The Record Newspaper 12 January 2011

Breaking through socia l med ia social media super ficia l it y superficiality

God is three, and one, and ... Love

Exploring Christianity’s fundamental belief in the Trinity

Fr Sean

THE R ECORD

New report vindicates ‘Swedish approach’

Sweden’s review of innovative prostitution law’s first decade in operation poses thorny questions for WA’s Attorney General who previously dismissed it outright

BY ANTHONY BARICH

The Swedish model of reforming prostitution laws written off by WA Attorney General Christian Porter has been declared an outstanding success following a review of its first 10 years of operation in the Scandinavian country.

Street prostitution has been halved in Sweden since it criminalised the purchase of sex in 1999, and the law has also proven a barrier to human traffickers setting up shop in the country, a major Swedish government inquiry found.

The evaluation of the prohibition of the purchase of sexual services from 1999 to 2008, led by Chancellor of Justice Anna Skarhed and submitted to Sweden’s Government on 2 July 2010, throws a fascinating new light on the effectiveness of the country’s highly original approach to solving the exploitation of women and girls in prostitution.

Please turn to Page 2

Simone hits the right note for students

Geraldton’s Nagle Catholic College music teacher, Simone BaileyHough, has received national acclaim for her outstanding contribution to music education.

Simone, who has taught at the College for the past 10 years, was judged by the national Awards for Excellence in School

Music Education as being exceptional in her ability to articulate a vision for a school music programme.

“When I first started at Nagle there was barely a music programme but within three years students were studying at TEE level,” she said.

Simone has also opened music up to

students with hearing difficulties. Nagle Principal Declan Tanham believes what Simone has achieved is truly remarkable.

“Simone has created a music environment in a regional setting that would be the envy of many metropolitan schools,” Declan said.

 CATHOLIC EDUCATION CIRCULAR

In India or Australia, journey of priesthood has been one of joy and fulfilment

Kalgoorlie parish priest Fr Joseph Rathnaraj reflects on his 40 years in the priesthood

In a Christian context, a 40 year journey would always refer to the great journey of the people of Israel, led by Moses through the Sinai Desert and the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea as described in the Book of Deuteronomy.

The journey I refer to now is my own journey, having completed 40 years since receiving the gift of priesthood in 1970.

The good God has led me in His mysterious ways in the journey of my priesthood. I gratefully and

joyfully remember the day of my ordination on 18 December 1970. It happened in the small coastal town of Tuticorin in South India.

Having been born on 19 September 1945 in a family of six children to devoted parents, I was a young man of 25 when I received the grace of priesthood.

Previously, upon completion of my high school studies, I spent a year in pre-university class and later, after two years of Latin studies, I spent seven years of study in philosophy and theology at St Peter’s Pontifical College in Bangalore which was run by the Paris Foreign Missionaries (MEP). I graduated with a Bachelor of Theology in March 1971 as a newly ordained priest.

From April 1971, I started my priestly ministry as an assistant

in three parishes and later as parish priest in nine different parishes until 1985. Throughout the years,

the loving hands of God led me through. Later, obtaining a Diploma in

Communications, I undertook a Communications Ministry at our Diocesan Pastoral Centre and later in the Diocesan Laity Centre for formation of laity.

On completion of that ministry, I had the privilege of travelling to Rome, to other European countries and the Americas, opening up for me many other opportunities.

A dream of having a mission experience in a different milieu was fulfilled thanks to Archbishop Barry Hickey as the then-Bishop of Geraldton.

After about five years in the Pilbara region, I returned to my diocese in India where I continued my Communications ministry. I had the privilege of administering the Diocese of Tuticorin for a year in 2004 in the absence of a Bishop in Please turn to Page 6

Then and now: Fr Rathnaraj as a young, newly ordained priest in India and the parish priest of Kalgoorlie today.

Simone Bailey-Hough and Geraldton Nagle Catholic College students are all smiles after the music teacher won a national award for excellence as an exceptional teacher of music. Part of the reason for her win: her vision for and implementation of the school’s music programme. However, Simone also has found ways to engage students with hearing difficulties in music education. PHOTO: COURTESY CEO CIRCULAR

McAuley listing honours rich history

BY BRIDGET SPINKS

SEVERAL 19th and early 20th century buildings and areas of the Catherine McAuley Centre in Barret St, Wembley were heritage listed on 17 December, including the former Benedictine stables, olive trees and consecrated cemetery.

The Register for Heritage Places assessed the Catherine McAuley Centre in June last year for its cultural heritage significance and value as well as its rarity, representativeness, condition, integrity and authenticity.

Travel Dream

The site, now owned by MercyCare, boasts a rich Catholic history with its early Benedictine and later Christian Brothers’ presence and, primarily, that of the Sisters of Mercy. The Sisters administered the site from 1876-2002 except during 1897 and 1901 when it was under the control of the Christian Brothers.

The former Benedictine stables and remaining olive trees are now heritage listed. The olive trees were subsequently used by the Sisters to make olive oil; a venture which brought in funds for the operation of the orphanage and St Vincent’s Foundling Home.

The site’s heritage listed buildings includes St Vincent’s Orphanage for Boys which operated from 1872-1901.

When the first 12 boys moved in to the former Benedictine Monastery in 1872, this was the first non-Government orphanage for boys in Western Australia.

Interestingly, in 1883, Fr (later Bishop) Gibney reported to the Colonial Secretary that as well as schooling, the orphans (who numbered 39 in 1877) were also occupied

with carpentry, gardening, olive oil manufacturing and printing of The Record (first published in 1874).

In 1901, the Orphanage became the St Joseph’s Orphanage for Girls. Today, it is simply called the Old School and is in the centre of the complex.

The girls who were living in the St Joseph’s Orphanage for Girls in Victoria Square around 1901 moved to the new location and took up residence on these grounds under the care of six Sisters

In the early 20th century, the Sisters of Mercy also established St Vincent’s Foundling Home (1914-71 and now her-

itage listed) on the grounds to care for deserted or homeless infants up to the age of six.

Also heritage listed is Davis House, formerly known as St Gerard’s Maternity Hospital (1938-71), which is currently in use in the Aged Care programme as a Dementia Day Care Respite Centre.

Today, MercyCare, a lay company, owns the Catherine McAuley Family Centre, after ownership was transferred with Vatican approval in 2002 from the Sisters of Mercy, Perth. It provides residential aged care, child day care, and family and youth support services.

Swedish report confirms success of innovative law

Continued from Page 1

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At a Belmont community forum in June 2010, Mr Porter sought to debunk evidence presented by Gunilla Ekberg, the Swedish Government’s expert adviser in the development and implementation of its law.

She had been brought to Perth by the Catholic men’s organisation, the Knights of the Southern Cross, when the-then Attorney General Jim McGinty tried to decriminalise prostitution completely.

At the Belmont forum on 8 June 2010, Mr Porter challenged the WA antiprostitution lobby to come up with a better solution than his planned legislation to restrict brothels to “entertainment zones”.

However, the Swedish Government’s evaluation has declared its model, which decriminalises women and girls and criminalises the purchases, so successful it has proposed expanding it, raising the maximum penalty for purchasers of sexual acts from six months’ jail to one year imprisonment and applying it to men who buy sex outside the country.

“According to the National Criminal Police, it is clear that the prohibition of the purchase of sexual services acts as a barrier to human traffickers and procurers considering establishing themselves in Sweden,” the report said.

The evaluation, set up to investigate how the prohibition works in practice and what effects it has had on the incidence of domestic prostitution and human traf-

ficking into Sweden for sexual purposes, shows that the ban on the purchase of sex has “had the intended effect”. The investigation of the application of the ban shows that, after an initial period of “some uncertainty”, police officers and prosecutors now consider that, “in general, the application works well”.

“However, it is clear that the effectiveness of application depends on the resources deployed and the priorities made within the judicial system,” it added.

The Swedish report also said that while prostitution where first contact is made via the Internet is more prevalent in neighbouring countries, “there is nothing to indicate that there has been a greater increase in prostitution via the Internet in Sweden than in these comparable countries”.

“This indicates that the prohibition has not led to street prostitution in Sweden shifting arenas to the Internet,” the report said.

It also recommended the establishment of a National Centre tasked with coordinating efforts against prostitution and human trafficking.

It also proposed that “there is a need to be able to make a more nuanced assessment in more serious cases of the purchase of sexual services than is possible within the current penalty scale for the offence”.

“In the opinion of the inquiry, a person exploited through prostitution may be regarded as the injured party in pur-

PILGRIMAGE TO ROME AND MEDJUGORJE

Leaving Perth 28 April 2011, Returning 12 May 2011

Spiritual Director: Fr Bogoni, Guide: Yolanda Nardizzi

Daily since 1981 it is alleged Our Blessed Mother has been appearing to visionaries in Medjugorje. This is your chance to visit Medjugorje plus Italy and Rome.

Italy stay includes 3 nights Collevalenza - the Lourdes of Italy and sanctuary of merciful love, St Rita of Cascia. Special visit to Fra Elia, stigmatist. 3 days, 2 nights in Rome: visiting St Peter’s, Holy Cross Basilica and other shrines and the special Community of the Family of Mary.

chases of sexual services,” the report said. However, whether the person exploited is to be regarded as the injured party must be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Stressing that it is “important for society to fight against prostitution”, the report said prostitution is considered to cause serious harm both to individuals and to society as a whole.

“Large-scale crime, including human trafficking for sexual purposes, assault, procuring and drug-dealing, is also commonly associated with prostitution,” it said.

Porter said that Ms Ekberg’s statistics are “not a verifiably massive improvement in its ability to control prostitution in Sweden”. However, the UK newspaper The Guardian reported that in 2008 Britain’s House Minister visited Sweden as it was considering adopting the Swedish Model.

Having researched Ms Ekberg’s original documents, Mr Porter said she sources herself, her own anecdotes of conversations she’s had with people and newspaper articles “which themselves do not have proper sources”.

He claimed she also quotes reports issued by County Police of Stockholm, which say that in Sweden there has been some success in reducing street prostitution but “on the other hand, we do not know whether it has had any effect on prostitution overall”.

He quoted the Swedish Government’s National Board of Health and Welfare: “We cannot give any unambiguous answer (prostitution has increased or decreased). At most we can discern that street prostitution is slowly returning after swiftly disappearing in the wake of the law against purchasing sexual services, but that refers to street prostitution, the most obvious manifestation. In regards to other areas, ‘hidden’ prostitution, we are even less able to make any statement”.

From this, Mr Porter concluded: “So I would counsel caution against believing on face value some of the quite expansive and, in my view, unsubstantiated, positives that people have attached to the Swedish model.”

Leaving Rome 5 May for Medjugorje (the place of alleged daily apparitions of our Lady), staying 6 nights 7 days. All flights, bed, breakfast and evening meals included. Approx price $3,980. Optional extension to Fatima following Medjugorje available for extra cost of $900.

enq Eileen 9402 2480, mob 0407 471 256, email medjugorje@y7mail.com

The Swedish Government website summarising the report, including a downloadable PDF of the English language Summary of the Evaluation of the ban on purchase of sexual services can be found online at: www.sweden.gov.se.

Richard Egan: Nothing makes selling women and girls right - Page 9

The Foundling Home, one of the newly heritage listed McAuley Centre buildings.

Catholic Prayer Festival to offer

BY ANTHONY BARICH

THE Catholic Prayer Festival is being re-booted in Perth from 11-13 February to showcase a “smorgasbord” of Catholic culture and provide faith formation for youth.

City Beach parish priest Fr Don Kettle, who facilitated the hugely successful festival as director of the Archdiocesan Catholic Youth Ministry office for three years, told The Record that, as Pope Benedict XVI said, one of the biggest crises facing youth today is that they are not catechised.

“After we hosted these festivals, young people were saying ‘why haven’t we heard this?’ Youth want clear direction in their lives, and there is a need for them to be spiritually nourished and encouraged,” Fr Kettle said.

The festival, which costs $70 per person and will be held at the Adventist Camp in Maida Vale, also aims to honour priests who preach with authority the Truth as Jesus received from the Father and passed down to the Apostles and the priests of today.

It will include catechesis by priests, discussion groups, fellowship and meeting other Catholics, perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, Cenacle with priests on the Friday night, a Eucharistic procession, books and CD resources on display plus daily recitation of the Rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Angelus.

The CYM-hosted Prayer Festivals geared up for World Youth

Day Cologne 2005. This year’s Festival, the first since 2006 and themed Christ enters our life in the Eucharist to transform it at its very core, is placed four months prior to the 16-21 August World Youth Day Madrid.

“The Prayer Festival is a call to all young Catholics to prayer with like-minded, committed youth who are on fire about their Catholic Tradition,” Fr Kettle said.

“It is an opportunity for young people to open the treasury of the Church to explore the different ways in which to pray, in solitude and to come together in communion to worship and praise God and receive catechesis on what the Church teaches about their faith and how we, through our prayer, give to God what is due to Him through love for His Church.”

The Festival sprang out of a weekly discernment group of about 30 youth led by diocesan priest Fr Tim Deeter in Rossmoyne, Greenmount and Mt Lawley from 1997.

These youth, who called themselves the Confraternity of St Michael the Archangel, organised a retreat at Rottnest Island in 1997 then two more at New Norcia in ‘98 and ’99 that were expanded to married and Religious and included prayers with the Benedictine monks.

Some members then joined others to start at New Norcia the Jubilee 2000 Retreat for young Catholics, named after the Jubilee Year Pope John Paul II initiated to open new horizons in preaching the Kingdom of God and be a time

Consoler of those Abandoned and Orphaned, is the principal pastoral activity of the New Apostolate Consecrated in the Heart of the Holy Family, a public association of Christ’s Faithful under the direction of Perth Archbishop Barry Hickey.

“The charism of the Community is to realise in the world a living presence of the Holy Family and in doing so make known by teaching and example God’s great message for the salvation of souls,” the asso-

of repentance, both for individuals and for the Church as a whole.

The idea of a prayer festival was inspired by a similar retreat organisation called Youth 2000 UK which was flourishing.

Seventy people gathered for spiritual and educational formation and to honour priests, some of whom gave talks on sexuality in the context of vocations, the Eucharist and perpetual adoration.

The Catholic Prayer Festival, which the Jubilee Festival evolved into in 2001, always had a quote or title of a Church or papal document as its theme, and priests would then “unpack it” for the participants.

It included a night of Reconciliation and a Eucharistic procession.

It also included a “panel” where priests answered questions on the catechesis while also revealing humorous stories from their own lives that enabled the youth to relate to them more.

Fr Deeter will return for the 11-13 February event, presenting a keynote talk on Liturgy and the Eucharist, along with Fr Kettle’s talk on Liturgy of the Word and Franciscan Friar of the Immaculate Fr Michael Joseph Mary McShane talking on Mary and the Eucharist.

Further information: contact catholicprayerfest@gmail.com phone 0431 228 630 or go to “Catholic Prayer Festival” on Facebook.

ciation says. In his recent pastoral letter Pray for children, God’s precious gift, Archbishop Hickey drew attention to the plight of children in unstable and broken marriages, especially those taken into care – the new “orphans”.

For further information or to make a tax deductible donation, please write to: Mary Consoler of those Abandoned and Orphaned Fund PO Box 73 Guildford WA 6935, or call Rose on 0437 700 247.

SJOG expands outreach, advocacy

ST JOHN of God Health Care will increase its commitment to improving health and wellbeing in 2011, expanding its community-based Social Outreach and Advocacy services to address some of the causes of poor health outcomes highlighted recently by Catholic Health Australia (CHA).

CHA’s recent Health Lies in Wealth report demonstrated that health outcomes in Australia are clearly linked to socio-economic status and, by providing targeted preventative health initiatives, Social Outreach and Advocacy services strive to make a positive impact on health outcomes for those experiencing disadvantage in the long-term.

Having built up a wide variety of services helping people experiencing disadvantage to access vital assistance since 2002, Social Outreach and Advocacy continues to grow.

Services are provided free of charge or at minimal cost to people who need them most in addition to the renowned care offered by St John of God Health Care’s network of hospitals and diagnostics in Australia and New Zealand.

Two key areas for development in 2011 will be Early Years – supporting couples during pregnancy and families with children up to the age of four, and young people – providing support to people aged 12 to 25 facing matters such as homelessness, mental health issues and drug or alcohol use.

Several new services are set to go live this year including:

● Horizon House, Broome –providing accommodation for young people needing stable accommodation, focusing on Indigenous males aged 12 to 25 in Broome.

