The Record Newspaper 23 February 2011

THE R ECORD

New Mass will depend on parish priests, says Auxiliary

While it’s true some clergy have expressed reservations about the new prayers of the Mass, they have also signalled they will support it. There’s a lot of goodwill to make this project work, Auxiliary Bishop Sproxton has told The Record

BY ANTHONY BARICH

PRIESTS have a critical obligation to give catechesis during Mass on the theology behind the newly translated Missal to be used in Australian parishes by early next year, Perth Auxiliary Bishop Donald Sproxton said. Bishop Sproxton, who heads Perth’s Archdiocesan Implementation Committee, told The Record that while most of the changes are perfectly understandable, with some “elevated language” priests must help the faithful understand the theology behind the new texts. For example, when the congregation says that Jesus Christ is “consubstantial with the Father” rather than “of one being” with the Father in the Nicene Creed, “that’s up to the Please turn to Page 12

SUNDAY BEST Moments of Faith in the trajectory of life

This week The Record begins its regular SUNDAY BEST feature. It’s an attempt to capture people at different stages along the trajectory of life as they go to worship their maker and we want you to be the ones to provide readers of The Record with these moments. We begin this week with a photo of a dozen or so youth who organised a pilgrimage from St Bernadette’s Church in Glendalough to St Anne’s in Belmont starting at 11.15pm last Saturday night and going through until they arrived at Belmont at 7.30am the next morning. There, Chaplain Fr Michael Rowe blessed a weary but happy group of walkers. The moment was captured by photographer Nigel Cornelius, one of the participants. You can find the story and more photographs on Page 5.

We invite you to submit your photos, new and old, of family and friends – photos that capture the meaning and spirit of SUNDAY BEST: children before, at or after Mass, couples being blessed on the anniversary of their marriage or renewing their vows, parish priests and associates, parish fetes – all the thousand and one things that make each and every Sunday so special. You don’t need to write a story. We just want to know who is in the photo and what it is about. You can send your scanned images at 300dpi or more to our designer Mat de Sousa at production@therecord. com.au.

PHOTO: NIGEL CORNELIUS

bearing

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Bishop Sproxton discusses the implementation of the new Mass in his office last week.

PHOTO: MIA WUGOL

OFFICIAL ENGAGEMENTS 2011

FEBRUARY

24 Ordination to Diaconate of Thomas Zureich, Whitford – Archbishop Hickey

25 Mass at St Columba’s, South Perth –Archbishop Hickey

26 Perth Ordinariate Festival –Archbishop Hickey

27 Personal Advocacy Missioning Celebration – Bishop Sproxton

MARCH

1 Civic Reception for Ambassador of Italy – Archbishop Hickey Mass for Newman College – Bishop Sproxton

2 Premier’s Launch of Project Compassion – Mgr Brian O’Loughlin VG

4 Ordinations to Priesthood, St Mary’s Cathedral – Archbishop Hickey, Bishop Sproxton World Day of Prayer Service 2011 – Fr Beyer & Mrs Beyer

6 Project Compassion Launch, St Mary’s Cathedral – Archbishop Hickey Annual Fruit Harvest Festival, Pickering Brook – Bishop Sproxton

9 Mass at Curtin University – Archbishop Hickey

BY JO DOYLE

HOLY Family parish priest Fr Paul Raj and his predecessor Fr John Cranley celebrated Mass at Holy Family Kalamunda on 2 February to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Mary’s Mount Primary School in Gooseberry Hill.

The current 265 pupils in years K-6 were bussed to the Kalamunda parish for Mass to remember how three Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition opened the doors 90 years ago for the first pupils of Mary’s Mount: five boarders and 12 day pupils.

St Joseph of the Apparition Sisters Kathleen, Liguori and Bernadette attended the celebration and Principal Sandro Coniglio thanked them for their support and for journeying back up ‘into the hills’ for the occasion.

Mary’s Mount Primary School can trace its history to the French town of Gaillac in the early 1800s when a little girl, Emilie de Vialar, felt a strong call to dedicate her life to God’s service.

The school’s chapel is named after St Emilie de Vialar, by all accounts a woman of steely determination who set her heart on serving the Lord and suffered considerable hardship to do so.

Editor

Journalists

Peter Rosengren office@therecord.com.au

Bridget Spinks baspinks@therecord.com.au

Mark Reidy mreidy@therecord.com.au

Anthony Barich abarich@therecord.com.au

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Mat De Sousa

She overcame paternal disapproval, formed the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition, focused on establishing foreign missions, was maligned, impoverished and even excommunicated but prevailed.

When she died aged 59 in 1856, she had established 42 foundations and sent missionaries to many countries, including Australia.

St Emilie sent four courageous French nuns to Perth in 1855 in response to Perth Bishop Dr Serra’s request for more teaching sisters in Perth.

They went ashore to an uncertain future in the rugged, inhospitable Swan River Colony.

These women opened their first school just five weeks after arriving and in the following years opened several more.

In 1921, they began teaching in Gooseberry Hill, which became coeducational and reached its peak student body

of 460 in the 1970s. St Emilie’s legacy has directly enriched the lives of the Mary’s Mount community who gathered to remember the days when it all began, including former student Michael Carren who attended Mary’s Mount in the 40s and 50s.

The school counts among its graduates Cardinal James Knox, who served as Archbishop of Melbourne from 1967-74; Military Ordinary Bishop of Australia Max Davis; and an untold number of men and women of faith whose lives have been informed and enriched by a closer understanding of God imparted to them by the nuns then and teachers now of Mary’s Mount Primary School. Each student received a cupcake and commemorative medallion when they got back to school after Mass.

Seeking Nourishment for Head and Heart?

The Maranatha Centre for Adult Faith Formation is presenting a course on Catholic spirituality at St Thomas the Apostle Parish, Claremont.

WHEN: 6 Wednesday evenings, from 2nd March–13th April (no class on Ash Wednesday). 7pm–9pm at St Thomas’ Parish Hall, cnr College Road and Melville Street, Claremont.

WHAT: “Catholic Spiritual Traditions for Today.” We will look at various spiritualities (Benedictine, Franciscan, Ignatian, Carmelite etc.), considering their significance for their own times, and the wisdom they have to offer us today. No assignments or exams – just a great opportunity to nourish mind and heart as we journey through Lent!

COST: $35

CONTACT: Enrolments essential. Call the Maranatha Centre on 9241 5221 or email maranatha@ceo.wa.edu.au

A tradition: Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition, Sr Kathleen and Sr Liguori above with principal Sandro Coniglio preparing the sparklers on the birthday cake. Below, cutting the cake with fellow Sr Bernadette at right. While the look of things may have changed in comparison with these early photos of Sisters and students, right and below, the school strongly values its history. PHOTOS: MARY’S MOUNT PRIMARY

BY PETER ROSENGREN

PERTH’S Vicar General Monsignor Brian O’Loughlin will be an extremely busy man from now on, holding down three roles in the Archdiocese.

Not only is he Vicar General of the Archdiocese and a judge on the Western Australian and national appeal tribunals, he has been appointed parish priest of South Perth by Archbishop Hickey after Fr Michael Casey, the long-time South Perth Priest, retires from 31 years of service.

However, he told The Record last week that he is looking forward to his new role with relish after having lived in an Archdiocesan unit on parish grounds for the last four years.

“I know the careful administration and attention to detail that Fr Casey has lavished on the parish and I feel privileged to succeed such an outstanding priest,” he said.

Mgr O’Loughlin, who was appointed a protonotary apostolic with the title of Monsignor by Pope Benedict XVI in early 2009, said that he has come to know and love the parish and its members over the last few years and is looking for-

ward to taking up his appointment in one of the most beautiful traditional churches in the Archdiocese – “and one that has the most commanding view.”

It’s true. The parish church sits high above the suburb with a near perfect view north across the Swan River to the CBD of Perth, by day and by night.

He will take up his new appointment on 25 February when Fr Casey’s term as parish priest concludes.

Longtime South Perth parishioners might recognise that the appointment of a Monsignor as parish priest continues a tradition. Mgr JT McMahon was a longtime parish priest of South Perth and, like Mgr O’Loughlin, also held down a senior role for the Archdiocese; in Mgr McMahon’s case as Director of Catholic Schools.

Mgr O’Loughlin was born in Fremantle in 1949 and educated at Iona Presentation College Primary and then at Christian Brothers College in Fremantle.

He entered St Charles Seminary in Guildford in 1967 where he completed his Leaving Certificate and studies in Philosophy before being sent to St Francis Xavier Seminary

COUNTERCULTURE

Being

in Adelaide to study Theology. He was ordained to the diaconate in Adelaide in 1973 and to the priesthood in St Mary’s Cathedral, Perth in 1974.

Over the last 37 years he has held a number of appointments as assistant priest at Nollamara, Subiaco, Nedlands and Cottesloe and then as parish priest at Embleton, Mount Lawley and Claremont. He was appointed Vicar General in 2003, with the appointment growing to a fulltime role

shortly after that. However, Mgr O’Loughlin quickly pointed out that although he will be busy in his various appointments, he is a strong believer in regularly taking annual holidays to rest the mind and the body.

Through a longstanding association with the Fremantlebased Stella Maris Seafarers’ Association - an international Catholic outreach to mariners - and former Port Chaplain Monsignor Sean O’Shea, he has regularly offered his services as a Catholic chaplain on cruise ships.

Each year he participates in the Apostleship of the Sea Cruise Ship programme, which provides Catholic chaplains for ships on cruise.

“It’s an excellent way of taking annual leave, going to interesting places and meeting engaging people while, at the same time, remaining pastorally useful at sea,” he said. In 2009, he found himself filling the role of chaplain on a ship bound from Rome to Istanbul. Before the trip he photocopied maps from his Bible of the missionary journeys of St Paul because the ship would be visiting many of the same places as Christianity’s greatest missionary had done two millennia earlier. He also photocopied chapters 12 to 20 from the Acts of the Apostles.

During daily Mass celebrated on board he distributed the photocopied maps and suggested his congregation try reading the relevant chapters of the Acts of the Apostles.

“It was remarkable how many of the passengers felt that reading of Paul’s journeys and following them on the maps made their voyage into a pilgrimage in the footsteps of St Paul,” he said.

Sheen classics in seminaries courtesy of WA

SEMINARIANS in Sydney and Melbourne are being formed by the catechesis of famed US TV evangeliser Archbishop Fulton J Sheen, thanks to the work of Perth Sheen promoters.

Seminarians at Sydney’s Seminary of the Good Shepherd have been recipients of a $1,000 Fulton Sheen Scholarship for five years through the efforts of Perth’s Fulton Sheen Society, co-founded by father and son team Daniel and Martin Tobin.

Each week, names of Corpus Christi College seminarians in Carlton, Victoria are placed in a hat with the lucky winner receiving a book, DVD or CD of Archbishop Sheen’s famous catechesis.

The “hat draw” was devised by second year student John McLaurin who, as manager of the Veritas Central religious bookshop in Albury, NSW, liaised with Daniel Tobin to order Sheen resources.

The draw was established this year with permission of Fr Brendan Lane, Rector of Corpus Christi College, the regional seminary for Victoria and Tasmania.

“John appreciated the influence that Sheen has in his life and he wished to share this influence with others,” Daniel said.

Seminary of the Good Shepherd Rector Fr Anthony Percy told the Fulton Sheen Society that the seminary has allocated some of the scholarship money towards buying books for its first year students.

Vicar General Monsignor Brian O’Loughlin is pictured in his Cathedral House office. He has been appointed parish priest of South Perth after the retirement of Fr Michael Casey who has served as parish priest for 31 years. Behind Mgr O’Loughlin is the framed certificate from Pope Benedict XVI appointing him a Monsignor. PHOTO: PETER ROSENGREN

For Chinese Catholics, it’s the Year of the Rabbit

The Lunar New Year was a time for Chinese Catholics to celebrate not only tradition and culture but Faith as well ...

THE PERTH Chinese Catholic Community, a lay association of Christ’s faithful, celebrated Chinese New Year of the Rabbit with a Thanksgiving Mass on 6 February at Holy Family Church, Como.

Auxiliary Bishop Donald Sproxton celebrated the Mass along with Frs Blasco Fonseka, Joseph Remigius, Leonard Macionczyk, Alfonsas Savickis, Patrick Lim and Andre Nahhas as well as the Chaplain of the PCCC, Fr Wang HaiBo.

Before Mass began, Bishop Sproxton lit some sandalwood incense which was processed in with lit lotus feature candles that were placed on the altar.

The incense and candles lit at the start of Mass were symbols of worshipping Our Lord, showing that God is placed above everything else, PCCC Chairperson William Suseno said.

“As Catholic Chinese, not only do we have to maintain our faith in God, but it is equally important to cultivate and maintain the Chinese culture,” he said.

PCC Chairperson William Suseno, along with the PCCC Liturgy Committee and chaplain Fr Wang HaiBo leading the procession, paid respect to the Ancestors with the Ancestral Rite which took place before the Final Blessing.

They bowed three times towards two wooden boards as a sign of respect. ‘For our Chinese Ancestors’ was inscribed on one board in Chinese while ‘For our Australian Ancestors’ was inscribed on the other.

DNew

after Mass

Chinese New

6

In traditional Chinese culture, the lion dance is believed to drive away evil spirits, bringing good luck and fortune for the year to come. Acolytes, above, carry two wooden boards as symbols of respect. One is inscribed ‘For our Chinese Ancestors’, the other ‘For our Australian Ancestors’. After the boards are placed on the altar, Perth Chinese Catholic Community chaplain Fr Wang HaiBo bows, at right, three times as a symbol of respect for ancestors. Immediately after the Ancestral Rite, eight children come forward to perform traditional dances and songs. The celebration ended with the presentation of a raffle

Before leading the Ancestral Rite, Fr Wang HaiBo conveyed in his message that Chinese people must never forget their culture, wherever they may be; the Chinese culture is one of the world’s oldest cultures.

He then quoted a finding, illustrating that throughout 5,000 years

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of history, many of the dynasties have collapsed except one, the Zhong Hua Nation which is still present today.

Fr Wang HaiBo stressed the importance for Catholic HuaRen (Catholic Chinese) to integrate their Catholic faith and values with their culture and tradition.

As Catholic HuaRen, one should never forget to pay respects to their elders and ancestors as part of his/ her Chinese culture and heritage as well as maintain strong Catholic faith and values, he said.

After the Ancestral Rite, eight boys and girls sang and danced in front of the altar.

In keeping with the Chinese customs and traditions, traditional red packets (Ang Pau) were given out to the children and, as a sign of gratitude from the PCCC, to Bishop Sproxton and all concelebrating priests.

Fr John Corapi Catechism Series

Happy

Year: A Lion Dance, top, is performed

for

Year at Holy Family Parish in Como on

February.

prize, top right, drawn by Fr Wang.

PHOTOS: COURTESY WILLIAM SUSENO

Nocturnal pilgrims walk 22km for Faith

On the road: The dozen or so pilgrims, led by Daniel Mathys holding the crucifix, descend Jacob’s ladder at King’s Park on their nighttime walk from St Bernadette’s in Glendalough to St Anne’s in Belmont in the early hours of 19 February. A short time later they pass beneath the Mitchell Freeway, heading for the Narrows bridge and the South Perth foreshore. PHOTOS: NIGEL CORNELIUS

BY DAVID C HUA

MINUTES before midnight, on Saturday, 19 February, 12 pilgrims joined me for Perth’s first Pilgrimage of Reparation, a 22km all-night pilgrimage from St Bernadette’s Church, Glendalough, to St Anne’s Church, Belmont.

The pilgrimage began at 11.15pm with Mass at St Bernadette’s, offered by Fr Doug Harris, after which we processed around Lake Monger, along the Mitchell Freeway and King’s Park, over the Narrows Bridge and across the South Perth foreshore.

During our trip we paused by the churches of St Michael the Archangel, Leederville, St Joseph’s, Subiaco, and St Columba’s, South Perth, providing us with the opportunity to adore Our Lord and make spiritual communion from the roadside.

Our night was filled with prayer, hymns, and penance, all offered in reparation for the sins of the world.

Walking pilgrimages have long been a venerable part of Catholic tradition, and we sought to enter into that tradition by praying traditional hymns, devotions and litanies to the saints, Our Lady, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as well as

hymns by St Thomas Aquinas and Gerard Manley Hopkins, the great English Jesuit and poet.

Our pilgrimage concluded at St Anne’s, Belmont, where Fr Michael Rowe gave us a final blessing, Reconciliation, and celebrated a solemn high Mass in the Extraordinary Form, with a choir formed by the pilgrims themselves.

Preparing a spirit of self-denial and penitence is the underlying message of the pre-Lenten season, which began on the same day as the pilgrimage.

