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Keywords: Theology

  • RELIGION

    Winds of theological change at the Vatican

    • Neil Ormerod
    • 13 March 2014
    10 Comments

    No one can deny the impact Francis has had. The question remains whether the differences between him and his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI are a matter of style or substance. Francis has downplayed the prospects of major doctrinal changes, yet the rehabilitation of liberation theology and the bringing in from the cold of outspoken 'extreme centrist' theologian Cardinal Walter Kasper do reveal a fundamental shift.

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  • RELIGION

    Church's family reality check

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 November 2013
    14 Comments

    In a welcome first step, the Vatican has invited lay Catholics to offer their views on the family. The document that accompanies the survey represents a fairly traditional Catholic theology of the family, setting it within a high theology and expressed in elevated language. This theology has been developed principally by celibate men, no doubt familiar with family life through their childhood and pastoral ministry, but at a distance from it.

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  • RELIGION

    Imagine being Christian in a rational world

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 06 June 2013
    26 Comments

    The Christian imagination is marked by internal tension and by tension with prevailing forms of rationality. These tensions are often dealt with by harmonising. The challenge facing those who arrive at these harmonising versions of their faith is to find sufficient sustenance for the imagination to allow them to happily stake their life on it.

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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

    Aussie priest's theology of the scrub

    • Frank Brennan
    • 09 November 2011
    10 Comments

    I had time to spare, so I grabbed a bite to eat and found a bench in the park opposite the cathedral. I was approached by four young Aboriginal people. I told them I'd come for a funeral: 'You might have known him, Father Mick Hayes?' 'He, that tall grey one? He knew me when I was a little fella.'

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Religious retreat on Wall Street

    • Michael Mullins
    • 17 October 2011
    8 Comments

    One American theology professor compares Occupy Wall Street to religious ritual. The practical outcome is arguably less important than the process of renewing the humanity of the participants. If they appear to have achieved nothing, it's likely they have achieved a great deal.

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  • RELIGION

    Pope's theory on clergy sex abuse

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 16 June 2011
    33 Comments

    Benedict uses large theoretical constructs to reflect on the condition of Western societies and the Church. This can simplify complex realities and provide a focus for reflection and conversation. But the weaknesses of this approach are revealed when he blames bad moral theory for sexual abuse by the clergy.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Joe Bageant's option for the hillbillies

    • Michael Loughnane
    • 12 April 2011
    6 Comments

    ‘I don’t like middle class people very much,’ said Joe Bageant in an interview for the documentary Deer Hunting with Jesus. Bageant championed the cause of  the ‘white redneck’, a social group he saw as being one of the most marginalised and disenfranchised in America.

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  • EUREKA STREET TV

    Paul Collins and the Vatican

    • Peter Kirkwood
    • 07 April 2011
    6 Comments

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  • EUREKA STREET TV

    Paul Collins and the Vatican

    • Peter Kirkwood
    • 07 April 2011

    In 2001 Collins resigned from priestly ministry because of a dispute with the Vatican over his book Papal Power. In the interview he discusses his views on the Church and its governance, as well as eco-theology.

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  • EUREKA STREET TV

    Theology coloured by clergy sex abuse

    • Peter Kirkwood
    • 10 February 2011
    3 Comments

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  • EUREKA STREET TV

    Theology coloured by clergy sex abuse

    • Peter Kirkwood
    • 10 February 2011

    Lay Catholic theologian Neil Ormerod's approach was strongly coloured in the early 1990s when he and his wife Thea became activists on behalf of survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

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