The Prime Minister’s announcement that Australia will be taking an extra 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq on a temporary basis is a generous response to the refugee crisis we have been watching on our television screens over the past few weeks.

The journey of a refugee is chaotic and risky. From the moment of departure, there is the risk of injury, starvation, separation, persecution, imprisonment and even death.

Such desperation and human misery invites us to respond with compassion, solidarity and generosity.

The increasing global movement of people and our nation’s response mean it is timely for us to reflect on this important issue, which is why Australia’s Catholic bishops on Wednesday, 9 September launched our Annual Social Justice Statement on justice for refugees and asylum seekers. Continue reading →

Introducing reforms to the legal structures around marital nullity, Pope Francis published two apostolic letters motu proprio on Tuesday 8 September 2015. The letters are known as Mitis et misericors Iesus   and  Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus.  

The first is a reform of the canon law procedure on marriage of the Oriental Churches and the second on the reform of the procedure on marriage in the Code of Canon Law for Latin Churches.

During a press conference launching the documents, Pope Francis made the distinction that we do not speak of “annulments” as the Church does not make marriages null but rather discovers facts, which show that a particular union is Null.

Continue reading →

Cathy & Matt Bourke with their four children, Michael, Joel, Trinity & Sebastian

We believe it takes a village to raise a child and so much of our village is the Catholic Church, Cathy and Matt Bourke told the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) recently.

‘Raising families is an extremely vulnerable time of life and possibly the hardest job to get right. It is the most important vocation in manifesting the domestic church’, the couple explained.

Matt and Cathy believe a vibrant Catholic family community is also vital in the faith journey to share values and life’s challenges with other families. Continue reading →

Bishop Kennedy, Bishop Delegate for Marriage & Family, will lead the Australian Pilgrimage to the World Meeting of Families with Mavis and Ron Pirola, Chair Couple of the Australian Catholic Marriage and Family Council.

From 22-27 September, thousands of families from around the world will gather in Philadelphia with Pope Francis for the eighth World Meeting of Families. Events such as this would have been frowned upon by the likes of Karl Marx and Fredreich Engels who advocated for the ‘abolition of the family’ in their 1848 Communist Manifesto.

Thank goodness the family has not been abolished but is still going strong even if under huge pressures: economic, social, and moral. All families feel the strain of these pressures, some tragically so. Aldoux Huxley imagined an inhumane futuristic one world state with no families in his 1932 novel Brave New World. In this imaginary world natural procreation has been abolished and all human life is produced through reproductive technologies; genetic engineering is used to breed workers of differing abilities in a strict caste system; embryos are raised in hatcheries; children are raised and educated, or rather indoctrinated, in large state-run nurseries; and euthanasia is compulsory. This vision has not become reality either, not yet anyway! Continue reading →

Australia has a primary obligation to protect desperately vulnerable people and so I welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement today that an extra 12,000 refugees will be accepted from Syria and Iraq.

‘This is a generous response to suffering that demonstrates the compassion of the Australian people,’ says Bishop Vincent Long, Chairman of the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council.

‘These are the sort of vulnerable people we should focus on when responding to claims for refugee status,’ he added.

Bishop Long was speaking at the launch of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ 2015-2016 Social Justice Statement entitled, ‘For Those Who’ve Come Across the Seas: Justice for refugees and asylum seekers’. Continue reading →

Entire regions and nations are under threat from the effects of rising sea levels, the Federation of Catholic Bishops Conferences of Oceania (FCBCO) declared in a statement to world leaders in advance of the COP 21 meeting in Paris later this year.

A statement calling for responsibility and action was sent to the COP 21 nations from the executive committee of the FCBCO following their assembly in Noumea, New Caledonia at the end of August 2015. Continue reading →

Catholic Earthcare Australia is celebrating the first World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation on September 1 by releasing a short video entitled Laudato Si’ – An urgent appeal for action.

The video features three prominent Catholic leaders – Archbishop Adolfo Tito Yllana (Apostolic Nuncio to Australia), Bishop Michael Kennedy (Bishop of Armidale and Chair of Catholic Earthcare Australia) and Jacqui Rémond (Director of Catholic Earthcare Australia). It offers a unique Australian perspective on Pope Francis’ new Encyclical Laudato si’, and a direct call to action for the Australian Catholic community. Continue reading →

THE fifth annual Bishop Joe Grech Memorial Colloquium on ethics, migration and the Catholic response over the last 20 years was held overnight at the Australian Catholic University’s Fitzroy campus, with an illustrious line-up of speakers, chaired by Sandie Cornish.

The first was Bishop Peter Comensoli, the Bishop of Broken Bay in NSW. Bishop Peter speaks with authority on ethics, having already achieved masters and doctorate degrees in moral philosophy and theological ethics. In his address to a crowded lecture theatre, he reminded his listeners that, apart from the very few full-blooded Australian aborigines in this country, we are all ‘elsewhere people’, as he called us. Continue reading →

SERVING YOUTH: St Teresa Catholic School teacher Bianca Dipilato will be coordinating volunteers across the three-day Australian Catholic Youth Festival in Adelaide from December 3. – See more at: https://mediablog.catholic.org.au/#sthash.QT1gwV9V.dpuf

Bianca Dipilato was determined not to let a number get in the way of attending the first Australian Catholic Youth Festival to be held in Adelaide.

The 30-year-old St Teresa’s School teacher was recently disappointed to discover she was over the 25-year-old age threshold for the festival in December.

“I really wanted to go because it was a national event being held in Adelaide for the very first time – what an amazing experience – and I’d never been to one before,” she said.

While she may not be attending as a pilgrim, she will be at the Convention Centre helping an expected crowd of up to 4000 Catholic youth as a volunteer.

“Even though I was too old for the festival, I still wanted to be a part of it,” said the Religious Education teacher. Continue reading →

Ursuline Sister Kari Hatherell

Parishioners are the unsung heroes of the church, working behind the scenes to keep parishes going and support the work of their priest.

Mission and ministry is not some airy fairy thing just for priests and holy people. It is the day-to-day hard slog of keeping the parish community running. Ministry is essential to offering a place for Catholics to gather, hear God’s word, celebrate the Eucharist and go out into the world refreshed and inspired to live and share the Good News.

Parish ministry often begins by lending a hand at Mass, whether that’s proclaiming the word, becoming a Eucharistic minister or offering to sing with the choir.

It was no different for Ursuline Sister Kari Hatherell who explains that people get involved in lay pastoral ministry ‘usually slowly’. Her own journey began in 1992 at the Caloundra Parish, on the north coast of Queensland. Continue reading →