PERTH, WA: February 16,1989
Registered by Australia Post Publication No. WAR 0202
Number 2623
POST ADDRESS: PO Box 50, Northbridge, 6000 W.A. LOCATION: 26 John St, Northbridge (east off Fitzgerald St).
TELEPHONE: (09) 328 1388
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Holohan heads council
PRICE 600
Father Gerard Holohan ( left) has been elected chairman of the Council of Priests I Fathers Brian O'Loughlin, Pat Bishop Si (vice chairman), John Orzanski (secretary) for a second two-year term. Other members of the new executive are from left: I and Peter Whiteley. The management skills needed by priests to cope with increasing pressures of parish administration will be one of the topics to be studied by the incoming council of priests during its two-year term. During a day and a half live-in meeting at the Institute of Human Development at jarrandale last week attention was drawn to the increasing number of calls made on parishioners and the need for priests to be skilled at subdelegating many of their administrative responsibilities.
As part of this educational process a study seminar will be organised for all priests taking up new appointments in the archdiocese this year. Other sub-committees will look at care for aged priests and their retirement. It is also suggested that all priests working in the archdiocese be surveyed to ascertain their educational and
other skills so that these resources can be made use of more fully. The uneven distribution of zones will also be studied with a view to increasing the efficiency of priest zone meetings as a support for priests. A subcommittee will start work immediately on priestly issues that have already emerged in connection with the Year of Mission and which surfaced at a clergy study day last December.
Viet va e
LOUD NEW YEAR PRAISE FOR FAITH IN PERTH
While respecting one another's cultures, Australian and Vietnamese Catholics can contribute to the building of a new Catholic church and a new Australia, Archbishop Foley said at the blessing of the Highgate new centre.
"With a mutual understanding we can build something different than either of us have at the moment — a multichurch cultural expressing one faith in new ways relevant to the Australia of today. "Together we must be ready to build
something new," he said. Noting that the new centre in Barlee Street had been purchased for $195,000 and that along with other donations by benefactors the Vietnamese community was raising $1200 a month to defray the cost, Archbishop Foley said it was time for the wider church also to make a contribution. He said the debt would be interest free for the first five years and then at half interest rate for the following five years, reverting to full interest if any debt then remained. He told the Vietna-
mese that as they became comfortable in their new land, not to forget the new arrivals and their needs. He called on families to listen to their children because they are going to create a new vision. He said the past cannot and must not be forgotten but must "become the springboard for a new adventure in life". "As the child moves into adolescence and adulthood but does not reject the past, so we cannot lock ourselves away in our houses and maintain a privacy of religion. "We must move out
into a wider church, to a new experience of faith in a multicultural society." Archbishop Foley said it was important for Vietnamese to have a deep understanding of how their faith was lived out in Vietnam and for Australians to understand that culture of faith. He said the New Year was an appropriate moment to commence "a whole new era in the life of your community". Noting that the New People New Life prayers and literature have been translated into Vietnamese Archbishop Foley said the task was to be
faithful to the all that is sacred in the living Catholic faith and at the same time to be faithful to the world in which the Church lives and which in Perth is reflected in 30 or 40 different cultures. He praised the leadership that had been faithful both in successful and in difficult times during the 10 year history of the Vietnamese Catholic community in WA.
Bishop Hickey, who initially had visited Vietnamese refugee camps to make contact and find a future chaplain urged the gathering to maintain pressures on govern-
ments and other agencies to improve conditions in the camps which he said were often desperate.
Following a luncheon in the hall, Archbishop Foley in the evening celebrated Mass during which he confirmed 18 Vietnamese.
See Page 2 for another story
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