CHURCH MAKES ADDICTS PATIENTS OF A SAINT

THE Fitzroy birthplace of Mary MacKillop, Australia's likely first saint,
will be converted into a drug counselling and support centre, the Catholic
Church said yesterday.

Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne George Pell said yesterday the centre
would serve as a permanent memorial to Mary MacKillop's work among the
distressed and dispossessed. The announcement came as Dr Pell released the
report of the church's Archdiocesan Drugs Task Force, which has been
investigating drug abuse in Melbourne.

Dr Pell said the task force had identified a "dearth" of specialist
family-directed drug and alcohol services in Victoria.

Task force chairman Ivan Deveson said rapid escalation of the drug problem
had prompted the fast-tracking of the new centre.

The site of Mary MacKillop's 1842 birth in inner-city Fitzroy's Brunswick
Street was recently purchased by the Church for $1.67million.

Up to $500,000 will be spent refitting historic Dodgson House, built on the
site in 1869, as a centre for drug counselling and referral services.

The task force's recommendations include increasing detoxification services
and the provision of ongoing drug and alcohol training for priests.

Dr Pell yesterday reiterated the Church's opposition to supervised
injecting rooms.

"We don't feel that with the supervised injecting room, as such, that they
are doing anything to cure these people," he said, adding that no injecting
facilities would be set up in Melbourne by Catholic agencies.

He said that supervised injecting rooms "provide only 1 per cent of the
answer".

"The big challenges are elsewhere," he added.