Catholic conference on Pacific aid

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32700, 1 September 1971, Page 18

Catholic conference on Pacific aid

A Pacific conference of the Roman Catholic Church on ways in which to assist development in the Pacific Islands will be held in Fiji next spring, and a Christchurch businessman, Mr P. H. Brett, has been appointed head of the organising committee. The 1972 Pacific conference had its beginnings at a meeting of bishops of four Pacific regions in Sydney last year, said Mr Brett yesterday

The conference had been proposed by the Bishop of Christchurch (The Most Rev. B. P. Ashby) for the church’s justice and peace commission, as a contribution from Australia and New Zealand to “South Pacific Year 71.”

The two basic aims of the conference were to give priests and sisters working at the various missions an opportunity to "get up to date” on modern-day thinking in development work, and to give the persons concerned with "funding” such projects some idea of what Pacific Islanders saw as de- : velopment, said Mr Brett. The conference would be i attended by - representatives of the Roman Catholic ' Church, but ecumenical obi servers from other denomiI nations and also some from organisations such as the

South Pacific Commission would attend too, he said. “At the moment, the conference mainly will be church looking at church,” he said. “This will be a working conference and not a show-piece or public relations effort. We hope to get something worth while out of it.”