● Horizon House, Warrnambool – the ninth Horizon House to open in Australia, will provide long-term support to young people who may otherwise face homelessness in Warrnambool, Victoria.

● Youth Mental Health – new services are being developed in WA and Victoria in partnership with Headspace; expansion is expected in Fremantle, Bendigo and Geelong as well as other potential locations.

● Raphael House, Ballarat –providing mental health support to mothers, fathers and infants during pregnancy and early childhood to families in Ballarat, Victoria.

● Raphael Centre’s expansion in Perth – new partnerships are being developed in the northern suburbs of Perth and southwest metro area with service expansion set to build on successes in Subiaco.

● East Timor Development –providing new pathology equipment to support the National Pathology Development Programme operated by St John of God Health Care, now in its fifth year.

“As recognised by CHA’s report, health outcomes in Australia are clearly linked to socio-economic status.

“We intend to play a significant role in improving longterm health outcomes for those experiencing disadvantage and that is the central aim for Social Outreach and Advocacy in 2011 and beyond,” Anne Russell-Brown, director of Social Outreach and Advocacy at St John of God Health Care, said.

“We are really excited about 2011 as it will be a big year for delivering new services and further developing those that have already made a difference to the health of people in our communities.

“By the end of the first quarter of this year, we should have nine Horizon House locations in operation – a major commitment to giving young people a better start to their adult lives.”

Mrs Russell-Brown addded that Early Years services will also be expanded considerably during 2011.

St Emile farewells missionary

THE parish of St Emilie, Canning Vale gave a heartfelt farewell to Fr Dennis Sudla after 9am Mass on 9 January in recognition for his contribution over the last 12 months to parish life in building up the youth, liturgy and music ministry. Fr Sudla spent six years as a missionary before coming to Canning Vale parish and he drew upon this rich pastoral experience during his time there.

At the farewell celebration in the new parish hall after Mass, Fr Dennis thanked the parishioners for their welcome, support and acceptance and for the friendships he has enjoyed during his ministry. Only distance will keep him away from St Emilie, he said.

The parish youth also gave a performance and later, through songs they had written, expressed what Fr Dennis has meant to them. They also showed a PowerPoint

that captured special moments of Fr Dennis’ journey at St Emilie such as the youth pilgrimage, fundraising events, Christmas carols and prayer gatherings, which had a big impact on their faith development.

Three parishioners also gave reflections on how Fr Dennis helped bring them closer to God through his homilies, and by the simple personal touches he made to bring encouragement and inspiration to others.

Everyone who attended received a special blessing before they bade him final farewell.

Fr Sudla came to the parish as a relieving parish priest in early 2010 and was later appointed assistant parish priest.

He takes up appointment on 12 January as acting priest at St Luke’s Woodvale until Fr Trevor Simons completes treatment for his illness and is able to return to the parish.

Crawley’s historic Mass

OVER 150 people crammed into St Thomas More College Chapel in Crawley for an historic children’s Mass at 6pm on Christmas Eve, celebrated by Fr Jamie Calder SJ.

At least 50 children gathered around the altar during the Eucharistic Prayer after they had activities prior to the Offertory where they made Christmas decorations outside the church, then brought them in during the Offertory Procession and put them on the altar and on the Christmas tree to the left of the altar.

Organisers were surprised by the turn-out as the St Thomas More Chapel community does not have many children and had never held a Christmas Eve Vigil Mass before. Organisers told The Record that choir members invited their workmates and friends, so many non-Catholics attended who wanted to attend a Christmas ceremony.

In this way, it was an evangelising act, organisers said, as “they were totally blown away by it all. They expected a formal liturgy, but it was quite relaxed”.

21st Annual Flame Congress

7.30pm January 21, 22. 23, 2011

John XXIII College Theatre Hall, John 23rd Avenue, Mt. Claremont. WA

Includes daytime sessions Sat & Sun All evening sessions - FREE!

Presented by Flame Ministries International

SPEAKERS

Mgr Brian O'Loughlin VG,PA

Kaye Rollings FMI

Cyrus D’Souza FMI

Carlos Moreira FMI

Livia Cianfagna FMI

Cheryle Douglas FMI

Adrienne Von Speyr was a convert to Catholicism, a medical doctor, wife, mystic and author of some 70 books on spirituality. In this profound work on Our Lady, Von Speyr explores Mary’s participation with Christ in our redemption, and the unique relationship that each of us should have with our spiritual mother.

BY ADRIENNE VON

ISBN 9780898709551

130 pages • paperback $21.95

“A beautiful book, beautifully received by the author in prayer. The reader is plunged into the mystery of Mary’s co-redemption in an individual manner as our Mother wishes for us. Avoiding the extremes of sentimental devotion or a radical feminist usurpation of Mary, von Speyr’s account brings us right into the centre of truth. It offers us a bridge between the warm intuitions of our hearts and theological formulations that might sometimes seem cold. Infused mystical theology at the height. Alleluia.”

—Ronda Chervin, author, Kiss from the Cross

“Mary’s unique role in the saga of salvation has been pondered by theologians and mystics, Popes and saints. Von Speyr has thought deeply and profoundly on Mary’s role and gives us precious insights and exhibits profound wisdom.”

—Stephen K Ray, author, Crossing the Tiber

SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER: Aneel Aranha; Founder, Holy Spirit Interactive, Dubai, UAE.

Persecution

Vietnamese priests

BY ANTHONY BARICH

FOR Fr Son Nguyen, Mass, lunch and a cake at Claremont parish is a long way from being crammed like sardines with 40 other souls in a 1.8 by 7.5 metre boat in treacherous seas with no food, escaping Communist Vietnam.

Mass and refreshment is how Bassendean parish priest Fr Son and Claremont parish priest Fr Charles Waddell celebrated their 10th anniversaries of ordination on 15 December, having been ordained together in 2000 at St Mary’s Cathedral, Perth along with two other Vietnamese priests who had likewise risked death to escape anti-Christian persecution.

While the three Vietnamese men did not know each other back in their homeland, Kwinana parish priest Fr Phong Nguyen, 40, said a special bond had been forged between himself, Fr Son and Ellenbrook parish priest Fr Francis Huy Nguyen, 39, as they shared a cultural heritage and bore the same cross in their formative years.

“Definitely, there has always been a good connection and a close bond that we share and, while Charles did not train with us, he happened to join and be part of our ordination

ceremony Mass, and from then on we kept in touch with each other for support. Now, whenever there’s a special occasion we get together to celebrate,” Fr Phong told The Record

Though they shared their stories of restricted life as Christians in Vietnam, they’ve now decided not to talk about it and get on with the ministry of their priesthood. But that has not exorcised the demons of 23 years ago, which Fr Son remembers like it was yesterday.

The three Vietnamese priests grew up in a country where only government-run schools were allowed and Fr Son, though he did well at school, was not allowed to study at university because the gov-

The Catholic faith remains strong in Vietnam despite persecutions. Seminarians carry statues of Mary and the Christ Child before a Mass as part of the holy year celebrations at the La Vang Basilica in Vietnam’s central Quang Tri province. CNS

ernment had branded his father a “capitalist” because he happened to be “rich”. Fr Son, now 41, tried to escape “many times” but was caught each time by the Communists.

The last attempt turned deadly. On that small boat with 40 others, they had run out of food after a week as there was no room on the boat for storage, with the motor taking up much of the room.

They survived for a week without

food before a French vessel saved them from stormy seas that would have killed them and took the survivors to a Philippine island where Fr Son stayed for four years.

“Our boat was small, I could put my feet down and touch the water. I still have that very clear picture in my mind. We sat on the boats like sardines in a tin, we couldn’t lie down, we had to sit with our legs in a v-shape to fit in together; we couldn’t move around as there was just nowhere to move. People were sea sick, it smelled, and this was a wooden boat. Ugh …” Fr Son said as if re-living the dangerous voyage. He arrived in Australia in 1991 and was eventually released from the refugee camp as his parents and older brother had already escaped to Perth. The kindness of an American Jesuit priest, the late Fr Robert Crawford, got him thinking about the beauty of the priesthood and the urgent need of so many poor people in the world to care for. After further discernment he felt a distinct call from God, recognising that Christ wanted the escapee to become a priest.

It wasn’t long before he joined St Charles Seminary in Guildford, despite being repelled by the very prospect of priesthood back in Vietnam.

in brief...

75 for SJOG Geraldton

ST JOHN of God Hospital Geraldton is celebrating 75 years of service to the people of the mid-west – continuing the tradition of compassionate care begun by the Sisters in the region in 1935.

Group Chief Executive Officer Dr Michael Stanford; Group Director Mission, Jennifer Stratton; St John of God Hospital Bunbury CEO Mark Grime and Perth-based Sisters Rita McDermott, Marguerita Connolly, Catherine McGuane and Gratiae O’Shaughnessy joined Geraldton’s CEO, Grainne Friel; Geraldton-based Sr O’Connor and caregivers and members of the community at the anniversary celebrations.

Grainne Friel said the hospital today – a modern facility providing high quality local choice to mid-west residents –was a far cry from its humble beginnings.

Plans are also in the pipeline to introduce a perinatal mental health support service to provide much needed family-centred support and information to parents and families affected by anxiety and depression during pregnancy and the four years following birth.

Frs Charles Waddell, Son Nguyen, Francis Huy Ngyen and Phong Nguyen.

There’s a little bit of WA growing by the day in Vatican Gardens

BY PETER ROSENGREN

A young Western Australian red gum now stands in the Vatican gardens and may be noticed by Pope Benedict and others on early morning walks.

The tree’s planting in one of the most exotic gardens in the world is the initiative of All Saints, Liwarra parishioner Tom Alford.

Mr Alford, who is now retired from Telstra, has maintained a lifelong interest in the flora of Australia’s biggest state and in 1993 helped set up the Friends of Kings Park.

He also chaired the formation of Florabase, the public website and database set up by the WA Department of Environment and Conservation which holds information on all known WA species and subspecies of plant life.

Mr Alford told The Record he recently approached Mark Webb, the Chief Executive Officer of Kings Park and suggested the Park gift a Western Australian plant to the Vatican Gardens.

He had been inspired, in part, by a visit to the Vatican Gardens in 1998. Mr Webb liked the idea and suggested Corymbia Ficifilia, the Western Australian Redgum as ideal.

Mr Alford then spoke to Archbishop Barry Hickey who raised the matter with the Papal Nuncio in Canberra, Archbishop Giuseppe Lazarotto, who said the Vatican would be happy to receive the plant.

During a visit to the Kings Park botanical laboratories, Mr Alford mentioned the idea to colleagues who told him they knew of Dr Roberto Crosti, an Italian scientist who had conducted research at the laboratories recently.

After Dr Crosti was contacted, he was able to locate a WA Redgum grown from seed in an Italian nursery. A plant grown in Italian soil has an advantage of one grown in Western Australian soil which might not fare so well after transplanting, Mr Alford said.

Dr Crosti also contacted the Responsible for the Vatican Gardens, Mr Lucian Cecchetti, and arranged for delivery of the Redgum on 16 December last year.

Mr Alford, who began his gardening interest on a bare patch of sand around his house shortly after marrying wife Beverly 41 years ago, is delighted with the result.

“I’m thrilled to bits, absolutely thrilled to bits,” he told The Record.

“As I say, I’ll push WA flora at any opportunity I get.”

ATTENTION!

Clergy, Chaplains, Lay Pastoral Ministers, Pastoral Workers and Associates, Parish Secretaries, Carers, Support Group Workers and Volunteers

ACCREDITED COURSES 2011 Prerequisites N/A

Presented by Gerry Smith, Experienced Grief Counsellor and Educator

Venue: St Catherine’s House of Hospitality, 113 Tyler Street, Tuart Hill (Parking at rear of building)

Term one: WORKING WITH THE SICK AND THE DYING

9th February – 30th March, Eight consecutive Wednesdays (9.30am -12noon)

Term two: WORKING WITH THE BEREAVED

11th May – 29th June, Eight consecutive Wednesdays (9.30am – 12 noon)

Term three: GOOD COMMUNICATION IN PASTORAL CARE

27th July -14th September, Eight consecutive Wednesdays (9.30am – 12 noon)

Term four: HEALTHY CARER…. HEALTHY CARING

13th October – 7th December, Eight consecutive Wednesdays (9.30am- 12 noon)

These courses are designed to assist the development of existing skills, so that the Pastoral Carer will Minister even more effectively, with competence and confidence.

Course fees $125.00 Per term or $440.00 for all terms

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION AND ENROLMENT

Please contact: Grief Management Educational Services P/L Telephone (08) 9344 4438

Email:gerry.gmes@bigpond.com

New Consul visits Archbishop Hickey

BY PETER ROSENGREN

Archbishop Barry Hickey welcomed the new Indonesian Consul to Perth early in the New Year and happily blessed his work.

Mr Syahari Sakidin, is the new Consul/Minister Counsellor of the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia and visited Archbishop Hickey on Thursday, 6 January, shortly before Archbishop Hickey departed overseas. Mr Sakidin has extensive experience as a diplomat for the Indonesian Government and has served in a number of posts, including as a Director of the

Commission of Truth and Friendship of IndonesiaTimor Leste in 2006 and 2007.

He joined the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1981 and was an Attache at the Indonesian Embassy in The Hague, Second Secretary at the Indonesian Embassy in Prague, Counsellor at the Indonesian Embassy in London and Minister Counsellor at the Embassy in Tokyo.

Mr Sakidin said the Indonesian Government has upgraded its Perth consulate in view of a number of factors including increasing ties between Western Australia and Indonesia.

Father’s 40 years of priestly joy

continued from Page 1 the Diocese. Later, in 2006, I arrived again in Australia to the Archdiocese of Perth where I spent six months in Moora, a beautiful wheatbelt town.

In January 2007, I arrived in Kalgoorlie-Boulder parish to

serve the Goldfields Catholic Community in all the various towns of the Goldfields. It is great to live among and minister to the various communities of faithful and I am very grateful to the people for their generous support of prayer and cooperation.

A little bit of Western Australia: the WA Redgum, in foreground, now growing in the stately surrounds of the Vatican Gardens, above, and the distinctive flower of the WA native, at left. Mr Lucian Cechetti, below at left, takes delivery of the plant shortly before Christmas last year.

PHOTOS: COURTESY TOM ALFORD, FLORABASE

Archbishop Barry Hickey welcomes the new Consul and Minister Counsellor of the Indonesian Consulate General in Perth, Mr Syahari Sakadin, during a courtesy call to his office on 6 January.

PHOTO: PETER ROSENGREN

Last of Bunbury’s Irish labourers dies

BY GLYNNIS GRAINGER

THE last of all the Irish priests who laboured in the Bunbury diocese died peacefully at the Little Sisters of the Poor nursing home in Glendalough on 21 December.

Stephen Peter Hawe was born on 26 December 1918 in Kilkenny Ireland, the second youngest of six children and the last survivor of the children.

His funeral was held in the Immaculate Conception Church, Dardanup on 31 December and the eulogy was delivered by Fr Noel Fitzsimons of the Brunswick parish.

He had a healthy life on the family farm and was never seriously ill during his life of 91 years.

He had an uncle, a priest, who probably set him thinking about the priesthood himself in later years at school and there was no opposition from his parents.

Enjoying his years in the seminary, he made many friends and with them cycled around Ireland’s historical sites and enjoyed the scenery and the golf courses.

His ordination on 12 June 1942 at the age of 23 years and six months was a great occasion for his family and friends.

He reflected how wonderful it was to be a priest, and that was a feeling that never left him.

Three months later, he and five other volunteers for Perth were on their way in the munitions ship The Port Fairie

They eventually docked in Melbourne and flew to Perth in the Bungana, and were met by Archbishop Prendiville’s chauffeur and taken to meet the Archbishop

and receive their appointments.

Steve was appointed to Palmyra as assistant to Peter Claver Smith and he would meet fellow immigrant Irishman Bill Costelloe every Monday for golf at Fremantle, Monday golf being an institution that was observed throughout their lives.

In 1946, Steve was sent to Collie to assist Fr John Brosnan, who was known as “Brossie”.

Fr Phil Shannon and Steve were on their way for a swim at Leighton Beach and stopped at a rail crossing for a train to pass. Immediately after the train passed, Fr Shannon stepped straight into the path of the train coming in the opposite direction.

By a miracle, Steve was unhurt because he was a matter of centimetres behind Phil Shannon. Phil was killed immediately. It was on

14 January 1946 and Steve was on holidays from Collie.

In 1948, Steve received his first appointment as parish priest to Waroona where he served for seven years and built the presbytery next to the church on the highway.

