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W E S T E R N A U S T R A L I A’ S A WA R D - W I N N I N G C AT H O L I C N E W S P A P E R S I N C E 1 8 7 4
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HEALING THE NATION’S
CULTURE OF ABUSE
The Royal Commission sounds like a good idea. Can it get to the heart of a national problem?. – Pages 10-11
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BRUNO’S
MIGHTY RIDE Meet a young man who’s biking across the country for birthing mothers – Page 3
Stop to contemplate, the Archbishop tells Perth men, and you will discover,
He has called you by name
Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB speaks with Perth men after delivering the inaugural Catholic Man Breakfast talk, an initiative of the national Catholic men’s movement menALIVE. The Archbishop spoke of his humble beginnings, the steps in his journey to priesthood and how relationships, most importantly with the living God, have always been key to his understanding of faith. PHOTO: ROBERT HIINI
Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB was the inaugural speaker at the menAlive Catholic man breakfast last Thursday. More than 180 men heard the Archbishop retrace how grace has worked in his life. This is an edited version of his speech:
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HEN Robert and Kim asked me to come and speak this morning, they wanted me to tell my story and give you a sense of how the boy who grew up in the Southern Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne ended up over here as the Archbishop of Perth – what’s the story that’s led to that happening? A part of doing that is to encour-
age everyone to do the same thing; sometimes the best way to understand why we are where we are, both, in practical terms of where we are living and what we are doing, but in the deeper sense of what’s going on inside us. And I thought i’d start off with a quote: ‘the place God calls us to is the place where our own deep longings and the world’s deep hungers meet.’ If I had to explain how it is that I ended up here talking to you it is because that process has been operating in my life, as I think it does operate in most people’s lives and if we can tune into it I think we are on the right track. I’m here because of a whole lot
of ordinary things that happened and that had consequences in my life – you could explain it purely at that level. But I’m very convinced that in the ordinary everyday unfolding of our lives there is the providence of God, shaping us, leading us sometimes pulling us along, sometimes shoving us in different directions. God is at work there. We are not always all that receptive, but I think that for us as Catholics and as people of faith whatever our faith might be at the moment, we are all at different stage there - but we have some understanding of that. So a little bit about myself: I was somewhere the other day, I was out
in a parish, visiting a school. The main thing the kids wanted to know was how old I was. When I told them that I was 58 that kind of blew their minds – 58, it’s very old for kids when they are only in primary school. So I am 58, born in 1954, born in Melbourne. And I have one brother who is married with one daughter, Jacquie - she’s just turned 21. I come from a very small family. My father was an only child so there’s nobody at my dad’s side of the family and my dad died when I was about 23, so dad’s being dead a long time. My mother was one of two children, she had a brother who was much older, and he married and
had a few kids but he and his wife died many years ago; so I’ve got a couple of cousins floating around somewhere but we don’t seem to have much contact with each other. My mother died on the same day that my niece was born, so quite a coincidence there. So, a very small family. I must say that when my sister in law found that that I was being moved to Perth she wasn’t very happy because we are a small, happy family and we kind of rely on each other a bit and it’s fine for me, because this is new and exciting for me but for Peter and Robyn, that’s my brother and sister in law, life just goes on as it always did except I’m not turning Continued on page 6