Pilgrimage with Pio
Norbertine 50th
Over 300 Perth faithful travel out to Marian shrines to ask the saint who knows what suffering is to pray for the world and boost their own faith. Page 3
An enduring story of pioneering priests' courage in coming out to Australian desert to evangelise and sustain the local faithful. Page 5 i
THE RECORD
"Be indefatigable in your purpose and with undaunted spirit resist iniquity and try to conquer evil with good, having before your eyes the reward of those who combat for Christ." -BISHOP MATTHEW GIBNEY 1874
THE PARISH. THE NATION. THE WORLD.
Western Australia's award-winning Catholic newspaper since 1874 - Wednesday May 13 2009
Pope sends Archbishop a blessing
The reality of the pews A breakdown of the last national Census parish by parish reveals a gaping chasm between numbers of people who identify themselves as Catholics and those who actually darken the doors of a church more than twice a year. Anthony Barich discusses with several Perth priests how to reach out to the unchurched Catholics out there and how to nurture those who do Vista 1-3 attend.
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Personal message for silver jubilee delivers note of papal appreciation. ARCHBISHOP Barry Hickey had only a quiet celebration of the 25th Anniversary of his ordination as a bishop on May 1, but it did not escape the attention of Pope Benedict who sent a personally signed greeting and photo. Translated from the Latin, the greeting was: "To Our Venerable Brother Barry James Hickey, Metropolitan Archbishop of Perth. "We remember you in our prayers as you celebrate the silver jubilee of your Episcopal ordination. We bring to mind your many apostolic efforts in the diocese of Geraldton and in the Metropolitan Church of Perth, and how you have contributed to the Australian Bishops Conference, mindful of your fidelity to the Magisterium of the Church. "Therefore, with appreciation of your work for the Church, We freely impart Our Apostolic Blessing." Given at the Vatican City on the sixth day of April in the year 2009. A larger celebration incorporating the Archbishop's 25 years as a bishop and 50 years as a priest will be held later in the year "when the Cathedral is opened" "I cannot give a date for the completion of the Cathedral, he told the clergy in his most recent letter to them, "but I will know more on July 1 when the builder will tell me when he can give me the key."
Papal medal goes toll Perth clergy 50 years of service recognised. POPE Benedict has bestowed the Papal Cross "Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice" (for the Church and the Pontiff) on 11 seasoned priests of the Archdiocese. They are Mgr Peter McCrann and Frs Henry Byrne, Julian Carrasco, Michael Casey, Thomas Gaine, Brian Harris, Anton Hesse, Eugene McGrath, John O'Reilly, Maurice Toop and Finbarr Walsh. In his latest Ad Clerum (letter to the clergy), Archbishop Barry Hickey offered his congratulations to each of them for an honour "well deserved". He said the awards would be conferred at the clergy gathering for the opening of the Year of the Priest on June 18 at St Charles Seminary.
HAS NOIRE DAME USA CAUGHT ITS
MOBY DICK?
The US-based University of Notre Dame craved prestige
so much it abandoned any concept of what it means to be a Catholic University; its honouring of President Obama is redolent of Melville's classic tale, writes one of its own.
Page 10
Contents The Parish - Pages 2-5, 7 Editorial - Page 8 Kids Bitz - Page 9 Perspectives - Pages 12-13 Communion of Saints Books - Page 20
YOUTH IN FOR RETREAT Archbishop Barry Hickey has chosen priests from an order known for their inspired preaching to help Perth youth build on the passion generated by World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney.
Page 7
Page 2
May 13 2009, The Record
THE PARISH
1111P, EDITOR Peter Rosengren cathrec@iinet.netau JOURNALISTS
5 Paul •
Anthony Barich abarich@therecord.com.au Mark Reidy reidyrec@iinetnet.au Robert Hiini cathrec@iinetnet.au PRODUCTION & ADVERTISING Justine Stevens production@therecord.com.au ACCOUNTS Cathy Baguley recaccounts@iinet.net.au ADMINISTRATION Bibiana Kwaramba administration@therecord. com.au BOOKSHOP Caroline Radelic bookshop@therecord.com.au CONTRIBUTORS Debbie Warder Karen & Derek Boylen Anna Krohn Catherine Parish Fr Flader John Heard Christopher West Bronia Karniewicz Guy Crouchback The Record PO Box 75, Leederville, WA 6902 587 Newcastle St, West Perth Tel: (08) 9227 7080, Fax: (08) 9227 7087 Website: www.therecord.com.au The Record is a weekly publication distributed throughout the parishes of the dioceses of Western Australia and by subscription. The Record is printed by Rural Press Printing Mandurah and distributed via Australia Post and CTI Couriers.
J UB I L E E 2 00 8 - 2 00 9
"In other words, God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself not holding men's faults against them, and he has entrusted to us the news that they are reconciled. So we are ambassadors for Christ; it is as though God were appealing through us, and the appeal that we make in Christ's' name is: be reconciled to God" 2 Corinthians 5:19-20
Mercy gathering in Perth Mercy bosses meet to reconfigure their Institute. U By Robert Hiini THE leaders of Australia's Sisters of Mercy congregations met in Perth recently to conduct one of their regular Council meetings and to advance the decisionmaking process in the reconfiguring of their Institute. The meeting took place on April 20-24 at Sisters of Mercy Conference Centre, Perth and was attended by all 17 Mercy Congregation leaders in Australia. Normally the Leader of the Sisters in Papua New Guinea would attend but due to the sudden death in February of Sr Petronia Gawi RSM there was a sad vacancy this time. Together, the 18 leaders represent approximately 1460 sisters living and working throughout Australia, Papua New Guinea and beyond. The Meeting continues to address an in-principle decision made in 2004 exploring ways for the Congregations to become more unified. All sisters have been engaging in an exhaustive process of several consultations since then. Sr Caroline Ryan RSM, Vice President of the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy, said that real progress was made in this most recent meeting. "It was a very productive time. The sisters engaged with the issues in a forthright manner but with an abundance of goodwill and a great bond of sisterhood," Sr Ryan said. She says that while the two-day meeting was being held in Perth, the sisters were conscious of being on a "sacred site" in Mercy history; the site where the first Sisters of Mercy in Australia Ursula Frayne and her five companions arrived when they came to the Swan River Colony in 1846.
Congregation leaders of the 18 Sisters of Mercy communities throughout Australia and Papua New Guinea gathered at Mercedes College last month. PHOTO. ROBERT HIINI
"It was particularly lovely to be in Perth to enjoy that sense of history and the wonderful hospitality of the West Perth and Perth congregations." In discussing and working towards the real possibility of becoming one congregation, the Australian and Papua New Guinean sisters are following in the footsteps of Mercies in Ireland, who formed one body out of 27 congregations in 1994, the sisters in New Zealand who formed one congregation out of four in 2005 and the sisters in the Americas where the decision to be one is still being implemented. West Perth Congregation Leader, Sr Beverly Stott RSM says that although the process is "not without difficulty and lots of hard questions and a natural anxiety that accompanies this kind of change," she believes that Mercy congregations are heading in the right direction. She says that the meeting was a great way of "exploring ways of arrang-
ing ourselves so that the tradition of being involved in the local church may be enhanced and relationships among Mercy sisters can be strengthened across Australia and Papua New Guinea." The sisters also made progress in planning their Mercy and Justice conference that will be held in November in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, to "provide a forum for critical thinking leading towards action, in the context of the Gospel." The conference will be lead by a number of speakers including Sisters of Mercy Denise Coughlin, Janette Gray and Maryanne Loughrey and will include the contributions of Australian writer and scientist Tim Flannery and Indigenous leader and activist Pat Dodson. The Conference will be open to the wider Mercy family of men and women associated with the Mercy mission through the Institute's many hospitals, schools and other social organisations.
Jesus of Nazareth competition winners drawn • CRUISING • FLIGHTS • TOURS •
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•
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George's Terrace, Perth WA 6000 Tel: 9322 2914 Fax: 9322 2915 michacl(a flightworld.com.au www.flightworld.com.au 200 St.
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SAINT OF THE WEEK
JESUS of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI was recently published in audio book format by Bolinda audio. The 10-CD set is read by Nicholas Bell. In this bold, momentous work, the Pope seeks to salvage the person of Jesus from recent 'popular' depictions and to restore Jesus' true identity as discovered in the Gospels. The Record recently held a competition for its readers to win six of the 10 set-audio CDs. Readers had to collect tokens for seven weeks and then post them in by May 8. Bibiana Kwaramba, administration officer of The Record, is shown right drawing one of the six winners, with The Record editor Peter Rosengren. There were 144 entries. The lucky winners are: Sr M Connolly, Innaloo; Grant Gorddard, Guildford; Don Keating, Innaloo; Irene Chua, Joondalup; M Martin, Yokine; Kevin Williams, Balcatta.
Julia fifth century May 2 Much of the story of this patron saint of the French island
Corsica and the Italian city Livorno is legendary. Reportedly from Carthage, in North Africa, Julia was sold as a slave to a pagan merchant from Syria. When her owner went ashore in northern Corsica to attend a pagan festival, she did not go with him, which the island's ruler took as an insult. While her owner was drunk, the ruler tried to get Julia to offer sacrifice, but she refused. According to her martyr's legend, she was beaten and had her hair torn out before being crucified. Her reputed relics are in a seminary in Brescia, Italy. C
CNS Saints
OFFICIAL ENGAGEMENTS May 2009 15
Mass celebrating 50th Anniversary of Norbertines at Queen's Park Archbishop Hickey, Bishop Sproxton 16 & 17 Confirmation, Wanneroo - Mgr Brian O'Loughlin VG 17 Installation of Fr Nicholas Nweke as Parish Priest of Gosnells Archbishop Hickey Conferral of Robes upon Mgr Brian O'Loughlin and Mgr Kevin Long Archbishop Hickey Mass and Procession, Maria SS Annunziata, Osborne Park Bishop Sproxton 18-21 Clergy Seminar - Archbishop Hickey
20 22
Civic Reception Ambassador of Switzerland - Mgr Brian O'Loughlin Mass, Mercedes College - Archbishop Hickey 400th Anniversary Founder of Loreto Sisters - Archbishop Hickey 22 & 24 Confirmation, North Beach - Bishop Sproxton 23/24 Parish Visitation Southern Cross - Archbishop Hickey 24/25 All Hallow's, Kalgoorlie - Archbishop Hickey 24-28 Clergy Seminar - Bishop Sproxton 26 Italo-Australian Apprentice of the Year Award Archbishop Hickey 28 Reconciliation, Mercedes College - Archbishop Hickey Memorial Mass for Fr Thomas O'Reilly CM, RIP
May 13 2009, The Record
Page 3
THE PARISH
A spiritual boost under Plo's patronage Over 300 pilgrims gather to honour Mary and St Pio to pray for the world. • By Anthony Barich
IT is said that Padre Pio often told his fellow priests that the Blessed Mother accompanied him to the altar while he offers up the Holy Mass. It was appropriate, then, the five busloads of over 300 Padre Pio devotees, including several from Geraldton who had started driving at 5.30am, arrived at the Shrine of the Virgin of the Revelation, Mother of the Church in Bullsbrook on April 25 to start an annual pilgrimage. The pilgrimage that started in 2006 involves Stations of the Cross, Rosaries and Mass, and consists of St Pio devotees - mainly women - many of whom are part of the 300-odd people who attend the Day of Prayer involving a DVD on the saint's life and teachings, exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Rosary, Divine Mercy, silent adoration, Benediction and Mass. The Day of Prayer rotates through parishes around the Archdiocese of Perth, and is popular especially in the Italian community but increasingly so among other ethnic groups like Filipinos and Vietnamese. The pilgrimage is a powerhouse of prayer for these and others, travelling between various locations by bus, sharing the fraternity of a Catholic community from Midland, Bassendean, Cloverdale, Victoria Park, Leederville, Balcatta, Glendalough, Mirrabooka and Girawheen, among others. The pilgrimage is led by the St Pio Prayer Group's spiritual director, Fr Tiziano Bogoni, who has a strong Marian devotion himself and feels a connection with the saint's Franciscan Capuchin charism. Bullsbrook is the site of a special shrine assiated with the SACRI Association, which has one of three statues of Mary as the Virgin of the Revelation specially blessed by the late Pope John Paul II. During the bus trip, the affable Fr Bogoni led one bus
Clockwise from above left: Fr Tiziano Bogoni, under the umbrella, leads a Eucharistic Procession around St Catherine's Church; Frs Bogoni and Paul Fox enjoy some fraternity during the pilgrimage; Fr Tiziano leads the Stations of the Cross in Our Lady's Shrine Church; pilgrims at Bullsbrook fill bottles with water that runs over a stone placed underground from where Our Lady allegedly appeared in Rome; Fr Tiziano with the Blessed Sacrament at the Marian shrine outside St Catherine's.
in the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet, before arriving at Bullsbrook, where he led the over 300 pilgrims who packed out Our Lady's Shrine Church in meditations on the Stations of the Cross. The five buses progressed to St Anne's Church on Great Northern Highway where Fr Bogoni concelebrated Mass with parish priest Fr Paul Fox and Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate who also have a great devotion to Mary. Again, the small but quite new country church was so packed the Friars brought speakers so people spilling outside could participate in the Mass. On to Gin Gin, with Rosary again led by Fr Bogoni along with some of the Italian women singing old devotional songs to Mary, and Fr Bogoni led a Eucharistic procession around St Catherine of Siena Church including the Rosary in Italian and English, with Franciscan Friar Gabriel incensing the Blessed Sacrament as Fr Bogoni held it. Adoration, Divine Mercy and Benediction followed, with the Blessed Sacrament sitting on the altar at a Marian shrine adjacent to the quaint country church. It was an act of reverence, reminding all who participated about the reason why they are there - for communal fraternity, to deepen their own
spirituality and to pray for themselves and for the whole world, as the Divine Mercy Chaplet says. Fr Bogoni, who is chaplain at All Saints Chapel at Allendale Square in Perth city, described the pilgrimage as a spiritual shot in the arm, giving a message of hope as the pilgrims pray for their own intentions and for those of the whole world. The message of hope drew on the charism of St Pio, who suffered much through the Stigmata and the mocking of others who thought him mad while he walked on this earth. But Fr Bogoni said St Pio - who told people while he was alive that he would do more for God's people in heaven than
he ever did on earth - proves that there is no circumstance that people cannot come out of through faith. "Those who went before us giving their lives for God - the saints - prove that," he said. "We eat and sleep every day to survive, yet we so often neglect this very basic thing - nourishin our souls: P ilgrims came out of the experience on a spiritual high, having meditated on the sufferings of
Christ during the Stations of the Cross, and constantly asking for the intercession of St Pio, who himself suffered so much. Pilgrims learn the redemptive value of their own sufferings by meditating and praying on such things.
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May 13 2009, The Record
THE PARISH
Vincentian called home Santa Maria students cook
up storm for homeless
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A photo of Fr Tom O'Reilly from The Record in 1969.
PHOTO ANTHONY BARICH, ORIGINAL IMAGE COURTESY OF ARCHOIOCESAN ARCHIVES OFFICE
FATHER Tom O'Reilly CM, former Rector of St Charles Seminary, Guildford from 1969-1971, died in Sydney, NSW on Holy Thursday, April 9,2009, aged 91. Fr Tom was a member of the Vincentian Congregation of the Mission, founded by St Vincent de Paul. Until they withdrew from WA, the Vincentians had care of St Charles Seminary, Guildford and Kwinana parish. He succeeded as Rector of St Charles' Seminary Fr DF Bourke CM, who left to take up an appointment in Sydney. Fr Tom was born in Goulburn, NSW and educated by the Marist Brothers and the Vincentians, along with his brother, Shamus. Fr Tom was ordained to the priest-
hood in St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney on December 7, 1945. In June, 1949, he travelled with two other Australian Vincentians to the Philippines, to study at the University of Santo Tomas. He was awarded a Doctorate in Philosophy for his thesis on the Australian Commonwealth Court of Arbitration and Conciliation on standard hours of work. Fr Tom was "outstanding" for keeping in touch with his former students and their families. A memorial Mass will be celebrated at St Charles Seminary, Guildford on Thursday, May 28 at 5.15pm. Former students are invited to attend. For catering for the dinner which will follow, please phone Helen at the Seminary on 9279 1310 or Perth Vicar General, Monsignor Brian O'Loughlin, at the Church Office 9223 1351.
