Welcom Archive 2007-2026

The woman from Iraq tows
her children through the park.
Wind troubles her black
robes painting a ship
sailing on a green sea.
Her children run free as waves.

Family situations, which lead to a child being put in foster care, provide the background to Joy Cowley’s latest book Joseph’s Story.
Launched at the National Library by the Governor General Dame Silvia Cartwright on 22 May, Joseph’s Story highlight

The priests of the archdiocese got together on 25 May for a Mass and dinner to honour the 30th anniversary of ordination of Archbishop John Dew.
The event was held at St Joseph’s, Māoria and nearly 60 priests attended.
The apostolic nunci

Even after living with Jesus for one year (Mark, Matthew, Luke) or three years (John), his followers still had not caught the vision. They ask about restoring earthly kingdoms to Israel. As Jesus is taken from their sight they are left looking up. I am s

This June publication of Wel-com coincides with the great feast of Corpus Christi. In Eucharist, we are challenged and nurtured by the Word, consume that Word as food and drink, and are sent to transform our world. ‘The Eucharist commits us to the poor’ (

Debate over the status of Mary Magdalene in Jesus’ life has been renewed after the release last month of the Ron Howard film of the Dan Brown book, The Da Vinci Code [2003]. Elizabeth Julian goes not to pop fiction but to the New Testament in search of an

As a film critic, I regularly hear that movie adaptations of novels are ‘Not as good as the book’. This observation, of course, is misjudged. A good film cannot easily do what a good book can do – tell the viewer what all the characters are thinking, and

An uneasy calm had settled over the Timor Leste capital, Dili, but people were still afraid to go back to their houses as Wel-com went to press a week ago.
I phoned a pastoral worker in Dili, Fr Peter Puthenkandan, last Saturday. He said the situatio

Hanging on the wall of a conference room in the office of the Prime Minister of East Timor, Mari Alkatiri, is a satellite photo of Dili on fire. Smoke billows from scores of incandescent spots all over the city.
The image was taken from the fires of

The proposal to remove the legal defence to assault on children contained in Section 59 of the Crimes Act has resulted in a polarised debate in New Zealand society.
But Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand found there is more common ground on the issue than