Religion News Australia 2016 - 5 (Jan 31

Religion News Australia 2016 - 5 (Jan 31 - Feb 7)

(06 February 16)
by Greg Spearritt

Religion News Australia

January 31 – February 7, 2015

Religion news stories from Australia

(Research: Greg Spearritt)

abuse / anglican church / arts & entertainment / education / international stories / islam / politics / religion & society

ABUSE

Brisbane archbishop says abusers may have traded boys interstate (Brisbane Times)
Feb 5 - One of Australia's most senior Anglican leaders says evidence suggests boys were traded interstate by pedophiles linked to the church.

George Pell's health at risk if he travels to give evidence, inquiry hears (Brisbane Times)
Feb 5 - The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has been told Cardinal George Pell's health could be at risk if he travelled to Australia to give evidence.

Also: Victims sick at heart that George Pell won't front child sex abuse royal commission (The Guardian, Australia)
Feb 5 - The cardinal won’t be coming. It’s his heart.

Former Sydney Anglican archbishop Peter Jensen to give evidence at abuse royal commission (Daily Telegraph, Sydney)
Feb 5 - THE former Anglican Archbishop of Sydney has apologised to a victim of sexual abuse and admitted the response of the church to his allegations was wrong.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Blake Prize: Hanging sheep carcass shortlisted for religious prize (ABC News)
Feb 4 - A sheep's carcass hanging from a steel hook has made the shortlist for one of Australia's oldest religious prizes.

Also: Blake Prize 2016 is a show of faith (Brisbane Times)
Feb 5 - Religion and spirituality have long inspired artists and this year's Blake Prize explores everything from Islam to Sufism, Judaism to yoga.

Spiritual link with artefacts (The Australian)
Feb 4 - Artist Christian Thompson returns to the landscape of his inspiration.

Gavin Rowland seeks out God in Mind Before Matter (The Australian)
Feb 4 – (Review) As a devout atheist I’ve always been puzzled about why people believe in God.

The Whale review: sad tale of morbidly obese Charlie puts empathy to the test (Brisbane Times)
Feb 5 - "Tell me the truth," says the vastly heavy and seriously ill Charlie to the earnest Mormon attempting to interest him in the teachings of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. "Do you find me disgusting?"

Grayson Perry's pretty art career (The Saturday Paper, Australia)
Feb 6 – (Opinion: Miriam Cosic) Turner Prize-winner Grayson Perry talks about art, religion, and how he began cross-dressing at a young age.

ANGLICAN CHURCH

Church asylum ‘sanctuary’ bid (The Australian)
Feb 4 - The Anglican Dean of Brisbane, Peter Catt, has proclaimed the cathedral a ‘sanctuary’ for asylum-seekers facing deportation.

Also: Armidale's Anglican Bishop urges caution on calls to defy the law to safeguard refugees (ABC News)
Feb 7 - There has been a cautious response in the New England North West of NSW to calls by some parts of the religious community to defy the law and offer sanctuary to refugees.

EDUCATION

NSW Government making it harder for children to get into ethics classes, warns ethics group (Sydney Morning Herald)
Feb 7 - NSW school children are facing unprecedented hurdles to get into ethics classes in schools, the state's provider of ethics classes has warned.

Catholic school enrolments fall as fees hit hard (Adelaide Now)
Feb 7 - HAS the growth of private schooling in SA finally stalled? That is the question raised by the release of education figures by the Australian Bureau of Statistic

Parents face fee rise in Catholic teacher wage fight (Adelaide Now)
Feb 7 - CATHOLIC families would be hit with harsh fee rises if union claims for higher pay and less student contact time were met, Catholic Education SA says.

INTERNATIONAL STORIES

Catholic Church

Pope Francis set for historic meeting with leader of Russian Orthodox Church (Sydney Morning Herald)
Feb 6 - Vatican City: Pope Francis will make a surprise trip to Cuba on February 12 for a historic meeting with the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, the first meeting between a pope and the Russian patriarch since the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity split nearly 1000 years ago, the Vatican announced Friday.

