The Record Newspaper 12 December 2007

THE R ECORD

Parish. The Nation. The World.

Camels in Kelmscott? Three wise men (also bearing gifts) arrive at Kelmscott Parish last Friday evening December 10 to participate in the parish’s Nativity Play evening. The Magi, as they are also called, represent the true spirit of Christmas giving that, for many, is obscured at this time of year by the tsunami of advertising in every form of the media. The Record’s cover story this week looks at how you can give in a way that is inspired by Christ’s gift of Himself to the world - and help those in need at the same time.

Across the world, young see Church as providing the answers

COLUMBUS, Ohio, (Zenit.org)

- Instead of turning away from the faith and embracing the relativism of society, more and more youth are actually embracing the teachings of the Church, says Catholic author David Hartline.

HIS DARK MATERIALS

“The answer is that this tide continues to gather strength. Good news is abounding in the Church.”

Hartline’s book chronicles trends within the Church, showing that the negative slide in numbers and

Speaking with ZENIT, Hartline, author of The Tide Is Turning Toward Catholicism said: “Many have asked me since the release of my book earlier this year if this tide of good news will continue or if it just a temporary cause for joy.

Philip Pullman’s trilogy of novels portraying the Church as malevolent are good news for atheists; do they see him as their answer to CS Lewis?

Page 12

interest in it and its teachings is swinging in the other direction.

“When the young gravitated toward Pope John Paul II,” said Hartline, “many skeptics said this was only temporary. When Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pontiff, many said the young would leave.

“However, just the opposite hapContinued - Page 4

EMBRACING THE GRACE

Youth from across Perth gathered at New Norcia for five days last week to focus on the big picture. They had a lot of fun too, reports ANTHONY BARICH. Pages 6-7

They love it: Pope Benedict XVI arrives for his weekly general audience in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican in late November. Author David Hartline says the attraction of the young to the Church is growing, not declining, and is not temporary.

PHOTO: CNS/PAUL HARING

HOW I PRAY NOW

DEBBIE WARRIER begins a new series this week interviewing individuals about the most important thing in the whole world - how they pray.

VISTA 1

PHOTO: P ROSENGREN

National bioethicists body formed

■ By Paul Gray

Afirst-ever national association of Catholic bioethicists has been formed and will hold its inaugural meeting in Melbourne next month.

The Association of Australian Catholic Bioethicists will provide resources and “high level discussion” for state-based bioethical experts and bioethics centres like the LJ Goody Centre in Perth and Plunkett Centre in Sydney.

Rev Professor Michael Tate, a Catholic priest and former Federal Cabinet Minister in the Hawke Government, will speak on politics, war and conscience during the gathering.

Dr Nicholas Tonti-Filippini, a senior lecturer in bioethics at the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne, said the new association has come about partly because of the success of the International Association of Catholic Bioethicists.

“There was a recognition that this needs to happen locally in Australia,” he told The Record this week.

A second reason for the creation of an Australian association is the need to provide resources for provincial Catholic bioethics centres which now exist in every state.

With major bioethical conflicts over issues like stem cells and abortion emerging on a

state-by-state basis, a national organisation is needed along with local state efforts, Dr Tonti-Filippini said.

The challenge for Catholic bioethics experts has not only been the fact that they form a small community with few opportunities to get together for discussion.

“It’s also getting different disciplines together,” Dr Tonti-Filippini said. “Catholic philosophers, theologians, social workers, lawyers and medical specialists need to get together for discussion.”

The association of Catholic bioethicists has been formed with the blessing of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.

The National Assembly of the Order of Malta established the association in June, with the first meeting to take place during a national colloquium for Catholic bioethicists in Melbourne in January.

Dr Tonti-Filippini said the Order of Malta is one of the oldest orders in existence, with its involvement in hospitals and hospices dating back to the Middle Ages.

“Their strength for us is that they give us a status in the Church,” he said.

Rev Professor Michael Tate, who was a Senator for Tasmania and Justice Minister in the Hawke Government, and later entered the priesthood, will speak on his personal journey of conscience, during the association’s inaugural gathering. Rev Prof Tate was closely involved in decision-making by the Australian Government on the first Gulf War

in the early 1990s. He also played a role in revising reserve conscription legislation to give greater allowance for conscientious objection to military service. He will deliver a dinner address on these experiences during the January meeting. Bishop Michael Putney of Townsville will also speak on the mission of the Church on life matters in contemporary Australian society during the January collo-

quium. The bishop is expected to outline the thinking behind some of the bishops’ recent initiatives in the pro-life area, such as the “Walking With Love” symposium series. Abortion will be discussed during the January meeting. The Victorian state government is certain to consider legislative moves to decriminalise abortion during the next 12 months.

Marjorie’s vision inspires youth across continent in prayer for WYD

Tiwi Islander Marjorie Liddy had a vision of the Holy Spirit that has inspired thousands of young people to see the third person of the Trinity in a whole new light in anticipation of World Youth Day next year.

The theme for WYD08 is from the Bible, Acts 1:8 – “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth”. These were the last words Jesus said to his disciples before he ascended into heaven, and now Marjorie, an indigenous Australian, has revealed her vision of how Australian youth can be reminded of the importance of this quote.

It is a unique insight into Aboriginal spirituality, centred in Catholicism. After going fishing with her son, Marjorie, who lives on an outstation three hours from the nearest settlement, had a deeply moving experience when she looked up at the sky wondering

where the moon was. Suddenly she saw the image that has become synonymous with a WYD08 prayer card that has been distributed to parishes and schools around the continent – a dove, appearing as in Aboriginal dreaming – represented by white dots.

Her son also described what he saw as exactly the same thing – what Marjorie believed was the Holy Spirit, whose wings and tail filled the sky and whose crown threw out sparkles, and right there the words of a song taught to her by Sacred Heart priests and Brothers during her childhood education came to mind: “Holy Spirit in this land. Reach out and touch us as you can. From the high, high mountains to the deep, deep valleys, Holy Spirit in this land.”

Two days later she visited Bishop Ted Collins of Darwin, recently retired, and who she had known since he was a priest. He asked her to paint what she saw, and when she finished her son confirmed that he had seen exactly the same representation of what she believed to be the Holy Spirit.

She felt called to give this information and inspiration to many young people, but did not know how. She showed her painting to her local parish priest Fr Dave Tremble who entered it into a WYD competition, though she was obviously over the average age of participants. It was chosen as the image to be displayed on WYD08 prayer cards around Australia, and her dream was realised. Inquiry into a book she had previously read, called “Healing love at work”, revealed to her that the gold that appeared to fall to the earth from the crown represented Jesus’ love.

She was struck by the sense that “nothing in this world compares with the beauty, strength and power of the Spirit which Jesus has sent to protect us”. She also realised that the scope of the vision filling the sky represented the fact that we are all one family under the Holy Spirit. “Jesus gave us His mother, so we are all brothers and sisters in Christ,” Marjorie said. Her vision reflects the term “The Great South Land of the Holy Spirit”, which is believed to have been coined by explorer Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, who sailed here under the Spanish flag in 1606.

Hosted by the Catholic Youth Ministry and Perth’s WYD Office, Marjorie recalled her story to over 40 young people at the Catholic Pastoral Centre in Highgate on November 28.  ANTHONY BARICH

EDITOR

Peter Rosengren cathrec@iinet.net.au

JOURNALISTS Anthony Barich abarich@therecord.com.au Sylvia Defendi sdefendi@iinet.net.au Paul Gray cathrec@iinet.net.au Mark Reidy reidyrec@iinet.net.au

Big step forward: John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family senior bioethics lecturer Dr Nicholas Tonti-Filippini says the new association has the success of the International Association of Catholic Bioethicists to thank for its existence. PHOTO: PAUL GRAY

Mystical: The symbol of the Holy Spirit, as painted by Marorie Liddy according to the vision she says she had one night on her outstation on Melville Island.

Embracing: Marjorie Liddy (centre) with Perth youth at the Catholic Pastoral Centre after regaling them with her story on November 28.

PHOTO: ANTHONY BARICH

Bringing Christ’s love to orphans through teddies

■ By Anthony Barich

Perth woman Marianne Deliu will be taking ‘Christmas spirit’ to another level this year.

For the past year, Marianne, 24, felt the call to join an overseas mission, and recently Catholic Mission director Francis Leong gave her the means to do it under the guise of a program called Leave With A

Mission. Thanks to Francis’ connections with overseas missions, Marianne and her mother Deborah left on December 11 to spend six weeks in a South African HIV/ AIDS orphanage centre run by the St John of God Sisters within the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Sisters’ community, which houses 120 kids.Thirteen students who are learning English through sewing classes with the

Briefly...

Christian Brothers say yes to social justice

The Christian Brothers have adopted social justice as their primary focus for the future.

One of the oldest educational orders in Australia, the brothers this year formed the new province of Oceania, which held its first formal meeting in Brisbane recently, with members from Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand attending.

At the meeting, the Edmund Rice Educational Association, also newly formed, was charged with responsibility for the Christian Brothers’ future educational work.

Two positive signs for the future were discussed during the Oceania province meeting: increasing numbers of temporarily professed brothers in developing nations and the outreach by communities of brothers to indigenous and neighbouring cultures.

Life office hits back on sperm donor law

The right of children to know their parents was thrust into the forefront of public debate with further controversy over NSW IVF laws this week.

A new NSW law has tightened the requirements for IVF sperm donors to provide personal and family information about themselves which could be used by a future child born under IVF to track them down.

The new rules were criticised prominently in the NSW press by a Sydney academic, Jenni Millbank, as being an undue interference in the privacy rights of sperm donors.

Dr Brigid McKenna from the Sydney Archdiocesan Life Office hit back, saying donor conception is much more serious than the donation of anything else.

“It is not equivalent to the donation of cultural artifacts or heirlooms, but involves the coming to be of new human beings,” Dr McKenna said.

Adult Migrant Education Service run by West Coast TAFE at a Girrawheen Community Centre have lovingly dressed up 33 teddy bears that Marianne will give the South African HIV/AIDS orphans they will be working with over the coming Christmas season.

The students are women refu-

gees from Eritrea, Macedonia, Afghanistan, Burma, Lebanon, Sudan and Ethiopia – people who have suffered much and offered to send gifts of love back to the children in a struggling country who are in dire need of love.

Marianne is not the only person who has taken up this initiative to

Leave with a Mission this Christmas holidays. Francis has also set up two other people to travel to Burma and Zambia.

Leave With a Mission is open to anyone who wants to do something meaningful on their Christmas trip. Contact Francis at Catholic Mission on 9422 7933 or catholicmissionperth@bigpond. com.

Moved by the desperate plight of Christians in the Holy Land and throughout the Middle East, the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has been supporting the country’s beleaguered Christian population.

Sadly, due to ongoing violence and oppression, the proportion of Christians in the Holy Land has plummeted from 20 percent to as little as 1.4 percent in the last 40 years.

ACN is helping to keep faith and hope alive throughout the region by providing urgent aid to priests, religious and lay people, offering subsistence help to refugees and building and repairing churches and convents. Please help us strengthen and rebuild the Church in the land of Christ’s birth.

A beautiful, handcrafted crib, made of olive wood in Bethlehem, will be sent to all those who give a donation of $20.00 or more to help this campaign.

Please tick the box below if you would like to receive the little olive wood crib*.

Help Keep Christianity Alive in the Holy Land and Middle East

Send To: Aid to the Church in Need, POBox 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148

Phone/Fax No: (02) 9679-1929 E-mail: info@aidtochurch.org Web: www.aidtochurch.org

I/We enclose $................ to help keep Christianity alive in the Holy Land and Middle East.

0Yes please send me the little olive wood crib*

Made of olive wood from the Holy Land, this delightful little crib scene is powerfully evocative of Christ’s birthplace.

The cribs are lovingly, handcrafted by poverty stricken families in Bethlehem and your donation helps them survive.

(Size:10.5 cm x 10.5 cm x 5.5 cm)

AID TO THE CHURCH IN NEED ... A Catholic charity dependent on the Holy See, providing pastoral relief to needy and oppressed Churches.

Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms/Rev

Address

Australia’s Best Car Dealership

Carsguide customers have voted the John Hughes Group ‘Australia’s best car dealership’.

The Dealer of the Year reader’s choice competition was conducted by Carsguide, Australia’s biggest automotive online vehicle classified brand.

The survey asked car buyers to rate dealers according to their range, service, knowledge and price. Mr Hughes and his group, described by happy customers as a “breath of fresh air”, were clear winners.

Mr Hughes, who employs 485 people in Perth, said he was extremely proud of the win. “Particularly when told we were nominated by our customers. This is an Australian wide recognition of the passion of all of our employees in achieving this outstanding level of customer service.”

Beyond borders: Marianne Deliu with the students who made the teddies.

Bible synod aims at refiring Catholic Scripture passion

■ By Cindy Wooden

ROME (CNS) - The world Synod of Bishops on the Bible should help reignite “passion for the word of God in the Church,” said Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, secretary-general of the synod.

“The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church” is the theme Pope Benedict XVI has chosen for the October 5-26 synod.

During a December 4-5 conference at Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, Archbishop Eterovic spoke about the synod and about the hundreds of submissions made by bishops’ conferences, religious orders and individuals about an

outline of the topic and a list of questions about Catholics and the Bible published last April.

The archbishop said the responses show a widespread desire to recover the interest and enthusiasm for studying and praying with the Bible that marked the years immediately after the Second Vatican Council.

The council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (“Dei Verbum”) led to a greater appreciation for the Scriptures, which in turn led to a renewal in the fields of preaching, religious education, theology, spirituality and ecumenical relations, Archbishop Eterovic said.

“However, the responses indicate

there have been gaps in the knowledge of the Bible, partiality in its interpretation (and) omissions in the area of the biblical apostolate,” he said. “Our hope is that the synod assembly will help recover the passion for the word of God in the Church.”

Mgr Fortunato Frezza, undersecretary of the synod office, said that while there were “many, many” responses to the synod outline the exact number of submissions is “reserved for now.”

The synod’s preparatory council is scheduled to meet on January 2223 to examine the submissions and begin drafting the synod’s working document.

Young seeing answer in Church

Continued from Page 1 -pened, the young remained and could easily relate to Benedict XVI’s comments on the ‘dictatorship of relativism.’”

“Many young people saw what the relativistic culture was doing to their friends and family,” he continued. “It was tearing them apart.

