Cheryl Curnow gathered with colleagues at the ACBC Secretariat for a farewell dinner

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference hosted a special thank you dinner and bid farewell to Mrs Cheryl Curnow, Program Manager of Natural Fertility Australia (NFA), this week.

Over the last twenty years, Cheryl combined her strong work ethic, a commitment to her family and her faith, with her career at NFA.

Dedicated to raising her family, Cheryl gave up a promising career to care for her children, something she and her husband saw as a shared vocation. She describes the Curnow family as ‘very close’.

Cheryl returned to the paid workforce after more than a quarter of a century spent nurturing her family. Continue reading →

Genevieve Bryant performing at ACYF, Melbourne in 2013

‘Where can we see God?’, a simple question that triggered a young song writer to compose the lyrics chosen as the theme song for the Australian Catholic Youth Festival (ACYF) this year.

Taking the theme of the Festival, ‘Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God’, Genevieve Bryant asked herself, ‘where can we see God?’

The question prompted a deep musical response in singer-song writer Genevieve. ‘When our eyes are truly opened we see God as the poor and thirsty, the heart of justice, the lost and searching.’

Continue reading →

Bishop of Sale Pat O’Regan, Auxiliary Bishops of Melbourne Mark Edwards OMI and Terence Curtin.

VICTORIA’S newest bishops are currently in Rome attending a seminar for recently ordained bishops, often fondly referred to as ‘baby bishop school’.

Bishop Pat O’Regan from the Sale diocese and Melbourne auxiliary bishops Terry Curtin and Mark Edwards OMI are attending the seminar, which includes a personal audience with Pope Francis for each bishop.

125 new bishops are participating in the seminar run by the Congregation for Bishops from Monday 7 to Wednesday 16 September. Bishops Curtin and Edwards have both graciously provided some lovely, interesting, and even humorous, reflections on their time at the seminar in Rome. Continue reading →

Criticisms of the economics of Laudato Si’ are without foundation, a new paper by the Australian Catholic Council for Employment Relations (ACCER) states.

The paper titled, The Economics of Laudato Si’ – no surprises here, clearly demonstrates that what Pope Francis has said on economic issues is sound and is perfectly consistent with earlier Catholic social teaching on economic issues, including the operation and regulation of markets.

Brian Lawrence, Chairman of the ACCER said, ‘the encyclical’s analysis and consideration of economic issues has been criticised in some quarters. Prominent attacks on the encyclical, and Pope Francis personally are unjustified’. Continue reading →

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 →