Sunday morning, I missed a plane by a matter of minutes. I booked through one airline, but neglected to note that I had to check in via another. D’Oh!

Missing flights is annoying, and expensive, but the day wasn’t an unmitigated disaster. I didn’t attend a First Mass and celebrate with a newly ordained priest in Sydney, but instead I met — and was very impressed by — Australia’s newly-trained and ready-to-go Catholic Voices in Melbourne.

After months of auditions, voice and camera training, and collaboration with industry professionals, the first Catholic Voices Australia training programme concluded on Sunday. Nine lay Catholics — in their twenties, thirties and forties, studying at uni, or in the workforce, or at home raising kids — are now formed and prepared to appear on Australian television and radio and speak from a Catholic view point. Theirs is not an official voice, but it is an authoritative voice:

The laity derive the right and duty to the apostolate from their union with Christ the head; incorporated into Christ’s Mystical Body through Baptism and strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit through Confirmation, they are assigned to the apostolate by the Lord Himself.

Paul VI, APOSTOLICAM ACTUOSITATEM,
Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity (1965), 3

A short video promoting Catholic Voices Australia:

And an account from the founders of Catholic Voices’ vision and method: