The Record Newspaper 28 March 1996

What's Inside...

The crucifixion of abortion - Page 11 Geraldton charts way to the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 and beyond - Page 3 PRINT POST APPROVED PP602669/00303

PERTH, WA: March 28, 1996

Number 2990

POST ADDRESS: PO Box 75, LEEDERVILLE, 6902, WA LOCATION: 587 Newcastle Street, Cnr Douglas St (near Loftus St)

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope John Paul ll has urged governments and businesses to work together to split jobs to cut unemployment.

"Professional institutions and the workers themselves must come to accept this division for the good of all. even if it means a relative loss of advantages," the Pope said last Friday.

The Pope was meeting with members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, a group of scholars he appointed to conduct scientific studies on social questions.

Their first topic of study was the future of work.

"How, in fact, can a society consider itself rich if many of its people do not have the necessities of life?" the Pope asked. "As long as one human being is injured and disfigured by poverty, il ls society itself that is wounded in a certain sense."

The Catholic Church did not have specific political or economic plans to propose to society, but it did offer ethical and moral guidelines for ensuring that those decisions respect the dignity and rights of the human person, he said.

One of those principles, the Pope said, was that "prosperity and growth cannot come at the detriment of persons and peoples."

How fasting helps the environment - Page 12 Vatican denies Pope has cancer - Page 13

PRICE 60c

Pope urges job-splitting to help unemployed

By Cindy Wooden

True peace comes from full confession of all mortal sin - Page 2

"If liberalism or tiny other economic system privileges only those who possess capital, and if it makes labor merely a means of production, it becomes a source of serious injustices," the Pope said.

Although there were a variety of legitimate ways to stimulate an economy, he said. "they must not go against the fundamental right of everyone to have a job which allows him to support his family."

Work had three dimensions that must be kept in mind by politicians and economists, the Pope said: • work was the principal means for the specifically human activity of producing and creating, developing one's talents and expressing one's dignity.

• work also was the way for satisfying material needs.

• work also had a social function as a witness to solidarity: everyone is called to contribute to common life, and no member of society should be excluded from work Lack of work caused many to doubt the meaning of their existence and to lose their hope for the future, he warned.

Human justice and social morality, he said, required people to consider more than their own individual or corporation's needs and think of their responsibilities.

"Everyone is called to take into account the needs of their brothers and sisters," he said.

Bishop Healy honoured with Doctor of Laws

Bishop Healy doffs his academic mortar-board after receiving his honorary degree

The University of Notre Dame Aust- theme to complement Bishop Healy's ralia honoured Perth's Auxiliary Bishop birthplace and as a salute to Ireland's Robert Healy by conferring an Ambassador, Richard O'Brien. who flew Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws at from Canberra to honour Bishop Healy. the university's graduation ceremony Mr O'Brien drew attention to the great last Monday night. contribution the Irish had made to Archbishop Barry Hickey, the gover- Australia, citing those who had excelled nors and academics of the university in a wide range of disciplines and joined clergy, religious, dignitaries, achieved high profiles, with the achievefriends and family in the superb Notre ments of some outstanding 'greats' such Dame courtyard, to watch the conferral as C. Y. O'Connor and the late Dame and witness 48 graduands (some in Mary Durack. absentia), receive their diplomas and He also pointed to the vital importance degrees at the university's fifth gradua- of the gift of the Catholic faith that the tion ceremony.

Irish had brought to Australian shores, Serenaded by the Notre Dame Strings and to the outstanding Church men and under the direction of Dan Carney, Irish women who had pioneered the spreadairs entertained until the formalities ing of the faith seeds in Australia's soil. commenced, lending an overall Irish - Colleen McGuiness-Howard

Former top cop urges charity on Easter's roads

By Colleen McGuiness-Howard "Flow can we call ourselves Christians?" retired police commissioner Brian Bull questioned, "yet think nothing of driving a car down the highway at speeds with a potential to kill or seriously injure!"

Responding to a question from The Record on the moral obligation of Christians on the road particularly during Easter - Mr Bull came out very strongly against dangerous road users and said if we asked some Christians would they be capable

of using a gun to kill, they would he horrified.

"Yet the same people would be willing to drive a car at excessive speeds with the same potential to kill," he said and added that drivers thought speeding was something they could do with impunity but not the 'other idiot'.

The state's former top police officer said that if drivers showed a little bit of care and courtesy, there would be no accidents, but added that "accident" was the wrong word as true accidents were rare.

The road toll would be slashed, he suggested, if everyone was

careful and considerate of others on the road, "but they drive as though they haven't a second to spare."

This attitude was not restricted to non-practicing Christians, particularly when people coming out of Mass could then be seen "driving away as though on a speedway."

Unless people could curb their selfish attitude. Easter would be another time of carnage on the road, Mr Bull predicted.

What might be a minor accident in urban areas with speed restrictions, became a fatal or serious accident on country

roads with greater speeds, "especially with failures to wear seat belts."

Redemptorist Father Peter Black, senior lecturer in the College of Theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia university, asked for his comments on the moral obligation of Christians on the road. urged road users to see the faces of mothers, fathers, children. young people, friends and the elderly when they travel. "because it is often only when you put flesh onto principles that reality stares you in the face."

Continued on Page 6

Brian Bull: Christian care needed

Fervour, simplicity of Indian Catholics inspires I

recently returned from a parishes, homes, Religious Ins- atheist in India than a believer. short two weeks' visit to titutes and Christian ashrams.

In Australia we struggle to Southern India. The sights, It was impossible not to be practice and share our Faith in sounds and, of course, the struck by the fervour and the a culture that is very secular tastes are still very much with simplicity of the Catholic life of and often intolerant of religious me. the people. values and beliefs.

The purpose of my visit was There was a genuine and It is no wonder that we tend to to meet up with priests who uninhibited popular expression restrict our expression of reliwere ordained with me in of religious belief and practice gion to the private, even perRome 36 years ago, and to that contrasted sharply with my sonal level, whereas in India make contact with some of the experience in Australia. one risks little by making it families of Indian priests who Perhaps it was because the public. are working in our Archdio- people live their Faith in a very Education levels are rising cese. religious country, where reli- rapidly in India. It was refreshFather Tim Foster, an intrepid gion is respected and encour- ing to see that higher studies traveller, accompanied me for aged. did not lead people to abandon the first two weeks before he Although the Catholics in their Faith. They were still fully went to Calcutta to join in the India are a tiny minority of the part of the local parish life, fully apostolic works of Mother population, they are surround- involved in the overt and expTeresa. ed by the great world religions, ressive forms of religious pracMost of my time was spent mainly Hinduism, that call peo- tice that were common to all. within the Catholic community ple to look beyond this life.

I learned that one should be in Southern India. I visited It is probably harder to be an careful not to discount popular

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religiosity too easily. Ills symbolic of the inner mystery that is common both to the illiterate and the educated.

If it disappears with education, what will take its place? A purely intellectual and objective understanding of the Faith may lessen or crush completely the experience of the inner mysteries.

Wherever I went I found a fear of the influence of the West.

It was already evident in the appearance of bottle shops and bars in areas where alcohol was previously absent, and where alcoholism and drunkenness were rare social problems. It was there in the gradual increase of Western videos, challenging the very large and popular Indian film industry with new and alien values about family life, modesty, sexuality, pornography, individualism and greed.

It made me self-conscious about being "Western". It also made me aware that in the global city we need to export our best cultural products, not our worst, and be aware that ancient civilisations with a deep and contemplative awareness of God have much to offer I felt very much at home among my fellow Catholics. Despite all the differences of language and culture,

Archbishop's

Perspective we were united as followers of Jesus Christ, within a universal family that shares the same beliefs and eternal aspirations, under the visible successor of St Peter. Pope John Paul II. This Holy Week should deepen our Faith as the entire world-wide Catholic family remembers again the saving death and resurrection of Christ.

Repent all mortal A WORLD WITHOUT HEALTHCARE sins in full: Pope

Did you know that one person in every five in the world is living in poverty?

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Project Compassion — giving hope

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope John Paul has reminded Catholics they must give a "specific and numerically complete" list of mortal or grave sins when they go to confession.

"Unfortunately today, not a few faithful, availing themselves of the sacrament of penance, do not make a complete list of mortal sins in the way called for by the Council of Trent," the Pope said in a March 23 message to seminarians and newly ordained priests studying the sacrament.

The idea that Catholics can pick and choose among those sins they believe to be against the "precepts of charity" or that they can make "an arbitrary and reductive interpretation" of what is permissible for them personally seemed to be growing, the Pope said.

"Reacting to the priest-confessor who dutifully asks questions with a view to the necessary completeness," he said, some people act as if they had been subject to "an undue intrusion into the sanctuary of their conscience."

"I hope and pray that these faithful, who are not very enlightened, would become convinced that the

norm which requires a specific and numerical completeness - insofar as their honestly examined memory allows them to know - is not an arbitrarily imposed burden, but a means of liberation and serenity," the Pope said.

Confession was not a form of debasement, he said.

"To recognise one's misery in the sight of God is not to degrade oneself, but to live the truth of one's condition and thereby obtain the true greatness of justice and grace after falling into sin." he said.

Confession and reconciliation could never be approached as exercises that were helpful only on a psychological level because what was at stake was the person's relationship with God and his or her call to holiness, the Pope said.

"For this reason," he said. "it is clear that the confession must be humble, complete, accompanied by the solid and generous intention to mend one's ways and, finally, by faith that this commitment can be followed."

The Pope praised the new priests and seminarians for their desire to minister to Catholics with the sacrament of reconciliation, but he urged them not to forget that they, too, must confess their sins regularly.

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Unique 15 DAY pilgrimage with tour leader Leon Le Grand to Assisi, Loreto, Rome and Medjugorje. Jose Carreras, one of the 'Three Tenors', is giving a concert in Medjugorie to help raise funds for the orphans of the war. Plus many other special events planned only for the 15th Anniversary Tour.

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Geraldton charts its way together beyond 2000 Parishioners and Church personnel from all over the Geraldton diocese have been biting the business end of the bullet and planning new directions for the future of their sprawling mid-western diocese.

The final in a series of three intensive weekend regional consultations, designed to get laity and priests working together for the future of the diocese as it moves towards its centenary in 1998 and the arrival of the third millennium, has just concluded.

The meetings were called as an initiative of the Diocesan Task Force, a body of religious, priests and laity appointed by Bishop Justin Bianchini in 1994 to look at possible directions for renewal for the diocese.

The consultations, which have considered issues ranging from Scripture to Faith education, were held in Karratha and Mount Magnet this month and Geraldton last weekend with the aim of generating a vision of the

Bishop Justin Bianchini

Church in Geraldton for the future and to decide how to move towards that goal.

In preparation for the meetings parishioners were asked to discuss a number of issues including the possibility of a comprehensive Scripture study program for the diocese.

Also on the agenda was the need to make parents more aware of their responsibilities as faith educators of their children, particularly in preparation for

reception of the Sacraments.

Other issues canvassed pastoral support for Aboriginal people, youth and the promotion of Centacare and other diocesan support services.

Bishop Bianchini was impressed by the enthusiasm, faith and commitment to the Church displayed. "People, by the sacrifices they made to get to the weekend - some travelling over 700 kilometres - and the way they took part, showed they really appreciated that they were part of the Church,* he said.

"They contributed their insights and ideas knowing that they were listened to," he added.

The weekends were modelled on the Church as the people of God where laity. Religious. priests and bishop all contributed their gifts and willingness to work together. he said.

The role of the task force will now be to sift through the contents of the gatherings and work to establish an agreed vision of the diocese.

Frozen embryo memorial service planned A memorial service will be conducted outside one of Perth's fertility clinics on April 9 to mark the third anniversary of the passing of WA Human Reproductive Technology Act that permitted the frozen storage of human embryos.

The Coalition for the Defence of Human Life, an alliance of prolife groups, has organised the service. The coalition has called for a moratorium on the freezing of human embryos as the State Parliament considers legislation

to extend the present three-yearlimit on their storage.

Under present legislation embryos past their time limit would be allowed to perish.

Coalition secretary Richard Egan said that over the past 12 months the stockpile of human embryos in frozen storage in Perth had grown from approximately 2,000 to 3,000.

"This is the ugly and absurd face of the IVF industry," Mr Egan said. it is grossly offensive to put human beings into frozen storage

for extended periods of time.

This offence is magnified in the case of many human embryos who, created 'on spec', will never be implanted in their mother's womb or have a chance to be born." he said.

He said the coalition welcomed the proposal by WA Health Minister Kevin Prince for a Parliamentary select committee to inquire into embryo storage.

The coalition would be making submissions in support of an end to the practice.

Out of heat and dust a bush spirituality is born

Author Ruth Marchant James, right, shows lona College's oldest ex-pupil, Marie Henderson, the finished wort( with Sr Albeus Fahey, Archbishop Hickey and Leo Treacy, a great-grand-nephew of Mother Angela Treacy, who led the first Presentation Sisters in the Perth Archdiocese.

