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Doctors and practitioners from Taiwan, Singapore, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth gathered at Notre Dame University last week for the inaugural Australasian FertilityCare education program.
The week-long intensive course is the first component of training in FertilityCare and NaProTechnology, a program of fertility and women’s health treatment which is gaining increasing attention internationally for its effective, natural, medical approach to reproductive health care.
Education program director Dr Amanda Lamont said: “The response to this course has been fantastic. We now have a group of committed and enthusiastic doctors and practitioners who will be able to offer the invaluable service of FertilityCare and NaProTechnology to their local communities.”
“Women and families around Australasia stand to benefit significantly from the efforts of our students. I am sure there will be many more FertilityCare education programs to come in this region.”
One of the original founders of the FertilityCare system, registered nurse and FertilityCare Educator Mrs Diane Daly, flew in from St Louis, Missouri, USA, to serve as a faculty member for the Perth education program.
“This is the first time an Education program outside the USA has attracted so many physicians,” she said.
“There is clearly a growing demand for the NaProTechnology approach to reproductive medicine in Australasia, and I am sure this interest will continue to grow as more and more women, couples and families begin to
Continued on page 2
Catholics can receive special indulgences for eucharistic adoration and prayer before the Eucharist during the Year of the Eucharist, which runs through October.
Pope John Paul authorised the indulgences in order to encourage in the faithful “a deeper knowledge of and a more intense love” for the Eucharist, said US Cardinal Francis Stafford, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary.
The Vatican published the
Many Catholics sit there in the pews without realising what is on offer.
Find out how to maximise your participation inChrist’s sacrifice.
Pages 7-10
Cardinal’s statement announcing the indulgences and outlining the requirements for receiving them on January 14.
An indulgence is a remission of the temporal punishment due for sins committed.
Cardinal Stafford said the spe-
cial eucharistic year indulgences include the normal requirements set by the Church for all plenary indulgences: that within a reasonably short period of time, the person goes to confession, receives the Eucharist and
Continued on page 2
Papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told journalists on January 12 that while there was no planned papal visit for Poland, “I can, however, confirm the Holy Father’s trip to Cologne, Germany for World Youth Day.” The presence of John Paul II at World Youth Day celebrations this year would be likely to significantly increase attendance by youth from around the world. - VIS
- Pope at risk from youth: Page 16
Editorial/Letters - Page 6
I say, I say - Page 11
The World - Pages 12-13 Reviews - Page 14 Classifieds - Page 15
Attendees at the recent Notre Dame Graduation Ceremony had to look twice when not one but two sets of identical twins graduated from the School of Nursing.
Mellisa and Sarah Gunn and Kristy and Kirsty Gjakun were among the 54 new nurses to graduate from Notre Dame.
Head of the School of Nursing, Associate Professor Vickey Brown said, “There was a bit of confusion with the students, especially when they undertook their clinical practicums. Many staff and patients believed they were seeing double.”
Mellisa Gunn pointed out that having a twin study the same course also had its advantages.
“We were able to study together, share information and get extra support from each other,” she said.
Associate Professor Brown added, “All our graduates, including the twins, are well prepared to enter the profession of nursing. They’ve had an excellent foundation including 39 weeks of clinical practice, which started in their first semester of study. Our nursing students are mentored, not preceptored, which means they work exactly the same shifts as their mentors – nights, weekends, public holidays and even 21st birthdays!” she said.
The Gunn twins have entered graduate nursing programs at Royal Perth Hospital and the Gjakun twins at St John of God Hospital Subiaco.
Many churches built from the 60’s onwards look more like the Fuhrer Bunker. But a new architecture devoted to beauty is coming back.
Ihave just been reading about the Youth Survey reported in “The West Australian” on January 18th and trying to understand my reactions.
The Survey found that young working people were positive, happy, careful about money, and supported individual choice about euthanasia, abortion, gay unions, living together and recreational drugs.
My first reaction was “I’m not surprised”. After all, these young people (18-30 years) are the inevitable outcome of a society which has been teaching for many years now that personal choice is the main value in society.
My next reaction was one of sorrow and even of a sense of
failure that religion had such a negligible influence on their lives. I wondered which schools they had been to and whether it made much difference whether they had
value that approximated an absolute was individual choice.
I also thought of the public comments I made recently about the disunity of Christian Churches on
Many Evangelical Churches have responded enthusiastically to the desires of young people for something better than the drug/sex society. New Catholic movements around the world are full of young people who have found that modern Western values have left them empty.
been to State schools or Catholic or other Independent schools.
There was a sense that secularism had finally triumphed and that the Churches had failed. Absolutes in terms of right and wrong no longer held any attraction. All values were relative and the only
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morality, and felt that the lack of a coherent Christian voice on fundamental moral issues was one of the reasons why secularism had won the battle.
There is no doubt that the young people quoted in the article were good and open-minded, positive
Australians. The problem is that in accepting euthanasia, abortion, drugs and the like, they are accepting things that are in themselves wrong, and also harmful for the individuals concerned and destructive of the very kind of society in which they want to live. In the guise of a culture of life, they are endorsing a culture of death.
I wondered how valid the survey was, and whether it was able to discern among young people any movement in other directions.
I am referring here to the increasing numbers of young people who are looking for something more fulfilling than the “anythinggoes” society. Many Evangelical Churches have responded enthusiastically to the desires of young people for something better than the drug/sex society. New Catholic movements around the world are full of young people who have found that modern Western values have left them empty.
Last week I called in on one
of the most energetic Catholic youth movements in Australia, the Disciples of Jesus Community. I arrived towards the end of their annual Summer Camp to which I go every year, and stayed overnight. What impresses me about this group is the deep conviction that their lives are lived in union with Jesus Christ, and that God changes lives radically.
I heard testimonies that spoke of the changes God had worked in the lives of many at the Summer School during that week. I heard from members of the Community about their journey too. One man whose life had been immersed in drugs, prostitution and crime, spoke of the gifts he had received from God through the Disciples of Jesus – forgiveness, peace, joy and love. Maybe this growing trend among young people for spiritual nourishment did not surface in the Survey, but it is real and is a ray of hope in a bleak world of violence and spiritual emptiness.
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Continued from page 1 prays for the intentions of the Pope, all in a spirit of total detachment from the attraction of sin.
Special plenary indulgences, would be given to those who fulfill the normal requirements in conjunction with participating “with attention and piety in a sacred function or a pious exercise in honor of the Blessed Sacrament,”
In addition those who recite the vespers and compline prayers of the Liturgy of the Hours where the Eucharist is present in the tabernacle will receive a plenary indulgence. Cardinal Stafford said that
Catholics who truly cannot visit a church or chapel could still earn the indulgence if they make the visit “with the desire of their hearts.”
They should recite the Lord’s Prayer, and the Creed.
The Cardinal said Catholics who are physically unable to do even that could receive the indulgence by offering their illness and difficulties up to the Lord.
Cardinal Stafford asked priests around the world to explain indulgences and the conditions for receiving them to their faithful and to be generous in making themselves available to hear confessions.
Continued from page 1 benefit from FertilityCare and NaProTechnology.”
Vicar-general Fr Brian O’Loughlin and Fr Anthony Van Dyke concelebrated the closing Mass for program participants on Saturday Jan 15 at the Notre Dame chapel.
All involved with the FertilityCare program expressed gratitude to Notre Dame University, Archbishop Barry Hickey, the Mary Philippa Brazill Foundation and a generous anonymous donor for their support and assistance in developing this program in Perth.
The Creighton Model FertilityCare System was developed from scientific research pioneered by Obstetrician and Reproductive Endocrinologist Dr Thomas Hilgers at Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, Nebraska, in the US.
A team of four researchers, including Diane Daly, first presented the Creighton Model FertilityCare system in 1976.
The ongoing use of this system over 25 years of research as a means of monitoring reproductive and gynaecological health has led to the development of the new reproductive medical and surgical science of NaProTechnology (Natural Procreative Technology).
NaProTechnology works cooperatively with the natural procreative cycles to provide an effective means of evaluation and treatment of common reproductive and gynaecological disorders.
● For further information: tel (08) 9388 1334, www.fertilitycare.com.au or www.naprotechnology. com.au
■ Jamie O’Brien, with reports
Archbishop Hickey told Perth radio on Wednesday morning he agrees that guidelines are needed for funerals in Catholic churches, as “occasionally things do get out of hand.”
The Archbishop’s comments came in an interview with radio 6PR journalist Paul Murray after reports the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Liturgy Commission recommended an increased focus on faith and reverence at funerals.
“If it’s suitable and if it means something to the family, maybe a favourite tune perhaps; then of course one would allow that at the proper time during the ceremony,” the Archbishop said.
However, he added, “I think the main concern is that if you have a religious ceremony in a Church, especially if you have Mass, then you have got to show respect.”
Under draft guidelines being considered by the Liturgy Commission, placing personal mementos like football jerseys or photographs on coffins and playing popular music during funeral services will be discouraged. Archbishop Hickey said he has no problem having personalised items on a coffin.
“When a priest dies we put his stole and chalice on the coffin,” he said.
However he also said when
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - A Catholic archbishop was freed unharmed in Mosul, Iraq, less than 24 hours after he was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen. Pope John Paul II thanked God for the happy ending to the ordeal, and the Vatican said no ransom was paid for the prelate’s release. Syrianrite Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa of Mosul was released on January 18 and was resting safely at his residence. Church officials said it was unclear whether the abduction was directed against the Christian community or was part of the general criminality in Iraq. Archbishop Casmoussa, 66, told Vatican Radio after his release that his captors had treated him well and freed him soon after they discovered he was a Catholic bishop. “I’m very happy to be back in the archbishop’s residence, where many friends and faithful gathered to meet me,” Archbishop Casmoussa said. “In general I can say I was not mistreated. The kidnappers were very friendly toward me. As soon as they learned that I was a bishop, their behavior changed,” he said.
the matter is exaggerated, a side table is needed and not everything loaded up on the coffin. Executive officer of the National Liturgical Commission Fr Peter Williams said parish priests had complained to the commission of inappropriate behaviour.
Some instances of abuses that Fr Williams has heard about include the telling of blue jokes, of a beer bottle cracked open at the altar, longwinded eulogies and one that included a verbal attack on the Church.
The Commission argues that pop songs and personal remembrances should be kept for vigils the night before the funeral, for the graveside or even the wake,
“Funerals primarily organised as
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNS) - Church officials are cautiously optimistic that the recently signed peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement will translate into real peace. “The Sudanese people have been very
a personal celebration of the lives of the deceased take away from the message of Christian faith of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the promise of eternal life,” Fr Williams said. “You’ve got a collision between the Church’s rites and people’s expectations in memorialising someone important to them who has died,” The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
“The funeral liturgy of the Catholic Church is itself an act of worship, it is ostensibly a liturgy of praise and thanks to God ... it’s about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in whom this person was incorporated through their baptism.”
The trend to incorporate secu-
patient,” Father Anthony Bangoye, secretary-general of the Nairobibased Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Regional Conference, told Catholic News Service. “God has heard their prayers after 21 years of war,” he said. “This (peace agreement) was the cry of all the people. Now we are waiting for the implementation.”
lar elements into Christian funeral services, Fr Williams said, dated to the 1997 funeral of Princess Diana, which departed from traditional Christian liturgies. A commission subcommittee is reviewing guidelines for funeral services and will be taking its recommendations to Catholic bishops early next year.