“One only need look at various youth conferences around the world where there are long lines for the confessional and Eucharistic adoration and where the recitation of the Rosary is greeted by large crowds.”

“Recently in the United States,” he added, “the National Catholic Youth Conference held in Columbus, Ohio, saw over 20,000 in attendance. The numbers were triple that of conferences held 15 years ago.”

“More young people are embracing the core of our 2,000-year-old

faith and rejecting the latest whims and trends that society is throwing at them,” Hartline emphasised. He added: “The number of seminarians and postulants to women’s religious orders continued to increase, most notably in Africa and Asia but also Europe and North America. This autumn it was reported that 8 million converts came into the Church last year from Asia and Africa, while 3,000 priests were ordained on those two continents.”

“The young,” Hartline explained, “continue to use their talents for the Church in various entertainment forms. Many younger Catholic athletes regularly speak out about their faith to various Catholic media,” while “Catholic-oriented films like Bella showcase rising stars like Leo Severino, Eduardo Verástegui and Alejandro Monteverde.”

The author said that in an interview he did with Verástegui “the young actor explained why he walked away from being exalted as the next Latin lover of the silver screen. Turning down millions, he decided that he wanted to star in and produce movies that not only his own mother would enjoy, but also the Blessed Mother.”

“While some Christian churches are in a free fall,” said Hartline, “the Catholic Church is one of the only organised churches growing. Many people attribute this to Benedict XVI’s strong leadership, but it is also because of the gift of the teaching authority of the Church, which frees us from our beliefs being molded by those who dissect opinion polls.

“As you can see, there is much to be thankful for this Christmas. Indeed the tide is turning.”

In his presentation at the December conference, Archbishop Eterovic said special attention should be paid to improving translations of the Bible, guaranteeing that they are accurate and that the faithful are furnished with commentaries that help them understand the passages the way the Church understands them.

He said many of the bishops’ responses to the outline focused particularly on the need to help Catholics understand the way the Church has understood the Bible with the help of its tradition and what it has taught over time.

“The synod reflection, then, should take up again the theme of

the relationship between Scripture and tradition from which the Church knows the sacred deposit of faith and which is interpreted in an authentic way by the magisteriumthat is, by the Pope and the bishops who are in communion with the bishop of Rome,” he said.

The archbishop also said there is need for a renewed effort to help Catholics draw closer to the Bible in order to help them draw closer to Jesus. Also, he said, “a renewed familiarity with the word of God could have a positive influence on the pastoral activity of the Church in the contemporary world, particularly in the promotion of peace, justice, hope and love.”  CNS

Notre Dame marks Law School’s 10th birthday

Law alumni, current and past staff, donors and many members of Perth’s legal community gathered at The University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle recently to celebrate the School of Law’s 10th anniversary.

The School was opened in 1997 and since then has proved to be one of the fastest growing law schools in the country, receiving enormous support from the local legal profession.

The celebration started with food and drinks, before the Chair of the School’s Advisory Board, The Hon Justice Robert Mazza, past student, Andrew Baker and the Executive Dean of Law, Professor Michael Gillooly, gave addresses.

Professor Gillooly said, “judged by any criteria, the Law School has been an outstanding success – it has continually punched above its weight, and carved for itself a distinctive niche amongst Australian law faculties”.

“The gathering underlines the magnificent support the Law School has always received from both the legal profession and the broader community,” said Professor Gillooly.

Judge Robert Mazza said the School’s heart and reason for being

here is its foundation ethos, ‘to love one’s neighbour.’

“The purpose of the Law School is to produce skilled and practical lawyers, able to cope with a changing world, and steeped in the idea of ethical service not simply for profit, but for the betterment of others.

“Without this idea this Law School would be like every other and, frankly, there would have been little point in establishing it, but the fact we stand for an idea makes this Law School the exciting and worthwhile place that it is now and has been over the last 10 years,” said Justice Mazza.

Special awards were given to foundation staff members Bruce Bott and Professor Mary McComish for their contribution to the school over the past decade.

● Notre Dame is inviting one and all to its Christmas eve Mass, to be held in St Teresa’s Library courtyard starting with Christmas carols at 6.30pm and Mass at 7pm. Because WA is still in the grip of daylight saving, those intending to be there are also being urged to bring a hat and sunglasses.

Meanwhile, the University has set up a Nativity scene on the corner of High and Mouat streets in Fremantle.

Honouring her: Men carry a statue of the Virgin of Caacupe past thousands of pilgrims into the cathedral in Caacupe, Paraguay, at sunrise on December 8. Hundreds of thousands of Catholics from all over Paraguay and bordering countries visited the cathedral from December 7-9 to honour Mary and pray for her intercession. PHOTO: CNS/JORGE ADORNO, REUTERS

Parish celebrates with shepherds, kings and... camels

Hundreds of locals converged on Good Shepherd Parish in Kelmscott for the Parish’s Nativity Play on Friday evening December 7.

The huge turnout was the result of collaboration between the Parish and its Primary School, also called Good Shepherd, with the majority of families and children in attendance from the school.

As families sat down to relax over a barbecue meal on a pleasant summer evening hundreds of children quickly scattered to amuse themselves in the grounds of the church playing tug-of-war, flying Frisbees, kicking balls around or hopping on to swings.

Students from Good Shepherd Primary entertained the crowd with Christmas carols and then quickly exited centre stage to don costumes for their roles in the Nativity.

Scenes from the Christmas story - Mary and the Angel, the Holy Family and the Manger, the shepherds and St Joseph – were all acted out beautifully by the children.

However Parish Priest Fr Francis Sundararajan had organised a surprise as well – also in attendance were the three kings, each atop his own camel.

The entrance of the wise men atop their camel friends had the eyes of younger members of the audience popping. It was a real community-building evening, and one with a message for all in attendance as well.

As the children gathered afterwards waiting to receive presents distributed by the wise men from the east Fr Francis explained the Christmas story and its deeper message of God’s love revealed in a baby.

Children then got to question the three wise men about anything they wanted to ask and, as it transpired the kings did not actually speak English, Fr Francis stepped in to translate, and explain, more details of why God sent His Son into the world for us.  STORY, PHOTOS: P. ROSENGREN

Celebration: A satisfied customer receives a present from one of the three wise men, at top, and a shepherd turns to face the camera during Good Shepherd Parish’s Nativity Play on Friday December 7 at Kelmscott. Apart from the three kings, children from Good Shepherd Primary School acted out all the roles of the real story of Christmas, including the Anunciation and as St Joseph and Mary. Later, Fr Francis explained the story and translated the wise kings’ answers to children’s questions as well.

The Parish. The Nation. The World.

“You will be my witnesses

For the fourth time in as many years, up to 100 people aged 16-35 travelled to the old monastic town of New Norcia for intellectual, spiritual and human Catholic formation at Embrace The Grace youth conference. After his first attendance last year on behalf of The Record, Anthony Barich returned with a different role, and returned to Perth afterwards with a different outcome...

Last year I came on Embrace the Grace primarily to report on the youth conference for The Record Though I was “on the job”, I can’t deny it helped me to develop a better understanding of just what it is to be Catholic, and live as one actively in the world.

I returned this year primarily because Bronia Karniewicz - the new director of the Archdiocesan Respect Life Office that runs the conference - asked me to be a community group leader.

The experience is different when you’re there to serve others rather than to simply absorb information and submerge yourself in the community of like-minded young people aged 16-36 that you’re surrounded by.

Constant concerns about the organisation of the next event in

the program were cast aside somewhat by the strength I found in new friendships which I discovered when I took an active interest in those to whom I had been given pastoral responsibility.

These friendships revealed to me the life of an important part of the Church, in one sense: the doubts and inspirations of young Catholics, searching for meaning and understanding of life in God and their own place in the world.

A handful of the young people there, one of whom was in my group of 18, were not Catholic, but were invited by people already active in the Church.

They came with varying degrees of openness of heart and mind, but they were understandably daunted by the somewhat confronting music and sounds that prefaced each special guest’s talk that invariably cen-

tred around faith in action. There were also those who were baptised Catholic but were struggling in their own faith journey.

On a pastoral level, I hope the seed was at least planted in their hearts that they are not aloneeveryone, as I made clear in a brief address at the end, struggles in some way.

Young man Clayton Walsh gave a stunning example of such a struggle.

A former drug user who was on the verge of suicide, he recounted his testimony to a gob-smacked conference about his conversion, which started simply with someone giving him the idea of Christianity and introduced the Bible to him.

After a long journey, he was baptised almost a year ago, and has not looked back.

This was humbling for me, and

I’m sure for others there, that no matter how bad it gets, God will give us the graces to claw our way back if we accept the opportunities that come our way to get to know Him.

While I accepted that as conference leaders we would not please all people all the time, if things were done with love, then there is less chance of someone being repelled from this opportunity.

Though I had already been aware of this concept before, the conference helped me see it with greater clarity. With Aquinas College Religious Education coordinator Paul Kelly and Bronia giving talks on how we can embrace our masculinity and femininity respectively, I also became more acutely aware of the necessity to be decisive in life while acting in love to become all that God wants us to be.

Riveted: Katherine Radosevich, the MC for the week, listens intently as Archbishop Barry Hickey gives a sermon during Mass at New Norcia.

Solo moment: David Tereira plays away. Below, Fr Don Kettle enjoys a light moment at the conference.

Celebrations: Clayton Walsh (middle) rejoices after giving his moving testimony. He said he felt a “spiritual high” after telling his story and being subsequently spoken to by many. Below, Katherine Radosevich serving up a treat at mealtime..

Tight: Aleisha D’Lima and and Erin Joyce enjoy friendship.

Groovy: Angela Williams and Josh Stock rock on in the heat at New Norcia. Josh was a member of the music team. PHOTOS: PAUL BUI

to the ends of the earth...”

General practitioner and Fertility Care doctor Jing Man Kho rounded out these concepts in the context of human sexuality, linking it all with what we are called to do as opposed to what our culture so often offers us as attractive alternatives.

With all this in mind, I got to know others’ struggles while serving them in leadership.

So with Caroline Nevin, my fellow community group leader, I organised opportunities for the people in our group, aged 20-25, to get to know each other without being too confronting about things.

The talks, it must be said, were magnificent. Matt Tan, a member of the Neocatechumenal Way in Brisbane, gave a talk on the consumerist world we live in.

He related it to the Wachowski Brothers’ movie The Matrix, where the world lives, unknowingly, in

conformity to something they’re not aware of.

The link to our world is that we are living in a consumer culture, but we can choose to live for someone who accepts us for whoever we are, rather than for a culture where superficialities are so ingrained that we don’t even realise it when we make choices in our lives.

His point was that the Catholic Church offers that which few others can - Christ present in the Eucharist, and the sacrifice is evident in our everyday lives, if we only open ourselves to His presence in our lives.

Speaking on the topic “Knowledge is power”, The Record editor Peter Rosengren expanded on this idea, analysing the effect of the media on the culture we are surrounded by, and once again stressed the importance of being counter-cultural by developing communities of faithful

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and holding fast to the Truth.

Perth’s WYD coordinator Anita Parker stole the show, however, with a stirring speech on how young people can turn their faith and prayer life, however it is, into action to bring about the Kingdom of God and strengthen each other in the life of the Church.

“Mercy Night” on the Friday night is always a highlight of the conference, as it’s the culmination of three days of serious talks interspersed with casual discussion of how they relate to our lives, inside the dynamic of a community of sorts.

On this night, Adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is on offer, along with Reconciliation and two groups of three were designated to pray with conference participants for any special petitions.

I was part of one such prayer

team. And while battling the cold was never far from my mind, offering up prayer on behalf of other people, with them, was a new phenomenon for me, and the fact that they approached us in confidence was edifying. I hope I did them justice.

But it wasn’t all serious talks and reflections on life, the universe and everything.

After sleeping on the deep events of the Friday night, Saturday presented us with the culmination of all the activities my fellow community leaders and I had prepared within our groups, the “Olympics”.

This very competitive event that starts with us performing the chant based on our saint that we’d worked so hard on, followed by sports - I use that term loosely - that generally involve getting wet, dirty and puffed.

Taking one for the team under Jesus’ own concept of ‘the first shall be last’, I offered myself as the sacrificial lamb to have shaving cream smeared over my face so that my minions could throw cheese balls at me in the hope that more of them would stick to me than to any one else.

According to the “judges”, the St Francis group that Caroline and I had built with so much blood (I did bleed during the Olympics) and sweat didn’t win it.

But I don’t doubt for a second that with the life-affirming activities and deep discussion we shared together, we were winners in so many ways, even if all of us still have a long way to go in our faith journeys.

With apologies to the writers of the St Francis movie Brother Sun, Sister Moon, “We Give Thanks”.

* erisjdeputy@powerdsl.com.au www.ercfremantle.org

Applications Close: 28 December 2007

All-conquering: Our intrepid reporter (with ball) getting amongst it.

Kodak moment: Sr Maria Mori, Fr John O’Reilly and Jane Pike share a moment.

Perspective & Review

Treating women better

TArchbishop Barry Hickey’s new series of talks focus on Morality and the Catholic faith.The new series and all his previous talks can be viewed on www.perthcatholic.org.au.

he two main requirements for living a moral life are to know what is right and wrong, and to develop the strength of mind and will to be able to do what is right consistently.

Contraception is one of the most important moral issues facing our community, and it is probably the one that is least understood.

Its most common form – the pill – was developed to give women control over reproduction. However, it is badly flawed in its understanding of human nature.

It has given rise to a contraceptive mentality. This the misguided notion that human happiness is achieved by taking drugs that disrupt the natural human state.

This is a false assumption that is made about many drugs, but when it interferes with our relationship with life itself, it is most serious.

In marriage, couples give themselves fully to one another, and agree to respect and accept responsibility for the gifts they receive from each other.

The contraceptive mentality denies this fundamental relationship and declares that people – women in particular – are acceptable only if they render themselves sterile by a daily dose of drugs.

Human sexuality and human fertil-

ity are naturally united, and human happiness requires that they be lived and expressed in that unity. When they are artificially separated, the entire relationship is affected.

The first consequence of this chemical intrusion on the wholeness of marriage was that marriages began to break down at previously unimaginable rates, and they continue to do so.

The second consequence was the great suffering inflicted on children by family breakdown, suffering which has lasting effects on many of them.

