The Record Newspaper - 14 May 2014 by The Record

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Self-fulfilling prophecy

The Pope said what? Vanity out, service in

We ought to believe in our boys’ capacity for growth in virtue - Pages 10-11

Pope Francis follows his own advice and speaks openly to an audience of seminarians - Page 15

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Fremantle plays heavenly host to Fatima celebrations

Hundreds took to the streets of Fremantle, last Tuesday night, to celebrate Our Lady’s appearance to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal. Full story - page 9.

PHOTO: MATHEW DE SOUSA

Keep a watch on government’s co-payment: CHA HEALTH care co-payments announced in Tuesday’s 2014-15 Federal Budget should be monitored to ensure they do not result in adverse health outcomes for disadvantaged Australians. Catholic Health Australia, representing the nation’s largest network of public and private not-for-profit hospitals, said ongoing monitoring of the new $7 health care co-payments for GP visits, pathology and diagnostic imaging will help avoid a drop in health care outcomes. “Those with capacity to contrib-

ute to their health care costs should do so. Those less able to contribute must be guaranteed high-quality access to health care when needed, with the support of a robust, publicly funded social safety net,” CHA chief executive officer Martin Laverty said. “Special attention in designing the co-payment arrangements is needed, and a transparent monitoring process involving government, health consumers and non-government health providers could identify and fix any adverse consequences that might arise.

“Australia’s health care system is already underpinned by individual contributions of many Australians towards the cost of their health care.

in average out-of-pocket costs. Visiting a specialist who doesn’t bulk bill costs a patient an average of $53.81 in out-of-pocket costs.

Those less able to contribute must be guaranteed high-quality access to health care when needed. Nearly half the population already contributes to health care costs through private health insurance. Before tonight’s announcement, visiting a general practitioner who doesn’t bulk bill triggered $28.72

“Looking beyond how to fund the health care system, attention should also turn to how to reduce demand on health care funding. National health policy should place more emphasis on keeping people

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healthy and out of hospital. “Action on the social determinants of health, effective prevention of chronic illness and optimal utilisation of primary health care delivery are keys to stemming health care demand in the years ahead. “Objectives on social determinants, preventive health and optimal service utilisation should be part of the mandate of Primary Healthcare Organisations (PHOs), as recommended to be established by the Horvath review of Medicare Locals,” Mr Laverty said.

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May 14, 2014

Perth prays for healing and justice

Round-Up JUANITA SHEPHERD

Unfair Day raises funds for the poor in India On May 5, Trinity College raised $13,933 from its annual fundraising event, Unfair Day. On this day, each Trinity College pastoral care group organises an activity to raise money. These include cake stalls, sport activities and competitions. Trinity College has raised more than $57,000 from Unfair Day over the past six years. The money raised goes to support projects in India, which Trinity College has been supporting for more than 20 years, assisting to feed and clothe destitute people and to educate children with disabilities or disadvantaged backgrounds.

Apology and Correction: Kania and Hitchens

Morley man has eyes on glaucoma group A parishioner at Infant Jesus Parish in Morley is seeking interest in forming a support group for Catholics suffering from glaucoma, a disorder of the eyes which can permanently damage vision and lead to blindness. The Infant Jesus parishioner, who wished to remain anonymous, has been suffering with the disorder for 10 years. “I have to go and get my eyes checked from time to time,” he said. “It can be a very isolating condition.” He has been a parishioner at Infant Jesus Parish for the past 30 years and decided it was important to form the support group for other parishioners who are suffering from the same disorder. “If I get enough interest in the idea, a group will be formed,” he said. “The intention of the group is to offer support and to share our experiences, and Infant Jesus is a good, active

Many people took the opportunity to pray for the proceedings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse at the Catholic Education Office’s Chapel of St Michael from April 28 to May 9. PHOTO: MATTHEW BIDDLE you can’t hope to improve,” he said. Glaucoma usually occurs when pressure in the eye increases and this can happen when eye fluid isn’t circulating normally in the front part of the eye. “It’s not something you talk about much,” he said. “My purpose for the group is to get people to open up and share their experiences. I am a strong believer in my faith and all my life I’ve practised my religion; I pray every day and it gives me inner strength to deal with having glaucoma and I just want others to be able to talk about how they feel as well.” For more information or to register your

parish.” Glaucoma is a condition that causes damage to the eye’s optic nerve and gets worse over time. It’s often associated with a build-up of pressure inside the eye, tends to be inherited and may not show up until later in life. “There are meetings in Perth about glaucoma and the last bulletin I received from Glaucoma Australia stressed the importance of checking your family’s history to see if it runs in the family and making sure you check your eyes,” the Morley parishioner said. Initially, he did not know he had glaucoma, as he didn’t take much notice of it until it started affecting his reading. “It’s a condition

1381 - 1457 feast - May 22

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This Italian saint is patron of impossible and desperate situations for good reason. Born near Spoleto, Rita was married against her will at the age of 12 to a cruel man. They had two sons during an 18-year marriage that ended when her husband was killed in a fight. After both sons also died, she tried to join the Augustinian convent in Cascia, but was rejected three times because she wasn’t a virgin. Finally, in 1413, her early hope of becoming a nun was realized when the Augustinians accepted her as a novice. Famous for mystical experiences, Rita had a permanent wound on her forehead after hearing a sermon on Christ’s crown of thorns. She was canonized in 1900.

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The Record PO Box 3075 Adelaide Terrace PERTH WA 6832 21 Victoria Square, Perth 6000 Tel: (08) 9220 5900 Fax: (08) 9325 4580 Website: www.therecord.com.au The Record is a weekly publication distributed throughout the parishes of the dioceses of Western Australia and by subscription. The Record is printed by Rural Press Printing Mandurah and distributed via Australia Post and CTI Couriers.

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Catholics pray for the victims of abuse For the past two weeks, the Catholic Education Office of WA provided the opportunity for staff and members of the public to pray for the proceedings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which concluded on May 9. For each day during the two weeks of

Monday 19th - White 1st Reading: Acts 14:5-18 Zeus and Hermes Responsorial Ps 113:1-4, 15-16 Psalm: Glory to God’s name Gospel Reading: Jn 14:21-26 The Holy Spirit Tuesday 20th - White ST BERNARDINE OF SIENA, PRIEST (O) 1st Reading: Acts 14:19-28 Commended to God Responsorial Ps 144:10-13, 21 Psalm: Glorious splendour Gospel Reading: Jn 14:27-31 I bequeath peace Wednesday 21st - White ST CHRISTOPHER MAGALLANES, PRIEST, AND COMPANIONS, MARTYRS (O) 1st Reading: Acts 15:1-6 A long argument Responsorial Ps 121:1-5 Psalm: The Lord’s name Gospel Reading: Jn 15:1-8 You are the branches Thursday 22nd - White ST RITA OF CASSIA, RELIGIOUS (O) 1st Reading: Acts 15:7-21 No distinction Responsorial Ps 95:1-3, 10 Psalm: Sing a new song

Rita of Cascia

Acting Editor

Last week, we mistakenly referred to our regular contributor, Dr Andrew Kania as ‘Dr Anthony Kania’ in relation to a piece penned by Christopher Hitchens. We apologise to Dr Kania for the error (see pages 10-11 for his latest, ‘The Self-fulfilling Prophecy’). The piece, ‘Nationalism no good for anyone’, was Mr Hitchens’ response to an earlier piece by Dr Andrew Kania criticising comments he had made on the crisis in Ukraine. The Record stands in solidarity with ordinary people caught in the middle of this crisis and published both pieces in the interest of as much robust and charitable debate as possible in this publication.

Send your Round-Up items to Juanita Shepherd office@therecord.com.au

READINGS OF THE WEEK

SAINT OF THE WEEK

Robert Hiini

hearings, a prayer vigil was held at the Chapel of St Michael, from 4pm until 8pm in the evenings. For the final two days of the Royal Commission, the chapel was made available from 8am to 8pm. Those who came to pray in the chapel were provided with several prayers for the healing of victims of child abuse and for the safety of all children and young people.

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Gospel Reading: Jn 15:9-11 God’s love Friday 23rd - White 1st Reading: Acts 15:22-31 What is essential Responsorial Ps 56:8-12 Psalm: I will praise you Gospel Reading: Jn 15:12-17 Love one another Saturday 24th - White MARY, HELP OF CHRISTIANS PATRON OF AUSTRALIA (SOLEMNITY) 1st Reading: Sir: 4:11-18 The straight road Responsorial Ps 112:1-8 Psalm: Praise the Lord’s name 2nd Reading: 1 Cor 1:18-25 God’s saving power Gospel Reading: Jn 19:25-27 Near the cross Sunday 25th - White 6TH SUNDAY OF EASTER 1st Reading: Acts 8:5-8, 14-17 Message welcomed Responsorial Ps 65:1-7, 16, 20 Psalm: See God’s works 2nd Reading: 1 Pet 3:15-18 Clear conscience Gospel Reading: Jn 14:15-21 Another advocate

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Archbishop Costelloe joins ACBC Committee ARCHBISHOP Timothy Costelloe SDB has been elected to the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference Permanent Committee. Bishop of Port Pirie Gregory O’Kelly SJ was also elected to the Committee, joining Archbishop of Brisbane Mark Coleridge, Archbishop of Canberra-Goulburn Christopher Prowse, Bishop of Darwin Eugene Hurley and Bishop of Wollongong Peter Ingham. The elections took place during the plenary meeting of the Australian Catholic Bishops

Conference, which was held from May 4-10 at Mary MacKillop Place in North Sydney. During the meeting, the Bishops of Australia also re-elected Archbishop of Melbourne Denis

President of the Conference for a further two-year term. Speaking during the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference plenary meeting, President Hart said: “I thank my fellow bishops and

“We trust that our discussions and decisionmaking may be guided by the Holy Spirit.” Hart as President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference for a two-year term. Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson was re-elected Vice-

diocesan administrators for their dedication and commitment in governing the Australian Catholic Church at a time when we are facing many challenges”.

Over the course of the meeting, the bishops discussed various issues including the treatment of asylum seekers, the Royal Commission and evangelisation. “With prayer and planning we trust that our discussions and decision-making may be guided by the Holy Spirit,” Archbishop Hart said. Following their plenary meeting in North Sydney, the Australian Catholic Bishops travelled to New Zealand to attend a week-long meeting of the Federation of Catholic Bishops Conferences of Oceania.

Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB has been elected to the ACBC Permanent Committee. PHOTO: FILE

A decade’s journey to the priesthood By Matthew Biddle DEACON Renald Anthony’s 10-year journey to the priesthood, which began in India when he was 17, will be complete on May 23 when he is ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Perth. With less than 10 days until his ordination, the 27-year-old said he’s feeling relaxed, although he admits he has a few nerves. “I’ve spent my time inside the seminary, well hidden, and even when I became a deacon there was another candidate with me, but this is all on my own, so I’m nervous in that sense,” he said. “But this is the big event that every seminarian looks forward to in their life.” Priesthood wasn’t always what Deacon Renald imagined as his life’s vocation; in fact, up until his final year of high school in India, he planned to study nautical science. “In Year 12, that whole idea changed during the Holy Week retreat, particularly during the Holy Thursday homily by the retreat’s preacher on priesthood,” he explained. “From that day onwards I completely changed my idea of becoming a nautical scientist to becoming a priest. I had no idea what priesthood was.” He entered the seminary in his local diocese the following year, in 2004, where he completed several years of studies. “In India, I did one year of spirituality, three years of university studies, then two years of philosophy and one year of pastoral placement,” Deacon Renald said. While he was studying philosophy, Deacon Renald felt a desire to become a missionary, and so he began applying to seminaries around the world. “I got a positive reply from Archbishop Hickey in 2009,” he said. “Although it was a bit of a struggle for a while to get here, I ended up at St Charles’ in March 2011. Fr Joseph Rathnaraj, the current parish priest at Embleton, helped a lot to get me here. I then continued my theology studies here.” Moving to Australia to continue his studies was a major change for Deacon Renald, as was joining a seminary with a significantly smaller number of students. “It was a big transition when I came from India to Australia, because I had never been to any country outside of India,” he said.

Deacon Renald Anthony, who began his journey to the priesthood in India 10 years ago, says he’s looking forward to his ordination to the priesthood on May 23 at St Mary’s Cathedral. He has spent the past six months serving as a deacon at St Columba’s Parish in South Perth. PHOTO: SUPPLIED

“We had a big community in India, with almost 150 students in the major seminary, but this was a small community with approximately 20 students. “But although the quantity is bigger in India, the quality here is far higher. My biggest strength and support are my brother seminarians, and I am very grateful to Mgr Kevin Long, the rector of the seminary, the formators and staff at St Charles’.” Deacon Renald said since his ordination to the diaconate in November 2013 he has had many

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experiences that have greatly aided his formation, primarily his time serving as a deacon at South Perth. “I am very grateful and thankful to Mgr O’Loughlin and the parish

opportunities they gave me were enormous. I was able to learn so much from the parish community and particularly the school community.” Deacon Renald also assisted Perth’s

“I was able to learn so much from the parish community and particularly the school community.” community at South Perth, they’re great people,” he said. “The way they welcomed me, the hospitality they offered me and the

Tamil Mass Community in Langford, where the Tamil Catholic celebrate Mass once a month, and visited his home parish in India, where he

preached frequently, and celebrated several baptisms and funerals. “It was a great time for me, the past six months,” he said. “It’s enormously developed my skills and developed my pastoral commitment towards the ministry.” As a priest, Deacon Renald said his focus would be on serving God and his people to the best of his ability. “It is only through the [people’s] faith that I am a priest, without them, I’m nothing, so I represent the whole Christian community and their faith,” he said.

