The Record Newspaper 12 March 2008

Twenty years ago then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger said a Christian’s supreme duty in today’s world is to be counter-cultural. At a public meeting in Perth, women are leading the way. Christian families can learn a lot from their approach in key areas.

■ By Anthony Barich

Women’s Forum Australia has called for a new women’s movement and strategy that challenges the industries that feed on body insecurities among girls and women.

“WFA is building a new women’s movement in this country. We are calling for a new strategy for girl and woman advocacy. We hope that you will join us,” WFA founding director Melinda Tankard Reist told the “Get Real” forum at Government House last Friday.

The packed forum, held the day before International Women’s Day and attended by over 300 people - mostly women – examined issues around female body image, the sexualising of girls and the commodification of girls’ and young women’s bodies in advertising, marketing and popular culture.

“Life has become one big beauty pageant,” Ms Tankard Reist said. “Despite all the great opportunities on offer today, girls are struggling.

“In an age of girl power, girls are feeling powerless.”

She said teenage girls are facing unprecedented social pressures.

“Their emotional and psychological well being are at risk in ways never before imagined,” she said.

Continued - Page 4 More coverage - Vista 2 & 3

SINGLEMINDED VISION

Perth woman Julie Pearce, at right, asks whether an increasing trend in the marketing of faith to families has alienated the growing number of singles.

VISTA 1

Bunny girl? No, it’s not a scene from some sleazy nightclub. In fact, Julie Gale was making a point about how women are expected to be and present themselves in today’s society. Julie, founder of Kids Free 2B Kids, was one of several speakers who addressed the Women’s Forum Australia gathering at Perth’s Government House last Friday evening March 7 which focussed on female body image and the negative ways in which girls and women are pressured to conform. At a time when issues such as eating disorders and sexual violence against women are at historic highs one key concern is the sexualisation and exploitation of girls by a consumerist culture that has accepted the idea that women should be exploited with little, if any, concern for the consequences. As Christian families struggle against the powerful corrosive peer pressure created by the media and corporate culture, the WFA message offers a freash breath of hope.

Story, reports - VISTA 2 & 3

SERVITE COLLEGE HITS 50

Principal Phillip Cox shares an insight into a golden jubilee of life and education as his school celebrates half a century of service - and Servites.

Page 13

Frassati’s body to head ‘Down Under’ for WYD

■ By Cindy Wooden

ROME (CNS) - Logistical details are being finalised in an attempt to fly the body of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati to Sydney, for veneration by young people at World Youth Day in July.

Among Italian young people and a growing number of their peers around the world, Blessed Pier Giorgio, who died in 1925 at the age of 24, is seen as a special patron because he combined his enjoyment of life and sports with strong faith, serious charity and a commitment to social justice.

In a service combining prayer and church legal procedures,

Continued : Page 8

SELLING THEM SHORT?

John Heard reviews a statement issued by clergy from various denominaitons challenging traditional Christian responses to same-sex attraction.

Vista 4

The

The

Letters - Page 8

Perspectives - Vista 4-pg 9

The World - Pages 10-11

Panorama - Page 14

PHOTO: SYLVIA DEFENDI

Sydney-bound: Italian Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, who died at 24 and was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1990.

PHOTO: CNS

Saint of the Month

Agnes of Bohemia

c. 1200-1280

feast – March 6

Agnes’ parents were the king of Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic) and the sister of Hungary’s king. Their ambitions for Agnes to marry royalty were dashed by death, the machinations of other royals and Agnes’ devotion to Christ. Finally, after several engagements, Agnes was able to dedicate herself to God. She built a

Passionate, positive until the end

Walking with Him

16 Passion (Palm) Sunday

Ps

Christina Graves, wife, mother of four, former Director of Catholic Marriage Education Services, Perth, December 12, 1952 – February 26, 2008

Daily Mass Readings

Red Isa 50:4-7 No resistance

26:14-27:66 I shall rise again

17 Monday of Holy Week

Vio Isa 42:1-7 True justice

18 Tuesday of Holy Week

sight of the fact that the organisation’s primary task was education.

She repeatedly reminded anyone who would listen that no matter how well the organisation ran administratively if it didn’t deliver in the classroom it had not met its core objective.

Christina was born on December 22, 1952 in Porthcawl, Wales, and came to Australia when she was two with her parents Jo and Terry and her two brothers Peter and Steve. Up until her mid teens she was known by all and sundry as Tina.

Most of her schooling was at St Mary’s, Leederville and, as many did in those days (especially girls), she left at 15 and joined the work force. She tried her hand at several things between ’67 and ’72 including Nursing Assistant, Shop Assistant, Clerk and Factory Hand.

It was during this period that she met her beloved husband Jeffery and; they were married on October 8, 1972.

I am unsure if the realisation that she could do anything was as a result of travelling from Perth to Townsville, including 282 miles of unsealed Nullabor, with her brand new husband in a mini packed to the gunnels.

In 1977 her and Jeff’s next child, Daniel, was born and their first daughter Carly arrived in the Graves household in May, 1981 – approximately one month after Christina completed the City to Surf Fun Run in her eighth month of pregnancy, a feat which was mentioned in the national press.

In 1999 she completed an Associate Degree of Arts at Edith Cowan University, becoming a member of ECU’s Golden Keys which is reserved for the top 15 per cent of students.

She retired from CMES in July 2006 to walk the 1000 kms which is the Bibulmun Track from end to end.

This took her through from September to December 2006 and was unfortunately the beginning of the end.

Although it can never be proved I am convinced that Christina was suffering from Leukaemia during this trip. Firstly, she had a badly cut leg that seemed to refuse to heal and secondly she noted to Jeff after her diagnosis, and again I quote: “You seemed to be getting stronger and the walking was getting easier and I just seemed to be finding it harder.”

Trust in God Phil 2:6-11 Death on a cross

Ps 26:1-3.13-14 My light, my help Jn 12:1-11 Costly ointment

Vio Isa 49:1-6 Called before birth

Ps 70:1-6.15.17 You are my rock

Jn 13:21-33.36-38 Night had fallen

19 Wednesday of Holy Week

Vio Isa 50:4-9 A listening disciple

Ps 68:8-10.21-22.31.33-34 Lord, answer me

Mt 26:14-25 Not I, Lord, surely?

Chrism Mass: Thursday of Holy Week (morning) or another day towards the end of Lent

Isa 61:1-3.6.8-9 The Lord’s anointed

Ps 88:21-22.25.27 David anointed

Rev 1:5-8 The Alpha, the Omega

Lk 4:16-21 Jesus anointed

EASTER TRIDUM

20 Holy Thursday

Wh Ex 12:1-8.11-14 Day of remembrance

Ps 115:12-13.15-18 Cup of salvation

1 Cor 11:23-26 I passed on to you

Jn 13:1-15 The hour of Jesus

21 Good Friday

Red Isa 52:13-53:12 Crushed for our sins

Ps 30:2.6.12-13.15-17.25

You are my God

Heb 4:14-16.5:7-9 Humble submission

Jn 18:1-19:42 Jesus’ Passion

So packed was the car that when they stopped off in Melbourne and visited her life long friend Chris McInerny who gave them some bowls as a wedding present the only place left to store them for the remainder of the trip from Melbourne to Townsville was on her lap. She and Jeff hadn’t seen each other for the six months preceding the wedding so on top of everything else this long haul trip in an overcrowded mini was also a getting to know you again experience – I think she figured if she could survive that trip she could do anything!

That trip was indeed a harrowing experience and I think it is fair to say that the trip to Townsville is the only time in Christina’s married life that she had any doubt that Jeffo wasn’t all she dreamed of – from then on it has truly been a contest of who loved who the most. They had a beautiful marriage which was admired by all who knew them. In December 1972 they moved into a modest flat in Farmer Street, North Perth, before buying a house in Yokine in 1973. Jared their firstborn arrived in January, 1976 and Christina put any career aspirations on hold while she became a full-time mother.

In November 1976 the three-person Graves family moved to Dianella where she was to become an active, progressive and influential member of the church, school and local communities for the next 29 years.

The family was completed in 1984 with the birth of Megan. Christina’s passion for doing her absolute best at everything she did showed in the bringing up, with Jeff, of these four wonderful people

I am sure that her research and thirst to understand what was happening in her body during her productive years led her to a level of knowledge that enabled her to become a teacher at the Natural Family Planning clinic in Perth which she did from 1982 to 1997. Many of these years she also spent doing supervisory and co-ordination positions with NFP while still teaching.

Her career at NFP involved visiting high schools and lecturing on Natural Family Planning and matters of sexuality. One of the appraisals written by a student after one such visit mentioned “the lady should go on a public speaking course” – this led Christina to pursue a public speaking course so that she could again be as good as possible at what she did. She ended up as an excellent public speaker accumulating awards and honours along the way. Christina re-ignited her inclination for long trips in cramped conditions when in 1986 the Graves family took six months off to take the first of two trips around Australia; trips to the outback, enjoying nature, camping and touring were a lifelong love. Christina’s professional growth continued with her appointment in 1997 as the Director of Catholic Marriage Education Services where she spent nine years. While staying on top of administration she did a lot of client contact work and never lost

In February 2007 Christina was diagnosed with Leukaemia and she and Jeff spent a year battling the disease. Christina’s strength and acceptance was an inspiration to us all, and I quote her words exactly: “I am just going to give myself the best chance I can to get better”. Even though this eulogy is about Christina it would be remiss of me not to mention the absolutely devoted care Jeff gave to Christina during the last year of her wonderful life.

She made a real difference to the world and contributed in so many ways to the wider community – it is impossible to know how many better marriages are out there due to her stewardship and teaching at CMES and how many couples there are who can better manage their fertility due to her teaching at NFP.

On the day before she passed Christina was reasonably coherent and spent long periods awake in the morning but towards the afternoon started to lose consciousness on a regular basis. She had been unconscious for about an hour when the nurse arrived to check on her. While there she asked Christina, who was bruised from head to foot, with badly swollen legs and feet how she was feeling. The family was ready to respond that she hadn’t spoken for some time so was unlikely to answer. Before they had a chance to do so Christina as only she would opened her eyes, looked around and said “Fabulous!”

This was the last word she spoke.

This is an edited text of the eulogy delivered by Christina’s brother, Tony Meyrick.

WYD needs 20,000 hosts and 8000 volunteers

World Youth Day encourages HomeStay and Volunteer Sundays in local parishes

Catholic parishes across Sydney will this weekend spread the word about World Youth Day 2008 (WYD08) and two of its major participation programs - HomeStay and Volunteering.

“World Youth Day will create a sense of exhilaration not felt in Sydney since the Olympic Games,” said WYD08 chief operating officer Danny Casey.

“More than 125,000 young Catholics from around the world will join tens of thousands of young Australians in July to celebrate their faith in one of the world’s great host cities.

“It’ll be an event Sydneysiders will want to be part of in some way - a chance to take part in the biggest event Australia has ever held in terms of participants.”

WYD08 is looking to recruit 8000 event week volunteers and

around 20,000 HomeStay Hosts.

All parishes in greater Sydney have been asked to invite their congregations to volunteer or host two or more visiting pilgrims during the event week.

“Parishes will include WYD08 information in their bulletins, hold information stalls after Mass and make special announcements during the Easter season when church attendances are normally higher,” Mr Casey said.

“We want our parishioners to be aware of the great benefits of this event and understand that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

On 16 March (Palm Sunday) and 23 March (Easter Sunday), Sydney priests will be asked to circulate information about volunteering.

HomeStay families who apply before the end of March will be eligible for a guaranteed space in Randwick Racecourse for the Final Mass, celebrated by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.

Christina Graves

Legion marches on

■ By Anthony Barich

The Legion of Mary returned to Perth last week and doorknocked a staggering 3431 houses in City Beach, Scarborough and Wembley Downs over two weeks to seek conversions.

The 2006 Australian Census revealed 2363 people who called themselves Catholic live in City Beach, which includes those practising and non-practising, but the work of the Legion of Mary told City Beach parish priest Fr Don Kettle why, in many cases, people had drifted from the Catholic Church.

In the process, the Legion of Mary doubled Fr Kettle’s workload, as their work revealed 471 Catholic families in the surrounding area.

Alison Buman, the leader of the Legion of Mary PPC (Peregrinato Pro Christo, “Travellers for Christ”) team that conducted the parish census, said many non-practising Catholics they found expressed a desire to attend the local church and meet the new priest.

Mrs Buman, at 63 the youngest of the Legion of Mary group who wandered around Perth’s beach suburbs last week, said non-Catholics received them positively, especially other Christian denominations who “gave us their encouragement and blessing”.

Reaching up to 300 homes a day, the group, which at one stage grew to 18 with local helpers, distributed over 2000 copies of a special edition of City Beach parish’s Paraclete bulletin, hundreds of Miraculous Medals and prayers cards, Rosary beads and various spiritual literature. Fr Kettle, who commissioned the group, said the Legion of Mary’s work formed a crucial foundation of what a parish’s function should be – a nurturing and prayerful spiritual community that reaches out to the lost and disillusioned and helps facilitate their journey towards Christ, wherever they are at in their lives.

The Legion of Mary members have been welcoming new people at the church.

“It’s stirred up a lot of excitement in the parish, which has actually lain dormant for a while,” Fr Kettle

said. “These people are about bringing the Gospel – truly apostles, they went out in pairs.

“Their findings have doubled my workload, but parishes have got to be more aggressive and pro-active to get back to being a house of prayer and a true spiritual community where people feel like they belong, not to just rock up, receive Holy Communion and leave.

“Pope John Paul II said the parish should be a community of prayer, and Pope Benedict XVI followed that up recently saying that parishes can truly be the seedbed of vocations… and why can’t they be? Spiritual multiplication happens on a one-on-one level.

“The Apostles didn’t seek mass conversions at once, they told people personally about their own encounter with Christ and changed hearts that way. “Parishes can produce individuals who live lives of

sanctity, so that people can see that in them and are changed as a result of their witness. We need holy priests to be examples to others.

“Priests are called to sanctity first and foremost, all else comes second, and building up a prayerful spiritual community is the first step in developing such people.”

Mrs Buman, who came to Perth with two others from Rochester, a small country town just south of Echuca in northern Victoria to help City Beach evangelise, did not come out from her work unscathed.

Last Thursday a dog jumped up and bit her on the bicep, which the tough Victorian would have shrugged off but for Fr Kettle urgently taking her to the doctor’s clinic.

It’s all in a day’s work for the Legion of Mary, who do what needs to be done to bring about the kingdom of God.

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A Catholic Perspective on The Purpose Driven Life

Rick Warren’s popular book ‘The Purpose Driven Life’ helped many around the world discover that the meaning and purpose of their lives begins with God, their Creator.

You were made by God and for God. Until one understands this, life will never make sense.

You are no accident. Even before the universe was created, God had you in mind, and he planned you for his purposes.

These purposes will extend far beyond the few years you will spend on earth. You were made to last forever!

Now, in A Catholic Perspective on the Purpose Driven Life, Fr Champlin provides a guided reflection, sharing and prayer that reinforce many of Rick Warren’s points, with additional commentary on areas where Catholic teaching varies.

Following Warren’s 40-day spiritual journey process, this book will help Roman Catholic readers have a deeper insight into life’s most important question: What on earth am I here for?

Knowing God’s purpose for creating you will reduce your stress, focus your energy, simplify your decisions, give meaning to your life, and, most importantly, prepare you for eternity. $15.95+postage

JohnHughes

JOHN HUGHES

■ By Fr Joseph M. Champlin

What, this? Just a sractch...: Legion of Mary team leader Alison Buman shows where a dog jumped up and bit her on the bicep. Unfazed, she continued doorknocking on a sweltering day.

PHOTO: ANTHONY BARICH

the Parish

Prendiville unveils performing arts centre

Featuring classrooms for music, theatre arts and dance; change rooms and make-up rooms; and a foyer equipped with a ticketing office and food and drink facilities, Prendiville College’s multi-million dollar performing arts centre was unveiled on February 29.

Director of Catholic Education, Ron Dullard, unveiled the dedicatory plaque stating that, “under Archbishop Redmond

Prendiville, Catholic education in this state flourished and grew in ways that had only been dreamed of. So it is entirely fitting that the College that was named in his honour is now flourishing in such creative and innovative ways.”

The Centre moved from initial concept to completion in less than two and a half years, with the construction itself finishing in only ten months. “The Performing Arts Centre

In pursuit of a common vision for youth

■ by Rob Hini

“Why are there so many groups for the same thing?” is an oft-asked question in the Archdiocese of Perth. “Why are they all doing there own thing?” is another.

In the lead up to World Youth Day in July, many youth agencies and movements have come together as The Catholic Youth Network to find a common purpose and to develop ways that they can work together.

The network’s membership includes the Perth World Youth Day Office, Young Christian Workers, a representative from Notre Dame’s Chaplaincy Team, Young Christian Students and Disciples of Jesus 24/7 Youth Ministry amongst many other organisations.

One of their first orders of business is to ask the Catholics of Perth what their vision is for

youth in the Archdiocese of Perth. Earlier this month an online forum discussion was convened on Catholic Youth Ministry’s website.

The ongoing discussion focuses on two questions. The first of these is: ‘What is your vision for the Archdiocese of Perth over the next 5 years?’ The organisers advise that any Catholic in Perth is welcome to add their thoughts.

Discussion participants are encouraged to be bold and yet realistic in their visioning, as reflected in the second forum question: ‘How do we strategically implement this?’

The Catholic Youth Network hopes to examine the contributions that Catholics throughout Perth have made to the online discussion in April. They then plan to draft a youth vision document to be examined by Perth’s Bishops.

Anyone wishing to participate in the online discussion can do so at www.cym.com.au

Seminar a light for parents

■ By Sylvia Defendi

Parents are being urged to attend this year’s Switched on Parenting Series, with national and international experts booked for the popular series.

Produced by WA’s Catholic Education Office, the series was first offered in 2005 and has since drawn good atttendances.

According to the CEO, the free seminars offer an opportunity for parents to maximise the future development of their children, become a more confident parent and better understand their children’s needs.

“It is hoped that this initiative will support the wonderful work that schools are doing and encourage parents to become even more involved in their children’s schooling where it really counts, both at home and at their own school,” coordinator of communications at the CEO, Lina Bertolini said.

The series begins on March 26 with ‘Baby Boomers X, Y and Z geners: What it means for you, your children and their teachers,’ presented by Dr Donna Prendergast, from the University of Queensland.

On June 9 ‘Are we there yet? The family trip on the educational journey,’ will be presented by renowned researcher, Dr John Edwards; while Sam Orth, from the WA police Cyber Predator Team, will speak on ‘Cyber Bullying and Internet Safety,’ on September 1.

“We feel the focus on parents is fitting given that they are consistently honoured as the primary educators of their children,” Ms Bertolini added.

Each seminar commences at 7.30pm in the James Nestor Hall at the Catholic Education Centre, 50 Ruslip St, Leederville. For further information, to register or to request

will complement the existing first-class facilities that we offer our students”, principal at Prendiville College, John Aldous said.

“It is a facility they can most certainly utilise to achieve their potential in the performing arts and to make full use of their God-given talents,” he added.

Councillor Albert Jacob from the City of Joondalup commented that the theatre, which seats 306, is “the finest one in the northern

suburbs”. Auxiliary Bishop Donald Sproxton blessed the centre and prayed for the students to “understand the truths they are taught, ponder them in their hearts and give witness to them in their lives”.

Prendiville students then demonstrated the stage’s qualities—and their considerable talent—by performing selections of choral and jazz music as well as dance and drama routines.

Forum highlights needs of women in Perth

continued from page 1

Ms Tankard Reist and Kids Free 2B Kids founder Julie Gale criticised the Australian Standards Board for not doing its job.

“Many of us here tonight would like to have an Advertising Standards Board that is just that and reflected community opinion,” Ms Tankard Reist said, and also accused girls’ magazines like Girlfriend and Dolly who promote “positive body image” and “self respect” campaigns of hypocrisy.

“These girls’ magazines can’t say they’re trying to empower girls to be strong and feel good about themselves and not be objectified then offer them these kind of products,” Ms Tankard-Reist said, referring to banners in the magazines that say “Free sex, just ask.”

The forum also launched Faking It, WFA’s groundbreaking research paper on the link that sociologists, psychologists and other researchers have made between women’s and girls’ magazines and women’s health and wellbeing.

“It’s International Women’s Day and I can’t help feeling we’ve gone backwards. Every day I see a new example and I think things can’t get any worse and they do,” said Ms Tankard Reist, who has three daughters. She added: “We have a duty to try to raise some decent men in this country.”

To counter the Playboy brand and other such brands that encourage promiscuity, sub-

servience and low self esteem, the forum also launched its own range of hot-pink t-shirts that display the Playboy logo being crossed out.

Selena Ewing, research officer at Southern Cross Bioethics Institute and author of Faking It, and Enlighten Education chief executive Danielle Miller also addressed the forum.

“WFA doesn’t believe that women should be homogenised to look and act the same. We believe women should be encouraged to think for themselves, form meaningful values and make a mark in the world that goes beyond the air-headed cult of celebrity and fashion,” Ms Tankard Reist said.

Ms Gale said consumers help foster this destructive culture.

“We can’t blame the manufacturers of Bratz dolls when we put them in the top 10 sales for 2007,” she said, adding that sponsors will generally change their policy if consumers bring things to their attention which they believe are not right.

“If you write to the sponsors and tell them you will boycott their products and will tell all your friends to as well unless they change their advertising campaigns, that tends to have a strong effect,” Ms Gale said, after Ms Tankard Reist said she got Harper’s Bazaar fashion magazine to pull an ad for shoes showing a model dumped in the boot of a car by mobilising the support of domestic violence groups.

Coimbra Fatima / Anniversary (3)

the Parish

Over 40 years of planned giving

What leads a Perth aid and development agency to grow from $324,384 funds in 1985 to over $1 million in 2007? This week we look back on the founding days of the annual Lenten giving program, Project Compassion, and the effects it has had over the years on the world’s poor.

■ By Judith Woodward

Initially called Australian Catholic Relief (ACR), Caritas Australia was founded in June, 1964 during a time when awareness of global human needs was growing rapidly.

The Archdioceses of Adelaide and Sydney had already held Lenten appeals for overseas relief earlier in 1964. Success of these appeals encouraged the Australian Catholic Bishops to initiate a national Lenten appeal in 1965. Project Compassion was born.

In Perth, the Archdiocese saw ACR established in the late 1960s under its first diocesan director (DD), Monsignor Peter O’Reilly, with offices in the dioceses of Bunbury, Geraldton and Broome setting up shortly afterwards.

Mgr O’Reilly remained Perth DD until Margaret Collopy took over in 1978. With Margaret’s retirement at the end of June, 2000, Ann Fairhead, who is currently serving as Perth’s DD, took the role, and oversaw the office’s move to its present premises in the Archdiocesan Pastoral Centre

in Highgate. As the work of Caritas Australia has grown and become more complex, both the National Office and the local agency offices have grown in personnel. One of the crucial aspects for the success of the work of Caritas Australia, in West Australia as elsewhere, has been the support of the wider community, especially the Catholic community, through its schools and parishes, and the cooperation of other archdiocesan and diocesan bodies.

Such support and cooperation has enabled the returns of Caritas’ Project Compassion to grow - in Perth from $324,384 in 1985 to $1.04m in 2007. It has also meant that Caritas Australia has become one of the leading international aid and development bodies throughout Australia. As Caritas Australia has evolved it has realised the importance of education and advocacy within

Australia to challenge the attitudes of Australians to issues of poverty and development. Consequently it apportioned money and resources to the construction of programs in Catholic schools and parishes as well as in the general community to draw attention to global and, within Australia, indigenous inequalities and the Christian responsibility to take action in response to these issues. Now the largest international aid and development appeal in Australia, project Compassion gives hope to thousands throughout the developing world of the African/ Asian/Pacific region through Caritas Australia-funded programs.

Today Caritas Australia, as part of Caritas Internationalis, is one of 154 members working in over 200 countries and territories.

For more information on how you can assist Caritas’ work call the Perth office on: 9422 7925.

The Love That Satisfies: Reflections on Eros

& Agape

■ By Christopher West

What is the relationship between eros (romantic sexual love) and agape (divine love)? And why did Pope Benedict XVI make such a big deal about this in his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est? With wit, wisdom and his trademark unabashed conversational style, Christopher West draws on Pope Benedict XVI’s understanding that it is agape, the self-sacrificial love of God that empowers romantic love, eros, with life-giving and meaningful existence.

It is through recognising and embracing the beauty of God’s self-sacrificial love that a person is able to truly be satisfied. In uniting the love of God to the love of spouse, the nuptial bond is fulfilled. Perhaps even more profound is the reality that God, the Bridegroom of the Church, has a personal love for his Bride, humanity, that may certainly be called eros (Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, n. 9).

Chapters include:

~ Encountering God Who Is Love ~ Distinguishing True Love From Its Counterfeits ~ Unity of Body & Soul ~ True Eros ~ The Meeting of Eros & Agape ~ God’s Eros ~ The Purpose of Eros ~ Union & Eucharist ~ The Journey of Love

$35.95 (Hardback price) + postage

Times gone by: Committee members stand amongst, CEO of Caritas Australia Jack de Groot (third from right at back), Perth’s former diocesan director, Margaret Collopy (second from right at back) and current Perth DD, Anne Fairhead (far right at front) at Margaret’s retirment in June 2000.

A Vincentian for the Vincentians

The new national president of the St Vincent de Paul Society is a 36-year veteran of the charity’s work who hopes to become a “Vincentian to the Vincentians.”

■ By Paul Gray

Victorian Syd Tutton takes over the national leadership role of the St Vincent de Paul Society this month and aims to “encourage, inspire, challenge and support” the Society throughout Australia

While the St Vincent de Paul Society has grown as a national organisation in recent years, Mr Tutton remains an ‘old school’ Vincentian who continues to undertake the Society’s core work of visitation of the poor and needy in their own homes, through his local conference of the Society in Melbourne.

“Visitation of the poor is the heart of the Society’s work,” he told The Record. “It reflects the ethos and culture of (Blessed) Frederic Ozanam (the Society’s primary founder).

“Going to people in their homes is a special privilege.

“St Vincent de Paul said that even in the middle of Mass, if you hear the call of the poor, you should leave Mass aside for a few moments and go and attend to them.”

But despite this idealism, there are challenges facing the leadership of the St Vincent de Paul Society, as there are challenges facing all arms of the Church in Australia today. One of those challenges is the ageing of its membership. Mr Tutton says the Society has commissioned

MPs on board WYD wagon

The Federal Resources, Environment and Tourism minister Martin Ferguson has joined an organising committee for World Youth Day, as has his Labor colleague Senator Ursula Stephens.

Federal Opposition MP Kevin Andrews and the NSW state minis-

a study called the Generation X report, a comprehensive study of the generational aspect of the Society’s work conducted by Marist priest and author Fr Gerry Arbuckle.

As a result of this report, a “refounding process” for the Society is underway nationally, Mr Tutton says. To support this process, a workshop is being put together which will be undertaken by all state branches.

Mr Tutton also places hope in World Youth Day, which could provide an injection of youth into the Society’s future work. “We hope there will be a spin-off from World Youth Day that is not just triumphalism but regeneration,” he says.

To foster this hope, a “Vincentian Day” has been set down for July 16, as part of the World Youth Day celebrations. The Vincentian Day, which is also the feast of Our Lady of Mt Carmel, will be the day after Pope Benedict arrives in Sydney.

The St Vincent de Paul Society is sponsoring members to come from all around Asia and Oceania to be part of the celebration. “There will be members from Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Cambodia and other countries,” he says.

Importantly, these visitors will be young. Mr Tutton hopes the sight of young overseas Vincentians will inspire young Australian Catholics who gather for World Youth Day.

“I hope it will capture that fire and spirit in our work,” he says.

The new national president still feels plenty of that fire and spirit himself.

ter for ageing and disability, Kristina Kenneally, have also joined the group which is called the World Youth Day Local Organising Committee.

The 23-member committee, chaired by Cardinal George Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, is an advisory group charged with supporting the World Youth Day office in preparation for the July events.

He describes the Vincentian ethos as the core of his faith.

“Jesus’ message is love, and the people Jesus loved most were the poor and marginalised.” Mr Tutton says he does not want to appear “holy-moly,” but meeting the poor in the face-to-face situation of Vincentian work “fires you with idealism.” He believes that of all the many works in the Church, the Vincent de Paul Society “really lives the message of Christ-love.”

Speaking about some recent personal experiences of visiting the poor and needy, he mentions one unfortunate man who lives his life “behind the eight ball” after experiencing a great deal of physical abuse as a youngster, including being raped. “When you see a person like this, you know Jesus loves this person, just as much as He loves you,” Mr Tutton says.

Coincidentally, the Vincentian Day during the Pope’s visit also marks Mr Tutton’s 42nd wedding anniversary. With his wife he has six children and seven grandchildren. Mr Tutton left school at 14 and spent 51 years in the electricity supply industry. After marrying, he educated himself through night school, acquiring business and accounting degrees. He rose to become secretary and manager of major power supply organisations and companies. At one time he was Secretary of the World Energy Council. He says this organisational experience is of great help in his national role with the St Vincent de Paul Society.

“As an administrator, you are trained to see problems, even if you don’t know the solutions to the problems,” Mr Tutton says.

The Society established its national office in Canberra three years ago. Previously the national council met on a rotating basis in

the various states. Today all national meetings are held in Canberra. He says this has proven a much cheaper system. The move to a national office also reflects other changes in society.

“There really is a more national outlook for us now. That’s something that is also reflected in government circles.”

Until recent years the national council was usually seen as a co-ordinating body, though it has always been recognised by the international St Vincent de Paul organisation as the responsible body for Australia.

Today’s national focus provides the opportunity for greater clout in the Society’s work of advocacy. Married to the role of visitation of the poor, the work of advocacy for the poor is something Mr Tutton believes in strongly. He wants to see more awareness in the community of the larger issues behind the personal sufferings of the poor.

For example, Mr Tutton describes mental illness and homelessness as “the two biggest problems in Australia today.” He says from his own experience of visitation, perhaps four out of every five people who are poor or marginalised are suffering from mental illness.

Confronted by problems of poverty, some Australians argue that the poor should look after themselves better by budgeting.

Mr Tutton says budgeting is important, but “when you are just scraping along, and someone says ‘you should budget,’ well, what can they budget with?”

He says that often poor people will be making serious attempts at budgeting, but then will be hit with a major crisis such as an illness. It’s in such situations that the Society continues to play a vital role, not only for the Church but the nation.

PRINCIPALSHIPS

Raper promoted

Australian Jesuit provincial Fr Mark Raper has been given a prominent overseas posting. He will take over from the new Jesuit Father-General Adolfo Nicolás, at Fr Nicolás’ previous post of President of the Jesuit Conference of East Asia and Oceania. Fr Raper will conclude as Australian provincial this year before taking up residence in Manila for his new role. The Jesuit conference of East Asia and Oceania “has many common projects which need to be consolidated for the medium and long term, such as the new programs in Burma and East Timor, and the growing programs in China and Vietnam,” Fr Raper told the Jesuits’ Province Express

Timorese rebel may surrender to Catholic Church

Sydney (CNA) - A rebel commander who took part in the assassination attempt on the president of East Timor surrendered to Timorese security forces early Sunday morning, inspiring hopes that a rebel leader will soon surrender to the Catholic Church, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Amaro Da Costa was at the home of East Timor’s President, Jose Ramos-Horta, the morning the president was shot and seriously wounded.

Da Costa has agreed to tell authorities all he knows about the attacks. Da Costa’s surrender is considered a breakthrough and has fueled speculation about the imminent surrender of other rebels.

MATER CHRISTI CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL

Mater Christi is a well resourced three stream co-educational primary school catering for 760 students from Kindergarten to Year 6. Located in a bushland setting within the Beeliar Regional Park overlooking Lake Yangebup, the school is approximately 20 kilometres south of the city and is close to the Kwinana Freeway.

Originally opened as MacKillop Catholic Primary in 1990, the school was re-located to Yangebup in 1993. Specialist programs are offered in Physical Education, Music, LOTE (Indonesian), Dance and Drama. Voluntary after school lessons are offered in Italian and karate.

A support team, including the services of an Educational Psychologist, works closely with classroom teachers in identifying and addressing learning needs.

The school and parish enjoy a strong relationship. Through the support of the parent community, Parents and Friends’ Association and the School Board, which has played a very active role, the school is a tribute to the hard work of parents and their commitment to the Catholic education of their children.

ST SIMON PETER CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL

St Simon Peter is a three stream school located in the northern suburb of Ocean Reef and caters for children from Kindergarten to Year 7. Currently there are 796 students enrolled and 82 members of staff at the school. There is a strong working relationship between families, staff and parish. The school motto is Love One Another and the whole school community works together to live out the motto in practical, Christian ways.

There is a real focus on appreciating individual differences and the school uses a variety of personnel and programs in an effort to address the developmental needs of the children. The school offers a Special Education Unit supporting 42 children with special needs in the classrooms, a Gifted and Talented program, school counsellors working with parents and children on their social and emotional needs and support staff assisting teachers to cater for children who have learning difficulties.

Technology and Enterprise is a well resourced learning area, with most classrooms using SmartBoards. Specialist teachers are employed for a number of learning areas and staff work collaboratively across year levels to ensure the continuity of learning programs. The school has a committed and professional staff who continually strive to support the children in the pursuit of an excellent Catholic education.

Parent involvement in the school is encouraged and there is an active Parents and Friends’ Association, a strong School Board and a dedicated KidsMatter Parent Action Team, as well as numerous volunteers who assist the canteen, library, uniform shop and in classrooms.

The successful applicants will be expected to take up these positions on 1 January 2009.

Applicants need to be practising Catholics and experienced educators, committed to the objectives and ethos of Catholic education. They will have the requisite theological, educational, pastoral and administrative competencies, together with an appropriate four year minimum tertiary qualification, and will have completed Accreditation for Leadership of the Religious Education Area or its equivalent. A current WACOT registration number must also be included.

The official application form, referee assessment forms and instructions can be accessed on the Catholic Education Office website www.ceo.wa.edu.au Enquiries regarding the position should be directed to Helen Brennan, Consultant, Workforce Relations & Development Team, on 6380 5237 or email wrd@ceo.wa.edu.au All applications, on the official form, should reach The Director, Catholic Education

Syd Tutton

the Nation

Historical reading of Christ assists knowing Him

Attacks on “Sunday school Jesus” miss the mark: historian

■ By Paul Gray

Easter weekend will mark a double launch of new products in the media marketplace, with television’s The Christ Files and the Sydneybased Centre for Public Christianity making their debuts.

A key figure behind both is author and historian John Dickson. An academic in the Department of Ancient History at Macquarie University, Dr Dickson is a Christian who wants to promote better knowledge of “historical Christianity.”

While Dr Dickson does not see himself as an expert in theology, he believes that better knowledge of the historical record about Jesus, the Church and scripture does not contradict faith in Christ. His approach will be demonstrated on Good Friday in a sixty-minute documentary on the Seven network around Australia, The Christ Files

The program aims to show how we can know hard facts about the historical Jesus. Dr Dickson says his program takes a different approach from what he calls the “nouveau atheists” such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.

“Some of the nouveau atheists have even gone so far as to question whether Jesus existed at all,” he says. “The sad thing about them is that they have not read mainstream scholarship.”

Dr Dickson says that recent atheist authors have created a “Sunday

school Jesus” and dedicated their “large brains” to demolishing this figure. The Christ Files documentary grew out of a book of the same name. Dr Dickson said it was not created as an answer to the works of Dawkins and Hitchens, though interest in their work “has put God back on the agenda.”

He said his original intention was to write a biography of Jesus, but the first chapter of this turned out to be 25,000 words – a book in itself. The first chapter was an examination of the question of how we can know what we do know about the historical Jesus.

Dickson says he thinks the Seven network were interested in his work because it is “neither Christian propaganda, nor salacious.”

The Christ Files uses innovative methods to bring out some of the key questions behind the historical process, such as the use of sports events to illustrate how scholars view the historical record. For example, Dickson argues that the admitted bias of a reporter does not mean that the facts they report are wrong.

He illustrates this point by filming in a London pub where rival soccer fans from the Arsenal and Tottenham clubs discuss what happened during a match between their teams, which they’ve just watched.

The fans are obviously biased in their interpretations of what happened on the pitch, particularly when it comes to refereeing decisions. But the basic facts of the match – a 3.1 win to Arsenal – are not misreported by either side.

The point shown by this foray into sports culture is that professional historians – unlike popular

authors - do not discount what’s reported in the Christian gospels simply because the writers of the gospels were Christian. The screening of The Christ Files coincides with the launch of the Centre for Public Christianity, a non-denominational institute designed to educate the secular public about “historical Christianity.” Dr Dickson and Dr Greg Clarke are co-directors of the Centre. Dr Clarke, also from Macquarie University, is an English literature expert who has written widely on authors such as Patrick White. Dr Dickson says the Centre aims to increase understanding of the Christian faith using “the best of scholarship and the best of media.”

The project is a dream he and Dr Clarke have shared for 12 years. It does not copy any model of public institute anywhere in the world. Dr Dickson defines the Christian faith as the faith embodied in the Nicene Creed. “You could call it Nicene Christianity, but we call it historic Christianity,” he says. While The Christ Files program is not an initiative of the new Centre, it’s “exactly the sort of thing” the Centre hopes to do. The Centre’s website will use vodcasting – video on demand broadcasting, over the web – as one method of promoting knowledge about Christianity. Dr Dickson says he’ll be traveling to Israel in September to film a full-length life of Jesus. Having done a “how we know” about Jesus program, he now aims to do a “what we know” program.”

The Christ Files screens on Good Friday at 12 noon on Seven. The Centre for Public Christianity goes live online on Easter weekend at www. publicchristianity.org

Dr

Bishop Porteous weighs into furore over decapitation video games

Sydney Bishop enters debate as fears rise that censorship ministers may bring in “adult” computer games, further desensitising our kids

■

By

Paul Gray

State and federal censorship ministers will meet on March 28 as debate intensifies on the

impact of violent computer games.

The State and federal parliamentary ministers will discuss whether or not, to allow an “R18+ classification,” which might mean that some extremely violent games currently banned would become legal for sale in Australia.

The Classification Board refused classification to one game in February because it contained graphic violence including “decapitation, dismemberment of limbs accompanied by large blood spurts, neck-breaking spurts,

neck-breaking twists and exploded bodies with post-action twitching body parts.”

Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Julian Porteous recently warned that psychological research shows that exposure to violent video games “can desensitise people to real-life violence.”

Bishop Porteous said there is a real risk that exposure to media violence including video games with explicit sexual content will “increase the likelihood of subsequent aggressive behaviour” by viewers and players.

Bishop Porteous said this concern was con-

firmed by a recent University of California study by Dr Sonya Brady.

Unlike other publications, there is no adult classification for computer games.

The Media Standards Australia lobby group is urging the censorship ministers not to give in to the computer game industry by agreeing to an R18+ rating.

The Classification Board has banned 18 games since 2001.

Eight of these bans have since been lifted after they were subsequently modified.

Eastern rite meet

Eastern rite Catholic Bishops have met together for the second time since an association of eastern Catholic churches in Australia was formed two years ago.

Bishop Peter Stasiuk from the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Bishop Issam Darwish from the Melkite Church, Bishop Ad Abikaram from the Maronite Church, Bishop Gabriel Kassab from the Chaldean Catholic Church and Fr Zakaria Gayed from the Catholic Coptic Church in Australia were present for the meeting.

Mgr John Murphy from the Catholic Immigration Office in Canberra also attended. Fr Alex Kenez from the Ukrainian Catholic community was elected to chair a committee to examine problems experienced by Eastern Catholic children in Roman Catholic schools in Australia. Bishop Darwish from the Melkite Church also spoke about a project of writing a booklet for Australian secondary school children, to introduce them to the eastern Catholic churches. A discussion, led by Fr Simon Ckuj, was held on setting up a common eastern Catholic Church event on July 16 as part of WYD.

The truth is out there: Channel 7 will screen The Christ Files at midday on Good Friday, by a historian who, while not claiming to be a theology expert, believes that better knowledge of the historical record about Jesus, the Church and Scripture does not contradict faith in Christ. The historian,

John Dickson, says he takes a different approach from atheists who question Jesus’ existence in the first place.

Perspectives

editorial letters to the editor

Not “new sins” but an old media blind spot

When he finished his interview with L’Osservatore Romano, Archishop Gianfranco Girotti probably thought that his main message had been an appeal to Catholics to use the sacrament of Confession. Little did he know that the English-language news media would play the interview as a newly revised list of sins.

Archbishop Girotti, the regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary, spoke to the Vatican newspaper (see separate story, this page) about “new forms of social sin” in our era. He mentioned such transgressions as destructive research on human embryos, degradation of the environment, and drug trafficking. Within hours, dozens of media sources were suggesting that the Vatican had radically revised the Ten Commandments, issuing a list of “new sins.”

As usual, a British newspaper leapt to the forefront with the most sensational and misleading coverage. The Daily Telegraph made the preposterous claim that Archbishop Girotti’s list replaced the traditional Catholic understanding of the seven deadly sins:

It replaces the list originally drawn up by Pope Gregory the Great in the 6th Century, which included envy, gluttony, greed, lust, wrath and pride.

THE RECORD

PO Box 75

Leederville, WA 6902

cathrec@iinet.net.au

Tel: (08) 9227 7080

Fax: (08) 9227 7087

Could we have a reality check, please?

When a Vatican official gives a newspaper interview, he is not proclaiming new Church doctrines. Archbishop Girotti was obviously trying to offer a new, provocative perspective on some enduring truths. The effort backfiredbut in a very revealing way.

An ordinary reader, basing his opinion only on the inane Telegraph coverage, might conclude that a “sin,” in the Catholic understanding, is nothing more than a violation of rules set down by a group of men in Rome. If these rules are entirely arbitrary, then Vatican officials can change them at will; some sins will cease to exist and other “new sins” will replace them. But that notion of sin is ludicrous.

Sin is an objective wrong: a violation of God’s law. What is sinful today will be sinful tomorrow, and a deadly sin will remain deadly, whether or not Telegraph editors recognise the moral danger. The traditional list of deadly sins remains intact; nothing has replaced it. Greed, gluttony, and lust are as wrong today as they were a day or a year or a century ago.

If Archbishop Girotti referred to “new” sins, it is because some of the offences he named (such as genetic manipulation) were impossible in the past, and others (such as international drug trafficking) are much more prevalent today, in a global society. Insofar as people could have engaged in these activities a century ago, they would have been sinful then as well.

A sin is not a sin because simply an archbishop proclaims it so. Sin, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us, “is an offence against reason, truth, and right conscience…” The precepts of “reason, truth, and right conscience” do not shift in response to political trends, nor do they change at the whim of Vatican officials.

The fundamental point of the L’Osservatore Romano interview was that Catholics need to recover a sense of sin, make use of the sacrament of Confession, and receive absolution for their offences. Sin, the archbishop insisted, is a reality that man cannot escape.

Archbishop Girotti said that the modern world does not understand the nature of sin. With their coverage of the interview, the mass media unintentionally underlined the prelate’s point.

- This editorial first appeared on CWNews.com on March 10, 2008

Nine at 6.30am Sunday morning. I found it uplifting to see an Australian Catholic show that was fairly dynamic which placed the subject of the Eucharist into perspective for practising and lapsed Catholics as well as other Christian faiths.

I found it sensitive and interesting and a credit to those who would have worked hard to put it together.

The Catholic Guy

There is a new TV show to Perth this week called “The Catholic Guy” shown on channel

I am looking forward to seeing more programs of this calibre with the confidence that they will touch all who watch them.

Geoff Lucey Bassendean

Unfederated?

The article on page 3 of last week’s Record (‘Clergy getaway offer’ line 9, 10) reads, in part: “...between Tasmania and Australia.”

Does this mean that once again Tasmania is not part of Australia?

Perhaps it should have read ‘between Tasmania and Victoria’ or ‘between Tasmania and the mainland”. Sorry we only pick the errors, but it does show we read the Record. Thank you for a great publication.

Des Noonan Lesmurdie

Sin now more social: official

Global effects of sin greater than ever, says Vatican official.

■ By

John Thavis

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - In today’s globalised culture, the social effects of sin are greater than ever before and deserve the Church’s urgent attention, a Vatican official said. New forms of sin have arisen in the area of biotechnology, economics and ecology, and many involve questions of individual rights and wider social effects, said Bishop Gianfranco Girotti.

Bishop Girotti is an official of the Apostolic Penitentiary, an office that deals with questions relating to penance and indulgences. He made the comments in an interview on March 8 with the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano

Bishop Girotti said the sense of sin in today’s world should be even more acute than before, since the effects of sin are often widespread.

“If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today

On the same page? Men read L’Osservatore Romano outside St Peter’s Square at the Vatican on February 2. However British media interpreted an interview with a Vatican official as creating a ‘new’ category of sins. PHOTO: CNS

it has an impact and resonance that is above all social, because of the great phenomenon of globalisation,” he said.

“In effect, attention to sin is a more urgent task today, precisely because its consequences are more abundant and more destructive,” he said.

Among the “new sins” that have emerged in recent times, he

pointed to genetic experiments and manipulation that violate fundamental human rights and produce effects difficult to foresee and control.

He said other areas where sin has a social impact include drug abuse, which affects many young people; economic injustice, which has left the poor even poorer and the rich richer; and environmental irresponsibility.

Bishop Girotti was asked about public reaction to sin among the Church’s own members, a reference to priestly sex abuse.

“One cannot underrate the objective seriousness of a series of acts that have recently been reported and that carry with them the signs of the Church’s human and institutional fragility,” he said.

But he said it should also be recognised that the Church reacted to these reports and is continuing to do so, with “rigorous interventions and initiatives” aimed at protecting the Church’s good name and the people of God.

He added, however, that he thought the mass media had overemphasised these scandals in a way that brought discredit upon the Church.

Youth hero’s body here for WYD

Continued form Page 1

Blessed Pier Giorgio’s tomb in the cathedral of Turin, Italy, was opened on March 3, said Father Livio Demarie, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Turin.

Both the tomb of Blessed Pier Giorgio and the Shroud of Turin are venerated in the Turin cathedral.

Father Demarie said the only thing the archdiocese had to say was that the exhumation of the body was necessary so the archdiocese could take steps to better preserve it.

“Everything was done in agreement with the family,” he said.

The family and the Italian bishops’ office for youth are involved in the plans to transport the remains to Sydney.

Father Nicolo Anselmi, director of the youth office, told Catholic News Service on March 7 that “it is true” that planning the transport is at an advanced stage.

While admiring a saint or beatified person and praying for that person’s intercession can be done anywhere and anytime, he said, having a relic or the mortal remains “helps us pray. It leads people to get to know the blessed or saint better. You know he is close to you.”

Wanda Gawronska, Blessed Pier Giorgio’s niece, told CNS she was certain that her uncle’s remains

would be part of World Youth Day. “It is beautiful. It is something splendid,” she said. The Vatican Congregation for Saints’ Causes must give final approval to the plan, she said, but she expects the congregation to do so.

Gawronska said the planning also includes ensuring the safety and dignified handling of the coffin during its transport, as well as complying with international and Australian health regulations concerning the transportation of human remains.

She said young people identify with her uncle “because they have the same problems, desires and interests he had. They see him more as a companion and a friend than as an authority.”

Christine Wohar, executive director of FrassatiUSA, was visiting Gawronska when news broke about the plans to transfer the body.

She told CNS she realised people outside Europe might find the idea a bit strange at first, only because “we do not really have an opportunity in the United States to venerate the remains of saints. Here in Rome, there is one in almost every church.”

“To me, this is an incredible opportunity,” she said. “People who know Pier Giorgio love him. It is not a casual relationship; they really love him,” Wohar said. “It will be a comfort and special gift to have him at World Youth Day.”

- World page 10

Vista

March 12 2008

Empowering women?

Not likely. Perth forum explains.

- Vista 2-3

Singles feel singled out

■ By Julie Pearce

The National Church Life Survey 2001 statistics indicate that 68% of church goers are married. The Australian Bureau of Statistics census information shows that 48.6% of the population in 2001 and around 50.4% of the population in 2006 are not married. Even allowing for variations in data collection, it is clear that a) churches are dominated by a disproportionate number of married couples and b) the number of singles is on the rise.

The National Church Life Survey [1] states that … weekly attendance as a proportion of population has… dropped markedly from 9.9% in 1996 to 8.8% in 2001. Hence the percentage of singles is increasing and conversely church attendance is diminishing.

You do not need to be a Rhodes Scholar to conclude that continuing to direct Church at families and overlooking the variation in population demographics has contributed to the decline in church attendance.

The old model of children, youth and then marriage no longer exists for many. Instead, Christians may attend Children’s Church/Sunday School where ‘children are loved and welcomed,’ move on to youth group where they are told they are ‘the future of our church’.

Depending on the church, they may join a young adults group. But eventually they find themselves belonging to a group where they don’t quite seem to fit in. They find that their needs are often overlooked and they are no longer

considered a valuable asset to the Church. It is not surprising that a significant number of adults then leave.

Singles frequently report being ignored or overlooked. Most church leaders do not do this deliberately of course; they simply haven’t considered the impact of changing demographics on church attendance. Some would be horrified to learn that their genuine and heartfelt conviction that ‘everyone is welcome’ is not the message that is being received by many singles.

But an increasing number of church leaders most certainly are aware of the plight of singles and stubbornly refuse to listen to their singles’ pleas for recognition. Singles in these churches are viewed as an annoying and troublesome group and sermons and social activities continue to be geared towards families.

From an evangelistic point of view, this stance is puzzling. With roughly 50% of the population now single, this is a huge pool of potential followers of Christ. Changing the way we do church to include addressing the needs of singles has the potential to transform churches, halt the decline in numbers and inject much needed passion, energy and finances into our churches.

If committed Christian singles, grounded in Christ are leaving the Church, then how many more singles are missing out on salvation? Like any new activity, going to church for the first time can be stressful and intimidating. Many singles are searching for God in their life but find attending church lonely, irrelevant and difficult.

Perhaps part of churches’ reluctance to help singles stems from a misunderstanding of what singles require from their churches? Most singles merely want to feel that they belong at church; that they are welcome and valued. Many singles have been hurt by churches but the reverse is also true; many churches have been hurt by singles.

Unfortunately, singles groups seem to have a higher than usual proportion of angry, negative or un-likeable people. Although such people may be in the minority, like any minority group they tend to be very vocal and often tar others with the same brush.

As an alternative to singles social events which are commonly rewarded with low attendance and loud complaints, churches can help their singles in other ways... by help-

Single-minded evangelisation

ing them become ‘un-single’ and expanding sermons to include inspiring messages for singles.

A number of churches tend to treat the symptoms, not the cause. Rather than helping and encouraging their singles to find a partner, they focus on helping singles be ‘happier’ or ‘better’ singles. Some Christians will gladly pray for their singles but don’t think to introduce them to the single man or woman sitting at the next table.

The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Genesis 2:18 (NIV) He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favour from the LORD. Proverbs 18:22 (NIV)

Imagine the impact if more churches reinforced the assertion that marriage is God’s will for us by teaching positive, solid and inspirational scripture. Stories such as Boaz and Ruth and Isaac and Rebekah can be held up as examples of Godly men and women taking action to change their marital circumstances and receiving God’s blessings as a result.

Pastors can also help their singles by urging their congregation to make the effort to introduce their singles to one another. Large churches in particular have a huge network of people.

Why not use it? Singles would also benefit greatly from more Christians encouraging their singles to overcome fear, pride and lethargy and taking steps to change their situation. “Go on…ask her out for a coffee! So what if she says no. She might say yes!” Or “go on. Join a dating service. You’ll never know unless you give it a go.” Sometimes all singles need is a boost of confidence to help them on their way.

With more and more people becoming increasingly isolated in today’s society, many look to church more than ever, as a place of community, where they can make friends and find a partner.

Church has the potential to be a light on the hill and a source of great inspiration and hope to un-churched singles. Most Christian singles know they need church. Maybe it’s time for the Church to realise that they need singles?

Julie Pearce runs the Fig Trees introduction agency for Christian singles in Perth, which can be found on the internet at www.figtrees.com.au

Kidnapped Iraqi Archbishop may be dead.

Women of Per th c a lle d to s Women Perth called to s

Advertisers not accountable

■ By Anthony Barich

The self-regulated nature of the advertising industry is contributing to the sexualisation and commodification of young women and girls in the media, says Kids Free 2B Kids founder Julie Gale.

Ms Gale told Women’s Forum Australia’s Get Real forum at Government House last Friday that complaints regarding overly sexualised advertisements in suburbia, including one for a brothel near her son’s school, are too easily dismissed by the Advertising Standards Board.

She said that the Australian Association of National Advertisers has a voluntary code of ethics for advertisers and the industry is self-regulated, “just like the cigarette industry used to be”. Its advertising industry regulation system is managed through the Advertising Standards Bureau and is determined by the Advertising Standards Board and Advertising Claims Board.

The AANA’s Section 2.3 pertaining to sex and nudity says: “Advertisements shall treat sexuality and nudity with sensibility to the relevant audience and, where appropriate, the relevant time zone.”

However, Ms Gale, who started Kids Free 2B Kids as an organisation committed to children developing to their full potential without exposure to sexualised imagery before they are developmentally ready to process it, criticised the ASB for not having any provision for the impacts of the sexual objectification of women or children.

She said it was a positive sign that the children’s advertising codes are currently being reviewed.

Ms Gale made a cutting satirical statement about “three of the top feminist role models on the planet today” – the Pussycat Dolls, Playboy Bunnies and Bratz Dolls - by dressing in a tight mini-

A call to action!

skirt, leopard-skin top and bunny ears for her address.

She also exposed hypocrisy within the advertising industry, noting that while Dove has a “Real Women Self Esteem” campaign, it is owned by Unilever, which also owns Lynx, whose many ads are “sexually degrading and exploitative that border on pornographic”, where women turn into “sexual predators” when men spray on the deodorant.

In response to Ms Gale’s letter asking why Unilever spends millions of dollars promoting women’s self esteem while also running raunchy Lynx ads that “teach young men and boys that women are sexual objects”, Unilever’s Global Team sent a letter saying the ads are simply “irreverent and fun”.

Ms Gale noted that girls’ magazines are also unregulated, and mainstream franchises contribute to the cultural malaise by promoting the overly sexualised products in clear view where young children are commonly taken.

She said Priceline sells Playboy makeup range, one called “Tie me to the bedpost”, and Coles have soft porn on the bottom shelf – Ralph, FHM and Zoo magazines – at children’s eye level.

Zoo’s front cover headline recently mentioned “Sex school”. “Do we really need that when we’re getting the groceries?” Ms Gale said.

She said porn magazines are visible and for sale at petrol stations, 7-11s, newsagents and supermarkets with “extraordinary” titles like “Hot horny girls behaving badly, over 30 of our terrific teens; “Young live girls”; “Barely legal”.

“Do our children really need to be exposed to that?” she said.

“I encourage people to speak out. I go to the video store and ask them to put the adult entertainment away from the family entertainment, “and people generally will change things if you bring awareness to something that is not right.”

● Contact the company/sponsors directly, tell them you will boycott their products and that you will tell all your friends to as well.

● Contact the ASB using the online complaints form: www.adstandards. com.au/pages/asp or write to The Advertising Standards Bureau, Level 2, 97 Northbourne Ave, Turner ACT 2612.

● Contact the Classification Board using the online e-enquiries form: www.classification.gov.au/special.html?n=1&p=227, or write to Locked Bag 3, Haymarket NSW 1240.

● Contact your local and federal MP, let them know the issue that concerns you and what action you would like them to take. Provide them with research and information to support your concern. Contact details for MPs are available online at: www.parliament.wa.gov.au.

So real it’s fake

■ By Sylvia Defendi

Selena Ewing reveals what prompted her to create the Faking It report

When author of the magazine-style research paper Faking It Selena Ewing found out Maxim magazine’s topvoted model was Aki Ross, star of the Sci Fi movie Final Fantasy, she was shocked.

Not because Ross wasn’t gorgeous or flawless, but because she never made demands and was completely made of pixels.

A digitally created character, Ross ‘starred’ in the popular games of the same name before hitting the big-screen in 2001.

Speaking at the Perth Get Real! Forum on March 7, Ewing said the bizarre occurrence exemplified the very real pressure on women and girls to be thinner, prettier and sexier… everything but themselves.

And Ewing was quick to note that it was not just men’s magazines, like Maxim, that consistently put the pressure on.

“I’m not convinced that glossy magazines are empowering for women – in fact in many ways, I’m pretty worried about them,” she said.

These worrying findings are detailed in the appropriately named Faking It report, which uses the glossy allure of an average women’s magazine to present worrying findings of low self-esteem, constant surveillance and depression associated with the need for physical perfection. “Women need to know that how thin, beautiful and sexy they are is not a measure of their value. And that they don’t exist solely to

What did you think?

“It’s one thing to be told that women are subtly being demeaned, but another to see photos and various examples attesting to that fact.” – Chelsea Andreotta, 17, Yr 12 student at Santa Maria College.

“As a single parent of a young girl I found this forum was a fundamental part of transforming the situation.” – Samantha Drennan, 35, singer.

“I’ve been to a couple of these forums, but I still found their message very informative.” –Amy Robinson, 17, Yr 12 student at Woodvale Senior Highschool.

be looked at and judged,” Ewing said that night. However both advertisements and article topics in most women’s and men’s magazines often perpetuate the objectification of women and young girls.

“They portray sex as a young woman’s main currency, requiring women to make excuses for why they may not want sex.

“In fact, not wanting sex is so unusual, according to pop culture, that it’s either a personal insult to the man in question, or it’s evidence that the young woman is prudish or dysfunctional,” Ewing said.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg, according to Ewing, who said young women who were particularly ashamed of their bodies could at times even interpret the worst of sexual advances as flattering.

Considering almost every magazine’s existence is tied up in advertising, it is not surprising to find a very real need to make women feel they are in need of beautifying products.

To those who have known of the dangers of over-sexualisation and objectification but may feel too prudish and old-fashioned to challenge such notions, Ewing offered a message of resilience that night.

“The weight of scientific evidence is on your side. There are academics thinking and writing in support of your concerns, and they are available to you. There are also vast numbers of people supporting your ideals and values,” she said, encouraging all who are opposed to the sexual objectification of women and girls to stand up for the cause.

For more information on the Faking It report, contact Women’s Forum Australia on: 0448 597 114 or visit: www.womensforumaustralia.org.

“The forum made me aware of the struggles young people face. It’s good to know women have a voice and that we can change these problems.” – Helen Southwood, 17, Yr 12 student at Kingsway Christian College.

“The statistics were shocking – 1 in 5 young women suffers from bulimia! I appreciated the knowledge I now have to help others in my peer group.” - Rose Daniels, 17, Kingsway Christian College.

“I’m studying to become a teacher, so I’ve learnt about what young girls are really going through and I hope to be able to help them through that during my teaching career.” – Paul Cunningham, 20, student.

B■ By “I are drag chie wom A Mill Pert towa effec tion ing laug she M by Faki main wort A girls imag and Aust and thin labe once we c thes M teen to b bigg H in te took tive “W are i look deba play In solel whe selle “T They calle disc stren “I daug that don’ can’t

Womens Healthwork’s Photo Voice exhibition on show.Inga, 28, Emma, 19 and Michelle, 23 model WFA’s counter-cultural clothing.Womens Healthwork’s Photo Voice exhibition at the Get

stop Fa k i ng It and G et R e a l! stop Faking It and Get Real!

Beauty within

Sylvia Defendi

If teenage girls are princesses, then women queens and we need to stop letting the gon into the castle,” Enlighten Education ef executive Danielle Miller told over 300 men at the recent Get Real! Forum.

teacher-turned-body image educator, ler challenged the women and girls of th to own the body image debate and work ards addressing some of the disturbing cts of a perceived need for physical perfec. “Yes, teenage girls are cutting and purgand crying, but they are also loving and ghing and they are wanting us to step up,” said.

Miller invited women to become informed accessing the research available in the ing It report, but also reminded them to ntain their emotional connection to the thy cause.

And as someone who works with young to help them effectively deal with body ge issues, Miller shied away from statistics shared her experiences with the youth of tralia. “I work with teenage girls every day they are the most beautiful and amazing ngs. But they also get a hard wrap. They’re eled as difficult and challenging. It is only e we realise what they have to deal with that come to understand why they are displaying se negative qualities,” she said.

Most importantly, Miller added, was that nage girls wanted more than anything else be loved and that they also possessed the gest capacity for change.

However this change could only be realised eenage girls, noted Miller, if older women k the courage to purge themselves of negabody image.

We say to our daughters how beautiful they in every way, but then ask them if our bum ks big in those jeans. We have to own this ate and become more alert to the part we in this,” she said.

ndeed Miller told women they could not ly blame the manufacturers of Bratz Dolls, en they put them at the top of the ten besters list, last Christmas.

Teenage girls want us to call this for them. y want us to set boundaries,” she said. She ed for women to become informed and over the simple ways in which they could ngthen a young woman’s self esteem. It might be as simple as going home to your ghter and telling her how beautiful she is; she doesn’t have to change and that you ’t want to either. Girls can’t be what they t see,” she said.

For more information on Enlighten Education visit: enlighteneducation.edublogs.org or call: (02) 9629 5842.

Normalising violence on her violence on her

■ By Anthony Barich

Australian society is in the process of normalising violence against women through unregulated advertising, says Womens Forum Australia founder Melinda Tankard Reist.

Canberra-based Ms Tankard Reist told the Get Real forum at Government House last Friday, attended by over 300 people, “we’re normalising violence against women as sexy”.

To illustrate her point, Ms Tankard Reist referred to America’s Top Model using a “crime scene victims special” where models had to pretend they’d been violently murdered - the show screens at 6.30pm on a Sunday.

“We’re fuelling violence against women by allowing the images to be wallpapered all over society,” she said. Ms Tankard Reist noted that the American Psychological Association says the sexualisation and objectification of women functions to keep women in their place as objects of sexual attraction and beauty.

“It significantly limits their free-thinking and movement in the world, so girls aren’t given the opportunity to explore other facets of their lives,” Ms Tankard Reist said. “They’re reduced to the sum of their body parts.”

Advertisements are also turning women against each other, when women should be supporting and affirming each other. She revealed examples of advertisements in prominent websites and magazines aimed at women and which claim to empower women and young girls that

Faking It!

promote the idea of attaining the body “other women will be jealous of” and even “kill for”.

Ms Tankard Reist said that research links sexualisation in popular culture with three of the most common mental health problems with girls – eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression. “As women continue to be treated as commodities in pop culture, girls are starving, purging, binging and self-harming as they don’t think they’re good enough,” she said.

Ms Tankard Reist added that airbrushed photos and computer-enhanced pornographic images have become “the new reference point” for how girls and women should look in western society.

She said that things targeted at young girls and young women like “Porn Star” brand tshirts, pole dancing classes and “seductive” underwear, padded bras and g-strings for young girls, negative messages on shirts for youths like “It’s not rape it’s surprise sex” and “My name sounds better screamed” all contribute to the commodification of women. “So many young girls and women regard their bodies and sexual allure as their main currency,” Ms Tankard Reist told the Get Real forum.

WA Liberal leader Troy Buswell, who was in hot water last October over allegations he snapped a female Labor staffer’s bra strap, said the advertisement examples shown at the forum “shocked and surprised” him.

Mr Buswell, who has two sons and was urged to attend by WA Shadow Women’s Interests Minister Helen Morton, said the messages in advertising are “no longer by stealth, they’re in your face”.

“I suspect that in most family homes around Australia, people would be unaware of the influences brought to bear against their children through the sorts of media that were exposed tonight. If people were more aware you’d see a lot more proactive action taken.”

State Labor MP Kate Doust, also present, said: “More than just present the issues and the impact they have on girls, they also outlined strategies people can take to remedy the situation, which was brilliant.”

Ms Tankard-Reist’s friend’s 13-year-old daughter was receiving shaved women’s genitals on her mobile phone from boys at school who were then saying “when are you going to get yours done”; and she didn’t recognise it was harassment. “Girls are often subjected to this kind of behaviour but don’t understand it because they’ve actually become used to it; we want to help them not get used to it and know this is not normal, you don’t have to put up with this.” Quoting Courtney Martin’s “Perfect girls, starving daughters”, Ms Tankard Reist said: “Hating yourself has become a new rite of passage for teenage girls.”

A study of 4000 girls aged 11-19 found most are unhappy about their bodies in general and their weight in particular. Sixty-eight per cent of 15-year-olds are on a diet; of those eight per cent are severely dieting.

One in 100 Australian girls suffers anorexia, one in five are bulimic, one in five 12-year-old girls use fasting and vomiting to lose weight according to a study last year. One in four teenage girls want plastic surgery, two per cent already have had it.

