Religion News Australia 2010 - 5 (Feb 1 - 7)
(06 February 10)by Greg Spearritt
Religion News Australia
Feb 1 - 7, 2010
Religion news stories from Australia
(Research: Greg Spearritt)
abuse / arts & entertainment / catholic church / international stories / judaism / politics / religion & society / other
Sex inquiry cleric returns (Adelaide Now)
Jan 31 - THE Catholic Church has cleared the way for high-profile priest accused of abuse to return to work.
What's the good of it? (The Australian)
Feb 6 – (Review) Does altruism really lie behind charitable acts?
'Ruthless' church accused of re-writing history (ABC News)
Feb 2 - The Catholic Church in Brisbane, last year labelled as "un-Christian" by some, is now being accused of attempting to re-write history.
Priest who faked cancer resurfaces (Sydney Morning Herald)
Feb 7 - A CATHOLIC priest who lied about having cancer to raise money from his Sydney flock has been quietly moved to work in the church in Perth.
Abuse
Germany's Jesuits did not stem sex abuse (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 2 - Germany's top Jesuit apologised on Monday for serial sexual abuse apparently committed by two priests at one of the country's most prestigious high schools, saying there was evidence of it for years but Jesuit officials did not "react the way it would have been necessary".
Catholic Church
Pope confirms British visit (ABC News)
Feb 3 - Pope Benedict has confirmed he will visit Britain later this year.
Pope attacks British human rights reform (Sydney Morning Herald)
Feb 3 - LONDON: The Pope has attacked Britain's reform of human rights and equality legislation, saying religious employers should be allowed to discriminate against homosexuals.
Also: Gay rights reveal a papal blind spot (Sydney Morning Herald)
Feb 3 – (Opinion: Editorial) IT IS no secret that not all teachers in Catholic schools are practising Catholics, and that even some who are do not subscribe to all of the church's teachings on sexual morality.
Also: Britain backs down on church reform law (Sydney Morning Herald)
Feb 4 - LONDON: The British government has caved in to pressure from the Pope and churches by abandoning controversial reforms that would have forced religious groups to abide by anti-discrimination laws.
Haiti – earthquake aftermath
Haiti holds Americans accused of smuggling children (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 1 - Haitian police detained 10 members of a US Christian charity group after they allegedly tried to leave the country with more than 30 children who survived the country's devastating earthquake.
Also: Christian group on Haiti charges (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 2 - HAITIAN police have charged 10 members of a US Christian group with child trafficking after they allegedly tried to leave the country with more than 30 survivors of the country's devastating earthquake.
Also: US Baptists face Haiti court over child smuggling (The Australian)
Feb 2 - TEN members of a US Baptist Church were to appear in a Haitian court overnight after being accused of running an illegal adoption scheme.
Also: US missionaries planned to keep Haiti children (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 3 - ''GOD wanted us to come here to help children, we are convinced of that,'' Laura Silsby, one of 10 Americans accused of trafficking Haitian children, said through the bars of her jail cell here.
Also: Ten US Christian missionaries charged with kidnapping Haiti children (Sydney Morning Herald)
Feb 5 - Ten US Christian missionaries have been charged with child abduction and conspiracy, almost a week after they were caught allegedly trying to smuggle 33 children out of quake-hit Haiti.
Also: Accused Americans to be held in jail in Haiti (The Australian)
Feb 6 - TEN American Christians charged in Haiti with child kidnapping and conspiracy have been denied conditional release and sent to jail to await trial.
Also: Missionary left trail of financial woes in Idaho (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 6 - THE Idaho woman who led a group of 10 Baptists on a mission to help children in Haiti admits to failing to obtain paperwork needed to move 33 children to the Dominican Republic.
Also: Promises force a mother's hand (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 6 - WHEN the American Baptist missionaries came into the village of Callabasse perched above the destroyed Haitian capital, Maggie Moise willingly gave away her nine-year-old twins.
Voodoo 'discrimination' in aid distribution (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 2 - VOODOO followers in Haiti have been victims of discrimination by evangelical Christians who are monopolising aid in the devastated country, according to a high priest of the religion.
Islam
Hidden danger in tampering with the veil (The Australian)
Feb 1 – (Opinion: Sally Neighbour) LIKE the Americans waging war in Afghanistan, the French demanding their government ban the burka would do well to look back in history at the experience of others who pursued a similar path.
Also: France's burka ban a boost for equality (The Australian)
Feb 4 – (Opinion: Greg Sheridan) OF all the countries of Europe, France has the best chance of coping successfully with large-scale Muslim immigration.
Also: Burqa-clad bank robbers stage French post office hold-up (The Australian)
Feb 7 - TWO burqa-wearing bank robbers have held up a post office near Paris, using a handgun concealed beneath an Islamic-style full veil, court officials said.
Man denied citizenship over wife's burqa (ABC News)
Feb 3 - A foreign national who forced his French wife to wear the full Islamic veil will be denied French citizenship, the immigration minister said.
'Menstruating ghost' film stirs controversy (Adelaide Now)
Feb 4 - A NEW Indonesian horror movie about a menstruating ghost has the country's clerics up in arms.