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Geoff Shaw takes aim at Victorian abortion laws By Matthew Biddle PRO-LIFE GROUPS have given their support to Victorian MP Geoff Shaw’s plan to overhaul the State’s abortion laws. Last week, it was reported that Mr Shaw was finalising plans for a private member’s bill that he hoped would be debated in State Parliament soon. The bill proposes six amendments to the existing Victorian abortion laws, which were passed in 2008. Mr Shaw wants to make partialbirth abortion and gender selection illegal, as well as requiring doctors to resuscitate babies who survive abortion attempts. His amendments also include the provision of pain relief for foetuses during procedures, mandatory counselling for families and requiring informed consent to be legislated. The independent MP, who holds the balance of power in Victoria, also wants to repeal section eight of the legislation, which requires doctors who object to abortions to

refer their patient to doctors who are willing to perform the abortion. President of Right to Life Australia Margaret Tighe said she supported the Frankston MP’s proposed bill. “I have to say that I do compliment him,” she said. “I believe he’s very genuinely opposed to abortion and I’ve

“We’re right behind him and we’ll certainly be doing all we can to make sure that the bill is debated.” watched him carefully when he’s being interviewed and the sort of things he says really convince me that he’s very genuine and he’s very deeply concerned about the current situation in Victoria.” While Mrs Tighe said she believed the bill would have a good chance at being passed, she acknowledged it could be diffi-

cult for Mr Shaw to have the bill debated. “It won’t be easy for Mr Shaw,” she said. “They only have a certain amount of time allocated to debating private member’s business, and there’s not a lot of time between now and November 29, when the election will be held. “But we’re right behind him and we’ll certainly be doing all we can to make sure that the bill is debated.” Meanwhile, an online petition asking the Victorian government to amend the abortion laws so doctors have freedom of conscience if they choose not to refer a woman for an abortion has secured more than 5,300 signatures. Thornbury doctor Nathaniel Essey told Family Voice Australia the Victorian laws are contrary to the Hippocratic Oath restricting freedom of speech. “Abortion is not a life-saving treatment, it is a lifestyle choice,” Dr Essey said. “I did not study for 12 years in order to kill foetuses or partake in acts of cruelty. This law is not pro-choice, it is no choice.”

Independent Frankston MP Geoff Shaw plans to overhaul Victoria’s abortion laws, which have been described as “the worst in the world”. PHOTO: SUPPLIED

Eight graduate from Acts 2

Bishops urge changes to asylum seeker policy The following is an edited version of the statement released by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference on May 8:

The eight 2013 graduates from Acts 2 College of Mission and Evangelisation, which is celebrating its 10th year in 2014.

By Mark Reidy “DO WE believe God is as Jesus said he is”? Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB challenged those present at the 2013 graduation for Acts 2 College of Mission and Evangelisation (Acts2CoME) on April 23. He told them that Jesus revealed a God of love, forgiveness and mercy and unless Christians were convinced of this truth they had little to offer others. “Take that conviction with you wherever you go and in whatever you do,” he said. “Make it the heart of your mission to be a living face of Jesus, who reveals the true face of God to us.” Celebrating the graduation Mass alongside Archbishop Costelloe was Fr Doug Harris, Glendalough parish priest, and Fr Giles Atherton FFI, who lectures at the college. The ceremony was particularly momentous for the college, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. The Archbishop offered his congratulations and pledged his ongoing support and encouragement,

urging the college to continue its good work within the Archdiocese of Perth. The college, which opened in 2005, is Perth’s only nationally registered Bible college. It delivers accredited vocational training from Certificate I to Diploma level and specialises in Christian ministry, with specific courses in youth ministry. Qualifications in active volunteer-

The college also aims to produce graduates who have a heart of mercy for others – both those in physical and spiritual need – and who are able to share their passion with others, so they too may come to know Christ. “I think each graduate would agree that their time at the college has impacted their lives and deepened their relationship with Christ, as well as providing strong friend-

“Make it the heart of your mission to be a living face of Jesus, who reveals the true face of God to us.” ing and screen and media are also offered. In opening the graduation ceremony, college principal Jane Borg explained, “The aim of the college is to develop Catholics who are passionate about their relationship with Jesus, are empowered by the Holy Spirit and have a love for the Word of God”. “Students are steeped in prayer and the Sacraments and we seek to give them an understanding of what the Church teaches and why.”

ships with others on a common journey,” Mrs Borg told the audience, which included many past students. She thanked those who had contributed to the college’s development over the years, either in the office or delivering courses; the majority offering their services on a voluntary basis. She also referred to the growth in training opportunities within Catholic colleges and the next “exciting” stage of development involving online courses for external study.

PHOTO: SUPPLIED

During the evening, Archbishop Costelloe presented seven graduates with a Certificate IV in Christian Ministry (Youth) and one with a Diploma of Youth Ministry. He also presented the Dux Award to Amy McCabe. Responding on behalf of the students was Abraham O’Connor. “Last year was an incredible learning experience”, he shared. “The well-roundedness in learning our Catholic faith, its doctrines and history, was empowered with ways to evidence it in the environment of our day and age in apologetics, communications and youth ministry.” Mrs Borg told The Record that practical ministry experiences, daily Mass and communal prayer supported the courses at the college. “These, along with the fellowship developed throughout the course, all contributed to the enjoyment and spiritual growth of students,” she said. Enquiries about part or full-time study, either on campus or online, should be directed to Jane Borg on 0401 692 690 or through principal@ acts2come.wa.edu.au.

THE AUSTRALIAN Catholic Bishops have been involved in many ways with asylum seekers. Some of us have detention centres close to home, and we have worked hard to ensure that asylum seekers receive proper pastoral care and human assistance. We renew that commitment here. The Bishops have also intervened with Government in an attempt to make policy more respectful of human dignity and basic human rights, which today are being seriously violated. We now make this urgent plea for a respect for the rights of asylum seekers, not only in Government circles but in the Australian community more broadly. Federal decision makers in both major parties have made their decisions and implemented their policies because they think they have the support of the majority of Australians. Therefore, we want to speak to the entire Australian community. Island dwellers like Australians often have an acute sense of the “other” or the “outsider” – and that is how asylum seekers are being portrayed. They are the dangerous “other” or “outsider” to be feared and resisted because they are supposedly violating our borders. Do racist attitudes underlie the current policy? Would the policy be the same if the asylum seekers were fair-skinned Westerners rather than dark-skinned people, most of whom are of “other” religious and cultural backgrounds? The Australian Catholic Bishops call on parliamentarians of all parties to turn away from these policies, which shame Australia and to take the path of a realistic compassion that deals with both human need and electoral pressure. We call on the nation as a whole to say no to the dark forces which make these policies possible. The time has come to examine our conscience and then to act differently. To read the entire statement, visit www.catholic.org.au.

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Geraldton youth excited for music trip THE GERALDTON Catholic Youth Group is very excited about its trip to Perth for the Steve Angrisano music workshop to be held from May 24-26. The diocesan youth group was formed last year and some of the members have also formed a choir to sing once a month at the Sunday night Mass at the Geraldton Cathedral, with Angela Ayeni as their choir leader. Some activities they have had already are movie nights, a sports night at Nagle Catholic College’s amazing new gym, playing volleyball on the beach and doing some gardening for the local St Vincent de Paul organisation. The youth group is for high school-aged students, and has a good mix of ages and boys and girls. Youth chaplain for Perth’s Catholic Youth Ministry (CYM) Fr Mark Payton suggested the group travel to Perth for the Steve Angrisano workshop, to help inspire its newly formed choir. He also suggested the group attend the CYM Rally, which will be held on the same weekend, and mix with some Perth youth groups. It was too good an opportunity to miss, and even though some students are in their WACE year, the decision was made to come to Perth. The group has received donations from local member Ian Blayney and some parishioners towards its trip to Perth. It was difficult to find accommodation, but students managed to get two holiday houses in Cannington.

Members of the Geraldton Catholic Youth Group will travel to Perth for the Steve Angrisano music workshop later this month.

PHOTO: SUPPLIED

Help Religious Sisters - the unsung heroines in the Church! Priest to speak on Rwandan genocide T for Catholic Mission hey smile, they heal, they teach, they comfort. Around the globe Catholic religious sisters quietly perform their dedicated and heroic service without remuneration and barely even noticed by the wider world. But in order to help others, they themselves also need to be helped, for although they are ministering angels to so many, they themselves still need their daily bread and a roof over their heads.

“It is a rare privilege to welcome Fr Emmanuel to Australia to share his story with us,” Mr Gates remarked. “Most of us recall the horrific events of the genocide but many are unaware of the incredible process of reconciliation which is currently taking place, largely facilitated by the Catholic Church. “It is very exciting to have Fr Emmanuel join us as we launch the

“Fr Emmanuel knows well the deep emotional wounds of his community, and the enormous challenge of forgiveness his people are faced with... His story of the past 20 years is truly remarkable.” ‘Heal the broken-hearted’ appeal, which highlights this transformation. “Fr Emmanuel knows well the deep emotional wounds of his community, and the enormous challenge of forgiveness his people are faced with. “He has been a strong proponent of unity in Rwanda, and his story of the past 20 years is truly remarkable. It is one we are very much looking forward to him sharing with us.” - CATHOLIC MISSION

Each year the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) supports over 9,000 religious sisters in every corner of the globe. Many religious congregations turn to the charity for help, not least for the formation of their precious new vocations. While many congregations in the Western world have few or no new vocations and even seem to be dying out, in other parts of the world the religious communities are filled with young and smiling faces.

ACN also helps those sisters active in the charitable apostolate, relieving them of the daily burden of supporting themselves while they also care for the poorest of the poor, whether in the slum quarters of the great cities, in the vast expanses of the Amazon rainforest, or in the remotest regions of the African Savannah. It is vital that the indispensable work of religious sisters in Christ’s Holy Catholic Church and throughout the missions worldwide continues. Religious sisters are the unsung heroines in the Church. ACN is therefore proud to help them in their efforts to make the world a better place, even just a little. The average grant ACN gives to support a religious sister or novice is $300 – but whatever you can afford will be enormously appreciated. ACN forwards the donations directly to the religious superiors in charge of the religious communities and congregations. To send your donation please fill in the coupon below. Anyone able to help this cause and who ticks the box below will also be sent a complimentary Vatican Rosary blessed by Pope Francis.

I/We enclose $................... to support the work of Religious Sisters for the poor and persecuted Church. I enclose a cheque/money order payable to Aid to the Church in Need or please debit my Visa or Mastercard

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RWANDAN priest Fr Emmanuel Nsengiyumva will visit 14 C atholic dio ces es around Australia throughout May and June to share, as a survivor, his personal insight into the horrific 1994 Rwandan genocide and promote Catholic Mission’s ‘Heal the broken-hearted’ appeal. Coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the genocide, Catholic Mission’s appeal focuses on the incredible work of the Catholic Church in Rwanda in helping people heal, forgive and unite following the genocide. Arriving on May 14, Fr Emmanuel will speak at schools, parishes and donor events about his role as a key facilitator of this remarkable healing process, and of the inspiration he has drawn from both God and those who have already found the strength and courage to forgive. Fr Emmanuel was an 18-year-old seminarian when up to one million people were brutally massacred in the genocide. Losing two of his brothers and seeing so much pain and confusion around him caused him to secondguess his calling. However, thanks to the love of God, he was able to move forward in the difficult journey of healing and forgiveness, and re-enter the seminary again 10 years later. “When I became a priest, the effects of the genocide elevated me to a level of being one of the channels that God has to use to heal his people,” Fr Emmanuel said. Catholic Mission deputy national director Peter Gates said Fr Emmanuel’s visit is being met with great anticipation.

Sr Lucia a religious sister from Italy rendering assistance to the poor in Ethiopia

Some of the young and vibrant Dominican Sisters from Ho Chi Minh City that ACN supports The Papal rosary designed by the Vatican rosary makers will be sent out to all those who assist this cause and tick this box.

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

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Mission sisters working to aid poor in Sudan, India ABOUT 50 people gathered at the Catholic Pastoral Centre of Our Lady of the Mission in Highgate on April 27 to listen to the experiences of Sr Margaret Scott RNDM, who is on home leave after spending the last six and a half years in South Sudan. Maureen Palfrey, a partner to the sisters in mission, also spoke of her six weeks in South India, where she experienced the various ways in which the sisters are involved with the poor, particularly in the state of Bihar. The Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions are just one of more than 150 groups of religious orders working together to build up the infrastructure of South Sudan, which has been totally destroyed after 40 years of war. The group, known as Solidarity with South Sudan, is working especially in the areas of education and health care. Sr Margaret is the director of the teacher training college in Yambio.

Its first class of graduates is already out in the field where their creativity and commitment are daily challenged by the lack of basic resources such as actual buildings, books and other fundamental teaching aids. She spoke of the importance of hope for the future, especially in the

Despite the poverty, both spoke of how deeply touched they were by the great sense of hospitality. face of fighting that has broken out in South Sudan recently, this time between tribes rather than between Muslims and Christians. In her visit to Almel, Bihar, Mrs Palfrey was impressed by the progress made in the provision of education from the primarily illiterate

women of the area through to the setting up of micro-credit groups which enable them to set up income generating projects and to develop a sense of their own dignity and possibilities. This has led them to value education for their children who attend the schools built by the sisters with the help of overseas donors. Both Sr Margaret and Mrs Palfrey highlighted the emphasis given to the education and formation of girls, because women are for the most part the ones who see to and provide for the education of their children. They explained that it is only through education that there is a way out of the grinding poverty that is endemic in these regions. Yet, despite this poverty, both Sr Margaret and Mrs Palfrey spoke of how deeply touched they were by the great sense of hospitality where, from the little that they have, people are ready to share all with their guests.

