ISOLATION. It’s almost three months since a priest has visited the Catholic faithful of Coen, a remote indigenous community in far north Queensland. Usually in the first week of each month, Augustinian Fr Robert Greenup packs his swag and drives 500km to Coen, along the partly-dirt Peninsula Developmental Road, that stretches deep into the Cape York Peninsula. His travel companion ... Read More »

IT’S time for short drives and family picnics (from Friday midnight restrictions will be eased), soon there will be a staged return for schools, and our major sporting codes are plotting a course for a return to competition. So when will the Church return to public liturgies? “We’re in regular contact with the Queensland Government about the progress of COVID-19 ... Read More »

WHILE all Australians are affected by the COVID-19 virus, we in North Queensland may be thanking God that we have not been hit as hard as others. If we look to our North things look very bleak, in Indonesia, the US, Italy and Spain. Who of us is not deeply moved when we see the figures for Italy where over ... Read More »

A LONG-running parliamentary committee has recommended Queensland legalise voluntary assisted dying. Support for VAD is contained in a Queensland parliamentary health committee report examining end-of-life issues, tabled on March 31. It drew immediate condemnation from Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge, who, together with other faith leaders in Queensland stridently oppose VAD – a form euthanasia. “The Parliamentary Committee’s recommendations on euthanasia ... Read More »

WHEN Deacon Peter de Haas had an idea to write a practical handbook for Catholics geographically isolated from everyday parish life, he never imagined needing to refer to his advice weeks after it arrived from the printers. In 2016 the permanent deacon for Cairns diocese started writing a handbook based on his experience of providing spiritual and pastoral support to ... Read More »

A NEW model of pastoral leadership is being trialled in the central west of Rockhampton  diocese to combat the challenges posed to  sacramental ministry because of the vast  distances between the remote parish communities. Rockhampton Bishop Michael McCarthy appointed Carmelite of Mary Immaculate Father Shaiju Lookose and Heralds of Good News Father Raj Kodavatikanti as priests “in solidum” to the ... Read More »

FORMER Coffs Harbour parish priest Fr Anthony John Casey, who died at the age of 90, was remembered as a gentle pastor and diligent worker at a Requiem Mass held at St Augustine’s Church.  Fr Casey died on January 8 in Ballina. Lismore Bishop Gregory Homeming and many priests of the diocese concelebrated the Mass on January 16.  In his ... Read More »

THE new secondary college planned for the James Cook University campus at Smithfield, Cairns, has been named Newman Catholic College. Cairns Bishop James Foley announced the name following community consultation and recommendations from the Catholic Northern Beaches Parish, whose parishioners strongly endorsed the recognition of the recently canonised St John Henry Newman (pictured). “Having spent considerable time with the writings ... Read More »

TOWNSVILLE Bishop Tim Harris criticised both extreme left and extreme right political narratives for misleading the public from finding a reasoned and nuanced understanding of the costs and effects of climate change. Bishop Harris said this reasoned and nuanced understanding was essential to enacting our “God-given” responsibility to care for creation. He said both the hard-left and hard-right stifled the ... Read More »