Religion and Faith
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Robert Mickens. Cardinal Pell and the Vatican power struggle.
The Holy See’s abrupt suspension this week of anexternal audit of all its financial operations by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is being described by almost everyone as the Vatican old guard’s latest attempt to derail Pope Francis’ reforms. This narrative pits “a powerful Italian bureaucracy resistant to greater transparency” (including the Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin) Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. The odd couple – the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and their uneasy relationship.
As enduring international couples go, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia must rank among the oddest. They have been kind of firm friends since 1933 when oil was discovered in the kingdom. Yet their societies are so different as President Obama might have seen for himself when his limousine drove through the streets of Riyadh last Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. Cardinal Barbarin and accountability.
Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of Lyon is currently being investigated by French police for failing to report sexual offences against children by some of his priests. It is alleged that he knew about allegations against them in 2007 and 2009. Despite his denials of any wrongdoing, there have been calls for his resignation. On Good Friday, retired Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. Bishop Ronald Mulkearns: Blaming the Foot Soldier
The “Nuremberg defence” takes its name from the claim by Nazi officials at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal that they should be acquitted because they were following “superior orders”. In one of the most significant judgments in international law, the Nuremberg Tribunal held that following superior orders in the case of crimes against humanity is Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. Erdogan leads Turkey back to the Ottoman era.
It is the time of the year when we have our annual bout of sentimental reflection on the heroics of the Anzac forces at Gallipoli a century ago. One of the Turkish military commanders whose resistance wore down the Anzacs and other allies was Kemal Ataturk, who went on to be the founder of Continue reading »
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Michael Kelly SJ. Washing feet, culture and religion.
The decision by parts of the Catholic Church in India to differ with Pope Francis’ decision to allow women to have their feet washed in the ceremony on Holy Thursday is puzzling to say the least. Their reason given is simple. The inclusion of women in a ceremony where a man (the celebrant) washes the Continue reading »
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Eric Hodgens. Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns.
Easter brings Easter eggs and hot cross buns. You see the egg and dart pattern on the frieze of some Victorian-period buildings. But it goes way back to classical times. The eternal question – life or death. Two men looked out through the prison bars. One saw mud, the other saw stars. Malcolm Turnbull assures Continue reading »
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Paul Collins. Where, O death is now thy sting?
If I had a say in who were made saints there are three people I’d immediately nominate, and two of them are not Catholics! My first choice would be Dorothy Day and, thank God, she has begun the slow process to sainthood. The other two are John Wesley (1707-88) and Charles Wesley (1703-91), the founders Continue reading »
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Bruce Duncan. Perplexed by Easter
Perplexing and confronting. Whether believers or not, that is how many of us find the events of that first Easter week in Jerusalem. Here are the elements of high drama: betrayal, confrontation with Jewish and Roman authorities, a trial, torture and a cruel death by crucifixion. Even so, Jesus would have disappeared completely from history Continue reading »
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Bruce Duncan. Pope Francis supports social revolution among the Zapatistas in Mexico
The western media largely missed the significance of Pope Francis’s visit to the ‘Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas’ in the south of Mexico on the border with Guatemala in February 2016. He not only reiterated the message he bore elsewhere in Mexico, about the Church’s support for a social and cultural revolution in favour Continue reading »
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Eric Hodgens. Pell and the Royal Commission: Spotlight on Ideology.
When Cardinal George Pell enters the witness box at the Royal Commission we see a legal counsel interviewing him to find to what extent he is to blame for a failure in his church’s duty of care. The adversarial setup puts him on the defensive. He admits past reticence to intervene, but says others are Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. Cardinal Pell and the Church’s “Omerta”
Cardinal George Pell must now be regretting not having come back to Australia to give his evidence to the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in the relatively small town of Ballarat in the State of Victoria. By claiming that his medical condition did not allow him to travel, and offering Continue reading »
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Michael Kelly SJ. Where to from here for the Catholic Church in Australia
Despite the unpersuasive Vatican spin on Cardinal Pell’s appearance last week before the Royal Commission into child sex abuse in institutions – that his performance was “dignified” and “edifying”, his performance, in the assessment of most observers including this one, was inept, cowardly and unconvincing. Cardinal Pell is only one Australian Catholic and he has Continue reading »
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Paul Collins. With “leaders” like these … !
For a committed Catholic George Pell’s evidence to the Royal Commission was excruciating to watch. It wasn’t just Pell himself with his turgid, wooden responses and lack of interest in appalling crimes against those whom Jesus called “the little ones.” It was also the kind of church his evidence laid bare where all responsibility was Continue reading »
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Terry Laidler. What George Pell Might Have Said
What George Pell Might Have Said Meanwhile, in a parallel universe … “Your Honour Please could I start by making a statement that I hope will help the Commission and that I pray will give some solace to so many people I now know to have been traumatised by abuse suffered on an horrendous scale. Continue reading »
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Evan Williams. Film review ‘Spotlight’
Evan Williams recently reviewed Spotlight. This film has now won the Best Film at the recent Oscars. This review is reposted below. Evan Williams will soon also write on the Oscar awards in general. John Menadue. The other night I watched a DVD of Foreign Correspondent, Alfred Hitchcock’s wonderful thriller about a newspaperman on the Continue reading »
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Eric Hodgens. Child Sexual Abuse – A Cascade of Victims.
