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A Federal Government report on human cloning and the creation of human embryos for destructive experimental purposes has been categorically condemned by Cardinal George Pell in a lengthy public statement.
The Lockhart report, commissioned by the Federal Minister for Ageing, Julie Bishop, and released just before Christmas, reviews the laws governing the scientific creation of human embryos in Australia. The report recommends allowing human cloning and embryo research, with certain restrictions. The recommendations will be discussed by Federal and State Governments at the upcoming Premier’s Conference in February.
Cardinal Pell said that the findings of the Lockhart report are “out of step with human values.”
The report “points the way to a destructive dead-end and provides no compelling reason for parliament to change the existing laws,” he said.
“We call on the Australian community and its legislators to reject it.”
Cardinal Pell questioned the honesty of the Lockhart committee’s findings, saying it is unusual for an eminent group of specialists to seriously propose re-defining the meaning of the human embryo.
“This has been done for the sole purpose of expanding experimental destruction of early human life for dubious medical purposes,” he said.
Continued on Page 2
SBS confirms it will screen offensive satire
EXCLUSIVE By Paul Gray
SBS Television has confirmed to The Record that it will broadcast the controversial “Bloody Mary” episode of satirical TV show South Park on March 6, 2006.
Continued on Page 3
Archbishop Barry Hickey has announced several clergy appointments for the archdiocese to take effect from Christmas through to February.
Father Brian McKenna will move from Cloverdale Parish at the end of January to a full-time ministry in Spiritual Direction in the newly established Centre for Spirituality of the Archdiocese of Perth. He will be residing in Rivervale Parish. Fr Philip Fleay CM has been appoint-
a friend of President George W. Bush, Pope Benedict XVI, one of the most highlyrespected converts to join the Church in recent times - and who is a Catholic priest.
Pages 5-6
ed Parish Priest of Notre Dame Parish, Cloverdale, from the first week of February 2006.
Fr Eamon McKenna will retire from the Parish of Rivervale in January 2006.
The Administrator of the Parish of St Augustine, Rivervale, will be Fr André Nahas.
Fr Eugene McGrath, Parish Priest of Belmont/Redcliffe, will continue with the pastoral work of the Parish and delegate the parish
administration to Fr Andre Nahas in February 2006. Fr Nahas will live at Belmont with Fr McGrath.
Fr Brandon Crawford will no longer go to Applecross as Assistant Priest. He has been appointed fulltime to the Army Chaplaincy, to take effect from February 2006.
Fr Paul Baczynski , Priest in Charge of East Fremantle has been appointed Parish Priest of Immaculate Conception Parish, East Fremantle from December
25 2005. Fr MC Arulraj, Priest in Charge of Midland parish, has been appointed Parish Priest of St Brigid’s Parish from December 25 2005.
Fr John Cranley OMI, having completed a period of administration of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, Lesmurdie, has now been appointed Assistant Priest from 28 January 2006.
Fr John McGinty OMI is appointed Parish Priest of Lesmurdie from the same date.
Archbishop Hickey’s message to the people of Perth for the New Year is inspired by his visit to Africa with new priests Fr Asabe from Kenya and Fr Nweke from Nigeria
The Salvatorian Order has opened the third seminary in Western Australia, with one student making his first profession of vows on December 8.
The seminary was officially opened on the same day and is located at the Australian Salvatorian residence in Currambine.
Rector Fr Adam Babinski told The Record that students will attend Notre Dame University, while spiritual and human formation will be connected with the two existing seminaries.
Michael Cornell, 19, professed his vows at St Lawrence’s Parish Balcatta after recently finishing his one-year novitiate.
His grandmother and three sisters came over from Sydney for the occasion, and also saw him
receive the habit the day before his first profession. Mr Cornell said his novitiate year had been an extremely good time to concentrate on his vocation.
“I was in an enclosed environment, with little or no outside distractions,” he said.
“It has been the only time I have had a whole year to focus on God,” Michael said.
Much of his novitiate year was also spent doing manual labour, in combination with his prayer life – gardening, cleaning and painting.
“It was a big change from normal life,” Michael said.
“It wasn’t always easy but it was definitely a growth experience.”
The eldest of five children from Sydney, Michael told The Record that he discovered the Salvatorians through his grandmother.
After completing his Higher School Certificate studies, Michael
said his calling to the priesthood was very clear.
“It was the best decision for me,” he said.
“If you’ve got the vocation you’ve got to follow it.”
Michael says it was his mother, who died nine years ago from cancer when he was 10, who gave him the basics of his faith.
“She was a wonderful role model for me, and accepted her condition,” he said.
“To see someone experience what she did and not complain touched me deeply.”
However, Michael doesn’t believe that he is missing out on the typical experiences of other young men his age.
“Religious life is best when you’re mature enough but also young,” he said. Michael will be commencing his studies in Theology at Notre Dame next year.
Continued from page 1
It is not permissible to try to overcome the lack of community support for creating human embryos for non-reproductive purposes by changing the definition of the embryo, Cardinal Pell added.
“We hope the report has not been written with this as a predetermined objective.”
The Cardinal said that under existing legislation, a stock of living human beings has been created for artificial reproductive purposes, and designated as biological material for research. “This is bad
enough,” he said. “But the Lockhart report urges us to push beyond this limit established by parliament to the even more objectionable stage of manufacturing a specific sub-class of living human beings solely for use as research material.”
Abhorrent and currently prohibited practices would become possible if the committee’s recommendations are accepted, the Cardinal said. These would include the crossing of humans and animals, human cloning, the developing of an embryo from an unfertilised egg (parthenogenesis,) cloning using human genetic material and animal eggs
and combining the genetic material of more than two different people.
Cardinal Pell argued that there is a strange logic at work in the Lockhart report which would prohibit cloning when it is reproductive but allow it when it is destructive.
In fact, all human cloning is reproductive because it creates new human life.
“It is never ‘therapeutic’ to destroy human life, and creating human life for the sole purpose of killing for disputed scientific reasons makes a mockery of the therapeutic purpose of medical science,” he said.
The Cardinal added that after
expending millions of dollars and destroying an unknown number of human embryos, cloning and embryonic stem cell research had not yet delivered any treatments for human diseases.
This contrasts with the record of work with human stem cells taken from living adults and children, which “has repeatedly yielded good results for treatment.”
Cardinal Pell added that studies have shown 85 per cent of Australians consider human cloning to be unacceptable.
The CEO of Catholic Health Care Australia, Mr Francis Sullivan,
said that the Lockhart committee’s review would “provide great succour” to some elements within the scientific community, and to those determined to “spin a socially acceptable line” on human embryo experimentation.
“Yet the review undermines the inherent dignity of human embryos and opens them to a research world previously the precinct of animals,” Mr Sullivan said.
The Lockhart report was also condemned by the President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Francis Carroll.
The Australian bishops have confirmed their Common Marriage Policy for all dioceses throughout Australia, after a review which has led to a revised text.
The decision, approved at a plenary meeting of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference last month, follows several years of discussion about the best way to help engaged couples as they approach the sacrament of marriage.
“The key thing in this decision is a common commitment to a thorough preparation for marriage,” the chair of the bishops’ committee for the family and for life, Bishop Eugene Hurley told The Record Bishop Hurley described the Common Marriage Policy as an effort by the bishops to respond to the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.
It is also a response to Pope John Paul II’s 1981 Apostolic Exhortation on the family, Familiaris Consortio, where the Pope “talked of the sacrament of marriage, and of remote,
proximate and immediate preparation for marriage,” Bishop Hurley said.
“The Australian Catholic bishops wanted to highlight the importance of proper preparation, for the good health of relationships, and therefore of families.”
Rather than being viewed as strict guidelines which must be followed by every diocese, the policy provides “suggestions around programs” which individual dioceses may find useful, Bishop Hurley said.
‘There are some internationally well-regarded marriage preparation programs, as well as other local programs which individual dioceses will be aware of.”
Asked for an example of one of the well-regarded programs, Bishop Hurley mentioned the FOCCUS program developed by Sister Barbara Markey in the United States, which is “specifically Catholic.”
Such programs would be mentioned by the bishops as suggestions for programs for possible use by dioceses, rather than recommendations, Bishop Hurley said.
On the question of couples being made aware of Church teachings before they marry, Bishop Hurley said there should be a “comprehensive” coverage of these teachings.
Asked which aspects of Church teaching in particular should be
Continued from page 1
The episode’s storyline involves a statue of the Virgin Mary which emits blood from a bodily orifice. Pope Benedict XVI is also caricatured in the program, by being shown speaking lines about menstruation and women bleeding.
The confirmation that the “Bloody Mary” episode of South Park will receive national TV screening on free-to-air television in Australia comes after dismay was expressed by Catholics in America over the episode’s contents.
The President of the US Catholic bishops conference, Bishop William Skylstad, wrote to the programmakers’ parent company, Viacom International, saying “it is hard to imagine where you would draw the line, given this offensive programming.”
The program was broadcast in America on cable TV channel Comedy Central in the lead-up to Christmas.
SBS confirmed to The Record that the episode will be aired nationwide here despite the controversy in America.
“SBS will be screening it,” said an SBS publicist, who had not seen the episode himself. “We will screen it with a warning and it will be suitably classified by our classification area.
“South Park does tend to attack all religions, all social institutions, and all political institutions equally,” the publicist said. It appears to now be the turn of the Catholic religion to receive the attention of South Park’s satirists, he added.
“There have been many controversial South Park episodes and it has been going for quite a while. It’s created a lot of media interest over the years.
“We will send out copies of the program for preview, and it will
covered, Bishop Hurley said: “All aspects.” In their official release after last month’s plenary meeting, the bishops’ conference stated that the Common Marriage Policy “fosters a
be written about in newspapers before it screens. People will have the option, ultimately, of whether they choose to watch a cartoon on that topic, or not.
