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Section: Religion

  • RELIGION

    The hard life of Christians in Bethlehem

    • Abe Ata
    • 13 December 2007
    3 Comments

    The situation of Christians in Bethlehem is difficult, and many are leaving. It is hard to shed tears for Jewish victims of the Holocaust while living under Israeli military occupation, and it is equally difficult being part of a Christian minority in a predominately Middle Eastern Muslim society.

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  • RELIGION

    The 'me first' election

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 December 2007

    In the election campaign the peoples' choice and their sovereignty often seemed to be defined simply as an arbitrary power to choose, with self-interest the only motivation. In the first week of the campaign, tax cuts trumped tax cuts.

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  • RELIGION

    Time for due process in East Timor assistance

    • Frank Brennan
    • 12 December 2007

    Eighteen months on from the 2006 unrest, Australian and New Zealand troops are still patrolling the streets of Dili. There has been no imperative for them to exchange berets and operate under UN auspices as occurred with the original INTERFET engagement.

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  • RELIGION

    How to find God in ordinary human hope

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 12 December 2007
    2 Comments

    Pope Benedict's encyclical Spe Salvi assumes the fragmentation of hope in today's world will not be addressed simply by the secular world adding God to its limited hopes. Instead it involves the nurturing of a Christian imagination that overcomes the breach between divine and human.

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  • RELIGION

    Benedict defines good and evil progress

    • Neil Ormerod
    • 03 December 2007

    The second encyclical from Benedict XVI is not what many expected. Benedict is drawing us to a deeper level of reflection, building a solid foundation. What he builds upon this foundation we are yet to see.

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  • RELIGION

    Lawyers' role in a democracy

    • Frank Brennan
    • 29 November 2007

    The power of the State can be exercised capriciously and unaccountably when the “Don’t ask; don’t tell” approach to government is immune from parliamentary, judicial or public scrutiny. It is the task of lawyers to make it more difficult for politicians to take this approach.

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  • RELIGION

    Benenson's Amnesty alternative

    • Chris Middleton
    • 15 November 2007
    4 Comments

    As principal of a Jesuit school — St Aloysius — that has withdrawn from Amnesty due to the organisation's pro-choice stance, Chris Middleton outlines the reasoning for the decision, in response to Father Frank Brennan's article on the subject.

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  • RELIGION

    Don't boycott pro-choice Amnesty

    • Frank Brennan
    • 14 November 2007
    42 Comments

    Some religious schools have withdrawn from Amnesty because it has become pro-choice on abortion. But members of organisations such as Amnesty, which take a full spectrum approach to human rights, do not generally agree to every item in the organisations' policy statements.

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  • RELIGION

    Neither John nor Kevin is Lord

    • Kylie Crabbe
    • 14 November 2007
    3 Comments

    The Christian vote can't be bought, not even with tax-free fees for parents of children at religious schools. The early Christians were adamant that Caesar — the political ruler of the moment — was not Lord.

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  • RELIGION

    Keeping a safe distance from religion

    • James McEvoy
    • 31 October 2007
    7 Comments

    Our secular age is schizophrenic, or better, deeply cross-pressured. People are not conscious of a need for religion, yet they are moved to know that there are dedicated believers, like Mother Teresa.

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  • RELIGION

    How economic growth can bust poverty

    • Frank Brennan
    • 25 October 2007
    2 Comments

    On foreign aid, development assistance and trade justice, Peter Costello says “Economic growth is the real poverty buster”. The bishops say: "True, but economic growth must go hand in hand with eradicating poverty and ensuring trade justice".

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  • RELIGION

    An eye for those who fall between the cracks

    • Bishop Pat Power
    • 25 October 2007

    There is a danger in today's climate with so many demands of compliance from government and even church that those in church welfare work can become so "professional" that they lose sight of the human persons involved.

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