The Disciple Diaries series of powerful personal stories of faith has won the Archdiocese of Sydney a 2025 Australasian Catholic Press Association Award.
The documentary-style monthly series of powerful testimonies was launched last year as part of the Sydney Centre for Evangelisation’s response to Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP’s call to evangelise and deepen discipleship within parishes.
Integrating personal testimonial and storytelling in video, online and print formats, the series by manager Darren Ally and audio-visual specialist Anthony Milic from Communications and News Media at the SCE is hosted at the archdiocese’s YouTube channel and The Catholic Weekly.
Our Lady of Fatima, Peakhurst, parishioner Careena Craven, who joined the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults and entered the church in 2023, featured in the first episode in February 2024. The series itself has since led to real conversions.
It was highly commended in the category for the best use of digital media. Winning the category for best headline during 2024 for The Catholic Weekly with ‘Jesus, take the wheel’ at the annual awards dinner on 4 September was former editor Adam Wesselinoff.
It was his humourous take on Darren Ally’s story about the second annual Croatian Pilgrimage Cruise hosted by St Nikola Tavelic Church in St John’s Park, in which nearly 300 men travelled from the church to Mary Queen of Croats Catholic Church in Figtree in “more than 100 muscle cars, hot rods and family cars.”
Taking out best advertising feature or supplement was the beautiful Catholic Weekly advertising supplement The Christmas Story by designers Renate Cassis and Mat de Sousa.
The Bishop Philip Kennedy Memorial Award for best publication for 2024 went to the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference daily e-newsletter CathNews.
Delivered to some 13,000 subscribers, CathNews is an aggregated news service with a website drawing more than 100,000 visitors every 90 days.
The awards night concluded the annual ACPA two-day conference, held this year at the Pavilion on Northbourne in Canberra 3-4 September, with the theme Messengers of Hope: Communicating the truth, goodness and beauty of our faith.
More than 50 media and communications professionals gathered for the night, recognising excellence in Catholic media across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific.
The conference also saw a new ACPA executive installed for 2025-26 including The Majellan editor David Ahern who will take on the role as president and outgoing president Jamie O’Brien becoming vice president.
