The Record Newspaper 16 June 2010

Hating the Jews Attadale Parish Priest and Notre Dame lecturer FR SEAN FERNANDEZ begins a series for The Record examining the curious phenomenon of anti-Semitism. Why is it that so many have hated those whom John Paul II affectionately described as our older brothers and sisters in faith?

PAGE 9

THE RECORD

“Be indefatigable in your purpose and with undaunted spirit resist iniquity and try to conquer evil with good, having before your eyes the reward of those who combat for Christ.”

-Bishop Matthew Gibney 

the Parish. the Nation. the World.

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Western Australia’s award-winning Catholic newspaper since 1874 - Wednesday, 16 June 2010

A good dose of reality

Perth, Western Australia $2

$20,000 up for grabs in religious Mandorla art award

Think you’ve got problems?

Perth midwife CHERYL BARICH, wife of Record journalist Anthony Barich, paints a sobering picture of people who live in real poverty and writes about how caring for them changed her life. You may want to help.

I

t’s been six years now since my world was turned upside down. It was, quite literally, a life-changing experience. I left the comfort of my home in Australia to embark on a journey to a Catholic mission called Nityaseva in an inland, semi-arid region of India, for six months. In that time we delivered over 5,000 babies.

The district, Ahmednagar, is a farming region that had been plagued with drought for over 10 years. Due to the lack of rain and other related economic hardships, the people of this region struggle to attain even the basics of life: food, water, clothing and shelter.

When first entering the village Shevgoan where the mission was situated, we travelled via unsealed dirt roads. I was firstly struck by the small mud hut structures held together by flimsy ropes that were people’s homes. Most were no bigger than two square metres, housing, on average, five people each.

In the heat of the day the temperature often reached 50C in this inland area, and the villagers’ homes were unbearably hot, but still provided some shelter from the fierce sun. As I was so accustomed Please turn to Pages 10-11

Servite Friar Chris Ross OSM at Servite College, Tuart Hill beside Mandorla Art Award 2007 finalist, Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ by the late Michael Kane Taylor. The Last Supper is represented by the feet under the table; the Resurrection of Christ is represented in the middle panel while the dead bird represents the death of Christ. Michael Kane Taylor’s award winning 2004 entry will be on display at St Mary’s Cathedral from 26-27 June with other former winners.

PHOTO: BRIDGET SPINKS

BY BRIDGET SPINKS

O

ver 60 artists from around Australia are in the running for the Mandorla Art Award 2010 and its prize of $20,000.

This year’s theme for the religious art award is “And who is my neighbour?”

taken from the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke’s Gospel 10.29.

“We take a scripture passage as our theme each time and we have been doing that since 1985 ... and have attracted artists on a national level painting their own reflections on the given theme,” Servite Friar Chris Ross OSM, a founding father

of the Mandorla Art Award, said. Camilla Loveridge, a practising artist and the exhibition’s curator, told The Record that while the theme of the exhibition is Christian, the committee hopes it will appeal to all people of good will and beliefs, not only Christians.

Please turn to Page 6

YEAR FOR PRIESTS ENDS

A NOSE FOR HISTORY

PORTER’S AMBUSH

SPEAKERS HIT PERTH

Perth clergy gather to close special year

UWA student offers Church history talks

Attorney General surprises anti-prostitution lobby

It’s a busy month as four major speakers arrive

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Page 2

16 June 2010, The Record

THE PARISH

Never give up, priests told

SAINT OF THE WEEK Blessed Pope John XXIII CNS

1881-1963 June 3

Ordained a priest in Italy in 1904, Angelo Roncalli was a medic and chaplain in World War I. He served as a Vatican diplomat in Bulgaria, Turkey and France before being named a cardinal and patriarch of Venice in 1953.

Elected pope in 1958, he convened the Second Vatican Council and issued the famous encyclical “Pacem in Terris” just months before his death from stomach cancer. In the book “Last Words,” Pope John is quoted as saying to family members by his deathbed, “Do you remember how I never thought of anything else in life but being a priest?”

People come before economy: Pope VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope Benedict XVI said the current economic crisis has highlighted the need for European financial institutions to place people at the centre of their policies and practices. “Economics and finance do not exist for themselves, but are mere instruments or means. Their end is solely the human person and his full realization in dignity. This is the only capital worth saving,” the Pope said on 12 June to members of the Council of Europe Development Bank.

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Frs Jean-Noel Marie and Jeronimo Flamenco Castillo lead the Evening Prayer at St Mary’s Cathedral.

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ARCHBISHOP Barry Hickey has encouraged priests to continue bringing Christ to the world undaunted by the increasing difficulties of doing so.

Gathering priests, Religious and lay for Evening Prayer of the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at St Mary’s Cathedral to close the Year for Priests “in solidarity” with Pope Benedict XVI, the Archbishop emphasised the Holy Father’s 14 April speech which stressed the urgency of priests’ call to teach, “as the world is so confused what is right and wrong and how to live”.

Archbishop Hickey led the Evening Prayer on 10 June as the Pope was leading celebrations in Rome from 9 to 11 June to close out the Year for Priests, which ran from 19 June 2009 to 11 June 2010.

St Mary’s Cathedral assistant priests, recently-ordained Frs Jeronimo Flamenco Castillo and Jean-Noel Marie, were the cantors.

Vicar General Mgr Brian O’Loughlin, chaplain of the WA Knights of the Southern Cross, presented the Archbishop during the event with a book The Catholic Priest - Image of Christ: Through 15 Centuries of Art. The Archbishop said the Pope emphasised how priests must offer the truth and show people how to live as followers of Jesus, and that, “often, priests feel like a voice crying in the wilderness” like St John the Baptist who announced Jesus’

coming, but this is their job. “Let us follow the example of Jesus, the one promised by the prophets; who, when He stood up in the temple and said that the prophecies were being fulfilled after He read from the Scroll, some listened to Him, some didn’t,” the Archbishop said.

“But that didn’t stop Him from calling people to the truth, so we shouldn’t let the forces that make people deaf to Jesus deter us.”

It is understandable, he said, for priests to sometimes see the world and wonder if there is any point going on, but he urged them to never stop acting in the person of Jesus, as “we don’t know how far our words go”, or what the Holy Spirit does with them.

“We are called to proclaim that the Kingdom is open to those who wish to enter, so we continue to do so in our homilies, our personal counselling, in schools, we offer what Jesus has given the Church – the Good News of salvation,” he said.

“You have the Holy Spirit with you, urging you to proclaim the love of Christ to a world that needs it.”

While the calling to act in the person of Christ is not to be “put on a pedestal”, the Archbishop said that such a calling can “make us fearful and feel unworthy to rise to such great heights; yet, so full of our faults, on our ordination day we said ‘yes, we will bring You (Jesus) to the people”.

The Holy Spirit has given priests the courage and knowledge that gives the strength to be “the living Lord” to com-

PHOTO: ANTHONY BARICH

fort, bring peace and the warmth of the love of Christ to those in families who have experienced violence and other hardships of life.

“May it continue to be clear that we must respond to the call to be Christ in the lives of others, but not to think of ourselves as special,” he said.

During a general audience at St Peter’s Square on 14 April, Pope Benedict said: “We live amid great confusion about the fundamental choices of our life,” adding that there are “so many contrasting philosophies, which arise and disappear, creating confusion about the fundamental decisions”.

But as promised in the Gospel, the Lord has compassion on His “sheep without a shepherd,” the Pontiff said.

“The Lord, moved by compassion, interpreted the word of God, He himself is the Word of God, and thus He gave guidance.

“This is the function in persona Christi of the priest: to render present, in the confusion and disorientation of our times, the light of the Word of God, the light that is Christ Himself in this our world.”

This means, Benedict XVI explained, that the priest “does not teach his own ideas, a philosophy that he himself has invented, has found and that pleases him; ... but, in the confusion of all the philosophies, the priest teaches in the name of Christ present, he proposes the truth that is Christ Himself, His word, His way of living and of going forward.”

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16 June 2010, The Record

Page 3

THE PARISH

Year for Priests a blessing for Perth clergy

MGR BRIAN O’LOUGHLIN Vicar General The Year for Priests has, for me, been a focus on Christ the one priest, and all that this means in one’s self-offering to the Lord, and being a minister of Word and Sacrament to the people. But it has also been a focus on solidarity and communion with other priests, as while we share in the one priesthood of Christ, we are His priests, and we are brother priests in the presbyterum in the Archdiocese.

Parishes in various ways have acknowledged past and present priests, which I saw as like a married couple celebrating a 25th or 50th wedding anniversary – an occasion to look back in gratitude and look forward in faith and hope. I personally found challenging the beatification last Sunday in Poland of

Fr Jerzy Popieluszko, known as the Solidarity priest, who was seemingly a delicate priest who hadn’t been involved in political themes but was caught up due to his involvement in the Solidarity movement (which opposed the Communist regime in Poland).

So that focus on a modern priestmartyr was a reminder to me that, in our own way we die to self in order that Christ might be revealed in His fullness.

not about privilege or power. I absolutely believe it is a special gift from God, to serve to the Christian community. The priest shows empathy when he shares the feeling of happiness and sufferings of the people, I think this is the kind of priest that the Catholic Church needs in this present time.

fice for others. In order to make sense of all the travelling I’d been doing, it made sense as a sacrifice for others, and not for myself.

No matter how enjoyable it is to say ‘I’ve been here and there’, in the end it’s a sacrifice to be constantly moving around. It helps to make sense and it’s also helpful to keep in mind that the whole life of a priest is meant to be a sacrifice, which culminates in the Mass – it’s like living the Mass, and that’s basically what the Year for Priests emphasises.

FR MICHAEL GAUVREAU Franciscan Friar of the Immaculate, Toodyay FR JERONIMO F LAMENCO CASTILLO Assistant priest, St Mary’s Cathedral This evening we celebrated the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as the Archbishop invited us to gather to celebrate this special year. For me, the priesthood is

very much. Amidst all the things happening today, it was a boost, a shot in the arm, that the people recognised not only me but all priests.

FR STEPHEN COONEY OPRAEM Parish priest, St Patrick, York

Travelling from Italy to Canada, Italy, India, Australia in the past year during this Year for Priests, and knowing I’m going to Nigeria soon, I tried to keep in mind the example of the priesthood that Pope Benedict XVI gave us in St John Vianney, and how his whole priesthood was not lived for himself but was a sacri-

FR FRANCISCO MASCARENHAS Parish priest, Santa Clara, Bentley My parishioners organised a special day for me on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood on 2 May. That really touched me

In the country, there was very little celebration for the Year for Priests, but next door in Northam, we have a statue and devotion to the Curé of Ars (St John Vianney). That the Pope has dedicated this year to the Year for Priests has been edifying, as is the fact that the priesthood has been recognised in this way.

Former Trinity boy makes Church history come alive As part of his third talk, Daniel also gave an overview of what history is, how one should study it and why.

BY BRIDGET SPINKS ISLAM, its history and beliefs, is being canvassed in talks on Church history at Our Lady Queen of Peace parish in Willagee.

Second-year University of WA history student Daniel Matthys, 18, a former Trinity College boy, began giving fortnightly Catholic history talks in May, pitching them to Catholic adults (18 and up) with no assumed knowledge.

His next talk at Willagee parish is on 22 June.

While Mr Matthys doesn’t know what he’ll do after he finishes his undergraduate degree at the end of next year, he wants to share his passion for Church history with a growing audience and plans to give the fortnightly talks to the end of the year.

“To understand the world that Jesus interacted with”, he said, his first talk on 4 May discussed the history of the Roman Empire and a history of Judaism and ended with the birth of Christ.

The second talk progressed to examine the evidence for Jesus’ existence, and what would have motivated people to convert to Christianity in those early years up to 180AD. “People will tell you Jesus didn’t exist but no serious scholar believes that. Nevertheless, you need to look at the evidence,” Mr Matthys said.

The New Testament is primary evidence as is the writing of nonChristian historians of the time, namely Josephus, a first century Jewish historian; Tacitus, a second century Roman historian and Plini the Younger, an early second century letter writer and magistrate of Ancient Rome, he said.

Each history talk is self-contained but the topics are chronological.

His third talk moved from 150 - 330AD, taking listeners up to the foundation of Constantinople (modern day Istanbul), examining the “secular history of Rome,

History student: Daniel Matthys PHOTO: BRIDGET SPINKS

the structure of the early Church, Gnosticism and heresy”.

Although Daniel is studying arts majoring in history at the University of Western Australia, much of his content does not parallel with the epochs he is dealing with in class.

To prepare to give the Church history talks, Daniel goes to Catholic historian, Warren H Carroll’s The Founding of Christendom for an overview of the subject matter, then reads around this to go “deeper into other sources”.

“You have to read everything in case you get questions,” he said, estimating that he would spend two-three days working on the talk before giving it, depending on the topic.

“I enjoy it. It’s great to be educating people ... It’s for my own benefit as well; I’m Catholic, I’m studying history so to me it’s a bonus that I can talk to people,” he said.

“People need to know their history, especially since Marxist and modern day atheists’ understanding of religion tends to stem from a misunderstanding of history,” he said.

The next Church history talk is on 22 June at 7.30pm at Willagee Parish Hall, 25 Harfoot Street, Willagee. For more information contact Daniel on 0405 322 728 or email Matthysdl@gmail.com.

W HAT IS HISTORY? “It’s a very philosophical question. The assumed view when I talk to people who don’t study history is that history is knowledge. It’s people, places, events - the facts.

“When you learn the facts, you understand history. But it’s not a view I agree with because history involves an interpretation of the historian.

“The metaphor they use is

‘facts in history are as bricks to a house’. You praise a historian on his house, assuming the bricks are sound.

“Accurate facts are a given; they’re a duty, not a virtue.”

HOW DOES ONE STUDY HISTORY? “Understand that the historian is bringing an interpretation to the table.

“Identify the interpretation and then judge it based on the facts.

Facts are not unimportant but they’re just one part of the picture.

“You have to be very critical of a lot of sources. Twentieth century British historian, journalist and author of the book What is History? EH Carr says

‘Before you study history, study the historian... Before you study the historian, study his historical and social environment’. I recommend following Carr’s advice to understand where historians are coming from and their bias.”

W HY STUDY HISTORY? “Come to the talks. Often the Church is attacked using historical arguments.

“The other reason is that Christianity is a very historical religion. Jesus Christ in Nazareth is a historical truth.

“As we move through the middle ages, we (Christians) adopt various customs and rituals, which makes us a product of our history.”

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16 June 2010, The Record

THE NATION

Exploitation NT warned on opening floodgates to women trafficking occurs despite location: ACL THE Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) applauded the WA Government’s commitment to keep brothels out of residential zones but said it was important for the Government to recognise the exploitation of women that occurs in prostitution, regardless of the location.

During an 8 June community forum on crime organised by Federal Member Steve Irons to discuss prostitution in the Swan region, WA Attorney General Christian Porter said that he believed prostitution was “morally objectionable” and that his priority was to keep brothels out of residential zones by allowing them to operate in confined, tightly controlled areas.

ACL WA Director Michelle Pearse, who attended the meeting with about 100 others from as far away as Nedlands, Highgate and Bentley, welcomed the AttorneyGeneral’s stance but said that the exploitation of women should not be sanctioned in any area.

Also present at the forum was Keith Ellis, who owns the building next door to a Muslim women’s support centre for sexual assault victims on Albany Highway, which was being forced to move after a brothel opened up next door. On 7 June, Perthnow. com.au reported that the owner of the neighbouring building, which leases the ground floor to the Muslim Women’s Support Centre, is threatening to sue the council if it does not shut down the brothel.

Mr Ellis pressed Mr Porter on what the government plans to do about such situations now, not once his planned legislation is passed through parliament and enacted.

Mr Porter replied by saying that it is “far from impossible” for councils to stop brothels, and promised to personally assist in the case.

The ACL has surveyed

Legalising NT brothels a green light to harm and trafficking of women: Christian Lobby

Michelle Pearse

the local business communities in Belmont, Victoria Park, Kalgoorlie, and Northbridge and Mrs Pearse said that an overwhelming majority of the businesses do not want brothels to operate in their communities.

The main reasons for their objection were the increase in crime that brothels attract and the negative image it portrays.

“Where will the WA Government place brothels if both the business community and the residential community are opposed to their operation?”

Mrs Pearse asked.

“It is important to protect the community but we should also look at this as an issue of women’s exploitation. Women working in brothels are often treated violently and forced to do acts against their will, and some are even raped. This is not something we should be countenancing – even in limited areas.”

