READING beyond the headlines of the scandals in the banking Royal Commission won’t necessarily improve your water-cooler conversation, but it might bring you to a common ground with an uncomfortable ally. Headline after headline has been printed about Aussie Battlers down on their luck, QCs ripping in to them and fat cats wiping away crocodile tears on their golden parachutes. ... Read More »
FIFTY years ago, a humble Queensland priest handed over the most valuable collection of Australiana to the University of Queensland’s Fryer Library. Fr Edward Leo Hayes spent 71 years collecting tonnes of books, manuscripts, artefacts, and other rare and valuable items. This is his incredible story. LEGENDARY explorer Ludwig Leichhardt made a pit-stop at Rosenthal station, on the Darling Downs, ... Read More »
IT’S the stuff of dreams. You go into a hastily called meeting on a Friday afternoon and are told to have your bags packed and arrive in Rome by Monday morning. From there you’re whisked off behind the scenes of the Vatican Museum and given carte blanche to choose whatever rare antiquities you may wish to display. That was the ... Read More »
HOW did a female bank owner with US$2 million to her name come to lose everything but the pyjamas on her back? It was the question 35-year-old Frenchman Benjamin Blanchard asked as he sat in a refugee camp with a woman in pyjamas who had fled from Islamic terrorists. “She had very beautiful houses in Mosul, maybe many beautiful houses, ... Read More »
SEVENTEEN abuse survivors are sitting in a room in Hobart as a Catholic priest guides them through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For several days the survivors have unpatched hidden wounds caused by traumatic abuse experiences in their childhood or adult life. There are a number of people who were sexually abused by clergy, others were the ... Read More »
I ATTENDED a first communion recently and was bemused to see a dozen mobile phones and cameras held aloft and flashing, at critical times during the Mass. It’s not that I haven’t seen it before, or even joined the parish paparazzi myself. It’s just the disobedience thing. At the beginning of the Mass the children’s catechist specifically asked the congregation ... Read More »
Christian faiths across the globe remembered the 500th anniversary since German Catholic priest Martin Luther published his 95 theses in 1517, marking the beginning of what would become the Protestant Reformation. Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge reflects on the conflict and graces that have come out of this important movement. RECENTLY I saw an item on a website which bore ... Read More »
COLUMBAN missionary Father Peter O’Neill knows what modern slavery looks like. For 26 years, Fr O’Neill, from Geelong, lived among poor and abused migrant workers in Taiwan. He ran migrant shelters, provided pastoral support and advocated for human rights – a task he now describes as a privilege. “It held my faith in God, a God of justice, a God ... Read More »
“I … TAKE you … to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part.” Or until we “fall out of love”, or until you get sick of me, or I get sick of you, or one of us ... Read More »
The Catholic Leader Keeping Faith with You
