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Keywords: Brisbane

  • RELIGION

    Vatican document focuses on process, not problems

    • Bill Uren
    • 30 July 2024
    7 Comments

    The Vatican's new Instrumentum Laboris outlines the path forward for the Synod on Synodality, but with a heavy emphasis on process over substance. While it acknowledges the need for greater women's involvement, it firmly reinforces the authority of the Pope and bishops, raising questions about the true potential for change.

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  • RELIGION

    The Bishop of Rome and universal jurisdiction: An ecumenical obstacle?

    • Bill Uren
    • 11 July 2024
    5 Comments

    The recent Vatican instruction terminating the celebration of the Tridentine Mass in St Patrick’s Cathedral is a prime example of Vatican officialdom overriding local episcopal authority. Let us hope that in a more decentralized Church some traditional obstacles to ecumenism may be removed without respective ecclesiastical loss of face on the part of the contributing Churches.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Building constitutional bridges: In conversation with Frank Brennan

    • David Halliday
    • 28 June 2024
    13 Comments

    It's been eight months since the Voice referendum, and people are starting to grapple with what its defeat means for Australia. There are few voices in Australia as qualified to conduct a postmortem of the outcome of the Voice referendum campaign as Frank Brennan. We examine what lessons can be learned and crucually, whether there’s reason for hope for Indigenous constitutional recognition.

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  • RELIGION

    Women deacons: A closed book?

    • Bill Uren
    • 11 June 2024
    15 Comments

    In a 60 Minutes interview, Pope Francis was asked whether there would ever be the prospect within the Catholic Church of a woman being ordained as a deacon. The Pope’s reply was a blunt ‘No’. This negative response came as a surprise to many Vatican watchers. 

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  • RELIGION

    The Greens, the Church and freedom of religion

    • John Warhurst
    • 01 May 2024
    33 Comments

    The relationship between the Catholic church and the Greens has been one marked by near constant antagonism. Are there any consequences from this for either the church or the party?

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  • RELIGION

    Where does Infinite Dignity meet finite reality?

    • Bill Uren
    • 24 April 2024
    14 Comments

    The recent Vatican declaration 'Dignitas Infinita' aims to provide a response to pressing bioethical and social issues, from abortion and euthanasia to gender theory and the rights of migrants. But does it effectively bridge the gap between doctrine and the lived experiences of the marginalised?  

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Sins of the fathers

    • Ken Haley
    • 29 March 2024
    2 Comments

    Recent years have made clerical child sexual abuse a badge of shame within Australia’s Catholic hierarchy, and rightly so. But Anne Manne’s new book, Sins of the fathers, will give pause to those who blame these offences on the rule of hieratic celibacy.

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  • EDUCATION

    What should anti-discrimination exemptions look like?

    • Michael Furtado
    • 20 March 2024
    6 Comments

    As challenges to anti-discrimination exemptions are likely to persist within Catholic education, how can the government and religious institutions collaborate effectively to balance the freedom of expressing religious beliefs with safeguarding the rights and freedoms of everyone involved?

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  • RELIGION

    Why did the Vatican take a new stance on blessing 'irregular' relationships?

    • Bill Uren
    • 07 March 2024
    4 Comments

    In December, the Vatican issued ‘Fiducia Supplicans’ (‘Supplicating Trust’), licensing priests to bless partners in same-sex and other ‘irregular’ relationships (divorced and remarried couples, couples ‘living in sin’, etc ) when they are approached in good faith.  

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The geography of loneliness

    • John Chesterman and Ilan Wiesel
    • 01 March 2024
    1 Comment

    The key to combatting increasing levels of loneliness and social isolation will likely start in the way we think about cities, public spaces and social care to enable meaningful connections between people, and help to guard against harms caused by habitual loneliness. But we'll need to get creative.

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  • RELIGION

    Ministering to euthanasia patients

    • Bill Uren
    • 30 January 2024
    8 Comments

    As Australia adopts voluntary assisted dying nationwide, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference addresses ethical challenges for end-of-life care in this new legal landscape. What is to be done when a terminally ill Catholic patient requests access to the sacraments when their intention is to embark on assisted suicide?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Reading the places we know

    • Julian Butler
    • 29 January 2024
    2 Comments

    In fiction, place often feels secondary. But when place comes alive in writing, it is a delight. When it’s a place that has shaped you, or continues to shape you, then your own mythology expands.

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