Cathedral builders tender sorted, fundraising still needed Local builder wins Bunbury cathedral precinct tender, but much work still to be done. SOUTH West construction company Perkins Builders has won the tender to rebuild Bunbury's iconic Catholic Cathedral precinct. The precinct includes the restoration of the historic building, a hall, car parking, landscaping and new Cathedral. The cost for this stage of the overall project is $14.7 million. This is within the planned budget Announcing the tender results, Bishop Gerard J Holohan of Bunbury said that the appointment of Perkins Builders, subject to finalising documentation, will mark the beginning of the next phase in the journey to rebuild the Cathedral precinct. "This is an exciting time for all Catholics throughout the diocese and the people of Bunbury," Bishop Holohan said. "The fruit of years of work and planning will now become a reality as the Cathedral rises up and replaces the old much loved St Patrick's. "We are grateful for the effort of all tenderers and the professionalism they showed in the process. "It gives us confidence that Perkins Builders will rebuild the Cathedral precinct to the standard it deserves as a place of faith, community strength and nobility of human spirit. "I am absolutely delighted that a local builder who has built so many buildings in our community has won the tender. "It means that the tradition of Cathedrals being built by local labour for future generations is continuing with this building. While the fundraising will need to continue to
achieve its target, I feel it's important to move ahead with the project to give work to as many people as possible. "The more families who can be relieved of the pressure of the current times the better. "The Church has its own responsibility to contribute to the common good of the community. "Since most of the money is from donations for this specific purpose, and therefore cannot be used in any other way, the best option all round at this time is for the Cathedral Precinct to proceed." Commenting on the tender result, Perkins Builders managing director Dan Perkins said his company is honoured to win the tender of this vital community asset. "The building of a Cathedral is a once in a century opportunity and one to which we will direct all our energies and resources for the benefit of current and future generations," Mr Perkins said. "As a local family-owned company we are proud to rebuild what will be unquestionably one of the most important buildings in Bunbury." The Cathedral precinct was devastated by the tornado of 16th May 2005 resulting in the demolition of St Patrick's Cathedral on the 5th July 2005. The new Cathedral is planned to open in early 2011. The rebuilding of the Cathedral precinct will assert fortitude and permanence, reminding everyone who looks towards it that faith remains ever hopeful, especially in testing times. The first phase of the precinct project included earthworks, retaining walls and consultant's fees. The final phase will be priests' accommodation.
STUDENTS of Santa Maria College understand the importance of giving back, in particular aiding the homeless, poor and needy in their community. Throughout the year many students volunteer their own free time to participate in service programs such as the Red Cross Soup Patrol and Community Cook Ups. Service Learning Coordinator, Mrs Jillian Landers, believes it teaches the students the value of community service. "All students in the College have the opportunity to share their time, talents and treasure with those less fortunate than themselves" said Mrs Landers. The Community Cook Ups are held at the College every second Wednesday after school, with students volunteering to cook meals for the underprivileged members of our community. Students prepare roughly one hundred meals that are then transported to the Archbishops Shopfront organisation, a drop in centre in Maylands. The food used in the program is also donated by the students. Ms Julie Williams, Shopfront Coordinator, said that she believes the Cook Ups are an invaluable service and a blessing for many people. "Without this contribution we simply would not have food for people living on the streets" said Ms Williams. "The fact that the students are preparing nice, healthy meals rather than junk food goes a long way to restore the dignity in these people, it sends the message that they are valued as human beings". Every fortnight a group of students are also involved in the Red Cross Soup Patrol. Students travel to the Red Cross Headquarters in East Perth and help in the delivery of hot and nutritious meals to the homeless and disadvantaged. They must complete a three-hour introductory training session prior to participating in the program. Ms Andrea D'Onofrio from the Red Cross Soup Patrol said that she values the students'
Santa Maria College students Laura Agostino, Brittany Alexander and Alana Rouphael cook up a storm for Perth's homeless. PHOTO: spn(
dedication and believes their contribution assists in making it a successful service. "Santa Maria College volunteers give back to the community, which ultimately demonstrates the power of humanity," Ms D'Onofrio said. "Helping others is a rewarding and empowering experience and volunteers o home feeling like they have made a difference: The College's Deputy Principal, Mission and Care, Loretta Wholley, believes the service programs are an integral part of the students' learning. "Encouraging our students to be compassionate individuals is just as important as their academic progress," Mrs Wholley said.
PRINCIPALSHIPS ST JOSEPH'S PRIMARY SCHOOL, BUNBURY St Joseph's Primary School is a double-stream co-educational Catholic school catering for 446 students from Kindergarten to Year 7. The school is situated in Glenn Padden (South Bunbury) on a four hectare site. The school has strong links to the Marist Brothers and Sisters of Mercy, both of whom were instrumental in the establishment of primary education in the Bunbury region. Presently the school has strong links to the St Thomas' and St Mary's parishes. St Joseph's has a vibrant staff who are committed to providing a quality Catholic education for all students. There is a strong emphasis on literacy and the school is in its second year of implementing the RAISe (Raising Achievement in Schools) program. Collaborative learning strategies are also seen as a high priority in the implementation of the curriculum. Other specialist areas include computing, physical education, music, art, LOTE (Indonesian) and library. Enrichment and remediation programs are also offered in order to extend and support students in their leaming. St Joseph's prides itself on its strong sense of community. Parental involvement is encouraged, along with open c ommunication between parents and staff. Through their ongoing enthusiasm and interest the School Board and Parents and Friends' Association have ensured the school is well resourced and maintained. The successful applicant will take up the position on 1 January 2010.
ST MICHAEL'S SCHOOL, BASSENDEAN
Catholic Education Commission of Western A ustralia
St Michael's School is a single-stream co-educational parish school with an enrolment of 238 students from Kindergarten to Year 7. The school was established in 1914 by the Sisters of Mercy and is located approximately twenty minutes from the centre of Perth on the fringe of the Swan Valley wine region. St Michael's is a multicultural community, consisting of children from many ethnic backgrounds. From 2010 the enrolment configuration will be Kindergarten to Year 6. St Michael's has a special emphasis on literacy development. The school is currently consolidating its involvement in the RAISe (Raising Achievement in Schools) program initiative, this being its third year of implementation. Early intervention programs in the area of literacy have been a feature of the school's education strategy in recent years. Other specialist areas include physical education, music, library, LOTE (Italian) and the visual arts. An integral part of the school is the Special Education Centre, which oversees the learning needs of students with intellectual and physical disabilities. The school community works together to provide pastoral care for each individual and to nurture the whole development of the child. The School Board and Parents and Friends' Association have a strong commitment to developing and providing facilities and resources to meet the needs of all students. St Michael's seeks a creative and energetic leader to implement its educational vision and administer its 'Building the Education Revolution' infrastructure plan. The successful applicant will take up the position at the commencement of Term 3, 2009. Applicants need to be practising Catholics and experienced educators committed to the objectives and ethos of Catholic education. They will have the requisite theological, educational, pastoral and administrative competencies, together with an appropriate four-year minimum tertiary qualification, and will have completed Accreditation for Leadership of the Religious Education Area or its equivalent. A current WACOT registration number must also be included. The official application form, referee assessment forms and instructions can be accessed on the Catholic Education Office website www.ceo.wa.edu.au. Enquiries regarding the position should be directed to Helen Brennan, Consultant, Workforce Relations & Development Team on 6380 5237 or email wrd@ ceo.wa.edu.au. All applications, on the official form, should reach The Director of Catholic Education, Catholic Education Office of Western Australia, PO Box 198, Leederville 6903 no later than Thursday 28 May 2009.
May 13 2009, The Record
Page 5
THE PARISH
Norbertines' 50 years of sacrifice in WA The Norbertine community celebrates fifty years of love, sweat and humility. • By Darlene McGoorty
WHILST Norbertines throughout the world celebrate the 875th anniversary of the death of their founder St Norbert, the parishes of Queens Park/East Cannington and York celebrate 50 years of Norbertine presence in Western Australia. The community will have a special anniversary Mass to mark the occasion on Friday May 15 at St Joseph's Priory Church in Queens Park, followed by supper and a pictorial exhibition in the Fr Peter O'Reilly Centre at St Norbert College. On May 11 1959, Fr Peter O'Reilly, and Fr John Reynolds 0.Praem, both from Holy Trinity Abbey, Kilnacrott in Ireland, arrived in Fremantle at the invitation of Archbishop Prendiville to begin a Norbertine Community. Fr Steven Cooney 0.Praem arrived from Ireland via America later that year and the three priests went on to establish the first Norbertine foundation in Australia. The request to establish the order in Australia originally came from the religious community in 1955. It was not until 1958 however, after a further request had been made, that arrangements began to take shape. Fr Peter O'Reilly was appointed Prior of the Australian mission and on May 17, 1959 was appointed parish priest of St Patrick's Church in the country town of York, about 100km east of Perth. Some months later, The Record reported the Norbertine Fathers' providential' purchase of "Kerry Downs" - a 'magnificent farm of 2,500 acres, 10 miles from York just off the Northam road for the price of 44,000 pounds: Kerry Downs was formally blessed and opened by Archbishop Redmond Prendiville on September 2, 1962 and became the site of the priory. The Fathers, in addition to their religious prayer life and working the land, were responsible for the parish of York, supply work in local country towns, missions and retreats. Part of the original plan was the intention to establish a Catholic boy's school, but there was little need for a school in York since there were already Catholic schools in nearby towns. It was from York that the Norbertines were invited to open a boy's school in the parish of St Joseph's in Queens Park by Archbishop Prendiville and diocesan priest, Fr Jeremiah O'Farrell. Building began in 1964. Four classrooms and the priory were built and Abbot Colwell 0.Praem came out from Ireland to officially open the new school on February 7, 1965. With him came Fr Laurence Anderson 0.Praem who was to be the school's first headmaster. St Norbert College, comprising one class
Working the farm in York to support the mission.
New arrivals on a mission: From left, Fr Stephen Cooney, Fr Peter O'Reilly (Prior), Fr John Reynolds Taken at Kerry Downs Farm, York, in 1959. Below, Archbishop Barry Hickey, the Norbetines and other clergy celebrate the 1 50th anniversary of the first Catholic church in York in March this year.
Principal Fr Anderson with the football team.
of 28 grade six boys began to grow steadily. Over the next four decades, a library, science, blocks, sporting facilities, a theatre, computing centres and a gym were to spring up, satisfying the demands of an ever growing school population. When Fr O'Farrell retired as Parish Priest of Queens Park in 1977, Fr John Reynolds was to become the first Norbertine to assume responsibility of the Parish. The year 1978 saw further extensions to St Norbert Priory and on July 27, 1979, Archbishop Launcelot Goody formally entrusted the care of St Joseph's Parish to the Norbertine Canons, a year also marked by the ordination of the first Australian-born Norbertine, Fr William Fitzgerald 0.Praem. Archbishop Goody lent further encouragement to the Norbertine Community of Queens Park when he transferred some
YOU ARE INVITED TO BE OF
One ollea7t and One Mind
WITH US ON THE WAY TO GOD!
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION Christopher J Lim, 0. Praem
T: (08) 9451 5586 E: priory@norbertines.org.au www.norbertines.org.au 135 Treasure Road, Queens Park WA 6107 AUSTRALIA
Fr Gerard Cusack with St Norbert students.
Archdiocesan land to the Canons for the building of a monastic church adjacent to their priory. Dedicated on the Feast of St Joseph on March 19, 1991, the priory church was the result of extensive work and symbolises the strong links between the Norbertine Canons, local parishioners and St Norbert College. Since parish and priory would be sharing the new building, the Norbertines changed the title of their priory from St Norbert to St Joseph. In 1994 the Parish of St Francis in East Cannington was entrusted to the care of the Norbertines and in 1995 the two parishes were amalgamated, operating as a single parish. In 1995 the Norbertine community was raised to the status of an independent and autonomous canonry and on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, they elected their first prelate, Fr Peter Stiglich 0.Praem. The Norbertines have not only been a strong presence in the life of the College and in the parish communities of York and Queens Park, but have also served in the Parishes of the Holy Family Church in Maddington and Santa Clara Church in Bentley, not to mention the many country parishes in the areas surrounding York. The journey of the Norbertines in Western Australia to date mirrors that of their order's founder. The Norbertine Order, one of the oldest religious orders in the world, began in the Valley of Premontre in France by a small group of men gathered on Christmas Eve, 1121. Led by St Norbert, who came from Xanten in Germany, they committed themselves to God, to one another, and to the apostolic way of life, building an abbey at Premontre. After a life of service to the Church, Norbert died in 1134 leaving behind an example of ministry minded priests living in community. Many centuries later, Norbertine communities of priests and brothers and communities of religious sisters can be found throughout the world. For 50 years the Norbertine Canons in WA have followed in the footsteps of that
Refuelling for mission:The Norbetines at prayer.
Outside St Patrick's Presbytery in York.
tradition and have been a vibrant presence in the communities they have served. They have been men of vision and it is only when we look back over their achievements, their work and their apostolic ministry in the last 50 years, that we truly understand how blessed we have all been to be part of this remarkable journey. If you visit the St Joseph's Priory, you will notice the stained glass coat of arms of the Norbertine Canons on the door of their main entrance. The Latin inscription reads 'In Medio Ecclesiae' which means 'In the Midst of the Church'. We give thanks for 50 years of Norbertine presence in our midst. Darlene McGoorty works in Catholic Education and is a parishioner of St Joseph's Church, Queens Park. A Solemn Pontifical Mass will be celebrated by Archbishop Barry Hickey at 7.30pm on Friday, May 15 in St Joseph's Priory Church at 135 Treasure Road, Queens Park, followed by Supper and a Pictorial Exhibition in the Fr Peter O'Reilly Centre at St Norbert College. This exhibition will then be on display in the Chapter Room of St Joseph's Priory from Saturday May 16 until the Solemnity of St Norbert on Saturday June 6 and will then be taken to St Patrick's Church, York where it will be on display for two weeks..
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May 13 2009, The Record
THE NATION
Religion protected, but not respected Cardinal points out the realities of religious freedom being protected by international law. • By Anthony Barich
Cardinal George Pell addresses the Ambrose Institute launch at NSW Parliament House on April 23, highlighting the irony of religious liberty protected in international law but treated as an 'organised eccentricity' domestically.
Major new initiative to combat cyber bullying and promote Internet safety Children at risk given cyber lifeline. RESPONDING to the rapid rise of cyber bullying and Internet safety issues impacting children and teenagers, an Australian Catholic media company has released a comprehensive DVD and Internet video resource to change young people's online habits for the better. Entitled Cyber Survivor, the program was developed in partnership with a Sydney legal firm specialising in duty-of-care issues for schools after noticing a rapid rise in serious harassment and cyber bullying issues caused by student's use of Internet and mobile phones. As well as modules for students and staff, the program has been made available to parents free of charge over the Internet through web-video chapters and free downloadable manuals. Jonathan Doyle, Canberrabased co-founder with his wife Karen of Choicez Media, the company behind the program, said it was a result of large numbers of schools asking for resources helping them to deal with (cyber bullying': "In the past, one of the only positives about schoolyard bullying was that it stopped at 3pm:" Mr Doyle said. "With cyber bullying via mobile phones, the posting of embarrassing photographs and exclusion from social networking sites, we are seeing a whole new range of serious issues, such as the fact that
a young person can be victimised 24 hours per day, seven days a week. "Another of the big problems is helping schools and parents understand their duty-of-care and other legal responsibilities." The program has been offered to Federal and State education departments and has also been quickly snapped up by independent schools grappling with the changing landscape of technology and how to best help students develop safe and respectful online behaviours, both on campus and at home. Cyber survivor targets parents, students and staff. "In the past, when a school tried to address a key issue by including parents, they would run a Parent Night and cross their fingers that parents would turn up," Mr Doyle said. With Cyber Survivor, Choicez Media gave schools unique access codes to pass on to their parents, which allow each parent to view the video and access the manuals from their home or office computer. A partner at Integroe Legal, the law firm partnering on the project, said that every child has the right to feel safe. "Cyber Survivor helps parents and educators provide a concise, consistent and clear message about the kinds of school communities we want to build and strengthen," the partner said. For information more phone (02) 6273 4608 or email info@choicez.com.au.
