KNEEL WITH POPE JOHN PAUL II IN PRAYER JULY
General: That all those who enjoy a period of vacation at this time of year may use this time to rediscover in God their inward harmony and open themselves to the love of others.
Missionary:That in young Churches the laity may receive more attention and be turned to greater account in evangelisation.
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The “single most significant announcement in the life of the Christian Brothers since they came to Oceania over a century ago.”
The deputy leader of the Christian Brothers Holy Spirit Province which covers Western and South Australia said last week’s announcement by world Christian Brothers’ head of the withdrawal of Christian Brothers from schools was part of a three to four year process of handing the leadership of the schools back to the lay people nationwide.
Br Dean McGlaughlin told The Record “The Christian Brothers strive to do what other people can not. Now we are confident the lay people we have in the education system are very capable of continuing on with it, it is time to expand into new areas.”
He said the laity’s familiarity with the Edmund Rice story would allow the spirit and character of the schools to continue.
He said the withdrawal had been in part due to the aging Christian Brother population but also attributed the change in their structure to an expansion in missionary work. The Brothers hope to attract young people through such work who share similar ideals. He added that the Province of SA and WA would join with Christian Brothers
across the country in expanding their work in Asia where they feel there is the need.
World Christian Brothers congregational leader Br Philip Pinto told the order's Western Australian head in a letter made public last week that the most urgent need for Brothers is no longer in schools, and the time has come to consider more missionary work among the poor in Asia.
A copy of the text of the letter was made available on the Internet on Thursday July 8.
In the letter to Holy Spirit Congregational Leader Br Kevin Ryan and the congregation’s Province and Region Leaders of Oceania, Br Pinto said: "The need that saw us setting up our schools in many of our current ministry sites is now being adequately met by others, in many instances by the State itself."
The WA-based Edmund Rice Network News described the directive as the "single most significant announcement in the life of the Christian Brothers since they came to Oceania over a century ago".
Br Pinto said the challenge for Brothers today is to focus their energies in "new and greater areas of need". Specifically he was referring to Asia.
He said: "I now invite you, Kevin, with the other Province and Region Leaders in Oceania to consider opening a new mission site in Asia. It is to this, the
Yes that’s right, when you next visit the St Vincent de Paul Society’s Clarkson Retail Centre at Unit 7, 30 Ainsbury Parade don’t be surprised if you see a fairy or monster or a 60’s hippy walking out!
As well as allowing locals to buy quality discounted second hand clothes, the Retail Centre is now offering a costume hire service.
St Vinnies, WA’s largest charity has 43 Retail Centres across the state, but the costume hire initiative was developed by local volunteers in Clarkson.
Volunteer Lynn Goodwin says they came up with the idea after some retirement village residents came in to buy costumes, but hesitated saying they would only ever wear them once.
“We started hiring out clothing and items that could be used as fancy dress and now have sections in the shop dedicated to dress-ups, and once again we guarantee to make your dollar go fur-
ther” said Mrs Goodwin. “For a great price you can hire an item, wear it, then get a partial refund when you bring it back. It’s proved popular as there is no other service like this in the area,” she continued.
The Centre has masks, feather boas, period fashions, clown and gothic accessories amongst the hire section. Formal outfits can also be borrowed and returned.
Money raised though sales and hire at the Clarkson Retail Centre helps St Vinnies provide services to West Australians in need. The Centre is open 9.30am - 4.30pm Monday to Friday and 9.30am - 1pm on Saturday. The Centre phone number is 9304 4950.
St Vinnies assists 150,000 people throughout the state through volunteer groups working in local communities and through ‘Special Works,’ which respond to particular community needs.
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On behalf of the marginalised of the world Caritas Perth has said thanks for another record amount raised for Project Compassion.
Once again the Perth archdiocesan Catholic community has excelled itself, report Caritas officials. Although donations are still trickling in, Caritas estimates that this year the total amount will be over $730,000. Last year’s total was approximately $709,000 “Many people, through a range
of creative fund-raising and awareness-raising activities have helped to build a better future for some of the poorest people in the world,” said Perth Caritas Director Ann Fairhead.
She said costs had been kept to a minimum “because of a wonderful team of volunteers who pack, deliver and distribute the materials and visit parishes and schools.” This year’s result had also been made possible “by the
work of the dedicated Project Compassion representatives in the parishes and the ever-reliable volunteers in the Perth Office.”
“We especially want to thank our Parish Priests and school communities, as it is only with their support that Project Compassion is possible,” said Mrs Fairhead.
“We are already preparing for Project Compassion 2005. The theme is: The Challenge is Poverty. The time is Now!”
Irene McCormack Catholic College is conducting a competition for naming its school Houses. The school, in the northern suburb of Butler, is offering the chance to students in Catholic Schools and Catholics within the Archdiocese to carry out some significant research and put forward possible names. The 6 winning entrants will each receive $80. Religious orders may also nominate names.
Each House will be named after
a woman or man who:
■ is Australian or has made a significant contribution to Australia.
■ can be present or past.
■ can be a lay person or a religious
■ is/was Catholic
■ has made an outstanding contribution to her/his community by service to others and/or using her/his gifts for the greater welfare of others. The entry should include a description of the per-
son’s life (minimum 250 words) plus an argument as to why the person should be considered as an outstanding candidate. Entries can be sent by mail to Irene McCormack Catholic College, Box 318, Quinns Rocks, 6030.
The closing date for the competition is Monday September 20.
It is hoped that the House names are consistent with the very Australian/local flavour of Irene McCormack.
Fr Jim Foley died peacefully at the St John of God Villa in Subiaco last Tuesday morning at the age of 79. He was diagnosed with a brain tumour a few months ago and his final illness developed rapidly.
Archbishop Barry Hickey will lead the concelebrated funeral Mass at the Holy Name Church in Carlisle at 2pm tomorrow (Friday), with the burial to follow at Karrakatta at 3.30pm. A concelebrated vigil Mass will he held at Carlisle tonight (Thursday) at 7.30.
The Archbishop said that Fr Foley was a gentle, quiet man who would be long remembered for his remarkable friendliness.
Born on January 25, 1925 at Borrisokane, County Tipperary, James Flannan Foley was one of a large family. At his Baptism, his 14-year-old brother Pat was his godfather. Pat Foley also became a priest and worked for many years in New Zealand, He also had a sister who was a nun and a nephew who was a priest.
Jim Foley was educated at Borrisokane Primary, Ballyfin College, the Cistercian Monastery at Roscrea, St Thomas Aquinas University and Gregorian University in Rome.
He was ordained on his birthday, January 25, in 1954 and spent the following 22 years as a Cistercian at Roscrea before volunteering to Archbishop Goody to work in the Perth Archdiocese.
He arrived in Perth in April 1976. He was Assistant Priest at South Perth until August 1979 when he moved to Northam. He spent five months as Locum at Merredin before being appointed Parish Priest at Southern Cross from June 1981 to April 1986 when he became Chaplain at Iona College for two months.
After eight months as Locum at Whitford, he began his most enduring appointment as Parish Priest of Carlisle on February 14, 1987. He will be remembered for the stained glass windows he donated to the parish as well as for his personal qualities as a priest.
Fr Foley retired for health reasons in March 1996, but two years later returned to work as Parish Priest at Palmyra before his final retirement in May 2000.
After his arrival in Australia at the age of 51, Fr Foley took up golf and became extremely adept at it. He was a frequent winner of the clergy’s annual tournament.
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Or email: maranatha@ceo.wa.edu.au
From a vacation hideaway deep in the Italian Alps, Pope John Paul II preached the value of silence in a hectic world.
“In this oasis of quiet, in front of the marvellous spectacle of nature, one can easily experience the benefits of silence, which is increasingly rare today,” the Pope said on July 11.
Looking rested and sounding good, he spoke at a noon blessing outside his mountain chalet in Les Combes, a small village in Italy’s Aosta Valley. It was his only scheduled public appearance during his July 5-17 vacation.
Speaking to some 6,000 people gathered in a field, the pope said the communications overload of modern society has reduced the space for silence and contemplation. It sometimes reaches the point of “making people incapable of reflecting and praying,” he said. “In reality, only in silence can man listen deep in his conscience to the voice of God, which truly makes him free. And vacations can help people rediscover and cultivate this indispensable inner dimension of human existence,” he said. - CNS
About 70 people recently attended a series of lectures presented by Rev. Dr Brendan Byrne SJ, of Victoria, at the University of Notre Dame Australia.
The lecture series, Luke-Acts: Situating the Church between Gospel and Culture, was held in Notre Dame’s Foley Hall and was jointly sponsored by the University’s College of Theology and the Saint Thomas More Chair of Jesuit Studies.
Fr Brendan is a professor of the New Testament with the Jesuit Theological College in Melbourne. He is well known for his studies on the writings of Saint Luke, namely the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.
He’s also the author of several books and in the Jubilee year 2000 he published the popular book The Hospitality of God: a reading of Luke’s gospel. The lecture series, based on Fr Brendan’s work, explored the context of Luke and Acts in the early Church.
“Fr Brendan’s work helped those attending to develop a better understanding of the significance and meaning of many of the stories contained within Luke’s writings,” said Derek Boylen, Notre Dame’s Campus Minister who helped organise the event.
“His exploration also highlighted several of the ways in which Luke’s writing
might elucidate the role of the Church in contemporary society. The event was attended by a good mix of both religious and laity,” Derek said.
“Fr Brendan’s effective use of multimedia, articulate style and interesting content helped to stimulate a thoughtful discourse by those present.”
Each session was followed by question
Afree public lecture on The University of Notre Dame Australia’s new School of Medicine will be held on August 3.
The lecture will be given by Professor Adrian Bower, Head of Notre Dame’s School of Medicine.
The topic of his address will be “Changing the Future: Medical Education at The University of Notre Dame Australia.”
The lecture will be held at 7.30pm in Foley Hall (ND 1), located in the main administration building, 19 Mouat Street, Fremantle.
Please call 9433 0692 to book your place.
time. These covered such diverse topics as Luke’s understanding of the role of women in the Church, the chronology of Luke’s gospel and the audience he was writing for.
“We hope to have more Catholic speakers at Notre Dame to conduct public lectures, forums and series in the future,” said Derek.
The end to a somewhat nomadic existence over the last 15 years and a 50 year anniversary have been celebrated together in the recent blessing and official opening of the new Performing Arts Festival and Parents and Friends’ Federation of WA (PFFWA) offices in Bedford.
Representing a permanent ‘home’ for the Festival Office that has been housed in various locations over the last 15 years, the new facilities (the administration buildings of the former Chisholm Catholic College senior campus) were blessed by Monsignor Michael Keating and opened by CEODirector Ron Dullard.
The opening of the new premises coincides with the 50th anniversary of the PFFWA, formed when 13 Parents and Friends’
Associations amalgamated to form the Federation in 1954the first Federation of organised non-government school
parent groups in Australia. Speaking at the ceremony, Mr Dullard said the two organisations contributed
Although he had hoped to deliver it personally, Pope John Paul II will send a Vatican delegation to Moscow in late August to give the Orthodox Patriarch a Russian icon that has been kept in his private chapel for 11 years.
“A few weeks ago, the Holy Father communicated to the patriarch of Moscow his desire to give the sacred icon of Our Lady of Kazan to the Russian Orthodox Church,” Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls announced on July 10.
The spokesman said that
since 1993, when the Blue Army USA of the World Apostolate of Fatima gave the icon to the Pope, “it always has been his deep desire” to give it to Patriarch Alexei “so that once again it could be venerated by the Russian people.”
