Notes: Wednesday, March 27-Tuesday, April 23, 2013 (part 2 of 2)

8. Some points of interest from "A Profile of the Catholic Community in Australia", March 2013, A.C.B.C. Pastoral Research Office, Australian Catholic University, Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia:

In the following bullet points, the smaller-type parts are quotations from that profile:

• In 2011, the total number of people at Mass in Australia on a typical weekend was about 680,000, only about 12.5 per cent, or one-eighth, of the total number of Catholics. Most of those who attend, about 85 per cent, are there every weekend, but the individuals who make up the other 15 per cent vary from week to week.
  p. 2

• Labels: The 2011 Census tells us that 272,542 Catholic children of primary school age attended Catholic schools, and 210,514 Catholic students of secondary school age attended Catholic schools. That means that 52.8 per cent of Catholic students attend Catholic schools – it’s the same percentage for primary and secondary students. But it also means that almost half of all Catholic students do not attend Catholic schools. Most of these go to Government schools, although six per cent of Catholic primary students and ten per cent of Catholic secondary students attend other non-Government schools.
  p. 3

• The Census also tells us that Catholic students account for 72.5 per cent of Catholic school enrolments.
  
  Another 14.9 per cent are from other Christian traditions, 2.6 per cent belong to a non-Christian religion and 7.8 per cent have no religion.
  p. 3

(The profile came to my attention via the blog post "Going to Mass this Sunday? If so, you are one of less than 12.5% Oz Catholics to do so... ", by Miss Kate Edwards, dated Sunday, April 7, 2013, posted at her Australia Incognita blog:

http://australiaincognita.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/going-to-mass-this-sunday-you-are-one.html)

Regarding the second point: See also the A.C.B.C. Pastoral Research Office's "E-NEWS BULLETIN", Issue No. 3, August 17, 2012, on "Students attending Catholic schools":

http://www.pro.catholic.org.au/pdf/ACBC%20PRO%20E-%20News%20Bulletin%203.pdf

Labels: Catholic schools, demography, social trends

9. "What happens to marriage and families when the law recognises “Same-Sex Marriage”?"

The quotation in that headline is the title of a submission, from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, London, U.K., dated March 1, 2013, to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill Committee of the British House of Commons. The submission is available here:

http://www.spuc.org.uk/campaigns/ssmsub20130301

(That submission came to my attention via the comment of 2.4.13 / 10am by Mr. Gerard Calilhanna in the comments section of Mr. Muehleberg's CultureWatch blog post "Conservatives and Homosexual Marriage", dated March 30, 2013.)

Labels: families, G.L.B.T., marriage

10. Fr. Zuhlsdorf responds to the question of "How should a bishop carry the crosier?"

See the blog post "QUAERITUR: How should a bishop carry the crosier?", by The Rev. Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, dated April 10, 2013, downloaded from Fr. Z's Blog (olim: What Does The Prayer Really Say?):

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2013/04/quaeritur-how-should-a-bishop-carry-the-crosier/

Labels: Hierarchy

11. "Data from the ABS 2006-07 Family Characteristics Survey reveal that around one in four (23%) young adults aged 18-34 years reported experiencing the divorce or permanent separation of their parents before they were 18 years old. In contrast, the same survey revealed that less than one in ten (8%) young adults who were aged 18-34 years in 1976 had experienced parental divorce or permanent separation before they were 18 years old."

The quotation in that headline comes from the "Young adults: Then and now" webpage of "4102.0 - Australian Social Trends, April 2013", downloaded from the website of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (A.B.S.):

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features40April+2013

The relevant section of that webpage refers to the A.B.S.'s "Parental divorce or death in childhood" webpage of "4102.0 - Australian Social Trends, Sep 2010", which is available here:

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features40Sep+2010

Labels: divorce, families, marriage

12. Some points of interest in connection with Rio+20—The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development

