The Record Newspaper 05 December 1996

Price: Si

Perth: December 5, 1996

WA's only Catholic weekly newspaper

Debate issues, but with no racist links: bishops

By Peter Rosengren

Archbishop Barry Hickey this week vigorously supported his brother bishops pastoral letter to Australian Catholics condemning racism against migrants and Aborigines.

In his regular Perspective column in

The Record, Archbishop Hickey reminded Perth Catholics that, despite the hurt caused to many newcomers to Australia 1)y the debate sparked by the remarks of Queensland MP. Pauline Hanson, migrants continued to be the backbone of the Church in parishes throughout Perth.

And just as there was no place for racism in the Church, neither should there be in Australian society he said.

"Visit some of our parishes in the heavy migrant areas, and see how people from many countries, including Asian countries. are the backbone of the Church." the Archbishop said.

"They are active in parish committees. they teach children, arrange the music.

help the schools, pay for the Churches and the upkeep of the priests, and are enthusiastically and unapologetically Catholic."

Archbishop Hickey's defence of the presence of migrants in Australian life and society followed the entry last Friday of Australia's Catholic Bishops into the race debate.

The Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference approved the pastoral letter, A Rich and Inverse Australia, at their November meeting in Sydney.

The bishops said any form of racial intolerance was incompatible with the Catholic faith and urged all Australians to respect the equal dignity and rights of all citizens. regardless of culture and ethnic origin.

Archbishop Hickey was one of the bishops who helped draft the letter.

"It is right for the people of Australia to conduct a rational and on-going discussion concerning the number of migrants who should be allowed to enter the country." the bishops said.

"It is not right to link this discussion to racist attitudes towards Asians or any other people. It is never right to say or do anything that arouses racial intolerance."

The bishops said racism is based on ignorance and fear and is overcome by knowledge and an open heart.

The bishops, however, did not rule out debate on the issues such as immigration levels and Government funding of Aboriginal bodies such as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, but said any discussions or arguments had to be kept clear of racist attitudes.

They said that in the 1970's Australians had committed themselves to abandonment of the White Australia Policy, under which post-war immigration was heavily weighted towards European immigration. and moved to embrace multi-culturalism.

"The large majority of Australians supported and welcomed these changes. Few would wish to go back to a policy of 'white Australia' and all the anger and dislike it aroused," they said.

The bishops also defended the policy of assigning a special place to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in Australian society "It is right for all Australians to seek to ensure that all government monies are spent wisely and well." the bishops said.

But it was not right to "allow this concern to blind us to the unique situation and special needs of the Aboriginal peoples," they added.

While there had been much talk in recent years of reconciliation between black and white Australia, a concept supported by the majority of Australians. the process was "very slow," the bishops said.

"There have been many mistakes and many false judgements. There are still far too many demands that Aboriginals 'think like us, act like us and conform to our values." they said.

The fact that the imprisonment rate for Aborigines was 18.3 times higher than others and that Aboriginal deaths in custody were still increasing "should cry out loudly to all Australians that the alien world Imposed on them is destructive of the lives of many Aboriginal people."

The bishops urged greater openness to racial tolerance among Australians.

"To all Australians we extend the invitation to overcome all racism in our midst by means of a greater knowledge and appreciation of the many peoples who make up our wonderful country," they concluded.

A place where love can touch hearts to save young lives

By Peter Rosengren

Archbishop Hickey with pro-life activist Julie Cook and her daughter lmogen at the opening.

The new crisis pregnancy counselling office opened and blessed in Lord Street, Perth, last Sunday stood for the rejection of the anti-life mentality epitomised in contraception, abortion and euthanasia, and was solidly based in the conviction that love can touch hearts, Archbishop Barry Hickey said at the opening.

Archbishop Hickey, who had just returned from Rome and a Sydney meeting of Australia's Catholic bishops, was present to bless and open the new offices of Pregnancy Assistance at 195 Lord Street.

"The work and the presence here of Pregnancy Assistance are very, very symbolic." he said.

"First of all ills a symbol of care for women in trouble. It is a symbol of a rejection of the anti-life mentality that has already given us widespread contraception, abortion and, now, euthanasia."

The new premises were also symbolic of it's supporters' commitment, he added.

"It is a symbol of the desire of committed people to take a stand and give to others generously in a way that is supportive of life in the name of Jesus the Good Shepherd.

"It is more than a symbol though. It is a service, a service based on a conviction that love can touch hearts."

An overflow crowd of pro-life supporters and representatives from other archdiocesan agencies gathered for the opening of the new centre which features three counselling rooms and a prayer room, and is manned by volunteer staff.

Volunteers have been working for several months furnishing and preparing the centre.

Pregnancy Assistance will offer free pregnancy testing, confidential counselling, referral to other pro-life health and welfare agencies including the planned Catholic womens. health care service, loans of maternity and baby clothes and nursery fur- Archbishop Hickey arranged a special niture, and gifts of new baby papal blessing for the centre last month necessities. when in Rome. He also met Pope John Archbishop Hickey presented the Paul and handed him the prayers, Masscentre with a special blessing from es and best wishes of Perth's Catholic in Pope John Paul II. which he had honour of the Pope's 50th anniversary of brought back from his visit to Rome his ordination. Photo L Osservatore Romano for the recent planning committee meeting for the Oceania synod of training. A further intake of people interested in counselling work and bishops.

Pregnancy Assistance head Anne helping young mothers would probMarie Langdon said she was delight- ably be held early in 1997 Apart from counselling women or ed with the show of support for the organisation, which would be the couples facing crisis pregnancies, only one in Perth providing crisis Pregnancy Assistance also hoped to pregnancy counselling from a specif- begin networking with similar Christian and pro-life agencies in Perth as ically Catholic perspective.

She said the centre had already well as educating Catholics on the trained eight counsellors to take calls effects of abortion, Miss Langdon from members of the public while a said. second group were midway through Continued on Page 2

Local artist finds something fishy at the Vatican

Biography of Ursula Frayne coming

- Page 13

- Page 8

Two Catholic social justice activists give their opinion of issues and personalities in the WA election - Pages 10 & II. Editorial - Page 7

4

Don't let racism change our nation's record One of my responsibilities in recent years has been to act as Secretary of the Bishops' Committee for Migrants and Refugees.

I have had public and private clashes with Governments of different political persuasions over the plight of refugees, especially of asylum seekers locked away behind the heavy gates of the Detention Centres.

It was good to know that I had the support of many people of compassionate good will who wanted people treated fairly and decently.

They believed that Australia had a good reputation in the way it had welcomed and absorbed

migrants, displaced people and refugees for over a century, particularly since the Second World War. They were aware, as we all are, of the impact of migration on the economy, and vice versa, and the need to review immigration policies accordingly.

But they did not expect that, within a very short time, racism would surface again.

Icannot tell you how many newcomers to Australia have told me how hurt they have been by the rash of public and private comments about their racial origins since the remarks of Pauline Hanson in Parliament on Asian Immi-

MANNING & ASSOCIATES

OPTOMETRISTS Contact Lens Consultants Mark Kalenas (B. optom) Grove Plaza, Gaffesloe 384 6633 or 384 6720

Forrestfield P L Yeap-O'Shea B.Optom NSA'

Optometrist and Contact Lens Practitioner

453 2344

Mead Medical Centre 11 Salix Way Forrestfield 6058

Recommend The Record

gration. Visit some of our parish- mine the glorious vision of the es in the heavy migrant areas, and Church about the dignity of all see how people from many coun- peoples. The Church transcends tries, including Asian countries, all nationalities. are the backbone of the Church.

Aboriginal people have suffered They are active in Parish com- too in the current wave of racist mittees, they teach children, remarks. Having survived the disarrange the music, help the possession of their lands, the schools, pay for the Churches and breakdown of their tribal structhe upkeep of the priests, and are tures, the disintegration of family enthusiastically and unapologeti- life through the forced separation cally Catholic. of their children, they begin to This is what the Church is meant make progress in finding a secure to be, fully Catholic, that is, uni- place in the new society, only to versal, with its arms widespread face rejection again. to embrace people of all counIt goes without saying that tries into the Body of Christ. racism has no place in the Do not let the racists change Church. Let it have no place withAustralia's good record, or under- in Australian society either.

An Internet home page created by case on abortion's legality in AusAustralia's Catholic Bishops sets out tralia. not only the scope and nature of the The case was settled out of court, Catholic Church in Australia but effectively putting the issue of aborimportant public statements made tion's actual legality on the shelf into by the bishops in recent months. the indefinite future.

Logging on to the site at: Similarly, under the Abortion http://www.catholic.org.au, Web heading, Net surfers can read the surfers can discover more about the bishops' submission to the National Catholic Church in Australia and Health and Medical Research official organs such as the bishops' Council on services for the terminaconference and its related commit- tion of pregnancy in Australia. tees.

Bioethics dominates the Home More likely to be of interest to Page, officially launched by Cardihome page visitors, however, is the nal Edward Clancy of Sydney last range of pastoral letters, documents week. and submissions issued by the BishSubjects currently listed include ops addressing issues of concern to assisted reproductive technology, the Church in Australia recently. bioethics, euthanasia, HIV/AIDS For instance, the aide-memoire to and human rights. the High Court Superclinics LitigaThose linking in to the home page tion is the document presented to will also find links to other Catholic the Court by the bishops recently in Internet sites in Australia and to what was set to he the definitive other bishops' conferences.

Lai

Cardinal Clancy logs in watched by Bishop Geoffrey Mayne, left, and Bishop Michael Putney.

More toys needed to avoid 'Christmas disappointment' loys, toys and more toys are need- od of time," he suggested. Alternaed by the St Vincent de Paul Society tively. "according to recent reports, if they're going to meet the needy more and more people living Christmas target required, accord- beyond their means," he said. ing to Operations Manager Gavin Saying that WA's largest charity Dempster. was "enormously grateful for the He said the charitable organisa- donations of clothing, furniture and tion's resources and facilities are toys we receive, particularly at this stretched to the limit. time of the year," he added. "we want Stating the Society doesn't have to be sure we can offer the strugthe time or facilities to make repairs gling families of Perth toys and other to older toys and is faced with fewer Items they will be happy to give and new toys donated by Western Aus- receive on Christmas day." tralians, Mr Dempster said he Any donations of food, toys, gifts or thought dozens of families would be money, may be made to any St Vindisappointed.

The dramatic downfall in quality cent de Paul shop or by phoning the donations was perhaps a reflection donation line on 221-8888. on a community which has been Large items will be collected by St "tightening its belt over a long peri- Vincent de Paul volunteers.

Where love touches hearts

this Christmas is to someone you on 't know.

V ING. BECAUSE GIVING BRINGS JOY.

HOPE AND DIGNITY TO T THIS YEAR. THE SoCIET WILL DISTRIBUTE THOUSAND PERS. FOOD PARCELS AND St NEED OF LOVE AND HOPE. THAT WAY. MANY MORE WEST AusiAND THEIR FAMILIES WILL SHAPE C HRISTMAS. THANKS TO YOUR DONATTON

GIFTS AND OTHER ITEMS. DONATIONS MAY BE SENT TO: C AMILLUS HOUSE. 15 BRONTF ST. EAc,- T 'F'EiR TH. 6004 • OR BY CREDIT CARD. PH:

(09) 221 8888 T. VINCENT DE PAUL CHRISTMAS APPEAL V ilig the: Npirit

The Aecocci.Piacerpper, 5 tip9§,,P4ge,

Perspective

Bishops open Net site

you can give C HRISTMAS IS A TrMg,

Archbishop's

of .'lope

Continued from Page 1 "They will have their own com"It's good . . . . that we can help to mittee of management, will recruit educate the Catholic community - their own volunteers, and maybe in because I think that there's not the future, if finance is there, staff," much knowledge about abortion he said.

"It will need to raise its own funds, and its effects among the Catholic It will be responsible for its own community," Ms Langdon said.

She said the organisation was publicity and - providing it continalready working, with a small num- ues to operate within the guidelines ber of people having approached it established in the constitution and after seeing its sign at the front of the moral limits clearly laid down then it will have the freedom to operthe building.

Others had also sought telephone ate."

The Archbishop also praised the counselling, she said.

"Phone calls are starting to pick up basis of the new body. but we haven't got an average [num".. .. It is based on a common ideber] yet - people are only just start- ology, based certainly on a common ing to get to know us," she said. faith, based on a sharing of prayer Archbishop Hickey said Pregnan- and sharing of mutual effort and cy Assistance was not an archdioce- support," he said. san agency such as the Catholic Ms Langdon said Pregnancy AssisMigrant Centre - it had been estab- tance would also in the near future lished under Canon Law as an asso- be targetting community news ciation of Christ's faithful, with its media, shopping centres, chemists charter and constitution having and medical clinics with publicity already been approved by himself. promoting its services.

Church warns of competition in welfare

By Peter Rosengren State and Federal Governments' increased emphasis on economic rationalism in community care policy means not enough attention is being paid to the quality of people's lives, the Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission warned last week.

The warning came in the ACSWC's - latest discussion paper. Competitive Care, which deals with the challenges facing Church-sponsored and other non-profit welfare agencies funded by governments.

ACSWC national director Toby O'Connor said the challenges had emerged from the National Competition Policy and the Council of Australian Governments agenda for reform to Commonwealth-State relations and service provision..

"These reforms are based on the economic rationalist belief that competition and the profitmotive arc the only mecha-

nisms capable of producing high-quality care and a more equitable society," Mr O'Connor said.

"Competitive Care establishes the fact that all governments in Australia appear to have one thing in common: they recommend increased competition among community social service providers and the cornmodification of care into discreet units of output," he said.

"Not enough emphasis is being given to the actual outcomes for people in terms of their quality of life or the quality of our society," he said.

He warned that the drive by governments for economic efficiency in the delivery of social services meant they were in danger of treating all human relationships and needs as a set of demands that could be met by competing suppliers through market-like transactions.

"Any reforms to the way community agencies operate must ensure that the values of social justice and access to high-qual-

ity care for the most disadvantaged are maintained," he said.

The ACSWC discussion paper lists a variety of strategies to combat the drive towards competition among social services.

One of the key recommendations is the establishment of provider consortiums that would protect the smaller agencies run by Church and nonprofit organisations, while still offering choices to people.

Among the options open to agencies, the paper says, are: • the development of networks of providers able to deliver flexibility and value to the both service users and government funders: • the need for substantial research to develop useful performance indicators for agencies so that economic efficiency does not become the sole criteria of performance: and • a re-evaluation of who uses agency services, with emphasis on the need to help the disadvantaged first.

Santa's ready for children of Bandyup inmates

The Catholic Social Justice Commission, in conjunction with the Kindred Family Centre, St John Ambulance cadets and some other folk interested in social justice concerns, assembled at the Bandyup Prison Family Support Centre last Sunday to stuff a Santa Claus figure. The point of the exercise? To make him rotund, jolly and to decorate the Christmas tree under which presents will be placed for the children of female inmates of the prison. Elizabeth Conti, second from left, of Kindred Family Centre with CSJC commissioners Frank Hall, Mark Zirnsak, Judith Woodward, Sister Veronica, young helpers Lisa Hall, Jonathon and Sarah Handcock and Michael Philp prepare the tree.

A centre built on memories

By Colleen McGuiness-Howard During a history making ceremony on November 28, a time capsule was put down beneath the poured foundations of the new multi million dollar St John of God Subiaco Medical Clinic.

At some unknown point in time, this one metre high by half a metre wide stainless steel capsule will perhaps be discovered and opened to reveal interesting details of a bygone era.

Upon opening it. they will find in this airless capsule, memorabilia and medical data such as an obstetric unit patient assessment form and birthing accessories; Ward 61 roster; picture of Sr Attracta Mitchell; Sisters' Nursing Registration medals: an operating suite female uniform; a sterile pack; stones from County Wexford, Ireland: a sample medical record and medical services directory along with

Fr Sean Bredin blesses the site.

the 1995/96 annual report. plus a CD ROM presentation on the hospital by Jeff Murray.

