The Record Newspaper 13 January 2005

NEW MOVEMENTS

Schools: Curriculum awards to Catholic schools students Page 2

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Perth, Western Australia ● $1 Western Australia’s Award-winning Catholic newspaper

Faiths join: Premier hosts prayer for tsunami victims Page 5

High Note: Four voices equals Quartessence Page 4

Life comes first'

Defending life is State’s first task: Pope

Pope John Paul II has told representatives of governments from all over the world that the “primary task” of government is to defend human life from the instant of conception onwards.

The Pope’s highlighting of the defence of human life came in a full analysis of the international situation during his traditional new-year meeting with ambassadors of the countries that have full diplomatic relations with the Holy See.

The envoys, from 174 countries, were joined by representatives of the European Union, Russia, the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and the Order of Malta.

The Pope’s annual address to diplomatic representatives traditionally allows the pontiff the opportunity to address the key challenges facing the world.

Food, peace and freedom are the three other urgent challenges now facing humanity, according to John Paul II.

In his long address delivered in French, the Holy Father mentioned first of all "the challenge of life … the first gift which God has given us," whose safeguarding and promotion is the "primary task" of the state.

"The challenge to life has grown in scale and urgency in recent years," he said. "It has involved particularly the beginning of human life, when human beings are at

Continued on page 5

God and the tsunamis

The scale of the Boxing Day disasters has re-prompted many people to reflect on the problem of suffering, God, and First World affluence.

New music to premiere

The combined sounds of organ, trumpet and didgeridoo will resound from St Thomas's Catholic Church in Claremont this February when a new work by Perth composer James Ledger is premiered.

St Thomas's is now proud owner of an original pipe organ - the largest unaltered J.E. Dodd organ and the only one in Perth with a traditional pneumatic action.

Besides being used for church services, the organ's magnificent tones will feature in musical concerts. Father Brian O'Loughlin said the church bought the organ and commissioned the new work to commemorate the centenary of the Catholic church in the area.

"We also wanted to acknowledge the Aboriginal spirituality that was here before we came," Fr O'Loughlin said.

He said the new work would have as its theme "journeying and belonging" and would draw inspiration from the sea and pounding waves of local beaches.

Since August 2003,when it was blessed by Archbishop Hickey, the organ has accompanied choir and

chamber orchestral recitals. The organ, built in 1912 by renowned organ maker J.E. Dodd, was bought from the Epworth Uniting Church in Adelaide when it closed. It arrived by rail in January 2003 in a container - "like an enormous meccano set and jigsaw", said Fr O'Loughlin - and was assembled by organ builder Patrick Elms, of Albany.

"The organ is unique in that it is still in its original working order and has not been electronically modified," Father O' Loughlin said.

"It works on a tubular pneumatic and tracker system, whereby long pieces of wood connected to hooks open and shut the valves."

Large bellows within the organ draw in air and pump it to the valves.

The imposing instrument has 1300 wooden and metal pipes that tower to 7m high and are housed in a 4sq.m American cedar cabinet at the front of the church.

Arts WA has contributed partial funding for the new work, which will be performed on February 25 and 26. - courtesy POST newspapers

Tsunami Relief Concert

Fr O'Loughlin said the organ could be heard at all Masses, and the Caritas Appeal Benefit Concert for Tsunami Relief to be held on Saturday January 29 at 8pm.

There will be three guest organists: Margaret Henshaw, Martin Rein and Hudson Smith. Works by Sibelius, Bach, and other well known composers will be on the program, which will also include choral performances and other intrumentalists.

Entry will be by donation at the door. The suggested donation is $20 and $15 concession. Children will be admitted free.

The premiere Concert for the commissioned work will also be at St Thomas’s on February 25 and 26 at 8pm.

THE PARISH. THE NATION. THE WORLD.

Father Brian O'Loughlin of St Thomas the Apostle Parish in Claremont, with the JE Dodd organ, which will be used for a special Tsunami Benefit concert in late January (see story at right). A new work by Perth composer James Ledger, will also be premiered on the organ in a February concert.

Photo: courtesy POST Newspapers Perth, Western Australia

Michael

of Aquinas College,

Akl, and Kristen Maughan both of Bunbury Catholic College,

awarded a General Exhibition Certificate.

Michael Power was also awarded a Subject Exhibition Certificate in History and Natalie Akl was awarded the same for Chemistry.

Dean of the Aquinas College Mark Sawle said the school was very proud of Michael’s achievements.

“He is a fine young man with an outstanding academic record as well as being involved in sport activities, as a Eucharistic minister and cultural events,” Mr Sawle said.

“From our point of view this is the third year in a row one of our students has won a general exhibition award and that’s very pleasing for us,”

“Michael is just an all-round well balanced student,” he said.

Michael Power, whose grandfather also received the same award while at Aquinas in the 1930’s, said the award was the icing on the cake after having received his results.

“I told my family at the beginning of the

year that I was going to work hard,” he said. “I realise there are always people smarter and more determined than me so I made sure I did double the amount of study.”

Michael hopes to study Law and Politics at either Notre Dame University or the University of Western Australia.

Bunbury Catholic College Principal Ivan Banks said the school is proud of all their students’ results.

“The results of Natalie and Kristen were obviously achieved with some very solid work ethics,” Mr Banks said.

“It clearly indicates that country school

students have the same opportunity as city school students.” We believe that all of our students are encouraged to reach their full potential and while Natalie and Kristen deserved to be acknowledged for their results we are very impressed with all our students,” Mr Banks said. Natalie Akl, who received a Tertiary Entrance Rank (TER) of 99.95% said it was very important to her that she worked hard throughout the year and didn’t cram at the last minute.

The Bunbury teenager is hoping to move to Perth for further study in Medicine at UWA.

17-year-old Kristen Maughan, said working hard throughout Years 11 and 12 is what helped her to succeed.

“There were also some great teachers, their support and guidance has been a huge help and also some friends who studied the same subjects,” Kristen said.

This year Kristen is off to Denmark for 12 months before starting a degree in engineering and arts at the University of Western Australia.

More than 150 other students from the Catholic Sector also received Certificates of Distinction and Excellence.

Subiaco’s gift

St Joseph’s Parish in Subiaco raised $10,000 for the tsunami victims after just one parish Mass last weekend. A further $7000 was raised at other Masses.

A sign posted at the front

of the parish asking for donations subsequently led a team of doctors from the parish to donate medical supplies and decide to take them personally to the affected area. The funds raised will go to Caritas.

Two former Perth priests die

■ By Jamie

O’Brien

Two former parish priests from the Archdiocese of Perth have died recently.

Fr James Dowling and Fr Tom Linnane died in Ireland within days of each other.

Originally from Kilkenny, Ireland, Fr Dowling last served in the parish of Palmyra before returning to Ireland in 1990.

He also served as Parish Priest at Collie, Kelmscott, Maylands and Leederville and Assistant at South Perth, Highgate, Guildford, Kenwick

and Cloverdale. In 1999 he was awarded a Cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice from the Vatican for more than 50 years of service as Priest.

Fr Dowling was 81 at the time of his death.

Fr Tom Linnane, who was ordained in Dublin in 1936 served in Cunderdin, Mundaring and lastly as the first parish priest at Como until he returned to County Clare, Ireland in 1977.

Fr Linnane was also Chaplian at St Anne’s Nursing home in the late 1930’s. He was 94.

Hope amid the despair

Read it in The Record

NEW YORK (CNS) - People who lost loved ones in the tsunamis that struck Asia and Africa may not be able to find answers to the question of why, but they can find "a kind of solution," according to Archbishop Celestino Migliore. Celebrating Mass for victims on January 10 in New York the Vatican nuncio to the UN said the solution could be found in seeing that "God's plan for us also leads him to

share our pain and to assume our human sufferings in order to transform them."

"It won't be words or answers or explanations that will reawaken the light in the eyes of the afflicted," he said. Rather, he said, “it will be the capacity to transform pain into life, creativity and love, in the footsteps of the one who preceded us on this journey through his own life, death and Resurrection."

Natalie Akl

Kristen Maughan

Michael Power

Centre helps free the addicted

■ By Jamie O’Brien

Crossroads Community ended 2004 with a special celebration as a sign for the culture of life.

The agency, which is funded by the Archbishop’s Lifelink Appeal, supports persons struggling with drug or alcohol addiction by offering support to the immediate family, counselling and various programs.

The centre was opened at the request of Fr Paul Baczynski in August 2000 with the blessing of Archbishop Hickey.

Crossroads Community Groups operate during school terms, covering 10 themes per term.

Each session consists of quiet reflection and group meetings with involvement from family and friends who have been affected according to each person’s circumstances.

The centre was founded after Fr Paul, who had at the time recently returned from Rome, found himself immersed in supporting and praying for youth in the Bateman parish who had left the church and were involved in substance abuse.

A number of requests from parents of children with addiction problems convinced him to start a weekly prayer night.

This lead to the house being opened in East Street, East Fremantle, where programs were run for the first two years. The

Crossroads Community is now run from Council Place, East Fremantle.

Fr Paul says his extensive knowledge of the fishing industry is what has helped him relate to the people of Fremantle.

He was a professional pearl diver and fisherman for 14 years.

“I was very aware of the subculture of alcohol and drugs,” he said.

He decided to take steps to looking at ways to help people of this background.

“The centre is very much connected with helping people with

very little hope,” Fr Paul said. From models developed overseas, Fr Paul helped initiate a method of ‘Body, Mind and Soul, that assists in the rehabilitation of people who come to Crossroads.

“It is about building a bridge between the culture of life and death,” Fr Paul said.

“A person learns to build a rational plan for their life that is peaceful and productive, bearing in mind the psychology of Jesus Christ.”

Himself an atheist for many years before entering in to the seminary, Fr Paul says he wanted

to deliver a message to the people suffering from this lifestyle that it is possible to pick themselves up with the help of Christ.

The method took 12 months to develop.

He says without the help of its many volunteers, Crossroads would never exist.

One such volunteer is Conceicao Portinha.

Mrs Portinha, who is known as Connie to family and friends, initially became involved in Crossroads once a week by going to the prayer group meetings that Fr Paul started.

One setback that Mrs Portinha says she has had to get used to is the fact that people automatically believe that because she has committed so much time to Crossroads, one of her children have had substance abuse problems.

This is not the case.

“I went to Crossroads not for others but to give life for other people,” she said.

“I knew in my heart I had to help.”

The mother of two sons, one an architect, the other a sports scientist, insists the experience at Crossroads has made her stronger.

“I had to give up a lot of my social time which many people didn’t understand at first,” she said.

“However it wasn’t my plan.”

Mrs Portinha started working at

Crossroads by cleaning and is now an integral part of the fundraising team.

She says it has been very much a spiritual and personal journey.

Mrs Portinha has also attended a Holyoak Facilitators course, which showed her different ways of handling situations.

“After a few years we became like a family,” she said.

“We are a small team but we have become strong.”

In addition to her natural skills of nurturing and caring, Mrs Portinha also speaks Portuguese.

Fr Paul says this is important as the services of translators at the centre can help a person’s development in the Crossroads program immensely.

The centre is soon to open a retreat centre half an hour from the city to further develop the progress of its participants by offering time away from the hassles of day-today living.

The Centre will be having a fundraising day on Sunday January 23 at St Jerome’s Parish, Spearwood. Interested persons can contact Fr Paul at Crossroads Community on 9319 8344 or email info@crossroadscommunity.com. au.

Crossroads Community can be contacted on (08) 9319 8344.

