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Former AFL star Stephen Lawrence will speak to parents about Pope John Paul II’s dramatic Theology of the Body at Santa Maria College on Friday evening, May 27.
He will also speak on the same subject to students and youth at an all-day workshop.
The seminar for parents and the all-day workshop for students and youth has been organised by Santa Maria College mother Josephine Stone and the archdiocesan Respect Life Officer Clare Pike.
Mr Lawrence, who played for Hawthorn until the late 1990’s was a highly-skilled ruckman and star of the 1991 Grand Final game against the West Coast Eagles.
These days Lawrence is still making his mark – but not on the football field. At present Mr Lawrence is the Convenor of the Catholic Chaplaincy at the University of Sydney.
He has worked extensively with young people particularly in the areas of sexuality, contraception, and relationships.
He has completed courses at the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne and taught at the University of Sydney. He has also taught at the Emmanuel School of Mission in Rome where he was director.
A report in the Pregnancy
Assitance agency’s Abundant Life magazine in 2000 said Mr Lawrence is widely credited for his gift in presenting the Theology of the Body in a beautiful and simple manner.
The ‘Theology of the Body’ is
Pope John Paul II’s integrated vision of the human person - body, soul, and spirit. As he explained, the human body has a specific meaning and is capable of revealing answers regarding fundamental questions
about the human person. John Paul II taught the Theology of the Body, which is based on scripture, during his Wednesday audiences from 1979 to 1984.
Continued - Page 2
Many families are still struggling to meet the basic necessities of living and must not be forgotten by a prosperous Australia, said the Chairman of the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council.
They need a wage that guarantees dignity.
The comment from Bishop Christopher Saunders of Broome, who chairs the Australian Bishops’ social justice lobby, came as he issued a pastoral letter for the Feast of the Church’s patron saint of workers on May 1.
“At this time of national prosperity, we should remember the needs of people both in and out of work on the margins of the labour market.
“Their need and entitlement is for a wage that ensures dignity for the worker and the family”, Bishop Saunders said on the Feast of St Joseph the Worker.
“The Australian Catholic Commission for Employment Relations recently called for a significant increase in the minimum wage because, after tax and government benefits, many families are still struggling to meet the very
Continued - page 2
The Commonwealth Government has made a grant of $3 million towards the completion of St Mary’s Cathedral.
The money was allocated in Tuesday night’s budget in the Environment and Heritage grants administered by WA Senator Ian Campbell, Minister for the Environment and Heritage.
“That’s wonderful news,” said Archbishop Barry Hickey when he received the news while at the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference in Sydney on Tuesday
night. “The grant has come at an ideal time,” he said. “We have lodged our building plans with the Perth City Council and are awaiting their approval for the project to proceed.”
“I am very grateful that the Commonwealth Government has supported major works programs at both the cathedrals in Perth,” he said, referring to a similar grant made in last year’s budget for restoration works at St George’s Anglican Cathedral.
Archbishop Hickey also expressed
The Archdiocese of Perth turned 160 this month. In the first of a new series Perth writer MARY BUSHER looks back on how the desire of the faithful started it all off.
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his gratitude to another WA Senator and Federal Minister, Senator Chris Ellison, for the work he had done in presenting the case for a grant to Prime Minister John Howard last year.
Senator Ellison had made himself familiar with all aspects of the plans for completion of the Cathedral before taking the case to the Prime Minister.
“I am thrilled the grant has come through,” Senator Ellison said on Tuesday night.
“St Mary’s Cathedral has signifi-
cance for all Catholics in Western Australia and when it is finally completed after 140 years it will be a magnificent cathedral that will enhance the City of Perth,” he said.
Archbishop Hickey also expressed his thanks to the many WA MPs and Senators from all political parties who had written to the Prime Minister supporting the request for a Federal grant.
“They were generous in their support of the project as a genuine community asset, as were a number of businessmen and other commu-
nity figures who also wrote to the PM,” he said.
“I think there will be widespread satisfaction that the grant has come through,” he said.
Mgr Thomas McDonald, chairman of the building project and Dean of the Cathedral, said he was very happy that the Commonwealth Government had included St Mary’s among the list of cathedrals, major churches and other important community buildings that had been assisted by the government in recent years.
The head of the Vatican’s Missionary organisation for children will be in Perth in June with a message on behalf of millions of children living in poverty. Come and hear him.
Personal witness to the message of Jesus was the strength of Pope John Paul II, and remained the calling of all in the Church, Australia’s new Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Ambrose De Paoli said last Friday, May 5.
In his first opening address to an Australian Catholic Bishops Conference plenary session in Sydney, Archbishop De Paoli said he was grateful and honoured to have been appointed as Apostolic Nuncio of Australia by the late Pope.
“The Holy Father has placed his confidence in me and I hope that I will be able to respond, in some measure, to the expectations of all,” he said.
“My concern is to witness to the message of Jesus, as is yours.”
Archbishop De Paoli told the bishops he hoped they would find in him a friend, a helper and a
collaborator. “I have come with an open mind to know you, the Church which you serve, the peoples and nation to whom you witness,” he said.
The Nuncio said that in recent weeks the world had witnessed and participated in memorable events which had embraced not only the Church, but the world itself.
“The late Pope John Paul II had a special gift of humanity which pushed aside barriers or pushed through barriers and reached out to others with a message, as diverse as it may be which struck some responsive chord,” he said.
“In his own way he showed that he cared for others, regardless of differences and obstacles which history may have strewn along the way.
“He himself was a message, but of the Message of Jesus. We are all called to be just that.”
Archbishop De Paoli said personal witness opened doors or kept them closed to the core message the Church sought to deliver.
“We are grateful to the ‘Lord from whom all good things come’ for the gift of Pope John Paul II,” he said.
“Through the Cardinal Electors the Church and the world has a new successor of Peter, Pope Benedict XVI. To Him we pledge our loyalty and collaboration and promise of prayers as he begins his Pontificate in these changing and challenging times.” Archbishop Hickey and Bishop Sproxton both attended the Bishops’ gathering.
Contuned from Page 1 necessities of living. “At a time when wage protection and other aspects of Australia’s Industrial Relations system are being questioned, our attention turns to the needs of almost 1.6 million workers on the minimum wage.
“There are others – including the unemployed and underemployed
– who also rely on the maintenance of a fair minimum wage to protect against poverty when work becomes available.”
Bishop Saunders said there are three standards in Church teaching that are relevant to the current debate concerning the minimum wage.
“The minimum must adequately reward workers for their labour, it
Dom Perignon, the man who put his name to one of the best-known brands of champagne, was perhaps the only Benedictine priest ever to have made an impression on Tony Burke, an agnostic who once filmed trailers for a sex chat line. But after Burke, 29, spent 40 days and 40 nights in Worth Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Crawley,
must meet the needs of the workers and their families, and it must not be allowed to fall below the level of subsistence,” he said.
The Letter, entitled The Minimum Wage in an Age of Prosperity and Wealth is available on the ACSJC website, www.socialjustice.catholic. org.au
- The full text of the Letter is published this week on Page 7
England, he was a changed man. He underwent a religious conversion, came to believe in God, quit his job - and never looked back. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever done,” he said. Burke, a resident of London, was one of five men selected from hundreds to take part in
“The Monastery,” a three-part reality television show being broadcast in Britain by the British Broadcasting Corporation beginning on May 10. The show followed the experiences of the each of the five participants, none of whom were Catholic, as they tried to adapt to the Benedictine way of life. “We
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MARKREIDY reidyrec@iinet.net.au ACCOUNTS
Tel:(08)92277080
Fax:(08)92277087
Continued from page 1
He discusses who man was in the beginning, who he is now and who he will be in the age to come.
Mr Lawrence says it is vital to speak to youth today about the concept.
“I believe young people need to hear this theology because its integral to every person in realising the gift of their manhood or womanhood,” said Mr Lawrence.
“This is so that they can maximise the possibility of being able to make a gift of their life either in marriage or in celibacy.”
Josephine Stone, who runs Santa Maria Ministry, a special interest group set up by the college and interested parents, and main organiser the event, said the vision is to deepen the spirituality of the parent body.
Last year, Santa Mara Ministry invited journalist Estelle Blackburn and former convicted criminal John Button to speak to parents about their experiences of finding God through the quest for justice.
Mrs Blackburn sold her home and her investment property so that she could write a book about the experiences of Mr Button who was jailed for 10 years for murder.
saw in this project an opportunity to discover what our way of life offers to people today who do not share our beliefs,” Benedictine Abbot Christopher Jamison said in a May 3 statement.
Theologian Michael Novak has succinct advice for people in business who want to serve humanity: Make a profit to create wealth and jobs. Business and capitalism
Mrs Stone said that parents were encouraged to hear how Mr Button, during the course of events of his life, had turned to God.
Mrs Stone said many parents have been programmed by today’s secular media not to understand what John Paul II taught.
“Some have a very misguided view [of the Theology of the Body],” she said. “We need to educate parents who are educating their children.”
“We need to show them how beautiful the Theology of the Body is.”
Mr Lawrence will speak in particular to parents on Friday May 27 from 7pm to10pm and to young people on Saturday May 28 2005 at an all day youth workshop from 8.30am to 4.30pm.
Seats are limited and people are encouraged to book as soon as possible to avoid dissapointment.
For more information contact Anne Leslie at Santa Maria College on 08 9329 1552.
are important forces for social justice and improving the lives of poor people, Novak said at a Molloy College forum in Rockville Centre. “There are 2 billion people in the world (of a total population of 6 billion) who are earning less than two dollars a day. “The only hope for them is small businesses,” which can create jobs and provide them with income, Novak said. Novak, a recipient of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, spoke recently on “Business as a Calling” as part of a series at the American college’s 50th anniversary. CNS
A confidential ministry of healing for women and men affected by abortion will be offered for the first time in Perth during a Retreat from June 6 – 8.
The ministry known as Project Rachel was established in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in the US in 1984 when the founder, Vicki Thorn, encountered an increasing number of women expressing pain and grief after their abortions.
Through personal encounters, hearing of stories published in books, in support groups and in cyberspace Ms Thorn recognised that there were a great number of women who were sharing common patterns of loss, sorrow and confusion.
Project Rachel arose as an avenue of support for these people who were struggling with the aftermath of what had become the most common surgical procedure in the United States.
As Ms Thorn listened to the stories of pain filled days, weeks and even years, she realised that the grieving experience was unique to each individual.
A brochure recently produced by the Perth Respect Life Office which is helping to promote the retreat, emphasises the importance of addressing this grief.
Project Rachel is now established in at least 140 Catholic dioceses in the US, in various other countries and the retreats have been conducted for several years in most
capital cities in Australia. The Perth retreat will be run by Julie Kelly, the Director of Project Rachel in Australia and will involve two days of psychological and spiritual care.
These will be provided by a number of specially-trained people and a priest who will work one-onone with those in attendance.
There will also be options available for follow-up care after the Retreat.
The retreats are based on Catholic spirituality but anyone who is struggling with the effects of abortion is welcome.
Miss Pike said the barrier to grief is particularly pronounced for women who were told before an
abortion that their embryo was only a piece of tissue. Miss Pike said that because of this current environment it should not be a surprise that there are many men and women who have not fully grieved the loss of their child. For women who have experienced abortion these symptoms can often include more severe manifestations, including self-destructive behaviour, eating disorders and suicidal thoughts.
■ The Abortion Grief Counselling Association will be presenting a talk on Sowing the Seeds of Healing at Bateman Parish Hall, 100 Dean Rd, Sun 22 May at 7.30pm. Inquiries (08) 9313 1784.
“My experience changed me in every way”
For further information of healing from abortion see; www.hopeafterabortion. com and www.afterabortion. org. The following are stories taken from these websites:
Jill’s Story
The abortion changed me in every way. I went from being an outgoing person who loved friends to being a hermit, not wanting to be close to anyone. I thought they would hate me if they really knew me. I became a heavy drinkerprobably bordered on becoming an alcoholic. I ran from God and hated myself. I accepted abuse and felt humiliated over that, and all the while I had this gnawing emptiness. For 12 years I was in a state of non-growth-just existing.
I became a Christian while I was separated, shortly before my divorce. At that time, I asked God to forgive me for my abortion, but I still felt so numb. I didn’t cry about my baby or anything. I felt hard-hearted and unable to really confess. I wondered if I was really sorry, or just regretted what had happened to me.
I finally was able to get over myself and think about my baby, come to love my baby, and then
grieve for my baby. And I was really able to understand God’s forgiveness--that all my self-punishment and misery could not atone for my abortion, that there was nothing I could do to pay for it, that Jesus died on the cross for my abortion and all my other sins, and paid for my sins in full. God not only forgave all my sins, He brought me peace and joy. Real joy! Now that I have found healing and forgiveness, I am once more developing friends, and am able to serve God however He chooses to use me.