A Vatican delegation, whose members will be announced later, will deliver the icon to the patriarch on August 28, the feast of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary according to the Orthodox calendar.
“The Holy Father hopes this Roman pilgrimage of Our Lady of Kazan will contribute
to the hoped for unity between the Catholic and Orthodox churches,” Navarro-Valls said.
Patriarch Alexei II of Moscow had announced on July 9 that the Pope had decided to return the highly venerated, 18th-century copy of the miraculous 16th-century image.
Until 2003, Vatican and Russian Orthodox officials did not know for certain whether the icon was the 1579 original or a later copy. The Vatican invited Russian icon experts to study the image and they determined that the icon hanging in the
The federal government’s decision to allow 9,500 people on Temporary Protection Visas to apply for permanent visas was an important and compassionate change of policy, the Catholic Church said on Tuesday July 13.
Bishop Joseph Grech of Sandhurst in Victoria, Chairman of the Bishops’ Committee for Migrants and Refugees, said the move would end the uncertainty for those people who had been found to be in need of Australia’s protection. “These people came to Australia, often via treacherous sea journeys, and when their claims for asylum were processed they were found to be genuine refugees,” Bishop Grech said.
“The government’s policy of only granting them temporary visas, despite their refugee status, meant they were living with the fear of being sent back to the situation from which they had fled.
“They also endure the hardship of being denied the same entitlements granted to other refugees, often forcing them to rely on the help of Church and community groups to survive.
“However, even in the face of such difficult circumstances, many people on Temporary Protection Visas have contributed a great deal to the Australian community.”
Bishop Grech said this was especially so in regional centres, where TPV holders had injected much-needed life to local economies and the well-being of communities by taking up jobs in the professions, trades and in seasonal labour.
“Granting permanent residence to all refugees, regardless of how they arrived, means these people can rebuild their lives and their confidence as full and equal members of the Australian community,” he said.
S e e e d i t o r i a l P a g e 6
Pope’s chapel dated from the first half of the 1700s. The fact that the icon is a copy, however, does not mean that it is not important, a Vatican official told Catholic News Service on July 12.
The copy shows signs of centuries of veneration and stories of miracles are connected with it, he said.
“Among the copies present and venerated in Russia, it will be the oldest.”
The icon disappeared from a Moscow church in 1903.
The Blue Army, based in New Jersey, bought it from an art dealer and gave it to the Pope. - CNS
Question: I have never understood the words of the Apostles’ Creed which say that Jesus descended into hell. What would Jesus be doing in hell?
Heavens! You’ve raised a good question which reminds us of the importance of understanding what we say we believe. Let’s look at the whole context; the Apostles’ Creed says:
I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; He descended into hell; the third day He rose from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty; from there He will come to judge the living and the dead.
It’s important to recall the entire
credal statement about Jesus, because it is underscoring the dual nature of Christ: He is both God and Man. As God, He was conceived by supernatural means, delivered from death by supernatural means, and lives a supernatural life forever within the Trinity.
But the Creed also emphasises the humanity of Christ. He was born as a human baby, He endured human suffering in a particular period of human history, the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate. He died a human death, and was buried in a tomb. Then ‘He descended into hell.’
The Creed is stating that Jesus Himself, as a true human being, had to experience the condition of death, the separation of His soul from His body, between the time He expired on the cross and the time He was raised from the dead. The state of the dead Christ is the mystery of the tomb and the descent into hell.
(Catechism, no. 624)
The word ‘hell’ is the Teutonic (ancient German) name for the abode of all the dead. It is used in older English versions of the Bible, and is found in the Apostles’ Creed. Although the recent English revision of the Creed rendered the phrase in question to be He descended to the dead, it is interesting to note that the proposed new English translation of the Mass reverts to He descended into hell.
When the Creed says, He descended into hell, we first of all have to understand that this is not
Rosaries are being snapped up as fashion items by Japanese youths after popular entertainers were photographed wearing rosaries as necklaces, reported UCA News. A large imported goods shop in Tokyo advertised "rosary necklaces" next to Omega watches and Meissen porcelain during a June promotion. Rosaries with a black cross and silver Christ were selling for approximately $125 in Australian currency. They were produced by Dolce & Gabbana, an Italian fashion house that first sold them as fashion items in Europe in the 1980s.
"The necklaces sell well. Most buyers are men in their teens and 20s. When women buy the necklaces, they intend them to be presents for their boyfriends," a sales clerk told UCA News.
The main difference between the rosary necklaces and ordinary rosaries is a clasp in the middle of the third decade.
"Of course, I know it's a tool for prayer," the sales clerk said. "So we also sell real rosaries in addition to the necklaces." He then showed a silver rosary from Tiffany, the famous New York jeweller, that bore a tag stating, "This is not a necklace." The price was $900. Church shops are getting a new breed of customers. Last fall, a man in his early 20s with a shaved head and baggy pants walked into the parish store in Nagano. According to Okano
the hell of the damned, but the place where the just who had died before Christ were awaiting the ‘opening of heaven’, effected by Christ’s saving death.
Ancient peoples believed that the dead, whether good or bad, continued to exist in the nether world (underworld). In Hebrew this was called Sheol, in Greek Hades. This underworld was a region of shadows and darkness; the souls who dwelt there were called ‘the shades’. Theirs was an existence of misery and futility. This concept of life after death led many people to ‘put all their eggs in one basket’ – that is, they focussed all their hopes on their earthly life, and determined to be as successful and have as much worldly pleasure as possible.
‘Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die!’
Yachiko, the young man said he would "like to buy a necklace with a cross."
Another parishioner, Harayama Junko, who was in charge of the shop, showed him and his friend a catalogue of rosaries.
Okano said she told the young men that she knew the rosary was "popular" and asked if they knew what it was. They did not, so she briefly explained the rosary. "It isn't an accessory; it's a very important prayer tool for Catholics. Please use it carefully and don't throw it around," she told them. Harayama said she hesitated to sell them rosaries.
"But I thought it would be a chance for them to come closer to the church and I left it up to God."
- CNS
When the Jews returned to Israel after their exile in Babylon (587-537 BC), this ‘nihilist’ philosophy was changing. The Holy Spirit led the prophets to announce God’s merciful plan for His people, even beyond death. And so, beliefs about the afterlife were refined, and some Jewish theologians taught a distinction between a place of punishment and a place of eternal refreshment.
The place for the wicked was called Gehenna (named for the ever-burning rubbish tip outside Jerusalem). Jesus refers to this when He says, ‘If a man calls his brother “Renegade”, he will answer for it in Gehenna.’
(Matthew 5:23) From the concept of the fiery rubbish tip came the depiction of the ‘hell of the damned’ as a fiery pit.
There was also a place for the just, the ‘Bosom of Abraham’. In His parable about Dives and Lazarus, the rich man is in torment in Hades, while the poor man is ‘carried away by the angels to the Bosom of Abraham.’
(Luke 16:22)
The Jews who believed in reward and punishment in a life after death were the Pharisees; those who clung to the nihilist view of everyone being consigned to Sheol were the Sadducees. As we know, these two parties figure significantly in the New Testament.
Now recall that Psalm 15 (16):911 gives us these beautiful words: And so my heart rejoices, my soul is glad;
even my body shall rest in safety, for You will not leave my soul among the dead, nor let Your beloved know decay. You will show me the path of life, the fullness of joy in Your presence, at Your right hand, happiness for ever!
Although these are the words of every hopeful believer, they especially apply to Jesus, the Father’s Beloved Son. He proclaimed the possibility of eternal life – not in the Bosom of Abraham, but in the Bosom of God Himself! This is one of the reasons why Jesus’ teaching was so attractive, so astounding, and so revolutionary for Jews and Gentiles alike.
In any case, this teaching of the Creed has its foundation in Scripture: In the body, (Christ) was put to death, in the spirit He was raised to life, and – in the spirit – He went to preach to the spirits in prison. (I Peter 3:18-19)
Thus the Church teaches that, after His death, Jesus’ soul went to the underworld as did every other human soul. There He shared the good news of salvation with all the just who had lived under the Old Covenant, and showed them the way to eternal life with His Father in heaven. That being accomplished, the third day He rose from the dead.
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Grief counsellors, priests and pastoral carers are bracing themselves for the forthcoming Channel 4 documentary, My Foetus, due to be broadcast on ABC’s Compass program on August 8.
It is already stirring up public controversy. But when it goes to air it will also be a time of silent grief. For whether the abortion industry admits it or not, there are plenty of women out there whose abortions killed not only their children but a little part of themselves.
Till recently those women have often been imprisoned by denial. Not just their own, but a socially imposed silence. Abortion was supposed to be salvation: shame and grief are just irrational; women shouldn’t complain.
But lately a few have been given permission to speak. Melinda Tankard Reist invited some to tell their stories in her harrowing book, Giving Sorrow Words ‘Elizabeth’, for instance, had an abortion years ago. She describes what followed:
"I was numb, hollow, dead, and so very heavy with sorrow. The feelings didn’t "go with time" as my delighted mother assured me they would. I grew morose, bitter, very sad… I became very different. I’d sleep with almost anyone. I drank heavily. I didn’t care what happened to me and I tried several times to commit suicide. I hated myself and everyone else. I used to dream about the child I’d lost… I wanted my child. I loved it, cherished it, yearned for its birth… Twenty-six years later, I still feel the tragic heaviness of loss. My only consolation is that one day when I die our souls may re-unite."
Such suffering women need to know that they are not alone, not mad. They need the healing and hope that can only come after confronting the truth of abortion.
Could this latest film help?
Some years ago I was part of another Channel 4 program, a panel discussion about the new genetics. I was asked what I thought about prenatal tests which were fast becoming ‘search and destroy’ techniques against the handicapped. Before I could answer, another panellist – who was a notorious embryo experimenter – accused me of thinking all abortion is a sin.
"Of course it’s a sin," piped up a third panellist, Germain Greer. As someone who’d been through the abortion mill and subsequent infertility, she spoke with some authority and passion. She even dared to use the politically incorrect word ‘sin’. Every abortion, she thought, is a sin and women know it in their heart of hearts.
Our society is now so habituated to aborting its young that it has
■ Bishop Anthony Fisher OP
little else to offer women with unplanned pregnancies. We have become so callused by an annual abortion count of 75,000 to 100,000 that we close our eyes to
the unborn children destroyed and the women left wounded. And our medical profession has been so corrupted by three decades of this practice that
many women find themselves on a treadmill to termination as soon as they enter the consulting room. My Foetus shows a four-week pregnant woman during a vacuum abortion. As her child dies and is ‘aspirated’ away, the woman says "oh dear." The documentary’s maker, Julia Black, has had an abortion herself, comes from a militant pro-abortion family, and still describes herself as pro-abortion. So nothing is said about the physical or psychological effects of abortion on many women. Or how limited their choices are, especially in the face of physical or emotional aban-
Fifty-one babies will be born in Auckland in the next three months because their mothers changed their abortion plans.
All were given support and practical help by Family Life International, the organisation that helps carry out the pledge made by Bishop Patrick Dunn four years ago to assist women facing crisis pregnancies and contemplating abortion.
In 2000 Bishop Dunn went public with an offer to help women who chose life rather than death by abortion for their babies. His idea was based on the Cardinal Winning Pro-Life Initiative in Glasgow, a project that has helped 1000 women since it was founded seven years ago.
“Our numbers are pretty much on a par with those in Glasgow,” says Colleen Bayer, executive director of FLI. “Between 105 to 120 babies each year have been born to mothers helped by FLI, since the bishop’s pledge.”
