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FAITH IN ACTION: Willetton students take up roles in parishes Page 3
The Parish. The Nation. The World.
Thursday December ,
Western Australia’s Award-winning Catholic newspaper
Perth, Western Australia ● $1
LIMBO: Theologians say it was only ever a theory Page 8
NUNS BEATEN: Chinese nuns protest beating by hoodlums Page 9
Don’t do it, Australia! US father urges Government not to legalise RU-486, the drug that killed his 18 year-old daughter EXCLUSIVE By Paul Gray ■
Californian father Monty Patterson says he owes it to those who have no voice – like his daughter, Holly, who died in 2003 at age 18 after taking the drug RU-486 as a solution to an unplanned pregnancy – to speak out about the medical and health dangers associated with the drug. After two years of researching RU-486 in-depth, he’s found there are many respected experts practising in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology who are deeply concerned about the drug’s toxic effects. Can I ask you about your field of expertise in life? What work do you do? I’m a construction manager. However I studied pre-veterinary medicine in college. I was actually studying to be a veterinarian. So my science background has been renewed as a result of what happened to my daughter. I’ve got to tell you, I never knew what RU-486 was even up to the point that I was standing over Holly and holding her hand at the time she died. I did not even know there was an abortion pill. So basically I’ve been self-taught as to what this is about. I could not believe that a young, healthy woman like Holly, who was a pinnacle of fitness, could take a drug and die so tragically, and such a horrible death as she died with this infection. I could not believe that these were the things that sometimes happened as a result of a medical abortion with this pill. I was not going to accept that, and I was not going to accept the fact that this was going to happen to Holly by just some co-incidence. I’m the type of person that has to get the answers and immediately start asking all the questions. I believed there was something wrong with this drug. Now I have more conviction than ever that Continued on Page 5
Archbishop cancels talk ■ by Paul Gray
A life cut tragically short: Holly Patterson died at 18 years of age as a result of taking the RU-486 drug. Her father, Monty, top right, now campaigns against the legalisation of the drug and has written to the Australian Government urging it not be Photo: courtesy Monty Patterson legalised and that Australian women be protected from his daughter’s fate.
INDEX
MEET THE ROSARY GANG Students at St Laurence’s Primary in Bluff Point, Geraldton, manufacture hand-made rosaries as a way of raising money for the missions and helping others to pray.
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Letters I say, I say Reviews The World Classifieds
Melbourne’s Archbishop Denis Hart has cancelled the speaking appointment of pro-abortion ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope, who had been invited by Melbourne’s Catholic Commission for Justice, Development and Peace to deliver its 2005 Rerum Novarum lecture. The lecture commemorates a landmark papal encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, in which the Church’s teachings in favour of social justice and workers rights were spelt out clearly. The advertised topic of Mr Stanhope’s talk, which was to have addressed the national terrorism legislation and moves towards statebased bills of rights, was “Now, more than ever, a national bill of rights.” Anti-abortion groups had lobbied against the choice of Mr Stanhope as the Rerum Novarum lecturer on the grounds that his support for legalised abortion puts him at odds with the Church. ACT Right to Life Association executive director Jeremy Stuparich had said that Mr Stanhope’s Continued on Page 10
NEW CHURCH FOR BOULDER - Page 6 - Vista 4 - Page 7 - Pages 8-9 - Page 11
The Catholic community in the Goldfields have a new Church, All Hallows, in Boulder. It was blessed and consecrated by Archbishop Hickey on November 27. VISTA 2-3