The Record Newspaper 21 July 2010

Wednesday, 21 July 2010

APPLE’S STEVE JOBS: THE ANTIPORN BILLIONAIRE?

PAGE 9

THE R ECORD

Protecting the Faith Protecting the Faith

Carmelites and friends CELEBRATE 75th

BY BRIDGET SPINKS

Archbishop Barry Hickey and nine priests celebrated Mass at the Carmelite Monastery in Nedlands on 16 July, the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

The Mass marked the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the convent in Perth.

Archbishop Hickey said the

Archdiocese was “thrilled” to have the Carmel in Perth for 75 years.

“Mary is a great model of prayer, of silence, of contemplation,” he said in his homily.

“The Carmelites here have embraced that silence and contemplation and Mary’s poverty. They live here entirely on providence,” he said.

Popular Parish Priest passes away

Fr

An external Carmelite, up to nine Third Order Carmelites and members of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites based at Infant Jesus, Morley and the many friends of the Nedlands Carmelites attended the anniversary Mass. A feature on the Nedlands Carmelites will be in next week’s edition of The Record. Stay tuned.

Nedlands Carmel

The Discalced Carmelite Nuns of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary were founded by St Teresa of Avila in Spain in 1562. Of the three women who have been officially declared to be Doctors of the Church (outstanding teachers of the Faith), two, St Teresa of Avila and St Therese of Lisieux, were Discalced Carmelite nuns. The nuns were introduced into Australia by Cardinal Patrick Moran in 1885 from Angoulême in France. The seven monasteries in Australia are autonomous.

THE PARISH Fr John keeps on keeping on

After 60 years as a priest, all the credit goes to God says beloved Parish Priest

BY BILL SMITH

Well known Perth priest Fr John Luemmen, a member of the Pallottine family, celebrated his 60th anniversary of priestly ordination on Friday, 9 July.

After being drafted and serving in the German Army in the Second World War, Fr John was ordained with nine other Pallottine deacons on 9 July 1950 at Limburg in Germany. A year later he and three others were sent to Australia as missionaries. Of the 10 who were ordained, only two are alive today,

THE NATION

Fr John and Bishop John Jobst, the retired Bishop of Broome who now lives in Austria. A special anniversary Mass was celebrated at Our Lady Queen of Apostles Church in Riverton on 9 July.

Seven fellow Pallottine priests concelebrated, including Fr Ray Hevern, Superior of the Pallotine Please turn to Page 8

BY PETER ROSENGREN AUSTRALIAN

Bishop Max Davis has led the first official Australian contingent to participate in an international pilgrimage of Catholic armed forces

members to Lourdes in France since 1993.

Approximately 20,000 serving men and women from around the globe converged on Lourdes in late May for this year’s event, Please turn to Page 8

UN AIDS study backs Church teaching

Australian

Military Ordinariate Bishop Max Davis and Australian servicemen and women at the Lourdes International Military Pilgrimage.

Carmelite Sister Miriam beside a wall of historical photos spanning the 75 years of the Nedlands Carmel.

PHOTO: MARY WEERASURIYA

Fr Luemen at the dinner following his 60th anniversary Mass on 9 July.

Special day: Archbishop Hickey visited the Carmelite Sisters at Nedlands a week early in the lead up to celebrations of the 75th anniversary of their foundation in Perth in 1935.

SAINT OF THE WEEK

Bridget of Sweden

Bridget, or Birgitta, married a Swedish nobleman and they had eight children, including St. Katherine of Vadstena. About 1335 Bridget was appointed chief ladyin-waiting at the Swedish court. After she was widowed in 1344, she founded the Order of the Most Holy Savior, known as Brigittines. Bridget spent much time in Rome, living austerely and caring for the poor and sick. She died there after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Bridget claimed to have visions and inspirations throughout her life, prompting both influence and controversy. She was canonized in 1391.

At 107, Ada’s still going strong

BY JUDY STANLEY

Birthday greetings were arriving this week for Ada Furby of Leederville from the Prime Minister, the Governor General and the Leader of the Federal Opposition. A greeting from the Queen was also looking very possible.

Governor General Quentin Bryce, Prime Minister Julia Gillard, WA Governor Ken Michael, Federal Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop, Member for Curtin, WA Premier Colin Barnett and WA Opposition Leader Eric Ripper all sent birthday greetings.

Ada was due to turn 107 on Thursday, 22 July, two days after The Record went to press.

to the hostel. Once the hostel was fully occupied and staffed, Ada continued to work. She would help in the ladies laundry and also in the kitchen.

The staff tried to convince Ada to retire from all this work on a few occasions but she would take sick if she was not able to do the work she was used to doing.

The best way to get her well again, was to tell her the laundry was in need of her. That proved to be a better remedy than Aspirin for Ada.

Ada became very attached to Sr Cecilia and worked as an assistant in St Clare’s School and with other programmes.

Mary MacKillop

She has been at Villa Pelletier, a nursing home run by Southern Cross Nursing Homes, since 1971 but has been associated with the Good Shepherd Sisters for almost all her life.

Ada was born in in 1903. Her mother died when she was very young and Ada lived with her father in the UK. They came to Australia when she was about 20 for a holiday, but she took sick in Perth about the time they were due to return to England.

pastimes Ada pursued in the convent were caring for her white cat ‘Bunny,’ crochet and embroidery and these she did extremely well. She won numerous awards for her work when she exhibited it in the Royal Perth Show. Ada continued to crochet until age 100 when her failing eyesight made it too difficult.

When Sr Cecilia was working in Sydney, Ada was able to travel interstate for holidays with her. Her last holiday in Sydney would have been in the mid 1990s.

It was always Ada’s responsibility to prepare the altar for the weekly Mass at the Villa. She continued this job until after her 103rd birthday. Even when she handed this responsibility over, she would check and supervise it was done to her satisfaction for more than another year.

The Parish. The Nation. The World. Find it in The Record

As she was not well enough to travel, her father took her to the Good Shepherd Convent to recuperate and he returned to the UK alone. She planned to follow him home once she was well, but she never did. Ada stayed in the Home of the Good Shepherd, working in the laundry. She made a commitment as an auxilliary supporting the Sisters to care for the girls who were in care. Among the

AT A GLANCE

Throughout her convent years, Ada would go on holiday to the Ladies Beach House at North Beach. She would always have a group of ladies with her and she would be the “cook” and do the housework while away, so the girls could have a good time. In 1971, when Villa Pelletier was completed and ready for occupation, Ada was the first of the ladies to move down. She helped the other ladies slowly to move in

These days, Ada walks with the aid of a frame, has poor eyesight and her hearing is not the best, but her memory is great, and the stories she recalls are well worth listening to.

To celebrate her 107th birthday, Ada’s Good Shepherd family was due to join her for an icecream.

The Good Shepherd Sisters also wished Ada the best for her birthday, presenting her with a certificate of appreciation “for the many years of valued collaboration in our Good Shpeherd Mission” signed by Province Leader Sr Pam Molony RGS.

THE R ECORD New Contacts

Editor

Peter Rosengren editor@therecord.com.au

Journalists

Bridget Spinks baspinks@therecord.com.au

Mark Reidy mreidy@therecord.com.au Anthony

Bronia

The

Forthcoming events around the Archdiocese

St Joseph’s Workers

National Tree Planting Day 2010 with SJW - Inspired by the call to action in Matthew’s Gospel, “... but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches” (Matt 13:32). St Joseph’s Workers World Youth Day Group and young Catholics will join the broader local community to plant trees. Lunch, planting equipment and snacks will be provided but it’s BYO gloves, trowel and water bottle. For more information, contact Tristan Kolay on stjowork@gmail. com or tjkolay@iprimus.com.au.

When: 9am -12pm on 1 August at 375 Fisher St, Cloverdale.

National

Marriage Day

Perth Mass for National Marriage Day – Archbishop Barry Hickey will celebrate a special Mass for National Marriage Day on 12 August, the eve of the sixth anniversary of the passing of the 2004 Marriage Amendment Act which occurred on 13 August. This amendment states that marriage is “a union between one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life”. National Marriage Day coordinator Mary-Louise Fowler said that the passing of this Act

was primarily made possible through the many thousands of Australians being prepared to defend the foundation upon which our nation stands – the family based on marriage. The Mass is being supported by the Knights of the Southern Cross. For more information, visit: www. marriageday.org.au.

When: 7pm on 12 August at St Mary’s Cathedral, Perth.

Mary MacKillop

Ballajura

Diaconate Ordination - Seminarian Emmanuel is in Adelaide for a 30 day retreat and Mary MacKillop parish requests prayers for him and his four fellow candidates.

For more information, contact the parish on 9249 1247.

When: 20 August at Mary Mackillop Ballajura, 16 Pelican Pde, Ballajura.

Chivalry Ball

Chivalry Ball 2010 - Dance cards to encourage the guys to ask the girls to dance and white ball gowns to symbolise the virtue of purity are features of the Chivalry Ball. Five young Perth people, Montanna McCann, Sonia Spadaccini, Sarah Laundy, Chico Tenney and Kayla Roatch, with a crew of supporters, hosted their first Chivalry Ball in 2009. This will be the second of its kind in Perth. “Chivalry to us is a pure, holy and self sacrificing act of charity for the good of another person,” Montanna, 17, said.

The Ball is open to young people (16-25). Tickets are $35 and it’s a Black Tie event. To book your ticket, email the Chivalry Ball Team at chivalryball@hotmail. com. Visit www.wix.com/Monmaree/ ChivalryBallPerth for more information.

When: 7.30pm to midnight on 14 August at St Kieran’s Parish Hall, Osborne Park.

Catholic Outreach & Maranatha Institute

Walking with the Bereaved - This short course is designed to assist those helping the bereaved. The vigil, liturgy and burial prayers will be covered in the first session, Liturgy of a Catholic funeral rite, while the practical elements of organising a funeral, as well as how to listen and support the bereaved will be covered in the second session, Pastoral support for bereaved families preparing a Catholic funeral rite. Pastoral and prayer support will be covered in the third session, Bereavement support. A certificate of attendance and participation will be available if all three sessions are attended. Registration and payment $50 due by 28 July. To obtain a registration form, contact outreach@highgate-perthcatholic.org.au or www.catholicoutreach.org.au.

When: 9.30am-12pm on 5, 12 and 19 August at the Catholic Pastoral Centre, 40A Mary Street Highgate with morning tea provided.

Send your parish bulletin for At a Glance to baspinks@therecord.com.au.

Ada Furby at her 106th birthday party last year.

PHOTO: VILLA PELLETIER

‘The perfect Catholic parents’ and enduring love

In response to The Record’s 23 June front page inviting Catholic wedding photos, John Bryant brought in his parents’ 1934 wedding photo. He told BRIDGET SPINKS about how they wed in the 1930s and had a marriage that lasted a lifetime

John Bryant of Mount Lawley is one of three boys born in the 1940s to Veronica and Bill Bryant whom he says were “perfect Catholic parents”.

While he never married, John Bryant, now a retired former salesman for Ansett Australia before its demise in 2001, told The Record what it was like growing up with parents who loved the Catholic faith and passed it on with devotion.

Every night after dinner the family would pray the Rosary and several devotional prayers at the end.

“Fr Patrick Peyton, CSC came to Australia in 1953. As soon as he got the family Rosary concept going, we got going. ‘The family that prays together, stays together’,” Mr Bryant said.

“We always had umpteen prayers at the end, and the Litany and Memorare. We’d always say “Saviour of the world, Save Russia” - that was a catch-cry then,” he said.

Veronica, who was affectionately known as ‘Ron’ or ‘Ronnie’, met her future husband through her friend, Dan Quinlan.

In the mid-1920s, Ronnie was living with her family in Ucarty near Dowerin. She had come to Perth to have her tonsils out and after spending some time in Perth

to recover, Dan Quinlan gave her a lift back to the farm. But he had brought along a friend for the ride - Bill Bryant.

This meeting then became what Ronnie called “the longest courtship in history” - Bill was still at Perth Technical College on St George’s Terrace and he wanted to finish his studies first.

On her 26th birthday, on 14 November 1932, Bill proposed, she said yes, and two years later on the same day, Ronnie and Bill were wed. In 1940, Robert was born. Eighteen months later came John and in 1946, nearly four years later, Peter was born.

John admits that he and his brothers “weren’t that keen on the Rosary” and if they could evade the family prayers, they would.

But he has the utmost admiration, respect and love for his parents who would say it together, even when all their young men had gone out of an evening.

In 1941, Bill Bryant, a chem-

The school is in the fourth year of the RAISe (Raising Achievement In Schools) program and sets high standards of achievement in all learning areas. Information technology is embedded into all learning areas and there are interactive whiteboards in all classrooms, as well as a lab which provides one computer per child. An effective early intervention program is in place and a very successful sporting and physical education program is also in operation.

St Mary’s has a caring and committed staff, an active and supportive parent body and strong links with the parish and the local town community. Collectively the school community is focused on providing a holistic education for all students with an emphasis on their spiritual and academic development. Sound sporting and social opportunities are offered for prospective applicants.

The successful applicant will be required to take up this position on 1 January 2011.

ist, was offered a pharmacy in Geraldton. Bill, Veronica and one-year-old Robert moved to Geraldton where they settled and had two more boys. They lived there until 1953 when Bill sold the business and they moved back to Mount Lawley and took over the Rosemount Pharmacy in North Perth.

Robert, John and Peter went to Christian Brothers High School (CBHS) Highgate, before the CBHS merged in 1978 with CBHS Bedford and became known as CBC Highgate.

John recalled the days of CBHS and the drive home from playing away matches in New Norcia.

“My father was a friend of Br Williams, who was Head of Christian Brothers College in Geraldton. Then, a couple of years after we moved to Perth, he was appointed Head of CBHS, Highgate,” Mr Bryant said.

“My father would take us to away matches against St Ildephonsus

Parish. Nation. World. The Record.

College and Br Williams came with us and a Rosary was always said on the way home.”

Bill Byrant passed away on 1 January 1995. The year before on 14 November, Bill and Veronica celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. In 2001, Robert, who was a primary school teacher in Geraldton, retired and came home to live with John and his mother.

Veronica Bryant was 100 years old when she died on 12 October 2007. John and later Robert, too, cared for their parents at home in their last years.

“Mum and I cared for Dad who had a stroke in 1994 and died on New Year’s Day, 1995. Mum had a stroke in 2004, which left her

partly paralysed. She had to be in a wheelchair. Robert and I cared for her till she died,” John said.

John said his mother had great devotion to Our Lady, St Joseph, St Anne, St Anthony, St Martin de Porres and the Novena. She never missed Mass on Sundays, Holy Days of Obligation or First Fridays, was a dedicated member of the Highgate branch of the Catholic Women’s League and a “great worker for the Daughters of Charity” in their secondhand clothing stores. “Mum always thought of others,” John said.

“Whenever All Souls came around, she’d give a list of dearly departed friends to be remembered in the November Masses. She’d always write at the bottom, ‘And for all those poor forgotten souls who have no-one to pray for them or to have a Mass offered for them.’”

John also remembered his mother’s great piety, particularly at the Consecration. “At the elevation of the host, Mum would always say, ‘My Lord and My God,’ and when the Blood was raised, she would say, ‘May the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ wash away all my sins and the sins of the world’.”

“Mum was also big on holy water,” John added. “’Have you got the holy?’ she’d say, or, ‘Don’t forget the holy’. And blessed palms too. She’d say, ‘Your house will never burn down if there are blessed palms in the house’.” When all Bill Bryant’s family were living in Mount Lawley, Ronnie could never understand why she got married at the Cathedral, John said.

John is now in his 70s and still a parishioner of Sacred Heart at Highgate. His brother Robert is a parishioner at Maylands and Peter is at Balcatta.

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Veronica and Bill Bryant with their bridal party from left to right: Imelda Johnston, Eileen Eaton, Frank Bryant, Veronica Bryant (Bride), Bill Bryant (Groom, seated), Dick Bryant, Dulcie Williams and Nell Bryant. Veronica (née Ball) and Bill were married at St Mary’s Cathedral on 14 November 1934 with Dom William Giminez, a Benedictine monk from New Norcia, as the celebrant for the Nuptial Mass.

Parishes build up for Migrant, Refugee Sunday

BY ANTHONY BARICH

PARISHES can use Migrant and Refugee Sunday on 29 August to better understand their needs so they can be embraced by Catholic communities, a 10 July Archdiocesan pastoral plan gathering revealed.

The meeting at the Catholic Education Office in Leederville, which included representatives from 15 parishes, aimed to develop a pastoral plan for the Archdiocese in the lead-up to Migrant and Refugee Sunday.

The meeting included representatives from East Fremantle, North Perth, Lockridge and Thornlie, Armadale, Mt Lawley, Fremantle, Whitford, Morley, Nollamara, Joodanna and Girrawheen. Two more representatives from Kalgoorlie and Whitford also expressed interest in the meeting but could not attend on the day.

Building a network of contacts, information and education for parish volunteers and developing a ‘conduit’ for information sharing from the Pastoral Plan Team that was formed in February were also suggested as ways parishes can mobilise support for migrants and refugees in Catholic communities.

Migrant and Refugee Sunday could also be used to initiate a ‘conversation’ among parishioners about refugee issues which would generate awareness, the meeting suggested, as well as encouraging parishioners to act and be personally involved.

Practical, day to day suggestions about parish life were also put forward, including using the parish bulletin to share stories and information about refugees, using the Internet accordingly.

As feast days are often an important part of parish life in countries where migrants are from, more recognition of the parish feast day was encouraged

at the meeting, along with a multicultural celebration and, at parish events, an interpreter for those with a limited understanding of English.

Initiatives to help embrace new parishioners which are likely to include migrants like a ‘new parishioner lunch’ were also suggested, along with afterschool care for children, the establishment of a migrant or refugee group in the parish and education and formation within the parish, with phone numbers and contact details on the parish notice board. Basic ‘meet and greet’ events after parishes are also highly effective ways to engage migrants and refugees in Catholic communities, the meeting revealed. It also highlighted examples that other parishes can follow, like a Sudanese Gospel concert planned for North Perth in September and Armadale hosting an international dinner with a special emphasis on new parishioners, a “welcome to Australia” picnic, while Thornlie and Lockridge reported that many migrants are very

settled and have been in the parish for many years, therefore do not need much assistance.

Vietnamese parishioners at Lockridge are picked up by the Vietnamese chaplain and are helped via their community, while Thornlie hosts an annual Multicultural Mass with migrants wearing their ethnic dress, featuring songs and prayers in their own vernacular.

The parish based at the Redemptorist Monastery in North Perth has been holding an annual barbeque for a number of years for migrants and refugees in coordination with the Edmund Rice Centre in Mirrabooka. Up to 300 people reportedly attended the last one. Parishes can also put up a world map in the church pinpointing locations where the local migrants are from. For more details on how to include migrants in the Catholic community or about the pastoral plan, contact Archdiocesan Vicar for Migrants Fr Blasco Fonseca on 9438 3704 or email mmccombe@iprimus.com.au or Pastoral Plan Team member Judith Woodward by email woodward@it.net.au.

Maranatha Centre for Adult Faith Formation

Maranatha has moved to a new Centre at 33 Williamstown Rd, DOUBLEVIEW Courses for Term Three, 2010 begin on Tuesday, 27 July.

DAYTIME COURSES

8 weeks Cost $50

TUESDAY, 27 JULY – THURSDAY, 16 SEPTEMBER

Tuesdays: 9.30am -12.00pm Back to Galilee: A Church for the 21st Century Fr Paschal Kearney

1.00pm - 3.30pm Faith in Our Time (Christian Foundations) Sr Philomena Burrell

Thursdays : 9.30am – 12.00pm Life and Thought of John Henry Newman: A Man for Our Time Michelle Jones 1.00pm - 3.30pm Acts of the Apostles: Sequel to Luke’s Gospel & Christian Beginnings Sr Shelley Barlow

FRIDAYS, 6 AUGUST-24 SEPTEMBER

9.30am -12.00pm “The Law of Freedom” Fr Joe Parkinson

EVENING COURSES

6 weeks Cost $35

MONDAY, 2 AUGUST – WEDNESDAY, 8 SEPTEMBER - 7.00PM -9.00PM

Monday: Beginning Theology Sr Philomena Burrell Back to Galilee: A Church for the 21st Century Fr Paschal Kearney

Wednesday: Women as Peacemakers J Woodward, A Semaan, G Reid, A Graham Ecological Spirituality. Sr Shelley Barlow For

Mary empowers Salesians

Salesians celebrate 25 years in Perth (1985-2010)

FR JOHN GANDINI SDB

TWENTY-FIVE years have passed since the first two Salesian priests came to Perth to begin their apostolate with and for the young people of this great city.

Since 1985, the Salesian Congregation has been involved in parish ministry at Victoria Park and Kelmscott, secondary school chaplaincies at Lumen Christi/Gosnells and Ursula Frayne/ Victoria Park, representation on the Marriage Tribunal of the Archdiocese, lecturing at the University of Notre Dame Australia in Fremantle, Salesian Youth Summer Camps, Italian ministry and university chaplaincy at Curtin University of Technology where I am the current chaplain.

The wide range of apostolates have always indicated their availability and good will in attending to the many rising necessities in the Archdiocese and especially in caring and promoting the faith and wellbeing of the many wonderful and enthusiastic young people who call this great city home.

Since the arrival of the first two Salesian priests - the late Fr Adrian Papworth and Fr Michael Keogh, who travelled over land by car from Melbourne to Perth 25 years ago to take up residence at St Joachim’s Parish in Victoria Park, right up to the present involvement in tertiary education chaplaincy - much good work has been accomplished with the valued assistance of the generous team of Salesian cooperators and volunteers.

Following in the footsteps of the charismatic founder of the Salesian Congregation, St John Bosco, the committed members of the Salesian family who have dedicated time and energy to their ministry here in Perth over these many years have continued the Salesian tradition of helping people most in need and especially the young people who are so vulnerable to exploitation in so many diverse ways in today’s modern society.

Caring for young people is challenging and rewarding at all times and only with God’s guidance and protection and the assistance of His divine Mother, whom the Salesians venerate as Help of Christians, can the many facets of the youth apostolate be confronted and conquered. As the Salesian Congregation rejoices in celebrating the 25th anniversary of its apostolate here in Perth, we all offer thanks and praise to God for the much good work done in these years and pray that He continue to bless the young people of our Church, city and State.

Correction

The band Central Park Sunday, which played at Fr Roy Pereira’s fundraiser for the Malaysian Singaporean Catholic Community dinner dance on 3 July, is made up of three students from Newman College, not Emmanuel College, as The Record incorrectly said in a story on 14 July . The photo of Jacob singing correctly identified him as being from Newman. In regards to the reference of Fr Roy Pereira being Malay, this was a misrepresentation, as the word “Malay” is actually a race in Malaysia which practises Islam, the major faith in Malaysia. There are other races in Malaysia, such as the Indians and Chinese who practise different faiths such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity. Fr Roy is of Indian heritage but of Catholic faith. Therefore, it would be more appropriate if The Record had referred to him as a “Malaysian priest” instead.

The event also made $18,000 gross, not net.

Team member Gaston Kurubone makes a point with parish representative for Nollamara Bakhita Sino, from Sudan. Gaston is originally from Burundi. Both came out to Australia as refugees.

Top: Youth involved in Salesian activities; above: Archbishop Barry Hickey with Salesian youth.

Maranatha offers courses for adults wishing to deepen their knowledge and understanding of their Catholic Faith and the living of it. Maranatha offers courses for adults wishing to deepen their knowledge and understanding of their Catholic Faith wwwand the living of it.

Sheen cause could heal Church wounds

The canonisation cause for Emmy Award-winning Archbishop Fulton Sheen is gaining considerable groundswell, especially in Perth, just as the Church reels from the sexual abuse crisis

BY ANTHONY BARICH

Analysis

THE sainthood cause of Archbishop Fulton Sheen could prove a defining moment for the Catholic Church and its priesthood in Australia as well as in the US, where the late prelate worked.

There is a groundswell of support for his cause which in Australia is led by Perth father and son team Daniel and Martin Tobin who annually organise a fundraising concert which, along with promoting the cause, funds initiatives like Archbishop Barry Hickey’s occasional spots on Channel Nine.

Sheen himself was a success on commercial television, beating contemporary pop-culture icons Lucille Ball and Edward R Murrow for an Emmy award for Most Outstanding Television Personality in 1952 for his show Life is worth living, which he hosted for six years. In his acceptance speech, he thanked his “writers” – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Sheen was the 1950s-era TV Bishop who, at the height of his fame, commanded an audience estimated at 30 million. He also hosted for 20 years The Catholic Hour on radio and The Fulton Sheen Programme on TV for seven years.

Sheen’s success a half-century ago came at a critical moment when American Catholicism was “struggling to emerge from the ghetto”, seasoned Vatican observer John Allen Jnr of the National Catholic Reporter said during the week of the 30th anniversary of Sheen’s death in December last year.

Today, as the Church reels from the sexual abuse crisis and, in the US, divisive forays into the world of politics, there has arisen a man some say is the new Fulton Sheen – self-deprecating, with a sense of humour, yet with an apparently equally insatiable appetite for Catholic tradition, teaching and lore: Archbishop Timothy Dolan.

Sheen’s cause received a significant shot in the arm when Archbishop Dolan, in his 14 July installation speech as Archbishop of New York, cited Sheen as one of the “great priestly heroes” of the influential Archdiocese’s history, along with Cuban Fr Felix Varela who fought for the abolition of slavery in the early 1800s and renowned theologian and diplomat Cardinal Avery Dulles.

“When the Archbishop of New York gives his installation speech, people listen; and when he says in that speech that Fulton Sheen was one of his greatest inspirations, he’s sending a message,” Martin Tobin told The Record

But Dolan went further. The Archbishop, who also has a regular weekly radio programme and whom The New York Times called the “Archbishop of Charm”, celebrated a special Mass marking the 30th anniversary of Sheen’s death on 9 December last year in New York’s St Patrick’s Cathedral.

“He wanted to get to Heaven, and he wanted bring the whole world with him,” Dolan said of Sheen in his homily. “As members of a supernatural family, the Church, we gather to thank God for him, eager to swap stories about a particular episode, a witty comment, a word of advice, a particular quote, his hypnotic eyes, his soothing yet challenging voice, or an occasion when we were with him.”

For Sheen, Jesus was “alive, still active, still powerful, still teaching, still healing, still leading us to heaven” because the Incarnation was “still going on,” Archbishop Dolan said, adding that Jesus is as alive in His Church as He was “on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.”

Dolan related in his homily how, when he met Sheen while a seminarian in Rome, a crowd had gathered around Sheen as he said he’s just met with Pope Pius VI, who took his hand and said: “Fulton Sheen, you will have a high place in heaven”.

Sheen quipped straight back with: “Your Holiness, would you mind making that an infallible statement?” On one of his own weekly radio programmes, Dolan said of Sheen: “He was sometimes styled as a shallow populariser, but deep down he had a towering intellect” – an attribute Allen also says Dolan has in spades.

However, canonisation causes are difficult to gauge. Speculation was rife in Australian secular media for months about when Mary MacKillop would be made a saint.

While one miracle must be verified for beatification and another for canonisation, the public never hears about it until the Pope declares it has been approved.

Many secular news outlets speculated without any actual evidence that MacKillop’s canonisation would occur during World Youth Day 2008, when the second miracle had not even been approved yet.

Sr Pauline Morgan, WA Provincial head of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart which Mary MacKillop founded, told The Record that while the process is known, how long it takes is anyone’s guess.

“Whether it takes three months or three years to assess the miracles we have no idea, so it was a lovely surprise that things happened so quickly in the past year. People say that, as the Pope prayed at Mary’s tomb it would move quickly, but while it probably made it more personal to him by having been here, we have no idea what particularly motivated the process to speed up” she said.

A sainthood cause for Sheen was launched in 2002 by the diocese of Peoria, Illinois, where he was born Peter John, the oldest of four sons, but became known as Fulton, his mother’s maiden name.

Franciscan Friar of the Renewal Fr Andrew Apostoli, the VicePostulator of Sheen’s cause whom Sheen ordained to the priesthood, confirmed to EWTN that two miracles have been submitted as possible miracles for Sheen’s beatification.

One is the alleged cure of an infant boy whom doctors discovered had a life threatening condition 12 hours after his birth, now aged six and in perfect health; the other is the case of an “older woman” with a burst aorta who “should have died on the operating table” and whose husband prayed for two hours to Sheen for God’s healing. The boy is now named Fulton John, while the woman is

also in good health.

Sheen, who died of heart disease on 9 December 1979, is now a Servant of God, a term used for people whose lives are being investigated in consideration for official recognition by the Pope and the Church as a saint.

Pope John Paul II – who in October 1979 embraced Sheen, saying “You have written and spoken well of the Lord Jesus. You have been a loyal son of the Church” –also has Servant of God status.

Sheen’s teachings are gaining a new foothold with today’s generation as the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) started rebroadcasting his shows last year. While he wrote 65 books himself and numerous articles and pamphlets, new books are still being written about his life.

“If there is a Fulton Sheen of this generation - meaning an American Bishop with the same capacity to engage a national audience, to make Catholicism seem attractive to a secular world - it’s probably Timothy Dolan,” Allen said, describing Dolan as “relentlessly upbeat”.

“The most immediate thing that strikes the casual observer is this: He doesn’t seem to be mad at anybody. Dolan just radiates hope, and that alone is sometimes enough to move mountains,” Allen said of Dolan.

Fr Apostoli said that Sheen, who had a “flair for the dramatic”, had a chief concern for the reform and renewal of the priesthood.

“At my ordination he said something that still haunts me: ‘if there’s any key to reform of Church and salvation of world it lies in a renewal of the priesthood’,” Fr Apostoli said.

Sheen had a particular passion for the true reforms of the Second Vatican Council to be implemented, but lamented how “the spirit of the world” had entered the Church, Fr Apostoli said.

This was highlighted powerfully for Sheen when Bella Dodd, a Communist he converted to Catholicism, told him that Russian dictator Josef Stalin said the greatest enemy of Communism was the Catholic Church, and the best way to destroy the Church was to have men who have no faith enter the priesthood.

Bella had spent 20 years helping over 1,000 of such men to the priesthood.

While Sheen also had a particular focus on empowering lay people realise their universal bap-

tismal call to holiness, Martin Tobin believes that Sheen’s hopeful canonisation could spell a renewal of the Church and the priesthood and their perception in the wider world, especially in light of Sheen’s particular concern for the priesthood.

Above: Martin Tobin, who mobilises local support, with his father Daniel, for the beatification and canonisation cause of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, above right.

Right: Malaysian-born professional singer Yann Kee performs at this year’s 24 June Fulton Sheen Concert at Trinity College. PHOTO:

Fr Andrew Apostoli, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal and vice postulator for the sainthood cause of Archbishop Sheen, prays at the tomb of Archbishop Fulton J Sheen in the crypt of St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York in 2009. CNS

ANTHONY BARICH

Archbishop Timothy M Dolan of New York smiles as he holds 2-month-old Danielle Candella outside St Patrick’s Cathedral. He has been described as a modern-day Fulton Sheen, and also has a flair for the dramatic. PHOTO: CNS

Author turns gaze to disturbing new

Navigating the shadowline from boyhood to manhood is difficult enough, but a groundbreaking Australian author has documented the emergence of worrying and powerful new forces impacting on the nation’s boys. Peer pressure is a powerful conduit for such forces

BY BRIDGET SPINKS

Boys are suffering a diminished experience of life because of the pressures of marketing and tech-

nology, according to well-known author, Maggie Hamilton.

In her latest book, What’s happening to our boys?, Ms Hamilton examined the 21st century trends

in boys’ behaviour and the rising levels of anxiety starting to show in boys as young as 7-8 years of age around clothing, looks and body image.

“What I wanted to give was an intimate view of what it’s like to be a boy today to show parents where the influences are coming from,” she said.

This latest book is the follow up to her previous books, What’s happening to our girls? and What men don’t talk about

As such, it builds on prior research carried out for previous books and draws on new empirical research with police and child psychologists as well as boys themselves (a random sample from across the country).

“I could compare how boys were travelling four years ago from now. I went back to look at marketing to boys to see if anything had changed,” Ms Hamilton said.

“That’s when I found that boys were the new target,” she said.

Marketers are spending millions

targeting boys, the researcher and author found. Stealth marketing, advergames, ‘relationship marketing,’ focus groups, ‘integrative marketing,’ ‘product placement’ and ‘neuro marketing’ are ways marketers are targeting boys, she writes in the book.

Added to this is the pressure on boys coming from the entertainment industry, fashion houses and toiletry manufacturers.

“We don’t understand it, sometimes, that kids are concerned about their image because of selfpreservation; it’s their way of gaining love and acknowledgement from their peers,” Ms Hamilton said.

“If you’re in survival mode, you don’t have the headspace to think about others,” she said.

The trouble with a generation of boys worried about their image, themselves and acquiring new things is that they are missing out on “rewarding life experiences”.

“We let our kids down when we let them go down this route. If

it’s all about you, you don’t get to practice empathy, sharing, putting yourself out for other people, which are all rewarding life experiences,” she said.

Technology is another factor that is changing the way boys experience life, she said, because “living in this world of TV and with their iPods” is isolating them.

It minimises the opportunity to relate to others and learn social skills needed for the workforce and relationships when they grow up, she said.

“What we’re seeing is a flattening of the life experience and imagination.

“They’re getting this little battery-hen like experience; they’re not getting maturity through life experiences.”

Pornography, especially the amount of porn in homes now, is “one of the most concerning things,” she said.

“There are two lots of parentsthose who are ‘vigilant,’ who hide their porn from their kids; then

Hamilton’s take on the pressures also evokes chilling

Maggie Hamilton’s book, What’s happening to our boys? reminded me of the William Golding classic, Lord of the Flies, but with a far more chilling dimension because it addresses real issues in the lives of boys today. In Golding’s book,

published in 1954, a group of preteen boys find themselves stranded on an island and have to fend for themselves without the influence of any adults.

The result is a gradual and brutal descent into animalistic savagery. My perception of Golding’s

message is that, without the moral, emotional and physical presence of protective men, boys will be forced to rely on their own primeval and undeveloped resources and will become increasingly lost in the wilderness in which they find themselves. Hamilton contin-

Donation Form: SOS! – Christianity in the Middle East

ues this theme as she describes the technological and cultural influences that are moulding young males in the 21st century.

Boys today, she laments, are spending less time with their parents than ever before and, as a consequence, the foundations of their adult lives are being increasingly influenced by external factors.

These factors, Hamilton warns, do not have the best interests of our children at heart but, rather, sees them only as potential sources of income.

She says that they also expose them to influences far beyond their mental, emotional and biological capabilities.

Hamilton explores issues ranging from stealth marketing, which she claims begins to target children from a very early age, to the powerful effects of media and the Internet in formulating their thoughts and actions.

Due to the technological savvy of children and comparative ignorance of their parents, Hamilton claims that boys, even more so than girls, are venturing, unsupervised, into a world of pornography, violence and materialism on an unprecedented scale.

Their minds and identity, she says are being manipulated by a multi-billion dollar industry that has no concern for their well-being - and it is happening under our

in brief UK removes petition

LONDON (CNS) - The British government has removed from its website a petition protesting Pope Benedict XVI’s 16-19 September visit to England and Scotland. The petition had urged the British prime minister to dissociate the government from the Pope’s “intolerant views” and not to support the state visit financially. The secularist coalition Protest the Pope sponsored the petition, which had attracted more than 12,300 signatures. Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, who drafted the petition, said on 16 July that the government had removed the petition three months before it was due to close, and that

Book review

What’s happening to our boys?

By Maggie Hamilton published by Viking, Penguin

REVIEWED BY MARK REIDY

very noses. “While the information they get may be misleading or inaccurate”, she writes, “it’s accessible and immediate”.

Hamilton uses numerous professionals to support her concerns and has spoken to many boys and teenagers in an effort to bring a realistic context to her work and the result is a disturbing study for any parent to read.

Our boys, she says, are being cultivated into a lifestyle of selfinterest and instant gratification, socially, sexually and materially.

Despite the, at times, horrific statistics and depictions of scenarios confronting young males today, particularly in relation to sexual exposure, Hamilton does not take a doom and gloom approach.

Rather, she believes that parents cannot live with their heads in the sand and says that it essential that we are aware of the dangers to

it had not allowed signatures since April. “This looks like an attempt to prevent the petition from embarrassing the government by gaining a large number of signatures in the run-up to Pope Benedict’s visit,” Tatchell said in a statement.

Petitions have been part of the tradition of British democracy since at least the 19th century and until recently were usually delivered in person by the petitioners to either the Prime Minister’s residence on Downing Street or to Parliament. Under the country’s last government, however, petitioners were encouraged to launch online petitions using the government’s own website. The petition had criticised Pope Benedict for his alleged “intolerant opposition to women’s rights, gay equality, embryonic stem-cell research and condom use.

Maggie Hamilton

pressures, targeting, of our sons, boys

there are those who leave it lying around on the coffee table - not just magazines, DVDs as well,” she said.

“We have to face up to it - as uncomfortable as it is - there’s an awful lot of it out there.

“Boys are also now watching it as a group activity,” Maggie Hamilton said.

Maggie Hamilton called on parents to discuss pornography with their boys to help them understand the true nature of relationships, of sex and desire.

A way to do this it to keep kids in touch with the “feeling side of themselves,” she said.

“So that when they do see these things, they are seeing the human aspect, and they think ‘this could be someone I love, this could be my little sister’.

“And then that actually takes away all the glamour and all the excitement out of it.”

Ms Hamilton said that when a father is absent from the family home, boys turn to alternative role

models to get an idea of what it means to be a man.

“Dads are the stepping stone for a boy to get a sense of what a man is.

“If he’s not around, they turn to popular culture, the dysfunctional footy hero, the art of controlled celebrities and the one dimensional action figure who shoots people when there’s a problem.

“That becomes their role model,” she said.

“If there’s nobody to teach them how to respect women, they’re getting drunk every weekend, and behaving like a hoon which is not actually manly behaviour - it’s unhelpful behaviour”.

Women are also to blame, she added, because it’s acceptable to tell stories about “stupid and violent men”.

“We don’t actually talk about the good men in our lives - the blokes who scrape people up after there’s been an accident.

“There’s dozens of ways men help us to feel safe,” she said.

Maggie’s advice for 21st century parents of sons

■ “Talk to kids about the nuances of relationships; just because someone is special and lovely doesn’t automatically translate into sex.

Life is so much more than sex.

It’s about longing and beauty and desire, which doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

I think what’s really interesting is the growing number of girls drawn to Pride and Prejudice where it’s all about unrequited love; and just how a look can be something very special.

■ “We’re not teaching the children the language they need to say ‘no’ and just to look at someone who’s special can be special.

It’s all flattened out to the idea that ‘You have a few drinks and then you have sex’. We need to explain the nuances of what relationships are about, and give them good scripts to say

echoes of The Lord of the Flies

Just as she has found for the experience of girls in 21st century Australia, research by author Maggie Hamilton has charted the ways in which boys are facing increasing and sophisticated pressures to become something other than they are. The problem? In part, childhood is being destroyed by our unwillingness to acknowledge the problems of affluence. The issues she raises are of direct importance to parents, Catholic or non-Catholic, and to the Church in Australia. Implicit in her message is that parents need to get informed - quickly. which our boys are being exposed.

By knowing, she writes, adults can then assume their rightful role as protectors and nurturers and she provides numerous ideas, suggestions and practical tips on how to empower this vulnerable generation when they inevitably confront issues such as drugs, alcohol, sex, pornography and relationships.

Hamilton’s book, I believe, is essential reading for any parent or adult dealing with boys, but it could cause unnecessary angst with some of the distressing portrayals of the topics she confronts.

The book is best read with an understanding that Hamilton has, at times, presented us with information that deals with the worst case scenarios of any given issue.

I do not believe that it is her intention to portray the world as so dangerous that we should keep our boys locked away from it, but rather she wants to provide us with an understanding that these influences are real and will, in varying degrees, affect all boys - more so if we are not aware of them.

And I agree. Because, if we do not heed her warnings, we will, in essence, be deserting our sons on an island that will continue to drift further from our reach.

Presented by Gerry Smith, Experienced Grief Counsellor and Educator Venue: St Catherine’s House of Hospitality, 113 Tyler Street, Tuart Hill (Parking at rear of building)

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10th February – 31st March, Eight consecutive Wednesday (9.30am -12noon)

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12th May – 30th June, Eight consecutive Wednesdays (9.30am – 12 noon)

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28th July -15th September, Eight consecutive Wednesdays (9.30am – 12 noon)

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13th October – 1st December, Eight consecutive Wednesday (9.30am- 12 noon)

These courses are designed to assist the development of existing skills, so that the Pastoral Carer will Minister even more effectively, with competence and confidence.

Course fees $110.00 Per term or $400.00 for all terms

‘no’, because at the moment it’s all about saying ‘yes’.

■ “We have to talk about the feeling side of things with people who’ve totally lost their way in life.“Create a lively family culture; where when a gathering’s happening the boys have roles so they’re not all standing on the edge feeling awkward. Give them valuable jobs (not just token jobs) with dad and the other men, and then acknowledge them: ‘Sean, those sausages were amazing’.

■ “Look at what each child’s passion is; maybe he’s great at art or something else. Take him to lessons so that that dilutes the influence that the group has on him.

■ “Getting involved in service makes them feel useful and they get feedback from that.

■ “Getting experience from across the generations and oneon-one time with dads is invaluable.”

Warning: Maggie Hamilton’s latest book warns on the social pressures impacting on boys.

Maida Vale Priest passes away, 54

Maida Vale parish priest Fr Stephen Durkin passed away on 13 July after a long battle with cancer.

Stephen Edward Durkin was born the son of Grahame James and Moira Therese Durkin (nee Cutcliffe) on 28 July 1956 in Wagga Wagga, NSW. He attended CBC Bedford and studied for the priesthood at St Paul’s National Seminary in Sydney.

Once ordained a Deacon, he was assigned the parish of Our Lady of the Mission, Whitford. He was ordained a Priest on 15 February 1992 and began his priestly mission as an Assistant Priest at St Mary’s Cathedral in March

1992. In December 1992 he was moved to St Gerard Majella’s in Mirrabooka where he stayed for 16 months.

On 17 April 1994 he was moved to Kalgoorlie to become Assistant Parish Priest and a year later, on 28 April 1995, he became Parish Priest and Dean of the Kalgoorlie Zone.

Since 16 June 2000, Fr Stephen Durkin served as Parish Priest at St Francis of Assissi, Maida Vale. A Solemn Pontifical Concelebrated Funeral Mass was held at St Mary’s Cathedral on 20 July 2010. An obituary will appear in next week’s edition of The Record

Fr John marks 60 priestly years

Continued from Page 1 province in Australia as the main celebrant.

Fr John had spent over 20 years as Parish Priest of Riverton, retiring in 1994.

In his homily Fr Hevern spoke of Fr John’s faithfulness to his priesthood and of his work at the Pallottine training centre in Rossmoyne.

Following the Mass a celebration was held in the Fr John Luemmen parish hall in Riverton.

Many parishioners, Pallottine lay missionaries and Aboriginal ex-students attended.

Fr Joe Butscher SAC congratulated Fr John on reaching this great milestone and gave a brief history of his priestly ministry.

Several parishioners spoke, thanking Fr John for his pastoral care and friendship in the parish.

Several Aboriginal ex-students recalled their experience at the Pallottine centre and thanked Fr John for

Vinnies join Brisbane Prayer meet

BY ANITA PARKER Catholic Youth Ministry

A fantastic opportunity was offered to a small group of WA Vinnies to be part of an inter-generational group to attend the Brisbane event of Pray 2010. This event on Catholic prayer life hosted over 2,500 registered participants, a number of international guest speakers and over 125 workshop presenters for 3 ½ days from 7-10 July 2010.

The St Vincent De Paul Society is commonly known for putting faith into action and serving those in need in our local community. The Society approved the project to gather a group of volunteers across a variety of age groups in Catholic spirituality with their involvement in Pray 2010, assisting them to grow the link between the prayer life of a volunteer and the work they do for the Society. The proposal

was to send six volunteers from various age groups and two supporting staff to the Pray 2010 Conference in Brisbane.

The Pray 2010 Conference featured international speakers like Fr Stan Fortuna CFR from New York and Dr Donna Orsuto, based at the Gregorian University in Rome. The National presenters ranged from Fr Frank Brennan SJ who presented a keynote on ‘Prayer Sends us into Action’, Byron and Francine Pirola, and Fr Ken Barker MGL.

The breadth of Catholic prayer and spirituality was experienced by the group who attended sessions ranging from the Youth Rally with Fr Stan Fortuna – the rapping monk from the Bronx - through to Adoration, Prayer in married life, Prayer with music, Prayer with Scriptures and many more workshops. In his opening address,

Archbishop Bathersby spoke about prayer’s importance. “We need to know the will of God in our own lives” through listening to him in prayer, he said.

Dr Donna Orsuto offered the message that “If you don’t know how to pray well, then pray ill”.

She analysed how Jesus taught us to pray and that we pray with Jesus who invites us to pray with God as ‘Father’, which develops a recognition of intimacy and trust in God.

The overall journey throughout the conference was to see prayer as an opportunity to ‘Gather, Open, Transform, and Send’. The Vincentian group will be bringing back their experiences to share with their local conferences and groups to help to build the link of prayer and faith in action.

Other attendees from Perth included four people from Maranatha. Over 150 attended from New Zealand, and 600 registered from around Australia.

For more information and photos of the conference go to: www.pray2010. org.au. This event will be followed up in Perth with a ‘Seek’ conference on prayer and spirituality on 7-9 October 2010. For more information,go to: www.seek2010.org.au.

Aussies join forces at Lourdes shrine

Continued from Page 1

the 52nd to take place since it commenced.

Bishop Davis, who heads the Catholic Church’s Military Ordinariate in Australia, told The Record he had been delighted to be able to accept the invitation to this year’s gathering, managing to travel with 11 other Aussie service men and women.

The Ordinariate, something like a diocese without borders, provides Church chaplaincy services to all Catholics in Australia’s armed forces.

enabling them and others to achieve a good education.

In reply, Fr John reflected on his 60 years in ministry, thanking God for calling him to the priesthood.

He singled out two important people who journeyed with him. Edith Litttle, an Aboriginal lay missionary, was a co-founder of the Pallottine centre at Rossmoyne who died suddenly in 1975.

Margaret Park, a Pallottine lay missionary, replaced Edith at the centre and later became Fr John’s secretary and housekeeper at Riverton.

Back in Uedem in Germany, close to his birthplace, a special thanksgiving Mass was also celebrated in recognition of Fr John’s anniversary.

Fr John is now in his 90th year and resides at the Pallottine Community at Rossmoyne. He enjoys having friends drop in, continues to drive and visit the sick and aged in the parish.

During their visit to France, the group also took a tour through the battlefields of northern France with names now legendary for the slaughter

that occurred on both sides throughout the four years of the Great War from 1914 to 1918: the Somme, Ypres (pronounced as ‘Wipers’ by Australian diggers at the time), Boulancourt and Fromelle.

Bishop Davis told The Record that the Australians had prayed for those who had fallen at the sites they visited and participated in a commemorative evening ceremony at the Menin Gate, the memorial on the outskirts of Ypres to the fallen of Great Britain and the Commonwealth whose graves are unknown.

Every year, thousands of Catholics serving in the armed forces of numerous nations convene at the internationally-known Marian shrine of Lourdes.

The little-known pilgrimage is a spectacular annual sight with uniforms of numerous nations on display.

The pilgrimage grew out of the experience of two former German Catholic soldiers from World War II who returned to France after the end of hostilities to remember their own fallen comrades and all who had died in France on all sides.

The French military heard of their mini pilgrimage and offered to host another. Since then the pilgrimage has grown to the point where tens of thousands of servicemen and women participate every year.

“There were at least six busloads of Croatian armed services members we saw,” Bishop Davis told The Record.

Fr John Luemmen marks his sixth decade as a priest by cutting the cake while friends and parishioners, below, seated in the Fr John Luemmen Parish Hall listen to their popular priest talk about his life. PHOTOS: COURTESY QUEEN OF APOSTLES PARISH

Heather Patullo stands beside a giant sculpture spelling the word ‘Pray’ at the Pray2010 gathering in Brisbane which saw individuals participate from all over Australia and further afield. Heather and CYM director Anita Parker also met internationally-known rapping Franciscan friar, Fr Stan Fortuna. PHOTOS: COURTESY QUEEN OF APOSTLES PARISH

Porn-free pioneers

NEWS ANALYSIS

BY T HOMAS L MCDONALD National Catholic Register

Technology pundits like to point out that “porn drives new media technologies.” Like much common wisdom, many accept this without evidence. And, like much common wisdom, it is flatly untrue.

For every example of new technology that flourished partly due to pornography (such as VCRs in the 1980s and the Internet in the 1990s), there are dozens that made their impact with little to no dependence upon pornography: the printing press, photography, film, radio, television, cable television, personal computers, compact discs, portable music players, video games, mobile phones, DVD, Netflix, iTunes, Facebook and so on.

In order to make their “media technology needs porn to succeed” arguments, critics make questionable claims. These range from the patently absurd, such as the notion that Chaucer and Boccaccio are examples of mediaeval porn, to the merely irrelevant, such as the existence of obscure ‘stag’ films from the early days of cinema.

The Internet is full of heavily annotated articles that make just such claims, but they simply don’t hold up to scrutiny. VCRs are the only technology with a solid link to porn, but that particular technology had as much impact on porn as porn had on it.

Revenue from ‘adult’ films shifted from movies to video tapes. Neighbourhood ‘adult’ theatres and shops vanished into the videocassette deck, which in turn vanished into the Internet.

And now we are told that the future of mobile phones and handheld devices, known as ‘smartphones’, will be tied to pornography, despite significant evidence to the contrary.

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs proclaimed that Apple products like the iPhone and iPad would provide “freedom from porn,” the man regarded as the most savvy tech visionary of the last 30 years was suddenly derided as a “puritan” and a “censor.”

Jobs’ surprising statement came in an e-mail exchange with tech blogger Ryan Tate of Gawker.com. As the back-andforth grew increasingly testy, Jobs added, “You might care more about porn when you have kids.”

“It’s not about freedom,” Jobs wrote. “It’s about Apple trying to do the right thing for its users. Users, developers and publishers can do whatever they like - they don’t have to buy or publish or develop on iPads if they don’t want to.”

In a separate exchange with TechCrunch.com, Jobs reiterated, “We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone.”

‘We’re Not Going There.’

He brought up the subject again at the iPhone 4.0 question-and-answer session on 8 April, saying, “You know, there’s a porn store for Android. You can download nothing but porn. You can download porn; your kids can download porn. That’s a place we don’t want to go, so we’re not going to go there.”

Google - the developer of the Android mobile operating system - and Apple are bitter rivals in several spheres of business. When the CEO of Apple repeatedly stresses his intention to yield a lucrative market sector to a chief competitor, it’s news.

Although some claim that Apple’s ban on porn may be merely a smart business decision to keep their brands “clean” and thus more mainstream, Jobs himself used the phrase “a moral responsibility.”

In fact, Google Android doesn’t seem

Apple and Microsoft Chart: a smut-free future for Smartphones

to relish its new reputation as the technology of choice for porn, but it doesn’t have a choice. Android was designed as an “open standard” mobile OS. This means that anyone can develop any kind of application to run on an Android phone.

Apple, on the other hand, requires users to download their “apps” through the iTunes store, maintaining a strict criterion for what they will and won’t carry.

Users could once buy some fairly tame “adult” apps through iTunes, but Apple tightened its standards in February and purged almost all mature content from the store. The only risqué material is Playboy and Sports Illustrated apps (neither contains nudity) and a selection of “Kama Sutra” apps.

No Official Sanction

Meanwhile, a company called MiKandi (pronounced “my candy”) has set up shop for Android-based phones. MiKandi bills itself as the “World’s First App Store for Adults,” and allows third-party developers to sell their products using the MiKandi storefront. Right now, those apps are little more than generic collections of pornographic pictures and videos, racy card games, and conventional apps (such as calculators or calendars) designed around sexually explicit images.

Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform has been in use for various devices since 2000, and its market share continues to decrease steadily. With the new Windows Phone 7 due to be released at the end of the year, Microsoft is making a determined effort to compete against Android

and iPhone.

In addition to a new phone design and a more powerful operating system, they will launch a revamped mobile marketplace.

Their guidelines specifically state what won’t be allowed: “Images that are sexually suggestive or provocative, content that generally falls under the category of pornography, or content that a reasonable person would consider to be adult or borderline adult content.”

This means that another major player in the smartphone market is opting out of adult content.

While Microsoft and Apple are refusing to be party to the sale of pornography, many experts continue to insist that pornography is essential for the growth of new media technologies.

Unfortunately, Jobs is wrong: neither the iPhone nor any mobile device can provide complete and reliable “freedom from porn.” Pornographic websites, including those specifically designed for mobile users, are quite easy to access from the devices’ built-in Web browser, and it’s unlikely that Apple will make any heroic (and ultimately futile) effort to lock out these sites.

Barring adult apps and content from the official iTunes store is one thing, but attempting to police the entire Internet is quite another.

But their determination to deny official sanction to this content is an unexpected, and heartening, turn of events.

Thomas L McDonald has covered technology for the past 20 years. He is also a catechist in the Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey.

Podcasting pleasure at your fingertips

iFaith

By Tom Gourlay

Sanctifying technologies

Rather than discuss technologies strictly limited to the iPhone or iPod Touch, I felt it was perhaps time to discuss some other valuable electronic resources that are perhaps more widely available.

Our Pope Benedict XVI, in the footsteps of his venerable predecessor Servant of God Pope John Paul II, has been continually vocal about encouraging the sanctification of communications technologies and their use in the building of the Kingdom of God. iPhone applications are but one of a variety of inventive ways that people across the globe have taken up this challenge.

One other such way is the Podcast. Podcasts are akin to radio programmes that one can easily download onto whatever digital media player is in use (iPod, mp3 player or otherwise) and listened to at one’s leisure and over and again if so desired.

There is an incredible amount of interesting, educational, and entertaining material available for download for free.

A number of Catholic organisations are making use of this platform to provide reliable Catholic news, spiritual formation, Church documents, Catholic apologetics and prayer resources to people across the globe.

Radio Vatican itself has been broadcasting over the internet and uploading its radio onto iTunes for some time now. News updates are available for free daily download as Podcasts through the iTunes store or directly from their website.

Other Podcasts that I’ve found particularly valuable include AirMaria: a Podcast produced by the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate which includes homilies from daily Masses as well as more academic lectures and feature presentations about current events or areas of Church doctrine; and, Audio Sancto which is yet another source of quality Catholic formation with a complete archival library of homilies from priests since 2003.

In all, there are over 432 sermons available for download on Audio Sancto – and it is being added to each week, so there is a whole lot of quality listening to be done and formation to be had.

Even some within the hierarchy of the Church are utilising this as a means of formation. Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect emeritus of the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, has had until recently a weekly Podcast that is still available for download.

It has a plethora of informative tidbits and lessons on Church teachings and particularly clear unfolding of the work of the late, great, Servant of God Pope John Paul II available for download.

There is a lot out there. So, whether you’re interested in Catholic news, Apologetics, catechesis, reading (or listening to) papal encyclicals, or getting into the mind of a Curial official, it is definitely worth having a scout around the iTunes Podcast store to find something that suits you. Happy listening.

Ave Maria!

An image of Apple boss Steve Jobs, created with images from his Apple company’s products.

In Australia, secular divides between Protestants and Catholics are decades old

How US televangelists keep succeed

US-Evangelical-Protestantturned-Catholic Steve Ray topples the arguments he once used to induce Catholics to abandon the Church and tells how he discovered the fullness of the Catholic faith

BY ANTHONY BARICH

Evangelical Protestants are taught to recruit Catholics by exploiting their lack of Bible knowledge, but use Scripture out of context to make Catholic beliefs look flawed.

This is the claim of Catholic apologist Steve Ray, in Perth from the United States of America earlier this month as part of a national tour. Mr Ray used to take on this role.

“We were trained to evangelise Catholics – we believed you are not saved, that you are going to hell as you follow the Pope instead of Jesus, you pray to Mary instead of God, you have tradition instead of Scripture, you thought you got saved by doing good works instead of by faith in Jesus,” he told about 60 people on Thursday, 8 July, at Trinity College, East Perth.

“It was our job to get you saved and become real Bible Christians. This is what Evangelicals think – most of them, even in Australia.”

He said that he was taught the right questions to ask and memorised up to 15 verses that “were good to use with Catholics”.

Mr Ray, married to Janet for 33 years with four children, said he and his wife went from being “anti-Catholic Baptists” to “crossing an uncrossable chasm and becoming Catholics”.

The Rays were not alone. They opened their home for two years to people seeking to discuss their differences with Catholics and explained why they converted, “even if people hated Catholics”.

