The Record Newspaper 14 June 2007 by The Record

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nternational organised crime syndicates - for whom prostitution is a key source of income -and the powerful sex industry don't want her story told. She's been so successful at combatting prostitution in Sweden that Gunilla Ekberg does not do photos. But speaking to The Record's

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More and more Swedish men do their shopping over the Internet

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Prostitution is sexual violence against women and girls, Sweden's Advisor on Prostitution and Human Trafficking has told The Record's national affairs editor, PAUL GRAY. And she wants to meet WA's attorney general Jim McGinty to brief him on how her country succeeded by taking the opposite approach he is hoping to force State Labor politicians to approve.

ustralia has been in breach of its international human rights obligation to combat the prostitution industry ever since it allowed Victoria to legalise the selling of sex in 1984, a leading Swedish Government official has told The Record. And moves by Western Australia to decriminalise the prostitution trade would further the nation's longstanding abuse of women's rights on the issue, said Gunilla Ekberg, Sweden's Advisor on Prostitution and Human Trafficking. Ekberg, who played a key role in setting up Sweden's 1999 anti-prostitution law, which criminalises men who buy sex and encourages women's attempts to escape the sex trade, has advised governments in 30 different countries on Sweden's prostitution law. "I travelled to many countries to talk about the Swedish policy," Ekberg said, speaking from Stockholm. "We wanted to come to Australia but they didn't really want us, I think." Ekberg, who this month is moving to a new anti-prostitution role at the centre of European Union politics in Brussels, says she still hopes to come to Australia to advise on the Western Australian proposals.

"My dream is to come to Australia and travel around and be 'pelted' by some locals I suppose, but to be able to speak clearly" (against decriminalisation.) Ekberg said that a fundamental difference between the Australian and Swedish approaches to prostitution is that in Sweden, "we have the vision that you can actually end prostitution." Ending, rather than controlling the trade should be the key to policy, Ekberg

It is a crime to buy sex For more information about the campaign to combat prostitution and trafficking in women, please send an e-mail to: kvinnobandelitindustry.ministrf.se

Possibilities, creativity, innovation: Thee are the approaches Sweden has successfully deployed in its war against legalising women and girls into purchasable products as male sex toys and possessions, as these official Swedish Government posters, above and on Pages 3 and 4, show. Could WA be as imaginitive? VA", (PAPHI Cu pusu F;- _ OF 7,,F 1

only on criminalising men who buy, but also on educating young people and the public about the ways women are usually victimised by the prostitution business. A movie called Lilia Forever, documenting the tragic life of a young woman involved in the sex trade, and who eventually killed herself, was widely used in schools as part of the Swedish education campaign. "Unfortunately young boys in Sweden, just like in most countries these days, have

the majority of their sexual education through the internet, through pornography sites and through sites where young people interact in a very sexualised way," Ekberg said. "So we did go out and show Lilia Forever, a film made by a Swedish director about a young woman from Lithuania, based on a real case, who was trafficked to Sweden. She was used in prostitution by men in the south of Sweden and eventually she killed herself. She ran away and

suggests.

"If you have that vision instead of saying 'we want to control it,' then everything else also has to follow that. First you have a vision and then you put measures that will lead you to whatever goal you have. "Our goal was, and still is, that we want to end prostitution, we want to have a country where women and girls mostly, but also young men and boys, are not victims of violence through prostitution." Prostitution should be seen in the same way as rape, she said. "If you have that vision, then you must have this legislation, because you penalise rape, so why shouldn't you penalise rape through prostitution." The Swedish approach does not rely

Surrender? WA's Attorney General, right, announced in February he would be moving to decriminalise the purchase and sale of women and girls for sex, The only problem: decriminalisation or legalisation has never worked anywhere else, and adopts the principle of management by the Public Service as the solution, rather than making the status of women and girls the goal - and the pHc7c, A 4P,VA,'-E criterion. The policy also seems, de facto, to accept defeat.

Wren irn she jumped from a bridge down on a highway. "What's interesting in that film that you see in few films on prostitution and trafficking, is that there is a long sequence on the buyers, not in a pornographic way but showing the different men purchasing her, and what they want to do with her." Ekberg and the Swedish Government employed the same principle in their advertising campaigns to promote the anti-prostitution law, focusing on the men who buy women, rather than the women who are purchased. "In street prostitution there's always a car standing there, parked, and I wanted to get the man out of the car and make him visible, because he's the reason why she's there in the first place. "The pimps who had put her there would not make any money if he didn't come and purchase her. So we wanted to drag him out and show who he was." R esearch showed that buyers of "sexual services" are regular men, usually between 40 and 55, Ekberg said. They are generally married or live with a woman and they have children. This research reflected was in the posters which were created by the Swedish Government - though not without difficulty. "When I worked with the advertising agency, when I said I want them visible, regular men, and we won't know if they're purchasers or not, they couldn't make themselves do that," Ekberg said. "They came back with men who were the size of ants - you couldn't see them! I said 'no, this isn't how I want them, I want to be able to

see these men,' and they said we have no actors who want to be on that poster." Ekberg then turned to her colleagues at the government. "Now there are 11 men on the poster - the political adviser to the minister, our lawyer, and different men who volunteered." Ekberg says the law has now been in place in Sweden for eight and a half years, and it has worked. "There is ample evidence that the law has functioned as a barrier for traffickers and pimps to establish themselves in Sweden," she says. "We have less victims of trafficking inside and into Sweden than any other country in Europe." The law came about because of two crucial factors, according to Ekberg - the role of the women's movement in drawing attention to the violence that is done towards women in prosand titution, extensive public debate on the issue going back 20 years. Ekberg says she was part of the discussions within the women's movement in the 1970s about what was happening in prostitution. Today Ekberg refuses to call women in pros"sex titution workers," a term favoured by the prostitution industry. Instead she refers to "women in prostitution." "Imean prostitution is not work, obviously. It's like saying that being a slave is work. That is something that the prostitution industry is putting forward, and has for the past fifty years, generally to undermine the idea that what women

"Itravelled to many countries to talk about the Swedish policy," Ekberg said, speaking from Stockholm. "We wanted to come to Australia but they didn't really want us,Ithink."

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Expert urges WA not to fail women, girls on the prostitution and trafficking situation in and through Sweden since 1998. These reports have revealed a far lower rate of trafficking into Sweden than other similar countries. "If you look at Finland for example. Finland passed a similar law (to the Swedish law) last year. Before that, they had between 10,000 and 15,000 victims of trafficking every year. As a smaller country, Sweden had between four and six hundred in the same period." The Russian mafia is involved in the Finland trade, she says. Meanwhile Norway, Ekberg says, also has "an ever-increasing number of victims," many of them women from Nigeria. Ekberg says that, in a sense Sweden, 'beat the rush' on prostitution by passing its anti-sex-buying law before the late '90s boom in mafia-led trafficking of women and children from poor countries.

Continued from Page 3

who end up in prostitution are going through is actually quite violent." Ekberg says is it is clear that women who end up in prostitution are overwhelmingly from poor, marginalised and abusive backgrounds. "There's lots of studies on that," she says. "Even those who are in the pro-prostitution camp cannot get around that. "This is not middle-class girls. We know that it's women who come from a marginalised background in some way or another. Women who come from poor circumstances, and it doesn't matter if they're living in Thailand or they live in Sweden. They're often victims of prior sexual abuse, like being sexually abused by their father, brothers or some other male in their family. They run away from home, they end up on the streets, get picked up by buyers who say 'come to my house, I'll give you food, but you have to do something for me'." "We also know that, for example in Canada where I've lived for many years, the majority of women who enter prostitution, for example in Vancouver, Winnipeg and so forth, are women from Aboriginal communities. Those communities, just as in Australia, have enormous social, economic problems, and women in particular are in dire straits in these communities." Attitudes towards prostitution and pornography "in the public space" also play a large role in shaping attitudes, Ekberg says. "Advertisements, fashion, music videos, magazines specifically targeting young women - they legitimise the prostitution industry. You've seen them, the way they stereotype women. The clothes that 15 years ago we saw only in pornography are now mainstream apparel for young women. So there is a continuous pressure on young women to believe that, for example, becoming a lap-dancer is nothing out of the ordinary, or doing striptease is nothing out of the ordinary." However, reality for women in prostitution is quite different from the image projected through public culture. "Making money, being good-looking, having the attention of men: these are not at all the real situation, which is violence, a horrible situation for most of those women. "I think that if we tell the truth about the situation for women in

One man in eight has bought sex

"I'm getting really tired of going to UN meetings... and having Australia push for the legalisation of brothels."

It is a crime to buy sex For more information about the campaign to combat prostitution and trafficking REGERINGSKANSLIET

in women, please send an e-mail to: kvinnohandel@industry.ministry.se

Men who helped: When an advertising agency appproached by Ekberg found the topic too hot, she turned to male colleagues to pose for the posters in the public relations campaign. Colleagues were happy to lend a hand.

prostitution, which some women in prostitution are being courageous enough to do, then there's no one who can say that this is a choice. "There's a difference between making a decision and having a choice. Choice you only have if

you have equal alternatives." This is not the case for most women in prostitution. A key feature of the Swedish approach, enshrined in legislation, is a monitoring system to check on whether the law is working, particularly in relation to human traf-

ficking. (Human trafficking refers to the illegal importing of women and children by organised crime networks, most of it for purposes of sexual exploitation.) Sweden's national rapporteur on trafficking, currently a senior police woman, has written annual reports

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"We never had a humungous prostitution industry because we managed to do these things before there was an explosion. In most other countries at the end of the 90s there was an explosion in the prostitution industry, but we managed to keep that down because of all these different measures," Ekberg says. A key element in Sweden's success has been to destroy the invisibility enjoyed by men who want to buy sex with complete anonymity. "Here we've changed, I would say, from a culture of prostitution - a culture where it's acceptable that men purchase and the men are - to `visibilising' the men who are the the reason, the root cause why women and children end up in prostitution. "In Australia, you never talk about the men who purchase women." Australia is a longstanding signatory to CEDA, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Article Six of this internationally recognised human rights convention reads: "States Parties shall take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of prostitution of women." "Australia has been in breach of that since 1984, when Victoria legalised its first brothels," Ekberg says. The nation ought to get its act together on the issue, she believes. "The countries that have legalised prostitution earn tons of money from the brothels, out of the women. This is absolutely contrary to everything that was agreed on (in CEDA.) "And I think that should be pointed out in Australia, because I'm getting really tired of having to go to the different UN meetings on prostitution and trafficking, and having Australia push for the legalisation of brothels."

June 14 2007, The Record

Page 5

The World

Abstinence program axing angers Church WASHINGTON (CNS) - A requirement to participate in a program that promotes abstinence as a way of reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS should not have been removed from an appropriations bill marked up by a US House of Representatives subcommittee, said a statement from Catholic Relief Services President Ken Hackett and Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando, Florida, chairman of the US bishops' Committee on International Policy. In marking up the appropriations bill for the 2008 fiscal year on June 5, the State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee eliminated a requirement that a portion of HIV/AIDS prevention funding be used to promote abstinence and "partner reduction," or fidelity. "This change could cost lives," said Bishop Wenski in the June 7 statement. He said it "rejects triedand-true methods that have proven to actually reduce HIV infections." Hackett said that in the experience of CRS, which runs programs in the developing world to help millions of people affected by HIV/AIDS, "only an approach to HIV prevention that has sufficient funding for groups to conduct abstinence and faithfulness education has yielded meaningful advances in stopping the spread of HIV." CRS, the US bishops' overseas relief and development arm, is among the private agencies worldwide that receive grants under the President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, for HIV/AIDS programs. Currently, the program requires that one-third of the funds allocated be used in programs that promote abstinence and fidelity, under a model described as ABC: Abstinence, Be faithful and Condoms, when necessary. "Of course the Church supports only abstinence and fidelity as morally appropriate ways of fight-

ing the spread of HIV," said a press release from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops with Hackett's and Bishop Wenski's remarks. The release said that in at least seven of the 15 countries receiving PEPFAR aid that have been following the ABC model, "all the evidence to date shows that the HIV/AIDS prevalence rates are declining." The full House Appropriations Committee was scheduled to take up the funding bill on June 12. Hackett also criticised the subcommittee for abandoning "the consensus on how best to fight HIV/AIDS at the very moment we should be moving forward and not fighting old battles." The appropriations bill includes more than US$6.5 billion for global health programs including HIV/AIDS. A press release from subcommittee chairwoman Nita Lowey, New York, also noted that a priority for the health program portion of the funding is "the provision of contraceptives from USAID (the US Agency for International Development) to family planning organisations that have been denied USAID funding." Catholic Meanwhile, the Church's contribution to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and offering care of those hit by the pandemic is slowly being recognised on the world stage, said a Caritas Internationalis' special adviser. US Fr Robert Vitillo said there is, however, still a widespread perception in some circles that the Church "is somehow an obstacle to HIV/AIDS education and care". "Sometimes the Church is too humble in talking about the services we sponsor, and I think that's why for many," especially within the media, "they think the Church only says 'No' to condoms" and does nothing constructive in the fight against HIV, he said. He was speaking at the Vatican during the June 3-9 Caritas Internationalis general assembly.

At it again: Lay Franciscan and artist, Margaret Fane at work on another artwork.

New exhibition offers Perth buyers great paintings • By Anthony Barich

Paintings inspired by spiritual awakenings sold at "Franciscan prices" have netted $20,000 for the St Mary's Cathedral Conservation and Completion Fund. Margaret Fane, a Secular Franciscan for over 20 years, has sold water colour on paper and oil on canvas paintings at small parish exhibitions at Cottesloe, Morley and Tuart Hill over the last few months, and will hold another from June 23-24 and June 20-July 1 (10am-4pm) to raise more cash for St Mary's.

She has donated her paintings of religious, Perth city and outback life to Archbishop Barry Hickey and will sell them on his behalf. The idea came about through the inspiration of Archbishop Barry Hickey, who suggested casually in conversation with Margaret that she exhibit them to raise funds. Margaret's paintings are inspired by her Franciscan spirituality. "You do it with prayer - it's a spiritual experience," Margaret says of her paintings, which range from portraits of Our Lady and Padre Pio to Perth's skyline, sunsets, West Australian foreshores and outback vistas. She grew up being taught by the Presentation Sisters in Geraldton and studied art and

spirituality at a Franciscan monastery in Rome under Franciscan Father Joe Walsh, who produced statues and artwork for his order's institutions around the world. She remains under his tuition via e-mail and phone. "I have a passion for Perth, for my State, and because of my Franciscan spirituality I am careful not to get caught up in the ratrace of overpriced art," said Margaret, who descends from pioneers from England and Ireland who were artists and musicians themselves. "I believe that love of money gives people a false sense of prosperity that can crush the little people who are God's chosen. "I'm glad to be able to use the gift God has given to me to His glory."

