"Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me, cannot be my
disciple"
St Luke's Gospel 14:27

Dear friends,

It's now more than a week since the New Zealand-registered Internet
addresses of ' catholic.org.nz ' and ' www.catholic.org.nz ' became
inactive. At present they only open the home page of our host Catholic
Online in California. There has been no word from COL about when the
problem will be fixed but I suspect that ours is not the only site that
was affected, and putting matters right is going to take some time.

Meanwhile, please remember - and tell anyone else who's having problems
- that all our pages can still be opened by using our Catholic Online
address. Instead of ' www.catholic.org.nz ' you type '
www.catholic.org/newzealand ' to open the bishops' home page. For the
NZCEO website at ' www.catholic.org.nz/nzceo ' you enter '
www.catholic.org/newzealand/nzceo ' and so on.

I'm very sorry about the disruption, but there's nothing we can do
about it down here, apart from reminding COL from time to time that
we're still waiting. The company has been amazingly generous in inviting
any organisation recognised by our bishops to put as many Web pages as
they like on the COL server completely free of charge. There is a cost
to the company for carrying our pages and serving them up but as far as
I know they have never asked us for a cent in the more than five years
they have been providing this service. The New Zealand Church owes the
company a debt of gratitude, but on the other hand we can't claim
priority over Catholic Online's paying clients in the present situation.

As soon as the problem is put right, you will be the first to know :-)

God bless,
Mike Leon
'kiwicath' forum manager
************************

THE 'TAMPA' ASYLUM-SEEKERS

Our bishops, and Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand have each issued media
statements welcoming the NZ Government's decision to accept some of the
people on the 'Tampa' while their requests for refugee status are
assessed. The Caritas statement can be opened from its home page at
http://www.caritas.org.nz . The bishops' statement follows:

"The Chairman of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops' Conference, Bishop
Peter Cullinane, today applauded the New Zealand Government's indication
that it will accept some of the refugees who are aboard the Norwegian
vessel, Tampa.

"We understand the New Zealand Government has indicated that it will
offer asylum to a number of these people. The compassion and respect for
human dignity that underpins this response is to be warmly commended"
Bishop Cullinane said."

Articles from the secular press:

'Voice of calm in a strange land ' (photo)
NZ Herald 08.09.2001
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?thesection=news&thesubsection=&storyI\
D=215483
Amid a week of angry tailback and television polls condemning our
invitation to the Afghani asylum seekers, [the president of Auckland's
Refugee Council] Dr Nagalingam Rasalingam is a calm voice of reason -
supported by a wealth of knowledge of what it means to be a refugee in
an alien land.......

'Dialogue: Afghans have proved to be diligent citizens ' by Fr Terry
Dibble (photo)
NZ Herald 06.09.2001
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?thesection=news&thesubsection=&storyI\
D=215013&reportID=53510
The Afghan asylum seekers from the Tampa will make better citizens than
some recent immigrants of dubious background.......