Denis Edwards of the archdiocese of Adelaide, internationally well-known theologian, has been made a Member of the Order of Australia, OAM, in the 2012 Australian Day Honours.

Bill Uren SJ, Provincial Superior of the Jesuits in Australia during the 1990s, has been made an Officer of the Order of Australia, AO,

in the 2012 Australia Day Honours.

Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, 1996.

The first MSC movie connection (on site last November) was also a Baz Luhrmann film, Australia (2008) which drew on the MSC experience of Melville Island, fictionalising it, as well as drawing on the messages to Darwin of the Japanese planes approaching.  The film was released the week that Brother Eddie Bennett MSC died.  He had sent messages from Melville Island.

This second connection is much smaller,the modernised version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet .  When Romeo goes to the Apothecary to buy some poison, the Apothecary sells from a small stall.  The covers of the stall open up to reveal a great number of images of Mary.  One of the more prominent and larger is that of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

To come: Bishop Leo Scharmach MSC and Sisters of War, and Tom Dixon and the Max Stuart case.

Fr Fred Ross MSC has died in Sydney, 19th January, 2012.  He had suffered a stroke and was in the Palliative Care Unit at the Prince of Wales Hospital. He would have turned 86 in February.

He made his first vows in 1950 and was ordained in 1954.  After many years teaching in MSC Colleges, Chevalier and Daramalan, where his forte was maths, he worked in Papua New Guinea, especially at Chanel College, the minor seminary in New Britain.  He later spent some time in Fiji.  In recent years, he lived in retirement at Kensington Monastery.

May he rest in peace.

Graeme Mundine.

In the 1990s, indigenous Catholics from inner city suburbs such as Redfern, Waterloo, Alexandria and Newtown helped keep the community's two churches full.

St Vincent's, just up the road from The Block in Redfern, became synonymous with the indigenous outreach of Father Ted Kennedy, whose departure in 2002 marked the start of a period of conflict as the parish's vernacular style was unwound by his successors.

The Aboriginal Catholic Ministry was founded at St Mary's in Erskineville, before many of the area's indigenous Catholic families moved to Sydney's west.

January 16th is the centenary of the death of pioneer MSC missionary Archbishop Louis Andre Navarre.

Here are reports of his death and funeral from The Townsville Daily Bulletin of the time.

ARCHBISHOP LOUIS NAVARRE Missionary of the Sacred Heart

Died Townsville, Tuesday 16^th January 1912.

Reports in the “Townsville Daily Bulletin”

“DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP NAVARRE”

The death occurred at the General Hospital last night of Archbishop Louis Andre Navarre, M.S.H., Vicar Apostolic of British New Guinea.

Few people knew that the distinguished Prelate was in Townsville, he having arrived by the “Nikko Maru” on January 5, by which vessel he was proceeding South, but was so ill that the medical officer advised him being taken ashore.

Fr Roy O'Neill MSC has taken up the ministry of parish priest of Nightcliff in Darwin.  He succeeds Fr Vince Carroll MSC.

His previous ministry was in the pastoral team at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick.  In 2010 and 2011, he was working in the secretariate for the Australian Provincial Chapter and the MSC General Chapter, held in Madrid last September.

Fr Peter Huan MSC celebrates the Silver Jubilee of his religious profession, 10th January, 1987 - January 10th, 2012.

Peter Huan arrived from Vietnam where he done some theological studies.  He experienced the refugee boat travel to Australia.

After his ordination, he worked amongst aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, then collaborated in the foundation in Vietnam.  He continues to work now in the Northern Territory.

Brother Paul Bowen MSC celebrates his Silver Jubilee of profession, 10th January 1987 - 10th January 2012.

He has worked in many parts of Papua New Guinea and Kiribati as well as in communities in Australia.  He is presently stationed at Sacred Heart Monastery, Kensington.