The Catholic Leader Keeping Faith with You

THE COVID-19 pandemic gives John McCarthy QC an added dimension to his anti-slavery work but he remains sharply focused on the bigger picture. The chair of Sydney archdiocese’s Anti-Slavery Taskforce and member of the Australian Catholic Anti-Slavery Network, like Pope Francis, wants to see the eradication of slavery globally. Mr McCarthy, Australian Ambassador to the Holy See from 2012 to ... Read More »

MODERN slavery is, in the words of Pope Francis “an open wound on … contemporary society, a scourge upon the body of Christ. It is a crime against humanity.”  Phil Colley is a new face in co-ordinating the frontline fight to eradicate modern-day slavery. Brisbane archdiocese’s governance, risk and compliance officer, Mr Colley, has the important task of leading local ... Read More »

DESPITE historic leaps made in the emancipation of men and women in the last two centuries, the practice of slavery remains a real and present source of suffering for millions of people around the world. But, it also remains a real and present source of profit for slavers. Exact estimates vary due to the illicit nature of the activity, but ... Read More »

IN 2005 two Catholic religious sisters met in an Indooroopilly coffee shop concerned at the trafficking and exploitation of humans and how the trade appeared to be flourishing. The two sisters, Brigidine Sister Louise Cleary and the late Good Samaritan Sister Pauline Coll, started planning a response by religious orders and congregations. From that first meeting in Brisbane, a vast group ... Read More »

THE Brisbane guardians of a toddler born on Manus Island have been told he can stay in Australia until at least next January. It’s a temporary reprieve for two-year-old Mackalistair So-On, who was left by his biological mother and father in the care of Karen and Craig Wells during a trip to Brisbane last year. The couple has been fighting ... Read More »

CAMPAIGNERS against human trafficking have joined calls for Gold Coast massage parlours to be licensed to protect vulnerable young workers. Josephite Sister Margaret Ng has reacted to reports that massage parlours operating as underground brothels were recruiting overseas workers ahead of the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Sr Ng said it was common worldwide for big sporting events to attract activity within ... Read More »

BRINGING the light of hope to ending human trafficking means confronting the brutal “darkness” of evil that is driving those who exploit others, said a number of women religious helping victims. Already “thousands and thousands of us are working in networks across the world to dispel this darkness, and it’s not happening, so we have to ask ourselves, ‘What do ... Read More »

LEAVING their habits behind and disguised along with police in regular clothes, a small group of three or four nuns raid brothels in Kolkata, India, at night, snatching young women and girls as young as 12 from the clutches of their captors. In four years, “we have put 30 traffickers in jail”, Sr Sharmi D’Souza, a member of the Sisters ... Read More »

AS Pope Francis and leaders of other churches and religions signed a declaration pledging to work together to help end modern slavery in the world by 2020, he urged governments, businesses and all people of good will to join forces against this “crime against humanity”. Tens of millions of people were “in chains” because of human trafficking and forced labour, ... Read More »