News
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While equal pay for equal work is accepted as a principle of labour
policy, United Nations Holy See envoy Archbishop Celestino Migliore
says that women in the workplace "are still too often overlooked or
undervalued".
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Praising volunteering as a "school of life", Pope Benedict has warned
against allowing the experience to degenerate into "simple activism".
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A capable non-profit "third sector" is necessary if Australia is to
achieve economic resilience, social inclusion and stronger, more
confident communities, according to Jesuit Fr Michael Kelly.
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Issuing a call for reconciliation between faith and science, the
president of the Vatican's science and social science academies, Bishop
Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, has identified three key "areas of conflict"
between the two domains.
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The Australian bishops have selected seven women from three states for
the second Young Catholic Women's Interfaith Fellowship program which
promotes young women's participation in the Church.
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A worldwide survey of 25,000 people from 46 countries has found that 70
per cent of people still believe that marriage should last for life,
with Catholics and Muslims in Asia heading the poll.
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Sydney priest Fr Paul Hilder is looking for the crest of a World War II
US naval destroyer that saved the lives of 627 Australian sailors for
display in a church honouring friendship between the US and Australia.
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Africa and Asia now account for over 20 per cent of Catholics in the
world, according to figures just released by the Holy See, while
overall the Church is keeping pace with the rate of population growth
around the world.
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While the UK Church advises people to pray to the Archangel Raphael -
the patron saint of "happy meetings" - to find love, Australia's
bishops in their Valentine's Day message say that sex is good and love
is sacred.
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As church bells tolled and a muezzin called Muslims to prayer, a crowd
of 300,000 Lebanese gathered for a huge rally in Beirut that opened
with a renewed call for Christian-Muslim unity.
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Archbishop Raymond Roussin of Vancouver, Canada, will direct Catholic
institutions to terminate their contracts with a mobile phone company
which has introduced a service offering pornographic photos and videos
available through its network.
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A Howard Government proposed $1.5 billion package of assistance for
aged care will deliver high care services more equitably and take
financial pressure off providers, according to Catholic Health
Australia head, Francis Sullivan.
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Former Victorian Labor premier John Cain has warned against a political
resurgence of religious "fundamentalism" following the election of
Catholic DLP parliamentarian, Peter Kavanagh, who responded by accusing
the former leader of inflaming prejudices.
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The Portuguese government says it will go ahead with plans to legalise
abortions in the predominantly Catholic country even though a weekend
referendum on the issue failed to attract the quorum required for a
binding vote.
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The parish priest of St Florentina on Rapu Rapu island in the central
Philippines has condemned the re-opening of an Australian-owned mine on
the island after the government lifted a 15-month suspension of
operations owing to earlier tailing spills.
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Welcoming an agreement announced in Beijing yesterday for North Korea
to wind down its nuclear program in exchange for fuel relief, Seoul
Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jinsuk said the deal had "averted a
catastrophe of unimaginable consequences".
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Indian Bishop Joseph Gomes and his West Bengal priests have banned at
least a dozen Catholic families from the sacraments for three years
after supporting marriage of children as young as six years old.
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A book by an Italian-Israeli historian who claims there is a factual
basis for medieval allegations of ritual murder of Christians has drawn
fire from Jewish and Catholic scholars.
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Jabalpur, India Bishop Gerald Almeida has called on Catholics to engage
in "soul searching" after the eyes of a life-size statue of the Sacred
Heart in a church yard began to ooze a blood-like substance.
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Warning that witchcraft is real and is destroying the Catholic Church
in Africa, scholars from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa say
that many African priests fear witchcraft or are ignorant of their
power to confront the devil.
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A Peruvian security firm has launched a campaign of spying and
intimidation against environmental activists and priests including one
who was dubbed "the devil", according to documents revealed by a local
newspaper.
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A Victorian jury yesterday found a church music director and Australian
Catholic University student not guilty of bashing his obsessive mother
to death with a hammer but guilty of manslaughter.
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The Society of St Vincent de Paul will next month open an innovative
budget grocery store as part of a neighbourhood renewal project in the
Victorian Ballarat suburb of Wendouree West.
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As Pope Benedict releases his message for Lent, NSW parishes are
requesting people to bring their own palms to this year's Palm Sunday
services after the drought drastically cut the supply of fronds.
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Australia's first Catholic crematorium will open in suburban Sydney
this Saturday with a Mass to be celebrated by Sydney Cardinal George
Pell, who nevertheless said that burial still remains the
"preferential" option.
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William Kamm, a self-proclaimed mystic known as the "Little Pebble",
yesterday faced fresh charges in a Sydney court of beginning a sexual
relationship with a 14-year-old follower selected as one of his
"queens".
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After a gruelling 75 hour journey, the first batch of four Nigerian
seminarians recruited to alleviate a priest shortage in the Brisbane
archdiocese have arrived to continue their training.
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At least 11 students at a Toronto Catholic school have been suspended
for cyber-bullying after posting comments on the internet about the
school's principal who had enforced a ban on electronic devices on the
school campus.
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Slovak bishops have established a council to "search for a correct
answer" regarding the Church's role during the period covering World
War II and the communist era.
