Addresses and Statements

Despite his many accolades, the Canadian poet-singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen is perhaps best known for his hit song Hallelujah.

Welcome to the tenth Iftar breakfast hosted by the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney. It is with great joy that tonight I acknowledge our Muslim guests: His Eminence Dr. Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, Grand Mufti of Australia and President of the Council of Imams NSW;

Thank you for attending our Mass and Candlelight Vigil. Tonight we have commended to Almighty God the 253 or so victims of the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka.

The high points of my day are my Mass, Divine Office and Rosary, when I spend time with Our Lord, opening my heart and mind to Him, listening, asking, thanking, adoring. This relationship with God is, I hope, the foundation of my every word and deed.

“Today we are all Muslims,” said one of our nation’s most respected journalists.
Not that we all share the same faith.

So began the first reading for Mass on the day the news broke of Cardinal George Pell’s conviction. While I must leave commenting on that matter until after the appeal process is complete, the media storm around the case was read by

Welcome to St Mary’s Cathedral Hall to this Anti-Slavery Ethical Sourcing Seminar and Expo. As we honour past and present elders of the Gadigal People and the Eora Nation, we acknowledge that our history as a nation includes a shameful chapter in which many Indigenous people

There are in religion two contrary tendencies. The first focuses on the spiritual dimension of human beings. It regards the physical universe as confining and distracting, and emphasises God the pure spirit, the angels also, and the dead now released from bodily life.

‘I’m a servant.’ Such talk sticks a bit in our throats, makes us more than a bit uncomfortable, doesn’t it? A waiter or waitress OK. An airline steward, maybe, as long as I don’t have to look after a plane full of Aussies going to WYD. A nurse, sure.

Wow young Australia! What an awesome Aussie gathering this has been to introduce our World Youth Day week! We come together this week, young people with their lay leaders, pastors, and pope as a living-breathing, singing-dancing, praying-acting proof that the Catholic Church is alive and well.

Might I begin by congratulating the organisers of this twentieth annual Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life here at Georgetown