Updated: 25/11/2008 07:03:19
WEEKLY COLUMN
Cardinal George Pell's Sunday Telegraph column: Was Christ A King?
Jesus
the son of Mary was born in a stable and crucified as a young man on a hill in
Jerusalem. He was not nobly born and refused political power. Is the Catholic
Church right to celebrate the feast of Christ the King today?
In fact, the feast is of recent origin, introduced by Pope Pius XI in 1925 to emphasise the importance of Christ in public and private life. It was also designed to counter the pretensions of the Communists and especially Mussolini’s Fascists, who had come to power in Italy a few years previously.
Pius XI intended to contrast the goodness and justice of Christ with the oppression of contemporary dictatorship.
Jesus was not rich or politically powerful. His Jewish and Roman rulers might have heard of him as a miracle worker or trouble maker. He did not deny to Governor Pilate that his followers called him king, but he was not kinglike and his kingdom was not of this world.
The kings in history are a mixed bag of good and evil, wise and foolish. Nearly all of them exercised real power, unlike the constitutional monarchs, symbols and umpires rather than rulers, who reign today like our Queen Elizabeth. Some of them were also cruel and tyrannical, not interested in the welfare of their subjects and the more capable and powerful were often warlike and keen for empire. It is not surprising that the title Christ the King was introduced into the Church only when many of the kings and emperors had disappeared from history.
In what sense then can we say that Jesus should be called king? St. Paul writing to the Corinthians does speak of Christ handing over his Kingdom to God the Father at the end of time. Then there will be no more human sovereignties, authorities or powers. All the evil enemies of the Kingdom of God will be under his feet and even death will be no more.
We find a beautiful passage from the Apocalypse (or Book of Revelations) on Christ the King who is described as “the faithful witness, the First-born from the dead, the Ruler of the Kings of the earth. He loves us and has washed away our sins with his blood, and made us a line of kings.” (Rev.9:4-6) Christ is King because He can and does forgive our sins provided we repent.
Christians believe the one true God is Trinitarian, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As Son Jesus designed the cosmos and also placed the natural law into the heart of creation, so that human dignity is respected and moral truths are recognised.
And Christ is King because he is to be everyone’s judge on the Last Day, a loving, merciful and just judge, but a judge nonetheless, the Good Shepherd separating the sheep from the goats.
Christ is our brother, servant, redeemer; but also our King.
By + Cardinal George Pell.
Archbishop of Sydney.
Source: Sydney Catholic.
Cardinal George Pell's Sunday Telegraph column: Lust
Lust
is still one of the seven deadly sins and not because Christians are
spoil-sports. A disordered sexual appetite causes damage.
Healthy sexual desire is a blessing, but like every desire it needs to be trained, well directed and restrained. We now recognize that sexual addiction is as much a disease as addiction to drugs or alcohol, because habits feed on themselves for good or ill.
Lust is the deadly sin this week because of the recent sad news that N.S.W. is suffering from an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases among teenagers, where the rate of diagnosed Chlamydia among girls and young women is more than double the rate found among teenage boys and young men.
The 16 to 24 year olds had the largest percentage infected and south-east Sydney and the Hunter regions were the worst affected areas.
Lust is more of a problem among older age groups than it is among teenagers, but it is sad to see some of them making trouble for themselves in the future with the threat of infertility, as they are encouraged to drift into disordered patterns of life while still at school.
Across Australia 50,000 youngsters tested positive for Chlamydia last year, more than 12,000 of them in N.S.W. Disturbingly high rates were found among fifteen year olds. Doctors estimate the real rate of annual infections at a quarter of a million a year, because many are too embarrassed to seek medical help or persist in thinking they are invincible, that such diseases only strike others.
Too many of our young people are sold short on sex, because nobody is telling them the whole truth and many have to learn only from their mistakes.
They are relentlessly encouraged to reject the traditional Christian teachings on sexuality, usually without any sort of examination or comparative assessment.
It is evidence of a very low estimate of young people’s altruism to tell fifteen and sixteen year olds that the best answer to sexually transmitted diseases is a condom.
No one is perfect and our instincts are partially disordered, but human beings are more than a mass of uncontrollable desires.
Sexual activity is lit by a fire, sacred or profane, which in the long term either purifies or corrupts. It is not as morally neutral as other physical activities, not a recreational right, because sexual activity should be linked to love. And love comes from our hearts and changes the core of our being.
Lust is selfish and uses the partner as an object. Love is unselfish, concerned for the loved one.
In the Christian scheme love, openness to children and sexual activity are all linked together as a worthy ideal, a trinity preparing for marriage and family. True love is urged to wait.
Truly human teaching on sexuality recognizes the need for ideals as well as human weakness. Lust is damaging, an easy option, but true love is precious and different.
By + Cardinal George Pell.
Archbishop of Sydney.
Source: Sydney Catholic.
