News
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In a letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Pope Benedict has
called for "the rapid, total and unconditional cancellation" of the
debt of the world's poorest countries.
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Women activists have expressed concerns over the Government's 24-hour
pregnancy helpline which will store recorded conversations between
callers and counsellors for seven years.
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In its annual message to the world's Buddhists as they celebrate their
Feast of Vesakh, the Vatican says that interreligious harmony is
possible even in areas ravaged by war, starting with peace education in
"ordinary homes".
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Opposition leader Kevin Rudd's star recruit and former journalist,
Maxine McKew, has launched a new book on Elizabeth McQuoin, the
pioneering Mercy nun who helped found a congregation in Sydney.
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Organisers of Pope Benedict's upcoming visit to Brazil are making him a
throne of recyclable materials while a Italian shoe manufacturers have
given the pontiff 15,000 pairs of shoes for the poor plus a kangaroo
hide pair for himself.
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In a submission to the Government's Fair Pay Commission, the Church's
industrial relations body has called for the minimum wage to be
increased by $27 a week so that an average family will achieve "an
acceptable standard of living".
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In a long-awaited document published on Friday, the Vatican says that
the traditional view of limbo as the destiny of those who die
unbaptised is based on an "unduly restrictive view of salvation" and
that God "wants all human beings to be saved".
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NSW racehorse trainers claim that the two-day World Youth Day event
with Pope Benedict at Randwick racecourse next year will cost them up
to $12 million in relocation expenses.
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Catholic and Jewish experts are concerned that relations between the
faiths may go backwards if plans to revive the Latin Mass allow prayers
for conversion of the Jews to be reinstated.
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As the nation's political leaders discuss emergency water conservation
plans, Archbishop Philip Wilson has taken up Prime Minister John
Howard's call to pray for rain - but a Melbourne priest says the prayer
is "pointless".
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Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace head, Cardinal Renato Martino
says that everyone needs to be concerned about climate change, not just
scientists.
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A planned bullet-train tunnel will pass within two metres of the wall
of the Sagrada Familia cathedral designed by Antonio Gaudi, threatening
the Barcelona landmark, engineers fear.
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Four young men and a woman have been charged with terrorism offences
over the murder of three workers at a Christian publishing house in the
eastern Turkey city of Malatya.
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China's top state-appointed Bishop Michael Fu Tieshan of Beijing who
was never recognised by the Holy See has died at the age of 75, leaving
China's most important episcopal see vacant as Pope Benedict prepares
to publish a letter to Chinese Catholics.
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An Indonesian priest has called for compensation for thousands of
villagers who have lost their homes and livelihoods after an explosion
at a part Australian-owned gas pipeline triggered a huge mudflow.
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Lamenting that the Church in Iraq is disappearing under continued
persecution, the Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk has launched
a new appeal for unity between people in Iraq.
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Thousands of placard-carrying marchers descended on the Mexico City's
Catholic cathedral yesterday in a mass protest against a proposal to
allow abortions to be performed in the Mexican capital.
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The head of Nigeria's bishops conference, Archbishop Felix Alaba
Adeosin Job, has joined human rights groups in denouncing the recent
violence-marred presidential elections.
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Griffith Mayor Dino Zappacosta has hit out at Fr Chris Riley of Youth
off the Streets, which was launched in the NSW city at the weekend,
over his alleged failure to involve the council in addressing youth
violence issues.
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A Sydney woman, Ms Viviana Hood, has been appointed as the new CEO of parish and school supplies giant, Church Resources.
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In a renewed attack against federal industrial relations laws,
Parramatta Bishop Kevin Manning says that "the Government has canonised
the economy" through WorkChoices, as Broome Bishop Christopher Saunders
releases a statement to mark the feast day of St Joseph the Worker.
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A fashion frenzy hit the streets of Liverpool in south western Sydney
on Monday when the local Vinnies store's $10 bag clothing sale began.