I know God works everything for good, and I have seen Him use me to help others now. After working through my abortion, and seeing how very much God values each one of His creations, I am less critical of others, and tend to see all people as precious in God’s sight.
Karlie’s Story
When I was seventeen years old I underwent a second trimester, saline abortion. Although I wanted to have my baby, my parents pressured to submit to the abortion. After many hours of labor I gave birth to a dead baby boy. To say that this had a major impact on my life is an understatement.
Through my healing I have learned how to have more com-
Project Rachel derives its name from Jeremiah 31:15 – 17:
In Ramah is heard the sound of moaning, of bitter weeping!
Rachel mourns her children, she refuses to be consoled because her children are no more.
Thus says the LORD: Cease your cries of mourning, wipe the tears from your eyes.
The sorrow you have shown shall have its reward... There is hope for your future.
Project Rachel is in need of donations for the Retreat due to the cost of therapy and equipment used. If anyone is able to assist financially or is able to pray before the Blessed Sacrament during the Retreat contact Clare Pike on (08) 9375 2029.
For honest, reliable service and care of your investment property.
Contact (08) 9459 3600
or email Trish Humphries at trish@ppre.net
www.ppre.net
The Benedictine Community of New Norcia
passion and mercy for others. I am careful not to judge, for I know where I have come from and how much I needed compassion and mercy. Through my child lost to abortion, God has taught me about true love as opposed to the self-centered attachments I always wanted. Through the forgiveness I have been shown by God and others I have learned how to forgive others - and even myself. Because of the love I have found in God, I am less afraid of the suffering because I know I am never alone in this life; He is with me.
I won’t lie to you. It was a difficult journey. You must face yourself honestly, and it is frightening to confront the many faults we have. For those of us who are postabortive, often the very things we have to face are the same fears that caused us to choose abortion in the first place. The paradox is that facing these things - fear of abandonment, self-love, pride, etc. - is the very thing that will set us free from them. No matter how hard the journey, it is never as difficult as what you are living with now.
Remember that you are not alone in your feelings. There are reasons for them. There is no room for “politics” or controversy in postabortion healing. We have lost our children. We must be allowed to grieve for them.
A vacancy exists for a qualified accountant to assume responsibility for the financial management of the Benedictine Community’s business interests at New Norcia. These include its farm, hotel, guesthouse, museum, town tours, roadhouse, camp accommodation and education centre.
Responsibilities include:
● Monthly and end of year financial reporting
● Annual budgets
● Cash flow management and investments
● Creditors, debtors, banking and payroll
● Supervision of a small office staff
Personal qualities required:
● Initiative and enthusiasm to maintain and grow the town’s businesses
● Self motivated and able to work without supervision
● Excellent communications skills and ability to work with business managers
● Ability to meet deadlines
● Computer literacy
● Support for the ethos of the Benedictine Community
The successful applicant will be a CPA or Chartered Accountant and is likely to be a mature person willing to relocate to New Norcia.
Written applications detailing qualifications and experience should be sent to: townmanager@newnorcia.wa.edu.au
or by facsimile to:
The Procurator on (08) 9654 8097
or mailed to:
The Procurator
The Benedictine Community of New Norcia Inc.
New Norcia WA 6509
Applications close on Friday 20th May 2005
A public forum presented by Perth Catholic Mission and The Record on the plight of the world’s children and our Christian response.
● Children in the world: 2.2 billion;
● Children living in poverty : more than one billion;
● Children with no access to health care in developing countries : 1 out of 7;
● Daily rate of under-5 children mortality for lack of preventative measures against illnesses: 29,158 per day;
● Death rate of children in 2003 : 10.6 million;
● Life expectancy for a child born in Japan : 85 years;
● Life expectancy for a child born in Zambia : 33 years;
● Number of child deaths as a direct or indirect result of conflicts in 2003: 3.6 million;
● Children sexually exploited : 2 million;
● Estimate of new HIV-infected children in 2003: 5 million;
● Estimate of sexually transmitted deseases for Under 25-individuals: 2.5 million;
Children around the world need the help of Christ’s servants.
● HIV-AIDS orphan children : 15 million (of these , 80% living in Sub-Sahara Africa);
● Percentage of public spending for Health Care from Governments of industrialised countries: 14%;
● Percentage of public spending for Health Care from South East Asia and Pacific: 1%;
● Global military expences in 2003 : 956 billion US dollars.
- Source: Unicef 2005 Report
Come and hear a talk about a subject that we all need to know and understand
DATE: Friday 17th June 2005
TIME: 7pm to 9pm
VENUE: Catholic Pastoral Centre of Our Lady of the Mission 40a Mary Street Highgate
KEY NOTE SPEAKER:
Fr. Patrick Byrne, SVD
Secretary General of the Vatican’s Pontifical Society of Missionary Childhood
Fr Patrick, as a Vatican official,
has been to all the world’s trouble spots to monitor the plight of children and facilitate concrete responses to address their immediate and long-term needs in collaboration with local and international agencies with similar goals.
More than one billion children are living in poverty around the world.
In 2003, 3.6 million children died as a direct or indirect result of conflicts.
This public forum has been organised by the Catholic Mission Office in Perth and Bunbury in conjunction with The Record. It is hoped that this forum will not only affirm the concern we all have for the suffering of children around the world, but give us practical pointers to the seeds that we can sow today that will make a difference tomorrow. A
(10th October 04 - 29th October 05)
“The Church and the world have great need of Eucharistic Worship. Jesus waits for us in the sacrament of love. Let us be generous with him in going to meet him in adoration and in contemplation that is full of faith and ready to make reparation for the great faults and crimes of the world.”
(John Paul II: Dominicae Cenae 3)
“This book ... contains a wealth of prayers, thoughts and meditations, all centred around the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament ....It is a privilege for us to be able to spend time before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. During those precious moments we sense Jesus' tremendous love for us. We bring to Him our joys and our sorrows, we talk to Him about the needs of those around us, and we ask for that deep conversion of the heart and mind that will make us one with Him ... I commend this book to all, especially to those who have rediscovered the beauty and joy of Eucharistic adoration..."
Most Rev. B. J. Hickey - Archbishop of Perth
A beautiful set of Vatican Rosary beads will be sent to all those who give an additional charity donation of $10.00 or more to help the projects of Aid to the Church in Need for the persecuted Church in Sudan*. Please tick the box below if you would like to receive the Papal Rosary beads.
Some 80 parishioners from Our Lady’s Assumption Parish Dianella were last month made aware of the work of Brother Ollie Picket who was guest speaker at a Men’s Breakfast.
Brother Ollie assists in the making and distribution of wheelchairs to disabled children in developing countries.
The “Wheelchairs for Kids” program volunteers served the parishioners a delicious breakfast provided by Our Lady’s Assumption Parish Social Committee and a number of women from the parish.
The project is operated by the Scarborough Rotary Club in conjunction with the Christian Brothers and produces wheelchairs for children with disabilities originating from birth, disease or landmine. Brother Ollie brought with him the 5000th wheelchair produced by the Wangara warehouse which is run by volunteers and has aided disabled children in more than 40 countries since its commencement.
Ena Phillips, a member of the Parish Council, said that those in attendance were very touched by the work of the program and over $1500 was donated to Brother Ollie.
Ms Phillips believes that the response to the breakfast is a reflection of the positive spirit that exists at Our Lady’s. “Despite the fact that there hasn’t been a permanent resident priest for 18 months”, she said, “The community of the parish are still very dedicated to building parish community.”
The Holy Spirit of Freedom Community will present a Charismatic Conference in Pemberton entitled, “Living Flame, Transforming Love”, on the 3rd –5th of June, 2005.
The Community invites all, “To experience the transforming love of Jesus through, the Fire of the Holy Spirit, Joyful Praise and Worship, led by the HSOF music ministry, Scripture and Inspired Teachings, Personal Testimonies, the celebration of Mass and being together in a faith filled atmosphere”. There will also be opportunities for Reconciliation and healing prayer.
This will be the eighth annual conference that the HSOF Community have held for the Bunbury Diocese and the Community is once again expecting the town’s Mill Hall to be filled with those wanting to deepen their relationship with Jesus.
Conference Core group member Lisa Vieira said that there was a great sense of expectation for this year’s gathering. “There have been many testimonies of healings from past conferences and we are anticipating an equally, if not more powerful, move of the Holy Spirit this year”.
For more information on the conference or for bookings and accommodation options phone Lisa Vieira on (08) 9776 0323 or Connie Tartaglia on (08) 9776 1092.
Bishop Christopher Saunders of Broome has appealed for donations to help rebuild the remote historic Kalumburu Mission in WA’s far north.
Cyclone Ingrid’s devastating winds lashed the Mission early on the morning of Wednesday March 16.
Mission Administrator Greg Bell said the deafening sound of the surging winds contributed to “the most frightening night” of his and his wife Karen’s lives.
Benedictine Sisters Scholli, Visi and Barbara heard materials being smashed around outside their convent. Roofing was torn from their verandah, trees fell against their residence, fences were crushed and their kitchen, an annexe to the convent, was destroyed.
“It was really something, that cyclone”, said 88 year old Sr Scholli who is wellknown for her preferred mode of transport, a quad motor bike. Fr Seraphim Sanz OSB stayed in the monastery with his back to the door of his room which kept blowing open all night.
Lay Missionary Michael Keane tried to sleep in the Mission store and wisely stayed inside when an enormous African mahogany tree snapped, sending branches crashing down around the small building.
Many roofs in the light industrial area of the Mission were ripped off by the winds and some walls were blown out of sheds. A towering mango tree planted in 1939 narrowly missed destroying the heritage-listed stone monastery.
Bishop Saunders said the Mission was far more seriously damaged than the village.
“The old buildings, not built to cyclone standards, were no match for this once-in-a-hundred-year event. Never before has Kalumburu been so seriously battered. But the people there are resilient and determined, the Bishop said.
“With a lot of work, the people will bounce back as will the beautiful
natural surroundings that distinguish Kalumburu”.
Bishop Saunders said that items needed for the mission include:
• a new kitchen for the Benedictine Sisters
• a new workshop for the Mission
• repairs and replacement to staff accommodation at the Mission
• replacement of sheds and garages
Donations can be sent to :
Bishop Christopher Saunders Bishop of Broome PO Box 76, BROOME WA 6725
A Canadian bishop said he is prepared to sell all of the diocese’s 150 properties in order to settle a 16-year lawsuit with sexual abuse victims.
Bishop Douglas Crosby of St George’s in Newfoundland said the Church will sell its churches and missions to come up with the US$10.5 million for the victims of Father Kevin Bennett.“Our hands are open,” Bishop Crosby said in a May 6 statement. “We have offered everything
we have. The future of this diocese and our ministry is now in the hands of those who have suffered the most. “If we must go bankrupt, then we will do so, accepting our share in their suffering,” he said. Canadian Press also reported that Greg Stack, who represents 37 of 39 victims, said he expected they would accept the offer when they vote on May 25. “The amount of the settlement is almost secondary,” said Mr Stack.
Wednesday 11 May, 7.30pm (in English)
Indonesian, Chinese, Vietnamese communities
Thursday 12 May, 7.30pm (Italian)
Friday 13 May, 7.30pm (English)
Sunday 15 May, 4pm
Celebrated by Archbishop Barry Hickey and clergy. Light refreshments plus Corica pastries will be served in the Hall every evening
ALL WELCOME
Perth Oratorio Choir
Conductor: Warwick Potter Organ: Dominic Perissonotto
Soloists: Katja Webb Ngaire Greenwood
Stuart Haycock
Mark Alderson
Sunday 22 May 2005 at 2.30pm St Andrews Church cnr Georges Tce, Pier St Perth
Tickets $25 full, $22 concession call Musgroves Zenith Tempest on 9310 5980 or 9419 4030
Love Never Ends (1 Cor 13:13)
Our precious darling LLOYD (Born to eternal life 18.5.2003) beloved husband and dad brother, brother-in-law,
Our memories of the beautiful moments we shared The sacredness of our loving and giving Our journey through life together
And our connectedness to you with the Communion of Saints Is telling us a truth about the unendingness of love.
Linda and Tracy (D’Cruz) and your loving family
18th May 2005
After we partake of the Eucharist, our bodies are no longer corruptible, since we have received the hope of the eternal resurrection.
– St Irenaeus
Yesterday, on approaching the Most Blessed Sacrament, I felt myself burning and I had to withdraw. I am astounded that so many who receive Jesus are not reduced to ashes!
– St Gemma Galgani
This month (May 6, in fact) marks the 160th anniversary of the erection, or formal establishment, of the Diocese of Perth as an integral part of the Catholic Church.
