SUSAN Angus-MacInnes, crying and clutching red poppies in the middle of a field in France, was discovering a piece of a family tree with roots in Ireland, England, Wales and Australia. At the time, Susan was a senior teacher at St Kieran’s Primary School at Brighton on Brisbane’s northside, and she was on holidays with her husband Mac. After her ... Read More »
THREE innocent siblings who were killed on the footpath of a quiet suburban street in western Sydney have been remembered as children who put God first in their young lives. Antony, Angelina and Sienna Abdallah, three of six children to Maronite Catholics Daniel and Leila Abdallah, were walking with their cousins to the shops in their home suburb of Oatlands ... Read More »
“I WAS screaming, ‘He’s got no one else, he’s got no one else’.” “That was traumatic,” the 23-year-old Londoner turned missionary Catholic said, toking his vape and puffing the syrupy nicotine steam about the loft above Blind Eye Ministry. He relaxed back in his chair, a calmer man, halfway into his story about his dad in a crack den in ... Read More »
QUEENSLAND’S religious leaders’ strong and united stand against legalising euthanasia has been bolstered by a major Vatican declaration in support of dying patients. A letter signed by 16 faith leaders, including Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge, urges greater support for palliative care, and warned that voluntary assisted dying was “not dying well”. “We believe that the Queensland Government should maintain the ... Read More »
MIGRATING South Sudanese and Italian families share more than the hope found in settling in Brisbane. For 21 years, the local Italian Catholic Federation of Aspley-Geebung (FCI) and North Brisbane FCI have nurtured mutual support, cultural expression and faith sharing among their communities. This connection was celebrated when families and individuals gathered in St Gerard Majella parish on October 7. Scalabrinian Missionary Italian Chaplain ... Read More »
“DO you ever get bored?” It is a common question posed by the young men who occasionally come to visit the priory, as part of the process they undertake to help discern their vocation in life. My response is often simply to pass on a great piece of advice that a very wise friar once gave me. “The great secret, ... Read More »
HENDRA parishioners have always been sitting closer to Heaven than others. In July 1929, Brisbane archdiocese secured the most elevated portion of land in Hendra – a flat and aluminium-rich farming suburb. Ninety years later, the parish was still on a high when it celebrated its anniversary Mass on June 9 at Our Lady Help of Christians Church. “It’s nice ... Read More »
CATHOLIC schools must help parents teach young people that biological sex and gender are naturally fixed at birth and part of God’s plan for creation, the Congregation for Catholic Education said. In a document published on June 10, the congregation said the Catholic Church and those proposing a looser definition of gender could find common ground in “a laudable desire ... Read More »
E.M. Forster is not generally considered an author of high comedy, but I do recall one particular line from A Passage to India that caused me to laugh out loud when first I read it. In describing the attitude of a certain character toward questions of faith, Forster wrote, “Ronny approved of religion as long as it endorsed the national ... Read More »
The Catholic Leader Keeping Faith with You
