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By Ben Sacks & Sarah Motherwell PERTH was in danger of becoming “a city without a soul”, a congregation including prominent federal and state dignitaries was told at a service honouring contributors of the $33 million project to complete St Mary’s Cathedral. The deputy chairperson of the Cathedral Appeal Committee, Maureen Colgan, said that, as well
as a Global Financial Crisis, the world was also experiencing another GFC – a Global Faith Crisis. “Perth, both physically and metaphorically, was becoming a city without a heart, and therefore was in danger of becoming a city without a soul,” Mrs Colgan said. “This place provides the opportunity for people to come together to stimulate the respect and mutual obligation which goes with a sense of community.”
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The leader of the Federal Opposition, Tony Abbott, and prominent state and federal politicians were among dignitaries who attended the “Service of Appreciation and Recognition Memorial Dedication”, held on Tuesday, 6 December for those who contributed to the completion of St Mary’s Cathedral. Mr Abbott said it was an honour to be invited to what was a beautiful service. “The new cathedral is
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testimony to the strength and vigour of the Catholic community of Western Australia. It struck me as a wonderful way to give glory to God,” he said. The invite-only service celebrated the generosity of the many thousands of people who donated money for the completion and restoration of the cathedral, which will soon mark its second anniversary since reopening. The St Mary’s Cathedral appeal
has raised $31.2 million since its launch five years ago. A further $1.7 million is needed to cover the total cost of the project. Substantial donations came from state and federal governments, as well as from parishes in Western Australia. The theme of the service was gratitude. It included the unveiling of a memorial wall displaying the Continued on Page 6
Franciscans take on habit of daily life By Peter Rosengren WHILE most of their Australian contemporaries would not, for the life of them, be able to comprehend why they were doing what they were doing, for three young Australian men in the rural town of Toodyay, Thursday, 8 December was a good day to die to self. The three, including one from Perth, entered into a tradition more than eight centuries old when they took the habit of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate in front of family and well-wishers on one of the most special days in the Church year: the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Brothers Alex Bogoni, a former Perth computer programmer, David Dono, whose parents migrated to Australia from El Salvador, and Gabriel Pophillat, a Singaporean, received the distinctive blue-grey garment of the order during the rite of investiture with the Franciscan habit in the Toodyay parish Church of St John the Baptist. The ceremony was held in the parish church because the Continued on Page 4
Happy: Br Alex Bogoni with his grandmother, Gigi Bogoni and mother, Verena Bogoni, after his investiture on 8 December at Toodyay.
PHOTO: ELIZABETH BOGONI
Not aware: when human rights agendas conflict By Sarah Motherwell A HUMAN rights group holding a stall in a hospital foyer to promote a campaign to stop violence against women would, in most circumstances, be uncontroversial. But not when the hospital is St John of God Subiaco and the organisation running the stall is Amnesty International, whose decision in 2007 to regard abortion as a human right led Australia’s Catholic
bishops to declare that support for the organisation could no longer be reconciled with the Church’s understanding of human dignity and the sacredness of human life. Amnesty International’s new policy, reversing the human rights organisation’s previously neutral position on abortion, had been adopted in secret by the group’s international executive committee and resulted in upheaval and significant withdrawal of memberships.
In particular, it ruptured a long association between it and Catholic individuals and groups that went back to Amnesty International’s founding in 1961 by Catholic layman Peter Benenson. The policy change was initially said to have been introduced in response to the very specific circumstance of women raped as a weapon of war in places such as Dafur, but has subsequently been extended to include advocating
safe and legal abortion services in case of unwanted pregnancy as a result of sexual assault or incest, or if the pregnancy poses a risk to the woman’s life. In October 2007, the president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Philip Wilson, said it was “with much regret” that the bishops had to advise that membership of Amnesty International was “no longer compatible with Catholic teaching and
belief. After due consideration, we now also urge Catholics, and all people who believe in the dignity of the human person from natural conception until natural death, to seek other avenues of defending human rights,” he said. This message, however, may have been obscured by time or failed to have filtered down to relevant Catholic organisations. Continued on Page 5