Elaine Wainwright and the sista's of mercy

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For the Jubilee Year 2000, representatives from each Catholic parish in the Archdiocese of Brisbane were invited by Archbishop John Bathersby to gather at St. Stephen's Cathedral on the First Sunday of Advent to receive an official "Pilgrim Staff."

Each of these staffs - presented as plain wooden poles, and later decorated, often with carvings of snakes and spirals and festooned with the colors of the rainbow or wrapped in leather cords, or decorated with shells, feathers, greenery - ended in a two-pronged fork.

In St. Stephen's Cathedral, rows of these decorated "Pilgrim Staffs" were placed in the sanctuary, others in front of statues of the Virgin Mary. In most churches, the staff was placed in the sanctuary, often beside the tabernacle. In at least one parish, Guardian Angels in Wynnum, the lay homilist Tony Robertson (more on him below) reportedly carried the staff, decorated like a rainbow serpent, into the church and held it while he delivered his homily.

For the uninitiated, these decorated sticks, generally a little less than the height of a normal person, were likely viewed as harmless gimmicks. But for the initiated, these two-prong forked sticks can hold a deep meaning.

A well-known witch, Marian Green, explained in her book Natural Witchcraft: The Timeless Arts and Crafts of the Country Witch that the double-pronged forked stick, or stang, "may be used as an altar."

In Celtic mythology, a stang "represents the horned god. . . . The stang is used as the visual marking of the entrance to a circle. . . . The use of the stang confirms to the gods and goddesses, the elemental spirits, that you mean business and that you are aware of the Craft" (from the Internet web site, CelticAncestralPages).

In the Tools of Witchcraft (witchvox.com), one learns that a stang "may be used in much the same manner as the wand." On the pagan web site, ladyslair.net, one reads, "the wood that your Stang is made of, should you choose to use one, should be appropriate to the type of Magic you generally perform. Its decoration should also be a reflection of that consideration."

And as the United States' most famous witch, Starhawk, explained: "To cast a spell is to project energy through a symbol." Starhawk, incidentally, is author of The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess, which explains the occult power of pagan symbols.

Not surprisingly, the spiral goddess symbol is becoming a major symbol in Catholic publications, art, and iconography in Australia, and is even the logo for the Conference of Leaders of Religious Institutes' Social Action Office in Queensland.

One of the most celebrated uses of the stang in a public demonstration occurred when well-known Catholic homosexual activist Tony Robertson marched in the June 2000 Gay Pride Parade procession with the Jubilee Pilgrim Staff from Brisbane's "gay-friendly" St. Mary's Parish. That staff is a rainbow-covered stang representing "those who are currently excluded from the Eucharistic Table by Church legislation on marriage and sexuality [and] call the Church to repent of the sins of racism, sexism, homophobia, and prejudice that have seen so many excluded from the Eucharistic Table."

A web site also reports that he carried the staff in the archdiocese's main Corpus Christi procession, where he marched behind the archbishop. See www.geocities

.com/jubilee2000au/index.html.

(Interestingly, Robertson's web site, www.geocities.com/robertsontony/ritual.html, where he advertises his same-sex blessing ceremonies, links to Religious

Tolerance.org, a web site that promotes neopagan and pagan religious traditions, including druidism, goddess worship, wicca, and witchcraft.)

Robertson is also the web-site designer for the newsletter of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission in Brisbane, as well as the moderator for St. Mary's Network for Sexual Minorities.

That an archbishop of the Catholic Church should promote the introduction and use of what appears to be an oversize magic wand by his priests and people, and process in public with one himself - including carrying the staff to the Holy Land and Rome for a Jubilee 2000 pilgrimage with young Australian Catholics - testifies to the influence of a remarkable group of religious women. This group is made up of predominantly members of the Sisters of Mercy, who play an essential role in the transformation of the Church in Australia into a pagan, goddess-worshiping cult.

The Powers That Be

Among the most influential of the Mercy Nuns, who maintain the Australian Church's largest network of schools and hospitals, are:

- Sr. Elaine Wainwright, RSM, founding professor of theology and chair of the new School of Theology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, a post she assumed in January 2003, after her involvement in a radical feminist goddess ritual at the Womenspace retreat center became a national scandal. For 20 years prior, Sr. Wainwright taught theology at Brisbane College of Theology and the Griffith University School of Theology.

