Keywords: Religious Devotion
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Jensen
- 19 January 2024
4 Comments
In contrast to the United States, we in Australia ‘don’t do God’, and we rarely acknowledge the religious dimension of our national identity. In an age of declining adherence to the Christian faith, has Australia found a new civil religion? And will it serve us well?
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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 07 June 2023
2 Comments
In an era where physical gatherings are replaced by virtual meetings and religious processions by online sermons, the Feast of Corpus Christi raises poignant questions. Once a grand demonstration of faith, it has subtly withdrawn from the public eye, leaving us to grapple with the nature of Christ's presence and, more broadly, the concept of human presence.
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INTERNATIONAL
- David Halliday, Juliette Hughes
- 03 March 2023
2 Comments
In the world of science and rational inquiry, few names loom as large. The often-controversial evolutionary biologist has spent decades exploring the mysteries of the natural world and ruffling feathers in religious and secular movements alike. Speaking to Eureka Street, Richard Dawkins discusses the difficulties in public discourse and what constitutes modern heresy.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Paul Mitchell
- 03 February 2023
6 Comments
Through exploring the work of nine Catholic American authors — with special focus on Flannery O’Connor, Toni Morrison, Cormac McCarthy and Don DeLillo — Longing for an Absent God boldly attempts to discover what it is about faith and the desire for transcendence that exerts such influence over the popular imagination.
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerrie Handasyde
- 03 May 2022
7 Comments
Mother’s Day was a religious event, as was the older English tradition of Mothering Sunday in which worshippers returned home to their ‘mother church’. But as this new celebration of Mother’s Day spread around the English-speaking world, it preserved in public and private ritual a particular idea of womanhood. It asserted that true womanhood was motherly.
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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 20 January 2022
6 Comments
On the fifteenth anniversary of Rutilio Grande’s death, I went to a memorial celebration in Aguilares. This crossroads town was the centre of the Jesuit local mission of which Grande had been part. I had already been struck by the affection with which everyone spoke of Rutilio Grande. In a society where any ministry to people who were poor exposed one to constant danger, it was natural to become hardened in order to survive. Rutilio Grande, however, was remembered and treasured for his vulnerability.
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RELIGION
- Irfan Yusuf
- 08 April 2020
17 Comments
For millions of Australians of varying degrees of religiosity, prayer will play a key role in dealing with the novel stresses associated with this novel virus. Religions bring us not just closer to our creator but also to each other, especially in times of crisis. And you don’t have to be devout to feel the blessing.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Andrew Hamilton
- 15 July 2019
10 Comments
Among writers familiar in Australia who write in this vein are Michael McGirr, Terry Monagle and the much missed Brian Doyle. Their writing does not merely describe but evokes and creates a world, and shapes a human response that respects its variety and mystery. These qualities are evident in Julie Perrin's Tender.
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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 21 December 2018
17 Comments
The point of the involvement of God in the minute details of human life is to assert the value of the human world in all its relationships. This means that the customs and practices of our Australian Christmas should not be dismissed as a corrupted and so inferior version of the Christian celebration. They should be appreciated in their own right.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 16 July 2018
3 Comments
'Kristina Keneally was unapologetic in putting the place of women in our church front and centre. And so we should.' Tropical and Topical, 2018 National Catholic Principals' Conference, Cairns Convention Centre, 16 July 2018.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
'Faith is 24 hours of doubt and one minute of hope,' says one of the nuns at a 1945 Polish convent. Soon Red Cross doctor and avowed atheist Mathilde learns the details of the predicament: of the terror wrought at the convent by Russian soldiers at the end of the war. Over the coming weeks, she oversees the health of those who fell pregnant during the intrusion. Gradually she wins their trust and, in the process, has her mind opened to a brand of faith that, in such circumstances, can be anything but blind.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 23 September 2016
18 Comments
'No good will be served by a royal commission auspiced by the state telling a Church how it judges or complies with its theological doctrines and distinctive moral teachings. By all means, set universal standards of practice expected of all institutions dealing with children, but do not trespass on the holy ground of religious belief and practice.' Fr Frank Brennan SJ addresses the Freedom for Faith Conference in Melbourne, 23 September 2016.
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