News
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Speaking to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Pope Benedict
has identified the environment as well as respect for human dignity and
recognition of spiritual values as three major challenges for humanity
today.
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Christians, Muslims and Jews have come together for a "landmark" Middle
East peace congress organised by Australia's bishops - but
controversial Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly was not invited.
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The Australian Catholic University has won a $423,000 contract from the
Australian Government's AusAID program to train educational leaders
from South East Asia and East Timor.
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Catholic Social Services chief Frank Quinlan has welcomed today's
launch of the Federal Government's Pregnancy Telephone Counselling
Helpline.
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Pope Benedict yesterday appointed Melbourne priests, Salesian Fr
Timothy Costelloe and Msgr Peter Elliott as bishops for Australia's
biggest diocese.
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Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is staying at the
Vatican's Domus Sanctae Marthae - residence of the conclave cardinals
who elected Pope Benedict - while he participates in a Holy See seminar
on charity and justice.
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Reports are emerging from Catholic schools in NSW and Victoria of a
spate of mobile phone and MySpace incidents including bullying, bad
language and graphic photos.
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Mercy Sisters owned media agency Fraynework has taken out a series of
prizes at a leading international interactive media awards competition.
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British Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor and an international group of
bishops have challenged Group of Eight leaders to redouble their aid
efforts for Africa.
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Only 50 days after registrations opened, more than 1,000 groups
representing 65,000 participants have already enrolled for next year's
World Youth Day in Sydney, organisers say.
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With up to 120,000 overseas pilgrims expected for World Youth Day next
year, there will be "just too many to come into Sydney", Cardinal
George Pell said yesterday, adding that many pilgrims will need to fly
into other east coast ports.
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Australian Columban ecologist Fr Charles Rue, who was one of 80
invitees to a Vatican climate change conference, says that sceptics
shot themselves in the foot during the event with "their litany of
objections" and the "absurdity" of their positions.
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Genoa Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, who has been leading the Italian
Church's campaign against same sex marriages, has received a bullet in
the mail together with his photo with a swastika cut into the paper.
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The European Parliament has passed a resolution criticising politicians
and religious leaders for "discriminatory comments" on homosexuals and
allegedly "fermenting hatred and violence".
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Caritas New Zealand has come out in support of a "third way" amendment
to a controversial parliamentary bill on physical punishment of
children that seeks to outlaw most cases of spanking.
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The famous bells of St Stephen's Vienna are being fitted with sensors
to determine the secrets of their chimes - as well as their projected
life spans.
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Nuns, priests and a seminarian have joined a group of Catholic farmers
in southern Java, Indonesia, to promote organic food crops and assist
the farmers to commercialise their products.
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A Catholic-linked hospital in Kumamoto, south-western Japan, is testing
the country's first baby hatch where mothers can anonymously drop off
newborn babies.
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Peasant farmers in Mexico are crediting a Mexican Robin Hood, who was
hanged in 1909 and has become known as the patron saint of narcotics
traffickers, for their bumper crop prices.
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An Irish medical missionary Sr Elsie Furlong has died from the bite of
a hunting spider last week while working in northern Kenya near the
Sudanese border.
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Responding to a new Mexico City law legalising abortions in the Mexican
capital, the country's bishops have called on doctors to refuse to
perform abortions.
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Pope Benedict has asked for prayers for his upcoming trip to Brazil
beginning next week with a battle over abortion expected to figure on
the pontiff's agenda.
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Griffith police are investigating allegations of child prostitution in
the southern NSW town that have been reported by a local paper and
backed by Youth off The Streets founder, Fr Chris Riley.
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Well known Jesuit social commentator Fr Frank Brennan is seriously ill
in a Sydney hospital after accompanying a group of high school students
to Papua New Guinea for a Kokoda Track trek.
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Head of emergency at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital, Dr Gordian Fuldem,
has praised a $150 million Federal Government plan to combat the "ice"
crystal methamphetamine epidemic.
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Children live in states of divine consciousness and bliss and should be
taught meditation from as early as five, visiting Benedictine monk Fr
Laurence Freeman says - and teachers confirm that the practice reduces
aggression among students.
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All Adelaide church workers and volunteers will require police checks,
the city's archdiocese has announced - and top church officials
including Archbishop Philip Wilson will be among the first to undergo
the checks.
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Western Australian police say that they will not pursue a criminal
investigation of donations collected by a Rockingham woman to view an
alleged Weeping Madonna statue at her home.
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Hobart Archbishop Adrian Doyle is calling on the Tasmanian government
to revise anti-discrimination laws that make it technically illegal for
Catholic schools to give enrolment priority to Catholic children.
