More government action is needed to address high unemployment and a widening income gap for Pacific people according to a Salvation Army report, "More Than Churches, Rugby and Festivals".

The report claims Pacific people now have the highest unemployment, the lowest incomes and a widening income gap that could mean they're left behind when the economy recovers.

The average Pacifican income is $479 a week compared with $721 for non-Pacific adults, which represents an increase of just $2 in five years for Pacific adults, compared with $54 for everyone else.

One of the report's authors, Ronji Tanielu, says the huge income gap and painfully slow growth in pay affects everything from housing, to problem debt and putting food on the table.

Mr Tanielu says there's been a big spike in demand from Pacific families for Salvation Army food parcels, budgeting advice and drug and alcohol addiction services.

Speaking with CathNews, Parish priest of Otara, Auckland, Fr Brian Prendeville SM, agrees with the report's findings.

Fr Prendeville says he is noticing an escalating demand on the parish's social outreach programmes.

"We've a lot going on in the parish to help, and we've noticed a marked increase in the call on our family services, food parcels and counseling.

"Our parish branch of St Vincent de Paul is also reporting increased activity," Fr Prendeville said.

Fr Prendeville said that some have used the excuse of the economic recession to benefit themselves.

"Pacificans need to be paid a just and comparable wage", he said.

It is a story echoed by the Auckland Diocese's Catholic Caring Foundation.

Clare Wade, General Manager says that this year the Foundation received a record level of grant applications and it has a huge challenge allocating $650,000 towards families in chronic hardship.

"We have seen a massive jump in requests for help with food-parcels, budget advice, emergency housing and problem gambling.

"Pacific Island families without homes or incomes are the group most affected by poverty in Auckland," Wade said.

Salvation Army urges NZ Government action

The Salvation Army is urging the Government to revive its Pacific Wave unit of work brokers and extend Pacific youth training schemes.

The report's authors say that unless something is done to reduce unemployment and lift Pacifican income, Pacificans will need more handouts and debt to loan sharks will only get worse.

Finance Minister Bill English says the Budget 2013 will help the most vulnerable people in society "who the Government has served very poorly in the past".

Mr English told TVNZ's Q+A programme, Sunday, "Closing that gap is a pretty big challenge."

Pope urges Catholics to seek out those needing help

Speaking, Sunday, from the steps of St Peter's Basilica, Pope Francis lamented a world where homelessness and hunger was not news.

"If we step outside of ourselves, we will find poverty," he said, repeating his call for Catholics to do more to seek out those on the fringes of society who need help the most.

"We cannot become starched Christians, too polite, who speak of theology calmly over tea. We have to become courageous Christians and seek out those (who need help most)," he said.

Sources

• Radio New Zealand
• NZ Herald
• Huffington Post
• Image: Bay of Plenty Times

The Methodist Church in Fiji and Rotuma will not have any of its senior members standing for the 2014 general elections.

Confirming this, church general secretary Reverend Tevita Nawadra said despite their intentions not to participate in the elections, they would still be part of the country's political agenda.

Mr Nawadra said their main aim was to spread the word of God and would focus on that.

"We (church ministers) will not stand for elections," Mr Nawadra said.

Source

• The Fiji Times
• Image: FijiLive.com

A bill to introduce changes to the social housing sector announced in Budget 2013 passed its first reading in Parliament last Friday.

The Social Housing Reform (Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Amendment Bill) allows private sector groups to be allowed to replace Housing New Zealand as providers of social housing.

However, Catholic social justice agency Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand warns that rushing legislation to implement new housing policy could actually undermine promising new housing initiatives in the 2013 Budget.

Caritas Director Julianne Hickey welcomes the recognition in the Budget of the need to address crucial issues affecting the wellbeing of New Zealanders, including housing and child poverty.

‘We particularly welcome the new spending on rheumatic fever, home insulation and the extension of Income Related Rent subsidies as an acknowledgement that the Government has listened to the Children's Commissioner Expert Advisory Group,' says Mrs Hickey. ‘However, we will continue to debate the scale and detail of particular policy initiatives - much more can and needs to be done.'

