The Record Newspaper 08 April 2009

www.therecord.com.au

free edition easter 2009 Recovery ‘was a JPII miracle’

Pope John Paul II in 1999. h is intercession is being credited as the cause of a seemingly miraculous

An astonishing recovery from “a non-survivable” gunshot injury has many believing it was a miracle - courtesy of JPII

n By Catholic News Service

cleV el AND (cNs) - in a story that grabbed national headlines in the Us some people in c leveland were connecting a 26-year-old local man’s recovery from a gunshot wound to the head

Now Perth has its very own Pieta

New artwork will help unite all to Mary and the saints, says outgoing College Rector.

n By Anthony Barich

An exact replica in bronze of one of the most famous artworks in the world, Michelangelo’s p ieta, was unveiled on palm sunday at st Thomas More college in crawley to inspire devotion to Mary and prayer.

The artwork was donated by an anonymous benefactor and procured in Rome.

Michelangelo carved the original p ieta, housed in st peter’s Basilica in Rome, when he was 24. it depicts Mary holding Jesus’ lifeless body in her lap after his body had been taken down from the cross on calvary.

The chapel of the pieta’s documentation says of the statue: “it seems almost as if Jesus is about to reawaken from a tranquil sleep and that after so much suffering and thorns, the rose of resurrection is about to bloom.

As we contemplate the pieta which conveys peace and tranquility, we can feel that the great sufferings of life and its pain can be mitigated.”

Monsignor Kevin l ong, the former Rector of st Thomas More c ollege unveiled the bronze image and said that the statue is an important meditation on the

christian understanding of suffering.

“Mary’s sorrow on the hill of calvary, her cradling of the body of her dead son Jesus, has long been a powerful symbol for christian people grappling with sorrows, disappointments and pains of daily life,” said Mgr l ong, who will complete his commitments with the college by celebrating the easter ceremonies.

“Here in this sacred space we are able to ponder the mystery of human grief, we are encouraged to enter into and own our individual and communal experiences of loss, separation and the sheer fragility of human life.”

l ocal catholics’ ashes can also be scattered in the garden in front of the sculpture.

“Here the ashes of our loved ones will be scattered with the christian hope that, like the Blessed Virgin Mary, we too will come to share fully in christ’s glorious resurrection,” Mgr l ong said. He then blessed the statue, praying to God the Father:

“May this statue help us to bring to mind your great love for us revealed in your beloved son c hrist Jesus. May its presence amongst us strengthen our fellowship with our Blessed l ady and all the saints.”

christian Brother Robert callen, 59, the new st Thomas More c ollege Rector, told The Record he hopes it will become a sacred space that will come to lead people to prayer and meditation on the passion of christ.

that doctors said should have killed him to a Rosary blessed by pope John paul ii that the man received from a hospital chaplain. some labelled the recovery of Jory Aebly, who was shot execution-style during a mugging on February 21, a miracle and were speculating his case could help the sainthood cause of the late pope. Neither the c leveland Diocese nor Vatican officials have commented on the case.

Aebly and a co-worker, Jeremy pechanec, 28, were both shot execution-style in

the head in an apparent robbery when they were heading home after an evening out with friends in downtown cleveland. pechanec did not survive his injuries. After the shooting Aebly was taken to MetroHealth Medical centre, where doctors expected him to die. His family was told he had suffered “a nonsurvivable injury,” according to the hospital Web site. Father Arthur snedeker, a cleveland diocesan priest who is a chaplain at the hospital, gave Aebly the last rites of the church. At a press conference on

March 30, the day Aebly was released from the hospital, the priest told reporters he had prayed to pope John paul “to pray for Jory and to protect him.” He said he gave the young man the last of a dozen Rosaries the pope had blessed years before for the priest to give to patients. i stand before you today and can say, to my mind, Jory is a miracle,” the priest told reporters.

Aebly, appearing at the press conference with the priest, attributed his recovery to prayers from family, friends, co-workers and people he has never met.

His neurosurgeon, Dr Robert Geertman, has called his patient’s recovery “one in a million.” i’d say it’s pretty miraculous,” he added. The hospital Web site said that although he suffered from severe headaches Aebly completed daily sessions in physical, speech and occupational therapy, and within his first week of recovery he could walk with the aid of a walker and supervision. At the press conference he stood to speak at the microphone. According to the hospital, Aebly will continue his

Champagne and Pope Benedict blessing mark Ivy’s 100th

Possibly the oldest parishioner in Perth, Ivy Cooper has been joined for the celebration of a century by local priest representing parish.

By Glynnis Grainger

n

A speci A l Mass, a surprise blessing from the pope, champagne and cake helped ivy c ooper celebrate her 100th birthday at Tandara nursing home, Bentley, last Thursday, April 2. santa clara parish priest Fr Francisco Mascarenhas was asked by the Missionaries of charity sisters attached to the parish to celebrate the special Mass for Mrs cooper, who was born on April 2, 1909, in Bunbury. she was the eldest of four children born to Margaret and l eslie Atkins, her mother being a member of the irish connole family, which built the catholic church at Morphett Vale in south Australia in the 1850s. Her sister lil Molinari, 94, still lives in her own home in Bunbury.

ivy went to school at the Bunbury convent and upon leaving school worked at c onnell’s large general store and music store Musgroves before moving to perth in her 20s where she worked at Foy and Gibsons and Nicholsons stores. At one time, she was captain of the lifesaving team at the Bunbury surf club. But it was at the piano that she was most accomplished and achieved her A.Mus.A. diploma and medals sent from Trinity college, l ondon. she had her own band and played jazz at various halls,

the lido club at cottesloe and the Old embassy Ballroom in perth, “where the piano used to rock,” her niece and goddaughter, Margaret Wilson told The Record “she didn’t have a piano, (but) Aunty was such a good pianist, as there were such a lot of furniture shops where she used to practice the piano,” Mrs Wilson said. Occasionally she was called upon as relief organist at the Bunbury catholic cathedral. she also spent many years teaching piano from home.

ivy married stan cooper on 15 August 1939, at sacred Heart

church, Highgate. They had no children but she has seven nieces and nephews, Mrs Wilson and her cousin Jim Molinari and his wife Marie attending the Mass and small celebration afterwards at Tandara. stan worked for the emu Brewery for many years and also served in the Army during World War ii The couple lived in l eederville – st Mary’s parish, Mt Yokine – where she went to st Denis’s churchand swan cottages, now called the swancare complex, Bentley park, Bentley, where she has lived for 30 years. ivy has been

opera man - the aussie composer who embraced the Catholic Church

rehabilitation at home and hoped to return soon to his job in the microbiology lab at cleveland clinic.

Aebly’s case has fuelled speculation that it might be looked at by the Vatican as a possible miracle that could be credited to pope John paul’s intercession.

But currently a presumed miracle through the intercession of the late pope - involving a French nun said to have been cured of parkinson’s disease - is being studied in a fivestep process in Rome that involves medical experts, a medical board, theological

consultors, the members of the congregation for saints’ c auses and, finally, pope Benedict XV i The initial diocesan phase of pope John paul’s cause was completed in April 2007. l ast November a team of theological consultors to the congregation began studying the 2,000-page “positio,” the document that makes the case for his life of heroic virtue, according to Archbishop Angelo Amato, head of the congregation. The sainthood process generally requires two miracles. Another miracle? -

cathedral is looking real

st Mary’s c athedral is beginning to look like a real cathedral as the major construction works near completion and the external appearance of the cathedral becomes clear. There are many months of interior work to be undertaken before an opening date can be considered. However, diocesan priests and representatives are being invited to attend inspection tours with Archbishop Barry Hickey on April 21, 22 and 23 so that they will be able to report to their parishes before the launch of the third and final year of the parishes’ appeal on May 23-24. The

widowed for about 25 years, after her husband stan died of a heart attack. ivy has been a devoted catholic all her life, and in her early retirement years she did volunteer work for st Vincent de paul in the city, Mrs Wilson said. initially, she attended Mass at Our l ady Help of christians Continued - Page 5

Fr. Francisco Mascarenhas presents Ivy Cooper with a copy of her blessing from Pope benedict XVI on the occasion of her 100th birthday. P hoTo: C our TES y Fr M a SC ar E nha S

Western Australian Opera Director Rich ARD Mills was commissioned to write the music for the s ydney 2000 Olympic Games opening ceremony. he has also written an opera on the Batavia and has just composed a St Mark’s Passion as a public statement of his catholic faith. he talks to The Record about his Passion. Page 3

The new sculpture of Michelangelo’s Pieta, donated by a benefactor of St Thomas More College in Crawley stands as

reminder

the Passion of Christ. The College’s former and current rectors hope it will inspire prayer

before the Palm Sunday ceremony at the College chapel.

EastEr 2009

EDITOR

Peter Rosengren cathrec@iinet.net.au

JOURNALISTS

Anthony Barich abarich@therecord.com.au

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Robert Hiini cathrec@iinet.net.au

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ADMINISTRATION

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cONTRIBUTORS

Debbie Warrier

Karen & Derek Boylen

Anna Krohn

Catherine Parish

Fr Flader

John Heard

Christopher West

Bronia Karniewicz

Guy Crouchback

The Record PO Box 75, Leederville, WA 6902 587 Newcastle St, West Perth Tel: (08) 9227 7080, Fax: (08) 9227 7087

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Death of Fr Lisle Mercy sister Time finalist

ONE of the first married Anglican clergy to be ordained a Catholic priest, Fr John Lisle, died in Hollywood Hospital on March 25 and was buried at Karrakatta on April 1 after a concelebrated Mass at which Archbishop Barry Hickey was the principal celebrant. John Lisle was born at Hanham, near Bristol, England on May 22, 1918. He had a challenging childhood which included severe burns to his body from scalding water, the pneumonia that followed, and tuberculosis.

His mother, Alice Jane, was an Anglican and his father an avowed atheist, but young John seemed to have an early premonition that he would be a Catholic.

As a four-year-old living in Bryn Mawr, Wales, he once put on a display from his upstairs bedroom window of preaching to the neighbours. When his mother came up to put him back to bed he told here he would be a priest, and even at that young age he meant a Catholic priest.

As it transpired, he was ordained an Anglican minister in 1942, the beginning of 67 years serving God. He spent 12 years in the Bahamas in a large mission of remote islands which he and his friend Fr Gordon Bennett accessed by sail boat. It was in the Bahamas that he met his beloved wife Mary, and the couple had three children, David, Jane and Mary.

Also in the Bahamas, he spent a lot of time in the company of Catholic priests, including Monsignor Hawes, of architectural and priestly fame in WA. From the Bahamas they travelled to South Africa where his work included

a period at Humansdorp, a mission parish covering 100 square miles and incorporating 25 churches with mud hut accommodation. His strong belief that everyone had a fundamental right to dignity and freedom, and the charitable

activities that flowed from that belief, soon brought him under suspicion from the police. When his open opposition to apartheid led to his being branded a communist and to his rectory phone being tapped, Mary decided it was time to go home to England where the family spent 18 months before sailing to WA.

During all this time his love for the Catholic Church had grown strongly. His first appointment was to the Anglican parish at Mt Barker where he soon met his Anglican counterpart at Kojonup, Geoff Beyer, and discovered they both had a strong desire to be Catholic.

John Lisle was received into the Catholic Church in 1968 and on October 19, 1969 he, Geoff Beyer and Rodney Williams made news around the world when, as married men, they were ordained as Catholic priests.

Fr Lisle’s first appointment was as Assistant Priest at Scarborough until he became Parish Priest at Armadale in January 1973. Ill health forced him to relinquish the post in February 1974 when he became Parish Priest at Toodyay. Fully recovered, and full of his trademark enthusiasm, he became Parish Priest and Dean of Northam in 1981, and then Parish Priest of Mosman Park in 1988. He retired to Tom Perrott Village in October 1993.

Benedict’s US visit spurred Newt’s conversion

I N an appearance on US television’s Fox News last Sunday, Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the US House of Representatives and one of the key leaders of the Republican Party, discussed his recent conversion to Catholicism, a key part of which was Pope Benedict’s April 2008 visit to Washington. The following transcript records Gingrich’s answers to his interviewer’s questions.

WALLACE: Mr Gingrich, you have been a Baptist most of your life, and last Sunday you converted to

Catholicism. Why, sir?

GINGRICH: I’m not talking about this much publicly, but let me just say that I found over the course of the last decade, attending the basilica, meeting with Monsignor Rossi, reading the literature, that there was a peace in my soul and a sense of well being in the Catholic Church, and I found the Mass of conversion last Sunday one of the most powerful moments of my life.

WALLACE: You have — it’s no secret — been married and divorced twice. Will you be able to par-

ticipate fully in communion and all the other rites of the Catholic Church?

when the Pope came. It’s been a long process.

PHILADELPHIA (CNS) - A nun who works with the homeless has appeared on a list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Mercy Sister Mary Scullion (pictured), co-founder and executive director of Project HOME, has been named a finalist in Time magazine’s 2009 annual most influential list, which calls her “Philadelphia’s Mother Teresa.” As of midafternoon on April 6, she was ranked 37th among 204 nominees in continuing online voting, right behind the Dalai Lama. The list includes people in government, science, technology and the arts. On the plus side, according to the citation, she has helped slash the homeless rate in half in Philadelphia, and 95 per cent of those who cycle through Project HOME are never again homeless, “a success rate which has made the program a model for dozens of other US cities.” The only negative, according to the citation: “She’s not too well-known outside of Philly.”

APRIL 2009

10 Stations of the Cross, Lockridge - Archbishop Hickey Celebration of the Lord’s Passion, St Joachim’s Pro-CathedralArchbishop Hickey Celebration of the Lord’s Passion, St Gerard’s, WestminsterBishop Sproxton

11 Easter Vigil, St Joachim’s Pro-Cathedral - Archbishop Hickey Full Easter Vigil, St Gerard’s, Mirrabooka - Bishop Sproxton

12 Easter Mass, St Joachim’s Pro-Cathedral - Archbishop Hickey

15 “The West Australian” Cocktail Function - Archbishop Hickey

17 Launch of RPH Heritage Society, Kirkman House - Archbishop Hickey

18 Farewell Mass for Fr Joss Breen OP, Gosnells - Archbishop Hickey

19 Mass, St Charles’ Seminary - Archbishop Hickey, Bishop Sproxton Sunday Sesh, Riverton - Bishop Sproxton

23 Centrecare Reception, Catholic

ART EXHIBITIONS

GINGRICH: Yes, we have done everything within the law of the Church, following all of the rules of the Church over the last 10 years. And it’s been a process. It’s been a very long process and something which was deeply affected, in part, by Pope Benedict XVI’s visit and the opportunity I had to sit in — as you know, my wife, Calista, sings at the basilica every Sunday - and I was allowed as a spouse to be there as part of the vespers program

WALLACE: And if I might ask, just briefly, what is it about the Pope’s visit that led to this?

GINGRICH: I really believe, first of all, seeing the joy in his eyes, listening to his message, and I really believe that his basic statement, Christ our hope, is right. And I think much of what’s wrong with our country and with the western world is a function of looking inside ourselves, not just looking at money or looking at our wallets.

n By Anthony Barich

Fr Joseph Breen OP is leaving Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament parish in Gosnells after an association of 22 years. Fr Breen entered the Dominican Order in 1959 and was ordained in Dublin in 1966, undertaking further studies at Angelicum University in Rome in 1967 and Dublin’s Trinity College. This set the trend of four consecutive priests of Gosnells being of Irish descent, as Fr Patrick Carmody, Archbishop Redmond Prendiville’s nephew Thomas Prendiville and Fr Thomas O’Prey were all from there.

“The Catholic community of Gosnells, like the rest of Australia, owes a great debt to the Irish priests who have been largely responsible for the growth and spread of the Catholic faith throughout the nation,” said Maureen

Byrne, Gosnells parish’s unofficial archivist and coordinator of MaryCare, an organisation dedicated to assisting the elderly who cannot make it to Mass. He was also resident guidance counsellor at the Dominican College in Newbridge, Ireland, a position he held until 1985 when he visited most of his Order’s foundations throughout Australia and New Zealand, and liked the former so much that he wanted to stay, and in 1986 he received permission to work in the Archdiocese of Perth.

From January to June 1987 he assisted Fr O’Prey at Gosnells before a holiday visiting family in Ireland and the United States saw him return as parish priest of Mundaring, all the while relieving for Fr O’Prey at Gosnells while he was away.

On March 4, 1995, Fr Breen was appointed parish priest of Gosnells, returning home to the parish he would complete his apostolate in. He is now 75.

SEnd your Parish stories and photos (hi-resolution) to: production@therecord.com.au Deadline: Tuesday April 14.

“But Christ has in fact been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep. Death came through one man and in the same way the resurrection of the dead has come through one man. Just as all men died in Adam, so all men will be brought to life in Christ; but all of them in their proper order; Christ as the first-fruits and then, after the coming of Christ, those who belong to him.”

From the First Letter to the Corinthians, 15: 20-23

for St Mary’s Cathedral

Local Artist, Margaret Fane, will hold exhibitions of her paintings for sale on the following dates and locations:

East Fremantle Catholic Church from 18th & 19th April and 25th & 26th April, after all Masses.

Beaconsfield Catholic Church from 2nd & 3rd of May and all weekends until 16th & 17 May, after all Masses.

St Anne’s Church, North Fremantle 23rd & 24th May and all weekends until the 20th & 21st June, after weekend Masses. Enq: 0432 834 743 or 9443 1853

Margaret has studied Art and Spirituality in Rome. Her exhibitions throughout the Archdiocese have been very successful. Her paintings are in oil and watercolour.

Gosnells stalwart retires after decades of work

Fr John Lisle, the first married Anglican priest to be ordained a Catholic priest in Australia, passed away on March 25.

EastEr 2009

The composer who found Christ in Mark

His latest composition, The Passion of St Mark, premiered in Perth on April 8. It is, Richard Mills told The Record’s Anna Krohn, not only a major artistic work but a statement of his Catholic faith.

The Passion According to St Mark is described as “The most ambitious sacred oratorio project in Australia’s history” by Eamon Kelly writing in The Australian, but Richard Mills, the oratorio’s Australian composer and conductor is not daunted by gargantuan creative effort or complex and original musicality set on a massive stage. Mills’ versatile compositional repertoire is notable for his transposition of archetypal Australian themes onto a contemporary and universal theatrical and musical canvas. Commissions have included the music to the ballet Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, the Earth Poem Sky for the Darwin Symphony Orchestra and Aboriginal Dancers, music for the 2000 Olympic Games and in an operatic rendition of Ray Lawler’s classic - The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.

