The Record Newspaper 18 January 2007

http://thecatholicrecord.org

800 YEARS OF MINISTRY: We celebrate Perth priests Vista 1-3

New group promotes Eucharistic adoration

■ By Anthony Barich

Glendalough parish priest Fr Doug Harris has started up an association called Apostles of Perpetual Adoration – and there’s 12 of them.

Fr Harris, who in four years has transformed Glendalough from a dying parish where barely 80 people attend two weekend Masses to 250 attending three, plus up to 60 at daily Mass, received permission from Archbishop Barry Hickey in April to start the movement with the aim of evolving it into a religious order. The movement is an Association of Christ’s Faithful that promotes the practice of Eucharistic adoration in parishes.

It is the first step to becoming a full-blown religious order.

He started it on request from Fr Martin Lucia, Superior of the Missionary Society of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, the association which he studied under in the Philippines for the first four years of his seminary life before finishing his formation at Perth’s St Charles Seminary.

So far Fr Harris, a member of the Disciples of Jesus Covenant Community, has 12 lay people from parishes across the Perth archdiocese, but needs priests to join him in order to carry out the movement’s work.

The Apostles needs priests who can travel, possibly with lay people, in teams of two or three to help parishes start up perpetual adoration, as it strengthens individuals’ relationship with Christ.

As Fr Harris’ St Bernadette’s parish at Glendalough runs at a deficit, he needs priests as he cannot afford to supply a priest while he travels to different parishes.

“The aim is to bring people to where Our Lord would want them to be in their relationship with Him,” said Fr Harris, who was ordained in 2000 and spent his first two years at St Mary’s Cathedral.

“We need the strength of knowing that, in today’s world where there’s so many distractions, we can have the relationship He wants us to have with Him.

Continued on page 2

CHINA’S GREAT LOSS

Religion and Politics in South America Page 9

Fr Thomas Phelan

Fr Thomas Phelan, parish priest of City Beach, died in Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital on Monday afternoon at the age of 80.

Fr Phelan had suffered a stroke last Saturday. Born in County Kilkenny, Ireland, on August 19, 1924, he was educated at St Kieran’s College, Kilkenny and ordained on June 6, 1948. He arrived in Perth on May 1, 1949 and took up his first appointment as curate in Northam. He was appointed assistant priest at the Cathedral in March 1952 and

Clandestinely ordained Bishop Joseph Meng Ziwen of Nanning, China’s oldest prelate, died this month at the age of 103.

dies

became the Archbishop’s secretary in June 1955. After a period of leave he was made Administrator pro tem at Cottesloe in May 1959 and locum tenens at Armadale on October 11, 1959. Fr Phelan was appointed parish priest of the new parish of City Beach (Wembley Downs) in April 1960 and held the position until his death. As well as being much loved in his parish, Fr Phelan was highly esteemed for his work as Chaplain for the Disciples of Jesus Covenant

Community and the Disciples Youth Mission Team. In 1999 he was awarded the Cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice for more than 50 years as a priest. Archbishop Barry Hickey will concelebrate Fr Phelan’s Requiem Mass with priests of the Archdiocese at Holy Spirit Church, City Beach, at 9.15am this Saturday, January 20. The funeral will take place at Karrak atta at 11am.

Vigil Rosary and Mass will be held at the church on Friday January 25, with the Rosary at 6.30pm and Mass at 7pm.

Editorial/Letters - Page 8 I say, I say - Vista 4 The World - Pages 9-11

■

By Sylvia Defendi

The Catholic Mission Office in Perth has recorded a $20,110 increase in funds collected through parish appeals during 2006.

The increase brings the year’s collection funds up to $339,942 from 2005’s figure of $319,831 and only includes funds donated during parish appeals. The Mission Office annually conducts the Propagation of the Faith Appeal, which is held between April and August and World Mission Sunday, which is celebrated in October.

While the average calculated amount given per person was $6.57, St Pius X church in Manning donated the highest amount per capita, $28.30. Closely following Manning was St Aloysius church in Shenton Park, who gave an average of $22.41 per person, and St Benedict’s church in Applecross, who donated $20.03 per person. Overall most parishes managed to increase their annual contribution, however there were some who chose not to participate.

More than half of the parishes donated more to the missions when compared to last year’s figures.

The Catholic Mission Office appeal figures do not include donations made to Project Compassion, Caritas or any other missionary/aid agency.

The increase in donations has come as a welcome surprise for the organisation that consistently funds the missionary work of Catholic parishes, schools and seminarians throughout impoverished countries worldwide.

Director of the Catholic Mission Office in Perth, Francis Leong, said: “Figures show an increase in giving to the Pope’s official and universal mission aid agency, which assists communities world wide, most of which are unknown to the many parishes.” However, donations were just part of giving to the missions Mr Leong said while quoting Pope Benedict XVI, who during his annual address on World Mission Sunday, last year, stated: “Prayer and concrete support for missions are seen today as being an integral part of every Christian’s life. Promoting a responsible sense of sharing and communion involves faithful of all communities in support for the needs of mission lands.”

For

Fr Doug Harris pictured in the chapel of the former St Ildephonsus College during the Disciples of Jesus Summer School at New Norcia last week.

PHOTO: ANTHONY BARICH

Scam emails attack Flame

■ By Sylvia Defendi

The Perth branch of Flame Ministries International and Archbishop Barry Hickey have been used in a scam that tries to use their names to defraud people of money.

The first of the two-part email scam surfaced on January 6 when a person in England who had received the email, notified a British branch of Flame Ministries, which subsequently asked the Perth office for verification.

Thinking the email might have been a harmless prank, Director of Flame Ministries in Perth, Eddie Russell dismissed the email by responding that it was indeed false and misleading.

A woman from Perth, who had also received an email, contacted the Perth office on January 9.

On January 10 Mr Russell was again contacted by a person in Colorado Springs, USA, asking for verification after stating that they had received the first of the two emails and had responded to the email as it requested. “This person had replied to the first email asking for verification, but the address provided is not a Flame Ministries email address even though it appears to be,” Mr Russell said.

The first of the two emails, allegedly written by Archbishop Hickey on behalf of the organisation, speaks of a vision, concerning the victim’s family, which will unfold with prayer, fasting and an email reply.

The response essentially confirms to the perpetrators that they have chanced upon a working email address to which they then send the next email asking for funds on behalf of the international organisation. More specifically the second email, again allegedly written by Archbishop Hickey, reveals the mystery of the afore-mentioned vision and asks that funds be given to an orphanage home through a separate email address provided.

Mr Russell voiced his concern and his intentions to warn as many people as possible by sending a cautionary email to over 2000 people associated with the organisation and posting a warning on the Perth branch website.

Mr Russell told The Record that he had no idea how the perpetrators got hold of the organisation’s email contacts, but said he suspected the scam email must have been sent to many thousands of addresses, some of which belonged to people who knew of the organisation and were not afraid to ask for verification.

The Record

The Parish. The Nation. The World. ACTING EDITOR

Hugh Ryan Letters to: cathrec@iinet.net.au

JOURNALISTS

Mark Reidy reidyrec@iinet.net.au

Sylvia Defendi (Parish/State) sdefendi@iinet.net.au

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OFFICE MANAGERS inc. sales/subscriptions

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587 Newcastle Street, Leederville

Post: PO Box 75, Leederville, WA 6902

Tel: (08) 9227 7080

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The Record is a weekly publication distributed throughout the parishes of the dioceses

“The mere fact that one person replied to the first email suggests that many more could have been conned into financing a scam,” Mr Russell said.

While the email is written in a very unconventional way, which may signal a cautious response to those who live in Perth and are aware, the same may not be true for overseas victims.

Suspecting a new form of Nigerian money scams, Mr Russell believes this could be just the beginning of email scams that use easily verifiable information such as the Flame Ministries address in Subiaco and Perth Archbishop Hickey, to further the con.

Most alarming is the damage that could be done to the Archbishop and international organisation’s reputation.

“Flame Ministries does occasionally send emails asking for funds when necessary. I just hope this will not compromise the organisation’s position, when people begin to wonder whether a true request is yet another scam,” Mr Russell said.

Mr Russell urged recipients of the scam email to report it to Spam Cop at: http:/spamcop.net/.

A LIFE OF PRAYER

...areyoucalledtotheBenedictinelifeofdivine praiseandeucharisticprayerfortheChurch?

Contact the:

TYBURN NUNS

Rev Mother Cyril, OSB, Tyburn Priory, 325 Garfield Road, Riverstone, NSW 2765 www.tyburnconvent.org.uk

SYDNEY

email: nsstorm@tpg.com.au

Living simply so others may simply live

■ By Sylvia Defendi

Perth’s Catholic Mission Office has re-ignited a campaign to raise awareness by proposing The Children First Money Box, a faithbased giving program that benefits those who give as well as those who are in need each day of the year.

Shaped like a small church,

ing countries since 1843. Donations will help fund over 2,700 Mission projects in child health, welfare and education each year in over 160 developing countries worldwide.

most in need, first, allowing the whole family, classroom or parish to get involved.

However, alms giving is by no means the only aspect of the venture. The money box program asks a family or community to individually sacrifice small luxuries, such as snacks or a must-have ring tone, while sparing a thought for those who are less fortunate not only when disaster strikes but each day of every year.

When the family or community next gathers in prayer, they are invited to recall their acts of sacrifice, place the money saved into the box and pray for those who are in need of both prayer and alms.

Alms from the money box are then donated to the Vatican’s Pontifical Missionary Society for the Holy Childhood, which has been helping children in develop-

Continued from page 1

“In general, Catholics, and even practising Catholics, have a level of faith way below where Our Lord would want it.

“For example, the divorce rate among Catholics is similar to that of the rest of society, so we should create an environment where people can reach the level that Our Lord does call us to.

“For a priest, it’s a wonderful thing. More people are coming to see me for guidance, but in the long run less people will come as they can seek help directly from Jesus.” There already exists The Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, founded by St Peter Julian Eymard, but in that order, priests and Brothers fill the per-

In recognition of the sacrifices made, the family or community will receive a special letter of affirmation and thanks, as well as a laminated certificate of appreciation with a photo highlighting a particular child health or education project overseas being helped through the donation. Initiated just over two years ago in Perth, the money box program was conceived primarily as a faith-raising tool for families, whereby a family’s time together in prayer is encouraged and fostered.

“Money is important, but, it is faith, constant awareness and love of others that are most important in this mission program,” said director of Catholic Mission in Perth, Francis Leong.

Essentially, the box can be used all year round, as it is not tied to any marketed event.

“This allows families, friends, colleagues or parishioners to recall that there are children suffering each day, not just when there is a famine or drought,” Mr Leong said. “Why should the media dictate when it is appropriate to be generous?” he asked.

To get your parish, school and family involved contact the Catholic Mission Office in Perth on: 9422 7933 or by email at: catholicmissionperth@bigpond.com.

Perpetual adoration boost

petual adoration roster. With the Apostles of Perpetual Adoration, it is lay people who fill it.

Since Fr Harris started perpetual adoration at the chapel in between St Bernadette’s and the presbytery, confessions have gone through the roof as well as Mass attendance. In fact, weekend Masses are often late because there is such a long queue, compared to barely a couple of people in the first three years he was at the parish.

“I assume this is because of God’s grace working in their lives,” Fr Harris said.

“The closer you get to God the more aware you become of sin.” For more information on the Apostles of Perpetual Adoration, contact Fr Doug on 9444 6131 or email him on doug@catholic.org.

WYD experience for 67¢

■ By Paul Gray

Would-be pilgrims who save sixty-seven cents a day between now and July 20 next year will have enough cash to pay for a week’s accommodation and registration at World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney.

World Youth Day organisers in Sydney have released detailed information on what it will cost for pilgrims to attend the event in July 2008.

The cost of a full week’s registration package will be $395 for Australians, including seven breakfasts, six lunches, five evening meals and registration for all events.

A cheaper weekend package, covering the final two days of the celebration but not including accommodation, will also be available. A highlight of the World Youth Day festivities will be the Sunday morning Mass with Pope Benedict XVI at Randwick Racecourse in Sydney on July 20th, 2008.

The Mass is predicted to be the biggest Sunday morning church service ever held in Australia.

The registration packages have

been tailored to make costs for pilgrims from poorer countries significantly less than for those from better-off nations, including Australia.

Three categories of accommodation and registration packages are being offered.

Package A - registration plus a week’s accommodation from Monday July 14 to Sunday July 20, as well as meals. This costs $395 for Australian pilgrims.

Package B - a week’s registration plus one breakfast, five lunches and five evening meals. Accommodation is not included in Package B. Package B costs $335 for Australians.

Package C - registration for the weekend only of Saturday July 19 and Sunday July 20 with no accommodation, one breakfast, one lunch and one evening meal. This costs $175.

Transport within Sydney to and from official World Youth Day activities, health cover and Visa costs are included in all packages.

Accommodation under package A will be at school or church halls, or in homes offered by volunteer

supporters of the World Youth Day project.

Pilgrims from different regions of the world, classified as Group 1, 2, 3 or 4 countries, will pay different amounts for the packages depending on their country of origin.

For example, pilgrims from socalled “Group Four” countries, which include lower-middle and low income Oceania nations, need pay only $A50 for each of the packages. Registration packages do not include the cost of travelling to and from Sydney for the event. As with previous World Youth Days overseas, a solidarity fund will operate.

Under this arrangement, pilgrims from wealthier countries will be encouraged to make a contribution to reduce the costs faced by pilgrims from middle and low income countries.

Organisers are aiming to assist as many people as possible from Oceania, in particular, to attend World Youth Day 2008, the first ever World Youth Day to be held in this region of the world.

For full details on World Youth Day, go to http:// wyd2008.org

Cathedral treasures discovered

When the body of Bishop Matthew Gibney, the third bishop of Perth was excavated under the floor of St Mary’s Cathedral by archaeologists Dr Shane Bourke and Fr Robert Cross, it was found that the Bishop was holding a pair of rosary beads.

Because there was a large nest of white ants associated with the coffin of Bishop Gibney, it was initially difficult to discern the rosary beads. However, close examination revealed their presence and they were carefully taken from the coffin for closer examination.

Most of the beads were found. Those missing are thought to have been attacked by the white ants, given that the beads were made of wood. However, the cross, medallion and crucifix were so corroded

Rosary beads found in the coffin Close-up: One of the beads.

as to be unrecognisable, except as a clump of corroded metal and wood.

The rosary beads did not seem to be of exceptional quality, being similar to common wooden rosa-

Couples Corner

Hints for a Happy Marriage

ry beads available at pious goods shops today.

Once the beads had been examined and photographed, they were returned to Bishop Gibney’s coffin.

Position Vacant Ad ministration Manager

Part Time

T he Record Catholic Newspaper in West Perth is seeking an Administration Manager for 3 days per week. (MonWed).

The Office Manager is an integral part of a team which publishes the weekly Catholic newspaper. This position is primarily to provide administrative support for all staff under the general supervision of the Editor. The major role is to be a capable and confident receptionist, handling phone calls, following up on queries, processing invoices and banking. Strong interpersonal skills are imperative along with excellent time management and the ability to prioritise.