In particular, Caritas is deeply concerned that two new housing initiatives are being fast-tracked through the legislative process. Turn-around times of two weeks and six weeks for each of the new housing bills at Select Committee means a reduced time available for public submissions.

‘The housing situation is serious,' says Mrs Hickey, ‘and it is affecting the wellbeing of many New Zealand families. However, we have serious concerns that fast-tracking both Parliamentary legislative and Council resource consent processes will not deliver good outcomes either.

‘Homes are more than just walls and buildings. They are about people living together as families and as communities. Good planning results in quality, stable homes and communities. Decision-makers must consider the environmental impact of housing, and the adequate availability of services such as public transport, schooling and health services to ensure a good quality of life of all families who live in new homes.'

Inadequate planning and monitoring have previously resulted in leaky homes, or homes built on land subject to liquefaction or other environmental disasters, says Mrs Hickey. ‘Protecting the environment and protecting our most vulnerable citizens requires consideration of the needs of the earth and the people who live on the earth.'

‘We also find it strange that in a year where housing features prominently in the Budget, and where new housing policy is being implemented, that the Budget drops funding for housing policy advice from $8 million to $6.8 million.'

Source

• Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand
• New Zealand Herald
• Image: Media2.aponline

Twelve acts, from schools around the region, battled it out in front of a full capacity mosh pit at Nelson's Theatre Royal last night.

Oh Blok, featuring Garin College year 12 students Louie Persico, Paddy Sanders and Josh Barker and Kieran O'Connor from year 10 won at their third attempt in the regional Smokefreerockquest competition.

Keyboardist Paddy said the band was "sort of pop-indie, but we don't really like to be genre-named".

"We just love the music we play and the crowd makes us pumped up," he said. Continue reading

Continue reading

The Budget shows a slow and steady economic recovery, but that should not be the extent of our ambition. We need more urgent attention given to poverty and recovery of social wellbeing, says the Auckland Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace.

While the Government is moving towards implementation of some recommendations of the advisory group on Solutions to Child Poverty, there is little in the Budget that shows real commitment to change . Despite pre-Budget announcements, the outcomes of work undertaken by the Ministerial Committee on Poverty since its establishment also remain unclear.

We endorse the support provided to the most vulnerable New Zealanders through the Warm Up New Zealand and rheumatic fever programmes but other spending decisions are more difficult to reconcile.

In particular:

• a food-in-schools programme is missing in action and looks set to have passive Government involvement although further announcements are promised
• a whiteware procurement programme and pilot partnership for low cost loans get the green light but are somewhat underwhelming to address the needs of vulnerable New Zealanders.

The Budget speaks of investment and wrap around, but the broader focus appears to be on welfare reform targeted at financial accountability rather than adequate support for the most vulnerable. Accountability has its place but we are concerned that greater cost savings for the Government rather than real change for those most in need will result.

Housing provision catch-up

The Commission welcomes the positive initiatives to enlarge state houses and increase the stock after several years without any provision for new state houses. However the demand for affordable state rental housing is such that 500 new homes over two to three years must be seen as a minimum number.

The number of vacant state houses has been the subject of publicity recently, especially in South Auckland. The immediate renovation and re-letting of vacant houses should be undertaken to help ease the urgent demand while the new initiatives are being actioned. Even if they are not of the ideal size they would provide much better accommodation than is afforded by garages or overcrowded houses.

Improving housing affordability

The Government's acceptance of the Productivity Commission's recommendations is also a positive step to tackle long-term housing inaffordability. The implementation will require sustained effort by Government and the Auckland Council. However this is unlikely to be the full answer after years of rampant increase of house values. Unless Government is prepared to impose specific restrictions, owning a house will continue to be beyond the reach of an increasing number of New Zealanders. An example would be a requirement that property developers must include a proportion of lower cost housing in every development above a certain size.

For further comment contact

Norman Elliot

Deputy Chair, Justice & Peace Commission, Catholic Diocese of Auckland

Phone 575 4943 (hm), 623 0402 (wk) mobile: 021 040 4102

Image: cdn.3New.co.nz

St Peter's College and Hato Paora College have joined other 9 other schools in the Manawatu in proposing a blanket boycott of all legal-high retailers throughout the wider Manawatu region.