It would then be up to each bishop to issue his own set of directives.
The guidelines are likely to suggest objects of personal remembrance including photos, fishing reels, jerseys and even knitting needles be placed on a memorial table near the coffin.
“We’re not saying there is no place for these items, that things should be bland and impersonal; what we are saying is that there should be a balance,” Fr Williams said.
Fr Williams mentioned that in one instance, somebody was giving a eulogy at a funeral and brought a stubby of beer up to the
lectern, undid the top and started to drink it,
To take those sorts of liberties when people are very raw and grief-stricken, I think, does extend the boundaries of propriety.”
“Just because a person is grieving it doesn’t give them a licence to do whatever they want,” Fr Williams said.
The Archbishop also said that the push for the guidelines came from the priests themselves.
“They complain that matters get out of hand and they’ve got nothing to back them up if they want to draw the line so they need some help,” he said. According to the Archbishop a sensible policy that is not too restrictive is needed, because there is no sense in it otherwise. “A sensible policy that allows people to grieve, to talk about the person but at the same keeping within the act of worship in the Church. is needed”.
Saint Mary’s Cathedral Choir has released a new CD of sacred music, Ever Ancient, Ever New.
The disc, which plays for 52 minutes, includes 16 choral numbers and three pieces played on the Cathedral’s magnificent Dodd organ.
The Choir sings a number of traditional favourites: Soul of My Saviour, Sweet Sacrament Divine, Hail Redeemer, Hail Queen of Heaven, Jesus My Lord My God My All, Immaculate Mary, Holy God We Praise Thy Name, O Salutaris Hostia and Tantum Ergo Sacramentum.
There are also great classic anthems: Jesus Joy of Man’s Desiring, Hallelujah! Amen, Magnificat (to the tune ‘Jerusalem’) and How Marvelous God’s Greatness (to the tune ‘Thaxted’).
The contemporary Eucharistic hymns Love Is His Word and Now the Silence round off this
collection, which has already been praised by many since its release on Christmas Eve 2004.
The CD takes its name from words in the Confessions of St Augustine of Hippo: “Late have I loved You, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new”. The year 2004 was the 1650th anniversary of the conversion of St Augustine, so the CD is a musical tribute to that
momentous event in the life of the Church. The CD is available for purchase from the Catholic Church Office (9223 1350) or the Cathedral Piety Stall for $20; add $3.10 for postage. Cheques may be made payable to: St Mary’s Cathedral Choir.
All proceeds assist the Cathedral Choir in its mission of providing the finest in sacred music on Sundays, feastdays and major Archdiocesan events throughout the year. The Choir sings every Sunday at the 10am Mass during school terms.
● There are several positions for tenor and base men available in the Choir. A basic music reading ability would be very helpful. For information or an audition please contact Fr Tim Deeter on (08) 9324 4518 or email at casapgf@iinet.net. au
Archbishop Hickey asked the Perth Archdiocese to pray for East Fremantle Parish Priest and Crossroads founder Fr Paul Baczynski, as The Record went to press on Wednesday.
The Archbishop said Fr Baczynski was ill with a lifethreatening infection and was under heavy sedation. He would remain so until he showed signs of improvement.
“I ask for prayers for Fr Paul who has already shown great priestly commitment in his work for the East Fremantle parish and Crossroads Community which assists in the recovery of people affected by drug and alcohol addiction,” he said.
Crossroads Community Chairperson Tina Dorsogna said
Fr Baczynski was expected to be in intensive care for some time.
“He is fighting the infection and visitation is limited to family members but prayers are very much appreciated,” Ms Dorsogna said.
Fr Baczynski established Crossroads Community in August 2000 while Assistant Parish Priest in Bateman after he found himself immersed in supporting and praying for youth who had left the Church and were involved in drug abuse.
Up-to-date information on Fr Baczynski’s condition will be available as soon as possible on-line at www.crossroadscommunity.com.au
- Jamie O’Brien
Question: Can you tell me what the Church thinks about the good done in the name of humanity rather than in the name of Our Lord Jesus? I have been reflecting on this since the Asian earthquake and tsunami, seeing the massive outpouring of love and compassion from humanitarian organisations which do not profess to be Christian.
The Church is more than willing to work alongside humanitarian organisations. It holds a seat at the United Nations as an observer, and participates in a variety of charitable activities sponsored by that body. It is not uncommon for local dioceses and parishes to join in community efforts to meet the needs of the poor, the sick, or others who are disadvantaged in society.
Sometimes we who live in the Western world can be a bit myopic and forget that the majority of the planet’s population is not Christian. Of the more than 6.2 billion people on the earth, about 33% are Christian – half of those are Catholics, the other half are Protestants and Orthodox.
But the remainder of the population are of other faiths (Muslims: 20%; Hindus: 13%; Buddhists: 6%; Taoists and Confucianists: 6%; other religions: 7%) or no faith at all (15%). We cannot simply ignore 67% of the people who share our common home.
The Second Vatican Council is known to most Catholics for its liturgical renewal. But it dealt with many other topics of importance, among which was the Church’s relationship to non-Christians (the document is entitled Nostra Aetate, or “In Our Times”). Although it was issued in 1965, it is worth reading today because we are more aware than ever of our need to improve communication with non-Christians.
Here is what the Council says: In her task of fostering unity and love among people, and even among nations, the Church gives primary consideration in this document to what human beings have in common and to what promotes fellowship among them. For all peoples comprise a single community, and have a single origin, since God made the whole human race dwell over the entire face of the earth. (art.
1)
This approach does not deny or neglect differences between religions, or between
believers and non-believers. It simply gives primary consideration to common goals and interests.
Certainly the current efforts by so many nations and charitable agencies to assist those affected by the recent disaster in Asian countries is an opportunity to demonstrate the common bond that unites all humanity. Jesus Himself said that ‘whatsoever you do for the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine, you do for Me.’
(Matthew 26:40)
I have not heard anyone using the expression you mentioned – doing good ‘in the name of humanity’. But if it has been used, I would doubt that it is intended as an affront to religion. We live in a secularised society; non-believers obviously cannot claim to be doing something ‘in the name of Christ’, as we might. But their very reaching out to others resonates with what we know as Christian charity.
There is another document from
Vatican II which addresses the role of the Church in the modern world (this document is entitled Gaudium et Spes, or “Joy and Hope”). Its noble opening words are appropriate to recall at this time of global tragedy:
The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these too are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in our hearts. For ours is a community composed of human beings. This community realises that it is truly and intimately linked with mankind and its history. (art. 1)
The document goes on to outline the profoundly changed conditions of our modern world – changes in the social order; psychological, moral and religious changes; economic and political imbalances. This worldwide unrest has led to
deep questioning about the purpose of life – and these ‘impulses of the Spirit’ can lead non-believers to seek a response, which the Church should provide.
At this time when people are questioning God’s very existence, the Council reminds us that the Church must be thoroughly present in the midst of the community of nations. She must achieve such a presence both through her own public institutions (churches, schools, hospitals, etc) and through the full and sincere collaboration of all the faithful, a collaboration motivated solely by the desire to be of service to all.
As Christ’s faithful continue to strive to be in the forefront of initiatives like those we are currently experiencing, those outside the Church will be inspired to learn more about the One Who motivates our charity.
ROME, JAN. 18, 2005 (Zenit. org).- As a priest, Karol Wojtyla refused to baptize a Jewish child who had been entrusted to a Catholic family in Nazi-occupied Poland, out of respect for the youngster’s religious identity.
Shachne Berger was 2 years old in the fall of 1942, when his parents Moses and Helen Hiller, of Krakow, entrusted him to a Catholic couple with no children, who lived in the German section of the city of Dombrowa.
“They were called Yachowitch and were close friends of my parents,” Berger told the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera.
When the Nazis invaded the Krakow ghetto on October 28, the Hillers decided to act.
“On November 15, my mother succeeded in getting me out of the ghetto and handing me over to her Christian friends together with
Pius XII revealed
Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler gave one of his generals a direct order to kidnap Pope Pius XII during World War II, but the officer did not obey, Italy’s leading Roman Catholic newspaper reported early last week. Avvenire, which is owned by the Italian Conference of Roman Catholic bishops, said new details of the plot had emerged in documents presented to the Vatican in favour of putting the controversial wartime Pontiff on the road to sainthood.
The Australian, which took up the story from the Italian newspaper, said elements of alleged plots to abduct the Pope during Germany’s occupation of Italy have already
that it was profound love that made his father and mother place him with strangers to save him, and they revealed his origins, hoping that he would grow up proud of being Jewish.
The third contained the testament of Reizel Wurtzel, Helen’s mother, addressed to her sister-inlaw, Jenny Berger, in Washington, D.C.
became a reality: In March 1943, the Krakow ghetto was liquidated and the child’s parents were deported to Auschwitz, from where they never returned.
The boy, however, was not out of danger.
Karol Wojtyla, the future John Paul II, refused to baptize Shachne.
two large bags,” Berger said. “One contained all her valuable objects and the other, three letters.”
The first letter was addressed to the Yachowitches, to whom the child was being entrusted, asking them to educate him as a Jew and to return him to his people should his parents die, according to the newspaper.
The second letter was addressed to Shachne himself. It explained
“Our grandson Shachne Hiller, born on the 18th of the month of Ab [the 11th month of the Jewish calendar], the 22nd of August of 1940, has been entrusted to courageous persons,” the third letter reads. “If none of us returns, I beg you to keep him with you, and that you educate him correctly. This is my last will.”
Before taking leave of the Yachowitches, Helen gave them the names and addresses of relativesthe Aarons and Bergers - who lived in Montreal and Washington.
“If we don’t return when this madness is over,” she requested her friend, “send them these letters.”
Shachne’s mother’s precautions
“From 1942 to 1945 we were always fleeing, from one house to another, and from one city to a new place,” Berger recalled. “Many hostile and anti-Semitic Poles were suspicious of my looks and thought I was a Jew, and if they had reported us, my adoptive parents would have risked death.”
By the time the war ended, the Yachowitches had grown fond of Shachne, and his “adoptive mother,” forgetting her promise to Helen Hiller, wanted to adopt the child officially. Wishing to baptize him, she approached a young priest of her parish and told him the story of the boy, his identity, and what happened to his parents.
The priest asked Mrs Yachowitch what had been the wish of the child’s parents when they entrusted him to her. When she revealed the content of the will, the priest,
Shachne then left for North America, where his maternal relatives received him. Legal issues made his living with the Bergers difficult. On December 19, 1950, after Jenny Berger’s efforts, US President Harry Truman signed a special decree that entrusted Shachne Hiller to the Bergers.
Jenny Berger recalled: “More than eight years had passed since my grandmother wrote the will in the Krakow ghetto. At last, her wish was realized.”
In October 1978 Mrs Yachowitch, with whom Shachne - now a practicing Jew, married, and father of twins - had kept in touch by letter, told him the last details of his story.
“For the first time,” he said, “she revealed that she had tried to baptize me and educate me as a Catholic, but that she had been stopped by a young priest, future cardinal of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla, recently elected Pope.”
- Zenitemerged in the past from some historians, but Avvenire’s full-page report said its details were new.