Although the pilgrimage was arduous, leaving us exhausted by the final Mass on Sunday morning, I am thankful that it allowed us to enter the pre-Lenten season with a strong awareness of the need for self-denial and the upholding of the spirit over the flesh.

As the name suggests, reparation is the act of ‘repairing’ the damage done by sin, where we enter into and share in the suffering of Christ.

By doing so, we repair our own sins against Him as well as the sins of others, in the same way St Paul describes: “I rejoice in my suffering for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His body, that is, the Church…” (Col 1:24).

First Cathedral Crypt Mass celebrated for Archbishop William Foley

BY ANTHONY BARICH

A MASS for the 20th anniversary of Archbishop William Foley’s death on 10 February was also the first celebrated in St Mary’s Cathedral Crypt.

The small and intimate ceremony was attended by approximately 20 of the late prelate’s relatives and family friends. Fr Richard Doyle, who celebrated the Mass, organised the event with Fr Tim Foster, who used to play golf with the late prelate. All three branches of the Foley family were present.

Archbishop Foley, who was Archbishop of Perth from 1983 to 1991, was the first Bishop to be consecrated in Geraldton’s St Francis Xavier Cathedral.

He had scarcely got to know his diocese when two years later he was appointed Archbishop of Perth after Archbishop Launcelot Goody died.

Before his departure from Geraldton, then-Bishop Foley had set up plans for the construction of a new Cathedral residence in the regional centre.

Archbishop Foley’s second cousin Fr Dan Foley, 80, who was a year behind the prelate at St Charles Seminary but a tad older, remembers him as a man of “boundless enthusiasm” who put much energy into the formation of priests and laity. “He kept up that enthusiasm at meetings of priests and laity at a

very important time as there were a lot of renewal movements that were floating around and there was a lot happening in programmes for formation of laity and priests, and he was very much part of all that,” Fr Foley said of his second cousin.

“If he espoused some pastoral work he was behind it 100 per cent. He would certainly let you know in no uncertain terms if he didn’t approve of anything and would

make a few changes here and there. He was certainly a unique sort of a person.

“I remember well they had a meeting of diocesan representatives down at Santa Maria, and another up in the hills when they were looking at some form of ongoing formation of clergy and getting the clergy into small groups and getting them to meet, and they did that for quite some time. It was a very fruitful time at that stage, and Bill was one who kept an eye on all the developments that took place.”

At the seminary, Fr Foley said, his second cousin was “always a very enthusiastic young man, and took everything seriously; he was always a popular young man in the seminary. So it was good to see the small gathering at the Cathedral as a tribute to him”. Fr Foley and his relative who would become the fourth Archbishop of Perth were there in the first few years of St Charles Seminary’s existence.

Fr Foley said he signed up when Rev Dr Launcelot Goody, the future Archbishop of Perth, spoke at Leederville parish church urging young men interested in the priesthood to put their names on a form and hand it to him.

Though Fr Foley said he signed up that day, “that was the first time I’d heard of a seminary, and I think many of the first years were similar”.

Police Commissioner to speak at College

WA POLICE Commissioner

Karl O’Callaghan will give Catholic students a masterclass in leadership at Emmanuel Catholic College’s upcoming Networking and Leadership Day for Catholic Schools.

The 4 March event has been designed to allow student leaders from Perth’s Catholic schools to share ideas and experiences around leadership. Emmanuel’s

student leaders are looking forward to Commissioner O’Callaghan’s insights. “The Commissioner spoke at our Presentation Night at the end of last year and was one of the best speakers I have heard,” Emmanuel’s female College Captain, Rebecca Kierath, Year 12, told The Record

The event is an exercise in leadership being organised by Emmanuel’s Student Leadership

Team who hope to build on the success of last year’s event. “It was great to see so many people from different schools come together and talk about leadership in Catholic schools,” Ms Kierath said. “I knew we had to run this event again.” For further information on the Networking and Leadership Day for Catholic Schools, contact Miss Kylie Durrant at durrant.kylie@ cathednet.wa.edu.au or 9414 4000.

The late Archbishop William Foley, who was born to eternal life in 1991.

New pro-Life campaign’s protests will be peaceful, but protests nonetheless

BY HELEN SAWYER

THE upcoming 40 Days for Life campaign in Perth recognises that abortion involves a spiritual battle and uses the spiritual weapon of prayer by calling on God’s power to bring an end to abortion. Christians are uniting in this groundbreaking effort, praying that this will mark the beginning of the end of abortion in the city of Perth and throughout Australia. The emphasis is on the power and compassion of God to bring an end to abortion and to heal broken lives.

The 40 Days for Life consists of 40 days of prayer and fasting; 40 days of peaceful vigil and 40 days of community outreach.

Whilst this programme has been successfully running for seven years worldwide, this is the first time it has been conducted in Perth and, on 9 March, Perth joins 243 other cities as they simultaneously launch local 40 Days for Life campaigns.

The Perth campaign has been endorsed by Archbishop Hickey and Bishop Sproxton and has been actively supported by most priests in parishes in the Archdiocese. Individual commitments have come from Bunbury, Albany and Geraldton as well as some country parishes.

The campaign has been blessed by a generous bequest from the estate of the late Father Tom Phelan, former parish priest of City Beach parish. This has enabled an extensive public outreach campaign to be undertaken as well as promotion in the Christian community throughout the State.

Whilst all aspects of 40 Days for Life are crucial in the effort to end abortion, the most visible component is the prayer vigil outside a local abortion facility.

In Perth, there will be a peaceful prayer vigil for 40 continuous days at the Rivervale abortion clinic.

Since 1998, when abortion was legalised in WA, there have been over 100,000 abortions; that is roughly 8,000 every year in our State.

Those who stand and pray at these places where lives are being lost and women are wounded, bear witness to the evil that is taking

place within the building. They also bear witness to the dignity and worth of every human life.

Their presence there is so that every woman who is at risk of making an abortion decision may have the opportunity at that last moment to change her mind and choose life, and to direct her to other resources that will help her and not hurt her.

They go there so that mothers might not have to live with a lifetime of regrets and, for those who have been wounded by past abortion experiences, they pray that they may begin the healing process and turn to our merciful and loving God for forgiveness.

Being present at the abortion clinic also serves to educate the community of the grave injustice that takes place within the building and to minister to those who work there.

Most importantly, Christians are there to show the love and compassion of Jesus to all. There have been

wonderful results from campaigns over the past seven years:

● 3,599 documented lives have been saved; 43 abortion workers have converted and left the industry, and

● nine abortion clinics have permanently closed.

The vigils are prayerful and peaceful, and those who come do not speak to anyone or approach anyone. Those who take part are asked to agree to and sign a Statement of Peace. This is spiritual warfare and only spiritual weapons are used.

As well as praying at the clinic, Catholics are asked to storm Heaven by prayer, fasting, daily Mass and the Rosary, calling on the powerful intercession of Our Blessed Mother to bring an end to our nation’s slaughter of our innocents.

St Augustine’s church near the abortion clinic will be open for prayer throughout the day during the 40 days. There will be weekday Mass at 6.45am and Saturdays at 8.30am, with the exception of Saturday 26 March when Mass will

be at St Mary’s Cathedral at 10am for the annual Day of the Unborn Child.

All Catholics are called to be powerful witnesses for life. Pope John Paul II, the great champion for Life, was speaking to all when, in 1995, he wrote:

“You are called to stand up for life! To respect and defend the mys-

tery of life always and everywhere, including the lives of unborn babies, giving real help and encouragement to mothers in difficult situations. You are called to work and pray against abortion.”

By their participation in the 40 Days for Life through their prayers, fasting and commitment to the vigils, Catholics can make a life-saving impact. They are urged to make a difference by joining the many thousands worldwide who will be taking part in this year’s 40 Days for Life, praying for an end to abortion.

For further information, contact Helen Sawyer 9402 0349 or email hmsawyer@hotmail.com or go to website www.40daysforlife.com/perthwa. Also see Page 14 for related World news story.

La Salle College takes in boarders in ‘big shift’

BY ANTHONY BARICH

LA SALLE College in Middle Swan has officially begun taking in its own boarders.

In what has been described as a “big shift”, La Salle College is now personally staffing a building which it is renting with about 80 boarders.

Ben Calleja is Dean of Boarding, with a roster of two full time and two part time staff and a number of relief staff who look after the students while they’re away from their homes.

This is an upgrade from the previous arrangement where 53 boarders – 52 of them Aboriginal – stayed at a boarding house offsite.

The boarding programme is part of a wider scheme with Luurnpa Catholic School in Balgo, whose principal is De La Salle Brother Rick Gaffney.

La Salle College has been taking its Year 11 students there for a community service programme since 2009, where they organise discos, artwork, face painting and sport with the local students.

Once the Luurnpa students are ready for high school, a teacher assesses them, talks to their guardian parents and recruits them to La Salle College.

As part of La Salle’s outreach to parishes, its boarders also get involved with the Midland parish on Sundays, which La Salle College Principal Debra Sayce told The Record complements the college’s evangelisation plan by helping them understand liturgy.

Debra Sayce has been appointed as college principal as part of a oneyear swap with Wayne Bull, who will take over her role as Director of Religious Education at the Catholic Education Office in Perth.

“It’s a big culture shock for them, but [they] have success because, while we’re not the only school that accepts Aborigines from a remote community, we have lots from the one community so they know each other,” which helps the students enjoy their experience more, said Adrian Martino, La Salle’s Deputy Principal in charge of boarding.

UNDA readies for open student competition

BY ANTHONY BARICH

TERTIARY education changes the Federal Government will mandate from next year have prompted the University of Notre Dame Australia to try to change its status to compete openly for students once caps come off enrolments in 2012.

Under the current higher education framework, Notre Dame is categorised as a “Table B Provider” with a unique “hybrid” funding model which entitles the University to a fixed number of Commonwealth Supported Places (CSPs) in National Priority Areas and to charge fees for domestic students in other courses.

While UNDA Vice Chancellor Celia Hammond told The Record that this model has been “extremely beneficial”, the student demanddriven system Australia will move to next year will “significantly

change the whole higher education sector and will impact on all universities”.

UNDA wants to compete openly for students in this new era of “performance funding” by having full access to CSPs; moving from “Table B” to “Table A”. She said UNDA’s finances would not be majorly affected by moving to a competitive, governmentfunded environment as it had always sought to keep its fees similar to the combined government and private contribution levels levied on government assisted students.

Prof Hammond confirmed a report in The Australian last week that about 46 per cent of enrolments are full fee-paying, which is allowable because of the university’s Table B provider status. It currently has Commonwealth Supported Places in medicine (79.2 per cent of available places); nursing (100 per cent) and education (99.5 per cent).

Additional places in these courses and the university’s other programmes are full fee.

UNDA is rapidly expanding, especially in Sydney, where enrolments have risen to 4,000 in just four years, and the university is struggling with providing the capital infrastructure to cater for them.

Fremantle’s growth has slowed due to the impact of the mining boom and jobs market.

Performance funding in line with a recommendation from the Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education is being developed for higher education providers, which the government says will increase the focus on quality and accountability and give incentives for universities to improve outcomes for students.

Commonwealth Minister for Tertiary Education Senator Chris Evans said that from next year, universities that meet their targets will receive performance payments.

American woman Barbara Oliver holds a “40 Days for Life” sign along with others as they pray in front of a Planned Parenthood facility in Wilmington, Delaware in September last year. The pro-Life campaign has become increasingly popular around the world and this year is coming to Perth.

PHOTO: CNS/DON BLAKE, THE DIALOG

When one is called, saying ‘yes’ brings God’s peace

Yet another former altar boy was fired up for the priesthood by his service at the altar

BY BRIDGET SPINKS

DEACON Emmanuel Valentine

Tobechuku Dimobi, from Nigeria, will be among five deacons to be ordained to the priesthood for Perth Archdiocese on 4 March at St Mary’s Cathedral.

For 26 years, Emmanuel has

been pursuing his desire to be a priest; a desire first ignited when, as a seven year old altar boy, he saw the example set by his two parish priests, Fr Clement Obianozie and Fr Aloysius Orekie.

“The history of my journey to the priesthood is the story of my life, which is founded on the discovery, loss and rediscovery of that call which God alone can bestow on those He has qualified and chosen to His service,” he said.

“I have come to the realisation that when one is called by God, the call is inescapable and the answer to that call is imperative if one wants to be at peace with himself

and with God,” Emmanuel said. In 1985, on the cusp of his teenage years, Emmanuel entered the diocesan Minor Seminary in Nigeria for high school.

After six years there, he undertook two years of pastoral placement in St Patrick’s, Agulu and St Dominic’s, Adazienu in Nigeria, followed by a year at the diocesan spiritual and formation centre in Okpuno Awka, Nigeria.

When he completed this year successfully, he obtained entrance to one of the major seminaries in Nigeria: the Bigard Memorial Seminary in Enugu.

Over the next four years,

A desire to proclaim the greatness of God

Zureich

February at 7pm.

A native of West Germany, he grew up in Jestetten as the eldest of nine children. At age 27 he entered the seminary in Freiburg, Germany in 2000.

Trying to discern the will of God, he joined the Missionaries of Charity Fathers in Rome in 2007. After experiencing diocesan life here in Western Australia at parishes in Goomalling and Whitfords, he was accepted into St Charles’ Seminary in February 2010.

Since that time, Thomas has

Masses resume on shelled Korean Island

MASSES have resumed on Yeonpyeong, the South Korean island shelled by North Korean artillery in November.

About 50 Catholics attended a Mass recently, according to Father Joseph Kim Tae-heon, a priest at Yunpyung Church, the only

often returned to Whitfords to join the parish’s youth choir and to keep in touch with the parishioners who have become his friends.

During his Christmas holidays he helped parish priest, Fr Joseph Tran and lived at the presbytery where he gained more experience of priestly life. Thomas told The Record that the integration of hands-on parish experience with his formal study at Notre Dame University, Fremantle has provided added inspiration and strength in his journey towards priesthood as well as allowing him to witness to others.

After studying in Rome, Thomas’ journey took this Australian turn when he met a

Catholic Church on the island.

Catholics who fled the island after the unexpected attack are now returning, he told UCA News on 14 February.

Yeonpyeong Island had a population of 1,700, including 450 Catholics. Before the attack, about 150 Catholics regularly attended Mass on Sunday, he said. After fleeing the island, Catholics attended Mass in Incheon on the mainland.

The old rectory and a church van

priest from the Archdiocese of Perth who was visiting his family in Germany, introducing him to the concept of being a diocesan priest in Australia.

Further inspiration came from his online participation in the Sydney World Youth Day in 2008, proving, he said, that the power of the Holy Spirit reaches to the ends of the earth.

Before visiting Australia for the first time, Thomas was given the opportunity to work with an Indian priest in a healing ministry. He said that listening to people’s stories and watching the way the priest tried to help them was a powerful experience that has helped him to examine his own life from a different perspective.

Here, in Australia, he became “much more relaxed” and said that parishioners have taken to his brand of humour. Suddenly he realised, he said, that although he had left his family in Europe, he became a member of many new families here in Perth who, in a certain sense, adopted him.

He describes the parish of Whitford as being a welcoming community with many people actively involved. With his new friends, he has enjoyed surfing, swimming, table tennis and karaoke. Thomas Zureich’s ordination to the priesthood is planned for August 2011 when he anticipates his family will come from Germany to lend their support.

were hit by shells during the Nov. 23 attack. The main church building and a statue of the St. Mary were not harmed.

The rectory, which was partly destroyed, is scheduled to be repaired, with the local government paying for the reconstruction.

However, “the local government has deferred a February meeting to discuss repair work.

Emmanuel completed a BA in philosophy and was posted for a two month pastoral placement to four different parishes including St Mark’s, Abagana; Madonna Catholic Church, Agulu; Immaculate Heart Catholic Church, Uga; and St Theresa’s, Isuofia.

As God would have it, he said, he then undertook a year of discernment and French language study at Village Française du Nigeria in Badagry, Nigeria.

In 2000, Emmanuel went to Rome for further studies, having received a scholarship through the Propaganda Fide (Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples).

After four years in Rome, he obtained a Bachelor and Licentiate in Communication from the Gregorian University and a Bachelor in Theology from the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum).

While in Rome, he contacted Fr Robert Cross, who was studying at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross and is now Archbishop Hickey’s executive assistant, through Geraldton Bishop Justin Bianchini and was invited to the Geraldton diocese.

Emmanuel then spent 18 months there in 2005-06 which he said marked a new dawn in his journey to the priesthood and where he gained immeasurable pastoral experience, staying at the Cathedral parish and travelling around the diocese.

The time was ripe, he said, for further discernment and proof that he was really called to be a priest.

He returned to Nigeria in mid2006 where he received the further inspiration he needed to cement his conviction.

“I was led to a total surrender and submission to God’s divine will.

