News - National
-
08-Dec-2011
Catholic Health Australia (CHA) has released a submission in response to a Treasury consultation, on the definition of charity - saying it is not opposed to the codification of the current common law definition.
» more
-
07-Dec-2011
Any change to federal law to allow gay marriage was likely to be challenged in the High Court of Australia, according to Father Frank Brennan, reports the Courier-Mail.
» more
-
07-Dec-2011
Father Chris Riley, the latest face in the clubs' campaign to block pokies reform, accepted $50,000 for a youth centre operated by his charity from Len Ainsworth, the founder of Australia's largest gaming machine company, Aristocrat Leisure, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
» more
-
06-Dec-2011
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has indicated the Coalition will hold the party line against gay marriage, and Coalition MPs may have to cross the floor to exercise a conscience vote, said an AAP report in the Sydney Morning Herald.
» more
-
06-Dec-2011
The gambling lobby has enlisted the support of the renowned western Sydney youth worker Father Chris Riley in its battle against the Gillard government's proposed poker machine reforms, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
» more
-
04-Dec-2011
Labor's approval of gay marriage has sparked a pulpit-led revolt and accusations that Julia Gillard has breached an election promise to protect the Marriage Act, reports The Australian.
» more
-
06-Dec-2011
The Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne will appeal to VCAT after Yarra Council rejected its application to demolish the heritage-listed St Joseph's Church in Collingwood, reports the Melbourne Times Weekly.
» more
-
05-Dec-2011
The Age reports that a Catholic religious brother has escaped justice for more than three decades over his alleged serial abuse of Victorian children and teenagers in the 1970s and 1980s, due partly to the failure of the church to notify police of complaints about his conduct.
» more
-
05-Dec-2011
The St Nicholas Russian Catholic Community in Melbourne now has a "new and permanent home" in St Kilda East, according to a media release from the community.
» more
-
04-Dec-2011
A crowd of about 100 people gathered on the steps of Victoria's Parliament yesterday to demand an inquiry into child sex abuse by Victorian Catholic priests, reports the Age.
» more
-
08-Dec-2011
A proposal to install six bronze bells and a sound control into the existing bell at St Leonard's Church in northern Sydney is on hold while a working party deliberates the plan's pros and cons, reports the North Shore Times.
» more
-
07-Dec-2011
The Manly Catholic Social Justice Group's hope of a happy outcome in its support for a fee-paying Indian student held in immigration detention for nearly 18 months has nose-dived, reports the Catholic Weekly.
» more
-
07-Dec-2011
Wagga Wagga priest Father Michael Kennedy has been appointed Bishop of Armidale, following the resignation of Bishop Luc Matthys who has reached the age limit, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference said in a statement.
» more
-
06-Dec-2011
Three young men will dedicate their lives to the faith during an ordination ceremony at St Carthage's Cathedral in Lismore, northern NSW, tomorrow night, reports the Northern Star.
» more
-
07-Dec-2011
The ACT Government has defended new health service agreements which were signed yesterday with the operators of Calvary's public hospital, after years of tussling over the future of Calvary, reports the ABC.
» more
News - International
-
08-Dec-2011
The Holy See's secretary for Relations with States has proposed a world day against the persecution of Christians, said a report on the Independent Catholic News.
» more
-
08-Dec-2011
The Church is facing calls to provide the contraceptive pill to nearly 100,000 nuns worldwide as a way of reducing their risk of dying from cancer, reports the Australian.
» more
-
05-Dec-2011
Excessive focus on money is destroying the environment and dehumanising people, said Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, president of Caritas Internationalis, according to the Catholic News Service.
» more
-
05-Dec-2011
A Vatican envoy to Myanmar, visiting the country this week on the occasion of the centenary of Yangon's Cathedral, will meet opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, said reports on Vatican Insider and by AFP on Google News.
» more
-
04-Dec-2011
With a view toward the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, a pontifical committee has launched a worldwide treasure hunt, reports the Catholic News Service.
» more
-
08-Dec-2011
The US College Theology Society says the attack by US bishops against theologian Sr Elizabeth Johnson represents a "fundamental breach" in the call for dialogue in the church and wounds the "entire community of Catholic theologians", reports NCR.
» more
-
07-Dec-2011
A conference series hosted by two US Jesuit universities appears to have questioned and undermined Church teaching on sexuality and marriage, according to a report by the Cardinal Newman Society, said the Catholic News Agency.
» more
-
06-Dec-2011
A judge in Portland, Oregon has declined to order face-to-face questioning of Vatican officials in a lawsuit claiming that the Vatican was the employer of an abusive priest in the 1960s, said a Catholic News Service report in the National Catholic Reporter.
» more
-
05-Dec-2011
Audits of six Irish Catholic dioceses reveal "a marked improvement" in how the church is handling clerical abuse allegations, according to a Catholic News Service report in NCR Online.
» more
-
04-Dec-2011
Four Flemish priests in Belgium have issued a church reform manifesto calling for the appointment of laypeople as parish pastors, liturgical leaders and preachers, and for the ordination of married men and women as priests, reports the National Catholic Reporter.
» more
-
04-Dec-2011
Accused of defying Vatican guidelines on homosexual civil partnerships, Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster says he is simply trying to defend the "profound human good" of traditional marriage, reports the Catholic News Agency.
» more
-
08-Dec-2011
Myanmar's Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi met with the Vatican's envoy to the country this week at celebrations marking the centenary of St Mary's Cathedral in Yangon, reports ucanews.com.