Avvenire said Hitler feared the Pope would be an obstacle to his plans for global domination. It said the dictator wanted to eventually abolish Christianity and impose National Socialism as a sort of new global religion.
The newspaper said a plot that was codenamed Operation Rabat had originally been planned for 1943, but was not carried out that year for unspecified reasons.
It said that in 1944, shortly before the Germans retreated from Rome, SS General Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff, a senior occupation officer in Italy, had been ordered by Hitler to kidnap the Pope.
According to the paper, Gen Wolff returned to Rome from his
meeting with Hitler in Germany and arranged for a secret meeting with the Pope. Gen Wolff went to the Vatican in civilian clothes at night with the help of a priest.
The newspaper said Gen Wolff told the Pope of Hitler’s orders and assured him he had no intention of carrying them out himself, but warned the Pontiff to be careful “because the situation (in Rome) was confused and full of risks”.
As a test of Gen Wolff Pope Pius asked him to free two Italian resistance leaders who had been condemned to death.
Gen Wolff arranged for them to be released, the paper said. Avvenire said the details of the plot were in testimony Gen Wolff gave before he died in Germany to Church officials.
- CathNews
Fr Martin McMahon had been a member of the Carmelite Community, Hilton
The decision of Romanian woman Adriana Iliescu’s decision to have a baby at 66, making her the world’s oldest mother, has sparked an international outcry.
The retired professor and now single mother gave birth to two daughters on Sunday after becoming pregnant through donated sperm and eggs.
One of the girls arrived stillborn.
The story has generated much press coverage around the world.
Melbourne’s Herald-Sun newspaper sought comment from Melbourne Catholic bioethicist, Nicholas Tonti-Filippini, and the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Melbourne, Mgr Les Tomlinson.
WA since 1988. Ordained in Dublin in 1949, he was appointed to the staff of Terenure College, Dublin and this was the beginning of a life-long attachment to the people and place. However, this idyll ended in 1952, when he was sent to the Carmelite Mission in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
As part of his work there, he opened and managed a Teachers Training College, which contributed greatly to the developing Mission.
Ill health decreed his return and by 1960 he had a new post in Ireland as Principal of Carmelite College Moate in the Irish midlands. His subsequent life included a period in a rural parish, a busy city church, and again a spell in his beloved Terenure College,
with many of his contemporaries and close friends still in the Carmelite Community there. Even so, at this stage his ill health, due especially to his emphesyma was at critical stage. Medical advice made it imperative that the find a warm, dry climate and the Australian Carmelites welcomed him to their Hilton parish in 1988.
By now he had developed a great interest in Holy Scripture, and was able to give the parishioners the benefit of his studies as he continued his very well attended lectures.
He also was appointed chaplain to Nazareth House (now Foley Village) next to the presbytery. He was able to follow his many interests and had a window on the world through his computer
Dr Tonti-Filippini said the birth gave rise to practical and emotional concerns.
“Children are extraordinarily demanding, particularly in the early years. To contemplate dealing with that at her age is absurd,” he said. “There’s a three generations gap between mother and child.
The concern is that the child will not have a healthy parent, relatively close in age who is able to understand their experiences.”
Mgr Les Tomlinson said the development was very troubling.
“Motherhood should exist to shepherd the child through to adulthood but that is very unlikely to happen in this instance.”
(and the expertise of some friends). History (especially Irish history), literature and sport (among other things) kept his mind active but nothing excited him like a game of Rugby Union.
His health improved, but due to a hip operation some years ago, a nagging infection in the last year took its toll on the frail body and eventually took his life.
He died very peacefully at Lamenier House in Foley Village on Tuesday January 11 and was interred at Fremantle Cemetery on Friday January 14. So he left his body to Fremantle, but his heart was ever in Terenure College. We, his friends and fellow Carmelites, now commend his soul to Heaven. May he rest in peace.
Democracies live or die on their commitment to regarding all citizens as equal before the law and equal in their fundamental human rights, inalienable rights that cannot be randomly tampered with by governments or society in general. The most fundamental of these is the right to life. This right is so fundamental that governments must not only respect it, but also defend it.
Pope John Paul II recently took the opportunity to tell the diplomatic representatives of 174 countries that the defence of human life from the moment of conception to natural death is their first and most important responsibility.
Once the fundamental respect for life is breached, respect for all other basic human rights is in jeopardy. The Pope and many other Church leaders have warned about this on many occasions, and The Record has pointed to the evidence of it happening in WA and Australia.
There is no longer any doubt about the abandonment of respect for life in our society. The use of embryos for medical research, eugenics in the form of genetic screening, abortion, high rates of suicide, and pressure for euthanasia all reveal that governments and large parts of society have lost their way. A widespread reluctance to give life to children and an equal reluctance to maintain the stable, loving family environment for those who are born are further indications of the same problem.
Why should this corruption lead to the distortion of other human freedoms?
PO Box 75, Leederville, WA 6902
Tel: (08) 9227 7080, Fax: (08) 9227 7087
cathrec@iinet.net.au
The answer is that what we have done in abandoning the sanctity of human life is such a collapse of both faith and reason that we have no foundation on which to protect our other freedoms.
A remarkable example of how this tragedy will proceed was given by The West Australian in its editorial last Saturday, January 25, when it roundly condemned the Australian Football League for not insisting on randomly testing all AFL footballers during their annual holidays for ‘recreational drugs’ such as cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana. The AFL intends to impose such tests during the rest of the year.
There wasn’t a murmur from the newspaper about whether the AFL has any right at all to impose such tests. These are not performance-enhancing drugs for which testing can be a legitimate role for sports administrations, just as it is in the horse racing industry. These are the so-called recreational drugs which, if anything, will only reduce the level of performance and shorten the career of any player.
We would desperately hope for their own sake that players (and their friends) would refrain from all these drugs, but if they are going to be caught, tried and punished for offences it should be by the authorities established by Parliament for the purpose. The AFL is not a statutory authority operating on behalf of the community.
Why is The West Australian scandalized that the AFL’s policy “means that players can have a holiday from drug-testing in their annual eightweek break”? Their only explanation is that AFL players are “heroes (and role models) to youngsters around the nation”. They’re not, of course. Most of them are known only to handful of club stalwarts and only a very few approach ‘hero’ status.
This is a straightforward case of categorizing one group of about 600 people and arbitrarily depriving them of the respect due to every citizen.
Why not demand the same intrusion on the lives of all ‘heroes’ and ‘role models’? Perhaps the storm troopers of The West might like to start with pop singers, actors, TV ‘personalities’, teachers, parents, big brothers (real and TV types). All of these have more influence on the development of children’s values than footballers. Then they could move on to doctors, nurses, policemen, public servants, and journalists. If it is a scandal that footballers are to have a holiday from drug-testing during their annual eight-week break, when are the rest of us going to be required to present ourselves for drug tests whenever somebody else says so?
And let’s not forget the Government. One of these drugs is marijuana, and under the lunatic laws by the Gallop Government, people are allowed not only to smoke it, but also to grow more of it each year than they could possibly smoke. None of them, of course, would actually sell their surplus to vulnerable youngsters!
The West’s editorial is so irrational it ought to be kept by all teachers and used in the classroom as an exercise in straight and crooked thinking, but the issue is not The West, or drugs, or footballers.
It is the need for people to become aware of how rapidly we are descending the slippery slope that will lead to constant erosion of the equal respect for human beings that is the foundation of democracy. When the discipline of reason, and particularly of moral reason, is abandoned, there is no protection for freedom.
I was a bit unhappy to see in recent letters to the editor an amount of confusion between a Mandorla and a Mandala.
The labyrinth that was the cause of some controversy could possibly be called a mandala, but certainly not a mandorla.
Even the accented syllable is different between the two words.
A mandala is a pattern or design which can be the object of meditation or reflection; a mandorla, as Janet Kovesi Watts correctly points out, is an almond shaped halo used in Christian art, which surrounds the complete body of images of either Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary.
My unhappiness is not from some pedantry but rather from the fact that I am part of a group of committed Christians that programmes every two years in Fremantle a major national religious art exhibition called The Mandorla Art Award.
Last October our chosen biblical theme was “Whatsoever you do for the least of them you do for me” and we have done much to promote authentic religious art. I would not like the present controversy about labyrinths and mandalas to reflect adversely on us, the Mandorla people.
Fra Christopher M. Ross, O.S.M.
P.S. A Mandela is a former president of South Africa, now a world famous senior statesman. Watch your spelling!
Editor: correspondence on this issue, circular or otherwise, is now ended.
A t Mass priests often refer to a mystery, but I am finding far too often the name of the priest is a mystery. Why? I for one like to know the name of the priest celebrating Mass. A lot of people visit various Parishes and don’t know the
There’s a new movie on the life of “sex scientist” Alfred Kinsey. It has been suggested that Liam Neeson, who is in the starring role, might get an academy award.
Any publication criticising the movie in general or Kinsey in particular, will have a label pinned on them. They will be called “right wing” or “fundamentalist” or “conservative”. Any American newspapers, such as the New York Times or Los Angeles Times, reviewing the movie favourably (as no doubt they will) will be simply quoted verbatim and will not have a label pinned to them such as “left wing”, which they decidedly are.
Most people would not be aware that much of Kinsey’s socalled surveys, which culminated in the so-called Kinsey Report, were conducted among jail inmates and prostitutes hardly an average sample group.
Knowing Hollywood’s usual form, they will show their soulmate in a kind light and won’t mention, that in his Mengelish experiments, he molested children in his work place to calculate their reaction to this sort of criminal behaviour.
Frank Bellet Petrie, Qldcelebrant is not the Parish priest shown in the Newsletters. Also often several names are shown - which one is the celebrant?
May I suggest that when Mass commences, the priest introduces himself to the visitors. Some, but certainly not all, say ‘good morning’ etc then they could say, I am Father ……. Sometimes even the regulars aren’t aware of the identity of a visiting priest.
Could a system be instigated similar to the confessionals? The priests have a name card and each church has a ‘celebrant’ holder/slot near the entrance.
The card to be placed in the holder, and interested parishioners simply have to check.
Seems easy – to me it is only a courtesy that we know who we are giving our attention to for up to an hour.
R Stewart Wembley DownsArchbishop Barry Hickey in his New Year message, (The Record 30 December) has highlighted a major problem in our time. He refers to the “scandalous divisions” relating to “matters of fundamental morality” in Christian churches.
The adoption of atheism has led to the destruction of much of the culture of Europe. This is the essential message which shines like a beacon from George Weigel’s talk (The Record 6 January).
In the rest of the Western world too many people have-
declared that there is no God. They have thus declared that there can be no such thing as theology, there can be no morality and people have no inherent God given dignity.
Such declarations lead, inevitably, to false conclusions about fundamental moral issues. For example there is no difference between right and wrong, there are no such deeds as atrocities, merely a following of orders or examples, there is no such thing as injustice and hate is no longer a sin.
There is a need for Catholics to respond, in solidarity, with their Archbishop because “socio -politico economic problems can be resolved only with the help of all forms of solidarity” (Cathecism of the Catholic Church #1941). After all, responsibility, in theological terms, is a measure of how we respond to the Word of God.
