News
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09-Dec-2009
Preacher of the Pontifical Household Father Raniero Cantalamessa writes in his Advent reflection for Pope Benedict XVI and members of the Roman Curia against the threat of "frenetic activism" and urges priests to build up an intense prayer life.
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07-Dec-2009
As world leaders gathered for the UN's climate summit in Copenhagen from today, Pope Benedict is urging for an attitude of respect and responsibility for creation.
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11-Dec-2009
Italy approved the sale of the abortion drug RU 486, to be administered solely in hospitals, despite protests from the Vatican.
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09-Dec-2009
Pro-life groups Family Life International and Right to Life are condemning a proposed national screening system for unborn children with Down's syndrome in New Zealand, calling it "eugenics" and a promotion of a culture of death.
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07-Dec-2009
A master asbestos register obtained by The Courier-Mail shows 105 of the 133 Brisbane Catholic Education schools, which extend from the Gold Coast north to Childers and west to the Lockyer Valley and Gayndah, have some level of asbestos in them, albeit with only low risk to health.
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09-Dec-2009
Catholic Health Australia and various health sector stakeholders expressed disappointment at the Council of Australian Governments' lack of progress on health and aged care reform at a meeting this week.
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09-Dec-2009
A song by gunned-down rapper Tupac Shakur, known for his notorious life and violent lyrics but also songs that express deep concern for social injustice and ills, made it to the Vatican's official MySpace music playlist.
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News - National
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08-Dec-2009
Child protection laws face an overhaul following the case of a suspected Toowoomba pedophile teacher whose actions went unreported, The Australian reports.
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11-Dec-2009
The Benenson Society was launched in Melbourne by Father Tony Kerin, Episcopal Vicar for Justice in the Archdiocese of Melbourne, the archdiocese said in a statement.
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08-Dec-2009
Openly gay former High Court judge Michael Kirby urged religious people to read Biblical texts in the context in which they were written, pointing in particular to verses that surround the condemnation of homosexuality.
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08-Dec-2009
Wollongong young adult Sam Clear spent 18 months walking more than 15,000 kilometres from Brazil to Spain in a bid to unite the world's religions.
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07-Dec-2009
Australia's aged care sector urgently requires greater technology and IT infrastructure, according to a White Paper commissioned by KPMG and Church Resources.
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07-Dec-2009
Migrants are keeping the Catholic Church in Australia vital and energetic while making church a more enjoyable place for Australian Catholics, The Age reports.
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10-Dec-2009
Berengarra, a school that caters for troubled children, is being forced to leave its Glen Waverley site by year's end, but will reopen next year at a former kindergarten premises in Box Hill, after negotiations with the Catholic Education Office.
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11-Dec-2009
The school principal and two senior Catholic Education officials connected to the child sex abuse case in a Toowoomba school have been sacked, The Australian reports.
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10-Dec-2009
Although a Toowoomba Catholic primary school principal was acquitted in a case regarding child sex abuse reporting, it could still leave the school and the diocese exposed to civil litigation, a lawyer said.
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07-Dec-2009
A book about rebel Catholic priest and self-proclaimed "media tart" Peter Kennedy was launched in Brisbane on the weekend, and a documentary is under way, The Sun Herald reports.
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08-Dec-2009
Tasmania's Catholic Education Commission says freedom of information documents show non-Government schools have not been receiving the full amount of agreed funding from the State Government.
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07-Dec-2009
MacKillop Catholic College, together with Mount Carmel College and Guilford Young College has won $25,000 in grants under the National Australia Bank's schools first seed funding awards to undertake work with older Tasmanians in care at residential homes.
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News - International
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09-Dec-2009
Theologian Fr Hans Kung said the Church needs another Vatican council to move reforms forward, The Age reports.
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11-Dec-2009
A Catholic group, Gethsemane Ministries, that had donated a nativity scene outside Toronto's Old City Hall were told to remove a plaque identifying an anti-abortion group as the donor of the statues.
