Sunday, May 11, 2003

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GOOD SHEPHERD SUNDAY -WORLD DAY OF PRAYER FOR VOCATIONS

On the Website "Vocations.org.nz" - http://vocations.org.nz - Kiwi Catholic laypeople, priests and religious give personal testimonies about the the challenges and rewards of their respective vocations.

The main "Vocations" page on the NZ Catholic Bishops' Website -http://www.catholic.org.nz - has links to our bishops' pastoral letters on vocations to the priesthood and religious life, and to a directory of the more than forty religious orders active in New Zealand, with links to their Websites.

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FROM THE CATHOLIC PRESS

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'NZ Catholic' No 161, May 4 - 17, 2003 http://www.nzcatholic.org.nz

"Hundreds enter Church at Easter " Several hundred people In New Zealand were welcomed into the Church at Easter...

"Wanganui women take initiative over euthanasia " More than 350 people attended a successful public forum on euthanasia on April 23, organised by two local women who had become tired of the publicity being received by pro-euthanasia advocates...

"Chemical abortions approved by court " The threat against unborn babies has grown with a High Court judgement by Judge Eddie Durie on April 10...

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'Marist Messenger', May 2003 http://www.maristmessenger.co.nz

Full text: ** May Focus - Is there a void? Is there something or someone missing? ** New Zealand's first priest - Fr Catherin Louis Servant sm ** That Sunday Sermon : How to profit from sermons, good, bad and mediocre ** A minute with Fr Paddy Cahill ** Marist Spirituality - Tasting God

From the world's online Catholic media (links): Protecting children from Internet predators ... We are a resurrection people ... Gardening with Mary ... Stuck between rainbow and the cross... Good stewards of the earth ... Finding a busy God

This Months Recommended Links: Bible Study: A Catholic Approach ... The National Catholic Rural Life Conference ... Photo-Poetry essay ... The Passion of Jesus ... Music That Inspires

Also in the print edition : The Immaculate Conception ... My problem with Free Will ... Sigrid Undset - a Catholic author ... The Cure of Ars - a model priest ... Eucharistic Adoration ... The Truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable. ... What is Our Lady's crown in heaven? ... Message for World Mission Day

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'Wel-com' May 2003 http://www.welcom.org.nz/

Fr Timothy Radcliffe's challenging reflections on the Holocaust and 11 September ... Wel-com survey reveals high level of satisfaction among our readers ... Chrism Mass reflection on crises faced by today's clergy, by Cardinal Williams ... Do we as parents hold back on vocations? ... Should I stay or should I go? [recollections of a former seminarian] ... Suppressing freedom of speech [breast cancer and abortion] ... Making connections between disability and spirituality ... Elective Caesarean sections are becoming an extension of a woman's right to choose ... Making time for God ... Iraqi Christians pleased over Saddam’s fall but fear for future ... Baby teeth offer another effective source of stem cells ... Mahitahi - a revised agency of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops' Conference ... “Ecclesia de Eucharistia” — the Pope’s 14th and most personal encyclical... Otago academic challenges allegations made against the Catholic Church [Holocaust author Daniel Goldhagen's interview by Linda Clark]... When transnational companies patent GM seeds ... Courts open the way for chemical abortion in N.Z.

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Priests and People (UK) May 2003 http://www.priestsandpeople.co.uk/cgi-bin/archive_db.cgi?priestsppl-00086

"Kitsch, culture and the laughing Madonna", by Tina Beattie [Tina Beattie, author of the recent book God’s Mother, Eve’s advocate,* teaches theology at Digby Stuart College, University of Surrey, Roehampton. Here she describes her move from a Protestant upbringing which was suspicious of Mary to a Catholicism whose symbolic femininity ‘led me for the first time to seriously consider the significance of being a woman in the eyes of God’.]

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FROM THE SECULAR PRESS

"Legendary Haast horseman " Otago Daily Times Saturday, 3-May 2003 http://tinyurl.com/bf53 On Wednesday the funeral cortege of Haast cattle drover and horseman Kevin Nolan was led from Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church by musterer daughter Anne Nolan on horseback. Her father was one of the last links to pioneer days in the South Westland region...

"Queenstown becomes Godzone" (photo) ODT Friday, 9-May 2003 http://tinyurl.com/bf5c Queenstown is blessed this week with the presence of 10 Catholic bishops, who are in the resort for a national conference. The Catholic Bishops Conference, representing all six New Zealand dioceses, had spent five days discussing "a broad spectrum" of issues, Bishop Peter Cullinane, of Palmerston North, said yesterday....

"Catholic priests at first assembly " ODT Saturday, 3-May 2003 http://tinyurl.com/bf5e Half of Dunedin's active Roman Catholic priests are attending the first national assembly of New Zealand's catholic clergy. The 25 priests, including the Bishop of Dunedin, the Most Rev Len Boyle, are attending a five-day gathering in Blenheim this week....

"Gay men in bid for surrogate's baby " NZ Herald 08.05.2003 http://tinyurl.com/bf5g New Zealand's first application by two gay men to have a surrogate's baby will force authorities to decide on the rights of the child to have a mother.... [The report includes a statement on the issue by John Kleinsman, spokesman for the Nathaniel Catholic Bioethics Centre]

"Trips into the dark explore what it means to be human " ODT Saturday, 3-May 2003 http://tinyurl.com/bf58 Wellington author Elizabeth Knox drew on nightmares and deep-seated fears to nourish her latest novel about vampires in France. But the award-winning author is not scared what people will think of her new novel, Daylight , which uses Catholic saints, priests and traditions to tell her story about a New Zealand man who falls in love with a vampire in France....

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CATHOLIC WEB TV

Wellington Archdiocesan Media Centre: "Catholictv.net" http://www.catholictv.net

In this week's site preview (which starts automatically when you open the Catholictv.net home page), there's an extended a preview of a forthcoming report about the national assembly of priests at Blenheim a week ago. Also on the site this week ...

*** Bishop John Dew message for Good Shepherd Sunday, the World Day of Prayer for Vocations

*** John Kleinsman of Wellington's Nathaniel Catholic Bioethics Centre talks about the proposed euthanasia bill.


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EVENTS

July 6-10 2003 "Active 8 Celebrate" National Catholic Youth Event, Christchurch http://www.connect.org.nz/wazzup/index.html

August 14-16 2003 New Zealand Catholic Schools' Convention Wellington Festival and Convention Centre http://nzceo.catholic.org.nz/2003convention.shtml

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