$19.95+postage

Real forum.WFA founder Melinda Tankard Reist shows how far society has sunk.Labor MP Kate Doust, State Liberal MP Helen Morton, Troy Buswell and wife Margaret.Julie Gale makes a point.

stop Fa k i ng It and G et R e a l! stop Faking It and Get Real!

Beauty within

Sylvia Defendi

If teenage girls are princesses, then women queens and we need to stop letting the gon into the castle,” Enlighten Education ef executive Danielle Miller told over 300 men at the recent Get Real! Forum.

teacher-turned-body image educator, ler challenged the women and girls of th to own the body image debate and work ards addressing some of the disturbing cts of a perceived need for physical perfec. “Yes, teenage girls are cutting and purgand crying, but they are also loving and ghing and they are wanting us to step up,” said.

Miller invited women to become informed accessing the research available in the ing It report, but also reminded them to ntain their emotional connection to the thy cause.

And as someone who works with young to help them effectively deal with body ge issues, Miller shied away from statistics shared her experiences with the youth of tralia. “I work with teenage girls every day they are the most beautiful and amazing ngs. But they also get a hard wrap. They’re eled as difficult and challenging. It is only e we realise what they have to deal with that come to understand why they are displaying se negative qualities,” she said.

Most importantly, Miller added, was that nage girls wanted more than anything else be loved and that they also possessed the gest capacity for change.

However this change could only be realised eenage girls, noted Miller, if older women k the courage to purge themselves of negabody image.

We say to our daughters how beautiful they in every way, but then ask them if our bum ks big in those jeans. We have to own this ate and become more alert to the part we in this,” she said.

ndeed Miller told women they could not ly blame the manufacturers of Bratz Dolls, en they put them at the top of the ten besters list, last Christmas.

Teenage girls want us to call this for them. y want us to set boundaries,” she said. She ed for women to become informed and over the simple ways in which they could ngthen a young woman’s self esteem. It might be as simple as going home to your ghter and telling her how beautiful she is; she doesn’t have to change and that you ’t want to either. Girls can’t be what they t see,” she said.

For more information on Enlighten Education visit: enlighteneducation.edublogs.org or call: (02) 9629 5842.

Normalising violence on her violence on her

■ By Anthony Barich

Australian society is in the process of normalising violence against women through unregulated advertising, says Womens Forum Australia founder Melinda Tankard Reist.

Canberra-based Ms Tankard Reist told the Get Real forum at Government House last Friday, attended by over 300 people, “we’re normalising violence against women as sexy”.

To illustrate her point, Ms Tankard Reist referred to America’s Top Model using a “crime scene victims special” where models had to pretend they’d been violently murdered - the show screens at 6.30pm on a Sunday.

“We’re fuelling violence against women by allowing the images to be wallpapered all over society,” she said. Ms Tankard Reist noted that the American Psychological Association says the sexualisation and objectification of women functions to keep women in their place as objects of sexual attraction and beauty.

“It significantly limits their free-thinking and movement in the world, so girls aren’t given the opportunity to explore other facets of their lives,” Ms Tankard Reist said. “They’re reduced to the sum of their body parts.”

Advertisements are also turning women against each other, when women should be supporting and affirming each other. She revealed examples of advertisements in prominent websites and magazines aimed at women and which claim to empower women and young girls that

Faking It!

promote the idea of attaining the body “other women will be jealous of” and even “kill for”.

Ms Tankard Reist said that research links sexualisation in popular culture with three of the most common mental health problems with girls – eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression. “As women continue to be treated as commodities in pop culture, girls are starving, purging, binging and self-harming as they don’t think they’re good enough,” she said.

Ms Tankard Reist added that airbrushed photos and computer-enhanced pornographic images have become “the new reference point” for how girls and women should look in western society.

She said that things targeted at young girls and young women like “Porn Star” brand tshirts, pole dancing classes and “seductive” underwear, padded bras and g-strings for young girls, negative messages on shirts for youths like “It’s not rape it’s surprise sex” and “My name sounds better screamed” all contribute to the commodification of women. “So many young girls and women regard their bodies and sexual allure as their main currency,” Ms Tankard Reist told the Get Real forum.

WA Liberal leader Troy Buswell, who was in hot water last October over allegations he snapped a female Labor staffer’s bra strap, said the advertisement examples shown at the forum “shocked and surprised” him.

Mr Buswell, who has two sons and was urged to attend by WA Shadow Women’s Interests Minister Helen Morton, said the messages in advertising are “no longer by stealth, they’re in your face”.

“I suspect that in most family homes around Australia, people would be unaware of the influences brought to bear against their children through the sorts of media that were exposed tonight. If people were more aware you’d see a lot more proactive action taken.”

State Labor MP Kate Doust, also present, said: “More than just present the issues and the impact they have on girls, they also outlined strategies people can take to remedy the situation, which was brilliant.”

Ms Tankard-Reist’s friend’s 13-year-old daughter was receiving shaved women’s genitals on her mobile phone from boys at school who were then saying “when are you going to get yours done”; and she didn’t recognise it was harassment. “Girls are often subjected to this kind of behaviour but don’t understand it because they’ve actually become used to it; we want to help them not get used to it and know this is not normal, you don’t have to put up with this.” Quoting Courtney Martin’s “Perfect girls, starving daughters”, Ms Tankard Reist said: “Hating yourself has become a new rite of passage for teenage girls.”

A study of 4000 girls aged 11-19 found most are unhappy about their bodies in general and their weight in particular. Sixty-eight per cent of 15-year-olds are on a diet; of those eight per cent are severely dieting.

One in 100 Australian girls suffers anorexia, one in five are bulimic, one in five 12-year-old girls use fasting and vomiting to lose weight according to a study last year. One in four teenage girls want plastic surgery, two per cent already have had it.

$19.95+postage

Real forum.WFA founder Melinda Tankard Reist shows how far society has sunk.Labor MP Kate Doust, State Liberal MP Helen Morton, Troy Buswell and wife Margaret.Julie Gale makes a point.

Intention for valid sacraments

Q&A

By Fr John Flader

Can you please tell me what intention the minister of a sacrament must have for a sacrament to be valid? The reason I ask is that many years ago I was talking with a priest who seemed to have doubts about the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist. Would such a doubt render the consecration invalid, so that those who received Communion in his Mass would be receiving only bread?

You ask an important question, one which others have also asked me over the years. Fortunately, the Church has a very clear and simple answer.

The minister of a sacrament must have the intention of doing what the Church does when administering a sacrament. In the case of the Eucharist, the Church intends that the priest brings about the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Thus it is sufficient for the priest to have the intention of doing what the Church does, even though he may privately harbour doubts about the Real Presence.

From time to time any person, whether a priest or a lay person, may be assailed by a doubt about some matter of faith, including an important matter such as the existence of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. Such a passing doubt should be looked upon as a temptation, not as a deliberate doubt of an article of faith. A temptation is not a sin; a deliberate doubt is.

But even if the priest himself should harbour deliberate doubts about the Real Presence, he would still celebrate Mass validly, provided he had the habitual intention of doing what the Church does. It is possible that for a period of time

Only the Truth will set

Being Heard

By John Heard

Recently I wrote in favour of an apology to Australia’s Stolen Generations, those indigenous children (now adults) who suffered under a policy of forced removal from their parents and communities. Where individual actions, wrong-headed government policy and racism had given explicit or even implicit sanction to widespread cruelty and inhuman treatment, Australians were right to say sorry.

Indeed, good Christians always say sorry for past wrongs and express the appropriate level of public and personal remorse. Such an examination of conscience, an account of our part in the spread of evil, is central to Catholicism.

It is rendered multiple times during the Mass, but most prominently at the Confiteor, the Gloria and the Angus Dei Where we have, via either direct action or omission (what I have done and what I have failed to do), failed God and each other, we confess our failings. We do not shy from characterising these failings as sin: turning away from God’s law of love.

The Church is, then, as much a hospital for sinners as a club for saints. To flourish, man must – in the words of the Ash Wednesday formula – turn from sin and return to the Gospel. We have to put ourselves right with God and with each other.

From the heart of the Mass and the sacrament of confession, this ethos of atonement thrives wherever Christians live.

It permeates the life of the Church. If we are living correctly, it should characterise Christian communities and operate, like yeast in the proving loaf, as the peacemaking leaven in pluralist democracies and other mixed faith nations.

In millions of unlooked for and sometimes unnoticed acts of charity, forgiveness, remorse and atonement, Christians work therefore and in this way, for love. We also, collectively, follow the personal and public witness of the Popes.

John Paul the Great, for instance, led the Church into a deeper understanding of the central significance of atonement theology and public reparative action.

– months or even years – a priest might have such doubts, but he will continue to celebrate Mass validly, as he did before the doubts began.

It is interesting to recall that the priest who was celebrating Mass near Orvieto, Italy in the 13th century when the host began to drip blood, had had difficulty believing in the Real Presence. Clearly, his doubts did not prevent the bread and wine from being transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. This Eucharistic miracle of Orvieto led to the institution of the feast of Corpus Christi by Pope Urban IV the following year.

In general, if the minister of the sacrament uses the prescribed words, actions and matter for the sacrament, and he has the intention of doing what the Church does, the sacrament will be valid and effective. The minister does not even need to be in the state of grace, nor to believe in the efficacy of what he is doing. The sacrament confers grace, according to the traditional expression, ex opere operato, by virtue of the power of the sacrament itself, independently of the dispositions of the minister.

An example of this is the case of a non-believing nurse who has been asked to baptise a new-born infant in danger of death. As long as she pours the water and pronounces the proper words, the baby will be validly baptised, even though the nurse herself does not believe in the efficacy of Baptism.

Another way of looking at it is that the principal minister of the sacraments is Christ himself. The Second Vatican Council, quoting St Augustine, teaches: “...when anybody baptises it is really Christ himself who baptises.” (SC 7; St Augustine, Tractatus in Ioannem VI, ch. 1, n. 7)

This criterion gives great certainty both to the minister of the sacrament and to the faithful who receive it. No one need have any qualms of conscience or doubts about the validity of the sacrament as long as the minister uses the proper words, actions and matter and has the intention of doing what the Church does.

Because it might need re-stating in the sometimes-rootless modern era, sin is that which makes man unworthy of the immortality God promises in Christ. The Church, as the sacrament of salvation for the world, must always facilitate the reconciliation of man with man and man with God. This is the mystery of Christian community and the bedrock of Catholic unity.

It is significant that this process is given deep, sacramental power and great intimacy every time we go to confession.

Why?

Because Catholics demonstrate then that they are serious about sin, guilt, remorse and redemption. Rather than paying lip service to the call to account, we face Christ in the priest, humble ourselves, confess, express remorse (Oh my God, the simplest Act of Contrition runs, I am sorry that I have sinned against you…) and promise to do penance (…because you are so good and with your help I will not sin again). We also pray for each other, which is recognition that we are all sinners.

On a number of occasions, he called for a ‘purification of memory’ and apologised for past wrongs committed by the children of the Church against our brothers in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, against the Jews, our ‘elder brothers in faith’ and against other groups, including for any Catholic’s complicity in the African slave trade, the oppression of indigenous peoples in various colonial nations and in the handling of the case against Galileo.

It is important to note, however, that each apology was framed in the correct manner. The Pope did not, and indeed a Pope cannot (and still be a good Pope), apologise so as to suggest that the Church – understood as the deposit of faith - could be wrong in central issues of Christian faith and morals.

He can and did, however - and did so movingly and relatively frequently - apologise for historical, personal and collective failures of love; those times when individual Catholics fell short of the high standard of Christian love.

To be clear then, when Catholics apologise, when we confess our sins, we ask forgiveness of God because we believe that our sins are hateful in His sight. We apologise, first and most powerfully, to Him. We understand that only He can improve our position, that salvation is His alone. This is very basic.

Most Christians, Catholics and even those further from mainline and orthodox traditions, hold this in common. Of course, we also apologise to individu-

The many roles of feminine genius

The Vine Branches

By Joanna Lawson

Along the way back home from Hill Road in Bandra, dodging rickshaws (who seem intent on using pedestrians as obstacle practice), I spotted Anita, my aunt’s housekeeper, always so immaculately dressed in a colourful sari and her black hair combed neatly into a perfect bun. “Hi Anita, how are you?”

“Fine baby, thankyou.” She looked in a rush so I bade her goodbye, we parted ways and I expected to see her later on in the day.

Twenty minutes later, sitting at home and enjoying a cup of tea, the key turned in the door, and Anita popped her head around. “Ah baby is Aunty at home?” she asked, and my Aunt, busy pottering in the kitchen, called her in. Anita wanted to start work a little early so she could finish and take care of some matters in her own home. She set to work and I noticed she’d changed saris and had combed her hair again.

The situation at home meant that sometimes Anita has to do her jobs (she is houskeeper for eight families) every day, and then take care of her own household in the evenings. Living in a joint family is traditional in India, where the families of all the sons born to a couple live together, and the grand-

parents are heads of the household. Anita therefore lives in a family of 18, and she has the responsibility to wash the dishes after breakfast, lunch and dinner. When a sister in law gets sick, she takes on the further responsibility, and has to still get her paid work done. How she had time to change her outfit was a mystery. I asked her what her day was like, amazed that the fabric of the time/space continuum did not have a tear in it to allow for such a lot of work to get done in one day...

“Well, I have to get up at five in the morning, take a bath and then get breakfast ready for everyone. My sisters will help my daughter get ready for school so at least that is something I don’t have to worry about,” she said, while pummelling some clothes to eradicate any trace of dirt from their fibres. “Then I go and do three of my houses, and then go home to do the lunch dishes, and of course eat lunch myself.” She giggled a little mischievously, probably feeling a little irresponsible at not having a hand in the preparation for the lunch.

“Then, the rest of my outside work gets done, and you know I come here last in the evening, before I go home and have some dinner, see that my daughter has studied and clean the dishes up.” That’s washing up duty, every day, for 18 people, while doing the dusting, mopping, dishes and washing of eight other families. And she has a smile on her face while narrating the story.

“Wow Anita, I can’t believe you do so much,” I said, looking at her now as if she were superwoman. She probably can’t believe I do so little. It’s just the way life is for some people, and she is lucky to have

Perspectives

us free from sin and guilt

als and groups hurt by our failures and we are truly sorry for that hurt, but Christian remorse and reparation have an absolute, God-centred meaning.

I confess to Almighty God first and then to you here present. This is the heart of Christian teaching on sin and guilt. A deontological account of sin and guilt, like the one offered by Christianity, is important, not least because it contrasts with quasiconsequentialist approaches. Unlike in most neo-Pagan, atheist and other modern cultures, where apologies might owe more to spectacle, ego and a sense of revenge, than to love, the Christian model is more demanding. It is certainly more loving.

A Catholic will fail himself and God, therefore, even if there are no obvious or quantifiable, negative consequences for other human beings. Only people who get this understanding wrong would, therefore, call on the Church and on individual Christians to apologise to homoactivist groups and, what is more, call on Christian leaders to march supportively in the often deliberately anti-Christian Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras.

Indeed, only a faulty reckoning with the history and ideology of such groups and events would encourage Christian ministers to publicly support them. Perhaps the central orthodox Christian teaching on sin and atonement needs urgent re-stating, however, in light of the actions of the so-called 100 Revs.

Acting individually and on the proviso that they were operating without any recourse to Christian (specifically ‘Biblical’) teaching on homogenital acts and human sexuality, the 100 Revs Group unilaterally apologised to homoactivist sympathisers (assuming, as they did, that all same sex attracted men and women are homoactivists) and then, astonishingly, marched alongside deeply antiChristian groups like the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in Sydney.

The accompanying 100 Revs Statement was, unsurprisingly, a curious and very uneven document. It is not clear that it is a Christian document; in fact most Christians will find it deeply heterodox. It is, first, strange to find apparently Christian lead-

ers deciding to act outside settled Christian teaching. By adding the proviso about Church/Biblical teaching on human sexuality, it is certainly clear that the signatories have exempted themselves from orthodoxy and mainstream Christine teaching.

Their apology is, therefore, outside Christianity. There is a grave danger that it might lead other Christians into error.

It certainly deliberately ignores the foundational teaching on sin and guilt. It forgets the story about God’s love and man’s weakness before Him and favours some alien, perhaps neo-Pagan, certainly politically correct guff about the need to ‘welcome’ something the group calls the ‘gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people’, whoever they might be.

This is followed by the empirically contentious claim “that the churches we belong to, and the church in general, have not been places of welcome for…GLBT…people…

[I]ndeed the church has often been profoundly unloving toward the GLBT community” which fails to accurately represent the sage, humane and constant witness of the Catholic Church.