You must be experienced in a variety of administration duties. Your primary responsibilities include:

• Mail inwards/outwards

• Reception duties

• Preparation & distribution of weekly newspaper (via couriers & post)

• Payroll

• Banking

• Petty cash

• Filing

• Panorama & Classifieds bookings.

• Entering & tracking subscriptions in MYOB.

• Liason with clients & suppliers & customers

• Liason with Printers & couriers on a regular basis regarding deadlines, numbers to be printed & publishing dates.

• Maintaining client database on MYOB

• General office support as required

• Running errands

• Organising business functions and appointments as directed

• Ability to assist the accounts department as required

To be considered you will have had at least 2 years in a similar role and must have excellent interpersonal, oral and written skills and be a team player. Attention to detail and numerical accuracy is essential. Competency in Microsoft Office is also required, as is ability to use MYOB (AccountEdge – MAC) and email. Applicants must be fully supportive of the objectives and ethos of the Catholic Church.

Please for ward your application and CV to :

T he Editor

T he Record and Discovery Newspaper PO BOX 75

Leederville WA 6902

Or email : cathrec @ iinet net au

Hold hands

Begin wit h t he end in mind.

Holding hands has always been a simple physical expression between those who love each other. Recent research at the University of Virginia however has revealed that this simple expression of love may have other positive benefits in marriage. A neuroscientist using brain scans has found that women experiencing stress show immediate signs of relief when they hold their husbands hands.

Catholic Marriage Education Services with Derek Boylen

Steven Covey in his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People points out that effective people are those who begin with the end in mind. Marriage is not different. Unfortunately many couples get married and then just float or struggle along. It’s never too late to begin again. Take some time during the week to reflect and talk about what you would like your marriage to be like 40 years from now and how you will get there.

Do I guarantee that when people come to do business with me, they will be treated with courtesy, sincerity, professionalism and ef ciency?

I say “I want your business and I m prepared to pay for it” and “I stand behind every car I sell”. Is that really true?

Is it true that I have over 40 technicians who are dedicated to getting my used cars in rst class condition before sale?

Is it true that every year for the last 17 consecutive years

Join Pope Benedict XVI in prayer

January

General intention: Peace - That in our violent time, Bishops may continue to show the way of peace and understanding among peoples.

Mission intention: Church in Africa - That the Church in Africa may be a witness of the Good News of Christ and be committed to the promotion of reconciliation and peace.

I ve been Australia s top selling Hyundai dealer?

Is it true that if somebody buys a used car from me, I will pay for a pre-purchase RAC or similar inspection?

I have a warehouse selling cars under $10,000. Is it true that I offer a full money back guarantee within one week?

JOHN HUGHES

The Parish. The Nation. The World.

Flying padre departs for his final journey

Bishop Bianchini sends off Fr Michael O’Flaherty

■ By Sylvia Defendi

After 66 years of priesthood, Fr Michael O’Flaherty passed into eternity on December 8, 2006, leaving behind his beloved diocese of Geraldton, where he had made many friends over the years and had many admirers.

Having celebrated his 90th birthday in October last year, Fr O’Flaherty had thanked God for the many friends he had made, and especially recalled the Sisters of Nazareth and staff of Nazareth House in Bluff Point for their care since his arrival in 2006.

Born in Gort, County Galway, Ireland on October 9, 1916, Fr O’Flaherty was the fifth of nine children.

He was ordained at All Hallows Seminary in Ireland on June 23, 1940 for the diocese of Geraldton, and arrived on November 4, 1941.

Fr O’Flaherty was appointed assistant priest at St Francis Xavier Cathedral, under the late Bishop O’Collins, and remained there until 1946.

He then served as parish priest of Cue, Reedy and Big Bell from 1946-1948 and took charge of Wiluna and Meekatharra from 1948 to 1963.

In 1949 Fr O’Flaherty became a ‘flying padre’ and joined the late Mgr Ted Bryan and Fr Finbarr O’Sullivan by becoming a pilot.

He used his Tiger Moth plane to cover his extensive parish, which enabled him to be a pastor to all his people.

“Throughout this time, people of every clime and culture in this vast

area were familiar with the greeting – ‘And the top of the morning to you,’ and knew the reply - ‘And the rest of the day to you Father,” recounted Fr Noel Tobin.

From 1963 to 1968 Fr O’Flaherty

was parish priest of Mingenew. He then became parish priest of Morawa in 1968 and Mullewa in 1985.

In 1993 Fr O’Flaherty retired in Geraldton where he continued

a ministry for which he had been noted throughout his priestly life - hospital visitation.

Each morning, having celebrated Mass for the Presentation Sisters, he would visit St John of God Hospital, which he continued to do until he became a resident of Nazareth House last year.

A Pontifical concelebrated Mass was offered on December 13, 2006 in St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral for the repose of Fr O’Flaherty’s soul.

Bishop Justin Bianchini of Geraldton was the main celebrant and was joined by Emeritus Bishop Peter Quinn and 14 priests who travelled from all points of the diocese to honour Fr O’Flaherty.

Speaking during the funeral Mass at Geraldton’s St Francis Xavier Cathedral, Bishop Bianchini recalled Fr O’Flaherty’s sincere concern for all people, which was evident each time he celebrated a novena of Masses for those in farming areas in dire need of rain.

“Even during his retirement he was still a people’s person and had great contact with people by phone, correspondence and in person,” continued Bishop Bianchini.

Testifying that Fr O’Flaherty was at peace in dying, Bishop Bianchini ended his thoughts with words he believed Fr O’Flaherty would hear when meeting God, whom he served so faithfully: “Well done, good and faithful servant….enter into the joy of your Lord.”

Sr Maria marks 50 years of presenting faith

■ By Anthony Barich

Presenting the Gospel through her faith and knowledge has been the cornerstone of Sr Maria Crocetti’s ministry which started 50 years ago.

Sr Maria celebrated the Golden Jubilee of her Religious Profession as a Presentation Sister on January 8.

As she served much of this time in Karratha and Geraldton parishes, Geraldton Bishop Justin Bianchini was the chief celebrant of the Jubilee Mass at Iona Presentation Convent Chapel on January 5 with Fr John Carpenter and Fr Gerard Totanas.

Particularly pleasing was the presence of her brother, Fr Gaetano Crocetti, who now lives at St John of God Villa, but was able to join in the celebrations, and her own two sisters, Sr Immaculata and Sr Emmanuel.

Having attended Iona Presentation College as a student, Sister Maria moved from her home in Beverley to join the Order – a move she has never regretted, and has embraced her vocation with love and charity.

Describing herself as a “quiet person”, Sr Maria believes spreading one’s love and faith are central to her ministry.

“Working within a community, it becomes your family, as you’re

all working towards one goalthe education of our students and the passing on and sharing of our faith,” Sr Maria said.

Prior to working in the Geraldton Diocese, Sr Maria spent some time on the Motor Mission team based in Corrigin.

With the closure of small country schools in towns like Bruce Rock, Quairading and Beverley, the Sisters served these wheatbelt communities by traveling to various centres for religious education and to prepare children to receive the Sacraments.

Speaking of Religious Life, Sr Maria recalled that in her student days the ideal of ‘Vocations’ was widely promoted and appealed to

many young people. Personally, she held a special admiration for the work of the Presentation Sisters and the way they lived their lives.

The wonderful example of prayer and sacrifice of her parents, and the influence of the Sisters played a significant role in shaping her faith.

So what’s changed today?

“Society, values, family life,” Sr Maria says. “Materialism has taken over.”

The Presentation Sisters, founded by Nano Nagle in Ireland in 1775 for the education of the poor, now serve in diverse ministries in countries all over the world.

Blessings: Geraldton Bishop Justin Bianchini incenses Fr Michael O’Flaherty’s coffin at St Francis Xavier Cathedral.

Sr Maria Crocetti

Ocean Reef farewells priests

St Simon Peter parish in Ocean Reef farewelled its two priests at a major function after Mass last Saturday night and after each of the three Masses on Sunday.

Parish priest Fr Bronek Pietrusewicz SDS will go to Carnarvon after six years at Ocean Reef, and assistant priest Fr Roman Wroblewski SDS will become chaplain at La Salle College in Viveash after two years at Ocean Reef.

The two other priests who have assisted Fr Bronek during his six-year appointment, Fr Adam Babinski SDS, and Fr Phong Nguyen, who is now parish priest at Kalgoorlie, were on hand for the joyful and emotional farewell on Saturday.

The chairman of the Parish Council, John Hollywood, expressed the formal thanks of the parish to Fr Bronek and Fr Roman, and several hundred other parishioners took the opportunity to express their personal thanks to the two men for their inspiration and support.

Mr Hollywood focused on the numerous spiritual, social and physical innovations in the parish over the last six years, including priestly visits to the sick and housebound on First Fridays, the introduction of an evangelisation program, an annual parish pilgrimage, the blessing of pets on the feast of St Francis of Assisi, and an annual international night where parishioners provide food and entertainment from many parts of the world.

A permanent reminder of Fr Bronek’s leadership were the beautiful stained glass windows in the Church which depict the story of St Peter’s relationship with Jesus and his leadership of the Apostles and the Church before and after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Two other Salvatorians, parish priest Fr Ryszard Sadowski, from Carnarvon, and Fr Dariusz Krzysztalowicz, from Canada (ex-Poland) will take responsibility for the parish this weekend.

Bishop moved by plight

■ Judith Sudilovsky

NAHALEEN, West Bank (CNS)

- The encroachment of Israeli settlements on Palestinian water sources must be addressed, says the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Bishop William S Skylstad of Spokane, Washington, said his two-day visit to view Catholic Relief Services’ projects in West Bank farming villages brought to his attention the plight of farmers who are losing access to their water supply.

“It is the first time I have become aware of the critical nature of the water supply. Palestinians feel their water supply is being cut from them by the encroachment of Israeli settlements beyond the green line,” said the bishop, who grew up on

an apple farm in Washington and has been interested in farming all his life.

Bishop Skylstad visited Israel and the Palestinian territories from January 11-18, participating in the Coordination of Episcopal Conferences in Support of the Church of the Holy Land and the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land. He and other bishops traveled to the Gaza Strip on January 13 and visited Catholic parishes and religious leaders in northern Israel from January 1416. He said the Israelis are looking to the water supply to foster the future growth of the settlements.

“It gives you a special appreciation for the farmers in the area struggling. It is amazing how they use what we in the United States would call hilly and untillable land.”

Maranatha Institute for Adult Faith Education

Archdiocese of Perth

TERM 1 COURSES COMMENCING 6TH FEBRUARY 2007

Timetable: Tuesday

9.30am-12pm An Introduction to Theology with Sandra Dillon

1pm – 3p Introduction to the Bible with Sr Philomena Burrell

Thursday 9.30am -12pm Celebrating Christian Ritual with Fr Peter Joseph Stiglich

Friday 9.30am-12pm Julian of Norwich with Stephanie Woods

All courses run for 8 weeks Cost $50 Enrolments further Information Course Handbook available on request Office Hours Tues, Thurs, Friday 9am -3pm

Phone: 9212.9311 Fax: 9212 9382

Email maranatha@ceo.wa.edu.au

Catholic Education Centre 50 Ruislip Street Leederville

PRINCIPALSHIPS

LESCHENAULT CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL

Leschenault Catholic Primary School, Australind, is a double stream, co-educational school with an enrolment of 490 students and is located in Australind, 15kms north of Bunbury. The school was opened in 1986 and is set in attractive and well maintained grounds which it shares with the parish of Christ the Living Vine.

The school has vibrant and committed staff who facilitate each student’s development in a supportive and challenging learning environment.

Strong emphasis is placed on the development of Literacy and Numeracy skills with Early Intervention programs being firmly established. This includes Reading Recovery which is now in its fourth year.

The school has a strong commitment to achieving the seamless integration of computer technologies into class programs and there is an interactive whiteboard in each learning/teaching area.

The development of thinking skills and an integrated curriculum based on the enquiry process is an important focus of the school. Specialist programs in Physical Education, Music and LOTE (Indonesian) also operate in the school.

The school has a close and collaborative relationship with the parish and enjoys strong pastoral support from the Parish Priest. A strong sense of pastoral care permeates the community. There is significant and active involvement by the community through the School Board and the Parents and Friends’ Association.

ST BENEDICT’S SCHOOL

St Benedict’s School, Applecross, is a single stream, co-educational primary school with an enrolment of 250 students.

The school was opened in 1953 by the Our Lady of the Missions Sisters.

Specialist programs are offered in Physical Education, Music and LOTE (Italian and Indonesian). The school has a comprehensive Literacy Intervention and Enrichment program and offers additional support through a school-based counselling Psychologist. In 2007 the school will move into its third year of the RAISe (Raising Achievement in Schools) program.

The Parish Priest works closely with the school and there is a high level of cooperation between parish and school. The School Board and Parents & Friends’ Association are actively involved in the school and its programs.

ST MICHAEL’S SCHOOL

St Michael’s School, Brunswick Junction, is a co-educational school catering for 70 students from Kindergarten to Year 7 and is situated 24 kms north of Bunbury. The school was founded by the Presentation Sisters in 1952.

St Michael’s provides a Catholic education which focuses on core values of faith, hope and love. The school community offers the opportunity for each child to grow in wholeness and holiness.

Due to increased enrolments in 2007 the classroom structure will consist of Kindergarten and Pre-Primary, Years 1 and 2, Years 3 and 4, Years 5, 6 and 7. The academic programs include Italian (LOTE), Library and Information Technology.

The School Board and the Parents and Friends’ Association work closely together to support the school with resources and educational programs.

ST PAUL’S PRIMARY SCHOOL

St Paul’s Primary School, Karratha, is a single stream, coeducational school with an enrolment of 307 students from Kindergarten to Year 7. Situated in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, the school was established by the Presentation Sisters in 1967.

The school has specialist teachers in the areas of Research and Technology, Music and Physical Education. There is a modern computer laboratory, fully integrated with CathEdNet and MyInternet systems, and interactive whiteboards are in use in classrooms. In 2007 the school will move into the third year of RAISe (Raising Achievement in Schools) program.

St Paul’s is well regarded in the town and contributes to community and regional events. The school has a strong affiliation with the parish and parish team.

The successful applicants for the above positions will be required to take up the positions at the commencement of Term 2, 2007.

Applicants need to be practising Catholics and experienced educators committed to the objectives and ethos of Catholic education. They will have the requisite theological, educational, pastoral and administrative competencies, together with an appropriate four-year minimum tertiary qualification, and will have completed Accreditation to Teach Religious Education or its equivalent.

A current Federal Police Clearance/100 Point Identification Check or a WACOT membership number must also be included.

The official application form, referee assessment forms and instructions can be accessed on the Catholic Education Office website www.ceo.wa.edu.au

Enquiries regarding these positions should be directed to Helen Brennan, Consultant, Leadership Team on 9212 9268 or email sch.personnel@ceo.wa.edu.au

All applications, on the official form, should reach The Director, Catholic Education Office of Western Austraia, PO Box 198, Leederville 6903 no later than 6 February 2007.

Moving on: Salvatorian priests Fr Adam, Fr Bronek and Fr Roman with Fr Phong Nguyen.

