The Record Newspaper 06 July 1995

What's inside . . .

Archbishop Hickey's reflection on capital punishment and the arguments against its use - Page 2 Anglican Archbishop Peter Carnley writes on the United Nations International Year of Tolerance and the need to expose and fight the intolerable - Pages 8-9 PERTH, WA: July 6, 1995

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Social justice commission seeks to increase ts membership - Page 3 More Letters to the Editor - Page 7 Renowed novelist Leon Uris recollects the harrowing events of World War II - Page 11

Religion can help women: Vatican, Muslims VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Vatican and said. "They expressed their apprehension Muslim leaders have said the draft docu- regarding the draft document for Beijing ment of the upcoming Fourth World Con- which ignores the positive role of religion ference on Women in Beijing overlooks in this process," he said. the positive contributions that religions The Vatican-Muslim talks brought can make to women's rights. together representatives of the Pontifical In a brief statement issued after a one- Council for Interreligious Dialogue and of day discussion late last month, Vatican three major Islamic organisations: the spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the Muslim World League, the World Muslim Vatican and Islamic organisations had Congress and the International Islamic agreed to keep collaborating on the issues Council for Da'wa and Relief.

Representatives from the Egyptian Alraised by the document. The United Nations-sponsored conference will take Azhar University also participated in the place in the Chinese capital, Beijing, in meeting.

Dr Navarro-Valls, in an earlier briefing September. on the draft UN document, mixed praise The Vatican spokesman said the talks had focused on the place of women in with criticism. The criticism focused society according to Christian and Muslim largely on what the Vatican spokesman religious traditions, including "points of termed "ideological pressure" aimed at imposing a narrow feminist agenda on the convergence and points of divergence." women of the world.

Participants "affirmed the necessity to Meanwhile, other voices on the Beijing recognise the dignity, role and rights of conference were being heard in Rome and women in society and to take adequate at the Vatican. measures toward their realisation," he United States Ambassador to the Vati-

'Barbaric' death penalty Archbishop Barry Hickey has issued a tionally accepted the power of the State to strong statement arguing that the circum- impose the death penalty in very excepstances justifying the use of the death tional circumstances, many question penalty are so rare that its imposition is whether it should ever be used," he said. hardly ever justified.

Archbishop Hickey also cited Pope John While Archbishop Hickey says his view Paul Il's recent encyclical letter, Evanon the matter is purely personal, he has gelium Vitae, which said that execution of urged in a reflection on the death penalty offenders should not occur except in cases issued today (full text Page 2) that all of absolute necessity, where it would not Catholics seriously consider its founda- be otherwise possible to defend society. tion.

The encyclical said that "as a result of Not only is the death penalty a "frighten- steady improvements in the organisation ing contradiction" in a society which conof the penal system, such cases are very demns the taking of human life, but it is also in opposition to the spirit of the rare, if not practically non-existent."

Archbishop Hickey's conclusion is that Gospel, he said there is no place for the death penalty in Commenting on his statement in his Archbishop's Perspective column, he says Australian society and that the answer to that the overall context in which he views serious crime lies in addressing its causes the issue is the Church's defence of the rather than taking the life of offenders.

"In Australia, we have done without the sacredness of human life.

Catholics should be consistent in their death penalty for ten years," he said.

"It remains our responsibility to see that application of this principle to all issues involving the taking of human life, includ- the perpetrators of serious crime are ing opposing war, torture, poverty and brought to justice swiftly and that their unjust treatment of refugees, Archbishop imprisonment offers meaningful opportunities for rehabilitation - always rememHickey says.

Speaking in his accompanying reflec- bering that the denial of liberty (imprisontion, he says the death penalty should not ment) is the main punishment."

His statement comes at a time when be imposed for a number of reasons: it contributes to the culture of death; it some have called for a re-introduction of causes additional cruel punishment the penalty. through appeals and stays of execution; States such as Western Australia have there is no proof that it leads to a reduc- experienced rising crime rates in recent tion in murder: and that it is most often years and a number of people have been used against the powerless. killed as a result of criminal actions such "While the Catholic Church has tradi- as car theft and joy riding.

can, Raymond Flynn, in remarks last Saturday to a group of students in Rome, defended the Beijing draft document, in remarks that appeared to respond to those of the Vatican spokesman.

"We do not share the opinion that the draft platform for action reflects solely the views of Western countries or that it responds to any particular ideology," he said.

He said developing countries as well as the Vatican itself had been important voices in the shaping of the draft document. For example, he said, an entire section devoted to issues of young women and girls was the product of African states.

"The United States seeks to work cooperatively with all participants, including the Holy See, to ensure that the final document reflects a mainstream global consensus that will stand the test of time," he said.

"I think all of us share a high sense of respect for Pope John Paul ll's recent condemnation of 'every kind of injustice that oppresses the condition of women' in the

world today," Mr Flynn added.

Italian professor Maria Rita Saulle, who helped chair a Vatican-sponsored consultation on the draft docuthent in early June, said it was an "unfortunate" possibility that the conference would try to erode the principle of the right to life, as articulated In previous UN statements.

In an interview with Vatican Radio, she also criticised what she said was an unofficial movement in UN circles to introduce deliberately ambiguous terms regarding sexual gender. She said that in addition to male and female, the term "neutral" was being promoted by some as a category of sexual identity for homosexuals and transsexuals A Vatican source said there had been telephone consultation between US and Vatican officials in recent weeks to head off possible conflicts in Beijing. The Vatican still has serious misgivings about the draft document, however, the source said.

Kissing Frogs brings fame to Clare

Clare McNeill of Year 7 at Loreto Primary School in Nedlands brought great credit to herself, her family and her school last month when she won the state final of the Speak Up public speaking competition. Competing with Year 6 and Year 7 children, she took the topic Kissing Frogs - Lately. Here Michelle Stanley of Post Newspapers captures Clare with Kermit the Frog. Picture: Brian Coyne of the Catholic Education Office.

Historic shared sermon together on the altar for the entire first part of the Mass.

The Patriarch's departure from the altar VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope John Paul at the start of the Liturgy of the Eucharist II and Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch pointedly illustrated that divisions remain.

Bartholomew I celebrated a historic In the words of the Patriarch, "We are not liturgy in St Peter's Basilica last week, pro- yet worthy of the grace of the common fessing the faith together and describing Communion cup." the role of the papacy as one of service, Both leaders focused in part on one of not power. the more sensitive ecumenical issues that In a "shared sermon" during the Mass remains to be resolved: the role of the on June 29, both leaders looked ahead Pope and his primacy among bishops. with optimism to the prospect of full unity.

The Pope noted that Christ's mandate Later, the Pope invited the Patriarch to join regarding Church leadership was given to him in blessing a crowd from the central St Peter and represented an "unfathbalcony of the church. omable mystery." But the "true meaning of The liturgy reflected the progress in that authority is service," he added.

Catholic-Orthodox relations over the past Patriarch Bartholomew developed a 30 years. After walking down the length of similar point in his sermon. the church side by side in an entrance procession, the Pope and Patriarch were Continued on Page 2

By John Thavis

Consistency needed on capital punishment

M

y personal statement on euthanasia. Those two issues are, the death penalty appears from a pro-life position, clear in The Record today below this and unambiguous, as they column. It is personal, because involve the taking of innocent I canna[ oblige aft-Catholics to life. accept my view, given that the Are we justified in taking the Church allows the death same position when the person penalty in certain, albeit rare, involved is not innocent but circumstances. guilty of terrible crimes? I However, I ask that Catholic believe so, if we are to be consispeople consider seriously the tent, if we are to affirm that every arguments upon which my oppo- human life is sacred. sition to the death penalty is There are other issues which based. must also be judged by the same The overall context in which I ethical stance. If human life is to view this issue is the Church's be valued, our faith will also lead defence of the sacredness of us to oppose war, torture, human life itself. poverty and its causes, and the We affirm sanctity of life in our unjust treatment of refugees. rejection of abortion and Our credibility will only be

enhanced if we are consistent overall.

One of the issues about which Catholics are attacked publicly, the Pope in particular, is the matter of over-population. Those who consider the world to be over -populated criticise the Catholic position on contraception and abortion, claiming we are making matters worse.

Leaving aside for the moment the question of whether the world is or is not overpopulated, the reason for widespread poverty, as the Holy Father has repeated again and again, is not the press of people but the effect of ethnic and civil wars, unjust trade policies, despotic regimes

and other factors that inhibit cultivation and the production of food.

These are "social sins whose effects are clearly against life.

The Church has rightly rejected the evil solutions proposed by many, abortion, sterilisation and contraception. She is calling for what are ultimately pro-life solutions that involve world cooperation and peace so that every human being may have at least the basic necessities of life.

In publicly stating my position on the death penalty, I am asking all Catholics to consider this matter seriously and reject what the Holy Father calls the "culture of death".

Archbishop's

Perspective

A reflection on the death penalty

By Archbishop Barry Hickey I n 1985 the death penalty was finally outlawed throughout Australia. This action demonstrated that our society had arrived at a point where it could protect its citizens in w ays other than the death penalty.

In recent times there have been calls for the re-introduction of the death penalty. At the same time statements from Catholic Church sources have become more vigorous in the defence of life. As Christian people we must be consistent and strong in a ffirming the sacredness of human life made, as it is, in the image and likeness of God. There is no doubt that the community, through its legal system, must take strong and immediate action in response to heinous crimes. The preservation of public order and the safety and well-being of all citizens requires the fearless enforcement of the rule of law.

The State has the right and the duty to protect its citizens and to inflict appropriate punishment.

The cry of pain from the families and friends of murdered victims must not go unheard.

Nevertheless one must always a ffirm the sacredness of all human life and oppose whatever is contrary to the spirit of the Gospel.

In the Old Testament the death penalty was invoked for certain very serious offences. At the same time the virtues of mercy and compassion, the very characteristics of the God of Israel, were highly prized.

Christ insisted on these virtues in his preaching. He rejected the notion that violent crime should be met with violent retribution (Matt 5: 38-39, 44). His teaching constantly emphasised the sacredness of life, compassion, forgiveness and personal conver-

sion. All followers of Christ are 3. Experience has shown that challenged to do away with the the delays due to a series of "eye for an eye" mentality, and to" appeals, and the publicity surtake on the "maid of Christ". (I rounding them, not only cause Cor 2: 16). We are called to further anguish for the families choose life. involved but also arouse hostility While the Catholic Church has in the community and escalate traditionally accepted the power levels of violence. The myth that of the State to impose the death violence can overcome violence penalty in very exceptional cir- has no place in Christian thinkcumstances, many question ing. whether it should ever be used.

4. There is no conclusive eviPope John Paul II in his recent dence that the death penalty Encyclical Letter, Evangelium leads to a reduction in homicide.

Vitae, declares that the only justi- It is so far removed from the cirfication for taking human life is cumstances that surround the self-defence. In the case of civil offence that its impact is negligiauthority, he states that human ble. The prevention of serious life can only be taken when the crime has more to do with the State itself is at risk, and that circumstances in which people "such cases are very rare, and live and with the pressures they are subject to than the sev2rity of practically non-existent".

The following are reasons for the punishment. It can be argued that it prevents the peropposing the death penalty: son under the death sentence 1. The death penalty con- from ever offending again, but as tributes to what the Pope Christians we cannot accept a referred to in Evangelium Vitae punishment that closes off any as the "culture of death" found in possibility of personal convermany societies today. The cul- sion and rehabilitation. Nor can ture of death is already evident we accept the death penalty as in fratricidal wars, widespread an act of community revenge. abortion and suicide, and in the 5. The State has the means to crushing burdens of substance deprive a person of liberty for abuse, grinding poverty and starvation. The death penalty will periods sufficient to maintain contribute further to this "culture order and ensure public safety of death" and undermine the without resorting to killing. It can sanctity of human life. It is offen- preserve public order and secure sive that the State would add to the safety of its citizens by means the killing by imposing the death more befitting the dignity of the penalty and then carrying it out human person. It should not be In the cold-blooded ritualistic inferred from this that imprisonway in which it is done. It is hard ment will necessarily lead to corto see how a barbarous act of rection and rehabilitation. Much deliberate and pre meditated remains to be done to implement killing could ever be part of prison programmes that procivilised society. There is no mote rehabilitation. Too often humane manner of execution prison can develop a culture that and all who take part are bru- undermines the process of reform. talised.

6. The legal system is not per2. History has shown that the carrying out of the death penalty fect and mistakes are made. is necessarily preceded by Innocent people have died in the lengthy delays and stays of exe- past, and such mistakes cannot cution which in themselves are a be remedied. form of cruel additional punish7. History has shown that the ment. death penalty has been discrima-

Imprisonment more humane than the death penalty? tory in its application. The death rehabilitaion - always remempenalty is most often assigned to bering that the denial of liberty the powerless in the community, (imprisonment) is the main punto the poor, to certain ethnic ishment. groups, to people with intellecThe suffering of victims of viotual disabilities and to other lence has a special claim on us. minority groups.

Violent crime destoys lives, 8. The death penalty dimin- crushes families and friends of ishes the value of human life. It victims, and fosters hopelesscontributes to the cycle of vio- ness, fear and feelings of lence in our society. It sets up a revenge. There is a special need frightening contradiction in the to offer support, care and undersociety that can condemn the standing to victims and their taking of life on the one hand and then use it as a punishment families.

The answer to serious crime on the other. It is in opposition to does not lie in the death penalty. the spirit of the Gospel.

In conclusion, in Australia, we It lies elsewhere. Society needs have done without the death to address the causes of crime if penalty for ten years. It remains it is ever to be reduced. our responsibility to see that the It is our hope that in its refusal perpetrators of serious crime are to be involved in death-dealing, brought to justice swiftly and society will rise above the spirit that their imprisonment offers of vengeance and affirm the invimeaningful opportunities for olability of all human life.

Church unity based on 'question of leadership' Continued from Page 1 "Fortunately, with God's help, we have today arrived - after many trials and humiliations - at a mature and truly apostolic awareness: that of searching for primacy not among persons, but rather among ministries of service," the Patriarch said.

He emphasised that in his view this understanding of papal primacy was linked to the virtues of humility and repentance, needed among pastors and lay faithful. Self-criticism was necessary, too, he said, but must not consist in "deter2 The Record, July 6 1995

mining who made the first mistake and who made the last, or who made the most mistakes and who made fewer."

The Patriarch said that in their search for unity, Church leaders must return to the fundamental question of "how in serving our neighbour we can save him, and how only with him and through him will we also be made worthy of salvation."

He said that when this understanding penetrated today's Christian churches, unity of the faith would not be difficult.

The Pope, speaking after his guest, said the approach of the year 2000 gave impetus to the ecumenical movement and chal-

lenged church leaders to return to Christ's original mandate to evangelise the world.

"We cannot remain separated! We must walk together, because this is the will of our Lord," he said.

"The world needs to regain the faith at the end of this second millennium and the beginning of the third. For this reason, we need to multiply our efforts and actively commit ourselves to unity," he said.

The Pope and the Patriarch recited the profession of faith in Greek, in a formula used in the Eastern liturgy. The Pope later noted that the Creed has been an object of historical controversy between the two

churches, because of wording regarding the nature of the Holy Spirit.

The pontiff called this a "misunderstanding" and said the Catholic Church was firmly committed to clearing it up. He pointed out that a mixed theological commission has been examining the question.

After the Mass, the two leaders prayed at the tomb of St Peter and then spoke to several thousand people from the church balcony before embracing in a sign of reconciliation.

"We have great love for each other," the Patriarch told the crowd.

In us

Rich, poor gap sha

By Peter Rosengren The fact that some priests and nuns in America were living below the poverty line after retirement while their colleagues in bigger, better-funded dioceses, or in religious orders with significant financial r esources were able to live comfortably was shameful, said a visiting American Canon Law expert last week.

Professor William Bassett, speaking at the 29th annual conference of the Canon Law society of Australia and New Zealand held at St Thomas More College last week said that the Church had no idea what to do about these sorts of situations.

The problem with having a Church based on a multiplicity of juridically established independent bodies was that many religious congregations or small Church organisations suffered as a result, he said.

"There are some orders," he said, "of religious who have given their entire lives to teaching or nursing, who - now that they are retired - are living on public welfare, in many cases below the poverty line. Meanwhile other orders with superior assets, in some cases enormous wealth, can live comfortably."

The same situation applied to parish priests he said. In some cases diocesan priests from small dioceses in the US are forced to retire below the poverty line earning somewhere in the region of SUS500 a month, while colleagues from large dioceses are able to live relatively comfortable existences on sums like SUS1500 a month, he said.