The third consequence was the development of an animosity towards life which has resulted in abortion, the deliberate destruction of babies in the womb, being seen simply as an extension of the contraceptive process.

The fourth consequence is harder to quantify, but it is the harm done to children through growing up in families where, even if they feel welcome, they know that other children – potentially their brothers and sisters – are not welcome.

For girls, in particular, society’s anti-children mentality creates confusion about the meaning of their identity as the cradle of life.

I will deal with the positive alternative to contraception in my next talk. There must be a better way to treat women.

The riches of NFP

The alternative to contraception is first and foremost a generous openness to life, a willingness by two people to share their life with the children who come to them from God.

This generosity of spirit is the foundation of families in which the lives of children are enriched by brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins, and further enriched by the opportunities to be uncles and aunts themselves as the generations extend. These are families in which Catholic family values can be shared and reinforced in a great variety of ways.

This sort of married life is not, as cynics like to pretend, an endless process of producing one child after another without thought or consideration.

It is marriage supported by the knowledge and freedom of natural family planning which enables couples to make decisions with confidence in relation to personal and family circumstances.

Natural family planning is not just another way of expressing a contraceptive or anti-child mentality.

It is marriage in which couples accept one another in the fullness

of who they are and live in shared awareness of the cycles of life within their relationship. It involves much greater intimacy and mutual love and respect.

This truth has been experienced in all sorts of cultures around the world.

Australian doctors John and Evelyn Billings spent ten years trying to persuade the Chinese Communists to allow them to teach their famous Billings Method of natural family planning.

When they gained permission by proving the effectiveness of the method, the Billings Method took off like wild fire.

Chinese couples took to it as a way out of the negativity and side effects of contraception. Now they support it because it enriches the intimacy and fidelity of their married love.

When people who face China’s brutally enforced ‘one-child’ policy can so willingly embrace the blessings of natural family life, Australians should have no fear about throwing off the shackles of contraception.

The culture of life embraces the fullness of our humanity, and enriches every part of it, especially marriage and family.

Insightful essays a gift

God and Caesar: Selected Essays on Religion, Politics and Society

By Cardinal George Pell, Edited by M. A. Casey: (Connor Court Press, Bacchus Marsh, Victoria)

■ by Hal G. P. Colebatch

To review a book by Australia’s Cardinal in a Catholic newspaper may give rise to suspicions of sycophancy, which may be why the Editor in his wisdom selected a non-Catholic to do the job.

However, this collection of Cardinal George Pell’s essays needs no apologetics or special pleading.

I believe that even someone as militantly anti-religious as George Orwell would have to admit that they are in the highest tradition of the essay – indeed looked at from a purely literary point of view they are among the best Australian essays I have seen for a long time, elegantlywritten, highly learned, graceful and clear.

The overarching theme of most of these essays is the indispensable and essential nature of the partnership of religious faith with reason and truth, or, as he puts in the closing words of the final essay, “the unbreakable linkage between god, truth and freedom.”

The first essay, “Law and Morality,” looks at, among other things, the rise and subsequent partial fall of atheism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

It is a penetrating examination of the fundamental problem of what Michael Novak called in his Templeton Prize Address: “vulgar relativism” or “nihilism with a happy face.”

This essay can be seen as part of the great intellectual effort which the church under Pope Benedict is now making to reassert, in the face of post-modernism, deconstructionism and moral relativism, the fact that “truth matters.” Cardinal Pell quotes Novak’s clarion call:

“’There is no such thing as truth,’ they teach the little ones. ‘Truth is bondage. Believe what seems right to you. There are as many truths as there are individuals. Follow your feelings. Do as you please. Get in touch with yourself. Do what seem comfortable.’

Those who speak this way prepare the jails of the 21st Century. They do the work of tyrants.”

There is also a lucid essay on questions of the moral legitimacy of democracy.

Cardinal Pell points out here that Australia is not a secular society, despite being frequently described as such in the media.

At the last census 64% of Australians said they were Christian (since the question on religion is not compulsory

the actual number was probably higher).

He comments: “The American historian and social commentator Gertrude Himmelfarb once told of an academic who was convinced that a conspiracy had made Ronald Reagan President of the United States, because noone he knew had voted for him.

This is like our situation, where a disproportionately secular opinion-forming class assumes that everyone else is secular too.”

Cardinal Pell can deal with large, and sometimes hard and difficult, questions with a light and illuminating touch.

In “God, Evolution and Consilience” he writes: “If we want a symbol of the proper relationship of science to religion, let us not adopt examples such as Galileo or the human experimentation of the Nazis, which show religion and science at their worst or most foolish, but examples that show them at their best: perhaps the marvels of medical science and what it has made possible for human development in the postwar years, or further back in time, Pope Gregory XIII altering, despite opposition, the calendar in 1582 to align it with the true movement of the Earth. This led to the disturbance of rents and taxes and caused riots in Frankfurt over the ten ‘lost days.’

England came into line only in 1753, by which time eleven days had to be ‘lost,’ which also caused riots ...”

For me, one of the most interesting essays in this collection is “The Case for God,” which examines the known scientific facts about the creation of the universe and provides a clearlyreasoned counter to the recent spate of populist Atheist books by Richard Dawkins, A. C. Grayling and Christopher Hitchens.

The metaphysics of Creation are explained lucidly, and, as far as I am able to judge, with scientific accuracy. He continues:

“I]t is true that the First Cause is unlike every other cause. That is why we call god ‘the Creator.’

The term indicates not one who puts things together to make new objects, like a joiner or technician, but one who brings about things where previously there was nothing. God’s causality, we say, is ex nihilo – from nothing. Dawkins is right that this sort of causality is incomprehensible to us.

But there are two types of incomprehensibility: some things are incomprehensible because of our limitations.

Some things are incomprehensible because they exceed comprehension. This latter incomprehensibility is what Christians mean when they refer to God’s causality as “essentially mysterious.”

It is not that our minds are too weak to grasp it but that it is not graspable by any mind, however strong.

It is quite rational to believe in something essentially mysterious if there are good grounds for doing so. Indeed, anyone with a

spiritual sense of any sort will do just that.”

“The role of the Bishop in Promoting the Gospel of Life” is a thoroughly-researched and somewhat alarming examination of the developed world’s sudden and largely unforeseen population implosion, and a great aging of populations.

This essay also makes the interesting point that between the 1999 and 2001 census the percentage of people identifying themselves as irreligious in Australia actually declined for the first time in a century.

One of the most interesting sections in this chapter is concerned with Faith and Reason. Cardinal Pell says:

“The systematic and intellectual search for truth develops from our sense of awe and wonder, which is rooted in our nature; such a search is also lifeenhancing.

We are born to know, and it is one of humanity’s greatest achievements (and a blessing) that we know so much. Knowledge as such is no threat or insult to God our Creator; rather, it is a tribute to God, reflecting the development and use of gifts he has given us.

“Pope John Paul spoke in this encyclical [fides et ratio] of faith and reason as ‘two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth’.”

He also makes the point that:

“In the early 19th Century the militant secularism that arose out of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution confidently predicted a “withering away of religion” as the life of man was increasingly placed on a “scientific” footing.

If one thing is clear to us as we commence the third Christian millennium it is that this great conceit has been utterly discredited.

The failure of the secularisation thesis has been spectacular, and not only in the Western nations, where it was first expected to be discredited.”

I hope these small samples from some of the chapters will give some idea of the depth and richness of the ideas in this book, written in a clear and accessible style.

It would make a fine Christmas present, and supporting its publisher, the brave new enterprise of Connor Court, would also be a good thing.

A mother’s prayer

This week The Record begins a new series by Debbie Warrier - interviews with individuals who speak about how they pray. This week: Amanda Lamont, doctor and mother.

How I Pray Now

Ifind myself in a new part of life being a new mum. How I pray has changed a lot. Daily Mass is important to my husband Dwayne and me. That’s been really challenging with a new baby, as he is often asleep at Mass time! Recently we’ve been able to go more regularly. It’s a pivotal part of my prayer life. Sunday Masses are wonderful family celebrations, but for me daily Mass brings a different level of intimacy with Jesus.

Dwayne and I take it in turns to look after Samuel while the other goes to Adoration. It’s lovely to have an hour alone with the Lord, and it’s even better when all three of us can be there together. We often brought Samuel along when he was in his less mobile days. Dwayne and I are blessed to share our

faith and love for God. There is so much for us to learn about married spirituality. It’s an exciting challenge. Our family is part of the Disciples of Jesus community.

It seems that the way mothers pray is to snatch five to ten minute interludes during the day. I enjoy the Divine Office. I usually get through about half a psalm whilst breast feeding! I treasure Mass, Adoration, the Rosary etc. But those informal prayers are mainly how I pray at the moment. In the car I pray the Rosary or sing ‘God-songs’ with Samuel. We have a few altars in the house. The room that was our chapel is now Samuel’s room. That’s something we would love to have permanently; a little family chapel in our house.

As a mother I need to find a new way to that place of prayer within. There just aren’t the same possibilities for long periods of quiet contemplation, with a gorgeous 9-month old around! And of course I wouldn’t change it for the world. So I’ll just have to trust that the Lord will show me how. I often think of mum’s prayers for us; her witness probably had more influence than I was aware of. A mother’s prayers are powerful.

There was a time when I didn’t go to Mass regularly. I finished university and went out to the big, brave world of medicine. I only went to Mass at Christmas, Easter and a few times in between. I still talked to God, but I wanted to try some other way of living.

I went traveLling and had a re-conversion experience in France. I was spending some time at Taize, an ecumenical community. I loved the chapel in the grounds of the community. It was atmospheric with light, music and water fountains. I had just gone to confession and was praying there on my own. I was suddenly filled with joy. It was a baptism in the Spirit. I had a real awareness of the love of God for me, his prodigal daughter. After that I went to Scotland. That’s where I found out about FertilityCare. It is clear to me that it is the Lord who called me to work with FertilityCare, definitely a vocation. It is the kind of work which is a natural extension of prayer. In our building we have a little chapel which helps to keep us focused on the true source of the successes of our ministry.

Vista

Giving with LOVE

Why not give a pilgrimage?

Give the gift that keeps on giving this Christmas – a World Youth Day 2008 Gift Voucher!

World Youth Day Sydney 2008 is providing parents, grandparents, teachers and friends the perfect Christmas present solution for any young relatives or friends: a WYD Gift Voucher. With the event just around the corner, the gift of the WYD08 experience will be unforgettable. The voucher can fund all or part of the pilgrim registration fee to attend the events held from 15-20 July, 2008.

WYD08 will attract over 125,000 international visitors to Sydney, with up to 500,000 people expected to attend the largest single event. It will also mark the first visit to Australia by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.

Organised by the Catholic Church, but open to all, World Youth Day helps young people build bridges of friendship and hope between continents, peoples and cultures.

It will mark a spiritual rejuvenation of many young Catholics and Christians as well as the Australian Catholic Church.

The Gift Vouchers are available on the WYD08 website: www.wyd2008.org/giftvoucher

The top tier registration for an Australian pilgrim is Package A ($395), for the entire week and includes accommodation, free public transport, all meals, a pilgrim backpack chockful of items, priority access to events and emergency cover.

Sydneysiders can purchase Package B ($335) which excludes accommodation.

In this time of musthave toys and crowded malls we often forget the true reason for gift giving – to share our love with others in imitation of God sharing with us his Son.

■ By Kimberly Heatherington

It’s a holiday ritual as practised – though perhaps not as cherished – as unpacking the nativity set or untangling the Christmas-tree lights: How much to spend? Balancing generous impulses with economic realities is never easy, but it can be particularly tricky during the holidays, when gift–giving decisions can mean the difference between cherished memories and a sound fiscal forecast of anxiety triggered by months of crushing post-celebration bills.

with Debbie Warrier

Children in the Philippines play in front of Christmas trees made of twigs.

PRESENTS THAT GIVE BACK Giving

If singing is, as St Augustine proposed, like praying twice, then perhaps giving a present tha

Caritas www.caritas .org.au

Giving - to those who have little or nothing, helping to

build dignity

Christmas tree ornaments from Caritas Australia give you the chance to change the lives of people right across the world.

Christmas is about giving and sharing and Caritas Australia’s Global Gifts will enable you to give the gift of play to children in Bolivia, the gift of joy to Indigenous Australians in Balgo, the gift of peace to the child victims of war in Northern Uganda and the gift of a healthier environment to the people of India.

In Papua New Guinea your gift will give hope to 150 young ‘street boys’ and enable them to develop a skill base from which they can realise sustainable livelihoods through organic farming methods.

By giving a gift of hope, peace, joy, play and environment to your loved ones this Christmas, not only are you providing them with a beautiful gift, you are changing the world and the lives of those less fortunate.

These young males are unemployed and a number of them have been involved in criminal activities.

Their participation in this program however, has brought them out of this unfortunate situation and has slowly transformed them into becoming productive citizens of the community.

This has given them another chance to prove their worth and somehow regain their ‘lost’ place in the community.

In Bolivia your gift enables Caritas Australia to partner with the Educar es Fiesta Creative Arts Centre in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The centre works with adolescents and children some as young as six, who have been forced to live on the streets.

In many of these cases home is a cemetery or a rubbish tip. Without family relationships, economic stability or emotional support, Caritas Australia provides a nurturing envi-

Reason for the season

“It’s hard to not be impacted be the messages you hear,” said Phil Lenahan, founder of Veritas Financial Ministries and author of “7 steps to Becoming Financially Free.”

“Between television, radio and the Internet, we have a lot of messages thrown at us. You’re going to be bombarded with them. What’s important is that we stay well-grounded in what the real reason for the season is.” “It’s very easy for people to get sucked in

ronment where young people receive the opportunity to express themselves through art and creative activities.

Through this program, children and young adults build self-esteem and confidence, with a view to returning to school or gaining employment.

In Northern Uganda your gift of peace will enable Caritas Australia to provide agricultural training and resources as a first step to helping people get back on their feet after decades of brutal war. Tens of thousands of child soldiers were drafted in to fight the war and now the struggle for peace has come, the long road to reintegration is underway.

By providing counselling and life skills training, healthy communities are beginning to emerge and through the work of Caritas agencies, peace is being built – piece by piece.

In Australia your gift will enable Caritas Australia to continue to support Palyalatju Maparnpa Health Committee’s youth project in the Kimberley where Indigenous youth are working in collaboration with elders and other leaders in the community to bring about changes in their lives.