After this, he went to Ireland for the first time in 1955, where both his parents had died and his nieces and nephews were now grown up.

On his return, Steve was appointed to Kojonup for three years, then to Pemberton for seven years, then Bridgetown for five years, where he celebrated his silver jubilee of ordination. Then he was posted to Wagin-Dumbleyung parish for nine years, then to DardanupBoyanup for three years, then to Boyup Brook, where he celebrated his 50th anniversary of ordination.

Later, he concluded his years of service at Pemberton and retired to a small house at Preston Beach where he could play all the golf he desired.

Deteriorating health led him to a room at the Little Sisters of the Poor at Glendalough, but he protested by taking off to Ireland.

The Sisters were frantic as to his whereabouts, as he would have to return within a month or lose his room. He did return within the appointed time and settled down to the new regime where he spent the last seven or eight years of his life.

Fr Steve gave great service to the Archdiocese of Perth for 12 years and to the Diocese of Bunbury for the best part of 50 years.

He was a quiet, unassuming priest, without pretence or pride, who fulfilled his pastoral role because he loved it.

Pope gives $50k to flood victims

POPE Benedict XVI has donated US$50,000 to help the victims of the worst floods the State of Queensland has suffered in 50 years.

The flood, which has claimed at least one life and affected over 200,000 people in up to 24 towns, is estimated to have already caused $5 billion in damages, devastating much of Australia’s coal, beef and agriculture industries.

The country’s military has been dropping supplies into towns and is on standby for evacuations.

“The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, having been informed of the recent flooding in north-eastern Australia, has wished to express his closeness to the victims and their families,” said the letter. “As a gesture of solidarity, His Holiness has instructed the Pontifical Council

in brief...

Cathedral to put on glorious show

ST MARY’S Cathedral Concert Series for 2011 will start on 25 March with Magnificat, featuring performances by the Cathedral Choir with a small chamber orchestra of Vivaldi’s Magnificat and Gregorian can-

Cor Unum to allocate the sum of US$50,000 in response to the urgent needs of those affected by the natural disaster.

“The donation has been entrusted through the Diocese of Rockhampton to the St Vincent de Paul Statewide Appeal in view of its distribution across all the flood victims.”

At the epicentre of the floodwaters is the town of Theodore, surrounded by cotton and citrus crops, cattle farms, coal and gold mining operations. The town, including Sacred Heart Catholic Church, was submerged on Christmas Day.

Theodore parish priest Fr Noel Milner, pastor to the Valleys Region who travels 600km each Sunday to celebrate Mass in three towns, told Catholic Mission Australia: “We just have to sit it out, knowing that

ticles in a Vespers style format interspersed with movements from Handel’s Concerto Grosso in G Major. Four subsequent concerts form part of the series, including Marian Mediations at 2pm on 15 May; MacKillop Tribute Concert at 2pm on 7 August; Chapels of St Mary’s by Candlelight at 7.15pm on 18 September and Christus Rex at 2pm on 20 November. Evening concert tickets are $25 ($20 concession) and afternoon concert tickets are $45 ($35 concession) but subscriptions are also available for those who wish to go to two or more con-

Events across the Archdiocese At a glance

St Paul’s, Mt Lawley

Love Ministries – Charismatic Healing Team and Fr Hugh Thomas Following Mass all are invited to receive prayer for past and present issues or stand in for a loved one who may be ill or facing problems at this time. All welcome.

Enq: Fr Hugh or Gilbert 0431 570 322.

When: Saturday 29 January, 6pm, St Paul’s Church, 104 Rookwood St, Mt Lawley.

St Thomas More, Bateman

Chaplets of the Divine Mercy

A beautiful, prayerful and sung devotion will be accompanied by Exposition and followed by Benediction. All are welcome.

Enq: George Lopez 9310 9493 (h) or 9325 2010 (w).

When: Second Wednesday of the Month, 7.30pm at St Thomas More Church, Dean Rd, Bateman.

Faith Centre, Perth

The Cathedral Praise Meeting

When the Spirit comes – A Holy Spirit Seminar. Each evening – worship, teaching, small group sharing, refreshments. All welcome.

Enq: Flame Ministries International – 9382 3668

When: Every Thursday, 7.45pm at Faith Centre, 450 Hay St, Perth.

St Gerard Majella, Mirrabooka

Communion of Reparation All Night Vigil NOR

Honouring the Two Hearts of Jesus and Mary with two Masses, Confession, Adoration and Prayers. Celebrants Fr Marini and Fr Bogoni. All welcome.

Enq: Joy 9344 2609 or Nick 0428 953 471.

When: First Friday of the Month, 7pm – 1am at St Gerard Majella Church, Majella Rd, Mirrabooka.

St John and Paul Church, Willetton

Divine Mercy

Pray the Rosary and Chaplet of the Divine Mercy, and for the consecrated life especially in St John Paul parish, concluding with veneration of the First Class Relic of St Faustina.

Enq: John 9457 7771.

When: Every Thursday, 11am at St John and Paul Church, Pine Tree Gully Rd, Willetton.

the clean-up will be a huge job and heartbreaking for those who have lost everything - home, furnishings and livelihood.”

International branches of the Pontifical Mission Societies from Ireland and Pakistan have also written to their Australian colleagues conveying their support and sympathy.

“I am overwhelmed by the news that the affected area is equivalent to Germany and France combined,” Catholic Mission Ireland’s director Fr Gary Howley wrote in an email to Catholic Mission Australia.

“It is difficult to comprehend the extent of such flooding, it is so enormous.”

Bishop Brian Heenan of Rockhampton has pledged that the Catholic Church will do all it can in the recovery process.

certs. The series is partly sponsored by Miss Maud Hotel and Restaurant so concert attendees, with presentation of their ticket on concert day, can enjoy $10 off the smorgasbord dinner or $5 off the smorgasbord lunch at Miss Maud’s in Pier St between 5 and 7pm on the day of the concert. Pre-bookings are essential. Miss Maud’s will also provide afternoon tea during interval at the afternoon concerts.

Tickets through BOCS ticketing 9484 1133 or 1800 193 300 or www.bocsticketing.com.au (transaction fees may apply).

THE AQUINAS CATECHISM

“A

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“The

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Death by Committee

Any visitor to Australia who had never been here before could, conceivably, look around and take careful note of the buildings which they see and wonder what such structures might tell them about the nation they visit. Among such public buildings as they might be wont to notice are the Catholic churches of the land, from the humblest rural Mass station to the grandest of the nation’s Cathedrals.

If they were looking at Catholic churches, they would notice something strange, a clear dividing line between the older churches built in the 19th and early 20th centuries and those that coincided with the second half of the 20th century onwards. Among the lessons such a visitor might deduce is a clear contrast between an earlier style and, after a certain historical point in Australian life, an explosion of experimentation in form and structure in individual churches without any apparent cohesion or relationship with any other of their contemporary ecclesial buildings.

The great British art historian Kenneth Clarke opened his landmark 1968 BBC television series Civilisation with memorable words on the subjects of art and architecture and their deeper significance. Standing on the opposite bank of the Seine, with the Cathedral of Notre Dame behind him, he posed the question which developed into the central motif and theme of that truly remarkable documentary series.

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“What is civilisation? I don’t know. I can’t define it in abstract terms - yet. But I think I recognise it when I see it; and I am looking at it now,” he says as he turns his gaze across the river to one of the greatest churches in the world. By way of introducing the series, Clarke, who converted to the Catholic faith late in life, went on to quote the 19th century English art historian John Ruskin on how to properly understand a civilisation. ‘Great nations,’ wrote Ruskin, ‘write their autobiographies in three manuscripts: the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others, but of the three the only trustworthy one is the last.’

One wonders what either Ruskin or Clarke would make of the architecture of the very large number of Catholic churches erected in Australia in the last half century. One strongly suspects a mixture of revulsion and horror, not only at their appearance but at what they would feel such structures undoubtedly signify. Rather remarkably, part of the tale of the long slide of Australian Catholic church architecture is also a paradox. A hundred years ago, Catholics were discriminated against at almost every level of society and generally poor. But they built beautiful churches out of stone and brick, the exterior and interior of which were often, to put it as simply as possible, works of art and craftsmanship. Whole Catholic communities voluntarily raised funds for years to build the best churches they could.

In the 20th century, however, as Catholics became more affluent they began to build churches that reflected something else. As the century wore on, it seemed, the idea of what a church should be, at least in essentials, seemed to fracture and fragment to the point where no such idea could be said to significantly exist any more. In ecclesial architecture, in other words, anarchy appeared to gain the upper hand so that the latest fads - artistic, pseudo liturgical, cultural, whatever - apparently became the dominant informing spirits of those who designed, approved and built such things. The results were an increasing number of what can often only be described as inanities or monstrosities and, just as often, banal, bland or anodyne structures which lacked any capacity to inspire. In church architecture, it seemed, the word ‘inspiring’ was droppped from the very lexicon.

If one looks about the Catholic parish church architectural landscape now, here in Perth and across the nation, one sees the apparent victory of the bland and inoffensive - and uninspiring. So many of our parish churches appear to have been modelled on the Fuehrerbunker and the last days of the Third Reich. Built often in the sixties and seventies, they were dated within three or four years of being erected. Interiorly, they are often little better and become a form of suffering for those burdened with the enthusiasms of those who went before. There is little that is harmonious, reasonable or humane about them.

Ironically, the buildings most loved and desired by non-religious Australia are precisely those which are no longer built. The most expensive mansions in the suburbs are almost always the older style of leafy, suburban mansions in which people imagine they could languish the hours away on summer afternoons reading novels by EM Forster. In other words, such buildings, public or private, are redolent of something gone but, at least, not forgotten and still desired. Some of the best examples of public architecture in Australia are not the billion dollar palaces of industry and commerce but post offices and train stations across the country that were built a hundred years ago.

Architecture really does express the spirit of something and really is important. It is true, as Clarke and Ruskin thought, that you can tell a lot about people by the buildings they erect, especially when a consistent pattern is apparent. Part of the renewal of the Church in this country will also come and be expressed when we begin building churches not designed by anonymous diocesan committees made up of everyone with an opinion but no actual experience in history or church architecture. Parishes building parish churches should be encouraged to break free from diocesan suffocation by committee and to think in terms of the possibilities, to think big and aim high. After all, where there is a will, there is also a way. This is an important issue.

Letters to the editor

Archbishop Clune and the Crypt

It is with some sadness that I read in the latest edition of The Record (5 January 2011) the article “Archbishop hopes to bring Brady Home”. In the article, you state ‘that whilst the Redemptorist Provincial and the surviving family members of Archbishop Clune are in favour of his remains being reinterred in the Cathedral Crypt, the North Perth Redemptorist community is still considering the matter’.

The current Redemptorist Provincial has never stated that he is in favour of Archbishop Clune’s remains being interred in the Cathedral Crypt. When asked by our community, the Provincial said that he would leave the decision to the Redemptorist Community in Perth.

The Redemptorist Community, in making its current decision as to whether Archbishop Clune’s remains should be interred in the Crypt of the newly renovated Cathedral, is based on Archbishop Clune’s own, oft repeated wish, that, after his death, he be interred at Karrakatta in the Redemptorist plot. That wish is well known by the senior priests of the Archdiocese. Out of deference and respect for the first Archbishop of Perth who was a Redemptorist and who could have chosen to be interred in the Cathedral which he worked to extend when he was the Archbishop, we, the current Redemptorist Community, decided unanimously as a conscience decision that we accede to Archbishop Clune’s wish, made at his own request.

I did, of course, explain all the above to Archbishop Hickey in an earlier and previous letter.

Fr Joseph Carroll CSsR Superior, North Perth Monastery

Thanks, from India

Iam writing to thank you for promoting our Mission (“Reality bites for Perth midwife”, The Record, 16 June 2010) which resulted in sponsorship and donations towards our cause in Shevgaon, India which caters towards poor and underprivileged communities. We, the Sisters of the Medical Mission Secular Institute, Nityaseva Hospital, Shevgaon, would like to extend our thanks to your staff and readers for their generous support.

Sr Juliana D’ Souza Nityaseva Hospital Shevgaon, District Ahmednagar India

A matter of dress...

With the beginning of summer, we are already witnessing the parade of “extra” flesh in our churches. I would not consider myself a prudish person; however, some of the young (and not so young) women’s tampering with the ethics of church ethos is way out of line. Notwithstanding the “dubious” behaviour of these members of the

flock, shouldn’t the hierarchy of the Church “advise” us all on the proper attire for attending church?

Once upon a time, the parish priest would have mentioned something to that effect but, with today’s Political Correctness gone mad, any adverse whisper from the pulpit could be mistaken for a complete ban of the offender and…, with the declining attendance at the Sunday’s Mass, we don’t really wish to do that!

Any suggestion on how to bring back some “decency” in our church pews?

Mario Rapanaro Dianella

More hands to the pumps needed

Iwas shocked last week to hear that a single parent family which you featured some time ago with an unnamed mother who had heart problems, had recently contacted SVDP for assistance, and was told that they could not help her with food because they had no volunteers in her area of Osborne Park.

Fortunately, when I contacted my local SVDP conference of Whitfords, they were willing to assist.

I write to you now in the hope that perhaps you may do a feature article, which may encourage volunteers to come forward in the areas where this situation could occur again.

Many years ago when I was a member of SVDP, I recall that City Beach Conference, who had few/ no calls in their area, would assist the Girrawheen Conference who were overwhelmed with calls, but perhaps there is a general shortage presently?

On another note, I would like to congratulate you and your paper once again on keeping Catholics informed on so many issues, and also personal stories.

I was amazed and delighted to read this week of Dr Mary Glowrey and her wonderful life of devotion to the poor of India. I would think few of us have heard of her before. Her story is inspiring, and I hope she will one day become Australia’s second saint. Great front page story to show our children and grandchildren – I just did.

Sheila Woodvale

China calling

Dear Record Staff and Readers, at Christmas and New Year it is time to remember our loving leper patients, the AIDS children and our dedicated Sisters. The most important gift is our “Love”. The little Jesus Love in the manger. His gift is Himself, coming from heaven and going step by step to the Cross on the way to carry us to Heaven.

I am 98 years old; our Lord can take me at any time he pleases. The doctor was very happy to see me in so good condition and in reality I am feeling well. Thanks for the blessing from our Lord.

Recently, I was very happy that I could go to Han Zhong- Xian for three days to see my leper patients, nearly 300 in our home with eight Sisters and volunteers who take care of them. Everyone was well dressed and had plenty of food. They are repairing more houses to receive more yet. I want to go back to see the new houses for the newcomers and bless every one of them.

Actually, I have to take care of 12 adults and 44 little children with AIDS in five centres under the care of the Sisters.

Remembering you in my Masses

and prayers, and wishing you and your dear ones a very Happy and Holy Christmas and every blessing in the New Year 2011.

Yours sincerely in Christ, Fr Luis Ruiz SJ Macau, China

Any donations to Fr Ruiz’s Casa Ricci Social Services can be made via: contact phil.crotty@jesuitmission.org.au or ring Jesuit Missions on (02) 9955 8585

Priests have right to speak out

Re your article “Catholics’ right to protect marriage under threat” (The Record, 5 January): The Catholic Church has every right to publicly oppose same sex marriage. If it can’t do so because (as “Australian Marriage Equality” AME states) … of “undue involvement by the clergy in a debate about the reform of a civil law”, then it can’t speak out against abortion and divorce either.

Let’s not get intimidated by the secularists who will always try to stifle the Church when it comes to some of their pet projects conflicting with Church teachings.

The furphy of “Separation of Church and State” is incorrectly claimed again and again by these people and must be refuted. They use this in ways that the Constitution does not prohibit.

Cardinal Pell said it all very clearly and it is to be hoped that Catholics will support the Bishops in this matter and sign the petitions that will be available at parishes this month, to speak out against the destruction of the traditional and true meaning of marriage.

MJ Gonzalez Willetton

Keep the Christians out

Ifind it astounding that Catholics and other Christians, or people of religious persuasion, are expected to stay out of various, particular debates in the public forum. It is truly bizarre.

If the topic under discussion were to be say, rape, or drink driving or child abuse, then all persons would be encouraged to participate, and expected to oppose, religious or not. It is seen as self-evident that these things are wrong and the fact that religious persons oppose them is not considered important, except to swell the numbers. This is despite the fact that religious persons would oppose them on religious/moral grounds ie justice, Ten Commandments, etc.