Professor Bassett said that the Church was missing out on the opportunity of saving huge sums of money and looking after its personnel at the same time.

"Almost every diocese has its own retirement plan but the waste of resources, when they could unite as a single entity is staggering," he said.

Professor Bassett also outlined the huge political and legal threats facing Catholic institu-

Nuns forced on to public welfare lions in the United States which threatened the entire basis they were founded on and their Catholic identity. The problem had now got to the point where formerly Catholic hospitals, universities and colleges were finding it almost impossible to maintain their ethos and identity.

"So there is this enormously strong, oppressive, pervasive trend which comes from all sources; from technology, commercial and financial exigencies, open admissions, open hiring, all laws that govern employment, all types of labour standards, accrediting agencies and the overlay finally of government agencies," he said.

One of the factors that had created these kinds of problems for the Church was that American law had been amended, making non-profit institutions such as religious-run hospitals liable to be sued.

What made it especially difficult, he said, was that was that the Church, cannot shut down institutions like hospitals which have all been converted into secular institutions for financial and legal reasons.

"I think we have to be very clear on what has happened and why it has happened. I think we have to recognise the complexity of the demands that modern sodety places upon all of these types of institutions," he said.

One of the more bizarre attacks on the Church had come from a group of pro-abortion supporters who had tried to destroy the Church's tax-exempt status.

"If successful it would have driven the Church up against the wall," he said.

The second circuit court ordered every Catholic diocese, order and organisation to produce all documentation, including correspondence, which it had ever produced which said anything about abortion. This move was rejected by the United States Catholic Conference which was fined SUS100,000 a day until it

Justice French: Mabo mediation can be tortuous in complex cases complied with the court's order.

The Church ultimately won the case on appeal but it cost SUS10 million.

Meanwhile, Sydney-based Dr philosopher, moral Bernadette Tobin of the John Plunkett Centre for Ethics, said that not all tolerance was a good thing. Raising the example of female genital mutilation practised in many communities, she said that some things could not be tolerated. This was the peculiar challenge of the United Nations International Year of Tolerance, she said.

Dr Tobin spoke at the conference on the issues raised by the UN Year of Tolerance and said that while tolerance was clearly a virtue which should be practised there were various forms of tolerance which could be harmful.

And, she said, the international year raised issues which challenged the common perception of tolerance as a good thing in itself.

Dr Tobin said that while tolerance was destructive of those to whom it was directed it was also destructive of the intolerant person.

"In order to think clearly about tolerance we need to recognise

Social justice help sought

By Peter Rosengren Gerald Farrell, principal of St Francis Xavier primary school in Armidale, is the newly appointed head of Perth's Catholic Social Justice Commission and brings the seasoned but positive perspective of an educator to his job.

He sees clearly the importance of widening consciousness of the need for social justice at all levels in society and, from his own perspective as a teacher, the potential to promote the Commission's work in schools.

"I think that's where we've got to start from, with primary Mr Farrell said it was imporschool children. And part of my tant to have as varied a memjob as an educator is to try and bership as possible so that the show them that they're so lucky commission could comprehenin terms of what they have and sively address issues and reflect what they receive," he told The the type of society Australians Record recently. live in. Commission members But one of his first tasks as are ordinarily called on to chairman is to encourage par- attend one meeting a month ticipation in the work of the and occasional seminars on Commission. Currently the social justice-related issues.

CSJC is looking for expressions Reconstituted 18 months ago of interest from people who at the beginning of 1994, the wish to become Commission CSJC has already undertaken a number of initiatives in the field members.

of social justice, although the number and kind of issues it could address are almost limitless.

"There are so many areas to work in so what we've tried to achieve this year is one or two main things," he said.

The first was mental health.

He said that in the last year, it has become increasingly obvious to the Commission that with State and Federal reduction of mental health expenditure, more mental health recipients have effectively been thrown back onto their own resources in the wider community.

One Commission member, is trying to get a house established in Perth for Aboriginal alcoholics, and to get professional help for its clients from psychiatrists and doctors.

One of the main tasks of the Commission, he believes, is to try and "crack" the insularity of Australians who generally aren't aware of what's going on in society, whether at home or at the international level, particularly in Asia.

Those interested in becoming members of the CSJC should write to Archbishop Hickey at St Mary's Cathedral.

that there are different forms of tolerance," she said.

These included tolerance of differences in others, of undesirable activity and finally of morally objectionable acts or behaviour.

It was especially this last category which should not be practised because of its capacity to cause harm to other people, she said.

Rather than treating female genital mutilation as a cultural issue, as some people might believe, it was instead an issue of justice, she said.

Unbalanced ethical theories such as ethical subjectivism and cultural relativism - which were based largely on the belief that another person's morality was not to be interfered with were wrong - and subsequently encouraged a distorted view of the true virtue of tolerance.

The consequences for justice were also clear, she said, as tolerance did not mean having to accept the intolerable.

Drawing the line between the tolerable and the intolerable was also one issue raised by current racial hatred legislation currently being debated by Federal Parliament, she said.

"It is one thing to support censorship on the grounds that the speech it prohibits will harm people, it is another thing altogether to support it on the grounds that the speech it prohibits is offensive to some citizens," she said.

Dr Tobin said that it was this aspect of the legislation which deserved careful study.

Also speaking at the conference was Justice Robert French, president of the National Native Title Tribunal, who outlined the history which lead to the landmark Mabo decision and the establishment of the tribunal Outlining the process set up to adjudicate claims for native title he said that the Mabo decision had been described as one system of law speaking to another.

"It is aboriginal law speaking to non-Aboriginal law and nonAboriginal law saying yes, there are, under certain circumstances, elements of the Aboriginal law which we will recognise and protect."

Justice French said that the broad principles from the Mabo case could be applied in general to native land titles around Australia, including: where a tribe or group had maintained their traditional links to the land then the traditional title of that group remained in existence and this could be recognised by common law; where no such traditional links had been maintained then native title had disappeared; native title could be protected by legal remedies in the courts; traditional law and custom determined the content of native title; and traditional native laws could change as a response to European settlement.

Describing the efforts and role of the national tribunal he said that it was partly the tribunal's task to try and mediate native title claims before they got to court. This process, he said, could be especially tortuous where claims were contested by large numbers of different parties, including land owners, corporate entities and sometimes a number of native claimants.

When you're experiencing loss, one comfort is knowing who to turn to.

For over 100 N'ears, WA families have relied on Bowra & O'Dea. Our reputation for professionalism and genuine care has seen us become this state's largest funeral director.

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Stirling works at Antioch Stirling Antioch weekend leaders Derek Boylen and Cecily Ftizgerald 50 Years Re-union Celebrations for Y.C.W. and kindred youth movements (C.G.M. & N.C.G.M.) Past and present members are invited to attend a

Y.C.W. Thanksgiving Mass

for blessings received by members to be celebrated in

St. Mary's Cathedral Sunday 9th July at 3pm

followed by tea/coffee and biscuits at Mercedes Hall An opportunity to renew friendships and talk about the good times had in the youth movements

The happy crew at Stirling Antioch's weekend late last month. Leaders Derek Boylen and Cecily Fitzgerald, supported by Anda and Bev Boylen, were delighted with the spirit and charism of the weekend held at St Lawrence's Primary School at Balcatta. Stirling's enthusiastic, faith-filled and caring community of young adults will be meeting each Sunday evening. Anyone interested in attending can ring 349 2553.

Fr McKenna: new chaplain ere has been a lot happening at the Youth and Young Adult Ministry Office in recent months.

There is a new chaplain, Father Brian McKenna, who is also parish priest of Cloverdale.

Fr Brian will be at the office on Thursdays and has initiated a weekly Mass at 12.15pm on that day. It is great to see young people gathering together with the staff for Mass and lunch.

Everyone is welcome.

Sister Ngaire Roil, a Cenacle Sister, has also joined our team on a part-time basis on Thursdays. Both Sr Ngaire and Fr Brian are available at the office from 10am.

Margaret Fennessy is the Antioch Community Coordinator and is in the office on Wednesdays and Thursdays between 10am and 5pm. Margaret can help established groups with resource material and offer advice and support if parishes are considering starting an Antioch group.

Bruce Downes, director, and iday Camp. This will interest his assistant, Penny Ashcroft, anyone between the ages of 16 are available most days. Bruce and 21 who is interested in from 1pm to 5pm and Penny "getting away from it all for a from 9am to 5pm Monday to few days. It will be held at Friday. They are happy to assist Gidgegannup from July 16 to with any queries regarding July 19 and promises to be a parish programs etc. great combination of relaxation To that end, a Parish and fun.

Resource Library has been The Parish Based Youth Minestablished at the office and is istry is about to get under way designed specifically to assist in parishes around Perth and in parishes in their ministry to country areas so if your parish youth and young adults. is interested please contact the The library is open on an Catholic Youth and Young appointment basis from Mon- Adult Ministry for further day to Friday and all you need details. to do is phone the office on 328 The inaugural Catholic 9622.

Young Adult Conference is Coming events for youth and being planned for October of young adults include the Anti- this year. The Conference will och Flame Weekend on July 15 •be held at the Kings Hotel in and 16. This is a fantastic Perth over a weekend. The yearly event that all Antioch theme of the Conference will groups look forward to. The be on the Place of the Young theme this year is 'Reach Out'. Adult in the Church and ConSee the registration form in temporary Society. today's Record.

Stay tuned for more details We are also in the midst of about these and other events in planning the July Mayhem Hol- coming weeks.

US teens fight abortion holocaust NASHVILLE, Tennessee (CNS) - Derrick Jones' first memory is of attending a prolife meeting with his grandmother. Heather Clapsaddle didn't get actively involved until her early teens.

But, at ages 17 and 23, respectively, they remain deeply committed to the pro-life movement, fueled by their present and past involvement with the US National Teens for Life 4

The Record, July 6 1995

which held its convention here late last month.

Mr Jones said the teen-oriented convention, with sessions planned by and for teens, and with sometimes-complex facts explained at their level, helped its members deal with friends who were sometimes hostile to the pro-life cause.

"I have a few friends who are pro-abortion, and we have a lot of debates and arguments, but we can set aside our differ-

ences," Jones said. "And every debate I have is more educational for me, and more educational for them," he said. "I'm slowly chipping away at the pro-choice mentality of my peers."

National Teens for Life believes many teenagers, although naturally pro-life, are for abortion only because they have been fed half-truths on the issue, and the group works to overcome this ignorance.

Flame 1995 THEME: "REACH OUT" WHERE:

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GROUP. If under 18 years of age, your parent or guardian MUST SIGN the statement below.

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Mr Nicholls said that while existing services in Australia and other countries had intended to generate social programs to help children and families, the common characteristic shared by most of them was that they operated outside the family.

"Most of them are child centred ... but they are centred on doing things to or for children outside their family, not inside the family," he said. "And it turns out that the real quality of life is not only created, but also established and developed within the family and by the parents."

While this might seem to be a statement of the obvious, he said, in actual fact the research findings were a stark challenge to the public messages, the public debate and the public policies that had dominated in the community for the last generation, because none had given such a pre-eminent role to parents.

The campaign's emphasis had also been strongly supported by local research, he said.

"Nothing could have demonstrated this more dramatically than the very recent, very important, and very Western Australian research carried out by the TVW Telethon Child Health Research Institute," he said.

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munity leaders. There was therefore a need to ensure that people were confident that parenting was being accorded the importance it deserved in the public and political arena.

Mr Nicholls, said that this was one of the more interesting aspects thrown up by the research carried out in preparation for the campaign.

The dichotomy between the importance people placed on parenting was compared to the importance it was accorded by community opinion makers and leaders. The Government was responding with a public campaign to increase public awareness of how critical a job it really was, he said.

"It marks a determined commitment by the State Government to promote within the community the importance of parents, the responsibility of parents and the special quality of parents, a quality that cannot be replaced by institutional substitutes," he said.

Speaking during the campaign launch held at the Hyatt Regency, he said "The great majority of members of the community ... are saying that what they believe in their hearts and minds is not what they are being told by their community .... In the face of this conflict it is obvious that we need a public campaign to raise the status of parents," he said.

The first phase of the campaign consisted of television commercials and would be followed by other promotional activities designed to raise the status of parents in the community, he said.

The parenting campaign has five speciic objectives which include: promoting the status of parents; creating an awareness of their important role and responsibilities; acknowledging that child rearing involves a partnership between parc,r ts, community and government: th!-, )rovision of information on parenting and child development issues; and to encourage the development of parent support services.

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The televison advertising campaign highlighting the importance of parenting will be backed up by a new range of services designed to support parents, the West Australian Minister for the Family and Children's Services, Roger Nicholas, said last week.

The Government had allocated two million dollars for the new services, he said, and would work at supporting the needs of parents as parents.

Some of the new services had already been announced, including the Parent Information Resource Centres. A Home Visiting Service would be introduced, he said.

These new services would be "absolutely" focused on helping parents to perform their function within the family because parents had the most significant influence on children, he said.

"They will not set out to do things outside the family ... they will set out to help parents strengthen themselves so they can improve their performance inside the family."

Research carried out by his department had indicated that most people feel that the fundamental importance of parenting is poorly recognised by public institutions such as the media, public policy makers, commentators and com-

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382 3933 (office hours) With a final comment, Fr McKelson conceded it had been a great privilege and pleasure to have worked on the mission, and says he is grateful for the prayerful support of so many people "and most certainly for the unselfish work of the religious and lay missionaries for so many years, without which priests cannot function as effectively."

Fr McKelson then pointed to the outstanding work of the St John of God Sisters who brought initial education and hospital care to the Kimberley, as shown "in their wonderful current Broome historical exhibition," bringing together many visual and factual records "of their tireless dedication over the years."

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Pallottine Kimberley priest stalwart.

Father Kevin McKelson, was recently awarded an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for his services to the Aboriginal communities. He will receive the medal in September.

Initially an assistant parish priest in Broome upon his arrival from Melbourne in 1954, Fr McKelson embraced his ministry with gusto when transferred to La Grange Mission in 1961 where he remained (apart from a year at Beagle Bay Mission), until taking up his new post as chaplain to Broome's Notre Dame University, Kimberley Campus, last year.

Fr McKelson is able to utilise his vast experience to facilitate settling in students coming in from Aboriginal communities in the Kimberley for blockrelease studies, (up to two weeks at a time each year), as well as non-Aboriginal students from missions and Perth campuses. He is also able to use his lingual fluency in the five Kimberley Aboriginal languages, plus IndonesianMalay, Italian and German.

Commenting on the move to Aboriginal inculturation within the Church, Fr McKelson pointed to its perceived inception at the 1973 Melbourne Eucharistic Congress, when the prime Aboriginal liturgy input came from the La Grange people "but was modified in transit."

Work had begun within Aboriginal culture in teaching, and, with the bishop's approval, "we applied this method to religious matters within the guidelines set out by Rome.

"In this we were only following Vati-

can II and over the years adopted a method of saying Mass which was culturally appropriate for the Aboriginal people."

This broke the "monolithic structure of Australian liturgy," said Fr McKelson who believes there is a need to inculturate further and more authentically, with the main contribution coming from the Aboriginal people themselves; "this was highlighted by matters raised in the 1994 African synod."

Supporting this were the "encouraging guidelines which have been given by the Church just recently."

He said education and health care were given to the Aboriginal people by the Catholic Church from the earliest Kimberley days (Trappists came to Beagle Bay in 1890, the Pallottines took over from them in 1901, and were later joined by the St John of God Sisters in 1907), because in those early times they were excluded from a government education.

Not only did the St John of God sisters teach the Aboriginal students numeracy and literacy, he said, but they also taught them domestic skills, arts and crafts, while the Pallottine brothers taught them manual skills - "and now, with the blessing of Bishop Jobst and the Catholic Education Office, modern facilities have been offered to the students."

La Grange also pioneered language teaching in their schools, but this was not sanctioned by the Education Department.

"However this situation has changed at La Grange (now known as Bidyadanga Aboriginal Community). especially through the administration of Mr Michael Heaven, Superintendent of Schools in the Kimberley."

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C HIPPERS The Record, July 6 1995

5

The Mob' mourns passing of a great 131oke By 'One of the Mob' ue friendship, for it to be unconditional and lasting, requires the practice of the virtues of patience, tolerance and the greatest of all, charity.