In that time, Mr Ray said over 200 people joined the Catholic Church.

Addressing several key issues that cause the at-times vicious divide, especially in the United States, between Protestants and Catholics, Mr Ray said he achieved “great success” by asking carefully selected questions and backing them up with isolated Scripture quotes.

Through his journey towards conversion to Catholicism, which was heavily criticised by his family, he discovered that such Scripture quotes were taken out of context with no regard for the continuity between the Old and New Testaments.

Mr Ray found it especially ironic that, while his Protestant family believed Christians are saved by faith alone and not by works, “they questioned my salvation once I told them I was becoming Catholic”.

Mr Ray’s talk, which detailed differences between the denominations on key subjects including Mary, the Eucharist, the notion of being “born again”, infant baptism, the notion of being “saved by faith alone”, purgatory and Confession, was in itself a catechesis of the Catholic faith.

Born again

One of the most bitter arguments stems from a question Mr Ray said has great success in confounding Catholics – asking them if they are “born again”.

“They say you’re born again by accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour and asking Him into your heart; but nowhere in the Bible does it say that,” he said.

“This is Baptist man-made tradition, not [from] the Bible; it comes out of American fundamentalist ‘pop-psychology’ Christianity from the 1900s. They think that because the Bible is made of chapters and verses they can pull quotes out of context, but originally the Bible was one big letter, the chapters were only added recently.

“They don’t know what being born of water and spirit means (from Jesus’ quote to Nicodemus) because they don’t read it in context. You’d almost always have great success by

asking ‘are you born again?’. The answer usually was ‘I’m Catholic’. They didn’t know how to answer it.

“I’d then show Catholics the Bible – John 3:3 – ‘Unless you are born again you will not see the kingdom of God’; and you have been born and raised in the Catholic Church, which you say is Christian, yet your priests don’t tell you about this. They tell you you’re saved by rituals and water and Mass, but that’s not what Jesus said.”

However, this argument is without basis in Scripture, he said. The passage where Jesus talks to Nicodemus about what is required for salvation is key. Jesus told Nicodemus that unless he was born again he would not see the kingdom of God, but Protestants, Mr Ray said, left out the important next part, where Jesus spoke of the need to be reborn ‘of water and the spirit’. He cited several Old Testament precedents for this:

● Genesis 1 - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; and the earth was formless and water covered the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the water, then with God’s Word, up from the power of the Spirit came the land, from which God takes the dust and makes man. God, therefore, made the first creation out of water and spirit.

● Exodus - Egypt represents the world, Pharoah represents the Devil, bondage and slavery represents sin and the flesh – the three enemies of the Christian. The Israelites are freed through water and spirit: Moses led them through the Red Sea, and above them was a pillar of fire and smoke – the Spirit of God.

● Noah – in an arc, goes through water, hovering above the arc is a white dove representing the Holy Spirit with an olive branch, representing peace, in His beak – so water and the spirit.

● Ezekiel – reveals what the new covenant will look like – when the Messiah comes and there will be a new covenant, “you will be sprinkled clean with water, and the Spirit will come within you and the goal is that you will obey my laws.”

And again, in the New Testamant:

● Paul 1 Cor 10:1-4: ‘As the children of Israel were baptised in the water and the cloud, so have you been baptised into Christ.’

● 1 Peter 3:21 – there were eight people saved through water. Corresponding to that, that Baptism now saves you.

Infant Baptism

“Baptists say the Bible says you must believe and be baptised,” Mr Ray said.

“Can an infant believe? I always think it’s funny we call ourselves Baptists, when we believe that Baptism didn’t really do anything; that it wasn’t even necessary. Jesus told us to baptise so we did it out of obedience to Him, but not because it did anything.”

This belief sprang, he said, from the Reformation – or what he likes to call the

Rebellion, when Protestants said: “the Baptism you Catholics received as infants was invalid as you couldn’t believe it. Now you must be baptised again once you believe”. So they called themselves Anna (again)-Baptists.

“Origen (not a Father of the Church or a saint but a man considered one of the greatest teachers of the early Church in the second century) said: ‘We have learned from the Apostles that we are to baptise old and young men and women, our servants, slaves’ - and even our infants,” Mr Ray adds.

“(Evangelical Protestants), you use the Bible to hit people over the head and you have no idea what the Bible is even talking about.

-Steve Ray

Doctor of the Church St Augustine, respected even among secular philosophers, said: “Who would be so wicked as to forbid an infant from being born again through water baptism?”

Mr Ray said that the early Church universally accepted water baptism for infants as the means by which they would be born again.

The theology behind this, simply told, is based on the earliest story.

“Adam and Eve were told if they ate of the tree they would die. While they were body and soul, inside of them was the very life of God – what we call today sanctifying grace, part of their being. Their children should have been born with that same sanctifying grace in their souls; but as they sinned that life died in them, their bodies began the slow process of decay and they died. Adam and Eve’s sons were therefore (for want of a better description) born with a genetic deficiency,” Mr Ray said.

“That is what God does through Baptism –restores that sanctifying grace to the soul of the infant, he doesn’t have to wait until he’s 12, as it’s a free gift of God.

“I used to say that Catholics don’t understand it, that we believe in the free gift of God by faith, but we didn’t realise how much of a gift it was by God.”

It even has precedents in the Jewish culture, he said. When Abraham circumcised his son Isaac at eight days, he became a member of the covenant people of God. But now Baptism replaces circumcision as “the mark on our flesh”, Mr Ray said.

Back to that most controversial of arguments, “Peter (who Jesus appointed as the head of His Church) did not say ‘accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour’, he said repent and be baptised for the remission of your sins’. It also

says many times in the New Testament that father came forward with his wife and fam and the whole household was baptised.

“It doesn’t say except for the infants,” Mr added. “Infant Baptism was understood fr the very beginning as the doorway into beco ing the covenant people of God into this n Kingdom.”

Faith alone

Another prize question Steve Ray used pose in his attempt to sway Catholics, was w would you say if you were to die today stand before God and be asked why shou let you in?

Most Catholics, he said, would say with much conviction, “… I’m Catholic”, to which would respond: “God will say: ‘I didn’t ask if you’re Catholic, it’s not the religion I’m w ried about. Why should I let you in?’

“The Catholic would then say: ‘… I tried be good, I’m doing good works and I hav killed anyone’. I’d say you don’t have a c We’ll say one word, it’ll be ‘mercy’.”

He would go on to argue that “you’re sa by faith alone not by works”, and would di the hapless Catholic to Romans 3:23 – ‘if faith and not by works of the law’.

Many Protestants, he said, would use quote to set up the now tired confrontat between Catholics and Protestants, but in do so miss the point that Paul is not presentin

American former Evangelical Protestant Steve Ray addresses a forum at Trinity College on 8 July, where he laid out some of the key, most controversial dif questioned his salvation once he “crossed the uncrossable chasm”. The hot topics included Mary, the Eucharist, infant Baptism, Confession, Purgatory and t

Different picture outside the US: Catholic A Bishop Markus Droege, also of Berlin, carry a w observance of Good Friday this year.

and almost forgotten. In the US, it’s surprising how bitter the divide can get.

ding because of Catholic ignorance d

Catholic-Protestant argument, but a JewishGentile argument.

“This is why Protestants going around using this against Catholics are doing themselves and Catholics a great disservice, as they are taking it completely out of its historical context,” he said.

In Jewish culture, he said, you had to be brought into the Kingdom of God through circumcision with the flint knife to be set apart from the nations, which, along with 613 rules of Moses, were considered ‘works of the law’. The ceremonial washings and cleansings and Sabbath laws were also part of this.

The ‘works of the law’ as referred to here by Paul is not about feeding the poor and tending the sick – the good works that the Church teaches are part and parcel of loving Christ, because in loving these, we are loving Christ.

“You are made right by faith and obedience just like your father Abraham,” Paul said.

On this misinterpretation, Mr Ray was scathing of some Protestants: “You use the Bible to hit people over the head and you have no idea what the Bible is even talking about. This is why it’s important to be a Catholic and to have your roots deep into the Church, as the Church understands these things, and it’s why she teaches what she teaches.”

The biggest issue many Protestants have, Mr Ray said, is with the letter of James in the New Testament, where he says: “So you see brothers, we are saved by works and not by faith alone”

(2:24). “The Bible does not teach faith alone like Evangelicals – like I used to – present it,” Mr Ray said.

St Paul, in answering the Philippian jailer’s question of ‘what must I do to be saved’, simply said ‘repent and be baptised – you and your whole family’. This is the core of the Gospel, Mr Ray said.

There is a division between the idea of believing in the Biblical sense and the Evangelical Protestant way where a kind of ‘intellectual assent’ is required.

It is important to note, he said, that the opposite of believing in the Bible is to disobey.

John 3:36 backs this up: “Those who believe in the Son of God will have life and those who disobey the Son of God will have damnation.”

“To believe in Jesus means to obey Jesus. It’s not just an intellectual assent,” Mr Ray said.

Jesus told the Jews in John 6 that to do the work of God is to believe in the one whom He sent. Again, in Romans 9: ‘If you confess Jesus Christ with your mouth you’ll be saved’. Paul also says twice that we will be saved by coming to a knowledge of the truth. Therefore, three requirements are made for salvation – coming to a knowledge of the truth, obeying Christ and confessing Him with one’s mouth.

“To believe means to commit ourselves to Him enough to obey it and put ourselves in His hands and do everything He requires, like Baptism and obedience to the Church and coming to a full knowledge of the Truth, and confessing with our mouths even though we don’t want to confront people that Jesus Christ is Lord to the world, as if you don’t you won’t be saved,” he said. “Many Evangelical Protestants say that if I have anything to do with my salvation by good works, you’re denigrating the work Christ accomplished, as Christ said on the Cross: ‘It is finished’. ‘You can’t do anything more to contribute to your salvation, everything that needs to be done has been done’. So they say once saved always saved.”

Mr Ray disagreed with this view and mused on how, in contradiction to their beliefs, his family questioned his salvation when he converted to Catholicism.

Confession

There are precedents for Confession in the beginning of the Church, when you had to stand up and confess out loud to everybody and the Church forgave you your sins, Mr Ray noted. It was the Irish, he said, who came up with the idea to personally confess your sins to a priest. And yet Catholics are attacked on this front because confessing to a priest, detractors say, is not in the Bible.

“Where do you find in the Bible that you have to find everything in the Bible? There’s much in the Bible that says I can find things elsewhere - like Peter, who has the Keys and the authority to bind and loose, and the pastors and elders, prophets and teachers of the Church

who help to bring you to mature manhood, and Paul says ‘hold fast to the traditions I left you –by word of mouth or in writing’,” Mr Ray said.

“Even in the Old Testament you had to confess what you did wrong to the priest before you offered a sacrifice at the temple.”

In the Upper Room, Jesus told his 12 Apostles those whose sins you forgive are forgiven. He’s giving authority to forgive and retain sins, as they stand in Persona Christi in the sandals of Jesus, to do it in the name of Christ.

Eucharist

Though the Eucharist is the “Source and Summit” of the Catholic faith, as Pope Benedict said, is it seen as one of the most grave errors Catholics make to presume to worship a piece of bread and will lead them to damnation.

“When I was a Baptist I used to make fun of you for worshipping bread,” he said.

“We’d never met a Catholic and didn’t even want to meet one. I called it a cookie Christ, graven bread, and ranted on how Catholics disobeyed God who said don’t make any graven images, you make a graven image out of bread and worship it. Not only is adoration idolatry of the grossest form, it’s stupid – why worship a piece of bread.

“I realised in the process of my conversion that there’s not a lot of options – it’s either idolatry and stupid or it’s the Body and Blood of Christ, and if you mock it or ignore it you’re in big trouble.

“If it’s not the Body and Blood of Christ and you worship it, you’re in big trouble, so there’s a lot at stake. Every human being on the face of the earth has a huge decision to make.”

Mr Ray provided the following examples of how the Old Testament prepares the way for the Eucharist:

● Book of Genesis – Adam and Eve sin, God kills an animal and makes a sacrifice and covers them with skins – a sacrifice had to be made; a pre-figurement of Eucharist.

● When the children of Israel need to escape Pharoah, they were told to kill an innocent lamb without blemish, put its blood on vertical and horizontal beams and the angel of death will pass over, the real Passover lamb is Christ, on the Cross. Pilate, too, said “of Him (Christ) I find no fault” – hence the blameless lamb.

● The Israelites in the desert woke up to see the ground covered with white flakes, ‘what is it?’ they cried. The term for this is ‘manna’. They eat what comes down from heaven as food for the journey to sustain them; our food for the journey is Eucharist, after we pass through the Red Sea (Baptism, water and spirit), we go into the wilderness that’s this life, we need the Eucharist to sustain us, Mr Ray said.

● Micah 5:2 - Oh Bethlehem, though you are small among the tribes of Israel, yet from you will come the king.

By the way, Bethlehem means ‘house of bread’ in Hebrew.

CORNERSTONES OF THE ‘ UNCROSSABLE CHASM’

T HE EUCHARIST

“When I was a Baptist I used to make fun of you for worshipping bread. I called it a cookie Christ, graven bread, and ranted on how Catholics disobeyed God who said don’t make any graven images, you make a graven image out of bread and worship it.

“I thought, not only is adoration idolatry of the grossest form, it’s stupid – why worship a piece of bread?

“I realised in the process of my conversion that there’s not a lot of options - it’s either idolatry and stupid or it’s the Body and Blood of Christ, and if you mock it or ignore it you’re in big trouble.”

CONFESSION

“In the beginning in the Church, when you had to stand up and confess it out loud to everybody and the Church forgives you your sins. Thank goodness for the Irish, who brought in the idea of confessing privately to a priest!”

FAITH ALONE

“To believe means to commit ourselves to Him enough to obey it and put ourselves in His hands and do everything He requires, like Baptism and obedience to the Church and coming to a full knowledge of the Truth, and confessing with our mouths even though we don’t want to confront people that Jesus Christ is Lord to the world, as if you don’t you won’t be saved.”

INFANT BAPTISM

I always think it’s funny we call ourselves Baptists, when we believe that Baptism didn’t really do anything. It wasn’t even necessary. Jesus told us to baptise so we did it out of obedience to Him, but not because it did anything.”

Doctor of the Church St Augustine, respected even among secular philosophers, said: “Who would be so wicked as to forbid an infant from being born again through water baptism?”

fferences between his old Christian faith and his Catholic faith, which proved a bitter pill to swallow for his family, who, despite believing in ‘being saved by faith lone’, he notion of being saved by faith alone.

PHOTOS: ANTHONY BARICH

Auxiliary Bishop Matthias Heinrich of Berlin and Protestant wooden cross during a procession in the German capital in

PHOTO: CNS/FABRIZIO BENSCH, REUTERS

People smell a rat amidst disillusion, cynicism

There is a disillusion and cynicism in the community about politics in general at the moment and I don’t think it has been helped at all by the sudden deposition of the previous Prime Minister recently.

There is a problem apparent here and people are smelling a rat. They might not be able to put their finger on precisely why it bothers them so much, but it really does –and continues to do so.

When people volunteer negative or uneasy remarks about something to do with the government, you know there is something deeply bothering them and that isn’t good for any government. My own view is that when you notice the government too much it is not a good thing for you or for that government.

I think the problem is at bottom a moral one, personally, and it is becoming increasingly obvious in the way our new Prime Minister is trying to quickly sort tricky problems out.

To govern for popularity is morally empty; there should be a consistent moral underpinning to every decision. We are being bamboozled by this weird, haphazard quick-fix way of government by expedience.

Surely governing ought be done methodically, with forethought, skill, a realistic sense of the possible aligned with the courage sometimes to pursue the apparently impossible or unpopular if adjudged necessary.

Government should not serve only the best interests of a government that wants to stay in power

just to keep the other guys out, as it appears to be the case at the moment, but the best interests of the people governed.

My main worry at the moment is that one side of the federal parliamentary chamber has on its front benches predominantly career union officials or union lawyers who see their seat in parliament as a cut and dried career step forward and power as their right.

On the other side are people of more disparate walks of life, business people, people with families, some with very young families, and mortgages, who have felt the alarming sting of sudden drastic pay cuts and have had to restructure their finances, just like lots of us.

Not saying they are better or worse, just that the level of experience in the world most of us inhabit seems greater on one side than the other.

I feel more confidence that MPs who have ‘walked the walk’ of ordinary life would understand the great difference a small change in income or increase in expenses can make in a family, the challenges and sacrifices involved in balancing work and family life, the burdens of caring for children or sick family members.

My instinct is that they would

more clearly understand the interests of the ordinary people they hope to govern and see these interests perhaps as more important than the other side does.

The fact that our present Prime Minister is not married and has no children doesn’t bother me; the fact that she does not seem to have around her anyone who notably has the interests of families foremost does bother me.

The apparent lack of voice for many, many points of view that are out there in the community on many, many things is still notable in the present cabinet.

For example, the fact that the opposition wants to engage in direct community based action to improve the environment bothers me much less than the fact that the government still apparently fully embraces belief in human-induced climate change when the scientific evidence of this is becoming increasingly tenuous and contentious, and may soon introduce burdensome and punitive measures to reflect this belief.

The fact that one side has a leader who honestly tried to explain in a TV interview what truth was and how politics and politicians functioned bothers me much less than the fact that the other side had a leader whose deputy was complicit in every poor decision made – a deputy who is now leader. And who avowed loyalty to her Prime Minister until the moment she rolled him.

I hope people think very carefully about our nation’s current leadership over the next few months.

Those fixed on coldness miss That Shining Thing Being Heard

By John Heard

I shall walk in the path of freedom for I seek your precepts… Your commands have been my delight; these I have loved. I will worship your commands and love them…

(Psalm 119: 45, 47-48)

There comes a point, after the first flush of youth and vigour - at least so it seems to me, approaching 30when the things one learned as a young man start to take on a new meaning. Yes, one writes about the significance of x, and one publicly supports y, but with experience and grace, with the elegant tonic of age perhaps, one finally gets it – a lesson is truly learned.

It is like this, for me, when it comes to the Catholic teaching on human sexuality. One always wants to love the precept, to worship the command – but in the middle of things, in the intensity of youth, things are muddled. One believed then by faith mostly – by wanting to believe, by being struck by the beauty of something. This is beautiful too. Only later, however, does one start to grasp the truth as truth, to experience the goodness of what was hinted. The meaning is no longer so elusive. One can come to know something that, before, one could only describe using borrowed phrases – learning vicariously from other men’s lives.

So, now having lived a little longer, here are my notes - what I have gleaned so far about love, sex, and Christianity:

I. There is immense beauty in particulars - in a finely turned calf, in light as it plays in the dark eyes of a loving friend - and there is no peace in denying as much.

II. If one has eyes to see such things, sensitivity to beauty is a profound gift.

III. Satisfying shapes and curves, loving acts, elevated modes of speech, and great works of art - these things can help the sensitive man to discern

the pattern that lends any model its light and loveliness.

IV. For greater than any particular beauty, and more lasting, is beauty itself - the truth and goodness that sanctify particulars.

