The Record Newspaper 20 May 2009

Been there!.l •

The trouble with Mel ere there any predictors of Mel Gibson's spectacular fall rom grace? He has been plagued by alcoholism and his Ims show an obsession with violence. Vista 1

An Australian geologist says the planet has warmed and cooled plenty of times before. And humans aren't necessarily to blame. Vista 2-3

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 20 2009

wwsv. thermrd.com.au

Christ comes in impending priesthood

Science-faith

Perth, Western Australia $2

rift a bomb

Deacon Andrew Lotton

Deacon encountered the Way, liked what he heard • By Peter Rosengren

ONE of Perth's soon-to-be newest priests is a former novice in an Anglican order who once worked in the British and South African High Commissions in Canberra and who found the Catholic Church through the Neocatechumenal Way and being at World Youth Day. He will be ordained on June 5 at Infant Jesus Parish in Morley along with Jeronimo Castillo, Bonaventure Echeta and Jean-Noel Marie from St Charles Seminary. Deacon Andrew is the fourth man from his former Canberra Neocatechumenal parish community to be ordained to the priesthood of the Catholic Church. Now, he says, his life's journey has led him to discover that Jesus Christ died for him and loves him exactly as he is; he sees the priesthood as a way of announcing exactly this good news to the men and women of this generation. But Deacon Andrew Lotton began his journey to the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church when he experienced a profound personal conversion during a week-long retreat with a group of Catholic charismatics in Canberra, forerunners of the Disciples of Jesus community. Two friends invited the nominal Anglican along to the retreat, on which, he says, he discovered a personal relationship with Jesus. The conversion triggered his involvement in his own Anglican parish while remaining on the fringes of the Catholic charismatic movement. Continued on Page 4

Romans sit by the side of Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture "Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi" at Piazza Navona in Rome on May 1. The sculpture plays a part in novelist Dan Brown's book Angels & Demons, which was adapted to a film starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard. The movie premiered in Rome on May 4 at a theatre a mile away from Vatican City. PHOTO. CNS/CHRIS HELGREN, REUTERS

Catholic scientists debunk Hollywood's latest depiction of science and faith clash. • By Maria Wiering

ST PAUL, Minnesota (CNS) - A bomb. A secret sect of antiCatholic scientists. A Church straddling ancient traditions and the modern world. Although the plot of Angels & Demons is a hunt for centuriesold clues that could lead to a hidden explosive set to blow apart Vatican City, a recurring theme in the movie revolves around the relationship between faith and science. According to the movie, scheduled to open in theatres

THE LINK THAT CAN'T BE DENIED Drug Free Australia has launched a damning research paper at Parliament House linking cannabis use with mental health issues, including schizophrenia, just as the West Australian government is drawing up plans to crack down on the damaging drug. Page 6

on May 15, the two have been at odds since the springtime of science and today they continue to see themselves in antagonistic and sometimes irreconcilable terms. But this perception is far from reality, according to Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, an astronomer at the Vatican Observatory in Arizona and Castel Gandolfo, the papal villa outside Rome. "Quite simply, the Church has always supported science," Brother Consolmagno told The Catholic Spirit, newspaper of the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis," he noted. "Modern science was born in European Catholic universities and some of history's best scientists were clergymen." That's why the books of Dan Brown - the author of Angels &

Demons and The Da Vinci Code are in the bookstore's fiction section, where they belong, he said. Fr Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Centre in Philadelphia, said misunderstandings about the compatibility of faith and science arise because of the different "languages" they use. In actuality, science and religion have distinct yet compatible domains, he added. Brother Consolmagno said the myth of the "war" between science and religion grew out of the Enlightenment at the end of the 19th century. In order to attract students to the emerging German secular universities, Enlightenment supporters portrayed the Church as antiscience and against progress, he said.

Contents Letters -Page 8 World - Pages 10-11 Perspectives Pages 12-13 Classifieds - Page 15 Month of Mary books - Page 16

"It really doesn't go back to Galileo; it goes back to the politics of what was happening in Europe and America 100 years ago," he said. The case of 17th-century astronomer Galileo Galilei has been a controversial issue in the debate between science and faith, but he continued his scientific work until the end of his life and died in good standing with the Catholic Church. He was also praised in 1992 by a special Vatican commission established by Pope John Paul II. The Galileo controversy has taught the Church to be careful when speaking on matters of science, Fr Pacholczyk said. For example,on the topic ofevolution, the Church continues to engage in an ongoing discussion about the proper understanding Continued on page 10

ONE-EYED ANALYSIS

Mainstream response to the latest NRL sex scandal involving players largely misses the point of hypocrisy in contemporary sexual ethics, writes The Record's Mark Reidy. Page 7

IN

IN

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THE PARISH

EDITOR Peter Rosengren cathrec@iinetnetau

aui

JOURNALISTS Anthony Barich abarich@therecord.com.au Mark Reidy reidyrec@iinet.net.au Robert Hiini rthiini@gmail.com PRODUCTION & ADVERTISING Justine Stevens production@therecord.com.au ACCOUNTS Cathy Baguley recaccounts@iinet.net.au ADMINISTRATION Bibiana Kwaramba administration@therecord. corn. au BOOKSHOP Caroline Radelic bookshop@therecord.com.au CONTRIBUTORS Debbie Warner Karen & Derek Boylen Anna Krohn Catherine Parish Fr John 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.

SAINT OF THE WEEK Mary Magdalen de Pazzi 1 566-1607

Born to a wealthy family in Florence, Italy, Caterma began meditating at age 9 and had her first ecstasy, or vision, at 12. She entered a Carmelite convent at 16, becoming Mary Magdalen, and was allowed to profess vows early when it seemed she might be dying. She had long periods of daily ecstasies, but also experienced five years of spiritual dryness, during which she was constantly tempted and in pain. Her confessor had her dictate her experiences to fellow nuns, who filled five volumes over six years. This medieval mystic also served her community as mistress of novices and subprioress.

C CNS Saints

J UB I L E E 2 00 8 - 2 00 9

"We are only the earthenware jars that hold this treasure, to make it clear that such an overwhelming power comes from God and not from us. We are in dif ficulties on all sides, but never cornered; we see no answer to our problems, hut never despair; we have been persecuted, but never deserted; knocked down, but never killed; always, wherever we may be, we carry with us in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus, too, may always be seen in our body." 2 Corinthians 4:7-11)

Celebrate Love takes off South Africa picks up Australianmade Catholic marriage course. • By Anthony Barich PERTH'S parish-based Celebrate Love program has proved so successful that a South African Schoenstatt Sister has been inspired to bring it to Capetown. The Catholic program, written in Australia by Sydney couple Byron and Francine Pirola and facilitated by Luke and Vanessa Van Beek in Perth, has already spread to the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Uganda. Ten couples participated in the weekend-long Celebrate Love Seminar over May 2-3 at Mary's Mount Catholic Primary School in Gooseberry Hill and Holy Family Parish Centre in Kalamunda, composed of workshops and reflective exercises designed to lead couples into deeper intimacy and a greater appreciation of their masculine and feminine uniqueness. This number was half the usual number of couples who attended previous weekends but this suited the Van Beeks' plan for it to expand as an intimate parishbased initiative. With Schoenstatt Sister Susanna Duncan watching on, the couples heard practical talks progressing from issues around couples' family origin and background, acknowledging personal patterns and dynamics of a relationship including responsibility and dealing with day-today life in the context of being a gift of self to the other, as Christ is to His Church. Vanessa Van Beek, who has been married to Luke for 15 years, said that the retreat leaders noticed a change in participants from 'closed' body language like folded arms, hesitant about what the weekend would hold, but gradually opened up and grew closer in intimacy. This closeness was facilitated by the healing on the first day that encouraged couples to bring up past hurts in the right way, seeking forgiveness then going to Kalamunda parish priest Fr Paul Raj for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The second day shifted the focus to how couples can live out their lives as the sacrament that it is, and again, as on Saturday, personal testimonies were given that added practicality to the retreat. Couples became aware of seeing their marriage as a call to live lives as a witness of love as a gift to the Church, to share the sacrament and affirm each other in that sacrament, looking more towards community as a Church and parish, though many couples were from around the Archdiocese of Perth. Gabby and Quinton Hoffmann, also parishioners at Holy Family parish, along with the 38-year-old Van Beeks, assisted in hosting the retreat, which was brief-

Above, below: Couples enjoy the lush surrounds to reconnect at the Celebrate Love marriage enrichment retreat at Mary's Mount Catholic Primary School. PHOTOS: LUKE VAN BEEK

Testimony Jo and Adrian Doyle Adrian and I have been married for 10 years. We emigrated together, started a family - decisively with twins - and have some material to work with if a discussion of marriage is going to be had. When I heard a Celebrate Love weekend was planned in the hills, we pounced and booked generous babysitters, freeing us, quite luxuriously, for undistracted focus on us as a couple. The two-day seminar demands a lot, challenges almost relentlessly but also provides the most surprising, tender insights and opportunities for refreshment and renewal in one of the central relationships of our lives. The material challenges the crass

belittlement of marriage and sex proliferated in media and thoughtlessly adopted by many. It offers an alternative: a beautiful, God-desired version of what we could be and should be as man and wife. The seminar knocks down barriers to our achieving this, with pen and paper and whispered words between couples. State co-coordinators of the seminar, Luke and Vannessa Van Beek, were generous and open presenters, sparkling with humor, faith and conviction. The support team, Stephen and Penny Roche, wove their story wonderfully into the material. Celebrate Love gives you the chance as a couple to share frankly, to forgive and be forgiven, to celebrate and affirm each other and to marvel afresh at what we all too easily take for granted - married love in the sight of God.

ly visited by Archbishop Barry Hickey. Vanessa Van Beek said that the retreat gave younger couples new models to look at patterns of trust and responsibility and what to do as a 'circuit-breaker' to avoid any domestic issues spiral out of control. For older couples who have recently found themselves alone with their children moved out, the retreat helped them reconnect.

The Van Beeks, who are also mentor couples that run the Embrace marriage preparation program for engaged couples, participated in their first Celebrate Love weekend in 2004. The next Celebrate Love weekend is over August 15-16 at St Joseph's parish in Subiaco. For more information email info@celebratelove.com.au, log onto www.celebratelove.com.au or call 9293 1998 or 02 9662 7272.

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Mass, Mercedes College - Archbishop Hickey 400th Anniversary Founder of Loreto Sisters - Archbishop Hickey Confirmation, North Beach - Bishop Sproxton Visit Confirmation candidates, Vietnamese Community Bishop Sproxton Parish Visitation Southern Cross - Archbishop Hickey All Hallow's, Kalgoorlie - Archbishop Hickey Clergy Seminary - Bishop Sproxton ltalo-Australian Apprentice of the Year Award - Archbishop Hickey Launch of St Vincent de Paul Society Winter Appeal 2009 Archbishop Hickey Reconciliation, Mercedes College - Archbishop Hickey

28 29 30 & 31 31

Memorial Mass for Fr Thomas O'Reilly CM, RIP Visit Confirmation candidates, Gosnells - Archbishop Hickey Confirmation, Port Kennedy - Mgr Brian O'Loughlin Italian Mass, St Brigid's, Northbridge - Archbishop Hickey Confirmation, Vietnamese Community - Bishop Sproxton 20th Anniversary of Traditional Anglican Community - Fr Peter Black

June 2

3 4

50th Anniversary of Australian Catholic Enquiry Centre, St Joachim's Pro-Cathedral - Archbishop Hickey, Bishop Sproxton Lifelink Day 2009 Live and Interactive Webcast for Schools Archbishop Hickey, Bishop Sproxton Marian Movement of Priests Mass, St Francis Xavier Church Archbishop Hickey

May 20 2009, The Record

Page 3

THE PARISH

Faithful receive healing Faith and family

merge seamlessly

Parishioners process with a statue of St Leone.

Above, renowned priest Fr John Rae lays his hands on the faithful, below, the congregation gather at Our Lady of Mt Carmel parish church.

Healing Masses at Mt Carmel, Hilton. FOR four evenings the church of Our Lady of Mt Carmel was packed with people. Parking space around the church was hard to find. Mass began at 7.30pm and the last people left around 10.30pm as the security guards told me. The confessionals certainly were put to good use and after Mass most people lined up for a blessing from Father John Rae. Many of them attended all four evening Masses and blessings. It really showed that many people are searching for healing. There is a great need to be met and many of the faithful came from different parishes all over Perth.

Correction Vista 1 in the May 13 edition of The Record wrongly stated that the Catholic population of Perth according to the 2006 Census was over 1.5 million.

This is wrong. Perth's entire population is over 1.5 million; Perth's Catholic population is 377,849, according to the 2006 Census. The rest of the figures throughout the edition regarding the Catholic figures, however, remain correct. The Record apologises for any confusion.

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Viva San Leone: Feast of San (Saint) Leone in Kalamunda. EVERY year the feast of Saint Leone is celebrated on the first Sunday of May in Holy Family Parish of Kalamunda. This year it fell on May 3, and faith and family merged seamlessly. St Leone was an Archbishop who served in the diocese of Catania, Sicily, Italy, working among the poor, helping them to know more about Christ. He touched many people of Catania in his time. People who lived in Sinagra which is close to Catania, a small town in Italy, migrated to Western Australia many years ago. Those people who experienced his love keep his statue in Holy Family Church Kalamunda and continue their devotion, parish priest Fr Paul Raj told The Record. People who migrated to WA from Sinagra scattered around the Perth metropolitan area come to Kalamunda on the last Sunday of every month and celebrate Mass. Coming together as a community, they experience their faith,

PHOTO COURTESY FR PAUL RAJ

friendship and fraternity. The feast day of St Leone this year was celebrated with Mass by Archbishop Barry Hickey and concelebrated by six other visiting priests followed by procession in the Kalamunda town, with 500 people taking part, with 16 other Italian associations Joining in singing devotional songs and praying Rosaries. After the procession, the fraternal bonding continued as the Italian community renewed their friendship in the Italian language that helped the people have their day of celebration of their faith that is so integral in their lives. It is the devotion to St Leone which makes hundreds of people from all over Perth make Kalamunda a place of pilgrimage. They have been coming to Kalamunda for 37 years. San Leone Association has supported the parish of Kalamunda in many ways, not only the parish, but the Archdiocese and nursing homes, offering their time, talent and treasures. "Members of San Leone Association are good and faithful stewards to the communities in the Archdiocese," Fr Raj said.

