News - National
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29-Jan-2010
A "40 Days for Life" campaign, scheduled to begin on Ash Wednesday and run until March 28, is calling for support.
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29-Jan-2010
Australians top the list as the world's most envious people in a global tally of the seven deadly sins. They also score highly for the other six, making Australia "the most sinful nation on earth", according to a BBC magazine show.
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29-Jan-2010
The drift from public to private schools has slowed, according to new figures from the the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
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28-Jan-2010
The Catholic Education Office Sydney says it values a national testing program "that can be used to inform on areas of need and drive improvements", but has cautioned against "simplistic, one dimensional league tables". The comments are in response to the Government's launch of its controversial My School website today.
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28-Jan-2010
The four original members of The Wiggles, who have made the St Vincent de Paul Society one of their special causes, were made Members of the Order of Australia this week.
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27-Jan-2010
Jesuit Father Frank Brennan says conditions on Christmas Island now resemble those during worst days of the Howard era, and has urged the Rudd Government to transfer asylum seekers to the mainland.
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27-Jan-2010
Tony Abbott said he wasn't intending to offer sexual counselling to the nation by asking men not to act in ways that "demean others" and telling women not to "give themselves away lightly". But Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said his remarks confirm women's "worst fears" about the Opposition Leader.
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27-Jan-2010
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been accused of compromising teachers by urging disgruntled parents to front them armed with new information published on the Government website, My School.
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26-Jan-2010
Catholic Health Australia says the Federal Government could cut 89,000 people from elective surgery waiting lists in a year by adopting a Queensland model which contracts private hospitals to treat public patients.
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26-Jan-2010
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has urged women to regard their virginity as "a gift" that should not be given lightly. In an interview with the Australian Women's Weekly, he suggests men and women should try to adhere to "the rules" when it comes to sex before marriage.
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26-Jan-2010
Father Peter MacLeod-Miller, the new rector of St Matthew's Church in Albury says church should be "enjoyable and fun" rather than "uptight and judgemental", and hopes to put it in practice at his parish.
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25-Jan-2010
World-renowned expert in liturgical study, Fr Anscar Chupungco, has challenged recent announcements on liturgical reform, identifying their inability to fuse together the two basic concepts of Vatican II’s liturgical renewal. His comments were made at the launch of a new course in Liturgical Studies to be offered by The Broken Bay Institute and University of Newcastle.
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28-Jan-2010
Reforming Queensland's surrogacy law will degrade parenthood and the family and create "legally fatherless and legally motherless" children," says the director of the Queensland Bioethics Centre, Ray Campbell.
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26-Jan-2010
Rockhampton's Bishop Brian Heenan is visiting India this week to find priests who would consider moving to central Queensland, due to the drop in the number of Australians choosing the priesthood.
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25-Jan-2010
A former member of the "St Mary's in Exile" parish claims the Brisbane Archdiocese has told her that her daughter would need to be baptised again to receive the Church's other sacraments.
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News - International
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29-Jan-2010
First-century Roman building work has been uncovered beneath the Domus Australia (Australia House) pilgrim centre being created for Australians in Rome.
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28-Jan-2010
At the end of his general audience yesterday, Pope Benedict recalled that "65 years ago, on January 27, 1945, the gates of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, were opened and the few survivors freed". He hoped that the memory may spur "ever greater respect for the dignity of each person".
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28-Jan-2010
The Vatican's Philatelic and Numismatic Office has issued a special stamp to raise funds for the victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti. The stamp is dedicated to the 1500th anniversary of the shrine of Our Lady of Grace in Lazio, Italy.
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27-Jan-2010
Pope John Paul II regularly whipped himself with a trouser belt that he kept in his wardrobe, and wanted to step down as pontiff in the event of incurable illness, said Vatican postulator, Monsignor Slawomir Oder.
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27-Jan-2010
Pope Benedict has lamented "religious indifference and a growing aversion to the Christian faith", while addressing a service marking the closure of the week of prayer for Christian unity.
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25-Jan-2010
Pope Benedict XVI has urged priests to use the internet "astutely" and put modern communications technology "ever more effectively at the service of the Word".
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25-Jan-2010
The Holy See said its finances are improving after the problems caused by the global economic crisis. Top prelates met last week and found that "economic and financial trends show a slight improvement".
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29-Jan-2010
Jewish-Catholic writer J. D. Salinger, author of the celebrated novel The Catcher in the Rye, has died at the age of 91.
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27-Jan-2010
Apostolic visitator, Mother Mary Clare Millea, has sent letters to US women religious leaders asking once again for their full co-operation in filling out questionnaires as part of the visitation process.
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26-Jan-2010
The UK's House of Lords has voted against the Government's proposal to change the law on who churches and other faith groups can employ. The so-called Equality Bill was defeated by 38 votes.
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28-Jan-2010
Irish Columban Father Michael Sinnott, who was kidnapped in the Philippines in November last year, returned this week to his missionary work in the area.
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29-Jan-2010
An ancient Hebrew inscription on a shard of pottery, deciphered by an Israeli academic, shows that the Hebrew Bible could have been written hundreds of years earlier than previously believed.
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25-Jan-2010
Australian soldiers in Afghanistan have not been put at risk by revelations that just over 1,000 of their weapons have biblical inscriptions on them, says General Peter Cosgrove. The gunsights come from the same company that manufactured them for the US armed forces.
