Walk as one Media Launch – TOMORROW @ St Aloysius, Milson’s Point

 

 

 

WALK AS ONE: CONNECTING THE WORLD’S INDIGENOUS PEOPLE STORIES FROM BESWICK TO BOLIVIA

MEDIA LAUNCH – THURSDAY 23 AUGUST, 6.30pm Rooftop, St Aloysius College, 47 Upper Pitt Street, Milsons Point WORLD’S INDIGENOUS PEOPLES FORUM – SYDNEY Friday August 24 and Saturday August 25 St Aloysius College, Milsons Point
In a bid to bring vital attention to the plight of the world’s Indigenous Peoples, Caritas Australia is preparing to launch its 2012/13 advocacy campaign next week in Sydney – Walk As One: Connecting with the World’s Indigenous Peoples. Connecting Australians with the stories of Indigenous Peoples from Australia and all over the world, Caritas will hold valuable sessions on the big issues at St Aloysius College, Milsons Point in Sydney on Saturday August 25 and Sunday August 26. Participants will have the chance to take part in a series of workshops and learn about traditional culture from artists and performers including weavers, traditional healers and contemporary dancers. Continue reading →

ASSISI Formation Program: Animators for Sustainability – October 9th-12th 2012

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 →

Australian Catholic Youth Ministry Convention -Registrations close soon!!

The Australian Catholic Youth Ministry Convention (www.acymc.org) will be held in Campbelltown from September 21-23. All those involved in ministry with young people from parishes, communities, movements, religious orders, schools and diocese are invited to attend to be formed and inspired for Catholic youth ministry. visit www.acymc.org to register.

Click below to see the promotional video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZcNtjIdwkc

Catholic Church celebrates our newest Aussies!

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 →

Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto appointed nuncio to Israel

Photo by Beth Doherty

Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto presents at "Share the Dream" 2011

 

The Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI has appointed 70-year-old Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto as apostolic delegate to Jerusalem and Palestine and nuncio to Israel.

His Excellency has been nuncio to Australia since 2007 (December) and will leave in mid-September for the Holy Land.

Archbishop Lazzarotto, told Vatican Radio on Saturday that he will do his best “in the cause of dialogue and peace” and said that there are “many men and women of good will who live in the Holy Land”.

A well-loved nuncio known for his personal warmth, Archbishop Lazzarotto will be sadly missed by the bishops and people of Australia.

Archbishop Lazzarotto served as nuncio to Jordan and Iraq from 1994 – 2000. He has also served in Ireland, and during his early career in Cuba.

 

About the West Africa food crisis

TO DONATE TO THE WEST AFRICA FOOD CRISIS VIA CARITAS AUSTRALIA, CLICK HERE
In the midst of the lean season, millions of people across the Sahel, West Africa are now living through what is known as “the hunger period”. More than 18 million peopleare affected by the devastating food and nutrition crisis.

1 million children under five are at risk of dying from severe acute malnutrition and require immediate relief. An additional 3 million children are at risk of moderate acute malnutrition.

Poor water resources, rising food prices and empty food stores mean many are eating just one meal a day. According to forecasts, the crisis will be acute until September 2012 in Burkina Faso, Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Chad, northern Nigeria and northern Cameroon. But, there is no certainty how long this will last! Stories from the ground show the difficult circumstances leading many to rely on humanitarian aid.

To watch a video of the West Africa food crisis, click here

 

Stronger, higher, faster path to Sainthood

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 →

Statement from Bishop Greg O’Kelly SJ on same-sex marriage

Bishop Greg O'Kelly SJ, Bishop of Port Pirie

Statement from Bishop Greg O’Kelly SJ on same sex marriage, in response to comments from the Premier of South Australia, Jay Weatherill.

“What the Premier has described as marriage equality is not the equal to marriage as all cultures and faiths have understood it throughout the centuries.

Marriage demands a man and a woman in a vowed permanent union that is open to life.

If people are to be entitled, as the premier says, to express their identity in any way they wish, and that is all that constitutes marriage, then the gates are open to all sorts of arrangements like polygamy and polyandry, and the weakening of the family as the basis of society.”

-Bishop Greg O’Kelly SJ, Bishop of Port Pirie Diocese.

Continue reading →

PROCLAIM 2012 – Official pictures