Australian clergy launch Year of Priests A NATIONAL Australian all Priests by Pope Benedict XVI organisation for Catholic priests during the Year for Priests. ACCC will jointly hold a major conference chairman Fr Michael Kennedy and early next year in Rome for cler- CCC President Fr John Trigilio gy from throughout the English- urged their members to honour speaking world with its American Pope Benedict's Year for Priests by counterpart. coming to Rome for the conference The January 4-8 conference for to spend time in prayer, study, and priests and deacons is organised sacerdotal fraternity. by the Australian Confraternity The 2010 meeting would be the for Catholic Clergy and the (US) first joint assembly for both conConfraternity of Catholic Clergy fraternities, they said, and will be in response to Pope Benedict's des- held near the Vatican at the Casa ignation of June 2009-June 2010 Pastor Bonus. as a special Year for Priests folBoth groups were established lowing on from the 2007-08 Year to foster and promote ongoing of St Paul. Any English-speaking spiritual, theological, pastoral and Catholic priests and deacons from human formation of clergy in a fraany country will be welcome to ternal setting, called for by Vatican attend and participate, the two II Council and highly encouraged organisations said in a joint state- in Canon Law. ment last week. Both organisations normally The ACCC and CCC used the hold an annual national gathering birthday of the patron saint of par- offering lectures and talks given by ish priests - St John Marie Baptist speakers known for their orthodoxy Vianney - on May 8 to announce and loyalty to the Magisterium. the conference; they said it would For more information about the conference www. be held under the patronage of yearforpriests-clergyconferencerome2010.org, St Vianney, the Church's official www.australianccc.org and www.catholic-clergy. patron saint for parish priests. org Interested clergy can also contact ACC( media However, St Vianney, also spokesman known as the Cure of Ars, will Fr Nicholas Dillon on (03) 97924422. be declared the Patron Saint of

• Page 4

May 20 2009, The Record

THE PARISH

Catholic adult faith educaters recharge in Perth Adult faith educaters delve into concepts of faith as a gift of the Spirit. • By Robert Hiini

ADULT faith educaters from throughout the country took time out in Perth last week to recharge their batteries at the annual Australian Association of Catholic Adult Faith Educators Conference. The conference, held over four days from May 11, was hosted by WA's Maranatha Institute of Adult Faith Education at the Redemptorist's Retreat House in North Perth. Thirty nine educaters from every State and from organisations such as the Broken Bay Institute and Brisbane's Faith and Life Centre explored, through a series of talks and workshops, the conference

Left, seasoned adult faith education facilitator lrena Harrison addresses some of the nation's premier faith educaters. Right, Participants bond through "sacred dance:' PHOTO ROBERT HIINI

title of Strengthening the Sinews in Our Hearts: Recasting Adult Faith Education for a New Time. Conference participants spent

each morning unpacking the three themes of the conference - faith as gift, faith as spirit and faith as a call to enthusiasm in

ministry - before embarking on a different practicum each day, led by local and interstate specialists in music, art, iconography

and dance. Conference facilitator, Irena Harrison led participants in a series of searching reflections and time was scheduled each day for pariticipants to share ideas and resources in their shared field. In recognition of the Year of St Paul, keynote speaker Marie Therese Ryder RNDM, spoke about the apostle's call for reflection and to renew a personal commitment to serve. The association held its annual general meeting on the final day, electing as one of its three office holders, WA's Sister Philomena Burrell PBVM, Director of the Maranatha Institute. The association was begun to provide a network, clearinghouse and pastoral support for people working to enrich lay Catholics ongoing faith development. For more information about the association, contact Sister Philomena Burrell on 08 6380 5160.

Priest-in-waiting drifted, then experienced the Way and liked what he heard continued from page 1

On only the second weekend in a new parish he heard the announcement of a catechesis being offered by a relatively new phenomenon in Australia at that time, the Neocatechumenal Way; although a Catholic phenomenon, the Way first came to Australia at the invitation of the Anglican Church in this country. The Way, which administers the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Morley where Andrew studied for the priesthood, is one of the explosion of new approaches to being Catholic that have arisen in the Church in recent decades. It offers an itinerary of Christian formation modelled closely on the practice of the early Church, which saw Christians learn their faith comprehensively before baptism - often for years at a time. Such early converts were called neocatechumens. It has a strong emphasis on enabling those who form together in parish-based communities to listen to Scripture weekly and to see how and where God's Word is speaking to them in their own lives. Its distinctive liturgy is rich in biblical, Jewish and early Christian symbolism and vibrant in singing and music; an average neocatechumenal gathering will lift the roof of any building. "I liked what I heard:' he recalled to The Record last week as he prepared for his forthcoming ordination on June 5. "The Bible started to speak to me personally, and in a practical way for my life.' Still searching for his life's meaning, he entered the Anglican Society of the Sacred Mission but two years later a personal crisis of faith saw him leave and return to work in Canberra, where he participated in another

Neocatechumenal catechesis. It was then that he began 'walking; as participants often describe their journey and ongoing conversion process, in the Way. He spent eight years working in the consular sections of the British and then South African High Commissions in Canberra, by which time he began to have an inkling that Christ was calling him to something unique in life. At the same time his own Anglican Neocatechumenal community wasn't growing and eventually merged with another in a Catholic parish. The fact that, as an Anglican he could not receive the Catholic Eucharist, served to heighten his awareness of the distinctiveness of the Catholic Church. "I could see something in the Catholic Eucharist that spoke to my life, a deeper spirituality that helped me," he told The Record. He also decided his involvement with charismatic Christianity, which had triggered his conversion, had run its course. "I decided not to continue with involvement in the Charismatic movement because I found the Word speaking to me more deeply in my life in the Neocatechumenal Way, even though I loved the praise and worship of the charismatic movement:' he said. Describing himself as a very quiet and reserved personality, he found being in the Way and participating in its regular formation drew him out of himself. "Today, I'm a completely different person. Then: I was very quiet, worried about the future a lot - and I thought I couldn't love. "Now: Jesus has drawn me out of myself, shown me that although I am a sinner I can love myself and others. To announce this to others is why I am here today. I want to show

other people how God uses our brokenness to help those who are broken" By 1993 he was seriously thinking of entering the Catholic Church and began to read and pray to discern where God wanted him to be. The Eucharist was key. At the Easter Vigil of 1995 he was accepted into full communion with the Church; at the same time it was becoming clearer to him that priesthood was a real possibility for his life. "My Neocatechumenal parish community didn't have a priest who could be with it regularly each week, and I began to think 'why not me?"' he said. As it transpires, he is the fourth man from that one Neocatechumenal community, now based in Canberra's Western Creek area, to be ordained to the priesthood. In 1993 he also found himself enjoying the remarkable phenomenon that World Youth Day was becoming, on this occasion in the US diocese of Denver, Colorado, where he saw and heard the charismatic John Paul II speak to an estimated two million youth. It was in Denver that the Pope said: "Do not be afraid to go out into the streets and public places, like the first Apostles, who preached Christ and the Good News of salvation in city and village squares. This is not the time to be ashamed of the Gospel. It is the time to preach it from the rooftops:' Together with thousands of other young men and women in the Way he met with its founder, Kiko Arguello, after WYD Denver. Traditionally such gatherings include an open invitation to anyone feeling called to religious life or priesthood to stand up. Four years later at WYD Paris, that's exactly what Andrew did, and again at a Vonvivenzi, a national gathering something

like a retreat, in 1998. The catechists accompanying his community invited him to leave work and spend time working on mission, continuing the process of discernment and being a missionary in an outback Northern Territory parish - Humpty Doo, outside Darwin. Filled "with fear and trembling" he went to Humpty Doo for six months. However it was not until he attended a Neocatechumenal meeting in the Italian town of Porto San Girogio in 1998 that he was assigned to the Western Australian Redemptoris Mater seminary - at the annual gatherings in Porto, hundred of names are drawn and assigned to Redemptoris Mater seminaries around the world by lot. In Perth he spent five years before leaving the seminary by mutual consent with his formators, but two years working in the South African High Commission back in Canberra couldn't erase the idea of priesthood. He returned to Morley in 2006 and was ordained to the diaconate by Archbishop Hickey in August 2008. His journey towards priesthood has been a journey of transformation for which he can only express gratitude. "I've received from the Church and Jesus Christ this love I didn't have for myself, a love for other men and women, which isn't of me," he explained. "The fact that Christ has loved me as a sinner has helped me come out of myself. I want to give back this same love, this gratitude, to others - to announce that Jesus Christ has died for them too and wants to help them in their lives as he has helped me." That's why, he adds, "I'll be very happy to go wherever He may lead me."

PRINCIPALSHIP

OUR LADY'S ASSUMPTION SCHOOL

Catholic Education Commission trcstern Australia

Our Lady's Assumption School, Dianella, is a double-stream co-educational Catholic primary school, situated in the central region of Perth, catering for approximately 500 children from Pre-Kindergarten to Year 6. Founded in 1967 by the Dominican Sisters, the school completed a total rebuild and refurbishment in 2003, and now boasts contemporary facilities which have been enhanced through the efforts of the school community. The school seeks a creative and energetic leader who is able to implement the educational vision of the school, as well as plan for future generations of students. A vibrant and committed staff work to provide the best possible educational opportunities for students and pride themselves on the quality of education offered. Our Lady's Assumption has a very strong emphasis on early childhood education, as well as literacy and numeracy. The school is in its fifth year of the RAISe (Raising Achievement in Schools) program. Intervention and support programs are offered across all year levels. Other specialist areas provided are physical education, music, library and LOTE (Italian). There is a strong focus on performing arts and information communication. The school works collaboratively with Our Lady's Assumption Parish and the School Board and the Parents' and Friends Association work closely with the Principal in building a strong community spirit. Parents are actively involved in the school and its educational programs. The successful applicant will commence at the beginning of Term 4 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 5 June 2009.

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THE PARISH

Praying to Mary of the farm 300 celebrate Mary's "yes". OVER 300 pilgrims attended the annual May Rosary Celebration on May 3 in honour of Our Lady at Bove's Farm, south of Busse1ton, meditating on Mary's 'yes' to become Mother of God. Owners of the farm Luigi and Luisa Bove have for many years been welcoming pilgrims to this annual event which is held at the Queen of the Holy Rosary Shrine located on the farm. This year a concelebrated Mass was offered by the Vicar General of the Bunbury Diocese, Fr Tony Chiera, with other priests from the Bunbury Diocese and Mass was followed by the crowning of a statue of Our Lady. After the crowning, pilgrims were led by Our Lady on a procession through the property, during which the Rosary was recited in both Italian

and English. A gathering of flower girls dressed in white sprinkled rose petals in front of Our Lady throughout the procession. The procession concluded with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. In his sermon during the Mass, Fr Tony shared personal memories of his own mother's strong faith which manifested itself in helping the poor and those in need. It was his mother's acts of kindness to those around her that were an example of the Lord working through someone to bring goodness on earth. In this way he urged all those attending that as Christians we all need to co-operate with God, because if something is to come down to earth from heaven, it needs to come down through someone. He said that Our Lady was the person who fulfilled this completely in her life by her "yes" to become the Mother of God.

Testimony By Joseph Monisse of Bunbury, aged 12. On the first Sunday in May I attended the Rosary Celebration at Bove's Farm with my family. The May Celebration is held every year in honour of Mary, God's mother, at Luigi and Luisa Bove's farm in Busse1ton. On the morning of the May Celebration my Dad rang up our friend Rosemary to ask her to bring an alb for me so I could serve at the Mass. Every year I serve at the May Celebration and I really enjoy it. At around 11.30am we left our house and started driving to Bove's farm. We arrived at the Bove's a little while before the hymns which started at 12.30pm. As soon as I arrived at the Shrine I put my alb on and waited for Mass to begin at 1pm. Fr Tony's sermon was that God works through people to do good things and that in order for good things to happen, someone on earth must let God work through them. A fter Communion my sister Carmel crowned Our Lady. Every year at the May Celebration one of the flower girls will crown Our Lady. This year it was Carmel's turn. After Mass finished there was a rosary procession. We would stop at a different place on the property for each decade. Following the procession there was Benediction. I assisted in both the procession and Benediction. Then my friends and I had some afternoon tea. Afterwards we went off to explore the bush on the property. I enjoy going to Bove's Farm each year for the May Celebration and I think it is a very special occasion.

Linda's House of Hope will close without immediate assistance A much-needed refuge for prostitutes desperate to leave the trade is in serious trouble. • By Robert Hiini

LINDA'S House of Hope, an outreach to prostitutes and their children, will close its doors soon if its financial situation doesn't improve, says its founder and ex-madam Linda Wagon. Ms Watson says that donations have dried up since the beginning of the global financial recession and that her organisation has had to turn away 10 people on average every three days for the past two months. In the past year, Linda's House of Hope has lost five major ongoing donors, with the latest loss coming this week as that donor seeks to deal with its own debt problems. With $3500 of bills outstanding and dwindling income, Ms Watson says she does not know how long the organisation can last. The house currently helps 30 women with food assistance for themselves and their children as well as providing housing and refuge from women trying to escape "the game," drug addiction and violence. Ms Watson described one such family as a woman with an 11-month-old baby and 10-year-old child from New Zealand who are trying to escape prostitution and a damaging relationship. She is ineligible for government assistance. Her drug-addicted and incarcerated former partner is preventing her from returning to New Zealand because the children are Australian citizens, telling her to return to prostitution to support herself instead. She was referred to Ms Watson by a local priest who is continuing to give her ongoing moral support. When Ms Watson met the woman, she had no nappies and no food. Linda's House of Hope is currently providing food and housing support to the woman and her children. Ms Watson says she doesn't know what will happen to the women and their other recipients of assistance if Linda's House of Hope is forced to close. "There is no one else doing what we are doing," Ms Watson said. "They can try to get help somewhere else but all social agencies are suffering right now." If they survive this present financial crisis, Ms Watson says that her longterm desire for the organisation is to establish a farm retreat to provide a place of sanctuary and a means of selfsufficiency. But for the moment that prospect is looking bleak. For more information or to make a tax deductible donation, call Linda on 0439 401 009.

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May 20 2009, The Record

THE NATION

Traditional Anglicans hit 20 years T h e Traditional A nglican Communion, part of a group of 400,000 faithful who seek full cornTAC Bishop munion with Harry Entwistle the Catholic Church, is celebrating 20 years of ministry in Western Australia with a Mass on May 31 at 10.30am at Mercedes Chapel. The Mass will be presided over by Adelaide-based Archbishop John Hepworth, Primate of the global TAC movement, with Rt Revd David Roberts, former Dean of Perth Anglican Cathedral, set to preach. Catholics are welcome to attend, but cannot receive Communion as the movement is not yet in full communion with the Holy See. A decision is expected soon. The liturgy that the TAC uses is based the 1928 Common Book of Prayer, used prior to King Henry VIII causing a seismic split five centuries ago by starting the Anglican Church; and its music is similar to what Catholics today know as Gregorian Chant, used in the Catholic Church.

Research backs dope crackdown Former AMA President in WA points to damning research. mu By Anthony Barich

DRUG Free Australia has launched a "scholarly" research paper on the link between cannabis use and mental health just as WA Attorney General Christian Porter is drawing up legislation to repeal the previous Labor government's drug laws. Independent Janet Woolard MLA, Liberal MLAs Michael Sutherland, Peter Britza and Peter Abetz and representatives from drug prevention, management and support groups were present as the report was launched by prominent psychiatrist and former Australian Medical Association WA president Dr Paul Skerritt at Parliament House on May 8. The report, called Cannabis suicide, schizophrenia and other ill-effects, contains 11 recommendations on how government can intervene effectively, including implementing preventative drug education in all States and territories and details how marijuana is a gateway drug to harder substances, leads to dependence and harms users' mental health. As per its election pledge in August last year, the West Australian government is planning to decrease the cannabis posses-

sion threshold by two thirds and ban the possession of cannabis plants for personal use, as legislation enacted under Labor allows up to 30 grams on one's person and two plants to be grown for personal use. The government also pledged to ban marijuana smoking implements and tools in a bid to repeal what it calls Labor's "soft on drugs" stance. Dr Skerritt, who is also on the Perth Archdiocesan Historical Commission having revealed a founding Perth bishop's experience in medical practice, said that while the evidence "does seem to suggest that you need to have some sort of predisposition for you to develop a serious illness provoked by marijuana: this argument is not valid. He said that predispositions may not produce any symptoms until it's provoked by some external factor, and said that schizophrenia and other mental conditions like bi-polar and general depression are "very closely related" to anxiety, an underestimated condition that is severe and debilitating. Marijuana, he said, is a powerful factor in the provocation of mental illness and is a "very significant and expensive factor for the number of beds that are used (for those who use marijuana), who otherwise may be treated without admission". "It's very common that people who have had their first panic attack to have it around the same

time as they had their first exposure to marijuana, and then of course it sticks and it keeps going on and on," he said. He said that while the incidence of consumption of marijuana has gone down - due to the cost of alternatives and education - it is still widely used. He said that harm reduction does not work as people may not know they have a predisposition to mental illness, while legislation has proved "phenomenally effective" in reducing smoking consumption from 68 per cent to 10 per cent, while putting cannabis on the same 'legalised' group as alcohol and tobacco, both legal drugs that have strong health costs, "has no logic at all': He said that attempts to tighten restrictions inevitably meet resistance, but also inevitably leads to a drop in the incidence of consumption. However, he said that completely criminalising cannabis, thereby "sending people to jail, is a very, very expensive way of making a problem worse, including drug problems. It's of no benefit whatsoever". The merit of criminalisation was debated at the launch by a former drug dealer and addict now working for Teen Challenge, who said it would deter youth who have never tried it. Though against criminalisation, Dr Skerritt said that the law must say that "these are very dangerous drugs and it's in the interests

Dr Paul Skerritt at the launch of Drug Free Australia's report.

of the community to lessen consumption. If we catch people with possession we need much greater education and better detoxification facilities for them". "Eliminate the word 'criminalisation' from the debate, but don't send a message to the community that these are soft recreational drugs catering to a group of grown-up hippies from 40 years ago: he said. On June 2, DFA officials will meet with Minister for Health, Dr Graham Jacobs, who sent apologies for not attending the launch, to discuss the report's contents. For more info, go to www.drugfree.org.au.

