News
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21-Nov-2012
The Nativity story is not merely an event in the past, but has unfolding significance for people today, Pope Benedict writes in his final volume on the life of Jesus, reports the Catholic News Service. The book also debunks several Christmas traditions, including the year of Jesus' birth, and the suggestion that animals were present at the birth in a stable in Bethlehem, reports the BBC.
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20-Nov-2012
The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has dismissed American priest Roy Bourgeois from the priesthood because of his participation in the invalid ordination of a woman and "a simulated Mass," the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers announced on Monday, reports the Cstholic News Service.
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19-Nov-2012
Paolo Sciarpelletti, the Secretariat of State’s computer technician who was tried for his involvement in the Vatican document leak scandal, has presented an appeal against the sentence handed down from the Vatican tribunal, Vatican insider reports.
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19-Nov-2012
Campion College in western Sydney has been asked by the local council to re-evaluate a controversial development application, reports the Parramatta Advertiser.
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18-Nov-2012
NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell has effectively shut people out of the democratic process by fast-tracking AGL's application to mine coal seam gas across a wide area of suburban Sydney and transferring the project to new legislation which wipes out any right of appeal, according to Discalced Carmelite Friar, Father Greg Burke OCD, reports the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney.
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18-Nov-2012
Milan's Duomo cathedral is putting its gargoyles up for adoption in an attempt to raise money for renovations, the ABC reports.
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22-Nov-2012
Prominent Catholic social justice groups have called on the federal government to place human life, human rights and compassion ahead of political expediency, in response to measures enacted this week to discriminate further against people fleeing to Australia for refuge.
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21-Nov-2012
Opus Dei is suing a Danish publisher for alleged trademark violations involving a card game titled "Opus Dei. Existence After Religion," according to an AP report in The Australian.
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19-Nov-2012
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the association of the leaders of congregations of Catholic women religious in the United States, has been awarded the Herbert Haag 2013, reports Vatican Insider.
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19-Nov-2012
The ruling by two British Tribunals that a Catholic adoption agency must give access to same sex couples wishing to adopt or lose its status as a charity is the latest example of how religious freedoms are being eroded, says Rocco Mimmo, Founder and Chairman of the Ambrose Centre for Religious Freedom, reports the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney.
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18-Nov-2012
U2 singer Bono travelled to the Vatican on Friday to thank the Church for its work to free the world's least developed countries from their foreign debt, enabling them to invest in education, reports the Catholic News Agency.
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22-Nov-2012
Four people have died and a Christian Church was set alight by a group of angry Muslims in northern Nigeria after a misunderstanding spread about the name of the Prophet Mohammed, Vatican Insider reports.
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22-Nov-2012
An English religious congregation which provided teachers to an East Yorkshire residential school can be held liable for the sex abuse which took place there, the Supreme Court in England has ruled, reports The Catholic Herald.
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21-Nov-2012
The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal Pell, will be empowered to appoint a governing council at the troubled St John's College at the University of Sydney under a bill introduced to parliament by the Premier, Barry O'Farrell, reports the& Sydney Morning Herald.
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21-Nov-2012
The Edmund Rice Centre has questioned the changes to asylum policy announced today by the Federal Government, naming them as running in direct contradiction to what Australia is asking of other nations in our region, it said in a media statement.
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21-Nov-2012
The NSW government will push ahead with a Special Commission of Inquiry into the handling of allegations of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the Hunter, despite the royal commission into child abuse that the federal government has announced, reports the Newcastle Herald.
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21-Nov-2012
A senior Sydney priest has accused Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of attacking the seal of confession for his own political ends, the Catholic Weekly reports.
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20-Nov-2012
The Catholic Church will review its national sexual abuse complaints policy at next week's meeting of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, reports The Australian.
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20-Nov-2012
A Pakistani court has ended a blasphemy case against a Christian girl, say media reports, according to an AAP report in The Australian.
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20-Nov-2012
The Church of England has again voted down the introduction of women bishops, after a long and divisive debate including over 100 speeches, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
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20-Nov-2012
The coordinator of the Marist Asylum Seeker and Refugee Services says the United Nations' alarm that conditions on Nauru for asylum seekers have become "unbearable" is well founded, reports the Archdiocese of Sydney.
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20-Nov-2012
Christian leaders in Israel have appealed to "peace-loving people across the world to work with their governments and fellow citizens to stop the destruction and the carnage that is going on in Gaza," they said in a statement, reported by the Independent Catholic News.
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19-Nov-2012
Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has moved to rein in expectations about the scope of the national royal commission into child sexual abuse, playing down victims' hopes for compensation, reports The Australian. But legal experts claim victims will be able to sue the Church for compensation, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
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19-Nov-2012
Tens of thousands of people have protested in France against plans to legalise same-sex marriage and allow gay couples to adopt, the BBC reports.
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18-Nov-2012
The Catholic Church holds thousands of pages of documents containing the personal profiles of dozens of clergy accused of sexually abusing children and vulnerable adults, according to a report published inThe Sydney Morning Herald.
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18-Nov-2012
The Catholic Church in Melbourne has responded to one of the most tumultuous weeks in its history by urging parishioners to maintain the faith, reports The Brimbank Weekly. Meanwhile, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that 95 per cent of voters backs Prime Minister Julia Gillard's decision to establish a royal commission into the sexual abuse of children.
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15-Nov-2012
The royal commission on child sex abuse might become a joint federal-state inquiry, Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has flagged, reports The Age.