Slum dwellers give tsunami victims all they can

Parishioners at Christ the King Catholic church in Kibera, Nairobi gave generously to a special collection for survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunami. The sum collected will go to support people in

Sri Lanka. “Our Christians from Christ the King Catholic Church in solidarity with the earthquake victims decided to join hands during this common effort sharing the little they have,” said Father Raul

Nava Trujillo of the Missionaries of Guadalupe in charge of the parish in Nairobi. “Our people in the Kibera slum are poor but also very generous since they know what it means to sleep with an empty

stomach” he said. “Several times we experienced that in crisis even small support from different parts of the world makes all the difference. The special collection made on December 31 is being chan-

nelled through the Brothers of Charity to Sri Lankan victims. “It was amazing to see how widows, single mothers, youth and children readily offered a few coins,” Father Raul concluded.

Chinese arrest clergy

Underground clergy detained in China over Christmas season

Chinese Church sources reported several instances in which underground Catholic clergy were detained during the Christmas season.

On January 3, police detained Xuanhua Bishop Peter Zhao Zhendong, five priests he had ordained two weeks earlier and two other priests involved in the ordination ceremony, Catholic sources told UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand.

The 85-year-old bishop and priests were held in a guesthouse in Wei County, where each reportedly signed a document on or near January 8 saying he would not perform his episcopal or priestly ministry, the sources said. Xuanhua, in Hebei province, is about 75 miles northwest of Beijing.

Public security officials have revealed no information about Bishop Zhao’s detention, or what action might still be taken against him, UCA News reported the

sources as saying. The two priests who joined him for the ordination ceremony had been freed, but were told to report to the officials later, they added.

According to the sources, Bishop Zhao initially invited a government-approved bishop to ordain five seminarians, hoping this would allow them to practise their priestly ministry “legally” and openly.

However, religious affairs officials forbade the bishop of the government-approved church from attending the ordination, the sources explained. In the end, Bishop Zhao ordained the five priests on December 20, they added.

The government-approved church is led by the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which spurns ties with the Vatican, while the underground church community refuses to affiliate with or recognise the authority of the patriotic association. Hong Kong church leaders have said that up to two-thirds of the governmentapproved bishops have reconciled secretly with the Vatican.

Also in Hebei, Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo of Zhengding was detained on January 5 and released on

January 8, according to the USbased Cardinal Kung Foundation. Zhengding is 10 miles from the provincial capital, Shijiazhuang.

Catholic sources in Hebei told UCA News that during the threeday detention, Bishop Jia was kept in a guesthouse away from the Shijiazhuang area.

Bishop Jia’s detention may have been related to the election of an auxiliary bishop in the government-approved church of Shijiazhuang. Officials suspected Bishop Jia might interfere with the election, the sources said, but they noted the bishop is not associated with the government-approved church and did not know about the election.

During his three-day stay in the guesthouse, Bishop Jia was allowed to celebrate Mass, pray the Liturgy of the Hours and practise his meditation. He got up at 4 am as usual and prayed, while the guards were still sleeping, the sources said.

Bishop Jia, 69, takes care of approximately 100 handicapped orphans in his own home. He has been under house arrest for most of his episcopal ministry, and, to date, has spent 20 years in prison.

Crossroads volunteer Conceicao Portinha with Archbishop Hickey recently. Mrs Porthina was recognised for her hard work and dedication to the centre.

■ By Jamie O’Brien

The Quartessence choir, consisting of Andrew Cichy 20, Cameron van Reyk 18, Greg LeCoultre 20 and Roberto Abate 18, are all former Trinity College students.

Cameron, Greg and Roberto are also former members of the Cathedral Boys Choir conducted by Fr Tim Deeter.

The Quartessence group started performing in 2002, and with the aid of a business card and a little bit of word of mouth began performing at numerous weddings, funerals and other special events.

One of their main tasks since forming Quartessence has been advising people of the type of music that is possible at events like weddings, funerals baptisms and other church events.

“People don’t always know what music is available,” said Andrew.

The young men specialise in performing Latin renaissance and choral music from the likes of Victoria, Ravanello or Palestrina.

Often they find it necessary to re-arrange the music to suit individual styles and demands, however it is a task they enjoy.

The group is also happy to be able to show that there is a great variety of renaissance music available, which they do through their performances.

The group made thier name by giving free concerts in 2002 following their initial performance, increasing their skills and capabilities.

It wasn’t long before the demand was so great that the group started incurring costs, which required they start a business.

This meant a need to increase their repertoire and the amount of time they practise.

They are now able to perform 87 separate pieces.

However, they are quick to insist their passion is not the money, but the experience and feeling of singing.

Cameron plays the saxophone, Andrew the organ, Greg the bagpipes and Rob the guitar.

“One thing we love about performing is being able to help others discover the beauty of music,” Andrew said.

One lady who has had much influence on the Quartessence boys is Annette Goerke.

Mrs Goerke has had contact with them through the Cathedral Choir or by teaching them organ at Trinity.

She says she never doubted their capacity for getting to where they are now.

Mrs Goerke says she remembers their love for polyphonic music was strong from a young age.

“It was really quite remarkable for boys of that age,” she said.

She believes it was the challenge of learning the difficult pieces of music that also encouraged them to work harder.

“It has given them a feeling of accomplishment.”

Besides practising for performances up to three times a week, the boys also have other commitments.

Andrew, who sings bass, recently completed a Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Western Australia.

This year he hopes to com-

mence a Bachelor of Music.

“The group meets my need to sing that I couldn’t match elsewhere,” he said.

His deep love of organ and choral music is endless.

Andrew’s role in the group also involves hunting down the music from the suggestions of Cameron, Greg and Roberto.

He insists everyone in the group put their preferences forward.

Andrew says the opportunity to sing in Quartessence could not have come at a better time.

“It has been an unexplainable joy to be part of Quartessence,” he said.

Cameron, the baritone singer, is in his second year of a Classical Saxophone degree at UWA.

He came up with the idea to form Quartessence after his brother asked him to sing at his wedding.

Initially he just wanted to keep singing at weddings.

The idea has lead to Quartessence performing at least once a fortnight.

For Cameron, singing in front

of a crowd has never been a difficulty.

“It makes me happy to see that I am influencing the faith of other people,” he said.

Each of the boys has a part to play, and Cameron says it is because of the variety in their voices that they are able to perform musical pieces without too much difficulty.

Greg is in his fourth year of a Software Engineering and accounting degree at Edith Cowan University.

He says it is too early to say what he will decide when this is completed.

He has a high tenor voice.

“When we are performing as Quartessence it gives us a feeling of natural high.”

“Everyone’s eyes are fixed on us and our enthusiasm for God grows from this,” he said.

He also takes advantage of the fact knowing that the group aims to add to the intensity of the Mass by performing music from the Renaissance era.

Greg says he was lucky enough

to benefit from a scholarship to Trinity, which encouraged his participation in St Mary’s Cathedral Choir.

As well as being an accomplished pianist and violin player, Greg is also skilled at playing the bagpipes, an instrument he learnt because of the influence of a close friend who was also learning how to play them.

“It was an opportunity too good to reject, and it helped me with my breathing control,” he said.

In time to come he hopes Quartessence will be able to expand the scale of their performances, perhaps with a tour interstate or overseas.

However he is quick to add he doesn’t want to give up performing Latin-rite repertoire for weddings and funerals.

“I really love being able to perform the music in its original setting,” he said.

For Roberto, singing in the Quartessence group has helped him realise what is fulfilling. This year he will commence an Advanced Diploma of Performing

Arts at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. In 2004 he completed a one-year Certificate in solo voice and music theatre also at WAAPA.

He says his decision to be part of Quartessence came after he realised how well their voices blended.

“I didn’t expect it to last,” Roberto said.

“But I realised that this was an opportunity too good to let go,” he said.

From there he and Cameron invited Greg and Andrew to make the group something permanent.

“We’ve also had a lot of time to work on the music and perfect how Victoria, Ravanello or Palestrina would have wanted it to be performed,” he said.

Roberto, who also became involved with the St Mary’s Catheral Choir in 1996 through Trinity College, says he enjoys performing pieces of Latin Renaissance ‘just that bit more’ than the jazz or soul music the Quartessence perform at weddings or funerals.

“There is so much more substance, more meaning in choral music.”

“They are not just three or four chord pieces, nor are they [only] about sex or girls, and the style is more musically complex,” he said.

Roberto says his passion for music is not an on-again-off-again relationship, but one that is constant and lasting.

“I feel a bit lost, I feel unhappy when I’m not involved in something to do with music,” he said.

This week the boys performed at St John of God Hospital to raise funds for victims of the tsunami disaster.

Quartessence are available to perform at private functions.

Interested persons can contact Andrew on 0439 922 446.

Quartessence are: Andrew Cichy 20, Greg LeCoultre 20, Cameron van Reyk 18, and Roberto Abate 18.

'Life, food, peace, freedom'

Continued from page 1 their weakest and most in need of protection.

"Conflicting views have been put forward regarding abortion, assisted procreation, the use of human embryonic stem cells for scientific research, and cloning."

"The Church's position, supported by reason and science, is clear," the Pope told his listeners. "The human embryo is a subject identical to the human being which will be born at the term of its development. Consequently, whatever violates the integrity and the dignity of the embryo is ethically inadmissible."

"Any form of scientific research which treats the embryo merely as a laboratory specimen is unworthy of man," the Holy Father affirmed.

"Scientific research in the field of genetics needs to be encouraged and promoted, but, like every other human activity, it can never be exempt from moral imperatives; research using adult stem cells, moreover, offers the promise of considerable success," he said.

The challenge to defend life, John Paul II continued, also implies the defence of "the very sanctuary of life: the family."

"In some countries the family is also threatened by legislation which - at times directly - challenges its natural structure, which is and must necessarily be that of union between a man and a woman founded on marriage," he noted.

"The family, as a fruitful source of life and a fundamental and irreplaceable condition for the happiness of the individual spouses, for the raising of children and for the well-being of society, and indeed for the material prosperity of the nation, must never be undermined by laws based on a narrow and unnatural vision of man," he warned.

Food

The second challenge highlighted by John Paul II is that of food, in reference to the "hundreds of millions of human beings suffering from grave malnutrition" and the "million of children" who every year "die of hunger or its effects."

The Pontiff acknowledged that there are encouraging initiatives in this connection, from international organisations and states and civil society.

"Yet all this is not enough," he said. "An adequate response to this

need, which is growing in scale and urgency, calls for a vast mobilisation of public opinion; the same applies all the more to political leaders, especially in those countries enjoying a sufficient or even prosperous standard of living."

John Paul II backed his proposal by mentioning "the principle of the universal destination of the earth's goods," a principle which "cannot be used to justify collectivist forms of economic policy" but "should serve to advance a radical commitment to justice and a more attentive and determined display of solidarity. This is the good which can overcome the evil of hunger and unjust poverty."

Peace

"Peace" was the third challenge mentioned in the papal address.

"How many wars and armed conflicts," the Pope lamented, "continue to take place - between states, ethnic groups, peoples and groups living in the same territory. From one end of the world to the other, they are claiming countless innocent victims and spawning so many other evils!"

The Holy Father mentioned the conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America "where

Premier calls inter-faith service for Asian victims

Fr Albert Saminedi (Fr Sam) will represent Archbishop Barry Hickey at an inter-faith service to be held on Sunday January 16.

The service will be held at City Beach, beginning at 7.59am – the local time of the earthquake that triggered the tsunami – and will end at 8.59am – local time for the one minute silence to be observed Australia-wide at 11.59am EST.

Prime Minister John Howard declared Sunday a national day of mourning and reflection, and asked all Australians to remember the victims of the tsunami at their own religious services or in their own ways.

The idea of an inter-faith service was proposed by ethnic community leaders, accepted by Premier Geoff Gallop, and organised by the Premier’s Department’s Office of Multicultural Interests.

The beach was chosen as the venue because the Indian Ocean links all countries affected by the tsunami from Indonesia to Africa.

City Beach was chosen because Aboriginal elder Ken Colbung told the initial planning meeting last Friday morning that there was an Aboriginal legend about a tsunami striking at City Beach several hundred years ago.