These
FLI is a lay association of the faith with canonical status, said Mrs Bayer. It has a staff of five full-time workers and six regular volunteers.
Dr Andrew Leong is available two afternoons a week at the centre and his wife, Mary, is the
FLI preferred midwife. Bishop Dunn is its patron and funding comes from individual donors.
“We get no overseas funding or Government support,” said Mrs Bayer.
About 69 per cent of women who come to FLI cite contraception failure as their reason for wanting an abortion, she said.
“They see abortion as the first recourse.”
“If someone could help you, whatever your needs, would you look at all the options?”
But she always asks those dealing with an unwanted, or unexpected, pregnancy: “If someone could help you, whatever your needs, would you look at all the options?”
Planning Association for abortion advice. Assistance varies, Mrs Bayer explained. It can include going with a young woman to break the news of her pregnancy to her family, budgeting advice, counselling, or providing baby furniture, clothes or home help after the baby is born.
At present FLI is raising money for a new ultrasound machine costing NZ $32,000.
Mrs Bayer said that seeing the scan of the baby in her womb is sometimes all a woman needs to decide to continue with her pregnancy. There was some scepticism originally about Bishop Dunn’s pledge. Letters to newspapers questioned whether the bishop was prepared to continue supporting women for 15 or more years.
donment by the very ones who should be supporting them. Or how little care there is for them before or after the ordeal. The whole thing is made to seem quick and easy and over with. One can hardly recommend that people view such a film, or any film that shows real abortion happening or its tragic aftermath. Compass will be showing something that should be unthinkable, unviewable, unshowable. Not because it doesn’t happen, but because we must be very wary of normalising and trivialising something so terrible.
Yet for all its problems the film may bring to the surface for some viewers hard facts they have long preferred not to face. Even Black has since admitted that "when I interviewed a doctor about the unpleasantness of performing late abortions it was difficult to listen and not believe it was morally wrong."
The modern sciences of foetal photography, ultrasound and genetics are confirming what the Christian Church has taught from time immemorial: that there is a human being present from conception.
Pro-abortion journalist Lauren Booth also recoiled when she saw the film’s pivotal moment. "My hand flew to my mouth in shock," she said. "I swallowed. I didn’t want to say it, but the word ‘murder’ came to my lips."
Some who seek help have been advised by friends with similar experiences, some ring the advertised FLI 0800 help line, others are referred by their church or Citizens’ Advice Bureau or walk in off the street to the FLI centre in Balmoral to confirm their fears with a free pregnancy test.
At least two recently misread their telephone directory and rang FLI instead of the Family
Mrs Bayer said few mothers have their babies adopted, but only around 25 per cent of the others need on-going assistance — for only 18 months to two years at most.
Some may pop into the centre for a cup of tea and to show the staff their babies from time to time, she said, but once they have their babies and are coping, the women want to get on with their own lives.
- courtesy, NZ Catholic
INTROD, Italy — From a vacation hideaway deep in the Italian Alps, Pope John Paul II preached the value of silence in today’s hectic world.
“In this oasis of quiet, in front of the marvellous spectacle of nature, one can easily experience the benefits of silence, which is increasingly rare today,” the Pope said on July 11.
The pontiff, looking rested and sounding good, spoke at a noon blessing outside his mountain chalet in Les Combes, a small village in Italy’s Aosta Valley. It was his only scheduled public appearance during his July 5-17 vacation. The Pope was spending his days taking drives through the mountains and stopping for outdoor lunches with a few friends
and aides. In his residence, he was said to be reading and putting the finishing touches on a book about philosophy.
Speaking to some 6,000 people gathered in a field near Les Combes, the Pope said the communications overload of modern society has reduced the space for silence and contemplation. It sometimes reaches the point
of “making people incapable of reflecting and praying,” he said.
“In reality, only in silence can man listen deep in his conscience to the voice of God, which truly makes him free. And vacations can help people rediscover and cultivate this indispensable inner dimension of human existence,” he said.
- CNS
The modern sciences of foetal photography, ultrasound and genetics are confirming what the Christian Church has taught from time immemorial: that there is a human being present from conception. Even without Christian faith, women have always known this. None seriously talks about ‘my foetus’. Counsellors have long observed that if a woman wants to get rid of it, it’s ‘the foetus’; if she wants to keep it, it’s ‘my baby’.
Talk of ‘my foetus’ reveals the ambivalence of the documentary makers. And of a society which has barely begun to confront the awful truth of what it is doing.
The author, Bishop Anthony Fisher OP is a member of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Family and Life. For referral for women grieving after abortion or for help to avoid, contact Pregnancy Assistance on (08) 9328 2929.
The announcement on Tuesday by the Commonwealth Government that it will grant permanent refugee status and the right to apply for mainstream migration to about 9000 refugees now on temporary protection visas will be a great relief to them and to most Australians. While there are still a few hoops to jump through on the way to Australian citizenship, the new rules are a big improvement for the people concerned and they come much closer to the level of kindness – or a fair go – that most Australians would like to see extended to anyone.
There are a number of features about this on-going saga and its resolution (almost) that deserve careful consideration by our community in preparation for the way we handle similar situations in the future. It is safe to predict that there will be other problems in the future.
There is, first of all, a need for more truth and understanding in public comments and reporting on these vexed issues. Governments, Oppositions, lobby groups, advocates and media have all tended to make one-view statements instead of discussing the full picture. All of them have been far too adversarial rather than explanatory and it hasn’t helped anyone.
In a world of “10-second grabs” in the electronic media and “two pars for all sides” in the print media, it is difficult to give audiences and readers a balanced view of a complex issue, but we need to find a way to a better presentation. For example, when up to 85 per cent of some
Thank you to the generous readers of the Record who responded to the appeal for the currently starving 14 million people of Ethiopia.
I would love to raise 14 million dollars, just $1 for each, and if every person Australia-wide would donate just $1, that target would be achieved to give some aid and hope that the world cares.
I dedicated this Perth-based appeal for Oxfam's Ethiopia in Crisis to Our Blessed Mother, starting May 1, 2004 - May 1, 2005, and I think a little everyday miracle occurred when a friend discovered that she had inadvertently recorded the footage I was searching for of the graphic program broadcast on ABC’s 4 Corners that inspired this appeal. Our Lady's approval? I think so! You can make a difference. The idea is for each and every one of us to ask our family and friends to join us for a cuppa and "Ask for Africa" only $1 each. Pensioners and kids with pocket money can mostly join in too. A leaflet is also available with details.
Come on, Aussies, will you "Ask for Africa", please?
(Receipts available from Oxfam Community Aid Abroad from$2)
Sheila Shannon Woodvale
M y Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary (fifth edition) has a definition of evolution as a
POBox 75, Leederville, WA 6902
Tel:(08) 9227 7080, Fax: (08) 9227 7087 cathrec@iinet.net.au
groups of ‘illegal migrants/refugees’ have been found by the UN Human Rights Commission (not the Government) to be not refugees, there has to be careful assessment of who is entitled to what. On the other hand, once people are recognised as refugees there is no justification for not granting them permanent protection
The UNHCR has large (but inadequate) re-settlement programs for refugees from around the world, and Australia proportionately stands among those at the top of the list of countries who take such refugees. This doesn’t give us saintly status and there is plenty of room to argue that we should take more, but it does mean that ‘refugees/illegal immigrants’ are far from the whole story of Australia’s treatment of refugees. The numerous parish-based refugee support groups within the Church (and other groups) who give support to these people - who have often spent harrowing years in flight and in overcrowded UN refugee camps - know their stories.
Cynics have already said that the motivation for the Government’s show of heart on Tuesday is the forthcoming
gradual development from a simple to a more complex form.
My Bible has that God created everything and he saw that it was very good.
Science books on thermodynamics include the second law, part of which says that natural processes do not proceed from the simple to the more complex. Rather, they go from order to disorder.
Luke Tickner (letters, Record
Federal election, but there is another aspect to the change. It appears that the strongest influence on the Government’s decision was not the tendentious and judgemental abuse of the politicallymotivated, but the sustained advocacy of rural communities who have absorbed significant numbers of these holders of temporary protection visas. Abattoirs, orchards, vineyards and other ruralbased industries have welcomed them and come to rely on them. The communities have given them a fair go, and they have shown themselves willing to have a go. Local MPs, local governments, and local people have taken up their cause. There could hardly be a more Australian reason for their apparent victory.
The Government will no doubt argue that their tough approach to illegal migration and their ongoing cooperation with other nations in South-East Asia to prevent the unsavoury people smuggling racket have proved their worth, and many will agree with them. However, many of those same people will breathe a sigh of relief that the Government has finally decided to act with mercy as well as with what it would call justice. An
July 1) writes “both God and evolution exist.” Do they? The Church with the Holy Spirit has convinced us about God (that is why we’re reading The Record –amongst other things) but evolution? Which of the theories, of which there are many, is Luke referring to?
I do not see how creation, as described in Genesis, and evolution can be compatible. Accepting evolution calls into question the credence of Genesis. Blaise Pascal writes this in Pensees (Penguin – translation by Dr AJ Krailsheimer): “When the creation of the world began to recede into the past, God provided a single contemporary historian and charged an entire people with the custody of this book so that this should be the most authentic history in the world and all men could learn from it something which it was so necessary for them to know and which could only be known from it.”
Granted, Genesis is not a science manual as we know of today
selves," he said. "But it is to say that
it is generally not the type of ministry that fires the imagination and attracts the idealism and commitment of today's young people. The challenge for us today is to focus our energies in new and greater areas of need."
increase in our annual intake of UN refugees would be a suitable way to celebrate success in curtailing people smuggling. It would demonstrate the reality of our compassion for the world’s refugees.
However, the number of genuine refugees in the world is increasing faster than the rate of re-settlement, so there is no room for complacency. The movement of people around the globe has always been essentially unstoppable –whether the motivation has been exploration, adventure, trade, colonisation, or self-preservation. The present world situation is just another example of this force at work.
Australia needs to seriously re-think its attitude to this form of migration. We need to assess our principles and practices not on the basis of trying to achieve a successful resistance, but on the quality of our behaviour towards people.
The Record has commented before on the heartless way our immigration laws treat the non-Australian spouses and families of Australians, basically denying the right of Australians to establish their own families. When we treat ourselves so badly, the need to reconsider the way we treat others is urgent. There is little room for doubt that the standards of behaviour we display in matters of migration (regardless of the political colour of government) do not meet the standards most Australians would like to see applied. This is a challenge that some of the new candidates for election to Federal Parliament might like to take up as their way of making a difference.
and need not be taken literally, but why couldn’t creation have occurred roughly as described in Genesis. In my view evolutionists have produced no genuine evidence so far to challenge Pascal’s point on the Bible as ‘authentic history.’
P Nicholls Jane BrookAmatter of concern, I believe, to as many Catholics as The Record reaches – otherwise it may seem as if only two people made a complaint to the Stirling Community News – which is delivered free to every household in the Stirling electorate.
I am referring to Envirotechnic’s advertisement in that paper on June 22. The advertisement portrays a rodent holding its right front claws up next to its face.
From the claws dangle a set of Rosary beads. The figure of Jesus, who died in agony for Love, and the salvation, of all people till the end of time is clearly visible on the cross hanging from the beads.
At the time of the advertisement, I rang the phone number listed and was connected to the centre’s manager, who said she knew nothing about it but as a Christian, though not a Catholic, she would follow it up and ring me back. I have not heard from her since.