V. Beauty, indeed, is of the sort that Plato wrote about; it is deathless and inextricable from goodness and truth.

VI. The Catechism teaching on desire is derived from the speech of Diotima in Plato’s Symposium. It is profoundly moving; an enlightening passage. It makes sense of the teaching on chastity, because it is important to find out what happens to eros.

VII. In Christianity, one moves beyond philosophy, learning that beauty is a person – the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity.

VIII. Real beauty is inexhaustible. Christ is inexhaustibly beautiful.

IX. A man who desires real beauty, who pursues the truth, who longs after goodness, will be satisfied.

X. The Christian’s yoke is sweet. The strictest Carthusian radiates joy because goodness sustains him.

XI. The most profound love a man can show another man is to want him to be a good Christian, to live a beautiful life.

XII. I also know that while the “spirit is willing, the flesh is weak” and for that reason I credit most of the things under the rubric “near occasions of sin” that I formerly rejected as prudish and timid.

No doubt there are other things to add, and many of these lessons are still only half formed in my mind and only just penetrating. However, progress has been made.

People often write about the Catholic teaching on human sexuality as though it were cold and dry, a cruel thing that constricts and twists.

That has never been my experience. It is the shining thing, the chryselephantine wonder, the light and hope in an otherwise dreary world of flesh and power.

The more one grows in the discipline of faith, indeed, the more profoundly one knows that Christianity is a civilising force, the “path of freedom”, and some commands – those that are holy and beautiful – can be a delight, something truly to worship and love.

Brought back from the brink by prayer, priest, Vinnies

How I pray now

with Debbie Warrier

Michele Dixon

Iam honoured and privileged to be a member of the St Vincent de Paul group at All Saints parish in Greenwood. I pray traditionally.

I love the Rosary. I especially try to make my actions a prayer.

Even when our group made up the Christmas hampers I said to them, “Let’s make this a prayer.”

We made the Sign of the Cross and went to work. It is a wonderful thing to do. It is so rewarding.

There are so many people out there who are in real need and it really brings out the spirit of the season. We include treats for the children like cake and find that the simple things can cause so much joy.

One of the people who had a strong influence on me was the late Jesuit Fr Leo Flynn - a very patient, true servant of God. All he ever wanted to do was serve others. As far as I was concerned he was an important member of our family.

He gave me Holy Communion when I was in hospital after having my babies and baptised all of my children. He was there in the good times and also when there were tragedies in my life.

When I was 19 my fiancée died tragically in a car accident. I had a delayed grief reaction and a psychiatrist prescribed valium which I took for a period of time. I found I could lean on Fr Leo and he was

very non-judgemental. Gradually, I improved to such an extent that one day whilst we were playing squash he asked me if I were still on the tablets. I told him I was and he gently replied, “You know, you don’t need to anymore. I think if you want to, you could stop taking them.” I think he was like what Christ would have been on earth.

I think the challenge facing Catholics today is creating that sense of community. Everyone can do their bit. I chose St Vinnies.

The St Vincent de Paul Society’s 40,000 members and volunteers work hard to assist people in need and combat social injustice across Australia. The Society has been in Australia since 1854. In the 08/09 financial year, Vinnies helped 175,000 Western Australians. Internationally, the Society operates in 130 countries and has over 950,000 members.

Members of the Society are people who live out their faith in action by visiting people in their homes to provide support, friendship, food assistance, material aid and advocacy. St Vinnies can also respond to needs for shelter. Home visits or calls are carried out by local St Vincent de Paul Society conferences. Conferences are typically

Parish or school-based groups of people who respond to calls for assistance from people in the local community and work closely with the Society’s Vinnies Centres.

As president of our Greenwood Conference, I go out on calls, organise the Winter Appeal, Christmas hampers, our street appeal, liaise with the regional part of our service, deal with correspondence and keep up to date with new developments. Our group covers Greenwood, Duncraig, Hamersley and Girrawheen. I chair the fortnightly meetings. Hopefully, I am a good guide for them and a support when members need help.

My life revolves around my faith. It is part of my thinking process and decision making. It is how I want to live my life. Christ is gentle, loving, merciful and forgiving. I belong to God first and foremost.

The choice: Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott; right, Prime Minister Julia Gillard with her partner Tim Mathieson arrive at the 2006 Press Gallery Ball. with Catherine Parish

It took years to get the true picture

The man who spent time in numerous seminaries, the army and then a spiritual wilderness was just trying to follow the call to the priesthood

BY BRIDGET SPINKS

KOREAN-BORN Scarborough parish priest Fr Benedict Lee from Korea spent 21 years trying to follow his vocation to the priesthood.

For Fr Benedict, the door to the priesthood opened when he had abandoned all hope that his dream would come true.

“When I gave up every desire and came to Australia without any hope, it happened. It’s amazing,” he told The Record

Fr Benedict Lee was born in Incheon, Korea in 1964. He has one brother, John Lee, and one sister, Julia Lee. He said he is very fortunate because he has a lot of spiritual support from his family. His family has a “strong Catholic history” and are fifth generation Catholic. “My family are very proud of me as a priest,” he said. His perception of the priesthood changed markedly from the time he was a 10 year old altar boy in 1974 to the time he was ordained a priest for the Perth Archdiocese in 2002.

“I eagerly went to church every day for altar serving. At that time, I thought a priest was the greatest man in the world,” Fr Lee said of his childhood.

Fr Ben joined the seminary straight out of high school in 1982 in Kagyu in Korea where he realised he had a misconception of the ‘priesthood’ as he saw only the “external figure of the priesthood”. He spent four years in the seminary and developed a “more mature image of the priesthood”

through the friends he made there. “In the seminary I realised it’s not an easy lifestyle, being a priest. There’s lots of responsibility and also duty to carry the identity as a priest. I realised how difficult celibacy is, practically.”

His seminary studies were interrupted when the Korean Government asked him to complete a three year compulsory term of military service.

“It was a tough time,” he said. “I was tested as a man, not as a seminarian; seminarians are well respected in Korean Catholic culture.”

Fr Benedict said that while doing military service he never doubted his calling to the priesthood and the time in service made him even more determined to become a priest.

After three years in the army, he returned to the seminary in Seoul

for two years and was ordained a deacon in Incheon Diocese in 1990.

But a problem with a parish priest sidetracked him from the path to diocesan priesthood in Korea.

It was the beginning of a “painful” 12 year experience of wandering.

He joined the Society of Mary but wasn’t “quite suited” there, he said.

“I didn’t have any conception of religious life; all I wanted was to become a priest.”

He is grateful however for the experience, because through this he learnt what he calls “the elements of leadership” - how to teach others; how to give retreats; about prayer and about guidance.

He left the Society of Mary after five years and spent the next seven as a layman, working as a par-

ish secretary and running a video shop.

These were difficult years for Fr Benedict, as he says he was in despair and “did not understand what God’s plan was”.

He went to Rome and Japan searching for his vocation but to no avail.

“Honestly, I couldn’t sleep and eat properly. I suffered much as I tried to find out my vocation because it wasn’t happening in reality. I was often rejected by people who didn’t welcome me to their community.”

Although a time of great trial, these years also taught Fr Benedict “a great lesson about vocations”, he said.

“I realised that a vocation does not come from my own will and desire, rather it comes from God as His gift.”

During this period of wandering a Sister of the Beatitude, Sr Peter, who knew Fr Benedict Lee from his time in the seminary, encouraged him to find other ways to become a priest.

“First, she took me to the Carmelites in Korea, but that was an accident; we were meant to go somewhere else first,” Fr Benedict said.

“There I met Sr Agnes, a Korean Carmelite and Superior of the Carmelite convent, before she died. Since it was an enclosed order, Sr Agnes asked Sr Gabriel to contact Fr Charlie O’Malley, the parish priest of Sacred Heart at Thornlie at the time.

“I met Archbishop Barry Hickey in 1999 and he gave me a chance. He allowed me to come to Australia and observe a parish for two years under the authority of Fr Charlie O’Malley. In 1999, I came to Australia to find my vocation,” Fr Benedict said.

After his time as a Deacon in Thornlie parish, the then Deacon Benedict Lee went to Armadale for six months.

“Fr Tony Pyers encouraged me

to go to St Charles Seminary to learn English,” he said.

Fr Benedict spent a year and a half in the seminary and was ordained a priest on 13 December 2002 at St Mary’s Cathedral, Perth.

For Fr Benedict, the parable of the prodigal son is particularly meaningful in understanding his own journey as are the writings of Dutch priest, Henri Nouwen’s The Beloved One

Fr Benedict sees himself as the prodigal son who has left home over and over again.

“I knew that I was the prodigal son who wasted his Father’s treasure and love,” he said, reflecting on the time he left his diocese in Korea 12 years ago.

“I was arrogant and I was extremely self-confident rather than giving thanks to the Father. I didn’t realise that the Father is always waiting for me to return to His home.”

One of the hardest parts of the journey was letting go of attachment to sin and allowing God’s grace to work in him.

“Through my past of wandering, I realised that one of the greatest challenges of the spiritual life is to accept God’s forgiveness.

“There is something in us humans that keeps us clinging to our sins and prevents us from letting God erase our past and offer us a completely new beginning,” Fr Benedict said.

In retrospect, and prompted by the fact that many of his Korean friends called him the ‘mystery of faith’ when he was ordained, Fr Benedict says his faith over the last 40 years has been a mystery.

And for those seeking a calling to the priesthood, he encouraged them not to give up.

“If you are having doubts about your vocation, don’t give up because God will provide the way and the means. Although you have doubts, trust in Him and I guarantee that your vocation will be fruitful.”

Sydney seminary staff escape Uganda terrorist bomb

A TRIP by the Rector and members of staff of the Seminary of the Good Shepherd to Uganda to be part of the ordination ceremony of two deacons who completed their studies in Sydney has been marred by the tragic deaths of more than 74 Ugandans in a terrorist bombing.

“Our people are safe,” a spokesman for the seminary said, but people were killed and injured as they watched the final game in the World Cup Soccer series at two different locations in Uganda’s capital. When news of the bombing reached Australia, there was immediate concern for the safety of the group from the Seminary of the Good Shepherd.

This included Rector Fr Anthony Percy, First Year Director Fr Bernard Gordon, Dean of Studies Sr M Isabell Nauman and the two recently ordained Ugandan-born seminarians, Fr Simon Kitimbo and Fr John Ssemanganda.

All appear to be safe with Fr Simon and Fr John currently spending time with their families, Fr Anthony Percy now visiting Kenyan priests with whom he studied as a seminarian while Sr Isabell and Fr Bernard are on their way home.

But the tragic deaths and injuries caused by the twin blasts that ripped through a rugby sports club and popular restaurant frequented by foreigners in Kampala, where hundreds had gathered to watch

the FIFA final, is a sad end to what was supposed to be a trip filled with joy.

The attacks, for which Al-Shabaab, a Somali militant group with links to Al-Qaeda, has claimed responsibility, were made as revenge against Uganda for sending UN peacekeepers to Somalia to support the government of Sheikh Sherif in 2006.

Sunday’s attack was the worst in east Africa since the US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, which brought Al-Qaeda into public consciousness for the

first time. It is also the first time alShabaab, which has little support among ordinary Somalis but is a powerful fighting force, has struck beyond the country’s border, confirming its emergence as an international terror organisation.

Just prior to the tragedy, Fr Anthony Percy had contacted Catholic Communications in Sydney, speaking about his admiration for Uganda, its beauty and the warmth and generosity of its people, but described how “Ugandans and Australians were united in faith.”

“Ugandans are clearly less well off than we are back home - at least on a material level. However, it is clear their society, despite obvious and often confronting material poverty of many of its citizens, is far richer than ours in other respects,” he wrote.

Fr Percy was impressed not only at the richness of what is their oral culture, which is also a very expressive and extremely social culture, but by their profound faith in God.

“I suspect the current Western debate about the existence of God and the atheism versus theism dialogue would surprise many Ugandans and may even shock them,” he said.

Impressed with Uganda’s abundance of priestly and religious vocations, Fr Percy believes, having spoken with local Bishops and clerics, this is due to a variety of reasons.

These include the rise of indigenous clergy in the early part of last century, the establishment of local seminaries together with strong family units, good catechesis in schools and houses of formation and a close relationship between lay people and their priests.

Fr Percy found faith in Uganda filled with vibrancy and joy which was very much in evidence when he and other members of the Seminary of the Good Shepherd attended the Ordination on 4 July at Kampala’s St Mary’s Cathedral.

“The experience of faith in Uganda is tangible and this was very apparent during the Ordination, particularly when celebrating the Sacrifice of the Eucharist,” he writes. “While we Westerners might struggle with the time devoted to celebrating the Mass, there is no such problem in Uganda.” The Ordination Rite at the Cathedral took three and a half hours, but Fr Percy says every moment was filled with the “vibrancy of faith” and said that he found applause at the consecration, “especially moving.”

“The Ugandans are first-rate believers and don’t possess just any old faith, but real, supernatural faith in the Trinitarian God who acts permanently and with subtlety in our lives.”

The Ordination of Fr Simon and Fr John, who have spent the past four years completing their theological studies at the Seminary of the Good Shepherd, was conducted by Cardinal Wamala, the retired Archbishop of Kampala. The two young priests will spend the next few weeks with their families before returning to Sydney.

Given granted leave from the Archdiocese of Kampala, Fr Simon will be assigned a parish within the Archidocese of Sydney where he will work for the next five years, while Fr John will spend the next three years on similar leave working within the Archdiocese of Sydney before returning home to

Fr benedict Lee, whose quest for the priesthood of Jesus Christ never left him despite life’s considerable obstacles.

PHOTO: BRIDGET SPINKS

Mourners gather at a funeral service for two bomb attack victims at a church on the outskirts of Kampala, Uganda on 13 July. Ugandan police found an unexploded suicide vest and made a number of arrests after coordinated bomb blasts ripped through two bars and killed at least 76 soccer fans watching the World Cup final on 11 July.

PHOTO: CNS/BENEDICTE DESRUS, REUTERS

Norms show Church is serious about protecting children

Revised norms send clear signal on sex abuse: Vatican official

BY JOHN T HAVIS Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY - A leading Vatican official said Pope Benedict XVI’s approval of revised norms on clerical sex abuse sent a clear signal that the Church is serious about protecting children and punishing abusive priests.

At the same time, the official said, the Vatican norms alone cannot resolve the problem of sexual abuse, which will require a continued and coordinated effort at every level of the Church.

Mgr Charles Scicluna, the promoter of justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, made the comments on 15 July at a briefing for reporters on the revised norms, which simplified and streamlined many of the Church’s procedures in dealing with priests accused of sexual abuse of minors.

Mgr Scicluna said the doctrinal congregation was grateful to the Pope for transforming into universal Church law a number of practices aimed at dealing more quickly and efficiently with priest abusers.

“I think it gives a signal that we are very, very serious about our commitment to promote safe environments and to offer an adequate response to abuse,” he said.

“This is a very important step from the technical viewpoint of canon law. But a document is always a document - it does not solve all the problems. It’s a very important instrument, but it’s the way you use the instrument that’s going to have the real effect on the life of the Church,” he said.

Mgr Scicluna was asked why the revised norms, like the previous edition, impose “pontifical secret” on the Church’s judicial handling of priestly sex abuse.

He said a better term was “confidentiality,” and that it was designed above all to protect the dignity of everyone involved, including the victim, the

Vatican’s tough stance reflects importance of Sacraments: prelate

accused, their families and their communities.

He also noted that in some cases - for example, a priest’s dismissal from the priesthood - Bishops are authorised to divulge the decision and the reasons behind it if this is seen as necessary for the common good of the Church.

“So the value of confidentiality is important, but it is not absolute. The good of the Church sometimes requires not confidentiality but publicity of a process that has been completed, either with a sentence of condemnation or a finding of innocence,” he said.

Likewise, Mgr Scicluna said, the Church’s insistence on confidentiality has limits in the relationship with civil authorities. Bishops are required to comply with civil law that requires reporting of abuse accusations, he said.

“Confidentiality of canonical proceedings is never an impediment to the duty to denounce (crimes), and is never to the detriment of obedience to civil law,” he said.

Mgr Scicluna made it clear that Pope Benedict had made the changes in the norms, and in doing so the Pope respected his area of competence, he said.

“It is not the task of the Pope to give indications about civil law. The indication to obey the law of the state was already stated by St Paul” and it was unnecessary to reaffirm this principle in a technical text like this, he said.

The revised norms extended the statute of limitations on sex abuse cases, included child pornography in the definition of sex abuse against minors and said sexual abuse of mentally disabled adults will be considered equivalent to abuse of minors.

Mgr Scicluna was asked if he expected the revisions to prompt a new wave of sex abuse allegations or revelations.

“No, we’re not expecting the floodgates to open. That happened in 2003, with the historical cases from the United States,” he said.

“This is an important extension of the law, but it’s not a question about numbers, it’s a question of assuring the respect of the dignity and the safeguarding of these people.”

BY NANCY FRAZIER O’BRIEN Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON - The Vatican’s decision to declare the attempted ordination of women a major Church crime reflects “the seriousness with which it holds offences against the Sacrament of Holy Orders” and is not a sign of disrespect toward women, Archbishop Donald W Wuerl of Washington said on 15 July.

The Archbishop, who chairs the US Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine, spoke at a news briefing in the headquarters of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops hours after the Vatican issued new norms for handling priestly sex abuse cases and updated its list of the “more grave crimes” against Church law, including for the first time the “attempted sacred ordination of a woman.”

In such an act, the Vatican said, the cleric and the woman involved are automatically excommunicated, and the cleric can also be dismissed from the priesthood.

Noting that women hold a variety of Church leadership positions in parishes and dioceses, Archbishop Wuerl said, “The Church’s gratitude toward women cannot be stated strongly enough.”

“Women offer unique insight, creative abilities and unstinting generosity at the very heart of the Catholic Church,” he said.

But, the Archbishop said, “the Catholic Church through its long and constant teaching holds that ordination has been, from the beginning, reserved to men, a fact which cannot be changed despite changing times.”

The Vatican action drew a sharp response from Erin Saiz Hanna, executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, founded in 1975 to promote the ordination of women as Catholic priests, deacons and Bishops.

Hanna called the decision “appalling, offensive and a wakeup call for all Catholics around the world.”

“The idea that a woman seek-

ing to spread the message of God somehow ‘defiles’ the Eucharist reveals an antiquated, backwards Church that still views women as ‘unclean’ and unholy,” she said in a news release.

Archbishop Wuerl said at the briefing that the norms should be seen as “a list of those areas that the Church considers of great significance,” adding that “it is not surprising that most are sacramental.”

In addition to declaring women’s ordination a more grave crime against Church law, the norms also condemn the attempted or simulated celebration of the Eucharist, any attempt to hear confession when one is unable to give valid sacramental absolution, and the recording of a confession or its “malicious diffusion” through any means of social communications.

Archbishop Wuerl said the latter prohibition did not necessarily mean the Vatican had seen an uptick in violations of the confessional seal related to social media, but indicated an awareness that the seal of confession “can now be violated in ways we never envisioned before.”

“It’s a recognition that we live in new circumstances,” he added.