“Certainly we believe it’s up to the individual to choose what and when they watch on television, and with the warnings that we give for the program, that’s basically all that we can do.”
On behalf of the American bishops, Bishop Skylstad wrote to the president and chief executive of Viacom International, Tom Freston,
saying that the program was particularly offensive “at a time of year when the Blessed Mother is most commemorated and honoured by millions of Christians, including Catholics.
“While artists have the right to freedom of expression, you also have the right and responsibility to exercise some discernment so that your organisation is not associated with material that grievously and gratuitously offends the sensitivities of large numbers of your viewers,” the Bishop said.
uniform approach to pre-marriage education in Australia.”
It said that following a review, the Committee had endorsed a revised text “and commended it to bishops
for application within their dioceses.”
The document is to be published on the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference website.
The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights also took Viacom International to task over the episode, asking for a formal apology from the company.
In a media release, the League’s President Bill Donohue called on Joseph A. Califano Jr, a “distinguished public servant and practising Catholic” who sits on the Viacom board, to push for a response from the company. Mr Califano then released his own statement saying
that he had viewed the segment and “found it an appalling and disgusting portrayal of the Virgin Mary.”
He had also personally asked Mr Freston to review the show and determine whether any action should be taken. “That decision is his,” Mr Califano said.
The Catholic League has asked Viacom to “permanently retire” the Bloody Mary episode by refusing to release it for commercial sale on DVD.
■ By Jamie O’Brien
Acheque of more than $3500 was presented to Archbishop Hickey recently by the Fulton J Sheen Society to assist with the Archbishop’s televised weekly comment on Channel 9.
The cheque was presented to the Archbishop during a concert at Trinity College in the presence of more than 400 people. The Archbishop and a number of other musicians sang for the concert dubbed the Sheen Christmas Concert.
The Society also presented a further $500 to Fr
A Ukrainian-American family that welcomed its 17th child on December 7 may be the largest in the USA, says the Russian language paper, The Speaker Vladimir and Zynaida Chernenko emigrated from Ukraine seven years ago and settled in California.
The Christian couple admit that the work and financial dif-
Francis Gaciata, from Meru, Kenya who runs a support group for victims of rape known as Acts of Mercy, which has been assisting more than 200 mothers in Africa.
The Archbishop was the principal vocal act at the concert, and sang a number of songs including Ye Banks and Braes, Tu est Sacerodos and I know that my Redeemer Lives
Other performances at the concert included local all-male vocal group Quartessence, who sang works by Palestrina and Rubbra.
Other local musicians who performed on the night included Paul Wright, Myroslav Gutej and June Glen.
ficulties of raising their large family can be daunting.
But they overcome fear with “love and a big heart”, says Vladimir, a security and maintenance worker for a charter school.
The Chernenko’s eldest child is now 22, and the older ones share responsibility for the younger ones.
Says 18-year-old Dimitry, “I talk to my friends and they are worried their family has
only one child or two. They go home to nothing. I come home from school and I’m never bored. You always have something to do.”
The parents plan it that way.
“Our goal is to raise the children so when they grow up they will not be afraid of anything in life,” Zynaida says.
“I think if every family approaches it that way, we will have a very healthy society.”
- FamilyEdge e-newsletter
■ By
Paul GrayThe issue of hotel trading hours has been raised by Cardinal Pell in response to the riots on Cronulla two weekends before Christmas.
Cardinal
The Cronulla riots prompted nationwide fears about the rise of ethnic and religious violence in Australia. But in a calmer assessment published in the secular Sunday Telegraph newspaper last weekend, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Sydney identified factors other than religion and race as requiring the attention of public authorities.
Alcohol was one of these.
“The trouble at Cronulla came late in the day, after a lot of alcohol had been consumed,” Cardinal Pell wrote.
He praised new state legislation in NSW passed a few days after the
Cronulla violence which gives police the power to ban alcohol sales. However, he said this step “throws light on the [same] Government’s strange decision to extend hotel trading hours.”
There is no public demand in NSW for this extension of hotel trading hours, the Cardinal said, expressing hope there would be a re-think on the issue.
The Cardinal also highlighted the fact that most Lebanese in Australia are Maronite Christians.
“Prejudice against all Lebanese or all Anglos is as unjustified as prejudice against all Muslims,” he said. “The few law-breakers in any group should be identified and punished, and we should forget the stereotyping.”
Mr Joseph Wakim, a founding member of the Australian Arabic Council, also identified alcohol as a factor in the riots.
“An amber-tinted beer bottle is a prism in which anyone of Middle Eastern appearance becomes a stereotype,” Mr Wakim wrote in the secular press.
“Those of Lebanese descent with blue eyes, blonde hair and a pale complexion would presumably be overlooked. But Jewish, Maltese, Sicilian or Brazilian innocents, regardless of religion, might be targets.”
C ardinal George Pell has paid special tribute to the late Archbishop Eric D’Arcy, the philosopher and former Archbishop of Hobart who was buried in the grounds of Hobart’s St Mary’s Cathedral this week.
“Archbishop D’Arcy was a dear friend and a great mentor of mine,” Cardinal Pell told The Record. “I admired him as a priest and as a bishop.”
“He was a particularly significant philosopher,” Cardinal Pell said. “The Dean of Philosophy at the Gregorian University in Rome once told me that Eric D’Arcy was a more significant
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philosopher than Karol Wojtyla was, before he became Pope.”
Before he was made Archbishop, Dr D’Arcy taught philosophy at the University of Melbourne for 20 years.
Archbishop D’Arcy was also a good friend of the present Pope, Benedict XVI, Cardinal Pell said. “They shared many of the same theological positions,” the Cardinal added.
Although many Catholics in Australia would have been unaware of Archbishop D’Arcy’s international stature, his influence was strongly felt in lasting works such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
In the 1990s, Archbishop D’Arcy was asked by the Vatican to help finalise the English translation of the Catechism.
Cardinal Pell said that the late Archbishop wrote elegant and beautiful English. “Many of the statements of the Australian bishops were better because of his input.”
Join Pope Benedict XVI in prayerDecember
“For all men and women: may they come to an ever deeper understanding of their dignity, granted them by the Creator in his plan.”
Mission intention: “For people all over the world searching for God and truth: may they encounter the Lord Jesus.”
Pope John Paul II could be made a saint in record time after a nun said she was cured from cancer after praying to him.
The unnamed French sister made a sudden and complete recovery from the terminal illness in October after members of her community prayed to the Polish Pope that she might be healed.
If approved, the miracle could mean that John Paul, who created more saints than any Pope in history, may be beatified as early as next year.
In keeping with Vatican rules, the identity of the nun is not being revealed while her case is under investigation by doctors to see if there is a medical explanation for her recovery. But one Vatican official, who did not want to be named, said: “Doctors have not been able to provide a medical reason for her cure.”
If a miracle is confirmed the way will be clear for John Paul’s beatification, when he will be made “Blessed”. A further miracle will be needed for canonisation, when he will be declared a saint.
Details of the case were made public for the first time last week by Archbishop Stanislas Dziwisz of Krakow, Poland, who served as personal secretary to John Paul for 40 years. He said it was selected from a number of miracles purported to have taken place through the intercession of the late Pontiff.
“There is no problem about miracles because there are many of them, really quite a few,” said Archbishop Dziwisz during the
Polish bishops’ five-yearly “ad limina” visit to Rome.
The nun’s cure stood out not only because the facts of the case were clear cut but also because France was “a country where it wasn’t expected”, he said.
“The process for beatification is going very well,” he added. “We are hoping to be finished by March 2006.”
John Paul II set the precedent for the speedy proclamation of saints when in 1999 he set aside the five-
year waiting period for the beatification of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The founder of the Missionary Sisters of Charity was beatified in record time in 2003, six years after her death in 1997. In May, Pope Benedict XVI also waived the fiveyear rule for John Paul, putting his predecessor on a “fast track” to sainthood.
Calls for John Paul’s beatification started as soon as he died in the Vatican on April 2 when a crowd gathered outside chanted that he
The most influential clergyman in America, the man President Bush calls “Father Richard”, looks up at a tapestry of the life of Jesus hanging behind the desk of his Fifth Avenue office.
“It was made by a friend of mine. I like it - but, as you can see, she’s a ‘leftie’,” he sighs.
“Our Lord is in worker’s overalls - and which of the 12 apostles is Judas? Why, the pinstriped capitalist, of course.”
The Rev Fr Richard John Neuhaus, a Catholic priest who was once a prominent Lutheran pastor, is a friend of both George W Bush and Pope Benedict.
This is not a comfortable thing to be in New York City. So he keeps a low profile. I did not even know what he looked like until The New York Review of Books ran a photo of him on its cover, next to the headline “Bush’s fringe government”.
In an article inside, the Left-wing historian Garry Wills described a cabal of Right-wing Catholics who acted as “contact points between the similar ruling systems of the Vatican and the White House”.
Chief of these was Fr Neuhaus.
“He has an air of quiet reasonableness that just makes his extremism more effective,” wrote Wills.
Time magazine agrees that Neuhaus has the ear of the President.
“When Bush met with journalists from religious publications last
year,” it reported, “the living authority he cited most often was not a fellow evangelical but ‘Father Richard’, who, he explained, ‘helps me articulate these religious things.’”
I ask Fr Neuhaus whether that is true. “He exaggerates,” he says (meaning the President).
“But we do talk things through.
“And they’re good conversations. Bush isn’t an intellectual, but he’s very quick and bright.” (Neuhaus often refers to the President as “Bush” and to the Pope as “Ratzinger”, which is unusual for some- one who knows them.)