Perhaps most alarmingly, it ignores the fundamental difference between same sex attracted individuals (moral agents characterised by free will and a vulnerability to grace) and intentional acts. Again, this puts the 100 Revs firmly outside Christian thought on sin and guilt.

Anyone familiar with and committed to the Catholic teaching, in particular, knows that it is, far from unwelcoming, rather a profoundly moving call to Christ.

It does not even single out same sex attracted men and women for unfair treatment, it is in line with Christian teaching on human sexuality and chastity generally. Indeed, it comes in the same section of the Catechism that sets down chastity as the ideal for all human beings, including married couples.

Sometimes this fact is forgotten by otherwise well-meaning, but perhaps culturally or personally bigoted priests and laity. Such people must be connverted to love, not least for the sake of the often vulnerable, suffering young people they are called on to

shepherd. But, it should not be claimed that the first place a young same sex attracted man can feel affirmed and loved, wholly, is amongst homoactivists and the denizens of a ‘gay’ parade.

To claim that Christians must also meet the extremist demands of such people in order to manifest proper love for others is nonsense. Christians must look to their consciences.

We must fight to ensure that Catholic teaching, in the full and liberating splendour of truth, is always and everywhere promoted.We must, alongside the Church, commit to a fully integrated sexuality, a process whereby men and women can –with grace - become more fully human and also draw closer in to God.

It is simply wrong then to re-imagine this teaching as somehow deficient in terms of Christian ideas of ‘welcome’ and hospitality.

It is wild indeed to go even further and conclude that marching alongside half-naked biker lesbians and lewd men dressed as nuns (often replete with deliberately and deeply hateful simulacra meant to mock and blaspheme the Most Blessed Sacrament and the Church’s sacramental ministry) is the best way to make up for any personal and collective failures.

Any truly Catholic group and serious, loving Christians, whether from Los Angeles or New York City, from London or Moscow, indeed anyone in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne committed to the Christian model for love, sin and guilt simply cannot accept the 100 Revs’ call for an apology.

The individuals involved in such movements are wrong and their participation in so-called Pride marches and other hypersexualised, anti-Christian events is scandalous. We must pray that they return to the Gospel and ask them to pray for us: that we might all remember the true teaching on sin and guilt in love. We must never forget the words of the Master and the constant witness of Christian saints and leaders, throughout history:

Only the Truth will set us free from sin and guilt.

John Heard is a Melbourne writer. emaildreadnought@gmail.com

reflect the self-sacrificing nature of Christ

her large family to help her raise her daughter, especially since she was widowed a year ago. For her, a regular income is a blessing, and being up from five till midnight is a matter of fact.

“But why did you change your sari today?” I asked her. She looked a little puzzled. “Oh, that was my twin sister you saw. She was a little late for work today.” And what work is that? A computer programmer. Two women, looking identical, even answering to each other’s names, with such different lives. How does it happen? Only God knows.

We made our way to Santhome Basilica which is built directly over the saint’s tomb, and we descended the stairs to pay our respects and to pray to this man chosen in a special way by Jesus to carry on His Church. Carrying our precious package of intentions written out by friends, family and fellow parishioners, we offered up the petitions for his intercession. Saint Thomas, a man who brought Christianity to India and made it a cradle of the faith in the world, now lies quietly under a marble block. But he continues his work by inspiring those who are lost, afraid and doubtful to stay close to Jesus and find their way back to faith, the Church and the life that comes with it.

Read Joanna’s Blog on the internet at: www.thebranchesproject.blogspot.com Contact her at jovabelle@yahoo.com

Search for Truth

Bronia Karniewicz

Mainly I have conversations with God. During Adoration I have a time of silence with Him so He can answer as well. The Rosary is very important to me. Mary is very important to the Polish people. There’s the story of the Black Madonna and how she protected Poland in times of war. I grew up in a Polish family who are very Marian.

I have been the executive officer at the Respect Life Office for almost a year. I pray to God about work and what may be difficult at the time.

How I Pray Now

with Debbie Warrier

It’s like talking to a friend.

I pray about my family for things like personality clashes. I also pray about the nice things that have been going on, like “Thanks for that great sunset.”

I pray before going to bed and in the car. I try to make God a part of my daily life and set aside time each week to pray.

There’s no normal day at the RLO... There are school presentations on issues like abortion and post abortion trauma with a pro woman approach. What happened is wrong but that woman, man and family need love, understanding and forgiveness. Acceptance is quite a big issue that we deal with. We also respond to other things that may crop up in the media like stem cell research, euthanasia or prostitution. The role of the Office is to promote the dignity of the human person. We have an annual Respect Life Sunday and annual Embrace the Grace youth conference.

Pope John Paul II gave us an example of how to live our faith, in our actions more than our words. He had a lot of passion for the human person and a passion for our faith. He’s been integral part of my life and showed me what the Catholic faith is truly about.

I think that faith means to me life. Through faith we know the real presence of God, His love and peace. It’s that thing that fulfils our soul and being. In 2000 I went to World Youth Day in Rome. I realised that I should stand up for my faith. I had this week of good times, bad times, sleeping on the floor, cold showers and then actually meeting Pope John Paul II. I was part of the crowd but he had this gift of making you feel that he was talking to you. He said, “Be not afraid to be saints of the new millennium.” That really struck me and has been something that I have tried to achieve. He was so personable that night. He clapped, laughed and joked. I am doing post graduate studies at the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne. Flying back and forth is a fun process. I love Melbourne. The part of the Theology of the Body that resonates with me is that our body and it alone reveals the image of God. I have educated myself on the Church’s teachings and the role of women in particular. Without my faith I would probably be a hardcore feminist hippy living in Margaret River... My message to today’s youth is: Don’t be afraid to ask questions. That includes questions about the Church. Don’t just go with what the media says. Search for the Truth.

debwarrier@hotmail.com

Hard yakka: Along the road on the way home from Bandra during her mission work in India, Joanna dodged some determined rickshaw pullers like this one. PHOTO: JOANNA LAWSON

WYD cost increases

50 per cent

SYDNEY, Australia (CNS)- The estimated cost of staging World Youth Day in Sydney has increased by 50 per cent to $150 million, said a briefing paper circulated to local priests by the Sydney Archdiocese.

The paper quoted a Sydney Chamber of Commerce report that World Youth Day will deliver long-term economic benefits in excess of $230 million. The briefing paper was released in early March.

The briefing paper said that in addition to the immediate economic benefit from tourism and commerce World Youth Day - scheduled for July 1520 - would showcase Sydney and Australia and contribute to tourism and industry for decades to come.

“Almost all our leaders - of whatever religious and political affiliation - also recognise that beyond the hugely positive economic impact, there is great social value in offering young people spiritual values and ideals, hope and reason to celebrate,” it said.

The briefing paper said almost half the costs would be covered by pilgrim fees. The rest would be made up by federal grants, the church, donors, business partners and sponsors.

“The total costs of WYD08 will depend on many factors, with the most significant being the number of pilgrims who register to participate,” it said.

It added that most of the money committed by federal and State governments would go to providing services to pilgrims. The NSW government will help through the provision of venues, including Randwick Racecourse, public transport for pilgrims, policing, sleeping accommodation at public schools and emergency health care.

It said $4 of every $5 in the $150 million would go toward providing accommodation, meals and services for more than 200,000 local and international pilgrims at up to 300 catechesis venues located around the city. The paper said that the Archdiocese of Sydney “has budgeted to make a substantial contribution toward the costs of WYD ... because it shares the Holy Father’s belief that WYD will make a substantial and ongoing contribution to Australia’s, and the world’s, Catholic youth.” The paper said the Archdiocese needed to establish major sites for the pilgrims and events as well as cover the costs of those events.

The briefing paper told priests that the costs to taxpayers of staging the Sydney Olympics and the 2007 AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation forum “were substantially more” than the cost of World Youth Day. The support required for WYD “is nowhere near the $900 million provided for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne”.

the World

Spokesman dismisses Luther report

Vatican spokesman calls rumours of rehabilitation of Luther groundless

■ By Carol

Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS)Rumours that the Vatican is set to rehabilitate Martin Luther, the 16th-

century leader of the Protestant Reformation, are groundless, said the Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi.

News reports in early March alleged that Pope Benedict XVI was dedicating a planned September symposium with former doctoral students to re-evaluating Luther, who was excommunicated and condemned for heresy.

Meeting to assess what Chinese made of papal letter

Vatican commission on China holds its first meeting

■ By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - A Vatican commission on the Church in China held its first meeting from March 10-13, looking specifically at reactions to Pope Benedict XVI’s June 2007 letter to Chinese Catholics.

The Vatican press office issued a statement on March 8 saying the members of the commission were the heads of several Vatican departments, “representatives of the Chinese episcopacy” and representatives of religious orders working in China.

The first item of business, the Vatican said, was to discuss reactions to the Pope’s letter to Chinese Catholics and to discuss the life of the Church in China in light of the papal document.

A similar group of Vatican officials, Chinese bishops and China experts met at the Vatican last January. They suggested the Vatican form a commission on Chinese affairs. The Vatican said the com-

mission’s participants were top officials from departments “competent in the matter” - presumably the Secretariat of State and the congregations responsible for missionary activity, religious orders, bishops, clergy and doctrine.

At least two church news agencies that cover China reported on March 10 that other participants were to include Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun and Coadjutor Bishop John Tong Hon of Hong Kong; Archbishop John Hung Shan-chuan of Taipei, Taiwan; and Cardinal Paul Shan Kuo-hsi, retired Archbishop of Kaoshiung, Taiwan.

UCA News, an Asian church news agency, reported that Pope Benedict was expected to address the meeting, perhaps during its closing session.

The Pope’s 2007 letter:

● encouraged cooperation between clandestine Catholic communities and those officially registered with China’s communist government;

● called for dialogue with the government on issues such as the appointment of bishops;

● asked government-registered bishops who have secretly reconciled with the Vatican to make that fact clear to their faithful.

Catholic News Service. Excesses in 16th-century preaching about indulgences and in Catholic penitential practices sparked Luther, a theologian and Augustinian monk, to seek reform in the Church. His concerns started a movement that led to the Protestant Reformation.

The Church excommunicated Luther for preaching a philosophy doubting the Pope’s infallibility.

Luther emphasised the absolute primacy of God’s action in freeing people from sin and making them just, and the total sufficiency of Christ’s death to expiate the sins of all.

In 1983, Pope John Paul II noted that studies by Lutheran and Catholic researchers “have led to a more complete and more differentiated image of the personality of Luther” as well as the complicated historical factors surrounding his life.

The story “does not have any

foundation, insofar as no rehabilitation of Luther is foreseen,” Fr Lombardi told the Italian news agency ANSA on March 8.

Vatican officials said the topic of the Pope’s annual summer gathering of former students this year has not yet been decided. Of the two topics under consideration, Luther is not one of them, one official told

Nearly 500 years after the Reformation began in 1517, Lutherans and Catholics resolved one of the issues that began the Reformation era when they signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in 1999.

The declaration said the churches’ consensus on basic truths means that the doctrine of justification is not a Church-dividing issue for Catholics and Lutherans even though differences between them remain in language, theological elaboration and emphasis surrounding those basic truths.

‘Kidnapped bishop may be dead’

Iraqi archbishop expresses concern about fate of kidnapped prelate

LONDON (CNS) - An Iraqi Archbishop has expressed concern that Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, Iraq, who was kidnapped for ransom, is sick, injured or has been killed. No one has heard from Archbishop Rahho since he was kidnapped on February 29 after he finished leading the Way of the Cross in Mosul, said Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk, Iraq, in an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic charity helping persecuted Christians. The interview was released by the British branch of the charity on March 10.

Archbishop Rahho “was able to make a call from the back of the car in which he was kidnapped but since then nothing,” said Archbishop Sako. “The people in contact with the kidnappers have over several days asked to hear the archbishop’s voice, but they are constantly refused.”

Archbishop Sako said he was worried the captors have increased the ransom for Archbishop Rahho’s release from US$1 million to US$2 million to US$3 million.

“It leaves us with two possibilities,” he told the charity. “Either the

Archbishop is sick or injured or he has been killed and the kidnappers just want to get as much money as possible.”

The Mosul Archbishop reportedly is in poor health with a heart condition and needs medication daily. Archbishop Sako, who said he thinks the captors are organised, added: “Really, this is a kind of mourning time. There is nothing from the Archbishop - no sign. We don’t know where we are heading with the process - the future is totally unknown.”

Archbishop Rahho had just left the Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul and was in his car with his driver and two bodyguards when the kidnappers attacked. The three people who were traveling with him were killed.

Opposite numbers: An artist’s depiction of Pope John Paul II and reformer Martin Luther appears on a sidewalk of a German street in this file photo. PHOTO: CNS

Kidnapped Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho.

the World

Family hope cure may validate ex-slave’s canonisation

US couple hopes son’s medical case will help Toussaint’s cause.

■ By Angelo Stagnaro

NEW YORK (CNS) - Pierre Toussaint was born into slavery in 1766 in the French colony of Saint Dominque, which is modern-day Haiti. He died a free, rich, pious and respected man in New York City June 30, 1853. And one day he might very well be a saint. His cause was officially opened by Cardinal John J O’Connor of New York in 1989, and Toussaint was declared venerable by Pope John Paul II in 1997.

But he needs a miracle to move to the second step of the canonisation process - beatification.

And John and Lisa Peacock of Silver Spring, Maryland, hope their son’s case might provide that miracle.

On October 28, 1999, Maryland pediatrician Dr. My-Huong Nguyen examined one of her little patients, a five-year-old named Joey Peacock. She noticed the boy’s spine and shoulders were slightly uneven.

X-rays revealed Joey had scoliosis and would likely have to be fitted for a brace before the curves got worse.

In February 2000 Joey’s parents became aware of Toussaint’s cause after reading an article about him in The Washington Post daily newspaper. They decided to pray for his intervention to help their son.

On February 15 of that year, Joey had more X-rays taken and they showed the condition had disappeared. Nguyen, a practicing Buddhist, testified at a tribunal

has already reviewed the paperwork in the case, officials said it will wait to issue a final decree until the boy has finished any unexpected adolescent growth spurts, which could cause the scoliosis to recur.

Toussaint lived during some of the worst Nativist, anti-Catholic violence of the 19th century, but it did not keep him from taking up Christ’s challenge to assist the poor, the despised, the lonely and the alienated.

He attended 6am Mass daily and had a strong devotion to the Rosary and to the Eucharist.

He was an accomplished catechist who could explain the Church’s teachings simply and intelligently and with courage.

Toussaint’s owner, Marie Elizabeth Berard, the widow of the man who had brought him to New York from Haiti, apprenticed him to one of the city’s leading hairdressers and he quickly became the most sought-after hairstylist in the city. Every fashionable woman in New York knew she wasn’t coiffed properly unless she was coiffed by Toussaint. In 1807, on her deathbed, Berard granted Toussaint his freedom. Toussaint used the fortune he had amassed to build an orphanage, an employment agency, a hospice for the dying and a credit bureau for the poor.

ly devoted to Toussaint. “On the day the cathedral was dedicated, he, along with all of Catholic New York, milled through its doors. An overeager and hypervigilant usher refused to allow Toussaint to enter,” Flatz said.

Toussaint, the man who had helped finance the construction of the cathedral, apologised and turned to leave.

But according to Flatz, one of the church’s priests recognised him immediately, rebuked the usher and personally escorted Toussaint to a seat of honour.

Toussaint died aged 87 and was buried in the cemetery of the church he built. In 1990, Cardinal O’Connor had Toussaint’s remains exhumed and installed in the crypt at St Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue.

“Toussaint is the only layperson buried in the crypt otherwise exclusively reserved for New York City’s cardinals,” explained Mgr Robert Ritchie, rector of St Patrick’s Cathedral. “We’re very proud to have Venerable Pierre Toussaint here with us,” he said in an interview. “It’s a blessing for the Church and for the city.”

While the Vatican has not determined whether their son was miraculously cured, the Peacocks are sure Toussaint helped cure their son.

called to investigate what could not be explained medically. “A curved spine doesn’t simply straighten with-

out medical intervention practically overnight,” Nguyen said. Though the Congregation for Saints’ Causes

He offered hospitality to poor travelers, the homeless and traveling priests and contributed greatly to the building of the original St Patrick’s Cathedral on Mulberry Street, known today as St Patrick’s Old Cathedral. “It’s at St Patrick’s Old Cathedral where undeniable proof of Toussaint’s remarkable humility occurred,” said Chris Flatz, the church’s archivist and the parish manager who is himself strong-

Pope urges change of tack on confession

Pope urges priests to make confession a time for God’s merciful love.

