The first assembly of the Plenary Council will take place with a combination of online and face-to-face participation as uncertainty remains over restrictions on travel and gatherings.
The decision to hold the October 2021 assembly in a “multi-modal” format was reached last week based on feedback from a number of groups, including the steering committee for the Council assemblies, the Plenary Council’s facilitation team and risk assessors.
Pope Francis has appointed Broome vicar general Msgr Paul Boyers the apostolic administrator of the northern Western Australian diocese, the Holy See announced on Saturday evening.
Msgr Boyers has been overseeing administrative matters in the Diocese of Broome since March, when Bishop Christopher Saunders voluntarily stood aside. Bishop Peter Ingham, the former Bishop of Wollongong, carried out an apostolic visitation of the diocese in the subsequent months.
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The Church in Australia will celebrate the Sunday of the Word of God on the first Sunday in February each year, starting with February 7 in 2021.
Pope Francis last year instituted the celebration when issuing the apostolic letter Aperuit Illis. The letter encouraged the celebration, study and dissemination of the Word of God.
Australia’s Catholic bishops will tomorrow open their second plenary meeting of the year under COVID-19 restrictions, with almost 40 bishops and other senior Church figures to gather online.
The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference holds biannual plenary meetings each May and November. The May meeting this year was moved online – the first time such a gathering had not been held in person in the Conference’s 54-year history.
Fr Maurizio Pettena giving evidence to the Senate Select Committee on Temporary Migration
An obsession with profits that ignores the rights of workers must be scrutinised and eliminated to protect vulnerable people, a Catholic expert in migration has told the Australian Parliament.
Fr Maurizio Pettenà CS, the director of the Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office, appeared before the Senate Select Committee on Temporary Migration this week. His evidence followed an Australian Catholic Bishops Conference submission to that group earlier this year.
The Archdioceses of Adelaide and Perth and the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle were among Catholic winners of major prizes in the 2020 Australasian Religious Press Association awards.
Perth’s eRecord picked up two of the most prestigious online awards, winning gold medals in the best website and best e-newsletter categories.
Members of the Plenary Council executive committee during a 2018 meeting in Melbourne with members of the Facilitation Team and Archbishops Mark Coleridge and Timothy Costelloe SDB
Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB says the executive committee that has helped guide the Plenary Council journey to this point has set the Council up to be a source of renewal for the Church.
Writing to the members of the executive committee earlier this week in his capacity as Plenary Council president, Archbishop Costelloe thanked the group for their time, their energy and their belief in the Council process.
As the country marks National Carers Week, parishes and other Catholic communities are being encouraged to acknowledge and celebrate the role of those who provide unpaid support to people in need.
According to data from 2015, 2.7 million Australians were unpaid carers, offering support to family members and friends who have a disability, mental illness, chronic condition, terminal illness, an alcohol or other drug issue or who are frail aged.
Applications are now open for an Australian women’s leadership program that has been held up as an international exemplar for supporting the formation of Church leaders.
The Leadership for Mission program, a joint initiative of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and the Australian Catholic University with support from Catholic Mission, is a postgraduate program for women aged 25 to 35. It is delivered through three residential sessions over an 18-month period.
(CNS photo/Cristian Gennari, pool)
A world that looks beyond a global pandemic with no roadmap can find one in Pope Francis’ new encyclical, which Archbishop Mark Coleridge says “is not just for believers but for the entire human family”.
Published this evening, the Pope’s third encyclical is entitled Fratelli Tutti (Brothers and Sisters All) – words taken from St Francis of Assisi, who the Pope says has inspired what he writes.