Following publicity about child abuse by priests in Ireland and Germany, Vatican spokesman, Father Frederico Lombardi, made an apology, acknowledging that abuse is “especially reprehensible” when it happens inside the Church.

He made the point, however, that child sexual abuse is NOT confined to priests, despite the media’s tendency to make it seem so. It’s a problem that “belongs to the whole of society”.

The media exploit the tragic situation of these children for sensational stories.

It certainly isn’t easy to keep a sense of proportion.

* * *

Look at yesterday’s media revelations.

In the Netherlands: “More than 200 reports of abuse have been made to a victims’ support organisations . . . .”  (BBC News, March 10)

What about these “victim support organisations”?

What are they actually trying to do?

* * *

Australia’s main “support” group seems to be the Broken Rites organisation.

 Broken Rites says its purpose is “obtaining justice”. 

However their own website gives them away:

 “The Church has traditionally interfered in the bedrooms of its congregation — no sex outside marriage, no contraception, no divorce, no termination of a pregnancy, and so on . . . . ” 

The hatred of all things Catholic is just under the surface.

* * *

If Broken Rites wants to discredit Catholic teachings on extramarital sex etc., they should try another tactic.

Exploiting child victims as a stick to beat the Church with, is simply exploiting the already-exploited even worse.

If Broken Rites succeeded in making sex outside marriage even more respectable —  would that help children?

Ask your local family GP-doctor: for every one victim of abuse by a priest that they see, how many dozen have been abused at home by mum’s de facto boy-friend?

The typical child-molester is a great believer in sex outside marriage — double-dipping with whatever females are available – the mother, the daughters, anyone he can get hold of.

* * *

Attempts to destroy the Church, whose good teachings are children’s best protection for their safety, is counterproductive.

It’s the Christian gospel that uniquely teaches that every child is a child of God — infinitely entitled to loving protection.

The Church must get back to being faithful to its traditions — to Our Lord, to his Mother and to the traditional Sacraments.

Thomas Merton, an American Catholic monk, has been described as “arguably the most influential American Catholic author of the twentieth century”.

A quotation attributed to him is, “Truth: know it, love it, live by it.”

This saying has always bothered me.

For all his respect as a mystic and an intellectual, Thomas Merton seems to have got it back to front.

* * *

In real life, surely must seek truth by first living by it — then loving it and, eventually, hopefully, coming to know it.

Who says so?

Jesus Christ himself said so, and he said so more than once.

Gospel of Matthew: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Every one therefore who hears these words of mine and does them, he shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock.”

Gospel of John: “If any man does the will of God; he shall know of the doctrine . . . Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keeps the law?”

Yes he meant the Ten Commandments of Moses: Love God, obey your parents, do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not covet anybody else’s things. And so on.

* * *

The purpose of human life, if it has a purpose, is to love God, and to enter into union with him.

This has to involve giving God one’s will — obeying him, in other words.

That has to come first.

God’s laws are not fashionable at present. They have never been easy.

But there is no other way.

The Australian flag at the entrance to Ballina District Hospital (NSW) has flapped itself to pieces.

One and a half stars of the Southern Cross are gone.

The local branch of the RSL (Returned and Services League) has complained and wants something done about it.

Not a big deal?

It might be, if you had fought in a war to defend the flag and what it stands for.

* * *

A bigger deal, media-wise, was Australian athletes at the Winter Olympics draping a huge “boxing kangaroo” flag across a multi-storey Vancouver building.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) told them to remove it.

They didn’t.

Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, mocked the IOC, saying, “We want to see a lot of the Boxing Kangaroo, particularly now that we’ve had this ridiculous ruling.”

* * *

Is this flag affair just a matter of taste, or is there a serious issue involved?

What does a boxing kangaroo represent?

It signifies that we will do anything — except the obviously right thing — to defy everybody and draw attention to ourselves, threatening a punch-up or similar if not given our own way.

If we must be defiant, why not do something better than the conventional thing, rather than something stupider?

* * *

In Russia, in 2002, the government ordered regions to design their own local flags.

The city of Penza (600km east of Moscow, population 500,000) defied convention by designing a flag carrying an image of Jesus.

Yury Leptev, speaking for Penza’s Social Politics Committee, explained that there is a legend that in the 1500s Ivan the Terrible presented an icon of Christ to the people of Penza.

Leptev said they had held an unofficial referendum about the flag, and support for the chosen image was “strong”.