St Augustine gets with it on MySpace Neocats called to teach others WASHINGTON (CNS) - St Augustine of Hippo just got a whole lot hipper. The fifth-century doctor of the Church, perhaps known best for "Confessions," an autobiographical account of his conversion to Christianity, now has a MySpace page. Michael Dolan, the director of communications for the Augustinians of the Province of St Thomas of Villanova, said he started the page on St Augustine's behalf as an engaging way to introduce visitors to St Augustine and the Augustinians. "The focus of the page is to give people a deeper sense of who Augustine was, but also to get them engaged in Augustinian spirituality," Dolan said. The popular social networking Web site myspace.com allows users to post pictures and information about themselves on their

personal pages. All users - and now St Augustine - can add other users to their list of friends. As of the afternoon of June 12, St Augustine had 87 MySpace friends, including two named Pope Benedict XVI; two fellow saints, Sts George and Brigid; some guy named Josh; and Canadian singer Celine Dion. Since the site launched in early May, Dolan said the page has had about 500 hits. Users can either request friendship from a user or accept a friendship. Dolan said he doesn't know the true identity of the saint's online friends and guessed they just happened upon the page or heard about it from another venue. St Augustine's Myspace profile can be viewed at www.myspace.com/saintaugustineofhippo.

JERUSALEM, JUNE 5,2007 (Zenit.org).The leader of the Melkite Greek Catholics of Galilee has proposed the establishment of a new "branch" of the Neocatechumenal Way to work specifically in the Eastern-rite Church. In a recent letter sent to Father Rino Rossi, director of Domus Galilaeae - a project of the Neocatechumenal Way Archbishop Elias Chacour recognized that this ecclesial reality is bearing "excellent fruits" in its evangelizing work within the Melkite Church. Archbishop Chacour states in his message that he has searched for "someone or some community to preach the Good News to my parishioners" as an answer to proselytism of the sects, and that the Neocatechumenal Way is an answer.

To further develop the fruits of this evangelization, the archbishop proposes the establishment of a new branch of the Neocatechumenal Way that would work within the Melkite Church and adopt its liturgy. "You follow with your procedures the same path and the same methods, my Ancestors, the Apostles, used at the beginning of Christianity two thousand years ago," Archbishop Chacour writes. "You proclaim the Word of God fearlessly with conviction and with determination." Father Rossi expressed his joy at the invitation of the Melkite Church. "We share the sense of urgency expressed by Archbishop Chacour to evangelize 'the living stones' in the land of the Lord," he told ZENIT.

Page 6

4.4 The World

June 14 2007, The Record

Evidence mounts about Pope Pius XII Top Vatican official: Documents show Pius XII worked to help Jews • By John Thavis

Thousands of Vatican documents demonstrate that Pope Pius XII worked quietly but effectively to help Jews and others during World War II, a top Vatican official said. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, said on June 5 that the documentation of papal charity is the most convincing response to the "black legend" that has depicted the late Pope as indifferent toward the victims of Nazism. The cardinal said a fair read ing of history must recognise "the enormous work of charity that the Pope promoted, by opening the doors of seminaries and religious institutes, welcoming refugees and the persecuted, and helping all." "The church of Pius XII continued to work not only with a prophetic voice but above all with daily prophetic action," he said. Cardinal Bertone made the comments in Rome at the presentation of the book, "Pius XII, Eugenio Pacelli: A Man on the Throne of Peter," by Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli. The cardinal's lengthy talk came four weeks after the Vatican's Congregation for Saints' Causes declared that the late Pope heroically lived the Christian virtues and recommended Pope Benedict XVI advance Pope Pius' sainthood cause. Cardinal Bertone said the legend about Pope Pius' supposed "silence" during the war had its roots in the

Pope Pius XII, who led the Catholic Church from 1939 to 1958, is seen in an undated formal portrait.

postwar period, specifically 194648, a time when the state of Israel was being formed and when the Pope was calling for respect and justice for Palestinian residents of the Holy Land. Over the years, Cardinal Bertone said, the false accusation of papal unconcern for Jewish suffering under Nazism gained acceptance, despite historical evidence to the contrary. On several occasions, the

Pope did denounce Nazi persecutions, the cardinal said. But the pope measured his words carefully and prudently, Cardinal Bertone said, because he was convinced that speaking more bluntly would end up causing greater harm to Jews and other groups. He said Pope Pius explained this policy of discretion when he spoke of the Jews in a public address in 1943, saying that people should not

expect him to divulge "all we have attempted and achieved to mitigate their suffering, improve their moral and juridical conditions, (and) protect their indispensable religious rights." In fact, Cardinal Bertone said, former Nazi officials immediately after the war confirmed that papal denunciations would have only accelerated the killings of Jews and the Church's own ministers. For similar reasons, he said,

popes chose discreet action over strident criticism during the more recent decades of persecution of Christians under communism. "Popes do not speak with the aim of prefabricating a favourable image for posterity. They know that on their every word could depend the fate of millions of Christians; they have at heart the fate of men and women in flesh and blood, not the applause of historians," Cardinal Bertone said. The cardinal said Pope Pius chose to give verbal instructions to his aides and others, who used the Church's resources to save many lives. "The bishops, priests, religious and laypeople understood very well the mind of the pope and what needed urgently to be done," he said. Cardinal Bertone said many of the Church's activities on behalf of Jews and others have been detailed in published documents. But he said there also exists an immense amount of unpublished documentation in the Secretariat of State's own archives, detailing the Vatican's response to thousands of personal cases. The cardinal said these documents are not accessible today because they have never been organised, and he suggested that the Vatican would like to do so quickly - perhaps with the help of funding from some foundation. Even without access to all the archival information, Cardinal Bertone said, people should consider the widespread thanks and recognition given to Pope Pius by European Jews after the war. He said honesty should also compel people to reject depictions of the wartime pope as sympathetic to Nazi leaders or Italian fascists. -CNS

Reaching out to faithful in Africa

Kidnappings despicable: Pope

Pope to African bishops: Help Catholics deepen relationship with God

Pope condemns kidnappings, pleads for victims' release

• By Cindy Wooden

By helping the Catholics of North Africa deepen their relationship with Jesus, the Church also will help them recognise God at work in the lives of their neighbours, Pope Benedict XVI said. The Pope met on June 9 with the bishops of Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco making their "ad limina" visits to report on the status of their small Catholic communities in predominantly Muslim countries. "I greatly encourage you to guide your faithful toward an authentic encounter with the Lord, which will lead them to recognise in their brothers and sisters he who is already mysteriously present in the heart of each person and in every human being's search for the true and the good," the Pope said.

Pope Benedict said that through prayer and, especially, in eucharistic adoration, Catholics break down "the barriers between the Lord and us as well as the barriers that separate us from one another." Many of the Catholics in North Africa have come from sub-Saharan Africa for study or work, the Pope said. The more they live their faith, the greater is their witness to Jesus and to the universality of the Catholic Church, he said. Pope Benedict told the bishops that it is obvious their churches give importance to dialogue with the Muslim community. He praised the increasing number of dialogue centres and libraries they have opened to promote Catholic -Muslim understanding, reconciliation, justice and peace. "We need an authentic dialogue between religions and between cultures, capable of helping us overcome tensions together in a spirit of fruitful cooperation," he said. Dialogue does not happen only or primarily in the context of

formal meetings, the Pope said. "In the sharing of everyday life, Christians and Muslims can find the essential basis for improving their knowledge of one another. By sharing in each other's joys and sorrows, especially at significant moments in each other's lives, and by collaborating in the fields of health, education and culture," Catholics and Muslims build their bonds of trust and friendship, said the Pope. Pope Benedict also asked the bishops to strengthen their programs to help the many North A fricans tempted to flee the continent in search of work in Europe. For many, the trip involves paying traffickers to secure a place on an unstable boat and an attempt to land in Europe illegally. The Pope urged North African and European governments to "find effective ways to make it possible for all people to have hope in building a future for themselves and their families" and to ensure that the dignity of each person is respected. -CNS

• By Cindy Wooden

Pope Benedict XVI condemned kidnapping as a "despicable" practice and pleaded for the release of all victims, including an Italian missionary kidnapped in the Philippines. Speaking at his midday Angelus prayer, the Pope said he repeatedly is asked to pray and make appeals for "persons, including Catholic priests, kidnapped for various reasons and in various parts of the world. I carry all of them in my heart, andIkeep them all in my prayers," he said. "I make a heartfelt appeal to the authors of these despicable acts to become aware of the evil they have done and to return as soon as possible those they have taken prisoner." The papal appeal came the same day that 57-year-old Father Giancarlo Bossi, a member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, was kidnapped en route to the Philippine coastal village of Bulawan in the Southern Mindanao region as he was on his

way to celebrate Mass. Philippine authorities believe a splinter group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front may be responsible, but no communication had been received from the kidnappers. However, an official of the front told an Asian church news agency, that the alleged kidnapper was not a front member but belonged to another rebel group. Pope Benedict also offered special prayers for the hundreds of victims of kidnappings in Colombia. The Pope noted that in Italy and some other parts of the world the previous Thursday's celebration of the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ had been moved to June 10, a Sunday. Pope Benedict said he wanted to use the Sunday celebration as an opportunity to recommend that people develop a devotion to eucharistic adoration. "I rejoice in noting that many young people are discovering the beauty of adoration," he said, asking priests to encourage the practice and help the young assure "that the forms of communal adoration are always appropriate and dignified with adequate moments of silence and of listening to the word of God." -CNS

June 14 2007, The Record

Page 7

he World

Some hope for religion in the Netherlands Catholics express cautious hope over religious revival in Netherlands • By Jonathan luxmoore

When Menno Rasch, an information specialist at the Netherlands' Utrecht University, set up a Web site in May 2006 to debate Christian ideas, he expected interest would be confined to a group of fellow Dutch lecturers. But within ten hours, gristelijk. n1 had received 350 enquiries. A year later, it attracts 10,000 visitors daily, confirming a new interest in the Christian faith in this secular European society. "I doubt people are preparing to make personal decisions about rejoining the churches," Rasch told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview. "But Christians have become more outspoken about their beliefs recently - their faith is no longer viewed as something backward, but as a real and valid option. This is a major change." Reports of a religious revival surfaced in the Netherlands in early 2006, when a study called "De Toekomst van God" ("The Future of God") claimed the Netherlands was witnessing a phase of "postsecularisation." Since then, charismatic groups and youth churches have mushroomed, while more

Cardinal Adrianus Simonis of Utrecht, Netherlands, blesses tulips, which wiii be shipped to the Vatican, in front of his house in Utrecht earlier this year. There is hope that Christianity is returning to the Netherlands. PHk_NO

than 120,000 citizens have signed up for specialised Christian Alpha courses. A weekly religious program on RKK television, Kruispunt (Crossroads), usually attracts half a million viewers, while government ministries, colleges and more than 100 companies, including big names like KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Philips Electronics,

are allowing staffers time out for on-site communal prayer. Pieter Kohnen, Dutch bishops' conference spokesman, said the Catholic Church is following the trend closely. "No one thinks the churches will start filling up overnight - few people seem ready to make commitments like that," Kohnen told CNS. "But we know from history that secularism and

religiousness come in waves. There appears to be a new openness to the Gospel among nonbelievers." In the 1960s and 1970s, permissive Dutch laws made the Netherlands a centre for alternative lifestyles. A subculture of drugs and pornography grew in cities such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam. In 2001, the country became Europe's first to allow gay

marriages. In 2002, it became the first to legalise doctor-assisted suicides and "mercy killings." Although half the Dutch population of 16 million still call themselves Christians in surveys, church attendance has plummeted by four-fifths in the last 50 years, accompanied by a two-thirds decrease in baptisms, confirmations and church marriages. Although 17 percent of citizens still belong officially to the Catholic Church, only one in 10 attends Mass. In 2006, the country's six dioceses and one archdiocese ordained just a dozen priests among them. However, there are signs this may be changing. A new 10-year survey, God in Nederland, published on April 14, showed a continued fall in membership of mainstream denominations. But the drop - from 68 to 62 percent in a decade - was not as sharp as some had feared. The survey found young people were more devout and confident in their faith than people over 55. Cors Visser, a religious expert, said the situation is complex and contradictory. However, he said he thinks a sixfold expansion of Islam since 1970 has challenged the Dutch to think about their attitudes to religious faith and the place of Christian traditions as a source of identity and integration. -CNS

Mary appears online, 150 years after Lourdes apparition si By Kaitlynn Riely

A group called Friends of Lourdes USA has launched a Web site to raise awareness for a jubilee year commemorating the 150th anniversary of Mary's appearance to a young girl near Lourdes, France. The site www.friendsoflourdesusa.com - created in May 2006 - describes ways Americans can observe the anniversary of Mary's 1858 appearance to St Bernadette Soubirous in the grotto of Massabielle. Mary revealed to St Bernadette

that she was the Immaculate Conception and requested that a chapel be built at the grotto. A fountain there has reportedly healed sick people who drink from it or bathe in it. Approximately 6 million people visit the grotto each year. The Immaculate Conception, the patroness of the United States, should have a special place in the hearts of American Catholics, said Melinda Henson, the national coordinator for Friends of Lourdes USA. In honour of the upcoming anniversary of Mary's appearance on February 11, the group would like to see Americans "rededicate

news in brief

TV watchers swayed A newly published survey shows notable differences in the attitudes of heavy TV watchers and light TV watchers on several social and political issues. According to the survey's findings, heavy TV viewers - defined as those who watch four hours or more each evening - are less likely to volunteer their time or to make charitable contributions than light TV viewers, defined as those who watch an hour or less each night. The heavy TV viewers are also less likely to go to church, less likely to place limits on the availability of divorce, and less likely to describe themselves as pro-life than those who are light TV viewers. They also are more likely to believe the government should be responsible for providing retirement benefits to Americans, more likely to prefer government health care to private health care, and more likely

themselves" to Mary. A jubilee year to celebrate the anniversary will begin on December 8, the feast day of the Immaculate Conception, and will end the following year on the same day. Throughout the year, Henson said, Lourdes and locations across the United States will commemorate Mary's appearance to St Bernadette. US Cardinal William J Levada, the head of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, will celebrate a special Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate

to say they would cheat a restaurant that underbilled them - but less likely to believe the media are harming America's moral values.

