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Politics : Margaret Sanger's Eugenic Legacy of Death, Disease, Depravit -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (564)	9/8/2016 9:12:26 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1308

The Miracles of the Missionaries of Charity Tracey Rowland ABC Religion and Ethics <!-- HTML5 equivalent: -->7 Sep 2016 Tracey Rowland is Dean and Professor of Political Philosophy and Theological Anthropology at the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne. Apparently the ABC's favourite commentator on Catholic affairs, Paul Collins, is somewhat agnostic about the reality of miracles. A Catholic who did, however, believe in miracles was Creos Roman. Creos was not the name his parents gave him but his own invention later in life. I first met Creos back in the 1990s when he was employed at St Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne. Creos was built like a rugby player, his body was marked by tattoos and piercings and he wore a large crucifix around his neck. He had had a tough childhood in New Zealand, his father went AWOL, he ended up involved in radical student politics, acquired a police record, joined some satanic cult with its associated drug culture. But then, when he was homeless, the Missionaries of Charity looked after him. They got him into a drug rehab programme, and turned him into a faithful Catholic. He absolutely loved the Missionaries of Charity and went to work for them in India for several years. Before leaving for India he had a stint at running a home for drug-addicted men in Melbourne. His approach was literally cold turkey, the Mass and the rosary. He tried to get people to pray their way out of their addictions. The following statement is taken from a document he produced at the time to explain his project. It read like this: "Br Creos Mary Roman is an ex-addict of many years, (heroin, LSD amphetamines and benzodiazipines), who was baptised on 16th May 1998, thanks to the loving care and prayer of the Missionaries of Charity. Having a desire to help others in addiction, dissatisfied with the harm minimisation policies and convinced of abstinence based rehabilitation, he searched for an alternative and prayed for guidance. "After World Youth Day, Roma 2000, he stayed for two weeks at the 'Communita Cenacolo' in Varazdin, Croatia. "Seeing that a combination of drug rehabilitation and religious life was not only possible but works extremely well (over 90% success rate). He approached Father Anthony Fisher OP (then the Episcopal Vicar for health in the Melbourne), who had also visited such a community in Italy known as 'Community Encounter'. "Around the same time the Archdiocesan Drugs Task Force reported to the Archbishop (then Dr George Pell) that the establishment of a therapeutic community should be a long term priority for the Church and society. Creos saw these events as providential and started work on the Immaculate Heart Community." To support the Immaculate Heart Community he relied on gifts from faithful Catholics, and he was not scared of approaching people who live in suburbs like Toorak and Kew for assistance. He also needed a job himself and he went to a TAFE College and acquired a qualification to be a bouncer. However, he had trouble getting accreditation as a bouncer because the police were understandably not prepared to licence someone with Creos's history. Not daunted by their opposition he acquired the pro bono services of Anthony Krohn, a Catholic barrister, who took his case to the relevant tribunal. I was one of a long list of character referees for Creos at the tribunal. One person after another with senior professional positions took the stand to declare on oath that they believed that the Creos they knew was not the drug addict and violent heavy-metal satanist of old. My husband took the oath and explained to the court that he regarded Creos as a "friend." Bishop Fisher then took the oath and tried to explain the concept of "conversion" to the judge. Anthony Krohn then tendered a letter of support for Creos from Cardinal Pell who apologised for not being able to be personally present. If I remember correctly, the judge said something like that everyone except the pope had come along to support Creos and that we couldn't all be completely stupid. Creos got his licence. His early years of rough living, however, caught up with him and he died of cancer a few short years after the legal victory. Somehow the Missionaries of Charity found his mother in New Zealand and got her across to Melbourne to be with him during his final days. Creos died completely financially broke so his friends quite literally took around the hat and a coffin was purchased and a plot bought in a cemetery somewhere beyond Tullamarine airport. Friends from his days at St. Patrick's Cathedral booked the cathedral for the Requiem Mass and a choir was cobbled together. Creos didn't like "happy clappy" music, but the "real stuff" - so he was sent off with a proper solemn high Mass with polyphonic trimmings. Even the Cathedral's bell-ringers turned out to toll his passing. The mourners - who could generally be divided into two social groups: members of the Sovereign Military Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta, and members of various radical Leftist political movements (friends from Creos's student days) - then followed the hearse in a procession around the cathedral before heading out to the cemetery. One mourner heard a passer-by say that someone very important must have died for there to be such a solemn procession. Creos was laid to rest with the full rites of the Church surrounded by his friends, including the future Archbishop of Sydney, and several of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity. The latter came along with platters of sandwiches and bottles of cordial for the 'after party'. Catholics and friends from Creos's student days stood shoulder to shoulder at the grave-side and shared the sandwiches and cordial. After the Missionaries departed, an assortment of Catholics and genial anarchists went off to the Kalkallo pub for something stronger than cordial. The Creos story is just a snap-shot of Catholic life in and around the Missionaries of Charity. It is one of a million stories that could be told about the influence of Mother Teresa. She was running one rather large international "field hospital" decades before the concept became fashionable. In the presence of the Missionaries of Charity, it is hard not to believe in miracles. http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2016/09/07/4534178.htm