Finding Jesus, the Charismatic way

The Disciples

of Jesus Summer Camp opens one up

to the

Spirit. Anthony Barich attended and was suitably in awe

As an Archbishop who does his fair share of traveling, Perth’s Barry Hickey has plenty of material for sermons.

A favourite that he has now used at least a couple of times – specifically for youth groups - refers to a three-minute address he gave to a bishops conference in Fiji recently which sums up the hope he has in the life of the Catholic Church.

He spoke, in this three-minute speech, about the youth in Australia generally; about how, as he has witnessed, they have been responding strongly to constant calls by Pope John Paul II to youth to stand up and live their faith in the secular world.

In doing so, the Archbishop referred to Australian youth as “the children of John Paul II”.

The part that always draws some laughter is that one of the bishops listening later approached him and was intrigued by this ‘youth organisation’ called ‘Children of JPII’, at which point the Archbishop had to clarify things….

But as Archbishop Hickey said, some bishops around the globe are tired and jaded and are looking for new youth movements to give them hope.

They have spent decades planting seeds and see no fruit, or very little.

Archbishop Hickey told this story at two youth retreats for 1535-year-olds held within a couple of months – Embrace the Grace run by the Perth archdiocesan agency the Respect Life Office and, last week, the Disciples of Jesus’ Summer School. At these retreats the Archbishop did not lecture youth but thanked them.

“What you have given me is far greater than what I’ve given you in my visits and talks,” he told the Summer School.

“In my job I see lots of negativity, like church attendance numbers declining and attacks on religion.

“But I get inspired when I come here (to New Norcia) and witness young people realising the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives

and following Jesus, and that there is no other happiness like it.”

In the Disciples of Jesus Covenant Community, he has all this in spades. The Summer School is basically a series of talks on various elements of faith and dogma, from the meaning of the Nicene Creed to Theology of the Body to the relevance of Mary the Mother of God in Catholic teaching.

In between talks are share groups and plenty of time for personal reflection, with adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at the crack of dawn each day.

But the most conspicuous thing about this community is their witness to their faith.

It is not dissimilar to Antioch, but the prayer and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament are generally more intense.

It can best be summed up by the personal testimonies that are often a highlight of these Summer Schools – especially that of Fr Daniel Benedetti, vocations director of the Missionaries of God’s Love (MGLs), an Association of Christ’s Faithful which houses seminarians, Brothers and Sisters in Canberra and Melbourne.

They are part of the Disciples of Jesus movement driven by a

missionary focus and the radical poverty of St Francis of Assisi.

Fr Dan, as he is affectionately called, is 33 years old. He was a listless drifter studying computer science at a Melbourne university when he was invited by a mate to a Disciples of Jesus weekend retreat.

He was immediately blown away by a) the fact that there were young priests… “I didn’t think young people became priests anymore”, and b) young people clearly

expressing their faith in a genuine way. Though he was brought up in a traditional Catholic Italian family, this was his moment of “adult conversion”.

“By spending more time with them I felt rising in me a desire to be a missionary, a priest, an evangelist, and to work with young people and see them experience what I had experienced,” he said.

He joined the MGLs the following year and was ordained a priest

in 2000. The life of MGLs reflects the ethos of the Disciples of Jesus - intellectual formation in a communal experience of sharing faith together, without the hindrance of normal circumstances.

“We present the basic Gospel message to young people, and offer them a chance to become leaders of today and the future,” Fr Benedetti says. “We empower them with spiritual and intellectual gifts to live out their faith today with a mix of traditional and modern worship.”

And it’s attracting young people in droves. Testimonies were given by teenagers who were dragged along to “24-7” retreats – run by Disciples of Jesus for young teenagers – and came out of them thanking and praising God that their parents had been so bold.

The most emotional testimony last week came from 17-year-old Seamus Jordan, who was “forced” to attend a 24-7 weekend when he was in year nine.

In true providential style, his mother only found out about it when she went through his school pants for tissues before putting them in the wash and saw the brochure he was given at school.

He said the friendships and relationships he built on that retreat have strengthened his formation to the point where he now goes to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament with Fr Doug Harris at Glendalough and daily Mass.

“It had an unreal effect on my life,” he said. He then broke down when adding: “I praise God for my mum making me go to 24-7, as it has changed my life.”

Even younger was Singaporeborn Camilla Soh, a 15-year-old student who admitted her faith was kept at bay by her desire to be the popular one at school. Camilla said she followed everyone else just to be accepted but it turned her into a self-centred person. She, too attended 24-7 as her parents “forced” her, but it wasn’t until her second Anchor weekend in the 24-7 ministry that she realised how much she admired the other participants who openly expressed their faith. She realised “you don’t have to deny God to be cool”, yet the retreat was still, deep down, an excuse to boost her social life.

The change came from being in an environment and learning about God “in a fun way”, which came on the next retreat, when she got the “gift of tongues”, when she didn’t know what to say but was still able

Celebration meal for the Lord’s Day: Ozzie D’Rozario offers up bread as part of the traditional celebration of the Lord’s Day in the Disciples of Jesus Covenant Community at Summer School 2007 at New Norcia. The ritual is based on the Jewish Sabbath Meal and uses the symbols of light, bread and wine to recall the blesssings of the Lord.

Extra help: Michael Sandrini (left) prays over Gerard Cummins at New Norcia.

Walking in the footsteps of greatness

David Callaghan walked all the way to New Norcia to tread in the footsteps of Bishop Salvado

■ By Anthony Barich

West Australian Missionaries of God’s Love seminarian Br David Callaghan walked in New Norcia founder Bishop Rosendo Salvado’s footsteps on his long journey before selecting the sit of the old Monastic town last week.

Br David, who is to be ordained a priest in the MGL order in two years, walked to New Norcia for the Disciples of Jesus Summer Camp from his parents’ house in Duncraig – over roughly 170km - as part of his final preparations before his ordination.

“It was significant that I do this, as I’m in a missionary order, to tap into the zeal Bishop Salvado had,” 28-year-old Br David said.

Bishop Salvado was but a Spanish missionary priest when he walked from Perth to New Norcia with Fr Joseph Benedict Serra, who was also later to become a bishop of Perth.

The pair cleared the land before Fr Salvado, a talented musician, walked back to Perth to perform a recital of whole passages from Bellini’s Opera “Norma”, to raise funds to build New Norcia.

The MGLs rely entirely on God’s providence for their missionary work, which involves traveling to remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory to witness to Christ.

to pray. This is, on the surface and to the uninitiated, an odd element of the Charismatic way.

Yet the fact is that this form of prayer, which Fr Dan admitted sounds “freaky” and sounds like nothing more than gibberish, helps young people who are otherwise confused or afraid of saying the wrong thing to express themselves to a God they are just starting to get to know through the person of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.

There are signs of hope

As Fr Dan is acutely aware, there is often negativity in Church circles or about the Church.

So it was for Br David when, armed with plenty of suncream, a small daypack with enough food for four days, a sheet and blanket, he set off for New Norcia.

It took him four days, traveling from sun-up till sunset, and sure enough, he amazingly found an abandoned beach shack hidden in the dunes barely 10km south of Guilderton, which sheltered him from the wind and rain that pelted down that night. The next night the weather

was a little better but he sheltered behind the walls outside a church in Gingin.

The last night he simply slept on the side of the highway 30km south of New Norcia.

Though appearing as a slender chap, Br David is, in fact, a machine. He used to be a big cycling enthusiast and some of that fitness remains.

Even while at the seminary in Canberra, he spends his holidays trekking up mountains around

Canberra and the northern end of Kosciuszko National Park.

But even that did not prevent his legs from reaching failing point – which helped him get a glimpse of the life of the early Spanish missionaries who started New Norcia.

“It’s something I felt called to do – to walk in the footsteps of Bishop Salvado,” Br David said. Br David’s “adult conversion” occurred in the simplest of ways, but unsurprising given the

sometimes astounding nature of providence. While studying science at the University of Western Australia, the priesthood was the last thing on his mind.

Just by chance he picked up a copy of a book on St Francis of Assisi in his local Doubleview church while waiting for a friend to meet him at an Antioch Catholic youth group meeting.

He was 18 at the time.

This sparked a “mini-conversion” which made him see his faith in a whole new way.

“From there I felt God calling me to consecrated life, but I had no idea what that would be,” he said. When he attended a Disciples of Jesus Summer School in Bindoon everything became clear.

“When I saw the spirit of the MGL priests it fit everything I was looking for,” he said.

Spending time in Darwin as part of MGL mission work, he realised how diverse the work of a priest is. “I learned why they call priests ‘Father’ – you just have hundreds of ‘kids’ to look after.”

“If you really knew how much you were loved by God, you’d desire the same for others and carry out His ministry in that way.” Thus sums up Br David’s assessment of the Missionary of God’s Love. The order, based in Canberra but recently expanded to Melbourne, is booming. The Missionaries exist, quite simply, to proclaim the Good News of Jesus to the ends of the earth

For information on becoming a brother or priest within the MGL order, contact Fr Ken Barker on 02 6281-0132 or email frken@smartchat.net.au, or Judy Bowe for the Sisters in the order on 02 6245-5441 or email sisterscbr@smartchat.net.au.

Thirteen priests, 30 more in training, eight Sisters and five Brothers are currently carrying out their mission, started by Fr Ken Barker, a diocesan priest in Canberra who was inspired by the life of St Francis of Assisi in particular.

Fr Barker was especially inspired by St Francis’ “radical poverty” –the ethos which the Missionaries of God’s Love currently live by, along with their brown pants which also have a distinct Franciscan flavour.

Though, as Fr Daniel jokes, brown pants were the only thing they found in the closet when the order was founded, such was the

But glance at the Missionaries of God’s Love houses in Melbourne and Canberra and evidence appears which counteracts the status quo.

literal poverty of the order. “For me, seeing young priests and Brothers was the inspiring thing – to talk, play sport and pray with them,” he says, adding that it is also important for young people to experience a priest who can “be real”.

They are present in the Disciples of Jesus Summer School, running them in Bathurst, Melbourne, Newcastle and WA – last week’s was held in New Norcia for the first time when previously they had been run in Bunbury and Bindoon.

The New Norcia choice proved a masterstroke – group leaders and participants alike, young and old, were moved by the tranquility of the place perfectly conducive to prayer and contemplation. The

clear and visible witness which the MGLs within the Disciples of Jesus give is, as Fr Dan describes, in accordance to the ethos with which Christ lived – people were impacted by experiencing Him personally.

“Faith is shared in a personal way,” Fr Dan says.

“It’s great if you can preach the Gospel, but the big impact is if you can live the Gospel with others.”

MGLs and the Disciples of Jesus go into the world through street and school ministry, not least of which as chaplains to Catholic Aboriginal communities in Darwin.

Vocations are increasing and Fr Daniel has had to move to Melbourne to set up seminary houses for new men training for

Summer School lectures on living in the Holy Spirit

Theology of the Human Person

Kate Atkins MGL

Who are we? What does it mean to be created in God’s image? Why did God create us and what is our true identity?

Looks at both Old and New Testament and see what God reveals to us about ourselves; issues surrounding freedom and dignity. What is the effect of sin and what is God’s response? Why did Jesus become human and what does this say about the dignity of the human person?

The Creed

David Callaghan MGL

The Creed of the Church sums up everything we need to know about Christianity, but what does it mean, where did it come from, what of the things it doesn’t mention? Looks at the Creed so it’s

something we can live our lives by.

What Catholics believe and how to defend it

Richard Egan

Covers Catholic Apologetics:

The existence of God and the problem of evil; the reliability of Gospels and Jesus’ claim to be God; the resurrection of Jesus and the foundation of the Church; the Mass and Sacraments; Mary, the saints and the last things… and how to defend it all.

Love one another as I have loved you – Understand the Church as Communion

Dan Strickland, MGL

The Second Vatican Council invites us to rediscover the Church as Communion – a deep invite from God to intimate relationship with Him in love, and to relation-

ship with each other.

John’s Gospel: The Truth will set you free

Fr Daniel Benedetti MGL

Focus on the unique message of John’s Gospel, the “Spiritual Gospel”. John proclaims to us Truth which sets us free and empowers us to be the Christians and Saints of the New Millennium.

Theology of the Body

Richard Egan

In a series of addresses from 1979-84 JPII gave the Church a catechesis on the “Theology of the Body”, exploring on the basis of biblical texts the meaning of the human body in the context of human personhood, sexuality, celibacy and marriage. Lecture introduces Catechesis of: Original unity of man & woman; Blessed are the

pure in heart; the resurrection of the body; celibacy for the kingdom and the sacrament of marriage.

The Church as Mission

Fr Daniel Benedetti MGL

The Church is by her very nature missionary. Since the time of Jesus and the Apostles, God’s Spirit has empowered the Church to proclaim the Good News. Lecture explores the relevant New Testament texts and the inspirational teachings of Paul VI and JPII. Focus on the Australian Church, its challenges and opportunities.

Prayer in the Church

Various

Discover the richness of prayer in the Church. Session on praying with scriptures (Lectio divina) and the Divine Office by Abbot Placid Spearitt, OSB; adoration and

the order. “Youth are after stuff that is loud and clear,” says Fr Dan, who has attended Disciples of Jesus Summer Schools since 1992. “They want to be part of the Church, in a group that knows what it is. Where is the fun, happiness, freedom? It is a sign of the Holy Spirit.”

The Disciples of Jesus was born “from the grace of the Baptism of the Spirit” within the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Formed in 1994 by the amalgamation of two communities – the Disciples of Jesus and Hephzibah – the organisation has about 1000 adult members in Perth, Canberra, Melbourne, Albury-Wodonga, Adelaide, Sydney, Blue Mountains, NSW Central Coast, Darwin, Wollongong, Hobart, Cairns, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Bali. For more information contact 92026868

devotions by Fr Douglas Harris; Charismatic praise and worship by Reg Firth.

Meeting Jesus in the Gospel of Mark

Dan Strickland MGL Mark invites us to discover the person of Jesus – God’s offer to us that we may encounter in a personal way the Jesus whom Mark himself knew deeply.

Who is Jesus

David Callaghan MGL

Looks at Who is Jesus and opens up the scriptures to show the depth that there is to this mystery, looking at the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus and his gift of himself to us in the Eucharist. Through this we see that he is at the centre of everything and everything revolves around him.

Things are looking up: David Callaghan set out on a remarkable journey that was an inspiration to all.

Perspectives

The inner world

I am writing in response to Adelaide Archbishop Wilson’s speech regarding Fr Rohr’s comments.

The truth is we the Church are supposed to be spreading the good news of the kingdom of God but all we are doing is spreading our good news of the world.

It is all very good to rattle off the works of the Church but the fact is the real good is hidden from most of us. Jesus spent most of his life hidden from the world. We must learn from our Teacher and God that to have a gentle and humble heart is to go beyond our selves and live only for God.

The Kingdom of God is within us so we must go within ourselves and search for answers. To go within means to listen to God in silence, to pray alone in your room where no one can see you, it means to pray and learn about your true self. It means to give up control, power, wealth, status and fame all of which block inner spiritual development and growth.

The Kingdom of God is within but we the Church are mostly interested in the without and externalities of life rather than the mystical or deep relationship/union with God.

