As many Catholics will know by the time this edition of The Record is in parishes, Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB welcomed the announcement on Monday by Prime Minister Julia Gillard of a Royal Commission into the abuse of children in church and state-run institutions in this country over decades. The news of the Commission has also been welcomed by the Australian Catholic Bishops Confe...

He manages the superannuation of some of the state’s most influential media players as Media Super’s WA relationship manager and spends his free time volunteering at not-for-profits. Patrick Horneman tells The Record about the power of listening, his devoution to the Catholic faith and why he’d like to be Spiderman. What are some of your hobbies? Assisting not for profit organisations...

Holy Rosary Parish Nedlands celebrated their 75th anniversary in splendour on the evening of Friday, October 26. A packed Holy Rosary church saw Bishop Don Sproxton and 15 other priests join Parish Priest Fr Joseph Sobb SJ in celebrating Mass for the occasion. The night was not just about celebrating a strong history, Bishop Sproxton said in his homily, but about where the parish wanted t...

There he was, stuck out in the middle of the ocean on a life raft with a suspect crew and a boozy skipper who had run their chartered boat into a reef before it had rapidly begun to sink. There was no fresh water and no supplies, and a then 25-year-old Tom Fisher was delirious in the sun’s brutalising heat, 15 miles off the coast of the Solomon Islands. After surviving the travails an...

By Dr Kania Most societies throughout the course of human history have incorporated into their cultural structures and identities some form of Rites of Passage that indicate that children have now successfully passed through a deliberate and educative process and have become worthy of taking their place in society as adults. These have been developed in order for a particular society ...

My ten-year-old son is growing a moustache but is very diffident in a school-boyish kind of way when I occasionally suggest he try shaving. I’ll leave it alone. Who am I to tell him to shave? Most of my adult life I’ve been bearded or moustachioed, fancying myself in the image of a devil-may-care, likeable scoundrel possessed of some kind of panache or a certain savoir faire. Alter...

Hundreds of people at a time turned out in churches and venues across Perth over the last fortnight all seeking one thing: a miracle. The miracle they were seeking was healing - either from serious or terminal illnesses, injuries or the deep hurts that life can bring. Visiting New Zealand priest Fr John Rea SM, a man with an extraordinary reputation for healing, led numerous Masses and pr...

Among the reported healings administered by Father John Rae during his recent visit to Perth, The Record has received a number of accounts. Here is one of them from Bernadette: “For the last 27 years, I have suffered one way or other with diseased sinuses and asthma. If not chronic allergies, rhinitis, sinusitis or asthma, it was acute infections and pain. I am sensitive to a lot o...

Duty has become a dirty word in the postmodern lexicon—mocked as the province of uptight religious fundamentalists or thickheaded, macho, military men. Doing one’s duty is depicted as dry, lifeless and unpleasant (even hypocritical), and is often juxtaposed to “following your heart” and being “true to yourself” – which sounds terribly noble (primacy of conscience, and all that), but it u...

It may not be popular to say it and, often in the Church, it seems there are some subjects we are all not supposed to talk about. But sometimes we must face up to our responsibilities. One significant problem in the life of the Church today is what we call liturgical music. The problem is that much of the liturgical music used in the average Australian parish is... awful. It is imposs...