However, the moment the topic is something that non-religious persons support, such as same-sex marriage or euthanasia, the religious among us apparently must be excluded because our opinions are no longer relevant.

Yet, we are still the same people, working from the same principles, and holding the same values as before. We are just as much citizens of this country with just as much of a right to vote, or have a say, as before. We also have just as much of a stake in the future of Australia as we had before.

From the secular viewpoint, an Australian’s right to give an opinion is predicated purely on whether the opinion agrees with the secular stand. This is true even when the arguments presented are nonreligious.

Yes, all Australians are equal, but some apparently much more than others.

CV Phillips Burswood

Breaking through the social media superficiality

BY K ATIE HINDERER

This weekend I got into a discussion with a couple twentysomethings about the rise of social media and millennials obsession with the constant flow of information. These students have closed their Facebook accounts or plan to do so in the coming weeks. Their reason? There is too much superficiality on Facebook and other social media sites. They don’t need the drama and the waste of time. They prefer things that are uplifting and have actual substance.

While I agree with that assessment of social media – a lot of it is superficial – I don’t think that’s the right response. Why separate ourselves from something that is so much a part of our modern world? By stepping away and giving up, we are in essence putting up a barrier between ourselves and our peers. Wouldn’t the better solution be to take decisive steps to infuse value into these outlets? Put substance where there is none.

Of course, this is no small matter. It’s not easy to swim against the tide and buck the current trends. But, in my way of thinking, if we get as good at modern technology as the flighty are, then we can make a serious difference. This can be something as simple as putting an uplifting quote on your Facebook status or linking to a great YouTube video. Or maybe it is sending a message to a friend letting him/her know you are thinking of them. It’s in the little, everyday things that we can infuse the flood of information with uplifting messages.

And from what I’ve seen, people are hungry for this. I’ve started occasionally putting a good quote up as my Facebook status and have been surprised to see the number of friends who have liked the simple line or even reposted it on their walls. THAT is the power of the new technology that surrounds us. A simple message has the potential to reach hundreds, thousands, even millions.

So instead of turning away in disgust at the things we don’t like, step up and make the decision to change it. The average person has never been in more of a position to exact change as he/she is today. Take advantage.

Katie Hinderer blogs on fashion for Mercatornet’s TigerPrint (www.mercatornet.com/tiger_print) and has made some excellent points about shoes.

The right (legal) price? The

Monday to Friday 9am-5pm

Colin Barnett snuck into Government in 2008 on the back of reaction against Labor and the slogan “Better Government. Better State.” With his government having resurrected the idea of legalising prostitution, Family campaigner Richard Egan wonders which part of that slogan is meant to apply...

The Barnett government is prepared to allow the State’s daughters to be pimped.

The Prostitution

Amendment Act 2008 which passed through Parliament in April 2008 under the Carpenter Labor government had not been proclaimed at the time a State election was called for 2 October 2008 and so has never come into effect.

The Liberal Party indicated its opposition to Labor’s prostitution law during the election campaign and promised to repeal it. The Liberal Party also indicated that it would allow licensed brothels in a small number of designated areas while preventing the spread of brothels in the towns and suburbs of Western Australia.

On 25 November 2010, Attorney General Christian Porter made public details of proposed new prostitution laws.

Public comments on the proposals have been invited. No deadline for submissions has been set, however the Attorney General has said, “The Government will consider all comment provided and, following this consultation process, our intention is to final-

Rights for all ... except Christians

Pope warns diplomats the push for ‘rights’ often means the opposite for Catholics in the public square

ise and introduce legislation in the first half of 2011.”

No brothels in residential areas

There is no doubt that one of the most objectionable features of the Prostitution Amendment Act 2008 was the provision for one or two-woman “micro-brothels” in residential areas. The proposal to ensure that no prostitution is permitted under any form in residential areas is therefore entirely praiseworthy. That’s the good part of the proposed new laws.

Legalised brothels

However, the proposed laws would allow brothels to function openly and legally, provided the brothel was granted a licence by the Department of Racing, Gaming and Liquor. Operators, managers and prostitutes would each require a licence. The fundamental problem with this scheme is that it involves the State in licensing an activity which is

Baptism bestows critical task

Parents, godparents take on crucial task by having their children baptised

inherently antisocial and harmful. Other activities for which licences are required – racing, gaming and liquor sales, for example – are generally recognised as having at least arguable social utility as a means of entertainment and recreation. A licensing system is justified on the basis that there are also social problems associated with these activities – problem gambling, drunkenness and its consequences – and that regulation by license is an effective means to limit these harms while allowing the socially useful aspects of the activities to take place.

Prostitution involves the purchase and sale of sex. This is a profoundly anti-social activity.

Most men who purchase sex are either married or potential future husbands. Purchasing sex damages their capacity to be good husbands by encouraging them to see women as sexual objects who can be paid to perform as required with little or no regard for their emotions

Continued on Page 10

Who were the Three Wise M

BY REV JOHN JAY HUGHES

Who were the Wise Men? Where did they come from? Where did they go? We do not know. To make sense of the story, we must pay attention to its symbolism. Read in that way, we find that the story has five stages. The magi, whom we also call the wise men, saw; they searched; they found; they worshipped; and they returned home.

They saw.

A farmer kept a flock of tame geese that freely roamed the farmyard, always looking down for food. One day, the farmer noticed that the geese were nervous and restless. They were looking up. In the sky, he saw the reason: It was autumn. Wild geese were flying south. The farmer’s geese flapped their wings and made a lot of noise, but they did not fly away.

People are often that way. Something unusual happens to raise their minds from life’s routine. They become aware of greater possibilities, a higher call. But they fail to respond. The opportunity passes, and the old routine resumes. But the Wise Men were different. They were not content with looking up.

They searched.

Doing so required courage. How their friends must have mocked them: “Following a star? What on earth for? Have you taken leave of your senses?” To set out in the face of ridicule, on what seemed like a fool’s errand, took courage. Sooner or later, it always takes courage to be a follower of Jesus Christ. His standards cannot always be made reasonable, or even intelligible, to unbelievers. At times, the follower of Jesus Christ must have courage to swim against the stream: to say “no” when everyone else is saying “yes,” or “yes” when all others are saying “no”; to appear to reasonable, prudent people reckless, even crazy. The Wise Men had such courage. They set out on their seemingly mad search, and persevered in it until . . .

They found.

For this, they are rightly called “wise men.” To the clever people who mocked them, they seemed mad. In reality, they possessed, along with courage, the truest wisdom there is: the spiritual insight to recognise the unique call of God, and to follow it regardless of the cost. As their search neared its end, Matthew tells us, “They rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” (2:10). They had reason for joy: They were successful. They were vindicated. It was they who had been proved wise; their critics were the fools. From the Wise Men’s point of view, the search had been all theirs. In reality, it was God who was seeking them.

That was crucial: for the Wise Men, but also for us - as we see in the story of a small child who came home in tears. When the child’s mother had dried the tears, she heard the reason for them: “We played hide-and-seek. I hid. No one looked for me.” When you are a child, that can be crushing. “No one looked for me.”

But someone is looking for you - right now. God is looking for you. He is drawing you to Himself, as He drew the Wise Men by the star. If only you will look up, and be bold, you will

find Him. And then, like the Wise Men, you too will rejoice with great joy. To know that, even now, God is looking for you, drawing you to Himself, is already cause for joy.

The Wise Men’s joy is not the end of the story, however. When they finally arrived at the end of their journey . . .

They worshipped.

Their worship was not merely reciting prayers by memory or from a book. They offered the best and most costly gifts they had. Which of us would not like to do the same? And yet, when we look within, we see not wealth but poverty: broken resolutions, good that we might have done and yet failed to do, evil that we could have avoided and did not. We wanted to give Jesus so much; what we have given up to now is so little. We ask ourselves: What can I give?

More than a century ago, the English poet Christina Georgina Rossetti asked that question. Her answer is beautiful.

What can I give him, poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

If I were a wise man, I would do my part;

Yet what I can I give him - give my heart.

The wise men’s gifts were symbols: gold for a king, incense for a priest, and myrrh for a burial. Jesus was different, however, from all other kings. He had no palace, not even a fixed

abode (cf Lk 9:58). He never lorded it over people. Jesus was a shepherd-king who came, He said, “not to be served, but to serve” (Mk 10:45), even to the extent of laying down His life for His sheep (cf Jn 10:11).

Jesus was also a priest. A priest is a man for others; someone set apart to offer God prayer, praise and sacrifice on behalf of others. From antiquity, the smoke of incense, curling heaven-

A law that allows buying and selling of people, regardless of where, runs the

Continued from Page 9 or their dignity as women, as human beings of equal value and worth.

Every prostitute is someone’s daughter. No little girl grows up thinking “I hope to be a prostitute” one day.

Girls and women become prostitutes mostly because they are already damaged through sexual or other abuse, through drug addiction or being exploited by a dominant male who pimps them.

Others may simply see prostitution as an apparently easy way to make large amounts of cash quickly. In either case, prostitution exploits women and profoundly damages them.

The Oxford Dictionary defines the verb ‘exploit’ as meaning to utilise a person to one’s own ends.

In prostitution, the prostitute is exploited both by the man who uses her as a sexual object and by the brothel owner who pimps for her.

Prostitution is more like slavery than like work. In valid, non-exploitative work, the worker exchanges her labour and her talents for reasonable remuneration.

In slavery, the very person of the slave is at the disposal of the master. Slavery - even voluntary slavery – is banned. It is not lawful for a person to freely sell themselves into slav-

ery. This is considered to be against human dignity. It threatens the liberty of all and leaves the poor and weak vulnerable to exploitation.

Similarly, in prostitution, the ‘client’ ‘buys’ the woman’s body for a fixed period of time. The brothel owner or pimp profits from this sale. This necessarily involves demeaning and degrading the woman who must suppress her natural human feelings to allow a man she has no affection for or interest in to use her body as he pleases.

Legalising prostitution necessarily legalises the exploitation of women by pimps and buyers of sex.

Crime and Prostitution

The proposal includes provisions that:

Operators and managers must ordinarily be resident in Western Australia; and should not have been guilty of, or have charges pending in connection with, a range of specified offences. Applicants for all licences will require a probity check by WA police, which will include taking fingerprints and palm prints for criminal record checks, and checks for criminal associations.

These provisions cannot ensure that organised crime does not still operate brothels using front men with no criminal records or known

criminal associations. Prostitution is very lucrative business.

It is also an anti-social business. Organised crime is the natural sector to run brothels.

The proposal would also allow existing brothels to be licensed despite the fact that their owners have shown a complete disregard for the law by operating illegal brothels.

Location and number of brothels

The Attorney General claims that the proposed laws would “limit brothels to a small number of appropriate locations”. It is not at all clear how limited these locations will be. Apart from ruling out residential areas and proximity to certain “protected places” such as “places of worship, hospitals, and schools and other educational establishments,” location is to be governed by the usual planning processes.

It seems that this could easily result in brothels being established throughout Western Australia in very visible locations, such as shopping centres and shopping strips, in close proximity to places visited by families in the ordinary course of their business.

The proposal states:

An application to a local government for planning approval to

operate a brothel in a permitted discretionary use area will allow the local community a say through their council in what they will and will not tolerate and where they may tolerate it. The State government will take the outcome of the local government applications process into strong account but, in accordance with our election promise, the State government, via the Minister for Planning, will hold the final decision to approve a specific planning application.

This falls well short of giving local communities and their councils an effective power to ensure that there are no brothels established in their local government area. The Minister for Planning may impose brothels on communities that do not want them.

Nothing in the proposal indicates that there will be any limit on the number of brothels or prostitutes that could be licensed.

Despite the rhetoric used, this is not a proposal for a small number of brothels in a small number of appropriate areas. It is a proposal for the potentially unlimited expansion of brothels across the towns and suburbs of Western Australia, with most residential areas excepted.

Exceptions to location in a residential area include the provisions for existing brothels and the peculiar

proposal to treat the City of Perth differently as if residents in that local government area might not mind having a brothel within 50 metres or even next door.

“Girls and women become prostitutes mostly because they are already damaged through sexual or other abuse, through drug addiction or being exploited by a dominant male ... Others may simply see prostitution as an apparently easy way to make large amounts of cash quickly. In either case, prostitution exploits women and profoundly damages them.”

Other approaches

If legalising prostitution is not the answer - because it cannot even deliver the hoped for benefits in public health, protection of prostitutes from exploitation and protection of children from involvement in prostitution while it also deeply offends the community’s goals of

VISTA

Men?

ward, has symbolised this priestly activity. From a purely utilitarian point of view, judged by results, burning incense is a sheer waste. So is prayer, if we judge it by measurable, visible results. A sceptic, seeing a priest praying the Breviary, asked: “How do you know anyone is listening?” Without faith, that question is unanswerable. You cannot prove that anyone is listening. With faith, however, no proof is necessary.

Jesus exercised His priesthood in those nights of solitary prayer that we read about in the Gospels. He was no less a priest, however, when He healed the sick, consoled the sorrowing, and comforted people weighed down by suffering and sin. The supreme example of Jesus’ priesthood came, however, on the cross, where He offered His heavenly Father not merely the prayer of His lips and His heart, but His very life.

To anyone without faith, the cross is a scandalous waste and utter defeat. For those with faith, however, the cross is the place of ultimate victory. The most eloquent symbol of that victory is the empty tomb of Easter morning, which shows that the power of death and evil has been broken. Because of the sacrifice offered on Calvary by Jesus, our shepherd-king and priest, evil cannot control or master us, unless we consent.

And so, after the Wise Men had worshipped, by offering their gifts . . .

They returned home.

The Wise Men went back to the people who had mocked them when they set out. Matthew tells us, however, that they returned “by another way” (2:12). The ancient Church Fathers seized on that phrase and said: “But of course!” No one in Scripture ever encounters God and returns home by the same way. The Wise Men return home changed. They have been touched by their experience, touched by God. They have a message for those who thought themselves wise, but turned out to be foolish.

We return home from church each week (some of us daily), from our encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist. We too have been touched by God. We too have a message for others, and it is this: God is not far off. In all our sorrows, in all our temptations, sufferings, difficulties, and joys, God is with us. That is one of God’s names: Emmanuel, God-with-us. God is close to us always - even when we stray far from Him. We imagine that we must storm heaven with our prayers to get God’s attention, and all the time it is God who gives us the ability to pray. It is God who is searching for us, leading us onward, drawing us to Himself. That is the message we have to proclaim. That is the gospel, the good news.

And when we grasp this good news, the story with its five stages begins again: the seeing, the searching, the finding, the worshipping, the return home. That is the story of the Christian life: the royal road by which untold millions have walked, the road God wants us to walk for as many more weeks and months and years as our journey may last. Until it ends in Him, and the journeying and searching and struggle are over, because we are home - where there will be no more weariness, no more discouragement, no more loneliness or injustice, no more sickness or suffering, no more death. Where God Himself will wipe away all tears from our eyes. Where we shall experience ecstasy: for we shall see Him face to face.

 THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED ON INSIDECATHOLIC.COM

perture: the world in pictures

Students listen in a classroom in 2010 at the Bander Boys School, a government-run primary school in Malakal, Southern Sudan.

women holding babies during his visit to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on 5 January. The pope brought stuffed animals, music boxes, books and sweets for the children, many of whom were receiving care for the birth defect spina bifida.

e grave risk of building an attitude that says ‘if it’s legal, it must be moral too’

respecting women, supporting marriage and family life, directing male sexuality to socially fruitful ends and protecting people from exploitation - what is?

Legislation banning advertising

The amount of prostitution advertising presently carried by The West Australian and The Sunday Times is appalling. It must easily amount to more than $10 million annually.

The prostitution business would only be spending this sort of money on advertising if it got a good return for this expenditure. Advertising must serve to recruit new clients, as well as to keep pushing their ‘product’ to existing clients.

If all prostitution advertising was prohibited then the amount of prostitution must fall. Many men would never go actively looking for a brothel. However, if the advertisements in the daily paper catch their eye they may become curious enough to check it out. The community does not need prostitution advertising. The proposal includes restrictions on advertising. There is no reason not to ban all advertising of prostitution, other than fear of a backlash from those who make revenue from this source. That is a cowardly reason for a government to continue to

allow such an exploitative business to promote its trade in human flesh.

Police enforcement powers

The proposal includes some excellent provisions for increased police powers, including a powers of entry and powers to issue closure notices on premises reasonably suspected of being used for prostitution.

There is no reason these powers could not be used in conjunction with laws that continue to prohibit anyone from operating a brothel or living off the earnings of prostitution.