Included in the capsule were also momentoes, photo's. and letters to children and future

children, from families, friends and care givers of St John of God Hospital. Subiaco. who hope their memories will be carried on in this tangible form.

The site had formerly boasted the blue maternity suite building which became something of a Subiaco landmark And because of its past significance in view of the levelling of the building, a competition was arranged to try and find the oldest St John of God baby born there. Two of the oldest found were Helen Muir (nee Durack) born 3 September 1937 before the new maternity wing was opened, and Geoff Cooke, born in the new maternity wing on 2 March, 1938.

Hospital chaplain Fr Sean Bredin blessed the site, and St John of God's Chief Executive Officer Romy Baker formerly announced the commencement of the new Medical Clinic.

SOCIETY OF ST VINCENT DE PAUL

Catholic Women's League, Australia (Inc.)

BOOKSHOP

Communications Officer

Christmas Cards Packs of 5 $2.00 Children's Books about Saints.

Great Christmas Gifts $4 - 9.00 Children's Bible 24.95 Bible Stories for children 8.00 Bible, Christian Community. For adults 23.00 VIDEOS The Eternal City (Rome) Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Series of 4.

Mother Angelica of EWTN My Immaculate Heart Will Triumph.

36.00 Each 20.00 20.00 16.00

VIDEOS FOR CHILDREN Nicholas the Boy who Became Santa The Day the Sun Danced. Fatima Bernadette, the Princess of Lourdes Fourteen Flowers of Pardon. Maria Goretti

24.00 24.00 24.00 36.00

15 Bronte Street, East Perth

Tel. 325 3474 Fax 325 6917 Monday to Friday 10am - 4pm

invites applications for the position of This is a permanent. part-time position (minimum 15 hours per week) located in our National Secretariat Office in Canberra.

The successful applicant will have:

• A commitment to the ethos of Catholic

Women's League and be a practising Catholic • Administrative expertise and communications skills • Ability to research and prepare submissions, applications etc.

• Self motivation, clerical and computer skills • A friendly personality and be articulate • Enthusiasm for the challenge of the position Job description and general employment details are available on request. Tel 03 6236 9430, fax 03 6236 9470.

Applications close on January 10, 1997

The National President Catholic Women's League PO Box 239, Sandy Bay, Tag. 7006.

T his woman has difficulty preparing food a s she has lost most of her fingers.

At Jarangdih the Samaritan Sisters have treated over 7,800 leprosy patients.

Help us relieve

SUFFERING SEVERE improve health care and living standards Priests and sisters working in areas of extreme poverty have appealed for f inance to help relieve the frightful suffering of the hungry, the sick and the destitute. There is an appalling amount of sickness caused by lack of food, poor diet, polluted water, primitive conditions and ignorance. Most people don't know how to avoid sickness or what to do when it occurs.

Leprosy is one of the poor's most feared afflictions. The stigma of leprosy still remains. It is a heart breaking disease. Leprosy people live in a world where the true meaning of total poverty is manifested: a physical debility and a complete lack of possessions that spell unutterable dependence on others.

Theirs is the despair of the outcast. In our mission region an estimated 140,000 men, women and children are afflicted with leprosy. Only a small percentage receive regular treatment. Many suffer from starvation which leads t o all types of illness with the problems of healing. How they manage to survive is beyond understanding.

But a much bigger problem is tuberculosis and their numbers could well e xceed 300,000. Unable to work, unable to obtain nourishing food and medical care their future seems hopeless. The depth of suffering in our region is impossible for outsiders to comprehend. Vast areas have no medical centres. So the sick have to walk 5, 10, 20km to the nearest clinic or hospital.

Many leave it too late for medical treatment to save them.

But the worst tragedy concerns the children. Children want to live but they suffer and die in great numbers. Ignorance of basic health care and lack of medical centres contribute to a tragic toll of children. The children suffer and die in the final coma of dehydration . . . in the extremities of respiratory infection . . in the grip of tetanus spasms . . . in the distress of measles . . . in the long drawn out process of frequent 'ordinary' illnesses which steadily weaken and malnourish the body until it has nothing left to fight the next cold or the next fever or the next bout of diarrhoea. Most deaths were medically avoidable.

P lease help us to establish more clinics, mother/child health care centres, and schools where families can be helped to help themselves. A $50 donation is worth more than ten times that amount in our Mission Region. Whatever you can give will be greatly appreciated. Donations are tax deductible. Please make your cheque payable to "Australian Jesuit Mission Overseas Aid Fund" and post it with the coupon.

Australian Jesuit Mission in India cares for the poorest of the poor

• OOOO • OOOOOOOO • • • • • OOOOO • • • • • • ID

Help us, Lord, to compare the misery these people suffer with our own well being.

Help us to provide the material help these people need so desperately.

Donations are tax deductible

• National Director, Father Tom O'Donovan, SJ. Australian Jesuit Mission in India (Est. 1951), PO Box 193, North Sydney, NSW, 2059.

• I to provide medical aid and vital enclose $ • educartion for desperately poor people in India.

Tick L— for tax deduction receipt.

Mr/Mrs/Miss

PR 5.12

• ( Block !otters please) • • A ddress • Postcode • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • sage • • • • • • OOOO

• • • •

uord.December 5 1996 Page 3

•

(41tioL . (AKE wesoliwivoi dasobames and oho, forrul.s.

Co-ordinator Residential Services Commencing salary package of approximately $32,000 plus a vehicle Catholic Care requires a dynamic person to be part of its expanding residential services team offering quality benchmark services to people Nvith intellectual disabilities and their families. The Co-ordinator must have a tertiary qualification or have extensive experience working in the field of intellectual disabilities in a senior position. They must be able to implement the organisation's philosophical bases of: • Christian (Catholic) Ethos.

• Social Role Valourisation.

• Developmental Model.

The successful applicant must be able to supervise and direct staff and be instrumental in setting up new accommodation options under direction.

Job description and selection criteria are available on request by phoning 474 3303. Applicants

should address the selection criteria in writing and forward applications by 13th December 1996 to: The Executive Director Catholic Care PO Box 5 South Perth 6951

Convince your friends to read The Record

Catholic hospitals 'fail on youth suicide' youth suicide usually suggests crisis work with young people at risk, the Signs A report commissioned by the heads of of Hope report suggests that the rate of Australia's Catholic religious orders and youth suicide could be curtailed by an congregations says it has found found improved hospital emergency care syssignificant failures in the way Catholic tem.

"Those who have survived an attempt hospitals currently respond to the probat suicide are the group at highest risk of lem of youth suicide.

It recommends Catholic hospitals sig- re-attempting and eventually dying by nificantly improve their response to one suicide," Fr Norden said.

"Therefore, presentation at hospital of the most distressing problems in Australia, a nation with one of the highest represents the single best opportunity for intervention." rates of youth suicide in the world.

The report's recommendations were The report, Signs of Hope, was launched by Federal Health Minister also supported by, Francis Sullivan, the Michael Wooldridge in Sydney last director of the Australian Catholic Health Care Association which represents week.

It said that with such a high suicide rate Catholic hospitals around the country.

"Central to the concerns of the Catholic Australia must face the challenge of care services is the need to focus health improving hospital emergency procedures in the face of attempted youth sui- on the needs of patients in a holistic fashion, a person-centred approach," he said. cide.

"This calls for the integration of health Maree Tehan, a researcher with the community services around those and Jesuit Social Services centre in Melbourne who helped prepare Signs of needs, and courageous steps need to be Hope, said research had identified many taken to explore a case-management hospitals around Australia which fail to model to meet those ends," he added.

Among the recommendations carried treat attempted suicide with appropridte in Signs of Hope are: professional and comprehensive care.

• the assessment and admission of all The release of the report heralds a change in thinking on how to respond to self-harming patients to hospital; • the training of Emergency departthe problem of youth suicide, Jesuit Social Services director, Fr Peter Norden ment staff to enhance their understanding of mental illness; said.

• the appointment of a psychiatric He said that whereas prevention of

By Peter Rosengren

Pallottines building people not pyramids...

Youth suicide - demanding solutions

nurse on a 24-hour, 7-day a week basis in major metropolitan hospitals; • the development by Catholic hospitals in regular contact with youth who have attempted suicide of a protocol for their mental and medical aspects, together with assertive strategies for intervention; and • the establishment of rural-based groups to develop protocols for country areas.

There are 57 Catholic hospitals in Australia, of which about 20 have regular contact with young people exhibiting self-harming behaviour.

St Mary's kids in Camarvon dig deep for others abroad

in a participative Church.

Pallottine Priests,

Brothers & Sisters Fr Pat Jackson SAC 27 Barcelona Street, Box Hill, Victoria 3128 Australia (03) 9898 4657 Fr Kelvin Kenny SAC 60 Fifth Avenue Staff and students at St Mary's School Carnarvon got active on several activities to promote support and awareness for the Catholic Missions recently. This tremendous team effort in class prayers, raffles, a slave auction and a mini Fast for Kids culminated in a fun-filled, informative, prayerful and fundraising achievement. $1000.00 was forwarded to St Martha's Orphanage in Bangladesh.

This was in addition to a mission jar, passed around school each morning, from which money has been sent to a Home for Children in Zambia, a Salvatorian Seminary in the Philippines, to Mother Teresa in New Delhi and the Jesuits in India.

The Most Reverend Barry Hickey, Archbishop of Perth and the Centrecare Marriage and Family Service Board of Management congratulate the staff of

Centrecare for being awarded the

1996 Community Services Industry Award for Staff Development, Support and Training and Tony Pietropiccolo, Centrecare Director, who was awarded the

1996 Community Services Industry's Individual Leader's Award.

The Industry Awards were presented by the Hon Premier of Western Australia, Richard Court MLA and The Hon Minister for Family and Children's Services, Cheryl Edwardes MLA. The Industry Awards recognise innovation, excellence, participation and cooperation.

The Record,December 5 1996 Page 4

HEARSTORY Personal History Recording and ill'anscription Service

Delight your family with the most precious and lasting Christmas gift of all

YOUR LIFE STORY Immortalised on tape because not everyone has time to write an autobiography.

Your story is too important to be lost! Don't leave it to secondhand recollection - tell it "in your very own words".

Go a step further, have it transcribed and bound.

Christmas Gift Vouchers available.

Do it now - Call Lorraine Williams BA (History)

364 2617

MP's told of urgent reconciliation need

By Peter Rosengren Reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia was of urgent and vital importance to the nation at a time when outbreaks of racial violence, unprecedented in recent years, had been occurring, religious leaders told Federal Parliamentarians this week The message of the necessity for concrete action on reconciliation was given by eight representatives from the National Council of Churches to about 30 parliamentarians from both Houses of Parliament who had responded to an invitation to meet with the religious heads at Parliament House in Canberra on Monday.

The politicians were addressed by Anglican Bishop Bruce Wilson and Dr Anne Pattel-Gray from the NCCA:s Aboriginal and Islander Commission.

Both told MP's religious leaders were deeply concerned about the continuing plight and suffering of indigenous Australians.

Bishop Wilson, who chairs the NCCAs Task Force for Aboriginal Reconciliation, told Federal MP's the Task Force had met in May this year.

"I have never seen Aboriginal Church leaders so depressed," Bishop Wilson told the politicians.

"From all over the nation, indigenous people were reporting outbreaks of racial hatred such as they had not experienced for years."

He said the list of reasons for the increased depression and despair for the future among Aboriginal leaders had

included the irresponsible handling by • A Catholic Church submission to the sections of the media and political lead- Human Rights and Equal Opportunity ers of corruption allegations against the Commission's inquiry into the separaAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tion of Aboriginal children from their Commission (ATSIC) even though some families has labelled the Federal Govof the allegations had later proved true. ernment's response on the question of Other factors had included the rise in the number Aboriginal deaths in custody compensation as "lacking moral integridespite the findings of a Royal Commis- ty?

The submission, from the two Church sion; fear that proposed amendments to the Native Title Act would undermine agencies - the Australian Catholic Social Aboriginal rights to land; and the use of Welfare Commission and the National anti-Aboriginal racist rhetoric by some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander politicians in the lead up to the March Catholic Council (NATSICC) - as well as Federal election, he said. the Bishops' Committee for Social WelDr Pattel-Gray, who described herself fare, said it was the Government's as an Aboriginal and Torres Strait responsibility to make up for past injusIslander representative, told the politi- tices through compensation. cians that despite many efforts indigeThe comments came as part of the 80nous people remained Australia's page submission to the Inquiry outlining underclass at the lowest rung of the the Church's involvement and degree of socio-economic ladder.

Australia needed to implement what cooperation with the policy of separating she termed 'the five R's' of recognition, Aboriginal children from their families.

The submission also issued an apology repentance, restitution, respect and recfor involvement in the practice on the onciliation, she said.

Recognition meant accepting Aborigi- part of the Church. nal sovereignty before white settlement So far, it said, 47 Catholic agencies were and the re-writing of history to provide a known to have been involved in caring balanced view of black and white Aus- for Aboriginal children separated from tralia. their families, however scarcity of Owning up to the injustices of the past records meant more could have been (repentance) and restoring lands to trai ditional owners were also essential ele- nvolved.

The submission also recommended ments of reconciliation, she said. records of children placed in Church "Respect means when Australia can fully embrace the humanity of indige- care be transferred to a national data nous Australia and respect our heritage base administered by a Church agency - the oldest living culture in the world." for those trying to trace family histories Dr Pattel-Gray told the politicians. and relatives.

Love interpretation wins S5m gift for spires

Cardinal Edward Clancy of Sydney has thanked New South Wales Premier, Bob Carr, for the NSW Government's contribution of $5 million over three years to St Mary's Cathedral.

The donation was specifically given for the funding of the Cathedral's spires, designed in 1865 but never bat. When finished the spires will rise 100 feet above St Mary's existing southern towers.

You must hear the new MASTER DESIGN SERIES

ALLEN ORGAN

MDS-65 Wesley church. Pe

"Master Design Series" installations include: Wesley Church, Perth - MDS-65 Private Sale MDS Th. III Private Sale - MDS-50 St Joseph's Catholic Church, Queens Park - MDS-36 Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Thomlie - MDS-35 Uniting Church. Bicton MDS-25 Our Lady of Lourdes Cath. Church. Rockingham - MDS-2E Private Sale - MDS 16 St Lawrence's Catholic Church. Balc,atta - MDS-16 Latter Day Saints. Belmont - MDS-5 St Peter's Anglican Church. Victoria Park - MDS-2 Church of Good Shepherd. Lockndge - MDS-1 Corpus Christi Catholic Church. Melville - MDS-1 MUSIC - CD's - CASSETTES - RECORDS - VIDEOS For information or appointment phone R on Raymond on 150-3322

ALLEN DIGITAL COMPUTER ORGAN STUDIOS (WA) 1 4 Amery St. Como 6152. http: '/www.allenorgan.com au

WA FUNERAL Co. Catholic Cremations and Funerals WA family owned and operated Sally Douglas is the winner of the People's Choice Award, voted for by visitors to the 1996 Mandorfa Art Award Exhibition in Fremantle during October. Visitors were invited to vote for the artwork with the best interpretation of the biblical given text for artists - Love (1 Corinthians 13: 4-13). Seen here at the Benedictine's New Norcia Art Gallery this month, Sally was presented with a cheque for $500.

BURSARS, SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS With the end of the school financial year approaching it will soon be audit time again.

Have you made arrangements yet?

Our firm has a long association with the Catholic Community and acts as auditors to a number of Catholic secondary and primary schools.

We provide proactive advice in accounting and taxation requirements including FBT, salary packaging, budgeting, grants etc.

