Catholic Action Australia

VICTORIA'S ANTI-RELIGIOUS FREEDOM BILL DEBATED NEXT WEEK

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 09:20:00 +0000

Rob Hull's Equal Opportunity Bill (2010) will be debated in Victoria's
parliament next week!

GOVERNMENT HYPOCRISY - POLITICAL PARTIES EXEMPT, BUT NOT CHURCHES

Hypocritically, politicians will be able to require that their employees
are members of their political party, but a ministers of religion will
not be able to automatically require that their employees are members of
their own faith. Under the new Victorian Equal Opportunity Act,
political parties will be exempt from the new Act, but churches won't.

CONTRACTS VOID

It appears that current employment contracts of church-based
organizations - which often specify that administrators, playgroup or
kindergarten coordinators, finance offices or site managers must be of
the organization's faith - may be illegal under the new law. The new
Equal Opportunity Bill leaves these contracts open to be challenged in
the courts.

"Inherent requirements" rule targets churches

Under current legislation, schools can assess who they employ to reflect
the school's culture on a case by case basis, taking into account a
personal moral values, religious beliefs and life style.

Under the new Equal Opportunity legislation, the courts will decide if
inherent religious requirements are necessary for the teaching of
secular subjects like English, Maths or Physics.

This will deny schools the right to exercise their discretion in
employing people who will reflect their religious culture across the
school.

Equally of concern, the act does not define "religion". So is a Baptist
school of the "Baptist religion", or will the courts judge it more
broadly as being of the "Christian religion"? It will be entirely up to
the courts to decide which definition of religion will be applied to
such a school.

Indeed, the new Equal Opportunity Act "inherent requirements" rules are
so ambiguous, they leave religious organizations open to a range of
legal prosecutions. The new legislation effectively gives the courts
grounds to prevent schools and other religious organisations from
dismissing or denying employment to people who are actively opposed to
the religious beliefs of the institution.

These same ambiguous "inherent requirements" rules will apply to
volunteers as well as paid employees!

COMMISSION GETS NEW POWERS TO INVESTIGATE YOUR ORGANISATION

The new legislation gives the Equal Opportunity Commission extensive new
powers for investigating suspected 'systematic discrimination,' even if
no complaint has been made.

Further, accused persons or church organisations will be required to
provide documents in evidence to the Commission and to attend Commission
hearings into their organization.

Attorney-General Rob Hulls sneaks another anti-religious Bill into Parliament

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 03:14:00 +0000

Victoria's Attorney-General Rob Hulls introduced a bill to amend Victoria's Equal Opportunity Act (EOA) into the Parliament last week on 10 March. It is called the Equal Opportunity Bill 2010.

The Bill will restricts the freedom for religious bodies and schools to act according to their beliefs. Religious bodies and schools will have to justify - to the Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission - as to why it is 'reasonably necessary' for them to discriminate in order to "avoid injury to the religious sensitivities of adherents of the religion".

Religious schools will be further restricted by the inclusion an 'inherent requirement' clause - if passed, schools would have to justify - to VCAT - why they insisted on a staff member being a Christian, not being a homosexual, etc.

The proposed changes also give much more power to the Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission to "conduct investigations" - even when a complaint hasn't been made - and have their 'compliance notice' enforced by VCAT!

Mr Hulls refused to allow more than the standard two weeks for public consultation, and the bill is expected to be debated in the Legislative Assembly as early as 24 March 2010.

The atheist delusion - by atheist Phillip Adams

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:10:00 +0000

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/19/2850137.htm

This is an edited version of a speech Phillip Adams gave last weekend at the 2010 Global Atheist Convention.

When I was a child I was the only person who didn't believe in God that I knew. Everyone else had either been born into one of the major brands of Christianity, or at very least they'd accepted, by a process of social osmosis, the idea of God, even if they remained, for all practical purposes, indifferent.

And that's the good thing about the recent ascendancy of our belief, or rather our disbelief. For atheism does not presuppose, let alone impose, a set of views. All it does is unite us in religious scepticism about the existence of gods. Gods plural because, of course, even within one of the religious brands quite a few variations on God are made available.

So today is important because it tells people that atheism is all right. I didn't know it was all right. This greatly intensified my loneliness as a child. When I tried to tell my grandmother my doubts - I was raised by grandparents on a tiny farm -she boxed my ears. Ah, the solitary dissidents, the lonely thinkers, the people who may be the only disbeliever in a family or community. To that extent we need to borrow from our enemies and have some missionary zeal. Whilst we should avoid messiahs we need disciples to go out and spread the word and seek converts. But as I'll be arguing this morning we must also have to use our intellectual convictions to calm down the frenzies of faith.

I see some parallels here between atheism and homosexuality. 'The love that dare not speak its name' as Oscar Wilde pronounced it. Leading to millions living their life in the closet. Atheism was, and to a large extent remains, the view that dare not speak its name. And it's only recently that I've observed atheists coming out. Finally confident enough to be, to borrow a gay slogan, loud and proud (Incidentally, spare a thought for gay atheists).

But in becoming prouder and louder I want to argue that we should not be too loud. And that we should not overestimate our importance as the tectonic plates of religion move slowly, rubbing against each other to cause mental and social earthquakes. By all means let us congratulate each other - but let us not fall prey to hubris.

The disintegration of many a previously monolithic faith cannot be attributed or credited to us. Roman Catholicism founders because conservative prelates have tried to undo the progress of Vatican II. The faithful refuse to comply with anachronistic instructions on the pill and the condom.

They're embarrassed by their Church's archaic stance on women and appalled by the ongoing attempts to cover up paedophilia scandals. Others bitterly resent the undermining of liberation theology - those valiant social justice campaigns. Or the stacking of the pulpits of Western Europe with arch conservative priests from Poland.

The woes of the Catholic Church are self inflicted. We've barely laid a glove on them. Ditto for the Anglican Church which is increasingly stacked to the rafters with agnostics while Australian Anglicanism and US Episcopalians self destruct over the issues of women priests and continuing ecclesiastic homophobia.

But even the foundering of major faiths doesn't necessarily swell our numbers. There's evidence that the major faiths have atomised, Balkanised into the ongoing nonsense of cults, the New Age and pseudo science. Religious energy, like energy itself, cannot be destroyed. It tends to morph into new forms.

Twenty years ago Dick Smith and I aided and abetted the creation of the Australian Sceptics, the local branch of CSICOP - the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. CSICOP deals with displaced religiosity. Much of the loss of the market share for big brand religious beliefs was split up between the Pentecostalists with their shopping mall religions or the fast faith franchises, largely generated in California, right alongside the dream factory of Hollywood. Two worlds that overlap to an extraordinary extent.

Far from winning, the Sceptics and CSICOP have lost ground to Millenarian and Shirley Macleanish madness. Turn on cable or free to air telly and you'll see an ever increasing number of programs based on paranormal detectives while John Edwards and his fellow frauds talk to the dead. And the amount of space in newspapers given to astrology has by no means decreased. We live in a parallel universe to these people. The beliefs and behaviours that came from the Baptismal font in mainstream faiths have simply deformed and reformed.

Yes, atheism is on the march in the US, according to statistics. But we're starting from a very, very low base. And we should look across the census figures at the equally dramatic growth of Islam in the US. It's not coming from immigration but from conversion. Conversion within the prison system! Malcolm X and Mohammed Ali certainly started something.

So beware of triumphalism. Over the last half century I've learnt that my euphoria about atheism's progress, inevitable to us, about the advance of science leading to the retreat of God, was wildly optimistic. Yet the triumph of science, even in the scientifically triumphant US, has failed to convince the vast majority of Americans that evolution is a fact rather than a blasphemy.

Members of religions see atheists as their mortal enemies. Not immortal, of course, because atheists don't linger on through all eternity. We simply return to the nothingness that preceded our birth. Religions' immortal enemy is religion. We might shake our puny fists at the Vatican, at Islamic fundamentalism, at the religious right who turbo-charge the US Republican party - but it is the ancient and modern squabbles, the murderous contests between faiths and within them, that dwarf our dissent.

Hitchens, Dawkins and the rest of us are, at best, at worst, the most minor of irritants. The ancient and recent Christian crusades against Islam, the titanic struggle of the Protestant heretics against Mother Church, the recent internecine horrors in the Balkans, the genocidal hatred of the Jews incited by Martin Luther that evolved into Holocaust - these are the big stories. Savanarola was burnt at the stake by fellow Catholics - as was Joan of Arc. Atheists neither gathered the faggots nor fanned the flames. When religions are not at war with each other they tear themselves apart.

We cannot take the credit for the dramatic decline in religious observation in most Western nations. At last count, 90 per cent of Australian Catholics were not attending Mass. But that's not because of our arguments. It's because of their arguments with their priests, bishops and the more recent Popes, particularly those from Poland and Germany. Take us out of the equation and that rapid erosion will continue, perhaps accelerate.

It's even observable in the United States amongst the Pentacostalists. Just as the hippies were a reaction against stultifying and emotionally stunted parents, a great many children of US fundamentalists are shrugging off the dogmas of Mum and Dad. At very least they're moving at least fractionally towards the left. And American religious excess has certainly helped dim the flames of faith as far away as Western Europe. But it is important for us to realise - and let me borrow a couple of metaphors from the realms of cutlery - that it's self inflicted wounds that have done the most damage - particularly the Christian variants - than the cut and thrust of the atheists' arguments. We are, perhaps, the beneficiaries of this process but we cannot claim the credit.

Nor have we laid a glove on Islam or Hinduism. They are indifferent to us and our arguments. No, indifferent isn't the word, as in some Muslim countries our lives might well be at risk. You could argue, perhaps, that secular atheistic Jews are in constant conflict with the orthodox and ultra orthodox in Israel. Not that they seem to have won too many rounds (After all, Israel began its life as a secular state and, over the generations, has had to abandon territory to the religious right. They mightn't yield territory to the Palestinians but the religiously xenophobic don't seem to have lost much influence).

So perhaps we should reconsider our role, our allotted tasks, as people who believe in none of this nonsense we might see ourselves as honest brokers. Negotiate in their all consuming conflicts. Given our anthropological detachment from Messianic and Milleranian madness, from the boiling hatreds between Sunni and Shiia, we might share the role of the Norwegians. They're not particularly powerful or numerous but fight above their weight in hosing down dangerous situations. Confronted by rabid religiosity people who don't believe could try to ameliorate the hatreds of those who do. Mind you, you could mount an argument that that's exactly what the likes of us have been doing for the past few centuries. As to trying to convert the believer to disbelief - I tried that for the last half century and found it not only a fruitless but thankless task.

A confession I must admit to is being swept up in a religion as a teenager. I became, during the 1950s, when the Cold War was at its coldest and McCarthyism at its height, a member of the Australian Communist Party. I was 15 when I signed up and 18 when I was kicked out. And one of the reasons I lost my faith in atheistic communism was because it revealed itself as a parody of the Catholic Church. Catholicism had Rome, Communists had Moscow. Catholics had God the Father and his son Jesus. Communists had Karl Marx as God and Lenin as the saviour. They had the Bible, we had Das Kapital. They'd had Martin Luther and we'd had Trotsky. Both of us had forms of dogma, the show trial, confession, heresy, expulsion. Both published an Index of books not to read.