It is expected that representatives of a number of Christian

churches, Bhuddists, Hindus, Muslims, Ba’hai, and Sihks and of most or all of the countries struck by the tsunami will participate in the service, which will begin with an Aboriginal welcome to land.

The public is invited to attend the ceremony, which will be held near the Oceanus restaurant.

People are asked to be seated on the beach by 7.45am and to bring a single natural flower as a tribute.

recourse to arms and violence has not only led to incalculable material damage, but also fomented hatred and increased causes of tension."

"In addition to these tragic evils there is the brutal, inhuman phenomenon of terrorism, a scourge which has taken on a global dimension unknown to previous generations," he said.

"How can the great challenge of building peace overcome such evils?" he asked the Ambassadors. "I shall continue" to speak out, pointing out the paths of peace and urging that they be followed with courage and patience. The arrogance of power must be countered with reason, force with dialogue, pointed weapons with outstretched hands, evil with good."

"Bringing about an authentic and lasting peace in this violence-filled world calls for a power of peace that does not shrink before difficulties. It is a power that human beings on their own cannot obtain or preserve: It is a gift from God," he noted.

Freedom

Lastly, the Pontiff mentioned the "challenge of freedom," in particular, that of religious freedom, after a

year that has witnessed in numerous countries a lively debate about the concept of secularism.

"There need be no fear that legitimate religious freedom would limit other freedoms or be injurious to the life of civil society," he contended. "On the contrary: together with religious freedom, all other freedoms develop and thrive, inasmuch as freedom is an indivisible good, the prerogative of the human person and his dignity.

"Neither should there be a fear that religious freedom, once granted to the Catholic Church, would intrude upon the realm of political freedom and the competencies proper to the state." "The Church is able carefully to distinguish, as she must, what belongs to Caesar from what belongs to God," the Holy Father said. "She asks only for freedom, so that she can effectively cooperate with all public and private institutions concerned with the good of mankind."

The Holy Father read the first and last paragraphs of his long address and allowed one of his aides to read the rest. He expressed personally cordial wishes for the New Year to the ambassadors and their spouses who approached him.

- ZENIT

Parish closes down

Parish of All Hallows Suppressed

New boundaries for St Peter’s parish, Inglewood

Archbishop Hickey has moved to suppress the Parish of All Hallows, Inglewood and to include most of the area of the Inglewood Parish into the Parish of St Peter, Bedford.

Small territorial adjustments have been made to Bedford and the neighbouring parishes of Morley, Mt Lawley, Highgate, Embleton & Dianella.

The Church of All Hollows will continue to be a Catholic Church. Its control has been given to the Melkite Community led by Fr Anthony Samur.

The Melkite Church is a Catholic Church of Oriental Rite, in full communion with Rome. Catholics of the Latin Rite who attend the Melkite Mass may receive Holy Communion and also fulfil their Sunday obligation.

The following Decree has been issued by Archbishop Hickey on January 1, 2005.

Decree for the suppression of a parish

By the Grace of God, Barry James Hickey, Archbishop of Perth, WA.

Having heard the opinions and observations of the Rev Trevor Simons, Parish Priest of Bedford, also the Parish Priests of Morley, Mt Lawley, Maylands, Embleton, Highgate and consulted the Parish Priest of Bayswater and locum of Dianella and the Future of Parishes Committee and having consulted the Council of Priests according to Canon 515 #2. I hereby decree the suppression of the parish of Inglewood and the extinction of all its rights as a juridic person.

I hereby decree that the parish is henceforth to be known as the Parish of St Peter, Bedford.

Given at Perth WA

BJ Hickey

Archbishop of Perth

Feast of Mary Mother of God

January 1, 2005

Life from conception, food, peace and freedom are the key challenges facing the world, Pope John Paul II has told representatives of the world's governments in Rome. Illustrating these themes, a malnourished boy huddles against the chill at a nutrition centre in the Bahr El Ghazal province of southern Sudan. 'A.K.,’ aged 15, pictured at centre, was 11 when he became a soldier with the Kamajoh, a civil defence force in Sierra Leone. A young girl, at right, looks through barbed wire at the Tham Krabok refugee camp, 62 miles north of Bangkok. Photos: CNS

Jaundiced Weigel off-target

George Weigel’s ‘Reflections on Europe’ made many very good points but once again he had to let his right wing neo-conservative politics intrude. He used the words of military historian John Keegan to ask why Europeans often espouse ‘a philosophy of international action that actually rejected action and took refuge in the belief that all conflicts of interest were to be settled by consultation, conciliation, and the intervention of international agencies?’ In other words, why didn’t they support the illegal invasion on Iraq?

As the Pope’s biographer he should know that the Holy Father strongly opposed the invasion and when President Bush visited him last year he told him so publicly. In any case, isn’t the settlement of conflicts of interest by consultation, conciliation and the intervention of international agencies (read the UN) supposed to be the Christian way of doing things?

Or does Weigel think that Jesus would have been as gung-ho for the invasion as he was and would have OK’d the subsequent deaths of 100,000 innocent people, many of whom were women and children?

Peter White Swan View

Weigel footnote

Just a footnote to George Weigel’s article (The Record, 6 January).

When the possible entry of Turkey into the European Community was a hot media issue, the German Catholic newspaper ‘Die Tagespost’ of 30 November 2004 carried an article by Christoph Scholz, which reported on a meeting of politicians, scientists and ‘Kulturdenker’ (people involved with cultural activities?) on the previous weekend in the atrium of the ‘Dresdner Bank’ in Berlin. The subject of the discussions appears to have been, as far as I can guess: ‘How to give Europe a new soul.’

No clergy or people associated with Churches were invited. But the socialist Chancellor Schröder was there, pontificating about Turkey and the ‘historical opportunity’ to build ‘a bridge into the Islamic world’. For him the object had nothing to do with ‘religious defined cultures’, the aim was ‘to achieve cultural plurality’, which somehow ‘will deepen European integration’.

There were saner voices also, like the former German President Richard von Weizsäcker, who reminded the gathering of the history of the Athenian ‘Agora’, Roman Law, Jewish religion, Islamic science and ‘above all Christianity’, as the foundation of Europe. None of which had produced ‘characterless cultural mixes’.

The new head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, also reminded the gathering of Paul Valery’s three sources of European identity: Rome, Athens and Jerusalem, citing Erasmus and Montesquieu with reference to the attempts at formulating a ‘basic law for Europe’. ‘How much difference

letters to the editor

is possible, how much unity is necessary?’ he asked.

Against that mix of opinions one can put the certainty, recorded by Guido Horst in ‘Das Tagesblatt’ of 7 December 2004, as expressed by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey (who is also an ‘imam’, a religious leader) that Europe could not remain a ‘Christian Club’ and, quite in line with that arrogance, forbade his officials to accept an invitation to join a gathering of visiting American Orthodox Church leaders, issued by the US representative because the invitation gave Bartolomeius I, who is a Turkish citizen, the well-established title ‘Ecumenical Patriarch’. The ‘Ecumenical’ bit was against Turkish interests.

This Erdogan also wants us to believe that it is not Turkey that wants entry into Europe but that it will happen because the European ‘dhimmis’ have finally realised that they must fulfil the role that the Quran has allotted to them: to put, as subservient slaves, their intellectual and technological skills at the disposal of a foreordained world-wide Islamic Empire.

The Prophet said so!

Will the Prophet be fiddling on the ruins of Europe?

Matt Bruekers Lesmurdie

Chandler right

Irefer to the article (Record 25 November, 2004) about the catechists’ conference and the photograph showing the catechists in a meditative walk along a labyrinth/ maze. The really interesting item is the display of spiritual maturity by the catechists. Rosemary Chandler correctly defined the displayed image as a ‘mandala’ and Janet Kovesi Watt recognized

the image as pre-Christian. Yes, without doubt, a ‘mandala’ is a graphic mystic symbol that has for centuries been used in Hindu, Buddhist and some other nonChristian religious rituals as an aid to meditation. In fact, the slow, deliberate and focused meditative walk illustrated in the photograph is typically a Buddhist meditative technique. It is very interesting to see Christians use non-Christian symbols to further their own spiritual journey.

The image in question is definitely not a Mandorla. The Mandorla is a medieval almond-shaped aureole, a Christian art form that has Christ for the Virgin Mary within its shape. Mandorla sculptures are seen on the portals of many churches in Europe. Also, a typical example of a Mandorla is shown on page 11, Record December 16, 2004. It is the medal of the Immaculate Conception given to the world by Our Lady when she appeared to Saint Catherine Laboure and which Catholics know well as The Miraculous Medal. Also, the Mandorla as an art form can be seen as one of the stain-glass panels on the east wall of Saint Thomas More chapel at the University of Western Australia.

Kathleen Ahern

Mt Claremont

Christianity’s legacy

Ihave been overwhelmed by the generosity of Australians in reaching out to the victims of the Tsunami tragedy.

The majority of the donations would have come from non-church going people, who would have absorbed a great deal from the Christian culture of the past.

Banda Aceh

Small child why do you sit and stare from shore, And gaze where calmer seas touch distant skies; No boat, no sail, no raft, but splintered oar, No sound - but shock held trapped in childish eyes. What child knows joy; but winds play hide and seek, Amid the lifeless forms in scrub and leaf, For where is she to nestle you to sleep, Or he to comfort when the soul should weep.

Such waves draw back within such tiny hearts, To let no tear and keep pure cheeks stone dry, And storms that rage in rapid fits and starts, Seethe not like you who’ve lost all pow’r to cry.

Dear child, sweet child, whose face you wish returned? In rags, in cold, you sit, you wait, you yearn.

Dr Andrew Thomas Kania Fremantle

Adopting other's words

With due respect to Rosemary Chandler, I did not say anything (in The Record of 30 December, 2004) about the labyrinth being a spiritual mandala, nor did I imply that The Record had made a spelling mistake. If I gave that impression, I apologise. A mandala is an elaborate Buddhist guide to meditation, often illustrated as a palace with four gates facing the four corners of the earth, with the symbol of Buddha at the centre surrounded by eight other Buddhas forming the petals of a lotus flower. The whole thing is surrounded by circles symbolising the various kinds of enlightenment that the meditating person must pass through.

The only similarity to the labyrinth, a Christian-by-adoption symbol, is that it is circular, and is an aid to meditation.

There is indeed a Peace Mandala Labyrinth Project described on the Internet, where children are encouraged to draw their own personal “mandalas” - pretty circular or polygonal patterns - which are then joined together and arranged in curving strips to form a huge labyrinth for people to walk on and learn compassion “for the purpose of envisioning peace” - well, that’s the idea anyway.

I think myself that it is inadvisable, when speaking about aspects of our own religion, to use, however loosely, words which have a specific significance within other religions.

Janet Kovesi Watt Claremont

I think one could infer from this element that the modern secular world is nevertheless ‘alive’ within the Church, judging by it’s spirit of willingness to share through personal renunciation.

Thomas Pavey Winthrop

Seeking Sheen

Iwonder if you could help me with this request. I am longing for a copy of the Autobiography of Bishop Fulton Sheen to add to my memorable collection of his books. Can anyone tell me if this publication is available?

AJ Tims Swan View

And then there was a bang...

Belief in God has received such a shellacking in the letters pages in some newspapers following the tsunami disaster.

I’m reminded of a story I heard of a scientist in France, a devout Christian, who received some ribbing over his faith from colleagues who didn’t believe in God.

As a hobby, he built a model of our own small part of the universe and even had the planets move around on thin wire, once he switched on the electricity.