Cardinal George Pell's Sunday Telegraph column: History In The Making
Last
week saw an important double when Australia watched the Melbourne Cup and the
U.S.A. held their national elections.
The favourite won in the United States while a long shot won our most famous
horse race. Barack Obama is young, while Bart Cummings and the owner of the Cup
winner are elderly; but all were popular winners.
Horse racing is the sport of kings, but still has a broad constituency here in
Australia. While it is a rough and ready industry, under pressure in many ways,
Bart Cummings is not only a champion trainer with twelve Melbourne Cup winners,
but a good man and a gentleman. It was also pleasing to see an Australian horse
and trainer win in order to hold off the foreign challengers for one more year.
When I was at school, classes used to stop so we could listen to the running of
the Melbourne Cup (no television then) and I find it reassuring that these old
rituals survive.
The Australian media give enormous space to things American, because most of us
are very interested in what happens there. It was a shock for me to discover
that Australia is almost never mentioned in the U.S.A. press; a situation quite
unlike England’s. Our Prime Minister will have to work very hard for President
Obama to notice Australia.
The dynamics of U.S.A. governments are quire different from ours with a powerful
directly elected President and no compulsory voting. Tens of millions of
Americans never vote, although on this occasion we had the largest voter turnout
since women obtained the vote in 1920, with an increase of 7.3% over 2004.
As a young man I remember the excitement and hope when President Kennedy was
elected. We expected great things and were not entirely disappointed. American
democracy is imperfect, too much influenced by money and dynasties, but it has
an energy and vitality unequalled anywhere. The size of their immense crowds
contrast with our small political gatherings.
Obama is a superb orator with a gift for language and a capacity to inspire
loyalty and hope, but he comes to power in difficult times; world wide financial
turmoil, the worst for seventy-five years, two unpopular and difficult wars and
American indebtedness. And we should add Iran and North Korea.
The U.S.A. is also deeply divided by wealth and poverty, with no universal
health insurance, families sometimes bankrupted by hospital bills and Third
World diseases are even found in hospitals because people cannot afford to go to
a doctor.
The importance of a black President for the U.S.A. and the world cannot be
underestimated; especially a black President with a Muslim father. No country in
Europe could produce such a result.
Hopes are high, perhaps impossibly high. As a young man Obama mixed with some of
the wildest from the radical left, urban terrorists, the P.L.O. and his
financial advisers include those who helped provoke the financial meltdown.
He will need to move beyond these worlds if he is to be the President Reagan of
the left, to win over the middle ground in the fight for healing and prosperity.
The most disturbing aspect of his short career is his fanatical support for
abortion as he possesses the most anti-life voting record of any contemporary
senator.
This hostility to life contrasts strongly with his humanitarianism in many other
areas.
The world will be changed by President Obama. We hope it will be changed for the
better.
By + Cardinal George Pell.
Archbishop of Sydney.
Source: Sydney Catholic.
Cardinal George Pell's Sunday Telegraph column: All Souls Day
Today
Catholics celebrate All Souls Day when we pray for the dead who have not quite
made it to heaven, but will certainly arrive. They are in a state or process of
purification to prepare them for God’s presence called purgatory. Yesterday we
remembered the saints who made it on All Saints Day.
Luther and King Henry VIII abolished purgatory and Protestants today still do not accept this doctrine. They explain, quite correctly, that the word purgatory is not found in the New Testament and that as we are saved by Christ and not by our good works, believers go straight to heaven.
Is death the end of every personal existence so that the injustices of this life are not balanced out in eternity, while the saints and the criminals and the rest of us are equally as dead as dodos; gone as completely as any dead insect or animal?
All Christians believe in life after death despite the silence of the dead because this is what Jesus taught.
Catholics have always prayed for their dead so that they may be at peace. It is a beautiful and traditional practice taken over from the late pre-Christian Jews. Originally Jewish understandings about life after death were unclear and undeveloped and even in the time of Jesus, Pharisees and Sadducees disagreed over the resurrection of the body.
In the second book of Maccabees, written late in the pre-Christian era, Judas Maccabaeus urged his followers to pray for those who had died in battle "that they might be released from their sins".
Less explicit are two New Testament references in Matthew (c12) and 1 Corinthians (c3), while more explicitly we find frequent references among the theologians of the early Church, such as Clement of Alexandria and Origen and other Eastern writers such as Cyril and John Chrysostom.
Western writers such as St. Ambrose and St. Augustine developed a systematic theory of purification through suffering after death so that souls could cope with God’s radical goodness.
Many theologians believe we shall only be able to enjoy God’s presence in heaven with the capacities that we developed while on earth.
Obviously this raises the possibility that the capacity to love has been so radically damaged during the life-time of some sinners, that they refuse to ask God’s forgiveness and are unable to exist in His presence. Such people are said to be in hell.