The six months of suffering and the death on June 25, of Peter O'Donoghue, or POD as he was affectionately known, motivated a remarkable demonstration of these virtues and true friendship.

POD grew up in the 1950s with a large group of close friends, most of whom, but not all, were active in the YCW athletic club. They trained together and socialised together, especially at the regular YCW dances in Victoria Park, Subiaco and Highgate.

There were also the other big commercial dances at the Embassy Ballroom and the "Drill Hall." POD, without much doubt, was the most accomplished live" dancer.

The dances were a place of healthy courtship with many lasting marriages resulting. There was also the YCW foot-

ball and basketball, camping, trips, Rottnest Island holidays, picnics, numerous parties for any excuse and summer Sunday afternoons at Scarborough or City Beach.

The "Mob" as Pam O'Connell once called them, were witnesses at, and helped celebrate, each of their weddings. The marriages were lasting and collectively produced more than ninety children.

The 1960s and 70s were busy times bringing up families, but the "Mob" stayed tocether in many ways and there was never a year without some joint celebration.

As the years went by and they matured through their fifties, parties became more sophisticated, often hiring a whole resturant for dinner. Sixtieth birthdays and anniversaries were often celebrated in style, overseas travel was the thing and weekends away were enjoyed together.

Things usually seemed to just happen, without much organisation except for the hard work of Gerry Lambe or Laurel Kerrigan.

Choirs are not to 'perform'

By Chris de Silva “Music can change people's lives and help people grow closer to God". This was one of the messages from Christopher Walker to the hundreds of musicians who attended his recent Perth workshops.

Speaking from his experience as the Director of Music at Clifton Cathedral in Bristol and at St Paul the Apostle Church in Los Angeles, Mr Walker told his first workshop at St Mary's Anglican

Christopher Walker

Church, South Perth, the choir was a ministry in which God works through music and musicians.

He reminded choir directors and choristers that their primary role was to lead people to God in prayer, and that they were there to minister, not to perform.

This means that songs must come from the hearts of the choir and touch the hearts of the people.

He told the final workshop, Making Stones Sing, held at St Thomas More Church, Bateman, Church musicians could not, and should not, try to force people to sing. Instead, we can invite them to sing and inspire them to sing, by using songs that convey meaning and are relevant to their situation in life.

He pointed out that very few parishes can claim to be a single community of faith, which means that music is more often a source of division within the parish, rather than a means of unification.

He suggested that we should give people music that makes them feel that they are part of the Body of Christ, so that coming to Church on Sunday will energise them to live the Gospel for the rest of the week

It was the same when the sad news came at Christmas last year that POD had terminal cancer. It was arranged that those who could would attend the Wednesday 5.40pm Mass at the North Perth Monastery. Varying numbers, at times including the O'Donoghue family, continuously offered Mass for POD and his wife Wendy.

The "regulars" at the monastery became curious at the consistent attendance of this group.

At the special vigil Mass, before his funeral on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, when about forty attended, some of the "regulars" stayed to join in the rosary, which was not only said for POD, but for six others in the group of friends who had died earlier.

Peter O'Donoghue was a great bloke.

He was a loving husband and father, a true friend and gave his time generously to the less fortunate.

He was also a talented artist, who produced hundreds of witty cartoons of people and events at work, and play. Always

At the invitation of the Dean of St George's Anglican Cathedral, the Very Reverend Dr John Shepherd, Father Kevin Long, chairperson of the Archdiocesan Ecumenical Affairs Committee, recently preached at the Sunday Sung Eucharist at St George's Cathedral with the blessing of Archbishop Barry Hickey and Anglican Archbishop Peter Carnley. Dr Shepherd's invitation was particularly welcome in the light of Pope John Paul's recent Encyclical Ut Unum Sint, which reaffirms the Catholic Church's commitment to the ecumenical movement.

Burdekin urges church help The chairman of the Australian Youth Foundation, Brian Burdekin, called last week for Australian Churches to play a greater role in promoting and protecting the rights of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children in our community.

Mr Burdekin was delivering the 1995 Rerum Novarum Lecture for Melbourne's Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace to several hundred people in the Collingwood Town Hall.

"The plight of our most disadvantaged children and young

people - including those with dual and multiple disabilities is still a national disgrace" Mr Burdekin said.

"Some State Governments are clearly abdicating their responsibility to children who are severely abused, whose families have disintegrated and many of whom are homeless. The plight of young people who are mentally ill is still a national scandal.

"Some States are also beggaring our future by failing to provide funds for essential support services in schools. Such short-

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6 The Record, July 6 1995

done at no cost to anyone. Some of his friends have discussed the publishing of his work in book form, with the proceeds going to the St Vincent De Paul Society.

If anyone has a Peter O'Donoghue cartoon, would they send a photocopy of it with any comments and the date it was done to PO Box 691, Innaloo, 6018.

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sighted policies will only increase our youth suicide rate.

"Many of our churches play a crucial role in providing services for the least fortunate in our community. I unreservedly applaud the work they do.

"However, it is clear that we need our church leaders to use the moral authority which they have in an advocacy role if we are to develop a more just and humane society - a society in which the worth and dignity of every individual is respected."

Religious leaders to meet on future

Leaders of the 130 religious congregations in Australia are meeting in Melbourne this week to discuss their views about the future of religious life, the legalisation of euthanasia and the situation of women in the Church.

Sister Helen Clarke, president of the Australian Conference of Leaders of Religious Institutes said the leaders were "really hoping to have a conversation

with the future, examining those aspects of religious life that are relevant and should be preserved as well as those which may need to be rejected."

Keynote speaker, Sr Doris Gottemoeller RSM, one of the three United States delegates to the International Union of Superiors General in Rome, will discuss whether th renewal of religious life has been a success.

kt 64‘rve Strength from Devotional spring cleaning suffering Being a person with chronic health problems, which cause constant, extremely intense pain in all areas of my body, I am appalled at the passing of the Euthanasia Bill in the Northern Territory and the non-productive views of Australia's Governor General.

Longevity and strength of character are the norm for the women of my family.

Hence I look forward with delight to at least another forty years, God willing, of living and loving; and thanking He who sustains me. My 89-year old mother, with whom I am priviledged to share my home, continues to be my inspiration.

My life is an exciting education. As I learn about myself and others, and continue to grow,I am never bored. Struggling with pain, I find peace and joy. In my weakness there is strength. Through my tears I am laughing, and I am in union with the God of laughter, because in my poverty I am rich.

To poor Bill Hayden, who is deeply wounded ,Ireach out in forgiveness. What a legacy he would leave from such high office. All who believe in euthanasia are the real burden for society, as they would deprive the healthy of the opportunity to find true love, in reaching out to those less fortunate. Without giving there is no receiving.

My prayer is for the healing of the wounds of our people; and the coming of age of this, the great South Land of the Holy Spirit.

Marie O'Leary Shelley

Older view of youth Penny Ashcroft of the Youth and Young Adult office asks if young people today feel comfortable when they attend church, and tells us that if we want young people to respond enthusiastically we need to create a warm, inviting and safe atmosphere in which their energy and their gifts will be appreciated. Surely to goodness this is what priests, nuns and liturgical committees have been trying to do for thirty years, and still they lament in puzzlement that young people do not come.

Plainly what many young people do not have is an understanding of what they should go to church FOR - to worship their Creator by participating in the perfect sacrifice offered to God by His Son, reenacted by the priest. Liturgy means service. Who are we trying to serve? Who is the audience? No, it is not the congregation, of whatever age, it is God Himself.

Mediocre guitar-playing and gimmicks involving coloured lights are surely unworthy adjuncts to worship - and do not necessarily attract even young people.

My own youngest daughter (whose comment on a liturgical dance she was learning at school was: 'It's all holy and revolting') was utterly repelled by the Youth Mass she attended in our parish, and my young grandson, at a Christmas vigil Mass when amplified music was throbbing unmercifully and red lights flashing, asked his father miserably if he thought Hell would be like this, and wanted to be taken out.

I would plead for some attention to be given to the older members of the flock. St Peter was told to feed the sheep as well as the lambs.

Those of us who are of mature years were fortunately given a firm grounding in the Faith and do know why we go to Mass, which is why, often with gritted teeth, we continue to go. But we too would like to feel safe: safe from the likelihood of irritation at the feebleness of the hymns or the tape-recorded religious mood-muzak, or, far more seriously, from deep anger at the variations on the sacred words and actions of the liturgy, even the words of consecration, introduced by some priests.

The Archbishop has exhorted his priests and liturgists to aim for meticulous, dignified and self-effacing performances of the liturgy. Perhaps if his words were truly

Further to my letter of last month. In times gone by, when Catholics received Communion infrequently, practices like the Nine First Fridays, or Five First Saturdays were a holy ruse to get people going more often.

Nowadays, we know that receiving the Sacrament is an integral part of participation in the Mass and the above practices border on superstition. Surely we acknowledge that the dispositions of the recipient are more significant than the day of the month on which one receives?

We have recently begun the renewal of the liturgy of the Mass.

The Sacraments have also undergone reform. There has been reform in the Religious life, a new Code of Canon Law has appeared. Our Church life is being renewed in almost every aspect. But our dubious devotions must remain sacrosanct! And it is not

for lack of suitable alternatives. The prayerful study of scriptures, the scripture-based and time-honoured Rosary, prayer groups, meditation groups, exposition, Daily Mass are far better fare.

In the past we have discarded practices like standing naked in freezing water while reciting the penitential psalms, or having public penitents cluttering up the doorways of our churches, or spending years chained to the top of a rock. Surely a good cleaning of the devotional cupboard would not go amiss?

Australia should push for a simple three part international convention on land mines. It would read: 1. Landmines remain at all times the property of the original manufacturer.

2. Any person can sue in any jurisdiction which is a signatory to the convention for injury, damage or threat caused by landmines.

3. A litigation fund will be set up by signatory countries.

G.A. Taylor Riverton

Contribution appreciated

Anne Manne's impressive article (June 22) "Morning after the Feminist Revolt" is a thoughtful, gentle contribution to the "Motherhood" debate. It is my experience also that young mothers are crying out for the "affirmation of children and childrearFinally, I do not visit the Blessed ing," rather than referring "to children Sacrament to be tranquilised. I go to essentially as burdens or obstacles preget refreshed for action. venting participation in the main game which was always paid work."

Pastor Apoplexus I believe a debate among Catholic mothFr. Noel J. FitzSimons ers on this subject should raise more issues- than whether or not she has a "right' to fulfill herself at the expense of family. her taken to heart and put into practice, peo- in our society. The religious conception of one seems to raise this point where No irretrievably being is proven well so ife l to ple of all ages would be drawn back to the unemployment situation. relates it lost. Wake up Catholics and fight. devout participation in the Mass.

Here the mothers who work are often takGeorge Russo Janet Kovesi Watt ing the jobs which their own or other ion Marm Claremont young people should be doing - to say nothing of male breadwinners.

When this occurs because of a mother's real financial need, I guess it can't be helped - unfortunate though it is.

I read an article in The Record, which When this situation arises because a If it were not prurient the Mapplethorp exhibition of black and white photography gave an account of a Christian teacher in mother is "fulfilling herself-, it is really would have claimed neither notice nor Pakistan being accused of blasphemy and another issue. Whether this is good for the exhibition space. That it besmirches the how she could face the death penalty - and young children, the husband and family in walls of a Government Art Gallery indi- it made me think. general is debatable but what it does in In how many programmes on TV do we the workforce is absolute and worth concates the level to which the administration hear the Lord's name being taken in vain - sidering. Working mothers are in fact trice can sink in the name of art.

It is of major concern that the Director of numerous times? What do we do about it? fulfilled - in the workplace before marthe Art Gallery is a woman, and should be Do we ring/write and complain? Do we riage, the fulfillment of motherhood, home vigilant to maintain standards of morality refuse to watch? Do we refuse to buy the and family and then back to the workforce which formerly protected women in our sponsors' product? Do we bother to say a to be fulfilled again. In this procedure are simple prayer (eg "Sacred Heart of Jesus - they not denying young people the right to society. mercy on us") every time we hear a know the feeling of fulfillment which a have widely is concern of lack this Regretably blasphemy? encountered amongst women in adminisplace in the workforce brings?

What about every day living? How often trative positions. Three successive women I believe these two points relate to ministers in government have authorised do the people we associate with blas- Christian charity and I find it surprising the restricted release of thousands of pheme and we say nothing to them? While the Church has remained silent over the I certainly don't condone the extreme last 20 years. sleazy pornographic pictorials annually.

Health Minister Carmen Lawrence has measures taken by the Muslims, I can't My third point relates to the mother's offended widely and within her own Party help but admire their passionate love for need to work to pay for Catholic educaby her December last sponsoring of a Cleo their God, that they won't allow him to be tion.I can accept that school fees relate to insulted. In comparison we look pretty teachers' salaries but I can't accept the distributed abhorrent "Safe Sex Guide". pathetic. When will we start standing up extra and often excessive cost of extra curendangered and denigrated are Women by these trends. Sexual assaults on for our God, who we profess to love so ricular 'junkets' of dubious educational women have risen pro rata as pornogra- much? value which place a tremendous burden phy has permeated our society progres- Mrs C. A. Roatch on the budget. School balls in formal, sively in recent years. often hired, attire and expensive school Kelmscott "Quis custodiet." Who will protect camps etc must be a great burden to the women in a society in which women proaverage Catholic family on one income. mote a moral decline?

There was a time when Catholic parents could budget for the school fees and that Paul Donnelly I feel that Fr Tomasi's comment: "The was it. Why has there been such a radical Claremont Christian message takes on the cultural change?

While I agree with the Foleys (June 15) ways..." (The Record, 22/6) may need some clarification, lest it be misinterpreted by on many points of their argument about some to mean that the Catholic Church is "the best mother in the world", I must to compromise its Christian tradi- assure them there is no need for "mothers ready Congratulations to Keith Wilson when order to accommodate a diversity to be imprisoned in the house". Many in tions he speaks of what to expect of the laity and intelligent, well-educated, thinking mothcultures. of clergy, particularly the hierarchy.

Although the Catholic Church is sympa- ers, outside the paid workforce, are filling It's true, the Church provided a strong, thetic towards other religions, it is not a most worthwhile role in the Church and hierarchical and supportive structure in eclectic by nature. It is important to real- community in many fields using their talthe past, and we, the laity, held tenaciously ize that the true Christian message tran- ents in helping to make Australia a better to it, and were uncompromising. The scends all cultures. In the same issue of place. priests, brothers and nuns provided not The Record, Pope John Paul II was quoted I would also suggest that while we all only the educated upholders of the Faith as saying: "The Catholic Church is have rights - women and men - we also in the workforce, but also the revolution- encriched by embracing a variety of cul- have responsibilities and not only to our aries in the trade unions and among the tures, but it cannot change church teach- own children. professions. As Vincent Buckley said about ing to make acceptance of the Christian As suggested, we should use Jesus as the moral battles of the 50's, "with a message easier for a given culture." our role model and inspiration. Luke's Catholic Church mobilised as never Gospel, chapter 9:23 "Then to all he said 'If before to take part in that non-religious Mr Joseph Said anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let struggle."

Noranda him renounce himself and take up his The modern world is set to smash all cross every day and follow me". this to pieces, and rob our lovely country In conclusion, to put Colleen McGuiof something valuable. Are we prepared to ness-Howard's reply (June 15) in perspecwatch it change into a permissive cesspool tive, we need to realise she is talking about I was pleased to see a leading body adult "children". We all know that very year by year? Wars hardly touched our shores, but we were ready to fight if the within the Church pressing the govern- young children almost never put their enemy came. Now the enemy is within. ment to push for an international ban on mother first.

Arguably we are bringing about our own the use of landmines. Mines, nuclear and destructiveness, by allowing the attack on biological weapons all have the potential Johanna Bowen Stoneville religious values, once the dominant force to kill long after hostilities cease.

The Record, July 6 1995 7 tr.

Vitito tiV

Quis custodiet?

Admirable zeal

Church not eclectic

Wake up, Catholics

Simple solution

How individualism can turn tolerance from virtue into vice The United Nations has designated 1995 as the International Year of Tolerance. The Anglican Archbishop of Perth, Dr Peter Camley, says that tolerance is a Christian virtue but warns that if it serves only to promote an excessive individualism it can become a vice that stops Christians from defending and promoting the true and the good.