The sexual abuse of children creates many victims – and many levels of victimhood. Cultures, including ours, have rules about sexual activity. Cultural deviations from what is considered normal meet a range of cultural responses from approval to acceptance, to disapproval, to condemnation as immoral or, finally, criminalisation. Our culture has a minimum age of Continue reading »
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Terry Laidler. All Roads Lead TO Rome?
So, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will take Cardinal Pell’s final evidence next week by video link from Rome. Tim Minchin’s song and the associated crowd funding effort will allow some victims of abuse to attend, but both are symptoms of fairly widespread community disappointment. Commissioner McClellan was also clearly Continue reading »
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Michael D. Breen. Freedom to Mock.
Tim Minchin’s ‘Come home Cardinal Pell’ nails it for many in Oz. Minchin voices the rage, the frustration and the suffering of unrequited victims, their relatives, and Church goers and observers. Rage boils when people feel unheard. It becomes incandescent over unfairness. It sizzles when one class triumphs over another. The song flashes the spotlight Continue reading »
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Frank Brennan SJ. An Unholy Mess: Cardinal Pell, the Royal Commission are Owed Justice, not Vigilantism
Cardinal George Pell still has a lot of questions to answer before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. On medical advice he has decided not to risk the long plane flight home from Rome. This makes things much harder for victims seeking closure. It makes things harder for others, including members Continue reading »
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Jonathan Page. The Inspiration of Vietnam
Postcard from Hanoi: I have been an oncologist for some 35 years, treating adults with advanced cancer. Despite a far greater understanding of the disease, with the discovery of quite remarkable “targeted” therapies, most patients still die of this disease. Many are not suitable for these treatments, many don’t respond or respond poorly and briefly, Continue reading »
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Reversing the Flight to Private Schools Depends on Reforming Australia’s Incoherent and Unfair Funding System
New school enrolment data show that the long-term shift of students to private schools has stopped in recent years. But, whether it will be sustained is uncertain given school funding trends that massively favour private schools. Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics this month show no change in the share of enrolments between Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. Pope Francis Continues the Policy of Cover Up
In May 2014, my book, Potiphar’s Wife: The Vatican Secret and Child Sexual Abuse was published. It accused six popes from 1922 onwards (Pius XI – Benedict XVI) of establishing, confirming and expanding a system of cover up of child sexual abuse by clergy through the strictest secrecy imposed by canon law over allegations and Continue reading »
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The Pope is not the only one who doesn’t get it.
This is an extract from Robert Mickens’ ‘Letter from Rome’ of 10 February 2016, published in Global Pulse. In the full article, Mickens refers to the extraordinary success and acceptance of Pope Francis in so many areas. There is however a downside. Mickens coments: But there is a dense cloud hanging over all the good Continue reading »
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Bruce Duncan. Australia’s moral crisis: shipping babies and families off to Nauru
How has it come to this, that the Australian government is poised to send back 37 babies, 54 children and their families – 267 in all – into the traumatic conditions of Nauru? Only a few years ago many Australians would have considered it inconceivable that our governments should have imposed such shocking treatment on Continue reading »
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Frank Brennan. Meeting Pope Francis – the planet and markets.
41 years a Jesuit, I had never met a pope. Back in 1986, I was adviser to the Australian Catholic Bishops on Aboriginal land rights. Pope John Paul II came to Alice Springs, met with Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, and spoke strongly about the rights of Aborigines to retain title to their traditional lands. Continue reading »
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Culture and Religion, Defence and Security, Human Rights, Politics, Religion and Faith, World Affairs
John Tulloh. Middle East: The Arab Spring becomes the Arab Winter.
‘Arabs have rarely lived in bleaker times’. The Economist. An impoverished Arab would have been been flabbergasted at the consequences of his single, desperate protest five years ago. It precipitated the ousting of his country’s ruler and two other Arab leaders, the greatest upheaval and carnage of this century in one country, protests in others, Continue reading »
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Peter Day. Professional sport needs more ‘Pats’.
Despite all the feel good talk, the rags to riches stories and wonderful qualities that people like to associate with professional sport, when all is said and done, what really shapes and drives it are these three things: Results 2. Results 3. Results. Winning is everything, and self-interest, the “jockey”. In such a hyper competitive Continue reading »
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I stand at the door and knock.
Pope’s Message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees January 17, 2016 Dear Brothers and Sisters, In the Bull of indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy I noted that “at times we are called to gaze even more attentively on mercy so that we may become a more effective sign of the Father’s Continue reading »
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Edmund Campion. Homily for the funeral service of Brian Johns.
Family, friends, colleagues of Brian Johns. The other morning, after Brian had died, it came to me, so this is the end of a conversation that endured for more than sixty years. Then I recalled that one name had dominated our earliest talks together, all those years ago, the name of Dorothy Day. Dorothy Day? Continue reading »