Pope still has pulling power
over irreligious Aussies

By Greg Ansley
NZHerald.com
5:00AM Tuesday July 08, 2008

The Pope is expected to draw a crowd of 400,000 in Sydney.

CANBERRA - They may be one of the most irreligious mobs in the world, but Australians are preparing to greet Pope Benedict XVI by the tens of thousands next week.

Travelling by helicopter and Popemobile after a three-day break at a private retreat run by Catholic organisation Opus Dei on the northwestern fringes of Sydney, the Pope will lead a massive week-long celebration of youth in the city.

With more than 120,000 foreign "pilgrims" joining at least 100,000 Australians, World Youth Day will be the nation's biggest event.

Among the crowds will be 4000 New Zealanders, including Clare Dooley, director of the Catholic Youth Ministry in Christchurch, who will be among a group of young people selected to join the Pope for lunch.

And even with a new survey showing Australia as the fourth most godless nation on Earth after Russia, France, Germany and Britain, as many as 500,000 are expected to jam the Pope's closing Mass at Randwick, an icon of another great Australian religion - horse racing.

"Christianity and Catholicism in Australia are not blossoming, but equally are not in danger of losing their core roots," foundation religious project leader Martin Rieger said.

In fact, while Christianity as a whole took a 4 per cent hit between 2001 and the last census in 2006, Catholicism cemented its place as the largest single denomination of any faith by increasing its numbers by 2.5 per cent to more than 5 million. World Youth Day, launched by Pope John Paul II in Rome in 1986, has been held every two or three years in countries around the globe but never in such a remote, or numerically small, outpost of Catholicism.

The Federal and New South Wales governments have earmarked A$160 million ($200 million) for the event, much of it for security, but also including complex traffic, transport and other arrangements, and for work on the venues.

Organisers have also been embroiled in financial tiffs with the state government, endured protests by affected residents and braced themselves for wider anger over massive traffic disruption, including the closure of the Harbour Bridge to allow a mass walk across it.

The leading anti-papal alliance, NoToPope, has recently gained broader support from civil libertarians after the state Government passed special laws allowing the arrest of anyone "annoying" pilgrims.

And yesterday the NSW Rail, Tram and Bus Union announced a 24-hour strike for Thursday next week, when as many as 400,000 pilgrims and Sydneysiders are expected to pack the central business district for the Pope's motorcade. The strike has nothing to do with World Youth Day or the Pope, instead protesting a 2.5 per cent cap on public service pay increases, but has been timed for maximum effect.

But World Youth Day is expected to rise above the furore.

Sydney Cardinal George Pell told ABC radio polling had shown that Sydneysiders and Australians in general were overwhelmingly in favour of the event, with only about 10 per cent strongly opposed.

Pell also indicated that one of the highlights could be an apology by the Pope for sexual abuse suffered at the hands of the church. "He handled [an apology] very well in the United States and I anticipate he'll do the same here."

Key events are already under way.

The 15-day walk of the 3.8m World Youth Day Cross, Icon of Our Lady and an indigenous message stick continues this week through Sydney. The remains of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati are resting at St Benedict's Church at Notre Dame University. On Thursday the coffin will be moved to St Mary's Cathedral.

Throughout Sydney, the celebration will include more than 450 free concerts, art exhibitions and forums, with public debates on subjects ranging from creation, sex, human trafficking and mental health to the environment and women's issues. National and ethnic groups will also hold their own gatherings, with a New Zealand meeting on Wednesday next week.

'Show Pope respect', Rudd tells rail workers

ABC News
July 8, 2008

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has called on rail workers threatening to strike on Sydney's busiest day of the World Youth Day event to show respect for the Pope.

Rail workers plan to strike for 24 hours next Thursday, when hundreds of thousands of pilgrims are expected to welcome the Pope to Sydney's CBD.

Up to 750,000 Sydneysiders and pilgrims could be stranded when Pope Benedict arrives at Barangaroo by what organisers call a papal "boatacade" before touring the city.

Transport preparations for the influx of pilgrims began 18 months ago but the New South Wales Government has no contingency plans to deal with the action.

Many roads in the city will be closed for the event and organisers were counting on the rail system to carry the extra load.

RailCorp could ordinarily muster hundreds of buses to compensate for a rail strike but they are already being used for the religious event.

Mr Rudd says the Rail, Tram and Bus Union should remember Pope Benedict is a welcome guest.

"Australia is honoured to have the Holy Father with us," he said. "All of Australia, including those in this particular union, I believe should treat him with respect."

'We could use WorkChoices'
Rail workers are angry at the Government's 2.5 per cent capped pay rise offer, which they say is far below the level of inflation.

NSW Transport Minister John Watkins has today asked the Industrial Relations Commission to use federal laws to terminate the bargaining period, thus preventing the Rail, Tram and Bus Union's first strike in nine years.

Mr Watkins says he is also prepared to use the Howard government's WorkChoices legislation to stop the action, which Premier Morris Iemma yesterday branded "industrial terror tactics".

"What the commission can do is rub out any industrial action next Thursday," he said.

"We would expect that if we can't negotiate an outcome today, that is exactly what the Industrial Relations Commission can do.

"We will use the industrial powers that are available to us. That is what the travelling public would expect us to do."

The matter will be heard on Thursday but Rail, Tram and Bus Union secretary Nick Lewocki says a meeting underway with Mr Watkins could resolve the issue.

"What we're hoping that'll do is move these negotiations forward so the industrial action can be avoided," he said.

Mr Lewocki has shrugged off claims the unions are acting as industrial terrorists, saying rail workers are genuinely concerned the pay offer by the Government will see hundreds of jobs lost and services affected.

Special powers
NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell says the Government could enact essential services legislation, under which striking workers would be fined.

"The essential services legislation was put in place precisely to stop this sort of action occurring where the public is being held to ransom," he said.

Mr Watkins says he is seeking advice on the status of those powers but he is resting his hopes on a negotiated truce.

"The rail unions have made their point. They've got some publicity about their concerns over the industrial negotiations that have been ongoing," he said.

"I would now appeal to them to drop this crazy threat and get back to the negotiating table where this matter was always going to be resolved."

Replacement events
One of a group of 60 Catholic pilgrims who will travel from Melbourne to Sydney to attend World Youth Day says the planned action will cause a significant disruption.

The president of the Catholic Secondary Principals Association, Vin Feeney, says the group of colleagues and students will be staying in Engadine, in southern Sydney, and had planned to travel to the events by train.

Mr Feeney has told ABC Radio's AM program contingency arrangements will have to be considered if the rail strike goes ahead.

"It may be that there will be other events which will be organised on a more localised basis so that walking was the way that people were able to get around on that day," he said.

"That wouldn't be unusual for pilgrims. As you know, historically, pilgrimages were often taken by foot, so maybe we'll be reverting to the historical form of pilgrimage."

Sorry, I should have cross-posted this yesterday after I posted in NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT:


Pope to express regret in Australia



SYDNEY, Australia, July 7 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI will likely express regret for sexual abuse committed by Roman Catholic clergy when he visits Australia next week, the church's senior cleric in the country said Monday.



Left, Cardinal Pell. Right,Jose Respall who says he was fondled by a priest when he was 11. The priest, a Marist, is now in jail
according to the photocaption, which does not state if he was jailed for the offense against Respall and/or other offenses.

Cardinal George Pell said the Pope spoke about the church's sex abuse scandal during a visit to the United States earlier this year and he was likely to do something similar when he is in Sydney for the July 15-20 World Youth Day festival.

"He handled it very well in the United States and I anticipate he'll do the same here," Pell told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Support groups for victims of church abuse in Australia — whose numbers are not known but who activists say are in the thousands — have demanded the Pope make a full and open apology for clergy abuse and do more to compensate victims and prevent future abuse.

"The apology is necessary but the apology must come with action," said Chris MacIsaac, a spokeswoman for Broken Rites, a support group for Australian victims of clergy abuse.

During a six-day visit to the U.S. in April, Benedict returned to the issue repeatedly in public comments and met with a group of abuse victims.

He called the crisis a cause of "deep shame," pledged to keep pedophiles out of the priesthood, and decried the "enormous pain" that communities have suffered from such "gravely immoral behavior" by priests. He also said the problem had sometimes been "badly handled" by the church.

Clergy sex abuse, some of it dating back a half-century, surfaced in high-profile cases during the past couple of decades and has become a public issue in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia and elsewhere.

Benedict is scheduled to lead prayers and make speeches during World Youth Day, a five-day festival in Australia expected to draw 250,000 pilgrims to Sydney. He is also scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and other top government officials, as well as representatives of pilgrims and other faiths. No meeting with abuse victims is on his official schedule.


Pope likely to apologise
in Australia for abuse,
says Cardinal Pell



SYDNEY, July 6 (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI is expected to apologise to victims of sexual abuse by clergy when he visits Australia for World Youth Day next week, the leader of the country's Catholics said Monday.

Cardinal George Pell said the Pope had expressed shame and regret over the scandal of paedophile priests during his visit to the United States earlier this year and it was likely he would do the same in Australia.

"He handled it very well in the United States and I anticipate he'll do the same here," Pell told public radio.

Australian bishops issued an apology for sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in 2002, and Pell has said papal comments on the issue would be "a welcome contribution."

"We're not proud," he said last month. "We faced up to it, I think pretty well for quite some time now, and I think it would be appropriate for the Pope to say something on that score."

Benedict is due to arrive in Australia on Sunday and take three days vacation before his official welcome to Sydney at a harbourside ceremony for the start of World Youth Day celebrations.

Hundreds of thousands of foreign and local Catholics are expected to attend the six-day event, which will conclude on July 20 with a papal mass.

The cost to taxpayers and disruption of normal life in Sydney have led to complaints about the celebrations, but Pell said they were supported by the vast majority of residents.

"We've had access to polling and it said overwhelmingly Australians and Sydneysiders were in favour of World Youth Day.

"Only about 10 or 11 percent felt that they were strongly opposed."

Pell also dismissed concerns expressed by civil rights groups about special powers enabling police to arrest anyone deemed to be "causing annoyance" to pilgrims.

"We've asked for no extra rules or regulations, it's a complete storm in a tea cup," he said.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

There is an obvious element of gleeful 'sadism'- which is never healthy - in the demands made in Australia (and lately, Canada) for Pope Benedict XVI to make a personal apology for the sexual offenses that have been committed by Roman Catholic priests.

I don't believe the intention by the militants is the apology per se, but the fact that they can delude themselves they have been able to 'pressure' the Pope into making an apology - as though doing so were a way to humiliate him and thus, get back at the Church in a way. And in the process, grab the headlines, which the Australian media are only too ready and willing to give them at the expense of WYD coverage itself.