THE heavy-hitters of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist faiths have combined forces to launch a new ecumenical institute to combat increasing restrictions on the right to manifest religious beliefs in the public domain. Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Sheikh Abdul Rahman, Anglican Archbishop Dr Peter Jensen, Venerable Thich Phuoc Nhon of the Buddhist faith and former deputy Prime Minister John Anderson all addressed the launch of The Ambrose Centre for Religious Liberties at NSW Parliament House on April 23. Cardinal Pell told the launch that while freedom of religion and belief is affirmed throughout international law as a fundamental human right, in practice it can be treated as if it is a "limited concession" granted by the State to allow space for "individual or organised eccentricities, provided they do not cause offence or impede the rights of others". "This is more akin to a narrow concept of toleration for strange or suspect minorities than to reli-
gious freedom, properly understood," he said. This flies in the face of the fact that religious people, or those who identify themselves as a particular religion, are not a minority in Australia, as just under 70 per cent of the population indicated a religious affiliation in the 2006 Census. "Nor is religious freedom simply a right to toleration", he said, adding that Australians generally value the role that religious organisations play in the life of the community and take it for granted that religious views will be heard in the public debate. "To require, as some have argued, that religious people quarantine their beliefs from any public debate or activity - or even from their profession - is not only unfair but intolerant:' This is not only unjust but impractical, as "beliefs and ideas lead us to act". "The idea that a person's religious and moral convictions can and should be separated from works of service treats those works as nothing more than a variety of the secular social justice or secular welfare work which other non-religious NGOs (non-government organisations) also provide," he said. The launch comes within three months of 50 religious leaders, including representatives of the Catholic Church, meeting on February 10 to discuss the Review of the Exceptions and Exemptions
under the Equal Opportunity Act by the Parliamentary Scrutiny Committee. Melbourne Catholic Archdiocesan Human Resources manager Tom Carr told The Record that this meeting was a response to the urgent issue that the religious freedom is under threat, especially in educational institutions. The religious groups are concerned about religious freedoms under the existing Act, which will not be given a conscience vote when it is read into Victoria's Parliament. At the launch of the Ambrose Centre, which has international advisors from the Acton Institute and the Becket Fund in the United States and the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship in the United Kingdom, Mr Anderson commented on the lack of intellectual depth shown by secularist forces in their contribution to society's welfare needs. He said that people with religious conviction instinctively involve themselves in organisation's that assist the needy, homeless and sick, and stressed the right of such individuals to make this a public statement of their religious beliefs. Archbishop Jensen went further, saying that people of all faiths should "be able to speak boldly in the marketplace, especially on morals issues and not be pushed into the private sphere by secularists". "Social harmony and individual rights need to be tempered so that justice can be applied as a whole for all to enjoy:'
$051 thatstiatitpii tlie geldsInt DEEPLY saddened by the crisis engulfing Christianity in the Middle East, Pope Benedict XVI has asked the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) to provide urgent help. In many parts of the land Our Lord Jesus Christ knew so well, the faithful now live in fear as increasing poverty and growing extremism threaten the survival of these ancient communities. A mass exodus of Christians from the Middle East is now taking place. For some it is a question of escaping bloody persecution. In the Holy Land for example, the proportion of Christians has plummeted from 20% to as little as 1.4% in the last 40 years. ACN is helping to keep faith and hope alive throughout the region by providing urgent aid to priests, religious and lay people, offering subsistence help to refugees and building and repairing Churches and convents. Please help us strengthen and rebuild the Church in the land of Christ's birth. A beautiful, olive wood crucifix, handcrafted in Bethlehem, will be sent to all those who give a donation of $20.00 or more to help this campaign. Please tick the box below if you like to receive the little olive wood crucifix*. MEN
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May 13 2009, The Record
PARISH
Des and Barbara O'Sullivan celebrate 50th wedding anniversary
FIFTY years to the day of their wedding, Des and Barbara O'Sullivan of Hilton parish renewed their wedding vows on Mother's Day in their parish church of Our Lady of Mt Carmel, Hilton. The jubilarians were joined by their children and grand-children. Fr Patrick Lim PP received the renewal of vows and Perth Vicar General Mgr Brian O'Loughlin presented a blessing acknowledgement from Archbishop Barry Hickey, paying tribute to the couple for their example of marriage and family life. On behalf of the Archdiocese he commended Des for his work in Catholic Education, especially as principal of St Norbert's College, Queen's Park and then as development officer for the infant Notre Dame University. Des then served as the foundation director of the Archdiocesan Professional Standards Resource Group, a work "requiring great prudence and discretion, which Des possesses in abundance, and so he was ideal for the position. Des has been an out standing worker for the Church and could well be described as a great Church man".
Revamped retreats by Redemptorists to fire up youth
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Spanish youth celebrate after the announcement that their country will host the next World Youth Day in 2011. Archbishop Barry Hickey has appointed priests from an Order known for their inspired preaching to fire up Perth youth to build on the passion generated by WYD08 in Sydney. PHOTO: CNS
An opportunity to spend time with the inspired writings of Paul, to be filled anew with the Holy Spirit, to learn with Paul that "Ican do all things in Him who strengthens me" (Phil.4;13); to be able to say with Paul: "Ilive now not with my own life, but with the life of Christ who lives in me." (Gal 2:20) • Anthony Barich
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PRIESTS of a Religious Order known for its passionate and relevant preaching are leading the Archdiocese of Perth's newest retreats next month, continuing the crucial catecheses held during World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney. Redemptorist Fathers Hugh Thomas and Dominic Savio, the new chaplain of the Archdiocese's Catholic Youth Ministry office, are delivering vibrant catechesis on St Paul and how the master evangeliser's words of wisdom, inspired by the Holy Spirit itself, can have a profound impact on the everyday lives of today's youth. As part of Archbishop Barry Hickey's program to build on the successful catecheses of WYD08, three night seminars will be held at St Thomas More parish hall Bateman at 7.30pm on June 5, 12 and 19 plus a day retreat there from 9am-5pm on June 27. The sessions will have a revamped format that differs from a similar series held by the Archdiocese in South Perth last year that focused on Carmelite saints, with youth music provided this time around by local musicians Gaetan Raspanti, Shaun McDermott and Oliver Brandis. Fr Hugh Thomas CSsR, himself very experienced in working with Perth youth, said that St Paul is similar to the hundreds of thousands of young people aged 15-35 and beyond who attended WYD08 in that they had a personal experience with Christ and His Church. The coming catechesis sessions build on this experience. "As one of the chief persecutors of the Church, Paul was like the Taliban - he had lots of energy and drive, totally convinced that he was doing the work of God but was actually causing carnage everywhere. We often are so convinced that what we are doing is right, but when we have a personal experience with Christ, He can use us for
good in the world, to bring about His kingdom," Fr Thomas said. "Young people, too, have so much drive, energy and enthusiasm. Paul has much to offer them to channel their energy to do good in the world through their connection with Christ and His Church." He said that we often hear St Paul's teaching at Mass on Sundays, but by not delving under the surface we may never really fully understand what he's really saying in these bite-sized grabs if they are not explained. Fr Thomas said that if today's youth can capture some of St Paul's spirit, they can have a significant effect on the world. "Paul was working in a predominantly non-Christian, decadent Roman society not unlike the one that young people find themselves in today," Fr Thomas said. Yet St Paul had a huge impact on his society, Fr Thomas said, and the saint's legacy is seen in the Church today as he shaped much of its thinking. Fr Thomas said that St Paul's teachings include many catch phrases that are known outside the Catholic world, like "I can do all things through him who strengthens me" - this is a profound teaching, he says, as St Paul admits his weakness but says God uses us in our weaknesses. "This gives us hope to persevere whenever we think we can't get through a tough period," Fr Thomas said. Fr Thomas said that St Paul's letters are personally inspiring to him, especially his letter to the Philippians, where he explains his impressive, impeccable credentials as a circumcised Jew and Pharisee - yet, the saint admits, it all counts for nothing now that Jesus has become the centre of his life. The Jews turned on him as a traitor, yet he persisted and is remembered today as one of the Church's great evangelisers. "St Paul has much to teach today's youth about how to find love and peace - the love of Christ that this world can't give," Fr Thomas said. The Redemptorists are also known as the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, and were founded by St Alphonsus Liguori in 1732 in Italy, and was introduced to WA in 1899. St Alphonsus was visiting the sick and dying when he realised God's call to evangelise the poor. For more info, email frhughthomas@yahoo.co.uk or log onto www.cym.com.au.
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editorial
Parents are the key
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or decades, great numbers of Catholic families have watched their children walk away from the practice of the faith. In fact, they have watched their children leave not only the practice, but any effective belief in the specifics of Christianity, and perhaps most especially (although not only) the Church's transmission of God's plan of life and love for every human life. Where, they have often asked in anguished tones, did we go wrong? The truth is that Catholic, Christian and religious families face an entirely new topography in a post-Christian society such as Australia. One important reason is the Cultural Revolution that occurred in western societies in the 1960s. Half a century ago, or thereabouts, society in general and its key institutions generally supported the job that parents tried to do by and for their children. Parents could expect, even if only in a vague and generalised sense, a general support from the media, governments, peers and other institutions for the religious and/or moral values they were trying to transmit to their children. But the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, which is often treated as synonymous with the Sexual Revolution, was far deeper and pervasive by comparison with the relatively minor event of the same name that occurred in China under the rule of Mao. The Cultural Revolution of the Sixties constituted a sudden and disruptive break with the past and the accumulated PO Box 75 legal, moral and religious Leederville, WA 6902 traditions and common cathrec@iinet.net.au wisdom of 1500 years of European civilisation Tel: (08) 9227 7080 about such fundamenFax: (08) 9227 7087 tal things as how people should lead their lives, what things harm them, what is good for communities and what undermines them. At the beginning of the third millenium in Australia we can now speak of a revolution in the true sense of the word (a disruptive rejection of what has previously existed). As a consequence families now face the following situation: whereas society's institutions once supported families and children in matters to do with values, religious faith, stability and happiness, today almost the entire range of the media, governments, peer-pressure and the internet (to name some of the most important) are actively and philosophically hostile to, and dismissive of, traditional family life. This declaration of war upon values such as marriage and childhood and the family unit by western societies is one of the greatest and most devastating revolutions of western European history. The practical effect of this revolution of despair embraced at almost all levels of society has been to powerfully register with the young that the beliefs to which their families subscribe and attempt to live out are hopelessly out of date and irrelevant. Furthermore such values and beliefs are foisted on them and their contemporaries by institutions (such as the Church) which are out of step with what it truly means to be human. Almost no young person can withstand the constant and oftenalluring pressure and example which comes at them from television, the Internet, their mobile phones, their peers and friends in schools, the media - in fact from every quadrant of their universe. Hence the anguish of the parents. It is now extremely likely that any particular Catholic couple will fail in trying to lead their children to an encounter with the living God that becomes a significant basis for their lives, when from their childhood years onwards, it seems as if everyone else is telling their children that God is dead. If this disturbing conclusion really is true, what does work? The answer is close at hand. If isolation of children from the faith and values of their parents and of Christianity is the essential nature of the problem presented by contemporary society, then isolation can also be understood as an absence. What Catholic families generally do not currently experience is the constant example of other families creatively and optimistically engaged in the business of being counter-cultural so that the corrosive and corrupting forces of society's Cultural Revolution are neutralised. If isolation is the problem, communion is the answer. When young people see their friends engaging in prayer, and their friends' parents engaged in prayer and in taking religious faith as a serious and meaningful part of their lives they see something new. If the majority of their friends take prayer, Church attendance and belief in God and the Church seriously, it follows entirely naturally that it is Christianity - not what society holds out as an example - that is normal. This is one reason why World Youth Day is such a powerful experience. For the first time in their lives, young Catholics see millions of others who are just like them and who accept Christianity as normality. Until WYD they have only experienced the isolation of being a Catholic in an Australian suburban setting. What must Catholic parents do? The first step is simple: they must actively find other families who share their faith and values and foster real friendship with them so that their children and their children's friends experience Christianity not as abnormality but as normality. When parents foster such friendships and replace the isolation of our society with a community of faith - it is they who will have become the true revolutionaries. But this is only the first step. There are more to come. Watch The Record in coming weeks.
THE RECORD
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May 13 2009, The Record
OPINIONS Letters to the editor
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Great Hawes tale Congratulations to Anthony Barich and The Record for publishing your wonderful expose on "Tracing an Outback Legend". The series of stories have highlighted the wonderful work of this extremely talented and holy priest and his impact on the Church in the remote areas of our state. He is certainly the stuff of which sainthood is made. We often read about the impact of such people on the European Church, but he is an example of one who served the people of our country and has not received the same recognition. Well done!
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1/1 VIA IL IltnITnell
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Ray Lowe Bunbury
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You may or may not be familiar with the House of Hope. Our mission is to provide compassionate comfort and assistance to women who have fallen victim to the sex industry and restore there God given dignity and honor to womanhood. Linda's House of Hope is a not for profit organisation and depends 100 per cent on the generosity of friends like you, to continue helping women and their families entrapped in prostitution. Our needs are always a constant battle; we are struggling to keep our doors open in these tough economic times. We face the reality of cutting back our services or closing our doors. We would love to continue to provide assistance to those in need but are facing huge financial challenges. All donations over $2.00 are fully tax deductible. Payments methods: Credit card,
Not Prime Ministerial Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's outburst that people smugglers "are engaged in the world's most evil trade they represent the absolute scum of the earth - the lowest form of human life - and in my own view should rot in Hell" is one of the worst statements made by any Australian Prime Minister. We see too many organised picshots of Mr Rudd, a Catholic, leaving an Anglican church, designed to present him as an ardent practicing Christian. How can a Christian say that he wishes anyone, no matter what they have done, to rot in Hell? It is the absolute worst end for any soul. Jesus, the Son of God, came on earth to suffer and die for sinners. He said I did not come to call the virtuous but the sinners. (Mk 2-17) People smugglers may be the
scum of the earth, but there are far worse crimes. Mr Rudd has recently approved the sending of millions of dollars overseas to people, specifically to use the money to kill unborn babies. Killing thousands of the most innocent human beings is a far worse crime than people smuggling. But we should not wish that even the person who kills the greatest number of babies should rot in Hell. Mr Rudd, (like all of us) should be concerned about his own destination after death because Jesus also said "Do not judge, because the judgments you give are the judgments you will get:' (Mt 7:1). Brian Peachey Woodlands
Obama a breath of fresh air It saddens me that some prestigious and ordinary Catholics in the United States and elsewhere are so quick to condemn President Barack Obama because he is pro choice and pro embryonic stem cell research. So much of what he believes and values concur with Ours. I am saddened too that segments of the Church are calling on Notre Dame University to withdraw their invitation for him to speak to their graduates and leaders. He is such a breath of fresh air on the international political scene. I have recently read his life story, Dreams of my Father, and his second book The Audacity of Hope outlining his beliefs and values. He strikes me as a man of great sincerity, honesty and integrity. Jesus had open and frank discussions with the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, priests and leaders of his time even through they held different beliefs and values. Why can't we? G W Searle Perth
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May 13 2009, The Record
THE RECORD
Family life aliZt faith And new challenges for the Church Figures from the latest Census show there are significantly more Catholics out there than those who actually attend Mass regularly. This presents a serious pastoral challenge for Perth's priests and laity alike. Anthony Ranch reports. .111,
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efore the day of the automobile, when rural priests got around on families horseback, would host home Masses for the local Catholic community. For families in the area, it was a day to look forward to. Not only did the families from every farm within walking or riding distance gather for a Mass, it was a festive occasion where the social setting of a dinner and maybe even a dance was set alongside catechesis. The priest, having travelled to the remote property by horseback, would often stay the night and catechesis would be given before and after Mass on Scripture. In the 1950s, devotional Masses were also celebrated in homes in the metro area by travelling priests, quite aside from the regular school and church Masses. The first Mass at Brentwood was celebrated in the priest's loungeroom in 1954 before Regina Coeli Church was built. Fr Pat Cunningham, a priest of over 57 years who turned 80 on March 17, says devotional Masses for family communities is an idea that ties together two things that should be inseparable: family life and faith. While the idea itself is by no means the solution to a societal problem that sees around five per cent of school leavers retain a connection with the Church, Fr Cunningham, Perth co-ordinator of the Pastoral Data Project, said the process of 'going to Mass' starts at home by the building of a prayer life. "Setting off to Mass is a result of the internal prayer life of the home that comes to its fulfillment on Sunday; so if kids are used to the idea of a loving God and a caring Saviour, then that sets the scene why on Sundays they should all jump in the car and go meet the Lord and meet each other," he says. "That's what used to happen a century ago when people got Into their horse and buggy and travelled enormous distances to get to a Sunday Mass, because the Mass had already commenced in their home catechesis, in the lives they lived, the prayers they said and the charity they expressed. All of this is the background to the Mass they go to." He says the Catholic Church in Australia has also not fully explored the concept of home Masses, a practice that was corn-
Even when Perth was on the advent of technological advances, priests used to do what rural priests long considered a way of life: travelling from home to home on horseback. New realities in the lives of lay mean PHOTO RAINBEET priests "may need to revisit some old tricks", says one experienced cleric.
