News
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23-Apr-2009
Pope Pius XII told senior bishops during World War II that, should he be arrested, his resignation would become effective immediately and the bishops should flee to a friendly country to re-establish church leadership and appoint a new pope.
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21-Apr-2009
In a project slated to cost $A1 billion, the Vatican is planning to build Europe's biggest solar plant on a 300 hectare site north of Rome.
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20-Apr-2009
Most people are happy to receive a book for their birthday but for Pope Benedict it was a new book about himself - rather a new children's book about Benedict and his companion, Max, a blue rock thrush.
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22-Apr-2009
The youth department of the Pontifical Council for the Laity has published a special "WYD Magazine" dedicated to World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney.
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23-Apr-2009
Following reports the Little Company of Mary is negotiating with the ACT government for the sale of Canberra's Calvary Public Hospital, Archbishop Mark Coleridge said his "strong preference" is a Catholic provider remain under a properly funded and re-negotiated service agreement.
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22-Apr-2009
The ACT government is in discussions with Canberra's Calvary Public Hospital about a possible buy out but doctors fear that services could be reduced if the government takes over.
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21-Apr-2009
A team from Port Macquarie's Catholic Care of the Aged will travel to Papua New Guinea for the graduation ceremony of students from St Gerard's Community Health Worker Training Facility at Veifa'a in the diocese of Bereina.
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News - National
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24-Apr-2009
The promotion of stewardship as a way for Catholics to live their mission in the world will receive a major boost in Australia this year with the staging of the first national conference on stewardship in Campbelltown, NSW in July.
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22-Apr-2009
National Catholic Superannuation Fund and Catholic Super are merging to form a $3 billion super fund giant with more than 70,000 members.
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21-Apr-2009
Australian Jewish comedian John Safran is facing a backlash from Jewish and Christian groups over his latest stunt in which he was nailed to a wooden cross in a Good Friday ritual in a rural Filipino village.
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20-Apr-2009
Following Fr Peter Kennedy's last Mass at St Mary's South Brisbane, up to 1,000 parishioners yesterday made the trek down to the Trades and Labour Council building, where they took communion.
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20-Apr-2009
The explosion on a refugee boat near Ashmore Reef was a tragedy for all involved and a reminder of the dangers people face in fleeing their homeland, ACBC spokesman, Bishop Joseph Grech said.
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24-Apr-2009
Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart has lifted compensation payments available to victims of clergy sexual abuse by nearly 50 percent to $75,000.
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23-Apr-2009
Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland is reported to be under increasing pressure from within his own party to use his powers to overturn Victoria's new abortion laws, which leading lawyers and Catholic hospitals say are in breach of international law.
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24-Apr-2009
Retired Parramatta priest, Fr Tim Hogan, who was born with cerebral palsy, dreamed as a schoolboy of becoming a priest but he didn't realise how difficult it would be to achieve his ambition.
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23-Apr-2009
Prominent Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders, including Sydney Cardinal George Pell, have joined to form a lobby group, the Ambrose Centre for Religious Liberty, to fight what they say is the growing threat to religious freedom in Australia.
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21-Apr-2009
The Broken Bay Institute and Catholic Mission Australia are welcoming award winning Chicago Professor Anthony Gittins for a series of reflections on radical discipleship, mission, conversion and ministry.
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20-Apr-2009
Sister of Charity Helen Clarke literally dreamed of doing a marathon to raise funds for cancer and now she's walking from Dubbo to Darlinghurst to do it.
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20-Apr-2009
NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages figures show that celebrants performed 60.6 percent of ceremonies in 2008, compared to 39.4 percent for religious weddings.
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22-Apr-2009
New St Mary's South Brisbane administrator, Fr Ken Howell, says that he has received a lot of support and hopes for a large congregation.
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20-Apr-2009
Vandals have damaged and stolen a statue of the Virgin Mary from Marymount College on Queensland's Gold Coast.
