HANAR Keka turned 30 earlier this year and, because she was a long way from home, she decided to do something different to celebrate. The young Catholic woman from Iraq spent the day on her own in Brisbane’s St Stephen’s Cathedral. “I decided to take a break in the cathedral,” she said. “I spent all the day in the cathedral. ... Read More »
OUR society seems to be going through an identity crisis. When it comes to the questions that shape our lives – “Who am I?” “What am I doing here?” – many people have come to the conclusion that the answer is either too difficult to discover or too hard to accept. And so, instead, we have started making it up. Children ... Read More »
BRISBANE Assembly brought together Catholics from across the archdiocese and beyond to listen and discern together on the issues of the Church today. This is what some participants said about the event, which marks the journey towards the Plenary Council 2020. “Impressive. It hasn’t disappointed (me) at all. You wonder how it can be sustained in the face of the ... Read More »
TWO days before, he was in America and it’s a reasonable guess where he’ll be this time next year. The Maltese-born priest, who’s called Australia home since 2007, hit the evangelisation ground running, now engaged with an estimated 1.6 million people across the globe per year. His podcast listeners and YouTube subscribers could well tip that figure to hundreds of ... Read More »
POLISHING chalices, lighting candles, organising vestments for priests are all part of a regular day for Hayden Kennedy but that’s not all he does. Hayden is a full-time sacristan at St Stephen’s Cathedral in Brisbane. At 24, he’s young for the role although he’s not the youngest on the cathedral’s team of sacristans. Another three young men on the team ... Read More »
TWO young people, fresh out of uni, meet in Brisbane, fall in love, get married and set off for India with wild dreams of making the world a better place. A couple of decades on, they’re back in Brisbane – older, greyer, but as passionate as ever about their dreams. Cathy and Mark Delaney have a different story in married ... Read More »
CECILE Falvey is such an avid weaver she’s cheekily hoping she can take her loom to heaven with her. Cecile is at the loom almost every day in her studio at Tamborine Mountain, in the Gold Coast hinterland, and as a life-long Catholic many church creations have been among the thousands of items she’s produced. “I’m a great Mary MacKillop ... Read More »
I HAVE recently had a number of conversations with various people on the subject of the cultural composition of the presbyterate in Australia. In light of the increasing number of priests from overseas that are ministering in this country, the whole notion of what it means to serve a particular community seems to have been highlighted in many minds. ... Read More »
PAUL Jarvis still remembers walking up the driveway to St Rita’s College when he was a young man to be greeted by the Presentation Sisters as the first male on campus. “That was a shock for the girls,” Paul said some 40 years later, after retiring from his role at the college recently. “I was a matter of enormous curiosity.” ... Read More »
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