An Australian citizen has been sentenced to 10 years prison in a Chinese court best described as a kangaroo court.

Australia is not impressed.

Prime Minister Rudd says there are “serious unanswered questions” about the case, and that China has “missed an opportunity to demonstrate to the world at large transparency that would be consistent with its emerging global role”. 

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, didn’t like that: “We express serious concern about the Australian statements on the Rio Tinto case . . . Australia should respect this outcome and stop making irresponsible comments.”

China, home of injustice, with hundreds of political death sentences every year, is a disgrace to the human race.

But what can we do? Refuse them our iron ore and coal? Would they miss it?

China can buy and sell Australia –manufacturing industry-wise — out of its piggy-bank.

* * *

About all Australia can do is to set an example.

To some extent we already do.

With our Christian heritage and belief in justice and the rule of law — based on Biblical Law and the Christian gospel — we are the kind of country every asylum-seeker hopes to end up in, by fair means or foul.

Yet is there not a whiff of corruption and decay in the Australian air?

* * *

Australia is not the carefree place it once was.

Nowadays you lock your car. You teach your children to be suspicious of all strangers. You don’t walk about in the dark.

You tolerate disgusting scenes and lyrics served up as “entertainment” . . . things that are obviously destroying your children’s minds and souls . . . but you seem to be addicted to them.

Most decadent of all are the casinos where money-worship, money-laundering, prostitution, drug-dealing and greed are winked at and considered the ultimate in sophistication.

* * *

In the last book of the Bible, God warns hypocrites, “I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and naked . . . .”

The media have given a bit of coverage to this week being Holy Week.

Associated Press online headline yesterday: “Pope opens solemn Holy Week amid sex abuse crisis”.

It didn’t take them long to turn the occasion into an opportunity to bash the Church with the nearest weapon at hand.

This blog has said before that the child-abuse scandal in the Church is bad. The Church must repent of past failures and determine that the future will be different. Those found guilty must be punished.

Having said that, let’s consider what Holy Week is about.

* * *

The opening prayer (Introit) in the traditional Catholic Mass for today, Holy Tuesday, says, in Latin: “Nos autem gloriari oportet in cruce Domini nostri Jesu Christi, in quo est salus . . . Deus misereatur nostri et benedicat nobis . . . .”

In English: It is proper that we glory in the cross of Christ in whom is our salvation . . . God have mercy on us and bless us . . . .

It’s a fact. All of us, in the Church and outside, have failed God and need his mercy — one of our worst efforts being failure to guard the innocence of children. Here, of course, the media have been no help in the past — and show no signs of being any different in the future.

* * *

The media are pushers for fewer restrictions on their own pornographic and violent output — and they undermine traditional marriage and the importance of fatherhood and of keeping mothers in the home to nurture their children physically and spiritually.

Yes, the media must rightly remind the Church of its need to reform.

It must also reform itself. Drastically.

At present they are, arguably, children’s worst enemies.

* * *

In today’s Mass, the final prayer says, “May our vices be cured, O almighty God, by Thy holy Mysteries . . . . may Thy mercy, O God, cleanse us from the deceits of our old nature, and enable us to be formed anew unto holiness. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who lives and reigns with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.”

Mr John Hassad, who wants to start a casino in Mildura, on Australia’s Murray River, was the instigator of the Crown Casino in Melbourne.

Not much of a recommendation.

In late 2009, when multi-millionaire gambling addict, Harry Kakavas, failed in the Supreme Court to reclaim $35 million he had lost at Crown, Justice David Harper criticised the casino:

“Crown does not present itself as a world leader in responsible gambling. Its relationship with Mr Kakavas does not give one any confidence that it deserves that status.”

* * *

In the Lu Hong case in 1997, four people were convicted of laundering $10 million as part of a heroin-distributing operation. It was Crown Casino where they laundered the money. (1)

Between 2003 and 2006, thousands of criminal offences were committed at Crown Casino: 445 assaults, 344 thefts from cars, 32 cases of handling stolen goods, 13 weapons offences, two kidnappings and eight sex offences. (2)

57% of electronic gambling-machine profits come from people with gambling problems ( i.e. those losing over $100 per session).  60% of “problem gamblers” break the law to feed their habit.

Of all places, Mildura is among the worst possible sites for a festering sore of this kind to be set up.

Mildura has already been identified as an above-average area for gambling losses on poker machines. (3)

* * *

But the state government loves it. They grab huge taxes from casino operators. There will be no help from Victorian premier, Mr Brumby.

Mildura people must fight off this threat by whatever means they can think up locally.

But no Mildura Rural City Councillor will speak up against it. They claim that the law prevents them commenting — which is a lie.

The councillors of Romsey, Victoria, last year showed that a Council with ratepayers’ interests at heart can curb invasion by the gambling industry — they banned all poker machines – if they want to. (4)

SOURCES: (1) Herald Sun, 25/9/1997, (2) The Age, 8/12/2009, (3) James Doughney, Senior Researcher, Workplace Studies Centre, Victoria University, (4) The Australian, 11/12/2009

Seven days before the first Easter Sunday, Jesus and his disciples entered the city of Jerusalem.