I remember noticing the eerie parallels between cheap Catholic tracts sold by the Catholic's Evidence Guild and cheap Marxist tracts sold at the international book shop perhaps a mile from where we are today. One tract would warn against heresy. The other against revisionism. One would have the upturned bearded face of Christ on the cover, the other the upturned bearded face of Lenin. Towards the end of my involvement in the party I used to swap them over, putting communist tracts into the racks surrounding a Gothic column in St Patrick's Cathedral - and smuggling the Catholic counterparts into the small Marxist bookshop. God knows, Marx knows, what happened as a consequence. How many Catholics were converted to communism, how many Commos accepted Christ as their own personal saviour.

I mention these parallels to dramatise that the atheist can be as susceptible to authority and dogma as the Catholic. And that's one of the reasons I differ in emphasis from Christopher and Richard. Just as I differed totally from Christopher on the war in Iraq. I've been an atheist for 66 years. I became atheist at the age of five, a decade before I knew what an atheist was. Before I'd even heard the word. But as a little boy, the son of a Christian minister, I realised I couldn't believe, that the notion of God was totally redundant. The great argument for God was that there had to be a Creation, a beginning. Some sort of cosmic orgasm that got things going. But my objection was simple. If God was the beginning who began God?

When I was discovering why I was not a communist I read Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian. In it he explained that he was 18 or 19 when he asked himself that all important question. If God was the beginning who began God? And it was at that moment that he lost the last vestiges of faith.

But I understand the yearning for belief. The poignancy, the wanting to believe. It is driven, principally, by the fear of death. Christians postulate a lopsided creation in which personal existence goes on and on and on for billions of years in Heaven. Yet that creation had a sudden, magical beginning with God.

I realised, at the age of five, that I'd already been dead forever. Because what happened before birth - all those billions of years of non-existence was identical to what happened after death.

Now, although I share much of the anger, indignation and rage that Hitchens and Dawkins express I am well aware of that vastation of terror that greets anyone who considers their mortality.

I started writing about that terror in columns almost half a century ago. It was, I believe, the first time these issues were raised in an Australian newspaper. As I took advantage of the fact that they were evolving from newspapers to viewspapers. Unable to compete with the urgency and immediacy of electronic media newspapers were opening their pages to interpretation of last night's news and could be encouraged to give space to philosophical meanderings. So I used that window of opportunity to start discussing, in newspapers like The Age, The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald, the notion of living in a meaningless universe, without author or purpose - its only destiny to go cold and dark in obedience to the second law of thermo dynamics.

The notions of personal mortality, our denial of death or its burial in euphemism - are central to most religious belief.

For a while the attacks in response were deafening and strident but, little by little, I got a sort of a dialogue going with people of faith - which I still find valid. Because on a vast variety of the social issues - the social justice issues that I care about - people whose beliefs I find ridiculous can become my colleagues.

A decade ago Australia went through the most appalling wave of bigotry in the way it addressed the so-called problems of a few refugees. Building on the paranoia of white Australia, the Pauline Hansons and John Howards - and sadly some on my side of politics - prove that under the veneer of tolerance Australians remained deeply racist. On that issue amongst the first people to sign up for justice for refugees were Jesuit intellectuals and Josephite nuns. Just as Jews played a major role in the civil rights movement in the US - yes, largely secular Jews but nonetheless operating within a Jewish religious tradition - just as Jews joined with black leaders like Luther King to overthrow America's apartheid, members of Australian religious organisations (by no means enough of them, in very small numbers) manned the barricades.

As they did on Aboriginal rights. As they do on a wide variety of issues. While it's true that atheists have to put up with bullshit from the religious that deny us any claim to ethics or morality we must not make the same mistake. There are atheists who refuse to accept the possibility that Christians, for example, can be taken seriously as social reformers. They argue that they do it for the religious counterpart to frequent flyer points. In its crudest form, they argue that only the atheist can be truly ethical. Well, tell that to the Reverend Martin Luther King or the many black and white Christians who played a leading part in overthrowing the repulsive race laws that had been established by the Dutch Reform Church and justified by their distorted theology. We saw much the same thing with slavery. Christians, even Quakers, could justify the slave trade. Nonetheless, Christians following Wilberforce worked mightily to destroy it.

Atheists, finally, don't believe. But that doesn't make us better or nobler or finer people. At least, not necessarily. Many of the great crimes of the 20th century can be laid as much at our door as at the doors of the churches. Atheists, like Christians, can be the best or worst of people. We do not have a monopoly on intelligence, on ethics or decency. Yes, their beliefs - whether New Age nonsense or full blown Catholicism - range from the ludicrous to the loathsome. Yes, the Catholic Church's sickening attitude to human sexuality leads to paedophilia on a monstrous scale.

Its nonsense about virgin births and immaculate conceptions and the superiority of celibacy so distorts the human psyche that, decades ago, when making a film on prostitution and the sex industry, I discovered an overwhelming majority of prostitutes had had convent educations. And when I pointed this out in a series of newspaper columns, linking it to similar findings in the UK, which found that a remarkably high percentage of men and women in the sex trades were Roman Catholics, led to me being the target of a Catholic fatwah. On one particular Sunday an edict was read out from every Catholic pulpit in this country saying that it was a sin to read any newspaper that printed me or to listen to any radio station that broadcast me. And I hadn't even mentioned the paedophilia problem because, at the time, I didn't know it existed.

But when I look at these phenomena I am not moved to hate Roman Catholics so much as I am to pity them. And I want atheists to view these people, dragooned into belief since childhood, or coming upon them later in life as a consequence of the most profound of fears, the fear of death, with a degree of understanding and compassion.

It's true that such tolerance has never been extended to us and remains singularly absent in most major religions. The atheist remains an ultimate outsider, someone to be demonised, feared and detested. But that's their problem, not ours.

The current frenzy for faith, and fundamentalism, may be as I've occasionally speculated, the storm before the lull. The last gasp of religion as it yields to the mighty analysis and discoveries of science. That might be the case. But the confidence that I had in my teens - that religion would be dead by the end of the 20th century - that the synagogues, cathedrals and mosques would be museums - was foolhardy in the extreme. Indeed, while the religious monoliths did seem to be crumbling, the spontaneous combustion of ever more foolish faiths in the supernatural smorgasbord of cults, largely created in California, and in the tenacity of superstition to remain alive and well even in its trickle-down form of those astrological features in daily newspapers, remains awesome.

Furthermore I'm assailed by people who argue that while God didn't exist, doesn't exist, he she or it is coming into existence through the new technologies. That the internet is the harbinger of a vast new form of consciousness that will fill the galaxies and will, in some strange way, neutralise the second law of thermo-dynamics. Now I think this is twaddle. But it shows that even amongst people who claim to be totally secular, who would see themselves as being atheists of some degree, there's always a danger of creating a new ism or ology that, like communism at its worst, may have a disastrous impact.

Yes, we must rage against religious extremism. But we must also be intelligent enough to understand its origins, in the individual and in society. We are not strong enough, we don't have sufficient numbers to change the balance of power. The fact that religious belief may have evaporated in western Europe, that it really ceased to exist in Japan, that does not mean that we've won. It simply means that in many areas religion has lost. But giving up on religious belief is not the same as becoming a thoughtful, highly rational atheist. There may be 2,500 of us here today but we are still a tiny minority.

Most people who've abandoned religion have not embraced the thoughts and values we might try and articulate. They've taken up shopping. They are dulling the pain of existence in the mall, by buying things they don't need with the credit cards they can't afford. Or they're dulling the pain in alcohol or narcosis. Or they're just sitting in front of the telly or the computer screen bathing themselves in violent drama or hyper violent games. In pornography or the pornographies of violence.

Don't be fooled into thinking that we're at the edge of victory. That would be a delusion. It concerns me that by becoming too arrogant, too strident, too aggressive we will stultify rather than intensify debate. I've known Christopher Hitchens for decades and know how he operates. In any area, on no matter what he's tackling, he has two positions. On or off. And when he's on he can be absolutely exhilarating.

I remember chortling with delight at his attacks on Mother Theresa - when he called for Henry Kissinger to be tried as a war criminal. But I was horrified when he threw his lot in with the Bush administration and the neo cons. Mind you, many of the neo cons started their intellectual life as Christopher did, as Trotskyites. In other words whenever Christopher is writing something he cannot help but pound the keyboard like a pianist playing one of the noisier works of Rachmaninoff. His response to what he correctly sees as Islamist fascism brooks no argument and takes no prisoners. It goes straight to shock and awe, to the botched invasion of Iraq and ends up with up to a million dead (Not that we'll ever know the figure because a body count has always been studiously avoided) and Abu Ghraib. And Christopher remains unapologetic. Because that's the way he thinks and that's the way he writes. And nobody does that sort of thing better. Much of what Richard writes and says and broadcasts has the same... energy.

I propose, if you like, a third way while recognising how devalued that notion has become in politics. But a willingness to sit down and talk to these people who are not necessarily our enemies and who may, on a raft of issues, be our friends. Sometimes their efforts to be our friends are grotesque and ludicrous. I think of the Templeton prizewinners, the long list of scientists, almost all of whom I have either known or interviewed at length, cop a million dollars for building bridges of understanding - usually misunderstandings between science and Christian beliefs. But when it comes to human suffering, whilst I can see that much of it has been exacerbated by religion, we must accept the reality that we need 'em on our side if we are to effect social change.

There was a time when, for example, the Christian world seemed wholly unsympathetic to the climate change crisis. But there is now a strong movement, within Christianity, to see the destruction of the planet as a form of blasphemy.

People of religious faith are, in my view, more to be pitied than blamed. They are, I believe, victims of the faiths they profess. But there are countless millions of them who are decent human beings. As decent as the 2,500 gathered here today. And I return to that notion of the atheist as honest broker. Of the atheist as go-between. Of the atheist who can sit down with Protestant, Catholic, Sunni and Shiia, Muslim and Hindu and try to talk some sense into them.

And I've done it. I've conducted little experiments along these lines by getting myself invited to some very strange places. For example, Australia's leading Pentecostal ministers - running vast churches - had me along to talk to them about atheism. I described myself as a mangy old lion in a den of Christians and got a very good hearing. And by the end of the discussion I like to think that they would not be so quick to condemn, demonise of vilify atheists in the future.

In running this line at this conference I realise that it will not be popular, that it's much more fun to shake the fist and pound the table. But in a world where the religious have done so much of that for millennia, and continue to do it in the 21st century, somebody's got to be sane. And sanity is, or should be, a characteristic of atheism.

And may the blessings of Bertrand Russell rain down upon you.

Footnote

While I do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ I'm here to tell you that other apparent corpses have a remarkable ability to resurrect themselves. Only moments ago Obama's victory signalled the end of the Republican Party. Now, a little over a year after his inauguration day, the Republicans are reviving. Not by compromising, not by changing the packaging, but by becoming even madder than ever. The Rush Limbaughs, Sarah Palins, Tea Parties, Fox News and its loony luminaries, are looking forward to the mid-terms where there will be a bounce back. The pundits, as ever, were totally unreliable. Ditto for the death of religion. It rises like Lazarus, like the phoenix from the ashes. In some cases it does some repackaging. So that Creationism is slightly redefined as intelligent design. But much of it goes in the opposite direction, becoming even more reckless and Fundamentalist, more mediaeval. Faith, blind faith in all its forms, in all its weird and wacky variations, behaves like a virus. Just when you think you've got it on the run it mutates into something even more infectious, even deadlier. And the immune system of human societies isn't getting significantly stronger.

In the last century 150 million people died in wars and genocides. We would argue that religion played a major role in those statistics. There's little evidence of it ameliorated fanaticism and much that exacerbated it.