One of his colleagues, who visited his home, remarked on how smart it was and asked “Did you build that?” “No” he replied, “nobody did.” His friend laughed and replied: “Somebody must have built it”. “No,” said the scientist. “There was a big bang and it suddenly appeared in my workshop”. Frank Bellet Petrie Qld

In comparison

The recent tsunami destroyed countless towns and villages while as many as 200,000 died, about 40 per cent of whom were children. The countries of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand were worst hit. An esti-

mated million people were left homeless.

All of this human tragedy was portrayed in the most graphic terms by every media outlet. The enormous power of the great tidal wave that surged across the Indian Ocean to the east coast of Africa smashing and killing was given daily coverage; as was the grief of survivors and the rows of corpses in body bags. For two weeks the media seemed to miss nothing.

The drama and its consequences tugged at the hearts of all, from national leaders to ordinary people – billions poured in to aid the victims and reconstruct their homes and villages. Rarely, if ever, has there been such generousity. From all reports the Australian people, according to Rev Tim Costello, were “at the top of the worlds giving per capita.”

Pope John Paul II asked the faithful to unite with his prayer for the victims and observed a few moments of silence for them during his general audience.

With all the exposure given to the tragedy it is difficult to put it into perspective or make the comparison with the numbers of unborn children killed each day by abortion. It is not possible to compare.

In an eerie media silence medical practitioners carry out the killing of children by abortion privately in sterile clinics. But the killing goes on day after day. In the past two years Australia has killed the same number of defenceless human beings by abortion as were killed by the tsunami.

The passing of legislation to make abortion legal has resulted in educating many to believe that abortion is morally acceptable. One of the most profound results of the change in the law is the quite visible change in the ‘consciousness’ of a large part of the medical profession and the community, including many Catholics.

Another almost hidden consequence of abortion is that suffered by many women who have had their child aborted – post abortion syndrome. Their grief is real. In some it is as real as the mothers who have lost a child in the tsunami.

Brian Peachey Woodlands

"A God of love,

not wrath"

Letter writers to newspapers have debated God's role in the devastation caused by the tsunamis. Here, Notre Dame University Dean of the College of Theology, Professor Dennis Rochford, looks at how Christianity has thought about this age-old issue.

■ By Dennis Rochford

Nothing does more to raise the question of God than the apparent absence of a divine presence when human beings suffer so much in tragedy. Letters and articles to newspapers and passing conversations blame more than nature. The failure of a so-called loving God is raised or, for Sydney’s Anglican Dean, Phillip Jensen, “disasters are part of (God’s) his warning

that judgement is coming.” Father Neil Brown, Sydney’s Catholic Dean, entertained no such idea. Nor did Rabbi Apple of the Great Synagogue. Father Paul Stenhouse msc, editor of Annals magazine, made the point well: “Christianity does not teach that God causes natural disasters; nor does it teach that God causes them in order to punish the wickedness of the victims.”

The very thought that Tsunamis are part of the wrath of God is both strange and inconsistent with Christianity. It is strange because since Galileo, his

telescope and the Pope, science always seems correct against Church authority.

People today have come to feel themselves liberated from religious paternalism. This has sometimes had a comical side. For example, before 1989, tourists entering Leningrad, at the Museum to Atheism (in the old Mary Church of pilgrimage) were greeted with the words from Gargarin, the first Cosmonaut, “I went to Heaven and I did not see God”.

Continued on page 8

Mallika, a young Indian tsunami survivor, cries in pain at a hospital in Kanniyakumari, on the southern tip of India. The scale of the disaster has prompted many people to re-examine an age-old question: how can a loving God permit such things to happen. However, writes Notre Dame Dean of Theology Professor Dennis Rochford, only in Christ, himself left to emaciated agony on the Cross, does the full mystery of Christian faith become clearer. He is the image of the invisible God. Photo: CNS

A God of love...

Continued from page 7

Questions about the sun, moon, stars and the natural world, are resolved scientifically. How ironical that the God, rendered silent in the face of science, is now blamed for the cruel workings of an always unpredictable nature.

But the more important point is that belief in God, for Christians, necessarily includes a covenant of love; an always faithful God who is always on the side of humankind. In 1755, on the occasion of the earthquake that destroyed large parts of Lisbon, Kepler wrote a letter of protest to the Lutheran Faculty of the University, much as people today protest the absence of God in the devastated villages and cities of Asia.

He received no satisfactory answer. Thus the question will always be there: where do we encounter this loving faithful God?

God, it seems, is always experienced as invisible. The Creator is not the ‘cause’ that philosophy would have us think. From a Christian perspective, though the world around us is the creation of God, our God does not belong to history. God is always sought other-wise and else-where.

God is transcendent. God can only be ‘reached’ through persons, places and times but these are not God. This is what Robert Sokolowski calls “the Christian distinction”.

God is not in the world. He is the God ‘of’ the world. To say that “I believe in God’, even in the face of terrible trial, is to affirm both that God is for us but that God remains invisible. Only in Christ, himself left to emaciated agony on the Cross, does the full mystery of Christian faith become clearer. He is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15)

Even in this image, the invisible does not become visible. God becomes present but remains invisible. In order to see this one must believe. But in this act of faith one must also accept that, even where God makes himself present, God does not become part of the explosive and capricious nature that brings us to grief all too often. Tsunamis are not caused by God the Creator whose single Word, Jesus Christ, hanged to death, is answered in the language of mystery that we call new life.

Australians have shared their abundance with those thrown into even greater need. Medical teams are in place and our generosity flows as never before. All this is good but, from the desk of theology at the University of Notre Dame, where Kepler deserves his answer, the activity of God remains an offer of love, a story of love not wrath; of hope and not despair.

Salesians appeal

The Salesian Missions Office has launched an appeal for the victims of the December 26 earthquake and tidal wave in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Appeal Co-ordinator, Br Michael Lynch, said that up a 1000 local Salesians are heavily involved on the ground in rescue and relief work.

In appealing for funds for food, clothing and emergency shelter to support this work, Br Lynch said:

“In India the southern states of Tamil Nadu, Andrhra Pradesh, and Kerala have suffered considerable damage.

■ Fr James Theophilus of Tiruchy said that teams of local Salesians are heavily involved in rescue and relief work.

■ Emergency Shelter Centres have been set up in Chennai (Madras) at Don Bosco Koothamkuzhy and the Salesian St Bede’s School.

“In Sri Lanka Fr Anthony Pinto said a major concern is for the children who have lost their parents and parents who have lost their children. He added a team of Salesian priests and brothers are providing rescue services, food, clothing and emergency shelter.

“In Thailand the worst affected area is in the Diocese of Surat Thani headed by Salesian Bishop Joseph Prathan.”

Br Lynch added that the devastation of this widespread disaster will touch the lives of millions for many years.

Donations can be sent to:

TSUNAMI APPEAL, Salesian Missions Office

P O Box 264 ASCOT VALE Vic 3032

A photo, a toy, are all that’s left here...

Louise Crowe, an Australian Caritas aid worker on the ground in Medan, Northern Sumatra, has been keeping a diary of her impressions of the devastation caused by the December 26 tsunamis.

Saturday, 8th January, 2005:

Iwas deeply moved to see the images of Acehnese gathering for Friday prayer at their grand mosque, the Raya Baiturrahman. I was struck by the story of one man who had walked kilometres to come to pray at the mosque and while there, began to weep at his loss. He had been driving his truck in southern Aceh when the tsunami hit. When he arrived back his home was destroyed and his whole extended family had been killed. He could not even find their bodies. He buried the bodies of strangers that he found all around. It is hard to imagine how alone he must feel except for the consolation of his faith.

Now that there are so many agencies moving into Aceh as part of the relief effort, it raises questions about their impact on the people and their sensitivities, particularly religious sensitivities. With so many UN and other aid representatives, a false economy is often created that caters to their needs. There are a number of agencies that have a strong Christian evangelical motivation that might cause tension, even hostility in this strongly Muslim province. Some Muslim groups may feel threatened by Christian groups who come in and distribute aid to vulnerable people. Some of the elements are being put in place to actually cause new problems that impact on the Acehnese people. Catholic Relief Services are talking with Muslim agencies about their programs and how they might cooperate together.

It was another day of meetings and writing. We collected George of Caritas Austria at the airport and dropped into Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS). Often during the day I tried to contact Ingvild the JRS information and advocacy officer to see how their trip to Banda Aceh had gone. We finally spoke and she reported that the overland trip there was fine. She sent me her impressions today: ‘Toured around Banda Aceh today. You know when you are overexposed to something through TV and then you see it in reality and almost feel a bit ripped off because it is not as bad as

you though it was? Well this is different. was not at all prepared to see the massive destruction. It is everywhere.

Kilometres from the ocean even. If I could know how large an area it would be equal to in Oslo or another city that I know it may be easier to comprehend, but, really, it is huge. And this is after 11 days of working to clean it up...

In Timor and Maluku you can at least see that the ruins have been houses.

Here it has all been crushed with the exception of some random remnants of houses that have for one reason or the other managed to stay standing. Some identifiable houses have been moved several metres. Twisted metal

limbs sticking out from underneath plastic. Some of the bodies were not even covered. They don’t get a name, and are not even counted before the grave is closed.

The IDPs are in camps, and it seems like the basic needs are to some extent taken care of in Banda Aceh and the area around, from what I could see. But people are traumatised, confused and have lost everything. I hope that this is not going to be a “years of apathy in camp” situation, but I can understand the helplessness of the people right now. We will have a JRS meeting now, and I hope to meet with other agencies during the week.

in between turn out to be cars. And in between you see proofs that this used to be people’s homes. Photos on the ground, a small, yellow teddy bear, clothes, kitchen ware.

They are still pulling out bodies from the rubble, especially on the outskirts of Banda Aceh, but I saw it in the middle of the city too. now know the smell and looks of 11 days old corpses. We stopped at an open mass grave, and I took some photos. Respect for the dead gave me strength not to throw up and faint by the sight of people’s rotten

There are after shocks every day. Today only a small one. My first impressions only.’

- Louise Ms Crowe’s role is to join Caritas’ strategic assessments of the short and long-term needs of those affected by the disaster. The Caritas Internationalis network is the world’s second largest aid and relief networks.

DONATIONS to help the victims of the Asia Earthquake can be made on-line at: http://www.caritas.org.au/howtohelp/ donate_online.htm or by contacting 1800 024 413.

‘Please stand by us’

A Bishop’s account of the tsunami

A Bishop at the centre of the crisis in South East Asia has revealed the scale of the devastation his community have suffered.

Up to 25,000 people may have died in the Nicobar Islands, off the coast of Myanmar (Burma), according to a report issued by the Rt Rev Alex Dias, Bishop of Port Blair.

According to the bishop, on the Car-Nicobar Island alone, the deaths could have exceeded 18,000.

In a message appealing for help from the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, Bishop Dias said: “There are lots of dead bodies buried under the debris and in the sand, which was brought up by the roaring tidal waves.”

Describing the desperation of the whole community, Bishop Dias said: “It is impossible to describe the situation here. We need everything: your prayers, your thoughts, your consolation and your material help...Please stand by us.”

The bishop’s words come as Aid to the Church in Need launches an appeal for the tsunami victims, a campaign which coincides with the charity’s emergency aid package of $80,000 split between the Nicobar Islands and the nearby Andaman Islands.

With the Nicobar Islands bearing the brunt of the killer wave, Bishop Dias said that all the churches, the presbyteries, the convents and dispensaries “have been washed away”.

Meantime, in the nearby Andaman Islands, Bishop Dias said that many church buildings had been damaged, with some being beyond repair.

But he added: “More than material losses, it is the human tragedy that brings tears to the eyes - orphans, but mainly widows and widowers...”

Many of the islands have been

The problem of pain. Or, is God to blame?

■ By

THugh Ryan

here are two problems with the current worldwide outbursts of media philosophy and theology about the problem of pain and the goodness of God: the first is that the anti-God brigade ask meaningless questions, and the second is that those who love God try to answer them.

