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Keywords: John Paul Ii

  • RELIGION

    Rise of the celebrity pope

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 08 September 2016
    7 Comments

    Popes are politically significant because they lead a large international church that is present in many nations. The teaching, interests and opinions of popes affect the way bishops and priests act, and so influence Catholic attitudes. More recently, popes have also become celebrities. Their influence on public opinion, in wider society and in the Church, is increasingly personal. As a result the way individual popes understand and express their faith will shape the possibilities for their political influence.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Does religion in schools go beyond branding?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 27 August 2015
    27 Comments

    Religious schools have emphasised the transmission of faith and an ethical way of life through a network of relationships, symbols and processes. But this is now being tested, with the dominant view that values and faith are a private matter best hosted inside the family. The operative goals of schools become the academic and economic advancement of individuals, with religious classes and rituals little more than decoration and rhetorical branding.

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  • RELIGION

    Getting ready for Pope Francis' environmental Rerum Novarum

    • Neil Ormerod
    • 11 May 2015
    20 Comments

    Both John Paul II and Benedict XVI made passing reference to environmental issues. Benedict spoke of the need for protection of the environment, resources the climate in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate. But in terms of its significance, Pope Francis’ forthcoming encyclical has the potential to do for the environmental movement what Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891) did for the union movement – to provide it with a powerful source of moral and religious legitimacy in the face of those forces which have sought to limit their influence. 

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  • The death penalty is always political

    • Frank Brennan
    • 31 March 2015
    10 Comments

    Some of the Australian commentary on the Indonesian justice system has been understandably very critical.  But living here in the USA for a year, I have come to realise that the death penalty infects every justice system no matter how good and robust it is.  In the end, the death penalty is always political.  That’s why I am very grateful to Pope John Paul II who changed his position.

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  • RELIGION

    Francis moving Church from pale green to deep green

    • Paul Collins
    • 20 January 2015
    43 Comments

    Pope Francis has been hailed for his ‘rattling’ and ‘upsetting’ Catholic climate change sceptics and politicians. His predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI were ahead of most politicians on the issue, but essentially they underestimated the magnitude and urgency of the environmental problems we face. It is likely that Francis will make a decisive effort to confront climate change during 2015.    

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Christmas story's whisper from the edges

    • John Falzon
    • 17 December 2013
    13 Comments

    Recently Pope Francis blasted the so-called trickle-down economic theories in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. Some will scorn his message as naive at best and dangerous at worst, while others will regard it as an urgent enkindling of hope in the face of degradation and despair. The Christmas story hints that another kind of world is possible.

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  • RELIGION

    Continuity in a changing church

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 10 July 2013
    9 Comments

    In the tension between tradition and change, John Paul II is seen as an emblem of continuity, and Pope John XXIII as a symbol for radical change. In the decision to canonise both former popes, Francis has refocused continuity as a way of honouring different perspectives in the name of a greater common mission.

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  • RELIGION

    The difference one pope can make

    • Neil Ormerod
    • 21 March 2013
    7 Comments

    There are 57 cardinals over 72 years of age. If Francis is in office for eight years or more he'll have a direct hand in replacing each of them. Just as John Paul II shaped the college of cardinals for the election of Benedict, so Francis is likely to shape the college for the election of his successor. This is a long term impact.

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  • RELIGION

    Sexual abuse is a social sin

    • Sandie Cornish
    • 06 December 2012
    30 Comments

    The organisational cultures and policies of some Church entities in particular times and places put the reputation of the Church ahead of the wellbeing of children. These can surely be called structures of sin just like the 'all-consuming desire for profit' or 'the thirst for power' which Pope John Paul II identified as such.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Families only a means to an end

    • Michael Mullins
    • 01 October 2012
    8 Comments

    Family life  holds no value in itself but is an often fruitful means to a morally good life. There are other means for those who do not marry, such as voluntary work, single-minded dedication to a profession, or caring for ageing parents. Why, then, do the Catholic Bishops, and indeed governments, go to so much trouble to support the family?

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  • RELIGION

    The Pope in Alice: 25 years on

    • Frank Brennan
    • 29 November 2011
    19 Comments

    Protocol dictated that he could not wear Aboriginal colours. But local custom won out when he donned a black, red and yellow stole given to him on the track. His speech put strong challenges to the Church, but offered too optimistic a reading of the prospects of Aboriginal Australians taking their rightful place in it.

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  • RELIGION

    Sharing the journey with agnostics and Qantas

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 03 November 2011
    27 Comments

    The Pope believes agnostics and Christians are on a shared journey, committed to peace and human dignity. The concept of the shared journey has consequences for the life of the Church, as in the Bishop Bill Morris saga, but also for events such as the Qantas controversy.

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