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The Pope's speech was newsworthy because in Australia sentences to a lifetime in prison without parole are becoming less contentious and more used. His approach to prisoners and their criminal behaviour is in such strong contrast to strands of Australian culture in which exclusion and the denial of hope are an instinctive response.
Dr Massimo Faggioli is a prominent Catholic historian and theology professor at Villanova University in Philadelphia. He shares insight into the conservative responses to Pope Francis, the papal shift toward a less abstract understanding of being Catholic, and the political binaries within the US Catholic Church. He also explains why Vatican II is not just unfinished business but an orientation and method for doing things.
Here in Ballarat, you know better than most other Catholics that respectful relationships in the church community have been rent asunder by the depredations of child sex offenders whose exploits went unchecked by those ordained to exercise tradition, authority, teaching and discipline. We will strengthen respectful relationships only with a voluntary commitment to truth, justice and healing — and not one forced by a royal commission or public odour.
These cardinals have a few strong concerns. They think the pope should be setting down clear universal rules that apply to everyone in every situation. Having spent a life time as a pastor in Buenos Aires, Francis knows life is much more complex and messy than that. These four cardinals pine for the papacy of John Paul II. John Paul was a great leader and a great pope for his time. Francis is also a great leader and a great pope for his time, for our time. John Paul and Francis are very different. But then again, the times are very different.
The image of the body of Aylan Kurdi cradled in the arms of a Turkish soldier jarred with our sense that poverty is simply the deprivation of material goods — there is no greater poverty than death, and no greater deprivation than that of a child stripped of life. Francis speaks powerfully of the need to address poverty. He insists that the church must move out of its comfortable centre to the margins where the poor live. To address poverty we must know people who live in poverty as our brothers and sisters.
Our Uber appeared, a black Chevvy sculpture, a mere click of the fingers, from there to here, Denzel Washington, quipped hubby later was the driver, tall as a Pennsylvania night and lustrous as a god.
Religious authorities may not spend a lot of time pondering the nature of global financial systems, but the Pope's recent comment that 'money has to serve, not rule' suggests it can be useful when they do. Given scope to become rule makers, rather than just people who know how to exploit the rules, financiers have moved themselves to a position of mastery.
Patricia Brennan put the ordination of women on the agenda of the Anglican Church and kept it there. Like Germaine Greer, she was tall, with an unmissable presence and rich voice. And, like Germaine, she was often called strident.
The full moon illuminated the silky water and tepid sand like a disco ball. Rounding one corner suddenly we could see a kilometer of open beach and, in the middle distance, two men standing around a fire. The group mentality did not counsel caution. But what were they doing here?
Her face gives little away except .. there is a definite invitation to worship .. which we do in our own way .. hearing in this hall .. built with unholy oil, whispers of war
Republican candidate Mike Huckabee has had little by way of party machinery or fundraising acumen. But he managed to storm home in the Republican ballot, roping in not merely the evangelicals but disaffected low-income voters.