News
-
27-Jun-2008
In a message for Sea Sunday next month, Cardinal Renato Martino of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers has warned that the threat of pirates to seafarers and the welfare of the world's fishing communities are major concerns.
» more
-
27-Jun-2008
An article in L'Osservatore Romano has put paid to stories that Pope Benedict's red shoes are made by Prada but fashion commentators say that the pontiff's liturgical outfit tastes are "very 2008".
» more
-
26-Jun-2008
The Holy See has moved to defend the late Vatican banker, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, over "baseless and defamatory" allegations that he ordered hit men to murder an Italian teenager in 1983.
» more
-
25-Jun-2008
The Holy See has offered the Society of St Pius X founded by the late Vatican II rebel Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre the possibility of its own personal prelature if it accepts five conditions for a return to communion with Rome, European reports say.
» more
-
24-Jun-2008
New definitive statutes for the Neo-Catechumenal Way approved by the Holy See prohibit the taking of communion seated around a table - a traditional practice in the community.
» more
-
27-Jun-2008
World Youth Day chief operating officer Danny Casey has advised people who are not registered WYD pilgrims to "get up early" if they wish to secure tickets for the papal Mass at Randwick next month.
» more
-
26-Jun-2008
An eleven year old ballerina from Sydney's Campbelltown region will join other teenage dancers who will perform for Pope Benedict at World Youth Day.
» more
-
25-Jun-2008
Taiwan's foreign ministry enlisted the help of the Vatican this week to "correct" the name of Taiwan which is reportedly listed as a "province of China" on the World Youth Day website.
» more
-
24-Jun-2008
As organisers confirmed that predictions of more than 200,000 World Youth Day pilgrims will be met, contractors yesterday raised the roof structure for the altar for the papal mass at Randwick Racecourse.
» more
-
23-Jun-2008
Queen Elizabeth has expressed surprise over the choice of Randwick Racecourse as the venue for Pope Benedict's World Youth Day final mass, an AJC official says.
» more
-
24-Jun-2008
On the eve of the northern hemisphere holiday season, the Vatican has issued a set of guidelines for tourists on making their vacations more environmentally friendly.
» more
-
23-Jun-2008
On a visit to the Philippines, Townsville Bishop Michael Putney has said Australia's Catholic bishops are ready to assist Filipino bishops in their campaign against Australian-controlled mining operations.
» more
-
24-Jun-2008
The Archdiocese of Glasgow has received an award as Scotland's first diocese to meet Fairtrade standards for its its hot drinks.
» more
-
27-Jun-2008
Founded in 1927, the Conference of International Catholic Organisations has voted to dissolve and allow its members to join a new Vatican-backed Forum for Catholic NGOs.
» more
-
25-Jun-2008
A Singaporean woman who claims to be suffering from post trauma stress disorder following an exorcism has sued a priest for damages over the affair.
» more
-
24-Jun-2008
Pope Benedict has moved quickly to deny an apparently light hearted demand by divorced and remarried Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for the Church to loosen regulations on receiving communion.
» more
-
23-Jun-2008
Josephite Sr Noeline Quinane says that on the first anniversary of the Northern Territory Emergency Response the Federal Government should listen to the experience of Aboriginal people living with the Intervention.
» more
-
24-Jun-2008
Described as the woman to whom the late billionaire Kerry Packer could not say no, Sr Bernice Elphick has died and will be buried today after a funeral at Sydney's Sacred Heart Church, Darlinghurst.
» more
-
23-Jun-2008
Catholic Health Australia CEO Martin Laverty has called for the appointment of a health ombudsman to address the growing gap between health services for the rich and the poor.
» more
-
25-Jun-2008
Vatican art critics want to see more images of Mary breastfeeding the baby Jesus as a sign that God "truly became flesh".
» more
News - National
-
27-Jun-2008
A psychosexual assessment and treatment centre set up by the Catholic Church to deal with abusive clergy is to close this month pending a restructuring.
» more
-
26-Jun-2008
On a visit to Australia for the inaugural chapter of the Christian Brothers new Oceania province, congregation leader Br Philip Pinto has challenged the brothers to take risks and embrace new thinking.