Launching Ruth Nlarchant the of history James' Presentation Sisters in WA, From Cork to Capricorn. at Iona College last Sunday enabled Archbishop Barry Hickey to recall his links with his Presentation teachers at Wiluna and the influence they have exercised over the lives of so many others.

The archbishop recalled his own time in Geraldton and his discovery of the deep affect that the Sisters had had on their pupils and others.

"I came up against a special sort of spirituality, different from the spirituality that exist-

ed in the big cities, one that was defined by distance, by awareness of God's creative hand, by the beauty of the rugged outback, by the stillness, by the presence of something divine," he said. ". . . . They have sensed the presence of the divine and maybe it was that that helped the sisters withstand the hot days, the dry climate, the occasional cyclones, the lack of facilities, because they knew that they were surrounded by the presence of God and doing God's work. They passed that spirituality on wherever they went."

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The Record, March 28 1996 Page 3

TOMORROW TODAY

'Lord, to who Pope John Paul each year takes the joy of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm or Passion Sunday as an opportunity to speak with the youth of the world as they are, in his mind, naturally joyous and the hope of the world. It is for reasons such as this that the Pope has established Palm Sunday as World Youth Day. "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68)

D

ear Young People! "I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine" (Rom 1:12).

The words of the Apostle Paul to the Christians of Rome sum up the feelings with which I turn to all of you, as we enter upon the path of preparation for the XI World Youth Day. It is, indeed, with this same longing to meet you that, in thought.I come to you, in every corner of the planet, where day by day, you face the intense adventure of life: in your families, in the places of your study and work, in the communities where you gather to listen to the Word of the Lord and open your hearts to Him in prayer.

My eyes turn especially towards the young people who are personally Involved in the all too many dramas that are still tearing humankind apart: those who are suffering through war, violence. hunger and dire poverty, and who are prolonging the suffering of Christ, for in his Passion, Hp is close to every human person oppressed beneath the burden of pain and injustice.

The World Youth Day, as is now the custom, will take place in 1996 within the diocesan communities, while we look forward to the next world meeting, that will take us to Paris in 1997 We are henceforth on our way towards the Great Jubilee of the year 2000. With the Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente I have invited the whole Church to prepare for this appointment through a conversion of heart and of life.

I ask you also, already now, to undertake this preparation with the same spirit and the same intentions.I entrust to you a plan of action.

Based on the words of the Gospel and corresponding to the subjects proposed for each year to the whole Church, it will be the guideline for the next World Days: 0 Year 1997: "Teacher, where are you staying? Come and see" (John 1:38-39).

0 Year 1998: "The Holy Spirit will teach you all things" (John 14:26).

0 Year 1999: "The Father loves you" (John 16:27).

0 Year 200th "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). lb you, young people, I address in particular the call to look towards the epochal frontier of the year 2000, remembering that "the future of the world and the Church belongs to the younger generation, to those who, born in this century, will reach maturity in the next, the first century of the new millennium. ... If they succeed in following the road which Christ points out to them, they will have the joy of making their own contribution to his presence in the next century" (Tertio Millennio Adv-eniente, 58).

Journeying towards the Great Jubilee, may you be accompanied by the conciliar Constitution Gaudium at Spas, which I mean to entrust to you all, as already I entrusted it to your contemporaries of the continent of Europe, gathered last September at Loreto: It is "a valuable and ever youthful document. Reread it attentively. You will find in it light to discern your vocation as men and women called to live in this both marvellous and dramatic era, as artisans of brotherhood and builders of peace".

The Record, March 28 1996 Page 4

"Lord, to whom shall we go?" He is the aim and the goal of our life: Christ, who is waiting for us - for each one individually and for all together - to lead us beyond the limits of time into the eternal embrace of the God who loves us.

But, if eternity is our horizon, as men and women hungry for truth and thirsting for happiness, history is the scenario of our day-to-day commitment.

Faith teaches us that human destiny is written in the heart and mind of God, who rules the vicissitudes of history.

It also teaches us that the Father entrusts to our hands the task of initiating already here below the building of that "Kingdom

shall we go?'

To arrive at this appointment, we must be able to call ourselves in question, facing a rigorous examination of conscience, the indispensable premise for a radical conversion, that can transform life and give it an authentic meaning, making believers capable of loving God with all their hearts, all their souls, all their strength, and their neighbours as themselves (cf. Luke 10:27).

Confronting your daily existence with the Gospel of the one Teacher who has "words of eternal life", you will be able to become authentic agents of justice, following the commandment that makes of love the new "frontier" of Christian witness.

The joy and hope of youth

Veteran Greenwood youth leader Mike Clenza surrounded by 12 Luke 18 disciples at Greenwood's recent Luke 18 recruiting weekend. Clockwise from the top: Rebecca Millard, Justin Toop, Shanda Lane, Simon Stefanoff, Sharon Skipworth, Damian Stefanoff, Kristina Margetic, David Piercey, Shahn Johnston, Ian Wood, Amanda Lodding and Luke Margetic.

of Heaven" that the Son came to proclaim and that will have its fulfilment at the end of time.

It is our duty, therefore, to live within history, side by side with our contemporaries, sharing their anxieties and their hopes, for the Christian is, and must be, fully a part of his or her time.

This is the law of the world's transformation (cf. Gaudium et Spas, 38).

From you young people, there must also come, above all, a strong witness of love for life, God's gift; a love extending from the beginning to the end of every existence and combating every pretension to make of man the arbiter of the life of

'Be prophets in word and gesture, rebelling against the civilisation of egoism' The Christian does not escape into brother or sister, of the unborn as of the another dimension, ignoring the dramas one whose life is drawing to its close, of of the time, closing eyes and heart to the the handicapped and the weak. anxieties of Existence.

You young people naturally and instincOn the contrary, the Christian is one tively make of the "will to live" the horizon who, while not being "of" this world, is of your dreams and the rainbow of your "In" this world, daily immersed in it, ready hopes. to go in haste wherever there is a brother I ask you to become "prophets of life". Be or sister to be helped, a tear to be dried, a prophets in word and gesture, rebelling request for help to be met. On this we will against the civilisation of egoism that often be judged! sees the human person as an instrument Remembering the Master's warning: "I rather than an end, sacrificing human digwas hungry and you gave me food, I was nity and sentiments in the name of mere thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a profit; do this by giving concrete help to stranger and you welcomed me, I was the one who needs you and who, without naked and you clothed me,I was sick and your help, might be tempted to give way to you visited me, I was in prison and you despair.

Life is a talent (cf. Matthew 25:14-30) came to me" (Matthew 25:35-36), we have to put into practice the "new command- entrusted to us, to be transformed and multiplied, by making it a gift to others. ment" (John 13:34).

In this way, we will take our stand No human being is an "iceberg", drifting against what seems to be the "defeat of In the ocean of history; each one of us is civilisation", strongly reaffirming the "civil- part of a great family. in which he or she isation of love" which - alone -, for the has a place to occupy and a role to play. humanity of our time, can open up horiEgoism makes us deaf and dumb. Love zons of genuine peace and lasting justice, opens wide our eyes and our hearts, makin legality and solidarity. ing us capable of an original and irreCharity is the great highway that must placeable contribution - a contribution lead us also to the goal of the Great that, together with a thousand gestures of Jubilee. so many brothers and sisters, often distant

and unknown, goes to make up the mosaic of charity that can change the seasons of history.

When many disciples, finding his language too difficult, withdrew from Him, Jesus asked the few who had remained: "Will you also go away?"

Peter replied: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:67 68). And they chose to remain with Him. They remained because the Master had "words of eternal life"; words that, while promising eternity, gave full meaning to life".

There are moments and circumstances when we have to make choices that are decisive for our whole existence.

We are living - and you know it - in difficult times, when it is often hard to distinguish good from evil, true teachers from false.

Jesus warned us: "Take heed that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name, saying: 'I am he!' and, 'The time is at hand!' Do not go after them" (Luke 21:8).

Pray and listen to his words; let yourselves be guided by true pastors; never give way to the enticements and the facile illusions of the world, which then, very often, change into tragic delusions.

It is in the difficult moments, the moments of testing. that the quality of our choices is measured.

So it is in this season, no easy one, that each of you will be called to the courage of decision.

There are no short cuts to happiness and light. Proofs of this are the torments endured, throughout the history of humankind, by those who have set out on the arduous quest for the meaning of existence, for answers to the fundamental questions inscribed in the heart of every human being.

You know that these questionings are nothing other than expression of that nostalgia for the infinite of which God has sown the seeds in each one of us.

So it is with a sense of duty and of sacrifice that you have to journey along the paths of conversion and commitment: seeking, toiling; in voluntary work. in dialogue, with respect for all: not giving up when faced with failure, knowing well that your strength is in the Lord, who guides your steps with love, ready to welcome you back like the prodigal son (cf. Luke 15:11-24).

Dear young people, I have invited you to be "prophets of life and love". I ask you also to be "prophets of joy".

The world must recognise us by the fact that we are able to communicate to our contemporaries the sign of a great hope, already fulfilled, the hope of Jesus, who has died and is risen for us.

Do not forget that "the future of humanity lies in the hands of those who are strong enough to provide coming generations with reasons for living and hoping" (Gaudium et Spes, 31).

Purified by reconciliation, fruit of divine love and of your sincere repentance, working for justice, living in thanksgiving to God, you can be credible and efficacious prophets of joy in the world, which so often is gloomy and sad.

You will proclaim the "fullness of time", of which the Great Jubilee of the year 2000 recalls the present relevance.

The road that Jesus points out for you is not an easy one; rather, it is like a path scaling the mountain.

Don't lose courage! The steeper the way, the more quickly it rises towards ever wider horizons.

May Mary, Star of evangelisation, be your guide!

Docile, as She was, to the will of the Father, pass along the stages of history as mature and convincing witnesses.

With Her and with the Apostles, be able' to repeat at every moment your profession of faith in the life-giving presence of Jesus Christ: "You have the words of eternal life!".

Teachers to rally on wages this Sunda

By Peter Rosengren Teachers in Catholic schools will attend a rally at Langley Park this weekend to consider their options in the ongoing enterprise bargaining negotiations being conducted between themselves and employers.

They plan to present a petition to Archbishop Hickey, or his representative, asking the archbishop to hear the views of teachers on the issues in the long-running dispute.

"We're simply (asking) that His Grace give serious consideration to the inequities that apply in the conditions of employment, from the Catholic to the public sector of education." Ivan Sands, secretary of the Independent Schools Salaried Officers' Association, said last Thesday. The association has been representing teachers in the discussions.

The union has claimed there are serious discrepancies in wages and monetary allowances between some staff in the two sectors despite a recent pay rise.

Mr Sands said the rally would be open

to all teachers. The rally comes following a meeting between ISSOA representatives and Catholic school employers last week to discuss ways of progressing discussions, which are now into their sixth month.

The Director of Catholic Education in Western Australia. Therese Temby, said points of view were clarified in the meeting and employer representatives had given an undertaking to consider a strategy suggested by the ISSOA. Mrs Temby told The Record the two major issues discussed in the meeting had been access of three-year-trained teachers to the four-year-trained steps on the Catholic schools salary scale and the payment of the same salaries and allowances for heads of department as those in the state sector.

She also said the Catholic Education Commission had been involved in discussions with the State Government asking It to meet its pre-election commitment to gradually raise State per capita grants to a level of 25 per cent of the cost of education a student.

In a letter to teachers earlier this

month, Mrs Temby said the current level of funding was several percentage points below this figure.

She told The Record it was anticipated the issue would be considered in the context of the annual budget, due to be handed down in several weeks.

The CEC had committed itself to bringing the planned salary rises for teachers forward as fast as possible, based on any rises in the per capita grant funding from the State Government, she said.

"Once we know our funding we will endeavour to bring the October (1997) payment forward as far as we can and our hope would be to bring it to January.

That's our commitment." she said.

But Mr Sands said the Catholic employers in last week's meeting had not been prepared to address the issues the ISSOA has been pursuing. ". .. .that is, the inequities between the salary structure and salary rates between Catholic schools and the public sector. Their previous offer still stood and they weren't prepared to go beyond that," he said.

Restore offenders, victims: report The Catholic bishops' Australian Catholic Social Justice Council has called for a radical reorientation of the prison system in Australia, especially in approaches to the rehabilitation of prisoners.

The councils' call for a switch to 'restorative justice' has come in Making Things Right: A Vision for Criminal Justice. the latest in the council's Catholic Social Justice series of publications and authored by Father Peter Norden SJ. Council chairman Bishop Kevin Manning said the publication presented a vision that stressed restorative, rather than retributive, justice.

"There is a great need for alternatives to custodial sentences especially for minor offences. Too many young people are too readily put into detention," Bishop Manning said.

"Restorative justice underlies "family conferencing" where the young offender is brought before a meeting with his or her family, relevant community members and the victim of the crime, in order to face the consequences of the crime and offer some means of restoration to the person who is the victim," he said.