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08-Dec-2009
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said the election of a lesbian bishop in the United States raised "very serious questions" for the Anglican Communion.
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11-Dec-2009
In a column for the French publication Le Monde, President Nicolas Sarkozy warned Muslims, as well as people of other faiths to practice their religions modestly and without "provocation".
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10-Dec-2009
The Catholic bishops of England and Wales said they could be at risk of prosecution under a proposed law unless they accept women, sexually active gays and transsexuals as candidates to the priesthood, the Catholic News Service reports.
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10-Dec-2009
Ireland's constitutional amendment protecting the unborn are being challenged in a landmark case at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). It is being called the Roe v Wade of Europe.
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08-Dec-2009
Pope Benedict will be meeting Cardinal Sean Brady, head of the Irish Bishops Conference, and Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin on December 11 for "information and an evaluation" of the country's report on child abuse cover-ups.
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10-Dec-2009
Entire communities in East Timor will benefit this Christmas and into the future from programs that Toowoomba engineering surveyor Barry Walsh has helped organise, according to The Catholic Leader.
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09-Dec-2009
A parish in Korea now has entire families as altar servers during Mass, a move that family members say has strengthened their bonds and deepened their faith in a special way.
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11-Dec-2009
Israel's Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon is visiting the Holy See in a bid to reach an agreement over property in the Holy Land, but church ownership of the room in which tradition holds that the Last Supper took place is reportedly off limits.
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10-Dec-2009
In an address to Brazilian bishops, Pope Benedict said the "visible consequences" of the "deceitful principles" of liberation theology have been "rebellion, division, dissent, offense, anarchy (that) are still being felt."
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Regulars
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11-Dec-2009
The fax machine at the Josephite HQ in Mount St, North Sydney, has been working a lot of overtime of late, pouring out requests from all over the country for information. Such is the response by Australians to the expected canonisation of an extraordinary woman. - The Catholic Weekly
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10-Dec-2009
Tony Abbott declared that his ascension to the Liberal leadership gives him a fresh start. Does that mean a fresh start for the Abbott cliches and adjectives? Abbott's complexity means he has the potential to be a great prime minister. He's anything but a cliche. - Ben Power, theage.com.au
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09-Dec-2009
What happens when an imam, a priest and a rabbi get into a lift together? It may sound like a joke, but it is an everyday occurrence at the world's largest interfaith gathering and such unexpected encounters are positively encouraged. - Christopher Landau, bbc.co.uk
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08-Dec-2009
It is now 45 years since the Second Vatican Council promulgated the groundbreaking and liberating document on the sacred liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium. Not in my wildest dreams would it have occurred to me then that I would live to witness what seems more and more like the systematic dismantling of the great vision of the council's decree. But I have. We Catholics have. - Michael G. Ryan, America
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07-Dec-2009
The Vatican's highest priority for Europe has been recovery of the continent's Christian identity and Benedict in particular has argued that Europe would be culturally incoherent if cut off from its Christian roots. Yet at the same time, Benedict also has no higher interfaith priority than outreach to Islam, the defining expression of his transition from "inter-religious" to "inter-cultural" dialogue. In essence, Benedict sees Christians and Muslims as natural allies in the struggle against secularism. - John L. Allen Jr, National Catholic Reporter
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11-Dec-2009
At roughly the halfway mark of the Year for Priests it is timely to return to its official website. It has been updated with information about the international meeting of priests in Rome in June 2010 which will officially close the Year, but also with news on a theological convention next March and a papal video message provided to an international retreat for priests in late September 2009.
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10-Dec-2009
Carrying on from the former Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club, the Pope Benedict XVI Fan Club serves as an online archive of writings by, and about, Joseph Ratzinger. It also provides a commentary on major issues and events in the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI.
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09-Dec-2009
The Diocese of Geraldton website may not have all the latest trims but it provides necessary, and a solid selection of information, for the Catholics of this large regional diocese.