Adults owe young Adults have a debt to pay to today's young people; "we owe them real values that will provide them with a foundation for their lives," Pope Benedict XVI said. In a June 11 evening address to participants in the Diocese of Rome's annual pastoral convention, the Pope said all Catholic adults have a role to play in addressing the "education emergency" found in Italy and in other developed nations. For parents, teachers and religious educators "a growing difficulty is encountered in transmitting to new generations the basic values of existence and of correct behaviour," he said. "It is an inevitable emergency in a society and culture that too often makes relativism its creed." -CNS

Conception in Washington on February 11. On their Web site, Friends of Lourdes USA encourage the nation's Catholics to celebrate the Lourdes anniversary within their own parishes. "The whole thrust (of the Web site) is that the whole of the United States look again into the message of Lourdes, and the message of Our Lady actually in all her apparitions - prayer, penance and conversion," Henson said in a phone interview from Chicago. Chicago Cardinal Francis E. George is the honorary chairman of Friends of Lourdes USA. Other Catholic groups are

expected to make pilgrimages to Lourdes during the course of the jubilee year, Henson said. Some parishes will take more local trips to celebrate the anniversary, such as to the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, or Mount St Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Md. Both campuses have replicas of the Lourdes grotto. The grotto replica - the oldest one in the United States - hosts approximately 110,000 visitors a year. Father Lombardi thinks people are drawn to the grotto by its history and its beautiful setting. -CNS

Pastoral Services Vacancy Pastoral Services, St John of God Hospital Subiaco

he Pastoral Services Team SJG Hospital Subiaco seeks a qualified Pastoral Practitioner to contribute to the pastoral ministry of care to patients, families and staff.

The appointee will provide assessment and pastoral accompaniment across a broad range of clinical settings. The position is full-time with attractive salary levels. Two units of Clinical Pastoral Education, studies in Theology and experience in the provision of pastoral ministry are required. Experience in acute health care is desirable. Applications close on June 29, and should include the contact details of two professional referees. Selection criteria and application details may be obtained by contacting: Human Resources on (08) 9382 6238 For Further information call: The Pastoral Services Manager on (08) 9382 6223.

Page 8

Perspectives letters to the editor

Following last week's cloning controversy Archbishop Barry Hickey sent this letter to priests of the archdiocese

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(1)

Dear Father,

y intervention in the cloning and embryonic stemcell debate has aroused a lot of media attention, much of it not directly related to what I said. I spoke to a journalist from The West Australian on Tuesday afternoon, then responded to many calls from television, radio and newspapers on Wednesday. I entered the debate because I wanted to emphasise to all MPs, but particularly Catholic MPs, the seriousness of the debate on embryonic stemcells because it touched the sanctity of human life. Unfortunately, the issue was framed in the context of excommunication and/or refusal of communion. When questioned about excommunication I said it was a possibility under extreme circumstances, but that it did not apply in this case. I would like to clarify my position for your benefit and the benefit of your people. I am not threatening or implying excommunication. It is not appropriate in these circumstances. Nor am I threatening to withhold Communion from any Catholic MP who votes for the Bill. When people approach the altar we must presume good faith. I have said publicly that Catholics who vote for the cloning of embryos destined for destruction are going against the teaching of the Church on respect for life. I have said that if they vote to permit cloning they should examine their conscience deeply before presenting themselves for Communion. They may be in good faith, despite their action, because the obligation of conscience remains even when it might be an erroneous conscience. You may wish to inform your people that the Church is not PO Box 75. Leederville. WA 6902 opposed to the use of stemcells for Tel: (08) 9227 7080. treatment; the Church is opposed Fax (08) 9227 7087 to the destruction of those embryc,athrec@iinet.net.au os from which embryonic stemcells are taken. There is another source of stemcells, known as adult stemcells, which can come from cord blood and the placenta as well as from each person. Research on adult stemcells has already shown great promise and successful cures of some conditions. The moral problems are all about taking stemcells from human embryos which are thereby destroyed. This is not always clear to Catholics. Unfortunately I may have placed pro-life Catholic MPs in a difficult position by my stance and undermined their independence. They may feel compromised and be accused of voting at the bidding of the Church. If this is so, I owe them an apology because I have always admired their courage. Whatever the wisdom of my intervention - time will tell - but I want to make my position clear to you in this letter.

Rao

Yours sincerely in Jesus Christ, Archbishop Barry Hickey

e--

Couples Corner Hints for a Happy Marriage with Derek Boylen

Sexual Intimacy Sexual intimacy is one of the foundations for a successful marriage. The Church teaches that sex in marriage is not only the way babies are made but it is an essential element of marriage that couples are meant to enjoy and that helps spouses to grow together in love and life. Catholic Marriage $4 Education Services

Join Pope Benedict XVI in prayer June General intention: Sailors - That the Lord may protect sailors and all those involved in maritime activities. Mission intention: The North African Church - That the Church in North Africa may bear witness, with its presence and its action, to God's love for every individual and all peoples.

Time to stand together

r McGinty's claim that cloning will improve hundreds of thousands of West Australians is untrue, given the fact that embryo cloning has not achieved one cure anywhere in the world. Stem cells obtained from adult tissue, bone marrow and umbilical cord blood have successfully been used in the cure of 72 human conditions already. Embryonic stem cells have achieved none. In fact, cloned embryonic stem cells, as with embryonic stem cells, in general, form tumours when transplanted into adult tissues. Money is being wasted just to give some scientists their glory and fill their bank accounts; limited funds are more helpful spent on human adult stem cells. Many more clergy need to stand up and be counted. This takes courage today as you will not be popular with the world but with God, who is our judge at the end of our lives. It is long overdue for Christians to stand together. Mrs Margaret Thomas Mullewa

Not keen to debate?

Cardinal Pell wants the prinV—icipals and senior teachers at Sydney's 167 Catholic schools to publicly commit to a "vow of fidelity". To promise "religious submission of intellect and will" to church teachings on faith and morals. He was, of course, canned by the media, e.g. contemptuous comments plus distasteful cartoon in the June 4 Sydney Morning Herald. Did such knockers hope that would shut the Cardinal up? No such luck. Two days later, Cardinal Pell announced that NSW Catholic politicians voting for embryo-killing stem cell research should consider the consequences for their life in the Church. NSW Premier, Mr lemma, who says he's a practising Catholic, was peeved. One Labor MP even demanded that Cardinal Pell apologise. None seem keen, however, to debate the Catholic truth which the Cardinal defends - the sanctity of human life, including human life at its most vulnerable, embryonic, stage. Arnold Jago Mildura

Right to remind

he recent various statements on the manipulation of embryos and stem cells and the

June 14 2007, The Record

Thanks to our hero-bishops

our May 31 issue, 'Not For Sale: She's Worth More', on the proposed decriminalisation of prostitution in WA was a tsunami of information that swept aside previous debates such as Derek Boylen's post-Mass chatter and even the reconstruction of the cathedral. Not surprisingly even The Sunday Times sat up and took notice. Over two thousand years of existence the Catholic Church has always battled over issues of faith and morals. The Church has miraculously survived because... "I am with you always, to the end of the world," (Mat. 28:20). Attorney General Jim McGinty believes he is acting for the good of the whole community, but looking at the states that have already legalised prostitution it would appear that he is about to open a Pandora's Box of related evils in this state. This week in NSW where prostitution is legal, that is decriminalised, their government announced a 'new crackdown' on illegal brothels. Part of the crackdown incudes (wait for it) having their power and water supplies cut off. Legislation loopholes generating more legislation! While some people appear to favour the variant Swedish system (page 9), which Norway hopes to adopt in 2008, I think it is really a choice of the lesser of two evils. Even if a reduction to 20 per cent has been achieved, as cited of Stockholm over an 8 year period. Legalised prostitution, like a rose by any other name is still prostitution. 'Do you not know that your bodies are the members of Christ? So should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Absolutely not!' 1 Cor 6:15. All of which brings me to the subject of Catholic politicians. Judging by the recent spate of attacks against Cardinal Pell and Archbishop Hickey by high profile Catholic politicians (nominal, practicing or otherwise) it seems these people are supersensitive to Church teachings. It does not require the Pope or Cardinal or Archbishop for a Catholic Politician to be excommunicated. They excommunicate themselves when they make laws that are incompatible with the teachings of the Church. Can any Catholic who approves of abortion, euthanasia, legalised prostitution, honestly believe that they are entitled to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? Thank God for our hero-Shepherds Pell and Hickey. Adrian F Good Girrawheen

introduction of human cells into species other than human are of deep concern to many. The thoughtful statements by Archbishop Barry Hickey in Perth and Cardinal George Pell in Sydney should offer an opportunity to those in politics such as Mr Riebling and Mr Omedei to research and understand that the objections expressed by the bishops result from a belief system which has delivered laws and increasing civility into the human family over millennia. Further, to oppose the right of Christian leaders to speak in defence of the Christian system of belief is to ignore that they speak from the authority vested in them by a power higher than that of the West Australian Parliament. Mr Riebling and Mr Omedei are attempting to reduce the debate to one of Church v. State. Worse, with their populist statements they are attempting to deny the rights of Christian leaders to inform their faithful and, when necessary, remind members of the Church of their duties and responsibility. Adelia Bernard Brigadoon

A convenient ID?

oes anyone really understand what all the controversy is about? If "Catholic" politicians don't care for or respect what the Church teaches, why should they care for the consequences? And wouldn't any consequences only be a formal confirmation

by the Church of their choice? The precedent has been set by the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago - if we don't like what the Church teaches, we are free to leave or join any other church that's a better fit with our values. Not that this is the ideal outcome, but it is a choice we are all afforded. Is anyone forcing these people to stay Catholic? Who are they trying to fool? And how could the Catholic church possibly control affairs of the state if: a) not everyone in politics is Catholic, and b) if "Catholic" politicians who disagree with the Church are free to leave? Can the Church have influence? Sure, but isn't that dependent upon politicians actually choosing to put their faith first - guiding their thoughts and actions? Isn't it hypocritical if we call ourselves 'Catholic' but don't live it out in our day-to-day lives, or even go so far as to publicly challenge the Church on matters of faith and morals? Why stay? If they do stay, what kind of scandal does this cause for those who do appreciate their faith? Or what about those struggling to understand their faith - and for their example they see highprofile Catholics rejecting the Church's teachings? Shouldn't faith actually be about faith? If not, doesn't it become a matter of an identity badge - which some of us choose to wear only when it suits us? Geoff Breuder Wilson

•

June 14 2007, The Record

Youth organise 'No Clone Zone' protest

crowd of young people are taking a stand in front of Premier Alan Carpemnter's office (197 St Georges Tce, cnr Mill St, Perth) on Monday June 18 to implore politicians to ensure Western Australia remains a "NO Clone Zone". "NO Clone Zone" spokesman Chris Laundy, 18, said that "as Western Australian youth we don't want to inherit a world in which there are two classes of human beings - those who get a chance at life and the clones, who are made in a lab by a scientist, used for research and thrown away". "The WA Parliament is about to vote on a Bill introduced by Labor Premier Alan Carpenter's government that will allow cloning of human beings in WA. This has been banned since 1991 and it should stay banned. "I, like many of my friends, will be voting for the first time at the 2009 election, and cloning will be the number one issue for us in deciding how we vote. I couldn't vote for someone who votes for cloning." Clayton Walsh, 23, a supporter of NO Clone Zone, was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes when he was 13 and has to give himself regular insulin injections. "Naturally I would be thrilled if there was a cure for diabetes but if it came at the cost of creating and killing cloned human embryos then I couldn't accept it. No one deserves to die just so I don't need injections," Clayton said. "In any case the real breakthroughs with stem cell treatments are coming from the use of adult stem cells, which we can get without killing anyone. "The exciting trial in Brazil, reported in April, that resulted in 93 per cent of patients achieving significant periods of insulin independence, used adult stem cells from bone marrow. "Let's support cures that everyone can live with." Joanna Lawson, 26, the spokeswoman for No Clone Zone, wants politicians to think about the impact of cloning on women. "You can't create human embryo clones without eggs," she said. "Everywhere cloning is allowed women are being exploited. In Korea the notorious cloning fraud Dr Hwang Woo Suk got hold of thousands of eggs from women. How? He used bribery as well as coercion of female assistants. In Britain, poor women are being offered discounted IVF if they will hand over some of their eggs to the cloners." Several women, like 32-year-old Irish woman Jacqueline Rushton, who died in January 2003, have died as a result of undergoing ovarian stimulation. On behalf of the young women of Western Australia I urge the Premier to withdraw the cloning bill and keep WA a NO Clone Zone," she said. The protest outside the Premier's office will begin at 4.15 pm. For more information contact Chris Laundy 0411 373 228, Clayton Walsh 0404 754 066.

Re :) d

A OP TO.

LIFE IS PRECOIUS

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Embryonic Cloning raises fundamental questions about the value of the human person. But good intentions need to • keep up with the science.

OBSOLETE LEGISLATION7

Science outruns the MPs

"The so-called therapeutic cloning to my mind is a non-event". [As a way of creating cures] "it's just not realistic." - Professor Alan Trounson, Monash University; Australian Stem Cell Centre's global strategic science advisor "I can predict that therapeutic cloning is going to be obsolete." - Dr Jose Cibelli, Michigan State University Ste mcell technology and research is expanding and growing at a rapid rate. It's time MPs quit trying to jump the technological gun, ANTHONY BARICH reports

Why our bishops are right to speak as they did -John Heard Perth man rejects cure if it means ending another's life

apidly advancing research into the therapeutic benefits of stem cells in placentas from full-term pregnancies are about to render the current cloning legislation before WA Parliament obsolete. Dr Paul Watt, a Perth-based director of two public biotechnology companies and an honorary Research Fellow at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, says an analysis of breakthroughs published in the January 2007 edition of Nature Biotechnology journal could revolutionise stem cell research. Professor Alan Trounson, the Australian Stem Cell Centre's global strategic science advisor, says in January's edition of Nature Biotechnology that isolated stem cells from prenatal biopsies and from placental biopsies obtained after fullterm pregnancies "hold potential for a variety of therapeutic applications". The edition of Nature Biotechnology reveals a completely new class of stem cell that seems to have properties that are not the same as adult or embryonic stem cells but may have similar "pluripotentiality" - the ability of a cell to form all the cells of the body. The announcement referred to a study outlined in an article in Nature Biotechnology titled 'Isolation of amniotic stem cell lines with potential for therapy' by the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina, which has collaborators based at Harvard Medical School, found stem cells derived from the amniotic fluid and even placentas of newborn babies can be directed into a wide range of cell types. Like embryonic stem cells, these cells have enormously wide differentiation potential and are able to differentiate into bone, fat, muscle, brain and liver cells and blood vessels. They are also a safer bet than working with embryonic stem cells, which bear the risk of embryonic cancers. They have broader applicability than embryonic stem cells yet are expected to have a much greater "safety profile". Dr Watt, an adjunct Associate Professor at the University of WA's School of Paediatrics and Child Health, said he wouldn't be surprised if, "in 10 years time, we see placentas from newborn babies being banked

Vista 1 Vista

as a source of these exciting stem cells - just as cord blood from babies is frequently banked in various countries as a sources of stem cells to treat leukemia and other blood disorders". It has been found that amniotic fluid-derived stem (AFS) cells and stem cells from placentas may be directed into a range of cell types with typical tissue characteristics. The contentious process of partially draining amniotic fluid from the womb during pregnancy under guided ultra-sound when the mother is producing too much can bring on a rare miscarriage, still-birth or preterm labour but ease the woman's very uncomfortable bloated experience. However, during the procedure doctors are monitoring the baby to ensure these dangers do not happen. "Iwouldn't advocate using amniotic fluid, as it exposes the baby to risk," Dr Watt said, adding that the same cells can be derived from the placenta anyway and could be harvested at birth. Prof Trounson, an internationallyrecognised pioneer in embryonic and stem cell research with over 30 years experience in reproductive medicine, says such a renewable source of multipotential stem cells with the functional capacity to repair and regenerate a wide range of tissue types would be "extremely valuable". Dr Watt says the area is expanding rapidly and soon there will be a number of cases where there are lower-risk sources of stem cells with "fantastic results". "More resources need to be poured into these technologies, both in the public sector research and in the private sector in companies like Mesoblast," [an Australian public stem cell company] he said, adding that this renders the coming WA legislation, and that which has just passed through the Lower House of NSW Parliament, as obsolete. "If these technologies continue to accelerate at this pace they may well provide a much lower-risk alternative to these treatments. If presented with two alternatives, one which is a lower or negligible risk of cancer versus another form of treatment that has a risk of cancer, regulators like the Therapeutic Goods Administration and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are more likely to favour the lower-risk alternative."