The Church must be fundamentally fostering the awareness and development of self knowledge and prayer, to put God back into the picture. When God goes all falls apart.

I, like Fr Rohr and many others, truly care about the survival of the Catholic Church. The Church will survive, hope always remains but there comes the time when we must acknowledge the truth and the truth will hurt but in patient suffering comes eternal joy and everlasting fruit. Truly I say to you, Unless the grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies it remains alone but if it dies it bears much fruit. John 12:24

Steven Blunsdon

A bedtime story

In view of the intensity of argument roused by the matter of a crucifix being covered or removed at the request of a hospital patient troubled in his religious beliefs by this imagery, The Record would like to remind readers of a story previously published in this paper.

It comes from a book published in Italy within the last two years by a Jewish man who was a young boy during WWII.

His extended family – father, mother, uncles, aunts, siblings and cousins – were sheltered in various places by the Catholic Church while the German army was trying to round up all Italian Jews.

At one point, the males, adult and children, were sheltered in a presbytery by a priest. He was

letters to the editor

Encouragement

I would like to comment on the letter of Michael Hitchins regarding Youth (Record 4th Jan.) Hooray for optimism. Hopefully numbers will grow - remember Jesus started with only twelve and look what happened! In the words of St Paul (Eph.4:29) we are told to encourage rather than to tear down, which can be summed up in “criticism is out and compliments are in”.

CYM can’t do everything. It is up to us, too, in our parishes to foster youth work.

Remember all the young people who come to 6.30 Holy Hour and who attended the Embrace the Grace conference come from, and go back to, their parishes.

(Fr.) John O’Reilly Wilson

Hands and Heart

Thank you for your excellent and thought provoking coverage of Archbishop Wilson’s response to Fr Richard Rohr’s recent comments.

Perhaps your readers might like to seek middle ground by asking themselves a question which was the topic for an open forum at a conference I attended some years ago: If we were accused of being Christian would there be enough evidence to convict us?

In matters of the head and the hands-which were I felt the focus of what Archbishop Wilson had to say-there is certainly great cause

for optimism and for hope (I am sure that Archbishop Wilson was not arguing for complacency).

In matters of the heart-clearly Fr Rohr’s home territory-I at least am less optimistic (though equally hopeful).

And I am less optimistic partly because I wonder whether too much emphasis on the head/hands aspect of what we do in liturgy and the wider life of the Church is a distraction from the “alternative universe” of the heart.

As Archbishop Wilson rightly points out, we are called to engage “in a dialogue with the world”.

In this dialogue I would hope that each of us would be prepared to risk being recognised and convicted of being visitors from an alternative universe.

Margaret Ker Mount Lawley

The Vulgate

I have been waiting for someone more learned than I to write in reply to a letter writer of recent weeks who wrote that the Vulgate Latin Bible was infallible.

It is far from that, as is shown in the Vulgate article by John L. McKenzie, SJ, in his Dictionary of the Bible, 1968, London, Geoffrey Chapman, pp 916-8.

In short, the text has many errors, and Church scholars have attempted to remove them over the centuries.

The current text, published by Clement VIII 1592-93, had to exclude post-resurrection writing masquerading as an Old Testament book! (4th Esdras, also called 2nd Esdras; see McKenzie, p 44)

In 1907 Pope St Pius X appointed a commission to prepare a “critical edition,” and the work was being carried out by the Benedictine monastery of St Jerome in Rome, according to Father McKenzie.

The current position is that the Vulgate is “authentic” (Council of Trent), that is, appointed to be

Tel: (08) 9227 7080, Fax: (08) 9227 7087

used in the liturgy. Translations from the original languages are superior, which was recognised by Pope Pius XII in Divino Afflante Spiritu, 1943.

John Massam Greenwood

Silver crucifixes

We left Perth three months ago to live in Adelaide and at this stage, still subscribe to The Record

To cover up our crucified Lord to please human-kind for whatever reason belongs to the spirit of ‘Anti-Christ’.

I enclose below an extract from Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s book – ‘Through the Year with Fulton Sheen’ pg.32.

“This silver crucifix that I wear, I wear in reparation. I was in a Jewish jewellery store one day in New York, where I had known the jeweller for twenty or twenty-five years.

He said to me, “I have some silver crucifixes for you”.

He gave me a bag of silver crucifixes, over a hundred of them. I said, “Where did you get them?”

“Oh,” he said, “from sisters; they brought them in. They told me, ‘We’re not going to wear the crucifix any more; it divides us from the world.”

“How much will you give us for the silver?’”

Then he said, “What’s wrong with your Church? I thought that meant something to you”.

So I told him what was wrong. Three months later I received him into the Church.”

Patricia Schilling Adelaide

Thanks, Fr Rohr

The Record’s long anti-Rohr campaign was given another boost last week, with its article about Archbishop Wilson’s comments on Father Richard Rohr’s radio interview in November.

something of a biblical scholar, and when it came time for the Passover, he went out and acquired all the items they would need to celebrate their Seder meal. A little later, the author and his brother and cousin were hidden in a boarding school run by nuns. Their ethnic identity was not revealed to the other students.

On the first evening, he discovered that the bedtime custom in the dormitory was for each of the boys to kiss the crucifix worn as part of her habit by the nun in charge.

As this boy approached and bent to kiss the cross, he found himself kissing her fingers which she had placed over the cross. The nun bent forward and whispered in his ear: “When you get under the sheets, remember to say your own prayers.” This scene was repeated for him and the other two boys every night they were sheltered at the Convent.

That is the way the Church respects the religious freedom and integrity of other people.

And on that note, we declare that correspondence on this subject is closed. We have not published all the letters we have received, including one with 46 signatures from Maddington Parish, but the topic is closed.

While the weakness of Father Rohr’s arguments is his tendency to make sweeping generalisations, it would be a mistake to dismiss him out of hand when so much of what he has to say is accurate, relevant and highly prophetic.

Fr Rohr has had a profound influence in my life, and has done more than any other priest to help me find my way back into the Catholic Church, after years of struggling to find meaning.

It was his powerful insights and passionate belief in the Church that taught me to love the Church again. It was only when I found healing and forgiveness for my own brokenness that I was able to forgive the Church for being as broken as I am.

When we deny our brokenness we close our eyes to the truth and shut our ears to the voice of Jesus, whose love heals us and sets us free.

I plead with those who love the Church not to dismiss this gifted man who may have more to say to your heart than you dare to hear.

Fran Ellyard North Perth

Crucifixes and death penalty

The disappearance of the crucifix, even temporarily by being covered is a serious matter.

Symbols are very important and we should not be intimidated into covering them.

As the Gospels say: LK 9:26 “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, of him the Son of man will be ashamed when he comes in his own glory and in the glory of the Father and the Holy Angels.”

Crucifixes also remind the patient of their mortality and that Christ also knew great pain and suffering and that we are redeemed by the suffering and death of Christ.

Despite the teachings of the world, our faith teaches us that suffering has value if accepted and seen in the light of the Gospels.

Being in hospital is a time when all these thoughts come to mind in the loneliness of a hospital bed. And the crucifix takes their attention.

If some people object to the crucifix they are free to use other hospitals, as we are still in a democracy and not as yet subject to Sharia law.

These people are simply not used to democracy but they need to learn.

As for Bishop Saunders and the death penalty, the Catechism, 2266, teaches differently that punishment does not exclude in eases of extreme gravity, the death penalty. The only reason in the West that the death penalty was banned by governments, was to make way for abortion and euthanasia.

As long as the death penalty existed, abortion and euthanasia could not be introduced.

And strange as it may seem, the death penalty was dropped almost simultaneously throughout the Western World.

How did this occur?

Now of course the death penalty is used on tens of millions of innocent babies every year, whilst the guilty get off scot free.

Fr T Smith

Dianella

Silence, please!

Trevor Boardman, Maylands’ letter: “Choir singing whilst Congregation are receiving Communion” is a distraction is correct.

In support of what he mentioned I would like to add that it also is a distraction for those wishing to meditate after receiving Our Blessed Lord in communion, those offering praise and thanksgiving for the wonderful gift of Himself to us, and those seeking His blessing and help for ourselves, our family, friends, Church and Country.

John Fleeton Success

Duncraig

A life of service

Perth’s jubilarian priests shed some light on what it means to devote a lifetime to the service of others.

here are 20 priests living in the Perth Archdiocese who have celebrated 50 years or more of service to God and man as priests in the Catholic Church.

Fifteen of them have agreed to let us remind you of who they are and where they served.

Pope John Paul II once said that only God knew the full story of his priesthood – the call, the response and the development of it.

This is doubtless true of each of our golden jubilarians, but they have agreed to give us a brief insight into what drew them to the priesthood and what stands out now after 50 years and more of service.

These insights are an encouraging reminder to young men considering their lives that they need only to be willing to respond if God chooses to call.

As Jesus said to his Apostles, and hence to all his priests, “You have not chosen me; I have chosen you.”

The photos reinforce the words. They reveal a great variety of men – none of a kind.

We hope you will take a close interest in these men - and pray for them. Interviews and photos by Sylvia Defendi.

Fr Anton Hesse

“I recall with a lot of joy my time spent in the goldfields working as a priest on the transline. Priesthood has taken me right around the archdiocese, where I have met many different people and enjoyed the variety of a life serving God,” Fr Anton Hesse said.

Asked what the best thing about being a priest was, Fr Hesse responded by saying that one of the most rewarding aspect priesthood are the people and being able to celebrate the joy of bringing those people to God.

Born: 25/7/1930 in Sri Lanka

Ordained: 6/8/1955

Appointments: St Mary’s, Kalgoorlie; Immaculate Conception, East Fremantle; Immaculate Heart of Mary, Scarborough; Kondinin parish; Sacred Heart, Mundaring; Good Shepherd, Kelmscott; Holy Name, Carlisle; Good Shepherd, Lockridge; Chaplain at Little Sisters of the Poor, Glendalough and St Kieran’s, Osborne Park.

Presently: Retired.

Fr Brian Harris

“I’ve

celebrated 25, 40 and 50th anniversaries and have really enjoyed meeting up with those who have served with me in the past; with all those who I have been close to in moments of sadness and joy,” said Fr Brian Harris, who also added his joy in assisting people in moments of sadness and joy.

“My happiness is in serving God by serving his people.”

Born: 19/5/1930 in Perth

Ordained: 15/7/1953.

Appointments: St Mary’s Cathedral, Perth; St Aloysius’, Shenton Park; St Mary’s, Kalgoorlie; St Kieran’s, Osborne Park; St Columba’s, South Perth; St Francis Xavier, Armadale and St Jerome’s, Spearwood.

Presently: Parish priest at Our Lady Help of Christians, East Victoria Park.

Fr John Chokolich

When Aust ralia opened its doors to WWI migrants Fr John Chokolich travelled to the sunny shores of Fremantle with his uncle at the age of seven and did not see his parents for another 15 years.

Fr Chokolich went on to st udy at CBC Perth where he vividly remembers the principal, Br Kenniry’s remark: “We won’t bother about mathematics for you will not need to know how much you’ll be getting on the collect ion plate.”

“While working as an air force chaplain in Africa, I realised that there was no greater commission than to the priest hood,” said Fr Chokolich.

Born: 26/3/1917 in Croatia

Ordained: 22/12/1941

Appointments: Air force chaplain, Africa; Italy; Middle East; St Kieran’s, Osborne Park; St Brigid’s, Midland; Holy Cross, Cunderdin; St Jerome’s, Spearwood; St Mary’s, Guildford; St John the Baptist, Toodyay; Our Lady of Grace, North Beach; Sacred Heart, Highgate and Holy Family, Kalamunda.

Presently: Chaplain at Villa Terenzio Italian Aged Care.

An experience of a lifetime

Celebrating over 800 years of service to the Catholic Church and more specifically to the archdiocese of Perth, The Record journalist SYLVIA DEFENDI reports on the life-changing experiences of 15 jubilarian priests, who call Western Australia home and have made the well-being of WA parishioners their

Born: 21/9/1920 in Ireland

Ordained: 13/6/1946

Appointments: Our Lady of Fatima, Palmyra; St Brigid’s, Collie; St Mary’s, Leederville; Sacred Heart, Highgate; St Mary’s Cathedral, Perth; Santa Clara, Bentley; Holy Name, Carlisle; St Anne’s, North Fremantle; Stella Maris, Fremantle; Royal Australian Navy Chaplain, Fremantle; St Gerard’s, Mirrabooka; St Aloysius,’ Shenton Park and St Augustine’s, Rivervale. Presently: Retired

I mmersed in the ‘tourism industry’ Monsignor John O’Shea, who was once port chaplain at Fremantle and is now resident chaplain at Rottnest Island, said he enjoyed providing an open Church that cared for people while on holidays. And with over 55,000 visitors a year, Mgr O’Shea has certainly had his fair share of comings and goings.

Of his priesthood Mgr O’Shea said: “The best thing about being a priest is having the ability to serve God and help people in various ways, both spiritually and socially.”

Born: 1925 in Ireland

Ordained: 12/6/1955

Appointments: Immaculate Conception, East Fremantle; St Anne’s, North Fremantle; St Mary’s Cathedral, Perth; Fremantle Port Chaplain and St Mary Star of the Sea, Mosman Park. Presently: Chaplain at Rottnest Island.

“Ihad met him when he was a cardinal. One morning I turned on the news and was ecstatic to discover that the cardinals had broken a 800 year tradition by elect ing a non-Italian Pope,” Fr Finbar Walsh said of the memorable moment when Pope John Paul II was elected leader of the Church. For Fr Walsh, the most important aspect of priesthood is in “being able to celebrate Mass, which is Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.”

Born: 5/3/1929 in Ireland

Ordained: 21/6/1953

Appointments: St Brigid’s, West Perth; Star of the Sea, Cottesloe and St Mary’s Cathedral, Perth.

Presently: Parish priest at Our Lady of Lourdes, Rockingham.

“T here is no priest in our small poor village. Mum and I are praying that you be our fi rst priest,” Fr Julian Carrasco said, reiterating his father’s words. And so it was. Fr Carrasco became the fi rst priest from his village at the age of 23. His fondest memory is that of his 50th anniversary of ordination. “I went home to Goa with Archbishop Barry Hickey and met up with most of the priests whom I had studied with,” he said.

Fr Carrasco said that being a priest allows him to serve and love others with God.

Born: 20/12/1930 in Kenya.

Ordained: 6/1/1954

Appointments: Aldona, Goa; Ngong and Kilgoris, Kenya; Brazil; Macau, China; Christ the King, Beaconsfield; Holy Cross, Hamilton Hill.

Presently: Chaplain to the Portuguese Community.

Born: 12/9/1927 in Ireland

Ordained: 8/7/1956

“I t almost became a different country when you entered the suburb of West Perth during the 60’s. “St Brigid’s Chuch had a very strong Italian community, many of whom could not speak any English. To them the Church was a recognisable homeland,” Fr Maurice Toop said of his experience in ministering to migrants.

Appointments: Chicago; Kwazululand, South Africa; Denver, Colorado; Portland, Oregon; California; St Denis’, Joondana; St Anthony of Padua, Wanneroo; Our Lady of Grace, North Beach and Chaplain at St John of God Hospital, Murdoch.