How will we fare in the 21st century? It certainly not off to an encouraging start. Truly world wars may be fading but the intensification of local, nationalist, civil and other forms of conflict are on the increase. And we have yet to see what will happen when, inevitably, terrorist groups, motivated by religion, get their hands on biological or nuclear weapons. When one or more of scores of would-be Saddam Husseins really do get weapons of mass destruction.

Yes, there are pockets of progress. But they're offset by black holes of brutal beliefs. It's a fight that's been going on for centuries, millennia. And it's not over yet.

Looking for the real Abbott - Toby Abbott's Catholicism

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:19:00 +0000

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/looking-for-the-real-abbott/story-e6frg6zo-1225843015862

There is nothing new about a political leader being a Christian. Paul Keating was steeped in his Catholic background; Malcolm Turnbull was a convert to Catholicism; John Howard, reared a Methodist, practised as an Anglican; and Kevin Rudd is an Anglican who gives television doorstops outside church. Rudd provides politics with a slightly more religious face and hopes to gain from this.

Yet Abbott is different. None of the others contemplated a religious life, spent three years in a seminary or had the same depth of religious experience. Abbott's Catholicism is integral to his political personality. It runs through his speech, outlook and values. It provokes alarm from influential women and feminists.

But what is especially different is that Abbott keeps talking about his values and morality.

During last week's ABC1 Four Corners program on Abbott, interviewer Liz Jackson ventured that "maybe it's the language" he uses that helps to make Abbott so provocative. Former journalist and Peter Costello press secretary Niki Savva said this week that Abbott cannot stop talking about sex, morality and women. This raises the question: Do his advisers ever tell him to tone it down?

On this point the contrast between Abbott and Rudd is pivotal. Abbott opens the door on his moral views and Rudd, as Prime Minister, has firmly closed the door. It is fascinating that the media responds in a dutiful manner. It questions Abbott relentlessly and it largely leaves Rudd alone.

Yet the views of the two men seem almost identical. What does this say about media professionalism and fairness?

In Rudd's famous 2006 Monthly magazine article he called German theologian and anti-Nazi activist Dietrich Bonhoeffer his hero and quoted him approvingly that "when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die".

Rudd backed Bonhoeffer's rejection of the Two Kingdoms doctrine: the gospel being about the inner person and not the realm of state affairs. By endorsing Bonhoeffer's view Rudd offered the most assertive vision of an active Christianity in politics.

Yet Rudd's Christianity is more acceptable to the media because it enshrines a social justice agenda to support "the marginalised, the vulnerable and the oppressed". Rudd also believes abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research are "matters of deep individual conscience", which means he is not prescriptive on such matters.

Abbott, by contrast, reflects the Catholic struggle between individual conscience and church interpretation of God's will. He flirts with being prescriptive about conscience matters. So Abbott laments 100,000 abortions annually and wants abortion to be "safe, legal and rare"; he says he finds homosexuals "a bit threatening"; and he reveals advice to his daughters not "to give it [virginity] to someone lightly".

This difference is subtle yet vital. Rudd and Abbott have similar views on same-sex marriage, abortion and euthanasia but Abbott's more prescriptive rhetoric brings him into the firing line.

Of course, Abbott is a politician seeking advantage. He judges his social conservatism will appeal to the former Howard battlers who believe in family and traditional values.

Yet the differences between Howard and Abbott are illuminating; Abbott, unlike Howard, has a more explicit religious profile and this poses a greater electoral risk for him.

The truth, however, is that in hard policy terms the guise of "Abbott as Christian crusader" is overdone, exhausted and marginal. Abbott does not seek to qualify the secular state.

He has made this clear for many years. He does not seek any change in abortion laws. He does not object to same-sex couples, just their marriage, like Rudd. He does not seek to impose Catholic teaching on Australia. Any such notion is untenable in Australia's secular state.

The real objection to Abbott is that he refuses to disguise his muscular, conservative Christianity. The Australian people will pass their own judgment on muscular, conservative Christianity but it is manifestly offensive to our progressive media.

There are numerous examples but the most recent was the Four Corners program last Monday on The Authentic Mr Abbott. The unifying theme was Abbott's religion to an extent that would have been inconceivable in any comparable program on Rudd.

But the real issue was the treatment of Abbott's religion. It was a sustained exercise in reinforcing stereotypes where, for the umpteenth time, Abbott was portrayed as patronising about women, reactionary on abortion, prone to impose his moral beliefs and unsympathetic to the poor and homeless.

Many viewers would have loved it. This program magnified out of proportion and distorted the policy significance of Abbott's religion as distinct from Abbott's views on economics, finance, foreign policy, welfare, education, health, parental leave, industrial relations and so on that will bear directly on what an Abbott prime ministership would mean for Australians.

The more challenging and worthwhile media approach was to discover the "authentic Mr Abbott" by contesting caricature and stereotype. What, for example, is the most obvious political example of Abbott's Christianity?

It is surely his personal commitment to and visits to remote indigenous communities during his entire career.

As a newly elected backbench MP in 1994 and 1995 Abbott began these three to four-day visits.

They intensified when he became employment minister, then health minister.

Abbott formed a relationship with Noel Pearson and became one of the great political backers of Pearson's reforms.

With more time after the Coalition's 2007 defeat, Abbott spent three weeks in 2008 as a teacher's aide working in the classroom from 9am to 3pm at Coen in north Queensland, assisting Aboriginal youngsters with their literacy, and has since followed the progress of some of these children.

Last year he spent 10 days at Aurukun in Queensland assisting the truancy team.

Frankly, this shows a rare personal commitment not duplicated by any other national party leader. It is part of the Abbott story unknown to the public.

Such commitment is integral to Abbott's Christianity and Catholic background. Yet it violates the stereotype of his Christianity as a negative repressive factor, which is the ABC's dominant ideological mindset.

Such a depiction of Abbott would be contentious because it would mean his Christianity leads to something worthwhile. By the way, have you ever heard on any ABC current affairs program any suggestion that Abbott's Christianity has positive as opposed to negative implications? If so, you are a privileged person.

Four Corners highlighted the welfare sector's outrage about Abbott and stamped its angry foot over his refusal to endorse Rudd's target to halve homelessness by 2020.

Yes, Rudd's targets can be constructive but they do not guarantee good policy. Indeed, targets are often self-serving tokenism. At the 1998 election Kim Beazley pledged to cut the jobless rate to 5 per cent but Howard repudiated the target only to better the figure.

The program did not mention Rudd's recent concession that homelessness in Australia is increasing. Is this not relevant when Abbott is being critiqued for not matching Rudd's target?

What matters are results, and this was Abbott's point. The program's choice of homeless targets to reinforce the stereotype of Abbott as unsympathetic to poverty-busting intervention was unpersuasive and revealed a pre-conceived mindset towards him.

The program briefly mentioned former One Nation operative David Oldfield, who was employed by Abbott and whose defection to Pauline Hanson was a serious embarrassment for him.

Having raised Oldfield, the program declined to mention his consequence: that Abbott as a minister and without seeking Howard's approval launched a political and legal campaign against Hanson that led, eventually, to her imprisonment.

Abbott once said he saw this campaign "as the most important thing I have done in politics". Yes, the ABC has covered this issue before. But the idea of a conservative Abbott pursuing Hanson, another violation of the stereotype, was nowhere to be seen in the profile.

The program, fixated on Abbott's religion, missed the obvious point: that Abbott is a classic "Lord, forgive me" Christian, open and humble about his personal failures. Abbott's Christianity underpins his beliefs but facilitates his saga of confessional changes of mind, notably on multiculturalism and parental leave. What, pray, might come next?

Neither Abbott nor Rudd wants to make religion an election issue. While it lurks in the background, it should be kept firmly in the background.

It would be a serious lack of judgment if the media invested Abbott's religion with more weight than it deserves in this contest. It would be an equal lack of judgment if the media, in depicting the political meaning of Abbott's Christianity, offered a series of sustained distortions.

Children of lesbian couple barred from US Catholic school

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:02:00 +0000

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/children-of-lesbian-couple-barred-from-us-catholic-school/story-e6frfku0-1225839612413

THE Catholic Church in Denver, Colorado, has barred two children from enrolling in a local Catholic school because their parents are lesbians.

The church has actively campaigned against gay marriage because it teaches that a valid marriage is only between a man and a woman.

"Parents living in open discord with Catholic teaching in areas of faith and morals unfortunately choose by their actions to disqualify their children from enrollment," the Archdiocese of Denver said in a statement.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus School in nearby Boulder, a town known for its liberal politics, informed the lesbian couple of the ruling. The women were told that their children would be able to finish pre-school, but not attend higher classes.

The controversial decision came to light when teachers complained to local media. Protesters showed up at the Sacred Heart Church on Sunday with signs asking "What would Jesus do?"

While some conservative religious groups in the United States have raged against homosexuality, the Catholic Church has been careful not to demonise gays.

"The church does not claim that people with a homosexual orientation are 'bad' or that their children are less loved by God ... but what the church does teach is that sexual intimacy by anyone outside marriage is wrong (and) that marriage can only occur between a man and a woman," Archbishop Charles Chaput wrote in a column published today in the Denver Catholic Register.

Aicila Lewis, executive director of Boulder Pride, a group that advocates for the gay community, said her organisation has been hearing from Catholics.

"They want us to be aware that not everyone in the Catholic Church agrees with this decision. It's a wake-up call that this will cause a public outcry and not go unchallenged," Lewis said.

The pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church said it would be difficult for a child of gay parents to hear the church's teaching on marriage and then go home and see a different reality.

"We don't want to put any child in that tough position - nor do we want to put the parents, or the teachers, at odds with the teachings of the Catholic Church," Reverend William Breslin wrote in a blog.

Church defends priestly celibacy

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:56:00 +0000

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/church-defends-priestly-celibacy/story-e6frfku0-1225839822281

THE Vatican has reaffirmed the importance of celibacy for Catholic priests, the day after Austria's leading bishop urged a new look at the policy amid snowballing pedophilia scandals.

"Priestly celibacy is a gift of the Holy Spirit which must be understood and experienced with a fullness of feeling and joy, in a total relationship with the Lord," Cardinal Claudio Hummes was quoted as saying today.

"This unique and privileged relationship with God makes the priest an authentic witness of a singular spiritual paternity," said Cardinal Hummes, who heads the Vatican's department concerned with the priesthood, in remarks quoted by the ANSA news agency.

Archbishop of Vienna Christoph Schoenborn, writing in the archdiocese's in-house magazine, called for an unflinching examination of the possible roots of child sex abuse by priests.

Archbishop Schoenborn cited "the issue of priest training, as well as the question of what happened in the so-called sexual revolution".

He said: "It also includes the issue of priest celibacy and the issue of personality development. It requires a great deal of honesty, both on the part of the church and of society as a whole."

Archbishop Schoenborn's office later insisted he was not calling into question the Vatican's stance on celibacy.

According to Vatican watcher Bruno Bartoloni, Archbishop Schoenborn was warning that "pedophilia can reflect the frustration of those priests who are not at ease with being celibate".

The cardinal was suggesting "pathological situations" can result from a lack of proper psychological training for priests, Mr Bartoloni said.

A number of cases of sexual abuse in the Catholic church in Austria have come to light recently, joining major scandals in Ireland and Germany.

Archbishop Schoenborn also said he could understand the frustration of many church employees over the proliferation of pedophilia scandals.