In line with the ‘Swedish model’ which Mr Porter debunked at the community forum using documentation from the Swedish Government, the ACL also called on the Government to criminalise the men who assume the right to exploit women for sexual purposes and to create exit programmes to rehabilitate the women who have been physically and psychologically damaged by the sex trade.

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THE Northern Territory Government should not be beguiled by sex industry lobbies with benign sounding names into legalising brothels in the Top End, the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) said.

Responding to a call from the NT Sex Workers Outreach Programme for brothels to be opened, ACL managing director Jim Wallace said this has been a clear policy failure in other jurisdictions and that, instead, the NT Government should look at better ways of protecting women – such as the successful ‘Swedish model’ of managing prostitution.

NT Sex Workers Outreach Programme organiser Seranna Shutt told News Limited’s Northern Territory News on 6 June that legalising prostitution “would be best practice for health and safety”.’

While the NT News reported that most of Darwin’s 50 “working girls’’ operate out of escort agencies and are registered with NT police, Ms Shutt said the registration system should be scrapped.

Mr Wallace countered by saying that legalising brothels “does nothing to address the appalling exploitation of women in the sex industry, but instead dramatically increases the problem, as well as increasing trafficking in women”.

“In Victoria, NSW and Queensland it has led to a huge increase in prostitution and the number of illegal brothels has as much as tripled. Legalising brothels simply legitimises pimps, brothel owners and men who buy women for sex,” Mr Wallace said.

He added that if the Northern Territory is considering legalising brothels it should closely consider the credible researched evidence and expert testimony about the real harm to women on a far greater scale which results.

For example, in a 2004 paper, Melissa Farley PhD (Prostitution Research and Education) looked at examples from the 2003 New Zealand Prostitution Law and concluded: “Legal sex businesses provide locations where sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, and violence against women are

A policeman escorts a man detained during a raid on a human trafficking operation near Barcelona, Spain, in late March 2009. The Australian Christian Lobby has warned the Northern Territory Government that it risks a similar situation in the northern region if it allows itself to be “beguiled” by sex industry lobbies into legalising brothels.

PHOTO: CNS/ALBERT GEA, REUTERS

perpetrated with impunity. Statesponsored prostitution endangers all women and children in that acts of sexual predation are normalised.”

A host of other research has similar findings, the ACL said. In his 8 June address to a Belmont community forum in WA, State Attorney General Christian Porter challenged groups who want prostitution completely illegal to come up with evidence that his planned system, based on the ‘entertainment zone’ model of Victoria, does not work.

Mr Wallace said the current situation in the NT where escort agencies are licensed is not working either, and he urged the NT Government to have a complete policy rethink on this issue.

Mr Wallace added that the Swedish model has been shown to significantly reduce the number of women involved in prostitution and the number of men purchas-

ing sex - providing a far better alternative.

Mr Porter also disputed these findings (see main story on Page 5).

Mr Wallace said that Sweden came to realise that legalising the sex trade had resulted in a major increase in the number of women being trafficked into the country.

By 1999 the Swedish Government dramatically altered its position by taking the view that buying sex promotes exploitation and is violence against women.

The Government therefore decided to criminalise the purchase of sex and the ownership of brothels.

The new laws saw the number of women involved in prostitution cut by two-thirds, reduced the number of men buying sex by 80 per cent, and led to a huge drop in the number of women trafficked into the country for sexual purposes.

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A NEW government report disputes the US sex education lobby’s claims that abstinenceonly education has been responsible for the stalling of a downward trend in teenage pregnancies and childbearing that started about 1995. Data from the 2006-2008 National Survey of Family Growth shows that most teenagers who have ever had sex (about 40 per cent of all teens) used contraception the first time: 79 per cent of females and 87 per cent of males. Condoms had been used at least once by 95 per cent of these, but most think it is OK for an unmarried girl to have a baby.

16 June 2010, The Record

Page 5

THE NATION

prostitution also ‘Restricting not outlawing Legal damages women: former the only way on brothels’ sex worker’s sister

BY ANTHONY BARICH

Prostitution will always be around and it is impossible to police a blanket ban, Attorney General tells community forum

BY ANTHONY BARICH WA Attorney General Christian Porter has turned the debate on legalising brothels on its head, challenging anti-prostitution advocates to come up with a better solution than his planned legislation to restrict brothels to “entertainment zones”.

While conceding prostitution is “morally objectionable”, a blanket law criminalising it is unenforceable and legislation that permits it in specific zones is the only feasible solution, Mr Porter told a community forum in Belmont on 8 June.

“I do believe that you have to have some kind of level of prostitution which is permitted, strictly regulated for the health and safety of the people in it, because of the fact that it has always existed and because of the fact that we have not been successful over successive decades in stopping it, notwithstanding a law which says it shouldn’t exist anywhere,” Mr Porter told a forum of over 100 at Belmont’s RSL Club.

To this end, Mr Porter, formerly the Director of Public Prosecution’s Senior State Prosecutor, will introduce a Green Paper by December, produced under his direction by senior civil servants from the Departments of the Attorney General, Police, Liquor and Gaming, and Town Planning.

This Green Paper, which, despite being prepared for community consultation, he said “will find its way into legislation”, will: ● Prohibit the operation of brothels in residential areas and street prostitution in any area in WA and require businesses tolerated in strict geographical areas to be stringently regulated and limited to a small number of appropriate locations, ● See “very high levels” of compliance checks to ensure the health and safety of those people who are “unfortunately engaged” in being prostitutes, ● Expand police powers so they can investigate and prosecute those engaged in prostitution outside the regulatory scheme, ● Give State Government ultimate authority to determine the areas where prostitution is permitted, with consultation with local government, a “necessary but not sufficient condition”, ● Ensure very strict controls of the types of people allowed to operate, manage or engage in services defined in prostitution; ● Put in place penalties to deter all parties from engaging in prostitution outside the regulatory schemes.

“I don’t have confidence in anything else that’s been put to me as an alternative system which would allow for the same ability to shut down that type of behaviour (surrounding prostitution), or advertising and the operation in brothels,” he said.

When asked whether his plans included any support for prostitutes to exit the industry, he told The Record: “It’s certainly an area which we have been giving consideration to.”

He admitted, however, “the fact is that police for a long period of time have not gone out and positively and proactively investigated incidents of prostitution”.

Due to the resourcing that must be allocated to enforce such a law, he said police have determined to investigate and prosecute incidences of prostitu-

WA Attorney General Christian Porter addresses a community crime forum at Belmont RSL Club on 8 June.

PHOTO: ANTHONY BARICH

tion where there is evidence of drug dealing, alcohol abuse, the involvement of juveniles, illegal immigrants or where organised crime is said to exist in relation to a particular brothel.

“Successive generations of police officers and administrations who want the best for this State say that they can’t possibly properly consistently enforce that law,” he said.

This was backed up by Senior Sergeant Steven Martyn, Officer in Charge of the Belmont Police Station, present at the 8 June forum with Mr Porter, who told The Record that “our hands are tied” unless they find evidence of one of the above circumstances.

“At my station, any information we get we collate on a database so that when legislation comes in like Mr Porter has proposed, then we will have a starting point,” Sgt Martyn said.

“If people tell us a brothel is operating it, we will … not investigate it, but inquire into it, and if we can prosecute we will; otherwise we will gather intelligence and proceed to the next level when the new legislation comes in.”

Mr Porter also admitted that while senior WA police watching trafficking closely have told him it does not exist in WA, it “must be watched vigilantly”.

He also admitted he has watched the issue closely since becoming Attorney General as “it represents dire criminal conduct”.

Mr Porter said that those pushing for outright bans on prostitution have been using unsubstantiated claims about the failure of legalising or regulating prostitution in other States and countries. A statistic that says the number of illegal brothels in Victoria exploded from 149 to 400 in three years since it enacted the 1994 Prostitution Control Act under a similar model to Mr Porter’s was based on a report in Melbourne newspaper The Age, the source for which was either someone from the adult entertainment industry or “an unnamed source”, he said.

“That academic article is very average indeed. I don’t accept that those figures are true,” he said. While he knew the number of legal brothels had increased in Victoria since it was regulated, “which is to be expected”, he did not have data on illegal brothels, as they don’t declare themselves.

When The Record contacted Victoria Police on such stats, they said it is a permit/planning issue, not a police matter, and advised to contact the appropriate local councils or the City of Melbourne.

Similarly, Mr Porter dismissed the effectiveness of the ‘Swedish model’ which criminalises the purchaser but

not seller of sex, and its champion Gunilla Ekberg, the expert adviser to the Swedish Government in the development and implementation of their legislation who was brought to Perth to advise MPs who ended up passing the previous Labor Government’s Prostitution Amendment Act 2008.

The Bill was not enacted, however, as Mr Porter’s Liberal government came to power in September 2008.

Mr Porter said that while he has “no difficulties with severely penalising the users of prostitution services”, he added that “penalising just the users does not give you the policing tool to control and shut down brothels where they’re unlawful”.

“Police have told me that this is not enough,” he said.

Under Mr Porter’s concept, prostitution will be strictly unlawful in any residential area outside designated zones, and will criminalise the service or profiting from the service and the users of the service, he said.

He said that Ms Ekberg’s statistics are “not a verifiably massive improvement in its ability to control prostitution in Sweden”.

However, the UK newspaper The Guardian reported that in 2008 Britain’s House Minister visited Sweden as it was considering adopting the Swedish model.

Having researched Ms Ekberg’s original documents, Mr Porter said she sources herself, her own anecdotes of conversations she’s had with people and newspaper articles “which themselves do not have proper sources”.

He noted that she also cites a group of reports issued by County Police of Stockholm, which say that in Sweden there has been some success in reducing street prostitution but “on the other hand, we do not know whether it has had any effect on prostitution overall”.

On whether the extent of prostitution has increased or decreased, he quoted the Swedish Government’s National Board of Health and Welfare as saying: “We cannot give any unambiguous answer to that question. At most we can discern that street prostitution is slowly returning after swiftly disappearing in the wake of the law against purchasing sexual services, but that refers to street prostitution, the most obvious manifestation. In regards to other areas, ‘hidden’ prostitution, we are even less able to make any statement”.

From this, Mr Porter concluded: “So I would counsel caution against believing on face value some of the quite expansive and, in my view, unsubstantiated positives that people have attached to the Swedish model.”

LEGALISED prostituted sex is still abuse that has long-lasting effects on the woman and her family, the sister of a woman who has just got out of the industry after 10 years told The Record.

“Even restricting it to a minimal place will still leave the (devastating impact) of the young women behind,” said the sister (*Karen, not her real name), who, with her mother (*Mary, not her real name), attended the Belmont community forum that WA Attorney General Christian Porter addressed on 8 June.

The journey to recovery for their sister (*Jane, not her real name) is far from over, they said, as she now has a mental illness from her drug use during her prostitution work, and by the end. “(Drugs and alcohol used are) not so much to numb the pain but to go into a complete blackout, so when they come out of it they have no indication of what had happened, but when they reflect on it that’s when we family must be there to support her,” Karen told The Record.

Karen said her family went through much torment as they struggled to accept their “baby sister” back into the fold, but eventually came to see her as a victim of an industry that feeds on the vulnerable. Karen said Jane suffered loss of trust and mental illness working as a prostitute. Her mother, who is now her full-time carer, gives her medication each night and takes her to a GP and a mental health clinic regularly.

Once the family accepted her, the brothers wanted to kill those responsible for her abuse, but their mother restrained them and urged forgiveness and support for Jane, who is now 33. “We got sick of our own indigenous people telling us she’s down there on the corner with the skimpy skirt,” Karen said. “We were set to go out and eliminate (those who had abused Jane), but mum brought us together and restrained us older kids, as she’s our baby sister; and we had to listen, as it was very hard for all of us to cope with that as she was in a place where we couldn’t even find her.”

Karen told Mr Porter during the forum that her sister wanted to go to the police about the abuse she had suffered on the job, but was afraid to do so as she may be prosecuted for her work.

Mr Porter replied by saying that under his proposed laws which will regulate brothels, “for those who are acting inside the restricted area, there is the possibility for health, welfare, education and indeed police assistance if people have been offended against”.

Mary and her family are members of a Church of Christ parish which has special men’s and women’s groups meeting weekly, guided by elders, where Jane has also found healing and practical support. “No one knew how to handle it; she’d also been stabbed,” Mary said. “Then I had to learn to forgive her in the eyes of the Lord Jesus Christ. Once I forgave her I could cope with her. I thought I’d never see her in church sitting in the pew with us, but now, praise God, there she is.”

Mary spoke to The Record about the healing power of families, and of the crucial place of humility and forgiveness in the family unit. “The brothers were very ashamed of her, but mum says if she comes your way, open the door (to her). I told her to knock loud, and when she did, all the kids ran at her,” Karen told The Record. “Mum said we just need to pray that God will have mercy on each one of us, and that we have to love her, even if you have to get up and do little things for her - that’s showing that you love her.”

“She’s still got a long way to go, but (it’s important that the family realised that) she has respect and honour - she’s a mother too.” Jane has a young son.

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16 June 2010, The Record

THE NATION

A call for authentic Christian life ARCHBISHOP Barry Hickey emphasised the need for prayer in the development of Christian life during a pastoral visit to Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Rockingham for the Confirmation of 64 of its youths over the weekend of 12-13 June.

Archbishop Hickey visited Our Lady of Lourdes parish and celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation on the Saturday and Sunday.

While in the parish, he visited the Catholic secondary school, Kolbe Catholic College, and addressed the staff during recess.

He thanked them for their contribution to Catholic education.

He spoke briefly about the newly refurbished Cathedral and urged them to visit it and to become familiar with it as the

mother Church of the diocese.

After spending time with members of the College Senior Leadership Team, during which he listened to brief reports on developments within the College and noted concerns that were expressed, he met with Kolbe’s Year 12 students.

Archbishop Hickey spoke about his life and the importance of his faith to him. He emphasised the need for prayer in the development of Christian life.

The students asked him questions about a range of topics, including how he handled doubts about his faith and what he understood freedom to be.

He impressed his listeners with his knowledge, his humility and his openness.  ROCKINGHAM PARISH

Archbishop Barry Hickey confirms Michael Weir, above, with Rockingham parish priest Michael Separovich standing by.

Kate Temby, left, is confirmed.; the Archbishop with Chloe Hart, top right; and with altar servers. The Archbishop with Saturday evening Mass confirmands, bottom left; and confirming Michael Lynes, below.

PHOTOS: LEANNE JOYCE.

The Archbishop visited Kolbe Catholic College during his pastoral visit to Rockingham, pictured here with students Majella Bouwman and Eamonn Bochat.

AT A GLANCE

Forthcoming events around the diocese

PRINCIPALSHIP MANDURAH CATHOLIC COLLEGE Mandurah Catholic College is a K-12 co-educational college of 1250 students catering for families in the Peel region who desire a Catholic education for their children. The College is under the patronage of the Holy Family.

Set in 12 hectares of natural bushland, the College is fortunate to have contemporary, well-resourced facilities equipped with the latest technology to enhance student outcomes. We aim to create a climate where students can grow in their Catholic faith and where Christian values and principles are nurtured.

Each of the schools – Junior, Middle and Senior – that comprise the College have their own unique structure, organisation and pedagogy.

From a strong emphasis on literacy and numeracy in Junior School, through to university entrance and excellent vocational programs in Senior School, the College provides a diverse and balanced curriculum that allows students to develop their natural abilities, to seek truth and to strive towards the highest standard of achievement.

Areas of focus include: the arts – music, drama and dance – outdoor education, sport and technology and design with an emphasis on ICT. The successul applicant will take up this position on 1 January 2011.

Applicants need to be practising Catholics and experienced educators committed to the objectives and ethos of Catholic education. They will have the requisite theological, educational, pastoral and administrative competencies, together with an appropriate four year minimum tertiary qualification, and will have completed Accreditation for Leadership of the Religious Education Area or its equivalent. A current WACOT registration number and a Working With Children clearance form must also be included. The official application form, referee assessment forms and instructions can be accessed on the Catholic Education Office website www.ceo.wa.edu.au. Enquiries regarding this position should be directed to Helen Brennan, Consultant, Workforce Relations Team on (08) 6380 5237 or email wrd@ceo.wa.edu.au. All applications, on the official form, should reach The Director of Catholic Education, Catholic Education Office of Western Australia, PO Box 198, Leederville WA 6903 no later than Monday 5 July 2010.

Steve Ray Fullness of Truth Tour: American Steve Ray converted from evangelical Protestantism to Catholicism in 1994 after hearing a talk that helped him realise that the early Church was Catholic, not Protestant. His book Crossing the Tiber was originally a letter

to his father describing his reasons for becoming Catholic and has become a book about his family’s conversion. Go to www. catholic-convert.com and www.thecatholicforum.org.