Catholics believe in God’s individual judgement at death, followed by grades of reward and punishment. This seems reasonable to me, even when we concede that no one is worthy of Christ's salvation. I hope not to be punished as if I was Hitler and don’t expect to be rewarded like St. Francis of Assisi.
Heaven is a happy mystery of love and justice. Purgatory is like suddenly coming out of darkness, while our eyes slowly learn to cope with the light.
By + Cardinal George Pell.
Archbishop of Sydney.
Source: Sydney Catholic.
Cardinal George Pell's Sunday Telegraph column: Synod
In
Rome today Pope Benedict concelebrated the concluding Mass of a three week Synod
meeting on the "Word of God".
400 from around the world attended this Synod, more than 240 bishops, delegates from the other Christian churches, experts and Catholic lay people and religious.
The term “Word of God” means more than the Scriptures, because it refers primarily to Jesus Christ as a person and includes all the other ways Jesus is presented to us. Obviously the Scriptures and especially the New Testament are of first importance, but the Word of God comes to us in the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist and through official teachings, prayers, hymns, books. The Way of the Cross through the streets of Sydney on World Youth Day was a wonderful presentation of God’s word.
Rome lived up to its reputation for beautiful October weather, the “otto-brate”, with fine, clear days and brisk mornings. The atmosphere within the Synod also was unusually calm, with few theological divisions and no tensions; a strong contrast with the markets as they passed through the worst turbulence since the 1930’s Depression.
Was this another example of religion’s irrelevance, of the bishops fiddling while the markets burned? I don’t think so. Apart from the relevance of Christian teaching on greed, prudence, pride and envy, to the present troubles, Christians have to live by the same principles in good times and in bad. In peace or in war, in prosperity or unexpected periods of financial collapse, Christian communities live in faith, hope and love, mostly out of public view.
In the sixteenth century the Reformation appeal to the Scriptures split the Church, separating Anglicans and Protestants from Catholics.
Today in our climate of ecumenical and interfaith dialogue, where we strive to begin from what unites us all, important doctrinal differences remain but the Scriptures are acknowledged as joint life-giving treasure.
The Synod saw two important innovations, the visit of Rabbi Cohen from Haifa in Israel speaking on the Jewish scriptures which Christians share and the visit of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, leader of the different Orthodox Churches.
Patriarch Bartholomew, who studied in Rome, was received by the Pope and Synod in the magnificence of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, where the Popes have been elected for five hundred years.
A striking figure with a long squarely cut white beard, the Patriarch’s austere dark vestments were in vivid contrast with the colour and tumult of the Sistine’s decorations, especially Michelangelo’s “Last Judgement” mural. He acknowledged the historic importance of his visit, the first time an Ecumenical Patriarch has addressed a Roman Synod. In a splendid sermon Bartholomew explained that we hear the Word of God spoken through the Scriptures and see the Word of God in nature and in art, especially in icons.
The Synod was an unspectacular and happy gathering, which should quietly produce much good fruit in the long term.
By + Cardinal George Pell.
Archbishop of Sydney.
Source: Sydney Catholic.
Cardinal George Pell's Sunday Telegraph column: Anger
Many
years ago I came to know an old bishop well. Although weak and sick he never
complained nor spoke ill of others. I felt able to remark to him that he was
very self-controlled.
"That might be so", he replied, "But it was the result of a long struggle after a big fright". When young, he told me, he had a fierce temper. In a fight with his brother he knocked him unconscious by hitting him on the head with a brick. For a while he thought he had killed him. Eighty years afterwards that old man well remembered his lesson.
Anger is on everyone’s list of deadly sins, because it is like a door which opens onto many vices.
A runaway emotion which is easy to turn on and hard to turn off, anger “blinds the eye of the mind”, throws reason aside. Anger can be like madness, demonic in its destruction and self destruction.
Even children are instantly frightened of a truly angry person, an ugly sight, a contorted face red or deathly pale, eyes burning or bulging, sometimes accompanied by streams of abuse.
Anger is dangerous even when it does not result in physical violence. Sarcasm, quarrels and criticism can be deeply wounding, while in cultures which take God seriously ferocious curses are hurled on opponents. Not many Australians are serious cursers, although sacred names are invoked with monotonous vulgarity.
When we are frightened or annoyed the adrenalin starts to run urging us to fight or to flee. Practice makes perfect and both individuals and communities are called to persevere. Instincts can be tamed and muted through small acts of self-control, or they can grow from bad to worse if left unchecked.
We see some children who are hot tempered, quick to flare up, but quick to calm down too as the storm passes. Such people are often generous, well aware of their weakness and nearly all battle successfully to become peaceful and contributing adults, but capable of using their fire and energy for good causes.
I remember a senior school teacher explaining to a teenager who had lost his temper and quickly recovered. She acknowledged that he was over his lapse but, she explained, bad temper is like hammering a nail in to a piece of wood. You can quickly pull out the nail, but the hole in the wood remains.