Through the provision of positive youth activities such as family nights, bush trips, camps, drama workshops, photography and sporting events the project has been successful in reducing the incidence of self harm and substance misuse amongst young people in the area.

In India your gift for the Environment enables Caritas Australia to provide some of the poorest farmers in India, on marginal coastal areas in the South, with improved cropping and clean drinking water.

By supporting a range of natural resource management programs including rain water harvesting and better crop management, Caritas is improving the livelihoods of people in India by directly increasing their ability to produce and to earn.

in Perth can be contacted on (08) 9422 7925

by these influences,” agreed Father Daniel Mahan, executive director of Indianapolis’ Marian College Centre for Catholic Stewardship, “and to go out Christmas shopping without even thinking of things like the budget, or whether they can afford these elaborate and lavish gifts – and without thinking of what would really make a truly significant gift for the person they have in mind.”

Colleen Smith, editor of Our Sunday Visitor’s Grace In Action stewardship bulletin insert, said “it really does take some restraint

Supporting missionaries around the globe as they preach the Good News of Jesus Christ, risen from the dead to people everywhere

■ By Sylvia Defendi

APerth initiative will see that Christ is put back into Christmas this year with the help of a fun quiz.

Perth’s Catholic Mission Office came up with the idea of producing Christmas quiz cards only a few months ago and is yet to distribute them across the metro area to parishes and individuals.

By making a donation to the Mission Office in the name of a loved one, this ‘Gift for the Infant Jesus’ assists with the needs of vulnerable children living in poverty throughout the world.

The innovative cards are the size of a business card and with the organisation’s mission logo on one side pose three Christmas related questions for those young and young at heart.

Indeed, director at Catholic Mission in Perth, Francis Leong said the quiz could be answered at a range of depths depending on the age of the participant.

“We wanted something that would inspire all people to recall the true story and message of Christ’s coming into this world – this is our mission to the world,” he said.

While there are only three questions to each card, each asks participants to search for Christ, much like

– all the forces are coming at us at the holidays, and at a time when people might be trying to balance those ghosts of Christmas past and present. We’re vulnerable at that time, and it does feel good to give.”

“The type of generosity we show our loved ones is in imitation of our heavenly Father giving us the priceless gift of his only begotten Son,” Father Mahan noted. “But a budget is in keeping with good stewardship.”

Balancing expectations

While generosity is an admirable

trait in harmony with the spirit of the holiday, Lenahan, too, maintains that an even perspective is required.

“On the one hand, yes, we want to show people that we love them. But on the other hand, the things that we give are just a sign of our love,” he said.

“At the holidays,” Lenahan added, “some feel great pressure to give to a lot of people, and they really don’t count the cost until it’s over.”

Expectations can be particularly intense for members of some ethnic groups, Lenahan said, because

the wise men once did. “The questions are a stepping stone in our faith journey that begins at Christmas with the arrival of a special child,” Mr Leong said.

The free cards can be passed around, placed in with a Christmas gift or shared with family and friends, and even have an electronic address for answers to the festive quiz.

“To the poor of the world the only thing that matters when it comes to Christmas is the hope, peace and joy that Christ brought the world, so in reconnecting with this story we are reconnecting with all the people of the world, not just those who can afford gifts,” Mr Leong said.

And the quiz is by no means the only way in which the Mission Office seeks to reconnect with the poor of the world.

By making a donation to the Mission Office in the name of a loved one, this ‘Gift for the Infant Jesus’ assists with the needs of vulnerable children living in poverty throughout the world. Your loved one will also receive a laminated certificate with details of how that Christmas gift to the poor of the world, made in their name, helped those most in need.

For more information on ‘Gifts for the Infant Jesus’ or the free quiz cards contact Perth’s Catholic Missions Office on: 9422 7933, or visit the Catholic Pastoral Centre, 40A Mary St in Highgate.

“they feel tremendous pressure to give not just to direct family, but to all the aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews.”

The result – which Lenahan has witnessed in his ministry- can be families spending well beyond their means, even to the extreme of borrowing money against their own homes to make purchases or retire holiday debt.

Feeling coerced can also shortchange the authentic intention of gift-giving, Smith suggested, reducing it to a mechanical response more akin to a transaction. “You

Caritas

Perth Catholic Mission Director Francis Leong discusses the Quiz Cards with colleagues Sr Shelly Barlow and Loc Ha.

ng Like a Catholic

at

also supports a worthy cause can be compared to a twofold gift.

Helping to maintain a centre of monasticism, spirituality and history located in the Western Australian wheatbelt, following in the footsteps of St Benedict

■ By Anthony Barich

Christmas doesn’t have to be a rampant commercial venture, and the Benedictines of New Norcia are giving you the opportunity to keep Christ in Christmas in a practical way.

The Benedictines continue a long tradition of education and formation in the faith, dating back to Bishop Rosendo Salvado, who founded the unique monastic town in 1846 with Dom Joseph Serra, who was later Bishop of Perth.

The Benedictines continue a long tradition of education and formation in the faith, dating back to Bishop Rosendo Salvado, who founded the unique monastic town in 1846 with Dom Joseph Serra, who was later Bishop of Perth.

Salvado was an extraordinary character, leading a monastic community of up to 80 men and at one stage walked all the way back to Perth from New Norcia to stage a piano recital to raise money for his venture.

Now the Benedictine monks continue the tradition of forming people both young and old in the faith while raising money to maintain the spiritual retreat location for Christians from around the country.

The Benedictines are offering you a chance to give a gift that will help plant peace for someone – an opportunity to set time apart to renew and regain a sense of balance for 2008. Each month next year, a different

“At the

holidays,

retreat is being offered at the New Norcia Monastery Guesthouse.

These will offer retreatants a variety of themes to focus on:

● Spirituality in the Workplace (February 22-24)

● Christian Meditation and Mysticism (June 6-8)

● The Monk & The Psychologist (August 1-3)

● A Retreat for Walkers (October 3-5) and,

● How Can I Keep from Singing (November 21-23).

Retreat Weekends cost $200 and include the program and full board.

For further details of the Spirituality Program go to newnorcia.wa.edu. au/events.htm, or contact the guesthouse manager on 08 9654 8002 or via guesthouse@newnorcia.com.

To stimulate and provoke conversation about the really important issues this Christmas, the gift shop located in the historic New Norcia museum also offers the guidance of Abbot Placid Spearritt and others via the purchase of a CD recorded at one of several interfaith dialogues hosted at New Norcia in recent times.

The Benedictine Community of New Norcia is self-sufficient and receives no regular funding.

Since the closure of their boarding schools in 1991, the Abbot and monks have delicately negotiated a future for the town which is no longer based on formal secondary education but on a many layered form of monastic hospitality.

All revenue generated at New Norcia, and donations received, are used by the monks to preserve and share their home and unique heritage.

some feel a great pressure

to

give to a lot of people, and they really don’t count the cost until it’s over.”

know when somebody gives you a gift that means something to you, that they understand something about you, and that they’ve taken time to think about what would please you.” She said.

“And you also know when you get a gift that’s more than just checking something off a list. “People have to take some time and think about

it.” Lanahan’s advice for those perhaps already feeling the unwelcome pinch of financial regret?

“You ought to go into the holiday season with a spending plan – and actually it’s not just the holiday season, it’s the whole year.” He counselled. “getting on a plan for the year is really the key – and part of the holiday spending.”  OSV

Helping women in poverty achieve economic independance with dignity

The Good Shepherd Trading Circle is a non-profit company established by the Good Shepherd Sisters in Australia in 1995 to support women in micro-enterprises initiated by the Sisters internationally.

It does this by:

● marketing their products in Australia and New Zealand

● supporting their development by providing small grants for equipment, materials and training

● raising consciousness of the situations in which the women and their families live and of issues like fair trade.

The Good Shepherd Sisters are in 67 countries. Their mission is to women and girls and their families who are marginalised in society for various reasons.

The Trading Circle is committed to fair trade and solidarity with women and their families who struggle within the global economic structures to find a way out of poverty.

The Good Shepherd Sisters are in 67 countries. Their mission is to women and girls and their families who are marginalised in society for various reasons.

They believe passionately in the dignity and unique value of each person.

This commits them to join with all who struggle for a world which is just and fair for all.

In many very poor areas of the world, poverty is the major enemy. Whether this poverty is caused by war and violence, by natural disasters, by the corruption of national leaders, by the behaviours of companies and major players on the global economic landscape - the effects on the lives of the people is the same.

They suffer malnutrition, ill health, unemployment, illiteracy, homeless-

ness, constant anxiety for the future of their children. Women and children are the ones most likely to bear the heaviest burdens of poverty.

In a number of situations like these, Good Shepherd Sisters have established skills training and employment generating projects for women and girls and some for the men and boys as well.

These employment projects often have a local market focus e.g. a cooperative laundry in Davao, Philippines; a jam-making enterprise in Baguio, Philippines; the making of leather goods in Bangalore, India; a small bakery in Peru: a welding project in El Obeid, Sudan.

Other projects need markets outside their local areas.

This is where the international network of the Good Shepherd Sisters is able to assist, through organisations like the Good Shepherd Trading Circle in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Good Shepherd sponsored projects similar to the Trading Circle exist in other countries as well.

Some of the Circle’s products are sold at The Record Bookshop at 587 Newcastle St in West Perth. Tel: Natalie on (08) 9227 7080 for information on opening hours ordering etc or via bookshop@therecord.com.au

Products from the Trading Circle range include:

● Children’s toys

● Bags and Purses

● Cards and Bookmarks

● Childrens Bath and Bedtime

● Christmas Things

● Cushion Covers

● Kitchen and Homeware

● Pottery, Carvings and Statues

● Scarves and other accessories

● Social Justice Related Products

● Tableware

● Wallhangings, rugs and throw overs

WISE WORDS ON GENEROSITY

“We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill

“Generosity, generosity, generosity must be the beginning and the end of our life.” – Cornellial Connolly

“The most satisfying thing in life is to have been able to give a large part of one’s self to others.” – Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ.

“For it is in the giving that we receive.” – St Francis of Assisi.

“It’s not always easy to distinguish between genuine people and those who are not genuine, but it is always better to err on the side of generosity rather than on the side of meanness.” – Cardinal John C. Heenan

“I ask you one thing: do not tire of giving, but do not give your leftovers. Give until it hurts, until you feel pain.” – Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

Opinion

Hope is suspending yourself from Heaven

Being Heard

By John Heard

“The First Letter of Peter exhorts Christians to be always ready to give an answer concerning the logos - the meaning and the reason of their hope (cf. 3:15).”

- Spe Salvi Pope Benedict XVI

The Holy Father’s second encyclical letter has arrived. In it he discusses the intricate connection between faith and hope.

Indeed, the Pope claims that hope is faith reaching forward, the product of an encounter with Christ that draws something of the Christian future into the Christian’s present moment.

The Pope’s words therefore serve as an entry-point into Advent: the season of a very literal, pregnant hope. Indeed, in Advent we enter a cycle of patience, we await the coming of the ‘holy One of Israel’.

Christians across the globe, whole nations, eager children and nervous retailers, all lean forward toward Christmas morning.

This Advent longing is, the Pope teaches us, part of our new reality in Christ.

For someone who believes in Christ (His resurrection and our redemption) life is irrevocably changed.

“The one who has hope” Benedict writes “lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.”

It is as if, as famed philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote in Culture and Value , you “no longer rest your weight on the earth but suspend yourself from heaven.”

hope in the afterlife, turns secular and materialist conceptions on their heads.

This is the revolutionary and radical aspect of Christian hope.

Sometimes we not only can, but also indeed should hope for something that might otherwise seem crazy and irrational.

During Advent we must look for a mewling child, in a filthy manger, to see in that most unlikely figure the “Wonder-Counsellor, MightyGod, Eternal-Father, Prince-ofPeace” (Isaiah 9). This is because faith in Christ does not just offer to explain the world as it stands.

Many diverse theories, cults, movements and products offer to do that; rather Christianity promises to change the world. Hope is our pathway into the reality of God’s kingdom.

As Wittgenstein continued, after hope: “everything will be different and it will be ‘no wonder’ if you can do things that you cannot do now.”

For, while “a man who is suspended looks the same as one who is standing… the interplay of forces within him is nevertheless quite different, so that he can act quite differently than can a standing man.“

In his encyclical, the Pope quoted St Augustine on this point: “For Augustine this [hope] meant a totally new life.

He once described his daily life in the following terms: “The turbulent have to be corrected, the fainthearted cheered up, the weak supported; the Gospel’s opponents need to be refuted, its insidious enemies guarded against; the unlearned need to be taught, the indolent stirred up, the argumentative checked; the proud must be put in their place, the desperate set on their feet, those engaged in quarrels reconciled; the needy have to be helped, the oppressed to be liberated, the good to be encouraged, the bad to be tolerated; all must be loved.”

It is as if, as famed philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote in ‘Culture and Value’, you “no longer rest your weight on the earth but suspend yourself from heaven.”

This sense that Christianity is not just a demonstration - not only the sort of thing that might please a secular academic or a scientist - but also a performance, is a rebuke to pagan, secular and other urges that seek to replace hope with nihilism.

Santa Claus and Christianity

Q&A

By Fr John Flader

Can you tell me what a Catholic’s attitude to Santa Claus should be? The idea of Santa Claus is so widespread that I have allowed my children to talk about Santa bringing them gifts at Christmas even though they know, of course, that Santa Claus doesn’t really exist. Am I doing wrong in this?

If we look at the origin of the name “Santa Claus” and of the custom of attributing to him the bringing of gifts at Christmas we find that it is in fact Christian. The name comes from the Dutch rendering of St Nicholas: “Sinter Klaas”.

But let us go back to the beginning. Who was St Nicholas and how did the custom arise of saying that it was he who brought gifts to children?

St Nicholas was the bishop of Myra, in what is now Turkey, at the beginning of the 4th century.

There is some uncertainty about many of the traditions surrounding him, and much of what we know comes from a life of the saint written by St Methodius, patriarch of Constantinople around the middle of the 9th century.

St Nicholas was born at Patara, Lycia, a province of southern Asia Minor where St Paul had preached the faith.

He was brought up by pious parents, who educated him in the faith from childhood. They died while he was still young and left him a large amount of money, which he decided to use for works of charity.