The goal of the police should be the closing of all known brothels.

Government and police commitment to this goal should be expressed by the adequate resourcing of a dedicated vice squad, with regular rotation of personnel to prevent the suspicion of corruption.

Helping women and girls escape

Recognising the double trap of prostitution and drug addiction in which many prostitutes are caught, any suppression policy must be accompanied by a determined effort to assist women to get out of prostitution. Church and community groups will be most likely to have the motivation and appeal to help such

women find a new life. However, the government has a role in funding retraining programmes and other schemes to assist such groups in the work of rehabilitation.

The proposal indicates support for such assistance but does not give any details.

Criminalising purchasers

Traditionally, laws in Western Australia against prostitution have penalised living off the earnings of prostitution; operating premises for the purposes of prostitution and procuring women for prostitution.

However, section 5 of the Prostitution Act 2000 penalises the “buyer” who “in or in the view or within hearing of a public place … seeks another person to act as a prostitute”.

The proposal includes a new provision making it an offence for a person to pay for sex with someone who is coerced by another person for that person’s financial gain if the buyer did not know this.

On 1 January 1999, the Swedish Law that Prohibits the Purchase of Sexual Services entered into force.

Within three years it led to a 40% reduction in the number of women in prostitution and has had a dampening effect on the trafficking of human beings into Sweden for sex-

ual purposes. On 1 January 2009, a new law came into effect in Norway making it an offence to purchase a sexual act. Observers already noted a visible decrease in the number of street prostitutes. Further consideration should be given to introducing a penalty for all acts of purchasing or attempting to purchase sex in Western Australia.

Legalisation in any form – including a licence system for brothels and prostitutes - is not an appropriate model for prostitution law reform. It is the counsel of despair - for society and for those trapped in prostitution as “workers” or as “clients”.

A suppression policy, while realistic in its expectation that there will always be those who seek to exploit human weakness through selling sex, supports significant community values by seeking to reduce this exploitation to a minimum.

 EDITED VERSION OF MR EGAN’S

SUBMISSION TO THE STATE GOVERNMEN

Suggestions on how to make a submission on the proposed new

‘Drugs and tourism’

“Many, many Bishops, above all from Latin America, tell me that wherever the road of drug production and trafficking passes - and that includes large sectors of these countries - it is as if an evil monster had its hand on the country and had corrupted the people. I believe we do not always have an adequate idea of the power of this serpent of drug trafficking and consumption that spans the globe. It destroys youth, it destroys families, it leads to violence and endangers the future of entire nations ... And then there is a further problem. The destruction that sex tourism wreaks on our young people, the Bishops say, is something we cannot even begin to imagine. The destructive processes at work in that are extraordinary and are born of the arrogance and the false freedom of the western world.

- Benedict XVI in Light of the World

PHOTO: CNS/PAUL JEFFREY

Pope Benedict XVI talks to

PHOTO: CNS/L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO

VIA REUTERS

Resilient youth learn empowerment

MAKING the transition from primary to secondary school is not always easy. Today young people seem to put ever more pressure on themselves to succeed at all things and the fear and uncertainty about taking the step up from primary to secondary school looms large and fateful for some.

The leadership team and teaching staff at Queen of Apostles, Riverton was conscious of this during the transitioning of Year 7 students into secondary schooling.

After receiving a grant via the Federal Government’s Lighthouse Project, a school-based project team driven by then Assistant Principal Ben Doyle developed a programme that focused on building resilience in Queen of Apostles students. Introduced earlier this year, the Peer Support programme is governed by Peer Support Foundation Australia and runs throughout the school with several teachers having completed training as peer support facilitators.

“Empowerment as well as resilience are core elements of the Peer Support programme so we have empowered the Year 6 students to act as leaders in peer support, and they in turn support students in Years 1-5,” said Maria Valli, Peer Support Programme Coordinator.

Students from Years 1-5 are evenly distributed into groups and then meet weekly at a time set aside in the school timetable.

“Scheduling a uniform time for the whole school was integral to the success of the programme and it also conveyed to parents just how important the Peer Support programme is to our students’ personal development,” said Principal Shaun O’Neill.

The theme for the year was Keeping Friends, which focused on relationships.

“The success of the programme is based on the creation of small, peerled learning groups and actively coaching the Year 6 students prior to each session,” Maria said.

Shaun and his team are delighted with the implementation. The peer support groups go beyond the structure of the classroom, having moved into the lunch area, where they meet for lunch as a group on a weekly basis and the school is also exploring a number of activity-based opportunities whereby the groups can participate. Benefits for the Year 6 peer leaders include developing leadership skills, building confidence in leading groups, acting as a positive role model, enhancing their own lifeskills and developing organisational and time management skills.

The younger students also gain enormously from the experience, having developed learning life-skills through fun and safe activities, formed positive relationships with peer leaders and teachers, practised cooperation and collaboration and built confidence to actively participate.

“The Peer Support programme is helping Queen of Apostles build a more positive school environment. Students, teachers and parents are all benefiting from this programme,” said Shaun.

Signs of life in disgraced Order

BY ALAN HOLDREN Catholic News Agency

ROME, Italy - The Legion of Christ is not yet back on its feet but signs are coming from Rome that a slow and certain renewal is taking place.

The religious congregation founded by Fr Marcial Maciel in 1941 in Mexico City is known for its regimented brand of Catholicism and enthusiastic evangelisation. After decades of building a large and respected international presence, the Legion has been reeling in recent years from revelations of its founder’s “double life” - including grave sexual and financial abuses.

Next month, the Legion will begin a new phase in its ongoing rehabilitation under the watchful eyes of Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, a Vatican delegate specially appointed last July by Pope Benedict XVI.

February will see the launch of a series of detailed “community reflections,” in Legion communities, the congregation’s Rome-based spokesman, Father Andres Schoggl, told CNA.

Fr Schoggl said a commission appointed by Cardinal De Paolis is now preparing procedures and thematic introductions for these community-wide self-reflections which, he said, will be “the core activity of the revision process.”

The consultations are expected to go on for a period of several years, he added. “The main short term goal is the active and constructive participation of all Legionaries in this renewal process,” Fr Schoggl said.

Throughout the last year, Legion communities have been implementing reforms to address concerns about the Legion’s internal governance, and to safeguard against possible sexual abuse, among other issues. Since the appointment of Cardinal De Paolis, information about the process of renewal has been scarce.

In a 19 October letter, Cardinal De Paolis told the Legionaries that every one of them should be involved and take responsibility for the task. He said the renewal process will take “at least two or three years, or even more.”

In December 2010, he appointed a commission to revise the congregation’s constitutions.

are coming about too slowly.

Critics point to the fact that the committee appointed by Cardinal De Paolis includes four Legionaries who were close confidants of the now disgraced Fr Maciel. True renewal, these critics charge, will only come if the Cardinal “make heads roll” in the upper echelons of the Legion hierarchy, according to a report by Sandro Magister, editor of the Rome-based website www. chiesa.espressonline.it.

Magister said that Cardinal De Paolis “knows where he’s going” while he moves “at the snail’s pace typical of the Roman curia, in which he is a perfect example of the old school ways.”

He predicted that more drastic changes would be seen in the hierarchy by Easter.

He said leaders and members have been battling Fr Maciel’s memory for some time now.

In 2004, the Vatican began investigations into repeated allegations by former Legion seminarians of misconduct by the founder. After the enquiries into the charges made against Fr Maciel were completed, Pope Benedict XVI made the rare call in 2006 to banish him to a life of seclusion and prayer.

Fr Maciel died in 2008 but the investigations were far from over.

on, together, with much mutual respect and attentive discernment of the spiritual patrimony of our congregation.”

Further steps include a visitation of the consecrated members of the Legion’s lay movement, Regnum Christi. Archbishop Ricardo Blazquez of Valladolid, Spain will begin carrying out on-site visits this month for that effort. The consecrated men and women “view this as a time of great opportunity to improve how they live out their commitment to the Church,” said the spokesman.

Another sign of new life came on Christmas Eve when 61 deacons were ordained to the priesthood in Rome. Men who experienced the rise and fall of the Legion through more than a decade of formation made their permanent vows to the priesthood and the congregation.

Fr Schoggl said “their total commitment to the congregation at this point of our history is still a strong sign of hope.”

While they have slowed, new vocations are far from drying up completely. The Legion had 143 young men enter first-year formation internationally in 2010, just 19 fewer than in 2009.

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360 pages • Paperback $33.90

Although it is a difficult time for the Legion, Fr Schoggl said it is also “a time of great opportunity.” They are “moving forward on the way of renewal,” he said, although he admitted it has taken time to recover from the “shock” and “quite traumatic experience” of their founder’s double life.

“It is not an easy time, but by and large the congregation is sound – as Pope Benedict put it – and the Legionaries are ready to face the challenges.”

The Legion has the opportunity to take a “deep, thorough look” at itself and how it carries out its ministry, he said.

Guided by the Pope and Cardinal De Paolis, it will be “changing what needs to be changed,” the Legion spokesman said.

According to published reports, some Legion members believe these potential changes

An internal investigation carried out by the Legion in 2009 revealed that their charismatic founder had sexually abused seminarians and fathered several children. An official Vatican investigation, called an “apostolic visitation,” began in the same year to examine the state of the congregation he founded.

At its conclusion on 1 May 2010, the Holy See rebuked the “very grave and objectively immoral actions of Fr Maciel” that “in some cases constitute real crimes and manifest a life devoid of scruples and authentic religious meaning.”

“Today,” said Fr Schoggl, “there is not a single Legionnaire who thinks that we can relate to our founder as if nothing had happened.

“On the other hand, this is not about artificially re-writing our history or re-inventing what the life and the mission of this congregation is all about.”

He said that they are “moving

“Realistically speaking,” said Fr Schoggl, “we will not be able to maintain our growth rate of the last two decades, but I am confident that also in the future many young men will follow Christ and serve the Church in our congregation.”

This year promises to be one of great change for the Legion under Cardinal De Paolis’ direction.

It is also a milestone for the congregation which is observing the 70th anniversary of its foundation.

At the anniversary Mass in Rome on 3 January, Fr Schoggl witnessed “a lot of gratitude and confidence” in the congregation.

Cardinal De Paolis presided over the Mass during which he reminded them that a congregation’s foundation is a gift of God for the Church.

“Yes, at this stage of our life we need purification and renewal, but,” remembered Fr Schoggl, “he also told us that this process will strengthen us and will lead us to fulfill our mission in the Church in a better way.”

Karl Keating defends Catholicism from fundamentalist attacks and explains why fundamentalism has been so successful in converting “Romanists”. After showing the origins of fundamentalism, he examines representative anti-Catholic groups and presents their arguments in their own words. His rebuttals are clear, detailed and charitable. Special emphasis is given to the scriptural basis for Catholic doctrines and beliefs.

“I strongly advise honest fundamentalists not to read this book. They might find their whole position collapsing in ruins.”

- Sheldon Vanauken author, A Severe Mercy

“Keating methodically debunks every major fundamentaist objection to the Catholic Church. In the process, he shows fundamentalism for what it is - Christianity with little compassion and less wit.”

- Francis X Maier Editor, National Catholic Register

Seminarians from the Legionaries of Christ seminary in Thornwood, New York assemble outside St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York in April 2009 before Archbishop Timothy Dolan’s installation as head of the New York Archdiocese.

PHOTO: CNS/GREGORY A SHEMITZ

Psychotherapy needed for whole nation

Haitians cope with post-traumatic stress disorder in a variety of ways

BY MICHAEL SWAN Catholic News Service

PORT-AU-PRINCE,

Haiti - For more than a week after the January 2010 earthquake, Holy Cross Sister Marie-Pierre Saint Amour heard the nighttime cries of children crowded into the convent’s driveway and garden. Although they had sought shelter with the nuns, because of the aftershocks the children were reluctant to spend much time under the sisters’ sturdy roof.

Of course, they were troubled and traumatised, said Sr MariePierre Saint Amour. She did not need her training in psychology to tell her that; she saw the angry face of the devil in their drawings.

Since then, Sr Marie-Pierre has come to realise her whole country is suffering from a sort of mass posttraumatic stress disorder.

She has had some success treating the young people, but how do you administer psychotherapy to a nation?

“Everyone is focused so much on the medical, but forgetting the psychological,” said Fr Michel Martin Eugene, a Holy Cross priest and psychologist from Haiti.

There are fewer than six psychiatrists in all of Haiti, said Dr Peter Kelly, president of the Crudem Foundation which runs Sacred Heart Hospital in the northern town of Milot with the support of the Order of Malta and Catholic Relief Services. Kelly and other volunteer doctors in Haiti after the earthquake observed widespread post-traumatic stress disorder. They also saw that most Haitian medical staff were reluctant to diagnose depression or the disorder.

“I believe it has something to do with their culture, as well as the fact that they have faced so many hardships throughout their history that they accept it as normal and move on with their lives,” Kelly wrote in an email.

Unlike the Haitian doctors, Haiti’s Religious see psychotherapy as an essential, yet missing, piece of the recovery.

Working with students in education and social work, the Psychosocial Support Network of the Haitian Religious Conference has developed a programme to help people face traumatic stress that often was ignored for months while they dug out their neighbours, tracked down lost family members, returned to work and managed life in a makeshift shelter. In many cases, depression, anxiety

in brief...

Chair wins gold

St John of God Health Care’s Governing Board Chair Tony Howarth AO has been awarded the 2010 WA Gold Medal by the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) in recognition of his achievements that go ‘beyond business’.

According to the AICD, Tony has exemplified leadership values of excellence and integrity and encourages the highest ethical standards. In particular, he has made an outstanding and consist-

and all-pervading fear hit people months after the earthquake, Sr Marie-Pierre explained. “It’s a big crisis,” Fr Eugene said. “They wander the street, broken people.”

The Haitian Religious network’s psychosocial programme, aided by US$83,000 from the Canadian Catholic Organisation for Development and Peace, concentrates on Haitians supporting one another by talking through problems in their native Creole. University student Marguerite Charles credits the Sisters and the psychosocial programme for helping her. After last year’s earthquake, she spent more than four hours trapped in rubble.

When she was freed, she discovered her home was gone. “There was shock, trauma. I didn’t feel at ease anymore,” she said.

Like many Haitians, Charles was afraid to remain indoors for any length of time. The education major now leads a group of teenagers who gather to discuss their experience

ent contribution to many not-forprofit organisations in Western Australia, including St John of God Health Care.

Mr Howarth was appointed to St John of God Health Care’s Board in 2001, taking over the reins as Chairman in 2004. Since then he has overseen significant organic, merger and acquisition growth, taking the not-for-profit Catholic health care organisation to its current position as Australia’s third largest private health care provider, with core acute hospital services complemented by growing community-based services such as home nursing, as well as a Social Outreach and Advocacy pro-

and their fears. She is passing on the experience of psychological healing she received from the Sisters.

She credits Sr Matilde Moreno, who is part of the support network, with restoring her confidence so she could return to classes.

Sr Matilde led the young people in dances and encouraged them to draw and paint, then got them talking about their fears.

Edna Genvieve lives in a tent beside her former home with her daughter. At one point she thought she and her daughter would always live in fear. “After the earthquake, I thought life was over,” she said. “When it rains, I’m still very afraid.”

She was even more afraid for her daughter, who over and over drew pictures of the devil. “It’s what she was living,” Genvieve said.

Only after her daughter overcame her dread did Genvieve begin to think about the future.

“Slowly, slowly I saw that life was still possible through my daughterthat there still is a future,” she said.

gramme which aims to improve the health and wellbeing of people experiencing disadvantage.

Mr Howarth’s contribution to the community has been recognised many times over with a highly impressive list of accolades, including a 2002 Officer of Australia award, the 2005 Citizen of the Year in Business in Western Australia award, and an honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of WA.

Art comes alive

Year 9 art students from Bunbury Catholic College (BCC) have completed an”imposing and

Haitians feel world has forgotten

WASHINGTON (CNS)Frustration and aggravation are simmering across Haiti a year after a terrifying earthquake ripped apart the country’s most densely populated region and as a persistent cholera epidemic endangers the health of virtually everyone in the impoverished nation.

Life in a tattered tent in a crowded makeshift camp with no alternative on the horizon, threats to personal safety and the need to scramble for food and clean water are fuelling the growing anger, said Archbishop Louis Kebreau of Cap-Haitien, president of the Haitian Bishops’ conference.