The questioners never stop to think about the meaning of their questions, although many of them are in a hurry to tell believers what their answers should be.

When they ask why does God cause or permit such suffering, they never open their minds to consider what he would have to do to stop it. Create a world with no tectonic plates? A world with plates that don’t move? A world with oceans that are not affected by tectonic plate movements? A world in which all the land has cliffs high enough to prevent a tsunami encroaching?

Instead, move away from the fig leaves and speak from the reality of light.

There are two main things to remember and to pass on to those who want to know the truth.

One is that nature is as nature is, and pain and suffering are part of the life of mankind, from birth to death. There is no point in thinking that nature ‘should’ be different. It should be as it is. Demanding anything else is telling God he doesn’t know his job, and perpetuates the pain of confusion and frustration.

cut off for days after a massive power failure. Ships could not reach the people and so the bishop called on the Air Force to deliver food rations. The bishop tried frantically to reach the priests and religious and, unable to contact them for several days, he feared the worst. When telephone lines were temporarily restored, the bishop heard the news he had been waiting for: “The fathers and sisters have survived, thanks to the Lord,” he said. “But they told me that they have nothing else but the clothes they are wearing.

“They cannot buy anything there because the shops have all been destroyed and washed away. Unable to return home, they are staying with parishioners.”

The bishop is already turning his attention to the long-term future of his diocese. He said: “Twenty years ago, we started this diocese from scratch.

And now we are called upon to do the same again.

This is going to take us a long time and funds are not going to be so easy to get.”

The aid given to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is part of an emergency aid package of $340,000 - the combined total given by Aid to the Church in Need offices throughout the world.

As well as supporting Bishop Dias, ACN is also giving over $60,000 for Trincomalee-Batticaloa diocese on the north-east coast of Sri Lanka.

ACN is appealing for aid to help those caught up in the tsunami. For information or to make a donation please contact the Sydney office of Aid to the Church in Need on 02 9679-1929.

e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org Web: www.aidtochurch.org

There are all sorts of possibilities with each one leading to endless sequences of causeeffect-cause, but when we set ourselves up to tell God how to be God, they all lead to absurdity. This is only to be expected because the idea that we can do a better job of being God than God can is the foundation of absurdity. People who indulge in it almost never admit they are doing it. Instead, they cover themselves with fig leaves (in this case, meaningless questions) to hide from themselves what they are doing. Then they blame God.

This is a time honoured process. When God asked Adam whether he was hiding from himself and from God because he had eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil God had told him not to eat from, Adam replied: “The woman you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and ate.” In other words, ‘it’s your fault, God, you shouldn’t have made the woman you gave me.” The woman followed the same strategy: if God hadn’t made the serpent, nothing would have happened.

This is a wise story written for adults, and millions of adults are desperate to make sure they never understand it.

The second level of absurdity is the objection to pain, suffering, death and grief ‘on this scale’. The attackers never say what scale would be acceptable; they simply leave it floating so that those who try to answer find they cannot answer. Does the objecter object to all pain? All suffering? All death? Or only some of it? How much of it? And which bits of it are acceptable and which not? In the media, it seems that if you die after age 60 it is okay, but if you die before that your death is ‘tragic’.

These complaints about pain and suffering are just more smokescreens to prevent consideration of the truth about God and human life.

Blame is a useless process that closes the mind to solutions and to ideas about what to do next. People who try to answer the blamer’s meaningless questions get caught up in justification, which is merely the other side of the coin. It is equally useless.

Blame and justification produce negative mental states that drain human energy. Avoid them because they are a plague. Love and forgiveness, on the other hand, produce positive mental states that generate human energy and open the mind and body to the flow of divine grace. Catholics should feel no obligation to answer those who raise these sorts of questions in this sort of way. They are asking to create confusion, not to seek enlightenment.

And what of those who ask from the confusion of their pain, who do not want to despair, and need help to understand? These we must help. Firstly, love them. That will bring healing where disputation would bring harm. Then, if it is appropriate, answer them, but never answer them in the terms of the questions that are designed for confusion. Those questions cannot be answered.

The second is that God is good, always good, unhesitatingly good, unchangeably good, perfectly good. When we can fix our minds on that in any circumstances, we will always be aware of good and be motivated to do good. No part of us will be wasted on fretting, resenting, blaming or condemning. It is a long journey, but it is worth setting out on it. Eventually, we will be so attuned to seeking good that we will begin to see the goodness of God in everyone and everything. Then we will be able to pray the lines from the Irish Te Deum “Thanks be to God for his own great goodness, Thanks be to God that what is is so.”

This prayer does not produce fatalism or despair; it produces the faith and the grace to get on with the happy task of bringing the

goodness of God to the world and the people around us.

When we look at the world from the light of God’s goodness, we have a different experience than we would if we looked at it from the darkness that does not recognise him. St John put it better in the first few verses of his Gospel, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

More careful readers than I tell us that 159 times in the Old Testament we are told, “Seek God”. It is still the best advice because if we seek we will find. The one we are seeking will make sure of that. Suffering will cause people to begin or to deepen their seeking more often than luxury and self-indulgence will – although the pain of the emptiness of self-indulgence may also move us, just as the pain of alcohol or drug dependence will sometimes lead people to seek the goodness that was born into them when they were made in the image and likeness of God and from which they have been hiding behind some very abrasive fig leaves. It is only in seeing the goodness of God and seeing our intimate relationship with him that we can see the truth of who we are. It is that truth and that alone which will set us free to become all of who we are.

Utter devastation: Meulaboh, as seen and photographed by Louise Crowe's fellow Caritas aid worker, Jamie Isbister. Photo: courtesy Caritas

How much is enough?

$ How much is enough?

International Scrooges?

The generous outpouring of aid to victims of the tsunamis is wonderful, and inspiring. But did it need 150,000-plus victims to make us realise that so many people in the world don’t have it as easy as we do?

■ By Carol Glatz

Not even Bob Cratchit accused his miserly employer, Ebenezer Scrooge, of being a well... scrooge. But this Christmas season, a highranking UN official publicly complained of chronic penny-pinching by the world's wealthiest countries. Just days after a deadly earthquake and subsequent tsunamis left tens of thousands of people dead or missing and obliterated countless villages in a dozen countries along the Indian Ocean, UN emergency coordinator Jan Egeland had this to say about how parsimonious "the haves" have become.

"It is beyond me why we are so stingy. Really. Christmas time should remind many Western countries at least, how rich we have become," he told reporters at the end of December.

While Egeland praised the generous outpouring of support for the tsunami victims in Asia and East Africa, he later clarified his criticism by saying the Western world has failed and continues to fail miserably in helping the world's poor when there are no emergencies, an assessment echoed by some church officials. Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, called the huge flow of aid money after the tsunami disaster "a positive sign." But he criticised the usual lack of attention paid to the "over 1 billion human beings whose lives are constantly marked by extreme need."

Perhaps the tsunamis will help people realise that "humanitarian aid should not just come when there is an emergency," he said on January 2 in an interview with the Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera.

Cardinal Martino said that if rich countries had been funding development projects in the countries hit by the tsunamis then these poorer areas would have had "over triple the resources available, and they could have even taken advantage of having an alarm system warning of atypical waves" and setting up other emergency

response measures. In just two weeks, world governments allocated more than $4 billion to fund immediate humanitarian relief and long-term rebuilding of the areas affected by the December 26 tsunamis. But after five years wealthy nations have made little progress in earmarking a small portion of their yearly wealth toward pulling the world's people out of poverty.

In 2000, rich countries committed themselves to the millennium development goals aimed at cutting the number of the world's extreme poor by half by 2015. Funding to reach those goals was to come from wealthy countries spending 0.7 percent of their gross national income for aid in developing countries.

According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, out of 22 wealthy countries, in 2002 and 2003, only Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Denmark spent that percentage of foreign aid.

The United States was at the bottom of that list, spending the least in foreign aid -- just 0.15 percent of its gross national income in 2003.

It was this lack of long-term and consistent giving toward development that left Egeland disappointed, and the Vatican's representative to UN and humanitarian organisations based in Geneva dismayed.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the representative, said that "the effort is there to push up the percentage" that countries give toward foreign development, but added, "I don't think the millennium goals will be reached."

While "we never before had so much wealth and resources in the world to reach the needs of people," the problem, he said, lies in nations' spending priorities, which are "sometimes off the target."

Dedicating a large portion of a nation's revenue toward arms rather than putting education first is not just wrong, "it is self-defeating," the archbishop said.

A value-based education goes more toward "creating a mentality of managing public life" con-

Animal Farm is not for us

■ By Paul

Gray

As I write, a tiny brown bird with yellow feet and a yellow beak sits watching me, three feet from my bare big toe. The bird is exhausted from the intense Australian summer heat. At least, it looks it.

This bird has had it. So far gone it is, that it’s departed from the wise and steady habit of generations of its kin by perching in the middle of my footpath.

“Birdie!” I call. It doesn’t move. “Puss!” I call, to the cat just four feet further away. Still the bird doesn’t move.

Neither does the puss. This heat subverts all rational behaviour, even in that most rational corner of the created universe, the animal kingdom.

I’m not one of those who gets stressed greatly over the use of the word “animal” to describe

a form of rational behaviour. Conservation of energy, schoolkids would be taught to call it.

Usually, the puss is a stalking beast. The hunter, pursuing suitable prey. It’s a small cat, but if I were bird-sized, I’d be scared.

We, on the other hand, can choose not to kill the bird, for reasons other than the temperature of the day. Reasons like sentiment, a desire to make scientific observations or a pure admiration for the mysterious complexity of its avian form.

These are all comprehensible rationalisations for staying the human hand, or foot, that otherwise might crush an insignificant, unfamiliar beast. But do they prove we are more than animals?

What may prove more convincing is the way so many humans have responded to the effects of the tsunami.

The tidal wave (as these phenomena used to be called) is an utterly efficient natural operation.

cerned with quality of life and the common good than does military spending, he said.

"We need a different sense of security that will enlarge one's sense of comfort beyond self-protection," said Archbishop Tomasi.

This new sense of security must include "the well-being of all people, that people can survive and live together and have decent work," he said.

Archbishop Tomasi's predecessor, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, Ireland, said foreign aid must also aim to make poorer nations less dependent on richer nations.

Developing countries need to be given "genuine ownership of their resources" so ideally they can fund their own programs toward "human development and education," he said.

There is no question the shock and scale of destruction caused by a natural disaster can jolt people from apathy to action in helping those in need.

But Archbishops Martin and Tomasi said they hope this time, the global concern shown toward the victims of the December 26 tsunamis won't quickly peter out and revert to neglect.

"It's important that after this disaster" fades from the limelight, "the people there not be forgotten," said Archbishop Martin.

Archbishop Tomasi said he thinks the overwhelming generosity shown by so many governments and individuals "is probably something new."

"It shows for the first time a globalised sense of responsibility," he said.

He said he hoped "this experience of wide solidarity" would tell government leaders "that the people are not opposed to being responsive to the needs of other countries."

People responded "not just because it was necessary, but because it is good for everyone. If that message sinks in, then some good will come of this tragedy," he said. - CNS

the human being. Of course, as a typical bulbous-veined theist anxious to smite the enemies of religion, in my youth, I took grand exception to liberal-minded scientists who called humans “animals.”

Even that worthy author Oliver Sacks got my goat when he insisted, in a televised conversation with the not-quite-so-worthy Robyn Williams of the ABC’s Science Show, that humans are, of course, animals too.

“Are they?” I thundered at the telly. “Then how come our brains are so much bigger and more powerful than theirs!”

That was years ago. Then quite recently I did some basic research (called “looking up a dictionary”) and discovered that the word “animal” comes from “anima,” Latin, meaning “breath.”

Hmmm. Animals breathe. So do we, unless there’s something terribly wrong.