Vandalism, an unfocused anger on society, is particularly poisonous. I remember working in a hot dry country town, where care and perseverance were needed to grow trees. Some vandal took the tops off a series of two metre high young trees in a median strip.
His actions warranted a righteous anger, controlled by reason, proportionate and focused. We should not allow fear or cowardice to foster cynicism or moral indifference, which encourages anti-social behaviour.
Sometimes we have a duty to be angry.
By + Cardinal George Pell.
Archbishop of Sydney.
Source: Sydney Catholic.
Cardinal George Pell's Sunday Telegraph column: Pride
Most
parents are proud of their children and after passing through adolescence most
children become proud of their parents. I am proud of the parts the Catholic
Church and Sydney played in the World Youth Day.
Such pride is good not the type which heads the list of the seven deadly sins, which I shall continue to move through, off and on, during the next few months.
All good education today works to build up the self-confidence of young people, so that they are proud of themselves.
Destructive pride is something else altogether from these admirable virtues. We reject pride as offensive, when it transmutes into arrogance, selfishness, vanity, hubris. No one finds these acceptable.
People can become proud and arrogant about their power and wealth, their knowledge and even their virtues, but pride is most cancerous when people want to be equal to God and trample on others' rights.
Genesis, the first book of the Bible, recounts how our first parents Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of life so that they would be like gods. They were expelled from the Garden of Eden into the hardships of daily life for this mistake.
While we are not obliged to understand this ancient story as literally true, the symbolism rings true and helps explain the flaw that runs through our hearts, our inbuilt selfishness, which has led men and women repeatedly throughout history to overreach themselves; usually with disastrous consequences.
Today few people curse and hate God because He forbids sins and will be our final judge to reward and punish every person after death. A few more, still a minority, do not believe in God and the traditional moral commandments, so they construct their own rules while rejecting also the possibility of individual judgement after death.
No outsider can be sure of the motivation behind these points of view, but sometimes they flow from a deadly arrogance, from the sin of pride. One writer even claimed that Hitler hated the Jews, because they gave mankind the idea of the one true God as creator, law maker and judge.
Therefore pride is not only a vice of individuals, but can infect whole groups according to nation, race, class and religion. We have only to think of German Nazism, the class war of the Communists, the wars of religion, religious and secular terrorists to recognize collective pride doing its destructive work. No group stands above the eternal moral law and has an unconditional claim to the blind loyalty of its members.
Christianity rejects self-hatred and encourages self respect, but not at the expense of others’ rights. The truly proud despise others, are regularly ungrateful, exaggerate their own importance, or wealth or virtue. As a consequence they are deeply unhappy.
At its best the Judaeo-Christian tradition has always resisted those individuals or groups who want to make themselves God.
By + Cardinal George Pell.
Archbishop of Sydney.
Source: Sydney Catholic.
Cardinal George Pell's Sunday Telegraph column: Greed
The
enormous crisis which has battered the U.S.A financial markets will have long
term effects, rippling out around the world. Government budgets will be
affected. Spending on other priorities, including real or imagined global
warming, will be seen in a new light.
The next U.S. president will be faced with the consequences of the crisis and the need to clean up the mess. Both presidential candidates have said little so far that has been helpful, although both have claimed that greed was partly responsible.
They are right on this and it will help their approval ratings, because everyone is opposed to greed, although almost no one admits to being greedy.
The very rich are easy targets and receive little sympathy when they burn their fingers. Indeed it is too easy to blame greed for the melt-down, unless we define greed by separating it from legitimate profit making. After all, isn’t a form of greed the principal motivator of the market economy which has brought new prosperity to billions, including most of the Australian people? For better and worse, most countries, even the ex-Communist rulers of China and Russia, favour a market economy.
The Catholic Church does not believe money making is sinful, does believe in private property, and acknowledges that inequalities are part of the human condition.
But the Church also explicitly claims that the tenth commandment forbids greed, the passion for riches which leads people to commit injustice and harm their neighbours.
Money is a useful servant, especially when we gain it to obtain natural goods like food, clothing, education, a home, transport. But the love of money can become a tyrannical master. St. Paul spoke of the greed that becomes idolatry, the worship of a false god. Amassing money can become all consuming, fueling self-centredness and reckless risk taking.
Jesus himself extolled the poor and the poor in spirit and often spoke of the danger of riches. He even claimed it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven! He was no apologist for greed in any form.
The thirteenth century produced Thomas Aquinas, an Italian and the greatest Christian thinker on things religious in 2000 years. He was also a Dominican priest and has been declared a saint.
He followed tradition in regarding greed as one of the seven deadly sins, bringing with it misery, not happiness, for the greedy. He recognized greed’s evil consequences which he described as the “daughters of avarice”:- hardness of heart, an absence of mercy, constant anxiety and worrying because enough is never enough, violence and deceit.
