Responding to the multi-layered reality of the recent bushfire crisis requires a reflective and universal view in a political world that thinks in terms of small actions to defend small defended territories, writes Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ in Eureka Street.

Religious and religious institutes in Australia have donated a record amount for drought relief in this year’s Catholic Religious Australia Drought Appeal, with the funds being distributed to communities and families who are doing it tough on the land.

For Australia, bushfires are an annual event, occurring throughout its history. However, the ones we have experienced in the last two months have been, by any criteria, extraordinary. Their extent, duration, severity and destruction have horrified us. And not just us: the world has been watching and commenting, writes CRA President Brother Peter Carroll FMS.

Congregational Leader of the Sisters of Saint Joseph and former CRA President Sister Monica Cavanagh has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the Australia Day Honours for Service to the Catholic Church of Australia.

No stranger to the world of journalism, Australasian Catholic Press Association (ACPA) Life Member and Editor of the Salesian Bulletin, Father Frank Freeman SDB, made it his business to dedicate 10 years of his life to re-visit and re-tell the rich history of ACPA, The Catholic Record reports.