Keywords: Church Sexual Abuse
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RELIGION
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
- John Warhurst
- 03 July 2024
In 1962, Goulburn was the centre of national attention when Catholic schools closed in protest over a lack of government funding and control. Students overwhelmed public schools. Could this happen again? An Australian archbishop suggests it as an option if religious freedom in Catholic schools is threatened.
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RELIGION
None of us — even those experiencing vulnerability, whether temporary or resulting from a permanent infirmity of some kind — should be perceived as an object of protection; instead, each one of us is a collaborator in our own care, and in the care of others.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael McVeigh
- 01 July 2024
Last month, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference released a pastoral statement on religion and sport. And while commending sport’s ability to promote growth in individuals and foster healthy communities, if sport is to be a field of mission, it should be more willing to dive into those places where the 'bruises' occur.
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RELIGION
- John Warhurst
- 29 May 2024
We are now witnessing a changed dynamic within the movement for church reform. The balance within its component parts has changed towards a more pessimistic view. A minority is still hopeful; a few even remain optimistic, but most are struggling.
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RELIGION
- Michele Gierck
- 11 January 2024
In his latest book, The Empty Honour Board: A School Memoir, Martin Flanagan reckons with the legacy of abuse in the Catholic Church by looking back at his experiences at boarding school in Tasmania. In an interview with Michele Gierck for Eureka Street, Martin talks about the process of uncovering what happened all those years ago.
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RELIGION
- Michele Gierck
- 18 August 2023
5 Comments
In his latest book, The Empty Honour Board: A School Memoir, Martin Flanagan reckons with the legacy of abuse in the Catholic Church by looking back at his experiences at boarding school in Tasmania. In an interview with Michele Gierck for Eureka Street, Martin talks about the process of uncovering what happened all those years ago.
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RELIGION
- Miles Pattenden
- 12 January 2023
Many Catholics will have found the news from Germany this past week painful. A law firm, Westpfahl Spilker Wastl, has presented findings in its investigation into historic sexual abuse in the Munich archdiocese. Running to 1,000 pages, the report is shocking: it lists at least 497 victims for the period 1945–2019 and identifies 235 probable offenders including 173 priests and nine deacons.
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RELIGION
- Miles Pattenden
- 26 May 2022
19 Comments
News leaked earlier this month that the US Supreme Court plans to overturn its most famous decision, that in Roe vs Wade (1973) which protects a pregnant woman's freedom to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction. The decision has attracted much criticism both in the past and now on account of its dubious legal reasoning – in particular, its attempt to link the right to abort to a right to privacy which itself was notional and not specified in the US Constitution.
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RELIGION
- Miles Pattenden
- 27 January 2022
31 Comments
Many Catholics will have found the news from Germany this past week painful. A law firm, Westpfahl Spilker Wastl, has presented findings in its investigation into historic sexual abuse in the Munich archdiocese. Running to 1,000 pages, the report is shocking: it lists at least 497 victims for the period 1945–2019 and identifies 235 probable offenders including 173 priests and nine deacons.
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AUSTRALIA
- John Warhurst
- 01 December 2020
31 Comments
The Australian community and its government are struggling to come to terms with the extremely serious allegations against members of the SAS for their alleged criminal misconduct during the war in Afghanistan. At the same time, we Catholics are experiencing a bad case of déjà as there are many echoes of how we felt when the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (RC) began in 2013.
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RELIGION
- David Holdcroft
- 27 October 2020
9 Comments
Insofar as there is hope in Francesco, it emerges gradually through an intimate viewing of the Pope’s engagement with the ‘hot button’ issues of our day, the environment and climate change, refugees and immigration, violence and conflict, disparity of wealth and poverty, women’s place in society and Church, family and sexuality, and sexual abuse within the Church.
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