really fun if, in the US, you have “Most Rev” in front of your name.

At the end of the day (and that day, if we want to be precise, is 1 August 2013), the HHS mandate doesn’t force most of us (unless we own a small business) to do any-

Thomas Becket. These successors of the Apostles, these shepherds of souls, these men clothed in black cloth and human weakness have been called through the ages to stand on the ramparts of the Church under siege and take the first blow from the enemy’s sword.

Thus has it been, and thus shall it be. The bishops will be the ones who will have to stand tall, just as St Polycarp and St John Fisher did before them, and say, with dire consequence, “we cannot, and we will not.” And they will be the

“I expect to die in my bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square.” Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George thousands, if not millions, of souls.

That’s a sobering dose of responsibility. And as a bonus, these shepherds carry out their vocation with the certain knowledge that no matter what they do, a good percentage of the souls they are charged with will be left disappointed, upset, or outraged. At them. That’s not a job anyone should envy. Certainly not one that we should take for granted.

A Chesterton quote on St Thomas Aquinas, whose feast we

thing. The bishops aren’t so lucky.

Yes, the laity have a responsibility to engage this threat wherever and however they can. The ways for doing this are numerous and varied.

But in most cases, the actual responsibility for the decisions that will need to be made regarding the cold hard consequences of the mandate lies squarely on the shoulders of the bishops. Thus has it been, from St Ignatius of Antioch to St

first to suffer. One American prelate, Francis Cardinal George, the Archbishop of Chicago, made this stark and rather chilling observation of the current state of affairs: “I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square.”

Pray for them.

This blog first appeared on www.catholicvote.org

GIRLS who spend a lot of time using multimedia seem to be less happy and socially comfortable than peers who spend less time on screens, a study from Stanford University suggests.

Researchers came to that conclusion after analysing an online survey taken by 3,400 8- to 12-year-olds.

The more time they spent in online communication and video use, the less happy they seemed to be.

There are problems with the survey: the girls self-report the time they spend on media, and they may not be a representative sample.

With such reservations about the study, parents may still feel affirmed in their instinct to limit media time for both daughters and sons.

There is a hint that girls, in particular, need face time rather than Facebook time. The reason, say the researchers, is that on a basic, even primitive level, girls need to experience the full pantheon of communication that comes from face-to-face contact, such as learning to read body language, and subtle facial and verbal cues.

“Humans are built to notice these cues — the quavering in your voice, perspiration, body posture, raise of an eyebrow, a faint smile or frown,” said Clifford Nass, a Stanford professor of communication who led the study. Social media, he added, leaves the conversation twodimensional.

“I recall that girls use social media much more than boys because they are more inclined to confide in friends. However, they are not likely to benefit from texting and online networking that is displacing real friendships,” he said.

Caroline Moynihan edits the Family Edge blog for www.mercatornet.com

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8 February 2012, The Record

PANORAMA

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

THURSDAY, 9 FEBRUARY

SATURDAY, 3 MARCH

EVERY LAST SUNDAY OF THE MONTH

Healing Mass in Honour of St Peregrine 7pm at Ss John and Paul Parish, Pinetree Gully Rd, Willetton. St Peregrine is the patron saint of cancer. Enq: Jim 9457 1539.

Day with Mary 9am-5pm at Good Shepherd Church, 44 Streitch Ave, Kelmscott. Day of prayer and instruction based on the Fatima message. 9am video; 10.10am holy Mass; Reconciliation, procession of the Blessed Sacrament, Eucharistic adoration, sermons on Eucharist and on Our Lady, rosaries and stations of the Cross. BYO lunch. Enq: Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286.

Filipino Mass 3pm at Notre Dame Church, cnr Daley St and Wright St, Cloverdale. Please bring a plate to share for socialisation after the Mass. Enq: Fr Nelson Po 0408 43 412, Elsa 0404 03 8483.

FRIDAY, 10 FEBRUARY Lake Monger Rosary Procession for Our Lady of Lourdes 7pm starting from the Dodd St carpark. All are welcome to attend. An altar for those who are unable to do the walk will be set up and the rosary prayed. Further enquiries to Judy Woodward 9446 6837.