"Enough is enough. That's what many people are saying and thinking," Archbishop Schoenborn wrote. "Enough of the scandals! How is it that members of the church are constantly made responsible for crimes that we didn't commit?"

The Brazilian Cardinal Hummes, the prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, was speaking at the start of a two-day theological convention.

Many theologians, notably Hans Kueng of Switzerland, have questioned the celibacy rule for priests, as well as lay Catholic groups such as We Are Church, which has called for numerous modernising reforms since its founding in 1996.

See Mary MacKillop canonised in Rome

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:53:00 +0000

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/travel/see-mary-mackilop-canonised-in-rome/story-e6frezhr-1225840060896

AUSTRALIAN Catholics wanting to witness the canonisation of Australia's first saint Mary MacKillop in Rome can choose from two recently released trips.

They include an eight-day tour of Rome or an 11-day option that includes three nights in the Bay of Naples. Guests on the latter tour will also go on an excursion to Assisi for a mass at the Basilica of St Francis and take part in guided tours of the Vatican and Colosseum.

In the Bay of Naples they will visit early Christian catacombs, the gardens of VillaD'Este, Pompeii, Herculaneum's archaeological sites and the seaside resort of Sorrento.

On the final day of the tours, the groups will attend the canonisation mass of Mary MacKillop at St Peter's Basilica in Rome and, in the evening, enjoy a barbecue to celebrate the historic event.

The packages start at $3650, and include flights with Thai Airways, taxes and fuel surcharges, three-star accommodation, all breakfasts and dinners, private coach travel, all entrance fees and the services of a professional Academy Travel escort.

Devil has infiltrated Vatican, says chief exorcist

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:49:00 +0000

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/devil-has-infiltrated-vatican-says-chief-exorcist/story-e6frg6n6-1225839656775

Sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof that that "the Devil is at work inside the Vatican", according to the Holy See's chief exorcist.

Father Gabriele Amorth, 85, has been the Vatican's chief exorcist for 25 years and says he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession, The Times of London reported.

He said that the consequences of satanic infiltration included power struggles at the Vatican as well as "cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon".

"When one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' (a phrase coined by Pope Paul VI in 1972) in the holy rooms, it is all true – including these latest stories of violence and paedophilia," he said.

He claimed that another example of satanic behaviour was the Vatican "cover-up" over the deaths in 1998 of Alois Estermann, the then commander of the Swiss Guard, his wife and Corporal Cedric Tornay, a Swiss Guard, who were all found shot dead.

"They covered up everything immediately," he said. "Here one sees the rot".

Father Amorth, who has just published Memoirs of an Exorcist, a series of interviews with the Vatican journalist Marco Tosatti, said that the attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II in 1981 had been the work of the Devil.

And an incident last Christmas when a mentally disturbed woman threw herself at Pope Benedict XVI at the start of Midnight Mass, pulling him to the ground, was also cited.

Father Amorth told La Repubblica that the devil was "pure spirit, invisible. But he manifests himself with blasphemies and afflictions in the person he possesses."

"He can remain hidden, or speak in different languages, transform himself or appear to be agreeable. At times he makes fun of me," he explained.

He said it sometimes took six or seven of his assistants to to hold down a possessed person. Those possessed often yelled and screamed and spat out nails or pieces of glass, which he kept in a bag.

"Anything can come out of their mouths – finger-length pieces of iron, but also rose petals," he said.

He said that hoped every diocese would eventually have a resident exorcist.

Godless politics has gone too far for democracy

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:56:00 +0000

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/godless-politics-has-gone-too-far-for-democracy/story-e6frg6zo-1225837301174

A dismissive attitude towards Christianity flows into a phony dichotomy between Caesar and God

ONE of the ABC's better initiatives has been the interactive panel discussion program Q&A which, unlike the heavily moderated and controlled Insight on SBS, allows the discussion to move into interesting and unexpected shoals and eddies.

One such moment happened recently after a fair bit of discussion about the Opposition Leader and the usual ribaldry about his (or was it the panel's?) preoccupation with sex.

One young man asked whether people with strong religious beliefs should be allowed to participate in politics.

Now that one even knocked the sensibilities of the rather wobbly old Whitlamite warrior Mungo MacCallum, forcing a nice little speech about freedom of religion from the bearded one.

I wondered if our young friend really understood what he was saying: that anyone with any kind of religious formation should be deliberately excluded from democracy.

Of course he had Christians in mind, and he didn't bother to ask himself why Christians, rather than Buddhists, Muslims or Jews, were less entitled to participate in democratic government. Cue the Horst Wessel Song?

At least he had the excuse of ignorance and youth. In the same week I had a conversation with a well-known head of a national institution who is supposedly on the opposite end of the ignorance scale, who declared he "hated all religion" and thought it had always been destructive, before flouncing off.

This dismissive attitude is often used as a way to avoid complex argument about issues of conscience.

Another way is to set up a phony dichotomy about God and Caesar.

A variation on that is to suppress religious belief and initiations in the name of freedom, as the human rightists are always trying to do.

It always amuses me how little the opponents of religion understand the complex philosophical foundations of Western democracy and the debt they owe to religious philosophy in our understanding of the human being.

Nor will they even concede that men and women of religious bent took on most of the great human rights battles of the past, such as the abolition of slavery and even the foundation of modern labour movements.

Today, nowhere is this denial more evident than in the battle over human life, human rights and freedom of conscience.

In Australia public policy is formed by a complex mixture of ideas and values.

The traditional values that are foundations of our democracy surely need as much consideration as any other less traditional and less widely held views.

Furthermore the church is deeply embedded in the health, welfare and education systems.

So it is right that religious views should be and are part of the mix of ideas.

The Sydney-based Ambrose Centre was set up to facilitate the philosophical and ethical perspective religion can bring to public debate.

For that reason it is pan-religious, because all great religions share certain common values and teachings.

This month it is sponsoring an American academic from Notre Dame University in Indiana, Gerard Bradley, who will be speaking in Canberra and Sydney on the lessons we can learn from a Catholic perspective arising from the present debate over health reform in the US.

With our vastly different and certainly more egalitarian medical system, we see ourselves as a bit beyond the almost fanatical individualism of the opponents of American health reform.

However, the American Catholic bishops have intervened quite significantly in that debate, as they have in the case of abortion and gay marriage.

We can learn, if not about health reform per se, something about the place of a Christian ethos in issues of conscience, which has ramifications quite beyond the debate about health reform.

According to Bradley, almost everyone agrees that the interventions of the American bishops have been, and will be, crucial to the outcome of President Barack Obama's health bill.

They spoke "consistently, and in a consistently principled way; they refrained from taking sides on technical or political issues [that] were beyond their competence as teachers of faith and morals".

But what of complaints that we are seeing a growing tendency towards episcopal interference in secular matters, such as health, based on derogation of proper church-state separation?

They are exposed as opportunistic rhetoric.

"These complaints focused mostly on the bishops' resistance to abortion funding; no one objected to the bishops' equally persistent declarations in the same teaching documents in favour of a universal right to health care as somehow crossing the line between what is Caesar's and what is God's," Bradley says.

"These opponents are not really civil libertarians, for they opposed adequate conscience protection for healthcare personnel opposed to abortion."

This rings a bell.

In Australia there have been almost identical accusations against the churches over issues such as abortion, embryo research and gay marriage.

Health care enmeshed within the bureaucracy of state and territory governments has already been a battlefront, too.

In Canberra, Calvary Hospital was directly threatened by the highly ideological ACT government, which sought to starve the hospital of funds to force its sale. The intervention of Archbishop of Sydney George Pell was characterised as meddling by one outsider; but, more seriously, the ACT's Stanhope government used the spurious argument that it couldn't fund what it didn't own.

If this argument had prevailed, the Catholic hospital system of Australia could have been threatened with similar action.

Likewise in Victoria, where ultra-liberal abortion laws have severely curtailed the right to conscientious objection. The provision that doctors must refer for abortion would have put Catholic hospitals in that state in an obvious dilemma.

So what of the separation of church and state in health care or indeed any other part of the church's extensive education welfare apparatus?

Just as a person cannot divide themselves into different parts, secular or religious, to suit the demands of the state, neither can the church.

In Australia the church acts as a benevolent agent for the people of the state in health and education.

But once the state interferes in the conduct and running of an institution by, for example, telling a hospital or school who it should employ, or to ignore its ethical foundation, then that is a threat to freedom of religion.

Vatican chorister Thomas Eheim hired male escorts for papal attendant Angelo Balducci - report

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:47:00 +0000

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/vatican-chorister-thomas-eheim-hired-male-escorts-for-papal-attendant-angelo-balducci-report/story-e6frf7k6-1225837580667

A SINGER in the Vatican choir had sex with one of the Pope's gentlemen-in-waiting and procured male escorts on his behalf, the Italian weekly Panorama says.

Telephone intercepts collected as part of an extensive corruption probe into Angelo Balducci showed that 40-year-old Nigerian Chinedu Thomas Ehiem would find men on the "Pianeta Escort" (Planet Escort) website and set up encounters between them and Balducci in his apartment in Rome, the weekly said on Friday.

In an interview with Panorama, Mr Ehiem said he had sex with Mr Balducci "for five or six months" because of financial problems.

After a lengthy period without making contact, Mr Balducci then got back in touch with Mr Ehiem, asking him to organise encounters for him via the internet.

"He asked and I executed. He would give me 50 or 100 euros, never more than 1000 or 1500 euros a year," Mr Ehiem said, adding that for Mr Balducci "a 26-, 27-year-old man was too young. He preferred meeting mature people - 40 or older."

The last meeting between Mr Balducci and Mr Ehiem took place in January when Mr Ehiem said he organised an encounter with "a dark-haired Hungarian in his forties".

Mr Balducci is part of the Gentlemen of His Holiness, a group that helps the Pope greet dignitaries visiting the Vatican.

He was arrested on February 10 and then removed from his position in the Vatican fraternity.

Mr Ehiem was kicked out of the Vatican choir this week.

The Catholic Church is currently enmeshed in a scandal over alleged sexual abuse of members of a boy choir formerly headed by Pope Benedict XVI's brother Georg, now 86, in the southern German city of Regensburg.

Churchgoers shot at Coptic Christmas midnight Mass in Egypt

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:43:00 +0000

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/churchgoers-shot-at-coptic-christmas-midnight-mass-in-egypt/story-e6frf7lf-1225816990400

THREE men in a car sprayed automatic gunfire into a crowd of churchgoers in Egypt as they left a midnight Mass for Coptic Christmas, killing at least seven people.

Egypt's Interior Ministry said the attack just before midnight on Wednesday was suspected as retaliation for the November rape of a Muslim girl by a Christian man in the same town. Officials aid witnesses had identified the lead attacker.

The attack happened in the town of Nag Hamadi in Qena province, 64km from the ancient ruins of Luxor.

A local security official confirmed seven were dead and three seriously wounded.

Bishop Kirollos of the Nag Hamadi Diocese said six male churchgoers and one security guard were killed. He said he had left St John's church just minutes before the attack.

"A driving car swerved near me, so I took the back door. By the time I shook hands with someone at the gate, I heard the mayhem, lots of machinegun shots," he said by phone.

The bishop said he was concerned about violence on the eve of Coptic Christmas, which falls on Thursday, because of previous threats following the rape of the 12-year-old girl in November.

He got a message on his mobile phone saying: "It is your turn."

"I did nothing with it. My faithful were also receiving threats in the streets, some shouting at them: 'We will not let you have festivities'," he said.