Deacon was healed of serious disease by adult stem cell cure Quadraplegic man says will not be a scapegoat for doning lobby'

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One life for another

Sftecai Reime

'Veadet Pet9e 2

Research leapfrogs Australia's stem cell laws Research on mice easily adapted to humans renders legislation obsolete • By Anthony Barich

he Australian Stem Cell Centre's global strategic science advisor Prof Alan Trounson has hailed last week's breakthrough in genetic research, saying it will change the face of stem cell technology as we know it. Research reported last week by three different groups shows that normal skin cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic state in mice. It is technology which, when applied to humans, will make it relatively easy to produce cells that seem indistinguishable from

embryonic stem cells, and that are genetically matched to individual patients. This will render the cloning legislation currently before WA Parliament unnecessary and irrelevant, according to Sydney bioethicist Brigid McKenna. The Australian newspaper last week announced that if that process - already front-page news in New York, Washington, London and Tokyo - can be applied to humans, "the debate over the use of embryonic stem cells would end". Dr McKenna said the breakthrough was ethically sound, and called on West Australian politicians to turn their attention and resources to technologies that have tangible benefits rather than the empty and dangerous promises that embryonic stern cell research gives. "This scientific breakthrough is another clear indication that it is possible to find

cures that we can all live with," said Dr McKenna, also director of Sydney's Catholic Life Office. Nature Publishing Group's science journal, Nature, said in this month's edition that the race is now on to apply the "surprisingly straightforward procedure" to human cells. Prof Trounson, an internationally-recognised pioneer in embryonic and stem cell research with over 30 years experience in reproductive medicine, described the break through in the Nature journal as "unbelievable; just amazing". "It's like Dolly. It's that type of accomplishment," he told the Nature journal, adding that he would start using the technique "tomorrow". "It would change the way we see things quite dramatically. I can think of a dozen experiments right now - and they're all good ones."

Dr McKenna understands the frustration by researchers in finding therapeutic benefits, but there is a line that cannot be crossed. "The case for the expansion of human embryo experimentation to include the creation of cloned human embryos can seem compelling," Dr McKenna said. "It draws on noble sentiments of compassion for the sick and the hope for new treatments for debilitating diseases. "However, the case against this WA Bill is grounded in justice, compassion and hope for the sick and suffering. Whatever might be said about the moral status of these embryos, that they are human and alive is beyond dispute. Yet this Bill places some living human beings beyond the reach of justice and respect for their intrinsic human dignity. This Bill also risks directing scientific research down a blind alley."

It is estimated that there are currently over 80 therapies and around 300 clinical trials underway using ethical stem cells from adult tissues and cord blood, according to an editorial in Nature Biotechnology's July 2005 edition "However, embryonic stem cell research remains beset by serious scientific problems: there is still no evidence that stem cells can be readily obtained from a cloned human embryo, let alone be used for treatment," Dr McKenna said said. As well as ethical problems, the cloning procedure is technically difficult, according to the Nature journal. "It involves obtaining unfertilised eggs, replacing their genetic material with that from an adult cell and then forcing the cell to divide to create an early-stage embryo, from which the stem cells can be harvested," it said, adding that those barriers may now have been broken down

Careful: A researcher handles culture trays containing human embryonic stem L ei; a iab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Biologist James Thomson ted ;-,e team there that successfully established the first embryonic stem-cell lines in CNS 1 4 ,

Improving me not worth sacrificing a life Pursuit of unethical cures 'fuelled by convenience' • By Sylvia Defendi

Not For Sale - Femenists Resisting Prositution and Pornography Spinifex Press, 2007 Available from The Record $34.95+postage Contact Natalie at The Record on (08) 9227 7080 or email bookshop@therecord.com.au

Despite suffering from a serious case of type-I diabetes, which requires up to four injections of insulin a day, Trevor Lyra said he would reject any treatment resulting from research into embryonic stem cells. "I just don't see any justice in murdering another human being to improve my living conditions," he told The Record. Mr Lyra, a father of five who has suffered from the illness for almost 35 years, says he is one of many who oppose the macabre research that promises future cures. "Not everyone is enthralled with the idea of experimenting and then destroying human life in its earliest form. There are some, young and old alike, who despite their critical conditions oppose such 'research'," he said. Current treatments for severe cases of type-I diabetes include the transplant of a healthy pancreas from a deceased donor. However, this treatment has proven to provide merely shortterm relief, as eventual rejection

Content: Trevor Lyra won't "murder another human' to improve his own life. of the foreign organ is inevitable. Research into stem-cells, while still a relatively new form of medicine, would essentially allow a suffering patient to grow their own, healthy functioning pancreas from implanted stem-cells. Stem-cells can be found in both fully formed adults as well as newly forming embryos. While Mr Lyra said he had no problems in accepting research

into the possibilities adult stemcells may hold, he said he could not justify research into embryonic stem-cells which have yet to prove the possibility of a viable cure. "A case I am aware of in the United Kingdom used embryonic stem-cells to cure a person with type-I diabetes and failed. "Yet another case, documented in America, reported that there is

hope in research into adult stemcells," he said. Expressing a great faith in the abilities of modern science, Mr Lyra said he believes there are other methods, yet to be discovered, of curing diseases, such as diabetes, in ways that are not ethically immoral. "I would be happy to participate in the life-giving gift of adult stem-cells, that are given with the consent of a living person and not robbed from those who do not have a voice," he said. Mr Lyra said he believed the pursuit of research on embryonic stem-cells was merely fueled by convenience. "It is much easier to create and destroy human life, than to seek out those in the community willing to help save lives," he said. Of the impending Bill to allow research into embryonic stemcells Mr Lyra said he would be disappointed if humans were treated as lab-rats, just because they were not fully formed. "In all honesty, I feel sorry for those who believe they would benefit at the cost of a fellow human being," he said.

One life for another

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WA legislation flies in face of science

If empirical scientific evidence proves embryos are human life, why are we legislating to kill them? • By Anthony Barich

he very nature of the Human Reproductive Technology Amendment Bill 2007 is at odds with the long-held consensus scientific view of when human life begins. The Bill retains the ban on human cloning for reproductive purposes but allows for the creation of embryos by means other than fertilisation and the use of those embryos for research.

"Scientific information... demonstrates empirically that normally every human being begins at fertilisation as a single-cell embryo, the zygote" Dr Dianne Irving, former career-appointed bench research biochemist/biologist for the National Institute of Health in the US, said that one of the most urgent yet least discussed dilemmas facing those concerned with bioethics, including abortion, is access to the correct basic sci-

Is this life: A microscopic view shows a colony of undifferentiated human embryonic stem cells being studied at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

entific information regarding the human embryo. She said this at the Scientific Conference, "The Guadalupan Appeal: The Dignity and Status of the Human Embryo" in Mexico City in 1999. information... "Scientific demonstrates empirically that normally every human being begins at fertilisation as a singlecell embryo, the zygote," said Dr Irving, representing the Catholic

CNS PHOTO FROM UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON

Medical Association of the United States and the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations.

"Without this correct scientific information we are all precluded from forming our consciences correctly or making morally correct decisions about abortion, human embryo research, human embryonic stem cell research, cloning, formation of interspecies chimeras, germ-line DNA recom-

binant gene research and therapy, and other related current medical and scientific issues. "The use of the correct science is indeed the starting point for thinking about all of this, short of Divine Revelation." Perth-based Dr Paul Watt, honorary Research Fellow at Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, says there is no question now that human development is continual.

"My definition of a human organism is an entity which comprises solely of human cells that are self-organising and is going down a path of differentiation which we all go down," said Dr Watt, also the director of two public biotechnology companies. "Despite what the press might suggest, or what disingenuous scientists might suggest, any attempt to find a particular stage of development as the stage before which the entity is not human is effectively arbitrary. It is arbitrary because the process of development is indeed a continuum, and even from the earliest stages of embryonic development, we have an entity which is undeniably human and is undeniably committed to a differentiation path that we've all been on when we grew from a single cell. "Otherwise, you can always ask the question, 'why wouldn't anyone define this line a few days later or a few days earlier', because there is no magical point "when suddenly this entity obtains a completely new character. The character is consistent; this entity is committed to proceeding down the normal path of development of a human, or, in the case of human babies like twins or triplets, a number of humans. "So most of these attempts to define pre-human stages of development are really driven by ideology and politics and not driven by scientific fact." Dr Watt says there is "absolutely no difference" between the entities that are being experimented on as embryos and the "entities that we grew up from". "They're exactly the same type of organism," he said.

Don't try to tell me you're acting in my interests

Quadriplegic ANTHONY SUCCAR, 25, resents politicians claiming to act for him by redirecting urgent resources away from real research and cures

efore I start out, let's make something clear: I'm Catholic. And I'm against embryonic stem cell research. But before anyone starts jumping up and down saying I'm only against it because I'm Catholic, I'd like to make something else clear: I am against embryonic stem cell research first and foremost because it's bad science. Even worse than that, politicians are supporting research that not only doesn't offer any foreseeable benefits, but also is actually harmful in that it diverts attention and resources away from research that actually does help those afflicted. And yet these same politicians claim to be acting for people like me out of their consciences, of all things.

Thirdly, I'm sick to death of politicians saying 'we're following our conscience' and 'we're doing it for the disabled and afflicted'. Who's really benefiting here? When I was 14 I was involved in a motor vehicle accident that left me a C4-5 quadriplegic, paralysed from the neck down. The very notion of the politicians' position is hypocritical to say the least, but the hypocrisy doesn't become evident unless the first point is being realised. Embryonic stem cell research is a science that provides no foreseeable prospect and the proponents of it all appear to have ulterior agendas because the rationale behind the legalising is happening in such a rushed manner. And no one, particularly those who are disabled, or afflicted, is being consulted. How do I know that? I can read and I can understand. Anybody with any common sense who devotes a couple of hours of research, even on google, can understand this. Only after these points are considered do we get to the moral issue. It's not a Catholic Church issue. Nobody needs the Catholic Church to tell them that killing or stealing is wrong. There is intrinsic in everything a moral truth - principles that everyone agrees on. Morality cannot be subjective; otherwise terrorists are justified as they're following their own conscience. Conscience alone does not govern us. Uninformed conscience does not serve the person himself. A conscience, to guide a person, must be informed. The position of the Church informs the conscience of morality. Morality is not something that is exclusive to Christians; it

id Only after these points are considered do we get to the moral issue. Its not a Catholic Church issue. Nobody needs the Catholic Church to tell them that killing or stealing IS wrong.PP forms part of the natural norm of morality. Any Catholic, politician or otherwise, who claims they are following their conscience in rebelling against Church teaching is from thenceforth in disunity with the Church. This may not concern politicians - even Catholic ones - but consider this: the Church never teaches the primacy of the conscience, but that we need to follow an informed conscience. So back to the topic at hand. The fact is embryonic research is bad science and is also immoral in that it involves the destruction of human life.

If we fail to agree on life beginning at conception, then who makes the decision on when it does start? Where do we draw the line? There must be a definite time, which the Church teaches is at conception. If we had an embryo that we knew was of an extinct species - take the Tasmanian Devil. I will challenge any scientist to work up the courage and make the bold statement that it's only an embryo and it's ok to destroy it. It's the embryo of an animal that is given such respect and protection. Why are we not to afford the same to human embryos? Is it because we have such a large quantity of them? Are we indisposable? If animal rights activists found out they have an embryo of an animal that is near extinction and that there are plans to destroy it and experiment on it, there would be an up-roar. This is not a religious debate. It's not your belief versus my belief. The people who stand to benefit most from this - the disabled and the afflicted - are the losers. And they will lose dearly. The moral issue is important, but it's ultimately beside the point. And these politicians who are steering this debate into a religious forum are doing so with the intention of diverting the attention away from the science issue. It's just bad science, which happens to be immoral. That is why the Church got involved. If its bad science and it weren't immoral, the Church wouldn't have got involved. I'm proud to be part of a Church that clearly stands up against such an onslaught. One of the few that is willing to stand up against a tidal wave of absolute lies, deceit and hypocrisy. Anthony Succar is an IT support analyst and stem cells spokesman for the Australian Catholic Young Adults Network

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One life for another

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The World FEATURE

One life for another

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The World FEATURE

Sizeea Roofre

Utilitarianism: not always greatest good

Utilitarianism is one of the most prominent of modern moral philosophies, and the most controversial. Its denial that moral rights are the basic currency of moral thinking — and the manifold consequences of this denial in a wide range of significant practical issues — is well known. What is not so well understood, however, is where utilitarianism came from, and why, under the more general rubric orethical consequentialism", it now enjoys such respect in academic meta-ethical debates. Using utilitarian thought as a rationale, legislation is before the West Australian Parliament allowing the creation of human embryos specifically for research

purposes to better the human condition, which contravenes the Catholic Church's belief that human embryos are human beings at the very beginning of life and cannot be jeopardised, even in the name of potentially huge benefits for mankind. This raises important questions about how we came to this conclusion. This paper, by a philosopher of the Australian Catholic University, aims to throw some light on these issues. By doing so, he identifies utilitarianism's fundamental commitments - and indicates why the academic preoccupation with "ethical consequentialism" is a distraction from the main issue.

Probably the most persuasive ethical theory in contemporary ethical debates in the media and in politics is utilitarianism. Here philosopher Stephen Buckle, of the Australian Catholic University, analyses its main features.

actions or social policies are to be judged. This theory is known as "preference utilitarianism-, to distinguish it from the original, hedonic, theory. (Perhaps the bestknown version of preference utilitarianism is Peter Singer's ethical theory.)