■ By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - With fewer and fewer Catholics going to confession, Pope Benedict XVI urged priests and seminarians to make the sacrament of penance a time for sinners to feel God’s merciful love.

“Sin does not lie at the heart of the sacramental celebration, but rather God’s mercy, which is infinitely greater than each of our faults,” he said on March 7.

The Pope spoke to about 700 priests and seminarians taking part in a weeklong course offered every year by the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary, which deals with matters of conscience.

The head of the penitentiary, US Cardinal J Francis Stafford, told the Pope the annual study session was a way to promote the importance of “the penitential ministry, above all that of confession (which) depends greatly on priests, too, and their

awareness of being the bearers of a precious and irreplaceable ministry.”

The Pope said that today, unfortunately, there is a growing lack of any sense of sin.

Those who are too self-confident and confide only in themselves are blinded by their ego “and their heart hardens in sin,” he said.

A person who recognises himself or herself “as weak and sinful entrusts himself to God and receives grace and pardon from him,” he added.

The Pope said the message priests had to convey to the faithful was that no matter what sin one commits, if the sinner humbly recognises it and approaches a priest for confession with trust, “one always experiences the peacemaking joy of God’s forgiveness.”

He praised the fact that the course was helping confessors be doctrinally well prepared and better able to help penitents feel God’s loving mercy.

He asked whether a lack of emphasis on God’s mercy was a contributing factor to “a certain disaffection toward this sacrament” of confession.

While helping the penitents

understand the seriousness of their sins is important, he said insisting only on “the accusation of sin” risks putting the most important point on the back burner - that of “a personal meeting with God, the father of good will and mercy.”

“It’s necessary today to let the person who confesses feel that divine tenderness toward the penitent sinner,” which is seen in many moving accounts in the Gospel, he said, highlighting Luke’s account of Jesus’ encounter with a repentant woman in the house of Simon.

The Pope reminded the priests how valuable their ministry of administering “divine mercy for the salvation of souls” was for the Church and urged them to be examples of “authentic Christian life.”

One of the course’s organisers and a top official at the Apostolic Penitentiary, Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, told the Vatican newspaper the sacrament of penance in Italy was in a “period of crisis” and a “serious state of difficulty.”

In a March 4 article in L’Osservatore Romano, the Bishop referred to a 1998 survey that found 30 per cent of Catholics in Italy believed there was no need for a priest to be present in confession-

als. Twenty per cent said they had difficulty in talking to another person about their sins while 10 per cent considered the priest to be an obstacle to direct conversation with God.

While the survey is dated, he said, “things have not improved” since then.

Bishop Girotti told the paper that the course also addressed special penitents like the divorced, remarried and couples who were living together outside marriage.

He said the priest should use the moment of confession to slowly suggest solutions that would rectify the person’s situation so that he or she may eventually be able to receive the Eucharist.

While priests must follow doctrinal rules concerning divorced and remarried Catholics, their pastoral attitude must be inspired by the Gospel and “cannot and must not bring someone despair,” he said.

When hearing the confession of other priests or religious, the confessor must be a “just judge” and “good doctor of the spirit”; he must “never take on an apocalyptic tone” since taking too hard a line has often “been fatal for many,” the Bishop said.

At his confirmation on February 5 this year, Joey was annointed by Washington Archbishop Donald W Wuerl as he took “Pierre” as his confirmation name.

“We were overjoyed to see Joseph walking with his sponsor and brother John to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit,” Lisa Peacock said. “To see him walking without bracing or surgery to correct the two curves in his spine is a wonderful and joyous thing for our family.”

Pope’s encyclical set for mid-year

VATICAN CITY (CNS)

- Pope Benedict XVI is still working on his social encyclical, but it probably will not be ready before the northern hemisphere summer, a top Vatican official said.

“The Pope is reflecting and revising, and therefore we cannot predict. But I presume it will not be published before the summer vacation period,” Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, said.

Vatican sources said the Pope began work on the encyclical last year and that it would treat topics related to Catholic social teaching. His first two encyclicals examined the virtues of love and hope.

Cardinal Bertone, who spoke with the Italian news agency ANSA while visiting Azerbaijan, said the Pope was preparing his new text carefully.

“It needs to be written well. The Pope is making his reflections and annotations and is checking things rigorously,” he said.

Healed? Joey Peacock, 13, prepares to shoot a free throw during a basketball game at Briggs Chaney Middle School in Silver Spring on March 4. When Joey was five, doctors determined he had scoliosis, so his parents, John and Lisa Peacock, decided to pray to Pierre Toussaint, declared venerable in 1997, for his intercession to help their son. Later X-rays showed the boy’s condition seemed to have disappeared and his doctors had no medical explanation. The case has been submitted to the Vatican for Toussaint’s cause and the Peacocks hope it will be deemed the miracle needed for his beatification. PHOTO: CNS

the World feature

Recovering a sense of women’s dignity

On March 8, women around the world celebrated the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day.

■ By Helen Alvare

Recent decades of exploding public and private opportunities for women have an embarrassing and worrying downside. Thoughtful women are horrified at the way commercial culture is turning young girls into sexual objects. But aren’t they missing something? What about the sexual objectification of adult women by themselves, in the name of liberation?

Commenting on this phenomenon at a recent conference in Rome, Catholic University of America law professor Helen Alvare concluded that the Christian anthropology elucidated with startling originality by Pope John Paul II 20 years ago in his Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women…) offers a way out of this contradiction. The following is a slightly edited excerpt from her paper.

Even a secular observer would have to conclude that women’s cooperation, even encouragement in the objectification of their bodies today, seems a modern manifestation of the inclination which Catholics call “original sin”. Women debase themselves in pursuit of the belief that it will lead to union with a man.

This is not confined to the pornography industry, or even to commercial advertising or films or television. Rather, ordinary women across the United States buy clothing designed to emphasise or expose the parts of their bodies associated with sex.

I have often joked with my husband that I might have to institute a “no cleavage before 9am” rule with my female students, so much do their low cut shirts distract the male students in my morning classes. Many women often also debase themselves with their speech, or by exposing themselves to media which gradually desensitises them to the proposal that women are beautiful, sexualised objects for consumption.

The push for women to become such objects starts early in their lives, with sleazy dolls and clothes offered to small girls, and movies aimed at children essentially conveying the message that beauty is the ticket to wealth and happiness.

A particularly heavy dose of such messages is served at a particularly formative time of a woman’s life: her adolescence, when a girl’s beauty is emerging in its adult form. A plethora of magazines, movies, and even sexual education courses, invites adolescent girls to see themselves as bodies only. Mothers regularly cooperate with these trends, sending their daughters to school functions wearing completely unacceptable clothing.

A further disturbing aspect of women’s conniving in their own objectification is the involvement of prominent strains of feminism who insist that they are striking a blow for women’s freedom by identifying freedom

with undisciplined sexuality. This is a particularly true of the Western feminism of the late 20th century, which is still influential today.

On the one hand, one can see how strong was the temptation to break women out of the limited roles assigned to them in earlier times, and to give them the “upper hand” over men; marriage and motherhood were constantly portrayed as lesser vocations suited to lesser intelligences. But this type of feminist response was and remains fundamentally flawed for three reasons.

First, the notion of freedom it promotes is at odds with human nature and aspirations. Freedom characterised by individualism, and the rejection of truth, solidarity and transcendence is no real freedom. The histories of individuals and of nations confirm this.

Second, it drew upon the worst features of male behaviour for its prescriptions. The feminist woman was urged to be a sexually adventurous, marriage-and-children-spurning, money-and-career-driven, creature. In other words, feminism urged women to imitate the male “version” of original sin - domination - to attain equality and happiness.

Third, it constituted a tremendous opportunity cost for women. During the late 20th century feminists had a golden opportunity - not easily recreated - to address women’s needs in the world.

As the decades passed, it became clear these women were too easily derailed by the “dream of power,” too disdainful of God to reach ordinary folk, too fearful of acknowledging common sense, and too willing even to harm the vulnerable, notably through abortion. As a result, their organised influence waned tremendously. The longing for women’s equality and dignity lives on, but more in the hearts of individual women than in a larger group likely more capable of demanding some of the structural changes women need.

Women as consumer objects in family law

The view of women as consumer objects has, oddly, come to be institutionalised not only in US media and commerce, but also more and more in the law concerning, sex, marriage and the family. I say “oddly” because this development has coincided with the strengthening of laws protecting women against rape, include rape within marriage and in the context of “date rape”. There has also occurred the strengthening of laws protecting women against “sexual harassment” and “stalking” and “domestic violence”. Apparently, however, and due likely to deep misunderstandings about the nature of “freedom”, advocates for women do not understand that there is such a thing as good versus bad choices in the context of “consensual”

sexual relationships too, not just non-consensual ones. Thus have certain influential feminists helped enact laws about sex, marriage and families affirming the objectification of women as consumer objects. Some of the following family law trends are among the most important in this regard.

First, was the move to “no-fault” divorce. This was urged on the claim that marriage is inherently a state of subjection for women, who ought to be able to escape it quickly and easily.

Not surprisingly, this was followed by a massive increase in the divorce rate as men traded older women for younger, and also as women decided that the union they craved was not sufficiently satisfying, and began to file for divorce more often than men.

A second example is the call for legal recognition of any type of grouping that wishes to call itself a family, even cohabitants, who explicitly reject a definitive commitment to one another. Many female scholars lead this effort.

At the same time, though, sociologists and economists are amply documenting how such relationships are characterised by the partners’ lower levels of practical care for one another and even for their own children.

This is associated with the fact that persons in uncommitted sexual relationships are “testing” and measuring one another for suitability, versus seeking long-term communion.

A third area of the law in which the objectification of women has become institutionalised concerns assisted reproductive technologies.

US law in particular has left it nearly completely to the market to sort out the purchase and sale of women’s eggs and wombs. (It defers similarly to the market regarding male sperm.) This is not because the risks and harms to women are unknown. Risky hormonal injections over several weeks, coaxing a woman’s ovaries to produce 10 or more eggs in a single month’s cycle are common features of egg donation.

Surrogate motherhood, under certain conditions, is also legal in Canada and the US. While “paid surrogacy” is legally forbidden in Canada and some US states, this does not stop those involved from treating the mother in the manner of a consumer object. For one thing, individuals regularly find ways around the law to actually pay the surrogate for her egg or womb or both.

Second, women’s appearances, accomplishments, and past gestational successes are touted to make them attractive “products” for buyers. Finally, participants often insist that love and generosity are the primary motivations, but it is impossible to discount the role played by large sums of money, or

to discount the regular stories about poor women from second or third world countries offering their eggs and wombs to rich westerners in exchange for money badly needed by their families.

Every one of these laws finds female as well as male “experts” who argue that the law empowers women - to leave unsatisfying marriages, undertake a sexual relationship with the person of their choice, or earn money from reproductive materials and capacities. In every case, however, the “experts” have misunderstood or ignored the nature of persons, particularly female persons, and the overarching purposes of human life.

A modern Catholic response

Catholic tradition has a great deal to offer in response to the intertwined phenomena of the objectification of women and consumerism. This has been particularly true over the last 30 years, beginning with John Paul II’s Theology of the Body series, and continuing with Mulieris Dignitatem and other important documents. These papal reflections appeared at a time when the weaknesses and even corruption of earlier feminist proposals were becoming more evident.

Through them the Church offers a way of hope and a way of life bound to appeal to our human nature. It is also a way of dignity, not only for women, but for men as well, with its foundations in a full-throated anthropology of the human person, combined with uncanny and persuasive readings of the signs of the times.

In the first place it affirms the surpassing dignity of human beings in the world; they are above all other creation, and all man-made things in the world. As John Paul II is fond of repeating, man is the “only being which God has willed for his own sake.” All else in the world is subject to the human person, who in turn is charged with responsible stewardship. Consumerism, which values things as much as or more than people, stands against this fundamental truth.

A second aspect is this: the human being striving toward self-realisation will not find it by amassing riches for herself, but only through a “sincere gift of self”, through existing “for others” as a “gift”.

Third, this way affirms that there is meaning in God’s having created the human race both male and female. One aspect of this is that women have a particular “genius”, an “eternal originality”, gifts for living that they demonstrate especially well or easily. Objectifying women obscures or completely hides this truth.

Helen Alvare

Once a Servite, always a Servite

As Servite College celebrates its 50th anniversary, current principal Phillip Cox shares his celebration of the school’s achievements and what the future holds.

Servite College has a long tradition of commitment to the education of the youth in the northern suburbs of Perth and we opened our 50th year with two Masses in February.

The first of these events included the blessing of our student leaders, on February 15, and a 50th anniversary ball for year 12 students.

Later in the month, all the community, past staff, students as well as the current community came together to thank God for the blessings of the past 50 years and to seek His blessing for the future.

Jubilee celebrations will continue with a large contingent of students participating in a Servite World Pilgrimage visiting and working with the Servite Sisters and Friars in the Servite Missions in India at the end of this year.

The students will then travel to the USA for an intensive student exchange program at our brother/sister Servite schools in Anaheim and Omaha. In many ways this pilgrimage is a celebra-

tion of our 50th Anniversary and heralds a new part of the Servite journey.

50 years after the College was founded, the College Council is planning a $6 million building program to replace the two oldest buildings within the College and to further expand the facilities and available space for students.

In recent years Servite College has seen a resurgence in commitment and energy by the students and parent community.

This has manifested itself in the student’s many achievements accross all diciplines - sporting, artistic and accademic.

There is certainly much to be grateful for.

As principal of Servite College, it is a personal privilege to be part of the Servite story.

My feelings of pride in being part of the Servite world-wide family is centred largely on the fact that our students are genuinely imbued with the Servite spirit and actively live the central charism of the Servite order of service to others.

The Former Students Association and the Servite Development Committee are planning a gala Ball later in the year.

Former parents and students wishing to attend this Ball are welcome to contact the College on 9444 6333 for further details.

With 50 years of Servite education in WA to celebrate, president of Servite College in Tuart Hill, Fra Christopher Ross OSM, provides an insight into the historical steps that forged the WA school and how it has maintained its strong charism for so long.

The school was officially opened on February 9,1958, even though the first group of Servite friars arrived in Australia in 1951.

“But correspondence shows that, after the initial founding steps, Fr James Keane, OSM already had in mind the establishment of a high school in St Kieran’s parish.” It took some years and the untiring efforts of the then superior, Fr Patsy Nolan, to actually get it started.

For some years the school was called St Philip’s Regional High

School for Boys and funds for initial building costs were drawn from a half dozen schools in the area: Osborne Park, North Beach, Scarborough, Doubleview, Wanneroo and Joondanna.

Initial applications were for Years 5 and 6, but year-by-year the enrolments were extended and the corresponding classrooms built.

Some of our early principals were destined for higher things.

Fr. Joseph Loftus (1962 – 1964) left the school when he was elected Prior Provincial of the American Province of the Order. Only a year later he became Prior General of the whole Servite Order.

The first lay principal was Mr. Jack Shanahan, who was one of the pioneer lay principals in Western Australia’s Catholic schools.

It was in 1969 that the name was changed to Servite College.

This reflected better the nature and charism of the school. Girls from St. Kieran’s also moved into the school that year.

Much growth in the physical plant has also accompanied our enrol-

ment growth: the Jack Shanahan wing of 15 classrooms; the St. Philip Administration building; the Seven Founders Centre with gym and auditorium, and more recently the Science Centre.

So many people whose life-path has crossed this school say that there is something “special” about Servite College. I believe that something is the ideal or charism that characterises the Servite Order.

We have clung to our involvement in this school at a time when so many Orders have had to withdraw theirs.

This is because we feel we have so much to offer to the church and people of this northern district. Our deeply-ingrained devotion to Mary, the Mother and Servant of the Lord, is proverbial.

Servi Vocamur Sanctae Mariae is emblazoned on our logo. “We are called Servants of Holy Mary”. All of this resonates so strongly in the hearts of folks associated with Servite College over the last 50 years that they echo the unofficial motto of the College: “Once a Servite Always a Servite!”

Celebration: Fr Chris Ross (centre) celebrates Mass for the College on February 15, with concelebrant Fr Robert Zivkovic, while altra server Gerard D’Souza assists.

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF SERVITE COLLEGE.