The fact that someone is rich does not mean that others must be poor, because wealth creation is real and in societies like Australia the situation of the most disadvantaged has improved.
But aggressive over-acquisition makes us mean. Those who are prosperous should be regular donors to prevent greed slowly capturing our hearts.
By + Cardinal George Pell.
Archbishop of Sydney.
Source: Sydney Catholic.
Cardinal George Pell's Sunday Telegraph column: Porto San Giorgio
Last
Sunday I travelled with a group of Aussies for a unique ceremony to Porto San
Giorgio, a small holiday resort on the Adriatic coast north east of Rome.
250 young men were assigned to 72 seminaries of the Neo-Catechumenal Way around the world to begin their studies for the Catholic priesthood. 56 were from Italy and 35 from Spain, the largest groups.
Australians are used to something of the immense variety across the Catholic community, which we saw in the pilgrims from 150 countries at World Youth Day. Religious orders like the Sisters of Charity at St. Vincent’s Hospital and the Jesuit priests at Riverview have long been part of Australian life. Such orders, or groupings, have been continually coming and going over the centuries.
The Neo-catechumenal Way is new, soon to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of its Roman foundation by two lay people, still alive and well, Kiko Arguello and Carmen Hernandez. Composed mainly of families, they have 40,000 communities in 108 countries with about 1,200,000 members. They are served by their own priests.
40,000 young pilgrims from their community came to World Youth Day and celebrated their own gathering in the Domain on the Monday of the Pope’s departure.
The centrepiece of that Sydney ceremony was when young men who wanted to become priests (and young women nuns) were asked to stand and come forward. About 1,000 young men and 750 young women answered that call.
Only those who have belonged to a community for four years can proceed and everyone must follow a supervised two year programme after publicly offering themselves.
The Porto San Giorgio ceremony represents the end of the preliminary stages before the 7 or 8 years of priestly training.
Kiko Arguello led the ceremony before a congregation of 1,200 people in a spectacular circular hall, a bit like a space ship, in the centre of a beautiful valley, overlooking the Adriatic coast a few kilometers away. The small hills around the valley are covered with irregularly laid out fields, containing lines of vines, olive and fig trees. It was green and lush.
Four successive coloured wheels or circles make up the ceiling of the hall in reds, blue and green, replicating the vision from chapter one of the Jewish prophet Ezekiel, describing the splendour surrounding the glory of God.
All the young volunteers are allocated around the world by having their names drawn from a basket.
I drew out 3 of the 4 names of the new men to join our 18 seminarians at the missionary seminary in Pagewood. Most accept to go where they are asked, anywhere from Angola to Finland, from Brazil to Australia, but a few decline.
I was very moved by their courage and generosity, although they will be well supported by their new communities. I had never seen anything quite like it.
They will do a power of good.
By + Cardinal George Pell.
Archbishop of Sydney.
Source: Sydney Catholic.
Cardinal George Pell's Sunday Telegraph column: The Seven Deadly Sins
The
seven deadly sins still provide a good part of our news and entertainment,
although few people could give an accurate list of the top seven! In fact many
would struggle to explain the idea of sin at all.
For Christians sin offends God and turns us away from love. True love never causes us to sin, although disordered love of self lies behind many sins, especially sins of the flesh.
Sin harms the sinner, often harms other people and violates their rights. Murder, violence and stealing are clear examples, but sins are not necessarily a crime or a disease.
The notion of sin comes from the Bible, presupposes that we have real personal freedom to choose good or evil, and is essential for a happy and safe community.
A society which rejected the idea of sin would be a jungle, where the strong oppress the weak and define what is right and wrong. History shows, even our personal histories, that those who believe love is of paramount importance also acknowledge attacks on love. Sins are more than breaking rules, because people are hurt.
The seven deadly sins are sometimes called capital sins because they lead to other sins, into habits or vices.
The most common list comes from St. Gregory the Great, a famous pope at the end of the sixth century. He places pride first, followed by greediness, envy, anger, lust, gluttony and sloth or bitterness.
The Italian writer Dante Alighieri grouped the seven sins according to the way they offended against love. A perverted love produces pride, envy and anger. Insufficient love leads to sloth or laziness, while excessive love of earthly goods results in greed, gluttony and lust. Not only did Dante understand human nature, but he possessed a well formed Catholic conscience.
Habits of sin also damage our judgement so we do not see things clearly and become blind to the rights of others.
Our moral sense can become blunted, even extinguished in some areas. Think of people who worked happily in concentration camps.
But the seven deadly sins not only damage our judgement, but can even come close to capturing our free will entirely. Think of those addicted to drugs, alcohol or pornography. On the other hand no situation is hopeless. God’s forgiveness is real and life giving and many have returned from the brink, small step by small step.
