Many wage earners in this country need all the extra benefits on offer to meet their family’s needs, according to a Newtown budget adviser. And Jeff Drane SM says bus drivers and cleaners in Wellington are among the lowest paid and an unexpected event such as a death in the family or even just someone coming to stay can throw the household finances into crisis.
When the district health boards and three of the companies agreed at the beginning of July to pass on $16 million of government funding to a new improved wages structure for low-paid service workers in hospitals, Lalopua did not have time to celebrate. One of the contractors, Spotless, refused to agree.
The new director of the Catholic Enquiry Centre, Fr Alan Jones SM, visited Whanganui’s St Mary’s and Holy Family parishes last month to talk about the centre’s work.
The warmth of Whanganui Faith and Light group’s welcome was infectious when I visited a regular meeting and I can understand why Pope Paul VI told pilgrims in 1975 how much ‘God loves you as you are’.
Outdoors on a beautiful winter’s day, Kaumatua Morvin Anatipa Simon reminded Ngapaerangi hapu of Kaiwhaiki Marae, who gathered to celebrate the rites of baptism for their mokopuna, that Te Awa Tupua o Whanganui was ‘our first highway, our first pharmacy, our first larder, our first washroom, laundry and our first baptismal font’. This korero was backed up by the Waiata ‘E Rere Te Awa Tupua’.
Parishes are being encouraged next month to participate in a national survey that will give a wider perspective on church life in New Zealand.
Some 30 people braved severe Wellington elements on 30 June to celebrate this landmark document. The group reflected on the international social climate in the context of which the encyclical was published, had some insights into Populorum Progressio, made some social comparisons in development between the 1960s and now, and finally considered the question, what can we do in 2007 to further the aims of this encyclical?
St Mary’s Whanganui has recently set up a table beside the statue of Our Lady for votive candles which is proving very popular.
The paper: Religion, Ethics and Law in a Secular Society, extended the knowledge of the six Year 13s from St Mary’s College, into the fields of philosophy, theology, ethics, and politics and introduced them to a range of great thinkers such as Descartes, Sartre, Rousseau, Hobbes, Newbigin and O’Donovan.