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17-Aug-2009
The Vatican museums will stay open late on Fridays during September and October, allowing visitors the evening hours view of exhibits, paintings, and frescoes of world-renown.
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News
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19-Aug-2009
The Vatican Congregation for the Clergy has announced that Pope Benedict plans to close the Year for Priests by inviting every Catholic priest to join him in Rome from June 9-11 2010.
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18-Aug-2009
A L'Osservatore Romano article says the US and British governments knew in detail of Hitler's plan to exterminate European Jews during World War II but failed to act for many months and even suppressed reports on the extent of the Holocaust.
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20-Aug-2009
Conservative political commentator and Catholic convert Robert Novak has died at 78 after a year-long battle with brain cancer.
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20-Aug-2009
Existing professional development programs for school principals aren't nationally cohesive, and a national body to coordinate and accredit professional development programs is called for, school principals groups said.
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20-Aug-2009
Catholic Education South Australia is taking over the Australian Technical College-Northern Adelaide, while the Australian Technical College in the city's south is expected to be signed over by the end of the month.
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19-Aug-2009
The Queensland Independent Education Union is considering industrial action against the state's Catholic Education authorities claiming the teachers in its Catholic schools are underpaid compared to their interstate colleagues.
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17-Aug-2009
Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Christian schools say losing their right to refuse to hire staff of a different faith would represent an erosion of religious freedoms.
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20-Aug-2009
Perth man Christian Rossiter plans to apply for a passport to travel to Switzerland to die, while the Australian Medical Association and Philip Nitschke were at odds about whether the ruling in the case was a step toward legalising euthanasia.
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19-Aug-2009
Catholic Health Australia is developing a plan to combine its hospitals, medical clinics and social services into a network offering free support programs for the community's most disadvantaged, under a new "Medicare Select" proposal.
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18-Aug-2009
Reform is needed to address healthcare strain from a rapidly ageing population and retiring workforce, Tasmania's health department secretary David Roberts said at a Catholic Health Australia conference.
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News - National
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21-Aug-2009
Funds from the AusAID overseas aid program can now be used to fund abortions of foetuses of up to 20 weeks in countries where the procedure is legal, The Age reported.
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19-Aug-2009
Church Resources has released pilot-phase case studies from its ConnectCare program, a collaborative effort aimed at providing affordable clinical, financial and communication software applications to small, medium and regional not-for-profit nursing homes.
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19-Aug-2009
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will be the keynote speaker at the Australian Christian Lobby's annual conference in November.
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18-Aug-2009
Former Boystown CEO and Principal of the De La Salle College Malvern, Br Bill Firman has been appointed as head of a new teachers' training college in Sudan.
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17-Aug-2009
The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell said the news of alleged internet grooming by Liverpool based priest Fr Robert Fuller was "appaling and distressing", and that he shared the alarm of parishioners and parents.
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17-Aug-2009
Perth quadriplegic Christian Rossiter won a landmark legal case, allowing to starve himself to death if he chooses. Mr Rossiter said after the proceedings, however, that he could be persuaded to live.
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21-Aug-2009
Students from St Therese Primary School in Sydney's Mascot have won a Eureka Science Prize for a video of how the heart works, inspired by the experience of 5 year old schoolmate Kiara Lloyd's heart transplant.
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19-Aug-2009
Some 10 Catholic schools in Sydney's west that have had solar panels installed as part of a Federal Government program can't switch them on, because of red tape.
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20-Aug-2009
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has announced proposed legislation that would allow same sex couples to use surrogate mothers to bear children they would adopt, the LifeSiteNews website reported.
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17-Aug-2009
A draft bill to decriminalise abortion is "ready to be presented" by any Queensland MP who wants to take it up, The Australian quoted former Labor MP Bonny Barry as saying.
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21-Aug-2009
A Year 8 student in South Australia's Mount Carmel College has been charged over carrying an offensive weapon and affray. The boy allegedly rang the police yesterday morning, saying he was in school armed with a speargun.
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21-Aug-2009
Two Western Australian women who consider themselves men have won a legal recognition of their new gender, news reports said.
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News - International
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20-Aug-2009
Caritas Australia said that 2008 has been the most dangerous year on record for aid workers with a total of 122 killed in the line of duty.
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18-Aug-2009
Intense meditation alters our grey matter, strengthening regions that focus the mind and foster compassion while calming those linked to fear and anger, say the authors of a new book, "How God Changes Your Brain."
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21-Aug-2009
Bishop Edward Slattery from Tulsa, Oklahoma in the US has announced a return to the practice of celebrating the Eucharistic liturgy ad orientem in his cathedral.
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18-Aug-2009
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious that represents about 800 heads of US religious orders, expressed concern that little information has been divulged about the motivation and funding sources for a Vatican scrutiny on them.
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18-Aug-2009
Three interfaith activists from the Middle East suggest that religion should be part of the solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and not be simply seen as part of the problem.
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17-Aug-2009
Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, and Thomas Saundaranayagam, the bishop of Jaffna and a Tamil, urged Sri Lanka to release hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tamils held in military run displacement camps.
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Religion
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21-Aug-2009
Religious belief is waning in the country thanks to the "weak and insipid and in more than a few instances uninspiring and unintelligible" Christianity most Australians encounter, said an Anglican theologian.