Maureen Palfrey and Sr Margaret Scott RNDM shared their experiences in India and Sudan, respectively, on April 27. PHOTO: SUPPLIED

Geraldton farewells Mgr Barden Mgr John Barden Born: July 20, 1929 Died: March 7, 2014

Vincent aims bigger and better for the homeless

By Glynnis Grainger

By Matthew Biddle

MONSIGNOR John Anthony Barden, a beloved priest of the Geraldton diocese, passed away after a long illness on March 7. A Pontifical concelebrated Requiem Mass, presided over by Bishop Justin Bianchini, was held on March 15 at St John’s Church in Rangeway. Mgr Barden was 84 and family, friends and former parishioners filled the church to capacity as they paid tribute to an outstanding pastor, in the same church where he served as parish priest for 18 years, building it from scratch with the help of his parishioners. Geraldton Vicar-General Fr Michael Morrissey led the prayers at the vigil and viewing the night before and spoke of Mgr Barden’s priestly attributes that he remembered well from his days as a young priest. Mgr Barden prepared his funeral liturgy years ago as his health began to deteriorate. His choice of readings and hymns reflected his deep faith in Jesus Christ and his firm belief in Heaven. This, as Bishop Bianchini continued in his homily, was what held him in the priesthood and kept him faithful as a priest for 61 years. Wayne Passmore, who gave the eulogy for his uncle, said, “Jesus was everything to him”. Mgr Barden was born in Mullewa on July 20, 1929 to Ernest Barden and Janet Elsie (nee Nairn) and was raised in a family of nine children. He received primary education from the Presentation Sisters at Mullewa and secondary from the Christian Brothers at St Patrick’s College in Geraldton. He entered St Charles’ Seminary in Guildford in 1945 where he excelled academically, then went on to Rome to complete his priestly formation. A gifted student, John Barden obtained a licentiate degree in Sacred Theology from Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide (now Pontifical Urbaniana University). He was ordained in Rome by Pietro Cardinal Fumisoni-Biondi in 1952. Returning to Geraldton in 1953 after completing his studies, he was appointed assistant priest at the Cathedral. He had a brief stint in the outback where he was acting

AFTER winning the hearts of Western Australians last year, nineyear-old Vincent Pettinichio is once again on a quest to help Perth’s homeless. Last year, the Whitford Catholic Primary School student collected enough donations to put together 185 packs of essentials for the homeless. This year, he’s aiming to reach 300 packs. Vincent told The Record although he was happy with last year’s effort, he felt it was important to strive to do even better this year, in order to help as many people as possible. “We’re trying to get more schools involved this year. We’ve got Padbury, Servite, Sacred Heart, Prendiville and our school,” the Year 4 student said. “I thought it would be easier than last year, but it’s not as easy, it’s quite tough when you’re trying to reach 300 packs. “We’ve got about 150 packs already, so we’re not that far off from beating last year.” Vincent launched the project at his family’s parish, Our Lady of the Mission in Whitford, on the weekend of March 22-23, speaking at each of the Masses. He also wrote letters to local supermarkets, and spoke to the store managers in person recently. “I asked them to try to help me reach my target, even if they could just donate a gift voucher. Some of them couldn’t really help, but most of them have,” Vincent said. Vincent even took his project to Prime Minister Tony Abbott and State Premier Colin Barnett, asking them to help spread the word. “I wrote to [Tony Abbott] because I read in the newspaper that he was trying to help the homeless of Australia, and I told him that I was trying to help the homeless of Perth,” he said. Vincent’s mum Pina said the donations were “piling up” at the family’s home, but this year’s effort may not be the last. “Just on the weekend he was saying that he wants to continue doing it for a long time,” she said. Goods can be donated until the end of May, when Vincent, his friends, and students from participating schools will put the packs together.

Obituary

Mgr John Barden passed away on March 7 after a long illness. He was 84.

parish priest at Cue, Meekatharra and Wiluna from February to November 1961, and then as parish priest of Wittenoom from 1962 to 1963. A man of many talents, he was entrusted the Geraldton Cathedral Parish as its administrator from 1963 to 1976, a role in which he excelled strongly. In October 1971, Pope Paul VI promoted Fr Barden to the title of Monsignor, in recognition of almost 20 years’ service to the Geraldton diocese.

He was appointed parish priest of St John’s Rangeway in 1976. Under his leadership, considerable progress was made in the field of Catholic education. New schools were opened at Beachlands, Rangeway and Wonthella and the existing schools at Bluff Point, Stella Maris and St Patrick’s College were expanded to cater for more classes and students. Mgr Barden served as diocesan consultor and Vicar-General under Bishop Barry Hickey, and subsequently as diocesan admin-

PHOTO: SUPPLIED

istrator inter-regnum from August 1991 to May 1992 following Bishop Hickey’s appointment as Archbishop of Perth and while the Geraldton diocese awaited its next Bishop, Justin Bianchini. He retired to Perth in 1994, finishing in his role as diocesan Vicar-General. Mr Passmore concluded his eulogy: “May you rest in peace ‘Mons’ and rejoice in being with those family members that have gone before you. Yours was a full life lived in God’s service.”

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Finding faith in God through reason Born and raised in a non-religious family, Adam Packer is perhaps not the typical convert to Catholicism. He spoke to Matthew Biddle about how he found God after virtually evaluating arguments for God’s existence scientifically...

WO YEARS ago, Adam Packer thought he had everything he could ever want or need in life. He had completed a university degree in political science, was earning a healthy salary, owned a nice car, and lived in a fancy apartment. Yet, among all these things, there was something missing in his life – God. Like many others around the world, Mr Packer was officially welcomed into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil Mass last month, after a lengthy period of formation. But the 28-year-old is perhaps not the typical convert to Catholicism, being raised in a “non-religious” family and without any Catholic relations or friends to evangelise him into the Church. Speaking to The Record recently, Mr Packer said he was raised in a typically secular, Australian family. “My dad was raised in a Methodist family but he was turned away from the Methodists. My mum’s parents were non-religious and she was non-religious, but then she converted to the Jehovah’s Witnesses later in life,” he explained. “It was an odd background to move into the Catholic Church from.” During his childhood and adolescence, Mr Packer went through stages of being interested in religion, although they were usually short-lived. As a university student, Mr Packer went on an exchange program for six months, living in France and travelling around Europe, where he was inspired by the Catholic culture. “I remember visiting Notre Dame of Strasbourg Cathedral, a great gothic cathedral, and it really gets you inside – the architecture, the history and the Catholic art,” he said. A few years later when he again felt a desire for something more in his life, Mr Packer’s time in Europe returned to the forefront of his mind. “I had a bit of a burnout in graduate school, and got into therapeutic meditation, and that just sort of naturally led to prayer,” he explained. “From there I built on the experience I had from my time in Europe with Catholicism, where I had been in awe of the Catholic Church. “I realised after doing a bit of research on the internet that if I’m going to become a Christian, then the Catholic Church would be the one for me.” The decision to become Catholic was not an easy one, and was not understood by some of Mr Packer’s friends. “Certain friends seem to have fallen off the radar,” he said. “I think for people who are nonreligious, talking about religion is a conversation-stopper, it’s like talking about mental health or sexuality, it just puts them off, so I think I’ve weirded out some friends and some family members by my conversion.” Mr Packer said his mum seems to be pleased that he now has a strong Christian faith, but he hasn’t received quite the same response from his dad. “He’s not very sympathetic to religion, he has a very common Australian view on religion – religious leaders are corrupt and they’re only interested in how much they can get in their collection plate,” he said. Without any Catholic relatives or friends and no religious background, Mr Packer said research and study were the key factors in his conversion.

“I wasn’t evangelised into the Catholic Church, I simply became interested in religion and evaluated different positions and thought that the Catholic Church seemed to be the best position,” he explained. “If you do look at things on balance objectively – the Church history, the writings of the Church fathers and the arguments behind Catholic theology – I think you can say that it is reasonable to become Catholic.” By this time Mr Packer was living and studying in Canberra at

“I simply became interested in religion and evaluated different positions and thought the Catholic Church seemed to be the best position.” the Australian National University (ANU), so he began attending Mass at St Christopher’s Cathedral in Canberra. “The more I learnt about the Catholic faith, the more I fell in love with it and realised I wanted to be baptised into the Church,” he said. “It was also about the time I started learning more about Scripture and Catholic theology.” Soon after Mr Packer returned home to Perth, where he continued to attend Mass, although he was desperate to enter the Church officially. “I’d been going to Mass for a year, watching everyone take Communion, so when you do that,

you feel you’re being left out, so I was happy to be baptised as soon as possible,” he said. The wait was finally over on April 19, when Mr Packer was baptised and received First Holy Communion at St Anne’s Church in Belmont, which he described as a “wonderful experience”. While his journey to the faith has been a gradual one over several years, Mr Packer said becoming Catholic has deepened his moral conscience. “In terms of my values and underlying beliefs, I feel in a way that I’ve always been Catholic and becoming Catholic helped everything fit together and make sense,” he said. “In other respects, a lot of my life has changed, so if I go to movies, I have to think now if there’s going to be a lot of coarse language or violence in the movie.” Reflecting on his own journey, Mr Packer said he would strongly advise those searching for God to go to church and to start praying. “Read the classic Christian apologetics, like CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity; learn about the arguments for the existence of God, learn about arguments for the historicity of the Bible,” he said. “I think people, deep down, they want God, but they fill their lives with the pursuit of honours and pleasures and power, until they realise what they really want is God.” As for himself, the future plan is quite simple. “I’m just going to keep plugging away, trying to be a good Catholic and keep on the straight and narrow,” Mr Packer said.

Top, Adam Packer is baptised on April 19 at the Easter Vigil at St Anne’s Parish in Belmont, and above, receives his First Holy Communion. PHOTOS: SUPPLIED

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Canning Vale l St Emilie’s THE CHILDREN at the 9am Mass enthusiastically waved their palms as the assistant parish priest Fr Anibal, accompanied by the acolytes and servers, led the procession from St Emilie’s Primary School entrance back to the church. The Altar of Repose was set up in the school hall to accommodate the increased number of devotees. This year, a parent and child washed each other’s feet at the Holy Thursday Mass. The new chalices donated by parishioners were blessed and used at the Holy Thursday Mass. Members of the St Emilie’s youth group carried a wooden cross from station to station through the grounds during the parish’s 10am Stations of the Cross. At the Easter Vigil, three people were baptised at the new baptismal font built by Fr Chien. At all the Masses, the children rushed forward for a blessing from the priests and the acolytes handed out Easter eggs.

Highlights of Easter at St Emilie’s Parish in Canning Vale included the Stations of the Cross (top), and the washing of the feet (left). PHOTOS: SUPPLIED

Belmont l St Anne’s

Perth’s Latin Mass community once again filled St Anne’s Church in Belmont beyond capacity for the Easter ceremonies, which were led by Fr Michael Rowe. For many, the highlight was the ancient office of Tenebrae on Good Friday, which is Latin for ‘darkness’. PHOTOS: NIGEL CORNELIUS

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LOCAL

Fatima takes to the streets of Freo A large crowd attended the celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima in Fremantle on May 13, taking to the streets in procession with Archbishop Emeritus Barry Hickey in honour of Our Lady who appeared in Fatima 97 years ago.

undreds turned out in honour of Our Lady of Fatima in Fremantle on May 13, with Archbishop Emeritus Barry Hickey serving as the main celebrant at St Patrick’s Basilica. The Feast’s celebrations began with Holy Mass, which was concelebrated by around 10 clergy from throughout Perth. Mass was followed by a procession through the streets of Fremantle and concluded with Benediction. During the evening, Archbishop Emeritus Hickey presented Fr Julian Carrasco with a special certificate in recognition and gratitude for his pastoral services to the Portuguese community of Australia spanning decades. Children dressed as angels were carried upon a float carrying the statue of Our Lady of Fatima as the Rosary was prayed by the hundreds who attended. Archbishop Emeritus Hickey gave a homily focusing on prayer and penance, two key points made by Our Lady during her apparitions in Fatima. “Prayer and Penance is necessary,” said Archbishop Emeritus Hickey. “We cannot fight evil with weapons of destruction. We can only fight evil with prayer and the power of God.” “Prayer is so important for each one of us. Through prayer we become more united with almighty God through Jesus his son, through the Holy Spirit, all united with Mary and all the saints in heaven; all united with one God as baptised followers of Jesus in the Communion of Saints.” The Feast has it’s origins in Fatima, a small village in Portugal, where in 1917 Our Lady appeared monthly from May to October to three shepherd children, Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta. During these apparitions Our Lady spoke about the importance of the Rosary and the need for prayer in a world that was moving further away from God. During the final apparition, as promised by Our Lady, the thousands gathered at Cova da Iria witnessed the sun move and change in colour.

Archbishop Emeritus Hickey presented Fr Julian Carrasco with a special certificate, above, in recognition and gratitude for his pastoral services to the Portuguese community of Australia spanning decades. PHOTOS: MATHEW DE SOUSA

Children dressed as angels and the three Fatima children, above, led the float carrying the statue of Our Lady of Fatima, below, in procession through the streets of Fremantle, left. Archbishop Emeritus Hickey, far left, was the main celebrant. PHOTOS: MATHEW DE SOUSA

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The self-fulfilling prophecy

S A SPIRITUAL director, I have often been called away from my teaching duties to co-ordinate and lead retreats off campus. On one occasion many years ago, I had to leave a junior high school religious formation class with a relief teacher. The retreat went very well, but when I returned I was ‘welcomed’ back with a message in my staff pigeonhole that one of my students had, in my absence, thrown a pen at a relief teacher. The pen had struck the teacher, she had reported the young boy, and he had quite deservedly been issued with an in-school detention. But within the short interval between crime and punishment a problem had occurred. The father of the student was on the telephone to me, soon after his son had reported to him, (with no little filial bias I soon came to know), how he had been hard done by. Quite a curt conversation ensued between the two of us. The father placed the responsibility of his son’s poor behaviour on myself. The father told me: “As an owner of a business, I expect that if I am not at the workplace on any given day, that my workers will not behave. My son misbehaved, because you were not there, but off campus.” My reply was that I didn’t think much of the men and women that he employed if that was the case, and that a mark of a graduate from the school that I was then employed in, I had hoped, was self-motivation and a degree of integrity, based not on the threat of punishment, but on the understanding that goodness was its own reward. In fact, I was echoing here the theology of St Thomas Aquinas, who noted in Summa Theologiae that obedience based on the threat or fear of punishment is the lowest level of goodness. The boy was young, and had made a mistake, and needed to learn from it; his father making excuses was contributing to the problem, rather than the correction. The boy would remain a child if he wasn’t made responsible for his actions; he would always know that dad would ‘cover’. The issue here was not only the danger of throwing a pen – but in the same action, disrespect for a teacher and a woman. So, keeping this story in mind – let me talk about rugby, and by rugby I mean the original form of the game, and not any of the variations that have followed, inspired for whatever reason. Back in the day when I began studying for my Masters degree in the original intake of students at the University of Notre Dame Australia, I was given a mentor, Professor Br Jack (Alman) Dwyer. Br Jack was a Marist Brother, and to my mind one of the greatest influences on my academic development from the moment that we first met. We were vastly different men – and that was the beauty of our relationship, as mentor and student. I don’t know if I ever influenced him; but I can say that his kindness, forthrightness and confidence in my ability spurred me on to a love of independent learning – and of rugby. Br Jack had been the headmaster of St Joseph’s Hunter’s Hill in Sydney at the age of 39. As he kept on informing me, there was no finer school in the entire continental land mass of Australia for rugby than St Joseph’s. In fact, St Joseph’s was the cradle for the Wallabies, and by the way Br Jack spoke, perhaps the cradle of humanity as well. He was quick to point out that it was expected that a St Joseph’s education went hand-in-hand with rugby and, if not, the boy who did not play rugby would be looked upon askance. I was equally quick to point out to Br Jack that the rugby jersey that St Joseph’s wore, when he showed a photograph to me – was pink. Supressing a smile, toothpick in the top row of his teeth, Br Jack looked unblinkingly and prophet-like to the heavens, and said: “Cerise!” So Br Jack taught a

A family, a sporting team or a society can all help to build a positive culture, but only when they have belief in the abilities of the individuals they are forming. Rugby, as Dr Andrew Kania writes, is one sport that teaches, by its culture, some of the most important characteristics of true manhood, characteristics that can help to build a thriving society, if we allow them to.