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Sax-playing Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez and political cartoonist
Fiona Katauskas have called on 300 young people at the Sydney Festival
for Global Concern to follow their passion and "just work for justice".
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Admitting that the times are not easy for the Church, the bishops
conference president, Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide, says that
Western culture remains open to Christianity and that there are grounds
for optimism.
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Regulars
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Our present manner and method of passing on the faith is not adequate.
The faith as we treasure it is not being received by present
generations. To preach effectively in this era of stark materialism and
faithless self-gratification requires a "new imagination" beyond
anything we have experienced before in our lives. This imagination is
the ability to create images - to cope with what we are experiencing in
our pastoral endeavours and to cast aside images which are no longer
helpful - Bishop Christopher Saunders
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Like many Anzacs that Belgian morning, Lieutenant Leo Corrigan, of
Waverley, NSW, was almost certainly soaked from the waist down before
he set off. Corrigan bumbled into the bog, his rosary beads nestled in
a tunic pocket. We don't know how far he had plodded when a shell hit
him, killing him instantly. Deidre Shannon believes her uncle was a
kindly soul and that his mother never recovered from his loss. "I feel
having lost him, so tragically, so young, with her hope that he would
be a priest, his loss would have been a great thing to her" - Patrick Carlyon
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Much of opposition leader Kevin Rudd's youth has been well documented.
But one aspect of his life he likes to gloss over is the two years he
spent boarding at one of Brisbane's elite Catholic boys schools after
his father died, perhaps because it was such a traumatic experience, or
perhaps it does not fit with the hard-luck personal narrative he has
woven to appeal to aspirational voters. Acknowledged or not, Rudd's
time at Ashgrove reveals much about the child he was and the man he
would become - Cosima Marriner
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I was interested to read about research carried out by the University
of NSW which shows that the human brain processes and retains more
information if it is digested in either its verbal or written form, but
not both at the same time. What, you may well ask, has this got to do
with liturgy? The researchers themselves provide the answer. They
question the wisdom of habits such as reading along with Bible passages
at the same time they are being read aloud in church - Elizabeth Harrington
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We read recently of the Brisbane woman who flew to India to receive
injections of embryonic stem cells into her spinal injury. It is one of
the unhappier jobs of a doctor to tell a patient he or she is a victim
of false hope. But somebody has to do it, and guide them back to
reality and any genuine hope for treatment. Some patients can be
desperate for miracle cures, grasping at anything. The cloning lobby
knows that raising false hope is the most effective approach - Dr David van Gend
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There are very strong reasons why Benedict's attendance at the upcoming
Brazil meeting will enter into South American history, just as did -
for other reasons - two of the continental meetings that preceded it:
the one in Medellin, Colombia in 1968, and the one in Puebla, Mexico in
1979. The address that John Paul II delivered in Puebla had a strong
impact, inaugurating the decade-long battle that Rome would fight and
win, with the unyielding support of then-Cardinal Ratzinger, against
the Marxist utopianism disguised as liberation theology - Sandro Magister
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Anyone who has ventured into the Catholic blogosphere recently is aware that speculation about a motu proprio
- a document under the pope's personal authority - on the pre-Vatican
II Mass has been at a fever pitch for months. In part, the frenzy has
been stoked by a series of over-anxious news reports containing
rumoured release dates. At the risk of raining on the "motu-mania"
parade, however, it's worth noting that many experts believe this
breathless anticipation will, in the long run, seem excessive in terms
of the document's real-world impact - John L Allen
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From the Christian perspective any attempt to attribute large
significance to Anzac Day and to wars is suspect. When we say that
people sacrificed their lives for an abstract cause like victory or
nationhood, we easily imply that their lives and deaths are given value
only by the cause they serve. We lose sight of the preciousness of each
human life, and equate human value with usefulness. Rhetoric about war
is particularly vulnerable to this instrumentalising of human beings,
because its core business implies that human lives are expendable - Fr Andrew Hamilton
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