If Christians fail to accept the challenges of the New Covenant and keep the New Commandments (John 14:15&22, Hebrews 8:6-13) they foster, by example, the drift towards atheism. This could easily lead to a collapse of the economy under the weight of the unethical (immoral) behaviour of many of the participants. Democracy could, as Pope John Paul II has warned, self destruct and become a dictatorship.
This is so because constituents refuse to be fully responsible for their voting habits and representatives, in turn, refuse to represent their constituents but rather blindly obey the party whips.
John McKay Swan View
How can we get ‘more’ out of Mass? It all comes down to our faith and preparation. A Year of the Eucharist exhortation.
“L
ord, I see these people around me. Some of them are distracted; some are people I don’t necessarily like, on a human level. But I really do believe that these are Your brothers and sisters, and therefore mine. Together, we are one body in You. I honour You here. Lord, I believe that today’s presider is really acting in Your place and that You’re exercising Your priesthood through him. Bless him and anoint his preaching today. Help him to participate fully in this Eucharist. Lord, I believe You’re going to be present in the word. Open my ears to hear You. I don’t want to be daydreaming about my to-do list and all the things I’ve left undone. Make it possible for me to focus - to hear and respond to You. Finally, Lord, help me to welcome you as I receive your sacred Body and Blood and to be changed by Your presence."
Everyone knows that the Catholic Church believes in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The bread and wine offered by the priest is not just a symbolic reminder of Jesus and what He did for us 2,000 years ago. The Church teaches that these elements actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. But if the power that moves mountains, raised Lazarus from the dead and created heaven and earth is present in the liturgy, shouldn’t Mass-goers be experiencing more changes in their lives?
A Gallup poll done a few years back demonstrated that the majority of those who attend Mass more than occasionally exhibit exactly the same lifestyle and values as those who don’t attend Church at all. Some could conclude from this that Catholic teaching about the Real Presence must be wrong.
But there are two sides to Church teaching on the Mass, and both must be noted in order to answer the question.
On the one hand, Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. He’s among us as truly as he was among the crowds during his public ministry. On the other hand, the results produced in our lives from our encounter with the Lord will be directly proportional to our faith and openness. This explains why so few people appear to be changed by their encounter with Christ in the Eucharist.
Actually, the impact of Jesus’ bodily presence today in the Eucharist is much the same as it was in the days of his public min-istry. Think about the crowd that Jesus was walking through the time he whirled around and said, “Who touched me?” (Mk 5:2434). The apostles were puzzled.
“What do you mean, Lord? You just bumped into a hundred people.”
But Jesus meant, “Who reached out and touched me with faith?”
Then the woman with the hemorrhage came forward. Out of the multitude who had touched Jesus physically, she was the only one healed. No one else recognised who Jesus was; they expected nothing, and they got nothing.
Her faith, on the other hand, established the connection that allowed Christ’s healing power to flow into her. Her faith made all the difference.
The others who got nothing out of their encounter with Jesus remind me of the soil in an oppressive summer. Beginning in May, we have day after day of nonstop sun. By mid-June the ground is baked as hard as clay pottery.
As a result, whenever we do get the occasional summer downpour, we have flash floods. The water can’t soak in and become available to the thirsty plants because the ground hasn’t been prepared. The life-giving water just runs off.
That’s what happens with many of us at Mass. The life-changing power of grace is available, but it can’t penetrate. We’re not ready. Our hearts are hard and haven’t been broken up through prayer, faith and fasting. With this in mind, offer a few specific strategies to get us ready and make the Eucharist a more fruitful experience, regardless of any shortcomings of priest, choir or congregation.
■ Prepare by fasting. The Church has a discipline of a eucharistic fast. For Roman-rite Catholics, this means an obligation to abstain from all food and any drink but water for one hour before receiving Communion. This minimal requirement reminds us that we must prepare ourselves to receive the Lord in the Eucharist.
Certainly, we’re free to do more. For example, how about fasting from noise and media-generated distractions? It’s a good idea to leave the radio and TV off, the newspaper unopened and the computer idle for an hour or more before Mass. That way our minds are freer of noise and clutter, and we don’t have to fight so hard to be able to concentrate on the Lord when we walk into Mass.
■ Ponder the readings. We can prepare for Mass by looking over the readings ahead of time. This gives us a head start in understanding them before we hear them read aloud in church.
■ Try pre-prayer. The Church has always recommended that we prepare for Mass through prayer. One practical suggestion is to get to church a little early. Even five minutes can give you time to dial down, unwind and focus before Mass begins.
Whenever I get to church early enough for this prayer time, concentrate on arousing my faith. I make conscious acts of faith about Christ’s real presence in the various aspects of the liturgy. My prayer might go something like this: “Lord, I see these people around me. Some of them are distracted; some are people I don’t necessarily like, on a human level. But I really believe that these are Your brothers and sisters, and therefore mine. Together, we are one body in You. honour You here. Lord, I believe that today’s presider is really acting in Your place and that You’re exercising Your priesthood through him. Bless him and anoint his preaching today. Help him to participate fully in this Eucharist.
Lord, believe You’re going to be present in the word. Open my ears to hear You. I don’t want to be daydreaming about my to-do list and all the things I’ve left undone. Make it possible for me to focus - to hear and respond to You...
Finally, Lord, help me to wel-come you as I receive your sacred Body and Blood and be changed by Your presence.’ Making an “act of faith” like this is a way of exercising our faith muscles. It’s like working out. You really can’t grow your muscles unless you exercise them.
I have to admit that a quiet, recollected time of prayer before the liturgy works best for me before weekday Mass, when I’m alone. On Sundays, when my wife and I attend Mass with our five children, it’s just not a possibility. But we do try to prepare as a family while driving to church. We sing a song, say a decade of the Rosary and offer spontaneous prayers like,”Lord, help us to focus and concentrate at this Eucharist. We want to give ourselves to You.”
I don’t want to give the impression that this works perfectly. Sometimes prayer is interrupted by exhortations to take off the headphones! Still, we make the effort, and perhaps half the time we actually succeed in having some recollected prayer. Even when it doesn’t work out, it teaches the children that Mass is important and requires preparation.
■ Dress for the occasion. As a young adult, I often walked into church wearing cut-off jeans and tank-top T-shirts. “What do my clothes matter?” used to think. But then it occurred to me that perhaps they weren’t really appropriate, given the magnitude of the event. Without going out and buying a wardrobe of designer suits, I did start dressing more respectfully in honour of the occasion.
I’d never encourage anyone to
get into a competition about who’s best-dressed at Mass. But I do think it’s worth asking this question. Does the way I dress for Sunday Mass reflect my faith that I’m visiting Christ and that this is the central event of my week?
Parents of young children should be relieved to know that there’s
no law about coming to Mass as a family. You’re perfectly free to attend together or to split up, depending on what works best. Sometimes, “divide and conquer” is the best strategy. When we had three kids under the age of 4, it was hopeless for all of us to go to the Sunday Eucharist together. Whenever we tried it, Susan and I ended up spending the entire time trying to keep the children from disturbing everyone else’s
recollection, not to mention our own. For quite a while, we went to different Masses, one staying home with the kids while the other went to Church. Occasionally we got a friend or relative to baby-sit and went to Mass together. The point is that parents have to exercise both flexibility and determination so that each one can prepare for Mass and experience it prayerfully. This can require a bit of creativity.
Would it make sense to leap up from Christmas lunch and go out and run a marathon? That’s a sure road to indigestion or worse! Neither should we run off from the Lord’s table without giving ourselves an opportunity to digest what we’ve consumed. The Eucharist is a lavish banquet, a feast of faith, and it takes some digestion and follow-up to really profit from it. Since it’s too rich for
us to absorb all at once, the Church encourages us to take some time to pray after Mass. As the Catechism points out, ”prayer internalises and assimilates the liturgy during and after its celebration” (No. 2655). What better place to pray than the very church where you’ve just participated in the Mass? When you can, linger a little bit after the dismissal to be with the Lord and continue your thanksgiving after Communion. This isn’t just my idea; the Church recommends it in an official document called, “On Holy Communion and the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery outside of Mass.” It reads: “In order to continue more surely in the thanksgiving that in the Mass is offered to God in an eminent way, those who have been nourished by Communion should be encouraged to remain for some time in prayer” (No. 25).
Social time with other members of the Church is really important, too. Since we’re all members of Christ’s body, we should be getting to know one another and enjoying each other’s company either before or after Sunday Mass. But that’s not incompatible with taking a few minutes for personal prayer after the liturgy. It helps if the entire parish can make an agreement to keep the Church quiet after Mass. Fellowship can begin outside the sanctuary in the vestibule, Church hall or parking area. know of a Catholic university that adopted this approach, and it’s working beautifully. At the end of Mass, they turn the lights down low, and whoever needs to leave right away does so. Most kneel down to pray for a few minutes and then proceed outside for coffee, fun and sharing.
Prayerful follow-up to the Mass can also take place later at home.
Almighty and ever-living God, I approach the sacrament of Your only-begotten Son Our Lord Jesus Christ, come sick to the doctor of life, unclean to the fountain of mercy, blind to the radiance of eternal light, and poor and needy to the Lord of heaven and earth.
Lord, in your great generosity, heal my sickness, wash away my defilement, enlighten my blindness, enrich my poverty, clothe my nakedness.
May I receive the bread of angels, the King of kings and Lord of lords, with humble reverence, with purity and faith, the repentance and love, and the determined purpose that will help to bring me to salvation.
May receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood, and its reality and power. Kind God, may I receive the Body of Your only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, born from the womb of the Virgin Mary, and so be received into His mystical body and numbered among His members.
This might happen individually, as we find bits of time for personal prayer, or as a family or other grouping of Catholics who have been to Mass that day. In my own family, we sometimes read the Scriptures for the day at dinnertime. Again, with young children present, it’s an imperfect experience. Sometimes the kids actually pay attention, and sometimes they’re a million miles away. But we’ve seen enough fruit from our successes that we find it’s worth the effort. And again, even our failures say something to the kids and to the Lord. was once comforted by a priest who told me that the attempt to pray is itself prayer. The attempt to love is itself love. I hang onto this thought whenever our family prayers seem less than spectacular. God honours our intentions and efforts.
“I’m not getting anything out of Mass.’ Next time you hear someone say this or fall into this way of thinking yourself remember what the Church teaches about Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist. The good news is that He’s really there, no matter how lacklustre the priest, the church, the music and the liturgy may be. Nothing and no-one can stop us from being in Jesus’presence to receive Him and give ourselves to Him.
The bad news is, if we don’t get anything out of Mass and the Eucharist, there’s no one to blame but ourselves.
Loving Father, as on my earthly pilgrimage now receive Your beloved Son under the veil of a sacrament, may I one day see him face to face in glory, who lives and reigns with You for ever.
- Saint Thomas Aquinas
Divine Saviour, we come to Your sacred table to nourish ourselves, not with bread but with Yourself, true Bread of eternal life. Help us daily to make a good and perfect meal of this divine food. Let us be continually refreshed by the perfume of Your kindness and goodness. May the Holy Spirit fill us with His Love. Meanwhile, let us prepare a place for this holy food by emptying our hearts. Amen.
