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Keywords: Bishops

  • RELIGION

    Anglicans and Catholics

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 18 November 2010
    20 Comments

    Predictions that massive numbers of Anglicans will become Catholic seem far-fetched. Certainly, the Anglican communion is sharply divided by proposals to ordain women Bishops and to ordain as Bishops men in openly homosexual relationships. But only some of those opposed would feel any attraction to Rome.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    What Catholics expect from politicians

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 09 November 2010
    12 Comments

    Recently Victoria's Catholic Bishops distributed their advice to voters in the November 27 state election. Entitled Your Vote, Your Values, it was quickly portrayed as an attack on the Greens, given its focus on euthanasia. The statement, however, was more complex and interesting than that description suggested.

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  • RELIGION

    Reconciling religion, politics and human rights

    • Frank Brennan
    • 04 November 2010
    15 Comments

    Cardinal Pell, with whom I have voiced disagreement, preached superbly at the mass of thanksgiving after the canonisation of Mary MacKillop. 'She does not deter us from struggling to follow her.' As we wrestle with the common good, let's make a place for all our fellow citizens.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Bishops' voting advice needs grounding in dignity

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 12 August 2010
    18 Comments

    In an election campaign characterised by the avoidance of commitment to any principle that might cost votes, the Bishops' advice avoided bagging particular political parties and enunciated broad humane criteria to guide voters. It could have offered more.

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  • RELIGION

    Funerals for criminals and abusers

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 27 May 2010
    23 Comments

    Many Catholics complained Carl Williams was allowed burial in a Catholic Church. Some victims of sexual abuse were angry that bishops and priests glorified the funeral of a priest who had been charged with sexual abuse. These responses reflect a changing understanding of funerals in the Church.

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  • RELIGION

    Abuse cases teach Church deportment under fire

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 15 April 2010
    17 Comments

    Every day brings new instructions about deportment to the Pope: he must sack bishops, resign, apologise, submit to independent investigation. Good deportment can be mere spin, but it is a first step to dispelling anxiety. And good deportment often helps to good attitudes.

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  • INFORMATION

    Santamaria and the bishops in politics

    • Gerard Henderson
    • 11 March 2010
    2 Comments

    Towards the end of his life, the French philosopher Jacques Maritan thought it was a you-beaut idea to advocate Catholic/communist dialogue between the Vatican and Stalin's heirs in Moscow. Santamaria made mistakes, yet on the issue of Soviet totalitarianism he was smarter than Maritan. 

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  • RELIGION

    Learner lobbyists let loose on Canberra

    • Neil Ormerod
    • 25 September 2009
    3 Comments

    When the Hawke-Keating Government cut back funding for overseas aid, churches said nothing. Last week, 260 Christian young people set out to lobby politicians about Australia's failure to meet its obligations to developing nations.

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  • RELIGION

    Obama's challenge to the Church

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 26 February 2009
    22 Comments

    The standard by which the most vocal Catholic Bishops judged Obama was his position on abortion, same sex marriages, and on the use of embryos for research. Obama has done the churches a favour by stealing their clothing.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Dissident bishops and the case for church unity

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 02 February 2009
    19 Comments

    Pope Benedict's decision to lift the excommunication of four dissident Bishops has caused controversy. The decision raises wider questions about the unity of the Catholic Church, which bear on a current conflict within the Church in Brisbane.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Zimbabwe needs the ballot, not the bullet

    • Oskar Wermter
    • 30 June 2008
    4 Comments

    Gangs of party youth rampage through working class Harare assaulting anyone suspected of voting against Robert Mugabe. When they kill, these youths — uneducated, frustrated, high on Mugabe's ideology of hatred — think they are defending Zimbabwe's sovereignty.

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  • RELIGION

    Bishop Robinson confrontation leaves unfinished business

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 29 May 2008
    31 Comments

    The Australian Catholic Bishops argue that Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book on sexual abuse questions the authority of the Church to teach definitively. But Bishop Robinson is right when he calls for reflection on the factors within Catholic culture that foster abuse.

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