SATURDAY, 11 FEBRUARY St Padre Pio Day of Prayer 8.30am-12pm, 69 Morrison Rd, Midland. Begins with DVD in parish centre; 10am exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, rosary, divine mercy and benediction; 11am holy Mass: St Padre Pio liturgy – confessions available. 12pm lunch – bring plate to share. Enq: Des 6278 1540.

Divine Mercy 2.30m at St Francis Xavier Parish, Windsor St, East Perth. Divine mercy healing Mass. Main Celebrant: Fr Doug Harris – Reconciliation in English and Italian offered. Followed by divine mercy prayer and veneration of first class relic of St Faustina Kowalska. Refreshments afterwards. Enq: John 9457 7771.

NEXT WEEK SUNDAY, 12 FEBRUARY The Sisters of Our Lady of the Missons 150th Anniversary Celebration Our Lady of the Missions High School/Sacred Heart School, Tuckfield St, Fremantle. As part of celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the foundation of Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions, an inaugural reunion for all women who attended the school will be held on Sunday, 12 February at Melville Bowling Club, Canning Hwy, Alfred Cove from 2-6pm. Cost: $10 per person. Contact: Christine Binks (Martinovich) 9331 3886; Veronica Stratton (France) robnron@optusnet.com.au or 9354 5023.

Taize Prayer 5.30pm at St Joseph’s Chapel, 27 Penguin Rd, Safety Bay. Invite an interested friend to come with you. Enq: Sr Leonie Mayne 9527 2517.

TUESDAY, 14 FEBRAURY Spirituality and The Sunday Gospels 7-8pm at St Benedict’s School Hall, Alness St, Applecross. How can we open to the power of God in our lives, our relationships, our families and our workplace? Presented by Norma Woodcock, Accredited- CEO- Faith Formation for ongoing renewal. Everyone is welcome. There will be a collection. View a weekly short video broadcast, www.thefaith.org.au Enq: 9487 1772 or www. normawoodcock.com.

SATURDAY, 18 AND SUNDAY, 19 FEBRUARY Saints and Sacred Relics Apostolate Visitation At all weekend Masses at St Denis Parish, 60 Osborne St, Joondanna. 200-relic exhibition and talk on relics of the saints. For the first time in Australia, a first-class relic of Blessed Pope John Paul II will be exposed for public veneration. Free of charge and all are welcome. Enq: Giovanny 0478 201 092 or ssra-perth@catholic.org.

UPCOMING FRIDAY, 24 FEBRUARY Medjugorje evening of Prayer 7-9pm at St Brigid’s Parish, 211 Aberdeen St, Northbridge. All are invited to an evening of prayer with Our Lady Queen of Peace with Eucharistic adoration, holy Rosary, benediction and Mass.

Free DVDs on Medjugorje available on night. See ‘Classified Page’ in Record-Pilgrimage to Paris, Lourdes and Medjugorje. Enq: Eileen 9402 2480 mob 0407 471 256, medjugorje@y7mail.com.

SATURDAY, 25 FEBRUARY A Reunion for Holy Cross Primary School, Kensington Any ex-students or family members, please contact Julie Bowles (nee O’Hara) on 9397 0638 or email jules7@iinet.net.au.

Thanksgiving and Healing Mass 12 noon at Holy Cross Parish, 1 Dianne St, Hamilton Hill. Archbishop Hickey will celebrate Mass for all VOV and new members. As usual, bring a plate to share. Enq: Frank 9296 7591, 0408 183 325.

SUNDAY, 26 FEBRUARY Secular Franciscan Order 2pm at the Polish Franciscan Community House, 35 Eighth Ave, Midland. We are lay people who live a life in Christ inspired by the life of St Francis of Assisi, the first recorded stigmatic. We are called to live simply, humbly and peacefully, recognising God in creation. We are inviting you to the monthly fraternity meeting to discover the richness of Franciscan spirituality for life today. Enq: Angela, 9275 5658.

SATURDAY, 3 TO SUNDAY, 4 MARCH ‘Life in the Spirit Seminar’ John Paul Prayer Ministry 9.30am-5pm at Orana School Hall, Querrin Rd, Willetton (off Vahland Ave). Presented by John Paul Prayer ministry of Ss John and Paul Parish.