Perhaps we really are animals, after all. That’s not the end of the argument, though.

Where we’re different from others, I observe, is that we’re not quite so brutalist, in a way, as our fellow creatures of fleshand-blood.

My cat will eat my bird, or kill it trying, any day of the week. Except when the temperature’s over 35 degrees, when it can’t be bothered rising from its furry haunches. That refusal is in itself

An adjustment in the structure of the surface of the earth creates a corresponding movement in the elements.

Members of many different living species then suffer the devastating consequences.

Only the remnants of one species, however, band together spontaneously around the globe afterwards to comfort those left behind.

They even held a charity cricket match, in one place, which raises $15million. A pity Australia’s players couldn’t have sided with the Asian team for the match, but leaving that small criticism aside, the relief effort by the rest of the world remains firm proof of a common spirit among humanity.

Call that spirit “love.” A vague word, perhaps, but it’s one that carries sufficient punch to it to rile the atheists among us, whenever you throw it into conversation about the moral meaninglessness of life in the universe today. And yesterday.

Some people lament the fact that God occasionally gets blamed tsunamis. How fatuous is that?

The interesting question isn’t: why did God let it happen? The interesting question is: why do we care?

The second question, alone, is enough to prove we’re not just animals.

THE WORLD: DECODING THE LAY MOVEMENTS

Catholics can find all the ingredients for living their faith in their parish, but many have been helped by lay movements and associations.

The maturing movements

Officials say lay movements augment, don’t replace parish life

■ By Cindy Wooden

Four decades after the Second Vatican Council, the lay movements that have thrived from its focus on the active participation and responsibility of every Catholic seem to be reaching a level of maturity.

Many of the movements are viewed with suspicion by some members of the Church, and some movements still exhibit defensiveness, but the overwhelming support of Pope John Paul II and supervision by the Pontifical Council for the Laity are bringing balance to the situation.

Belonging to a lay movement, Bible study or prayer group may help someone be a better Catholic, but the groups have not replaced parishes as the structure through which Catholics belong to the Church, Vatican officials said.

“You become a Catholic thanks to baptism, you are part of the Church thanks to the anointing of the Holy Spirit and you grow in the faith nourished by the Eucharist,” said Guzman Carriquiry, undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.

Catholics should find all those ingredients for living their faith in their parish, but many have been helped by lay movements and associations, he said.

In late November, the council published a directory listing 123 international lay associations, movements and communities approved by the Church.

During its November plenary meeting, the council focused on “the true meaning of the parish” and how to ensure a parish is a “community of communities.” It included a round-table discussion on the role of movements and associations in the life of a parish.

Mgr Luigi Giussani, founder of the lay movement Communion and Liberation, sent a message to the meeting saying every parish must be a movement in the sense of being a community in which the experience of having encountered Christ “becomes the totalising horizon of thought and action, of self-understanding and of passionate love for the mystery and destiny of our brothers and sisters.”

Unless they are “in move-

ment,” he said, Christians “leave behind churches that are like tombs, parishes that are only administrative offices and communities that have only a psychological or sociological value.”

At the same time, Vatican officials, council members and leaders of lay groups acknowledged that the movements’ enthusiasm and pride sometimes create problems.

Some of the movements have been accused of causing deep divisions within parishes, of appearing to claim that they have the only path to true Christianity and of exercising too much control over the lives of their members.

Adriano Roccucci, secretary-general of the Rome-based Community of Sant’Egidio, said, “A risk for the movements is that they say the only way to be a good Catholic is to be one of them, to think their movement is ‘the Answer’ - with a capital A.”

Paolo Ciani, a spokesman for the community, said that in the early years “trying to establish an identity can have the effect of seeming boastful.

“As the movement matures, the

identity is more solid, and the need to point out your distinctiveness lessens.”

Carriquiry said the enthusiasm is natural: “If I believe that that path was given to me by God, I feel overwhelmed with happiness and even pride.”

Community members offer each other support in living the faith in the very concrete and practical situations of their lives, he said.

Part of the laity council’s role of supporting and encouraging the movements, Carriquiry said, is offering guidance when questions and controversies arise.

About the only things the 123 groups listed in the new Vatican directory have in common are being Catholic, being predominantly lay and being recognised as Catholic by the laity council.

The Legion of Mary, Marriage Encounter, the Focolare movement, Communion and Liberation, the Community of Sant’Egidio, the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations and the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal all have entries in the book.

Some of the groups gather Catholic members of a profession

together for an annual meeting, while others encourage members to live together in a community, sharing their resources and dedicating their lives to serving others.

Some follow the spirituality and example of a specific religious order, while others have spawned priestly fraternities and religious orders of their own.

Some of the groups have a well-defined membership and structure, while others are a loose network with a very fluid “opendoor” policy for participation.

The variety of structures and membership definitions means that many of the groups do not know exactly how many members they have; therefore, the Vatican does not, either.

Carriquiry said it would seem the charismatic renewal is the largest movement in the church; he said the Brazilian bishops estimate that 6 million Catholics in Brazil regularly attend a weekly charismatic prayer meeting.

The Focolare movement, which is more structured and coordinated, has about 116,000 members and more than 2 million “adherents” and friends who regularly participate in Focolare programs

and projects.

One of the best-known groups of Catholic laity, Opus Dei, is not listed in the directory.

Although it began as a lay movement, Opus Dei is a personal prelature - a unique structure, similar to a diocese and led by a bishop. Opus Dei has some 85,000 members, of whom 1,850 are priests.

Mgr Joaquin Llobell, an Opus Dei priest and professor of canon law at Holy Cross University in Rome, said the special status helps Opus Dei live and function as its founder, St Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, wanted.

Opus Dei’s focus is not on having members act as a group, like a movement would, but on “helping people recognise that lay people are called to holiness through their work in the world,” whether it is principally a profession or raising a family, he said.

With the notable exceptions of Opus Dei, which began in Spain in the 1920s, and the Focolare movement, which began in Italy in the 1940s, most of the groups sprang up in the 1960s and 1970s under the twin influences of the Second Vatican Council and cultural upheaval. - CNS

Members of Communion and Liberation, a Catholic lay movement, meet for a weekly prayer and discussion meeting on December 16 in New York. Photo:CNS

THE WORLD: DECODING THE LAY MOVEMENTS

Movements a call to Christ

Lay movements naturally give rise to priesthood, religious life

■ By Cindy Wooden

Lay movements or communities that emphasize the call to dedicate one’s life to Christ and the Catholic Church naturally give rise to vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

The personal prelature of Opus Dei has its own priests; Communion and Liberation gave birth to the Priestly Fraternity of St Charles Borromeo and the Sisters of Charity of the Assumption; more than a dozen members of the Community of Sant’Egidio have been ordained priests for the Diocese of Rome and assigned back to the community.

But none of the movements founded by and for lay people independent of a religious order comes close to running as many seminaries and having as many members ordained priests as the Neocatechumenal Way.

The only possible rival, as far as numbers go, may be Regnum Christi, a lay movement founded by the Legionaries of Christ, a religious community. The lay movement has been the seedbed for many Legionaries vocations, as well as to the priesthood and religious life in general.

Followers of the Neocatechumenal Way insist it is not a lay movement, but rather an itinerary of faith. Members of the small, parish-based communities follow steps of faith development meant to evoke the process of full insertion into the Christian community experienced by the catechumens in the early Church.

After completing the initial stages of the Way, young men who sense a call to the priesthood are invited to join a preseminary community where they can explore their vocation. When the individuals and the leaders of the community decide they are

ready, the candidates are sent to a Redemptoris Mater seminary.

Although they are erected by a diocese, the Redemptoris Mater seminaries are for candidates coming from the Neocatechumenal Way, and the majority of the staff participate in the Way.

The student body and staff of

already training priests in the United States at Redemptoris Mater seminaries in Newark, New Jersey, Denver and Washington.

needed, Father Pasotti said.

they go on mission. An official in the Congregation for Catholic Education, the Vatican office overseeing seminaries, said that although the candidates come from a Neocatechumenal community and their vocation is discerned with the help of the community’s leaders, the local bishop must approve each candidate, and he must make the final decision on whether or not to ordain the seminarian.

Giuseppe Gennarini, responsible for Neocatechumenal Way communities in the United States, said that in rediscovering the meaning of Christian baptism members discover their vocation to serve God.

The candidates for the priesthood coming from the Way often are members of large families “who are grateful to the Church for the help it has provided, and they see the figure of the priest as important to the Church and community,” creating an environment where their sons feel free to explore the possibility of priesthood.

Gennarini said the Neocatechumenal Way is especially valuable for people like him who had been away from the Church for years or who know nothing of Christianity.

each seminary are an international mix, which the Way believes emphasises the universal nature of the Church and the universal mission of each diocese.

Since 1989, more than 1,000 men have been ordained to the priesthood after studying at one of the 54 Redemptoris Mater seminaries around the world.

The 55th Redemptoris Mater Seminary is scheduled to open in 2005 in Dallas, joining those

After a period of at least a year at one of the pre-seminary centres, those convinced of their vocation “are invited to an international encounter” with the founders and international leaders of the Neocatechumenal Way, who coordinate which students go to which Redemptoris Mater seminary, said Father Ezechiele Pasotti, director of studies at the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Rome.

Their experience in the Way and their preparation in the pre-seminary generally lead the young men to express a willingness to go wherever they are

Candidates may express a preference, or the Way’s leadership may make assignments to guarantee a full international mix of students at each seminary, Father Pasotti said, “but sometimes we just draw names. This emphasizes the universal nature of the priesthood.” The Rome seminary, he said, has about 100 students, 40 of whom are from Rome or Italy’s Lazio region. Another dozen are from elsewhere in Italy, and the rest come from Latin America, Asia and Africa.

The men will be ordained for the Diocese of Rome and, under the Redemptoris Mater statutes, they will serve at a Rome parish for at least two years. After that, the bishop decides where

Opus Dei a fuelling station for the laity

The suspicion that surrounded Opus Dei for years seems to be subsiding as members of the organisation reach out to journalists and the public.

Opus Dei’s experience proved how suspicion and defensiveness feed off each other, increasing the level of both.

A combination of strong support from Pope John Paul II, maturity and increased contacts with the public through its schools and universities has made Opus Dei grow more secure in its identity and, at least as far as the press is concerned, less secretive.

"We don't think that we are better than other movements."

While Opus Dei is a personal prelature, not a lay movement, its experience mirrors that of many of the new lay groups that have sprung up in the Catholic Church.

“Now that there is more variety in the Church, there is more tranquillity and less suspicion,” said Marco Carroggio, a spokesman for Opus Dei in Rome.

“It seems that we had been so concerned with our special status that we came off as arrogant,” he

said in late November. Mgr Joaquin Llobell, an Opus Dei priest and professor of canon law at Opus Dei-run Holy Cross University in Rome, said, “We don’t think that we are better than the movements.”

The prelature now has about 85,000 members - mostly married people, but with a strong corps of lay members who have made promises of celibacy.

Opus Dei also has about 1,850 priests.

Msgr Llobell said the structure of a prelature, similar to a diocese and led by a bishop, helps Opus Dei live and work “in a family climate” where each member lives the Christian call to holiness in accordance with his or her own vocation.

Unlike members of most lay movements, he said, “most of what an Opus Dei member does he does independently of the movement.”

Opus Dei provides formation, study, individual spiritual direction and retreats, but the apostolate or outreach of Opus Dei generally is not a group activity, Mgr Llobell

Gennarini said his own journey toward involvement with the Neocatechumenal Way passed through anti-clericalism, atheism and university studies on Karl Marx.

He said he was invited to a catechetical session in Rome in 1970, and “I was attracted right away.”

“I knew, intellectually, about the Catholic faith, but it was not personal, it wasn’t based on experience,” he said.

