In my parish there are a number of lay people who take Communion to the sick, but occasionally I see them take the hosts and then chat with people after Mass before going to the home of the sick. Is this proper? How should Communion be taken to the sick?

There are signs of Christmas’ lapse into just another theme for shopping at a certain time of the year but we should not despair, writes Noel Bourke.

Largely ignored by professional theologians, CS Lewis’ exploration of faith inspires new generations.

Every year, a bevy of brave, hardened anti-theist journalists complain about Christmas. Greg Craven is sick of their whingeing. This is a great time of year for hack columnists. The opinion editor is hung over. The chief of staff is AWOL. The editor is still trapped in that leather Santa suit. Now is the time to rage over a personal grievance so self-indulgent and intemperate that eve...

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Mgr Ganswein, one of the most powerful figures in the Church, looks on with Pope Benedict XVI during a meeting in Zagreb in 2011. Photo: Allesandro Bianchi, Reuters By Catholic News Service Pope Benedict XVI will ordain his longtime secretary an Archbishop, 6 January, on the feast of the Epiphany. The pope named his closest aide to be prefect of the papal household, a job that inv...

A friend recently told me that you don’t really need to go to Confession since the penitential rite at the beginning of Mass forgives sins. Is this true? This is a good question, and I suspect many people think the same way as your friend. But I also suspect that the underlying reason for the question in some people is a reluctance to go to Confession and that this, in turn, moves the...

Off the coast of Darwin on the remote Tiwi Islands, Record journalist Mark Reidy met with Vietnamese-born priest Peter Nguyen who, against all odds, joined the priesthood to fight the forces of secularism. Beating a crocodile on the head that dares disturb his day off or slicing a python with a machete pale in comparison to the sacrifices Bathurst Island priest Father Peter Nguyen has made f...

In an adversarial and, for the time being, underwhelming political culture like Australia’s, it might be tempting to throw one’s lot in with the side which seems least offensive. In a roundabout way, Tony Abbott reminded his fellow faith-travellers this week that Catholics who cleave to conservative parties and believe that culture war warriors will be our salvation ought to unburden the...

In the early 1980s, Leonie Reid and husband Pat noticed there was something different about their youngest daughter Stephanie. Socially awkward, frustrated and prone to unintentionally disrupting the play of her peers, a proper diagnosis would be many years in coming. All three would later learn that Stephanie had Aspergers Syndrome - a form of autism characterised by an inability to unde...