pathways, September 2009
Contemporary web presence receives MAM priority
Child slaves produce religious items
Radical career choice
Mother Teresa remembered
Historic day for new Augustinian deacon
East Timor: The Hungry Season
G-20 Pittsburgh Summit
Contemporary web presence receives MAM priority
Mary Aikenhead Ministries, the first Public Juridic Person of Pontifical Right granted to a religious congregation in Australia, has launched a
contemporary online presence which presents the ministries' history, traditions, facilities and day-to-day operations in a clear and easily accessible way.
The website has been built and commissioned before Mary Aikenhead Ministries' (MAM) new offices are opened.
This is symbolic of the importance MAM has placed on having an online presence, according to MAM trustee Sr Elizabeth Dodds RSC (pictured)
"By harnessing the Web, we can go a long way to making our physically disparate community a cohesive one - and that is a major priority for us," she said. "The site will continuously evolve to accommodate the dynamic needs of Mary Aikenhead Ministries and its various facilities."
Mary Aikenhead Ministries was established in July this year, heralding a change in governance for the various facilities founded by the Sisters of Charity.
The Sisters' facilities are now governed by a group of Trustees, consisting initially of two members of the congregation and three lay colleagues.
The new entity was granted canonical status as a Public Juridic Person of Pontifical Right by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (Rome) on April 25, 2008. The civil transfer took place on July 1, 2009.
Child slaves produce religious items
Good Samaritan Sister Pauline Coll speaks to Paul Dobbyn* about religious items being produced by workers enduring unfair conditions ...
Catholics need to look carefully at the origins of religious items they buy to ensure they are not the products of child slave labour, a Brisbane religious sister has warned.
The seriousness of the issue has led the
National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA) to pledge its support for a Christian Goods Standard to end worker exploitation in the production of Christian merchandise, which also includes T-shirts and Bible covers.
Several retailers and suppliers of religious goods spoken to in Brisbane - St Paul's Book Centre, Christian Supplies and Di Marco International - have also indicated they support these initiatives.
Good Samaritan Sister Pauline Coll said the catalyst for these actions had been the discovery that crucifixes sold at St Patrick's Cathedral, New York, in 2007, had come from a factory employing teenagers working in "dreadful sweat shop" conditions in China.
Sr Pauline said the huge USA-based Association for Christian Retail "was found to lack basic codes of conduct and a factory-monitoring program".
"There was little to reassure American Christians that the religious products they buy to celebrate their faith were not made under inhumane conditions," she said.
"It seems that this issue needs more attention in Australia. So Christian retailers and wholesalers here are being invited to ensure that similar abuses are not happening in the production of the religious goods they sell."
Sr Pauline, a representative on the national executive of Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans (
ACRATH), has spoken on the issue at a number of meetings this year.
"Unwittingly Christians may be enjoying the results of exploitation of trafficked or enslaved people. We just don't know," she said.
"It is our privilege to search out and check whether the articles/goods/services we enjoy have any element of this sort of labour about them.
"It would be a particularly terrible irony if the religious items we used in our devotions were to have been manufactured in this way.
"We need to be sure that none of this material is being sold by Church organisations."
Radical career choice
Daniel Lynch, at 22 years of age, has a pretty clear idea of where his future is heading. Herein lies the difference in career paths to those of his high school friends and university colleagues. Daniel has now entered the second of three stages to becoming a Marist Brother.
Mother Teresa remembered
The Missionaries of Charity marked the feast day of their foundress Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta with a Mass at their work centre in Fortitude Valley. The Brisbane celebration follows the international launch of a year of programs to celebrate the 2010 centennial of the birth of Blessed Mother Teresa. The year was launched at a Mass in Calcutta on August 26.
blessed day: Celebrating the life of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta are (from left) Sr Maria Domini, Sr Stephanius, Bishop Joseph Oudeman, Sr Shekinah and Sr Jossie Paul
Historic day for new Augustinian deacon
The first Vietnamese-born member of the Augustinains' Australian province was ordained a deacon in Brisbane recently.
Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Oudeman of Brisbane ordained Peter Minh-Tan Hoang at St James' Church, Coorparoo, on August 29.
Deacon Tan came to Australia as a refugee at a young age and was later reunited with his family. He attended a Catholic high school in Wollongong, NSW, went on to study nursing and was actively involved in Vietnamese Church activities in Sydney. He recently returned from three years' study in Rome.
He said many of his NSW-based family and friends travelled to Brisbane for the ordination Mass that was concelebrated by Augustinian priests from Brisbane and NSW.
new deacon: Peter Minh-Tan Hoang (centre) is with the Augustinians' Australian provincial Fr Tony Banks (left) and Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Oudeman after his ordination as deacon
East Timor: The Hungry Season
On the 10th anniversary of its historic independence referendum the new nation is fighting one of its oldest enemies - hunger. Joining the battle on the ground are hundreds of Australians - from small community groups to Caritas, the Catholic development agency and the Mary MacKillop Mission in East Timor.
With widespread corruption in East Timor's public service often preventing funds reaching the poorest, a special relationship is developing between communities in the two countries. Money raised at events like garage sales in Australian country towns goes directly to villagers developing sustainable agriculture, and so bypassing the nepotism that is siphoning off public money from other aid schemes.
video feature, download and transcript available,
Encounter, ABC Radio National
G-20 Pittsburgh Summit
As world leaders prepare for the September 24-25 Group of 20 (G-20) Summit in Pittsburgh, bread for the world has prepared a resource of background information and reflection activities. "It is hoped that people of faith will use these materials ... before the summit to inform their prayers and actions around this historic meeting."
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