The Catholic Leader Keeping Faith with You

FERTILITY specialist Cathryn Marshall is on a mission to rid the world of the agony of infertility and she’s looking for other women to join her. Since 2015, the Brisbane-based fertility practitioner and registered nurse has helped hundreds of women and couples fall pregnant using a natural, Church-approved method, the Creighton Method FertilityCare System. Now the mother-of-four has taken her ... Read More »

SURGING domestic violence cases during the COVID-19 crisis is a pandemic within a pandemic, according to Church workers on the frontline of domestic violence education and prevention. They say Church communities “provided no immunity” to the domestic violence scourge. Months of restrictions have created “a perfect storm” of conditions with stay-at-home orders, school closures, and many workers laid off or ... Read More »

MATER Mothers’ Hospital is on the lookout for crafty people with a heart for new-born babies. Anyone who can sew and would like to help mothers and babies in the early days of the little ones’ lives then the Mater would like to hear from you. The simple act of a mother holding her baby whenever she wants is something ... Read More »

CHRISTMAS stockings are going to be bare for a lot of families this year as more than a million Australians were expected to be unemployed by December. The Australian Government warned unemployment was expected to peak at 9.25 per cent – that’s another 240,000 people out of work. With a deepening economic crisis came a worsening participation rate, which meant ... Read More »

WHEN it comes to everyday heroes, the new chief of Catholic charity Pregnancy Crisis cannot go past the single mothers raising their babies in the group’s Brisbane safe house. The new leader, who cannot be identified for privacy reasons, chose Mother’s Day to shower the mums in the safe house with gifts and cards. “They don’t have anyone that gives ... Read More »

DEBRA Vermeer knew by the second date that she had found the man of her dreams, the man she could promise in marriage to love for the rest of her life. There was just one revelation the journalist wasn’t expecting that morning over breakfast in Sydney 16 years ago. “I had a vasectomy 14 years ago,” her date, Tony Vermeer, ... Read More »

AS Brisbane Catholics take stock of the small blessings in their life, a trend has emerged showing people were recognising the way COVID-19 had reminded them of the importance of family and helped them to re-think their priorities. At time of publication, almost 100 people had contributed to the Archdiocese of Brisbane’s Small Blessings campaign and family was central to ... Read More »

COVID-19 has torn Michele Rankin and her daughter Gabby away from their friends in East Timor but the plight of the people there calls them still. The Brisbane Catholics had been volunteering in Balibo, East Timor, for the past year with Palms Australia, an aid and development agency with Catholic origins. Michele, who had another year to go on her ... Read More »

WHAT are the benefits of working from home? Seeing your kids grow up is definitely one of the advantages of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, says Catholic father of five, Marco Motta. A data analyst who usually works in a busy office in Brisbane’s CBD, Dr Motta took delight in slipping away from his home desk to supervise ... Read More »