Their support has added weight to a Palmerston North mother's campaign to stop retailers in the Manawatu from selling legal highs.

Esther McLean has proposed that the city's mayor, Jono Naylor, visits every legal-high retailer in town to encourage them to stop selling the products.

The 11 school principals have signed a letter to the Palmerston North City Council in support of her proposal.

"We are also prepared to be part of a campaign that proposes a boycott against any dairy or store that sells them," the letter says.

Freyberg High principal Peter Brooks spearheaded the move and said the boycott would soon be actively encouraged by all 11 schools.

"The next step is for us to be given the names of the dairies in our areas that sell legal highs. If we get that then we can use our communities and our parents to target [those retailers] by going to other shops," Brooks said.

Last week Police in Hamilton called on the public to boycott Hamilton dairies selling controversial legal highs.

But one dairy owner is still stocking synthetic cannabis products, claiming they are his "bread and butter" and the Government is to blame for not banning them sooner.

Police have launched Operation Dairy in the city's east, hitting the streets to lecture dairies who refused to stop selling legal highs.

Shopowners agreeing not to stock the products were given a large yellow and red poster to display in shop front windows.

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: Static.stuff.co.nz

In his first address on the world economy, Pope Francis has called for global financial reform that respects human dignity, helps the poor and promotes the common good.

"Money has to serve, not to rule," he told a group of diplomats.

He called for ethical financial reform that would "benefit everyone" and for the world of finance and economics to make people a priority and take into account the importance of ethics and solidarity.

Highlighting the root causes of today's economic and social troubles, the Pope pointed to policies and actions that stem from a "gravely deficient human perspective, which reduces man to one of his needs alone, namely, consumption".

In this "culture of disposal", he said, "human beings themselves are nowadays considered as consumer goods which can be used and thrown away".

The Pope criticised economic inequality caused by "ideologies which uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and thus deny the right of control to states, which are themselves charged with providing for the common good".

In the absence of adequate economic regulation or oversight, "a new, invisible and at times virtual, tyranny is established, one which unilaterally and irremediably imposes its own laws and rules".

Ethics, like solidarity, is seen as "a nuisance" and rejected, he added. Ethical principles and policies of solidarity are "often considered counterproductive, opposed to the logic of finance and economy".

Pope Francis said a major reason behind the increase in social and economic woes worldwide "is in our relationship with money and our acceptance of its power over ourselves and our society".

"The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly human goal," he said.

Pope Francis called on the world's political and financial leaders to consider the words of St John Chrysostom: "Not to share one's goods with the poor is to rob them and to deprive them of life. It is not our goods that we possess, but theirs."

Sources:

Catholic News Service

Vatican Information Service

Image: Vatican News

Several Christian and pro-life groups in the United States have alleged they were unlawfully targeted by the Inland Revenue Service in an apparent effort to curtail their activities.

One of them, the Christian pro-life group Cherish Life Ministries, said it was told by an IRS agent that the organisation did not qualify for non-profit status because it did not present pro-abortion arguments alongside pro-life arguments.

Earlier, the IRS had apologised for subjecting more than 70 politically conservative groups to strict scrutiny over their applications for tax-exempt status during the 2012 presidential election.

"It was an error in judgment, and it was not appropriate, but that's what they did," said Lois Lerner, department head for tax-exempt organisations. "I think they were insensitive, or less sensitive than they should have been."

As a result, two high-ranking officers of the IRS have resigned.

Since then, several more groups have complained of harassment by the IRS.

Coalition for Life, in Iowa, was told it could not receive non-profit status unless it agreed to limit its picketing and protesting against Planned Parenthood's abortion clinics.

Pharmacists for Life International reported that at least two of its officers and board members were "subjected to ongoing harassment and intimidation attempts by the IRS through continued and costly nuisance audits and threatening letters".

The director of the conservative Catholic League, Bill Donohue, said his group had been investigated for possibly violating IRS rules on political activities. He discovered that the investigation had been prompted by the left-wing group Catholics United, which supported the Obama administration.

