Australia: Iraqi-born priest takes on new national role

By CathNews

Foto ACMRO

Fr Marogi replaces long-time director Fr Maurizio Pettenà CS, who will complete his time with the agency next month. Among the key tasks of the Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office (ACMRO) is collaboration with dioceses and religious institutes to support visa applications for clergy and religious arriving from overseas. 

Fr Marogi, who ministered to the Chaldean Catholic community in Sydney and Melbourne for more than a decade before moving to work in Port Pirie Diocese, has been overseeing that visa process for the regional South Australian diocese in recent years. He also served as chaplain to the three prisons in Port Pirie Diocese, as well ministry at a Catholic school and within local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. 

He also started visiting refugee and asylum-seeker families and unaccompanied minors at a South Australian detention centre that reopened during this time in Port Augusta. 

Having lived in Iraq during the First Gulf War, one of a small number who stayed at the seminary in Baghdad while bombs rained down, Fr Marogi understands well the issues refugees and asylum-seekers face. 

The ACMRO each year issues a statement and various resources for World Day of Refugees and Migrants, something the Catholic Church has commemorated for more than a century. Fr Marogi said the Church’s approach to people seeking to live in Australia, regardless of their circumstances, is one of care and compassion. “Whatever the policies might be, and whether the people are genuine refugees or not, the key thing is treating them with dignity and with respect,” he said.

ACMRO News April 2021
Appointment of Fr Khalid Marogi as the next Director of the Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office.