This time a much more positive answer, to the effect many letters of complaint, had been received and the paper’s management had taken the matter up with the company concerned, who had indicated they would look into the matter.
So I give praise and thanks to God for the many, many people who took the time to voice their abhorrence to the advertisement and congratulate them too.
Mrs J McMullan Balcatta
"This is not to take away from the efforts of our Brothers who
Editor: the full text of the letter may be found on the Internet at: www.westcourt.wa.edu.au/hom e/erfnews/ERNN14b.html
After receiving last week’s edition of the paper, I rang the paper to find out if the two letters published were the only two received, as well as to voice my objection to its editor for printing the advertisement in the first place.
“ M a r r i a g e i s a b a s i c h u m a n a n d s o c i a l i n s t i t u t i o n . T h o u g h i t i s r e g u l a t e d b y c i v i l l a w s a n d C h u r c h l a w s , i t d i d n o t o r i g i n a t e f r o m e i t h e r t h e c h u r c h o r s t a t e , b u t f r o m G o d . T h e r e f o r e , n e i t h e r C h u r c h n o r s t a t e c a n a l t e r t h e b a s i c m e a n i n g a n d s t r u c t u r e o f m a r r i a g e . M a r r i a g e , w h o s e n a t u r e a n d p u r p o s e s a r e e s t a b l i s h e d b y G o d , c a n o n l y b e t h e u n i o n o f a m a n a n d a w o m a n a n d m u s t r e m a i n s u c h i n l a w . ”
Between Man and Woman:questions and answers about marriage and same-sex unions,US Conference of Catholic Bishops
Public demands for legal recognition of same-sex “marriage”have grown louder and more insistent around the world. Debates about the matter have intensified, dividing legislative bodies, courts, communities, even families. Where does the Catholic Church stand on the issue, and why?
By Paul ThigpenW h a e x a c t y s m a r r a g e ?
The Catholic Church teaches that marriage, as God has instituted it, is a faithful, exclusive, lifelong covenant, the permanent union of one man and one woman joined through a mutual giving of themselves. In marriage, a husband and wife commit themselves not only to each other but also to the responsibility of bringing children into the world and caring for them.
This understanding of marriage is found in Scripture which begins with God’s creation of man in His own image (Gn 1:27). “It is not good; the Creator says, that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gn 2:18).
God gives man and woman to each other in marriage, in which they become “one flesh”; and he invites them to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gn 2:24; 1:28). Jesus later confirms this truth in His teaching on divorce (see Mt 19:3-9).
Because God has created us out of love, He also calls us to love. It is our fundamental vocation as creatures made in His likeness.
The mutual love of man and woman in marriage becomes a sacred image of God’s love for His people, of Christ’s love for us.
Scripture, in fact, ends with a vision of the “marriage of the Lamb” (see Rv 19:7-9), when God the Son and His Church will be fully united in everlasting love.
As a symbol of this love, the valid marriage of baptized Christians is a sacrament a saving reality that brings God’s grace into our lives and helps to make us holy. Sacramental marriage points the world to Christ’s own faithful, creative, sacrificial love. s n m a r r a g e u s t a r e g o u s n s t u i o n ?
No. The vocation to marriage and parenthood is stamped into the very nature of humanity.
Though man and woman are equal, they are different from each other. This difference, which includes their sexuality, is complementary, because man and woman are made for each other.
Their complementary natures draw them together into a union, loving and life-giving, that carries the potential of procreation.
Because these truths about the nature of marriage and its dignity are present in the natural order itself, they can be understood through the use of reason.
Though some cultures do not recognize these realities as clearly as others, some sense of the greatness and fundamental importance of marriage can be found in every culture, even those that are largely secular.
C a n h e g o v e r n m e n d e f n e m a r a g e a n y w a y t c h o o s e s ?
Marriage is the oldest human institution. It existed long before anv human government that today attempts to redefine it. Despite the many variations marriage has undergone through the centuries in a range of cultures, it displays common and permanent characteristics. Such characteristics are not arbitrary. They reflect the reality that God endowed marriage with a specific nature to be governed by particular laws. Because these natural laws are in harmony with marriage’s very essence, safeguarding them helps to secure the well-being of the family and, in turn, society as a whole. Marriage, then, is not a merely human institution.
sex relationship can never be equivalent to a marriage.
t w o p e o p l e w a n o b e m a r r e d w h y s h o u d i m a t e r o u s w h e t h e r t h e a w r e c o g n z e s h e i u n o n ?
Marriage is a private relationship, but it has very public consequences. In every age and culture, the family is founded on marriage, and society is founded on the family.
Why is this so? First, marriage provides the best environment for rearing children: a stable loving relationship between mother and father.
Second, marriage offers society an essential pattern for male-female relationships. It models interdependence and lifelong commit-
“Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one? So they are no longer two but one.”
Mt 19:4-6
Human governments may find it necessary to regulate it in certain ways, but it is not theirs to define or redefine. It remains, by God’s design, a permanent union between one man and one woman. Governments that issue laws contrary to this reality only create legal conditions that lead to moral and social confusion and chaos.
W h y a e s a m e - s e x u n o n s n o e q u i v a e n t o m a r a g e ?
As part of God’s plan “from the beginning,” the expression of sexual love serves the purposes of both procreation and the bond of union between man and woman, as husband and wife. Marriage, as a permanent, exclusive, mutual commitment is the necessary context for such sexual expression. Human sexuality is naturally structured to make man and woman complementary partners in transmitting life. This sexual complementarity can only be expressed by the union of male and female. It is the unique difference between partners that makes possible the conjugal bond at the heart of marriage. Same-sex union, then, is contrary to the very nature of marriage. It is not based on the natural, complementary difference between male and female. And it cannot by nature bring children into the world. A true conjugal union cannot be entered into by two persons of the same sex. Thus, a same-
ment between men and women to seek the good of each other, their families and others. Consequently human governments are right to recognize and foster the marriage relationship through law, because marriage makes a unique and crucial contribution to the common good.
Any attempt to redefine marriage making other relationships its equivalent only devalues marriage and weakens it. Such an attempt denies the need for complementarity between marriage partners, and for the conjugal bond that makes possible the transmission of life. Public laws shape a culture’s ideals, thoughts and behaviours. They have considerable power to determine what a society finds morally acceptable. Inevitably, legal status for same-sex-unions would function as an official stamp of public approval on homosexual behaviour. s n u n u s d s c m i n a o n o d e n y m a r i a g e o h o m o s e x u a l p e r s o n s ?
On the contrary, granting legal status to same-sex unions would be an injustice, because it would be based on a falsehood. Because marriage and same-sex unions are essentially different realities, it would be wrong to ignore this difference and pretend that it doesn’t exist. To deny legal status to same-sex unions is not to deny the dignity of homosexual persons. It is simply to bear wit-
ness to the truth of what marriage is and is not.
The Church insists that even as we oppose homosexual acts as gravely immoral, we must defend the dignity of homosexual persons and invite them to seek wholeness in Christ through a life of chaste love for others.
S h o u d s a m e - s e x c o u p e s b e e n t t e d t o s o m e o t h e s a m e l e g a b e n e s a s m a r i e d c o u p e s ?
Because the health of society depends on the health of the family - which is founded on marriage the state acts reasonably when it provides married couples rights and benefits not extended to others. This special status is not a matter of unjust discrimination; the government has an obligation to promote the welfare of the family for the sake of the common good.
At the same time, many of the benefits sought by homosexual couples can already be secured without being married.
Individuals can legally agree to own property jointly and to designate anyone they choose as beneficiary of a will. They can also legally appoint someone to exercise for them the power of attorney or medical power of attorney if the need should arise.
H o w s h o u d C a h o l c s e s p o n d o h e c u rr e n t d e b a e a b o u s a m e - s e x u n o n s ?
Catholics have a moral obligation to be witness to the truth about marriage. Faith must not be separated from actions in either private or public life. We must educate our selves about what the Church teaches then act on our beliefs accordingly. In prayer we should ask God to strengthen married couples with His grace to carry out the vocation faithfully and with joy. In private conversations, we should stand charitably but firmly for the truth as revealed in Sacred Scripture and Tradition. In public, by voice and by vo e, we should do all we can to ensure that our nation’s laws reflect the realities of the divine law expressed in nature. In particular, we must oppose any attempt to legalize same-sex unions as the equivalent of marriage.
Above all, married couples themselves have an irreplaceable role in promoting and defending marriage in our society. When they practise sacrificial, faithful, life giving love, they teach their children and all of us the truth about marriage as God designed it to be.
All those... who exercise influence over communities and social groups should work efficiently for the welfare of marriage and the family. Public authority should regard it as a sacred duty to recognise, protect, and promote their authentic nature, to shield public morality, and to favour the prosperity of home life.
Paul Thigpen is an author with a doctorate in Historical Theology.
Many have reacted with alarm to the issuance of marriage certificates to same sex couples by officials around the world. But, with the widespread acceptance of contraception in our country, the arrival of this moment was really just a matter of time.
D e i b e r a t e l y c h d e s s h e t e r o s e x u a l m a r r a g e s a r e c o n t r a d i c t n g n a t u r a l l a w t o o
By Stephen GabrielMost people would agree that sex between a husband and wife is both an expression of love and the normal means for creating offspring. One of the reasons that society has always held that sex is proper only to those who are married is that justice requires that any child conceived has a right to a stable home with a mother and a father. Eliminate the possibility of conceiving a child and the need to restrict sex to married couples is much less compelling, at least on the surface.
There was a time when contraception was universally condemned. In the Christian world, Catholic and Protestant churches alike taught that contraception was morally wrong, until the Anglican Lambeth Conference in 1930.
Today only the Catholic Church - along with a few other relatively small denominationsholds this view. Indeed, the Catholic Church has always taught that for sex to be morally good, it must both be a loving act and be open to creating offspring. Anything else would be contrary to natural law.
If the polls are correct, most married couples (including Catholics) are practising contraception. That is, they have removed the possibility of creating offspring from sex except when they have an explicit desire to conceive a child. They are expressing their love for their spouse and deriving the pleasure that goes with sex, while eliminating the possibility (or at least reducing the likelihood) of conceiving a child. If married people can enjoy
sex without the concern of conceiving a child, why can’t unmarried people do the same? By willfully separating procreation
same-sex couples, whose love is incapable of producing children, are demanding the benefits of a marriage certificate. And why
The prospect of legalising gay marriage has not been foisted upon us by relatively few gay activists. Our contraceptive society has been preparing the way for this step for more than two generations.
from marital intimacy, our society has started down a slippery slope that will be very difficult to get off. Children are becoming sexually active at earlier and earlier ages. State schools are trying to combat this trend with contraception. The transmission of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV among both unmarried adults and children continues to be a major public health concern. And now
shouldn’t they? If childbearing is no longer a necessary component of heterosexual marriage, why should it be a consideration in assessing the morality of gay marriage?
Heterosexual couples are able to marry in this country whether they intend to remain childless or not. And a significant number do, in fact, remain childless. Why shouldn’t homosexual couples be given the same ben-
efit? The logic for banning same-sex marriage is seriously undermined by the contraceptive mentality of our society. True, most married heterosexual couples have children. But, if we decide that sex can be rendered sterile, for most of our fertile years - then where do we draw the line?