“In the midst of the contending and confusing ‘yes and no’, God proved Himself and manifested His power by making what seemed impossible to be possible through the instrumentality of my Archbishop, Barry Hickey,” he said.

“God is always a God of impossibility and He always works in mysterious ways beyond human comprehension.”

In August 2007, Emmanuel returned to Australia to start a Master of Arts in Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, Fremantle and to continue formation at St Charles’ Seminary.

In July 2009, Emmanuel was posted to Mary MacKillop parish in Ballajura for a year of pastoral placement and was ordained to the Diaconate on 20 August at this parish.

Sharpen Thy Pencil

Former altar boy: Deacon

Emmanuel Valentine Tobechuku

Dimobi, from

For the last six months, he has been on placement at Floreat Wembley parish assisting Fr Wayne Davis. These years of formation and discernment have not been smooth, he said.

“The road was thorny, turbulent and full of obstacles and impossibility,” he said.

“Whenever the going gets unbearably tough, I always renew my trust in the God of miracle and impossibility,” he said.

He said his conviction has been that God knows the way for him and His plan is perfect.

“He saw me through and assisted me to jump all the hurdles with His sustaining grace.

“My secret has been and will continue to be an unconditional trust and faith in God in the midst of all odds,” he said.

His ordination on 4 March 2010 will mark the end of his seemingly endless journey to the priesthood, he said, and a new beginning in his life.

COUNCIL OF CHURCHES OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA INC.

Ecumenical Ministry Officer (Part time 0.8)

Based in Subiaco, The Council is seeking an enthusiastic person to support ongoing dialogue a co-operation amongst churches in Western Australia. The person appointed to this ministry position will implement the Council's mission objectives.

Responsibilities: Implementation of the Council's mission objectives, including:

Promoting active and broad participation in the ecumenical movement;

Supporting and resourcing commissions, committees and projects;

Cultivating and communicating information; Relating to other bodies.

Tasks: Include, but are not limited to:

Providing active support to Commissions of the Council through research, document preparatio communication, resource development and other means; Drafting the fortnightly e-newsletter and other forms of communication to stakeholders; Working directly with congregation and denominational authorities to assist in developing and implementing covenant relationships;

Responding to enquiries from individuals and organisations.

Essential Criteria:

Willingness to uphold the mission, vision and values of the Council of Churches WA Inc; Demonstrated capacity to foster co-operation and dialogue; Sound knowledge of ecumenical trends, issues and tensions; Well developed interpersonal, written and communication skills; A member in good standing of a church which is a Member of the Council of Churches WA (Inc) or the National Council of Churches in Australia; Motor

Desirable

Nigeria. Deacon Emmanuel will be among five deacons to be ordained to the priesthood for Perth Archdiocese on 4 March at St Mary’s Cathedral.

DEACONELECT Thomas

is to be ordained to the Diaconate at Our Lady of the Mission Parish, Whitfords on 24

Soon to be Deacon Thomas Zureich has come to Western Australia from West Germany via Rome.

The brothers, the sisters

Christianity is neither a faith untried by persecution nor is it unaware of the meaning of that word. And it has been said many times that the Church is built upon the blood of the martyrs. This is, in its own way, certainly and profoundly true. Of course, saying this is not meant to detract from the higher truth that the Church is really founded upon the Blood of Christ. Martyrdom is really a share in Christ’s sacrificial love and it is Christ, not the martyrs, who is the true bedrock of the Church. But if Jesus is the foundation, it is the martyrs who are the bricks of the building.

Persecution has really been a fact of life for the Church from the beginning. If one were to skip the first several chapters of Eusebius’s History of the Church, the first properly researched history of Christianity, one would find the most remarkable accounts of persecution and the shining witness of the martyrs. Eusebius was a Bishop from Palestine who also attended the Council of Nicea convened by the first Christian Roman Emperor, Constantine. He had lived through the last of the ten general persecutions of the Church and had personally known both martyrs and confessors of the Faith. Among the fascinating accounts he records are the witness of Basilides, a pagan Roman Centurion, and Potamiana, a beautiful young woman at Alexandria, who gave their lives together for faith in Christ. It is well worth looking up in the easily-findable Penguin paperback edition.

THE RECORD

PO Box 3075

Adelaide Terrace PERTH WA 6832

office@therecord.com.au

A micro-parishes question

The article “Como’s ‘microparishes’ promote deeper faith connection”, by Anthony Barich (9 February), caught my eye. It seems to fit the bill perfectly in relation to Faith education which, sadly, is largely neglected by most Catholics after leaving school.

Fr Paschal Kearney, or Tony Pires inform readers as to how precisely it dovetails with those particular organisations; as well as any others?

My interest in the subject stems from involvement in a parish RCIA programme which unfortunately lapsed prematurely a few years ago. This led to some soul-searching on my part as to what might have caused the problem. Was it due to the content (too bookish, with insufficient electronic input?), presentation (reading, followed by question and answer session?), speed of delivery (too fast or too slow?), differing abilities of students, or perhaps a combination of these and other factors?

Perhaps a follow-up article which addresses these issues and provides a little background information about the organising group, might be considered appropriate?

Dunstan Hartley Dianella

countries, including Australia. It is allowed in a minority of European countries and a few other countries.

The usual talk of “discrimination” comes up. It is important to realise that not allowing “gay” marriage is not discriminating unjustly against anyone. Discrimination can be just quite often: it does not necessarily mean being unjust to someone or some group. One must discriminate in life from time to time.

It is very pertinent to note that the French Constitutional Council recently ruled as follows: “… because of the difference of situations between same-sex and heterosexual couples, the difference in treatment in family laws is justified and not in violation of the principle of equality …”

This is commonsense at its best.

The same Council (Court) said that the “pacte civil de solidarité,” a form of civil union that accords a plethora of legal, fiscal and official benefits, is sufficient for a normal family life.

An unexpected French ‘No’

Seventeen hundred years after the persecutions of the Roman Empire, Christianity is still regularly persecuted. It seems this is the way it will be until the end of time, and that is probably a good thing. Christians have never seemed to do very well at being Christian when they’re too comfortable. However, the persecutions also come in many shapes and forms and not only clothed in the garb of violence and brutality.

Given the obvious success which the programme appears to enjoy throughout WA, together with its associations with the Maranatha Adult Faith Education and RCIA programmes, can either Spiritan

It appears that the issue of “gay” “marriage” is being debated in Australia as it is in some other

Commonsense should prevail: as GK Chesterton is reputed to have said, “when commonsense becomes less common, a society is in terminal decline”.

M J Gonzalez Attadale

Tel: (08) 9220 5900

Fax: (08) 9325 4580

In modern society, persecution comes more normally in art, in literature, from the intelligentsia (and the pseudo intelligentsia, who want to be intellectuals, or believe that they are), from the media, from peer pressure, from the lynch mob of public opinion, even from the courts. Usually it comes in the form of open insult and misrepresentation of what Christianity is or believes, and especially in the form of constant marginalisation and public ridicule, aimed especially at the young. Think of Hollywood. This general cultural form of persecution is one which seems increasingly characteristic of the last several decades of life in developed nations such as Australia, throughout Europe and the United States. It also appears to be a symptom of societies and cultures rejecting their Christian patrimony after first having forgotten it.

It is in this light that the words of the-then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in his 1995 book-length interview with Peter Seewald, Salt of the Earth, appear luminously true. The supreme duty of a Christian in today’s world, the Cardinal said, is to be counter-cultural. One imagines he said this, in part, because in societies such as ours it is the very culture which has become the main form of persecution.

However, the general shape of persecution morphs itself according to the circumstances that suit its own purposes. In many countries today, Christians are still persecuted in the oldfashioned way with violence, brutality, rape and torture among the usual tools of those who wish to destroy Christianity or Christians. In North Korea, where an underground Church is still believed by some observers to exist in some shape or form (but what that is, no-one knows), Christians are especially earmarked for the worst and most atrocious forms of violence. In the North Korean Gulag, run by the insane and psychotic leaders of that country, Christians are regularly led to the barbed wire fence of labour camps and then shot in the back. Camp guards receive higher than normal bounties for ‘preventing’ Christians from escaping. But shooting is relatively merciful. Christians in the slave labour camps of Kim Jong-Il’s North Korea are also tortured and beaten to death regularly, and often for sport.

In several states of India, Christians regularly suffer the persecution of mob violence at the hands of Hindus or Muslims. If they are unfortunate enough to live in an area where the legal system is controlled by one or other of these groups, they effectively have no recourse to justice or law because of factors such as endemic local corruption which mean that, for Christians, there is no law. In some parts of India, when mobs go on the rampage over insults or transgressions, real or imagined, Christians die by the hundreds or the thousands; children, women, fathers, mothers are beaten, burnt or hacked to death.

Pakistan, an official Muslim state, also often treats Christians with brutality and regularly threatens them with imprisonment or execution over spurious claims of insulting the Prophet or the Koran in cases which foreign journalists often note are more likely to represent trumped up charges brought as a way of settling vendettas. This surfaces far less in the media which is focused on the ongoing war in next-door Afghanistan. As in many other places, Christians in Pakistan usually have no law that can be relied upon. One could mention Saudi Arabia as well.

The above are just a few shorthand summaries of numerous examples of the suffering in blood that our brothers and sisters in Christ undergo because they believe the words Jesus spoke. In Australia, we have such a comfortable existence and rarely hear such things as prayers of the faithful praying for those who share our faith but whose daily reality is of suffering atrocities for believing in Christ. One wonders how many of us personally pray for these members of the Body of Christ, regardless of denomination. One suspects too few of us do. It is not enough to simply say ‘I’ll get round to it one of these days.’ We wouldn’t say that if the individual concerned was our own brother or sister. And here’s the thing: those who are persecuted for Christ really are our family, our brother, our sister.

Benjamin McCabe reflects on the experience of retreat with a Covenant Community

IF YOU can imagine 33 energetic youth singing and dancing past midnight in a kitchen, you may be able to comprehend the vibrant atmosphere of the recent Fire Weekend.

The Disciples of Jesus have run the weekend retreat for many years but this one was different in that there were no adults running it.

Patrick McCabe and Hayley Fraser were the organisers and greatly encouraged the youth to step up to the plate and take an active role in the camp.

We discussed in small groups what differences we wanted to make in the world and the power of doing small things with great love.

Jennifer Abel and Hayley Fraser gave inspiring talks with Brendan McCabe giving a talk on the importance of works being accompanied by faith. Each small group acted out humorous skits of a saint’s life.

We were honoured in having Fr Doug Harris come to celebrate Mass for us on the Saturday night.

The theme of the weekend was ‘paying it forward’ from the movie of the same name. It was a good

topic, especially with a Christian slant given to it. We cooked for ourselves. It was no great task but rather an enjoyable recreation with music playing for dancing, cooking, and food fights. A good allowance was given to free time, in which people played soccer and went on bush walks to explore the surrounding valleys and hills, as well as putting up swing ropes and swimming in the pool. It was great time of fellowship and a memorable weekend. We were able to have Adoration and praise and worship on Saturday night; it was a delight to see everyone participate in the evening.

Prior to the weekend I had daily prayer time each morning, but a lot of the time it was short and rushed because I had to get to work. The weekend was a great opportunity to have one-on-one quality time with

Jesus, going for walks through the bush, and singing praise and worship atop a large boulder to the fierce wind.

It was a great time to forget any worries and spend quality time with amiable people talking and laughing over a game of pool or, if you were so inclined, a sword fight with wooden spoons.

I feel closer to God and at peace with myself after the weekend.

Everyone was tremendously friendly and kind. I was glad to catch up with old friends as well as make affable new ones.

All round, the weekend was a time of joy filled merriment and gaiety. I would recommend the weekend to any one.

The Disciples of Jesus Community run similar camps though out the year. To find out more call Mario Borg on 04116 41245.

The Curious Case of Bishop Brady

He was a French speaking Irishman and one of Perth Archdiocese’s first missionary pioneers but why was he such a problem for Church colleagues? Perth historian, ODHRAN O’BRIEN contextualises the life of Bishop John Brady in Perth

Bishop John Brady holds a unique place in history as the first resident Bishop of Western Australia. Thanks to Brady, the Catholic community had a resident Bishop before any of the other Christian Churches in Western Australia. It was Brady who convinced Pope Pius IX and Vatican officials to establish the Perth diocese in 1845. He also recruited the first Catholic missionaries for the new diocese, two of whom were Rosendo Salvado and José Serra, co-founders of the New Norcia Benedictine Monastery. Yet in spite of the enormity of what Brady achieved, he remains a much debated historical figure: why? Well, there are many reasons. Brady was forced to transfer leadership of the diocese to José Serra in 1852 as his administration had been compromised by a lack of government funding and some strategic mistakes within his missionary plan.

Brady’s association with Perth began when Archbishop Polding appointed him Vicar General of Western Australia during 1843. He arrived in Fremantle on 8 December 1843 and immediately began organising the construction of a church which began on 27 December 1844. Brady was so eager to begin large scale evangelisation of the colony’s European and Aboriginal population that by 11 February he had set sail for Europe to recruit missionaries and collect funds.

While in Europe, Brady went to Rome. Conscious of the distance between Sydney and Perth, Brady advised Vatican officials that the Sydney Archdiocese, which covered most of Australia, needed to be divided into smaller dioceses. Polding had already made the Vatican aware of the difficulties associated with the vast size of his Archdiocese during his visit to Rome in 1842. Rome felt his argument was justified and decided to create the Perth diocese. Brady recommended William Ullathorne for the position. However, Ullathorne declined and the position was offered to Brady. Following, Brady returned to Perth, having successfully recruited 28 missionaries. A small group remained in Perth and Fremantle to cater for the European settlers. The rest were sent to isolated parts of the colony to establish missions to the Aborigines. Very quickly, Brady’s missionary plan began to show flaws.

The money Brady had collected from Europe was rapidly consumed and many of his missionaries were left stranded without resources or means of survival. Initially, Brady managed to obtain credit from local merchants. However, with a

group of 28 missionaries, his debt quickly reached a level at which no one would lend him more money. There were three fundamental mistakes that Brady had made. He had expected support from the Colonial Government and he misjudged the number of European Catholic settlers and their capacity to support a missionary group. When the first colonial census was conducted in 1848, the entire population of the Colony was 4,622, with Catholics numbering 337. When Brady started to experience financial difficulties in 1846, the Catholic population would have been even smaller.

While Brady continued to experience difficulties in Perth, Archbishop Polding made his way to Rome. Polding had not been pleased that the Perth diocese was created without his consultation.

He was aware that Brady was having difficulties and convinced Rome to annex part of Perth diocese to create a new diocese, Port Victoria.

Near modern day Darwin, the new diocese was to be placed under the control of José Serra. Serra, like Polding, was a Benedictine and therefore the Archbishop’s preferred choice for Port Victoria. Unaware of events in Rome, Brady sent Serra to the Vatican to plead for financial assistance. Brady became infuriated when he discovered that upon arrival in Rome, Serra was made a Bishop. Serra immediately started a tour of Europe fundraising for his new diocese.

As Serra travelled Europe on 20 February 1848, Rome reconsidered its decision about his appointment to Port Victoria. Serra’s appoint-

ment was transferred to Perth where he was made Coadjutor Bishop with control over all the diocese’s assets and revenue. Now as joint Bishop of Perth, Serra returned to the diocese and very soon clashed with Brady. Serra had not done what Brady had requested

and, further, now had control over all of the diocese’s finances. Brady refused to accept Serra’s promotion and went to Rome to plead his case. At this time, revolution was spreading through the Papal States. The Pope and many senior Vatican Cardinals fled from Rome,

only returning just before Brady’s arrival. Impatient and tired of bureaucratic chaos in Rome, Brady did not wait for an answer to his plea, but returned to Perth. A public battle in the courts and newspapers ensued between Brady and Serra for control of the diocese. In the end, Polding travelled to Perth from Sydney and forced Brady to resign. Bishop Brady was completely resistant to resigning the diocese he had founded. He felt that his error of judgement did not deserve the treatment he received.

Bishop Serra was able to quite quickly rectify the diocese’s finances. The Colonial Government began to make contributions to Catholic schools and towards some of the Catholic clergy’s wages such as the prison chaplain. The Catholic population began to grow at a faster rate with the transportation of convicts and single women from the poor parishes in Ireland and England. Brady had been forced to resign just when the prospects of the Catholic Church began to change. The Catholic population continued to grow through the colonial era. By 1870, the year before Brady died, it peaked at just under 30 per cent of the colonial population.

Bishop Brady was a missionary, not a man well versed in financial matters. As he left the colony, he spent the money which he had been given by Serra to pay for his fare back to Europe and that of four families from Perth.