Saint Francis de Sales
O my sweet Lord Jesus, pierce my inmost soul with the most joyous and healthful wound of your love, with true serene and most holy apostolic charity, that my soul may ever languish and melt with love and longing for you, that it may yearn for you and faint for your courts, and long to be dissolved and to be with you. Grant that my soul may hunger after you, the bread of angels, the refreshment of holy souls, our daily and supernatural bread, having all sweetness and savour and every delight of taste; let my heart hunger after and feed upon you, upon whom the angels desire to look, and may my inmost soul be filled with the sweetness of your savour; may it ever thirst after you, the fountain of life, the fountain of wisdom and knowledge, the fountain of eternal light, the torrent of pleasure, the richness of the house of God; may it ever compass you, seek you, find you, run to you, attain you, meditate upon you, speak of you and do all things to the praise and glory of your name, with humility and discretion, with love and delight, with ease and affection, and with perseverance unto the end; may you alone be ever my hope, my entire assistance, my riches, my delight, my pleasure, my joy, my rest and tranquility, my peace, my sweetness, my fragrance, my sweet savour, my food, my refreshment, my refuge, my help, my wisdom, my portion, my possession and my treasure, in whom may my mind and my heart be fixed and firm and rooted immovably, henceforth and forever. Amen.
Saint Bonaventure (died 1274 A.D.)
Scripture is a window to the Catholic liturgy and backs Church teaching on Jesus’ sacrifice
Pope John Paul II’s declaration of the Year of the Eucharist provides an opportunity for Catholics to refocus their attention on the sacrifice of the Mass.
Thomas Nash, author of “Worthy is the Lamb: The Biblical Roots of the Mass” (Ignatius Press), hopes that clergy and laity alike take full advantage of that opportunity.
The senior information specialist at Catholics United for the Faith, based in the US, recently discussed how Catholics can delve into the depths of the Mass and fortify their faith by understanding its biblical roots and the power of Christ’s sacrifice in the Eucharist.
Zenit: Why is it important for Catholics to know and understand the biblical roots of the Mass?
Thomas Nash: We need to remember first that the Bible is the written Word of God and, as such, has great power in and of itself.
As it says in Hebrews 4:12, God’s word is living and active; therefore, simply reading the Bible and proclaiming it can bring us and others closer to God.
In addition, in reading God’s word, Catholics will come to appreciate better how true the Mass is, how the Mass’ roots are deeply planted in the Old Testament and fulfilled in Christ’s sacrifice of Calvary.
The Bible tells the story of how God came to save us, and the biblical roots of the Mass - the biblical story of the Mass - are central to that story of salvation history. Why?
Because the Mass sacramentally represents Christ’s one sacrifice whereby man was redeemed and salvation made possible.
If Catholics want to understand God’s great love for us, if they want to better grasp the truly aweinspiring nature of the Mass, they need to know the biblical roots of the Mass.
A biblical understanding of the Mass is particularly crucial in interacting with Protestants and also with our Jewish friends, given that the great Jewish sacrifices, such as the Passover and Day of Atonement offerings, prefigure and are fulfilled in Christ’s sacrifice of Calvary.
Zenit: How does Bible study help Catholics awaken to the fullness and beauty of the Mass?
Nash : The more we study Scripture, the more we’re going to know how much Our Lord has loved us and our spiritual ancestors, and how much he loves us now in letting us participate in the wondrous sacrifice of the Mass, at which we become present to offer and partake of our loving Lord.
The result of such study will be
Catholics with much greater conviction, better prepared and more willing to serve the Lord.
Zenit: What makes your book different from others on the Mass?
Nash: The title indicates its distinctiveness. It provides a comprehensive overview of the biblical roots of the Mass in a popular yet scholarly way. I didn’t see any book that really filled this niche, and other authors and scholars confirmed my judgment. A significant part of my book uses the Day of Atonement sacrifices to show that, while Christ’s suffering ended on the cross, His sacrifice - that is, His self-gift to the Father on our behalf - continues forever. I think readers will also particularly enjoy my explication of the priesthood of Melchizedek and its fulfillment in Jesus, as well as my response to Protestant objections about Eucharistic Prayer I and how Christ’s body allegedly cannot be in more than one place - that is, heaven given its limited human nature.
Zenit: How does an understanding of the Mass affect Catholics’ adherence to the faith?
Nash: When a Catholic really understands and appreciates the truly awesome significance of the Mass, he will not be vulnerable to leaving the Church and he’ll be much less likely to dissent from Church teaching.
Zenit: What has contributed to modern Catholics’ lack of appreciation for the Mass?
particularly in the West. As good as things were for the Church in the 1940s to the early 1960s, it’s evident that Church leaders and rank-and-file Catholics were not, in general, well-prepared to withstand the cultural broadside that began to really kick in during the 1960s.
liturgy, offering and “partaking” of the sacrificial Lamb in a fulfilled manner, that is, offering and having communion with Our Lord without sacramental veils.
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Nash : The general societal decline we’ve experienced in the last four decades or so has undermined many people’s appreciation of that which is truly sacred and moral. In the process, we’ve seen a slide in catechesis - in the home, at Catholic schools and in homilies - although I definitely think things have improved in the last two decades.
The failure to stem the decline of Catholic colleges and Catholic education in general beginning in the late 1960s, as well as the widespread rejection of Humanae Vitae
The Sunday homily is an excellent place to talk about the Eucharist because it concludes the Liturgy of the word and prepares for the ensuing Liturgy of the Eucharist.
In becoming better informed about the Mass, Catholics will be more likely to become more convicted in living the faith. As a
the Mass is “the source and summit of the Christian life. It is the “source” because without Christ’s sacrifice, we would have no redemption, and thus no Church and sacraments. The “summit” because we will one day participate in the heavenly liturgy, offering and “partaking” of the sacrificial Lamb in a fulfilled manner, that is, offering and having communion with Our Lord without sacramental veils.
(“On Human Life”), are just two examples. Praise God, we’ve been seeing improvements on these and other fronts in recent decades.
Zenit: What can priests and catechists do to combat that trend?
In general, Catholics are not as well-formed as they could be to appreciate and participate in the Mass. Some blame Vatican II and the Mass rite promulgated by Pope Paul VI, but it’s been misrepresentations of both that have actually done damage. In addition, had we never had a Vatican II or a new Mass rite, the Church would still have had some serious challenges, given the general societal decline,
Nash : Sunday Mass should be the fundamental place where Catholics learn about and grow in love with God and his Church.
As Vatican II affirms, the Mass is “the source and summit of the Christian life. It is the “source” because without Christ’s sacrifice, we would have no redemption, and thus no Church and sacraments.
The “summit” because we will one day participate in the heavenly
result, I think they will be much more likely to participate in other non-Mass parish activities for further catechesis and invite others to do the same.
The Church can help further by assisting the faithful to encounter Jesus more fruitfully, both through general catechesis at various age levels and through the reception of the sacraments, and also by encouraging and empowering parents to start the catechetical process early in the home.
The person of Jesus - and thus His eucharistic sacrifice is fundamental to Catholic catechesis, and it is in the Eucharist that Our Lord provides us eternal life in a unique self-gift of himself, as John 6:58 conveys. -ZENIT
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i say i say
As Ryan Johnson explains it, George Washington’s inauguration ceremony was painstakingly planned down to the tiniest detail about seating arrangements - with just one exception.
As the first president of the United States arrived at New York’s City Hall by horse-drawn carriage and prepared to step onto the open balcony that April 30 in 1789, it belatedly occurred to organisers that there ought to be a Bible on which Washington could take the oath of office.
One of the men at hand, parade marshal Jacob Morton, also happened to be master of the St John’s Lodge
to have a copy of the Bible, let alone one of as high quality as the Masons’ edition.
Prior to the nation’s independence, no publisher in the colonies had been allowed to print Bibles, because the authorization of the King of England was needed. Like the Masons’ Bible, those used in the fledgling republic tended to come from Europe and at great expense.
In commemoration of the new importance of the George Washington Inaugural Bible, as it came to be known, it soon had a new engraved image of president inserted to face the opening page portrait of King George II.
Johnson said it was likely unintentional, but the use of the Masons’ Bible for Washington’s ceremony also may have dodged an ecumenical problem.
“No church’s Bible would have been acceptable to people of the various denominations,” he explained. By
it in place on the podium an hour before the ceremony started.
Given the Bible’s age and historic value, the Masons weren’t willing to let it be exposed to the cold drizzle that long, so Bush used a family Bible.
Records kept by the Architect of the Capitol suggest only one president in the 216 years since Washington was inaugurated did not take the oath of office with one hand on a Bible. Franklin Pierce, the 14th president, “affirmed” - but did not “swear” - his oath with one hand on a law book, instead of a Bible. Some historical records say Pierce did so because of a crisis of faith after his only remaining child, an 11-year-old boy, was killed in a train accident a few weeks before the inauguration.
The nation’s only Catholic president to date, John F Kennedy, used his family’s Douay Version of the Bible. The 1850 edition was brought by his Fitzgerald ancestors from Ireland,
No. 1 of the Masons and offered to provide one from the lodge, located nearby at the corner of Water and Wall streets.
The organisation’s 1767 King James Version was rushed to the hall and opened to Genesis, at the end of Chapter 49 and the beginning of Chapter 50, where Washington placed his hand for the ceremony.
As he completed the oath written for the occasion, Washington added the unscripted words, “I swear, so help me God,” and bowed to kiss the Bible.
Thus was born a tradition followed by almost every one of the 42 presidents inaugurated since then, including some who have used the very same Bible.
The volume is still owned by the St John’s Lodge, which Johnson serves as chairman of the George Washington Inaugural Bible Committee. He was one of three lodge members who escorted the Bible to Washington in January for it to be displayed as part of an inauguration exhibit at the National Archives.
At a January 10 presentation at the Archives, Johnson explained that in the 1770s it was something of a luxury
using one owned by a fraternal organization instead of a Bible from one of New York’s 22 different churches, a potential disagreement over the president favouring one denomination over another was avoided, Johnson said.
In the two centuries since then, the Washington Bible has been used at a variety of national events, including other inaugurations, the dedication of the Washington Monument and the laying of the cornerstone of the US Capitol building, Johnson said. Lodge rules also allow it to be used for various Masonic ceremonies and the inaugurations of New York governors.
Records weren’t kept to indicate whether other early presidents may have used the Washington Bible for their inaugurations, but four in the 20th century did: Warren G. Harding in 1921, Dwight D Eisenhower in 1953; Jimmy Carter in 1977 and George HW Bush in 1989. President George W.Bush had hoped to use it for his first inauguration in 2001, but the damp weather that day put a crimp in the plans.
Johnson explained that the Bible was brought to Washington for the ceremony, but the Secret Service wanted
according to the John F Kennedy Library in Boston. That Bible, a massive tome now on display at the library, was kept current with records of family births through the time of Kennedy’s presidency.
There are some firm rules about the use and handling of the George Washington Bible. Only a president being sworn in is allowed to touch the pages of the Bible without gloves, for instance. But Johnson said one popular belief - that it cannot travel by airplane - is a myth.