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May 20 2009, The Record

Page 7

THE NATION

NRL should sack And they wonder why... gender advisor: ACL Current sex scandal no surprise, says lobby group. • By Anthony Barich

THE Australian Christian Lobby has called on the National Rugby League to sack its 'gender adviser' Catherine Lumby over her public comments in 2004 that have showed continued approval of group sex that has led to superstar Matthew Johns being stood down by his club and Channel 9. During a scandal involving the NRL Bulldogs' 2004 group sex session at Coffs Harbour, Ms Lumby told ABC Radio: "Speaking as an academic, I think that there's no problem with any behaviour which is consensual in sexual terms:' ACL managing director Jim Wallace said that Ms Lumby said this straight after being appointed by the NM, to a position which involves helping to advise its young players on gender relations. She is also the author of the 'Porn Report' which extols the virtues of pornography, he said, and she has also been an advocate for making X-rated pornography freely available to adults throughout Australia. Its production and sale is currently banned in Australian states. Last week, Johns was revealed to have been involved in group sex with a 19-year-old New Zealand woman during a preseason tour in 2002, leading to him being stood down by Channel 9, where he is a key figure in its NRL Footy Show, and by Melbourne Storm, where he was a part-time assistant coach. As the NRL Footy Show relies to an extent on Johns' personality, there have been reports that the scandal could kill off the show after 15 years, as the show's ratings

I

mystiam somewhat fied by the furore that has been sparked by the latest sex scandal in the sporting world. Why is everyone so surprised and outraged? Don't get me wrong - the degradation and disregard shown by this particular group of men toward the 19 year old woman in the 2002 incident should rightly be abhorred, but I believe there is a double standard in the wave of public fury that has been ignited. Sadly it is an ambiguity that most people seem to be completely unaware of, a fact that became quite obvious during last Thursday's National Rugby League Footy Show. On the show was a panel of current and former players, as well as professionals whose job is to instil a culture of respectful gender-relating within the NRL. They were scrutinising the fallout from the scandal and searching for a constructive way forward. It was a positive and productive interaction, with individuals united in their desire to rid the game, and society in general, of demeaning attitudes towards women. All well and good - not many would argue with their honourable motives. But then there was an interruption for a commercial break. Here lies the hypocrisy. The advertisement prior to the return of the praiseworthy discussion featured a number of gyrating and scantily clad women promoting the upcoming Sexpo in Perth. It described itself as a, "four

Matthew Johns

have been described as dismal and it has suffered its own share of controversy, highlighted when its host, former International player Paul 'Fatty' Vautin, insulted a disabled security guard last year. Mr Wallace said that the community has been rightly aghast at the controversy involving Johns and the message the incident sends to the game's hordes of young fans. "We strongly welcome comments from NRL boss David Gallup about the need for everyone involved in the game to change their attitude towards women, but feel this is rather hollow while the NRL is looking to a long-standing apologist for the porn industry who supports group sex to help change its culture; Mr Wallace said. "Obviously there are real concerns as to whether a culture which exploits and degrades women is genuinely changing in the NRL, as well as in other sporting codes. "How could the NRL possibly think it will when they are asking someone who supports group sex to help rugby league change its group sex culture?"

H ARVEST PILGRIMAGES 2009

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day public event looking at all aspects of adult entertainment, sexuality and adult lifestyles". It is held in most major cities across the country and features exhibitions such as, "Sexpo Showgirls - performing their steamy routine live on stage... see them in the flesh, have a photo taken with them and more", visit "a room solely dedicated to lap dancing", enter an "amateur strip tease competition"; witness "extravagant pole dancing", "meet Australia's number one Pornstar" and the list goes on. Then its back to the studio to analyse how it is possible that attitudes that treat women as objects of self-gratification could possibly exist in our enlightened times. Some may call the advertisement bad timing, but I tend to think that it held the elusive answer that the panel was so desperately seeking. We are living in a society that gives lip service to moral standards of behaviour, yet encourages lifestyles of sexual permissiveness and self satisfaction in both a social and legal context. We tell our boys from a young age that they must treat all women with dignity, yet we permit pictures of almost naked women to be displayed in supermarkets, on billboards, in video shops and on television. We say that they must respect women, yet explicit pornography, freely accessed through the Internet, can potentially be delivered into any home with a computer. We implore them to value women, yet we make it legal to rent them for personal gratification. Surely it must confuse the developing minds and consciences of our young male population. Especially when we then expect them to get to a magical point in their lives where they must suddenly ignore the sexual imagery and attitudes that have bombard-

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ed them throughout their adolescence and act in a manner that is contrary to them. There is no doubt that individuals must be responsible for their own actions and face the consequences for them, but as a society we must also accept some degree of blame for the path we have chosen to take. Under the guise of progressive thinking and freedom of speech we have compromised the innocence of our children by exposing them to sexual information and attitudes before they are even capable of forming a moral conscience. We should not be surprised then, that we are confronted with immorality when they become adults. There is an insightful African proverb that says, "It takes a village to raise a child". So before we condemn the products of our own village, let us first look at how we are raising them.

Budget 09: agencies express concern Catholic social service, health bodies say budget misses the mark. • By Anthony Barich

'

Matthew Johns in character as his altar ego Reg Reagan on the NRL Footy Show, which some say relies on him for its ratings.

AUSTRALIA'S major Catholic social and health care bodies have criticised the Federal Government's budget as neglecting single parents and the unemployed. The St Vincent de Paul Society has expressed "grave concerns" about the Budget leaving sole parents and the unemployed "out in the cold, failing to receive the income increases they badly needed". SVDP national council chief executive Dr John Falzon said that sole parents and the unemployed account for 60 per cent of those the Society is called on to assist in some parts of Australia. "Those who were demonised in the past have emerged as the 'forgotten people' again. This budget fails to learn from the past, when the 'forgotten people' were systematically left out of this nation's prosperity Dr Falzon said. While welcoming the increase to most pensions and to the allowable work benefit, Catholic Social Services executive director Frank Quinlan said that the community's poorest people, including the long-term unemployed, are still being neglected. Catholic Health Australia, which represents Australia's largest non-government grouping of public and private hospitals and aged care providers, said that the Budget is positive in its benefits workforce initiatives, $3.2 billion for hospital infrastructure and the promise of the development of a world-

class cancer care system, it neglects the future of aged care. "Older Australians and residents of aged care facilities could feel the effects of a failure to invest in a funding model that will ensure the viability of aged care into the future; CHA chief executive Martin Laverty said. Cl-IA is also disappointed in cuts to Medicare, changes to the private heath insurance rebate and cuts to preventative health programs. "There needs to be a greater role for the non-government sector to have access to infrastructure funding in the future; Mr Laverty said. He said that improving infrastructure and incentives for doctors to practise in regional areas, and making Medicare items available for midwives and nurse practitioners would help widen access to health services for disadvantaged Australians. Mr Quinlan added that social security payments are currently set "according to political whim", and urged the government to take the politics out of payments and ensure all Australians have an adequate income for a dignified life". He said that while the Budget includes a plan to escape fiscal deficit, no such plan exists to escape "social deficit". While the single rate of many pensions increased by $32.49 a week, taking the base rate to around $318 a week, the base rate for single parents remains at $285 while Newstart has "stalled" at $277, $90 below the single base rate for most pensions. CSSA also renewed its call for the establishment of an Australian Entitlements Commission that would set and index social security payment indepent of the government, in a similar way to the Australian Fair Pay Commission or the Commonwealth Remuneration Tribunal.

Page 8

LETTERS

Letters to the editor

Letter of the week

THE RECORD PO Box 75 Leederville, WA 6902 cathrec@iinet.net.au Tel: (08) 9227 7080 Fax: (08) 9227 7087

Help the prisoners come to Christ p e

LETTERS TO

oqi c' Mass apathy, abortion views symptomatic of wider malaise To those "Catholics" who seem to think that missing Sunday Mass is no big deal and that Sport takes preference, I should like to point out that the Church teaches that those who miss Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation without a good reason, such as illness, commit a grave sin. Check it out in The Catechism of The Catholic Church, (eg at 2181) which is the Catechism of Vatican II (See the Apostolic Constitution Fedei Depositum which precedes the Catechism and which was written by Pope John-Paul II). Also, it seems that some "Catholics" take a rather "liberal" view of abortion. Here again, I can refer them to the Documents of The Second Vatican Council (Church in The Modern World) where abortion is referred to as "an abominable crime". Of course, The Catechism also points out the serious sinfulness of abortion. Excommunication is the penalty of abortion. The shocking falling off of Sunday Mass attendance to the present pathetic low point common to many if not most Western Countries, can be attributed to various causes, not least of which is the lack of education of the people in the matter. The indifference of some to abortion is also partly due to a similar situation there. Jerome Gonzales Willetton

Guy understated financial crisis Congratulations on the outstanding quality of the last two issues of The Record, with their informative articles. I was particularly impressed with Omar O'Shaughnessy's scathing denunciation of Notre Dame (USA) and with Guy Crouchback's articles on the collapse of the Soviet Empire and his explanation of the Christian Church's vital role in the advancement of science in Western civilisation. Also, the poem he quoted was inspirational. Could we have the author's name, please? However, in his article on the credit crisis, I do think Guy has overlooked the major cause of the debacle: the multimillions of people who let their greed overwhelm their common sense. And I must say I truly believe Guy has seriously understated the gravity of the financial crisis by failing to recognise the impact it will have on international affairs. It is a salutary exercise to compare the condition of Germany in 1930 with the situation in Russia today. In almost every respect other than, perhaps, wounded national pride, Germany was much less likely to disrupt international affairs than Russia is now. It needs to be realised that Russia's economy and financial condition have been seriously eroded by the global crisis and well-informed newspapers such as The Economist have referred to Russia as a neo-fascist state, whose military capability vastly exceeds Nazi Germany at the height of its power. Hugh (lift Lesmurdie

Social justice tag out, Christ in for YCS I just wanted to send you an email

May 20 2009, The Record

to thank you for writing the YCS (Young Christian Students) article I read on the weekend. There is just one thing from the article that I wanted to clarify with you. This is that YCS does not like to be referred to as a social justice Group. Naturally, YCS groups are often engaged in actions that are working for justice, however our main aim is to form Christian leaders who are transforming the world around them through taking Christ-like actions in their everyday life. Therefore the Review of Life Method is our key formation tool where students are challenged to relate the gospel and the Church's teachings to the various aspects of their life and then asked to commit to taking Christ-like actions (witness). We are aware that many people may have struggled with the movement's Catholic identity; however, for the last few years we have been working very hard to build the Catholic and apostolic nature of the movement. This is why we don't like to be referred to as a social justice group as we believe our primary aim is the formation of students who are living Christcentred lives. Contact me on coordinator@ aycs.org.au for more information. Vicky Burrows YCS National Coordinator Currently based in Townsville Diocese

Universality of Church a crucial message Just a note to thank you and your contributors for continuing and indeed enhancing the high quality of material in you paper throughout 2009. Your Easter editions provided a wide coverage of parish activities and a generous range of information from around the globe. Your celebration of the vitality of the Faith is to be commended. At the same time, your preparedness to shun the superficial and to provide more detailed articles on many matters of spiritual and moral note, is greatly valued. Your awareness of the universality of the Church is important in a culture which deems daylight saving, fashion and football more pressing than starvation and forced migration of Tamils, Pakistanis and North African tribal groups. Finally, congratulations to Anthony Barich on a magnificent "Monsignor Hawes supplement" in a recent Record. There seems to be a resurgence of interest in this wonderful priest and architect whose treasures dot our middle north. Barich's story and pictures should do much to encourage people to travel north not only for the wildflowers but also to marvel at these unique architectural gems. Keep up the good work. John Overman Mt Pleasant

Mullewa on the map, thanks to The Record's Hawes edition Sending my congratulations on your excellent coverage of Monsignor Hawes great works in the Midwest. I have bought extra copies of The Record, one going to Adelaide. The Monsignor Hawes Heritage Trail was officially opened on Easter Monday and was a great success, it started at the Town Hall and ended just inside the Church Gate.

My name is Len Clark, and I wish to invite you to join me in helping some others in their need. As a result of my having corresponded with inmates in an African Prison over recent years, I have been asked by some of those unfortunates to try to locate other Christians who may be interested in writing to and helping prisoners on a regular basis. These guys exist in the most squalid situations - no clothes, patched tatters, no bed, no bedding, no chance to appeal, not enough food, not even any money with which to buy a postage stamp, poor medical assistance; yet all have come to Christ since being sentenced. If some of your followers would like to make the life of these Christian brothers a little easier, please write me at the address shown, and please include two or three International Reply Paid coupons from the Post Office. I will forward your letters to Central Africa, and the prisoners will reply by Air Mail. To help ease the boredom of their existence at night, they also seek others who may like to donate small battery radio cassette/recorders with headphones (or walkmans) with Christian tapes - especially Christian teaching tapes. (Otherwise they suffer 13-14 hours every night in total silence). Help break their boredom, will you? Davies M says ... ..Here in prison malaria has claimed a lot of lives ... Our prayer group always remember you in Australia, New Zealand, USA and elsewhere around the world . .. please help with supportive prayers, scriptures on how we can draw on Jesus for His healing payment as we get little medical help". Tanasias Y, says: "our conditions in prison are very poor, not sleeping well on concrete floors without bedding, no sheets or blankets; no bathing buckets, bare feet; not enough food (and sometimes none at all) no means on how to lodge an appeal.. . without God's help nothing good can come of us... the morning prayer group pray for all our pen pals, helpers and donors. Proverbs 25.25 says as cold water is to a weary soul, so is good news from a far country." James B says: "Should you just pray for us and help us?" Gordon M. says : while I am here in prison my wife has died from HIV/Aids yet my prayer has always been that God would give me a second chance to have somebody with a heart of compassion to be encouraging me through writing letters." Jerry K says: "I pray to God daily for a correspondent or pen friend who can pray and encourage me in the Word of God. Our prayer group in this Maximum section meet for devotions each morning. We started less than one year ago with only three believers, then 29 more joined. At end of first year we had 53 members. Now we are over 150 in daily prayer group. We are led by laymen - baptised laymen. One new inmate who could not talk has begun to praise Jesus clearly and to sing clearly. This is a miracle. With your prayers from around the world we in Central Africa will see greater miracles and expect Jesus to bring healings more often:' If this request for pen pals touches your heart and you want to help as led by Our Lord Jesus Christ, or by giving generous donations for your brothers and helping in their hour of need. My wife Jan and I are aged pensioners, regular Home Church communicant members. We are not on the internet but welcome your letters. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners and those who are ill-treated as if you yourselves were suffering. (Hebrews 13:3). Thank you. Len B Clark Curries Rd Ms6 Dubbo NSW 2830.

If you are up our way would like you to see it. My phone number is 9961 1546. Many thanks for really putting us on the map.