In 2001 a Mills and Peter Goldsworthy (as librettist) collaboration attracted local and international attention and prizes. The epic and darkly confronting opera Batavia, dramatises the shocking events which surrounded the wreck of the Dutch East India company ship Batavia off the Western Australian coast.

Richard Mills has also earned both local and international recording, performance and conducting prizes. He is in high demand as a conductor of opera and chamber music both in Australia and internationally and is also the Artistic Director of the Western Australian Opera, the Director of Australian Music with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and holds numerous other academic and administrative posts. It was during the days of high pressure and rehearsal before the world premiere of the Passion According to St Mark in Hobart that Richard Mills generously offered the Record some insights. The Record: You are known for your gruelling workpace- from 10 Days in Hobart to Perth for the Western Australian Opera to Brisbane. Apart from asking you how on earth you manage this - where is home for you?

Richard Mills: Every major musical performer or conductor must now be prepared to travel both around Australia and overseas. I try to find balance, though I haven’t had a break for a long time! I hail originally from Queensland - but now call Melbourne home. I have lived in Brunswick for 6 years – and love it there. The Record: You have had some prior commissions for music with a sacred theme –a Tenebrae and the Requiem Diptych for example - but can you tell us about the genesis of the Passion According to St Mark?: Richard Mills: Well firstly this is really big - it is a once-in-a-lifetime cocommission by the Ten Days on the Island Festival, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Western Australian Symphony, The Queensland Orchestra and the Australia Council and Symphony Australia! The original idea for the Passion came while I was visiting the organ loft of San Marco’s Basilica in Venice. I looked out from that height over the basilica and reflected upon all the cross-currents of sacred music that had been played and sung there. At first I had in mind a musical score for the Legend of St Mark which is one of the centerpieces for Venetian identity (and of course represented in symbol by the Lion of Venice). But then I thought that story might be too lightweight - and frankly too full of pro-Venetian Republic propaganda! So then I decided to take the Passion story from St Mark’s Gospel as a starting point. The Record: How does St Mark’s Gospel present itself in the work?

Richard Mills: Mark’s account of Christ’s Passion is remarkable. Mark’s salvation story is both very localised and sparse in its telling. It doesn’t dwell particularly on Christ’s divinity and in some places almost brutally reveals the failure of the disciples. It also includes the very striking account of the women - the woman who anoints Christ, against the disciples’ better judgement, foretelling the unfolding of his sacrificial death. There are the women who came to the tomb. With the scriptural background I was given advice and assistance from my near neighbours - the Jesuitsincluding Brendan Byrne and Christopher Wilcox. But both musically and I suppose theologically I also wanted to set Mark’s almost visceral account against the story of salvation on a cosmological scale. So the sparse story of Mark’s passion - is bookended by the high Christology of liturgical hymns and Dante’s poetry. The Record: So how do you interweave these different elements?

Richard Mills: This Passion is divided over seven parts (which is traditionally the symbol of sacred completion). It begins with the localised but fateful events of the disciples and Jesus going up the road to Jerusalem.

(The narrations are sung in English). There is then an inbreaking of the great entrance hymn of Palm Sunday – the Pueri Hebraeorum. Then follows the prophetic verses associated in the liturgy with Palm Sunday verses from the Psalms, Zechariah, hymnal verses from the Patristics.

This then leads the drama back to Mark’s account of the Passover Supper - the unfolding of the preparations set-off against the ominous betrayal of Judas and the chief priests but again with the interweaving of the great hymn (of St Thomas Aquinas) the Pange Lingua re-set but sung in its entirety.

The drama passes through Gethsemane, to the Trial, to Golgotha - all interwoven

with verses from Wisdom, the sorrowful and other Holy Week Psalms and the O cruor sanguine by Hildegarde von Bingen. At the death of Christ in the Gospel account the road theme returnsthis time almost infinitely expanded with Dante’s vision of the Universal Cross from Canto XIV in the Paradiso.

The entire work culminates in this cosmic sweep of salvation - with the Vexilla Regis , and again Dante’s verses about melody coming forth from Cross written now universally and the triumph of crucified love with the Ecce lignum crucis. “This is the wood of the cross on which hung the Saviour of the World.”

The Record: Are there musical allusions to Venice?

Richard Mills: The Passion of St Mark is the centre piece for performances that will include, with some variation between cities other great Venetian works: Gabrieli, a Vivaldi Motet (RV626) and

Concerti.

The Record: So there are still those “cross-currents of San Marco”?

Richard Mills: Yes, but it is all very complicated and while we are still rehearsing, very difficult to pull together! The ink is still hardly dry. The work only began in the middle of last year.

The Record: Did you have vocal parts or characterisations in mind when you composed the Passion?’

Richard Mills: Well it’s a bit unusual - as the vocal parts are shared. (There is for instance not a single Christus part). The choruses are antiphonal and play a subliminal and intricate part in the interweaving of the visceral and the cosmic.

Among the soloists are some very wonderful and upcoming stars from the Western Australian OperaRachelle Durkin and the very young but amazing Charles Mellor. I must say that the choruses (mostly amateur)

have been wonderful as well.

The Record: Can you tell us what else inspired you during the massive undertaking?

Richard Mills: Yes as well as reading the great Patristic writers, I recently read a really fascinating book about the theology of Pope Benedict XVI by the Melbourne theologian: Tracey Rowland. There is so much in this. For instance the Pope urges artists of talent to manifest the great mystery of the faith in their greatest achievementsin their art. I think this is so important. We all have a thirst for the sublime, for a reflection upon the ineffable aspects of the faith. This for me is a labour of love and it is a manifestation of faith - really.

The Record: You have often commented upon the dangers of “forgetting our history” and of cultural amnesia. In a way your opera “Batavia” is about the fragility of civi-

Handbook of Prayers

Edited by Fr James Socias

Let’s be frank: this book is a treasure, especially for families. Many prayer books are simply collections of prayers compiled by an editor, but this is a prayer book with a difference. For a start this edition, beautifully printed and bound in paperback form, carries in the centre all the prayers of the Mass (novus ordo) in Latin and English, rather like the missals of yesterday. Elsewhere its prayers, penned in many cases by some of the spiritual giants of yesteryear through until the 20th century, are divided into the following sections: How to be a better Catholic, Basic prayers, Midday prayers, Evening prayers, Prayers after Mass, Prayers outside Mass, Prayers for Eucharistic adoration, Guide for a good Confession, Devotions to the Blessed Trinity, Devotions to Our Lord Jesus Christ, Devotions to the Holy Spirit, Devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Devotions to St Joseph, Prayers at the time of death, Prayers for the dead, Blessings, Prayers of the Sacraments for people in danger of death. This book has everything and, if used, will become an invaluable friend along the way of

lisation and also about the power of mercy and forgiveness as an undercurrent. In this you seem to agree with Pope Benedict as well?

Richard Mills: Yes the Pope is on about this a great deal. All the Western traditions, all its institutions are fragile. Even the Christian tradition can so easily fade away. That is why the Patristics are so inspiring. They get us back to basics with their own insights and genius.

Currently I am absorbed by St Augustine, particularly Peter Brown’s (updated) biography of Augustine. But it applies to Gregory, the Desert Fathers and Ambrose. Even Newman’s great Dream of Gerontius (set to music by Edward Elgar) - is a marvelous part of this.

The Record: You have given the Church’s traditional liturgical music some central parts in this Passion. Perhaps it is telling that it is not the Church but secular musical groups who have funded this enormous undertaking. Would you also agree with Pope Benedict that along with the holiness of the saints it will be the beauty of the arts which will bring people back to the Faith?

Richard Mills: Yes I do. It sad that liturgical music is so underfunded in this country! Some of the music experienced in our churches is not at all inspiring - some is pathetic really! Many organs have been neglected and are run-down - and silly little electronic things are used instead. In a way the reform has to begin at the heart of the Church.

The Record: I know that you once scored James McAuley’s verses Blue Horses. McAuley is an example of a great Australian poet and Catholic whose hymnal texts really are perennial and yet marked by his originality. Would you ever go in for hymnody yourself?

Richard Mills: Well I would love to be invited (and commissioned). Richard Connolly and McAuley really did produce forceful and lean hymns that have endured. There are many obstacles to composing good hymns – and the first is the text. Vaughan Williams all those years ago noted how hymns attract the best - and the worst - texts and music. So that’s the challenge. I wonder if there are any Catholic Australian poets who might be interested?

The Record: I know you also have a Little Office of the Virgin Mary and an organ concerto in the works. How would you relate the composing of these sacred works with your own faith?

Richard Mills: Make no mistake – some of this work is penitential slog! I recently allowed myself a glass of wine – since I think I am doing my Lent in the writing and rehearsals! But really, I have given my best attention and my energies to this work. Sometimes it has been a work of hope. I think that when it comes to the faith - charity is a doddle- it is faith and hope which are the really hard part. Sometimes I wonder in a hopeful way how, on one dimension, this insignificant story set in Palestine, could possibly have the power to take on this encounter with the infinite Love? I suppose The Passion is an attempt to bring both the questioning and doubt - and the answer of faith together. This work, this music is the way I pray. And prayer changes you - it really does.

The Passion According to St Mark was premiered by the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra at the Perth Concert Hall on Wednesday April 8.

Jesus of Nazareth Author: Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) Read by:

EastEr 2009

God’s calling to local solutions

Nepal experience jolts young Perth man into action, St Joseph’s Subiaco reaps benefits.

n By Robert Hiini

Greg LeCoultre is a man who is trying to make a difference in his own backyard.

Visiting the poor in Nepal and India as a teenager with Trinity College he realised that although the challenges in Perth might be less obvious, the holy Spirit was calling him to be part of local solutions.

As youth coordinator of St Joseph’s Parish in Subiaco for the past six months he has found an opportunity to do just that with the youth initiatives he has been wanting to run now in full flight.

Boost, a Wednesday-night discussion group for young adults aged 17 to 35, has been underway in the parish for the past two months with guest speakers coming from different walks of life with their own intriguing stories to tell.

In recent weeks, attendees have heard from former SAS commander, Lieutenant Colonel James McMahon, Subiaco parishioner and nurse, Rod Pereira who established the Kalcutta Station Mission attending to the needs of the poor amassing at train stations, as well as parishioner and Woodside engineer, Paul Kyne on his recent pilgrimage to the holy Land.

The idea is to get interesting people from within and outside the parish to talk with young adults about why it is they do what they do and how faith in Jesus Christ is involved; in contexts which are sometimes atypical.

“how does someone bring God into a job with the SAS,” Mr LeCoultre ruminates. “how does someone bring faith into an area that you might not normally associate with Christianity.”

Interesting speakers are not the only component of the Boost experience however.

every month, Boost organisers run “history Makers” - watching and dicsussing films that show heroic people and events - with attendees set to watch Kokoda on the 22nd and 29th of this month when Boost returns after its easter recess.

“Faith Conversations” is Boost’s final component featuring a guest priest or religious who is invited to speak about spiritual practices and belief as well as participating in the

resulting discussion.

Greg LeCoultre says however, that creating a relaxed environment for relationship and friendship is more important to him than any talk or program.

Unlike in most parishes, Mr LeCoultre’s job as youth coordinator is a paid one; a job he holds down as well as working at global accounting firm, ernst and Young part time.

The paid position is a result of the parish’s response to the World Youth Day experience of last year.

After completing its building development plans over the past few years, the spiritual growth of youth has come to the fore in the parish as a core focus area of time and resources.

The parish began a successful youth Mass almost three years ago

although Mr LeCoultre’s idea of a “youth” Mass is not the standard one.

“Usually when people hear youth Mass they think of rock bands but we do it a little bit differently.”

Subiaco’s youth Mass is designed to be short and sharp with homilies worked to be as straightforward and concise as possible, with young people involved in almost every facet of the Mass.

With their strong relational bent, organisers make sure they have three or four young people greeting everyone out front before the Mass gets underway.

Afterwards, young people are invited to reconvene at the local Dome Cafe for some fraternal caffeine consumption, an initiative that has been very successful to date.

The parish plans to make its Pentecost Mass on May 31 an intense day of prayer and thanksgiving, especially for high school and tertiary students about to sit their exams.

Students will be able to submit the dates of their exams and the Mass of that day will be offered up for their testing academic “time of trial.”

Mr LeCoultre knows there is no magic formula for youth ministry and says that initiatives might come and go as the parish experiments with different formats. Ultimately, he says, it’s about the journey.

“I hope to support these young people, growing with them in the process of becoming happy, healthy and holy adults.”

“I don’t think we ever get to the end. It’s a journey of sanctification.”

More information about St Joeseph’s Subiaco youth events and initiatives can be found at www. stjosephssubiaco.org.au, their open facebook group, St Josephs Subiaco Youth, or by emailing Greg at glecoultre@stjosephssubiaco.org.au

PASToRS from three different churches joined forces outside the North Perth Redemptorist

Monastery on April 6 to bless the roads in the lead up to easter.

Fr Joe Carroll CSsR, above, the acting superior of the monastery, performed the blessing of Charles Street after a liturgy he conducted with Anglican priest, Rev Barry Moss and Uniting/Anglican priest, Rev Jenny Goring. As part of the Town of Vincent’s Blessing of the Roads campaign of road safety awareness, Mayor Nick Catania was present to officiate as was Senior Sergeant Sandy Gibson from the West Australian Police.

Priest, architect, legend: Monsignor Hawes lives on

n By Anthony Barich

The churches built by Monsignor John hawes that scatter the northern outback of the diocese of Geraldton are among the most treasured works of architecture in Australia.

As a rural priest at a time the rest of the western world was undergoing the Great Depression, Monsignor hawes, an Anglican convert, was a true battler.

Something of a lone ranger, he saw himself as a travelling Franciscan missionary, travelling from town to town, farm to farm celebrating the sacraments and designing and building churches. he often fell asleep in the saddle while travelling long distances.

Priest, architect, painter, sculptor, stonemason, carpenter, decorator, poet, foreman, labourer, horseman and horse breeder, Monsignor was all things to the Catholic communities and the local Aborigines in the region.

Yet he sought at all times the humility of St Francis, eventually retiring to the Cat Island in the Bahamas, living as a hermit called Friar Jerome. he found God in solitude and the renunciation of earthly possessions, and loathed the praise that was heaped on him.

But it was well deserved. he often worked on numerous projects - in 24 years between 1915-1939, he built up to 22 churches, convents, monasteries and priests’ houses simultaneously in towns hundreds of kilometers from each other.

But he used a style unlike anything that had gone before, especially rejecting the gothic styles that were common in european cathedrals. Using local materials, he designed and constructed, with the help of locals, buildings that were suited to the local climate and fit into their local surrounds. For this he

was at times misunderstood.

his design for St Mary’s Cathedral in Perth was rejected, and for a while work was ceased on St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral in Geraldton until a bishop came along who appreciated his work. he was much sought after by an outback Catholic community crying out for a place that drips with sanctity, where people can worship in a reverential atmosphere of peace.

Anthony Barich went in search of the buildings that remain often beautifully in tact due to their rugged structure, often in the middle of nowhere, but stand as testimony not only to the Monsignor himself but to the local Catholics who marshaled support to get these monuments of faith built. Check The Record in coming weeks for an extensive expose of Monsignor hawes’

Above, Fr Gerard Totanes, assistant priest at St Francis Xavier Cathedral, is one of many people The Record spoke to during a

LeCoultre, pictured above right with friends and recently profiled by Debbie

EastEr 2009

Bentley children flocking to church

Children’s liturgy going from strength to strength.

SANTA Clara Bentley parish priest Fr Francisco Mascarenhas is delighted with the big numbers of children attending the Children’s Liturgy at the 9.30am Mass on Sundays.

On Palm Sunday, almost 60 children formed a procession with their palms from outside the church, flanking Fr Francisco, and led by Luki, the altar server, with the cross. They watched a DVD movie in

the church hall, for about 90 minutes, of a Bible story about the life of Jesus, and joined in a prayer afterwards. The Liturgy is conducted by long-time parishioner Muriel Gallagher, who is a graduate of the Maranatha program. Numbers have grown from a handful of children last year and are growing every week, with up to 60 currently taking part in this children’s catechesis. Fr Francisco encourages parents to send children of all ages to the Liturgy, normally a special

20-minute session which takes place in the hall until the Offertory time, while Mass is taking place in the church.

Fr Francisco said: “It is a great joy, bringing life to the parish, (with) children flocking to church. “It doesn’t happen in a lot of places. Some of the children are very tiny, some a little older, some are very young to understand.”

Each Sunday, Muriel opens the Liturgy with the Sign of the Cross and reads out a simplified Gospel of the day, then the children

might say a prayer or do some colouring-in of a holy picture of Jesus or a scene from the Bible, she told The Record. Most of the children are school-age or younger, with Year 6 students, aged 11, being the oldest there. The younger ones sit on the floor and the older ones on chairs, which they fetch themselves.

A few of the mothers help as well. Muriel hands around small drinks and snacks to the children “a couple of times a year.” Muriel said she has been a parishioner for 32 years

and took over conducting the Children’s Liturgy from Darlene Leguay, Amelia Tomeo, and Amelia’s sister Maria.

Dominican Sister Anne Larney said she started it in mid-1996, when Norbertine Fr Augustine Heron O.Praem was parish priest. Sr Anne said she left the parish well after 2003, when Muriel took over.

A former Santa Clara School Principal, Sister Anne told The Record that she was instructing the parents and started with the parish when she

was Pastoral Person there after May, 1996. “It wasn’t anything to do with the school,” with which she was connected for many years, she said. Muriel added that it is”very rewarding” and “the kids are very good –all of them are very young now.” She also says that she would like to start a Liturgy for the “littlies” and one for the older children. The Missionaries of Charity Sisters attached to the parish would also like to assist, welcoming a wealth of possibilities for the parish.

Vatican investigates possible JPII miracle

Tanya Tan

Iwas christened Anglican. My parents had mixed views on religion. They had their doubts about it. They were spiritual but they thought you didn’t need to go to Church to pray. They never talked about God.

As a child I remember asking my parents, “Where did I come from?” They told me, “Your mother.” I asked, “Where did my mother come from?” and finally this led to the question, “Where did the first person come from?” My Dad said, “There are two views on that. One of them is Adam and Eve. The other was that there was this big explosion and all these atoms formed Earth and matter.