To celebrate the occasion, archivist Sr Frances Stibi and journalist Mary Busher have prepared a series of articles showing aspects of the history of the Church in WA, with particular attention to the role of the laity and, in this Year of the Eucharist, the role of the Eucharist in Catholic life. The first of the stories appears on the back page of this issue of The Record. Others will follow.
It tells how a lay person wrote to Archbishop Polding in Sydney asking for a priest so that Catholics could celebrate the Eucharist.
It is a simple, straightforward request – and it summarises the real meaning of the Church to Catholics. In doing so, it makes nonsense of most of the criticism and debate about the Church that goes on in the media and among some Catholics.
A good rule of thumb is to talk to those who will listen, and ignore (other than to pray for them) those who will not.
This beautiful historical glimpse reminds us that the Church is about Jesus, and particularly about his most real and complete presence in the Blessed Eucharist. More truthfully even, the Church is Jesus present on earth, and the power of the risen Jesus is made available to each person through the Eucharist. It would be an egregious error to say that nothing else matters, but one can safely say that without this understanding it is impossible to understand the Church in any of her aspects, and impossible to understand our relationship with her.
PO Box 75, Leederville, WA 6902
Tel: (08) 9227 7080, Fax: (08) 9227 7087 cathrec@iinet.net.au
Unfortunately, this central feature of the life of the Church is not merely neglected, but absolutely ignored in most of the public debate about the role of the Church in society. The Church is treated either tacitly or explicitly as a man-made institution that can be required to adapt itself to whatever the loudest voices in society want at any particular time.
There are, of course, human elements in the Church and it matters a great deal whether those who have responsibility for them are closely attached to Jesus in the Eucharist or pursuing the urging of their own ego. The history of the Church confirms this, as indeed does the history of the 12 Apostles. All too often, unfortunately, those who are swirling around the Church in endless debate and criticism ignore the fact that the history of humanity also reveals that most of society’s problems arise from or are exacerbated by refusal to understand and adhere to the Church’s teachings.
In the present day, for example, there is the vicious propaganda campaign that tries to blame the Church for the death toll from AIDS, while ignoring the fact that nobody dies from AIDS as a result of following the Church’s teachings, but a great many die from ignoring those teachings.
Although Catholics have an obligation to stand by the Church in these rows, and a less precise obligation to defend the Church in debate, it is important not to let ourselves be misled into constant disputation that stirs our emotions, agitates our minds and deprives us of the peace and quiet in which the spirit flourishes. A good rule of thumb is to talk to those who will listen, and ignore (other than to pray for them) those who will not.
Jesus established the Catholic Church as his own. “On this rock I will build my Church” – not a national church or an ethnic church or society’s church, but MY Church. He gave her all his authority, promised to be with her all days till the end of time, assured the Apostles that those who listened to or rejected them listened to or rejected him, and gave her the Eucharist with which to feel the world.
On this rock I will build my Church — not a national church or an ethnic church or society’s church, by MY Church.
It is in all the ways that these things have been expressed by the Church that men and women have been led to extraordinary relationships with Jesus.
It is also in these ways that men and women have been led into ordinary relationships with Jesus, if such a relationship can be called ordinary.
As these vignettes from our own West Australian history reveal, people sought out the Church because they wanted the Eucharist and the spiritual nourishment that only the Church can provide.
The tradition is alive and well in our parishes today as faithful people seek spiritual sustenance and do their bit to ensure that the Church will be available to their children and grandchildren. They are not there to reshape the Church into their own image and likeness. They are there to ask Jesus to shape them more and more into his image and likeness. He always responds.
Those who have stayed away, including those who have been misled by the critics and even those who have joined the critics, are always invited to return. Jesus loves you and is waiting for you.
America, it seems, is in the middle of an obesity epidemic; providing an uncomfortable reminder that actions do have consequences; sometimes of a quite unexpected nature.
The American Centre for Disease control and Prevention, recently reported that during the 1990’s the average weight of Americans increased by 4.5 kilos, and two-thirds of the population are now either overweight or obese. Consequently, in 2000, US airlines spent an extra $364 million on fuel.
Incredible as it may seem that is what it cost, burning an additional 1.4 billion litres of fuel to compensate for the extra drag caused by the added weight of the flyers.
Who would have thought that a lifestyle of fries, takeaways and general self-indulgence would add to the operational costs of airlines?
It is a good example of how personal decisions can have cumulative and unforeseen ramifications. And if something as innocuous as overeating can lead to such unpredictable and farreaching consequences, might not other human activities of a more serious personal nature have similar unforeseen consequences.
A case in point is the contraceptive revolution begun in the 1960s and logical progression to the anti-natal mentality of today. Forty years after the sexual revolution burst upon the scene the bills are starting to come in.
Many women not only burnt their bras, but it seems a disproportionate number of them also burnt their bridges. In a post-menopausal twilight the voluntary sterility of their youth and the ghosts of the babies they rejected yesterday are coming back to haunt not just them, but all of us.
The emptiness in their hearts for what could have been is now reflected in the hollowing-out of the nation’s population. The term ‘ageing population’ is no more than a euphemism for a dramatic demographic shift that began more than 40 years ago when the most privileged generation the world had then known launched itself on a selfindulgent decades-long binge; the consequences of which are
A word of thanks for the wonderful articles being presented lately. We need to keep contact with what is being said by our Pope and build unity and hear what God is saying through Pope Benedict.
On the Year of the Eucharist, thankyou so much for the words of St Francis de Sales and St Peter Julian Eymard in last week’s edition. We need to rediscover the power of Christ’s love for us in the Eucharist, the healing power of His presence. Thankyou for this little article that allows us to share in the belief of the saints and make it our own.
Marian Howlett Wannerooonly now becoming uncomfortably apparent. Demography has been turned on its head.
Now, just as a generation, of ageing baby-boomers start queuing for their pensions the number of taxpayers to support them is shrinking. The children they denied, who would now be in the workforce are not there and neither is the money to pay their pensions.
That’s the reason for the government’s current frantic efforts to encourage pension-aged boomers to stay in the workforce. The nonsense of full employment and not enough workers is just that, nonsense. Australia has a large pool of underemployed, hidden by the subterfuge of categorising someone working one hour per week and who would love full time work as ‘employed.’
The real reason is a looming crisis of insufficient funds to pay coming retirees their pensions.
Just as moral failure has practical consequences, then logically the reverse is true. A major step to renewal and a world worth living in is surely a reversal of what John Paul II called the “culture of death”.
Revitalisation of the declining birthrate is the first step in combating this culture, and that can only come from a rejection of the current anti-natal policies that have prevailed for so long, and renewed support for the traditional family.
Anything less is mere window dressing.
Barry Morgan NorandaI write with reference to Lynette Chen’s letter published in The Record dated 5 May.
I am surprised that The Record was prepared to print such views. The Church has always taught that animals do not have an immortal soul.
And whilst we should always treat animals with kindness, according to the divine order all animals are subject to mankind.
Furthermore, whilst acknowledging that mankind’s dominion over animals is not absolute, “it is legimate to use animals for food
Join Benedict XVI in prayer - May
and clothing” including, within reasonable limits, medical and scientific experimentation where this contributes to the good of mankind (2417 Catechism of the Catholic Church).
The Catechism therefore teaches that animals are destined for the common good of mankind. Consistent with this perspective the very existence of animals is a sign of God’s blessing and providential care for mankind.
Therefore the existence of an animal is not an end in itself, as is the existence of a person. For this reason one must not direct to animals “the affection due only to persons”, or spend money on them “that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery” (2418 Catechism of the Catholic Church). In summary, the love and care due to persons (i.e. our neighbours), should always come before the love of animals or things.
This last point brings to mind the mindless tragedy of abortion. Anyone genuinely concerned with the big social justice issues, need look no further than the scandal of legalised abortion. Abortion is nothing less than the mechanised mass murder of young children. What greater contemporary social evil is there?
For this reason an often hysterical preoccupation with ecological, environmental and animal rights issues, often at the expense of much more serious social justice issues is symptomatic of our confusion, and loss of proper religious perspective.
Rory O’Hagan Winthrop WAThe Reformation was commenced by a German monk, Luther. Maybe another German, Ratzinger, is destined to achieve rapproachement.
Is the attendance of Perth’s Anglican Archbishop Peter Carnley at the funeral of Pope John Paul II in Rome a portent of things to come?
John Barich Claremont“That those persecuted for the sake of faith and justice may experience the consolation and strength of the Holy Spirit”. Mission intention: “That the Pontifical Missionary Works, proposed by the Holy Father and the bishops for the evangelisation of all nations, may help the people of God to feel that they have a real part to play in the mission ‘ad gentes’.”
With the establishment of its School of Nursing, Notre Dame proved it can produce high quality nursing graduates for the workplace. Now the focus is on the School of Medicine and how well it can deliver doctors to a country that is facing an imminent shortage. Professor MARK MCKENNA takes a look at what started the answer to the medical profession’s prayers.
■ By Professor Mark McKenna, Dean of the College of Health Notre DameThe University of Notre Dame Australia commenced its Medical Program in February 2005 with a foundation cohort of 81 students.
Notre Dame’s mission is directed at developing future professionals through an educational process based in Catholic faith and values, and as such has always had within it the possibility of a School of Medicine.
Key foundation members of the University staff, particularly the Vice Chancellor, Dr Peter Tannock and the Foundation Dean of Health, Professor Michael Quinlan, always had this vision, seeing opportunity in what Notre Dame could offer medical training, and what a School of Medicine might mean to Notre Dame.
The situation at the end of the 1990’s was that establishment of new medical schools in Australia had been a highly regulated and uncommon occurrence. Discussions had been held between staff at Notre Dame and the University of Western Australia from 1999 but discernible progress towards a new medical school was absent. It has been said that a number of planets had to come into alignment to allow progress and, fortuitously or through the guidance of higher powers, this did happen.
In 2001 a number of crucial factors were in play that provided an opportunity to develop a School of Medicine at Notre Dame. These factors included a growing recognition that there was an imminent shortage of doctors in Western Australia. Western Australian Federal Parliamentary members pressed this message in Canberra.
At the same time the medical profession in Western Australia had many who recognised the coming shortage of doctors outside the traditional rural shortages, and who were interested in new approaches to medical education, especially the idea of a graduate entry course. The University of Western Australia was explor-
ing its options but did not want to commit to Notre Dame as a partner. Notre Dame had proved that it could deliver high quality nursing graduates well suited to the workplace through the success of the School of Nursing, set up so well by the Foundation Head of the School of Nursing, Professor Doreen McCarthy. Doctors such as Deputy Head of the School of Medicine Professor Jenny McConnell, who were both respected by their professional colleagues and knowledgeable about best practice in medical education, were wishing to be involved. Professor Quinlan brought these doctors together, gave them direction and support in embarking on the difficult course of developing a medical school. Professor Quinlan also spoke to many people of his hopes and plans for the School, negotiating partnerships and understandings with universities, professionals, professional bodies, government departments both state and federal, politicians, hospitals and health providers and more.
The Vice Chancellor played a decisive role, through support within Notre Dame, but also crucially in the political arena, ensuring that the issue of the need for a new medical school for Western Australia was addressed.
Head of the School of Medicine, Professor Adrian Bower, has subsequently guided the School through a very intricate and demanding accreditation process. The process would of course be expected to be detailed and demanding as it is crucial that doctors graduating from the School be of high quality and able to practise successfully anywhere in Australia. Head of Clinical Years, Professor Bernard Pearne-Rowe, Head, Population and Preventive Health, Associate Professor Donna Mak and myself (Dean of the College of Health), have contributed to the curriculum development in the areas of clinical learning, public health & social justice and personal & professional development. Staff at Curtin University play an essential role in the delivery of the basic science parts of the course, supported in this by senior staff at Curtin from the Vice Chancellor down. Partnerships with private hospitals and Catholic Healthcare organisations (especially St John of God
Healthcare) have delivered an opportunity to teach medicine as it is commonly practised in the community, rather than in the rarefied atmosphere of the Tertiary hospitals.
Notre Dame’s particular Mission, educational interests and strengths have played a key role in the development of a course with innovative approaches to developing doctors for this century. While teaching healthcare in the context of Catholic Values such as Hospitality, Service, Compassion and Truth is not unique, placing these values at the centre of the curriculum in a compulsory core containing units in Philosophy, Ethics and Theology is different and has opened many opportunities.
Unashamedly we believe that considering spiritual and ethical issues in a medical curriculum enriches that course and the graduates from it. We believe that the imperative to tolerate all views lest any one be offended that is prevalent in secular Universities, prevents the full and open examination of issues that future doctors MUST examine in depth. We believe that the Notre Dame approach where other religions and views are respected while stating clearly where we stand is considerably more appropriate than simply gazing upon the key moral questions of the day without probing their depth.