Original Sin piece a happy relief

Record May 6), and to hear that American Fr Tony Stevens is preaching on this basic tenet of the Church. Without this vital foundation, as we know, there is no need for a Redeemer, and the whole reason for our Faith is undermined. It comes as a timely balance, as I have been concerned recently at the return to Perth of another American priest, Franciscan Fr Justin Belitz. In teaching his 'meditation' course ( formerly known as Silva Method of Mind Control) and in which he seems to use a good deal of Eastern mysticism and New Age philosophy, he apparently sees Jesus, Buddha and Krishna as all having the same message. What concerns me even more, is Fr Belitz' dissemination of the books and ideas of ex-Dominican priest Matthew Fox (now an Anglican) who was cautioned by the Church 20 years ago and dismissed by the Dominican Order for his aberrant views. His brand of 'Creation Spirituality' has done away with Original Sin altogether and replaced it with "Original Blessing", his first book and seminal work on the subject. I believe he subsequently replaced the Ten Commandments with 'Ten Principles: In an interview in The West Australian (September 16, 2006), Fr Belitz is quoted as saying, amongst other things, that he sees the Church as a "top heavy" structure that is "not balanced with spirituality" and is "starting to fall apart"; a "dinosaur" that is dying. This, he said, is "absolutely marvellous." How ironic that this comes from a follower of St Francis who was told by Christ: "Go, Francis, and rebuild my Church..."

What a happy relief to see your headline: 'What Happened to Original Sin?' (The

Maria O'Connor Bickley

Dolores Bone Mullewa

Beazley Sr would weep So the Greens have taken Fremantle, once undisputed ALP heartland, from the party. It is the consequence of playing political footsy for years with that mob of decadents. For the sake of political expediency, for years the ALP has been willing to hold its nose and pander to the luvies for green preference votes, all the time s trengthening the green's legitimacy in the eyes of the electorate. Now they are paying the price; the party of the luvies, radical green, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, anti-enterprise has taken the jewel in the crown. I wonder what this will do for the future of development, jobs and families in WA? It brings to mind what Kim Beazley Snr, one of the party's most popular and respected stalwarts said many years ago. I paraphrase him: "The party of the working class has become the spittoon of the dregs of the middle class:' Barry Morgan Albany

May 20 2009, The Record

The harder they fall...

Famed actor and Oscar-winning director Mel Gibson's movies are often gratuitiously violent, despite his public persona as a religious man. They also reveal something of the darkness that plagues the man's inner being, says Mercatornet's deputy editor - though admitting that we are all flawed creatures.

Not only the demon drink but his love affair with violence has marred Mel Gibson and his work. • By Carolyn Moynihan

T

ie sound of idols smashing as they fall off their pedestals is always painful to ears of worshipers; the appearance of the hero's fatal flaw and the playing out of its consequences brings a disillusioned hush to the audience. So it has been with recent news about the personal life of Mel Gibson, pin-up boy for conservatives who have seen him as a defender of faith and family values right in the fickle heart of Hollywood. Those of us inclined to forgive him everything for the sake of his 28-year marriage, seven children and his heroically daring film, The Passion of the Christ, now have to face the fact that, after a three-year separation, his wife Robyn wants a divorce, and that the traditionalist Catholic and family man has lost no time appearing in public with a woman whom the gossip mills allege he has been consorting with since last summer. Nobody is perfect, artists notoriously not so.

Dostoyevsky was a compulsive gambler. Dante had a wife but wrote only of the love of his life, Beatrice. Dickens kept a mistress. Mel Gibson's fatal flaw is an addiction to alcohol which brings out not only the comic side of him but the belligerent, the reckless and the suicidal as well. It got him into deep trouble in 2005 when he spouted anti-Jewish sentiments at a (Jewish) law enforcement officer after being stopped for dangerous and drunken driving. Many predicted then that Gibson's career was over and that the commercial fate of his next film, Apocalypto, was in doubt. In fact, it was another huge success and was nominated for several awards. But it confirmed a trend in Gibson's films - those he directed or produced that is more worrying than his weakness for liquor and the nasty things that go with it: a portrayal of violence that borders on sadism and is certainly beyond the call of any artistic or moral purpose. Gibson may be correct that "a great civilisation is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within," but what does it do to our civi-

lised instincts to watch scenes of Mayan priests decapitating captives after pulling out their beating hearts, or of captives in an amphitheatre running the gauntlet of javelins, arrows and stones, only to be put to the blade if they survive, or of a huge pit filled with rotting corpses? In The Patriot, the sadistic mass killings and burnings by the English army are almost matched by the ferocity of the hero's vengeance. The throat slittings and torture in Braveheart are more memorable than the fabled battle scene. And yes, the prolonged scourging of Christ in The Passion is more than many pious Catholics can bear to watch. Granted, it is not half so cruel and bloody as the original event, but the attempt at realism here is ambiguous in its effects, if not intention. The violence in these and other Gibson films seems to express more than anything an anger that, starting from a moral standpoint (injustices wrought historically by the British, the corruption of ancient cultures...) sets out to both accuse and avenge. Nothing can be too extreme in the defence of noble values. Unfortunately, this is a trap that conservatives, as well as their radical opposites, can easily fall into. George W Bush defended human life and the family, but he also defended capital punishment and torture, and invaded Afghanistan and Iraq.

Overlooking these contradictions did not help the cause of morality in the United States. Nor does the righteous anger that moral conservatives often display towards foes real or imagined. Using vile language about President Barack Obama (and we see some in comments posted on MercatorNet) will do nothing to persuade him or anyone else to change their views on abortion or same-sex marriage; more likely it will do the opposite. Besides, it is simply wrong. Anger is a sin and it ill becomes Christian conservatives. If identifying enemies is fraught with the moral danger of demonising them, picking heroes carries the risk of prematurely canonising them. Mel Gibson seemed a good pick - and who knows how heroic his moral struggle has been? - but the demon drink and his love affair with violence might have warned us some time ago not to invest too much moral capital in his virtues. Gibson once said in a throwaway line, "I'm somewhere between Howard Stern and St Francis of Assisi on the scale of morality." If at present he has more in common with the "shock jock" radio host, there is still a chance to scale the heights of St Francis. Only he will have to leave a lot of that blood and gore behind. Amongst other things. Carolyn Moynihan is deputy editor of MercatorNet.

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VISTA 3

May 20 2009,The Record

Global warming: been there, done that Australian geologist Ian Plimer says that the planet has warmed and cooled many times before. And humans aren't to blame. • By Michael Cook

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tie group which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, he International Panel on Climate Change, says that it is "very likely", ie, 90 per cent sure, that global warming is due to increased greenhouse gas emissions generated by man. But "very likely" still leaves room for some uncertainly, doesn't it? So when I looked at the cover story of last week's Nature, I thought that I might see coverage of that 10 percent of unexplained observations and alternative hypotheses. To my surprise, there was none. Instead, there was a windy editorial, "Time to act'', which says that the challenge of winding back global warming seems all but insurmountable. This was accompanied by articles headlined, "A burden beyond bearing'', "Too much of a bad thing", "Warming caused by cumulative carbon emissions towards the trillionth tonne", and "The worst-case scenario". It was more like a goosepimpling special feature on asteroid collisions in the London Sun or the New York Post than the world's leading science journal. But respectable tabloids always tuck in a brief comment from a sceptic. Nature had none. Did its editors have no misgivings at all about the righteousness of their cause? I confess to being a complete ignoramus about global warming and climate change. But I do like to read both sides of the story. And when experts insist that there is only one side and that I should sign on the dotted line without reading the fine print, I feel suspicious. Even ignoramuses have rights, you know. That's why I welcomed the chance this week to interview Australian geologist Ian Plimer about his latest book, Heaven and earth: global warming, the missing science. Plimer is Australia's best-known geologist

and a professor at the University of Adelaide. His book has created quite a stir in the media. Leading journalists have lumped him together with anti-Semitic nutters as a climate change "denialist" and colleagues are shredding his claims in the letters pages. The vehemence of erstwhile friends suggests that something other than scientific truth is at stake here. And if there is, Plimer is well-qualified to ferret it out. He is a sceptic who not long ago wrote a book attacking creationist science with the provocative title Telling Lies for God. He can't abide humbug and scientific politicking - and this is precisely what he claims is the matter with the IPCC's prediction that we are all going to fry unless we radically reduce our reliance upon fossil fuels. In fact, in his view, environmentalism is a religion filling a spiritual vacuum in modern life. He writes: Both environmentalism and fundamentalist religions foster a sense of moral superiority in the believer. They create a sense of guilt. Our wickedness has damaged our inheritance and, although it is almost too late, immediate reform can transform the future. It was a happy coincidence that Nature's splash on climate change coincided with our conversation. He jabbed a stubby finger at the name of Stephen Schneider, the author of "The worst case scenario': This article envisages hundreds of millions fleeing from cities flooded by a 10-metre rise in the sea level and the extinction of half of known plant and animal species. "An interesting

tracing an out

chap," he says. "In the 70s Schneider was telling us we were all going to die due to global cooling. Now he tells us we're all going to die due to global warming:' I am an agnostic about global warming, but as a voter I want to be able to interrogate experts who make decisions that affect my future. Plimer's book, a 500-page brick with 2,311 footnotes is just what is needed to assess a scientific "consensus" which is seldom explained, justified - or questioned. It's long and detailed, but not obscure, with chapters on the history of the earth's climate, and on how the sun, the geology, ice, water and air each influence the climate. Just what you need to throw hardball questions at true believers.

In Australia the book is selling like hotcakes and it will be published in the US and the UK soon. A German-language edition is on the way. The release date was serendipitous: the exact moment when politicians and taxpayers are shaking empty piggybanks and wondering if they can afford climate mitigation schemes. If you are an ignoramus like me, the credibility of global warming is supported by a few inconvenient truths. What sticks in my mind are these: temperatures have been rising steadily throughout the 20th century; islands in the Pacific are sinking as the seas rise; the Arctic ice pack is shrinking; and industrial activity is the main source of CO2.

*11, it turns out that none of the above is unanbiguously true. ibout rising temperatures: even though indistrialisation began to add CO2 to the atmosphere in the early 19th century, the earti cooled down between 1940 and 1976, warned from 1976 to 1998, and has been cooing down since 1998. I'll let the experts quilble over the details. What is clear about therecord is that the record is not clear. Shking islands. One factor I never thotght of is that the surface of the earth rise and falls. More than 150 years ago Chales Darwin showed that coral atolls grov on top of sinking volcanoes. As for Twalu, the Pacific island nation which is in darner of sinking under the waves, the land

A

mong all the praise heaped on Monsignor John Hawes for his luminous architectural gems scattered around the Diocese of Geraldton, little is known of those who carried out his work so that it could be enjoyed by generations to come. Whitford parishioner Basil Barry, 89, served on the altar for both Mgr Hawes and for the bishop who championed the priest-architect's work, Bishop James O'Collins, at St Francis Xavier Cathedral in Geraldton. It is often said that Mgr Hawes designed the main building of Nazareth House, an aged care facility at Bluff Point on the outskirts of Geraldton. In fact, Basil - who last year celebrated his 60th wedding anniversary with wife Bernadette, the sister of Fr Frank Dillon, former editor of The Record - actually designed it, staying true to the designs that Mgr Hawes originally drew up. "He sketched it, I interpreted it:' Basil says today. After years working as a teen

for his father Cyril and uncle Tom's construction company Berry Brothers, which constructed Utakarra Cemetery under Hawes' direction and the St John of God Hospital and Convent, Basil went into architecture, studying for three years with 'E Le B Henderson' on St George's Terrace, Perth city. But what stands today as the main building and quadrangle of Nazareth House, in Spanish Mission style, nearly didn't happen. Basil had drawn up a completely different design, but after consultation with the Sisters and the sharpest architect minds in the state, including the Architectural Students Association, he decided to stay true to the spirit of Hawes' design. It was both his and the nuns' understanding that it would be an orphanage, but more children came after World War II than expected, so Basil altered the back and internal walls and added extra bathrooms, washrooms, bedrooms and kitchen facilities, plus a cool room, which was not common at the time. Basil has fond memories of the famous Monsignor, and one in particular that he says

/

pollutant and it is misleading non-scientific spin to talk of carbon pollution. If we had carbon pollution, the skies would be black with fine particles of carbon. We couldn't see or breathe. What about criticism from colleagues? Plimer isn't worried. "You can count the number of scientists who are critical of me on a sawmiller's hand," he told me, and nearly all geologists will agree with him. I sensed a certain professional scorn for anaemic nerds who massage computer models of climate under fluorescent lights instead of getting sweaty and sunburned fossicking for strange rocks. "The reason I put this book out," he says, "is to start a debate. The fact that I've now flushed out a few scientists to criticise me in public is wonderful because we've never had a [scientific] debate. Consensus is a word of politics; it's not a word of science:' Plimer, a man who has spent much of his life in outback mining towns, complains that many of his colleagues are smug elitists. "The reason this book has been a publishing sensation is that a lot of scientists in the media have treated their reading audience with absolute disdain," he says. "They've spoken down to them; they've been arrogant. The average punter might not have the education that you and I have, but he is not stupid. He knows there's a smell, even if he can't tell where the smell is coming from:' Without a lot more study, I don't feel competent to judge whether Al Gore or Ian Plimer is correct about the urgency of global warming. Elitists may be insufferable, but often they're right. But contrarians are not always wrong. Remember Barry Marshall, another rough-hewn Aussie? Just a pain-inthe-proverbial guy with a crackpot theory -- some nonsense about bacteria causing stomach ulcers, not spices and stress. His colleagues thought he was a quack. Drug companies sneered. You know what? He was right. In 2005 he won the Nobel Prize in medicine. Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet. Heaven and Earth is published by Connor Court.

lee ens... per5onalreflection5

'He acted like an English gentleman in his demeanour... • By Anthony Barich

beneath it is sinking and the local ecology has been trashed when US Marines quarried the coral for a World War II airstrip. Its problems are real, but not necessarily due to global warming. Temperatures in the Arctic rise and fall mysteriously. The Arctic was considerably warmer between 1920 and 1940. Temperatures have risen in recent years, but on August 11, 2008, the area of the ice pack was 30 percent greater than a year before. And industrial activity is a very, very, very minor factor in generating CO2. Plimer points out that the atmosphere only contains 0.001 percent of the total carbon in the top few kilometres of the planet. Furthermore, I was fascinated to learn that earthquakes and volcanoes are a major source of CO2. About 85 percent of the world's volcanoes are under the sea. Their CO2 emissions and warming effects were not included in the IPCC reports, he says. But can't anthropogenic CO2 push us past the "tipping point"? "Tipping points are a non-scientific myth," snorts Plimer. And indeed, the first I ever heard of tipping points was in a best-seller by Malcolm Gladwell. If climate science is scavenging in the rubbish bins of pop sociology for explanations, you really do have to ask some questions. Plimer makes two simple and challenging points. First, climate is always changing. In the past, the earth has been both much colder and much warmer than it is today. It is exceedingly difficult to understand, let alone what causes these changes. Second, the sun is the single greatest cause of fluctuations in the heat of the earth. Very small changes in solar output have a profound effect upon temperatures. The sun is the single greatest agent in climate change, not CO2, he maintains. As he wrote in a recent newspaper article: In the past, climate change has never been driven by CO2. Why should it be now driven by CO2 when the atmospheric CO2 content is low? The main greenhouse gas has always been water vapour. Once there is natural global warming, then CO2 in the atmosphere increases. CO2 is plant food, it is not a

Paul in old age, with Luke, in Rome

speaks of part of the man's character. On one occasion while getting ready for Mass in the sacristy at St Francis Xavier Cathedral - which he designed and helped build he arrived to see Mgr Hawes' fox terrier sitting on a blanket with another dog, with red ribbons around their necks. When young Basil, then about 15, asked why the ribbons, Mgr Hawes said it was in celebration of the feast day of St George, the patron saint of England. The Monsignor even had a special haircut for the occasion. Just before walking out to the altar he said, "I wonder where my glasses are?" before Basil pointed out they were atop his head - a common mistake that befalls the best of us. "He acted like an English gentleman in his speech and mannerisms; he stood out in the way he conducted himself. He was very clean-cut," Basil recalls. He also recalled that the Monsignor often travelled to Geraldton from Mullewa, where he was parish priest for much of his time in Australia, in a train with a spare seat next to him covered by a blanket for Dominie to rest

....MI

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ALA Basil Berry

on. With his experience in Spanish Mission style, which Hawes had designed for Nazareth House for the Sisters of Nazareth, Basil also helped draw up the plans for Santa Maria College in Attadale in 1938, while working for E Le B Henderson. Basil's work with his father and uncle's Berry Brothers company provided important grounding for him. The company also provided CBC Bindoon Agricultural college equipment for their joinery shop and took on some of their students as apprentices. Basil also helped build the temporary choir gallery at St Mary's Cathedral in Perth, some of the original seats and the Archbishop's throne. On the way back from Geraldton after constructing

the St John of God hospital, Basil remembers stopping over at Mullewa while Mgr Hawes was still constructing the Church of Our Lady of Mt Carmel and the Holy Apostles Ss Peter and Paul. When they arrived in midafternoon, they walked into the church calling out 'are you there?' They heard a response 'I'm up here' - and sure enough, the Monsignor was on the roof of the church working away. Basil says that Mgr Hawes didn't come down to let them into the priest's house until the sun had set. A few years later, Fr Edward Brian, the Mullewa parish priest at the time, contacted Basil to install a damp proof course, to protect the church from rising moisture at ground level. It was a feature that Hawes rarely installed. Basil avoided it as he knew the church and Hawes' work, and knew it would be a job that required him to personally supervise it, and he didn't have the time to invest in it. Fr Brian got someone from Geraldton to install one, which Basil says saved the church, as the dampness was causing it to decay.

