MOUNT Isa parish priest Fr Mick Lowcock is a Queensland Great. But most people already knew that. For some it was because of his ministry achievements like accompanying young people to World Youth Day, for others it was his social work supporting employment opportunities in Indigenous communities, and for everyone else it was just how far he travelled to bring ... Read More »
POPE Francis has advanced the sainthood causes of two women and 11 men, including a miracle attributed to Blessed Charles de Foucauld. In a meeting with Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, the Pope also authorised decrees recognizing miracles attributed to Blessed Cesar de Bus, founder of the Fathers of Christian Doctrine, and Blessed Maria ... Read More »
THERE are bitter memories passed down from early last century about how the Spanish flu pandemic wiped out hundreds of people living in Queensland’s Cherbourg indigenous community. “It just about wiped the whole community out. There were roughly only a dozen people who survived it,” 64-year-old Waka Waka elder Bevan Costello said. “That’s the history. At the moment we are ... Read More »
The Church’s Plenary Council 2020 assemblies may have been delayed due to COVID-19, but six writing and discernment groups have been busy, using their diverse expertise and backgrounds to write thematic papers. Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe says six papers – each tackling a national theme for discernment that emerged from the Council’s Listening and Dialogue phase – signify the latest ... Read More »
BETTY Graver may have been born in England, and she might live in Australia, but the 86 year old’s heart will always be with a group of orphans in India. For the past seven years, Ms Graver has been sending large donations to the Blessed Mother Teresa Home for Orphans in Adilabad eparchy, India, home to 75 orphaned children between ... Read More »
RUGGED-up parishioners, clutching their coats and their bags against the wind, had shown up early and waited at the doors of Corpus Christi Church, Nundah, so they could go inside for their 20 minutes of private prayer. Across from the church, in the parish’s new building which opened in February, Nundah-Banyo parish secretary Madonna Riggal said it had been a ... Read More »
PERSONAL and systemic racism was a “kind of original sin in our country”, Bishop Robert Barron said days after the murder of George Floyd during a homily at St Louis de Montfort Church, Santa Maria US. “The whole country’s acknowledging it, we do see this presence of personal and indeed systemic racism,” he said. Riots and civil unrest had intensified ... Read More »
A PHONE call to a Franciscan Friar in Assisi has set church bells ringing from Ipswich to Rosewood, lifting COVID prayers to heaven. Ipswich Catholic Community parish administrator Franciscan Father Stephen Bliss was in the middle of a phone call to Assisi, the founding home of St Francis’ order in Italy, about the time when COVID-19 restrictions were being imposed ... Read More »
WHILE isolation, social distancing and economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic prove to be a challenge, Christians are called by God to take part in the church’s mission in the world, Pope Francis wrote in a message for World Mission Sunday 2020. “The impossibility of gathering as a church to celebrate the Eucharist has led us to share the ... Read More »
The Catholic Leader Keeping Faith with You