Presently: Chaplain at Graylands Mental Institution.

fter six years of secondary school, followed by a further six years within the seminary I was fi nally ordained. It was the best day of my life,” said Fr Henry Byrne. Fr Byrne said: “the best thing about the priesthood is the relationships that are built with all those you meet.”

Born: 29/11/1931 in Ireland

Ordained: 3/6/1956

Appointments: Queen of Martyrs, Maylands; St Mary’s, Kalgoorlie; St Aloysius’, Shenton Park; St Thomas the Apostle, Claremont; Sacred Heart, Beverley; St Jude’s, Lynwood/Langford and Immaculate Heart of Mary, Scarborough.

Presently: Retired

“Each year I recall perhaps the most important day of all, my ordination to the priesthood,” Fr Patrick Boyle said of his ever-memorable ordination. For over 20 years Fr Boyle was the parish priest of St Anthony of Padua church in Wanneroo.

M

Fr Toop recalled with joy the many diverse cultures he had encountered during his life of priesthood and said this had given him the grace to see things from different points of view.

Born: 8/5/1931 in Perth.

Ordained: 12/9/1954 in Perth

Appointments: St Brigid’s, West Perth; Sacred Heart, Highgate; All Hallow’s, Boulder; St Mary’s, Kalgoorlie; St Kieran’s, Osborne Park; St Cecilia’s, Port Headland; Christ the King, Meekatharra; Christ the Redeemer, Laverton and St Joseph’s, Northam.

Presently: Parish Priest at Queen of Martyrs, Maylands.

onsignor James Nestor said he always had the idea of becoming a priest.

“I wouldn’t want to exchange it for anything else,” he said.

As a former director of the Catholic Education Office in WA Mgr Nestor recounted his experiences of the shift from religious educators to lay teachers.

“The number of religious had fallen and it was terribly important to obtain state aid. It was a very important role at that time and I enjoyed it thoroughly,” he said.

Born: 15/10/1926 in Ireland.

Ordained: 16/6/1956

Appointments: Director of Catholic Education Office, diocese of Perth; St Mary Star of the Sea, Cottesloe.

Presently: Retired

During his service at Wanneroo he was in charge of the building process for the new church, which opened in May 20, 2001.

Fr Boyle said he relished the opportunity priesthood presented for meeting and getting to know people.

Born: 7/3/1930 in Ireland

Ordained: 8/7/1956

Appointments: Belen, New Mexico; St Anthony of Padua, Wanneroo; Our Lady of the Way, Kingsbury, Victoria; Vicar Provincial of the Servite Order and St Denis’, Joondanna.

Presently: Retired

Born: 23/7/1923 in London

Ordained: 22/5/1948

Appointments: Army chaplain, Austria, Korea, Malaysia and Germany; Albany; Nannup; Boyup Brook; Manjimup; Sacred Heart, Beverley; St Jude’s, Lynwood/Langford; Santa Clara, Bentley; St Peter the Apostle, Bedford; St

the Sea, Cottesloe and St Mary’s, Leederville.

Presently: Priest in charge at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Wilson.

“M y most memorable moments of priesthood have been when people have asked me how they too can fi nd peace of mind, whether I could help them become closer to God or to explain my faith and the reasons why I believe,” said Benedict ine monk Fr Jean Marie Wodon. Fr Wodon believes that as Catholics we should all strive to lead by example.

Most important to Fr Wodon is the grace he has been given to offer praise and worship to God, for him and all humankind.

Born: 12/10/1923 in Belgium.

Ordained: 25/7/1946.

Appointments: Farming manager at the Belgian Abbey, Chaplain to an aged care facility in Belgium, contemplative at the Benedict ine Abbey in New Norcia.

Presently: Retired

“I remember my fi rst Mass in English. It opened up a new vision for the Church that is very beneficial and has instilled a whole new spirituality,” said Fr Daniel Foley as he recalled the changes brought about by the Second Vatican Council. Of his calling to the priesthood Fr Foley said he was always interested in religion and took great delight in serving Mass at Scared Heart Church in Highgate.

“Th ings just developed from there,” he said.

As a priest, Fr Foley particularly enjoys his rapport with people and the challenge of helping them to grow towards God and fi nd their place in the Church.

Born: 28/8/1930 in Perth.

Ordained: 6/8/1955

Appointments: St Mary’s, Leederville; St Joseph’s, Subiaco; Holy Cross, Kensington; Holy Rosary, Nedlands; Kambalda; St Joseph Pignatelli’s, Attadale; St Kieran’s, Osborne Park; Beverley and Good Shepherd, Lockridge.

Presently: Retired resident at Lockridge parish.

Fr Eamon McKenna

Currently a chaplain at Graylands Mental Institution, Fr Frank Christie said the priesthood gave him so many opportunities to do works for the benefit of others. “I will always remember my ordination with great joy. It was a beautiful ceremony,” he said.

“W e were all waiting for the changes of the Second Vatican Council, however, we never thought our wishes would come true,” said Fr James Petry, who was awarded the MBE in 1953 for his services in the Korean War. Of his priesthood, Fr Petry said he always enjoyed looking after people, whether in the army or those from suburban parishes.

Mary Star of

“A

rriving in Australia on Boxing Day was amazing. For me it was the beginning of a whole new era,” said Fr Eamon McKenna. Of his priesthood Fr McKenna said he particularly enjoyed assisting those who were in difficulty.

Opinion

The power of spoken words

Catherine Parish

@ home

“Tell me a story, Mummy” ... I have just crept out of our four-yearold’s room after again successfully getting him on his way to sleep by relating the 157th instalment of the Endless Adventures of the Little Boy to Whom Nothing Ever Happened. Thankfully picking up my book to enjoy the quiet, the first thing I read was that Christianity faced a problem with rising illiteracy in the developed world because it is a religion based on a book. True, I thought - but then - no, not quite true.

Christianity is a religion based on the Word not the written word, but Jesus Christ, the Word incarnate, spoken by God Himself. Who can forget those imposing and beautiful words at the beginning of St John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”; and a little later, “the Word

was made flesh and dwelt amongst us” (Jn 1:14)? We may never have actually read those words on the page, but we have heard them countless times. The person who speaks the words and the sight of those words being put into practice has traditionally been the first and most powerful way of attracting people to Christianity, following the chosen method of Our Lord. After all, who, when hearing some

Unburden

wonderful news (or, reprehensibly, a particularly juicy piece of gossip) doesn’t race next door or to the phone to pass it on and share it with as many people as possible?

Thus the continuing importance of hearing the Scriptures read aloud at Mass, and explained according to Catholic teaching by Father in the Homily. There would not be a practising Catholic adult who did not know off by heart many

our children

Dutch evangelist Corrie ten Boom used to share with her audiences a story from her childhood of a train ride that she took with her father. On the journey she innocently asked him about a term she heard relating to premarital sex. But rather than give her an answer, her father, a watchmaker by trade, asked his daughter to bring him his bag of tools which lay on the opposite seat.

Young Corrie tried but soon protested that the bag was too heavy for her. Her father nodded and replied that the answer to her question was also too heavy for such a young girl to carry. He would not be much of a father, he said, if he allowed his daughter to be burdened with such a load before she was ready.

Years later, the entire ten Boom family were placed in a Nazi concentration camp for their role in harbouring Jews in occupied Holland. The attitude of protecting those who could not fend for themselves was obviously firmly entrenched in this family. But how often do we see this trait displayed in our world today?

We live in a society that appears determined to impose on our children baggage that is too heavy for them to carry. Whether through legislation, education or media

of the psalms, some of the Old Testament and a good part of the New Testament, as well as the Mass itself, without realising it.

When you think about what people are like, the wisdom of such an approach becomes patent. Just contemplate the phenomenal memory of a little child. What parent has not sighed and gone back and read the whole page instead of the ‘edited version’ on the strength of that memory; or been caught contradicting themselves, proven by the verbatim recount from those baby lips of exactly what happened in the l32nd instalment of The Endless Adventures. What parent has not been confronted with “But you said we could at 9.37am on March 24, 2001”? We often remember things we hear much more clearly than things we read. Our Lord when on earth did not write a book, he taught verbally and by his actions, and with such vivid imagery and trenchant explanation that the actions, stories and injunctions lodged themselves in the minds, and, more important, the hearts, of the apostles. He may have used Mosaic writings as a starting point, but only as a launching pad for his explanation of their true meaning - that He was their fulfilment. He is the personification of the Old Testament prophecies - the Word made flesh. One of the beauties of the film “The Passion of the Christ” is the emphasis on Our Lord’s own consciousness of this fact and his free choice to undergo the Passion renewed constantly throughout his dreadful sufferings, right to the moment of his death. He did not write about it, He did it. Who could ever forget those words “It is consummated” uttered with His dying breath?

influences, there seems to be a deliberate attempt to bombard them with sexual knowledge and information that they would never have been privy to, even a generation ago.

Children at increasingly younger ages are being exposed, through lawmakers, education programmers and television, music, advertising and film producers, to a more intrusive array of sexual images, language and behaviours.

We are impeding our children with information that they are morally incapable of digesting. Society seems to have bundled sexual awareness into the same basket as issues such as skin cancer, smoking and eating habits. There seems to be a belief that the success of such campaigns to educate and inform the public in areas of physical health can be equally effective when transplanted in the field of sexuality. And herein lies the problem.

We have separated morality from sexuality and stripped it to its anatomical shell. We seem to think that biological information as early as possible will protect young people from any detrimental encounters. But what we in essence are doing is opening up a door that allows them to wander aimlessly into a sexual minefield.

The psalmist’s words still hold good for us today - “If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”

The fact is that God created us as spiritual and emotional beings and it is not possible to separate the bodily aspects of sexuality from the overall nature of love in which it was intended, without dire consequences.

And we can see these all around us. Single teen mothers, unwanted pregnancies, abortions, sexual diseases and related emotional and mental trauma continue to escalate despite the vast array of sexual information that is being poured into our children.

I believe that while we continue to divorce sexuality from the divine bond of love, that is intended to guide, nurture and fulfil it, we should expect this list of casualties to grow. By providing biological information to children before they are spiritually, emotionally and morally prepared, we are doing what Corrie ten Boom’s father refused to do; we are burdening our children with a load that was never intended for them to carry.

■ with Mark Reidy

Word of God: Mgr Raymond East, from the Archdiocese of Washington, preaches his homily during Mass. PHOTO: CNS

The World FEATURE Where religion meets politics

In Latin America, religion and politics always mix.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s references to God during recent re-election campaign are par for the course for many countries and leaders.

■ By Alejandro Bermúdez

enezuelan President

VHugo Chávez quotes the New Testament time and again, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega wins the election by running as a devout Catholic, banana magnate Alvaro Noboa runs in Ecuador as el mensajero de Dios (“God’s messenger”) and a retired Catholic bishop in Argentina wins a local referendum against the president’s favourite.

Are we seeing an epidemic of religious populism in Latin America?

This seems to be the top question among Latin American observers in the United States after one of the region’s most influential analysts, the Miami Herald’s Andres Oppenheimer, recently focused on the issue in his syndicated column “The Oppenheimer Report.”

According to Oppenheimer, “many analysts see a growing political manipulation of religious fervour in the region, alongside a greater Church influence in state affairs.

“Some fear that, much as in other parts of the world, religion will soon be used to fuel domestic and even regional confrontations.”

If such analysts exist, they are certainly not from Latin America. In the region, Oppenheimer’s “discovery” has been received with little more than a yawn.

“If there is anything new, it is Oppenheimer finally recognising the critical role of religion in Latin America,” said Pedro Morandé, a Chilean sociologist member of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for the Social Sciences.

“In fact, it is surprising how such analysts have been ignoring for decades the fact that the Latin American equivalent to the American motto ‘It’s the economy, stupid,’ can easily be ‘It’s the religion.’ “

In a region where almost all presidencies are inaugurated with a Te Deum at a Catholic cathedral, each branch of the armed forces has a patron saint, soccer teams go on pilgrimage to Marian shrines and the most important Catholic feasts are national holidays, it is hard to talk about a “new” relevance of religion in the region.

“Neither the relevance of religion nor the intention to use it for political benefits is something new in Latin America,” said Fernando Moreno, a philosopher from Chile’s Gabriela Mistral University who studies religious and cultural trends in the region.

“Of course, religion has been something either irrelevant or incomprehensible for most of the

Latin American elites, educated under the secularist mindset of American and European universities,” Moreno told Our Sunday Visitor, “so much so that much of the economic and political failures of the region are to blame not on its Catholic identity, but on its elites’ incapacity to acknowledge it.”

Catholic pastors are the most important social and cultural leaders; and the parish, besides being the centre for religious activities, is the heart of the social and cultural life.

Religion as the base for social networking may be looser and less evident in large cities, but it is the most important binding factor in smaller cities and rural areas in the region. In fact, Catholic pastors are the most important social and cultural leaders; and the parish, besides being the centre for religious activities, is the heart of the social and cultural life.

“The relevance of the Catholic parish is not only the consequence of weak social and political institutions,” said former Colombian senator Carlos Corsi Otárola.

“As a politician who had to run several campaigns, I can say that religion is at the heart of the people’s concerns.

“Ours is a people that has religion at the core, and therefore the Church plays the most relevant role in their lives.”

Quoting results of Latinobarómetro, an annual public-opinion poll conducted in 17 Latin American countries, Oppenheimer noted that the Church is by far the most respected institution in the region, with 71 percent of Latin Americans saying they trust the Church.

By comparison, 43 percent said they trust their president, 42 percent trust the armed forces, 38 percent trust the private sector, 28 percent trust Congress and only 18 percent trust political parties.

“Church actions aside much of Latin America’s current religious fervour may have to do with the growing disenchantment with politics,” Oppenheimer concluded.

“Religious populism is on the rise worldwide, and may be growing in Latin America as well.”

What Oppenheimer fails to comment on is that Latino-barómetro has consistently shown the same figures 10 years in a row, since it started polling Latin American countries in 1995.

So much for a “new” religious populism. Professor Ricardo Cubas, one of the top experts in the history of the Catholic Church in Latin America, admits that political leaders have tried on many occasions to use religion for their own advantage, but in most cases, such attempts have backfired.

“[Argentinean Populist leader] Juan Domingo Peron tried to turn

his party into a cult, [Victor Raúl] Haya de la Torre [founder of the Peruvian party APRA] called his party ‘the new religion,’ and the 1980’s Sandinistas [in Nicaragua] appointed two liberal priests as part of their cabinet. All different attempts to manipulate religion, with one same result - failure,” Cubas said.

“No wonder dictators and even populist governments like Hugo Chávez or [Bolivian President Evo] Morales are usually at odds with the Catholic hierarchy.”

“It is deeply misguided to compare the presence of religion in public life in Latin America with other realities, especially the Muslim world,” Morandé said.

“Christianity is not Islam. Unlike Islam, by its own nature, Christianity recognises the autonomy of the public square, as well as a healthy separation of Church and state.”

But Morandé believes that such separation in Latin America “does not mean that the state ignores the religious nature of the people. It is not the kind of anti-religious separation that comes from the European enlightment.”