One day there was a little cell which evolved into bigger cells and bigger cells and eventually there were people.”

I asked my father to explain the one about Adam and Eve. My Dad read me the children’s Bible every night. Not that he actually believed in it but he understood my need to understand what other people believed.

By the time I was about 11, I attended the local Anglican Church by myself. I just wanted to see what it was like. My parents encouraged me. They taught me to have values like respecting and loving others. They didn’t want me to be xenophobic.

When I married it was to my husband Chris who is Catholic. I told the priest who married

us I didn’t want to become a Catholic. It wasn’t the way I’d been raised. Afterwards I did attend Church with Chris for years. Despite this I still wasn’t ready to convert.

Then my two eldest children, Tristan and Caitlin, received their Sacraments. They would ask me questions about Catholicism. I felt a need to be able to answer their questions and give them an opinion. They were going through a spiritual time in their lives and I wanted to be there for them.

In addition to this there was my third child, Amber. We were so grateful when she came. It was one of those moments where you feel a great sense of love and joy. I decided I wanted to have real unity within my family. Having Amber made me feel closer to God. I joined the RCIA to find out more about being Catholic. I had faith in God and Jesus but there were still many things I was sceptical about.

For instance, I thought religion was responsible for many of the wars and conflicts in the world. I almost felt by becoming a Catholic I would be officially taking sides in a conflict. I believed some Catholics were discriminatory or hateful towards other religions. Now I know these are personal opinions. The Church teaches love and tolerance of others. As well as this, the RCIA taught me it’s ok by the Church to plan your family, the number of children you have and to space your children out if you wish. I decided to convert and thought life would be utopian.

Now I realise this is just the beginning. It is like getting to the top of one hill, looking across and realising that there were lots of other hills to go over. As I grow I still have a lot of personal conflicts, but I know the answers will be there for me when I look.

If you have a story to tell please contact Debbie via debwarrier@hotmail.com

L ONDON , England (CNA)Another John Paul II miracle is being investigated by the Vatican after the fourth anniversary of his death. Cardinal Stanislaw Dzisisz, Archbishop of John Paul’s former diocese in Krakow, Poland, has stated that they are investigating a report that a nine-year-old Polish boy was healed after making a pilgrimage to John Paul’s tomb this week.

The former Pope passed away on April 2, 2005, but pilgrims from around the world travelled to celebrate his life and pray for his beatification on Thursday with current Pope Benedict XVI.

According to the Daily Mail, the boy is reportedly from Gdansk, Poland, the famous site of the Lenin Shipyard where Lech Walesa became the leader of a spontaneous strike that led to the creation of the Solidarity movement.

John Paul II supported the movement which ultimately led to the fall of communism in Poland and was

the catalyst for its fall in Eastern Europe and Russia. The Polish boy was brought in a wheelchair due to the effects of a kidney tumor, and was wheeled to St Peter’s Basilica on a pilgrimage to pray at John Paul’s tomb on the eve of the anniversary of his death. Dziwisz, who was John Paul II’s personal secretary, said in the Daily Mail that after the boy prayed for a while, “he told his parents that he wanted to walk, which they took with some doubt,” but according to Dzisiz, “he stood up and began walking.”

If no scientific explanation is found for the boy’s recovery, the healing could be proposed as the miracle needed to declare John Paul II “blessed.”

Last month, CNA reported that Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow said the beatification process of Pope John Paul II was about to be concluded and that Benedict XVI himself wanted to close the process “as soon as possible” because that “is what the world is asking for.”

Papal blessing for centenarian

Continued from page 1 Church, East Victoria Park, and in later years, was a member of Fr Brian Harris’s congregation, when she lived at Waminda Hostel at the village.

She has also been getting pastoral care from Santa Clara parish, Bentley, at both Waminda and Tandara.

The Papal Nuncio in Canberra sent an interim Papal blessing by fax to Fr Franciciso that day in black-and-white, from His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI “as a pledge of graces and heavenly favours on the occasion of her 100th birthday.”

DEEPLY saddened by the crisis engulfing Christianity in the Middle East, Pope Benedict XVI has asked the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) to provide urgent help.

In many parts of the land Our Lord Jesus Christ knew so well, the faithful now live in fear as increasing poverty and growing extremism threaten the survival of these ancient communities.

A mass exodus of Christians from the Middle East is now taking place. For some it is a question of escaping bloody persecution. In the Holy Land for example, the proportion of

strengthen and rebuild the Church in the land of Christ’s birth.

A beautiful, olive wood crucifix, handcrafted in Bethlehem, will be sent to all those who give a donation of $20.00 or more to help this campaign. Please tick the box below if you like to receive the

Fr Francisco said at the special Mass: “Mrs Cooper has received many blessings from God.

“We give thanks to God for this opportunity in time that God has given her.

“May God bless her and continue to bless her.”

Ivy said: “I can’t believe this has happened to me,” after she received the Papal blessing. At the function she said: “I cannot believe I was so lucky,” and said the day was “just wonderful.” Last Sunday (April 5) a reunion and family afternoon tea was held for Ivy at Tandara.

Cathedral shaping up nicely

This will be followed by the installation of the large new nave windows, the flooring, construction of the western processional forecourt, and the extensive landscaping of the grounds.

Despite the continuing activity, the width and height of the new interior space is breathtaking. The amount of light flowing into the new cathedral will brighten the whole interior and bring to life the many architectural features of the old and new structures.

Continued from page 1 have been completed, with painting and floors to follow. The interior of the cathedral is already showing signs of how much better it will be in its new form. The refurbishment of the ceilings and walls of the 1930 Cavanagh section is almost complete, bringing out the lightness and brightness of the area, with the Hardman windows resplendent after being repaired and refurbished. The choir loft and organ have been removed. The raised floor of the new sanctuary – in the middle of the transept and above the crypt in the undercroft – has been completed and awaits the laying of a new marble cover. The beautiful mosaic floor of the old sanctuary, which will now be the new Blessed Sacrament chapel, is undergoing restoration and repair, as are the walls and ceilings of the three side chapels. The three sanctuary areas along with their new cupboards and carpets have been completed and are at lockup stage. There is extensive work still to be done in the 1865 narthex and porch, and in the new nave and western face of the Cavanagh building before the huge amount of scaffolding in the interior of the cathedral can be removed.

Tanya Tan with her youngest daughter Amber.

Paula olearnik of Poland embraces Pope John Paul II during a ceremony in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican in 2004. The pontiff often urged Catholic youth to dedicate themselves to God. CNS

WA BISHOPS’ E AStEr mESSAgES 2009

Barry

Hickey Archbishop of Perth

Happy Easter

When we are wishing one another the traditional “happy Easter”, I hope we make an effort to remember that we are wishing people the happiness of Easter, the happiness that comes to humanity because of Easter.

Easter not only shows us the truth about ourselves, but also gives us the strength to become freer and better persons who live under the light of eternity.

This truth is revealed in the conflicts

Jesus went through. In his human nature, Jesus did not want to die, but even more he did not want to say ‘no’ to the will of God.

This great conflict was settled in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus asked whether the cup (his suffering and death) could pass away, but even in that agony he insisted ‘not my will, but yours be done’.

When the inner struggle was over, he went forward to face the injustice, the abuse, the suffering and the death

Easter - The holy fire of God’s love

The image of fire as a destructive force has been indelibly imprinted on our minds in recent weeks as the Victorian bushfires claimed many lives and destroyed so much property, the works of human endeavour. These fires have been the cause of great suffering that has torn at the heartstrings of the nation. At this time the country continues to weep at the sight of the resultant dispossession and anguish. As the raging fires subsided, often all that was left were mountains of ash.

In many ways we can say our Easter begins with ash as on Ash Wednesday and ends with the fire of Holy Saturday. The Easter Fire is blessed then and lit to celebrate ‘Christ Our Light’. As these words are intoned by the celebrant the congregation raise their candles and proclaim in song, ‘Thanks be to God’. For our new life in Christ we are truly grateful. The magnificent feast of Easter and all that goes with it is a faith-filled collection of choice offerings that lead us to a greater appreciation of God’s love for humanity and for each one of us individually. Easter is about salvation, conversion and reconciliation. It is about remembering and thanksgiving. It is about rejoicing and hoping. And it is about preparation for new life. As it was by one man that death came, so through one man has come the resurrection of the dead. Just as all die in Adam, so in Christ all will be brought to life. 1Cor 15:21-22

With the help of our Easter Liturgies we give thanks to God for His powerful act of love poured out for us in the sacrifice of His son. It is such a pity that too often we appear to regard this loving act with near indifference as though our senses are completely dulled; as though the passion, death and resurrection of Christ was a minor headline on the back pages of history. It is no wonder that we have such trouble coping with the great disappointments of life when we refuse to make the effort to glimpse the heights of this blessed moment in time that plainly is there to sustain us. We are at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; it is through Him, by faith, that we have been admitted into God’s favour in which we are living… Let us exult too in our hardships, understanding that hardships develop perseverance, and perseverance develops a tested character…When we were still hopeless, at the appointed time, Christ died for the godless...It is proof of God’s own love for us, that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. Rom:5:1-8.

Christians are a remembering people. We recall in worship the mystery of God’s love and make the mystery ever-present in the community, encouraging in each other that conversion which will bring us closer to the holiness God has in mind for us.

Your minds, then, must be sober and ready for action; put all your hope in the grace brought to you by the revelation of Jesus Christ. Do not allow yourselves to be shaped by the passions of your old ignorance, but as obedient children, be yourselves holy in all your activity, after the model of the Holy One who calls us, since scripture says, ‘Be holy, for I am holy.’ 1Peter 1:13-16

It began with ash on our foreheads. And now we pray that the Easter event we celebrate will end with fire in our hearts for the love of Jesus Christ. May we come to live our belief confidently and enthusiastically. May the light of Christ, rising in glory, dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds.

I wish you and your families all the light and power of a faith filled Easter.

which awaited him. He went forward totally united with the will of God, fully integrated, fully free. It was this unity that enabled him to do what he had to do, and which brought him to the ultimate freedom of the resurrection.

Throughout his life on earth Jesus had revealed his dedication to the will of God. When he was still a boy he had asked Joseph and Mary, ‘Did you not know I must be about my father’s business?’

He rejected all temptations of Satan and all of the human things that would have detracted from his relationship with his Father, and repeatedly said that he had come to obey his Father’s will.

As well as his own great example,

Jesus taught his Apostles (and us) that ‘he who wants to save his life will lose it, but he who surrenders his life for my sake will find it’. It is only through being united with the will of God that we discover the freedom and happiness of being who we really are. Adam wanted to be like God and thought he could achieve it by saying ‘no’ to God. It didn’t work then and hasn’t worked since. History and the world are full of the destruction of life and love that comes from this misbegotten philosophy.

Human liberty comes not from saying ‘no’, but from saying ‘yes’ to God. This unites us with the will of God, the will of our Creator, the will of our Saviour, the meaning of our life.

History and the world are also full of the joy of this choice – in the lives of the saints and in the lives of ordinary men and women who love God and love their neighbour. This is the happiness of Easter, a happiness that comes not only from the ‘one-off’ event of the Resurrection but also from the ever-present Sacraments which give us unity with Jesus and with one another. Enter the deep meaning of Easter, the death and resurrection to new life, and it will restore your hope, your selfworth and dignity, and set you on the path to true freedom and love. I wish all readers of The Record and all bishops, priests and people in the Archdiocese a happy and holy Easter.

Justin Bianchini Bishop of Geraldton

Easter Message

As Priests we are blessed to read or rather pray the Psalms each day. The Psalms are inspired prayers in the Old Testament. They are special also because they tap into all sorts of situations, human conditions, experiences and feelings of people. For people of Faith it is important to know or sense that God is close and that his loving and sav-

Seeking the risen Jesus in troubled times

Today, many people are living in fear in our troubled financial times. We are all concerned about the future.

The concern may be employment security, mortgages - or feeding families. Then there are older people whose income has dropped, who are worried about how their children are handling the effects in their own lives or who may be having to help their children with their debts. Marriages may be coming under strain because weekends away or social lives are no longer affordable. No longer can unspoken anger or hurts be ignored.

ing power is with them in the all circumstances of their lives. As a result the Psalms time and time again recall and speak to God about how in the past he rescued his people. Psalm 77 is a cry to God in distress. The Psalmist recalls the great Passover event when God freed his people from slavery in Egypt and says “What God is great as our God? You are the God who works wonders. You showed your power among the peoples. Your strong arm redeemed your people”

The Psalmist goes on to say something so beautiful, real and worth pondering about the way God works in our lives and world in verse 19 “Your way led through the sea, your path through the mighty waters and no-one saw your footprints.”

I mention this at Easter time because as Christians we have so much more to recall about the saving work of our God. The Psalms are true for us too and that is

why we can and do pray them. We identify with the Passover of God’s people in the Old Testament. Now however because of Jesus, we have His new Passover. We recall His dying and rising and how He passed from one to the other through the saving power of a loving Father. This touches our lives so profoundly. It’s because of this we know that we too have been able to pass from the death of sin to the full life in God.

We know that through all the hardships and difficulties in life God will bring good. We know that this happens even in the bigger things we have to face such as serious illness (ours and our loved ones), deep grief, hurts or disappointments.

Jesus’ death and resurrection has a huge impact on the greatest event we all have to face, namely our death. In Jesus and in His Passover we know that death is not a dead end. We actually, like Jesus and

All can turn to the Risen Christ today For many, Easter commemorates a past event. They do not appreciate what the feast can mean for their lives. Jesus is Risen! He is alive! We can turn to him in troubled times, just like the people of Israel.

The example of those in the Gospels In the Gospels, we see Jesus approached by young, like the rich young man, and old, like the elderly woman suffering a haemorrhage. Parents sought his help, and so did the many times divorced, like the woman at the well. Jesus was approached by those others looked down on, like Mary Magdalene, and the generally rejected, like Zacchaeus. The sick were cured and cripples freed from their bonds. The list goes on. If we look closely enough, we will find someone just like us going to Jesus. He said ‘Come to me all you who labour and are over-burdened, and I will give you rest.’ So we can approach him as a troubled teenager, or a parent worried about a child; as a married person uncertain of a marriage relationship, or someone living alone – Jesus will welcome all. If we have lost our job, fear bankruptcy or have been deserted, Jesus calls ‘Come to me….’

Donald Sproxton

Auxiliary Bishop of Perth

Easter Message

ith the

Wwith Jesus, take a purposeful step. We pass from a limited way of living, thinking and being to a fuller, richer and new way of living and being. Like the people in the Psalms we also need to recall the Passover of Jesus often and what it did for us.

The Jews make another beautiful step in Faith. As they recall God’s saving action years ago they believe that this saving power is still with them and at work in their present lives.

This is also true for us as well, but even more so in our Eucharist. Our Faith is that with each Eucharist we are not merely recalling His Passover but Jesus renews His saving death and resurrection for us here and now. Here and now He shares His saving power with us. This saving power accompanies us during that day and that week. This Easter, and throughout life may we continue to recall and experience the saving power of Jesus in all the situations of our lives.

Where can we experience Jesus today?

There are many ways we can turn to Jesus. For example, he is present spiritually when we reflect on a passage of the Bible, love our husband or wife, gather with others to pray, care for anyone in need, or seek the ministry of a priest. One of the most intimate ways we can approach Jesus personally today is in our churches, where he is present in the Blessed Sacrament. The red lamp reminds us of his invitation, ‘Come to me…’ At first, the Blessed Sacrament was reserved so that the sick and prisoners could receive Jesus in Holy Communion. Before long, however, the Spirit led believers to realise that they could approach Jesus for personal guidance, support and help in the same way as those we read about in the Gospels approached him. We speak of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament as ‘the Real Presence’. He is present body and blood, human and divine. Jesus experienced life as a son, a family member and a worker. He knew poverty and suffering, hunger and rejection, torture and death. He knows whatever we are experiencing. All we need do is focus on his presence and pour out our hearts to him. We may pray in our own words or make prayers we have learned.

we would have true life. The Resurrection of Jesus demonstrates the power of the Spirit and becomes the reason for our confidence in God.

I really like the image of the light that has been used so effectively by the Church to teach the truth that Christ died and rose again.  The light is only known because of the dark.  Our lives, if we look with care, throw up so many experiences of darkness that are changed by the appearance of this light.

Care is all important.

In the time in which we live, the Christian is in great danger. The society in which we live is losing bit by bit values and basic respect for the human person. We are beginning to live a grey sort of existence for the sake of conformity. Children are at risk of losing their skill to develop three dimensional relationships because they are more and more engaged in the two dimensional life of computers, i-pods, facebooks and all manner of virtual reality technology. Their parents are less convinced of universal truth and principles. We are all at risk of not noticing the society overheating and our freedom and security evaporating. We are living at a time when Jesus Christ and his Gospel are desperately needed so that we can look again with care at what is happening around us. We need the light that really matters to shine again so that we can learn to distinguish things from the dark. Easter provides you and me with the opportunity to consider again the place of faith and religion in our personal life and their relevance in the good they can contribute to public life in general.

I wish you every blessing this Easter especially for the courage to revisit the sources of our faith and the humility to accept the Gospel truth. May the Risen Christ reveal by his Light the People worthy to witness to Him.

If we find this hard, we can just read a little scripture or even remain totally silent. We just need to let him guide us through our thoughts or strengthen us for whatever we are facing. He wants to renew and encourage us, comfort and console us – what we need.

Let us show love for those who are troubled

Ideally, we should be able to go to Jesus in a church whenever we need. However, security concerns may mean our church is open only before and after Mass. These are opportunities to spend some quiet time with him, sharing our lives. It is Jesus who draws a parish community together and makes it grow. Community grows to the extent that each parishioner’s personal relationship with Jesus grows. Personal prayer is essential.

Unfortunately, the level of conversation before and after Mass in many of our churches these days makes quiet personal time with Jesus almost impossible. In times gone by, people socialised outside a church, and prayed quietly inside. Now the socialising has moved inside and those needing quiet personal time with Jesus have no where to go.

Sometimes people say that talking in church is important for community

– but would anyone seriously claim that parishes where the socialising has moved inside the church are growing?

An Easter priority As Catholics, do we not need to do all that we can to help those troubled by the current financial crisis? Could not one of the most important ways we do so be by reminding them that they can approach Jesus personally in our churches for help in their troubles?