Some non-Christian leaders criticised it, saying it “blurred the lines separating Church and State”.  (St Petersburg Times)

To which one might reply, “No need for lines separating Church and State –  as long as it’s the right Church.”

Mr Rudd says Australia’s new education system will be “back to basics”.

More science, more mathematics, more history?  

Nothing “basic” about that.

More basic to ask: “Do these children know how to behave themselves?”

And: “Do they know why they should behave themselves?”

Leading to the truly basic questions:  “Is there a God? What has God put us here on earth for?”

Postpone increasing maths/science/history. Boost religion classes.

* * *

The questions above are answered on one single page of your Bible – in Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:

“The just man shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those who suppress the truth of God: because that which is known of God is manifest . . . for the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable . . . .”

(comment: Godliness (religious gusto) is basic to justice, and the two of them are basic to everything worthwhile — so obviously so that there’s no excuse not to know it)

* * *

 “Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law. For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these not having the law are a law to themselves: the law written in their hearts . . . .”

 (comment: Even people not brought up knowing any religion know right from wrong. Woe betide educators who twist young minds into “rights/self-esteem” mentalities)

* * *

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus . . . .”

(Comment: Every child must learn the supreme importance of what the Church offers, especially Baptism, Holy Communion and the Sacrament of Confession)

* * *

If you doubt that your local school will teach your children these basics, don’t send them.

In today’s Australia, a decision to send a child to school is a grave decision. Perhaps the normal/default practice for thinking parents should be home schooling

.

.

What seems to make Christianity unique among religions is its claim that Jesus Christ was God incarnate (“in the flesh”).

Not just a good man, but literally divine.

This annoys atheists, agnostics etc.

It annoys also many others who just want to get on with their lives, un- bothered by religion.

Christ’s divinity is also disturbing for his believers.

It tells them that God wants us to hand our lives over to supernatural forces — to give up conforming with the materialistic, distraction-seeking mentalities that our neighbours and friends expect of us.

* * *

Today is the Second Sunday of Lent.

Today’s gospel reading is exquisitely discomforting to those who don’t want Jesus to be divine or to make demands of them.

It describes a mysterious, awesome and unsettling event:

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John his brother, and brought them up into a high mountain apart: And he was transfigured before them.

His face did shine as the sun: his garments became white as snow.

And behold there appeared to them Moses and Elias, talking with him.

(They spoke of his decease that he should accomplish in Jerusalem.)

And Peter said to Jesus: ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make three tabernacles, one for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias.’

As he was yet speaking, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them. And a voice out of the cloud, saying: ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him.’

The disciples hearing it, fell upon their faces, and were very much afraid.

Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Arise, and fear not.’

And they, lifting up their eyes, saw no one but only Jesus.

As they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying: ‘Tell the vision to no man, till the Son of man be risen from the dead.’

* * *

The disciples learned a lot from this event:

 * that Jesus is/was truly God

 * that to please God we must be willing to suffer

 * that to live pleasing to God we must depend on him giving us the strength

 * that Jesus alone speaks with God’s full authority

.

I was reading about how Mother Mary MacKillop tried to help children find God in their lives – not only through school-teaching, but also in out-of school activities.

In the 1860s, she started a group for young people in Adelaide which she called “The Guild of the Holy Eucharist”.

Its rules included that the young people must “dress with simplicity, modesty and neatness. They must be known to be obedient at home and at school. They must not be out after dark unless with someone approved by parents or the Sisters. They must hear Mass every day, and suffer any inconvenience rather than miss it.”

* * *

Every day?

Wasn’t that a bit much to ask of young people?

Yet hasn’t God has always demanded of human beings that they give him generously of their time?

The Ten Commandments include the command to keep one day a week “holy”.

In today’s “busy” materialistic, individualistic, self-indulgent world we have plenty of spare time. Ordinary Australians spend up to 20 hours per week looking at television.

We must have time, literally, to kill.

* * *

Most people do, in fact, treat Sunday as in some way a different day.

You could say that everybody worships on Sunday.

*  you play sport on Sunday?  You’re a sport-worshipper.

*  you drink beer on Sunday?  You’re a beer-worshipper.

*  you spend  Sunday with family without devoting time exclusively to God?  You’re a family-worshipper.

Which is not good. 

Jesus said, “He who loves father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me.  He that loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.”

* * *

You attend church on Sunday?  You MAY be a worshipper of God — only God knows your motives.

On Sundays, try put God first.  Go to Mass — at least every Sunday. Make it an unbreakable rule.