A Sydney University social work lecturer, Lesley Laing, recently released a study called “No Way to Live”.

It is being used to pressure the federal government into amending the Family Law Act to make it harder for men to see their own children than under present shared-parenting arrangements.

The study is wide open to questions about its methods and conclusions, both of which are probably pretty suspect.

The fact remains, however, that there is a real problem — those involved suffering terrible emotional pain and sometimes physical injury.

Police in the state of Victoria attend 20,000 domestic violence incidents per year.

Domestic violence accounts for about 10 percent of the deaths of Victorian women aged 15 to 44.

* * *

What is to be done?

First, let’s eradicate some false assumptions.

Domestic violence is commonly regarded as something nearly always done by men to women.

* A New Zealand survey, the biggest ever on family violence in young couples, found that 37 percent of women, compared with 22 percent of men, had inflicted violence on their partner.

* An American survey found that domestic violence where both parties are violent is the commonest kind (69%). Second comes violence by a woman against a man (21%). Coming last was male violence against females (10%).

Researchers commented that a key to reducing abuse is to make it as unacceptable for a woman to hit a man as it is for a man to hit a woman: “If we want men to stop it, women have to stop it, too.”

* Regarding children’s safety, a menacing factor, seldom mentioned, is the mum’s new boyfriend. Ask your family doctor whether this isn’t, in his experience, where the worst dangers lie.

* * *

Expecting changes to the Family Law Act to fix things is like trying to reconstruct an already-broken egg — something which, in this entropic universe, only happens in miracles.

Prevention is the only way to go.

* Children must grow up learning that normally Mums and Dads are married and stay together for life.

* The Churches must proclaim that Marriage is a Sacrament — part of the Natural Law, written into human nature and into our universe.

A society not respecting Marriage in this way will, unfortunately, get the domestic violence it deserves.

Professor John Mendoza, chairman of the Australian Federal Government’s National Advisory Council on Health, resigned the other day.

He says the Government has no vision or commitment to mental health.

Like most rows, this row was about money. The government intended putting in $30 million a year where Professor wanted a billion.

Professor’s pet project seems to be “Headspace” — a youth mental health service. He talks about mentally-ill young people losing touch with their families, getting into crime etc.

Losing touch? Surely the biggest reason family members lose touch isn’t so much having an illness in the house, as having a television in the house.

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Think of depression, less as an illness, more as an industry.

Drug companies get rich selling Zoloft, Prozac etc., chemicals said to rectify “chemical imbalances in the brain”, which perhaps cause depression .

What makes our brain chemicals imbalanced anyway? Doesn’t what happens to any body organ largely depend on how we use the organ? What goes wrong with our brain chemicals might result from the moral and spiritual decisions that we use our brains to make.

And if “depression” results largely from such spiritual malfunctions, the solution may be a turn to true religion.

Tablets and counselling could also be a part of the answer — but only a small part.

* * *

“Depression” is a fashionable word for what would have, in the past, been called sadness or suffering.

Shouldn’t we be giving priority to teaching children how to suffer — and to teaching them that suffering has meaning and purpose? Might one reason we have guilty feelings be that we are guilty? Guilt is best resolved by forgiveness. Once forgiven, a weight rolls off our shoulders.

Ask a priest to hear your confession. If you haven’t been for ages, don’t worry, he’ll remind you how it’s done.

Another good aspect of confession is that it is free.

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Blessed Mary of the Cross (Mary MacKillop) wrote to the members of her Order when circumstances were making them depressed, “We have had much sorrow and are still suffering its effects, but sorrow or trial lovingly submitted to does not prevent our being happy — it rather purifies the happiness.”

There are said to be about 100,000 problem gamblers in the Australian state of Victoria.

These are roughly defined as people losing $100-plus per gambling session.

Many of these people have families, whose food, clothing and educational needs are compromised by their losses.

Some lose their whole pension on pension day.

Then they feel the need to put pressure on relatives and acquaintances to give them money to live on.

Are these folk the saddest victims of the gambling industry?

In a way, yes.

* * *

Yet there is another way of looking at it.

What about those who win?

Somebody every now and then has a big win, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Are they not in a sense losers too?

If you ever leave a casino, pub or club with a pocket-full of newly-won money, ask yourself where did the money come from.

Yes, it came from the pockets of those miserable souls whose gambling addiction props the whole electronic gambling industry up.

It comes out of the lunchboxes of their children.