Because of the threats, he said he ended his Christmas Mass one hour early.

He said Muslim residents of Nag Hamadi and neighbouring villages rioted for five days in November and torched and damaged Christian properties in the area after the rape.

"For days, I had expected something to happen on Christmas Day," he said.

The bishop said police have now asked him to stay at home for fear of further violence.

Qena is one of Egypt's poorest and most conservative areas.

Christians, mostly Coptic, account for about 10 per cent of Egypt's predominantly Muslim population.

As Islamic conservatism gains ground, Christians have increasingly complained about discrimination by the Muslim majority.

Clashes between Muslims and Christians are not uncommon in southern Egypt and in recent years have begun seeping into the capital.

An Amnesty International report said sectarian attacks on the Coptic Christian community, comprising between six million and eight million people in Egypt, increased in the year 2008. Sporadic clashes between Coptic Christians and Muslims left eight people dead.

Vendetta killing is also common among southern Egyptians and is usually over land or family disputes.

The bishop said he had an idea of who the attackers were, calling them "Muslim radicals."

"It is all religious now. This is a religious war about how they can finish off the Christians in Egypt," he said.

Muslim journalists apologise after Holy Communion desecration

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:40:00 +0000

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/muslim-journalists-apologise-after-holy-communion-desecration/story-e6frfku0-1225837743413

A MALAYSIAN Muslim magazine issued an apology after two of its journalists joined a Catholic service and allegedly desecrated the communion wafer.

AFP reported the magazine, Al Islam, published an article describing how they took the wafer and spat it out after entering the church to investigate claims that Muslims were illegally converting to Christianity.

"Al Islam magazine apologises ... because the article had unintentionally hurt the feelings of Christians, especially Catholics," it said on its website Utusan Karya.

"It is also not the intention of Al Islam to insult the Christian religion nor to desecrate their house of worship," said the monthly magazine, which reports on issues concerning Malaysian Muslims.

The apology came after the archbishop of Kuala Lumpur, Murphy Pakiam, on Thursday criticised the government's failure to act over the incident and sought an apology from the publication.

"The journalists have displayed utmost disrespect for the Catholic community when they admit receiving and spitting out the Holy Communion," the archbishop said.

However, Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail defended the handling of the incident, saying the pair did not understand the significance of the wafer which Catholics believe represents the body of Jesus Christ.

"The actions of the two reporters may have hurt the feelings of the people but I was satisfied that they did not intend to offend anyone. It was an act of sheer ignorance," he said.

Al Islam, however, said the two writers also apologised for "unintentionally hurting the feelings" of Christians.

"Al Islam hopes such an incident will not happen again," it said.

Muslim-majority Malaysia was beset by religious disputes in recent months.

The multi-ethnic country was hit with a spate of firebombings against churches and mosques in January, triggered by a dispute over the use of the word "Allah" as a translation for "God" by non-Muslims.

The disputes strained relations between majority-Muslim Malays and minorities, including ethnic Chinese and Indian communities, who feared the country was being "Islamized."

About nine per cent of Malaysia's 28 million population are Christians, including 850,000 Catholics.

Readers Comments following the announcement of the canonisation of Mary MacKillop

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 07:43:00 +0000

http://www.news.com.au/national/mary-mackillop-to-become-australias-first-saint-on-october-17/comments-e6frfkvr-1225832369178

* Atheist of Sydney Posted at 10:23 PM February 19, 2010
Yay... She's done alright for a dead chick. Must be why they call it a miracle.

* gav Posted at 10:28 PM February 19, 2010
I prayed to Einstein that Mrs Evans would get better and it is due to these prayers that she got better. Hail Einstein!

* Liam of Brisbane Posted at 10:30 PM February 19, 2010
There's something about Mary

* bob Posted at 10:42 PM February 19, 2010
Since when does man have authority to declare who is a saint and who is going to heaven, according to the bible god is in charge.

* Nick Brennan Posted at 10:50 PM February 19, 2010
So a doctor gets it wrong, gives a misdiagnosis... or, like many people, someone gets better and science can't explain why. Why does that = God? These so called miracles are things that could have gotten better anyway. I don't see Mary Mackillop making someone's amputated leg grow back. If we look back over time, thousands of years ago miracles were huge things - the parting of the Red Sea... turning water into wine.... and as science explained them all away, these miracles have become less and less specific.

* Nexus of Sydney Posted at 11:01 PM February 19, 2010
More religious rubbish. Such things should be banished to the fairy tale and fable section of libraries.

* Evans Posted at 11:06 PM February 19, 2010
Only God is perfect. The canonization of anyone by the Catholic Church means that individual had lived an extraordinary life in serving God and other fellow human beings and they had tried to live as near to perfection as possible to imitate God. A great example!

* trillian Posted at 12:21 AM Today
To the faithful: Miraculous healing and subsequent glory can only really be attributed to Christ our Lord, as opposed to a person despite how good of a person they maybe and despite who the "healee" may claim to have healed them. While a person of such character can be rightfully praised, they cannot be idolised or worshipped.

* Linda G of perth Posted at 4:30 AM Today
I am not of the Catholice faith yet I think it is WONDERFUL that Mother Mary MacKillop is being Canonised. It is a blessing not only for the Catholic Church but for all of Australia.

* john of sydney Posted at 4:55 AM Today
blessed mary mckillop how wonderful to have your good works recognised. Your devotion to your fellow human beings was always a sign of goodness whether it was recognised by the very long and difficult progress of canonization. Despite the nasty comments by some others, those of us who still believe in the Divine and the wonder and mystery of all life, applaud the recognition of your beautiful heart spirit and eternality.

* Vicky Posted at 7:17 AM Today
What a beautiful and inspiring story. How wonderful it would be to hear stories like this more often. A nice change from the negative stories we usually read on the news headlines.

* Richard of Sydney Posted at 7:59 AM Today
Happy day for Australian Catholics. Typical showing from some of the militant atheists who must ridicule the belief's of others (mainly Catholics, never muslims) to get their kicks - when they're not worshipping at the climate change altar.

* Ivan Posted at 8:05 AM Today
Nick, As an amputee I don't expect my limb to grow back. It's not about seeing but believing in saintly solutions to life's common problems through love and compassion of your fellow human being. Yes, Miracles are beautiful bringing hope to all of us.

* Steven of Hobart Posted at 8:12 AM Today
Great news!

* Rachel of Perth Posted at 9:41 AM Today
I think it's wonderful and to Nexus just keep your comments to yourself, after all it is only YOUR opinion not rubbish. And to Nick you have all the facts and proof that this was a misdiagnosis and you were actually there at the parting of the Red Sea? Honestly I think you should be more specific. There is NO proof in what you say, just what scientists think may have happened, nothing is concrete.

* Annette of Loxton Posted at 10:22 AM Today
In the Christian faith miracles happen all the time. It is God that works miracles through those that believe in Him and He is to be praised.

* Enough already Posted at 10:27 AM Today
Fantastic! Now can we all (those of us that don't really give a rats arse about saints and the catholic church system) read some real news. I wonder if we are going to make a fuss over the next swarmi or cleric to be named. It all seems like a bunch of press to drown out all the misdeeds done by members of Catholic churches.

* Arthur George Manche' of Dromana, Vic Posted at 10:33 AM Today
Mother May McKillop is to be our first saint. Great news !! But I expected to see Mr. Rudd in Rome to ensure the Pope did the right thing. Our PM needs to be seen to be doing something for this country, other than sending it to the wall !! But wait. He might still be in Rome in October/November for the canonisation. How could he not be there ?

* Sheridan of the hill Posted at 10:39 AM Today
That's wonderful..

* Stuart of Melbourne Posted at 10:40 AM Today
More archaic, supernatural nonsense that has no place in the 21st Century.

* leon of brisbane Posted at 10:46 AM Today
Is everyone crazy? There is no evidence of God(s).

* Andrew Posted at 10:51 AM Today
As a Doctor I can say sometimes people get better from a terminal cancer who do not pray and are not religious. This is just Fairy tales that she could help from the grave.

* Hetty Wainwright of WA Posted at 10:52 AM Today
Big deal. So somebody survives cancer. It happens all the time. What a lot of hype.

* paul of townsville Posted at 10:56 AM Today
It's a miracle there are actually people who believe in miracles in this day and age.

* Steven Posted at 11:05 AM Today
Mary McKillop may be the first Australian saint recognised by the Roman Catholic Church but she isn't Australia's first saint. That honour goes to John Wollaston, who worked tirelessly for the faith in WA. As one child put it: "a saint is someone The Light shines through."

* psa of melbourne Posted at 11:54 AM Today
god, only knows what torment Mary, had to go thru back in the day. her faith shined on her,gave her strength to open her heart to all.lm not catholic,we're surrounded by miracles everyday but to busy and blind to see.

* kasey Posted at 11:55 AM Today
Isn't it funny how some people have the ability to see the negative and put a downer on anything. Your opinion is your opinion and theres is theres. Just leave it be and let others enjoy something that they obviously feel strongly about. You don't have to reconize the canonisation, just don't slam others for doing so.

* AG Posted at 11:57 AM Today
Hey Nick, The people in question were terminally ill and please provide factual evidence to all the assumptions made in your bitter post. I honestly feel sorry for you, I can't believe that people have such empty lives that they need to attack anything that is good.

* liz of Brisbane Posted at 12:13 PM Today
Wonderful news about a truly great woman - Australian women of any denomination should be proud that her legacy lives on still in education around Australia. She was a champion of disadvantaged people and refused to stop fighting for what she believed in until she acheived it.

* rocko Posted at 12:35 PM Today
Obviously those without faith cannot understand the power of faith or the reality of miracles. May you have some light in your life too.

* Star Posted at 12:40 PM Today
"Mrs Evans, from the Hunter Valley, received no medical treatment for her lung and brain cancer but instead prayed to God through the intercession of Mother Mary." my fear is somebody, or some persons try to emulate this without success.

* Julie Posted at 12:44 PM Today
fantastic news, I wanna go to France when it happens. might see the Mona Lisa while im there too :-)

* Marcin of Sydney Posted at 12:54 PM Today
great news!

* Trish of Gold Coast Posted at 1:22 PM Today
This is wonderful news, and makes me a very proud Catholic as well as Australian, to know that there is still goodness in the world. There will always be people who choose to hate & ridicule things they don't like or understand. A true show of character will be those people who read this news and wish the church & its followers well whether they are associated or not.

* pat of Melb Posted at 1:34 PM Today
Hoorah Our First Australian Saint Thanks be to God. Thank you our most blessed saint Mary, for everything you did & are still doing for your fellow Australians. May we follow your footsteps. Mary you have made me Very proud to be an Australian

* Lloyd of Sydney Posted at 2:13 PM Today
Are you people for real?! There's no such thing as god, saints or miracles. Grow up already.

* Bees of Sydney Posted at 2:19 PM Today
What a truly magical and holy moment in our blessed country!

* Jim Spence of Sydney Posted at 2:21 PM Today
Well from my reading of the bible we are instructed only to pray only to God, not to deceased humans no matter how good & selfless a life they may happen to have lived. To encourage people to pray to Mary Mackillop and other dead people is unbiblical and heresy.