“The people of Haiti are tired of misery,” Archbishop Kebreau told CNS during a visit to the Washington headquarters of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“They are tired of living in their tents. The people are saying they are not happy. They’re frustrated and angry. That provokes violence.”

More than one million people continue to live in hundreds of settlements that sprouted after the 35-second magnitude 7 earthquake. At least 230,000 people were killed. He expressed concern that the surge of hopefulness felt by Haitians at the world’s compassionate response immediately after the 12 January quake has given way to a feeling of abandonment. People don’t think their pleas are being heard any longer, he said.

Citing the widespread cholera epidemic that has claimed 3,650 lives since mid-October, Archbishop Kebreau called upon Haitian authorities to openly discuss the source of the disease and acknowledge the concerns of Haitians.

Although tests showed the cholera strain originated in south Asia and was traced to the Artibonite River in central Haiti, authorities have declined to link the outbreak to the alleged dumping of human waste from an outpost of UN peacekeepers from Nepal located on the waterway.

“The problem is that the government knows it comes from Nepal,” he said. “But the government doesn’t have the

beautiful” piece of community artwork that is now a focus of the College campus.

Schools give our students a plethora of opportunities to learn and experience art in the classroom. Art can be engaging, it can be solitary but often it is a true expression of self.

BCC principal Denise O’Meara said: “Art, through whatever medium, gives students from all backgrounds, all year groups, regardless of academic aptitude, the chance to produce a piece of work that is their own and something of which they are proud.”

Art is also a way of connecting communities as recently demonstrated by Mel Maria Catholic

them

guts to say it openly. You have the United Nations troops from Nepal so people are reacting to that because the government hasn’t acted.

“Truth and openness,” he added, “would resolve a lot of trouble.”

The Archbishop’s unease about the potential for violence stems in part from Haiti’s 207year history which has been scarred by strong-armed rule and violent efforts to overthrow that rule. Only recently has the country experienced relative calm and peaceful government transitions. But violence flared again in early December. Hundreds of protesters blocked streets and set fires in the capital of Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haitien and other communities to express their dissatisfaction with the results of the 28 November presidential election amid charges of fraud.

The country’s Provisional Electoral Council determined that Jude Celestin, a protege of outgoing President Rene Preval, had narrowly finished second among 18 candidates, ahead of popular carnival singer Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly.

Preval, who has maintained a low profile throughout his two terms as president, has been widely criticised for not taking a leading role in earthquake recovery efforts.

Haiti’s new president will be chosen in a runoff between Celestin and former first lady Mirlande Manigat, who topped all candidates in first-round balloting. Originally scheduled for 16 January, the runoff has been postponed to allow more time to prepare ballots and polling stations.

While declining to comment on the candidates, Archbishop Kebreau said he feared the election, whenever it occurs, could spark renewed violence if charges of fraud resurface.

Still, there’s more than the election contributing to the restive atmosphere, according to Archbishop Kebreau. In addition to Haitian government officials, the UN and even aid agencies often are skewered by Haitians who believe international parties have failed to deliver on promises to rebuild the country, he said.

Primary School, Attadale and BCC.

The Mercy cross was a project that involved the students, under the instruction of Art teacher Tanya Downes, to study the Renaissance art period. They created the cross, which is comprised of many individual linocut ceramic tiles, and each tile is a reflection the Mercy and Marcellin traditions of the College. To complete the cross, a ‘crown of thorns’ was designed and produced by Rino Papalia’s Year 11 Metal Design class. The cross was blessed by Bishop Gerard Holohan and has been installed at the entrance of the College Chapel.

A girl walks hand-in-hand with a woman on their way to church in Port-auPrince, Haiti on 9 January.

PHOTO: CNS/ALLISON SHELLEY, REUTERS

A man carries a chair to attend Mass outside the destroyed Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on 9 January.

PHOTO: CNS

Anglican Bishops received into Church

Three former Anglican bishops received into Catholic Church in London

BY SIMON CALDWELL Catholic News Service

LONDON - Three former Anglican Bishops were received into the Catholic Church just hours after they officially gave up their ministries in the Church of England.

Bishops Andrew Burnham of Ebbsfleet, John Broadhurst of Fulham and Keith Newton of Richborough will be soon ordained as priests for a special Anglican ordinariate that will be set up in England later in January.

Their resignations took effect at midnight on 31 December and they were received into the Catholic Church the afternoon of 1 January during a Mass in London’s Westminster Cathedral.

They will be ordained as Catholic deacons at Allen Hall seminary, London on 13 January, then as priests at a ceremony in the Cathedral on 15 January.

They will be incardinated into the English ordinariate which is expected to be formed by papal decree the second week of January, when Pope Benedict XVI is also expected to appoint an ordinary.

The ordinariate will be the first to be created since Pope Benedict XVI issued the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus” on 4 November 2009 to allow the group reception of disaffected AngloCatholics into the Catholic Church. Similar in structure to a military diocese, it permits former Anglicans to retain much of the patrimony and liturgical practices, such as married priests.

Also received into the Church at the 1 January Mass were Judi Broadhurst, the wife of the former Bishop of Fulham, and Gill Newton,

the wife of the former Bishop of Richborough. Three former Anglican nuns - Srs Carolyne Joseph, Wendy Renate and Jane Louise who had left the Sisters of St Margaret to join the ordinariate - were also received into the Church during the Mass, along with an unspecified number of former lay Anglicans.

The Mass was celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Alan Hopes of Westminster, the most senior former Anglican priest in the Catholic Church in England and Wales.

The ceremony was not publicised by the Catholic authorities and was described by witnesses as “low-key.”

One of them, Fr Sean Finnegan, a Catholic priest from Shoreham by Sea in southern England, wrote on his blog later that the former Bishops wore suits and ties.

After they were received into the faith they were given the Sacrament of Confirmation and “returned to their places to gentle applause,” Fr Finnegan wrote.

“One of the Sisters, descending

the steps, grinned at the congregation and gave two thumbs up,” he said.

The three former Bishops were among five who in November declared their intention to join the forthcoming ordinariate.

The other two had already retired but will be ordained Catholic priests by Lent.

The ordinariate is initially expected to include about 50 former Anglican Bishops and clergy and hundreds of lay worshippers divided into about 30 groups.

Most will be received into the Catholic Church during Holy Week in April after undergoing an intensive period of instruction.

Anglican pastors who wish to become Catholic will be ordained and incardinated into the ordinariate by Pentecost, 12 June.

Most former Anglican groups will be encouraged to share Church buildings with their local Catholic parishes.

Discussions to form possible personal ordinariates in the United States, Canada and Australia are

JPII beatified this year?

Report says Pope John Paul miracle nears final recognition

BY CAROL GLATZ Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY - A presumed miracle needed for the beatification of the late Pope John Paul II reportedly has reached the final stages of approval.

The miracle - involving a French nun said to have been cured of Parkinson’s diseasehas been approved by a Vatican medical board and a group of theologians and is now awaiting judgement from the members of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, according to Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli.

If the congregation accepts the healing as a miracle attributable to the late Pope’s intercession, then Pope Benedict XVI still would have to sign a decree formally recognising it before a beatification ceremony can be scheduled.

Tornielli, who covers the Vatican for the newspaper Il Giornale, wrote on 4 January that the process is so far advanced that Pope John Paul could be beatified some time in 2011.

Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, told CNS on 4 January that the final step before beatification requires the Pope’s approval and that the Pope is free to make his own decision on the matter.

According to Tornielli, at the end of 2010, the presumed miracle passed the first three stages in a five-step process that involves medical experts, a medical board, theological consultants, the members of

the congregation and, finally, Pope Benedict. In 2005, Pope Benedict set Pope John Paul on the fast track to beatification by waiving the normal five-year waiting period for the introduction of his sainthood cause. The initial diocesan phase of the cause was completed in April 2007. After a team of theological consultants to the Congregation for Saints’ Causes studied the 2,000-page positio, the document that makes the case for beatification, Pope Benedict formally decreed in December 2009 that Pope John Paul had heroically lived the Christian virtues and was venerable.

New prelate to reform Religious

BY CINDY WOODEN Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI has named a Brazilian Archbishop, who has said openly that secularisation has permeated many Religious Orders, to head the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

Joao Braz de Aviz of Brasilia, a 63 year old Archbishop who is not a member of a Religious Order, succeeds Cardinal Franc Rode, the 76 year old Vincentian who held the post for almost seven years. The normal retirement age for curia officials is 75.

Since 1973, prelates ordained for Religious Orders and for dioceses have alternated in holding the post of prefect of the congregation overseeing Religious life in the Catholic Church. In the past 100 years, 11 of the 18 prefects did not belong to a Religious Order.

Archbishop Braz de Aviz was born in Mafra in 1947 and did his initial seminary studies in Brazil before being sent to Rome where he earned degrees from the Pontifical Gregorian University and

Archbishop Joao Braz de Aviz

the Pontifical Lateran University. Ordained to the priesthood in 1972 for the Diocese of Apucarana, he served as a parish priest, as a professor of dogmatic theology in a seminary and as rector of the seminaries in Apucarana and Londrina.

In 1994, he was named auxiliary Bishop of Vitoria. Four years later, he became Bishop of Ponta Grossa. In 2002, he was named Archbishop of Maringa and in 2004 was named Archbishop of Brasilia. Cardinal Rode’s tenure at the congregation has been marked by strong support for Religious congregations - especially new communities - that emphasise what many

consider to be a very traditional style of Religious life and by criticism of Orders seen as having gone too far in adapting to modern life since the Second Vatican Council.

The Slovenian Cardinal has blamed much of the drop in numbers of consecrated men and women on the secularisation of society and of Religious Orders themselves.

“The secularised culture has penetrated into the minds and hearts of some consecrated persons and some communities where it is seen as an opening to modernity and a way of approaching the contemporary world,” he said in a speech in Naples, Italy last February.

In January 2009, Cardinal Rode ordered an apostolic visitation of women’s Orders in the United States. Cardinal Rode said the visitation was designed “to encourage vocations and assure a better future for women Religious” in the US by responding to concerns involving “some irregularities or omissions in American Religious life. Most of all, you could say, it involves a certain secular mentality that has spread in these Religious families and, perhaps, also a certain ‘feminist’ spirit.”

Bishop Andrew BurnhamBishop Andrew Burnham

An Italian journalist reported that the process of approving a miracle in the sainthood cause of Pope John Paul II is so far along that the late Pontiff could be beatified this year. He is pictured during a pastoral visit to Abuja, Nigeria in March 1998.

PHOTO: CNS/ L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO

Was Mark Twain anti-Christian?

Mark Twain’s autobiography renews debate: Was he antiChristian?

BY MIKE LATONA Catholic News Service

ROCHESTER,

New York

-

“There is one notable thing about our Christianity: bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing and predatory ... ours is a terrible religion.”

As this quote from his recently released autobiography illustrates, Samuel Langhorne Clemens was not one to sugarcoat his views about organised religion.

Sprinkled among his novels, essays, speeches and personal memoirs are numerous remarks by Clemens - better known by his pen name of Mark Twain - that would be distressing to devout Christians. In fact, Twain quotes are often featured on atheistic websites.

Even so, Twain is among the most celebrated US authors of all time. He maintained a summer residence in Elmira, New York for two decades following his 1870 marriage to Olivia Langdon, penning some of his most famous works in Chemung County. Twain is buried there alongside his wife and children at Woodlawn Cemetery.

Twain was in the news quite a bit during 2010. Autobiography of Mark Twain (University of California Press) went on sale last fall, per his instruction not to release such a work before the 100th anniversary of his death. That milestone occurred last 21 April followed by his 175th birthday on 30 November.

The autobiography received substantial national media coverage and quickly became a best-seller.

Should Catholics and other Christians share in the civic pride and widespread admiration for Twain? One person who believes so is Anthony Pucci who leads the English department at Elmira Notre Dame High School.

Pucci said he feels Twain’s biggest beef with Christianity was not about its core teachings, but with the failure of humans to practise what they preach.

Indeed, Twain seemed at his angriest when people misused religion to justify violence, personal gain and mistreatment of the poor

and oppressed. “If Christ were here, there is one thing he would not be - a Christian,” he wrote in Mark Twain’s Notebook.

Pucci also noted Twain’s depiction of religious hypocrisy in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in which the feuding Grangerford and Shepherdson families attend church services and then go right back to engaging in bloodshed.

“They come out of church but don’t act very Christian,” Pucci remarked. “That’s the basis of Huck’s repudiation of religion - you’re not a better Christian because of your religion.”

Among Twain’s many controversial stances on religion, he did not believe in the existence of heaven and hell, the immortality of the soul nor the divinity of Jesus Christ. He was highly sceptical of the Bible’s contents, and although he professed belief in God, he frequently questioned God’s motives.

Representative of his views are such novels as The Mysterious Stranger in which conventional religion is attacked, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court which takes Catholicism to task.

Nonetheless, Pucci said he teaches Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as “a great book to illustrate a Christian message, regardless of what Twain might have written about organised religion” because

On the other hand, Twain scholar Michael Kiskis said an aunt of his who was a woman Religious refused to read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court because she knew it contained disparaging remarks about the Catholic faith.

It’s doubtful, then, that the aunt would have enjoyed Twain’s current autobiography or two additional volumes that have yet to be released. According to Kiskis, these works contain Twain’s most cutting remarks yet known on the subject of religion. A large part of this commentary is aimed at God himself, especially a running complaint that God has the power to alleviate human suffering and elects not to do so, Kiskis said.

“The notion of compassion is one (Twain) wants to believe in, and the problem he has is sometimes the works of God are not entirely compassionate, not upfront - why do bad things happen to good people?” said Kiskis, who edited Mark Twain’s Own Autobiography: The Chapters of the North American Review (1990, University of Wisconsin Press), an anthology of 25 Twain writings that were first published in 1906 and 1907.

Kiskis observed that Twain knew his harshest views on religion might taint his image; thus he didn’t want them to become public in his own lifetime.

“Twain didn’t want his debate with, or interrogation of, God to diminish his sales,” said Kiskis, who teaches at Elmira College, home of the Centre for Mark Twain Studies, which includes many Twain-related exhibits and artifacts.

His writings notwithstanding, several aspects of Twain’s life actually paint a picture of a religious man.

Twain makes frequent uncritical references in his memoirs to his Presbyterian upbringing; his funeral was in a Presbyterian Church (the Brick Church in New York); and he counted several clergy among his close friends.

In addition, Twain considered his best work to be Joan of Arc, a reverential biographical account of a Catholic saint who exhibited all the human ideals Twain found so lacking in the rest of mankind.

Huck stands up to corruption, opting to protect Jim the slave even if it means in his mind that he might be damned to hell.

The cover of Autobiography of Mark Twain edited by Harriet Elinor Smith and others, the publication of which, 100 years after his death, has renewed the debate about whether Twain was anti-Christian.

Students walk past a statue of Mark Twain on the campus of Elmira College in New York. The statue is inscribed with the titles of books he wrote while in Elmira. Twain’s wife, Olivia Langdon Clemens, graduated from the college in 1864.

PHOTO: CNS/MIKE CRUPI, CATHOLIC COURIER

Differences to be aired in dialogue

Back to Assisi: Pope Benedict to commemorate event he skipped

BY CINDY WOODEN Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI said he would go to Assisi in October to mark the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s interreligious prayer for peace, but he did not actually say anything about praying with members of other religions.

Announcing the October gathering, he said he would go to Assisi on pilgrimage and would like representatives of other Christian confessions and other world religions to join him there to commemorate Pope John Paul II’s “historic gesture” and to “solemnly renew the commitment of believers of every religion to live their own religious faith as a service in the cause of peace.”

While Pope Benedict may be more open to interreligious dialogue than some of the most conservative Christians would like, he continues to insist that dialogue must be honest about the differences existing between religions and that joint activities should acknowledge those differences.

In the 2003 book, Truth and Tolerance, a collection of speeches and essays on Christianity and world religions, the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger dedicated four pages to the topic of “multireligious and interreligious prayer.”

As a Cardinal and prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he was one of the very few top Vatican officials to skip Pope John Paul’s 1986 meeting in Assisi. He later said the way the event

was organised left too much open to misinterpretation. His chief concern was that the gathering could give people the impression that the highest officials in the Catholic Church were saying that all religions believed in the same God and that every religion was an equally valid path to God.

A few years later - and after having participated in Pope John Paul’s 2002 interreligious meeting in Assisi - he wrote in Truth and Tolerance that with such gatherings “there are undeniable dangers and it is indisputable that the Assisi meetings, especially in 1986, were misinterpreted by many people.”