Islam

Muslim women 'blocked from seeking office by male Labour councillors' (The Guardian, Australia)
Feb 6 - A women’s rights organisation has written to Jeremy Corbyn calling for an inquiry into allegations female Muslims were discriminated against and blocked from seeking office by male Labour councillors.

Anti-Islam groups rally across Europe (The Australian)
Feb 7 - Protesters rallied against Islam and immigration in several European cities overnight, sometimes clashing with police or counter-demonstrators amid growing tensions over the massive influx of asylum-seekers to the continent.

Religious Violence

The crimes of Islamic State jihadist Neil Prakash (news.com.au)
Feb 2 - NEIL Prakash was a rapper who wrote songs about sex, Islam and drugs before he turned into a terrorist mastermind.

Where Osama bin Laden got inspiration for 9/11 (news.com.au)
Feb 4 - THE untold truth about September 11 has finally been exposed, almost 15 years after the evil terrorist attacks.

ISIS releases photo of wheelchair-bound executioner (news.com.au)
Feb 4 - ISIS propaganda chiefs have released a photo of a wheelchair-bound killer preparing to crucify an alleged Libyan spy.

ISIS sniper: Did mystery gunman just shoot three terror chiefs? (news.com.au)
Feb 4 - HE IS the mystery gunman credited with taking down three Islamic State leaders in just 10 days.

Al Qaeda will release Australian female captive, according to audio statement (ABC News)
Feb 6 - The militant group Al Qaeda in the Islamic region of Magreb (AQIM) has claimed responsibility for the January 15 kidnapping of two Australians in northern Burkina Faso, according to an audio statement.

Also: Burkina Faso Kidnapping: Australian woman released by Al Qaeda, Malcolm Turnbull says (ABC News)
Feb 7 - An Australian woman has been freed after she and her husband were kidnapped by an Al Qaeda-affiliated group in Burkina Faso, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull confirms.

Twitter shuts down more than 125,000 accounts linked to Islamic State terrorists (ABC News)
Feb 6 - Social media network Twitter has shut down more than 125,000 terrorism-related accounts since the middle of 2015, most of them linked to the Islamic State (IS) group.

Australian suspected of supporting Islamic State deported from India (The Guardian, Australia)
Feb 7 - An Australian has been deported from India on suspicions he was a supporter of Islamic State.

Other

Christian mega-church pastor under investigation after criticising China's cross removal program (ABC News)
Jan 31 - One of China's leading Christian pastors, 'Joseph' Gu Yuese, is officially under investigation for suspicion of embezzling funds, state-backed church authorities in Zhejiang province say, following his voiced opposition to a campaign to remove crosses from atop churches.

'Gay cake' couple: 'We don't hate anyone. It's done out of love for God' (The Guardian, Australia)
Feb 2 - An evangelical Christian couple at the centre of the “gay cake” court case have insisted they never meant to discriminate against anyone and do not hate gay people.

‘Asia’s sexiest DJ’ turned to the Bible to ward off ‘lesbian temptations’ in jail (news.com.au)
Feb 4 - ‘ASIA’S sexiest DJ’ Angie Vu Ha has turned to the Bible to ward off lesbian temptations in a New York jail as she fights extradition to France.

Headteacher mocked on Twitter for claiming evolution is not a fact (The Guardian, Australia)
Feb 4 - A primary school headteacher has been mocked on Twitter after claiming that evolution was “a theory” and there was “more evidence that the Bible is true”.

ISLAM

Bendigo mosque opponents ask High Court for extra time to appeal after missing deadline (ABC News)
Feb 2 - Opponents of Bendigo's first mosque have asked the High Court for extra time to appeal against the project going ahead.

Teenage wife of Sydney terror suspect Sameh Bayda refused bail (Sydney Morning Herald)
Feb 6 - The teenage wife of Sydney terror suspect Sameh Bayda has been refused bail after she was charged with 31 counts of failure to answer questions.