* CP of Sydney Posted at 2:33 PM Today
Congrats to all the catholics!!! No doubt Mary was a good human being doing wonderful things. She deserve to be honoured by her faith. However, I would like to point out that its not my faith (I am a protestant and we parted with the vatican in the 1500s due to rampant corruption and misuse of power). Many Australians are non-catholics, and as such there is no way this in any way can be their saint either! Being of a different faith, I find it a bit strange that this event is blasted all over the news, as being "Australias first saint", and that "its a coming of age for Australia". As far as I understand its not Australia that has been cannonized, but Saint Mary. Her faith is not mine, so how about just keeping it to "Catholics of Australia now have their first Australian saint". So once again: A big congratulations to the Australian Catholics, for now having their first Australian Saint!

* ozzie Posted at 2:34 PM Today
Maybe its time to look to God for the answers, and not to some saint. The catholic faith is so wrong in many ways, I seem to remember that when someone prays they do it in the name of Jesus, not in the name of Mary or any saint.

* Owen of Brisbane Posted at 2:35 PM Today
May the light of the lord bless you all and keep you in his grace on your journey. We all get only a tiny protion of the picture the lord has, that is why we cannot judge each other. Mary allowed the light of Gods grace to shine through her. This is the example and the feeling of it is like a friend who walks with you every day. Faith inspires many things that you cannot see with your eye nor touch with your hand, you can only feel it with your heart. Saints are like beacons of light and Mary is rightfully one of them. Believer or no this is a wonderful thing.

* Aussie Jack Posted at 2:37 PM Today
Can someone explain how a woman who has been dead for 100 years cure Cancer?

* get a grip Posted at 2:40 PM Today
Well, AG, I can't believe that people like you have such empty lives and that you're so egotistical that you think that if there actually was some all knowing, all powerful 'god' that they would care about your day to day life. Having to make up something like that just to feel like you mean something is so sad. Also, all thise people saying there's no proof to the things that Nick's saying, where is the proof of a god? PROOF! You can't have it both ways. If you want it for one thing, you must use it for another

* Baptist Posted at 2:42 PM Today
This is truely irrelevant to most people. Saints aren't a 'Christian" thing, they're uniquely catholic. Stop assuming that everyone else should celebrate and respect your religion when you have a rich history of doing the exact opposite for the rest of the world

* Matthew Posted at 2:43 PM Today
Hail Mary

* gods advisor Posted at 2:44 PM Today
doctors and surgeons are the real saints. they've fixed more people with cancer

* Faithful Posted at 2:46 PM Today
Rocko, faith and religion are entirely different things. You do not need to go to church and idolise mortals to have a deep, spiritual faith. Personally, I think that religion is the antithesis of real, meaningful faith

* Mary Posted at 2:48 PM Today
'God' has absolutely nothing to do with this. She wasn't cast into sainthood by 'god'. She has be made into a false idol by a bunch of guys in Europe. Get a hold of yourselves. She was a great person, but that's it.

* Ben H of Dandenong Ranges Posted at 2:52 PM Today
'New hero(ine) for the country'? Yeah, obviously everyone is following Mackillop's example these days!

Mary MacKillop to become Australia's first saint on October 17

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0000

http://www.news.com.au/national/mary-mackillop-to-become-australias-first-saint-on-october-17/story-e6frfkvr-1225832369178

THE Pope confirmed that Mary MacKillop, a nun revered for her work with needy children as much as for her rebellious streak, will be Australia's first saint.

Benedict XVI announced tonight at a meeting of cardinals in the Vatican that the canonisation ceremony of Mother Mary would take place on October 17.

He recognised in December a miracle in which Mother Mary apparently cured a woman of cancer.

Mother Mary, who died in 1909 aged 67, passed the first stage to sainthood when Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1995 after recognising a first miracle attributed to her, in which a woman was said to have been cured of terminal leukaemia.

Sydney priest Father Mark Podesta was one the privileged few who witnessed the Pope's announcement.

"It's a gloomy day in Rome and when I entered the parlour there were about 20 or so cardinals and bishops and about 40 spectators," he told Sky News.

"It was a very solemn event and psalms and hymns were sung. Then, the case was presented before the Pope."

When the date of October 17 date was given, it was "a moment of great joy and clemency", he said.

"There was a real feeling of history in the making. Many would say it's been a long day in coming, that we have been waiting for a very long time.

"Mary MacKillop was a hero, a saint, someone we can look up to and be proud of. I suspect now with the October 17 date that Australians will be coming here (to the Vatican) for the formal canonisation."

Sister Anne Derwin, congregational leader of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, the religious order founded by Mother Mary, was also overjoyed by the news.

"The sisters rejoice with the Australian Church and people on this news," she said.

"We look forward to the canonisation and give thanks that God did bless our country with such a model of goodness."

She expected thousands of Australians would make the trip to the Vatican to witness Mother Mary become Saint Mary of the Cross.

Garry McLean, the chief executive of the Mary MacKillop Heritage Centre, said: "The whole country has a new hero. It's more than just Catholics, the whole country has a new hero, someone that will give them hope for the future."

He added that young people could look to her as a role model. "Someone that they can admire, someone who can become a role model for them."

Kathleen Evans, whose complete and permanent cure from inoperable cancer was decreed Mother Mary's second miracle, said that she hoped to be one of those in Rome for the ceremony.

Mrs Evans, from the Hunter Valley, received no medical treatment for her lung and brain cancer but instead prayed to God through the intercession of Mother Mary.

Ten months later, doctors informed Mrs Evans her tumours had gone.

Mother Mary was born in Melbourne in 1842 to poor Scottish immigrants. She established her first school in a disused stable and founded an order of nuns at the age of 24.

She spent her life educating the poor, taking learning to the harsh outback, but she was not without controversy.

She was excommunicated in 1871 for alleged insubordination before being welcomed back to the Church four months later.

She later sought pope Pius IX's approval to continue her work with her order and by the time of her death, she led 750 nuns, ran 117 schools and had opened orphanages and refuges for the needy.

War of words over gay protest

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:56:00 +0000

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/gay-church-protest-turns-ugly/story-e6frf7jo-1225776934710

GAY rights protestors and Christians clashed in a bitter war of words outside a Mitcham Baptist church this afternoon.

A dozen protestors accused people in the Simla St church of homophobia, while church meeting organisers said it was "wrong to be gay".

Church goers said the congregation included about 25 "sexually confused" parishioners.

Meeting organiser Shirley Baskett said she used to be a lesbian and wanted to help others to choose the right path.

"It can be very confusing to have these feelings. We are giving troubled church members a place to speak about what they are going through," she said.

“It’s about choosing Jesus and combating same sex attraction."

Protestor Tim Wright said he was angry and sad that young gay men and lesbians were being told to overcome their “unwanted sexuality” .

“They need to know it’s ok to be gay and should not feel guilty about who they are,” he said.

Jesus Christ was gay, says pop singer Elton John

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:51:00 +0000

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,,26749510-5012980,00.html

BRITISH pop superstar Elton John has stirred controversy in a magazine interview by claiming Jesus Christ was gay.

"I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems,'' John said in an interview posted on the website of US celebrity news magazine Parade on Friday.

"On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don't know what makes people so cruel.

"Try being a gay woman in the Middle East - you're as good as dead.''

The Catholic League, the largest US Catholic rights group, condemned the comments.

"Jesus was certainly compassionate, but to say he was 'super-intelligent' is to compare the son of God to a successful game-show contestant,'' league president Bill Donohue said in a statement.

"More seriously, to call Jesus a homosexual is to label him a sexual deviant.

"But what else would we expect from a man who previously said, 'From my point of view, I would ban religion completely'?"

Anger over Elton John's claim Jesus was gay

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:47:00 +0000

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/anger-over-elton-johns-claims-jesus-was-gay/story-e6frfkui-1225832504896

CHRISTIANS have expressed their disappointment over Sir Elton John's claims that Jesus Christ was gay.

The flamboyant recording artist pontificated this week to Parade Magazine on his view of Christianity, The Sun reported.

"I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems,” he said.

The gay pop star has been in a committed relationship for almost two decades.

“Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving,” he added. “I don't know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East - you're as good as dead."

But church leaders and biblical scholars rubbished the homosexual singer's views.

Lecturer Joan Taylor, of King's College London, insisted Jesus was celibate or "sexually ascetic".

Stephen Green, director of Christian Voice, said the gay claim was "a desperate cry for attention".

Catholic Herald editor Luke Coppen said: "Someone once said we all try to remake God in our own image. It's just possible that Elton John might be guilty of that."

A Church of England spokesman said insights on Jesus were "perhaps best left to academics".

Sir Elton, 62, is likely to face a backlash in the US over his claims in the magazine interview.

State Education - Privilege and Poverty

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:40:00 +0000

Perhaps the commonest argument against "State Aid" is the assumption that church schools are wealthy and state schools are not. Although this argument is not used as often as it used to be (it is manifestly false with reference to the large number of Catholic primary schools), it is still easy to make an impressive argument from the inadequacies of state schools and the apparent opulence of some private or church schools. If you compare a long established public school, with an inner-city neglected state primary school, it is obviously unfair to think of public money going to the former and not to the latter. This, however, is a simplification and often an error of fact. If one is going to make snap judgments of schools on the basis of externals, then the judgment is not going to be even slightly correct. The first obvious point of confusion is the word "wealth".

A leading nun in the USA (she told me this story herself) went to the bank manager to borrow about half a million dollars to build a tertiary college. Asked what security she could offer, she said that she could offer assets worth half a million. The surprised bank manager asked in what form were these assets. The nun replied: the salary potential of her community over a period of years. The bank advanced the money and a magnificent college for women arose on the spot.

The church learned at an early age to come to grips with the ways of Mammon. I have no doubt that prayer and the Holy Spirit helped but they were often adventurous people, dedicated to the task of providing education from scratch. The result was often impressive. So far as the Catholic schools were concerned, education was given to the Australian people by the Church's scrounging the money from where she could find it.

In the last century, and without any form of public aid, the Jesuits and the Christian Brothers built schools for boys, and many congregations of nuns built schools for girls. Recent returns for the Catholic archdiocese of Melbourne alone show that there are 4 teaching training colleges, 28 boys secondary schools, 41 girls secondary schools, 3 technical schools, 219 primary schools, 19 kindergartens, 12 orphanages, 1 reformatory and a number of specialised institutions ranging from a school for the deaf to a school for wayward girls. There were 76,000 primary pupils and 31,000 secondary pupils.

"Rich" Schools

There may be some schools somewhere which may serve wealthy customers and provide that brittle form of education beloved of the rich and spendthrift. There cannot be many, because such an "education" is of dubious educational value. There are however a number of schools, chiefly non-Catholic, where fees are high, as as already pointed out, these high fees are dictated not by any desire to exclude the lower classes, but by the facts of economic life. In many instances these high fees are paid only by those able to do so because they can afford it, and who thereby facilitate, by an informal arrangement, the number who cannot. It is obviously difficult to know the full range of private arrangements made in the matter of fees. Details of individual wages and the arrangements made with school's heads are not available for public discussion. But some details are known, and some school policies are made public. The headmaster of Sydney Church of England Grammar ("Shore") has said publicly that as far as he is concerned, state aid means reduced fees. At Mount Scopus College, Melbourne, a Jewish school of impressive size and apparent wealth, it is official policy not to turn away any Jewish child. Many schools have bursary systems and endowments to facilitate the lot of the impoverished but promising student. One public school carries pupils free if their father dies during their school days. There are other instances of pupils attending the most allegedly "exclusive" schools who pay no fees at all.