Rio+20 came to my attention via the article "$900,000 spent on failed Brazil talkfest", by Mr. Steve Lewis, under a page headline of "158 DAYS TO GO", p. 08, the Sydney Daily Telegraph, Tuesday, April 9, 2013, Vol. 1, No. 2818, ISSN 1038-8745, published by Nationwide News Pty. Ltd., a version of which article is available online under the headline "Julia Gillard's delegation to Brazil for climate change summit cost taxpayers $900,000", by the same author, on the same date, at The Daily Telegraph's website:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/julia-gillards-delegation-to-brazil-for-climate-change-summit-cost-taxpayers-900000/story-fnho52jp-1226615165919

Here are some points of interest to me (the parts in small type are quotations):

• Rio+20 reaffirmed the world’s commitment to women’s equal rights, including in economic and political decision making, and committed to removing barriers to the equal participation of women in sustainable development. Rio+20 agreed to promote equal access by women and girls to education, health care services, and economic opportunities and to ensure universal access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable modern methods of family planning.
  [p. 6, Rio+20 Outcomes for Australia, Australian Government, downloaded from the website of the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population, and Communities:
  http://www.environment.gov.au/about/international/rio-plus20/pubs/rio-outcomes-australia.pdf]

• … The National Women's Health Policy aims to improve the health and wellbeing of all women in Australia and the National Family Planning Program aims to coordinate national family planning efforts, which allow individuals and couples to anticipate and attain their desired number of children through the use of contraceptive methods and the prevention and treatment of involuntary infertility.
  [p. 8, ibid.]

• 145. We call for the full and effective implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, and the outcomes of their review conferences, including the commitments leading to sexual and reproductive health and the promotion and protection of all human rights in this context. We emphasize the need for the provision of universal access to reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes.
  
  146. We commit to reduce maternal and child mortality and to improve the health of women, youth and children. We reaffirm our commitment to gender equality and to protect the rights of women, men and youth to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including access to sexual and reproductive health, free from coercion, discrimination and violence. We will work actively to ensure that health systems provide the necessary information and health services addressing the sexual and reproductive health of women, including by working towards universal access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable modern methods of family planning, as this is essential for women’s health and advancing gender equality.
  [p. 28, The future we want (annexed to the United Nations General Assembly resolution "66/288. The future we want", 123rd plenary meeting, July 27, 2012, downloaded from the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development website:
  http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N11/476/10/PDF/N1147610.pdf?OpenElement]

• 241. We are committed to promote the equal access of women and girls to education, basic services, economic opportunities and health-care services, including addressing women’s sexual and reproductive health, and ensuring universal access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable modern methods of family planning. In this regard, we reaffirm our commitment to implement the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the key actions for the further implementation of the Programme of Action.
  [p. 46, ibid.]

• … nearly half of Australia´s aid expenditure in 2009-10 was in support of activities promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women.
  [from the "Address to the High Level Summit of the Women Leaders' Forum on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Sustainable Development, Rio de Janeiro" by The Hon. Julia Gillard M.P., dated Thursday, June 21, 2013, downloaded from the "Press Office" section of the Prime Minister's website:
  http://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/address-high-level-summit-women-leaders-forum-gender-eqaulity-and-womens-empowerment-su
  According to the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID),
  Nearly half of the overall aid program is invested in activities that have either a primary or secondary objective of promoting gender equality and empowering women. …
  [p. 17, Promoting opportunities for all: Gender equality and women’s empowerment[; ]Thematic Strategy November 2011, published by AusAID, Canberra, A.C.T., Australia, December 2011, © Commonwealth of Australia 2011, downloaded from AusAID's website:
  http://www.ausaid.gov.au/aidissues/Documents/thematic-strategies/gender-equality-strategy.pdf]]

• Today[, Friday, June 22, 2012,] the plenary adopted the Rio+20 outcomes document - with Australia’s priorities well reflected. …
  [p. 1, Australia at Rio+20, downloaded from the website of the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population, and Communities:
  http://www.environment.gov.au/about/international/rio-plus20/pubs/rio-daily-updates.pdf]

For more on Australian Government foreign-affairs activity regarding Feminism, abortion, and contraception, see item 1 of this Notes post and item 7 of this Notes post.

Labels: abortion, contraception, feminism, U.N.O.