Truly important matters relating to life, death, disease, suffering, science including reproductive biology and psychiatry, issues of social justice and injustice all demand our attention, honest and open examination and discussion within the context of our values and beliefs.
This challenges us, but through meeting that challenge we grow in knowledge and faith; which are surely the central aims of a Catholic university.
The curriculum has an explicit expectation that students will understand their obligation to the patients and communities who participate in their education. This is to make students question the sense of entitlement that some doctors develop; and to help them understand the value to themselves and to the world of using their gifts for good. More reports
Notre Dame’s new medical program could become one of best in Australa with the appointment of its head, Professor Adrian Bower.
■ By Jennifer Wakeman, Notre Dame Media and Publications OfficerThe Medical Program at Notre Dame University has been described as a true innovation.
Professor Adrian Bower, Head of the School of Medicine at Notre Dame University is a medically qualified anatomist and has a PhD in neuroscience. He has an impressive background in medical tertiary education being involved in changing the medical school program from an undergraduate to graduate entry program at the University of Queensland and he was also a key player in the design team of the medical program at James Cook University.
Professor Bower said, “In my view, and I’ve been involved in medical education for a while, this is the most exciting and innovative medical program that I have seen – the attributes are quite stunning. The value that the core curriculum [ethics, philosophy and theology] adds to the whole education experience for the students is very impressive and has the potential to generate a new breed of medical graduate”.
Notre Dame’s medical program is designed as a graduate entry course. Students are required to have completed a Bachelor degree within the last 10 years with a good grade point average and must have passed the Graduate Australian Medical Schools Admission Test (GAMSAT).
Students must also undergo an interview process led by Notre Dame’s Medical Faculty, a practising physician and a member of the community whereby students’ personal attributes and motivation to study medicine are explored in depth. This interview process also allows an examination of the students’ understanding of the mission of both the University and the Medical School.
WA’ s future doctors are benefiting from a collaborative partnership between Curtin University of Technology and the new School of Medicine at the University of Notre Dame Australia.
Each week 81 students who make up the first intake in the graduate entry program are able to access state of the art facilities and experienced staff at the School of Biomedical Science and anatomical laboratories at Curtin.
Curtin Vice-Chancellor Professor Lance Twomey said the University is delighted to be part of the School of Medicine at Notre Dame.
“This collaborative partnership between Curtin and Notre Dame University is an example of Perth universities pooling resources and facilities to the benefit of our students and the community,” Professor Twomey said.
“We support the aim of this course which is to boost the number of doctors in WA,”
“Our role in delivering medical science teaching is an innovative and exciting aspect of the post graduate program.”
Notre Dame’s Vice Chancellor Dr
Peter Tannock said many people had worked for several years on establishing the School of Medicine.
“It’s a credit to all concerned,” Dr Tannock said.
“The program has attracted a diverse group of students including a pharmacist from Kangaroo Island; a mother of 3 whose 18 yearold daughter is also completing a medical degree; and an ex-policeman and father of four from South Australia.”
Curtin School of Biomedical Science’s Professor John Wetherall said the University is providing preclinical biomedical science instruction including access to the School’s sophisticated anatomy facility.
“Experienced staff in the School contribute to the disciplines of genetics, physiology, biochemistry, microbiology, human biology and anatomy,” Professor Wetherall said.
“This is a cost-effective solution to the problem of duplicating expensive science infrastructure and benefits both Notre Dame and Curtin.”
The School of Medicine is the second to be established in WA. Clinical teaching of these future doctors will support the areas of general practice, aged care, private hospitals and outer metropolitan health services.
Marking an occasion: Pictured here is Archbishop Hickey with members of the first intake of School of Medicine students in February this year. Notre Dame joined with the Catholic Doctors Association to celebrate the Eucharist marking the School’s commencement. The Eucharist was concelebrated by Archbishop Hickey in the University’s Holy Spirit Chapel with Notre Dame Chaplain Fr Greg Watson and Fr Dennis Rochford, Dean of Theology. The CDA is based at the LJ Goody Bioethics Centre in Glendalough and aims to promote a Catholic perspective in health care. It was established in 1987 and has close to 100 members. Secretary of the Catholic Doctors Association Dr Michael Shanahan confirmed the association’s support saying it was pleased to see UNDA reinforcing their Catholic mission in health. Vice Chancellor Peter Tannock said the opening of the Medical School was “a most significant milestone in the development of the University” and the Mass was “a wonderful way to give thanks for all the hard work done by so many dedicated people to make the medical school a reality and to ask God’s blessing on its students and staff.”
In the first year of the medical program, students study the normal structure and function of the body.
In their second year they study the pathophysiological basis of disease and in the third and fourth years there is a focus on clinical training.
Clinical training however is conducted throughout the program, with students making their first General Practitioner visit in week 5.
“Early clinical contact is an essential feature of a modern medical cur-
riculum. It gives the students an insight into the clinical relevance of the basic sciences, including the behavioural sciences, and provides extra motivation to study these subjects,” said Professor Bower. “The clinical focus of the Notre Dame curriculum will be in primary care and outer metropolitan hospitals as well as the private sector. This will provide the students with case mix experience which will mirror more closely their future
practice than a traditional tertiary hospital based curriculum. An important concomitant of early clinical exposure is to ensure that the basic sciences are refreshed and reinforced during the later years of the course”. The program also focuses heavily on serving the needs of rural and outer-metropolitan health.
Professor Bower explains, “The students will experience a rural immersion rather than rural voyeurism. In
their first year they will be billeted with rural families in the Wheatbelt of WA to experience first-hand the pressures and strains of rural life. During this time they will undertake a research project which will look at the social capital of the area that they are staying in.” Students will also have a three week trip to the Kimberly where they will stay with Aboriginal communities to absorb their spirituality and culture.
The Australian Medical Council identified some questions peculiar to the new reality of an Australian Medical School in a Catholic University. Some of these were relatively minor to do with the environment where iconography and art were in part distinctly Christian in theme; others were more significant to do with the comprehensiveness of the curriculum and the extent to which a Catholic University could tolerate diversity of opinion at variance with its own values.
My response to them and that of my staff was that, teaching the core units of the University, in the liberal arts of Theology, Philosophy and Ethics, would involve a clear particularity of presentation, in the context of Catholic faith and values,
with a plurality of responses welcomed by any university committed to intellectual freedom.
Catholic education at Notre Dame, which includes the Core curriculum, invites all its students to take an interest in the Catholic world-view, its intuitions, its understanding of life and values. However, like all universities, the student body at Notre Dame comprises people from various religious perspectives and also people of no particular religious faith. Thus, the University does not shape its identity by excluding anybody. On the contrary, the presence of ‘others’ is crucial for academic credibility.
A corollary of this is that Notre Dame is never so educationally rich as when it is required to plumb its own intellectual tradition in order to recognise and respond to questions that come from different philosophical and religious tradi-
tions, including those of unbelief.
In practice this requires the deployment of theological resources enabling the University to welcome into dialogue a range of commitments and values that contribute richly to a liberal arts education in the context of Medicine.
While the University possesses a distinctly Catholic theological voice, it is expressed in a positive dialogue with all its students. The core units provide medical students with an opportunity to engage with Catholic values over the vital questions of life, death and meaning.
This means that the core units can challenge their learning, allowing them, in dialogue with a particular tradition of faith and life, to determine who they are and not just what they are.
The core units for the medical students are, as elsewhere in the University, at the service of this
deeper philosophy of education. They provide the students with a philosophical background that goes beyond vocational training. Indeed, that is what a Catholic education is all about. Teaching and learning that is driven by the encounter with what, for some, will be familiar but, for others, strangely different experiences of life and values. In either case, the desired outcomes include critical learning and commitment.
One particular example for medical students, would be to understand the interplay between spirituality and health. As we state in the rationale for Theological Studies: “The unit also raises questions concerning the relationship between spirituality, illness and healing.”
This is a concrete statement about the educational value of engaging students with the Christian tradition that remains aware of its own particular identity while remaining
open to the plurality of individual responses.
It is best epitomised by the story of the Good Samaritan where, to everybody’s surprise, the patient wakes, only to find the hand of compassion extended by the least likely, the outsider. Notre Dame, a Catholic University and the Core curriculum, resourced by discourses like this, remains committed to the dialogue about life and value. The two thrusts of Notre Dame – study of theology, philosophy and ethics and the study of other appropriate and professionally necessary sciences – frames compassion in something of the truth. At this University we must have both, for truth without compassion becomes dogmatism, and compassion without truth is little more than sentimentality.
Dennis Rochford msc is Dean of Theology, at The University of Notre Dame Australia
Melissa Sandelin-McCann:
Melissa Sandelin-McCann is a 25 year old mother of three who is also an ex-pharmacist. She relocated with her family from Kangaroo Island in South Australia to pursue her dream of studying medicine.
“As a pharmacist I worked with rural General Practitioners in the country and saw first-hand what they did. I liked the patient contact, which you don’t get on the same level as a pharmacist.”
“I want to go back and practise in a rural town. There’s a real sense of community in country towns which really appeals to me. Plus as a GP working in that environment you get the opportunity to do a variety of things that a GP working in the city may not experience very often like obstetrics and surgery,” she said.
“I’m really happy with my choice to go to Notre Dame. My family and I have settled in and are really enjoying Western Australia. Considering Notre Dame has a new medical school - the second in the state - I’m sure we’ll have some healthy rivalry between the University of WA and ourselves to produce graduates that are really top-notch.”
Chevaun Howard:
Chevaun Howard relocated to Perth from Adelaide. Her previous degree is in Health Science and she has an honours degree in pathology. She completed her thesis in traumatic brain injury in which she also tested a new drug.
“Hopefully I’ll have two papers published this year as a result of the
research I undertook in my thesis. At 22 I’m really excited about the prospect of that opportunity,” she said. When asked about the desire to become a doctor, Ms Howard said, “I really enjoy learning about the body. Apart from the patient contact, practising medicine is also about educating people about their own health too.”
“I wanted to study medicine at Notre Dame because of the small class sizes - it sounded like a great learning environment to me. It’s a big decision to move away from your family to study so I’m glad my fiancé came with me as it’s also nice to have that support.”
Simon Clarkson:
Born in Canada to Australian parents, 26 year-old Simon Clarkson has been living in Australia for the past 7 and a half years and has a background in neuroscience and completed an honours degree in spinal cord research. Mr Clarkson’s decision to study medicine at Notre Dame was reinforced by the University’s support for graduates who aspire to service rural and outer-metropolitan areas of the state.
“I feel Notre Dame’s commitment to this offers a very diverse and important element of health care and community interaction for both medical students and future practitioners,” he said.
“Although I haven’t experienced living in rural WA as yet, I recently spent 3 weeks in Russia, where I accompanied Patch Adams (best known for the film of the same name that portrays Dr Hunter Adams’ life) on his annual healing and humour tour of Russia. It
was an incredible experience. We clowned for two weeks solid, visiting children’s hospitals and orphanages in Moscow and St Petersburg to bring smiles and love to all the children, and the family members of those children sick in hospital.”
“Russia is considered underde-
veloped in terms of health care, and to be given the privilege of interacting with the people of Russia in some very fragile and emotional settings was unforgettable.”
“I’m also looking forward to studying the core units of ethics, philosophy and theology as it will
be great for my own self-development and important to my life as a physician. It will expose me to different backgrounds and beliefs that my patients may have which in turn will give me a great insight into providing better health care for them.”
Question: A friend of mine recently visited Rome and the Vatican, but found the superabundance of nakedness on display in the artworks so offensive that she decided against visiting the Sistine Chapel. I found this sad, and although I can’t quite agree with her rationale, I have to admit that there seems to be a contradiction between the Church upholding the virtues of chastity and modesty, while some of her most beautiful artworks seem to show excessive nudity. What does the Church teach on this?
Your letter went on to ask about standards of dress in today’s society, but allow me to leave that for another time and address your question about nudity in art.
Pope John Paul II wrote three poems which were published in 2003 under the title Roman Triptych. In these poems, the Pope counselled the cardinals who would soon gather to choose his successor to take
inspiration from Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. He wrote, ‘During the conclave, Michelangelo must teach them: do not forget – all things are naked and open before God’s eyes.’
Obviously, the Pope appreciated these famous paintings; remember, it was in his pontificate that the frescoes were restored. But Michelangelo’s figures weren’t always so appreciated by Church leaders. In fact, The Last Judgment was controversial from the moment it was completed in 1541 under Pope Paul III. All of the figures were nude – all of them, including Christ and the Virgin Mary!