It you would like to know how we can help you, please contact Jonathan Lamprell-Jarrett Stephen J Mann

IBDO

BDO Nelson Parkhill Chartered Accountants & Consultants

267 St George's Terrace, PERTH WA 6000 Telephone: 360 4200 Facsimile: 481 2524 Specialists in non profit organisations and community based groups.

cnr James and Banks Sts, Guildford 24 hours, 7 days per week * Dignity, Excellence and Respect * Affordable Prices * Disabled and Private Parking Facilities * Pre-Paid Funeral Plan

3 77 0477 a ffiliated with

PERTH MONUMENTAL WORKS 483 Great Eastern Highway, Redcliffe WA 6104

Arthur Jones Proprietor Serving all cemeteries statewide Competitive rates Customised memorial specialist

478 2633 after hours 279 1528 The Record.December 5 1996 Page 5

Live the Gospel, just like first Christians

T

he role of St John the Baptist was to prepare the hearts of the people for the coming of the long promised Messiah, Jesus the Son of God. He established, as his first objective, to become himself a worthy witness to Jesus.

There is no doubt about his holiness of life or his dedication to the task given him

by God, that of preparing people for the coming of the Messiah.

His preaching was an urgent message calling everyone to conversion of heart.

"Prepare ye the way of the Lord - make straight His paths."

Remove from your hearts every obstacle that might prevent your recognising Jesus and accepting Him as Saviour.

Then there was the baptism practiced by John as a sign of repentance from sin and conversion.

Imagine all these people who came to John to be baptised coming out of the river spluttering and gasping after being immersed in the water but having a new sense of belonging to God's people and a new hope of forgiveness and salvation.

What a man was this Baptist and what a

CHIPPERS

"In Mum's day, women didn't go to funerals. Now they plan their own."

With Bishop Healy witness to the Gospel that had not yet been written.

It has been written for us but it is strange that we see the Gospel as an accomplished fact.

We see the Gospel as being lived by the people of the time of Christ.

We see it as a history of events of the past and we tend to leave it there.

We forget that we, in this day and age, have to live it in our daily lives too.

Jesus and his friends went through times of great trial and suffering.

We are no different. Peter denied he knew Jesus, and James and John - puffed with pride - demanded special places in

heaven through their mother. They had to repent as we have to repent.

The multitude experienced the compassionate healing of Jesus and we, too, experience moments of great tenderness from God. We live the Gospel just as much as Peter and John and Lazarus and the many others who accepted Jesus as the Lamb of God - the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

We must endeavour, therefore, to translate the events of the Gospel into our own lives and into our own times.

We can take one or two of the outstanding traits of the life of St John the Baptist and see what they mean for us.

I suppose his single mindedness was the most significant of all his characteristics.

He was given a mission by God and he would see that through, even if it meant losing his life.

There have been similar souls in the Church today and there are still many around.

Think of all those missionaries who have been martyred in our time - Bishops,

To Jesus through Learning serenity helps us to M ary. . . face the difficulties of this life a column of Marian devotion is a sign of our uniqueness. Some of my greatest lessons in life have been learned in pain, in tears or in loneliness.

It is impossible to run away from the situation or to block it out, and always. I believe, growth comes from the experience.

I read a long time ago. a phrase that With Penny Ashcroft has stayed with me, "your life is God's ecause we are unique and no gift to you, what you do with your life other person quite like us has is your gift to God". ever existed, we are guaranteed We can not always control some occasional loneliness in our lives. things in our lives but we do have the At one time or another all of us have freedom to influence who we are and found ourselves thinking that "no one what we will become. understands me".

Sometimes that takes courage and Ihave heard my children utter those resilience, sometimes it means words. I have thought them myself. accepting the 'actuals' in our lives.

Because we are this unique person.

All too often we can be caught in the no one else sees life quite like we do. trap of "if only".

We only have to attend a Myers BrigI have been there and done that, but gs Course or one of the other 'get- have come to the conclusion that I ting to know how self and others have always got to try and look at the think' courses to come to that under- possibilities for the future. standing pretty quickly.

All kinds of events happen that When someone says "I know just directly affect our lives. what you are going through", we can Some are very obvious, some are often find the comment irritating not, but all can have an affect on our because we know in our hearts that self image, our relationships with oththey don't, and can't. ers and our perception of what is real.

Certainly, people say consoling Often, that can mean we are trying things because of their love and con- to meet the expectation of others as cern for us, but also because as a to who and what we should be. society we have come to believe that How, then, do we remain true to the loneliness is bad and should be person we actually are? avoided at all costs.

It is not easy.

Often we try to escape loneliness by The Serenity Prayer is one that conturning on the TV, or thinking up any veys a deep sense of peace and one excuse we can to phone a friend, but that I have found helpful when expedoes that solve the problem? riencing a time of "if onlys" God, It is possible to feel lonely in the grant me the serenity to accept those midst of a crowded room. things that I cannot change, courage Loneliness in grief, for example, as to change those things that I can, and in any common human experience, wisdom to know the difference.

B "The role of women has changed so much. In a way, planning your own funeral is part of being independent. You avoid being a burden to your family at a difficult time...and you can end your life as you lived it — as a person in control."

Chippers' pre-arrangement and/or prepaid service is free.

Find out how our guaranteed plan with inflation-proof, tax-free options complement your retirement plans.

382 3933 (office hours) CHIPPERS Thc Family Funeral Director

Flexible • Affordable • Dependable

E

Yes, please send me a copy of Chippers Prepaid brochure.

Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms Address

Postcode

ta.1

Telephone Post to: Freepost 128, PO Box 88, Subiaco 6008.

(No stamp needed.) lucLi

C HIPPERS Try the Record Classifieds

Advertisement

Message from Our Lady, Queen of Peace, from Medjugorje, given to Marija on November 25, 1996 "Dear Children!

Today. again, I invite you to pray so that through prayer, fasting and small sacrifices you may prepare yourselves for the coming of Jesus.

May this time, little children, be a time of grace for you. Use every moment and do good, for only in this way will you feel the birth of Jesus in your hearts.

If with your life you give an example and become a sign of God's love, joy will prevail in the hearts of men.

Thank you for having responded to my call" (It is accepted that the final authority regarding apparitions of Our Lady at Medingole rests with the Holy See of Rome)

Recommend The Record - for the best in Catholic news and reading The Record,December 5 1996 Page 6

Priests, religious and lay people - prepared to carry out their mission, even at the cost of their lives.

Each one of us, in our own lives or our own corner of the world, has a mission too and we must fulfil it with great earnestness as the Baptist did.

Another characteristic of St John the Baptist was his detachment from material things - from food and clothing and comfort.

He lived on what we would call "bush tucker" and clothed himself in whatever he could find.

Our society is referred to as the consumer society because it indulges in the good things the world offers.

We can ask ourselves, do we follow that manner of living?

As I wrote this the Holy Father spoke in Rome at a Conference on Food and its distribution in the world.

"We must see", he said "that rich do not live beside poor, or hungry beside those who have too much. Our manner of life as Christians should follow in the footsteps of John the Baptist who will lead us to Jesus Christ Himself, the Lamb of God."

p

agan mythology's history of the gods, which included tracing their parentage, may have helped early Christians accept the title "Mother of God" being applied to the Blessed Virgin Mary. said Pope John Paul II. However. Christians used the title "to express a faith which had nothing to do with pagan mythology - their faith in the virginal conception in Mary's womb of he who was always the eternal Word of the Father," the Pope said.

At his November 27 weekly general audience. Pope John Paul explained what the Catholic Church and other Christians mean when they say Mary is the Mother of God. "Pagan mythology frequently presented some goddess as Ethel mother of some god." he said.

"For example, Zeus, the supreme god. had the goddess Rhea as his mother."

"This context perhaps facilitated the use by Christians of the title Theotokos.'

'Mother of God,' for the mother of lesus." he said.

Pope John Paul said, "The expression Theotokos.' which literally means 'she who generated God,' can appear surprising at first: in fact, it gives rise to the question of how it is possible that a human creature generates God." The Church's response to the question is that "Mary's divine maternity refers only to the human generation of the Son of God and not to his divine generation," he said.

"In this eternal generation Mary obviously had no role." the Pope said.

"However, 2,000 years ago the Son of God assumed our human nature and was conceived and born of Mary" At the same time, he said, Christians cannot accept the explanation that Mary was the mother only of the man Jesus.

"Motherhood is a relationship between one person and another person: a mother is not only mother of the body or of the physical creature which comes from her womb, but of the person she generates," he said.

"Mary, therefore, having generated according to human nature the person of Jesus who is a divine person, is the Mother of God," the Pope said.

But Pope John Paul also said the title Mother of God is not just an expression of Christian faith in the reality of the Incarnation.

"It also contemplates with awe and celebrates with veneration the immense greatness conferred on Mary," the Pope said. The title "proclaims the nobility of the woman and her very high vocation," he said.

"God treats Mary as a free and responsible person and realises the incarnation of his Son only after having obtained her consent."

You can't get a life if the right to life is ignored T

he election for the Parliament of Western Australia on 14 December Is a chance for WA Catholics to help build up what the great humanist Pope Paul VI loved to call "the civilisation of love."

Yes, even in an age of cynicism about politicians and democratic politics, we can take one small yet giant step towards constructing a just society.

No matter how inactive in the community we are, we have one chance every four years in WA to help those candidates who, more than others, are intent on, or sympathetic to, building a society based on God's will.

The Catholic Church does not directly judge the worth of particular political parties or individual candidates because the competence for judging which parties or individuals can most effectively implement God's will rests with lay men and women and not, in the first instance, with popes, bishops, priests and religious whose first responsibility is to witness to a reality beyond this world.

The Record

Nevertheless, the existence of many and But the principles of faith and morals by which lay men and women act are the varied truths to be acted on in political life responsibility of the teaching Church - the does not mean that they are all of equal Pope and those bishops, priests and reli- significance.

For example, unemployment, lack of gious in communion with him according education or hunger cannot be suffered to the Pope's mind and not theirs.

It is at this intellectual and spiritual level, no matter how much they are tragedies and not the level of institutional politics in and an assault on human dignity - if a perthe world, that the Church acts as the Mys- son's life is aborted in the womb.

If commonsense means anything, abortical Body of Jesus Christ to influence pubtion and other threats to the right to life, lic affairs.

In the teaching of the Catholic Church such as euthanasia, are clearly the first Christians and men and women of good issues that must be considered before will rind the truths by which to judge the choosing a party or individual candidate.

When you have a life, then you have a policies of parties and individuals. A compendium of these truths can be found in chance to be employed, receive a just the recently published Catechism of the wage and enjoy environmental beauty.

Are the candidates in an electorate antiCatholic Church.

They stretch from the right to life to mat- abortion? Do the political parties repreters such as Sunday work, a just wage and sented in an electorate have a policy, written or unwritten, for abortion on many other matters.

,(-A" t'ouno l& 7a4/e...

Remember our disabled talent

L

ast Tuesday was the United Nations International Day of Disabled Persons under the theme "Celebration of Ability".

The international day is an opportunity to call for an end to discriminatory eugenics programs that search out and destroy children with disabilities such as Down's Syndrome, spina bifida and cleft palate before birth.

In celebrating the ability of persons with disabilities we affirm that people are valuable just for being people.

We also acknowledge that people with a disability have talents and gifts to share with the rest of the humans.

A quadriplegic could be a great scientist.

A person with an intellectual disability can be a caring friend - people can't be defined just by their disabilities.

Prenatal screening programs aimed at Identifying and destroying children with disabilities act as if the disability is everything and the child is nothing; a child with Down's Syndrome is an individual person with lots of gifts to give the world.

Our claim to value and respect people with disabilities and to celebrate their abilities rings hollow if we are hell-bent on destroying as many as possible before they are even born.

With the active support of the WA Government, at least 107 children with disabilities were destroyed before birth in 1995.

Western Australians will never know what talents and abilities these children could have shared with us all.

We should begin our celebration of ability by giving those children with disabilities the gift of life.

Adrian and Monique Bertino-Clarke Disabled Advocacy Karrinyup

Focus on Tabernacle

W

hy are our Catholic Bishops allowing the Tabernacles of recent churches to be built in the side of these churches?

The centre of adoration has always been seen as one enters our churches to genuflect. In all of Europe you will never see the Ark of the Covenant put to the side.

Why not put them back in the very centre where they have always been?

Mrs Connie Kane Glendalough

Death penalty debate

C

olunmist, Paul Gray (The Record, 28 November) believes the death penalty is still a plausible option for society I strongly disagree.

Ills true, as Mr Gray points out, that traditional Catholic Church teaching stipu-

demand or by default? Are candidates or parties prepared to direct the police and the legal system to enforce existing laws against abortion?

Similar questions could be asked of euthanasia.

It is the responsibility of Catholics to find out the answers to these questions and make their decisions accordingly If there is to be any long-term resolution of other important social and political issues, such as unemployment, divorce and sexual and child abuse, then the culture of death must first be attacked.

Direct support for abortion or failure to fight it will sap a citizen's desire to fight other social injustices.

If the right to life is not guaranteed, then no other rights are secure; the fight for social justice will be built on sand.

• The opinions expressed in this editorial, and any other Record editoriaI, are not necessarily those of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Perth.

Leffers lo

lates that the State holds legitimate powers 'Thou shalt not kill,' as an absolute moral to exercise capital punishment. This par- imperative" (p 210). ticular teaching is confirmed in number He borrows from the philosophy of 2266 of The Catechism of the Catholic Emmanuel Levinas - the "philosophy of the Church. face."

However, in such important matters dealThe Pope draws from this philosophy to ing with life and death issues, it is neces- explain that "it is through his face that man sary to understand the Church's teaching speaks, and in particular, every man who in its full context. has suffered a wrong speaks and says the In number 2267, the Catechism continues words 'Do not kill me!' to say that "if bloodless means are suffi"The human face and the commandment cient to defend human lives against an 'Do not la' are ingeniously joined in Levaggressor and to protect public order and inas, and thus become a testimony for our the safety of persons, public authority age, in which governments, even democshould limit itself to such means, because ratically elected governments, sanction they better correspond to the concrete con- executions with such ease." ditions of the common good and are more It would seem that even the Pope is trouIn conformity to the dignity of the human bled by the apparent inconsistency person." between official Catholic Church teaching It would be difficult to refute Mr Gray's on capital punishment and the absolute assertion that "there are few greater inviolability of life, for he concludes the wrongs than the slaughter of the innocent." chapter on —The Defence of Every Life" But Mr Gray would surely have to be with the words,: "Perhaps it is better to say wrong when he states that "in cases of great no more than this about such a painful evil, like mass murder or child murder, it subject." is difficult to see how [redress] can be Joseph Said achieved without the death penalty."

Noranda With this line of reasoning, we would have to condemn to death all those mothers who abort their babies.

Clearly, Mr Gray's argument is faulty he other day I met Alice, a school because forgiveness is not just the domain teacher in what used to be Transvaal of a privileged few, but is available to all in South Africa. sinners.

Alice teaches in a Catholic school 200 km Although the Catholic Church has main- from her home and she has two children; tained its traditional stance on capital pun- the classes have 70 pupils. ishment, there is, nevertheless, a definite They lack everything. If your readers could shift away from this extreme form of pun- cut out holy pictures, used Christmas cards ishment mentality. with a Christian motif, catechisms, prayer Our present "culture of death" has played cards, anything (except stamps) also a significant part in rethinking the Catholic parcels of clothes and send them to: Alice Church's attitude towards the death penal- P Mahlamgu, PO Box 454, Lydenburg 1120, ty.

South Africa.

It is worth noting Jesus' views on the Fifth Edith McHugh Commandment. According to the Cate- Hamilton Hill chism, "In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord recalls the commandment, 'You shall not kill,' and adds to it the proscription of anger, hatred, and vengeance. Going furhe Australian Parent Movement was ther, Christ asks his disciples to turn the appalled at the 27 November revelaother cheek, to love their enemies. He did tion in The West Australian that the not defend himself and told Peter to leave WA Aids Council was handing out up to his sword in its sheath" (No 2262).