In Making Things Right Fr Norden, who spent seven years as a chaplain to the Victorian prison system. said restorative justice. where the emphasis was on making the offender confront the consequences of their action and making restitution for his or her crime, was based on biblical values.

"This form of restorative justice is not as concerned with the application of the law as it is concerned with the eventual outcome." he wrote.

Refreshing study shows love matters in families Year of the Family and funded by Ms Edwarties' department. Titled Speaking for Themselves, the report largely features responses from families interviewed by the agency as to what they do and how they believe they succeed as family units.

Centrecare's Andrew Turnell said that for too long society had focussed on the weaknesses and problems associated with family life.

"We proposed to conduct a research project to find out from Western Australian families who felt they were functioning well, what things they were doing to achieve this." he said.

Each of the 43 families - nuclear, single-parent. blended- and one same-sex

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relationship were asked open-ended questions about how they achieved success.

Efforts were made to interview Aboriginal families but, according to the report, this proved impractical.

Centrecare director Tony Pietmpiccolo said most families had responded enthusiastically to the project because of its positive approach as they were 'fed up' with the negative view of families today. "It is clear from the research that what works for one family does not necessarily work for another." he said.

"Every family is unique and deals with day to day issues in its own way. It is a matter of finding out what works for them."

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Other key areas were Christian beliefs and values, sense of humour, friendship, similar goals, adapting to change, seeking outside help for problems and the extended family.

The WA Minister for Family and Children's Services. Cheryl Edwardes, launched the results of the eight-month research project into why families work.

The research was carried out by Annie Dunn for the Archdiocese of Perth's Centrecare Marriage and Family Services agency as part of the 1994 WA

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THE PASSION A CCORDING TO ST JOHN

Parish Catholic drama

directed by Anthony Maydwell presents unaccompanied Choral Music for Easter The Chapel of St Michael, the Archangel Catholic Education Commission, Ruslip St, Leederville

3pm, Good Friday, Admission free

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Jose Carreras wil be present on location in Medjugorje to honour the 15th Anniversary of Our Lady's Apparitions.

He will perform a concert in unison with 12 orchestras from around the world during the annual Music Festival on June 21st.

Harvest has secured exclusive seats to his performances on our 15th Anniversary Pilgrimage with Bishop Henry Kennedy. Seats are selling quickly as charter flights will restrict group size to 110.

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F r Philip Harding & Tony & Lorraine Grace Departing 9 Ma' for 1 5 days • Rome • Fatima Anniversary • Santiago De Compostela • Garabandal • Lourdes • AT $3895 Our gently paced programme begins in Rome before launching into Jordan to explore Amman, biblical Mt. Nebo and the magnificent rock-carved city of Petra.

Journey the Holy Land as we allow the Gospels to refresh us in their original habitat from Nazareth and Lake Galilee the hill of Ca/vary in Jerusalem'.

Continued from Page 1 Fr Black said drivers should be patient, careful. rested, and alcohol free to avoid the inevitable pain, death and tragedy synonymous with road accidents.

The belief in the fundamental human right to life, as recognised by people in general and formalised by the United Nations, was the basis of always driving in a responsible manner.

Christians also believed that all men and women were made in the image of God and therefore deserved a deep respect.

This respect naturally included a respect for the life of the body he said, and to drive in a dangerous or careless way. whatever the reasons, is to show a lack of respect for human life and the dignity of the human person."

Easter was the joyful feast of life, he added. "and our lack of responsibility on the roads could turn it into an experience of destruction for our brothers and sisters."

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Redemptorists recently appointed their new Provincial Council for Australia during an international gathering held at the Redemptorist monastery at Galong, NSW. Pictured are the new Council members.

Seated, left: Fr. Leo Coffey, Fr. Michael Kelly, Fr. Michael Gilbert Standing, left: Fr. Reg Ahearn, Fr. John Martin.

Christian Brothers head appointed Irish-born Brother Edmund Garvey. 50. has been elected Congregation Leader of the Christian Brothers during the General Chapter of the congregation currently being held in Johannesburg, South Africa.

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Was it the label 'misfit' that drove Thomas Hamilton to kill children?

W L'ellers e are all unanimous in our condemnation of the action of the man who indiscriminately took the lives of so many children the recent tragic events in Dunblane, Scotland.

Equally disturbing however, is the way the media have made a circus of the events, highlighting Mr Thomas Hamilton as a "misfit".

Mr Hamilton, it appears, had been shunned, isolated and labelled a "misfit" and a "pervert" by his local community for many years, as a result of an incident in 1973 in which he was convicted of "inappropriate behaviour".

Doubtless, there were other incidents, but the treatment he endured at the hands of his own community may have erally held in contempt. Now it seems to created a man willing to commit such a be generally accepted as an annual monstrous crime. spectacle whose critics, such as The Our own, at times simplistic, preju- Record 's correspondents Ludovic Ryan dices can lead to attempts to deny any and Martin Faulkner, now seem almost responsibility on the part of society at like voices in Australia's spiritual large for assisting in the creation of cir- wilderness.

Mr Ryan suggested privatising the cumstances in which individuals ABC but he apparently feels that any become "misfits".

Surely we all recognise the "misfit" in such policy would be futile.

It might not be at all futile if the majorourselves? Therefore, is it not a supreme ity of Christians wake up to themselves hypocrisy to demonise this man for take heed of the Archbishop's call and we have denied him? what action on political issues which have for May I further suggest that an inhuman moral implications. profound response on the part of this man may time-honoured appeal for the The have had its genesis in the inhuman cirseparation of religion and politics total cumstances imposed upon him by his has worked all too well for the forces own community. which the Archbishop is denouncing.

Rory O'Hagan In politics, numbers count and they Attadale should be made to count against evil.

Over 135,000 signatures have been collected by Queensland Liberal ccording to the Herald-Sun Senator john Herron in an attempt to newspaper in Melbourne, have the Senate investigate the national Victoria, (9 February) 19 per cent disgrace of the former government's virof teenage girls who are "sexually tual advocacy of sodomy and other peractive" had their first sex when under versions (which the advocates of "politically correct" linguistic lunacy would the influence of alcohol or drugs. us believe are actually "valid alterhave About one generation ago the Catholic Church had a tradition of encouraging native lifestyles").

The Senator has no intention of giving young people being confirmed to make up on this issue and neither should we. a promise that they would drink no deserves our support and a practical He alcoholic liquor until aged 21 at least.

If this practice was re-introduced, it way of supporting him would be to write to the Prime Minister expressing could do some good. at the Coalition's disappointment Arnold Jago avoidance of the large-scale total almost Mildura public concern on this matter.

It is not a minor issue that public fundrchbishop Hickey's call (The ing ($250,000) should be misappropriatRecord, 14 March) for all ed for such dangerously unworthy purChristians to oppose the agenda poses - and the ABC's support for simiof the anti-religious and secular forces lar purposes amounts to nothing less in our society might very well apply to than the prostitution of its privileges. much of the ABC's propaganda.

Taking up the suggestion of privatising His claim that these "forces have the ABC, I think a campaign should be changed the way people think about initiated to encourage the federal govImportant issues" is certainly true of the ernment to put pressure on the ABC to ABC's promotion of the Sydney homo- clean up its act or face a referendum on sexual and lesbian Mardi Gras. privatisation.

Ten years ago the Mardi Gras was genIf a referendum were held I dare say

lo IATeh

Prudent reminder

A

ABC propaganda

A

the ABC would be shocked to realise it is much less popular than it imagines.

But if we merely accept the present situation as a lost cause then Archbishop Hickey's call for action will have been in vain.

Something must be done - by us - now or the vital cause of public and personal morality will be lost to the anti-christian forces so obviously active in our society.

Hugh Clift Lesmurdie

Indian street kids reach out for aid

When 110kph is 220

T

he advice from the Police Traffic and Operations Support Commander (The Record, 21 March) about driving this Easter must surely be both welcome and timely.

Two things about country driving not covered are dosing speed and solid food.

If you want to make yourself nod off, eat a good meal then sit in a chair designed specifically to give top quality support and comfort near a window for an hour or so then make things flicker past in dappled sunshine.

Staying both awake and alert is made easier with a nagging empty stomach and Coke or Pepsi supplements every couple of hours.

My late father used chocolate- I'm sure a doctor could explain how different stimulants work on different people. but the effect is the same, ie, the stomach stays empty but for caffeine or sugar only - lest a post-meal slumber overtake you.

The other thing which makes the heart pump more than obviously when ambition exceeds ability is the dosing speed phenomenon.

Because of our beautiful safe freeways' program, our eyes become accustomed to coordinating and reacting to a 110kph closing-speed on things like merging lanes, bridges and anything else that catches our fancy as it slides by. That's 30m or about six car-lengths per second.

If those coordinating skills - which become habit after using them day-inday out for months on end - are suddenly put into a new game where closing speeds average 60m per second as opposing traffic on a two-way road closes at 110 kph each, then the 'game' can become deadly.

Often that 60m per second can become 75mps (15 car lengths) and, in cases of dangerous driving, it can be 90mps.

If nothing else is gained from this note other than a recognition by readers that closing speeds are at least double when 110kpm signs come up on two-way roads, then that would be a good thing.

Paul Clune Ardross

Father Thomas Vaillat SOB

F

ather Thomas Vaillat, the mission procurator for the Salesian province of Bangalore in the south of India, is charged with the daunting task of raising money and support for the work of the Salesians with the street children, the poor and the abandoned youth of southern India.

Visiting Australia last month he toured Perth, Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne. where the Salesians are located, hunting up new sources of funding for the missions of mercy run by the Bangalore Salesians.

An important project he is currently helping to organise is the purchase of land outside Bangalore where child drug addicts can be removed from the forces that corrupt them and given a chance to lead a happy life. Each night approximately 45,000 street kids sleep on the pavement.

Locked into a cycle of poverty, they will never have a chance to lead a productive life, to marry and have their own family, to work in a job and earn a living.

Fr Vaillat is also seeking funds for the establishment of a technical school for those who are not addicts, so that they can be trained in areas such as mechanical engineering, tailoring, carpentry and plumbing.

The drug dealers hate the Salesians because they know they will lase power and money as more children are rescued.

If you would like to give a homeless child a chance for a life and help Fr Vaillat and his Salesians in their work with the young or any of their other missionary activities, your donation (cheque or money order) should be sent to the Mission Office, Salesian Provincial Office, PO Box 80. Oakleigh, Vic, 3166.

Fr Vaillat said that $20 will feed, clothe and educate a boy for one month and $35 will meet the costs of educating a candidate for the priesthood for the same period of time.

The Salesian office in Melbourne can be contacted on (03) 9568 2025.

Unite our lives of self-sacrificing love with Christ's true sacrifice 1Carrinyup parish priest Father endured for our sake and the Richard Rutkauskas continues intense feelings that would have his meditations on the Sunday been associated with that.

But passion also means a great readings in Lent to help us in desire for something to be our journey to Easter 1996. achieved.

That is more the meaning of he word 'sacrifice' is not Jesus' Passion. His passion was one that looms large in our vocabularies these to sacrifice himself for the sake days. The idea of self-sacrifice of all mankind; to give himself win - of going out of oneself for the up to his enemies in order to a tremendous victory over them. sake of another or for a cause - That was the centre of his pasis certainly foreign to most sion.

Passion Sunday is the time for Of course, this passionate sacrius to remember the great love of fice is at the centre of the SacraGod for his people, his creation. ment of the Eucharist.

He loved us so much that He It is here that the same sacrifice sent his Son to become just like of Christ, offered once and for all us; a human being in every way, on Calvary two thousand years except he didn't succumb to evil ago, becomes truly present for - he didn't sin. us on the altar.

When we hear the word `pasThe effects of this victory that sion' we immediately think of Christ has won for us are once Jesus' great suffering that he again offered to the Father. God's

T

1 4 /Nty 11111P with Fr Richard Rutkauskas saving action becomes real and present each time we celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The difference between this feast of the New Covenant and the Jewish Passover feast is that what looks and tastes like bread and wine becomes His Body and Blood, His real and risen presence. God becomes truly one with his people.

As baptised disciples of Christ who celebrate his true and living

sacrifice, we are called to unite our lives with his; that means living lives of self-sacrifice.

In these times where marriage Is easy to get out of and into again, where the idea of priestly celibacy is seen by many as an undue burden, where loyalty beyond the weekend sporting team is uncommon, self-sacrifice is alien, if not, a thing that fools entertain.

Jesus has won a victory for all people for all time.

But it's a victory that we have to Immerse ourselves in. His passion for sacrifice is a passion that we must share.

He encountered evil and looked it squarely in the face we must do the same.

The evil one - Satan - shows his face in these times, perhaps more than ever before.

We have to reject the greed,

lust, envy and hatred that is so often accepted as commonplace and even as normal in this world we live.

This means much sacrifice. much giving.

It means allowing the weight of majority opinion to go against us.

It means appearing as fools for the sake of Christ, for the sake of what is good, right and proper.

Jesus has given us the tools so that we, too, can win a victory over evil.

His sacrifice is our sacrifice.

We are nourished by His Body and Blood so that we can make His Kingdom a reality.