It's very much like Jews, Muslims, indigenous South Americans, etc., who have been mistreated, abused or victims of violence by the Catholic clergy or in the name of the Catholic religion in the past - who want the Church and the Pope to be perpetually in sackcloth and ashes and perennially beating their breasts and begging apology about such past sins.

Well, the Pope is above and beyond all such petty and malicious considerations, and he will say what he has to say - as he always has - because he must say something and wants to say it, not because he is pressured into doing so. He will always do what is right, dutiful, honorable, charitable and just - he will always act Christian.

I feel sorry that someone like Cardinal Pell has been pressured into the position he is in. Perhaps the Australian clergy themselves should be doing more to diffuse the anger by the victims and the groups who stoke that anger, and who are making the Pope the literal scapegoat for offenses committed by the Australian clergy.

But Cardinal Pell might have done better at the news conference if he had also made a clear statement about the militants' charges that the abuses in Australia amount to tens of thousands of cases because they include supposedly widespread abuses that has taken place at Catholic schools and institutions in Australia since forever! As if the Catholic school system has only brought abuse and not done an iota of good for Australian society!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Rail workers will strike
during Pope's visit
By Krissie Vitasa



SYDNEY, July 7 (Bloomberg) - Rail workers will hold a 24-hour strike July 17, the day Pope Benedict XVI drives through Sydney as part of celebrations for World Youth Day, the Australian newspaper reported.

The New South Wales state branch of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) lodged an application today to carry out the stoppage that may cause commuter chaos, the newspaper reported. The labor union is in the middle of a wage dispute with the state government.

"This is not a decision taken lightly," the Australian cited Nick Lewocki, the union's New South Wales secretary, as saying. `"It is one that shows the depth of anger and desperation our members feel."

World Youth Day is billed as the largest youth event in the world and organizers say it will attract more overseas visitors to Sydney than the 2000 Olympic Games.

The state government has advised commuters to leave their cars at home during the weeklong celebrations to reduce traffic in the city center by 30 percent.

The sex abuse focus in the Australian media has taken a nasty turn virtually on the eve of the Pope's arrival, this time involving the head of the Australian Church no less. It's the sort of embarassment that will keep the media and anti-Church elements salivating in Schadenfreude and stoking fires that may well rob WYD and the Pope's visit of luster and the proper attention they deserve.


Cardinal Pell denies charges
that he covered up for two
offending priests
by Madeleine Coorey







SYDNEY, July 8 (AFP) - The leader of the Catholic church in Australia Tuesday denied trying to cover up allegations of sex abuse against a priest, just days before Pope Benedict XVI is due to visit for World Youth Day.

Sydney Archbishop Cardinal George Pell acknowledged the latest scandal was an embarrassment ahead of the Pope's trip, during which the Pontiff is expected to apologise to victims of predatory priests.

But Pell defended his actions over sex abuse allegations against Father Terence Goodall, which he said had been investigated by the Church and police and had resulted in the priest being stood down.

"There was no attempt at a cover-up," he said. "Both sets of allegations against Father Goodall were carried to their conclusions."

The cardinal admitted, however, that a letter he wrote to Anthony Jones, who had accused Goodall of sexual abuse after a swimming session some 20 years earlier, was "badly worded and a mistake."

In the 2003 letter, obtained by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Pell told Jones an internal report did not support his accusation of attempted aggravated sexual assault.

But the internal report, compiled by layman Howard Murray, had in fact accepted all Jones's allegations. Pell also told Jones there were no other complaints against Goodall.

But in another letter obtained by the ABC and dated the same day, Pell told a second man he accepted his claim that he had been indecently assaulted by Goodall as an altar boy when he was 10 or 11.

"My letter to Mr. Jones was badly worded and a mistake," Pell said.

"I was attempting to inform him that there was no other allegation of rape and I overstated my agreement with Murray, who found all allegations sustained."

Pell said he would not step aside, adding that he hoped the case would not be an issue by the time the Pope arrives in Sydney on Sunday ahead of a global celebration of Catholic youth.

Pell, who pioneered protocols to deal with sexual abuse by the clergy in Australia, agreed that the timing of the case was embarrassing.

"Yes, it is of course," he said.

The issue of sex abuse by priests has dogged the Catholic Church for years and led to Pope Benedict XVI making a historic apology for the actions of child-abusing clergy during a visit to the United States in April.

The Pope is under pressure to apologise for similar actions within the Australian branch of the church during his July 13-21 visit to Sydney.

But Anthony Jones, now 54 and living on a disability pension, said a papal apology would be meaningless.

"What's the point of an apology when the senior ranking titled cleric in the Catholic church of Australia is still covering up sex abuse," he said.

"I believe Cardinal Pell should resign."

Broken Rites, a support group for victims of church-related sexual abuse, says that 107 Catholic priests and religious brothers have been sentenced in Australian courts on sex charges.

But it believes many more cases have gone unreported or have never made it to court because the victims have taken their complaints to the church instead of the police.



Church sex abuse row
ahead of Pope's Sydney visit
By Michael Perry





SYDNEY, July 7 (Reuters) - The head of the Catholic Church in Australia was embroiled in a sexual abuse controversy on Tuesday, only days before Pope Benedict arrives in Sydney for a visit that could see abuse victims staging protests.

Cardinal George Pell denied he misled a man complaining of sexual abuse by a Sydney priest when he wrote him a letter in 2003 saying his abuse claim was rejected because there were no other complaints against the same priest.

Australian television reported that Pell wrote another letter on the same day to a different man saying his claim of sexual abuse by the same priest was upheld.

"Cardinal Pell misrepresented the truth. It destroyed my faith," Anthony Jones told Australian Broadcasting Corp's (ABC) "Lateline" program on Monday night.

"He had to know that there was other complaints because he wrote to the man who as an 11-year-old boy was assaulted by Father Goodall on the same day," said Jones.

"I now hate Catholicism because of what Cardinal Pell has done to me, more so than what Father Goodall did to me."

Catholic priest Terence Goodall was convicted in 2005 of indecently assaulting Jones in 1982.

Victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests and brothers in Australia are calling on Pope Benedict to apologize when he arrives in Sydney on Sunday for World Youth Day, July 15-20.

The Pope confronted the issue of sexual abuse in the church during a visit to Washington in April, meeting victims and vowing to keep pedophiles out of the priesthood.

Broken Rites, which represents abuse victims in Australia, has a list of 107 convictions for church abuse, but says the real number of cases is far greater as only a handful go to court.

Pell said in a statement on Tuesday that "there was no attempt at a cover-up" in dealing with Jones' abuse case.

"I apologize for the confusion caused to Mr Jones," he said. "The letter to Mr Jones was badly worded and a mistake -- an attempt to inform him there was no other allegation of rape."

The letter to Jones said: "...as no other complaint of attempted sexual assault has been received against Father Goodall and he categorically denies the allegation ... the complaint of attempted aggravated sexual assault cannot be considered to have been substantiated."

The letter to the other man, who said he was assaulted by Goodall when he was an altar boy, said his complaints were found to be substantiated.

President of Broken Rites, Chris McIsaac, said the Catholic Church system of reviewing allegations of sexual abuse was internal and had no transparency.

"We have complaints all the time about the Church's process. But this case shows the great weakness of the process," McIsaac told ABC television.

"It's left to each individual bishop or church authority to deal with the matters, and their decision is the end of the line for victims," she said. "Broken Rites always advises people if it's possible, go through the criminal process first."

Abuse victims have called on the Pope to not only apologize but to introduce a regime in which the church confronts the issue publicly, raising it in Sunday Masses, and being accountable.

"We're asking for a papal apology that's absolutely meaningful, meaningful with further action, that will bring processes into play that allow for transparency," said McIsaac. "Somewhere where there's an overriding body that can control things, rather than the bishops making individual decisions."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Cardinal Pell appears to have made at least two errors - first, the letter he wrote that tends to reinforce the belief about the Catholic clergy's mindset regarding priestly sex offenses as late as 2003 (i.e., to seek to underplay the charges in ways that look suspiciously like covering up); and two, not having anticipated that his 2003 letter and/or the Goodall case would come to light and acting to co-opt it by coming out with it himself, instead of being forced to a news conference denial because Australian TV obtained a copy of his unfortunate letter.

It's especially embarassing because he held a news conference just the day before during which he spoke about the sex-abuse problem and expressed the hope the Pope would make a public apology in behalf of the Church (and presumably, the Australian clergy). In hindsight, it now looks - even if I am sure this was not his intention at all - like he was cavalierly and unfairly placing the onus on the Pope.

I had wondered whether the Australian clergy had done enough themselves to quiet down the outrage [though we know such outrage can be and is often relentless and unforgiving) among the vicitms and their militant advocates. Apparently not enough - and the disclosure of Pell's own 'badly written...mistake' of a letter appears to bolster the case for dissident Bishop Robinson who was censured by the Australian bishops for writing a book detailing his disillusion with what he deemed as the failure of the Australian Church to confront the sex scandal about priests appropriately and adequately.

When someone like Cardinal Pell - whose positions on Catholic doctrine as well as secular matters like global wearming have always seemed very intelligent and far above the regular run - finds himself in this kind of hot water, one shudders to think how many more such 'badly written mistakes' and similar serious misjudgments by less-endowed clergy remain to be disclosed!

While I am sure the cardinal will be doing everything he can to straighten things out behind the scenes, there is nothing he can do about the unfortunate timing. The nightmare won't go away in time for WYD and the Pope's visit - it will only get more horrifying!

More than ever, let us pray for the Pope, the Church, Cardinal Pell and the Australian clergy, the victims and offenders, WYD and the young people who do not deserve to have something as nasty as this cast a pall on their celebration of faith.

Posted earlier in NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT -


On a happier note...


Inside the Pope's Aussie bush retreat
By Vikki Campion




July 09, 2008
[It already is July 9 in Australia]



SURROUNDED by yellow and white roses and dining on "good Aussie tucker" - with Italian and German influences - Pope Benedict XVI will start his Australian experience in a bush retreat on the outskirts of Sydney.



The Catholic leader, who arrives in Richmond on Sunday, will later travel to the Opus Dei-run Kenthurst Study Centre, in the city's northwest.

On arrival at the facility, about an hour out of Sydney, he will enter a brick chapel foyer adorned only with a large portrait of himself.

Set on 10 hectares of native bushland, the retreat will provide an ideal place for the 81-year-old church leader to contemplate the lead-up to World Youth Day, which runs from July 15 to 20 and will see crowds of up to 500,000 gather in the city.

The Kenthurst centre normally hosts people on professional development courses or spiritual retreats but yesterday the staff were busy finalising preparations for their famous guest.

Three live-in chefs will cook his meals, and a gardener will pluck fresh native flowers from the of surrounding bushland and place them in a vase beside his bed.