Fr Varghese and his team will be leading this seminar. BYO lunch. Refreshments provided. Cost: offering. Enq: Michelle 9456 4215.

TUESDAY, 6 MARCH

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

The Life and Mission of St Mary MacKillop 9.30-11.30am at Infant Jesus Parish Centre, cnr Wellington Rd and Smith St, Morley. Cost: $15.

Enq: Shelley 9276 8500.

LAST MONDAY OF THE MONTH

‘Set My People on Fire’ Catholic Bible Seminar 7.30pm at The Faith Centre, 450 Hay St, Perth.

Runs every Tuesday until 12 June. See programme and details: flameministries.org/smpof.html. Enq: Flame Ministries International 9382 3668 or fmi@ flameministries.org.

Be Still in His Presence – Ecumenical Christian Programme 7.30-8.45pm at St Swithun Anglican Church, 195 Lesmurdie St, Lesmurdie (hall behind church).

Begins with songs of praise and worship, silent time, lectio divina, small group sharing and a cuppa at the end. Enq: Lynne 9293 3848 or 043 5252 941.

FRIDAY, 16 TO SUNDAY, 18 MARCH

EVERY TUESDAY

Lenten Retreat 7pm at God’s Farm, 40km south of Busselton.

Fr Tony Chiera VG will give the retreat. Enq: For bus bookings ring Yvonne 9343 1897; other reservations Betty 97556212 or mail to PO Box 2, Cowaramup, WA, 6284.

Bible Teaching with a Difference 7.30pm at St Joachim’s parish hall, Victoria Park.

Exciting revelations with meaningful applications that will change your life. Bring Bible, a notebook and a friend. Enq: Jan 9284 1662.

FRIDAY, 23 TO SUNDAY, 25 MARCH Inner Healing Retreat (Live-in) 7.30pm at St John of God Retreat Centre, 47 Gloucester Cr, Shoalwater. A time to be healed and renewed. The retreat is led by the Vincentian Fathers. Registration and Enq: Melanie 0410 605 743 or vincetiansperth@yahoo.com.

SATURDAY, 31 MARCH Love Ministry Healing After the 6.30pm Mass at St Brigid Parish, 69 Morrison Rd, Midland. The Love ministry healing team includes Fr Nishan and Fr David Watt. All welcome, come and be prayed over, healed from the past or present issues or stand in for a loved one who may be ill or facing problems at this time. Enq: Gilbert 0431570322 or Fr David Watt on 93761734.

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

Pilgrim Mass - Shrine of the Virgin of the Revelation 2pm at Shrine, 36 Chittering Rd, Bullsbrook.

Commencing with rosary followed by benediction.

Reconciliation is available before every celebration.

Anointing of the sick administered during Mass every second Sunday of the month. Pilgrimage in honour of the Virgin of the Revelation last Sunday of the month. Side entrance to church and shrine open daily between 9am-5pm. Enq Sacri 9447 3292.

EVERY FIRST SUNDAY Divine Mercy Chaplet and Healing Prayer 3pm at Santa Clara Church, 72 Palmerston St, Bentley. Includes adoration and individual prayer for healing. Spiritual leader Fr Francisco. All welcome. Enq: Fr Francisco 9458 2944.

St Mary’s Cathedral Youth Group – Fellowship with Pizza 5pm at Mary’s Cathedral, 17 Victoria Sq, Perth.

Begins with youth Mass followed by fellowship downstairs in parish centre. Bring a plate to share.

Enq: Bradley on youthfromsmc@gmail.com.

EVERY THIRD SUNDAY Oblates of St Benedict Meeting 2pm at St Joseph’s Convent, York St, South Perth. For all interested in studying the Rule of St Benedict and its relevance to everyday life.

Vespers and afternoon tea follows. Enq: Secretary 9457 5758.

EVERY FOURTH SUNDAY Holy Hour for Vocations to the Priesthood, Religious Life 2-3pm at Infant Jesus Parish, Wellington St, Morley. The hour includes exposition of the Blessed Eucharist, silent prayer, scripture and prayers of intercession. Come and pray that those discerning vocations can hear clearly God’s call.