Christianity is about love, the opposite of sin, but it is cowardice to duck this issue. Some Christians dismiss talk on sin as negative, refuse to classify sins and are content to claim that God loves them and is not interested in “bad stuff”. It is always a danger sign if we believe we are not sinners!
To acknowledge the reality of the seven deadly sins helps us to know ourselves. And self knowledge always means knowledge of sin and usually leads to knowledge of God.
By + Cardinal George Pell.
Archbishop of Sydney.
Source: Sydney Catholic.
Cardinal George Pell's Sunday Telegraph column: Reducing Abortions
Abortion
performed for any reason and at any stage of pregnancy is always the tragic and
unjust taking of innocent human life.
Lovers of life and all main line Christians work towards and pray for the day when greater respect for human life and greater support for pregnant women and their families will see an end to all abortions. Majority opinion in Australia is conflicted because most Australians believe we have too many abortions and are disturbed by this, while also accepting a woman’s right to abortion. The majority want the numbers reduced.
Therefore, we realise that any reduction in the number of abortions would be an improvement.
I welcome Senator Guy Barnett’s motion, which will be debated in the Senate this week, to disallow Medicare funding of second trimester abortions. This is a small but significant step towards reducing the number of fetal deaths by abortion and the emotional harm that many women experience after abortion.
The second trimester covers from 14 to 26 weeks of pregnancy. Recent medical advances have led to an improvement in fetal viability so that infants born as early as 21 weeks have survived. Fetal surgery has also been successfully performed on unborn babies as early as 21 weeks of pregnancy.
Medicare pays for these abortions under the heading of “Management of second trimester labour”. This is interpreted to cover both brutal partial birth abortion, which is banned in the United States, as well as the induction of labour in which many babies are actually delivered alive and simply left to die. This was the terrible fate of forty-seven unborn children who were aborted after 20 weeks in Victoria in 2005.
Senator Barnett’s motion would stop taxpayer Medicare funding of second trimester abortions in private abortion facilities, whilst ensuring that women, whose unborn child dies from natural causes in utero continue to receive appropriate assistance. Nearly 70% of Australians would support these measures.
The motion would also constrain abortionists from loosely interpreting “life threatening maternal diseases” to include psychological and social reasons for abortion, which often means simply abortion on request. More than half of all post-20 week abortions in Victoria in 2005 were performed for such reasons. Interestingly, we were unable to get any information from the Department of Health on the number of abortions and the reasons for them in New South Wales.
Additionally, Senator Barnett’s motion would remove Medicare funding for abortions performed because the foetal child is missing fingers or toes, or has a correctable condition such as a cleft palate or hare lip. This would be another small but significant step towards eliminating discrimination against the unborn on the grounds of disability.
Late term abortion is an especially inhumane response to the very human dilemma of a difficult or unexpected pregnancy. The humanity of these unborn children is beyond doubt. Our inhumane tolerance of such practices is chilling.
By + Cardinal George Pell.
Archbishop of Sydney.
Source: Sydney Catholic.
Weekly Sunday Telegraph column: Fathers Day 2008
The
difficult family circumstances that many people face were highlighted this week
in the wake of US Senator John McCain naming Sarah Palin as his running mate for
the November presidential election.
Most Australians had never heard of Sarah Palin before this, but we soon learnt plenty about her, including that her 17 year old daughter is pregnant and unmarried. In the unpleasant way of American politics some were tempted to use this sad news as a way of embarrassing Governor Palin and mocking her Christian convictions.
To his credit the Democratic Party candidate, Senator Barack Obama, quickly ruled out making political mileage from Governor Palin’s family situation, and said that anyone on his team found doing so would be fired. Senator Obama’s own father left him and his mother when he was young and he was brought up largely by his maternal grandparents. So he understands the difficulties with which families are often confronted.
In most cases the breakdown of a family leaves kids at a huge disadvantage, and the way Senator Obama overcame this challenging background to contend for the most important political office in the world is a great story by anyone’s standards.
Obama was lucky to have a loving mother, devoted grandparents, and good examples around him to make up for his absent father. He understands the importance of fathers to their children and has not been afraid to challenge men publicly to live up to the expectations of those who depend upon them.
As he put it in a speech made to mark Fathers Day in the US, we need fathers “to realise that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child – it’s the courage to raise one”. This is a message we need to hear in Australia too.
In 2006-07 just over a million (or 1 in 5) Australian children aged 17 or younger lived with only one of their natural parents, most of them in single parent families. For 82 per cent of these children that parent was their mother. While 50 per of kids living with only one parent saw their absent parent at least monthly, 28 per cent never saw them or saw them less than once a year.
In short, there are a lot of children who have reduced contact with their fathers or no contact at all. This is bad for kids because fathers have a powerful and positive impact on the health and development of their children.
This effect on children is strengthened when fathers have a good relationship with their mother, which teaches boys how to treat women and girls what they should expect from men. Mothers stress nurturing while fathers stress achievement, and both are important for healthy development.