Through prayer and the sacraments we can stand up to any foe and give ourselves over to the Holy Spirit who will, eventually, renew the whole earth.

(The_Recorti. March 08 1996 Page 7

-

The Garden of Gethsemane in everyday life

When God seems far away

Out of our tragedies God brings eternal meaning

By Father John Castelot

By Father Thomas Faucher

The bottom had dropped out of Elijah's life. He had struggled so heroically to defend the worship of his God. Yahweh, and what did he have to show for it?

Elijah's efforts had enraged the foreign-born queen, Jezebel, who was determined to make her own religion Israel's state religion.

Ruthlessly determined, she reacted violently to Elijah's opposition and decided to kill him.

Added to Elijah's terrible sense of failure now was the threat to his life. He never had felt so alone; even God seemed far away.

Elijah ran for his life, but not just to escape Jezebel's wrath!

He ran • to find his "absent" God. Fleeing toward Sinai. where God first had met his people, Elijah stopped for a rest and poured out his heart in prayer "This is enough. 0 Lord! Take my life" (1 Kings 19:4).

One has to suffer intolerably to pray for death, but Elijah was driven to that extreme.

God heard his tortured plea but did not grant his desperate request. Instead, God encouraged Elijah to continue his journey.

When Elijah reached Sinai, the prophet hoped to find God as his ancestors did: in spectacular displays of divine power over nature. Once again Elijah was disappointed.

Oh, there were extraordinary happenings: hurricane winds, an earthquake, raging fire. But God was not in these.

Finally, in the ensuing stillness, Elijah heard "a tiny whispering sound" (19:12). And in this quiet way God spoke to him; Elijah was not alone.

Elijah's experience has been repeated in so many people's lives.

Many of the psalms originally were prayed by people racked by physical and mental pain.

What must have been the pain of the psalmist who cried out in desperation: "My God. my God, why nave you forsaken me?... I cry out by day, and you answer not; by night, and there is no relief for me" (Psalm 22:2-3).

However, deep down, this psalmist knew that God had not really abandoned him. So he kept on praying with faith and hope and, one way or another, God heard and responded.

No wonder Psalm 22 ends in jubilation: "For he ha.., not spurned nor disdained the wretched man in his misery, nor did he turn his face away from him, but when he cried out to him, he heard him" (Psalm 22:23,25).

These are the words of someone whose suffering is undeniable, but who still prays with supreme confidence that God will hear.

It is the confidence heard also in this psalm verse: "Into your hands I commend my spirit; you will redeem me, 0 Lord, 0 faithful God" (Psalm

I met Anita at an open air shop in Jerusalem's old city. We both wanted to buy the same small rock painted with a Nativity scene.

The sudden appearance of a similar rock solved our problem.

By then we started a conversation which led to an invitation, in her marvellous Scottish accent, to have a cup of tea.

She said that the moment she saw me she knew I was an American priest.

She wanted to talk to someone about her spiritual life.

Widowed, with two grown chil-

31:6).

dren, she had come to the Holy Land to negotiate with God about the news that she had cancer.

Anita had analysed the situation the same way she had analyzed business deals in Glasgow.

She wanted to know from me what God would take in exchange for an end to her pain and suffering.

Anita had a brilliant mind. She had figured out that she was experiencing three different types of suffering: the pain itself; the anticipation of future pain; and the awareness that she was no longer in control.

Medication was easing the first suffering, but she knew the drugs would not work forever.

However, it was the anger and hopelessness of not being in control that had forced her to bring God into the picture.

"I am a wealthy, successful woman. I'm not overly religious, just your average good Catholic who usually goes to Mass," she said.

"What God has done to me is undeserved and unnecessary. My parish priest told me this is my opportunity to share in Christ's sufferings and grow spiritually. I find that statement to be nonsense."

She paused, adding. "I believe that physical suffering has no value. I don't want to believe that God chooses torture as a tool for behaviour modification.

"A sister at the retreat centre told me that this was my opportunity to learn to pray. Pray what?

Pray how? 'Let this cup pass from

me?' That didn't seem to do much for Jesus. Or maybe it should be, 'Your will be done.' I don't like that either if God's will means I can't control my own life, "So now, tell me: What is it God wants? Why do I have a cancer that cannot be cured? And just what am I supposed to do?"

We talked for more than three hours.

We talked about how, for her, religion was a negotiated relationship between a person and God: God said she was to do certain things and not do other things; if she was true to this agreement, God would protect her, prayer was the regular balancing of the books.

But now she thought she had discovered an embezzlement: She felt she had kept her side of the bargain, but God had not.

She struggled to understand the difference between mechanical religious observances and faith.

She was sceptical of hearing that faith is a relationship with God based on love and mystery, not a negotiated settlement.

When I said that spirituality was sharing life with God, not bargaining with God, she told me my ideas were rubbish.

The hardest part of the conversation was talking about her need for control.

Its loss was her major suffering.

But as we talked she began to understand a little of what I was saying. I got her to recollect experiences of God's presence.

She looked back over her life

and began to see moments when God was indeed with her, with her husband and family, within their love.

These also were times when she had not been absolutely in control, times when the hand of God as friend could be seen.

These were also some of the best times.

We talked about prayer as the sharing of fears and hopes, good moods and bad moods, apprehensions and delights.

She had to struggle to comprehend "Your will be done" as anything more than giving up, selling out. losing.

That to say Your will be done," as well as "Let this cup pass from me." was to share life's deepest feelings was a truly new insight for her.

But with that insight she could see that prayer was more an act of love than an exercise in reason.

We stayed in touch. She wrote that she gradually found peace in her soul as she tried out God as a friend.

She had discovered that this friend God did not take away her suffering. But by sharing it with God her suffering became bearable.

She learned to take joy in being able to be angry with her friend God, and even more joy in being able to laugh with God. When we had parted in Jerusalem. we had exchanged our painted rocks.

Mine is now in a chapel wall in her memory.

Gethsemane is closer to home than we think It was Judas, betraying Jesus with a kiss.

The crowd quickly surrounded At the foot of the Mount of Olives, deep in the Kidron Valley Jesus and arrested him. With by the Church of All Nations, that, all the disciples abandoned there is a garden with an orchard him and fled.

Jesus' prayer was answered. of olive trees. The trees are very The cup of the passion would not old.

This is the Garden of be taken away. It was his Father's will.

Gethsemane.

I stayed at the Garden of The present Garden of Gethsemane quite late, until the Gethsemane commemorates a much older garden, one whose guardian signalled he would olive trees have long ago disap- close the gate.

Walking up the hill, I headed peared.

For Jesus and his disciples, the toward the city and entered It was garden was a favourite place through the Lion Gate. quiet. Tomorrow, Good Friday, where they often went to pray.

One year on Holy Thursday, there would be a crowd.

That was Holy Thursday 1968. after celebrating the Mass of the Each year since, during the night Lord's Supper in Jerusalem, I went to the Garden of of Holy Thursday, the memory of the garden becomes vivid.

Gethsemane.

The Last Supper and the That is what Jesus and the disCenacle announced Jesus' pasciples did after the Last Supper.

With a lot of people I prayed in sion. Gethsemane is where it the Church. When the prayer began. Today, like the passion, was over and most people had Gethsemane is everywhere.

Gethsemane is where Jesus left, I lingered in the garden. prays with Christian disciples: I looked around. In my imagination I could see Jesus in the "Where two or three are gathdistance, on his knees, beneath ered in my name, there am I in an olive tree. The trunk was the midst of them."

Gethsemane is where gnarled, the branches green and Christians sleep, unaware of the supple, full of life.

Jesus was praying. "Abba! passion about to overtake them.

Gethsemane is where disciples Father, all things are possible to you. Take this cup away from me, betray one another.

The tendency is to look for but not what I will but what you Gethsemane far away, to trouwill" (Mark 14:36).

Closer to me, I could see Peter, bled places full of conflict, where James and John, huddled togeth- Christians brutally attack one er against the evening's cold, another. Rwanda comes to mind.

So does Northern Ireland. sleeping.

We need not look so far.

Suddenly, there was much noise. A crowd was coming. Consider the violence in our Approaching Jesus, someone cities.

Consider the desperate poor leaned over, greeted him ignored on our streets.

"Rabbi!" - and kissed him.

By Father Eugene LaVerdiere, SSS

The Record, March 28 1996 Page 8

Consider the abuse of women prayer Jesus taught his disciples and children. and us at Gethsemane: "Abba!

Consider how each of us treats Father.... Take this cup away from those around us. me." remembering how the The list would be endless. It is prayer ended, "but not what I will true, we cannot personally make but what you will." up for every Christian betrayal in With that prayer, we all recogour world. But there is something nise that we are not God. we can do.

Imagine if we truly prayed that We can begin by praying the prayer and meant it.

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Features

Kimberley Catholic education a good start for local Aborigines

Godfrey Simpson - studying to become a linguist

By Peter Rosengren

T

) take a walk around the growing Broome campus of the University of Notre Dame is to see a new vista of Australian tertiary education, Catholic or otherwise.

As classes commenced last month at the height of the oppressive tropical Summer, buildings were still being renovated and grounds remodelled as part of the university's expansion.

Operating since mid-1994 and officially opened in June last year, Notre Dame's Kimberley Centre, as it is called, is now in its third year of operation.

Lectures are given in cocoons of air-conditioned comfort - necessary in this climate where you

begin to sweat within thirty seconds of stepping outside.

The establishment of the Kimberley Centre is significant for several reasons, not the least of which is its service to residents of the remote areas of the Kimberley.

The teaching assistants program is just one example of how Aboriginal people, previously with limited access to tertiary education, are benefiting from Notre Dame in the north.

Several students and staff members spoke to The Record last month about why they have chosen to study at the Notre Dame Kimberley Centre.

One unique group of Notre Dame's Broome students all come from one family and typify the innovation in tertiary education the campus has brought not

just to the Kimberley but to Aboriginal people as well.

They are George, Rosslyn and Aquinas Ranger and close relative Lorraine Dodd, all from Carnarvon and all undergraduates taking Bachelor of Arts degrees in Education.

Speaking at the family home in Broome, George said the provision of education for Aboriginal people was a key to enabling them to take their rightful place in society.

"And there's more support from the Catholic education system towards Aboriginal aspirations than any educational system I've seen before," he said.

"But we can only write our own destiny if we get up there and that's where the education comes In," he said.

In his view. Catholic education In the Kimberley has paved the way for Aboriginal people in educational opportunities and is "miles ahead" of what is available.

"They've been in the Kimberley from 40-odd years ago. They've seen the need to educate Aboriginal people then, because down the track we (would) miss the bus, as they say." he said, adding that a lot of Aboriginal children have already missed out on the benefits of education.

He is hopeful for the future, especially for the need for education for the young, and wants to encourage other Aboriginal people to take full advantage of the benefits of education.

"It's not hard, it's just a bit of commitment, that's all it takes," he said with a big smile.

First-year undergraduate Misty Sheppard from Kununurra, midway between Broome and Darwin. completed her TEE by distance education methods in 1995 and achieved a mark which enabled her to take her pick of almost any campus in Australia.

But, like a true native of the far North, she decided she didn't want to leave the Kimberley.

Currently studying for a Bachelor of Business degree and thinking of majoring in management, the Broome campus proved ideal in terms of location, Its size and the subjects offered.

One of the big pluses for the centre is its small size and the personal touch that comes from a

Misty Sheppard - prefers the personal approach of Notre Dame Broome to the big institutions

Aquinas Ranger, left, Rosslyn, George and George's niece, Lorraine, with, front, George and Rosslyn '5 daughter, Pennoshea and son Owen.

high teacher-to-student ratio. It's nearly a one-on-one basis," she said. "Here you're not an ID number, you're a name."

As a staff member, Bernadette McPherson is the coordinator of the Kimberley Centre's off-campus teacher education program and spends much of her time working with Aboriginal people who have worked as teaching assistants and want to become teachers in remote community schools.

She said one reason the course, specially formulated for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. was being run at Notre Dame was that people in remote locations usually didn't want to leave their communities but preferred to stay and work among their own people.

"So for them to be able to access education we have to take education to them." she said.

Most of the communication is done by fax machine and telephone but the next challenge for Notre Dame in this field would be real-time communication by computer, she said "So the majority of their study is done in their own community, and the work books and the material come out of here, and they work with a tutor in their own community and come into town for what we call blocreleases - periods of study that can be for a week or two weeks where they have intensive study here," she said.

After that, the students are sent back out to their communities so they can do the next stage of the

program. she said. The course lasts for two years and results in graduates holding an Associate Diploma of Education which qualifies holders as teachers in remote communities.

Currently there are 24 Aboriginal community members from throughout the Kimberley doing the course but by the end of the year it would be approximately 35. And the course not only empowered adult Aboriginal people but also provided valuable role-models for children in Aboriginal communities, she added.

Godfrey Simpson. from Yalgoo.

220km north-east of Geraldton is not quite in the same category as those who study for the associate diploma. an as worked Godfrey Aboriginal teaching assistant in 1995 but enrolled in an Aboriginal Studies degree and hopes to become a linguist specialising in Indonesian.

