The Catholic Leader - 22 April

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The Catholic Leader, April 22, 2018
News
April 25: 8am, Anzac
Day Mass, St Stephen’s
Cathedral
April 26: 8am, Mass,
St Stephen’s Cathe-
dral; Episcopal Coun-
cil meeting
April 28: Noon, blessing
of senior leadership team and
community council of Emmanuel
Community, Holy Family Church, Indoo-
roopilly
April 29: 10am, Mass, St Stephen’s
Cathedral.
Archbishop Mark Coleridge
Bishop Ken Howell
April 24: Episcopal Coun-
cil meeting; Duchesne
College Formal Dinner
April 25: 9am, Mass,
Anzac Day, St Ben-
edict’s Church, East
Brisbane
April 26: Episcopal
Council meeting
April 27: ACL meeting
April 28: 10am, Confirmations, St Mary’s
Church, Upper Coomera; 6pm, Mass, St
Benedict’s Church, East Brisbane
April 29: 9am, Mass, St Joseph’s Church,
Kangaroo Point; Duchesne College Coun-
cil Planning Day.
Official
engagements for
Brisbane’s Bishops
Visit
to see the 10am Sunday Mass live
from
St Stephen’s Cathedral
Cardinal Parolin urging bishops to encourage alternatives
Colourful visits: Bishops attending the Federation of the Catholic
Bishops Conferences of Oceania meeting with locals in Papua New
Guinea.
Bishops called to keep battling
By Mark Bowling
HUMAN rights, climate change
and environmental protection have
topped the agenda as Australian
bishops joined more than 70 bishops
from across Oceania for meetings in
Port Moresby from April 11-18.
In a keynote address to the Federation of the
Catholic Bishops Conferences of Oceania, held
every four years, Holy See secretary of state
Cardinal Pietro Parolin challenged the Church to
identify and promote true alternatives to harmful
ways of life that prevailed in society.
Cardinal Parolin shared his reflection on
Laudato Si’, the second encyclical of Pope
Francis, and called on bishops to fight the ideol-
ogy of individualism that harmed people and the
environment.
“Individualism of course has very deep roots
coming from the times of the enlightenment and
which encouraged a separation from each other,”
he said.
“A separation from community brings us
towards other means of individual and independ-
ent living.”
The Assembly of FCBCO is a meeting of four
bishops’ conferences of Australia, New Zealand,
the Pacific Islands, and
Under the theme, Care of our Common Home
of Oceania: A sea of possibilities, the FCBCO
studied the environmental and social challenges
they were facing and tried find concrete solu-
tions to the needs across the Pacific region.
Concerns included the care of the ocean
ecosystem, the protection of human rights and
the environment, threatened by an economy of
intense exploitation of this vast geographical
area.
An assembly work session discussed the
plight of more than 600 asylum seekers stranded
on PNG’s Manus Island.
An Australian detention centre was set up on
the island after a controversial political agree-
ment between PNG and Australia.
Thousands of asylum seekers from all over
the world were brought to the detention centre,
and although the centre was closed last October,
hundreds of would-be refugees remain, living in
a legal limbo.
They were moved to “transitional structures”
on the island following a ruling by PNG’s Su-
preme Court.
CONTINUED PAGE 11
Individualism of course has very deep roots
coming from the times of the enlightenment
and which encouraged a separation from
each other.
Senior visitor:
Holy See
secretary of
state Cardinal
Pietro Parolin
addressing
the Federation
of the Catholic
Bishops Con-
ferences of
Oceania.