Once again, he was penniless and he showed his disinterest in money. He retired to Ireland where he assisted other Bishops in their pastoral duties. He refused to relinquish his title as Bishop of Perth. On an official level, when he died in Amelie-Les-Bains during 1871, he was still in office. Until his death, Brady remained at heart the Bishop of Perth.

As Brady’s remains are returned to Perth this year and reinterred in St Mary’s, it will be recognition by his successor Archbishop Barry Hickey of the sacrifices that Brady made in the process of establishing the Perth diocese. The Archbishop will be returning his forebear, Bishop Brady, to Perth to rest eternally among his people.

Pioneering Bishop Brady who founded Perth Diocese is pictured above with Benedictines José Maria Serra and Rosendo Salvado on the cover of history book, Centenary of the Catholic Church in Western Australia, published in Perth, 1946. Below, Bishop Brady’s portrait hangs in the dining room of Cathedral House in Perth.

What does it profit a man?

BY TOM HOWARD

Some years ago I heard a young man - actually, he was a teenager at that time - remark that he wanted to be “open to all experience.”

I am pretty sure that I know what he meant. He was an intelligent fellow and eager to distinguish himself from people whose minds were, he felt, narrow.

He saw various sorts of religious people about him who were not as sure as he was that the direction in which civilisation was headed was altogether a promising one.

They might wonder, for example, whether the much-praised “sexual revolution” was a movement forward in the annals of the human race, or whether it might be the beginning of the Gadarene Slide.

For heaven’s sake (he was thinking), we’re grown up now (“man come of age,” a popular theologian had suggested): Surely we do not need moral busybodies hampering our right to make our own decisions in such a matter as this?

Has the human race not lumbered ahead for long enough under the strictures imposed on us by pinched moral codes that treat us all as children?

But I think my young friend was not speaking solely of matters entailing the big moral questions.

and creamy ranch dressing. Or so it all seemed at any rate to my friend.

The great thing was to be “open to all experience.”

Why were one’s elders forever hesitating before taking the plunge into that which was new and exciting? When a revolution announces itself, why dawdle on the sidelines?

The Bastille in 1789, the Barricades in 1858, Chicago in 1968 - get into it! Or, after World War l, go-ahead types took up martinis, twelveinch cigarette holders, short skirts, cerise lipstick, marcelled hair, and cloche hats: hey nonny! Free love! Aldous Huxley with his peyote and Timothy Leary with his LSD: Hurrah for heightened awareness! One was in a race to gain sheer quantity and variety of “experience.” Who will carp?

Presently, I found myself wanting to put a question to my young friend: All of experience, you say? All? Well, let’s see. What about the experience of living your whole life in penury on a drab street at the edge of an industrial city? That would be experience, surely? Or shall we consider paraplegia; or blindness; or MS; or ALS? These certainly would qualify as experience, would they not?

Or again, finding oneself betrayed by one’s spouse, or jilted by one’s beloved, or sacked from one’s job, or refused entry to the university of one’s fondest hopes? Or (yet again) - how about starvation? Half the world seems to live perilously close to that. Or life in a Marxist state? There’s experience for you, if that’s what you are so eager to savour . . .

Perhaps we need to modify the word “experience.” Would “pleasure” be closer to the mark? Or diversion? Or ecstasy? What actually constitutes experience? To find an answer to that, we might consult a sampling of people from across the human scene and ask what their experience of life has been.

An old Berber sitting at the door of his tent; or a coolie dragging scows up the Yellow River; or a mother of ten ragged children; or a London cabbie, or a shopkeeper in Guayaquil. Here’s a wrinkled crone in black stockings, black dress, and black babushka. She will have missed quite a few of life’s “experiences.”

His was a generation that looked back on the preceding generations as having been somewhat disfranchised by the mere lack of the chance to enjoy all this “experience” that he felt was the very precondition to full and authentic adulthood. Modern travel and communications had, it seemed to him, opened up whole vistas of “experience” to everyone. You could find out all about wine now by visiting endless chateaux, vineyards, and cellars as you frolicked across Europe with your knapsack on your back. You could climb Kilimanjaro or Chimborazo with your friends now, not merely read wistfully about it in the pages of Ernest Hemingway as your fathers had done.

And music: Technology was making the entire universe of music instantly available, from Praetorius to U2, so that you could enter knowledgeably into high-level discussions on the matter, whereas your fathers had had to scrape along with their paltry collections of 78s or 33s.

And food: my word! Now we had rare sauces drizzled on our arugula and endive, whereas our forebears had to make do with iceberg lettuce

But what do all these people know of this mortal life of ours? Poverty? Yes. Unremitting toil? Certainly. Endurance? Sacrifice? Motherhood? Small pleasures in local wine, home-baked bread, greens, tea? No doubt. Laughter over the antics of children? Surely.

At this point, of course, we have steered perilously near the bog of sentimentalism.

Summoning this parade of people from all across history and the globe could easily regale us with mere emotion, the way candlelight and plaintive violins can play on our emotions. We do not have to go so far afield to consider innercity school teachers, mechanics, salesmen, clerks, housewives, secretaries, managers, executives, and a host of others whose range of “experience,” to a casual glance, might look less than thrilling.

Are they cut off from the experiences that offer us all the chance to grow into the wisdom, virtue, charity, courage and endurance that alone mark the authentically human man or woman?

A vast breadth of pleasures and diversions may or may not have come their way. But what will they have missed in missing such pleasures? Nothing, surely, that pertains to the dignity that crowns our true humanity.

How our little on the ultima

BY LISA SOCARRAS

Parents’ lives are changed the moment they hold their precious newborn baby. Parenthood is the greatest source of joy and the greatest challenge; it offers opportunities to place people on the fast track to holiness. Amidst the nappies, the dishes, the driving, the laughter and the tears, parents learn what it truly means to be self-giving.

“People who become parents become better people overnight,” says mother of four and Detroit resident Kelly Luttinen.

She learned this from her moral theology professor, Janet Smith at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit.

“Janet had the privilege of seeing fathers come out of the delivery room. They said, ‘Everything is different now.’ They look beyond themselves. It makes you be other-centred.”

In raising children, selfish, rough edges are sanded off as souls are polished up for eternity. Parents learn to imitate the love of God the Father for his children, growing in virtue along the way.

Supernatural Outlook

The goal of our life on earth is to become more like Christ, who “did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1264) states that although original sin is removed in baptism, its effects remain, which include concupiscence, a tendency toward sin. To progress in the spiritual life, one must “manfully resist it by the grace of Jesus Christ”.

Many spiritual writers stress the importance of mortification in the pursuit of holiness and progress in the interior life.

In the classic Imitation of Christ , Thomas à Kempis states in Book II, Chapter 12, “Behold the cross is all, and in dying to thyself all contains, and there is no other way to life and to true internal peace but the holy way of the cross and of daily mortification.”

Parenthood offers ongoing occasions for mortification. Nothing teaches patience as quickly as a newborn’s cries at night; nothing forces parents humbly on their knees in prayer as much as a sick child or a teenage driver. St Josemaria Escrivá taught

that we must continually change to become more loyal and humble, as stated by John 3:30: “He must become more and more; must become less and less.”

Seedbed for Growing Virtue

“It will either make you or

Our everyday living must loo especially i

BY ANNE HUSTED BURLEIGH

Years ago, when Russell Kirk wrote The Conservative Mind, he defined the towering problem of our time as “the problem of community lost and community regained.”

It is natural that we crave community, which is the union we have with others through common affection and spiritual and practical interest.

To desire community, especially the primary community, the family, is the way we are ordered in creation. After all, God, in whose image we are made, is a Trinity whose three persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - are in eternal communion.

Likewise, Christ, the second person of the Trinity, is the vine to whom we are all related as branches. The yearning for community, then, is

built into us. Yet true community is in peril today. Mall culture is no substitute; watching the same television shows that other people do is hardly a bond with them; and a suburban development where everyone has gone to daycare or the office is not a real community that satisfies the heart.

However, so much do we sense community as properly human that if we have no community to inherit, we invent one rather than confront the horror of living in isolation.

Though it is in trouble, community still exists in certain pockets such as in families, churches, voluntary associations, and in some localities and universities.

At the same time, this union of community, which is biblical, classical, and mediaeval comes into constant conflict with modern impulses of division and fragmentation.

Catholic hi 1970) would has been goin when the prin the nominali individual wil Freedom th doing what o Christian and ought always munity.

If a commu be united in a

On the one participate in the communi tinuity that en Ultimately,

George Orwell gained a first hand experience of poverty by working as a dishwasher in Paris in 1928; an experience which served as part of the basis for his 1933 book on poverty Down and Out in Paris and London.

Above and below left, Arielle and Isaiah Sun;

nes remind us of ate vocation

break you,” northern Virginia author and father of eight Stephen Gabriel acknowledges of parenthood. “It’s true for everyone. We are faced with situations or hardships in everyday life. Some people react with bitterness. Others use them as opportunities; then they have redemptive value.”

In his book

Speaking to the Heart: A Father’s Guide to Growth in Virtue (Our Sunday Visitor), Gabriel discusses the development of virtues “by repeated acts that require virtues and, of course, by praying for the grace to acquire the virtues they need so much in life.”

“If you can name a virtue, you have to practise it as a parent,” says Luttinen. “You have the opportunity to practise virtues; you’re forced to.”

Gabriel says that as we journey through parenthood and life, we hopefully never stop growing in virtue as we face new challenges.

“Our Lord has a way of pushing us,” says Gabriel. “We are constantly faced with new challenges living with our spouses, our kids and our own defects. In everyday life, we do things

ok above,

we don’t feel like doing like apologising, holding our tongue. Carrying out the role as a parent is a formative process.”

The Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin, offers parenting information, including virtue development, on its website.

“Clearly, the most important part of virtue training for any parent is to commit oneself to the overall goal of ‘doing what is right and avoiding what is evil.’

Making a personal decision in favour of moral goodness sets the best stage for parenting,” states the website, DioceseofLaCrosse.com/ ministry_resources/family_life/parentsplace.

Need for Prayer and Sacraments

“If the knees aren’t worn on our pants in humility, then we are not doing it well,” says Gabriel, a member of the personal prelature Opus Dei, about the importance of prayer.

Legionary Father Michael Sliney, who has been working in youth ministry for more than 16 years, as well as in adult spiritual formation and as chaplain for the Lumen Institute in

Washington, DC, stresses the importance of prayer in the lives of parents.

“The Catechism, 2826, on prayer, tells us why we pray,” Fr Sliney elaborates.

“We pray for wisdom, which is very important in families, and we pray for strength, to have patience, self-control, compassion and tough love.”

He talks of the importance of lives centred on the Eucharist as a source of strength.

“In the Eucharist, Christ makes us Christ,” Fr Sliney says, citing Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Mysterium Fidei (Mystery of Faith), which emphasises the value of daily Mass, when possible, in the journey of faith.

He also promotes Pope Benedict XVI’s emphasis on frequent confession as a source of grace.

It is important to have scheduled times to pray, to keep the presence of God on our minds throughout the day, even if it is only short amounts of time.

“Pray the Rosary; pray each decade for certain virtues, and for each of your kids,” Fr Sliney recommends. Be docile to the Holy Spirit who is the ultimate coach of parents and the source of wisdom.”

Lisa Socarras writes from Annandale, Virginia.

 NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISTER

Log off and reconnect your life balance

BY K ATIE HINDERER

These days it is hard to find a young professional who does not have a smartphone and a laptop. Most of my friends have multiple email accounts and social media personalities. And with many professions demanding more connectivity, it’s often hard for the millennial generation to balance work and life. There is that constant pressure to be connected at all times, a fear that you will miss something and apprehension that your job success is determined by your ability to be reached at any time of the day and night.

Last year, for instance, I had a freelance job that required me to be on top of all commercial real estate news happening in the Midwest.

Most days, that meant being online 10 hours a day, reading articles, skimming press releases, making phone calls to follow up on rumours, and through it all writing up to six articles daily on the happenings.

The weekends tended to be a bit of a breather, but not always. I needed to check my emails at least three times a day on Saturday and Sunday to make sure nothing big happened while I was living life.

And on holidays things were even worse. I might have a technical day off, but I still found myself writing an article on several Federal holidays since news doesn’t wait for me to get to my desk on Monday morning.

That job started my obsession with having my Blackberry with me at all times. The light would flash indicating a new email and I would read it. Nine times out of 10 it was spam or something that could wait. But what if it wasn’t? I lived in fear of missing something.

When I caught myself checking my emails for the tenth time when out to dinner with a friend, I realised something needed to change.

The world was not going to fall apart if I wasn’t connected at every moment. I slowly began to teach myself how to disconnect at the right times. I would leave my smartphone in my purse when out with friends.

Or tell myself I couldn’t check my emails until noon on a Saturday, allowing myself a much needed trip to the gym before launching into work-related issues.

But that disconnecting, in a world that is ever more pressuring us to be connected, is a hard-fought battle day after day; especially when you feel your job depends on it.

How do you disconnect? What tips and tricks do you use to allow yourself time to live life?

Katie Hinderer edits the Tiger Print fashion blog for Mercatornet at ww.mercatornet.com/tiger_print

beyond to achieve the fullness of truth, if striving for true community

istorian Christopher Dawson (1889say that the erosion of community ng on at least since the Reformation, nciple of fragmentation sprang from ist denial of any authority but the ll. hat is seen in the modern sense of one wants rather than in the Judeod classical sense of doing what one collides with the authority of com-

unity is to survive, its members must a common belief and purpose. e hand, they must contribute to and the community; on the other hand, ity must afford a stability and connhances and protects its members.

the only order of community that

survives is one that embraces a religious dimension. Only one that recognises transcendence beyond material existence will endure for the long term, so enduring because it not only recognises that we are meant for God Himself but also because it promotes our relationship with God. Thus, a community based on an order solely of human derivation will not last indefinitely. It will succumb either to individualism, which de Tocqueville described as the democratic tendency to withdraw into isolated groups of family and friends, with the consequent abandonment of the commonweal; or it will succumb to collectivism, in which we abdicate responsibility for our own lives and local affairs, reposing power in government, which we childishly suppose will solve our problems and take care of all our needs.

In both individualism and collectivism, the

result is isolation and loss of community. In the first case, when we refuse to participate in the common life and withdraw to private life, we become mere atoms circling around each other.

In the second case, we idolise the therapeutic society that relieves us of our responsibility for the wise use of our freedom. We sacrifice to government our particular identities with family, parish, neighbourhood and town. In so doing, we also sacrifice love of our particular place and, as Edmund Burke pointed out, there can be no love of country without, first, love of a particular place. Modern society suffers from both atomisation and collectivism. As a consequence, it has become increasingly secularised.

A secularised society, however, does not meet human yearnings for community.

Sensing that a polity divorced from the sacred

is unworthy of them and is no community at all, people begin to think that it has no authority to oblige them, and so they think of themselves as their own individual rulers with authority to do as they please. The real need of man at the beginning of the millennium is for roots. True community does indeed provide roots.

For modern man, starved for community and a link to the sacred; starved for connectedness, continuity, permanence, and partnership between generations, there is one real community still living, indeed entering a new springtime. That community, foundation of all other communities, is the Church.

This column originally appeared in the March 1999 issue of Crisis Magazine.and was republished by InsideCatholic.com

below right, Ruth Laundy, nine months. PHOTOS: COURTESY SUN AND LAUNDY FAMILIES

Fascinating resource offers comprehensive

Here is an overview of the Become One Body, One Spirit in Christ interactive DVD which introduces the new changes to the prayers of the Mass

ONE BODY, One Spirit in Christ provides five pathways for exploring the Eucharist.

Pathway One: Exploring the Mass

There are three sub-sections:

Scriptural Foundations

This section provides the texts of The Last Supper, Passion and Death, Resurrection, Emmaus, and Ascension which are presented in a visually reflective manner, both in video and illustrative formats.

Evolution of the Mass

An historical timeline presents the developments in liturgy since the celebration of the first Eucharist.

Theological Reflections

Six video clips featuring expert theological insights are accompanied by texts drawn from two of the five foundational essays, Theological Reflections and Living a Eucharistic Life

Pathway Two: Receiving the English Translation

There are four subsections in this pathway:

The Translator’s Task

This sub-section provides the background and principles of translation. Eight video clips pro-

vide expert commentary from the interviewees who explore topics such as New Guidelines, Importance of Words, The New Lingua Franca,

and Previous Translations

Issues of Translation

The process of developing the new English Translation is explored

in this subsection, through an examination of the Role of the ICEL, The Review Process and the Translation Experience. The intentions of the translators are explored through five video clips on the themes of Renewed Focus on Scripture, Standard English, Inclusive Language, Singing the Mass, and Silence

In translating the Third Latin edition of the Roman Missal into English, the translators have been very conscious of clearly identifying and recovering the rich treasury drawn from Scripture. There are 43 Orations which are accompanied by the appropriate passage of Scripture.