Human life: Children's Hospital Boston released this high-magnification view of human embryonic stem cells when it announced in June last year that it is pursuing research that utilises discarded donor eggs and embryos from women undergoing in vitro fertilisation. The cells in this photo have been stained to make their components more visible. , ,,)TO CNS of reasoning, that is, its consequentialism: the conviction that alternative courses of action are to be measured purely by their consequences. This element has become the main focus of attention in recent years, and explains why "consequentialism" has become the preferred mode of self-description amongst philosophical sympathisers. But things were not always so. In the beginning, it was utilitarianism's content that was the more striking and (to its followers) more attractive component of the theory. The absence of any appeal to higher authorities or to metaphysical ideals made it appear the ideal theory for a new secular age. The principal source of complaint from its sympathetic critics lay in the thought that the secularism achieved was too crude, psychologically speaking. The reduction of happiness - and, by extension, all human ideals - to the mere quantity of (physical) pleasure led John Stuart Mill to describe Bentham's position as moral philosophy reduced to the "principles which regulate trade". So Mill proposed a compromise view - indebted to the hierarchical moral psychology of Plato - in which pleasures could be divided into higher (intellectual) pleasures

and lower (physical) pleasures, such that the higher always trump the lower. (He famously observed: "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied".) But this proposal found little favour amongst his fellow-utilitarians, because it destroyed what most found so attractive about the new theory: its promise of mathematically-certain moral conclusions. The pursuit of this promise principally in the hands of twentieth-century economists - led to a significant change in the theory itself. The basic currency of utilitarianism, pleasure, allowed only very limited, and indeed misleadingly limited, quantification. Bentham had "solved" the problem by stipulating that everyone was to count for one. As a principle of basic human equality, this may be all very well. But as a principle of moral mathematics, it allowed only the crude measures: pleasure = +1, pain = -1. But pleasures and pains come in degrees, so, even if everyone is equal in general value, the intensities of their pleasures and pains, and therefore their specific values, need not be. So any serious attempt to measure the highest

utility must fail. A different measure was therefore needed. The new measure proposed dispensed with the theory's prior focus on subjective satisfactions (i.e. on happiness or pleasure). It replaced this hidden standard with a thoroughly public one: preference-satisfaction, or, in cruder terms, getting what you want. The advantage of this change is entirely to do with quantifiability: while it is impossible to measure the degree of happiness or pleasure achieved by a certain action or policy, it is perfectly possible to measure the extent to which preferences have been satisfied. If Person A wants a new Mercedes every year, whereas Person B wants good hospitals, it will be obvious to all whether, or to what extent, a given action or social policy delivers them the objects of their desire. It will even be possible to measure various alternative social policies by the number of preferences each can be predicted to satisfy. The dream of moral mathematics can thus be saved; so the economists, and, following them, the utilitarian philosophers, came to advocate the greatest level of preference-satisfaction as the practically-rational - and thus the moral - standard by which possible

-Consequentialism- is the name for the formal part of the utilitarian doctrine: the view that all practical reasoning is in terms of consequences, such that the best course of action is necessarily that course of action that produces the best consequences. It is distinct from utilitarianism in that it resists stipulating what those consequences are. As such, it can be thought of as an all-embracing doctrine about what decisions or actions must be like to be practically rational - and so is commonly adjudged by philosophers to provide a sophisticated background test for all practical decision-making. Since consequentialism does not tell anyone what to do - it cannot, because it resists telling us which consequences count - it is not itself an ethical theory. But it is plainly not neutral with respect to ethical theory, since it rules out - as irrational - any variety of ethical thinking that fails to fit the consequentialist pattern. Consequentialism thus seems to provide powerful background support for utilitarianism, by removing all non-consequentialist theories from serious consideration. Given that most traditional ethical doctrines are not obviously fitted to the consequentialist mould, the upshot is that traditional ethical values - the source of criticisms of utilitarian doctrines - can be set aside as mere prejudice obstructing the implementation of progressive moral opinion. Consequentialist practical rationality thus sweeps the field clean for utilitarianism's triumph.

Consequentialism and rational choice theory

n this light, it is plainly important to examine the credentials of the consequentialist theory

Some say that without embryonic stem

"THEY TELL ME I MAY HOLD THE CURE FOR PARKINSON'S."

cells, we are depriving science of solutions

Stem cells in our bodies work wonders.

to debilitating diseases. But after two

They repair damaged organs. They rebuild

decades of research, embryonic stem cells have not helped a single human being. And they come with a hefty price tag: they are only obtained by destroying a living human embryo. An embryo like

vital tissues and muscles. And they have already changed people's lives. They've helped people with severe spinal cord injuries to walk again. They've helped children avoid a life of pain from sickle-

Joshua, 270 days ago. Meanwhile, adult stem cells

cell anemia. And stem cells are showing

have helped

fiather promise in treating a host of

thousands of

diseases like Parkinson's, diabetes and heart disease. But these are not embryonic

Joshua was just an embryo.

stem cells. They are adult stein cells,

people including

obtained without harming anyone.

patients with

Some insist miracle cures will come only

Parkinson's disease,

from embryonic stem cells. Yet two decades

spinal cord injury, sickle-cell anemia, heart damage and many other conditions. And these stem

Consequentialism and the form of practical reasoning

What is Utilitarianism? tilitartantsm, as a distinct moral doctrine, is commonly traced to the writings of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). His book, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, published in 1789, the year of the French Revolution, can be considered to have launched utilitarianism upon the (Anglophone) world. This conjunction of events brought Bentham considerable fame, since utilitarianism was thought to capture the progressive spirit of the Revolution. His reformist writings made him the godfather of a group called the Philosophic Radicals, who advocated a series of reforms based on utilitarian principles. Prominent amongst the Radicals was James Mill, the father of John Stuart Mill. Bentham's utilitarianism proclaimed that the worth of any action lay entirely in its usefulness (or utility) for human beings. Hence the doctrine's name. But the distinctive character of the doctrine depended on his further specification of what counted as useful: he claimed that human happiness was the measure, and further stipulated that happiness was not some abstruse philosophical ideal, but merely pleasure. His further stipulation that each person's pleasure counted for the same gave the doctrine the practical edge which has always been, for its advocates, one of its primary attractions: it meant that alternative courses of action could be assessed for their moral worth simply by adding up their consequences in terms of the pleasure (+1) or pain (-1) imposed on those affected. The best course of action was simply the course of action that generated the highest score. Moral mathematics was born. Utilitarianism thus construed can be divided into two component parts: its form and its content. The formal component is its model

Only 270 days ago,

of embryonic stein cell research have not helped a single person. Embryonic stem

cells are readily available, found in bone

cells tend to be genetically unstable and

marrow, umbilical cord blood, skin, fat

can form lethal tumors. And they come

and other tissues and organs.

with a hefty price tag: living human

Stern cell research is finding solutions.

embryos must be killed to obtain their cells.

Adult stem cell research_ Science does not

Embryonic stem cells have been hyped.

have to kill in order to cure.

But it's the adult stein cells that are showing hope. So, where's the fiiture?

Adult Stem Cell Research. Let's Find Cures We Can All Live With. FOI

Look deep inside. The answer is clear.

Pisa WVATUSCOUNIONIOLIE

Ethical: - ne US Conference of Catholic Bishops launcned a nationwide ad campaign in support of adult stem-cell research, with the theme "Let's find cures we can all live with.'Two ads developed on that theme CV were to appear in USA Today, The Washington Times and National Catholic Reporter in the two weeks leading up to the 2004 election. The ads also were sent to US dioceses for use in local publications. of practical rationality. In brief, it can be described as the view that rational choice consists in choosing some good outcome; that it is more rational to choose the best amongst alternative possible goods; and so rational choice and action is to be defined in terms of maximising good outcomes. Ethics then plugs into this basic framework by specifying in what terms the good outcomes are to be understood, i.e. in terms of happiness or desire-satisfaction or characterdevelopment or even some variety of ideal-attainment. Ethically good action will therefore be the attempt to maximise the specified good outcome. Rationality is thus defined purely in terms of the maximising tendency, and not at all in terms of the actual values pursued: the rational choice conception is neutral with respect to actual values. This is commonly taken to be the strength of this conception of rationality: its neutrality is attributed to its degree of abstraction and so also of explanatory power. This is, however, only half true. For varieties of choice and action that uncontroversially fit into this pattern, the abstraction and so e xplanatory power of this conception of rationality is undeniable. But it is certainly not the case that ethics uncontroversially fits the pattern: as mentioned above, t raditional ethics is not purely c onsequentialist, and so needs to be redefined in order to fit. Traditional norms or duties have to be reconceived as desires (and

perhaps also, as an intermediate step, as values). Such reconception is plainly not a neutral process, so why should it be accepted? In order to explain this, a thoroughly non-neutral commitment of modern rational choice theory needs to be brought to the fore: its conception of reason as a calculative capacity in the service of given values. The calculative aspect lies in the fact that rationality on this model essentially amounts to adding up the quantity of goodness of each alternative, in order to choose the highest scoring alternative. The givenness of the values is plain from the fact that the model accords them no theoretical attention whatsoever. Reason is thus c onceived as a service industry, a method applicable to one's values in order to assist in their attainment: the values themselves are not open to rational assessment. Why not? The standard rationale for this view is that values are not subject to rational assessment because values are subjective. They come into the world through human desires, and do so because they are in fact nothing more than human desires. (And, it is usually added, since humans are all different and desire different things, values are wholly personal - what each person desires.) The model of reason built into r ational choice theory is thus a version of the "Humean" (or instrumental) theory of reason: reason serves desire, and does so by calculating how desires are most efficiently satisfied. Reason cannot

therefore judge between alternative desires; and, given that values and desires are equated, reason cannot judge between alternative values. This theory of reason amounts to a reinterpretation of human nature: specifically, of the idea that the human being is the rational being. Traditionally, this meant that the human being is a being who acts in the light of rationallyacquired knowledge of the world, including knowledge of objective goods. In the Humean reinterpretation, it means only that the human being is a being which calculates how to satisfy its desires: it is an animal distinguishable from other animals only by its greater capacity to figure out how to get what it wants. To see what is lost in this reconception, it is only necessary to observe that it implies no difference in dignity between animal and human life. So the idea that there is a distinctive dignity to human beings turns out to be unjustified on this conception.

Form and content issues: a summary One central task of an examination of consequentialist modes of ethical thinking must therefore be to examine the form of rationality built into such thinking: the Humean model of practical rationality. This will require a direct assessment of the basics of modern rational choice theory: its concep-

tion of rationality (and implicit conception of human nature); and its equation of norms (or duties) and values and desires. Utilitaranism adds to this form a distinctive content. So examination of the specifically utilitarian brands of consequentialism requires assessing the distinctive content of utilitarian values: of the ethical value of a hedonic conception of happiness ("classical" utiliatarianism), and, especially, of the ethical value of the mere fact of getting what one wants (preference utilitarianism). The impact of these values on practical ethical questions then needs to be identified and assessed. This will include, among other things, their impact on such commonly-employed notions as the meaning and dignity and quality of a human life.

Concluding remarks At bottom, utilitarian moral theory is a consequence of the empiricist revolution in modern philosophy. Empiricism denied innate knowledge and restricted what could be known to human experience. But it did more than that. It implicitly denied that human beings were the truth-seeking rational beings that the ancient and medieval worlds had taken them to be. Hume's dethroning of reason has to be seen in this light. At the same time, however, modern empiricism accepted Aristotle's view that experience can deliver

only useful knowledge. So a reason that only serves passion is a calculative capacity concerning only which of the available alternative actions is the most useful. Any idea of moral truth, or even of value other than usefulness, has simply been set aside. In consequence, all that is needed to generate specific utilitarian theories is to settle on a criterion of usefulness. Bentham's hedonic standard and the economists' preference-satisfaction standard are the two most widely-accepted criteria, and so the most influential theories. It is plain that both implicitly rule out the distinctive concerns of a rational being, as traditionally understood, and so both fit the Humean recasting of the human being. The "ethical consequentialism" that so preoccupies the academic moral philosophers, with its attempt to legislate for acceptable moral positions by reference merely to (its account of) the form of practical reasoning, is thus a distorting lens through which to comprehend human morality. This apparently formal category in fact predisposes filling out ethical theory according to the narrowed content imposed by empiricism's restriction to the useful, and so is not the neutral category it purports to be. In the end, then, the fundamental division between utilitarianism and its traditional rivals will not be settled by the formalist preoccupations of so much contemporary meta-ethics. What is fundamentally at issue is the nature of the human being.

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One life for another

Just a little bit of cloning? A little evil for the greater good • By Marcia Riordan

Sydney Life Office director Dr Brigid McKenna calls for funds to be diverted into research for use of adult stem sells instead of embryonic stem cells s By Anthony Barich

cians should fund scientists to lead the way in promising adult stem cell research rather than sacrificing ethical standards and embryonic human beings for the sake of 'nationally consistent legislation'. Cloning involves somatic cell nuclear transfer, the same technology used to create Dolly the Sheep. The genetic material (nucleus) from a person's body cell is introduced into a woman's egg that has had its own nucleus removed, and then triggered to grow and develop as a human embryo. This embryo will be a genetic copy of the person who provided the body cell - similar to an identical twin. The NSW and WA Bills removed the current bans on human cloning, and will effectively allow for the creation of cloned human embryos and their subsequent destruction in research, drug testing or efforts to obtain rejection-proof stem cells for transplantation - referred to as "therapeutic cloning". However, Dr McKenna said human beings from embryo to adulthood are always "ends in

Legislation recently passed through NSW's Lower House that replicates West Australian proposals opens the floodgates for further abuses of the human person, according to Sydney Catholic Archdiocese Life Office director Dr Brigid McKenna. Legislation has been passed in NSW and is before Parliament in WA to harmonise cloning laws with Federal law and other States are expected to do the same, To align State legislation with the Commonwealth, WA's Human Reproductive Technology Amendment Bill 2007 makes it criminal to develop a hybrid embryo for more themselves". than 14 days, punishable by 15 "Even said that even if embryo years imprisonment. cloning and research were to lead The WA legislation also makes to future medical advances, the it a crime to create or develop a utilitarian idea we can justify hybrid embryo but is not illegal if doing 'a little' evil for the sake of the creation of the hybrid embryo a 'greater' good should be firmly is authorised by an NHMRC rejected," she said. (National Health and Medical This Bill would result in two Research Council) license. classes of human beings - those However, Dr McKenna, a created to live and those created bioethicist, branded the 14-day to be killed in research." distinction as "entirely arbiAt the United Nations' trary". International Convention "If researchers later discover Against the Reproductive that 28-day embryos provide Cloning of Human Beings in more stable and useful stem 2005, the UN General Assembly cells, it will be hard to justify declared that Member States are why embryos can only develop called upon to prohibit all forms outside the body of the woman of human cloning inasmuch for 14 days," she said. as they are incompatible with Dr McKenna said WA politi- human dignity and the proteccians can be consoled they are tion of human life. doing the right thing ethically It also called on Member States and say 'no' to the Bill without to "adopt the measures necessary denying the public the great bento prohibit the application of efits of stem cell science. genetic engineering techniques It is estimated that there are that may be contrary to human currently over 80 therapies and dignity". Members States were around 300 clinical trials under- called upon to adopt and impleway using ethical stem cells from ment "without delay" national adult tissues and cord blood. legislation to bring these recomDr McKenna said WA politi- mendations into effect.