When: 7 July, 7pm - Whitford’s Family Recollection Night.

Raising a Catholic Family, Our Lady of the Mission Whitford Parish, 270 Camberwarra Dr, Craigie. Enq: Fr Joseph Tran 9307 2776.

8 July, 9am-12.30pm - Catholic

Answers Seminar with Steve Ray. SCTA Event Two Talks, morning tea and pizza lunch. All welcome.

Cost $30, Trinity College, Trinity Ave, East Perth. Enq: Renato Bonasera 0428 106 481 or email renaats@gmail. com.

8 July, 730pm - Telepace Australia When the Honeymoon is Over: How to Live in the Church after Conversion, John XXIII College Hall, Mooro Dve.

Neighbour’s theme for Mandorla art award Continued from Page 1

“We hope that anyone who can respond to this Christian message or the spirit of the story of the Good Samaritan that they embrace that and represent their response to that Christian message visually,” Mrs Loveridge said.

The Mandorla Art Award is a platform for artists to express a valid contemporary theme, she said. “It’s very topical today to love your neighbour or ask who is my neighbour considering that the world is so war torn over territory and people. I think it’s a really good platform for people to address that message of Christ in the story as it is relevant for today,” Mrs Loveridge said.

Over the last 25 years the Mandorla Art Award has been held 14 times. This year the prize is $20,000 thanks to the recent sponsorship of St John of God Healthcare and other sponsors.

In previous years, the major prize was $10,000 and it could have been taken as cash but normally it was taken in the form of a return airfare to Italy and two months’ accommodation in a studio in the hills in Umbria. Mandorla acquires the winning work with each exhibition and holds the collection of winners in the contemporary art gallery at New Norcia.

“I can’t think of a better place to hang them than there. Busloads of people come to the Benedictine town expecting to see religious art,” Fra Ross said.

Since is inception in 1985, competing artists for the Mandorla Art Award have been Anglican, Orthodox, Catholic and even Jewish.

This year, over 40 entrants passed pre-selection and an additional 20 artists were invited to prepare a contribution for the religious art award.

Fra Ross said that he believes that every artist is spiritual.

“To stand in front of an empty canvas and to come up with something that will speak to people; to me, that’s transcendent,” he said.

“By giving the theme a scriptural passage, we’re pointing the artists in a particular direction but not in any way telling them how to express it.”

The Mandorla Art Award 2010 entries will be exhibited at the Moores Building Contemporary Art Gallery, Fremantle from 1-17 October. After this exhibition the works will be displayed again at both Murdoch and Subiaco St John of God hospitals for a time.

The public is invited to visit St Mary’s Cathedral on 26-27 June to see the artwork of eight former Mandorla Art Award winners. Among the work in this exhibition will be Australian artists Julie Dowling (2000 winner) and the late Michael Kane Taylor (2004).

16 June 2010, The Record

THE NATION

Simpson award John Rea SM: for Linda Watson Frhealer AT A GLANCE

Forthcoming events around the diocese

BY MARK REIDY

THE Mormon Church in WA has acknowledged the courageous work of Linda Watson for her work providing an exit service for women seeking to escape prostitution.

In a presentation ceremony at the office of Independent MP Dr Janet Woollard in Applecross on 28 May, Linda received the “John Simpson Standing for Something” Award from Elder Peter Meurs of the Church of Latter Day Saints.

The award, presented to individuals who exemplify the act of standing for something they believe is worth living or dying for, depicts John Simpson Kirkpatrick and his donkey who carried many wounded to safety on the frontline of Gallipoli in WWI. When presenting the statuette Elder Meurs referred to the dangers that Ms Watson has had to incur since opening Linda’s House of Hope in 1999, such as being shot at and fire-bombed.

He also acknowledged that it was only when Ms Watson met Archbishop Barry Hickey and received his support, that Linda began having success in assisting hundreds of women in leaving the industry.

Ms Watson told The Record that she was surprised and humbled by the award and believed that such acknowledgement for her work would inspire her to work even harder for the many woman and girls who are desperately searching for a better life.

“It was also encouraging to be around others at the ceremony who are just as passionate about this cause,” she said.

Ms Watson will soon be heading to South Australia to campaign against a Bill seeking to decriminalise of prostitution that is to be tabled in parliament. It is a role Ms Watson has undertaken before with great success and she said that

Page 7

The John Simpson Standing for Something Award, given this year to Linda Watson.

PHOTO: MARK REIDY

she would follow up her Adelaide visit by addressing a similar Bill to be introduced in Western Australia later this year.

Although addressing politicians about the insidious nature of prostitution, of which she has had personal experience, is a passion of Ms Watson’s, she is currently concerned about the financial predicament of Linda’s House of Hope, the accommodation house for those who have taken the first brave step out of the industry.

“If we don’t receive some form of financial support in the very near future”, she said, “We will have to close down the service and that would leave those we are supporting with no place to go”. Ms Watson said that the hailstorm in March caused a great deal of damage to the house and is in desperate need of repairs.

W h e n : 16 June, 8-930pm, Wo m e n’s Night at Integrity House, 67 Howe St, Osbourne Park.

18-20 June, Touched by God Conference, $75/2 days or $45/ per day. Begins Friday night with Youth Rally at Integrity House, 67 Howe St, Osbourne Park 23-25 June, Morning Seminars The Eucharist, Integrity House, 67 Howe St, Osbourne Park. Begins 9am with Mass and concludes at midday.

1 July, 730pm Healing Mass/ Rally at St Mary’s Cathedral, Perth.

For more information about Fr John Rea SM, contact: marioborg@disciplesofjesus.org or call 0411 641 245 | facebook event: Touched by God

in 2008, he established the Mission, Colombia in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

This has rapidly spread to many other countries, leading to the founding of country-specific missions under the banner, For the Love of God Worldwide.

In less than two years, the Mission has become one of the fastest growing movements in the Catholic world. Many tens of thousands have already heard Mr Miller’s powerful and inspiring message. He now brings his message of God’s love to Australia.

When: 21 June, 7pm, St Jerome’s Spearwood, Rosary Mass Talk 22 June, 1 0 3 0 a m , All Saints Greenwood, Rosary, Mass, talk (Bring a plate for shared lunch).

22 June, 730pm at St Mary’s Cathedral, Holy Mass celebrated

by Archbishop Hickey. Talk follows Mass.

23 June, 1030am, St Bernadette’s Glendalough, Rosary Mass Talk (Please bring a plate for afterwards) 23 June, 10.30am at St Simon Peter Ocean Reef Parish Church, Rosary, Mass, Talk.

Rick Miller

Immaculee John Rick Miller is a former Ilibagiza senior corporate executive with over 20 years experience in public ministry in the Catholic Church.

Having been invited to Colombia

Immaculée’s idyllic world was ripped apart as Rwanda descended into a bloody holocaust. Imaculée’s

family was brutally murdered during a killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the lives of nearly 1 million people.

Incredibly, Imaculée survived the slaughter.

Her strong faith and connection to God throughout the ordeal is inspiring. She knows her survival was due to Our Holy Mother and she has dedicated her life to spreading the message of forgiveness, the Love of Our Lady and letting the world know about Our Lady of Kibeho.

Immaculee Ilibagiza

To RSVP and reserve a seat, email rsvp@nd.edu.au or call Jane on 9293 3968.

When: 29 June, 730pm at The University of Notre Dame Australia, in The Drill Hall, Mouat St, Fremantle

Anyone who can donate their skills to the maintenance of Linda’s House of Hope, such as roof work, electrical, plumbing, fencing, cabinets, etc can contact Linda on 9358 2544 or 0439 401 009. Donations can be sent to PO Box 5640, St George’s Tce, Perth, 6831 Cheques and Money Orders can be made out to “Linda’s House of Hope”. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

Floreat’s on the web FLOREAT-WEMBLEY Parish recently launched its new website: www.floreatwebleyparish.org.au A former parishioner had created a website for the parish some years ago. However, it became corrupted and the parish had to shut it down.

A high priority given to seeking competitive quotes for the designing and hosting of a new website was that, above all, it had to be secure, said Brian Parry, a member of the Parish Council.

“Being aware of the excellent website BAM Creative had created and host for Catholic Outreach, we were happy to accept their proposal and competitive costing,” he said. “We are very happy with the design concept completed for us.

Importantly, right from the outset, the company was keen to learn what we wanted the website to convey in style, appearance and content. The project has been quite time consuming but the end result has been very rewarding.”

Speaking on behalf of the company, Patima Tantiprasut said: “It’s been an absolute pleasure to be involved with the website design project for Floreat Wembley Parish.

The web has become a very important medium of communication in

this day and age, so Bam Creative is pleased to have contributed in creating a website that will ideally be a successful tool for Floreat Wembley Parish to keep their parishioners updated with information and upcoming events.” The website is comprehensive in content and amongst the features is a page titled New Translation of the Mass Texts. There is also a link to a virtual tour of the Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome.

Parish Council president Patrick Whight said the creation of the new website has was a team effort with suggestions and contributions received from a broad cross section of groups, committees and individual parishioners.

“We also researched the content on other parish websites and have endeavored to encapsulate the best features of those sites together with our own ideas,” he said.

“As with any website,” commented Prue Pupazzoni, Parish Secretary, “the next challenge will be in keeping all the information on the website accurate and up to date. This is something that I am looking forward to doing.”

Parish priest Fr Wayne Davis is pleased with the new website as “it will be a further tool in helping us to grow as a faith sharing parish community”.

“ … Churches in the Middle East are threatened in their very existence… May God grant ACN strength to help wherever the need is greatest.”

Pope Benedict XVI

Donation Form: SOS! – Christianity in the Middle East The Record

BY BRIAN PARRY

O

Aid to the Church in Need …. a Catholic charity dependent on the Holy See, providing pastoral relief to needy and oppressed Churches

Page 8

LETTERS

editorial

un

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

THE RECORD

d the t

The conclusion of the Year for Priests called by the Holy Father a year ago ended a year of reflection across the Church on the unique gift given to it by Christ: a formal sharing in his own ministerial, salvific and sacramental mission which might also be described as sharing in the work of God. This is quite a radical idea, if we step back and contemplate it for a while, constituting as it does the belief that some among us have been called to explicitly carry out the work that God could really have reserved for Himself alone.

Starting from this point, we might begin to appreciate better the unique gift of the priesthood, which is always going to be a paradox: sinners who constantly labour for sainthood, their own and ours.

GK Chesterton once famously captured something of the remarkable truth of the Church and, in passing, the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

Reflecting on the experience of having been selected for jury duty he wrote: “Our civilisation has decided, and very justly decided, that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. It wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who know no more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt in the jury box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.”

Chesterton’s paradoxical description of the discovery of a solar system as a trifle in comparison to the profound mystery of establishing a Church is delightful, made all the more charming because it is true.

PO Box 75 In recent years it has often Leederville WA 6902 seemed harder to appreciate his cathrec@iinet.net.au point and the nobility of the priesthood as abuse scandal has Tel: (08) 9227 7080 followed upon abuse scandal.

Fax: (08) 9227 7087 One imagines that enormous damage has been done by a few.

And yet not even the very real and shameful nature of the revelations is ultimately able to erase this fundamental truth: that for reasons that will never be known in this life, some are invited to participate in nothing less than the formal work of Jesus Christ and stand in his place for us and for our world.

This astonishing truth bears great reflection.

One of the insights that biological fatherhood can offer is that the spiritual fatherhood of priestly life is a fatherhood just as real in every way and more. It is, in fact, a clearly superior order of fatherhood not dependant upon or limited by biological ties and formal family relationships. A biological father can say this without any sense of inferiority because he sees in the priesthood exactly the same work as his own, but writ on a much larger scale. Where a man seeks to serve his wife and children (one wonders, in passing, when the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ will be declared by invisible official authorities to be officially discriminatory - it doesn’t seem as far fetched as it did some years ago), a priest seeks to serve his parish. These are his spouse and children.

Every priest is called to love this family with a spousal, fatherly tenderness and affection in exactly the same way a man loves his own family.

Seen from this angle, priests are not called to be wimps but strong figures who not only serve but defend and protect, for they are also men. Ultimately, they are called to die, if necessary, for those they love.

As every parish priest will well know, loving one’s family can bring great suffering: calling those one loves to a new life which they often don’t want to hear because their gaze is dazzled by the counterfeits the world offers can be an occasion of great sorrow or sadness, offering the temptation of becoming disheartened. Fathers must embrace the Cross for their children.

The truth is that we Catholics in Australia usually don’t appreciate our priests and we often don’t behave as though they are really our older brothers. Often when we do, we do it in awkward and embarrassingly formal ways that undermine the point. It’s often dangerous in the Church to speak the truth but sometimes these things have just got to be said openly. Meanwhile, much of the truth about the priesthood has been obscured by astonishingly bad and simplistic thinking current in our society, which can readily be found in vacuous and vapid entertainment on television and elsewhere in our forms of popular entertainment. One example is the occasionally-heard assertion that only a married priest can understand the problems of married people.

Try applying that logic to psychiatry and see where you get. In actual fact, the assertion that priests should be able to marry is really asking priests to marry twice, once to the Church and their parishes and once to their wives and children. In such situations it would be interesting in times of conflicting duties to see which wives would win out and what the losing parties would have to say about it. But this is a digression.

The Year for Priests has been an opportunity to re-energise a band of brothers who have been sometimes badly demoralised by recent scandals but it also offered the whole Church a chance to see the priesthood in a new light; to see the deep, noble and even chivalrous nature of its reality. It will probably take a long time yet for the re-moralisation that Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have clearly attempted for their brothers in recent decades who share in the Sacrament of Holy Orders to come to fruition but there are now great reasons for hope.

It is increasingly evident, here in Perth and elsewhere, that men are hearing the call God chooses to give to them and are taking it seriously.

Pope Benedict’s deeply good Year for Priests underscored the vital nature of the sacamental and ministerial priesthood of the Church.

Without this priesthood the Church effectively stops functioning as it was intended by Jesus when, on that day roughly speaking two millennia ago, he picked twelve ordinary men standing around to do the most important job in the world.

l e Aro

l e Aro b a

d the t n u

ab

A year for everyone

16 June 2010, The Record

Letters to the editor Broken nose?

F

urther to correspondence about the use either of a cross or a crucifix at the Veneration in the Good Friday liturgy, Eric Natta (The Record 2 June) suggests that all churches throughout the world should follow the example of the Holy Father in using the crucifix for the Veneration. With due respect, I beg to differ for the following reasons. Firstly, the relevant rubric in the Missal refers clearly to a cross, not a crucifix being carried to the altar.

Secondly, and more fundamentally, in the rite for the “Blessing of a New Cross for Public Veneration” a number of images traditionally associated with the cross are employed. Thus, it is referred to as “the tree”, “the scaffold freely mounted by the Lord”, and the object on which “he triumphed over the age-old enemy”. It seems to me that it is the cross rather than the crucifix that conveys these images.

Thirdly, the Introduction to the abovementioned rite reads “Of all the sacred images the “figure of the precious, life-giving cross of Christ” (Council of Nicaea 11, act 7) is preeminent, because it is the symbol of the entire Paschal Mystery””.

In his Festschrift The Years of the Year, Fr Russell Hardiman, to whom I am indebted for the above citations, concludes “It is clear from the historical perspective, from the liturgical texts used in the veneration of the cross, and from the nature of symbols, that the cross, not the crucifix, is the more appropriate symbol of the Paschal Mystery”.

I am pleased that our Cathedral has set the example of the veneration of the CROSS on Good Friday.

Fr FG Beyer Swanbourne

Lost Sheen

J

esus said, “I am the way, the truth and the light”. Since that time we Catholics have followed His teachings and that of the Church that He founded to find our way to our eternal reward. However, sometimes, even the best of us have trouble finding the right way to go.

I was reminded of this recently when I read in The Record (“Concert to recall the great communicator” 2/06/2010) about a documentary on the life of Archbishop Fulton J Sheen.

I first became aware of Archbishop Fulton Sheen when I was in primary school at Christian Brothers, Highgate in the late 1940s. Fulton J Sheen had come to Australia to participate in a major Church celebration in Melbourne.

At the time he was undoubtedly the most famous Catholic speaker in the world. He had his own hugely popular television programme which even outrated that of the famous American comedian, Milton Berle.

Berle used to quip, while soulfully raising his eyes to the heavens, that “Bishop Sheen has better

ratings than me because he has a more influential sponsor.”