"I didn't really want to go to Perth so I came up here to the Broome campus of Notre Dame and decided to go from here." he said, saying that from his point of view an advantage of the campus was its affinity with 'the bush' as opposed to big-city life.

Like Misty Sheppard, he also finds the student-teacher ratio. which meant a higher degree of time available for guidance in studies, to be an advantage.

And by providing the possibility of tertiary education to Aboriginal people, for example to become teachers, this in turn helps their communities, he said.

Vanessa Lennard, left, from Fitzroy Crossing community and coordinator Bernadette McPherson

The Record, March 28 1996 Page 9

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Book Reviews

Modern-day Baptist derided by the world

Malcolm Muggeridge: a Biography, by Gregory Wolfe, pub. Hodder and Stoughton. RRP $39.95.

Reviewed by Tony Evans Muggeridge: The Biography, by Richard Ingrams, pub. Harper Collins RRP $45.

Reviewed by Karl G. Schmude

S

uch is the ephemeral nature of the medium that television personalities rise to glitter in the firmament like shooting stars and within a short space of time fade away and are soon forgotten.

Few of today's viewers remember controversial author. journalist. Malcolm Muggeridge, who dominated our screens twenty years ago, making and starring in

his own documentaries, hosting numerous interview and discussion programmes, and making almost daily appearances as a guest commentator on chat shows on his constant travels.

His last extended lecture tour of Australia was in 1976 at the age of 73.

By then Muggeridge was a convinced Christian, on the threshold of the Catholic Church.

The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney. Marcus Loane, described him as "the most significant layman since C.S. Lewis".

He had become not only a fierce critic of the medium he had dominated, but, like a modern John the Baptist, derided, in colourful language, the follies, Immorality and materialism of the world, and warned his listeners that unless they returned to

spiritual values, "Western Man, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, (would) keel over, a weary, battered old brontosaurus, and become extinct."

His dire messages, welcomed by the orthodox, were judged too doom-laden and eccentric by others who dismissed him as an old fraud and dubbed him - derisively - "St Mugg."

In contrast to Ingrams, the author of the other major biography which has just been released

by Harper Collins, Gregory Wolfe met Muggeridge only towards the end of his life and although he was received courteously in the Muggeridge's Sussex cottage like so many callers, he appears not to have been a close friend.

Although he clearly admires Muggeridge, he keeps a respectful distance and his assessments, at times fulsome, have more credibility.

Both books, as one would expect, cover the same ground Muggeridge's early life influenced by his father and the Webbs' particular brand of socialism, his undistinguished University years, and his teaching in India and Egypt, and his first successful journalism on The Manchester Guardian.

Wolfe is most successful in showing how Muggeridge, however wayward in his personal life, was professionally courageous, a lone voice who risked his job and preferment to describe the horrors of Stalin's regime, and, later, attacked the gullibility of Western intellectuals.

Wolfe is good, too, at comparing Muggeridge's own account of his life (Chronicles of Wasted Time, uncompleted) with the facts as discovered from his own researches.

For example, in his autobiography Muggeridge dismisses his war-time service as a secret agent in West Africa as a wasteful

and dreary comedy, but Wolfe shows that he was astute, brave and highly successful, and his work appreciated by the authorities.

Wolfe shows that Muggeridge's opposition to "life issues" - abortion, contraception, genetic experiments and euthanasia, were not adopted only after his public conversion but were formed at the very beginning of his adult life. He conveys an excitement in his narrative when recounting the years of playing hide-and-seek with established Christianity.

Muggeridge wrestled with the Hound of Heaven practically all his life, and only in his latter years did he capitulate.

He finally acknowledged the truth, embodied in Francis Thompson's great poem, that we cannot hide from God. with comes (God) He "Deliberate speed, majestic Instancy", and, for Muggeridge, "A Voice beat More instant than the Feet 'All things betray thee, who betrayest Me'.

"Terrible longing? and "dark emptiness"

F

,or Malcolm Muggeridge, the path to Christianity was long and tortuous.

His conversion was reminiscent, in many ways, of St. Augustine - not only in the dissolute nature of his adult life Augustine's in (reflected anguished prayer: "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet"), but also in his insatiable hunger for God ("You have made us for Yourself and our hearts are restless till they rest in You").

While Muggeridge did not become a Catholic until 1982 - in his 80th year - his biography makes clear that he experienced a strong leaning towards the Church throughout most of his

life.

As early as 1933, his aunt by marriage, Beatrice Webb, suggested that "Malcolm would do well in the Roman Catholic Church," for it would satisfy his need for spiritual discipline kind tranquillity.

An attitude that underlay Muggeridge's religious yearnings was his unwavering sense of being a "displaced person" in this world - "a stranger in a strange land; a visitor, not a native."

Finding in himself a desire which no experience in this world could satisfy, as C.S. Lewis once noted, Muggeridge was disposed to conclude that he was made for another world.

This pervading sense of gave also strangeness Muggeridge an unorthodox perspective as a journalist. When he visited Australia in 1958, he found a gigantic desert island Inhabited by Robinson Crusoes.

Australians, he wrote, "are castaways-de-luxe but they have an air of expecting a ship to come in and take them away."

Richard Ingrams was a longstanding friend of Muggeridge's and his biography presents a sympathetic but not altogether flattering picture.

He describes the profound influence which Mother Teresa had on Muggeridge's conversion - and leaves it to her to provide the most penetrating assessment of his character.

Mother Teresa once told Muggeridge that his spiritual struggles reminded her of Nicodemus. "I know what you feel." she wrote. "Terrible longing with dark emptiness."

The consolations of the Church helped to fill these spiritual voids.

On one occasion during his last years, as senility overtook him, he refused to accept medication that nurses tried to urge on him, but when a priest offered him Holy Communion, he took it at once without a murmur.

400 years later and Descartes' legacy is still debated French philosopher Rene Descartes caused a revolution in philosophy, breaking away from the approaches of Aristotle and Aquinas to create his own radical new approach to the great question& Whether for better or for worse is still debated among philosophers today. On the 400th anniversary of his birth Barry James looks at his legacy.

F

,rench philosopher Rene Descartes, born 400 years ago this spring, wanted to prove scientifically that God exists, but he fell into disfavour with the theologians at the Sorbonne university and is still a contested figure for 20thcentury Catholic thinkers.

Yet, Descartes, whose birthday is March 31, has become a model for French intellectuals, and the French still like to consider themselves as coolly rational "Cartesians."

His birthday anniversary is being marked around the country, including a solemn session at the Sorbonne, a new postage stamp and a philosophy contest among 48 schools.

In his lifetime, Descartes declined to publish one of his

Descartes: "I think. thereforeIam" early works, "The World," because he argued that the Earth moves around the sun.

He had seen what had happened to Galileo, condemned by the Church in Italy for holding the same idea.

"To live well, you must live unseen," he said.

He spent nearly his entire adult life outside France. First he was a soldier-of-fortune at the start of the Thirty Years war.

The Record, Maidt 28 1.996 Page 10

Then he turned to serious study such as: What is matter? What is in Holland, coming to Paris only the relationship between mind and body? And, above all, can for relatively short visits.

Given his problems with the anything been known for cerSorbonne, the arbiter of Catholic tain?

His method consisted of rejectorthodoxy in his age, he might be surprised to discover that he has ing every received idea or notion about which there could be the become a hero in France.

But this is one of the few slightest doubt, and questioning European countries where seri- any information derived from the ous philosophy still is taught in senses.

Was anything certain? Yes, he high schools.

The subject remains popular as answered. many people seek a meaning He argued, as did St Augustine, to life in a largely secular society. that the act of thinking made one Even philosophy groups have aware of one's own existence. sprung up in cafes.

"Cogito ergo sum" - I think Jostein Gaarder's book, therefore I am - was his most "Sophie's World," a philosophi- famous formulation.

He also argued that a perfect cal mystery, has been a runaway God would not want men to be best seller.

Descartes was a formidable permanently deceived.

Truth could be discovered mathematician, whose genius made him the father of modern through the power of reason as expressed through the lantheoretical physics.

He led the way for Newton and guage of mathematics.

Descartes was concerned priEinstein and laid the groundwork marily with demolishing the for much of modern science.

He marked a break with views of sceptics who thought medieval scholastic philosophy, that certainty in knowledge was derived from Aristotelianism and beyond the reach of man.

But his reasoning was also an hallowed by St Thomas Aquinas, and set the stage for modern phi- indirect argument against the losophy. He asked if there could Church, which said that since be scientific answers to questions man could know nothing for cer-

tain, he should rely on faith and hope.

The 20th-century Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain accused Descartes of trying to rival the angels.

He said that Cartesianism is merely the art of taking things them and putting apart together again.

"The mechanical explanation becomes the only conceivable type of scientific explanation."

Maritain said.

He added that the doubt sown

by Descartes "has a heavy weight of responsibility for the immense futility of the modern world."

Queen Christine of Sweden, whose resting place is St Peter's Basilica in Rome, credited Descartes with instigating the ideas that led her to convert to Catholicism.

Descartes had accepted her offer to go to Stockholm to teach her philosophy.

But it was a cruel winter and Descartes, used to lying in bed in the mornings to think, found it gruelling to get up to give lessons to the queen at 5 am.

He apparently contracted pneumonia and died in the Swedish capital at the age of 54.

The Abortion Evil

Silent voices scream in the New Holocaust In Australia each year approximately 80,000 abortions take place. Australians need to be constantly reminded of the reality of abortion, no matter how often we have read of it, to stop this great evil from slipping from our minds. As we remember the crucifixion of Our Saviour, Cecelia Natta looks at this reality.

A

Sue's doctor said: "you'd be amazed at l oop bortion in Western Australia still remains a Criminal offence but, the horror stories women are told but seri- shaped steel knife is inserted despite this, Abortion Clinics and ously, it's not nearly as gruesome."

Into the uterus.

Not gruesome, for whom?

Foetus in the womb: Hospitals continue to perform abortions Obviously not for the two survivors, the Then the placenta and Leonardo da Vinci daily without fear of prosecution or retricallous "doctor" and the ignorant, aborting the baby are cut into bution.

Sue stated that Pro-Life Tens of thousands of unborn. Australian mother, but for their poor victim, the pieces and scraped into basin. pamphlets contain propachildren are destroyed and discarded each aborted baby, It is gruesome.

• Prostaglandin (Labour inducI am not "amazed" at the horror stories ganda and misinformed scare year. Tens of millions more, suffer the appalled. drugs) - Will produce premature ing shocked, am I told. are women tactics. Fortunately. for the vicsame fate throughout the world, because and disgusted, but definitely not amazed, labour and delivery at whatever stage of tims, that is not the case. In fact, they preof this barbaric practice. pregnancy a woman is.

Women continue to demand, "doctors" because I know they are true. sent the facts, of life in the womb and • Saline or Salt Poisoning - A large nee- abortion.

Women are told horror stories but they continue to perform, and "nurses" contindle is inserted into the baby's amniotic are true stories, not fiction. ue to assist this atrocity.

These valuable pamphlets are used to in story horror greatest sac. the the is of Abortion slaughter senseless educate, not to misinform, and if the picThis bloody, A concentrated salt solution is then tures of dead, aborted babies bodies are innocents of our society has become a the history of mankind. mothers, into the amniotic fluid. The baby scary, then we must in all justice and faircountless injected of story true It is the Growth Industry.

It is a financially lucrative business, who do not want their children to live and breathes and swallows it. is poisoned. ness, re-consider the whole Abortion issue. which is supported by the general public, are willing to pay someone, an abortionist struggles. and sometimes convulses.

The corrosive effect of the concentrated "doctor", a fee, to terminate their premaThe photographs, of horribly mutilated. with very little protest or condemnation. salt, often burns and strips away the entire aborted babies, as displayed in Pro-Life Sue stated: "Women have every right to ture lives, in a violent, grisly manner.

What exactly, does the Suction or outer layer of the baby's skin. pamphlets, were entered as scientifically choose the fate of their bodies."

This exposes the raw, red, glazed looking documented, sworn evidence, before the In response to that statement all those Vacuum Method, used for Sue's abortion. subcutaneous layer. who respect and revere human life must entail?

Federal District Court of Connecticut and It takes over an hour to kill the baby. before the Judiciary Subcommittee, of the ask the question: 'Who gives women the To use this method, the "surgeon" must right to choose the fate of their unborn first paralyse the cervical muscle (womb When successful, the mother goes into United States House of Representatives. labour about one day later and delivers a babies' bodies?"

The pictures are grotesque. they will opening), then stretch it open. organs shock and offend, and they may even sickA woman's appendix and other This is difficult, because it is hard or dead baby.