Asked whether it might have been a public relations mistake for the Vatican to include women’s ordination and clergy sex abuse of minors in the same document, the Archbishop said the revised norms were “intended to contain a variety of different elements.”

He said one way to distinguish between the different elements was to hold separate news conferences on the women’s ordination aspect and the clerical sex abuse aspect of the norms, as the USCCB had done.

Bishop Blase J Cupich, who is to be installed on 3 September as head of the Diocese of Spokane, Washington, spoke about the norms as they related to sex abuse in a news briefing before Archbishop Wuerl’s. Bishop Cupich chairs the USCCB Committee on the

Protection of Children and Young People.

Roman Catholic WomenPriests, an organisation that is not recognised by the Church but claims that more than 100 women worldwide have been ordained priests or Bishops in the past eight years, responded to what it called “the Vatican’s equating women’s ordination with paedophilia by priests” with a demand that the Vatican “affirm women’s full equality in the Church, including priestly ministry.”

“We demand an end to misogyny in the Catholic Church,” the group said in a statement.

“We demand that the Vatican adopt reforms to transform Church laws and practices to reflect transparency, accountability, justice and equality for all.”

Ceremonies carried out by the group have led to the excommunications of the women and those who ordained them.

Hanna of the Women’s Ordination Conference called the Vatican document “a scare tactic to already ‘excommunicated’ women” and those who support them and said supporters of women’s ordination should “discontinue all financial contributions that benefit” the USCCB until the Bishops agree to “release the names of all accused Catholic leaders.”

“Excommunication did not work and neither will this,” she said. “In the face of one closed door after another, Catholic women will continue to make a way when there is none.”

In 2008, the doctrinal congregation formally decreed that a woman who attempts to be ordained a Catholic priest and the person attempting to ordain her are automatically excommunicated. In 1994, Pope John Paul II said the Church’s ban on women priests is definitive and not open to debate among Catholics.

The text of the revised norms and other documentation on the norms are available this week in Origins, Vol. 40, No. 10. Check www.originsonline.com or call 202-541-3290.

Washington Archbishop Donald W Wuerl responds to questions about the Vatican’s updated list of grave crimes against Church law at the the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ headquarters in Washington on 15 July. The Archbishop said the decision to declare the attempted ordination of women a major Church crime reflects Vatican’s seriousness about “offences against the Sacrament of Holy Orders” and is not a sign of disrespect toward women.

PHOTO: CNS/BOB ROLLER

Mgr Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s chief prosecutor of clerical sexual abuse, speaks during a Eucharistic prayer service in St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican in May. PHOTO: CNS/ISABELLA BONOTTO, CATHOLIC PRESS

Norms show Church is serious about protecting children

Revised norms send clear signal on sex abuse: Vatican official

BY JOHN T HAVIS Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY - A leading Vatican official said Pope Benedict XVI’s approval of revised norms on clerical sex abuse sent a clear signal that the Church is serious about protecting children and punishing abusive priests.

At the same time, the official said, the Vatican norms alone cannot resolve the problem of sexual abuse, which will require a continued and coordinated effort at every level of the Church.

Mgr Charles Scicluna, the promoter of justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, made the comments on 15 July at a briefing for reporters on the revised norms, which simplified and streamlined many of the Church’s procedures in dealing with priests accused of sexual abuse of minors.

Mgr Scicluna said the doctrinal congregation was grateful to the Pope for transforming into universal Church law a number of practices aimed at dealing more quickly and efficiently with priest abusers.

“I think it gives a signal that we are very, very serious about our commitment to promote safe environments and to offer an adequate response to abuse,” he said.

“This is a very important step from the technical viewpoint of canon law. But a document is always a document - it does not solve all the problems. It’s a very important instrument, but it’s the way you use the instrument that’s going to have the real effect on the life of the Church,” he said.

Mgr Scicluna was asked why the revised norms, like the previous edition, impose “pontifical secret” on the Church’s judicial handling of priestly sex abuse.

He said a better term was “confidentiality,” and that it was designed above all to protect the dignity of everyone involved, including the victim, the

Vatican’s tough stance reflects importance of Sacraments: prelate

accused, their families and their communities.

He also noted that in some cases - for example, a priest’s dismissal from the priesthood - Bishops are authorised to divulge the decision and the reasons behind it if this is seen as necessary for the common good of the Church.

“So the value of confidentiality is important, but it is not absolute. The good of the Church sometimes requires not confidentiality but publicity of a process that has been completed, either with a sentence of condemnation or a finding of innocence,” he said.

Likewise, Mgr Scicluna said, the Church’s insistence on confidentiality has limits in the relationship with civil authorities. Bishops are required to comply with civil law that requires reporting of abuse accusations, he said.

“Confidentiality of canonical proceedings is never an impediment to the duty to denounce (crimes), and is never to the detriment of obedience to civil law,” he said.

Mgr Scicluna made it clear that Pope Benedict had made the changes in the norms, and in doing so the Pope respected his area of competence, he said.

“It is not the task of the Pope to give indications about civil law. The indication to obey the law of the state was already stated by St Paul” and it was unnecessary to reaffirm this principle in a technical text like this, he said.

The revised norms extended the statute of limitations on sex abuse cases, included child pornography in the definition of sex abuse against minors and said sexual abuse of mentally disabled adults will be considered equivalent to abuse of minors.

Mgr Scicluna was asked if he expected the revisions to prompt a new wave of sex abuse allegations or revelations.

“No, we’re not expecting the floodgates to open. That happened in 2003, with the historical cases from the United States,” he said.

“This is an important extension of the law, but it’s not a question about numbers, it’s a question of assuring the respect of the dignity and the safeguarding of these people.”

BY NANCY FRAZIER O’BRIEN Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON - The Vatican’s decision to declare the attempted ordination of women a major Church crime reflects “the seriousness with which it holds offences against the Sacrament of Holy Orders” and is not a sign of disrespect toward women, Archbishop Donald W Wuerl of Washington said on 15 July.

The Archbishop, who chairs the US Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine, spoke at a news briefing in the headquarters of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops hours after the Vatican issued new norms for handling priestly sex abuse cases and updated its list of the “more grave crimes” against Church law, including for the first time the “attempted sacred ordination of a woman.”

In such an act, the Vatican said, the cleric and the woman involved are automatically excommunicated, and the cleric can also be dismissed from the priesthood.

Noting that women hold a variety of Church leadership positions in parishes and dioceses, Archbishop Wuerl said, “The Church’s gratitude toward women cannot be stated strongly enough.”

“Women offer unique insight, creative abilities and unstinting generosity at the very heart of the Catholic Church,” he said.

But, the Archbishop said, “the Catholic Church through its long and constant teaching holds that ordination has been, from the beginning, reserved to men, a fact which cannot be changed despite changing times.”

The Vatican action drew a sharp response from Erin Saiz Hanna, executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, founded in 1975 to promote the ordination of women as Catholic priests, deacons and Bishops.

Hanna called the decision “appalling, offensive and a wakeup call for all Catholics around the world.”

“The idea that a woman seek-

ing to spread the message of God somehow ‘defiles’ the Eucharist reveals an antiquated, backwards Church that still views women as ‘unclean’ and unholy,” she said in a news release.

Archbishop Wuerl said at the briefing that the norms should be seen as “a list of those areas that the Church considers of great significance,” adding that “it is not surprising that most are sacramental.”

In addition to declaring women’s ordination a more grave crime against Church law, the norms also condemn the attempted or simulated celebration of the Eucharist, any attempt to hear confession when one is unable to give valid sacramental absolution, and the recording of a confession or its “malicious diffusion” through any means of social communications.

Archbishop Wuerl said the latter prohibition did not necessarily mean the Vatican had seen an uptick in violations of the confessional seal related to social media, but indicated an awareness that the seal of confession “can now be violated in ways we never envisioned before.”

“It’s a recognition that we live in new circumstances,” he added.

Asked whether it might have been a public relations mistake for the Vatican to include women’s ordination and clergy sex abuse of minors in the same document, the Archbishop said the revised norms were “intended to contain a variety of different elements.”

He said one way to distinguish between the different elements was to hold separate news conferences on the women’s ordination aspect and the clerical sex abuse aspect of the norms, as the USCCB had done.

Bishop Blase J Cupich, who is to be installed on 3 September as head of the Diocese of Spokane, Washington, spoke about the norms as they related to sex abuse in a news briefing before Archbishop Wuerl’s. Bishop Cupich chairs the USCCB Committee on the

Protection of Children and Young People.

Roman Catholic WomenPriests, an organisation that is not recognised by the Church but claims that more than 100 women worldwide have been ordained priests or Bishops in the past eight years, responded to what it called “the Vatican’s equating women’s ordination with paedophilia by priests” with a demand that the Vatican “affirm women’s full equality in the Church, including priestly ministry.”

“We demand an end to misogyny in the Catholic Church,” the group said in a statement.

“We demand that the Vatican adopt reforms to transform Church laws and practices to reflect transparency, accountability, justice and equality for all.”

Ceremonies carried out by the group have led to the excommunications of the women and those who ordained them.

Hanna of the Women’s Ordination Conference called the Vatican document “a scare tactic to already ‘excommunicated’ women” and those who support them and said supporters of women’s ordination should “discontinue all financial contributions that benefit” the USCCB until the Bishops agree to “release the names of all accused Catholic leaders.”

“Excommunication did not work and neither will this,” she said. “In the face of one closed door after another, Catholic women will continue to make a way when there is none.”

In 2008, the doctrinal congregation formally decreed that a woman who attempts to be ordained a Catholic priest and the person attempting to ordain her are automatically excommunicated. In 1994, Pope John Paul II said the Church’s ban on women priests is definitive and not open to debate among Catholics.

The text of the revised norms and other documentation on the norms are available this week in Origins, Vol. 40, No. 10. Check www.originsonline.com or call 202-541-3290.

Washington Archbishop Donald W Wuerl responds to questions about the Vatican’s updated list of grave crimes against Church law at the the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ headquarters in Washington on 15 July. The Archbishop said the decision to declare the attempted ordination of women a major Church crime reflects Vatican’s seriousness about “offences against the Sacrament of Holy Orders” and is not a sign of disrespect toward women.

PHOTO: CNS/BOB ROLLER

Mgr Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s chief prosecutor of clerical sexual abuse, speaks during a Eucharistic prayer service in St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican in May. PHOTO: CNS/ISABELLA BONOTTO, CATHOLIC PRESS

Church strengthens internal safeguards

New norms reinforce efforts against pseudo ordinations, abusive clerics

BY JOHN T HAVIS Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican has revised its procedures for handling priestly sex abuse cases, streamlining disciplinary measures, extending the statute of limitations and defining child pornography as an act of sexual abuse of a minor.

Vatican officials said the changes allow the Church to deal with such abuse more rapidly and effectively, often through dismissal of the offending cleric from the priesthood.

As expected, the Vatican also updated its list of the “more grave crimes” against Church law, called delicta graviora, including for the first time the “attempted sacred ordination of a woman.”

In such an act, it said, the cleric and the woman involved are automatically excommunicated, and the cleric can also be dismissed from the priesthood.

Vatican officials emphasised that simply because women’s ordination was treated in the same document as priestly sex abuse did not mean the two acts were somehow equivalent in the eyes of the Church.

“There are two types of delicta graviora: those concerning the celebration of the Sacraments, and those concerning morals. The two types are essentially different and their gravity is on different levels,” said Mgr Charles Scicluna, an official of the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation.

Sexual abuse of a minor by a priest was added to the classification of delicta graviora (the most serious sins) in 2001, and at that time the Vatican established norms to govern the handling of such cases, which were reserved to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The norms affect how Church law treats sex abuse cases; civil law deals with the crime separately.

The latest revisions, approved by Pope Benedict XVI on 21 May and released on 15 July, for the most part codify practices that have been implemented through special permissions granted over the last nine years and make them part of universal law.

The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi, said publication of the revisions “makes a great contribution to the clarity and certainty of law in this field, a field in which the Church is today strongly committed to proceeding with rigour and transparency.”

The norms on sexual abuse of minors by priests now stipulate:

● The Church law’s statute of limitations on accusations of sexual abuse has been extended, from 10 years after the alleged victim’s 18th birthday to 20 years. For several years, Vatican officials have been routinely granting exceptions to the 10-year statute of limitations. Exceptions to the 20-year limit will be possible, too, but the Vatican rejected a suggestion to do away with the statute of limitations altogether, sources said.

● Use of child pornography now falls under the category of clerical sexual abuse of minors, and offenders can be dismissed from the priesthood. This norm applies to “the acquisition, possession, or distribution by a cleric of pornographic images of minors under the age of 14, for purposes of sexu-

Revised abuse norms at a glance

THE revised Vatican norms dealing with sexual abuse of minors by priests and other “more grave crimes” against Church law contain several changes from the previous version published in 2001.

The main provisions of the revised norms:

● Extend the statute of limitations from 10 to 20 years after a sex abuse victim’s 18th birthday.

● Include use of child pornography as a type of sexual abuse of minors.

● Establish parity between abuse of mentally disabled people and that of minors.

● Confirm the right of the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation to ask the Pope to laicise an abusive priest without a Church trial, in the most serious and clear cases.

● Confirm that the doctrinal congregation can use an “extrajudicial” process to quickly remove an accused priest from active ministry.

● Confirm the practice of allowing qualified lay Catholics, and not only priests with doctorates in canon law, to serve on tribunals that deal with sex abuse cases.

● Confirm the doctrinal congregation’s competency to judge Cardinals, patriarchs and Bishops accused of “more grave crimes.”

● Lists “attempted sacred ordination of a woman” among the “more grave crimes” reserved to the doctrinal congregation.

● Makes it a grave crime to record confessions with modern technology.

al gratification, by whatever means or using whatever technology.”

● Sexual abuse of mentally disabled adults will be considered equivalent to abuse of minors. The norms define such a person as someone “who habitually lacks the use of reason.”

In 2003, two years after promulgating the Vatican’s norms on priestly sex abuse, Pope John Paul II gave the doctrinal congregation a number of special faculties to streamline the handling of such cases. The new revisions incorporate those changes, which were already in practice:

● In the most serious and clear cases of sexual abuse of minors by priests, the doctrinal congregation may proceed directly to laicise a priest without going through an ecclesiastical trial. In these instances, the final decision for dismissal from the clerical state and dispensation from the obligations of celibacy is made by the Pope.

● The doctrinal congregation can dispense with using the formal judicial process in Church law in favour of the “extrajudicial process.” In effect, this allows a Bishop to remove an accused priest from ministry without going through a formal trial.

● The doctrinal congregation can dispense from Church

rules requiring only priests with doctorates in canon law to serve on church tribunals in trials of priests accused of abusing minors. This means qualified lay experts, including those without a canon law doctorate, can be on the tribunal staff, or act as lawyers or prosecutors.

● The doctrinal congregation’s competency in such cases means it has the right to judge Cardinals, Patriarchs and Bishops as well as priests. Vatican sources said this norm, which originates from a decision by Pope John Paul II in 2004, indicates that if the Pope authorises a trial or penal process against such persons for sex abuse or another of the “more grave crimes,” the doctrinal congregation would be the tribunal and could also make preliminary investigations.

The revised norms maintain the imposition of “pontifical secret” on the church’s judicial handling of priestly sex abuse and other grave crimes, which means they are dealt with in strict confidentiality. Fr Lombardi said the provision on the secrecy of trials was designed “to protect the dignity of everyone involved.”

The spokesman said that while the Vatican norms do not directly address the reporting of sex abuse to civil authorities, it remains the Vatican’s policy to encourage Bishops to report such crimes wherever required by civil law.

“These norms are part of canon

law; that is, they exclusively concern the Church. For this reason they do not deal with the subject of reporting offenders to the civil authorities,” he said.

“It should be noted, however, that compliance with civil law is contained in the instructions issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as part of the preliminary procedures to be followed in abuse cases.”

Fr Lombardi added that the doctrinal congregation also was studying how to help Bishops around the world formulate local guidelines on sexual abuse in Church environments.

He said that would be “another crucial step on the Church’s journey as she translates into permanent practice and continuous awareness the fruits of the teachings and ideas that have matured over the course of the painful events of the ‘crisis’ engendered by sexual abuse by members of the clergy.”

The new norms treat a number of other delicta graviora connected with sacramental issues.

On the “attempted ordination of a woman,” the norms essentially restated a 2008 decree from the doctrinal congregation that said a woman who attempts to be ordained a Catholic priest and the person attempting to ordain her are automatically excommunicated.

The norms added that if the guilty party is a priest, he can be

punished with dismissal from the priesthood. For those wondering why an excommunicated priest would also be laicised, Vatican sources said they were two different kinds of penalties.

“Excommunication is a medicinal penalty which has to be remitted once the person repents; dismissal (from the priesthood) is an additional expiatory penalty which remains in place permanently, even if the excommunication is lifted,” Mgr Scicluna explained.

The norms address violations against the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist.

One norm explicitly extends the crime of violating the seal of confession through use of modern technology - by recording confessions or making any such recording public through social communication media. This reflects a change introduced in practice in 2003.

The revisions include among the “more grave crimes” other actions regarding the Sacrament of Penance: attempting to impart absolution or hearing sacramental confession when one cannot do so validly; indirect violation (and not only direct violation) of the seal of confession; and simulation of the administration of the Sacrament by a priest who is able to grant absolution.

Vatican sources said the direct violation of the confessional seal would occur, for example, when a priest betrays the name of the penitent and the sin confessed; an indirect violation might occur if the priest betrays only the name of the penitent or only the confessed sin, but the missing element is understood from the context of the conversation.

Regarding the Eucharist, the revised norms modify the language concerning the attempted and simulated celebration of the Eucharist, and sacrilegious consecration of one or both matters in or outside of the Eucharistic celebration.

The revised norms include for the first time “crimes against the faith” - heresy, apostasy and schism - saying that while competency normally falls to local Bishops in such cases, the doctrinal congregation becomes competent in the case of an appeal.

One of four North American women is “ordained” to the priesthood on a chartered tour boat on the St Lawrence River on the US-Canadian border in 2005, but the Church said the ordinations were invalid. As expected, the Vatican has updated its list of the most serious crimes against Church law, including for the first time the “attempted sacred ordination of a woman”.

PHOTO: CNS/ART BABYCH

Vatican spokesman Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi presents the Vatican’s revised procedures for handling cases of sexual abuse by priests during a 15 July press conference.

PHOTO: CNS/PAUL HARING

Medjugorje seers to reveal ‘secrets’ to Vatican: report

Marija Pavlovic, Medjugorje seer

THE six alleged Medjugorje visionaries will testify before a Vatican commission, most likely in around October, and will be asked to reveal the “secrets” with which they say they have been entrusted, according to a report on the Petrus website. In March, the Holy See Press Office had announced that the commission, led by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the retired Vicar of the Rome Diocese, would assess the authenticity of the apparitions that have reportedly taken place in BosniaHerzegovina since 1981.

More missionary clergy needed

THE Catholic Church needs to first form a more missionary clergy before it can be more missionary itself, the secretary-general of the Pontifical Missionary Union, Fr Vito del Prete, told a Missionary Congress for Seminarians at the Major Seminary of Our Lady of Fatima in Brasilia, Brazil. “If we mobilise the clergy for the missionary cause, the whole Church will become missionary,” he said in an address to 160 Brazilian seminarians, three Bishops, and several priests who work with seminarians.