Concerning Fees

It would be better if there were no fees at all. All fees must act as some kind of discouragement or filter. The private or church school must still cut its costs and break even, and the Catholic schools, by virtue chiefly of the religious orders can do this on a bigger scale than the others. Because they were staffed generally by celibate members of religious orders, the members of the orders could correspondingly make greater sacrifices for their pupils; and I recall with gratitude that the Christian Brothers put a great many boys through their schooling during the Depression when they themselves could barely make a decent meal out of the fees which were offered.

There is another and more obvious form of "wealth" which often confuses the issue. Some schools, and among these many private and church schools, have been around for a long time. Inevitably over scores of years, they build up assets in real estate and buildings and equipment, some receive large endowments, and these advantages bred of time and the support of past pupils can be spread over later generations of pupils. The accusation that such a school is "wealthy" and therefore undeserving of assistance is often wide of the mark. One leading Catholic school, charged in a newspaper discussion with being "wealthy" was run by an order of men dedicated since 1804 to providing education for the poor. In 1932, they acquired a tract of riverside land which was unwanted by anyone else. They worked on it, by manual labour, appeals and the support of old boys and by hope and faith for twenty years. When they were finished they had one of the finest school sites in the state.

The freedom with which the independent schools approach some of their problems is occasionally their undoing in the arena of public controversy. One girl's school aroused the wrath of anti-state-aiders by having carpeted classrooms! The true fact was that this school pioneered the use of industrial carpeting in its classrooms, an innovation intended for use in large plants, offices and even factories. By virtue of the quiet and superior durability of this new idea, it was an economically better proposition and industrial carpeting is now used in some state schools.* [Since this was written, an overseas educationalist, invited to comment on the standard of Victorian schools, expressed surprise that so many were NOT carpeted.] As it was originally published in a newspaper, it sounded very luxurious!

State Schools - Privileged and Unprivileged

Another factor overlooked in the so-called "wealthy schools" debate is that there are privileged state schools and underprivileged state schools. Because of the subsidy system practised in some states, it is inevitable that the state schools in wealthier districts will receive more public funds than those in poorer areas. If the education departments continue to match the amounts raised by parents on a dollar-for-dollar basis, obviously much greater grants will be made by the departments to the schools in richer areas.

It also seems part of departmental policy to provide some show-place schools, so that in one suburb there may be a state or high school which is denied nothing while in the next suburb, there will be a state or high school neglected, abandoned and struggling for survival against an indifferent bureaucracy. It is certainly true that there are rich schools and poor schools; but there are rich private schools and rich state schools and there are poor schools both state and private.

The line of demarcation is not between the private and the state schools. It may roughly exist down the line of new schools and old schools; but unfortunately some of the poorest and most neglected schools in Melbourne are in fact, inner city state primary schools where conditions exist which could be remedied in a church school by individual effort but which cannot be remedied in a state school because of departmental red tape and inertia. The only really privileged schools are those which specifically receive privileged treatment; unfortunately some of the worst examples are the privileged state schools. In the state system there is often maladministration, and extravagance and much of the shortage of educational funds is due to the top-heavy administration weighed down with official rituals and individual indifference. Enough to say that the reason why some state schools appear to be poverty-stricken and some church schools seem affluent is simply that the latter husband their meagre resources to better advantage.

There is one final point to be made about money and schools. In the government system it is not uncommon to encourage parents' groups to make a contribution to the school equipment and such activity is often accompanied by a matching grant from the department. On one occasion, a high school committee raised a huge sum of money for the school library which they regarded proudly as the best in the area. Some time later, further grants were made for library purposes and while a neighbouring school whose parents had done nothing received a big grant for their non-existent library, the school which had organised so well received nothing. There was justifiable indignation that the very activity and energy of the parents had led to them being excluded from this particular disbursement of public funds.

This case was actually a replica of the whole state aid problem in miniature. When a large number of people work to create a school system which qualitatively is as good as anything else that exists, they are then refused access to public funds because of what they already have. No matter that they have provided it all by sweat, sacrifice and tears; the fact that they have provided it for themselves seems to mean that they must be condemned for so doing. Economically they would have been better off to do nothing, leave it all to the state, and be given it all free. The state system cannot absorb the schools' population which attends private schools and appears on the face of it to receive assistance from those who have built and staffed the Church schools. The real issue is whether it is just, to have so much Church Aid to the State.

From "Indoctrination or Education?" by Niall Brennan

State Education - Religion and Culture

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 06:19:00 +0000

The place of religion in education is not only natural; it is difficult to conceive any form of education without it. If the educationist argues that education is a preparation for life, it is axiomatic that the purpose of life must be taken into account, and this is the area of religion. One of the fallacies of secular education is that it tries to erect a vague concept of "citizenship" as a desirable goal to offer its pupils. I will not easily forget the reaction of a gang of tough-minded but idealistic high school boys who were offered this concept at a school speech night in terms of the row of shopkeepers and elder citizens arrayed on the platform before them. The gentlemen in question having little to pride themselves on except a modest monetary success, one of the boys turned to me and said in a pained voice: "Sir, do they want us to grow up like them!"

"Citizenship" is not enough (as was found during the French Revolution); and while there may be differences of spiritual goal among men, those who have a spiritual or idealised view of man will tend to run more coherent schools than those who do not. A school based on Marxian dialectics is more efficient than a school based on nothing. It is a matter of logic that the purpose of a thing must be known before it can be properly used and that, furthermore, it is necessary to know the limitations on its use ordained by its creator before any measure of intelligent use can be made of it. If this is obvious enought in the case of a vacuum cleaner, it is patently absurd to arrange any programme for the improvement of Man without some idea of what Man is and what is good or bad for him.

Sterilization of Education

The tensions of the 19th century bequeathed to the 20th not only political problems, such as State Aid, but also problems of what should or should not be taught. These problems confronted the legislators with a vigor they were unable to meet. From a natural desire to provide a free education system, they passed first to trying to design a system acceptable to all; not an easy task in an atmosphere charged with Catholic, non-conformist, Anglo-Presbyterian and secularist antagonisms. The inevitable result was a policy designed to sterilise education of its discordant elements. The trouble was that the discordant elements were too valuable to lose; and the loss of them sterilised education of its main purpose.

At first the education reformers thought they could dispose simply of "religious differences" or "sectarian ideas". When this proved impossible, they resolved to get rid of religion completely.

Secularism

It must not be forgotten that secularism was something of an ideal. The word meant "belonging to its age", and by extension, it was equated with progress, enlightenment and a reaction against the stuffy conservatism into which, much that was called "religion" had drifted. The anti-religious feeling of the age was often based on an awareness of the conflicting bigotries associated with religion; and it was also based on the self evident fact that religion, especially in 19th century England, had become a servant of materialism, was riddled with hypocrisy, and was in fact, no longer religion at all. The association of this sham religion with money, social status, hypocrisy, and capitalistic economics generated an intense anti-religious feeling especially among intellectuals, and the secularist believed that a truer, and purer form of education would emerge if education could be dissociated from what he thought religion was. In fighting off the entrenched conservatism of "religious" establishments, the new humanist cut himself off from teh vast area of study belonging to real religion. A century of secular education today has produced an intolerable number of scholars who have never heard of, and have no way of knowing about some of the basic facts of life and history.

Religion

"Religion" is, after all, a loaded word. It is rich in opportunities for misunderstanding. It embraces a variety of visible activities ranging from a vicarage garden party to a self-immolating Buddhist monk. It ranges from TV's "All Gas and Gaiters" to the fires of the Inquisition; from the [vague whimsies of the] Koran to the literary ecstasies of St. John of the Cross. To oppose religion as such is to oppose and awful lot and we must ask the question: if we do exclude religion from the schools, is there anything left after we have done so? There is a very real danger of producing that new kind of intellectual who assumes that because there may be something he has never heard of, it cannot therefore be important.

Basically this is why religion and education have always gone hand in hand; why the great foundations of the educational world have been the work of scholars who saw that religion was - from a purely educational viewpoint - very important. It was important if you believed that it was the answer to the purpose of life? It was important to the men who did not believe this simply because so many other men did.

Most of this academic attitude to religion was lost in the post-Reformation frenzies, especially of the English speaking world, and the final blow was delivered in the 19th century. Religious groups were too concerned with fighting each other, to observe that they were depriving their ever-cynical neighbours of an educational heritage of supreme importance.

There may be indeed today types of "religious" education that do not achieve this exalted level, which may be isolated, bigoted, partisan, politically tainted, but these are simply part of the whole problem that even when you know what education is about there may still be bad schools and bad teachers.

The fact remains that religion is a social and cultural factor too tremendously influential in the history of mankind to be ignored. If a student is unwilling to accept at a personal level the spiritual message of religion, he cannot ignore, as a student, the tremendous force of religious experience on mankind in general. These two alternate views of religion were in fact the foundation of the great theological schools of the old world. It is still the mood of much European education. If this second aspect of religion - the social and cultural - is ignored, it is not religion which suffers; it is education.

There may be some or many differences as to who Christ was; there can be no argument that the historical Christ is a pivotal figure in world history. Education suffers when John Cabot of Vasco da Gama is regarded as more important than Christ. It may be said that the Bible is open to a variety of interpretations; but there is no doubt that it is the most important single book in Western culture, rich in history, poetry, wisdom and ethical teaching and that to ignore it is educationally absurd. So absurd, in fact, that after a great deal of effort on the part of true scholars, the subject "Biblical Studies" was finally adopted for the Victorian schools curriculum. Unfortunately, it is taught disproportionately more in Church schools rather than in the secular schools, where, by definition, it is culturally more needed.

It is not entirely sane to teach the fine arts to students who have no real knowledge of what Murillo's Assumption, Michaelangelo's Pieta, and Leonardo's Last Supper are about. To know about these subjects is not necessarily belief, acceptance, or the result of indoctrination. An educated Christian should know what Yom Kippur is, or even read the Koran, as I have done with pleasure and interest. It is a problem of how much we can afford to ignore. If we ignore too much, it will not be education at all, but a new form of bigoted regression.

Religion Basic to Education

I believe therefore that religion is the basis of education because it deals with the problem of what man is and what is good and best for him; and I believe that for everyone, whether they agree with me on the first point or not, that no educated man can afford to ignore religion as a creative and historical force. Secularism may be all right for education; but not sterility. It can be argued from this that church schools are in fact providing a more complete education simply because they do cater for both these alternative views of religion and culture.

From "Indoctrination or Education?" by Niall Brennan

Roxon hints bigger private health role

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:45:00 +0000

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/roxon-hints-bigger-private-health-role/story-e6frfku0-1225823381819

THE Federal Government has hinted at a bigger role for private health providers only a week before Parliament is due to vote on adopting a means test for medical insurance rebates.

Labor's plans to means test the private health insurance rebate has already been rejected once by the Senate.

Another no vote would give the government a double-dissolution election trigger.

A week before the scheduled vote, Health Minister Nicola Roxon stressed Labor's support for private health as it looked at reform of the health sector.

"There is enormous potential for the private sector to play a growing role,'' Ms Roxon told ABC television today.

Private health providers, the Opposition and State Governments have expressed concern that extra pressure will be placed on public hospitals if changes are made to private health insurance rebates.

Ms Roxon is meeting with State and Territory Governments to discuss changes to the national health system.

Catholic Health Australia - which runs 10 per cent of the nation's hospital services - is opposed to Labor's private health rebate plans.

"We've said to the Government ... any measure that takes away incentives to take up private health insurance will see public hospitals deal with an increased workload,: chief executive Martin Laverty said today.

