Dear Readers,

Thank you so much for your support for our endeavour this past year. It has been another year of excellent growth in all our vital readership statistics. We have literally been bowled over by the unexpected response to our most recent financial appeal and can only put it down to some sense that our endeavours over the past five and a half years have now started to find a really appreciative readership. Our readership numbers have always been solid, and steadily growing, but of all the appeals we've run we've never before experienced a response as immediate and substantial as this one has been. It has given us an enormous confidence boost even though the further we go the more elusive seems to be the destination that we're all heading towards. From the messages we've been receiving though it is this sense of uncertainty that is shared by many.

As a gesture of our appreciation we have made a donation of $250 from the funds we have received on behalf of the whole Catholica Community to Armen Gakavian who for years has been running a one-man support agency for Christians in Armenia. Cliff Baxter originally told us about Armen's work soon after we started Catholica [LINK] and we have continued to try and support his work particularly as any money he raises goes directly to people who benefit.

We have also been searching around for one of those commercial animated Christmas cards to express our thanks but most of them have Northern hemisphere wintery themes so we've produced our own with a very Australian flavour. To view our card please click the image below or the link below it.

Blessings to each of you for a peace-filled Christmas and your good health and well-being in the New Year,

If the images do not display in this email you can view the animated Christmas card at: www.catholica.com.au/xmas
Christmas-January Publishing schedule: We will publish as normal up until 31st December and through January do a count down of the most read commentaries on Catholica but only publish a weekly email update on Saturday's unless there is some extraordinary breaking news.
Catholica, 34 Martin Place, LINDEN NSW 2778 (02) 4753 1226 email: publisher@catholica.com.au