CARING for people with a mental illness begins with Mass, for chaplain Fr Jim Smith. Fr Smith has devoted his past 30 years as a diocesan priest to providing spiritual care for people with a mental illness at the Catholic Psychiatric Pastoral Care centre in Brisbane. Every week Fr Smith opens the door of the centre to dozens of people ... Read More »
MASOUD Abdollah Pouri was once a sporting champion. Now the former member of Iran’s elite Thai kickboxing team is languishing in an aged-care nursing home in Brisbane’s northern suburbs. He has a brain injury. He is unable to move most of his body and is in the constant care of his mother Fatemeh and younger brother Edris. Masoud’s story is ... Read More »
LIVING a life of sacrifice should be a priority for all Catholics touched by the appearance of Our Lady at Fatima, Brisbane priest Fr Andrzej Kołaczkowski said. Fr Kołaczkowski, who is parish priest at Our Lady of Victories Church in Bowen Hills, recalled Our Lady’s messages to Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos, during a Mass and Eucharistic ... Read More »
CHILDREN are among the victims of domestic and family violence but it’s not always best to speak with them directly about it, say experts who help to combat the scourge in south-east Queensland. Instead, wise and calming words with children can help to prevent aggressive behaviour being passed on to a new generation. Centacare’s expert practitioners said it was important ... Read More »
MATER Mothers’ Hospital has opened Queensland’s first, purpose-built 24/7 pregnancy centre to care for women with complications from the start of pregnancy through until six weeks after birth. In Australia, as many as one in four women expecting a baby experience complications early in pregnancy – from conception to 20 weeks gestation. Most women in this situation attend emergency departments ... Read More »
MUSIC teacher Nathan Kneen has found himself talking more about Delta Goodrem than instructing students after his entire school watched his breathtaking performance on The Voice last week. The 40-year-old trained singer and teacher at St Dympna’s Catholic Primary School, Aspley, took to the stage for the first time in 14 years with a blind audition for Channel 9’s The ... Read More »
BRISBANE Catholic teacher Ora Duffley has returned from a confronting few weeks on mission helping Christian refugees in northern Iraq. Miss Duffley set off before Easter to join the French Catholic mission SOS Chrétiens d’Orient, working hand in hand with local people and parishes on the ground. Even though she was well-read on the ongoing war against ISIS, she said ... Read More »
ONE of the first Indian priests from the Missionary Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament to serve in Australia has been named a provincial superior for the order. Fr Joseph Thottankara, one of two India priests invited to serve in Toowoomba in the 1980s, is the new provincial superior for the Zion province in Kerala. As the new provincial superior, Fr ... Read More »
A BRISBANE parish that welcomed St John Paul II before he was elected pope will host a Eucharistic procession to honour the Marian apparition he claimed saved his life. Our Lady of Victories Parish in Bowen Hills, which received a visit from St John Paul II in 1973 when he was Archbishop of Krakow, will commemorate the first apparition of ... Read More »
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