Dear 'kiwicatholics', On the New Zealand Catholic Internet this week: ********************* From the November issue of Tui Motu InterIslands at: http://www.catholic.org/newzealand/tuimotu Editorial: 'Time for a change' [ a brief commentary on the forthcoming General Election, and on businessman Hugh Fletcher's views on business and social responsibility] 'Whose country is it anyway?' [A review by Tom Cloher of Jane Kelsey's book 'Reclaiming the Future: New Zealand and the Global Economy'. Link to a paper by Jane Kelsey, 'Life in the economic test-tube'] 'Where is the priesthood going?' [A conversation between Fr Paul Andrews, an Irish Jesuit teacher and pediatric psychotherapist, and Dr Anna Holmes, a Christchurch G.P. about changing perceptions of the Catholic priesthood with particular reference to Ireland. Link to the Irish Jesuits' home page.] ******************** New publications by our sponsor NZ Catholic Education Office : 'Lighting New Fires' and Catholic Schools' Supplement, November 1999 http://www.catholic.org/newzealand/nzceo/pubs/lnf/lnf.html [News and notes for teachers in integrated schools* with many links to education resources on the Internet] 'Good News & the News' October 1999, plus a Special Edition http://www.catholic.org/newzealand/nzceo/pubs/gnatn/index.html [This "broadsheet of good practice in integrated schools" contains fewer - but more detailed - reports than LNF on educational innovations in our Catholic schools. One which especially caught my attention is in the Special Edition: 'How Liston College**, Henderson - a boys-only school - is reversing the trend of recent years by which boys are doing increasingly less well at school than girls. The school identified the characteristic ways in which boys learn and adapted its teaching accordingly] * Schools which are integrated into the state school system while preserving a special character. ** In New Zealand 'college' almost always refers to a high school. ********************* Now some administration matters. From time to time messages are sent to 'kiwicatholic' which are really private communications intended for me as the list manager, mostly from members leaving the list. In that case it's better to write directly to me at leon@xtra.co.nz My address appears at the head of all my weekly posts. My thanks to Brian for the complimentary comment. Kelly Neal wrote: > > I was mistakenly under the impression that "kiwi" was a monthly > "newsletter" about catholic topics/happenings etc. in new Zealand. I am not > interested in receiving regular emails about the topics that you and your > members discuss in your forums: > On the Catholic home page under 'E-mail forum' I described 'kiwicatholic' like this: ************* "'kiwicatholic' is an e-mail forum sponsored by the New Zealand Catholic Education Office. After joining, a member may send an e-mail message to its correspondence address. The message is automatically copied to all the other members, creating the forum. "Our topic is "Catholic life in New Zealand", including overseas events of interest to New Zealand Catholics ... "Since 'kiwicatholic' opened in March 1999 it has carried weekly news of the New Zealand Catholic Internet, reports of current events in dioceses and parishes around New Zealand, members' views on matters of faith and discussions on the future of our Catholic schools. Members have also established a prayer ministry ..." ************ Is this a fair description of our forum? Could it be made clearer while still being kept short? Kelly also couldn't find the 'unsubscribe' option on the OneList Web site - http://www.onelist.com - and I sympathise with that. *I* have trouble finding my way around it! Members can leave simply by sending an e-mail message addressed to: kiwicatholic-unsubscribe@onelist.com or by writing to me a leon@xtra.co.nz The other option I need to mention now - and I'll repeat in each post up to Christmas - is the option of suspending messages from 'kiwicatholic' to your e-mail address without quitting the list altogether. This is particularly handy if you are going on holiday and you don't want to be flooded with messages when you come back. To do this: * Open the OneList home page at http://www.onelist.com * Click on the "My OneList" link at the top left of the page * You see a link called 'kiwicatholic' and opposite it on the right a box headed 'Delivery Options' over a drop-down menu. Click the little arrow to show the menu options, click on "No Mail/Web only", then click "Save Changes". Or ...... write to me and I'll do to for you :-) When you want to start receiving posts again, do the same, but click on the "Individual Emails" option (or write to me. I won't complain, honestly). On the topic of marijuana use, the NZ Ministry of Health has published a report called "Cannabis: the public health issues". I have only read the summary but just from that the report looks like a really good starting point for a serious discussion. To read the