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In 2004 those promotingresearch and experimentation on human embryos promised us that if we allowed just a little bit of research on human embryos they could cure all kinds of diseases ranging from diabetes to Parkinson's disease. Just a little bit of research and human embryonic stem cells would help Superman walk again. Sound fantastic? It is now 2007. Superman is dead (read the comics) and there are still no cures from embryonic stem cells. That's right - no cures yet. Surprising it may be, but embryonic stems are not the elixir of life Marcia Riordan we were promised. They cause tumors, they are hard to control and all of us with workare worth creating a new class of thousands of women giving up their ing immune systems will reject human being purely to be exploited. eggs there can be no human clonthese foreign cells. It is the ultimate exploitation over ing, and no tailor-made embryonic A fter all, they belong to someone the powerful against the weak. stem cell lines. else and unless our immune system If you think nuclear power is So we are talking about using can be turned off or convinced dangerous because of the legacy it eggs from thousands of vulnerable otherwise they are not much use at might leave future generations then women and destroying thousands all. The only way around this prob- stop and ponder what scientists are of early human embryos as well lem, and it is a significant problem, talking about allowing here. in order to work out how to clone is to make hundreds of thousands Combined with genetic engia human. of embryonic stem cell lines from neering —unlocking the door to Then if we can pass first base existing "spare IVF" embryos in human cloning means we are on we still need to work out how to order to have enough matches or to the verge of altering human evoluextract stem cell lines from these tailor make them for every patient. tion itself. It is that powerful. clones. Cloned embryonic stem cell So despite the fact that it has No other generation has held that lines are still likely to be defective proved very difficult to make power in its hands. But it only gets as all cloned animals have been embryonic stem cell lines from worse. No-one has yet "successso far. existing"spare" embryos Australian fully" cloned a human embryo. We then want to put defective parliaments are now being asked to All such claims have turned out cloned embryonic stem cells into sign off and allow just a little bit of to be false including the reports patients, even though we know human cloning to get around this from disgraced Korean scientist that embryonic stem cells only problem. Hwang Woo-suk and his team. cause more problems because they So we have gone from just a little It is just not that easy to clone are still uncontrollable and cause bit of destructive embryo research animals let alone humans. The tumours. It is just not practical. to now making cloned human makers of Dolly the Sheep found But even if all these problems can embryos entirely for research and they used 277 eggs to produce just be overcome in time, there is still destructive experimentation. one clone, Dolly. something unethical about doing For each patient just a little bit of And even Dolly has turned out just a little bit of cloning. human cloning will allow embryto be genetically and physically It is a little bit like human toronic stem cell lines to be made (we defective. ture it is not possible to have just a are told). In fact Ian Wilmut, Dolly's crea- little bit of human cloning. What is In other words researchers would tor, now says that all cloned anithe big rush? create a clone of us - our own twin mals are defective. However it is not too late to say via Somatic cell nuclear transfer Also of concern is the fact that no to human cloning. (SCNT) - or "therapeutic" cloning the Korean team used over 2000 The significance of human clonso that embryonic stem cells could eggs from over 86 women in their ing is not lost on groups such as the be harvested for us, destroying our human cloning experiments. greens, feminists, Catholics and own twin in the process. It has since come to light that others who are forming new and It is clever language but no some women in the Korean team perhaps unlikely alliances both in language can hide the fact that itself were forced into providing Australia and overseas to defeat it is human cloning we are talkeggs for experimentation. the ultimate commodification of ing about doing, and wherever we Women on IVF programs might human life. decide to stop the experiment, we be willing to take certain risks in Marcia Riordan is Executive Officer of Respect Life have still created a human clone. the hope of a child but is it right Office Melbourne and does medical research for There is something about this to ask vulnerable and poor women I Children's Hospital in Melbourne. that should cause us to shudder. with few resources to endure these No experiment, no research, life threatening extraction proceno potential cures or treatments dures? For without thousands and

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The lukewarm and these firebrands

Being Heard • By John Heard

"I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, 'I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything,' and yet do not realise that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked." - REVELATION 3, 15-17

hile George Cardinal Pell in Sydney and Perth's Archbishop Barry Hickey did not spit, their message last week was clear: Catholics cannot persist in some sort of schizophrenia wherein we say yes to Christ now and then no to Him whenever the demands of the secular world - money, political ambition or otherwise - force us to take a stand. A fter a week where Cardinal Pell intervened in the NSW stem cell debate, injecting a potent dose of moral clarity into an emotive Parliamentary vote, and Archbishop Hickey made it clear to Western Australians that human life is precious no matter how few cells one owns or how tiny the life at stake, Catholic teaching is front and centre in Australian life. This is a remarkable development. If there was ever any question, who can seriously doubt now that the Catholic Church in Australia is committed to human life? What is more, these events came as the media discovered that Sydney Catholic school principals would be required to publicly affirm Catholic teaching on faith and morals. It is right to say then that the Catholic commitment to evangelisation just stepped up a notch. That this needed to happen in Australia was obvious from the

Not lukewarm: i.chbishop Barry Hickey, left, and Cardinal George Pell caused a poiitical storm by commenting on legislation Au,:ralian and NSW Parliaments in the past month. PHOTO CARDINAL PEL L.

That this needed to happen in Australia

was obvious from the number of otherwise careful, generally committed Catholic politicians, teachers and others who felt (and still apparently feel) that it is okay to sign on to Catholicism in some personal regard, but fine to either trash or ignore Catholic teaching when one operates in other, usually more public capacities. number of otherwise careful, generally committed Catholic politicians, teachers and others who felt (and still apparently feel) that it is okay to sign on to Catholicism in some personal regard, but fine to either trash or ignore Catholic teaching when one operates in other, usually more public capacities. The man who comes to such a juncture and chooses against Christ, who ignores or protests the humane teaching of the Church on issues as important as life and death fails to bear proper witness to his faith. The woman who enjoys the social or community aspects of Catholic life, but who refuses to abide by the teachings that life is nourished by and in turn must

sustain, fails to live a life worthy of her baptism. Catholic leaders like Pell and Hickey who dare to state as much should therefore be commended, not lampooned. For too long, too many Catholic politicians - even very eminent ones like John F Kennedy and Rudy Giuliani in the United States, not to mention Steve Bracks in Victoria and Morris lemma in NSW - have behaved as though their commitment to Christ is a dirty secret, something that cannot be considered binding when they steer debate or vote on issues central to human life. This position is untenable. A Christian must subordinate his entire life to God, and God is a jealous master.

That is why Cardinal Pell's comments about 'consequences in the life of the Church' and Archbishop Hickey's warnings about fitness for reception of Communion are compassionate, rather than heavyhanded, and timely, rather than out of date. Our bishops swear to teach and uphold the Catholic faith that comes to us from the Apostles. They are right to ask Catholic politicians to honour the same. The Church has always taught - in season and out - against abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell testing (including somatic nuclear cell transfer techniques that create and then destroy human beings) and indeed anything else that contravenes God's law. What is more, the Church has continually set out her case so that even non-believers can understand the arguments or parse the logic. Catholic ethicists, theologians and thinkers have worked and continue to work at the very edge of science and reason to ensure that the case against the culture of death is made out rationally, humanely and with intellectual rigour. Thus, the Catholic Church cannot even be called anti-science or anti progress, as it has been recently. Indeed, St John's College at the University of Sydney recently endowed a $350 million medical

research institute. Such works contribute significantly to the battle to alleviate human suffering, but not at the expense of a reliance on embryonic stem cell work or "any other procedures involving the termination or the artificial creation of human life". Similarly, two large grants from the Archdiocese of Sydney support vital adult stem cell research at leading medical institutes. These initiatives should come as no surprise. Such cutting edge compassion is a key element of the Church's mission and she will never give it up. Nor will she allow herself to be pushed out of the way so that a purely instrumental or consequential view of the human person comes to dominate the otherwise noble field of health science and human medicine. This is especially the case when it is clear that the pressure Church leaders and ordinary Christians exert can shift the debate onto more humane grounds. In some marvellous cases, this pressure, particularly when it is allied to careful political and social interventions, can encourage otherwise hostile scientists and researchers to pursue more humane, increasingly non-controversial methods. Indeed, almost as soon at the NSW lower house had made its historic and shameful vote against human life, researchers in the United States and Japan announced they had succeeded in coaxing mouse cells to behave like embryonic stem cells, opening up a third, promising field of research that sidesteps the assault on human life entirely. The message for WA and other jurisdictions then is this: go steady. Ignore the emotional hype and focus on the scientific and ethical facts. Why vote against life when the most offensive techniques are increasingly irrelevant to the advancement of stem cell research? Catholic politicians and teachers in Catholic schools must be men and women who care about the faith and about life and they must ensure that their public witness aligns with their personal convictions and private commitments. Personal and public courage can alter even the most fraught debate and convert the world to hope. As Cardinal Pell and Archbishop Hickey demonstrated, that is the path to true social justice. It is a lesson that, starting in Catholic schools in Sydney, will be increasingly emphasised and it is a charge that must be honoured by Catholic politicians everywhere.

How disingenuous scientists pull wool over our eyes • By Dr Paul Watt

I've been amazed at how unsophisticated the debate has been around the embryo experimentation. So far the main arguments used in favour have been as simplistic as:

Terrible diseases overshadow life "There might be positive benefits arising from such research therefore it ought to be allowed" (forms of this argument focus on how terrible the diseases are which might one day be cured by such technology). However this begs the question since we don't actually know that embryonic stem

cell research will provide cures for those diseases. Moreover, tyrants throughout history have frequently justified atrocities on the grounds of some beneficial result. Witness the recent accusations of the Chinese using murdered Falun Gong prisoners as a source of organ donors.... Would it really have made any difference if these organs had saved the lives of their recipients?

The embryo is unworthy of dignity "The early human embryo should not have any moral status because it is very small and structurally simple. " This begs the question of what morally significant event occurs

in the continuum of human development which suddenly bestows moral significance on the embryo - since there is no scientifically justifiable point, such cut-offs are necessarily arbitrary. Because of this, it is no accident that key philosophers who are cited in support of embryo experimentation (eg. Tooley and Singer), also see no reason in principle why even new born babies should have an absolute right to be protected. In fact such extreme philosophers have also proposed no argument for why it would be wrong in principle to harvest organs from living banks of foetuses if the health benefit from such a practice were sufficiently great - at least they are consistent.

Dismiss religion, dismiss the mind Arguments put forward by those of a religious persuasion are to be dismissed as irrelevant to the non-religious community, even if those arguments are not on religious grounds. This effectively amounts to an 'Ad hominem' fallacy which attacks a person himself, rather than his argument per se. Virtually nobody in this debate has focused on the fact that for the first time in human history, a government has sanctioned the creation of an early form of human solely as a source of a product. A line has now been crossed to create a new class of 'sub-humans' or `Untermenschen', the ramifications of which will be felt for years to come.

Sftecai Re/up:sr

One life for another

TiJta Pez,e g

Deacon healed by own cells Cancer warning for embryo research

Patient's own stem cells cure 'incurable' Lymphoma condition

• By Anthony Banch

• By Sylvia Defendi

In the great stem-cell debate, deacon Damian Gorian, 64, who was cured of aggressive Mantle cell Lymphoma in March, was all too glad to use his own. Mr Gorian's stem-cells were collected, cultured and transplanted back into his body to re-build the bone marrow destroyed as a result of chemotherapy. Diagnosed in August, 2006 with the cancerous disorder, Mr Gorian said he was relieved to make use of a cure that did not depend on the death of another human in its embryonic stages. "To live by killing another would be classed as murder in any other form," he said. Mantle Cell Lymphoma is generally considered incurable, as the cancer tends to grow faster and overall survival may be shorter. Chemotherapy began immediately for Mr Gorian, who participated in nine treatments before receiving his own stem-cells via a blood transfusion. Aquiring Mr Gorian's stem-cells involved taking blood and separating the adult stem-cells via a specialised machine. Since the stem-cell transplant on March 1, Mr Gorian said all results have proved positive.

Happy with his lot: Damian Gorian at his Highgate home.

"While my immune system is fragile, my doctor assures me that I have been cured of the lymphoma because of the treatment I received," he said. Mr Gorian said he would not have a very long life expectancy if

PH010 YTLviA DEFEND

not for the adult stem-cell treatment and that his case was proof of the possibilities available that do not depend on the controversial destruction of human life associated with embryonic stem-cell research.

Benedict, bibles and missals Sacramentum Caritatis —the Sacrament Of Love

By Pope Benedict XVI

In his Apostolic Exhortation, Pope Benedict XVI explains the Eucharist as God's Sacrament of love for us, and why it is the source and summit of the Church's life and mission, and the life and mission of every Baptised Catholic, in every stage and state of life. $9.95+postage

Apostotic Exhortation

SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS The Sacrament of Love

Pope Benedict XVI

The Sunday Missal

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—41

These books and more are available from The Record Bookstore. Bulk orders and educational discounts are available. Contact Natalie Monday to Wednesday at The Record on (08) 9227 7080 or email bookshop@therecord.com.au.

onorary Research Fellow at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research Dr Paul Watt has warned that embryonic stem cells, by their very nature, bear a significant risk in comparison to research using adult stem cells. In the rush to find the fastest path to developing a source of cells that can grow into a wide variety of different tissues, Dr Watt says most scientists have latched onto embryonic stem cells as the easy answer, but it's not without "huge associated risks". "One of the properties of the cancer cells is that it's not differentiated - it hasn't gone so far down the path of becoming tissue," he says. "One of the properties of embryonic cells is that they too, by their very nature, are relatively undifferentiated, so it's no accident that quite often in the experiments with embryonic stem cells, one generates teratoma - a type of embryonic cancer. This happens because embryonic cells are not sufficiently differentiated to avoid being diverted into a cancer cell generation pathway. "So there's a significant danger that's associated with embryonic stem cell research because all workers with embryonic stem cells observe teratomas - these embryonic cancers - arising from time to time in their experiments. This is not a problem that can be avoided at this stage. In contrast, while proponents of therapeutic cloning and politicians lobby to legalise embryonic stem cell research, a number of groups are looking at other sources of stem cells that can differentiate into various cell types. The Human Reproductive Technology Amendment Bill seeks to amend the HRT Act 1991 and allow for the creation of embryos by means other than fertilisation and the use of those embryos for research. The Amendment Bill retains the ban on human cloning for reproductive purposes. But Dr Watt says this only diverts attention from

Dr Paul Watt

existing marketed stem cell products. Cord blood stem cells are now routinely used for transplants in the case of some blood disorders like leukemia, and Dr Watt says there have been rapid advancements in developing more diverse ranges of tissue types from other sources of stem cells. "More excitingly, people have taken skin and derived a number of different tissues, like brain, liver and kidney cells, and have also taken bone marrow cells and have derived bone, cartilage, fat pancreatic cells and blood vessels," he said. "It's not as wide an array of tissue types as embryonic stem cells, but the Australian public adult stem cell company Mesoblast rightly receives an enormous amount of support from investors because of the lower risk in this type of research versus embryonic stem cell research." Mesoblast's market capitalisation is over $100 million, and much of its technology comes from the United States and the Hanson Institute in Adelaide. "So adult stem cell research is a lower risk of teratoma cancers and has a much faster market because you don't have to work as hard to prove that the risks aren't real to get regulatory approval. They are taking blood cells and can turn them into all sorts of tissues like cartilege and bone, and heart blood vessel tissue." Mestoblast has a product entering phase two clinical trials for the treatment of heart disease.

