PERTH, WA: September 14, 1989
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Martin now a
deacon
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• At St Joseph's church Queens Park last Friday night Deacon Martin Roestenburg is pictured preparing the altar for Mass shortly after he had been by deacon ordained Archbishop Foley. Brother Martin, who made his final profession as a Norbertine the preceding week, will return to Rome to resume his studies for the priesthood.
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ENVOY TELLS OF GORBACHEV'S DESIRE ROME: "Yes, and why not?" was Soviet Ambassador to Italy Nikolai Lunkov's reply to questions whether President Mikhail Gorbachev would meet Pope John Paul. Twice in two days ambassador Lunkov confirmed Gorbachev's desire to meet the pope, first at a meeting of the Italian Communist Party and later on Italian Radio. A Gorbachev meeting with the pope had been mooted 12 months ago when a Soviet state visit to Italy had to be abandoned because of Italy's constitutional crisis.
Press reports say that Gorbachev may have requested a papal audience in a letter delivered to Pope John Paul by a personal representative of Foreign Minister Shevardnadze. Tass agency merely said that the letter outlined issues that should be a ddressed in a Vatican-Soviet meeting, such as nuclear threats. As far back as July 1988, Cardinal Casaroli had met Gorbachev in Moscow and spoke of better contacts between the Vatican and Soviet Russia.
Ambassador Lunkov said it would be rushing things to predict further diplomatic relations. "In everything we have to be realistic," he said. He favoured further development of relations between the Soviet Union and the Vatican as an aid to world peace. "It is necessary to interest oneself in the actions favouring peace and detente undertaken by the more than 800 million Catholics," he said.
Supreme values ... MUST BE INJECTED AT UNIVERSITY LEVEL, SAYS POPE V ATICAN CITY (CNS): Bishops should not be seen as "foreign agents" by Catholic universities but as participants in their life, Pope John Paul II told a commission revising a Vatican draft document on C atholic higher education. The responsibility of the university and the Church to each other requires "an intimate communion with the pastors the of Church", he said recently. "The adjective 'Catholic' on the one hand defines the uni-
versity, and on the other, it helps it develop according to its true nature and to overcome the dangers of undue distortions," the pope said. The values held and taught by the Church are brought into dialogue with culture and with science through Catholic colleges and universities, the pope said. supreme Those values are becoming more insistent as the pragmatic and hedonisic mentality of life leads to social and moral conflicts which can gravely injure the dignity and freedom
of people as well as the good of society", the pope said. Finding practical ways to be truly Catholic and truly a will university require adapting Vatican norms to the local situation, he said. The draft document, first released in November 1988 and discussed in April this year by a meeting of 200 delegates has been reviewed by a commission of 15 includes which Father Edward Malloy, president of Notre University Dame Indiana.
"One of the most important things to say is that when we put the norms section to a vote, after some changes, they won unanimous support in almost every case," Father Malloy said. "Where it goes from here is not up to us," he said. The draft will be presented to the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education and then will become advice to Pope John Paul II who is expected to issue a on document Catholic higher education next year.
The draft being reviewed by commission members distinguished between the educational mission of the Catholic university and the evangelising mission of the Church. It also encouraged the universities to preserve and strengthen their Catholic identity. The draft guaranteed Catholic colleges and universities the "institutional autonomy necessary to perform its functions", and said that "so long as the rights of the individual and of the community are
preserved within the context of the comits good, mon members are guaranacademic teed freedom". Theologians teaching at Catholic universities, the draft said, "recognise and accept the right of the the of bishops Church, as the authentic interpreters of Catholic doctrine, to judge the conformity of their theological research and teaching with authentic catholicity and divine revelation". Father Malloy said the commission
members felt, "in so far as it was a consultative process, a real consensus emerged". "We hope that will be reflected in whatever the final document says," he said. Father Malloy said commission the members were concerned "that in some areas the draft was excessively juridical or negative in tone". However, with the revisions made at the September meeting, "we feel we were able to sustain the consensus reached by delegates to the April meeting", he said.