Keywords: Theology
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
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RELIGION
- Elizabeth Young
- 15 June 2022
3 Comments
Should women be considered for ministry as deacon? Should Pope Francis authorise such ministry? This topic often raises emotions, and strong views either for or against. This is one of the questions posed by Motion 54 to the Church’s July Plenary Council session, where members will amend and vote on 105 motions, prompted by the question, ‘What do you think God is asking of us in Australia at this time?’ Motion 54 is one to watch.
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RELIGION
While the church in East Timor has its hands full serving its large membership, a big challenge is to work out what its role should be in post-war Timor. Rather than entrench its comfortable status quo, Cardinal Virgilio, educated in the Philippines and from an order skilled in youth education, must ensure that the church’s new status is used to move it towards the model advocated by Pope Francis.
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RELIGION
While we have been (barely) coping with a pandemic and natural disasters, the death of a larger-than-life figure like Shane Warne — an ordinary-bloke-cum-sporting-legend, an ever-present companion to Australian audiences, and seemly untouchable — has really brought home the fragility of life. It has drastically reminded us of our mortality: that we don’t live forever.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Joel Hodge
- 25 February 2022
28 Comments
President Putin of Russia has embarked on an unprecedented military campaign in Ukraine without direct provocation or justification. In the West, there is a feeling of disbelief and confusion. How can Putin do this? And how can the Russian people accept this invasion?
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RELIGION
- Anne Benjamin
- 24 February 2022
25 Comments
The call to synodality is a call to convert, reform and renew the church’s organisational culture. New cultures do not emerge automatically. It is not about turning upside down the present pyramid structure of the church with a clerical hierarchy at the top and the faithful on the bottom. The church is not a political democracy, but a ‘holy people’ whose mission is to make God and Jesus present and, in a sense, visible to our world.
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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 24 February 2022
44 Comments
A local event in the United States Catholic Church has recently aroused interest in Australia. A Bishop declared to be invalid (non-existent and without effect) baptisms celebrated over twenty years by a priest of his diocese. As a result people baptised by the priest will have to be properly baptised. Although the issues raised by this event are specific to the Catholic Church it raises broader questions of how any group should respond to behaviour considered deviant.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Paul Mitchell
- 10 February 2022
6 Comments
American novelist Jonathan Franzen has in his last three fictional works taken words that loom large in the collective consciousness and built worlds around them. First, it was Freedom (2010), then Purity (2015), and now Crossroads (2021). The latter title, of course, refers to a literal and figurative decision-making moment, but also the mythic locale where blues singers, notably Robert Johnson, made their pacts with the devil.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Andrew Hamilton
- 10 February 2022
16 Comments
My ambivalence about philosophy came from my placing a high value on reason and its desire to test its own limits, but simultaneously being inherently suspicious of reasons. They are the stuff out of which the tin-soldiers of isms are created and so often used to patrol the fence that separates acceptable from unacceptable thought.
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RELIGION
- Jānis (John) T. Ozoliņš
- 03 February 2022
40 Comments
As if the Covid-19 pandemic has not been testing enough, modern life has never seemed more difficult than it does at present. We are bombarded on all sides by masses of information, misinformation, expert opinions, and the relentless, strident voices of social media browbeating us into accepting the dogmatic conclusions of leading influencers.
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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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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 20 January 2022
6 Comments
On the fifteenth anniversary of Rutilio Grande’s death, I went to a memorial celebration in Aguilares. This crossroads town was the centre of the Jesuit local mission of which Grande had been part. I had already been struck by the affection with which everyone spoke of Rutilio Grande. In a society where any ministry to people who were poor exposed one to constant danger, it was natural to become hardened in order to survive. Rutilio Grande, however, was remembered and treasured for his vulnerability.
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AUSTRALIA
- Joel Hodge
- 20 January 2022
25 Comments
It is unusual when political enemies unite. We should take note of them. The spectacular deportation of Australian Open tennis champion, Novak Djokovic, is one such unusual moment. Feeling had risen to a mob-like fervour. One is left wondering why?
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