Artists have an obligation to exercise prudence in their work and not become obsessed with some purpose other than expressing truth and beauty.
When the papal master of ceremonies, Biagio da Cesena, took a sneak peak at the painting just before its completion, he said that it was better suited for a bathhouse than for a pope’s chapel. Michelangelo retaliated by painting Da Cesena in hell, with the ears of a donkey and a serpent wrapped around his waist, and surrounded by devils!
When Da Cesena complained to the Pope, the pontiff replied, ‘If he had painted you in purgatory, maybe I could have freed you – but I have no power over hell!’
Nevertheless, prelates fumed for twenty years until a pupil of Michelangelo’s, Daniele da Volterra,
was commissioned to paint braghe (Italian underpants) on eleven of the figures. In time, various artists continued to add draperies over the nude figures until they were all ‘clothed’ at the beginning of the 20th century. During restoration work in the early 1990’s, all but Da Cesena’s coverings were removed.
(His were kept in the interest of art history.)
Paolo Carloni, an art history professor in Rome, commented: ‘It took a long time for the Church to acknowledge what the Pope is now saying in his poems. Michelangelo was right: nakedness is a symbol of purity.’
Well, sometimes, but not always! We must obviously make a distinction between art and pornography, between nudity for the sake of truth and beauty versus nudity for the sake of arousing immoral feelings.
The problem of art and morals raises questions like these: ‘If a genuine work of art is truly beautiful and attains to perfection, how can it be considered immoral? Or conversely, if a work of art is immoral, isn’t its beauty irrelevant?’ Artists tend to side with the first question, while censors tend to take the second position.
The fear of art often arises because art is unashamedly concerned with an intellectual pleasure which St Thomas Aquinas approvingly called delectatio or ‘delight’. He taught that art is for the delight of a person’s intelligence and heart, but it must reach him by pleasing the senses. And very often the artist brings pleasure by borrowing what is most attractive and pleasing to our senses: the beauty of the human form.
I myself have been to the Vatican
Someone recently said to me that children are only asked one thing in the bible “they have to obey their parents.” I must admit that this didn’t sit too comfortably with me. It’s always seemed strange to me that in the Ten Commandments, right up there with worshiping God, adultery, murder and theft you have… “Oh and be good to your Mum and Dad.” But what’s it really all about?
What many people incorrectly interpret as “obey” is in fact more correctly interpreted as honour or respect. The actual Hebrew word from which our translations are derived is Kavod. The words honour and respect also fall far short of the true meaning of Kavod. Kavod speaks chiefly about dignity. In the sense of Exodus 20:12 and Deuteronomy 5:16 it is about pre-
serving the dignity of our parents. It’s not really about obeying what they say although at times preserving the dignity of our parents may mean that we do.
So how do we get our children to respect us? Well, that’s a difficult one and I don’t pretend to have any answers. In fact I would suggest that there may be something wrong with even trying. My guess is that the first place to start is by examining our relationship with our own parents and exploring the ways in which we can be a better example of honouring our mother and father.
The word Kavod has particular emphasis on action. God intended more than just a change of attitude. A change in attitude is important; changing the way that we think about our parents. However, the Commandment was particularly concerned with what we do. It means acting in a way that allows our parents to know that we respect and uphold their dignity. It also means upholding their dignity when we talk about them both now and when they have moved on to the afterlife.
For me, honouring father and mother extends to my father-inlaw and mother-in-law. Without them I wouldn’t be married to the most special woman in the world. If I want our children to honour the values and beliefs that Karen
a number of times, and I cannot understand your friend’s concern. There are no nude statues or paintings in St Peter’s Basilica, other than little cherubs flying around here and there. In the Museums, there are collections of Greek and Roman sculpture, including nudes; but other than a few paintings of St Sebastian shot through with arrows or some martyrs being dragged off to death, I cannot recall any nudes.
Certainly, artists have an obligation to exercise prudence in their work and not become obsessed with some purpose other than expressing truth and beauty. If a moral problem arises in a work of art that is obviously not intended to be pornographic, like the Sistine Chapel frescoes, it may accidentally arise for the spectator who is unable to view the work of art in its artistic integrity. This may be due to lack of education, immaturity, or the person’s moral or psychological disposition.
Not all art is perfect, and not all art is concerned with truth and beauty. Some ‘art’ is simply intended to shock or arouse, and censorship may be required. However, prudence avoids excesses that lead to puritanical sterility and prevent the experience of any art touching the senses. It was this kind of thinking that led some Protestant reformers to not only remove images from churches, but to whitewash paintings, smash stained glass windows and even forbid instrumental music – what a tragic loss, not only for the Church, but for the world’s culture.
The Church teaches: To the extent that it is inspired by truth and love of beings, art bears a certain likeness to God’s activity in what He has created. (Catechism no. 2501). That seems to be what Michelangelo, and many other artists, have tried to do. Pope John Paul II appreciated his effort, and I hope your friend will learn to do the same.
■ With Tony Paganoni, CS
The founders of the great religious orders and congregations of the Church who organised associations for precise purposes and with specific aims were led to do so through their fervour concerning the important social issues of their time, and they were sustained in their work by a spiritual view of those situations.
this work required the dedication of many men and women inspired with the same concerns. It was a conviction that led him to take the step for which he is most remembered, which was the founding of religious societies for men and for women to carry forward his mission for emigrants.
brings to our family then I should be a witness of honouring Karen’s parents and the values they passed on to her.
Modeling probably is not the only thing that we can do though. In speaking specifically to the commandment “honour your father and your mother…” St Paul gives us some valuable advice. In his letter to Timothy he says “parents never drive your children to resentment or you will make them feel frustrated.” I think we all know that it’s pretty difficult to honour someone who frustrates us.
In my mind St Paul is highlighting the fact that parent-child relationships are dynamic. Relationships change and adapt and family pressures ebb and flow. Just expecting our children to honour us can be unrealistic. We have a responsibility in this regard too. We need to think about the demands and expectations that we place on our children. It also means that when they fall short of our expectations that we are called to compassion and forgiveness.
In my experience, what children grow up honouring and admiring most about their parents is not the rigid implementation of a set of rules and the demand to obey. It is the quality of their parent’s love, compassion, kindness and the belief that we can always do better.
So it was for Scalabrini whose thirty-year episcopate coincided with the years of greatest emigration from Italy, which occurred in the absence of any government support. Politicians of all parties, engaged in creating the structures of post-Risorgimento Italy did nothing to legislate for this serious social crisis. Even most of the great writers of the time kept silent - despite the Realist trend in literature – and this silence has fallen on the scholastic texts given to millions of Italian students. It is a silence that is perhaps part of the very destiny of the emigrants, too far from their country of origin to be remembered there, and too extraneous to their country of adoption to be given more than token recognition.
Scalabrini formulated his theory that emigration should not be halted or hindered, but assisted, since it was an instrument for promoting an enlightened view of history and the Christian faith. He toured Italy knocking on doors, and became an adviser at the Vatican on ways of assisting the emigrants. Clearly Scalabrini was not the only member of the clergy to recognise the dramatic situation surrounding Italian emigration – the following were also deeply involved: Mother Francesca Cabrini, Vincenzo Pallotti, Giovanni Bosco, Cardinal Ferrari Bishop of Milan, Monsignor Geremia Bonomelli Bishop of Cremona - but systematic, specialised assistance for emigrants came principally as a consequence of Scalabrini’s work
Over the years he became more and more convinced that
For Scalabrini the phenomenon of emigration was not a passing phase but a movement that would come to dominate the world scene, growing more and more dramatic and universal. The movement of people was once from Europe, but today it comes from the so-called Third World; history tells us that in future many more men and women will be forced to seek elsewhere for the work that will allow them to keep their dignity.
Aware that Italian emigrants to the Americas were living in wretched conditions and in a state of religious neglect, Scalabrini sent his first missionaries to their aid: to Sao Paulo, Porto Alegre, Santos in the South, and to the cities of Boston and New Orleans in the North, and then inland. But also to the ports of Genoa, Naples and New York.
The religious and lay missionaries in the institutions founded by Scalabrini almost a hundred and twenty years ago are still guided today by some of the characteristics that marked his episcopacy in Piacenza. Above all, they have great empathy for the person of the migrant, and a desire to protect and enhance each person’s dignity.
The migrant, wherever he or she is in the world, is always going to be different, and that diversity will elicit diffidence in others. There are many nuances to this condition, the Australian experience being unlike any of the others, and yet all are simply variants of that same condition. There is need for the diversity to be respected and embraced as having equal validity with other elements within the dominant culture, an undertaking that is typically Scalabrinian.
■ By Bishop Christpher Saunders
This pastoral letter marks the Feast of St Joseph the Worker – a day on which we acknowledge the importance of work in the lives of individuals and their families. This day coincides with the Living Wage claim of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), currently before the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC). The day is also celebrated at a time when far-reaching policy reforms are being proposed that hold implications for low paid, unemployed and underemployed workers who are seeking a fair and just wage.
Work and pay - the measure of justice
The Church recognises the importance of work for the personal formation and dignity of the individual worker. Work is vital in supporting family life and the life of the community. The Church teaches that work is an essential key to the whole social question about the just and proper functioning of society. If work is a key to this social question, then the adequacy of wages provides the measure by which we judge the justice of the entire socioeconomic system – a system that should always be at the service of its people.
At a time when minimum wage protection and the operation of other aspects of the Industrial Relations system are being questioned, our attention turns to the needs of almost 1.6 million workers struggling to make ends meet and relying on the current wage case
because they are unable to bargain for increases above the award rate of pay.
There are others – including the unemployed and underemployed – who also rely on the maintenance of a fair minimum wage to ensure they will not be living in poverty or hardship when work becomes available. The possibility of an employment strategy focused on restraining minimum wages poses a threat to the low paid and unemployed alike.
Workers in the vineyard
What are the circumstances faced by low-paid, unemployed and underemployed workers? What is rightly owed to them? We might draw insight about the dignity of the worker and wage justice from the parable told by Jesus on the workers in the vineyard (Mt. 20:116).
Some, including the Church, have argued that the current minimum wage is inadequate for the needs of workers and their families and must be increased
Jesus told this story to draw his listeners’ attention to the reality of the Kingdom of God and the invitation to all, even latecomers, to share in this Kingdom by the mercy of God. Jesus builds the story around a structure of wage justice that spoke to the reality of labourers of that time. In the parable an employer goes out at daybreak to the market to hire labourers to work in this field. He returns four more times during the twelve hour working day to hire – even as late as the eleventh hour. The parable paints a picture of a labour market devoid of security for the low skilled worker.
At the end of the working day, the labourers are called to receive their pay. Those hired last each receive one denarius. Seeing these workers who toiled for only one hour in the relative comfort of twilight being paid a denarius raises the hopes of the other workers. Expecting to be paid more, those who had worked longer and harder are disappointed and disgruntled when they receive the same. It is easy to sympathise with those ‘bearing the burden of
the day and the scorching heat’.
But the payment which appears on first reading to be unfair and arbitrary, is in fact generous and socially responsible. The denarius was the basic wage for unskilled labour – the minimum wage of the day. In the eyes of those who are desperate enough to accept the smallest of wages at the end of a working day the employer sees the faces of a family waiting for their father to return home with their daily bread. The workers were paid according to their need – not according to the prevailing standards of the market.
The minimum wage in Australia
In this sense, the parable resonates with the 1907 ‘Harvester decision’ of the Australian Court of Conciliation and Arbitration to establish a national minimum wage. This wage was set to provide for an unskilled man, his wife and three children living in frugal comfort estimated according to general living standards. The minimum wage would protect unskilled rates of pay from the unequal contest of the market and secure a level of pay and conditions that were out of the reach of many through the process of individual bargaining with employers.
Our Nation’s proud tradition of setting a minimum wage has become a central feature of the Industrial Relations system. Today it is adjusted regularly through wage cases heard before the AIRC.
During these wage cases some, including the Church, have argued that the current minimum wage is inadequate for the needs of workers and their families and must be increased.
Others who would like to contain wage increases say the minimum is too high and that market forces should play a greater role in setting a price that would increase demand for workers and reduce unemployment.
The possibility that the value of the minimum wage could be reduced in real terms as Australia pursues wage flexibility of the kind commonly known as the ’low-wage agenda’ calls us to consider what the Church says about the just remuneration of workers and what should be the key standards of a minimum wage.
Key standards of a minimum
In the Church’s teaching there are three standards concerning wage justice that are very relevant to today’s debate concerning the minimum wage.
First, the minimum wage must be a fair or ‘just’ wage. It must adequately reward workers for their labour. For this reason, the minimum wage and basic conditions cannot be left simply to an agreement between employer and employee but also require the State to ensure there are fair minimum standards of pay and conditions.