This is an edited text of an Address respect to what we might refer as our gengiven by The Most Revd. Dr. P.F. Carnley eral Australian approach to the understandAnglican Archbishop of Perth at St. ing of human destiny. It is not just religious Peter's Cathedral, Adelaide, last month. commitment and practice in a well-defined The subject of tolerance on which we are and specific sense, but a religious underasked to focus in this International Year of standing of humanity in the broadest possiTolerance is surely a good thing. Is it not ble and most general sense. It is not just that self evident that tolerance is a positive Christians must be tolerant of Buddhists, virtue, and that intolerance is in very large and Buddhists of Moslems, but we are all to part the source of the most of the world's be tolerant of the other person's beliefs in the sense that every person could be said, in woes? one way or another, to be religious.

However it is the mix of tolerance with A.N.Whitehead once defined religion as the excessive individualism of our kind of society that I think may be more lethal than "what you do with your own solitariness". If we accept this very broad definition, this we imagine. already contains within it a sense of the In modern Australian society, for example, we are children of the Enlightenment in individual's private perception of his or her own destiny and how that is to be worked so far as we tend to assume the view that out. Certainly, in Australia, as in most other religion has to do with the private arena of western, liberal democratic societies, it is personal belief and the inner spirituality of religion in this very general, non-instituindividuals, and that we must all be tolerant tional, non-technical sense, that we tend to of one another's viewpoint. This means approach as essentially a private matter. For that, in our kind of society, religion is toler- us human destiny is worked out primarily ated so long as it is contained within the by individuals as individuals. realm of the private. It has no real place in Always the assumption is that individualthe public arena... ism, involving freedom of choice and room As a consequence, the State cannot be to move, is what we in this broad and secuseen publicly to be supporting the work of larised form of religion have in mind when the Church if it is identifiably 'religious' we begin to envision our human destiny. It rather than 'educational' or to do with 'wel- is this basic belief in the freedom of individfare'. Ironically, this means that all kinds of uals to do their own thing, provided they do quasi-religious and moral positions of a not encroach upon the equal right of every very general kind can be promoted in other individual to do his or her own thing, places like school assemblies, for nothing is that provides the basis of a society held value free, but you cannot obtain Common- together by the shared virtue of tolerance. wealth support to erect a building that is Beyond this kind of talk it seems to me explicitly or unequivocally 'Anglican' or that we Australians do not engage in a great 'Roman Catholic'! deal of reflection about the philosophical This is the equivalent expression in dollar underpinning of our society. We are rather terms of the view that religious commit- more pragmatic than ideologically self-conments can be tolerated, provided they are scious. We are currently concerned to all kept within the realm of the private. In debate the question of the unlikely continuthe public arena this means that religious ing role of the monarchy and the idea of an ideas tend to be disallowed and trivialised, Australian republic, It is true, but even here not because they are necessarily had ideas, our chief preoccupation seems to be with or logically defective and incoherent ideas, an alternative constitutional arrangement but simply because they are religious. We that will work; certainly we do not seem to tolerate religion in our kind of society pro- reflect together about the nature of our vided it is individualised and not taken too democratic freedom and individual rights. seriously in public. It is the form taken by In other words, when I look at Australia toleration in the context of the excessive whole, as it were, I would have to say that I individualism of our kind of society that am not aware of Australians paying much may not be an altogether good thing. attention to the philosophical underpinning Some might argue that it is not just that of liberalism, and its origins, as, for examChurch and State should be kept apart and ple, in the way Americans do. that religion should not be brought into polBut if our underlying commitment to indiitics, but that it is not even wise to mention vidualism is not often theoretically religion as a subject of discussion at dinner expounded, and if the word "individualism" parties. It is better for me to tolerate your therefore sounds a little abstract and formal point of view and for you to tolerate mine, and without material content, it can be illusand for us both keep it to ourselves. Like- trated by reference to literature and drama. wise, moral commitments, provided they do For we tend to hold up images of mythic not transgress the law, tend to be regarded individualism that express our broadly reliin our kind of society as purely private mat- gious grasp of human destiny. In other ters. For is not the area of life-style as well words, from out of our essential pragmatism as belief a matter of personal commitment we somewhat unwittingly reveal what we and private moral judgment, a matter of a think of as ideologically desirable for indipurely personal decision? The truths of vidual members of our society in the heroic morality and religion are at best private portrayals of film and novel. truths rather than public truths.

I first became really aware of this in 1993 As a consequence, in liberal democratic whileI was in America on study leave when societies like modern Australia we leave I happened to meet Robert Bellah, the grand what are regarded as essentially subjective old man of American sociology, who in matters such as personal morality and reli- recent years has become a convert to Angligion to the freedom of individual choice. canism, and particularly when I read his Each person is free to pursue his or her own two recent books The Good Society' and religious practices, believe as a matter of 'Habits of the Heart'. In Habits of the Heart private opinion his or her own set of reli- Bellah points out that the individualism of gious doctrines, and adopt his or her own the political philosophy undergirding all particular lifestyle, provided he or she modern western liberal democratic socirespects the equal right of every other indi- eties is drilled into our corporate unconvidual to do likewise. And then, we handle scious as a residual quasi-religious committhe multiplicity of resulting viewpoints in ment by its constant replaying in the mythic the resulting multicultural society by images that our kind of society regularly recourse to the virtue of tolerance. So long holds before itself. as your beliefs do not intrude on mine, and Let me give you one or two examples. we respect and tolerate each other's respec- The paradigm of the individual hero in our tive positions as equally valid, then all will culture over the last generation was almost be right with the world. Or so we think certainly the cowboy. When I was a child a Now, it is precisely the individualism cowboy suit was a regular must as a Christimplicit in this liberal minded and tolerant mas present; when we grew out of one cowapproach to life of modern Australian soci- boy suit it was time for Santa Claus to bring ety, that, indeed, Australia shares with all another: in any event, in a cowboy movie other liberal democratic societies of the the stereotypical cowboy rides into a comwestern world, that I want first to call into munity and often does a good work on question. behalf of the community (for he is not selfThe first thing to be said about it is that ish), but he never finds his own destiny the individualism that I have in mind does within the community. Rather, he finds his not just apply to religious and moral mat- destiny as an individual - as in the case of ters in a narrow and technical sense, but in the Lone Ranger, who rides off into the suna much more broad sense. It applies with set, or goes off with his Indian companion ...

8 The Record, July 6 1995

leaving the community the better off for his ridding it of crooks, or cattle rustlers, or hostile Indians or whatever ... but also leaving the local school teacher standing behind her picket fence, looking wistfully after him as he goes. There is never or only rarely any suggestion that he settles down and gets married and has children and becomes part of the community - all that is a little bit too bourgeois and middle class. Rather, he finds his fulfilment as an individual, and goes off to do his own thing somewhere else. He never quite belongs to the community he serves.

His human destiny is worked out as an individual rather then as a belonging member of a community with others.

What impact this mythic image of the ideal hero might have on family life and the increasingly prevalent tendency of individuals to walk away from family responsibilities is anybody's guess.

Or, take the more modern equivalent of the cowboy of the last generation. This is the detective waiting patiently by a telephone that rarely rings in a rather shabby little office full of gray filing cabinets and with piles of papers on his desk in downtown Manhattan ... but it could be Sydney or Perth.

We never see him in settled domestic arrangements, or participating in normal community life either. Sometimes, it is true, he has a female colleague but it is never quite clear if they are partners in a sexual sense; and whether they might ever marry and settle down is an entirely unanswered question. Their relationship is ambiguous; they are essentially separate individuals.

Then the phone rings or in comes a client with a problem. As the detective begins to investigate it he finds that it is a problem with more ramifications than at first appeared and, indeed, that society itself has the problem. Those who run the city are mixed up in a network of underworld activity of an unsavoury kind - and that is why the detective can never really belong to the community. It is corrupt to the core. So what started as an individual client's problem becomes a community problem. As he bores further and further into the community it becomes more and more murky. And the hero finds his destiny in independence of it. He has to stand apart from it to preserve his integrity. And when he is offered a bribe or enticed into it by offers of drugs or grog or sex, he transcends it by ultimately resisting such temptations ...

Now, when you think about it, these images of mythic individualism played against a negatively portrayed community are reinforced daily on TV news and in the press. Read the papers and you will get the impression of Australian society as corrupt to the core ...

One heroically survives in such a society essentially as an individual. Society itself is fundamentally flawed. Human destiny is rarely, if ever, presented as finding fulfilment within it. Rather, we tend to get by with the belief that you should be free to do your thing and I to do mine, with a kind of fragile truce based on the ideal virtue of tolerance.

Indeed, in the political philosophy of which these mythic images are simply an expression, society is regularly portrayed negatively, as a threat to the individual and his or her rights.

The Individualism of modern western liberal democratic societies that I am talking about inevitably finds expression in the moral pluralism of our age. Most of our moral debates these days are not about our responsibilities to others in community but about the preservation of individual rights ...

There is very little about responsibilities to neighbour in the press. The occasional press article on the person who does some unselfish thing is remarkable because it is contrary to the norm.

Provided I do not encroach an your patch of space I am free to do as I will in modern liberal democratic society: being free of the moral restraints of the conventionally agreed upon values of the community means standing loosely to the idea of community standards or a set of 'core values', and following, as an autonomous, independent individual, one's own privatised set of

values. Thus we must be tolerant of diverWell, if this approach to the undersity... standing of modern Australian society is The approach to ethics of a former age by anywhere near the mark,I think the Church teaching the virtues that enabled a person has a specific and unavoidably political role to move from where he or she happened to to play. For in relation to the individualism be to what they might become (more trust- of modern western liberal democratic sociworthy, honest, caring) gives way, in our ety I think that the Church works with a funkind of society, to an static ethic of the toler- damental understanding of human destiny ance and protection of individual rights. that is quite out of kilter with that of the surNow I think there are some very concern- rounding culture. Indeed, one aspect of our ing difficulties in handling the ensuing mission may be to call in question the ideodiversity of moral, religious and political logical underpinning of western liberal viewpoint by appeal to the virtue of toler- democratic society as a fundamentally incoance. And it is here that we can begin to dis- herent and inadequate set of ideas, that may cern more clearly how it is that tolerance even hold within it the seeds of its own selfmay not be altogether a good thing. For a destruction. start, the ensuing privatisation of morality Let me say what I mean. means that there is less and less incentive I suspect that inherited Christian values even to try to work out by rational conver- of neighbourly care and fellowship, and sation and debate, what the best or most indeed, old Australian values of mateship, desirable set of agreed or shared values cannot avoid going down the drain, with a might be for the living of life well in a com- consequential adverse affect on the quality munity. Rather, a welter of conflicting view- of life in society, when society itself tends points and sectional commitments are sim- more and more to become an aggregate of ply asserted, as though one is as good as autonomous individuals, all trying to get on another, and then it follows that just about at the expense of one another ... everything must be tolerated - for who are Now, my good friend Max Charlesworth, you to say that your values are better than in his recent spirited defence of liberalism mine? The idea of moral truth tends to go and its ideal of individual autonomy in out the window in liberal democratic soci- Bioethics in a Liberal Society, says that this ety, because we are schooled instead in lib- does not rule out an individual and free eral minded tolerance, the tolerance of a decision to choose to live lovingly and plethora of alternative viewpoints, as responsibly and in accordance with altruisthough one is as good as another. tic ideals such as those of the Christian reliOne outcome of this moral pluralism ... is gion. Max Charlesworth says "As for the that, as a society, we have become more and criticism that the notion of autonomy is more reticent about the teaching of morality linked to an individualistic and asocial to the young. For, who are you to try to tell stance, there is absolutely no reason why an me how to live my life? Religious instruction autonomous act must necessarily be selfrebecomes more and more difficult to pursue garding in intent and cannot be otherpublicly. Who are you to have Nativity regarding. People may very well make conPlays at Christmas time in your school, scientious and autonomous moral decisions when there are some Moslem children pre- about their responsibilities and obligations sent? Instead, at best we try to do something towards others and acknowledge their of a lowest common denominator kind, per- dependency on others." haps called the clarification of values, but But it seems to me that this rider is someleaving the individual once again with an what in tension with his original exposition alleged absolute freedom of choice. Of of individual autonomy in which he speaks course we have to be tolerant to and sensi- negatively and pejoratively of traditional tive of the beliefs of others, but the resulting societies with their shared religious comreticence concerning the teaching of moral- mitments and their "core values", and what ity to the young of our own families and he calls their paternalism. All this is prebroadly religious denominational groupings sented as a bad thing from the point of view might be something which we will live to of liberalism and individual autonomy. Yet regret; indeed, it might be something to if you scrutinise the logic of the chapter, a which we might become particularly alert little later the commitment to individualism as a bad thing if society, through a want to is said to be able to accommodate the free the teaching of basic morality, becomes choice of these same communitarian values, more and more violent, less secure and or at least the best of them, from which inditrusting and more and more threatening. vidual autonomy seeks to shake itself free.

Another outcome, in a world of moral plu- There is a sense of wanting to have one's ralism of a highly privatised and individu- cake and eat it, or eat it and yet have it. alised kind where the quest for moral truth The difficulty is, of course, that the fundais abandoned and more or less everything is mental commitment of liberalism to the tolerated, is that protest has become the freedom of the individual to do his or her standard way of expressing a political or own thing provided every other individual moral point of view. Strident assertion and is free to do his or her own thing and to be marches with placards tend to replace rea- tolerant, cannot of itself generate a positive soned community conversation and debate, set of values with respect to others. These because nobody really believes that con- must be derived from some other source ventionally agreed-upon community stan- which has to be married to the liberal ideal. dards are really possible of achievement At the very least, I think I detect a basic any more... unresolved tension between the one and Because in this increasingly individualis- the many in much of Max Charlesworth's tic society the individual must be free to do very helpful exposition of liberalism, and I his or her own thing without any erosion of think it is precisely at this point that the those rights by society, the individual tends Church has something of importance to say. to survive in a state of siege. Moreover, And what it has to say, it seems to me, unfortunately, instead of each individual derives from its distinctive concept of God, being free to do his or her own thing pro- the Holy Trinity of distinct persons in one vided every other individual has an equal Unity of Being. For if nothing else, the docright to do his or her own thing, each indi- trine of the Trinity is an attempt to hold in vidual tends more and more to exploit situ- balance the one and the many. This mythic ations so as to do whatever he or she can image of how the one and the many go get away with. together, if I may call it that, is clearly inconAs a consequence, in an atmosphere of gruent with the liberal ideal of individual mutual mistrust, society becomes more and a utonomy and independence from the more litigious. Doctors of medicine, for restraints of the many. example, are currently having to pay huge Moreover, if John Zizioulas, in Being as premiums for professional indemnity insur- Communion: Studies in Personhood and ance, even if that means that the community the Church, is right, it is the doctrine of the can hardly afford the very high medical fees Trinity that gives us our fundamental notion that must necessarily be charged. Certainly, of what it is to be a person, and derivatively, there are signs that Australian society is it is the doctrine of the Trinity that indicates already on the way to assuming the litigious how we may conceive human destiny for character of its American counterpart. we are all "partakers of the divine nature".

Clearly, there never has been a time in And this is in radical contrast with the idea Australian society (and probably this is the of the autonomous individual of modern case in all modern western, liberal democ- western liberal democratic ideology. For ratic societies) when individualism has the difference between being a person and been so aggressively at work amongst us being an individual is precisely that by defiand human self interest so unrestrained ... nition an individual is one, isolated and dis-

crete. Individual autonomy means independence of the restraints of others.

But a person, as the idea of person was originally worked out in the context of theological debate about the nature of God, the Holy Trinity, (as distinct from the concept of an individual), is precisely that a person is related to another. To be a person one must be involved in what we call inter-personal give and take. In other words, relatedness with another is essential to the concept of a person as distinct from the ideal of the autonomous individual of post-Enlightenment liberalism. And it is not independence but the mutual interdependence of persons in communion that is the ideal of human destiny for Christians. So, what I am suggesting to you is that the doctrine of the Trinity provides us with our fundamental social and political agenda and that this is radically at variance with the ideal of human destiny of the religion-political environment of modern Australian culture.

Archbishop Carnley When Basil the Great in 374AD expounded the nature of the divine in his Treatise on the Holy Spirit, he spoke not so much of three persons and one substance, though that formula was already around at the time. Rather, he spoke of three persons and one communion. The Father and the Son do not lose their respective and unique identities; indeed, it is in their relationality that their respective identities are defined.

The Father could not be called the Father without the Son and vice-versa. But precisely in their relationality they constitute one unity of Being. The Father and the Son are one by mutual self gift. The Son does the Father's will, not out of duress or in compliance with some imposed and restrictive requirement, but because the Son's own will coincides with that of the Father.