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08-Dec-2009
Maronite Heritage was created by Fr Antonio Elfeghali, a Maronite priest and a religious member of the Maronite Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary (OMM). It is devoted to the Maronite Catholic Church, an Eastern Church that goes back to the fifth century, always in union with Rome. Information can be found here on the Maronite Patriarch, Orders, eparchies, parishes, hymns, icons, calendar, history, and their homeland Lebanon.
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07-Dec-2009
Australia's Catholic Bishops recently completed their November plenary meeting and their website notes some of the numerous items which were discussed including safeguards for marriage; prepartions for the canonisation of Mary MacKillop; and a visit by Cardinal Cordes, President of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum.
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10-Dec-2009
How can we all get on? It's the big question of our time tackled by Compass presenter Geraldine Doogue and a panel of five high profile international and Australian guest speakers attending the Parliament of the World's Religions which ended in Melbourne yesterday.
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08-Dec-2009
This has to be the must-see PG movie of the Christmas season. The season is inundated with animated movies which are produced efficiently and geared to draw breath as much as to delight. Set on the rocky coast of Australia, this film has its fair share of computer effects, but it features wonderful, large furry animals that lend an amazing look of realism to the story, and the film is a delight to watch. - Peter W. Sheehan, Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
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11-Dec-2009
The five hundredth anniversary of the birth of John Calvin (1509-64), whom Bruce Gordon in this masterful biography hails as "the greatest Protestant reformer of the sixteenth century, brilliant, visionary and iconic," invites fresh interpretations. - Hilmar Pabel, The Tablet
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07-Dec-2009
On its release, A Week in December was greeted mostly with an appreciation for Faulks' narrative prowess. His attempt at writing about what radicalises young Muslims to become terrorists is brave, and his portrayal of the would-be suicide bomber and his loving family suggests a sympathy with Islam. However, many of Faulks's comments in interviews at the time of the release of A Week in December revealed a lack of religious sensibility and respect. - Philip Harrison, Thinking Faith
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11-Dec-2009
The Federal Government's shameful attempt to extend compulsory income management in an effort to get around the Racial Discrimination Act is nothing more than a cynical manoeuvre, a deliberate commitment to the American path of close supervision of people who are doing it tough. - John Falzon, Eureka Street
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10-Dec-2009
Any number of people I know regard Thomas Berry with varying degrees of admiration. I was roundly disappointed. I discovered that Berry was not up to speed on many issues. In addition, Berry has the bad habit of failing to define terms, and his use of metaphor, pleasing to the ear though it might be, lands him in fallacious reasoning. His work is full of false dichotomies, something that is not surprising given that he typically fails to address viewpoints articulated by others. - Marie I. George, MercatorNet
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09-Dec-2009
Last week's vote in Switzerland to ban the building of any more minarets was a moral and intellectual failure. It brought shame on the Land of Chocolate and Tax-Free Banking and will almost certainly encourage right wing nut jobs and bigots everywhere, including here, to have a go at kicking the nearest towel-enfolded head they can find. - John Birmingham, smh.com.au
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08-Dec-2009
The headlines are shouting doom and despair at me, but today I am not listening. Our culture is yelling obscenities at me, but today I am not listening. Problems and annoyances are mocking and taunting me, but today I am not giving in. Not today. Not now. For now I am enthralled by one simple, beautiful word, and you should be, too. We should all be absorbed in awe over one amazing, mind-blowing word. Emmanuel. - Jennifer Hartline, Catholic Online
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07-Dec-2009
I want you to know that I discard any unsigned or anonymous letters, especially those which malign or accuse other persons of wrongdoing or offences. If the accusation is serious and requires intervention right-minded Catholics must be prepared to identify themselves so that any necessary action may be taken, rather than hide behind anonymous rash judgments which impugn the reputations of others. - Bishop Kevin Manning, Catholic Outlook
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09-Dec-2009
Sydney's St Mary's Cathedral will hold a colourful and popular Christmas Carols Service and Readings presided over by Cardinal Pell. This much loved and anticipated event will be held on Friday December 18 at 7.30pm.
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