Jesus himself was riding a donkey.

It was a great occasion. People waved palm branches about. Many were crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes as king, in the name of the Lord.”

* * *

Jesus knew well enough that in less than a week a crowd of Jerusalem residents would cry out, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

Also that, within 30-odd years, the city would be a pile of rubble.

So as the procession came close to the city, we read:

“Seeing the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If thou had but known, in this thy day, the things that are for thy peace . . . . Thy enemies shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation.’ ” (Saint Luke’s gospel, chapter 19)

Our Lord went to his Passion and died for the salvation of Jerusalem (and others), but the city itself would not be saved.

In fact the Romans did flatten it, well and truly, and destroyed the Temple, in the year 70AD.

* * *

The palms which will be blessed in your church today represent the victory which Jesus is about to win over death.

Dear Lord, while the people were singing hymns of praise, you were filled with pity and wept.

How you must weep today over our modern world and its desire not to know about you or to obey you.

No doubt our so-called civilisation, too, will be destroyed.

Give us the grace to repent of our sin and ill-will, to start obeying you, and to accept, even at this late stage, the gift of forgiveness and salvation that you offer.

Even if we resist your grace, we must concede, Lord, that yours is the ultimate victory.

Mildura, riverside tourist destination and centre of Australia’s Sunraysia fruit-growing district, has been selected by corporate interests as a site to set up a casino.

The tycoons involved are being represented publicly by a mouth-piece, Mr Haddad, who visited Mildura yesterday for an invitation-only release of plans to councillors etc.

* * *

The casino, with 220-room hotel attached, is described by its proponents as “iconic and grand in all respects”.

Yes it does sound stupidly ostentatious — for example, its third floor swimming pool with a view over the river . . . .

At bottom, of course, it will be your normal casino – squalid, crime-associated, and a fly-paper like attractor of money-launderers, prostitutes and drug-dealers.

* * *

Ross Douglass, chairman of the “Sunraysia Against Casinos” action group, warns that any town giving a permit for a casino, is asking for it – money-laundering, prostitution, assaults etc. — plus the drugs.

Mildura will be no exception.

Well-known Mildura businessman, Mr Don Carrazza, owner of the land on which the casino will hopefully not be built,  has for decades made his living pushing number-one addictive drug, alcohol.

Now he wants local business to increasingly exploit those addicted to gambling.

* * *

Mr Haddad advises the district “not to look at the negatives, but embrace the employment opportunities it will create, both during construction and ongoing, which will inject so much into Mildura’s economy . . . .”

“It will be a plus all around,” he says.

Not quite all around.

A casino might be a “plus” for some – those who exploit addicts. Perhaps, also, for vendors of hand-guns, the local sexually-transmitted diseases clinic, social workers for mums of broken families, the hospital emergency department — people like that . . . .

But a MINUS for ordinary citizens, trying to balance their budgets, to keep their kids out of trouble and to lead decent lives.

They hate the casino idea.

* * *

There will be a public protest meeting against the proposed casino on Tuesday 6 April at 6pm at the Mildura Settlers Club.

Speakers will be: Senator Nick Xenophon, Reverend Tim Costello and Mr Paul Bendat.

The Australian government of prime minister Kevin Rudd favours the notion of a “big Australia” — with a population rising from today’s 22 million to 35 million in 2050.

He plans mammoth numbers of immigrants to overcome our “labour and skills shortages”.

Already Australia is a nation with no culture except a shared belief that greed is good — and that the welfare state will feed us whether we work or not.

Most Australians still watch television, picking up their daily dose of me-first, celebrity-fixated, relativistic, materialistic, I-know-my-rights, she’ll-be-right-ism.

* * *

We know about Europe, but refuse to learn by their mistakes.

Like France’s “ZUS’s” (“Zones Urbaines Sensible, i.e. “Sensitive Urban Zones”). Over 750 neighbourhoods in France –with 5 million people living in them — which the French government no longer controls. The heavily Muslim city of Marseilles has 12 of them.

In England today, more Muslims than Christians attend religious gatherings each week. 60 percent of British Muslims want “Sharia” law, as practised in parts of Saudi Arabia, Iran etc.

In Australia we already have whole suburbs and shopping centres crammed with non-English speaking, non-Christian, ethnic communities.

So is it too late already? Arguably Yes. Anyway, Mr Rudd is committed to making it worse.

* * *

What could be done if we had a government which wanted to make Australia a better place for rational, spiritual beings to live in — a habitat suitable for creatures created by God for the purpose of seeking union with him and loving one another?

Firstly, we might give preference to migrants from Christian backgrounds. It hardly matters whether they are black, white, brown or brindle — but they need to be Catholic.

Is this stepping back to the unfashionable concept of a “White Australia”?  No. I just told you, colour is not the issue.

* * *

And we need to get our children away from television and other screens.

And out of co-educational classes where the boys are permanently distracted and learn little.

We need thousands (millions?) of recruits to the vocations of priests, religious sisters and Catholic teachers.

We need the Old Mass celebrated exclusively in Catholic churches, reminding people that God is not a social-worker in the sky, but a Father – supernatural, demanding, almighty and just — and yearning to share our love.