Dr Andrew Kania believes that, as leaders of young people, it is our attitude to them that helps to form who they will become in life and, as such, we should help them to believe in their own abilities. PHOTOS: ONLINE

West Australian, who had been brought up on a diet of Australian Rules Football, about rugby – and over the years, distilling Br Jack’s bias for the game from his lectures, he taught me a great deal about the theology of sport. For those who have never compared the two football codes, a massive cultural chasm lies between them. Some of the most stark differences that I noticed were these: first, the referee, unlike the AFL umpire, is always addressed as ‘Sir’ – he is only ever spoken to by the captains of the two sides, and never by any other player. In fact, I saw on one occasion a player attempting to make a polite complaint to the referee, to which the referee asked rhetorically, of course, if that player was the captain of the team. The player replied in the negative, and he was quickly dismissed. Second, I noticed that the offside rule meant that although there is a high level

of physical contact in rugby, no player within the rules of the game can be hit from behind; thus curtailing a degree of cowardice that can arise as a temptation in a game of high physical contact. Third, in 1991, when I began watching rugby internationals, half-time was only five minutes in duration, and the coach never addressed the players; it was the role of the captain to show real leadership and to discern within this five-minute period what were the tactics and strategies that needed to be implemented in order to win the game. A captain had to be much more than a figurehead. Even when this rule changed and when the players were given an extended 15-minute half-time break, what was still noticeable was the way in which half-time was conducted – chairs in a circle, and the players listening, as intelligent men, thoughtfully to coach and captain.

Fourth, at rugby matches, men are not ashamed to sing the anthem properly. Whereas at most other Australian sporting events, singing in tune, ironically, risks a man being considered of dubious masculine identity – the culture of rugby endorses singing.

form a tunnel, and cheer the referee. In contrast, we see at the AFL Grand Final, how many number of players, crying at having lost, and subsequently raining on the victor’s parade – in poor sportsmanship, and acting as if they have just been told they have a terminal and an incurable

Rod McQueen, (both who led Australia to rugby world championships), a high level of self-control in the coaches’ box. This was just amazing. Having watched AFL now for more than four decades, I see constantly the ‘spray’ – where a coach walks up to a grown man, and stands

To lead men, one has to believe in the men you lead; that they can do. To do, men have to be trained - but once they are trained, you have to rely on this training, and for better or worse, trust that what you have put in is good enough. Fifth, I have never seen any rugby player at an elite level sit on his haunches and blubber as a baby when he lost a game – irrespective of how important that game was. I have only ever seen these players immediately shake hands with their opponents, look them in the eye, and congratulate them. Rugby players always clap their opponents off the field,

illness. The defeated players usually wait until after the presentation, then stand grumpily, and mope off. A man should cry – but when there is something worthy of tears. What tears will these same men cry at the death of a loved one? Sixth, and most importantly for me, I noticed watching the behaviour of Wallaby coaches, such as Bob Dwyer and

face-to-face with him – and abuses him, publicly. How many times do we see the puerile behaviour of an AFL coach, thrashing headphones around, smashing telephones, and storming around in a maniacal and anti-social rant? Sadly, many of us consider this to be normal ‘masculine’ behaviour; proven by the fact that generation after generation imitates

such behaviour. Sadly, we allow our children to consider such behaviour as masculine. Now this is where I shall hopefully connect both stories of the father of one of my students, and the ‘behaviour conditioning’ of sport. To lead men, one has to believe in the men you lead; that they can do. To do, men have to be trained – but once they are trained, you have to rely on this training, and for better or worse, trust that what you have put in is good enough. Otherwise, you will have to hold their hand – and you may as well be in charge of robots, and not humans. What that small businessman failed to understand is that he had no business in reality at all, if he continually could not trust those who worked for him. He was in effect a prison officer, and he himself was quite shackled, hanging on for dear life. Moreover, what Br Jack taught me was

that rugby teaches by its culture, that a game is played, and one can either win or lose. If you can’t handle this as a man, then really you should take up playing jigsaws because, as John Wooden once said, a man voted by ESPN as the greatest coach of the 20th century – “Sports do not build character. They reveal it”. Although I disagree in part with Wooden, for a sporting culture can influence majorly the language by which a person’s character communicates itself to others, Wooden is correct inasmuch as in the end, the result of a game depends on what comes from within a man’s spirit; but all you can do, after you have done your best, as a parent, teacher or coach, is accept that fact. Remember – as Marcus Aurelius told us in his Meditations, that we are all composites of the people who have influenced us – for better or for worse. As leaders of young people, we must be aware that it is our attitude to them that

helps form who they will become. If we expect little from them, we will gain little in return; if we allow for initiative, they will never cease to surprise us. Having taught the sons of boarders now for many years – one can see how the responsibilities that the sons of farmers have been given in their youth arm them, generally speaking, with a high level of being able to carry out instructions. It is not because their DNA is in any way more superior to other students, it is that they have been given a different level of expectancy. We become what we convince ourselves we are – and if we are not trusted, untrustworthy we will assume ourselves to be – if we do not believe that we have the capacity to run, we will assume all we are able to do, is crawl. A family, a sporting team, or a society can build up a positive culture, or the reverse, and we should be watchful for such patterns.

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In praise of

a No-exit

Catholicism The anti-Catholic cliché of being a “recovering Catholic” reveals more than its perhaps sardonic utterers care to recognise. The idea that Catholicism is purely, or even principally, a confessional religion of doctrinal “correctness” seriously underestimates the role and importance of a Catholic ecology, writes Dr Sam Rocha.

T IS UNDERSTANDABLE that some people cringe at the idea of Catholicism being reduced to an existential condition or a religious disposition, a cultural or folkloric aesthetic. There is something too soft and sentimental, too theologically unchecked, about these forms of “cultural Catholicism”. George Weigel’s Evangelical Catholicism is a good example of a direct argument against it. Fr Robert Barron’s approach, in his popular Catholicism series, is a very measured way of implicitly making the same point. It would seem, then, that it is all or nothing. Full-force kerygmatic Gospel proclamation, rooted in the Sacraments and liturgy, or a secular “none”. But is it true? There is an argument to be made that it is patently false. Others have made this point before in different ways (von Balthasar, Maritain, and Gilson all come to mind, but they seem to be mostly forgotten, misunderstood, or ignored nowadays), but more concrete examples abound. For instance, consider the vast canon of the public presence of art in the West. There is a very real cultural anthropology present, especially in the art of Europe, that cannot be described as generically religious. It is distinctly Catholic. In many ways, the analogy is direct: Much of that art was commissioned by and for the Church, and directly took up Catholic images and themes because of it. Then there are the oblique and indirect ways that these works of art create an aesthetic consciousness that became embedded in the culture itself. To live amidst Catholic art

is to be affected and educated by it. This is public pedagogy in its most refined and effective state. Religious architecture, for instance, has geographical and ecological effects, leading to a spatio-temporal affect in the human person who dwells within the literal beauty of the church (which, of course, is not to be confused with the figurative, but every bit as real, beauty of the Church). Public religious art is, perhaps, too weak a case study to measure the more concrete confessional and dogmatic creeds that are oftentimes claimed— especially by a certain class of converts (Ross Douthat, Rod Dreher, et al)—as being the sine qua non of Catholicism. However, it is precisely the weakness of this aesthetic and affective environment, this fragile ecology of sorts, which makes it hard to deny altogether. A soft breeze. Another, more personal, example: My story begins as the son of a lay Catholic evangelist, raised in a missionary family, steeped in a rigorous and mendicant upbringing in the practice of an evangelical Catholicism, leading to my undergraduate studies at Franciscan University of Steubenville. The “essential content” of the core Gospel message, the basic proclamation of the Good News, in the power of the Holy Spirit, rooted in the tradition and teachings of the Catholic Church. It is hard to imagine a more evangelical Catholicism than this. At the same time, my Catholic story began long ago. Longer and deeper roots than autobiography. I am a cradle Catholic, with an ancestry of colonial blending of blood and culture in Texas and

the Southwest, leaving me with thick Catholic roots, watered with Mexican folklore. Posadas and Guadalupe. I learned about my faith from my father, the evangelist, but I lived my faith with, and in many ways through, his father—my abuelito, a simple Catholic man of flesh and bone. Both were necessary, to be sure, but one was prior and indispensable to the other. Cradle Catholics can be arrogant and self-important, especially when relating to converts; of this there is little doubt, and I am no exception. But this

haps understandable, I think, when doctrine doesn’t rise to the level of supreme importance. In my own experience, the Catholic Church resembles the Hotel California. “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.” This is a no-exit Catholicism. Its cultural affectations are useful in describing its external details, but they fail to capture its powerful grip over the imagination, a life, and the soul. In many cases, the expression of this no-exit Catholicism is through the arts and culture. No wonder, then, why it is abundant there,

When doctrine is not the sole hinge of a genealogy of belief, often because of an ecology of religious practice and lived beauty, it is perhaps understandable when doctrine doesn’t rise to the level of supreme importance. fault seems to be a general expression of nativism - albeit a shameful, nasty and off-putting one and the binary assumption of the cradle versus convert is not without its exceptions. Nonetheless, cradle Catholics are sometimes misunderstood, I think, when it comes to issues like doctrinal orthodoxy and the evangelical tenets of Catholicism. What may seem to be apathy may, in fact, be a different expression of the lived experience of being Catholic from womb to inevitable tomb. In other words, when doctrine is not the sole hinge of a genealogy of belief, often because of an aesthetic ecology of religious practice and lived beauty, it is per-

even through negation—even an atheist who has felt the Catholic imprimatur will show it sometimes. Contemporary artists, for instance, cannot seem to help themselves, despite the hegemonic rise of a smug and cynical secularism. Recently, in the mostly secular academy where I do my work, I have noticed a remarkable number of people who have this “no exit” sense of Catholicism. People cradled, raised, and/or educated by the Church who intentionally left or just drifted away, but never ceased to think and even express themselves through a Catholic lens of some kind, in serious ways even serious jokes. Even the rath-

er anti-Catholic cliché of being a “recovering Catholic” expresses the same truth we know of all addicts: You never stop being an addict; it stays with you forever; you can only manage to recover by degrees and proportion. Odd as it may seem, this notion of “recovery” is, perhaps, a more faithful, albeit inverted, expression of the Catholic universal call to holiness through continual and constant conversion. None of this is to suggest that a “no-exit” Catholicism is sufficient on its own terms. This is not to replace one zero-sum game for another. After all, the public cultural dimension, and the personal lived experience, are often torn and fragmented with the increasing loss of a religious culture, truly public and common ground, and a holistic sense of the family, leaving the door open to a terrifying and total exit. And, even when things are mostly intact, as I experienced, there is still a facile reduction that can minimise the radical, incarnational reality of the Gospel, with the power to transform and heal. This sense of Catholicism acknowledges the place for the cultural and aesthetic anthropology of the Church, with the genealogy and lived experience of the cradle Catholic - and the convert, too; I’ve heard many converts talk about how they “felt” Catholic long before they converted. It is not necessarily a threat to, or critique of, an evangelical Catholicism. Just the opposite: A no-exit Catholicism affirms a fundamental desire that is complementary and even, in some ways, identical to the evangelical desires of orthodoxy and magisterial fidelity. ETHIKAPOLITIKA.ORG

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therecord.com.au May 14, 2014

Man cannot be saved by baptism alone A friend who has a degree in theology recently told me that if we are baptised we are assured of heaven. I didn’t argue with him because he knows a lot more than I do. Is what he says true?

Left, Philosophy Professor, Dr Sam Rocha. Above and below, timeless art on public display at the Vatican provides something of an ecology in which Catholicism might be tacitly imbibed, if Dr Rocha’s argument holds true: “To live amidst Catholic art is to be affected and educated by it. This is public pedagogy in its most refined and effective state.” PHOTO: SUPPLIED; ONLINE

T IS CERTAINLY not true, and we know this in a variety of ways. We can begin with the nature of man as God made us, and as he looks upon us. He made us in his own image and likeness, unlike other animals, and so we have an intellect to know the truth and a free will to choose whether to follow the truth or not. God respects our freedom, our free choices. He doesn’t take us to heaven automatically but he does give us all the graces we need to get there, beginning with the grace of Baptism. God treats us as his children, not as toys or robots. He wants us to choose freely to do his will and to repent freely when we have failed to do so. If we have lived well and are in the state of grace when we die, we will go to heaven by our own free choice. But not everyone lives this way. Common sense and life experience remind us of the many people who have been baptised and then turn away from God and live very immoral lives. If they die in that state they will not be saved. The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes this clear: “To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice” (CCC 1033). The Second Vatican Council says as much. In the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium, we read: “[Christ] himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through baptism as through a door. Hence, they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it, or to remain in it” (LG 14). So a baptised person who, with full knowledge of what they were doing and with full consent, refused to remain in the Church, would not be saved. This is borne out in the punishment of excommunication which applies for the sins of heresy, apostasy (the total rejection of the faith) and schism of a baptised person. The excommunication, which can be lifted only if the person repents, has effect as regards the person’s relations with God: “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt 16:19). As if this weren’t enough, we have the practice of the Church in her funeral rites. We know that Baptism remits original sin and leaves the soul in the state of grace, so that if the person has not committed any

Q&A FR JOHN FLADER

personal sins after Baptism they will most certainly go to heaven. Thus when a baptised infant dies before reaching the age of reason, the funeral Mass has white vestments and the prayers indicate the firm belief of the Church that the infant is most certainly in heaven. An example of the Opening Prayer of these Masses is: “… grant that one day we may inherit eternal life with him (her), whom, by the grace of Baptism, you have adopted as your own child and who we believe is dwelling even now in your kingdom.” But when a baptised adult dies, the Church does not presume that the person has gone to heaven. Rather, it prays for the repose of their soul with

We should be under no false illusions. Baptism alone does not guarantee our eternal salvation. We must also live and die well and God, in his mercy, gives us all the graces we need. He wants all to be saved (cf 1 Tim 2:4). prayers like “… grant, that through this mystery your servant N, who has fallen asleep in Christ, may rejoice to rise again through him.” In this whole matter, it is of no use quoting scriptural passages like “He who believes and is baptised will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mk 16:16) as if this meant that Jesus is guaranteeing eternal salvation to anyone who is baptised. Not for nothing does Jesus add that in addition to being baptised the person must also believe. If they do not believe they will be condemned. So we should be under no false illusions. Baptism alone does not guarantee our eternal salvation. We must also live and die well and God, in his mercy, gives us all the graces we need to do that. He wants all to be saved (cf 1 Tim 2:4). For more, go to fatherfladerblog. wordpress.com or contact Fr Flader on frjflader@gmail.com.

