The Catholic Leader Keeping Faith with You

THE Federal Government has received a report into religious freedom in Australia, but it could be weeks before the findings are made public. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull ordered the review following concerns that last year’s legalisation allowing same-sex marriage could undermine freedom of religion. Former attorney general Philip Ruddock has led a panel of experts, including Catholic lawyer Jesuit Father ... Read More »

IT was the first attempt to evangelise the Aboriginal people of Queensland, and it failed. Archbishop John Bede Polding, the first Bishop of Australia, approached the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ, better known as the Passionists, to preach the Gospel to the Aboriginal people of Queensland. Archbishop Polding believed the Catholic Church had for too long neglected the ... Read More »

AFTER earthquakes and tribal violence in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands, 270,000 people need immediate life-saving assistance, almost half of them children, while security remains “unpredictable”, according to a United Nations report. “Access to clean water, food, sanitation, nutrition and health services remain immediate concerns,” a report by the UN’s child relief agency, UNICEF, said. UNICEF has grave concerns for the ... Read More »

FOR years, domestic violence trapped the woman like a fog that wouldn’t lift. Every part of her life, from home to work and her relationship with her teenage son, had been impacted by her abusive partner. He was physically violent and he was emotionally abusive. He would monitor the odometer on the car to know how far his partner had ... Read More »

REAL-life father and son Simon and Samson Hyland will portray one of the Church’s most inspiring and even surprising father-son relationships on stage in Brisbane next week. Mr Hyland, a Sydney-based teacher and father-of-three, will return to his home city of Brisbane with his 14-year-old son to take on the roles of St Augustine and his son Adeodatus, for a ... Read More »

WHEN Gunnedah’s young men and women were leaving the battlefields of Europe in 1918, they came home to a newly appointed parish priest, a gentle Irishman named Fr Daniel Keane (pictured), working on the construction of a new church, St Joseph’s. Current parish priest Fr John McHugh said the church’s construction began in the final months of the First World ... Read More »

ANTI-domestic violence experts have called for more education on the signs of strangulation as police cope with new cases sparked by a change in legislation. The introduction of non-fatal strangulation to the Queensland criminal code in 2016 has resulted in more than 1400 reported offences. More than half of those were in southeast Queensland. The law was introduced from the ... Read More »

THE Catholic Church in Australia has officially launched the Plenary Council 2020 – with support and blessings from Pope Francis – setting off a three-year conversation about the future shape of the Church and its mission. Launched on the feast of Pentecost, May 20, the plenary council will culminate in gatherings in 2020 and 2021 to consider the Church’s governance, ... Read More »

THEY say practice makes perfect, and the saying couldn’t be truer for Brisbane’s newest Catholic. British and Australian army veteran Stanley Everett turns 96 in July, and will spend the rest of his life practising the tenets of the Catholic faith after receiving the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and Holy Communion last week. “I’m feeling there’s still a lot to ... Read More »