Anzac service starts busy calendar

Sydney
20 April 2003

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Anzac service starts busy calendar

The coming weeks are busy ones in the Catholic calendar, starting next week with the Anzac Prayer Service being held at St Mary’s Cathedral at 6pm on Anzac Eve, April 24.

Led by Bishop David Cremin, with an Anglican and a Buddhist priest, the

service will include a plea by a Japanese pilgrim choir carrying a request by Tokyo’s Cardinal Shirayanagi’s asking for forgiveness for the cruelties committed during World War II, especially the use of so-called ‘comfort women’ as sexual slaves by Japanese soldiers.

Jan Ruff-O’Herne, a Dutch-born former ‘comfort woman’, who lives in Adelaide, will accept the apology on behalf of all ‘comfort women’.

This year’s Halifax-Portal lectures, to be held at the Lidcombe Catholic Club on the four Tuesdays in May (May 6, 13, 20 and 27), will focus on Christian ethics.

Medical ethicist Dr Megan Best, an Anglican, starts the series with Moral Medicine; Dr Bernadette Tobin, a Catholic, will deliver the second lecture, The Moral Significance of Individuality; the third lecture, The Bible and Christian Ethics, is by another Anglican, the Rev Andrew Cameron; the last lecture, by

Fr Gerald Gleeson, of the Catholic Institute, asks: What does God ask of us? From ethics to spirituality!

The lectures, sponsored by the Catholic and Anglican Churches, are designed to encourage dialogue between the two Churches. Admission is free.

May 15 is the 200th anniversary of the first official Mass of the Australian Catholic Church, celebrated by an Irish convict priest, Fr James Dixon.

Until then the penal colony had been Church of England exclusively.

The Archbishop of Sydney, Dr George Pell, and the bishops of Australia will mark this historic event with a commemorative Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral at 10.30am on Sunday, May 11.

On the anniversary day itself, May 15, the Irish consul will host a reception launching a book on Fr Dixon by Sr Vivienne Keeley.

Last, but not least, the first week of June marks the traditional Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which

gives Christians a chance to focus on what binds them, rather than on their traditional differences. It is an initiative of the NSW Ecumenical Council.

Parish materials are available from the NSW Ecumenical Council. Tel: 9299 2215, or see the council’s website at www.nswec.org.