While with Berry Brothers as a teen, Basil also worked on St Patrick's CBC College, now called Nagle College having himself attended the CBC College's old campus on Cathedral Avenue. Having moved back to Perth after completing Utakarra Cemetery Chapel, St Patrick's College and St John of God Hospital in Geraldton, the Sisters wanted Berry Brothers to return to build a convent, which Mgr Hawes designed. Basil has fond memories of Bishop O'Collins, a rugged, practical ex-plumber who personally helped the Berrys build the presbytery down the road from St Francis Xavier Cathedral. He remembers the bishop telling him to climb up onto the scaffolding and catch the bricks he'd throw up to him. He also recalls that the bishop was an outstanding tennis player, often playing with the local doctor. Basil's extended family has strong religious foundations - three of his cousins are Mercy Sisters and two are former Christian Brothers. Basil and Bernadette have six children and 15 grandchildren.

The man who sculpted for Hawes Memories of Ewart Johnson. • By Anthony Baridi

n est and architect Monsignor John Hawes was a man of "very strong convictions" who knew e actly what he wanted said the daughter of a man who designed many sculptures for him in the early part of the last century. Betty Foley, the daughter of Ewart Johnson, who was commissioned by Mgr Hawes to sculpt figures such as angels for some of his churches scattered throughout the diocese of Geraldton, including the Church of Our Lady of Mt Carmel and the Holy Apostles Ss Peter and Paul in Mullewa, said her father spoke of the pioneering priest when she was young. Betty - the wife of John Foley, the cousin of the late Archbishop William Foley - has in her possession several letters to her father signed personally by Mgr Hawes specifying to the milimetre the measurements that he required. Betty said that Mgr Hawes taught Ewart how to use paint on wood to get the maximum effect, and the results show in the example shown of the carving of angels that sit in the church in Mullewa, a church that was a personal labour of love for the British priest. Ewart Johnson's art was also personal. A Gallipoli veteran of three landings who was shot in the arm and leg in his first landing, he was an Anglican married to a

Catholic, and Betty says he had an ironic view of the Church, often calling himself "Catholic by contamination": However, he understood and believed many of the Catholic traditions. But his works reflected a deeply philosophical outlook. Betty has many of his sculptures in her house that represent maternity and motherhood. She says that as her mother Elizabeth had three of her seven children die, there may have been some sadness reflected in his sculptures, as she said he viewed women with a sense of awe, "as truly amazing creatures who carried life in their womb': Betty, the youngest of the seven children, had her eldest brother Jimmy die aged 16 as he had a hole in his heart. Another sibling died of whooping cough aged six and another died at birth. A crucifix hangs in the Holy Family Church in Nedlands, crafted by Ewart in memory of his first son who died aged 16. Ewart was also a prolific writer of "philosophical ponderings" and poems, though none of them are published. But he was most famous for his sculptures. His works are scatterd around the country and even overseas among family members who inherited them and he held many exhibitions in his time, but the most cherished piece in Betty's possession was one he gave her when she had her first child, Andrew. "He created one with the word 'mother' inscribed on it, andI loved it so much I wanted it for myself, but he said 'no: and I never knew why until I became a

am an old man now, in sight of the end. The needle is no longer sure in my hands, Not that it matters in any case, Ihave not stitched a tent in years, - Nor could I,Ican only read By holding the Word farther from my face. This young one beside me does not yet know The ache of age, the greater effort in an early start, Or the early tiredness as the gathering crowd tonight

awaits

The WordIhave in my unworthy mouth, Flickering light on face by face. The child, the widow, the market trader And, sitting on the fish barrel in the corner, The ugly face hiding his skill, Epicurus, who, ironically, was once A Corsican raider And still grieves for the children he killed Ilove them all in their faults Which are also mine, but mine are greater. And still, after these years of gift (Time to announce, to urge, to counsel To combat the proud, the ignorant, The pedant, the traitor) He has remained faithful to record, A friend, a companion.., a son, Although I have hardly ever had The expectationI would be given one. My life has been gift upon gift, Abundance of grace, And taking down Your word From my unworthy mouth He is my living gift, We both are now of the same priestly race. Sometimes his thoughts are retained deep within, He holds his counsel well, But he has stuck it out, run the race Through thick and thin. The love in a son's occasional glance Is a father's deep joy. Even now, after all these years I recall The crashing surf on that stormy beach As we were thrown in by the waves Half-drowned, and made dry ground, That stinging bite that made even me wonder, Or your first courting. . . I long to see You again, as I did when I fell Halfway between the saddle and the brutal ground, Caught between heaven and hell, I saw love And nothing ever mattered again. Not that horizontal rain in Galicia That seemed to penetrate the skin, Or the sleet that took the pack animals On the back road to Illyricum And left me coughing for six months, Or the disappointment keener thanI can describe When some who had rejoiced with us at Ephesus Turned from the Way, and followed a demented scribe. I am a stranger in my own land, and yet Ilove this city from the Senate to the river's edge And all who are its sum, The water boys, the fish-wives, The dye workers and the bustle of its streets, The casual-looking mercenaries, And the sly money-traders at their daily deceits, Even the treacherous Praetorian Guard And the lecherous temple priests. Still,I am its son. Now I grow slower Although the fire is in me yet, I do not think I will leave again, I am just a sower. The rest is not in my brief, Just the moment and the truth Not the years, the decades, the victories None of this canI determine, Much less the grief.

Betty Foley with a treasured work of her father Ewart, who worked with Monsignor PHOTO. ANTHONY BARICH John Hawes.

mother for the first time myself. Then he gave it to me and said 'now you know why' she said. The wooden sculpture looks like a mother deep in contemplation, but reflects, she says, a certain reverence of motherhood. It still holds deep sentimental value to her. Some priests in the Archdiocese of Perth also commissioned him to do sculptures, including the Gosnells church opened by Fr John Prendiville SJ, the nephew of Archbishop Redmond Prendiville.

This city's founders knew it well, at least, The truth of the old maxim they kept on the shelf: Vincit qui se vincit He conquers who conquers himself, Good, in so far as it goes. But I announce the new rule That flowered on the cross Your love, Master, urges us on Caritas Christi urget nos Friend, Brother, Master, Lord, Possessor of my soul, I ask at the end of these days, While Ilive yet beneath an insane emperor's gaze, Give me ears to hear your voice, Give my mouth continuing power, To sow in the most cynical rabbinical heart, The pregnancy of that hour, Life unbound by death, outside a tomb, Conceived by a miracle In a virgin's womb. -Ed Findlay, Mt Hawthorn Written for the Year of St Paul declared by Pope Benedict XVI

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VISTA 4

May 20 2009, The Record

20 years since the fall of

communism part III This week The 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. Former Polish President Lech Walesa, left, offers his condolences to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin's widow, Naina a t Yeltsin's funeral in Christ the Savior Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Moscow in 2007.

Former Soviet leader M ikhai l Gorbachev r eaches out to touch the casket of former US President Ronald Reagan, a s Reagan lies in state at the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington in 2004.

E nduring symbol of o pposition - Andrei Sakarov, Soviet nuclear p hysicist, dissident a nd human rights activist, persecuted and imprisoned by the KGB, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.

Dying Peter Fechter is c arried away by East German border guards who shot him down when he tried to flee to the west in 1962. Fechter lay for 50 minutes in no-man's land before he was taken to a hospital where he died.

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orbachev introduced his wife to the Pope with the words: "Raisa Maximova, I have the honour to introduce the highest moral authority of Earth." Coming from the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union - the position occupied previously by Lenin, Stalin and Brezhnev, it was as awesome, world-changing statement: an admission that atheistic communism had been defeated - Lenin has said there was no morality except what advanced communism. Yet it is hard to know how fully Gorbachev understood that the Pope was not seeking to play a political game in any conventional sense. (Gorbachev's pronouncements about his own religious beliefs remain somewhat ambiguous). Meanwhile another Communist Party apparachik, Boris Yeltsin, was forming a political opposition. The Communist Party's complete, mafialike control of the Soviet Union was guaranteed by a single article of the Constitution, which effectively nullified all the rest of that otherwise democratic-sounding document. An opposition was simply incompatible with continued Communist rule and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Lending his prestige to sweeping reform also was Russia's greatest scientist, Andrei Sakarov, the voice of scientific and technological civilisation, the man who might have harnessed fusion energy for peaceful purposes, and from exile its greatest writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn (pictured, centre of page) - not by any means the first, but the greatest and most comprehensive and effective chronicler of the Gulag - and others whose work had exposed the communist system as a criminal organisation. A few years previously, in Australia, the Czech-Jewish political philosopher Frank Knopfelmacher had written that either Solzhenitsyn or the Soviet Union would have to go. The world could not accommodate both. His words had been true, but looking at the great tyrant State and the lone ex-inmate of the Gulag and the cancer ward, it would probably not have been a difficult matter to lay a bet on which one it was going to be. Even many within the party were bcoming aware that the system was so far gone - not only in massmurder and terror, which was what it had been in Stalin's time, but also now in sheer corruption and irrationality - that it could not be reformed a little. Gorbachev would later tell Reagan and Bush that he was pulling troops out of Eastern Europe because: "I need to. I'm doing this because there's a revolution taking place in my country.I started it. And they all applauded me when I started it in 1986, and now they don't like it very much, but there's going to be a revolution nonetheless:' Gorbachev and the Pope, the President and the Prime Minister developed a certain rapport and

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev meets with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in this 1989 file photo. Hours after the meeting, the Vatican told the United States in a confidential assessment that Gorbachev could be trusted as a genuine reformer. PHOTO: CNS/COSSERVATORE ROMANO

mutual respect. Gorbachev stated: back them. But it seems an unspothat disembodied, palm-up, begging "Surely, God on high has not refused ken compact was reached: if the hand ... I looked at that and began to give us enough wisdom to find leaders of the Communist satelto cry. ways to bring us an improvement... lites did not hang from lamp-posts, "I didn't really understand before in relations between the two great the Soviet Union would not interthat moment, I didn't realise until nations on earth." vene. Hungary, Poland, and then just then - we won. The Free World But this feeling that they might the die-hard Stalinist regimes of won the Cold War. The fight against be dealing with a very new kind of East Germany and Czechoslovakia life-hating, soul-destroying, slavish Soviet leader did not deflect the new crashed. In the days of the Vietnam Communism - which had shaped political leaders of the West from War, some of us who supported the the world's politics this whole their course. war had been ridiculed for, among wretched century - was over ... In Berlin on 12 June, 1987, Ronald other things, evoking the domino "All the people who'd been sent to Reagan, standing before the gulags, who'd been crushed Berlin Wall and despite the in the streets of Budapest, advice of his more cautions or Prague and Warsaw, the soldefeatist aides, threw out the diers who'd died in Korea challenge: "Mr Gorbachev, and my friends and classtear down this wall!" (Today, mates who'd been killed in a piece of the Berlin Wall Vietnam - it meant somestands in the garden of the thing now. All the treasure Ronald Reagan Presidential we in America had poured Library). Who would have into guns, planes, Star foreseen that at Ronald Wars and all the terrifyReagan's funeral service it ing A-bombs we'd had to would be Mikhail Gorbachev, build and keep - it wasn't the former General Secretary for nothing:' of the Communist Party of In Czechoslovakia too the Soviet Union, who would the Church threw its weight sit beside Nancy Reagan? behind the resistance: In February, 1988, Cardinal Tomasek told Gorbachev announced the Catholics: "In this hour of full withdrawal of Soviet destiny for our country, not forces from Afghanistan. a single one of you may Also during 1988, Gorbachev stand apart ... Religious announced that the Soviet liberty cannot be seperated Union would abandon the from other human rights, Brezhnev Doctrine, and allow freedom is indivisible:' the Eastern bloc nations to Young and old responded freely determine their own spontaneously. Even in internal affairs. This was jokthis apparently brutalised ingly dubbed the "Sinatra society, previously under Doctrine "by Gorbachev's one of the worst remainForeign Ministry spokesman ing communist regimes, Gennadi Gerasimov , (ie: "I the revolution was carried did it my way:') out in a completely peaceThe East European coun- Alexander Solzhenitsyn - the closest thing to a prophet ful way. But there was no tries were quick to take seen by the Twentieth Century. He single-handedly compromise with the rotten Gorbachev at his word. remnants of what President Basically, and to the dismay destroyed Communism's respectability internationally. Reagan, not long before, of some Western admirers of had been criticised for Communism, the moment the East theory. Now we saw the dominoes calling the "evil Empire": Zdenek European countries were freed of the crashing down indeed, but not the Mlynar, an associate of Dubcek's threat of Soviet tanks, Communism way we had feared. "Prague Spring," spoke of "reformwas kicked out. In East Berlin it had, not long ing" communism. The crowd did In Hungary the reformists who before, been death even to approach not attack or lynch him but simply had gradually taken control of the the Berlin Wall. Between 100 and whistled him off the stage. 200 people had been shot trying to government quietly began to privaIn Prague vast crowds surged tise the economy, even ahead of the scale it. Countless others had died in into Wenceslas Square to cheer wave of privatisation which would attempts to escape across the main the new President, Vaclav Havel, East German border. sweep the non-Communist world. released from a concentration camp, Now, on 9 November, 1989, after and beside him Alexander Dubcek, From May 1989 the Hungarian Government began to dismantle the several weeks of unrest, crowds leader of the reform attempts which Iron Curtin. From September 1989 it stormed the Wall and began to had been crushed by Soviet tanks allowed East Germans to use it as an destroy it with hammers, picks and in 1968. escape-route to the West and 30,000 their bare hands. Totalitarianism's There were people in the West did so (creating not only a crisis teeth had been kicked out. As the who had wept to hear the news of in relations with the East German American writer P. J. O'Rourke told Hungary in 1956 and Prague in 1968 regime but giving the Hungarian it: who now wept again. Gorbachev people, for better or worse, thou"The East German border guards began to face the Soviet Union's own sands of abandoned Trabant cars). didn't interfere. Instead they came past - the massacre of Polish Army The Baltic States rose. And the guil- up to openings in the Wall and made officers in World War II was admitlotine came down faster. V signs and posed for photographs. ted, Soviet archives were opened to The Red Army began to pull out One of them even stuck his hand scholars and historians, mass graves of Eastern Europe. Nobody now through and asked would somebody began to be exposed. The bones believed that the East European please give him a piece of concrete to of the murdered Imperial Family Communist regimes would survive keep as a souvenir. would be recovered for solemn and a week without Russian tanks to "The hand of that border guard - religious reburial.

