Keywords: Pope Benedict Xvi
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AUSTRALIA
- James Martin
- 07 August 2009
8 Comments
In 1871 Mary MacKillop was excommunicated
by her local bishop on the grounds that 'she had incited the
sisters to disobedience and defiance'. The idea of a holy woman who had been at loggerheads with the
hierarchy is not new in the annals of the
saints.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 13 July 2009
10 Comments
Assumptions that detained businessman Stern Hu could not be guilty because he is Australian show how national pride can cloud perceptions. Something similar was at play in calls for Kevin Rudd to lobby the Pope for the canonisation of Mary MacKillop.
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RELIGION
- Neil Ordmerod
- 10 July 2009
2 Comments
This week's release of the new social encyclical Caritas in Veritate expands moral teaching to promote a concept of 'human ecology' that covers both human life and the environment. It would seem that Benedict is not a climate change sceptic.
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RELIGION
- Michael Czerny
- 05 May 2009
2 Comments
Abstinence and fidelity win little public support in Western discourse, but are increasingly included, even favoured, in national AIDS strategies in Africa. Culture counts, and a condom is more than a piece of latex.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 27 February 2009
3 Comments
Professor Martha Nussbaum's recent book Liberty of Conscience provides a rich textured treatment of the place of religion in the public square. If God is taken out of the picture,
it may be difficult to maintain a human rights commitment to the
weakest and most despised in society.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 24 February 2009
In East Timor, I was able to see close up the work of
Caritas in war torn conditions. There could be no reconciliation without
justice. Caritas worked tirelessly to proclaim the message.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 06 October 2008
'Lee and
Christine Rush are your average Ozzie couple, except that their teenage son Scott is on death row in Bali having been
convicted of being a hapless drug mule. It will not go down well on the streets of Jakarta
if Australians are baying for the blood of the Bali bombers one month
and then pleading to save our sons and daughters the next month.'
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 21 July 2008
20 Comments
It's hard to think of anybody who would not have welcomed Pope Benedict's apology for sexual abuse. By contrast,
nobody could have been pleased to hear an exasperated
Bishop Anthony Fisher refer last week to those 'dwelling crankily
... on old wounds'.
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INTERNATIONAL
- James Ingram
- 04 July 2008
In his keynote message to the World Food Summit Pope Benedict XVI called for new strategies to promote food production. Feeding the world population in the coming decades is as big a challenge as climate change, and no less important.
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RELIGION
- Binoy Kampmark
- 28 April 2008
2 Comments
Did the Pope's first visit to the US usher
in any significant changes for the Church in that
country? Benedict acknowledged that child abuse was a problem that had to be
confronted, but would not divorce it from the broader assault on community values.
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RELIGION
- Chris McGillion
- 21 February 2008
3 Comments
Cuba’s post-Castro leadership will need to come to terms with the fact that the revolution cannot answer all of life’s questions and that religion in general — and the Catholic Church in particular — has a legitimate role in supplying its answers without interference from the State.
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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 29 January 2008
Recently elected Jesuit Superior General Fr Adolfo Nicolás briefed journalists earlier this week. While a comparison with a recent speech of Pope Benedict points to a difference in method, there is a singleness of purpose.
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