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Does that make you a thief, and a depriver of children?

Yes, of course it does.

You have just lost your soul.

You are the biggest possible loser.

Jesus Christ taught his disciples, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and suffers the loss of his soul? What could one give in exchange for his soul?”

As from January 2011, the Australian Federal Government plans to spend $260 million a year paying the equivalent of the Minimum Wage to the primary carer for eighteen weeks following the birth of a child.

But this will be available only to people who have been continuously employed for at least ten of the previous 13 months.

Full-time mothers will miss out completely.

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Parents of traditional families have always treasured memories of the “milestones” of their child’s development, like when he/she first started to walk.

Now mothers will hear about such things from the childcare centre staff when they pick up their offspring — too tired to care whether he/she walked or not — on the way home from work.

Prime Minister Rudd carries on ad nauseam about what he calls ‘Working Families’ — his mindset being that every adult must be in the paid workforce in order to justify his/her existence.

The Rudd government and the Abbott opposition seem unanimous in their determination to cut parents out of their children’s lives by promoting double-income dependency. 

Having parents with double-decker  incomes is little compensation for toddlers who have no idea where mum is for most of the 24 hours.

* * *

We need an Early Education Care Benefit which would provide a direct cash payment to all new parents, thus giving them a choice about the type of care they want their child to have.

There is no excuse for financially discriminating against parents who want to undertake the care of their children in the environment of family and home.

This Sunday’s Gospel reading is full of realism — a mixture of good news and bad news.

Jesus warns his disciples that they will encounter dangers on all sides — that’s the bad news . . . .

However he promises them supernatural and invincible help — which has to be good news.

We, dear reader — called to be Christ’s disciples today — the message applies to us, too.

* * *

From John’s gospel:

“But when the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will be my witness. And you too will be witnesses . . . .

They will expel you from the synagogues: yes, the hour is coming that whoever kills you will think that he does God a service.

These things I tell you, so that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them.”

* * *

If you are trying to live as a follower of Christ, you will have experienced persecution of some kind or other already.

If not, you soon will.

Our greatest Australian, BLESSED MARY MACKILLOP, certainly was not immune from persecutions.

After one unfortunate incident involving an unsympathetic bishop, she wrote:

“We have had much sorrow and are still suffering its effects, but sorrow or trial lovingly submitted to does not prevent our being happy — it rather purifies the happiness.”

* * *

The Christian religion is a religion of joy. Think about these words written by Isaac Watts:

“Joy to the world: the Saviour reigns.

Let men their songs employ.

While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains

repeat the sounding joy . . . .

“He rules the world with truth and grace.

And makes the nations prove

the glories of his righteousness

and the wonders of his love.”

Yes, God rules the world. Whatever happens, God is in charge.

However bad it seems, there is something there that he is trying to teach you.

Part of that lesson will be for you to see his love in everything.

Twelve months ago, the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius the Tenth (SSPX), Bishop Fellay, asked traditional Catholics worldwide to participate in a Rosary Crusade.

He requested that Rosaries be said asking that Pope Benedict, together with all the bishops of the world, will consecrate the nation of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

His aim was to have 12 million Rosaries recited for that intention between 1 May 2009 and 25 March 2010.

Well, the time has elapsed and it turns out that over 19 million Rosaries were said – including 5.5 million by Catholics in the USA and 3.1 million in France . . . Australia managed 439,000.

* * *

This consecration is something Our Lady herself requested of three children to whom she appeared at Fatima in 1917.

She said, “I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart . . . .

If people attend to my requests, Russia will be converted and the world will have peace . . . .

In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father (and the remaining bishops) will consecrate Russia to me . . . .

Russia will be converted and a period of peace will be given to mankind . . . .” 

* * *

It’s a long story, but for various reasons the consecration has never been carried out in exactly the way Our Lady asked for.

That is what we hope Pope Benedict will now decide to do.

* * *

There have been two previous Rosary Crusades for two earlier intentions.

After the first (in 2007), the Pope lifted the ban on the use of the Old Latin Mass.

After the second (in 2009), he lifted the “excommunications” of the four bishops of the SSPX.

After this Third Rosary Crusade, will we see, in 2010, another miracle worked in the heart of the Pope?

If so, then we may confidently expect the further miracle of world peace to follow.

Natural methods have never achieved much peace.

We look now to God to grant us his peace by supernatural means.

Let’s keep praying for the Pope, for the worldwide Catholic community, and for peace.