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  • RELIGION

    Empathy for Irish priests

    • Frank O'Shea
    • 17 March 2010
    26 Comments

    In Ireland, the attitude of locals to the Murphy and Ryan reports into child abuse in Catholic institutions is commonly anger at the apparent obfuscation by Church leaders. This St Patrick's Day, spare a thought for the ordinary priest in modern Dublin.

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  • RELIGION

    Hype undermines atheists' mission

    • Tim Roberts
    • 12 March 2010
    31 Comments

    An ego-driven, take-no-prisoners approach dooms atheism to remain an exclusive club. Only by forming alliances with the moderate religious community will atheists be able to preserve the elements of society they value most, such as freedom of enquiry and the separation of Church and State.

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  • RELIGION

    Conversations with atheists

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 05 March 2010
    35 Comments

    Australia's first Global Atheist Convention will feature such speakers as Richard Dawkins, Philip Adams and Peter Singer. I look forward to it with the same tempered gloom that would descend upon me if a convention of Christian evangelists came to town.

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  • RELIGION

    Liturgical payback

    • Neil Ormerod
    • 25 February 2010
    33 Comments

    It's unlikely people will flock back to mass simply because a new translation is in place. Far more likely is that, as with the change at Vatican II, there will be a disaffected minority who cease to practice because their experience of the sacred has been violated.

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  • RELIGION

    Tony Abbott, the poor and Jesus

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 19 February 2010
    30 Comments

    Expressing scepticism about the value of politicians committing to healing social problems, Abbott quoted Jesus: 'The poor you have with you always'. This phrase, used here to diffuse the claim the poor make on us, is much richer in meaning when read in context.

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  • RELIGION

    What is Christianity

    • Peter Vardy
    • 12 February 2010
    6 Comments

    Some Protestants question whether Catholics are Christians. Some Catholics say there is no salvation outside their Church. Identifiying the essentials of Christianity matters in today's post-Christian society, where young Westerners are bored with Christianity and they feel that they have moved beyond it.

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  • RELIGION

    Martyrdom and other revolutionary miracles

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 04 February 2010
    12 Comments

    Reports regarding Mary MacKillop's miracles have provoked the ire of those who see miracles as evidence of the irrational character of religious faith. Another angle on this debate may be found in an apparent oddity in the processes of saint making.

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  • RELIGION

    Best of 2009: Roman Polanski and clergy sexual abuse

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 January 2010
    6 Comments

    The case for Polanski's avoiding extradition has generally received a sympathetic hearing. The same sympathy is not generally shown to clergy who have been tried for less serious acts committed just as many years ago. October 2009

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  • RELIGION

    Pope's fighting words for a world in crisis

    • Bruce Duncan
    • 07 January 2010
    8 Comments

    In his World Day of Peace statement for 2010, the Pope again highlights the urgency of responding to climate change. Pope Benedict has had major problems in communicating this message, notably a lack of journalistic expertise to make his documents more readable.

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  • RELIGION

    The inhospitality of Bendigo Anglicans snub

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 15 December 2009
    34 Comments

    Christmas is a time for hospitality, and hospitality is central in the Christian tradition. You may not have thought this was so when, recently, the Anglican Church in Bendigo, Vic., was denied the use of a Catholic cathedral for the ordination of four female deacons.

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  • RELIGION

    Marketing the Dalai Lama

    • Yannick Thoraval
    • 14 December 2009
    8 Comments

    When the Dalai Lama appeared, people flocked to the stage, mobile phone cameras in hand, so they too could own a piece of the Dalai Lama. As a measure of our cultural values, it is interesting to consider that the Dalai Lama has become a commodity.

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  • RELIGION

    Pope skips language of love in Anglicans manifesto

    • Charles Sherlock
    • 20 November 2009
    25 Comments

    Pope Benedict XVI's recent Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus (‘Groups of Anglicans’) moves the pastoral openness of Vatican II towards a ‘Rome is right’ mentality. This is disturbing and dangerous, not only for Anglicans, but for Roman Catholics themselves.

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