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Keywords: Caritas

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    'Communist' Bishop's prophetic vision

    • John Battle
    • 30 October 2009
    3 Comments

    'Prophets' don't predict the future; they read the complex signs that spell out how structures and systems generate poverty. Dom Helder Camara's words still speak to the financial crisis and the need to bring justice for the poor.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Deadly tsunami and dangerous pride

    • Michael Mullins
    • 05 October 2009
    3 Comments

    The parochial Australian press reaction to last week's Samoan tsunami shows how editors play on people's sense of pride to sell newspapers. But the misuse and manipulation of information can have adverse consequences for third parties.

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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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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Why green Catholics are not communists

    • Neil Ormerod
    • 04 September 2009
    20 Comments

    Many conservative Catholics are sceptical about global warming. For them environmentalism is the new communism. This echoes the paranoia of the '50s and '60s are clear, when anyone with an interest in social justice was suspect.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    East Timor needs justice before reconciliation

    • Michael Mullins
    • 31 August 2009
    6 Comments

    There's good reason for East Timor to opt for a tribunal to deliver justice for past crimes. But Australia cannot expect to receive a special hearing. Our attempts to push for justice for the sake of stability would be perceived as a promotion of our own self-interest.

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  • RELIGION

    Pope's 'new anthropology' shoots for the moon

    • David Holdcroft
    • 17 August 2009
    7 Comments

    Reflections on the 40th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing can help us understand the major themes of Pope Benedicts's social encyclical, and explain why many critics of this radical document have missed the point.

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  • RELIGION

    The meddling priest and the Redfern prophet

    • Frank Brennan
    • 16 July 2009
    9 Comments

    Last week, Pope Benedict gave Kevin Rudd a copy of his new encyclical Caritas in Veritate. Rudd gave the Pope a copy of the National Apology. I wonder what the radical Redfern priest Ted Kennedy would have made of this exchange of literary gifts.

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  • RELIGION

    Who deserves charity

    • Susie Byers
    • 14 July 2009
    10 Comments

    The Pope's social encyclical comes at a time when Australian churches increasingly have to provide charity to those who have been failed by the state. For charity to constitute true giving, social organisations must also be prepared to commit politically.

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  • RELIGION

    Pope's 'seamless garment' bares green credentials

    • Neil Ordmerod
    • 10 July 2009
    2 Comments

    This week's release of the new social encyclical Caritas in Veritate expands moral teaching to promote a concept of 'human ecology' that covers both human life and the environment. It would seem that Benedict is not a climate change sceptic.

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  • RELIGION

    Pope confronts economic injustice

    • Bruce Duncan
    • 10 July 2009
    4 Comments

    The Pope's encyclical on social teaching is not a strident critique of capitalism, but it does confront abuses in the global economy. Benedict is critical of the free market ideology which extolled wealth creation but ignored the need for equity and social justice.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Getting a grip on swine flu hysteria

    • Michael Mullins
    • 04 May 2009
    3 Comments

    The Herald Sun's Andrew Bolt has provided a welcome critique of 'pig flu' fear-mongering by the Australian media. But he falls into a similarly myopic trap that misses the global perspective.

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  • RELIGION

    People of hope, not hate

    • Frank Brennan
    • 24 February 2009

    In East Timor, I was able to see close up the work of Caritas in war torn conditions. There could be no reconciliation without justice. Caritas worked tirelessly to proclaim the message.

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