White and yellow roses, the Vatican colours, will be put inside the chapel, which is tucked 100m away from the main house down a stone path among native Australian forest.

The holy room, adorned with a photograph of the Pope, is where he is expected to perform Mass for an hour each day. Through its stained glass windows, the Pontiff will see rosellas and honeyeaters suck nectar from banksia flowers.

And from the balcony, he will find a natural haven with kangaroos, wallabies and frill-necked lizards foraging through the forest.

While the main house was closed for security reasons yesterday, glimpses of the interior revealed a courtyard featuring a large fountain, a lounge room with plush floral sofas seated around a fireplace to warm him in the chilly Kenthurst evenings, and a patio where he can relax around hot pink camellia blooms.

He and his entourage of 12 others, will eat their meals, from a German, Italian and Australian menu, in a communal dining room underneath a dark wood chandelier. "He will have a choice but he will get some good Aussie tucker, there will be some steaks on the menu," Opus Dei spokesman Richard Vella said.

The Pope, a talented musician, will also be able to play a baby grand piano in a room decorated with paintings of Australian landscapes.

His room, while comfortable, will not be opulent - there will be no television - but there will be a bed, desk, sofa and small heater.

Opus Dei spokeswoman Bernie Quinn, 26, said the estate would be an ideal place for the Pope to recover from his international flight.

"This is where he will rest for three days after his plane trip, it is homely and comfortable here," she said.

"His room will have a desk to prepare his sermons. And he can read books or relax."



and MORE HAPPY NEWS! GOD PROVIDES...
Sydney transport strike called off




July 9, 2008


Industrial action that threatened to cripple Sydney during World Youth Day
celebrations appears to be averted in 11th hour talks between the State Government
and Rail boss Nick Lewocki.


A PLANNED train strike in the middle of World Youth Day celebrations has officially been averted after eleventh hour talks between the Government and unions.

The Rail Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) has withdrawn the threat of strike action, which had been set down for July 17, the day Pope Benedict XVI will tour Sydney.

The RTBU instead will enter pay negotiations with RailCorp tomorrow at 9am (AEST) and will continue until an agreement is reached.

Unions NSW secretary John Robertson said he and Transport Minister John Watkins would intervene if talks broke down again.

"The unions have made a decision to withdraw the proposed industrial action during World Youth Day next week and none of that action will proceed,'' Mr Robertson told reporters.

"This has been a win for rail workers and a win for commuters.''

The union wants a five per cent pay increase, while the government has offered four per cent as long as savings can be made elsewhere.

Mr Watkins said the issue of 417 job cuts had been taken off the negotiating table, and any pay increase above the government's 2.5 per cent cap would come from other savings.

Posted earlier in NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT:

I suppose this will be the first of such editorials 'greeting' the Pope to Australia. It's the secular world jumping on the bandwagon to 'show up' the Church on such a very public occasion with the eyes of the world on Sydney. Like the Holy Father, we can only take it all in Christian charity and sense of justice.


Confronting their shame
Editorial

July 09, 2008


POPE Benedict XVI arrives in Australia on Sunday to start his week-long visit for World Youth Day, but this celebration of youth must carry with it an apology.

The Pope must express the church's deepest regret to the young people abused by the Catholic clergy in Australia.

Cardinal George Pell, the head of the Catholic Church in Australia, says the Pope is likely to offer an apology similar to the one he made to victims of abuse in the United States earlier this year.

The Pope had "handled" the apology well in the US, said Cardinal Pell, who became Archbishop of Sydney after serving as Melbourne's Catholic Archbishop.

However, the same can't be said of Cardinal Pell's own dealings with victims of sexual abuse in Australia. To say he "mishandled" the matter of conflicting letters to two of these victims would be a better description.

Cardinal Pell has added to the concern over his actions with a confused explanation. He says a letter he wrote was "badly worded and a mistake."

While an apology from the Pope is long overdue, Cardinal Pell has failed to set matters to rest in his own archdiocese.

And it is not only Catholic clergy who have abused those in their care. One of those calling for an apology from the Pope is the Anglican Primate in Australia.

Archbishop Phillip Aspinall apologised on behalf of his church to a woman who was abused as a teenager by an Anglican priest.

This led to the resignation of Archbishop Peter Hollingworth as governor-general of Australia after he suggested the young victim was also to blame.

But now it is the Pope's turn to ask forgiveness and for Cardinal Pell to join him.

======================================================================


We can be sure Benedict XVI will know exactly what to say and how to say it.

BENEDICTUS QUI VENIT IN NOMINE DOMINI!

Posted earlier in NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT:



The Vatican Office of Papal Liturgical Celebrations has now posted the 194-page Missal describing all liturgies and religious ceremonies to be presided by the Holy Father in Sydney. It can be printed out in PDF from
www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/libretti/2008/messale_Austr...
As Australia is an English-speaking country, it is released in English only (like the Missal for the US visit).

Very remarkable is the unusual cover for the Missal, in Benedict's own handwriting!

First, let's get the incidentals 'out of the way' -

The news agencies - and I am sure, the Australian papers - focus their WYD coverage today on demonstrations by anti-Pope elements, complete with pictures of their anti-Pope T-shirts..

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080709/ap_on_re_au_an/australia_pope_annoying_protest_2;_ylt=AtMXbe82dwPZZlFpOiZy...

news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080709/wl_asia_afp/australiavaticanpopefashionprotest_080709060819;_ylt=AnPsjI8BzBQDOAdRTYTS...


Meanwhile, there's this item. Why don't ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corp - a state- and public-supported organization that is just as ideologically biased as its 'model' the BBC - and these protesting lawyers first look up existing laws and then protest, given that both the government as well as WYD organizers have pointed out that no new laws have been passed, but simply a reference to at lweast 15 existing statues that govern ways of protesting.


Australian group queries
police powers for Pope visit,
ABC Says
By Krissie Vitasa

July 9 (Bloomberg) -- A law services group in New South Wales state wants an inquiry into expanded police powers during Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Sydney next week, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

The Combined Community Legal Center Group said police powers have been introduced without adequate debate and safeguards, the ABC reported. The powers may be used inappropriately during the July 15-20 event marking World Youth Day, it added.

The state government last week said police will have the power to fine protesters more than $5,000 if they annoy or inconvenience Catholic pilgrims during the event.

The government's move ``kind of crept up on us,'' ABC cited Shirley Southgate, principal solicitor from the Kingsford Legal Center, as saying today. It represents a ``stealthy derogation of these rights and freedoms'' and the interpretation of such powers isn't clear, she said.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Now, to stories that matter:

WYD a family affair
for the Macphersons
by DOMINIQUE KANE



Morpeth's large Macpherson family is looking forward to World Youth Day with great anticipation.

Eight of Jeanne and Collin Macpherson's children, their son-in-law and two grandchildren will attend events in Sydney to celebrate the visit by Pope Benedict XVI.

The family will also host four pilgrims from Columbia while their daughter Caitlin Paton is helping organise accommodation for other pilgrims.



Caitlin, 26, and her siblings Siubhan, 24, Cameron, 21, Ewen, 17, Elspeth, 15, Ailis, 13, Calum, 11, and seven-year-old Eadana will travel to Sydney to be a part of the global event.

Travelling with Caitlin will be her husband, Ben, and their children, Angus, 5, and Anna, 2.

The events for World Youth Day run from Tuesday, July 15, to Sunday, July 20.

Key events include an evening vigil with the Pope on Saturday, July 19, and a mass on World Youth Day, July 20.

"I think it will be really cool to meet people from all over the world who are about our age," Elspeth said.

"It will be really exciting," Ailis agreed.

"I think the best part will be getting to see the Pope and maybe even meeting him," Calum said.

Elspeth and Ailis are looking forward to the evening vigil with the Pope on the Saturday, after which the pilgrims sleep under the stars.

"It will be like one big party. I expect it will be really cold," Elspeth said.

"For a lot of people it will be the first time they've had the chance to see the head of the Catholic Church in person.

"It's such a profound thing to see him and attend a mass that he will be presiding over.

"I think it will be such an exciting experience for both young and old; even if it is called World Youth Day, it's something so many people can get a lot out of," Cameron said.

The Macphersons will drive to Sydney, then use public transport to get around.

Non-plussed by predictions of chaotic traffic within the city, Cameron said: "It's not supposed to be a cushy, comfortable ride.

"It's more of an experience to be out there jammed in with other like-minded people."

Opus Dei in Australia has now released some undated photos of the Kenthurst Study Centre through Getty Images.














But one still has a better sense of the place if one goes through the AdobeFlash presentation of 'Facilities' on the Kenthurst site
www.kenthurststudycentre.org.au/

Elizabeth Stafford, one of our very active young parishioners, left yesterday to meet others from the diocese in Gloucester. From there they went to Heathrow and took off for Sydney. Elizabeth will be going to Melbourne for a few days, as she is one of the organisers and youth workers. She is over thirty now, but she has been to all the WYDs.
Please pray for her. I've included her in our Prayers of the Faithful for this coming Sunday.
Mary xxxx

There are some neat stories, photos, and videos already posted about World Youth Day on the Pope2008.com blog. It looks like a good spot for all sorts of human interest items.


July 15-20: Papal Thunder Down Under: Be There, with Pope2008.com

World Youth Day Coverage from the National Catholic Register

NORTH HAVEN, CT (JULY 9, 2008) --- The National Catholic Register's Pope2008.com site will be providing, up-to-the-second reporting of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Sydney, Australia, for World Youth Day on July 15 to 20. Those who liked the America coverage are going to love the National Catholic Register's Australia coverage.

Pope2008.com is one of very few blogs devoted to the coverage of World Youth Day. The National Catholic Register has been covering World Youth Day since 2002, and online since February, 2008. In that sense, the Register and its newly launched site, Pope 2008 (www.Pope2008.com), have been the veterans of World Youth Day coverage.

The National Catholic Register's Pope2008.com site will provide live streaming video coverage of World Youth Day as it did during the Pope's visit to the U.S. earlier in the year. This coverage is part of an agreement between the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) and the National Catholic Register. This branded video portal will allow anyone to virtually experience World Youth Day.

Tim Drake will once again serve as the lead reporter and top blogger during World Youth Day. His on-location dispatches will be augmented by tasty news bits, fun facts and insightful commentary from a team of contributing bloggers.

Every post will offer an open comments section so visitors can not only read about what's going on, but put remarks in as well.

Drake first reported from World Youth Day in Toronto, Canada, in 2002. His Young and Catholic Web blog became the go-to site during World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, in 2005.

In Cologne, the World Youth Day final mass had over 1,000,000 attendees from 200 countries. It was also joined by about 600 bishops and cardinals along with 6,600 reporters. This event is recognized around the world, as Catholic young people come together in one place making a very powerful statement of faith.

