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Keywords: Australian Catholic Bishops Conference

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • RELIGION

    What difference does it make now that Mary MacKillop is a saint?

    • Frank Brennan
    • 14 October 2011

    Mary visited Rome as a young religious woman when she was being persecuted by local bishops for being too independent. She got a good hearing from the Pope and great assistance from Fr Anderledy who became the Superior General of the Jesuits. If only Bishop Bill Morris could have received the same sympathetic hearing.

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  • RELIGION

    Making friends not foes of rights and religion

    • Frank Brennan
    • 13 September 2011
    5 Comments

    The Church of the 21st century should be the exemplar of due process, natural justice and transparency. While there can be little useful critique of the final decision of Pope Benedict to force the early retirement of Bishop Bill Morris, there is plenty of scope to review the processes leading up to it.

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  • RELIGION

    Religion and Australian law

    • Frank Brennan
    • 02 August 2011
    1 Comment

    I am bemused that whenever I agitate questions of Aboriginal and refugee rights I am well received by liberals, who then question my clerical entitlement to speak when I buy into debates on issues like euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research. On same sex marriage, I am attacked from both sides.

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  • RELIGION

    Religious groups and the Bill of Rights debate

    • Frank Brennan
    • 18 July 2011

    Speech given by Fr Frank Brennan SJ at the 'Law and Religion: Legal Regulation of Religious Groups, Organisations and Communities' Conference Dinner in Melbourne on 15 July 2011.

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  • RELIGION

    Human rights and Christian lawyers

    • Frank Brennan
    • 18 July 2011
    5 Comments

    When I appeared on Q&A with Christopher Hitchens, a young man asked whether we can 'ever hope to live in a truly secular society' while the religious continue to 'affect political discourse and decision making' on euthanasia, same-sex unions and abortion. Hitchens was simpaticao. I was dumbstruck.

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  • RELIGION

    Oregon on the euthanasia slippery slope

    • Frank Brennan
    • 28 June 2011
    27 Comments

    Physician Chuck Bentz received a request to be the 'second opinion' for the assisted-suicide of a melanoma patient. Bentz objected and said there were better ways to address the needs of this patient, whom he had known for over a decade. Next he knew, his patient was dead. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Losing the fight for fair wages

    • Brian Lawrence
    • 08 June 2011
    5 Comments

    The 2011 wage review occurred 120 years after the release of the papal document Rerum Novarum, which had a significant impact on the development of Australian minimum wage-setting. The minimum wage provisions of the current Fair Work Act cannot be regarded as a success.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Cardinal Pell's climate hot air

    • Tim Stephens
    • 20 May 2011
    79 Comments

    The difficulty is not his privately-held heterodox views on climate change, but that Australia's most senior Catholic clergyman vigorously advances a position that could be interpreted as a statement of the official stance of the Catholic Church in Australia. 

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  • RELIGION

    An Anglican angle on Toowoomba

    • Andrew McGowan
    • 19 May 2011
    14 Comments

    Anglican bishops are not appointed more democratically or transparently than Roman Catholic bishops, although there are better-known processes and lines of accountability. And they would have better legal redress should anyone try to get rid of them.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Bishops sad not mad over Morris sacking

    • Michael Mullins
    • 16 May 2011
    17 Comments

    While the Australian bishops' letter indicates that they accept the decision to sack former bishop of Toowoomba Bill Morris, there is nothing to suggest that they agree. In fact they carefully distance themselves from the decision.

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  • RELIGION

    Liturgy translation 'suprisingly good'

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 April 2011
    48 Comments

    Liturgy has always aroused strong passions. In the 19th century, some London churches served by Anglican priests who wore lace were stoned. So it is not surprising that the introduction of a new translation of the Catholic Mass should be turbulent. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Prophet of women's ordination

    • Janet Scarfe
    • 13 March 2011
    18 Comments

    Patricia Brennan put the ordination of women on the agenda of the Anglican Church and kept it there. Like Germaine Greer, she was tall, with an unmissable presence and rich voice. And, like Germaine, she was often called strident.

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