Welcoming the girls: In 1973 St Philips Regional College for Boys accepted girls and changed its name to Servite College. These were some of the first girls to enter the newly named College.

A year in time: Just one of the many graduating classes of the College pictured in 1969.

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF SERVITE COLLEGE.

In the beginning: Archbishop Redmond Prendiville blesses Servite College’s first students on the first school day in 1958.

Saturday March 15

A MORNING RETREAT: ’ INNER PEACE PART 1’

Presenter Murray Graham (Inigo Centre

Director) Cost: Donation. Starting at 9am to 12noon, at the Mary MacKillop Hall (MultiPurpose Room) John XXIII College. Registration and Enq: 9383 0444 Murray.

Saturday March 15

ST BERNADETT E’S CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL FETE

Where: Grand Ocean Boulevard, Port Kennedy.

When: 11am to 4pm. What’s on: rides, show bags, food, plant & cake stalls, music, dancers, magician, ponies, bouncy castle (as available). Fun for all ages. Come and join the fun! Enq: Robyn Fitzgerald rfitzgerald3@aapt.net.au or: 0405 672 487.

Sunday March 16

STATIONS OF THE CROSS, ST THERESA’S CHURCH GWELUP

All are welcome to join the Secular Franciscan Fraternity of Balcatta in a celebration of the Stations of the Cross on Palm Sunday at 3pm, followed by afternoon tea in the Community Centre. The Church is located at 678 North Beach Road, Gwelup.

Sunday March 16

“THE SEVEN LAST WORDS OF JESUS CHRIST”

3pm at St Benedict’s Church, Ardross Street, Applecross. This beautiful music, which Haydn wrote as a Lenten devotion, will be performed by the talented string quartet “Ensemble Trastevere” as part of our 2008 Faith Enrichment Series. All welcome. Refreshments will be shared following the performance. Entry by Donation.

Sunday March 16

THE SACRED HEART COMMUNITY FAIR

Is to be held in the picturesque setting of the Sculpture Park, Jacoby Street, Mundaring. Starting at 10am and finishes at 4pm. The Fair is a FREE old fashioned family fun day with activities, rides, live acts, great food and over 50 craft and specialty stalls.

Sunday March 16

TAIZE MEDITATION

Come and join in the prayer at 7pm, Sisters of St Joseph Chapel, 16 York St, South Perth. All are welcome Enq: Sister Maree Riddler 0414 683 926.

Sunday March 16

ETERNAL WORD TELEVISION NETWORK : EVERY

SUNDAY, 1  2 PM ON ACCESS 31

March 16: Reflections from the Garden of Gethsemane ; working for Christian unity in the Holy Land / Fr Peter Vasko [The Holy Land] followed by: The Stations of the Cross. We wish all viewers the blessings and spiritual fruits of Holy Week. Presented by the Rosary Christian Tutorial Association, P.O. Box 1270, Booragoon 6954. Enq: 9330 2467.

Monday March 17

CENTENARY MASS

THE IONA PRESENTATION SCHOOLS

Invite all Sisters, Students, Parents, Past students and Friends of the College to the Centenary Mass. Venue: Challenge Stadium, Perth at 10.30 am. RSVP Louise Creasy March 10. Enq: 9384 0066 or email lcreasy@iona. wa.edu.au.

Monday March 17

THE WORLD APOSTOLATE OF FATIMA

Will be presenting the next set of talks in Fr Corapi’s Catechism series. Venue: Catholic Pastoral Centre, Highgate, commencing at 7.30pm. There is plenty of parking available and all are welcome. Enq: 9279 1964.

Panorama

a roundup of events in the Archdiocese

Wednesday March 19

TAIZE MEDITATIVE PRAYER

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

Wednesday March 19

CATHOLIC MENTAL HEALTH GROUP LESMURDIE

Starting at 7.30pm. People with Mental Health issues, carers and friends are invited to the Lesmurdie Catholic Mental Health Group meeting held at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish Hall, 207 Lesmurdie Rd, Lesmurdie on Wednesday, 19th March at 7.30pm. Further information contact Madge 9291 6397.

Friday March 21

DESOLATA SERVICE WITH MARY IN HER SORROW

7.30pm. This Liturgy is held on the evening of Good Friday in St Denis Parish Church, Roberts Street, Joondanna. We are invited to share the pain and grief of loss with Mary as we reflect on Mary’s sorrow and hope of that first Good Friday.

Friday March 21

GOOD FRIDAY CEREMONIES  CATHOLIC AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE  BINDOON

11am - Stations of the Cross, 2.30 pm Solemn ceremony - The Lord’s Passion. Confessions from 10.30am and after Stations of the Cross. To book on the coach telephone Stephen 0413 382 568. All are welcome! Enq: Fr Paul 9571 1839.

Sunday March 23

ETERNAL WORD TELEVISION NETWORK : EVERY

SUNDAY, 1  2 PM ON ACCESS 31 March 23: Easter, the most important Christian observance / Fr Benedict Groeschel with Fr

John Lynch [Sunday Night Live] The Rosary Christian Tutorial Association wishes viewers all the joys and blessings of the Holy Easter Season. Postal address: P.O. Box 1270, Booragoon 6954. Enq: 9330-2467.

Monday March 24

WALK FOR VOCATIONS

3pm HOLY MASS. At the Schoenstatt Shrine, 9 Talus Drive, Armadale. Main celebrant Bishop Don Sproxton. At 4.30pm “WAY OF LIGHT” tracing the footsteps of the Risen Lord, presented by various religious communities as well as reps. from WYD and CYM. At 6pm Sausage sizzle. At 7pm ROSARY OF LIGHT Adoration and Benediction. Please BYO folding chair. Enq: Sr M. Lisette 9399 2349 or email: shrine@elink. net.au.

Thursday March 27

HEALING MASS

You are warmly invited to this Mass beginning at 7pm in the Infant Jesus Church, 47 Wellington Road, Morley. Refreshments will follow in the Parish Centre. All Welcome. Let us come together and pray for God’s healing and peace for ourselves and our loved ones. Enq: Linda 9275 2992, Thelma 9276 5949 or Darren 9276 8500.

Friday March 28

MEDJUGORJE  EVENING OF PRAYER

Commencing at 7pm. An Evening of Prayer with Our Lady Queen of Peace at All Saints Chapel. Allendale Square, St George’s Terrace, Perth. Program: Adoration, Meditation and Rosary, followed by Holy Mass, concluding 9pm. Enq: 9402 2480.

Friday March 28

ST COLUMBA’S SOUTH PERTH

Celebrates 100 years 1908-2008

All past and present pupils, families, teachers and principals are invited to join in the cen-

tenary Celebrations at St Columba’s in 2008. The first event will be a Centenary Celebration Mass & Reunion, followed by supper and a walk through the school. Mass starts at 7pm at St Columba’s Church, South Perth. Enq: St Columba’s Primary School 9367 3666 or email: admin@stcolumbassp.wa.edu.au.

Sunday March 30 DIVINE MERCY

St Joachim’s Pro-Cathedral, Victoria Park. Program: 1.30pm Holy Rosary and Chaplet of Divine Mercy, Reconciliation will be available. 2.30pm Holy Mass. Celebrant will be Monsignor Thomas McDonald, other priests are welcome to concelebrate. 3.30pm Benediction. 3.45pm Veneration of 1st Class relic of St Faustina. Afterwards, refreshments in Parish Hall and a selection of Divine Mercy materials and DVD’s will be on offer. Enq: John 9457 7771 or Linda 9275 6608.

Sunday March 30

RUBY JUBILEE  PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF TIME.

Starting at 8.30am. Father Michael Gatt will be celebrating his Ruby Jubilee on his Anniversary Day at the same time of his Ordination. Concelebrated Mass will be held at St Kieran’s Church, Corner of Cape and Waterloo Streets, Tuart Hill. Friends and former parishioners of Fr Gatt are most welcome to attend the Mass followed by a brunch in the Parish Centre. Enq: 9444 1334.

Monday March 31 UNIVERSITY NOTRE DAME AND CARITAS AUSTRALIA

PRESENT: “THE ECONOMICS OF CHARITY WHO CARES”

5:45pm - 8.00pm at the Santa Maria Lecture Theatre (ND 1/103) 19 Mouat Street, Fremantle. An evening with: Jack De Groot CEO of Caritas Australia, Dr C. Lucy Morris CEO Community Vision Incorporated, David Gilchrist Senior Lecturer & Associate Dean of School of Business. Light snacks and beverages: Cost $10. RSVP essential by Friday 28 March. Enq: 9433 0611.

Saturday April 5 DAY WITH MARY

9am to 5pm St Bernadette’s Church, Cnr Leeder & Jugan Streets, Glendalough. A video on Fatima will be shown followed by a day of prayer and instruction based on the message of Fatima. Includes Sacrament of Penance, Holy Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, Sermons, Rosaries, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Stations of the Cross. Please BYO lunch. Enq: Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286.

Friday April 4 to Sunday April 6

GOD’S FARM RETREAT

“The God of unconditional Love, now and in the Life to Come” is the topic Retreat Master, Fr Tony Chiera VG will share with us on this quiet weekend retreat, assisted by Dr Michael Jackson. Fr Tony celebrates Holy Mass daily and reconciliation. 7.30pm to Sunday 6 April 2pm, at God’s Farm, 40kms south of Busselton. Map avail. Our hired bus goes directly from Perth to God’s Farm and return. Prompt bookings ring Yvonne 9343 1897. Reservations call Mrs Betty Peaker sfo PO Box 24, Cowaramup 6284. Phn/Fax 9755 6212.

Friday April 25

MEDJUGORJE  EVENING OF PRAYER

7pm-9pm an Evening of Prayer with Our Lady Queen of Peace at Our Lady’s Assumption Parish, 356 Grand Promenade, Dianella. Program: Adoration, Meditation and Rosary, followed by Holy Mass. Enq: 9402 2480.

Sunday May 4

THE 2008 BUSSELTON MAY ROSARY CELEBRATION IN HONOUR OF OUR LADY

12.30 pm at Queen of the Holy Rosary Shrine,

Panorama

Bove’s Farm, Roy Road, Jindong, Busselton. Holy Concelebrated Mass led by Fr Tony Chiera commences at 1pm. Rosary Procession and Benediction following Mass. Afternoon tea provided. All Welcome! For Bus bookings from Perth contact Francis 0404 893 877 or 9459 3873. Note: Roy Road runs off the Bussell Highway, approximately halfway between Busselton and Margaret River.

Friday June 6 to Friday September 26

PASTORAL CARE COURSE

For ministry with the mentally ill. 17 week course will run on Fridays, 8.45am to 3.30pm from Friday June 6 to Friday September 26. This course involves information sessions on schizophrenia, bipolar, suicide awareness, eating disorders etc plus group work and ward visits. Course donation of $100 is invited. Applications close 2nd May. Enq: Bob Milne, Graylands Hospital, Pastoral Centre 9347 6685 or 0413 325 486.

Every First Friday HOLY HOUR FOR VOCATIONS TO THE PRIESTHOOD AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE

7pm Mass at Little Sisters of the Poor Chapel, 2 Rawlins Street, Glendalough. Celebrant Fr Albert Saminedi. 7.30pm Holy Hour Adoration with Fr Don Kettle. Refreshments to follow in the hall. All welcome.

CLUB AMICI

Club Amici aims to build community amongst Catholic singles, couples and families by organising social events for people (some events are specifically for people in their 20s and 30s). If you would like a copy of our latest calendar or to be on our mailout list please contact Therese 9405 6735 or email clubamiciwa@yahoo.com.

First Friday of the Month

WITNESS FOR LIFE

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

Every Tuesday

THE GOSPEL OF ST MATTHEW

Exciting revelations into the Gospel of St Matthew are being offered in a free of charge Bible course being conducted by Fr Douglas Rowe SFP St Joachim’s Parish Hall, Shepperton Road, Victoria Park. The course will be held every Tuesday at 7.30pm. Light refreshments will follow. Please bring your bible and a friend.

PERPETUAL ADORATION OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT

Is in its fifth year at Christ the King Church, Lefroy Road, Beaconsfield. 24 hours per day, except at Mass times. All are invited to spend an hour with Jesus truly present. Entrance is from the porch, near the altar on the Lefroy Road side of the church. Enq: Joe 9319 1169.

Third Sunday of the Month

OBLATES OF ST BENEDICT MEET

Venue: St Joseph’s Convent, York Street, South Perth at 2pm. An annual Retreat is held at New Norcia, Trinity Sunday Weekend. Oblates are affiliated with Benedictine Abbey New Norcia. We celebrate our 50th Anniversary September 2008. A golden celebration. All welcome. Vespers and afternoon tea conclude monthly meeting. Enq: Secretary 9388 3026.

IS YOUR SON OR DAUGHTER UNDECIDED AFTER SCHOOL?

Is your son or daughter unsure what to do in 2008? Acts 2 College offers them a productive year discovering God’s purpose for their life while learning practical life skills. They will develop practical life skills in addition to learning more about the Catholic faith and deepen-

Panorama entries must be in by 5pm Monday. Contributions may be faxed to 9227 7087, emailed to administration@therecord.com.au or mailed to PO Box 75, Leederville, WA 6902. Submissions over 55 words will be edited. Inclusion is limited to 4 weeks. Events charging over $10 constitute a classified event, and will be charged accordingly. The Record reserves the right to decline or modify any advertisment. Please do not re-submit Panoramas once they are in print.

Classifieds: $3.30/line incl. GST 24 hour Hotline 9227 7778 Deadline: 12pm Monday

PANORAMAS cont.

Every Sunday

LATIN MASS KELMSCOTT

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

Every First Friday and First Saturday

so please invite all those in need of the healing love and power of Jesus. Enq: Jenni Young 9445 1028 or 0404 389 679.

Every First Friday of the Month

ST PIO FIRST FRIDAY MASS

7.30 pm honouring St Pio of Pietrelcina with Novena to the Sacred Heart and Prayer of Union. Join in every First Friday, St Joseph’s Parish, 20 Hamilton Street, Bassendean.

MARCH

COMMUNION OF REPARATION ALL NIGHT VIGIL

Starting Friday 7pm to 1am Saturday. Corpus Christi Church, 43 Lochee Road, Mosman Park. Prayers according to the booklet of The Alliance of the Two Hearts. Father Bogoni will say Mass and hear confessions all night concluding with Mass to honour the Immaculate Heart of Mary at 1am. Please join us even for an hour. Hymns, Rosaries and silent adoration included. Enq: Vicky 9364 2378 or Catalina 0439 931 151.

15 Farewell Mass for Fr Antonio Paganoni CS, St Brigid’s, NorthbridgeArchbishop Hickey

16 Mass of Palm Sunday, St Joachim’s Pro-Cathedral - Archbishop Hickey

17 Iona College Centenary Mass - Archbishop Hickey

18 Chrism Mass, Blessed Mary MacKillop Church, Ballajura - Archbishop Hickey, Bishop Sproxton

Australian Christian Lobby Breakfast - Fr Brian O’Loughlin VG

20 Mass of the Lord’s Supper, St Joachim’s Pro-Cathedral - Archbishop Hickey

21 Celebration of the Lord’s Passion, St Joachim’s Pro-Cathedral - Archbishop Hickey

22 Easter Vigil, St Joachim’s Pro-Cathedral - Archbishop Hickey

23

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RELIGIOUS PRODUCTS

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

■ RICH HARVEST  YOUR CHRISTIAN SHOP

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

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

PROPERTY

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We are looking for premises NORTH of Perth where we can hold daytime clinics for our clients. We require premises for a period of three to four hours during one day of the week; where we can see the clients privately and also has a waiting room. A Doctors surgery would be ideal. Similar offers would be appreciated. Our teachers are highly qualified in the field of Fertility education and management in the Billings Ovulation Method. Please contact Billings WA 0409 119 532 Marilena Scarfe.

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

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WEDDING MUSIC

■ CLASSICAL MUSIC FOR YOUR WEDDING CEREMONY

Performed by the ‘Simply Classical Quartet’ 9444 1630. Demonstration CD available.

NOVENA

Oh, most beautiful flower of Mount Carmel, fruitful vine, splendour of Heaven. Blessed Mother of the Son of God; Immaculate Virgin, assist me in my necessity. Oh, Star of the Sea, help me and show me you are my Mother. Oh Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and Earth, I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart to succour me in my necessity. (Mention your request here). There are none that can withstand your power. Oh, Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. (3 times). Holy Mary, I place this prayer in your hands. (3 times). Amen..

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