Don't miss this once in a lifetime event on Pope2008.com as the National Catholic Register covers the Papal Thunder Down Under in Sydney, Australia, for the international event of World Youth Day 2008. Be there - www.Pope2008.com.

=====================================================================

In fact, I do check them out regularly since I opened this thread, and I first posted from them on 3/22/08 (Page 1 of the thread). Since then, I've picked up a couple of items from them (always identified on this thread with their logo), but lately we have been more up to date and comprehensive. The last item I picked up from them was on 6/22/08 (Page 3 of this thread).

TERESA

While it's interesting to know where Papa will be staying to get over his jet lag, I do regret that the location was leaked to the press. I understood it was going to be kept absolutely secret. In some ways I'd have preferred not to know, for the sake of his privacy. On the other hand, I'll be saving these photos for my own archive.......ah me!!!!!

Thanks for your continued detailed reporting on WYD, Teresa!!!!

Posted earlier in NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT:

The Vicar of Christ is 'sui generis', even when he's in a 'double exposure' here: one of my favorite images from WYD 2005.

The media probably think they are being complimentary, but I find the the use of the term 'rock star' for both John Paul II and now Benedict XVI objectionable on many counts - most of all, because as with anything it touches, media often debases even precious metal into a handful of dust. So they will trivialize and banalize even the Vicar of Christ.

With that in mind, here comes the first onslaught from Sydney....



Pope Benedict: 'Rock star'
of World Youth Day in Sydney
By Michael Perry




CHRIST IS THE MESSAGE: Left, workers prepare to set up one stage for the Stations of the Cross in Sydney next week;
right, a giant photograph of Australia's own Blessed Mary McKillop is put into place at one of the WYD venues.


SYDNEY, July 10 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict arrives in Sydney on Sunday as the headline "rock star" act in the Catholic Church's World Youth Day -- its version of Woodstock, five days of peace, love and Christianity.

Already thousands of young Catholics, nuns and priests from around the world have converged on Sydney, which is treating the July 15-20 event as bigger than the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

"We are looking forward to see what God has in mind for us," said American Wayne Bolduc, as groups of pilgrims, some wearing backpacks with pictures of Jesus, explored Sydney on Thursday.


Left, the countdown clock at St. Mary's Cathedral in Sydney shows 5 days to go, as the coffin of the Blessed Piergiorgio Frassati
is brought in for veneration; right, a nun pays tribute to John Paul II outside the Cathedral.

Organizers are expecting 500,000 pilgrims, but only half that have actually registered so far.

[Misleading: Organizers projected 250,000 registrants, and they appear to have met the goal. Of course, there will be many more who will take part not necessarily as registered pilgrims! What does it say of the United States that the final Mass of the Denver WYD with John Paul II in 1993 only had 500,000 all told - the least attended of all the WYD final Masses; even Toronto in 2000 attracted 800,000. On the other hand, for Sydney to get 500,000 for the final Mass says a lot, considering how literally remote it is as a destination for cash-strapped young people!]

Police have been given extra anti-protest powers so they can arrest anyone annoying pilgrims, some 300 roads have been closed and workers have been told to take holidays or avoid the city.

Elective surgery in some hospitals has been cancelled and extra doctors rostered on in preparation for injuries. Signs warn motorists that overseas pilgrims are not used to cars on the left-hand side of the road and may step in front of traffic.

The city's main horse-racing track, site of the closing gig where hundreds of thousands will gather for a papal Mass, has been shut to racing for 10 weeks in preparation.

Organizers and local government authorities say World Youth Day will be a religious and financial windfall, with the event estimated to earn the city up to A$200 million (US$190 million).

But not everyone is happy. [Of course, there will always be party-spoilers. Every WYD has had them, but they have never managed to overshadow the event, except in the pre-publicity.]

The group "No Pope" is planning to hand out condoms in protest at Church doctrine and protest the extra police powers they say crush civil liberties.

Victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy plan to protest and call on the Pope to make apologies. There have been 107 convictions for sexual abuse in the Catholic church in Australia.

"I can't confirm or deny that he will talk about it (sexual abuse) but it would not surprise me," Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said in a papal briefing in Rome on Wednesday.

World Youth Day was the brainchild of the late Pope John Paul II who thought a festival which included not only masses and religious events like the stations of the cross, but also music and dance concerts would revitalize the world's Catholic youth.

More than 165 outdoor concerts are planned, from religious music to heavy metal, acid jazz, and rap, say organizers who tag the Pope the "rock star" attraction of World Youth Day.

There will even be an underground mass and the remains of a dead Italian saint have been flown out for pilgrims to inspect. [What an irreverent way to put it!]

For the first three days of his visit the Pope, like most rock stars, will resting before his gigs. The Vatican's Lombardi said the Pope will retreat to "recover his vital rhythms." [He happens to be 81 years old, and even 18-year-olds do not recover easily from an 18-hour plane ride and a drastic time zone shift that takes you across the International Dateline!]

Inside the Catholic retreat on the outskirts of Sydney, the Pope will rest, pray and play a little piano, said an official from Opus Dei which runs the centre.

"He'll probably play the piano more than do sport. I think it's very much a time of rest and preparation," said Opus Dei communications director Richard Vella.

The Pope's first gig on Thursday July 17 will see him meet the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and travel by boat across Sydney Harbour to greet thousands of young pilgrims, before heading off in the Popemobile through Sydney's CBD.

The Church believes that despite Pope Benedict, 81, being the oldest Pope elected, he can still engage with young people. [Where has this reporter been during the past three years? He never read about Cologne and Rome and Loreto and Yonkers???? And speaking of engaging the 'young', what about the Q&A with the First Communicants of Rome?]

"The goals of World Youth Day are to strengthen the faith and goodness of the young people that are coming," said the head of the Catholic church in Australia, Cardinal George Pell.

"How the Pope will do that is by his presence and teachings, by his praying with us. He is a very fine teacher," said Pell.

Mainstream churches like the Catholic and Anglican struggle to attract worshippers in Australia, unlike small evangelical churches and Buddhism, the fastest growth faith in Australia.

Some 5 million Australians describe themselves as Catholic, but less than one million attend Sunday mass, and the number may have dropped to about 100,000 in the past 5 years.

($=A$1.05)


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The point that secular media seem to ignore whenever they report on the Pope is that there simply is no other personality on earth who can always command the attention and limelight - and the audiences - that a Pope does, and most markedly in these days of the global village. Not so much as a tribute to the man who is the Pope at the moment - though this is very significant in the case of the last two Popes - but for who and what the Pope represents. It is the best argument to anyone who doubts, or rejects, the unequalled impact of Christianity on human history - of God entering history, as Benedict XVI describes it.

For instance, do the likes of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens really think that because their atheist books sell, they can consider themselves and their pulpit equal to the Pope? In the case of this Pope, he can even outdo them in book sales!

The Pope, whoever he is, is truly sui generis! And on the whole, what a brilliant and holy line of such individuals the Succession of Peter has given the world!


P.S. Speaking of the 'rock star' analogy, however misplaced, a German rock magazine in 2005 did the unprecedented when it printed a giant pullout poster of the Pope (shown in the picture) to go with their WYD special issue:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Church group challenges
condom campaigners over contraception


July 9, 2008


The Pope's visit to Sydney is also shaping up as an ideological clash of rival family planning methods.

Anti-Pope demonstrators plan to hand out condoms to Catholic pilgrims during Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Sydney next week for World Youth Day.

The condom campaign is in protest against the Vatican's opposition to artificial contraception.

However, Catholics say they are determined the condom campaigners won't have it all their own way.

The Australian Council of Natural Family Planning (ACNFP) says it will give pilgrims its own material promoting the sympto-thermal method (STM) of natural family planning.

The ACNFP, a Catholic church-based organisation, said every previous World Youth Day gathering had been marked by protests about the church's teachings on sexuality and contraception.

"Interestingly, despite the thousands of young people there to celebrate their belief in the church, it is the condom peddlers who tend to catch the eye of the media,'' it said in a statement.

"But this time we're ready for them!

"Despite popular belief, the church isn't against sexuality. On the contrary, the church wants everyone to develop a deeper, richer understanding of the meaning of sex and sexuality,'' the ACNFP said.

ACNFP president Brian Maher said the group would hand out material on "natural family planning'' to pilgrims before next week's final WYD mass at Randwick in Sydney.

The sympto-thermal method (STM) involves using the knowledge of the naturally-occurring fertile and infertile phases of a woman's menstrual cycle.

=====================================================================

Mary - I am, in a way, simply trying to make up for the fact that I was in no position to do anything of this sort for Cologne WYD - I had not even discovered the forums at the time! But I remember printing out every article I could find about it in the European and English press along with their inexhaustible photo galleries. And I didn't know anything about saving photos then....

Way to go, mates! Nice welcome from the Daily Telegraph!


Let's enjoy the Pope Olympics
Editorial




July 11, 2008

---

SYDNEYSIDERS are used to new visitors to our brilliant city gazing in rapture at our Harbour, our beaches, our Opera House and our Bridge.

But there's something about the latest crowd of visitors to our city. For one thing, there's an enormous number of them.

It's like we're having an Olympics again, but without any actual Olympicking.

And secondly, given their deep religious convictions, they probably have a rapturous look regardless of where they might be.

No matter. We've as happy to have these pilgrims here as they are to be here.

We'd especially like to extend a hand of welcome to visitors who've never before been to Australia and who are making the trip of a lifetime.

It's extraordinary to note that some visitors - practically young adults at that - have never before swum in the ocean. For coast-focused Aussies, it barely seems believable.

But there you have it. Thanks to World Youth Day, some youngsters from North Dakota have finally seen the sea.

As these pilgrims learn more of Sydney and Australia, we too can learn from them.

Their massively diverse backgrounds and cultures mean we've practically got a walking encyclopedia getting around town at the moment.

Our advice to these valued visitors: make the absolute most of your time here. See as much as possible. Accept as many invitations as you can and try to cover as much territory as you're able.

Be assured, you'll meet friendly people wherever you go. And don't worry about exhaustion. There will be plenty of time to sleep on your flights home.

And to the small minority of Sydney residents who might feel a little overwhelmed by the presence of so many Pope fans, we say; Oh, come on. It's not every day you have a Pontiff in town. Lighten up.

Nobody likes a grouch during Pope week.

---

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Pilgrims enjoy Sydney's winter wonderland
By Angela Saurine and Clementine Cuneo


July 11, 2008




Italian volunteer workers for WYD in Darling Harbour.


THEY may be sleeping on gym mats, bean bags and couch cushions, but judging by the smiles on their faces the pilgrims who have invaded Sydney over the past few days couldn't be having a better time if they tried.