Her specialty is biblical interpretation "informed by feminist, ecological, and postcolonial hermeneutics," and Sr. Wainwright not only played a major role in the education of Australia's seminarians over the past 20 years, but was frequently called upon by bishops to lead retreats for priests and bishops.

According to Australian laywoman Christine Howes, "the Catholic people of Brisbane are shocked to see the extent of her continuing influence despite the major scandal at Womenspace. She was called back from New Zealand to speak at a priests' retreat in October 2003, in the Toowoomba Diocese.

"She is deconstructing Scripture, training priests, promoting goddess worship on multiple Internet web sites, was a major writer of the Lent 2003 adult education program studied in all parishes in Brisbane, and the children's lenten program as well. This program spoke of 'Sophia-Christ' and even carried a picture advertisement for the Sisters of Mercy's 'earth link' eco-spirituality/witchcraft retreat center which promotes goddess-worshiping books on its web site."

- Sr. Anne McLay, RSM, a reputed follower of the above-mentioned Marian Green, is the chairman of Brisbane's Womenspace, a major promoter of goddess spirituality, witchcraft, and other pagan New Age occultic practices, which is owned by the Sisters of the Presentation. The co-chair of Womenspace is Patricia Rose, who holds a doctorate in "goddess worship."

Womenspace, located within a ten minutes' drive of St. Stephen's Cathedral and also of Archbishop John Bathersby's own residence, Wynberg, on Brunswick St. New Farm, is a one-story building on a residential street with an open gateway, according to Howes. It has no keep out signs, and has open curtains, so that their newsletters and goddess pictures can be easily seen by anyone walking down the driveway.

"There is nothing to stop anyone from seeing what is going on in the center," said Howes. "The Catholic grandmothers of Brisbane have gone there themselves and obtained literature and newsletters, and sent the material to the archbishop." She added, "We have been bewildered that no action has been taken" to stop those nuns.

- Sr. Mary Lowcock, RSM, and Sr. Cath Fitzgerald, led a "task force" for the Diocese of Townsville which produced the diocese's "blueprint" for progress, titled, Never Ending Story.

The Townsville Diocese, reported the Australian Catholic monthly AD 2000 in August 1998, after the plan was released, has the lowest Sunday Mass attendance in Australia, at approximately 9% of Catholics.

Bishop Raymond Benjamin, now retired, reportedly viewed the increasingly priestless diocese as "an opportunity for growth," and hailed the blueprint's call for a change from the geographical parish to small faith communities, "sometimes led by a layperson."

- Sr. Margie Abbott, RSM, is author of Sparks of the Cosmos: Rituals for Seasonal Use, a book which contains 80 rituals to celebrate earth, air, fire, and water. Abbott is also coauthor of Sparks of Life: Rituals for Children, which is designed to teach young people to pray in an "earth-centered" way.

Sr. Abbott, according to her biography in the Australian Catholic Leaders of Religious Institutes, "is an adult educator, teacher, group worker, and writer. Margie works part time as a Gender Equity Consultant with the Catholic Education Office Adelaide. In her other work, Margie tutors in counseling, facilitates retreats, staff development days, and works in drama with homeless young people who visit schools and the community presenting plays about teenage pregnancy, violence, and bullying. Margie edits Join the Circle for MediaCom."

MediaCom is an ecumenical religious communications agency founded in 1980 which produces religious materials for 20,000 churches and individuals, including parish bulletin front covers for Catholic churches.

Sr. Anne McLay wrote the foreword for Sparks of the Cosmos.

But the Sisters of Mercy are by no means alone in their task. The Presentation Sisters, Sisters of St. Joseph, the Capuchins, and the Christian Brothers are also leaders in what appears to be a new religion that is based on worship of the elements and pagan spirits and deities.

A Look At Womenspace

Despite the scandal at Womenspace in the fall of 2001, when Brisbane's Courier-Mail exposed its role in promoting Dark Goddess celebrations, goddess chants, and, particularly, the radical feminist theology of Australia's leading feminist scholar, Sr. Wainwright, Womenspace continues its mission of promoting "women's spirituality."

Its library includes such titles as: CC Brondwin's Clan of the Goddess: Celtic Wisdom & Ritual; Carol Christ's Rebirth of the Goddess; Elaine Lindsey's Rewriting God; Sr. Joan Chittister's In Search of Belief; Marion Woodman's Dancing in the Flame; Patricia Monaghan's The New Birth of Goddesses; and Starhawk's Spiral Dance.

This listing of titles is just a small fraction of the "latest additions" to the library, published in the Womenspace newsletter one year after Archbishop Bathersby ordered the religious women to end their "damaging" activities.