One of the best known stories tells of how he helped three young women find husbands by giving them a dowry. Their father had lost all his money and the daughters could not find husbands because of their poverty. St Nicholas came to hear of their plight and, according to the story, took a bag of gold and tossed it through an open window of their house one night, so that no one would know who had done it.

The oldest girl, with this as her dowry, soon found a husband. St Nicholas did the same for the second and then the third girl, but on the last occasion their father happened to be looking out the window and he saw who the generous benefactor was. St Nicholas was also known for being generous in helping poor children.

St Nicholas died around 350 and was buried in the cathedral of Myra. By the time of the Emperor Justinian, some two centuries later, his feast was being celebrated and there was a church built over his tomb. In 1087 his remains were taken to the Italian city of Bari, where they are now venerated and are the object of pilgrimages from all over the world. His feast is celebrated in the universal Church on December 6.

Because of his reputation for charity with the poor, especially children, there arose in Germany,

Switzerland and the Netherlands the custom of giving gifts to children at Christmas time in the name of St Nicholas. The custom still exists in some countries of children hanging a stocking on the mantel of the fireplace on the night of December 5 and finding it filled with lollies and nuts the following day, the feast of St Nicholas. Over time St Nicholas became identified in some countries with a mythical white-bearded man from the North Pole with the same name: Santa Claus – Sinter Klaas – St Nicholas.

This was probably due to an ancient pre-Christian German custom of children leaving straw or carrots in a shoe or sock one night in winter for the horses of the folkloric God Odin, or Wodan, who, according to the legend, would go hunting each year and would reward the children by replacing the straw with sweets or toys. Odin was usually represented with a beard. It is easy to see in this the modern custom of leaving sugar for Santa’s reindeer. Thus it can be said that the inspiration for the modern Santa Claus is in fact St Nicholas. Children can be told that when they hear of Santa Claus they should think of the real Santa Claus, St Nicholas, an early saint who loved Jesus very much and who was very generous with children. Occasionally one sees a figure of Santa Claus kneeling in adoration of the Christ Child in nativity scenes. This is an appropriate way of showing that Christ is at the centre of the Christmas mystery, and that even Santa Claus, or St Nicholas, must kneel before the Son of God.

Pope OKs Lourdes indulgence

■ By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - To mark the 150th anniversary of Mary’s appearance to St Bernadette Soubirous near Lourdes, France, Pope Benedict XVI authorised a special indulgence to encourage renewed holiness.

Catholics can receive a plenary indulgence for taking part in any public or private devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes, said Cardinal Francis Stafford, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Vatican court dealing with indulgences and matters of conscience.

sins committed. A plenary indulgence is the remission of all punishment.

Cardinal Stafford said the indulgence can also be applied to the souls of the faithful in purgatory.

Catholics can receive the indulgence during two time frames.

Pilgrims visiting the Massabielle grotto, where Mary appeared to St Bernadette, can receive the indulgence during the Lourdes jubilee year, which runs from December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, until December 8, 2008.

and praying for the intentions of the Pope, all in a spirit of total detachment from the attraction of sin.

Those who make a pilgrimage to Lourdes must visit the following sites, preferably in this order:

● The parish where St Bernadette was baptised.

● The Soubirous family home.

● The Massabielle grotto.

When we enter into Advent hope, which is an intensified version of Christian hope, we are thereby perfected for life, to have it and have it to the full (cf. Jn 10:10).

It is not, however, given that we will “know the details of what awaits” us in life and afterwards.

A full life is not, indeed, always the kind of life that is marked by wealth, say, or any of those other things we are sometimes tempted to believe we must have: status, privilege, power over others and popularity. The ‘full life’ of a martyr, for instance, ends in violent death. Similarly, the very idea of a martyr, someone who gives up his or her earthly life on the basis of their

If what we do in faith is not just philosophy but also an encounter and relationship with reason and meaning Himself, if human beings are, by hope, clicked into some new way of living, Christians “know in general terms that… life will not end in emptiness.”

This is the nature of Christian hope. Alongside Wittgenstein, “the issue has been put before us clearly: do we stand on earth on our own feet or are we suspended from above, attached to a living Lord?”

This Advent, I’ll be dangling like a tree ornament.

As Christians strive to become more holy, they can look to Mary who “calls the faithful to her son and his sacrifice and to the love of the Father,” said the cardinal, quoting from “Lumen Gentium,” the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.

The Vatican published the cardinal’s statement announcing the indulgence and outlining the requirements for receiving it on December 5.

An indulgence is a remission of the temporal punishment due for

Pilgrims who visit any public sanctuary, shrine or other worthy place dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes may receive the indulgence from February 2-11.

February 11 is the day the first of 18 apparitions occurred and is the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. February 2 is the feast of the Presentation of the Lord.

Cardinal Stafford said that to obtain the special indulgence one must fulfill the normal requirements set by the Church for all plenary indulgences; these include the person going to confession within a reasonably short period of time, receiving the Eucharist

● The chapel where St Bernadette received her first Communion. At each location the faithful should end their meditation by praying the Lord’s Prayer, the creed and the special jubilee prayer or a prayer to Mary.

Those visiting a holy place dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes in another part of the world from February 2-11 also should pray the Lord’s Prayer, the creed and the special jubilee prayer or a prayer to Mary.

Catholics who cannot visit Lourdes or join a communal service dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes because of illness or other serious reason could still earn the indulgence “in their own home or wherever they are” from February 2-11, Cardinal Stafford said.

John Heard is a Melbourne writer.

Will new director take Vatican Museums far from the maddening crowd?

The World FEATURE

Waiting lines take priority at Vatican Museum Engineer’s office housed rare Michelangelo

■ By John Thavis

Perhaps even more than Michelangelo’s frescoes or the statue of Laocoon, the discouragingly long entrance line - often stretching half a mile - has become the modern emblem of the Vatican Museums.

In peak seasons, visitors can wait more than an hour to get inside the museum complex. And once inside, it’s shoulder to shoulder in some of the more popular rooms and hallways.

The congestion is the price of success at the Vatican Museums, where attendance has more than tripled over the last 30 years. In 1976, about 1.3 million people came to the museums; last year, the number reached nearly 4.3 million.

Economically, this is all good news.

Last year, the Vatican Museums took in about $65 million and spent about half that amount, providing Vatican City with its most significant source of income.

But for visitors, the experience can be more claustrophobic than cultural.

On a recent morning in the Sistine Chapel, where everyone seems to end up, it was more packed than a Roman bus at rush hour.

In early December, the Vatican Museums got a new director, Antonio Paolucci, and already he’s indicated that he considers the lines and the crowds a priority problem.

Under Paolucci, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence long ago instituted a reservation system for all visitors, an idea that’s expected to be introduced at the Vatican in 2008.

The reservations are made for specific times throughout the day, virtually eliminating walk-ins and reducing the wait.

Earlier this year the Vatican launched a reservation system, but it was only offered to groups. At the same time, it reduced museum entrance hours for individuals, making a bad situation worse for most tourists.

The Vatican and the city of Rome are moving forward on plans for a subterranean entry area to the Vatican Museums that would feature shops and information displays.

That would at least bring the lines out of the summer sun and winter rains.

Some Vatican officials are also looking at the possibility of connecting the Vatican’s own train line and station, rarely used today, to the Rome subway system as a way to shuttle visitors to a separate museum entrance.

One of the problem with the Vatican Museums is that they are only open five hours a day for much of the year. Closing down at lunchtime is an Italian tradition that has been scrapped by most museums, and the Vatican, too, is finally considering longer hours throughout the year.

Nighttime openings, already offered in many Italian museums, would further decompress the visi-

tor flow and attract people who are unable to visit during the day.

Paolucci, however, has dared to hint that record attendance is not necessarily the best thing for a museum. In an interview with the Italian newspaper Avvenire, he recalled that 100 years ago in Florence the number of museum visitors was only 160,000 for the entire year.

“Selfishly speaking, I’d prefer to keep the situation of the early 1900s,” he said.

Paolucci also took issue with the modern trend toward “culture as spectacle” and the promotion of celebrity works of art over the study of collections. Even the Sistine Chapel suffers from this kind of fame, he said.

“This is one of the aspects of the barbaric obscurantism that characterises our age: the fatal attraction for the well-known,” he said.

Webster’s Dictionary defines obscurantism as “opposition to the spread of knowledge.” Paolucci’s point was that by giving almost exclusive attention to a museum’s

most famous works much is overlooked. The Vatican Museums once estimated that it exhibits about 30,000 objects of art and holds another 120,000 in storage.

In recent years, officials have tried to highlight some of these lesser-known objects, including works of modern art.

The Vatican has also opened up new sections of the museum.

The latest wing, inaugurated in September, was dedicated to Vatican postage stamps.

But on a recent morning, the stamp museum was virtually empty. Not far away, thousands of tourists marched down the hallway toward Michelangelo’s frescoes. They were voting with their feet, and the Sistine Chapel was still king.

■ By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - The

Vatican has discovered a rare sketch of the dome of St Peter’s Basilica drawn by Michelangelo Buonarroti.

Some believe the 1563 drawing may be the last surviving example of the Renaissance master’s work before his death in 1564, said the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano

Dark-red-chalk lines show a sketch of “a partial plan of one of the radial columns of the cupola drum” of the basilica, said the paper’s December 7 edition.

“The sureness of the marks, the expert hand used to making decisions before unfinished stone leave little room for doubt the sketch is by Michelangelo,” it said.

It said sculptors and stonecutters at the time commonly worked with red-oxide chalk because its marks were more visible than graphite or charcoal pencils against the black veins of the white travertine marble used for the basilica’s construction.

It said the torn sketch was found recently in the archives of the Fabbrica di San Pietro, the office of the Vatican’s chief engineer.

It will be unveiled publicly at an unspecified future date, the Fabbrica said in a December 7 fax to CNS.

The Fabbrica’s archivists and experts from the University of Bonn, Germany, and Rome’s Hertziana Library researched the sketch.

Michelangelo, like many people involved in the basilica’s building, never lived to see the church completed in 1620, but he dedicated nearly the last two decades of his life, 1546-1564, to being its head architect.

His working sketches of the basilica are rare because he regularly ordered the drawings to be destroyed or burned them himself to avoid their sale on the market, the Vatican newspaper said.

This design apparently was spared because its back had served as a piece of scrap paper for workmen involved in transporting stone to Rome.

The original sketch probably was used to give foremen at the quarries an idea of how the stone was going to be used and what its proper specifications were.

But, as it sometimes happened, the buffalo-pulled wagon carrying the stone was blockaded by angry landowners, who were upset the heavy loads would damage their property. The Fabbrica employee travelling with the consignment tore the design into a smaller sheet and wrote on the back about his predicament to his superiors in Rome. Someone in the Fabbrica’s business office dealing with paying out damage fees used the same sheet, but scribbled on top of the design a draft of their official order of payment. The note-cum-sketch was thus filed away “among a sea of documents” in the accounts office archive and was discovered more than four centuries later, the newspaper said.

Too much to absorb? Visitors admire ceiling paintings in the Vatican Museums on November 21. The new director of the museums, Antonio Paolucci, has indicated that he considers the lines and crowds at the museums a priority problem. Last year, nearly 4.3 million people visited the Vatican Museums.

PHOTO: CNS/PAUL HARING

Dramatic: This statue of Laocoon and his sons being dragged down by a sea serpent is one of the Vatican Museums’ most famous works of art. In Virgil’s Aeneid, the men were killed after Laocoon warned of the danger of accepting the Greeks’ gift of a wooden horse of Troy.

PHOTO: CNS/PAUL HARING

The World

Europe to fade into oblivion: Patriarch Abandon Christianity and perish, Orthodox leader warns nations

MOSCOW - Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II exhorted European countries to retain their Christian heritage or risk fading into oblivion as nations.

“Modern Europe will not create a new post-Christian culture and civilisation but will simply vanish from history,” Alexy II said at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow on Wednesday evening.

“Losing their Christian roots, the people of Europe will sign their own death warrant.”

The Catholic Church and several other EU countries, notably Poland, Italy and Germany, have been lobbying European Union leaders to state and include Europe’s Christian roots in the EU constitution.

Alexy II has been very active in Russia and internationally in defence of Christianity and traditional morality. At a Kremlin meeting with President Vladimir Putin in November he called for tighter controls over the content of Russian TV and radio broadcasts, saying they were promoting “vicious behaviour.”

“Many television and radio programs show the permissibility of vicious behaviour and it makes one contemplate the moral criteria of what mass media are allowed to do. Our society needs a public council that will assume appropriate regulating functions,” he said.

In his October mission to the Council of Europe he eloquently explained the Christian moral roots of modern human rights and decried the misuse of these rights to justify immoral behaviour. He also had the opportunity to defend his opposition to the Moscow “gay pride” march, saying “it is an advertisement that is being forced on people who are a very long way from it.”

Alexy II has also waded into the evolution debate by demanding that Russian schools end the communist practice of teaching Darwinism exclusively and allow a freer inquiry and debate on creation and evolution. “Teaching the biblical theory of the world’s creation will not harm students,” he said. “If people choose to believe that they descended from apes, let them, but without imposing their opinions on others.”

● Despite ongoing differences and tensions, the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church have permanent and “always-open channels of communication,” said Orthodox Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s office for external relations.

Metropolitan Kirill met privately with Pope Benedict XVI on December 7 at the Vatican. An interview with Metropolitan

Grand gesture: Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II leads a service in front of a monument to Sts Cyril and Methodius, missionary brothers known as the Apostles of the Slavs, in Moscow, in 2005. As the Vatican works to unify the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, Alexy II warned Europe that European countries risk fading into oblivion if they continue to ignore their Christian roots.

Kirill was published late in the afternoon by L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

“The meeting with the Pope was very positive and very beautiful,” he said. “On our agenda there are many important themes such as the promotion of basic values.”

Metropolitan Kirill’s meeting with the Pope came just four days after Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted him as saying that the Roman Catholic dioceses in Russia should be downgraded to the status of “apostolic administration” that they had before 2002.

“We shall never recognise them and will always dispute the presence of ordinary Catholic dioceses in the territory of Russia and consider it a challenge to our common idea” of church organisation, Interfax quoted him as saying.

Metropolitan Kirill had said that when the Orthodox or the Catholics have communities outside their traditional homelands, a Bishop should be in charge of their pastoral care, but that Bishop should be an administrater, not the head of a normal diocese erected on a territory already assigned to another Bishop.

He told L’Osservatore Romano on December 7: “In the theological dialogue we recognise that there exist specific difficulties between us.

