The Catholic Leader Keeping Faith with You

THE Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has launched a national Church response to deal with the unprecedented scale of the bushfire crisis. “The efforts of firefighters have been heroic. The resilience of the communities affected has been extraordinary,” ACBC president Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane said. “This has been Australia at its best … but we need more than words. Expressions ... Read More »

EVANGELISATION efforts in Australia are being streamlined to focus more on the Church’s central mission of spreading the Good News. During the biannual meeting of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, it was announced that a revamped National Centre for Evangelisation would take responsibility for a number of offices. The refocusing signals an end to the Office for Lay Pastoral Ministry, ... Read More »

JESUS commanded everyone to love their neighbours ­­– an immutable moral truth – but how do people respond to this truth when they encounter their neighbours in a digital space? More than 4.3 billion people are using the Internet worldwide and everything from banking to seeing family can be done in front of a screen. Like all social landscapes, we ... Read More »

POPE Francis gave an apostolic blessing to Australian Catholic bishops visiting the Vatican, encouraging them to explore new ways of being missionaries. Pope Francis met with a group of 38 Australian bishops on June 24 for more than two hours as part of their Ad Limina Apostolorum visit, translated as “To the Threshold of the Apostles”. It was a high ... Read More »

BRISBANE Archbishop Mark Coleridge understands the complex moment for the Church in Australia as he prepares to lead more than 40 bishops on an Ad Limina visit to meet Pope Francis. “I think we are a Church that is suffering, is anxious about the future, dismayed by the past – and all of this will be said to the Pope,” ... Read More »

LOW-income families have not been “sufficiently protected by the decisions in the annual wage reviews”, a Church delegation told the Fair Work Commission on May 15. The Fair Work Act has “failed to provide an adequate wages safety net for low-paid workers with family responsibilities” or “alleviate the poverty and disadvantage suffered by them and their families”. John Fernon and ... Read More »

AS party leaders face the cameras, flitting from one battleground seat to another, and trying to win over middle Australia ahead of the May 18 federal poll, the Catholic bishops’ social services advisory body has reminded politicians Australia needs “a culture of inclusion, support and equality”. “A nation’s success is not measured by the wealth of a few, but by ... Read More »

THE Catholic Church has promised laws and concrete actions to protect children and the vulnerable after Pope Francis concluded an historic four-day Vatican summit on child sexual abuse. In a final statement delivered in the grand Sala Regia, an antechamber next to the Sistine Chapel, Pope Francis vowed to confront abusers with “the wrath of God”, end Church cover-ups and ... Read More »

BRISBANE Archbishop Mark Coleridge has appealed for concerted Church action and cultural change ahead of the summit on clerical sexual abuse Pope Francis has called for February 21-24 for the presidents of bishops’ conferences around the world.  “There will be many words spoken in discussion, in prayer and so on, but if those words don’t give birth to action and ... Read More »