Sydney
7 September 2003
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Tasmania accused
on same-sex adoption and ‘marriage’
Refugee
kids freed, but for how long?
Matter
of perspective
Archbishop
honours Year 12 students
Treasured
Gospels from Holy Island
Own
faith is vital to dialogue – cardinal
Marist
laity unity move
$50,000
for Susan’s pilgrimage
Good
Shepherds find green pastures
Upgraded
Bulls go into bat against their demons
Editorial:
A parallel universe?
Letters:
Age of consent
Conversation:
Prof Friedhelm Mennekes, parish priest and art lecturer - Space for art in a sacred
space
Why
the world is the way it is
1500
reasons to be proud of his school
Brothers
died on mission to save their leader
‘Don’t
forget your people back home’
Pius
XII – Hitler, the Holocaust and ‘Canossa’
On
‘going to Canossa’
Laity,
clergy share the pastoral load
Pell
embraces Cardinal's vision for Sydney Synod
Kylie
on line to help kids
Engadine
sisters in Columban art show
Letters: Age of consent
In response to Arnold Jago's letter (Judging Virginia, Letters CW 8/8), I would like to make the point that those who criticise the legislation which equalised the age of consent in NSW fail to understand the laws which the Parliament actually carried.
The changes did not simply lower the age of consent for homosexual relationship.
There used to be a defence of "mistaken age" which allowed someone to be excused from having sex with some one who was up to two years underage on the basis that the younger person looked older.
This was abolished.
So the age of consent of 18 for homosexual relationships used to excuse those who had sex with 16-year- olds and the age of consent of 16 for heterosexual relationships used to excuse those who had sex with 14-year olds.
Now 16 means 16.
The only areas where this defence had not been able to be used was where the older person held a position of authority and therefore knew the age of the younger person.
These were the only times the police would intervene.
It was already illegal for someone who held a position of authority to have homosexual sex with a 16 or 17-year-old.
Now it is also illegal for someone in authority to have heterosexual sex with a 16 or 17-year-old.
When you read the detail, the changes passed earlier this year provided far more protection for young vulnerable people.
I was pleased to support changes which have been publicly acknowledged as giving NSW the toughest child protection laws in Australia.
Virginia Judge MP
Member for Strathfield
Burwood, NSW
REFUGEE SUNDAY
If I had not bought The Catholic Weekly I would have had no way of knowing that it was Refugee Sunday on Sunday, August 31 (They ‘need our prayers’, CW 31/8).
This used to be a very important day in the Church’s year and the homily would encourage us to support refugees through our prayers and actions.
We were reminded of the millions throughout the world who suffer persecution and are driven from their homeland.
For the past two years I have noticed that Refugee Sunday has become a non-event. It is no longer even mentioned at Mass.
Have refugees now become so politicised and dehumanised that it is no longer politically correct to mention them at mass on Refugee Sunday?
Bishop Grech does not seem to think so: he points out that we are all God’s children no matter what our origin.
He also points out that, as a Church, we try to help them in the most appropriate manner, always conscious of their human dignity and that they need our prayers and practical support.
Surely it is not too much to ask for a short letter from the Bishop to all parishes on Refugee Sunday to remind Catholics that refugees are human beings, not terrorists or queue jumpers, and that they desperately need our support and compassion.
Chris Gorman
Springwood, NSW
BOTH SIDES
I want to congratulate and thank you for being brave enough to print both sides of the Latin-English Mass debate.
MB Eanswythe
Armidale, NSW
MATTER OF HABIT?
The public do not know that God’s army is in their midst. His front line troops seem to have become invisible.
Priests and religious witness to the realm of faith. They should be so convinced about their faith, that they want everyone to know about their conviction – always and everywhere.
The appropriate dress would help to ‘advertise’ their conviction. I do not suggest that the heavy, cumbersome habits once used by nuns are essential.
But it is essential that priests and religious be easily recognised in public.
Larry Phillips
Narooma, NSW
HOLY SACRIFICE
Remo Dellagiacoma (A gift of God, Letters CW 27/7) fails to recognise our redemption gained by the cross of Jesus Christ as proclaimed in the New Testament – including St Paul’s letters – and prefigured in the Old Testament.
Redemption by the cross of Jesus is also a key teaching of the early Church; we were indeed saved by the cross of Christ no matter what Remo Dellagiacoma’s modern theologians dictate.
His suggestion that the Mass as sacrifice could distort the Eucharist is again gratuitous.
The Holy Sacrifice is the centrepiece of Vatican II and post-conciliar orthodox Eucharistic teaching.
Weighty tomes on the Mass assacrifice could be written in the blood of priests martyred for offering the Holy Sacrifice with dignity, attention and devotion.
It is appropriate to conclude with a canon of the council of Trent in its XXII SessionCanon III. If any one saith that the sacrifice of the Mass is only a sac-rifice of praise and of thanksgiving; or, that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice; or, that it profits him only who receives; and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities; let him be anathema.
Fr John George
Randwick North, NSW