A BRISBANE pro-life campaigner has not discounted further civil disobedience, after the High Court dismissed his appeal to laws that prescribe 150-metre “safe access zones” around abortion clinics. “I don’t think it is right to simply roll over and accept this,” Graham Preston said of the laws that are now in force in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. ... Read More »
JUST as we have been remembering the horrors of Rwanda 25 years ago, another anniversary passed almost unnoticed this month – the 20th anniversary of a Church massacre on Australia’s doorstep, in East Timor. In April 1999, five months before East Timor’s vote for independence, dozens of people were killed inside a priest’s house and church courtyard in the idyllic ... Read More »
NINE Timorese war veterans will stand alongside Australian veterans during next week’s Anzac Day Mass in Brisbane’s St Stephen’s Cathedral. The attendance of Timorese veterans is becoming a tradition and has an extra poignancy in 2019 – 20 years after the country’s vote for independence. Timor Leste President Francisco Guterres joined a contingent of veterans visiting Queensland in 2017, taking ... Read More »
“BELONGING” is a strong, motivating force for eight teachers and staff from one Brisbane college who will join the Catholic Church this Easter. “I honestly feel that I will be officially one of ‘us’ which to me is awesome,” 37-year-old, St Columban’s College, Caboolture teacher Paula Pellowe said. Mrs Pellowe is one of the eight soon-to-be Catholics who have completed ... Read More »
EL Salvadorian-born Ana Hatherley remembers the excitement of boarding an airplane for the first time, bound for Australia. It was 1988, she was six years old, the eldest of three children. Young Ana and her family were fleeing their civil-war-torn country. Somehow it seemed like a great adventure. And it turned out to be the start of a faith-inspired life ... Read More »
A NEW Tasmanian law making gender optional on birth certificates still has to pass scrutiny of the state’s lower house and be considered by the state’s independent law reform institute. Amendments to the controversial bill were finalised after three-days of upper house debate concluded on April 4. If passed, Tasmania would become the first Australian jurisdiction with a gender law ... Read More »
HE’S here to inspire and renew life in our parishes. Canadian lay leader Ron Huntley arrived in Brisbane last week to speak with priests and Church leaders about how to go beyond the crisis in the Catholic Church and inspire an authentic renewal of faith. “If the way we do Church doesn’t lead to an encounter and a relationship with the ... Read More »
LESS than two years ago, Pope Francis received a new electric car from European vehicle maker Opel, to help the Vatican on its way to become the world’s first “carbon” free country. The gift was made during a conference about Pope Francis’s 2015 ecological encyclical Laudato Si’, that highlights the “intimate relationship between the poor and the fragility of the ... Read More »
GERMAN actor and devout Catholic Frederik Maye, sips coffee in a trendy city café, considering his role playing Jesus Christ in the world famous Oberammergau Passion Play. “It’s a big honour,” the 39 year old said. Mr Mayet is visiting Australia helping to promote the event that attracts half a million visitors to his tiny Bavarian hamlet. The Oberammergau Passion ... Read More »
The Catholic Leader Keeping Faith with You