13. According to New Zealand's "Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act 2013", "marriage means the union of 2 people, regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity".

The second quotation, including the bold type, in that headline comes from p. 2 of the PDF document which you can download from this webpage at the New Zealand Legislation website:

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2013/0020/latest/DLM4505003.html

Labels: G.L.B.T., marriage, New Zealand

14. "As well as the changes to succession, the bill would limit those who needed the monarch's consent to marry to only the first six in line to the throne."

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "Queensland warned for dragging heels on royal succession changes", by Judith Ireland, dated April 18, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/queensland-warned-for-dragging-heels-on-royal-succession-changes-20130417-2i0lb.html?skin=text-only

Labels: monarchy

Reginaldvs Cantvar
St. George's Day, A.D. 2013

Notes: Wednesday, March 27-Tuesday, April 23, 2013 (part 1 of 2)

1. A couple of items regarding the religious duties of the State

1.1 Pius XI. on the religious duties of society, as society:

… For human society as such is bound to offer to God public and social worship. It is bound to acknowledge in Him its Supreme Lord and first beginning, and to strive toward Him as to its last end, to give Him thanks and offer Him propitiation. …
[Encyclical Letter Ad catholici sacerdotii, December 20, 1935, translation downloaded from the Vatican's website:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19351220_ad-catholici-sacerdotii_en.html
For an alternative translation, see Roy J. Deferrari's translation of Dz. 2274 on p. 608 of The Sources of Catholic Dogma, published by Loreto Publications, Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, U.S.A., 2007:
[society] is obliged in very fact to cherish religion publicly, to acknowledge God as the Supreme Lord and first beginning, to propose Him as its last end, to offer Him immortal thanks, and to offer him propitiation. …
The original Latin of Ad catholici sacerdotii is available in AAS 28 (1936), pp. 5-53 (the quotation in question is on p. 8, in the first paragraph of §I), and is also available in HTML format here.]

Labels: Confessional State, morality, natural law

1.2 St. Melito of Sardis (died c. A.D. 180), Bishop, Confessor, and Father of the Church, is the author of a "discourse recommending that Marcus Aurelius adopt Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire."

The quotation in that headline comes from the installment of the "SAINT FOR TODAY" column which (installment) was headlined "Canonised two years after dying" (the article profiled two saints; the headline refers to the first-profiled of them, namely St. Hugh of Grenoble), no byline, p. 48, the Sydney Catholic Weekly, March 31, 2013, Vol. 72, No. 4666 (presumably the volume and number are as I've given; the issue in question had neither printed on it, but the issue for the following Sunday (April 7, 2013) was Vol. 72, No. 4667), published by The Catholic Press Newspaper Company Pty. Ltd., available on-line but behind a paywall here:

http://catholicweekly.realviewtechnologies.com/?iid=75394&startpage=page0000048

The source for that profile was presumably this Catholic Online webpage. For other sources of information about St. Melito, see his profile in The Catholic Encyclopedia and the one in the Encyclopædia Britannica.

That quotation was especially interesting to me because I read at AQ a couple of years ago a post whose author mentioned that some early Christians—he might have referred to them as martyrs—wrote to the pre-Constantinian Roman Emperors in order to convert them and the Empire to Christianity. I wanted to ask that post's author for his source for what he wrote—not because I doubted it, but in order to learn more about it, and to defend it against those who would doubt it—but never got round to it. The Catholic Encyclopedia's article "Apologetics" says that

To vindicate the Christian cause against … attacks [from] paganism, many apologies were written. Some, notably the "Apology" of Justin Martyr (150), the "Plea for the Christians", by Athenagoras (177), and the "Apologetic" of Tertullian (197), were addressed to emperors for the express purpose of securing for the Christians immunity from persecution. …
[hyperlinks in the original,
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01618a.htm]

and its article "Fathers of the Church" contains the following:

The [Greek ]apologists[ of the second century, after the Apostolic Fathers,] are most of them philosophic in their treatment of Christianity. Some of their works were presented to emperors in order to disarm persecutions. …
[hyperlinks in the original, my interpolations,
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06001a.htm]

and goes on to mention St. Melito and other Fathers and their respective works.