Panorama Deadline Friday 5pm

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

EVERY FIRST TUESDAY Short MMP Cenacle for Priests 2pm at Edel Quinn Centre, 36 Windsor St, East Perth. Enq: Fr Watt 9376 1734.

EVERY WEDNESDAY Holy Spirit of Freedom Community 7.30pm at The Church of Christ, 111 Stirling St, Perth. We are delighted to welcome everyone to attend our Holy Spirit of Freedom praise meeting.

Enq: 042 3907 869 or hsofperth@gmail.com.

Bible Study at Cathedral 6.15pm at St Mary’s Cathedral, 17 Victoria Sq, Perth.

Deepen your faith through reading and reflecting on holy scripture by Fr Jean-Noel. Meeting room beneath Cathedral. Enq: Marie 9223 1372.

Holy Hour - Catholic Youth Ministry 5.30pm at Catholic Pastoral Centre, 40A Mary St, Highgate. Begins with Mass, 6.30pm holy hour of adoration, followed by $5 supper and fellowship.

Enq: cym.com.au or 9422 7912.

EVERY FIRST WEDNESDAY Holy Hour Prayer for Priests 7.30-8.30pm at Holy Spirit Parish, 2 Keaney Pl, City Beach. All welcome. Enq: Linda 9341 3079.

Novena to St Mary of the Cross MacKillop 7-7.45pm at Blessed Mary MacKillop Parish, cnr Cassowary Dr and Pelican Pde, Ballajura. Begins with Mass, novena prayers and benediction.

Followed by healing prayers and anointing of the sick. Enq: Madi 9249 9093 or Gerry 041 7187 240.

EVERY SECOND WEDNESDAY Chaplets of the Divine Mercy 7.30pm at St Thomas More Parish, Dean Rd, Bateman. A beautiful, prayerful, sung devotion.

It will be accompanied by exposition and followed by benediction. Enq: George 9310 9493 (h) or 9325 2010.

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

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

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

Group Fifty – Charismatic Renewal Group 7.30pm at the Redemptorist Monastery, 150 Vincent St, North Perth. Includes prayer, praise and Mass. Enq: Elaine 9440 3661.

Priest Cenacle Every first Thursday at Legion of Mary, Windsor St, East Perth. Enq: Fr Paul 0427 085 093.

Jeanne Jugan (foundress). Registration and enq: Sr Marie 9443 3155.

EVERY FIRST FRIDAY

Resource Centre for Personal Development The Holistic Health Seminar ‘The Instinct to Heal’’, every Tuesday 3-4.30pm; and RCPD2 “Internalise Principles of Successful Relationships and Use Emotional Intelligence and Communication Skills’, every Tuesday 4.30-6.30pm, 197 High St, Fremantle - Tuesdays 3-4.30pm. Beginning 21 Feb. Enq: Eva 0409 405 585. Bookings are essential.

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

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

Holy Hour for Vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life 7pm at Little Sisters of the Poor Chapel, 2 Rawlins St, Glendalough. Mass followed by adoration with Fr Doug Harris. All welcome. Refreshments provided.

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

Healing and Anointing Mass 8.45am Pater Noster Church, Evershed St, Myaree.

Begins with reconciliation followed by 9am Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, anointing of the sick and prayers to St Peregrine. Enq: Joy 9337 7189.

EVERY FIRST SATURDAY OF THE MONTH Healing Mass 12.35pm at St Thomas Parish, cnr Melville St and College Rd, Claremont. Spiritual leader Fr Waddell.

Enq: Kim 9384 0598, claremont@perthcatholic.org. au.

EVERY LAST SATURDAY Novena devotions – Our Lady Vailankanni of Good Health 5pm at Holy Trinity Parish, 8 Burnett St, Embleton.

Followed by Mass at 6pm. Enq: George 9272 1379.

GENERAL Free Divine Mercy Image for Parishes High quality oil painting and glossy print – Divine Mercy Promotions. Images are of very high quality.

For any parish willing to accept and place inside the church. Oil paintings - 160 x 90cm and glossy print - 100 x 60cm. Enq: Irene 9417 3267 (w).

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

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

Mary Mackillop 2012 Calendars and Merchandise 2012 Josephite Calendars with quotes from St Mary of the Cross and Mary MacKillop merchandise.