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23-Apr-2009
The Industrial Relations Court has fined the Diocese of Port Pirie $19,125 as the operator of the Caritas College in Port Augusta after a student was burnt on a school camp.
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News - International
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24-Apr-2009
The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation has launched a worldwide appeal for testimonies of Jews saved by Catholics during the Holocaust.
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22-Apr-2009
Italian newspaper, Il Messagero, has published a newly rediscovered booklet written by then Cardinal Karol Wojtyla in 1968 to help couples implement Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae.
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21-Apr-2009
Pope Benedict has hailed this week's United Nations anti-racism conference, which is being boycotted by the US, Australia and some European nations, and urged countries to join forces to eliminate intolerance.
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21-Apr-2009
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has launched a "doctrinal assessment" of the US Leadership Conference of Women Religious.
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24-Apr-2009
Chennai, India, Archbishop Malayappan Chinnappa has denounced the international community's failure to act to prevent a "mass massacre" in northern Sri Lanka while people were killed when a shell struck a church in the conflict zone yesterday.
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24-Apr-2009
As a third woman came forward claiming that she had borne the child of former bishop now President Fernand Lugo, another Paraguayan Bishop Rogelio Livieres said the Church had known for years about Lugo's misconduct but had kept silent.
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23-Apr-2009
Australian owned uranium miner, Paladin (Africa) Limited has pledged to fulfil its social responsibilities after the local Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace accused the company over alleged injuries and deaths at a Malawi mine.
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22-Apr-2009
A second woman is demanding that Paraguayan president and former bishop Fernando Lugo recognise the paternity of her child.
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Regulars
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24-Apr-2009
Few saints have as extensive a cultural legacy as St Francis, a symbolic life beyond their canonised status. He barely needs his honorific: like a medieval artist, it is enough to know him as Francis of Assisi. - Philip Hoare, The Tablet
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23-Apr-2009
Doug Tracy a noted surgeon with a gentle touch and infectious smile, had gained two university blues for boxing, a sport now opposed by medical associations in most developed countries. He revelled in other activities that allowed him to exercise his excellent mind-body coordination, manifested in his operating technique. He called his autobiography Inside The Ropes: A Surgeon's Life. - Tom Hugh, Sydney Morning Herald
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22-Apr-2009
What makes our personalities ugly, what makes our lives miserable, is disunity and fragmentation. The more unified we become, the more we become what we are meant to be. At some deep level, often perhaps without realising it, we yearn for this unity; another name for it is "peace". - Sr Margaret Atkins, Thinking Faith
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21-Apr-2009
To win the argument about homosexual "marriage," we can't simply be right. We have to be right, and be persuasive. That means speaking our message not in the way that makes us feel most comfortable, but in the way that makes others most comfortable agreeing with what they know to be true. - National Catholic Register
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20-Apr-2009
Jesus was hated and was the object of bitter jealousy. But why was he hated? Jesus was hated because of his inclusivity. He reached out and embraced sinners and those deemed unworthy and he cleansed the Temple in a way that was meant to show that people no longer had to go through the established intermediaries to get to God. He made God and his love as accessible as the nearest water tap and took control of that away from the established authorities - Fr Ron Rolheiser, Western Catholic Reporter
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24-Apr-2009
Simply a legend in Australian Catholic life. The Catholic Women's League was founded in 1914 and aims to educate, promote and provide encouragement to Catholic women to live out the teachings of the Church, and to be aware of issues relevant to all women and of family life; seeking always to commit to the support of the marginalized and those at the grassroots of society.
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23-Apr-2009
Edmund Rice Camps Townsville is an agency of the Townsville diocese involving the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers. It shares its name with several other Edmund Rice Camps organisations around Australia and New Zealand, all well known for their adventure based programs for socially disavantaged children.
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22-Apr-2009
The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council is the peak indigenous Catholic body in Australia. The site provides statistics on indigenous Catholics throughout Australia and their activities and programs.