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Concluding a Melbourne assembly, representatives of Catholic media
outlets in the Pacific region have called on the media to play a
"robust" role to help alleviate "the spiralling social, economic and
political crisis that plague many of our nations".
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Regulars
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If the vagina's pop culture debut came through The Vagina Monologues
on 14 February 1998, it seems to me that its male sexual counterpart
had centre stage all to itself for quite a long while. Having grown up
with several brothers, I practically needed a penis dictionary to
translate the endless double entendres that poured out of them. I,
however, was not afforded the same luxury. The belief that it is
inappropriate for women to discuss the functions of their reproductive
system is extremely detrimental. It leads to keeping anything connected
with our vaginas a secret - sexual abuse being among them - Sr Mary Eve
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I visited Fiji in January and was easily able to talk to a good range
of people about the coup in December of last year. The general view is
that the government under the military is doing good things. People are
glad that corruption is being exposed, officials are being scrutinised,
and government costs are being cut. It seems that people are accepting
that at the root of the coup is the issue of justice - share in
political voice and share in the distribution of goods - Fr Andrew Murray
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Born with Down syndrome, Eddie DePauw will never find the cure for
cancer but he has the potential to change lives around the world. Eddie
is a "master missionary rosary maker." As a member of local rosary
makers group in Illinois he has been responsible for helping the group
send approximately 3,200 missionary rosaries to people in hospitals,
nursing homes and chapels in the US as well as missions overseas over
the last seven years. Commitment is what makes Eddie such a valuable
member of the group - Jennifer Willems
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The Pope has long-held and passionate convictions about liturgy,
sketched in many of his books. In his understanding, the rites, both of
East and West, belong first of all to the whole Church. The different
families of rites structure the ways in which Christians worship, think
and act. Like the great declarations of Christian faith, they are a
gift to the Church and grow organically within the Church. From this
perspective, the extensive changes to liturgy that followed Vatican II
are problematic - Fr Andrew Hamilton
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In 1942, Jan O'Herne's nightmare began. She was captured by the
Japanese in Java and was forced into sexual slavery as a ''comfort
woman'' for the soldiers. Mrs O'Herne never told her friends and her
children about her wartime rapes. "I felt so ashamed, so dirty, so
soiled, so different, I didn't want anybody to know," she says. But
with the help of her Catholic faith, she had long ago made peace with
herself, forgiving the Japanese soon after the war ended for what they
had done - Penelope Debelle
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Reasonable people can debate whether Pope Pius's strategic decision to
avoid an explicit, public condemnation of Nazism to saving lives was
the correct one. But it takes a certain bias, contradicted by many
facts, to conclude that this decision was taken on the basis of
cowardice. It takes even worse bias to conclude that it was taken
because of anti-Semitism. Why, then, the campaign of defamation, which
has reached the point where one overhears tourists in St Peter's
Basilica, spotting the bronze statue of Pius XII erected by his
cardinals, whispering, "That's 'Hitler's Pope'"? - George Weigel
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There was a time when "mixed marriages" were looked upon as a problem.
People were discouraged from marrying someone from another
denomination, for fear that their Catholic faith would be put at risk.
Today, however, many claim that those in "inter-church marriages" -
couples who remain engaged in the life of their own church - are
pioneers. These families are witnesses not just to the possibility of
unity in the Church but also to a way of life that is enriched rather
than torn apart by diversity - Fr Gerard Kelly
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My encounter with Catholicism in Africa was a challenging experience of
contrasts and paradoxes. On the one hand, there was a vibrant sense of
a Church that takes its place at the forefront of the struggle for
justice, so that, if liberation theology itself has become somewhat
exhausted, its message has seeded itself in the grassroots life of the
Church of the poor. On the other hand, it is still a Church capable of
stifling Christ's incarnational presence through an excessive emphasis
on hierarchical values ill-suited to cope with the struggle against
HIV/AIDS - Tina Beattie
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Guided only by the secular press over the last 30 years, many young men
could have come to believe that priests in general are unhappy in their
vocation and resentful of their celibacy. We priests need to show by
word and example that we are in fact happy in our vocation to the
priesthood. The so-called crisis of priestly celibacy is really a
crisis of all forms of lifelong intimate commitment. The cultural
forces attacking celibacy are the same ones undermining and devaluing
marriage - Fr Pat Stratford
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Recent years have witnessed a growth in religious fundamentalism
throughout the world. Regrettably similar trends are also taking roots
in our own Church. The large majority of Catholics are liberal,
thinking and practising their faith. Unfortunately their views are not
given due consideration by the clergy and editors of Catholic
publications and bulletins. Sometimes their opinions are dismissed as
anti-Catholic due to fear that they may have negative influence on
others - Dr Chris Anthony
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Recent years have witnessed a growth in religious fundamentalism
throughout the world. Regrettably similar trends are also taking roots
in our own Church. The large majority of Catholics are liberal,
thinking and practising their faith. Unfortunately their views are not
given due consideration by the clergy and editors of Catholic
publications and bulletins. Sometimes their opinions are dismissed as
anti-Catholic due to fear that they may have negative influence on
others - Dr Chris Anthony
» more