A lban

rb-

third century feast —June 20 Believed to be Britain's first martyr, Alban was a pagan living at Verulamium, now St. Albans. During a Roman persecution, he sheltered a fleeing priest who baptized him, and was himself arrested and put to death. He is first mentioned in a fifth-century life of St. Germanus; the Venerable Bede expanded the earlier story, including a lively account of the execution by beheading and some supernatural signs that accompanied it. Successive churches, including a Benedictine abbey and an Anglican cathedral, have occupied the traditional hilltop site of the martyrdom. 5a1nt5 for Toclas9

(-= 2007 (NS

June 14 2007, The Record

Page 9

The elephant Orwell didn't see Getting history right The Last Crusade: Spain, 1936 by Warren Carroll Christendom Press/Freedom Publishing Paperback; 232 pages • Reviewed by Hal Colebatch

hen the heroics of the Spanish Civil War come up - Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, Hemingway's fictions or the effusions of various poets - there is a very large and usually unremarked elephant in the room: Orwell, who actually fought, and Hemingway who wrote about fighting, were on the wrong side. The strategic point is simple: had the Stalinists won that war, then during the period of the HitlerStalin pact from 1939 to mid-1941, they would have allowed Hitler to cross Spain and seize Gibraltar. Had this happened, the British forces in the Mediterranean, including the British Empire's only field army, would have been cut off. There would have been no Force to sally forth from Gibraltar to stop the Bismarck massacring the Atlantic convoys, the Middle-East oilfields and the Suez Canal would almost certainly have fallen into Nazi hands, as would the Jewish population of what would become Israel. Very likely Hitler would have won the war. As it was, Franco refused to allow Hitler to attack Gibraltar through Spain, though Hitler met him and harangued him for hours. Franco also later gave the Allies at least passive help in the "Torch" landings on North Africa. Some Franco diplomats were active (unlike the Vichy French) is saving Jews from the Holocaust by issuing them false passports. It is an interesting exercise to put oneself in Franco's place - leader of a desperately weak, divided and exhausted country - and wonder if one would have done so well against Hitler - who was not only, by all accounts, spell-bindingly persuasive, but also master of the mightiest Army the world had ever seen, who had smashed France flat in a month and whose flag flew from North Cape in the Arctic to Africa. So much has long been known by any person reasonably historically literate. However, until I read Professor Carroll's The Last Crusade: Spain: 1936,Idid not realise the full moral dimension of how wrong Orwell, Hemingway and the rest were. They could not reasonably have been expected to foresee the HitlerStalin pact or know that they were fighting to install a government which would have allied with Hitler. Orwell bravely defied the Stalinists who took over the republican side, but long before that, right from the beginning of the war, the republicans had been characterized by an insane savagery recalling the anti-Christian persecutions of Diocletian and anticipating the bestialities of the Mau-Mau and the Totenkopf SS. This was not aberrant behavior by undisciplined mobs, but

deliberate and directed most specifically against Christianity (some liberal republican politicians were mildly distressed by the murder of their secular opposite numbers, but showed no such distress at the murder of religious). While the republican side gradually came under the control of Moscow-directed Stalinist communists, its leadership in the early part, when the worst antiChristian massacres took place, was a mixture of old-guard liberal Parliamentarians, anarchists, Trotskyites and other non-Party communists of various factions, as well as disciplined Communist Party members, united by antiChristian fanaticism. According to Professor Carroll, 6,832 Catholic priests and other religious, including 283 nuns, were murdered in the territory of the Spanish Republic during the war, most of whom, according to another scholar, Stanley Payne, were killed without even "the simulacrum of condemnation by revolutionary tribunals." This was the greatest clerical blood-letting in the history of the Catholic Church. About 12 per cent of the entire Catholic clergy of Spain and about a quarter of those caught in the republican zone were murdered. Probably hundreds of thousands of lay people were killed for observing Christian worship or for

Williams backs Pell

Cardinal George Pell has received public support from a number of non-Catholic sources for his stance against MPs who vote for human cloning. Prominent constitutional lawyer and legal commentator George Williams said the Cardinal was perfectly entitled to make his comments. "George Pell and others are as entitled as environmentalists to put their point of view to encourage or persuade people to vote a certain way," Prof Williams said. "They are entitled to put arguments based on religion, commonsense or law." Cardinal Pell's remarks were widely interpreted as implying a threat of excommunication against MPs who voted for a pro-cloning bill before the NSW state parliament -- a threat Cardinal Pell did not explicitly make. In the wake of the controversy, leaders of the Anglican Church and the Baptist Church in NSW both publicly expressed regret over the fact that the bill had been passed by the NSW parliament's lower house.

campaigning in Africa and who knew how to upset intellectuals, or Colonel Jose Moscardo, commandant of the makeshift garrison of the Alcazar at Toledo which held out for months against a siege not by the siege-weapons of medieval times but by tanks, heavy artillery

On the British in WWII

When the republicans captured Moscardo's son and put him on the telephone to his father, promising to kill him if the Alcazar did not surrender, Moscardo's words were: "Commend your soul to God, shout'Viva Espana!' and die like a hero, my son." The son replied: "Don't worry about me!" and asked for a last kiss. trying to shelter priests and nuns. Many of the killings were accompanied with torture. In his autobiography Approach March, British politician Julian Amery, of Jewish background, recalls visiting territory captured from the Republican forces and the evidence of their literally Satanic, death-obsessed, nihilism. The extent to which Christianity was targeted is also indicated by the fact that nearly half of Spain's 40,000 churches were destroyed, this in a European country in the 20th Century which a deep Catholic heritage. For Professor Carroll to have titled this book The Last Crusade is no misnomer. By the time the Stalinists took over the republican side there were not many religious left to kill in the territory they controlled, and in any case they turned much of their energy to killing their former comrades such as Orwell's formation, the POUM. Carroll also highlights the qualities of some of the military leaders of the Nationalist side, like the fanatically brave and patriotic Milian Astray, who created the Spanish Foreign Legion and who by the time of the Spanish Civil War had already lost an arm, a leg, an eye and much of his jaw

in brief...

and aircraft as well as immeasurably superior ground forces. When the republicans captured Moscardo's son and put him on the telephone to his father, promising to kill him if the Alcazar did not surrender, Moscardo's words were: "Commend your soul to God, shout 'Viva Espana!' and die like a hero, my son." The son replied: "Don't worry about me!" and asked for a last kiss. Professor Carroll comments: "In the otherwise completely restored Alcazar at Toledo today, the room where Colonel Moscardo received that telephone call is preserved exactly as it was. On its scored and battered walls hang translations of that conversation in most of the principal languages of the world. A contemporary Socialist government, no longer revolutionary but hardly sympathetic, has removed all the most vivid and shocking memories of the great siege - all but this, which they have not dared to touch." And there was Franco himself, the strange, reluctant dictator, who as the eventual victor kept Spain at peace and oversaw its long, slow transition into a prosperous and free democracy under a fine and noble Constitutional Monarch. Few can be unmoved to read

Queen honours Catholics rwo nuns were among

how, in a gesture veritably worthy of Don Quixote, he turned aside from the advance on Madrid to relieve the Alcazar, now a heap of ruins, its haggard, starving but indomitable defenders literally their last gasp: "General Franco came to the Alcazar, saluted the gold and red flag tied to the girder, and was greeted by Moscardo, who told him: 'You will find the Alcazar destroyed but its honor intact.' Franco embraced him, pinned ofnhis chest the Cross of San Fernando, Spain's highest decoration for valour; promoted him on the spot to General and declared him worthy to stand among the greatest heroes of Spanish history." On 30 May, 1939, Franco attended a Te Deum service in the church of Santa Barbara in liberated Madrid, offering a prayer of thanks for the vanquishing of "the enemy of truth in this century." It was a penetrating choice of words. He then laid his sword before the high altar with the solemn promise to God and man never to draw it again save in defence of his country against invasion. It was a promise he kept, as Hitler would discover. The Last Crusade has several important themes. It gives some overdue recognition to both the heroism and often the moderation of the Nationalist side in the Spanish Civil War, endlessly slandered as fascists and murderers. It aso tells of the supernatural valor of many of the murdered religious figures. But the other aspect upon which it throws a searing light is the atrocious wickedness of so many on the republican-anarchist-communist side. And here the figure of even the great anti-Fascist and anti-totalitarian George Orwell, in some ways one of my own political heroes and inspirations, must stand before the bar of history. We will never know the answer now, perhaps, but one may ask: "How much did Orwell know?" But Orwell arrived after the worst anti-Christian massacres in 1936 and spent most of his time as a fighting soldier in the trenches, so there is a some fairly strong case for his innocence.

Australians awarded the nation's highest honors in this year's Queens Birthday honors list. Sister Eileen Daffy, a missionary nun working in Pakistan, and Sister Regis Mary Dunne, a Brisbane bioethicist and medical researcher, were both made Officers of the Order of Australia (AO.) The chairman of the Order of Australia, Governor-General Michael Jeffery, said that the Queens Birthday honors "seek to recognize community values and celebrate what is important and unifying in national life." Other Catholics honored this year include an oncology nurse, Keith Malcolm Cox, an ACU lecturer and Byzantine church expert, Dr Lawrence Cross, a composer and organ teacher, Prof Sergio De Pieri, a horseracing industry administrator, Mr Peter Robert Gallagher and a surf lifesaving administrator and coach, Larry Jennett.

Divorce-depression link

Men aged 20 to 64 who had divorced or separated from their spouse were six time more likely to report an episode of depression than men who remained married, a Canadian longitudinal study found. Women were also at risk of depression after marital breakdown bu: their risk was lower at about 3.5 times the rate of still-married women. The increased risk of men may be largely due to loss of relationship with their children. -CANADA.CONI

Brits are gossip kings

The British are the worst office email gossipers in the world, according to a study by psychologist Monica Whitty of Queens University, Belfast. Forty per cent of UK workers, men and women, indulge in the habit compared to an international average of 34 per cent. Britain came in just ahead of America and Singapore, with Holland and Australia behind.

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June 14 2007, The Record

Books

The reality of a world without God

Pulling apart Professor Dawkins' Paradise • By Hal Colebatch

ince shortly after my religious boarding school failed, despite what then appeared to me to be its chaplain's and principal's best efforts, to convert me to Atheism, I have been looking, like some Bravo swaggering down the Rialto, for some atheist publication or argument that would be a foeman worthy of my intellectual steel. Not with a great deal of luck so far. Most recently I came across a passage where Professor of Atheism Richard Dawkins has written of his beautiful dream of a religionless world in which there would be: "No suicide bombers, no 9/11, no • Crusades, no witch hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/ Palestine wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as "Christkillers," no northern Ireland "troubles," no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people ... no Taliban to blow up ancient statues, no public beheading of blasphemers. , Hardly testing or stretching one's intellect, is it? But perhaps worthy of a quick demolition job. Let us set aside the elementary philosophical howler known as a "category error" of comparing things such as the Indian partition and the northern Ireland "troubles" or 9//11 and the crusades, as though they were identical (the northern Ireland "troubles,"denounced by both Catholic and Protestant religious leaders, were far more economic than religious in motivation anyway). Imagine what an idyllic 20th Century we would have had if Professor Dawkins's Godless world had actually existed! Apparently the only blemishes upon it would have been 100-million dead killed by militantly atheistic Communism on various continents, about 12 million dead murdered by the anti-religious Nazis (I don't mean killed in battle, I mean murdered), and then the various war casualties, including those of the Boer War, the RussoJapanese War, World War I, the Chaco War, the Sino-Japanese war (with such high points as the Rape of Nanking, with probably 300,000 murdered there alone), World War II, various conflicts in Africa and a few others. That is a total death-toll, at a rough guess, of at least 200 million, in conflicts and massacres which were either brought about by the militantly anti-religious and Godless, or at least in which religion played

The

Delusion

chard awkins Alas poor Richard: He does not know his own delusions.

no part. Go forward to the 21st Century, and the hundreds of thousands (at least) starving in North Korea and Zimbabwe, and dying in the the endemic wars and famines in Africa - religion ain't the reason. Or go back to the 19th Century - without religious wars we would have been left with, among other things, the militantly atheistic French Revolutionary Terror, the

PI( TURF - 0'0,

Napoleonic Wars, every other major war in Europe, such as the wars of German and Italian Unification, the colonial and Imperial wars in Africa and India, endemic cannibalism in the Pacific and parts of A frica (the Maoris did not eat the gentle Chatham Islanders one and all because they had a different religion but because they were hungry) and the American Civil War. The American Civil War entailed a

fair bit of suffering, a hint of which, for those with imagination, is conveyed by the fact that after the war the fifth-largest item on one State's budget was the manufacture of artificial limbs. Religion was not a significant cause of any of these affairs. Among many other witnesses, Solzhentizyn, whose experiences on the Eastern Front in World War II, and then in the GULAG and the cancer ward, may have possibly given him a greater or at least wider first-hand insight into good and evil and into human nature and human sufferings than Professor Dawkins's in the dreaming spires of Oxford, attributed the atrocities and holocausts of the 20th Century not to religion, but the fact that men had forgotten God. This, of course takes no account of the fact that in a religionless world, religion could have played no part in mitigating any of this, nor, by establishing the first systems of international law and permanent diplomatic services (set up by the Vatican), in preventing other conflicts which were in fact prevented, nor taken part in providing education, including establishing and protecting the first universities, no part in setting up hospitals, orphanages etc. Ihaven't noticed too many Atheist orders setting up hospitals and orphanages, for some reason. There is no evidence there would have been any impulse to abolish slavery, which was common all over the world until Christian nations began the move against it. As a matter of fact, there would probably have been no modern medicine. No ancient statues for the Taliban to blow up, either. Probably no art of any kind. None of the rather jolly mysticism of old Tibet. In a world with "no crusades", there would probably have been no modern Europe or Western civilization. Also, in a religionless world, there would have been no Professor Dawkins, at least not as a professor. As a matter of fact, with no monastries to preserve literacy and invent books, and no Universities established by the Church, there would have been no professors at all, which may or may not have been a good thing. But at any rate, Professor Dawkins's academic specialty, on which he built his academic career before turning to professional atheism, was genetics, a science discovered by Gregor Mendel, a Catholic monk and abbot, experimenting with plants in a monastery garden.