Secondly, because work is a foundation for family life, the minimum wage must provide not only for the worker but for the needs of his or her family and for those seeking to start a family. A Government can also provide family benefits to enhance the family income.
The minimum wage must be a fair or a ‘just’ wage... it must provide not only for the worker but for the needs of his or her family and those seeking to start a family... the minimum wage should not be set below the level of subsistence.
Thirdly, because the wage is the means by which the vast majority of people meet their daily needs, the minimum wage should not be set below the level of subsistence. It was on these standards that the Catholic Church recently supported the ACTU’s claim for a $26.60 increase to the federal minimum wage. Appearing before the AIRC, the Australian Catholic Commission for Employment Relations (ACCER) said that the minimum wage must be sufficient to enable one parent to be in the paid workforce and for the couple to be able to support two children and achieve an acceptable standard of living. Clearly, this is far from the case at the moment. The best available evidence reveals that a couple with two children relying on a minimum wage of $467.40 per week (and after tax and government benefits) would be struggling to meet the very necessities of living.
In addition to supporting the
minimum wage increase, the ACCER has called for the AIRC to undertake thorough research into the adequacy of the minimum wage measured against the real needs of low paid workers as a basis for future safety net increases.
What future for the minimum wage?
This could be the last time a Minimum Wage Case of the current type is heard.
The Government has criticised the AIRC for supposedly lacking “economic rigour” and has suggested that alternative mechanisms for setting the minimum wage are being examined.
The Catholic Commission, ACCER, has expressed its concerns to Government that the wage decisions, affecting the lives of so many low income Australians, could be taken from the Industrial Relations Commission. This independent institution is obliged to consider a fair minimum in the context of general living standards, the likely impact of increases on the economy and with special concern for the low paid.
Those seeking to restrain minimum wage increases often argue that it impedes employer demand and keeps people who are unemployed out of work. But a failure to appreciate the common interests and experiences of the unemployed, the underemployed and the low paid is likely to result in unjust proposals for the reduction of minimum wages and the creation of jobs.
The burden of providing work for all should not fall on the low paid but on society as a whole. And those who are unemployed and underemployed must be assured the work they seek will provide a fair and just wage that will keep them out of poverty.
In this age of prosperity and wealth, there are many who exist both in and out of work at the margins of the labour market. They will be hoping that, like the owner of the vineyard in Jesus’ parable, our Government, business, trade unions and others with influence in Industrial Relations will recognise and honour their need for a wage that allows them to live in dignity.
As some 40 states and school districts across the US struggle with issues of how Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution should be taught in public schools, a leading Baltimore Catholic and member of the President’s Council on Bioethics has urged there be conversation, not confrontation, about the issue.
“Scientists, as they engage in dialogue with others, should abhor attempts to close off the conversation by excessive claims for any privileged access to truth,” Dr Paul McHugh wrote in a recent issue of the national Weekly Standard magazine, which is published in Washington.
And, furthermore, he observed, “scientists should tell what they actually know and how they know it as distinct from what they believe and are trying to advance.”
McHugh is the former psychiatrist in chief of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and now university distinguished service professor of psychiatry and behavioural science at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He is also an active member of St Ignatius Parish in Baltimore.
The most recent debate on what children should be taught or not taught about evolution in public schools took place in Kansas in early May.
The state education board held three days of hearings after changes were pro-
posed to Kansas’s science standards that are aimed at bringing a more critical approach to the teaching of Darwinian theory.
“I’m not an expert (on evolution), but I’m a committed scientist who has run laboratories, among other things, and when people tell me, ‘You’ve got to believe this,’ it always makes me a little nervous,” McHugh told The Catholic Review, Baltimore’s archdiocesan newspaper, in explaining how
he came to write the article. He did so, among other reasons, he said, as a response to the recent ruling of a federal judge in Atlanta that it was unconstitutional for a Georgia, school district to place stickers on textbooks that referred to evolution as “a theory not a fact.”
“This is thought control, I said to myself,” McHugh recalled. In ruling that the stickers violate the constitutionally mandated
separation between church and state, US District Judge Clarence Cooper ruled that labeling evolution a “theory” played on the popular definition of the word as a “hunch” and could confuse students.
The stickers read, “This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.” The disclaimers were put on the books by school officials in 2002.
“Due to the manner in which the sticker refers to evolution as a theory, the sticker also has the effect of undermining evolution education to the benefit of those Cobb County citizens who would prefer that students maintain their religious beliefs regarding the origin of life,” Cooper wrote in his ruling.
“That really got me steamed up,” McHugh said.
“It’s just a sticker that says it’s a theory, and it is a theory.”
Darwin’s theory of evolution, as expounded in his historic 1859 work, On the Origin of Species, and refined with new knowledge over the years, is “a good theory for survival of the species but not such a good one for the arrival of the species,” McHugh said.
But, he added, its proponents “are so extraordinarily defensive” about allowing for the possibility of any other theory.
McHugh said he did not necessarily think that the creationist view, or what is referred to these days as the “intelligent design” theory, is more plausible but people should not dismiss it out of hand as he said Darwinists do.
A Catholic-run radio station in Lebanon was destroyed in a bombing attack on May 6, the latest in a series of attacks in Lebanon’s Christian areas.
The attack was an apparent response to the station’s campaign regarding the plight of Lebanese detained in Syrian prisons.
The Voice of Charity, operated by the Congregation of Maronite Lebanese Missionaries in the port city of Jounieh since 1984, was completely destroyed in the attack, caused by an estimated 50 pounds of explosives in the main square outside the building. One person was killed, and more than 20 were injured. Several adjoining buildings were also destroyed in the blast.
On the day of the attack, the Voice of Charity broadcast live from outside Beirut’s UN house, where families of Lebanese detainees staged a sit-in. Approximately 600 Lebanese - including two Maronite priests - have been either missing or detained in Syrian prisons since Lebanon’s civil war, which ended in 1989. Syrian authorities have denied the existence of the prisoners, and the Lebanese government has ignored the issue.
Former prisoners of Syria recounted their experiences of torture in Syria’s prisons during the Voice of Charity’s live broadcast, and family members of current
prisoners shared their frustrations about not knowing about their loved ones. The daylong programming also included prayers and a Mass celebrated for the intention of the prisoners.
“We consider this attack as a kind of political response” to the May 6 broadcast, said Maronite Father Maurice Chidiac, co-director of the Voice of Charity. “From now on we will consider the cause of the Lebanese prisoners as our case,” Father Chidiac said. “It is a kind of democratic expression of our will and our prayers that this case will be sorted out very soon.”
An hour after the attack, the station resumed broadcasting hymns from a transmitter in the sanctuary of Our Lady of Harissa Shrine located on a mountaintop overlooking the Bay of Jounieh; a liturgy was arranged in the station’s parking lot on May 8, and the following day a eucharistic procession was held around the grounds of the station and the surrounding damaged neighbourhood. In addition, a special prayer session will be held daily at 9:46 pm, the time at which the blast occurred.
By May 9, broadcasting had begun from tents erected in the
station’s parking lot. The Maronite Church of St John the Beloved, located on the street level of the station’s second-floor facilities, was severely damaged in the attack, but remains intact. All four of the Voice of Charity’s recording studios and possibly its program archives were destroyed.
An estimated 3,000 people attended the May 8 liturgy in the station’s parking lot, with the rubble serving as a backdrop behind the altar.
In his homily, Voice of Charity co-director Maronite Father Fadi Tabet called for “an open heart and a clear conscience.” Referring to the May 6 broadcast on the plight of those in Syrian prisons, he said: “On that day, the Voice of Charity wanted to carry (the prisoners’) voice to all the world and to everyone who is willing to listen. But there are people who wanted to shut off this voice that is calling for freedom. It is because it is the voice of truth, and they thought by destroying the Voice of Charity they would be destroying this message of truth. But you are all here today to prove that this voice never started with the intention to stop.”
It may be one of the world’s smallest armies, but the tiny corps of 110 men who protect the successor of Peter is big in spirit, said Pope Benedict XVI.
“This spirit of the Swiss Guards is nourished by the glorious tradition of almost five centuries of a small army with great ideals,” the Pope said on May 6 in his address to new recruits, their family members and friends.
The 31 new recruits met with the Pope several hours before they took their oath as members of the Swiss Guard in a colourful swearing-in ceremony in the courtyard of the Apostolic Palace.
The ceremony is held each year on May 6, the anniversary of the date in 1527 when 147 guards died defending Pope Clement VII during the sack of Rome. The new recruits swear an oath to “faithfully, loyally and honourably” serve the Pope, “sacrificing if necessary” their lives to defend him.
In his speech, Pope Benedict thanked them for their dedication, saying by devotedly protecting the Pope the Swiss Guard allow the pontiff to carry out his mission “free of worry for his safety.”
The Pope asked the new recruits to seek out and nourish the spirit
that makes the Swiss Guard such a special corps. May it also lead to “a true spiritual bond” among the guards, he said. Pope Benedict said the Swiss Guard is built upon the “great ideals” of a “firmness of Catholic faith, a convinced and convincing Christian way of life, unshakeable trust and a profound love for the Church and for the vicar of Christ.”
He said the guards also represent “conscientiousness and perseverance in the small and great tasks of daily service, courage and humility, attention to others and humanity.”
Swiss Guard recruits are required to be Swiss citizens, unmarried Catholic men between the ages of 19 and 30, and at least 5 feet 8 inches tall. Even though they must have completed Switzerland’s required military service, prospective papal guards still undergo a rigorous selection process and further training in defence and security.
Though Swiss Guards are no longer fighting battles, their daily life includes 24-hour shifts that often require standing for long periods of time guarding the Vatican’s major entrances or working at liturgical celebrations and audiences. The guards will create a historical re-enactment of the January 22, 1506, arrival of 150 Swiss soldiers at the Vatican marking the start of their centuries-long service to the see of Peter at the request of Pope Julius II.
During informal conversations, many Sudanese reveal how deeply a two decades-long civil war has touched them.
Lino Deng Aller, who said he is about 75 years old, is a member of the Dinka tribe and has lived much of his life in and around Mayen Abun. He explained how he escaped bombings and troops from the North by living in the bush and forest. The holes in the corrugated tin roof of the village church were caused by gunships and shrapnel, he said. Some damage was caused by soldiers, who shot through the roofs, he added.
As Aller talked about how his faith sustained him during the war years, he said that of his eight children only six are alive; two of his sons were killed in the war. His oldest son, Mario Malou, who would now be about 37, left in the late 1970s to avoid being forced to join the army.
“He wanted to be free ... he went away. I think he is in the United States now; someone told me that is where he went,” Aller said.
Touching his heart, Aller added: “If you can find my son, tell him my foundation is empty. He will understand.”
Deacon Francis Lemyama, 37, said that for about 12 years the Nuba Mountains region was cut off from the rest of the country.
“There was nothing coming in, and people simply learned to go without” things like clothes, soap and salt, he said, adding that no relief agencies worked in the area.
“The only thing the people had was the diocese,” he said.
Deacon Lemyama remembered what a great occasion it was when a bishop brought sweets for the children, many of whom did not know what candy was.
Makuc Akec, 28, left the South in 1988 and fled to northern Sudan, hoping it would be safer there.
He was living in El Obeid and had gone to the river to get water when he was surrounded and cap-
tured by troops. He said the soldiers tied him to a tree and told him, “We can kill you.”
Akec said the soldiers put him into a cattle camp, where he was forced to watch the herd.
After two years of living with the militia, he escaped one night. The soldiers quickly found him and sent him to a second cattle camp in the North. Akec managed to escape a second time, only to be captured again and taken back.
This time he managed to rejoin his wife and two sets of twin girls, who lived with him in the cattle camp for a year. Adior Thuc, his wife, looked away and answered softly when asked if she or her daughters had been abused. With her face shielded from view and her eyes averted, she said they were beaten and abused.
Bishop Macram Max Gassis of El Obeid interrupted the silence that followed and suggested Thuc probably had experienced things simply too difficult for her to share.
Later, Akec recalled how he was duped by the soldiers. They told
Jesuit officials in Rome said Father Thomas Reese resigned as editor in chief of America magazine after repeated complaints from then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who objected to the magazine’s treatment of sensitive Church issues.
Jesuit Father Jose M. de Vera, spokesman for the Society of Jesus in Rome, said Father Reese decided to resign after discussing the situation with his Jesuit superiors, following Cardinal Ratzinger’s election as Pope Benedict XVI. Father de Vera denied reports that Father Reese was forced to resign, but he acknowledged that pressure had been coming from the Vatican for several years.
