Sydney
23 March 2003
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Helping the world’s kids to a new start
One in five kids living in poverty
ACU model for rest to follow: Beattie
Transsexual ‘marriage’
Refugees ‘destitute’
Curtain falls on Woomera
Expo peek aids hospital
Call for inquiry into needs of low-paid staff
Catholic Weekly takes a holiday over Easter
Pope’s 25 years in stamps
New mysteries on pocket cards
CD to help East Timorese kids
New Vinnies head wants to ensure best deal for needy
Conference celebrates the faith
Medicare principles ‘must be safeguarded’
Bougainville - after the war is over
Fast and feast in lent
Editorial: The poverty line
Letters: Tabernacle
Conversation: Dr Henry Pang, GP and aid volunteer - Dead people all around ‘changes your life’
Voice of Youth: ‘O’ - what a feeling! We’re Catholics
Plea from the bush: Come and see us
Waverley’s 100 years of ‘bright stars’
Young train as catechists
Lay ministry great, says jubilee priest
Lay ministry great, says jubilee priest
Mons Eugene Harley
By Marilyn Rodrigues
Lay ministry is “one of the greatest things” that has come about in the Church over the past 50 years, says Mons Eugene Harley.
“I have enjoyed the changes that Vatican II brought into the Church, particularly lay people taking responsibility in the Church; realising that baptism calls them to be ministers too,” he says.
“We are the one Body of Christ, and we are all witnesses to the presence of Jesus in the world.”
Mons Eugene, the parish priest of Mosman (Sacred Heart) and Neutral Bay (St Joseph’s and Our Lady Star of the Sea), is celebrating 50 years of priesthood this year.
He also points to the renewal of sacramental life in the Church, especially in relation to initiatives such as the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, and “the responsibilities that families take in sacramental life that they didn’t take in the Church before” as great leaps forward during that time.
Reflecting on his own milestone, he says that his strongest desire is to thank God for the priesthood and “for all the wonderful people you meet, the families who have helped us grow in the priesthood”, he says.
“Priests can’t function without the people.
“Their ministry means nothing without them.”
Before he became parish priest of Mosman, Mons Eugene spent 27 years in the Army as a chaplain.
He saw service with the Army in Malaysia and Vietnam and throughout Australia.
He has had “a broad experience of life”, he says, “not only with the Army, where you deal with people of a broad range of denominations and none, but through contact with the Church in Asia, too.
“It’s been a good life.”
Mons Eugene served in the parishes of Forest Lodge and Cronulla before becoming an Army chaplain.
This year he is looking forward to retiring from the exigencies of administration in his parish and spending more time with people in pastoral work.
Other golden jubilarians this year include Fr David Nies, the priest in residence at Riverwood; Fr John Williams, now retired, also a former Army chaplain, whose last parish was Daceyville; and Fr Ted Kennedy, retired from Redfern parish, who received a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2001 for service to the Aboriginal community.
Last year’s golden jubilarians included Fr William Davis, whose years as a priest have been spent in the parishes of Arncliffe, Fairfield, Lane Cove, Bass
Hill, Meadowbank, Campsie, Punchbowl, Lurnea and Flemington, and who is now at Sacred Heart Parish, Villawood, and Fr Kevin Spillane, parish priest of Sacred Heart, Villawood.
Fr Michael O’Sullivan, former parish priest of Mascot, also reached the 50-year milestone last year.
And Fr Ray Gatt, long-time Catholic Weekly columnist and former parish priest of Fairfield, celebrates 25 years of priesthood this year.
Fr David Nies, who celebrates his golden jubilee on July 18, has served in the parishes of Erskinville, Kingsgrove, Riverstone, Bass
Hill, Narrabeen, Flemington, Mt Pritchard, Bankstown, Denistone and Riverwood.
He also spent three years volunteering in Papua New Guinea from 1968, in the diocese of Mendi, which he says was especially “great, very interesting” and a defining time in his priesthood.
Of the changes he has seen in the Church and society over half a century, two of note have been the change from Latin to English in the Mass, and people’s adaptation to the climate, no longer suffering during Mass in their ‘Sunday best’ suits and collars in Australian summers, he says.
But he regrets a change in people’s attitude to authority, a loss of shared values and the loss of a sense of safety in the community that he remembers from his youth.
“There is certainly a great need for priests today,” he says.