Peter Catt – President
Peter Catt is Dean of St John’s Anglican Cathedral, Brisbane. From 1997 to 2007 Peter was the Dean of Grafton. He helped establish and run the International Philosophy, Science and Theology Festival, which was held at Christ Church Cathedral, Grafton. He holds a PhD in evolutionary microbiology from the University of NSW and a BD from the Melbourne College of Divinity.
His interests include Christian Formation, liturgical innovation, the interaction between science and religion, and Narrative Theology . He is a member of a number of environmental and Human Rights organisations and has serves on Anglican Social Justice Committees at both Diocesan and National level. He is the current chair of The Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce.
Committee Members
Avrell Devonshire
Julie Worrell
Andrew Bush
George Mainprize
Michael Furtado
Michael Furtado was born in Calcutta. He attended a Jesuit school, where working with the Dalit was part of the curriculum. He was a Catenian Scholar at Oxford and specialised in Catholic Social Teaching. As an educator he has taught in all three Australian school systems as well as at several universities including Glasgow Caledonian, Newcastle & Southern Queensland. His Phd focused on ways of making Australian Catholic schools affordable and inclusive. He was for some years a Peace, Justice & Development consultant for Catholic schools.
After retiring he has worked in social inclusion voluntarily at St Francis Theological College, Brisbane. His current research interest is in removing the anti-Discrimination Exemptions clauses for Australian Religious Schools.
Len Baglow
Len Baglow is a social justice advocate with a special interest in poverty, refugees and asylum seekers and more recently in a just peace for Palestine. In the 1990s he was better known as an environmental activist.
Len has long been interested in the relationship between theology, social justice activism and the Kingdom of God. Len is a member of the Uniting Church of Australia.
Ray Barraclough
Ray was ordained as an Anglican priest in Brisbane diocese in 1975. In that diocese Ray has served as a parish priest, university chaplain and theological lecturer. His doctorate explored a range of political ideas found among New Testament writers.
During the late 1970s and 1980s Ray was involved with Concerned Christians that was an ecumenical coalition of Christians in south-east Queensland who were concerned about the erosion of civic rights and wider political malpractice that were a feature of Queensland’s political landscape during those years.
From 1989 to 1993 Ray and his wife, Dorothy, served at St George’s College, Jerusalem, where Ray was senior lecturer. Subsequent to his return, he was the founding President of Friends of Sabeel Australia Inc [FOSAI]. FOSAI seeks to give support to the vision and activity of Palestinian Christians, and especially to the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem.
On returning to Australia, Ray took up an appointment as lecturer in New Testament at St Francis’ Anglican Theological College in Brisbane. Concurrent with that position he was also a member of the ecumenical lecturing team drawn from Brisbane’s Anglican, Catholic and Uniting Church seminaries.
While now living in retirement, Ray has been intimately involved in the establishment and lobbying activities of A Progressive Christian Voice (Australia) Inc.