Josephite Sr Elizabeth Murphy, who died on July 20, was a teacher par excellence who reached the top of her profession and also worked with the Order in Peru. She was 88. Known to her family as Mary, she was born on July 4, 1924, the eldest of six children of Frank and Phyllis Murphy, and was educated in her primary years at Highgate with the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. When the f...

It was 1952, post war Europe, economic depression was widespread and jobs hard to come by. Young men, like Giovanni (John) Clissa, went seeking their fortune in faraway shores such as Australia. John and his bride Stella Nina (Nina) had been married barely a few days when the young groom left the isolated village nestled in the Apennine Mountains of central Italy. He was almost 19 yea...

Archbishop Emeritus Barry Hickey sent the following letter to The Record. It was published in the August 1 edition of the paper. Gerard Henderson is right to warn us to be wary of the ABC. (The Record July 25). I speak as a long-time fan of the ABC. This year ABC Radio is celebrating 80 years of broadcasting. I have been a listener of almost 70 of those years. It was the only radio...

When we seek personal fulfillment by abandoning truth and objective moral standards, we also increase our unhappiness. I was filling in an online form recently and the security question at the end was “2+9=” and I had to type in the answer to submit the page. I found it interesting that this very mainstream form on the website of this very mainstream company was not only telling me th...

Hold your hats. Gird your loins. Scrunch up your face like you’ve just witnessed your Dad on the dance floor at a wedding. Ready? Good, because I’m writing about religion. Even worse, this column is about religion … and children. But fear not. For my own sanity (and safety!), this column won’t dip its toe into the pool of ethical and moral arguments attached to the teaching of religio...

If you were only looking at the weight of media reporting, you could be forgiven for thinking there was an epidemic of child sexual abuse, perpetrated by the Catholic Church. What is getting less air time is that the three Catholic bishops at the centre of media attention last week are determined to address the issue, even as they attend to cases that happened under different prelates, d...

One of the most outstanding priests the West has given to Australia passed to eternal life in Melbourne on June 27, 2012. Born just before the outbreak of the Second World War, Peter Steele grew up in the Perth suburb of Victoria Park, the eldest in a family of three boys. His parents, Fred (who became a Catholic on marrying his mother) and Jessie, nurtured in him a strong faith which pr...

Harry and Jan Collins have celebrated half a century of marriage. The couple have been blessed with two sons and six grandchildren. [/caption] Harry and Jan Collins (nee Jones) recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at Our Lady of Mt Carmel Hilton with a special Mass, a blessing from Pope Benedict and another from Fr Paul Raj. Later, they celebrated with family and friends a...

On a cold winter’s night, Joan Wester Anderson believed her son and his friends would freeze to death in an isolated cornfield when their car broke down while driving from Connecticut to Chicago. Instead, Mrs Anderson owes her son’s life to a mysterious tow truck driver who appeared out of nowhere and towed the boys to a nearby town; when Mrs Anderson’s son turned to pay the man he had v...

Sid and Marie Gasper of Good Shepherd Parish in Kelmscott have been married for six decades. PHOTO: Juanita Shepherd[/caption] Surrounded by an assortment of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, family and friends, Sid and Marie Gasper celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. Mr and Mrs Gasper grew up together in a small town called Syriam in Burma; they have known each ot...