One of the grooms in the upcoming season of Married at First Sight (MAFS), Chris Mansfield, has an outstanding domestic violence charge in the United States. As a participant on the reality show, which will premiere on Sunday night on Three, Mansfield has wed a stranger in a non-legally binding marriage. Read more
David Koch, the American billionaire and libertarian whose donations with his brother Charles helped reshape US politics, has died at the age of 79. Mr Koch had stepped down from executive vice president of Koch Industries, a conglomerate which has an annual revenue of more than $100 billion, last year. Charles Koch released a statement Read more
The Wellington City Mission recently launched their new transitional housing facility, Britannia House, in Lower Hutt, with an official opening by Hon Kris Faafoi MP, the Associate Minister of Housing. The story caught the attention of Rev Caro Willis, the Chaplain at Chilton St James School in Lower Hutt. Her Year 6 students had gathered Read more
This year’s Anglo-Catholic Hui meeting in Wellington has recharged Anglicans to go out and share the Good News of Jesus through the beauty and wonder of God and the best of ‘high church’ traditions. Around 140 people responded to the call of Bishop of Wellington Justin Duckworth and Bishop Eleanor Sanderson to join the Anglo-Catholic Read more
A Holy See-Vietnam diplomacy working group, which met inside the Vatican this week, reached an agreement on establishing a permanent resident papal representative to the southeast Asian country. A resident papal representative is considered an intermediary step in diplomatic relations, below an apostolic nuncio. The Holy See and Vietnam have never had full diplomatic relations, Read more
Last Saturday, Bishop Patrick Dunn celebrated a special Mass for the Auckland Diocese to mark 50 years since New Zealand’s Catholic Bishops established various bodies for overseas aid, justice and peace, and the sending of Catholic lay volunteers overseas. Today, these strands are all found within Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand, the Catholic Agency for Justice Read more
A hospital boat named the “Pope Francis” set sail this week in the Amazon River to bring medical care to rural populations. “Just as Jesus, who appeared walking on water, calmed the storm and strengthened the faith of the disciples, this boat will bring spiritual comfort and calm to the worries of needy men and Read more
This Wednesday, the Education and Workforce Select Committee will hear submissions on a petition to do away with the ‘family link’ policy, which the immigration minister has admitted is discriminatory. The policy was introduced in 2009, under the former government, and requires any refugees coming from the Middle East or Africa to have an existing Read more
The Bishops’ Conference of Sri Lanka has called for an “independent and impartial” investigation into the bombings of three churches and three hotels on Easter Sunday. The leaders claim that this investigation must bring about justice for the victims by holding those responsible before the law. On April 21, Easter Sunday, suicide bombers reportedly supported Read more