Number of foreign fighters heading for Islamic State has fallen (Sydney Morning Herald)
Feb 7 - The number of suspected would-be jihadis pulled off flights leaving Australia has doubled in the past year, as Islamic State recruiters direct foreign fighters away from Syria to other battlefronts, including Libya.

POLITICS

Labor MP demands apology for 'racist' slur over Israel policy (Brisbane Times)
Feb 5 - The first Muslim elected to the NSW Parliament is threatening defamation action against The Australian newspaper and reporter Sharri Markson if they do not apologise for an article branding his comments racist.

Reclaim Australia Rally drowns out counter protesters (Canberra Times)
Feb 6 - Reclaim Australia protesters held their largest rally yet on Saturday in Canberra kicking of a wave of Anti-Islam demonstrations in cities across the world.

RELIGION & SOCIETY

Abortion clinic at Midland in Perth to be site of 40-day prayer vigil (ABC News)
Feb 1 - A religious organisation with origins in the United States has announced plans to set up a prayer vigil outside a Perth abortion clinic during Lent.

Sanctuary offered to asylum seekers by churches across Australia (ABC News)
Feb 4 - Churches across Australia are invoking the historical concept of sanctuary, opening their doors to asylum seekers facing removal back to offshore detention centres.

Also: Church's lead on asylum seekers sanctuary a game changer (Canberra Times)
Feb 4 – (Opinion: Editorial) The Federal Government's Herodian stance on asylum seekers affected by a High Court decision which has cleared the way to banish almost 270 people, including 37 babies, to off-shore detention needs a serious rethink thanks to the Christian churches.

Also: St Vincent's and Calvary to support to asylum seekers wanting church sanctuary (Brisbane Times)
Feb 7 - Two of Australia's largest Catholic healthcare organisations have offered medical support to hundreds of asylum seekers applying for church sanctuary as they face deportation to Nauru, saying it reflected their "sacred duty" as healing organisations.

Fear at worst, submission at best: A story of family violence and the Pentecostal church (ABC The Drum)
Feb 4 – (Opinion: Lauren McGrow) She bought her first house in 1961. Of course in those days women couldn't just buy houses, and as a single mum with four kids, she was a risk to the bank.

Thieves steal jewellery worth more than $100,000 and icon from Mornington Peninsula church (ABC News)
Feb 5 - Police are looking for two thieves they say stole jewellery worth more than $100,000 and an icon of the Virgin Mary from a church on the Mornington Peninsula last weekend.

Golden Virgin Mary stolen as Red Hill church robbed for second time in 18 months (Brisbane Times)
Feb 5 - Inside the Byzantine walls of Red Hill's Greek Orthodox Church is a framed image of the Virgin Mary.

Preparing for Year of the Monkey with lucky oranges, money (ABC News)
Feb 5 - Wrapping 8,000 oranges is no quick task, but for those at Mingyue Lay Buddhist Temple in Bonnyrigg in western Sydney, it is an important one to welcome in the new lunar year.

Transcend afterlife, be here now (Brisbane Times)
Feb 6 – (Opinion: Paulyne Pogorelske) Different religions preach various visions of heaven and hell, based on life lived as a saint or a sinner, enshrined by some ethereal idea of a Supreme Being. Are these visions significant in the here and now, albeit whether we "think ... (we) can tell heaven from hell" as Pink Floyd sang more than 40 years ago?

From the Archive…

Religion News Australia 2016 – 4 (Jan 24 - 31)

Religion News Australia 2016 – 3 (Jan 17 - 24)

Religion News Australia 2016 – 2 (Jan 10 - 17)

Religion News Australia 2016 – 1 (Dec 27 – Jan 3)

Religion News Australia 2015 – 48 (Dec 20 - 27)

Religion News Australia 2015 – 47 (Dec 13 - 20)

Religion News Australia 2015 – 46 (Dec 6 - 13)

Religion News Australia 2015 – 45 (Nov 29 – Dec 6)

Religion News Australia 2015 – 44 (Nov 22 - 29)

Religion News Australia 2015 – 43 (Nov 15 - 22)

Religion News Australia 2015 – 42 (Nov 8 - 15)