News
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10-Jul-2009
During a meeting with Pope Benedict Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd presented him with a small crate of De Bortoli Noble No 1 dessert wine, a leather bound copy of the apology to Indigenous people and spoke of Australia's affection for Mary MacKillop.
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09-Jul-2009
Pope Benedict has moved the Vatican office responsible for the re-admission of four Society of St Pius X bishops back into the Catholic Church to a Curia office seen as close to him, according to a Reuters report.
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08-Jul-2009
Pope Benedict urges for a renewal of the global financial order based on "an ethics which is people centred" with the goal of common good, in his newly released encyclical.
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06-Jul-2009
Australian Catholic University has appointed Professor Anne Hunt as Faculty Dean of Theology and Philosophy.
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10-Jul-2009
Parents of St Francis Catholic Primary School in Wollongong are accepting of a closure decision, but Coonabarabran's parents are furious their St Lawrence's secondary college shutdown next year won't be reversed.
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09-Jul-2009
Wollongong's historic St Francis Xavier Catholic Primary School is set to close in 2012, merging with the John Vianney Primary School in Fairy Meadow.
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07-Jul-2009
Over one quarter of all students stayed away from the Oakhill Catholic College in one day last week with flu-like symptoms, as school attendance plunges with the spread of H1N1.
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07-Jul-2009
Oscar nominated British film maker Roland Joffe is making a movie about the life and miracles of Opus Dei founder Jose Maria Escriva de Balaguer.
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News - National
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10-Jul-2009
Research by the Australian Catholic University and Catholic Community Services has found that with sustained effort the cycle of homelessness experienced by older Australians can be broken.
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10-Jul-2009
Catholic Worker Movement's veteran Australian members Jim Dowling and Ciaron O'Reilly have been arrested for blockading a joint Australian-US military exercise in central Queensland.
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09-Jul-2009
The General-Secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Fr Brian Lucas, said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's enthusiasm for the canonisation of Mary MacKillop was "welcome".
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08-Jul-2009
A freeze on the minimum wage by the Australian Fair Pay Commission plunges more working families into poverty, forcing safety net dependent workers to carry the burden of macro economic reform, said Catholic Social Services.
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07-Jul-2009
Opposition Catholic MP Tony Abbott labelled Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's promise to lobby the Pope on Mary MacKillop's sainthood as "spin gone mad", a news report said.
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08-Jul-2009
Thanks to the support of a Jesuit Social Services program, Moonee Valley in Victoria boasts a strong mix of African migrants, most of them from Somalia, a community newspaper reported.
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06-Jul-2009
An unprecedented inquiry into alleged misconduct of Anglican bishop Michael Hough could cost the Australian Anglican Church nearly a third of its financial reserves, a report said.
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09-Jul-2009
The Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle issued an apology to all victims of abuse by Fr John Denham, who pleaded guilty to 29 sex offences yesterday, while he served in the diocese.
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08-Jul-2009
The case against a Toowomba Catholic school principal accused of failing to report a child sex abuse allegation to police has been adjourned until next month.
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News - International
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10-Jul-2009
Some 14 years since her last major apparition in Ireland, the Virgin Mary is back in the lowly form of a tree stump in County Limerick, reports said.
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07-Jul-2009
More than 800 pages and fragments from the world's oldest surviving Bible, the Codex Sinaiticus, has been published in full online.
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08-Jul-2009
All eight targets of the global Millennium Development Goals, including ending poverty, gender inequality, poor education, are "teetering on the brink of failure", Caritas Australia said.
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07-Jul-2009
Search engine giant Google is apparently disallowing advertisements for abortion businesses in several nations, some of which prohibit abortions and some of which don't.
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06-Jul-2009
A Vatican cardinal says the Church has to learn lessons from the case of Galileo Galilei and the Inquisition and that scientists shouldn't presume to teach the Church about faith, but the Church must approach scientific discoveries with humility and circumspection.
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06-Jul-2009
Cardinal George Cottier, 87, former theologian of the papal household under Pope John Paul II and Vatican adviser, has praised US President Barack Obama's "humble realism" and measured approach to abortion.
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10-Jul-2009
A proposed amendment to Britain's Coroners and Justice Act which would have legalised aiding the terminally ill to seek assisted suicide abroad, was defeated in the House of Lords ZENIT reports.
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08-Jul-2009
Polish Catholic groups are planning Mass and prayer sessions to intercede against pop star Madonna performing in Warsaw on the Feast of the Assumption.
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07-Jul-2009
The newly launched hardline Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans could cause a split in the Church of England, said the church's Bishop of Sherborne Dr Graham Kings.
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06-Jul-2009
Three volunteers expelled from the Irish Church's pregnancy counselling body CURA over protests about abortion information on a pamphlet, have been reinstated with an unreserved apology.
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09-Jul-2009
Jesme Raphael, a former Indian nun whose autobiography raised a furore with claims of illicit sex and abuse, says legalising homosexuality in the country would keep gays out of convents and religious life.
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Religion
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09-Jul-2009
Bishop of Townsville Michael Putney has been elected President of the National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA).