Gennarini said the Neocatechumenal Way is especially valuable for people like him who had been away from the Church for years or who know nothing of Christianity.

“For me, the community was like an emergency room, a place to rediscover the Church and the sacraments” and get stabilised before joining the rest of the parish he said. “The lost sheep need special care,” he said. - CNS

said. Rather, members are called to live holy lives and make the world holy by the way they carry out their work, whether that is in a profession or in raising children and running a household.

“When I joined,” he said, “I experienced Opus Dei as a gas station, a place to get fuelled up and then get on my way.

Opus Dei is not a garage where all the cars are locked up.

“A parish is like a service station, too,” he said. “Parishes are like state-owned service stations: the products are guaranteed and all the basic services are offered.”

Father Peter John Cameron speaks with other members of Communion and Liberation, a Catholic lay movement, during a weekly prayer and discussion group in New York. Photo:CNS

A variety of paths to God

Catholic lay movements take different roads to same end

■ By Cindy Wooden

The variety existing among Catholic lay movements is seen not only in their approaches to prayer and to social problems, but also in their organisation and structures.

The Rome-based Community of Sant’Egidio and the Milan-based Communion and Liberation have well-staffed international headquarters and information-packed Web sites, but neither has firm membership figures.

For both movements, membership basically boils down to an individual identifying himself or herself as a member after participating in the group’s activities with some regularity.

Alberto Savorana, spokesman for Communion and Liberation, said the group estimates about 100,000 people in Italy and “several thousand others around the world participate in a stable way in the Schools of Community,” the weekly catechesis at the heart of the movement, and in its works of charity.

Adults - generally those who attended the Schools of Community while in a university - who want to make a more concrete commitment to the aims of the movement may join the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation.

Savorana said that internationally some 50,000 men and women belong to the fraternity, making specific commitments to asceticism, daily prayer, an annual retreat, participation in small sharing groups and the financial and active support of the movement’s charity and educational activities.

Paolo Ciani, a Sant’Egidio spokesman, said the community has an estimated 50,000 members in 70 countries, although thousands more are involved in the community’s works of charity and regularly participate in its evening prayer services.

“Membership is not tied to the observance of any set rule,” Ciani said. “The frequency of participating in evening prayer and the hours of service to the poor” - the key characteristics of membership - all change according to one’s age, work and family obligations.

“The community is a family with open doors,” he said. “What distinguishes members and friends of the community is feeling that you are part of the family.”

Members gather in small groups, generally with those who joined the movement at the same time, for prayer, sharing and retreats, he said.

Communion and Liberation and the Community of Sant’Egidio were founded among high school students in the turbulent 1960s, offering the students a way to be part of the social revolution by bringing their Catholic faith and the Gospel to bear on society.

As one Vatican official said, “They started out from the same place, but ended up very differently.”

Both groups still emphasise that the Gospel and charity are the essential foundations of their activity, and both have a serious attachment to studying history and culture, but the Community of Sant’Egidio tends toward a left-of-centre activist role, while Communion and Liberation members are more directly involved in right-of-centre politics.

Ciani and Savorana said that as their movements mature they hear fewer accusations that the groups try to control every aspect of members’ lives.

“At the beginning (Communion and Liberation), like other movements, was accused of being a sect or being fundamentalist,” Savorana said. The criticisms generally came “from those who did not love the Church.”

“But with the passing of time and because of the fact that there really are not rules for members, you don’t hear complaints anymore or accusations from former members,” as happens with other groups, he said.

Sant’Egidio, like other movements, occasionally has been accused of interfering in members’ personal lives and even of arranging marriages among members.

Adriano Roccucci, secretarygeneral of Sant’Egidio, said that absolutely is not true.

Roccucci married another member of the community, and many members do the same, he said, “because obviously that’s where many of us meet other people, people with whom we share our faith and values.”

He said the community has only two hard and fast rules about family life: “We do not put our aged parents into institutions, and we educate our children not only in the faith, but in living a simple lifestyle.”

Ciani said community members - by their own choice and without pressure from community leaders - are single, married or widowed. About 15 members of the community have become priests; they are ordained for the Diocese of Rome, but are assigned to the community.

“The community provides support, someone to talk to when facing big personal decisions - both joyful and painful - but we do not tell people what to do,” Ciani said.

Often the members have a special relationship with someone who entered the community before they did or who leads

their special outreach to the poor. “These are not spiritual directors, but points of reference,” Ciani said.

The spokesman also said there is nothing like the “group confession” that a former Italian member wrote about a few years ago in an Italian magazine.

“In our small groups, we reflect together on our faith, our service to the poor and on our lives - sometimes it can get personalbut sharing is not obligatory,” and it is not designed to be a kind of confession, he said.

However, one thing that many of the movements do, Ciani said, is to challenge people.

“It’s not right to act as if everything everyone does is wonderful,” he said.

A group that claims to be dedicated to the Gospel “cannot just bless people, it must challenge them,” he said. - CNS

Readers wanting to contact one of the groups featured in the lay movement series can find more information on the following Web sites:

Communion and Liberation www.clonline.org

Community of Sant’Egidio www.santegidio.org.

Focolare Movement www.focolare.org

Neocatechumenal Way www.neocatechumenalway.us

Opus Dei www.opusdei.org

Third-graders attend daily Mass at the Opus Dei Heights School in Potomac, Maryland. The spiritual direction at the school is entrusted to Opus Dei, a personal prelature with about 85,000 members worldwide. Photo:CNS

Members of the Boston Community of Sant’Egidio sing Christmas carols during their annual Christmas party.

Photo:CNS

THE WORLD: DECODING THE LAY MOVEMENTS

Time needed for purification

Lay movements move past earlier criticisms, into mainstream

■ By Cindy Wooden

Enthusiasm and exaggeration have marked the development of Catholic lay movements and the opinions of the movements’ critics in the 40 years since the Second Vatican Council.

The exaggerations and failures that Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko, now president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, described in a 1999 council meeting as “childhood diseases” even have led to some of the groups being labelled “cults.”

Exclusivity, adulation of the movement’s founder, dedication to the group to the exclusion of one’s family or work, and excessive control are among the common criticisms.

Addressing the same 1999 meeting, Pope John Paul II acknowledged the criticisms, but said “every human work needs time and patience for its required and indispensable purification.”

In 1994 the Pope dedicated dozens of his general audience talks to the topic of lay people in the Church.

He highlighted the right of Catholic laity to form associations for their own spiritual good, for evangelisation and to coordinate their charitable work.

Working with parish priests, local bishops and the Vatican, he said, were necessary signs that a group or movement was serious about “ecclesial harmony and cooperation” and that it recognised the legitimate and necessary role of pastors in helping the groups

discern what is proper, healthy and Catholic.

The groups, he said, “must always maintain a concern for unity, avoiding rivalry, tensions, tendencies to monopolise the apostolate or to claim a primacy of place that the Gospel itself excludes.”

Guzman Carriquiry, undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, told Catholic News Service that when members find growth, support and fellowship in a group “you cannot ask members of a movement not to be grateful for that movement and not to love the founder.”

“At the same time, they cannot

practice all of the groups say is misunderstood.

Many of them have adopted practices based on the monastic tradition - called “emendatio” - of periodically acknowledging one’s faults and shortcomings in a gathering of the community.

But it is not sacramental confession, and group leaders are obliged to exercise control to ensure that the practice - meant to encourage humility, to recognise that everyone struggles to live holy lives and to provide support - does not lead to humiliation, a violation of privacy or scandal.

Members of the personal prela-

bers are encouraged to seek once every week.

The things shared in the small groups are not sins, he said, but struggles and failures.

“For example, I may say, ‘This week I never managed to say my afternoon prayers on time. I’m so disorganised. Please pray for me.’ But I do not recount those sins which belong in a confessional,” he said.

Mgr Llobell said he would not recommend the practice to any group that includes children or teenagers and, he said, it is imperative that the group leader be mature and prepared.

In 1994 the Pope dedicated dozens of his general audience talks to the topic of lay people in the Church, and he highlighted the right of Catholic laity to form associations for their own spiritual good, for evangelisation and to coordinate their charitable work.

deny the gifts present in other movements,” he said. “None of the charisms found in any movement have value unless they lead to the same place: holiness.”

In the modern world, many people have a hard time understanding why anyone would give up some of his or her individual freedom to accommodate someone else or to pursue a specific goal, Carriquiry said.

“But freedom does not mean breaking every bond,” he said. “My ties to my friends, my family and my community help me exercise my freedom in a way that recognises I am dependent on God.”

Several of the movements have been accused of forcing members to confess their sins in public, a

ture of Opus Dei - lay people and priests - generally have an opportunity for the “emendatio” once each week.

Mgr Joaquin Llobell, an Opus Dei priest and professor of canon law, said the practice always must be voluntary and must never be exaggerated.

“Humility and sincerity are one thing, but they cannot be allowed to be separated from common sense,” he said.

An individual confession of sins to a priest with a guarantee of secrecy and the possibility of anonymity “is the Church’s preference” for the sacrament, he said.

The Opus Dei “emendatio,” he said, does not take the place of sacramental confession, which mem-

“There is a risk that sharing spirals out of control with a recounting of more and more serious things, things that should be kept private,” he said.

The moderator also must ensure that no one feels forced to share.

Although the practice has long been part of the weekly Opus Dei gatherings, no one is forced to share and many do not.

“In my community, some people have not shared in 20 years - especially the Anglo-Saxons. We Latins are so much more open,” he said.

“As a part of the Church, we are like a family, and like a family, we share many things,” Mgr Llobell said. “But there are some things you just don’t share with the whole family.” Measures to ensure

that group sharing did not become group confession were written into the Neocatechumenal Way’s statutes, which were approved by the Vatican in 2002.

The Way, as it is known, does not consider itself a lay movement, but rather a parish-based process of faith formation.

The statutes said that the members periodically celebrate the sacrament of penance “according to the rite of reconciliation for several penitents with individual confession and absolution.”

As for the group sharing, the statutes said, “people share freely the experience of what God’s grace is accomplishing in their life and the difficulties which may have occurred are expressed, respecting the freedom of a person’s conscience.”

Giuseppe Gennarini, responsible for the Neocatechumenal communities in the United States, told CNS that participants “confess only to a priest.”

The group sharing, he said, is not sacramental but rather serves to build community and provide support.

Gennarini said that sometimes visitors, who do not know the history of an individual group, have been shocked at what they heard people sharing.

“I have been involved in a community for almost 35 years, and naturally we share the experiences of our lives. The members of the group are very dear friends,” he said.

“What is appropriate to share after 10 years together might not be appropriate after just 10 weeks.”

But in every group the sharing is voluntary, he said. “There is no gun pointed at anyone’s head.”

Members of Communion and Liberation, a Catholic lay movement, share dinner together following a weekly prayer and discussion meeting in New York. The meetings, known as Schools of Community, are at the core of the lay movement’s approach to living the Catholic faith in companionship with others.

Photo:CNS

13 January, 2005, The Record

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15/16 Edmund Rice Camp for Kids - Archbishop Hickey

16 Mass for Feast of Santo Nino, St Joachim’s Victoria Park - Bishop Sproxton

20

PANORAMA a roundup of events in the archdiocese

Please join us this Sunday at 7.30pm on 107.9 FM, Radio Fremantle, for more Global Catholic Radio. This week we will feature: (1) The Late Archbishop Fulton J Sheen: Prayer. (2) Fr John Corapi: Christian Prayer Part II. Donations toward the program may be sent to Gate of Heaven, PO Box 845, Claremont, WA 6910.

