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High point looms for Perth’s 100th anniversary celebrations
Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB leads the congregation in Adoration at St Mary’s Cathedral last Monday evening, the first night of a Novena. The Novena will culminate in the high point of celebrations to mark 100 years since Perth was elevated to an archdiocese. Archbishop Costelloe will be the principal celebrant at a special Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mass. The Mass will be celebrated at St Mary’s in the presence of the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Paul Gallagher on Monday, December 9, at 7pm. All are welcome at this historic occasion. PHOTO: FR ROBERT CROSS
Joy is our infectious vocation By Francis Rocca POPE Francis has once again departed from usual practice in issuing his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, “The Joy of the Gospel”, published on November 26. Following last year’s bishops synod on the New Evangelisation, the Pope declined to use the draft provided by synod officials. The result is a text in the Pope’s distinctive voice and focused on his particular concerns. The Pope criticises contemporary society and culture, especially in the world’s richer nations, for their “idolatry of money” and an “economy of exclusion and inequality.” But he makes only a few broad references to the “crude and superficial” intolerance of unbelievers and the danger a dis-
torted pluralism poses to religious freedom. By contrast, Pope Francis devotes much of his exhortation to the shortcomings of the Church itself. He laments its “excessive centralisation” in the Vatican, which he finds a hindrance to the Church’s “missionary outreach.” He com-
the Church’s prestige, but without any concern that the Gospel have a real impact on God’s faithful people and the concrete needs of the present time”. He upbraids Catholics with a “business mentality, caught up with management, statistics, plans and
He upbraids officious Catholics whose principal beneficiary is not God’s people, but an institution. plains about members of religious orders who show an “inordinate concern for their personal freedom and relaxation,” and about priests “obsessed with protecting their free time”. The Pope criticises those who show an “ostentatious preoccupation with the liturgy, doctrine and
evaluations, whose principal beneficiary is not God’s people but the Church as an institution”. And he regrets that women do not yet have a sufficient role in decision-making within the church. Pope Francis also deplores divisiveness within the ranks, writing: “It always pains me greatly to dis-
cover how some Christian communities, and even consecrated persons, can tolerate different forms of enmity, division, calumny, defamation, vendetta, jealousy and the desire to impose certain ideas at all costs, and even persecutions which appear as veritable witch hunts. Whom are we going to evangelise if this is the way we act?” The Pope devotes nearly a tenth of the document to suggestions for improving homilies, which he says are too often moralistic, unlearned, disorganised and verbose. These problems matter, the Pope says, insofar as they impede efforts to make the Church’s structures “more mission-oriented, to make ordinary pastoral activity on every level more inclusive and open.” More coverage - Page 9