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Regulars
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10-Jul-2009
In the developed world, the great monotheistic religions which colonised the globe are dying out. In country after country, greying clerics tend to their greying flocks, while the youth have long since voted with their feet. But after so many centuries as the dominant way to make sense of the world, why is religion dying now? - Doug Hendrie, abc.net.au
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09-Jul-2009
The hype over Michael Jackson's death and funeral has highlighted how the cult of celebrity has turned into almost religious fervour. The mass outpouring of grief and adoration demonstrates the almost god-like status some celebrities are elevated to in society. - Marcus Kuczynski, couriermail.com.au
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08-Jul-2009
God lets his sun shine on the bad as well as the good. God's love doesn't discriminate, it simply embraces everything. Like the sun it doesn't shine selectively, shedding its warmth on the vegetables because they are good and refusing its warmth to the weeds because they are bad. It just shines and everything, irrespective of its condition, receives its warmth. - Fr Ron Rolheiser, ronrolheiser.com
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07-Jul-2009
The inquiry chaired by Jesuit lawyer Frank Brennan, into whether Australia should have a human rights charter has had to seek a month's extension, until the end of September. One reason is its staff of 13 is struggling with a welter of submissions, about 40,000 to be precise. - Michelle Grattan, WA Today
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06-Jul-2009
A certain kind of unanimity satisfies our emotions, and easily substitutes for truth. We are content to think like the others, and in order to protect our common psychic security, we readily become blind to the contradictions - or even the lies - that we have all decided to accept as "plain truth." - Thomas Merton, Marist Messenger
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10-Jul-2009
The National Catholic Education Commission was established during the period of the Whitlam Government by Australia's Catholic Bishops to liaise with the national government and other key national education bodies. NCEC complements and supports at the national level the work of the state and territory Catholic education commissions.
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09-Jul-2009
Human Life International is the largest international, pro-life organisation in the world. It fights on the issues of abortion, contraception and sex education. It also has an objective of bringing the Gospel and evangelising many countries.
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08-Jul-2009
The Edmund Rice Network is the global umbrella for all the followers of Edmund Rice who founded both the Christian Brothers and the Presentation Brothers. The website has just been launched in an attempt to provide comprehensive coverage of what is happening around the Network globally.
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07-Jul-2009
The Marist Sisters are an international congregation of vowed religious women who are committed to following Christ in Mary's way. They are part of the Marist Family which comprises Marist Fathers, Marist Sisters, Marist Brothers, Marist Laity and Marist Missionary Sisters. In the Asia-Pacific region, Marist Sisters can be found in New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines.
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06-Jul-2009
The website for the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has undergone a significant and impressive revamp with a more image-rich and colourful site backed by updated and relevant information.
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07-Jul-2009
This outstanding documentary has a genuinely gut wrenching moment. The film is about the audition process for the 2006 Broadway revival of the blockbuster 1970s musical A Chorus Line, which is all about dancers' desperation to put their talent on the line auditioning for a Broadway musical. - Jim Murphy, Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
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09-Jul-2009
This week's program of Sunday Nights with John Cleary explores the link between spirituality and health. Whatever your understanding of God or Religion is, a commitment seems to bring with it certain rewards. Just what they may be, and how we may benefit, is the topic for discussion.
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08-Jul-2009
When he heard the news of the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III broke down in tears, and shut himself away in his quarters to pray and meditate. Pope Nicholas V issued a bull calling for a crusade, condemning the Ottoman Sultan as "a son of Satan, perdition and death". The man who caused such consternation across Europe was Mehmet, 22 year old son of Sultan Murat. - Robert Carver, The Tablet
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06-Jul-2009
The bishops who emerge from these uniformly interesting essays were different from one another in temperament and personality, in their individual gifts and talents, in the ways they exercised their ministry and in their human weaknesses and peccadilloes. - Br Brian Grenier, The Catholic Leader
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10-Jul-2009
The row over Kevin and Mary is less about substance, more about style. The Pope is robust enough, the Vatican political enough, not to be fazed by a passing politician playing to a home audience. Many Australians will feel it fair enough for the PM to be putting in a word for a local heroine. - Michelle Grattan, The Age
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09-Jul-2009
We too feel liberated from the shackles of a failing institution caught up in dogmas and creeds that belong to another age. We felt it was time to take a stand from the constant bullying we have experienced for many years. - Fr Terry Fitzpatrick, Green Left
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08-Jul-2009
I had entered upon a sacred world, like a cathedral or a monastery. The mountain air refreshed my senses; the stunning silence and ancient giants put my short life in perspective. Here in the wooded cathedral I found mindfulness made easy. Here was Living Peace 101, the Spiritual Life for Dummies. All one has to do is look and breathe. God does the rest. - Fr John Dear, National Catholic Reporter
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07-Jul-2009
The peculiar hostility among sections of the media over Kevin Rudd's audience with Pope Benedict XVI this week reflects a narrow world view. As he prepares to meet the Pope, the Prime Minister's long standing interest in religion is in tune with a wider rebalancing of public debate, in which faith and its principles seem set to play a larger role after taking a backseat in recent decades. - The Australian
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06-Jul-2009
For decades religion was a subject best avoided in most well educated company. Often it was mocked. Faced with this hostility, many Christians withdrew from the public space, sometimes embracing dogma and raw emotion. -Michael Duffy, Brisbane Times
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10-Jul-2009
Fr Richard Rutherford has been a liturgical consultant to the Archdiocese of Portland and National Conference of Catholic Bishops in the United States. His book, The Death of a Christian: The Order of Christian Funerals was published in 1990 and is the definitive work on the Church's revised funerals rites.
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