Sunday January 16

ETERNAL WORD TELEVISION NETWORK

1-2 pm on Access 31: This week

Fr John Corapi addresses the serious problem of scandals in the Church (Catholic Church Series), Tune in and be informed. Would you like to start a video library in your parish, school or other location? Tapes provided free of charge, all that is needed is someone to record loans. Ring 9330 1170. Further information on web site: http://www.cathworld.org/worlds/org/media/ <http://www.cathworld.org/worlds/org/media/>

Please send donations to keep EWTN on air at Access 31 to The Rosary Christian Tutorial Association, PO Box 1270, Booragoon 6954

Sunday January 16

ST NINO FIESTA

Damayang Filipino Inc and the Filipino community in Perth will celebrate the feast of St Nino honouring the Holy Infant Jesus with a solemn Mass at 11.30am at St Joachim’s Catholic Church at 122 Shepperton Road, Victoria Park. Bishop Don Sproxton and another priest will concelebrate the Holy Mass. All are welcome to the celebration. Entrance to the church carpark is at the back..

Wednesday January 19

ANNUAL MASS AND REUNION

SIC New Norcia/Marist, Newman College, Empire Ave, Churchlands. Mass will be celebrated by Marist old boy Priests at 4pm in the Newman College Chapel. All interested are welcome. The annual reunion will follow adjoining the chapel. BYO everything. Enq: John Monkhouse 9409 8529 or 0419 914 340.

Wednesday January 19

HILLS AND EASTERN SUBURBS MENTAL HEALTH

Lesmurdie Support Group 7.30pm–9pm at Our Lady Lourdes Hall, 207 Lesmurdie Rd, Lesmurdie. Focus of the group: information sharing, networking, supporting one another and spiritual survival. Enq: Marge 9291 6397, Natalie 9295 1907, Tom 9291 6282 or Barbara Harris of Emmanuel Centre 9328 8113.

Thursday January 20

SUMMER SUNDOWNER

Come and join us for a Summer Sundowner to mix with old friends and meet some new 5.307.30pm Rosie O’Grady’s Front Bar. James Street Northbridge (plenty of parking opposite). This function is organised by an informal network of Catholics who aim to build community amongst those in the 25-50 age group. RSVP and enquiries: Therese 0413 021 972.

Sunday January 23

QUEEN OF ALL SAINTS

Bible Forum of Religious Studies presentation of First part of Four Part Series at All Saints Chapel, 77 Allendale Square St George’s Terrace, Perth. Program topics: Bible Focus 3pm; Church History 4pm; True Devotion to Mary 5:30pm; 6:15pm Rosary and Benediction. Remaining series: 20 Feb, 20 Mar and 17 Apr at the same times.

Sunday January 23

FUNDRAISER

Cross Roads Community Portuguese Sardine Festival is being held at St Jerome’s in Spearwood at 1pm. Please ring CRC on 9319 8344 for information.

Wednesday January 26

AUSTRALIA DAY HOLY HOUR

For the conversion of Australia 8.45am – 9.45am followed by Holy Mass at 10am. Morning tea is available in parish centre after Mass, please bring a plate. St John’s Pro-Cathedral, Victoria

Ave, Perth. All welcome. Enq: Fr Michael Rowe 9444 9604.

Wednesday January 26

BULLSBROOK SHRINE

Sunday Pilgrimage Program. Shrine of Virgin of the Revelation 36 Chittering Rd, Bullsbrook. 1.30pm Reconciliation is available in Italian and English before every celebration. 2pm Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Holy Rosary, 2.30pm Holy Mass. Anointing of the sick is administered during Holy Mass every second Sunday of the month. The side entrance to the Church is open daily between 9 and 5pm for private prayer. Enq: SACRI 9447 3292.

Saturday February 12

YEAR OF THE EUCHARIST SEMINAR

From 10am until 3pm at St Bernadette’s Catholic Church, 49 Jugan Street, Glendalough. Speakers Archbishop BJ Hickey and Rev Father Doug Harris. Enq: Fr Doug 9444 6131 and Dorothy 9342 5845.

DIVINE MERCY HOLY HOURS

The Divine Mercy Apostolate invites you all to come and join us by rolling out the red carpet for Jesus in the following churches; St Mary’s Cathedral each first Sunday of the month from 1.30pm-3.15pm with a different priest each month. St Francis Xavier Church, Windsor St East Perth each Saturday at 2.30pm-3.30pm. There are approximately 20 Divine Mercy Holy Hours held each week throughout the Archdiocese of Perth. Enq: John 9457 7771.

THE LIVING PRESENCE

Video is available for viewing in each parish in the Archdiocese of Perth at the request of the Parish Priest at a time suitable for their parish. Sponsored by The Divine Mercy Apostolate. Enq: John 9457 7771 or 0412 185 209.

SEPERATED, DIVORCED, WIDOWED

The Beginning Experience is running Coping programs to assist people in learning to close the door gently on a relationship that has ended in order to get on with living. The next courses will commence on January 8 & 15 in Busselton and January 22 & 29 in Perth. Enq: Bev 9315 9303 (Perth) or Audrey 9752 4139 (Busselton).

2005 JOSEPHITE CALENDARS

With Mary MacKillop’s word – inspirations from her writings matched with attractive colour photos. Major church feasts and Sundays of the Liturgical year, and many other features. Suitable for home, office, classroom, waiting room, staffroom etc. $5.50 each. Enq: Sister Maree 9334 0933.

CROSS ROADS COMMUNITY

Term 1 – 31st January to 8th April for: Family & Friends Support Groups of Substance Abusers on Wednesdays 7 – 9pm, Substance Abusers Support Groups on Tuesdays 5.30pm – 7.30pm & Friday’s All day Group for Substance Abusers 9.30am – 2pm, Bible Night: Tuesdays 7 – 9pm & Healing Mass: Fridays 12.30pm. Healing Masses beginning February: 1st Monday of month 7pm Church of East Fremantle, 2nd Monday of month 10am St Jerome’s Munster. No Healing Masses in January 2005.

VOLUNTEER SACRISTANS

Are required for the new Chapel at St John of God Health Care Subiaco, which is due to open approx the end of March. You will have a strong faith commitment, parish involvement and be available on any or all of Tuesday, Friday and Sundays to set up for Mass. Training will be organised for the last week of February or the beginning of March for two half days. If you would like more information and an application form, please contact the Volunteer Coordinator, Vicki Brown on 9382 6681 or e-mail vicki. brown@sjog.org.au

The Last Word 'Insects in her head'

Wangari Maathai

1940: Born in Nyeri, Kenya

1964: BSc, biology, Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kan.

1966: MSc, University of Pittsburg

1971-77: Taught veterinary anatomy, University of Nairobi

1977: Started the Green Belt Movement

1981-87: Chairlady, -National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK).

1988: Stopped construction of a skyscraper on Nairobi's Uhuru Park

1990: Led women's hunger strike to demand release of political prisoners

1991: Awarded United Nations'Africa Prize for Leadership 2002: Named visiting fellow at Yale University’s Global Insfitute for Sustainable Forestry 2002: Elected to Nigeria's parliament; appointed assistant minister for environment

2004: Awarded Nobel Peace Prize

Wangari Maathai's advocacy for environment and women puts her at odds with government and some Church leaders

■ By David Karanja

The winner of 2004's Nobel Peace Prize, Professor Wangari Maathai of Kenya, is a practising Catholic who says that her concern for the environment and her activism in defence of human rights is inspired by her faith.

"My struggle for environmental conservation and the rights of the poor is in line with my faith as a Catholic," Maathai said on October 20 during the 41st annual celebrations of Kenya’s independence: "Justice for every one and the preservation of God's creation is what drives me. "

Maathai's deep commitment to Catholicism dates back to 1960 when she attended Mount St Scholastica College, a Catholic institution in Atchison, Kansas. She was one of the first two women from Africa to join the college, from which she graduated in 1964. "The college influenced my life. That is where I got my deep sense of service. I saw women working for higher goals and inner peace. The sisters were so selfless that I had to emulate them."

Butting government heads

Maathai's crusade for environmental and human rights spans three decades. She has always been on a collision course with political leaders whose vested interests are threatened by her campaign.

This conflict reached its peak in September 2001 when she led a peaceful protest march to Karura Forest at the outskirts of Nairobi. She was protesting the allocation of hundreds of acres of forest land by the government to private developers who planned to put up a posh residential complex. As she protested, a gang of men armed with whips, bows and arrows attacked her and her group.

The incident outraged Catholic Church leaders, who accused the government of organising the attack to silence those opposed to the project.

The head of the Catholic Church in Kenya, Archbishop

Ndingi Mwana a' Nzeki, said that the Church supported Maathai's campaign for the preservation of the forest as a public asset. He said that he and other Christian leaders would lead a protest march to the forest to force the government to reverse the allocation.

The Nobel committee hailed Maathai, the seventh African to win the prize, for taking "a holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights and women’s rights in particular,"

Maathai said that although she champions the rights of women, she is not a feminist. "My interest is to help the women of Africa overcome the cultural barriers that prevent them from fulfilling their potential. In some African communities, it is culturally acceptable to educate boys and leave out the girls. My struggle is to stop such harmful practices."

She said she opposes abortion and other vestiges of Western culture that have been gaining root in Africa in recent years. Her environmental work began in 1977 when she started the Greenbelt Movement. She organised rural women to plant trees to conserve the environment and improve the quality of their life. The movement quickly spread countrywide. An estimated 20 million trees have been planted since then. In 1986, the movement established a Pan African Greenbelt Network, which has exported similar methods of environmental conservation to 12 other African countries.

Squatters' rights

The first major conflict between her and the government occurred in 1988 when she opposed the construction of a 60 storey skyscraper on Uhuru Park, a public park in Nairobi. The project was initiated by President Daniel Arap Moi and was to be funded by late British media magnate Robert Maxwell. Maathai's campaign to save the park caused Maxwell to withdraw from the deal. Moi was so incensed at the collapse of the project that he said publicly of Maathai, "That woman has insects in her head." He ordered the movement evicted from its offices on government premises in Nairobi. In 1990 Maathai led a group of women on a hunger strike at Uhuru Park demanding the release of their children imprisoned for opposing Moi's rule. She was beaten unconscious by police, but her efforts emboldened the pro-democracy movement campaigning for an end to single party rule. The movement successfully pressured Moi to

accept the introduction of a multiparty political system in 1991.

In 2002, Maathai won a parliamentary seat and was appointed assistant minister for environment. Her crusade to have cultivation in forest land by peasants banned has been opposed by fellow leaders. She threatened to resign just one week before she won the Nobel. Some of that opposition came from Catholic leaders. Bishop Peter Kairo, chairman of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP), says that the merits and demerits of forest cultivation should be evaluated soberly before a decision is made.

"Many of the wars in Africa are fought over natural resources. Ensuring they are not destroyed is a way of ensuring there is no conflict."

"The government should assess the situation and come up with a position that takes into account the interests of the vulnerable members of society. If rural peasants are to be stopped from cultivating on forest land, they should be given alternative cultivation grounds," Bishop Kairo said.

Father Gabriel Doran, a Catholic priest who was briefly arrested last year for crusading against the stealing of public land by government officials, said that Maathai should balance between the need for environmental conservation and the needs of the poor.

"We should be pragmatic on this issue. I think the best solution is to allow rural peasants to cultivate on forest land on the understanding that they will conserve the environment," Father Doran said.

Other Church leaders, however, enthusiastically support Maathai for the peace prize.

"She deserves the award. She has fought consistently for the rights of the underprivileged at great risk to her life," said Father Dominic Wamugunda of St Paul's Chapel in Nairobi.

Maathai has pledged to continue her environmental conservation campaign to promote peace in Africa.

"Many of the wars in Africa are fought over natural resources. Ensuring they are not destroyed is a way of ensuring there is no conflict," she said.

Kenyan environmentalist Wangari in Nyeri, Kenya, shortly after she was named the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize on October 8. She was the first African woman and the first environmentalist to win the peace prize. She won the award for her environmental work, which included fighting the Kenyan government’s clearance of forests. Photo: CNS