The misconception that the Masons wouldn’t allow it to be transported by airplane was based on the refusal of a previous grand master of the lodge to fly ever again after he returned from a stint in the military as a helicopter pilot, Johnson said. If he wouldn’t fly, neither could the Bible when he was escorting it. Gilbert Savitzky, grand secretary of the lodge, said the Masons do obtain special permission for the Bible not to be X-rayed for airport security, however. Instead, when it must be transported by air, arrangements are made for it to be inspected by hand, including being screened for explosives residue. - CNS
When I was a Sea Cadet in the 1960’s, I was taken aboard a visiting British cruiser, HMS Lion. It was a memorable moment for me to see, in great polished brass letters on the side of the great ceremonial rumpuncheon, the words, with something of poetry in their very uncompromising simplicity: FEAR GOD. HONOUR THE KING. We began our parades with prayers, though the Catholics were excused the Anglican services.
The times they are a-changing. The British Navy has, in obeisance to political correctness, now allowed a naval technician, Christopher Cranmer, to register as a Satanist. He will be allowed to perform Satanic rituals aboard his ship, HMS Cumberland, and of course his messmates will be forced to live in proximity to this.
Mr Cranmer is now reported to be lobbying the Ministry of Defence to make Satanism a recognised religion in the armed forces.
A spokesman for the Royal Navy is quoted as saying: “We are an equal opportunity employer and we don’t stop anyone from having their own religious values.” I think I have a pretty good idea how Nelson or Earl St Vincent would have reacted.
When I first read this story I thought it was a hoax. It seems, however, that it is genuine.
Former British Conservative Party Minister Ann Widdecombe said she was “utterly shocked” by the Royal Navy’s decision. “Satanism is wrong,” she said. “Obviously the private beliefs of individuals anywhere, including the armed forces, are their own affair but I hope it doesn’t spread. The Navy should not permit Satanist practices on board its ships.
“God Himself gives free will, but I would like to think that if somebody applied to the Navy and said they were a Satanist it would raise its eyebrows somewhat.”
British Vanguard-class submarines carry batteries of missiles with multi-targetted thermonuclear warheads. Gives you a warm feeling, doesn’t it, to consider that someone worshipping the Lord of the Flies, the Prince of Destruction, may be put in charge of thermonuclear weapons? It might even lead to a warm feeling in the literal sense.
"I don’t like to be apocalyptic, but this strikes me as one of those landmark moments in a culture’s development."
Would you even trust a Satanist as a fighting man to show the hard and Christian virtues of valour and chivalry? One thinks of Naval men like Fegan of HMS Jervis Bay and Rankin of HMAS Yarra, who unhesitatingly laid down their lives for others, and wonders.
I don’t like to be apocalyptic, but this strikes me as one of those landmark moments in a culture’s development. If “they” - that is the guardians of political correctness - get away with this, then you can kiss Anglomorph culture goodbye. Maybe not this year, or next, but soon. A recent book by an American author, Jane Jacobs, Dark Age Ahead (Random House, New York) concludes: “We show signs of rushing headlong into a Dark Age.” It was written before this news item appeared.
The Queen counts among her titles Defender of the Faith. The Duke of Edinburgh is a serving Admiral of the Fleet - the very highest rank in the Royal Navy. Tony Blair and his wife are meant to be Christians of sorts, despite a widely-reported episode of Mayan lizardworshipping when they were holidaying in Mexico. I wonder if there would be any point in a few letters to Buckingham Palace or No. 10 Downing Street. Or to the Admiralty?
For Jesuit Father Mike Vjecha, overseeing one of the largest AIDS studies ever conducted combines the best of his two worlds - being a priest and a doctor.
He is executive coordinator of the Strategies for Management of Anti-Retroviral Therapy Study, or SMART Study, which will track 6,000 infected patients over an eight- to nine-year period.
Funded by the US National Institutes of Health, the study is being conducted through the Community Programs for Clinical Research on AIDS. CPCRA, as it is known, is a community-based clinical trials network whose main goal is to obtain evidence to inform health care providers and people living with HIV about the most appropriate use of available therapies.
“It’s the largest randomised study in HIV treatment to date, the longest and most expensive HIV trial that NIH has ever funded,” Father Vjecha told the National Jesuit News magazine in an interview in his office at
the Veternas Administraion (VA) Medical Centre in Washington. The study compares two strategies for treating people with HIV.
Current treatment consists of suppressing the virus through a continuous supply of drugs. Another strategy is called “drug conservation,” or giving drugs only intermittently. With this method, enough medication is given to prevent opportunistic infections but it is stopped when immune cell counts are at a high enough level. The study will end when a statistically predetermined number of patients die or develop an AIDS-defining illness such as an infection, a brain disease or certain cancers. These are what researchers call “clinical endpoints.” At that stage, the advantages and disadvantages of the two treatment strategies will be compared.
How did a Jesuit who speaks French, Spanish and German and is familiar with eight other languages ranging from Swahili to Pidgin end up at a VA hospital conducting an AIDS study?
In 1976, after graduating from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, with a degree in philosophy, Mike Vjecha applied to medical school and to the Society of Jesus.
Both applications were accepted. He deferred admission to Case Western Reserve
University’s School of Medicine in Cleveland to enter the novitiate.
For the next three years, among other things, he volunteered with the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India; taught high school
In an effort to respond to the needs of thousands of fishermen left destitute by the December 26 tsunamis, the Holy See called for a special meeting of the Apostleship of the Sea in late January.
National and regional Apostleship of the Sea representatives from six of the 12 countries affected by the tsunamis planned to attend the meeting in Rome.
As of January 12, a date for the meeting had not been set.
Together with members of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travellers, the apostleship representatives will determine what concrete help they can offer affected fishing communities in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia and Bangladesh.
The Apostleship of the Sea, which operates under the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travellers, is an international network of chaplains and volunteers who serve the pastoral and social needs of seafarers and their families.
Fishermen “already represent the poorest sector of the apostle-
ship,” said Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travellers.
Often “they are not treated very well” and “operate outside of ordinary labour laws” and protections, he told Catholic News Service on January 11.
Many in the fishing community who managed to survive the tsunamis lost their homes, vessels and all the equipment they need to make a living, the archbishop said.
“We would like to do something concrete for them and answer their requests,” he said.
On February 2, the Apostleship of the Sea’s special fishing committee will meet in Rome to further the goals set in the January meeting.
“We want to give not just what they had, but to create something new,” and somehow improve their quality of life, the Archbishop said.
Though some fishermen have been left traumatised by the tsunamis and perhaps fearful of the
sea, Archbishop Marchetto said there are those who immediately want to get back to work.
“What is astonishing to me is the hope that rises once again in people even after a disaster of this size, that people survive, recuperate, start again and want to win the eternal battle against the bad things that happen in life,” he said.
However, in southern India, some fishing families that have managed to work since the tsunamis cannot sell the fish they catch. Many people are refusing to eat fish and other seafood from tsunami-hit areas for fear that the fish have been contaminated by the human corpses dragged out to sea.
In India’s Kerala state, where seafood has been a large part of people’s diet, many are turning their backs on seafood. Some restaurants have removed fish items from their menu.
The lack of demand for fish also has driven prices down.
algebra, biology, philosophy and theology; and interned as a hospital chaplain.
According to Father Vjecha, Case Western attracts what officials there call “bent arrows” -
students who have had other training after college and have unusual backgrounds.
As a future priest, “I definitely fit into that category,” he said.
Initially intent on studying psychiatry, Father Vjecha was drawn to infectious diseases and geographic medicine, each a noted speciality at Case.
After getting his master of divinity degree in theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley in California, he completed his residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in infectious diseases.
While at Berkeley, he spent summers working in medicine. He served at a mission hospital in Papua New Guinea as a staff physician with the Mission Doctors Association.
He also worked in refugee camps for Eritreans in northeastern Sudan, where he was the American Refugee Committee’s country director and medical director.
His work with the committee took him to Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, where he organised a study on tuberculosis treatment in HIV patients.
After five years in Uganda, he went to Goma, Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, as the American Refugee Committee’s country director and medical coordinator.
The French philosopher Emmanuel Mounier was “a profound Christian, profoundly rooted in the Church,” says Cardinal Paul Poupard.
The president of the Pontifical Council for Culture made that assessment at an international congress dedicated to Mounier, held at Rome’s Salesian University.
The Cardinal said: “Given a society that is collapsing, it is urgent to find the spiritual as opposed to spiritualism, tradition as opposed to traditionalism, faith as opposed to fideism, morality as opposed to moralism - in a word, the genuine order as opposed to the established disorder.”
More than 550 people from around the world participated in the congress, entitled “The Person and Relational Humanism, Legacy and Challenges of Mounier.” It closed last Friday.
At the end of the congress, the participants wrote a petition requesting the introduction of the cause of beatification of Mounier (1905-1950).
“We are convinced that an eventual recognition of the heroism of the virtues of Mounier by the Church, in God’s time, will be a particularly precious stimulus for the exercise of a lay holiness in the light of the message of the incarnation and resurrection of the Lord,” said the participants, most of them philosophers. In 1932,
Mounier, a professor of philosophy, founded the review Esprit, bringing together some of the most brilliant Christian intellectuals of his age.
Mounier’s philosophy is based on the greatness of and respect due to the human person, the reason why his philosophy was called “personalism.”
For him, there cannot be a Christian conscience without engagement in the “battle” of ideas and challenges that affect people and society.
Esprit was banned in France by the Vichy government during the Nazi occupation in World War II, and Mounier was taken prisoner. After the war, the review resumed its course and grew in influence. Mounier died at 45.
Although his topic was what issues Pope John Paul II’s successor will face, George Weigel told a Washington audience that after an eight-day visit to Rome he is convinced that as the Pope, who is 84 and in frail health, enters the 27th year of his pontificate he is still in full control of the papacy and his death is not imminent.
Before he talked about the next Pope, Weigel examined the conclave that will elect him.
“It will be a conclave in which the legacy of John Paul II looms very large,” the scholar and author told an audience of about 200. He quoted an acquaintance who is an atheist: “In 1978, I could not have cared less who the next Pope would be. Now it means something to me personally.”
Because of the work done by Pope John Paul II and the influ-
ence he has had in world affairs, the conclave will not only elect a leader for the Church, but also a Pope for the entire world, according to Weigel. “All conclaves are by definition unprecedented,” Weigel said, but the next will be “unprecedented in a different way.” The conclave is composed of the members of the College of Cardinals. Of its 184 current members, 120 are under the age
of 80 and eligible to vote. Eleven percent are from North America, 19 percent from Latin America, 10 percent from Africa, 11 percent from Asia and 50 percent from Europe. The conclave is not only more complex logistically, but also linguistically. For the most part, the cardinals “don’t really know each other,” Weigel said.
Although the conclave will be “complex, possibly difficult and
probably lengthy,” Weigel doubts it will last too long because after a certain period of time world media will begin to report the church is in crisis trying to elect its new leader. He doubts the electors would want to have that reflect on the new Pope.
“The cardinal-electors know that they will be trying to find a successor to a giant,” Weigel said. “John Paul II has quite deliberately left a lot of work for the rest of us to do.”
Although the mainstream media may think that abortion, birth control and ordaining women to the priesthood are issues to be faced by the next pontiff, Weigel said, they are not.
The three issues that will matter most are the virtual collapse of Christianity in Europe, the rise of militant Islam and the millions of questions that have been posed by the biotechnology revolution, he said. Also to be considered are diplomacy and how the Holy See will participate in foreign affairs, he said. Unless it engages in dialogue with the rest of the world, the Holy See becomes “little more than a world council of churches,” Weigel said. -CNS
The death of the elderly bishop of a diocese in China’s northern Shanxi province has left a dozen young priests to manage on their own.
