Fr Hans Zollner SJ was Chair of the organising committee for the symposium "Towards Healing and Renewal" on sexual abuse of minors in February 2012. Photo: Supplied. The Catholic dioceses of Wollongong and Parramatta will co-host two days of presentations this week with a priest widely recognised as one of the leading experts in the field of safeguarding of minors. Fr Hans Zollner SJ is a...

By Peter Wilkinson This is the fourth in a series of articles looking at the particular (provincial and plenary) Councils of the Catholic Church held in Australia between 1844 and 1937. It examines the 1885 First Australasian Plenary Council, held between November 14 and 29, which officially brought together the Churches in Australia and New Zealand for the first time. In the period fro...

Archbishop Timothy Costelloe lights the special plenary council candle during the official Perth Launch of the 2020 Plenary Council on Saturday 26 May 2018. Photo: Ron Tan. Thousands of people from across Australia have taken time in the two months since the Plenary Council 2020 officially launched at Pentecost to consider the future of the Catholic Church. In May, the Listening and D...

A clergyman hears confession from Pope Francis during a Lenten penance service on 9 March in St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. Photo: Catholic News Service. The membership of the Australian Confraternity of Catholic Clergy has voiced its profound objection to the laws passed in the Australian Capital Territory, South Australian and Tasmanian legislatures requiring priests to break the ...

Brisbane singer-songwriter Peter Pellicaan in the music video for Listen, a new song for the Plenary Council 2020. Photo: Plenary Council/YouTube. The first screening of a new music video for the Plenary Council 2020 was witnessed by hundreds who gathered in Brisbane for the 2018 PROCLAIM Conference on 15 July. PROCLAIM, the biennial national evangelisation conference, this year has a...

Archbishop Amel Nona spoke on the second day of the Conference. Photo: Adriatography. By Theresia Titus  The Australian Catholic Students Association (ACSA) has held its 2018 Conference from 7 to 9 July at Queens College, Melbourne. With the chosen theme “I am with you always”, 150 tertiary students and alumni members representing each state in Australia gathered and elected their ...

ACU nursing student Kate Gavin is the recipient of the 2018 Francis Xavier Conaci scholarship. The opportunity will see her study in Rome and be immersed in another culture, which she described as “a unique experience like no other”. Photo: David Dodd. The 2018 recipient of the Francis Xavier Conaci scholarship is an Aboriginal student whose grandfather was part of the Stolen Generation....

Rev James McEvoy is a senior lecturer in systematic theology at ACU’s Faculty of Theology and Philosophy, and is a priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide. Photo: Supplied. A leading expert on the theology of childhood has told a meeting in Adelaide that in order to develop and advance appropriate cultures for the care of children, the Church must better understand children as com...

Pope Francis has last Friday appointed Broken Bay Bishop Peter Comensoli as the new Archbishop of Melbourne, with effect from 1 August, when he will be installed in St Patrick’s Cathedral. Photo: Supplied. Pope Francis has last Friday appointed Broken Bay Bishop Peter Comensoli as the new Archbishop of Melbourne, with effect from August 1, when he will be installed in St Patrick’s Cathed...

Pope Francis accepts a jersey from Peter Cosgrove, Governor General of Australia, who was accompanied by his wife Lynne, during a private audience at the Vatican June 25. Photo: CNS/Alessandro Di Meo. The Australian Catholic University (ACU) was honored to receive the Governor-General, His Excellency General the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove AK MC (Retd), and Lady Cosgrove at its Rome Ca...