But there needs to be the prayerful conditions in the church for this to become a reality.

Might not this be a time to live Christian charity by allowing all, but especially the troubled, to pray in our churches before and after Mass – and to return the socialising outside? In the long term, this would be a move towards real renewal of our parishes as faith communities.

Easter is about experiencing Christ Easter is a celebration that Christ is Risen and present among us. He wants us to draw on him and his power for our lives.

This Easter, let us reflect on whether we need greater faith to approach the Risen Lord personally in our churches with our life concerns, like the people in the Gospels – and to contribute to an atmosphere in our churches that will allow others to do the same.

Christopher Saunders Bishop of Broome

Jim Caviezel portrays Christ with his cross in a scene from the movie “The Passion of the Christ.” The film, produced and directed by Mel Gibson, is a vivid depiction of the last hours of the life of Jesus. It received an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America for sequences of graphic violence.

Gerard Holohan Bishop of Bunbury

Finding Christ alive: The Record returns to China

In February 2006, Derek Boylen and Jamie O’Brien, two journalists from The Record, visited China to witness the works of Casa Ricci Social Services, an organisation founded by Jesuit priest Fr Luis Ruiz that supports over 150 leper villages and centres throughout the country. Their report touched the hearts of many readers of The Record who gave generously to the inspiring works of Fr Ruiz and his associates.

In March this year two more Journalists, Rob Hiini and Mark Reidy, spent two weeks visiting a Leprosarium and an AIDS Centre in central China, that are also being supported by Casa Ricci.

They were able to witness the transformation that is taking place because of the love and dedication of the Catholic nuns who have committed themselves to a life of serving those who suffer, as well as seeing how the generosity of The Record readers has contributed to changing the lives of those they reach out to.

Over the coming weeks The Record will feature photos and stories of Rob and Mark’s time with Casa Ricci in an attempt to continue the essential support that is being provided to over 5000 people with leprosy and now a growing number of adults and children with HIV/ AIDS.

When Love Conquers Fear

n By Mark Reidy

When I first walked into the leprosy village in the isolated foothills of central China, I didn’t think that I would ever be able to escape the haunting images of disfigured faces and limbs. Yet when I stepped back into the outside world three days later, the most powerful image I carried with me was that of a crumbling wall that had once imprisoned these people. It left me with an overwhelming sense of hope and reminded me that the resurrected Christ is alive and well, even in the most far-flung, forgotten corners of the world. It was, in essence, the message of easter. The wall, which surrounds the han Zhong Leprosarium, was built in the early 1950’s and was many kilometres from the nearest town when it was constructed. But even more devastating for those who were abandoned inside was the wall of fear that was simultaneously erected around them.

At the time this large institution literally locked away over 3000 men, women and children afflicted with leprosy and isolated them from the world outside. Rejected by family and society alike, victims were crowded into barren concrete cubicles, visited occasionally by government appointed medical staff who took great measures to avoid any physical contact. Living in such overcrowded and unhygienic conditions took its toll and those who did not die became permanently disabled and scarred, their bodies hijacked by a disease that reeked physical havoc when left untreated.

Today there are 273 people living inside these walls. The majority have been here for most of their lives and know that this is the place where they will die. The physical scars that they carry ensure that they could never return to their families,

despite the inactivity of their disease. The walls of fear in society, due to ignorance and misunderstanding, still stand high - but their foundations are beginning to falter. Five years ago a group of Chinese Catholic Sisters, with

the support of Casa Ricci Social Services, came to live among them. They came bearing medication, clothing and food, but more importantly they embraced these neglected people with a love that they had never known. It was the first time that these

long suffering people, some who had been there for over 60 years, had any meaningful contact with the world beyond the wall. The witness of the Sisters has since led to a greater interaction with the world outside as people slowly realise that there is nothing to fear.

Many shared with us about the times, prior to the Sisters arrival, when they went without washing themselves or changing clothes for one, or even two years at a time, because they had no hands to do so. They recall having to rely on the more able bodied to prepare food for them and of watching helplessly as their festering wounds ravaged their already decaying bodies.

But these memories were beginning to fade and their faces came to life as they spoke of the gentle, young women who washed, fed and treated their wounds, but even more significantly, provided them with the emotional healing that came with the touch of a loving hand.

As one old woman shared her story, tears streamed down her face and one of the Sisters gently stroked her hair. I wondered if she had ever felt such love in the time before the Sisters arrived.

Yes, it is this image of the crumbling wall that I will carry with me into the easter season. It reminds me of the Scripture, “In love there is no room for fear, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). It is the power of sacrificial love, the choice to lay down one’s life for another that is transforming a once forgotten leprosarium deep in China. It is a love that is freeing those who have been trapped on both sides of this wall of fear and resurrecting new life.

Anyone wanting to assist Casa Ricci can forward donations to: For Casa Ricci

Notre Dame lecturer heads into human trafficking underworld

n By Anthony Barich

UNIveRSITY of Notre Dame

Australia lecturer elsa Cornejo

is about to delve into the underworld of human trafficking in the Philippines, learning how victims can be empowered to lift themselves out of their situation.

Miss Cornejo, 29, was regional director of Caritas in WA for three months before accepting an Australian Postgraduate Award scholarship to undertake a PhD through Curtin University, whereby she will get up to 20 women who have been the victims of human trafficking to photograph what it means to

be a woman in the Philippines. having documented their experiences in the poorest areas of the Philippines, the women will then meet Miss Cornejo again to analyse the photos in a social, political, economic and cultural context to raise awareness in them of how and why they are in the situation so they can claw their way out.

“This is the first step to social change and transformation,” said Miss Cornejo, who also lectures and tutors in behavioural science and social justice at UNDA in Fremantle.

Miss Cornejo migrated to Australia as a refugee as part of a humanitarian program from

war-torn el Salvador, where up to 90 per cent of the population is Catholic and was being persecuted.

She became passionate about human rights when she returned to San Jose, one of the poorest areas of el Salvador, in 2001, and lived with the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition. She was shocked at the extreme poverty the locals experience.

Returning to study theology and social justice at UNDA, she visited Cambodia as part of a Caritas-UNDA joint project, where a girl in a local village told how she had been coaxed into leaving her family to earn money and be educated further,

only to be taken straight to a brothel where she was raped and abused.

She was then shipped to Thailand as a sex slave, where she contracted h I v /AIDS, before being caught by police and deported back to Cambodia, where she was ostracised by her village as the locals knew little of AIDS.

“her story touched me,” Miss Cornejo said, adding that she pondered whether someone could regain their dignity after “losing their humanity”. Flowing on from this inspiration, her PhD in the Philippines will focus on helping empower women to integrate back into society.

“In the 20th century, people have realised how profitable trafficking humans is – it’s easier than guns or drugs,” she said. The Philippines, she adds, is one of the hotbeds for human trafficking, especially in garment industries, where people work in sweatshops in slave-like conditions. The problem is exacerbated as villagers, especially women, are attracted to leave for the city or other countries to earn more money for the benefit of their families.

Miss Cornejo will write columns for The Record on her experiences when she arrives in the Philippines in September.

Bias strips touching film of God and integrity

ification as an model of a soul that achieved spiritual holiness by fulfilling God’s will in the hardest times of her life. The character Camino, in Fesser’s Spanish speaking film, is portrayed as a charming young teenage girl whose platonic love with a boy named ‘Cuco’ sustains her spiritually and gives her hope when she becomes the victim of her mother’s fanaticism with Camino’s terminal illness as a means of sanctification for her daughter. Camino lives in a world - of dreams, where she is Cinderella and the boy she loves is the prince. Showing the imaginary mind of Camino, the film portrays magnificently the doubts and hopes of a young teenage girl who falls in love for the first time. Yet it is this story of love that betrays the film’s integrity in relation to the protagonist’s spiritual experience during her terminal illness.

We are introduced to a young 11 year old girl who is inclined to the supernatural love of God and prayer; however, Fesser fails to mature this spiritual essence of Camino’s character as Cuco becomes the centre of Camino’s interior happiness and peace, placing as secondary the supernatural experience she encounters with God in her spiritual battle on her death bed, which fails to bring to light the true virtue of Alexia Gonzalez Barrios.

The film had no doubt some spiritual context, succeeding in showing the superior maturity and spiritual insight of Camino in comparison to her school mates. There were, alongside this spiritual awareness, extreme tenderness and heart-breaking portrayals of Camino’s physical and emotional suffering of an illness that took away the young life of the protagonist.

Crucial to the storyline was the phenomenon of ‘penance’, which the film didn’t concede to balance on a fair objective view – it openly distorted the virtue of penance as a cruel, imposed idiosyncrasy from Gloria to her daughter, making Camino’s selfless acceptance to God’s will a mere fabrication of the fanatical guidance from her Mother who also repressed Camino’s emotional state during her illness and imposed on her to ‘give up’ her life for God. Fesser’s Camino has Gloria as the real antagonist of the film, construing that the real ‘cross’ Camino has to carry is her mother’s constant delusions of her daughter’s suffering and obligation of penance.

The filmmakers present Opus Dei in similar light of a religious cult through the representation of Camino’s older sister, Nuria - an Opus Dei young member who is restricted, bounded and brainwashed by her Supervisor, and who resolves to become a distant and cold figure when Camino and her family needed her most.

The filmmakers have conspired to make Camino out as the victim of her mother’s religious ideas, and her mother as a victim of the Catholic Church beliefs: one of the most grabbing ending scenes has a Priest wanting to take a picture of Camino dead in her hospital bed as part of evidence for a request to beatification, disregarding any human and emotional respect for the dead, and the mother bursting into tears as she holds her dead daughter in her arms.

The film begins with a prayer dialogue between Camino and her mother, and at the end of the film this same ‘prayer’ is exposed as being a mere love request from Camino to Cuco - hence we are left wondering whether Fesser has created this film in order to openly challenge against Alexia Gonzalez Barros’ ‘sanctity’. After a harsh ordeal with cancer Camino dies dreaming of Cuco, surrounded by applause and theatrical music – where this film had the potential to be a magnificent inspirational example for today’s youth to find hope and holiness through God in one’s hardest moments, it settled for a touching story about a dying teenage girl in Pamplona.

Gallo Martinez is media and youth ministry worker for

Love with skin on: A nun, above right, at Han Zhong Leprosarium attends to a gentleman still suffering from the wounds of leprosy and decades of neglect. The wall around the site, bottom right, like the public’s stultifying fear of leprosy born of ignorance, is slowly coming down.

Elsa Cornejo

Girl who defied Hitler ‘was inspired by Newman’

If you come to Mass only rarely and occasionally find yourself wondering what the relevance of Easter is to modern life, an heroic example can be found in the life of Sophie Scholl.

n By Simon Caldwell

Cardinal John Henry newman was the inspiration of Germany’s greatest heroine in defying adolf Hitler, scholars have claimed.

new documents unearthed by German academics have revealed that the writings of the 19th-century English theologian were a direct influence on Sophie Scholl, who was beheaded for circulating leaflets urging students at Munich University to rise up against nazi terror.

Scholl, a student who was 21 at the time of her death in February 1943, is a legend in Germany, with two films made about her life and more than 190 schools named after her.

She was also voted “woman of the 20th century” by readers of Brigitte , a women’s magazine, and a popular 2003 television series called Greatest Germans declared her to be the greatest German woman of all time.

But behind her heroism was the “theology of conscience” expounded by Cardinal newman, according to Professor Günther Biemer, the leading German interpreter of newman, and Jakob Knab, an expert on the life of Sophie Scholl, who will later this year publish research in newman Studien on the White rose resistance movement, to which she belonged. Their findings include correspondence between Scholl and her boyfriend, Fritz Hartnagel, a German army officer, to whom she gave two volumes of newman’s sermons when he was deployed to the eastern front in May 1942.

On arriving in the town of Mariupol, russia, Hartnagel saw corpses of Soviet soldiers who had been shot by their German guards and began to hear reports of mass killings of local Jews.

He later wrote to Scholl to say that reading newman’s words in such an awful place were like tasting “drops of precious wine”.

“What a fallacy it is to take nature as our model for our actions and to describe its cruelty as ‘great’,” he said in a letter of July 1942.

“But we know by whom we were created and that we stand in a relationship of moral obligation to our creator. Conscience gives us the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”

Mr Knab has identified Hartnagel’s words as being taken verbatim from a sermon given by newman called “The Testimony of Conscience”. newman taught that conscience was an echo of the voice of God enlightening each person to moral truth in concrete situations. Christians, he argued, had a duty to obey a good conscience over and above all other considerations.

l ieutenant Hartnagel’s convictions later led him to protest against the mass murders of the Jews.

On January 22 1943 he was evacuated on the last plane out of Stalingrad before the city fell to the russians in a battle that would mark a turning point in the war.

But by the time he returned to Germany Sophie was dead, executed along with Hans and her friend, Christoph Probst. in Stadelheim Prison, Munich, after making her own protest against Hitler’s tyranny.

Under questioning from the Gestapo Scholl said she had been compelled by her Christian conscience to peacefully oppose nazism.

Sophie and Hans both asked to be received into the Catholic Church an hour before they were executed but were dissuaded by their pastor who argued that such a decision would upset their mother, a lutheran lay preacher.

Fr dermot Fenlon, a priest of the Birmingham Oratory

who was given excerpts of Mr Knab’s findings to include in a speech on newman in Milan last week, said the originality of the research was that it showed the clear “centrality” of newman to Hans and Sophie Scholl. He said: “Knab has identified the presence of newman in correspondence, in diaries and in the analysis of correspondence, particularly between Sophie and Hartnagel. He has shown how that influence became operative at a critical moment.”

He added: “The religious question at the heart of the White rose has not been adequately acknowledged and it is only through the work of Guenter Biemer and Jakob Knab that newman’s influence... can be identified as highly significant.” in his speech Fr Fenlon explained that Sophie, a lutheran, was introduced to the works of newman by a scholar called Theodor Haeker, who had written to the Birmingham Oratory in 1920 asking for copies of newman’s work, which he wanted to translate into German. On reading newman, Haeker converted to Catholicism and he later became such an outspoken critic of nazism that he was forbidden to publish his work by the regime. Early in the Second World War he became a good friend of the Scholls and a direct inspiration of the White rose movement, which opposed nazism by circulating thousands of leaflets telling German

Christians that they had a “moral duty” to rise up against Hitler, the “messenger of a nti-Christ”. The movement, made up mostly of German students, also condemned the persecution of the Jews in 1942 - the year Hitler began to implement the Final Solution - as the “most frightful crime against human dignity, a crime that is unparalleled in the whole of history”.

Much of the language of the fourth pamphlet in particular directly echoed

Doctor denounces conscientious objection bans for heath workers

Says women will lose as obstetrics suffers ideology-driven restrictions.

ST JOH n’S, newfoundland (Zenit.org) - a doctor is stating that rescinding the right to conscientious objection from health care professionals will hamper the progressive initiative of the obstetrics field and the choice of women.

d r r obert Walley, executive director of MaterCare i nternational, a newfoundland-based organisation of Catholic health professionals, affirmed this in a statement released today. On behalf of his organisation, encompassing the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, australia and Poland, he expressed “deep concern regarding measures to rescind protection of the human right of doctors, especially specialist obstetricians and gynecologists to practise their professions in accordance with their consciences and best judgments as to the best

Sixteen out of 25 US Catholic senators vote down conscience provisions protecting Catholics in abortion provision

Wa SH in GTO n , d C ( l ife news.com) - The United States Senate rejected an amendment from a prolife senator last Thursday that would have provided conscience protection on abortion for doctors and medical centres. The amendment comes at a time when President Barak Obama is considering overturning further protections. Sen Tom Coburn sponsored an amendment to the Senate budget bill that would protect the right of conscience for health care workers. His budget amendment was to “protect the freedom of conscience for patients and the right of health care providers to

interest of all their patients.” during the last 40 years, he pointed out, “developments in fetal assessment technologies” has led to a “new sub-specialty of fetal mater-

serve patients without violating their moral and religious convictions.”

However, the Senate rejected the conscience amendment on a 56-41 vote with most of the chamber’s democrats voting against it along with a handful of proabortion republicans.

Three d emocrats joined most of the Senate republicans in voting for the Coburn amendment.

douglas Johnson, the legislative director for national r ight to life, talked with l ifenews.com about the vote afterwards. He says the pro-life community needs to be prepared for even bigger battles in the Senate.

“This Senate vote has no direct legal effect, but it is

nal medicine and the ability to diagnose and treat the unborn child as the second patient from the time of conception.” “at the same time,” the doctor noted, “legislation

one more signal that the coming democratic ‘health care reform’ bill will be loaded with provisions that assault basic pro-life principles, so the pro-life movement better be prepared for a big fight,” he explained.

Marjorie d annenfelser, the president of the Susan B. a nthony l ist, a prolife women’s group, told l ifenews.com before the vote that the amendment was worthy of support.

“This amendment is crucial in our fight to protect doctors and nurses around the country from being discriminated against for refusing to participate in abortions and other medical procedures that violate their conscience,” she said. The

was introduced throughout the world such that abortion would become the basis on which maternal health care is provided which has resulted in a profound change in the

organs are installed in churches, schools and institutions as well as private dwellings. Some recent events using a llens include last years graduation nights in Winthrop Hall at UWa, the Papal visits to Sydney and the

Chrism Mass at

a llen claim

the world’s largest manufacturer of church organs with over 90,000 installations worldwide and on all seven continents. Worldwide demand for a llen organs is such that the factory of 250 employees in USa is currently manufacturing over 30 different models. The same careful crafts¬manship that goes into

amendment comes at a time when Obama is considering rescinding the Provider Conscience Clause that further protects the rights of health workers.

President Bush put the provision into place to provide more enforcement for the three federal laws that make it so medical professionals and facilities are not required to do abortions.

However, President Obama has proposed overturning those conscience protections and will likely do so after a 30-day public comment window expires on april 9. She said she already knew of cases where Catholics had been fired for refusal to participate in providing abortions.

primary focus of obstetrical practice.”

Thus, he observed, “the humanity and value of the unborn has been significantly reduced.” Walley contin-

l awyer h arold Cassidy speaks during a rally at the university of Notre dame in Notre dame, i ndiana, on a pril 5. h undreds protested on the campus against the school’s invitation to uS President Barack obama to speak there in May.

ued: “Conscientious objection has long been a tenet of civilised societies and it is now proposed that this right be denied by the rescinding protection of doctors.