May 20 2009, The Record

Page 9

CHILDREN

Kids bitz & puzzles

CHILDREN'S STORY

colour Maze Game

JESUS PRAYS TO HIS FATHER By Joe Sarnicola

Crossword Jesus

School Maze Emma just moved to a new town. Help her find her way to St. John's for her first day of school.

Jesus is God's son. He preached love and kindness while he was here on earth. See if you can fill in these blanks about Jesus' life and then put them in the crossword puzzle. 2

4 5

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Across 1. Jesus walked on 5. Three _ _ _ _ men brought gifts to Jesus when he was born. 6. _ _ _ bright star appeared the night Jesus was born. 7. Jesus is God's _ _ _ 8. Jesus was born in Down 2. told the shepherds that Jesus had been born. 3. Jesus called disciples. 4. _ _ _ _ the Baptist baptized Jesus. 9. Jesus tells us to _ _ _ _ our neighbors as ourselves. 10. Jesus' mother was named _ _ _ _

ARTIST WEEK Olivia 9 years, from Booragoon, is our Artist of the Week with this fantastic drawing of the birth of Jesus. Congratulations!

SPOTLIGHT ON SAINTS St Germanus St Germanus (496-576) was born in France. He received formal religious training for much of his life. He became a priest and then the abbot of one of the suburbs of his hometown of Autun. King Childebert promoted Germanus to the see of Paris. In spite of his important job, Germanus continued to live simply and was always caring for the poor and unfortunate people of his community. The king was so impressed by the compassion and generosity of Germanus, that he, too, began to help the poor, and he also helped pay for new religious buildings. Germanus founded a church in Paris with a monastery that became the burial place of the royal family. The church was named for Germanus after his death. We honour him on May 28.

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

Listed below are people who might participate is some way during the Mass. Match them with what they might do. 1. Priest 2. Lector 3. Usher 4. Altar server 5. Eucharistic minister 6. Cantor a. read from the Old Testament b. give the homily c. lead the singing d. help to serve Communion e. hold the Bible for the priest .9 1. collect the offerings 113 ç 'a •E 'q .1 :siamsuv

JESUS looked up into the night sky and said, "Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you. ... I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word." Jesus paused to think of his friends and of the people who believe in God. Then he continued praying. "And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are." Jesus remembered how thousands of people at a time would come to hear him or come to be healed. So many, yet they would someday be one together, like a family, with God as their Father. Yet Jesus also knew that soon he would be leaving them to return to be with his Father: "But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world." Almost pleading for the safety of the people he loved, Jesus said to his Father, "I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world." Jesus was tired and his knees were sore, but he continued to pray. He knew he was not going to be on the earth much longer, and there were so many things he wanted to present to his Father in prayer. "Consecrate them in the truth," Jesus continued. "Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth." As Jesus prayed, he told his Father of the love he had for his people. "Father, they are your gift to me," he said. "I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world." READ MORE ABOUT IT: John 17

Q&A 1. Why did Jesus want his Father to give him glory? 2. When did God first love Jesus?

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in brief...

JPII assailant wants baptism The attorney for Mehmet Ali Agca - the gunman who shot Pope John Paul II in a May 1981 assassination attempt - has confirmed that his client is asking to be baptised as a Catholic. Agca, who is now in prison in Turkey, reportedly said that when his prison term is completed, he wants to return to St Peter's Square, the site of the assassination attempt, to be baptised.

'Planned Parenthood would never invite Pope to speak' Appearing on FoxNews, Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo discussed his opposition to the University of Notre Dame's decision to award President Barack Obama an honorary degree. "It certainly is perceived by the average layperson as condoning or giving an appearance of supporting his ideas on human life and the unborn child," Bishop Aquila said. "Certainly NARAL or Planned Parenthood would never invite Benedict XVI, much less extend an award to him:" Bishop Aquila revealed that university president Father John Jenkins, CSC, had not responded to a letter criticising the invitation.

UN report fudges numbers on maternal mortality A newly released research paper identifies structural flaws in United Nations data collection and analysis of global maternal health, finding that UN maternal heath policies based on the bad data are jeopardising women's health in the developing world. The paper, Removing the Roadblocks from Achieving MDG 5 by Improving the Data on Maternal Mortality, by Donna Harrison, MD, was published by the International Organisations Research Group (IORG) [IORG is a division of C-FAM, publisher of the Friday Fax]. The paper shows how the World Health Organisation's (WHO) guidelines to UN member states require nations to collect faulty data while at the same time pressuring them to enact UN policies such as liberalising abortion laws based on that data. Harrison finds that the WHO's Reproductive Health Indicators are flawed because of "quasi-legal, rather than scientificallybased definitions used to define maternal health:' Specifically, she examines WHO documents that equate "safe abortion" to legal abortion, and "unsafe abortion" to illegal abortion. Harrison said that even pro-abortion groups have taken WHO to task for its faulty definitions. She gives the example of Marie Stopes International, which claims that the abortions it performs in countries where it is illegal are safe.

'Reproductive health bill endangers Filipino family' A Philippine bishop has called on Catholics not to vote for politicians who support a reproductive health bill that would fund artificial contraception and allow sex education for young children. Speaking on Church-run Radio Veritas on May 13, Bishop Arturo Bastes of Sorsogon said he hoped people would send a message to legislators that the bill was unacceptable. The Asian Church news agency UCA News reported on the bishop's comments. "We hope that they (politicians) will learn a lesson because, by voting for it, they are endangering the Filipino family," the bishop said The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines "will not back down because the provisions of that bill are anti-family, anti-life," he said. A survey last year showed 63 per cent of Filipinos support the legislation. Other surveys conducted in February and March in Manila and Paranaque, south of the capital, showed "strong support" for the bill. The Catholic Church allows only natural family planning methods, and the bishops oppose mandatory sex education. Roughly 81 per cent of the 86 million Filipinos are Catholic.

Faith-science rift a bomb Continued from Page 1

of evolutionary science. A person seeking to understand humankind's place in the universe should seek to understand both faith and science, the priest said. As Brother Consolmagno put it: "My religion tells me God created the universe. My science tells me how he did it." Although the Church is not against science, he said it acts as a check on science's rapidly advancing abilities. In the early 20th century, for example, the Catholic Church called for a stop to eugenics, which aims to improve the human species by selective breeding. "Eugenics is bad science; Brother Consolmagno added. "Even if it is good science, it still would have been wrong. That's an example,Ithink, where people who treat science without religion can fall into grave error: Today, the Church rejects technologies that devalue the dignity of the human person, such as cloning, embryonic stem-cell research and the production of weapons of mass terror.

May 20 2009, The Record

THE WORLD

Mama calls for 'fair minded' abortion debate SOUTH BEND, Indiana (CNA) - President Barack Obama spoke about the importance of diversity and the "call to love" at Notre Dame University on May 17 while hundreds of protesters gathered in a prayer vigil for the conversion of the President on his stances on life issues such as abortion. As the President began his speech, according to Fox News, protesters in the crowd began to shout before they were drowned out by others in the audience chanting "yes we can" and "we are ND". While 12,000 attended the commencement Mass, nearly 65,000 people signed an online petition protesting President Obama's commencement address at the University of Notre Dame, citing his views on abortion and stem cell research that "directly contradict" Catholic teachings. The President spoke of the need for common ground; to reduce the number of abortions while honouring the conscience of those who oppose abortion, and spoke of the need to draft a "sensible conscience clause" and healthcare policies are grounded in "clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women". He urged for a reduction in abortions "by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term". "Understand - Ido not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away," he said. "No matter how much we may want to fudge it - indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory - the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. "Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction.

"But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature:' The US President discussed a letter he received from a Christian pro-life doctor who was bothered by a phrase on Obama's campaign site which said that he would fight "right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose:' The doctor then said that he assumed Obama was reasonable, but that if he "truly believed that every pro-life individual was simply an ideologue who wanted to inflict suffering on women, then I was not very reasonable." The doctor wrote: "I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words:' "Fair-minded words," repeated the President. He admitted that finding common ground isn't easy, as part of the problem... lies in the imperfections of man - our selfishness, our pride, our stubbornness, our acquisitiveness, our insecurities, our egos; all the cruelties large and small that those of us in the Christian tradition understand to be rooted in original sin." He said that after reading the letter, the President changed the words on his website and prayed that he might "extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. "Because when we do that - when we open our hearts and our minds to those who may not think like we do or believe what we do - that's when we discover at least the possibility of common ground:' However, the Chicago Tribune reported on February 27 that the new Obama administration would move to rescind a rule that allows health-care workers to deny abortion counselling or other family-planning services if doing so would violate their moral beliefs. Representing a coalition of medi-

cal and legal professionals, attorneys for Advocates International and the Christian Legal Society warned the Department of Health and Human Services on April 11 against rescinding protections for healthcare professionals' freedom of conscience currently set forth in federal regulations. The outgoing Bush administration enacted conscience protection for pro-life medical practitioners so they can refuse to participate in abortion. The right of federally funded health care providers to decline to participate in services to which they object, such as abortion, was affirmed by a final regulation issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services. Obama also told the class of 2009 that opponents of embryonic stemcell research - which involves the destruction of human embryos - are motivated by a commitment to the "sacredness of "Those who speak out against stem cell research may be rooted in an admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son's or daughter's hardships can be relieved; said the President. Obama also made a "call to love", "for if there is one law that we can be most certain of, it is the law that binds people of all faiths and no faith together". "It is no coincidence that it exists in Christianity and Judaism; in Islam and Hinduism; in Buddhism and humanism; the President told Notre Dame University. "It is, of course, the golden rule - the call to treat one another, as we wish to be treated. The call to love. To serve. "To do what we can to make a difference in the lives of those with whom we share the same brief moment on this Earth:' -Additional reporting by The Record

New presidency strengthens pro-life views in US WASHINGTON (CNS) - Less than four months into President Barack Obama's term, opinion polls are finding that Americans are taking a dramatic turn toward greater opposition to abortion. A poll conducted on May 7-10 as part of the annual Gallup Values and Beliefs survey found that a majority of Americans (51 per cent) described themselves as "pro-life" with respect to the abortion issue, while only 42 per cent said they were "pro-choice:' It marked the first time since Gallup began asking the question in 1995 that more respondents said they were pro-life than pro-choice, and was a shift of 7-8 percentage points from a year earlier, when 50 percent said they were pro-choice and 44 per cent said they were pro-life. "With the first pro-choice president in eight years already making changes to the nation's policies on funding abortion overseas, expressing his support for the Freedom of Choice Act and moving toward rescinding federal job protections for medical workers who refuse to participate in abortion procedures, Americans and, in particular, Republicans - seem to be taking a step back from the pro-choice position," said a Gallup commentary on the results. "It is possible that, through his abortion policies, Obama has pushed the public's understanding of what it means to be 'pro-choice' slightly to the left, politically:' it added.

MORE AMERICANS CONSIDER THEMSELVES "PRO-LIFE" than "pro-choice" for the first time since Gallup began asking this question: With respect to the abortion issue, would you consider yourself to be pro-choice or pro-life? 56%

51%

51%

PROLIFE

PRO42% CHOICE

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51%

33% '95

'96

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"While Democrats may support that, as they generally support everything Obama is doing as president, it may be driving others in the opposite direction:' When Gallup first began conducting the Values and Beliefs survey in 1995, 56 per cent of Americans described themselves as pro-choice and only 33 per cent said they were pro-life. Since then, the highest percentage to identify themselves as pro-

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life was 46 per cent, in both August 2001 and May 2002. Obama is a strong supporter of keeping abortion legal. Some groups that promote abortion have said his November 2008 election was a mandate to expand access to and federal funding of abortion. A separate Gallup Poll Daily survey conducted May 12-13 found that 50 per cent of Americans described themselves as pro-life and 43 per cent as pro-choice.

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May 20 2009, The Record

Page 11

THE WORLD

Pope walks political tightrope for peace In Holy Land, pilgrim Pope delivers religious, political challenges. • Analysis By John Thavis

JERUSALEM (CNS) - Pope Benedict XVI's eight-day visit to the Holy Land was a biblical pilgrimage, an interfaith mission and a political balancing act all rolled into one. It was also a gamble. In a region hardened by decades of conflict and simmering social and religious tensions, there was no guarantee of success. The long-range verdict is yet to come on this "pilgrimage of peace," but the Pope certainly delivered a clear and challenging message to his diverse audiences in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories from May 8-15. That alone was an achievement. The common theme that tied his events together was that God acts in human events, and that believers have a duty to make religion an effective force for good in a region suffering from war, mistrust and misunderstanding. To Christians, the Pope focused on the hope brought by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. On his final day in Jerusalem, he summed up his message, saying that the empty tomb "assures us that God can make all things new," that peace is really possible and that long-standing hostilities can be overcome. That was the point of the Pope's pilgrimage to places like the Jordan River, the Grotto of the Annunciation and Golgotha. He was not just engaging in religious tourism, but trying to strengthen the confidence of the struggling Christian community in the Holy Land and the faith of other Christians who watched and listened from afar. His blessing of new construction sites for churches and a Catholic university in Jordan underscored his point that even as a tiny minority the Church can have a significant and positive impact on society. On an interreligious level, the Pope's pilgrimage seemed to have two distinct phases. In Jordan, a

predominantly Muslim country crimes against humanity. That may that has protected the rights of be true, but Yad Vashem illustrated Christians, the Pope lauded efforts that Pope Benedict's reserved style to build an "alliance of civilisaand his reluctance to share publicly tions" and curb extremism. His his own personal experiences can stop at a mosque in Amman was sometimes deflate an otherwise historic - he's now the first Pope to emotional moment. The Pope's interreligious diahave visited two Muslim places of worship. logue encounter the same evening At the same time, the Pope was was unfortunately derailed by a not in Jordan simply to bless offi- Muslim sheik's denunciation of cial efforts at dialogue. His aim Israeli policies, which prompted was to reach a wider audience and Jewish representatives to walk out. provoke some thinking. His speech And with that, the Pope was kneeto Muslim leaders in Amman thus deep in the politics of the region. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict returned to the theme of faith and touches every aspect of life in the reason, which caused such controversy at Regensburg, Germany, Holy Land, so it should have been in 2006; this time, he chose his no surprise that the Pope got an words carefully, but continued to earful wherever he went. Especially in the West Bank city insist that religion detached from of Bethlehem, on his one full day reason is susceptible to "ideological manipulation" that can provoke in Palestinian territory, speaker after speaker - including church tensions and violence in society. His approach was to build leaders - denounced the Israeli bridges by affirming the moderate occupation, the travel and ecovoices in Islam. When he spoke, nomic restrictions, the destruction for example, of the "fundamental of homes and the political detainees. contradiction of resorting to vioThe Pope walked a finer line. lence or exclusion in the name of God," he cited Muslim messages On one hand he sympathised with Palestinians and strongly defended from recent years. For most people, papal visits their right to an independent state; work on a less intellectual level. on the other hand, he spoke of The Pope may have won the most "turmoil" rather than "occupation" and appealed to Palestinian youths friends in Jordan simply by wearing on his shoulders a Jordanian to overcome bitterness and reject terrorism - words that Israeli offikaffiyeh or "shmagh," a red-andwhite-checked head scarf that for cials were no doubt happy to hear. He denounced the 26-footmany people has political overtones. When the Pope landed in high Israeli security wall that cuts Israel on May 11, the interreligious through the West Bank like a condimension of his trip suddenly got crete scar, calling it one of the "saddest sights" of his visit and a tragic complicated. He began by honouring the symbol of Israeli-Palestinian relamemory of the six million Jews tions. But even here, he was careful killed in the Holocaust and to avoid blame, referring to "the denouncing anti-Semitism. The hostilities that have caused this same day he paid a visit to the wall to be built" rather than the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, "oppression" that his Palestinian where he met with six Holocaust hosts loudly condemned. The Pope's method was the moral survivors and spoke movingly of prodding of a pilgrim. When he the tragedy of the victims. All this was designed to re- met with Israeli President Shimon establish Pope Benedict as a Peres, for example, he explored friend of Judaism and the Jews. the Hebrew scriptural meaning of security" as not just the lack of But the reviews were mixed, mainly because the Pope, a native of threat but the building of trust. The Pope did more than preach Germany who lived under the Nazi regime, did not speak at the in the Holy Land. He also did memorial about the perpetrators a lot of listening, his aides said. For every papal speech, there were of the Holocaust. three or four speeches from his Vatican officials pointed out that the Pope has spoken on several hosts. "I think that gave him a previous occasions about the Nazi much deeper knowledge of the

Pope Benedict XVI kisses the Stone of Unction, believed to be where the body of Jesus was prepared for burial, in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old PHOTO CNS/TONY GENTIL City of Jerusalem on May 15.

situation and problems of the Holy Land and the Middle East," said the Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi. Of the visit's many remarkable moments, one stood out: At an interfaith encoun-

ter in Nazareth, the Pope and other Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Druze leaders held hands in prayer as a psalm of peace was sung - a small but significant achievement on his pilgrim's path.