Changes to the Text

Each of the changes to the Missal texts is treated individually in this sub-section in the context of the structure of the liturgy. The 1973 and 2010 missal translations are presented together on screen to make the changes clear.

Explanatory commentary in the form of video and text accompanies each of the new texts.

Challenges and Opportunities

This sub-section presents various issues the translators had to address in making the translations as accurate as possible. Here, the translators can be heard speaking about these insights as well as the difficulties they encountered during the process.

Pathway Three: Crafting the Art of Liturgy

Five sub-sections comprise this pathway:

Continued on Page 13

‘This task will depend on our Priests as the teachers’

Continued from Page 1 priest to give a catechesis on that word”.

The Bishop dismissed notions that such phrases are unnecessary as they are not “the language of the street”.

“[Consubstantial] is a difficult term but it is a theological term; so it’s not a question of English, it’s a question of theology,” he said.

“Instead of that idea - that theological point - being lost, here’s an opportunity now for it to be explained.”

At a public session at Servite College last year where then-ICEL (International Commission on English in the Liturgy) executive secretary Mgr Bruce Harbert from the UK spoke on the new translations, some clergy voiced their disapproval to Bishop Sproxton.

“They saw it as something imposed on us, that there was politics involved and that it was a restorative action by the Church, and ‘how dare the Vatican impose something on the Australian Bishops, we should have the right to make our own Missal and do what we like’,” Bishop Sproxton related to The Record

Some priests have expressed similar sentiments, he said, but “those who said these things also said ‘we’ll do what we’re asked to do’, so there’s a lot of goodwill”.

“I’m quite happy for priests to express reservations about certain aspects of the translations, because even those who were involved in the project had some reservations about some decisions that were made. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing,” he said.

“I can’t think of anyone who will dig in his heels and say ‘I’m not going to do it’. That hasn’t been voiced here. I’m confident that they’ll just do the best for the sake of their people, that they’ll want

their people to experience this in a seamless way.

“Personally, I voted for practically all of the changes that we see in the Missal in the (Bishops’) conference because I’ve noticed how beautiful the language is,” Bishop Sproxton said.

“Even before the project began when I was a priest, I noticed that when you compare the (pre-1974 Latin Mass) to the English there’s an awful lot not in that English prayer, and I thought that was selling us short.

“We weren’t getting that whole content of what that Latin was giv-

ing, so I think it’s great we’ve got a text which is much closer to that Latin - not because it’s Latin but because of the nature of the prayer, the theological and spiritual content of the prayer, which is now accessible to us through this translation.”

While Australia’s Bishops had initially planned to introduce the Missal by Pentecost, late changes by the Vatican’s Congregation for Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments have meant it has not yet been printed.

Australia’s Bishops are now optimistically planning for its introduction in Advent this year and will

distribute ‘Mass cards’ at Pentecost to all parishes and communities to familiarise Catholics with the new texts. The Archdiocese of Perth, believing that introduction of the Mass cards in Pentecost is too early, will distribute them some time before Advent.

Parishes have been allowed to use the sung responses in the new translations in Masses since 1 January.

Pope Benedict XVI said last year that a well-celebrated Mass is the best form of catechesis as the words of the Mass teach exactly what Catholics believe and should help

nourish their personal relationship with God.

To this end, a series of workshops will be held across the Archdiocese from February to June to ‘teach the teachers’ of parishes (priests and lay leaders) about Catechesis of the Mass and the implementation of the sung new translation.

Special emphasis will be on the Become One Body One Spirit in Christ interactive DVD resource that will help parish leaders explain the new translations to the faithful. It can even be used in homilies, Bishop Sproxton said.

Special sessions will also be organised for country parishes with video link-ups to ‘telecentres’ in rural areas.

The Bishops’ Commission for Liturgy Executive Secretary, Fr Peter Williams, will also address Perth’s priests at the Vietnamese Catholic Community Centre on 16 and 23 June.

The newly translated parts of the Mass setting in the new Missal are available to parishes from the Archdiocesan Office for Liturgy.

The interactive ICEL DVD resource Become One Body, One Spirit in Christ contains oral teachings on the newly translated parts of the Mass including the Gloria, memorial acclamations and the Holy, Holy. The DVD is available from The Record Bookshop.

Bishop Sproxton said that while the Mass for Moderns, first published in 1972, is popular among parishes, the responses in the new Missal – many of them “Gregorianlike” - will be useful for major events in the diocese and in parishes, and are also good for the sake of uniformity around the diocese.

A new website, www.romanmissal.org.au, will be launched by March to help parishes, communities and individuals implement the new translations.

Perth Auxiliary Bishop Donald Sproxton discussing the coming changes to the prayers of the Mass in his office last week. Priests, he told The Record, will be the key teachers and explainers of the newly translated parts of the Mass.

PHOTO: MIA WUGOL

With the introduction of the new Roman Missal, the order and structure of the Mass will not change. Catholics can expect some changes in the wording of prayers and responses expected soon. PHOTO: CNS/MIKE CRUPI, CATHOLIC COURIER

guide to new Prayers

Continued from Page 12

Liturgy as Art

This section includes videos on Rediscovering the Art of Liturgy and Noble Simplicity Liturgical Prayer

Three aspects are addressed: Act of the Whole Church, A Received Liturgy and The Priest’s Craft Liturgical Ministries

This sub-section addresses the roles of the ordained ministers (The Bishop, The Priest, and The Deacon) and of the Liturgical Assembly (The Liturgical Assembly, Acolytes and Lectors, Altar Servers, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, Cantor and Choir Director). Art in the Liturgy

Art in the Liturgy covers Bringing Beauty to the Liturgy which includes two case studies - Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles and Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Hamilton. Speech, Rhythm, and Silence and Liturgical Objects comprise the remainder of this

sub-section.

Liturgical Music

This section provides the background to liturgical chant. A number of the new chants are available for download as audio files with the sheet music available in pdf format.

Pathway Four: Celebrating the Eucharist

There are five sub-sections:

The meaning and significance of the Introductory Rites, Liturgy of the Word, Liturgy of the Eucharist and Concluding Rites are explained in a Walk Through the Mass. We experience Mass being celebrated in churches and Cathedrals in Australia, Canada, England and Wales, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, The Philippines, Scotland, South Africa and the United States of America.

Explore the Text

The sub-section Explore the Text makes available the new

Essays go to the roots of distinctive Christian faith in the Eucharist

FIVE foundational essays in the Become One Body, One Spirit in Christ interactive DVD resource that explain its foundational themes:

A walk through the Mass, by Sr Janet Blaxendale SC, advisor to the Committee for Divine Worship of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

What happens in the Mass? This essay takes each section of the rite in turn, indicating its purpose and its connection with what precedes and follows.

English Translation in audio format, text format and in the demonstration of the chant.

Pathway Five: Living a Eucharistic Life

There are three sub-sections to this pathway: Dismissal for Mission

The three videos in this section tell us that in the Concluding Rites of the Eucharist we are called to ‘go forth’ and live the mission of the Gospel in our daily lives.

Believe, Pray and Act

Four aspects of how we are called to live our Christian faith are addressed in this subsection: Handing on the Good Earth, Young People Living and Praying, Action for Social Justice, and Shared Spaces

Renewal of Hope

Statements and expressions of hope, from a number of the interviewees about the meaning of the Eucharist in our lives.

 ANTHONY

Theological reflections on the Mass and on the Roman Missal, by Mgr Kevin Irwin, advisor to the Committee for Divine Worship of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Why is the Mass as it is? This essay looks below the surface to the deeper themes within the Mass, in particular its relationship to the Paschal Mystery of Christ’s Death and Resurrection.

Liturgical roles and liturgical ministry, by Mgr Paul McPartlan, Professor of Systematic Theology and Ecumenism at The Catholic

University of America, Washington, DC.

Who does what at Mass? Each person present has a particular role, studied in this essay with reference to the development of those roles through the Church’s history.

Presidential prayers and practices: Towards an Ars Celebrandi, by Fr Alan Griffiths, Professor of Liturgy at St John’s Seminary, Wonersh, Surrey.

How should Mass be celebrated? This essay looks at liturgical styles, considering both what is used at Mass and what is done by the participants. It will be of particular interest to clergy and others responsible for the organisation of the Liturgy.

Living a Eucharistic life, by Mgr Kevin Irwin, advisor to the Committee for Divine Worship of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

What purpose has the celebration of the Mass? This essay focuses on what happens when Mass is over and the participants take up their task of living according to the teaching of Jesus Christ.

BARICH

The interactive DVD commissioned by the Bishops of Australia offers a comprehensive and fascinating guide to every aspect of the new prayers of the Mass and their genesis. It is also available from The Record Bookshop.

A screenshot of a timeline of the Mass’s development from One Body

The new English translation of the Roman Missal is seen at its presentation to Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican last April. The new English edition is a translation of the Latin edition promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 2002. The new translation, which adheres more exactly to the Latin, took eight years to produce.

PHOTO: CNS PHOTO/ARCHBISHOP TERRENCE PRENDERGAST

“Lex orandi Lex credendi, “the law of prayer is the law of belief,” otherwise known as “what we pray is what we believe”. So getting our heads and hearts and minds around these prayers matters a great deal.”

MGR KEVIN IRWIN, ADVISOR TO THE COMMITTEE FOR DIVINE WORSHIP OF THE US CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS.

Three new saints announced

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope Benedict XVI will create three new saints on 23 October, including the founder of the Xaverian missionaries, Blessed Guido Maria Conforti. The Pope announced the date for the canonisation ceremony at the end of what is known as an ordinary public consistory, a formal ceremony opened and closed with prayer, during which Cardinals present in Rome express their support for the Pope’s decision to create new saints. Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, read brief biographies of the three in Latin on 21 February. Blessed Conforti, founder of the Xaverian Foreign Missionary Society, was born in 1865 in Italy. Vice rector of a seminary even before his priestly ordination, he was said to have filled seminarians with an awareness of their obligation to be missionaries. In 1895, seven years after becoming a priest, he founded a congregation of consecrated men dedicated to the evangelisation of non-Christians. The others to be canonised on 23 October, World Mission Sunday, are: Blessed Louis Guanella, an Italian priest who lived 1842-1915. He founded the Servants of Charity, the Daughters of St Mary of Providence and the Confraternity of St Joseph, whose members pledge to pray for the sick and dying; and Blessed Bonifacia Rodriguez Castro, who lived 1837-1905. The Spanish founded the Servants of St Joseph, a congregation originally dedicated to providing a religious and technical education to poor women.

Catholic numbers rise worldwide

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - The number of Catholics in the world, the number of deacons, priests and Bishops and the number of dioceses all increased in 2009, while the number of women in Religious Orders continued to decline, according to Vatican statistics. At the end of 2009, the worldwide Catholic population increased by 15 million or 1.3 percent, slightly outpacing the global population growth rate, which was estimated at 1.1 percent, said a statement published 19 February by the Vatican press office. The statement reported a handful of the statistics contained in the 2011 Annuario Pontificio, a yearbook containing information about every Vatican office, every Cardinal and Bishop, every diocese and Religious Order in the world. Officials of the Vatican Secretariat of State and its Central Office of Church Statistics presented the first copy of the 2011 yearbook to Pope Benedict XVI during an audience on 19 February. The Vatican statement said that in the calendar year 2010, Pope Benedict established 10 new dioceses, bringing to 2,956 the number of dioceses and Church jurisdictions in the world. The more detailed statistics in the yearbook refer to the situation reported by dioceses and Religious Orders as of 31 December 2009.

Even the Pope can be debated

ROME (CNS) - As the second volume of Jesus of Nazareth was about to be published, a Swiss Cardinal said it’s important that people realise the book was written by the theologian Joseph Ratzinger and not by Pope Benedict XVI. “This distinction is not a matter of splitting hairs,” said Cardinal Georges Cottier, the former theologian of the papal household. Cardinal Cottier said even if it may be confusing in the case of Pope Benedict, who was famous as a theologian before being elected Pope, it is important for people to understand that theology is a human exercise, which is open to debate and criticism; but because of the Holy Spirit’s gift to the Church and to the individual elected, the teaching of a Pope requires a greater degree of assent. The Swiss Cardinal spoke on 18 February at an evening conference organised by the Vatican publishing house; earlier in the day, the Vatican announced that the second volume of Jesus of Nazareth would be released 10 March at the Vatican. The first volume was published in 2007. Cardinal Cottier told a packed house at a bookstore in the centre of Rome that the confusion between the work of the theologian Ratzinger and Pope Benedict was not helped by publishers of the first volume, who wrote Pope Benedict XVI on the cover in much larger letters than they wrote Joseph Ratzinger

Irish bishops criticise ‘bonus’ culture

DUBLIN (CNS) -- Ireland’s Catholic bishops charged that a “bonus culture” promoted “reckless gambling practices” in banking and financial institutions during the country’s recent Celtic Tiger economic boom and led to “immense suffering” for many during the bust of the current economic recession. The assessment comes in a new document, “From Crisis to Hope: Working to Achieve the Common Good,” which the bishops released on 21 February in Dublin, which daily feeds up to 400 homeless people. In their document, the bishops harshly criticized the increase in social and economic inequality, which, they said, was “an inevitable consequence of this bonus culture and the accompanying institutional failure.” They also warned that there is a “serious risk” that such inequality could lead to a breakdown of social cohesion, “the bedrock of both a properly functioning democracy and an orderly economy.” Dublin Auxiliary Bishop Raymond Field, chairman of the Irish Bishops’ Council for Justice and Peace, said people in Ireland were “struggling to maintain a decent standard of living in these challenging economic circumstances.”

Life takes an unplanned turn for former abortion supporter

Former Planned Parenthood director, now pro-life, to become Catholic

BY VALERIE SCHMALZ

SAN FRANCISCO (CNS) - A woman who walked away from her job as a Planned Parenthood clinic director after helping with an ultrasound-guided abortion is preparing to enter the Catholic Church.

Abby Johnson, 30, who has been speaking at pro-life events around the country, will become a Catholic, along with her husband, Doug, in her native Texas within the next few months. The couple have a 4 year old daughter.

“When we went to the Catholic Church for the first time, we knew that was where we were supposed to be and we have been there ever since,” said Johnson, who said she particularly loves the Church’s reverence for Mary as the mother of God.

“The more we started learning about the beliefs of the Church and the Eucharist and everything, it seemed like this was what had been missing our whole lives.”

After eight years as a Planned Parenthood volunteer and employee, Johnson walked away from her job as director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan/College Station, Texas on 6 October 2009 during a prayer vigil by 40 Days for Life.

Johnson, who had one abortion at age 20 and another at 23, first began working as a clinic escort while a student at Texas A&M University. Assisting with an ultrasound during an abortion in September 2009 turned her into a pro-life advocate.

She describes the experience in her book Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of the Planned Parenthood Leader Who Crossed the Life Line to Fight for Women in Crisis, written with Cindy Lambert (Ignatius Press, 2011).

In the book’s first chapter, Johnson describes holding the ultrasound probe on the woman’s abdomen and watching the screen as the abortion doctor worked and the mother cried. The fetus was at 13 weeks’ gestation based on the abortion doctor’s estimate, Johnson wrote.

“At first, the baby didn’t seem aware of the cannula,” she writes. “It gently probed the baby’s side, and for a quick second I felt relief. Of course, I thought, the fetus doesn’t feel pain. I had reassured countless women of this as I’d been taught by Planned Parenthood. The fetal tissue feels nothing as it is removed. Get a grip, Abby. This is a simple, quick medical procedure. My head was working hard to control my responses, but I couldn’t shake an inner disquiet that was quickly mounting to horror as I watched the screen.

“The next movement was the

sudden jerk of a tiny foot as the baby started kicking, as if it were trying to move away from the probing invader,” she continues.

“As the cannula pressed its side, the baby began struggling to turn and twist away. It seemed clear to me that it could feel the cannula, and it did not like what it was feeling. And then the doctor’s voice broke through, startling me.

‘”Beam me up, Scotty,’ he said lightheartedly to the nurse.

“He was telling her to turn on the suction - in an abortion the suction isn’t turned on until the doctor feels he has the cannula in exactly the right place. I had a sudden urge to yell, ‘Stop.’”

(According to a description by Priests for Life, the cannula is a hollow plastic tube that is connected to a vacuum-type pump by a flexible hose. The doctor runs the tip of the cannula along the surface of the uterus causing the baby to be dislodged and sucked into the tube - either whole or in pieces.)

Johnson watched the entire abortion and went home, shaking and in tears, to tell her husband she had to find a new job. A few days later, she walked out of the clinic and joined people praying outside the clinic.

They were members of the 40 Days for Life group, which had held six prayer vigils outside her clinic

and whose headquarters was just a few doors away.

