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Catholics in Australia have tended to be more tolerant of alcohol and gambling than 'wowser' Protestants. But too many Catholics turn a blind eye to how today's poker machine technology and operating environment is designed to nurture dangerous (but profitable) addiction.
Care for problem gamblers needs to be balanced against care for workers whose jobs are threatened by proposed reforms. Otherwise, the Gillard Government is open to the accusation that it is putting its own political survival ahead of the wellbeing of these workers.
The biblical injunction that Christians 'Give to God the things due to God and to Caesar the things due to Caesar' does not legitimise the separation of church and state. We live in a time when religious voices have returned with greater strength to the arenas of civil discourse.
Clubs Australia has launched a campaign against proposed pre-commitment technology designed to protect problem gamblers. Because Catholic teaching also seeks to protect these people, clubs sanctioned by the Church need to distance themselves from the campaign.
Everybody knows that problem gambling, just like binge drinking and illicit drugs, destroys lives. But should governments be aiming to eliminate gambling altogether? The Australian Jesuit Michael Kelly thinks not.
Arguments for preserving Good Friday are based on respect for Christians, or the benefits to society of a day free from work. Neither argument is conclusive. Perhaps it is helpful to ask, why should there be any public holidays at all?
It is interesting that the Churches have had little to say about the financial crisis and the behaviour that caused it. After all it has put at risk the lives of people throughout the world no less than abortion, euthanasia or gambling.
Long before there was a monopoly on gambling, there were nit-keepers, discovers David Glanz.
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