"400 needles each week" to drug dealers.

Early this year, Perth's Catholic Social JusSome of these needles may be resurfactice Commission issued a pamphlet enti- ing in the "smack packs" being sold in Fortled Capital Punishment - A Catholic View. rest Place and other city locations with On the front cover, the reason given for its supplies of drugs packaged with needles. publication is that it "wishes to affirm its These "package deals" make it particustand against capital punishment in the easy for novices to try drugs for the larly light of Catholic principles." first time.

The same pamphlet quotes Archbishop The APM has been consistently critical of Hickey's opposition to capital punishment philosophy of the needle exchange prothe as follows: "Killing is unfortunately too gram. common in our society It is offensive that While attempting to "minimise" the risk the State would add to the killing by imposing the death penalty and then carrying it of HIV transmission by providing free or out in the cold-blooded ritualistic way in cheap needles to drug users, the program which it is done. It is hard to see how a bar- facilitates drug use and gives community barous act of deliberate and pre-meditated approval to the practice.

The APM believes this ultimately results killing could ever be part of civilised sociin more harm from the destructive effects ety" In his book, Crossing The Threshold Of of drug use.

However, the relationship between the Hope, Pope John Paul II states that "God, who is the supreme Legislator, forcefully AIDS Council workers and drug dealers enjoined on Sinai the commandment goes beyond apparent condoning of drug

Aid for Africa plea

T

AIDS and drug dealers

T

eofilor

use to active cooperation with those who profit by exploiting the miserable dependence of drug addicts and seducing young people into drug addiction.

The comment attribute to Ms Gauci of the AIDS Council that "the dealers are cooperating because they don't want to kill their clients, they want them back again" is offensive and outrageous to parents and family of drug addicts.

Drug dealers by their very trade are dealers in death and misery.

The WA AIDS Council is funded by the State and Commonwealth Governments.

According to their June 30, 1996 Business Plan they planned to distribute 500.000 needles and syringes worth $83,000.

Their Business Plan and Budget Documents only mention distribution to "clients" who are "injecting drug users".

There is no mention of distribution to drug dealers [which the West Australian article reported as happening.]

The public would be most surprised to learn that the Court Government was funding a service that had relations with drug dealers in this way.

The Premier, who has articulated his opposition to drug use, has some explaining to do. Comments from other political leaders are also in order.

The WA AIDS Council request that the police carry out no surveillance of the drug dealers using the needle distribution service also requires further comment from the police and the Police Minister.

Geraldine Mullins President Australian Parent Movement

Workers' champion

M

any years ago I wrote a letter to the then editor of your worthy Catholic newspaper, in which I said: "The Labor Party is the real champion of the worker.

Soon after that statement of mine, the late Ben Chifley (God rest his gentle, immortal soul) repeated that mistaken statement of his and mine.

A then conscientious Labor Party sitting member, a fellow practising Roman Catholic corrected him and me, when he said rightly, prudently (God bless him for same): "Excuse me Mr Prime Minister, but the real champion of the worker is our holy Catholic Church."

I heartily agree with that conscientious, gentlemanly, Labor member of parliament The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen from the United States said many years ago in St Francis Church, Melbourne: "In voting, vote not along Party lines but according to moral worth".

God and Our Blessed Lady bless you, your staff and your readers.

Wally E Brosnan Guildford.

The Record,December 5 1996 Page 7

Biography of Mother Ursula Frayne

One of the great Irish missionaries of the 19th century

Mother Ursula Frayne, leader of the first Sisters of Mercy in Perth and Australia pictured through the medium of an early form of photography

The Sisters of Mercy in Perth and Melbourne will further celebrate 150 years of the Mercy Sisters In Australia next Thursday with the Perth launch of a biography of the leader of the founding Sisters, Mother Ursula Frayne. The author, Catherine Kovesi KiHerby gives this insight into the life of Mother 1Irsula Frayne.

W

hen Ursula Frayne landed in the village of Fremantle in 1846, aged only 28, she was already a seasoned missionary.

Born Clara Frayne in Dublin in 1817, Ursula joined the new and revolutionary order of the Sisters of Mercy in 1837 The Sisters of Mercy were the first unenclosed order of women religious in the history of the Catholic Church, dedicated by their rule to education (particularly of women) and to the exercise of mercy, wherever it was needed.

When penal restrictions against Catholics were lifted in 1829. Ireland had been able, once again. to become a world-wide source of Catholic missionaries, and the unenclosed status of the Sisters of Mercy enabled them to take an active part in this mission.

Ursula Frayne was to be one of missionary Ireland's greatest practitioners, a woman quintessentially of the great proselytising Victorian Age. As a Sister of Mercy she travelled over 55,000 miles, brought secondary education (for the first time) to Newfoundland and Australia, worked to better the situation of Aborigines, of immigrant Irish girls, of the poor, the uneducated, and those in need.

She wrote to Queen Victoria, and met Florence Nightingale and Pope Pius DC Ned Kelly tried hard to meet her.

'Ruined by foundress of the Sisters of Mercy, Catherine McAuley, whom she nursed in her final illness, Ursula remained focussed on the ideals of the Order of Mercy throughout her life.

A woman not readily deterred, Ursula was one of the founders of Irish Mercy establishments in Carlow and in Booterstown in Ireland.

In 1842 she was selected as the founding Mother Superior of a Mercy mission to Newfoundland.

After dealing with difficulties of climate, illness, and a belligerent bishop, Ursula returned to Dublin after eighteen months on the "fogdraped isle".

Two years later, her experience of sailing ships, new foundations, and isolated locations made Ursula the obvious choice for foundational Superior of the Sisters selected to bring their Order to Australia.

Ursula was not so sure about the appropriateness of her Superior's choice. "I never felt so humbled as I do now," she wrote, "but I feel even more for the poor Sisters who are obliged to call such a one as I am. Mother."

Despite these misgivings, Ursula was to be a Mother Superior in Australia for the rest of her life.

After a voyage of over 16,000 miles, lasting 113 days, Ursula and the other Sisters of Mercy, together with Bishop Brady and a group of missionaries which included Doms Salvado and Serra, landed on the shores of Fremantle at dawn on 8 January 1846.

They had disembarked in the most isolated settlement in the world, in the most sparsely populated and, to European eyes, strangest country in the world.

In intense heat, the like of which she had never experienced, in the marshy, mosquito infested village of Fremantle, Ursula listened to the Bishop intone the Te Deum, the traditional hymn of thanksgiving.

What Ursula and the other 28 missionaries did not realise was that they had been brought, at enormous expense, to a struggling colonial settlement whose inhabitants, far from being prepared for their arrival, were bewildered and bemused by it.

Though Bishop Brady had originally been appointed to Perth to answer the pastoral needs of a handful of Catholics (numbering no more than 337), on arrival he was carried away by the vision of

The Record,December 5 1996 Page 8

The first school building of the Mercy Sisters in Perth behind St John's Pro-Cathedral, left.

converting the Aboriginal peo- that the Sisters had to offer and her community busied themples. It was this vision - minister- the systematic way in which they selves with visiting newly arrived ing to a native population falsely taught it.

Irish immigrant women, the Perth estimated at two million, not to a The Sisters had a commitment lock-up, the Colonial Hospital, few Catholics of European origin to their teaching that secular and the Lunatic Asylum.

- that had lured his group of mis- teachers were unlikely to share.

In addition, they inaugurated a sionaries to the colony.

For them it was not merely a major fundraising campaign that Faced with the reality of the sit- poorly paid profession, but a resulted in the construction of a uation in Western Australia, sev- vocation that they had devoted large school-house in 1853. Ursueral of the missionaries lost their their lives to by a sacred vow. la's efforts were hampered, howlives and their resolve.

Perhaps the most significant ever, by Bishop Serra's animosity Characteristically undeterred, development for Ursula was the towards her.

Ursula and the Sisters immedi- arrival. on 19 September, 184Z of In 1856 she accepted an invitaately occupied themselves with the first Aboriginal child to the tion from Bishop GooId in Melthe works of mercy encompassed convent. bourne to establish a foundation by the rule of their order.

She arrived in Perth on the of the order in his diocese.

But it was to education that they shoulders of Dom Salvado. who Continued on the next page particularly devoted themselves, had found her alone and hungry and in this sphere made their real In the bush, the last member of mark on Australian society. her tribal group.

Ursula and her Sisters were the Little Kookina. "this precious litfirst women religious to arrive in tle atom of immortality" was bapthe West. and the first religious tised and given the name Mary teaching order to arrive and Christian. establish schools in Australia.

Soon she was joined by Mary They founded the first perma- Rose, Mary Catherine, Mary nent school in Western Australia Anne, Mary Clare, and Mary on 2 February 1846, and went on Cecilia. to establish the first secondary These girls were housed. school for girls in the whole of clothed, and fed by the Sisters, Australia (present-day Mercedes together with destitute European College). children.

Until their arrival, efforts to In the face of strong anthropoestablish education in the colony, logical arguments that Aboriginal particularly for girls, had been peoples were biologically and haphazard and sporadic. ethically inferior to Europeans.

A full seven years after the Ursula was emphatic in her assercolony's foundation, fewer than tion that: "They have rational and one hundred of the colony's esti- immortal souls, created to the mated six hundred school-age image and likeness of God." children were being educated in The Aboriginal girls in her care a school. were never, as some have assertWhen only one child turned up ed, educated separately from the on the first day of her school's other girls, although they were opening, Ursula and another Sis- given additional instruction in ter walked out evening after domestic skills to equip them for evening in search of pupils. their probable employment in Sometimes walking miles into domestic service. the bush, they eventually visited Ursula did, however, believe in every known cottage in the vicin- the superiority of her own culture ity of Perth, persuading parents of and felt that it was necessary to the value of educating their chil- separate Aboriginal children from dren. the influence of their parents in —Atrer rr—itli *ether At the end of three months they order for her efforts of conversion MARY LIRSUL A FRATNIC had 50 students in their school, to succeed. and by 23 August there were 100 Ursula's time in Perth was one sr r.sr. girls enrolled - a figure unheard of increasing turmoil in the of in the colony.

Catholic diocese as irreconcilable Ursula's success in attracting differences between Bishops pupils can partly be attributed to Brady and Serra resulted in this direct method of recruitment. schism.

But her success was also due to Though Ursula found herself the superiority of the education drawn into the dispute, she and Mother Ursula Frayne 's memorial MM.*

ear not Veer.

ewe

as rite ',ea

ineelr

er Wee, tes.....alealt.

ageteeikeee

freekSter

Ce, •••

ee Wet, eiceve, it . *Ilea, 11,a, Jeet MSC le tee See Nar•/, ow *VI . ntt 411'. sr lie• settee:ate eeeree We

AUETRA

re eta

* Amur.. *an.

e

ro•••••••c,tarAre ref eeeeee avocr eeeete teme,dere, se ew.arr. odnettere rot ea* ....LW Leet, ageeetets ni•

Features

Picking up Rwanda's pieces when there's nothing left Ra

By Patricia Zapor

oger Winter can't shake the vivid images of hackedpart bodies piled in Churches during massacres in Rwanda 30 months ago.

If he still gets stirred up about what he saw as an after-the-fact observer, the director of the US Committee for Refugees can understand why the 600,000 Rwandan refugees who went home in mid-November probably won't find it easy to return.

And it explains why the relief agencies working in the region see peace-building as a major goal.

"Our question in every project Is: 'Is it being implemented in a way that brings people together?" said David Palasits, director of Central Africa operations for Catholic Relief Services.

CRS, the US bishops' overseas relief and development agency, and the US Committee for Refugees are among dozens of international organisations in Rwanda trying to help the people and the government rebuild infrastructure, replant farms, construct new housing and heal a nation's emotional scars.

As an American travelling with troops of the Rwandan Patriotic Front in the spring of 1994, Winter was a fairly safe and detached observer to the aftermath of the grotesque murders of half a million Rwandans by their fellow countrymen.

Today, Winter is still haunted by mental images of babies hacked in two with machetes, of corpses with their genitals chopped out and of the faces of young Rwandan soldiers who came upon Churches piled with the mangled bodies of their relatives.

It helps him understand why

Rwandans returning home after two years in refugee camps in Zaire may not easily reconcile with those who stayed behind.

Most of the 1994 killings of 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were at the hands of Hutus.

When moderate Tutsi-Hutu factions took control of the government, many Hutus remained armed and militant in the refugee camps to which they fled along with hundreds of thousands of uninvolved Hutus who feared retaliation.

Some who stayed in Rwanda and now occupy the Hutus' homes are the survivors of massacre victims.

"It's shallow, Western thinking to use a term like reconciliation when 30 months ago these people saw their relatives being butchered," Winter said.

After spending the last two years in refugee camps dominated by the well-armed Hutus responsible for the 1994 massacres, 600,000 people picked up their few belongings and walked home in mid-November.

The dramatic exodus from a volatile political and military situation in Zaire swelled the population of Rwanda by 10 percent in 96 hours.

International aid agencies estimate as many as 600,000 Rwandan refugees remain in Zaire, in camps controlled by the militias or used as human shields by the former Rwandan Hutu soldiers.

As the situation in Zaire intensifies, aid agencies expect more Rwandans to return to the relative calm of their own country.

That will only add to the stressful situation faced by the refugees who returned in November, said Winter and Palasits.

While there were joyous reunions with family and friends,

An old woman, too sick to walk across the border into Rwanda, lies waiting for the Red Cross late last month as other refugees continue on their way.

many returning Hutu refugees found their farms and houses occupied.

Rwanda's new government is making progress toward rebuilding the country and recently approved the legal framework for prosecuting the perpetrators of the 1994 massacre, according to

Success after heat, sand Continued from previous page Poor School for the many poor and She and two other Sisters arrived neglected children in Melbourne who had no-one to give them schoolin Melbourne on 6 March 1857. ing.

Whilst Ursula's personal story lay By 1867 her Poor School had an in her pioneer foundations, in Melbourne, the most successful of her impressive daily average of 200 chilfoundations, her life became a series dren. of public achievements.

In addition to these institutionally In April 1857 she opened the first oriented works, the Sisters perCatholic secondary school for girls formed the usual round of visitation in Victoria and, by the end of the to the hospitals, jails, and asylums, and gave catechism instruction to year, 43 girls were enrolled.

She also devoted herself to adults.

In 1879 Ursula developed cancer orphaned Irish teenage girls who had been sent to Australia with gov- and from this date suffered progresernment-assisted passages in the sively from the symptoms of her illwake of the Irish Famine. ness. On 9 June 1885, she died.

Ursula soon saw that these girls The Sisters of the community had few defenders in the city. whom she had led for 28 years wantDescribed in the press as "the ed Ursula to be buried in the consweepings of the Irish workhouses," vent grounds. the immigrant girls' plight inspired Four years later her remains were Ursula to open a House of Mercy. re-interred in the chapel of the Each year this House of Mercy Immaculate Conception, built in her admitted about 60 women who were memory and subsequently renamed sheltered, maintained, and clothed the Ursula Frayne Memorial Chapel. free of charge and were also trained In its account of the opening and in the duties of domestic service and blessing of this chapel, the Melprovided with respectable employbourne Catholic newspaper, The ment.

Advocate, said of Mother Mary In 1861, just three months after the Ursula Frayne that: "Amongst the opening of the House of Mercy, high and the lowly, the sick and the Ursula took over formal administra- poor, she was a benefactress during tion of the Catholic Orphanage at a long and well-spent life . . . . She Emerald Hill. was indeed, in all things a true The following year she opened a daughter of Our Lady of Mercy."

Winter. But there isn't nearly enough housing and productive farmland to accommodate the needs of its population.

The shortage of resources coupled with suspicion, fear and lingering anger makes the task facing CRS and the Committee for Refugees a complex sociological

problem as well as a basic rescue project.