Marriage of couples of the same sex is wrong because marriage is and has always been ordained toward bringing children into the world, something that a gay relationship, by its very nature, is not able to do. Introduce contraception into the marriage, and children become a mere option. Our contraceptive mentality has put heterosexuals and homosexuals on a level playing field. The prospect of legalising gay marriage has not been foisted upon us by relatively few gay activists. Our contraceptive society has been preparing the way for this step for more than two generations. When are we going to wake up and recognize the devastation wrought upon our society by the widespread acceptance of contraception by so many good people?
Rejecting contraception is not easy for anyone under the best of conditions. We like to have control over our lives, especially in matters so personal and vital to our well-being. But the results are in and the costs of having such control are seen all around us. We live in a sex-drenched society. We all need to do some serious soul-searching on the contraception issue. Laws don’t need to change to turn the tide. It’s a matter of hearts. Hearts need to change, one heart at a time - starting with yours and mine.
Stephen Gabriel is the author of Speaking to the Heart: A Father’s Guide to Growth in Virtue
When St Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, was sent to England by Pope Gregory I in 597 he encountered serious social disorder in the form of random sexuality, lack of respect and protection for women, especially mothers, and serious neglect and abuse of children.
According to the first British historian, the Venerable Bede, Augustine wrote to Gregory and was advised to teach the leaders and the people about the meaning and importance of marriage.
Augustine and his successors were successful and this soon led to a more stable society and better living arrangements for men, women and children.
Societies throughout the English-speaking world seem to be hurtling backwards towards the end of the sixth century.
Marriage is again seriously de-valued, a large proportion of families are broken and scattered, and children suffer immensely. All of this has been achieved in the 20th century, and particularly in the latter half of it. This is how it happened:
■ The Anglican Lambeth conference of 1930 abandoned Christianity’s permanent teaching against contraception and most Protestant denominations followed soon afterwards. This was the beginning of the separation of sexuality from life: what God had joined, man was now trying to separate.
■ By the early 1960s, the drug companies had produced “the pill”, so that women could be chemically sterilized for their own or a man’s convenience, and the separation of sexuality from life was accelerated. Predominantly in our society, men and women see themselves as sexual beings, not as sexual beings in a faithful partnership with life itself. Random sexuality and uncommitted relationships began to be the norm.
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behaviour is harmless and irresistible. When rampant sexually transmitted dis-
began to lose its meaning. To accommodate this lack of good sense, laws were
There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law.
“Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons,”No 4, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
ther forms of misbehaviour for the good of the spouse to whom they pledged their life and their children to whom they gave life.
Throughout this downward spiral, the Catholic Church has continued to call, insistently, patiently, lovingly, to her children and to the world to return to the truth of human nature in which sexuality and fidelity are linked in the mind of God and in the cycle of life. There has been almost no positive response from governments, parliaments, public education authorities, or the means of mass communication in our society.
■ In a world of such confusion about sex and life, it is not really surprising that some people began to say that homosexuality is at least as good as heterosexuality, and now that the impossible concept of “homosexual marriage” is the equivalent of real marriage and ought to be made so in law.
■ Public education authorities have already accepted the first argument and the majority of children are taught this distorted belief in primary schools and high schools. Judges and politicians are rapidly accelerating down the road to legal installation of the second.
eases proved that it isn’t harmless even at the physical level, public education and health authorities refused to look any deeper and insisted that it would be harmless if someone wore a condom.
■ In this environment, the view of children was quickly distorted. Instead of being a blessing, they became an unwanted nuisance and since they were unwanted they obviously had no right to continue the life their parents (and God) had started for them. Thus, in the late sixties (in England) and seventies, the killing of babies in the womb became legal and even when it was not legal (as in WA until 1998) it was financed by the State.
changed so that people could simply walk out of marriage and family without any penalty or any justification for the abandonment. Marriage remains nominally (in society) a total union freely entered into for life, but in law and in practice that is meaningless.
■ Hundreds of thousands of children suffer from the loss of one of their parents, and frequently from the imposition of another unwelcome one. Thousands upon thousands of studies have demonstrated beyond any pretence of doubt the reality of that suffering and its lifelong effects on children (and adults), but still our society refuses to say that adults should restrain their sexual infidelity and
■ A spiritually, philosophically and morally blind society might engage in such folly. But surely even a glimmer of light would reveal that rationally, scientifically and biologically the two cannot be classed as the same. Apparently not.
■ Only when we are willing to return to a true understanding of human sexuality, marriage, and the meaning of life will we heal these huge disorders in our society.
■ In the meantime, the Church will keep calling, and those who respond will be richly blessed. For those who do, past hurts and regrets will be healed by Jesus.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, Nos.369-373, 1601-1666, 2331-2400.
Considerations Regarding Proposals to give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith.
Familiaris Consortio (on the family), Pope John Paull II Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World), Nos.47-52, Second Vatican Council Between Man and Woman:Questions and Answers About Marriage and Same-Sex Unions, USConference of Catholic Bishops
Beyond Gay, David Morrison - available from The Record
Theology of the Body Explained - available from The Record www.theologyofthebody.com
A deeply respected adviser to Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush, FR RICHARD JOHN NEUHAUS, convert and writer, spoke to Paul Gray in Melbourne during a recent visit to address Catholic priests.
Fr Richard John Neuhaus
There's more to life than sex. Take that as a selfcriticism, if you like, because of the large number of articles I've written defending the Church's teachings on the subject.
Recently, for example, I profiled American priest Fr Richard John Neuhaus, praising his eloquent defence of the idea that Christian spirituality is about much more than feeling one's personal needs.
But like Church teaching itself, there's more to Fr Neuhaus than this. In many ways, the influential author and editor of First Things magazine represents, for me, the kind of evangelist we need most in the Church today.
What kind of evangelist is that? One who is engaged directly with the world, and not only within the Christian community.
And one who extends the influence of Christian doctrine by being so engaged. One example: Fr Neuhaus has had a direct influence on the role played by Christian churches in American public life, partly through his direct influence on the late US President Ronald Reagan.
President Reagan passed away while Fr Neuhaus was in Australia for the conference of the Australian Confraternity of Catholic Clergy. "Reagan was a much smarter man than people gave him credit for," Fr Neuhaus told me. "He had a studied indifference to fashionable opinion."
As well as influencing Reagan through his writings, Fr Neuhaus spent several hours with the thenPresident on several occasions during "the Reagan years" of the 1980s.
It was this thoughtful independence of mind which allowed Reagan to go against the universal consensus of opinion, at that time, that the communist Soviet Union – Reagan's famous "evil empire" – was a permanent force in the world.
"Reagan, Gorbachev and the Pope were almost alone in saying 'no' to that idea. They could see that the USSR was in fact unsustainable, because it was fundamentally false to human nature.
"Reagan was not a conventional intellectual, but he understood a few things thoroughly."
Fr Neuhaus is the author of several influential books such as The Naked Public Square, a volume which highlights the problem that religion has effectively been stripped away from public life in western democracies in recent years.
With many leading thinkers and authors of different faiths who contribute to First Things, Fr Neuhaus proposes putting religion back in its rightful place of public importance: not by imposition but by reasoned, graceful and gracious public argument and debate.
Fr Neuhaus, a former Lutheran pastor, converted to Catholicism
after many years' work at the coalface both of working class parish life in New York City and ecumenical dialogue between Lutherans, Protestant Evangelicals and Catholics.
As we discuss his conversion, it is clear that Fr Neuhaus sees, and to some extent laments, the way today's society neglects the importance of "truth claims" in religion, in favour of an intellectually vague spirituality of "personal needs."
I ask Fr Neuhaus if he has advice for pastors who have to confront this challenge - presenting the truth to audiences who may be more concerned with their personal needs than doctrine.
"I would say to priests, I wish more of our priests were theologians," Fr Neuhaus replied. "I don't mean specialists or professional theologians, but that they would understand that just in being a priest is to be in an apostolic office of teaching and evan-
gelisation... Human beings are, by God's creation, 'wired for the truth.' If you're not dealing with truth and the truth claims (of Catholicism,) then you're not going to engage the attention of your people also on the moral and the social questions."
"I think it's an enormous mistake to presume as so many priests do, I'm afraid, that people are turned off by doctrine. People are trying to make sense out of their lives and make sense out of the world of which they're part, and that's what doctrine's about.
Today Fr Neuhaus still works in a working-class parish in New York – a Catholic one, now – and he finds there that people are enormously appreciative of doctrinal or catechetical preaching.
After one sermon outlining the doctrine of the Trinity, he said parishioners were coming up and saying they had never before understood why we pray in church to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
"Of course, we never do come to adequately understand the Trinity: but to open up the riches of the Church's intellectual and doctrinal tradition is a great gift."
I pose the hypothetical example to Fr Neuhaus of two different priests: one who wants to preach about the poor and social justice, and another who wants to preach about sexual morality and the family. Can both gain equal benefit from preaching doctrine?
"I'm convinced so," Fr Neuhaus replies. "Many of these polarisations that we have, both in the society and in the Church itself, seem to me so sterile and wrongheaded, in many ways.
"The people who posit spontaneity in conscience against authority and tradition seem to
me to have a tragically skewed understanding of tradition, and the authoritative character of the tradition.
"Tradition is not authoritarian, but authoritative. It proposes points of reference for reflection on the truth."
On the other hand, people who are "self-consciously conservative or Magisterial Catholics" also make a great mistake, Fr Neuhaus says.
"I urge upon them, so strongly, that it's necessary that they see themselves not simply as reactive to liberal, watered-down, culturally conformist Catholicism, but rather to take a cue from the Holy Father's understanding that the Church is making a proposal -and it's a proposal in the way a lover makes a proposal to a beloved."
Subscription forms and free past editions of First Things journal can be viewed at www.firstthings.com
While receiving radiation treatments for cancer, Peter Verdin carved a wooden image of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, the first American Indian to be considered for sainthood. For the native American artist, carving was a relaxing distraction from the cancer treatment. Verdin attributes all of his work to God, Blessed Kateri and Mary. "They did a super job," he told the Bayou Catholic, newspaper of the Diocese of HoumaThibodaux in Louisiana. "I'd get up in the morning and I'd pray for help with this. While carving I would get ideas," said the former welder, who works in an aluminum shop. The carving of Blessed Kateri, known as the "Lily of the Mohawks," could not have been done without the help of daily prayer for her intercession, added the artist, a parishioner at Holy Family Church in Grand Caillou. - CNS
The planned beatification of the last Habsburg emperor in Austria will “create unnecessary trouble for the church,” said the editor of an Austrian Catholic newspaper.
“Although there can be various opinions about his personal holiness, he was also a highly ambivalent person. There’s no reason for his beatification, which will merely create unnecessary trouble for the church,” said Rudolf Mitlohner, editor of the Die Furche Catholic weekly.
Emperor Charles I of Austria, who also ruled Hungary as King Charles IV, is to be declared blessed by Pope John Paul II on October 3.
Jesuit Father Paul Zulehner, dean of the University of Vienna’s Catholic theology faculty, told Catholic News Service that the beatification had been initiated by a “small group” in the Austrian church.
“Fortunately, important victims of the Nazi regime have also been beatified, which will help to balance this move,” Father Zulehner said.
The abortive potential of the morning-after pill is being ignored by those promoting widespread use of the drug, said a Canadian bishop. Bishop Pierre Morissette of Baie-Comeau, Quebec, chairman of the Catholic Organisation for Life and Family, said the pill operates in one of two ways: by preventing ovulation or inhibiting implantation. In the later case, the pill in effect acts as an abortifacient because science “demonstrates clearly that human life begins at conception, not implantation,” the bishop said in a letter to the president of the Canadian Pharmacists Association, Garth McCutcheon.
