Daily Archives: 17 May 2013

Expanding Australia’s excision policy is not a solution

Asylum Seekers arriving by boat

Asylum Seekers arriving by boat

17 May 2013, Media Release

The excision policy has been in place since 2001 and since that time we have still had thousands of people turn up on our shores asking for help.

The decision yesterday by the government to expand the excision policy to cover asylum seekers arriving by boat at any part of the Australian coastline will do nothing to help the underlying situation of war and poverty which compel asylum flows around the world.

“The majority of people seeking asylum in Australia by boat come from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Sri Lanka, these four countries all feature in the top 10 countries at risk of serious human rights violations and mass killings” said Bishop Gerard Hanna, Australian Catholic Bishops Delegate for Migrants and Refugees.

“These people are compelled to leave their homeland and have no option but to seek asylum in a third country” he said.

“It is tragic to think our response is to bypass their legal protections under the refugee convention and send them to remote indefinite mandatory detention on Manus Island or Nauru” said Bishop Hanna.

“Australia is part of the international community, we have a moral obligation to ensure that our decisions and policies contribute to, or at the very least do not subtract from, the common good of all humanity” said Bishop Hanna. Continue reading →

Truth, Justice and Healing Council CEO meets Wollongong Bishop and people of Diocese

Truth, Justice and Healing Council Logo

Truth, Justice and Healing Council Logo

Media Release, 16 May, 2013

Mr Francis Sullivan, CEO of The Truth, Justice and Healing Council, established by the Catholic Church to coordinate the Church’s response to The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, visited Wollongong yesterday to meet with Bishop Peter Ingham, clergy, religious, school principals, and employees from the Catholic Education Office, CatholicCare and the Office of the Bishop.

Francis Sullivan, photo by Beth Doherty

Francis Sullivan, photo by Beth Doherty

Mr Sullivan walked through the process of the Royal Commission and gave an understanding of the public and private hearings. He commented, “This is our opportunity not to let down people who have been damaged by the Church.” All present were very positive in their response to Mr Sullivan’s presentation. Continue reading →

The Ascension of the Lord | Cardinal George Pell’s Homily | 12 May, 2013

http://www.sspeterpaulukrchurch.us/

http://www.sspeterpaulukrchurch.us/

The Ascension of the Lord
Acts 1:1-11; Eph 1:17-23; Lk 24:46-53

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
12 May 2013

Today is unusual not merely because Ascension Thursday, forty days after the Lord’s resurrection, is celebrated on this Sunday before the feast of Pentecost, but also because it is the only occasion when we have two excerpts from Luke, from the Acts of the Apostles, which he also wrote and from his Gospel. We are all well aware that in this year the cycle of gospel readings is taken predominantly from Luke, although we have not had Lucan gospel texts for a few weeks.

Luke’s gospel is written in the best Greek in the New Testament according to the experts. Luke was a Gentile not a Jew, probably an early Christian convert and physician from Antioch, with Greek as his first language. Greek was then the common language all around the Eastern Mediterranean just as English is now used in Asia and Africa, where there are many local tongues. As well as giving us this information St. Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin in the fourth century also told us Luke was a follower of St. Paul, the great missionary apostle and companion on Paul’s journeys.

Legend describes Luke as a portrait painter, especially of Our Lady and the Christ Child. The portrait we know and venerate as Our Lady of Perpetual Help, which is found in the Redemptorist Church in Rome was one such ascribed to St. Luke in my youth in country Victoria. Alas, this painting comes from the 11th – 12th century and Our Lady is dressed as a Byzantine noblewoman from the Eastern part of the Roman Empire which continued until 1453 in Constantinople, about one thousand years after the Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe. Continue reading →