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21-Apr-2009
While the Catholic Hierarchy website is not officially sanctioned by the Church despite its webmaster dedicating it to Pope Benedict XVI "gloriously reigning", it contains much of the current and historical information about the Church's Bishops and dioceses.
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20-Apr-2009
The Australian AIDS Fund Incorporated is a Melbourne based Catholic AIDS care agency involved in care for HIV positive people and educational awareness programs It promotes the annual (mid July) Schools AIDS Day national awareness event as well as HIV/AIDS informational resource for clergy, teachers and students Australia and worldwide.
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24-Apr-2009
For anyone with a penchant for the traditional accordion based Parisian music known as musette and the unique song style of the French music hall, Paris 36 is sheer delight. The film is not strictly a musical, because characters do not break into song to develop the story, but music is a key component because it is about characters whose business is making music. - Jim Murphy, Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
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21-Apr-2009
What begins as downbeat Irish humour soon turns into bleak, black comedy in this dryly farcical Irish film, made possible by perfectly pitched, deadpan performances that are kept in check. It's a drama, as far the characters are concerned, and a pretty serious one at that. - Urban Cinefile
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22-Apr-2009
To mark Anzac Day, Encounter has reflections which follow Andrey Platonov's story "The Return" where war and an absent father impact upon the lives of two young children. In another aspect of the program, five young Australians talk about how death and crime have impacted upon their lives as children and teenagers as they struggle to cope without significant adults in their lives.
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23-Apr-2009
At any given moment, each of us is situated at one particular location that offers one particular visual perspective; nobody can see things from no point of view at all. This can also be said with regard to theology: theology is always done within a specific context and from a particular perspective. This basic insight underlies Polkinghorne's interesting book. He offers an overview of the kind of theology that can be articulated from within the context of natural science. - Fr Louis Caruana, Thinking Faith
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24-Apr-2009
Too many parishes have paid mere lip service to the Council's urgent call to evangelise by replacing a true evangelisation of living Christian witness with "worthy" secular activities which have a kind of cosy acceptability, such as drinking Fairtrade coffee, Live Simply initiatives or promoting low energy lightbulbs. - Dominic Scarborough, The Catholic Herald
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23-Apr-2009
It is imperative that we, religious men and women of Australia, be messengers of his peace and mercy, we who have experienced the gift of the Resurrected One deep within our being. The message of peace that we wish to bring to our world is one based on listening, dialogue and the seeking of understanding of the differences that divide our world, whether those differences are based on religion, race, politics, economics, prejudice or intolerance. - Sr Clare Condon, Pathways
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22-Apr-2009
Though we might at first think prayer is a movement of our being beyond ourselves and "upwards" so to speak, it is also a movement inwards and downwards. It is a journey into the place deep within us. It is not that prayer builds a type of spiritual skyscraper in which we are elevated floor by floor. Prayer works in the inverse: we start at the top and each floor is taken away from under us until we are at that place, naked before God, in which we are truly ourselves. - Fr David Ranson, Terra Spiritus
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21-Apr-2009
Having preached physicality throughout its history, the Christian church now has the problem that Western society has become hung up on physical existence. If it cannot be bought, sold or possessed, it has no value. There are many people who are becoming dissatisfied or disillusioned with a purely physical existence and are seeking spiritual answers. But why would anyone seeking answers to help them satisfy an inner need turn to a religion that only has promises of future life with a God who is somewhere "out there"? - David Young, Online Opinion
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20-Apr-2009
We live with the consequences of the Howard Government immigration policy. But the policy itself is history, and needs to remain so. There is no doubt that Australia has become more humane in its treatment of asylum seekers under the Rudd administration. - Michael Mullins, Eureka Street
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20-Apr-2009
This year's Australian Lonergan Workshop is focusing on the contemporary challenges of our age. Titled "Hope and History: implementing the Lonergan Legacy," it aims to introduce the wide scope of Lonergan's thought and show how it is relevant to the issues of the day.
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