» more
-
23-Jun-2008
A row has broken out in Brisbane over the role of a priest convicted of abuse who continues to say Mass privately in conflict with a papal directive to exclude pedophile priests from the ministry.
» more
-
27-Jun-2008
In a split decision, Bunbury Council has decided to impose a $50,000 planning fee for the construction of the Western Australian city's new Catholic cathedral.
» more
-
26-Jun-2008
Canberra-Goulburn Archbishop Mark Coleridge says the Church is doing all it can to ensure that there is no repeat of the sexual abuse of pupils which occurred at a local Catholic college.
» more
-
24-Jun-2008
The Marist Brothers have apologised to victims of sexual abuse by a former Canberra-based brother who was jailed yesterday for two years on charges dating to the 1980's.
» more
News - International
-
23-Jun-2008
Seventeen schoolgirls in a mainly Catholic US fishing town have reportedly become pregnant after making a pact to raise children together.
» more
-
25-Jun-2008
Stands selling liturgical lace, incense and bibles are sharing floor space with others spruiking heated pews and confessionals at a Sacred Expo in Poland this week.
» more
-
24-Jun-2008
The body of the daughter of a Vatican employee who disappeared 25 years ago was thrown into a cement mixer after she was murdered, a new witness claims.
» more
-
23-Jun-2008
The Catholic Church in Southern Africa has urged all African states to reject President Robert Mugabe should he be declared winner of Friday's presidential run-off boycotted by the opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai.
» more
Regulars
-
27-Jun-2008
There are those who seem concerned that the "visionaries", instead of retiring to the cloister, have chosen to marry and raise families. In an age addicted to profligacy and promiscuity, where marriage is demeaned and family life dangerously weakened, might not this example be both relevant and timely? - John Ellis, The Catholic Herald
» more
-
26-Jun-2008
Throughout the western world the Church is declining numerically. The most prominent exception to the general rule of decline is the rise and growth of the movements and communities described as "ecclesial" rather than "lay" by Pope John Paul II. Of the various new ecclesial movements the largest, fastest growing, and most controversial is the Neocatechumenal Way. - Fr Ian Ker, The Record
» more
-
25-Jun-2008
As he grew up, Mugabe got his sense of who he was from mother. She left him in no doubt that he was to be the achiever who rose above everyone else; the leader chosen by God Himself. She may also have viewed him as a substitute for her own failure to serve the Church as she and her parents had intended. - The Independent
» more
-
24-Jun-2008
Joseph Chamie, a former director of the United Nations Population Division now working in migration research is worried. He finds himself caught in the abortion bind. On the one hand he supports a woman's right to choose to have an abortion while on the other, he opposes the growing practice of choosing to abort a child (usually a girl) because it is the wrong sex. - Carolyn Moynihan, MercatorNet
» more
-
23-Jun-2008
While it may be difficult to imagine mass conversions in the Emerald City of sun and surf, there's no reason why the spirit can't come on Sydney as it has on its predecessors. So confident is the Sydney archdiocese in the power of World Youth Day that it has commissioned, for the first time, research that will chart the progress of pilgrims who attend this year's celebrations, a sort of spiritual Seven Up! - The Age
» more
-
27-Jun-2008
St Patrick's College in the western Sydney suburb of Strathfield is a Year 5 to 12 school now under the auspices of Edmund Rice Education Australia. Like other NSW schools, Term 2 concludes today and it has been a busy period in recent times for the college with it holding its annual Blue, Black and Gold Dinner last Friday. The college is also celebrating its 80th anniversary this year.
» more
-
26-Jun-2008
Established in 1982 by St Kilda parish priest, Fr Ernie Smith, Sacred Heart Mission began with the simple act of sharing a meal with a homeless man and has grown into a substantial agency which serves as a lifeline to the homeless and thousands of people in need of the basic necessities of life - food, clothing, emergency relief, accommodation and companionship.