“But at the same time, we maintain that dialogue is the best instrument for finding a common solution to the problems that exist.”

The newspaper did not mention the Catholic dioceses in Russia and the metropolitan did not raise the subject in the interview, but he said the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church are increasingly optimistic and hopeful about their relationship.

“Without a doubt, the meeting with the Pope was for us a very positive step in the development of our relations,” he said. Metropolitan Kirill said regular contact between Vatican and Russian Orthodox officials is essential for promoting the growing understanding of the other that is needed to resolve the tensions and the theological differences that keep Catholics and Orthodox apart.

After the Interfax articles appeared with Metropolitan Kirill’s comments about the Russian dioceses, Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told the Vatican newspaper on December 4 that he would be meeting the Russian prelate and “we will talk together and deal with the questions in the correct way.”

-LifeSiteNews.com with CNS

New Bishop to stabilise Church life in difficult China

New Chinese Bishop said to work well in delicate situations.

GUANGZHOU, China (CNS) - The new bishop of the Guangzhou Diocese has been described as an “amiable person” who knows how to work in delicate situations.

A layman who attended the December 4 ordination of Bishop Joseph Gan Junqiu told the Asian church news agency UCA News that about 1500 people witnessed the ceremony inside the Sacred Heart Cathedral and on a television screen in a temporary chapel. Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, is more than 1,000 miles south of Beijing.

When the new bishop was giving his blessing to the faithful as he left the altar, Bishop Gan approached and embraced a young Catholic who has a mental disability, he said. “We were all moved,” said the layman, who requested anonymity. He described Bishop Gan as an “amiable person who gets along well with the laypeople.”

He said the prelate knows how to work in a low-key manner in delicate situations, such as contacting church people from overseas and protecting clergy who approached him from Catholic communities not registered with the government.

When UCA News tried to contact Bishop Gan, the prelate said he was busy visiting a critically ill priest.

The ordination of the new bishop was the

fourth in China this year. The new bishops, all of whom are in their 40s, were approved by both the Vatican and the Chinese government.

Bishop Francis Lu Shouwang of Yichang was ordained on November 30, and the

Guizhou and Beijing dioceses ordained their new bishops in September. Bishop Gan, 43, received an episcopal ring, mitre and staff from the ordaining prelate, Bishop Johan Fang Xingyao of Linyi.

Bishops Joseph Liao Hongqing of Meizhou

and Paul Su Yongda of Zhanjiang and Bishop Lu were the new Bishop’s seminary classmates at the Central and Southern China

Theological and Philosophical Seminary in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province.

Beijing-based officials of the State Administration for Religious Affairs and Guangdong provincial government officials attended the ceremony, according to the Guangdong-based Catholic Web site Tianzhujiao (www.cncatholic.org).

“The government has utilised human and financial resources to ensure the security of the Guangzhou ordination,” the website said on December 3.

Media outside China were not allowed to enter the church to report on the event.

Part of the main road and public square in front of the cathedral also were closed for the occasion.

The 120-year-old cathedral, one of the largest Gothic churches in China, commonly is known as “Stone House Church.”

The building, inspired by Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, reopened in February after a two-year renovation.

Bishop Gan was born in 1964 and ordained a priest in 1991.

He taught and served as dean of studies and general affairs in the Wuhan seminary until 2000.

He then returned to the Diocese of Guangzhou to become diocesan chancellor and director of the church property management committee.

Surrounded by support: Bishop Joseph Gan Junqiu of Guangzhou poses for a photo with his father, left, and younger sister, a nun of the diocese, after his ordination in Guangzhou, China, on December 4. Bishop Gan was one of two Vatican-approved bishops installed just days apart in China. The bishops also are recognised by the Chinese government. PHOTO: CNS/UCAN

The World

Benedict XVI slams ‘unscrupulous’ adults who victimise children in prostitution, sex abuse

Pope points to Mary as sign of hope in the midst of grave abuses on the Feast of Immaculate Conception.

■ By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS)Lamenting the climate of consumerism and materialism in today’s world, Pope Benedict XVI criticised “unscrupulous adults” who victimise children through sexual abuse and prostitution.

Even the most sacred things, “like the human body, temple of the God of love and life,” have been turned into objects of consumption, he said before praying the noonday Angelus on December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

“Adolescents, young people, even young children are easy victims of the corruption of love, deceived by unscrupulous adults who, by lying to them and themselves, lure them down the dead-end roads of consumerism,” he said, without specifically mentioning abuse or prostitution to pilgrims gathered in St Peter’s Square.

“How sad when young people are robbed of the amazement, the enchantment of the most beautiful feelings” and the value of respecting the human body, he said.

Most young people growing up in a consumerist society are bombarded with “messages that offer false models of happiness,” the Pope

said. He said these young people “risk losing hope because they often seem orphans of true love which fills life with meaning and joy.”

The Pope said Mary is a shining star of hope that can lead those lost in the darkness to Jesus, the “true light, the sun.”

He said Mary, who was conceived free of original sin, reminds people of “God’s lofty and beautiful project for everyone: to become holy and immaculate in love in the image of our creator.”

Later that afternoon, Pope Benedict continued the feast day celebrations by making an afternoon visit to a Marian monument in the centre of Rome.

The Pope blessed a large basket of roses set at the foot of a column topped by a statue of Mary.

The statue commemorates Pope Pius IX’s proclamation in 1854 that Mary, by special divine favour, was without sin from the moment she was conceived.

He told the rain-soaked crowd of 10,000 people to be inspired by Mary’s “fearless faith, unshakable hope, and humble and boundless love” as she followed in the footsteps of her son Jesus.

Mary invites every Christian to avoid evil and respect God’s will, to not lose heart “when suffering and death knock on our doors,” to look toward the future with hope, and to love one another as brothers and sisters, “united in the task of building a more just, supportive and peaceful world,” he said. Mary, the mother of God, is also the mother

of all humanity, he said. Because she is a symbol of the triumph of good over evil, Mary can act as a beacon of hope for all people, he said.

Pope Benedict said Mary points the way to God, who is the only answer to the world’s ills.

Without God, “or worse, against him, we can never find the path that leads to love, we can never overcome the power of hate and violence, we can never build a stable peace,” he

Marriage becoming a scapegoat for all evils, says theologian

Author from John Paul II Institute in Rome says marriage no longer attracting youth; but says love is always a novelty.

ROME - The negative image surrounding marriage as the source for many personal problems is making it difficult for young to become enthusiastic about the institution, said an Italian author and theologian.

Carla Rossi Espagnet is co-author of Marriage and the Family in the Documents of the Magisterium: A Course in the Theology of Marriage, published in English by Ignatius Press.

The author has a doctorate in theology from the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Rome, and since 2003 she has taught a course titled “Love, Family, and Education” at the Apollinare Higher Institute of Religious Sciences of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.

“Marriage,” Rossi Espagnet said, “no longer benefits from general

social acceptance, and has become, to a certain extent, the scapegoat of all our evils.

“For example, if one has relationship troubles - and who doesn’t - one immediately thinks they are due to tensions between our parents

“If one doesn’t experience academic success, it’s due to a lack of familial support; if one cannot foster good professional relationships, it’s because one was insecure as a child, etcetera.”

“Obviously there is some truth in these considerations, because the family context is extremely important in personal history, but this applies both in the case of good things and of bad things.

“However, if we use it almost exclusively to explain bad things, in other words, the negative or burdensome aspects of life, marriage loses its positive value in people’s opinion.

“Therefore, it is normal for a young person to have doubts as to the advantages of getting married. And I do not mean the material advantages, which in fact must be considered, but rather, the benefits of the choice itself.” The author said

that in addition to the decision of whether to marry is the incapacity to face “the difficulties which the bond - as any other commitment - inevitably encounters as time passes.”

Rossi Espagnet said: “Love has become the decisive component in the marital choice - a step ahead with regard to the days when weddings were arranged on the basis of economic or political advantage.

“But often, in the common mentality, it is not clear that love is not a state, but an act.

“The fact of loving someone to the extent of wishing to share one’s life with them is not a static situation, but a process.

“Loving each other means carrying out reciprocal and new acts of love, and not bringing time to a halt at the instant of the love rapture.”

“That is why love is always a novelty, not a standstill.”

“But it requires a certain amount of effort, the wish to continue building the relationship, supporting it where it is weak, reinforcing it where it is strong.”

-Zenit.org

said. At the end of his homily, the Pope greeted via satellite-television linkup pilgrims in Lourdes, France, who were celebrating the opening of the jubilee year marking the 150th anniversary of Mary’s appearance to St Bernadette Soubirous.

On the second Sunday of Advent, during his December 9 Angelus in St Peter’s Square, the Pope warned against losing the true meaning of Christmas to “a materialist men-

Clergy Congregation takes Bible online

ROME (Zenit.org) - A website launched by the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy allows researchers to access Bible verses with exegesis from doctors of the Church or cross reference liturgical texts with commentaries from Church Fathers.

The www.bibliaclerus.org site offers six categories in nine languages.

It also gives the option of downloading the site’s content. The nine translations of the Bible, including Hebrew and Greek, can be read side-by-side, as can the Eastern and Latin Codes of Canon Law. The Congregation for the Clergy announced the Bible site on December 8, as it marked the nine-year anniversary of the launching of the dicastery’s Web site at www.clerus.net.

Bill seeks to take Church out of Constitution

WARSAW, Poland (CNS)Liechtenstein’s government has introduced legislation that would remove the Catholic Church as the country’s official church.

“This should be seen as a nat-

tality.” The world today is experiencing desertlike conditions where people’s lives and inner beings “are thirsting for the life-giving water that is Christ.”

He said St John the Baptist’s call for conversion still is urgently needed today. How a person lives life today determines his or her eternal fate, he said, warning that God will judge according to a person’s “concrete behaviour” here on earth.

ural development,” the spokeswoman for Liechtenstein’s government, Gerlinde Manz-Christ, said in a December 4 telephone interview with CNS.

“We need to clear things up in areas from tax covenants to church ownership. That’s why we’ve consulted all relevant stakeholders and think we’ve found a satisfactory solution,” she said.

The Catholic Church’s status as “national church” would be ended under the Religion Act, introduced in early November in Liechtenstein’s 25-member Landtag, or parliament, by Prime Minister Otmar Hasler.

However, Mgr Markus Walser, vicar general of the Vaduz Archdiocese, said Archbishop Wolfgang Haas had not been notified of the planned reform.

‘’There’s been talk of possible changes for 30-40 years,” he said.

“But our constitution says the Catholic Church is the church of this country. We won’t express a formal view until this project is properly explained to us.”

Catholics make up 78 per cent of the 35,000 inhabitants of Liechtenstein, one of the world’s smallest countries, situated between Austria and Switzerland.

Moving in: Pope Benedict XVI greets the crowd gathered at the Spanish Steps for a prayer service on the feast of the Immaculate Conception in Rome on December 8. At the service, the Pope spoke out against consumerism, saying that even the most sacred things like the body have been turned into an object of consumption. PHOTO: CNSALESSIA GIULIANI, CATHOLIC PRESS

Pullman’s life-hating theology self destructs, bombs at US box office

Atheist author has proclaimed a deep hatred for beloved ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ series

In the eyes of many, Philip Pullman, author of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy, is the antithesis of C.S. Lewis

“He is the anti-Lewis,” says British writer Peter Hitchens, “the one atheists would have been praying for, if atheists prayed.”

Those who love Lewis as a scholar, artist, evangelist and Christian gentleman find Pullman’s smug atheism a blight on children’s literature. But secularists who deplore the Christian themes of Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia” series consider Pullman their hope for immunising the young against faith. Unbelief is so much more “sophisticated,” so much more deserving of literary awards. Note that although both Lewis and Pullman won the Carnegie Medal for children’s fiction in Britain, Pullman’s “Amber Spyglass,” the third book in the trilogy, received the Whitbread Book of the Year prize there, competing against adult novels. Did Pullman gain admirers by proclaiming that “I hate the Narnia books, and I hate then with a deep and bitter passion”? Pullman knows exactly when to amplify or mute his antireligious views: frank in 2003 (“There’s no God here. There never was.”), coy in 2007 (“…it doesn’t matter to me whether people believe in God or not, so I’m not promoting anything of that sort.”) The imminent release of “The Golden Compass” movie seems to have his tone.

‘Stark realism’ It’s no accident that Lyra begins her adventures in “The Golden Compass” book hiding in a huge oak wardrobe – just as Lucy does in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” (There are even fur coats in both places.) Both Lewis and Pullman got the inspiration for their series from isolated mental images. Both populate their worlds with talking animals and mythical species. Lewis’, are more charming, Pullman’s more original. Lewis, a specialist in medieval and Renaissance literature as well as a reader of fantasy and science fiction, respected the genre he worked in. His friend George Sayer observed, “The Narnia stories liberated the children’s story from its bondage to realism.” Pullman, on the other hand, doesn’t like or understand fantasy. He rejects that label for his books for, to him, only “stark realism” is truthful. (Besides despising Narnia, Pullman dismisses J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings as “infantile.”) So deep is Pullman’s aversion to Lewis that

he marked the 100th anniversary of Lewis’ birth in 1998 by viciously denouncing the man and his work in Britain’s premier Leftist newspaper, The Guardian. (The essay ran a month before “The Subtle Knife’s” paperback edition appeared.)

‘Life-hating ideology’

Pullman mocks the well-known facts of Lewis’s life as “legend” and condescendingly rates his scholarly work as “effortlessly readable.” His hottest wrath is directed at Narnia, “one of the ugliest and most poisonous things I’ve read.” Sadly, his “open-eyed reading” is simply blind. A few examples will suffice. Pullman, who expects his readers to see Will and Lyra as the new Adam and Eve, can’t recognise Aslan as a genuine Christ-figure for Narnia. He accuses Lewis of sending Susan to hell in “The Last Battle” merely for wanting to grow up. But Susan is neither damned nor a participant in “The Last Battle.” How did Pullman watch a girl who wasn’t there?

Bedazzled by his theory that Lewis was afraid of adulthood, Pullman doesn’t notice that the characters do age across the span of the series, some even marry and grow old. The original four siblings from “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” – who spent years as adult rulers in Narnia – are past puberty and out of school on Earth by the start of “The Last Battle.” The conclusion of the final book, when Aslan brings his now deceased faithful Narnians to heaven, enrages Pullman. He calls it “one of the most vile moments in

Sister offers guide for ‘The Golden Compass’

Sister Rose Pacatte, a Daughter of St Paul who has written books on spiritual themes in movies, has developed a “media mindfulness strategy” for “The Golden Compass.”