mon during settlement days up until the advent of the car, and in some cases after. He says that people used to ask for home Masses initially, and neighbours were invited. But, it faded away, he said, as "I don't think it was being used sufficiently as an evangelisation tool". "If you want to do that, there has to be catechesis before and after about the Scripture, items of the Mass and follow-up catechesis on what the home Mass did for the little local community if several families participated," he said. "Maybe some of the old tricks we used to use need to be revisitecr Fr Cunningham said, referring to door-knocking - a practice that was championed by the likes of Frs Eugene McGrath, Geoff Aldous and Barry Whitely but seldom practiced these days.
By doing this as a get-toknow-you exercise rather than -The priest, having being directly evangelical, Fr ravelled to the remoteCunningham says, the priest got to know the neighbourroperty by horseback, hood and "could tell you who's often stay the night would a Catholic and who's not". City Beach parish priest Fr and catechesis would be Don Kettle, 47, admits doorgiven before and after Mass knocking is an extra responsibility priests may struggle to on Scripture." find time to do, but it reaps rewards. Last year he received accurate met me andI ended up anointing data collection from a Legion of him, gave him Communion and Mary team from Victoria who did his funeral. This was a guy door-knocked 3400 houses in two living in the parish who no-one weeks. He said the data meant "I knew about:' Fr Kettle said. He says parish outreach must had to get off my butt and follow be followed up by initiatives and up, but it was brilliant". "One guy was in his 40s, a welcoming congregation. "If people come you need dying with cancer and felt alienated from Church. He resisted things in place to welcome and the Legion of Mary initially but reconnect them, otherwise they they persisted and he eventually come to Mass and nobody talks
to them. You need to make the parishioners aware of the new faces," he said, but conceded this would be difficult to keep track of in the larger parishes. Fr Kettle agrees with Fr Cunningham in calling for catechesis in the home. "It comes down to formation," Fr Kettle said. "If it's not happening in the schools and homes, it's not happening anywhere else; then we don't have to play second fiddle to everyone else's tunes to entertain people. Mass is not about that and it shouldn't be." Part of this, Fr Cunningham says, is that the school must be aware of its parish. However, every priest has his own experience, and what works in one might not work in another. Both Frs Kettle and Cunningham say that as the Church is competing with so many other priorities these days, door-knocking probably wouldn't work; but if priests do, "we have to be smart about it". Priests also need to acknowledge the realities of people's personal faith lives. Fr Cuningham said that in one Perth metropolitan parish, "people aren't embarrassed by saying they only go to Mass occasionally, like once a month:' Fr Cunningham said. "In other words, many Catholics may only be going to Mass intermittently, and that's the culture in which they now live." This is a new experience for a Church to think in this way as it still requires people to attend Mass weekly; but "that's the gulf between a Church regulation and people's perception of it in real life": Once people's realities are acknowledged, then the Church can ask what is in their lives that might be an obstacle to worship. "Are they busy with parents and school sport? That, to me, is only one of the obvious distractions; there are many more subtle distractions - in our affluent society we're too busy about living, we have too many things to do, too many choices to enjoy," he says. As Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have acknowledged, new media must be utilised, including innovative, up-to-date websites and emailing parish bulletins out, as the Ukrainian Catholic community does. The Ukrainians' bulletin also includes catechesis. He says that the Church must continually expand into developments in new communication technology, as it is where young children and adolescents spend an increasing amount of time.
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May 13 2009, The Record
Parish survival 101: clerics reveal all Numbers game revealing Figures from the latest Census are a call to the lay faithful to find new avenues to pastoral work so the priest can focus on the Sacraments, so God's graces can be poured out. • By Anthony Barich
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ver 1.5 million people living in the Archdiocese of Perth called themin selves Catholic the 2006 national census, with Yangebup parish surging to second spot on the list of parishes with the most numbers. A recent breakdown of the latest Census figures show a total of 1,535,405 people declared themselves Catholic. This contrasts strongly with a participation survey carried out in May that year that revealed Perth Archdiocesan parishes averaged a total of 51,740 per weekend. This is down from 2001, when the national count of attendance found that 59,650 attend Mass on a typical weekend in Perth. This is consistent with figures released by the Pastoral Projects Office (PPO), an agency of he Bishops Australian Catholic Conference, which confirm that Catholic Mass attendance numbers are declining and have been since the 1970s. Bob Dixon, PPO director, says that despite an increase in the number of Australians calling themselves Catholic in the most recent 2006 Census, the decline of Mass attendees is occurring at different rates and in different demographic segments throughout Australia. The PPO is charged with collecting data about the religious practice of Catholics in Australia - coordinating Catholic participation in the five-yearly National Church Life Survey, (NCLS) last held in 2006 - as well as special projects, such as the Catholics who have ceased attending Mass report of last year. In the 2006 survey, an average of 708,618 people attended weekend worship Australia-wide, representing 13.8 per cent of people identifying themselves as Catholic in the census. This was down from the 2001 figure of 763,726 or 15.3 per cent a drop of 55,108 despite an overall growth in the Catholic population. The Pastoral Projects Office pro-
vide several downloadable documents on their website providing information about the age, ethnic and gender make-up of the Church faithful. Perth parishes will be asked to draw on these results to devise a strategy to embrace lapsed Catholics. Catholic numbers have overall increased but the percentage of people who say they are Catholic is down in the Archdiocese of Perth, from 25.6 per cent to 24.6 per cent. This percentage figure was still above the number of those who said they were Anglican, and probably for the first time, said Fr Patrick Cunningham, Perth co-ordinator of the Pastoral Data Project. Fr Cunningham said the figures are a call to encourage lay people - especially parish councils - to interest themselves in finding new avenues of pastoral work, so the priest can focus on sacramental duties. "It should be a lay initiative," he said, "as the laity are the very people about whom the statistics are talking." The top 15 parishes account for half of numbers in the 108 parishes in the Archdiocese of Perth. Overall, there were just under 14,000 more Catholics in 2006 than there were in 2001. Yangebup, a growing suburb 25km south of Perth city, has shown the steadiest rise in numbers. With 10,171 now declaring themselves Catholic out of 44,128 in the suburb, it was ranked 22 in the 1996 Census and 11 in 2001. It sits behind Ocean Reef, which has been consistently high - ranked first also in 2001 and fifth in 1996. In Spearwood, ranked 11th down from a third placing in 1996 - nearly one in every two people are Catholic, with 48.7 per cent of people declaring themselves Catholic. Ellenbrook, another growth area to the south of Perth, has shown the sharpest growth, now ranked 36th, up from 60th in 2001. Applecross is also up 21 places from 50 in 1996 to 29 in 2006. However, this figure could be in part due to the Brentwood 'cell' being transferred to Applecross since the previous Census.
Ranked 15th in the Archdiocese for numbers, it also has the secondhighest percentage of people who declared t hemselves Catholic (39.6), while Hamilton Fr Pat ranked Hill, Cunningham 60th in numbers, also had a strong percentage of Catholics (37.5), as did 62"-ranked Attadale (35.9 per cent). Fr Cunningham says the factors accounting for these figures are many, but some suburbs have high numbers of people from one specific ethnic background, meaning that many practicing Catholics are migrants, but locally-born Catholics are not baptising their children as much. Migrating nationalities like the Vietnamese, Fr Cunningham says, are preserving the family unit and attending Mass as a family. Fr Cunningham, a former editor of The Record and a priest of over 57 years, says that the percentage who say they have no religion is also important - 64 per cent of the population are still Christian - but while this is what people want to be known as, it may not represent what they are necessarily doing in their lives. In May 2006, when Perth parishes participated in the national participation count in Catholic parishes, Bateman averaged the highest - 2839 - followed by St Mary's Cathedral (1771), Whitford (1616), Morley (1461), Fremantle (1430) and Willetton (1374) among the highest. However, these figures, in most cases, pale in comparison to the number of people who call themselves Catholics in these areas 7701 in Bateman, 9552 in Whitford and 5386 in Willetton. The lowest numbers for those who call themselves Catholics, including practicing Catholics, are found in remote country towns whose parishes have merged, Fr Cunningham says, partly because farmers "don't change their loyalties easily". Fr Cunningham, said that in these situations, "the priest doesn't stand a chance to get to know all the parishioners". Instead, it is the responsibility of the lay to get to know their neighbours. This is the case in metropolitan and country parishes, he says.
• By Anthony Barich
he parish priest of what could by now be the largest parish in Perth says the latest T Census figures "mean nothing" to him, as
his parish, along with doubtless all others, are already doing what they can with what they've got.
Above, Fr Bryan Rosling with parishioners. Below, Fr Joe Walsh.
the home, Main photo: A grandmother prays with her grandson in church at an Ash Wednesday Mass. It is often grandparents these days that are passing on the Faith, but Mass itself should be the end result of the internal prayer life of parish York New a in children left, Bottom Spain. Madrid, in family Perth priest Fr Pat Cunningham says. Top left: a little grl prays in church while held by her father; below that, an infant holds a cross at a rally in support of the traditional PHOTOS: NS prepare for a crowning of Mary ceremony and praying of the Rosary.
It's your friendly priest calling 1 Connecting with a community by door-knocking can work, but the priost needs lay help.
• By Anthony Barich
he age-old priest's practice of doorknocking to connect with the comT munity is still possible, but the priest
Accountability and welcome The faithful are more busy, but priests can still connect with them. • By Anthony Barich
lcoming atmosphere at the rish while taking very seriously the matter of handling parents references to get their children into Catholic schools are the priority evangelical tasks of Fr John Sherman at Fremantle's Basilica of St Patrick. Fremantle's 2006 Census figure of 2130 is less than double the number
Ara
of practicing Catholics reported to live in the area, but Fr Sherman, an Oblate of Mary Immaculate, says these figures as misleading, as up to 70 per cent of its attendees are from outside the parish zone. The figure of practicing Catholics per weekend, he says, is closer to 940, but, interestingly, he says, collections are up - an indication that there are more people at Mass. "It's different here in Fremantle. We're like St Mary's Cathedral in that
they like the old church, and people who have been associated with St Patrick's Basilica in the past often come back," he told The Record. Fr Sherman says it's "almost impossible" to door-knock in his area, as the Fremantle population is full of busy young business people, so Fremantle's priority of evengelisation is a welcoming ministry. The parish has someone at the door greeting parishioners entering the church and the congregation is encouraged to greet each other before Mass, "which sends a magical energy through the congregation during Mass". Fr Sherman also takes "very seriously" the matter of handing out
We do what we can, but we're open to new ideas...
a reference to parents who ask for one to be admitted into a Catholic school, always sitting down with them and, in a friendly manner, brings them to account about their involvement with the parish - in other words, are they going to Mass. "We're dealing with a population that's not very practicing, so there needs to be some accountability with them," Fr Sherman says.
needs a dedicated team of lay to help carry it out, says the man who resurrected a parish with the age-old method. Fr Eugene McGrath, 79, has been 55 years a priest and is now chaplain to the Little Sisters of the Poor at Glendalough, but prior to that visited many hundreds of homes in the parishes where he was based. It all started when, after being ordained a priest in 1954, he started cycling when assistant priest at Queens Park to do parish visitations to Kenwick, Cannington and Wattle Grove, among other surrounding suburbs - all in his clerical collar and black suit. He was not the only priest that did this and there have been many other methods of evangelisation used by priests over the years. He is not one to think his way is superior, but he says the effectiveness of the practice was evident. "Lots of priests have things that appeal to some people more than to others," he said. In his 14 years at Belmont, where he established perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, he sustained a constantly updated parish census with a dedicated team of 12 Legion of Mary members who met with him weekly and uploaded figures onto the parish database. The first visit to any house would be
a friendly visit, then each following visit would take a step further in drawing the house-dweller or family back to the Church and its sacraments. A priority during this time was the significant number of elderly in the parish. "We concentrated a lot on keeping them in touch sacramentally with the Church; and if they couldn't come to Mass, my policy was that if they had been to Mass before in their lives, then it's crucial to keep them in contact:' he said. "If people are ill or elderly then we
would take them Communion in their homes," he said, adding that this regular contact meant that if the elderly died, "they weren't unknown, and had the sacraments". Updating the parish census, he says, gives the priest a better knowledge of his territory so he can designate lay to "do the groundwork" of pastoral ministry, and for the parishioner "it's a different feeling for them in the pews if the priest on the altar has been to their houses': He concedes that door -knocking is almost impossible for a priest to do on his own, but, if it can be carried out by marshalling the lay, then parishioners can have regular exposure to the sacraments something he sees as crucial. While weekend Mass numbers were
boosted - in some cases with people from outside his zone - he says "it's not about filling the pews on Sunday, but being in touch with the people where they are in their lives": contact Regular between the school and parish meant that parishioners carried out the job of visiting the school providing important things like instruction. "I belong to an era where we began work From the start as priests with a great emphasis on knowing what pastoral was all about, which is meeting people in their lives," he said.
Learn from the master evangelisers A
fter his 55 years as priest, Fr Eugene McGrath finds much strength in the renewed focus in the Church on the greatest evangelist in this the Year of St Paul. In an effort to encourage his brothers in the priesthood, he said it is "important for me to mention that we are but chosen instruments who are called to act in the Person of Christ for the people committed to our care by the call of the bishop across the years of our ministry". "In this year of St Paul I have been grateful that so many of his writings cover what a priest is called to be and to do and to acknowledge," he said. "So much is contained in Philippians 2:12: 'Keep on working to complete your salvation, for God is always at work in you to make you willing and able to
obey his own purpose'. Elsewhere, Paul shares the secret of his own self-giving: 'The love of Christ is driving me': Paul would never allow us to be hindered by the reality of human weakness when he reminds us that 'we are only fragile vessels that hold His treasure of grace, to make it clear that such an overwhelming power comes from God and not from us. I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast: "The Lord has included all of us when he assured St Paul: 'My grace is enough for you; my power is at its best in weakness': "As chaplain at the Little Sisters and while sharing the final part of my life's pilgrimage with residents who are able to appreciate that as I enter my 80th birthday in 2009, the gifts of my priest-
hood are for them now. But they are reminded of how much the part of the Eucharistic prayer should mean to us here: 'Lord, remember your Church throughout the world; make us grow in love, together with Benedct our Pope, Barry James our bishop, Donald his assistant and all the clergy": Words of St Therese of Lisieux also give Fr McGrath great solace: "At the evening of this life we shall appear before God with empty hands. For we do not ask you Lord to count our works. All our good works have stainmarks in your sight. Therefore we want to be clothed in your own justice and to receive from your merciful love the eternal possession of your self. It will be the moment of greatest trust in God's loving Divine Mercy."