Available for sale from the Mary MacKillop Centre.

Enq: Sr Maree 041 4683 926 or 08 9334 0933.

Financially Disadvantaged People requiring Low Care Aged Care Placement The Little Sisters of the Poor community - set in beautiful gardens in the suburb of Glendalough.

“Making the elderly happy, that is everything!” St

Courses held at the Faith Centre 2012 450 Hay St, Perth 1. Christian Foundations - This course is designed to guide you to a greater understanding and deeper appreciation of the foundational beliefs of our Catholic faith. (Maranatha Lecturer: Sr Philomena Burrell pvbm). Thursdays: 1-3.30pm, from 16 Feb–22 Mar. For enquiries or bookings ph 9241 5222.

2. RCPD2 - Internalise Principles of Successful Relationships and Use Emotional Intelligence and Communication Skills - This course provides knowledge of principles that, if applied, will improve all relationships. Skills of self-analysis are taught as well as communication skills. Mondays: 5-7pm, from 20 Feb–10 Dec. For enquiries or bookings ph Paul 0402 222 578.

3. RCPD4 – Increase Personal and Spiritual Awareness and Improve Relationships - This course promotes self-awareness and spiritual growth. Emotional development is explained in order to improve understanding between persons. Study of Psychology and Theology. Mondays: 10am–12.30pm, from 20 Feb–10 Dec. For enquiries or bookings ph Eva 0409 405 585.

4. Higher Certificate in Biblical Studies - The Higher Certificate of Biblical Studies is a distance education programme that can be followed in your own home at your own pace with periodic face-to-face contact workshops. Tutorial assistance is available as required. It is equivalent to a one-year tertiary course, although it is recommended that you aim to complete it in two years.

For enquiries and enrolment, ph The Faith Centre on 6140 2420.

Is your son or daughter unsure of what to do this year?

Suggest a Certificate IV course to discern God’s purpose for their life. They will also learn more about the Catholic faith and develop skills in communication and leadership. Acts 2 College of Mission & Evangelisation (National Code 51452).

Enq: Jane 9202 6859.

AA Alcoholics Anonymous Is alcohol costing you more than just money? Enq: AA 3253 5666.

Saints and Sacred Relics Apostolate Invitation SSRA, Perth invites interested parties, parish priests, leaders of religious communities, lay associations, to organise relic visitations to their own parishes, communities, etc. We have available authenticated relics, mostly first-class, of Catholic saints and blesseds including Saints Mary Mackillop, Padre Pio, Anthony of Padua, Therese of Lisieux, Maximilian Kolbe and Simon Stock and Blessed Pope John Paul II. Free of charge and all are welcome. Enq: Giovanny 0478 201 092 or ssraperth@catholic.org.

February Latin Mass 2pm at Good Shepherd, Streich Ave, Kelmscott.

Sunday, 12 and Sunday, 26. Enq: John 9390 6646.

ST PAUL LITURGICAL CALENDAR Popular pocket-size calendar, indicating readings and themes for Mass every day of the year.

Presented in two-colour format.

ONLY

$5

Classifieds

8 February 2012, The Record

Page 19

CLASSIFIEDS Deadline: 11am Monday RELIGIOUS PRODUCTS

FURNITURE REMOVAL

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

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

ALL AREAS. Competitive rates.

Mike Murphy Ph 0416 226 434.

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

We are here to serve.

KINLAR VESTMENTS Quality handmade and decorated vestments: albs, stoles, chasubles, altar linen, banners, etc. 12 Favenc Way, Padbury.

By appointment only. Ph Vickii on 9402 1318, 0409 114 093 or kinlar.vestments@gmail.com.

FOR SALE OPPORTUNITY TO BUY SHARES in a West Australian based (international), business. Has a worldwide patent for people and animal health products, new innovative products for which export grant has been accepted. First shipment has already been sent to Dubai.

Interested? For more information: licebustersrd@optusnet.com.au or Tel 08 9258 5233, Mob 0408 474 520, Veronica.

MISSION ACTIVITIES LEARN HOW TO MAKE ROSARY BEADS for the missions and special rosaries for family and friends. Phone: (02) 6822 1474 or visit our website: OurLadysRosaryMakers.org.au.