FUN FAITH With

MAY 18, 2014 • JOHN 14:1-12 • 5TH SUNDAY OF EASTER

CROSSWORD

TODAY’S GOSPEL John 14:1-12

FATHER TRUTH ROOM WORKS BELIEVE Across

Down

2. Jesus told him, “I am the way, the ____, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

1. Philip said, “Lord, show us the ____, and we will be satisfied.”

3. Jesus replied, “Don’t you ____ that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? 5. ”There is more than enough ____ in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?”

4. ”I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same ____ I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.”

”Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. And you know the way to where I am going.” ”No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him!” Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of the work you have seen me do. I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.”

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“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

VISTA

therecord.com.au May 14, 2014

Choice words for future pastors Pope Francis fulfilled his own frequent advice to bishops to “smell like the sheep” on May 12, meeting with Mexican seminarians and giving them the benefit of his pastoral experience and lateral thinking, writes Carol Glatz.

Pope Francis reacts during an encounter with Italian students, teachers and parents in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican, May 10.

ope Francis told seminarians not to become “orphan priests,” who are motherless without Mary; “businessman priests,” who are after money; or “prince priests,” who are aloof from the people. He also warned them not to give “boring homilies,” saying their reflections should be brief, powerful and address the problems and concerns people are really going through. In a private audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI hall with thousands of seminarians and priests from around the world who are studying in Rome, the Pope spent 70 minutes answering the questions of eight pre-selected participants. The Pope told them that he already had seen the prepared questions, and urged them to feel free to change the questions and go off-script if they wanted. However, the men, who were from the United States, China, Lebanon, Cameroon, Mexico, Philippines and Poland, appeared to stay with the prepared questions. In his off-the-cuff replies, the Pope addressed questions about formation; difficulties living in a religious community; advice about being far from home and living in Rome; how to balance the many duties of being a priest or bishop; what a real leader must be; and what the new evangelisation entails. The Pope peppered his serious and detailed advice with a number of humorous anecdotes and sarcasm, like when he warned the men to never forget they have a mother in Mary. “But if you don’t want Our Lady as a mother, you will have her as a

mother-in-law and that’s not good,” he said to laughter and applause. The comment was part of a lengthy response to a Mexican student’s question about remaining faithful to one’s priestly vocation. The key, the Pope said, is vigilance - keeping watch over one’s heart and feelings, and finding peace during times of personal “turbulence.” Just like a stormy sea, it’s impossible to see what’s going on inside one’s heart when life is in turmoil, he said. The only way to calm the waters and be able to reflect intelligently on what’s going on is to turn to Mary for help, he said, and to “seek refuge under the mantle of the Holy Mother of God”. “Some of you will say, ‘But Father, in this era of so many modern benefits, in psychiatry, in psychology, I think it would it would be better during these times of turbulence to go to a psychiatrist to help me.’ I’m not eliminating that (possibility), but go to the mother first before anything else.” When there’s trouble, children “always go to their mother. And we are children in our spiritual life,” the Pope said. “To forget a mother is a terrible thing,” he said, and when a priest forgets Mary or does not have a good relationship with her, “something is missing. He is an orphan priest.” The Pope later warned against becoming a “businessman priest” or a “prince priest” in response to a question from a Filipino student about the qualities needed to best lead the people of God. Parishioners are usually very for-

giving of a priest’s missteps, except when they are sins of greed and vanity - the “two hazards” that St Augustine warned about that come with the priestly office. The people of God “don’t forgive you if you are a pastor who is attached to money, if you’re vain and don’t treat people nicely because the conceited don’t treat people nicely”. He said the early monastic Desert Fathers used to say that “vanity is like an onion”: the vain keep peeling back and showing off all their layers until “you end up with nothing,” but the repelling “smell of onion”.

evangelisation,” Pope Francis said it requires “going out of one’s self ” and “getting closer to the people, to everyone”. “You can’t evangelise without being close” to others, which means being “cordial” as well as being physically present and aware of what others are going through. One of the reasons why there are so many “boring homilies” is because priests aren’t “close” to their people, he said. The measure for seeing how close a priest is to his parishioners is his homily, he added. Pope Francis lamented long homilies, telling the students he

The people of God “don’t forgive you if you are a pastor who is attached to money, if you’re vain and don’t treat people nicely, because the conceited don’t treat people nicely”. Instead, “humility must be the weapon of the priest”, who is close to his people and lives a life of sacrifice, poverty and service. “There is only one path to leadership: service. There is no other way,” the Pope said. A priest can be a great communicator and have other wonderful talents, “but if you aren’t a servant, your leadership will collapse, it won’t matter, it won’t be able to summon” others or guide them. Service is always being available to others, responding to their needs, and helping them “grow and walk” with Jesus. When asked about the “new

knows the 40-minute homily “isn’t something made up. It happens!” Homilies also should not be “about abstract things,” he said. While it expresses “the truth of faith,” a homily shouldn’t be a classroom lesson, a conference or an academic reflection, but be “something else,” that borders on the sacramental, and is “brief and powerful”. He said “we are late” in picking up on this problem and that the church has a lot to do to ensure homilies are under 10 minutes and done well “so that people understand” the word of God. The Pope urged seminarians to

PHOTO: CNS

not let their academic studies take over their spiritual growth, apostolic work and community life. “Academic purism is not healthy,” he said, and it carries the risk of “slipping into ideologies”, which harms the priest and people’s conception of the church. In response to the challenges of living in a religious community, diocese or seminary, the Pope said “gossip is the plague” and will destroy a community. He said, it’s not true that gossip is “a female thing; men, too,” can get wrapped up in backstabbing, jealousy, envy and power struggles. “Community life isn’t paradise; at any rate, it’s purgatory, but it’s not paradise,” he said to applause. The best advice, he said, is to speak face-to-face with the person with whom one disagrees or has a problem or go to one’s superior for help. Also, always pray for that person “and the Lord will do the rest.” When asked about balancing all of the demands of being a priest or bishop, the Pope said the secret is prayer and always making room for the sacraments and Eucharistic Adoration. The ideal day is to go to bed tired “so you won’t have to take any (sleeping) pills”, he joked. But he underlined the difference between the “good tired” of a productive day versus the exhaustion of being run ragged. He told his audience that he could see his papal assistant “giving me a look right now,” suggesting that the Pope does not exactly follow his own advice in that regard. “It’s true. I’m a sinner,” guilty of overwork and being disorganised, he laughed. CNS

OPINION

GUEST EDITORIAL

God’s good or mine: no competition

arlier this month I had the pleasure of attending the Broadway revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun starring Denzel Washington, Latanya Richardson Jackson (Samuel L Jackson’s wife), and Sean Patrick Thomas. Thankfully, I came in to the theatre a veritable tabula rasa – an increasingly rare thing in the digital age. All I knew about the play was that it was a family drama set in a small apartment on the south side of Chicago in the pre-civil rights era, and that President Obama had dropped in to see it during a recent trip to New York. (As I learned later, the history of the play is rich indeed: it was the first Broadway play written by an African American woman, as well as the first directed by an African American.) Denzel Washington, who lit up the screen recently in Flight, shines as the starry-eyed and restless protagonist Walter Lee Younger, and the three central women of the play – Jackson, who plays Younger’s wise and watchful mother; Anika Noni Rose, who plays his rebellious sister, Beneatha; and Sophie Okonedo, who plays his wife – are no less brilliant. The play is not only entertaining, but also chock-full of social commentary. In addition to some timeless themes about family and fortitude, A Raisin in the Sun examines the slings and arrows of social and economic inequality in the 1950s. But there are also some rather lengthy discussions about the nature of God and man, of belief and unbelief. One early dialogue between Beneatha and Mama stands out in particular. (You can watch this scene from a made-for-TV version of the play here – sardonically titled How to Debate an Atheist Child.) BENEATHA: I am going to be a doctor and everybody around here better understand that! MAMA: ‘Course you going to be a doctor, honey, God willing. BENEATHA: God hasn’t got a thing to do with it. MAMA: Beneatha – that just wasn’t necessary. BENEATHA: Well – neither is God I. get sick of hearing about God. MAMA: Beneatha! BENEATHA: I mean it! I’m just tired of hearing about God all the time. What has He got to do with anything? Does he pay tuition? MAMA: You ‘bout to get you fresh little jaw slapped!... It don’t sound nice for a young girl to say things like that – you wasn’t brought up that way. Me and your father went to trouble to get you and Brother to church every Sunday. BENEATHA: Mama, you don’t understand. It’s all a matter of ideas, and God is just one idea I don’t accept. It’s not important. I am not going out and be immoral or commit crimes because I don’t believe in God. I don’t even think about it. It’s just that I get tired of Him getting credit for all the things the human race achieves through its own stubborn effort. There simply is no blasted God – there is only man and it is he who makes miracles! Mama Younger promptly PO Box 3075 delivers on her promise of a Adelaide Terrace slap – and then some – and PERTH WA 6832 after making her daughter repeat the mantra “in my office@therecord.com.au mother’s house there is still God”, walks away shaking her Tel: (08) 9220 5900 head. “There are some ideas Fax: (08) 9325 4580 we ain’t going to have in this house,” she grumbles. “Not as long as I am at the head of this family.” Of course, the violent slap – though it may elicit profound fear and respect of her mother – hardly counters Beneatha’s ideas about God and man. In fact, given that the character of Beneatha is modelled after Hansberry herself, and Hansberry remained a committed atheist throughout her life, it might have even reinforced those ideas in her. But there is a deeper problem with Mama Younger’s reaction, a problem that also lurks in Beneatha’s provocation: the notion that God, whether he exists or not, is locked in a giant tug-of-war with men. Fr Barron notes how this perspective on God has informed much of modern atheism: “The competitive notion of God [is] assumed by the great atheists of the modern period. For Ludwig Feuerbach, the ‘no’ to God is tantamount to the ‘yes’ for humanity; for Karl Marx, the sloughing off of the skin of religious belief is the condition for the possibility of human flourishing; and, for Jean-Paul Sartre, the sheer fact of human freedom positively disproves the existence of an all-powerful God. In all three cases, the unquestioned assumption is that God is competitive to human nature, that divinity and humanity are locked, necessarily, in a zero-sum game of ontological rivalry.” But this view, Fr Barron explains, is incongruent with centuries of Christian theology stretching back to the Council of Chalcedon in 451. “The true God can personally ground a human nature in such a way that that nature remains utterly uncompromised; this incarnational notion – alien to the modern atheists – stands behind St Iranaeus’ dictum Gloria Dei homo vivens (the glory of God is a human being fully alive).” Like Feuerbach and Marx, Beneatha sees God and man on the same continuum of being – a univocity of being, to use the theological term – where they wrestle with each other for glory. But the reality of participation described by Iranaeus decimates this idea of cosmic competition; on the contrary, it’s in and through man’s glory that God’s glory shines. The faulty thinking about God behind Beneatha’s declaration of unbelief is also behind Mama’s exasperated reaction. Mama’s response is the inversion of Beneatha’s mistake, the flip side of one and the same error. God, Mama insists, is a sovereign highest-being who stands over and against the world, and any advance of man is an encroachment on God’s territory, a subtraction from God’s glory. Her declaration “there is still God” is a disavowal of everything Beneatha has said about man – a clinging to God’s grace that rejects, rather than uplifts and perfects, man’s nature.