“By interfering in the freedom to practice according to conscience, the principles of autonomy of the physician and the rights of mothers will be removed.

“This proposed legislation is an attack on an inalienable right. To force doctors to perform procedures they believe

their largest five-manual organs and custom built instruments is also applied to the smallest twomanual and pedal instruments. The company has been manu-

facturing organs for over 60 years. With an a llen organ you get the sound of a fine pipe organ (they actually sample the sounds of real pipes) without the inherent dis-

newman’s theology, said Fr Fenlon. He said: “newman’s influence on the movement took the form of a light which questioned the darkness.” “ n ewman had won Haeker to the Church,” he said. “Haeker sought to win the younger generation to newman understood on his own terms.” He added:_”When, as we are allowed to hope, newman is beatified by a German pope, it might seem reasonable to see it as the fruit of a movement which began in Birmingham and found its most impressive expression in the Third reich.” it was through Haeker that the young Joseph ratzingerthe future Pope Benedict XV i - learned to admire newman, who died in Birmingham in 1890. The Pope is so keen to beatify newman that he asks about the progress of his Cause on a regular basis. at present a panel of theologians is considering whether the inexplicable healing of an a merican man “bent double” by a crippling spinal disorder is the miracle needed for newman’s beatification to proceed. newman’s theology of conscience was explained by Fr ian Ker, the Oxford theologian and newman biographer, during a speech at the same Milan conference. i n the speech called newman, Modernity and Conscience”, Fr Ker said newman believed conscience was “sovereign” but not “autonomous”.

“The conscience is the spokesman not of the individual personality or temperament but of God,” he said. - The CaTholiC herald

to be unethical, immoral and clearly harmful to mother and unborn child and to threaten their right to practice if they should refuse, is a form of totalitarianism and to amounts to discrimination and persecution.”

He predicted the practice of obstetrics in the US “will suffer as there will be a sameness of practice which will stifle further thought and progress in maternal health care.”

“it is accepted by all governments, professions and religious faiths,” Walley pointed out, “that it is unethical for doctors to cooperate with capital punishment by giving the lethal injection, or to use their surgical skills for judicial amputations.”

“The so called freedom to choose that one group of women has supposedly gained through the introduction of abortion will now be lost by all women as a consequence of their inability to consult an obstetrician whose practice is based on respect for life and on hope from its very beginning.

“it will be bought at the expense of a once noble profession.”

harmony of the pipes going out of tune. a llen was the company that developed the now widely used technique of digital sampling, and in fact had the patent and exclusivity on digital sampling throughout the 1970’s. no periodic maintenance is required for the instruments. With a 10-year-warranty you are guaranteed satisfaction. a llen supports all the models they have ever made, which is an incredible service record. They carry over a million US dollars worth of spare parts – even parts to support their pre-digital instruments, some of which have been in use for over 60 years. The same family has run a llen Organs for their entire existence and the company carries no debt. ron r aymond, the agent for Western australia, is always happy to talk to you about your musical needs and can be contacted on 9450 3322. For more information visit the website at www.allenorganswa.com

Pope names new Archbishop of Westminster

lOndOn (CnS) - Pope Benedict XV i has appointed a rchbishop Vincent nichols of Birmingham, England, to succeed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor as archbishop of Westminster. Pope Benedict also accepted the resignation of Cardinal MurphyO’Connor, 76, the same day. a rchbishop nichols, 63, had served as auxiliary bishop of Westminster for nine years under the late Cardinal George Basil Hume before he became archbishop of Birmingham in 2000. He will be installed at a May 21 Mass in l ondon’s Westminster Cathedral. a rchbishop nichols said that during his 17 years in l ondon, partly working as the general secretary of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, he had learned a “great deal” from Cardinal Hume about “the demands of the office of the archbishop of Westminster and i am daunted by the task that lies ahead.”

Buddhist witness inspiring

VaT iC an Ci TY (C nS) - i n a world of unbridled consumerism and materialism, Christians can find inspiration in the Buddhist witness of happiness in nonattachment to material goods, said the Pontifical Council for interreligious dialogue. in a message for the feast of Vesakh, a commemoration of the major events in the life of the Buddha, the Vatican office urged Christians and Buddhists to work together to contribute to the well-being of the world community. The message, signed by the council’s president, Cardinal Jean-l ouis Tauran said Christian and Buddhist communities are aware of the challenges of “the ever more extensive phenomenon of poverty in its various forms” and “the unbridled pursuit of material possessions and the pervasive shadow of consumerism.”

e nglish Cardinal John h enry Newman.

Yesterday i installed an allen organ at Sacred heart Thornlie for the Chrism Mass that Jacinta

EastEr 2009

Blogging atheist now ‘unshakable rationalist Catholic’

From Atheist to Catholic ‘Unshakeable’ Rationalist Blogged Her Way Into the Church.

n By Nona Aguilar

Jennifer fulwiler “always thought it was obvious that God did not exist.” fulwiler grew up a content atheist. Having a profound respect for knowledge, particularly scientific knowledge, fulwiler was convinced that religion and reason were incompatible. not surprisingly, she was also emphatically anti-Christian and, especially, anti-Catholic. “Catholic beliefs seemed bizarre and weird,” she says. fulwiler would have been astonished to know that she and Joe fulwiler, her husband, would come to embrace those “bizarre,” “weird” beliefs. On easter 2007,

they entered the Catholic Church with deep joy and a sense of coming home — and a blog aided their conversion.

register correspondent nona Aguilar spoke to Jennifer fulwiler about the couple’s unexpected journey.

There is always a first step that leads to belief in God. What was yours?

Thanks to meeting and knowing my husband, i learned that belief in God is not fundamentally unreasonable. We met at the high-tech company where we both worked. Joe believed in God — something that, fortunately, i didn’t know for a while.

Why was that fortunate? To me, belief in God was so unreasonable that, by definition, no reasonable person could believe in such a thing. i felt i could never be compatible with someone that unreasonable. Had i known that Joe believed in God, i would never have dated him.

What was your reaction when you found out? it gave me pause. Joe is too smart — brilliant, really, with degrees from Yale, Columbia and Stanford — to believe in something nonsensical. i also met many of his friends. They, too, are highly intelligent — some with M.D.s and Ph.D.s from schools like Harvard and Princeton — and believed.

none of this made me believe in God, of course, but i could no longer say that only unreasonable or unintelligent people believe.

What caused you to consider the question more seriously?

i have always been a truth-seeker, which is why i was an atheist. But i had a prideful, arrogant way of approaching questions about life and meaning. i now realise that pride is the most effective way to block out God so that one doesn’t see him at all. Certainly, i didn’t.

The birth of our first child motivated me to seek the truth with humility. i can’t emphasise this point enough: Humility, true humility, is crucial to the conversion process.

Most atheists are unchanged after their children’s births. Why were you so affected? first, i had already begun thinking about the possibility of God’s existence. After our son’s birth, i wanted to know the truth about life’s great questions — for his sake. for the first time, i was motivated to seek truth with true humility. for example, i began reading, studying, and thinking about the great minds. Most, if not the majority, believed in some other world, some higher power, a god or gods — something. even the great pre-Christian thinkers like Plato, Aristotle and Socrates believed. Another avenue of exploration:

i always revered the great scientists, including the founders of the significant branches of science. Very few were atheists. indeed, some of the greatest were profoundly believing Christians.

“To me, belief in God was so unreasonable that, by definition, no reasonable person could believe in such a thing. I felt I could never be compatible with someone that unreasonable. Had I known that Joe believed in God, I would never have dated him.”

It could be argued this was because they were steeped in the Christian culture and beliefs of their times.

That ignores a larger question i began asking myself: is it really likely that great minds like Galileo, newton, Kepler, Descartes and others didn’t know how to ask tough questions? Do these people seem to be men who didn’t know how to question assumptions and fearlessly seek truth? Of course not.

Was your husband a help in this process? eventually, but not at first. religion wasn’t something we talked about. Joe was a nonchurchgoing Baptist, which was fine by me. in fact, since i was an atheist, i considered not talking about God to be a good compromise. Our lives were completely secular — just like our wedding.

No church wedding?

Definitely not! i wore a purple dress; we married in a theatre with a friend officiating, using vows we wrote ourselves. The ceremony took seven minutes, then we all partied all night long. in fact, we didn’t even technically get married at our wedding: We did that at city hall a few days before.

Was there ever an aha moment that finally made you abandon atheism?

Several, but one in particular actually shocked me. i asked myself two questions: What is information? And: Can information ever come from a non-intelligent source? it was a shocking moment for me because i had to confront the fact that DnA is information. if i remained an atheist, i would have to believe that all the intricate, detailed, complex information contained in DnA comes out of nowhere and nothing. But i also knew that idea did not make sense. After all, i don’t look at billboards — which con-

Elliott spells out Aussie bishops’ blunder

Schonborn’s Mea Culpa.

r e POrT er S only recently noticed a remarkably tough address delivered by Austria’s most Senior Catholic prelate, Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, last year in Jerusalem on the lack of leadership in the Church in 1968, and since, on the immorality of birth control.

A leading Australian bishop who is also an expert in the theology of marriage and gender in Melbourne backed Cardinal Schonborn’s comments. Bishop Peter elliott of Melbourne supplied The Record with an article he has just completed chronicling widespread dissent or efforts to undermine or weaken Humanae Vitae’s authority in the Church in Australia and internationally (see below).

The blistering attack, in which Vienna’s Cardinal Archbishop Christoph Schonborn accuses a number of his predecessors of lacking the courage to speak out against birth control and blames them in part for the declining birth rate in europe, was delivered to a neocatechumenate meeting in Jerusalem on March 27, but only appeared late in 2008 on the website of the Viennese archdiocese. from there, journalist Christa Pongratz-Lippitt picked up the story, reporting on it on november 8 in The Tablet of London.

Schonborn said that, after the publication of the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae which reiterated traditional Church teaching condemning as immoral the use of birth control, many bishops’ conferences around the world – including those of Belgium, Canada, france, Germany, the netherlands, the US and later Australia – issued statements assuring the faithfully that the issue was a matter of conscience.

These bishops, Schonborn said, “frightened of the press and of being misunderstood by the faithful,” distanced themselves from the Church’s teaching. now, europe is “about to die out,” and part of the reason is the lack of commitment by the bishops to the Church’s true, fruitful, loving and beautiful pro-life teaching, Schonborn said.

Schonborn has told Inside the Vatican in the past that he is “very worried” about the plummeting population in Austria. i think that it is also our sin as bishops, even if none of us were bishops in 1968,” he said in the talk.

Bishops have not had, or did not have, the courage to ‘swim against the tide’ and say yes to Humanae Vitae, he said.

The Cardinal, who is close to Pope Benedict XV i, particularly

criticised two of the many 1968 bishops’ conference declaration on Humanae Vitae , which all stressed the importance of the individual conscience.

He singled out the Maria Trost Declaration, whose signatories included Cardinal franz Koenig, the late archbishop of Vienna, president of the Austrian bishops’ conference and a father of the Second Vatican Council, and Konigstein Declaration, whose signatories included Cardinal Julius Doepfner, the late archbishop of Munich, president of the German bishops’ conference and another Council father. Cardinal Schonborn accused the signatories of “weakening the People of God’s sense for life” so that when “the wave of abortions” and increasing acceptance of homosexuality followed, the Church lacked the courage to oppose them. There were a few memorable exceptions in 1968, the cardinal said, one of which was Krakow, where a group of theologians led by the archbishop and cardinal of Krakow, the future Pope John Paul ii, drew up a memorandum which was sent to Pope Paul V i urging him to write Humanae Vitae i think this witness by a martyr-bishop of the so-called Silent Church carried more weight than all the expertise Pope Paul V i had drawn up on this subject,” Cardinal Schonborn said. it led him to make this courageous decision. i am convinced in my inner being, even if i have no historical evidence, that this text from Krakow helped to give

Pope Paul V i the courage to write Humanae Vitae.” Schonborn thanked the neocatechumenate families for having large families which produce many vocations, and he thanked Popes Paul V i, John Paul ii and Benedict XV i for discerning between the different charisms and, following the example of St Paul in 1 Corinthians 14, saying which are of God. He asked them God to forgive all bishops and give them courage to say “yes” to life.

Speaking from Melbourne, Bishop Peter e lliott told The Record Cardinal Schonborn’s comments were correct.

“What Cardinal Schonborn said is true – and it’s time it was stated openly 40 years down the track,” Bishop e lliott of Melbourne said.

Bishop elliott, a former official with the Pontifical Council for the family in rome for ten years has also just written an article for the Council’s journal setting out the widespread pattern of rejection and undermining of Humanae Vitae that took place in the Church up to and including the level of national bishops’ conferences around the world.

Bishop e lliott says that he was effectively excluded from membership of the Australian Catholic Theological Association for many years because of his support for Humanae Vitae in the article he also recounts the experience of meeting with Bishop Bernard Stewart of the Diocese of Sandhurst in the 1970s and watching as the bishop cried

tain much simpler information than DnA — and think that wind and erosion created them. That wouldn’t be rational. Suddenly, i found that i was a very discomfited atheist.

Is that the point at which you began to believe in God? no. But now i was a reluctant atheist. i had lots of questions but knew no one who might have answers: i had always consciously, deliberately distanced myself from believers. So, coming from the high-tech world, where did i go for answers? i put up a blog, of course! i started posting tough questions on my blog. One matter stood out from the beginning: The best, most thoughtful responses came from Catholics. i ncidentally, their answers were consistently better than the ones from atheists. it intrigued me that Catholics could handle anything i threw at them. Also, their responses reflected such an eminently reasonable worldview that i kept asking myself: How is it that Catholics have so much of this all figured out?

Was your husband helpful to you at this point?

As i started telling Joe some of the answers that i was getting, especially from Catholics, his own interest in religion — and Catholicism — was piqued. We have always been a great team, so it was wonderful that we were

and apologised to him while recounting how the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference had voted to adopt a weaker stance on Humanae Vitae

Part of the damage caused by such weakness led many Catholics into believing the Church’s teaching was not binding, on birth control and sterilisation, he writes.

The international trend for bishops’ conferences to backpedal on support for Humanae Vitae was the most tragic episode in the saga of the encyclical, he recalls in the article.

Bishop e lliott says that 40 years after Pope Paul V i’s courageous and prophetic encyclical, which also made him something of a martyr for promulgating it,

he detects a mood of indifference within the Catholic community in Australia. in many parishes, teaching on birth control is a “non-issue”. no-one speaks about it. r arely do articles appear in Catholic journals on this controversial topic. it is not included in homilies, even if prudence would require a certain reserve and delicacy when preaching at Sunday Mass because children are present,” he writes. And yet, he says, “i n spite of some problems it is easy to explain the core message of

and to promote natural spacing of childbirth. Bishop elliott’s article is available on The record’s website: www.therecord.com.au

exploring these issues and questions together, especially since we were so anti-Catholic.

Both of you? Yes. i thought the Church’s views on most things, but especially marriage, contraception and abortion (since i was then ardently pro-choice), were simply crazy. Joe’s anti-Catholicism, while different, was stronger and more settled. He didn’t understand any Catholic doctrine or apologetics, so he fell into a stereotyped view of Catholics, thinking that they made idols of the pope and Mary, etc. Also, it never really occurred to him to take seriously the idea that Jesus founded one Church. He just assumed the way to pick a church is to find one that fits your personality.

Your conversion has impacted your daily life. What change, in particular, stands out in your mind?

Community! There is nothing like it in atheism. i never understood what people meant by members of the Church being part of the body of Christ, but now i really get it. By being part of the one, holy Catholic Church, there is a palpable connection i now have with other Catholics, even people i don’t know. it’s been amazing to experience that connection and community.

Parish

Nona Aguilar writes from New York City.

Jennifer Fulwiler

Humanae Vitae

Left, Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna, Austria, answers questions during a news conference in Vienna. He has sdetailed Catholic bishops’ failure to act decisively to back Pope Pius VI when the pontiff released Humanae Vitae, a critical breakdown of Church teaching on sexuality that has resulted in many Catholics today contracepting. Right, Bishop Peter Elliott of Sydney says the situation also occured in Australia.

Pope Paul VI and Cardinal Karol Wojtyla meet at the Vatican in this undated photo. Paul VI, who served in Poland during his early priesthood, held the future Pope John Paul II in high regard.

EastEr 2009

Notre Dame Obama speech invite causes national outrage

Unprecedented division has broken out in the Church in America over the issue of abortion following the decision by the University of Notre Dame in Indiana to invite President Barak Obama to give the annual Commencement Address at the University and to confer an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on him.

The President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, took the unprecedented step of publicly urging Catholics to protest against a Catholic university over the move, in light of President Obama’s vigorous support and voting record for legalised abortion, including late-term abortions.

Other bishops in the US described the university’s invitation as scandalous, as the situation became an ongoing story of interest in secular newsmedia across the country.

Cardinal George described the university’s actions as an “extreme embarrassment” for Catholics and for the Church in the US and became the ninth US bishop and one of three cardinals to publicly criticise the university over its decision.

“Whatever else is clear, it is clear that Notre Dame didn’t understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation,” George told the audience at a March 28 conference on the Vatican document Dignitatis Personae. The conference was hosted by the Chicago archdiocese’s Respect Life office and Office for evangelisation.

Meanwhile, the US Newman Society, an organisation representing graduate Catholics in the US, has collected more than a quarter

principle that soaks all our lives as Catholics, and all our efforts at formation, especially education at Catholic places of higher learning,” wrote DiNardo.

Bishop John D’Arcy of the diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Inidana, in which Notre Dame is located, responded soon after the scandal broke with a statement condemning the invitation and announcing his decision to boycott the graduation ceremony.

Bishop D’Arcy wrote that his decision to boycott the event is “not an attack on anyone, but is in defence of the truth about human life.”

“President Obama has recently reaffirmed, and has now placed in public policy, his long-stated unwillingness to hold human life as sacred,” said the bishop, apparently referencing the president’s recent decision to allow federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

White house announcement confirming Obama’s acceptance. he ended by invoking “Our Lady to intercede for the university named in her honour, that it may recommit itself to the primacy of truth over prestige.”

During his March 28 talk, Cardinal George provided his audience with information of behind-the-scenes contact with the university of the kind that is usually little-heard by most American Catholics.

The Cardinal said he had spoken with the administrative committee of the bishops’ conference and corresponded with University president Fr John Jenkins several times on the issue.