Work with Church, or unity becomes but a theory Catholic institutions urged to work 'in solidarity' with bishops. WASHINGTON (CNS) - Catholic institutions must work "in solidarity with the bishops," who are responsible for "preserving the unity of the Church, and providing leadership", Washington Archbishop Donald W Wuerl said. His reflection on the link between bishops and Catholic institutions appeared in a column in the May 14 issue of Washington's archdiocesan newspaper the Catholic Standard. Although he did not specifically name the University of Notre Dame and the controversy over its decision to have President Barack Obama deliver the address at the Indiana school's May 17 commencement, the archbishop noted that "every now and then a news item surfaces about a decision by a Catholic institution that may seem at odds with its Catholic identity" "Discussion that follows provides an opportunity to arrive at a better understanding of the unity of the Catholic Church and how institutions relate to the broader church community:' he wrote. More than 50 US bishops have criticised Notre Dame, which also planned to give

the president an honorary degree, because Obama supports legal abortion and embryonic stem-cell research. Many of the bishops have cited "Catholics in Political Life," a 2004 document of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which states: "The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honour those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honours or platforms which would suggest support for their actions." In his column Archbishop Wuerl said that any honour presented by a university is a public declaration in the name of the institution" that will "automatically invoke the institution's self identity and very mission:' "Such action," he added, "touches on the school's relationship to the whole church community and its leadership:' The archbishop stressed that Catholic institutions are not independent from the Church and, as "members of the Catholic community, they must live and act within the structure of this community. That means working in solidarity with the bishops:' He said the relationship between bishops and local Catholic institutions has developed since the Second Vatican Council and was clearly illustrated in "Ex Corde Ecclesiae" ("From the Heart of the Church"), an apos-

tolic constitution published by Pope John Paul II in 1990 that defines the "mandatum," or church authorisation, granted by the local bishop to teach theology. "What is increasingly being reaffirmed is that a Catholic university is an integral part of the Church and, as a part of the church community, looks to the bishops, particularly the local bishop, for the authentication of the school's claim to be an expression of the faith and mission of the Church," he wrote.

Catholic hospital fined for refusing abortion BOGOTA, Colombia (LifeSiteNews. com) - The Colombian government has announced that it will fine a Catholic hospital for refusing to perform an abortion, according to local news reports. The Saint Ignatius University Hospital (Hospital Universitario San Ignacio), a Jesuit institution, was asked for an abortion in 2008 by a woman whose unborn child suffered from non-lethal defects,

"Solidarity, which is a practical expression of spiritual communion, requires such support," he added. "Otherwise, the unity of the Church becomes a theoretical consideration and the role of the bishop, who has the responsibility of unifying, is diminished." He emphasised that, contrary to popular opinion, bishops are not "just one among many voices offering legitimate direction and guidance to Catholics and the wider community." including hydrocephaly (an accumulation of water in the brain). They refused on grounds of "collective conscience:' The woman, Yolima Bernal, ultimately received a late-term abortion in another hospital. After an investigation of the case launched last year, Colombia's health ministry has announced a fine equivalent to approximately SUS5,160. Monica Roa, a pro-abortion attorney who works with the UN-funded Women's Link Worldwide (WLW), praised the decision, stating that "it feels like a precedent for the country and makes it clear that conscientious objection in an institution is not permitted."

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PERSPECTIVES

May 20 2009, The Record

Reverence for Getting fundamentals right Mary increased in motherhood Justice for all? Jack de Groot

Getting fundamental on the right to food.

H Cathy Mola

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was born in South Wales in the United Kingdom, where I lived for my first 21 years. I was christened and confirmed in our local parish of St Agnes (Church of Wales), and my parish was very much a big part of my childhood through to my young adult years. My husband Mick and I met here in WA over 17 years ago while I was visiting family. A fter travelling to and fro for a few years I finally emigrated in 1994 and we were married in 1995. Mick comes from a big Catholic family. Once our children Rhys (12) and Zak (10) came along they were baptised in our local Catholic Church. When they with Debbie Warner started school it was at our local Catholic primary. I started attending Mass regularly and becoming a Catholic seemed the next logical step. The Catholic Church's focus on Mary the Mother of Christ is more then I had been taught or remember as a kid. Now that I am a mother myself I have a whole new insight into the reverence shown to Mary. If ever I'm struggling with the kids or life gets too hectic, I often find myself turning to Mary for help, guidance and patience. Without my faith there would be a very big void in my life. I can always remember feeling slightly sad and empty for all those years when I was unable to receive Holy Communion. It felt almost as if I was missing out on one of the most important parts of the Mass. The consecration means a lot to me. I do believe that I am eating and drinking the Body and Blood of Christ. Jesus made this great sacrifice for us andI have a desire to be deserving of it. We come together as one to receive the real presence and strength of Christ Himself. Through Communion He comes into our lives. My parish priest is Father Joseph Tran at Our Lady of the Mission Church in Whitfords. When he asked me to be a Special Minister I felt it was a great honour and one I was uncertainI was worthy of. In the end I decided to do it. For the first couple of occasions I was a nervous wreck and my hands shook uncontrollably. It was so emotional, especially when I was handing out the Body and Blood of Christ to people I knew. In my mind it brought me back to the Last Supper. My first Reconciliation was one of the hardest things I had to do. I don't open up very easily anyway so to say what I had to say to the priest was daunting.Ihad so many emotions running through me. I was very lucky to have a wonderful priest. He held my hand during my confession as I was on the verge of tears. He made the occasion a very special and spiritual one. I could not help but think that Christ was present. I was glad when it was over though! I feel lucky knowing there is Someone looking out for me the whole time. During the consecration you can not help but think about Christ coming down on this earth and suffering so much for us. Some things you can't explain. You just accept them from the heart.

WhyI became Catholic

If you have a story to tell please contact Debbie via debwarrier@hotmail.com

ungry? Go to the fridge or the cupboard and it is likely that if you live in Australia, you will soon have your needs sated. Tonight though, around the world, 1 billion people will go to bed hungry. It is a devastating fact. In Australia we are feeling the direct affects of the confluence of the food and financial crises. Many people have lost their jobs and higher unemployment is predicted through until the end of next year. Large chunks of our superannuation and investment have been totally wiped out. The food crisis too in Australia is being felt with the prolonged drought, urban sprawl placing pressure on agricultural lands and increased natural disasters pushing up prices in our supermarkets. Yet the pain we feel here is nothing compared to the extreme vulnerability of that being felt by the poorest of the poor. Even though the world produces more than enough food for every man, woman and child on the planet, 1 in 6 people are teetering on the brink of starvation. It is nothing more than an absolute affront to human dignity to know that we in the rich world have created a situation which is so unjust. The rising price of food staples and fuel during 2007 and 2008 put basic necessities out of the reach of millions of people and the financial crisis has and will pull millions more into hunger. Although prices have come down, traditional staples such as rice, wheat and flour are between 30 and 150 percent more expensive than just two years ago. And as the financial crisis worsens here in our own country, it is the poorest communities in

the poorest countries, who have no safety net, that are most vulnerable. Already the poorest spend the vast majority of their meager incomes on purchasing food. If they don't get enough food, many will pay the ultimate price. Equally as disturbing is the long term toll the current food and financial crises will take on developing countries. The hard won victories achieved in the fight against poverty are now on the line. In 2000, The Millennium Development Goals were adopted by the international community as a fifteen year action plan to tackle poverty. Much progress has been achieved. The overarching goal of reducing absolute poverty by half is now within reach. In all but two regions, primary school enrolment has increased to 90 percent, deaths from measles fell from over 750,000 in 2000 to less than 250,000 in 2006 and the number of deaths from AIDS fell by more than 200,000 between 2000 and 2007. These are just some of the achievements the world has made. Yet now, these successes are also in jeopardy. The Director General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) called on nations to contribute a total of US$30 billion dollars annually to turn around the food crisis. This is well within our capacity, given that it took world economies just four weeks to come up with US$4 trillion to address the global financial crisis. We need the same level of political will to be directed to the food crisis. The economic costs of dealing with the fallout of the food crisis are immense, with the multiple impacts of malnutrition costing countries about 3.5 percent of their Gross Domestic Product. A child who suffers from malnutrition will feel the affects for the rest of their life, with a higher risk of mortality, vulnerability to illness and negative impacts on their schooling and work productivity as an adult. Pope Benedict XVI articulated the moral dimension to the food crisis when he wrote: "Hunger and malnutrition are unacceptable in a world which has, in fact, levels of production, resources and knowledge sufficient to put an end to

such dramas and their consequences". Caritas Australia has released a report Food: The Fundamental Right to bring into focus the urgency in which the world needs to address the problem of global hunger. The report suggests a new framework for alleviating global hunger. The current system of food distribution which focuses too heavily on the power of the market and international trade, has failed to deliver sustainability to the world's poor. Pope Benedict XVI wrote that social justice among people must be promoted to encourage a sharing of goods, their sustainable use and a just distribution of their benefits, in a letter to the Director General of the FAO. The emerging idea of 'food sovereignty' emphasises community control over what is produced and eaten, promotes safe and sustainable agricultural practices and crucially, puts poor communities back in control of their food. The right to food is a foundation of human development and a fundamental human right. By following the principles of solidarity, partnership, common good and stewardship of the earth defined in Catholic Social Teaching, Caritas holds human dignity as paramount and ensures economic systems contribute to a better life so that people can build their own food secure future. Caritas puts this into action every day by implementing sustainable agriculture and food security projects in countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, East Timor and Uganda which focus on supporting whole communities in a culturally appropriate manner, promoting environmentally friendly agricultural practices, and ensuring both short term and long term benefits for the people involved. We live in a world with massive injustices but we also live in a world where compassion and humanity abound. This moment of horror can also be a moment of catalyst and hope. Read the report. Take the suggested actions. Support the work of Caritas and show your commitment to the human dignity of all peoples. Jack de Groot is the CEO of Caritas Australia, the agency for aid and development of the Catholic Church.

Reverence at key moments in Mass Feast of St Joseph the Worker Ihave several questions about bowing in Mass. First, are we still supposed to bow during the Creed? Very few people seem to do this. Does the person going up to do the readings bow to the altar or to the priest? And does a bow involve just the head or the whole body??

I

will begin with your third question, basing the answer on Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Peter Elliott's book Ceremonies of the Modern Roman

Rite. Bishop Elliott points out that there are two types of bows used in the liturgy: the bow of the body, or deep bow, and the bow of the head. A bow of the body, in which the person leans forward from the waist, is made to the altar during Mass, to the celebrant before and after incensing him, and to a bishop, on approaching, leaving or passing in front of him. (n. 202) Since Bishop Elliott writes primarily for ministers of the liturgy, not for the faithful in the pews, one could add the deep bow made before receiving Communion, if the person chooses to bow rather than genuflect or receive Communion kneeling. Also to be added is the bow made by all during the Creed, at the words "by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man." On two days of the year, Christmas and the feast of the Annunciation, instead of bowing everyone genuflects on saying these words.

As you say, many people do not make this bow, but that is sad. Before the reform of the liturgy some 40 years ago, the whole congregation and the priest genuflected at these words every time the Creed was said. No one questioned this gesture of respect for the great mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God as man. Yet since the genuflection was changed for a bow, many people make no sign of reverence at all. In answer to your second question, Bishop Elliott points out that the reader, on going up to the sanctuary, bows first to the altar and then to the celebrant, before going to the lectern to do the reading. (n. 258) Both bows are deep, made from the waist. While the bow to the priest celebrant is not specified in the liturgical books, as it is in the Ceremonial of Bishops when a bishop presides (nn. 76-77), it may be taken as a customary sign of respect for the priest. For this reason Bishop Elliott includes it in his book. (n. 258) Some people may wonder why the reader does not genuflect to the tabernacle when going up to the sanctuary. The reason is that the General Instruction of the Roman Missal provides that if the

tabernacle with the Blessed Sacrament is present in the sanctuary, "the priest, the deacon, and the other ministers genuflect when they approach the altar and when they depart from the sanctuary, but not during the celebration of Mass itself." (GIRM, n. 274) The other type of bow is the bow of the head alone, often accompanied by a slight bow of the shoulders. This bow is made by the celebrant of the liturgy at the mention aloud of the three Divine Persons (e.g. during the first part of the "Glory be to the Father"), and on pronouncing the holy names of Jesus, Mary and of the saint in whose honour the Mass is being celebrated. (cf. GIRM n. 275) Many of the faithful have the custom of bowing their head whenever they pronounce the name of Jesus or Mary. Also, it is sometimes customary to bow to the priest when the faithful take up various objects in the procession of the gifts, before and after handing them to him. In this regard Bishop Elliott says, "A slight bow also expresses mutual respect and gratitude before and after receiving an object or being assisted in some way during a ceremony." (n. 203) For the same reason the acolyte or server often bows before and after presenting the cruets or the lavabo bowl to the priest. The priest too may bow. (cf. Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite, n. 277) All of these bows should be looked upon not as a mere formality or empty ritualism, but as elementary signs of respect for Our Lord or for another person, whether bishop, priest or lay person.

May 20 2009, The Record

Page 13

PERSPECTIVES

No community;no Eucharist Give youth Sacrament of chari Fr Erasto Fernandez SSS

As the Year of the Priest that Pope Benedict XVI announced to start on June 19 draws closer, The Record begins a series on that central sacrament, the Eucharist, by Fr Erasto Fernandez SSS, a priest from India renowned in the subject.

`E

ucharist begins not so much with the Entrance hymn, but at the very Christians moment decide to gather for the Eucharistic celebration'. This would be true if, and only if, they really want to celebrate the Eucharist as a community of loving brothers and sisters. If a person decides to celebrate Eucharist but merely to 'get peace of mind for myself', or to obtain some particular individual favour - that would not be 'the Lord's Supper', as St Paul would say (I Cor 11:17-34). What we need then primarily for true Eucharistic renewal is to worship according to the alternative we have

become in Christ." What has Jesus transformed us into?

