In this edition.

The Australian Bishops in 1987 established the Bishops' Committee for Justice, Development and Peace, to promote and oversee Church involvement in these broad areas. They appointed Michael Costigan as Executive Secretary for the Committee. From this vantage point Dr Costigan recounts and reflects on the work of the Committee and its subsidiary commissions in helping the Australian Church to deal with important social issues over fourteen years.

This year the Diocese of Armidale has been recalling their second Bishop, Elzear Torreggiani, who died in 1904. The centenary has been especially marked by a biography of the bishop, written by Fr Patrick Colbourne ofm(Cap). In his article here Fr Colbourne throws light on the rather unusual early years of this Australian diocese, by sketching the careers not only of the italian Capuchin Bishop but also of seven Capuchin priests and brothers who came to Armidale to assist him.

Contemporary with Bishop Torreggiani was Archbishop Patrick Moran who in 1885 was proclaimed Cardinal, the first of seven Cardinals in the Australian Church. Last year Archbishop George Pell of Sydney became the seventh. Richard d'Apice records the process and ceremony of the proclamation in Rome in October 2003 and sets this in the context of the history of the Cardinalate and the careers of all Cardinals of the Australian Church.

Two impressive lay folk are the subjects of the final two articles. A decade of quest in the life of a young Catholic woman in the mid nineteenth century is presented by her great-grandson. Fr George Connolly recalls her quest for fulfilment as a headmistress, school proprietor, candidate for several religious institutes, and finally as governess on a rural property.

B. A. Santamaria, though never a parliamentarian, has drawn the attention of most historians of 20th century Australia because of his roles in the Movement, the Labor Split of the 1950s and its aftermath in following decades. In 2003 Ross Fitzgerald in The Pope's Battalions gave us the first extended study of the career of Santamaria. This was of great interest to Bruce Duncan, fresh from releasing his own book on the Movement. He examines Fitzgerald's study in an extended review article.