The mid-19th century efforts to educate two aboriginal boys in Italy, who could become missionaries to their own people, started with the best intentions but finished badly.

This is the second part of the article on the 1937 fourth Plenary Council of Australia and New Zealand, the seventh in the series on the councils of the Catholic Church in Australia held between 1844 and 1937. It examines the preparation, proceedings and decrees of the Council, the decisions which followed it, and the efforts to evangelise Australia’s Aboriginal peoples.

This is the third part of the seventh in the series of articles looking at the particular councils of the Catholic Church in Australia held between 1844 and 1937 by Peter J Wilkinson. It examines the background and factors leading to the Fourth Plenary Council of Australia & New Zealand held in Sydney from 4 to 12 September 1937, which brought all the particular churches of both nations for the second time.

An important item on the 1905 Plenary Council agenda was the evangelisation of Australia’s Aboriginal peoples. The 1844 first Provincial Council made no mention of this ministry, but the 1869 second Provincial Council decreed that their “conversion” be confided to some male religious congregation, denounced the injustices committed against them, and recommended a special vicariate apostolic for north Queensland. The 1885 first Australasian Plenary produced six policy decrees (nn. 203-208) for ‘propagating the faith among the aborigines’ whom it considered ‘capable of and willing to embrace Christianity’, but the predominantly Irish bishops who had formulated the decrees generally ignored them. The 1895 second Australian Plenary Council merely endorsed the 1885 decrees.

This is the first of a six-part series of articles by Peter Wilkinson looking at the provincial and plenary councils of the Catholic Church held in Australia between 1844 and 1937. It examines the Third Australian Plenary Council held in Sydney from 3 to 10 September 1905.

The furtive world of Miami-based activists working either on behalf of or against the Castro regime in Cuba in the 1990s is lazily re-created in the undisciplined drama Wasp Network (Netflix).

A grotesque treatment of abortion and a misguided view of faith are the most notable elements of Saint Frances (Oscilloscope).

After lying dormant for more than a decade and a half, the action-comedy franchise that gave us Bad Boys in 1995 and the imaginatively titled sequel Bad Boys II eight years later makes an unwelcome reappearance.

I love entertaining at home and my go-to favourite dish to cook up is Singapore Chilli Crab.

Banana bread is too often seen as last-resort in a café or the only use for “that bunch of bananas buried in the cupboard”. But made with care, quality ingredients and a little imagination, it can be a thing of beauty. It’s even better when lightly toasted and smothered with butter.