“If you were to meet Bush in the corporate world or even in the episcopate, you would say, ‘This is a very smart guy’.”
It is not hard to see why the US President warms to Neuhaus, who was born in Canada.
His personal style is part Grandpa Walton, part hard-nosed CEO.
At one stage in our conversation, he walks across his office – not a particularly short journey - to unwrap a cigar.
When he takes off his jacket, he exposes a crisply ironed businessman’s shirt; but over it he is wearing a jet-black stock with a high Roman collar - a near-infallible indicator of conservative sympathies.
In the 1990s, he had a terrifying brush with cancer, but he has now been told that he could live for another 20 years - not a prospect to thrill the Islamists and other “kooks” he attacks with such relish.
Neuhaus, 69, is the founder of a journal, First Things, in which
conservative Catholics, Protestants and Jews debate the re-introduction of Judaeo-Christian values into public life.
His editorials are erudite and combative, tinged with the sarcasm of a talk-show host.
American bishops flinch at the mention of his name.
He argues that they have grossly mishandled the sex-abuse crisis, producing “self-exculpating press releases” and behaving like “frightened franchise managers in a time of corporate meltdown”.
For half a century, Neuhaus was a Lutheran; and his roots show themselves in the unembarrassed way in which he speaks of Jesus as his Lord and Saviour.
It was one of the things that endeared him to Pope John Paul II. No doubt, it also appeals to President Bush.
But his real value to the White House, one suspects, is as a conservative Christian scholar who can anatomise difficult concepts: the morality of stem cell research, or the application of classical Just War theory to post-industrial warfare.
And no, he insists, it is not hard explaining these ideas to the 43rd President.
“If you put an argument to him that he hasn’t heard before, he’ll immediately come back with very incisive questions,” says Neuhaus.
It is widely thought that, at a time when the Vatican was hinting that the Iraq war was indefensible, he reassured Bush that intervention met the traditional Christian
of John Paul before he was elected Pope in 1978.
A third tribunal has been set up in France to investigate the alleged miracle involving the nun. The findings of all three will be forwarded together to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints early next year.
Archbishop Dziwisz said that testimonies of the Pope’s holiness were “numerous” and the challenge was to find “the most accurate, to show the personality of John Paul II”.
He said evidence was being collected from many different countries “because the Pontiff belonged to the whole Universal Church, not just to one nation”.
Archbishop Dziwisz began serving as John Paul’s right-hand man in 1966, when the future Pope was Archbishop of Krakow, and he remained personal secretary throughout the 27-year pontificate.
He was present at the deathbed of the Pope and was named in John Paul’s last will and testament as the man entrusted to care for his private papers and personal property.
was a saint. John Paul’s reputation for holiness “exploded in a remarkable way” at that moment, according to an edict by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the vicar of Rome, at the formal opening of the cause for sainthood on June 28 when John Paul II was declared a “Servant of God”. A tribunal in Rome has begun compiling a complete dossier on John Paul’s life and a separate tribunal was also set up in Krakow last month under Archbishop Dziwisz to study the virtues and writings
In June, Archbishop Dziwisz was named the new Archbishop of Krakow in keeping with the wishes of Pope John Paul, a previous incumbent of the see. He said it was not “easy to be the successor of such a great man”.
It emerged in December that an international group of Catholic theologians, philosophers and historians has launched a campaign against the beatification of Pope John Paul, citing his stance on sexual ethics, women priests and priestly celibacy as reasons to question his suitability.
- Catholic Herald
criteria for taking up arms. So what does he say now, with 2,000 soldiers dead?
“Arguing that, under the criteria of a just war, the action taken by the US, the UK and others was morally justifiable is not the same thing as saying that it was prudent or wise,” he replies.
That’s less than a whole- hearted endorsement.
“Well, I’m less of a ‘neo-con’ than people think,” he says, examining his cigar.
“The thinking about the aftermath of invasion was not as thorough and clear as it should have been.
“But the direction of foreign policy is tilted toward the advance of democracy, which is solidly in the American tradition.
“The consequences of Iraq have been good in many ways – Gaddafi divesting himself of weapons of
mass destruction, Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon. Are these ripple effects due to the actions of the US? The answer is clearly yes.”
Neuhaus dismisses the report that Bush let slip to Palestinian negotiators that he was “told by God” to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.
“Absolute nonsense! Not only have I never heard the President say such a thing, but he knows very well that you cannot say such things.
“Bush is not, and never has been, a fundamentalist.
“He doesn’t believe in the literal inerrancy of the Bible. And he is totally immunised against apocalyptic stuff.
“He is a typical evangelical whose faith is intensely personal - not private - and centred on his own conversion.”
Continued from page 5
Would that conversion have happened if Bush had not previously been a heavy drinker?
“His drinking triggered off his realisation that his life was in deep trouble,” agrees Neuhaus.
“In many ways, it’s the story of the prodigal son who, in that lovely phrase of the Bible, suddenly ‘came to himself’. And, in coming to himself, he came to Christ.”
George W Bush is the first bornagain Christian in the White House since Jimmy Carter.
The President’s faith may not involve direct divine instructions - but doesn’t it give him a buzz of confidence that makes his critics nervous?
“Confidence, yes,” says Neuhaus, “but also a sense of his own fallibility, of good and evil in the worldincluding the evil of his opponents, who use any cudgel with which to bash him.”
As a young pastor opposed to the
Vietnam War, Neuhaus was close to the Democrats.
He is appalled by the way the party now treats “abortion rights” as a litmus test, and reserves his full sardonic disgust for politicians - such as John Forbes Kerry - who express ‘personal opposition” to abortion while voting for it.
Just like Tony Blair.
“I know,” says Neuhaus sadly.
“It’s disappointing that someone who is impressive in many ways exhibits this glaring inconsistency.”
Cardinal Winning used to berate Blair for his “nauseating hypocrisy” on abortion.
The bishops of England and Wales, by contrast, are often accused of sucking up to Labour,
kicking up a fuss only over subjects such as immigration.
“Our bishops are the same,” says Neuhaus.
“They seem to want to abolish national boundaries altogether - a policy not unconnected with the fact that our new immigrants are Catholics.”
Not like Britain’s. “No, and you are right to be concerned about radical Islam.
“The concept of a people, a culture and a language has moral legitimacy, and if that faces an imminent threat, then a moral case can be made for saying we have to stop immigration for a time.”
It is inconceivable that an English bishop would say such a thing.
But Fr Neuhaus, unlike any of them, has spent years debating faith and public policy with the new Pope.
“I’ve met Ratzinger in Rome on many occasions,” he says.
“He’s self-effacing and gentle, intensely curious.
“I know for a fact that he tried to resign from his previous post at least three times in order to return to academic life.” This will be a “transformative pontificate”, he believes - not on the world-historical stage, but in its implementation of the reforms of John Paul II.
“The liberals who believe the Second Vatican Council mandated a revolution now know that it is not to be,” he says.
“Certain issues are dead - such as women’s ordination.”
“Progressive” Catholics caricature Neuhaus as reactionary.
Yet his books reveal a nuanced conservative – he opposes an automatic ban on gay seminarians, for example - and a theologian who writes with great originality about “the work of dying”.
In the mid- 1990s, a friend in New York told me about “my wonderful priest, such a kind man, who has had terrible cancer”. The priest was Fr Neuhaus.
A tumour had ruptured his
intestine; the operation was an “unspeakable mess”, he says.
In his exquisitely written book As I Lay Dying, he describes the strangest experience of his life.
Lying in hospital after the operation, surrounded by machines “pumping and sucking and bleeping”, he was visited by two “presences” that told him: “Everything is ready now.” He is not sure who the visitors were, though he suspects they were angels.
Their message? One of consolation: Fr Neuhaus was being assured that “the maggots will not have the last word”.
However immersed he becomes in debates about public policy, he will never doubt the reality of this one experience. “I think of 1993 as the year that I died,” he says, stubbing out his cigar.
“By which I mean that, when I die, as I certainly will, I expect and hope to hear the words: ‘Oh, you again.”
- The Catholic Herald
Broadcast TV
Sunday, January 1
Archbishop Barry Hickey
Channel 9, first commercial break in 6pm
evening news
Sunday, January 1
Eternal Word Television Network 1-2pm on Access 31
FM Radio
Gate of Heaven: 7.30pm
Radio Fremantle 107.9 FM
January 1
(1) Does The Church Still Teach That? w/ Fr. Shannon Collins, CPM “Marian Devotion.”
(2) Fulton J. Sheen Life Is Worth Living Series “The True Feminine Mystique”. (3) Lord Have Mercy w/Dr. Scott Hahn “Getting Our Stories Straight”
January 8
(1) The Glory Of The Papacy w/Dr. Timothy O’Donnell “The Great Commission”. (2) Search And Rescue w/Patrick Madrid “Be Always Ready to Give A Reason For The Hope That Is In You”. (3) Catholic Morality and The Catechism w/Monsignor William
Smith “Structure of the Moral Section of Catechism”.
January 15
(1) Holy Spirit At Work In The Church w/Fr. Andrew Apostoli “Internals & Externals of the Church’s Authority”. (2) Council Of Faith II w/Fr. John Trigilio “Sources & Authority” (3) Catholic Heritage w/Peter Johnson & Joanna Bogle “The Dales & St. James of Compostela”.
For January 22
(1) Catholic Morality and The Catechism w/Monsignor William Smith “Ten Commandments #5 Continued”. (2) The
Program guide: 1 - 31 January
Aurora Community Television is available on Foxtel Digital and Austar Digital. Channel 183
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Monday 2 January 2006
Tuesday 3 January 2006
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Thursday 5 January 2006
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Thursday 12 January 2006
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Wednesday
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Friday 20 January 2006
Saturday 21 January 2006
Glory Of The Papacy w/Dr. Timothy O’Donnell “The Good Shepherd.” (3) Catholicism: The Heart Of History w/Joanna & James Bogle “The Inquisition: Medieval, Spanish & Roman: What’s The Real Story?.