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Regulars
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21-Aug-2009
John Baker's life was a remarkable journey. He was born in obscurity in Brisbane yet such was his joy of the high life, his wit, wisdom, capacity for fun and genius for friendship that he conquered Sydney's then very social eastern suburbs and stormed the bastions of British aristocracy. This was not a campaign, nor quest. He was simply attracted to the good things in life but at his life's centre were an enduring Catholic faith and an unerring loyalty that kept him grounded and made him widely loved. - Mark McGinness, Sydney Morning Herald
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20-Aug-2009
They say grief is the most painful human experience. They also say it's not normal to bury your children. They bury you. We have experienced many family deaths: my parents, my wife's parents and brother; and although we were close to them, their deaths were nothing like the trauma of losing a child. - John Skippen, Aurora
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19-Aug-2009
One thing we have to realise often about the parables Jesus tells is that he is not necessarily approving of the behaviour of the lead character in the story, far less adopting the political, economic or social policy which the central figure may be shown to be putting into practice. - Fr Jack Mahoney, Thinking Faith
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18-Aug-2009
As with so much about Pius XII, it was his seemingly ambiguous attitude towards fascism that did so much to foster the suspicion that he must have helped its exponents. But the good news for Catholics is that Pius XII must be treated as innocent. - Guy Walters, The Catholic Herald
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17-Aug-2009
The appointment of former Governor-General Major General Michael Jeffery and his wife General Lady Marlena as the first marriage ambassadors by the Australian Family Association is an exciting new development in the history of one of the late B.A. Santamaria's most durable front organisations. - Guy Rundle, Sunday Age
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21-Aug-2009
The Servants of Jesus Community is a Sydney based ecumenical charismatic covenant community whose mission takes its inspiration from the Gospel of John where Jesus prayed for believers that "all of them may be one" and also "that the world may believe".
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20-Aug-2009
NET (National Evangelisation Teams) is a Catholic peer to peer youth ministry that puts into action the Church´s mission to evangelise and disciple young people. NET does this by proclaiming the Gospel through a personal witness of faith. The teams have become a feature of diocesan and parish life across Australia over the past two decades.
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19-Aug-2009
The Daughters of Divine Zeal is an international Catholic religious institute of women who offer service to the needs of the Church in various parts of the world. In 2009 it is celebrating its 50th anniversary in Australia.
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18-Aug-2009
The stated purpose of this website is to explain and promote the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. It does so by recording the teachings and changes of Vatican II in the writings of men who were there. In this respect, significant contributions are from Cardinal Koenig of Vienna and the English Dominican Christopher Butler. Both were distinguished scholars, Council fathers and members of the influential Council Theological Commission.
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17-Aug-2009
Catholic Sports International has the tagline on its website of "Be Not Afraid". The site itself has minimal content and is dedicated to the life and work of Pope John Paul II who instituted the Vatican Office of Church and Sport in 2004.
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19-Aug-2009
Here is a worthwhile period drama and glance back at English heritage. It has beautiful and regal settings (including the interiors for Buckingham Palace), attractive locations, lots of regency costumes and everything to delight audiences who relish the look of a film. But, it has a lot more for those whose appreciation of detail is more "big picture" and cursory. It takes us back to the late 1830s and someone we have rarely met or even know about, the young Victoria. - Fr Peter Malone, Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
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17-Aug-2009
This edition of the well regarded SBS TV program Insight asks the vexed question: "Should school test results be made public?"
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21-Aug-2009
Throughout his study of the male Franciscans, the author connects them to the larger historical currents of the time, showing how they repeatedly met the pastoral needs of the various eras. This history telling is particularly effective for recounting the order's founding events. - Brian Welter, The Catholic Herald
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21-Aug-2009
If the Vatican was serious about abortion in western liberal democracies, it would: stop complaining about its availability; purge those members of the Church who do not share its supposed hard line, including bishops; excommunicate Catholic politicians who dissemble on abortion; suffer the consequences, whatever they may be, for holding to its principles. - Max Wallace, Online Opinion
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20-Aug-2009
God shows a deep reverence for all his creatures. Made in his image and likeness we are revered by him. We experience our true selves in the presence of a God who out of respect for us never coerces but rather invites our receptive attention. To be open to respond to the non-assertive presence of God in our lives is our true vocation. With the tenderness of a mother, or father, who respects our freedom and intelligence, God coaxes us, as it were, and patiently waits for us to trust in him. - Sr Redempta Twomey, St Columban's Mission Society E-News
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19-Aug-2009
For a long time now, some conservative Catholics - most of them hardline traditionalists - have been discreetly slagging off the late Pope John Paul II. One priest I know grimaces every time his name is mentioned. He does not want him to be made a saint, not because he thinks he was a bad man, but because he thinks that, despite his heroic witness against communism, he damaged the Church. - Damian Thompson, telegraph.co.uk
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18-Aug-2009
Two sets of questions concerning US women religious are roiling the waters in and outside the Church today: 1) Why are religious disturbed about the apostolic visitation? 2) What is the real motivation for this investigation? - Sr Sandra M. Schneiders, National Catholic Reporter
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17-Aug-2009
Hard rationality does not give us a language that can deal with the world human beings inhabit, that world of moral complexity, relational fragmentation, a beauty hidden beneath the ugly. In particular it cannot deal with a crucified God.
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20-Aug-2009
Australia's Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office will be holding the Second National Conference on the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Refugees titled Widen the space of your tent in Sydney from October 27 to 29. The first day is a planned Migrant Chaplains Gathering with the remaining days a chance to acknowledge and affirm all those working in the pastoral care of migrants and refugees and to recognise and value their experience and expertise in this work of the Gospel.
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18-Aug-2009
The Australian Catholic Historical Society is organising a conference on Saturday September 12 (9.30am to 5pm) at The Catholic Institute of Sydney, Strathfield. The conference theme is "Catholics in Australian Public Life since 1788." The program includes a keynote address by Fr Edmund Campion and up to a dozen and one half other papers as well as a final panel discussion on "Meddlesome Catholics".
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