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Pope tells of greater f reedom now being enjoyed in Eastern Europe
Set free b God
VATICAN CITY (CNS): Pope John Paul II c elebrated Christ's resurrection by hailing "the reawakening of many democracies" after more than a halfcentury of war and repression, ''often in the name of godless ideologies."
of St Peter's Basilica. Less than a week before his first trip to F.Astern Europe in the wake of rapid changes which have shattered the Iron Curtin, the pope praised the upswing in democracies "after the years of dictatorships which have deprived men and women of their basic freedoms."
This "is leading to dialogue and trust between peoples," he The Easter speech also said, during his Faster linked political freedom "urbi et orbi" (to the city to the need to help Third and to the world) speech World populations from the central balcony escape poverty.
"There can be no freedom where misery continues to exist," he said.
The pope personalised his appeal to rich nations to be "free from selfishness" by recalling his e xperiences earlier this year in Africa's droughtstricken Sahel region. "I have seen the sand burying villages, drying up wells, burning the eyes, turning children into skeletons, paralysing the strength of the young," the pope said.
"Wealthy nations of the civilization of opulence. Do not be indifferent to this great tragedy," he said. "Be ever more urgently resolved to help those people who struggle each day for survival," he added.
"Let human and Christian solidarity be the challenge that provokes your conscience to make the sand slowly give way to the advancement of human dignity, an abundance of bread, and
the return to laughter, employment, hope and progress," said the pope. The pope put his praise of reawakened democracies and the need to overcome misery within the framework of the Easter message of Christ's resurrection. "Christ frees you from every form of bondage," he said.
reflected the pope's constant concern about the political future of Eastern Europe and the need for the church to have a strong influence in the shaping of the region's future societies. "After the horrors of two world wars and all the wars of these last 50 years, often in the name of godless ideologies, have reaped a harvest of "Only the risen Christ victims and sown hatred can fully satisfy your in so many nations, after irrepressible yearning for years of dictatorships freedom," he said. which have deprived The speech also men and women of their
basic freedoms, the true dimensions of the spirit have been discovered anew, those dimensions which the church has always promoted," he said. "The world is coming to discover again that man cannot live without God," he added. Twenty-one of the 54 languages in which the pope offered Easter greetings from the balcony are spoken in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Catherine McAuley on the path to sainthood The foundress of the Mercy order that pioneered religious education in Western Australia can now be called venerable and the door is now open to her possible beatification. Catherine McAuley, the nun who died at the age of 63 nearly 150 years ago joins the venerable ranks along with Opus Dei founder Monsignor Escriva who died in Rome only 15 years ago. A Rome decree last week cites the "heroic virtues" of the two founders, along with three other saintly candidates, a Mexican archbishop, who died in 1917, an Italian
priest (1934) and a Mexican layman (1548).
By the time of her death, Catherine's 10year-old order had established 14 communities in Ireland and England, later rising to a peak of over 25,000 members. At the time of Escriva's death his Opus Dei members were reckoned at 60,000. As Catherine McAuley lay dying the nun nursing her and who would make the announcement was none other than Ursula Frayne who only five years later would land with seven companions on the sandy beach at Fremantle, when their congregation
was barely 15 years old. Catherine McAuley's path to sainthood is no traditional journey. She would scarcely have known her father before his early death, but she would have heard of his love for the poor children he taught in the hedge schools. Her mother on the other hand was to do little for her religious upbringing. She found her path to faith, with the help of instruction from a priest, but the turning point in her life was reading the scriptures to a blind Quaker woman who with her husband had made Catherine one of their family.
That family's money was to enable her to establish in 1827 the Dublin House of Mercy in Bagot Street which would be open to poor women looking for the skills with which to become independent. Four years later on December 12, 1831, she and a handful of companions had been shaped into a new style of unenclosed religious order that would be known as the "walking" nuns because of the way they took to the streets in search of people to help. They were later to make a name for themselves at Crimea in 1854, nursing alongside Florence Nightingale.