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Tensions between enterprising women religious and church authorities go back a long way. Last week's Vatican action against women religious in the US raises the same questions about respect and process as did the dismissal of Bishop Morris in Toowoomba. But its potential consequences are much larger.
Richard Holloway's life took him from a poor Scottish village into an Anglican religious community, to priesthood, to consecration as Archbishop of Edinburgh and finally to resignation from his Church and faith. His honest and self-critical autobiography invites the reader to respond with the same honesty.
The man becomes priest upon taking his vows of celibacy. He is no longer a man who would work and care for family, enjoy his leisure and be father to his children. In his robes and vestments he is for the flock, but not of them. What can the church offer a man or a woman who chooses celibacy?
The Titanic has become the symbol of the end of a swaggering era marked by great self-confidence and belief in inevitable progress. It suggests that whenever swagger begins to walk the streets it is time to head for the lifeboats. We find it hard to apply this lesson to the circumstances of our own times.
Over many years I have celebrated Christmas and Easter in places where people are locked up — in refugee camps, prisons and detention centres. To be in these places at such times is hard. It is also a privilege.
The Easter motif of suffering and resurrection comes alive in movements of social change, when people who have been treated as nothing proclaim by their collective dreaming we are everything. For those who hunger for justice it is a sin to be disorganised, when the misery we confront is well organised.
To maintain moral influence, the US Catholic bishops' fastidiousness about indirect cooperation with government on contraception would need to be matched by an equal fastidiousness in cooperating indirectly with government in the abuses associated with military, penal and immigration policy.
When he became Archbishop of Canterbury, he brought with him the hopes of liberal Anglicans and the scrutiny of conservatives, as he appeared likely to lead the Anglican Church further towards acceptance of progressive views. His success or failure would have to be about conversation, not about decree.
Where Richard Dawkins could be described as a missionary intent on saving souls from religion, fellow atheist de Botton is more concerned with the spiritual needs of the existing flock. His latest book Religion for Atheists is likely to annoy believers and non-believers alike.
The problem of evil has always been with us. The ills that befall us and the monstrous evil that people do challenge the belief that life has a higher meaning, and are corrosive of belief in a loving God. The problem of goodness is rarely spoken of, yet it too presents challenges.
The reports by a retired judge and a canon lawyer into the dismissal of Bishop Morris make disturbing reading. Given that the obligation of natural justice carries moral as well as legal weight, Morris was entitled to expect his right to it would be respected by the Vatican.
The visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Great Britain last year prompted an interesting experiment. The Church asked for lay volunteers to deal with media enquiries. At first glance this could be construed as an exercise in corporate spin with a focus on persuasion and not on truth.