The Catholic Organisation for Life and Family released the letter on July 7. In addition, the bishop said it was impossible to determine whether the pill prevents conception or implantation.
“Women who accept that life begins at conception would refuse to take this pill if informed of its abortive potential,” Bishop Morissette said.
“One can only imagine the impact if they learned of the pill’s abortive potential after the fact.” - CNS
Atelephone survey examining the attitudes of moviegoers who saw "The Passion of the Christ" found that a solid majority liked the film and seeing the movie brought about changes in religious belief or practice in about a quarter of them.
The Passion has become the eighth-biggest domestic-grossing film of all time, with receipts of US $370 million.
Nine out of 10 viewers rated The Passion as either excellent or good, according to a survey conducted by the Barna Group of Ventura, California. Barna called 1,618 adults chosen at random; of those, 646 respondents had seen the movie.
Some 18 per cent of the moviegoers said they had changed their religious behaviour as a result of the film; 16 per cent said they had changed their religious beliefs because of the movie's content; and 10 percent said they had done both.
Despite this impact and marketing campaigns labelling the movie the 'greatest evangelistic tool' of our era, less than onetenth of 1 per cent of those who saw the film stated that they made an evangelistic profession of faith or accepted Jesus Christ as their saviour in reaction to the film's content.
There was a similar lack of impact on people's determination to engage in evangelism. Less than one-half of 1 percent of the audience said they were motivated to be more active in sharing their faith in Christ with others as a result of having seen the movie."
Only 6 per cent of those surveyed said they had seen a movie in the past two years that
led them to change something they believe about the Christian faith. Of that group, The Passion of the Christ was cited by 53 per cent, while Left Behind, A Walk to Remember and Joshua all registered 7 per cent or less.
According to the survey report, when "pressed to describe specific shifts in their spiritual perspectives," those who said their religious beliefs changed because of the film listed: the perceived importance of how they treat other people; more concern about the effect of their life choices and personal behaviour; and a deeper understanding of, or appreciation for, what Christ had done for them through his death and resurrection.
Those who said their religious behaviour changed said they prayed more often, attended church services more often
and/or became more involved in church-related activities.
"Immediate reaction to the movie seemed to be quite intense," said Barna Group research director George Barna in a statement, "but people's memories are short and are easily redirected in a media-saturated, fast-paced culture like ours."
"The typical adult had already watched another six movies at the time of the survey interview, not including dozens of hours of television programs they had also watched," he said. But Barna added, "Don't lose sight of the fact that about 13 million adults changed some aspect of their typical religious behaviour because of the movie and about 11 million people altered some pre-existing religious beliefs because of the content of that film. That's enor-
mous influence." Of those surveyed who saw The Passion of the Christ, 53 per cent said they were born-again Christians.
If those numbers are reflective of the moviegoing public, the Barna survey said, then 36 million born-again adults saw the movie, as did 31 million adults who do not define themselves as born-again.
According to the survey, 68 per cent of Catholics who saw The Passion rated it as excellent, as did 78 per cent of born-again Christians.
The movie was judged excellent by 67 per cent of all surveyed who saw it.
The survey, conducted during the last week of May, claims a 2.4 per cent margin of error among all respondents, and a 3.9 per cent margin of error among The Passion viewers.
CNS
The defeat in a USHouse of Representatives committee of a proposal to give $25 million in US funds to the UN Population Fund was "a victory for women and children around the world, and for the US taxpayer," said the US bishops' chief spokeswoman on pro-life issues.
Cathy Cleaver Ruse, director of planning and information in the bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, praised the July 12 vote
in the House Appropriations Committee on an amendment proposed by Representative Nita Lowey. The committee vote was
grams supported" by the UN population agency, Ruse said in a July 12 statement. She pointed out that in July 2002 Secretary of
“Current federal policy ... reflects a broad international consensus among member nations of the United Nations" which have "condemned 'forced sterilization and forced abortion' as 'acts of violence against women,'"
32-26 against Lowey's amendment. "The United States should remain out of the business of financing the exploitation of women through coercive pro-
State Colin Powell said the UN Population Fund's support of China's population planning activities "allows the Chinese government to implement more
effectively its program of coercive abortion."
As long as the UN agency "supports these barbaric policies imposed on families, it must remain ineligible for US funding, period," said Ruse.
Gail Quinn, executive director of the pro-life secretariat, had asked committee members in a letter to oppose the amendment.
"Current federal policy ... reflects a broad international consensus among member nations of the United Nations" which have "condemned 'forced sterilisation and forced abortion' as 'acts of violence against women,'" Quinn wrote.
International aid agencies were in a “race against nature” to save some 1 million people in the Darfur region of Sudan, said a US Catholic aid official.
A lack of adequate security has kept aid from getting into western Sudan, where thousands have been killed and more than 1 million black Africans have fled a scorched-earth campaign led by Arab militias. The Sudanese government has been under heavy pressure to disarm the militias and allow aid into the region, but the upcoming rainy season could severely hinder aid agencies’ ability to deliver aid, said Dan Griffin, Horn of Africa representative for Catholic Relief Services. Aid agencies were “in a race against nature to keep this from falling into an absolutely catastrophic loss of life,” Griffin told Catholic News Service.
Griffin noted that the United Nations has predicted that 300,000 people may die in Darfur regardless of how quickly aid can be provided.
“That figure can go over 1 million if we cannot provide an adequate emergency response,” he said.
About 1.2 million have been dis-
placed by the violence in Darfur; a recent US Agency for International Development report says some 2 million people show signs of malnourishment. At least 127 sites in Darfur have been identified as in need of international humanitarian aid, Griffin said. CRS has a small staff in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, waiting to transfer to Darfur, Griffin said. The agency operates three
New South Korean diocese seen as eventual mission base for North
A new diocese carved out of the Seoul Archdiocese could serve as a basis for mission work in North Korea, a Church official said.
The new Uijongbu Diocese borders North Korea and covers six cities and two counties in the northern part of South Korea’s Gyeonggi province, reported UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand.
“Although we have some problems dividing into two dioceses, such as financial matters, the Uijongbu Diocese... will be a basis for mission work to North Korea after reunification and provide unity to parishioners in the region,” said Msgr. Thomas Aquinas Choi Chang-hoa, chancellor of the Seoul Archdiocese, during a July 5 press conference at archdiocesan headquarters.
The Vatican appointed Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Lee Han-taek of Seoul to head the new diocese. Bishop Lee said the diocese is “an isolated and undeveloped area.”
“However, it will play a great
role in the reunification of the Korean peninsula. The Church will prepare for this great moment in Korean history,” he said at the press conference. His installation Mass is scheduled for October 15, UCA News reported.
The bishop was born in 1934 and entered the Jesuits in 1959. He was ordained a priest in 1971 and appointed an auxiliary bishop of Seoul in January 2002.
Bishop Lee will lead a diocese with 52 parishes, 160,000 Catholics and about 80 priests.
Msgr. Choi said the Seoul Archdiocese had become difficult to manage because of its size, with the division allowing Seoul and Uijongbu to serve parishioners more effectively.
With the erection of the Uijongbu Diocese, the church in South Korea has 15 dioceses and a military ordinariate. According to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea, 4.43 million or about 9.1 per cent of South Korea’s 48.8 million people are Catholic. The last time a diocese was carved out of the Seoul Archdiocese was in 1963, when the Diocese of Suwon was established. The last diocese created in South Korea was Cheju, in 1977. - CNS
action, The Associated Press reported.
Violence in Darfur broke out last year. The government in Khartoum is reportedly offering military backup and support to Arab militias, which have been accused of gross human rights violations.
The Agence France-Presse news agency quoted a UN emergency relief coordinator in early April saying that the Sudanese government was turning a blind eye to “ethnic cleansing” by the militias, known as Janjaweed, which means “horsemen” in the local dialect.
Refugees from Darfur seeking safety in Chad have reported to aid workers that the militias carried out mass rapes and execution-style killings. Villages and food supplies have been looted and burned while government helicopter gunships circled overhead, they said. The government denies supporting the militias.
Forum said the forum will do all it can to support the cease-fire between the government and rebel groups.
Bishop Kevin Dowling of Rustenburg, South Africa, said he and South African Methodist Bishop Mvume Dandala will be responsible for international lobbying on Sudan.
“We plan to do high-level advocating around issues affecting the poor and vulnerable” in Sudan, he said.
“We have a huge network and will be able to carefully monitor political developments” in the region, he said.
“Our great fear is that there will be massive donor funding at the beginning but that this will come to a sudden end after the first year,” he said.
Bishop Dowling said the forum has “very serious concerns that the government is using militias to destabilise” the region.
refugee camps in neighbouring Chad, where more than 200,000 refugees from Darfur have fled. The CRS-run camps have capacities of 5,000, but all contain more than 8,000 refugees, with one as high as 12,000, he said.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned African leaders on July 6 that the crisis in Darfur could destabilise the region if African countries do not take
Rebel groups in Darfur rose up against the government last year, accusing the government of oppressing black Africans in favour of Arabs. Local disputes over scarce grazing lands also have fuelled the conflict. While both groups are Muslim, black Africans are primarily sedentary farmers while the Arabs are nomadic herdsmen, bringing the two groups into conflict over access to land and water resources. Meanwhile, the chairman of the Sudan Ecumenical
He said the situation in Sudan reminded him of South Africa under apartheid in the 1980s.
“While I was in Sudan I was aware that the government’s security apparatus was the same as South Africa’s during apartheid,” Bishop Dowling said, noting that “terrible atrocities are committed using proxy forces and there are spies at every meeting.”
“Also, there are scores of soldiers all over the place, with the government wielding enormous power and control over the civilian population,” he said. - CNS
German environmentalists have challenged a decision by World Youth Day organisers to hold the festival’s vigil and closing Mass next year in a 400-acre park in the Cologne Archdiocese.
Up to a million people are expected to participate in the Mass, to be celebrated on August 21, 2005, by Pope John Paul II.
Parts of the site have been officially defined as a nature reserve.
Environmentalists said that up to 130 species of plant and animal life that are on Germany’s endangered list could be threatened by development linked to the event. Several other organisations have joined in a campaign to move the Mass elsewhere.
“The main mistake was that the organisers decided on the site on the basis of political decisions, without having examined it,” said Achim Baumgartner, an activist with the environmental group Friends of the Earth.
Matthias Kopp, spokesman for the World Youth Day office, told Catholic News Service that the site was examined carefully, and
that organisers have taken every possible precaution to limit the environmental damage.
Hermann-Josef Johanns, director of the office, told German media that any site for such a large event would involve environmental issues.
“We have asked the architects to take account of environmentally sensitive zones, according to the requirements of the authorities,” he said.
Plans call for the construction of an artificial hill and several paved roads.
Kopp said an alternative site promoted by environmentalists would not adequately meet the needs of World Youth Day.
Baumgartner told CNS that if World Youth Day refuses to move from the park his organisation will take the matter to court.
“It’s not that we want to stop the World Youth Day from holding the event, but when a suitable site without the environmental problems is available nearby, that’s the one which should be chosen,” he said.
“We’re arguing about unnecessary damage to rare birds and animals,” he said.
Kopp said World Youth Day organisers believe the alternative site promoted by environmentalists was “no alternative.”
- CNS
Reviewed: David Dicerto - CNS
In the 1967 film version of Camelot, Richard Harris’ melancholy monarch tries to sell Guinevere on his idyllic realm by informing her, “The rain may never fall ‘til after sundown. By eight, the morning fog must disappear.” Boy, what a difference 37 years makes!
