Brisbane’s vibrant and rapidly growing Vietnamese Catholic community is rejoicing as building begins on a new church and community centre that will be the heart of their worship and cultural activities, reports The Catholic Leader.

“It is wonderful – we’ve been waiting for so long, we are going to have our own place we can call home,” chair of the community’s pastoral committee Ken Huynh said.

Guest speakers at the 2021 Provincial Assembly challenged members of the SVD community to be invitational, to get to know people’s story and to discern and act with vision – the vision of Jesus Christ.

Emeritus Bishop of Darwin, Bishop Eugene Hurley spoke on the Leadership of Pope Francis, and Dr Janine Luttick, a lecturer in biblical studies at Australian Catholic University (ACU), in the faculty of theology and philosophy, presented on Leadership, Mission, Women and the Church in Australia.

When I was a young priest, I was often surprised by the number of people I met who were “disappointed by God”, and so they walked away from Him.  “God never answered my prayers, so I stopped praying.” 

The Santa Teresa community in Central Australia celebrated its feast day – the feast of St Therese of Lisieux - recently in true Aussie fashion, by hosting a race meeting which attracted people from right around the local outback area.

The Santa Teresa Races are a fixture on the outback racing calendar and they are part of a weekend of celebrations for the feast day of the community’s patron saint.