ONE of the things Carole Danby’s looking forward to most after many years in children’s ministry is having oodles of time to play. She can’t wait for all the fun she’ll have in the spare room she’s turning into a special place where she’ll tell stories and play games with her three grandsons, and hopefully help them to know the ... Read More »
Category Archives: People
Aboriginal woman Cynthia Rowan transforming childhood experience of racism into positive steps for the Church
CYNTHIA Rowan knows what it’s like being the only one not invited when the other kids at school were having birthday parties, and she’s leaving no one out of what she’s got planned. Her experience is about being part of the only Aboriginal family at her school when she was growing up and now she’s the project officer steering the ... Read More »
Parish’s Alpha program leads siblings through unlikely faith journey together
JACINTA Elks and younger brother Kevin Donahoe had no idea when one of their priests tapped them on the shoulder to be part of something new in their parish that he was offering them just what they’d been looking for. They were “cradle Catholics” searching for something more when associate pastor Fr Josh Whitehead invited them to become involved in ... Read More »
Margo Somerville on being called a flake, debating Richard Dawkins and getting honoured by the Pope
IN the days after Professor Margaret Somerville received a papal award she recalled a time when, as a young child, she shocked the nun who asked her and her classmates, “Hands up who wants to go to heaven?” It’s a story that was shining a little light on the woman that young Margaret was to become – a bioethicist of ... Read More »
Pattie Lees describes the colour of forgiveness in new book
“NOT black enough to be black … not white enough to be white” was the bureaucratic labelling that Pattie Lees faced when she was taken from her mother as a child. She tells the story in her recently published autobiography A Matter of Colour: My Journey to Belonging, which she co-wrote with her son Adam Lees. Pattie, whose husband Terry ... Read More »
Meet the 101-year-old who couldn’t wait to return to Mass when churches reopened in Brisbane
TERRY Latchford sets the standard for Mass attendance in his parish. He’s 101 and was among the first to return to Sunday Mass when churches re-opened around Brisbane during the COVID pandemic lockdown. Fr Ladu Yanga, parish priest at St Rita’s, Victoria Point, is inspired by Terry’s commitment and said he was an inspiration to other parishioners. Seeing Terry walk ... Read More »
When turning a hobby into a career didn’t work out, Fr Eric Alleaume turned to the seminary
FATHER Eric Alleaume’s road to becoming a priest was a bit like being drawn into a kind of “Bermuda Triangle”. After his family emigrated from Mauritius when he was almost three years old, Fr Eric grew up in Melbourne where his destiny was sealed. “I grew up in Springvale North, in the parish of St John Vianney’s, which was an ... Read More »
Dominican Brother Sebastian Condon discusses life at a priory in lockdown
A PRIORY in lockdown is a fascinating place. During the height of the pandemic, the entire community was confined to barracks to an extent heretofore unexperienced and unseen. Keep in mind the fact that friars are not monks; we never expect to stay in one location forever. We signed up to an itinerant life – we go where we are ... Read More »
Leading Brisbane bioethicist discusses what would make a moral economy after COVID-19
By Dr David Kirchhoffer I WAS recently asked by a group of seminarians at Holy Spirit Seminary in Banyo, about, ‘What kind of economy we ought to have from a Christian ethical perspective?’ I am not an economist and I won’t answer this question as an economist. Instead, I shall focus on the ethical perspective, that is, “What kind of ... Read More »