» more
-
25-Jun-2008
The aim of the Tasmanian Catholic Justice and Peace Commission is to bring about a just society and to promote peace in Tasmania in keeping with Catholic Social Teaching. In this endeavour it has just launched four brochures outlining the four core principles of the Church's Social Teachings.
» more
-
24-Jun-2008
LiturgyHelp.com is a commercial website offering a subscription based service for parishes, schools and other Church agencies for Lectionary based liturgical and catechetical resources. Its service claims to assist key ministries to better prepare for liturgy and catechetics. LiturgyHelp provides very cost effective resources to individual ministers or a complete suite of web services to parish communities and ministry teams.
» more
-
23-Jun-2008
With the Vatican-approved Year of St Paul about to commence in days, this website run by the Missionary Society of St Paul has all the information about the year in addition to the plenary indulgence available during the commemorations for the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of the great saint.
» more
-
27-Jun-2008
Children of the Silk Road bids to be an epic tale of heroism and endurance in war-torn China of the late 1930's. It is based on fact, being the story of George Hogg, a British journalist who ran foul of the occupying Japanese army when he photographed atrocities but was saved from execution by Chinese partisans and became de facto guardian of a group of about 60 orphans. - Jim Murphy, Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
» more
-
24-Jun-2008
Some people think Adam Sandler is funny. Then there is the rest of the civilised world. The first group may see You Don't Mess With the Zohan as a riotously funny spoof of Middle Eastern racial conflicts, with Sandler playing an Israeli counter-terrorist endowed with superhuman powers. To the rest of us, the film is a torturous string of witless scenes and feeble-minded sight gags. - Jim Murphy, Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
» more
-
25-Jun-2008
This week's edition of The Spirit of Things discusses with experts from a recent conference issues of sexual abuse and exploitation in religious contexts ranging from cults to mainstream churches.
» more
-
23-Jun-2008
In a post Enlightenment world that has witnessed the Battle of the Somme in which 19,000 soldiers died in one day, the horrific genocide of tens of millions of lives committed by Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and others, and the rapid spread of AIDS, the simple assurances of Thomas Aquinas that God "permits evil to exist – from this he brings forth good" - are no longer convincing. - Elizabeth Paulhus, Thinking Faith
» more
-
27-Jun-2008
Professional alarmists and their first cousins the knockers come up against a brick wall when they are confronted by those professional and incurable optimists, the Christians. People captivated by Jesus as their Risen friend overpower by their enduring hope all those merchants of gloom and doom who throw stones from the sidelines. - Fr Chris Gleeson, Province Express
» more
-
26-Jun-2008
Eat the tension around you! Mary pondered, not by thinking deep intellectual thoughts but by holding, carrying, and transforming tension so as not to give it back in kind. Like Jesus, she helped take sin and tension away by absorbing it, like a water filter that keeps the impurities, toxins, and dirt inside of itself and gives back only pure water. - Fr Ron Rolheiser, ronrolheiser.com
» more
-
25-Jun-2008
The problem for the Labor Government is they have inherited a community sector facing many challenges. Demand for services has never been higher. Competition for staff has never been greater. The long term impact of competitive tendering during the past 20 years has squeezed far greater efficiencies from community services than have been achieved in government during the same period. - Frank Quinlan, The Australian
» more
-
24-Jun-2008
The Church would be wrong to put all its eggs in the World Youth Day basket. It needs another bout of self-examination of the sort it has done sporadically through the centuries. Now it is time to try a touch of democracy. Some relatively simple reforms would not affect the Church's core teaching of hope and salvation, which are non-negotiable. But how the Church operates as an institution should always be open to self-examination. - Barney Zwartz, The Age
» more
-
23-Jun-2008
In seeking incremental change, the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission should not be scared away from real change. Real change would be the establishment of a single government funder (read federal funder) of all public health services, with responsibility in one place for managing the performance of health services. - Martin Laverty, The Australian
» more
-
26-Jun-2008
The 20th annual Mt Olivet Charity Race Day is the major fundraising event for Brisbane's Mt Olivet Hospital. It has alreay raised in excess of $1 million over the past two decades for this well known caregiving facility and funds raised his year will purchase low-low beds and pressure relief mattresses.
» more