Basil speaks of a coincidence of wills' within the communion of the Trinity. The Father finds his own will freely reflected back to himself by the Son, like an image in a mirror.

Moreover, the communion of the Church does not just reflect the communion of God; it in a real sense is the communion of God. That is why Christians are not just called to be of one heart and one mind, but to align themselves with the mind and heart of God and to participate by grace in the communion of God, the Holy Communion. Indeed, this entails that in liturgy we are involved in nothing less than the remaking of society by calling people into the communion of God, making one family out of many strangers.

We thus have an unavoidably political agenda that flows right out of our fundamental insight with respect to the nature of God. This gives us an approach to the resolution of the tension between the one and the many which is miles away from the post-Enlightenment ideal of individualism and individual autonomy, and absolute freedom. By contrast we shall value not just independence, nor acquiesce in dependency, but we shall aim at something between the two: inter -dependence. In other words, we shall value the human integrity and freedom of persons, but seek to balance it with attention to the needs of the community - the many - and we shall acknowledge the individual person's positive need of others. Our ethic will not just stop at a discussion of individual rights, but will embrace talk of responsibilities

towards others and seek to cultivate an ethic which promotes virtues as well as merely rights.

Let me give you a concrete example of how I think this works out in practice. In the early 1980s I became involved in the debate about the banning of cigarette advertising. Well, all hell broke loose. I was very roundly attacked by a variety of politicians, but notably by one from Carnarvon who accused me of encouraging people to determine their vote on a single issue. The member for South Perth and shadow minister for health then resigned from the Liberal Party. So on and on it raged for a week or two.

In the course of this I had a full editorial written against me in the press which charged me with leading a fundamental assault on the principle of the freedom of the press. This was the only occasion in my 14 years as Archbishop of Perth when I have had a hostile and critical editorial published against me in the press. I decided to respond to it by writing a reply in the form of a letter to the editor. As I recall, the editorial appeared on a Saturday. I hand delivered the letter in response on the Sunday. It was not published on the Monday, nor on the Tuesday. By the Wednesday I was wondering who I knew who could apply some pressure to make sure my response was at least published, Well, I did not seem to know anybody who could apply that kind of pressure. But, in any event, on the Thursday the letter was somewhat reluctantly published. In it I pointed out that we rightly value our individual and democratic freedom including the freedom of the press, but that freedom is never quite absolute. It may have to be balanced and restrained by the needs of the whole. We may not as a society be prepared to tolerate more or less anything. Moreover,I tried to point out that not all freedoms were of equal value and to tolerate cigarette advertising may no longer be tolerable. The final sentence of the letter read: "The freedom to lure people to a premature death is not a freedom we should value." In other words, to talk in broad and absolutist terms of individual freedom and then urge a broad-minded tolerance which leads to the inclination to be accepting of everything, without some eye to the impact that the exercise of that freedom might have on society as a whole, or on the kind of society that might result, may be quite disastrous. It is a matter of striking a balance between the interests of the one and the interests of the many. An ideological commitment to individual freedom, tolerance, independence and autonomy alone, simply will not do. Indeed, that is why I am of the view that this kind of excessive individualism may indeed provide our kind of society with the seeds of its own ultimate selfdestruction.

A final example may illustrate this. While I was living in Manhattan in 1993, I noted that there were regular press reports about violence and even killings in schools. Some schools, indeed, were beginning to install metal detectors at the school gates to prevent students from bringing in weapons. In other words, the experience we have before boarding an aircraft, they have as children at the school door. But the really remarkable thing to my mind was the debate that this triggered in the press and on T.V. talkback Some students argued that they had an inalienable human right to protect themselves as human individuals, and that the Second Article of Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provided that "the right of people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Perhaps the difficulty in balancing this individual right with the public interest more broadly conceived, explains why in Manhattan the sale of fireworks was banned, so that it was not possible to buy a firecracker, but you could go around the corner and buy a firearm. It also helps to explain why President Clinton has had such difficulty in introducing his weapons control legislation.

This provides me with an example which expresses my underlying concern about the health of liberal democratic societies based almost exclusively in individualism and the virtue of tolerance. According to the latest official figures I have been able to put my hands on, there were 30,317 deaths from

firearms in the USA in 1991. Of these 18,526 were suicides 17,746 were murders 1,441 were accidents and 604 were unspecified.

This means that in that year 17,746 people died as a consequence of the use of firearms and this cannot be entirely unrelated to the Second Amendment and the place of the firearm in the hands of the heroes of mythic individualism. Paradoxically, the U.S. people were last year rightly concerned that there may be some casualties from their involvement in Haiti as they are today with respect to Bosnia. But there is something akin to an undeclared, underground civil war going on in the United States every year - 17,745 people represents a lot of casualties.

This is an extreme example, but it speaks to me of a fundamental flaw, with repercussions of a much more subtle but insidious kind. In all liberal democratic societies. Do they with their expansive tolerance of just about anything contain within them the seeds of their own self destruction? Are such societies, with their excessive individualism, in danger of breaking up from within? Is a multicultural society based only on tolerance anything more than an uneasy truce amongst potentially conflicting options? And is tolerance in this sense a had thing in so far as it lulls us into a sense of accepting anything in the interests of individual freedom, even if it may do enormous harm to society as a whole?

When communitarian interests and concerns are expressed, those who urge us to tolerate almost anything on the ground that the individual must be protected at all costs, will naturally begin to talk of individual rights and freedoms. After the Oklahoma bombing a few months ago, a letter to the editor of Time magazine by somebody signing himself Philip 0. Plotica of Gettysburgh, Pennsylvania, responded with these words: "For those concerned over the erosion of personal freedoms, forget it. We've already lost the most basic one of all; freedom from fear." It seems to me that societies built upon an ethic of tolerance which allow the exclusive operation of the principle of individual freedom with minimal communitarian concern for the ultimate good of society as a whole may be headed for big trouble.

My starting point for the development of a Church response to this individualism is the doctrine of the Trinity, which provides us with a quite different approach to the resolution of the tension between the one and the many. To my mind this determines the Church's political agenda. Indeed, in the context of what has been called the political monoculture of Australia, in which the differences between political parties is more a matter of degree then kind (for both major parties are hooked in one way or another by the ideal of individual autonomy of modern liberalism), it gives us a distinctive political identity.

It explains why it is that, while our society at large tends to think of religious commitment as essentially a private matter, most of us would want to hold that religion is not just a matter of holding certain private beliefs or opting for a private moral lifestyle, or being tolerant and accepting of every or any lifestyle. For us the call of the Gospel Is a call into the new city called the Church, a matter of public belonging to a people and living faithfully within the community, even if this brings with it a sense of being somewhat alien in the prevailing culture, and therefore involves some friction with the rest of the body politic. Religion is not just a matter of private belief, but of relationality, of public living in community, and I would also say of entering one's Christian viewpoint as a contribution to the more public discussion of issues, not just tolerating every viewpoint, but putting every viewpoint under scrutiny in an open search for moral truth. For if a thing is true, it is not just true for me, but true for all. An intellectually uncritical and accepting tolerance of a moral pluralism simply will not do. It is in this sense that tolerance is a had thing.

The Record, July 6 1995 9

Book Reviews

Kill the pain, not the person Euthimague Should We Kill The Dying?, by Dr Brian Pollard, published by Little Hills Press Pty. Ltd. 1989, pp 142, $12.95 The Challenge of Euthanasia, by Dr Brian Pollard, published by Little Hills Press Pty. Ltd., 1994, pp 191, $12.95 Reviewed by Fr Walter Black MSC Ph.D. Director, LJ Goody Bioethics Centre

Should IC? KillTheDying?

Brian Pollard IN RL, ILI

Dr Brian Pollard, after a thirty year career as an anaesthetist, commenced at Concord Hospital in 1982 the first full-time service in a general hospital in Sydney for the care of the dying.

His 1989 text discusses a range of issues surrounding euthanasia - the economics of healthcare, the quality of medical care for the dying, the reform o f the law (precedent and consequence), opinion polls and the position of newborn infants, the situation in Holland and who is to do the killing.

He removes the myths and confronts commonly held attitudes, arguing that it must be ethically superior to attend to the elimination of human distress before the elimination of the human in distress.

This gem of a little book is outstanding for the simplicity of its language, for the clarity of its expression, for the comprehensiveness of treating a difficult subject in such short compass, and for its faithfulness to sound medical ethics. The book provides the most complete case to show that euthanasia rests on premises which do not respect life, rests ethically on unsupported assertions, is commonly presented in misleading terms and is not supported by medical codes of ethics. Pollard further shows that euthanasia is not supported by legal analysis, is at odds with the current best medical strategies of care, is at odds with patients' best interests, and is at odds with society's best interests.

This book was so successful and so widely appreciated that the publishers approached Dr Pollard for a follow up five years later. Thus in 1994 he published The Challenge of Euthanasia.

This later book now develops and clarifies further the critical importance of the euthanasia debate with a careful analysis of the moral, political, legal and above all, the clinical issues, which show clearly why euthanasia has not been legalised because it has not been found possible to remove the sources of abuse.

The book makes clear that the issue is one of vital importance to the med-

ical profession and to the community, and points to a number of very important conclusions: firstly, that there is a need for improved palliative care of dying patients with scope for better insights into methods of emotional and physical support, as well as more efficient pain relief; secondly, that doctors expert in the field of palliative care are seldom faced with patient requests for assisted. suicide - and even then frequently find that treatment of depression is followed by a reversal of attitude; and thirdly, that there is no need for amendments to the law when there is no present legal impediment to giving full relief to patient suffering, or to withholding medical treatment that is futile, traumatic and causes only unnecessary extension of the dying process.

Fully in conformity with sound Catholic moral teaching, this volume is far and away the best succinct and comprehensive treatment of euthanasia published in Australia. It is highly recommended for clergy and teachers, for doctors and nurses, and for all in the community who have a special interest in an issue which is likely to be fiercely debated in Australia in years ahead. Dr Pollard's books are readily available from Catholic bookshops in Perth

"Forrest Gump" of theology falls short of the mark What Happens ifISay "Damn You God' — and Other Questions.

by Charles Victor Arokiasamy, published by Prentice Hall, pp 123, $9.95 Reviewed by Br Luke Saker F.M.S. When I started to read this book I did so with some apprehension and scepticism as the book had been described as "the Forest Gump of Theology." Having seen the film "Forest Gump' (and enjoying it) I was a little dubious that theology could be condensed to a series of 'chocolate coated sayings'. "Mum says that life is like a box of chocolates - you don't know what you are going to get" is all good and well for Tom Hanks but for a person writing on or reading theology I became the `doubting Thomas'.

As I finished reading the book, I can say `the jury is still out' on its merits or demerits. The book is an ongoing conversation with Charles (the author) and God, and there is no doubt that he (the author) has a vivid imagination.

Prayer is the centrepiece of Arokiasamy's theological reflection, though I do have reservations in describing them as 'theological'.

In Arokiasamy's attempt to introduce the reader to 'new' kinds of prayer, I feel he takes an unfair and inappropriate approach to traditional prayer. He does make the comment that not all traditional prayer is unhelpful (thank God for that, other-

wise my prayer life has been a sham- Arokiasamy has God responding. bles for years). To be fair he does make "You bet your buns, Charles," "Like I some good points about the various told you before, rather crudely I must types of prayer - 'listening,' prayer of say, I am on the make. I am looking to the Scriptures,' and the 'Dark Night of score." It seems to me that the author is the Soul' type prayer, to mention just a striving to gain popular appeal by havfew - but really it is nothing new - a ing God speak as a 'hip' person from good end of year retreat would not the Bronx, in New York only give us the 'knowledge' but also Now we all know that God does not show us 'the way'. speak in 'thou' and 'art' but Ilike to feel Where the book does succeed is in that He has a better command of the the area of our approaches to God. I English language than that shown in remember being asked by a woman the book In striving for effect, I feel once if she had sinned - she had just Arokiasamy has fallen into the age old come from the Chapel where she had trap of trying to appeal to all, where in 'yelled' at God because of her domestic effect, I feel his style will apply to very problems. It seemed to her that God few. This is a pity, because as I have had not only not heard her prayer, He said already a lot of what he has to say had not even bothered to acknowledge is quite helpful. it. So she got angry with God. ArokiWhile reading the book my mind asamy, in his book, takes the reader was constantly going back to the masthrough the 'anger' prayer - and he ter of oneliners, Jesuit priest, William makes the point - ( and rightly so) - that O'Malley from Fordham in New York anger is a valid form of prayer. If O'Malley has the ability to make his prayer is a relationship, then like all one-liners hit the spot and make the relationships, there are moments of reader sit up and take notice. Unfortuboth love and anger - and many other nately Arokiasamy does not have this emotions as well. And as prayer is a ability. Instead he makes the reader relationship with God, then all our dif- feel a little uneasy and say to himself ferent emotions should be expressed, 'is that really necessary?' from time to time, in speaking with What Happens If! Say, "Damn You, God. God?" has merit in the advice the While I said above that the book author offers the reader in striving for does succeed in helping us come to a loving relationship with God. Most terms with our approaches to God, I of what is said has been said before, was 'put off somewhat by the way God and in a much more meaningful man responded. Not that His advice was ner. My advice - wait until a friend 'bad' or 'incorrect', it was the way offers you his copy.

S

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.„..„...

Homosexuality text: raises more questions than answers?

Homosexuality: The Test Case for Christian Sexual Ethics, by James P. Hanigan, Paulist Press, pp193, $9.95.

Reviewed by Theo G. Fox This book is one of those seemingly "balanced" "even handed" studies which appears to give all sides of a so-called theological "problem". If such a study is objective and unbiased it has a research function among theologians. In my judgment Hanigan tries hard to appear to be fair and objective, but has a bias in favour of dissent with some of the definitive teachings of the Church.

10 The Record, July 6 1995

Parts of the book, if read out of context, could encourage the person with homosexual tendencies, but struggling to avoid sin to dispense with chastity. As such it should not have been published as a cheap (US price $9.95) paper-back edition for mass public consumption; nor should it have used up some of the scarce resources of a Catholic lending library.

The book's opening paragraph is typical and could lead the undiscerning reader, who does not read the end note, to believe, that 20 to 25 per cent of the community are homosexuals.

But an authoritative study conducted in the UK between 1984 and 1987 found that only 1.7% of the sample had had homo-

sexual intercourse, while in 1989 a University of Chicago study found that "Overall.... less than 1% [of the study population] has been exclusively homosexual."

Strangely, the book has no index, which damages any claim it may have had as a document of serious research. But each of the seven chapters has an extraordinary number (total of 363) of end notes which make it a difficult book to read and study. They liberally quote, (and the, author leans on) the works of many who have publicly dissented with the Magisterial teaching of the Church.

When on one occasion, Hanigan refers directly to Humanae Vitae, without using an end-note, he is guilty of seriously mis-

representing Pope Paul VI. Nowhere does Pope Paul say that it is "morally irresponsible for even a faith-filled married couple to bring children into the world ..."

One must be sceptical of such a work, which three times refers to Personae Humana 29 December 1975, the declaration on certain problems of sexual ethics, but does not quote n8 "Sexual relations between persons of the same sex are necessarily and essentially disordered according to the objective moral order ..."

There are parts of this book that are good and well written but as Germain Grisez says, "not all parts of this book can be recommended."

Features

Redeeming love conquers all, says Uris cal and religious struggles. Writing about Jewish themes came naturally, he said. He was drawn by his own Jewish heritage, the ASHINGTON (CNS) - Best-selling loss of family members in Nazi concentraauthor Leon Uris believes "that tion camps, and the anti-Semitism he human beings have this extraordinary experienced as a Marine in World War II. gift to right wrongs within their lifeHis Irish connection was different. "Iretime." land came to me like an angel from the "I think we have to redeem ourselves, sky," he said.

Uris spent seven years researching and sometimes many times a day, in arguments with the wife and children or with writing "Redemption," though not in Ireour business associates," he said. "Even land. He relied on the extensive Irish nations have to constantly shift and library he began collecting in the early 1970s when he and his former wife, phoredeem."

"Redemption" is the title and theme of tographer Jill Uris, lived in Ireland while his latest novel, which returns to the Irish collaborating on the nonfiction book, "Iretroubles and characters of his 1976 "Trin- land - A Terrible Beauty."

