St Ignatius Parish

In April this year, parishioner Dr Stephen McDonald and his family returned from a little over three years living and working in the Northern Territory.

Stephen, a kidney specialist, worked in remote Aboriginal communities on the Tiwi islands, where poor living environments can often lead to kidney damage. With a lack of education within indigenous communities hampering prevention, there is a resulting need for an emphasis on trying to stop further damage. It is this emphasis that made up a large part of Stephen’s work, and involved dealing with patients one-on-one and helping them control factors like their blood pressure, diabetes etc. He believes that the incidence of kidney failure and other ‘lifestyle diseases’ can be reduced greatly by better education for aboriginal communities, especially those in the more remote parts of Australia. During his time in the Northern Territory he also undertook research, towards a PhD, into the links between kidney disease, cardiovascular disease and the environment in remote aboriginal communities.

It is in the capacity of keyboardist that Stephen participates in the 10am Mass every few weeks. His interest in music began when he was attending Belair Primary School. At the time, the school was encouraging the study of music so he began first on the piano and then on the viola. His pianistic ability won him a music scholarship at St Peters College and during his time there he began playing the school’s organ. At the same time that he was studying medicine at university Stephen played the organ at weddings, funerals etc. and he has kept playing the organ right up to the present day.

Stephen first began worshipping at St Ignatius fifteen years ago while he was living in Belair. He was attracted by the fact that Fr Paul Fyfe SJ was a musician like himself. A short time after this he moved to Norwood, and so became a member of the parish. Since then, he and his wife Louise have attended mass regularly and although they have now moved out of the parish, to Kingswood, they, along with daughter Philippa, 5, and son Alex, 3, continue to worship at St Ignatius. □