The Bill Graham Evangelistic Association was targeted for an audit after running advertisements supporting marriage and asking voters to choose candidates using "biblical principles".

Dr Anne Hendershott, a Catholic sociology professor, said she was investigated after she wrote articles critical of President Barack Obama's health care legislation. She said she was "so scared" by the IRS that she stopped writing on some subjects.

The National Organization for Marriage is filing a lawsuit against the IRS after its confidential tax return, including its list of donors, was leaked from the agency to the group's chief political opponent, the Human Rights Campaign — a gay advocacy group promoting same-sex marriage.

Sources:

Catholic News Agency

Religion News Service

Aleteia

Catholic News Agency

Image: Aleteia

The patriarch of Syria's Catholics has said Western nations are responsible for the carnage in Syria, where the morale of Christians is "very, very low".

Syriac Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan said the present situation in Syria is the result of Western nations carrying out a geopolitical strategy "to split Syria and other countries" in the Middle East.

"It's not a question of promoting democracy or pluralism, as the West wants us to understand of its policies. This is a lie, this is hypocrisy," the patriarch said in an interview with Catholic News Service.

Meanwhile, the Vatican's representative at the United Nations in New York, Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, has appealed to any world leaders with influence over the warring parties in Syria to "call upon them to halt immediately the blood-bath and the continual violations of human rights that only open the door to further retaliation and recrimination".

In his Catholic News Service interview, Patriarch Younan said Western nations did not heed warnings over Syria and therefore "bear responsibility for what is happening".

"We were warning all those involved, the countries in the region and in the West — that means the United States and some of the European Union countries, like the United Kingdom and France — that this kind of violence would lead to chaos and the chaos to a civil war," Patriarch Younan said.

"And at that time, two years ago, they chose not to believe that."

The patriarch said the Western nations "just stood against the regime, calling it a dictatorship, saying the dictatorship must fall. Now it's over 25 months, the conflict is getting worse, and the ones who are paying the price are the innocent people".

Patriarch Younan and other Eastern Catholic patriarchs in Lebanon have repeatedly warned against toppling Syrian President Bashar Assad, calling instead for dialogue to solve the crisis in the country.

But he emphasised that "we are not siding either with Assad or with his regime. We are with the Syrian people, and our concern is how can we get this country back on its feet for the sake of the population."

Sources:

Catholic News Service

The Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations

Image: Aramean Christians of Syria

Giving evidence to a parliamentary inquiry into child sex abuse in Victoria, Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne has said the Catholic Church could do better to protect whistleblowers raising concerns about paedophile behaviour at its institutions.

He said the Church was working to improve its processes to help whistleblowers.

"I always think there's room for improvement," he said.

"I do think that one of the things that we want to do together as a community and Church is really to identify how we can do things better."

Archbishop Hart acknowledged that the Church was too slow to act in the past when dealing with paedophile priests.

He admitted that in one case the Church took 18 years to de-frock a priest, but it was "better late than never".

He said the Church was restricted by the fact that the law had to be changed and by the priest being in prison.

Archbishop Hart also admitted that one of his predecessors, Archbishop Sir Frank Little, had covered up abuse reports.

"Archbishop Little kept all these things to himself and there were no records," Archbishop Hart said.

Pressed on whether there had been a cover-up, he said: "Well I have to agree with that."

He added: "The only person who's ultimately responsible is the archbishop at the time.

"We were too slow to realise what was going on. These awful criminals are secretive and cunning."

He said he believed Archbishop Little simply couldn't believe a priest could do such a thing.

Archbishop Hart admitted that the Church had been too keen to look after itself when instructing that complaints remain confidential.

"The question of confidentiality of these matters was probably kept in one sense too much in that the Church was too keen to look after herself and her good name and not keen enough to address the terrible anguish of the victims," he said.

Questioned about compensation for victims, Archbishop Hart said he believed the payments the Church made were generous when compared with what the state paid.

Sources:

ABC News

Sydney Morning Herald

The Australian

Image: ABC News

A controversial Russian artist is using blood donated by Catholics in politically motivated art works being exhibited in Northern Ireland.

In Andrei Molodkin's "Catholic Blood" exhibition, freshly donated human blood from a pharmaceutical refrigerator is pumped through a replica of the rose window adorning the façade of the British Houses of Parliament.