Johnson is in the process of obtaining an annulment of the marriage to the man who was her husband at the time she had her abortions, so that the Catholic Church will officially recogsize her second marriage - a process called “convalidation’’ in Church law - and she and husband Doug can enter the Church.

“We are ready to come into the Church as soon as we are able,” Johnson told Catholic San Francisco, the Archdiocesan newspaper.

Johnson also counsels others who have left the abortion industry, she said, and there are more than most people would think.

She said rallies like the one that drew an estimated 40,000 people to San Francisco for the annual Walk for Life West Coast on 22 January are an important witness.

“In California, one of the most pro-choice and liberal states in the country, it is important to show up en masse and tell the leaders of the state and the leaders of our nation how important the sanctity of life is to us,” she said.

“We do not have the luxury anymore to stand around and say I can’t tell someone what to do. When it comes to taking the lives of our children, we don’t want to give our opinion? That doesn’t make sense.”

Polish missionary murdered in Tunisia

WASHINGTON (CNS) - A young Polish missionary priest serving in Tunisia was found dead with his throat slashed in a storeroom in a Salesian-run school outside the capital of Tunis, said the Salesian Info Agency, ANS.

The body of Father Marek Rybinski, 33, was discovered by police who searched the school on 18 February after the director

of the Salesian community in La Manouba became alarmed when he had not been seen for a day and his room was found empty. Ali Aidoudi, Tunisia’s ambassador to Poland, assured the Polish government that a nationwide manhunt was under way for Father Rybinski’s killers, reported Polish Radio.

“The Polish priest was much

loved in Tunisia,” the ambassador told the radio outlet. Police have increased patrols around Christian churches since the murder was discovered, ANS said. The priest’s murder prompted demonstrations in support of the Salesian community on 19 and 20 February including hundreds of people including students from the school and their parents, ANS reported.

Archbishop d’Ornellas

Cardinal Simonis

Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director, speaks during the Walk for Life West Coast in San Francisco on 22 January. Johnson, 30, who has been speaking at pro-life events around the country, will become a Catholic, along with her husband, Doug, in her native Texas later this year. Photo: CNS/ Jose Luis Aguirre, Catholic San Francisco

Vatican Radio adapts to changing media scene

On 80th birthday, Vatican Radio rides wave of digital technology

BY JOHN T HAVIS Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Eighty years ago, a persistent Pope and a scientific pioneer teamed up to create Vatican Radio, launching an evangelisation tool that reached virtually every corner of the globe. Today, Vatican Radio is riding the latest wave of digital technology to expand its audience and its services, with an Internet presence in more than 40 languages.

The anniversary celebrations kicked off in February with a retrospective Vatican Museums exhibit. Among the items on display was the microphone Pope Pius XI used to broadcast the first radio message to the world - in Latin, of course - on 12 February 1931.

At that time, radio broadcasting was still in its infancy, but the Pope insisted that he wanted his own radio station. He turned the project over to Guglielmo Marconi, the Italian inventor who developed wireless technology, who was only too happy to help.

It still stands as one of the most successful collaborative efforts involving the Church and modern science. The image of Pope Pius at the microphone seemed to change the role of the papacy itself; from then on, every Pope would be the Church’s “first communicator.”

It’s a legacy Pope Benedict XVI wants to preserve and build on as the Vatican’s media adapt to the digital age. One of the Pope’s first in-house visits at the Vatican was to Vatican Radio, where employees gave him an iPod nano pre-loaded with classical music.

In late April, the Pope will

address members of the European Broadcasting Union when they meet in Rome, and his speech is expected to highlight the Church’s ongoing investment in communications resources and technology.

In 1931, Pope Pius saw radio as a God-given opportunity to reach countries where missionaries and other Church personnel were not free to work. At the centre of Vatican Radio’s mission, then and now, was the Pope’s voice.

“The electric radio waves will carry your word of peace and your blessing through space to the whole world,” Marconi told the Pope before the inaugural broadcast.

During and immediately after World War II, Vatican Radio broadcast more than 1.5 million messages to help reunite prisoners of war and refugees with their families.

Some prisoners still remember the radio’s transmissions being

played through the loudspeakers of internment camps. After the war, Vatican Radio began a new chapter, broadcasting daily to communist countries behind the Iron Curtain.

When East European Communism gave way to democracy, the radio was inundated with more than 40,000 letters of thanks from Catholics and others who had listened to the programmes for decades.

Vatican Radio still transmits to Catholic populations that are culturally isolated, which increasingly include large groups of foreign workers.

In parts of the Middle East, for example, millions of Christian immigrants from Asia can tune in to Vatican Radio programmes in various languages. Other broadcasts reach Catholic minorities in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh,

Nepal and Bhutan. Over the years, Vatican Radio has developed a staff that works not only in many languages but in 15 different alphabets.

It’s a unique resource at the Vatican, one that positions Vatican Radio to be a key player in the digital age. At a Vatican event in mid-February, US Mgr Peter B Wells said in a speech that Vatican Radio has a crucial role in the modern world, as a voice for religious freedom, dialogue and harmony.

To do that, he said, the radio needs to be savvy about modern media and technology, which can deliver a message to millions of people on their cell phones or other personal devices.

“It is no longer enough to go on air, to publish, to write. Today, one needs to be present in the marketplaces, to update the Web pages, in order to reach a world ever hun-

grier for news,” Mgr Wells said.

“In other words, not having new technical tools at one’s full disposal, or not knowing about the most current tools, will mean that one’s message will arrive late, will arrive wrong and might even arrive in vain,” he said.

Mgr Wells also spoke about media convergence at the Vatican.

“Convergence,” a term used by Pope Benedict in 2008, has become a watchword among Vatican officials as they attempt to unify and coordinate the Vatican’s wide variety of communications tools - including TV, radio, newspaper, publishing and press office.

Mgr Wells said convergence has already moved ahead, with increased cooperation between Vatican Radio, the Vatican Television Centre and the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. But he said there are much broader and bigger plans to “establish the permanent presence of the Holy See in the world of new media.”

The speech by Mgr Wells was significant in ways unique to the Vatican, and sent important signals. In effect, the US Monsignor was speaking for the Secretariat of State, where he is assessor for general affairs. He left no doubt that media convergence will not simply be a slogan at the Vatican.

In fact, Vatican officials are excited about the next big step in communications: the unveiling of a Vatican multimedia news site. The site will be a one-stop Internet portal for news and features from CTV, Vatican Radio, the Vatican newspaper, the Vatican press office and the missionary news agency Fides.

Officials plan to launch the project this year, perhaps as early as Easter.

When it’s up and running, many expect Vatican Radio to take a leading role in providing content - the latest transformation of an institution that began with a Pope and a microphone.

Caritas head denied new post Vatican announces Pope John Paul II beatification events

BY CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

VATICAN CITY (CNS)Vatican officials have prevented the secretary-general of Caritas Internationalis from seeking a second four-year term.

Lesley-Anne Knight, a British citizen born in Zimbabwe, did not receive the necessary approval, or nihil obstat (“nothing stands in the way”), in January when she submitted her name as a candidate to continue in the position with the Church’s worldwide aid and development organisation.

“The Holy See wants a change in the way it works with Caritas and says this requires a change in the person of the secretary-general,” said a statement released late 18 February by Caritas Internationalis in Rome.

“The Holy See has therefore not granted Mrs Knight the nihil obstat to seek another mandate,” the statement said. The statement said the Vatican had acknowledged “the professional work done and achievements of Mrs Knight.”

Elections for the position of secretary-general and international president, which is held by Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, are set for late May in Rome during Caritas Internationalis’ quadrennial general assembly.

Submitting the names of candidates for the two positions is normally considered routine within the Vatican. However, the Vatican acted to block Knight’s candidacy.

In an attempt to keep Knight’s

candidacy alive, the Caritas Internationalis bureau - Cardinal Rodriguez, Knight, the organisation’s treasurer and seven regional presidents - met on 5 February and asked Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, to discuss the issue, according to the statement.

Although representatives of Cardinal Bertone met several times with Cardinal Rodriguez, bureau representatives or members of the Caritas Internationalis Candidates Committee, the initial decision remained unchanged, the statement said.

“The bureau deeply regrets the decision of the Holy See,” the Caritas statement added. “The bureau thanks Mrs Knight for the professional work, her accomplishments and commitment to Caritas Internationalis. The bureau is very

grateful she will continue until the general assembly.”

The Candidates Committee will begin seeking candidates for the secretary-general position, the statement added.

The Tablet, a British magazine covering the Catholic Church, reported on 18 February that an unidentified official with a Caritas member agency suggested Knight may have been rejected because she had made comments that were “critical of the Vatican machine, has made no secret of it and has failed to be discreet.”

The magazine quoted a second unidentified Caritas source as saying that Vatican officials were concerned that Knight had not done enough to instill a Catholic identity or to develop a sense of evangelisation within Caritas programmes.

Tensions between Caritas and the Vatican have surfaced at times over the years. The Tablet cited difficulties with the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, the Church’s charity-promotion agency. German Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, past president of the council, designated Caritas member Catholic Relief Services to coordinate the Church’s relief efforts in Haiti after the devastating January 2010 earthquake.The Tablet reported that Cardinal Cordes never consulted with Knight or her office before announcing the decision two weeks after the disaster and said Knight made no secret of her displeasure with the choice. A CRS spokesman referred all questions to Caritas Internationalis.

BY CINDY WOODEN

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - The Vatican released a three-day schedule of events for the beatification of Pope John Paul II, and warned against people selling counterfeit tickets to the beatification liturgy, which is free and open to all.

Pope Benedict XVI will preside over the beatification Mass at 10 am on 1 May in St Peter’s Square, the Vatican said. Immediately after Mass, the faithful can pray before Pope John Paul’s mortal remains which will be set in front of the main altar in St Peter’s Basilica.

respects, Fr Lombardi said. The night before the beatification, a prayer vigil will be held in the grassy open space that was the ancient Circus Maximus in Rome, the Vatican said.

“It will be organised by the Diocese of Rome, which had the venerable servant of God as its Bishop,” the note said.

The veneration “will continue until the flow of faithful ends,” it said. Distributing the programme on 18 February, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said the deceased Pope’s remains will be in the casket in which he originally was buried in 2005 and will not be visible.

The casket will be reinterred in the Chapel of St Sebastian on the main level of St Peter’s Basilica in a “private” ceremony, which will occur only after the large crowds have stopped coming to pay their

The morning after the beatification, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, will celebrate a Mass of thanksgiving in St Peter’s Square, the Vatican said. US Archbishop James M Harvey, prefect of the papal household, which organises the non-liturgical side of papal events, also issued a statement on 18 February emphasising the fact that tickets will not be required to attend the beatification.

The Archbishop’s statement, distributed in six languages, said he had been “informed of the existence of unauthorised offers by some tour operators, especially on the Internet,” claiming that for a fee they could help people get tickets to papal events, particularly the beatification Mass.

Lesley-Anne Knight, secretarygeneral of Caritas Internationalis. PHOTO: CNS/PAUL HARING

Pope John Paul II

Pope John XXIII, who led the Catholic Church from 1958 to 1963, is seen visiting Vatican Radio in this undated photo. A special exhibit opened on 10 February at the Vatican Museums celebrating the 80th anniversary of Vatican Radio. PHOTO: CNS/VATICAN RADIO

‘Huge’ drop in AIDS fuelled by abstinence

BY PATRICK B. CRAINE LifeSiteNews.com

HARARE, Zimbabwe (LifeSiteNews.com) – Despite the proliferation of massive condom campaigns in the fight against HIV/ AIDS, another study has shown that the most effective strategy is to promote marital fidelity and sexual responsibility.

The new study from Zimbabwe, where HIV prevalence has dropped 50 per cent since peaking in the late-1990s, found that the success was driven primarily by changes in sexual behaviour, particularly a drop in casual, commercial and extramarital sex.

“In Zimbabwe, as elsewhere, partner reduction appears to have played a crucial role in reversing the HIV epidemic,” wrote Daniel Halperin, PhD, of the Harvard School of Public Health, and colleagues.

The study, published this month at PLoSMedicine.org, was commissioned by the UNFPA and UNAIDS.

The researchers found that the change in behaviour was motivated by fear of the infection, stem-

ming from the country’s high rate of AIDS mortality. They say it was amplified by economic decline because men had less money to pay for sex or to maintain multiple sexual relationships.

While it had been a badge of honour for a man to get an STD in Zimbabwe, it has become embarrassing and shameful, they note.

The researchers suggest that Zimbabwe has been more successful than other African countries in fighting AIDS because it has high levels of marriage and secondary education. Hence, the population was better able to act on AIDS education and prevention programmes, and be more receptive to the “be faithful” messages.

While emphasising the importance of fidelity and sexual responsibility, the paper does support condom use for casual sex.

Dr Edward C Green, president of the New Paradigm Fund and former director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard School of Health, told LifeSiteNews that this paper is simply “further evidence” of his long-held position that “fidelity (sometimes called partner reduction) and to a lesser

extent, by abstinence (or late sexual debut) is what works best in AIDS prevention, especially in Africa.”

He said he also agrees with the paper’s finding that “when people are afraid of getting AIDS, they tend to use their commonsense and curb promiscuous tendencies.”

Dr Green has been a major critic of the AIDS-prevention establishment’s promotion of condoms.

He made headlines in 2009 when he backed Pope Benedict XVI’s argument that condoms actually “increase the problem” of HIV/ AIDS.

“There is a consistent association shown by our best studies, including the US-funded ‘Demographic Health Surveys,’ between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates,” he told National Review Online.

“This may be due in part to a phenomenon known as risk compensation, meaning that when one uses a risk-reduction ‘technology’ such as condoms, one often loses the benefit (reduction in risk) by ‘compensating’ or taking greater chances than one would take without the risk-reduction technology.”

Agencies concerned by African land-grabbing

Bio-fuel demand drives ‘land-grabbing,’ pushing Africans off farmland

BY MARY D URRAN

DAKAR,

Senegal

Representatives of Catholic organisations at the recently concluded World Social Forum said that massive investment in large tracts of land across Africa involving foreign capital - a practice detractors call “land-grabbing” - is pushing small farmers off their land and threatens to lead to another worldwide food crisis.

“Recent massive land grabs targeting tens of millions of acres for the benefit of private interests or third states ... violate human rights by depriving peasants, pastoralists and fishermen of their means of production, by restricting their access to natural resources or by removing their freedom to produce as they wish,’ said a draft statement prepared by delegates at the sixday conference that ended on 11 February.

Among those working on the statement were representatives of Misereor, the German Bishops’ development agency, Caritas Senegal, the Senegal Bishops’ Justice and Peace Commission and the Food First Information and Action Network. The statement was presented to a broad range of civil society groups, which held workshops on the land issues.

Martin Brockelman-Simon, Misereor’s executive director, told workshop participants that it was estimated that up to 48 million arable acres have been bought by interests outside Africa since 2006.

“These deals are causing loss of food supply, social conflicts, depletion of water supplies, loss of jobs and ecological damage,” Brockelman-Simon said.

Workshop participants heard how foreign investors are using fertile or resource-rich African land to grow crops that can be exported to other countries, to cultivate crops for bio-fuel production or for mining interests.

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation statistics also show that since 2007, nearly 50

million acres in Africa have been acquired by foreign interests. In 2009, the UN Conference on Trade and Development noted “significant growth” of the foreign direct investments stock in agriculture since 2000, “particularly in developing countries.”

“Food crops, such as jatropha, that can now be used for agrofuels have become a very valuable commodity,” said Rene Segbenou, president of the Benin-based National Network for Sustainable Management of Genetic Resources. “This is driving the push by foreign investors to buy up more and more land for the production of agrofuels, as this has become a very lucrative business.”

“Any support for agro-fuels amounts to support for landgrabbing,” he said.

The discourse of those seeking investment is that Africa has huge swathes of unused and vacant lands, that can be turned into easy profits, said Ruth Hall, a senior researcher at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies in Cape Town, South Africa.

She described how one company, with offices in London and Johannesburg, offers investments in African land for the production of bio-fuel. The company claims the purchase of the land is socially responsible.

However, Hall disputed the availability of African land, calling it a myth. She said land that appears vacant at times is usually used by tribes or nomadic cattle herders, who need access to land to survive.

“Land-grabbing is very easy in Africa, because only the minority have formal title to land,” Hall explained.

Workshop participants also heard about mining companies interested in land as well. Placide Mukebo, coordinator of the Office of Development in the of Diocese of Lubumbashi, Congo, said that landgrabbing by foreign mining companies is causing an exodus of small farmers to the cities. “The farmers are either forced off the lands, or they agree to go, but they don’t get adequate compensation,” he said.

Mukebo said that of the 51 farming communities the diocese has worked with since 2001, only 17 have not been displaced from their land; of these, only seven hold legal titles.

