It is amazing that there is such a thing as Christmas.

The One whose birth is commemorated seems such an unlikely person to have dominated human history — and to have done so for so long.

This Jesus had no army.

He had no friends in high places.

At his death, the number willing to stand by him could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Yet now, 2011 years later, 2.1 billion — one third of all human beings — follow him at least nominally. (Pew Research, 2010 *)

Yes, that is amazing.

We have a lot to be thankful for.

Let us ask God to grant us each a happy and holy Christmas.

And to enable us in New Year 2012 to live faithfully by the teachings of Jesus Christ.

( * www.pewforum.org/Christian/Global-Christianity-exec.aspx)

Jesus Christ taught about marriage.

He said, “From the beginning of creation, God created male and female. This is why a man must leave father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh . . . .” (Saint Mark’s gospel, chapter 10, verse 7)

Christ’s church has always taught that the primary purpose of marriage is the generation and bringing-up of children.

Marriage, therefore, by definition, excludes homosexual and other unnatural behaviour.

* * *

For Catholics, the Church has always defined, as per the old Code of Canon Law, that “the primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children”.

Having children, where it is possible, is essential to the nature of marriage itself — a participation in the creative work of God.

Marriage is a Sacrament of the Church. God is a participant in the marriage.

And as Jesus taught, “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” (Saint Mark’s gospel, chapter 10, verse 9)

* * *

In practice, it is found that the safest place for a child — least likely to suffer child abuse — is to be raised is in a family situation with his/her biological mother and father, married and living together.

Mrs Clinton is in Libya congratulating National Transitional Council bosses, Jalil and Jibril, for disempowering/killing ex-dictator, Colonel Gaddafi.

“The future belongs to you,” she said.

They know that.

“We will support a process of democratisation that respects the rule of law etc.,” she added.

They don’t know so much about that.

Nobody seriously expects a democratically-elected government to be in charge in Libya, soon or ever.

Look at Egypt. Look at Afghanistan. Liberated in the name of democracy. Corruption all the way to the top after months and years respectively.

* * *

Why should these people want democracy?

If you mean by “democracy”, rule by US-style media-brainwash, billionaire candidates and politicians lying 24/7 — they could hardly be blamed for not wanting it.

The results of democracy is having people like Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton’s husband rising to the surface.

Or like the Gillard.

Or like the reverend Mr Silvio Berlusconi, for goodness sake.

* * *

Mrs Clinton will probably never be heard telling Libyans that what they need is to become Christians — to stop following a beheading Prophet and to start following One who gave his life on the cross to redeem our race.

Nor would she say it to the people of the USA.

Or to herself.

Anyway, we don’t need politicians lecturing us on what to believe and how to conduct our lives.

We know it already.

But it is not so easy to do it.

Ultimately it is between oneself and God.

During September, a 15-person group of archaeologists from Flinders University did some digging in Penola at the site of the first school set up there by Mother Mary MacKillop in 1866.

They found about 50 relics, including an 1839 coin, a thimble, a marble, a lamp base and what seem to be writing slates and slate pencils.

Local organiser of Penola’s “Mary MacKillop Interpretive Centre”, Claire Larkin, says the number of visitors to Penola seeking info about Saint MMK is up 20 percent on last year:

“People are just taken with the story and they are finding they can learn a lot more in Penola.”

* * *

Are they? We should all learn more about Saint Mary of the Cross.

If we were all more like Saint M, Australia would be a happier, more just and more holy place.

A visit to Penola might help(?)

Reading her writings certainly would — available through any religious bookstore.

Readers will discover that she isn’t quite like what we’ve been told.

She was no rebel, no multiculturalist . . . .

 She was thoroughly Catholic — a traditionalist —  nothing whatever in common with the spirit of the 1960s Second Vatican Council.

Shortly before she died, she wrote, “I have not changed with the times, and with God’s help, never shall.”

The MK minders at Penola and the whole hierarchy of the Australian Church may try to modify and modernise her message — but we should try to avoid being duped.

God will find ways to get the real message of Saint Mary MacKillop through to the people of Australia . . . in his own time and in his own way.

Two weeks ago, 200 school students, mainly from Western New South Wales, accompanied by 40 teachers, visited Lake Mungo to “celebrate their Koori heritage”.

The project has grown out of the 2006 Mungo Festival held to “celebrate the listing of the Willandra Lakes (including Lake Mungo) as a World Heritage Area” 25 years earlier.

All at taxpayers’ expense. Was it money well spent?

This celebrating is to be followed up by sending to schools in the region Aboriginal elders to encourage students to do “Lake Mungo projects”.

In charge is Stephen Albert, an Aboriginal elder who acted in the film “Bran Nue Dae”.

Bran Nue Dae?  A film so full of simplistic, blatant and virulent hatred for everything Catholic that it self-destructed as any kind of contribution to thought.

* * *

Many Aborigines are respectful of Christianity.

It’s a pity if our money is being spent pushing them back into paganistic mentalities – subjecting them to a double-pronged anti-God brainwash.

Prong One: anti-Catholic media which mention the Church only when they unearth a priest who molested children.

Prong Two: pressuring them to return to the least valuable aspects of the old culture, many aspects of which will make them less, not more, fitted to cope with today’s world.

* * *

Not just Aborigines are suffering from the eradication of the last vestiges of respect for the Christian culture that has made Australia a relatively compassionate place.

Last week, Edgewater Primary School, WA, banned students from reciting the Lord’s Prayer (the “Our Father”) because it “contravenes the WA Education Act” which prohibits favouring one religion over another.

Run through the words of the Lord’s Prayer in your mind.

Is there anything in it except positive thoughts and respect for our Creator?

Nothing whatever to offend anybody who wants a better world.

The US Military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy no longer exists, since its formal repeal as from 20 September.

This policy was a compromise, introduced 17 years ago under President Clinton, regarding the potential problems of having homosexually-active persons in the military.

* the “Don’t Ask” part was an attempt at fairness to people with homosexual orientation – not asking them, during medical and psychological assessments of fitness to enlist, about their “sexuality”. Previously some had been rejected on those grounds.

* the “Don’t Tell” part was an understanding that homosexually-inclined members of the forces not speak about their inclinations — nor indulge in homosexual conduct — the penalty being discharge from the service.

* there were also implied “Don’t Pursue” and “Don’t Harass” guidelines: service personnel being investigated (pursued) re homosexuality only if their openness about it was blatant –and they were not to be subjected to persecution or violence (harassed) by other troops.

* * *

Polls suggest that probably a majority of Americans favour the repeal.

However Archbishop Broglio, head Catholic military chaplain, favoured retaining “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.

The basic Catholic position remains, of course, the same.

Namely that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”

Presidential hopeful, Rick Perry, has written, “I respect their right to engage in the individual behaviour of their choosing, but they must respect the rights of millions of Americans who refuse to normalise their behaviour . . . Tolerance is a two-way street.”

If Perry perseveres with this stance — and if he becomes President — “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” may well be reinstated.