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Keywords: Benedict

  • RELIGION

    Papal power in Toowoomba

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 05 May 2011
    54 Comments

    Modern societies rightly put much weight on transparency. Its absence is taken to discredit the institutions in which it is lacking. After the forced resignation of Bishop Morris it will be even harder for Catholics to win a hearing on issues that affect the public order.

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  • RELIGION

    In defence of same-sex unions

    • Frank Brennan
    • 09 March 2011
    53 Comments

    There are homosexual persons who enter into loving, faithful and committed relationships. It is difficult to characterise a law that gives non-discriminatory protection to such couples as 'so harmful to the common good as to be gravely immoral' as Benedict has previously done.

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  • RELIGION

    Pope's guide to social networking

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 02 February 2011
    9 Comments

    Benedict's World Day of Social Communications address shows how an elderly, intelligent man might reflect on the massive changes in social communication. He associates social networking with the young, and trusts in their freedom to use it well.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Condoms only a possible first step to AIDS prevention

    • Paterne Mombe
    • 26 November 2010
    1 Comment

    Pope Benedict XVI acknowledges the relative moral value of a prostitute showing concern for protecting others by using condoms. But it is far from being sufficient. For him, it is not really the way to promote HIV prevention. One would say: the finality does not justify the means.

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  • RELIGION

    Pope models condom conversation

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 November 2010
    14 Comments

    Pope Benedict's remarks on condoms have offered rich pickings. Speculation arose whether his statement heralds the collapse of Catholic condemnation of contraception. But the Pope's words were less significant for their content than for their style.

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  • RELIGION

    Geoffrey Robertson's Catholicism for dummies

    • Paul Collins
    • 11 October 2010
    26 Comments

    Robertson may be a celebrity QC, but historian he is certainly not. He touts the notion that the Vatican is not a real state and that as a consequence Benedict XVI should not be granted immunity from prosecution for his alleged responsibility in covering up clerical sexual abuse.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Pope-hate in broken Britain

    • Michael Mullins
    • 20 September 2010
    12 Comments

    Social commentator Frank Furedi wrote that the Pope's UK visit provided Britain's cultural elite with 'a figure that it is okay to hate'. We might regard the angst as a manifestation of the growing pains that are to be expected in a world of emerging pluralism.

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  • RELIGION

    The rise of Catholicophobia

    • Paul Collins
    • 17 September 2010
    39 Comments

    It's not that Catholicism has nothing to answer for, but the problem is that caricatures quickly become facts. Many Catholics have learned to 'cop it sweet', but there comes a point where you have to say something. The papal visit to the UK might just be it.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Ain't that what religion is for?

    • Marlene Marburg and Edith Speers
    • 14 September 2010
    13 Comments

    Come as you are, Marilyn Manson ... that's how I want you, Peter Kennedy ... Trust me again, Germaine Greer ... Don't run away, Catherine Deveney ... Nothing can change, Pope Benedict ... the love that I bear you, George Pell

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  • Our man in the Vatican's inter-religious optimism

    • Peter Kirkwood
    • 13 August 2010

    One of Australia's most eminent theologians, Redemptorist Anthony Kelly, believes that what currently feels like a global breakdown of beliefs and culture may actually be the beginnings of a breakthrough to new forms of belief.

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  • RELIGION

    Pope Benedict's greed-free capitalism

    • Paul Oslington
    • 15 July 2010

    Some commentators have latched on to Benedict's encyclical Caritas in Veritate as a new 'third way' between socialism and capitalism. This is a remarkably bad idea.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    'Bigot' gaffe jars with British presidential politics

    • Peter Scally
    • 30 April 2010
    8 Comments

    Gordon Brown's campaign has hit rock-bottom thanks to an inadvertent remark being whipped into a huge story by mischief-making reporters. He is to Tony Blair what Pope Benedict is to John Paul II — shy, serious, and a little too 'heavy' for our sound-bite culture.

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