More than 740 students representing 79 Catholic schools gathered on Wednesday, 20 October for the annual Catholic Mission Schools Mass. The annual Catholic Mission Mass saw hundreds of students from Catholic schools gather to focus on the Church’s global evangelisation agency and those it serves, especially children. Photo: Peter Rosengren It wasn’t a record, but it ...

St Joseph’s Bassendean parish priest of five years Fr Jim Shelton celebrated his last Mass at the parish on 31 October before departing on the same day for an extended period working abroad. Fr Jim Shelton with Our Lady of Guadalupe. Photo: Bridget Spinks Fr Jim, who grew up in Ohio in the United States, came to Perth in 2000. He was ordained at St Mary’s Cathedral w...

Born of a vision and an array of happy meetings, a Pemberton retreat house is marking 25 years of existence by doing what it has always done; inviting people in. Karriholm God’s Sanctuary, the motherhouse of the Holy Spirit of Freedom Community, will hold a retreat, candlelight procession and dinner dance on the weekend of the Feast of Christ the King (19-21 November) to celebrate th...

The popular media view of the Catholic Church as anti-woman gets a vigorous challenge in a new book edited by Erika Bachiochi. In Women, Sex, and the Church: A Case for Catholic Teaching (Pauline Books & Media), Bachiochi and eight other contributors expound upon the Church’s teaching on sex, contraception, marriage, abortion and priestly ordination from a pro-woman perspective. Bac...

How I pray: Nicole Edmiston speaks with The Record's Debbie Warrior.   Nicole Edmiston   Without a commitment to God it’s very hard to progress in faith and grow in your relationship with Jesus. There are so many competing forces for our attention, like the media. I don’t have a television because there are very few things about commercialisatio...

Since his election to the papacy, Ratzinger has published three encyclicals, Deus Caritas Est (God is Love), Spe Salvi (Saved by Hope) and Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), and one apostolic exhortation Sacramentum caritatis (the Sacrament of Charity).    Derided by critics as a divisive figure, Benedict XVI has spent the best part of his pontificate trying t...

Fr Flader talks about The Process of Canonisation The most recent regulations on these processes were given by Pope John Paul II in the Apostolic Constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister on 25 January 1983, the same day as he promulgated the Code of Canon Law. Accompanying norms were given on 7 February 1983. How does the process work? When someone dies with a reputation for ho...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - “The universality of the Church,” proclaimed the headline across the top of the Vatican newspaper, as it announced Pope Benedict XVI’s choice of 24 new Cardinals from 13 different countries. A red skull cap is seen as the world's cardinals gather in St. Peter's Basilica before the start of the last conclave in this 2005 file photo. Pope Benedict XVI...

WASHINGTON (CNS) - When Cardinal-designate Raymond L Burke was named in 2008 to head the Vatican’s highest tribunal, he came to the post with the reputation of being one of the most outspoken US Bishops on moral and political issues. Cardinal-designate Raymond Burke, prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature at the Vatican, right, talks with Cardinal-designate Angelo ...

Although he was known, among other things, for calling a spade a spade, Fr Tom Gaine was loved for his willingness and readiness to accept people as they were, neither condemning nor judging. And he was always ready to share with them his love for God and his love of life, writes Elizabeth Brennan in this tribute...   Fr Tom Gaine   In 2002, Winter Has Pas...