In this muscular but murky King Arthur, it seems like the rain never stops and the fog refuses to disappear. Gone is the floridness and storybook romance; in its place is gritty, mud-soaked realism.
Director Antoine Fuqua has stripped Arthurian legend of its mythic mantle and courtly conventions, re-envisioning the once and future king (Clive Owen) as a half-Roman, half-British commander of an elite cavalry unit during the closing days of the Empire.
Succinct opening narration explains that Arthur’s inner circle is composed of conscripts from
An impressive cathedral situated above the tiny mountain town of La Chaise Dieu in the French province of Auvergne is the location for one of France’s most celebrated music festivals. It is a town with a long history and a very rich culture.
There is a splendour about the lush, rolling countryside and a pride among its people that I found when I visited the town as it prepared for the annual festival that gets underway in their beautiful old cathedral of St Robert. It has a fascinating history.
Situated in the Livadois forest, La Chaise Dieu is the rural town founded in 1043 by Robert du Turlande who built the first Abbey. A bus from Le Puy railway station takes you there, passing through the flat country road of the valley of the volcanoes, through small villages, with cattle roaming in the green fields that give way to dark, thick forest. There, amid the trees, the mushrooms grow, and are harvested by the locals, and sold at the market. They are a delicacy during the festival; a feature of the town and a great delight to the visitors at this time of year.
From the tiny winding streets, one sees in the distance the towers of the ancient cathedral, built at the beginning of the 11th
distant conquered nations pressed into military service. But don’t expect any shining armour here; Fuqua’s brave but brutish knights are a far cry from the cultivated courtiers of medieval romances.
The film is set in 452 AD, as the Romans are calling it quits after four centuries in Britain. Wearied by war, Arthur and his men are eager to return to their respective homelands. But before they get their walking papers, a papal
legate charges them with one last mission: They must rescue an aristocratic Roman family from hostile territory crawling with savage invading Saxons, led by braided chieftain Cerdic (Stellan Skarsgard).
The noble Arthur accomplishes the assignment but not before witnessing injustices committed in the name of Church and State, prompting him to cast his lot with the indigenous tribes and take up their cause against the Saxon
onslaught. To do so he must forge an alliance with Guinevere (Keira Knightley), reimagined here as a feisty protofeminist warrior, and the druid Merlin (Stephen Dillane).
Owen fills Arthur’s armour with ample virility and virtue, and invests the title character with emotional texturing generally not found among action heroes.
Rounding out the Round Table are Lancelot (Ioan Gruffudd), Galahad (Hugh Dancy), Tristan (Mads Mikkelsen) and the burly Bors (Ray Winstone).
The dank and dismal atmospherics lend the film an appropriate Dark-Age dreariness.
But by divesting the tale of its fairy tale trappings, Fuqua has also emptied it of its romance — and, ultimately, its timeless allure. The film retains only the slightest hint of the tragic love triangle immortalised in Western literature, compressing the entire affair to one lustful gaze.
Full of chest-thumping soliloquies about freedom, the Gladiator-like battle sequences — including a centrepiece sequence on a frozen lake — are impressive, but are much too intense for children and push the boundaries of the picture’s PG-13 rating.
More troubling however is the film’s paganising of what has tra-
ditionally been a quintessentially Christian myth. Arthur has always been held up as the ideal Christian king; his chivalrous brothers-in-arms aspired to be paragons of Christian virtue, epitomised by their quest for the Holy Grail.
In Fuqua’s version, the knights are unabashedly pagan and Arthur is nominally Christian at best, aligning himself theologically with Pelagius, a fifth-century monk whose writings were condemned as heresy for denying original sin and the necessity of grace in attaining salvation. Throughout, Church authority figures are depicted as conniving and cruel, while the egalitarian pagans are cast in far more flattering hues.
Still, if you’re on a quest for clanging chain mail and howling hordes of barbarians, you may want to hack your way to see King Arthur
Due to intense battlefield violence, a shadowy sexual encounter, negative representation of church figures and some crude humour, the USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling.
- CNS
century. In the early morning, and again in the evening, when the mist meets up with the clouds, the cathedral rises before your eyes like a giant chair overlooking the green valley. No surprise that the founding Abbot called the little town that grew up around the abbey, La Chaise Dieu, `the chair of God.’
From his chair the abbot looked down on the green valley below, and beyond it to the historic volcanic town of Le Puy. The brown roofs of the small cottages in and around the town reminded him of his cowled monks and the villagers, in turn, looked up to the gigantic stones of the abbey towering above them.
The most famous paintings are the frescoes illustrating the works of the medieval artists.
Among the most famous are the `Danse Macabre’ by a Flemish painter, and tapestries illustrating Old and New Testament scenes. These are in the vicinity
of the carved wooden choir stalls that accommodate world class singers and musicians.
In 1353 Pope Clement VI, who is buried in the nave, commissioned the present Gothic sculpture from the Romanesque of the original. Then, the old medieval building gave way to the Gothic structure and blended beautifully. The chapel of the old Penitents at the side was renovated for parish worship. The building escaped the savage vandalism of the Revolution because of its remoteness in the mountains.
Every year since 1966, the quiet abbey has been the setting for the prestigious music festival, bringing into the small town a flood of visitors and international fame. I met the community of monks in their grey habits and drank coffee with them. They belong to the new community of St Jean, founded by a French Dominican priest `to celebrate God in others,’ and have lived in the Abbey since
1984. And they are part of the festival. I was impressed by the sudden sociability from this new religious community, and elated by their warm-hearted welcome. They are part of the festival, and I was anxious to find out in what way. Brother Bruno, a middle-aged French monk explained. “We are the custodians of the cathedral”, he said, “and we look after nine districts, and are especially involved in pastoral care of the young.” He was very anxious to tell me about his work among the drug addicts. But I wanted to know about the festival.
“It’s the cathedral’s acoustics that make the magic of the festival,” he assured me, proudly. “Everything sounds good in it; and it’s seen to best advantage when the big choirs and the orchestras perform.”
This year’s program starts on the August 18 and runs to September 5, beginning with Vivaldi, then Handel. Each day has a variety of performers, all of whom are world class classical musicians, embracing the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi, Rachmaninov, Brahms, Bach, Haydn and many, many more, with choirs and orchestras from all over Europe, including an English choir and an Australian youth orchestra. On the Sunday, High Mass is celebrated in the cathedral by the priests from St Jean, with an ensemble of six voices.
Whatever the performance, the cathedral takes it and transforms it with rich sound for all to enjoy. And whenever conductors and musicians are inspired
to interpretative grandeur, then the acoustics of the building are at their best. And in addition there’s the old cathedral’s intrinsic charm.
The catering arrangement is massive – hotels, camping facilities, restaurants – for the benefit of artists, tourists and guests. Efficiency and good humour abound.
For everything to run smoothly and attract such notable musicians from all over the world entails countless hours of organisation, coordination and dedication; and the community has it in abundance. And the head Brother insisted on telling me about their Order’s work among the young.
“How different,” he said, “is this community of soul-lifting music from the loneliness of modern youth, with their walkmans plugged into their ears, and moving to a beat no one can hear. There’s simply no real communication,” he said, feelingly, “merely feeding the senses and imagination, and not reaching the soul at all.”
It was the reason these Brothers went among the youth to make them part of a caring community. So, the lure of the festival has another side. And a visitor cannot but think of that other side, however many are crowded into the cathedral to listen to heavenly sounding music. He leaves with the memory of the cathedral and its walls sanctified by history and the culture of famous musicians; but also by the spirit of the Brothers who are faithful guardians of so much more. - G e o r g e R u s s o
The
friends,
colleagues for their expressions of support fol-
the death oftheir beloved mother. Many thanks to those who attended the Requiem Mass and funeral.
NASH
9345 0557, fax 9345 0505.
sleeps 9.Ph:0407 409 787.
Sunday July 18
ETERNAL WORD TELEVISION
NETWORK
1-2pm on Access 31.Did Peter go to Rome? Patrick Madrid (Pope Fiction Series) followed by Pope John XXIII as Patriarch of Venice. Fr Alfred McBride (Life and Teaching of Blessed John XXIII). Next week we will present Pre-marital chastity:Mary Louise Kurey, Jason Evert and Crystallina Padilla with Johnette Benkovic (Abundant Life Series).Catholic TV is a great way to support our Archbishop’s call to evangelise.Please send donations to keep these programs on air to The Rosary Christian Tutorial Association, PO Box 1270, Booragoon 6954.Another means of spreading the Word of God is through video libraries.We supply tapes free of charge.Enq:9330 1170.
Sunday July 18
GATE OF HEAVEN
Bibles, Books, CD’s, Cards, gifts, Statues, Baptism & Communion Apparel, Albs, Vestments and much more. RICH HARVEST,39 Hulme Court,Myaree, 9329 9889 after 10.30am.
ARANMORE college uniform girls size 12-14, blazer, skirt, jumper, sports uniform anything you may have in good condition needed urgently.If you have any ARANMORE uniform pieces for sale please ring 9440 3005.
Please join us this Sunday at 7:30pm on 107.9 FM, Radio Fremantle, formore Global Catholic Radio.This week we will feature:1.Pope Fiction:Patrick
Madrid Peter Was Not The First Pope? 2.Fr John Corapi:God’s Salvation.Donationstoward the program may be sent to Gate of Heaven, PO Box 845, Claremont, WA 6910.Programs subject to change without notice.
Sunday July 18
TAIZE MEDITATIVE PRAYER
A very relaxing way of praying in candle lit atmosphere.Each third Sunday of the month 7 – 8pm Sisters of St Joseph Chapel 16 York Street,(Cnr Alexander St & York Street) South Perth.Enq: Sister Maree9457 3371.
Saturday July 24
NEW LIFE IN GOD’S SPIRIT SEMINAR
The Holy Spirit of Freedom Community is presenting a 7 week New Life in God’s Spirit seminar from 10.30am to 12noon at St Anne’s parish hall, 11 Hehir St, Belmont and continuing on
Saturday mornings till 11th September.This seminar is for spiritual refreshment and growth in living a life empowered by the Holy Spirit.All are welcome.Enq:Mark or Bridget on 9228 1800.
Sunday July 25
2004 ANNUAL RIGHT TO LIFE
LUNCH
Hotel Ibis, 334 Murray St, Perth. Pre dinner drinks start at 12noon and the lunch at 12.30pm.Parking is available in Murray Street and adjacent parking facilities.All drinks are included.Telephone State Office to purchase tickets on 9221 7117, Mon-Fri 10am to 4.30pm.Guest speaker – Dr Brendan Ricciardo speaking on screening for Down Syndrome.
Sunday July 25
NEW CHURCH OPENING IN BINDOON Consecration and opening of the new St Anne’s Church in Bindoon by Archbishop Hickey 2.15pm, afternoon tea provided.For travel arrangements phone Francis on 9459 3873 or 0404 893 877 or for opening details phone Pat 9571 1438.All welcome.
Wednesday July 28
SOUTHERN AREA MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT GROUP
Meet fourth Wednesday of each month at St Thomas More Church Parish Meeting Room, 100 Dean Road, Bateman.Starts at 7.30pm and will finish about 9pm.The following people are available for contact and information Aileen 9330 2651, Jenny 9332 4532, Lesley 9337 6295 or Margaret 9364 8146.
Saturday August 7
FUNDRAISING BUFFET DINNER DANCE
Crossroads Community invites you to our biggest annual fundraising event at the Fremantle Italian Club at 7pm.For more details please contact us on 9319 8344.
