I have some friends who are practising Catholics but who say they disagree with some Church teachings. This disturbs me. How can I help them? There are probably quite a few Catholics in the situation you describe, each with his or her own personal areas of disagreement with Church teaching. They are undoubtedly good people but fail to understand a fundamental aspect of what it means t...

So there I was at the train station minding my own business when a young lady walked past wearing a pair of tights. At least I think they were tights. It might have been black body paint for all I know, as it looked like she was wearing nothing at all below the waist. I have since been informed by a reliable source that tights are very much in fashion, which would explain why so many ...

Father, I often find that special years, like the Year of Faith, pass by without people like me doing anything special to live them on a regular basis. Do you have any suggestions? Reading Pope Benedict’s Apostolic Letter Porta Fidei, Door of Faith, in which he announced the present Year of Faith, I have identified three principal areas in which the Holy Father would like to see the Chur...

The opportunity to venerate a relic of perhaps the greatest evangelist to have ever lived after St Paul is something of a rarity in Perth but for Christians in Goa, India where St Francis Xavier missioned, it is an ever present reality. The Basilica of Bom Jesus in Goa is over 400 years old and open to the public every day; the devoted arrive in overwhelming numbers to pray before most o...

By Dr Ryan Messmore What's the most significant threat to religious liberty in the West? The violence of radical protest  groups? Lawsuits of secularists bent on scrubbing religion from the public square? Or might a more pernicious because more subtle threat lie at hand: the narrowing of religious liberty to a mere “freedom of worship”? A robust freedom of religion protects the ...

It seems to be generally true that after an ecumenical council of the Church there follows half a century or so of silly-season when things seem to go haywire in the Church as various factions struggle to take the high ground of interpretation of conciliar declarations and teachings. Australia over the last several decades has been a particularly good example of silly season in full flig...

Kateri’s story (1656 - 1680) Kateri Tekakwitha was born in 1656 in Ossernenon - now known as upstate New York - to an Algonquin Christian mother and pagan Mohawk chief. Her uncle and aunt adopted her when she was four years old after the smallpox epidemic killed her parents and younger brother; leaving her poc-scarred and partially blind. Despite her uncle’s opposition to the Christian...

By Barbara Harris There is one word that has been used for a very long time and by many people across the social, economic, cultural, religious and political divides that is beginning to grate on me. The word is “disability”. Like an old shoe, perhaps, the word has been with us so long that even though it doesn’t quite fit now, we have somehow become attached to it. For many people...

Quo Vadis? Whither goest thou—do you know? Many of us don’t, though we are constantly on the move. We are a pilgrim people, and “Companions on the Journey” (shudder) is our song. (How many words rhyme with “care and share”? You really don’t want to know.) As a volunteer catechist who has served in many capacities and parishes over the decades, I have grown weary of the pedagogical mod...

Plenty of eyebrows would undoubtedly have been raised upon hearing in mid-September that the right forearm of 16th century Spanish missionary, St Francis Xavier was commencing a three-month national tour of Australia. A large number of those eyebrows would have been Catholic. A Google search of ‘relic’ produces responses such as “grotesque”, “mediaeval”, “idolatry”, “superstitious” and e...