"Most of the survivor population in the country saw these terrible things," Winter said.

"Now we're asking them to reconcile when there's been no justice.

"I have a feeling the shortage of housing alone is going to be a major threat to Rwanda's stability," he said.

Palasits said CRS is approaching the task by being as transparent as possible - making goals clear, discussing everything with the community involved, heading off misinformation and suspicion.

That is done by hiring and "trying to create a situation so people who might not otherwise talk to each other have the space to do so," he said.

Palasits said the Catholic bishops of Burundi, which is experiencing similar upheaval, have been fairly successful in insisting that all decisions affecting an area include local chieftains, farmers. government and any other faction.

'The bishops have told us that these communities are far less vulnerable to extremist manipulation." Palasits said.

Winter is encouraged by several things happening in Rwanda, including the steady - albeit slow - progress toward prosecuting the perpetrators of the massacre.

The US embassy in Kigali, Rwanda, reported at least 350 former soldiers have admitted their part in the massacres. Winter said.

He thinks the peace-building approach may succeed, he said.

"If we can help make this happen, it will be one of the greatest victories the refugee community has ever seen."

Advertisement

Court Government permits baby killing "The Lord hates.., hands that shed innocent blood (Proverbs 6:16-17) On Christmas Eve 1990, in a letter to a correspondent concerned about the 8,000 abortions then being carried out annually in Western Australia, Richard Court wrote: The creation of new life is one of those precious gifts given to us and the abuse of abortion in our society warrants a massive campaign against it.

When he was subsequently elected as Premier in 1993 there was reason to hope that he might at least make some effort to reduce the number of Western Australian babies killed by abortion each year. This hope has been cruelly disappointed as the tide of the blood of the innocents has dramatically risen under Mr Court's Government.

The number of abortions performed in WA has now passed the 10,000 mark and is now equal to the number of deaths from all other causes. Of these abortions 1,400 are carried out in public hospitals under the direct responsibility of the Court Government. The others are carried out openly in private facilities by doctors who know that the Court Government, despite its rhetoric on law and order, has no intention of bringing them to justice for their violation of the WA Criminal Code.

Sadly, the Court Government has also presided over a dramatic increase in the killing of disabled children before birth. Using genetic screening tests, actively promoted to all pregnant women b) the Health Department of WA, with the full endorsement of Health Minister Kevin Prince, children with Down's Syndrome and other disabilities are identified and eliminated. Since Richard Court was elected the number of disabled children killed has multiplied 152% from 70 in 1992 to 107 in 1995.

On November 4th, 1996 the West Australian reported that Mr Court had said that "his government did not intend to make it... more difficult to get an abortion".

In commenting on the recent legalisation of abortion in Poland, Pope John Paul II said: A people who kills its own children is a people without a future.

Mr Court is promising a better, brighter, more prosperous Western Australia. How can he do this when the blood of nearly 40,000 children killed in Western Australia since he became Premier cries from the ground?

Written and authorised by B.A. Peachey, 48 Carrick St, Woodlands 6018.

The Record,December 5 1996 Page 9

WA election 1996

Unemployment tops the agenda S

ocially concerned Christians should find it difficult to wholeheartedly support either of the major parties in the coming state election because of their common commitment to the 'gospel' of economic rationalism.

The term 'economic rationalism' has been bandied about so much that for most people its meaning is not clear.

I understand it to mean commitment to the market forces as the most efficient and effective allocator of resources in society Under this economic philosophy the end goal of efficiency is used to justify any means to that end. So, for example, jobs are lost and lives destroyed in the name of market efficiency.

Our faith holds that we have to consider means. We have to consider policy impacts on real persons and real families.

This sensitivity to means, to the impact on real persons and real families is reflected in the Catholic Bishops recent pastoral statement, A New Beginning - Eradicating Poverty in Our World, when they say, 'The economy needs to be subservient to human needs and human purpose. That is, the economy is part of society, serving it, and not the other way around.

The economy is made for human beings,

not human beings for the economy. . . . in its more radical forms, the philosophy underlying economic rationalism is inconsistent with both the Scriptures and the Catholic tradition."

Economic rationalism has contributed massively to the serious problem of job security and unemployment by privatising and cutting the public service, by outsourcing work, by removing tariffs and allowing jobs to be exported, by allowing the unrestrained increase in working hours, the cuts to social welfare and by marginalising the role of trade unions.

In short, the lives of ordinary Australians are being cut to pieces by these policy decisions.

Frank Simons had worked for the Water Authority for the past 20 years. He was a qualified technician who felt that he really made a contribution to society Through his work, he was able to support his family which included two young children.

Six months ago he was called to the CEO's office. He was told that his job had been outsoumed to a private contractor. His services would no longer be required. Shattered, his entire world had collapsed.

If Frank was alone in this, we might find ways to support his family. He's not alone.

He's one of thousands who have been affected by these slash and burn policies.

As we enter this election over 69 000 people are in receipt of unemployment based payments.

The state rate is 7.6% unemployed.

But for the young and for indigenous Australians the rate is far higher.

Our Bishops in their latest poverty document have said that, 'Unemployment is the greatest single factor involved in the poverty of sole parents and young single people'.

The Western Australian Council of Social Service in 'A Call to the Parties' states that 'Eradicating unemployment must be our top priority because it is the most savage determinant of poverty and disadvantage in our community. It causes misery and despair for hundreds of thousands of people and their families and rips the hearts of our communities'.

What I fear is a hardening of heart towards those who are unemployed.

There is a cynicism about the unemployed with many believing that there are jobs available if 'they' want Your local candidate to get them. Our government does for Kalgoorlie/Boulder nothing about this myth because its is committed very polices are driving people into unemployment. to family values As a ChristianIbelieve the issue of Authorised by G. Abel unemployment should be the num50 Dugan St. Kalgoorlie ber one agenda item for all parties on December 14.

Karen McGay 1 111

Make your vote count

Peter Stewart Their polling, however, tells them that we as a conununity don't really care and the unemployed can wait for another day.

As a youngster,I was taught that the state had certain responsibilities to its citizens and private enterprise had other responsibilities.

I knew we, the citizens of Western Australia, owned a bus service, we had an excellent hospital system; state schools and universities were free.

The gardens at our schools were well kept, in fact the school gardener often coached the cricket and football team.

The government had a commitment to providing affordable housing for all.

We owned our banks and knew that our savings were guaranteed by the government.

But times have changed and the social fabric that nurtured our society then has been ripped apart.

The economist rationalists now tell us we have to reduce public spending; user pays policies must fund government services.

We need more flexibility in the job market so we allow private contractors to undercut the jobs of thousands of men and women who have cared for our communiThese are the cooks and cleaners in our hospitals and schools, the gardeners and maintenance workers who cared for our parks and public buildings; the tradespeople who built and repaired our state housing, who serviced our power system.

They are the tellers and bank managers who knew their customers by name.

My ailing mother-in-law knows what it's like to spend weeks in overcrowded wards with harassed and overworked staff but she is one of the lucky ones.

As we approach 14 December we have in excess of 12,000 people who are on waiting lists at our hospitals.

Recently, when launching the National Party election campaign, Hendy Cowan is reported to have conceded that the state government cut too deeply into health and education funding in its haste to introduce financial reform and balance the budget.

The Western Australian Council of Social

Nick Catania MP

Strongly supports: - Family/Community values - Aged/Seniors Security

Michelle Roberts MLA Member of State Parliament

Michelle Roberts understands the real issues facing families.

As a former Mercedes College student, high school teacher and mother of two young daughters, she knows the importance of maintaining the highest standards of education for all of our children. She has the priorities right.

MICHELLE ROBERTS —A STRONG VOICE FOR MIDLAND

- Catholic Education for all - Accessible Health Care - Full time jobs - Crime Prevention Strategies

Gefthis the priorities right in Yokine Authonsed by Ian Taylor, Koorda St, Coolbinia 6050

The Record,December 5 1996 Page 10

Service in A Call to the Parties - A Social Vision for Western Australia has said: " An effective economic policy requires achieving a pragmatic balance between long term goals and current realities so that the commitment to improved domestic and global competitiveness is not driven by rigid formulas blind to their economic and social impact."

They go on to say: "Corporatisation and privatisation of public enterprises and services has in some cases boosted State revenue in the short term and resulted in improved efficiencies. However, these developments have also highlighted a danger of declining public services, the watering down of community services obligations and loss of public accountability."

As a community we have a right to know how the economic development policies of the different parties are going to benefit the community.

As Christians we must take stock of the impact economic policies have on the poor.

This will challenge us to delve into areas where we seldom go. For the most part, our churches have become places for the middle and upper classes to gather.

The poor seldom darken our doors. Most of us don't see them or know their life situations. So as Catholics we've got a lot of work to do before this election.

Perhaps an essential action for all Catholics preparing to vote on 14 December would be to read A New BeginningEradicating Poverty in our World This pastoral statement from the Australian Catholic Bishops will go part of the way to helping us understand what has been happening with our economy and why we seem to have a climate of anxiety and insecurity in our community.

There are a number of fundamental principles enunciated in Catholic social teaching that should guide us when deciding how we should view the economy of our state.

Hot off the press is the US Bishops' document A Catholic Framework for Economic Life. They speak to us in WA when they say: "All economic life should be shaped by moral principles. Economic choices and institutions must be judged by how they protect or undermine the life and dignity of the human person, support the family, serve the common good and care for the earth."

I, for one, want an assurance from the parties that there will be a halt to the savage cuts to essentials services like health, education, childcare and housing.

I would urge both parties to conduct a social audit of the impact these cuts are having on West Australians and especially our most disadvantaged.

As Catholics we have to go back to our scriptures and our rich fabric of social teaching if we are to make any sense of what the political parties and their leaders are saying to our community.

Continued on Page 14

ROB BROWN Liberal for Rockingham

Proud to support the Catholic Community in Rockingham Office: 5/33 Rockingham Rd, Rockingham Phone: 528 1199 Fax: 527 1155 A/H : 593 3356 Postal: PO Box 314, Rockingham 6168

LIBERAL

Rob's the one building the future with the people of Rockingham Authorised by Jane Harste. 13 Cowan Place. Safety Bay 6169

WA Election 1996

Both parties compromised As the 14 December WA state election approaches, The Record offers two analyses of the policies and personalities from two Catholics working for social justice - National Civic Council state secretary Richard Egan, below, and Christian Centre for Social Action director Peter Stewart opposite.

T

he key issues in Australia It was with the State election today are matters that only imminent that John Halden was a Federal Government can stood down as Opposition Leader tackle. in the Legislative Council. He The threats to our sovereignty remains unrepentant, still headand well-being, not to say sur- ing the ALP ticket for the South vival, in the brave new world of Metropolitan Region. globalisation, economic rationalThe ALP remains committed to ism and mass unemployment, decriminalising marijuana, proscan only be met by a Federal Gov- titution and abortion, while introernment prepared to implement ducing more pro-homosexual reforms that, while unpalatable in legislation. the short-term, provide the only Leading Catholic Nip, Nick Catahope for the future. nia, had himself photographed Nonetheless, a state election is launching the ALP's prostitution of vital importance to citizens. policy outside the door of a KalThe WA Government spends goorlie brothel. nearly $7 billion of our money He is also featured, looking annually, and state Parliaments, somewhat uncomfortable, in a even in this age of centralism and paid ALP advertisement in the internationalism, retain signifi- homosexual press, along with cant law making powers over ALP candidates and homosexual matters that affect the fundamen- activists Louise Pratt and Neil tal character of our society.

Roberts, as part of "your inner Every election is about the alter- city team working for equality". natives.

What of the Court Government?

The Labor Party cannot be seriIt has achieved its own stated ously considered as an alterna- goal of balancing the books after tive government for Western the disastrous years of WA Inc. Australia.

Given the scale of the damage It's policy on drugs, prostitution. done this achievement should not abortion and homosexuality is be underestimated. destructive of the common good.

The Premier is now talking of It is still the party of scandals - the "social dividend" that the GovWA Inc. the Easton Affair and. ernment can afford having most recently. the Wanneroo Inc achieved this fiscal priority. headhunt - in which the key playHowever, the Court Governers and their history must neces- ment, along with its Coalition Fedsarily be considered alongside eral counterpart. remains the policies they enunciate. committed to the same economic The present leader, Dr Geoff rationalist policies that caused Gallop, was one of a group of New voters to desert Labor in droves at Class academics on the make the last Federal election. who welcomed the new corpoIn the face of mass unemployrate state introduced by Brian ment the line is still to sell off Burke. assets, to downsize. to deregulate In 1986 while still an academic and to drop trade barriers, with at Murdoch University, Dr Gallop no regard for the immediate or poured scorn on early critics of long-term prospects of those famWA Inc. praising the links ilies who thereby lose their breadbetween Burke's Government winner or those young people and big business. who may never get a job.

He claimed that such close ties If Coalition governments continwould educate "sections of the ue down this path then it is mil business sector in this state. . . . a matter of time before the votto the inherent plausibility and ers likewise desert them. productivity of social democraIt remains to be seen if the Labor cy".

Party will then capitalise on the Well, that's one way to describe growing disillusionment by the Burke Government's influ- embracing genuinely alternative ence on the behaviour of Bond, economic policies that put AusConnell, Dempster et al. tralian jobs and well-being before Later when Dr Gallop entered the financial interest.

Parliament, he, with Carmen When youth unemployment in Lawrence and David Smith, Western Australia dropped to 23 formed the majority of the Parlia- per cent in January 1996, this was mentary committee which hailed as good news by Employendorsed the notorious sale of the ment and Training Minister, NorMidland abattoirs. man Moore, who claimed there Jim McGinty remains Deputy was "room for great optimism in Leader. He was one of the first WA regarding employment". batch of Labor Party activists Yet the Court Government has parachuted into highly paid pub- done nothing to increase the perlic service jobs in the early, heady centage of young people days of the Burke Government. employed in the public service, Mr McGinty praised Burke's where base grade jobs which achievements following his resig- once gave many young people a nation in 1988 saying "The Burke start in life, now go to married Government memory will be one women returning to the workthat established Labor as the nat- force in search of a second famiural Government in a conserva- ly income. tive State".

Mr Court has been taken to task Mr McGinty's leadership role in by the chattering classes for his recklessly pursuing allegations opposition to Mr Keating's Native against Mrs Cheryl Edwardes, Title Legislation. later found to be ill-founded by However, this law is yet to delivthe Wanneroo Royal Commis- er any real benefits to WA Abosion, was a key factor in his rigines while causing genuine demise as Leader. problems not just for the mining Dr Carmen Lawrence and John industry but also for pastoralists Halden were both found to have and small business landholders lied by the Easton Royal Com- in places like Kununurra. Mr mission.

Court's alternative proposals have Although Dr Gallop and Mr some merit as more workable.

McGinty gave testimony contraThe Court Government has dicting Dr Lawrence and Mr stood firm on drugs, refusing to Ilalden, their public line was that consider decriminalisation of these were mere differences in marijuana, and setting up a new recollection.

Drugs Taskforce, which is work-

ing on a public education campaign against drug use.

The Government refused to give in to the homosexual lobby's demand for further legal privileges, correctly taking a party room decision to oppose Yvonne Henderson's Equal Opportunity Amendment Bill, despite several MPs, including Hendy Cowan (Deputy Premier and Leader of the National Party) and Kim Hames (Liberal, Yolcine) expressing some support for the Bill.

On prostitution, the Government has allowed the virtual abandonment of the containment policy by Police Commissioner.

Bob Falconer while Police Minister, Bob Wiese, has publicly advocated legalisation.

The Premier has opposed this move in Cabinet but nothing has been done to reinforce containment or to stop the proliferation of new brothels and the burgeoning advertising of commercial sex services in the daily press.