Or, as Corsi said: “It is a commonsensical separation. No local government in the region is going to remove a crèche because a guy comes up saying it hurts his nonreligious sensibilities.

“ In a nation where the majority is Christian, isn’t that more civil, more commonsensical than going to court for a manger?”

Bermúdez writes from Peru.

Alejandro

Supporters of Daniel Ortega, presidential candidate of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, cheer during a rally in Masaya, Nicaragua on October 29.

PHOTO: CNS

The World Chinese Bishop Meng dies aged 103

Secretly ordained Chinese Bishop Meng dies at age 103

Clandestinely ordained Bishop Joseph Meng Ziwen of Nanning, China’s oldest prelate, died on January 7 at the age of 103. He had suffered from liver cancer.

Bishop Meng was ordained a bishop in 1984, but the Chinese government recognised him only as a priest.

He died at a church in Guigang, about 80 miles east of Nanning, reported UCA News, an Asian church news agency.

Coadjutor Bishop John Baptist Tan Yanchuan of Nanning succeeded Bishop Meng and was to preside at the funeral Mass, scheduled for January 13.

Bishop Meng’s great-nephew, Father Joseph Meng Weicai, who had cared for the bishop since 2002, said his great-uncle had “unlimited God-given energy,” as shown in his pastoral work at the nine churches in the Guigang area.

The bishop used to celebrate three Masses on Sundays at three different churches.

Even after turning 100, the bishop maintained this practice until his health began deteriorating in August 2005.

A Hong Kong Catholic who recently visited Bishop Meng described him as a humble person who “lived a simple life.” The Catholic told UCA News on January 9 that Bishop Meng was most concerned about evangelisation in the diocese and insisted on preaching at a new mission station three years ago, at age 100.

Since Bishop Meng was not affiliated with the government-recognised church structures, to avoid trouble for the local church he always identified himself as a priest when signing anything. Catholics usually addressed him as “Lao

Shenfu” (senior priest). Born into a non-Catholic family on March 19, 1903, in Hengling, Bishop Meng was baptised as a youth.

When he was 15 years old he went to Nanning to study for three years and stayed another eight years at the minor seminary.

In 1935 he was ordained a priest in Nanning after studying theology and philosophy for six years at the major seminary in Penang,

Malaysia.

Under the communist regime that took over in 1949, the Catholic Church and other religions endured persecution, which reached its height during the 196676 Cultural Revolution.

Only after the gradual reopening of China began in 1978 did the Church in China resume contact with the universal Church.

Bishop Meng had knowledge of

Bishops petition Vatican over abuse

Mexican bishops’ plea to Vatican on alleged abuser called unparalleled

A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Mexico City said several bishops’ petition asking the Vatican to take action against a priest accused of sexually abusing boys was “unprecedented.”

“Never in Mexico has a group of bishops united to call on Rome because we’ve never had a case like this and we hope we never do again,” the spokesman, Father Hugo Romero Asuncion, told Catholic News Service.

He noted that Father Nicolas Aguilar Rivera, who has faced charges of sexually abusing children in the United States and Mexico, has been barred from celebrating Mass since 1991.

In a separate interview, Father Eugenio Lira, a spokesman for

the Archdiocese of Puebla, confirmed that a group of bishops in the region had petitioned the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation to investigate the case because the bishops heard that the case had not been brought to the attention of the Vatican.

“There is too much evidence (against Father Aguilar),” Father Lira said, adding that the bishops have asked that the priest be expelled from the priesthood.

The case gained prominence in September, when Mexico City resident Joaquin Aguilar, 26, a former altar boy, filed a civil suit against Mexican Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera and Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, arguing they conspired to protect Father Aguilar from prosecution.

Joaquin Aguilar said Cardinal Rivera, then bishop of Tehuacan, Mexico, knew about past abus-

es when he transferred Father Aguilar to Los Angeles in 1987.

Father Aguilar allegedly molested at least 20 boys during the nine months he was in the Los Angeles Archdiocese. He fled back to Mexico, and authorities never responded to requests from Los Angeles police that he be detained to face prosecution.

Joaquin Aguilar said he was raped by Father Aguilar in 1994. Later, Father Aguilar was accused of abusing minors in his native state of Puebla. He was convicted in 2003, but he was never sentenced.

Cardinals Rivera and Mahony have denied Joaquin Aguilar’s charges, and Cardinal Rivera has vowed to cooperate with US prosecutors on the case.

Father Aguilar’s exact whereabouts remain unknown but he is believed to be in the Puebla state.

Chinese medicine, and in the 1950s he was convicted of healing enemies of the state and being against the government. He was sent to a reform-through-labour camp to build a highway in a mountainous region of Guangxi.

As many inmates fell sick, camp officials asked then-Father Meng to help.

While he cured them, he also talked to them about God whenev-

er possible, even though he could not baptise anyone.

“For me, it was equally important to cure people’s hearts as well as their bodies,” Bishop Meng told UCA News in 2004.

Upon his release in 1957, he resumed work at a church in Nanning, where he also ran a clinic, but he was arrested again the next year. After years of hardship and imprisonment, he was sent home in 1970 because he was considered too old for heavy labour.

In the 1980s, when religions began to revive in China, Bishop Meng began reclaiming church property and rebuilding churches. He recruited young Catholics to become nuns and priests.

Bishop Tan said Nanning Diocese now has 13 priests and about 30 nuns serving 40,000 Catholics in more than 100 churches.

He told UCA News on January 9 that he needs to develop a more comprehensive diocesan structure.

In December 2002, the government-recognised bishops’ conference combined the four Guangxi dioceses of Beihai, Guilin, Nanning and Wuzhou into Guangxi Diocese. When Bishop Tan was ordained on January 21, 2003, the government recognised him as coadjutor bishop of Guangxi, while the Vatican approved him as coadjutor bishop of Nanning.

Three days before Bishop Meng died, 95-year-old, governmentrecognised Bishop Peter Paul Li Panshi of Jiangmen died of lung disease in a hospital in Zhongshan city.

Father Paul Liang Jiansen, vicar general of the diocese at the time of Bishop Li’s death, presided at the funeral Mass. Father Liang told UCA News he now leads the priests, who as a group are making decisions about running the diocese.

Congress religiously diverse

Catholics remain biggest denomination in US Congress

■ By Nancy Frazier O’Brien

WASHINGTON (CNS) - With one Muslim and two Buddhist members, the 110th US Congress is the most religiously diverse ever. Catholics remain the largest denominational group in Congress, with 155 members - 25 in the Senate and 130 in the House. But there are fewer Catholic Republicans in both houses since the 109th Congress and many more Catholic Democrats.In the last Senate, Catholic members were nearly evenly split between the parties, with 11 Republicans and 13 Democrats. Now there are 9 Catholic Republicans and 16 Catholic Democrats in the Senate. In the House at the start of the 109th

Congress, there were 129 Catholics57 Republicans and 72 Democrats. Although the total number of House Catholics in the 110th Congress is nearly the same at 130, the current group includes 42 Republicans and 88 Democrats.

Even Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., a Muslim who was sworn in as a member of Congress using a Quran once owned by President Thomas Jefferson, was raised a Catholic. He became a Muslim while in college at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Ellison’s mother, Clida Ellison, recently told The Associated Press that she remains a practicing Catholic and attends Mass daily. But she said the controversy over her son’s decision to be sworn in using the Quran rather than a Bible was a good thing, “because many people in America are going to learn what the diversity of America is all about.”

Bishop Joseph Meng Ziwen of Nanning, China, died on January 7 at the age of 103. Bishop Meng, who was China’s oldest prelate, was a clandestinely ordained bishop who was recognized by the Chinese government only as a priest. PHOTO: CNS

The World

What makes good Church singing is unclear

Musicians, people in pews differ on what encourages singing in church

■ By Mark Pattison

People in Catholic music ministry and Catholics in the pews hold slightly different opinions on what helps congregations sing, according to a survey conducted by the US National Association of Pastoral Musicians.

Participants included 1,541 people who said they were involved in church music ministry, and 808 people who said they were not involved in music ministry.

All respondents were asked to choose from up to 14 different factors that help them sing in church, and only two were cited by a majority of Catholics in the pews: a familiar melody and “easy to sing.”

In contrast, more than half of Catholics in music ministry voted for five choices. “Leadership of organ or instruments” and “meaningful text” garnered the votes of close to two-thirds of these respondents, while “leadership of cantor or director,” “linked to liturgy of the day or season” and “enthusiasm of the congregation” got smaller majorities.

to “make it easier for people to sing,” said J. Michael McMahon, president of the musicians’ association, based in the Washington suburb of Silver Spring, Maryland.

He noted that the factor that ranked lowest among people in the pews was “church building that makes singing a pleasure,” with only 18.7 percent voting for it. Thirty-five percent of those in music ministry chose it.

“The people don’t necessarily know that or perceive that to be the case,” McMahon told Catholic News Service regarding how a building’s design can be a factor when it comes to singing.

McMahon said he attributed the high ranking that people in the pews gave the “traditional song” factor to “familiarity.”

“It’s not so much about the (age of the) song as it is about the familiarity,” but “it’s not nearly the same as saying we need to sing things we know,” he said.

Other disparities between the two groups of respondents surfaced in the voting on what helps them sing.

“Traditional song” as a factor was voted on by 47.9 percent of

“Familiar melody” and “easy to sing” placed seventh and eighth, respectively.

those not involved in music ministry, but by only 30.7 percent of those involved in such ministry.

“Leadership of choir” was voted on by 47.3 percent of those involved in music ministry, but by only 29.6 percent of those not involved.

The musicians’ top choice

-“leadership of organ or instruments” - garnered 66.4 percent of those in their group, but only 39.9 percent of those not involved in music ministry.

“I think we need to pay a little more attention” to what people in the pews are saying, and find ways

But how does one define traditional and contemporary, a factor that barely registered 25 percent of support from either group? For example, what about a song such as “You Are Near” by the St Louis Jesuits?

“It’s a generational question,” McMahon replied. “People in my generation would see it as a contemporary song, and people in their 20s would see it as a traditional song.” CNS

Religious asked to help in breaking down AIDS fears in India

Caritas official urges Indian bishops to help clergy fight AIDS fears

■ By Anto Akkara

A US priest charged with coordinating Caritas Internationalis’ HIV/AIDS work has urged Indian bishops to overcome the “prejudices and fears” that even clergy have toward those affected with HIV/ AIDS.

“There are priests who are afraid of anointing HIV-positive people,”

the

world in brief

said Father Robert Vitillo, special adviser on HIV and AIDS to Caritas, the international Catholic aid federation. He spoke in Aluva on January 6 to t he Conference of Catholic Bishops of India, which includes the country’s Latin-rite bishops. Father Vitillo, who regularly conducts workshops on AIDS, said he finds that priests have “a lot of apprehension when dealing with HIV-positive people.”

While many church workers and priests were fearlessly helping those affected by AIDS, Father Vitillo said, some priests still ask him: “How can I anoint one with HIV? Will I be infected?”

Executions condemned

The Vatican newspaper criticised continuing executions in Iraq as a “cruel manipulation” of justice and said the country is veering in the wrong direction. The comments on the front page of L’Osservatore Romano on January 15 followed the gruesome hanging of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s half-brother, who was decapitated by the hangman’s noose when his body dropped through the gallows floor. Iraqi authorities said the decapitation was accidental. Executed at the same moment was Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the head of Saddam’s revolutionary court. Both men were convicted of responsibil-

“We need a lot of education to remove these fears,” and that education should begin in the seminary, he said. Bishops often issue good statements on the stigma of AIDS, he said, but the words often are not put into practice at the parish level. Father Vitillo told of a Caribbean bishop who would regularly visit a sex worker dying of AIDS after his diocesan priests refused to go. When she died, Father Vitillo said, the bishop celebrated a funeral Mass for the woman in the cathedral. “This is the kind of leadership we in the Church (need) to overcome the stigma,” Father Vitillo told the Indian bishops. “We need

ity in the torture and killing of 148 Shiites in 1982.

Bishop regrets slavery

An English Catholic bishop has signed a statement of regret over the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Bishop Declan Lang of Clifton joined political, business, trade union and Christian leaders in signing the statement on January 12 in Bristol, England.The statement is one of a number of events held this year to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the British abolition of the slave trade in 1807, the first step in totally abolishing slavery.Signers said they “cannot imagine the pain and suffering inflicted upon millions of individuals and families and the significant changes forced upon thousands

to provide pastoral care to the HIVpositive people without fear, just as our priests attend to dying, old people.” When asked whether his remarks on the AIDS stigma were prompted by recent local media coverage of such an attitude among clergy, Father Vitillo told Catholic News Service that “fear about AIDS is there in many places.”

Indian media have reported numerous incidents involving priests object ing to the burial of AIDS victims in church cemeteries in Kerala, one of the most literate and developed states in India.

During the meeting, South African Cardinal Wilfrid F.

of communities in Africa, the West Indies and other places by slavers of whatever race or faith.”

They said they “give thanks for those who struggled to initiate this change and look to a time when slavery of every kind is abolished.”

The statement also was signed by Anglican Bishop Mike Hill of Bristol and the Rev. Ward Jones, chairman of the Bristol District of the Methodist Church.

Church praised for charity

The head of the World Food Program, James Morris, praised the Catholic Church’s commitment to the poor after meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. The

Napier of Durban, president of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, told the bishops they should strongly oppose the use of condoms and the South African condom-centred model of HIV/ AIDS prevention. Cardinal Napier said that no sub-Saharan country has been able “to reduce let alone reverse the rate of new infections” of HIV/AIDS using the condom model.

According to UNAIDS, approximately 5.5 million people were living with HIV in South Africa in 2005, and approximately 5.7 million people were living with HIV in India during the same year. CNS

Pope spoke with Morris in a private audience a week after the pontiff emphasised the need to reduce hunger in a speech to diplomats accredited to the Vatican. “I wish to thank His Holiness for his continuous personal commitment, as well as that of the Catholic Church, to the poor and desperate people in the world,” Morris said in a statement released from his Rome office. Morris noted that the World Food Program works closely with a number of Catholic humanitarian organisations, including Caritas Internationalis, Catholic Relief Services, the Daughters of Charity and the Jesuit Refugee Service. “The spiritual, moral and material support of Pope Benedict XVI and of the Catholic Church represents a real hope to provide a future to millions of children,” Morris said.

People in Catholic music ministry and Catholics in the pews in the US hold slightly different opinions on what helps congregations to sing, according to a survey.

PHOTO: CNS

Heritage museum honours Catholic priest

■ By Paul Gray

The years have turned the rusted key and time is on the jog, but still they praise the man who wrote Around the Boree Log.

The latest honour paid to the memory of Father Patrick Hartigan, parish priest of Narrandera in NSW and author of the famous “John O’Brien” poems, is the dedication of his home of twenty-seven years as a heritage museum.

The site of the museum is the former Catholic Presbytery of Narrandera, home base to Father Hartigan as he ministered to the early farmers and settlers of the Riverina town nearly a century ago.

The heir to Fr Hartigan’s job as Narrandera’s parish priest is Fr Tony Schipp - formerly priest-incharge at Bullsbrook in WA.