More access to morning after pill might lead to more STIs

REPORT BY IONA INSTITUTE

EASIER access to the morning after pill has not reduced the number of teenage pregnancies and may be associated with a rise in sexually-transmitted diseases (STIs), according to a report by experts at The University of Nottingham.

Professors David Paton and Sourafel Girma used data from local health authorities to study the effect Government-backed schemes offering the morning after pill at pharmacies without prescription have had on conception rates and the diagnosis of STIs among under18s.

According to their findings, recently published in the Journal of Health Economics, areas operating a pharmacy morning after pill scheme saw an overall increase of five percent in the rate of STIs among teenagers - 12 per cent in the under-16s age group, ScienceDaily reports.

The schemes may actually be

associated with a small increase in the number of teens falling pregnant, the study also said.

Increased access to contraceptives was the lodestone of the last UK Government’s Teenage Pregnancy Strategy which was introduced in 1999 and aimed to halve teenage pregnancy rates by 2010. However, as funding and implementation was devolved to local levels, local health authorities have been able to decide on whether to devote money to increasing access to EBC.

Specifically, since the start of 2000, local authorities in England have been encouraged to introduce schemes that offer the morning after pill free of charge, over the counter at pharmacies to teenagers under the age of 16. Although an increasing number of local authorities have introduced schemes, they have come into force at different times and some have decided against it altogether.

Historically, a number of studies have been conducted looking at the impact of easier access to contra-

ception and legalising abortion and a review of 23 of these reports in 2007 revealed that none found any significant decreases in unwanted pregnancies or abortion rates.

The researchers, economists in the Nottingham University Business School, aimed to test the assumption that providing the morning after pill for free to teenagers could lead to an increase in risky sexual behaviour, potentially leading to an increase of STIs as sexual partners substitute the morning after pill for condoms and cancelling out any benefits from an increase in

the number of people using emergency contraceptives. The study looked at all teenage pregnancies, and two sub-groups of under-18s and under-16s between 1998 and 2004 using data obtained from the Office of National Statistics.

To measure STIs, the researchers used data on the number of diagnoses of the main STIs at genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinics, provided by the Health Protection Agency, in the same age groups (apart from under-18s for which STI data are not available).

These were compared to a control group of women aged over 24, who did not have access to pharmacy schemes which made it easier to access the morning after pill.

The study found that teenage conception rates showed a downward trend from a peak in 1998 (two years before the pharmacy EBC scheme started, a year before the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy) until 2003, followed by a small increase in 2004, just as the EBC scheme reached its peak.

In terms of STIs, rate for teenagers and older women both increased consistently over the period. However, rates among teenagers increased at a faster rate and there is some evidence that the gap with rates among older women widened as the access schemes progressed.

It found that the schemes had no effect in reducing teenage conception rates and even some evidence that pointed to a small increase in the number of pregnancies.

The presence of the scheme in a local health authority was linked to a five per cent increase in STIs in the under-18 age group and a 12 per cent hike in under-16s.

Professor Paton commented, “Our study illustrates how government interventions can sometimes lead to unfortunate unintended consequences. “The fact that STI diagnoses increased in areas with EBC (emergency birth control) schemes will raise questions over whether these schemes represent the best use of public money.”

At the “House for the Dying,” a hospice for AIDS patients and other seriously ill patients run by the Missionaries of Charity in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sister Paula, a Spanish nun, supports a patient in 2009 as she walks.

PHOTO: CNS/PAUL JEFFREY

Irish Archbishop does public penance

BY MICHAEL KELLY

DUBLIN (CNS) - Repenting for the crimes of priestly sex abuse does not mean that the Irish Catholic Church can return to business as usual, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin told abuse survivors during a 20 February prayer service joined by an American Cardinal.

However, seeking forgiveness can be an important step toward healing and overcoming the pain that survivors feel, he added as Cardinal Sean P O’Malley of Boston listened during the “Liturgy of Lament and Repentance” at Dublin’s ProCathedral.

Both prelates offered apologies for the Church’s failure to respond to reports of abuse during the afternoon service attended by 1,000 survivors and their families and supporters.

Many in attendance were visibly moved when Archbishop Martin and Cardinal O’Malley washed the feet of eight survivors as a sign of humility.

“The Archdiocese of Dublin will never be the same again,” Archbishop Martin said. “It will always bear this wound within it. The Archdiocese of Dublin can never rest until the day in which the last victim has found his or her peace and he or she can rejoice in being fully the person that God in His plan wants them to be.”

Cardinal O’Malley was in Dublin conducting an apostolic visitation of the Archdiocese in the wake of a scandal that found Church leaders doing little to investigate abuse claims and working to keep abuse reports under wraps to protect the clergy involved and the Church’s reputation. Other prelates also visited various Irish dioceses and Religious congregations as part of

the visitation. “On behalf of the Holy Father, I ask forgiveness for the sexual abuse of children perpetrated by priests and past failures of the Church’s hierarchy, here and in Rome, the failure to respond appropriately to the problem of

handful of protesters gathered outside insisting they could “neither forgive nor forget” the abuse.

Marie Collins, who was abused as a 12 year old in 1960 and was one of the first survivors in the Archdiocese to go public, told

your disgust will have rejected the Church that you had once loved, but paradoxically your rejection may have helped purify the Church through challenging it to face the truth, to move out of denial, to recognise the evil that was done and

sexual abuse,” Cardinal O’Malley told the congregation in his concluding remarks.

“Publicly atoning for the Church’s failures is an important element of asking the forgiveness of those who have been harmed by priests and Bishops, whose actions - and inactions - gravely harmed the lives of children entrusted to their care,” he said.

Planned principally by survivors, the service began with the two prelates lying prostrate in repentance before a silent congregation. A

Catholic News Service that the ceremony was “to ask God’s forgiveness for sins and crimes of sexual, physical, emotional and spiritual abuse perpetrated in the Catholic Church against the young.”

“Conscious of ourselves as members of the body of Christ, we collectively repent of these great evils,” she said.

Archbishop Martin paid tribute to the survivors who had the courage to raise their voices and not be silenced by the Church.

“Some of you in your hurt and

the hurt that was caused,” he said.

“I, as Archbishop of Dublin and as Diarmuid Martin, stand here in this silence and I ask forgiveness of God and I ask for the first steps of forgiveness from all of the survivors of abuse,” he said.

Excerpts from judicial reports that uncovered the extent of abuse suffered by children in Church-run institutions and parishes were read aloud during the service. The pain still felt by many survivors was on display, not only in the reflections of those involved in the ceremony

but also when proceedings were interrupted on three separate occasions by survivors who wished to share their experiences and sense of betrayal.

Cardinal Desmond Connell, retired Archbishop of Dublin who was heavily criticised in judicial reports for his handling of abuse cases, sat quietly at the back of the Cathedral and heard Archbishop Martin denounce the Church’s response to abuse as “a silence which is a failure of courage and truth.”

Cardinal O’Malley said that during his visit he discovered “there is a window of opportunity for the Church here to respond to the crisis in a way that will build a holier Church that strives to be more humble even as it grows stronger.”

“While we have understandably heard much anger and learned of much suffering, we have also witnessed a sincere desire to strengthen and rebuild the Church here. We have seen that there is a vast resource, a reservoir of faith and a genuine desire to work for reconciliation and renewal,” he said.

Near the end of the service, a “candle of protection” was blessed and lit from the Easter Candle as a sign of hope for the future. It will remain “as a sign for all who worship” in the Cathedral, Archbishop Martin said.

Speaking to CNS after the service, the Archbishop described the event as “very moving.”

“You’d really want to have a hard heart not to be moved by the honesty and dignity of the survivors,” he said.

Cardinal O’Malley told CNS he hoped that his “presence would underline just how seriously the Holy Father is taking the need for healing and renewal in Ireland.”

Writer was attracted by tale of the testing of a sainthood

Religion v science: Writer delves into sainthood process in new book

BY ANDY TELLI

NASHVILLE, Tenn (CNS) - Bill Briggs was at his home in Denver reading a short newspaper article about the Archdiocese of Denver bringing in teams of doctors to investigate a possible miracle in the cure of an infant girl as part of a canonisation cause.

“I was intrigued by priests and doctors in the same room on the same page,” said Briggs, and the possibility of a book began to swirl in his mind.

“I saw an opportunity to apply journalism to the miracle process,” said Briggs, a former reporter for the now closed Nashville Banner and The Denver Post and currently a writer for MSNBC.com. Ingrained in the Catholic Church’s ancient process of recognising and elevating saints are the struggles of faith v reason and religion v science that play out in contemporary culture, Briggs said.

The idea eventually became The Third Miracle: An Ordinary Man, A Medical Mystery and a Trial of Faith (Broadway Books), about the successful canonisation process of St Mother Theodore Guerin, a French nun who in 1840 led a group of Sisters of Providence to the American frontier near Terre Haute, Indiana, to establish a motherhouse, novitiate and a school now known as St Mary-ofthe-Woods College.

Briggs returned to Nashville on 1 February to talk about his book as part of a

firm.

in his home town of Lansing, New York. Briggs is a graduate of St Bonaventure University in western New York.

He went looking for a case to write about and eventually settled on the 2006 canonisation of Mother Theodore.

What decided it for him was the man at the centre of the second miracle attributed to her, which opened the doors to her canonisation once it was confirmed by medical and theological authorities, Briggs said.

Phil McCord was director of facilities management at St Maryof-the-Woods College and Convent when he received a miraculous cure. Troubled by the prospect of undergoing surgery for a cornea transplant, McCord had stopped in the chapel at the school one day and offered a short prayer asking Mother Theodore and God for the strength to go through with the surgery.

After the prayer, he felt a sense of peace, and the next day he noticed his eye had improved.

Eventually, doctors determined that McCord’s eye had completely healed and there was no need for the surgery.

Briggs was intrigued by the case because McCord, an engineer and scientist by nature and training, a non-Catholic and not particularly religious, was troubled by the idea that he had received a miracle and questioned why he was more deserving of a divine cure than others.

“When I read that tension, I thought this might be my narrative,” Briggs said. “Five minutes into my first interview (with McCord), I knew this was the guy.”

“The goal was to carry that

unease from the start of the story to literally the last page,” Briggs said. In the end, McCord was able to come to terms with the miracle, Briggs said.

Briggs spent about nine months in 2008 and 2009 researching the history of the cause for St Theodore Guerin’s sainthood, doing countless interviews and reviewing many Church documents, trying to pull back the curtain on an often secret and little understood process.

Most miracles investigated as part of a canonisation cause involve unexplained medical cures, Briggs said, and as such become a question of science v faith.

Briggs interviewed one Italian doctor who belongs to a team of doctors the Vatican uses to make sure there is no scientific explanation for a possibly miraculous cure, and who told him, “I do this because I’m a doubter.”

Briggs said the process needs a doubter to maintain its credibility and integrity.

The book also looks at other aspects of the canonisation process that some consider controversial, including the cost of pursuing a cause for sainthood and the changes instituted by Pope John Paul II that streamlined the process and led to the canonisation of more than 480 saints during his papacy, far more than any other Pope.

For the Church, saints offer examples of holy lives for people to follow and to give them hope, Briggs said, and miracles are a sign from God that the person is indeed in heaven and interceding on our behalf.

speaker series sponsored by the McNeely Pigott & Fox public relations

He was raised a Catholic and as a child he helped his mother clean All Saints Church every Saturday

Boston Cardinal Sean P O’Malley and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, Ireland lie prostrate before the altar during the “Liturgy of Lament and Repentance” at Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral on 20 February. Repenting for the crimes of priestly sexual abuse does not mean that the Irish Catholic Church can return to business as usual, Archbishop Martin told abuse survivors during the prayer service.

PHOTO: CNS/JOHN MC ELROY

Bill Briggs, a former reporter for the now closed Nashville Banner in Tennessee and The Denver Post, is pictured during a book signing. Briggs has written The Third Miracle: An Ordinary Man, A Medical Mystery and a Trial of Faith about the canonisation process of St Mother Theodore Guerrin and the miracle that opened the doors to her being declared a sainthood cause. PHOTO: CNS

SATURDAY, 26  SUNDAY, 27 FEBRUARY

Live in Retreat

8.30am Saturday until 5pm Sunday at the Redemptorist Monastery, retreat centre, North Perth. Fr Hugh Thomas will talk on The Power of the Word of God. Enq: Monastery 9328 6600, Rita 0422 917 054 or Keith 0411 108 525.

SATURDAY, 26 FEBRUARY

Voice of the Voiceless February Mass

12pm at St Brigid’s Church, 69 Fitzgerald St, Northbridge. Please bring a plate for Fellowship after Mass. Everyone Welcome. Enq: John Sutton, cjsutton@bigpond.net.au.

MONDAY, 28 FEBRUARY

CYM World Youth Day 2011 Pilgrimage Meeting

7.30pm at the Catholic Pastoral Centre, 40A Mary St, Highgate. Meet other pilgrims and get practical preparation tips for Madrid. Join the Perth WYD Pilgrim facebook group. Register online for WYD on www.wydtours.com/ perth. Enq: 9422 7912, www.cym.com.au.

TUESDAY 1 MARCH

Catholic Charismatic Renewal

1–6pm at the Holy Family Church, Thelma St, Como. Healing Prayer and Ministry, conducted by international guests Diana Mascarenhas (India) and Fr Elias Vella (Malta). For emotional and psychological healing. Includes Mass. Admission free but a collection will be taken up. Enq: Dan 9398 4973.

THURSDAY, 3 MARCH

Life in the Spirit Seminar

8pm at 67 Howe St, Osborne Park, Disciples of Jesus Covenant Community Centre. Seminars run for eight weeks. Enq: Mark 0411 246 419 or Dwayne 0417 175 128.

FRIDAY, 4 MARCH

The Alliance, Triumph and Reign of the United Hearts of Jesus and Mary

9pm at St Bernadette’s Church, Glendalough. Commences with the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament; reflections, Rosaries and hymns; alternating with healing sessions. Vigil concludes with midnight Mass in anticipation/preparation for the Lord’s second coming and His Reign on earth. Enq: Fr Harris 9444 6131 or Dorothy 9342 5845.

Pro-life witness

9.30am at St Brigid’s Parish, 69B Morrison Rd, Midland. Holy Mass followed by Rosary procession and prayer vigil at nearby abortion clinic. Spiritual leader: Fr Sharbel of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. Come and pray for the conversion of hearts and an end to abortion. Enq. Helen 9402 0349.

SATURDAY, 5 MARCH

Day With Mary

9am-5pm at Queen of Martyrs Church, 77 Seventh Ave, Maylands. 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.

Women’s Day of Recollection

8.40am at St Paul’s Parish Centre, 104 Rookwood St, Mt Lawley. Rosary 8.40am followed at 9am by first Saturday Mass, optional, 9.30am tea. 10am talk on Women of the Bible presented by Fr Tim Deeter, followed by discussions, lunch, Holy Hour and Benediction. RSVP essential to catholicwomen.perth@gmail.com or Lydia 0413 993 987 by 23 February.

40 Days for Life Consecration

8.30am at St Augustine’s Church, Gladstone St, Rivervale. Holy Mass will be offered for an end to abortion. Celebrant: Fr Paul Carey. Rosary procession and prayer vigil to the nearby abortion clinic will follow. Enq: Helen 94020349.

SUNDAY, 6 MARCH

Divine Mercy

1.30pm at St Francis Xavier Church, 25 Windsor St, Perth. Homily on St John of the Cross by Fr Doug Harris. Enq: John 9457 7771.

Official Launch of Project Compassion 2011 9.30am Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral, Victoria Sq, Perth. Caritas Australia. Celebrant: Archbishop Hickey. Enq: Caritas office 9422 7925.

TUESDAY, 8 MARCH

Pancakes for Poverty

12 noon-1pm at the Seminar Room of the Catholic

Pastoral Centre, 40A Mary Street, Highgate. Speaker: Ann Fairhead, Caritas Australia Acting Regional Coordinator WA. All welcome. Cost: Donation. RSVP by Thursday, 3 March. Enq: Caritas office 9422 7925, perth@caritas. org.au.

FRIDAY, 11 MARCH

Alan Ames Healing Service

7pm at St Bernadette’s Catholic Church, Jugan St, Glendalough. Mass followed by talk and Healing Service. Enq: Katherine carver1@iinet.net.au.

SATURDAY, 12 MARCH

St Padre Pio Day of Prayer

8.30am at St Joachim Parish, Shepperton Rd, Victoria Park. Programme includes 11am Holy Mass, Adoration, Divine mercy and Rosary. Bring a plate to share for lunch. Enq: Des 6278 1540.

SUNDAY, 13 MARCH

Triennial WA Regional Elections of the Secular Franciscan Order

10am at Edel Quinn Centre, 36 Windsor St, East Perth. Includes Mass at 2.30pm. Please bring a plate for shared lunch. Enq: Michael 9275 5658.