Fr Bryan Rosling is parish priest of Yangebup, ranked in the 2006 Census as the parish with the second-highest number of people who declared themselves Catholic, with 10,171 people, behind only Ocean Reef (10,814). Having just passed the 1000-mark for weekend attendances, Fr Rosling says it is likely his parish has by now overtaken Ocean Reef, as his suburb, located 25km south of Perth, continues to grow. Yangebup parish even awaits a division into a second parish to its south. With several initiatives, including a booming altar servers' group of 100 that serves as a youth group that meets monthly, a friendship social club that connects elderly singles, a Mater Care program that reaches existing parishioners and a second St Vincent de Paul Society started up to cater for increasing demand, the parish's lay are well and truly activated. While saying he's open to suggestions as to what more the parish can do pastorally with these figures at hand, he says they 'mean nothing to me, I'm well aware of the growth of the parish; I've been here 10 years:' Fr Rosling said. "We have a letter drop every Easter and Christmas letting people know about it, we've increased it from 7000 eight years ago to 16,000, and I still don't know if we're covering all the homes in the parish. We provide schools with a certain amount of pastoral care and reach out to as many as we can." While the figures are already out of date and parishes receive them up to two years after the stats were taken, he says the parish is conscious of its own growth, and "I don't get too hysterical about the figures. You do the best you can with what you've got". Though Yangebup is a young area, the parish also has a healthcare focus, with Fr Rosling celebrating a monthly Mass on Tuesdays at Brighwater, a government-run run aged care institution, and a weekly Mass every Thursday morning at the centre in Success run by the Knights of Southern Cross. Lay Eucharistic ministers also take Communion to elderly people at these centres each Sunday. "We're not doing anything that any other parish isn't doing, but the demand is growing for these things," he said. He says there is only so much a parish can do - people know where to find the Church, and the parish is in reasonable contact with the local community. Fr Joe Walsh, parish priest of St Joseph's in Subiaco, builds a community through offering the church spaces for functions including groups of lawyers, restaurateurs, teachers and doctors, so that they find the local church as a place of welcome. If individuals at these groups then feel comfortable enough to ask about the faith, they can make a separate appointment to do so. This is done under the Catholic philosophy of 'grace built on nature', where people respond to warmth and hospitality. The parish also has a strong focus on home visitation, based on the philosophy of 'a house-going priest fosters a church-going people': An effective youth group has also recently sprung up.
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Vista 4
May 13 2009, The Record
VISTA 4
20 years since the fall of
communism part II This week Record columnist Hal Colebatch continues his special four-part series looking back on the collapse of what once seemed to be a monolithic and global threat to societies everywhere. Mikhai l Gorbachev faced with the reality o f a crumbling Soviet economy and the failure of Communism, set out t o reform the system. But the levers he pulled brought it down.
Lech Walensa - the G dansk Shipyard electrician co-founded Solidarnosc, the Polish trade union that forced Moscow to compromise, and eroded its control of Eastern Europe.
F r Jerzy Popieluszko the priest, considered a martyr by many, was a bducted and killed by Polish communist agents in 1984. Became an icon of resistance to Communist rule. Cause for beatification in progress.
Pol Pot - 'Brother Number One.' Put Communism into practice in Cambodia, e ventual ly sending approximately a quarter of its population to their deaths between 1975 and 1978.
T
hirteen million Poles saw the Pope personally during his 1979 visit, and probably very nearly the whole of the nation saw him on television. To turn out to greet the Pope was both an act of praising God and the Church and of defying the regime. Nothing like it had happened in the Communist world before. Again to quote The Lord of The Rings, they had woken up and found that they were strong. When the Pope returned to Rome, the Communist rulers of Poland heaved a sigh of relief that the visit had gone no worse: there had been no open rebellion, and it was now over. But whether they realised it or not, their regime was now a standing corpse. On October 2, 1979, Pope John Paul II addressed the United Nations. He defended religious freedom everywhere in the world, but the thrust of his words were pointed at the Soviet bloc. US Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who witnessed the scene, recalled that for the first time when such a speech was being made, the Soviet delegates "looked fearful rather than bored:' Six weeks later the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union approved a special plan to discredit the Pope, working through left-wing Catholic organisations. The KGB was instructed to show through the various publications, including religious ones, which it controlled or influenced in the West that "the leadership of the new Pope, John Paul II, is dangerous to the Catholic Church:' Whether the Turkish terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca was then targetted to assassinate the Pope by the KGB, either directly or through Bulgarian intelligence, is unproven, but is at least highly probable. Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister of Britain in 1979, a month before the Pope's visit to Poland, succeeding the nonentity James Callaghan. The now-retired Governor of California, Ronald Reagan, telephoned to congratulate her but was not put through: the Downing Street switchboard was not sure if this over-the-hill ex-politician was quite important enough. She would be strengthened in her anti-Soviet position shortly after by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The British government arranged for Blowpipe anti-aircraft missile launchers to be supplied to the Afghan resistance fighters and pressured the US to supply the more effective Stinger missiles. Visiting Britain in October, 1979, the Pope travelled to Southern Ireland. Since the IRA, which had stepped up its campaign of bombing atrocities, claimed to be acting on behalf of Irish Catholics, this could have been a fraught situation for the Thatcher government (her close friend and advisor Airey Neave had recently been killed by an IRA bomb, as had Earl Mountbatten). But at
Helmets abandoned by Argentine soldiers at Goose Green in the Falklands. The conflict demonstrated key Western leaders, such as Margaret Thatcher, were prepared to fight. PHOTOGRAPH PA
Drogheda, scene of an anti-Irish and anti-Catholic atrocity committed by Cromwell, the Pope ringingly denounced the IRA violence: "On my knees I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence and return to the ways of peace violence destroys the work of justice ... further violence in Ireland will only drag down to ruin the land you claim to love and the values you claim to cherish ..." Many hundreds more were to die, Margaret Thatcher herself would escape assassination, like the Pope and the President, by a margin so narrow as to seem miraculous, and the violence has not ended yet. But no IRA terrorist could claim to be acting for Catholicism or with the sanction of the Catholic Church again. In fact, of course, the Church had long denounced the IRA, which far from being a Catholic organisation, was Marxist, and had Soviet finance, support and weapons. But this put the seal on the matter. The Pope's words also helped cement the alliance of understanding which was gradually forming between these great leaders that the time had come to say "Enough!" to the "long drawling tides of defeat:' In Poland in 1980 strikes spread and an independent Trade Union was formed. Determined yet peaceful, and drawing strength from Rome, it was, said O'Sullivan, "An almost text-book implementation of the Pope's theory of cultural resistance. The Pope's visit [had] made the people aware that they were a united Catholic nation and need not be divided by Communist-enforced fear and lies: The Soviets backed a military coup in Poland under the Quisling General Wojcich Jaruzelski but this could only keep the lid on temporarily. No longer could they, as they had done in Hungary in 1956, and elsewhere throughout their Empire, send in Red Army tanks to drown resistance in blood. Totalitarianism was losing its teeth. I was in England for much of 1983-85, and reading such great writers as Colin Welch on what was happening in Poland, I felt the first faint intimations of what my friend and teacher professor Patrick O'Brien had said to a pessimistic gathering in Perth in 1979: that in the Soviet bloc something was going to give. The murder of the Solidaritysupporting Priest Jerzy Popieluszko by three state security agents gave the cause a new martyr and figure of inspiration. His eloquent sermons had attracted thousands. Here, in a Communist-ruled nation, he had openly told the people that defiance of authority was an obligation of the heart, of religion, manhood and nationhood. To
A woman walks past an IRA mural in Belfast. The organisation's violence was denounced by Pope John Paul II. PHOTO NEWSIMG BBC CO UK
quote O'Sullivan again: "The mass of Poles had absorbed the Pope's subtle techniques of cultural resistance. They demonstrated their hostility to Communism not by riots but by openly showing their allegiance to God." An America outraged by the humiliations into which it had been led by the defeatist Jimmy Carter elected Ronald Reagan, then aged 70, to the Presidency in 1981. Two years later he sent US marines to the West Indian island of Grenada to oust the Cuban-backed Communist regime which had seized power there. Grenada was a tiny place but the event was of huge symbolic significance - for the first time ever Communism had actually been "rolled back:' It was possible. It could be done. The Thatcher government showed its mettle by responding to the Argentine invasion of the Falklands with a full-scale military counter-attack, aided by help from Ronald Reagan, and, in Chile, by the anti-Communist General Pinochet, help which was probably a factor in making victory possible. Not to have so responded so would have been to broadcast a signal of surrender to the world. Thatcher and Reagan would reinforce and encourage one another in determination to not merely stand firm and hold the line, to delay the tide of history, but to go on the offensive, to reverse that tide of retreat, and to have the values of democracy win. Many others, great and small, would play a part in what happened. A little later Jim Baen assembled a group of science-fiction authors, space-scientists, computer engineers, military men and astronauts to form The National Citizens' Space Advisory Council. From their brain-storming sessions and those of the High Frontier group came the idea of the Strategic
Defence Initiative. And President Reagan listened to them. The Soviet Union would mobilise its propaganda fronts to attack the SDI as a threat to world peace while trying desperately to build its own, only to find its economy, already in a downward spiral, was being pushed into collapse by the effort.
"Gorbachev's first official speeches promised no change, but in private he told his wife, the day before his appointment: "We can't go on living like this anymore:' In the Soviet Union Brezhnev died and the withered blood-soaked hands of Andropov and Chernenko briefly held power. They were succeeded by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985. His first official speeches promised no change, but in private he told his wife, the day before his appointment: "We can't go on living like this any more:' Whether or not Gorbachev knew from the start what his role in history would be, whether he thought a little window-dressing would suffice to set things right, or whether be simply tried to give the Soviet Union a further lease of life by instituting reforms, we cannot be sure. Gorbachev was also promoting more reform-minded officials. Their actual degree of reform-mindedness may have been very moderate, but it was a great advance on the dinosaurs of the past. In 1981, the average age of Politburo members was 71 - men whose minds had been been thoroughly molded by the time Stalin died. By 1990 it has fallen to 55. But the guillotine descending on Communism was falling quicker now. TO BE CONTINUED.
May 13 2009, The Record
Page 9
CHILDREN
Kids bitz & puzzles colour
CHILDREN'S STORY
word slueth
Moses meets Zipporah, daughter of Jethro, when she and her sisters bring their flock of sheep to the well. Moses marries Zipporah.
SAUL BEGINS TO PREACH A BOUT JESUS By Joe Sarnicola
Saints word sleuth Francis Anthony Therese Elizabeth Clare
Joan Benedict Kateri Isaac Philip (hildrens Saints Books can be found on the back page of the paper this week
ARTIST WEEK Danielle Dias, is our Artist of the Week with this fantastic drawing of Jesus rising from the grave. Congratulations!
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SPOTLIGHT ON SAINTS St John the Silent John the Silent (454-558) built a monastery for himself and 10 other men when he was 18 years old. The monks wanted to live in solitude where they could devote themselves to hard work while maintaining an attitude of prayer. Even though he spent most of his time in the monastery, word of John's leadership ability did not go unnoticed. The Archbishop of Sebaste appointed him as Bishop of Colonian in Armenia. Ten years later John saw a vision of a glowing cross in the air, and he followed it to the monastery of St Sabas. John lived there for a time, then in the desert, then again at the monastery. He preferred to live alone and unknown, but people still sought him out for advice. We honor him on May 13.
PUZZLE FREE WEEKLY GIFT KIDS BITZ ARTIST OF THE WEEK will receive a free gift
from the Record Bookshop. All you need to do is post or email in a drawing, poem or colouring picture. please post or email Justine Stevens, The Record, PO Box 75 Leederville WA 6902 or email: production@therecord.com.au
Using the Acts of the Apostles as a guide, underline the correct answers to the following questions. Chapter numbers have been provided as hints: 1. The disciples were in (Jerusalem/Bethlehem) on Pentecost. [2] 2. (Paul/Peter) preached after the Spirit had come down. [2] 3. (Joshua/Stephen) became the first Christian martyr. [7] 4. Saul was temporarily (blinded/crippled) by God. [9] 5. Cornelius was a (Bohemian/gentile) who believed in God. [10] 6. Paul was a Jew and a (Roman citizen/judge). [22] 7. Paul's captors sailed into a (storm/iceberg). [27] 'aigua5 *5 'papuyq
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*LUJOJS
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SAUL had been a man who persecuted the Christians for acting against the laws of Moses. After Jesus appeared to him in a vision, he became blind. The men travelling with Saul brought him to the house of one of their friends in Damascus. Ananias, a Christian, also had a vision. "Get up and go," the Lord told him,"to the street called Straight and ask at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul." Ananias always tried to obey the Lord, but this request frightened him. "Lord, I have heard from many sources about this man, what evil things he has done to your holy ones in Jerusalem," he said. "And here he has authority from the chief priests to imprison all who call upon your name." The Lord said to Ananias, "Go, for this man is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before gentiles, kings and Israelites, and I will show him what he will have to suffer for my name." So Ananias went and found Saul where the Lord had told him he would be. "Saul, my brother," he said, "the Lord has sent me, Jesus who appeared to you on the way by which you came, that you may regain your sight and be filled with the holy Spirit." As soon as Ananias said this, Saul could see again, and then he was baptised. Saul's life had been changed. The next day, he went out into the synagogues and began to tell everyone that Jesus was the Son of God. Hearing these words from Saul raised many questions among the people, who asked each other, "Is not this the man who in Jerusalem ravaged those who call upon this name, and came here expressly to take them back in chains to the chief priests?" These comments did not discourage Saul, who continued to preach everywhere he went. Saul left Damascus for Jerusalem, where he hoped to meet with the Christians there, but they were afraid of him. They did not know he had become a Christian. Barnabas, one of the Christians, told the others what had happened to Saul, and that he was now speaking with great courage about Jesus. So the Christians began to accept Saul, but some of the Jews and Hellenists wanted to kill him. When the Christians learned of these plots, they helped Saul to escape and told him to go to Tarsus. Q&A 1. Why was Ananias afraid of Saul? 2. What happened to Saul after Ananias spoke to him?
Page 10
May 13 2009, The Record
THE WORLD
In Holy Land, Pope appeals for
• By John Thavis
JERUSALEM (CNS) - Pope Benedict XVI topopok his Holy Land pilgrimage from Jordan to Jerusalem, where he pleaded for peace among Israelis and Palestinians, condemned anti-Semitism and prayed at a Holocaust memorial. The Pope's first day in Jerusalem on May 11 was a busy one, and it began with a remembrance of Jewish suffering under the Nazi extermination campaign and a strongly worded warning about new forms of anti-Semitism. Speaking at a welcoming ceremony at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, the Pope said he had come to honour the memory of the 6 million Jewish victims
of the HoloLaust and "to pray that humanity will never again witness a crime of such magnitude." "Sadly, anti-Semitism continues to rear its ugly head in many parts of the world. This is totally unacceptable. Every effort must be made to combat anti-Semitism wherever it is found and to promote respect and esteem for the members of every people, tribe, language and nation across the globe: he said. As Israeli President Shimon Peres and Israeli government leaders listened, the Pope then urged a negotiated peace settlement that will allow Israelis and Palestinians to "live in peace in a homeland of their own, within secure and internationally recognised borders." The Pope's words represented a tacit endorsement of the two-
state solution, which foresees the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The recent political realignment in Israel has thrown into doubt Israel's openness to Palestinian statehood. The 82-year-old pontiff looked tanned and fit as he delivered his speech in English on a platform adorned with Vatican and Israeli flags. Meeting with Peres at the presidential palace in Jerusalem the same day, the Pope spoke about the sensitive topic of security, saying the term needs to be understood in a scriptural perspective of trust, and not simply "the absence of threat... Security, integrity, justice and peace. In God's design for the world, these are inseparable," he said.