The Government wants to means test the 30 per cent private health insurance rebate for singles earning more than $75,000 a year and for couples taking home in excess of $150,000.

The original bill was rejected in September and is scheduled to go back before the Senate again when parliament resumes in early February, a spokesman for Ms Roxon said.

A second rejection would give Labor a double-dissolution trigger.

Ms Roxon said the Government was "agnostic" on whether the public or private sector provided better health services.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott preferred to focus on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's promise to take over public hospitals from the states.

"Before the (last) election, Mr Rudd said if public hospitals hadn't improved by the middle of last year he would organise a Federal overnment takeover,'' Mr Abbott said.

"Well, the middle of last year has come and gone, and I think the people of Queensland and in NSW in particular would know that public hospitals are getting worse, not better."

Mr Abbott made no mention of the private health insurance bill, which the Coalition opposes.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott vilified for being a dad

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:33:00 +0000

Herald Sun newspaper - Andrew Bolt
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/opposition-leader-tony-abbott-vilified-for-being-a-dad/story-e6frfhqf-1225824475812

THE first thing to be said about Tony Abbott's critics this week is that they are liars.

Take Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Gillard's eager ears pricked up when she learnt that Women's Weekly, in a long profile this week on Abbott, asked the Opposition Leader what he thought of sex before marriage.

Hello, hello, hello.

You see, the Rudd Government has been desperate to exploit anti-Catholic bigotry in this country and paint Abbott as a papist who'd ban abortions if he could and force children to study Bibles.

Yes, really - that's how dishonest and vile its attacks have been.

But Gillard must have been disappointed by what Abbott actually told Women's Weekly, because I doubt there's a good father who'd have said much different to his own daughters.

Check for yourself. Here is every last word that Abbott, himself the father of three girls, said: "It (sex before marriage) happens ... I think I would say to my daughters if they were to ask me this question ... it is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving, and don't give it to someone lightly, that is what I would say."

Full stop. Read anything to object to?

No. And that's precisely why Gillard had to lie. (I am of course presuming she actually checked what Abbott said.)

Here now is what Gillard said: "These comments will confirm the worst fears of Australian women about Tony Abbott. Australian women don't want to be told what to do by Tony Abbott.

"Australian women want to make their own choices and they don't want to be lectured to by Mr Abbott."

You see immediately Gillard's big lie - albeit one of deliberate inference, rather than bald statement.

Abbott had not lectured Australian women generally. As he'd made clear, his was advice he would give only to his own daughters, and only if they asked.

Nor was he telling anyone "what to do" - not even his daughters.

He was only suggesting what they might consider when making their own decision. Not even to his girls did he preach against sex before marriage.

So Gillard lied. And she wasn't alone.

Predictably, the media repeated this untruth that Abbott had told all single women to keep their virginity.

Once again, many journalists preferred to reinforce their stereotype of Abbott as the "Mad Monk" rather than to tell the sober facts.

Even The Australian announced: "Tony Abbott urges women to save their virginity for marriage."

No, he didn't.

Age writer Gabriella Coslovich even fumed that Abbott's "nauseating" advice showed this "religious fanatic" was again trying to "lord it over" things, "be it land or a woman's body".

"Comedian" Fiona Scott-Norman, also in The Age, abused Abbott as a "one-time drug-taking, Vatican roulette playing, shagabout, white, middle-aged male" and a "pompous tosspot" who was "telling young women not to do what he did when he was their age".

And the ABC's Jon Faine gleefully played a clip of yet another Age banshee screeching at Abbott: "Get your rosaries off my ovaries."

SUCH orchestrated lying about what Abbott said is the real issue, and at least Gillard did not make things worse by also lampooning the advice Abbott actually offered his daughters.

Indeed, how could she? What should he have said to his teenage girls instead? To sleep with the first drunk who asked, for all he cared?

You'd really have to be especially ideological, malevolent or clueless about parenting - and probably all three - to think Abbott's words so silly.

Alas, we have many commentators who tick just those boxes.

Academic Catharine Lumby, the gender-politics expert who for years taught National Rugby League players how best to ask women for sex, actually claimed Abbott's advice belonged to the days when women were "shamed and blamed for having a normal sexual appetite and behaviour".

(I think she means the days before NRL players had group sex with girls who then cried their eyes out on TV.)

Feminist Eva Cox meanwhile claimed he was "commodifying women by saying their sexuality was something to trade".

But no one was more vicious than our resident feminist ideologue, Jill Singer, who on this page likened Abbott to a terrorist ... and a paedophile.

His "tender appreciation of female chastity", she said, "would sit happily alongside that of ... Osama bin Laden".

What's more, Abbott's views were "icky" and "pervy", since "even metaphorically, it's kind of creepy for a prominent male politician to be rummaging around inside the underwear of young girls in search of political inspiration".

If I ran this paper I'd sack Singer for so foul and dishonest a piece of vilification. But when even the Deputy Prime Minister can so lie about a loving father's sane advice to a daughter, who can be surprised by a shoal of savage Singers swimming in that cesspool, too?

Artefacts found at Rome site for Domus Australia

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:28:00 +0000

The Australian newspaper -
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/artefacts-found-at-rome-site-for-domus-australia/story-e6frg6nf-1225824478836

A TREASURE trove of first-century Roman building work has been uncovered beneath a pilgrim centre being created for Australians in Rome.

Australian cardinal George Pell and the ambassador to the Holy See, Tim Fischer, yesterday inspected renovation work on the centre that will open next year as Domus Australia (Australia House) in Rome.

Architect Chiara Scandaletti pointed out the foundations of a large Roman building, a herringbone stone pathway, a first-century sewer and Roman pipes running alongside the 21st-century pipes. "We don't know what Roman building was here but the size of the foundations show it was a large building," Ms Scandaletti said.

She said the finds would be protected and retained as part of the renovated development.

Until recently, the site, close to the centre of Rome and within walking distance of the Vatican, was a 19th-century Marist church and residence. At Cardinal Pell's initiative, the property was bought by the Catholic Church of Australia, led by the archdiocese of Sydney.

Mr Fischer, who is keen to instigate an Anzac Day mass in Rome, hopes it will be said in the Domus Australia chapel.

Australia is named the most sinful nation on earth

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:23:00 +0000

Herald Sun newspaper - Siobhan Duck
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/australia-is-named-the-most-sinful-nation-on-earth/story-e6frf7l6-1225824481740

AUSTRALIA is the most sinful nation on earth, as befits a country founded as a penal colony.

A BBC magazine show's investigation has supposedly shown we Aussies are still born to be bad - coming out trumps in a global tally of the seven deadly sins.

While America is dominated by gluttony and greed, South Africa by wrath and Japan and South Korea by their lustful natures, Australians are the most envious people on the planet.

The tally was put together by comparing national statistics for plastic surgery (pride), theft (envy), violent crime (wrath), number of annual holidays (sloth), annual salary (greed), money spent on fast food (gluttony) and porn (lust).

Focus Magazine awards Australians the dubious prize of being named "the most sinful nation on earth" for scoring highly in every one of the seven categories.

Catholic priest Fr Bob Maguire said Australians had their vices, but they were also very virtuous.

"I think the people who did this survey are just jealous of we Aussies and rightly so," he said.

"Australians like to indulge and enjoy the good things in life - we are open about that. But people forget that the mirror image of the sins are the seven virtues and Australians also have a lot of virtues on balance. We're just too laconic to talk about the things we do right."

Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne Philip Freier said Australia was far from the worst country on earth.

"It's always beneficial to reflect on our shortcomings because we're not perfect and it can help us find ways to improve ourselves," Dr Freier said.

"But I do not believe Australia to be the worst society in the world, nor the Australian people the worst people. Far from it.

"I have always found Australians to be generous and concerned for each other."

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's spokeswoman disputed whether Australia was overly sinful.

"The Prime Minister believes Australia to be a great country, and Australians are good, generous and hard-working people," she said.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott declined to comment.

Government taken to task over timings

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:14:00 +0000

The Australian newspaper -
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/government-taken-to-task-over-timings/story-e6frg6nf-1225824481531

EDUCATION experts have slammed the timing of yesterday's release of the My School website, saying it was "poorly planned" and would not give teachers and principles time to fully digest the data.

The president of the Australian Primary Principals Association, Leonie Trimper, said schools should have been given full access to the site during the holiday period to avoid being swamped in the back-to-school rush.

"It would have been good if principals had it at least a week before so they could have had a serious look at the figures before the term began," she said. "The first week of school is one of the most hectic times of the year. There is no way any teacher or principal could have had a good look at the data in today's rush."

The My School website, launched at 1am (AEDT) yesterday, published for the first time information about every Australian school, including national literacy and numeracy tests conducted in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9.

In addition to the timing, teacher unions and some parents yesterday expressed concern the site would be used to create simplistic league tables that could stigmatise poor-performing schools.

"One of the main dangers is that people will create league tables and rank schools when in reality there is a lot more to good education than academic results," the director of the Australian Parents Council, Ian Dalton, said.

"In reality, parents could have lived without it... one of the key elements of what schools do is build relationships, the academic stuff comes about fifth on the list," he said.

"What it will do, however, is enable parents to have an informed conversation, which of course is good.

"I guess having it in the full swing of the holidays would have been good too."

Primary school principal and president of the Australian Catholic Primary Principals Association Bruno Benci echoed Mr Dalton's comments and said he was fearful the site would simply be turned into a "ranking exercise".

"Our major concern is that the information provided would be taken out of context and put into league tables," Mr Benci said.

"We have to stress that the information provided is just a snapshot performance... there is more to schooling than just marks."

My School shows where Queensland schools must improve

noreply@blogger.com (Voxaustralis) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:09:00 +0000

Courier Mail newspaper - Tanya Chilcott, Stefanie Balogh and Melanie Christiansen
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,,26647858-3102,00.html

THE controversial My School website has exposed where Queensland needs to lift its lagging literacy and numeracy results most - in state schools, nearly all primaries and among indigenous students.

With Queenslanders already having access to school-by-school national test data, the website revealed for the first time how schools compared nationally.

It also frustrated hundreds of thousands of parents across the country who were unable to access the website from 5am until 7.30am yesterday, with the Government acknowledging it had underestimated demand.

Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard said that within hours 1.5 million people had tried to access the site in a bid to view national test results which could be compared against other "statistically similar schools" Australia-wide.

Queensland's elite schools defied predictions they would be exposed as academically inferior to their southern counterparts, with two-thirds of Greater Public Schools performing on par with – or even above – most of their interstate statistically similar rivals.

But our top-performing primary schools failed to rise above their "statistically similar school" average – some of the top state schools even fell significantly below that average – with exceptions such as Norman Park State School and Somerville House.

Among the state's regional schools, small provincial Catholic primary schools were some of the best performers, while provincial state schools with fewer than 100 students were some of the worst.

This was despite a number of them pulling nearly all of their children above the national benchmark.

Compared with similar schools, students at St Mary's Catholic schools in Mackay South and Rockhampton North performed substantially better in most categories by Year 7.

Brisbane Grammar School had outstanding results, not only topping the state but beating out nearly all of its "statistically similar" schools in almost every test category.

Queensland's results were an improvement on 2008, when the state came second last in the NAPLAN (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) exams.

Those results are expected to pick up this year with the state's first group of Prep students now in Year 3 – the first year level to sit the tests.

Meanwhile, critics continued their attack on the website yesterday, with individual Queensland principals voicing their anger at comparisons.

Federal Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne warned schools would be stigmatised by the website.