Nazareth Catholic Parish

 

 

   

From the letter of Pope Francis for World Mission Sunday 2017:

 

 "The Church is missionary by nature; otherwise, she would no longer be the Church of Christ, but one group among many others that soon end up serving their purpose and passing away.  So it is important to ask ourselves certain questions about our Christian identity and our responsibility as believers in a world marked by confusion, disappointment and frustration, and torn by numerous fratricidal wars that unjustly target the innocent.  What is the basis of our mission?  What is the heart of our mission? ...

... The Church’s mission is enlivened by a spirituality of constant exodus.  We are challenged “to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the peripheries in need of the light of the Gospel” (Evangelii Gaudium, 20).  The Church’s mission impels us to undertake a constant pilgrimage across the various deserts of life, through the different experiences of hunger and thirst for truth and justice.  The Church’s mission inspires a sense of constant exile, to make us aware, in our thirst for the infinite, that we are exiles journeying towards our final home, poised between the “already” and “not yet” of the Kingdom of Heaven."

  

Recognising the call to be missionary, our parishioners are involved in may different and varied 'deserts of life', as they seek out ways to satify the 'different experiences and thirsts for truth and justice'.  If you would like to join them in any of the endeavours below please Contact Us and we will help you get started.

The scandal of the abuse of our children by many of our own has hurt every one of us in some way. There are the victims of the abuse and their families. There are the good priests and their families. There are the bad priests and their families. And there are the people in our pews and schools, hospitals and homes and all their families. This is the makeup of our church and we are all hurting, and our families are hurting. 

 

So, what do we do when a member of our family is hurting?  We try to alleviate the hurt. We try to understand the hurt and where it originated or has come from. And, we try to put in place the processes that mean the hurt should not happen again. Finally we seek to live with the ramifications of that hurt, offering forgiveness and renewal where ever necessary.

 

Read our Royal Commission page to better understand the ramifications of the abuse scandal.

The most harmful thing about sexual abuse is the extremely invalidating impact it has on a person. The abusive experience typically causes sufferers to feel that they don’t count. Their wishes and interests and feelings don’t count. They have been treated as an object for the sexual gratification of the perpetrator. It strips them of their dignity and humanity....

 

A most heartening local initiative has been the establishment of a support committee called Lifeboat Geelong, which recognises the harmful effects of abuse and offers help and tangible support to sufferers to show their plight is recognised – and in fact they do count. Lifeboat Geelong provides a constructive example of a potentially healing response to reports of church-related sexual abuse, perhaps also helping sufferers to further restore their sense of dignity and faith. (adapted from https://www.chrismackey.com.au/the-impact-of-church-related-sexual-abuse-2/ )