Religion and Faith
-
Kieran Tapsell. The Cunneen Report’s Comments on Canon and Civil Law
On 30 May 2014, the Report of the Special Commission of Inquiry into Matters relating to the Police Investigation of Certain Child Sexual Abuse Allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland–Newcastle (“Cunneen Report”) was published by the New South Wales Government. The Report rejected allegations by former Detective Inspector Fox that there was an attempt Continue reading »
-
Chris Geraghty. Potiphar’s Wife – The Vatican’s Secret and Child Sex Abuse.
A few weeks ago the Roman Church gathered its heavenly forces, summoned her faithful from around the world to assemble in the eternal city, and in the midst of extravagant Renaissance-style splendor, infallibly declared two of her recent CEOs to have been translated into the presence of Almighty God, amid hosts of angels and Archangels Continue reading »
-
Caroline Coggins. Art and prayer
What do we pay attention to, what do we look for? It sounds like such an innocent question, yet it is a reflection of who we are, and how we have been shaped. I went to a Matisse exhibition when I was in London recently. What struck me was a comment the artist made as Continue reading »
-
Julian McDonald. We will right this terrible wrong.
With searing eloquence, 11 men bravely told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Perth of the devastating impact of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of Christian Brothers in residences at Castledare, Clontarf, Bindoon and Tardun in Western Australia more than 50 years ago. No one could be but Continue reading »
-
Kieran Tapsell. The Vatican at the UN: Who is fossilised in the Past?
The Holy See has found itself before the United Nations once again, this time in relation to the Treaty on Torture. According to Reuters, Archbishop Tomasi told critics of its sexual abuse record that it had developed model child protection policies over the last decade and that its accusers should not stay “fossilised in the Continue reading »
-
Kieran Tapsell’s “Potiphar’s Wife”
In this book by Kieran Tapsell which is to be launched on May 27 we can learn about canon law and secrecy in the Vatican, particularly in relation to sexual abuse. Kieran Tapsell has been a guest blogger on these issues on this site. John Menadue For 1500 years, the Catholic Church accepted that clergy who Continue reading »
-
Michael Kelly SJ. Next item on the Catholic reform agenda
This is a time of reform in the Church. Everyone who bothers to look, from average Catholics around the world to the cardinals who elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio to become Pope Francis, knows the Church is in strife and in need of a lot of work to render it an effective means to the end Continue reading »
-
Michael Kelly S.J. What makes this week Holy.
The recent casual remark of a friend got me to thinking about just how people experience Easter differently. My friend and I were talking about something Christians are constantly encouraged to consider especially in Lent and which gets its highest profile in the Christian calendar on Good Friday: humility. The way I have come to Continue reading »
-
Patty Fawkner. An Easter story
If we think about it, each of us has an Easter story. Mine goes back to the death of my father. Dad died when I was a young nun. It was my first experience of the death of someone I deeply loved. Where once the word “loss” seemed a somewhat evasive euphemism, it was now Continue reading »
-
Caroline Coggins. The story of Easter: the love template.
How often do we fall in love, the sort that turns us around, strips us and re-orientates us, shakes the foundations of what it is to relate and be with another? Not very often, mostly we are too guarded. But at times it happens, and I have come to take this as a call, our Continue reading »
-
Michael Kelly SJ. The canonisation of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII – an event of telling significance.
Pope Francis may need some help from Our Lady The Untier Of Knots On April 27, we will witness an event that will tell us more about what to make of Papa Francesco and what to expect in his papacy. He will canonize on the same day both Popes John Paul II and John XXII. Continue reading »
-
Michael Kelly SJ. Where does the buck stop in the Church?
You could be forgiven for not knowing where the buck stops in the Catholic Church these days. In any society, organization or Church community, it is important to know who is ultimately responsible in decision making; otherwise, chaos or worse would prevail. In an unprecedented (for a cardinal) cross examination in court last week, Cardinal Continue reading »
-
Eric Hodgens. A new moral compass
The Church is not the best guide to moral values. That is the response of some Catholics to the questionnaire which the Vatican sent out in preparation for the October Synod of Bishops. Many practising Catholics do not agree with the official opinions of the Pope on moral rules associated with marriage and sexuality. The Continue reading »
-
Michael Kelly SJ. Sexual abuse and the humiliation of the Catholic Church. A new spirituality.
Michael Kelly SJ invites Australian Catholics to embrace the humiliation that is bound to increase as the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse continues in 2014 through a spirituality based in the gospel. The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola invite us to pray for the gift of identification with Jesus in the abuse and derision he experienced Continue reading »
-
Chris Geraghty. Farewell to Pell
It was sad and painful, and no satisfaction, sitting at home in front of a computer, watching a senior prelate stagger around, wounded and bleeding. I sat glued to the screen, mesmerized, fiercely proud of our legal system, and watched a prince of the Church in humble street-clothes being tormented. George Pell, Cardinal Archbishop, sat Continue reading »
-
Kieran Tapsell. Pell’s business strategy in tatters.