“That conversation will continue.... whether or not it will have some kind of consequence that will bring, I think, the University of Notre

Dame to its [the USCCB’s] understanding of what it means to be Catholic,” said the Cardinal.

“That is, when you’re Catholic, everything you do changes the life of everybody else who calls himself a personal Catholic - it’s a network of relationships.

“So quite apart from the president’s own positions, which are well known, the problem is in that you have a Catholic university - the flagship Catholic university - do something that brought extreme embarrassment to many, many people who are Catholic,” said the cardinal.

“So whatever else is clear, it is clear that Notre Dame didn’t understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation, and didn’t anticipate the kind of uproar that would be consequent to the decision, at

least not to the extent that it has happened,” said George. The Cardinal urged concerned Catholics “to do what you are supposed to be doing: to call, to email, to write letters, to express what’s in your heart about this: the embarrassment, the difficulties.” however, Cardinal George also emphasised that the US presidency “is an office that deserves some respect, no matter who is holding it,” and said that Notre Dame would not disinvite the president, since “you just don’t do that (disinvite the president of the United States).” According to the cardinal requests to revoke the invitation would fall on deaf ears, but he also observed that there is legitimate potential to organise some form of protest at the ceremony.

of a million signatures for a petition to the University protesting the decision on the grounds of President Obama’s well-documented support for abortion, which has included voting against legislation while a State Senator that would have outlawed doctors killing children born alive if they survive abortions. Among those buying into the uproar created by the university’s move were some of the most senior figures in the Church in the US, including the new Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, who said in a March 29 interview that Notre Dame “made a big mistake” by inviting President Obama to receive an honorary degree and give the commencement address at the school on May 17.

“They made a big mistake ... in an issue that is very close to the heart of Catholic world view, namely, the protection of innocent life in the womb, [Obama] has unfortunately taken a position very much at odds with the Church,”

Archbishop Timothy Dolan told a television interviewer

on the “Sunday Insight” program of Milwaukee station TMJ4.

At the time of the interview

Dolan was the fifth bishop to publicly condemn the university’s decision following the March 20 announcement that Obama had accepted the invitation, sparking a wave of protest and outrage from the American Catholic community and pro-life campaigners across the nation. however an increasing number of bishops have publicly brought into the argument, with most openly criticising Notre Dame or publicly questioning whether it understands the meaning of Catholicism.

The highest-ranking bishops of the US state of Oklahoma publicly chided the university for its action in extremely strong language.

“President Obama, by word and action, has approved of abortion and other atrocities against human life,” Archbishop eusebius Beltran of Oklahoma City was reported as saying by The Oklahoman newspa-

per. “Therefore he deserves no recognition at a Catholic institution.”

In a separate letter to the University, Bishop edward Slattery of Tulsa was reported as having written: “I am writing to plead with you to cancel the invitation you gave to President Obama to speak at the University and the plans to honour him with a doctorate degree. “Many, many Catholics and alumni of the University of Notre Dame are waiting for you to do so…”

e arlier that week the Texas Catholic herald newspaper published houston Cardinal Nicholas DiNardo’s “Shepherd’s Message” in which the Cardinal said the “very disappointing” invite “requires charitable but vigorous critique.”

“Though I can understand the desire by a university to have the prestige of a commencement address by the President of the United States, the fundamental moral issue of the inestimable worth of the human person from conception to natural death is a

To be socialist means being prolife, Spanish socialists declare

Seventy years ago, in the midst of the Spanish Civil War, their political forbears were executing clergy. But something astonishing has happened to some of Spain’s Socialists.

The left-wing political group, Solidarity, in Spain has declared that its leftist ideology has led it to defend the right to life of the unborn from conception to natural death, in clear opposition to abortion.

In its statement, Solidarity said, “We are socialists and we oppose abortion and its legalisation. We oppose all attacks on life: the death penalty, torture, hunger, the arms race, war, slavery.”

The group called abortion “an odious act of violence carried out against the unborn and against mothers.”

The statement later indicated that “the womb of the mother should be the most protected place in nature. Society must also protect children and mothers before and after birth.”

One of the members of the group, Jesus Berenger, 41, explained, “I am part of the left and the left before used to defend life, the weakest, but now the parties are driven by their interests. I defend the dignity of the person. I am against hunger, exploitation and abortion, which is murder.”

A statement on the group’s website reads:

“All the parliamentary right and left-wing political parties defend the present capitalist system, and they are all pro-choice.

“In the last eight years under the Popular Party’s administration, abortion has risen by 37 per cent, reaching almost 80.000 abortions per year. The Popular Party’s policy regarding this issue has resulted in free abortion practice during the first three months of pregnancy. [President] Zapatero

under his rule. There’s life, a unique human life in the fertilised human ovum of the mother’s womb. This life is destroyed by using the cruelest methods.

“It is not just another part of the woman’s body, it is a unique individual; as well as elderly people, the handicapped, the mentally disabled, the terminally ill. All those people that would be included on a list of future targets by accepting abortion, because they might not be considered human beings with a right to live, but instead bothersome, unwanted members of a society that does not regard them as “productive.”

has legitimised abortion as a legal right. With such a “pseudo-progressive” measure as abortion advocacy a so-called socialist party, headed by Zapatero, has explicitly put forward a neoliberal political and economic capitalist program.”

“We strongly disapprove of abortion because we are left-wing. Likewise, we are against any assault on life, such as death penalty, torture, hunger, armament, war, destruction of the environment... We therefore proclaim that these are values the Left must vindicate.”

“We are left, socialist and self-managed, because we defend the socialisation of means of production, because we fight against any form of exploitation of human beings, because we are against the oppression of people by any imperialist power. Also, because we defend human life as a supreme value.

“In world history, abortion has been legalised by totalitarian, comunist nazi and liberal capitalist regimes. People, such as Robert McNamarafrom Vietnam - and the World Bank, have goaded abortion acceptance. They have imposed it as something convenient for multinational capitalist dominance. hitler rejected it for his aria “race” but enforced it for those

“Despite whatever may be said, there is not any more reactionary claim than a person demanding a right over an unborn child. It is the most inconceivable claim of property, still worse than claiming a master’s right to enslave. It is a shame that the Left should defend this so-called right. Moreover, in doing so, they are letting the Right hypocritically monopolise the opposition to it.

“We absolutely reject this shameful vindication, and considering the currently existent knowledge about embryology, the Left should not support this position. We are not only left-wing and we reject abortion, but also we are against it because we are left-wing. human life is a supreme value from its conception to natural death. In line with this, we must take measures against abortion by fighting its causes, by assisting single mothers socially and legally in an efficient way, those who want to keep their children as well as those who decide to give them up for adoption.

“Abortion is an atrocious violent act against unborn children and their mothers. The Left should fight to make women’s wombs the safest place for children because this is naturally so. Likewise, society as a whole should protect mothers and children, before and after their birth.”

“While claiming to separate politics from science, he has in fact separated science from ethics and has brought the American government, for the first time in history, into supporting direct destruction of innocent human life.”

“even as I continue to ponder in prayer these events, which many have found shocking, so must Notre Dame,” wrote the bishop. “Indeed, as a Catholic University, Notre Dame must ask itself, if by this decision it has chosen prestige over truth.”

D’Arcy also explained that while he has “always revered the Office of the Presidency,” and means no disrespect to the president, “a bishop must teach the Catholic faith ‘in season and out of season,’ and he teaches not only by his words — but by his actions.”

Reflecting on a US bishops’ statement that stipulates that Catholic institutions should not honour pro-abortion politicians, Bishop D’Arcy wrote: “Indeed, the measure of any Catholic institution is not only what it stands for, but also what it will not stand for.”

The bishop said that he was not informed about the invitation until shortly before the

Passions aroused the two following excerpts indicate how strongly the reaction against Notre Dame’s decision to invite President Obama has registered among Catholics at all levels in the US.

Archbishop Beltran of Oklahoma to Notre Dame University: I am appalled, disappointed and scandalised! Notre Dame University has certainly turned against the Catholic Church. believe you have a moral responsibility to withdraw the invitation to President Barack Obama to be your commencement speaker in May. I also ask that you refrain from giving him any award whatsoever. President Obama has publicly and ruthlessly affronted the Catholic Church of America during the short time of his presidency. His single-handed actions have totally reversed decades of successes of the Church in the prolife cause. Needless to say, he deserves no honour or recognition from Notre Dame or any other Catholic institution. Please have the courage to take this extraordinary stand in view of the extraordinary scandal you have generated. May Our Lord and Saviour and Giver of Life bless you during this penitential season of Lent.

Sincerely yours in Christ, Most reverend eusebius J. Beltran Archbishop of Oklahoma City

This excerpt is from a letter sent by Bishop Doran of Rockford to Fr Jenkins at Notre Dame, and concludes:

“I would ask that you rescind this unfortunate decision and so avoid dishonouring the practising Catholics of the United States, including those of this Diocese. Failing that, please have the decency to change the name of the University to something like, the Fighting Irish College” or “Northwestern Indiana Humanist University.” though promotion of the obscene is not foreign to you, I would point out that it is truly obscene for you to take such decisions as you have done in a university named for our Blessed Lady, whom the Second Vatican Council called the Mother of the Church.”

Scholars claim Templars hid Shroud

Knights Templar may have secretly held shroud, Vatican expert says.

n By John Thavis

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - A Vatican researcher has found evidence that the Knights Templar, the medieval crusading order, held secret custody of the Shroud of Turin during the 13th and 14th centuries. The shroud, which bears the image of a man and is believed by many to have been the burial cloth of Jesus, was probably used in a secret Templar ritual to underline Christ’s humanity in the face of popular heresies of the time, the expert said. The researcher, Barbara Frale, made the comments in an article published on April 5 by the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano . The

article anticipated evidence the author presents in an upcoming book on the Templars and the shroud. Frale, who works in the Vatican Secret Archives, said documents that came to light during research on the 14thcentury trial of the Templars by their opponents contained a description of a Templar initiation ceremony. The document recounts how a Templar leader, after guiding a young initiate into a hidden room, “showed him a long linen cloth that bore the impressed figure of a man, and ordered him to worship it, kissing the feet three times,” Frale said. The idea that the Knights Templar were secret custodians of the shroud was put forward by British historian Ian Wilson in 1978. Frale said the account of the initiation ceremony, along with a number of other pieces of evidence, supports that theory. The shroud’s history has long

been the subject of debate. It was believed by some to have been in Constantinople, now Istanbul, Turkey, when the city was sacked during the crusades in 1204.

It turned up for public display in France in 1357, and today is kept in the cathedral of Turin, Italy.

The cloth’s image, according to some experts, corresponds with that of a man who was scourged and crucified.

Frale said the Knights Templar may have kept the shroud secret because of papal orders of excommunication for anyone involved in looting relics from Constantinople or trafficking in them afterward. She said the shroud’s image was particularly important for the Knights Templar, as an “antidote” to the heresies that had arisen - especially those that affirmed that Christ was a purely spiritual being, and never really had a human body or shed human blood.

“You have to sit back and get past the immediate moral outrage and say, ‘Now what’s the best thing to do in these circumstances?’” said the Cardinal.

“I can assure you the bishops are doing that.”

A growing number of bishops have publicly called on the university to withdraw the invitation to President Obama, the most strongly pro-abortion President in US history. Meanwhile, other bishops such as retired Archbishop harry Flynn of San Francisco, have urged the university to proceed with the invitation. The Rome-based head of the holy Cross Order that founded the university, while not backing calls for the presidential visit to be cancelled, publicly urged President Obama to “re-think” his position on abortion.

Among the many surprises of the situation is the strength of the language to be publicly used by bishops (see breakout box), without precedent as bishops in the US and elsewhere have traditionally sought to settle controverted issues quietly and out of the glare of the public spotlight and media coverage.

Doctor denounces new US Conscience laws - Page 8

Pope urges end

to use of land mines, cluster bombs

VATICAN CITY (CNS)

Pope Benedict XVI called on nations to end the production, stockpiling and use of land mines and cluster bombs. he also expressed his support for programs and measures that “guarantee the necessary assistance to victims of such devastating weapons.” The Pope made his comments at the end of his midday Angelus prayer on April 5 as he recalled the United Nations’ International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action, which was celebrated on April 4. he noted that 10 years had passed since the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty - which bans the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel mines - came into effect. The Convention on Cluster Munitions, which would prohibit all use, stockpiling, production and transfer of cluster bombs and munitions, was recently adopted and is open for signatories, he added. “I wish to encourage countries that still haven’t done so to sign without delay these important instruments of international humanitarian law which the Vatican has always supported,” he said.

Chicago resident and Notre Dame alumnus Jeff Heinz, right, drops his hand-written letter to University of Notre Dame President Holy Cross Father John I. Jenkins into a box April 5 during a rally at the university in Notre Dame, Indiana. Hundreds of prolife advocates protested on the campus against the school’s invitation to

the Shroud of turin, revered for centuries as the burial shroud of Christ, is seen in 2000 in St John the Baptist Cathedral in turin, Italy, during a public exposition. PHOtO CNS

EastEr 2009

When great connection with God comes in a time of quiet

and mercy. (CNS

Family Prayer

A few weeks back Elijah, our eldest (age 7) told us: “I’m praying that I get some more money so I can buy a robot.” Each night we make the effort to pray with our children, one on one, just before bed. It’s become a special time in our daily routine.

A time when we just stop, and be, and spend a moment with our children, and with God. A miniature Emmaus experience in our family.

Family is the Future

Lent is a time when we are called to renew and deepen our prayer life with God. Hopefully though, it permeates through into the new Easter season and the rest of the year. It is a challenge for every member of the family. As parents, we are especially challenged to lead the way; to become more prayerful people not just for our own salvation but for the salvation of our children too.

Prayer should be a corner stone of every Christian spouse and parent. Make this your first prayer each morning: Lord, help me today to be a better wife/husband and Mum/Dad. If you’re the kind of person who’s likely to forget then put it on the bathroom mirror. Begin each day by inviting God into your family life; you’ll be surprised what a difference it will make. Parents need to be leaders in prayer for their families. This means creating opportunities for prayer, being prayerful ourselves, and encouraging and supporting our children’s efforts at prayer. Prayer becomes a more natural and powerful part of our children’s lives when we incorporate it into their daily routine rather than add-

ing it on as an optional extra. Powerful prayer experiences can be:

l At dinner.

l In the car.

l Praying for each other, extended family and neighbours.

l An examination of conscience. Prayer is meant to be a natural part of life. It is the way that we “connect” with God. When we teach and help our children to pray we are helping them to connect with God; to become aware of God’s presence within, active in their lives. This season is an opportunity to expand and broaden our capacity for prayer and the capacity of our family for prayer. It’s a great time to introduce our families to different forms of prayer:

l Learn some of the significant prayers of our faith: the Our Father, Hail Mary, Hail Holy Queen, Angelus, Rosary etc. Especially if you have young children.

l Lectio Divina: meditating on scripture.

l Meditation.

l The Divine Office: you might just do Evening or Morning Prayer.

l Host a prayer group in your home.

l Praying through song. Praying isn’t just talking. To pray effectively we need to do both talking and listening. Sometimes we can get caught up with our busy lives, we end up complaining to God about the bills, mortgage, kids playing up, grumpy spouse, annoying neighbours and extended family. We forget to spend time listening.

Sometimes the most powerful prayer experiences are when we find the time to be quiet and to sit with God. We can do this on our own but some of our most cherished memories have been doing this with our children; lying quietly on the back lawn watching the clouds or sitting quietly in the parish church on a weekday when it is empty. They are moments of quiet and peace when we open our hearts to God’s will; when we let Him do the talking.

Dr Singer, please take note

T HE world’s best-known bioethicist, Peter Singer, of Princeton University, has confirmed that human beings are amongst his favourite animals. Forbes magazine recently asked him for five nominations. Singer chose rats (“Intelligent, clean and very cute”), dolphins (“enjoys playing in the surf”), pigs (not “lazy or greedy or dirty”), chimpanzees and human beings. Here are excerpts from his brief observations on the last two:

In the meantime an interesting report has appeared regarding the story behind Middle Pleistocene human Cranium 14

There is by A.D. Hope about a thousandyear-old bone found in 1901 in Norway which had been inscribed with Viking runes. It concludes: And, in a foreign tongue, A man, who is not he, Reads and his heart is wrung

This ancient grief to see, And thinks: When I am dung, What bone shall speak for me?

Perhaps an anthropologist with a poetic bent will be inspired to write something similar after reading the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Hidden under the exceedingly dry headline of “Craniosynostosis in the Middle Pleistocene human Cranium 14 from the Sima de los Huesos, Atapuerca, Spain” is another tale of ancient grief. Cranium 14 was discovered in the famous archeological site of Atapuerca. Scattered throughout several caves in the area are the bones and tools of the earliest humans found in Europe. Sima de los Huesos (the pit of the bones) contains the most interesting findings. This site is located at the bottom of a 13-metre deep chimney which has to be accessed by scrambling through caves.

It contains thousands of bone fragments belonging to 28 people of both sexes.

No one knows exactly how and why the

bones tumbled there, but it may have been a burial ground. Another theory is that they were washed there when the cave flooded.

No matter. The point is that more than 30 fragments belonged to a little girl aged between 5 and 12. She lived 530,000 years ago and is known to us only as Cranium 14.

But when researchers reconstructed these fragments, they discovered something very surprising: the child may have been severely mentally retarded. They know this because she clearly suffered from craniosynostosis, a birth defect in which the skull segments close too early, producing facial deformities and interfering with brain development.

The particular skull distortion of the child in Sima de Huesos affects fewer than 6 in 200,000 individuals in living humans. It must be very distressing for parents. The head can be large and misshapen, the eyes can bulge out. The children can be blind and deaf and they may have seizures. Craniofacial surgery works wonders and after many, many operations, an affected child can lead something like a normal life. Even so, the story of a child with the condition makes for painful reading. Many doctors would advise mothers to terminate the pregnancy.

Here’s the remarkable thing. The hunter-gatherer Middle Pleistocene family of Cranium 14 cared for the child, the researchers say. Otherwise she could not possibly have survived for at least five years.

In the dry-as-dust words of the article’s authors, “It is obvious that the [Sima de Huesos] hominin species did not act against the abnormal/ill individuals during the infancy, as has happened along our own history many times and in many cultures”.

They go on to say: “Despite these handicaps, this individual survived for 5 years, suggesting that her/his pathological condition was not an impediment to receive the same attention as any other Middle Pleistocene Homo child.” - FAMI lyE D g E

How did Jesus actually rise again?