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26-Jan-2010
The Catholic Bishops' Conference of India has welcomed a call by Australian Anglican Bishop Philip Huggins for Australians to repent for the attack on Indians.
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25-Jan-2010
Hobart's St Mary's Cathedral held a mass on Saturday night to pray for those who have suffered in Haitan earthquake, a disaster the UN is calling "historic" .
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Regulars
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29-Jan-2010
Some commentators argue that Catholic-Jewish relations are at an all-time low. In fact they have attained a new maturity.
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28-Jan-2010
In the 1930s, a young Catholic professor at Oxford University began writing stories to read his children at Christmas. They were tales full of well-known magical creatures - elves, dwarfs, knights, wizards, witches. Tolkien didn't see his work as a piece of Catholic apologetics, but as something more ambitious.
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27-Jan-2010
Italian designer Riccardo Tisci says he looked to his Catholic roots for inspiration for his latest Givenchy menswear collection. "Religion is a big part of my DNA and this collection was about my Catholic(ism) and every other religion in a way," he says.
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26-Jan-2010
Pope Benedict XVI is turning out to be ecumenically audacious. For this he has faced criticism, misunderstanding and accusations of insensitivity. But Pope Benedict and Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church seem now to be making progress in preparing the ground to overcome the Great Schism of 1054.
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25-Jan-2010
Alberto Michelini has been a member of both the Italian parliament and the European Parliament for about 20 years, and a distinguished journalist for many decades. He is also the creator of a documentary called Credo about John Paul II, who he says changed history through his prayer.
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29-Jan-2010
This American-based site considers the moral implications of climate change, what Catholics can do and how communities should respond. There is a list of resources, activities, and events for those who want to act locally and think globally.
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28-Jan-2010
The French doctors group Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) is dedicated to helping the poor and needy across the world. It has a comprehenisve website with details of its activities, and a directory of all the countries it operates in. There is also a special coverage of its work on the ground in Haiiti.
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27-Jan-2010
George Clooney has hosted a benefit concert for Haiti earthquake victims featuring A-List names such as Madonna, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt and Jay Z.
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26-Jan-2010
The English National Gallery's exhibition titled The Sacred Made Real, brought together stunning art celebrating Spanish religious art of the 17th century. The exhibition ended over the weekend but on the Gallery's website you can still see some of the memorable paintings and sculptures that were on display. There is also an excellent video introduction to the exhibition by its curator.
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25-Jan-2010
The official website for Australia Day has listings for all the events organised around the country. It is the essential tool for going out to enjoy our national day. The site also includes a history of the day and information about reconciliation with Aboriginal people.
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25-Jan-2010
Disturbing is probably the word I would settle on to describe the effect of Law Abiding Citizen. It is also unbelievable. Yet one of the reasons for seeing this film is that it is very well made and tests audience sympathies.
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29-Jan-2010
A couple of years ago former hard rocker Paul Stewart was dying of liver failure in a Melbourne hospital. His life of excess had finally caught up with him. One night a nun appeared at his bedside. She promised to get all her fellow religious sisters in East Timor to pray for him. The next morning Paul heard that he would receive a new liver.
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27-Jan-2010
Inter-faith contacts are proliferating in local communities but dialogue at a scholarly level makes special demands. The ABC's Encounter program presents voices of experience in this most historically compelling form of dialogue.
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26-Jan-2010
Once notorious for drink, drugs and violence, Australia’s largest urban Aboriginal community in the Sydney suburb of Redfern is today on the cusp of a momentous transformation. The story of how it got there involves a Catholic priest and a family of boxers who won’t take no for an answer. It’s a story which gives all of us hope for the future.
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28-Jan-2010
Joel Schorn's book Holy Simplicity presents us with the lives of three women of our times - Mother Teresa, St Thérèse of Lisieux, and journalist Dorothy Day - who achieved great holiness by doing things “the little way” of simplicity, total love for God and the people around them.
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29-Jan-2010
Ten days ago ago marked the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and the legalisation of abortion in the United States. A nun reflects on a subject that has been compared to the slavery debate in its capacity for polarising people.
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28-Jan-2010
General Peter Cosgrove's Sunshine and Shade Australia Day address could represent a turning point in our maturity as a nation if we can join him in admitting the existence of a 'strand of racism' in Australia. We need a chorus of political leaders to back General Cosgrove, writes Michael Mullins.
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27-Jan-2010
It seemed to come out of nowhere, it ran its course within a fortnight and the damage inflicted was mild compared with religious conflicts in other parts of the world. But this month's attacks on churches in Malaysia are a sinister development, a portent of great changes afoot in what used to be one of South-East Asia's most stable and peaceful democracies.
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26-Jan-2010
Tony Abbott's recent speech on immigration policy provides helpful material for Australia Day reflection. He simultaneously argued for a larger immigration policy and for strict controls over asylum seekers who arrived by boat. This flows from the Howard principle, and saddles him with a policy towards asylum seekers that is necessarily inhumane, writes Andrew Hamilton.
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25-Jan-2010
Whether
republican or monarchist, most of us took some delight in seeing the
Aboriginal kids of Redfern interacting so happily with Prince William a
week before Australia Day, writes Frank Brennan. Though
Australia is a multicultural society spared the plight of ongoing
racial and religious conflicts, the world still wonders about the limit
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