Good fathers, like good mothers, make an irreplaceable contribution to the happiness and well-being of children. We need more of them.
By + Cardinal George Pell.
Archbishop of Sydney.
Source: Sydney Catholic.
Weekly Sunday Telegraph column: Journalists
Last
year when I was visiting a Catholic boys secondary college I asked the school
captain what he hoped to do in the following year. "Study journalism" he
replied, then adding "You are a journalist too, aren't you?"
I was rather pleased that he knew of my weekly column, which I have been writing for more than seven years now. Obviously I pleaded guilty to him, admitting to being a journalist, explaining that it wasn’t my main job!
I have been an assiduous reader of newspapers since before I was a teenager and my breakfast routine regularly avoids much conversation as I plough through the day’s three papers. It is a daily ritual, which I thoroughly enjoy, especially on holidays when I have more time.
Therefore the news that the Fairfax organization, which produces the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age, was about to sack 550 people across Australia including 180 journalists, was deeply disturbing.
It would be a pretence for me to pose as an enthusiastic supporter of Fairfax publications, although I have written occasionally for their major dailies. For a long time I wondered whether the Age wanted Catholic readers and more recently I began to wonder whether this was true also in Sydney. But that is another story.
Decent and thriving societies need a decent and thriving free press with different points of view. Only newspapers can provide the regular flow of sufficient information, quickly followed by analysis of the news and quality opinion pieces to enable readers to keep up with situations that are changing, come to their own conclusions and move beyond the sophisticated "spin" put out by our political masters.
We all understand that newspapers have to run at a profit, especially when there is an economic downturn and when market conditions are changing, either through developments in the on-line world or in the public’s reading habits. But when money has to be saved, the overriding priority must be to maintain the quality of the product. With newspapers this should usually mean that sacking journalists is the last resort.
Australian papers compare well with English language papers overseas, with much more international news than you find in most U.S.A. newspapers, large sections devoted to general news, high quality sports coverage and extensive financial sections.
Short television "grabs" cannot inform us as comprehensively or with the same depth of quality news and views as a newspaper.
In our universities, faculties teaching the humanities such as history, philosophy, languages and literature have been reduced. Even maths and science courses are under pressure.
This in itself is likely to result in a "dumbing down" of our public life and would be worsened if the financial restraints imposed on newspapers were misapplied, reducing their capacity to break the news, to shape and provoke public opinion.
We need more and better journalists, not fewer.
By + Cardinal George Pell.
Archbishop of Sydney.
Source: Sydney Catholic.
Weekly Sunday Telegraph column: A Centenary
Last
Sunday I celebrated a Centenary Mass in St. Mary’s Cathedral for Loreto College,
Kirribilli. There was nothing very unusual about this as we have 35 older
schools in the Sydney Archdiocese.
But it was a very happy and prayerful occasion, the Cathedral was packed with
people even in the choir loft, the senior girls served the Mass and the music
was excellent.
Outsiders often regard the Catholic community as a large monotone group. In fact
the Catholic Church is made up of a bewildering variety of sub-groups.
Every school centenary reminds us of the good work done by our schools
generally. As a Catholic Archbishop I am glad to acknowledge the contribution of
our Catholic schools to the peace, prosperity and decency of Australian society.
One in every five young Australians is prepared for adult life in Catholic
schools and prepared well.
Mary Ward (1585-1645) who founded the Loreto sisters was born in Yorkshire, when
the practice of the Catholic faith was severely restricted in England.
Originally a member of the Poor Clares in Europe, she wanted to found a new
group for women, like the Jesuit priests, dedicated to education and under the
Pope, not the local bishop.
These innovations were resisted by the Roman Cardinals, so her group was
suppressed in 1631 and she was briefly imprisoned by the Church! After release
at the direction of Pope Urban VIII, the order was able to resume its work on a
less formal basis.
For a couple of hundred years her role as founder was disputed and this
continued even in Australia when an Irish sister Mother Gonzaga Barry set up the
first Loreto school in Ballarat in 1875.
From the 1870s until 1964 all Church schools in Australia received no government
funding, so Catholic schools had to struggle to survive.
They were only able to continue because nearly all the teaching was done by
people who did not take a salary: nuns from different religious “orders” like
the Loretos, such as Josephites or Mercy sisters, or religious brothers (unlike
priests, brothers do not celebrate Mass and the other sacraments). Parents paid
school fees and local families made gifts or bequests. Such was the case at
Kirribilli where the Heaton family provided an early loan to secure “Elamang”
house.
Loreto schools have a long established reputation as centres of culture, music,
art and beauty. Originally, even at Kirribilli, the nuns did not emphasise the
importance of external examinations or the sciences, but these days are now well
gone and Kirribilli’s academic results are regularly among the best in the
Catholic schools.