FRIDAY, 25 TO SUNDAY, 27 MARCH

Retreat

2pm at ‘God’s Farm’, 94 Woolands Rd, Wilyabaup. Concludes on Sunday at 2pm. “Celebrating Eucharist - Source and Nourishment for our Christian life.” Spiritual leader: Fr Tony. Retreat includes daily Mass, Reconciliation, Adoration and prayers. Enq: Betty 9755 6212, PO Box 24 Cowaramup 6284.

WEDNESDAY, 2 MARCH AND WEDNESDAY, 16

MARCH

Auditions for new Church choir

7pm at St Paul’s Catholic Church, 106 Rookwood St, Mt Lawley. Singing a varied repertoire of old and new church music, once monthly at 6pm Saturday Mass. Ability to read music is desirable. Enq: Chloë 0417 712 027, chloe. piper@gmail.com.

SATURDAY, 12 MARCH

Divine Mercy Healing Mass

2.30pm at St Francis Xavier’s Church, Windsor St, East Perth. Main celebrant will be Fr Dennis O’Brien. Divine Mercy prayers followed by veneration of First class Relic of St Faustina Kowalska. Prayers for vocations and an end to abortion throughout the world. Reconciliation offered in English. Refreshments available. Enq: John 9457 7771.

TUESDAY, 15 MARCH

The Great Adventure by Jeff Cavins

7.30pm at the Redemptorist Monastery. A 24-week DVD series on the Bible timeline. Enq: Fr Hugh Thomas 9328 6600 or Gertrude 0411 262 221 or Keith 0411 108 525.

SATURDAY, 19 MARCH

Peace Vigil

6pm-9pm at 190 Vincent St, North Perth, Redemptorist Monastery. Prayer for peace in families and world - 20 min sessions followed by 10 min silence and lighting of votive candles. Supper provided. Everyone welcome. Enq: Fran franell@iprimus.com.au.

Reunion for St Joseph’s Girls Orphanage 11am outside The West Australian Museum at the memorial for Forgotten Australians site. Please bring any photos and memorabilia you might have. BYO lunch. Family members welcomed. Enq: Ann 9349 3424, Rita 9242 7766, Lynette 9453 2211.

FRIDAY, 1 APRIL

Catholic Faith Renewal Evening - Change of Date 7.30pm at St John Paul Parish, 5 Ingham Ct, Willetton. Evening will no longer be on 4 March due to the Ordinations. Enq: Kathy 9295 0913 or Ann 0412 166 164, catholicfaithrenewal@gmail.com.

SUNDAY, 1 MAY

Centenary of Kellerberrin Parish 11am at St Joseph’s parish, Kellerberrin. All present and past parishioners are invited to the parish Centenary celebrations. Mass celebrated by His Grace, Archbishop Barry James Hickey, followed by a catered luncheon at the Kellerberrin Shire Hall. RSVP by Saturday, 2 April for catering purposes to Christine Laird 9045 4235 or fax 9045 4602, or Audrey Tiller 9045 4021, or stmary@ westnet.com.au.

2011 Busselton Rosary Celebration

12.30pm at Queen of the Holy Rosary Shrine, ‘Bove’s Farm’, Roy Rd, Jindong, Busselton. Celebrant: Bishop Gerard Holohan. Mass followed by Rosary Procession and Benediction. Tea provided. All welcome. Enq: Francis 0404 893 877 or 9459 3873.

EVERY SUNDAY

Gate of Heaven Catholic Radio

Join the Franciscans of the Immaculate every Sunday from 7.30-9pm on Radio Fremantle 107.9FM for Catholic radio broadcast of EWTN and our own live shows. Enq: radio@ausmaria.com.

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 FIRST SUNDAY

Divine Mercy Chaplet and Healing Prayer

3pm at 72 Palmerston St, Bentley, Santa Clara Church. Includes Adoration and individual prayer for healing. Spiritual leader: Fr Francisco. All welcome. Enq: Fr Francisco 9458 2944.

THIRD SUNDAY OF THE MONTH

Oblates of St Benedict

2pm at St Joseph’s Convent, York St, South Perth. Oblates are affiliated with the Benedictine Abbey of New Norcia. All welcome to study the rule of St Benedict and its relevance to the everyday life of today for lay people. Vespers and tea later. Enq: Secretary 9457 5758.

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 presents 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

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.

Spirituality and The Sunday Gospels

7-8pm at St Benedict’s school hall, Alness St, Applecross. The power of the Gospel message; How can we live meaningful and hope-filled lives? Presented by Norma Woodcock. Donation for The Centre for Catholic Spiritual Development & Prayer. Enq: 9487 1772 or www.normawoodcock.com.

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: 0423 907 869 or hsofperth@gmail.com.

Holy Hour at Catholic Youth Ministry

5.30pm Mass and 6.30pm Holy Hour (Adoration) at the Catholic Pastoral Centre, 40A Mary St, Highgate. $5 supper and fellowship after Holy Hour. Enq: www.cym.com. au or call 9422 7912.

SECOND WEDNESDAY OF THE MONTH

Chaplets of the Divine Mercy

7.30pm at St Thomas More Church, Dean Rd, Bateman. Chaplet will be accompanied by Exposition followed by Benediction. Monthly event. All welcome. Enq: George 9310 9493 or 9325 2010 (w).

EVERY THURSDAY

Divine Mercy

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

Father Corapi’s Catechism of the Catholic Church

7.30pm at St Joseph Church, 20 Hamilton St, Bassendean - Parish Library, Enq: Catherine 9329 2691.

St Mary’s Cathedral Praise Meeting

7.45pm at St Joseph’s Church, Upper Room, 3 Salvado Rd, Subiaco. ‘Stepping Out in Radical Holiness’ – Flame Ministries International. Come along to continue to discover how to become equipped and empowered to live God’s word in these troubled times. Enq: Eddie 9382 3668.

EVERY FIRST THURSDAY OF THE MONTH

Taize Prayer and Meditation

7.30-8.30pm at Our Lady of Grace Church, 3 Kitchener St, North Beach. Prayer and meditation using songs from the Taize phenomenon. In peace and candlelight we make our pilgrimage. All are invited. Enq: Joan 9448 4457 or Office 9448 4888.

FIRST FRIDAY OF THE MONTH

Holy Hour for Vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life

7pm at Little Sisters of the Poor Chapel, 2 Rawlins St, Glendalough. Mass, followed by Adoration with Fr Doug Harris. All welcome. Refreshments provided.

Catholic Faith Renewal Evening

7.30pm at Sts John and Paul’s parish, Pinetree Gully Rd, Willetton. Songs of Praise, sharing by a priest followed by Thanksgiving Mass and light refreshments after Mass. All welcome to attend and bring your family and friends. Enq: Kathy 9295 0913, Ann: 0412 166 164 or catholicfaithrenewal@gmail.com.

Communion of Reparation All Night Vigils

7pm-1.30am at Corpus Christi Church, Lochee St, Mosman Park. Enq: Vicky 0400 282 357 and at St Gerard Majella Church, Ravenswood Dr and Majella Rd, Mirrabooka, Enq: Fr Giosue 9349 2315, John or Joy 9344 2609. The Vigils consist of two Masses, Adoration, Benediction, Prayers and Confession in reparation for the outrages committed against the United Hearts of Jesus and Mary. All welcome.

Healing Mass

7pm at St Peter’s parish, Wood St, Inglewood. Reconciliation, praise and worship, Exposition of Blessed Sacrament, Benediction, Anointing of the Sick, and special blessing. Celebrants Fr Sam and other clergy. All welcome. Enq: Priscilla 0433 457 352, Catherine 0433 923 083 or Mary-Ann 0409 672 304.

Healing and Anointing Mass

8.45am at Pater Noster, Myaree. Reconciliation, followed by Mass including Anointing of the Sick, Praise and Worship to St Peregrine and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. All welcome. Enq: Joy 9337 7189.

PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND

St Peter’s parish in Inglewood is organising a visit to Jordan, Israel and Egypt from 13-26 March 2011. The pilgrimage will cost A$3,990, everything included. Fr Sam will be the Spiritual Director. Eng Jim 0411 61 5239, zawnaing@optusnet.com.au.

PILGRIMAGE TO PRAGUE, POLAND AND AUSTRIA

St Jude’s parish, Langford is organising a 13-day pilgrimage departing 1 October. Pilgrimage will include visits to the Shrines of Divine Mercy, Infant Jesus, the Black Madonna, St Faustina, the birthplace of Pope John Paul II and the Museum at Auschwitz. Total cost per person $5,800. The Spiritual Director, Fr Terry Raj. Enq: Co-ordinator John Murphy 9457 7771, Matt 6460 6877 mattpicc1@gmail.com.

ACROSS

1 Daniel was in this animalʼs den

4 The priesthood is this level of Holy Orders

8 NT book

9 The Pharisee was surprised to notice that Jesus did not do this (Lk 11:38)

10 Holy object

12 What we are forbidden to do by

18 Pertaining to Scripture

22 Heroic St Bernard animal

24 Father of Cain 25 Monksʼ cowls

26 The golden ___ 28 “Thou shalt ___…”

29 Paul asked to stay in his guestroom

30 Animal of sacrifice in the Old Testament

32 Paul wrote him a letter

33 Council of ___

35 Symbol of the Holy Spirit

36 Judah, for example

37 “…your Father in heaven give ___ things to those who ask him!” (Mt 7:11)

38 Diocese of Honolulu necklaces

39 Departure from Egypt

40 Our ___ of Fatima

DOWN

2 “Here am I; send me!” speaker (Is 6:8)

3 OT hist book

4 Any place used in the veneration of a saint

5 Monkʼs room

6 Husband of Queen Jezebel

7 Prayer ender

11 Samuelʼs mentor

12 David or Solomon

13 Easter flower

15 There was none at the inn

16 They were created on the fifth day

19 Jacobʼs gift to Joseph

20 “For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their ___?” (Mt 16:26)

21 Biblical instrument

22 Catholic Surrealist painter

23 Pope of the 7th century

26 Catholic singer of “Catch a Falling Star”

27 “Eternal ___ grant unto them”

28 Holy ___ Society

30 Jordan and the Nile

31 ___ of Turin

32 OT hist book

33 “…and there was no one to ___ the ground” (Gn 2:5)

34 Opposite or absence of good

35 “…He suffered, ___ and was buried”

37 NT epistle

LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION

The Record

The Parish. The Nation. The World

WALK WITH HIM

27 S 8th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Isa 49:14-15 God never forgets you

Ps 61:2-3, 6-9 Be at rest in God

1 Cor 4: 1-5 Intentions revealed Mt 6:24-34 Two masters?

28 M Sir 17:24-29 Give glory to God

Ps 31:1-2, 5-7 The Lord forgives us

Mk 10:17-27 Kingdom hard to enter

1 Tu Sir 35:1-12 Honour the Lord

Gr Ps 49:5-8, 14, 23 God is the judge

Mk 10:28-31 Cost of following Jesus

2 W Sir 36:1, 4-5, 10-17 The Lord is God

Ps 78:8-9, 11, 13 Rescue us!

Mk 10:32-45 Greatness in serving

3 Th Sir 42:15-25 God sees all

Gr Ps 32:2-9 All to revere God

Mk 10:46-52 Saving faith

4 F St Casimir (O)

Gr Sir 44:1, 9-13 Unfading glory

Ps 149: 1-6, 9 Sing a new song!

Mk 11:11-26 A house of prayer

5 S Sir 51:12-20 The gift of Wisdom

Gir Ps 18:8-11 Trust God’s rule

Mk 11:27-33 Authority questioned

LAWN MOWING

WRR LAWN MOWING & WEED

SPRAYING Garden clean ups and rubbish removal. Get rid of bindii, jojo and other unsightly weeds. Based in Tuart Hill. Enq 9443 9243 or 0402 326 637.

OPPORTUNITIES

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

Work from Home - P/T or F/T, 02 8230 0290 or visit www.dreamlife1.com.

A NEW CHURCH CHOIR

Varied repertoire – old and new. Rehearsals every other Wednesday, 7-8.30 pm. Singing Saturday 6pm Mass once a month. Auditions Wed, 2 or 16 March, 7–830 pm. Ability to read music preferred. St Paul’s Catholic Church 106 Rookwood St Mt Lawley Contact: Chloë – 0417 712 027, chloe.piper@gmail.com.

COOK WANTED

Nursing home in North Perth is seeking a mature person to provide home-style cooking two mornings per week. Experience cooking for the elderly is desirable. For further information, please ring 0431 08 2364.

CATHOLIC CHARISMATIC RENEWAL – Psycho-Spiritual

Workshop and Healing Mass Workshop 9am– 5pm, conducted by international guests Diana Mascarenhas (India) and Fr Elias Vella (Malta). Participants learn to minister to our emotionally, spiritually and psychologically wounded brethren. Cost $20. Bring your own lunch. Healing Mass at 7.30pm. Holy Family Church, Thelma St, Como. Queries to Dan 9398 4973.

SCAFFOLDER SUPERVISOR

$$$

Based in Swan Valley. Must have sound knowledge of residential A Frame Scaffolding. Ph 9296 3560.

COOK PART TME REQUIRED FOR A CATHOLIC MONASTERY

25 hours per week (Monday to Friday). Enquiries to Fr J Carroll or Bernadette on 9328 6600.

Deadline: 11am Monday

ACCOMMODATION

HOLIDAY ACCOMMODATION

ESPERANCE 3 bedroom house f/furnished Ph 09 9076 5083.

TRADE SERVICES

BRENDON HANDYMAN

SERVICES Home, building maintenance, repairs and renovations. NOR. Ph 0427 539 588.

BRICK RE-POINTING

Ph Nigel 9242 2952.

PERROTT PAINTING Pty Ltd

For all your residential, commercial painting requirements. Ph Tom Perrott 9444 1200.

PICASSO PAINTING Top service. Ph 0419 915 836, fax 9345 0505.

PILGRIMAGES/TOURS

1 Visit to Vietnam and Cambodia (17 days)

Mon, 9 - Wed, 25 May 2011(Cost: AU$4,600 per person twin share (24 pax)

2 Pilgrimage to Jordan/Holy Land/Egypt (12 days)

Tue, 7 - Sat, 18 June 2011

3 Pilgrimage to Prague/ Poland/Vienna (13 days) Sat, 1 - Thu, 13 October 2011 (30 pax)

4 Pilgrimage to Jordan/Holy Land/Egypt (12 days)

Fri, 11 - Tue, 22 November 2011 (special for senior card holders)

40 pax

5 Pilgrimage to Jordan/Holy Land/Egypt (12 days)

Sun, 18 - Tue, 29 March 2012 (special for senior card holders)

40 pax For itinerary and enq: Francis Williams (Coordinator)

T: 9459 3873 (after 4pm)

Mob: 0404 893 877

CRUISE ON THE RIVER NILEFri, 8 - Wed, 21 September 2011

Tour/Sightseeing of Jordan and Egypt

14 Day Package. Cost: AU$4,900 per person twin share Accompanying Priest: Fr Joe Carroll from the Redemptorist Monastery, Perth For more information/Itinerary, contact Fadua (T: 9459 3873 M: 0404 893 877).

SETTLEMENTS

ARE YOU BUYING OR SELLING

real estate or a business? Why not ask Excel Settlements for a quote for your settlement. We offer reasonable fees, excellent service and no hidden costs. Ring Excel on 9481 4499 for a quote. Check our web site on www.excelsettlements.com.

FOR SALE

FOR SALE CHEAP and various Catholic/Protestant Books - new/ secondhand - 9440 4358.

BOOK BINDING

NEW BOOK BINDING, General Book Repairs; Rebinding; New Ribbons; Old Leather Bindings Restored.

Tydewi Bindery 0422 968 572.

FURNITURE REMOVAL

ALL AREAS. Competitive Rates. Mike Murphy Ph 0416 226 434.

RELIGIOUS PRODUCTS

CATHOLICS CORNER Retailer of Catholic products specialising in gifts, cards and apparel for Baptism, Communion and Confirmation. Ph 9456 1777. Shop 12, 64-66 Bannister Rd, Canning Vale. Open Mon-Sat.

RICH HARVEST YOUR

CHRISTIAN SHOP Looking for Bibles, CDs, books, cards, gifts, statues, Baptism/Communion apparel, religious vestments, etc? Visit us at 39 Hulme Ct (off McCoy St), Myaree, Ph 9329 9889 (after 10.30am Mon to Sat). We are here to serve.

KINLAR VESTMENTS

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

OTTIMO Convenient location for Bibles, books, cards CD/DVDs, candles, medals, statues and gifts at Shop 41, Station St Market, Subiaco. Fri-Sun 9-5pm.