While National Party backbenchers have resisted progressivist social policies, and the Party as a whole has helped slow the trend towards deregulated trading hours and other measures inimical to small business and family life, it is disappointing to see two National Party ministers performing so badly on key social policy issues.

Democrats. Greens and Independents are tipped to play a big role in this election, with speculation about them controlling the balance of power.

Richard Egan Democrats and Greens continue to support progressivist social policies, including support for the homosexual agenda and abortion on demand.

Independents cannot be considered as a group. Ernie Bridge (Kimberley) has a strong vision for developing Australia based on proper use of our great water resources.

He has a sensible approach to Aboriginal policy issues and a good record on social policy.

He opposes the homosexual agenda and, alone among ALP members in the assembly, voted against the Medical Care of the Dying Bill, rightly pointing out the dangers to vulnerable patients.

Sani Piantadosi. contesting Yokine against his former colleague Nick Catania and Liberal Dr Kim Hames, is opposed to the decriminalisation of marijuana. the homosexual agenda and legalised prostitution.

Phil Pendal. sitting Independent

in South Perth, is a Catholic with a strong pro-life record - he attended the recent Cemetery of the Innocents event.

However, in this term he ignored public warnings from Archbishop Hickey about the dangerous implications of two Bills - the Medical Care of the Dying Bill and the Equal Opportunity Amendment Bill - in both cases voting with the ALP for the Bill.

Peter Spencer, his Liberal opponent, is also a practising Catholic who is firmly opposed to abortion and euthanasia.

Liz Constable (Floreat) and Penny Hearne (Alfred Cove) are both pro-abortion.

Call To Australia is worth considering. The media denigrates Fred Nile's party as focused solely on moral issues, but the leading local candidate Gerard Goiran, standing for the East Metropolitan Region, is demonstrating a broad grasp of public policy.

In any case, a vote for CIA may be the best way of reminding the Court Government about the importance of a conservative social policy and expressing disapproval of the Liberals' preference deal with the Democrats.

Two other issues should be considered by Catholic voters.

The State Government saves $4,200 per year for each student attending a non-government school, a total of $320 million.

The Coalition has failed to fulfil its 1993 election promise to increase the annual per capita payments for children in the nongovernment sector to at least 25 per cent of the real average government school recurrent costs per pupil.

Continued on Page 14

Aovertisemen*

Right to Life Australia State Election RTLA cannot recommend any of the major parties. either Coalition or Labor. While in office, all major parties have looked the other way while abortion numbers have climbed to over 10.000. as many as all other causes of death put together. The Premier's recent statement on abortion is typical.

Minor parties like the Australian Democrats, the WA Greens and the Australian Marijuana Party should not be thought of as harmless single-issue groups. Their policies support abortion, and in the case of the Democrats and the Marijuana Party, euthanasia also. Pm-life voters should not vote for them. Call to Australia, on the other hand, is unreservedly pro-life.

RTLA recommends voters to look at individual candidates in deciding how to vote. The following candidates have a solid pro-life public record and/or have responded satisfactorily to RTLA:S questionnaire recently sent to all candidates: Armadale: Palmer, R Andretta. T Lib Vasse Ind Fokkema, S Warren/Blackwood Omodei, P Lib Ind Ballajura Parker R YokineCatania, N ALP Lib Collie Turnbull, H Nat Legislative Council Fremantle Mallis, M Lib Kimberley Bridge, E Ind Agricultural Charlton, E Lib/Nat Mitchell Prowse, T Nat East Metropolitan Griffiths, N ALP Pilbara Palumbo, D Lib Doust, K ALP Riverton Kierath, G Lib North Metropolitan Derrner, E ALP Parker, L Roe Ind Mining/Pastoral Stephens, T ALP Roleystone Tubby, F Lib We also recommend the following party votes Lib South Perth Spencer, P in the Legislative Council: Shave, M Southern River CFA East Metropolitan CIA 1 Dowsett, T Ind Wanneroo South-West CFA 1 McLean, I Lib Authonsecl by Ted Watt 1 Kott Toe. Claremont 6010

In Girrawheen vote 1

Ted Cunningham AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY The Record,December 5 1996 ,Pag? 11

International News

Prim unit acy 'selv y' es Murderer In Brief

suicides

BOSTON (CNS) - Boston Cardinal Bernard Law responded to news of the apparent suicide of convicted murderer John Salvi III by praying for him and for his parents, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston said.

Salvi, a 24-year-old Catholic hairdresser from New Hampshire, killed two people and wounded five others during a 1994 shooting spree at two abortion clinics in suburban Boston.

He was found dead in his cell on November 29.

Weakland op MILWAUKEE (CNS) - Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland underwent surgery on November 26 at St Joseph Hospital for an enlarged prostate gland.

His surgeon. Dr John Pope, performed routine prostate surgery to relieve a blockage.

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Because the Bishop of Rome is meant to serve and guarantee the unity of the Church, any progress in defining the essential elements of papal primacy will help the ecumenical movement, Pope John Paul II said.

A Catholic exploration of primacy, he said, "far from constituting a difficulty for ecumenical dialogue, represents a necessary condition for it" because the dialogue must be based on truth.

Pope John Paul made his comments in a message to a December 2-4 symposium on "The Primacy of the Successor of Peter," sponsored by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The Pope as Bishop of Rome his role, power and authority in the Church - is one of the key questions still dividing Christians.

An Anglican and a Lutheran scholar also participated in the

meeting of theologians and ity." In order to ensure God's will "One must distinguish the experts. In his message, the Pope that all his children be one, the divinely instituted substance of said the participants' conclusions Pope said, "primacy is exercised the Petrine ministry from the conwould "offer an important contri- at various levels, which regard crete forms or expressions of its bution to the service of the con- serving the unity of the faith, vig- exercise," which developed over tinuation of the theological ilance over sacramental and litur- the course of history, Cardinal dialogue." gical celebrations, over mission, Ratzinger said.

Their task, he said, would be to discipline and Christian life, but Meanwhile, in a separate mesoutline "the essential elements of in the awareness that all of this sage to the ecumenical Patriarch the doctrine of the Catholic faith must always be accomplished in of Constantinople, Pope John Paul on this aspect of ecclesiology, dis- communion." said the faith that Catholics and tinguishing them from questions The question is important not Orthodox already share calls which are legitimately disputable only for the internal life of the them to work even harder to or, at least, not binding in a defin- Church, he said. become one. itive way."

"It is a way and instrument of "By reason of the very nature of What is under discussion, he evangelisation: The very fate of the communion already existing said, is the way in which the pri- the new evangelisation is tied to between us, we must pray more macy is exercised. witnessing the unity of the intensely and continue our search "The Catholic Church is aware Church, of which the successor of with perseverance," the pope said of having preserved, in fidelity to Peter is the guarantee and visible in his November 30 message. the apostolic tradition and the sign," the Pope said.

The papal message was delivfaith of the Fathers, the ministry of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, pre- ered to Orthodox Patriarch the successor of Peter, which God fect of the doctrinal congregation, Bartholomew Iby a high-level Vatestablished as the perpetual and told participants on December 2 ican delegation, including Cardivisible source of the unity" of the their work would build on a 1989 nal Edward Clancy, representing Christian faithful, the Pope said.

Vatican symposium that explored the Pope at celebrations marking The papal service to unity, he the primacy of the Bishop of the feast of St Andrew, the patron said, "would be illusory" if it were Rome before the great split of the Patriarchate, based in Istanemptied of its "power and author- between the East and West. bul.

Year of Jesus begins in Rome, Pope Ban still Vocations on Net urges Christians to find God's glory on Vassula

BUFFALO, NEW YORK (CNS) - Bishop Henry Mansell of Buffalo has posted a letter on the Internet in which he invites young men to consider the priesthood.

The bishop took his theme from the Gospel of Mark, inviting young men to "Come and see," just as Jesus had invited Peter and his brother Andrew.

The Buffalo Diocese home page's address is http:// www.buffalodiocese.org.

Cardinal dies ROME (CNS) - Belgian Cardinal Jean Jerome Hamer, a Dominican who served as head of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life from 1984 until his retirement in January 1992, died on December 2 at the age of 80.

The cardinal, hospitalised in Rome four days before his death, developed pulmonary complications and died of cardiac arrest, Vatican Radio reported.

Evangelise Islam VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope John Paul has encouraged bishops from West Africa to focus more effort on involving lay people in missionary work and education.

The pontiff also pointed out that most of the faithful in western Africa have constant, daily contact with Muslims, contact they should view as an opportunity to evangelise.

Kuwait message VATICAN CITY (CNS) - During a three-day visit to Kuwait, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran of the Vatican Secretariat of State stressed the importance of the Kuwaiti constitution's recognition of religious freedom. Archbishop Tauran was visiting from November 23-25 for meetings with Catholics and government officials.

The 100,000-member Catholic community is comprised of foreigners, mostly from India, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and other Arab countries.

By Cindy Wooden VAFICAN CITY (CNS) - As candles brightened the darkened interior of St Peter's Basilica, Pope John Paul II urged Catholics around the world "to discover the glory of God that is revealed in Christ."

The Pope celebrated a special evening prayer service on November 30, the eve of the first Sunday of Advent, to mark the beginning of three years of prayer, study and charitable acts in preparation for the Holy Year 2000.

"This itinerary will lead us to the threshold of the Holy Door which I will open, if it pleases God, on the night of Christmas 1999," the Pope said, referring to the practice of opening a brickedup door in St Peter's Basilica at the beginning of a Holy Year.

Pope John Paul has asked Catholics to focus their prayer and study in the first year on the person of Jesus Christ.

"Becoming man, the Son of God embraced human time with his humanity to guide men and

women ... toward eternity and to At the end of the liturgy, the lead them to a participation in Pope led the congregation in divine life, the true heredity of reciting a prayer he wrote for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit," Catholics to recite during 1997 as the Pope said. part of their preparation for the "The Liturgy of Light," which jubilee. preceded the prayer service, was Continuing his comments about designed to invoke the truth that Advent and the upcoming jubilee Christ is the light of the world, on December 1 during his midsaid Archbishop Sergio Sebas- day blessing, the Pope said, "the tian', secretary-general of the Vat- coming three years will be a time ican's jubilee preparatory of strong spiritual and apostolic committee. commitment for the local "It is as if we are living in a world churches spread throughout the of darkness: the darkness of dis- world." order, corruption, violence, hatr"With the jubilee, the Church ed, materialism, hedonism," the Intends to appeal to everyone's archbishop told Vatican Radio. heart so that they will grow in lis"In this darkness, we become tening to God and in the constant aware that there is a light which search for fraternal solidarity," he can guide us, which can truly give said. meaning to our lives, and it is "Now is the time to defeat lazitoward this light that we must ness and mediocrity, renewing walk," he said. our entire existence in the light of In his homily during the prayer the Gospel," Pope John Paul said. service, the Pope said that Christ's "Now is the time to rediscover victory over sin and death has the value of prayer," he said. made it possible for all people to "Along with prayer," he said, accomplish good in his name. "there also must be a strong comThat possibility, he said, must mitment of charity toward our become a reality as Christians needy brothers and sisters in work for "authentic peace, the whom we encounter and serve fruit of justice and love."

Christ."

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - The Vatican has re-confirmed its warning to Catholics against the "alleged heavenly revelations" of writer Vassula Ryden, an Orthodox Christian who has become popular among Catholics in several countries.

Last year, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith cautioned Catholics that Ryden's "revelations" were merely the result of private meditations and contained doctrinal errors.

It told bishops not to provide any opportunity in their dioceses for the dissemination of her ideas. The congregation's latest statement, issued on November 29, said its warning maintains its "full force".

In its 1995 statement, the congregation said Ryden's writings contained several doctrinal errors, including: • Ambiguity and confusion about the Trinity.

• Prophesying a final intervention of God on earth to initiate a worldwide era of peace, even before Christ's definitive coming.

Doubts over Church of Nativity's weeping icon of Christ

By Judith Sudilovsky BETHLEHEM, West Bank (CNS) - Pilgrims and tourists flocked to the Church of the Nativity to see a painting of Jesus that allegedly wept.

The Jerusalem Post quoted Sadika Hamida, 60, a cleaner at the Church, as saying she had seen the tears.

"At first I couldn't believe my eyes," she was quoted as saying.

"It was only whenI got closer that I realised that the tears were real. This is the will of God." On November 28, newspapers and television broadcasts were full of the reports of the weeping painting, located on a marble column near the entrance to the grotto believed by many to be the exact spot where Jesus was born.

The pictures showed a tear rolling down Jesus' left eve.

The next day people were saying they had seen the eyes on the painting blink as well.

"Something remarkable is happening in Bethlehem," a spokesman for Greek Orthodox Archbishop Diodoros was reported as

The Record,December 5 1996 Page 12

dark 12th-century painting. 'Some people have seen his eyes open and close. But sometimes if you stare at something for a long time you start to see things.Ican't see anything different (from before). I can't tell."

If it is true, he added, ills a warning sign from Jesus.

"It is probably a sign from God," agreed Jerusalem resident Ida Stephanian, 43, who had come with her husband and child to see the painting.

One man who had come to see the painting said it was possible that because the painting is on a marble column, some chemical property of the stone had caused what looked like Pilgrims pray on their knees before an ancient icon tears to form.

Certain chemical properties can cause conof Jesus reported to have wept last month. densation that will appear like a tear on a saying. A statement from the Latin-rite Patri- painting. archate of Jerusalem said it would investigate The man added that he had not seen the the reports. tears, but he did not want to rule out the posAt the Church, shared by Catholics and sibility that it was happening.

Orthodox, a group of about 20 local residents Some people were cynical, saying they gathered around the painting, straining to believed the reports were a ploy to boost catch a glimpse of the tears. tourism during the pre-Christmas season.

"Some people here believe it, some don't, Hotels have had a spate of cancellations but most people believe it," said Nab!! Nazi, since the gun battles between Palestinian 34, of Bethlehem, as he looked up toward the police and the Israeli army in late September.

International News

Vatican shop lies at bottom of a fishy affair

By John Thavis VATICAN CITY (CNS) - The story smelled a little fishy from the start.

According to a British newspaper, a Scottish seafood company cut off Pope John Paul H's supply of smoked salmon in November because the Vatican didn't pay its bill.

The president of Hebridean Seafoods, John McKenzie, told the Sunday Telegraph that it took a miracle to get money out of the Vatican - it was easier to multiply loaves and fishes, he said.

Not true, said the Vatican.

The Holy See, it said, had cancelled the contract with Hebridean after seven months because the quality of the fish wasn't up to par.

During that period, the Vatican said, it paid its bill in full: $24,000 for "McKenzie's Smokehouse"

brand salmon. All of which left just one question: Who's eating all the smoked salmon in Vatican City?

This wasn't fishsticks, after all, but the vacuum-packed gourmet item that's usually found at cocktail parties.

Vatican City boasts a population of 471; any way you slice it, that's a lot of salmon canapes per capita.

But it wasn't the Pope eating them, anyway, the Polish-born pontiff reportedly prefers Baltic herring as a piscatorial treat.

The salmon trail, as most insiders guessed immediately, eventually led to a nondescript building a few hundred feet inside Vatican City gates, across from the Vatican pharmacy and kitty-corner to the post office.

There's no sign on the door. But the hundreds of bargain-seeking shoppers who pack its aisles don't need one: To get to the Vatican

Supermarket, just follow the multitude.

Technically known as the "Spaccio Annonario," the supermarket. perhaps after the Sistine Chapel. is one of the most crowded spots on the Vatican City map.

It's open to current or retired Vatican employees, but appointed delegates can purchase here, too, and so can diplomats accredited to the Holy See and religious orders.

All in all, that puts the Vatican shopping population well into the thousands. They enter under the watchful eyes of police, with magnetic pass cards needed to open the doors.

Most people bring their cars, because they need it to haul away the volume of discounted goods.