From Hyde Park to Luna Park, from Darling Harbour to Sydney Harbour, the city yesterday was buzzing with excited young people from all over the world.

While seeing the Pope was a bonus, many were using next week's World Youth Day event as an excuse to kick off a year-long working holiday.

They have come with a supply of badges, hats and buttons from their home countries to swap with other pilgrims they meet and keep as souvenirs.

Many, such as 14-year-old Connor Brown, come from small towns and had never seen the ocean before flying into Sydney last week.

After jet boating on the Harbour and visits to Taronga Zoo and Luna Park, his group of 15 pilgrims from North Dakota walked across the Harbour Bridge yesterday.

They had already spent a few days in Kiama, where Connor went swimming in the sea for the first time.

"It was really cold. When I got out, my feet were numb and I couldn't even feel the sand when I was walking," he said. "I didn't really expect it to be that salty."

His 15-year-old brother Jace said it didn't feel like winter.

"There's no snow on the ground and it's not extremely cold."

Marco Santini, from Fano, in Italy, took some time out from working as a WYD volunteer yesterday to visit Sydney Wildlife World at Darling Harbour.

He said he saw coming to WYD as "an intelligent holiday".

A group from Michigan in the US checked out Nobbys Beach in Newcastle yesterday.

"We'd like to try fish and chips, too," Tyler Bascoff, 19, said.

They will attend a corroboree with Aboriginal dancing and bush tucker before heading to Sydney for WYD.

Pope heading to World Youth Day
aboard 'Shepherd One'







WHEN Pope Benedict XVI's jet touches down at the RAAF Base in Sydney at 3pm on Sunday, plane spotters might be underwhelmed.

Unlike the US President's gleaming airborne fortress Air Force One or heavy metal band Iron Maiden's tour jet Hair Force One, the Pontiff's preferred mode of air travel is usually a nondescript commercial service chartered from Italian carrier, Alitalia.

Although it's obviously short on aeronautic dazzle, air-traffic controllers sometimes try to spice up Papal travel plans up by referring to his flight as Shepherd One.

There's no military command centre or confessional booth on Shepherd One, no modular suede lounges or a communications hub, nor is there a special Papal cabin crew.

Just regular Alitalia hosties.

The only concession to the Pope's eminence is that he gets a seat in the front row.

If these travel arrangements are a bit on the dull side, NEWS.com.au has uncovered some more interesting facts you may not know about the Benedict XVII:

Technopope: He's the first pontiff in history to use a mobile phone.

iPope: He owns an Apple iPod, which is engraved with his coat of arms.

Piano man: The Pope is known to tinkle the ivories and is a big fan of classical music - particularly Mozart, Bach and Beethoven.

Policeman's son: His father, Joseph Ratzinger, was a Bavarian police officer. Joseph Jr was the youngest of Joseph and Maria's three children. Big brother Georg is a priest and their sister Maria, who never married, died in 1991.

Power runs in the family: The Pope's great uncle was the German politician Georg Ratzinger.

Childhood dream: At the age of five, the future pontiff declared he wanted to be a cardinal after he was among a group of children who welcomed the visiting Cardinal Archbishop of Munich to his hometown.

Feline groovy: The Pope's a cat lover, and while he never owned one in his youth, he and brother Georg fed strays and collected cat plates.

Coldies: Being Bavarian, it's no surprise His Holiness loves beer - Franziskaner Weissbier apparently being his favourite. He's said to be fond of lemonade, too.

Hitler Youth: Upon turning 14, he was enrolled in the Hitler Youth, as was required of all 14-year-old German boys post 1939.

Footy: The Pope is a passionate soccer fan who supports the German side Bayern Munich: "I'd like the game of football to be a vehicle for the education of the values of honesty, solidarity and fraternity, especially among younger generations," the Pope has said.

Treading lightly: His Holiness has resumed the sporting of red Papal shoes, which have not been used since the early days of Pope John Paul II. Contrary to media speculation the shoes had been crafted by Prada, the Vatican has confirmed they were made by the Pope's personal cobbler.

Ring: The Pope wears a gold "Fisherman's ring" on the third finger of his right hand depicting the apostle Peter fishing from a boat. This is derived from the tradition that the apostles were "fishers of men". A new ring is made for each Pope and upon their death, it is crushed in the presence of other cardinals.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Australia rated a tourist hotspot
by US travellers:
Sydney voted fourth best city in the world
in the latest Travel+Leisure survey

July 10, 2008 - 10:23AM


This article has nothing to do with WYD but it comes at a very opportune time. Who wouldn't jump to go to Australia given the chance - and the wherewithal? It's a whole continent and a unique land, and you only need one visa!






Australia has again been rated a tourist hotspot by US travellers, with Sydney voted fourth best city in the world in a new magazine survey.

US travel magazine Travel + Leisure released the results of its World's Best Awards today, with Bangkok taking out the top spot on the World's Best City list.

Buenos Aires and Cape Town were voted second and third, while Sydney came in fourth after being ranked fifth last year.

This year, fifth place went to Florence.

Editor of Travel + Leisure Australia, Anthony Dennis, said the poll was good news for the NSW travel industry, after criticism the state had failed to capitalise on events such as the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

"The NSW government has been heavily criticised in recent years for not doing enough to capitalise on the success of events like the 2000 Olympics and the 2003 Rugby World Cup, but this result indicates that Sydney still rates highly among travellers in comparison to other great world cities," Mr Dennis said.

Sydney was also named the best city in the awards for the Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific region, followed by Melbourne, New Zealand's Queenstown, Perth and Hobart.

Tasmania made the World's Best Island category, finishing fifth on a list topped by the Galapagos Islands.

In bad news for national carrier Qantas, the flying kangaroo did not feature in the World's Best Airline list, despite finishing seventh last year.

Singapore Airlines was voted number one, followed by Emirates, Thai Airways and Cathay Pacific.

---

S]CITY DESTINATIONS

TOP 10 CITIES OVERALL:
1 Bangkok, Thailand 87.61
2 Buenos Aires, Argentina 87.24
3 Cape Town, South Africa 86.59
4 Sydney, Australia 86.49
5 Florence, Italy 86.24
6 Cuzco, Peru 86.15
7 Rome, Italy 85.12
8 New York, US 85.03
9 Istanbul, Turkey 84.61
10 San Francisco, US 84.42

TOP 5 AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND AND THE SOUTH PACIFIC:
1 Sydney 86.49
2 Melbourne 80.35
3 Queenstown. New Zealand 79.95
4 Perth 77.78
5 Hobart 77.38

TOP 10 ASIA:
1 Bangkok, Thailand 87.61
2 Kyoto, Japan 84.27
3 Chiang Mai, Thailand 84.14
4 Hong Kong 83.69
5 Udaipur, India 83.51
6 Shanghai, China 81.83
7 Siem Reap, Cambodia 81.15
8 Beijing, China 81.05
9 Hanoi, Vietnam 80.87
10 Jaipur, India 80.78

TOP 10 EUROPE:
1 Florence, Italy 86.24
2 Rome, Italy 85.12
3 Istanbul, Turkey 84.61
4 Paris, France 82.59
5 Krakow, Poland 82.14
6 Prague, Czech Republic 81.81
7 Venice, Italy 81.74
8 Barcelona, Spain 81.32
9 Vienna, Austria 80.99
10 Salzburg, Austria 80.63

TOP 5 MEXICO AND CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA:
1 Buenos Aires, Argentina 87.24
2 Cuzco, Peru 86.15
3 San Miguel de Allende, Mexico 82.19
4 Rio de Janeiro 80.15
5 Antigua, Guatemala 79.92

TOP 10 AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST:
1 Cape Town 86.59
2 Jerusalem 84.39
3 Fez, Morocco 80.77
4 Marrakesh, Morocco 80.46
5 Cairo 80.23
6 Dubai 78.86
7 Tel Aviv 78.60
8 Amman 74.52
9 Tunis 71.93
10 Alexandria 70.72


ISLAND DESTINATIONS

TOP 10 ISLANDS OVERALL:
1 Galapagos Islands 87.64
2 Bali 86.32
3 Maui 86.09
4 Kauai 85.87
5 Tasmania 85.00
6 Easter Island 84.78
7 Hawaii 84.66
8 Santorini 84.52
9 Great Barrier Reef Islands 84.42
10 Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia 83.82

TOP 5 AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND AND THE SOUTH PACIFIC:
1 Tasmania 85.00
2 Great Barrier Reef Islands 84.42
3 Bora-Bora 83.58
4 Fiji Islands 80.56
5 Moorea 80.05

TOP 3 ASIA:
1 Bali 86.32
2 Phuket Thailand 82.64
3 Penang Malaysia 81.67

TOP 5 EUROPE:
1 Santorini, Greece 84.52
2 Dalmatian Islands, Croatia 83.50
3 Sicily, Italy 82.92
4 Ischia, Italy 82.41
5 Cyclades, Greece (Santorini rated separately) 82.40

TOP 3 MEXICO AND CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA:
1 Galapagos Islands 87.64
2 Easter Island, Chile 84.78
3 Ambergris Cay, Belize 78.08

TOP 5 THE CARIBBEAN, BERMUDA AND THE BAHAMAS:
1 Vieques 78.00
2 Bermuda 77.40
3 British Virgin Islands 76.66
4 St. Lucia 75.34
5 U.S. Virgin Islands 75.27 [/DIM}

---

From the July 13 issue of




Italian immigrants donate
to John Paul II statue
from St. Mary's Cathedral




But why is he barefoot?


A group of Sydney Italian immigrants raised more than $100,000 to help build a two metre high, 500kg bronze statue of Pope John Paul II which was officially unveiled at St Mary's Cathedral last Saturday.

The statue, by Italian sculptor Firenzo Bacci, took more than three hours to be positioned by crane on the Hyde Park side of the cathedral.

The statue, donated by the Italian community to the Sydney archdiocese, was commissioned last October and arrived in Sydney in January.

It is to be permanently housed at St Mary's Cathedral.

Mons Dino Fragiacomo, priest in residence at Joan of Arc parish, Haberfield, says the Italian community wanted to donate a "beautiful and lasting reminder" of the much-loved Pope.

"Pope John Paul II meant so much to the youth and people all over the world," he said.

"The statue was donated to remember him and the renewal of consecration to Our Lady.

"The statue is beautiful, mystical in its own way and I'm sure will be admired by those who come to the cathedral."

Mons Dino paid tribute to the tireless work of a group of Sydney Italian migrants, who raised the money through a series of fundraising concerts.

"Through their wonderful efforts a beautiful work of art of such a holy man has been born," he said.

"The feedback I have received from the Italian community has been nothing but praise for the statue, and Cardinal Pell has also expressed his appreciation.

