A few years ago, a study by Swedish scientists suggested that regular use of a mobile phone for 10 years or more can lead to increased rates of acoustic neuroma (a kind of brain tumour).

Since then, an Australian neurosurgeon, Dr Khurana, wrote in the non-scientific media (IndependentOnline) about an alleged “increasing body of evidence … for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumours”.

He said it “is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking”.

But the more recently-published 13-nation INTERPHONE project, the largest-ever study of its kind, has NOT found a solid link between mobiles and brain tumours.

For the present moment, we ordinary people simply don’t know the health implications of mobile phone use . . . .

* * *

There are, however, other issues relating to mobiles that we do know:

(1) Most mobile phone conversations that you hear or overhear are merely killing time — largely gossip and trivia. When people aren’t busy, they’ve developed the habit of reaching for the phone and talking to somebody, anybody – even if they have nothing to say that needs saying.

(2) Phone talk has become a way of avoiding silence and solitude. We fear being alone with our thoughts without a mobile to protect us.

(3) Least of all do we want to be conscious of being alone with God . . . .

* * *

Yet true religion teaches that we NEED time alone with God.

We should force ourselves set aside such times. Just turn the thing off — if somebody is looking for you, he/she can leave a message.

Are you really so important and indispensible that the world cannot manage without you for, say, fifteen minutes?

* * *

We need to take control of our technology. Not vice versa.

Modern people tend to be like the man whose dog takes him for a walk.

Turn the tables. Take charge of your life — at least for long enough to hand it over to God and let him take charge of it.

Do not hand your life over to addictive, soul-enfeebling electronic contraptions.

A survey published in early April 2010 showed that a quarter of Germany’s Catholics were considering leaving the Church following media reports of sexual abuse by priests.

Are not these people traitors, turncoats and pikers?

They know — and the Church’s enemies in the media who report these things know — that abusing children is not part of the Catholic Faith.

They also know — and their enemies know – that, compared with other occupational groups, sex abuse by priests is, in fact, relatively uncommon.

Children are, and have always been, safer with priests than with the celebrities of the worlds of media , fashion, sport, entertainment, politics etc.

And certainly safer than with Mummy’s latest boyfriend.

* * *

So why are these Catholics quitting?

Was their commitment to Catholic belief and practice already wobbly?

Were they waiting for an excuse to bail out anyway?

With the Church under pressure of accusations – some unfortunately true – should not its members redouble their commitment to the Church?

Dear troubled Catholic, the Church needs you now, more than ever.

Stay in the Church. Help to make it better and more faithful. Pray more. Live better and more pure yourself.

Insist on the facts when you hear the Church accused of being supposedly the worst community group regarding child abuse.

If you aren’t sure of the facts, check this blog, dated 13 April 2006 (www.marymackillop.org/2010/04/13)

Or www.zenit.org/article-3922?l=english

* * *

The media, responsible for saturating our children’s minds with sex served up as entertainment and as an advertising ploy, making sexual sin seem trendy, seeks to distract us . . . .

To distract us from their never-ending sociopathic, neo-pornographic excesses, day in, day out, for decades . . . .

They want the Catholic Church exterminated — it being their last remaining source of criticism for their dishonesties, impurities and hypocrisies.

Let’s stick together and unmask them.

Tip-toeing away from of the Church will help nobody.

Thank God for the good the Church has done, is doing, and will still be doing when its critics have all gone to their reward.

Last night a bloke was talking on ABC radio about religion and science.

He said something like: “I am not against religion because it turns people into terrorists, but because it makes them stupid.”

He stopped then until the audience realised that he thought he had been clever and wanted to be clapped.

They clapped.

I can’t give you the exact details, but it doesn’t matter.

Tune into the ABC yourself — radio or TV or online — any night. There is practically always somebody of celebrity status trotting out some lines about how religion is for losers.

* * *

David Coppedge was an information technology specialist and administrator on NASA’s Cassini mission to Saturn, the most ambitious interplanetary exploration ever launched.

That was until his employers demoted him for allegedly “pushing religion” by loaning interested co-workers two DVDs supportive of Intelligent Design.

Mr Coppedge is suing them.

“For the offense of offering videos to colleagues, Coppedge faced harassment, an investigation cloaked in secrecy, and a virtual gag order on his discussion of Intelligent Design,” said his attorney, Casey Luskin.