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Forty Sisters of St Joseph from both "black" and "brown" branches moved
towards closer ties and greater collaboration during a meeting
described as "historic" last week in Hobart.
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Regulars
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Helping to lift Africa out of poverty appeals to the idealist in many
of us. But for Gemma Sisia, a teacher from regional Australia, it's
real life. She is changing the lives of hundreds of school children in
east Africa through her School of St Jude in northern Tanzania. A
devout Catholic, Sisia named the school after the patron saint of
hopeless causes, whom she now sees as a real person helping her and the
school when they desperately need funding or good luck - Adele O'Hare
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June Norman is not some radical, dreadlocked ratbag, although she has
been arrested for her protesting. She is a woman with five children and
seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, from a conservative
background who has simply decided to live a life less ordinary. She
splits her time between working in East Timor as a teacher, originally
with the Catholic agency PALMS, and in Australia as an activist. At 67,
she's a latecomer to the activism thing - Kathleen Noonan
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The Vatican's International Theological Commission last month released its long-awaited document, The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised.
The document has sparked a lot of controversy but Commission member Sr
Sara Butler says that contrary to media reports, the statement makes no
blanket declaration on limbo. "It only attempts to justify, in view of
what was previously the common teaching, that it is reasonable to hope
that these infants may be the object of God's special providence," she
said - Sr Sara Butler (interviewed by Andrew Rabel)
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A few years ago, I mentioned to an older friend that I was thinking of
pursuing philosophy as a "career". "That's interesting", he said, "but
don't you want to be able to support a family?" His impression was that
there was no money in philosophy. But things are beginning to change.
You'll notice that the latest movie, Romulus My Father,
is the work of ACU moral philosopher Raymond Gaita. But perhaps most
surprising is the award of the Templeton Prize, worth A$1.8 million, to
Charles Taylor, an eminent Canadian philosopher and public intellectual
- Michael McGann
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In the 1980s, I bought my first house, a fibre cottage situated on the
Woronora River in Sydney's Sutherland Shire. The Woronora River is
better known for the site of the Lucas Heights Nuclear Reactor than its
delicious rock oysters, leaping mullet and Como lilies. My memories of
life on the Woronora are still remarkably vivid. Just as vivid is my
recollection of a meeting I attended at the village in 1980. Speaking
at this meeting was Sr Rosalie Bertell, a visiting American nun with
impeccable academic credentials in several scientific fields - Col Brown
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In Federal Parliament last year, Senator John Faulkner argued there was
once a minority religion in Australia that threatened the fabric of our
society, whose members bred faster than the rest of "us" and whose poor
and uneducated were taught weird beliefs in their own schools. They
were called Catholics. Today, they seem to be everywhere, having taken
over the joint. Many of the things thrown at Australian Muslims in the
past five years - bundled together as "un-Australian" - are features of
other religions in our multicultural society - Peter Manning
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Last weekend, Sri Lankans huddled together around TV sets to cheer
their team battling unsuccessfully for the Cricket World Cup. But
nationwide panic following Tamil Tiger attacks on Colombo shattered the
momentary euphoria of togetherness even amid defeat. This seesaw of war
and cricket, the island's only current claim to news headlines, cannot
match the legendary fame of Serendip, the home of serendipitous people.
What set the island's Sinhalese and Tamil communities against each
other? - Hector Welgampola
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Over the past two decades there has been a massive encroachment of work
into family time. An increasing number are juggling the demands of work
with their family commitments. Perhaps it is time to put work in its
proper perspective. Can we reawaken the biblical notion of the Sabbath?
It is a time of liberation from the necessity of work, for rest and
giving thanks to God. Not limited to Sunday, it is about taking time to
find stability in family life, for worship and for recreation - Bishop Christopher Saunders
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With the 2008 election cycle in the United States already well
underway, a burning question-mark hovers over the Democratic Party in
its attempt to build on its 2006 success in Congress and to recapture
the White House: can it "get" religion? The real problem for the
Democrats over the last several election cycles has not been so much
particular candidates, but a perception that the party is in thrall to
highly secularised special interest groups who are hostile to religion
on principle - John L Allen
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Recently, a friend came to me and showed me an invitation her son had
received to attend his 14-year-old friend's birthday party. At the
bottom of the invite was written "BYO alcohol". My friend was in a
quandary. She did not want to condone under-age drinking but she did
not want to appear to be too strict in front of parents who encourage
these activities. Many parents are stating they are now experiencing
the peer group pressure they once felt as teenagers - Pauline Connelly
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