(Formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost.)

He is the 267th successor of St. Peter, the Apostle.

Elected Pontifex on 8 May 2025, Vatican City, Rome.
​
The Americas Pope: North and South; both Peru and the United States.

Pope Leo XIV is the first Pope from the Order of St. Augustine (OSA), but the seventh from religious orders that follow the Rule of St. Augustine of Hippo.


​Vatican News biography article linked here.

​Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual shine upon him. May he rest in peace.

Well, given that my 12 Months Later review of my social media exodus was read as more of a 2023 Review (which it was, to be fair) I might as well do another re-view for 2024 😅

2024 was kicked off by going out with some fellow World Youth Day pilgrims to the Westpac OpenAir Cinema on the Fleet Steps overlooking Farm Cove and the rest of Sydney Harbour. The film we’d arranged to see was One Life (2023), a biographical film about humanitarian Nicholas Winton and more broadly about the Kindertransport of Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia to Britain at the beginning of World War II. This is hardly a film for the faint of heart and as if to accentuate this point we sat, in provided ponchos, for about the last two-thirds of the film under wave after wave of rain pouring over Sydney Harbour.

Watching a film outdoors on Sydney Harbour in rolling rain running off my poncho-covered head is an experience I won’t soon forget.

 
Speaking of World Youth Day Lisbon, much of 2024 was spent finishing off a 12-month voucher for photo printing by having a selection of my photos from 2023 physically printed and then arranged by me in a photo album.
To mark the 1-year anniversary of the WYD Pilgrimage in July, I organized two get-together lunches for the Over 18s Pilgrim (Italy and Portugal) cohort which many appreciated.
​
I cannot comment about my fellow pilgrims’ experiences. But for me, a year-and-a-half on from Lisbon I’m only just coming to grips with, and processing through, what we all went through over those 22 hectic days of pilgrimage across Mediterranean Europe. But I can say that, for having done it once, I at least have more of an idea of what to expect a second time around and how to manage things and myself better than I did the first time, please God.

​In comparison to 2023: 2024 was an exponential increase of train trips, train festivals and rail heritage excursions with my father. Our travels took us north to the Hunter Region around Newcastle and as far south as Goulburn and the Southern Highlands. Indeed, there were many long days with very-early morning starts. But we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless, yet we were very tired by the end of those same days.

​
September saw me travelling by airplane up to Brisbane for the IGNITE Conference 2024 organized by Emmanuel Community and its Ignite Youth ministry team.
This was the real curveball of 2024 and it was my first ever experience of IGNITE.

​All the talks by various speakers that I went to were good and informative on different parts of the Catholic faith life. A special stand out was the Archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge’s talk on Encountering the Scriptures where he discussed how the bible “goes to the heart of hopelessness to find a hope that cannot be destroyed.”
He truly enkindled in his audience a greater appreciation of “the black fire on white fire” as the Rabbis describe the Holy Scriptures.

The rallies at IGNITE were experiences. There was much good in them, but by the end of the three-and-a-bit days I was ready to run back to my bunk-hole at home and not have another thousand decibels going right through my body.
​
After attending IGNITE and commuting across Brisbane each morning and evening, it has confirmed to me that what’s needed is smaller and quieter events where good conversation can take place. There’s a place for the big events, as long as they are not the only option available.

​On a less frazzled note, that same month I also started shooting 35mm film with a re-loadable plastic point-and-shoot camera. It has been a nice change of pace from taking photos with my smartphone.

 
I don’t really know or have even an idea of what 2025 will bring, apart for the Jubilee Year of Hope that has just begun. Dear God, may this new year see an outpouring of Your love and of experiences of hopes and dreams fulfilled.
 
​
Let’s see if there’ll be a 2025 Review, eh?

 
Vincent Cavanagh
3 Jan 2025

Merry Christmas and a Happy Jubilee of Hope to you all for 2025!


Vincent  Cavanagh
25 Dec 2024

EILEEN ROSALINE O’CONNOR was an Australian Catholic nun and co-founder with Fr Ted McGrath of the Society of Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor – more colloquially known as the Brown Nurses or just Our Lady’s Nurses – a religious order whose mission was to give free care and nursing to the poor, especially those who had fallen through the cracks of regular systems.

Eileen could not stand or walk for much of her life due to a severe curvature of her spine from having fallen out of her perambulator (pram) at a young age. The extent of her height was 3 feet 9 inches (115 centimetres) from which was given the affectionate nickname of The Little Mother.

She lived most of her life at Coogee, a suburb of Sydney, except for when God healed her enough to go to Rome to obtain approval of her fledgling religious order. Such was her determination, that the rigours of travel did not deter her.

Despite being bedridden most of the time, Eileen was the hub of the order. She co-ordinated much through telephone calls. At the end of the day, she welcomed the Nurses home, and received their confidences. Having been so chronically ill herself, she knew just how much kindness and tenderness were needed in caring for the ill and the elderly, and how important it was to maintain the dignity of anyone they ministered to.

She died at the age of 28 from chronic spinal tuberculosis and exhaustion.


On Friday 16 August 2024, Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher OP officially signed off on the collated Australian documentation of Eileen O’Connor’s life for the Cause of Sainthood. And on Monday 14 October 2024, Archbishop Fisher formally presented the documentation in Rome to Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.


For further information about the life and work of Eileen O’Connor and the story of the Sisters of Our Lady’s Nurse of the Poor, visit the website for the Cause of Eileen’s Canonization here.

And as a clarifier, this step of the Canonization process is seeking for her to be recognized and approved by the Vatican as a Blessed; the step before being named a Saint in the Catholic Church.


Vincent Cavanagh
16 October 2024

My father and I spent the day today travelling together along the recently opened City section of the Sydney Metro, stopping to look at the new-build architecture on our way out to visit the Australian Railway Historical Society’s Redfern bookshop. Just over a hundred metres from Waterloo Metro Station. In the Sydney suburb of Alexandria. Clear as mud ;p

Our first stop on the new section was Victoria Cross Metro Station which, as far as I am aware, has already been shorted to “VicX” in text message form by my peers.

This is the handed down Description of the Virgin from that same Miracle Hunter summary:

I opted to save myself some artistic headache and stress by deciding to only focus on the Virgin, child, and torch bearing youths rather than attempting to include the onlooking Christians and have even less room for the actual apparition. I think that that decision has born itself out well.


Vincent Cavanagh
22 August 2024

I will endeavour in this personal, reflective piece not to repeat things that I have already written much about before.

​LISBON World Youth Day Week started on a Tuesday, 1 August 2023, which makes keeping track of events personally in one’s mind rather difficult. Later on, at times one could be forgiven for the honest mistake of losing, or even gaining, a day on your internal calendar.

It has been a long while since I lasted did a picture for myself or “published” one on this website.
Hopefully this may be the end of the illustrative drought, pax.

PEACE:
Summer daisies,
Bubbles,
Snow-capped mountains,
Gliding swans,
and Bountiful clouds.

 
Vincent Cavanagh
27 July 2024