He wrote that Church leaders had to take seriously the possibility that many people would see Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus and others gathered together for prayer in the Umbrian

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hilltown and get the “false impression of common ground that does not exist in reality.”

At the same time, he said, it would be “wrong to reject completely and unconditionally” what he insisted was really a “multireligious prayer,” one in which members of different religions prayed at the same time for the same intention without praying together.

In multireligious prayer, he wrote, the participants recognise that their understandings of the divine are so different “that shared prayer would be a fiction,” but they gather in the same place to show the world that their longing for peace is the same.

US Jesuit Fr Thomas Michel, who was an official at the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue in the 1980s and was involved in organising the first Assisi meet-

ing, said, “It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to pray together when you don’t believe in the same God,” but Catholics believe there is only one God and he hears the prayers of whoever turns to him with sincerity and devotion.

In an email response to questions, Fr Michel said: “The only confusion (surrounding the 1986 Assisi meeting) was among those who did not understand Vatican II teaching and subsequent magisterium. They expressed their confusion before the event, boycotted the event itself, and expressed more confusion afterwards.”

Nostra Aetate , the Second Vatican Council document on relations with other religions, affirmed that Jews, Christians and Muslims believe in, worship and pray to the same God.

When Pope Benedict went to

Istanbul’s Blue Mosque in Turkey in 2006, some people believed he blatantly contradicted what he had written in 2003 about the impossibility of praying together.

At the mosque, a place of prayer for Muslims, the Pope stood alongside an imam in silent prayer.

Days later back at the Vatican, the Pope said it was “a gesture initially unforeseen,” but one which turned out to be “truly significant.”

“Stopping for some minutes for reflection in that place of prayer, I turned to the one God of heaven and of earth, the merciful father of all humanity,” the Pope said.

Muslims were touched by the Pope’s gesture, but some Christians went to great lengths to insist that the Pope’s “turning to God” was not the same thing as prayer, especially in a mosque.

People found it easier to accept the fact that Pope Benedict stopped for prayer in Jerusalem at the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site.

After visiting Jerusalem, Pope Benedict told visitors at the Vatican that faith demands love of God and love of neighbour; “it is to this that Jews, Christians and Muslims are called to bear witness in order to honour with acts that God to whom they pray with their lips”.

“And it is exactly this that I carried in my heart, in my prayers, as I visited in Jerusalem the Western or Wailing Wall and the Dome of the Rock, symbolic places respectively of Judaism and of Islam,” Pope Benedict said.

In a message commemorating the 20th anniversary of Pope John Paul’s Assisi meeting, Pope Benedict said the 1986 gathering effectively demonstrated to the world that “prayer does not divide, but unites” and is a key part of promoting peace based on friendship, acceptance and dialogue between people of different cultures and religions.

GM crops breed economic dependence: Ghanian prelate

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - If farmers in Africa had greater access to fertile, arable land safe from armed conflict and pollutants, they would not need genetically modified crops to produce food, said the head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Making growers reliant on proprietary, genetically modified seeds smacks of “the usual game of economic dependence,” which in turn, “stands out like a new form of slavery,” said Cardinal Peter Turkson.

The Ghanaian Cardinal’s comments came in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano on 5 January.

It is “a scandal” that nearly one billion people suffer from hunger, Cardinal Turkson said, especially since there is more than enough food to feed the whole world.

Crops and livestock are destroyed because of strict trade restraints or in order to keep food prices high and, in wealthier countries, edible food “is thrown in the garbage,” he said.

“All it would take is a little bit more solidarity and much less egoism” and there would be enough food to nourish even twice the current world popu-

lation, he said. The Cardinal said high-tech agricultural practices and techniques are all but useless in areas of conflict and areas that are ravaged by the exploitation of natural resources.

“In searching for and extracting petroleum, gold or precious minerals present under African soil, multinationals cause enormous damage: they excavate large pits and irreparably devastate fields and forests,” he said.

Whether such areas would ever be arable again is uncertain “even if one relied on genetically engineered plants.”

Cardinal Turkson said some multinational companies are actively engaged in trying to persuade Bishops in Africa to support greater use of genetically modified organisms.

“I think that the real issue is not being for or against GMO,” he said. There would be no need for such crops if African growers had access to fertile land that was “not destroyed, devastated or poisoned by the stockpiling of toxic waste” and if growers were able to benefit from the fruits of their labours by being allowed to set aside enough seeds for planting the next year and not be forced to continually buy genetically modified seeds

from abroad, he said. Cardinal Turkson said he is not opposed to scientific and technological progress, but it’s important to evaluate whether there is a real need for genetically modified crops.

He said people should “honestly ask themselves whether it’s more about business trying to make somebody rich,” which was “a reasonable suspicion” given the many examples of similar exploitation in Ghana.

The extensive interview with Cardinal Turkson also touched upon the justice and peace council’s task of promoting Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”), the 2009 encyclical that addressed social justice issues.

He said the term “social,” as in social development or social responsibility, is meant to convey the sense of the common good, not a political ideology associated with socialism.

Also, the term “gift” reflects the Christian sense of selfgiving, while stateside it was thought to refer to a kind of welfare, he said.

“This made us understand how important it is to put the Pope’s texts out in such a way that it’s possible for them to be understood by everyone, even regular people,” he said.

Pope John Paul II is pictured during a 1986 interfaith prayer gathering in the Italian town of Assisi. Pope Benedict XVI said he would go to Assisi in October to mark the 25th anniversary of the late Pope’s interreligious prayer for peace, but he did not actually say anything about praying with members of other religions.

PHOTO: CNS/KNA

Rights for all except Christian belief in West

Threats to religious freedom abound, including in West: Pope

BY CINDY WOODEN Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY - Religious freedom and religious diversity are not threats to society and should not be a source of conflict, Pope Benedict XVI told diplomats from around the world.

The Pope asked the representatives of 178 countries, as well as of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the European Community and the Knights of Malta, to examine how well their own countries respect the right of individuals to believe, to act in accordance with their conscience, to gather with other believers for worship and to carry out the educational and social projects their faith inspires.

Pope Benedict met on 10 January with diplomats accredited to the Holy See and continued his Christmas-season focus on the connection between religious liberty and peace and on threats to full religious freedom in Western democracies as well as in countries notorious for violating human rights.

Once again he denounced recent attacks on Christians in Iraq, Egypt and Nigeria and expressed concern about the recent renewal of Chinese government restrictions on Catholics there.

Condemning the 4 January murder of Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab in Pakistan, the Pope said the country must overturn its blasphemy law, which makes insult-

ing the Prophet Mohammed or the Quran punishable by death.

Taseer supported the move to abrogate the law, which the Pope said often “serves as a pretext of acts of injustice and violence against religious minorities”.

The Pope also announced that the Communist government of Vietnam has accepted his appointment of a papal representative to Catholics in the country. Vietnam agreed in June to allow the Pope to name a representative as a first step toward diplomatic relations; Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said the representative’s name would be announced shortly.

Pope Benedict told the diplomats that when religious believers are free to practise their faith, society benefits from an increase in upright behaviour, respect for others and solidarity with the poor and weak.

Discussing threats to full religious freedom in Western democracies, the Pope expressed concern about efforts to push religion to the margins of public life and about situations in which citizens are denied the right to act in accordance with their religious convictions, “for example where laws are enforced limiting the right to conscientious objection on the part of health care or legal professionals.”

The Vatican has insisted on the right of Catholic health care workers, including pharmacists, not to be involved in abortions or other procedures that violate Church teaching on the right to life.

Fr Lombardi said the Pope’s reference to conscientious objection in the legal profession referred to the right of Catholic lawyers and judges to refuse to participate in cases involving adoption by gay couples, for example.

Pope Benedict also condemned

educational programmes that want to “mandate obligatory participation in courses of sexual or civic education” with content opposed to Catholic teaching.

Church leaders and Catholic parents in Spain have objected to a public school curriculum that presents homosexuality and abortion in a positive light.

The Pope told the diplomats that there is no such thing as a “scale of degrees of religious intolerance” whereby a certain amount is acceptable.

It is not permissible to infringe on the freedom of conscience out of concern to uphold “other alleged new rights which, while actively promoted by certain sectors of society and inserted in national legislation or in international directives, are nonetheless merely an expression of selfish desires lacking a foundation in authentic human nature,” the Pope said.

Fr Lombardi said those “alleged new rights” included a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion and the right of homosexual people to marry and adopt children.

Miguel Diaz, the US ambassador to the Holy See, attended the audience with the Pope and said the US government will continue to work around the globe for the defence of human rights, particularly the right to religious liberty.

“One of the great things about our democracy is that, from the beginning, religious freedom has been defended,” he told CNS.

Each of the ambassadors had a chance to personally greet the Pope at the end of the audience; Diaz said he assured the Pope that the United States would continue to defend religious freedom around the globe, and he said the Pope thanked the United States for its commitment.

Baptism bestows critical task

Baptising 21 infants, Benedict says faith formation is crucial task

BY JOHN T HAVIS Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI baptised 21 infants and told their parents and godparents that educating them in the faith will not be easy in today’s society.

The 9 January liturgy in the Sistine Chapel, enlivened by the cries of the newly baptised and their siblings, marked the feast of the Baptism of the Lord - an event depicted in one of the splendid Renaissance frescoes that adorn the walls of the chapel.

In his homily, the Pope said the Church encourages the baptism of newborns as the “beginning of a path of holiness and conformity to Christ.”

He compared it to the planting of a seed that will one day turn into a magnificent tree.

Naturally, he added, at a later age each of the baptised will need to give their free and conscious assent to the faith.

That presupposes that, as children, they will receive formation in Scripture and in Church

teachings, he said. This educational path is something the Church, the parents and the godparents need to work together to provide, he said.

“Cooperation between the Christian community and the family is more necessary than ever in the current social context, in which the institution of the family is threatened on many sides, and must face many problems in its mission of educating in the faith,” he said. He said rapid social changes and the weakening of cultural

stability make religious education a real challenge today. For that reason, he said, the parish should make every effort to aid families in this task of transmitting the faith to younger generations.

The infants baptised by the Pope, 13 boys and eight girls, are children of Vatican employees.

Speaking at his noon blessing the same day, the Pope underlined the importance of baptism in the lives of all Christians, as well as the “great responsibility” assumed by parents and godparents in the sacrament.

Feminists resisting prostitution and pornography

Pope Benedict XVI baptises one of 21 infants during a Mass in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican on 9 January. PHOTO: CNS/ L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO VIA REUTERS

WEDNESDAY, 19 JANUARY

Marist New Norcia Annual Mass and Reunion

4.30pm at Newman College, Empire Ave, Churchlands. Mass will be celebrated by Marist Old Boy priests in the Newman College Chapel in memory of deceased brothers and students. A reunion in the college courtyard to follow at 6pm. BYO. SIC and Marist old boys most welcome. Enq: Ambrose 9387 1117, 0419 912 187 or Frank 9446 6435.

FRIDAY, 28 JANUARY

Medjugorje - Evening of Prayer

7-9pm at St Paul’s Parish, 104 Rookwood Street, Mt Lawley. Adoration, Rosary concluding with Holy Mass. Celebrant Fr Bogoni. Free DVD on Donald Calloway’s life of sexual promiscuity, drugs and crime through to his conversion and priesthood. All are warmly invited. Enq: Eileen 9402 2480 or medjugorje@y7mail.com.

SATURDAY, 29 JANUARY

Love Ministries - Charismatic Healing Team and Fr Hugh Thomas.

6pm at St Paul’s, 104 Rookwood St, Mt Lawley. Following Mass, come and get prayed over and healed from past and present issues or stand in for a loved one who may be ill or facing problems at this time. All welcome. Enq: Fr Hugh, Gilbert or Fr Tim 0431 570 322.

TUESDAY, 1 FEBRUARY

Divine Mercy Mass and Healing Service

7-9pm at St Jerome’s Church, 36 Troode St, Munster. Mass by the Vincentian Priests Rev Fr Sunil Aenekkattu VC, Fr Binoy Puthiyedath VC from Potta, India and Fr Sebastian Kalapurackal. Includes preaching, praise, worship and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Enq: Edita 9418 3728 or Liliana 0435 006 368.

WEDNESDAY, 2 FEBRUARY  FRIDAY, 4 FEBRUARY

Novena

7pm at St Peter’s parish, Wood St, Inglewood. Mass, Novena Devotions, procession and Benediction. Blessing of sick on Friday celebration. Followed by supper. Please bring a plate of finger food. Enq: Fr Sam 0422 246 551 or Jimmy 0411 615 239.

FRIDAY, 4 FEBRUARY

Special Healing Mass

7.30pm at Holy Family Church, Maddington. Mass conducted by Fr Sunil Aenekkat and Fr Binoy Augustine. All welcome. Enq: 9493 1703.

The Alliance, Triumph and Reign of the United Hearts of Jesus and Mary 9pm at St Bernadette’s Church, Glendalough. Commences with the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament; reflections, Rosaries, hymns etc alternating with healing sessions. Vigil concludes with midnight Mass. Enq: Fr Doug 9444 6131 or Dorothy 9342 5845.

SATURDAY, 5 FEBRUARY  MONDAY, 7 FEBRUARY

Novena

6.30pm at Good Shepherd Parish, 215 Morley Dr, Kiara. Mass, Novena devotions, procession, Rosary and Benediction concluding with a social get together in the parish hall. Please bring a plate. Sunday 5pm Mass followed by Novena devotions, Procession, Rosary and Benediction. Blessing of the elderly on Monday 7pm celebration. Enq: Fr Francis 9279 8119 or Jimmy 0411 615 239.

SATURDAY, 5 FEBRUARY

Day With Mary

9am-5pm at Pater Noster Parish, corner Marmion and Evershed Sts, Myaree. Day of prayer and instruction based on the Fatima message. 9am Video; 10:10am Holy Mass; Reconciliation, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament, Eucharistic Adoration, Sermons on Eucharist and Our Lady, Rosaries and Stations of the Cross. BYO lunch. Enq: Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286.

SUNDAY, 6 FEBRUARY

Divine Mercy – An Afternoon with Jesus and Mary

1.30pm at St Frances Xavier Church, 25 Windsor St, Perth. The main celebrant for the afternoon will be Fr Johnson Mayil SAC - homily on St Jerome Emilani. Reconciliation,

PANORAMA

Rosary, Prayers and Benediction. Refreshments afterwards. Enq: John 9457 7771.

TUESDAY, 8 FEBRUARY  FRIDAY, 11 FEBRUARY

Novena

7pm at Our Lady of Mercy, Girrawheen Ave, Girrawheen. Mass, Novena Devotions, procession and Benediction. Blessing of the Sick on Thursday celebration. Friday Feast of our Lady of Lourdes. Mass, candlelight procession and Benediction and burning of petitions. Light supper and drinks in the parish hall. Please bring a plate. Enq: Fr Tony 9342 3562 or Jimmy 0411 615 239.

Tridium to the Our Lady of Lourdes

7pm at Holy Trinity Church, 8 Burnett St, Embleton. Preacher Fr Nishan. Tues - Mass, Novena, and procession. Wed - Novena. Thurs - Novena and Anointing of the Sick and elderly. Fri - Mass and procession. Social get together. Please bring a plate. Enq: Gordon 9377 4472.

TUESDAY, 8 FEBRUARY

Spirituality and The Sunday Gospels

7-8pm at St Benedict’s School Hall, Alness St, Applecross. Norma Woodcock’s Teaching Session. Be empowered by the Gospel message each week in a personal way. How can we live meaningful and hope-filled lives. Entry - donation for The Centre for Catholic Spiritual Development and Prayer. Enq: 9487 1772 or www.normawoodcock.com.

FRIDAY, 11 FEBRUARY

Annual Procession in Honour of Our Lady of Lourdes

7pm at Lake Monger. All are asked to assemble at the Dodd St carpark. For those unable to walk, there is an area where you can sit with others and pray together. Enq: Judy 9446 6837.

SATURDAY, 12 FEBRUARY

Marian Retreat

9am-5pm at Holy Family Church, Maddington. A day of healing with Mary our Mother led by the Vincentian Fathers. BYO lunch. All welcome. Enq: 9493 1703.

Divine Mercy Healing

2.30pm at St Frances Xavier Church, Windsor St, East Perth. The main celebrant for the afternoon will be Fr Marcellinus Meilak OFM. Reconciliation in English and Italian will be offered. Divine Mercy prayers followed by veneration of First class Relic of St Faustina Kowalska. Refreshments afterwards. Enq: John 9457 7771.