• Hysterotomy (Caesarean Section) - en you, but the fact remains. are a part of her body. They carry her "green" and not yet ready to open naturalThis method is usually used late in preggenetic code, present in every cell of her ly They are genuine photographs of abortsurgicalis abdomen mother's The nancy. knife-like a with babies. body. For this reason they are undeniably ed tube A hollow plastic Abortion mutilates and kills, so they are a part of her body. edge on the tip. is then inserted into the ly opened. as is her uterus. The baby is The single-celled fertilised ovum, or later uterus. The suction tears the baby to then lifted out, and with the placenta, dis- not pretty pictures, not by any means. carded.

They are a graphic testimony. of the developing, embryonic human being with- pieces.

• D&X - This is a relatively new method. human waste, produced by the Abortion in her uterus, cannot by any stretch of the He then cuts the deeply rooted placenta imagination be considered part of her from the inner wall of the uterus. which is currently being used by a "doc- Industry.

The abortion mentality has created a body.

The contents, including the unborn baby, tor", in the State of Queensland. By his This new living being has a genetic code are sucked out into a jar. The suction is 29 own admission. he is willing to do very monster, in our midst. that is unique and totally different from times more powerful than a home vacuum late term abortions, using this notorious It has devoured the very foundation, of civilised society, on which our moral the cells of the mother's body. He is in cleaner. method. truth, a completely separate, growing It involves partial delivery to enable the framework was built. The principal that Yet. Sue was told by her 'doctor': "No, the human being who is never, not at any baby is not chopped up into little pieces." baby's skull to be crushed in the birth innocent, human life is sacred and inalienable. stage, part of her body.

Other methods used to procure abor- canal.

There is an urgent need for all people.

Does a woman have a right to her own tions are: In Australia. around 75% of abortions are through money, taxpayers' cially women, to educate themselves. with body? Maybe so. but this new life she carespe funded Curretage) and • "D&C" (Dilation ries is not her body. It is another person's Similar to the Suction method. A curette. a Medicare rebates. It is a frightful thought. on this life and death issue. body.

The unborn baby has his own space capsule, the amniotic sac. He has his own lifeline, the umbilical cord and he has his own root system, the placenta. These all belong to the baby's body, not to the mothers. They are all developed from his original cell.

From the moment of conception, this living being is dependant upon his mother for shelter and food but in all other respects he is a totally new, different, unique and independent being.

Sue stated: "My body is mine, my life is mine and I will not give either of them up unless I want to."

Her baby's body was his and his life was his but he had to give them up because he had no voice and no defence. His mother made that fatal choice for him.

Sue was apparently eight weeks pregnant, 56 days. when she obtained her abortion. The "doctor" told her: It's not yet a baby, just a lump of tissue."

Modern scientific, medical evidence disproves that argument, vigorously.

At eight weeks. Sue's unborn baby had every organ present. The heart beat sturdily. The stomach produced digestive juices. The liver manufactured blood cells and the kidneys were functioning.

Sue could have listened to her baby's heartbeat through an ultrasonic stethoscope. Even earlier, at just six weeks, her baby's brain waves could have been recorded by EEG Ultrasound would have Abortion demands only one response from people everywhere - compassion but fidelity to the right to life of all people recorded the heart action.

The Record, March 28 1996 Page 11

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To Jesus through Mary. . . .

The approach of the Passion of Our Lord reminds Christians of the participation of-Jesus' mother in his Passion.

The following excerpts are from Pope John Paul's meditation on this participation contained in his 1987 encyclical Mother of the Redeemer.

I

f John's description of the event at Cana presents Mary's caring motherhood at the beginning of Christ's messianic activity, another passage from the same Gospel confirms this motherhood in the salvific economy of grace at its crowning moment, namely when Christ's sacrifice on the Cross, his Paschal Mystery, is accomplished.

John's description is concise: "Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his moth-

er's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother: 'Woman, behold your son!' Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!' And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home" (John 19:25-27).

Undoubtedly, we find here an expression of the Son's particular solicitude for his Mother, whom he is leaving in such great sorrow. And yet the "testament of Christ's Cross" says more. Jesus highlights a new relationship between Mother and Son, the whole truth and reality of which he solemnly confirms.

One can say that if Mary's motherhood of the human race had already been outlined, now

. . . a column of Marian devotion

it is clearly stated and established. It emerges from the definitive accomplishment of the Redeemer's Paschal Mystery The Mother of Christ, who stands at the very centre of this mystery - a mystery which embraces each individual and all humanity - is given as mother to every single individual and all mankind.

The man at the foot of the Cross is John, "the disciple whom he loved". But it is not he alone.

Following tradition, the Council does not hesitate to call Mary "the Mother of Christ and mother of mankind": since she "belongs to the offspring of Adam she is one with all human beings . . . .

Indeed, she is 'clearly the mother of the members of Christ ... since she cooperated out of love so that

UNCOLN. Neb. (CNS) - Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln has formally warned Catholic members of groups supporting legal abortion or euthanasia that they will he automatically excommunicated if their membership continues after May 15.

The penalties would apply to members of Planned Parenthood. the Hemlock Society, Catholics for a Free Choice, Call to Action or its Nebraska chapter, traditionalist groups that do not support Church reforms since Vatican II, and groups affiliated with the Freemasons, the bishop said.

"Membership in these organisations or groups is always perilous to the Catholic faith and most often is totally incompatible with the Catholic faith," said an announcement published on March 22 in the Southern Nebraska Register, Lincoln diocesan newspaper.

The announcement, called extra-synodal legislation," was dated March 19 and signed by Msgr. Timothy Thorburn, chancellor of the Lincoln Diocese, "by mandate of' Bishop Bruskewitz.

It said any Catholics "in or of the Diocese of Lincoln who attain or retain membership" in any of the organisations after April 15 are automatically "under interdict and are absolutely forbidden to receive holy Communion."

"Contumacious persistence in such membership for one month following the interdict on part of any such Catholics will by that very fact ('ipso facto latae sententiae') cause them to be excommunicated," it added.

Photo CNS,Zetten

Bishop threatens excommunication on life issues

Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz

The Latin phrase "ipso facto latae sententiae" means "by that very fact the sentence will be carried out."

Publication of the notice by the Southern Nebraska Register should be considered "a formal canonical warning," it said.

In an unsigned editorial accompanying the notice. the Southern Nebraska Register said the move was a "service of clarification" by the bishop.

"Because certain organisations have been, either directly or indirectly, asserting that membership in them does not contradict membership in the Catholic Church our bishop has found It necessary to dissipate ambiguity and overcome any confusion in the minds of Catholics in the Diocese of Lincoln about these matters," the editorial said.

"Despite the fact that the antiCatholicism of most of these organisations and groups is fre-

quently open and apparent, some of their members and leaders have been trying to sell their evils to the unwary and uninformed, and sometimes to give the impression that the Catholic Church is divided or undecided about some of these groups and organisations," it added.

The editorial said Bishop Bruskewitz "has told us that he would feel he had failed in his office (as bishop) and in his duty to protect the Catholic faith, unless he acted as he did."

The action was taken "only after the bishop engaged in extensive consultation over many months with innumerable Inquiries and discussions." the editorial said.

The groups named by Bishop Bruskewitz were: Planned Parenthood, Society of St Pius X, Hemlock Society, Call to Action, Call to Action Nebraska, St Michael the Archangel Chapel, Freemasons, Job's Daughters, DeMolay, Eastern Star. Rainbow Girls, and Catholics for a Free Choice.

The Hemlock Society works to legalise physician-assisted suicide, and Planned Parenthood and Catholics for a Free Choice both support legal abortion.

Job's Daughters. DeMolay, Eastern Star and Rainbow Girls all are affiliated with the Masons.

The Society of St. Pius X and St. Michael the Archangel Chapel both oppose the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council and celebrate Mass in the Tridentine rite without the permission of the local bishop.

there might be born in the Church the faithful'".

And so this "new motherhood of Mary", generated by faith, is the fruit of the "new" love which came to definitive maturity in her at the foot of the Cross, through her sharing in the redemptive love of her Son. Thus we find ourselves at the very centre of the fulfilment of the promise contained in the Proto-gospel: the "seed of the woman . . . will crush the head of the serpent" (cf. Genesis 3:15).

By his redemptive death Jesus Christ conquers the evil of sin and death at its very roots. .

In accordance with the eternal plan of Providence, Mary's divine motherhood is to be poured out upon the Church, as indicated by statements of Ti-adition, accord-

ing to which Mary's "motherhood" of the Church is the reflection and extension of her motherhood of the Son of God . . . .

And so, in the redemptive economy of grace, brought about through the action of the Holy Spirit, there is a unique correspondence between the moment of the Incarnation of the Word and the moment of the birth of the Church . ... Mary at Nazareth and Mary in the Upper Room at Jerusalem.

In both cases her discreet yet essential presence indicates the path of "birth from the Holy Spirit". Thus she who is present in the mystery of Christ as Mother becomes - by the will of the Son and the power of the Holy Spirit - present in the mystery of the Church.

Ordination 'only the start of a priest's pilgrimage'

By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) Ordination is the beginning of a priest's response to his vocation, a response which must be renewed each day and in every task he is called to carry out.

Pope John Paul II said.

In an often personal reflection on the priestly vocation with a view to the 50th anniversary of his own ordination, the Pope encouraged his fellow priests to meditate on the mystery and gift their vocation represents.

"Every vocation to the priesthood has an individual history of its own, related to quite specific moments in the life of each one of us." Pope John Paul said in his letter to the world's priests.

Each year the Pope writes a short letter to priests for Holy Thursday. the day commemorating Christ's institution of the Eucharist and of the priesthood.

The 1996 letter, signed by the Pope on March 17. was to be released March 21 at the Vatican.

Pope John Paul said that as he was writing the letter, he was thinking about the anniversary of his November. 1, 1946, ordination. "1 am thinking of my seminary classmates who, like myself, followed a path to the priesthood

marked by the tragic period of the Second World War," he wrote. "At that time the seminaries were closed and seminarians were scattered here and there.

Some of them lost their lives in the hostilities," he said.

"For us, the priesthood attained In those circumstances took on a special value."

The Pope asked the world's priests to join him in offering thanksgiving to God for his priestly vocation.

"Jubilees, as you know, are important moments in a priest's life: they represent as it were milestones along the road of our calling," he said.

The road does not end with ordination, he said. That is just the beginning "of a journey which continues until death."

"Our priestly life, like every authentic form of Christian existence, is a succession of responses to God who calls." he said.

Anniversaries are special opportunities to review how well one has responded to God's call and to remember the people who have offered encouragement and support, he said.

"We know that we are 'unworthy servants' but we are grateful to the Lord for having wished to make us his ministers," he said.

Message to Buddhists VATICAN CITY (CNS) - In a message to "Buddhist friends" around the world, a Vatican official said tolerance and respect for differences should guide relations among religions.

"In our world torn apart by violence and hatred, let us collaborate to create a society built on the civilisation of love," Cardinal Francis Arinze, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, said in a message released at the Vatican on March 25.

The message marked the approach of the Buddhist feast of Vesakh, which commemorates

the birth, enlightenment and passing away of Gautama Siddhartha. or Buddha.This year the feast falls on June 1.

Cardinal Arinze said all major religious feast days are opportunities for those of differing faiths to draw closer and reflect on their respective beliefs.

He said tolerance was a value deeply respected by Buddhist and Christian traditions.

But today's pluralistic society demands more than passive tolerance, he added. ". . . . We are commanded, in fact, to love our neighbours as ourselves," he said.

'Reasoned' use of natural resources should aim at future

By John Mavis VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Citing modern risks of environmental disaster, Pope John Paul II preached "use without abuse" of natural resources and said it fitted in with the Lenten virtue of self-control.

Cultivating a sense of detachment from material things is a good antidote to the mentality of "pleasure at any cost" that seems to reign today, the Pope said during a weekly Sunday blessing at the Vatican The Record, March 28 1996 Page 12

on March 24. The Pope noted that the biblical account of creation clearly places the human being in a privileged position, with the right to make use of the other creatures.

"But this does not authorise him to lord it over nature, and even less to devastate it.

Instead, he is called to collaborate with God in favouring the created world," he said.

The Pope has used the weekly talks to focus on the value of Lenten practices of meditation and penance in the contempo-

rary world. He said the attitude of personal sacrifice, which is encouraged during Lent, can inspire greater respect for the natural environment.

In particular, he said, it can counter the modern trend toward overindulgence and selfishness and the race to possess things.

He said that has resulted in a "culture of domination."

The result, he said, is "a distorted use of nature that disfigures its appearance, threatens its balance and does not slow down even when facing the threat of eco-

logical disaster." The practice of self-control, on the contrary, helps people open themselves to God and their fellow human beings, viewing material possessions in the proper perspective, he said during the blessing at the Vatican.

A reasoned and sensible use of resources should aim not only at immediate gratification but also at the future, he said.

In general, he said, Christians should use Lent as a time for deeper reflection, self-improvement and charity.

International News

Taiwan's Catholics watch Hong Kong closely

By Kenneth Weare WS ANGELES (CNS) - Despite talk of independence, many Taiwanese, including Catholics, say they still long for some kind of reunification but not without protection for religious and other freedoms.

Msgr Simon Wang, general secretary of the archdiocese, said many Catholics have participated in public marches and political rallies in support of reunification.