The most exciting part of Ireland, he ity." Uris spoke with Catholic News Service in a teleconference interview follow- recalled, was the Irish "use of conversation," and the Irish meeting hall - the pub ing its June publication.

The author's 10 previous novels, includ- "is just loaded with wonderful, earthy coning "Exodus" and "QB VII," have sold 150 versation."

"It was like listening to music all day," million copies in 29 languages worldwide and won him honors from Irish and Jew- he said. "I feel more at home, more comish groups for his treatment of their politi- fortable there than probably any place in

By Nancy Hartnagel

W

Auschwitz concentration camp: the Holocaust was the defining moment in Leon (Iris' life

the world, outside of America."

He said he wanted "Redemption" to "show that people and, where there's a family structure, families can redeem themselves, that love can prevail on this earth."

The book covers the same people and story as 'Trinity," he noted, but changed "from the history that I'd always written.. to the relationships between the people."

That shift was "an exciting and very exhilarating experience," added Uris.

In "Redemption," he weaves more than 40 years in the lives of three fictional Irish families - two Catholic and one Protestant - into the real dramas of World War I and the Irish republican movement leading up to the 1916 Easter uprising.

"In the case of Ireland, the CatholicProtestant conflict, I really don't make any bones about which side I come down on," he admitted.

"There can be no political settlement simply because you have a Protestant majority in Ulster that has the political will and the arms to resist going into a republic," he said. He also believes the Catholic south "doesn't have the political will to unite Ireland."

Uris thinks economic equity is the answer. "Once the Catholic in Ulster is in the marketplace on an equal footing with the Protestant," he said, "and once there are cultural exchanges and sports exchanges and more open voters, I think the political situation will resolve itself."

He said even though he has questioned "a lot of Irish Catholicism in it's very harshest terms," he believes "the Irish could not have survived without Catholicism."

Uris, who grew up in a poor Jewish family on the East Coast, said he was "rather anti-religious" until World War II, when he learned there are "no atheists on the battlefield."

"The defining point in my life," he said, "as far as morality is concerned, was the Holocaust. This shattered me, shocked me, and it still motivates me a half a century later."

Uris said he does "not belong to any church or synagogue as a contributing member," but has his "own set of values,"

based on -the prophets and the canons of charity," and on beliefs such as "the godlessness of war" and that "human dignity is essential for human survival."

"I think these are basic in every religion," he said, but emphasized that "human dignity is the core of my religion.I tell my children two things: don't lie and be nice to everybody."

"Often times, we must spend the second half of our life getting over the first half," says the hero in "Redemption." Uris, who is 70, said he uses the same line in lectures.

"As I've grown older," the writer said, "I have come to realize that what life is really all about is family relations and relations with other human beings."

"I have children from eight to 48," said Uris, who has been married three times.

Having now reached "a time of reflection," he said he's become "more interested in what's going on between me and my sons and daughters."

"I've made some terrible mistakes," said the writer, acknowledging that his first family "suffered because I was out there trying to work the world."

"Having children late in life, over the age of sixty, was a blessing I never expected," he said. Uris dedicated "Redemption" to his two youngest children, and said "I try to tell them I love them," a declaration that redeems a father's relationship with his son. In the book Uris said his relationships with three older children have been rehabilitated. "We've all worked at it, me in particular," he said, "and I must say that I'm very pleased with this aspect of my life."

"After 40 years of writing," Uris said he "looks like a coat hanger gone awry."

Despite the emotional and physical demands of a writing career, he said it has "been a nice living."

Along with the new book, Uris wrote "20-some drafts" of a play. "It's 'Trinity' in three hours or less," he said, and he's hoping for a regional production this year or next.

"A writer believes he has something to say that is going to change things, and hopefully for the better," he said.

Constitution charts course for South Africa

By Bronwen Dachs CAPE TOWN, (CNS) - As the constitution that enshrined Christian beliefs is being rewritten, it appears likely South Africa will become a secular state.

The proposed legislation has met with approval from many Catholic and other church leaders, although about 10,000 people marched to parliament to demand a "Bible-based" constitution.

A post-apartheid constitution is being drawn up following South Africa's first all-race election in April 1994, which ushered in a government of national unity, led by President Nelson Mandela.

The current constitution provided privileged status for Christians.

Much of the opposition to a secular state is based on ignorance, said a Catholic member of parliament, Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa.

"A secular state is not an atheist state," he told Catholic News Service. "State and religion should be separate so that they can perform their proper roles in society and be free to criticize each other."

When there is too close a relationship between state and reli-

gion, "one or the other tends to be co-opted," the African National Congress parliamentarian added.

The Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference has no official standpoint on the place of religion in the constitution, but Father Sean O'Leary, secretary of the conference's justice and peace department, said the constitution "should not be the domain of one religion. It should be equitable in dealing with all religions."

Feasts such as Ascension Day were national holidays under the former government, while members of other faiths had to take unpaid leave to mark their holy days.

In Cape Town, about 10,000 people protested the proposed legislation, which would remove Christians' special status and turn South Africa into a secular state.

The march to parliament in late May was organized by an interdenominational group called Christian Voice, formed in April to pressure the government into adopting a "Biblebased" constitution.

Christian Voice Secretary Willie Viljoen, an Apostolic Faith Mission pastor, said the group wanted freedom of religion for all mainstream religions, but satanism, the occult and humanism should be outlawed.

Cyril Ramaphosa, chairman of the constitutional assembly, told the protesters outside parliament, "To say South Africa is going to be declared a secular state does not mean God or Jesus is going to be banned."

Speaking with a Bible in his hand, he said, "An impression is being created that, as we draft the new constitution, we would like to turn South Africa into an atheist country. I want to assure you that this is not true."

Many Christians opposed to a secular state have their "own political agenda" and cling to old suspicions that the African National Congress, the majority party in government, followed a communistic, anti-Christian philosophy, said Mike Pothier, chairman of the Cape Town diocesan justice and peace commission.

Archbishop Anglican Desmond Tutu, warned Christians to be sure of their facts before considering whether to participate in protests.

"There are people who may want to mislead us. Be on your guard," Archbishop Tutu warned in a June 21 statement.

He said if people want Christian morals and standards to permeate society, they should elect Christians to parliament.

"We must insist on freedom of worship for all - that is, the fun-

damental right to practice and cism was forbidden in South propagate one's faith without Africa, under Dutch East India hindrance, as long as one does Co. rule. Only in 1820 did the not infringe the rights of others," British government allow the Archbishoporutu said. first Catholic church to be built.

Pothier said the role of the Rather than declare itself secustate was simply to facilitate reli- lar, the state should be multireligion. gious, Sister Waspe said.

"The state should make it easy "For any religion to claim the for people to practice their reli- state must put forward their gions. It should not promote any image of God is just going to irrione religion or even one idea of tate people who have a different religion," he said. image," Sister Waspe said.

Religious groups should be Archbishop Tutu, who won free to bring foreign clergy or the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, told preachers to South Africa, Pothpredominantly Catholic audia ier said, noting that having a Christian constitution did not ence in Cape Town in July 1992 stop the Calvinist-dominated that "the immoral, evil and unformer government from mak- Christian policy of apartheid did ing it difficult for Catholic priests not come from heathen pagans." and nuns to immigrate to South The system of keeping differAfrica. ent race groups apart "was "Many foreign priests and thought up by theologians in a nuns had to apply every year to Christian church, who recomrenew their work permits as a mended it to politicians and result of the government's then tried to provide theological efforts to resist the 'Roomse and biblical justification for this gevaar,' (Afrikaans for 'danger of monstrosity," he said.

Rome')," Pothier said.

Apartheid became part of "Roomse gevaar" became a African law when the South catch-phrase in the late 1940s Party came to power in National and was linked to the Catholic 1948.

Church's opposition to racism, A 1994 survey found 66.4 peras well as a traditional mistrust of anything Catholic, said Sister cent of South Africa's 41 million Shelagh Mary Waspe, a member people were Christian, 1.3 perof the Johannesburg diocesan cent Hindu, 1.1 percent Muslim, justice and peace commission.

0.3 percent Jewish, and 30.9 perFrom 1652 to 1795, Catholi- cent practiced no religion.

The Record, July 6 1995 11

International News

Death doctor 'above the law' DETROIT (CNS) - The open- living in a Kansas City, Montana, ing of a "mercy clinic" by Dr nursing home, was the 24th perJack Kevorkian and his pres- son to die in Kevorkian's presence at a death there last week ence since June 1990.

The Oakland County prosecuwere "a tragic affirmation of the so-called 'slippery slope' argu- tor's office said it was awaiting a ment against physician-assisted report from the sheriff's departsuicide," said Cardinal Adam ment before deciding whether to Maida of Detroit in the United bring charges against Kevorkian.

The 67-year-old retired patholStates' state of Michigan. ogist "We're already dealing with der could be charged with murin the latest death and those individuals who put themselves of two other people in May and above the law, who facilitate with assisted suicide in three earkilling under the guise of mercy lier deaths. as a 'final solution' and who now Kevorkian did not appear at a put forth the notion of death clin- press conference at which his ics to be more convenient and a ttorney, Geoffrey Fieger, e fficient," the cardinal said. announced the death of Ms Gar"Where will it end?" cellano and the establishment of Erika Garcellano, a 60-year-old the clinic. woman with Lou Gehrig's disMr Fieger said the main purease, was found dead on June 26 pose of the clinic was to provide at the Margo Janus Mercy Clinic a place for residents of other in Springfield Township, Michi- states to come to die. He indigan, about 64km north-west of cated that Kevorkian would conDetroit. tinue to attend deaths in private The clinic, located in a former homes or vehicles in Michigan. hardware store rented by "Nothing is intended so people Kevorkian on a month-to-month can't die in their home or any basis, is named for Kevorkian's automobile if necessary," he said. sister, who died of a heart attack "The intention of Dr Kevorkian is last year. to provide a foundation where Ms Garcellano, who had been other doctors can come forward

and work with Dr Kevorkian."

The Associated Press reported, however, that the owner of the building, Wanda Rothermel, would end Kevorkian's lease because she did not want such activity to take place on her property.

Ms Garcellano was brought to the clinic by her two sons, who reportedly told employees at the Kansas City nursing home that they were taking her home for a visit.

A spokesman for Michigan Governor John Engler said Kevorkian would be prosecuted for Ms Garcellano's death. "His continuous thumbing his nose at the law and the law enforcement community is disgusting," said the spokesman, John Truscott.

"He continues to hurt his case and his supporters rather than helping them."

Cardinal Maida pledged to continue "to teach, preach and pray that our courts and lawmakers as well as members of our Catholic community - and beyond - are educated in the moral issues surrounding physician-assisted suicide."

Mexican crackdown fears MEXICO CITY (CNS) - Catholic human rights activists and economic and political analysts in Mexico say the abrupt resignation last week of Mexican Interior Secretary Esteban Moctezuma could signal a return of a hard-line government approach to resolving thorny political and social issues.

Maria Teresa Jardi, director of the Mexico City archdiocesan human rights office, said the precipitous resignation of Mr Moctezuma had generated "great concern" among Mexican human rights activists and non-government organizations (NGO) that work for social justice.

"The resignation of Esteban Moctezuma represents a big loss for Mexican NG0s," Ms Jardi said.

"It signals a return to a hard-line and an increase in the repression which we are already experiencing."

Auxiliary Bishop Ramon Godinez Flores of Guadalajara, general-secretary of the Mexican bishops' conference, said the hierarchy had no comment about the meaning of the resignation But Bishop Javier Lozano of Zacatecas said the Mexican people should be given an explanation for Mr Moctezuma's decision to step down.

In Chiapas state, peace-mediating Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia of San Cristobal de Las Casas and diocesan officials were studying the possible impact of the resignation on the dialogue between Interior Secretariat negotiators and leaders of the Zapatista National Liberation Army rebels.

Diocesan vicar-general Father Felipe Touissant said he had no comment on whether the resignation was in any way linked to the June 23 deportation by the secretariat of three foreign priests belonging to the San Cristobal Diocese.

Priests tell of ordeal - Page 14

Spanish Catholicism at the crossroads

By Jeff Sellers MADRID, Spain (CNS) - The percentage of practicing Catholics in Spain is holding steady at rates higher than in the 1980s, but the quality of their belief has church officials worried.

Recent studies indicate about one-third of Spaniards attend Mass most Sundays, and that the practice is being maintained at that rate.

However, a survey completed this northern spring showed that even practising Catholics in Spain do not necessarily believe in basic Church teachings.

According to figures released by the Spanish bishops' conference, 16.2 per cent of Spaniards say they attend Mass "every Sunday:" 6.8 per cent "every Sunday and one day during the week:" and 11.2 per cent "most Sundays."

The bishops' conference figures show a slightly higher rate of Mass attendance than other recent studies of religious practice have reported.

"Attendance at Mass, in all studies, holds at 25 to 30 per cent of Spaniards most or all Sundays it's not going down," said Francisco Azcona, director of the bishops' Office of Church Statistics, which in May released its first report since 1992.

If attendance at Mass is low 45.3 per cent of Spaniards said they "never or almost never" go to church - still more Spaniards are attending than during the Spanish church's low ebb of the early 1980s, Mr Azcona said.

"Belonging to the Church is one thing, and practising is another," he said. The proportion of Spaniards describing themselves as "practising" (16.7 per cent) or "highly practising" (8.8 per cent) declined only slightly since figures reported in 1991.

"I don't think the statistics indicate that Spain is less Catholic than five years ago," Mr Azcona said. "If measured by the entire work of the Church, the statistics show that there are more Catholic schools, more charitable social works, and the goals of the Church are better defined."

At the same time "Who is a Believer in Spain," the survey of Catholic practice and attitudes, concluded that unbelief had become widespread in the country even among the church-going population.

The average Spaniard views his or her Catholicism as "a way of thinking, not a way of acting," and religious practice in Spain was no longer always identified with faith in God, the study concluded.

The poll, conducted by Andres Tombs and Rosa Aparicio, was based on an analysis of taped discussions among groups from throughout the country.

The authors said that the average Spaniard revealed his or her religious beliefs only timidly and defensively.

"To be a Catholic is now viewed as something backward and strange in many areas where this did not previously occur," the survey said. The average Spaniard, it said, was "not interested in forming a judgment about the Faith."

Rather than thinking Catholicism was false or that its truth could not be demonstrated, the attitude was one of indifference, the survey said.

Mr Azcona said the survey showed that "Spaniards are ashamed to show their Catholic faith. There is a feeling of embarrassment, especially among the youth."

Young Spaniards were largely lacking in values, including a sense of commitment, which made the life-long goals of marital fidelity or priestly celibacy not feasible as far as they were concerned, Jose Sanchez, the Spanish Bishops' Conference secretarygeneral, said. "We believe that 'for all time' is possible, but society sees it differently," he said.

From 1975 to 1985 Spanish Catholicism endured its lowest period and, after a gradual resurgence, Catholics of the 1990s found themselves in either of two polarised camps, Mr Azcona said: those who feel increasingly indifferent, and those who are "choosing Catholic faith in freedom not because of pressure, but because they have discovered it and want it as it is."

Peace is Unconquerable archbishop dies in US exile within you, UN told SAN FRANCISCO (CNS) - "It is peaceful men and women who make peace," The Catholic Archbisop of San Francisco, Archbishop John Quinn, said at a Mass last week marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations.

The Mass at the Cathedral of St Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco was attended by diplomats and dignitaries, including Poland's President, Lech Walesa, from 78 countries.

"The questions of war and peace, of destruction and progress, of wealth and poverty, of freedom and justice, make constant and pressing claims on you," Archbishop Quinn told the congregation.

But without personal peace, people could do little to achieve world peace, the archbishop said.

"For in the end it is only when we build a city of holiness and grace that we will discover the city of justice, love and peace," he said.

12

The Record, July 6 1995

STAMFORD, Conneticut, (CNS) - Archbishop Dominic Tang Yeeming of Guangzhou, China, who was imprisoned by the Chinese communists for 22 years for his faith, died of pneumonia in the United States last week at the age of 87.

He was visiting his long-time colleague and friend, Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pin-mei of Shanghai, who has been living in the Connecticut city of Stamford.

On May 27, Cardinal Kung, 94, celebrated 65 years as a priest, 45 years as a bishop and 15 years as a cardinal. The following day, Archbishop Tang became seriously ill and was sent to a hospital, where he died a month later.

Cardinal Kung was scheduled to celebrate a funeral Mass for Archbishop Tang last Saturday.

The archbishop's body will be buried in San Francisco, where he had been living since late January.