Fr Schipp says that Fr Hartigan, who was not Irish himself, adopted the pen-name John O’Brien from the name of a Narrandera local.

Fr Schipp told The Record that he admires his illustrious early predecessor as a very dedicated parish priest.

But “we live in very different times today” from the culture Fr Hartigan immortalised in his poems, Fr Schipp said. “Today’s world is vastly different.”

The poems of Father Hartigan, who wrote under the nom-deplume John O’Brien, are among the best-loved Catholic contributions to literature in Australia.

Fr Hartigan’s poetry has already inspired the annual John O’Brien Bush Festival in the southern NSW town.

The Bush Festival features poetry readings, sing-alongs, Irish dance and all-round celebrations of Celtic culture.

People from all over Australia attend the Festival, which is held around St Patrick’s Day in March each year, Fr Schipp said.

The designation of the former Catholic presbytery as “John O’Brien Heritage House” is the fruit of the work of passionate locals including another former Narrandera parish priest, Fr Frank Bell, who cut the ribbon at the opening in December.

Fr Bell had served as an altar boy to Father Hartigan. Now in retirement, Father Bell spoke at

the opening of the museum with a reflection on the famous poem “Around the Boree Log”. That poem immortalises a certain IrishCatholic ethos of open-handed hospitality and a spirit of welcomingan ethos synonymous with the best in Australian Catholicism.

One stanza runs: Now someone driving through the rain will happen in I bet;

So fill the fountain up again and leave the table set.

For this was ours with pride to say - and all the world defy -

No stranger ever turned away, no neighbour passed us by.

The John O’Brien Heritage House is expected to become a tourism highlight for the Narrandera region. It will preserve artefacts and mementos of Fr Hartigan, whose most famous volume of poems, Around the Boree Log, was first published in 1921.

Against the sometimes cynical anti-religious overtones of poets like Henry Lawson, Hartigan painted a glowing portrait of the religion and culture of early Irish

Catholics. In one poem he paid tribute to the often-ignored womenfolk of the Australian pioneering era. When at last the books are balanced in the settling-up to be,

And our idols on the rubbish heap are hurled,

Then the judge shall call to honour - not the “stars”, it seems to me,

Who have posed behind the footlights of the world;

But the king shall don his purple, and the queen lay by her crown,

And the great ones of the earth shall stand aside,

While a Little Irish Mother, in her tattered, faded gown,

Shall receive the crown too long to her denied.

Father Hartigan also immortalised the humour of Irish settlers in his famous poem, “Said Hanrahan.”

This twenty-one verse classic celebrates the miseries of the town pessimist, Hanrahan, who predicts ruin to the entire district at every change in the weather. Hanrahan begins by predicting disaster because the frosts have set in.

Demanding four inches of rain to dampen his imminent predictions of doom, Hanrahan quickly changes his tune once rain comes.

“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan, “if this rain doesn’t stop.” Soon afterwards the rain stops. Then Hanrahan informs his fellow Mass-goers outside Church on Sunday that: There’ll be bushfires for sure, me man.

There will without a doubt; We’ll all be rooned, said Hanrahan, before the year is out.

John O’Brien’s other famous poems include “The Trimmin’s on the Rosary”, “The Old Bush School”, “The Church on the Hill” and “Tangmalangaloo.”

Migration a boon for society, says Pope

VATICAN CITY - The migrant family should not be seen as a problem, but rather as a resource for humanity, Benedict XVI said on World Day of Migrants and Refugees.

The Holy Father made these comments before reciting the Angelus with the crowds gathered in St Peter’s Square. He dedicated his address to the migrant family, the topic of the message he wrote for the world day.

In his address, the Pope recalled that the Holy Family of Nazareth was also a migrant family. They emigrated from their home country to Egypt to flee Herod’s persecution.

The Pontiff said: “In the drama of the family of Nazareth we can perceive the painful condition of so many migrants, especially refugees, the exiled, the displaced and the persecuted.

“We recognise, in particular, the difficulties of the migrant family as such: the difficult conditions of life, the humiliations, inconveniences and fragility.”

Benedict XVI said that today “the phenomenon of human mobility is very widespread and diversified.”

The Holy Father explained: “According to recent United Nations

estimates, migrants impelled by financial reasons number almost 200 million; refugees number 9 million and international students some 2 million.

“To this great number of brothers and sisters must be added the internally displaced and irregular migrants, keeping in mind that each one of them has, in one way or another, a family.”

The Pope appealed for the care of “migrants and their families through the help of specific legislative, juridical and administrative protections, as well as through a network of services, listening centres and structures of social and pastoral assistance.”

“I hope that soon a balanced management will be established of the migratory flows and of human mobility in general, so that it will bring benefits to the whole human family, beginning with concrete measures that favour regular migration and family regrouping, paying special attention to women and minors,” the Pontiff said.

Benedict XVI emphasised that “the human person must always be placed at the centre,” and illustrated the key to the integration of immigrants in a society.

“The just integration of families in social, economic and political systems is only achieved on one

hand, by respecting the dignity of all immigrants and, on the other hand, by immigrants recognising the values of the host society,” the Pope said.

“Dear friends,” the Holy Father continued, “the reality of migrations must never be seen just as a problem, but also and above all as a great resource for humanity’s progress.”

“And the migrant family is especially a resource, if it is respected

as such, and does not suffer irreparable lacerations, but is able to remain united or to regroup, and to fulfill its mission of cradle of life and first ambit of a person’s education,” added the Pontiff.

In his address, Benedict XVI asked for the intercessory help of St Francesca Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917), patroness of migrants and founder of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.

ZENIT.ORG

In brief...

Video games and violence linked

Teenagers who played a violent video game showed brain activity consistent with less self-restraint and more emotional arousal compared with a group that played a non-violent but exciting game, a study by Vincent P Matthews of Indiana University and colleagues found. The researchers hope to investigate these patterns further.

 SCIENCE DAILY, NOVEMBER 29

Church fights Italian Satanism

Italian police have sought the help of the Church to tackle a rising tide of crimes linked to devil worship. A Vatican expert on the occult estimates there are at least 8000 Satanic sects in Italy with more than 600,000 members. Many indulge in a lethal blend of black magic, hard drugs, sex and heavy metal. Several churches have been desecrated and there has been a string of murders linked with the groups.

LONDON TELEGRAPH

Narrandera Parish Priest Fr Tony Schipp (left) and retired parish priest Fr Frank Bell in the former office of Fr Patrick Hartigan (John O’Brien), pictured at rear, on the opening night of the John O’Brien Heritage House.

Resourse: An illegal immigrant is helped by a member of a Spanish sea rescue. PHOTO: CNS

Living with Cardinal Pell

When Perth priest

Fr Timothy Deeter stumbles out of bed and goes to breakfast, it’s not uncommon to find Australia’s most prominent Catholic peering at him over the morning paper, before lowering it and kindly greeting him with, “Good morning, Father”.

Such is the unusal existence that Fr Deeter, the former director of Perth’s Casa Frassati Vocations Discernment Centre, has suddenly found himself living since August last year.

Yes, Fr Deeter, the adopted Chicago-born West Australian who conducted the Christmas Midnight Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral since he moved to Perth nine and a half years ago, has now moved to the other St Mary’s Cathedral, and lives with Sydney Cardinal George Pell at Cathedral House. It hasn’t always been this way. In fact, he didn’t want it that way.

He declined one email from the Sydney Archdiocese asking to poach him as Director of its Liturgy office and ignored another before receiving a call from Cardinal Pell’s Master of Ceremonies at Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral, Fr Don Richardson, asking him once again.

“He’s a st rong leader and puts into practice ideas of consultation and dialogue. He wants to have his finger on the pulse of the Church.” Fr Timothy Deeter

Fr Deeter said ‘thanks but no thanks, I’m enjoying doing what I’m doing for Archbishop Barry Hickey in Perth – and besides, it’s not my decision, it’s his’.

When Fr Richardson came straight back with, “The Cardinal has already spoken to the Archbishop a nd it’s fine”, Fr Deeter knew his life would change for the distinctly surreal.

But more than not wanting it that way, Fr Deeter was warned that it could be a rough ride – an American lovingly adopted by Western Australia, remaining a Perth Archdiocesan priest while in a three-year secondment to the Sydney Archdiocese at the personal request of Cardinal Pell, can fairly expect a tough reception from Eastern States folk.

For a good while, Fr Deeter disliked the existence.

It wasn’t bad dining daily with the bloke who refused the Eucharist to former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett because he wasn’t Catholic and the man who was verbally bashed from pillar to post for refusing the same right to the gay Rainbow Sash brigade.

What made life tough was the phenomenal workload that came with the re-opening of Sydney’s Liturgy Office, which had been closed for a year after the previous director, Sr Carmel Pilcher, ended her term of office.

As well as working as the director of the Liturgy Office and lecturing in the Seminary of the Good Shepherd in Homebush, Fr Deeter lectures at the Catholic Adult Education Centre and is a guest lecturer in Canon Law at Notre Dame University in Sydney and will this year

“The impression that he’s hard to work for is also false – I love working for him. He has a great sense of humour, and constantly gives me a ribbing over my being American.

“He’s not always around with all his commitments, but when he is he loves good conversation, loves a joke and is great to banter with.

“I’m not afraid of him at all. At first I was daunted by the idea of living with this man who is known nationally and internationally, but he is just a down-to-earth bloke.

“I’ll walk through the kitchen in the morning while he’s sitting there having breakfast reading the paper and I’ll say “Morning, your Eminence’, and he’ll ask me where I’m going and would always be intrigued by the slightest of details of my simple life.”

Cardinal Pell is also a big listener. According to Fr Deeter, it seems like every day the tables and chairs at Cathedral House are being rearranged for meetings of lay people, as the Cardinal is always inviting people over to discuss whatever passion they have about the Church or wider community.

guest lecture at the University of Sydney.

He also writes a column on liturgy and spirituality for Catholic Weekly, Sydney’s Catholic newspaper.

His workload has quadrupled since moving from Perth. He was busy here, but at least had some free time.

But after he got over his initial misgivings and learned how to deal with the massive workload, he quickly learned that the media - and subsequently the majority of Australian society - are hugely mistaken when they assume the Cardinal to be a strict dictator.

Cried Melbourne daily The Age when Pell was announced Cardinal of Sydney in 2003: “To his critics, Pell represents the dead hand of Vatican repression, squeezing the Church into the narrow confines within which Rome feels comfortable.

“They see his elevation as the latest step in a global drive by the Pope and his doctrinal watchdog, arch-conservative (then) Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, to purge national hierarchies of bishops who are inclined to take a more independent and critical line.

These are replaced with ultraorthodox clerics who promote the Vatican vision, and exclude any alternative.”

But as Fr Deeter has found from up-close, day-to-day contact with the big man, nothing could be further from the truth.

“Despite his reputation as being strict and hard – particularly on clergy – he gives them an especially long leash before he reins them in,” Fr Deeter says.

“He overlooks many little things and it’s only major issues on which he calls them to account.

“He is also very affirming. Personally, he has told me how much he appreciates my work; and he also tells me how proud or happy he is about other priests.

“He’s a strong leader and puts into practice ideas of consultation and dialogue. He wants to have his finger on the pulse of the Church,” says Fr Deeter.

“At least once a month he invites 12 or so people to his dinner table who are asked to prepare a presentation on whatever they’re involved in. He sits and listens to them, and takes their ideas on board, which is totally contrary to the picture the media paints of him – as a pig-headed, ultra-conservative micro-manager.”

Cathedral House - where he lives with Cardinal Pell, Dean of the Cathedral Fr Neil Brown, Vocations Director Fr Michael DeStoop and a newly-ordained priest – is literally a crossroad of the Church in Australia.

As if the daily sight of Cardinal Pell isn’t enough, Fr Deeter walked in one day to find four Cardinals sitting at the dining table chatting away.

The quick-witted Fr Deeter’s apt remark of, “Are we electing a new Pope already?” was met with hearty laughter.

As he sat down with them, Fr Deeter once again found that, like Pell, these other Cardinals – Australians Edward Cassidy and Edward Clancy, and Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, the current Archbishop of Westminster – are just regular, everyday blokes.

“We have this idea that Cardinals live in a rarified stratosphere where they don’t care about what happens in other levels of the Church, but it couldn’t be further from the truth,” Fr Deeter said.

“To listen to Church and world issues being discussed by men of their stature is a rare thing for a priest like me, and to realise they are interested in the opinions of humble priests like me.

”They’re all easy to chat to, all interested in what the priests who live in Cathedral House are doing with themselves and where they came from.”

That wasn’t the only misconception.

The Eastern States folk treated him just fine – in fact, he’s overwhelmed by the support from laity and clergy alike, and can’t keep up with invites to universities and other gigs.

Insider: Perth’s Fr Timothy Deeter is at home at Sydney’s Cathedral House.

People person: Cardinal George Pell cuts the cake celebrating his 40 years in priesthood.

Record journalist Anthony Barich discovers the truth about Cardinal George Pell through the words of his new liturgy director, Fr Timothy Deeter.

Christianity the enemy of reason? Hardly

Books document mounting evidence of Church’s role in society

Books prove the Catholic Church laid the foundations of modern civilisation

■ By Hal Colebatch

How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization

Thomas E. Woods, Regnery Publishing, Washington, 2005 280 pp.

The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success

Rodney Stark, Random house, New York, 2005 281 pp.

These two books, both available in Australia from Freedom Publishing , should be read by everyone. They are intellectually stimulating, exciting, invigorating, educational and enormously important. Written in fascinating and highly readable style, they are also formidable stock for any Christian’s intellectual ammunition-locker.

In the anti-Christian children’s books written as a counter to C. S. Lewis’s “Narnia” books, author Philip Pullman portrays Christianity as the great enemy of reason, having one character say at a moment of dramatic revelation:

“There are two great powers ... and they’ve been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.”

Naturally Christianity wears the black hat here. The Catholic Church is especially singled out in this work as fanatically determined to prevent human reason advancing, with characters like Father Gomez (A name redolent with associations with the Spanish Inquisition and perhaps of that potent focus of paranoia, Opus Dei), “pale and trembling with zealotry” ready to torture and murder children to achieve this end. It is a notion which certainly dates from the anti-Catholicism and antiChristianity of Gibbon and certain aspects of the European Enlightenment but is older than that.

This mythology was sent up by G. K. Chesterton in at least two stories - the first of the Father Brown stories, “The Blue Cross,” in The Innocence of Father Brown, and The Man Who Was Thursday - in which imposters pretending to be priests or clergymen give themselves away by attacking Reason, which, as Father Brown says, is bad theology. In The Man Who Was Thursday - first published in 1908 - the imposter admits in memorable words “I tried all kinds of respectable disguises. I dressed up as a bishop. I read up all about bishops in our anarchist pamphlets,

in Superstition the Vampire and Priests of Prey. I certainly understood from them that bishops are strange and terrible old men keeping a cruel secret from mankind. I was misinformed. When on my first appearing in Episcopal gaiters in a drawing-room I cried out in a voice of thunder, ‘Down! Down! Presumptuous human reason!’ they found out in some way that I was not a bishop at all.”

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown also portrays Christianity, and in particular Catholicism, as a major agent for perpetuating lies and superstition, and a haven for torturers, murderers and lunatics.