It's not unusual to see a mother superior carting off several hundred dollars worth of meat, or an elderly couple with a case of Austrian butter. What's attractive here

are the low prices on items ranging from coffee to shoe polish to - yes - smoked salmon.

It's considered a built-in benefit for Vatican City workers, who theoretically are paid somewhat less than their Italian counterparts.

No Italian taxes or tariffs are paid on goods sold here, so some departments offer particular bargains.

On the liquor shelf. for example, a good bottle of bourbon can be

had for about $2 The dairy section sells milk and yogurt from the cows at the papal villa in Castel Gandolfo outside Rome, and fresh eggs from the papal farm are available.

In a nearby aisle, "Villa Pontificia" brand extra-virgin olive oil sells for about $10 a litre.

The supermarket implemented bar codes and other modernities only last year, when it remodelled and expanded. An adjunct now sells kitchen utensils and appliances.

A shoe department was added last year, and when it ordered 100 pairs of world-famous Doc Martens boots, the Pope's name was again mistakenly dragged into the consumer limelight.

When Pope Pius XI inaugurated the complex in 1931, he rode a forklift down the aisles.

Back in those days, smoked salmon was not so prominent in the Vatican City diet.

octors Open eyes to abuse D relieved 'of the mentally ill' Mother Teresa agreed to test

By John Thavis

CALCUTTA, India (UCAN) Doctors attending Mother Teresa expressed their relief when the head of the Missionaries of Charity finally agreed on November.

26 to undergo a coronary angiography after three days of persistent requests.

The 86-year-old nun had refused to undergo new tests or treatment, saying. "Let me die like those that I serve," much to the dismay of the six-doctor team attending her at the Woodlands Nursing Home (WNH) in Calcutta.

Doctor Sudipta Sen. WNH director, said Mother Teresa agreed to. the tests after the doctors argued that she would return to those she wants to serve only after getting well, and for that such treatment is a must.

Mother Teresa was admitted to WIVE at 2:30 am on November 22 with acute left ventricular heart failure, which doctors said was serious, but not as bad as her condition when she was first admitted here on August 21.

The "living saint of Calcutta" feels that India's poor cannot afford the treatment and care she receives and there is no reason for her to be entitled to them, the Times ofIndia newspaper said on November 26.

Leprosy patients pray for the life of Mother Teresa in India's eastern city of Calcutta on December 1.

CNS

The latest test will be conducted at nearby B. M. Birla Hospital, where American Doctor Patricia Aubanel performed angioplasty on the nun in 1991.

This time, Aubanel flew in from the United States after Missionaries of Charity nuns called her at night on November 25.

She chose B. M. Birla Hospital as the place to conduct the test and

another angioplasty procedure if necessary.

Mother Teresa was moved in to B. M. Birla on November 26 at 5 pm.

The test is expected to be conducted in a day or two, but hospital sources declined to confirm dates.

Mother Teresa suffers from narrowing arteries, Sen said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope John Paul II joined Church and medical experts in urging respect and legal protection for the mentally ill, estimated to number up to one-fourth of modern society.

'The person who suffers from a mental illness .... always has the inalienable right not only to be considered an image of God and therefore a person, but to be treated as such," the Pope told several hundred participants at a Vaticansponsored conference November.

30.

Despite progress in diagnosing and treating mental illnesses, he said, many of those who suffer from such disturbances still meet with indifference or exploitation.

"We cannot close our eyes- to such abuses, he said.

While promising Church support, he asked the political community to also respond.

The three-day conference, sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, brought together theologians, doctors, state officials and researchers to discuss how the mentally ill can be better understood and helped.

A first step is to recognise that mental illnesses are widespread, many participants said.

According to a World Health Organisation study in 14 countries, 24 percent of those seeing a doctor had diagnosable mental disorders.

The conference heard encouraging reports on successful methods in treating mental illnesses.

Among the most unusual was a form of "prayer" therapy.

According to an experiment car-

ried out by Father Bonifacio Honings, an Italian theologian. and Pierluigi Zucchi, a pain expert. the pain threshold was raised among patients who regularly read and meditated on the Bible.

They said their findings suggested that the spiritual aspects of pain and mental disturbances should not be ignored.

Several speakers tied the large number of mental illnesses today to recent societal trends toward greater individuality, personal freedom and independence from traditional values.

Father Tony Anatrella, a French psychoanalyst and researcher, said a diminishing of community ties means individuals have less human support in dealing with anxieties and similar problems.

Modern society has created a basically "narcissistic man" who is frequently accompanied by depression, he said.

Sister Andrea Calvo Prieto, who works among the mentally ill in Cameroon, said the family support network was diminishing in Africa.

In the United States, the large numbers of mentally ill who are serving time in prison illustrate one aspect of a deep moral crisis in society, said George Palermo, director of the Institute of Criminal Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin.

Many of the criminally insane are young people who come from inhuman social conditions, he said.

But the real culprit, he said, is a set of anti-values that have gradually eroded social stability in the United States: relativistic theories, the search for pleasure and a utilitarian mentality

Pope John Paul and the Archbishop of Canterbury meet in Rome VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope John Paul and Anglican Archbishop George Carey of Canterbury began a series of meetings with brief, but strong affirmations of their desire for Christian unity.

Archbishop Carey, head of the Church of England and spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, arrived at the Vatican on December 3 for a three-day visit.

Welcoming the archbishop to the Vatican in the early evening, Pope John Paul said the series of meetings between Popes and heads of the Anglican Communion over the past 30 years are part of "a journey prompted and guided by the Holy Spirit,

the Spirit of truth and witness." He said, "Through these visits and especially through the prayer which accompanies them, we have been reminded again and again that, even in our sad separation, Anglicans and Catholics have not ceased to be brothers and sisters in the one Lord."

Archbishop Carey was scheduled to join Pope John Paul on December 5 for an evening prayer service in a Catholic Church in Rome. Both were expected to speak The Pope told the Archbishop that their task was to strengthen the existing bonds between Catholics and Anglicans until they

come to full, visible unity. "Let us earnestly ask the Holy Spirit to lead us to reconciliation and unity in a single communion of faith, life and mission, to the glory of the Father," the Pope said.

Archbishop Carey, in his remarks to Pope John Paul, noted they would meet on December 5 for a private conversation.

At the welcoming ceremony, he said, "it suffices only to reaffirm the absolute commitment both of myself personally and also of the Anglican Communion to the full, visible unity of God's Church."

The Archbishop praised Pope John Paul's commitment to ecumenism and offered

thanksgiving for the progress made over the past three decades in the official Anglican-Roman Catholic theological dialogue.

"We cannot but acknowledge that in spite of great agreement in faith and practice which the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion have always enjoyed, that our Churches bear the marks of separation and division," Archbishop Carey said.

The approaching start of the third millennium, he said, calls Catholics and Anglicans to "pray for the unity of the churches in the service of God's mission to a broken and divided world."

The Record,December 5 1996 Page 13

Asian Catholic News

10 Indian bishops arrested for protest over 'untouchables' NEW DELHI (UCAN) - Church leaders including 10 Catholic and Protestant bishops were arrested in New Delhi on November 27 for defying prohibitory orders and trying to march on Parliament to demand justice for dalit - or 'untouchable' - Christians.

Shouting "we want justice" and "we will fight it out," some 500 Church leaders of various Christian denominations spent more than five hours inside a city police station after their arrest.

The police recorded 375 arrests, including some 200 priests and nuns, two vice presidents of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI), Church of North India Bishop Pritam Santram of Delhi, Church of South India Bishop Azkiriah of Madras and two members of parliament.

"This is a fight for social justice, and we will not rest till the Indian parliament makes a law granting reservation benefits

to our dalit brethren," Catholic Archbishop Arokiaskuny of Madurai said.

"Dalit" literally means trampled upon an . d denotes those formerly considered untouchables in India's caste system.

Police released the protesters immediately after charging them, but they refused to leave the station until they met Prime Minister Deve Gowda.

After a while, the protesters, led by the National Coordination Committee for Dalit Christians, began a hunger strike inside the police station.

They squatted in the station courtyard, sang hymns and shouted slogans while baton-wielding policemen watched in silence.

Gowda responded by inviting a sevenmember delegation to his office, where he promised to convene an all-party meeting on December 3 to discuss introduction of a Bill in parliament to grant benefits to dalit

Christians. Providing statutory reservation benefits to dalit Christians is part of the Gowda government's "common minimum" program of social action.

Father S. Lourduswamy, a delegation member and CBCI commission secretary for dalits, said Gowda assured them of his commitment to help dalit Christians.

"But we do not believe in assurances from political leaders. We want concrete action," the CBCI official told UCA News on November 28.

He said Church leaders are upset over the Gowda government's delaying the issue "although social justice is its (proclaimed) guiding principle."

The Church leaders threatened to close all Christian educational and health-care institutions in the country indefinitely if the government fails to grant their demand.

Jose Chiramel, secretary general of the All India Catholic Union (AICU), said vari-

ous Church groups will launch a nationwide stir if the all-party meeting fails to resolve the issue.

"We have been struggling for dalit Christians for many years. We cannot wait any longer," he told UCA News on November 28.

"We feel the government is delaying the Bill because of a disinformation campaign against the dalit Christian demand," Archbishop Alan de Lastic of Delhi told UCA News on November 27.

He said that successive governments who have promised to amend the constitution to help dalit Christians have reneged under political pressure.

Dalit Christians, an estimated 60 percent of India's 25 minion Christians, are denied free education and reserved government jobs enjoyed by Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist dalits on the grounds that Christianity rejects the caste system.

Prelates 'responsible for West Timor demonstrators support Belo, criticise government officials protecting teaching' ROME (CNS) - While pointing out the danger of some trends in Catholic theology in India, Vatican officials also affirmed that Indian bishops have the major responsibility for ensuring adherence to Church teaching, one of the bishops said.

'If any problem arises, it will be the local bishop, the bishops' conference and the bishops' doctrinal commission who must work it out," said Bishop Gali Bali of Guntur. India.

"There will be no rush for the (Vatican) doctrinal congregation to come in, unless the problem becomes more serious," Bishop Bali, president of the Indian bishops' doctrinal commission. told CNS in Rome.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and several other Vatican offices hosted a meeting of Indian bishops in late October to discuss trends in Indian theology in preparation for the special Synod of Bishops for Asia.

"In India, the problem is religious relativism: What is Christianity in relation to other religions? We need to understand the relationship of the Catholic religion and of Christ to other religions," Bishop Bali said.

Religious relativism in India may question whether one religion is better able to guarantee

salvation than another, but the discussion takes place in the context of affirming the existence of an "Absolute" and of objective moral rights and wrongs, the Bishop said.

"The problem in the West is different." he said.

"The form of relativism in the West is moral relativism - anything is fine."

Meanwhile, the Catholic Priests' Conference of India (CPCI) has called for merging the country's three Catholic rites to build new people-based Churches.

The statement said an authentic rite should have a unique liturgy, community life. spirituality and theology.

Regretting that missionary work is "still understood as transporting the Ritual Church to new territories," the priests called for new rites independent of the "mother Church" of the missioners.

In such new Churches, missioners will take a "subsidiary role ... de-culturise and insert themselves into local culture" and encourage leadership among local Christians.

These Churches then become "peoples' Church," which reflects the socio-cultural identity of the local people, the statement said.

KUPANG, Indonesia (UCAN) Western Timor Catholic activists recently held a silent rally in support of Salesian Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, who is facing protests for alleged remarks published in a German weekly in October.

Fifty-eight activists of Pemuda Katolik (Catholic youth association) Kupang chapter walked in silence in the heavy rain on November 20 to the Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) Provincial House where its members were holding an annual meeting, and handed a signed protest statement to provincial house chairman. Yohanes Yoseph Botha.

In the statement, the association said it supports Bishop Belo, Dili's apostolic administrator.

The statement said it regrets the attitude of some Jakarta officials and some youth associations that discredited Bishop Belo following controversial remarks attributed

Violence shows anti-State potential: leaders BEKASI, Indonesia (UCAN) Leaders of Indonesian Protestant Churches say the violence against churches in the past five years shows the potential existence of an insurgent group opposed to Indonesia's ideology and unity.

The Protestant Church leaders issued a statement on November 16 at the plenary leadership coun-

WA election 1996

Unemployment tops agenda

•

Continued from Page 10 the gap between the rich and poor never Our Church leaders said in Gaudium Et reaches the stage where individuals find it Spes at the Second Vatican Council that necessary to take from others what they "God intended the Earth and all that it con- need.

We elect governments to act justly and tains for the use of every human being and people . . . . a man should regard his law- see that the benefits and goods produced ful possessions not merely as his own but In our wonderful state are shared amongst also as common property in the sense that all the citizens. they should accrue to the benefit of not We would do well to remember 1 John 3: only himself but of others."

17-18 where it says: "If a man who was rich Further on in the document our Church enough in this world's goods saw that one leaders even went as far as stating that "if of his brothers was in need, but closed his a person is in extreme necessity, he has the heart to him, how could the love of God be right to take from theTiches of others what living in him? My children, our love is not he himself needs." to be just words or mere talk, but someThe challenge for us all is to ensure that thing real and active."

The Record,December 5 1996 Page 14

Bishop Carlos Belo

to him by the German weekly Der Spiegel.

The Kupang Pemuda Katolik statement also calls on the central government to end the security

measures applied to East Timor. saying they go against Pancasila (Indonesia's state ideology) and limit the freedom of East Timor people.

The silent rally was the second demonstration for Bishop Belo in Kupang.

Meanwhile, Korean activists launched Korea-East Timor Solidarity in November, a new organisation to support human rights causes and self-determination for the East Timorese people.

• A national conference of Catholic justice and peace movements urged the Indonesian Church to play a stronger role in creating justice and peace.

Delegates from all 34 dioceses represented in the Indonesian bishops' conference and from Religious congregations, Catholic lay organisations and Dili diocese, East Timor, took part in the conference on "building justice and peace toward the year 2000."

cil meeting of Persekutuan Gereja-Gereja di Indonesia (PGI, Communion of Churches in Indonesia). The November 9-16 meeting was opened by President Soeharto.

"It indicates that there is a potential insurgent group who are against Pancasila (Indonesia's state ideology) and the 1945 Con-

stitution, against national unity and religious tolerance." PGI leaders said.

Meanwhile in Dili. East Timor, activists of Indonesia's commission on human rights have advised religious leaders in East Timor to meet regularly to maintain religious tolerance in the province.

Both parties are compromised, Continued from Page 11 Instead, the public spending gap has significantly increased.

The Labor Party at the time of writing was yet to declare its funding policy for nongovernment schoolchildren.

Abortions in WA have now topped 10,000 each year, equalling deaths from all other causes.

Some high profile Court Government members such as Graham Kierath (Riverton) and Rhonda Parker (Ballajura) have participated at pro-life functions like the recent Cemetery of the Innocents.

The ALP was unrepresented and abortion

on demand remains on the ALP policy platform.

However, the Court Government has failed to take any steps to limit the increase in abortions, and has actively promoted the eugenic abortions of Down's Syndrome and spina bifida children.

Richard Court's recent remark that his government did not want to 10.e abortion either easier or harder to obtM will appal any Catholic who takes seriously Pope John Paul II's teaching on the absolute and primary obligation of civil governments to protect all human life, especially the most defenceless - unborn children.

Official Engagements

Record EYE•CATCHER Classified ads: $3 per line

s stfiv•s)

BUILDING TRADES

DRIVING SCHOOL

PAINTING by professional.

Registration No. 3248.

Domestic or commercial.

No job too small. Available immediately.

Telephone Dominic 354 9442.

L2P DRIVING ACADEMY 20 years exper. Call 304 0101 for a great service.

PROFESSIONAL property maintenance, carpentry, fences, roofs, gutters, down pipes, paving. Ph Paul 309 4751 , mob 041-895 4771.

PAINTING & Decorating reg. no. 3622. For all your painting needs, all work professionally done and guaranteed, references available. Call Carlo 444 6797.