Bishop Teddeus Guo Yingong of Datong, who was recognised by the government-approved church and had papal approval, died on January 4 at the age of 87. He had been ordained bishop of the diocese in 1990. Father Liu Junhong, Datong vicar general, has been in charge of the diocese since Bishop Guo’s death.
He told UCA News on January 10 that a successor had not yet been chosen. Successors for government-approved bishops are normally chosen by the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.
Bishop Guo’s funeral Mass was held on January 12, and his body
was buried in the church cemetery the same day, Father Liu said.
In 2000 Bishop Guo handed over the diocesan administration to then-vicar general Father Zhang Baoping, who died suddenly in September 2003 at the age of 35.
Father Liu, now 34, was appointed vicar general in April 2004. The diocese has 11 other priests, of whom the eldest is 41.
“Everything has to start from the beginning,” Father Liu said.
The clergy lack experience in church administration and formation, he added, describing them as being like “children losing their father.”
Pope John Paul II asked Catholics around the world to participate in ecumenical events and prayer services during the Jan. 18-25 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The theme for the 2005 celebration was “Christ, the One Foundation of the Church.” During his January 16 Angelus address, Pope John Paul said, “I invite every community to organizse significant gestures of ecumenical encounter and dialogue and to implore from God the gift of the full unity of Christ’s disciples.” The Pope entrusted his prayers for Christian unity to the Blessed Virgin Mary and prayed that she would help Christians form “one heart and one soul and help all people grow in solidarity to build
In 1957, the split in the Chinese Catholic Church began with formation of the government-approved Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, designed to put the church in synchronization with communist goals and to separate the church from “foreign interference,” such as ties with the Vatican.
An underground church continued to exist and face persecution.
In recent years, Hong Kong church leaders have said twothirds of the bishops belonging to the patriotic association have reconciled secretly with the Vatican.
The Chinese church kept
a world of peace.” Anticipating the week of prayer, Pope John Paul met on January 15 with a delegation representing Finnish Catholics, the Finnish Orthodox Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.
More than 100 rabbis and cantors were scheduled to meet Pope John Paul II on January 18 to thank him for his efforts to promote Catholic-Jewish understanding. The group of 130 rabbis and cantors, accompanied by about 30 Catholic friends, were to be the largest group of Jewish leaders ever to travel to the Vatican to meet the Pope, said Salesian Father Norbert Hofmann, secretary of the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. Rabbi Jack
alive the line of apostolic succession with ordinations by validly ordained bishops. Bishop Guo was born in Datong County in 1917. After his ordination in 1946, he headed a diocesan high school. In 1952, after the expulsion of the diocese’s apostolic administrator, he led the diocese and became diocesan administrator in 1955.
Sometime during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, he was sent to a labour camp in a rural area for 13 years.
Beginning in 1980, he was allowed to practise his priestly ministry in the governmentapproved church.
He assumed key posts in the provincial Catholic Church Administrative Commission and headed the Datong Catholic Patriotic Association.
Bemporad, director of the New Jersey-based Centre for Interreligious Understanding, led the group to Rome and was scheduled to lead the rabbis in asking God to bless the Pope. “This is the first time in history that rabbis representing all branches of Judaism from all over the world have come together to collectively thank Pope John Paul II and the Church for all they have done to build bridges of understanding and mutual respect between Jews and Christians,” Rabbi Bemporad said in a statement.
Dark suits and red ties replaced red jumpsuits and helmets when Ferrari drivers Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello met Pope John Paul II. Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, president of
The Catholic press can help build a sense of community by helping individuals realise they are not alone in practising their faith, said US Archbishop John P Foley.
Catholic newspapers not only provide “authentic information about the Church and society,” but they also form “a true sense of Catholic community,” he said.
They make “us realise that we are not alone in practising our faith” and provide “good ideas about how we might be able to strengthen our faith and share it with others,” he added.
Archbishop Foley, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, made his remarks on January 12 in an address to communications professionals in Accra, Ghana.
The council released the archbishop’s written remarks at the Vatican the same day.
When it comes to using the press as an instrument of evangelisation, Catholic journalists are called to lead exemplary lives, he said.
If not, “many people will not listen to our message, because the messenger himself or herself appears to lack credibility,” he said.
Living a saintly life is the best kind of public relations the Catholic media can offer, he said.
“Mother Teresa is a much better argument for the Christian life than is an advertising campaign,” he added.
Finally, Catholic communicators must always be “open, truthful and accessible,” he said.
Ferrari, told the Pope on January 17 that the Italian carmaker wanted to honour him for “26 years in the pole position on the roads of humanity.” Presenting the Pope with a three-foot long model of the famous red Ferrari Formula One racer, Montezemolo told the Pope his company tried to operate according to Catholic social principles with teamwork, creativity, research and enthusiasm. In his speech to Montezemolo, the drivers and Ferrari mechanics, the Pope offered special congratulations to Schumacher, who won the 2004 Formula One world title. The German driver has won the championship seven times, five of them behind the wheel of a Ferrari. Pope John Paul told the members of the Ferrari squad that their success in sports and in manufacturing was particularly a result of the enthusiasm that flows from teamwork.
Ayoung French woman embarks on a determined quest to find out the truth about the battlefield fate of her fiance in the bittersweet World War I drama “A Very Long Engagement”.
Part romantic tear-jerker, part mystery, part gritty war movie, the film reunites director Jean-Pierre Jeunet with his “Amelie” leading lady, Audrey Tautou, and combines an emotionally engaging story with mesmerising visuals, resulting in a poignant parable about the absurdity of war and the power of love.
Based on the novel by Sebastien Japrisot, the tale centres on Mathilde (Tautou), a Brittany beauty crippled by polio, who refuses to surrender the hope that her betrothed, Manech (Gaspard Ulliel), survived the war, despite official reports to the contrary.
A grim opening sequence chronicles how Manech, along with four other soldiers serving with him on the front lines, were - in one case, wrongfully - court-martialled for self-inflicted wounds, which the desperate men thought would
Audrey Tautou
stamp their tickets home. As punishment, all five are banished from the relative safety of the Allied trenches and left for dead - most probably by crossfire - in the no man’s land between the Franco and German lines. But several eyewitnesses - including some of the men in his battalion - say that Manech may have made it out alive, providing Mathilde with the
slimmest glimmer of hope, which is all she needs. Supported by her kindly aunt and uncle (Chantal Neuwirth and Dominique Pinon), Mathilde sets out to unravel the riddle of Bingo Crepuscule, the name of the trench where Manech may - or may not - have met his doom.
Assisting her in her search are her sympathetic estate executor
(Andre Dussollier) and a maladroit Hercule Poirot-like detective, Germain Pire (the late Ticky Holgado).
A parallel plot involves a mysterious madam (Marion Cotillard) who was a lover of one of the other sentenced men and who is on a mission - or vendetta - of her own to punish those responsible for her lover’s tragic demise. To conceal her identity she dons several disguises, including a nun’s habit.
Tautou is alluring; her captivating chocolate eyes emote, in almost mimelike fashion, a blend of iron-willed resolve and girlish vulnerability. Though much heavier and darker than the whimsical “Amelie,” “A Very Long Engagement” shares much of that film’s sense of fairy-tale romance, especially in the colourful, honeytinted scenes in Paris and Brittany. But its floridness is tempered by the bleak visceral realism of the muddy, rain-pelted killing fields of the Somme, which are the backdrops of the film’s most potent and disturbing sequences - including shots of combatants being blown apart.
Known for his bold visual style in pictures like “Amelie” and “City of Lost Children” - the latter with filmmaking partner Marc Caro- Jeunet doesn’t disappoint here, crafting perhaps his most mature movie to date, buttressed by Bruno Delbonnel’s burnished cinematography, Aline Bonetto’s rich period design and Angelo Badalamenti’s
lyric but understated score.
Fine churches, monastaries, mosques and synagogues are once again being built.
John Graham recommends a beautifully-illustrated study of the subject.
In this laid-back secular age, in which doing your own thing has become a religion in itself, it is paradoxical that there has been a recent fruit-fall of architectural commissions for a variety of religious purposes and involving some of the world’s most prestigious and highly regarded architects. This suggests that communal prayer and worship are far from defunct; on the contrary, doing your own thing may even be going out of fashion, supplanted by a
more congregational and fraternal approach to life.
Phyllis Richardson’s book New Sacred Architecture describes 41 of the most striking and distinguished of these architectural commissions, including a few which remain incomplete. Churches, cathedrals, synagogues, mosques, meditation temples and retreat houses are included, most obviously for their particular identity and originality. This is no coffee-table affair: the photographs of such buildings as John Powson’s Cistercian monastery in Bohemia are taken from unusual but highly revealing vantages to display the idiosyncracies of design. Renzo Piano’s huge Church of San Giovanni Rotunda, built for Padre Pio’s community of Capuchin friars at Foggia, is shown in intimate detail, including its main supporting arch which at 160 feet is the longest in the world. Each of the buildings discussed also includes technical drawings as well as basic information on engineering methods and materials used.
The author describes a “common aesthetic” which influences these designs, but does not elaborate further. Unlike Richard Weston’s excellent Materials, Form and Architecture, in which he proposes the increasing significance of materials in design and then fleshes it out with examples,
Richardson attempts things the other way round, and thus her thesis seems stilted. There has always been cross-fertilisation between designs for differing religious practices. Liberal synagogues of the late 19th century had apsidal and even transeptual designs, not to mention an organ and choir loft at rear. This is not a common aesthetic, but one design copying another. Experts on synagogue architecture would point out that the church apse was itself copied from the design in synagogues which housed the ark of the covenant containing the Sefrei Torah.
New Sacred Architecture is good in its jargon-free analyses of what makes each building remarkable. The sheer range of creativity, from Rafael Moneo’s vast Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles, to Tony Fretton’s tiny Faith House at Holten Lee on the Dorset Coast, is exhaustive. It is interesting how self-evident are the sacred purposes of these buildings, although few have ecclesiastic markers or symbols which would clearly identify them as such. Paradoxically, it is this lack of adornment and religiosity which most emphasises their spiritual purpose. John Powson’s Cistercian Monastery in Bohemia, still under construction, voices a transcendent beauty which is the opposite of luxury but whose raison d’etre, a
Echoing such past films as Stanley Kubrick’s “Paths of Glory” and “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “Long Engagement” also has a strong anti-war message. The film’s detours into the lives of the other condemned men, though discursive at times, show how the obscenity of war affects the lives of those left behind.
The film is not without its shortcomings, including a labyrinthine plot, which shuttles back and forth in time, and a profusion of secondary characters that makes it difficult to keep track of who’s who. It also contains some bawdy scenes and a morally dubious subplot involving a soldier who asks his best friend to father a child with his wife (played in a brief cameo by Jodie Foster), so he can qualify for a discharge.
Still this beautifully crafted film’s hopeful message of love’s capacity to overcome all obstacles - even death and despair - may make this “engagement” worth keeping, especially in our own time of war.