summary and find the link to the full report open the Ministry's search page at: http://210.48.125.104/searchweb.nsf/$SearchForm?Searchsite enter 'marijuana' in the search slot, click Search, then click the link the search finds. A warm welcome this week to Ray McGarry at Holy Family Parish, near Wigan in the heartland of English Rugby League. Thanks for your intro. Ray. You join a fair number of 'kiwicatholics' in other countries. We would welcome your observations from an English perspective on the issues that concern us all as Catholics. You wrote: > We have an interest in Maori culture, and would welcome information > on how to obtain recordings of any Masses which have been put to the > traditional music/vocal rendition of the Maori. The two organisations mostly likely to help you are both based in Auckland, so to save time I suggest you write directly to Auckland Catholic Communications at cathcomm@xtra.co.nz and ask them to pass your request on to: 'Te Runanga o Te Hahi Katorika ki Aotearoa' ('Te Runanga' for short), our bishops' national Maori advisory council and 'Tamaki Maori Mission Team and Community' which is an Auckland diocesan group. Finally folks, if its freezing and raining where you are as it here, what better way to pass the afternoon than a virtual tour of Wigan Borough via its very fine Web site, starting at: http://www.wiganmbc.gov.uk/pub/council/wmbguide/contents.htm Until next week, God bless. Mike Leon 'kiwicatholic' list manager

Dear kiwicatholics, On the Catholic bishops' Web site this week ... From the 'NZ Catholic' newspaper at: http://www.catholic.org/newzealand/cathcom/press/nzc/front.html 'Theological college will take over Salvationist citadel' The former Newton citadel in Ponsonby Rd, Auckland will be the new college for theological education of Catholic priests for New Zealand and overseas. 'Bankrupt' social policies deplored' Christians must find a voice to resist the growing inequalities that are a feature of New Zealand society say the Catholic bishops in a joint statement for the Great Jubilee. [I will put the Statement on the bishops' Web site this coming week and at that time there will be a link to it from this story - ML] Generous Scot makes $50,000 gift A $50,000 gift got the restoration fund for Newton's St Benedict's Church off to an upbeat start, even before it had been officially launched. The donor was Catholic Scottish businessman Sir Tom Farmer, in New Zealand early this month representing Ford America. Also up this week is the final issue for 1999 of 'Lightning New fires', the newsletter of our sponsor the New Zealand Catholic Education Office, at: http://www.catholic.org/newzealand/nzceo/pubs/lnf/lnf.html In short paragraphs it records the achievements of New Zealand's integrated schools*, of which the majority are Catholic schools. The newsletter also draws teachers' attention to new teaching resources available through the Ministry of Education and elsewhere. As always, the Web version of the Newsletter contains links to the home pages of all schools mentioned which have a Web site, and to many of the on-line resources described in it. [* schools with a 'special character' - often Christian - which they are permitted to preserve while receiving a measure of state funding] Last week I mentioned a tussle in our parish over the location of the weekday Masses and communion services. We know now that they will return to the parish church at the beginning of December, there to stay until numbers fall off again around the start of next winter. In the meantime my wife and I have started attending the services in the hall so if there were any hard feelings among the regulars about our absence, hopefully that's all cleared up. Certainly nobody's tried to break my fingers at the sign of Peace :-) God bless, Mike Leon 'kiwicatholic' list manager

Dear 'kiwicatholics', Noeline Sapwell, the faithful maintainer of the 'kiwicatholic' prayer ministry, wrote: >This week I am asking you all >to please say a prayer for me :) >I will be making my Secular >Carmelite profession at a Mass this Sunday at >2.00p.m. >I would really appreciate your prayers. You shall have them Noeline! May God bless your pilgrimage of faith under the banner of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. Three stories from this weekend's 'NZ Catholic' newspaper on the bishops' Web site at: http://www.catholic.org/newzealand/cathcom/press/nzc/front/html **************************** 'Nelson is site for new college' A new Catholic co-educational college is to break new ground - it will be the only Catholic college in the South Island part of Wellington archdiocese. On October 14 Cardinal Thomas Williams and the mayor of the Tasman District Council, John Hurley, formally signed a sale and purchase agreement for land for the new college ... [U.S. readers: a "college" is a high school] 'Poor housing highlighted in new report' Wellington - The Government's housing policies have led to more than 115,000 people, including 50,000 children, living in crowded conditions, says a report by the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services ... [Link to the Ministry of Housing's home page where you won't find the CCSS report.] 