“He tendered his resignation. It was not
him that if he stayed with them for one year he would get a cow to help restart his life. However, after the year they did not give him anything. Eventually rebel troops negotiated his release from the government camp and his return to Turalei.
Akec said after his release he walked away without any belongings, but at least his wife and daughters were with him.
Akec and Thuc said they hope their children will be able to attend school in Turalei. The sets of twins - 15 and 5 years old - have never attended school.
Father Joseph Mogga, a parish priest in Turalei, said he entered a minor seminary when his family fled to the refugee camps in neighbouring Uganda; he did not see them for another 12 years.
“My younger sisters didn’t even recognise me ... they didn’t know who I was,” he said.
Father Mogga’s mother, now in her 70s, has spent more than 20 years in refugee camps.
“However,” he said, “her one dream is to die in Sudan.”
imposed, contrary to what was written,” Father de Vera told Catholic News Service on May 9.
“With Cardinal Ratzinger elected Pope, I think Father Reese thought it would be very difficult to continue his line of openness, without creating more problems.
“He had been at America magazine seven years and he improved it tremendously, so I think he understood it was time to go,” the Jesuit spokesman said.
Pope Benedict XVI called on the world’s news media to help “tear down the walls of hostility that still divide humanity” by reporting objectively and in a way that respects human dignity.
Speaking at a noon blessing on May 8,
Father Mogga said his older brother, John, fled to Khartoum, as the war intensified. He then migrated to Egypt to avoid joining the army.
He has been in Canada for 25 years and has not seen his family, although he has kept in touch through letters.
Ahmed Hran, 45, an Arab Muslim, fled his village in western Sudan’s Darfur region after an attack by government and militia troops.
“Everything was destroyed,” he said, adding that he and friends left all their belongings when they fled. He said troops destroyed all the houses and cut down all the trees in his village, but “we don’t know why.”
“Those who couldn’t run away were killed, and all the animals were killed,” he said.
“We need the truth to get out ... let everyone, especially the Catholics and Christians, come to Sudan to search for and see what is wrong,” he said. CNS
World Communications Day, the Pope said news media represent an extraordinary resource in the modern age, capable of bringing people together.
An example came during the death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, he said. But the media are also capable of damaging people and societies, he said. “It all depends on the way the media are used,” he said.
“These important instruments of communication can favour mutual awareness and dialogue, or on the contrary feed prejudice and contempt between individuals and populations.
They can help spread peace or foment violence,” he said.
The Pope’s power is not absolute, but must
Pope Benedict XVI called on bishops from Sri Lanka to continue to build on the interreligious and interethnic cooperation that emerged after destructive tsunamis hit the region last year.
“I was deeply disturbed to observe the devastating effects of the tsunami last December, which claimed a vast number of lives in Sri Lanka alone and left hundreds of thousands homeless,” the Pope told the bishops on May 7 at the end of their “ad limina” visits to the Vatican.
“It was heartening to see members of different religious and ethnic groups in Sri Lanka and throughout the global community coming together to show their solidarity toward the afflicted and rediscovering the fraternal bonds that unite them,” he said.
“I am confident that you will find ways of building further on the fruits of this cooperation, especially by ensuring that aid is offered freely to all who are in need,” he added.
His message to the bishops marked the first “ad limina” visits to take place since Pope Benedict’s April 19 election. Heads of dioceses are required to make such visits to the Vatican every five years.
During their individual meetings with the Pope, some bishops expressed their concerns over an anti-conversion bill being considered by the Sri Lankan government.
The bill, if passed, would make it a crime to bring about “unethical” religious conversions, that is, those done by force, fraud or proselytism.
The bishops said they were worried their educational or charitable activities, including distributing aid relief to those hardest hit by the tsunamis, would be seen as proselytism.
About 70 per cent of Sri Lanka’s population is Buddhist and 15 percent Hindu. Christians and Muslims make up about 8 and 7 per cent of the population, respectively. In his May 7 address to Sri Lanka’s bishops, Pope Benedict called on the Christian community to help care for children left orphaned by the December tsunamis.
be used to defend Church doctrine against attempts to water it down, Pope Benedict XVI said as he took possession of his cathedral as the bishop of Rome. “The Pope is not an absolute sovereign whose thoughts and will are law,” Pope Benedict said.
“He must not proclaim his own ideas but instead, in the face of all attempts to adapt or water it down, and of every opportunism, he constantly must bind himself and the church in obedience to the word of God.”
On May 7 Pope Benedict took possession of Rome’s Basilica of St John Lateran, the diocesan cathedral, as thousands of Romans gathered outside to welcome him.
During the liturgy inside the basilica, he stood at the foot of the bishop’s throne listening to Cardinal Camillo Ruini, his vicar for Rome, reminding him that the Pope must be “the servant of the servants of God.”
This week The Record commences a series taken from Pope Benedict XVI’s homily at his inauguration Mass of 24 April, attended by an estimated half a million people in Rome. It is long, but well worth the read.
During these days of great intensity, we have chanted the litany of the saints on three different occasions: at the funeral of our Holy Father John Paul II; as the cardinals entered the conclave; and again today, when we sang it with the response: ‘Tu illum adiuva’ - sustain the new Successor of Saint Peter. On each occasion, in a particular way, I found great consolation in listening to this prayerful chant. How alone we all felt after the passing of John Paul II - the Pope who for over twenty-six years had been our shepherd and guide on our journey through life! He crossed the threshold of the next life, entering into the mystery of God. But he did not take this step alone. Those who believe are never alone - neither in life nor in death.
The Communion of Saints consists not only of the great men and women who went before us and whose names we know. All of us belong to the Communion of Saints, we who have been baptised in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
At that moment, we could call upon the Saints from every age - his friends, his brothers and sisters in the faith - knowing that they would
form a living procession to accompany him into the next world, into the glory of God. We knew that his arrival was awaited. Now we know that he is among his own and is truly at home.
“We were also consoled as we made our solemn entrance into conclave, to elect the one whom the Lord had chosen. How would we be able to discern his name? How could 115 bishops, from every culture and every country, discover the one on whom the Lord wished to confer the mission of binding and loosing? Once again, we knew that we were not alone, we knew that we were surrounded, led and guided by the friends of God. And now, at this moment, weak servant of God that I am, I must assume this enormous task, which truly exceeds all human capacity. How can I do this? How will I be able to do it? All of you, my dear friends, have just invoked
the entire host of saints, represented by some of the great names in the history of God’s dealings with mankind. In this way, I too can say with renewed conviction: I am not alone. I do not have to carry alone what in truth I could never carry alone. All the Saints of God are there to protect me, to sustain me and to carry me. And your prayers, my dear friends, your indulgence, your love, your faith and your hope accompany me. Indeed, the communion of saints consists not only of the great men and women who went before us and whose names we know. All of us belong to the communion of saints, we who have been baptised in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we who draw life from the gift of Christ’s Body and Blood, through which He transforms us and makes us like Himself.
“Yes, the Church is alive - this is
the wonderful experience of these days. During those sad days of the Pope’s illness and death, it became wonderfully evident to us that the Church is alive. And the Church is young. She holds within herself the future of the world and therefore shows each of us the way towards the future. The Church is alive and we are seeing it: we are experiencing the joy that the Risen Lord promised His followers. The Church is alive - she is alive because Christ is alive, because He is truly risen. In the suffering that we saw on the Holy Father’s face in those days of Easter, we contemplated the mystery of Christ’s Passion and we touched His wounds. But throughout these days we have also been able, in a profound sense, to touch the Risen One. We have been able to experience the joy that He promised, after a brief period of darkness, as the fruit of His resurrection.
“The Church is alive - with these words, I greet with great joy and gratitude all of you gathered here, my venerable brother cardinals and bishops, my dear priests, deacons, Church workers, catechists. I greet you, men and women religious, witnesses of the transfiguring presence of God. I greet you, members of the lay faithful, immersed in the great task of building up the Kingdom of God which spreads throughout the world, in every area of life. With great affection I also greet all those who have been reborn in the Sacrament of Baptism but are not yet in full communion with us; and you, my brothers and sisters of the Jewish people, to whom we are joined by a great shared spiritual heritage, one rooted in God’s irrevocable promises. Finally, like a wave gathering force, my thoughts go out to all men and women of today, to believers and non-believers alike.
Jeff Miller writes a review on an exciting product that helps calculate the number of times a person needs to be forgiven
You are a committed Christian and you really want to do what Jesus tells you to do, but sometimes scriptural passages are difficult to interpret.
For example Matthew 18:21-22 says:
“Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. “
Peter’s measure definitely seems off and if you take the Bible literally it is pretty difficult to determine when you reach the limit of 70x7 (490). Just how do you know if you have accidentally forgiven somebody 491 times or more? This can be embarrassing in difficult relationships and what if you mistakenly undercount and stop offering
forgiveness at a number below 490? That was a messy and difficult problem - until we at Record Research Industries made the 4GiveCount counter available at your local Christian bookstore.
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With the 4GiveCount counter you will always know where you are at when it comes to forgiveness.
Simply enter the names of those people you come into contact with into your computer or PDA’s address book and download it via a USB cable into the 4GiveCount counter and your ready to start. Every time somebody does some-
thing and you forgive them all you have to do is select their name in the Forgive Person display and then click the forgiveness button located on the upper left side of our special counter. This will increment the forgiveness counter by one for the currently selected person.
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● Jesus - Some biblical interpreters hold that Jesus’ statement was meant to be symbolic by giving us a relatively high number. If you follow this interpretation select the Jesus Infinity mode.*
When you increment the forgiveness counter and it detects that you
have forgiven them past the upper limit as determined by the selected forgiveness mode - the Mercy Overload lamp will start to flash to warn you that you need not offer forgiveness. That’s all there is to it and you will always be sure you have done your part.
But wait there’s more!!! If you order your own 4GiveCount counter by midnight tonight we will throw in a blessing counter. You are always being told to count your blessings and it is just so easy in the rush of everyday life to lose track. With our reliable and durable blessing counter you will always know just how blessed you are!
Jeff Miller is a “former atheist who is both surprised and delighted to find himself in the Catholic Church. Married with two grown children, Retired Navy Chief, computer programmer, full time geek, prone to music of the headbanger variety but also enjoys Gregorian Chant.” Jeff blogs at The Curt Jester.
* If you select the Jesus Infinity mode and you notice that no matter how many times you increment a person’s forgiveness index the Mercy Overload lamp never comes on - don’t worry this is normal operation. This accurately simulates Jesus in that no matter how high your current forgiveness index is, his Mercy Overload lamp never lights up.
■ MYOB MY OFFICE OR YOURS
Ph: Margaret 9459 5866/0403 778 426
■ BRICK REPOINTING
Phone Nigel 9242 2952
■ HANDYPERSON
Home maintenance good rates. Phone Adrian 9343 9025
■ GUTTERS/DOWNPIPES
Need renewing, best work and cheapest prices. Free quote. Ph: Ad 9447 7475 or 0408 955 991 5008.
■ 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
■ SEEKING CHURCH ORGAN
In good condition at a reasonable price. Anyone with information please call Fr Tomasz 9272 2154 or 0411 286 812
■ CARETAKER FOR COUNTRY CHURCH
Accommodation available would suit pensioner situated 1 hour from Perth. Ph: Fr Paul 9571 1839
■ ALL AREAS
Mike Murphy 0416 226 434.
■ GLYCONUTRIENTS
Now here is a product that could change your life, a dietary supplement that surpasses all others. Glyconutrients are a technological breakthrough and a new area of science. Learn more about optimal health and Glyconutrients by calling: Mary Anne 9284 1662. Find out Glyconutrients can provide you with a healthy business and a healthier life.
■ DENMARK
Holiday House 3bdr x 2bth, sleeps up to 8. BOOK NOW. Ph: Maria 0412 083 377
■ DUNSBOROUGH
New 4 x 2, great location, sleeps 9. Ph: 0414 579 215
■ RECOVERY
Hennie is a qualified Counsellor; she deals with Trauma, Anxiety, Phobias, Panic disorders, Depression, Grief, anger, self-esteem, Weight Loss, Smoking and Neuro somatic illness. Registered member A.F.N.I and Registered member H.H Dip (P.H) Enquires 9525 0292.
MUMS ON A MISSION
■ SUCCEED FROM HOME
Call Christine on Tel: 9256 2895
RELIGIOUS PRODUCTS
■ APARACIDA'S CAFE EMPORIUM
Delicious meals, unique giftware for all occasions. Regular workshops and seminars, catering for office and other groups, giftware for schools, parishes, individuals. Ph: 9470 1423, 0414 624 580, email: aparacidas@myaccess. com.au.