In an adjoining room in Londonderry art gallery is a similar acrylic sculpture with a replica of the rose window at Westminster Abbey.

Molodkin, who sees the rose windows as Protestant symbols, created the sculptures specifically for the context of Derry and Northern Ireland.

He describes his works as a commentary on the Catholic Relief Act of 1829 and a clause of the British constitution that forbids a member of Parliament who is a Catholic from advising the sovereign on ecclesiastical matters.

The artist says this implies that no British prime minister could ever be Catholic — an interpretation disputed by an expert in constitutional affairs, Dr Bob Morris of University College London.

"Yes, but there have been no Catholic prime ministers," Molodkin responds. "Perhaps when we talk about it, we will get one."

Molodkin, who describes himself as a utopian thinker, formerly served in the Soviet Army, delivering oil and transporting missiles in Siberia.

During this time he began sketching with military-issue ballpoint pens. Now he still uses ballpoint pens to make precise drawings on gigantic canvases.

His work has been exhibited in several major art museums in Europe and the United States, and in 2009 he represented his country in the Russian pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

Sources:

BBC

Demotix

Derry-Londonderry

Image: BY Gallery

I entered the seminary in Dublin in October 1962, just one week before the opening of the Second Vatican Council. The winter of 1962-63 was one of the bleakest in decades, and our seminary was a very cold place in more ways than one. My memory of the seminary is of a building and a routine, a discipline and a way of life that seemed to have been like that for decades. Even to someone who was not a revolutionary, it all seemed very out of touch with the world from which I had just come, and in which my friends were thriving. But one was not supposed to think that way. Things were to be done as they had always been done. The Catholic Church was unchanging, but that was about to change.

For decades Ireland was looked on as one of the world's most deeply and stably Catholic countries. Today Ireland finds itself, along with other parts of Europe, being classified as "post-Catholic." Everyone has his or her own definition of the term. You can fully define post-Catholic only in terms of the Catholicism that has been displaced. Irish Catholicism has its own unique history and culture. Renewal in the Irish church will not come from imported plans and programs; it must be home-grown.

Ireland does, of course, share the same currents of secularization with other countries of the Western world and thus shares many of the same challenges. There are specific challenges within Europe; there are specific challenges common to the English-speaking world. Yet the fact that Ireland is an English-speaking country does not mean it can be put into the same category as the United States and Great Britain. Continue reading

Sources

• America
• Image: Orbis Catholicus Secundus

Every week or so, Father Ray toted a suitcase past the rectory offices. "Dry cleaning," he'd say.

"Liquor bottles," feared both the pastor and Mary Catherine Meek, who worked in the suburban Chicago parish. People caught whiffs of alcohol on Father Ray (not his real name) at Mass. He had undergone treatment for alcoholism before this assignment.

Confronted by the pastor, Father Ray denied relapsing. The pastor expressed his concerns to the diocese.

"Then Father Ray had it out for the pastor because he was getting him in trouble," Meek says. "Father Ray took it upon himself to go out and visit the sick so that he could say, ‘Look, I wouldn't be doing this if I were drinking.' He had the parish secretaries bedazzled with his charm and easygoing humor. He would sit chitchatting for an hour and actually interrupt their work, but he was forming a protective shield around himself."

Unresolved tensions mounted, and the diocese reassigned Father Ray. He was to move a week after Meek left for a retreat. She phoned the parish on the first day of the retreat and heard Father Ray was sick. She suggested someone take soup to him. She called the next day. No one had seen him.

"I said, ‘You guys all live together, you need to check on him.' "

A priest found Father Ray lifeless in his room, which was strewn with bottles and soiled with vomit.