Q&A

By Fr John Flader

How did Christ rise?

In some places in the New Testament it says that it was the Father who raised Jesus from the dead. I thought he rose by his own power. Can you please explain?

You are right in saying that there are passages in the New Testament that say that Jesus was raised by the Father. For example, St Peter says to the multitudes gathered in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost: “But God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24).

And St Paul writes to the Romans: “We were buried therefore with him by Baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4). From passages like these someone might be led to believe that the Resurrection of Jesus was not really remarkable and that Jesus was only a man after all. They could think that just as Jesus himself raised three people from the dead, so the Father raised Jesus from the dead. Before going further, we should remember that Jesus’ Resurrection, independently of how it came about, was very different from that of the three people Jesus raised from the dead. When Jesus raised Lazarus (cf. Jn 11:38-44), the son of the widow of Naim (cf. Lk 7:11-17) and the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue (cf. Lk 8:40-42, 49-56), each of these people returned to their natural state, as if they had just woken up from a deep sleep. They would continue their life with their loved ones and eventually would have to die again. Jesus’ Resurrection was different. He did not rise in the natural state he had when he died on the Cross. Before his death, he was subject to space and time, and was always

present somewhere on earth. After his Resurrection, to be sure, he rose in the same body he had before, so that he could show the apostles in the Upper Room the wounds in his hands and his feet (cf. Lk 24:39) and he could invite Thomas to put his finger into the wounds (cf. Jn 20:24-27). But his body was not subject to space and time in the way it was before. Now he could suddenly appear and disappear, as he did with the disciples on their way to Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-31), or when he passed through locked doors and appeared to the apostles in the Upper Room (cf. Lk 24:36, Jn 20:19).

Also, he was sometimes not recognised, even though he was well known to people like Mary Magdalene (cf. Jn 20:14-15) and the disciples of Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:16).

In the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “…this authentic, real body possesses the new properties of a glorious body: not limited by space and time but able to be present how and when he wills.” (CCC 645) Returning to your question, even though there are passages that speak of Jesus being raised by the Father, it is clear that he rose by his own power. The Roman Catechism, issued after the Council of Trent, says: “By the word ‘resurrection’ we are not merely to under-

stand that Christ was raised from the dead … but that he rose by his own power and virtue, a singular prerogative peculiar to him alone.

Our Lord confirmed this by the divine testimony of his own mouth when he said: ‘I lay down my life, that I may take it again … I have power to lay it down: and I have power to take it up again’ (Jn 10:17-18).

“To the Jews he also said, in corroboration of his doctrine: ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up’ (Jn 2:19-20)… We sometimes, it is true, read in Scripture that he was raised by the Father (cf. Acts 2:24: Rom 8:11); but this refers to him as man, just as those passages on the other hand, which say that he rose by his own power, relate to him as God” (St Pius V, Catechism, 1, 6, 8).

The fact that Jesus rose by his own power, after prophesying that he would rise on the third day (cf. Lk 18:33), is the ultimate proof of his divinity. Only God can raise himself from the dead.

The Catechism sums it up: “The Resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of our faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived as the central truth by the first Christian community; handed on as fundamental by Tradition; established by the documents of the New Testament…” (CCC 638)

The culture wars escalate

In clear view

By Guy Crouchback

Media moments

In Britain’s escalating culture-war against Christianity, a Governmentfunded “charity” has published a magazine for children under 12 in care with a picture on its cover of a Christian boy as an Islamophobic thug, persecuting a sweet, smiling little Muslim girl.

The Daily Mail reports: “In a cartoon strip, the boy, wearing a large cross around his neck, is shown telling a friend that a smiling Muslim girl in a veil looks like a terrorist. She replies that the garment is called a hijab and it is part of her religion, ‘like that cross you wear.’

“The girl is then shown standing up for another boy, who is being bullied, and her behaviour is contrasted with that of the boy wearing the cross. The cartoon story, entitled Standing Up For

What You Believe In, appears in the latest issue of Klic!, a quarterly magazine aimed at children in care aged from eight to 12.

“Published by the Who Cares? Trust, a charity set up in 1992, it is described on the cover as ‘the best ever mag for kids in care’ and is widely distributed by town halls.

“The charity received £100,000 from the Department for Children, Schools and Families in both 2007 and 2008, and £80,000 this year.”

Mike Judge, of the Christian Institute, said: “What about Christian children in care who received this magazine? How will they feel to see themselves mocked as narrow-minded Islamaphobes? It is symptomatic of a culture which says it is OK to bully Christians in the name of diversity.”

Philip Hollobone, the Tory MP for Kettering, said: “You can hardly imagine anyone producing a magazine in which the roles were reversed and it was the Muslim girl who was behaving badly.”

Despite protests, Who Cares? Trust chief executive Natasha Finlayson said she had no intention of withdrawing it. Some good news: Freeman Dyson, one of the world’s greatest living scientists, writes about global warming the New York Review of Books. He assures

us that “carbon-eating trees” are likely to be developed in twenty years, and certain to be developed in fifty years: “Carbon-eating trees could convert most of the carbon that they absorb from the atmosphere into some chemically stable form and bury it underground. Or they could convert the carbon into liquid fuels and other useful chemicals.”

A high church (non-Catholic) digni tary in Britain has expressed outrage at the plight of the shop-assistants thrown out of work by the closure of Woolworths and other shops there as a result of the present economic difficulties. At the same time, he has also expressed outrage at people spending on gifts at shops dur ing the present economic difficulties. One wonders which of these two incompatible outrages takes precedence. From Tim Blair’s weblog: “Radical international animal rights group PETA has launched its most bizarre campaign yet, demanding fish be renamed ‘sea kittens.’

“PETA - People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals - believes calling fish sea kittens will make sea-food less appealing.” Since then, PETA has published a pic ture of a little girl cuddling a sea kitten (gasping in the air), after which it will presumably have a nice nap in the sun.

In late March Pope Benedict found himself embroiled in yet another global media feeding frenzy after remarks he made saying that condoms could not end the crisis of AIDS. A storm of criticism was levelled against him around the world by angry journalists and activists. However, one slight problem was that Dr Edward Green, the head of Harvard University’s AIDS Prevention Research Centre, and a swag of other experts, said the Pope was right. Did you see that reported in the media? Actually, you did. It was in The Record.

The Parish. The Nation.

The

World. Read it in

with Karen & Derek Boylen

A family watches from a balcony as Pope Benedict XVI recites the Angelus prayer in a plaza in Valencia, Spain, July 8. The Pope, attending the Fifth World Meeting of Families, urged mothers and fathers to be open to life and to create a home based on love, acceptance

The risen Christ is seen in the Redemption Dome mosaic as it nears completion in the US Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. The mosaic, featuring the salvific works of Christ, is high above the floor level of the basilica.

Daily sacrifice the key: Benedict

n By John Thavis

VATICAN CITY (CNS)Daily self-sacrifice in imitation of Christ was the key to the Christian life, Pope Benedict XVI said on Palm Sunday.

“Sacrifice and renunciation belong to the just life. Whoever promises a life without this continuing gift of self is fooling people,” the Pope said during the liturgy in St Peter’s Square.

The papal liturgy began with a procession of hundreds of cardinals, bishops, priests and lay people, who carried palms and olive branches in commemoration of Christ’s triumphal entry

Saint MichaeL

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into Jerusalem a few days before his passion and death. At the head of the procession, nine young people from Australia carried the World Youth Day cross to the altar, where it was later consigned to a group of Spanish youths for the next international celebration of World Youth Day in Madrid. The Pope, his red vestments resplendent in the sunshine, carried a braided garland of palm fronds across the cobblestoned square. It was the first of seven major Holy Week events for the Pope, who turns 82 later in the month. In his homily, Pope Benedict commented on Jesus’ words after his entry

into Jerusalem: “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.”

Christ’s message was that the person who wants to live only for himself and exploit all life’s possibilities for personal gain finds that life itself becomes “boring and empty,” the Pope said.

The principle of love, which is at the heart of the Christian faith and is exemplified in Christ’s crucifixion, demands a more universal vision that looks outward and not just inward, he said.

This orientation toward others involves not only a “single great decision” in a person’s life, which is rela-

tively easy, the Pope said, but must be a continuing attitude implemented daily in everyday situations.

“No successful life exists without sacrifice,” he said.

“When I look back on my personal life, I have to say that precisely the times when I said ‘Yes’ to a sacrifice were the greatest and most important moments of my life,” he said.

The Pope said the days Jesus spent in Jerusalem also highlight the fact that self-sacrifice produces inner doubt and anguish. Even Jesus asked whether he should turn to God and say: “Father, save me from this hour.” That Jesus suffered in

this way offers an insight into prayer, which sometimes involves questioning and lament in the face of suffering and injustice, the Pope said. Everyone can and should pray this way, he said.

“Before God, we shouldn’t take refuge in pious phrases, in a fictitious world. To pray always signifies struggling with God, too,” he said.

At the end of the liturgy, the Australian young people transferred the tall wooden cross and an icon of Mary to a group of young Spaniards, who were taking the two symbols on a spiritual pilgrimage ahead of the next World Youth Day international gathering in Madrid in 2011.

Front: "Quis ut Deus?" The Latin translation of the name Michael which means, "Who is like God?" Archangel icon also.

Back: The abbreviated version of the St Michael prayer as composed by Pope Leo XIII. To be prayed daily after every Mass!

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T-shirt specifications: 100% ultracotton heavyweight tee only 3 Large available! all t-shirts $24.95 each + postage ph: (08) 9227 7080 email: bookshop@therecord.com.au

The life of the risen Christ is ours to live. Our baptism calls us to be close to God, to be loving and caring for one another.

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Committee for Family and for Life

Parish youth ministry bursts to life around Perth

New youth ministry initiative aims to nurture strong Parish-based youth groups and stronger family members.

The Disciples of Jesus Covenant Community in Perth has found remarkable success providing parishes with paid pastoral ministers to establish youth groups.

The community, which runs the Acts 2 College of Mission of evangelisation, was approached last year and Michael Connelly started with Good Shepherd parish in l ockridge late last year, working two days a week.

The initiative, called Alive Alliance, was so successful that another youth minister, emma Passmore, started with All Saints parish in Greenwood in February this year.

The youth ministry service package for Perth parishes is being carried out through the Disiples’ 24:7 Youth Ministry for teenagers and its Acts 2 College of Mission and evangelisation.

The parish wanted the College to provide either a youth ministry graduate or student to establish a youth group with the position of youth minister employed two days a week.

The college was invited to submit a

proposal to the parish council outlining the youth ministry service it could provide to the parish, resulting in a proposal for the establishment of a youth group meeting weekly where youth can encounter the Catholic faith, be inspired to live it and share it with families and friends.

The proposal also canvassed actively engaging youth in parish life and identifying and empowering leaders who are capable of working in youth ministry in the future.

it is also hoped the youth minister will work in conjunction with Catholic high schools within the parish area, to build relationships with teenagers and invite them into parish life.

After meetings between the Disciples, parish representatives and one of the College graduates, the new youth group was launched in November 2008. Within three weeks, 30 youth were attending

the group. Now, several months later, it remains strong with an average of 20 youth attending weekly.

One of the novelties of the new arrangement is that the parish agreed to enter into a management service contract with the Disciples which includes salary, superannuation and insurance for the youth minister.

Other details covered by the contract include Pastoral Care of the youth minister, provision of a replacement during periods of annual leave, weekly planning, reporting and debrief meetings and regular reporting to the parish council.

The results have been considered successful enough that a second parish has now signed a similar contract with the Disciples of Jesus.

This parish has employed one of the young adults in the parish - currently studying a Certificate iV in Christian Ministry (youth ministry) at the Bible College during 2009 - as the youth minister.

Both youth ministers work the equivalent of 16 hours over the course of each week.

Archbishop Barry hickey will present graduation certificates to 10 new graduates of the Acts 2 College at the Disciples of Jesus’ Osborne Park base on April 26.

Families drawn into Lenten mystery

Saint Denis’ Parish Family Lenten Focus proves a successful model for other parishes to draw parishioners into the Lenten season.

While many still think of lent as a sombre time, the parishioners of St Denis Parish in Joondanna have been active organising upbeat lenten activities for all sections of the parish.

The three main activities were lenten Discussion groups, Family Faith Feasts, and Youth Group activities.

The Parish organised seven discussion groups of between six and 11 people to meet weekly during lent.

Groups met during the days or evenings to accommodate different timetables.

One group was offered for italian speakers while another involved the deaf

and hard of hearing, with interpreters working to ensure everyone felt involved.

Family Faith Feasts combined archdiocesan lenten discussion material with activities for children in three age groupings and evening meetings involved 19 families made up of 34 adults and 43 children.

The night began with a shared ‘finger food’ supper. l ater, adults split into four groups with nominated leaders to facilitate the discussion. i find the Family Faith Feasts casual, inclusive and very family-friendly. i can turn up with the kids and not be caught up in 10 different things,” said Bridget Barry, a mother of two of the children. it is easy for the family to enjoy together. Our family looks forward to them.”

Children participated in activities designed to allow them to feel connected to what was happening. One session

included the Scripture Reading about Noah. The younger children made playdough animals for the Ark and stuck colourful stickers of animals on to their personal wooden arks to take home.

Older children devised a small sketch depicting the aimals entering the Ark and learned a song to sing while decorated cut outs of the Ark story were manipulated into position. Under the guidance of Sr elizabeth Nicholls others went orienteering through church cupboards finding meaning in what is used in the church.

At the end of the evening the children then presented their efforts before the whole gathering.

The parish youth group, for those in Year 6 and above, have been meeting regularly once a month and this year accepted the invitation to present the Stations of the Cross on one Friday night of lent.

Deaf and hearing impaired score a win thanks to priest’s steady effort

Deaf and hard of hearing people and their families have a win with diocesan material.

WheN parishes across Perth view a special DVD on the weekend of May 23-24 launching the final appeal for the completion of St Mary’s Cathedral, the deaf will be able to view it with captions and signing.

The inclusion of captions to the words spoken by presenters such as Archbishop Barry hickey and Monsignor Michael Keating has excited those particularly conscious of the needs of the hearing-

impaired. “When i informed the Deaf Community that this production would include both signing and captioning to fully include Deaf and hard of hearing people, the room exploded with grins and smiles and hand-waving,” said Fr Paul Pitzen, chaplain for the Catholic Deaf and hard of hearing in Perth. They also see the inclusion as something of a win. When the first DVD was released in 2007 for the St Mary’s Cathedral Building Appeal, deaf and hard of hearing people were unable to hear and see the text. it happened again in 2008 for the second year of the appeal.

Fr Pitzen lobbied steadily for the

inclusion of text and signing in the appeal DVDs, arguing that the DVDs excluded the deaf from active participation in this historic project. each time, Fr Pitzen requested any future promotional material include captioning and signing, to ensure those with hearing impairment were afforded the opportunity of full and active participation. This year his efforts have been rewarded. i am delighted this DVD includes captioning and signing, which will benefit and embrace Deaf and hard of hearing people within our community,” Cathedral Appeal Manager Brett Mendez said.

Wanted: surrogate family for child with separation anxiety whose mother has debilitating illness

As we close the self-sacrificing time of Lent, a desperate appeal that tugs at heart strings.

A 47-year old single mother with a serious heart condition is seeking the support of a “surrogate” family for her son, particularly a family with a father who can be the boy’s role model and with children about his age to whom he can relate.

Su Goh, the CFFFl’s Project Officer, recently interviewed the mother who, together with her 10 year-old son, live in the northern suburbs.

Bringing up a child or children on her own can be a huge challenge for a single parent. But for a person with a serious health problem, there is the added worry of what will happen to the children if the parent is suddenly hospitalised.

The mother is hoping to find a family that will “take a special interest in his welfare and needs” and with whom he can build a trusting, loving and caring relationship.

She is hoping such a family can be called on in an emergency and will be able to give him a temporary home should she be hospitalised, though she hopes it will not come to that.

The search took on a sense of urgency two years ago when the boy’s mother had to be hospitalised for a procedure

Grieving workshop on offer.

to implant a defibrillator/pacemaker.

The boy realised for the first time the seriousness of his mother’s illness and he became so distressed he had to receive counselling. he was later diagnosed with separation anxiety.

groups and enquired about outreach programs but has drawn a blank so far. She is adamant about seeking help from within the Catholic Church and community as she wants the support she receives to

The mother, who attends Mass at her local parish church regularly, has taken her search to several parishes and parish

A “Working with Those Who Grieve” Workshop Weekend will be held at St Catherine’s house of hospitality, 113 Tyler Street, Tuart hill on Saturday and Sunday, May 2-3.

Primarily aimed at people in regional and Country Western Australia, the workshop will look at empowering people to go back to their local communities and be a resource for those who grieve. limited accommodation is available for Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, if needed.

The workshop is sponsored by the Catholic Mental health Group through emmanuel Centre and will be facilitated by Gerry Smith, director of Grief Management educational Services and a respected grief counsellor for more than 25 years, who will cover issues relating to the experience of grief, children and grief, healthy carer-healthy Caring and show that Grief arises in many different ways. The weekend will look at life-changing situations of self or others e.g. divorce, loss of employment, children leaving home, getting old, or diagnosis of an illness (e.g. mental illness).

The full workshop cost is $50 (with accommodation) or $20 (without accommodation).

For more information and to book your place, contact Barbara from the Emmanuel Centre on 9328 8113 or email emmanuel2@iinet.net.au.

Fr Paul Pitzen, who lobbied hard for deaf and hard of hearing people and their families to have access to diocesan DVD material, speaks at a diocesan youth event last year in this file photo.

St Denis’ Parish Youth Group combine with Catholic Deaf Ministry to help parishioners reflect on the Stations of the Cross.

Friar Gabriel, a Franciscan Friar of the Immaculate, a former professional skateboarder, wows youth at a parish youth ministry event.