In Hong Kong, which borders the archbishop's see in China, Sister Beatrice Leung Kit-fun told UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand, that Archbishop Tang demonstrated his loyalty to the Church by being jailed and by refusing to relin-

quish the title of archbishop as administrator of the Canton surgery. He had a rapid recovery Chinese authorities demanded.

(Guangzhou) Archdiocese, which and traveled to Rome for his "ad Sister Leung, an expert on the government -sanctioned limina" visit with Pope John Paul China-Vatican relations, said he church recognises as a diocese.

II, who named him Archbishop of was a sign of moral power and Ordained a bishop the follow- Canton on June 6, 1981. encouragement to Catholics in ing year, he took full charge of the The Chinese Government China. archdiocese in the absence of called the appointment interferBishop James Lin Bingliang, the Bishop Antoine Fourquet, a ence in China's internal affairs state-approved head of the French missionary who had been and barred the new archbishop Guangzhou Diocese, told UCA expelled.

News his diocese would celebrate He was arrested on February 5, from returning home.

Despite ill health, Archbishop a Mass for the late archbishop.

1958, after refusing to join the govAnthony Liu Bainian, vice-chair- ernment-sponsored Catholic Tang made a series of pastoral man of the government-approved patriotic association - an organisa- visits to different parts of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Associ- tion established to bring the world including Australia, ation, said the archbishop's death Catholic Church in China in line Canada, Europe, Taiwan and the had no effect on the church in with Chinese communist govern- United States - especially where China since the archbishop was ment policy. That policy included there were Chinese Catholic comno longer involved in Chinese a rejection of papal authority over munities. church affairs.

Chinese church affairs and the In 1983, at age 75, he submitted Dominic Tang was born in election of bishops without Vati- his resignation as Archbishop of Hong Kong on 13 May, 1908, and can approval.

Canton to the Vatican in accorentered the seminary in Macao in The archbishop wrote in his dance with canon law, but was 1922. He joined the Jesuits in Por- book "How Inscrutable His Ways! tugal in 1930.

Memoirs" that he was in solitary told he should continue his post After studying in Portugal and confinement for seven of the 22 as Archbishop.

On November 21, 1989, he and Spain, he returned to Macao in years he spent in prison.

1937. He studied theology in On June 9, 1980, he was Cardinal Kung were elected in Shanghai and was ordained a released from prison and allowed absentia as honorary vice-presipriest in 1941. to live quietly at the Guangzhou dents of the bishops' conference On October 1, 1950, a year after cathedral. A few months later he of mainland China, the underthe founding of the People's was hospitalised with cancer and ground organisation of bishops Republic of China, Pope Pius XII on November 5 was given a one- who still swear loyalty to the appointed Father Tang apostolic year visa to go to Hong Kong for papac-y.

International News

Congar: adieu to a guiding Council light

By Barry James PARIS (CNS) - The Catholic Church in France bid adieu on June 26 to the late Cardinal Yves Congar, the Dominican theologian who outlasted Vatican sanctions to become an eminent expert on ecumenism and a guiding light at the Second Vatican Council.

Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger of Paris officiated at the funeral Mass in Notre Dame Cathedral, attended by many Dominicans, bishops, priests and representatives of other Christian churches.

The cardinal died on June 22 in Paris at age 91.

At the Mass, Father Timothy Radcliffe, head of the Dominicans, said Cardinal Congar's life was one of struggle. The cardinal suffered from multiple sclerosis, was a prisoner of war and faced misunderstanding and exile by the Church he loved, said Fr Radcliffe.

Fr Radcliffe said the cardinal fought against excessive legalism and rigidity.

Cardinal Lustiger added that Cardinal

Congar was largely responsible for developing the modern concept of the Church as -the people of God." In honour of Cardinal Congar's wartime resistance and his imprisonment in the Colditz and Lubeck concentration camps, his casket was covered by the tricolor French flag and carried into the cathedral by soldiers.

The cardinal spent his last months in the Les Invalides military hospital in Paris.

Cardinal Congar's decision, at an early age, to work for Christian unity and Church renewal turned him into a controversial figure after World War II, when he was prominent in the French workerpriest movement.

He wrote an influential report in the 1930s about the spreading de-Christianisation of France, which provided part of the intellectual underpinnings a decade later for the start of the movement.

During the war, the French Catholic hierarchy had sent priests to minister to deported French workers. The idea was adopted after the liberation by a small

Dutch set reporting procedures UTRECHT, Netherlands ber to report cases in confidence (CNS) - Dutch Catholic officials or to write to a special mailing have established procedures address. People complaining of for reporting and punishing abuses are then put in contact cases of sexual abuse involving with a church representative to pastoral workers. discuss the case and are offered Church penalties include tem- legal aid. The procedures call for porary cessation of duties, a church investigation of the mandatory therapy and perma- accusations. nent discharge from church The policy covers "inadmissiwork. The policy covers bishops, ble sexual behaviour" and -situapriests, deacons, religious and lay tions in which pastoral funcpeople. tionaries abuse the pastoral It was adopted by the Dutch relationship they have with Bishops' Conference and the someone to gratify their own Conference of Dutch Religious. desires or sense of power."

The guidelines are to support The new procedures mark a victims of sexual abuse, offer shift in policy, said the booklet. help to perpetrators and, when "Before, the Church focused necessary, press legal action, said mainly on the perpetrators ... a statement issued by the bish- (But) the injury and traumas ops' conference press office. undergone by abused children or There are no statistics on the adults remained in the shadows," scale of sexual abuse in pastoral it added. activities, said Peter Van Zoest, The booklet said the reasons bishops' conference spokesman, for sexual abuse were complex but there have been cases in the and should not be too easily past of quite a few people calling attributed to celibacy in the case health institutions to report cases of priests and religious. of sexual abuse by pastoral work"There is no demonstrable ers, he said. causal relationship between The procedures allow people celibacy and sexual abuse in pasto call a special telephone num- toral relationships," it said.

group of radical priests, most of them Dominicans, supported by Cardinal Maurice Feltin of Paris and other members of the hierarchy.

But the idea of sending missionaries to evangelise children of "the eldest daughter of the Church," as France is called, shocked conservative Catholics and troubled the Vatican. It reacted with increasing severity to rumours that the workerpriests were closet-Marxists.

Dominican Fr Francois Leprieur, a nurse in a hospital at Lille, said in a book about the Dominicans' involvement in the movement that the Vatican was worried that the worker-priests, by removing themselves from the parochial and hierarchical structures of the Church, were creating a new and potential heretical form of ministry.

Father Leprieur's 1989 book, "When Rome Condemns," contains documents provided by the Dominicans about the worker-priest controversy.

Pope Pius XII sharply curtailed the activities of the movement in 1954. Fr Leprieur said the Holy Office subjected

Fr Congar, his mentor, Fr MarieDominique Chenu, and Fr Henri-Marie Feret - all Dominicans - to a severe inquisition in which they were never told the exact nature of the charges against them.

Fr Congar went into virtual exile in Rome, Jerusalem and Cambridge, England. His period of official disgrace came to an end with Pope John XXIII, who made him responsible for part of the preparations for Vatican II. Despite continuing suspicion among conservative churchmen, Fr Congar found favour and influence at the council, where he was an expert on the theological commission and an intense promoter of ecumenism. He contributed to Vatican texts on the Church, on revelation, on missionary activities and on the ministr .

After the council, one of his books was a critical edition of the Vatican II texts. translations and commentaries. He was also one of the founders of the international theological review, Concilium, dedicated to the diffusion and greater understanding of council texts.

Plan helps pregnant US teens WASHINGTON (CNS) Catholic Charities USA and the US Catholic bishops' conference say they support a proposed welfare reform amendment that would assist pregnant teenagers instead of punishing them.

The amendment, introduced

by Democrat Senator Kent Conrad, requires teen parents who receive welfare assistance to attend high school or an equivalent training program and live at home with a parent, legal guardian or adult relative. Teen parents unable to live at home would be required to live in an adult-supervised arrangement.

"My amendment will help young mothers break the cycle of poverty by helping them gain the education and parenting skills to allow them to succeed in life," Senator Conrad said during a June 29 congressional hearing.

Sharon Daly, deputy director

for social policy of Catholic Charities USA, said she favoured the senator's proposal because denying welfare benefits to teen mothers, as some Republican senators were suggesting, showed "a shocking lack of understanding of teenagers and young mothers."

"Welfare is not the reason (teenagers) get pregnant, and a lack of welfare won't keep them from getting pregnant," she added.

Ms Daly said that if welfare assistance was denied to these young mothers, more of them might choose abortion or their children would be punished by being deprived of food and housing benefits.

"For many decades in this country," Ms Daly said, "Catholic agencies have taken care of teenage mothers and their babies, promoting adoptions and

discouraging additional out-ofwedlock pregnancies."

In a statement distributed at the hearing, Auxiliary Bishop John Ricard of Baltimore, chairman of the US bishops' Committee on Domestic Policy, said the bishops were opposed to denying benefits to children based on how old their mothers were and the family's dependence on welfare.

"We do not believe that teenagers should be encouraged to set up their own households: however, in seeking to change the behaviour of parents, (denying benefits will) hurt children, and some unborn children will pay with their lives," he said.

"We urge you and all senators to reject simple and dangerous fixes which encourage abortion without attacking the real causes of widespread illegitimacy in our society," he continued.

Cardinal Sin warns slack Filipinos MANILA, Philippines (CNS) Cardinal Jaime Sin of Manila has expressed concern over what he says is a lack of concern among Filipinos over reports of massive cheating during national and local elections.

Speaking for the first time on the voting, Cardinal Sin told a convention of dentists on June 25 he was disturbed by the conduct o f the polls, citing reports of "new and more sophisticated ways of massive election fraud."

Cardinal Sin said he was particularly disturbed by the

response of top government officials and citizens who seemed to regard'the cheating -as the most normal thing to expect."

The administration of President Fidel Ramos fielded a senatorial slate that won nine of 12 races and backed candidates in local elections on May 8.

Although the winners have been proclaimed, election protests and supporting evidence of cheating have been filed with the Commission on Elections.

By tolerating massive electoral

fraud, Cardinal Sin said, "in a decade or so, or even earlier, (Filipinos) may end up reaping utterly corrupt governance and a disintegrating, deeply divided and oppressive society."

Government officials, to claim a strong mandate from the people, "are willing to use any means, including severely if not mortally wounding the credibility of our electoral system by ignoring its flagrant abuse by unscrupulous but politically well-connected elements."

Faith confronts spina bifida rocker and wins the battle INDIANAPOLIS (CNS) - For jimmy Ryser, an Indiana native whose rock 'n' roll has made him nationally known, life is a gift.

Mr Ryser suffers from spina bifida, a congenital defect that leaves the spinal cord imperfectly closed so part of the spinal cord protrudes. This often results in neurological disorders, affecting various organs and nerve functions as the afflicted person ages.

Unlike 99 percent of those with spina bifida myelomenigocel, the most severe form of the disease, Ryser is still walking.

"Pure luck," he said.

Mr Ryser, a 30-year-old cradle Catholic, has endured 39 operations for spina bifida complications caused by pinched and irregularly functioning spinal nerves. He had his first operation nine days after he

was born. -When I was born, the doctors told my parents that I probably wouldn't walk or function like a normal child," Mr Ryser told The Criterion, Indianapolis' archdiocesan newspaper. The doctors offered to let him die.

-My dad's faith kept the doctors from doing that," Mr Ryser said. He even flew a top neurosurgeon in to perform the surgery.

-Somebody was always holding my hand during surgery," he added. "Most of the time,I would sit up and pray Hail Marys all night. I prayed (the Hail Mary) 760 times one night as I waited to be wheeled in for surgery. Prayer got me through."

Mr Ryser caught fame with "Same Old Look," the hit single off his 1990 self-titled debut album. A violin prodigy who first

picked up a guitar in his teens, he'll be featured playing fiddle on good friend John Cougar Mellencamp's next album.

Between the music industry and attending school - he's an Indiana University sophomore majoring in psychology - Mr Ryser finds it difficult to take time out to care for his health.

Father Joseph McNally, Mr Ryser's childhood pastor at St Bartholomew Parish in Columbus, refers to Mr Ryser as a "very spiritual young man. Jim's life is faith-filled due to, in part, the immense physical suffering he endured."

As a child, Mr Ryser always befriended the children who didn't have many friends.

-He is an inspirational young man who works so hard," Fr McNally said. "He has really been pulled up by his bootstraps."

The doctors always prayed with him before surgery, Mr Ryser said.

"I was always very frightened going into surgery when I was little. Now, it's not so bad.

-I've faced death so many times that I really shouldn't be here," he continued.

"God has made a plan for me ... Maybe it's entertaining people with my musical talent, or fulfilling my dream of becoming a psychologist.Iconsider every day a gift."

Fans hoping for a new Jimmy Ryser album are out of luck, at least for a few years. Mr Ryser wants to concentrate on school for now. But this summer, he'll be opening concerts for Kansas, a band whose art-rock sound was most popular in the 1970s.

The Record, July 6 1995 13

International News

Bill aims at saving hospitals WASHINGTON (CNS) - Legislation introduced into the United States' House of Representatives would keep funding for US teaching hospitals intact even if, under a current proposal, they lose their accreditation for refusing to train students to perform abortions.

Called the Medical Training Non-discrimination Act, the Bill was described by its sponsor, Republican Representative Peter Hoekstra, as one step in an effort to reverse a plan to mandate abortion training in obstetrics/gynecology schools.

Mr Hoekstra, though, wants the entire accreditation proposal withdrawn.

"Where they've gone is still inappropriate," he said.

"It provides some flexibility for religious and moral reasons, but it provides no way out for public institutions" wishing not to offer abortion training.

The abortion-training mandate, approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, is planned to come into effect on January 1 next year.

The 23-member council, which can withhold accreditation for programs that do not meet its standards, previously did not require any residency program to provide such training.

In mid-June, it modified the new directive to allow Catholic hospitals to cite religious or moral reasons to opt out of providing mandatory abortion training. But the hospitals could not impede their residents from getting the training elsewhere.

The issue of federal funding is important because hospitals without accreditation cannot qualify for Medicaid (US Medicare) reimbursements.

Congress, Mr Hoekstra said, had delegated power to the council by permitting it to set standards for accreditation.

The council's proposed standards, Mr Hoekstra said, would "fly in the face" of 41 state antidiscrimination laws protecting people who refuse to participate in abortion.

French Church denies utu priest is hiding PARIS (CNS) - As the United Nations criminal tribunal for Rwanda opened in the Netherlands late last month, French Catholic officials were fending off charges that the Church has been shielding a Rwandan priest accused of involvement in genocide.

A statement by Father JeanMichel di Falco, the French bishops' conference spokesman, said the bishops were aware of the "serious allegations" made against Father Wenceslas Munyeshyata, a Rwandan Hutu.

But, he added, they also have evidence indicating the priest's innocence.

Fr Munyeshyata is working in a parish in the Diocese of Viviers, at the invitation of Bishop Jean BonIlls, a member of the African Missions of Lyons.

A priest of the Rwandan Archdiocese of Kigali, Fr Munyeshyata was in charge of Kigali's Holy Family Parish.

Witnesses questioned by Africa Rights and the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Rwanda, a Belgian group, have accused Fr Munyeshyata of involvement in the militia massacre of Tutsi civilians and moderate Hutus. Witnesses said he

had drawn up lists of names from Munyeshyata needs calm and which the militia selected their peace. He is ready to present his victims. defence before a tribunal."

Fr Munyeshyata has declined Up to 1 million people died in to talk to journalists, but church the massacres that occurred after officials deny that he is hiding. the April 1994 death in an air "Fr Wenceslas is not hiding. crash of President Juvenal HabyaLook, he is there," Fr Georges rimana, a member of the counArmand told journalists at a June try's Hutu majority. Most of the 25 Mass in Bourg-Saint-Andeol, victims were members of the the parish to which Fr Munyeshy- Tutsi minority or Hntu opponents ata has been assigned. of Habyarimana's government.

But Fr Armand, who works at Among those murdered were the same parish, said journalists three Catholic bishops and would be wasting their time if numerous Rwandan and foreign they tried to speak to Fr Mun- Catholic priests and religious. yeshyata, who concelebrated the A t the UN tribunal in The Mass.

Hague, Netherlands, Rwandan The presence of the Rwandan Justice Minister Alphonse Nkupriest has divided the parish. He bito appealed for help in finding is well liked by some, but others and bringing back those guilty of are skeptical about his continuing genocide who have taken refuge silence. outside the country.