P ANORAMA a roundup of events in the archdiocese Sunday June 17 FINAL MASS AT ARMADALE CHURCH The final Mass at the old St Francis Xavier Church (corner South Western Hwy & Third Rd, Armadale) will be celebrated at 9.30am followed by a special, and final, morning tea in the old parish hall. All welcome. For more information ring Parish Office: 9399 2143 / 9399 4687. Sunday June 17 TAIZE MEDITATIVE PRAYER /pm, Sisters of St Joseph Chapel, 16 York St, South Perth. Come and join in the Taize Prayer Service, come and join in the praying of Scripture, song and silence. Come and bring your friends and pray in a candlelit chapel. Bring along a small torch with you. Enq: Sister Maree 0414 683 926. Tuesday June 19 SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL RELATIONSHIPS A talk for adults. Presenter: Hasser Graham

(Registered Psychologist) 7.30-9.30pm The MacKillop Room (Multi-Purpose Room) John XXIII College. Cost: $10 (Donation Unwaged) Further details Murray 9383 0444. Wednesday June 20 TAIZE MEDITATIVE PRAYER 7.30-8.30pm St Thomas More Catholic Church, 100 Dean Rd, Bateman. All are welcome to come and spend an hour in Group Prayer and relax after a busy workday in a candlelight atmosphere of prayer, song and meditation. Enq: Daisy/Barney 9310 4781. Saturday June 23 26TH ANNIVERSARY OF MEDJUGORJE (24/6/81 TO 24/6/07) A Morning prayer with Our Lady, Queen of Peace at St Bernadette's Church, Glendalough. Commencing 10am with Holy Hour. 1 1 am Holy Mass followed by Talk (Celebrant & Speaker Fr Tiziano Bogoni).

Concluding with shared lunch at LJ Goody Bioethics Centre, 39 Jugan St. Bring plate-Tea/Coffee supplied. Enq: 9341 8082. June 23, 24, 30 and July 1 ART EXHIBITION Featuring Margaret Fane, an artist of 30 years, who studied Art and Spirituality in Rome and incorporates her Franciscan Spirituality into her paintings. All proceeds will be going to the St Mary's Cathedral fund raising appeal and will be held at Our Lady of the Mission Catholic Parish Hall from 10am-4pm, 270 Camberwarra Dr, Whitfords. Private viewings can be arranged by ringing 0432 834 743 prior to the exhibition. Sunday June 24 BLESSING AND OPENING OF THE NEW CHURCH FOR ARMADALE PARISH The blessing will take place at 10.30am Mass at St Francis Xavier Church, Forrest Rd, Brookdale. The

procession from the old church in Armadale will commence at 9.30am. After the Mass there will be a lunch and an opportunity to walk through the new facilities. All welcome. RSVP by 13th June 2007 on 9399 2143 / 9399 4687 or sfx6112@westnet. com.au. Tuesday June 26 HELP AND SUPPORT FOR EFFECTS OF MENTAL ILLNESS Mental Illness affects one in four people at least once in their lifetime. What would you do if it affected you or your loved one? The Emmanuel Centre helps people whose lives are affected in various ways. Emmanuel is inviting parishioners, family and friends to join us 7pm at the Morley Parish Centre, 47 Wellington Rd, Morley. Don't suffer alone. Enq: Amanda 9328 8113. Friday June 29 LA SALLE COLLEGE 3RD ANNUAL QUIZ NIGHT AND

June 14 2007, The Record

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Classifieds

P ANORAMA continued AUCTION 7.30pm in the Laurence Murphy Hall at La Salle College, Middle Swan. Tickets $10 each with Tables of 8. Alcohol and cool drinks will be on sale, BYO snacks. Tickets can be purchased at the College Administration Office or contact 9274 6266 for ticket bookings. Everyone is welcome. Sunday July 1 DIVINE MERCY An afternoon with Jesus and Mary, St Joachim's Church cnr Shepperton Rd and Harper St, Victoria Park 1.30pm. Program: Holy Rosary and Reconciliation, Sermon: 'St Thomas the Apostle with Fr Anthony van Dyke, OP followed by Divine Mercy Prayers and Benediction. Concluding with refreshments and a video in the Parish Hall. Enq: John 9457 7771 or Linda 9275 6608. Sunday July 1 40 YEARS PRIESTHOOD FR. BRIAN AHEARN Our Lady Star of the Sea Dongara are celebrating 40 years of Priesthood of Fr. Brian Ahearn. With Mass 9am followed by a light luncheon. Friends and former parishioners are invited to join us. RSVP 27th June 9927 1705 or 9927 1413. Monday July 2 C ARITAS AUSTRALIA UPDATE - MEET LIZ STONE 5.30-7.30pm Catholic Pastoral Centre Seminar Room. Liz (originally from Hobart) has worked in Ethiopia 1990-94 for the national association of Churches and Oxfam, with Caritas Australia, in International Development Consultancies at Macquarie University, at the General Secretariat in Rome planning coordination of resources and communication of Caritas post tsunami programs. RSVP Thursday 21st June 9422 7925 Email perth@caritas.org.au Friday July 6 A LLIANCE OF THE TWO HEARTS: COMMUNION OF REPARATION ALL NIGHT PRAYER VIGIL First Friday and first Saturday devotion, in honour of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, conducted by the Alliance of the Holy Family International and ADORE. Will be held in Corpus Christi Church, 47 Lochee Road, Mosman Park. From Friday 7pm to lam Saturday Morning. Enq. Catalina 0439 931 151 or Vicky 9364 2378. Friday July 6 CATHOLIC FAITH RENEWAL - PRAISE AND WORSHIP 7.30pm St John and Paul's Church, Pinetree Gully Rd, Willetton, Praise and worship. A talk will be given by Fr Greg Donovan followed by Thanksgiving Mass. There will be light refreshments after Mass. You are all welcome to attend and we encourage you to bring your family and friends to this evening of fellowship. We look forward to seeing you there. Enq: Rita 9272 1765, Rose 0403 300 720. Saturday July 7 DAY WITH MARY 9am-5pm Our Lady of Poland Church, 35 Eight Avenue, Maylands. A Video on Fatima will be shown at 9am followed by a day of prayer and instruction based upon the messages of Fatima. Includes Sacrament of Penance, Holy Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, Sermons, Rosaries, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and stations of the Cross. BYO Lunch. Enq: Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286. Thursday July 12 to Sunday July 15 MARIAPOLIS 2007 The Focolare Movement invites you to its annual gathering called Mariapolis, with the theme 'Love Heals It will be held at the Institute of Agriculture, Curtin University Campus, Muresk, Northam 2pm Thursday to 12pm Friday. Contact Focolare Centres on 6278 3425 or 9349 4052. Weekend July 14 and 15 FINDING CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 1 1 am -3.30pm St Cecilia's Parish Centre, Peebles Road, Floreat. A Conversation led by Fr Paul Fogarty (Parish Priest Floreat/Wembley) and Sr Kathleen Dawe (Currently Ministering at Penola by the sea, Safety Bay). Cost $10 per day. Sponsored by The Mandorla Centre of Inner Peace. Enq: Cath 9284 4762. Friday to Sunday July 20 - 22 S EPARATED, DIVORCED, WIDOWED Beginning Experience is running a weekend program designed to assist and support people in learning to close the door gently on a relationship that has ended, in order to get on with living. The next weekend program will be held at Epiphany Retreat Centre, 50 Fifth Avenue, Rossmoyne. Enq: Bev 9332 7971 or Margaret 9294 4892. First Sunday of Each Month D EVOTIONS IN HONOUR OF THE DIVINE MERCY The Santa Clara Parish Community welcomes anyone from surrounding Parishes and beyond to the Santa Clara Church cnr of Coolgardie and Pollack Streets Bentley. The afternoon commences

with the 3 o'clock prayer, followed by the Divine Mercy Chaplet, reflection and concludes with Benediction. YCS PAST MEMBERS Have you ever been involved in YCS and are interested in what YCS is doing in 2007? Or would you like to regain contact with friends from your YCS days? If so please email Vicky Burrows at the YCS Office at perth@ycs.org.au or call 9422 7911 so that we can put you on our data base to receive updates about YCS and past members. Every Saturday PERPETUAL HELP DEVOTIONS 4.30pm. The half hour Perpetual Novena Devotions to the Mother of Perpetual Help continue each Saturday at the Redemptorist Monastery Church, 190 Vincent Street, North Perth. Reconciliation available before and after the Devotions. All welcome. Every Sunday BULLSBROOK SHRINE Sunday Pilgrim Mass is celebrated with Holy Rosary and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament 2pm at the Shrine of the Virgin of the Revelation, 36 Chittering Road, Bullsbrook. Reconciliation is available in Italian and English before every celebration. Enq: Sacri 9447 3292. Every Sunday R ADIO GATE OF HEAVEN 7.30-9pm, 107.9FM. 1. Council of Faith II w/Fr John Triglio The Christian Faith and Demonology". 2. The Web of Faith w/Fr Robert Levus & Fr John Triglio "Answering your questions as they come in.

Classifieds: $3.30/line incl. GST

Every Forth Sunday SECULAR FRANCISCAN ORDER The Perth Fraternity of the Secular Franciscan Order no longer meets at the Pro-Cathedral but instead assembles every fourth Sunday at 2.30pm in the Chapel of RSL Care, 51 Alexander Dr, Menora. Enquiries John 9385 5649. Every Monday WEIGHT MANAGEMENT FOR THOSE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS The Emmanuel Centre are offering to help people who gain weight because they are using medication for their mental illness. The group helps participants to manage their weight safely and healthily. Mind-Body-Life meets at the Emmanuel Centre on Mondays from 12.30-2.30pm. Free. The group starts with a weigh-in, then a talk on nutrition and healthy eating tips, goal setting and then half an hour of exercise. Enq: Amanda - Emmanuel Centre, 9328 8113. Every Fourth Sunday of Month HOLY HOUR FOR VOCATIONS TO THE PRIESTHOOD AND RELIGIOUS LIFE "WATCH AND PRAY" Held at Infant Jesus Parish, Morley from 2-3pm with exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. The hour consists of some Prayers and Scripture but mostly the hour is silent prayer for Vocations. All welcome. Please encourage others to come and pray. Enq: 9276 8500. BOOK DONATIONS We still seek donations of books and thank you and bless you for your kind, generous contributions of Bibles, Missals and Catholic books on the faith. We are now able to offer a selection of second-hand, pre-loved books to the community in return for a small donation. Enq: 9293 3092. CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS Ignatian Volunteers Australia calls for part time volunteers to respond to the needs of people in the community who live in marginalised circumstances. At the heart of this program is a reflective process based on Gospel values, which supports the volunteers in their work. To learn more: www. volunteers.jesuit.org.au Contact Kevin Wringe, Perth Coordinator (08) 9361 3469 kwringe@iinet. net.au.

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EMPLOYMENT • CARETAKER The Old Convent in Bridgetown is a short-term stay facility for those seeking a quiet and restful country break. The Bridgetown Parish seek a Caretaker (married couple or single person). Accommodation provided. Would suit a retired couple. For enquiries or further information. phone Fr Wayne 111 Bendotti on (08) 9761 1241.

Every Tuesday WEEKLY PRAYER WITH MARY'S COMPANION WAYFARERS OF JESUS THE WAY 7pm St. Mary's Cathedral Parish Centre, 450 Hay Street, Perth. Personal healing in prayer, Rosary, Scripture, meditation, praise in song, friendship and refreshments. Appreciate the heritage of the Faith united with others asking Jesus and Mary to overcome burdens in life. Prayer is powerful. Come, join us!! Every Wednesday A DORATION 1 -5.30pm followed by Evening Prayer and Benediction. St Thomas' Church, 2 College Rd, Claremont. Personal prayer before the Blessed Sacrament is Adoration of Jesus' gift of Himself, of His love for you, for your loved ones and for our world. Come and Thank Him.

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Classifieds Must be submitted by fax, email or post no later than 12pm Tuesday. For more information

Official Diary - June 15-17 Parish Visitation and Confirmation, Dianella - Bishop Sproxton 16

Parents and Friends Assn Annual Conference Dinner - Mgr Michael Keating

16-17 Parish Visitation, Wongan Hills - Archbishop Hickey 17

•

Mass and Procession St Anthony's Association, Wanneroo - Bishop Quinn

18-22 Church Ministry Meeting, Sydney - Bishop Sproxton 22

Celebration of completion of St Therese's Library, NDA - Archbishop Hickey Awards of Excellence in Catholic Aboriginal Ministry - Fr Brian O'Loughlin VG

Mass with Servite Sisters to celebrate Feast of St Juliana - Archbishop Hickey Mass and Approval of Missionaries of the Gospel, St Joachim's Pro-Cathedral - Archbishop Hickey

Dedication of Armadale Church - Archbishop Hickey, Bishop Sproxton Procession and Mass for Sacred Heart Society, Dianella - Archbishop Hickey

Launch of The light River by Hal Colebatch - Archbishop Hickey

Opening and Blessing of Final Stage of Karrakatta Mausoleum - Fr Brian O'Loughlin VG

aft.

Page 12

June 14 2007, The Record

The Last Word

Exploring abuse against women Women are invited to discuss the in violence against women at an up-coming forum in Perth

special forum for women will examine how pornography, prostitution and the sexualisation of girls are leading contributors to violence against women — and also how they do violence in their own right. The forum will feature leading Australian women thinkers and writers Melinda Tankard Reist and Mary Louise Sullivan, and Western Australian magistrate Sue Gordon. The lunchtime forum, to be held in the Guildford Town Hall

on Wednesday 27 June, is being jointly presented by Guildfordbased consultancy Share-Making Relationships and Melbourne publisher Spinifex Press. Each of the speakers is a leading writer or thinker on issues to do with violence and sexuality, especially as they affect women. Victorian writer and researcher Dr Mary Lucille Sullivan was interviewed in the most recent edition of The Record about her groundbreaking study of the failure of legalised prostitution in her state. Her book, Making Sex Work the failure of legalised prostitution in Victoria, was also reviewed by Record writer Anna Krohn in the recent special edition of the paper

on the attempt to decriminalise prostitution in this state. She will speak on the topic 'Disappearing the violence: legalised prostitution in Australia.' Melinda Tankard Reist is a journalist and the founding director of Women's Forum Australia. She is also the author of Defiant Birth: women who resist medical eugenics which recounts women's stories of surviving pressure from the medical profession to end their pregnancies. She will speak on Toxic Culture: Abuse of women through the premature sexualising of girls. Mrs Reist attracted massive turnouts to public meetings for women in many states when she toured Australia earlier this year

to establish WFA, a new advocacy organisation specialising in women's issues and the impact of such issues on wider society. Three hundred women turned out for her recent meeting in Perth promoted by The Record. Dr Sue Gordon is a well-known figure in Western Australia who chaired the Gordon Inquiry into the problems of family violence and sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities. Dr Gordon is also a wellknown magistrate of the Children's Court of WA and will question what government is doing about sexual violence against women. The forum will run from 1lam to 2.30pm. Participants are asked to bring their own lunch.

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