SWIMMING POOLS, service, maintenance, equipment, painting (free quotes) KAVANAGH'S POOL SERVICE, ph 349 0223.

Since 1974.

WILSON'S Garden Clean Up Company. Tree lopping, hedging, pruning, yard cleanups, fully insured. Call Graham or Patrick Wilson, Tel. 276 4617, Mobile 041 993 0790.

PLUMBER Ring Desmond 3505223. mob. 019 684 322.

LIC. PLUMBER/gas fitter, Contact John on 457 7771 Mobile 015 385 209.

HOST FAMILIES

PIANO, English make, upright, gd con. S3800 Ph 495 4704

ACCOMMODATION WANTED

REAL ESTATE

WE HAVE many young people from overseas looking for shared accommodation. If you have a room to let please phone Nichigo Centre ph: 325 4441.

SCHOENSTATT Kindergarten, Pre-school vacancies 1997. Two sessions weekly children turning 3 in 1997: two or four sessions weekly for children turning 4 in 1997. For further information: Schoenstatt Sisters, phone 457 2966.

MALE 22 y.o. student seeks to share house with people own age. Mt Lawley area. Ph: Michael 328 8113.

FOR SALE

NEEDED for young people/students from overseas. Short/long term stays. Contact Nichigo Centre ph: 325 4441.

PRE-SCHOOL VACANCIES

ACCOMMODATION WANTED

HOUSE FOR SALE PINJAR RA: Twixt Murray R/Rce Cse. 10 Min/MH 30 min SB. Easy Comm. Perth.

Delightful 1bth.

2bd, cedar/iron 'chalet' raised site FIR Vrnds open liv. area Arch des. Pretty int. decor sep. WC Lndry sep. from kitchen by fldg dr, WI pantry deep sew Gas avail U shpd dve. Room for caravan, boat, horse-float. $71000.

Ph. 531 2557 / 6-8am/ 68pm.

PUBLIC NOTICE FURNITURE REMOVALS All areas. Mike Murphy 008 807 929.

PERROTT PAINTING Pty Ltd for all your residential, commercial painting requirements. Phone Tom Perrott 444 1200.

Phone 227 7778

IN MEMORIAM

HEALTH & BEAUTY

R YAN, John, whose 25th Anniversary occurs 5th Dec. Loving son of Sheila & Frank (dec), brother of Helen and Moya, brotherin-law of Patrick. Uncle of Louise, Paul and Daniel (dec). Dear Lord have mercy on him.

WANTED!! Persons to lose 5-10kg. Tel. June 242 5351

LEE, John Frederick. In loving memory of John.

Passed away 10th Dec 1995. May he rest in peace.

Sadly missed. Shirley Lee and Family.

THANKS TO THE SACRED HEART of Jesus, Infant Jesus of Prague, Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, St Jude for graces received. Liz.

ACCOMMODATION AVAILABLE TIDY 3 bedroom house. S65 per week, includes power. telephone and gas. Share with father and 15 y.o. son.

Phone Len 343 5296 ROOM(S) to let in house with retired lady, Stratton.

Choice of a double room with double bed or room with 2 single beds. Suit married couple or single lady/gent. Retired OK. Terms neg. Ph: 250 8490.

HOLIDAY ACCOMMODATION

HEARTFELT thanks to St Anthony for many many prayers answered PG

KALBARRI 2 bir, sic home Pat (09) 572 3297

BLESSED Mother of the Son of God. Immaculate Virgin, pray for us who have recourse to thee (three times). Thank you for Your mercy towards me and mine. Amen. Thanks for prayers answered. Thanks St Jude for prayers answered. P.M.B.

PEMBERTON B&B -Felconhurst". M&S Dow (097) 76 1737 Forest Edge - a place of refuge. Each room opens onto wide verandahs that overlook Pemberton's famous trees.

Walking distance to the Lavender and Berry Farm. and the Gloucester Tree $30 per person. per night.

Farewell Dinner for Capuchin Franciscan Friars, Balcatta Parish Archbishop Hickey 8 Solemn High Mass and Procession for Feast San Nicola, W Perth Archbishop Hickey Blessing of St Gerard' s Villas.

Mirrabooka - Mgr M Keating Thomas More Society. Leederville Archbishop Hickey 9 Day of Prayer for Priests. Carlisle Parish - Archbishop Hickey Solemn Novena Mass in honour of the Immaculate Conception. St Mary's Cathedral - Archbishop Hickey 10 Heads of Churches Meeting Archbishop Hickey 12 Council of Priests Meeting Launch of Biography of Ursula Frayne Archbishop Hickey 13 Ordinations to Priesthood and Diaconate, St Mary' s Cathedral Archbishop Hickey 14 Annual Mass for St Vincent de Paul Society. St Camillus House A rchbishop Hickey Emmanuel Centre Gathering Archbishop Hickey 15 Mass for Feast of St Lucy, Spearwood Bishop Healy

Industrial Building Consultants Phone 574 7068 Building Lic. No. 2090 If you are considering constructing an industrial or rural building then phone John on 574 7068. You may be pleasantly surprised because we could assist you in savings up to 30°0 of the cost. Assistance and supervision to the home builder.

can help you to save money

Anti-Semitism and Inquisitions on the agenda in leadup to 2000

C ARPENTER/Handyman Qual tradesman. All jobs. pergolas. Ph 041 991 6548

By Lynne Weil

PLUMBING and gas. ring Steve Platt 337 2938, Mob: 041 904 5792.

Reecom, ILd

MORTAR + brick restoration, tuckpointing, call Steve 0412 942 753, Masterhand.

Managing Editor: Postal address: Street address:

Deadline for ads: 5pm Monday

DECEMBER 6 "Close of Year" Gathering for staff at St Charles' Seminary - Bishop Healy

No: 3026 ISSN: 1327 - 3531

David Kehoe PO Box 75, Leederville, WA, 6902 587 Newcastle Street, West Perth, WA. 6005.

Phone: (09) 227 7080. Fax (09) 227 7087 e-mail: cathrec@iinet.net.au Publisher: Roman Catholic Archbishop of Perth.

The Record, established in 1874, is distributed to Catholic churches. presbyteries and religious houses throughout the Archdiocese of Perth and the Dioceses of Geraldton, Bunbury and Broome.

Advertising rates Display: $6 colcm.

Classifieds: $3 a line Deadlines: Editorial: Tuesday, first mail.

Advertising: Booking: Monday midday.

Copy: Tuesday midday.

Member: Aust Catholic Press Association; Aust Religious Press Association.

The Record follows the Holy Spirit's teaching at the Second Vatican Council on the role of the Catholic print media.

The Record will not return copy or photographs submitted for publication unless specifically requested in writing upon submission.

The editor reserves the right to accept or reject any material submitted and to edit such material for clarity and brevity without recourse to the author.

WIGAN CITY (CNS) - AntiSemitism, the Inquisitions and other delicate subjects pertaining to Church history are to be examined at length in Vatican-sponsored initiatives leading up to the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000. Vatican officials said.

These are of course very difficult topics," papal theologian Father Georges Cottier told Catholic News Service on November 27.

"Especially where the Inquisitions are concerned, because there are so many slogans and fixed ideas involved. So naturally they have to be treated in a deliberate, conscientious way."

Father Collier, who is a member of the committee coordinating Jubilee events, said the Vatican would release a study on anti-Semitism next year and hold a seminar on the Inquisitions sometime in 1998.

Archbishop Sergio Sebastian!, secretary-general of the Vatican Jubilee committee, said at a mid-November press conference on plans for the Jubilee that meetings on the two subjects were meant to help the Church reflect on its past, as mandated by Pope John Paul II. The intended conference on anti-Semitism "will be a his-

tonic scholarly meeting, and will be flanked by other historical initiatives, such as a large conference on the Inquisitions," Archbishop Sebastiani said at the news conference.

The Pope said in an apostolic letter in November 1994 that the Church needs to face the fact that in the past its members have given in to "intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of truth."

Pope John Paul said with the approach of the third millennium the Church has a duty to express "profound regret for the weakness of her sons and daughters who sullied her face."

He declined to name any particular episode in Church history.

In an article this summer in

Tertiuni Millennium the Jubilee committee's quarterly journal. Archbishop Sebastian! provided a general idea of the plan.

"Two international congresses of high scholarly value are being considered." he wrote. 'to take place in Rome before the celebration of the Great Jubilee. This.... could improve comprehension of what has happened. and will help in the discovery of historical truth without subjective and Polemical distortion."

Vatican statements in recent years have been "very clear" on the Church's disapproval of anti-Semitism, but there is always room for amplification. said Father Remi Hoecicman. an official at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity who specialises in relations with Jews.

For several years the council has been preparing a document on anti-Semitism.

Father Hoecicman could not reveal whether it would be made available in time for a conference next year. "It's in the pipeline," he said, 'and that's all I can say about it."

Father Cotner also gave no further information.

"It is not out of secrecy it is only that the plans for these events are still being formed." he explained.

"Let us talk again in a year. and then I can tell you more."

Ttlq 13ectird,PCce.n144F,O.-180.6, Pa.get,14'

ortriett

Pilr;s4

LeeoferviCee

Landmark of history moves with the times S

t Mary's parish Church spire rises like a finger pointing to God high above the suburban landscape of Leederville.

The Church is a majestic Gothic piece of architecture with the inside showing obvious Irish features such as the shamrock carvings, the green inlaid stone within the white marble altar, and the soaring carvings of the jarrah support beams beneath the high pitched roof.

Classic stained glass windows throughout the Church and its long aisle, have added to its appeal for weddings, (88 in 1995 and 74 this year) plus the fact that located opposite Aranmore Catholic College and a short distance from Aranmore Primary School it is also sought after by former students.

Aranmore's name also has Irish origins, being adopted from a famous island off County Galway, while St Mary's pioneering past, like so many early Australian parishes, makes interesting reading.

The Sisters of Mercy bought a house on the corner of Marian and Shakespeare Streets and began teaching day students there in 1902, travelling by horse and sulky from St Brigid's West Perth, until the advent of the trams.

In 1904 a school was built facing Marian Street. so the Sisters took

up residence in the old school house.

The new school doubled as a Church for Reconciliation, Mass, and Benediction on the weekends serviced by Father John Maloney from 1917. until his installation as parish priest of the newly created Leederville parish in 1919; he then designed and planned the existing Church which was completed in 1923.

Fr Maloney was subsequently architect of various other buildings which were built during his 39 continuous years as PP Work for building the new Church was given to Mr E.T. Russell while the extensive jarrah joinery was undertaken by parishioners Berry Bros.

An original owner in a wooden house on the Church site had been Mrs Leeder. whose family had extensive land holdings in the area, and after whom Leederville was named.

But life wasn't all work and no play for Fr Maloney (later Monsignor), because a favourite amusement of his was taking part in races with his horse and sulky (used for parish visitation) down the present Anzac Road which was then a dirt track.

Fr Maloney was a man of strive and drive under whose leadership the parish hall was brought down from the Goldfields in 1928 and re-erected in 1929; a new convent opened in 1933, and a new,

At a Glance Parish: St Mary's, Leederville Parish Priest: Fr Jim Petry Address: 40 Franklin Street, Leederville 6007 Phone: um) 444-9624 Parish Secretary: Lynda Stanes Office hours: Thursday 9 am to 3 pm Pastoral Assistant: Sr Peter PBV Masses: (Vigil) Saturday 6.30 pm; Sunday 8 am; 9.15 (Haliitn): 10.30 (with Children's Liturgy) Reconciliation: Saturday noon to 12.30 pm

HEALING MASS A healing Mass in honour of St Peregrine, patron of cancer sufferers and helper of all in need, will be held at Church of SS John and Paul, Pinetree Gully Road (Off South St) Willetton, Friday 13 December at 7.00pm. Veneration of the Relic and Anointing of the Sick.

Enquiries: Noreen Monaghan, Tel: 332 8292.

BENEDICTINE OBLATES The Annual General Meeting of St Gregory's Chapter will be held at lona Primary School, Mosman Park at 2.30pm, Sunday 8 December. Visitors and families are invited to join in the Christmas social. A contribution towards refreshments would be very welcome. Enq: 388 3026.

The Record,December 5 1996 Page 16

St Mary's Church in Leederville - a charming mix of Irish and Italian influences and Gothic architecture.

impressive presbytery in 1934.

Christian Brothers College opened in 1940, and further work on the completion of the Church was undertaken in 1937, with Monsignor Maloney observed on the pinnacle of the scaffolding ensuring the cross was put on the tip of the spire correctly.

As history moved on. Leederville's St Mary's secondary college for girls, amalgamated with the Christian Brothers' boys college in 1986, and became Aranmore Catholic College, with the primary school being renamed Aranmore Primary.

The original Goldfields parish hall became part of the Aranmore campus and the current parish centre was built in 1979.

High on a hill, the landmark Church is visible for kilometres around Perth.

In accordance with Vatican the whole of the sanctuary has Willison and the Liturgical Combeen re-organised and although mittee. Marycare is the parish's the sodalities are no longer there, caring arm, reflecting the conother ministries have sprung up. cerned nature of the parish.

But the past remains a treasured There are various prayer groups, part of the parish of today, with and the Italian Legion of Mary. such things as the Honour Board, There is also the St Vincent de compiled in 1930 with the donors of the Stations of the Cross, and Paul, a craft group. Catechism the adding-in of other cultures, Instruction on Wednesdays for such as the Italian community's State school children, and the statue of St Rocco, whose feast Children's Liturgy on Sundays.

The parish boasts a good group day in November is celebrated with a procession and conviviali- of mainly female altar servers (who are encouraged to stay on ty.

The Italian choir is also a feature during secondary schooling), acolytes, and an active parish of their Mass and other events.

With parish priest Fr Jim Petry's council.

Weekday Masses have an excelencouragement, the liturgical ceremonies are a vital and rich part lent attendance, and on vocations, of St Mary's, under the leadership three past parishioners have of Liturgy President, Sr Kerry become priests.

.

411"7"100rAtte

....01.4411.0116.,

Nobody leaves St Mary's without a pep-talk from this sign on the choir loft.

Archdiocesan Panorama SACRI ASSOCIATION The Feast of the Immaculate Conception will be celebrated on Monday 9 December at the Shrine of the Virgin of the Revelation, 36 Chittering Road, Bullsbrook.

Rosary 10.30am (Reconciliation available in Italian/Eng at 10.30am), Mass 11.00am. Public transport available.

On Sunday 15 December, Rev Fr Brian Pitman 0.Carm will offer Mass for the intentions of benefactors of the Shrine at 9.00am.

All welcome. Enquiries: 447 3292 or 444 2285.

NEWMAN SOCIETY Study Group, Tuesday 10 December, 10.30am. A discussion on abortion with a view to developing arguments which may influence those without a religious background.

Venue - Our Lady of the Missions Convent, 40 Mary St, Highgate (use Harold St entrance). Open to all interested.Tel: 446 7340.

CAROLS BY CANDLELIGHT A t Baskerville Oval on the Parish grounds of Our Lady of the Most Blessed

The statue of Saint Rocco

Sacrament, 175 Corfield St, Gosnells, 7.30pm on Saturday 21 December.

Sausage sizzle and soft drinks, tea/coffee available at reasonable prices or BYO. Bring own blanket or chair for seating on lawn. All welcome.

INTERCESSION DAY FOR PRIESTS All are invited to the 2nd day of Intercessory Prayer for Priests, at Holy Name Parish, 54 Solar Way, Carlisle, Monday 9 December, Feast of Immaculate Conception beginning 10.00 am.

Archbishop Hickey will talk at 1.20pm.

Enq: 277 6586.

MAYLANDS PARISH FETE Fete at Queen of Martyrs Parish, 75 Second Avenue, Maylands on Sunday 15 December 1996 from 11.00am to 3.00pm.

Luncheon available.