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15-Nov-2012
Whether priests respect the sanctity of the confessional is likely to be irrelevant to the royal commission into child sexual abuse because few people attend and those who do don't reveal such matters, reportsThe Australian.
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18-Nov-2012
Campaigners have brought a legal challenge against a London council, claiming that in approving two new Catholic schools it had broken the law and discriminated against non-Catholic children, reports The Telegraph in England
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22-Nov-2012
Sr Myree Harris rsj of the Coalition of Appropriate Supported Accommodation has scored a victory in her 20-year advocacy of reform standards and regulations on boarding houses, with new legislation in NSW to come into force in January, reports Catholic Communications Sydney, and republished by Catholic Religious Australia.
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Regulars
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22-Nov-2012
A new paternity leave policy announced last month has divided members of Hong Kong diocese, reports Ucanews. The five-day leave will apply equally to all male diocesan employees whether their child is born in or out of wedlock, reports Ucanews.
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21-Nov-2012
A few weeks ago I had the chance to walk through two cemeteries within a week’s time. As I strolled through the beautifully landscaped grounds and in between the headstones I looked at the names and family relationships that were etched onto the stones: mother, father, husband, wife, baby, writes Andy Otto in Busted Halo.
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20-Nov-2012
The Tsou indigenous people of central Taiwan number only around 7,000. But a significant number of them are Catholic and, this Christmas, they are looking forward to receiving a very special gift: Father Anton Weber is going to present them with a copy of the New Testament, in their own Tsou dialect, reports Ucanews.
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19-Nov-2012
Comboni Sister Azezet Kidane is fluent in Amharic, Tigrit, Arabic and Sudanese dialects, so she was a natural choice when a shelter for African refugees needed help. It was only after the nun, known as Sister Aziza, began conducting interviews with Eritrean refugees that she realised the people she was talking to had been tortured, reports the Catholic News Service.
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18-Nov-2012
Emmy Award winning film-maker tells Sr Camille D'Arienzo about the lessons from his own childhood that motivate him to provide his family with the peace and joy lacking in his own, in NCR Online.
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22-Nov-2012
Good Samaritan Education, a new entity within the Catholic Church with responsibility for the ethos and mission that enlivens Good Samaritan schools in Australia, has launched its new website.
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21-Nov-2012
ACMRO has been active in trying to offer alternatives to refugee detention. Its website carries a broad range of documents, articles and other information.
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20-Nov-2012
The Catholic Women’s League of Victoria and Wagga Wagga has a broad range of information to meet the increasing demand from around the world for information about the cause of Dr Sr Mary Glowrey JMJ.
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19-Nov-2012
Sister Elvira Maria de Witt, DCJ, is an opera singer turned nun who has found a new way to win vocations to the religious life - by going online.
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18-Nov-2012
Twenty years ago world leaders came to Rio to plan a better future for our planet. CAFOD invites readers to cheer themselves up about what has been achieved by watching this new animation from Stop Climate Chaos.
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22-Nov-2012
Watching Derren Brown’s program The Heist on SBS recently made me think of the Lord’s Prayer: the “lead us not into temptation” bit. It was a chilling exploration of how to break down people’s resistance to dishonesty and even violence. It was calculated, artful and frighteningly effective
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21-Nov-2012
This is an American film about an ageing, lonely jewel thief, Frank Weld (Frank Langella), who has served two terms in prison for theft. As Frank slips into dementia, his son, Hunter (James Marsden), tries to find a way of avoiding committing his father to a nursing home, and gives his father a robot as a companion (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard).
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20-Nov-2012
Not exactly a perfect circle, one episode leading into the next and then the next…, even though this film takes its inspiration from Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde. Rather, there are all kinds of interconnections within the circle – which does lead us back to where we started.
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19-Nov-2012
This program of the ABC's Religion and Ethics Report features a discussion with one of Australia's most respected child protection experts, who has abandoned his support for the Catholic Church's protocol on dealing with child sex abuse, and another segment on the new Archbishop of Canterbury.
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18-Nov-2012
Sinister? Definitely. As a reviewer who rarely really jumps at films, I will confess to jumping any number of times during sinister – even at the last image. Not only the jumping, but frequent peculiar feelings of spine-tingling.
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22-Nov-2012
How did I respond to the announcement of the Royal Commission? One of my first feelings was relief that, at last, this whole question might be openly investigated and the goals of prevention, healing and justice promoted. I also felt a sense of shame for the many times and ways that the Church and its leadership failed to respond, writes Sr Annette Cunliffe rsc in Catholic Religious Australia.
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21-Nov-2012
The Royal Commission into child sexual abuse can only be a good thing for the Catholic Church. It is a chance to account for the betrayal and crimes of priests and other church representatives who committed acts of abuse against the vulnerable, and for the careless, even callous way in which many church officials responded to complaints against their own. This will be a long overdue first step in moving forward, writes Michael McVeigh in Eureka Street.
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20-Nov-2012
The royal commission's wide remit is fair but a nightmare in practice, writes Michelle Grattan in The Age.
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19-Nov-2012
There are some ideas so bad they need to be killed quickly. Not just to protect those affected by them, but those pushing them. Breaking the seal of the Catholic confessional is such an albatross, writes Greg Craven in The Australian.
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18-Nov-2012
In two weeks' time the Australian bishops will meet in their biannual meeting. It is obvious the Royal Commission into sexual abuse will be a major topic. I respectfully suggest some matters for their attention, writes Bishop Geoffrey Robinson in Eureka Street.
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