For January 29 (1) Defending Life II w/ Fr. Frank Pavone “The Wound.” (2) Last Things: In Time & Eternity w/Colin Donovan and Desmond Birch “Eschatological dimensions of the Sacraments”. (3) Saint For The Third Millennium w/Fr. Charles Conner “Life of St. Therese of Lisieux” Ep#1. Donations toward the program may be sent to Gate of Heaven, PO Box 845, Claremont, WA 6910.
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Tuesday 31 January 2006
You At Home 1:30pm Talking Families
Whether to admit men with same-sex attractions to seminaries as candidates for the priesthood made headlines - and some controversy - after the Vatican issued new guidelines in December. But few realise the issue was intimately connected with the damaging abuse crisis that engulfed the Church in the US in the late 1990s...
The new Vatican document on the priesthood and homosexual tendencies mentions a range of conditions, from deepseated homosexual tendencies to transitory same-sex attractions.
To learn more about the nuances of the range of homosexual tendencies and their treatment, ZENIT turned to Dr Richard Fitzgibbons, a psychiatrist, author and contributor to the US Catholic Medical Association’s document “Homosexuality and Hope.”
Q: How would you distinguish between someone with same-sex attractions and someone with deep-seated homosexual tendencies?
Those with deep-seated homosexual tendencies identify themselves as homosexual persons and are usually unwilling to examine their emotional conflicts that caused this tendency. Strong physical attraction is present to other men’s bodies and to the masculinity of others due to profound weakness in male confidence.
These individuals in the priesthood have a significant affective immaturity with excessive anger and jealousy toward males who
are not homosexual, insecurity that leads them to avoid close friendships with such males and an inordinate need for attention.
Most of these men had painful adolescent experiences of significant loneliness and sadness, felt insecure in their masculinity, and had a poor body image. Well-designed research studies have demonstrated a much higher prevalence of psychiatric illness in those who identify themselves as homosexual.
Under severe stress they may even experience strong physical and sexual attraction to adolescent males, as has occurred in the recent crisis in the Church. Frequently, they may have difficulty working in a collegial and comfortable way with heterosexual males.
Unresolved paternal anger is regularly misdirected as rebellion against the magisterium and the Church’s teaching on sexual morality. Unfortunately, their denial, defensiveness and anger block their openness to seek the Lord’s help with their emotional and behavioural weaknesses.
Those with mild homosexual tendencies do not identify themselves as homosexuals. Such men are motivated to understand and to overcome their emotional conflicts. They regularly seek psychotherapy and spiritual direction.
The goal of counselling is to uncover early conflicts, forgive those who hurt them and increase their male confidence - which in time may lead to the resolution of same-sex attractions.
Such men accept and want to live and teach the fullness of the Church’s teaching on sexual morality. They do not support the
homosexual culture but see it as antithetical to the universal call to holiness.
Q: Are there psychological tests which can be helpful in identifying candidates with samesex attractions or deep-seated homosexual tendencies?
Yes, the Boy Gender Conformity Scale from the University of Indiana and the Clarke Sexual History Questionnaire can identify with 90% accuracy males with samesex attractions. Also, an extensive history of childhood and adolescent experiences with the father and male peers, and of the body, can identify deep-seated homosexuality.
Simply asking a candidate if he is heterosexual or homosexual, as is done in many seminaries and religious communities, is not sufficient.
What would your recommendations be for a candidate who has same-sex attractions or who demonstrates homosexual tendencies?
When the evaluation reveals probable same-sex attractions, a recommendation is given to uncover and engage in the hard work of resolving his emotional pain with a competent mental health professional and spiritual director. After the candidate’s male confidence has grown significantly and he no longer has same-sex attractions, he could reapply.
Continued - Page 7
Also: Abuse by the numbers - what the US statistics revealed
Humility conquers.
That’s the paradox of Christianity - and the paradox of Mary, who said, “He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones and exalted the humble.”
Thus it is that Our Lady of Guadalupewhose feast is December 12 - has captured the imagination of the Church.
In 2002, Pope John Paul II canonised St Juan Diego, the man who encountered Our Lady on Tepeyac Hill near today’s Mexico City and received on his cloak the image that scientists still can’t fully explain.
When he returned to Rome, the Polish Pope revealed how important Our Lady of Guadalupe had been for him.
“Ever since I went on pilgrimage for the first time to the splendid Shrine of Guadalupe on January 29, 1979 she has guided my steps in these almost 25 years of service as Bishop of Rome and universal pastor of the Church,’ he said.
She was still on his mind in 1999 when he wrote The Church in America
His argument for her power is simple: She conquered America once… “In America, the mestiza face of the Virgin of Guadalupe was from the start a symbol of the inculturation of the Gospel, of which she has been the lodestar and the guide,” he wrote …and she will do it again. Through her powerful intercession, “the Gospel will penetrate the hearts of the men and women of America and permeate their cultures, transforming them from within.”
This John Paul II even said, years ago, that Our Lady of Guadalupe could conquer the world.
“Guadalupe may become a sort of centre,” he said, ‘from which the light of the Gospel of Christ will shine out over the whole world by means of the miraculous image of his mother.”
Mary, Virgin of Guadalupe, Pray for us!
Right: A tattoo of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of Mexico, painted on a young woman’s arm.
Below, right: Mexican pilgrims carry images of Our Lady of Guadalupe as they process toward the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City on December 11. Millions of Mexicans make the pilgrimage to the basilica every year to honour the patroness of the country on the December 12 feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Below: A young woman prays in front of a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe during a program honouring Our Lady of Guadalupe to screen in the US.
Top-left: Several pairs of baby shoes are left by pilgrims seeking answers to their prayers in the grotto at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine at Maryville, US. Photos: CNS
the family is the future
■ With Derek Boylen
No-one really expected to find God in a stable cuddled in the arms of his mummy, Mary.
The Franciscan theologian St Bonaventure once wrote, “God is not where we expect to find him.”
There are countless stories in scripture that testify to this simple truth. Who would have thought to find God in a burning bush, a whale’s stomach, a gentle wind or a voice in the night. Anyone who has gone seeking God knows that he is rarely where we expect to find him.
Christmas is a time when we are reminded of this simple truth. Christmas reminds us that one of the places we can find God and often when we least expect it, is in families.
At home Karen and I say a simple grace before meals. It’s easy for the boys to remember and has actions. Isaiah loves to say grace. He says grace with breakfast, lunch and tea,
i say, i say
plus morning tea, afternoon tea, snacks and treats, and milk before bed. In fact, Daddy can’t even have a biscuit with his cup of coffee without first saying grace.
Of course we don’t mind and he is a little reminder each day to be thankful. I’m thankful for my food but I’m even more thankful for a little boy who reminds me to be.
Sometimes though, we are most surprised to discover God when times are tough; when a spouse reaches out after a hard day at work, in the reconciliation of a humble
apology after a family argument, a small windfall when trying to manage the finances or a kind word from a stranger when the children are playing up.
On this feast we are called to make our family more often a place where God is discovered by basing it on the Holy one of Nazareth. In the past, John Paul II often reflected on the family. On this particular feast over the years he made the following observations about families who base themselves on the Holy Family of Nazareth. The family is “an authentic school of the Gospel… it is an intimate community of life and love… it is a domestic Church… it is a place for recollection and prayer, mutual understanding and respect, personal discipline and community asceticism and a spirit of sacrifice, work and solidarity.” They are beautiful meditations.
At this special time I’d like to share with you a simple prayer of John Paul II’s for families on this feast in 2004. It is my prayer for families in 2005 too:
“May the Holy Family, which had to endure many painful trials, watch over all families of the world, especially those in conditions of hardship. May it likewise help the people of culture and political leaders to defend the family institution founded on marriage and to support families as they face the serious challenges of our time.” Responses or suggestions: production@therecord.com.au
■ With Guy Crouchback
Decide at the end of this story if there is any point to it. I saw a good deal of the late writer Dorothy Hewett during the later years she lived in Perth, mainly through a small salon she organised for aspiring poets. She would listen to our execrable verses with admirable patience and try to comment constructively.
When I first met her she was still a communist. Her first book of verse had been tub-thumping proletarian social realism titled What About the People? and she had spent time in Russia and China.
She quit the Party after, or about the time of, the Soviet invasion of Czecheslovakia in 1968, and became the subject of a witchhunt by some Party members. This increased after she published a critical obituary of the writer Katherine Sussannah Pritchard, concluding
that Pritchard had lacked the moral courage to face the atrocious realities of communism.
Talking about poetry and politics with her, I came to realise some of the truth of the observation that there’s none so queer as folk. She herself, like many communists, had a thoroughly bourgeois lifestyle, with a large house in South Perth, an even larger one with an attractive waterfront setting, private boathouse with launch, etc, beside a beautiful and then unspoilt section of the Murray River Delta near Mandurah, and a comfortable job as a tutor in English at the University of Western Australia. All this seemed a little out of place for someone then still officially devoted to promoting workers’ revolution and the dictatorship of the protetariate. I don’t doubt her sincerety. She had accepted menial work and rigid Party discipline for years previously. Devoted to poetry, she actually stopped writing for several years because the Party told her to (imagine the Liberal Party trying that, assuming it had any poetical members!)
It was, for a young writer, fascinating to watch her “hidden journey” - and she did explore her own heart with more honesty than many ever achieve.
