QUEENSLANDERS Nic Marchesi and Lucas Patchett, former Young Australians of the Year who were behind mobile homeless hygiene service Orange Sky Laundry, were among the many Catholics announced in the Australia Day honours list this year. Both Mr Marchesi and Mr Patchett, who first featured in The Catholic Leader in 2014, were named as recipients of the Medal of the ... Read More »
CATHOLIC parishes across Australia are preparing to dig deep with special bushfire collections at Masses over the Australia Day weekend. The national Church action is in support of the Vinnies Bushfire Appeal, and to aid efforts connecting people in need with people who can help. Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president Archbishop Mark Coleridge announced the collection on January 7, saying: ... Read More »
STUDENTS and staff at St John College, Woodlawn, are busy settling into the new school year but someone special is missing. Eighty-seven-year-old Fr Paul Pidcock is not among them this time, for the first time in about 60 years. He’s in Sydney, having retired from the college late last year. As he adjusted to the idea of not returning to ... Read More »
DOZENS of Catholics received Australia Day awards last week for outstanding contributions to their fields of excellence. The awards honour Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service. Among the many recognised for their dedication to community were Catholic teachers, priests, women religious, health care workers and social service workers. Bishop Emeritus Eugene Hurley, who led the ... Read More »
ON January 26, 1788 the British flag was erected on Australian soil. The First Fleet had reached its final destination. One year earlier, more than one thousand convicts, civil officers, crew members and marines had departed England, destined for a new land. It was the land Captain James Cook discovered a decade earlier. There was no flag, no monarchy, and ... Read More »
THERE was an old lady who swallowed a fly, and then there’s Margie Miller. Unlike the dame in the popular nursery rhyme, it wasn’t a fly or a spider or even a bird that slipped down Margie’s throat. “I used to sing in the parish choir before I swallowed a bone,” Margie explains. “I was eating a stew and I ... Read More »
MARGARET Miller’s mission to stop young children dying of leukaemia and her dedication to the Warwick community has landed the Catholic parishioner an Australia Day honour. The former nurse helped start the Warwick branch of the Leukaemia Foundation when her son Robin died of the blood cancer. Mrs Miller said Robin was sick between March and December of 1979 from ... Read More »
A BRISBANE indigenous Catholic leader has joined the call to change the date to celebrate Australia Day from January 26. “I know it’s a day of celebration for some, but for Aboriginal people it’s a day of mourning,” Murri Ministry co-ordinator Ravina Waldren said. “It’s actually a day for us to sit back, reflect and remember that Australia has a ... Read More »
OUR Lady of the Southern Cross College staff and students figured prominently in Dalby’s Australia Day awards. A teacher and two students won awards. Katherine Black, a teacher at the college since 2009, won the Senior Sports Coach Award for her achievements in women’s cricket. She has coached the Queensland Country women’s cricket team in 2015 and 2016, with the ... Read More »
The Catholic Leader Keeping Faith with You