He explained that the purpose of his institution is to encourage and form, at the missionary level, Bishops, priests, seminarians, and men and women Religious.

Fr del Prete said that the Church in Brazil can be “the engine of the revitalisation of the mission in Latin America.”

The secretary-general of Brazil’s episcopal conference, Archbishop Dimas Lara Barbosa, invited the seminarians to assume the mission with the same fidelity and the same courage as the Apostles Peter and Paul. “We wish to request fidelity to Jesus Christ, beginning from a personal encounter with the Risen One, and courage to be disposed to witness,” said the prelate.

Fr del Prete also stressed the example of Peter and Paul, reminding that, despite their differences, they had missionary ardour in common. He added, “We are called to witness the same faith taught by these two Apostles.”

1st woman Lutheran Bishop resigns for mishandling abuse

THE first woman Lutheran Bishop has resigned following reports that she may not have been truthful when she said that she had been unaware of abuse allegations against a Lutheran pastor until earlier this year. German media reported that the Bishop, Maria Jepsen, had been aware of the allegations in 1999. “My credibility has been contested,” said Jepsen, who became a Lutheran Bishop in 1992. “For that reason, I do not see myself in a position to continue to spread God’s word as I had promised.”

“Jepsen has always shown a clear understanding that the victims’ needs come first,” said Nikolaus Schneider, the leader of Germany’s Lutherans. “It shows that the Protestants are ready to accept responsibility for what has happened without trying to protect themselves.”

Indian-born prelate to represent Pope at United Nations

POPE Benedict XVI has named Archbishop Francis Chullikatt as the new Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations. The 17 July appointment to one of the Holy See’s most important diplomatic posts came less than three weeks after the transfer of Archbishop Celestino Migliore, who had held the position since 2002, to the apostolic nunciature in Poland.

Archbishop Chullikatt was born in Kerala, the southwestern Indian state that has been the stronghold of Catholicism there since its evangelisation by St Thomas the Apostle. Born in 1953, Archbishop Chullikatt was ordained a priest of the Latin-rite Diocese of Veraploy, now an Archdiocese, in 1978. Entering the diplomatic service of the Holy See a decade later, he served in Honduras, southern Africa, and the Philippines before serving as a minister counsellor at the Holy See Mission to the United Nations from 2001 to 2004. After a brief transfer to the Secretariat of State in Rome, he was named apostolic nuncio to Jordan and Iraq in 2006 and was ordained a Bishop that year.

Vatican Latin America foundation to consider 230 development projects

THE administrative council of the Populorum Progressio Foundation will meet in the Dominican Republic from 20-23 July to consider 230 proposals for funding development projects in Latin America and the Caribbean. The foundation, established by Pope John Paul II in 1992, funnels donations to support initiatives undertaken to help poor communities. Headed by Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, the President of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, the foundation is named after Pope Paul VI’s 1967 encyclical on the development of peoples - an encyclical that Pope Benedict lauded and reflected upon in his 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate

Women Bishops likely to drive Anglicans out

Anglicans expect mass exodus after Church of England OKs women Bishops

BY SIMON CALDWELL Catholic News Service

LONDON - The largest AngloCatholic group in the Church of England is expecting an exodus of thousands of Anglicans to Catholicism after a decision to ordain women as Bishops without sufficient concessions to traditionalists.

Stephen Parkinson, director of Forward in Faith - a group that has about 10,000 members, including more than 1,000 clergy - told CNS on 13 July that a large number of Anglo-Catholics are considering conversion to the Catholic faith. His comments came after the General Synod, the national assembly of the Church of England, voted at a meeting in York to approve the creation of women Bishops by 2014 without meeting the demands of objectors.

A 12 July statement from Forward in Faith advised members against hasty action, saying now was “not the time for precipitate action.”

“This draft measure does nothing for us at all,” Parkinson said.

“We explained very carefully why we could not accept women Bishops theologically. We explained what would enable us to stay in the Church of England, but the General Synod has decided to get rid of us by giving us a provision that does not meet our needs.

“They are saying either put up or shut up and accept innovations, however unscriptural or heretical, or get out.”

Parkinson said he expected thousands of members of Forward in Faith to consider accepting Pope Benedict XVI’s offer of a personal ordinariate, issued last November in the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, in which a group of Anglicans can be received into the Catholic Church while retaining their distinctive patrimony and liturgical practices.

“Many, I expect, will be exploring the provisions of Pope Benedict’s apostolic constitution. We have got 10,000 members, so clearly we are talking about thousands,” he added.

A number of breakaway national Anglican churches, in communion with the Traditional Anglican

Communion rather than the much larger Worldwide Anglican Communion, have already written to the Vatican to accept the Pope’s offer. The defection of thousands of mainstream Anglican traditionalists from the Church of England would represent the largest single block. Parkinson said developments were unlikely within the next six months, however, adding that until women Bishops are ordained, Anglican traditionalists had a “couple of years” to think about what to do.

The Forward in Faith statement said the proposals must be considered by provincial synods in September and the outcomes could be debated a month later when Forward in Faith holds its annual meeting.

The decision by the General Synod came after nearly 12 hours of debate on a compromise proposed by Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury and Archbishop John Sentamu of York was narrowly defeated.

The diocesan Synods have now been asked to scrutinise a scheme where women Bishops would have the authority to make alternative arrangements for objectors through a statutory code of practice. The Anglo-Catholic group of the synod had wanted episcopal visitors, or “flying Bishops,” to minister to their members instead, but their requests were rejected.

If the resolution is supported by

a majority of the diocesan synods, it will be returned to the General Synod for ratification in 2012.

Archbishop Williams told the General Synod that its vote illustrated that the Church of England was “committed by a majority to the desirability of seeing women as Bishops for the health and flourishing of the work of God’s kingdom, of this Church and this nation.”

“We are also profoundly committed by a majority in the synod to a maximum generosity that can be consistently and coherently exercised toward the consciences of minorities and we have not yet cracked how to do that,” he said during the 12 July debate.

The Church of England first voted to ordain women as priests in 1992, a move that led to about 500 clergy defecting to the Catholic Church.Since 1994, when the changes came into force, more than 5,000 women have been ordained as Anglican priests.

Last year, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales set up a committee of Bishops to liaise with Anglicans interested in a personal ordinariate, which will resemble a military diocese in structure, and also with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

On 5 July, Catholic Bishop Malcolm McMahon of Nottingham met about 70 Anglican clerics to discuss the possibility of an English ordinariate.

Vatican targeted in cyber attack on Google

No denunciation from Vatican as Google apologetic for hacker’s prank

VATICAN CITY (Zenit.org)

- Last weekend the Vatican was targeted in a cyber attack by an unknown person who used the Google Internet search engine to misdirect web browsers searching for information.

On 17 July, any user who typed the word “Vatican” into the search field on Google’s web search page was directed to the site “www.pedofilo.com” as the first suggestion,

rather than the proper Vatican web page.Users who entered this site proposed by the search engine viewed a blank page.

When this misdirection was discovered, Google was informed, said Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office.

The Internet organisation immediately apologised and assured the Holy See that it would do what it could to resolve the problem as soon as possible.

On the morning of 18 July, the problem seemed to be corrected, as users were once again directed to the proper Vatican web page, www.vatican.va, upon initiating a search for it.

Although the person who caused this problem has not been

found, the indications suggested that the operation may have been carried out by someone who had significant knowledge of how Google functions.

According to what Rome-based news agency Zenit has been able to verify through Internet registrations, the www.pedofilo.com web page is the property of the GuionBajo firm in Monterrey, Mexico.

However, the firm’s owner is not necessarily responsible for subverting the Vatican search through Google.

Nor did the Vatican denounce Google for its part in this error as the company immediately apologised for the incident and sought to resolve the problem.

Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, England, head of the Anglican Communion, holds up a glass of water to make a point while giving a speech on ecumenism at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome on 19 November. In reference to relations between Catholics and Anglicans, Archbishop Williams said the “ecumenical glass is genuinely half-full.” He may be on the verge of losing thousands of Anglicans to the Catholic Church, however, after his bid for a compromise on women Bishops in his Church failed.

PHOTO: CNS/PAUL HARING

UN AIDS study backs Church teaching

Catholic AIDS expert: Study lends credibility to faith leaders’ work

BY PAUL JEFFREY Catholic News Service

VIENNA - A new UN AIDS study has lent credibility to faith leaders who have long argued that behavioural change was a key to combating the spread of the illness, says a Catholic expert on the disease.

“Within the United Nations, there is more and more attention to focusing on abstinence and the reduction of the number of sexual partners as well as the strategy of promoting condoms,” US Monsignor Robert Vitillo, special adviser to Caritas Internationalis on HIV and AIDS, told Catholic News Service. “This is a validation of what we’ve done.”

Mgr Vitillo and other Catholics who work with people living with HIV and AIDS joined thousands of researchers, politicians and activists from around the world for the 18-23 July XVIII International AIDS Conference in the Austrian capital.

The biennial conference takes place as new studies indicate progress is being made in lowering the HIV infection rate among young people in several countries around the world.

A study from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS released on 13 July showed HIV prevalence among young people has declined by more than 25 per cent in 15 of the 21 most-affected countries.

In eight countries, according to the report, the declines in HIV prevalence have resulted, at least in part, from positive changes in sexual behaviour among young people, including youth waiting longer before they become sexually active and having fewer partners.

Mgr Vitillo said other recent studies have shown that behaviour change had more to do with reducing HIV infection for people in countries such as Uganda and Kenya than promoting the use of condoms.

Respect for the Church’s approach is not universal, acknowledged Mgr Vitillo, who is based in Geneva and works closely with UN agencies and other international organisations.

“I was involved in a UNAIDS group that developed a strategic framework on HIV prevention. It was a small group, and there

were some protests that they’d invited someone from the Catholic Church, especially me, a priest. But there were others in the group who said, ‘No, the Catholic Church has excellent prevention programmes and a valid approach to prevention,’” Mgr Vitillo said.

Activists at the Vienna conference warned, however, that recent progress in combating the effects of the virus is at risk because of declining financial support for care and treatment of those living with HIV and AIDS.

A new analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation and UNAIDS shows that donor governments provided US$7.6 billion for AIDS relief in 2009, compared with US$7.7 billion disbursed in 2008.

Those figures ended a run of annual double-digit-percentagepoint increases in donor support for international AIDS assistance since at least 2002, when donor governments provided US$1.2 billion.

The opening session of the conference was interrupted by hundreds of activists who staged a protest against the cuts in international AIDS funding.

Mgr Vitillo told CNS the funding decline is already affecting the Church’s work.

that the family will divide up the medication to share it among several members. As a result, no one will get well,” he said.

There is more to the funding cuts than a bad world economy, however, Mgr Vitillo said.

“Part of this is the result of the global economic crisis. But inevitably when we cut back it’s the most vulnerable populations that are most affected, because they don’t have much of a voice,” he said.

“There is no uproar like that which would come from big business interests if they were cut back.

“We have scrambled to get back to giving bonuses to the bankers who started the economic crisis, but not to the vulnerable who are victims of it. There are sufficient resources out there, if we choose to change how we prioritise our global resources.”

the latter conference were challenged by AIDS activists to step up their commitment to accepting people living with HIV.

Kevin Moody, international coordinator and chief executive of the Global Network of People Living with HIV, told the ecumenical conference that despite a lot of progress, religious leaders continue to be accomplices in worsening the suffering of people living with HIV and AIDS.

“Homophobic laws are today being written in Africa because there are (missionaries) from Europe and North America going to those countries and advocating for the criminalisation of homosexuality,” he said. A shift is needed “from laying blame on HIV-positive people to supporting the health and well-being of people living with HIV,” Moody said.

“I was in Uganda in June and our care workers are being told that no new patients should be put on the rolls, and in some cases people are being dropped. Some newly diagnosed families are being told that they have to choose which person will get treatment. Given the culture of Africa, what that means is

Before the international AIDS conference, Mgr Vitillo joined more than 100 other Catholic AIDS workers from 23 countries in a two-day conference to discuss their work.

Many Catholics also participated in a one-day interfaith conference sponsored by the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, an international network of Churches and Church agencies. Participants in

“When we can welcome people living with HIV in our communities into our religious settings, then we will have just about solved the issues associated with stigma and discrimination. It’s important that if one of us walks into a church, mosque or temple, that we feel welcomed and that the people who are there understand that it’s not acceptable to discriminate against people living with HIV,” he said.

Blessed marrieds show how a family-friendly society can be built

BY ANITA S BOURDIN Zenit.org

ALENCON, France - Marking the 10 July feast of one of the Church’s beatified married couples - the parents of St Thérèse - the president of the Pontifical Council for the Family outlined two projects aimed at building a family-friendly society.

Cardinal Ennio Antonelli celebrated the feast of Blesseds Louis Martin and Marie-Zélie Guerin Martin with a Mass in the basilica of Alencon. In an address, he illustrated why the family is a resource for society, and highlighted three objectives the Church faces today.

He encouraged “witnessing, with the help of the grace of God, to the beauty of the family founded on marriage, that is on the will to give oneself and commit oneself without reservations.” He invited building “a society friendly to the family” and urged belief “in the family as an irreplaceable factor of humanisation and essential resource for society.”

Recalling the World Meeting of Families held in Mexico City last year, and looking to the next meeting, scheduled for 2012 in Milan, the Cardinal outlined priorities for his dicastery.

In the midst of their normal activities, he said they are working on two projects: one ecclesial

and one secular. The first regards the family as a leader in evangelisation, and best practices in family ministry.

Cardinal Antonelli explained that “numerous countries are the site of very beautiful and very fruitful pastoral experiences, giving value to families as responsible protagonists in day to day evangelisation, in relations with peers, in social life and in the activities of the Church.”

The council’s project aims to collect and share “the most significant and appropriate experiences to inspire and stimulate others.”

In this context, he spoke of a November conference in Rome where Benedict XVI will lead

a prayer vigil. This will be an occasion to foster “communion and communication between the Churches,” the cardinal said. Concretely, these experiences include programmes to prepare couples for marriage and ministry in support of families.

The second project focuses on data collection to show the importance of the family for society. Studies will look at how the traditional family “greatly benefits society, whereas the so-called new forms of family are harmful to it.”

“This study and investigation are proposed to the episcopal conferences of certain countries chosen as samples in order to present their results at the 7th

World Meeting of Families in Milan in 2012,” the Cardinal explained. He said the objective will be to increase awareness in public opinion based on the “eloquence of the facts” and also to “encourage the laity and associations in other countries.”

Cardinal Antonelli alluded later to the testimony of the Martin family, affirming that today’s families need “cultural and political support.”

“Families founded on marriage offer society essential goods through the generation of new citizens and the increase of social virtues,” he said. “Thus, they have a right to a just cultural, juridical and economic recognition.”

At the “House for the Dying,” a hospice for AIDS patients and other seriously ill patients run by the Sisters of Charity in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sister Paula, a Spanish nun, supports a patient in 2009 as she walks. A new UN AIDS study has lent credibility to faith leaders who have long argued that behavioural change was a key to combating the spread of the illness, rather than contraception methods.

PHOTO: CNS/PAUL JEFFREY

Several hundred activists disrupt the opening of the 2010 International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria on 18 July protesting cutbacks in funding for AIDS care, treatment and prevention by the US and some European governments.

PHOTO: CNS/PAUL JEFFREY

PANORAMA

A roundup of events in the Archdiocese

Panorama entries must be in by 12pm Monday.

Contributions may be emailed to administration@therecord.com.au, faxed to 9325 4580, or mailed to PO Box 3075, Adelaide Terrace, Perth WA 6832.

THURSDAY, 22 JULY

The Infant Jesus Morley Catholic Mental Health Support and Wellbeing Group

7-8.30pm at the Infant Jesus Parish Hall, 47 Wellington St, Morley. Mr Gerry Smith will talk on Guilt and its benefits. Enq: Darren 9276 8500 or Barbara 9328 8113.

FRIDAY, 23 TO SUNDAY, 25 JULY

Annual Marian Movement of Priests Lay Retreat 7pm at Redemptorist Retreat House, Vincent St, North Perth. Enq: 9300 8389.

SATURDAY, 24 JULY

Christian Meditation Community

10am-3.45pm at St Cecilia’s Parish Centre, Grantham and Kenmore Rd, Floreat. Does ‘spirituality,’ as it is often presented today avoid or evade the struggle for a more equal and just world? What is the link between ‘spirituality’ and human liberation? Presented by Fr Paschal Kearney. BYO Lunch. Tea and coffee provided. Donation $10. Enq: Marian 9387 4716 or christianmeditation@iinet.net.au.

SUNDAY, 25 JULY

Official Opening of St Anne’s Church

2.30pm at Hehir St, Belmont. Pontifical Mass with Archbishop Hickey to celebrate the feast of St Anne and the opening of the church for the Latin Mass Apostolate. Followed by afternoon tea. Enq: Fr Michael 9444 9604.

Divine Mercy Holy Hour

11am at St John and Paul Church, Pine Tree Gully Road, Willetton. Pray the Rosary and Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and for the consecrated life especially here in John Paul parish, conclude with the First Class Relic of Saint Faustina. Please do come and join us in prayer. Enq: John 9457 7771.

FRIDAY, 30 JULY

Medjugorje-Evening of Prayer

7pm at Our Lady Queen of Poland, 35 Eighth Ave, Maylands. An Evening of Prayer with Our Lady Queen of Peace with Adoration, Rosary, Benediction concluding with Holy Mass. Free DVD on Donald Calloway’s testimony from life of sexual promiscuity, drugs and crime through to his conversion to the priesthood. Approximate conclusion 9pm. All warmly welcomed. Enq: Eileen 9402 2480 for Fr Bogoni.

SUNDAY, 1 AUGUST

Divine Mercy

1.30pm at St Francis Xavier Church, 25 Windsor St, Perth. An afternoon with Jesus and Mary. Fr Doug Harris will give homily on St John Vianney. Refreshments afterwards. Enq: John 9457 7771.

Caritas Australia - Family Fun Day

Be More Walk For Water

11am-1pm at Lake Monger, Lake Monger Dr, Leederville. Meet at Dodd St carpark near Speech and Hearing centre. There will be walkathon, music, face painting, sausage sizzle. Come prepared for the weather; bring buckets and tap water to keep hydrated. Enq: Caritas Australia 9422 7925.

TUESDAY, 3 AUGUST

Faith Enrichment Series

7.30-9pm at Applecross Parish Centre, 115 Ardross St, Ardross. Murray Graham will talk on Do You Want a More Loving and Resilient Family? The talk will make a crucial link between the Psychology and Spirituality of Resilience with some key research findings. Enq: Wim 0421 636 763.

FRIDAY, 6 AUGUST

Pro-Life Witness

9.30am at St Brigid’s Church, Midland. Mass followed by Rosary procession and prayer vigil at abortion clinic, led by the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. All welcome to come and pray for the conversion of hearts. Enq: Helen 9402 0349.

