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Section: Religion

  • RELIGION

    Address to future doctors

    • Frank Brennan
    • 31 January 2018

    'The place of religious and comprehensive world views in legislating, ethical decision making, and good medical practice informed by prudential resource allocation' — Remarks by Fr Frank Brennan to first year medical students at the University of Notre Dame Australia, 30 January 2018.

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  • RELIGION

    Rebuilding trust must be the priority

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 24 January 2018
    37 Comments

    It's a common refrain from survivors of clerical sexual abuse, often heard when church leaders try to explain away their failure to listen and respond to the crimes of their peers: 'They just don't get it.' Up until recently, Pope Francis has seemed to 'get it' in his response to the crisis of abuse. But recent events have raised doubts.

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  • RELIGION

    Francis Sullivan: Reform and renewal after Royal Commission

    • Fatima Measham
    • 24 January 2018
    19 Comments

    Fatima Measham speaks with Francis Sullivan, CEO of the Truth Justice and Healing Council, to reflect on the journey since the Royal Commission was first announced in November 2012 and to consider what are the next steps for the Church.

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  • RELIGION

    Australia's gay Muslims face a double bind

    • Rachel Woodlock
    • 18 January 2018
    9 Comments

    Nur Warsame hopes to open a gay-friendly mosque, quite a feat, in a country where mosque applications often face fierce resistance from non-Muslim locals. Gay Muslims are mostly rejected by the Muslim community for being gay and stigmatised by the wider community for being Muslim. Many cannot reconcile the two identities.

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  • RELIGION

    Philippines needs pro-social justice church

    • Erin Cook
    • 17 January 2018
    4 Comments

    Though public health activists in the Philippines point to the church's influence in keeping sex education out of schools and contraceptive sales low as a major factor in the country's rising HIV rate, when it comes to taking on Duterte the church is the country's strongest progressive force. But that may be set to change.

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  • RELIGION

    A familiar tribute to a marvellous priest

    • Frank Brennan
    • 15 January 2018
    2 Comments

    'Most of his life, Dr Johnson was a priest. Most of his life, he started his day sharing this bread of life with the world. He spent his childhood years here in Rocky, and he enjoyed his twilight years here. Rockhampton was home. Yet the cosmopolitan Grove was ever so much more at home in Rome, Paris or Sydney. And he meant that as no offence to the people of Rockhampton.' Homily delivered for the funeral of the 94 year old priest Grove Johnson.

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  • RELIGION

    New Year dreams of a better world

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 12 January 2018
    10 Comments

    The beginning of the year is traditionally a time to look beyond the messiness of the past year, to imagine a larger and more generous life, and to make good resolutions. It is also a time for reflecting on the character of public life and to ask whether we find there any large vision of a better world. And, indeed, to ask whether we should look for one.

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  • RELIGION

    Best of 2017: Bishop Long at the Royal Commission

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 08 January 2018
    7 Comments

    Vincent Long's testimony was notable for its directness, honesty and the awareness it displayed of the importance of church culture. Long grew up in the Vietnamese Catholic Church and was afterwards chosen to lead the Australian Church. In his responses he focused on clericalism and its role in giving license and cover to clerical abuse.

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  • RELIGION

    Best of 2017: Commission's Catholic wrap-up

    • Frank Brennan
    • 08 January 2018
    13 Comments

    The statistics were horrifying. Every case represented a person who claims as a child to have been abused by a person of authority in a Catholic institution. Whichever way the statistics are interpreted in comparison with other institutions, they are appalling. We need to hold the victims clearly in focus.

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  • RELIGION

    Best of 2017: The abuse commission 'damp squib'

    • Moira Rayner
    • 08 January 2018
    2 Comments

    This royal commission has changed the public response of religious institutions, not their culture. Nor has it altered the culture at the political pointy ends of state, territory or national government. The cause of the misuse of power over children was our refusal to take a child's world view as seriously as our own adult priorities.

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  • RELIGION

    Lay lead the way in child abuse lament

    • Helena Kadmos
    • 19 December 2017
    24 Comments

    A small group of lay Christians in Perth, including myself, were so worried that our institutions might not wholeheartedly embrace the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse that we decided not to wait to find out.

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  • RELIGION

    Pondering Palestine at a Tokyo Christmas Mass

    • Irfan Yusuf
    • 14 December 2017
    4 Comments

    Last year I spent Christmas at St Andrew's. There was incense, holy communion and a whole heap of stuff that would horrify many Sydney Anglicans. Which is their bad luck because this St Andrew's was the Cathedral Church of the Tokyo Diocese of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai. I doubt Henry VIII imagined a diocese with a name like that!

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