Labels: Confessional State, Roman Empire, St. Melito of Sardis

2. "Around a quarter of all Australian children aged up to 12 years were now in child care, a record amount, the report[, namely, Child Care Update, June quarter 2012] found."

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "A quarter of all Australian children under 12 are using childcare services, the latest Child Care Update report says", no byline (A.A.P. is credited as the source), dated March 31, 2013, downloaded from The Australian's website:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/a-quarter-of-all-australian-children-under-12-are-using-childcare-services-the-latest-child-care-update-report-says/story-e6frg6nf-1226609852452

Child Care Update, June quarter 2012, ISBN: 978-0-642-78735-4, © Commonwealth of Australia, 2013, produced by the Department of Education, Employment, and Workplace Relations (D.E.E.W.R.) on behalf of the Australian Government, and published by the D.E.E.W.R., is available online here:

http://mychild.gov.au/pages/ResourcesReports.aspx

Labels: childcare, families, social trends

3. "ACON was founded by the gay community for the gay community in response to the HIV epidemic"; ACON's "very essence is as a gay organisation"

The quotations in that headline were attributed to Mr. Nicolas Parkhill, "the chief executive of ACON, a community-based gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender health organisation", in the article "Gay slurs take AIDS fighter by surprise", by Heath Aston, dated April 2, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/gay-slurs-take-aids-fighter-by-surprise-20130401-2h33h.html?skin=text-only

Labels: ACON, G.L.B.T.

4. That Atheist straw man again: "Who needs proof when you have belief?"

The quotation in that headline comes from a letter by one David Farrell published under the sub-heading "Pastafarians join Bert's teapot in atheism debate" on the letters webpage of April 4, 2013, headlined "Shortsighted superannuation plan is also extremely naive", at The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/shortsighted-superannuation-plan-is-also-extremely-naive-20130403-2h795.html?skin=text-only

Labels: atheism

5. Dr. Wetherell on priesthood in anthropology and in theology

See the article "Women priests and bishops: Anglicanism's crisis of identity", by Dr. David Wetherell, pp. 10, 11, and 18, AD 2000, March 2013, Vol. 26, No. 2, published by Mr. Peter Westmore for the Thomas More Centre of Balwyn, Victoria, Australia, available under the same headline and with the same byline and date at AD 2000's website:

http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2013/mar2013p10_3973.html

Labels: Priesthood

6. "thanks to collaboration by Google, a project has been launched to make all the issues[ of La Civiltà Cattolica] published from 1850 to 2008 accessible on the web. In fact, Google had digitalized the volumes for their Google Books project, through agreements with several libraries in Europe and the United States. The issues still protected by copyright law will now be made available by our authorization."

The quotation in that headline was attributed to The Rev. Fr. Antonio Spadaro S.J., director of La Civiltà Cattolica, in the Vatican Information Service daily e-mail bulletin item "CIVILTA CATTOLICA: NEW FORMAT, NEW SECTIONS, AND OPENNESS TO INTERNET AND SOCIAL NETWORKING", dated April 5, 2013:

http://www.news.va/en/news/civilta-cattolica-new-format-new-sections-and-open

Labels: Civilta Cattolica

7. Mr. Andrades on some gatherings in Rome in late October 2012 in connection with the seventeenth centenary of the conversion of Constantine the Great

See Mr. Lionel Andrades' blog posts "1700 th ANNIVERSARY FOR THE APPARITION TO KING CONSTANTINE AND HIS VISTORY AT THE MILVIAN BRIDGE CELEBRATED IN ROME" and "It was Christ himself who told Constantine the Great to fight in his name. God is not indifferent but active in our history- Roberto de Mattei", dated respectively Sunday, October 28, 2012 and Tuesday, October 30, 2012, downloaded from his "eucharistandmission" blog. (The gatherings in question are not to be confused with the congress of mid-April 2012 about which I blogged in item 2 of this Notes post.)

(Those blog posts came to my attention via this True Catholic post.)

Labels: Constantine the Great

Reginaldvs Cantvar
St. George's Day, A.D. 2013