Among the programs Womenspace offers are:

- "sacred hour" prayer groups "appropriate to any spiritual tradition";

- "Celtic Guidance with [Sr.] Anne McLay," in which Sr. McLay provides spiritual counseling (at $40.00 per hour) by consulting a Celtic oracle, and reads cards based on the symbolism of Ogham, the ancient Tree Alphabet (www.mercy.org.au/orgs/celtic/).

- Summer solstice rituals.

- A variety of New Age programs involving "journaling," meditating on the birth process, meditating on the eight chakras, creation spirituality, making dream catchers, circle dancing, enneagram, conscious dreaming, massage, yoga, astrodrama playshop, and circle dancing.

The Goddess Has Arrived

In the July 2000 issue of New Directions, a magazine published by and for tradition-minded evangelicals and Catholics, Philip G. Davis, professor of religious studies at the University of Prince Edward Island, delivered a warning, "The Goddess Arrives."

"The Goddess movement," he wrote, "is essentially a blend of Wicca, modern witchcraft as formulated by the English occultist Gerald Gardner (1884-1964), with American-style 1970s radical feminism. The claims made by radical feminists on behalf of the Goddess go much further than this recent history, however. The Goddess now stands for a complete and distinctly neopagan view of human nature and history.

"Goddess spirituality purports to be nothing less than the original and true religion of the human race. The earliest people, we are told, were attentive to the life-force which seemed to animate the natural world upon which they depended for survival. Awed by the mysteries of menstruation and childbirth, and unaware of the fact of paternity, they would have imagined this life-force in female terms. The first human cultures, therefore, must have worshiped a Great Mother Goddess; it supposedly follows that they must also have had woman-centered and matriarchal communities which fostered feminine values of nurture and harmony amongst individuals and groups, and with the environment. . . .

"Today's Goddess worshipers insist that the victims of the European witch-hunts were themselves followers of the Goddess; they inflate the number of those victims as high as nine million, characterizing this period as the Church's 'war against women.'

"Now patriarchy's supposed desecrations are plain to see in the wars and environmental degradations of the 20th century. The Goddess, they say, is poised to return and inaugurate a New Age which will recapture the virtues and glories of the ancient utopian matriarchies.

"What is a Christian to make of this tale? It is of course a myth in the full sense of the word, an explanatory narrative within which its believers find inspiration, solace, and guidance. At almost every point, however, it is at odds with the Christian story. God the Father has been recast as a symbol of oppression, the crucified and risen Christ as an irrelevance, and the Church as one of the prime villains in history. . . .

"Who is the Goddess? She is, in short, the imaginary deity and symbol of a new religion which sees itself in opposition to all that Christianity has represented over the past 18 centuries in which it has been a dominant presence in Western civilization. What then is she doing in the Church. . . .

"She is not simply there as 'God in a skirt,' a device for describing the biblical God in more gender-balanced terms. On the contrary, the Goddess is being used as a vehicle for changing the nature of the Christian religion from within. With her Wiccan, neopagan, and ultimately occult ancestry, the Goddess stands for an entire alternative body of beliefs and practices.

"According to her own devotees, the Goddess is an immanent, pantheistic deity; transcendence itself is derided as a stereotypically male notion which denies the value of the self and the world. Being immanent, she is to be known through neither revelation nor reason, but through subjective intuitive experiences. Such experiences are to be sought in many ways, ranging from neopagan magical ceremonies to the active exploration of multiform sexuality as a sort of spiritual exercise. Moral norms are also subjective and intuitive, guided only by the so-called Wiccan Rede, 'An ye harm none, do what ye will'."

Davis closes by wondering if the "theological education of the people of God is so lacking that too few recognize the radical departure from received truth which the Goddess represents."

That the Australian Church today has been seriously compromised by Goddess worshipers can be seen on a number of fronts: For example, many churches, as a matter of custom, contain "pagan blessing trees" - dead tree limbs festooned with red, large yellow, green, and blue ribbons. Also, prayers - even official prayers such as that used for the success of the Brisbane Archdiocese's Synod 2003 - omit any reference to "God" or the traditional formulary "through Jesus Christ our Lord," but rather refer to the "Holy Spirit of Fire . . . [to] help us recognize wisdom even from unlikely sources."

How the notion of the Goddess is insinuated into Catholics minds through Church art, architecture, prayer, and catechesis will be explored in future articles.