Sheen’s visit aroused great interest throughout Australia. My Grade 5 teacher in those days was Brother Kevin O’Brien and he somehow or other managed to get tape recordings of several of the talks that Bishop Sheen gave while he was visiting Melbourne.

My classmates and I listened to Bishop Sheen’s stories with great interest. He had a wonderful speaking voice and he interspersed his talks with humorous anecdotes that amused us all.

One in particular I have remembered over all these years. While in Melbourne, Bishop Sheen was in great demand as a speaker and he had agreed to address a public meeting which was to be held in the Brunswick Town Hall. He was given rudimentary directions as to how to get there but, after getting off the tram in Brunswick, he could not see any sign of a building that looked remotely like the Brunswick Town Hall.

At length he decided to ask a young boy who was selling The Herald newspaper on a street corner.

“Excuse me, young man, could you tell me the way to the Brunswick Town Hall?”

“What do you want to go there for?’ enquired the brash youngster.

“Well, I have to get there because I am giving a talk to a lot of people.”

“Why?” asked the curious young interrogator.

“Well, I want to talk to them about God.” “Why do you want to talk to them about God?” “Well, I want to talk to them about God because I want to show them the way to get to heaven.”

The young paper boy looked up to the man in the black suit and the crimson vest and laughed, “That’s really funny, Mister. You want to show them the way to get to heaven and you don’t even know the way to the Brunswick Town Hall.”

Noel Bourke Heathridge

Easter coverage deficient

I

would tend to agree with other correspondents that committing virtually the whole of one edition to the defence of the Pope was an unnecessary overkill - one single page would have been more convincing.

However, I would prefer to draw attention to the same editorial propensity evidenced in devoting two whole issues to photos of selected parishes celebrating the Easter Liturgies. I searched the columns of print for any word on the essential meaning of Easter and found none. Ritual and rubrics are meant to point to meaning, not to obscure or replace it.

Only in Archbishop Hickey’s Easter Message (31 March) did I find any mention that “Jesus was transformed into a new way of living.” The Record could have taken up the challenge to more fully

develop this essential Resurrection theme.

We, the baptised, are the new body that the Risen Christ assumes to provide His “new way of living.” What Jesus did in the world of His day through His physical presence He now does through us.

We are His Body, being His presence throughout the world. This is not an exaggeration, nor is it a metaphor.

St Paul was dramatically made aware of this “Good news” on his way to Damascus (Acts 9:3) and it permeated the whole of his written teachings. He never tells us that the body of believers replaces Christ’s Body, nor that it represents Christ’s Body, nor even that it is Christ’s mystical Body. He states simply “all of you are Christ’s Body” (1Cor 12:27).

What has happened to this Easter teaching of the Church? It is not merely a truth of theology, an infallible dogma to be believed. It is the core of Christian spirituality leading us to genuine Christian living and authentic celebration of the Eucharist. Why is it not the main emphasis of the Easter celebration? Why is it not the major theme of our Baptisms? Why is it not repeatedly proclaimed from our pulpits?

The Archdiocese is to establish a department of evangelisation the purpose of which, ostensibly, is to reach out to potential converts.

Richard Rohr is quoted in Guido Vogels’ excellent letter (Record 26 May) as saying “The biggest groups of believers after Catholics in the USA are ex-Catholics.”

This supports our own experience of Exodus from the Church in Australia and would indicate the evangelisation of our own people should merit equal attention. Did the many ex-Catholics ever realise that they are the Body of Christ His living, active presence in the world and not merely non-voting members of a clerical dominated organisation?

Are our ever faithful Catholics ever given the opportunity to reflect on the full import of the Resurrection and its connection to Pentecost?

Neil Smith Bull Creek

And also...

I

t is common knowledge that the human nose consists of cartilage, not bone, which is why there is only a hole in the skull instead of a nasal protuberance. So, in effect, there is no scriptural contradiction in Christ’s nose having been broken during His crucifixion.

Christ’s facial imprint on the Shroud of Turin seems to confirm that His nose was indeed broken.

Since no explanation can be found for several discrepancies including how the imprint caused by radiation could have been made on the Shroud as early as the 13th century, it seems unreasonable to doubt the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin.

Gertrude Aquilina Lynwood

BUSINESS CARD DIRECTORY

16 June 2010, The Record

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Torments in the family

Record contributor FR SEAN FERNANDEZ begins a series looking at the phenomenon of anti-Semitism

Pope Benedict XVI, right, stands with Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni during a visit to Rome’s main synagogue on 17 January this year. Like those of his predecessor John Paul II, the Pope’s visit to a synagogue was significant given the history of European anti-semitism, and anti-semitism on the part of not a few Catholics and other Christians. PHOTO: CNS PHOTO/L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO VIA REUTERS

Unearthing

Treasure

By Fr Sean Fernandez “The Church does not replace Israel, but is grafted onto it, according to the Pauline doctrine, through adherence to Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, who died and rose; and this link forms a spiritual bond that is radical, unique and insuppressible for Christians.”

T

hese are not my words but those of Walter Cardinal Kasper. I would imagine that many people would be surprised at them even though the teaching can be found

in St Paul.

Despite the bond between Christians and Jews, “the history of relations between Jews and Christians is a tormented one. ... In effect, the balance of these relations over two thousand years has been quite negative” (Commission for Relations with Jews).

Anti-Semitism is a terrible thread that runs through the history of Christianity. Yet it is not a monolithic phenomenon; it has taken different forms through the centuries and has been bound up with regional or local politics. I fear that I am taking on a subject both beyond my competence and beyond the limitations of short articles, but allons-y.

I shall devote three articles to the topic. In this first article I shall prepare the ground for the historical discussion. In the second part I shall sketch some aspects of historical antiSemitism and give some useful references on the topic. In the third part I shall attempt to reflect on anti-Semitism and violence within religion and culture.

The history of anti-Semitism is not

uncontroversial. Robert Michael has written a book on Catholic anti-Semitism which portrays the prejudice and persecution starkly. But as Eugene Fisher asks in a review of Michael’s book, “Why did Jews choose to stay in Christendom, when they could have moved to Islamic or Asian countries? This is a question that the author never asks, most likely because the answer would be an acknowledgment that a true presentation of Jewish-Christian relations over the centuries would have many more bright spots in many countries over many centuries in which Jews lived peacefully and relatively prosperously with their Christian neighbours. But this shade of gray reality is, I fear, beyond the author’s intent, which is to show only “the dark side of the Church.”’

No historian would dispute that Jews have suffered greatly at the hands of Christians, both Catholic and Reformed (Martin Luther was vituperatively anti-Semitic), but I think that Fisher raises a good point; Jonathan Elukin addresses it in some depth in his Living Together, Living Apart: Rethinking Jewish-Christian relations in the Middle Ages.

And then there is the Holocaust; the organised murder of millions of Jews. The numbers killed befuddle the mind; the images numb us. The Holocaust casts long shadows and cannot but impact on any discussion of anti-Semitism. It might seem the epitome of anti-Semitism, but I would draw a distinction between historical Western anti-Semitism and the anti-Semitism of the Nazis. Nazism was a pagan, anti-religious ideology. Pius XI, in his 1937 encyclical to the German people, wrote that: “...whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community... whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinises them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by

God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.”

We know that Cardinal Costantini, a close collaborator of Pope Pius XII, on the eve of Italy’s joining the war, told a prominent fascist minister, Alberto de Stefani, that the government should take account of the opinion of the Italian episcopate and clergy which held that Hitler was “a persecutor of religion, the anti-Christ”.

The attitudes of Christians towards the Nazi programme are not easily delineated.

I think there is a legitimate question to be addressed: Did Nazi anti-Semitism resonate with the inherited prejudices of the population? Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem shows just how complicated the question is.

Arendt offers a frightening analysis of Adolf Eichmann: he was not intellectually committed to the Nazi cause, he was not particularly anti-Semitic; “His conscience was indeed set at rest when he saw the zeal and eagerness with which ‘good society’ everywhere reacted as he did. He did not need to ‘close his ears to the voice of conscience,’ as the judgement has it, not because he had none, but because his conscience spoke with a ‘respectable voice,’ with the voice of respectable society around him. Is that not a frightening analysis? The voice of conscience submerged by the desire to conform, to be part of respectable society, to be successful.

Was Eichmann an anti-Semite? Arendt shows the question is complex.

Arendt, by the by, was critical of the political use to which the Israeli state put the Eichmann trial. The policies of the Israeli state toward the Palestinians are egregious.

However, this is a judgement on the polity of the Israeli state and not on Judaism which is bigger than modern Israel. This distinction is one which Jews themselves have made; the leading Jewish intellectual, Vittorio dan

Segre, has remarked in passing that it is a mistake to identify the Israeli state with Judaism.

I started composing this article during Easter. The spur was the criticism of Fr Raniero Cantalamessa’s Good Friday homily. I have heard Cantalamessa preach a few times. His homilies have a depth to them which many other homilies (including those I have given) lack. Mind you, I doubt if my parishioners would put up with 40-minute homilies. In this year’s Good Friday homily, he addressed the sources and manifestations of violence, drawing on the thought of the French thinker of whom I am rather a fan, René Girard. Do read the homily for yourself.

I was struck by the reaction to Fr Cantalamessa’s homily. It appears that any attempt to compare something to antiSemitism, even aspects of anti-Semitism, is beyond the pale. Yet, as he has said, he was not attempting a comparison to the Nazi pogroms, but to historical anti-Semitism. I hope that my articles will make the distinction clear.

Let me end with a thought from Fr Cantalamessa’s homily. We Christians are slow to realise the meaning of the mystery which lies at the heart of our faith: the Cross exposes the roots of violence and weakens its hold on the imagination.

As Fr Cantalamessa said on Good Friday: “the sacrifice of Christ contains a formidable message for today’s world. It cries out to the world that violence is an archaic residue, a regression to primitive stages and surmounted by human history and - if it is a question of believers - a culpable and scandalous delay in becoming aware of the leap in quality operated by Christ.”

Fr Sean Fernandez is Parish Priest of Attadale and lectures in Theology at the University of Notre Dame in Fremantle.

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16 June 2010, The Record

What’s so great... about th The Record invited Bernard Toutounji to answer the question of what makes marriage unique.

M

ARRIAGE: It is a word that is familiar to people. The concept where a man and a woman leave their respective families to start a new family is a simple and natural idea; further explanation seems unnecessary. Interestingly, even a dictionary does not offer much assistance in further definitions. ‘Marriage’ is described as ‘the state of a relationship between husband and wife’. ‘Husband’ is defined as ‘a woman’s partner in marriage’ and ‘wife’ is ‘a man’s partner in marriage’.

It all seems fairly circular without really describing what marriage is.

Perhaps it is because the institution is so ancient? Perhaps it is too difficult to describe? The mystery surrounding marriage could be seen as

Think you’ve got problems? Perth midwife paints soberin

Cheryl Barich in a small village just outside Shevgoan, where Catholic nuns run a mobile clinic doing baby and antenatal checks. Top right: Deidre Lyra is presented with a special garment during a robing ceremony by the head of the Medical Missions Secular Religious congregation; below right students PHOTOS: COURTESY DEIRDRE LYRA and benefactors during the opening Mass for the school.

Continued from Page 1

to fans and the luxury of air-conditioners in summer at home I marvelled at the villagers’ resilience in these conditions; they could often be seen hand-ploughing the fields with buffalos or cutting sugar cane by hand with a sickle.

Nityeseva was originally started by a German missionary Order in the 1960s and continues today run by Indian Sisters known as the Medical Mission Secular. The area the Sisters serve includes a staggering 104 villages. There are only 16 Sisters. The hospital is a 100-bed unit that caters for the poor, at no cost, and runs on Divine Providence.

It caters for anything from the relatively common Cobra snakebites, pregnancy and childbirth to people who need urgent lifesaving operations. No one, for any reason, is refused treatment. I was privileged to care for what many would consider the outcasts of society including HIV, leprosy and tuberculosis patients. I found these patients particularly tragic, as most were young and poorly treated in a society which did not understand their diseases and their need for compassion.

Though I’m a nurse and midwife by profession, many of the patients I came across in the hospital were still shocking cases. I delivered babies who had physical deformities I would only ever have read about in textbooks. They were born in this condition often due to the pesticides and chemicals used in the farms

which are so toxic and known to affect the unborn that they are banned in Australia.

India has no such strict regulations.

I cared for many women who were found (in labour due to blood tests) to be HIV positive. Their delight at the birth of their newborn was tempered by their tragic diagnosis.

I met and cared for women who were victims of domestic violence due to compounding factors - often-male unemployment and the resulting alcoholism, which is distressingly common.

Yet through all of this sadness, there was always an element of hope. Years before, the Sisters realised they needed to target the root problem of the cycle of poverty: education was the key. Due to the fact that females are most often the uneducated in India, the Sisters realised they needed to assist the village girls to be educated.

The village and its surrounding area had a population of approximately 50,000. A significant proportion were female children, incorporated into the farms as workers.

Gradually, through many battles, they convinced parents that their daughters would be better off educated. This meant having to pay for the girls’ education and provide a small stipend for the family as the girl progressed through school as a reward.

Today, through the generosity of benefactors, the Sisters are able to fund the school education of over 100 girls. But there are

many more they wish they could fund. They then found that once the girls passed their Year 12 schooling they were unable to find further education for employment. Most of the girls wanted to remain living in the village with their families. This proved a huge problem. Many girls wanted to work in Nityaseva hospital as nurses but could not afford the nursing education and accommodation costs in the nearby city of Aurangabad.

The Sisters appealed to benefactors for

funds to build a nursing school in the hospital grounds. The late Sheila Dyer, a relative of mine, very generously donated in her estate a large proportion of the funds needed for the building.

Just this year, after some major fundraising in Perth, including the Archdiocesan Catholic Youth Ministry office, a nursing school and boarding accommodation has been built. The official opening ceremony was in February.

The nursing school had to be government

16 June 2010, The Record

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he thing we call Marriage? an indication of its greatness, much like the mystery of the Divine. In the 21st century though, the mystery seems to have become misunderstood. There are some who wish to fundamentally change its meaning, declaring ‘marriage’ open to those of the same sex. There is a different push to bypass marriage altogether and create ‘Relationship Registers’ where a couple can commit without committing. And, lastly, there are those who actually do enter into marriage but with a minimal grasp of what it entails, half of them being churned out through the divorce courts five years later. So then what is it that makes marriage unique?

Marriage has no human inventor and it exists beyond the reach of kings and governments; it is regulated by human power but it transcends it. When a couple marry, they enter into marriage, they do not (at least should not) create the norms of marriage around their personal views. Marriage is an institution that comes with its own set of laws but in a relativistic society where ‘me’ is the centre such an idea does not bode well.

Not surprisingly, the Church has beautiful and wonderful things

to say about marriage. Marriage is present ‘in the beginning’ with our first parents; it is honoured by Christ at the wedding feast in Cana and thus raised to the level of a Sacrament, and it is ‘the weddingfeast of the Lamb’ described in the last book of the Scriptures as the final destination of all in heaven.

Rightly then, should all believers, married or not, love and proclaim the greatness of marriage.

What about those people however who do not believe ‘in the beginning’, who see Jesus as just a good man and who are not conscious of the eschatological banquet? Marriage needs to carry a meaning for all people. If it is only something that makes sense to the religious then we might as well give up defending it. Marriage must again be seen as desirable for a young man and woman who are thinking about ‘taking the next step’.

Marriage must be understood for what it actually is, not just ‘a piece of paper’, but as having an essential and irreplaceable position in the fabric of a society.

Marriage speaks about a unique kind of love and, thankfully, love is desired by all people, believers

or not. Giving and receiving love contribute directly to the level of happiness in a person’s life. When I fill up my car with petrol that action does not contribute directly to my happiness, rather I fill up my car so I can drive it to the shop so I can buy some food so I can eat, because eating is necessary in contributing to the level of happiness in my life (because it allows me to live and life is good). If someone says to us they really want to meet someone and fall in love, we do not ask them why, because we all know that love is a basic human good. No one forces this desire for love upon us; rather it rises up from deep within.

Our human experience also tells us that love must have certain naturally desired qualities. First, we know that love cannot be forced; it must be a gift freely and purposely given and in the case of a personal relationship, freely given between two people, once love ceases to be a free gift it ceases to be love. Second, we desire a love that is a complete gift; what man would be satisfied to know that he was only half loved, and in fact would it even make sense to tell someone you half love them? Third, love must be an exclu-

sive gift; emotions come and go but genuine love is always faithful towards the beloved. We have then a love that is free, total and faithful, but is that enough? It is not enough because those three qualities only provide the framework. The most exciting part is missing. What is missing is the ‘stuff ’ of love, it is the sign and the content, it is the fruitfulness! What love can exist without telling the other ‘I love you’, what love can endure without a kiss, a rose, a word? Indeed it is the fruitfulness of love that makes everything worthwhile!