EastEr 2009

Panorama Classifieds

Panorama entries must be in by 12pm Monday. Contributions may be emailed to administration@therecord.com.au, faxed to 9227 7087, or mailed to PO Box 75, Leederville, WA 6902. Submissions over 55 words will be edited. Inclusion is limited to 4 weeks. Events charging over $10 will be a put into classifieds and charged accordingly. The Record reserves the right to decline or modify any advertisment. A roundup of events in the Archdiocese

Wednesday April 8

Ch A plets of the Divine Mer C y

7.30pm at St Thomas More Catholic Church, Dean Road, Bateman. Experience the Chaplets of Divine Mercy and make it a beautiful and prayerful prelude to the Easter Triduum. All are welcome. Enq: George 9310 9493 home or 9325 2010 work.

thursday (Maundy) April 9 - holy

s aturday April 11

h oly Week t ri D uu M in the t r AD ition A l lAtin r ite

7pm at City Trinity College Chapel, Trinity Avenue, East Perth, Maundy Thursday, Latin Mass followed by Adoration. 1.30pm, Good Friday, Stations of the Cross. 3pm Solemn Liturgy of the Passion and Death of Our Lord. Fast and abstinence. 7pm Ancient Ceremonies of Tenebrae. Holy Saturday Vigil at 9.30pm Ceremonies of Mass of Easter. Enq: Fr Michael Rowe 9444 9604.

Good friday April 10

An C ient Cere M onies of t enebr A e in h oly Week

7pm at Trinity College Chapel, Trinity Avenue, East Perth. Sung at close of day, in order to signify the setting of the Sun of Justice and the darkness of those people who knew not our Lord and condemned Him to the Cross.

Candles are extinguished gradually as the office is a funeral service commemorating the death of Jesus Christ, as indicated by singing Lamentations of Jeremias. Enq: Fr Michael Rowe 9444 9604.

Good friday April 10 Desol AtA s ervi C e

7.30pm at St Denis Parish, Osborne and Roberts Streets, Joondanna. The Desolata commemorates the sorrow of Mary as she witnessed the death and burial of her Son, Jesus. Each year the Sorrows of Mary first experienced over 2000 years ago, are related to our lives of today. The Desolata makes a wonderful closing to Good Friday.

Good friday April 10

pA ssion p l Ay

9.45am at Holy Spirit Church, Bent Street Oval, City Beach. Dramatic re-enactment of the Lord’s passion and death. An opportunity to reach family and friends who may not normally be involved. Enq Janny 0420 635 919.

Good friday April 10 to easter Monday April 13

h oly Week t r AD ition A l lAtin r ite

10am at St John’s Pro-Cathedral, Victoria Avenue, Perth. Stations of the Cross. Holy Mass Easter Sunday at 7.30am, 9.15am and 11.15am and Easter Monday at 10am Holy Mass. Enq; Fr. Michael Rowe 9444 9604.

friday April 10

C Atholi C AG ri C ultur A l Colle G e –b in D oon

Goo D f ri DAy Cere M onies Commence 10.30am with Confessions, 11am Stations of the Cross, followed by Confessions again. 2.30pm Solemn Ceremony, The Lord’s Passion. All are welcome. Enq: 9576 1040 or Fr Paul 9571 1839.

Good friday April 10 to s unday April 19

Divine Mer C y f e A st DAy

3pm to 4pm every day at Holy Family Church, Lot 375, Alcock Street, Maddington. Divine Mercy feast celebration will start with 9 days of Divine Mercy Novena. Enq: 9493 1703.

Wednesday April 15

tA ize Me D itAtion p r Ayer

7.30pm to 8pm at St Thomas More Catholic Church, 100 Dean Road, Bateman, come and spend an hour in Group Prayer and relax after a busy workday in a candlelight atmosphere of prayer, song and meditation. Enq: Daisy or Barney 9310 4781.

thursday April 16

s t p ere G rine h e A lin G M A ss

7pm at SS John and Paul Church, Pinetree Gully Road, off South Street, Willetton. Healing Mass in honour of St Peregrine, patron of Cancer sufferers and helper of all in need. The celebration will include Veneration of the Relic, and Anointing of the Sick. Enq: Noreen 9498 7727.

friday April 17

C Atholi C fA ith r ene WA l

7.30pm at St John and Paul’s Parish Hall, Willetton. Fr Greg Donovan continues leading through Scriptures – Genesis to Apocalypse. All welcome. Enq: Maureen 9381 4498 or Kathy 9295 0913.

s aturday April 18 eA ster r etre At DAy DA n C in G o ur Joys 10am to 4pm at Nathaniel’s Rest, 800 Gill Street, Mundaring. Enq: Sr Shelley Barlow 9271 3873.

s unday April 19

Do M ini CA n lA ity of o ur lAD y of the r os A ry pA rish - Meetin G 2pm at St Catherine’s Convent, 31 Williamstown Road, Doubleview. Visitors are welcome.  Enq: Jeff 9446 3655.

s unday April 19

Ch A plets of the Divine Mer C y f e A st of Divine Mer C y 3pm at St Thomas More Catholic Church, Dean Road, Bateman. All welcome to this beautiful and prayerful devotion. Enq: George 9310 9493 home or 9325 2010 work.

s unday April 19

Ch A ris MAti C h e A lin G M A ss 3pm at Disciples of Jesus Community, 67 Howe Street, Osborne Park, with Fr John Rea, from New Zealand. Enq: 9202 6868.

s unday April 19

s outh s un DAy s esh 7pm at Riverton Parish. Mass, followed at 8pm Sunday Sesh. Guest Speaker, Bishop Don Sproxton on Why Believe in God? The largest youth night returns in 2009. Open for youth from ages 15-35. The night includes: music, activities, prayer time and group discussions. Bring money for supper. Enq: www.cym.com. au or call 9422 7912.

s unday April 19

f e A st of Divine Mer C y Celebr Ation

1.30pm at St Joachim’s Parish, Harper Street and Shepperton Road, Victoria Park. Holy Rosary and Chaplet of Divine Mercy Prayer. Reconciliation available. 2.30pm Holy Mass, Main Celebrant Monsignor Thomas McDonald and preacher Fr Hugh Thomas, CSsR. Other priests are invited to concelebrate. Benediction 3.30pm followed by Veneration of Saint Faustina’s First Class relic. Enq: John 9457 7771 or Linda 9275 6608.

s unday April 19

WA si M h lAD ies Choir

v ivA l D i’s Glori A 7pm at Holy Family Church, Como. Director, Veronica Moylan, Organist Helen Edmonds. Tickets are $15. Proceeds to Fr Marcelino Malana’s Children’s Home in Sto Phillipines. Enq: Veronica 9498 7484.

s aturday April 25 s t pAD re p io p ilG ri MAG e –b ullsbrook- b in D oon A n D Gin Gin 8am Buses depart from pick-up points. 9.30am Station of the Cross, at Bullsbrook. 11am Holy Mass and BYO lunch Bindoon. Tea and coffee provided. 2pm, Eucharistic Procession, Rosary, Divine Mercy and Benediction at Gin Gin. 3.34pm Depart for Perth. Enq: Midland Catrina 9255 1938, Bassendean Ivana 9279 7261, Morley Patsy 9444 3617, Balcatta Rosa 9276 1952, Glendalough Mary 6278 1540, Victoria Park, Girawheen and Mirrabooka Nita 9367 1366.

s unday April 26

n orth s un DAy s esh 6pm at Morley Parish. Mass followed at 7.15pm Sunday Sesh. Guest Speaker, Bishop Don Sproxton on Why Believe in God? The largest youth night returns in 2009. Open for youth from ages 15-35. The night includes: music, activities, prayer time and group discussions. Bring money for supper. Enq: www.cym.com.

au or call 9422 7912.

s unday April 26

AWA kenin G s A Go D e xperien C e r etre At With A Differen C e

8.45am to 4pm at Patrist House, 7 Warde Street, Midland, conducted by Father Douglas

Rowe SFP. Not to be missed. Attendance for full day is necessary.  BYO lunch, light refreshments provided. Must book 9250 5395.

Monday April 27

Divine Mer C y p ilG ri MAG e to s t Anne’s b in D oon

12pm BYO lunch. 1.30 pm Holy Rosary, Benediction and Way of the Cross. 2.30 pm Holy Mass followed by Divine Mercy Devotions and Benediction. 3.45pm tea. 4.30pm return to Perth. All Divine Mercy Prayer Groups are welcome. Transport, Francis 9459 3873 or 0404 893 877. Enq: Sheila 9575 4023 or Fr Paul 9571 1839.

friday May 1

Divine Mer C y t h A nks G ivin G M A ss 2pm to 5pm at St Jerome’s Church, 36 Troode Street, Munster. All Divine Mercy Prayer Groups and everyone invited to celebrate One Year Anniversary, with Fr Varghese Paracakal, VC officiating. There will be Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Reconciliation, Divine Mercy Chaplet and talk on Divine Mercy, followed by Mass and healing. Enq: Connie 9494 1495 or Edita 9418 3728.

friday May 1 t he Alli A n C e, t riu M ph A n D r ei G n of the u nite D h e A rts of Jesus A n D M A ry 5.15pm at St Bernadette’s Church Glendalough. Confessions, 5.45pm Mass followed by exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, hourly rosaries, hymns and reflections etc throughout the night.  Vigil concludes with midnight Mass in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Enq: Father Doug Harris 9444 6131 or Dorothy 9342 5845.

friday May 1 to s unday May 3 Weeken D r etre At DA n C in G the p s A l M s

7.30pm at Veat Dardanup Retreat. Enq: Sr Shelley Barlow, 9271 3873.

s aturday May 2

DAy With M A ry 9am to 5pm at Santa Clara Church, Coolgardie and Pollock Streets, Bentley. 9am, Video on Fatima. Day of prayer and instruction based upon the Fatima message. Reconciliation, Holy Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, Sermons on Eucharist and Our Lady, Rosaries, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Stations of the Cross. BYO lunch. Enq: Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286.

s unday May 3 t he 2009 b usselton M Ay r os A ry Celebr Ation in h onour of o ur lAD y 12.30pm at Queen of the Holy Rosary Shrine, Bove’s Farm, Roy Road, Jindong, Busselton. Hymn singing. 1pm Concelebrated Mass led by Fr Tony Chiera, followed by Rosary Procession and Benediction. Tea provided. All welcome. Note: Roy Road runs off the Bussell Highway, approximately halfway between Busselton and Margaret River. Bookings: Francis 0404 893 877 or 9459 3873.

friday May 15

Celebr Ation of 50 y e A rs of n orbertine C A noni CA l l ife in WA

Solemn Pontifical Mass 7.30pm at Church of St Joseph, 135 Treasure Road, Queens Park, followed by supper and an exhibition at the Fr O’Reilly Centre of St Norbert’s College. The exhibition will be made available at the Priory’s Chapter Room followed by the Parish of York. To help with catering, RSVP to parish @norbert. wa.edu.au or 9458 2729 ext 246.

s aturday May 16 - s unday May 17

Weeken D r etre At – C Atholi C fA ith r ene WA l A weekend Retreat by Fr Gino Henriques, CSsR of the Redemptorist Congregation, on Joy of Christian Living. He is an international speaker who has preached to bishops, fellow priests, religious and laity through retreats, seminars and conferences. Enq: Kathy 9295 0913, Rose 0403 300 720 or Maureen 9381 4498.

Monday May 18 le C ture At M er C y C entre 7pm to 8.30pm at Mercy Conference Centre, Victoria Square Perth. Sr Ilia Delio OSF will give a lecture on What does it mean to live the Gospel in the 21st century? Donation $10.  Tea and coffee provided after lecture. Booking: 9422 7919.

friday May 29 to s unday May 31

Weeken D r etre At two sides to the coin of forgiveness

7.30pm at St John of God Retreat Centre. Do you find it easy to forgive? Do you view past hurts as positive or negative experiences and struggle to move on? Do you desire a heart and mind as free as Christ’s? Are you open to the possibility to change? Young women, come and explore, deepen and challenge your understanding of the processes to forgiveness and celebrate healing relationships.

Enq: Sr Ann Cullinane 0409 602 927.

pA rish Mission DAtes

Holy Spirit City Beach from 25-30 April. St Bernadette’s Parish, Glendalough 2-7 May. Our Lady of the Visitation, Bullsbrook, from 9-14 May. St Joseph’s Bassendean from 1522 May and Good Shepherd, Kiara 23-28 May. Enq: Direct to Parishes or HYPERLINK “mailto:holyspirit.Parish@perthcatholic.org. au” holyspirit.Parish@perthcatholic.org.au or 9341 3079.

Ch A n G e of Weeken D M A ss t i M e o ur lady of lourdes – nollamara parish From 18 April 2009, Weekend Mass times will be as follows: Saturday Vigil 6pm and Sunday 9am. Weekday Masses remain the same. Enq: Catherine 9345 5541.

lA sA lle Colle G e Aboriginal scholarships year 7 and 8, 2010 La Salle College is now accepting Aboriginal Scholarship Applications. The two scholarships for Years 7 and 8 in 2010 are funded by the College and offer full tuition for a period of up to three years. Closing date 30 April 2009. Enq: Ms Linda Balcombe 9274 6266 or email lba@ lasalle.wa.edu.au

every 1st and 3rd s unday of each Month st MA ry s CAthe D r A l sin G ers C hoir

9.30am at St Joachim’s Pro Cathedral, Victoria Park. We are seeking new members to join us –be part of singing at the refurbished St Mary’s Cathedral. Full training provided. Enq: Michael 041 429 4338 or michael@michaelpeters.id.au

every tuesday theolo G y of the bo D y for teens

6.30pm to 7.30pm at Holy Spirit, City Beach. DVD by Christopher West will be shown for 12 weeks, with breaks over Easter. Young and experienced facilitators will assist discussion in small groups following each DVD viewing. Cost, free. Intended age group, 16-18. Enq: 9341 3079, HolySpirit.Parish@perthcatholic.org.au

every Wednesday the J uli A n sin G ers

7.30pm to 9.30pm at the Edel Quinn Centre, 36 Windsor Street, East Perth. Inviting any interested people for rehearsals to see if they may like to join the choir. We are a liturgical choir and also perform an annual charity concert. Enq: Chris 9276 2736 or Angela 9275 2066.

every first friday of the month

st pAD re pio - l Atin MA ss

7.30pm at St Joseph’s Church, 22 Hamilton Street, Bassendean. Latin Mass according to the 1962 missal will be offered in honour of St Padre Pio. The Latin Mass is also offered every Monday evening - except the third week of the month - at 7.30pm. All welcome.

third s unday of the Month

obl Ates of st bene D i C t 2pm at St Joseph’s Convent, York Street, South Perth. Oblates affiliated with the Benedictine Abbey New Norcia welcome all who are interested in studying the rule of St Benedict and its relevance to the everyday life of today for lay people. Vespers and afternoon tea conclude meetings. Enq: 9457 5758.

every s unday D ivine M er C y pr Ayer A s noven A 3pm St Aloysius Church, 84 Keightley Road, West Shenton Park. An opportunity for all to gather once a week and say the powerful Divine Mercy, Eucharistic Adoration, healing prayers followed by Holy Mass at 4pm. Enq: 9381 5383.

ACCOMMODATION

n RIvERTON

Male to share house, rent $120 plus half expenses, 0449 651 697.

n Acc OMMOdATION SOughT

For student (17) from the country, preferably within easy travelling distance of Subiaco. Phone Ellis 0413 383 497.

n duNSBOROugh

Beach cottage, 3 bedrooms, sleeps 7, 300m to Quindalup beach. Great price for Dunsborough! Tel: Sheila 9309 5071 / 0408 866 593 or email: shannons3s@optusnet.com.au.

n ShEKINAh FOuNTAIN B&B & beachside homestay. Quiet area. Lovely garden. Opposite beach, 2 bedr, sleeps 5. Disabl bathr. Special rates F/T clergy, missionaries, pensioners & off peak. Richard & Ann Pether, Ph/Fax 08 9751 1126, Mob 0488 267 165, Email: richann@westnet. com.au

n guAdAlupE hIll TRIgg www.beachhouseperth.com Ph: 0400 292 100.

BUILDING TRADES

n BRIcK RE-pOINTINg Phone Nigel 9242 2952.

n pERROTT pAINTINg pT y lTd

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

n BRIcKl AyINg 20 years exp. Quality work. Ph 9405 7333 or 0409 296 598.

n pIcASSO pAINTINg Top service. Phone 0419 915 836, fax 9345 0505.

n MAINTENANcE Guttering/down pipe replacement. Qualified tradesperson. Quality of work guaranteed. Call Peter 0449 651 697. BOOk REPAIRS n REpAIR yOuR lITuRgIcAl BOOKS

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

HEALTH

n FREE Sample pack for Extra energy and Weight loss.Call - 02 98075337 or 0432 274 643.

n c OuNSEllINg/pSychOThERApy www.christianpsychologist.info Tel: 9203 5278.

n EducATION & c OuNSEllINg Invest in your relationships and happiness for the whole family. RCPD courses beginning in Fro also family counselling and Austudy Appr. ADV. Dip in Christian counselling. 0409 405 585.

FURNITURE REMOVAL

n All AREAS Mike Murphy 0416 226 434.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

n gROTTO The Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate need volunteers to help build a limestone Grotto for our Blessed Mother. Please contact Fr Joseph Michael Mary at (08) 94372792.

RELIGIOUS PRODUCTS

n cAThOlIcS cORNER

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

n RIch hARvEST yOuR chRISTIAN ShOp Looking for Bibles, CDs, books, cards, gifts, statues, baptism/communion apparel, religious vestments, etc? Visit us at 39 Hulme Court (off McCoy St), Myaree,

MISSION MATTERS

EastEr 2009

the R ecoRd Bookshop

By ronald Witherup

Paul, Ronald Witherup has written a devotional book that will assist contemporary readers in reflecting on the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus in the context of St Paul. Because of Paul’s intense understanding of the cross of Jesus Christ, those who open themselves up to the work of the Holy

application of Scripture than they may have experienced.

S t B i BL

S torie S illustrated by John dillow

With beautiful and vibrantly coloured illustrations and retold in a simple, lively style, this book is the

fir S t H o Ly communion regina Press

This beautifully designed, embossed harcover book is a celebration. It is intended to bring Jesus into the minds and hearts of children in a way that will never be forgotten. $15.95 + P/H

by Archbishop Barry J. Hickey

$17.95 + postage vatican co LL ection 18” St Paul Gold Necklace With great pride, we bring to you this breath-taking gold St Paul medallion necklace from the Vatican Library Collection! Incredible details, 18” chain, medallion is 1” diameter. The Vatican Library is accessible only to scholars as part of an effort to help preserve these rare treasures. Each St Paul medallion necklace comes in a beautiful gift box with the Vatican Library seal imprinted in gold, and a Vatican Library Collection information card. $59.95+postage

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