Letters: As ordained

Sydney
9 December 2001

Ban all human cloning – bishops

‘Delight’ at Pope’s stand

Caritas sends an SOS

Bishops: open your hearts to refugees

Christian, Buddhist themes meld in Blake Prize winner

Depression: Governor sees hopeful signs

Cabin crew help needy

Language no barrier at World Youth Day

Editorial: In love with God and his creation

Letters: As ordained

Conversation: Inspired to be a ‘minstrel of God’ - Peter Kearney, singer and songwriter

Reflections: Stand up for principle or find safety in numbness?

This pilgrim’s progress

Doing it for themselves

Kids who make a choice in faith

Holy Spirit paid me a visit ...

Teachers delay reform, reports CIS

Inspirations: Treasures from the past: a holiday treat

Letters: As ordained

I have every reason to believe that the recent ordination of Bishop Christopher Toohey as Bishop of Wilcannia-Forbes was indeed ennobling and uplifting, as described by V Campbell (Ennobling, Letters CW 25/11).

I have never attended an Episcopal ordination in a church or cathedral.

However, I did publicly worship at Bishop Philip Wilson’s ordination Mass in a sports stadium in 1996.

In the Jubilee Year, I prayed at a Eucharistic Congress Mass in Wollongong’s Enter-tainment Centre, with a created ‘sacred space’ worthy of any cathedral.

In July this year the installation of Bishop Peter Ingham in Wollongong’s Entertainment Centre attracted thousands of worshippers who otherwise would have been denied the opportunity of witnessing and participating in a Mass that reflected a bishop’s love for his people and their love for him.

On December 3, I shall willingly join more than 7,000 people in Adelaide’s Entertainment Centre to gladly and joyfully witness the installation of Archbishop Philip Wilson as Archbishop of Adelaide.

And I give thanks to God for these two humble men who have graciously allowed me, and thousands like me, to share in their public dec laration of loving God and serving the Church.

Name and address supplied

TARGET OF MOCKERY?

Once again, Christian holy things have become the targets of mockery and abuse.

We are approaching the holy season of Christmas, a time revered and loved by all Christians as they celebrate the great mystery of the Incarnation, the coming into the world of the Son of God, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

I was angered to find among the Christmas cards in Target at Leichhardt’s Market Place, packs of 10 cards featuring a colourful ‘nativity scene’, not of the Holy Family but of dogs dressed up.

This is an insult to God and to every Christian.

And it is discrimination. Those responsible for such a travesty should go before the Anti-Discrimination Board.

What other religion in this country is treated in this insulting and disgraceful way?

I understand that Target is owned by ColesMyer. If this is an indication of their contempt for the religious faith and sensibilities of Christians, then I suggest that we withdraw our custom from them.

Sr Maur Woodbury, SM
Woolwich, NSW

SEXUAL UNION

Michael Panetta (Sacrifice, not a ban, Letters CW 25/11) points out that the Church says that the sexual union of spouses is “noble and honourable”.

My point regarding the beatification of a married couple who had abstained from sexual relations for 25 years (Abstinence and sainthood, Letters, CW 11/11) was that actions often speak louder than words in revealing what we truly believe.

Joanne Russell
Clovelly, NSW

DISCRETION

May our thoughts go back to that mother in Indonesia and the father in Australia whose children were lost at sea.

They are unable to mourn their loss together on the principle that we must not en courage people smuggling by letting them come to Australia nor change our refugee policy by allowing him to return here if he goes to join her.

Pray that the Minister for Immigration will show compassion in this sad case.

R A Smee
Lane Cove, NSW

ACT FOR PEACE

At a time when the world is awash with a pathetic tide of human flotsam, ebbing and flowing between hostile land and unforgiving sea, we forget, at our peril, that we have a Christian and humanitarian responsibility to offer safe haven to the destitute, homeless, terrorised stranger who comes seeking asylum.

Desperate people do desperate things. The exercise of naked power, of terror, will never solve the problems confronting the world.

Action now for peace and reconciliation is imperative.

Esther Kilkelly
Tenambit, NSW

HAIL REDEEMER

On the feast of Christ the King, (25/11) the hymn Hail Redeemer King Divine was sung at Mass in many churches.

It was composed by Fr Patrick Brennan CSsR, who in his lifetime conducted many Missions with his confreres throughout Australia. He died on 18/5/51. He is buried in Karrakata Cemetery, Perth.

Geoffrey M Prendergast
North Ryde, NSW

THE GALLAGHER GIRLS

I read with interest the article entitled Anything they can do, we can do ... (CW 25/11).

What an inspiration the Gallagher girls of Krambach must have been in those distant days.

I remember Sr Rita, who taught me in fourth class at St Joseph’s, Merewether, in 1946. She was a real sweetie.

Of course, we knew nothing at the time of the family lives of the sisters who taught us. It’s interesting after all these years to find out that Sr Rita had four sisters in the Order with her and came from Irish stock who arrived in Australia in the 1850s, as did my own great grandmother and her family.

Michael J Taper
New Lambton, NSW

THE CRUSADES

Fr Bruce Duncan has provided no evidence still to support his claim that the Pope has “apologised for the terrible mistake of the Crusades against the Muslims” (Not just a war, but a just war, CW 14/10) and that this is “magisterial teaching” (Christianity and the Crusades: rights and wrongs,CW 25/11).

We need the quotation and the magisterial document reference.

For nearly 500 years the Muslims had been aggressors out of Arabia, conquering the Christians in the Holy Land, Syria and Egypt, North Africa, virtually all of Christian Spain, half of Asia Minor and had brutally raided France and Italy before the First Crusade of reconquest.

It took 770 years for Spain to be ultimately freed from the aggressors, eventually the only other country to be freed from them except Israel.

What helped Spain were the great El Cid’s victories and, finally, the First Crusade – which was requested of Western Christendom by the Byzantine Emperor Comm enus; the Crusaders besieged Antioch in 1097, retaking it in 1098.

Directed at regaining the Holy Land, which the Turks had closed to Christians, it was also good psychological and military strategy.

The massacre after the taking of Jerusalem was condemned by the main leaders (Raymond and Godfrey) who tried to stop it.

Out of the recovery of Jerusalem came the religious order of the Knights of St John representing the best spirit of the Crusades.

The justice of any war is determined at its outset, not by atrocities which may occur during it.

Peter D Howard
Springwood, Qld