He spoke to The Tidings, newspaper of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, in a phone interview a few days before the firstever democratic elections were held there.

"Many of our people were born on the mainland." he said. "They have their relatives there today.

They want reunification."

Taiwanese Catholics living in Southern California expressed similar sentiments.

"Our ties to the mainland are strong," said Father Gabriel Lui, associate pastor of St Thomas Aquinas Church in Monterey Park_ A native of Taiwan whose parents fled the communist takeover, Father Lui said family ties are active between Taiwanese and

Taiwanese Catholics worship in their church in Taipei on March 22.

their relatives on the mainland."Every year, my father goes visiting friends and relatives and giving donations to the Catholic communities there," he said.

Most Taiwanese Catholics want to see closer unity between their island and mainland China, said Father Lui, but religious freedom remains a top concern.

"We must have protection for religious and other freedoms," he

said. The Vatican and the Taiwanese government must insist on these protections."

While the Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of religion, it carries the caveat "that religious institutions and persons not act contrary to the state," said Jesuit Father Edward Malatesta.

He is director of the Ricci instiChinese-Western for tute Cultural History at the University

of San Francisco's Center for the same way of operating, then it seems positive. But there are difPacific Rim. The Chinese government's ferences. Taiwan has functioned interpretation of state interests like a sovereign country" "Religious people in Taiwan has resulted in two Catholic churches in China - the state- need the guarantee of association approved Chinese Catholic with peoples and institutions outPatriotic Association, which does side China," he said.

"For Catholics, this means assonot recognise the authority of the Vatican, and an underground ciation with the Holy See." Taiwanese Catholics have Church that is loyal to the Pope. freedom relative There have been some signs enjoyed that relations between Beijing because of close relationships and the Vatican are growing and the government's conservawarmer, such as a Mass celebrat- tive stance on social issues, he ed last year by Pope John Paul II said.

Fathers Malatesta and Lui credwith Chinese priests including it Taiwan's Presbyterian Church some from the Patriotic Church.

But observers say official rela- with animating the nation's tions still seem to be a long way democracy movement.

"The Presbyterians' promotion off.

Religious and human rights and protection of human rights observers report that the Chinese made democracy happen." said government has stepped up per- Father Lui. And Catholics were encouraged secution of the underground Church, and Taiwanese Catholics by Church leaders to participate are watching Hong Kong to see in the election.

"The Catholic bishops and pashow the Church is treated there when the British colony reverts tors of Taiwan urged all Catholics during the Masses last Sunday to to Chinese control in 1997. participate in the presidential are Taiwan) (in leaders "Church taking all of this very seriously," elections and to vote according to their conscience," said Msgr. said Father Malatesta.

"If the reunification of Taiwan Wang.

"We are hopeful for the future. follows the same model as Hong Kong. being able to keep the Pray for us."

'Any Catholic killers must face justice'

By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) Rwanda cannot be rebuilt without truth and justice, including the punishment of any Catholics who may have been involved in the massive killings that occurred in 1994. Pope John Paul II said.

"The Church as such cannot be held responsible for the faults of its members who acted against evangelical lam" the Pope said in a March message to the people of Rwanda.

However, he said, "all members of the Church who sinned during the genocide must have the courage to face the consequences of the acts which they committed against God and against their neighbour."

The papal letter, dated March 14, marked the second anniversary of the beginning of the slaughter that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Rwandans.

"I bow before the memory of all the victims of this drama," the Pope said.

Among the dead were three of the country's Catholic bishops,

Cancer rumour denied

Condolences for dead sisters VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope John Paul II sent his condolences to the Sisters of Charity of St Ann after two members of the order were killed in Rwanda when their car hit an anti-tank land mine.

The next day. the Pope encouraged Italian young people to participate in a day of prayer and fasting in memory of "martyred missionaries."

"With their sacrifice they have numerous priests and religious.

Archbishop Paul Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum," which coordinates Vatican relief and development aid, went to Rwanda on March 18 and delivered the Pope's letter to the Rwandan people.

The text was released March 20 at the Vatican.

The Pope said he was writing as a sign of his "paternal love" for all Rwandans, especially "those who suffer, who live in mourning or in anxiety over their future."

Lasting peace and reconcilia-

cere heart, to pardon and to reconcile yourselves when this is necessary. in order to reinforce prolonged and spread through- your unity and to work together out the world the victory of for the one mission of Christ."

Christ over sin and death.- Pope "Christians must be witnesses John Paul said on March 24 dur- of the truth." he said, saying they ing his midday Angelus address must dedicate themselves to reconciliation and peace. at the Vatican.

In his telegram of condolence, Two days after the Pope's mesthe Pope prayed that God would sage was released the United welcome the two Sisters of Nations refugee agency, the Charity. a Rwandan and a office of the UN High Spaniard, killed March 20 "into Commissioner for Refugees. said his light and bring comfort to the it is worried that lack of funds sister who was injured." may cause it to curtail programs for refugees who fled tribal fighttion, he said, will not come to ing in Rwanda and Burundi.

"Right now we are borrowing Rwanda without justice, without an acknowledgement of sin and from our own pocket," said Fernando del Mundo, spokeswithout forgiveness.

Several Catholic priests and man for the office.

The agency needs $24 million women religious have been accused of participating in the per month for its Rwanda and massacres that set members of Burundi refugee programs. said the Hutu and Thtsi ethnic groups del Mundo.

As of March 19, only $71.5 milagainst one another.

About 47 percent of the coun- lion had been received from donor countries, he said. try's population is Catholic.

The agency is borrowing from Pope John Paul called on all members of the Church in its own funds and encouraging Rwanda "of various ethnic oil- rich countries to earmark more gins" to "turn to God with a sin- money, he said.

Jesuit's appointment blocked by mystery US bishops

By Jerry Flteau (CNS) WASHINGTON Opposition from one or more US bishops has reportedly caused Rome to block the appointment of Scripture scholar Father Edward Glynn as president of Jesuit-run Weston School of in Theology Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"I've been assured it's not a question of my orthodoxy," Father Glynn, who is head of the Maryland province of Jesuits, told Catholic News Service in a

March 19 telephone interview.

He was contacted in Wheeling, West Virginia, where he was making a provincial visitation to Wheeling Jesuit College.

He said Jesuit officials were told by the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education - which has veto power over the appointment - that opposition came from within the US hierarchy, but not on doctrinal grounds.

He said he received no further explanation of the reasons for the opposition or the person or persons behind it.

With doctrinal considerations ruled out, he said, he assumes the opposition came from someone concerned that he might not be as cooperative as desired in a difficult situation.

Asked if opposition came from Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore, where he has his provincial headquarters, he said that on the contrary, "Cardinal Keeler wrote a letter supporting me" for the post.

He said it was at the cardinal's invitation that he also serves on the board of St Mary's Seminary

and University in Baltimore.

Cardinals Hickey and Law, both members of the Congregation for Catholic Education, declined to comment on the matter when contacted by CNS. A Jesuit source with close connections to Georgetown, said Cardinal Hickey is believed to have sought unsuccessfully to have Father Glynn, as Jesuit provincial, intervene directly in a 1991-92 university controversy over the formation of a student group on campus that supported legal abortion.

Pope John Paul last Sunday

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - The Vatican, denying a Spanish newspaper report, said Pope John Paul II was not suffering from cancer.

The 75-year-old Pope, meanwhile, continued to gradually resume his activities following a bout with an unspecified digestive problem and fever in mid-March.

Addressing pilgrims and visitors from his apartment window March 24, he looked and sounded better than he had in previous days.

He was sidelined for about 10 days by the illness.

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said on March 25 that the cancer rumour was unfounded.

"I am authorised by the Holy Father's doctor to say that John Paul II regularly undergoes periodic clinical check-ups and that he does not show any signs of having a disease of a neoplastic (cancerous) nature," the spokesman said.

The previous day, the Spanish newspaper Diario 16 ran an article by Jesuit Father Pedro Miguel Lamet, who asserted it was an "open secret" in the Vatican that the Pope was suffering from cancer, probably of the colon.

The Pope had a colon tumour removed in 1992.

The Record, March 28 1996 Page 13

International News

to Court US Supreme Salesians pick chief decide 'right to die' In Brief

ROME (CNS) - Members of the Salesians, the Catholic Church's third largest religious order of men, elected Argentine Father Juan Edmundo Vecchi to be their new superior.

Father Vecchi's election on March 20 marked the first time in the order's 137-year history that a non-Italian had been elected major rector of the Salesians of St John Bosco.

Among Catholic men's orders, only the Jesuits and the Franciscans have more members.

Asian Christians HONG KONG (CNS) - The Christian Conference of Asia and the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences have agreed to form the Asian Ecumenical Committee to implement proposals, share information, cooperate on social issues and provide ecumenical formation.

The decision came after an ecumenical consultation titled "Asian Movement for Christian Unity," held from March 12-16 in Hong Kong that was jointly sponsored by the two organisations

Priests' party \Am:AN cm( (CNS) - The Vatican is planning a party for priests celebrating the 50th anniversary of their ordinations - and it has invited more than 7,000 of them to come to Rome for the occasion.

Pope John Paul II, whose 50th anniversary is November 1. will be the guest of honour at the four-day gathering, scheduled for November.

In his letter to the world's priests for Holy Thursday 1996, Pope John Paul invited all 404,000 of his brother priests to join him in offering thanksgiving for the gift of his priesthood.

Ruling reversed WARSAW, Poland (CNS) Poland's Appeals Court has overturned the acquittal of two communist secret police generals and ordered fresh investigations into their suspected involvement in the 1984 killing of an activist priest, Father Jerzy Popieluszko.

In a March 21 ruling, Judge Jan Krosnicki said the county court that cleared the generals had failed to "analyse responsibly" key evidence against them, including courtroom testimony by the priest's convicted killers.

Bishops beatified VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope John Paul II has beatified two Italian bishops who founded missionary orders in the 1800s.

Resting after a fever, Pope John Paul presided over the first half of the March 17 ceremony beatifying Bishop Daniel Comboni, founder of the Comboni missionaries who were active in Africa, and Bishop Guido Maria Conforti, founder of the Xaverian missionaries, who filled seminarians with an awareness of their obligation to be missionary.

By Jerry Filteau WASHINGTON (CNS) Washington state's attorney general has announced that she will ask the US Supreme Court to reverse the "right to die" decision of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

In a letter March 25 to Oregon's bishops, Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire said, "Our office expects to file the petition (of appeal) in the next 30 days."

"This is a significant issue for the nation, a watershed issue of public policy that requires the review and analysis of our nation's highest court," she wrote.

At stake is the legal status of physician-assisted suicide, a practice never before permitted under US law.

The appeals court declared on March 6 that the Washington law barring any person from assisting in another's suicide is unconstitutional because it denies the terminally ill their constitutional right to determine when and how they will die.

Ms Gregoire also announced the filing of a motion on March 25 asking the appeals court to

delay implementation of its decision pending disposition of the appeal in the Supreme Court.

Ms Gregoire said the state could have waited until June 4 90 days after the appellate decision - to submit its appeal to the Supreme Court.

She said it decided to do so earlier so the Supreme Court would be able to decide whether to take the case during its current term, which is slated to end on June 30.

Ms Gregoire wrote to Oregon's bishops in response to a letter from them on March 21 urging her to appeal the lower-court ruling.

They called the ruling "a dangerous precedent in American law" that would cast aside basic principles of medical ethics, law and public policy.

"Not only would medical ethics change radically in this nation, but the decriminalisation of physician-assisted suicide would send a tragic message to the teenagers in today's troubled society and world." they said.

They cited findings by the Oregon Health Division "that in 1994 Oregon had a suicide rate 37 percent above the national average and that there was a 26 percent increase in suicides among 15 - to 24-year-olds."

New York's Cardinal O'Connor In 1994 Oregonians were engaged in a wide public debate over a referendum proposal on that Autumn's ballot to legalise assisted suicide for the terminally ill.

Signing the letter to Ms Gregoire were Bishop Thomas Connolly of Baker and Bishop Kenneth Steiner, auxiliary bishop and administrator of the Portland Archdiocese.

In a separate statement on the case the bishops of Arizona also called for Supreme Court reversal of the decision, which they said "advances neither health care nor human rights.'

"This decision, if not reversed.

could undermine some of our country's most cherished traditions," they said.

The 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, covers Alaska, Arizona, Idaho.

Hawaii, California, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Guam.

Signing the Arizona statement were Bishops Thomas O'Brien of Phoenix, Manuel Moreno of Tucson and Donald Pelotte of Gallup.

In another comment on the assisted-suicide ruling, Cardinal John O'Connor of New York called it unsurprising "in a land where we have become almost monstrously contemptuous of human life."

Writing on March 21 in his newspaper, archdiocesan Catholic New York the cardinal said, "When 1.5 million babies can be killed before birth every year, without a murmur except from 'those crazy pro-lifers' who oppose freedom, what can't happen?"

