AMID the bullets and terror surrounding East Timor’s vote for independence, an Australian priest witnessed the depth of humanity, but he also saw courage, spirit and glimmers of hope. “The faith of the Timorese was completely powerful,” Jesuit Father Peter Hosking, who headed the Jesuit Refugee Service in East Timor at the time of the independence vote 20 years ago ... Read More »
AMAL Eskifeh has the Franciscan spirit running through her veins. She, and her family, fled war-torn Syria after the 2014 Good Friday bombings destroyed their home city of Aleppo and killed many life-long friends and family. After fleeing to another Syrian city, and later to Lebanon where they applied and were granted a visa to Australia, Ms Eskifeh and her ... Read More »
ONE of Brisbane’s oldest schools has for the first time named two African refugees as college captains, identifying the pair as leaders strongly committed to their faith and to Catholic social justice. The new captains at Brisbane’s inner-city St James College are Mariam Ajang, born in a refugee camp in Kenya after her family fled war-torn Sudan, and Paul Paul, ... Read More »
A SHORT film commemorating events that took place in a small town in northern France 100 years ago is helping forge new friendships between two schools on opposite sides of the world. The film “Do Not Forget Australia, the duty of remembrance in Villers-Bretonneux” inspired Year 3 students at St Luke’s School, Capalaba, to put pen to paper and write to ... Read More »
NOEL Synnott almost lived his entire life without knowing his dad’s fingerprints are on the infamous Amiens Gun captured by Australian soldiers in 1918. The 79-year-old Dutton Park parishioner only found out nine years ago that his father and uncle were heroes in the First World War. Mr Synnott said nine years ago a schoolmate found the military records for ... Read More »
TWO thousand Catholic soldiers from Queensland died during the First World War, but a Brisbane priest will ensure their names are never forgotten. Fr Andrzej Kolaczkowski is the parish priest of Our Lady of Victories Church, Bowen Hills, which was built in 1925 to honour Catholic soldiers and sailors who died in the war. While planning a Mass to mark ... Read More »
NAMARIQ Alasadi lost a pair of shoes and nearly all hope when she made the “crazy journey” to Australia to escape the deadly war in Syria. The young woman who dodged death in her home country arrived in Australia in 2016 with “almost nothing left”. “It was the hardest thing I have ever done,” Namariq, a Year 9 student at ... Read More »
HOW did a female bank owner with US$2 million to her name come to lose everything but the pyjamas on her back? It was the question 35-year-old Frenchman Benjamin Blanchard asked as he sat in a refugee camp with a woman in pyjamas who had fled from Islamic terrorists. “She had very beautiful houses in Mosul, maybe many beautiful houses, ... Read More »
BRISBANE’S Iraqi Christian refugees have joined worldwide celebrations as US-backed Iraqi forces regain towns and cities across northern Iraq, driving out Islamic State militants. Prayers, feasting and dancing accompanied news that Iraqi troops had taken back Qaraqosh, the mainly Christian town about 20km south-east of Mosul. “We are very excited, very happy,” said Kareem Patros, from the Parish of St ... Read More »
The Catholic Leader Keeping Faith with You
