Assisi Program

Catholic Earthcare will offer the Assisi Program in 2012 and there is more information on their website.

“…someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, humanity will have discovered fire.”

(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

Are you wondering …

• What would it take to animate the call to justice, peace and integrity of creation such that we learn together how to live and work sustainably on our planet?

• What is required for your organisation to take the transformative journey to ecological sustainability?

• What wisdom exists in Catholic Teaching that may help you and your organisation respond to the call for ecological conversion and sustaining God’s Creation?

• What would it take to truly harness the energies of God’s love?

I would like to invite you to participate in the ASSISI Animator for Sustainability Program and, secondly, to pass this invitation to others in your network for whom this might be applicable. Continue reading →

By Daniel Hopper Oo’s family after the Citizenship ceremony with Sr Elaine Troy OLSH and Ted Booth SCARF

By Daniel Hopper

Meet our newest Australian family – Oo Reh (husband), Phray Meh (wife), Soe (16), Christina (14), Joseph (10) and Leh Leh (7) – who only this week celebrated receiving their Australian citizenship. Prior to coming to Australia they had spent ten years in a refugee camp. They, along with 600 other migrants, refugees and members of all our cultural communities will be attending the annual “Many Cultures, One in Christ” Mass and Cultural Celebration at St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral in Wollongong at 2pm on Sunday 26 August.

Oo grew up in a remote lowland village in Karenni State (a former independent state in Burma) and worked as a policeman. In his early twenties he met Phray who lived with her family in a small mountain village with 40 other families. After they married, Oo moved into Phray’s village, where they lived a subsistence lifestyle, without electricity, in a region regarded as one of the least accessible and poorest areas in the Union of Burma. Continue reading →

Martha Fernandez-Sardina

By Beth Doherty

“You are what you eat”, said evangelist Martha Fernandez-Sardina as she addressed the 400-strong crowd at PROCLAIM 2012: the first national conference on the “New Evangelisation” held from 9-11 August at The Concourse in Chatswood.

The American keynote speaker wasn’t giving diet tips or fitness advice; rather, she was exhorting the crowd gathered to understand the power in frequent reception of the Eucharist.

“If you receive Christ frequently, you slowly become transformed. It changes you. You become the bread come down from heaven. You become Holy as the Lord your God is Holy”, she said. Continue reading →

Holy Family, entry into Egypt

By Fr Maurizio Pettena CS

August 1, 1952 marks the 60^th anniversary of the Apostolic Constitution Exul Familia Nazarethana on the Pastoral Care of People on the Move by Pope Pius XII.

May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. (Rom 15:1-7)

Chapter 15 of the Epistle to the Romans gives Christians the unnegotiable reason and the modalities of why and how to welcome others. The welcome must be Christian, in the sense that it must reflect the same welcoming one has received from Christ; (“Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you”); thus: Christ is the reason, Christ is the model and Christ sets the modalities such “ as Christ has welcomed you”. All of this is to be done “for the glory of God”. God is made manifest and given glory through the duty of welcoming which becomes, therefore, at the core of the Church’s ministry of evangelisation. Continue reading →

Fr Paul Bird CSsr - Bishop-Elect of Ballarat

The following media statements contain information about the appointment on 1 August by the Holy Father of Fr Paul Bird CSsr as Bishop of Ballarat. The retiring Bishop Peter Connors and the Bishop-Elect Paul Bird are assured of our prayers over the coming months.

Fr Paul Bird CSsr will be ordained Bishop on 16 October, 2012.

Statement from Archbishop Denis Hart, President of the ACBC

On behalf of the Australian Bishops and for the bishops, priests and people of the Province of Melbourne, I warmly welcome the announcement of the appointment of Father Paul Bird CSsR as Bishop-elect of Ballarat.

Father Bird has given distinguished service to the Redemptorist Order as Provincial and as retreat-giver, liturgist and teacher.  For twenty years from 1987 he was Superior of the Redemptorists in Melbourne and editor of Majellan Publications.  After fifteen years as a member of the Provincial Council, he has served as Provincial since 2008.

We welcome Bishop-elect Paul and know that his exceptional gifts will bring rich blessings to the people of the Diocese of Ballarat, whom he will serve with faith, generosity and love.  He is a gifted leader and will be welcomed warmly by the people of Ballarat Diocese and beyond. Continue reading →

Fr Chris Ryan speaking

The PROCLAIM CONFERENCE will be held from 9-11 August, 2012 at the Concourse in Chatswood, Sydney. More information is available as well as registration and information on speakers at the following link www.proclaimconference.com.au

PROCLAIM 2012 is a conference on the New Evangelisation organised on behalf of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference by the National Office for Evangelisation and Catholic Mission.

The aim of PROCLAIM 2012 is to give people an understanding of the new evangelisation. It will also help attendees in building parishes that can evangelise effectively today. Some participants may already be actively engaged in the new evangelisation while others will be unfamiliar with the term and what it entails. Continue reading →

By Fr Maurizio Pettena

This article was first published in CathBlog, a daily service of CathNews

Our public conversation about refugees and asylum seekers seems to be degenerating once again into political statements and rhetoric.

Yesterday, in a commercial for the Today Tonight program, statistics flashed across the TV screen proclaiming: “illegal boat people with the destination Sydney – you’ll be shocked at the numbers!” Continue reading →

Original fellowship recipients, 2006

By Beth Doherty

In 2005, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference through the then Commission for Australian Catholic Women approved an inaugural fellowship which would draw together young women from across Australia for academic and spiritual formation.

This pioneering course was known as the Young Catholic Women’s Interfaith Fellowship.

The first program of its type in the world, the Young Catholic Women’s Interfaith Fellowship began in 2006, and has seen all of its graduates gifting the Catholic Church and society with a wide range of skills ranging from education to media, to social justice advocacy and youth ministry, to pastoral care and academic leadership in various forms.

 Continue reading →