With queues at the border to Poland up to 15km long the Catholic Church is stepping up to provide humanitarian aid in Ukraine. Among those providing support is the Catholic charity Caritas Australia, who is working directly with Caritas Ukraine and its local partner Caritas Spes. Funds to support the charity’s work in Ukraine have Read more
Churches are among the high risk places to avoid at present, say public health professor Nick Wilson and epidemiologist Michael Baker (pictured). As daily Omicron cases soar throughout the country, avoiding high risk places means steering clear of bars, restaurants, cafés, gyms, churches and protests. Retail shops, offices, lifts, stairwells, malls, community pools, public transport Read more
Wellington’s St Mary’s College is the second school adjacent to the parliamentary protest to close due to ongoing fears for its students’ and staff’s safety. The school will be closed until Tuesday 1 March. Wellington Girls’ College has also announced it will be shut until at least then, with the school citing an ‘increasingly volatile’ Read more
Apologies from the Catholic Church followed the final submissions into historical abuse at Christchurch’s Marylands school. More than 30 witnesses gave evidence to the Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care – many survivors, some experts and some senior members of the Catholic Church. In her closing statement, lawyer Sally McKechnie, who represented New Zealand’s Read more
Vinnies charity shop in Picton has closed due to the spread of Omicron and the town’s increasing numbers of anti-vax mandate protesters, who are not wearing masks. As part of a nationwide anti-vax mandate convoy, protesters have occupied Nelson Square since last Monday. St Vincent de Paul Marlborough area president Alan Furness said the Vinnies Read more
Don’t forget Tonga just because it happened a while ago – this is the message of former All Black coach, Wayne Smith. “They’ve been absolutely hammered, a lot of them are homeless”, he told RNZ. The island kingdom was battered by a tsunami after an undersea volcanic eruption last month. Distribution of aid to Tonga Read more
SNAP Aotearoa New Zealand is calling for Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI to be prosecuted if evidence proves he obstructed clerical child abuse complaints when he was Archbishop of Munich and Freising. Christopher Longhurst, who coordinates Aotearoa New Zealand’s Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) was commenting on the likelihood of Benedict’s knowledge of Read more
Caritas was prepared for an emergency in Tonga and is already on the ground offering assistance. Confirmation of the Catholic agency’s involvement comes from Caritas Director Julianne Hickey, and follows Saturday’s eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano. “Together (with Caritas Tonga) we have completed the pre-positioning of emergency supplies at three locations in Tonga Read more
Michel Aupetit, recently relieved of his duties as Archbishop of Paris by the pope, has indicated that he plans to sue a popular French magazine that published insinuating photos it secretly took of him and a young woman. The 70-year-old archbishop said this week that his attorney is drawing up papers to sue the weekly Read more
Immigration lawyers and advocates in New Zealand are echoing similar concerns Pope Francis made during his recent trip to Cypris. In Cypris, Francis warned Europe of its indifference to migrants, saying migration issues are something society is getting used to. He went on to label the indifference “a grave disease for which there is no Read more