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Section: Religion

  • RELIGION

    Catholic churches confront housing crisis

    • Claire-Anne Willis and Denis Fitzgerald
    • 20 July 2018
    4 Comments

    The demand for social housing and the substantial Church investment in land means that housing should remain a significant priority of the Catholic Church in Australia. It is an injustice for some to have more than enough while others lack bare necessities. Compassionate and fair leadership needs to drive social change.

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  • RELIGION

    So-called 'witch-hunt' holds Wilson to account

    • Peter Gogarty
    • 19 July 2018
    24 Comments

    I am a survivor of sexual abuse. It was me who first made a complaint to NSW police that Wilson knew what Fletcher had been up to, who wrote an opinion piece for Fairfax asking what Wilson knew, who appeared on ABC TV naming the Archbishop. By extension, it must be me who initiated the witch-hunt and stirred up public hysteria.

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  • RELIGION

    Breaking the seal for the common good

    • Peter Johnstone
    • 18 July 2018
    46 Comments

    The arguments for exemption ignore or deny the harm to children that can arise from failure to report. They claim the law would be ineffective because few paedophiles go to confession, and might not confess if the seal did not apply. Such conjectural arguments ignore the basic principle that all harm to a child must be forestalled.

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  • RELIGION

    Let's talk about the Catholic bishops

    • John Warhurst
    • 17 July 2018
    28 Comments

    The constitutional position of bishops is best illustrated by the Wilson case. The media releases of the hierarchy revealed their impotence. They explained their inaction by pointing out that only the Pope could force a bishop to resign and were reduced to conveying the impression of working behind the scenes to influence Wilson's decision.

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  • RELIGION

    Leading in diverse times

    • 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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  • RELIGION

    Duterte vs God

    • Erin Cook
    • 13 July 2018
    3 Comments

    To mark two years as president of the Philippines, Duterte has taken on his biggest sparring partner yet. God now joins the likes of Barack Obama and the UN as targets in Duterte's ranting. It would be laughable if he hadn't spent his presidency turning the country into Revelations, where even priests are being gunned down in the streets.

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  • RELIGION

    The sentencing of Archbishop Wilson

    • Frank Brennan
    • 04 July 2018
    77 Comments

    Philip Wilson has been sentenced to 12 months' detention for concealing child sexual abuse. It's very likely that he will appeal his conviction and sentence. An appeal may well succeed, but that's not the end of the matter. This has been a six-year saga relating to events which occurred more than 40 years ago. Emotions are running high.

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  • RELIGION

    Seeking cooperative globalisation

    • Frank Brennan
    • 18 June 2018
    2 Comments

    'Seeking cooperative globalisation with people from north and south, east and west, of all faiths and none, we dare to hope while committing ourselves to labour for the kingdom to come here on earth and hereafter as did.' Frank Brennan, Homily, 11th Sunday in Ordinary time, the Oratory of San Francesco Saverio Del Caravita, Rome, 17 June 2018.

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  • RELIGION

    What religions really say about suicide

    • Rachel Woodlock
    • 15 June 2018
    14 Comments

    Amid the shock and grief for Anthony Bourdain's death, one blue-tick Twitterer attempted to capture five minutes of shameful fame, declaring that religious people believe hell or purgatory is his afterworld destination. While all the great religious traditions generally proscribe suicide, they also contain nuanced views of the suicide's fate.

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  • RELIGION

    Do pro-life Australians need a new approach?

    • Ann Deslandes
    • 04 June 2018
    56 Comments

    The result in Ireland is a timely reminder to political and/or church leaders in Australia who like to use Irish Catholic heritage as a way to defend their conservative views. On nearly all issues that have been debated by Australian Catholics against their religious obligations, the motherland is, clearly, no longer the source of moral legitimacy.

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  • RELIGION

    Vatican pointers for banks royal commission

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 30 May 2018
    15 Comments

    As the royal commission prepared to resume its hearings into financial services the Vatican released Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones, on the ethics of markets. Although written quite independently, passages of the document could have been mistaken for factual reporting of the royal commission.

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  • RELIGION

    A stringent critique of financial abuse

    • Bruce Duncan
    • 30 May 2018
    5 Comments

    The Vatican has launched a stringent critique of abuses in global economies, abuses that are driving astonishing inequality and threatening ecological sustainability. 'Oeconomicae et pecuniariae questiones' reiterates the call for an urgent dialogue between politics and economics to advance human life and wellbeing.

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