“’The Golden Compass’ film challenges believing adults to articulate their faith and values and to brush up on church history, theology, and literature and literary forms to do so - not because the film deals with these issues but because of the culture surrounding the release of the film,” Sister Rose

the world of children’s literature.” He won’t suspend his (literal) disbelief and accept this as a happy end-

tion, torture, euthanasia and cannibalism. Mrs Coulter – Lilith to Lord Asriel’s Satan – is a seductive

“Harry Potter’s been taking all the flak,” says Pullman. “Meanwhile, I’ve been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said.”

ing. To him, “it’s propaganda in the service of life-hating ideology.” He would prefer to see characters live with maximum intensity and cheerfully accept personal extinction at death. Disguise it as he may with false charges, Pullman’s key objection is Lewis’ Christian faith.

Graphic gore

Ironically, Pullman accuses Lewis of “a sadomasochist relish for violence” when his own novels offer gore far more graphic than anything in Narnia. Pullman sees no reason to shield young readers from harsh realities. He not only describes battles but murder, suicide, mutila-

said in her guide to the movie. “This film is an opportunity for us to develop our critical thinking skills: to ask questions and seek and articulate the answers: the answers to ‘why?’” she added.

She admitted, “This is a difficult assignment for busy parents and teachers, but an excellent way to engage in our culture rationally and faithfully and with relevance. To ‘just say no’ is not a valid option in today’s media world. Let us respond, rather than react, to the world around us.”

Sister Rose’s guide asks a myriad of questions about the movie and plot develop-

mistress and smothering mother more villainous than any witch of Narnia. There is disturbing sensuality, including the sexual awakening of Lyra and Will. Pullman primly insists that only dirty minds will imagine anything beyond a kiss. An even greater irony is why Christian critics trained their heavy artillery on J.K Rowling instead of Pullman, who hit the market first.

“Harry Potter’s been taking all the flak,” says Pullman. “Meanwhile, I’ve been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said.” 

ments, but they are grouped around four central areas:

“What’s going on? What’s the story? How is the film’s reality created and why?”

“What’s really going on? Who is telling the story and why? (The film business; the author; the screenwriter)”

“What difference does the film make? Is it really atheistic? Or does it evoke thoughtful conversation about things that matter?”

“What difference can I make? What did the characters in the film learn? How did they grow and change? Did they? What, if any, light did the film shed on how I can live

Family friendly alternatives for young readers

While Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy does not make for appropriate reading for young adults, there are plenty of alternatives for young bookworms with a taste for science fiction or fantasy. Here are a few suggestions of books and series. Not all have explicit Catholic or Christian themes, but make for good, wholesome reading.

The Sparrow. By Mary Doria Russell, tells the story of a Jesuit expedition to search out evidence for extraterrestrial life and the aftermath of the mission.

Time series (“A Wrinkle in Time,” “A Wind in the Door,” “A Swiftly Tilting Planet,” “Many Waters” and “An Acceptable Time”), by Madeleine L’Engle, employs fantasy and time travel to give insights into love and family, following the adventures of the Murry family.

The Chronicles of Prydian series, by Lloyd Alexander, based heavily on the Welsh legends of the Mabinogion, is considered a classic in children’s science fiction that invites readers to go on five tales of adventure with Taran the Assistant Pig Keeper as he battles evil.

the Christian life in ways that respect human dignity?”

By addressing these questions, Sister Rose said, “families can make an informed decision about seeing the film and once they see it, talk about it in meaningful ways with young people.

Catechists and religion teachers can also use this strategy as a means to talk about theology and philosophy in the greater context of the books.

The complete guide can be found online at: http://journals.aol.com/rosepacatte/ MyMovies/.  CNS

Perspectives

Cars set alight, riots all around, yet we endure

Edith Cowan University Journalism student Joanna Lawson has gone to India this summer to establish Branches, a project aimed at helping the exploited working poor in Goa. Her column will be appearing regularly in The Record

MUMBAI: Everything was set for the flight to Kolkata. The ticket was booked. The accommodation set. My bags were packed the night before, which in itself is a miracle, because usually packing is a last minute affair. I was ready!

But no one told the people of Nandigram not to riot. On the same night we were about to take off, Kolkata was gripped with violence.

Looking at the people’s faces curled up into snarls as they threw rocks at the police made me think twice about the trip. My mother walking in and seeing a car set ablaze sealed its fate.

I was not about to let six months of waiting amount to nothing... the Missionaries of Charity run homes all over India, and luckily an orphanage was just one train stop away. So I grabbed my faithful travelling companion, my aunt, and resolved to continue with the plans, albeit in a different location.

Alighting at the Ville Parle Station the next day, we turned the

The Vine Branches

By Joanna Lawson

corner and almost walked straight into the home of a family who had set up their quarters, which were but a few plastic sheets spread on the side of the road. It seemed like they were not just passing through, as the rickshaw drivers seemed used to their presence and kept a respectable distance instead of the few millimetres berth they normally give pedestrians.

Their possessions were lined up, some of them stacked on a shelf screwed to the train station wall.

A six-week-old baby was fast asleep in her dad’s lap, and I realised I still had some of the toys entrusted to me in my bag and thought that my young benefactor would like it if I gave her one. The mother uncurled her little fist and put the toy moose into her hand to make it appear as if she had gripped it of her own accord.

By now, the rest of the family and some of the neighbours had joined in and were chatting to us, happily giving us welcome.

Children had crowded around and were asking for their pictures to be taken. Our differences in language and background and the pollution they were caked in and we were all breathing were forgotten.

Sacred places are

Perth-based Scalabrinian Tony Paganoni CS has started a series of reflections on the significance of cathedrals in the life of a church and the wider community.

Throughout human history all sorts of places have been set aside for special commemoration. Mountains, because of their proximity to heaven; and their descendants: domes and spires, the Tower of Babel, pyramids, Mesopotamian ziggurats, Mayan temples in Mexico, Buddhist Temples in Bangkok and the like.

Woods and forests are often seen in classical mythology as sites of divine encounters, and the successors that we have of that are pillars in our churches: a forest of trees. Not to speak of grottoes, and springs of water and the crypts of churches, and domes covered with frescoes and at the height of it all the Lord Almighty.

It would be surprising indeed, if a religion like Christianity, whose basis is the Incarnation, failed to embrace material space in its worship.

Christ entered time and dwelt among us, occupying a specific time and space on earth in Judea.

The Judaeo-Christian God is made

Time was getting away so we left them and walked on to the orphanage. We waited for Sister to come and tell us what to do. ‘We don’t take volunteers here,” she said, and I hadn’t made a plan C.

So some grumbling occurred: “God always tinkers with my plans!”

Luckily, my friend had invited me to a wedding, and because our trip was cancelled, I was able to attend the celebrations, which run over three days. First was the mehendi party (what we would celebrate as a hen’s night), and the bride and her family ushered me in as if I were an old friend.

We sat down and had our hands painted with henna, the poor bride held captive by her artists for four hours while they applied the bridal patterns to her arms and legs.

Some Indian drummers turned up, and suddenly everyone was dancing the ‘balle balle’, full of joy for the bride and the happiness that comes with marriage.

Twice that day strangers had become friends, and rich or poor, both families taught me a very important lesson. Sometimes, people might meander into my life perhaps lonely or lost, or just a stranger new to town, and I will always remember how it was to be accepted with love on the day the people of Nandigram rioted.

And the other thing they taught me was that God’s tinkering is far better than anything I could have planned.

Read Joanna’s Blog on the internet at: www.thebranchesproject.blogspot.com

made holy

Spirit in Stone of Cathedrals and communities

known, not by places as such, but by the events that occurred in specific places with men and women.

The earthly space is made holy, not because of the place itself, but because of what God does there for people. The Gospels are full of such places, which become significant after the event, the bearers of meaning, of revelations.

In the Old Testament we encounter the eternal dilemma of to be, or not to be, in a specific place.

In opposition to the Canaanites, into whose territory the Israelites had moved to pitch their tent, the Jewish and Israelite prophets set up a tabernacle, that is, a movable tent of worship, where in the desert God dwelt freely with his people - but as travellers, always retaining the freedom to leave and never belonging to the land through which they were passing.

The prophets in particular align themselves in opposing stone temples for the very purpose of highlighting the immobility of the Canaanites’ worship.

In the second book of Samuel, David exclaims, “Look! I am living in a house of cedar while the Ark of God dwells in a tent”. David

by what God does there

wants to build an immovable house for God. But Nathan, the prophet, prophesies: “Go and tell my servant David.

“Thus says the Lord: are you the man to build me a house to dwell in? I have never dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites out of Egypt until today, but have always led a wanderer’s life in a tent”.

The Ark of the Covenant would be lost with the destruction of Jerusalem, before Israel’s exile.

But the presence of God would remain, even if invisible and unrepresented, as a guiding light.

That light which had brought the Israelites out of Egypt and which, after descending on the tabernacle had entered the new Temple, the solid building, at the time of its dedication.

We know that the Temple in Jerusalem and the way the Jewish people regarded it was an issue with Jesus and the Jews of His time.

It is reported that the house at Dura Europa in Syria is unfortunately all we have of churches of the pre-Constantinian era, or at least all that we know of, which gives us the shape and contours of the

Christian gathering place set aside, more or less permanently, for worship. The plan indicates that a wall was removed between two rooms to make a larger space for the community to gather.

At the end of that room, there are traces of a platform upon which it is believed that an altar stood and perhaps a bishop’s chair. This was the room in which the Eucharist was celebrated. At the other end of the enlarged room you can see a baptistry. On the walls

of that room a good number of frescoes are still visible, conveying images of baptism.

Not just water, but the images of the community into which a new Christian was being initiated. And the architecture of Churches has remained essentially the same for many centuries.

The illustrations used in the title of this column are of the new St Mary’s Cathedral, at left, and as it was when originally built in the

1860s.

Anthony Paganoni CS

Tender moment: A father and two children that Joanna Lawson encountered on her trip. Amidst the violence and bloodshed, she found moments of simple, genuine joy as the locals accepted her as their own, and she learned something of the greatness of humanity.

Sacred place: al-Aqsa mosque complex or Temple Mount, Jerusalem. Such places are holy because of what God does there.

PANORAMA a roundup of events in the archdiocese

Panoramas

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.

Friday December 14

WYD PRAYER VIGIL

Join us for a night of prayer and adoration hosted by the young people of Perth. In the spirit of the Advent season we pray for the coming of Jesus at Christmas, and in preparation for 2008: the coming of the WYD Cross & Icon and WYD08. Come to Good Shepherd Parish, 215 Morley Drive East KIARA, 8pm-6am. Come along for an hour or two, or why not stay for the entire night. Enq: wydperth@highgate-perthcatholic.org.au or 9422 7944 (www.wydperth.com)

Saturday December 15

CHRISTMAS ULTREYA  MASS AND FIESTA

Community Mass at 6pm to be held at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church, Kitchener Street (near Hamersley), North Beach. Please bring a plate (finger food) to share. Please join us for this joyous and happy celebration. Family and friends welcome. Live entertainment: Cursillista Musician Keith Carton and jazz quartet

Saturday December 15

GOLDEN JUBILEE CELEBRATION MASS  BRENTWOOD

Starting at 9.30am at Regina Coeli Catholic Church Brentwood. To mark the Golden Jubilee of our church, dedicated on 15th December 1957, past and present parishioners are invited to participate in Mass to be concelebrated by Bishop Don Sproxton and Priests, who have served our community over the past fifty years. Refreshments will be shared following Mass. RSVP (for catering purposes) to Marie Hill 9364 6042 or email reghill@optusnet. com.au

Sunday December 16

SILVER JUBILEE OF PRIESTLY ORDINATION: FR VINCENT GLYNN

The parish of Floreat/Wembley invite you to join with Fr Vincent Glynn as he celebrates his 25th anniversary of Ordination to the Priesthood. A special invite to all past parishioners and friends of Fr Vincent. An anniversary Mass of Thanksgiving will be held at 9.30am at St Cecilia’s Church, Grantham St, Floreat. It will be followed by a morning tea. RSVP florcath@iinet.net.au by Dec 5th.

Thursday December 20

ST PEREGRINE HEALING MASS

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

Saturday December 29

NOVENA DEVOTIONS

Novena Devotions to Our Lady of Good Health, Vailankanni will be held at the Holy Trinity Church, Embleton at 5pm, followed by the Vigil Mass at 6pm. Enq: Monsignor P McCrann 9272 5528 or George Jacob 9272 1379.

First Friday January 4

ALLIANCE AND TRIUMPH OF THE TWO HEARTS

Holy Mass and Eucharistic Vigil at St Bernadette’s Church Glendalough. Confessions at 5.15pm. Parish Mass at 5.45pm (Celebrant: Fr Doug Harris) followed by exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, hourly Rosaries, hymns and reflections etc. Vigil concludes with midnight Mass in honour of the BVM (Celebrant: Fr Doug Harris). Enq: Fr Doug Harris 9444 6131 or Dorothy 9342 5845.

Saturday January 5

DAY WITH MARY

St Mary Star of the Sea Church, Cnr Stirling Highway & McNeil Street, Cottesloe. 9am to 5pm.

A video on Fatima will be shown at 9am. A day of prayer and instruction based on the messages 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.

Sunday January 6

DIVINE MERCY

An afternoon with Jesus and Mary will be held at

St Joachim’s Church, on the corner of Shepperton Road and Harper Street in Victoria Park. Starting at 1.30pm. Program: Holy Rosary and Reconciliation, Sermon: by Fr Dominic Mary, FFI on “The Three Wise Men” followed by Divine Mercy prayers and Benediction. Afterwards refreshments in the parish hall, followed by a video/DVD with Fr John Corapi – ‘Questions & Answers’. Enq: John 9457 7771 or Linda 9275 6608.

Sunday January 6 to 12

THE SUMMER SCHOOL OF EVANGELISATION 2008

Is a unique week long Retreat and formation experience that will set hearts on fire. Open to everyone over 16yo and is the ideal preparation for World Youth Day. Night rallies open to the public. 67 Howe St, Osborne Park. See http://sse2008.disciplesofjesus.org/ <http://sse2008.disciplesofjesus.org/ for brochure/registration or Enq: 0401 692 690.