The book depends on the premise that

the Catholic Church has systematically lied about the central fact of Christian history since its inception: Christianity is a hoax, and the Church an agent of darkness, battening vampire-like on the ignorance and superstition which it promulgated. By 2005 it was estimated that 28 million copies of The Da Vinci Code had been sold, suggesting about 100 million people had read it.

Here two distinguished American scholars, working separately and from somewhat different perspectives, take that myth and destroy it.

Pullman’s declamation and Brown’s premise, as attacks on Christianity, are not only false, but the reverse of truth. These books document in detail how the Church, rather than being the enemy of reason and progress, has been their greatest and very often their only friend. It is to the Christian church alone that we owe the birth and growth of scientific civilisation, and the fact that human life-expectancy is now more than about 30 years.

In 1988, in the lead-up to the great billion-pound flop of the Millennium Dome, the British Minister in charge of the project, Peter Mandelson, claimed: “the impact of Christianity on Western civilisation will be central to the Millennium experience.” I remarked at the time in my book Blair’s Britain

that to speak of the impact of Christianity on Western civilisation was like speaking of the impact of Shakespeare on Hamlet. No-one who reads these books, both meticulously referenced, can be left in any doubt that it was the Catholic Church that laid the foundations of modern civilisation, and not just as one incidental influence upon it among many.

Professor Woods emphasises that after the fall of Rome, it was the Church alone that kept literacy alive in monastic schools. It was the Church that educated more than 90 per cent of the people who learnt to read. Monks preserved the heritage and culture of antiquity by laboriously copying Greek and Roman manu-

scripts. Modern scholarship finds the term “The Dark Ages” a misnomer for those times, but it was the Church that prevented them from being darker and prevented Europe from sinking back into a welter of perhaps permanent barbarism.

As well as literacy, the monasteries preserved and advanced agricultural science, drained fens and marshes and taught techniques of irrigation and animal breeding. They also spread the use of water-power and the associated technologies of machinery and metallurgy. One scholar, Gerry McDonnell of Bradford University, believes that at the time of the dissolution of the English monasteries they were on the verge of setting up blast-furnaces. The Popes protected and nurtured the first universities.

The Church also pioneered modern astronomy, displacing the pseudo-deterministic and free-will-denying superstition of astrology. In this context the persecution of Gallileo is often brought up against the Church, but in fact that had more to it than met the eye, and had less to do with science than with politics.

If I might add further to Professor Woods’s argument, Father George Coyne, the director of the Vatican Observatory, applied for astro-

naut training in the 1960s. His Provincial is said to have muttered, ‘If I let you become an astronaut, George, every priest will want to.’ A priest, Georges Lemaitre, first postulated the Big Bang, now generally accepted as the correct explanation of the origin of the Universe. In the Who’s Who of Nobel Prize Winners 1900-1990 Catholics are listed as the largest Christian group of Nobel Laureates (the only larger single religious group are Jews). No other institution than the Church gave such support to astronomy in the centuries between the Middle Ages and the modern period. The same might be said for all other branches of science. Christianity was in any event not backward about getting into space. The first religious figure to set foot on another world was an Episcopalian lay preacher named Buzz Aldrin.

I may also add that among the great Catholic clerical astronomers might be mentioned Giuseppe Piazzi, who discovered the first asteroid, Ceres, in 1801, and established the observatory at Palermo. Piazzi obtained the modern equipment and instruments for it, and converted Palermo from an absolute scientific nullity in poverty-stricken, ignorant and backward Sicily to a great centre for astronomy, later involved with the first imaging X-ray astrophysics.

It is interesting that despite being a Catholic priest and among other things a Professor of Dogmatic Theology in Rome, in 1788 Piazzi travelled to England to work with the astronomer Nevil Maskelyne (a Protestant Minister) and the famous instrument-maker Ramsden.

It was from Catholic culture that the whole notion of progress arose: nothing like it happened anywhere else in the world, where science and technology either stopped at a very low level, or never got started at all. Unlike the Mystery religions, Christian philosophy promoted reason, and, unlike the Graeco-Roman philosophers who made great theoretical discoveries at Alexandria and elsewhere, the Christian monastic tradition did not despise but welcomed experiment, artisanship and the practical application of technology. The inheritance of Aristotle and the scholastic tradition was a mixed blessing for the universities, becoming in many ways a collection of stultifying dogmas, hostile to empiricism and experiment, but again it was Christian thinkers who enabled learning to break free of this.

The contribution of the Church to Art is so obvious as to hardly need elaborating on, and the Medieval cathedrals of Europe are eloquent testimony to its contribution to architecture. We have also seen rather too much of the unappealing nature of postChristian art to need the message rubbed in. Less well-known is the Church’s pioneering contribution to modern economics, the early scholastics being, according to Murray Rothbard, the ancestors of the Austrian School and of some of the ideas articulated in the 18th Century by Adam Smith.

By championing the rights of American Indians at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, the Church laid the foundations of International Law.

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Dear Pilgrim, You are invited to come on a 15 Days Spiritual Pilgrimage. Medjugorje: 6 Days. Rome: 4 Days (audience with Pope). Garabandal: 4 Days. Spiritual Directors: Fr Paul Fox & Fr Aruiraj. Depart Perth: Wed 16 May 2007. Cost: $4958.00 P/P (twin share). Call Helen Cockrell Tel: (08) 9453 3218/0431 689 128. Sky air services – 9TA1220. Thank you for responding to my call.

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20 Flame Ministries Congress, John

College - Archbishop Hickey 21 Sto Nino Fiesta Mass, Queens Park - Archbishop Hickey Jubilee Mass for 7 members of the Sisters of St Joseph of the

PANORAMA a roundup of events in the archdiocese

to this evening of fellowship. Enq: Rita 9272 1765, Rose 0403 300 720.

Friday - Saturday February 2-3

ALLIANCE AND TRIUMPH OF THE TWO HEARTS

All night Eucharistic vigil in reparation to the two hearts. Holy Mass 9pm Friday at St Bernadette’s Church, 49 Jugan St, Glendalough. Followed by all night adoration with Rosaries, hymns and silent prayers. All are welcome. Concluding with Parish Saturday Mass at 7.30am with Reconciliation available at 7am. Enq: Fr Doug Harris 9444 6131 or Dorothy 9342 5845.

Saturday February 3 DAY WITH MARY

Holy Spirit Church, Cnr Keaney Place & Bent St. 9am – 5pm. A video on Fatima will be shown at 9am. A day of prayer and instruction based upon the messages of Fatima. Includes Penance, Holy Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, Sermons, Rosaries, procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Stations of the Cross. BYO lunch. Enq: Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286.

Sunday February 4

DIVINE MERCY

An afternoon with Jesus and Mary will be held at St Joachim’s Church, on the corner of Shepperton Road and Harper Street in Victoria Park, at 1.30pm. Program: Holy Rosary and Reconciliation, Sermon with Fr Dominic Mary FFI on St John De Britto, followed by Divine Mercy prayers and Benediction. Enq: John 9457 7771 or Linda 9275 6608.

Tuesday February 6 to Sunday May 6

SET MY PEOPLE ON FIRE SEMINAR

7.30pm on Tuesday Feb 6 to Sunday May 6 for 15 weekly sessions. St Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church, cnr College Rd & Melville St, Claremont. Three weekends included. Details: Flame Ministries International – (08) 9382 3668, fmi@flameministries. org. Full program: www.flameministries.org/smpof. “The SMPOF seminars are an excellent source of Biblical teaching.” Archbishop Hickey.

Every Thursday February 8 to March 8

INTERCESSORY PRAYER SEMINAR

Cathedral Praise Meeting 450 Hay Street, Perth 7.45 pm. Why should I pray this way? These seminars teach how to operate in the anointing, pray “in” the power of Holy Spirit and deal responsibly with spiritual forces. Free. Flame Ministries International (08) 9382 3668.

www.flameministries.org/awesomeprogram

Sunday February 11

ST COLUMBA’S BAYSWATER 50TH ANNIVERSARY

The 50th Anniversary of the opening of the current church will be celebrated with a thanksgiving Mass at 11am, followed by a light luncheon in the Parish hall. An invitation is extended to past parishioners to attend this celebration, please contact Carolyn Kelly on 9271 1988.

Sunday February 11

ST CATHERINE’S CHURCH GINGIN  FEAST OF OUR LADY

OF LOURDES

Starts noon. Holy Rosary, Exposition, Hymns, Benediction and Blessing of the Sick. 1.30 Marian Procession. 2.30 Holy Mass at the Grotto. 3.30

Afternoon tea provided. Coaches leave St Joachim’s, Maddington & Morley parishes. Bookings: Francis Williams 9459 3873 or Mb 0404 893 877. Transport cost $16/pp return. Tea & Coffee provided. Contact Sheila 9575 4023 or Fr Paul 9571 1839.

Every Sunday

BULLSBROOK SHRINE

Mass with Rosary and Benediction at 2pm at the Shrine of Virgin of the Revelation, 36 Chittering Rd, Bullsbrook. Reconciliation in Italian and English before Mass. Pilgrimage last Sunday of the month. Anointing of the sick during Mass - second Sunday of the month. Side entrance of Church and Shrine open 9am to 5pm for private prayer. Enq SACRI 9447 3292.

Every Friday

BIBLE STUDY AND NOVENA TO OUR FATHER

Every Friday 7.30pm at St Joachim’s in Vic Park. Bible study on Genesis followed by Novena to God, Our Father, both conducted by Fr Douglas Rowe. Enquiries to Yit 9310 1392, 0401 674 302.

HELP AVAILABLE

“Are you suffering from mental illness or know someone that is. Depression, anxiety/panic attacks etc? Could you do with some help in understanding your/their illness? Do you know how to get help when you need it? For more information contact Emmanuel Centre 93288113 or email emmanuel2@iinet.net

IS YOUR SON OR DAUGHTER UNDECIDED AFTER SCHOOL?

If your child has finished school unsure of what they really want to do, offer them a productive year discovering God’s purpose for their life while learning practical life skills. They will develop leadership skills, communication and public speaking skills, and learn more about the Catholic faith and deepen their own faith in God. Contact Jane Borg (Acts 2 College) on 9202 6859 or 0401 692 690.

DIVINE MERCY

Every Saturday afternoon at St Francis Xavier’s Church, 25 Windsor Street, East Perth from 2.30pm. Holy Hour will be held with exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Holy Rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet and prayers plus Reconciliation and Benediction. Concludes with Veneration of a first class relic of Saint Faustina Kowalska. Enquiries: John 9457 7771 or Linda 9275 6608.

TUESDAY NIGHT PRAYER MEETINGS

St Mary’s Cathedral Parish Centre, 450 Hay Street, Perth, 7pm. Come join us! Overcome the burdens in life making prayer your lifeline with Jesus. Personal healing in prayer, Rosary, meditation, Scripture, praise in song, friendship, refreshments. Be united with Our Lord and Our Lady in prayer with others. Appreciate the heritage of the Faith.

First Sunday of the Month

DEVOTIONS IN HONOUR OF THE DIVINE MERCY

The Santa Clara Parish Community welcomes anyone from surrounding parishes and beyond to the Santa Clara Church, corner of Coolgardie and Pollock Sts, Bentley on the 1st Sunday of each month. The afternoon commences with the 3 o’clock prayer, followed by the Divine Mercy Chaplet, Reflection and concludes with Benediction.

BLESSED SACRAMENT ADORATION

Holy Family Church, Alcock Street, Maddington. Friday 8.30am Holy Mass followed by Blessed Sacrament Adoration till 12 noon. Every first Friday of the month, anointing of the sick during Mass. Enq. 9398 6350.

Wednesdays

SIGN LANGUAGE COURSE

Australian Sign Language (Auslan) Classes are offered free of charge at Emmanuel Centre on Wednesdays at 1pm. If this does not suit you, other arrangements can be made. Please contact Fr Paul or Barbara at Emmanuel Centre, 25 Windsor St Perth 9328 8113.

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT PART TIME

HIV/AIDS Pastoral Care (known as The Living Centre) is seeking an experienced Administrative Assistant. Experience required: MYOB accounting software. Computing and Clerical skills, Reception duties, Salary packaging items and contributions, bank reconcilation etc. Appplicants must support the Christian Ethos of The Living Centre. Closing date for applications is 30th January 2007. Those applicants who are successful for an interview will be contacted by 2nd Febuary 2007. Interviews being held on 8th February 2007. For an application package please phone Norah on 9470 4931 or 0407 424 007.

QUEEN OF APOSTLES SCHOOL

If anyone has information on Queen of Apostles School, Riverton, used to go there or knows anyone who did please do one of the following to tell the extension group – Call 9354 1360 and ask to speak to Veronique or email your information to veronequeregnard@gmail.com.au or janellekoh@yahoo.com.au or you can put your information into the box in the office at Queen of Apostles School. Thanking you in anticipation.

ST COLUMBA’S BAYSWATER

Information is sought from past and present parishioners of St Columba’s Catholic Church (Roberts St Bayswater) for inclusion in a written history (1905 – 2007) of the parish. Photographs of Parish Priests, parishioners and events depicting the original and current Church greatly appreciated. Contact: Carolyn Kelly, St Columba’s History, PO Box 47 Bayswater 6053 WA. Telephone: 9271 1988.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

Is alcohol costing you more than just money? Alcoholics Anonymous can help. Ring 9325 3566.

ATTENTION COUPLES

Have you or your spouse been diagnosed with a mental illness? Depression? Anxiety/ Panic Attacks? etc. Could you do with some help in understanding your/their illness? Do you know how to get help when you need it? We can help you to help each other through the Unconditional Love Program. For more information contact Amanda Olsen: 0407 192 641, or email: mandyfolsen@bigpond.com.au.

AL ANON FAMILY GROUPS

If a loved one’s drinking is worrying you – please call Al Anon Family Groups for confidential information meetings etc... Phone Number 9325 7528 – 24 hrs. LINDA’S HOUSE OF HOPE APPEAL

To enable us to continue to provide and offer support for girls wishing to leave the sex trade we need your help. We have achieved already new offfices which are now complete at the rear of the shelter and are fully functional. Donations are also required to complete the internal layout of the shelter itself. Please send donations to Linda’s House of Hope PO Box Z5640, Perth, St George’s Tce 6831. Ph: 0439 401 009. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

Monthly Monday Evening

SCRIPTURAL PRAYER PROGRAM

The Council for Australian Catholic Women (CACW) is offering a Scriptural Prayer Program developed in the Jesuit tradition. This form of prayer can lead to more reflective living, greater spiritual depth and promotes lay spiritual leadership in the Church. Led by Kathleen Brennan (IBVM). Commences 29th Jan, 7.30pm, 49a Vincent St, Highgate. Enquiries: 9345 2555. All Welcome.

Panorama

Entries must be in by 5pm Monday. Contributions may be faxed to 9227 7087, emailed to administration@therecord. com.au or mailed to PO box 75, Leederville, WA 6902. Submissions over 55 words will be edited.

Inclusion is limited to 4 weeks. Events charging over $10 constitute a classified event, and will be charged accordingly. The Record reserves the right to decline or modify any advertisment.