On behalf of the Catholic community of Boonah, Happy Easter!

 The Sunday Readings at home are provided by our own Liturgy Brisbane. Click now on this link to access the texts and prayer: https://litedliturgybrisbane.weebly.com/sunday-readings-at-home.html/

 There is also a link for Family Prayer at Home. This is ideal for families with primary-aged children and younger: https://litedliturgybrisbane.weebly.com/family-prayer-week-by-week.html/

 PARISH PASTORAL COUNCIL NEWS

Last Tuesday, our 2020 Parish Council executive (David Judge, chairperson, Angela Conway, deputy chairperson, John Nunan, secretary, and John Fitz-Herbert, pastor) met via the technology of Zoom. Thanks to David Judge organising us and introducing us to this technological mystery.

It was very good to touch base and ‘catch-up’ with one another. John Nunan had made contact with our PPC members who contributed to our agenda. Parishioners had also taken up my invitation to make suggestions for this meeting. My thanks to our councillors and parishioners for their thoughts and ideas.

The purpose of our conversation was to discuss and explore ways we can stay in touch with our parishioners at this time.

So . . . we resolved to do four things now. To:

1. contact parishioners by phone and ‘touch base’ with them and to ask How are you? Can we assist you in anyway? We are thinking this won’t be a one-off contact and at this moment we might stay in touch weekly; 2. email details of beautifully prepared home-prayer leaflets for The Three Days of Easter. I was asked to include a web link for those wishing to view the live-streaming of these liturgies from our Cathedral of St Stephen; 3. add a short audio homily future Sunday mail-outs from Yours Truly; 4. post our Parish Sunday newsletter and other related content to our parish Facebook page: Boonah Catholic Church. The same will be added to our parish website as is the practice.

 Thanks to our parish councillors for phoning a small group of parishioners over these days. There is already a sense that our locals have welcomed this outreach. As pastor, I have also received requests for one-on-one follow-up – thanks!

 Thanks to parishioners who have asked about their weekly giving and how to go about it. At this moment, the most practical way is to transfer your gift electronically via your bank or credit union. The trick here is to choose PAY ANYONE/SOMEONE. Don’t choose TRANSFER or B-PAY.

The details you will be asked to provide: ACCOUNT NAME: Boonah Catholic Parish BSB: 064786 ACCOUNT NUMBER: 005981100

If you are asked to add and/oror include details or a note, write something like this: weekly giving or monthly giving April.

Instead, parishioners may want to set up a Direct Debit instead of doing electronic transfers themselves. If you would like to do this, there is a document to fill-out at the end of this communication.

I offer to explore some safe way for those who may want to drop-off their giving in cold hard cash! However, I am more than concerned whether or not this action is deemed right now as essential travel. Public safety and health comes first!

 HE’S ALIVE!

I believe Easter is a time of rejoicing for 50 days. Yes: 5-0.

Lent 2020 is done, finished, over, completed.

Humans rejoice with music, food and wine, good company and stories. So can Christians!

I guess most wouldn’t consider Dolly Parton to offer anything about the lived experience of the resurrection of Christ. Wrong!

In her 1989 album White Limozeen, the tenth and final track is: He’s Alive. I prefer a live recording from 1990 at The GMA Dove Awards. These annual awards honour outstanding achievements in Christian and Gospel music. Watch out for the ending . . .it is from the apostle Peter’s perspective!

Enjoy! https://youtu.be/3Ln7Okj4Sro

I thought that this was Dolly’s song as DP is a prolific songwriter. Over 3,00 songs and counting! I was wrong . . .

. The writer of He’s Alive is Don Francisco. He won the 1980 GMA Dove Award and Songwriter of the Year at the same event. This is a live version published in 2012: https://youtu.be/4Lmv_xR6_q8

For some information about the background to this Resurrection song: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/don-francisco/hes-alive

. The Talley Trio performed a live version 2010. Who are the Talley Trio?

They are a USA southern gospel trio composed of Roger and Debra Talley and their daughter Lauren Talley as the lead and soprano singer. Performing for over 20 years, they have made appearances all over the world and their arrangement is another take on this Easter song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R_YfWRXg3Bk

 THE FRANCIS CHRONICLES:

9th April 2020

7th April 2020

 Events played out last week in the High Court which sat in Brisbane regarding Pell vs Queen. Jesuit priest Fr Frank Brennan write this piece which I share. I did ask some folk whether or not to include this here and the advice was it was necessary at this time for all.

