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Section: Religion

  • RELIGION

    Sympathy for Father Bob

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 15 September 2009
    30 Comments

    It's doubtful that any Australian priest communicates more intuitively with young Australians than Bob Maguire. Fr Maguire's 'forced' retirement has universal relevance as the story of the predicament of ageing community workers.

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  • RELIGION

    On reclaiming Christianity from the West

    • Irfan Yusuf
    • 14 September 2009
    24 Comments

    Tony Abbott has described the New Testament as 'the core document of our civilisation'. As a South Asian Muslim, I'd like to think many Christians would be as incensed by attempts to treat Christianity as uniquely Western as I am when Islam is treated as uniquely Arab.

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  • RELIGION

    On stuffing up

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 10 September 2009
    4 Comments

    Merely to write for a magazine with high ideals does not guarantee that you live by them. I recalled this recently when I recognised that I had got the facts wrong in a Eureka Street article. I had to apologise because my erroneous assertion caused avoidable hurt.

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  • RELIGION

    When tolerance doesn't cut it

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 27 August 2009
    5 Comments

    One striking feature of our society is the contrast between an emphasis on tolerance, and an increasingly punitive approach to lawbreaking. Shock jock Kyle Sandilands and violent youths in our cities have been exposed to this.

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  • RELIGION

    Right to lifers miss the point

    • Frank Brennan
    • 19 August 2009
    31 Comments

    Last week a Supreme Court judge gave a sensible decision regarding the case of a quadriplegic man who wants his carers to discontinue feeding him. 'Right to life' and 'right to die' advocates have had a field day. You'd think they had not read the judgment.

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  • RELIGION

    Stradbroke Island homily

    • Frank Brennan
    • 18 August 2009
    1 Comment

    Before the mission was established here, the local Aboriginal community of 200 persons was forced to host 1000 convicts from the mainland for eight years. I daresay not all the convicts were easy-going beachcombers.

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  • RELIGION

    Pope's 'new anthropology' shoots for the moon

    • David Holdcroft
    • 17 August 2009
    7 Comments

    Reflections on the 40th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing can help us understand the major themes of Pope Benedicts's social encyclical, and explain why many critics of this radical document have missed the point.

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  • RELIGION

    Bonhoeffer's ethics not for show

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 06 August 2009
    7 Comments

    Two years ago, Kevin Rudd wrote about German wartime theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer stressed character. His ethics were not expressed in rhetoric about hard times and hard decisions, but in acting responsibly without regard to popularity.

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  • RELIGION

    Disunity in the Year of the Priest

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 30 July 2009
    22 Comments

    Ignoring divisions is rarely the best way to address them. It may be better to name 2009 the year of priests, not the Year of the Priest, thus recognising the divergent approaches to priesthood within the Catholic Church.

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  • RELIGION

    The marginalisation of Ted Kennedy

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 July 2009
    21 Comments

    Fr Ted Kennedy's work with Indigenous Australians brought him conflict with police, landowners, parishioners and church authorities. If you live at the margins, you will be marginalised. How best to handle this marginalisation?

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  • RELIGION

    Myopic media's Indonesia 'jihad'

    • Herman Roborgh
    • 20 July 2009
    14 Comments

    Many in the media have labelled the bombings in Jakarta as the work of jihad. When we understand the Qur'anic verses that advocate jihad in their proper historical context, it is clear that the Qur'an expresses acceptance and respect for non-Muslims.

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  • RELIGION

    The meddling priest and the Redfern prophet

    • Frank Brennan
    • 16 July 2009
    9 Comments

    Last week, Pope Benedict gave Kevin Rudd a copy of his new encyclical Caritas in Veritate. Rudd gave the Pope a copy of the National Apology. I wonder what the radical Redfern priest Ted Kennedy would have made of this exchange of literary gifts.

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