» more
-
04-Dec-2011
Hundreds of priests and parishioners have been attacked in Vietnam's capital of Hanoi by a large contingent of police and militiamen, after they submitted a petition appealing for the authorities not to build a sewage treatment plant on church land, said a report on Independent Catholic News.
» more
-
06-Dec-2011
Catholic leaders in Egypt have voiced surprise and alarm at the success of Islamist groups in the first round of Egypt's parliamentary elections but stressed that the process is still in an early phase, reports the Catholic News Agency.
» more
-
05-Dec-2011
The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka plans to boycott all government functions over Christmas in protest over the arrest of an Indian religious sister on child trafficking charges, reports ucanews.com.
» more
Regulars
-
08-Dec-2011
In late October, on the day an unseasonal snowstorm broke weather records and almost shut down parts of the American Northeast, something else happened that was perhaps unprecedented: A Catholic university hosted a daylong formal discussion on the topic of homosexuality within communities of nuns and priests, reports NCR Online.
» more
-
07-Dec-2011
She was the youngest of eight children growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania. Her brother invited her to play baseball with the local kids in a nearby field - and she was hooked. Now 80, Mercy Sr Mary Bride Diamond looks back on her years as a ballplayer - one good enough to go professional, reports NCR Online.
» more
-
06-Dec-2011
One hundred and fifty years from his birth and 75 years after his martyrdom during the Spanish civil war, the first gypsy saint has been celebratede anew, reports Vatican Insider.
» more
-
05-Dec-2011
Five years after Pope Benedict XVI’s Regensburg address that ignited protests around the Islamic world, the Catholic-Muslim Forum established to improve interfaith relations has said that what began as formal dialogue has become increasingly characterised by friendship, reports the Tablet.
» more
-
04-Dec-2011
As the Vatican's top culture man, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi breaks off from his rounds at least once a day to shoot off a tweet to his followers, either snappy quotes from the Bible, famous philosophers and dons, or details about art festivals, according to an AFP report in Google News.
» more
-
08-Dec-2011
The Washington Post On Faith portal has a gallery with images of faith from around world.
» more
-
07-Dec-2011
In February, the Vatican's Secret Archives will show a 100 of its prized documents. Among them, is the original parchment that holds the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. It's titled the 'Bolla Ineffabilis Deus.' Rome Reports has a video item about this and other current stories of interest.
» more
-
06-Dec-2011
Language expert, Professor Roly Sussex, explores political correctness at Christmas time on ABC local radio, in a downloadable podcast.
» more
-
05-Dec-2011
The Catholic Women's League of Australia has launched its own Youtube channel. The first video loaded up is a talk by Fr Paschal Corby OFM Conv about the feminine genius of Dr Sr Mary Glowrey JMJ.
» more
-
04-Dec-2011
Catholics Come Home is an American organisation that aims to present the& truth about even very difficult subjects. It has launched a new advertising campaign, starting this week, to bring Catholics back to church. The ads can be seen on its website.
» more
-
08-Dec-2011
Machine Gun Preacher is set is Uganda and South Sudan.The hero is Sam Childers, a Pennsylvania tough guy who served a prison sentence, loved guns, could be brutal towards his wife but who had a conversion experience after thinking he and a friend had killed a man.
» more
-
07-Dec-2011
We remember the Aardman Studios for their wonderful animation short films, especially those with Wallace and Gromit. More recently they have made feature films, Chicken Run and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Arthur Christmas is the younger son of the current Santa Claus.
» more
-
06-Dec-2011
Toomelah, northwestern New South Wales, indigenous community. Writer, director, photographer, composer Ivan Sen came from Toomelah. He knows what he is talking about. He knows what he is dramatising. This is very clear in this sometimes quietly compassionate film, a film that sometimes reveals an inherited anger.
» more
-
05-Dec-2011
This film is a documentary on the work of Brazilian contemporary photographer-artist, Vik Muniz, who stars in the film. His art here is made from recyclable materials at a huge landfill that serves the waste needs of the people of Rio de Janeiro. It is a wonderful documentary - positive, affirming of life, and depicting the triumph of spirit over adversity
» more
-
04-Dec-2011
At a funeral, Enoch meets a young woman, Annabel, and they start a relationship. Enoch’s hobby is to attend funerals of strangers when he is not invited to them. He is a depressed young man. Annabel and Enoch fall in love, and Annabel tells Enoch that she has three months to live.
» more
-
08-Dec-2011
I am often asked if I preach on abortion and, if not, why not. The questioners sometimes kindly supply me with the answer. If I do not preach on abortion, it is surely because I am afraid of alienating my liberal friends, writes Andrew Hamilton in Eureka Street.
» more
-
07-Dec-2011
In the future, collaboration among Catholic institutions will be essential. Yet too many Catholic organisations remain locked in a survivalist mindset. It may no longer be possible for each religious order to maintain its own retreat houses or schools, writes America magazine in an editorial.
» more
-
06-Dec-2011
“These are not ‘protest people.’ They are people of faith. They are raising their voices. They hope their bishops are listening,” said Fr John Dekimpe, one of four Flemish priests who thought Advent was a good time to issue a call for reform and renewal in the church, writes NCR in an editorial.
» more
-
05-Dec-2011
A decade into the arc of the Church's sex abuse crisis, we now have a new symbol of another of its distressing features: The way all Catholic priests have been tarred with the same brush, presumed guilty until proven innocent and often cut loose by officialdom at the first hint of an allegation, writes John Allen in NCR Online.
» more
-
04-Dec-2011
Rupert Murdoch’s attitude to sacred music is symptomatic of the modern age’s attitude to religious art in general. People like pretty things, and want to enjoy them, but they do not care about the context in which such beautiful things emerged.
» more