■ ANNIVERSARY CANDLES
College, Parish, religious Life, School, wedding. Carefully hand crafted by Benedictine Sisters. www. Jamberooabbey.org. Ph: 02 4236 0011, Fax: 02 4236 0041
■ BAPTISM/WEDDING CANDLES
Carefully hand crafted by Benedictine Sisters. www.Jamberooabbey.org. Ph: 02 4236 0011, Fax: 02 4236 0041
13 Visit Confirmation Candidates, Floreat/Wembley Parish - Archbishop Hickey Confirmation, North Beach - Bishop Sproxton Confirmation, Mercy College - Fr Greg Carroll
15 Mass of Induction for Fr Tony Vallis, Girrawheen - Archbishop Hickey
Investiture Mass for the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, St Mary’s Cathedral - Archbishop Hickey Centennial of the Death of Blessed John Baptist Scalabrini, West Perth - Archbishop Hickey Confirmation, Doubleview - Mgr Tim Corcoran Confirmation, Nollamara - Fr Brian O’Loughlin VG
17 Re-launch of the Archbishop Goody Testimonial Award Fund, St Joseph’s Subiaco - Archbishop Hickey, Bishop Sproxton
on Youth and the Church, Como - Archbishop Hickey, Bishop Sproxton
18 St Vincent de Paul Winter Appeal Launch, Bassendean - Archbishop Hickey
of Strategic Plan for Catholic Agricultural College - Fr Michael McMahon SAC
19 Opening and Blessing of Xavier School, Brookdale - Archbishop Hickey
20 Parish Visitation and Confirmation, Floreat/Wembley - Archbishop Hickey
Visitation and Confirmation, Queens Park - Bishop Sproxton
Kwinana - Mgr Peter McCrann
21 Confirmation, Kelmscott - Mgr Thomas McDonald
22
23
Yangebup - Mgr Tim Corcoran
Palmyra - Bishop Quinn
Launch of National Palliative Care Week - Fr Sean Bredin OSCam
Sunday 15 May
PENTECOST SUNDAY CATHOLIC CHARISMATIC RENEWAL
PERTH
Will be conducting an afternoon of worship & praise in honour of the Feast of Pentecost. Mass will be celebrated with main celebrant, Bishop Don Sproxton, who will also present the homily. A finger food supper will follow. It will be held at St John and Paul Parish, Pinetree Gully Road, Willeton from 4pm to 8pm. Please bring a plate of finger food, and a drink to share.
Sunday 15 May
MULTICULTURAL FOOD FAIR
Our Lady of Assumption School Hall, 356 Grand Promenade, Dianella 7.30am to 4pm. Ample parking available between the Caltex garage and the Church. Huge range of multicultural food, refreshments and cultural floorshows. All welcome. Enq Lorraine 9571 1815, Pat 9571 1438, Lisa 9296 4781. Proceeds will go to St Catherine’s Gingin.
Sunday May 15
MULTICULTURAL FOOD FAIR
Our Lady of Assumption School Hall, 356 Grand Promenade, Dianella 8am – 4pm. Ample parking available between the Caltex garage and the Church. Huge range of multicultural food, refreshments and cultural floorshows. All welcome. Enq Lorraine 9571-1815, Pat 9571-1438, Lisa 9296-4781.
Sunday May 15
ETERNAL WORD TELEVISION NETWORK
1-2 PM ON ACCESS 31. Pentecost and the New Pentecost, Fr Andrew Apostoli, The Holy Spirit at Work in the Church, followed by Mystery of Holiness; Fr Benedict Groeschel, The Mystery of the Trinity. Please send donations and requests for tapes to The Rosary Christian Tutorial Association , PO Box 1270, Booragoon 6954. Enq 93301170.
Monday May 16
CARITAS AUSTRALIA IS MOVING
40/A Mary Street HIGHGATE WA 6003, Tel (08) 9422
Please note that effective from the May 12 edition of The Record notices placed in the ‘Panorama’ section will incur a small administration fee. The fee will simply cover production costs and will ensure the future of the Panorama section in The Record, being as it is a ‘notice board’ for many events around the numerous parishes in Western Australia.
7925; Fax (08) 9328 2833. Bus 60 Busport or Barrack St/Stand 2; Museum/Stand 1 Alight William St just before Mary St - Infoline: 136213 Global Advisor Janeen Murphy Tel: 0439 395 657.
Monday May 16
MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT GROUP TUART HILL
Please note, the Support Group previously meeting at the Leederville Parish Centre will from now on meet at Mercy Sisters House of Hospitality, 113 Tyler St Tuart Hill, at the same times. Every second Monday 10am-12 noon. All very welcome to our next Coffee, chat time. Enq. 9444 4626.
Wednesday May 18
HILLS & EASTERN SUBURBS MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT GROUP
Meeting 7.30pm; Our Lady Lourdes Parish Hall, 207 Lesmurdie Rd, Lesmurdie
Enq Marge or Tom 9291 6282, Natalie 9295 1907, Barbara Harris Emmanuel Centre 9328 8113
Wednesday May 18
MEETING OF MEDIA STANDARDS AUSTRALIA
There is something we can do to fight pornography and other evils in the media and on the internet. To help protect your family, come to a Meeting of Media Standards Australia, at Regency House, 949 Wellington St, 7.30pm, West Perth, (Parking in Thelma St.) All welcome. If you are unable to attend, information may be obtained by writing to PO Box 211, Greenwood 6924.
Thursday May 19 OFFICIAL OPENING & BLESSING OF XAVIER CATHOLIC SCHOOL
All ex-staff and students are welcome to attend the official opening and blessing of Xavier Catholic School at 10am. The ceremony will take place in the Undercover Area with morning tea to follow. 271 Forrest Road, Brookdale.
Friday 20 May
NEW AND DIVINE HOLINESS PRAYER GROUP
All night Eucharistic vigil at St. Bernadette’s Church, Jugan Street, Glendalough commencing 9pm. Readings and reflections on the Hours of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ with hourly rosaries and hymns. Concludes Saturday morning with Parish Mass at 7.30am followed by Rosary and Benediction. All welcome. Enquiries 94446131.
Friday May 20
CATHOLIC FAITH RENEWAL
From 7.30pm at St Mary’s Church, Cnr Franklin and Shakespeare Streets, Leederville; Praise and Worship evening followed by Holy Mass with Fr Michael Brown. Bring your family and friends. Enq Rita 9272 1764, Rose 0403 300 720, Gertrude 0433 231 305
Saturday May 21
MASS IN MEMORY OF SR IRENE MCCORMACK
At St Joseph’s Chapel, 16 York St, South Perth. Mass
commencing at 6pm. All welcome. Enq Sr Marae 9334 0933
Saturday May 21
GROWING IN LOVE, A MORNING RETREAT
Presenter Murray Graham, Inigo Centre Director cost donation only for Inigo Centre. 9.30am-12pm. Registration Murray 9383 0444
Saturday May 21
SCHOENSTATT PILGRIMAGE
From 2.55pm Novena day four in the Shrine followed by adoration. Theme for reflection, “Totus Tuus Ego Sum” The Legacy of JPII continued, proceedings will conclude at 6pm. Schoenstatt Shrine, 9 Talus Dr, Armadale Enq 9399 2349
Monday May 23
HEALING MASS
For those who have lost children through abortion or other circumstances at Immaculate Conception Church, East Fremantle beginning at 7pm with Rosary followed by Healing Mass at 7.30pm. All welcome to attend.
Saturday May 28
MAY QUEEN BALL
From 7.30pm to 12.30am to fund raise for Holy Family church Maddington. It will be held at Maddington Community Centre (corner of Yule & Alcock Street) For more information contact Francis Williams 9459 3873, 9493 4287, 0404 893 877 francis@perthfamily.com
MASS TIME CHANGE
Saturday evening Vigil Mass at St Augustine’s Parish, Rivervale has now changed to 6pm.
THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL JUSTICE COUNCIL
Holding a seminar concerning ‘The Living and Dying of Terry Schiavo” with Fr Joe Parkinson, Director of the LJ Goody Bioethics Centre Perth, to be held at the Catholic Pastoral Centre 40A Mary St Highgate (parking off Harold St) at 1-2PM. All welcome. Enq Terry Quinn Catholic Social Justice Council 9422 7926.
May 6 was the 160th anniversary of the erection of the Diocese of Perth. This week The Record begins a series by Perth woman, Mary Busher looking back at how it all came together.
May 6 is the 160th anniversary of the establishment of the Diocese of Perth.
Formally erected in 1845 by Pope Gregory XVI the diocese encompassed all of WA and part of what is now the Northern Territory.
As development and populations grew, this vast territory was reduced.
The New Norcia mission was separated from Perth in 1859. In 1867 it became the separate jurisdiction of an Abbey Nullius. (The New Norcia territory, which included seven wheat-belt parishes reverted to the Perth Archdiocese in stages in 1960, 1971 and 1982).
The Vicariate of Kimberley was excised from Perth in 1887. The
Geraldton Diocese was established in 1898, the Bunbury Diocese in 1954, followed by the diocese of Broome in 1959.
Perth was elevated to an Archdiocese in 1913.
In this Year of the Eucharist it is worth reflecting on what the Mass and the Sacramental Presence meant to generations of WA Catholics. Today’s Church is very different from that of 160 years ago, but the faith and desire for the sacraments which drove our early Catholics to seek priests and build our first churches is part of our rich heritage.
It all began in 1841 when schoolteacher Robert D’Arcy wrote to Bishop Ullathorne in Sydney asking
for a priest. He wrote:
Most Reverend Father, I entreat your Lordship to give your attention to the following facts. In this and neighbouring towns there are Protestant ministers swaggering around in all the arrogance of rank. In Perth there are two, in Fremantle one, and one in Guildford; and I believe that every town can boast of the presence of one or two of these ministers, who not only concern themselves with the conversion of the Aborigines but also try to make Catholics give up their religion. And for that reason a Catholic cannot hold on to his faith here; some have fallen already into the nets astutely prepared for them by Protestants
- but they will return to the true Church if an opportunity is given. For all of us Catholics, our greatest if not our only joy would be to build a church and suitably to support a minister of the true faith.
Most Reverend Father, awaiting your kind consideration of these circumstances and hopeful that you will provide for our souls’ salvation, I beg you to believe me. Your Excellency’s servant, Robert D’Arcy.
Archbishop Polding had already been considering how to serve the distant colony with only an estimated 100 Catholics in the Perth area. This, plus D’Arcy’s letter resulted in the arrival from Sydney in
December 1843 of Father John Brady, Father John Joostens and catechist Patrick O’Reilly. The Perth Gazette newspaper records that the first Mass was offered in Perth on Sunday 10 December, 1843, but not the location of the ceremony.
Father Brady left for Europe after only two months but while here, he was granted land on Victoria Avenue and began the building of a small church which became the Colony’s first Catholic cathedral.
The work of the Sisters of Mercy and many women’s orders that followed ensured that the Catholic population and children in particular were well grounded in their faith.
It was the initiative of leading layman Thomas Little which resulted in the building of the first Catholic church in country Western Australia at Dardanup. Little had extensive land holdings at Dardanup. To secure a church he donated land in 1852.
The foundation stone was laid by Bishop Salvado on 25 March 1854.
Completed in 1857, the church was also the first dedicated to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.
Building the church was not without problems for the small Catholic community.
The impatience of lay people such as Little for a local church, is reflected in this extract from a long letter he wrote on 11 July 1856, to Archbishop Polding in Sydney. Little’s letter aired several grievances but also gives an insight into the
aspirations of those who built our early churches.
“The good Dr Salvado came down and laid the foundation stone of our little church at this place. This good Bishop gave us at the same time a donation of £27 toward its erection – with this sum together with the £9 from the Sisters of Mercy and the £5 collected by Father Donovan at Fremantle, some i.e. my tenants, neighbours and myself have succeeded in raising a very handsome little church under the patronage of the “Immaculate Conception” of our Blessed Lady.
The building is 44x16 feet in the clear, walls 12 feet under the plate. Roof of high-pitched weather boarded new shingles. Buttresses and Bell Gable adorn and strengthen on the building and if it was but finished I dare say your Grace would
not demur to give it a place among the Catholic Temples of Sydney itself. But alas! For the finishing I fear our dear Lady will look but coldly on us for our tardiness in this point. The floor indeed is sawn and being seasoned, but we have not a shilling to pay for laying it, or for door and windows, or plastering the walls, which are all brick. I asked Dr Serra some 8 months ago for even the loan of £100 for two years when I had promised to repay him. With this sum we could have completed the whole and the Holy Sacrafice (sic) would have been offered up in it long ago. But as usual he hardly deigned to reply and when he did it was only the old song of poverty. No funds for such purposes.”
Still a landmark at Dardanup, in 1979 the old church, was renamed the Thomas Little Memorial Hall.