By simply looking at our own human desires we discover that genuine love must always be free, total, faithful and fruitful, we don’t need to be told we know it. Well, then, what about marriage … those things are marriage! They are the very essence of marriage! A freely given love, forsaking all others, unto death, and until very recently always understood as being for the procreation and rearing of children – the ultimate fruit of a couple’s love. To marry is to say yes in a public way to these realties. And that is our other inbuilt desire, to be acknowledged, we desire to make vows,

to bind ourselves to that which is true. That is marriage! Every married couple declares publically that they dedicated themselves to living out love! Far from being a piece of paper, marriage is the call to live out in the most radical way. The problem with the push for same sex ‘marriage’ is that it desires to take out the natural openness to life and call it marriage, the push for a Relationship Register aims to bypass marriage and set up a parallel to marriage with as many or as few qualities present as a couple may wish. Ultimately these things cannot satisfy though; they may work for some other form of life but human beings long to live a publically recognised love. These types of relationship may be something but they are not marriage. Marriage will always be unique, not because it is a cherished artefact but because it is the only relationship that allows a couple to say yes to the yearnings of their heart.

Bernard Toutounji is the Education Officer for the Archdiocese of Sydney’s Life, Marriage and Family Centre

ng picture of Religious, lay fighting actual poverty in India

Above, Trevor Lyra, Cheryl’s father, stands amidst the weekly markets in the Shevgoan; top left, a local villager cooks for the school’s opening; below left, the newly completed school, which still requires funds to pay off.

approved so that graduate nurses receive an official nursing qualification that is recognised throughout India. The cost of educating one of the village girls in nursing is $1,300 for the whole course, including the cost of close to two years’ board as live-in students, tuition and books. Though this may seem expensive, it also covers the cost to be registered as nurses through the government, which has to be accredited education. The Sisters are appealing to the WA public to help in the costs of

the education, as the girls are unable to meet these costs. Some have saved a small amount of money for their education, but need assistance with the remaining costs.

Here are some of the girls’ stories: Varsha Shinde - 17 years Varsha comes from a small village. Her father died when she was young. Later, her mother married again. Varsha was brought up by her grandparents as her mother left her.

Varsha has completed her Year 12 schooling

and proved to be a bright student. Her family are too poor to fund any further education for her. She aspires to be a nurse one day and help her grandparents with her income.

Jyoti Kamble - 18 years Jyoti’s father has a heart condition where he needs an artificial valve. Due to lack of finances they are unable to afford surgery, and he is unable to work. Her mother works as a labourer, not earning much. Her younger brother has left school in order to work and help the family. They have two other younger children and a small plot of land but, due to the drought and costs, are unable to cultivate it. Jyoti would like to study nursing and help her family financially.

Manisha Magar - 17 years She lost her father 10 years ago and her mother five years ago. They both died of AIDS. Manisha has a younger brother who is 13 years old and is also HIV positive. He has been sponsored by Nityaseva hospital for antiretroviral therapy since December 2009.

They have been cared for in orphanages. They both have been sponsored by the hospital for their education and Manisha has completed her Year 12 studies. She wishes to become a nurse one day and care for her brother.

Today: There is also a growing need in the area for an orphanage for young children.

The Sisters are currently housing 11 children, all under the age of four, all abandoned by their families due to reasons such as increasing poverty and terminal illnesses

of the parents such as AIDS. They are desperately in need of more funds to adequately care for these children and hope to build accommodation for them.

I am not the same person who left for India six years ago. In my everyday work as a midwife in Armadale, and indeed in my every day life, I see people and situations with a whole new perspective.

To date, I have not found any situation as challenging as those I experienced in India.

The young woman faced with a diagnosis of HIV and her anxious concern for her children or parents who have to watch their child starve due to their inability to provide the basic necessities of life is something that I would never have thought about in my comfortable Western loungeroom, or even the hospital I work in which is equipped with every available technology for best-practice, yet which these poor nurses in India would only dream of – if that.

I know now just how privileged I am to be born and live in Australia and have all my most basic needs met – and then some.

Whenever I am tempted with self-pity or lacking generosity, the Holy Spirit reminds me of everything I have in abundance, compared with the unfortunate people who suffer from poverty that I encountered.

Nityaseva Mission is seeking further funds for continuing projects.

Prayers are always required but if you can help, please contact me on cheryllyra@hotmail.com or 0400 639 172.

Page 12

16 June 2010, The Record

YEAR FOR PRIESTS

‘Old material’ has profound ‘Why is Confession impact at priests’ Pope meeting treated with antipathy?’

World needs converted priests, not ecclesial engineers: Cardinal Meisner VATICAN CITY (CNA) Nothing is more important for priests than conversion of heart because only this will enable them to fulfill their mission to bring Christ to others, the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Joaquim Meisner, told some 4,000 priests from around the world gathered at the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls in Rome on 9 June.

The German Cardinal said that making “corrections” to ecclesial structures is not sufficient to evangelise priests, but rather a “change of heart” must occur because “the greatest obstacle to the transmission of Christ is sin.”

Sin, the Cardinal said, “prevents the presence of Christ in our lives.

Therefore, in our mission, nothing is more important than conversion.”

Cardinal Meisner underscored the importance of priests dedicating time to Confession - both to administer it and to receive it - and said one of the “most tragic losses the Church has suffered in the second half of the 20th century” is the loss “of the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.”

“When the faithful ask me: ‘How can we help our priests?’ I always respond: ‘Go to Confession,’” the Cardinal said, underscoring that “when the priest is no longer a confessor, he becomes a religious worker.”

Cardinal Meisner said simply changing the structures of the Church “in order to put on a more attractive show” is not the answer.

“What we need is a change of heart, a change in my heart. Only a converted Paul could change the world, not an engineer of ecclesial structures,” he said.

“A priest who never kneels on the other side of the screen suffers permanent damage in his soul and mission. Here we see one of the main causes” of the multiple crises facing the priesthood in the last 50 years. When the priest abandons the confessional, he enters into a grave identity crisis.

Priests from Pakistan are among those waiting for Pope Benedict XVI to arrive for a prayer vigil marking the close of the Year for Priests on 10 June in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican.

PHOTO: CNS/ALESSIA PIERDOMENICO, REUTERS

For priests, close of special year is moment of grace

BY JOHN T HAVIS CINDY WOODEN Catholic News Service

Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne, Germany, holds up a hat given to him during the World Youth Day opening Mass in Cologne, Germany in 2005. He told a gathering of 4,000 priests last week of the scandal that Confession, a Sacrament that “evokes so much joy in heaven”, is treated with antipathy among clergy and lay.

PHOTO: CNS/BOB ROLLER

“Why does a Sacrament that evokes so much joy in heaven and on earth bring about such antipathy? Only with the humility of a child, like the saints, can we accept with joy the difference between our indignity and the magnificence of God.” Priests who receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation frequently demonstrate their spiritual maturity, the Cardinal taught, “because it is in the Sacrament of Penance that I encounter the merciful Father who has the most precious of gifts”.

“To be on both sides of the screen in the confessional allows

us, through our witness, to help our people experience Christ. In order to truly forgive, we need much love. The only forgiveness that we can really give is that which we have received from God,” Cardinal Meisner said.”

The International Meeting of Priests is being promoted by the Congregation for the Clergy with the theme, “Faithfulness to Christ, Faithfulness of the Priest.”

All the priests of the world were invited to the event that concluded the Year of Priests, convened by Pope Benedict XVI to mark the 150th anniversary of St Jean Marie Vianney.

Pope lays celibacy on the line POPE Benedict XVI offered a spirited defense of clerical celibacy as the Year for Priests drew to a close at Vatican City.

Addressing a prayer vigil in St Peter’s Square on 10 June, he said the decision to forego marriage shows that priests are oriented toward a different life, “in which we are beyond matrimony.”

He contrasted the celibate priest with the modern man who avoids marriage out of fear of commitment. For the priest, the Holy Father said, celibacy is a very strong commitment: a witness to the faith that life in Christ is more important than life on earth.

That witness, he added, is puzzling to a secularised world that cannot look beyond this present life.

Pope Benedict’s remarks came in response to questions solicited from the priests who had come to Rome, in answer to his invitation,

for the final days of the Year for Priests.

Answering a question about encouraging new priestly vocations, the Pope cautioned against an “activist” approach, saying that prayer is more important than recruitment programmes.

The danger to be avoided, he said, is the notion that the priesthood is “just another job.” ● Cardinal Claudio Hummes, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, urged the world’s priests to be missionaries who preach the Gospel to all, especially the poor.

“The mission ad gentes [to the nations] and the new missionary evangelisation in lands already evangelised are now increasingly urgent everywhere and need to be implemented with new missionary ardour, new methods, and new expressions,” he said at a 9 June Mass among the concluding celebrations of the Year for Priests.

“Our beloved Pope Benedict XVI, in speaking of missionary urgency, rightly said that ‘it is not enough to preserve the existing community, although this is important.’ This means that it is urgent to get up and go on mission.

This is what the Holy Spirit, in this international meeting, wants to renew in us all.

“Today, there are still hundreds of millions of human beings who are forced to live in dire poverty and even misery and hunger.

“They are marginalised and excluded from the table of material, social, and cultural goods and often from the table of spiritual goods.

“They are the first who have the right to receive the good news that God is a Father who loves them unconditionally and that He does not approve the inhuman conditions in which the poor are maintained.”

VATICAN CITY - By all accounts, the estimated 15,000 priests who came to Rome for the closing events of the Year for Priests set a record, but they were a small fraction of the 409,000 priests who serve around the world.

Some, such as Fr Robert J Carr, the pastor of St Benedict Parish in Somerville, Mass, said they came as representatives of their local Church communities.

It was Fr Carr’s first trip to Rome; he’d never been to Europe before and, he said, had “never been east of Cape Cod.” Others had personal reasons to attend the encounters in Rome from 9-11 June.

“It’s an important occasion for me. It’s a landmark because the last time I was here was 40 years ago, so I thought it was a good occasion to come back to Rome,” said Fr Patrick Arowele of Abuja, Nigeria.

The best part of being a priest?

“Serving the people, especially in my part of the world,” Fr Arowele said.

Fr Roland Hafliger, 43, of Lenzburg, Switzerland, came with another priest.

“We wanted to feel part of the community of all the priests. In Switzerland, there are not many of us, so it is good to know we are not alone,” he said.

There was another reason, too. Fr Hafliger celebrated his 15th year as a priest on 11 June, the day of the closing Mass in St Peter’s Square with Pope Benedict XVI. “It’s an honour to celebrate Mass here with the Holy Father for my anniversary, even if it is not my silver anniversary,” he said.

At the Mass, the priests renewed their promises with the Pope. That was a highlight for many participants, including Fr Anton Quang Dihn Van of San Francesco di Paola Parish in San Antonio.

He said the point of the Rome events was to help people be better and more holy priests, an ongoing task that requires selfreflection.

“I look at myself every night before I go to sleep: Was I good today? Did I help people?” he said.

Fr Daniel Divis of St Mary Parish in Lorain, Ohio, said the week’s programme of speeches, conferences and liturgies did not necessarily cover new ground, but made a profound impact.

“You know, they said we need prayer, we need service to the poor and we need to focus on our personal relationships with the Lord. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before, but when you hear them saying it in this kind of context, it really was a grace moment. It was reaffirming, it was electric, it was pretty good,” he said.

A speech by German Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne on the importance of confession created a buzz of reaction among many priests.

Oblate Fr Paul Beukes of Johannesburg said Cardinal Meisner’s observation was something he will take back with him, along with the experience of Mass with the Pope.

“The Mass this morning was wonderful. There was a spirit of prayer that was good, that was beautiful. I think it was something that will lead me to look at my life and to go home and say, ‘We’re going to make the changes,’” he said.

For Filipino Mgr Vicente Bauson, who works in campus ministry in the Archdiocese of Manila, the Pope’s comments about encouraging new vocations were insightful.

“He encouraged priests to realise that modelling and witnessing are very important, and also that priests must learn to be humble - and even Bishops.

And I think that if young people see that lived in a true way, then surely we will get vocations,” he said.

The concept of humility was cited as an important theme by many priests who came to Rome.

As Daniel Engels, a deacon soon to be ordained a priest in Limburg, Germany, said, “The priesthood isn’t just, ‘Oh, he’s so good, so great.’

“A priest is just a servant, and we thank God for the priests who guide us.”

Mgr Blaise Zubuor from the Diocese of Tamale, Ghana, who works at the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, said he came to the events to meet priests from all over the world and to mark the 150th anniversary of St John Vianney, patron saint of parish priests.

“He is our model as priests to be humble, loving, obedient, all the adjectives you can think of,” he said.

16 June 2010, The Record

Page 13

YEAR FOR PRIESTS

‘Arrogance of reason’ hinders Church Scandal cannot conceal ‘radiance of priesthood’: Pope

Priests follow hymn booklets during a large gathering at the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls in Rome on 10 June. PHOTO: CNS/PAUL HARING

Pope Benedict XVI and some 15,000 priests concelebrate a Mass to conclude the Year for Priests in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican on 11 June.

PHOTO: CNS/PAUL HARING

Joined by priests of the world, Pope leads vigil for Year for Priests

BY JOHN THAVIS Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY - Meeting with nearly 15,000 priests from around the world, Pope Benedict XVI expressed the Church’s gratitude for their ministry and encouraged them to resist secularising influences.

At a vigil in St Peter’s Square on 10 June at the end of the Year for Priests, the Pope said the clergy shortage cannot be solved by turning the priesthood into merely “a normal profession, a job,” and added that today’s priests need to be on fire with love for Christ. While he did not explicitly speak of clerical sex abuse cases, he appeared to refer to the crisis when he defended priestly celibacy. He said celibacy was a scandal for the world because it anticipates eternal life with God, a reality rejected by many people today.

The role of the faith, he said, is to announce this “great scandal” of God’s place in their lives, a task that is made more difficult by the “secondary scandals of our own inadequacies and sins.”

He asked for prayers that God would free the Church from such sins.

The evening encounter featured testimonials from priests working around the world, including Latin America, France and Hollywood, California.

When the Pope arrived and rode his Popemobile through the vast crowd, he was greeted with a standing ovation.

Answering five questions posed by priests, the Pope began by expressing his appreciation for their work and his sympathy for the problems they face in ministering to populations that are increasingly large and fragmented.

He said today’s priests must not try to do everything, but should focus their energies in key areas: providing the Eucharist and the Sacraments, preaching well, and helping the poor and suffering.

He urged them not to neglect their own spiritual lives and, when needed, to “find the humility and the courage to rest”.

He spoke beneath a banner portrait of St John Vianney, patron of parish priests. The Pope proclaimed the year-long focus on priestly ministry to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the saint’s death.

Several of the questions posed to the Pope suggested that the world doesn’t really understand priests or the priesthood.

A priest from Slovakia, for example, said he fully appreciated the importance of celibacy, but was disturbed when reading “the many worldly criticisms of this gift”.

A Japanese priest said the very unworldly lifestyle of St John Vianney, especially personal and sacramental penitential prac-

Priests apply sunscreen before concelebrating Mass with Pope Benedict XVI to conclude the Year for Priests.

PHOTO: CNS/PAUL HARING

tices, also seem to run counter to contemporary ways of living. In response, the Pope said the Church must make clear to an often sceptical world that its practices are not designed to close priests off from people, but to direct them toward others.

An African priest said theology as taught in modern seminaries sometimes reflects modern tastes and tendencies instead of being focused on God and Jesus Christ as if the world were judging the faith and not vice versa. He said this has led to the “spread of subjective opinions that allow the introduction, even in the Church, of a non-Catholic way of thinking.”

The Pope answered that this was a difficult and painful problem in the Church.

He called it an “arrogance of reason” that seeks to deny the greatness of God. Pope Benedict said he’s seen nearly three generations of theologians come and go, including times when such “scientific” ideas appeared to gain the upper hand, but which “have grown old, and are practically worthless today, in fact many of them seem ridiculous.” His words were greeted with applause.

All week long, priests from more than 90 countries filled the streets of Rome, attending liturgies and conferences at major Churches in the city. They spent most of their time praying, listening and chatting among each other.

Among the approximately 300 from the United States was Fr Anton Quang Dinh Van of San Francesco di Paola parish in San Antonio, a native of Vietnam who has lived in the US since 1981. He said he came to Rome to meet other priests and find better ways to “bring the Gospel to our people.”