Times have changed. Financial pressures have lessened, facilities and staff
qualifications are better, but new challenges to faith and family life have
emerged as career options expanded and the penalties for failure have become
more drastic.
Every centenary is an opportunity to say "well done", "thank you" and to look to
the future.
By + Cardinal George Pell.
Archbishop of Sydney.
Source: Sydney Catholic.
Weekly Sunday Telegraph column: Two Changes
During
our brief history Australia has always been supported by a friendly
English-speaking “super-power”, first of all Great Britain and now the United
States of America.
But two recent events highlighted how the world is changing, the Beijing
Olympics and the Russian invasion of Georgia. As China is much more important to
Australia we should begin there.
Both China and Russia are authoritarian where many of the liberties we take for
granted are non-existent.
That being said we have to give sympathy to the rulers of China with their
immense problems The country is huge with 1300 million people, as though the
Roman Empire has remained intact there.
Long a successful trading nation, perhaps only a third of the population shares
in the spectacular economic progress. Discontent bubbles up in many local
protests and a one child policy is enforced roughly. The Beijing smog is
symptomatic of the general challenges, ecologically and even spiritually.
This smog will clear as the Chinese become more prosperous and as internal press
freedom increases.
Christianity is spreading, more of it Protestant than Catholic, despite
differing levels of government opposition, just as it did in a hostile Roman
Empire. The “underground” Catholic Church loyal to the Pope have been further
restricted as the Olympic Games approached, with some bishops and priests under
house arrest. Many Beijing priests have fled to the country areas for the period
of the Games.
The opening ceremony was a mighty exhibition of Chinese technology and power. I
was not surprised to learn that the fireworks display was enhanced by computer
images for television viewers. This ceremony, like the Chinese embassy in
Canberra, was making a statement about China’s role in the world today and her
confidence about tomorrow. The power centres of the world are shifting from
Europe and the Atlantic Ocean to the shores of the Pacific.
Last week I wrote about Solzhenitsyn and his providential role in dismantling
Russian Communism. It might come as a surprise to learn that Russian Prime
Minister Putin, formerly of the K.G.B., and the centre of power, believes that
the collapse of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geo-political tragedy of the
twentieth century”. Post-Communist economic rationalism in Russia was a disaster
for ordinary people and helps explain the pockets of bitter hatred towards
Solzhenitsyn on some blog sites. They see him as a traitor and destroyer.
Putin wants to use Russia’s resources boom to reassert great power status, is
contemptuous of democracy and enjoys popular support at home for his invasion of
Georgia. Their imprudence played into his hands.
The big question is whether Russia’s Georgian adventure is an end or a
beginning.
On the other hand China’s opening ceremony praise for the teachings of Confucius
was positive and hopeful, because one big question in China is how the spiritual
void there will be filled, now that Mao and Marxism are discredited.
Today’s Australian children will be adults in interesting times.
By + Cardinal George Pell.
Archbishop of Sydney.
Source: Sydney Catholic.
Weekly Sunday Telegraph column: Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Two of the greatest achievements of the last century were the defeat of Nazism
in the Second World War at the cost of 50 million deaths and the collapse of the
Communist Empire in Eastern Europe and Russia from 1989 onwards. By a miracle
this transition was basically peaceful. More than any other person Solzhenitsyn
white-anted Communism, the Evil Empire, by revealing how it was; founded on
violence, lies and oppression.
The memory of Communism is vanishing quickly in Australia. Youngsters today have
not heard of Stalin, the Russian dictator who died in 1953 and caused more
deaths than Hitler.
Lenin came to power in the 1917 Russian revolution and the Communist Empire only
started to collapse in 1989, due to the efforts of Reagan, Thatcher and Pope
John Paul II. For most of its history, criticizing Communism was as unpopular in
many circles even in Australia as criticizing man-made global warming is today!
Born under the Communists in 1918, Solzhenitsyn became a maths teacher, and
eventually an artillery captain in the Second World War. A loyal Communist he
criticized Stalin in a private letter as “the man with the moustache” and was
sentenced to seven years in a labour camp followed by three more years in
internal exile. He began to write of his experiences in the slave camps, the
“gulag”.
His novel “Cancer Ward” told of his treatment for cancer while in exile in
Tashkent and he saw cancer as a metaphor for what was wrong with the Soviet
system.
Stalin’s successor Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin’s atrocities and allowed
the publication of “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, a short masterpiece
of Solzhenitsyn, recounting the experience in prison camp of an ex-Soviet
soldier.
The novel caused a sensation inside and outside Russia. He followed up with the
3 volume “Gulag Archipelago” revealing how the system which caused 20 million
deaths really worked. The pretence of Communist moral legitimacy was destroyed.
Awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize for Literature, Solzhenitsyn was expelled from
Russia and lived for 20 years in the U.S.A. before being allowed to return home
in 1994.
Solzhenitsyn became a Christian believer, claiming that the evils of the c