Celebrating messengers of hope
National
The Southern Cross received three awards at the 2025 Australasian Catholic Press Association (ACPA) awards ceremony held at the Pavilion on Northbourne in Canberra on September 4.
Best Content – Faith and Life category winner was a story by journalist Katie Spain on Adelaide Cathedral parishioner Pauline Clune and her role as a support volunteer for new parents and their infants (A gentle soul, October 2024).
Jamie O’Brien and Jenny Brinkworth
Highly commended in the Faith Formation category was a feature by Jenny Brinkworth on the Stella Maris Seafarers Centre at Taperoo (Good deeds aplenty portside, August 2024). Also highly commended, in the Education category, was her story on Mia Eliseo’s determination to study medicine after overcoming leukemia and losing her mother (Mia defies the odds, February 2024).
The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference daily e-newsletter CathNews received the top award, the Bishop Kennedy Memorial Award for Best Catholic Publication.
Delivered to some 13,000 subscribers, CathNews is an aggregated news service with a website drawing more than 100,000 visitors every 90 days.
The judges commented on the high quality of award submissions this year.
More than 50 Catholic media and communications professionals gathered for the annual awards which recognise excellence in Catholic media across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific.
The dinner followed Mass in St Christopher’s Cathedral, celebrated by Archbishop Christopher Prowse, and a two-day conference focused on the theme Messengers of Hope: Communicating the truth, goodness and beauty of our faith.
President of ACPA Jamie O’Brien, from the Archdiocese of Perth, congratulated the award winners and said the task of Catholic communicators was to not only to report facts, but to interpret the world through the lens of the Gospel.
De La Salle Brothers Provincial Br Peter Bray was guest speaker for the dinner and spoke about his experience as Vice-Chancellor for the University of Bethlehem in the West Bank. Br Peter gave an enlightening historical overview of the Israel-Palestine conflict and urged delegates to raise awareness of the plight of the Palestinians.
Speakers at the conference included National Catholic Education Commission executive director Jacinta Collins, Artificial Intelligence expert Tom Finnigan, Missionaries of God’s Love founder, Fr Ken Barker MGL, and Gretchen Crowe, editor-in-chief of the influential United States publication Our Sunday Visitor.
In 2024-25, the ACPA has a new executive, with The Majellan editor David Ahern taking on the role as president, Mr O’Brien stepping into the role of treasurer, and Melbourne Archdiocese’s Communications manager Tiffany Davis taking on the role of secretary.
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