(The  supervisors who disciplined him have admitted never having received any complaints regarding Mr Coppedge’s conversations about Intelligent Design.)

“Intelligent design is not religion.” Mr Luskin said, “Nothing in the DVDs that Coppedge shared, deals with religion. Even if they had done, it’s unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee, based on what they deem to be religion.”

* * *

Mr Coppedge’s case is one of many.

Anyone who thinks that today’s culture of science allows open discussion of evolution etc., is badly mistaken.

Australian Communications Minister, Mr Stephen Conroy, has been named “Internet Villain of the Year” by Britain’s internet industry.

Why?

The Australian federal government plans legislation to force Internet Service Providers to block websites carrying illegal and offensive material.

This has raised shrill complaints from internet and software companies and “free speech” advocates — some claiming that Australia will soon resemble repressive regimes, China and Iran.

About one third of the blacklisted sites will be child pornography.

The rest will include sites promoting euthanasia practices, recreational drug use, recruitment of  young homosexuals, the views of terrorist organisations etc.

* * *

Many people, of course, support such a policy.

Last week, Mexican bishop, Felipe Arizmendi, spoke about how the pervasiveness of erotic material makes celibacy difficult.

“If on television and the internet and so many media outlets there is pornography, it is very difficult to stay pure and chaste,” he said.

It is important that everybody – especially priests – be careful what they watch.

A helpful self-test is to ask yourself whether you could comfortably watch this film or television show, with the Mother of Jesus sitting beside you.

The Catholic Church obviously has much soul-searching to do.

Its enemies are, however, mistaken in attempting to destroy the Church.

* * *

The world needs the Church.

To be honest, only belief in God offers sufficient motive to raise us above our worst instincts.

The Church has always known and taught this.

Every day, every Catholic priest must say his Breviary prayers. These includes Psalms (all 150 of them over the course of a week) divided up into eight sets of prayers each day: Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline.  His day also includes times of spiritual reading, silent mental prayer, the Rosary, the Angelus three times a day – plus the Mass of the day.

This all takes about four hours per day. These devotions should so fill one’s mind with God’s presence that impure thoughts are literally pushed out of one’s head.

* * *

Non-priests should do similar devotions. We could all manage an hour. Do not lie to yourself.

The rest of the world should support and applaud the Church for such marvellous traditions — and encourage it to prosper in spreading the message of the gospels and its sacraments.

On Good Friday, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, the Pope’s “official preacher”, quoted a letter from a Jewish friend:

”The stereotyping, the transfer of personal responsibility and blame to a collective blame reminds me of the most shameful aspects of anti-Semitism. I have followed with disgust the violent attack … against Church and Pope . . . .”

The media didn’t like that – and are claiming that two-thirds of Americans say the Pope has handled charges of abuse by priests poorly.

The human race has handled child abuse poorly, that is for sure.

Trying to demonise the Church may not be helping.

* * *

Is it honest to say the Church is the worst offender in this matter? Or are such suggestions lies?

Who knows?

Well, anybody who wants to know, can know.

A study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, found that from 1950 to 2002 about 4.1 percent of American priests (4,392 of 109,000) were accused of having sexual relations with minors. Just 0.1 percent (one in 1000) were convicted.

In the same period, 60 times as many gym teachers and junior sporting team coaches were convicted of such crimes.

A 2004 study, headed by Professor Charol Shakeshaft of Hofstra University, New York, reported the rate of sexual abuse of students by teachers in schools being over 100 times that of priests. (U.S. Department of Education, Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature, Washington, D.C., 2004)

* * *

Headlines saying “it involves the Pope” refer to an episode in the Archdiocese of Munich, where the Pope was Archbishop in 1980. The court decided, among other things, that the decision to accept the accused priest into the Archdiocese had not been taken by Cardinal Ratzinger.

Why should a German newspaper suddenly give its front page to a court case settled 20-odd years ago?

At present, political decisions are being made about the abortion pill, euthanasia, and recognising same-sex unions — only the Pope and his Church are speaking out to defend the sacredness of human life and the normal family.

The anti-life, anti-family, media-owning, wealthy, power-mongers are determined that any who stand in their way shall be discredited.

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.”