Asked about the effect of the sex abuse scandal, he said the close of the special Year for Priests was a moment for priests to reflect on their promises.

“In every generation there is something bad, but the Holy Spirit is there to purify us. There are many holy priests and seminarians who have dedicated themselves to God and the people. It is a very good time for priests to renew their promises,” he said. Fr Robert J Carr, 51, the pastor of St Benedict Parish in Somerville,

Massechusetts, whose parish had sent him to Rome to celebrate the end of the Year for Priests with the Pope, said it meant a lot to his parishioners that he be present.

Throughout the year, he said, “I’ve been working at being a better priest for them supporting them, letting them know I am there for them, fostering their creativity.”

As for the sex abuse scandal coming up again during the Year for Priests, Father Carr said he didn’t think it was a coincidence.

“I think what’s going on, I think the Lord is cleaning up His Church, strengthening His Church because the world is heading for trouble” and holy ministers will be needed more than ever, he said.

Vatican officials and other main speakers at the closing events focused on such themes as “conversion and mission,” the priest’s configuration to Christ, priestly identity and the priest’s relationship with laypeople and Bishops.

But several also mentioned the sex abuse scandal in their talks.

The pain of the clerical sex abuse crisis has led to a “providential awareness” that the priesthood must experience a season of rebirth and spiritual renewal, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, told hundreds of priests gathered at the Vatican on 9 June.

“We have had to experience pain because of the infidelities, sometimes very serious, of some members of the clergy, which has had a negative impact on the credibility of the Church,” he said.

Cardinal Bertone reminded the priests that in May, Pope Benedict had spoken to reporters of “a ‘persecution’ that was born within the Church itself ” and said the experience must lead to a conversion, purification and reconciliation.

Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet spoke to priests on 10 June about an “unprecedented wave of challenges against the Church and the priesthood following the revelation of scandals whose gravity we must recognise and sincerely work to repair. But beyond the necessary purification our sins require, we must also recognise that at the present moment there is open opposition to our service to the truth and there are attacks from both outside and inside that aim to divide the Church. We pray together for the unity of the Church and for the sanctification of priests, these heralds of the good news of salvation,” he said.

Cardinal Claudio Hummes, Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy, welcomed the many priests who travelled long distances to be in Rome for the close of the special year. Speaking at a 9 June Mass in the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, he said that while priests are called to minister to all Catholics, they have a special obligation to care for the poor who “are marginalised from the table of material, social, cultural and - often - spiritual goods.”

VATICAN CITY (CWN) - It was no coincidence that the sex abuse scandal struck during a year set aside for celebration of the priesthood, Pope Benedic XVI told 15,000 priests at a Mass in St Peter’s Square concluding the Year for Priests.

The Year for Priests was dedicated to a spiritual revival of the clergy, the Pope said in his homily. “It was to be expected,” he said, “that this new radiance of the priesthood would not be pleasing to the Enemy.”

Thus it was not surprising, the Pope reasoned, that during the year “the sins of priests came to light - particularly the abuse of little ones.”

The Pope said that the Church must “insistently beg forgiveness from God and from the persons involved, while promising to do everything possible to ensure that such abuse will never occur again.”

He called for vigilance in the training and supervision of future priests, and emphasised the importance of discipline within the Church: “The Church too must use the shepherd’s rod, the rod with which he protects the faith against those who falsify it, against currents which lead the flock astray,” he said.

“The use of the rod can actually be a service of love. Today, we can see that it has nothing to do with love when conduct unworthy of the priestly life is tolerated.

“Nor does it have to do with love if heresy is allowed to spread and the faith twisted and chipped away, as if it were something that we ourselves had invented.”

At the same time, while acknowledging the sins of some priests, the Pope said that the scandal should give the faithful a new perspective on the great gift of the priesthood. “Had the Year for Priests been a glorification of our individual human performance, it would have been ruined by these events,” he said. But, in fact, the revelations of priests’ weaknesses is a reminder that God serves the Church, and makes Himself available to the world through the ministry of weak and fallen human persons.

The priesthood, Pope Benedict said, is a demonstration of the “audacity of God who entrusts Himelf to human beings,” fully realising their weakness.

God’s astonishing confidence in man comprises “the true grandeur concealed in the word ‘priesthood,’” the Pontiff said.

“The world’s religions, as far as we can see, have always known that in the end there is only one God. But this God was distant,” the Pope continued. Through the priestly ministry, God becomes immediately present to his creatures.

Therefore a Catholic priest is “no mere office-holder” but a direct participant in Christ’s saving action.

Pope Benedict delivered his homily on the priesthood at a Mass that closed the observances of the Year for Priests.

This year coincided with the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the death of St John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, who was frequently cited by the Pope this year as a model of priestly dedication. As he celebrated the Mass, the Pope used the chalice that once belonged to the French saint.

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Kerala Bishops call for more spiritual celebration of Church feasts

BY ANTO AKKARA Catholic News Service COCHIN, India (CNS)The Catholic Bishops in Kerala State - the heartland of Christianity in India have called for austere and more spiritual celebration of Church feasts.

“The feasts are becoming less spiritual and more pompous and commercial. We need to take corrective steps,” SyroMalabar Archbishop Andrews Thazhath, secretary-general of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council, told Catholic News Service at the end of the assembly.

“The spiritual dimension of the feast is often lost in the eagerness to make the feasts colourful,” added the Trichur Archbishop.

A couple lays their child at the tomb of St Alphonsa Muttathupandathu in Bharananganam, India, in 2008.

In a statement after the council’s 8-10 June meeting, the Bishops said that “the undesirable practices that have crept into our feast celebrations should be avoided.”

“Celebrations of feasts should lead to spiritual awakening and renewal and foster community feeling,” said the statement by the Bishops who represented 30 dioceses in the state.

The Bishops urged the nearly five million Catholics in Kerala to be conscious of environmental pollution caused by fireworks, traffic jams and huge processions and arcades. Over the years, feast celebrations have become more colourful and competitive in Kerala - where Christians account for 19 per cent of the state’s 35 million people - with parishes trying to outdo each other with colourful lighting, fireworks, live bands and processions.

The feasts also become an occasion for heavy drinking.

Fr Stephen Alathara, deputy secretary-general of the Kerala Bishops’ council, told CNS that a detailed guideline on feast celebrations is being drafted. With Kerala having the highest alcoholism rate in the country, the Bishops have called for strengthening a temperance and prohibition campaign at the parish level and have urged each Catholic hospital to ensure it has adequate facilities to treat alcoholism.

“Educating the faithful on the spiritual dimension of feasts will also include discouraging liquor consumption in our families, especially during feasts,” added Fr Alathara.

16 June 2010, The Record

THE WORLD

Euro-centric theology out the door Emerging voices influence evolution of 21st-century Catholic theology

BY DENNIS SADOWSKI Catholic News Service CLEVELAND (CNS) - Shifting demographics within the Catholic Church are allowing new voices to emerge to help guide the development of Catholic theology, several theologians said during the 65th annual convention of the Catholic Theological Society of America.

The voices shaping theology include those of women and African, Latin and Asian cultures, providing for a deeper understanding of what the Scriptures can mean to a church that has been dominated by European theological interpretations for centuries.

Extending in many cases from broad experiences of witnessing or performing ministry in marginalised and poor communities both in the United States and around the world, these emerging voices are widening traditional theological thought while building recognition that diversity will strengthen the Church as it faces growing challenges in the 21st century.

The effort is allowing Catholics of all walks of life to “tap into the universal human experience,” said Fr Bryan Massingale, associate professor of theology at Marquette University, who ended his term as CTSA president on 13 June during the organisation’s convention.

“We’re trying here to create a Catholic theology that is no longer a European or Eurocentric Catholic theology,” Fr Massingale explained.

“The way I put it we’re trying to create a Catholic theology that is truly Catholic, truly universal. And if we’re going to be Catholic, genuinely universal, then inclusion is not something of political correctness. Inclusion is a requirement of our faith.”

The effort to include formerly missing voices in the development of theology in the United States stems from necessity because Catholics of European descent no longer make up the majority of the US Catholic Church, said Dominican Sr Jamie Phelps, director of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana.

“Once you get into the minority position and you have the power and the authority, but you don’t have the manpower to be in charge ... then we’re forced to do what the Second Vatican Council told us to do a long time ago: that everyone is called to communion,” Sr Jamie told CNS during a convention break.

“We’re supposed to call leadership from each cultural family.”

That leadership extends not only to positions within the Church and its various ministries, but the development of theology as well, she said. “What the Second Vatican Council has done is still being unfolded,” Sister Jamie added. “We as theologians are trying to read the signs of the times. You have to look at the natural historical cultural developments and say, ‘What is God saying to us about this in terms of who we are and how we’re supposed to continue the mission of Jesus Christ?’”

Fernando Segovia, Professor of New Testament and early Christianity at Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School and a Cuban-American, explained to CNS that the rise of new voices has been fuelled by better access

Fr Bryan Massingale, a theology professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee, delivers a 2007 keynote speech at the 40th anniversary gathering of the Religious Education Congress in Anaheim, California. He told a theology convention last week there are new attempts to build a Catholic theology that PHOTO: CNS/SISTER NANCY MUNRO, CSJ is no longer Euro-centric.

to education and a reversal of the tokenism practised for decades by administrators of theology programmes. Whereas in the nottoo-distant past a single Hispanic or African-American would have been admitted to graduate or doctoral studies in theology, the situation has changed today, he said.

“With an increase in voices and faces, there comes an increase in power,” said Segovia, who has studied the rise of minority Christian theologies in Western cultures.

“The institutions do respond to a group of individuals more than they respond to one.

“The demographic (changes) of the late 20th century both here and

abroad will continue to change the face of Christendom, incredibly so,” he said.

For its part, CTSA established its Committee for the Underrepresented Ethnic and Racial Groups in 1988. Father Peter Phan, professor of Catholic social thought at Georgetown University, co-chairs the committee. Its work revolves around raising up the voices of Catholics who traditionally have not been prominent in Catholic theology.

Fr Phan said during a convention session that theology in the Asian Church arises from grassroots activities rather than from academic settings. “We do (theol-

ogy) as an experience of Church within a context of daily living,” Fr Phan said.

“The Church of Asia is the people of God among God’s people, so, therefore, there’s always this understanding that we exist not for ourselves.

“The goal of the Church is neither to convert people into the Church and increase the numbers nor plant the Church by establishing more churches, but rather by this prophetic witness, prophetic sense, that here God’s reign is present by the celebration of life.”

In an interview, Fr Phan told CNS that he has seen Asian Bishops immerse themselves in local Christian communities to understand how a parish functions and how ministry is carried out in an effort to better understand Catholic theology.

“Every time they go to a discussion in a city, it’s mandatory that they go and stay for a while among the people, eat their food, drink their drink and stay with them for a while,” he said.

As people continue to migrate around the world and become involved in Catholic parish life, Sr Jamie said she expects theology to reflect more of the experiences people have in their lives.

“The diversity both in the local hurch and within the global Church is not an accident,” Sr Jamie said. “It’s a design. As I tell my students, diversity is an aspect of nature. What would it be like if we had only one type of tree or one type of bird?

“So if diversity is one aspect of creation, then we have to see that as a gift from God and instead of being afraid of diversity or the other who is different than myself, I need to see that as an opportunity. What is it that I can learn from this other culture?”

Catholics need a ‘new apologetics’ to defend faith with reason, without being defensive VATICAN CITY (CNS) - The rise of “new atheism” and the popularity of books that distort Church doctrines call for a “new apologetics” to explain and defend the Christian faith, US Cardinal William J Levada said.

Proclaiming the good news always involves explaining and defending the faith, tailored to the sensibilities of particular times and places, said the Cardinal, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The Cardinal spoke on 29 April at a conference on “a new apologetics” at the Legionaries of Christ-run Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University in Rome.

The development and use of “apologetics” - a system of explaining and defending the truths of faith - largely went out of fashion with the Second Vatican Council, but is still needed today because Catholics in every age are called to explain the reasons for their faith and their hope, the Cardinal said.

“If apologetics was criticised and largely abandoned in the wake of the Second Vatican Council for being too defensive or too aggressive, it is perhaps because the admonition to proceed with ‘courtesy and respect’ had too often been ignored,” he said.

Today, with “the likes of Richard Dawkins and his fellow apostles of the so-called ‘new’

atheism addressing thousands on college campuses, with books caricaturing the doctrines and philosophy of the Christian tradition on the best-seller lists,” the Cardinal said, “how ripe are the times for a new apologetics”.

Defending the faith does not mean being defensive and, to be effective, it must be well thought out and based on “a renewed fundamental theology where faith and reason, credibility and truth are explored as necessary foundations of the Catholic Christian faith,” he said.

He added that even the most convinced and clever arguments will not be an effective response to criticism of the Catholic faith unless they are accompanied by the personal witness of Catholics living holy lives and helping others. The Cardinal suggested an effective starting point would be to “focus on the beauty of God’s creation. For this apologetic to be credible, we must pay greater attention to the mystery and the beauty of Catholic worship, of a sacramental vision of the world that lets us recognise and value the beauty of creation as a foreshadowing of the new heavens and the new earth”.

Sharing that vision with others, he said, requires working for justice, helping the poor and protecting the environment and not simply talking about the beauty of creation.

“At the same time, our ability to articulate the full vision of truth, justice and charity is essential to ensure that such witness and action is not just a passing phase, but can make a lasting contribution to the creation of civilisation of love,” he said.

The Cardinal also said the “new apologetics” must reflect the strides made in ecumenism and interreligious dialogue since the Second Vatican Council.

While there is need for a specifically Catholic apologetics, he said, “questions of spirit and faith engage all the great religious traditions and must be addressed with an openness to interfaith dialogue.”

“The call for a new apologetics for the 21st century does not, in my view, amount to a ‘mission impossible,’” he said.

“The spirit of contemporary society is sceptical of truth, of the claims to know the truth, even or especially - of truth revealed by God,” the Cardinal said, which is why apologetics is a step-by-step process.

In the end, he said, the heart of Christian apologetics must be an attempt to help people experience the truth at the heart of the Christian faith: “that God is love and that our creation in God’s image and likeness makes all humanity able to love God above all things and love our neighbours as ourselves.”

16 June 2010, The Record

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THE WORLD

Pope apology comes with call for renewal Pope apologises for abuse, says priests called to bring God to world

Priests from the Archdiocese of Karachi, Pakistan, hold up a banner in support of Pope Benedict XVI before the start of a prayer vigil with the pontiff as part of the closing of the Year for Priests in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican on 10 June.

PHOTO: CNS/PAUL HARING

REPORTS ON CATHOLIC CLERGY ABUSE in English-language newspapers spiked in 2002 and 2010. Sharp increases in coverage correspond with two key events — the adoption of the U.S. bishops’ charter to protect children and the uncovering of abuse cases in Ireland and Germany.

JUNE 2002 U.S. bishops adopt child protection charter, pledge to remove any cleric who has sexually abused a child.

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BY CINDY WOODEN Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI said the Year for Priests might have been ruined by the clerical sex abuse scandal, but instead became a “summons to purification” in the Church.

Concelebrating Mass on 11 June with some 15,000 priests, the Pope said that “the enemy,” Satan, wants to drive God out of the world and opposes those who work to ensure that God is at the side of every man and woman, especially in times of trouble.

“And so it happened that, in this very year of joy for the sacrament of the priesthood, the sins of priests came to light - particularly the abuse of the little ones, in which the priesthood, whose task is to manifest God’s concern for our good, turns into its very opposite,” the Pope said in his homily at the Mass concluding the Year for Priests.

The priests, 80 Cardinals and 350 Bishops and Archbishops, who were sitting under the hot sun in St Peter’s Square, signalled their agreement with the Pope’s statement by applauding.

The Vatican said that with so many priests vested for Mass and reciting together the key words of the eucharistic prayer with their hands extended toward the altar, the liturgy marked the largest concelebration ever held at the Vatican.

Addressing the abuse scandal in his homily, Pope Benedict said the Catholic Church begs forgiveness from God and “from the persons involved, while promising to do everything possible to ensure that such abuse will never occur again.”

In admitting men to the seminary and priesthood, he said, “we will do everything we can to weigh the authenticity of their vocation and make every effort to accompany priests along their journey, so that the Lord will protect them and watch over them in troubled situations and amid life’s dangers.”

The priests and Bishops, who turned St Peter’s Square into a sea of white albs and stoles, were well aware of the scandal and of the

MARCH 12, 2010 Archdiocese of Munich and Freising admits mishandling of abuse cases during the time Pope Benedict XVI was archbishop.