"My hope is that the statue can stand at St Mary's Cathedral for centuries to be admired by all."

Mons Dino, who has served the Haberfield Catholic community since he arrived in Australia 16 years ago, oversaw the construction of the mountain-top shrine to Mary, Mother and Queen, on Monte Grisa, Trieste, at the request of Italy's bishops.

The shrine commemorates the bishops’ consecration of Italy to the Immaculate Heart of Mary at the conclusion of a national Eucharistic congress in September 1959.

The Monte Grisa shrine contains a statue of Our Lady of Fatima; a similar statue graces the church at Haberfield.

Pope Paul VI consecrated the shrine in 1966 and Pope John Paul II visited in May 1992.



Cardinal launches Mass book






THE Archbishop of Sydney, George Cardinal Pell, launched The Catholic Weekly'S book This Is The Mass at the opening of the WYD official merchandise store “WYD on Hyde” on July 5.

The cardinal praised the book for the quality of its photographs, by award-winning photographer Bob Armstrong, the commentary by the Liturgy Office and its superb printing.

“This Is The Mass should have a place in every Catholic home,” the cardinal said.

The launch was also the occasion to open the merchandise store on the College Street side of Hyde Park opposite St Mary’s Cathedral.

The store will sell This Is The Mass during WYD. It also stocks all the official merchandise, including clothing, jewellery, CDs and other WYD souvenirs and devotional items.

Cardinal Pell also commended the store for the quality of its merchandise.

---

THE FIRST OF ITS KIND IN 50 YEARS. THIS 160 PAGE BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED COFFEE TABLE BOOK EXPLAINS THE MYSTERY OF THE MASS.

ON SALE NOW

This Is The Mass is a new book which explains, with lucid text and beautiful photographic images, the Eucharist – the supreme sacrament of the Catholic Church.

The 160-page coffee table book, proudly published by The Catholic Weekly, features the Archbishop of Sydney, George Cardinal Pell, as the celebrant in Sydney’s stunning St Mary’s Cathedral, with images taken by multi-award winning photographer Bob Armstrong.

This Is The Mass takes the reader step by step through the sacred liturgy.

To mark World Youth Day the book features a 16-page pictorial essay on Sydney, making it an ideal souvenir of WYD08.

Cardinal Pell describes the book as "simply beautiful". In a foreword the cardinal says the book is the latest and most thorough general commentary on the Mass since Vatican II.

“Its learned and lucid text and the beauty of the photographs open our hearts and minds to the wonder and glory of the Mass,” he writes.

Price: AUD$40.00 (inc.GST)

---

A CONCERT OF CHIMES:
The Bells of St. Mary
ring out today
for Pope Benedict XVI
by Bridget Spinks
www.ebenedict.org/
July 11, 2008





A special bell-ringing sequence to honour Pope Benedict's journey to Australia will be played by 8 bell-ringers on 14 bells of St Mary's Cathedral, on Friday, July 11, at 6.30pm. Sydneysiders will be able to hear it clearly from Hyde Park or the Piazza.

The St Mary's Basilica Society of Change Ringers will ring the sequence, entitled Pope Benedict XVI Surprise Major, which was first rung in England to celebrate Pope Benedict's inauguration in 2005.

It is being sponsored by the National Trust and WYD08 and has never been rung in Australia. As well, it will be one of the first events to publicly celebrate and welcome the Pontiff connected to WYD.

“We're the first cab off the block as it were in celebrating the coming of the Pope!” says renowned campanologist, Dr Jim Woolford (whose special talk 'A Touch of Bells' after the performance has been postponed to July 14).

Currently president of the St Mary’s Basilica Society of Change Ringers (founded in the 1850s), Dr Woolford started learning how to ring bells when he was fourteen years old, in York Minster in England fifty years ago. He says it takes six months to a year to master even the most elementary aspects.

“There's a lot of technique [that goes into bell ringing] - it’s like long distance running … and then after that there is learning of the pieces of bell music that we play. Bell ringers have a repertoire like classical musicians” Dr Woolford says.

The evening bell concert will culminate in an exclusive tour of the St Mary’s Cathedral bell tower, where Dr. Woolford and other change ringers will ring the bells non-stop for close to an hour.

“At 7.30 we'll be ringing a 'quarter of a peal,' which goes for one hour …what that means is that we ring 1280 different 'changes' where no one change is repeated. We memorise 1280 different sequences on the bells,” he says.

The bell ringing tour and talk is part of a bigger program that is organised by the National Trust to run during WYD08 that includes a Catholic Architecture exhibition, talks and tours.

As well as this, during WYD08 there will also be a display of Catholic ecclesiastical architecture from early colonial days to the present time that pilgrims can visit at National Trust Centre, Watson Rd, Observatory Hill.



WYD-SYD Patroness icon
unveiled at St Mary's today
by Bridget Spinks
www.ebenedict.org/
Friday, 11 July 2008





To officially initiate the WYD programme a stunning commissioned painting of a WYD08 Patron was unveiled this morning at St Mary's Cathedral.

Cardinal Pell and WYD08 coordinator, Bishop Fisher OP, were present with artist, Paul Newton, when the painting of 'Our Lady of the Southern Cross, Help of Christians' was revealed.

Newton explained to those present the Australian aspects of the painting, noting the Southern Cross and Two Pointer stars, as well as the dry Australian landscape at the bottom.

Mary is depicted with a wattle garland in her hair and looking at the infant Jesus that she holds.

Newton detailed the way in which Mary is holding Jesus - not keeping Him to herself and in a way handing the child to the viewer or inviting the viewer to come to him.

One pilgrim present at the unveiling, Elise Nally, 19, says she was incredibly impressed with the piece.

"Once the veil was completely removed everyone was quiet and watched in awe," she says describing the momentous occasion.

"The painting is an amazing piece of art and I'm very excited for pilgrims to see it."

The painting will remain in St Mary's Cathedral for the rest of the WYD festivities in conjunction with the relics of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and is definately something to visit.

Posted earlier today in NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT:


Australia trip will test
81-year-old Pope's stamina



VATICAN CITY, July 11 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI departs Saturday on a 10-day trip to Australia, the longest pilgrimage of his papacy and a test of the 81-year-old pontiff's stamina.

Tens of thousands of young pilgrims are awaiting him.

Although aides say the Pope is in fine health, the Vatican appeared to be taking no chances to ensure Benedict is fit for the Church's World Youth Day festival.

With little advance notice [NO! When the Pope's summer schedule for July-September was released by the Vatican last month, it already said very clearly that there would be no further Wednesday general audiences until August 13, after the one held July 3. This cavalier inattention to facts, even small ones, is so objectionable because it is emblematic of journalistic irresponsibility even in the things that matter!] , it canceled Benedict's weekly public audience this past Wednesday as well as most other meetings to give him as much rest as possible.

It even put on hold a much-awaited audience with Ingrid Betancourt, who was recently freed after more than six years as a hostage in the Colombian jungles and expressed a desire to see the Pope.

Upon the Pope's arrival in Sydney after more than 20 hours of flying -- interrupted only by a 90-minute refueling stop [in Darwin, 15 hours after leaving Rome] -- he will spend three days resting in a Roman Catholic study center in Kenthurst, in the countryside outside Sydney.

"He is not expected to leave the center," during that time said his spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi.

Benedict will be attending World Youth Day, an event generally held every two years, which attracts hundreds of thousands of young Catholics. It was begun by Pope John Paul II, who considered it essential for the Pope to deliver his message to young people.

After he succeeded John Paul three years ago, Benedict said he doubted he would make many long trips. But invitations keep coming in from world leaders and officials of his global 1-billion member flock.

The Vatican generally does not give out information about the Pope's health, citing his privacy. Except for a light chronic cough, though, the Pope appears healthy and has never skipped a planned event for health reasons.

Benedict himself has said that being Pope is "really tiring" and, in an interview with German television in 2006, said he does not feel strong enough to take many long trips.

He visited Brazil last year, made a pilgrimage to the United States in April and will travel to France in September.

"Those who live in Rome, in Italy or in Europe maybe can't appreciate the value of papal trips," Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras told the Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire in an interview published Thursday.

From elsewhere, he said, "only the rich can afford to come to Rome. So I say, only slightly joking, that papal trips are a kind of preferential option for the poor."

In fact, Benedict will be greeted at Sydney Harbor on Thursday by a group of Aborigines and other young people from the Pacific Basin and deliver what is expected to be an important address.

In 2001, John Paul issued a formal apology to the indigenous peoples of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands for injustices perpetrated by Catholic missionaries.

Australia's senior Catholic leader, Cardinal George Pell, has also said that Benedict will likely express regret during the trip for sexual abuse committed by clergy -- as he did during his U.S. trip.

Lombardi, Benedict's spokesman, said it is possible that he will.

Support groups for victims of church abuse -- whose numbers are not known but who activists say are in the thousands -- have demanded that Benedict make a full apology.

Pell himself has been accused of badly handling a sexual abuse claim and this week agreed to reopen investigations into the 25-year-old case.

World Youth Day will culminate July 20 with an open-air Mass expected to draw some 250,000 pilgrims.

The papal visit is Australia's biggest public event since the 2000 Olympics.

Despite the pilgrims' excitement, the festival has attracted a fair amount of controversy. The NoToPope Coalition, made up of gay rights, student and atheist groups, is planning a July 19 march to protest what it calls the Pope's homophobic and antiquated ideas.

The Church forbids the use of condoms and other forms of artificial birth control and the coalition planned to distribute condoms to young pilgrims in response.

A new law [ONCE AGAIN, NO NEW LAW!] that gives authorities the power to order anyone to stop behavior considered "annoying" toward the pilgrims was panned by critics as a form of censorship and drew a protest by the coalition on Wednesday. Anyone who doesn't comply with the regulations could face a fine of $5,300. Police and the New South Wales state government say they are a necessary security measure, but libertarians and rights activists disagree.

Earlier this week, Australia's top Roman Catholic cleric, Cardinal George Pell, said he expected the Pope to express regret for sexual abuse by church officials, as he did earlier this year in the United States.

But in an ill-timed twist, Pell agreed on Thursday to reopen the investigation into a 25-year-old sexual abuse case, after nearly a week of media reports that questioned his earlier handling of the alleged victim's complaint. [It certainly is not the most ideal time for any such thing, but since the matter has been brought up, then Cardinal Pell might as well see it through the logical consequences. If he hadn't agreed to reopening the case, he'd be in an even worse light than he already is for his unbelievably bad judgment in 2003 which he documented himself!]


The following was an earlier version of the AP story above:


Australia girds for Pope's visit
By KRISTEN GELINEAU








SYDNEY, Australia, July 11 (AP) - Thousands of pilgrims converged on Sydney as it braced Friday for the weekend arrival of the pope and the start of World Youth Day, the biggest event held in Australia since the 2000 Olympics.