She became more active in exposing the tyrannical nature of the Soviet regime than many who called themselves politically conservative. Having broken with the old left,
however, she went through a rather silly flirtation with some bad avantgarde poets (actually mournful imitations of the decadents and dadists of two generations before) who pullulated in Sydney and Melbourne on grants in the early 1970s before finding, unequivocally, her own voice at last.
Two memories of Dorothy when she was still a communist: first,
some of us in the literary world went to a reception for Princess Margaret in the WA Museum. Dear old Sir Claude Hotchin, one of the organisers, arranged for us to be presented to Her Royal Highness. Dorothy was speechless and shy at meeting Royalty. Lenin would not have approved.
The other is a little stranger. One day when I was visiting her house,
one of her children had been reading a paperback with an odd picture in it of a woman standing on top of a carriage, whipping a horse. When I picked it up, Dorothy said: “You ought to read that, it’s really good!”
That was my introduction to C. S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, and to the land of Narnia. Again, Lenin would not have approved.
Continued from Vista 1
In our clinical experience those with deep-seated homosexual tendencies lack an understanding of the origins of their conflicts and of the possibility of healing. Many of these men also make a commitment to work on their emotional conflicts.
Q: What would you recommend for current seminarians who have same-sex attractions or demonstrate homosexual tendencies or significant affective immaturity?
Given the present crisis in the Church, with 80 per cent of the abuse involving homosexual assaults of adolescent males, seminarians and those in formation in religious communities with same-sex attractions have a serious responsibility to protect the Church from further shame and sorrow.
They should attempt to understand and resolve their emotional conflicts with a qualified mental health professional and spiritual director.
Seminarians with effeminacy, a clear sign of serious affective immaturity, usually failed in their childhood to identify sufficiently with their fathers and male peers. They can benefit from therapy to extinguish effeminate mannerisms and to strengthen their appreciation of their God-given masculinity so that they may become true spiritual fathers.
Seminarians with deep-seated homosexual tendencies should discuss their conflicts honestly with their spiritual directors and be guided by the Church’s recent statement. We have seen many young men overcome these tendencies over the past 30 years when a spiritual component was incorporated into their treatment plan as in the treatment of substance abuse disorders.
The research of Dr Bob Spitzer of the department of psychiatry at Columbia University School of Medicine has given hope to many young men in regard to the healing of their emotional conflicts.
Q: What are the major emotional and character issues which you believe should be addressed in the human formation programs in seminaries?
A 2005 national study demonstrated that 28.8% of Americans will have an anxiety disorder in their lifetime, 24.8% an impulsecontrol disorder and 20.8% a mood disorder.
The most common origins of these emotional weaknesses in men arise from a lack of closeness and affirmation in the father relationship and with male peers. These emotional conflicts result in weaknesses in male confidence, sadness, loneliness, anger and often a poor body image. In addition, those from divorced family backgrounds have major trust weaknesses.
The predominant character weakness in our culture is that of selfishness, which is a major obstacle of self-giving in every vocation.
Good psychological testing and history taking could identify various types of emotional pain that the candidate could address in his spiritual life with his spiritual director, and if necessary with a qualified mental health professional. Conferences for seminarians on growth in affective maturity and in self-giving can be helpful in identifying and in resolving the con-
flicts which interfere with affective maturity.
Q: What criteria would indicate that a seminarian has achieved affective maturity?
In my professional experience the major indicator of affective maturity in every vocation is healthy, balanced self-giving that includes the ability to receive from God and from others.
Affective maturity is also demonstrated by the ability to address the most common emotional stresses; that is, anxiety, weak confidence, anger, loneliness and sadness. Anxiety can be overcome by growth in trust and in confidence; anger by growth in the virtue of forgiveness, and loneliness or sadness by growth in the ability to receive the love of God and others on a regular basis and to give oneself.
Childhood and adolescent conflicts in these areas may also need to be uncovered and addressed. Also, a commitment to grow in numerous ways is necessary for the development of a healthy personality.
Many priests grow in holiness and happiness in their ministry as a result of the healing of their childhood and adolescent male insecurity, loneliness and anger and, subsequently, their same-sex attractions.
Q: How can spiritual directors help seminarians or priests who have same-sex attractions?
Spiritual directors can help seminarians and priests by understanding that same-sex attractions are treatable and are not genetically determined. They can encourage seminarians and priests to face their emotional pain with the Lord’s help, particularly their loneliness.
Spiritual directors who actively and honestly engage in inner healing prayer and who can help apply the healing graces of St Ignatius of Loyola’s rules for the discernment of spirits can facilitate the healing process.
Q: The new Vatican instruction says that homosexual tendencies that are a manifestation of a transitory problem - for example, delayed adolescence - must be clearly overcome at least three years before diaconal ordination. What is your opinion of that?
I believe that this statement means that it is not sufficient for the seminarian to be chaste for three years. He must also first know himself; that is, understand his emotional conflicts which cause samesex attractions and have worked to resolve those conflicts.
Chastity for three years is not adequate because under stress in priestly ministry unresolved loneliness, isolation or insecurity from the adolescent life stage could lead to same-sex attractions - even attraction to adolescent males in an unconscious attempt to escape from one’s pain.
Dr. Robert L. Spitzer’s recent research findings and many clinical studies support this view that homosexual tendencies can be transitory and resolved.
Q: What would you recommend for priests who have same-sex attractions or homosexual tendencies?
I would recommend that they become more knowledgeable about
the emotional origins and healing of same-sex attractions, as well as the serious medical and psychiatric illnesses associated with homosexuality.
Also, in view of the John Jay report findings that 80% of the priestly abuse cases were with adolescent males, priests with same-sex attractions have a serious responsibility to protect the Church and youth from further scandal by working to understand and resolve their samesex attractions. Adolescent males need to be protected from homosexual predation.
We have observed many priests grow in holiness and in happiness in their ministry as a result of the healing of their childhood and adolescent male insecurity, loneliness and anger and, subsequently, their same-sex attractions. This healing process has been described in the statement of the Catholic Medical Association, “Homosexuality and Hope.” Our experience over 25
years has convinced us of the direct link between rebellion and anger against the Church’s teaching, and sexually promiscuous behaviours. This appears to be a two-way street: Those who are sexually active dissent from the Church’s teaching on sexuality to justify their own actions, while those who adopt rebellious ideas on sexual morality are more vulnerable to become sexually active, because they have little to no defense against sexual temptations. Growth in forgiveness and humility are essential in the treatment of such priests.
Q: How could bishops and religious superiors help their priests who have same-sex attractions?
If bishops encouraged priests with homosexual tendencies to pursue appropriate therapy and spiritual direction with those loyal to the Church’s teaching, they too would
witness healing of their priests. Also, priests would be helped if the “crisis boundary” programs did not mask the role of homosexuality in the abuse of the adolescent male victims. Instead, these programs should describe why adult males might be sexually attracted to adolescents and how this conflict can be resolved. In view of the John Jay report, bishops should consider protecting young men by not permitting priests with deep-seated homosexuality to have teaching or other ministries in schools, colleges and seminaries.
Finally, bishops should be aware that there are many “experts” who ignore medical science or are swayed by political correctness.
There is every reason to hope that with this new document the Church will progress along the necessary path of purification described by John Paul II in April 2002 in his meeting with cardinals and bishops on the crisis.
The problem was mainly homosexual
The Vatican’s examination of seminaries and seminary admission policies concentrated on homosexuality because the 50-year study of sex abuse in the Catholic Church in the US demonstrated that it was predominantly a homosexual problem.
The John Jay College of Justice, which analysed the figures for the Church’s National Review Board in the US, revealed that of the 10,287 credible allegations of sexual abuse over 50 years, 81.35 per cent of victims were male and 18.65 per cent female.
The age range was one to 17. In the age range 11-17, the percentage of male victims rose to 85.3 and that of females dropped to 14.7, demonstrating that the problem was overwhelmingly one of homosexual predation on boys.
The actual figures are printed and graphically demonstrated below.
This aspect of the case has been seriously under-reported, the media in the US and in Australia preferring the erroneous but alliterative expression “pedophile priests” and preferring their pretence that it was a problem of celibacy.
USCCB National Review Board member Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns
Hopkins Hospital, stated recently: “I’m amazed that this fundamental bombshell” - of the abuse of adolescent males - “has not been the subject of greater interest and discussion.” He told the National
Catholic Register, “I’m astonished that people throughout America are not talking about it, thinking about it and wondering about what the mechanisms were that set this alight.”
By any measure, it was an extraordinary year for Pope Benedict XVI.
Most of the world has followed the highlights through the lens of the mass media - his election in the April conclave, his visit to Germany in August, his growing popularity and even his fashionable ecclesial clothing.
On December 22, the Pope offered a personal look at the year in review. Although he spoke for nearly an hour, he barely mentioned his own election - a demonstration of the humility he has shown from the beginning of his pontificate.
Instead, he focused on the death of his predecessor, World Youth Day, the closing of the eucharistic year and the commemoration of the Second Vatican Council.
And, of course, on Jesus. Born in a manger, the Pope said, Jesus has a power “completely different from the destructive power of violence,” and far more effective.
The occasion was the Pope’s annual pre-Christmas encounter with the Roman Curia. The Pope wore his red velvet cape trimmed with ermine, the Clementine Hall was decorated with poinsettias, and a Christmas tree was bedecked with lights.
The idea was to exchange season’s greetings with Vatican officials; Pope Benedict gave them a nine-page speech.
He began by paying tribute to Pope John Paul II, saying the late Pope’s fame as a world traveller and communicator only made his final days of suffering and silence more powerful. Interestingly, it was a TV image that stuck out in Pope Benedict’s mind: when the late Pope was shown in his apartment the week before his death, gripping a cross as he watched the Way of the Cross broadcast from Rome’s Colosseum.
