News
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12-Mar-2009
In a letter to the world's bishops Pope Benedict has admited the Vatican made mistakes over the lifting of the excommunication of SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson but says he is disappointed that Catholics "who should have known better" did not show more understanding.
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10-Mar-2009
The washing machine has had a greater liberating role for women than the contraceptive pill, according to a L'Osservatore Romano commentary on International Women's Day last Sunday.
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10-Mar-2009
The Vatican has spoken out against creating religious internet top level domain categories such as .catholic, .islam or .buddhist.
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12-Mar-2009
Students from Sacred Heart Primary School at Sandgate on Brisbane's northside have combined their efforts with Brisbane City Council in a bid to revitalise a landmark local lagoon.
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12-Mar-2009
Marbel Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez has condemned the killing of an anti-mining environmentalist and human rights advocate working in partnership with his diocese to oppose the development of the giant Tampakan mine.
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11-Mar-2009
United States Catholic Bishops' Conference pro-life committee chairman, Cardinal Justin Rigali, has denounced President Barack Obama's executive order allowing federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
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13-Mar-2009
As the Queensland election looms, the Queensland Catholic Education Commission has welcomed the Opposition Liberal National Party's promise to increase funding for non-government schools by $136 million over four years.
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10-Mar-2009
Catholic Health Australia has joined forces with Palliative Care Australia to develop new ideas on making quality end of life care available.
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News - National
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13-Mar-2009
The Federal government's decision to provide Australian aid money for overseas abortions makes Prime Minister Kevin Rudd "look two-faced", Opposition frontbencher Tony Abbott has said.
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11-Mar-2009
Opus Dei priest and commentator, Fr John Flader, says there are circumstances in which it may be acceptable for Catholic parents to attend the non-religious civil wedding ceremonies of their children.
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11-Mar-2009
Caritas Australia CEO Jack de Groot has endorsed concerns expressed by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd over changes by Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, a Catholic, to the Australian aid program that will allow funding of abortions.
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09-Mar-2009
Mediation on the changeover of administrators at St Mary's parish South Brisbane will begin this week, the Brisbane archdiocese says, while parish representatives are mooting the possibility of a priestless parish.
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09-Mar-2009
Catholic Health CEO Martin Laverty has called on Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland to use international human rights obligations to overturn Victorian legislation requiring conscientiously objecting doctors to provide abortion referrals.
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13-Mar-2009
Maitland's 163 year old St Johns the Baptist Church, which was the first Catholic cathedral in the Hunter Valley, has been off limits to parishioners since January over concerns about deteriorating steel beams and crumbling sandstone.
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12-Mar-2009
St Christopher's Holsworthy parish priest Fr Anthony Mifsud says that "heartless arsonists" took away his community's place of worship when they set fire to the altar at the church last week.
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11-Mar-2009
Newcastle Magistrate Sharon Holdsworth has convicted Maitland-Newcastle Vicar-General Fr Tom Brennan of making a false written statement saying that he could not remember 1970s abuse complaints at St Pius X High School.
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10-Mar-2009
Perth Archbishop Barry Hickey has questioned child welfare policies, saying at risk Aboriginal children are often placed with dysfunctional relatives and warned of a new stolen generation.
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09-Mar-2009
Announcing the engagement of prominent Western Australian artist Dr Robert Juniper to design the windows of the new Cathedral, Bunbury Bisop Gerard Holohan said the quality of the artwork will "make or break" the building.
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13-Mar-2009
ACT Chief Minister John Stanhope yesterday named Bishop Pat Power as Canberra citizen of the year citing his lifelong commitment to refugees, indigenous Australians and disadvantaged people.
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News - International
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10-Mar-2009
Late US president Ronald Reagan tried to convert Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to Christianity in an effort to end the Cold War, declassified notes show.
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12-Mar-2009
Speaking at Oxford University, Cardinal George Pell has attacked "secularist intolerance" that seeks to drive Christianity "not only from the public square but even from the provision of education, health care, and welfare services."
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09-Mar-2009
Cancer stricken British Big Brother star Jade Goody was baptised along with her two children on Saturday in what her publicist called her "final goodbye".
