The NZ Catholic Bishops Conference (NZCBC) is seeking nominations for the 2020 Delargey Awards, which recognise significant and outstanding contributions to Catholic youth ministry in Aotearoa New Zealand. Begun in 2008, the biannual awards are named in honour of Cardinal Reginald Delargey (1914-79), a former Bishop of Auckland and Archbishop of Wellington who was noted Read more
Jocelyn Franklin, who died on 3 October aged 93, has been described as a legend in the Catholic Diocese of Auckland and indeed throughout the country, having worked tirelessly for the Church for nearly 70 years. She converted to Catholicism at the age of 20 and was chosen by Bishop (later Cardinal) Reginal Delargey in the Read more
Almost a decade ago, as a young graduate student in theology, I lived for a year in the rectory of a Catholic parish. Like many other parishes in Boston faced with an ever-worsening clergy shortage, St. Mary of the Angels did not have a priest in residence. Rather than allowing the creaky 19th-century Victorian estate Read more
Last Friday at the Pompallier Centre in Auckland, Sister Jane O’Carroll (Bishop Dunn’s pastoral assistant) hosted a ceremony to commission three new hospital chaplains and farewell two long-serving ones. Fr Talipope Vaifale, Elaine Harvey and Marcelles Amiatu were commissioned by Monsignor Bernard Kiely, vicar general of the Catholic diocese of Auckland. The event was well Read more
This year the St Vincent de Paul Society celebrates 150 years since it was first established in New Zealand. Anniversary celebrations are planned for the weekend of October 13-15 in Christchurch. On Sunday October 15, an Anniversary Mass will be celebrated by Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Martin Krebs as well as Bishops Owen Dolan and Charles Read more
About 100 Catholics from around Fiji attended a one-day Columban Companions in Mission (CCIM) workshop at Corpus Christi Teachers College in Suva last Saturday to fundraise and learn more about the work their missionary brothers and sisters do. “There are a lot of challenges that the missionaries face when they go on missions and the Read more
The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Laity is positioning its website as a resource for lay men and women ahead of Pope Benedict’s Year of Faith, which will kick-off in October. “It is directed to all the lay faithful that want to know more about their vocation, about their role within the Church,” Ana Cristina Betancourt of Read more
A severe priest shortage and a lack of priestly vocations has seen thousands of Belgian Catholics sign a manifesto urging their bishops to let lay people lead Sunday services. “It’s time for the Church to open its functions to people who are not only celibate men,” Mark Deweerdt, a layman among the 12 priests and Read more
The title of this talk, The Church and the Modern World, is the English title of the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes. It was issued in December 1965. The central theme of this document is this – the Church is to be engaged with the world, it is to be its Gaudium et Spes Read more