Pope Benedict recalled his own first papal trip, a visit to Germany to preside over World Youth Day. But his biggest memory was not the cheering and chanting that greeted him from the immense crowd. Instead, he said, it was the sound of silence- the “intense silence of those million young people” as they prayed together in a field before the exposed Eucharist.
The Pope said the rediscovery of adoration in the Church was also evident at the world Synod of Bishops in October, which
closed the Year of the Eucharist. He said eucharistic adoration and the Mass were once seen in opposition, but that seems to have been overcome in the modern Church. The Pope saved his most detailed analysis for Vatican II, which ended 40 years ago. It’s a subject that has generated decades of debate within the Church, including some critical comments by the Pope when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
The Pope said there was no denying that the reception of Vatican II has been difficult for the Church. In explaining why, he said there was a right way and a wrong way to understand the council. The wrong way, he said, sees the council as a break with the past - a view that often has the sympathy of the mass media. Its proponents think the council’s documents are imperfect, and so “one should follow not the texts of the council but its spirit,” he said.
He said the proper understanding of the
council, on the other hand, understands the council’s reforms in continuity with the Church’s tradition and its basic teachings.
At this point, the Pope went off into a lengthy and complex reflection on the Church’s relationship with the modern world. He said the council’s great task was to help heal the rift between the Church and modernity, in three specific problematic relationships: faith and science, Church and state, and Christianity and other religions. Given the bold statements that came out of the council on these relationships, it was natural that some would see only the apparent discontinuity with church tradition, instead of understanding them as an evolution of core Christian beliefs, he said.
But that would be to misconstrue the council’s intent, he said. “The Church is, before and after the council, the same one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, moving forward through the times,” he said.
After the Pope arrived to applause in the packed Vatican hall, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, head of the College of Cardinals, gave a speech that concentrated on the Pope’s election. Pope Benedict mentioned the conclave in passing, recalling that he felt “not a little fear” at being chosen and added: “Such a task was completely outside what I could have imagined as my vocation.”
He said that only with “a great act of trust in God” was he able to give assent to his election. Last spring, after the 26-year papacy of Pope John Paul, many people needed time to get used to the idea that Cardinal Ratzinger was now Pope Benedict. Eight months later it was difficult to imagine anyone else sitting on the papal throne.
One year after a deadly tsunami devastated Indian Ocean nations, Caritas Internationalis is still on the ground helping local communities rebuild and improve their quality of life.
While Caritas offered immediate emergency relief in the wake of the December 26, 2004, disaster, it has more than $450 million earmarked for post-tsunami relief and recovery aimed at leaving people “in a better situation than they were in before” the tsunami struck, said Mary Healy of Caritas Ireland.
“For us as Caritas, it’s not just about rebuilding houses, it’s about rebuilding communities, homes and people’s lives,” she said at a December 21 press conference held at the Vatican headquarters of Caritas Internationalis, an umbrella Catholic international aid organisation.
The tsunami killed more than 170,000 people and destroyed the homes and livelihoods of hundreds
of thousands of survivors from South Asian nations. Many of those hit by the seaquakes were already poor and living in substandard housing. Building more decent, safer homes, providing quality fishing vessels and boat engines, and offering training in new skills and loans for new start-up businesses for people in coastal communities
are some of the projects Caritas has been funding.
Denis Vienot, president of Caritas Internationalis, said helping fishermen diversify their source of income and helping them market their products better has “already started to improve household incomes and prospects.”
Vienot, who also spoke at the
press conference, said local Caritas members were also helping protect the rights of poor fishermen who risk being overrun by the tourist industry as it seeks to rebuild and expand along the recovering coastlines.
In a town north of Phuket, Thailand, local fishermen “risk being expelled” from their coastal huts “because a hotel wants to extend” its beachfront to attract more tourists, he said.
Vienot said one Caritas member, a young, local priest, has been accompanying fishermen to the Phuket courthouse “to defend the rights of these people to live on public land” and have close access to their boats, he said. Vienot said the judge was impressed that a priest who was not a lawyer would be advocating on behalf of the people and standing up to the pressure of the hotels. Local fishermen have “nothing against tourists,” he said, because they “can sell fish for double the price” when tourists are in town. But there needs to be a balance between helping revive tourism and protecting small, local industries, he added.
“Defending the rights of the poor fishermen is as important as giving them boats and building them homes,” Vienot said.
After a federal judge’s ruling that intelligent design is a religious belief and not science, a law professor and a theologian said on December 21 the theory could still be discussed in public school social studies or current events classes.
“If it is studied as a modern phenomenon it is much more likely to fly legally,” said Lee Strang, law professor at Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
“But if it aims to get Christianity in the classroom, it would not be permitted,” Strang, who teaches courses in constitutional law,
told Catholic News Service. John Haught, theology professor at Jesuit-run Georgetown University in Washington, said it would be OK to talk about the controversy in nonscience classes.
“I would suggest that it be discussed in a class on critical thinking,” Haught told CNS. “Public schools should be talking about religion. This can be done without fostering a religion.”
Strang and Haught were commenting on a December 20 ruling by Judge John E. Jones III, a federal judge in Pennsylvania, that declared unconstitutional an intelligent design policy by the public school board in Dover, Pennsylvania. The policy required science teachers to read a statement in class that
Want an inside view of what the Second Vatican Council was like, as it happened?
Bishop Aloysius J. Wycislo’s newly published book, “Letters From Rome During Vatican II,” gives just that. The retired bishop of Green Bay, Wisconsin who died on October 11 at the age of 97, had been working on the manuscript for years - in fact, since the 196265 council.
The book is a compilation of letters that Bishop Wycislo, then an auxiliary bishop of Chicago, wrote from Rome during the sessions of the council. Addressed to his parishioners at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Chicago, the letters contain both tidbits about travel around the Eternal City
intelligent design is an alternative to evolution and to recommend a book in the school library promoting intelligent design. “Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect,” said the ruling.
“However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions,” it said.
The civil suit was brought by the parents of 11 students who objected to the school board’s intelligent design policy. Strang told CNS that the judge found the policy unconstitutional because public state-
and insider information about the wrangling between bishops as the various 16 documents of Vatican II were hammered out.
For example, during the council’s second session in 1963, the bishop wrote, “It would be foolish to deny that there are differences of opinion here, theological and procedural, sometimes expressed with considerable vigour and determination.” Yet, he returned home convinced he “saw real development and growth among the bishops, in the consciousness of what Pope John XXIII wanted of the council.”
Pam Houghton, client services director at a Metuchen centre for women with crisis pregnancies, knows that a picture is worth a thousand words. Now the facility, called
ments by school board members cited religious reasons for adopting the policy. This violates Supreme Court decisions prohibiting a religious intent in anything sponsored by the government, said Strang, who was not involved in the Dover case but supports teaching intelligent design as science in public schools.
Proponents of intelligent design say that there are gaps in evolutionary theory which can be better explained scientifically by their theory which holds that there is a design and purpose inherent in life forms which spring from an unnamed intelligence. Strang said that this was a test case and “can set a trend” for similar court cases in other parts of the U.S. CNS
the Life Choices Resource Centre, has ultrasound technology that will give the women an opportunity to see their unborn children up to eight months before the babies’ due date. Before Life Choices can begin offering ultrasounds to the public, volunteers who are seven to 24 weeks pregnant are needed to help the nurses complete their training on the equipment. “The training will get us up to speed to do ultrasounds in the first trimester, to show viability and then, hopefully, once the mother sees a live baby, help her decide to carry her baby to term either by deciding on adoption or raising the baby herself,” said Mary Wolfram, Life Choices nurse manager. “I hope their hearts will open and they’ll be willing to accept there’s another human being inside of them,” said Deborah Vokral, chairwoman of its board of trustees and a Life Choices advocate who meets with clients to discuss their pregnancies.
The goal of free trade should be to help spread the world’s riches fairly to all people and not to defend already privileged economic powers, said a Vatican representative at a recent World Trade Organisation meeting in Hong Kong.
“Trade relations can no longer be based solely on the principle of free, unchecked competition, for it very often creates an economic dictatorship,” said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, quoting from Pope Paul VI’s 1967 encyclical, “Populorum Progressio.”
“Free trade can be called just only when it conforms to the demands of social justice,” the archbishop said in a December 18 address to members of the sixth ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation.
The December 13-18 conference was part of the Doha Round, which had a stated aim of levelling the playing field for poor countries that are already at a trade disadvantage.
Archbishop Tomasi represents the Vatican before Genevabased UN organisations. His address was released by the Vatican on December 22.
“A spirit of solidarity among all countries and people should replace the ceaseless competition that aims to achieve and defend privileged positions in international trade,” he said.
Unfair trade rules often lock vulnerable people in developing countries in “a poverty trap,” he said in his written text.
But getting trade rules to be more just and equitable is difficult because the rules often ended up benefiting those “who possess more economic power,” he said. The WTO conference ended on a note of frustration for many delegates because “everyone had to give up something,” the archbishop told Catholic News Service on December 22 from Geneva.
Something positive that did come out of the mid-December meeting was that developing countries banded together to become “a strong group to confront the wealthier countries and try to extract concessions,” he said.
Pope Benedict XVI told the boys in the Sistine Chapel choir that he knows how much they sacrifice to be part of the choir, but he said the result of their hard work is an angelic gift to others.
Pope Benedict officially was the only member of the audience on December 20 when the Sistine Chapel choir - made up of 20 adult men and 35 boys aged 11-13 - performed in the Sistine Chapel.
While the Vatican billed the concert as “strictly private,” its press office on December 21 released a transcript of the Pope’s remarks to the choir. He began with an apology, saying: “I could not find the time to prepare a speech, even though my idea was very simple - to say in these days right before Christmas that these are days to give thanks for gifts.”