The Pope added that basic values and rights in society are universal and cannot be conditioned by particular interests. "A nation's true interest is always served by the pursuit of justice for all," he said. In a moving visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, Pope Benedict prayed silently before the eternal flame in the Hall of Remembrance and said the suffering of Jews under the Nazi extermination campaign must "never be denied, belittled or forgotten." The Pope called the Holocaust an atrocity that disgraced mankind and said the Church is committed to working tirelessly "to ensure that hatred will never reign in the hearts of men again." "May the names of these victims never perish! May their suffering
never be denied, belittled or forgotten! And may all people of good will remain vigilant in rooting out from the heart of man anything that could lead to tragedies such as this!" he said. His visit to the memorial came after a period of Catholic-Jewish tension, following the Pope's lifting of the excommunication of a traditionalist bishop who minimized the extent of the Holocaust. In the evening, the Pope addressed a group of interreligious dialogue experts and said the common witness of God's place in the world by all religions is essential in a world that has in some ways become "deaf to the divine." The Pope began his eight-day trip in Jordan, where he walked a pilgrim's path, energizing its minority Christian population and
Has Notre Comment Notre Dame's obsessive pursuit of prestige could send it down to Davey Jones. • By Omar O'Shaugnessy*
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he University of Notre Dame is one of the oldest and most prestigious Catholic universities in the US. Even non-Americans have heard of the Fighting Irish, its legendary football team which inspired a famous film featuring a young Ronald Reagan. The team's dismal record in 2007 - the most losses in a single year - sparked anger and anguish amongst the university's 120,000 alumni. It was arguably the biggest controversy of the university's existence. Until now. The current fracas has placed the university in the bear pit of American culture wars - not exactly the catbird seat for an institution whose undergraduate program is ranked 18th in the US. It began with an invitation to President Barack Obama to speak at commencement day on May 17. He will also be given an honorary
doctorate. On most campuses, in most years, a visit by the President of the United States would be a delightful occasion for an exchange of platitudes and pleasantries. But Notre Dame is a renowned Catholic university and Obama is an unambiguous, outspoken supporter of abortion and embryonic stem cell research. The ensuing furore has launched a debate over the meaning of Catholic education. The University balanced Obama's pro-abortion views by announcing that it would bestow its highest honour, the Laetare Medal, upon a person with staunchly antiabortion views, Professor Mary Ann Glendon, who taught Obama at Harvard Law School. The balancing act was a mistake. Glendon is a gracious and distinguished woman with a steeltrap mind and firm convictions. She represented the Vatican at the Beijing Conference on Women and recently finished a term as American Ambassador to the Vatican. She spurned Notre Dame's invitation. "A commencement," Glendon announced in an open letter, "is supposed to be a joyous day for the graduates and their families. It is not the right place... for engagement with the very serious problems raised by Notre Dame's decision—in disregard
May 13 2009, The Record
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THE WORLD
peace, condemns anti-Semitism
Pope Benedict XVI, far left, takes in the view from Mount Nebo on May 9 in Madaba, Jordan. The place where Moses glimpsed the Promised Land before dying is marked by a modern sculpture of the prophet's serpentine staff. Prince Ghazi Muhammad bin Talal, far right, talks with the Pope at the new King Hussein Mosque in Amman, Jordan, on May 9. later, the pope said faith calls both Christians and Muslims to respect each other and join
building bridges to the moderate Muslim world. Arriving at Amman's airport on May 8 he said he had come as a Christian pilgrim and with "deep respect" for the Muslim community. It was Pope Benedict's first trip to an Arab country. As King Abdullah II stood at his side, the Pope commended Jordan for curbing extremism, protecting religious liberty and promoting "a better understanding of the virtues proclaimed by Islam." He paid special tribute to interfaith dialogue initiatives launched by Jordanian leaders, saying they have advanced an "alliance of civilizations between the West and the Muslim world, confounding the predictions of those who consider violence and conflict inevitable." The Pope's first stop in Amman
together to promote the common good. The Pope speaks with Jordan's King Abdullah II, above, his wife Queen Rania, and their four children at the royal palace in Amman, Jordan, on May 8. Pope Benedict XVI and Melkite Patriarch Gregoire III Laham of Damascus, Syria, arrive for an evening prayer service, left, at the Melkite Catholic Cathedral of St George in Amman on May 9. Jordanians and pilgrims celebrate as Pope Benedict XVI visits
was the Regina Pacis centre, a Church-run facility for the disabled, and it underscored the charitable role played by Jordan's minority Christian population in cooperation with Muslims. Arriving to loud cheers, he waded into a huge crowd of well-wishers as a band played the "gerpe" - a Jordanian bagpipe - and tabla, or hand drums. The following day, the Pope visited the King Hussein Mosque in Amman, pausing briefly in what the Vatican called "respectful meditation" in a Muslim place of prayer. In a speech afterward to Muslim academics and religious leaders, the Pope underlined the common belief in God shared by Muslims and Christians, but also warned of the "ideological manipulation of
religion" that can act as a catalyst for tensions and violence in contemporary societies. The Pope travelled on May 9 to Mount Nebo, the place where Moses glimpsed the Promised Land before dying. From a windswept promontory, he looked out over a biblical panorama that stretched from the Dead Sea to Jericho across the Jordan River, with the hills of Jerusalem in the distance. He then rode his Popemobile to the ancient biblical city of Madaba. As he passed slowly along the dusty streets of the city's Christian quarter, he was cheered by thousands of people who held flags, signs and photos of him. There he blessed the foundation stone of the University of Madaba, the first Catholic univer-
the Cathedral of St George on May 9. A Jordanian soldier stands guard as nuns chant slogans for Pope Benedict at the Regina Pads centre in Amman, Jordan, on May 8. The centre is operated by three missionary Sisters who educate and care for Muslims and Christians with disabilities. PHOTOS IN ORDER): ALESSIA GIULIANI, CATHOLIC PRESS PHOTO. AHMED JADALLAH, REUTERS. TONY GENTILE, REUTERS. ALESSIA GIULIANI, CATHOLIC PRESS PHOTO. GREG TARCZYNSKI,CNS. JAMAL SAIDI, REUTERS
sity in Jordan, and affirmed that belief in God does not suppress the search for truth - although he added that religion, like science and technology, can be "corrupted" when pressed into the service of ignorance, prejudice or violence. That evening, the Pope received a tumultuous welcome at the Melkite Catholic Cathedral of St George in Amman, where he encouraged the country's Catholic minority to make its voice heard in public life and to join forces with Muslims when moral concerns cross religious boundaries. The Pope's Mass on May 10 in an Amman soccer stadium that holds 25,000 people was the liturgical high point of his visit. In his homily, the Pope preached as a simple pastor, recognising the spiritual and material struggle
of Christian families in the land where the Church was born. Christians in the Holy Land have a special vocation to engage in dialogue and build new bridges to other religions and cultures and to bear witness to the sacrificial love of Christ "and thus counter ways of thinking which justify taking innocent lives," he said. Later in the day the Pope made his way to the Jordan River, where archaeologists believe they have identified the site of Jesus' baptism by St John the Baptist. He blessed the foundation stones of two Catholic Churches - one Latin-rite and the other Melkite - to be built at the location and said the new construction was a hopeful sign for a Christian community that goes back to the Church's beginnings.
Dame harpooned its great white whale? of the settled position of the US bishops—to honour a prominent and uncompromising opponent of the Church's position on issues involving fundamental principles of justice." Notre Dame's press office has found a new candidate, Judge John T. Noonan. Noonan pocketed a Laetare Medal in 1984, so this time he will simply give a speech. He fits well into Notre Dame's schizophrenic approach to Catholicism. He is publicly pro-life, and, at the same time, a prominent critic of Catholic teaching on contraception. Why did Notre Dame, which is probably the most prestigious Catholic university in the US, invite Obama? The president of the university, Father John Jenkins, justified his move as an opportunity to engage him in "further dialogue" about abortion. However, the American Catholic bishops set down clear guidelines in 2004 which explicitly prohibit giving honorary degrees to prochoice politicians. Glendon knew all about this - she helped in drafting them. The response to the decision from opponents of abortion has ranged from puzzlement to rage. The bishop of the Indiana diocese in which Notre Dame is located, John D'Arcy, wrote a public letter in which he accused the
University of pursuing "prestige over the truth". Nearly 50 other Catholic bishops have supported his criticism. Father Jenkins retorted that he had only extended the invitation after consulting canon lawyers and university presidents. He described the invitation as being within the spirit and the letter of the bishops' guidelines. D'Arcy responded in a second public letter noting that Jenkins never consulted his own bishop. Notre Dame expected a few tremors, but the reaction has gone off the Richter scale. By April 28, 340,000 people, no "fringe group," as Jenkins describes it, had signed a letter of protest on one web site alone. An alumni group, rejectjenkins.com, is aiming at the hip-pocket nerve and has convinced donors to withhold millions in donations from the University. The public relations department of the University has hired extra employees to deal with angry alumni. I teach on the campus and no one can fail to notice the rumbling discontent. An anti-abortion group, the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, is driving "Reproductive Choice Trucks" around campus with large images of aborted fetuses at four, seven, and eleven weeks. As I write this, an airplane is flying overhead trailing an aerial
billboard of a fetus. This stunt will continue until commencement day. Protestors are now a daily feature at the University's main entrance. Meanwhile, the Faculty Senate and most graduating students support or are simply indifferent to the facts of the case. Most of them voted for Obama in November. Amidst this controversy, few, if any, have addressed the Catholic identity issue at Notre Dame and other Catholic colleges and universities. This issue can be traced back to 1955, when John Tracey Ellis, a leading Catholic historian, decried the lack of intellectual excellence at Catholic universities. Unless this changed, he argued, institutions like Notre Dame would never be ranked among America's elite universities. The larger Catholic institutions took the hint. But rather than engaging and purifying American culture, Catholic scholars imitated it. Still worse, they did so at the very moment when American culture was veering away from its Protestant past and towards a more secular and sexualised future. For instance, by the early 1960s Notre Dame, with the help of the Rockefeller Foundation, was involved in sponsoring birth control conferences at the University. In the 1967 Land 0' Lakes Statement, Notre Dame led other
Catholic colleges and universities in declaring their independence from Church authority so that they could tap into money from private foundations and government grants. In 1968, theology departments at Catholic universities led the protest against Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI's ban on artificial contraception. In a letter to Jenkins, Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix has described the invitation as "a public act of disobedience" to US bishops. But this is hardly the first time a Catholic university has defied bishops. Many of them, with Notre Dame often in the lead, have been ignoring them for years. As long ago as 1989, a book, Is Notre Dame Still Catholic? complained that a 1982-83 survey showed that most theology professors denied the divinity of Christ, that a homosexual and lesbian culture existed on campus, and that some faculty and staff actively supported abortion. A second edition - now in press - updates the scorecard with incidents like a campus screening of The Last Temptation of Christ, repeated efforts to host a gay film festival and the Vagina Monologues, and so on. I'm a fan of Moby Dick, the great novel by Herman Melville. The monomaniacal, peg-legged Captain Ahab pursues a gigantic white sperm whale across the
globe. When he finally harpoons it, Moby Dick stoves the ship and takes Ahab and the crew down to Davey Jones. Only the narrator, Ishmael, is left to tell the tale, with a coffin keeping him afloat until he is rescued. Is there a lesson in this for Notre Dame? I think so. For nearly half a century, the university has pursued monomaniacally its gigantic obsession with prestige amongst its secular colleagues. No doubt these have applauded its growing independence from traditional values and from the intellectual discipline of Catholic teaching. Obama's visit is a triumphant symbol of the fact that it is drearily like every other secular university in America. It has harpooned its whale. But what comes next? Will Notre Dame sink in the seas of relativism? As I write, rumors abound that Father Jenkins will be removed or step down, although it is unlikely that his successor will steer a different course. Financially, these are tough times for universities, as for everyone else. Will deep-pocketed but disenchanted alumni close their wallets? Will bright students go elsewhere for a Catholic education?I don't know, but I'm stocking up my coffin with extra rations. Omar O'Shaughnessey is the pen name of a junior academic at Notre Dame US. - Mercatornet.com
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PERSPECTIVES
Divine Mercy music food for soul literally
May 13 2009, The Record
Boyle revealsJPII theology Body
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Language B Christo her West
Susan Boyle and the Communion of Saints.
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recent change to the way I pray has been my devotion to the Chaplets of the Divine Mercy. I came across this devotion by accident. Along with some parish musicians, I once assisted a fellow parishioner with a presentation on the Chaplets. Prior to that, I had never heard of this devotion. I was touched by the way the mostly non-Catholic audience reacted. They were so moved that some had tears running down their faces. We approached our parish priest for permission to start a prayer group devoted to the Chaplets. He attended the first meeting, found it very prayerful, and gave permission for us to continue. Most of our members are of mature age. However, we have had teenage members. One of us is as young as ten. Our most junior member has taken the lead role in our devotion at times. Although the devotion is normally recited, we sing it in our parish. Music is food for the soul. I find the sung version very moving. Each decade is interspersed with hymns and excerpts from St Faustina's with Debbie Warner diary. St Faustina, or Anna Kowalska as she was then known, was a poorly educated nun living in Poland in the early 20th century. She believed that God had spoken to her and directed her to write diaries containing His messages of mercy. These diaries are remarkable works considering her lack of education. Interestingly, when Anna first claimed that God had spoken to her, she was not believed and was initially condemned by the Holy See. The future Pope John Paul II later supported her. As a result the devotion became widely used throughout the world. The Holy Father canonised her and declared the second Sunday of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday. It is a very Eucharistic devotion. The Chaplets are said using rosary beads. Each decade begins with "Eternal Father, we offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of your dearly beloved son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world." It is a beautiful devotion. We end with a very touching prayer of St Faustina's. In her words we ask for God's mercy. With His aid we confidently submit to His holy will in difficult moments. Our devotion often begins with petitions for the sick and those experiencing difficulties. Some of our members have personally experienced the power of the Chaplets of the Divine Mercy. They cite examples of how the devotion has helped them or people they know through crises. These include the overcoming of life threatening situations when even doctors have given up hope. Belief in miracles is up to the individual. That is what faith is about. Every 2nd Wednesday of each month a group of us comes to pray at St Thomas More Catholic Church, in Bateman. We begin at 7.30pm. All are welcome. At the completion of our devotion is Benediction. Those interested may contact me on 9310 9493 (home) or 9325 2010 (work). After saying the Divine Mercy ChapletsI invariably feel at peace.Imight not always feel like praying beforehand. However, the devotion always uplifts me. It is almost a floating sensation. The more one prays the more one's faith develops. St Faustina died at an early age but the Chaplets of the Divine Mercy will, hopefully, live on forever.