TAX SERVICE QUALITY TAX RETURNS PREPARED by registered tax agent with over 35 years’ experience.

Call Tony Marchei on 0412 055 184 for appointment. AXXO Accounting & Management, Unit 20/222 Walter Rd, Morley.

POSITIONS AVAILABLE TARIS ENGINEERING is a family run and owned business situated in Malaga. We have been operating for over 15 years specialising in servicing the mining, oil and gas industry. We are looking for experienced machinists and fitters who are willing to join our expanding business. Above award rates and extended hours available. Please contact Patrick Talbot on 0438 306 308 or send your resume through to sales@ tariseng.com.au.

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

MISSIO IMMACULATAE THE FRANCISCAN FRIARS OF THE IMMACULATE MARIAN CATECHETICAL MAGAZINE $36 for five issues Ph 08 9437 2792 or ffimunster@gmail.com.

All for the Immaculate.

THANKSGIVING THANKS TO Jesus, Mother Mary, Ss Joseph, Jude, Anthony, Rita, Padre Pio, Christopher and Michael for Special Intentions granted to me every day and never failed.

SETTLEMENTS ARE YOU BUYING OR SELLING real estate or a business?

Why not ask Excel Settlements for a quote for your settlement.

We offer reasonable fees, excellent service and no hidden costs.

Ring Excel on 9481 4499 for a quote. Check our web site on www.excelsettlements.com.au.

PILGRIMAGES PILGRIMAGE TO OUR LADY OF VELANKANNI, ST FRANCIS XAVIER, ST PHILOMENA, ST MOTHER THERESA OF KOLKATA. The tour covers all the main cities in India like Chennai, Pondicherry, Velankanni, Bangalore, Mysore, Cochin, Goa, Delhi, Thaij Mahal, Kolkata, Darjeeling and many more places. For more details contact Charles Donovan 0400 216 257 or F Sam 0426 506 510.

OPTION ON 25 DAYS – PILGRIMAGE TO HOLY LAND - ROME - COLLAVALENZA - DUBLIN (IRELAND FOR EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS) KNOCK AND MEDJUGORJE. Departing 22 May, from $7,790, includes flight transfers, bed, breakfast, evening meals, guide and taxes. Spiritual Director Fr Ronan Murphy. Leader Yolanda Nardizzi. Tel: 9245 2222, Mob 0413 707 707.

OPTION 2: 19 DAYS, PILGRIMAGE TO ROME COLLAVALENZA – DUBLIN (IRELAND FOR EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS) KNOCK AND MEDJUGORJE. Departing 29 May, from $5,990, includes flight transfers, bed, breakfast, evening meals, guide and taxes. Spiritual Director Fr Ronan Murphy.

Leader Yolanda Nardizzi. Tel: 9245 2222, Mob 0413 707 707.

PILGRIMAGE DEPARTING PERTH 30 APRIL, RETURNING 17/18 MAY (early hours) for Paris (three nights) visit Lisieux (St Therese), Notre Dame for Relics of The Passion, Sacre Coeur, Miraculous Medal Shrine, St Vincent De Paul. Flight to Lourdes for five nights stay, flight to Split for seven nights stay in Medjurgorje. Spiritual Director Fr Bogoni. Costs $5,395 which includes all flight transfers, bed, breakfast, evening meals, guide, tipping and taxes. Contact: Eileen 9402 2480 Mob 0407 471 256, or medjugorje@y7mail.com.

CHARISMATIC RENEWAL FRIDAY, 3 TO SUNDAY, 5 FEBRUARY - CATHOLIC CHARISMATIC RENEWAL SET FREE Inner Healing Retreat.

A three day live-in Inner Healing Retreat conducted by international presenters Diana Mascarenhas and Fr Elias Vella OFMc. An

opportunity through prayer and ‘Christo-therapy’ to be ‘set free’ from the bonds and baggage of life’s hurts and addictions. Held at airconditioned St John of God Retreat Centre, Shoalwater Bay. All inclusive cost of $350/person. Queries and registration to Martha 0419 242 172 or Martha.

KALAT@dmp.wa.gov.au.