Fcomedy, which delivers considerably more charm and family-friendly fun.
A sequel to the 2003 remake of the 1950 Myrna Loy-Clifton Webb domestic farce, the agreeably entertaining film revisits the Chicagobased Bakers: mum Kate (Bonnie Hunt), dad Tom (Steve Martin) and their 12 children.
With pregnant eldest daughter Nora (Piper Perabo) moving to Houston with hubby Bud (Jonathan Bennett), grown son Charlie (Tom Welling) mulling a change of address, and newly graduated Lorraine (Hillary Duff) heading off to New York, Tom and Kate start feeling empty-nest angst.
Hoping for one last hurrah before the kids go their separate ways, they pitch an idea to the troops tailor-made for comic disaster: an outdoorsy vacation together at the Bakers’ summer getaway at Lake Winnetka.
Their holiday soon unravels, when Tom becomes involved in a game of obsessive one-upmanship with longtime nemesis Jimmy Murtaugh (Eugene Levy), a hypercompetitive blowhard who heads a rival clan and owns most of the lakefront properties.
Jimmy suggests that Tom pit
his Bakers’ dozen against his own Murtaugh litter to compete in a series of contests for the lake community’s prized Winnetka Cup.
Much pint-sized pandemonium ensues - the Bakers’ dog, Gunner, once again causes havoc - but by the time the dust settles all involved gain a deeper appreciation of the bonds they share.
Taking over the reins from Shawn
Levy, director Adam Shankman serves up a similar helping of mildly amusing slapstick and heart-tugging sentiment, slightly more satisfying despite an uninspired script.
Martin is in top farceur form, occasionally ratcheting down his mugging to allow for some tender daddy’s-little-girl moments with daughter Sarah (Alyson Stoner), whose awkward affections for one
Beautifully illustrated in classic fairy-tale style, Bishop’s storybooks offer “his and hers” lessons on the timeless virtues of purity and courage. In her newest, The Squire
the Scroll,
brave young lad fearlessly defends “the lantern of purest light” against all enemies - including a firebreathing dragon!
of Murtaugh’s boys is complicated
by their fathers. The puppy-love angle adds a sweet touch to the madcap mix.
As before, Hunt brings a calming, maternal warmth, while Levy injects his low-key brand of drollery. Even former “Baywatch” beauty Carmen Electra gets a nice upgrade from her usual airhead roles.
The laughs are still lightweight
and many of the silly sight gags seem rehashed, but the movie’s absence of objectionable content and strong affirmation of family makes it easy to smile past its shortcomings. The film contains much comic mayhem and some mildly crude humor, language and innuendo.
The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-II - adults and adolescents.
The Record’s movie reviews come from the Film Office of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. These reviews, and any other reviews which appear in The Record, do not purport to be the last word on films, videos and DVDs. The ratings focus upon family suitability rather than artistic or entertainment value. Parents (and grandparents and other guardians) must make up their own minds on what is appropriate for their family. The ratings used by The Record are:
A-I: for general patronage
A-II: for adults and adolescents
A-III: for adults
A-IV: adults, with reservations (an A-IV classification denotes problematic films that, while not morally offensive in themselves require caution and some analysis and explanation as a safeguard against wrong interpretations and false conclusions)
L: limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. L supplements the A-IV classification
O: morally offensive
■ BRICK REPOINTING
Phone Nigel 9242 2952.
■ PERROTT PAINTING PTY LTD
For all your residential, commercial painting requirements. Phone Tom Perrott 9444 1200.
■ PICASSO PAINTING
Top service. Phone 9345 0557, fax 9345 0505.
■ RETAILER OF CATHOLIC PRODUCTS
Specialising in gifts, cards and apparel for baptism, communion and confirmation. Ph: 9456 1777. Shop 12, 64-66 Bannister Road, Canning Vale. Open Mon-Sat.
■ WORK FROM HOME
Around your children & family commitments. My business is expanding and I need people to open new areas all over Australia. Training given. Highly lucrative. www.cyber-success-4u.org
■ FIRE ENGINE PARTIES
Children of all ages. Child care, kindy and Santa visits includes rides and squirting. Discount to readers. Call fire Chief David 0431 869 455.
■ ALL AREAS
Mike Murphy 0416 226 434.
Saturday December 31 NEW YEAR’S EVE TO NEW YEAR’S DAY ALL NIGHT VIGIL & MIDNIGHT MASS
In honour of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Celebrant: Fr Dominic Maria FFI. Holy Spirit Church, Keaney Place, City Beach. Commencing 11pm Holy Rosary, Midnight Mass and Prayer of Dedication of the New Millennium to the protection of Mary followed by Exposition of the Most Blessed Sacrament and prayer till 8am Holy Mass. Tea/coffee provided. Parking in church car park.
Saturday December 31
NOVENA
Novena devotions to Our Lady of Good Health, Vailankanni will take place at Holy Trinity Church, 8 Burnett St, Embleton at 5pm followed by Vigil Mass at 6pm. The Most Blessed Sacrament will be exposed from 10pm till midnight for adoration and thanksgiving. This will be followed by fellowship at the parish hall. Please bring a plate of finger food. Enq: 9271 5528 or 9272 1379.
Sunday January 1
DIVINE MERCY
An afternoon with Jesus and Mary at St Mary’s Cathedral, Victoria Square, Perth on Sunday at 1.30pm. Holy Rosary and Reconciliation. Sermon: With Fr Andre Maria FFI on To Jesus Through Mary followed by Divine Mercy prayers and benediction. Enq: John 9457 7771 or Linda 9275 6608.
Saturday December 31
SOLEMNITY OF MARY MOTHER OF GOD
Midnight Mass will be celebrated at the shrine of Virgin of the Revelation, 36 Chittering Rd, Bullsbrook on New Year’s Eve, December 31. A Candlelight procession to the Virgin’s Shrine precedes Mass at 11.30 pm. All are most welcome. Light refreshments will be served after Mass. N.B. Pilgrim Mass will not be celebrated at the Shrine on the afternoon of Christmas Day or of New Year’s Day. Enquiries: SACRI: 9447 3292.
Sunday January 1
DIVINE MERCY DEVOTIONS BENTLEY
The Divine Mercy Devotions normally held on the 1st Sunday of each month at Santa Clara Church, Bentley, will not be held on New Year’s Day, 1st January 2006. These devotions will resume on the first Sunday of each month commencing from February 2006.
Friday January 6
PRO LIFE PROCESSION MIDLAND
The first Friday Mass, procession and Rosary vigil will commence a 9.30am with Mass celebrated at St Brigid’s Church, Midland. The Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate will lead us. All are invited to witness for the sanctity of life and pray for the conversion of hearts. Enq: Helen 9402 0349.
Friday January 6
ALLIANCE AND TRIUMPH OF THE TWO HEARTS
First Friday/First Saturday reparation to the two hearts. Holy Mass at 9pm at St Bernadette’s Church, 49 Jugan St, Glendalough. Followed by an all night Eucharist Adoration with Rosaries, Hymns, etc, and silent Adoration. All are welcome to join us in making reparation to the hearts of Jesus and Mary. Saturday Parish Mass at 7.30am. Info 9444 6131/9342 5845.
■ DENMARK
Holiday House 3bdr x 2bath, sleeps up to 8. BOOK NOW. Ph: Maria 0412 083 377.
■ SHOALWATER
Holiday units, self contained, sleep up to 6, walk to the beach, near Penguin Island, very affordable rates. Bookings Ph: 0414 204 638 or bluewaterholidayu nits@dodo.com.au.
■ FRANCE
3bdrm, 2bath, apartment with views to Med, sleeps 6, in bustling fishing port between Nimes and Narbonne. $800pw. Email: ruegarenne@yahoo. com.au or tel: 0407 957 259.
■ LUMEN CHRISTI HOMES
Augusta Life Time Lease. Enquiries Catholic Diocese of Bunbury 9721 0500.
■ HUMBLE MESSENGER
Shop 16/80 Barrack St (Inside Bon Marche Arcade) Perth WA 6000. Trading Hours: Monday-Closed,TuesFri-10am-5pm, Sat-10am-3pm, Ph/Fax 9225 7199, 0421 131 716.
■ RICH HARVEST YOUR CHRISTIAN SHOP
Looking for Bibles, CDs, books, cards, gifts, statues, baptism/communion apparel, religious vestments, etc? Visit us at, 39 Hulme Court (off McCoy St), Myaree, 9329 9889 (after 10.30am, Mon-Sat). We are here to serve.
PANORAMA a roundup of events in the archdiocese
January 6-7
TWO HEARTS DEVOTIONS
77 Allendale Square, St Georges Terrace, Perth. Devotion to the Sacred Heart on the first Friday of the month with Mass at 9pm followed by Rosaries, Hymns, prayers on the hour through the night concluding with Mass on Saturday morning at 7am in honour of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Ph: 9409 4543.
Saturday January 7
DAY WITH MARY
St Pius X Church, cnr Ley & Paterson Sts, Manning from 9am to 5pm. A video on Fatima will be shown at 9am. A day of prayer and instruction based upon the messages of Fatima. Includes sacrament of Penance, Holy Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, Sermons, Rosaries, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Stations of the Cross. Please BYO. Enquiries - Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286.
Saturday January 7
WITNESS FOR LIFE PROCESSION
The next first Saturday Mass procession and Rosary vigil will commence with Mass at 8.30am at St Anne’s Church, Hehir St, Belmont. We proceed prayerfully to the Rivervale abortion centre and conclude with Rosary, led by Fr Paul Carey SSC. Please join us to pray peacefully for the conversion of hearts. Enq: 9402 0349.