FEBRUARY 2004 The bishops release two studies, revealing more than 10,000 claims of sexual abuse from 1950 to 2002.

NOV. 26, 2009 Independent commission issues report documenting abuse and cover-up in the Archdiocese of Dublin.

APRIL 2005 Pope John Paul II dies. German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is elected pope.

U.S.

APRIL 2008 Pope Benedict XVI visits U.S., meets privately with abuse victims.

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Sources: Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

shadow of doubt it cast over the Catholic priesthood.

But, the Pope said, the scandal should make priests grow “in grati-

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tude for God’s gift, a gift concealed in ‘earthen vessels’ which, ever anew, even amid human weakness, makes His love concretely present

in this world. Let us look upon all that happened as a summons to purification,” the Pope said.

He then led the priests in the solemn renewal of their priestly promises to be faithful ministers of Christ, working not for their own interests, but for the good of all men and women.

Fr Paul Daly, pastor of St Joseph Parish in Heywood, England, said: “I think the Pope was spot on” in saying the Year for Priests was about thanksgiving and renewal, not shouting the glories of the priesthood.

“It wasn’t a triumphalistic celebration, but was calm and reflective,” he said.

As for the Pope using the Mass to apologise for abuse, Fr Daly said, “He says and continues to say from the heart that he is shocked and sorry.

“The Pope would have been pilloried if he hadn’t said anything, but he also needed to apologise for the past and renew the Church’s commitment to making the Church safe for children.”

In his homily, the Pope said, “God wants us, as priests in one tiny moment of history, to share his concern about people.”

Called to be shepherds, imitating Christ the Good Shepherd, he

said, “we are not fumbling in the dark. God has shown us the way and how to walk aright.” When priests, like anyone else, walk through “the dark valleys of temptation, discouragement and trial,” they must remember that God is there, he said.

“God personally looks after me, after us, after all mankind. I am not abandoned, adrift in the universe and in a society that leaves me ever more lost and bewildered,” he said.

Continuing the work of the Good Shepherd, the Pope said, “the Church, too, must use the shepherd’s rod, the rod with which he protects the faith against those who falsify it, against currents which lead the flock astray.”

The “rod and the staff ” help the Church exercise its love for people and for their true good, he said.

“Today we can see that it has nothing to do with love when conduct unworthy of the priestly life is tolerated,” he said. “Nor does it have to do with love if heresy is allowed to spread and the faith (is) twisted and chipped away, as if it were something that we ourselves had invented,” the Pope said.

The Year for Priests coincided with the 150th anniversary of the death of St John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests.

During the liturgy, Pope Benedict used a chalice that belonged to the saint and was brought to Rome from his former parish in Ars, France.

In his homily, the Pope had told the priests that it is impossible for them not to rejoice that God has given them the gift of being able “to set God’s table for men and women, to give them His body and His blood, to offer them the precious gift of His very presence.”

At the end of the Mass, Pope Benedict knelt before an icon of Mary and led the priests in consecrating themselves to her “maternal heart in order to carry out faithfully the Father’s will.”

Asking her intervention in calling forth the Holy Spirit to transform them, they prayed that the Church would be “renewed by priests who are holy.”

“Let your presence cause new blooms to burst forth in the desert of our loneliness,” they prayed.

“Let it cause the sun to shine on our darkness; let it restore calm after the tempest, so that all mankind shall see the salvation of the Lord.”

AIDS battle must include values approach: Nuncio UNITED NATIONS (CNS) People must be equipped “with more than knowledge, ability, technical competence and tools” to truly combat “the deeper causes” of AIDS and provide “loving care” to those who have it, the Vatican’s UN Nuncio said.

Archbishop Celestino Migliore urged more attention and resources be dedicated to “a value-based approach grounded in the human dimension of sexuality, that is to say, a spiritual and human renewal that leads to a new way of behaving toward others. The spread of AIDS can be stopped effectively, as has been affirmed also by public health experts, when this respect for the dignity of human nature and for its inherent moral law is included as an essential element in HIV prevention efforts”.

The Archbishop spoke on 9 June during a daylong review by the General Assembly of international efforts to fight AIDS and HIV.

The world leaders were told that progress is being made, but that the epidemic continues to outpace global response.

Archbishop Migliore said the Vatican is also concerned about an apparent gap in available funding for antiretroviral treatment for the poor and marginalised groups.

He said health care providers associated with Catholic-run agencies in Uganda, South Africa, Haiti, Papua New Guinea and elsewhere have reported they are being told by international donors not to enrol new patients into current programmes. These providers have also expressed concern “about further cutbacks even for those already receiving such treatment,” he said.

“The global community carries a serious responsibility to offer equitable and continuous access to such medications,” he said. “Failure to do so will not only cause untold loss and suffering to those individ-

uals and families directly affected by the disease but also will have grave public health, social, and economic consequences for the entire human family. Particularly vulnerable are children living with HIV,” some of whom also have tuberculosis. A report by UN SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon that was delivered during the review called for strengthening links between AIDS response and other development goals.

Ki-moon’s report said that the number of people in low-income and middle-income countries receiving antiretroviral treatment had jumped tenfold in five years to 4 million, HIV infections decreasing 17 per cent from 2001 to 2008.

But the epidemic continued to outpace the response, it said, with five new infections reported for every two people receiving treatment.

Archbishop Migliore noted that the world’s heads of state and other government officials issued dec-

larations in 2001 and 2006 committing themselves to “effective action in response to the global HIV spread.”

But the ongoing epidemic calls “into question our ability to fulfill such promises,” he said.

He called for an “honest evaluation of past approaches that may have been based more on ideology than on science and values,” and urged “action that respects human dignity and promotes the integral development of each and every person and of all society.”

Right: An activist lights a candle on 30 November 2009, the eve of World AIDS Day, during an AIDS awareness campaign in Agartala, the capital of India’s northeastern state of Tripura.

Pope Benedict XVI pledged the Church’s continued fight against AIDS through prayer and assistance to millions of people suffering from PHOTO: CNS the disease.

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Hyundai pulls TV soccer ad after Catholic uproar NEW YORK CITY (CNA/ EWTN News) - Responding to “enough of an outcry” from Catholic individuals and blogs, Korean car maker Hyundai announced on Monday that it has pulled a World Cup-themed television ad that ran during the USAEngland soccer match on 12 June featuring a “church” in Argentina mocking Catholic Sacraments.

The ad depicts the ceremony of a “church” called “Iglesia Maradoniana” founded in Rosario, Argentina. The “church” was established in the spirit of both honouring Diego Armando Maradona - Argentina’s top soccer player and current coach of its national team - as well as mocking the Catholic Church.

The soccer ad which Hyundai subsequently withdrew fo l l o w i n g p ro t e s t s f ro m Catholics.

The ad presents elements of a Catholic ritual, but with Catholic symbolism heavily mixed with soccer imagery, while actor Jeff Bridges, the spot’s narrator says: “All over the world, soccer is almost a religion ... but for the members of one church in Argentina, it actually is.”

Hyundai tried first to justify the ad claiming that it was based on the actual church in Argentina. But later, Hyundai spokesman apologised and announced the ad was being taken down.

“We got enough of an outcry that we think we missed the mark,” a Hyundai spokesman told the Daily Finance.

“So we’re going to do the right thing and pull it down.”

In a statement, the Korean company said: “The unexpected response created by the ad, which combined both soccer and religious motifs to speak to the passion of international soccer fans, prompted us to take a more critical and informed look at the spot.

Though unintentional, we now see it was insensitive. We appreciate this feedback and sincerely apologise to those we’ve offended.”

True to its word, Hyundai made all efforts possible to eliminate the ad from YouTube. Several links that originally led to the ad, now display a YouTube message stating, “this video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Innocean Americas.”

Innocean Worldwide Americas is the Californiabased advertisement company that apparently created the ad.

Innocean’s mission statement is: “Truly understand your client’s needs. Only then can you give them what they want.”

16 June 2010, The Record

THE WORLD

Mental illness needs deeper exploration in youth ministry Webinar explores ways Church can respond to mentally ill young people

BY NANCY FRAZIER O’BRIEN Catholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) - The best way Church ministry leaders can help a young person struggling with mental illness is not to try to save them but to work to put them in a position where they can save themselves.

This was the conclusion made by panellists at a 10 June Webinar sponsored by the National Catholic Partnership on Disability.

Linea Johnson, a recent college graduate from Seattle who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and Robert McCarty, executive director of the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry in Washington, agreed that empowerment and communication are crucial in helping young people with mental illness find their way.

“The bottom-line resource is the relationship you have formed with this young person,” said McCarty, urging those who work with youths to practise “the ministry of wasting time” and to cultivate “the skill of creative loafing.”

Only that way will youth leaders find “opportunities to pick up what’s really going on in a young person’s life,” he said.

Moderated by Paul Myers, director of the University Health Centre at the University of Portland and staff psychologist for the Northwest Catholic Counselling Centre in Portland, Oregon, the Webinar drew participants from more than 200 sites around the United States.

The interactive nature of the Webinar allowed participants to report back to the organisers on their own experiences in dealing with youths and young adults experiencing problems that might be related to mental illness.

More than 80 per cent of the participants said they knew a young person who admitted to

The logo for the National Catholic Partnership on Disability’s new initiative to raise awareness of mental illness uses the symbolism of a stained-glass window to show the importance of every member of the Church.

PHOTO: CNS COURTESY OF NATIONAL CATHOLIC PARTNERSHIP ON DISABILITY

abusing drugs and nearly threequarters said they knew someone who had contemplated suicide.

More than half said they knew a young person who admitted to cutting him or herself, delinquency, eating disorders or early pregnancy.

Johnson also noted that the high school dropout rate for students

with some form of mental illness was more than 50 per cent. “In middle school and high school, the thing that kids are most worried about is being different,” she said, adding that the onset of a mental illness “can lead very quickly to some destructive coping mechanisms.”

Johnson, who recently graduat-

ed with a degree in creative writing and English from the University of Seattle, said she joined in the Webinar to “let people know that people with a mental illness can move forward and be stable.”

She described herself as an “extreme perfectionist” in high school who became “extremely suicidal” in college but had been stable for the past three or four years.

The hour-long session offered an overview of the most common forms of mental illness, the symptoms of various disorders and the different life issues that can bring on a crisis.

But all three speakers stressed the importance of not making a premature diagnosis and of seeking a professional evaluation of the young person, in order to be sure that the behaviours exhibited are not just part of what Myers called “normal adolescent angst.”

“A label can cause a lot of emotional distress,” said Johnson.

McCarty said the principles of a caring response by Church ministry leaders could be summarised by the acronym ROCK - resource offering compassion and knowledge.

“ROCKs need to listen twice as much as they talk,” he said.

“They need to express and receive honest emotion, but most importantly, they need to extend realistic hope in the midst of crisis.”

The message to young people with mental issues should be “healing can happen and I will walk with you through the healing process,” McCarty said.

Myers said Church ministry workers need to walk a fine line between offering confidentiality to the young person and “reserving the right to call someone else” if necessary to protect the young person’s well-being.

Ninety two per cent of the participants in Webinar said in response to a question that they had referred a young person to a mental health professional.

McCarty urged parish youth leaders to prepare themselves for that possibility by investigating resources available in their communities before they are needed.

‘Beauty of celibacy’ revealed in Rome Pope’s Secretary of State tells priests from 70 countries their gathering proved the beauty of priestly celibacy VATICAN CITY, 9 JUNE, 2010 (Zenit.org).- There is a beautiful aspect of celibacy that underlines a priest’s dedication to serve each and every person as a brother or sister in Christ, said Benedict XVI’s secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

The Cardinal spoke about the priesthood and celibacy this afternoon at the Priests Today conference at Paul VI Hall in the Vatican, sponsored by the Congregation for Clergy with the Focolare Movement, the Schoenstatt Movement and the International

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone

Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

Priests “are essentially brothers among brothers, in whom they recognise the face of Christ.

Brothers of every person, of men and women, whom they must love and serve with total selflessness, without any attachment, without seeking their own interest,” explained Cardinal Bertone.

“Thus is understood the present importance and beauty of celibacy.

And in you this beauty radiates that unconditional love which has always been extremely valued by the Church, as sign and stimulus of charity and as special source of fruitfulness in the world,” he added.

The Church and humanity, the Cardinal said, “are in need of priests of this mettle, of authentic ‘prophets of a new world,’ that world that began with the coming of Christ, which is in continuous becoming, in continuous formation”.

“At this time,” Cardinal Bertone lamented, “we have had to bear the sorrow of infidelity, on occasions grave, of some members of the

clergy, who have had an extremely negative influence on the credibility of the Church.”

For this reason, he recalled, when Benedict XVI spoke with journalists on the flight to Portugal, he referred to “a ‘persecution’ that is born within the Church herself.”

“From this sorrow arises a providential awareness,” added Cardinal Bertone, quoting Benedict XVI’s Pastoral Letter to Catholics of Ireland. “It is necessary to live ‘a period of rebirth and spiritual renewal,’ to follow ‘with courage the path of conversion, purification and reconciliation,’ ‘to find new ways to transmit to young people the beauty and richness of friendship with Jesus Christ in the communion of His Church.’”

Thousands of priests from 70 countries took part in the half-day event that marked the beginning of the closing ceremonies of the Year for Priests, which ended on 11 June.

16 June 2010, The Record

Page 17

THE WORLD

Catholic media’s role to grow believers Catholic media has role in building up unity of believers, prelate says

BY JULIE ASHER Catholic News Service NEW ORLEANS - Catholic media “should strive to build up the unity of believers” and also must speak “to those who are not members of our community,” the head of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications said in a speech in New Orleans on 4 June.

Archbishop Claudio Celli made the remarks during the closing banquet at the Catholic Media Convention, sponsored by the Catholic Press Association of the US and Canada and the Catholic Academy for Communication Arts Professionals.

The Archbishop attended the entire 2-4 June convention, including a dialogue session between North American Bishops and Catholic media professionals.

“It gives me great pleasure to be with you again this evening as we celebrate the professionalism, the commitment to excellence, the gifts and the achievements of the people and the institutions who are the backbone of the Catholic media in North America,” he said at the banquet.

Archbishop Claudio Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, speaks during a plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications at the Vatican on 29 October 2009, with Cardinal Roger M Mahony of Los Angeles, left, and Cardinal Miloslav Vlk of Prague, Czech Republic.

PHOTO: CNS/PAUL HARING

A fundamental element of the identity of the Catholic media is that it “has a particular role to play in the Church’s basic mission of evangelisation,” he said.

“The communication of the good news of God’s love for all people, as expressed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is what unifies and makes sense of all the other aspects of the

life of the Church,” he said. “This is particularly true of evangelisation: communication is not simply one dimension of evangelisation; without communication there can be no evangelisation,” the Archbishop said.

“The mission to announce the word of God is the responsibility of all the disciples of Jesus Christ by virtue of their baptism.

“The awareness must be deepened in every parish, and in every Catholic community and organisation: they must find ways to bring the word of God to all.”

He said it is important that the Catholic media be accessible “to those who may not share our beliefs,” including other Christians, those of other religions, nonbelievers and “those who may have left faith behind in the course of their lives.”

He praised all forms of media - newspapers, magazines, radio, television, books, video, digital and online outlets.

Regarding social media, he said those new forms of communication “undoubtedly offer the Church a greater opportunity to disseminate the Word of God more widely and more directly.”

“It is possible, using the new technologies, to present the timeless message of God’s love for His people more attractively and in ways that may engage new audiences,” Archbishop Celli said. “We must never forget, however, that (in) spreading the Good News (we) need to proceed heart by heart.”

The Catholic media must support the Catholic community,” he said, “in particular, offering them news and analysis of a type they would not find easily in other media,” he said.

“This does not mean turning a blind eye to problems, also within

the life of the Church, but it does mean trying to locate them within a horizon of interpretation that is not hostile to faith or to the Church,” he said.

He said that, as some have pointed out, new media can sometimes lead to a polarisation of opinion rather than greater mutual understanding.

“It is natural that debates about faith and morals should be full of conviction and passion but there is a growing risk that some forms of expression are damaging the unity of the Church and, moreover, are unlikely to draw the curious and the seekers to a desire to learn about the Church and its message,” he said.

Archbishop Celli praised the winners of Catholic press awards announced that evening, saying the high standards “encouraged by these awards means that those who work in this important mission can hold their heads high in the company of their fellow professionals in the rest of the media.”

He said the “greatest asset we have in our communications mission is the generous and competent commitment of so many people.”

“You can buy technologies, technical services and certain types of expertise; the enthusiastic and gracious personal dedication of so many people is a God-given gift and blessing,” Archbishop Celli said.

