What's Inside...
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Record PRINT POST APPROVED PP602669/00303
PERTH, WA: May 9, 1996
Pope John Paul calls for more prayer in silence during Mass - Page 3 Founding Charismatic prayer group celebrates 25 years - Page 6
Number 2996
POST ADDRESS: PO Box 75, LEEDERVILLE, 6902, WA LOCATION: 587 Newcastle Street, Cnr Douglas St (near Loftus St)
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Archbishop Hickey leaves to visit seminaries in the United States - Page 3 Focolare youth phone the world - Page 4
Faith, moral content 'before quick results' By Peter Rosengren While assuring Australian
that Catholic educators Catholic education was safe in their hands, Pope John Paul II's top education official has warned them not to seek quick results at the expense of faith and moral content. Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education president Cardinal Pio Laghi said superficiality and undue haste to obtain tangible results in the field of religious education run the risk of whittling down the faith and its moral content. Cardinal Laghi said the pursuit of quick results at the expense of faith and moral content was a mistake that had occurred often in the past. "How often in the Church. with the pretext or excuse of bringing Jesus Christ to those who are far from the faith, [have] we cut ourselves off from Christ himself or from the Church or from the Vicar of Christ on earth, thinking we can shorten the journey or make it easier?" the cardinal asked the 500 Catholic educators from around Australia gathered in Canberra last week for the 4th National Catholic Education Commission Conference. "Superficiality and undue haste to obtain tangible results run the risk of whittling down the faith and its moral content." Cardinal Laghi said that if a person was not truthful, then he
or she was "not really charitable." "What kind of charity is it to deceive someone about the truth?" But the task of transmitting the faith had been eased with the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, he said, an opportunity that had been taken up by Catholic educators in Australia. Cardinal Laghi said one of the Catechism's key advantages was that rather than emphasising doctrine as an abstract body of truths, it underscored the communication of the living mystery of God. While it ensured the transmission of the unchangeable deposit of faith, its four part structure offered the essential ingredients of Catholic education: faith professed, faith celebrated, faith lived and faith at prayer. He offered his congratulations to the diocesan and State Catholic education offices who had already revised religious education guidelines to incorporate the Catechism. In fact, the Church's first duty in religious education was to communicate well and fully the unchanging content of the faith, the cardinal told his audience. Cardinal Laghi identified the communication of morality as one of the principal challenges facing Catholic educators in today's world, stressing "the importance in catechesis of personal moral commitments in keeping with the Gospel" on the part of teachers.
Formation of conscience was one of the Catholic educator's most important duties, he said. "In a world that continues to exalt the notion of personal freedom and opinion to the contradiction of moral truth, it is imperative that Catholic education focus on the formation of conscience and moral truth." he said. "A sound moral formation in this age of moral relativism is an essential aspect of the educational process of the Church." he added. He said that in today's world there was now a risk of substituting "values for faith"in education and the risk was especially present in the context of schooling. The task of the Catholic educator was to link the good human values such as solidarity, justice and peace to their vertical source: God, the cardinal said. The keynote speaker at the week-long conference. Cardinal Laghi said the effectiveness of the message to be given in a Catholic school was directly related to the personal witness given by the educator. "For this reason, the importance of educators and their personal influence on those they are working to form cannot be too strongly emphasised," he said. Pupils' attitudes to fundamental values and moral principles were greatly affected by what they knew of their educators' attitudes and their behaviour, he said. Continued on Page 5; WA delegates comment on conference - Page 5.
Sr Eleanor Carter
Cardinal Pio Laghi
WA's Catholic Institute praised for pioneer work The Vatican's top Catholic education official last week praised the Catholic Institute of Western Australia for its pioneering work in teaching subjects in secular tertiary institutions. Cardinal Pio Laghi, head of the for Vatican's Congregation Catholic Education told the fourth National Catholic Education Conference in his main address he was aware the institute had been the pioneering tertiary body in WA for twenty years. He said the institute, headed by Sister Eleanor Carter, was significant for the unique nature of its work. "[It] is distinctive in that it is contracted by secular universities to provide Catholic lectures to teach Catholic units of theolo-
gy and religious education within the universities' colleges of education." he said. The Institute, which offers Catholic theological units to teaching students at Curtin and Edith Cowan universities, was one of three Catholic tertiary Institutions specifically mentioned by the cardinal as significant developments in Catholic tertiary education. The cardinal also noted "with great pleasure" the rise of the privately funded Notre Dame University in Fremantle and said his congregation had been pleased as well to watch the development of the Australian Catholic University on the east coast. Continued on Page 5
Refurbished McAuley Family Centre Hostel looks to future Year Two students from Ursula Frayne College Primary School brought the past into the future last week at the blessing of the refurbished and resplendent Catherine McAuley Family Centre hostel as they re-enacted the arrival of the Mercy Sisters in Western Australia 150 years ago. Archbishop Barry Hickey told the residents and guests last Thursday of the work of the Sisters of Mercy who since 1846 have served the people of WA from babies through to the elderly. The past 150 years since their arrival had seen their ethos of care and compassion highly prized by the Church and whole community as were their enviable facilities, the archbishop said, "especially the hostel and nursing home," which many would wish to come to. Archbishop Hickey noted also the support and solidarity given to the Sisters by other religious congregations, government
bodies, individuals, and society generally in their works of mercy. Mercy Congregational Superior, Sister Leonie O'Brien, thanked the major sponsors of the refurbishment - the Mercy Sisters, the Lotteries Commission and the Department of Health and Family Services - and gave particular thanks to the St John of God Sisters for making their vacated Belmont hospital available for the hostel residents for the nine months it took to extensively refurbish the old site. At a cost of $1.65 million all internal walls were demolished and 40 larger rooms built with en suites, plus an increase in open areas. The rooms, which are fresh, airy, spacious, with a homey atmosphere throughout, permit more room for wheelchairs and walking aids. - Colleen McGuiness-Howard