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.

When you go for a quiet walk and observe others walking with earphones on, you wonder what they are afraid of.

At church people talk right up to the moment the service starts — and resume talking the moment it ends.  You wonder why they came.

One can be arrested for polluting public air or water — but less likely for “noise pollution” (loud parties etc.). It’s so hard to police. Noise-makers are addicted to noise, often inebriated with alcohol or something else — they react with violence.

* * *

You could join the “Right to Quiet Society” organisation, which campaigns against noise pollution (www.quiet.org).

I wouldn’t.

Once we start talking “rights”, we’ve joined in the rat-race ourselves where he who shouts the loudest, (campaigns the hardest, clamours the most persistently) wins.

“Rights” are a bad way of thinking.

* * *

For what is left of Lent, you might give up canned noise.

Try not exposing yourself to electronically-transmitted sounds for 40 days.

You’ll find yourself praying without even meaning to . . . plus having more time for regular prayers.

* * *

Attend the Old Mass.

Most of the time the building is silent.

God is there.

Not only do you know in your head that he is there.

You can feel his presence in the quietness.

* * *

Blessed Mary MacKillop, renowned busy campaigner for children’s educational rights etc., spent long hours, silent, before the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel every day.

The original “Rule” for her Josephite Sisters said, “Silence shall be kept in every room, except during recreation in the community room. If necessity obliges, the Sisters may speak in other places, but in a whisper, and as briefly as possible . . . .  The hearts of the Sisters should be fixed upon God, and every occasion removed which would keep them attracted to external things . . . .”

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.

Today is the first Sunday in Lent.

Some Anglican bishops in England are getting headlines this Lent by asking their followers to do, this year, a “carbon fast”

They are talking about less using of energy-guzzling luxury items — including, for some reason, iPods.

Has the climate-change lobby skyjacked Lent?

* * *

There’s nothing wrong with cutting our carbon-based energy use. That is something we can do any time . . . and perhaps we should.

Would it “save the planet”? Who knows.

The important thing to remember this Lent is that saving-the-planet is not what God gives us Lent, Passiontide and Easter for.

There is something more important at stake than the planet.

The stakes are higher — spiritual, infinite and eternal.

* * *

Jesus Christ spent 40 days in the desert between Jerusalem and Jericho, fasting, before he started on his public life.

That’s why the Church asks Catholics to spend Lent — 40 days before the seasons of Our Lord’s Passion and Easter – preparing our souls for the supernatural climax of the year.

The traditional methods of preparation are “fasting, prayers and works of charity”.

* * *

So the most important thing about Lent is to make ourselves humble.

We need God. Without him we are nothing.

Our thoughts towards God should be like those of Saint Catherine of Siena:

“Your Passion is neither desired nor loved by anyone who loves himself, but only by the one who has stripped himself of self, and clothed himself with you . . . .”

Although Our Lord can no longer suffer, we, his Church, his Body on earth, can suffer . . . .

And  if we willingly accept our sufferings, offering them up to him, he can use our fasting, prayers and charity to continue his work of redemption in the world.

Sometime in the next 24 hours Pope Benedict will announce Mary MacKillop’s recognition as officiallybeing a Catholic saint.

The formal canonisation ceremony will be later this year.

Then what?

Will Australians then suddenly change their ways and start living by the principles which Mary MacKillop lived by?

* * *

What principles did Mary MacKillop live by?

(1) Mary MacKillop believed in poverty — always ensuring that she had as little of this world’s goods as humanly possible.

Will we copy that?

(2) Mary MacKillop opposed government funding of Catholic schools.

She raised money, instead, by begging. All her nuns, including herself, begged — both in the streets and door-to-door.

Today’s church schools accept government money. Catholic teachers demand pay equal to government teachers.

(3) Mary MacKillop believed in obedience — expecting her Sisters to give absolute submission to the Rule of their Order, and to herself as their Superior.

Do Catholics today obediently submit to, and live by, Church teachings — or only to those teachings compatible with their worldly lifestyle?

(4) Mary MacKillop believed that God wants everybody to be a Catholic.

She requested prayers for her friends and relatives who weren’t Catholic, that they should convert.

So-called “ecumenism”, popular in today’s Catholic Church – the notion that God is happy with any religion so long as we’re sincere — was unknown to her.

* * *

So why is Mary MacKillop popular with Australians — most of whom have no intention whatever of living as she did?

We think we like her because we have created a FAKE Mary MacKillop.

A “feminist”, a “rebel” — that’s what we like to think she was.

But she wasn’t.

The “Mary MacKillop” we admire is a fraud of our own invention.

* * *

Do you want to learn what Mary MacKillop was really like, and to seek after God in her spiritual footsteps?

Then read about her — study what she herself actually said, wrote and did.

Don’t read just any old book about her, or you’ll end up misinformed.

What you need is a book about the REAL Mary MacKillop.

Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, said last Wednesday that he personally favours a 21-year old minimum legal drinking age, quoting links between Australia’s high P-plater road deaths and alcohol-swallowing.

But is it not probable that most teenage drunks will vote Labor (if still alive when next election happens)?

And likewise most people who sell alcohol?

It is hard, under Australia’s present form of “democracy”, to imagine any major party – especially Rudd’s so-called “Labor” — doing anything real to upset either of those two interest groups.

* * *

Federal Opposition leader, Mr Abbott, commented that 18-year olds drinking is OK with him, because he is not a “wowser”.

Deep stuff, eh?

* * *

The scientific evidence about drinking ages and alcohol-related mayhem is, of course, well and truly in.

Professor Ian Hickie, at Sydney University’s Brain and Mind Research Institute, really does want legal alcohol drinking ages raised to 21 — on the basis of research showing that young people’s brains are particularly susceptible to alcohol damage.

Also the US experience, which provides further evidence –- in those states which have raised their drinking age to 21, accidents and violence involving youths having fallen . . . .

* * *

Both sides of Australian politics are carefully testing the water. Could it be that winning the next election is almost as important to both of them as is doing the right thing — i.e. preventing teenage deaths?

* * *

Once again, the Church isn’t much help.

Two generations ago, when young Catholics celebrated their Confirmation, they were encouraged to sign an undertaking not to drink before turning 21. Many adhered to that promise.

Will that excellent practice ever be re-introduced?

Or would Church leaders need to “test the water” too – so as not to offend anybody – pretty much like a bunch of politicians?

.