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09-Mar-2009
On a visit to the Oratory Church where the Venerable John Henry Newman is buried, Sydney Cardinal George Pell said the English cardinal's memory is needed to inspire the "romance of orthodoxy" among today's writers.
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09-Mar-2009
Irish Bishop John Magee of Cloyne, who was private secretary to three successive popes, has asked Pope Benedict to appoint an apostolic administrator for the diocese after a series of disputes over the handling of clergy abuse scandals.
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12-Mar-2009
Over 16,000 Palestinians made homeless after Israel's recent assault on Gaza now face further strife after high winds and heavy rains tore through the region flooding many of the tented camps.
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11-Mar-2009
In an apparent bid to temper tensions ahead of Pope Benedict's planned May visit to the Holy Land, Vatican nuncio, Archbishop Antonio Franco has said that Holocaust deniers could not be considered Catholic.
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13-Mar-2009
Jaffna Bishop Thomas Savundaranayagam has warned that more than 100,000 Sri Lankans face "total annihilation" unless an evacuation of Sri Lanka'a north-east war zone begins immediately.
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11-Mar-2009
Security forces in the Cameroon capital, Yaounde, have smashed up the street stalls, where thousands of people earn a living, to give the city a facelift ahead of next week's visit by Pope Benedict.
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10-Mar-2009
The Catholic Church in South Africa is reeling after another another priest was found murdered at the weekend, the second such killing in 10 days.
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Religion
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13-Mar-2009
World Jewish Congress President, Ronald S. Lauder, has welcomed Pope Benedict's personal letter to Catholic bishops explaining the Williamson affair praising the Pope's "candour and willingness to tackle difficult issues."
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Regulars
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13-Mar-2009
The Church's teaching authority cannot be frozen in the year 1962. But some of those who put themselves forward as great defenders of the Council also need to be reminded that Vatican II embraces the entire doctrinal history of the Church. Anyone who wishes to be obedient to the Council has to accept the faith professed over the centuries, and cannot sever the roots from which the tree draws its life. - Pope Benedict XVI, chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it
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12-Mar-2009
In Congo women were beaten. Women were raped in front of their families and husbands. There were incidents of cutting and penetration of vaginas with knives and other objects. It resulted in families becoming traumatised for the rest of their lives. Many men became deeply affected because they were unable to protect their wives and daughters. - Judy Cannon, Online Opinion
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11-Mar-2009
Brisbane's Catholic Archbishop John Bathersby and Victoria's Uniting Church Moderator Jason Kioa are facing strikingly similar challenges. They are both under pressure from within their flock to insist that orthodoxy is defended and heretics removed. Powers are available to them in matters of doctrine, worship, government and discipline. But both also wish to allow as much diversity as possible within the bounds of good order. Their responses could hardly be more different. - Alan Austin, Online Opinion
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10-Mar-2009
Dementia is an illness and is not the fault of the person, although under stress, it is fairly hard to accept this. Each day one must expect the unexpected, and planning ahead is vital. Some family members do not want to know how we manage day by day. Only one communicates with us. We have moved on from the bitterness and anger we have felt, and now we feel only sadness for those who cannot understand. They have not walked in our shoes. - Darrell Bailey, Aurora
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09-Mar-2009
The people of Zimbabwe are hungry. In fact, they are starving. The country is in a state of emergency with a cholera outbreak, a massive food shortage and a deteriorating security situation. - Sr Ivy Khoury, The Southern Cross
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13-Mar-2009
Stones Will Shout is the website of a self described "orthodox" Catholic group in the diocese of Sale. Better known for their newsletter Into the Deep which claims to educate about the Magisterium and provides a forum for readers' letters.
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12-Mar-2009
St Bernard's College in Melbourne's north western suburb of Essendon was founded by the Christian Brothers and is now administered by their school authority, Edmund Rice Education Australia. It caters for 1,200 boys from Year 7 to Year 12.
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11-Mar-2009
The Mamre Project is an initiative of the Sisters of Mercy in Parramatta aiming to provide jobs, training and community services to disadvantaged people, especially those with a disability, youth at risk, refugee families and people wanting to re-enter the workforce.