MONDAY, 6 FEBRUARY CATHOLIC CHARISMATIC RENEWAL Inner Healing Workshop 9am– 5pm, conducted by international guest Diana Mascarenhas (Dip Spiritual Formation and Counselling). Participants will be ministered to, and receive healing prayer for various issues of inner conflict and past wounds.

Held at the Holy Family Church, Thelma St/Canning Hwy, Como.

Cost for the day is $25. Bring your own lunch. Please register to Martha, 0419 242 172.

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

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

BRICK RE-POINTING Ph Nigel 9242 2952.

PICASSO PAINTING Top service.

Ph 0419 915 836, fax 9345 0505.

9345 0557.

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

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

INTENTIONS St Jude Thaddeus and St Rita Worker of Miracles and Help of Hopeless causes and My saviour Jesus Christ and Mother Mary, I ask you to grant me (say your personal request HERE) and for all the sick in the world, depressed and all who are in need of prayers.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen Oh most beautiful Flower of Mt Carmel, fruitful vine and splendour of Heaven. Mother of the Son of God, Immaculate Virgin, assist me in my necessity. Oh Star of the Sea, help me and show Yourself a Mother. Oh Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of heaven and earth. I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart to succour me in my necessity (make request). There are none that can withstand Your Power. Oh Mary conceived without sin pray for us who have recourse to Thee (3x) Holy Mary, I place this cause in your hands (3x) Amen.

GREAT GIFTS FOR FAMILY AND FRIENDS FROM THE RECORD BOOKSHOP

See Page 20 for the newest and exclusive books for 2012

C R O S S W O R D

ACROSS 1 Sacred vessels 5 Husband of Mary 8 Catholic United States Supreme Court justice 10 The Last ___ 11 Hebrew month 12 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the ___?” (Job 38:4) 13 Catholic actress and First Lady of the American Theatre 15 Ology that is the study of the lives of the saints 16 Judas’ blood money bought it (Mt 27:6-8) 18 David, to Goliath 20 ___ Creed 24 Father of Abram 25 The yoke of Jesus (Mt 11:30) 26 Scripture 28 “O, Mary! We ___ thee with blossoms today” 30 Housing for the patriarchs 32 Ezekiel’s vision (Ezek 10:9) 33 Catholic Academy Awardwinning actress Hayward 34 Most solemn Christian feast 35 Vessel for perfuming the altar DOWN 2 Large crucifix 3 Divine time 4 “For our ___, he was crucified…”

5 OT historical book 6 “…and the rich he has sent ___ away” (Lk 1:53)

W O R D S L E U T H

7 9 11 14 16 17 19 21 22 23 26 27 28 29 31

They blew these outside the walls of Jericho Kingdom of David Lent markers The Garden “So the last will be ___” (Mt 20:16) Sister of Judah Pope during Attila’s time First event in the Bible Monasticism began here Sign from Jonathan that David’s life was in danger (1 Sam 20:20– 23) A knife is named after this Catholic defender of the Alamo “___ us, O Lord…”

Redemptorist community (abbr) “___ Dimittis” Number of choirs of angels

LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION

Page 20

TheTRecord he Record LastBookshop W in ord 1911 The

8 February 2012, The Record

February Catalogue RESOURCES FOR EVERY CATHOLIC FROM

$19

NEW DVD FROM IMMACULEE ILIBAGIZA In Church-sanctioned apparitions to three school children in the town of Kibeho, Rwanda between 1981 and 1989, Mary warned of an impending disaster, but few heeded the warning.

Immaculee Ilibagiza knows the story all too well. Her family was killed during the 1994 genocide and she survived by hiding in a bathroom with seven other women for three excruciating months.

If Only We Had Listened follows Immaculee as she returns to Rwanda with filmmaker Sean Bloomfield, uncovering the secrets of Kibeho while reconciling with her painful past. Buried beneath the bones of a million victims, a story of faith and hope emerges. And Immaculee reveals that the apocalyptic prophecy of Kibeho is not just a warning for Rwanda, but for the entire world.

BIBIANA KWARAMBA Bookshop Manager

Telephone: 9220 5901 Email: bookshop@therecord.com.au Address: 21 Victoria Square, Perth 6000