Fr Armand recalled the hasty The tribunal held its opening judgments of the wartime occu- session on June 26 to adopt rules pation in France and urged that of procedure and evidence. people not judge Fr Munyeshyata Fr Munyeshyata is not the only in the same way. churchman to be swept up in the He asked parishioners to sign a barrage of accusations and counpetition in favour of Fr Mun- teraccusations. An Anglican yeshyata. Bishop Bonfils, mean- bishop also has been accused of while, angrily protested a demon- taking part in the massacres. stration in the church at Fr Pedro Sala, in charge of Bourg-Saint-Andeol during a bap- Rwandan programs for the tism at which Fr Munyeshyata Rome-based Missionaries of was officiating.

Africa, said he knew of four The bishop said the priest had priests and two nuns, all Rwanbeen "entrusted to us by the dan, who were being held with(Arch)diocese of Paris. He has suf- out formal charges in Kigali prisfered greatly in Rwanda. Today Fr ons.

Fr di Falco denied that Fr Munyeshyata was a latter-day Paul Touvier, the French wartime militia leader who hid for more than 40 years with the complicity of church people and institutions.

Touvier was sentenced to life imprisonment last year for crimes against humanity.

Fr di Falco said that there had been no attempt to hide Fr Munyeshyata since his arrival in France last October. He added that the French bishops were not in a position to judge the facts of the case.

"If Fr Munyeshyata has to render account of his actions in his country, or before an international tribunal, he will do so.

Nothing will be done to shield him from justice," Fr di Falco said.

He said the decision to give refuge to Fr Munyeshyata had been made at the request of the apostolic administrator in Kigali and the Missionaries of Africa.

The granting of asylum had been done in an open and above-board manner, Fr di Falco said.

"Nothing can justify the accusations of connivance or complicity that some insinuate against the Church of France. Fr Wenceslas receives no protection and no favours, other than those which our country guarantees to everyone residing legally on its soil," he said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope John Paul II, welcoming Turkey's ambassador to the Vatican, has reminded Turkey that religious freedom was essential for the tiny Catholic community in the predominantly Muslim country.

He suggested finding a better legal formula to protect the Church's rights in Turkey.

The issue has been debated between Church and civil leaders in Turkey for several years. The

Pope was cordial but insistent on the right of the Church to live its faith and worship freely.

This is a right not only for individuals but for groups when they gather together. For all believers, this fundamental freedom teaches humanity and brotherhood," he said.

The Pope said Catholics in Turkey are eager to participate fully in the social life of the country and in dialogue with Muslims. They

said Christians in his country form a thriving community.

They "fully enjoy religious freedoms, which are guaranteed by the constitution, and receive the same treatment as members of other religions," he said.

Catholics in Turkey number about 27,000, out of a total population of about 62 million. More than 99 percent of the population is Muslim.

By Barry James

Turkey's Catholics 'need' religious freedom "deeply want to serve their country, and to promote friendly relations with all their fellow citizens," he said.

"Just like their Muslim brothers, Catholics in Turkey draw their dynamism from their specific religious practice - necessary to their faith - in living communities that meet regularly around their pastors," he said.

In his speech to the Pope, the Turkish ambassador, Semih Belem

Priest denies illegal work led to expulsion from Mexico

By Barb Fraze WASHINGTON (CNS) - A United States' priest deported from Mexico said that for more than seven hours after he was arrested he was not told why he was in custody or where he was being taken.

During that time, he was forced to sit between two armed men in the back of a Volkswagen, ride on the back of a flatbed truck in the rain for five hours guarded by four state policemen, taken to police headquarters in the state capital and flown by jet to Mexico City.

"They would not tell us what the charges were, or where we were going," said Father Loren Riebe, who was deported with two other foreign priests on June 23.

"It was cops-and-robbers-type stuff, with guns on you and hurrying you along," Fr Riebe said. Even after the three priests were taken from the state capital of Tuxtla Gutierrez, driven to the military airport in Teran and loaded into a small jet, there were "no explanations of where we were going - it was kind of terrifying."

Fr Riebe spoke by telephone from a friend's home in Santa Monica, California, where he arrived after the three priests were deported to Miami. All three worked in the Diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas. Fr Riebe said he thought the depor14 The Record, July 6 1995

tations were "a slap" at Bishop Samuel Fr Riebe said they overtook the flatbed Ruiz Garcia, who has been mediating truck in which Fr Izal was put and he was peace negotiations between the Govern- forced to ride on the back of the truck for ment and Chiapas' indigenous population. the five hours it took to get to the capital.

The Church has taken the strong stand "It was cold and drizzly," the US priest that the problems between the Indians said, and still no one told them why they and the Government must be settled were held or where they were going. peacefully, and "we're really getting In Tuxtla, he said he and Fr Izal were beaten up" because of that, he said. taken to the offices of the Judicial Police.

For 21 years, Fr Riebe has worked in They underwent physical exams which Chiapas, and for the past 18 years he has they were told were necessary to establish been pastor of the church in the town of that they had not been beaten.

Yajalon.

In Tuxtla, they discovered that ArgenThe series of events that led to his expulFr Jorge Baron Guitein, who worked tine sion began on June 22, when Spanish-born Fr Rodolfo Izal Elorz was in Yajalon for in the town of Carranza, had also been detained. business.

The three priests were flown to Mexico By mid-afternoon that day, Fr Riebe said he was told that Fr Rodolfo had been City, where around 10:30 pm they met with immigration officials and representapicked up by police.

A short time later, some youths told him tives of their respective embassies. Fr the parish truck had been confiscated at a Riebe said members of the government's roadblock at the end of town, and officials human rights group also were there: the were demanding that Fr Riebe bring the priests were told it was to make sure they were not mistreated. vehicle's papers to get it back.

Initially, the priests were told they were The priest said that, fearing there might be trouble, he put his passport in the car being deported because of an "immigraand drove to the roadblock. There, some tion issue" that was an "administrative men demanded he come with them in the issue," Fr Riebe said. At no time were they Volkswagen, and when he refused, men told of their rights to have a lawyer, he wearing the uniforms of the state Judicial said.

Police forced him to get in the vehicle. He He added that the US Embassy represaid he was not allowed to get his passport sentative, Richard Walsh, told him the from his car. deportation had been presented to him as

a "done deal," and that the priest should cooperate and try to appeal later.

Immigration officials interviewed him about his work and tried to ask him leading questions about involvement in politics, he said, adding "they're very good at what they do."

However, there was nothing to tell about politics, said Fr Riebe. Besides running his parish, he has set up residences on ranches for Indian teens who come to town to attend high school and has coordinated scholarship programs for some of them to continue on to college.

Mexico's Interior Secretariat said the National Immigration Institute cancelled the three priests' visas because "they had committed diverse illegal acts consisting of promoting land invasions, physical harassment and threats of land theft against local people."

But in Yajalon, said Fr Riebe, "We have pretty good relations - there have been no land takeovers."

"These things (accusations) are false, and the Government knows they're false," he said.

He added that he would like to return to Mexico if the Government grants him due process and he gets a hearing. Asked if he could get due process if he is from the United States, he replied, "I know you don't get due process if you are a Mexican citizen."

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15

KSC EDUCATION FOUNDATION a project of the Knights of the Southern Cross

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SCENE THEOLOGY SEMINAR 28th August - 7th September 1995 The University of Notre Dame Australia College of Theology Frs Frank Moloney SDB and Gerald O'Collins, SJ will offer this Seminar on the topic of "What Do We Really Know About Jesus?"

The Knights of the Southern Cross through the KSC Education Foundation will fund a number of audit places to this Seminar. A person who audits a unit of study attends lectures, tutorials and other organised activities but does not submit assignments or sit the unit examinations.

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CHARISMATIC

MASS & HEALING SERVICE 7pm Sunday July 9th The evening will consist of: Praise & Worship, Holy Mass & Healing Prayer.

"St. Mary's Cathedral Perth.

Enquiries: Telephone: (09) 382 3668

ELLIOTT & ELLIOTT 1

Optometrists Contact Lens Consultants 4 Cantonment Street, FREMANTLE Phone 335 2602

Hello Bunbury . . We're as close as your phone

NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING (008) 11 4010 (local call charge) (Metro callers please use 221 3866) Natural Family Planning Centre 29 Victoria Square Member of the Australian Council of Natural Family Planning Inc.

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The Record, July 6 1995

Catherine McAuley Family Centre (an apostolic work of the Sisters of Mercy) 1 8 Barrett Street WEMBLEY WA 6014 F .

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"DANCE OF THE SPIRIT" THREE DAY NON RESIDENTIAL RETREAT Wednesday, July 26th-Friday . 28th, 9.30am-1.00pm. Same programme repeated at 7pm9.30pm. Monday July 31 Wednesday, August 2nd, 9.30am-1pm. Same programme repeated at 7pm-9.30pm. Team: Sr., Genevieve Ryan RSJ, Wendy Lailey RSJ. Cost S15 per morning, $10 per evening. Location: Mary MacKillop Spirituality Centre, 16 York Street, South Perth.

HOLY HOUR IN HONOUR OF OUR LADY OF MT CARMEL A HOLY HOUR will be held at St Mary's Church, 21 James Street, Guildford, on Sunday, 16 July, 1 995 at 2.30pm: Rosary, Consecration to Our Lady of Mt Carmel, Enrolment in the Brown Scapular and Benediction.

Sponsored by the Devotees of OUr Lady of Mt Carmel. All welcome. Tea and coffee will be served afterwards.

BULLSBROOK PILGRIMAGE Feast of Our Lady of Mt Carmel will be celebrated at the Church "Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church" 36 Chittering Rd, Bullsbrook on Monday, July 17.

Holy Rosary 10.30am, Holy Mass 11 am.

Transperth bus No 311 leaves Midland for Bullsbrook at 9.15am.

For further enquiries please ring 444 2285, 447 3292.

Sacri Assoc. Inc. P.O. Box 311 Tuart Hill, WA 6060.

RCIA: MODEL FOR PARISH DISCIPLESHIP Fr Ray Kemp is a visiting priest from America who was invited to Australia by the Melbourne Archdiocese and is coming to Perth. He has been asked to cover these areas: Celebrations, R eaching into the Life of the Community; Breaking Open the and PreW ord; Inquiry Catechumenate. Saturday 15 July, 9am-4.30pm, Doubleview Parish Centre, 17 Angelico Street, Woodlands. Cost: S5 donation. Tea & coffee provided, please bring your own lunch.

For further information and registration please contact the Archdiocesan Liturgy Office, phone (09) 221 1548.

HEAUNG MASS & TALK Carver Alan Ames will speak about his experiences that led him back into the Catholic Church, after 7pm Healing Masses, at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church, Miles St, Karrinyup on Tues 11th July, and the Holy Name Church, 54

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Solar Way, Carlisle on Friday, 14th July which will commence with Adoration at 6.30pm.

Enq Russell 274 6018, Richard 381 2588.

40TH ANNIVERSARY of the opening of their Churches and the faith and hope and love which began, sustained and continues the life of these communities.

SATURDAY - 22nd July 7.30pm.

Family Dance, Lake Grace Hall.

Supper provided and bar facilities available. $20 family, $10 single.

SUNDAY - 23rd July 9am. Mass at Thomas a'Beckett Church, Kukerin followed by morning tea. - 23rd July 11.30am. Mass at Maria Regina Church, Lake Grace followed by luncheon in Hall.

The above celebrations are combined with First Communion celebrations.

R.S.V.P. 15th July 1995, Catholic Presbytery, P.O. Box 248, Lake Grace WA 6353.

ANCHOR WEEKEND Christian retreat weekend of music, drama and fun while getting to know God. 21 -23rd July at Bickley R ecreation Centre, Cost $30 (negotiable). RSVP by 14 July, transport provided.

Enquiries Paul - 341 3392, Michelle 341 8506. Run by the Disciples Youth Mission Team.

RETROUVAILLE / REDISCOVERY Do you need to rediscover each other? Your marriage deserves another chance. Retrouvaille offers on behalf of the church, a confidential, self-help communication programme for troubled marriages. There is no counselling or group discussions.

The Programme consists of livein weekend and six follow-up sessions. Registration is $50.

For further enquiries and bookings please phone 242 4423.

(The next programme commences 14-16 July).

40TH ANNIVERSARY The 40th Anniversary C elebrations of Our Lady of Fatima Parish, South Wagga Wagga, NSW will be held on the weekend of 13th, 14th and 15th of October, 1995.

Former Parishioners, Teachers and Students of St. Maria Goretti, Bishop Henschke Boys Primary and Henschke Primary Schools are invited to attend a nd make this a special Reunion.

For further information, please phone Joan Veerhuis 069 252610.

MEDJUGORJE PILGRIMAGES We still have vacancies on our 15 days Pilgramages as follows: Feast of the Assumption 12 August $3475 Triumph of the Cross 2 September $3375 115 DAYS Autumn in Medjugorje 23 September $3245 All costs share twin, incl. airfares, ex Perth, plus 2 free fares anywhere within Europe, transfers, most meals, travel bag.

HOLY LAND Departures September to November Land of the Prophets 16 September - $4395 - 20 days Escorted by Fr Paul Gurr "One of Australia's finest religious singers" VISITATIONS OF MARY To Fatima - Avila - Garabandal - Lourdes Departure: 10 October - 12 days - $3495 Call now for details/brochure to Australia's largest pilgrimage operator

HARVEST PILGRIMAGES 1 /2 Prindiville Drive, Wangara 6065 Telephone 409 1080 Lic no. 9TA 00150

WANTED

FOSTER FAMILY PERTH METROPOLITAN AREA A ttractive, endearing 14 year old boy who enjoys and does well at sport, and who has some special education needs, is earnestly wanting a caring family to live with.

A family with children older than himself would be preferred. Child subsidy and an array of professional support available.

Telephone enquiries to: Foster Care Co-ordinator

442 3444

Retreat with Christian meditator and author from Manila, Philippines

Fr. Gerry Pierse CSSR To be held at Redemptorist Retreat House Weekend: 22nd-25th September (incl.)

Live-in: Cost: $113.00 Weekdays: 25th-29th September (incl.)

Live-in: Cost: $56.50 p.h. p.d.

40 ROOMS ONLY AVAILABLE Please contact 328 6600 A.S.AP. Cost includes stipend

THE UNION OF CATHOLIC APOSTOLATE A work of Pallotines, together forming peoplefor ministry If you are self-motivated, mature and responsible, and have a willingness to serve on a voluntary basis, we invite applications for positions as: PALLOTTINE LAY MISSIONARIES At Wandalgu Hostel, Tardun, W.A. As house parents and tutors In cooking and domestic support + As farmers — wheat and sheep 90 As tradespeople — building, mechanical fi As experienced general maintenance people At Epiphany Centre, Rossmoyne, WA. 4* As cook and staff person for retreat work + As maintenance person YADYM VOLUNTEERS IN REMOTE PARISHES Yadym challenges young adults to put their faith into action as lay missionaries in remote parishes.

A unique programme to empower others in the spirit of St. Vincent Pallotti.

For more information contact: Fr. Pat Jackson SAC or Sr. Joy Shelley FIX.( Pallottine Community 27 Barcelona Street, Box Hill. Victoria 31'2',

Tel: (03) 9898 4657 Fax: (03) 9898 4718

Flame Ministries International eitaftidatatee GtOi Veefeeed THE

"GENESIS FACTOR" A Retreat Weekend for Young Adults from 15 to 25 years old.

Friday July 28th to Sunday July 30th "Bickley Recreation Camp" - Bickley.

The Cost is $60 which includes Food & Accommodation

There will be: Skits - Talks - Games & Fellowship.

The "Genesis factor" is an approved programme developed for building a strong Chnstian Faith & Lifestyle.

The Team are all Young Adults (Married & Single) who are experienced in Youth Work around Australia and Overseas. Some are "NET" Team veterans with experience in Schools & Youth Groups.

The Weekend will be Fully Supervised with separate Dorms for Boys and Girls.

People under 18yrs will need "Written Parental Permission" to attend.

There are only 60 Registrations available so

BOOK NOW. By calling Frank Tassone FMI on (09) 382 3668

Flame Ministries International (A Preaching/Teaching Organisation in the Catholic Church Serving The Body of Christ) Head Office Australia: Suite 6. 186 Hay Street, Subiaco. Western Australia 6008. Telephone (09) 382 3668 FAX (09) 388 3081