Love George Pell or loathe him, we should all be grateful that justice has been delivered

FRANK BRENNAN The Australian 8th April 2020

Some Australians, including many victims of child sexual abuse, revile George Pell. Others hold him in high esteem. Neither of these groups will have their minds changed about Cardinal Pell, regardless of what any court might determine.

The majority of Australians fall into neither camp. In the midst of controversy and with allegations of gross criminal activity, these Australians expect the police, the prosecution authorities and the courts to do their work diligently, imposing punishment on proven criminals and protecting the rights and liberties of all other citizens.

The Pell saga has now run for more than four years, ever since Victoria Police commenced an operation on Christmas Eve 2015 seeking evidence of any wrongdoing by Pell around his cathedral during the years 1996-2001, when he was archbishop of Melbourne. This extraordinary trawling exercise turned up only one complainant, whose allegations were taken all the way to trial. The complainant gave evidence that he and his now deceased companion were serially assaulted sexually by Pell in the priests’ sacristy immediately after solemn Sunday mass in St Patrick’s Cathedral in late 1996.

He also gave evidence that Pell assaulted him in the sacristy corridor after another mass a couple of months later. That’s the case the High Court has just thrown out. Thus the anger and relief at yesterday’s decision.

The High Court has spoken definitively, unanimously and with one voice. All seven Justices have agreed that in relation to all five charges, “there is a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted”. The court ordered that Pell’s “convictions be quashed and judgments of acquittal be entered in their place”. Pell has rightly walked free in time for Easter. The complainant is left to get on with his life as best he can, wondering what was the point of this protracted legal trauma.

The court accepted that the jury had assessed the complainant’s evidence “as thoroughly credible and reliable”. In the Victorian Court of Appeal, that was enough for two of the judges to uphold the convictions. But the dissenting judge, Mark Weinberg, Australia’s most experienced criminal appeal court judge, thought that was just the first step of a court’s inquiry, not the last. All seven High Court judges agree.

The court needed to examine the record of all the evidence in the case “to see whether, notwithstanding that assessment, the court is satisfied that the jury, acting rationally, ought nonetheless to have entertained a reasonable doubt as to proof of guilt”. The court unanimously decided any jury acting rationally must have had a reasonable doubt.

In addition to the complainant, there were many other witnesses called by the prosecution in Pell’s case. They included 23 witnesses “who were involved in the conduct of solemn mass at the cathedral or who were members of the choir in 1996 and/or 1997”.

Many of these witnesses were also thoroughly credible and reliable, though their reliability faltered at times given that they were trying to recall what they would have been doing after mass in St Patrick’s Cathedral on a particular Sunday 22 years before. The honesty of these witnesses was not questioned by the prosecution.

The High Court found many of these witnesses had given consistent evidence that placed Pell on the steps of the cathedral for at least 10 minutes after mass on December 15 and 22, 1996, the only possible dates when the first four offences could have been committed. The prosecution “conceded that the offences alleged in the first incident could not have been committed if, following mass, (Pell) had stood on the cathedral steps greeting congregants for 10 minutes”. The court also found there was unquestioned evidence by honest witnesses that placed Pell in company with his Master of Ceremonies when he returned to the priests’ sacristy to disrobe. Furthermore, there was abundant evidence of “continuous traffic into and out of the priests’ sacristy for 10 to 15 minutes” after the altar servers returned to the sacristy at the end of the procession at the conclusion of mass. There was no five-to-six-minute hiatus for the offences to occur with Pell, the complainant and his companion in the sacristy alone, together and uninterrupted, straight after mass.

The tragedy of this case for everyone, including victims and complainants (and most especially this complainant), is that an ordinary police investigation would have highlighted these problems with the complainant’s account.

When interviewed in Rome in October 2016 by Victorian police officers, supervised by Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton, Pell told the police the sacristy was “a hive of activity” after mass with altar servers, sacristan, assistant sacristan, money collectors and any concelebrating priests coming and going. He said he would have been accompanied at all relevant times by his MC Charles Portelli.

