The official position of the church on the Voice referendum is curious, because, despite overwhelming support for a YES vote from an extraordinary range of Catholic agencies, religious orders and congregations, and voluntary Catholic organisations, the highest national church authority, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, has not followed suit. This is surprising because the whole Continue reading »
Religion and Faith
South Korea is among the nations with the highest coal power generation. South Korean government is moving ahead to launch commercial operation of the Samcheok coal power plant in Gangwon-do province in October defying opposition from civil society groups and the Catholic Church. Since October 2021, Catholic groups have been staging protests every month at Continue reading »
This week sees the 30th anniversary of the shameful, ill-advised Oslo Accord between Israel and Palestine. In the game of life, like a game of cards you can only play the hand you are dealt and not the hand you wish you could have. In any card game a seasoned, accomplished player plays the people Continue reading »
The UN International Day of Peace is next week, September 21st. It is a day for rekindling our noblest aspirations. Imagine even a day when the whole planet was at peace. A day when our most attractive power, our capacity to love, was all one could see. A day when not one person was killed Continue reading »
It is time for us to use the words Occupation, Illegality and Apartheid. We are applying these words to an occupying power truculent and implacable in its determination its occupation will never end, committed to a creeping annexation to deliver it a permanent hold over Palestinian land and Palestinian people. … Twenty years ago it Continue reading »
Peter Wertheim (July 24, 2023) suggests that the Government should resist the call by Former Foreign Minister Bob Carr to recognise a Palestinian state. However, Wertheim’s remarks reflect widespread misapprehensions about relevant history, facts on the ground and international law. British MP Sir Anthony Nutting described the “sordid” history of Zionism and its “Legacy of Continue reading »
Official surveys all show that the Catholic Church in Australia is in serious trouble. Any refusal by the church to be fully inclusive of women and diverse sexualities will almost certainly lead to a much smaller church than has historically been the case in Australia. If the church cannot accommodate greater inclusion and equal human Continue reading »
The Statement from the Heart’s affirmation of the spiritual sovereignty of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their ancestral ties with the land is welcomed with gratitude by the Religion and Social Policy Network of the University of Divinity. RASP is humbled by the audacious generosity extended to the non-Indigenous Australian people through Continue reading »
The alleged branding of the Star of David on the face of a Palestinian man by Israeli police has left many around the world aghast at the barbaric cruelty and violence of such an act. It has been reported in numerous media outlets yet is, so far, glaringly left out of others. This kind of Continue reading »
How is it that the Uluru Statement from the Heart is even slightly controversial? How is it that the request for better listening which shapes the request for ‘Voice’ is found problematic? I have brought these Australian perplexities with me this week to the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago. Time and again, it is Continue reading »