Catholic Weekly - Archbishop News

Jesus ascending to heaven. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. This is the edited text for the Homily for Mass of the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, Year C St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 1 June 2025. There are many stories from the Middle Ages about court jesters teaching their masters a thing or two. In one, […]

Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP at the Paschal Eucharist Mass. Photo: Alphonsus Fok. This is the edited text of the Homily for the Paschal Eucharist, Sixth Sunday of Easter (Year C), St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 25 May 2025. In 1963, at the height of the Cold War, US President John F Kennedy gave his “Peace Speech” […]

Our term “digger” has a contested history. Some date it back to the gold rushes, others to the Aussie miners in South Africa around the time of the Boer War. More obviously, it was the nickname Australian and New Zealand soldiers got for digging trenches in Gallipoli, the Somme and elsewhere. Photo: Alphonsus Fok. This […]

Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass for Pope Francis. Photo: Giovanni Portelli. This is the edited text of the Homily for the Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass for Pope Francis, St Mary’s Basilica, Sydney, 1 May 2025. “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the wise and learned, and revealing them […]

Bishop Peter Murphy as the 11th Bishop of Armidale. Photo: Supplied. The is the edited text for the homily for the Mass of ordination to the episcopate of Most Reverend Peter Murphy and installation as 11th bishop of Armidale at the Cathedral of Sts Mary and Joseph, Armidale, Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary […]

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who has chosen the papal name Leo XIV, appears on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican May 8, 2025, following his election during the conclave. He is the first American pope in history. (OSV News photo/Claudia Greco, Reuters) “Habemus papam” — we have a pope, a new […]