After five years of planning, the massive Roman Catholic festival will finally kick off Tuesday and run through Sunday, attracting more than 200,000 pilgrims to Sydney.

Nuns decked out in habits and brightly-colored World Youth Day backpacks strolled through the city, as event organizers worked frantically to keep up with the ever-expanding flocks of faithful and Sydney residents steeled themselves for traffic nightmares.



Pope Benedict XVI will arrive Sunday and rest for a few days before leading a series of prayer gatherings and meetings on Thursday. He will then take a boat trip on Sydney Harbor, followed by a welcome ceremony and papal motorcade through downtown.

Tens of thousands are expected to participate in a walking pilgrimage across Sydney's famed Harbor Bridge, which links the north and south portions of the city and offers a sweeping view of the harbor and opera house.

Other events include a re-enactment of the Stations of the Cross in various parts of the city and a "sleep-out under the stars," during which pilgrims will spend the final night of festivities sleeping outdoors at a racetrack. The following morning, the event will conclude with a papal Mass, expected to draw hundreds of thousands.

An electronic clock outside St. Mary's Cathedral in downtown Sydney ticked down the days remaining before the festival's start, while a giant welcome tent across the street swarmed with pilgrims taking a break from the chilly day to mull over stacks of World Youth Day sweatshirts, hats and scarves for sale.

Odile DeGrandmaison, who traveled to Australia from Normandy, France, for the festival, wandered through the tent with her 15-year-old daugher Astrid, checking out the obligatory Australian souvenirs: tiny stuffed koalas, boomerangs, Ugg boots. Pausing to contemplate the pope's looming arrival, she began to weep.

"It's important to hear the good word," she said as an equally tearful Astrid gave her a comforting hug. "It's good to feel that we're all together."

Heather Wilkinson spent Friday morning sitting on the docks of Darling Harbor with members of her church youth group from Canada, drinking in the view of the deep blue water shimmering in the sunlight. Like many pilgrims, she hoped to spend some of her time in Australia checking out the sights and bonding with other international visitors.

The 20-year-old attended the World Youth Day event in Germany in 2005, and found it deeply moving. She hoped to recapture some of that emotion with the Pope's arrival in Sydney. "It's one of the best experiences I've ever had in my life," she said.

[The rest of the story consists of the last 5 paragraphs in the updated report.]



Pope to head Down Under
for youth extravaganza, as
activists threaten legal challenge
by Martine Nouaille






VATICAN CITY, July 11 (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI will head to Australia on Saturday to meet hundreds of thousands of young people celebrating World Youth Day on the planet's most remote continent.

Young people from around the world are expected in Sydney for the event, aimed at portraying the Roman Catholic Church as a youthful, global and enthusiastic community.

"I am sure that from every corner of the Earth, Catholics will unite with me and the youths gathered (in Sydney) to invoke the Holy Spirit... in a variety of languages and cultures," Benedict said during his Angelus prayer at the weekend.

Ahead of his longest journey since becoming Pope three years ago, the 81-year-old Benedict urged the entire Church to feel a part of "this new phase of the great youth pilgrimage across the world begun in 1985 by (his predecessor) John Paul II ."

His first public appearance will be at the head of a Sydney Harbour flotilla on July 17 and the trip will culminate in an open-air mass at Sydney's Randwick Racecourse expected to attract hundreds of thousands of pilgrims on July 20.

Australian activists have launched a legal challenge to tough new laws which were introduced to prevent protesters "annoying" Catholic pilgrims during the Pope's Sydney visit. [There is no news that anyone has actually filed any legal proceedings although there has been much legalistic libertarian grumbling!!]

Under the new laws, police will be able to stop behaviour that "causes annoyance or inconvenience to participants" in World Youth Day, the celebration of Catholic youth that is the focus of the pope's visit.

Civil libertarians have said the laws mean people wearing T-shirts with slogans deemed annoying to Catholics face 5,500 dollar (5,225 US) fines. [ Of course, anyone can cite the most extreme examples they can think of - that doesn't mean it will happen!]

[How can the reporter ignore the fact that both the state authorities and WYD officials have explained there are no new laws, simply a reference to enforcement of as many as 15 existing laws intended to deal with keeping order during a massive public event! As for the ballyhooed 'legal challenge', none has been reported as actually presented so far, presumably for the oobvious reason that the laws they are protesting have been there for some time.]

Ahead of the trip, Benedict's ninth outside Italy, Vatican officials have noted Australia's secular nature.

"Australia is a nation continent that has been strongly secularised, and where Catholics are a minority," the Vatican's Youth Day pointman Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko said recently.

Benedict, the spiritual leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics, frequently criticises what he describes as the secularism of post-modern societies such as Australia, Europe and North America, saying they have lost a sense of "transcendancy."



Sydney Archbishop George Pell told Vatican Radio that the Catholic Church expected "less hostility" but also "less enthusiasm" for the Pope's visit than he encountered in the United States in April.

"For us, indifference is the problem," he said.

[Cardinal Pell may well expect 'indifference' from his fellow Australians, but to say there will be 'less enthusiasm' than in the US visit is to ignore all the youth who are, after all, the main protagonists of the celebration and whom one cannot imagine as any 'less enthusiastic' for the Pope than they have been for him elsewhere.]

As he did during his US trip, Benedict is expected to offer apologies to Australian victims of sexual abuse by priests, Cardinal Pell said on Monday.

The situation of Australia's still struggling Aborigines -- championed by John Paul II during his 1986 visit -- will also be part of Benedict's visit.

He is expected to address the issue during the July 17 welcome ceremony, when Aboriginal dancers and singers will take centre stage.

The aged German Pontiff ['Aged' certainly seems a very incongruous and strange adjective - and rarely used, if ever - for Benedict XVI, even if he is 81] will spend the first four days of his visit recovering from the long flight from Rome at a retreat run by the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei in Sydney's northwestern outskirts.

[The recovery is not so much for the length of the flight but for the body to settle appropriately into a new diurnal biorhythm, especially in view of the schedule that the Pope must keep for the next eight days.]

Sydney feels like Catholic teen spirit





Sydney, July 11 (dpa) - Even jaded business travelers were smiling Friday as gleeful pilgrims rejoiced in Sydney airport at the prospect of a week of spirited worship organized by the Catholic Church and presided over by Pope Benedict XVI.

The Pope doesn't arrive in Australia's biggest city until Sunday and the World Youth Day (WYD) celebrations don't kick off until Monday but it was joy unbounded as the first of 125,000 young Christians swept through the arrivals terminal on their way to a date with the 81-year-old Pontiff.

WYD, begun in Rome in 1986 and held somewhere in the world every three years, is sometimes called the Catholic Olympics because of its uplifting spirit and power to bring hundreds of thousands of people together in the one place.

Organizers have registered 225,000 pilgrims from 170 countries and expect up to 500,000 to be there for the Pope's closing Sunday Mass on July 20.

Rugged up against a harsh winter wind blowing off the harbour, Richard Tan and his chums from Singapore are mixing with thousands of like-minded visitors thronging the city centre.

Unlike Sydney's 2000 Olympics, where events were dispersed and held over three weeks, the WYD celebrations are focused around the harbour and collapsed into a frantic few days that Tan expects will bring lots of inspiration but little sleep.

"It's just good to be with other young people," he beamed. "We all hope to see the Pope."

The Holy Father arrives by boat on the harbour on Thursday in what all expect to be the signature image of the week-long jamboree.

Pilgrims are billeted in private homes, in schools, even 13,000 of them at the gigantic Olympic Stadium an hour's train ride from the harbour.

In a fillip for religious tolerance, 281 of them will bed down in classrooms under the stewardship of the Islamic students of Malek Fahd School.

Pupil Rose-Ann Awed told national broadcaster ABC that "it's part of our faith to make them feel welcome, no matter if they are Catholic or Jewish, because it's part of our faith, it's our duty."

A quarter of Australia's 21 million people say they are Catholic but less than 15 per cent attend church regularly. The mission of WYD is to help rekindle faith in a country that rated in a recent survey as one of the world's least godly.

There are those committed to making the pilgrims feel unwelcome. Rachel Evans, 33, leads the NoToPope Coalition, which is pledged to gather gays, lesbians, anarchists and civil libertarians for marches next week under banners proclaiming "Defend the Right to Protest, No to Homophobia, No to Anti-Condom Policies."

The coalition intends handing out condoms to young Catholics in town for the papal party. Ready to take on the condom-vendors are their ideological counterparts in the Australian Council of Natural Family Planning.

"We are ready for them!" the council said in a statement. "Despite popular belief, the church isn't against sexuality. On the contrary, the church wants everyone to develop a deeper, richer understanding of the meaning of sex and sexuality."



ZENIT's Catherine Smibert, who lives in Australia, will be an invaluable reporter-commentator on WYD-SYD:


They're here - the pilgrims - and it's cold:
Media distracted by scandal and peskiness
By Catherine Smibert



SYDNEY, Australia, JULY 10, 2008 (Zenit.org).- One can't help but notice that World Youth Day is upon us here in Australia as tens of thousands of pilgrims arrive to our shores, with colorful flags flying high and numerous stands erected across the city to distribute pilgrim packs.

The visitors for the international event Down Under are identifiable by their uniforms, which are usually interpretations of the World Youth Day logo matched with the crests or logo of their own diocese or community.

This makes the young people easy to spot as they were being picked up by numerous and equally distinguishable welcoming parties, ranging from singing groups of young Neocatechumenates, home stay parents or staff of Harvest Pilgrimages.

The youth groups have arrived in time to participate in the pre-event Days in the Dioceses activities across Australian and New Zealand cities, regional centers and remote towns through Monday.

A feature of every World Youth Day, Days in the Diocese is held the week before the youth day to give pilgrims the chance to celebrate their faith on a local level, meet local communities, relax and do some sightseeing.

"Pilgrims have started arriving over the last few days and they're absolutely loving Australia," said Father Mark Podesta, World Youth Day spokesman.

"We are putting on a pretty good show," he added, "with many hosts creating great Aussie welcomes for our guests including sheep-shearing demonstrations, getting up close to koalas and kangaroos, good old Aussie BBQs and sometimes just familiarizing our visitors from Oceania with cold weather!"

I'll be the first to admit that it is a particularly cold Australian winter at an average of 16 degrees Celsius per day (60 degrees Fahrenheit).

And for those who either forgot that Australia is in the opposite hemisphere, hence being in winter, or for those who just "didn't think it would get this cold," there are a number of parishes and community groups organizing blanket and coat drives.

It's true Christian giving in action, so as to not let the poor, unsuspecting pilgrims freeze.

