Groups that provide spiritual, pastoral and practical support to seafarers are urging the Australian Government to follow New Zealand’s lead in funding welfare services for those working on the seas.
New Zealand recently amended legislation passed in 1994, with the changes now allowing revenue raised from maritime levies to fund “the facilitation of, or support for, seafarer welfare services”.
The longest-running program on Australian commercial television, Mass for You at Home, will celebrate 50 years on our screens when Mass is broadcast into people’s living rooms on August 1.
Mass for You at Home, which originally aired on Channel 0 in Victoria, was a ministry of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne from 1971 until earlier this year.
Final preparations for the 2021 Australian Catholic Men’s Gathering are being made, with more than 400 participants registered for the event, which launches nationally on July 31.
A collaborative initiative of the Bishops Commission for Evangelisation, Laity and Ministry and the Bishops Commission for Life, Family and Public Engagement, the event follows the first national Catholic Men’s Gathering held in August 2020.
Participants gather for the national consultation with lay movements and ecclesial communities
More than 50 groups have taken part in a national consultation with Catholic ecclesial communities and lay movements, held online earlier this week.
Almost 100 representatives of those groups explored ways of identifying, networking and supporting communities into the future.
Manus Island detention centre (Refugee Action Coalition file photo)
Australia’s Catholic bishops have joined the bishops of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in calling for detainees on Manus Island and Nauru to be resettled in Australia – eight years after the advent of mandatory offshore detention.
Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM Conv, chair of the Catholic Bishops Commission for Social Justice, Mission and Service, has welcomed an open letter from the Catholic Bishops Conference of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands to the Australian Parliament.
Catholic ministries are being encouraged to find creative ways to celebrate the inaugural World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, which will be commemorated on July 25.
Pope Francis announced earlier this year that the day will be marked each year around the feast of Sts Joachim and Anne, the grandparents of Jesus.
The national agency that conducts surveys and research about the Catholic Church, its members and its ministries has just marked 25 years crunching the data.
Established in 1996 as the Pastoral Projects Office and later named the Pastoral Research Office, the National Centre for Pastoral Research – as it has been known since 2018 – recently celebrated the significant milestone and its history.
The Church celebrates Sea Sunday on July 11 this year (Photo supplied)
Cardinal Peter Turkson has urged Catholics globally to give thanks for the efforts of maritime workers and pray for their health, safety and wellbeing as the Church celebrates Sea Sunday.
Parishes and Church ministries in Australia are among those that mark Sea Sunday on the second Sunday in July – this year, on July 11.
The Catholic Church advocated for a 4 per cent increase to the minimum wage
by Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM Conv
It is important to remember that many people – even people who are in full-time employment – can work hard, yet still struggle to provide for their families.
The Church employs more than 220,000 people across Australia, so it has an important role in this debate as we are both a substantial employer and a Church with concern for the most vulnerable.
The agenda of the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia calls those attending the Council assemblies to “develop concrete proposals to create a more missionary, Christ-centred Church in Australia”.
The Council agenda, which has emerged from three years and several layers of prayer, listening, dialogue and discernment, will shape the program of the Council’s assemblies – the first of which opens on October 3 this year.