January 8-15
SUMMER SCHOOL OF EVANGELISATION
In a world that is full of change, young people are called to put their hope in the one reality that never changes - Jesus Christ. Summer School allows a deepening of your personal relationship with Jesus, and being strengthened in your Catholic faith and mission through the power of the Holy Spirit. Follow the summer school link on our website www.disciplesofjesus.org/ for more details and application form. Or contact Jane Borg 0401 692 690, Julie Osman 0412 217 957.
Sunday January 22
DIVINE MERCY PILGRIMAGE TO BOVE FARM
Shrine of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary: 23pm Holy Hour to Jesus and Mary – Reconciliation will be available, 3-4pm Divine Mercy Holy Mass – Main Celebrants, Fr Doug Harris and Fr Paul Fox. 4-5pm Divine Mercy Way of the Cross, concluding with Benediction. 5-6pm Evening meal supplied, if required – barbecue at a cost of $5 each. 6pm Coach leaves Bove Farm. Transport from Perth and Willetton will be arranged. Tea and coffee and soft drinks will be available free for all, including BYO people. Enq: John 9457 7771 (SOR), Charles 9342 0653 (NOR).
January 20-22
16TH ANNUAL FLAME CONGRESS
A weekend conference on the healing love of Jesus. Theme: The Compassion of Christ. John 23rd College Auditorium. John 23rd Avenue, Mt. Claremont. Free Public Healing Rallies at 7.30 pm each night. Registered Day Sessions $65 all or $10 each: Saturday Sessions 10 am - 12 pm from 2.30 pm & 4 pm. Sunday Mass 10 am then Sessions 2.30 pm & 4 pm. For information call Flame Ministries International, 9382 3668 or email: congress2006@fl ameministries.org Web: www.flameministries.org
for: Family & Friends Support Groups of Substance Abusers are on Wednesdays 7–9pm, Substance Abusers Support Groups are on Tuesdays 5.30 to 7.30pm & Fridays All day Group for Substance Abusers is from 9.30am to 2pm including Healing Mass on Fridays @ 12.30pm during term. Ladies Groups are on Tuesdays 11am to 1.30pm. Rosary is from Tuesday to Thursday at 12.30 to 1pm.
TUESDAYS WEEKLY PRAYER MEETING
7pm at St. Mary’s Cathedral Parish Centre, 450 Hay Street, Perth, WA. Take time to pray and be united with Our Lord and Our Lady in prayer with others. Appreciate more deeply the heritage of the Faith. Overcome the burdens in life with the Rosary, Meditation, Scripture, praise in song, and friendship over refreshments. Come! Join us! Mary’s Companion Wayfarers of Jesus the Way Prayer Group. Experience personal healing in prayer.
BULLSBROOK SHRINE SUNDAY PROGRAM
Shrine of Virgin of the Revelation, 36 Chittering Rd. Bullsbrook. 2pm Holy Mass, Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Holy Rosary. Reconciliation available in Italian and English. A monthly pilgrimage is held on the last Sunday of the month in honour of the Virgin of the Revelation. Anointing of the sick is administered for spiritual and physical healing during Holy Mass every second Sunday of the month. All enq SACRI 9447 3292.
ST CLARE’S SCHOOL, SISTERS OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD
A short history of St Clare’s School is being prepared to celebrate 50 years of its work in WA. Any past students, staff, families or others associated with the school - from its time at Leederville, at North Perth, at East Perth or at Wembley - are invited to contact us with photographs, or memories. Privacy will be protected, in accordance with your wishes. Please contact Nancy Paterson on 0417 927 126, (email npaters@yahoo.com.au) or St Clare’s School, PO Box 21 & 23 Carlisle North 6161. Tel: 9470 5711.
ALL SAINTS CHAPEL
CONFESSIONS: 10.30 to 11.45am and two lunchtime MASSES: 12.10 and 1.10pm Monday through Friday. Easy to find in the heart of Perth, ALLENDALE
SQUARE, 77 St George’s Terrace. Exposition: 8am - 4pm. Morning Prayer: 8am (Liturgical hours). Holy Rosary daily: 12.40pm. Divine Mercy Prayers and Benediction: Mondays and Fridays 1.35pm. St Pio of Pietrelcina Novena to the Sacred Heart and Benediction: Wednesdays 1.35pm. Lending Library of a thousand books, videos, cassettes at your service. Tel: 9325 2009. www.allsaintschapel.com
SCHOENSTATT FAMILY MOVEMENT: MONTHLY DEVOTIONS
An international group focussed on family faith development through dedication to our Blessed Mother. Monthly devotions at the Armadale shrine on the first Sunday at or after the 18th day of the month at 3pm. Next event: January 22. 9 Talus Drive Armadale. Enq Sisters of Mary 9399 2349 or Peter de San Miguel 0407 242 707 www.schoenstatt.org.au
INDONESIAN MASS
Every Sunday at 11.30am at St Benedict’s church Alness St, Applecross. Further info www.waicc.org.
au.
PERPETUAL ADORATION
Christ the King, Lefroy Rd, Beaconsfield. Enq Joe Migro 9430 7937, A/H 0419 403 100. Adoration also at Sacred Heart, 64 Mary St Highgate, St Anne’s, 77 Hehir St Belmont. Bassendean, 19 Hamilton St and Mirrabooka, 37 Changton Wy.
■ FOR REQUIEM MASS
Thank you to Frs. Falzum OP, Tomelty OP, Van Dyke OP, Limbourne, Allen and Dariusz for celebrating the requiem Mass for John George Loreck. We thank everyone for their prayers, sympathy and support. Marcela and family.
PERPETUAL ADORATION AT ST BERNADETTE’S
Adoration: Chapel open all day and all night. All welcome, 49 Jugan St, Glendalough, just north of the city. Masses every night at 5.45pm Monday to Friday, 6.30pm, Saturday and the last Sunday Mass in Perth is at 7pm.
THE DIVINE MERCY APOSTOLATE
St Mary’s Cathedral, Victoria Square, Perth – each first Sunday of the month from 1.30pm to 3.15pm with a different priest each month. All Saints Chapel, Allendale Square, 77 St George’s Tce, Perth - each Monday and Friday at 1.35pm. Main Celebrant Fr James Shelton. St Francis Xavier Church, 25 Windsor Street, East Perth - each Saturday from 2.30pm to 3.30pm, main celebrant Fr Marcellinus Meilak, OFM. Saints John and Paul Church, Pinetree Gully Drive, Willeton - each Wednesday from 4pm to 5pm. All Enq John 9457 7771.
BLESSED SACRAMENT ADORATION
Holy Family Church, Alcock Street, Maddington. Every Friday 8.30 am Holy Mass followed by Blessed Sacrament Adoration till 12 noon. Every first Friday of the month, anointing of the sick during Mass. Enq. 9398 6350.
SUNDAY CHINESE MASS
The Perth Chinese Catholic Community invite you to join in at St Brigid’s Church, 211 Aberdeen St (Cnr of Aberdeen and Fitzgerald) Northbridge. Celebrant Rev Fr Dominic Su SDS. Mass starts 4.30pm every Sunday. Enq Augustine 9310 4532, Mr Lee 9310 9197, Peter 9310 1789.
CONFRATERNITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
The Confraternity of the Holy Spirit has been sanctioned in the Perth Archdiocese, our aim is to make the Holy Spirit known and loved, and to develop awareness of His presence in our lives. If you would like more information please call WA Coordinator Frank Pimm on 9304 5190.
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY WALKERS
MPH walkers - walking across Perth Outdoors wearing the White band is a message that we want poverty to be stopped. For info on the walk contact Teresa at tgrundy@westnet.com.au 9458 4084 for info on the worldwide campaign and what is happening this week in Perth look at www.makepovertyhistory.com.au.
The Record reserves the right to decline or modify any advertisment it considers improper or not in unison with the general display of the paper.
■
Archbishop Barry James HickeyBetween Christmas and New Year
I have been to Nigeria and Kenya to celebrate Mass in thanksgiving for our two new African priests ordained in St Mary’s Cathedral on December 9, Fr Kenneth Asabe from Kenya and Fr Nicholas Nweke from Nigeria.
Archbishop Hickey
Africa is enough to make all Catholics proud to belong to the Church and eager to revitalise their faith.
In Africa, the Church is booming. The faith is strong in families and there are large numbers of vocations to the priesthood and the religious life. New orders of nuns are springing up as generous young women dedicate themselves to God and to the service of their often troubled communities. This impressive spiritual energy has not come entirely out of the blue.
It is the fruit of many decades, even centuries, of tireless work by priests, nuns, brothers, lay missionaries, catechists and local enthusiasts. As chaos has descended on various parts of this troubled continent, the Church has been a constant source of help, support and stability for people who have suffered under ruthless dictators and extremely violent rebellions and civil wars.
The Church is at work long before a region’s troubles reach the world’s headlines, the Church stays put during times of trouble, and as the news headlines fade away in uneasy truces the Church remains to build communities, hospitals, schools, to provide specialised training programs to help orphans and child soldiers recover their wounded humanity, and to train young men and women in useful skills to enable them to create their own families in due course.
The Church also passes on God’s revelation of himself in the wisdom and love of Jesus so that what the Church teaches and practises combine to give people a coherent view of life and constant hope in the goodness of this life and the next.
The work of the Church and the response of so many African people are matters of joy and pride for all Catholics worldwide. Here is an inspiration to recognise that we are all of us the children of God, that we really are a communion of saints here on earth as in heaven.
As we in Perth enter a New Year, it is time to cast off the listlessness and cynicism of our materialistic society and focus more clearly on the things that really make life worth living. It is a time to recognise more clearly that it would be a terrible waste if we do not live out our faith, and even worse if we do not make the effort to pass it on to our children.
I wish all of you a happy and holy New Year.