Western triumphalism neglects Eastern wisdoms Symposium builds Europe-Asia bridges ZURICH, Switzerland (Zenit. org) - A symposium that started on 14 June at the University of Zurich gathered international scholars to build bridges between Europe and Asia, natural sciences and the humanities, and different ways of thinking.

This was the objective laid out for the two-day symposium on the theme Europe in China - China in Europe: Science and Technology as a Vehicle to Intercultural Dialogue.

The event is being held in honor of the 400th anniversary of the death of Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), a Jesuit missionary from Italy who worked in Asia and is called “the protagonist of interaction with China through science” by the conference organisers.

The symposium was sponsored by the Swiss-Chinese Association and the Swiss-Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

On 14 June the presenters gave various addresses on the topic Protagonists of Cultural Exchange Between Europe and China.

Benjamin Elman of Princeton University, also a Changjiang visiting chair professor of Fudan University in Shanghai, China, spoke about Rethinking the Macartney Mission of 1793 in Light of the Limits of the Jesuit Mission in China, addressing the history of China’s development of natural science, and the successes that are rarely known by Westerners.

The scholar pointed out that Europeans have tended to herald the success of Western science while assuming the failure of other countries to reach this level of modernity. He attempted to bridge the gap between this European viewpoint and the Asian perspective by describing some of this little known history.

An illustration depicting Jesuit Fr Matteo Ricci in a traditional Chinese robe hangs in the Beijing Centre for Chinese Studies in Beijing, China. The 17th century missionary to China is well-known by the country’s Catholics. Right: A torquetum, a sundial that shows minutes, is part of an exhibit at the Vatican on the life of Fr Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), an Italian Jesuit who spent 28 years evangelising in China and bringing Western science to the faraway continent.

PHOTOS: CNS The device was made around 1700.

Elman acknowledged the role of Catholic missionaries in disseminating knowledge, bring-

ing European learning to China and reporting about Asia to the Western world.

He explained that during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), Chinese and Manchus often brought Jesuit experts into their governments in order to tap their Western knowledge of the latest mathematical, astronomical, military and surveying techniques.

It would be a mistake to underestimate the efforts of the Chinese to master this knowledge brought by the Jesuits, Elman stated.

He encouraged the study of history from the Chinese perspective so as to properly value their accomplishments and promote mutual global understanding.

Michela Fontana, who is from Rome but lived in Beijing for several years to study the effect of the Jesuit missionary’s work there, gave a presentation on Matteo Ricci and the Use of Science in CrossCultural Understanding.

She spoke about how the missionary, who lived in China from 1582 until his death in 1610, pioneered cultural mediation.

The scholar described the Jesuit’s work using science to gain the respect of the learned Chinese, and how he was the first European to have the Emperor’s approval to live in China during the Ming dynasty.

She noted Ricci’s efforts to bridge the gap between Europe and China by sending reports

home about Asia and translating Western books into Chinese.

As well, Ricci paved the way for other Jesuit missionaries who were to follow after his death, bringing with them the latest advances in mathematics, astronomy, geography, hydraulics, botany, mechanics, architecture, and medicine.

One of these Jesuits was Nikolaus Fiva (1609-1640), who was the first Swiss missionary in China.

He was ordained in Goa, India, and celebrated his first Mass there in front of the relics of St Francis Xavier.

Xu Wenmin of the East Asia Institute in Bonn, Germany, gave a presentation on the missionary’s life in an address: Chinese Scholar Officials and the Jesuits in the Transition from Ming to Qing: Wei Xuelian and the Swiss Jesuit Nikolaus Fiva as a Paradigm.

Born in Fribourg, Fiva entered the Society of Jesus in 1628.

He was sent to the East Asian mission before completing his theology studies, and set off from Portugal to India with 31 others.

Fr Fiva arrived in Nanjing, China, in 1638, where he quickly mastered the local language. He also worked in Hangzhou, where he died in 1640.

Symposium participants ended the day by taking part in a panel discussion on the Phases of Intercultural Encounter: Jesuits, Protestants, Scientists.

On 15 June the event’s focus was Intercultural Attraction and Antagonism.

It included presentations such as “The Rhetoric of Trust: Science and Religion in Jesuit Paratexts,” by Joachim Kurtz of the Heidelberg University, Germany.

Fr Artur Wardega, director of the Macau Ricci Institute, will give an address titled From Macao up to Beijing (1582-1610) - Matteo Ricci and Euro Jesuit Enterprise in China: Portrait of a Jesuit.

Page 18

16 June 2010, The Record

PANORAMA A roundup of events in the Archdiocese

Panorama entries must be in by 12pm Monday.

Contributions may be emailed to administration@therecord.com.au, faxed to 9227 7087, or mailed to PO Box 75, Leederville WA 6902.

THURSDAY, 24 JUNE An Hour For Sheen Concert 7.30pm Trinity College, Trinity Ave, East Perth in Gibney Hall which has recycled airconditioning. Featuring Yan Kee Soprano; John Meyer Pianist; St Joseph’s Chamber Choir and Poet and Raconteur June Glen, all highly trained and talented artists. Special preview of the Film Servant of All, a biography of Servant of God Archbishop Fulton J Sheen. This DVD will be available on the night.

Presented by the Fulton J Sheen Society Inc. $27.50 includes warm refreshments. Concessions for Seniors, Pensioners and Students. Enq and Bookings Daniel 9291 8224 . Email sheensociety@globaldial.com.

Morley Mental Health Support Group Workshop 7–8pm at Infant Jesus Parish Hall, 47 Wellington St, Morley. Please bring a plate to share. Topic: An Introduction to “Taking control of your life”, facilitated by Barbara Harris. Interested in coming along? If so, contact Thelma on 9276 5949 or Darren on 9276 8500 or Barbara Harris on 9328 8113.

FRIDAY, 25 JUNE MEDJUGORJE-EVENING OF PRAYER All are warmly invited. 7-9pm at All Saint’s Chapel, 77 St George’s Tce, Allendale Sq, Perth for ‘An Evening of Prayer’ with Our Lady Queen of Peace. Evening consists of Adoration, Rosary, Benediction and Holy Mass. Free DVD on Fr Donald Calloway’s conversion from life of sexual promiscuity, drugs, alcohol and crime to priesthood. Enq 9402 2480 or email medjugorje@y7mail.com.

SATURDAY, 26 JUNE Novena devotions in honour of Our Lady of Good Health Vailankanni Holy Trinity Church, Embleton followed by the Vigil Mass at 6pm. Enquiries Church Office 9271 5528 or George Jacob 9272 1379.

TUESDAY, 29 JUNE Day of Reflection St Paul’s Church, 106 Rookwood St, Mt Lawley. 10.30am Rosary Cenacle, followed by Holy Mass & Talks, concluding 2pm. Celebrant & Speaker: Fr Timothy Deeter. Bring lunch to share. Tea/coffee supplied.

Enquiries: 9341 8082

Divine Mercy The Divine Mercy Healing Mass will be offered at St Francis Xavier’s Church, Windsor St, East Perth at 2.30pm.

The main Celebrant will be Fr Marcellinus Meiilak, OFM. reconciliation in English and Italian will be offered. Divine Mercy prayers followed by Veneration of First Class relic of St Faustina Kowalska, Refreshments afterwards. All enquiries call John on 9457 7771.

GENERAL NOTICES Perpetual Adoration Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is in its seventh year at Christ the King Church, Beaconsfield.

Open 24 hours except at Mass times. All welcome. Enq Joe 9319 1169.

Perpetual Adoration Sacred Heart Church, 64 Mary St, Highgate. All that is needed is for each one of us to be willing to spend one hour a week with Jesus so that all the hours are covered with one person in the Chapel. Available times, Monday 2-3am, 4-5am, Saturday 11am-12 noon, Tuesday 11am12 noon, Sunday 2-3pm, 3-4pm; Thursday 7-8pm. Enq Helen 9444 7962.

Pilgrimage to the Holy Land The Church of St Jude in Langford is seeking to put together a visit to Jordan, the Holy Land and Egypt, leaving 8 September 2010. The duration of pilgrimage is expected to be 15 days and could accommodate 28-30 people. Fr Terry Raj will be the Spiritual Director. Enq Matt 6460 6877, mattpicc1@gmail.com.

EVERY SUNDAY Pilgrim Mass - Shrine of the Virgin of the Revelation 2pm at Shrine, 36 Chittering Rd, Bullsbrook. Commencing with Rosary followed by Benediction. Reconciliation is available before every celebration. Anointing of the Sick administered during Mass every second Sunday of the month. Pilgrimage in honour of the Virgin of the Revelation, last Sunday of the month. Side entrance to the church and shrine open daily between 9am-5pm. Enq SACRI 9447 3292.

SUNDAY, 4 JULY

EVERY SUNDAY AND MONDAY

Divine Mercy An afternoon with Jesus and Mary will be held at St Francis Xavier Church, 25 Windsor St, Perth at 1.30pm.

The main celebrant for the afternoon will be Fr Hugh Thomas CSSR - Homily on Our Lady of Perpeptual Help.

Refreshments will follow afterwards. Enquiries call John on 9457 7771.

Extraordinary Form of Latin Holy Mass 11am Sunday and 7.30pm Monday except 3rd Monday of the month, at St Joseph’s Parish, 20 Hamilton St, Bassendean.

SATURDAY, 10 JULY St Padre Pio Day of Prayer Sts John and Paul 5 Inham Ct, Willetton-Brentwood Programme as follows: 8.30am - St Padre Pio DVD 10am - Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Rosary.

Divine Mercy, Silent Adoration and Benediction.

11am - Holy Mass, celebrant Fr Tiziano Bogoniu, St Padre Pio Liturgy, Confessions available.

12pm - Bring a plate for a shared lunch. Tea and coffee supplied. For more information contact us on 6278 1540.

in brief...

Factory suicides prompt criticism HONG KONG (CNS) - Catholic employees at a Foxconn electronics factory in Shenzhen, China have criticised a lack of Church support for migrant workers

of the monastic lifestyle and contemplative prayer. No cost. Enq Lynne 9293 3848.

EVERY TUESDAY Novena to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal and Benediction 6pm at the Pater Noster Church, Marmion and Evershed Sts, Myaree. Mass at 5.30pm.

Enq John 0408 952 194.

EVERY WEDNESDAY Holy Spirit of Freedom Community 7.30pm at The Church of Christ, 111 Stirling St, Perth.

We are delighted to welcome everyone to attend our Holy Spirit of Freedom Praise Meeting. Enq 9475 0155 or hsofperth@gmail.com.

Chaplets of the Divine Mercy 7.30pm at St Thomas More Catholic Church, Dean Rd, Bateman. A beautiful, prayerful, sung devotion accompanied by Exposition and Benediction. All welcome. Enq George (h) 9310 9493 or (w) 9325 2010.

EVERY THURSDAY Catholic Questions and Answers 7-7.30pm at St Joseph’s Parish Centre, 20 Hamilton St, Bassendean. Catechesis learned easily with questions and answers. The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Adult learning and deepening of the Catholic Faith, with Fr John Corapi DVD series, 7.30-9pm.

EVERY FIRST THURSDAY OF THE MONTH Group 50 – Catholic Charismatic Renewal Prayer Meeting 7.30pm at Redemptorist Monastery, 190 Vincent St, North Perth. Prayer and Praise, Mass and the Sacrament of Anointing. All welcome. There will be no meeting on 1 July 2010.

FIRST FRIDAY OF THE MONTH Communion of Reparation All Night Vigil All warmly invited 7pm-1am at Corpus Christi Church, Lochee St, Mosman Park. Mass, Rosary, Confession and Adoration. Enq Vicky 0400 282 357.

Mass for Vocations 7pm at the Sisters of the Poor, 2 Rawlins St, Glendalough.

Celebrated by Fr Doug Harris, followed by Holy Hour and Benediction, refreshments will follow.

EVERY FOURTH SUNDAY OF THE MONTH Holy Hour for Vocations to the Priesthood, Religious Life 2-3pm at Infant Jesus Parish, Wellington St, Morley. The hour includes Exposition of the Blessed Eucharist, silent prayer, Scripture and prayers of intercession. Come and pray that those discerning vocations to the Priesthood or Religious life hear clearly God’s loving call to them.

LAST MONDAY OF EVERY MONTH Christian Spirituality Presentation 7.30-9.15pm at the Church hall behind St Swithan’s Anglican Church, 195 Lesmurdie Rd, Lesmurdie. Stephanie Woods will present The Desert Period of Christianity, 260 to 600AD. From this time period came the understanding following a string of suicides since January.

The Asian Church news agency UCA News reported that some migrant workers from the company, which produces the iPhone and other products for Apple, have set up their own online mutual support site in the wake of at least 13 suicides or attempted suicides at the firm. They were joined by Catholics working in other Shenzhen factories. Catholics at the firm have little contact with local Christians. “I am unfamiliar with the local environment

Healing Mass 7pm at St Peter’s Church, 93 Wood St, Inglewood.

Benediction, Praise and Worship followed by Mass with Fr Sam and Fr Joseph Tran as celebrants, later fellowship.

Enq: Priscilla 0433 457 352.

ANNOUNCEMENTS BIRTHS

EVERY FRIDAY LUNCH TIME Christian Meditation comes to the City 12.15-12.45pm at The Wesley Uniting Church, William and Hay Sts, Perth. Ecumenical Christian meditation as taught by Fr Laurence Freeman. All Welcome. Enq: CMC WA 9444 5810, Anne 9335 8142 or christianmedittion@ iinet.net.au or www.christianmeditationaustralia.or

Benedict Paul Goodman, 4kg 70g Your announcement of the birth of a child, grandchild, niece, nephew or friend could make this even more special by placing it in the newspaper for everyone to see.

BIRTHDAYS BAPTISMS MARRIAGES

and know few parishioners, as I sometimes have to work Sundays,” said a person identified only as Chen, a Catholic layman who works for Foxconn. In the absence of local Church support, Chen and about 30 other Catholics set up the online forum.

A priest identified only as Fr Joseph, from the Catholic parish in Shenzhen, admitted his church needed to mobilise the faithful to care for migrant workers: “Our action has been slow, probably due to immaturity of our faith formation.”

Mr and Mrs John Smith Your announcement of the marriage of someone you care about could make this even more special by placing it in the newspaper for everyone to see.

ANNIVERSARIES DEATHS Text only: $10.00 Text with photo: $20.00 Limit of 30 words per announcement.

To place an announcment in next week’s issue, please contact production@therecord.com.au.

16 June 2010, The Record

Page 19

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OTTIMO Convenient city location for books, CDs/DVDs, cards, candles, statues, Bibles, medals and much more. Shop 108, Trinity Arcade (Terrace level), 671 Hay St, Perth. Ph 9322 4520. Mon-Fri 9am-6pm.

RICH HARVEST YOUR CHRISTIAN SHOP Looking for Bibles, CDs, books, cards, gifts, statues, Baptism/Communion apparel, religious vestments, etc? Visit us at 39 Hulme Ct (off McCoy St), Myaree, Ph 9329 9889 (after 10.30am Mon to Sat). We are here to serve.

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Journalist and 20 year old martyr beatified VATICAN CITY (CNS) - The benefits the Year for Priests brought for priests, for the Church and for the world cannot be measured, but they will be evident for years to come, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Speaking during his 13 June midday Angelus address, two days after he formally closed the Year for Priests, the Pope said the year’s events were a reminder that “the priesthood is a gift from the heart of Christ, a gift for the Church and for the world.”

Thanking God for “all the benefits this year brought to the universal Church,” he said that “no one would ever be able to measure them, but certainly we can see its fruits and will see even more.”

“Let us continue to remember all priests in our prayers, thanking Christ for this great gift of His love and asking Him to keep

them in His grace as faithful friends and ministers,” the Pope said, and also used his Angelus address to draw Catholics’ attention to the recent beatification of two laymen.

Archbishop Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, presided over the 12 June beatification of Manuel Lozano Garrido, a journalist who lived in Spain 1920-1971 and was paralysed for the last 26 years of his life. The ceremony was in Linares, Spain. The Pope said: “At the end of his life he also lost his sight, but continued to win hearts to Christ with his serene joy and unwavering faith. Journalists will find in him an eloquent witness of the good that can be done when the pen reflects the greatness of soul and is at the service of truth and noble causes.” The second new blessed, Lojze Grozde, was a Slovenian killed in 1943 aged 20. A member of Catholic Action, he was interrogated by communist partisans, who found a Latin prayer book among his belongings. They suspected him of being a Fascist sympathiser and killed him.

THE LAST WORD

16 June 2010, The Record

Page 20

Catholic clarity in a complex world...

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