* * *

Cardinal under fire

Predictably, a perfectly timed scandal has arrived involving the archbishop of the host city, Cardinal George Pell.

The cardinal has found himself embroiled in an accusation that he mishandled a sexual abuse complaint against a priest in 2003. Anthony Jones, now 54, filed the complaint accusing Father Terrence Goodall of sexually abusing him in 1982.

Goodall resigned on July 25, 2003, at Cardinal Pell's request. Cardinal Pell had threatened to use Church law to remove him.

The cardinal told Jones in a letter, however, that he found evidence of rape insufficient.

New evidence of a taped telephone conversation that surfaced this week records Goodall admitting to Jones that the encounter wasn't consensual.

In light of the Goodall's comments, Cardinal Pell released a statement Thursday saying he has "formally referred the matters raised this week to an independent consultative panel established under Towards Healing protocols."

It states the panel -- chaired by retired New South Wales Supreme Court judge Bill Preistley -- will advise Cardinal Pell on the options open to him.

The panel consists of a senior priest as well as lay people from law, business and psychiatry.

In response to this, young Australians have set up a series of pro-cardinal blogs and forums throughout a series of social networking sites offering their prayers and support for the leader who candidly spoke to them just a week ago at a Theology on Tap event about the importance of honest leadership.

* * *

Shew! Don't Bother Them


Sydneysiders have been asked politely, or maybe not so politely, to avoid annoying or inconveniencing World Youth Day pilgrims. Pesky merchants or protestors, or mere nuisances, could be penalized with fines of more than $5,000.

Australian civil rights campaigners are set to challenge the regulation in federal courts. The Combined Community Legal Centers Group has warned that police powers could be used inappropriately during World Youth Day

So to just push the issue, the NoToPope Coalition, which includes members of Sydney's atheist, gay and environmental communities, held an "annoying" fashion show this week outside the New South Wales Parliament, in which they paraded in T-shirts sporting messages contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Although only 20 people gathered for the protest, it received international coverage. [The newsphoto agencies have released more photos taken at that event than they have so far of pilgrims arriving in Sydney!]

The coalition says it also plans to stage similar protests and hand out condoms as the pilgrims head to Randwick Racecourse on for the youth day vigil July 19.

The state government said the regulation is necessary to ensure the smoothness of the event, which will culminate with an open-air Mass on July 20. Some 500,000 people are expected at the event.

Coalition spokeswoman Rachel Evans said the "peaceful protest" would condemn the Pope's stance against condoms, homosexuality and abortion.

One young Catholic leader in the archdiocese and co-coordinator of the "Love and Life Site," Jovina Graham, laughed at the thought of such a scenario, saying, "such protestors obviously are unaware of the peaceful fortitude of these young people while en masse marching to meet the head of the Church!"

* * *

Days in the Diocese Roundup

Close to 2,000 international pilgrims will be based across the Wollongong Diocese in New South Wales from over 20 countries including the United States, Italy, Germany, England, France, Poland, Syria, Latvia, The United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Columbia and Brazil.

Great local activities include 40 stalls of Australian food and craft, amusement rides, face painting and balloons, indigenous art and dancing, whip cracking and sheep shearing demonstrations, koala and kangaroos on display as well as a number of cricket, rugby and Australian rules football clinics.

The Parramatta Diocese has already taken its Polish groups for a ride on the ferry under the Sydney Harbor Bridge, and for a walk in the Blue Mountains.

Wilcannia-Forbes, located in northwestern New South Wales, will host 300 pilgrims from Idaho and St. Louis University in the United States, as well as pilgrims from Germany, Russia, Canada and France. They will take them to visit an Alpaca farm and give them a sausage sizzle by a bonfire.

Melbourne, in the southern state of Victoria, has 22,000 international pilgrims joining 18,000 local youth during the week.

The Catholic Group, Oblate Youth, will be welcoming to Melbourne some 850 pilgrims from 38 countries, including the only pilgrims from Turkmenistan.

A commissioning mass will be held at Telstra Dome Friday for 50,000 pilgrims.

In the Ballarat, also in Victoria, 130 pilgrims from Ireland, East Timor, Portugal, Canada, USA, and Macau will be joining in the local festivities.

10,000 international pilgrims from 40 countries are arriving in a much warmer Brisbane, located north of Sydney in the state of Queensland, with the largest groups coming from the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy and France.

Darwin, Northern Territory, is welcoming 600 pilgrims from Canada, Italy, France, Germany, and the pilgrims from East Timor, accompanied by their bishop. They will be holding processions throughout the city, and participate in indigenous art and faith workshops.

Another 600 pilgrims are being welcomed in Perth, in the state of Western Australia, over these two days in great tents set up for feasts and song and prayer down the central esplanade.

To share the experience visually, be sure to register in www.wydcrossmedia.org, which we will be uploading daily.

Catholic church reopens abuse case
on the eve of the Pope's visit
By Michael Perry



SYDNEY, July 10 (Reuters) - Only days before Pope Benedict arrives in Sydney, a 25-year-old sexual abuse case involving a Sydney priest has been reopened by the Catholic church after an Australian cardinal denied he tried to cover-up the abuse.

Victims of church abuse in Australia are calling on Pope Benedict to issue a public apology during his visit for World Youth Day, July 15-20.

The Vatican has said it expects the Pope, who arrives in Sydney on Sunday, to raise the issue but has stopped short of confirming whether he will apologize.

The Pope confronted the issue of sexual abuse in the church during a visit to Washington in April, meeting victims and vowing to keep pedophiles out of the priesthood.

Broken Rites, which represents abuse victims in Australia, has a list of 107 convictions for church abuse, but says the real number of cases is far greater as only a handful go to court.

Victims of abuse say the Catholic church in Australia continues to cover up abuse by clergy despite issuing an apology for past abuse and compensation. The Church denies the charge.

Australia's Cardinal George Pell on Tuesday denied he misled Anthony Jones, who complained of abuse by a priest, when he wrote Jones a letter in 2003 rejecting his claim because there were no other complaints against the priest.

Pell wrote to another man on the same day upholding his abuse claim against the same priest.

The priest was stood down and in 2005 convicted of indecently assaulting Jones in 1982.

On Friday, Pell reopened the case, referring it to an independent review panel. Pell is head of the Catholic church in Australia.

"Although the complaints of Mr Anthony Jones have been dealt with by the Church, the criminal court and the civil court, out of consideration for Mr Jones, Cardinal George Pell has formally referred the matters raised this week to an independent consultative panel established under Towards Healing protocols," said a statement from the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney.

"It consists of prominent lay people from the fields of law, business, and psychiatry, as well as a senior priest."

The Catholic Church's system for dealing with sex abuse by clergy in Australia is called "Towards Healing" and involves not only investigation of abuse claims, but also counseling for victims.

Victims of abuse by clergy plan to protest during the Pope's Sydney visit, alongside a group called "No Pope" which will hand out condoms in protest at church doctrine and protest extra police powers during the papal visit they say crush civil liberties.

Organizers of World Youth Day expect hundreds of thousands of young pilgrims for the event, with Pope Benedict conducting several religious events culminating in a final open-air mass at Sydney's main horse racing track.

World Youth Day was the brainchild of the late Pope John Paul II who thought a festival which included not only masses and religious events like the stations of the cross, but also music and dance concerts would revitalize the world's Catholic youth


That was a surprisingly objective report, as is the next one, which also adds fresh information and insight on the Goodall case, instead of merely rehashing previous reports.


Australian sex-abuse case
shadows Pope's coming visit
By Tim Johnston

Published July 10, 2008


SYDNEY - Less than a week before Pope Benedict XVI is due to arrive in Sydney for what the Roman Catholic Church has billed as "the largest youth event in the world," the most senior Australian bishop has become embroiled in a new scandal involving alleged sexual abuse by a priest.

Pope Benedict won praise for tackling the issue of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church during his recent visit to the United States, and he is expected to address the issue when he begins his formal celebration of World Youth Day next week.

Now the most senior Catholic prelate in Australia, Cardinal George Pell, archbishop of Sydney, is fighting allegations that he lied to a man who says he was abused by a priest.

The allegations center around a letter sent to the alleged victim of abuse, Anthony Jones. In 1982, when Jones was 29 years old and a teacher at a Catholic school, he says a priest, Father Terence Goodall, fondled his genitals and forced him into sexual acts.

Although he complained to the church authorities immediately after the incident, it was not until 2002, when he sent another letter, that they began an investigation into his allegations.

In February 2003, an independent investigator appointed by the church, a former police officer, Howard Murray, concluded that Jones had been abused, but Pell rejected the findings.

In a February 2003 letter to Jones, although Pell admitted that some homosexual activity had taken place and that an investigator assigned by the church to look into the case had found the claims to be substantiated, he questioned Jones's assertion that the sex was nonconsensual.

"What cannot be determined by me, however, is whether it was a matter of sexual assault as you state or homosexual behavior between two consenting adults," Pell wrote to the complainant.

However, the most damaging allegation is that Pell deliberately lied later in the letter, when he backed up his decision to dismiss the man's accusation with the statement that "No other complaint of attempted sexual assault has been received against Father Goodall and he categorically denies the accusation."

But an investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. has shown that on the same day, Feb. 14, 2003, Pell wrote to another alleged victim of Goodall's abuse, who was an 11-year-old altar boy at the time he was attacked, upholding his claims of sexual abuse against the priest.

Pell has said there was no attempt at a cover-up.

"I apologize for the confusion caused to Mr. Jones," he said. "The letter to Mr. Jones was badly worded and a mistake - an attempt to inform him there was no other allegation of rape."

And the cardinal has defended the church's procedures to cope with claims of sexual abuse. "There were mistakes made in the letter, but otherwise the procedures were good," he said.

The picture has been further muddied by a telephone transcript obtained by the Australian Broadcasting Corp.'s Lateline program and broadcast in a series of shows this week.

ABC says the transcript is from a telephone tap obtained by the police and it records Goodall not only apologizing to Jones for what he admits was a nonconsensual sexual act but also saying that he had never told church investigators that the act was consensual.

Following the ABC broadcasts, Pell said Thursday that he was ready to reopen the investigations into the allegations by Jones.

Australia seems to be divided over the controversy. There is pride that the country has been chosen to play host to World Youth Day, and some have questions about Jones's story.

"What is curious about the 1982 incident is that Mr. Jones was no vulnerable minor, but a 29-year-old teacher at the time. However unwelcome he says Goodall's advances were, it seems extraordinary that an unwilling adult male did not rebuff them," The Australian newspaper said in an editorial Thursday.

"It is not unreasonable that while accepting the investigation's findings, 'including homosexual misbehavior,' that Pell 'found evidence for rape insufficient,"' it concluded.