Because of graphic warfare violence, including gory dismemberment and self-mutilation, several murders, an execution, a few sexual encounters, some nudity, a morally dubious subplot, and an instance of masturbation, the USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is L - limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling.
functioning monastic community, flows effortlessly from the purity of the design. To use Gerard Manley Hopkins’s term, Powson’s design “inscapes” that which it purports to symbolise, namely Cistercian spirituality. The numinous flows from the material.
0ne aspect of modern design which the author correctly identifies as lending itself to sacred architecture is the innovative engineering methods used to create particular effects. The Church of the Sacred Heart in Munich, by Almann, Sattler and Wappner, completed in 2000, uses load-bearing glass to greatly reduce any visible supports in its inner structure, creating a gravity-defying floating feeling, without any boxed in oppressiveness.
The facade of the church, moreover, consists of a set of giant doors which can be swung completely open so that exterior courtyard and inner church become one continuous sanctum, weather permitting, presumably. The effect of the giant portals fully open must be remarkable to even the most jaded observer, and would be unthinkable and impossible without the use of modern methods and materials, aided of course by computer modelling.
This is true also of the glass roof of Richard Meier’s Jubilee Church in Rome, and also the
rooflights of Alfred Jacoby’s New Synagogue in Chemnitz, Germany. There the effect is one of incandecence and brilliance, also seen in Abdelhalim’s Imam Mosque in Riyadh, with its subtle but powerful use of clerestory stepping and angles in its rooflights.
The character of materials and their effects is also well observed by Richardson. The lignum vitae wood used in the interior of Ruiz Barbarin’s Retreat House for Jesuit Clergy in Avila, Spain and completed in 2000, creates feelings of security and belonging, which probably helps when you are struggling with the Herculean challenges of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises while existing only on porridge and water.
The question of a common aesthetic aside, Phyllis Richardson has composed a useful journey around truly remarkable sacred buildings. The photographs used are excellent, as is the standard of production. If you do not have the time or money to visit these buildings - I certainly do not - New Sacred Architecture provides a most attractive and wellwritten alternative.
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21 Opening address for Annual Flame Congress, All Saints’ Chapel - Bishop Sproxton
23 Mass at Our Lady of Mt Carmel, Hilton - Archbishop Hickey Province Day Mass for Sisters of St Joseph, South Perth - Archbishop Hickey
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24 Blessing of Stained Glass Window at Catholic Pastoral Centre, Highgate - Archbishop Hickey
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RELIGIOUS PRODUCTS
Question: What's the difference between an elephant and an airline pilot?
Answer: Often an elephant can't fly a plane, unless it's been certified to Australian regulatory standards as specified by the appropriate Commonwealth and State legislation where applicable. It's really a jurisdictional matter too, I suppose, if there is a violation of the aforementioned laws and statutes.
Question: What's the difference between an elephant and a peanut?
Answer: They're roughly the same size, so I'm not sure. Does a peanut stampede and trample all over people? If they can, I'm really worried. I have a whole jar of peanuts at home and they might be upset with me because I haven't let them out for a long time. I hope walnuts are not fierce either. I have a lot of them too. And they're bigger than peanuts.
25 Australia Day Citizenship and Awards Ceremony, Perth - Fr Brian O’Loughlin VG
2 Meeting with Catechumens and Candidates, Lockridge - Bishop Sproxton
Sunday January 23
GATE OF HEAVEN
Please join us this Sunday at 7.30pm on 107.9 FM, Radio Fremantle, for more Global Catholic Radio. This week we will feature: (1) The Late Archbishop Fulton J Sheen: Authority and Infallibility. (2) Fr John Corapi: The Tradition of Prayer. Donations toward the program may be sent to Gate of Heaven, PO Box 845, Claremont, WA 6910. Programs subject to change without notice.
Sunday January 23
ETERNAL WORD TELEVISION NETWORK
1 - 2 pm on Access 31: St Thomas Aquinas ; Dr Therese Farnen discusses Thomistic philosophy with Fr Mitch Pacwa (EWTN Live Series). Funds are again running low. These wonderful programs cannot be kept on Access 31 without your ongoing prayerful and financial assistance. We are grateful to those who have contributed, and appeal especially to those who appreciate this powerful means of evangelisation, but have not recently sent a donation. Address: The Rosary Christian Tutorial Association, PO Box 1270, Booragoon 6954. Enq: 9330 1170. Web site: http://www.cathworld.org/ worlds/org/media/
Sunday January 23
FUNDRAISER
Cross Roads Community Portuguese Sardine Festival is being held at St Jerome’s in Spearwood at 1pm. Please ring CRC on 9319 8344 for information.
Monday January 24
LEEDERVILLE MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT GROUP
Morning coffee and chat, 10am-12noon, in our Parish Centre, 40 Franklin St Leederville. Everybody wel-
come who’s interested in receiving or giving support to people who’ve suffered from any depression or mental down times. Just come! Enq: Harry Mithen 9444 4626.
Tuesday January 25
BIBLE COLLEGE ENROLMENTS
Acts 2 College of Mission & Evangelisation. Enrolments for 2005 close on 25th January. An exciting opportunity to grow in knowledge of the Bible and Catholic doctrine, deepen your faith and apply it in everyday life. Full and part-time courses available. Ring 9202 6868 or visit the website at www.acts2come.disciplesofjesus.org
Wednesday January 26
AUSTRALIA DAY HOLY HOUR
For the conversion of Australia. 8.45 – 9.45am followed by Holy Mass at 10am. Morning tea in parish centre after Mass. Please bring a plate. St John’s Pro-Cathedral Victoria Ave Perth. All welcome. Enq: Fr Michael Rowe 9444 9604.
Saturday January 29
NOVENA TO OUR LADY OF VAILANKANNI
Holy Trinity Church, Embleton, 5pm followed by Vigil Mass at 6pm. Last Saturday of every month. Enq: George 9272 1379, Santina 9272 4180.
Sunday January 30
BULLSBROOK SHRINE PILGRIMAGE
Monthly pilgrimage in honour of the Virgin of the Revelation, 36 Chittering Rd Bullsbrook at 2pm. Includes rosary, Mass at 2.30pm, procession to the Shrine, benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and the blessing of the sick. All welcome. Reconciliation is from 1.30pm. Bus transport departs Barrack St 12.30pm for Bullsbrook via Highgate, Guildford & Midland. Bookings: Mrs Haddon 9277 5378. Enq: SACRI 9447 3292.
Friday February 4
ALLIANCE AND TRIUMPH OF THE TWO HEARTS
All night vigil of devotions and reparation to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary at St Bernadette’s Church, Jugan Street, Glendalough. Commences 9pm with Holy Mass. Concludes with Parish Mass at 7.30am followed by Rosary and Benediction. Light refreshments available during the night. Enq: 9342 5845.
Saturday February 5
DAY WITH MARY
Our Lady Queen of Poland Church, 35 Eighth Ave Maylands 9am – 5pm. A video on Fatima will be shown at 9am. A day of prayer and instruction based upon the messages of Fatima. Includes Sacrament of Penance, Holy Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, sermons, rosaries, procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Stations of the Cross. Please BYO. Enq: Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate 9384 3311.
Saturday February 12
YEAR OF THE EUCHARIST SEMINAR
10am-3pm St Bernadette`s Catholic Church 49 Jugan St Glendalough. Speakers: His Grace Archbishop B J Hickey and Fr Doug Harris. Shared Lunch. Tea and coffee provided. Enq: Frr Doug 9444 6131 or Dorothy 9342 5845.
Sunday February 13
SUMMER SUNDAY
Come and join us for a BYO picnic on Scarborough Beach. Mix with old friends and meet some new, from 5pm. Bring your own picnic or buy dinner at Scarborough Beach eateries. From the Scarborough Beach clock tower, head north until you are in front of Peter’s by the Sea kebab place.
With that eatery behind you, head towards the water and meet us on the grass at the bottom of the steps. Look for our coloured balloons. This function is organised by an informal network of Catholics who aim to build community amongst those in the 25-50 age group. RSVP and enq: Therese 0413 021 972.
Sunday March 13
To mark the Golden Jubilee of the foundation of St Thomas More College, UWA, a reunion will be held for former students from 1955 – 1973. Mass will be celebrated at 2pm in the College Chapel followed by afternoon tea. Fr Begley, SJ, founding Vice Rector, will be in attendance. For catering purposes please RSVP to stmcrsec@cylllene. uwa.edu.au or phone 08 9386 0120 (if unattended please leave a message) by Monday March 7.
Term 1 – 31st January to 8th April for: Family & Friends Support Groups of Substance Abusers on Wednesdays 7 – 9pm, Substance Abusers Support Groups on Tuesdays 5.30pm – 7.30pm & Friday’s All day Group for Substance Abusers 9.30am – 2pm, Bible Night: Tuesdays 7 – 9pm & Healing Mass: Fridays 12.30pm. Healing Masses Beginning February: 1st Monday of month 7pm Church of East Fremantle, 2nd Monday of month 10am St Jerome’s Munster. No Healing Masses in January 2005.
Police predicament:
Teens, not terrorists, are reaching the people - especially the poor, the sick and children - caused his displeasure,” said Marinelli, who led the Italian Vatican squad for 14 years.
Marinelli spoke on January 12 during a conference launching a book about the Italian security agents, “The Pope’s Guardian Angels,” by Glauco Benigni.
Gerardo Centanni, the officer in charge of escorting the Pope whenever he leaves the Vatican, told the conference, “Our work is unique because the subject is unique.”
The security measures that
professional training and common sense would dictate, he said, often are not acceptable to the union that represents most of the Italian police assigned to the Vatican’s perimeter, said he went public because the 2004 alerts meant “the situation was dangerous for the crowd, but also for the officers.”
Tuzi said, however, that Italy does have “invisible” security measures in place, including around and over St Peter’s Square.
he said, “as the crowds’ enthusiasm grows, my concern rises.”
The police are not playing, though.
The union mobilised “to push for more personnel, better training and better equipment,” Tuzi said.
The police officers identified several ongoing security concerns: the Pope’s insistence on being in the crowd and touching the faithful; the lack of identification checks when distributing and collecting the free tickets to papal events; the ease with which the tickets could be copied; the lack of rigor-
While he said he could not provide details, he said members of the Italian police anti-terrorism unit are always nearby when the Pope is in public.
Tuzi said there “could be” sharpshooters on buildings as well as undercover agents with cameras scattered among the crowds.
But even as the worst-case scenarios are studied in planning meetings, Centanni said most of the police interventions involve the adoring faithful.
The Pope, he said, “is an icon
Packed up against security barriers as the Pope rides by in the Popemobile, young people have been known to “launch themselves in flight in an attempt to glide and perhaps end up stuck to the Popemobile.”
“The climate becomes surreal,” he said, and the police have to divide up into teams of blockers, catchers and pitchers who “throw those kids back over the barricades.”
At the 2000 celebration of World Youth Day in Rome, he said, “I think the Pope enjoyed the sort of
Centanni said that especially after the 2004 terrorist alarms, the police not only examine the crowds for people acting strangely, but they also move in around groups of young people getting overexcited as they wait for the Pope.
Fortunately, he said, “an exchange of eloquent glances” is usually all it takes to make “the aspiring acrobats” change their minds about jumping the barricades.
The Pope, Centanni said, “is exposed to threats from every type of fanaticism.”