Howl Pray Now
If you have a story to tell please contact Debbie via debwarrierohotmailcom
f you don't yet know who Susan Boyle is, type her name into YouTube and watch her April 11 appearance on Britain's Got Talent. By now, it may well be the most watched video ever posted online. A few days after the show, her performance had already been viewed over three million times. Less than two weeks later, it was close to 50 million. Let me briefly paint the picture. A middle-aged "frumpy" woman walks out on stage to the glaringly cynical response of the audience and the judges. Simon Cowell, well known in the US for his merciless treatment of American Idol contestants, asks her, "What's the dream?" Susan: I'm trying to be a professional singer. Simon: (cynically) And why hasn't it worked out so far, Susan? Susan: I've never been given the chance before. But here's hoping it'll change. Simon: Okay, and who would you like to be as successful as? Susan: Elaine Paige or somebody like that. As Robert Canfield, a professor of anthropology at Washington University (in St Louis), wrote on his blog: "It was easy to regard this woman as tragically unaware of her own limitations, with aspirations that surpassed her ability. And she was now on stage, on TV. Before a huge audience. Here was a disaster in the making. This would be difficult to watch... (But) her first note changed everything. The audience was electrified:' So why am I writing about this in my
"Body Language" column? First, reading her "body language" - her unkempt look, her double chin, her frizzy graying hair, her strange hip swinging dance in response to Cowell - is precisely what made people so dubious. We were definitely reading this book by its cover. But I also think John Paul II's Theology of the Body (TOB) shines a light on why millions around the world have been moved to tears by her performance. When this seemingly unappealing "book" opened up and the audience saw how beautiful the inner story really was, we all experienced a little foretaste of heaven. Paraphrasing some dense teaching from his TOB, John Paul taught that in the afterlife we will be totally liberated from all that weighed us down in this life. All the fears and insecurities, all the wounds and all the shame that kept us in "hiding" here on earth will be completely wiped away. In total freedom and confidence, we will emerge from our shells, sharing the unique gift we are with each and everyone else. Somehow, we will all have our moment on stage, so to speak - just like Susan Boyle. And all those gathered in the heavenly banquet will see us - truly see us shining in the totally unique way God made each of us to shine. And we will marvel at the beauty, the unique and unrepeatable beauty, of each and everyone for all eternity. "
When you watch (or rewatch) the clip on YouTube, pay attention to the facial expressions of the judges throughout her performance - they tell the whole story. Towards the end, we even catch a glimpse of Cowell's "inner beauty" as his face spontaneously lights up and he sighs in a kind of dazzled wonder. Priceless. Countless bloggers and commentators have been trying to explain why these seven minutes on YouTube move us so profoundly. Again, I think Canfield expresses it well: "Buried within the human psyche are feelings, yearnings, anxieties too deep for words, usually. Only sometimes do we see it in ourselves. Always it is something outside ourselves that touches us, somehow, where we feel most deeply. At such moments we remember that we are humans - not mere living creatures, but human beings, profoundly and deeply shaped by a moral sensibility so powerful that it breaks through our inhibitions; it can burst out, explode into public view, to our own astonishment. And sometimes that objective form - a person, an event, an object, a song embodies deeply felt sensibilities for a lot of us at once, so that we discover how much we share in our private worlds, worlds otherwise inaccessible to anyone else. It becomes a social event, so we can all rejoice, and weep, together:' Yep. That's it. In Catholic-speak it's called the communion of saints - a little foretaste of heaven.
St Joseph gives work Christian meaning Feast of St Joseph the Worker I have always been intrigued by the second, and seemingly less important, feast of St Joseph, that of St Joseph the Worker, on May 1. Can you tell me why we have it and anything that will help me to appreciate it more?
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he feast of St Joseph the Worker is, as you say, a second and less important feast than the great feast of St Joseph celebrated on March 19. Whereas the feast on March 19 is celebrated with the highest rank of liturgical celebrations, that of a Solemnity, the feast of St Joseph the Worker has the lower rank of Optional Memorial. It was introduced into the liturgical calendar relatively recently, by Pope Pius XII on May 1, 1955. On that day, Pope Pius received in audience representatives of the Italian Christian Workers Associations, the ACLI, which had been placed under the patronage of St Joseph. Referring to an earlier address to the Associations in 1945, the Pope urged workers to place themselves under the protection of St Joseph if they wanted to be close to Christ and to live the spirit of the Gospel: "From the beginning we put your organisation under the powerful patronage of St Joseph. "Indeed, there could be no better protector to help you deepen in your lives the spirit of the Gospel. As we said then, that spirit flows to you and to all men from the heart of the God-Man, the Saviour of the world; but certainly no worker was ever more completely and
profoundly penetrated by it than the foster-father of Jesus, who lived with him in closest intimacy and community of family life and work. Thus, if you wish to be close to Christ, we again repeat: Ite ad Joseph, go to Joseph." Pope Pius chose the date of May I for his address and for the new feast of St Joseph the Worker because that day was traditionally celebrated around the world as the day of the worker. In some places May 1, or May Day, as it was often called, was promoted by Socialists and Communists as a day of solidarity for workers and of protest against their employers. In an effort to give this celebration a Christian meaning, Pope Pius introduced the new feast of St Joseph the Worker. In his address he mentioned the efforts of "the enemy of Christ" to spread, especially among workers, "false ideas about man and the world, history, social and economic structures:' He went on to propose the new feast as a way of recognising the dignity and value of human work. Recalling the role of the Church in guiding and protecting workers and all those suffer, he said: "This duty and obligation we, the Vicar of Christ, desire to declare again clearly here, on this first day of May, which the world of workers has claimed for itself as
its own proper feast day. We intend that all may recognise the dignity of work, and that this dignity may be the motive in forming the social order and laws, founded on the equitable distribution of rights of duties. "Acclaimed in this way by Christian workers, and having received, as it were, Christian baptism, the first of May, far from being an incitement to discord, hatred and violence, is and will be a recurring invitation to modern society to accomplish that which is still lacking for social peace. A Christian feast, therefore, that is a day of rejoicing for the concrete and progressive triumph of Christian ideals in the great family of all who work:' Pope Pius concluded his address, saying that St Joseph, "the humble workman of Nazareth not only personifies before God and the Church the dignity of the manual worker, but he is also the provident guardian of you and your families:' So in reality the feast of St Joseph the Worker is very important. It can be considered the celebration of the dignity of the worker and of human work, carried out under the patronage of St Joseph at the service of peace in society. Pope Benedict XVI summed it up in his Regina Caeli message on May 1, 2005: "Today, we are beginning the month of May with a liturgical memorial very dear to the Christian people: that of St Joseph the Worker; and you know that my name is Joseph. "Exactly 50 years ago it was established by Pope Pius XII of venerable memory to highlight the importance of work and of the presence of Christ and the Church in the working world:'
May 13 2009, The Record
PERSPECTIVES
Turmoil and small mercies Family is the Future Finding God in life's turmoil and small mercies.
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tion for those whose vocation is marriage and parenthood. Our vocation calls us to discover God in sleepless nights and children's spew. The Boylen Easter bout of gastro taught us a few lessons. It taught us to be patient; it took a while for us to get through to Jordyn that she really did need to take the bucket EVERYWHERE she went. It taught us to be kind; however tired and grumpy we felt, our little ones felt even worse. Gastro taught us not to be resentful or to take offense. However unjust it seems, gastro isn't anyone's fault. Our children weren't trying to make us unhappy, we were all victims. Our Easter experience also taught us to endure whatever comes. Right from the beginning we knew things were only going to get worse, and they did. However, while the gastro didn't last more than a week, three things did last after our Easter experience; our Faith, Hope and Love (see 1 Corinthians 13). The turmoils of family life are the key
way that couples and families grow close to God. It's part of God's plan. What gives us hope is that it mirrors the Easter story. In the turmoil and sometimes suffering that life throws at us, His redemptive hand is at work, teaching us to love and drawing us close to him. When we reach out and love our families through the ups and downs of life, we let God's love be realised through us. Sometimes things don't go according to our plan. Sometimes we get unwelcome surprises. But if we look with a prayerful heart, and strive to live a life of love, God blesses us with small mercies. We took advantage of the gastro opportunity to attend Good Friday services without any sick little ones. Derek went to Stations and Karen went to Veneration. We got to pray uninterrupted and without having to juggle family members. We had planned a different experience of Easter 2009, but God took over and showed us, that his plans too can bring us closer to him.
Crisis maybe, Armageddonit ain't In clear view By Guy Crouchback
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he mainstream media around the world have behaved very badly over reporting the current credit crisis. It is plainly fairly serious but it is not, as too many media reports would have us believe, Armageddon or anything like it. One columnist in a major British paper ended his final column for 2008 wishing readers a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in "these specially dark times," plainly wanting to be seen as a brave little chap whistling in the night. Actually, they are NOT especially dark times. Go back to 1974 in the aftermath of the October War and the OPEC crisis, and you will find even more dire predictions of doom filling the press. But the world not only survived but shortly afterwards embarked on a prolonged period of economic growth and a great explosion of democratic freedoms. The Reagan Presidency saw the creation of 20 million new jobs in the US alone, and a vast reduction of poverty world-wide. The greatest danger is that the media's irresponsible doom-saying will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and by destroying hope and confidence will prolong the recession more than necessary. It is true that the end of the Cold War took a sort of fundamental seriousness out of our lives, and one does not need to be a Savonarola to have been dismayed and disgusted by the vacuity and decadence of much of the present decade, as well as, for example, by the way Russia used its temporary, oil-based prosperity for nothing more edifying than attempted re-armament. We now know the chief cause of the
Parents know kids are safe in Church hands Fr Anthony Paganoni, Scalabrinian, continues his series on a long-running successful initiative in youth ministry in the province of Lombardy, Italy.
with Karen & Derek Boylen
he Easter Tridium is a time that our family looks forward to and this year in the Boylen household things got off to a good start. We celebrated a lovely seder meal before Mass on Holy Thursday night. Good Friday was planned, we would go to stations have a light lunch of "Jesus time" food and then attend Veneration. A holy, prayerful Easter looked to be on the cards. God had other plans. We woke up on Good Friday to the delightful sound of our three year old daughter, Jordyn, throwing up all over the bedroom floor. Isaiah, our five year old, followed shortly thereafter and all our prayerful, holy plans went down the drain. Watching five children sit at a table looking miserably at their Easter eggs because they feel too sick to eat them is heart wrenching. Sometimes, people mistakenly think that the goal of life's spiritual journey is to model our lives on monks piously praying in silent, peaceful monasteries. For those called to such a vocation this may certainly be part of their life journey. However, it is a false expecta-
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credit crisis was the incredible folly of political pressure groups in America, chasing the mirage of "social justice" and attempting to repeal the laws of supply and demand by forcing lending institutions to give poor people mortgages they could not service. I do not share the glee and schadenfreude of some over the credit crisis, but perhaps we have all been given a chance to learn some wisdom and something of reality. GK Chesterton said one of the human race's favourite games was called "cheat the prophet," and so it has proved. Only six months or so ago we were being told on the best of authority that the era of cheap oil was ended forever. Oil is now cheaper, in inflation-adjusted terms, than it has been in decades - though of course this does not mean we should give up conservation measures or stop the development of alternative fuels. During a REALLY dark time - the early part of World War II when it looked as if Hitler was going to win, King George VI in a radio broadcast
read the following poem, which may be a good antidote to fear and self-pity in these far less dark times: Isaid to the man who stood at the gate of the year "Give me a light thatImay tread safely into the unknown." And he replied, "Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!" SoIwent forth andfinding the Hand of God Trod gladly into the night He led me towards the hills And the breaking of day in the lone east. So heart be still! What need our human life to know I f God hath comprehension? In all the dizzy strife of things Both high and low, God hideth his intention.
The
ItalianWay
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Tony Paganoni, Scalabrinian Intriguing developments in Youth Ministry
Summer holidays with 'Cre-Grest'.
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side from reaching out to committed or totally uncommitted groups of young people, one of the most popular activities of the Oratorio is the CreGrest. (Its etymology remains obscure, even after 30 years of existence.) To many school-age children, this offers an alternative way of spending the summer school holidays in Italy. In the Lombardy region alone it reaches something like 550,000 primary and secondary school children. It is run by 80,000 adults, ably supported by an equal number of young volunteers, without counting priests and religious. It provides clear evidence of the Church's concern for the younger generation, particularly during those years when too much free time can prove detrimental to their development. The Cre-Grest offers them an opportunity to channel their free time into group activities, with the dignity of the person as a central focus. Support is provided to working families, who can spend the summer months with less apprehension, because they know that their children are safe and sound at the Oratorio. The research survey covers only the young people who act as supervisors and devote the better part of summer to that role, spending a lot of time with the youngsters who enrol in such activity. The sample comprises 2336 young people, with a surprising proportion of 57 per cent male and 43 per cent female. Most the activities run are educational, a preferred field by girls. The young people take on a role of responsibility on their own. The driving motivation for their choice is threefold: the desire to relate to other young people; the desire to be of service to others and in the process learn something new; and finally a lack of meaningful alternatives. As one of the interviewees remarks: ...We are in the Oratorio, Gospel teachings are in the background and our actions are influenced by the Gospel, without too much fuss! No one goes to the Grest with the intention to pray... Their well-programed responsibilities run across the whole spectrum of the Cre-Grest: conflict resolution between different groups of children, reprimanding children who are behaving badly, organising and running the planned activities for the whole day, spending some time with friends, leading moments of spirituality etc... They score very favourably, both in personal satisfaction and self-assessment of their performance. Most feel that their semi-adult role is actually a confidence booster for their future. It is this bonus that inclines them to see the training courses, attended by the vast majority of them, as useful tools for getting on Marked resistance, however, is felt by the young leaders, when the programs of the conferences are repeated year after year. Some questions about the Church were addressed to these young supervisors, themselves potential future leaders in the Church. They believe in Gospel values and rate the concern of their parish communities for young people, themselves included, as highly positive. A good level of appreciation is also registered in relation to their priests, attention to the needy, and the social teachings of the Church. At the lowest end of the scale, the Church's position on bio-ethical issues and sexual morality finds less than 50 per cent in agreement. To be continued...
