THANK you for highlighting the St Vincent de Paul Society (advertising feature, CL 25/3/07).
It was a little triumphalist, which might have obscured the society’s own poverty – it needs more, and younger, working members.
The welfare sector might be starved (CL 1/4/07), but it is also irresponsibly over-extended to the extent that it exercises no discrimination when many of its clients are unjustly making use of the welfare system as a way of life. Robert Fitzgerald suggested to the Queensland Council of Social Service that Church property be sold to fund the “not for profit” sector, in other words, what could be called “the poverty industry”.
The Vinson Report (CL 4/3/07) drew attention to the spread of social disadvantage in contemporary Australia, but social disadvantage would have been worse during the era of construction of the oldest Catholic churches in Brisbane. This was the time of the Great Depression.
Our churches and schools were built on contributions of time and money from hard-working Catholic people with no cash to spare and no social security.
May these churches and their surrounds continue to stand for future generations to whom they will bear witness to our faith and the faith of our fathers.
R. HARTY
Yeronga, QLD