The police returned to Australia and interviewed Portelli and the sacristan, Max Potter, who basically confirmed all Pell had said about the “hive of activity”. But police did not bother to interview one single altar server. They made no inquiries about money collectors or concelebrating priests. They just went ahead and charged Pell, and with great media fanfare. They went ahead building a case on the idea the priests’ sacristy might have been left vacant and open on this one particular day, contrary to all church routine and ritual. The High Court rightly observed that “adherence to ritual and compliance with established liturgical practice is a defining feature of religious observance”.

The farce of the case was the belated attempt by the Director of Public Prosecutions to create the space for the necessary hiatus. At trial, the prosecutor suggested, contrary to the evidence, the altar servers might have adjourned to another room, for no reason, for five to six minutes before being called back to the priests’ sacristy to resume their duties. He had to withdraw that suggestion before the jury. In the High Court, the DPP submitted once again the servers might have adjourned to another room or the sanctuary to assist the sacristan. The High Court dealt with this suggestion kindly but firmly: “The submission comes close to repeating the submission which the prosecutor withdrew at the trial. There was no evidence that the altar servers went to their room to disrobe prior to returning to the sanctuary …”

In the end, there was just not the evidence to support the complainant’s account. There never was. For the good of all victims and complainants, Victoria’s DPP and police must review procedures for cases like this. Those who neither canonise nor despise Pell should be grateful the High Court has delivered justice according to law in this protracted saga.

Frank Brennan is a Jesuit priest and lawyer who attended some of the Pell court proceedings.

 Our weekly Catholic paper from the Brisbane Church, The Catholic Leader, is FREE and available online for the moment: http://catholicleader.com.au/flipbook/qwertyuiop/

 A mate of mine from primary and high school days sent on information about a concert. On Easter Sunday Andrea Bocelli will give a solo performance at the Duomo Cathedral in Milan which will be livestreamed globally on YouTube: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/classical-news/andrea-bocelli-duomo-livestream/

 One of the joys of working as pastor of four parishes in Mackay for two whole years 2015- 2016 inclusive was that I became Mackay Port Chaplain.

In Mackay The Apostleship of the Sea (AoS) was a daily and important outreach to all who worked the ships docked in port. These were the coal ships we see sailing up and down the east coast.

Stella Maris is a house in Mackay near Coles which is ‘home’ for sea-farers – many who are Catholic and poor – who are the very people who bring goods for us from overseas. I loved this challenging work.

This specific outreach of Christ was supported generously by Bishops Heenan and McCarthy of the Church of Rockhampton, the MUA, the IMO, the local community including Catholic parishes, schools and citizens, as well as by gifts from the annual National appeal.

I served alongside the then manager Bernie Thorsen and her team of drivers and committee. Great times! I also got to meet and then know the Oceanic Coordinator of AoS, Sr Mary Leahy, Sister of Mercy. Apostleship of the Sea is a work of the Vatican. Sr Mary brought this to my attention from CRUX:

Vatican official tells clergy: ‘There is a Gospel in the making on the streets’: https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2020/03/vatican-official-tells-clergy-there-is-a-gospel-in-the-making-on-the- streets/

 A final reflective piece for the readers amongst us! This a beautiful Passion reflection from the human experience in today’s situation of COVID-1. It is written by Fr Ferrés, Rector of St Peter’s Church in Figueres, a town between Perpignan (France) and Girona (Spain): https://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2020/04/10/passion-reflection-from-catalonia/

 I am presiding at Phyl Jordan’s funeral on Tuesday. Phyl was 91 years and I shared a coffee with Phyl and her family on many Sundays after the 0900 Sunday Mass at Stella Maris church. I’m also aware some colleagues are doing the same next week as well as other families preparing and celebrating funerals in this Easter Week. So let’s remember all those folk in prayer as well as those across the globe who are dying and who mourn the loss of loved ones.

 It was my mother Joan’s fourteenth anniversary of death on 8th April last week. Mum died in 2006. The Funeral Mass was celebrated the day before Holy Thursday Evening Mass in the Church of St Willam, Grovely. For the thoughts and messages that came in . . . thanks!

JOHN

John Fitz-Herbert, Boonah Catholic parish – pastor