'Newcomers given warm welcome in Hastings parish' Some applied innovation and creativity have made sure that visitors and new parishioners always feel welcome at Sacred Heart parish in Hastings. The parish has a "New Parishioners" stand in the lobby of the church, staffed every Sunday by parishioner Angela Minton (right) ... ************************** Now at this point, due to a technical hiccup, on looking right you *might* see a picture of Brother Richard Dunleavy, the new secretary general of the Marist Brothers, whose picture appeared in the previous issue. Click your browser's 'Refresh' or 'Reload' button to get the true picture. I am on to this glitch now and will take steps in future to ensure that only the latest photos appear with the latest stories. Oh, and Brother Dunleavy wishes it to be known that he is not now - nor has he ever been - Angela Minton. The reason there's no link to the text of the CCSS housing report is that no Web site has a copy of it. I spoke to the Council's Secretary about this and explained the advantages of publishing on the Web: there's nothing more to do after putting it up, but anyone interested can read, print out and photocopy the report in unlimited quantities, so there's never a shortage and you get a very wide audience. Alas, the Council hasn't the staff to maintain a Web site and apparently couldn't find an existing one to put the report on. Our eldest son Michael (25) wrote this week about his experiences as assistant manager at the Wellington Men's Night Shelter. Mike jnr is also the manager of the Wellington City Mission foodbank and a budget adviser there. Pauline has already responded to his post. He stays at the Night Shelter from Saturday evening to Tuesday evening so his next opportunity to respond will be Wednesday evening. The topic of schools came up during the week. It happens that this weekends' 'NZ Catholic' newspaper also has two items from the Hamilton diocesan Catholic schools' conference: one by the Treasurer, Bill English and the other by the chief review officer of the Education Review Office (the government's school performance watchdog) Dr Judith Aitkin. Bill and Mary English's children attend Sacred Heart convent school in Wellington. He writes that "when people go to a Catholic school they believe the teachers [there] should believe in God ... I know there are teachers who pray with the children but who don't believe in God - my children have had that experience and it confuses them". What is the legal position regarding religious belief and the employment of teachers in the Catholic school system? I know from the advertisements for staff that applicants "must be willing to take a full part in" all aspects of school life. But is it legal to refuse employment on the grounds that someone doesn't believe in God? What if they said they did, and later "I've thought about and now I don't!" In the other item Dr Aitkin writes about a young girl whose mother is " single, a Catholic by baptism, alcoholic by profession .... It is her integrated Roman Catholic school .. that has keep her father and her aunts and uncles and grandmothers in touch with her, paid her bus fare, given her lunch, not minded about her unofficial uniform, fostered her intelligence." A few lines below there's a copy of a letter in this weekend's 'NZ Catholic'. Every best wish and all God's blessings. Mike Leon 'kiwicatholic' list manager ***************************** Women I am writing in the hope that through your paper I might be able to make contact with individual women and groups of women who are already - or who would like to - form a Catholic women's network. I believe that it is time for Catholic women in New Zealand to be united in bringing attention to the need for women to have an environment in the Church which gives them the ability to explore their spirituality as women. We also need to influence the Church to form structures that will give just recognition to the leadership roles of women within the Church and to the way in which women experience leadership. The aims of such a group would be mainly to share resources that feed and nourish women; to promote education for women in theology, Scripture and Church teaching; and to promote the formation of structures that will recognise and foster the use of the special gifts and talents of women in leadership roles within the Catholic Church and society. I am aware of groups of women which are already doing this but believe it is time for women to call for change in the Church with one united voice. Too many women have left the Church because they have no place within it. I believe we are called as women to effect change for future generations. Teresa Homan, 10 Garnet Grove, Upper Hutt.