THE RECORD

Matthew Becklo is a husband and father-to-be, and a cultural commentator at Aleteia. This piece, first published at www.wordonfire.org.

therecord.com.au May 14, 2014

LETTERS

Hitchens’ argument misses the mark I READ Peter Hitchens’ article about Russia, the Ukraine and Nationalism with some astonishment; I never expected to see such a ‘loaded’ piece for Putin and his political and military ambitions. As a teenager during the Nazi occupation of Europe, I spent two years in a very ‘nationalistic’ underground, and I clearly remember the very similar arguments against the ‘Czech suppression’ of the SudetenGermans. History would prove that Hitler’s control of the Czech defensive fortifications in Sudetenland were imperative for the initial success of a German Blitzkrieg against Russia. Putin quoted Hitler’s diatribe against the Czechs, almost verbatim, stressing the possible ‘need’ of Russian intervention in the Ukraine, for the sake of ‘peace’. Is Putin getting ready for a ‘Blitzkrieg’ against Europe? I don’t intend to go through Hitchens’ piece sentence by sentence, just a bit of Ukrainehistory will have to do. Ukraine was settled by Swedish Vikings in the 700s, at the time of the heydays of the Franks in Western Europe. Those Swedish/Viking settlers in what is now Ukraine were known at that time by two different names: the ‘Varangians’ and the ‘Rus’. What is now known under the ‘modern Russian’ name of the Ukraine (which seems to mean something like: the ‘outer districts’, from Moscow’s point of view), was then known as the ‘Land of the Rus’, with the Volga and the Dnieper rivers as handy road-ways for the Viking ships, to Byzantium. ‘Rus’land, with its capital Kiev, was at the very origin of the Russian empire and of its Christian Faith, not a by-product. The literature of those times stresses that the ‘Rus’ were Swedish traders, who penetrated the forests and established trading-posts for pelts and other ‘forest-products’, like slaves; for at that time Moscow and the surrounding lands were still largely unexplored and untamed forest-lands, populated by a variety of footloose tribes, which were, more or less, continually at war with each other, and were in turn exploited by the Vikings for the supply of ‘slaves’, a name that stuck

and would become the general indicator for the populations of those central Asian areas, even after some of them moved into Europe-proper and established strong, independent civilisations in Southeast Europe. When Hitchens criticises the present revival of ‘nationalistic tendencies’ in Ukraine, he merely shows his discomfort at the competitive impact ‘lesser-quality’ nationalities may have on the comfort-zone of Moscow. There is already much evidence of future, Russian-inspired, Marxist revolutions in Western Europe. It will destroy old Europe but, ultimately, those revolutions will not succeed because the Marxists are concentrated in the cities, whereas the real human strength of Europe resides in the tribal peasantry of the Alpine regions, the Alsace, Lorraine, Brittany, the Rhineland and Flanders, which are more open and less vulnerable to Russian nuclear, chemical and biological weapons than the cities. Europe will survive, Russia will not. Matt Bruekers LESMURDIE, WA

Throw Creation out with literalist bathwater? IT IS a pity that so many people are put off by the six-day Creation Story which gave us the weekly day of rest sanctified by worship, and was subsequently adopted by all people. It bonded the family and prevented the wild behaviour and crime we seem to be experiencing today with the breakdown of weekly family worship. In the beginning, before God created the universe, “the Earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep”, ie the Earth did not exist, and neither did any celestial body that emanates light, when “a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” “The spirit of God moved over the waters” invokes action by the Holy Spirit more effectively. This is followed by light being created as God says (the Word) “Let there be light… and there was light”. In other words, the universe was created by the Trinity working in perfect unison, although He does not get a specific mention in the Old Testament.

We are then told, “God saw that the light was good; and God “separated” the light from the darkness, and that God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night”. This has nothing to do with our concept of day and night on Earth but the way God sees the entire creation from His point of vantage. Put simply, as Day (light) took over in the entire universe, Night (darkness) completely disappeared forever, which is why it gets no further mention, whereas Day (light) never ends. So the end of the first phase or section of creation in the permanent light of day is expressed as “evening” and the beginning of the next phase as “morning”, all occurring within the continuum of light or “Day” which has since existed in the entire universe without interruption and should continue doing so, no matter what may happen to our Earth. The second phase in day (light) records a separation of the all pervasive water into some below and some above the sky, while in the third phase, dry land appears on Earth as the waters drain into seas so that all kinds of vegetation occur. The fourth phase sees the Earth finally rotating on its axis in orbit round our sun, thus giving us our seasons, and our very own twenty-four hour day as we know it. The fifth phase sees the creation of abundant life in our seas as well as birds of every kind on the earth and in the air, while the sixth sees the creation of animal and human life on earth. These distinctions could explain why there is no visible evidence of evolution actually occurring between these parameters. The only perceived changes seem due to adaptation to changes in their environment, just as an unborn baby adapts in its ability to feed itself and breathe unaided after birth, without being considered a different species. What is extraordinary is that by the subtle use of words, the creation story has established the order of our lives by giving us a weekly day of rest, and made sense to fairly primitive people with no notion of science or the universe, yet is compatible with sophisticated modern science. It is obvious that those responsible for penning it, could only have done so under the influence of the Holy Spirit. G Aquilina LYNWOOD WA

Myth: more than meets the cynic’s unquestioning eye Fr Dwight Longenecker tackles the anti-myth ‘myth’ and its ill effects. ONE of the most tiresome misconceptions of the cynic in the street is his idea of myth. He uses the word “myth” to mean “useless fairy tale”. A myth is a fantasy, a fable or a fanciful fiction. At best, it is a harmless children’s story. It might be a pretend story told for a religious purpose or, at worst, it is an intentional fabrication devised to hoodwink the gullible. Yes, some ancient fanciful stories are called myths and have a religious dimension. This fact makes the definition of myth even more complex and therefore more easily misunderstood. Because ancient Greeks and Romans told stories about Zeus and Jupiter, and because they were fantasy stories, and because Zeus and Jupiter were gods, the cynic in the street concludes that all stories from ancient times that feature the supernatural must also be fanciful old time stories that may be somewhat entertaining, but which are all make believe. To the scientific man, a myth is a curious but valueless cultural artefact from a superstitious age. The

worthlessness of myth is rooted in the work of several academics from the turn of the 20th century. The Englishman EB Tylor is considered the father of “cultural evolutionism”. He considered myth and primitive religion as failed attempts at science. Myths, in his opinion, were the theories that primitive people devised to explain the world. Now that we have science we know better, and we should discard myth. Religion, Tylor thought, was a holdover from those primitive mythological times, the root and fruit of a backward, superstitious mindset. The German Max Müller was also active at Oxford slightly before Tylor. Müller was an Orientalist and philologist. He considered myth to be a “disease of language”. Primitive people had ideas and theories about their world and then developed words for them. From the words they developed stories, and the abstract concepts were soon personified into mythical beings. Müller considered this to be a kind of hiccup in the development of

language and therefore myth could be dismissed. These three thinkers were hugely influential in the first part of the 20th century and German theologian Rudolph Bultmann (1884-1976) applied their ideas to Biblical criticism. His goal was the ‘de-mythologisation” of scripture. Bultmann wanted to weed out what seemed to him to be the mythological, supernatural elements of Biblical stories and the Christian religion so Christianity might be more acceptable to modern man. The problem with these reductionist theorists is that they did not understand the deeper significance and function of myth within the human psyche. Carl Jung with his depth psychology was more sanguine about myth. He suggested that mythical stories connected individuals and societies with the “collective unconscious” in which all humans partake, and were one of mankind’s ways of interacting with the vast unseen world. The full version of this article is available at catholiceducation.org.

OPINION

therecord.com.au May 14, 2014

Conversion via Dante a slow burn M

English professor Peggy Rosenthal wasn’t immediately bowled over by the Italian master, but his masterwork came back to bite. any years ago, my husband took a job in Rochester, New York, four hundred miles from our Boston home. Neither of us had ever been to Rochester, and we were apprehensive about the move. Our ten-year-old son was more than apprehensive: he was devastated. When we told him about the move, he burst into tears because Rochester didn’t have a major league baseball team. The move was scheduled for the end of the summer. Sometime midsummer, I decided I needed to start reading something long and engaging, as a stable grounding during the uprooting of the move. Though a firm agnostic at the time, I chose Dante’s Divine Comedy. Despite my doctorate in English Literature, I’d never read it. (Well, maybe because my doctorate was in English Literature, the academy was pretty parochial in those days.) Somehow we had John Ciardi’s three-volume verse translation on our shelves. So I started “Midway in our life’s journey” and continued from there, down into the Inferno. I was beginning my ascent through Purgatory when we loaded the U-Haul truck and drove west. During the weeks of settling into our new home - arranging furniture, buying fabric to make curtains, finding a good grocery store, helping our son adjust to his new school - I reached the top of Purgatory and entered the dazzling light of Paradise. I stayed in Paradise while raking fall leaves all the way to the final “Love that moves the Sun and the other stars”. The Divine Comedy did just what I’d hoped and more. Not only did it give me something coherent to hold onto during the dislocating move; it gave me a fully envisioned cosmic worldview to move into and live within. I felt securely enfolded within the Divine Comedy, despite not believing at all in its Christian assumptions. I was reminded of this episode in my life when I read Professor Carol

with a subtle longing. The Kyrie, especially, sounded to me like a sustained ache for something I did not have. One day I was driving to the mall and Vivaldi’s Gloria came on the radio. I pulled over into a parking lot, enthralled, hearing a joy that I longed to share. Visiting the art museum in our new city, I stood in front of the mediaeval paintings of the Holy Family and let myself be drawn into them. I wasn’t just noticing the colour techniques and the play with perspective that I’d been taught in my college Art 101 class. I was seeing a vision of love. More than planting seeds was going on by then. Green shoots were sprouting in my soul. In fact, I began to use the word “soul”, which until then had been banished from my vocabulary. By the time I started reading CS Lewis (whom I chose as my teacher about Christianity because he was an English professor like me, so I felt we shared at least that vocabulary), those green shoots were nearly in bud. “The precise relationship between art and belief is a mystery and must remain so until we are imparadised with Dante,” Zaleski concludes. Amen, I say. All I know is that exactly five years after my summer with Dante, I was walking the half-mile to our neighbourhood Catholic church to begin preparation for baptism. The following spring, at the Easter Vigil, I was baptised.

Zaleski’s column ‘Rhymes and Reasons’ in the February 19 issue of Christian Century. Zaleski traces the history of interpretations and translations of the Divine Comedy, coming to focus on the extraordinary number of translations in the past century. This past century is known as the Age of Secularism, and most of Dante’s English translators during this era have not been “believers”.

Zaleski asks: “What is Dante saying to readers who love the poem but reject the message? What is their devotion to Dante saying to us?” Her tentative answer is that Dante’s continued popularity is “a sign that God is longed for and subliminally known”. A translator or reader cannot, she goes on, surrender to this poem and remain unchanged by it. “It seems unlikely that imagination and sympathy can

be so deeply engaged without leaving traces in memory and planting seeds in reason.” Was this my experience during that summer of moving to a new city? I remained a convinced agnostic for another few years. But I suspect that my immersion in the Divine Comedy did indeed “plant seeds” within me. So did other works of art. I recall listening to Bach’s B Minor Mass

Peggy Rosenthal is director of Poetry Retreats and writes widely on poetry as a spiritual resource. Her books include Praying through Poetry: Hope for Violent Times, and The Poets’ Jesus. She also teaches an online course on poetry through Image’s Glen Online program. Originally published at www.imagejournal.org. Professor John Kinder recently presented ‘Dante’s Divine Comedy – Mediaeval Masterpiece and the Modern Search for Meaning’ at The Dawson Society’s Speakers Forum which will shortly be available on their website at www.dawsonsociety.com.au.

The end of brand Catholic: bring it on “I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty,” Pope Francis has said. Parish priest, Fr Peter Day couldn’t agree more. “PRAYER and comfortable living are incompatible,” so said Teresa of Avila; one might tweak this a little and add: “a comfortable Church cannot preach the Joy of the Gospel with authority”. Pope Francis’ dream that we be a ‘poor Church for the poor’ is both animating and disturbing. It is also the seminal challenge of the age – a challenge that dioceses, parishes, and leaders must embrace wholeheartedly, surely? We hardly need reminding that the Royal Commission has exposed, among many other things, the dangers inherent in a Church that adopts a powerful corporate mentality; one in which the protection of the ‘company brand’ is prioritised ahead of vulnerable others. Now, more than ever, people need to see a Church that embraces simplicity; a Church that is comfortable with a lack of comfort – ‘a poor Church’. As a wise priest, now deceased, once told me: “When you live among the poor, live as they do. When you live among the rich, do not live as they do.” “[Indeed], for the Church, the option for the poor is primarily theological; [it is not] a cultural, sociological, political or

philosophical [choice]. “God,” says Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium, “shows the poor his first mercy.” And this first mercy is well known to each of us: The Spirit of the Lord is on me, for He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor (Luke 4:18). Insofar as you did this to one of the least of these… you did it to me (Matthew 25:40). No, when you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind (Luke 14:13). James and Cephas and John… offered their right hands to Barnabas and me as a sign of partnership… They asked nothing more than we should remember to help the poor, as indeed I was anxious to do (Galatians 2:9-10). Whatever one may feel about this dream that triages the marginalised as a priority, we should be careful not to patronise it as noble sentiment; or dismiss it as a niche aspiration for the specialised few – a kind of ‘soup kitchen’ social work. As Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI wrote in 2006: “Love for widows and orphans, for prisoners, and the sick and needy of every kind, is as essential to the [Church] as the ministry of the Sacraments and preaching of the Gospel. The

Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the Sacraments and the Word.”(Deus Caritas Est, p36 no 22) A poor Church for the poor, like any divinely inspired dream, invites us beyond what is familiar, what is safe, what is comfortable: this is a disturbing prospect, especially for a rich, well-meaning young man – and archdiocese, and parish - looking to our Lord for some consolation, for an easier path. But is not the response the same: You still lack one thing. Sell

God became poor. “Far from being desirable, success and power prevent us from being truly ourselves. It is only when we recognise our weakness [our poverty], when we seek help, that we become human. We are not called to be perfect, we are called to be humble. And this is the gift we receive when we live with and work beside people who are fragile... The poorest lead us into another world.” Is it not the case that when one is in love, one is drawn to those places in which the beloved is to

We hardly need reminding of the dangers inherent in a Church that adopts a powerful corporate mentality in which the ‘brand’ is put ahead of vulnerable others. everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me (Luke 18:22). And who is it that calls us out and rattles our inner being, but Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped. But he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave (Philippians 2:5-7).

be found: “I want to be where they are”; “What’s important to them is important to me”; “I’ll risk and leave everything behind for them”? Such devotion is beautifully portrayed in Ruth’s exchange with her mother-in-law, Naomi: Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you!

Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God (Ruth 1:16). A poor Church for the poor is, first and foremost, God’s dream – not a man’s. “This divine preference has consequences for the faith life of all Christians, since we are called to have the mind of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). “This is why,” says Pope Francis, “I want a Church which is poor and for the poor. They have much to teach us... We need to let ourselves be evangelised by them” (Evangelii Gaudium, no 198). As to where to from here: Jean Vanier offers some food for thought: “There are a lot of people clapping Francis. But are they doing what he suggests? Are they going to the peripheries and befriending the poorest, and receiving the wisdom that the poor can give? “The Church will not change because of Francis. It will change because of all of us. Because of me.” Fr Peter Day is a priest of the Archdiocese of Canberra/Goulburn

PANORAMA

SCHOENSTATT CELEBRATES 100 YEARS All welcome, 9 Talus Drive, Mt Richon. More information - 9399 2349. June 6 - 7.30pm The Covenant of Love in the Fourth Milestone 1965 July 4 - 7.30pm The Covenant of Love and the Place of Grace Bring a picture of your Home Shrine August 1 - 7.30pm The Covenant of Love in its Depth Renewal of Crowning ‘Queen of the Family’ September 5 - 7.30pm The Covenant of Love in its Width Bring your Pilgrim Mother Shrine October 3 - 8pm The Covenant of Love in the Everyday Bring your Group Symbol SUNDAY, MAY 18 The World Apostolate of Fatima Eucharistic Holy Hour at 3pm in St Mary’s Catholic Parish, James St, Guildford. Enq: 9339 2614. TUESDAY, MAY 20 Council of Christians and Jews WA Inter-Religious Dialogue 7.30pm at Perth Synagogue, Freeman Rd, cnr Plantation St, Menora. Guest speaker Dr Debbie Weissman, President CCJWA, will give a talk: “An Israeli Perspective”. $5 members, $10 nonmembers. Refreshments served. Enq: Marie Wilson (Revd): 9335 4974. WEDNESDAY, MAY 21 Evangelising With Catholic DVDs 10.30-11.30am at St Joseph’s Church Library, 20 Hamilton St, Bassendean. DVD is The Alex Jones Conversion Story. Pentecostal pastor and many of his congregation’s conversion to the Catholic Faith, Easter 2001. Enq: Catherine 9379 2691 or Merle 0414 794 224. SATURDAY, MAY 24 Day of Reflection for Women of all Ages Embracing Womanhood 9am-3pm at St Jude’s Catholic Parish, 20 Prendiville Way, Langford. A Spiritual Dimension over a cup of tea with Sr Ann Cullinane followed by Eucharistic celebration. Cost: $10. Morning tea and light lunch provided. Only 60 places available. Registration closes Wed, May 20, 2014. Enq: Gertrude 0411 26 2221, Helen 0422 81 2061. SUNDAY, MAY 25 Centenary Celebrations - Mt Barker Parish 10.30am at Sacred Heart Parish, Langton Rd, Mt Barker. You are invited to the celebration of 100 years with Mass, celebrant Bishop Gerard Holohan, followed by bring and share lunch. RSVP with your intention to attend. Enq: Fr John Brown 08 9851 1119 or Rose-Mary 9851 1695. Western Australian African Catholic Community Mass - Africa Day Commemoration 12.30pm at North Perth Monastery, 190 Vincent St, North Perth. All are invited to celebrate and pray for Africa. Bring and share. Enq: Joseph on 0423 88 6870. MONDAY, MAY 26 TO FRIDAY MAY 30 Set Free 7pm at Holy Family Parish, Como. Rosary. CCR presents International Inner Healing Ministry of Mrs Diana Mascarenhas and Fr Elias Vella. Talks include Parental Anguish, Compulsive Behaviours, Dealing with Guilt and Living in Joy. Admission free; collections taken up. Enq: Dan 9398 4973 or E: daniel.hewitt5@bigpond.com or Frank 0400 885 635. FRIDAY, MAY 30 6th Anniversary Celebration Mass St Jerome’s Divine Mercy Prayer Group 2-4pm at St Jerome’s Church, 36 Troode St, Munster. Healing Mass and service led by Fr Varghese Parackal VC. Starting with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Divine Mercy Chaplet followed with Mass, talk on Divine Mercy and Healing. Enq: Connie 0437 803 322, Liliana 9437 3435. FRIDAY, MAY 30 TO SATURDAY, JUNE 7 Novena to the Holy Spirit and Pentecost Vigil 7.30-9.30pm Holy Family Parish, 34 Alcock St, Maddington. Healing Mass with Novena. May 31-June 5, Novena with Eucharistic Adoration from 7.30-8.30pm; June 6, 7.30-9.30pm Healing Mass with Novena; June 7, Novena, Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Vigil Mass at 10pm. Enq: 9493 1703, E:vincentiansperth@yahoo.com. Web: vpcp.org.au. SATURDAY, MAY 31 Legion of Mary Annual One-Day Retreat 9am-3.30pm at the Little Sisters of the Poor, Rawlins St, Glendalough. Retreat Master is Fr Peter Porteous. Talks on Images of God/Jesus/ Church. Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Reconciliation, Mass and Benediction. Tea and coffee and soup supplied. Secret bag collection to offset costs. Enq: Rosemary 0421 580 783. SUNDAY, JUNE 1 Divine Mercy Afternoon with Jesus and Mary - 1.30pm at St

Francis Xavier Church, 25 Windsor St, Perth. With Fr Andre Maria - Homily “Body and Blood of Jesus.” Exposition of The Blessed Sacrament, holy Rosary, Chaplet of Divine Mercy, Reconciliation, Benediction and Veneration of First Class Relic of St Faustina Kowalska. Refreshments afterwards. Enq: John 9457 7771. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4 Alan Ames Talk and Healing Service 6.30pm at St Brigid’s Catholic Church, 69B Morrison Rd, Midland. Begins with holy Mass followed by talk and healing service. Enq: George 9275 6608. SATURDAY, JUNE 7 Day With Mary 9am-5pm at St Emilie de Vialar Church, 151 Amherst Rd, Canning Vale. Begins with video. Day of prayer based on the Fatima message. 10.10am holy Mass, Reconciliation, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament, Eucharistic Adoration, two talks, Rosary, Divine Mercy Chaplet and Stations of the Cross. BYO lunch. Enq: Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate 9437 2792. SATURDAY, JUNE 14 St Padre Pio Prayer Day 8.30am at St Lawrence Parish, Albert St, Balcatta. 8.30am-St Padre Pio DVD in parish centre. 10am-Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Rosary, Divine Mercy, Silent Adoration and Benediction. 11am-holy Mass, St Padre Pio Liturgy. Confessions available. 12pm- BYO for shared lunch, tea and coffee supplied. Enq: Des 6278 1540. SATURDAY, JUNE 14 AND SUNDAY, JUNE 15 Book Sale 9am-4pm at Evershed St, Myaree in the school parish hall entrance. All types of books for sale. Enq: Margaret 9330 3848. FRIDAY, JUNE 27 TO SUNDAY, JUNE 29 Live-in Growth Retreat 7.30am-5pm at Epiphany Retreat Centre, 50 5th Ave, Rossmoyne. Led by Fr Varghese Parackal VC and the Vincentian Fathers. Enq: Lin 0419 041 188 or 9493 1703 or email vincentiansperth@yahoo. com or visit website www.vpcp.org.au. SATURDAY, JULY 12 St Padre Pio Prayer Day 8.30am at St Joachim Parish, cnr Shepperton Rd and Harper St, Victoria Park. 8.30am-St Padre Pio DVD in parish centre. 10am-Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Rosary, Divine Mercy, Silent Adoration and Benediction. 11am-holy Mass, St Padre Pio Liturgy. Confessions. 12pm- BYO shared lunch, tea and coffee supplied. Enq: Des 6278 1540.

REGULAR EVENTS EVERY SUNDAY Gate of Heaven Catholic Radio Join the Franciscans of the Immaculate from 7.309pm on Radio Fremantle 107.9FM for Catholic radio broadcast of EWTN and our own live shows. Enq: radio@ausmaria.com. Cathedral Cafe Cathedral Cafe open every Sunday 9.30am-1pm at St Mary’s Cathedral, downstairs after Mass. Coffee, tea, cakes, sweets, friendship with Cathedral parishioners. Further info: Tammy on smcperthwyd@yahoo.com.au or 0415 370 357. Pilgrim Mass - Shrine of the Virgin of the Revelation 2pm at Shrine, 36 Chittering Rd, Bullsbrook. Starts with Rosary, then Benediction. Reconciliation available before every celebration. Anointing of the sick administered at Mass every second Sunday of month. Pilgrimage in honour of the Virgin of the Revelation last Sunday of the month. Side entrance to Church and shrine open daily between 9am-5pm. Enq Sacri 9447 3292. Praise and Worship 5.30pm at St Denis Parish, cnr Osborne St and Roberts Rd, Joondanna. Followed by 6pm Mass. Enq: Admin on admin@stdenis.com.au. Mass with Sign Language Interpreter and PowerPoint 9.30am at St Francis Xavier Church, 23 Windsor St, East Perth. Enq: Voice 9328 8113, TTY 9328 9571, 0401 016 399 or www.emmanuelcentre.com.au. Latin Mass 8.30am at The Good Shepherd Church, Streich Ave, Kelmscott. Enq: John 9390 6646. EVERY FIRST SUNDAY Singles Prayer and Social Group 6.30pm at All Saints Chapel, Allendale Sq, 77 St Georges Tce, Perth. Begins with holy hour followed by dinner at local restaurant. Meet new people, pray and socialise with others. Enq: Veronica 0403 841 202. EVERY SECOND SUNDAY Healing Hour 7-8pm at St Lawrence, Balcatta. Songs of praise and worship, Exposition of Blessed Sacrament and prayers for sick. Enq: Fr Irek Czech SDS or office Tue-Thu, 9am-2.30pm on 9344 7066. EVERY THIRD SUNDAY Oblates of St Benedict’s 2pm at St Joseph’s Convent, York St, South Perth. We welcome all interested in studying the Rule of St Benedict and its relevance to the everyday life of today for laypeople. Vespers and afternoon tea conclude our meetings. Enq: Secretary 9457 5758.

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Holy Hour with Exposition 3pm at All Saints Parish, 7 Liwara Pl, Greenwood. Mercy Novena and Rosary during Holy Hour. Enq: Charles 9447 1989. Divine Mercy Holy Hour 3pm at Pius X Church, 23 Paterson St, Manning. Exposition of the Most Blessed Sacrament, Divine Mercy prayers, Rosary and Benediction. Please join us in prayer. Enq: Mrs K Henderson 9450 4195. EVERY FOURTH SUNDAY Shrine Time for Young Adults 18-35 Years 7.30-8.30pm at Schoenstatt Shrine, 9 Talus Dr, Mt Richon; holy Hour with prayer, reflection, meditation, praise and worship; followed by a social gathering. Come and pray at a place of grace. Enq: shrinetimemtrichon@gmail.com. Holy Hour for Vocations to the Priesthood, Religious Life 2-3pm at Infant Jesus Parish, Wellington St, Morley. Includes Exposition of Blessed Sacrament, silent prayer, scripture, prayers of intercession. Come and pray that those discerning vocations can hear clearly God’s call. EVERY LAST SUNDAY Filipino Mass 3pm at Notre Dame Church, cnr Daley and Wright Sts, Cloverdale. Bring a plate to share after Mass. Enq: Fr Nelson 0410 843 412, Elsa 0404 038 483. LAST MONDAY Be Still in His Presence – Ecumenical Christian Program 7.30-8.45pm at St Swithun Anglican Church, 195 Lesmurdie St, Lesmurdie (hall behind church). Begins with songs of praise and worship, silent time, lectio divina, small group sharing and cuppa. Enq: Lynne 9293 3848 or 0435 252 941. EVERY TUESDAY Novena to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal 6pm at Pater Noster Church, Marmion and Evershed Sts, Myaree. Mass at 5.30pm followed by Benediction. Enq: John 0408 952 194. Novena to God the Father 7.30pm at St Joachim’s parish hall, Vic Park. Novena followed by reflection and discussions on forthcoming Sunday Gospel. Enq: Jan 9284 1662. Mercy Heritage Centre Open Day 10am-2pm at 86 Victoria Sq, Perth (cnr Goderich St) main entrance. Free tour of the 1871 Convent. Enq: 08 9325 4155. EVERY FIRST TUESDAY Short MMP Cenacle for Priests 2pm at Edel Quinn Centre, 36 Windsor St, East Perth. Enq: Fr Watt 9376 1734. EVERY WEDNESDAY Holy Spirit of Freedom Community 7.30pm at Church of Christ, 111 Stirling St, Perth. We welcome everyone to attend our praise meeting. Enq: 0423 907 869 or hsofperth@gmail.com. Holy Hour - Catholic Youth Ministry 5.30pm at Catholic Pastoral Centre, 40A Mary St, Highgate. Mass followed at 6.30pm with Holy Hour. Supper $5 and fellowship later. Enq: 9422 7912 or admin@cym.com.au. Subiaco Ladies Prayer Meeting 10am in the upper room at St Joseph’s Parish, 3 Salvado Rd, Subiaco. We welcome you to join us for prayer, praise, and fellowship. Phone Win 9387 2808, Colleen 9245 3277 or Noreen 9298 9938. Evangelising with Catholic DVDs 10.30-11.30am at St Joseph’s Church, 20 Hamilton St, Bassendean Library. No price too high. Enq: Catherine 9379 2691 or Merle 0414 794 224. EVERY FIRST WEDNESDAY Novena to St Mary of the Cross MacKillop 7-7.45pm at Blessed Mary MacKillop Parish, cnr Cassowary Dr and Pelican Pde, Ballajura. Begins with Mass, Novena prayers and Benediction. Followed by healing prayers and anointing of the sick. Enq: Madi 9249 9093 or Gerry 0417 187 240. EVERY SECOND WEDNESDAY Chaplets of Divine Mercy 7.30pm at St Thomas More Parish, Dean Rd, Bateman. Accompanied by Exposition, then Benediction. Enq: George 9310 9493 or 6242 0702 (w). Miracle Prayers 7.30pm at 67 Howe St, Osborne Park. An opportunity to receive prayers for healing of mind, body and soul. Enq: miracleprayers@disciplesofjesus. org or Michelle 0404 028 298. EVERY THURSDAY Divine Mercy 11am at Sts John and Paul Church, Pinetree Gully Rd, Willetton. Pray the Rosary and Chaplet of Divine Mercy and for consecrated life, especially in our parish. Concludes with veneration of the first class relic of St Faustina. Enq: John 9457 7771. St Mary’s Cathedral Praise Meeting 7.45pm at the Legion of Mary’s Edel Quinn Centre, 36 Windsor St, East Perth. Includes praise, song and healing ministry. Enq: Kay 9382 3668 or fmi@ flameministries.org. Group Fifty - Charismatic Renewal Group 7.30pm at Redemptorist Monastery, 150 Vincent St, North Perth. Includes prayer, praise and Mass. Enq: Elaine 9440 3661. EVERY FIRST THURSDAY Holy Hour Prayer for Priests 7-8pm at Holy Spirit Parish, 2 Keaney Pl, City Beach. All welcome. Enq: Linda 9341 3079.