If the appeals court decision is allowed to stand, he said. it "will ultimately be interpreted to cover every situation, young, old, retarded, wheelchaired, mentally competent, mentally incompetent - anybody that anybody in power decides is 'useless."

Children still carry the scars of war Abortion

gunman found guilty

By Diane Bartz SARAJEVO. Bosnia-Herzegox ina (CNS) - It was a golden afternoon in Sarajevo.

Five teen-age boys and four girls were in a small, freshly painted white room with a spectacular view of the hills that for three-and-a-half years were the lair of Bosnian Serb snipers besieging the city.

The war seemed far away until the English class in this club for Sarajevo teens begins practicing use of the past tense.

"We were standing by the bakery and my girlfriend said, 'Let's go for a walk,— Elma Muslic said in heavily accented English.

"I said I didn't want to, but after two minutes I said, 'Why not?' and we walked for a while, and a grenade exploded where we were standing. I can't imagine what made us go."

"You were lucky," said teacher Edina Maglajlija.

The two nod.

Another girl had a more typical story, one of being ignored by parents who spent all their time and energy getting clean drinking water after running water was shut off, buying wood to heat their home after natural gas supplies were shut off by surrounding Serbs and finding food in a besieged city.

Nearly every father went to the front.

"My parents usually said to me that they didn't want me to go to school. They said it was dangerous," said Nina Hamzic.

When pressed a bit, she added: "I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to remember."

Beyond the personal struggle for these children to put their lives back together, their problems have national implications for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Economic development requi-

The Record, March 28 1996 Page 14

,ct Child and grandfather walk through the former front-lines on March 23 res an educated work force, and Bosnia's political future depends on a restoration of at least some of the ethnic tolerance among Bosnian Muslims, Croats and Serbs that existed before a threeand-a-half year genocidal war left 200,000 dead.

During the war, many students went to school once or twice a month because there was little or no fuel to heat the buildings or because any gatherings, even of school children, could draw fire.

A generation of Sarajevans have missed three critical years of classes and the emotional development that comes from interacting within a peer group.

Even the lucky children - the ones whose families remained intact and who never witnessed a sniping or shelling death - were unable to play outside and were ignored by exhausted and frightened relatives.

Ms Maglajlija, who had learned the day of the class that her home in the suburb of Grbavica had been stripped of furniture, windows and even light sockets as Bosnian Serbs pulled out, said

members of her class had been particularly hard hit.

"Yesterday, I asked a simple question. 'What is your mother's job? What is your father's job?" she said. "Four said. 1 haven't a father.' Four of 12.

"They worry about essentials like food. They save things. They worry about heat. That is not a children's worry. That is for parents," she said in a hushed tone.

In addition to English classes, the club, sponsored by the US bishops' Catholic Relief Services. offers theatre, dance and computer classes.

It also provides counselling to help adolescents recover from the war, with the hope of leaving aside the ethnic tensions that made this country a killing field.

The teen-agers and smaller Salvi - found guilty of murder children have a lot to recover (CNS) WASHINGTON from, said Marinela Domancic, a insanity, a plea of a Rejecting psychologist who spent 25 months working in a counselling Massachusetts jury found John Salvi, 24, guilty on all counts of centre. and assault stemming murder The war has left some attacks on two depressed, suffering from night- from his 1994 in suburban clinics abortion mares, a stutter or with trouble Boston. sleeping.

Salvi. a Catholic from New Their best resources are time, and a person Hampshire talking and their own natural loner who espousas a described resilience, she says. anti-Catholic es a worldwide, Across town, in Sarajevo's Old convicted theory, was conspiracy City, is a program for younger of of two counts on March 18 children, some so young that they were born during the war and first-degree murder and five have never played on a seesaw counts of armed assault with because it would put them in the intent to murder.

The state has no death penalty. lines of sniper fire.

Salvi was sentenced to two conThere, 19 kids played "Blind secutive life terms, plus 18 to 20 Man's Bluff" in a comfortable but for the assaults. years cramped living room lined with In the December 30, 1994, mayred velvet sofas and chairs. But Brookline, Salvi killed then a flash went off - only a vis- hem in receptionists itor taking a photograph. Several two abortion clinic people. other and wounded five children flinched, and one boy Cardinal Law also Boston's around to look turned shootings as "rep"He's scared," said Milada denounced the of violence with rehensible acts Zahiragic, 32, the organiser of the justification whatno absolutely afternoon program. "He thought soever." it was a sniper."

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APRIL Easter Song Mercedes College, 1 St Mary's Cathedral Archbishop Hickey 2 Chrism Mass. St Mary's Cathedral - Archbishop Hickey, Bishop Healy 3 Reconciliation. Willetton Parish Bishop Healy Professional and Business Leaders Holy Week Breakfast.

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Manning - Bishop Healy Celebration of the Lord's 5 Passion. St Mary's Cathedral Archbishop Hickey 6 Easter Vigil, St Mary's Cathedral Archbishop Hickey Easter Vigil. Kwinana Bishop Healy 7 Solemn Easter Mass, St Mary's Cathedral - Archbishop Hickey Easter Mass, Shenton Park Bishop Healy Mass SACRI. Bullsbrook 8 Bishop Healy 10 Knights of St Lazarus of Jerusalem - Bishop Healy 11 Council of Priests Meeting

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MARCH 29 Businessmen's Mass, All Saint's Chapel - Archbishop Hickey St Charles Seminary Archbishop Hickey 30 Candelight AIDS March Bishop Healy 31 Solemn Mass for Palm Sunday, St Mary's Cathedral Archbishop Hickey

BULLSBROOK ANNIVERSARY The 49th anniversary of the Apparition of the Virgin of the Revelation at Tre Fontane, Rome, to Bruno Cornachiola, will be celebrated at the church of Virgin Mary Mother of the Church, Chittering Rd, Bullsbrook, on Easter Monday, 8 April.

Holy Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Healy at 11am, followed by a Marian procession. All are welcome. For further information please SACRI phone the Association on 447 3292.

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Follow to Coulston, turn left at Coulston and follow to Hudman

follow markers and turn left up these to Quarry to follow path to right until you reach the Mass Tree.

Meditation celebrant Fr Francis Ughanze. 10am Stations of the Cross and Rosary. Please bring some refreshment, hat and wear sensible shoes. A meditational walk to places of interest. The transport returns to each pick up point at 1.15pm. Departure times: Victoria Park, St Joachim's 8.30am, Subiaco, St Joseph's 8.45am, Perth Railway Station 9am, Morely, Infant Jesus 9.15am, Midland, St Brigid's 9.30am.

Arrival 9.45am.

FEAST OF MERCY St Mary's Cathedral, Victoria Square, 14 April at 1.30pm.

Programme: Exposition, Divine Mercy prayers, Benediction. Holy Mass at 2pm. Main celebrant:

ALAN AT WEMBLEY PARISH On Friday 12 April, after recitation of the Holy Rosary at 7pm Alan Ames will speak about the experiences that brought him back to the Catholic Church. The venue is Our Lady of Victories Church. 364 Cambridge St, Wembley.

The evening will conclude with Healing.

All are welcome.

Inquiries: Sr Claude. Ph: 387 3987 or Russel 274 6018.

TAKING CARE OF THE DYING Father Walter Black MSC, director of the LJ Goody Bioethics Centre will speak on Taking Care of the Dying on Tuesday 2 April 1996.

Venue: Convent of Mercy, 113 Tyler St, Tuart Hill. Time: 7.30pm.

Cost: members (no charge) nonmembers (donation at door).

Please note: bring a plate. RSVP to Sr Mary Berry ph: 444 5750 by Mon 1 April.

The Record, March 28 1996 Page 15

LifeLink

OFFICE AssImmr

A new position in the fundraising office of LifeLink needs to be filled by a capable person with a mature and pleasant outlook. LifeLink raises funds to support Archdiocesan funded Catholic welfare services.

Duties include - telephone, clerical and banking tasks - processing of donor details - preparation and distribution of appeal materials.

The successful applicant must have - an acceptance of the ethos of the Catholic faith - excellent communication skills - ability to maintain a very good relationship with priests and senior staff at both Catholic schools and Catholic welfare agencies.

- work with a PC computer - hold a current A class drivers licence Applications in writing are to be lodged by Friday 5th April 1996 to the following: The Executive Officer. LifeLink GPO Box P121Z Perth WA 6001

FOCUS FACILITATORS COURSE Wednesday, April 10, 1996 1 0.00am until 4.30pm at

Catholic Marriage Preparation and Education Centre 450 Hay Street, Perth R SVP 325 1859 before April 3

Cost S135 per person

ELLIOTT & ELLIOTT Optometrists Contact Lens Consultants 4 Cantonment Street, FREMANTLE Phone 335 2602

SERVING ALL YOUR REAL ESTATE NEEDS

THE PARISH S CENE AWAKENING 2000 As part of Easter worship, there will be a Prayer Vigil on the Esplanade, Perth, from 6pm on Good Friday until 5am on Easter Saturday. Many other Christian denominations will be involved. From 6pm to 8pm members of the Disciples of Jesus Community will be leading the Prayer from a Catholic perspective. During this time there will be a dramatisation of the Stations of the Cross.

All readers are invited to come to pray and to support their Catholic colleagues.

On Easter Saturday at 11am there will be another dramatisation of the Stations of the Cross, this time in Fremantle (Esplanade Reserve).

THE DESOLATA The traditional devotion of the Servants of Mary (Servites) in honour of the Sorrow of Mary following the crucifixion of her Son Jesus will be held at St Denis' Church on Good Friday evening at 8pm. It is called The Desolata because it recalls in prayer, readings and song the Desolation Mary felt after Christ was buried in the tomb and she was left alone with her thoughts and feelings. St Denis' Church is at the corner of Roberts and Osborne Streets, Joondana.

All are welcome.

— OFFICE 272 8411 — Mobile: 018 955 332 (Res): 375 3116 Pager: 483 6551

NEWMAN SOCIETY A cocktail party will be held on April 20 following the 5.45pm Mass at St Thomas More College, Mounts Bay Rd, Crawley.

Admittance $10. Drinks available at the bar. All Catholic University graduates welcome.

RSVP to Newman Society c/o College by April 17. This will also be a suitable opportunity for members to pay their yearly subscription.

UNDERSTANDING BLOOD COVENANTS International Catholic evangelist, Eddie Russell FMI of Flame Ministries International will be giving a series of five weekly teachings on Blood Covenants from Adam to Jesus.

They are the scarlet thread through which we can understand the Bible, Salvation and the Eucharist in greater depth.

Commences at 8pm Thursday May 2 to Thursday May 30 at the Cathedral Parish Centre, 450 Hay St, Perth and is hosted by the Cathedral Praise Meeting.

There is no registration fee. A Love Offering will be taken up each week to cover costs. For more information or brochure (09) 382 3668.

Continued page 15

CARTERS

REAL ESTATE BAYSWATER 3a King William Street

SALLY PALMER Pleased to be of service

I f you are Spiritual- or a Church goer and wouldlike improvedspirituallife,I advise you to get in touch with St. Francis Secular Order, Victoria Park (especiaLry if you five South of the river).

We meet every 3rdSunday of the rrumth. at 3pm at Marie Isaiah Place, backof St. 5oac11ims Church, Victoria Park Phone 361 5060 Doug Williams •

[-P!I1F

Recommend The Record -1 to a friend.

[F_F,

How has the Catholic Church survived Crises in the Past? & Where is the Catholic Church heading for the Third Millennium?

If you are concerned about your children's future Catholic faith, come and hear Mr Michael Davies speak So who is Mr Michael Davies you ask?

Michael Davies of England is a convert to the Catholic faith. He is a prolific author, dynamic speaker and a gifted debater whose knowledge of Church History especially with respect to liturgy is unsurpassed.

He addresses in many of his writings the loss of c onfidence among so many of the faithful in the Catholic Church brought on by the radical changes in the liturgy. He is so scrupulously loyal to the doctrine of the Church that an Australian Bishop has used his "Dossier on new

When: Where: Time: Topics:

Catechetics" to keep Catholic Education in his diocese free from unorthodox teachings. He has written a dozen full length books, some of which are now in their sixth edition and translations of his writing have appeared in at least five languages.

He has a degree in English Literature from London University and teaching degrees in Thomistic Philosophy and Catholic Doctrine from St Mary's College Strawberry Hill. He was a soldier in the British Army for several years but now

a soldier of Christ. Do you know anyone who has stopped attending Mass, become lukewarm in the practice of their Catholic Faith?

They may find what Mr Davies has to say enlightening and give them the hope they have lost.

Give them a call, help them to reconsider their position by listening to this author of amazing power and industry.

If you want your questions answered come listen to Mr Michael Davies speak

Tuesday 9th April 1996 Metro Inn, 61Canning Highway, South Perth 7.30pm How has the Church survived previous crises? eg The Reformation in England What does the phrase Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi mean?

How could this have an effect on our future faith?

Donations kindly accepted to cover costs

Sponsored by the Ecclesia Del Society, Phone 457 5860 or 382 1451

The Record, March 28 1996 Page 16