Catholic Faith Renewal Evening

7.30pm at St John and Paul’s Parish, Pinetree Gully Road, Willetton. Songs of Praise, sharing by Fr Paschal Kearney, CSSp; on Prophetic Leadership followed by Thanksgiving Mass. All welcome to attend and encourage you to bring your family and friends. Refreshments afterwards. Enq: catholicfaithrenewal@gmail.com or Kathy 9295 0913.

SATURDAY, 7 AUGUST

Faith Enrichment Series

4-5.30pm at Applecross Parish Centre, 115 Ardross St, Ardross. Murray Graham will lead discussion Growing in Love and Silent Reflection on Deepening of Spirituality, link between Being Loved and Changing Behaviour, How to Grow in Love. Presentation followed by Mass. Donations. Enq: Wim 0421 636 763.

Day With Mary

9am-5pm at Our Lady of Grace Church, 3 Kitchener St, North Beach. Day of prayer and instruction based on the Fatima message. 9am Video, 10.10am Holy Mass, Reconciliation, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament, Eucharistic Adoration, Sermons on Eucharist and Our Lady, Rosaries and Stations of the Cross. BYO lunch. Enq: Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286.

Witness for Life

8.30am at St Augustine’s, Gladstone Road, Rivervale. Mass celebrated by Fr Paul Carey, and followed by Rosary procession and prayer vigil at nearby abortion clinic. All welcome to come and pray for the conversion of hearts. Enq: Helen 9402 0349.

FRIDAY, 13 AUGUST TO SUNDAY, 15 AUGUST

Beginning Experience Weekend Programme Separated, Divorced, or Widowed

7pm at Epiphany Retreat Centre, Rossmoyne. Beginning Experience is designed to assist and support people in learning to close the door gently on a relationship that has ended, in order to get on with living. Enq: Maureen 9537 1915 or Bev 9332 7971.

SATURDAY, 14 AUGUST

Divine Mercy

2.30pm at St Francis Xavier’s Church, Windsor St, East Perth. Healing Mass, main celebrant Fr Marcellinus Meilak OFM, followed by veneration of First Class Relic of St Faustina Kowalska. Reconciliation in English and Italian will be offered. Refreshments afterwards. Enq: John 9457 7771.

SUNDAY, 15 AUGUST

Divine Mercy Pilgrimage - Feast of the Assumption of the BVM

12 noon BYO lunch, Divine Mercy Church site, Muchea East Rd and Santa Gertrudas Dr, Lower Chittering. There will be Exposition, Rosary, Benediction, blessing of grounds and Divine Mercy image. 2pm Holy Mass, Chaplet of Divine Mercy followed by Br Stanley’s talk and veneration service. Tea provided. Transport bookings, Francis 9459 3873, 0404 893 877 or Fr Paul 9571 1839.

TUESDAY, 17 AUGUST

Past Pupils and Friends of Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart 9am at St Joseph’s Convent, York St, South Perth. Mass in the Chapel for those who wish to attend followed by tea. Limited numbers. Enq: Betty 9246 0302 or Maureen 9447 2346.

FRIDAY, 27 TO SUNDAY, 29 AUGUST

Post Abortion Hope, Reconciliation and Healing Weekend Retreat

The Rachel’s Vineyard Retreat is for anyone suffering the spiritual and psychological effects of a past abortion experience. The Retreat starts at 5pm. The Archdiocese of Perth sponsors this confidential and beautiful healing ministry. Enq: Jenny (08) 9445 7464.

GENERAL NOTICES

Perpetual Adoration

Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is in its seventh year at Christ the King Church, Beaconsfield. Open 24 hours except at Mass times. All welcome. Enq Joe 9319 1169.

Perpetual Adoration

Sacred Heart Church, 64 Mary St, Highgate. All that is needed is for each one of us to be willing to spend one hour a week with Jesus so that all the hours are covered with one person in the Chapel. Available times, Monday 2-3am, 4-5am, Saturday 11am-12 noon, Tuesday 11am12 noon, Sunday 2-3pm, 3-4pm; Thursday 7-8pm. Enq Helen 9444 7962.

Pilgrimage to the Holy Land

The Church of St Jude in Langford is seeking to put together a visit to Jordan, the Holy Land and Egypt, leaving 8 September 2010. The duration of pilgrimage is expected to be 15 days and could accommodate 28-30 people. Fr Terry Raj will be the Spiritual Director. Enq Matt 6460 6877, mattpicc1@gmail.com.

Archbishop Goody Award Applications

Award established by The Most Reverend Sir Lancelot Goody, KBE to further the lay apostolate in the Archdiocese of Perth by financing the formation, education and training of lay people. This year we are particularly interested in endeavours having to do with the Rite of Christian Initiation. Applications for the Award are to be submitted before 31 July 2010. Enq: Kim 9384 0598 or claremont@perthcatholic.org.au.

EVERY SUNDAY

Pilgrim Mass - Shrine of the Virgin of the Revelation 2pm at Shrine, 36 Chittering Rd, Bullsbrook. Commencing with Rosary followed by Benediction. Reconciliation is available before every celebration. Anointing of the Sick administered during Mass every second Sunday of the month. Pilgrimage in honour of the Virgin of the Revelation, last Sunday of the month. Side entrance to the church and shrine open daily between 9am-5pm. Enq SACRI 9447 3292.

EVERY SUNDAY AND MONDAY

Extraordinary Form of Latin Holy Mass 11am Sunday and 7.30pm Monday except 3rd Monday of the month, at St Joseph’s Parish, 20 Hamilton St, Bassendean.

EVERY FOURTH SUNDAY OF THE MONTH

Holy Hour for Vocations to the Priesthood, Religious Life

2-3pm at Infant Jesus Parish, Wellington St, Morley. The hour includes Exposition of the Blessed Eucharist, silent prayer, Scripture and prayers of intercession. Come and pray that those discerning vocations to the Priesthood or Religious life hear clearly God’s loving call to them.

LAST MONDAY OF EVERY MONTH

Christian Spirituality Presentation

7.30-9.15pm at the Church hall behind St Swithan’s Anglican Church, 195 Lesmurdie Rd, Lesmurdie. Stephanie Woods will present The Desert Period of Christianity, 260 to 600AD. From this time period came the understanding of the monastic lifestyle and contemplative prayer. No cost. Enq Lynne 9293 3848.

EVERY TUESDAY NIGHT

Novena and Benediction to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal

6pm at the Pater Noster Church, Marmion and Evershed Sts, Myaree. Mass at 5.30pm. Enq: John 0408 952 194.

EVERY WEDNESDAY

Holy Spirit of Freedom Community

7.30pm at The Church of Christ, 111 Stirling St, Perth. We are delighted to welcome everyone to attend our Holy Spirit of Freedom Praise Meeting. Enq 9475 0155 or hsofperth@gmail.com.

EVERY THURSDAY

Catholic Questions and Answers

7-7.30pm at St Joseph’s Parish Centre, 20 Hamilton St, Bassendean. Catechesis learned easily with questions and answers. The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Adult learning and deepening of the Catholic Faith, with Fr John Corapi DVD series, 7.30-9pm.

EVERY FIRST THURSDAY OF THE MONTH

Group 50 – Catholic Charismatic Renewal Prayer Meeting

7.30pm at Redemptorist Monastery, 190 Vincent St, North Perth. Prayer and Praise, Mass and the Sacrament of Anointing. All welcome.

Taize Prayer and Meditation

7.30-8.30pm at Our Lady of Grace Church, 3 Kitchener Street, North Beach. All are warmly invited to prayer and meditation using songs from Taize. In Peace and Candlelight we make our pilgrimage. Enq: Joan 9448 4457.

FIRST FRIDAY OF THE MONTH

Communion of Reparation All Night Vigil

All warmly invited 7pm-1am at Corpus Christi Church, Lochee St, Mosman Park. Mass, Rosary, Confession and Adoration. Enq Vicky 0400 282 357.

Mass for Vocations

7pm at the Sisters of the Poor, 2 Rawlins St, Glendalough. Celebrated by Fr Doug Harris, followed by Holy Hour and Benediction, refreshments will follow.

Healing Mass

7pm at St Peter’s Church, 93 Wood St, Inglewood. Benediction, Praise and Worship followed by Mass with Fr Sam and Fr Joseph Tran as celebrants, later fellowship. Enq: Priscilla 0433 457 352.

EVERY FRIDAY LUNCHTIME

Christian Meditation comes to the City

12.15-12.45pm at The Wesley Uniting Church, William and Hay Sts, Perth. Ecumenical Christian meditation as taught by Fr Laurence Freeman. All welcome. Enq: CMC WA 9444 5810, Anne 9335 8142 or christianmedittion@ iinet.net.au or www.christianmeditationaustralia.org.

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KINLAR VESTMENTS Quality hand-made and decorated vestments: Albs, Stoles, Chasubles, altar linen, banners etc. 12 Favenc Way, Padbury. By appointment only. Ph Vicki 9402 1318 or 0409 114 093.

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Pair of splendid jarrah three metre kneelers. Photo and details email: gschaefer@amnet.net.au or call George on 08 9386 1695.

Your advertisement could be very effective here.

27

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30 F St Peter Chrysologus, Bishop, doctor of the church

Gr

26:1-9

Ps 68:5.8-10.14

31 S St Ignatius of Loyola, priest (M)

26:11-16.24

Ps 68:15-16.30-31.33-34

Mt 14:1-12

To hunt, shoot, entertain

Clericalism isn’t restricted to clergy, it involves Magisterium-bashing by lay, says US apologist blogger Mark Shea

Afew years back, Russell Shaw wrote a terrific book called To Hunt, To Shoot, To Entertain: Clericalism and the Catholic Laity. It took its title from an amazing remark by a 19th century English monsignor who loftily declared, “What is the province of the laity? To hunt, to shoot, to entertain. These matters they understand, but to meddle with ecclesiastical matters they have no right at all.”

John Henry Cardinal Newman disagreed, pointing out that during the Arian crisis, it was the laity who kept the Faith while the majority of Bishops vacillated, caved to heresy, or were silent during the 60 years of the crisis.

That doesn’t mean that the Church operates on the principle vox populi, vox Dei. But it does mean that clericalism ought to be avoided.

Clericalism is basically the bad idea that only the ordained and Religious are fully Catholic and that lay people are more or less second-class.

With that idea comes a host of other bad ideas, such as “Father is always right,” “Never disagree if a Bishop does it,” and “Don’t question anything a priest or Bishop does.”

It’s this conception of the ordained office as a place of power that gave us the scandal of priestly abuse and episcopal cover-up of same.

Priests like John Geoghan used their office to dominate and abuse kids. Bishops, many of them thorough-going clericalists as well, saw their office as a place of power and, when that power was threatened by the Heaven-heard cries of victims, attacked the victims and protected the power. And mysteriously, many parents, police, and prosecutors - laity all - let them because they somehow had become convinced that the mere fact of ordination trumped the natural law which says you should protect a child from a rapist and call the cops.

Americans are incorrigible about dividing everything up into “conservative” and “liberal” tribalisms.

The standard media template of “Plucky Rebel Liberal Alliance v Evil Conservative Hierarchical Empire” lends itself easily to such simplicities. Some would have us believe that “conservatives,” being “poor, uneducated and easily led,” are suckers for clericalism while “progressives” question authority and prize open discussion of the issues.

And, admittedly, reputed conservatives, both lay and ordained, have done their part to sustain that template. One thinks, for instance, of the sensitive pastoral approach of the quite orthodox Archbishop Elden Curtiss to laypeople like Frank Ayers and Jeanne Bast, an 80 year old mother of eleven and retired Catholic grade-school teacher from west Omaha, who wrote letters to the Omaha World-Herald regarding Curtiss’s decision to assign a priest who had viewed Internet child pornography to St Gerald parish in Ralston, after publicly criticising his decision to reassign a priest who had viewed Internet child pornography.

“You should be ashamed of yourself!” the Archbishop wrote to Bast. Likewise, Ayers was informed by Curtiss that he was “a disgrace to the Church.”

For maximum humiliation, the letters

were carbon copied to the writers’ pastors and both writers were commanded to say one Hail Mary prayer for him as penance.

Unfortunately, for Archbishop Curtiss, he picked the moment when the priest abuse scandal was breaking all over the United States in the spring of 2002 to pursue this singularly ill-advised effort at shutting down perfectly legitimate lay input on the clergy’s catastrophic failure.

When it comes to matters of the common good, lay people have more input to offer than pay, pray, and obey, and he ought really to have listened to these good people and not simply assumed that ordination conferred

Church, improve the liturgy into a festival of St Narcissus, or transmute RCIA into a cell group for chanting slogans against the Magisterium on their favourite pelvic issues.

Clericalist liberals routinely smear as “rigid” or “overly devotional” Catholics who take seriously the teaching of the Church. It is not unknown for progressive clericalists to publicly silence as “fundamentalist” those who have the effrontery to take St Paul at something like his word concerning the incompatibility of homosexual practice with Christian morality. I have sat through RCIAs in which the director of religious education would simultaneously mock and sneer at

on him the right to tell people not to point out the bleedin’ obvious. Not surprisingly, such moments give many people the impression that “conservative company man” v “brave liberal reformer” explains everything.

An equal opportunity problem

Real life is nonetheless more complex than simple conservative v liberal cartoons. Clericalism cuts across such neat categories ruthlessly. Yes, it was a “conservative” cardinal who rightly resigned in Boston.

‘Lay despisers of Church teaching turn RCIA into a cell group for chanting slogans against the Magisterium on their favourite pelvic issues’

But it was a “liberal” Bishop in Phoenix who - two weeks after cutting a deal with the prosecution to avoid indictment on obstruction charges for protecting child-molesting priests - killed a man with his car and somehow got the impression that his first duty was to hide the evidence from the cops who were looking for him.

Clericalism, it turns out, is an equalopportunity sin. It’s not reserved just to conservatives.

Some of the most clerical people I know have been staunchly “progressive” dissenters and despisers of Church teaching who use their office to muzzle any attempt to question them when they “renovate” a

Pope John Paul II’s teaching while ordering catechumens not to question his own dubious tendencies to downplay the miracles of Scripture.

For such people, the watchword is “Question the Tradition, but don’t you dare question me!”

Similarly, don’t think for a moment that clericalism is exclusively the province of clerics. Laypeople can be some of the most clerical on earth.

This is, as Shaw points out, one of the reasons for the alleged “crisis” over women and married priests. If you hold that only religious professionals (and for Catholics, that means priests) are “real Catholics,” then it naturally follows that no woman or married guy is a “real Catholic.”

The Feudal Lord of the Parish

How that plays out on the ground is familiar to anybody who has ever had to deal with the lay religious professional who has carved out his or her niche on the liturgy committee or the RCIA or the Whatnot Committee.

Such people can be more territorial than high-strung little yip dogs and as contemptuous of the unwashed as the most ferocious Pharisee.

If some impertinent person dares to wonder why there is sand in the holy water font for Lent or why the kneelers have been ripped out and the pews moved so close that it is physically impossible to kneel during the liturgy, they will receive a mixture of condescending explanation and impatient tonguelashing for their sinister pre-Vatican II tendencies by the local Ubergruppenfuehrer for Liturgical Experimentation with an MA

from Seattle U (“an institution in the Jesuit tradition”).

With sufficient applications of this sort of semi-academic clericalism, whole parishes can be remade into the image and likeness of the liturgist-who-wishes-s/he-ran-the-show and an entire culture of mutually backslapping Vanguard of History types can be incubated for the future transformation of other parishes fiercely loyal to Vatican III. Such “Stockholm Syndrome” behaviour is on full display among the extremely confused folk who run Voice of the Faithful, an organisation that sprang up in response to the scandal.

Run by well-meaning folk who were rightly outraged by the abuse of children, it almost immediately became a clearinghouse for all the usual dissents on all the usual pelvic issues - many of them championed by the very priests who were jailed for being too free with their own pelvic issues.

However, none of this need be the case.

If you hold the Church’s actual teaching and recognise that the ordained office is but one of many offices (and not a more or less important office than the lay office) then there is no sense in talking about women being “excluded from ministry” just as there is no sense in complaining that men were “excluded from” the Virgin Birth.

There is an ocean of ministry, and all the lay women and men in the world could labour their whole lives and not perform it all.

The error of clericalism (and its real desire) is not ministry, but power. Clericalists, both lay and ordained, see the priesthood as a place of power, and hunger for it. But Jesus saw the priesthood as a place of service. So does the Holy Church.

That is why the Sacrament of Holy Orders is described by the Catechism as a “sacrament at the service of communion.”

We laypeople are called to obey our Bishops in matters of faith and morals. And we are called to honour our Bishops as spiritual fathers. But we are not required to approve everything they do, especially when it contradicts the clear teaching of the Church.

If a Bishop, like former Bishop Anthony O’Connell of Palm Beach, specifically commands something clearly contrary to the teaching of the Holy Church, such as “Remove your pants and bend over,” our right and proper office as laity is to raise our voice and call the cops. Indeed, we lay people must do it, because we are the cops, the investigators, the prosecutors, the jailers.

But mark that: We lay people have to hold them to account in light of the Tradition, not in light of the tenets of the secular world, nor in light of what lawyers and psychologists say, nor in light of what the “Repeal Vatican II!” crowd says.

The way out of clericalism is more fidelity to the Holy Church, not less. This problem will be solved by returning to the Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ, pure and undefiled, and not by the myriad paths away from it proposed by Call to Action, or the Society of St Pius X, or the New York Times editorial board.

Mark Shea is Senior Content Editor for Catholic Exchange and a weekly columnist for the National Catholic Register. You may visit his website at www.mark-shea.com check out his blog, Catholic and Enjoying It!

Dutch priest suspended for goalkeeping during Mass, liturgical abuses

AMSTERDAM Netherlands (CNA/ EWTN News) - Fr Paul Vlaar, a priest in the Diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam in the Netherlands, was suspended last week following a World Cup-themed Mass he presided over which was seen by his Bishop as disrespectful to the Eucharist. Diocesan spokesman Wim Peeters explained that the priest had been warned by the Bishop against frivolousness previously.

Bishop Joseph Punt of the Diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam suspended Fr Vlaar for “failure to respect the sanctity of the Eucharist” after he celebrated the Mass on the morning of the 11 July World Cup final, dressed in an orange chasuble.

Beginning Mass with a referee’s whistle, he consecrated the bread and wine at an altar adorned with flowers and candles in the team colours. He was also flanked by a child-sized soccer goal and banners and flags supporting the Dutch national team. The music chosen for the liturgy had nothing to do with the Eucharistic celebration at all.

International media picked up the story, highlighting the “silliness” of the decision to suspend him, quoting parishioners who had enjoyed the celebration and were bewildered at the priest’s temporary dismissal.

However, the Dutch Bishops’ news

service RKK reported that there was “indignation” at the celebration within the Haarlem-Amsterdam Diocese for the profanation of the Mass.

“In the past there were some occasions when Fr Vlaar used things from outside the liturgy to get the attention of the faithful,” the diocesan spokesman told CNA, conceding that he has always been “very creative in this.”

However, “our Bishop has told him on a number of occasions that you cannot mix Holy Mass with things that are not proper to it. You can use things from the news and ways that attract attention, but there are things that are done outside of Church.”