Sunday August 8
50TH ANNIVERSARY – BENTLEY PARISH
Fr Douglas Hoare and The Santa Clara Parish Community invite all former parishioners and friends to join them in celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Bentley Parish.Cnr Coolgardie and Pollock Streets Bentley.Mass will be celebrated by Archbishop Hickey at 9.30am followed by refreshments.For catering purposes please reply to the presbytery, 72 Palmerston St Bentley 6102, or phone 9458 2944.
Sunday August 8
PILGRIMAGE TO YORK
In honour of St Philomena.Bus to York, Holy Mass in the Historic Parish Church of St Patrick at 12noon with Benediction, Litanies, Rosaries and other devotions. Time in between Mass and Devotions to visit the town site.Bus leaving Mercedes College staff car park of Goderich St, Perth opposite Jewell House.Cars can be parked in staff car park for the day.Fr Rowe has keys for the car park gates, which will be locked upon departure at 10.15am, returning in the evening about 6.30pm.BYO lunch.All welcome.Enq:Fr Michael Rowe 9444 9604.
Saturday September 4
REUNION BALL - LA SALLE COLLEGE
La Salle College’s 50th Anniversary Reunion Ball will be held at the Burswood Grand Ballroom.Tickets are available now for purchase at the College. For more information contact Ms Sabrina Lynsdale-Ross on 9274 6266.
Saturday September 11
GOLDEN JUBILEE – FR MAURICE TOOP
Celebration Mass at 6pm at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, Seventh Avenue Maylands to be attended by Archbishop Hickey.Mass will be followed by supper in the Maylands Parish Hall.All welcome.
CROSS ROADS COMMUNITY
Healing Masses:1st Monday of month 7pm Church of East
Fremantle, 2nd Monday of month
10am St Jerome’s Munster Bible Night:Tuesdays 7–9pm & Healing Mass:Fridays 12.15pm.
LAST CHANCE
The Entertainment Book valid through June 2005 available still at All Saints’Chapel, 77 Allendale Square, St.George’s Terrace, Per th, telephone (08) 9325 2009, daytime hours 8am–4pm, Monday through Friday.Featuring the best in dining, hotel accommodation, theatre, sports and much more…all with 25% to 50% off or two for one offers.Thank you for supporting our fund raising efforts.
MARY’S COMPANION WAYFARERS OF JESUS THE WAY PRAYER GROUP
Take time to pray.Prayer is the greatest power on earth.Prayer meeting 7pm Tuesday evenings.St Mary’s Cathedral Parish Centre, 450 Hay Street, Perth, WA.Make prayer your lifeline with Jesus to overcome the burdens in life. Personal healing in prayer, Rosary, meditation, Scripture, praise in song, friendship and refreshments. Be united with Our Lord and Our Lady in prayer with others. Appreciate more deeply the heritage of the Faith.Come! Join us! Prayer is powerful!
URGENT: CARAD VOLUNTEER FUNDRAISING CO-ORDINATOR NEEDED
CARAD is a WA refugee assistance organisation which plans to raise extra funds to financially support many asylum seekers recently released from detention on Bridging Visas. These men, women and children are usually not allowed to work, receive benefits nor have any health cover, so CARAD is their sole support.
We need a dynamic volunteer to coordinate fundraising activities to supplement our diminishing funds. This person will work with like-minded volunteers, including an events co-ordinator, to provide opportunities to donate for the many supporters of refugees amongst the public. Please contact the CARAD office on 9321 2900 or on email: carad@iinet net au for more information.
Journalist D avid Aikman, a former Beijing bureau chief for Time magazine, has written an intriguing account of what may be the biggest unreported religious story of the decade:China is rapidly christianising, so quickly that the numbers of believers may far outstrip anything previously suspected.
News agencies reporting on Church-related events in China regularly estimate the numbers of Catholics of both Catholic churches (the Government-controlled Patriotic Catholic Church and the underground Catholic Church) as somewhere in the vicinity of 12 million (two to three million Patriotic Church believers, perhaps 8 million underground Catholics).
Another 5-10 million people is a figure often quoted for the various Protestant denominations.
But Aikman estimates the real figure is approximately 80 million - and growing at perhaps 7 per cent a year.
Even officials of the Religious Affairs Bureau, the Government department set up to control Christianity inside China, are privately admitting that numbers are higher than their official estimates of approximately 21 million Christians.
One former high-ranking official of the Three Self organisation (the Government-controlled body set up to control Protestant churches), eventually fired because of a love for preaching and baptising among China’s rural poor which led him into conflict with the Three Self, believes there are approximately 1,000 underground seminaries (read ‘bible schools’) being run by Protestant denominations across China today. There are certainly several hundred.
But it is not only among the ruled that Christianity is finding adherents. Baptised Christians are now to be found in the judiciary, the armed forces, China’s new wealthy elite, the intelligentsia of elite Chinese universities and at the very heart of the twin-faced monolith that has ruled China for 55 years - the Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army.
Aikman reports some remarkable anecdotes (see box at right) to illustrate his central thesis that Christianity is winning support everywhere and that within two or three decades China may well be a nation with a significant proportion of its population (perhaps 20-30 per cent) Christian.
One is a comment by former Communist Party head Jiang Zemin, at a private dinner with fellow Party members in early 2002. Asked by a fellow guest what he would do if he had one wish for the nation that he could implement Jiang replied:“I would make Christianity the official religion of China.”
Even those passingly familiar with the history of Christianity in China over the last 50 years, including the sustained and vicious persecutions launched under Mao Tse Tung’s Cultural Revolution and the ongoing persecutions conducted under the aegis of the ruling Communist
Party, can only find such snippets intriguing, to say the least. Those familiar with the history of the Church may not be so surprised. Read Eusebius, the first proper historian of the Church (died 339AD) and the lesson of persecution is only too clear: the Church is built on the blood of the martyrs.
Has the same thing happened in China? The persecutions have been sustained and, at times, vicious. Chinese underground Christians (which is most of them) still meet in secret, are still arrested, still beaten up and still occasionally die. Only a fortnight ago a 34-year-old woman died in police custody, arrested for distributing bibles. She had clearly been beaten before she died.
Priests and bishops of the underground Catholic Church are still regularly detained for questioning and placed under house-
arrest. John Paul II left two seats vacant for Chinese bishops not allowed to attend the Synod of Asia in 1998. China continues to be a nation of martyrs and faithful disciples.
Many stories are told throughout the book of individuals who converted their cellmates and left flourishing Christian communities throughout the laogai - the system of labour camps into which not only criminals but political and religious persons judged to be enemies of official ideology have been consigned.
Meanwhile, many of the veteran founders and leaders of Protestant denominations have been well-seasoned by decades in prison, starting from the 1950s, and remain strong in their faith.
The same can be said for Catholic clergy and members of the hierarchy such as the remarkable Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pin
The eighteen American tourists visiting China weren’t expecting much from the evening’s scheduled lecture. They were already exhausted from a day of touring in Beijing. But what the speaker had to say astonished them.
“One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact the pre-eminence of the West all over the world,” he said. “We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then, we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next, we focussed on
Mei, who was arrested in 1955 and spent 30years in prisons and labour camps.
After the Cultural Revolution cooled in the 1970s, many Christians were released from prison and promptly set out to do what they do best: preach and baptise. Small groups of converts formed the ‘house churches,’ meeting in apartments. The faith spread from there, invisible but always present. Today it is widely believed that the house churches and communities of Catholic Christians span the length and breadth of the nation. Some parts of China are reportedly more than 90 per cent Christian.
The primary form of worship for Protestant congregations is often evangelical and charismatic, combining traditional Protestant faith, which was first introduced into China in the early 19th Century, with the charismatic emphasis passed on in the 1970s and 1980s by visiting American evangelicals.
One thing common to all the Christian communities is hunger: hunger for contact with the world, hunger for knowledge, hunger to evangelise.
One reason many choose Christianity is the strong example of prayer and the miracles it can achieve. According to Aikman entire villages have sometimes been converted after witnessing cures and healings won by intense prayer. It is clear that in the face of so much evidence he sees no reason to doubt that such things have occurred and continue to occur.
Another is that a philosophy based upon the writings of a 19thCentury German and a 20thCentury Russian, which was adopted officially by China with the victory of the Communist Party in 1949, has turned out to be - as everywhere else - utterly empty. Like people throughout the world the Chinese are spiritually hungry for something they can believe in.
It is one of the strengths of the book that Aikman has written it as a journalist, although it seems implicit in its writing that he is a committed Christian, too.
By David Aikman Regnery RRP$52 (hardback)that He would divide sons from fathers and mothers from daughters. On the other, quiet official encouragement is given to the building of churches, schools and hospitals, and especially orphanages, by openly Christian organisations.
The vast majority of converts are also young. Another interesting statistic is that it is estimated that around 80 per cent of the new Christians are women, who experience the common frustration that it is difficult to meet committed Christian men. Many choose to stay single as a result.
Aikman says he has learned that at least three of the six Chinese consulates in the US have Christian believers among their officers. The embassy in Tokyo has at least one and it is probable a similar situation exists around the world. Christians are to be found among the new entrepreneurs, including some of the richest men in the country. Aikman names, as an example, Zhang Jian, aged 38, CEO and founder of the Broad air-conditioning company and the first Chinese to privately own a helicopter. Zhang is keen to link up with other Christian businessmen and professionals.
Artists and intellectuals are becoming Christian too, including one of China’s top conductors Su Wenxing, aged 30, who has openly spoken about his faith in such publications as the official English-language China Daily.
The list goes on: actors, singers, entertainers, journalists and in the very heart of the Party itself. Aikman cannot say how high up this influence may go but seems to guess it may be high:
your economic system. But in the last twenty years, we have realised that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West has been so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubts about this.”
This was not coming from... Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. This was a scholar from one of China’s premier academic research institutes, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, in 2002.
Therefore, it is based on a journalist’s natural scepticism rather than an enthusiast’s desire to believe what he or she wants to believe. Much of the book is made up of pen-portraits of the founders of the various Protestant churches he has met and interviewed together with the house churches and seminaries he has visited. Somewhat less attention is paid to the Catholics but one chapter is devoted to analysing the Catholic factor in this overall phenomenon, made all the more complex by the continually evolving relationship between the two Catholic churches, the government, the Vatican and the ‘Taiwan factor’.
“Chinese officials have acknowledged several times that there are Christians within the Communist Party...” he writes. “What we do know is that several of the sons and daughters of current or past Chinese leaders have become Christian and been baptised. Li Peng, a former Premier whose last post before retirement in the spring of 2003 was chairman of the NationalPeople’s Congress, has a daughter who studied in Japan and was baptised a Christian there.
“Wang Guangmei, widow of Mao’s primary political target during the Cultural Revolution, Liu Shaoqui, has three daughters, all of whom have been baptised.”
- from Jesus in Beijing, by
David AikmanInterestingly, officials have pursued an ambiguous policy, one which often depends simply on local personality - who’s in control. On the one hand Christianity is still widely marginalised and its unofficial forms persecuted. The young who become Christian often face their greatest opposition from parents, reminding the reader of Christ’s words
One of the great ironies of this quite fascinating inside look is that, repressed for so long, many Chinese are embracing the one thing that can fill a spiritual void and materialism better than anything else:Jesus. And yet the world which planted the first seeds of faith in China more than 1300 years ago via Nestorian clergy is falling apart because it is rejecting belief in God and morality and has almost totally embraced what Chinese Christians know does not offer happiness or fulfilment at all.
- P e t e r B a l