There was once a rich man in England who became tired of watching his friends’ estates being eaten up by lawyers’ fees in disputes over wills. So, he made a very simple will leaving everything to a friend, and then wrote a letter to the friend explaining what he wanted the friend to do with Continue reading »
-
Kieran Tapsell. The best drama in town: the Royal Commission on the Ellis Case.
There is a veritable ‘whodunit’ being played out at the Royal Commission into Sex Abuse. The Commission is inquiring into the treatment of John Ellis who lent his name to the so called ‘Ellis defence’, that confirmed that the “Catholic Church”does not exist in law. If the sex abusing priest or the negligent bishop is Continue reading »
-
Frank Brennan SJ. Cardinal Pell at the Royal Commission
Last September I addressed the Canon Law Society of Australia and New Zealand on issues the Catholic Church would need to address with the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and in the follow-up to the Victorian Parliament’s Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and other Organisations. I said: Continue reading »
-
Eric Hodgens. Sydney’s next bishop – what sort?
What should we look for in a bishop for Sydney in these changing times? A Christian. One committed to Jesus’ message of love, forgiveness and compassion. One who holds that the Church is not just the hierarchy, but the People of God on a journey. A citizen of the world. One who, while suspicious of Continue reading »
-
Eric Hodgens. Where do bishops come from?
Sydney needs a new archbishop who has every chance of becoming a cardinal once Cardinal Pell turns 80. How do we get a new bishop? The pope will appoint one. Since 1917 he has claimed the right to do so. History is not on the side of that claim – but that is another story. Continue reading »
-
National Council of Priests – Choosing a successor to Cardinal Pell – a pastor or a prince.
In late February the National Council of Priests met with the Catholic Bishops Commission for Church Ministry. This is an annual dialogue. Fr Ian McGinnity who is the President of the National Council of Priests sent to his colleagues a record of the issues that were raised with the Bishops. The issues raised referred generally Continue reading »
-
Chris Geraghty. The Pell Factor
Sydney is vacant again, and many of the faithful are breathing a huge sigh of relief, though at the back of our minds lurks a suspicion mixed with fear that we will be saddled, for a long time to come, with a little repellent clone of the great man. George is off to Rome – Continue reading »
-
Kieran Tapsell. The Trickle-down Effect in Toowoomba
Cardinal Francis George, the former President of the United States Bishops Conference has been described as one of the Catholic Church’s most ‘formidable intellectuals’. In the 2003 Ave Maria Law Review he wrote an article entitled, “Law and Culture”, in which he discusses the famous U.S. Supreme Court case of Brown v The Board of Continue reading »
-
Kieran Tapsell. Sexual abuse in the Church – the failure of the Vatican and Popes
As with so many other things on the sex abuse issue, the Holy See’s response to the findings of the United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Child is conspicuous for its failure to acknowledge the central issue raised by that Committee: pontifical secrecy imposed on the Church’s investigations of child sexual abuse by Continue reading »
-
Kieran Tapsell. The United Nations and the ‘Warts-and-all’ history.
On 15 October 2013, Francis Sullivan, the CEO of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, the body that speaks on behalf of the Australian Catholic Church at the Royal Commission, wrote an opinion piece for the ABC’s Religion and Ethics page. He claimed that the submission the Council had presented to the Royal Commission on Continue reading »
-
Kieran Tapsell: The Inquisition of the Catholic Church at the United Nations.
The Vatican’s former Chief Prosecutor, Bishop Charles Scicluna, found himself before the United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Child in Geneva on 16 January 2014. He joked that in the past his predecessors may have been on the other side of the table as the “Grand Inquisitor”. The Church signed up to the Continue reading »
-
Pope Francis – Message on Migrants and Refugees. January 2014
‘Migrants and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity. They are children, women and men who leave or who are forced to leave their homes for various reasons, who share a legitimate desire for knowing and having, but above all for being more. Contemporary movements of migration represent the largest movement of Individuals, Continue reading »
-
Sex abuse: the de facto privilege of clergy. Kieran Tapsell
On 29 December 1170, four armed knights from the Court of King Henry II of England entered Canterbury Cathedral. They had previously heard the King complain about the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas a’Becket, who was in dispute with Henry over “privilege of clergy”, the right of clergy to be tried exclusively in Church or canonical Continue reading »
-
Asylum seekers – Tony Abbott and I share a Jesuit education. John O’Mara
Like many Australians, I look on the way the Abbott government is handling the matter of asylum seekers with ever increasing dismay. Tony Abbott’s mantra “stop the boats”, is unprincipled, contrary to signed UN agreements and impractical. It is hard to erase the pre-election memory of the Western Sydney interviewee..”I’m going to vote for Abbott, Continue reading »
-
Repost: Don’t tamper with the Refugee Convention. John Menadue
It would be dangerous to open up the pandora’s box of the Refugee Convention. It has served us well. Who would seriously suggest that persons facing persecution should not be protected. Given the world wide agitation against refugees and ‘outsiders’, a review of the Convention would be a great opportunity for extremists to run their Continue reading »