Sydney
6 April 2003
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Peace ... harmony
Rugby league scores a try in a GPS college
Passing the baton
Peaceful action for peace
Catholic Weekly takes a holiday over Easter
Tissue project wins archbishop’s grant
A voice for the disabled
Faith centre moves
Younger set is 50
Fr Chris is guest
Ecumenical Stations of the Cross in wetlands
US move welcomed on partial birth abortion
Project Compassion 2003 - Leyte farmers can face better future
Editorial - Victims of war
Letters - Ash Wednesday
Conversation - Fr Patrick Byrne, Rome-based head of Children’s Mission: Big project or small, ‘it must be for kids’
Voice of Youth - Renaissance of thinking about the Middle Ages
Celebrate Love? Live it to the ‘max’
Heading off conflict before it hits crisis point
Crucifixion story wouldn’t go away
New home for new breed of priest
Christian Brothers spread social justice net
Luke’s Story wins award
300 at social justice forum
Music lets Andrew ‘share my faith’ ...
Conversation - Fr Patrick Byrne, Rome-based head of Children’s Mission: Big project or small, ‘it must be for kids’
“Mahatma Gandhi said there are enough resources in the world for all man’s needs, but not enough for all his greed,” says Fr Patrick Byrne, Rome-based secretary general of Catholic Mission’s Children’s Mission.
“I worked in Ecuador for 17 years and you see people there, politicians and bankers; they have a nice apartment in Quito and probably a ranch out in the country, and they still want an apartment in Miami and, if they can handle it, a chateau in France - they are never satisfied you know, never thinking about the needs of other people, just themselves.
“In this world there is an absolute abundance for some but not enough for others. There is enough to go around, but we don’t share it.”
Fr Patrick, an animated Irishman of seemingly boundless energy, is on his first visit here to thank donors to the world’s deprived children, and to encourage more to donate.
“Australia’s diocesan directors of Catholic Mission meet every year so I am here to give them a talk,” he says. “But rather than just come for a two-day meeting I have come to visit schools, to meet the staff, to give a few public lectures in different cities. (He is pictured talking to students at St Brendan’s School, Bankstown Central.)
“This is part of my work, travelling to Africa and other missionary places visiting the projects we support, and then to places like Australia thanking the people who support us.”
Last year alone he visited Albania, Ecuador, Luxembourg, the United States (twice), Italy, Madagascar, Mauritius, Ireland (three times), Lebanon and India.
Children’s Mission deals with children aged up to 14 who have AIDS, are street children, have been child soldiers or suffer more mundane problems such as poverty, illness or hunger.
“One of the big projects we have at the moment is the care of children with AIDS, particularly in Africa,” he says. “These children have been infected by their mothers, and their parents have died, so they are orphans.
“We give help to the orphanages where these children are, and we assist in dioceses where there are projects to help the children. They are going to die, that’s true, and some of them will be dead by the time they are five or six, so the thing is to provide a dignified setting where they are looked after and fed, and at least when they die they have a decent burial.
“Their life is prolonged a little by giving them medicines and food and something to live for while they can.
“Some people cynically think, ‘why bother if they are going to die?’, but we don’t think that way.
“Then we have children who have been recruited forcibly into the armies of the world, child soldiers, some as youngas eight. Once the war is over we try to rehabilitate children who have killed and plundered, to bring them back intomainstream life again.
“The reason many of them went into the armed forces and the guerrilla groups is that they were picked up and forced into it, but also because they were hungry, they had lost their parents and there was nowhere to go and they were living on the street.
“When they come out of the war they are fairly traumatised. Getting them back to a normal life is a long and difficult process.
“With those who have survived, at least physically, we try to ensure their mental survival. We provide psychological programs, reintegration programs, just living in a family-type atmosphere again, and showing them love and concern.
“OK, they have done wrong but God loves them, so we try to get over all of that.”
Of course many children in the Third World have more ordinary problems than AIDS or being child soldiers.
“We wouldn’t be able to give too much money to build a school, but in some of these countries where they need an extra classroom or need to paint the place or maybe there are no toilets, no bathroom, we can help,” Fr Patrick says. “We do little projects like that, about $10,000-$15,000.
“But it must be for children, we wouldn’t dig a well for a parish. We don’t dig wells for a high school; it must be for kids up to 14 because that is who we work with.
“We also do such simple things as providing text books or pens. In Ireland or Australia that is considered normal, but in some of these countries they don’t even have a text book, or exercise books or pens.”
How did Fr Patrick end up at the helm of the Children’s Mission?
“The Order asked me to go to Ecuador in 1982 where I was the principal of a school, kindergarten, primary and secondary,” he says. “I was in a little town in the Andes, about a four-hour drive south from Quito, the capital.
“The local bishop asked me if I would be the diocesan director for the Pontifical Mission Society. I responded that I was rather too busy to take on anything else, the school was enough, plus other stuff I was doing.
“But about two days later the then national director visited me with two or three boxes of material and I said: ‘Listen father, I didn’t accept this job, I told the bishop I had pretty much enough to do’ but the guy pleaded with me to take it on.
“I finished my time at the school and was moved to Quito, and the priest who first visited me and asked me to take over the mission work in the diocese sent my name to Rome to take over from him. I was chosen from two or three others.
“So I became the national director in Ecuador and I worked at that for nine years.
“National directors have to go to Rome every May for an international meeting. I became known and then the job of world secretary came up and they asked me to take it.”
Fr Patrick and the Catholic Mission national directors have an audience with the Pope every May. He also attends other audiences.
“The Pope is going every day, he has ambassadors, bishops, presidents of countries, it’s not that easy to see him,” he says.
“He’s not well at all with Parkinson’s disease and arthritis, but mentally he’s very lucid and he’s very stubborn in that he’ll be up every morning and he’ll be there - he won’t give up.”
Fr Patrick says Children’s Mission is directly helping about 600,000 children, and would like to do more, but funding is a problem. “The needs are growing, the situation is getting worse in places like Africa, but we don’t have the money,” he says.
“The money is not going down yet, but our donors and our way of getting money are based on church attendance and Catholic schools. But there is a crisis now in the Catholic Church, and generally speaking in the Christian churches in the West, with declining attendances.
“We don’t think the money is going to come as good as before, we think it is going to go down, but the needs are increasing. So we are going to have to work out how we are going to go about getting other means in place of a donor base.”
However, the Children’s Mission is not just about funds.
“Our basic message is the Christian message, that the children pray for other children, who as yet don’t know Jesus Christ, but they pray for solidarity with those children,” Fr Patrick says.
“Because of praying for those children and the consciousness of their spiritual needs it leads them on to material help as well.
“Someone once asked me what is more important, their spiritual needs or to give them bread. I said the two things go together for me. You can’t preach to someone whose stomach is empty, and you can’t just give them bread, you have to give them a deep meaning in life. The greatest thing would be to give them the love of God, not force it on them.
“So give them the two things: preach about God and the loving mercy of Jesus Christ, but don’t be hypocritical and then walk off; try to do something to improve their material life.”