How a 15th Century Pope set Western Australia’s state boundary...
Papal Lines
A Fascinating look at the history of our state
THE RECORD P. N. W.
www.therecord.com.au
PAGE 10
“Be indefatigable in your purpose and with undaunted spirit resist iniquity and try to conquer evil with good, having before your eyes the reward of those who combat for Christ.”
-Bishop Matthew Gibney
Perth, Western Australia $2
Western Australia’s award-winning Catholic newspaper since 1874 - Wednesday October 29 2008
Pick up the Bible! the world’s Bishops urge Catholics
Farewell to Abbot Placid
After the Church was accused in the morning newspaper last week of bigotry over its attitude to same-sex marriages, Archbishop Barry Hickey wrote this defence of the natural family for The Record.
Final Synod message says Catholics should own - and use - a Bible ■ By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Devotion to the word of God must lead Catholics to prayer, concrete acts of charity, unity with other Christians and dialogue with all people of good will, said the world Synod of Bishops. In their final message to the world’s Catholics, the 253 members of the synod said each Catholic should have a copy of the Bible, read it and pray with it regularly. “Every home should have its own Bible and safeguard it in a visible and dignified way, to read it and to pray with it,” said the synod’s message, released on October 24. And, like Jesus who came to proclaim hope and salvation, “the Christian has the mission to announce this divine word of hope by sharing with the poor and the suffering, through the witness of faith in the kingdom of truth and life, of holiness and grace, of justice, and love and peace,” the synod said. “Authentic hearing is obeying and acting. It means making justice and love blossom in life,” the message said. It is not enough to explain the word of God to others, the bishops said, but people must let others see and experience the goodness of God through the good that they do. Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture and principal drafter of the message, told reporters that “if the word of God is love, then one who has read and prayed over the word must incarnate love. It must lead to communion, solidarity and dialogue.” Nearing the end of a synod that featured for the first time a major address by the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the bishops also insisted that “veneration and love for the word of God” is “the principle and source of a first and real unity” that Catholics share with other Christians. ■ Continued - Page 6 ■ Pope closes Synod - Page 11
Yes, actually, we are profamily, and proud of it
C
In prayer: An acolyte, at top, adjusts the coffin of Abbot Placid Spearitt OSB of New Norcia in St Joseph’s Church, Subiaco on Tuesday October 21 just before Mass commences. Later, Archbishop Barry Hickey and Auxiliary Bishop Donald Sproxton, at bottom, pray during Communion time at the Requiem Mass for Abbot Placid. Many priests and hundreds of mourners packed the Church to farewell the Abbot, who died suddenly while on retreat at the Benedictine Abbey of Ampleforth in England on October 4. STORY - VISTA 1 PHOTOS: PETER ROSENGREN
WAUGH ON FILM BUT IS IT GOOD?
‘Brideshead Revisited,’ Evelyn Waugh’s classic tale of the English Catholic aristocracy, has come to the cinema. But is it faithful to the author’s tale? Two Record writers assessed it in the same week.
Catherine Parish, Hal Colebatch - Page 12
hildren naturally have a father and a mother, and they have a natural right to be raised by both parents. This natural state of affairs is not altered by the fact that some children lose one or both parents through death or divorce and some children never get the chance to know their father. Many parents (and grandparents) in these situations work heroically to give their children the best possible chance to grow through the difficulties they face. However, fifty years of research worldwide in the social sciences has overwhelmingly demonstrated that the best environment for children growing up is with their married, biological parents. Similar research demonstrates that it is also the best environment for the parents. One has to be wilfully blind to claim that the strength of the natural family and society’s preference for it “does not stand up to analysis”, as Professor Alastair Nicholson would have us believe. That is why the Catholic Church puts so much effort into persuading and helping men and women to take their marital and parental responsibilities seriously for their own good, the good of their children, and the good of society. Over the last 40 years or so, our society has been less than fully supportive of marriage and family, and the consequences of this ambivalence are clear. Those consequences of our weaknesses and failures are not a justification to create even more difficult situations for children. ■ THE JUDGE IS WRONG: a same-sex
attracted writer bluntly states why PAGE 9 ■ THE FAMILY IS THE ONLY FUTURE:
US Expert VISTA 23
ALONE, BUT NOT LONELY
A Perth woman will take permanent vows in early November and turn her back forever on human society in order to pray for the Church and the world.
Vista 1