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PANORAMA
May 13 2009, The Record
A roundup of events in the Archdiocese
Panorama entries must be in by 12pm Monday. Contributions may be emailed to administration@therecord.com.au, faxed to 9227 7087, or mailed to PO Box 75, Leederville, WA 6902. Submissions over 55 words will be edited. Inclusion is limited to 4 weeks. Events charging over $10 will be a put into classifieds and charged accordingly. The Record reserves the right to decline or modify any advertisment. Saturday May 16 MOTHERS, FATHERS' PRAYER MASS 10.30am at St Bernadette's Catholic Church, Jugan Street, Glendalough. For mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers. All welcome. This is a wonderful and necessary opportunity for God to hear and act upon the hearts and minds of parents and grandparents. Please bring a plate. Tea and coffee provided. Enq: Veronica 9447 0671. Saturday May 16 - Sunday May 17 WEEKEND RETREAT - CATHOLIC FAITH RENEWAL A weekend Retreat by Fr Gino Henriques, CSsR of the Redemptorist Congregation, on Joy of Christian Living. He is an international speaker who has preached to bishops, fellow priests, religious and laity through retreats, seminars and conferences. Enq: Kathy 9295 0913, Rose 0403 300 720 or Maureen 9381 4498. Saturday May 16 to Thursday May 21 BASSENDEAN PARISH MISSION 7.30pm to 9.30pm at St Joseph Church, 20 Hamilton Street, Bassendean, with Fr Tony Stephens CPM. Holy Hour, mission sermon and Benediction, Sunday through Wednesday. On Thursday, 6.30pm Holy Mass close of mission followed by dinner. All invited especially persons away from the Church and wishing to return home. RSVP 9379 2691 before 18 May. Sunday May 17 TAIZE MEDITATIVE PRAYER 7pm at St Joseph's Convent Chapel, 16 York Street, South Perth. All are invited to come and join in the meditative prayer remembering Sr Irene's McCormack's Anniversary. Time for silent prayer and singing the chants from Taize in a beautiful candlelit chapel. Bring along a friend and a torch. Enq: Sr Maree Riddler 9334 0933. Sunday May 17 THE WORLD APOSTOLATE OF FATIMA HOLY HOUR OF REPARATION 3pm at St Mary's Church, James Street, Guildford. All are invited. Enq: 9339 2614. Sunday May 17 NORTH SUNDAY SESH! 6.45pm, at Whitfords Parish. Mass, followed at 7.45pm Sunday Sesh. The largest youth night returns in 2009! Open for youth of all ages preferably 15-35. Guest Speaker: Fr Thai Vu, presenting Christ gives life. The night includes music, activities, prayer time and group discussions. Bring money for supper. Enq: www.cym.com.au or call 9422 7912. Monday May 18 FRANCISCAN SISTER VISIT 7pm to 8.30pm at Mercy Conference Centre, Victoria Square, Perth. Sr Ilia Delio OSF will give a lecture on What does it mean to live the Gospel in the 21st century? Donation $10. Tea and coffee provided after lecture. Booking: 9422 7919. Monday May 18 WOUNDED BY BEAUTY THROUGH ART AND MUSIC - TO FAITH 8.30pm at St Thomas the Apostle Parish Hall, 2 College Road, Claremont. The first of a series of talks that will show how music can reawaken the questions about meaning and happiness that our faith claims to answer. John Kinder will present Mozart's Requiem, illustrated with excerpts on CD. Enq: 6488 2192. Wednesday May 20 TAIZE MEDITATION PRAYER 8.30pm at St Thomas More Catholic Church, 100 Dean Road, Bateman. All are welcome to come and spend an hour in group prayer and relax after a busy workday in a candlelight atmosphere of prayer, song and meditation. Enq: Daisy/Burney 9310 4781. Friday May 22 to Saturday May 30 NOVENA IN PREPARATION FOR THE PENTECOST 7.30pm-8.30pm Holy Family Church, Lot 375, Alcoa Street, Maddington. Novena to the Holy Spirit, talks on
the fruits and gifts of the Holy Spirit, prayers for healing. Special vigil starts at 6.30pm with Holy Mass on May 30 and continues till 10pm. Enq: 9381 5383. Saturday May 23 VOICE OF THE VOICELESS MINISTRY OF POPE JOHN PAUL II 12noon at Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament Church, Corfield Street and Isdell Place, Gosnells. Healing Mass and Adoration, with the Voice of the Voiceless Music Ministry. All are welcome. Enq: 0437 286 301. Saturday May 23 C ATHOLIC PASTORAL WORKERS ASSOCIATION R ETREAT 9am to 5pm at St Catherine's House of Hospitality, 113 Tyler Street, Tuart Hill. Come for a day of prayer, reflection, spiritual revival and share with others, with Sr Marie Theresa Ryder. Followed by Mass celebrated by Fr Paschal Kearny. RSVP 18 May. Cost S25. Booking essential, Margaret 9390 8365 or 9380 5160. Saturday May 23 THE PARENTS AND FRIENDS' FEDERATION OF WA 2009 Annual Conference and A G M 8.45am at Christian Brothers' College, Fremantle. Topics include Cyber Bullying, Social/Emotional Learning, and changes in Early Childhood Education, Family/School Partnerships, Sustainability, Food additives and Raising Teenage Boys. Annual General Meeting 3pm-Spm and Conference Dinner 7pm, at Tradewinds Hotel, East Fremantle. Please register by 15 May. Enq: 9271 5909 or www.pff.wa.edu.au Saturday May 23 to Sunday May 31 NOVENA OF POWER DISCIPLES OF JESUS 7.30pm to 8.30 pm all nights, Sundays 3pm to 5pm at 67 Howe Street, Osborne Park. All are invited to join in nine days prayer meetings culminating at Pentecost. Enq: Mario 0411 641 245. Sunday May 24 HOLY HOUR FOR VOCATIONS TO THE PRIESTHOOD AND RELIGIOUS 2pm to 3pm at Morley Parish Church, 47 Wellington Road, Morley, includes Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Come and reflect on the grace of being called to serve God in consecrated life. Prayer works! All Welcome. Enq: 9276 8500. Friday June 26 MEDJUGORJE EVENING OF PRAYER 7pm at Our Lady of the Mission Parish, Camberwarra Drive, Craigie. An evening of prayer with Our Lady Queen of Peace will commence with Adoration, Rosary, Benediction followed by Holy Mass. All warmly welcome. Free inspirational DVD on conversion of Fr Calloway will be given out. Enq: 9402 2480 for Fr Bogoni. Friday May 29 AN EVENING OF PRAYER WITH OUR LADY QUEEN OF PEACE 7pm at St Jude Parish, Prendiville Way, Langford. Adoration, Rosary, Benediction followed by Holy Mass. All warmly welcomed. Free DVD on conversion of Fr Calloway will be given out. Enq: 9402 2480 for Fr Bogoni. Sunday May 31 INTERNATIONAL FOODS AND FUNFAIR 2009 In Aid of Church of St Emilie Building Fund 10am to 3pm at St Emilie's Primary School, Amherst Road, Canning Vale. Bigger and better delicious International Cuisines, games, music, raffle, bargains, Lucky Draw with great prizes. Coupons on sale $10. Enq: Francis 0437 562 263, IkItt@yahoo.com or Dominic 0447 053 347, celestialorchids@gmail.com. Friday June 5 THE ALLIANCE, TRIUMPH AND REIGN OF THE UNITED HEARTS OF JESUS AND MARY 5.15pm at St Bernadette's Church, Glendalough, Confessions, Mass 5.45pm, followed by exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, hourly Rosaries, hymns and reflections etc throughout the night. Concludes with midnight
Mass in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Enq: Fr Doug Harris 94446131 or Dorothy 9342 5845. Friday June 5 PRAISE AND WORSHIP 7pm at St Peter's Church, 93 Wood Street, Inglewood. 8pm Mass, followed 9pm Fellowship. Please bring a plate. All welcome. Enq: Priscilla 0433 457 352 or Catherine 0433 923 083. Saturday June 6 DAY WITH MARY 9am to 5pm at St Aloysius Church, Keightley Road West and Henry Street, Shenton Park. 9am Video on Fatima. Day of prayer and instruction based upon the Fatima message. Reconciliation, Holy Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, Sermons on Eucharist and Our Lady, Rosaries, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Stations of the Cross. BYO lunch. Enq: Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286. Sunday June 7 DIVINE MERCY 1.30pm at St Joachim's Church, Shepperton Road and Harper Street, Victoria Park. Holy Rosary and Reconciliation. Sermon with Fr Doug Harris on Adoration of Jesus followed by Divine Mercy prayers and Benediction. Later refreshments will be provided followed by a Video/DVD to be selected. Enq: 9457 7771 or Linda 9275 6608. Saturday June 13 PADRE PIO PRAYER DAY 8.30am at St Jerome's Church, 24 Troode Street, Munster. St Padre Pio DVD, followed by Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Rosary, Divine Mercy, silent Adoration and Benediction. Holy Mass using St Padre Pio liturgy, at 1 lam, celebrant Fr Tiziano Bogoni. Confession will be available. BYO lunch, tea and coffee provided. Enq: Des 6278 1540. Sunday June 14 A WAKENINGS A God Experience Retreat With a Difference 8.45am to 4pm at Patrist House, 7 Warde Street, Midland, conducted by Father Douglas Rowe SFP. Attendance for full day is necessary. BYO lunch, light refreshments provided. Must book, 9250 5395. Sunday June 14 TOODYAY FRANCISCAN FRIARY Annual Corpus Christi Procession 10.30am at 36 Stirling Terrace, Toodyay. Holy Mass, followed with 12.30pm Procession. Bus Services available. BYO lunch. Enq: Des 6278 1540 or Nita 9367 1366, or Franciscan Friars 9574 5204. PERPETUAL ADORATION Started at Highgate Parish March 2003, the Blessed Sacrament has been exposed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Be willing to spend one hour a week with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament so that Jesus is never left alone. There are vacant hours, come be with Jesus. Enq: Helen 9444 7962 or 0413 845 893. SACRED HEART OF JESUS - PIONEERS Any Pioneers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus out there in society who would like to meet other members in prayer and reflection, we offer an invitation. Enq: John 9457 7771. Every Tuesday BIBLE TEACHING WITH A DIFFERENCE 7.30pm St Joachim's Parish Hall, Shepparton Road, Victoria Park. Come and hear. Light refreshments will follow. Bring along your Bible, a notebook and a friend. Enq: Jan 9284 1662. Every Wednesday CATHOLIC YOUTH MINISTRY - HOLY HOUR 5.30pm at the Catholic Pastoral Centre, 40A Mary Street, Highgate. Mass. 6.30pm. Holy Hour and adoration. Dinner available at $5 donation. Enq: www.cym.com.au or call 9422 7912.
Every Sunday DIVINE MERCY NOVENA 3pm at St. Aloysius Church, Shenton Park. Every Friday EUCHARISTIC ADORATION 7.30pm Holy Family Church, Lot 375, Alcock Street, Maddington. Prayers for healing and deliverance. Enq: 9381 5383. PARISH MISSION DATES Our Lady of the Visitation, Bullsbrook, from 9-14 May. St Joseph's Bassendean from 15-22 May and Good Shepherd, Kiara 23-28 May. Enq: Direct to Parishes or holyspirit.Parish@perthcatholic.org.au or 9341 3079. Every 4th Sunday of the Month HOLY HOUR FOR VOCATIONS TO THE PRIESTHOOD AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 2-3pm at Morley Parish Church, 47 Wellington Road, Morley, will commence on April 26. There will be Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Come and reflect on the grace of being called to serve God in consecrated life. Prayer works! All Welcome. Enq: 9276 8500. Every Monday BIBLE TIME LINE A journey through the Bible Beginning 8 June, 7.30pm to 9.30pm at St Emilie, 12 Hardwick Boulvard, Canning Vale. Come and discover a deeper insight into God's ongoing plan of salvation, how the Bible unlocks many questions of biblical places and events, about the various books of the Bible. Registration necessary, limited seating. Enq: Dominic and Helen 04 4705 3347 or 08 6253 8041 celestialorchids@gmail.com Every Monday A DORATION AND EVENING PRAYER 7pm at St Thomas Parish, 2 College Road, Claremont. Adoration and evening prayer. Followed with confessions, Benediction, night prayer and Mass. Enq: 9384 0598. Every Tuesday NIGHT PRAYER MEETINGS 7pm at St Mary's Cathedral Parish Centre, 450 Hay Street, Perth. Overcome the burdens in life making prayer your lifeline with Jesus. Personal healing in prayer, Rosary, meditation, Scripture, praise in song, friendship, refreshments. Appreciate the heritage of the Faith living life abundantly. Every Thursday CATHOLIC QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 6pm-7.30pm at St Joseph Church, 20 Hamilton Street, Bassendean, with Father John Corapi's Catechism of the Catholic Church. Every First Friday HOLY HOUR FOR VOCATIONS TO THE PRIESTHOOD AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 7pm at Little Sisters of the Poor Chapel, 2 Rawlins Street, Glendalough. Mass celebrated by Fr Saminedi. Followed by Adoration with Fr Don Kettle. All welcome. Refreshments provided. Every Saturday HOLY SPIRIT OF FREEDOM CHARISMATIC PRAYER MEETING 10.30am to 12.30pm at St Peter the Apostle Church Hall, 91 Wood Street, Inglewood. All are most welcome. Enq: 9475 0554. CHANGE OF SUNDAY MASS TIME St Denis' Parish - Joondanna Effective from Sunday May 3rd 2009, Mass will be at 8.30am. Maureen Gismondi, Parish Councillor. Every 1st and 3rd Sunday of Each Month ST MARY'S CATHEDRAL SINGERS CHOIR 9.30am St Joachim's Pro Cathedral, Victoria Park. Seeking new members to join us - be part of singing at the refurbished St Mary's Cathedral. Full training provided. Enq: Michael 041 429 4338 or michael@michaelpeters.id.au
May 13 2009, The Record
CLASSIFIEDS
in brief...
MacKillop sainthood in 18 months Blessed Mary MacKillop's cause for canonisation has been given a boost with doctors from the Medical Board of the Vatican concluding that there was no scientific explanation for the cure that had been presented to them as part of Mary's journey to sainthood. The Congregational leader for the Sisters of St Joseph, Sister Anne Derwin, says that this is a very encouraging step in the process towards Mary MacKillop being recognised a 'saint' by the Catholic Church. "However there is still a way to go before we can get too excited about a final outcome, and we cannot preempt any decision of the Church," says Sister Anne. There are still a number of formal stages required before the canonisation of Mary MacKillop can occur. The next step is to present evidence of what's known as "intercession through prayer" to the theologians, and have their acknowledgement that the cure was indeed a miracle through Mary MacKillop's intercession. Following the theologians' acceptance, the cause will still have to be presented to the Bishops and Cardinals before ultimately being presented to the Pope for approval.
Bishops rally against Good Friday footy Melbourne Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart and Anglican Bishop Philip Huggins, who is Vicar-General of the city's Anglican archdiocese, have rejected any proposal to play AFL games on Good Friday. Archbishop Hart and Bishop Huggins said that any proposal to play games on Good Friday showed a crass disregard for the spiritual needs of people in our community, the bishops said in a statement. Archbishop Hart, a keen Hawthorn supporter, said that Good Friday is a public holiday because it is such a sacred day for Christians. "The Christian churches have provided much to the culture of the great country of Australia. They have provided sacred spaces through architecture, think of the spires of St Patrick's and St Paul's Cathedrals in Melbourne. Amidst the burly burly burly of daily life people are reminded that there are other values than those of business and work:' Archbishop Hart said.
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SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER Jesus' commandment to us is that we are to love one another, as He loves us. As stewards, we respond to Jesus' love in a life of generous giving. Being a Christian steward is not about 'giving to the needs' of others — it's all about 'needing to give' in gratitude to God who so graciously gives to us. For further information on how stewardship can build your parish community, call Brian Stephens on 94227924.
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• DUNSBOROUGH Beach cottage, 3 bedrooms, sleeps 7, 300m to Quindalup beach. Great price for Dunsborough! Tel: Sheila 9309 5071 / 0408 866 593 or email: shannons3s@optusnet.com.au.
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General repairs to books, old bibles & missals. 2ndhand Catholic books avail. Tydewi Bindery 9293 3092.
• EDUCATION & COUNSELLING Invest in your relationships and happiness for the whole family. RCPD courses beginning in Freo also family counselling and Austudy Appr. ADV. Dip in Christian counselling. 0409 405 585.
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Looking for Bibles, CDs, books, cards, gifts, statues, baptism/communion apparel, religious vestments, etc? Visit us at 39 Hulme Court (off McCoy St), Myaree, 9329 9889 (after 10.30am Mon to Sat). We are here to serve.
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Benedict blesses Melbourne
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Sample pack for Extra energy and Weight loss. Call- 02 98075337 or 0432 274 643.
Thanks to Jesus, Mary, St Joseph, St Dominic Savio and St Gerard for the safe delivery of a healthy baby grandson. Thank you.- R D'Cruze.
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MISSION MATTERS
Pope Benedict XVI has appointed Monsignor Les Tomlinson, 65, as Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne. Monsignor Tomlinson has been Vicar General of the Archdiocese since 2003 and was previously parish priest of Ormond, Rowville and Carlton. He has also ministered in parishes in Victoria and Tasmania since his priestly ordination on 18 August 1972. He is currently the Spiritual Advisor to the State Council of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Victoria. Mgr Tomlinson, who will be consecrated as bishop on June 17 at St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne, replaces Bishop Hilton Deakin, who retired in November 2007.
Missionary reflections on this Sunday's Gospel; John 15:13 man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends..." Throughout the world our Catholic missionaries are laying down their lives for the people they serve and love unconditionally. Facing unprecedented persecution because of their witness or working ceaselessly because the needs are so overwhelming, with little regard to their own health and vulnerability, many end up making the ultimate sacrifice. I remember an elderly Irish sister who had continued to work with the desperately sick despite the terrible headaches and fever she picked up. Those headaches and the fever was a symptom of the cerebral malaria she had contracted. Unaware and too busy to take her medication, she collapsed and died within 3 days. Her death, though avoidable, was not in vain. It was a sign of the depth of her love for her refugee friends. Her loving sacrifice was a source of inspiration to those she served and all of us on missionary service. It was also a timely reminder for us to take care of ourselves as well.
Interested in local or overseas missionary experience, then call Francis at Catholic Mission on 9422 7933
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20 W ST BERNADINE OF SIENA, PRIEST, (0) Wh Acts 17:15-22-18:1 Paul in Athens Ps 148:1-2.11-14 Praise God's name in 16:12-15 Many things to say
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The life ofKarol Wojtyla, Pope John PaulII * Please note this special includes Postage & Handling cost of $5.00
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May 13 2009, The Record
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