Prayer in Style of Taizé 7.30-8.30pm at Our Lady of Grace Parish, 3 Kitchener St, North Beach. Includes prayer, song and silence in candlelight – symbol of Christ the light of the world. Taizé info: www.taize.fr. Enq: secretary 9448 4888 or 9448 4457. FIRST AND THIRD THURSDAY Social Dinner (Young Adults aged up to 35) and Rosary Cenacle 6.30pm at St Bernadette’s Church, 49 Jugan St, Mt Hawthorn. Begins at 6.30pm with dinner at a local restaurant, followed at 8pm by a Rosary Cenacle, short talk and refreshments at the church. Great way to meet new people, pray and socialise! Enq: 9444 6131 or st.bernadettesyouth@gmail.com. EVERY FRIDAY Eucharistic Adoration at Schoenstatt Shrine 10am at Schoenstatt Shrine, 9 Talus Dr, Mt Richon. Includes holy Mass, Exposition of Blessed Sacrament, silent Adoration till 8.15pm. Join us in prayer at a place of grace. Enq: Sisters of Schoenstatt 9399 2349. Healing Mass 6pm at Holy Family Parish, Lot 375, Alcock St, Maddington. Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Rosary, Stations of the Cross, Healing Mass followed by Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Enq: admin 9493 1703/www.vpcp.org.au. Eucharistic Adoration - Voice of the Voiceless Ministry 7.30-9pm at St Brigid’s Parish, 211 Aberdeen St, Northbridge. Eucharistic Adoration, beginning with praise and worship and reflection on the scriptures. All welcome. Enq: adrianluke1999@ yahoo.com.abibleu. EVERY FIRST FRIDAY Mass and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament 11am-4pm at Little Sisters of the Poor Chapel, 2 Rawlins St, Glendalough. Exposition of Blessed Sacrament after Mass until 4pm, finishing with Rosary. Enq: Sr Marie MS.Perth@lsp.org.au. Healing and Anointing Mass 8.45am Pater Noster Church, Evershed St, Myaree. Begins with Reconciliation, then 9am Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, anointing of the sick and prayers to St Peregrine. Enq: Joy 9337 7189. Pro-life Witness – Mass and Procession 9.30am at St Brigid’s Parish, cnr Great Northern Hwy and Morrison Rd, Midland. Begins with Mass followed by Rosary procession and prayer vigil at nearby abortion clinic led by the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. Please join us to pray for an end to abortion and the conversion of hearts. Enq: Helen 9402 0349. Catholic Faith Renewal Evening 7.30pm at Sts John and Paul Parish, Pinetree Gully Rd, Willetton. Songs of praise, prayer, sharing by a priest, then thanksgiving Mass and light refreshments. Enq: Ivan 0428 898 833 or Ann 0412 166 164 or catholicfaithrenewal@gmail.com. Communion of Reparation All Night Vigils 7pm-1.30am at Corpus Christi Church, Loch St, Mosman Park or St Gerard Majella Church, cnr Ravenswood Dr/Majella Rd, Mirrabooka. Vigils are two Masses, Adoration, Benediction, prayers, Confession in reparation for outrages committed against the United Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Enq: Vicky 0400 282 357, Fr Giosue 9349 2315, John/ Joy 9344 2609. Holy Hour 7.30pm at St Bernadette’s Parish, cnr Jugan and Leeder Sts, Glendalough. Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, music and chants, silence, readings and meditative decades of the holy Rosary. Tea/ coffee and cake to follow. Enq: Sean Tobin of Bl Elisabeth of the Trinity Choir 0439 720 066. EVERY SECOND FRIDAY Discover Spirituality of St Francis of Assisi 12pm at St Brigid’s parish centre. The Secular Franciscans of Midland Fraternity have lunch, then 1-3pm meeting. Enq: Antoinette 9297 2314. EVERY SATURDAY Our Lady of Sorrows Rosary 9am at St Denis Parish Church, cnr Roberts Rd and Osborne St, Joondanna. A warm invitation to those interested in praying Our Lady of Sorrows Rosary with us. Enq: Parish office 9242 2812. EVERY FIRST SATURDAY Vigil for Life – Mass and Procession 8.30am at St Augustine Parish, Gladstone St, Rivervale. Begins with Mass celebrated by Fr Carey, followed by Rosary procession and prayer vigil at nearby abortion clinic. Please join us to pray for the conversion of hearts and an end to abortion. Enq: Helen 9402 0349. Mission Rosary Making at the Legion of Mary 9.30am-2pm at 36 Windsor St, East Perth. All materials supplied. The Rosaries made are distributed to schools, missions and those who ask for a Rosary. Please join us and learn the art of Rosary making on rope and chain. Enq: 0478 598 860. Half-Day Retreat 9am-1.30pm at Holy Family Parish, 34 Alcock St, Maddington Led by Fr Parackal VC and Vincentian Fathers. Morning tea and lunch provided. Enq: 9493 1703 or email vincentiansperth@yahoo.com or visit www.vpcp.org.au. EVERY SECOND SATURDAY Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Succour) and Divine Mercy Chaplet (Chant) 8.30am at Our Lady of the Mission Parish,

Whitford, 270 Camberwarra Dr, Craigie. Holy Mass at 8.30am followed by Novena. Enq: Margaret 9307 2776. EVERY FOURTH SATURDAY Voice of the Voiceless Healing Mass 11.30am at St Brigid’s Parish, 211 Aberdeen St, Northbridge. Bring a plate to share after Mass. Enq: Frank 9296 7591 or 0408 183 325. DAILY IN MAY Month Of Mary 6.30-7.30pm at Holy Cross Church, Hamilton Hill. There will be daily service during the month of May in honour of Our Lady of Fatima. Novena commences at 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays 6am in May. All are welcome. Enq: Connie 0437 803 322.

GENERAL Divine Mercy Church, Lower Chittering Come join the “$500 club” by donating that amount towards completion of the Divine Mercy Church in Lower Chittering. Your name will be included in a plaque and you will share in Masses offered for benefactors. Donate online: www. ginginchitteringparish.org.au or send cheque to DM Church Building Fund, PO Box 8, Bullsbrook WA 6084. May God bless you! Free Divine Mercy Image for Parishes High quality oil painting and glossy print – Divine Mercy Promotions. Images of very high quality. For any parish willing to accept and place inside the church. Oil paintings: 160 x 90cm; glossy print - 100 x 60cm. Enq: Irene 9417 3267 (w). Sacred Heart Pioneers Would anyone like to know about the Sacred Heart pioneers? If so, please contact Spiritual Director Fr Doug Harris 9444 6131 or John 9457 7771. St Philomena’s Chapel 3/24 Juna Dr, Malaga. Mass of the day: Mon 6.45am. Vigil Masses: Mon-Fri 4.45pm. Enq: Fr David 9376 1734. Mary MacKillop Merchandise Available for sale from Mary MacKillop Centre. Enq: Sr Maree 0414 683 926 or 08 9334 0933. Financially Disadvantaged People Requiring Low Care Aged Care Placement The Little Sisters of the Poor community is set in beautiful gardens in Glendalough. “Making the elderly happy, that is everything!” St Jeanne Jugan (foundress). Reg and enq: Sr Marie 9443 3155. AA Alcoholics Anonymous Is alcohol costing you more than just money? Enq: AA 9325 3566. Is your son or daughter unsure of what to do this year? Suggest a Cert IV course to discern God’s purpose. They will also learn more about the Catholic faith and develop skills in communication and leadership. Acts 2 College of Mission and Evangelisation (National Code 51452). Enq: Jane 9202 6859. Abortion Grief Association Inc A not-for-profit association is looking for premises to establish a Trauma Recovery Centre (pref SOR) in response to increasing demand for services (ref www.abortiongrief.asn.au). Enq: Julie (08) 9313 1784. Free Rosaries For The Missions If you or anybody you know are going to the missions and would like to send or take Rosaries to spread the faith locally or overseas or for school or First Holy Communion, please contact Felicia 0429 173 541 or Hiep 0409 128 638. Saints and Sacred Relics Apostolate Invite SSRA Perth invites interested parties, parish priests, leaders of religious communities, lay associations to organise relic visitations to parishes, communities, etc. We have available authenticated relics, mostly first class, of Catholic saints and blesseds including Sts Mary MacKillop, Padre Pio, Anthony of Padua, Therese of Lisieux, Maximilian Kolbe, Simon Stock and Blessed Pope John Paul II. Free of charge and all welcome. Enq: Giovanny 0478 201 092 or ssra-perth@catholic.org. PERPETUAL ADORATION Adoration - St Jerome’s, Spearwood Adorers are needed. Please contact the office on 9418 1229. Holy Hour Slots at St Bernadette’s, Glendalough “Every Holy Hour we make so pleases the Heart of Jesus that it will be recorded in heaven and retold for all eternity” ~ Blessed Mother Teresa. Adorers needed for: Monday 2-3am; Tuesday 10-11am; Wednesday midnight-2am; Friday 2-4am; and Saturday 1-2pm. If you would like one of these hours or more information, please call the parish office. Enquiries: 9444 6131. Resource Centre For Personal Development 2014 Courses 197 High St, Fremantle. RCPD2 ‘Successful Relationships, Emotional Intelligence/ Communication Skills’; RCPD3 Part1 ‘Health – Mental, Physical and Spiritual’ ‘Understanding and Healing the Consequences of Emotional and Sexual Abuse’ Lecture and Discussion; RCPD11 ‘Therapeutic Workshop’; RCPD7 Part1 ‘Psychology and Christian Spirituality’; RCPD7 Part2 ‘Exorcists and Psychiatrists’. Volunteers required for Op/Shop Drop-In Centre. Enq: 9418 1439, 0409 405 585 www.rcpd.net.au.

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CLASSIFIEDS Deadline: 11am Monday BEAUTY

FURNITURE REMOVAL

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RELIGIOUS PRODUCTS RICH HARVEST - YOUR CHRISTIAN SHOP Looking for Bibles, CDs, books, cards, gifts, statues, Baptism and Wedding candles, etc. Visit us at 39 Hulme Ct (off McCoy St), Myaree. Ph 9329 9889 (after 10.30am Mon to Sat). We are here to serve. KINLAR VESTMENTS www.kinlarvestments.com.au Quality vestments, Australianmade, embroidered, appliqued. Ph: 9402 1318, 0409 114 093.

TAX SERVICE QUALITY TAX RETURNS PREPARED by registered tax agent with over 35 years’ experience. Call Tony Marchei 0412 055 184 for appt. AXXO Accounting & Management, Unit 20/222 Walter Rd, Morley.

WANTED FAMILY WITH REFERENCE looking for a 3 - 4x, house to rent preferably SOR. Preferred suburbs, Queens Park, Cannington, Beckenham, Bentley, Carlisle. Will consider other suburbs. Close to public transport. 0481 125 854. LOOKING FOR TWO OLD CHURCH PEWS with kneelers attached. Can collect if necessary. Judith 95746243.

SERVICES BRENDAN HANDYMAN SERVICES Home, building maintenance, repairs and renovations. NOR. Ph 0427 539 588. PAINTERS IN PERTH since 1933. AJ Cochrane & Sons 08 9248 8211. BOB’S PAINTING Registered and insured. Free quotes 0422 485 433 www.bobthepainter.com. au. PERROTT PAINTING PTY LTD For all commercial and strata property requirements. Ph 9444 1200.

BRICK RE-POINTING Ph Nigel 9242 2952. PAINTER. Registered with 35 years experience. Free quotes. Discount for Pensioners. Tony 0401 461 310.

PILGRIMAGES 19 days: Departing Perth Oct 7-25. For 8 days Italy - 7 days Medjugorje. 1 night split. $4,999. Rome. Monte Cassino. Castelpetroso, San Giovanni Rotondo, Monte Sant’ Angelo, Corato, Lanciano, Collevalenza, Assisi, 6 hour stay in airport hotel for rest and shower on departure and arrival. All flights, transfers, taxes, tipping, luxury coach travel, excellent accommodation all with ensuite facilities, bed/breakfast/ evening meals, guide 24/7. Cost $4,999. Spiritual Director Rev Fr Doug Harris. Contact Eileen 9402 2480 mob 0407 471 256 email medjugorje1947@gmail.com.

CLASSIFIEDS Short, Sharp and Cheap

C R O S S W O R D ACROSS 4 6am prayer time 9 The last John 10 Sea of ___ 11 Galilee, for one 12 Sister of Judah 13 A Sunday in Lent 14 ___ Being 17 The Archdiocese of Oslo is found here 19 Chi ___ 21 Catholics Pavarotti, Carreras, or Domingo 22 Canonised one 23 ___ of Contrition 25 A river of Eden (Gen 2:11) 26 Word of praise 29 Altar perfume 31 Rite in the Church in the West 33 The ___ Dolorosa 34 Peter and Andrew may have used this 35 Prepare to pray 36 Commits a capital sin

7 Book attributed to John 8 Son of Abraham 15 Papal 16 “… thy will be done on ___” 18 They were found in Juan Diego’s cape at Guadalupe 20 In ___ Signo 23 Biblical liar 24 Jesus was crucified between two of these 27 Patron saint of beer brewers 28 St ___ Stein 30 Vocation 31 Gennesaret, for one (Lk 5:1) 32 Jesus found Nathanael under one

LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION

DOWN 1 Second book of the Bible 2 ___ of the Cross 3 This was offered to the risen Jesus (Lk 24:42) 4 Prayer book 5 Hell 6 Catholic columnist Bombeck

PANORAMA Deadline - 5pm on Fridays

PRAYER OF INTERCESSION TO

POPE ST JOHN PAUL II O Blessed Trinity, we thank you for having graced the Church with St John Paul II and for allowing the tenderness of your fatherly care, the glory of the Cross of Christ and the splendour of the Spirit of love to shine through him. Trusting fully in your infinite mercy and in the maternal intercession of Mary, he has given us a living image of Jesus the Good Shepherd. He has shown us that holiness is the necessary measure of ordinary Christian life and is the way of achieving eternal communion with you. Grant us, by his intercession, and according to your will, the graces we implore, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

W O R D S L E U T H

JPII CANONISATION

LIMITED STOCK Pope John Paul II was proclaimed a Saint along with Pope John XXIII on April 27, Divine Mercy Sunday. St John Paul, known as a globetrotter who made 104 trips outside Italy, served as Pope from 1978 to 2005 and was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on Divine Mercy Sunday, May 1, 2011.

GET YOUR JOHN PAUL II MERCHANDISE BEFORE STOCK RUNS OUT!!!

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