St Padre Pio Day of Prayer

8.30am at St Lawrence, 392 Albert St, Balcatta. St Padre Pio DVD followed by Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Rosary, Divine Mercy, Silent Adoration and Benediction. 11am – Holy Mass, St Padre Pio Liturgy, Confessions available. Bring a plate for a shared lunch. Tea and coffee supplied. Enq: Des 6278 1540.

TUESDAY, 22 FEBRUARY

Medjugorje Evening of Prayer

6pm at St Mary’s Cathedral, Perth. Visit of Ivan Dragicevic reported visionary of Medjugorje, who allegedly is still receiving daily apparitions of Our Lady. Evening commences with Eucharistic adoration, Rosary (alleged apparition of our Blessed Mother), Benediction, Holy Mass and talk by Ivan Dragicevic. All Welcome. Enq: Eileen 9402 2480 or medjugorje@y7mail.com.

EVERY SUNDAY

Gate of Heaven Catholic Radio

Join the Franciscans of the Immaculate every Sunday from 7.30-9pm on Radio Fremantle 107.9FM for Catholic radio broadcast of EWTN and our own live shows. Enq: radio@ausmaria.com.

Pilgrim Mass - Shrine of the Virgin of the Revelation

2pm at Shrine, 36 Chittering Rd, Bullsbrook. Commencing with Rosary followed by Benediction. Reconciliation is available before every celebration. Anointing of the Sick administered during Mass every second Sunday of the month. Pilgrimage in honour of the Virgin of the Revelation, last Sunday of the month. Side entrance to the church and shrine open daily between 9am-5pm. Enq Sacri 9447 3292.

Extraordinary Form of Latin Holy Mass

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

THIRD SUNDAY OF THE MONTH

Oblates of St Benedict

2pm at St Joseph’s Convent, York St, South Perth. Oblates are affiliated with the Benedictine Abbey of New Norcia. All welcome to study the rule of St Benedict and its relevance to the everyday life of today for lay people. Vespers and tea later. Enq: Secretary 9457 5758.

EVERY FOURTH SUNDAY OF THE MONTH

Holy Hour for Vocations to the Priesthood, Religious Life

2-3pm at Infant Jesus Parish, Wellington St, Morley. The hour includes Exposition of the Blessed Eucharist, silent prayer, Scripture and prayers of intercession. Come and pray that those discerning vocations to the priesthood or Religious life hear clearly God’s loving call to them.

LAST MONDAY OF EVERY MONTH

Christian Spirituality Presentation

7.30-9.15pm at the Church hall behind St Swithan’s Anglican Church, 195 Lesmurdie Rd, Lesmurdie. Stephanie Woods presents The Desert Period of Christianity, 260 to 600AD. From this time period came the understanding of the monastic lifestyle and contemplative prayer. No cost. Enq Lynne 9293 3848.

EVERY TUESDAY

Novena and Benediction to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal

6pm at the Pater Noster Church, Marmion and Evershed Sts, Myaree. Mass at 5.30pm. Enq: John 0408 952 194.

EVERY WEDNESDAY

Holy Spirit of Freedom Community

7.30pm at The Church of Christ, 111 Stirling Street, Perth. We are delighted to welcome everyone to attend our Holy Spirit of Freedom Praise Meeting. Enq: 0423 907 869 or hsofperth@gmail.com.

SECOND WEDNESDAY OF THE MONTH

Chaplets of the Divine Mercy

7.30pm at St Thomas More Catholic Church, Dean Rd, Bateman. A beautiful, prayerful, and sung devotion will be accompanied by Exposition and followed by Benediction. All are welcome. Enq: George Lopez on 9310 9493(h) or 9325 2010(w).

EVERY THURSDAY

Catholic Questions and Answers

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

Divine Mercy

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

Taize Prayer and Meditation

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

The Cathedral Praise Meeting

7.45pm at Faith Centre, 450 Hay St, Perth. When the Spirit Comes – A Holy Spirit Seminar. Each evening –worship, teaching, small group sharing, refreshments. All welcome. Enq: Flame Ministries International 9382 3668.

FIRST FRIDAY OF THE MONTH

Holy Hour for Vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life

7pm at Little Sisters of the Poor Chapel, 2 Rawlins St, Glendalough. Mass, followed by Adoration with Fr Doug Harris. All welcome. Refreshments provided.

Communion of Reparation All Night Vigil

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

Catholic Faith Renewal Evening

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

Healing Mass

7pm at St Peter’s parish, Wood St, Inglewood. Reconciliation, praise and worship, exposition of Blessed Sacrament, Benediction, Anointing of the Sick, and special blessing. Celebrants Fr Sam and other clergy. All welcome. Enq: Priscilla 0433 457 352, Catherine 0433 923 083 or Mary-Ann 0409 672 304.

Communion of Reparation All Night Vigil NOR

7pm-1am at St Gerard Majella’s Church, Majella Rd, Mirrabooka. Honouring the Two Hearts of Jesus and Mary, with two Masses, Confession, Adoration and Prayers. Celebrants Fr Marini and Fr Bogoni. All welcome. Enq: Joy 9344 2609 or Nick 0428 953 471.

Healing and Anointing Mass

8.45am at Pater Noster, Myaree. Reconciliation, followed by Mass including Anointing of the Sick, Praise and Worship to St Peregrine and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. All welcome. Enq: Joy 9337 7189.

AA ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

Is alcohol costing you more than just money? Enq: AA 9325 3566.

OPPORTUNITY FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE

Emmanuel Self-Help Centre for People with Disabilities is looking for volunteers to transport newspapers and other recyclable paper from its Perth office to a Canning Vale paper mill about every six weeks. Manual car driver’s licence required. Physical fitness is advantageous as heavy lifting is involved. Centre staff will assist. Enq: Fr Paul 9328 8113 or emmanuelcentre@westnet.com.au.

AL  ANON FAMILY GROUPS

If your home is unhappy because somebody drinks too much, we can help with understanding and supporting families and friends of problem drinkers. Enq: 9325 7528.

ST MARY MACKILLOP COMMEMORATIVE MERCHANDISE

Available from the Mary MacKillop Centre, 16 York St, South Perth. Commemorative mugs and plates, collector’s items etc. Enq: Sr Maree 0414 683 296.

PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND

St Peters’ parish in Inglewood is organising a visit to Jordan, Israel and Egypt from 13-26 March 2011. The pilgrimage will cost A$3,990, everything included. Fr Sam will be the Spiritual Director. Eng Jim 0411 61 5239, zawnaing@optusnet.com.au.

SPANISH LESSONS OFFERED AT WHITFORDS

PARISH FOR WORLD YOUTH DAY, MADRID 2011

Beginner classes commence 9 February on Wednesday evenings 6.45-7.30pm and Saturday mornings 10.1511am. Cost - $5 per class or $40 for 10 classes if paid in full at the beginning of the term. All classes will take place in venues at Our Lady of the Mission Catholic Church, Camberwarra Dr, Craigie. Enq: Noeme 9307 4038 or Shirley-Ann 9407 8156.

BREVIARIES NEEDED

If there are copies of breviaries sitting in bookshelves in presbyteries or Religious houses which are no longer needed, they could be put to good use at St Charles Seminary. The three volume set is preferred, but even the single volume could be used. This will help us to introduce our new seminarians to the recitation of the Divine Office. Enq: Helen at the Seminary on 9279 1310 or admin@seminary-perth.org.au and we can organise for them to be picked up.

ACROSS

7 Jesus compared a rich man to this animal in Mk 10:25

8 Theyʼre worn around the neck

10 Member of the Society

16

26

2

14

18

19

26

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ACCOMMODATION

HOLIDAY ACCOMMODATION

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

TRADE SERVICES

BRENDON HANDYMAN

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

BRICK RE-POINTING

Ph Nigel 9242 2952.

PERROTT PAINTING Pty Ltd

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

PICASSO PAINTING Top service. Ph 0419 915 836, fax 9345 0505.

FURNITURE REMOVAL

ALL AREAS. Competitive Rates. Mike Murphy Ph 0416 226 434.

LAWN MOWING

WRR LAWN MOWING & WEED

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

FOR SALE

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

Deadline: 11am Monday

SETTLEMENTS

ARE YOU BUYING OR SELLING real estate or a business? Why not ask Excel Settlements for a quote for your settlement. We offer reasonable fees, excellent service and no hidden costs. Ring Excel on 9481 4499 for a quote. Check our web site on www.excelsettlements.com.

BOOK BINDING

NEW BOOK BINDING, General Book Repairs; Rebinding; New Ribbons; Old Leather Bindings Restored. Tydewi Bindery 0422 968 572.

OPPORTUNITIES

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

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

FLORIST

15% OFF SILK BRIDAL BOUQUETS UNTIL 31 JAN 2010 with orders over $300. Specialist fresh & silk wedding flowers by design. All areas with delivery. Customised service. Showroom opened Tues–Fri 9am – 5pm, Sat by appointment. Phone Johanna 0434 390 363.

RELIGIOUS PRODUCTS

CATHOLICS CORNER Retailer of Catholic products specialising in gifts, cards and apparel for Baptism, Communion and Confirmation. Ph 9456 1777. Shop 12, 64-66 Bannister Rd, Canning Vale. Open Mon-Sat.

CONVENIENT LOCATIONS FOR BIBLES, BOOKS CARDS, CDs/DVDs, candles, medals, statues and gifts at Ottimo. Shop 108, Trinity Arcade, 671 Hay Street, Perth. Ph 9322 4520. Mon-Fri 9am-6pm, Sat 10am2pm and at Station Street Market Subiaco on Fri-Sun 9am-5pm.

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

KINLAR VESTMENTS

Quality hand-made and decorated vestments: Albs, Stoles, Chasubles, altar linen, banners etc. 12 Favenc Way, Padbury. By appointment only. Ph Vicki on 9402 1318 or 0409 114 093.

NEW SHOP OPENED SOR APARACIDAS EMPORIUM

Shop 2 – 101 Calista Ave, Calista 6167. Retailer in Catholic products. CDs, Rosaries, cards, books, statues and more. Tues–Fri 9am – 5pm, Sat by appointment.

Walk With Him

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God’s great works

Mk 2:23-28 Master of the Sabbath

19 W Heb 7:1-3.15-17 King of peace

Gr Ps 109:1-4 Sit on my right

Mk 3:1-6 Grief at stubbornness

20 Th St Fabian, Pope, martyr (O); St Sebastian, martyr (O)

Gr Heb 7:25-8:6 Christ, the high priest

Ps 39:7-10.17 Here am I, Lord

Mk 3:7-12 You are God’s Son!

21 F St Agnes, virgin, martyr (M)

Red Heb 8:6-13 New, better covenant

Ps 84:8.10-14 Justice and peace

Mk 3:13-19 Jesus appoints twelve

22 S St Vincent, deacon, martyr (O)

Gr Heb 9:2-3.11-14 The one perfect sacrifice

Ps 46:2-3.6-9 God reigns

Mk 3:20-21 Out of his mind?

The living God ... who loves

Religions usually regard God as remote and unpersonal. Christianity alone knows God as a communion of persons which has revealed itself to us, to the point of becoming a human being. Furthermore, Christians believe, God is love. The belief in the Trinity really does make Christianity unique. Attadale parish priest Fr Sean Fernandez continues his reflection the nature of God.

Unearthing Treasure

By Fr Sean Fernandez

“The greatest truth we learn about God is the Blessed Trinity,’ the Penny Catechism tells us; and what is the Blessed Trinity? ‘The Blessed Trinity is one God in three Divine Persons.” How do we reconcile this self-assured answer with the argument of the first article? You may recall that the axiom that was central to the first article was ‘we cannot know what God is’. I hope to demonstrate that there is no conflict for the doctrine of the Trinity does not pretend to tell us what God is.

Before proceeding, let me just clarify what I mean when I write of “the doctrine of the Trinity.” The doctrine or the Church teaching on the Trinity is simply that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God; and God is One. This teaching found formal expression in various Church councils beginning with the Council of Nicaea in AD 325.

The doctrine of the Trinity tells us that the Old Testament insistence that God is One is true and the New Testament proclamation that Jesus and the Spirit are God is also true. God has truly revealed Himself to humanity in the events to which the Scripture and the Tradition bear witness: The long history of the people of Israel; the life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus; and the transforming experience of the Holy Spirit are all truly experiences of the living God.

The International Theological Commission puts it thus: “the Trinity which manifests itself in the economy of salvation is the immanent Trinity and it is the immanent Trinity which communicates itself freely and gratuitously in the economy of salvation.” The ‘immanent Trinity’ is a theological term for God as He is in Himself. Thus, the Commission is saying that our experience of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is truly an experience of God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Does God tell us what He is? No, He does not. He draws us into relationship with Him. The name for this relationship is faith and St Thomas tells us that faith joins us to God as to one unknown (ST 1a.12.13 ad 1).

God reveals who He is as He shapes the history of the people He

has chosen. God doesn’t reveal what He is, but who He is in relationship with His creation and those whom He chooses.

In the words and actions of His ministry, Jesus reveals the one He calls His Father and something of the relationship He has with His Father. He doesn’t tell us what He is or what the Father is; He brings people into a saving relationship. In the Spirit we enter into the new life of Christ, but the Spirit doesn’t tell us what God is; He brings us into relationship with the Father and the Son. Revelation is about saving relationship, not about quiddity or whatness.

If we look at salvation history, then we see that what comes first is the initiative of God who brings people into relationship with Him. The Scriptures bear witness to the initiative and faithfulness of God. That relationship is enfleshed in the life of the peoples God forms, pre-eminently in the Church. Before the Church used the word ‘Trinity’ she was worshipping God the Father through His Son and in the Holy Spirit; new members were being baptised in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Learned Christians were writing works of speculative theology exploring what God has done

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for human beings in giving us the Spirit of Jesus. Tertullian (c AD 160-220) was, as far as we know, the first Latin Father to use the word ‘Trinity’ to refer to the relationship which is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We cannot reduce God to our categories by claiming that there are three gods; there is only one who is eternal, ineffable, the Creator of all. The Old Testament is adamant on this point. So how does one do justice to the experience of the Son and the Spirit? The word ‘Trinity’ and the language of three persons in one God developed as people started reflecting critically and sys-

Arise from Darkness: What To Do When Life Doesn’t Make Sense

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tematically on the nature of salvation and the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Trinitarian language found its way into Church teaching as the Church sought to prevent errors in interpreting what God has done for us in missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The language of Trinity tells us that God really has entered our history to raise us up so that we can actually share in the life of God.

The language of the Trinity tells us that God did not pretend to become one like us in Jesus and that God did not give us anything less than Himself in the Spirit. The relationship God wants with us is a real one and because God wants this real relationship He gives us Himself in sending the Son and Spirit into our history and lives.

I repeat that none of this tells us what God is; it really tells us how not to interpret the relationship to which Scripture and Tradition bear witness and which we enjoy here and now.

Let me illustrate this with two interpretations which the Church rejected as erroneous. The first is Arianism: this was actually a conservative stream of thought which could not accept that Jesus Christ was truly God. The second error is Sabellianism which claimed that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are just the modes in which the one God appears to us; Father, Son and Spirit are, if you like, the masks God puts on to appear to us.

Both errors fail to take seriously the radicalness of the life, actions and words of Jesus; both errors cannot accept that God has truly brought us into a real relationship with Him in the gift of the Spirit. The Church, in rejecting those theories, teaches that they do not do justice to the wonderful love and condescension of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who bring us into a real, life-giving and transforming relationship with them, the one, true God.

Theologising and doctrinal elucidation are important, but they are based on the primary realities of faith. What are these primary realities? The relationship of knowledge and love which God has made us capable of enjoying with Him through Jesus and the Spirit. What is primary is the life of faith, hope and love which is the shape eternal life takes here and now.

The primary words of faith are not the arid words of theologians, but the living words of prayer, worship and love; the teaching of the Trinity tells us that God has brought us into real relationship with Him through Jesus and the Spirit He gives.

Trinitarian teaching tells us that we must keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and attend to His Spirit to come to know God; we must enter into the dying and rising of God’s Son in the power of the Spirit to come to know the Father who is the source of all being.

The teaching of the Trinity tells us that we truly have become adopted sons and daughters of the living God.

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Kiss from the Cross

I shall leave the final word to the great Apostle: “I pray that, according to the riches of His glory, He may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through His Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3.16-19).

Three candles, one flame. This image has sometimes been used to teach something of the mystery that cannot really be understood but which Christians know is true: that God is three persons, and yet one God. PHOTO: PETER ROSENGREN