First Sunday of Every Month

HEALING FIRE BURNING LOVE MINISTRY

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

Third Sunday of the Month OBLATES OF ST BENEDICT MEET

Venue: St Josephs 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.

Every Tuesday WEEKLY PRAYER  MARY’S COMPANION WAYFARERS OF JESUS THE WAY

Starting at 7pm at St Mary’s Cathedral Parish Centre, 450 Hay Street, Perth. Appreciate the heritage of the Faith united with others asking Jesus and Mary to overcome burdens in life. Receive healing in prayer through the Rosary, Scripture, meditation and praise in song. Followed by friendship and refreshments. Prayer is powerful. Come join us!

First Friday and first Saturday of each month COMMUNION OF REPARATION  ALL NIGHT VIGIL

Corpus Christi Church, Mosman Park 7pm-1am, 46 Lochee Rd, Mosman Park. Mass, Rosary, Prayers, Confessions and silent adoration. Contact: Catalina 0439 931 151.

First Sunday of each month DEVOTIONS IN HONOUR OF THE DIVINE MERCY

The Santa Clara Parish community welcomes anyone from surrounding parishes and beyond to Santa Clara Church, cnr of Coolgardie and Pollack Sts, Bentley. The afternoon commences with the 3 o’clock prayers, followed by the Divine Mercy Chaplet, reflection and concludes with Benediction.

Every Saturday PERPETUAL HELP DEVOTIONS

4.30pm. The half hour perpetual novena devotions to the Mother of Perpetual Help continue each Saturday at the Redemptorist Monastery Church, 190 Vincent St, in North Perth. Reconciliation available before and after the devotions. All welcome.

Every Sunday

BULLSBROOK SHRINE

Sunday pilgrim Mass is celebrated with Holy Rosary and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament 2pm at the Shrine of the Virgin of the Revelation, 36 Chittering Road, Bullsbrook. Reconciliation is available in Italian and English before every celebration. Enq: 9447 3292.

BOOK DONATIONS WANTED

We are seeking donations of Catholic books, Bilbles, Missals and Divine Office books any age, any condition. Tel: 9293 3092.

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

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

Second Friday of each Month GENERAL PRAYER ASSEMBLY

The Couples for Christ and its Family Ministries welcome all members who now reside or are visiting Perth to join the community in our monthly general prayer assembly 7.30pm, St Joachim Parish Hall, Shepperton Road, Victoria Park. Enquiries: Tony and Dolly Haber (08) 9440 4540.

Every Fourth Sunday

SECULAR FRANCISCAN ORDER

The Perth Fraternity of the Secular Franciscan Order assembles every fourth Sunday at 2.30pm in the Chapel of RSL Care, 51 Alexander Dr, Menora. Enquiries John 9385 5649.

Every Fourth Sunday WATCH AND PRAY

A Holy Hour is held at Infant Jesus Parish, Morley from 2-3pm with exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. The hour consists of some prayers and Scripture but mostly the hour is silent prayer for Vocations. All are welcome. Please encourage others to come and pray. Prayer - it works! Enq: 9276 8500.

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS

Ignatian Volunteers Australia calls for part-time volunteers to respond to the needs of people in the community who live in marginalised circumstances. At the heart of this program is a reflective process based on Gospel values, which supports the volunteers in their work. To learn more: www.volunteers.jesuit.org.au Contact Kevin Wringe, Perth Coordinator (08) 9316 3469 kwringe@iinet.net.au .

Every First and Third Monday of the Month ST TERESIAN PRAYER GROUP

The St Teresian Prayer Group meets every 1st and 3rd Monday of the Month, 7pm at Infant Jesus, Morley. Enq: Darren Miranda 9276 6358 after 1pm.

Every Third Saturday of the Month PRAYER FOR LIFE

Father Jim Shelton leads prayers from 10am to 11am at Abortion Clinic in Rivervale. All welcome. Enq 9279 1549 or 9403 2444.

Every Wednesday HOLY HOUR, BENEDICTION

Holy Hour 4pm to 5pm. Held at St Thomas, 2 College Road, Claremont. Followed by Evening Prayer and Benediction. Personal prayer before the Blessed Sacrament is Adoration of Jesus’ gift of Himself, of His love for you, for you loved ones and for our world. Come and Thank Him.

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 Leslie Rowe S.F.P. at St Joachim’s Parish Hall, Shepperton Rd, Victoria Park. Participants will be introduced into an insightful exploration of this fascinating Gospel. The course will be held every Tuesday at 7.30pm. Light refreshments will follow. Please bring a friend.

N.O.W NIGHT OF WORSHIP

On the initiative of Fr Charles Waddell PP and the assistance of Flame Ministries International, a new and exciting service called “N.O.W” (Night of Worship) has begun at 7.15pm followed by Mass at 8pm every Sunday at St Thomas the Apostle Church corner of College Road & Melville Street, Claremont.

“NOW” is aimed at attracting people back into the Church and to the Mass as well as attracting regular Mass goers both youth and families. Come and join us each Sunday for a new experience of dynamic and joyful worship.

Every Sunday LATIN MASS

The Latin Mass according to the 1962 missal is offered every Sunday at Our Lady of Fatima, 10 Foss St, Palmyra at noon. All welcome.

PERPETUAL EUCHARISTIC ADORATION

A Christmas Invitation

Spend some time with Jesus on His birthday (and any other day!). St Anne’s Church, 11 Hehir St Belmont is open for Eucharistic Adoration 24 hours every day. Enq:Sandra Robinson 9277 2872.

KALGOORLIE BOULDER PARISH CHRISTMAS MASS TIMES 2007

St Mary’s, Kalgoorlie, Monday 24 December, Family Vigil Mass, 7pm; St Mary’s, Coolgardie, Monday 24 December, Vigil Mass, 6pm; All Hallows, Boulder, Monday 24 December, Midnight Mass, 11.30pm with Xmas carols; St Mary’s, Kalgoorlie, Tuesday 25 December, Christmas Day Mass, 8am; St John Vianney, Kambalda, Tuesday 25 December, Christmas Day Mass 9am; All Hallows, Boulder, Tuesday 25 December, Christmas Day Mass, 10am; St Joseph, Norseman, Tuesday 25 December, Christmas Day Mass, 12.30pm; St Mary’s, Kalgoorlie, Wednesday 26 December, Mass – Public Holiday 9.30am.

KALGOORLIE BOULDER PARISH NEW YEAR MASS TIMES 2008

St Mary’s Kalgoorlie, Tuesday 1 January 2008, New Year’s Mass, 9.30am; St Mary’s Kalgoorlie Wednesday – Friday, Weekday Mass, 6.45am.

First Friday of the Month

WITNESS FOR LIFE

Pro-Life Mass at St Brigid’s, Midland, 9.30am followed by Rosary, Procession and Prayer Vigil at Abortion Clinic, led by Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. Enq: Helene 9403 2444.

First Saturday of the Month WITNESS FOR LIFE

Pro-Life Mass at St Anne’s, Belmont, 8.30am, followed by Rosary and Procession and Prayer Vigil at Abortion Clinic, led by Fr Paul Carey SSC. Enq: Helene 9403 2444.

ETERNAL WORD TELEVISION NETWORK

Every Sunday, 1 - 2 pm on Access 31

Sunday December 16:

FOCUS ON HOPE: Christmas special / Kitty Cleveland and Steve Angrisano with Jeff Cavins [Life on the Rock]

Many thanks to our kind supporters who have helped keep EWTN programs on air. There are to date 100 members in the 300 Club, so another 200 are still needed to enable us to continue throughout 2008. Requisite for membership an annual contribution of $50 ($1 a week). However any donations would be very welcome.

Please send to:

The Rosary Christian Tutorial Association, P.O. Box 1270, Booragoon 6954. Enq: 9330-2467

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Old school courtesy

Old-fashioned courtesy has been put on the curriculum at a leading British private school to ensure that children grow up with respect for adults.

Pupils at Wellington College in Berkshire are being told to touch the brim of their hats to passing teachers and take their hands out of their pockets when singing hymns or the national anthem.

Boys are also required to open car doors for women or elderly visitors and always stand when an adult enters the room.

Anthony Seldon, master of the college, said: “It is essential that we treat each other with respect, whether that’s the person who cleans the boarders’ rooms or the head.”

The school, which charges £25,600 (AUS$59,003) for boarders, requires every pupil to carry a list of 12 common courtesies at all times. Pupils consistently flouting the rules could be punished.

Two parents preferred

Growing up in a home without both natural parents is a well-known risk for a child’s welfare and cases of severe child abuse tend to confirm this, a recent Associated Press article says. But the article also notes that privacy concerns and fear of appearing judgemental prevent accurate assessment - and public warnings - of the risk posed by a mother’s live-in boyfriend.

The most recent federal survey of child abuse in the US tallies nearly 900,000 abuse incidents reported to state agencies in 2005, but it does not delve into how rates of abuse correlate with parents’ marital status or the make-up of a child’s household.

Data on the roughly 1500 child-abuse

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■ ALL AREAS Mike Murphy 0416 226 434.

GIFTS

Advent calendars, Nativity sets cards, candles, religious items for baptism, reconciliation,holy communion,confirmation. Exclusive range of gifts, handbags, fashion accessories and many more. Opening hours: 8am - 5.30pm Monday-Thursday; 8am-7pm Friday, 10am-3pm Saturday; 12pm-4pm Sunday. We offer personal shopper services too. OTTIMO, Shop 102 and Shop 107-108, Trinity Arcade, Terrace Level, Hay Street, Perth. Phone: 9322 4520.

HEALTH

■ ACHES, PAINS, STRESS???

Indian mature male masseur offers Reflex Relax Massage at $30 for 60mins. Phone Jai 0438 520 993.

■ DEMENTIA REMISSION

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

■ HEALTH AND WELLNESS

A New Sample Pack of wellness, weightloss, and energy products. Natural – free delivery & Followup Call 02 9807 5337

IMMIGRATION

■ MIGRATION TO AUSTRALIA

Guidance and visa processing for Skilled, Family or Study Visas . Call Michael Ring or Ajay Trehan

Registered Migration Agent (MARN # 0212024)Phone: 02 8230 0290 email: michael.ring@bigpond. com

deaths annually leave similar unanswered questions.

AIDS info detailed

Reductions in sexual promiscuity in some countries and better data collection on HIV/AIDS have led the United Nations AIDS agency to dramatically reduce its estimates of how prevalent the disease is.

Prior to World Aids Day (that took place on December 1) UNAIDS dropped its estimate of the number of people infected around the world from 39.5 million to 33.2 million. The new figure reflects more accurate surveys, particularly in India and some populous African countries.

In July, the estimate for India was almost halved, from 5.7 million to 2.5 million people, with officials admitting that the AIDS epidemic in that country was not “generalised”. This means that it has not spread far from the original high-risk groups like prostitutes and their clients, truckers, heroin users and homosexual men. Instead of being considered the world’s worst hit country, India fell to third place behind South Africa and Nigeria.

Tracking kids

A satellite tracking system developed to keep tabs on dementia patients is being snapped up by British parents worried about the safety of their children. A child wears a small black box which sends signals that can be followed on a computer at home or at work. “A lot of people set out for work first in the morning and the child only goes to school afterwards,” says a spokesman for the company that developed the device.

“People also like to use it when their child goes on a school trip.”

RELIGIOUS PRODUCTS

■ CATHOLICS CORNER

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

■ RICH HARVEST  YOUR CHRISTIAN SHOP

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

■ KINLAR VESTMENTS

“modern meets tradition”

Quality hand-made & decorated vestments, altar cloths, banners

Contact: Vickii Smith Veness 9402 8356 or 0409 114 093

TO LET

Mandurah furnished holiday apartment in resort complex, 3 brm, 2 bath. Phn 9381 3495 or email: valma7@bigpond.com

WANTED

■ TRAVEL COMPANION.

Lady 50-60’s interested in holiday to Italy to travel approx. Sept/Oct 2008. Ph 9276 5054.

WEDDING MUSIC

■ CLASSICAL MUSIC FOR YOUR WEDDING CEREMONY

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

Thank you for prayers answered

We are looking for premises either North or South of Perth where we can hold daytime clinics for our clients. We require premises for a period of three to

-Family Edge Spend

2008 reflecting on the most beloved icons of the Church. Icons & Praise 2008 contains an icon and scripture verse for every month, which can be cut out and sent to loved ones or framed. The calendar also displays the feast days and solemnities of the Church calendar for every month.

beautiful Christmas gift.

SPEND TIME WITH THE MOTHER OF GOD

In December the Church celebrates the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe,andofcourse,thebirthoftheMessiah.Spend timethisAdventandChristmasseasonwiththeMotherof God as she leads you closer to her Son, Jesus Christ.

Handbook on Guadalupe

Spend

This book begins by tracing the history of Mary in the life of the Americas before the apparition, and then the actual events and characters involved in the apparition, a detailed analysis of the image on the Tilma of Juan Diego and the significance of Guadalupe in the life of the whole Church. See why this book is considered the handbook on Guadalupe.

$16.95+postage

Also available: The Story of Our Lady of Guadalupe pocketbook $2+postage

The World’s First Love: Mary, the Mother of God

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

One of the Church’s most prolific apologists tells the story of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and explains the Church’s Marian beliefs and their solid foundation. Sheen explores mankind’s need for the Mother of God, her burning love for us and how she is God’s revelation to us of our inestimable worth and dignity. A masterpiece that combines a deep and tender spirituality with the firm foundations of history, theology and philosophy.

$26.95+postage

$14.95+postage

The Complete Rosary (2CD set)

A beautiful Rosary CD containing all the mysteries of the Rosary, as well as classic musical interludes from the heart of the Church.

$29.95+postage

Who Is Mary? A Short Catechism on the Blessed Virgin Mary

Fr Gabriel M. Pellettieri

With brevity and simplicity, Fr Gabriel presents Mary in her most essential historical, theological and spiritual reality. Learn about Our Lady in her early life, the meaning of her being ‘Immaculate’, her role in the mystery of the Incarnation, in the Paschal mystery, and in the life of the Church.

$6.95+postage

Illustrated Rosary for Children

By Sr Karen Cavanaugh Help children aged 4-8 to understand and pray the Rosary, introducing them to the life of Christ and the deep mysteries of our faith.

$7.95+postage