The strife didn't end there. Days afterward, the pastor's teenage niece answered a phone call in the parish office: "We hope the pastor is happy now that he has killed Father Ray!" the caller said. Continue reading

Sources

• U.S. Catholic
• Image: UCA News

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I've commented once or twice or 429 times about how the Catholic Church around the world, and in Australia and New Zealand in particular, often fails to adequately communicate the message of Jesus Christ to the faithful, not to mention to non-Catholics. It's hardly a view that I alone hold; plenty of others are making the same case and trying to offer advice on how the Church can do better.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in a hotel room in Perth working on my six-weekly (or so) column for NZ Catholic, the newspaper I worked at for five years until 2010. It was not long after my friend James Bergin had given a stellar performance on national television talking about the election of Pope Francis, and I'd also been observing the work of a group of young Catholics in Australia also being asked to comment on the conclave, the papal election, the choice of Pope Francis and so on.

And so I wrote this column:

Did anyone else catch James Bergin on Q&A a few weeks back, talking about the election of Pope Francis?

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, James Bergin is a good friend of mine and someone I work with on a regular basis on Church projects, so I am biased. But I thought he did an outstanding job when being interrogated by a woman who would now be considered one of New Zealand's leading interviewers.

Internationally, this phenomenon of young Catholic professionals speaking about the Church in the media is taking off. My first observation of this effort was during World Youth Day in Sydney, when a small group of young Catholics were part of the Sky News coverage of the event. Rather than having professional reporters trying to explain something they knew nothing about, young Catholics were part of the massive crowds, shared their experiences and, when necessary, explained what was happening during Mass or the Stations of the Cross. Continue reading

Sources

• Gavin Abraham in The Catholic Soapbox
• See also Pat McCarthy in CathNews NZ Pacific
• Image: Planet Blog

Gavin Abraham, a journalist for more than a dozen years, has spent most of the last six years working in Catholic media.

For years I've been immersed in Catholic media and the ongoing conversation within the Church of how to carry on as the Church. And, of course, in the West, at the heart of this conversation is the fact that within the next generation half of the pews will empty.

When I travel, I always get asked by parents how they can get their adult children back to church. It's an epidemic. We know this.

And we can talk about catechesis and community and leadership and orthodoxy and the sacraments and the fullness of truth. We can complain about politics and how we need more preaching from the pulpit. But here is the core problem. Here is the practical reason why people are not convinced of the Catholic faith anymore:

We Catholics don't look or act any different than non-catholics. It's that simple.

The question we must answer is "if Catholicism offers a better way, why don't Catholics' lives seem any better?"

If we believe our faith and action in this life has eternal consequences, why don't we act like it? If the God of our universe, the Creator of everything, is truly present in the Eucharist, why don't our actions show this?

If our relationship with God is truly the most important relationship, why don't our daily schedules reflect that? If our marriages and families are our greatest blessings, why do we sacrifice them for our careers?

If God has a plan for us, why do we make so many plans without him? And why are we not on our knees every morning thanking, praising and giving over to him every moment of our entire day?

If Catholicism is true, why isn't everything we do ordered around this Truth? Continue reading

Sources

• Matthew Warner in National Catholic Register
• Image: Patheos

Matthew Warner is a lover of God, his wife, his kids, his life, cookies, hot-buttered bread, snoozin' & awkward (as well as not awkward) silence.

The Warehouse and Kmart sell Bangladeshi-made clothes, but deny their stock came from the eight-storey factory, which collapsed on April 24.

Yesterday, Kmart confirmed it did not sign the accord on fire and safety in Bangladesh, which has been signed by international chains, such as Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Marks & Spencer, Zara and Tesco.

Continue reading

Among the dozens of questions that the World Values Survey asked respondents across more than 80 countries over three decades, Swedish economists found one that, they believe, could be a good indicator of tolerance for other races.

Continue reading

Details of the declines have been revealed for the first time by the compilation of statistics for these sacraments over the past century.

The figures were compiled by the Latin Mass Society, whose chairman said they "show unambiguously that something went seriously wrong in the Church in England and Wales in the 1960s and 1970s".

Continue reading

"We need to stop cloaking the ugliness of abortion with misnomers like ‘proper medical coverage' or ‘choice'," he said. "It's violence of the most intimate sort, and it needs to end."

The president of the Pennsylvania Family Institute, Michael Geer, said the case of Dr Kermit Gosnell posed a big question: "How is it murder to kill a late-term baby outside the womb, but legal to kill it minutes earlier while still in its mother's uterus?"

Continue reading