New Creatures in Christ Through Christ's transformation of us in Baptism we have become 'a new creation: When Levi the tax-collector was called, 'he rose, left everything and began to follow Jesus' (Lk 5:27-28). We notice that he rose - which indicates that from then on, he lived on a higher level. But he also 'left everything behind': if he still clung to the past, he would never have been able to rise effectively. The newness we are called to, involves different things: it means seeing ourselves not just as individuals, isolated and independent, but rather as members of one body, people whose lives are interlocked with one another. Everything a Christian does impacts on others not just externally, but from deep within. Thus, when one Christian receives the Lord in Communion, it is not s/he alone who receives the 'grace' and benefits of that communing. The entire Church benefits from that infusion of God's life into the Body. Similarly, when he or she cuts her or himself off from the Body through grave sin, the entire Church Body bleeds inexorably to death unless that mortal wound is healed through God's forgiveness. A more facile way of saying the same thing would be this: 'No one goes to heaven alone; neither does one to go hell alone - we always take others along with us:

Practical Implications Being new further involves seeing ourselves as truly God's children, 'born of God.' We are not mere sinners 'mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.' Even though we often fail God loves us as we are; we are precious in his sight. This newness also entails experiencing God not just as a task-master, Lawgiver or Creator, but as a loving Father. And finally, being new implies that we see others not so much as strangers, aliens or enemies, but as our very brothers and sisters, because we all belong to the one Father. So, our Eucharist begins only when we realise more deeply what it means to be Church: the gathering of God's holy people in which all are equally members of Christ and of one another. The best way of understanding what is Church, is to see each individual Christian as an ingredient needed to make a cake. Each one is different - the butter is not sugar and so on. Yet, if we want to have a cake, then all these different ingredients must be thoroughly mixed together and baked. Once the cake is baked, there is no way of distinguishing the sugar from the butter or flour - the entire cake is sugar, the entire cake is flour - the cake is simply 'one.' As we gather to celebrate Eucharist, we experience ourselves as one. Eucharist is the gathering of God's family in unity and love. They are at home with God and with one another as they celebrate God's goodness through the gracious gifts he has freely given to them.

Motherhood undervalued... again @home with Catherine Parish uite frankly I think a paid maternity leave scheme, announced in the Federal Budget for introduction in ly entrenches the undervalua2011, s tion of the contribution of stay-at-home mothers to the wider community. This undervaluation is not really worthy of comment any more, it is so endemic in all levels of society. But it still makes me mad. Pretty much all the public comment about the paid maternity leave scheme reveals an implicit belief that stay-athome motherhood is no longer a viable permanent option for women. Not economically, and not socially. It seems evident that the `commentariat' believe stay-at-home parenting is unnecessary in the long term, and less important than the mother getting back to real, paid work as soon as possible. Now for the tax coffers this might be a good thing, but for society generally? We have long needed to redefine our whole narrow idea of what constitutes 'work'. Paid employment in the workforce is not the only work performed by men and women in society, neither is it the most valuable. I have heard it said recently that a woman cannot physically give birth and be at work the next day. This is simply not true. Any woman who has had a child is at work pretty well straight after, feeding, changing, bathing and generally caring for her newborn. Or is this not real work? And when she gets home (the next day or the day after that if she has given birth in a public hospital), that is not

exactly a long holiday either. But while this physical aspect is vital to the wellbeing of the child, it is not paramount. The one-to-one, long-term relationship of a stay-at-home mother with her children is fundamental to their development into well-adjusted, well-socialised, productive adults. There are so many studies that support this statement that it could safely be called a fact. In light of recent revelations about the widely varying standards of care in childcare centres, and the chaotic collapse of the ABC Learning group, I am sure there are a lot of mothers out there who are quite stressed by the feeling of pressure to get back to paid work and leave their children in childcare centres. Eighteen weeks seems a tragically short time to have entirely with your baby. Just over four months? It isn't long; your baby isn't even ready to be weaned yet.

The difference between paid maternity leave and the baby bonus is perhaps negligible financially; but the pejorative sense of the latter being a bonus (a handout) while the former is a right is somewhat offensive to those mothers who choose to stay at home permanently. If the government did want to reduce the appearance of bias, they could simply deal with all child and family-related matters for taxpayers through the tax system, rather than handing out fortnightly payments through Centrelink. If you have so many children and so much combined family income, you get this much tax reduction. Not only would it reduce administrative costs, it would affirm to all parents regardless of their paid employment status that providing future productive members of society (and taxpayers) is valuable work that should be rewarded through a reduced tax burden that bears no stigma of 'handout'.

responsibility in the Church and they thrive Fr Anthony Paganoni, Scalabrinian, continues his series on a long-running successful initiative in youth ministry in the province of Lombardy, Italy.

The ItalianWay Tony Paganoni, Scalabrinian Intriguing developments in Youth Ministry

The young leaders of'Cre-Crest'.

A

part from the vast benefit derived by the participants (a clientele of over half a million, for a period spanning several weeks), the Cre-Grest has tremendous potential for the social development of its young leaders. For all of them, their supervisory role becomes a 'test' of responsible engagement at an age when opportunities for a leading role in any public sphere are scarcely abundant. This finding of the research study clearly gives the lie to common stereotypes about adolescents and young people being incapable of assuming or exercising responsibility. The adult world often tags them as lost and disoriented. But the survey reveals something entirely different. In describing her own experience, one of the young supervisors remarks, "During the summer I experience feelings of energy, during the school year only feelings of anxiety". The blend of a friendly environment, the presence of friends involved in the same endeavour, the carefree and informal attitude with which activities are organised, the benevolent presence of educators and priests and religious, the high level of satisfaction found in caring for younger children - these are some of the highly positive factors cited in the whole experience of CreGrest. In a word, the request from the core leadership at the Oratorio to "help out with younger children" goes down well with the young people looking for a degree of autonomy and engagement. For many of them, it is a lesson that brings greater self-knowledge: about their potential as well their weaknesses. Time and time again the authors of the study pose the question whether the young people may be estranged from Christ and His Gospel, or whether - as is the case - they constitute a culture in its own right. They grow up in a world vastly different from the one experienced by their parents. Young people adopt a common 'tribal' language and mode of behaviour - their own way of carving out an initial niche for themselves in the public sphere - as bizarre as the adult world may find this to be. Some important consequence, are discussed in the study: • It is not just the priest but the entire parish community that is called to link up with the adolescent world. The task will be carried out 1:1 people (mostly young people) who freely choost to 'waste' their time knocking around with the younger set; • Adolescents are not all the same. Far from it. Hence the need for flexibility, for informality. to give time and provide a relaxed setting and environment, where at least one step forward can be made; • The youth leaders are a class all of their own Their common experiences of service should lead them to explore not just the external world where activities take place, but also the inner world of their own expectations and growth; • The complexity of the world faced by youth in their various stages of growth evokes the need for an educational process to be kept up throughout the year. Networking with other experiences and projects developed by Church and state organisations becomes essential. To be continued..

ell

PANORAMA

Page 14

May 20 2009, The Record

A roundup of events in the Archdiocese

Panorama entries must be in by 12pm Monday. Contributions may be emailed to administrationgtherecord.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. Friday May 22 to Saturday May 30 NOVENA IN PREPARATION FOR THE PENTECOST 7.30pm-8.30pm Holy Family Church, Lot 375, Alcock 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. Eng: 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 lsdell Place, Gosnells. Healing Mass and Adoration, with the Voice of the Voiceless Music Ministry. All are welcome. Eng: 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-5pm and Conference Dinner 7pm, at Tradewinds Hotel, East Fremantle. Please register by 15 May. Eng: 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. Eng: Mario 0411 641 245. Sunday May 24 HOLY HOUR FOR VOCATIONS TO THE PRIESTHOOD AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 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. Eng: 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. Eng: 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. Eng: 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. Eng: Francis 0437 562 263, IkItt@yahoo.com or Dominic 0447 053 347, celes-

tialorchids@gmail.com. Sunday May 31 BULLSBROOK SHRINE PILGRIMAGE 2pm at the Shrine of Virgin of the Revelation, 36 Chittering Road, Bullsbrook. Pilgrim Mass celebrated with Rosary and Benediction. Reconciliation available in Italian and English before every celebration. Side entrance to the Church and shrine open daily between 9am and 5pm. Eng: SACRI: 9447 3292. Friday June 5 PRO-LIFE WITNESS 9.30am at St Brigid's Midland with Mass, followed by Rosary procession and prayer vigil at abortion clinic, led by the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. Eng: Helen 9402 0349. 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. Eng: Fr Doug Harris 9444 6131 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. Eng: 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. Eng: Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286. Saturday June 6 WITNESS FOR LIFE 8.30am at St Augustine's, Gladstone Road, Rivervale with Mass, followed by Rosary procession and prayer vigil at abortion clinic, led by Columban Missionary priest, Fr Paul Carey Eng: Helen 9402 0349. 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. Eng: 9457 7771 or Linda 9275 6608. Friday June 12 ALAN AMES HEALING MASS 7pm at St Anthony's Catholic Church, 96 Innamincka Road, Greenmount, followed by talk and healing service. 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 1lam, celebrant Fr Tiziano Bogoni. Confession will be available. BYO lunch, tea and coffee provided. Eng: Des 6278 1540.

Sunday June 14 AWAKENINGS A God Experience Retreat With a Difference 8.45am to 4pm at Patrist House, 7 Warde Street, Midland, conducted by Father Douglas Rowe S.F.P. 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 at 12.30pm Procession. Bus services available. BYO lunch. Eng: Des 6278 1540 or Nita 9367 1366, or Franciscan Friars 9574 5204. Friday June 19 SOLEMNITY OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS 6.50pm at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Keaney Place, City Beach. Rosary and Litanies followed by Holy Mass and Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary and Benediction. Celebrant Fr Don Kettle. Novena to the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart, begins June 11 to June 19, weekdays at 6.20am, Saturday 5.30pm and Sunday 7.30am. Eng: Beatrice 9409 6473. Thursday July 7 to Sunday July 12 MARIAPOLIS 2009 - LOVE CREATES WISDOM 2pm at the Institute of Agriculture, Curtin University Campus, Muresk, Northam, come for spiritual renewal. Emphasis will be on living the Gospel together and learning to build relationships based on Jesus' New Commandment, so as to take that experience back to our environment. Eng: 9349 4052 or www.focolare.org. ARCHBISHOP GOODY AWARD The Archbishop Goody Award was established in 1983 by The Most Reverend Sir Lancelot Goody, KBE. The Award aims to further the lay apostolate in the Archdiocese of Perth by financing the formation, education and training of lay people to serve the Church according to their particular calling and talents. Applications are to be submitted before July 31. Eng: Kim 9384 0598 or claremont@perthcatholic.org.au. 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. Eng: 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. Eng: 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. Eng: Jan 9284 1662. Every Wednesday CATHOLIC YOUTH MINISTRY - HOLY HOUR 5.30pm Mass at the Catholic Pastoral Centre, 40A Mary Street, Highgate. 6.30pm Holy Hour and adoration. Dinner available at $5 donation. Eng: 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. Eng: 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. Eng: Direct to Parishes or holyspirit.Parishoperthcatholic.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. 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. Eng: 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. Eng: Dominic and Helen 04 4705 3347 or 08 6253 8041 celestialorchidsogmail.com Every Monday ADORATION AND EVENING PRAYER 7pm at St Thomas Parish, 2 College Road, Claremont. Adoration and evening prayer. Followed with confessions, Benediction, night prayer and Mass. Eng: 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. Eng: 9475 0554. 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. Eng: Michael 041 429 4338 or michael@michaelpeters.id.au Every First Friday of the month ST PADRE PIO - LATIN MASS 7.30pm, St Joseph's, 22 Hamilton St, Bassendean.

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 hurly burly burly of daily life people are reminded that there are other values than those of business and work," Archbishop Hart said.

Page 15

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MISSION MATTERS Missionary reflections on this Sunday's Gospel; John 15:13 "...A ?min 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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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.

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AN HOUR WITH MARY, MOTHER OF JESUS

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A MONTH WITH MARY MIRACULOUS ROSARY

The Medal of the Immaculate Conception, commonly known as the Miraculous Medal, is a cherished Catholic devotion. The Blessed Mother Mary manifested the medal to Sister (now Saint) Catherine Laboure in 1830, and asked her to have the medal struck. Since then, many millions of the medals have been used by Catholics around the world. Countless miracles have been attributed to the medal. This stunning devotional Rosary bears the Ave Maria signature. Each bead of this Rosary is a mini Miraculous Medal. The beads are complimented by a beautiful Miraculous centerpiece and ornate crucifix. The Rosary is silver oxidised

Daily Meditations for a Profound Reform of Heart in the School of Mary By Don Dolindo Ruotolo This little book, was written by an Italian holy priest Father Dolindo Ruotolo (1882-1970). Originally written as spiritual thoughts to his spiritual daughter, the work is comprised of thirty-one meditations for the month of May. Father Dolindo wrote A Month with Mary on pocket-sized pages joined into small fascicles of 8 to 12 pages. He sent them to Laura de Rosis every two to three days and later transcribed them with some modifications. These meditations are written in the style of the Imitation of Christ. (90pp. laminated gloss, saddle stitch). RRP $7.95

JUST LIKE MARY By Rosemarie Gortler & Donna Piscitellit In a captivating style with delightful art, 'Just Like Mary' presents the events in Mary's life and shows how your youngster can begin to follow the example she gives us all. Whether you already have a deep devotion to Our Lady or are looking for ways to brush up on your knowledge about her, ust Like Mary' will help you teach your child or grandchild about the amazing woman God chose to be the mother of His Son RRP $15.95

By Anthony F Chiffolo This little pocket booklet offers insights into the life and spirituality of the woman who was so open to God's will that the became the mother of God's only Son. Mirroring her own humility, the gospels give only a brief account of Mary. Yet the power of her example and the manner of her obedience have become a comfort to all believers who call upon her as a special intercessor with God. RRP $1.95

NEW RELEASE! AVAILABLE JUNE 2009

RRP $59.95 ORDERS ONLY

SHE WHO BELIEVED Australian Images of Mary By Marie Farrell The number of Australians who have interpreted in art the presence and role of Mary in our Australian context is surprising. This book contains a collection of paintings and sculptures not widely published. The images are presented in three contexts: liturgical, indigenous and contemporary. A beautiful inspirational gift book. Orders Welcome RRP $29.95

THE LIFE OF MARY LIVING BIBLICALLY A pilgrim's guide to finding answers to life's deepest questions Archbishop Barry J. Hickey $19.95 + P/H

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By !nos Biffi This vibrantly illustrated meditation on the life of the Mother of God draws the reader into a greater appreciation of her role in the life of her son and the Church. It simply and touchingly chronicles 11 major events for the gospels and ancient tradition, beginning with the joy of the Annunciation, through the sorrow of the Crucifixion and death of Jesus, to the glory of the Assumption RRP $28.95

MIRACLES OF MARY Everyday Encounters of Beauty And Grace By Bridget Curran Although she lived 2000 years ago, the Virgin Mary continues to inspire countless generations with her miracles large and small. This wonderful collection of accounts by everyday people includes stories of the silently weeping statues of Mary in Japan; apparitions of Mary in Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Poland and Portugal; and of the statue of Mary in Sri Lanka that has been at the centre of a number of miracles, including during the 2004 tsunami. Mary also appeared to millions in Zeitun, Egypt uniting Muslims and Coptic Christians, and was inspiration to a young Polish boy who became a world leader. Told simply and honestly these remarkable stories by everyday people allow the reader to experience the beauty and grace of these miraculous events, regardless of their background. RRP $22.95

HOLY BIBLE Catholic Family Edition Black RSV Padded Cover Elegant and beautifully gilded pages featuring deluxe sewn binding Every Catholic home deserves a copy of the "World's Most Beautiful Bible." This deluxe Family Bible truly earns that title with its stunning Old Masters art, elegant typesetting, gilded page edges and rich, embossed cover. This Bible also features Stampley's famous "sidesewn" binding — specially designed to preserve Stampley Bibles as treasured family heirlooms for many generations. Included in Stampley's Deluxe Catholic Family Bible is an inspiring 48 page section on the Life of Christ as painted by the Old Masters. RRP $159.95

T-Shirt: Miraculous Medal $31.95