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10-Mar-2009
Light to the Nations Easter Youth Pilgrimage is held every second Easter in Galong NSW. Around 1,000 young people are expected, and in the wake of WYD, organisers view the event as a great chance to renew the experience and keep the flame burning.
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09-Mar-2009
Grace Before Meals is centred on the concept that creating and sharing a meal can strengthen all kinds of relationships. Founded by Fr Leo Patalinghug in 2003, Grace Before Meals has grown from a simple idea to a worldwide movement.
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09-Mar-2009
This is a film that is highly entertaining. It fluctuates insightfully between comedy and pain, and stresses the importance and value of human contact between two people, who want to find happiness once again after having been disappointed many times in the past. It deals with lessons in life that convey both poignancy and truth in human relationships. The film should appeal to many, and not just to those who feel lonely. - Peter W. Sheehan, Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
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12-Mar-2009
This edition of Compass features a moving personal story about the sexual abuse of a 14 year old altar boy in 1960s America and the personal cost to one family and their faith. Thirty years on the boy is now a man, struggling to confront his past. He reveals his secret to his devout Catholic migrant Italian family whose lives have revolved around the Church.
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11-Mar-2009
Archbishop John Bathersby has sacked Father Peter Kennedy as Administrator of St Mary's Catholic Community, South Brisbane. What are the theological issues for those concerned in this major event in Australian Catholic life and how has this large and vigorous community in the inner city of Brisbane responded to the Archbishop's action?
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10-Mar-2009
Life for former Catholic Church nuns who leave their order is usually full of poverty, mental and physical ill health and social isolation. In spite of decades of unpaid, dedicated community work, nuns leave their orders and re-enter the world with little financial or emotional support.
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13-Mar-2009
Gerry Adams has often articulated a vision of a united Ireland by 2016, the centenary of the 1916 Rising. But the political and economic realities on both sides of the border increasingly demonstrate it is nothing more than an unrealistic pipe dream. The British Government heavily subsidises Northern Ireland while the collapse of the Celtic Tiger economy in the South makes it all the more unviable for the Irish Republic to shoulder even part of the financial burden of the North. - Chris Ryder, The Tablet
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12-Mar-2009
The main effect of Obama's decision to overturn restricions on human embryo research was to boost the morale of an important constituency, the scientific community. To cement his image as a flagbearer of enlightened thinking, the President also set down guidelines for his Administration which guarantee scientists freedom from political interference. - Michael Cook, MercatorNet
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11-Mar-2009
The future of Africa is, in large part, the future of the Church. When Pope Benedict XVI travels to Africa March 17-23, he will be visiting the home of the world's oldest Christian communities, and its largest new field of converts. Christ himself visited the African continent with Mary and Joseph during the flight to Egypt. Early Christianity flourished there. - National Catholic Register
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10-Mar-2009
We cannot effect "spiritual revolution" in our minds and hearts on our own. We need help. For a spiritual revolution we need the help of God's own Spirit. Without a personal encounter with Christ in which we experience the life changing power of the Holy Spirit, our prayer, fasting and acts of charity will be powerless to change our hearts. - Archbishop Denis Hart, Kairos Catholic Journal
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09-Mar-2009
It is the so-called mainstream Muslims, grouped in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, who are now demanding through the UN that Islam be officially shielded from any criticism. Although written tongue-in-cheek in the language of human rights and of opposition to discrimination, the non-binding UN Resolution seeks to extend protection not to humans but to opinions and to ideas, granting only the latter immunity from being "offended". - Christopher Hitchens, The Australian
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13-Mar-2009
The Canberra Friends of Ireland Society will be celebrating St Patrick's Day with an ecumenical service on Monday March 16 2009 (the eve of St Patrick's Day) at 12 noon at the Centre for Christianity & Culture, 12 Blackall Street, Barton. Speakers will include Professor James Haire, retired Bishop of Sydney, David Cremin, and well known Irish Australian and former Federal Minister, Susan Ryan.
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