Afghan women fear peace plans will reverse rights (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 5 - Farida Tarana defied age-old Afghan tradition, death threats and sexual discrimination to become a pop star and later the public face of post-Taliban women's politics.
US Politics
China 'resolutely opposes' Obama-Dalai Lama meeting (The Australian)
Feb 3 - CHINA says it "resolutely opposes" any meeting between US President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, after a defiant White House insisted the talks would go ahead.
Also: Dalai Lama to meet Obama this month (The Australian)
Feb 5 - THE Dalai Lama will visit the White House later this month, despite Beijing's fierce protests.
Also: Obama's Dalai Lama talks widen Sino-US rift (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 6 - PRESIDENT Barack Obama will meet the Dalai Lama later this month, the White House has confirmed, in a move that is certain to further strain China's relationship with the United States.
Also: Dalai Lama's US visit: China is not amused (Sydney Morning Herald)
Feb 7 - CHINA responded sharply yesterday to US President Barack Obama's plan to meet Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, saying it is ''resolutely'' opposed to any such contact.
Religious Violence
Pakistan offensive kills 34 militants after bomb (Sydney Morning Herald)
Feb 2 - Pakistani officials said on Monday that troops backed by warplanes and helicopter gunships killed 34 militants in the wake of a suicide attack in a district near the Afghan border.
Somalia's al-Shabab joins al-Qa'ida's global jihad (The Australian)
Feb 2 - SOMALIA'S hardline al-Shabab group has officially declared its alignment with al-Qa'ida during a large gathering of Islamist insurgent leaders, officials say.
Female suicide bomber kills 41 (Adelaide Now)
Feb 2 - A FEMALE suicide bomber blew herself up among a crowd of Shiite pilgrims that was walking to a shrine city in central Iraq.
Pilgrims dead in car bomb blast (ABC News)
Feb 4 - At least 23 people were killed in another big bomb blast in Iraq after a vehicle laden with explosives ploughed into a group of Shiite pilgrims.
Pakistan school bombing kills US soldiers, children (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 4 - A bomb blast in Pakistan claimed by the Taliban has killed eight people, including three US soldiers and children at the opening of a school just rebuilt after an Islamist attack.
al-Qa'ida, Saddam Hussein loyalists blamed for Iraq bombing deaths (The Australian)
Feb 6 - AL-QA'IDA and Saddam Hussein loyalists have been blamed for a bomb attack that killed 41 Shiite pilgrims and wounded 140 during a mourning ceremony in Iraq.
Militants bomb a bus then attack the victims in hospital (The Australian)
Feb 6 - SUSPECTED Sunni militants bombed a bus carrying Shi'ite worshippers and two hours later attacked a hospital treating the victims, killing 25 people and wounding 100 in a strike on Pakistan's largest city.
Failed plane bomb suspect turns against radical cleric (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 6 - THE Nigerian suspect in a failed Christmas Day airliner bombing turned against the cleric who claims to be his teacher and has helped the US hunt for the radical preacher, a law enforcement official has said.
Other
Jesus appears on coconut (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)
Jan 31 - A CALIFORNIAN man claims he discovered a miracle in the produce section of his local grocery store while buying bananas a few days before Christmas.
Lost in a garden of good and evil (The Australian)
Feb 1 – (Opinion: Matthew Parris) WITHIN minutes of the start of his testimony to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq invasion, a tanned Tony Blair gave us the key to understanding his motivation.
Tribe brings back dead with "clothing" ritual (The West Australian, Perth)
Feb 2 - MANILA (Reuters) - Members of the Hanunuo Mangyan tribe in the Philippines do not leave their dead in the grave for long, digging up the remains of loved ones in an unusual revival ritual that itself is slowly dying out.
Faith healers jailed over son's death (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 3 - A couple has been found guilty for praying over their ill son instead of seeking medical help.
Sweat lodge guru charged over deaths (ABC News)
Feb 4 - A self-help guru who organised an Arizona sweat lodge ceremony last year in which three people died was arrested on manslaughter charges, authorities said.
Also: Self-help superstar charged over sweat lodge deaths (Sydney Morning Herald)
Feb 4 - Motivational speaker James Arthur Ray has been arrested in the US on three counts of manslaughter for deaths that happened after a sweat lodge ceremony he led in Arizona last year.
Guru denied Little Sweetie's billions (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 4 - A judge in Hong Kong has ruled that the estate of the billionaire known as ''Little Sweetie'' will not be going to her feng shui master.
Video shows jet shooting down missionaries (News.com.au)
Feb 4 - DRAMATIC video has emerged showing a bungled CIA drug operation that led to Peruvian fighter jets shooting down a light plane carrying American missionaries.
North Korea to free 'repentant' US missionary (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 5 - North Korea announced Friday it would release a US missionary who crossed into the communist state last Christmas Day on a one-man human rights crusade.
Also: N.Korea frees US missionary: Yonhap (Sydney Morning Herald)
Feb 6 - US missionary Robert Park arrived in Beijing Saturday following his release by North Korea six weeks after entering the communist country to protest against human rights abuses, Yonhap news agency said.
The ideal of a united Malaysia is under strain (The Australian)
Feb 6 – (Opinion: Rowan Callick) Today [Malaysia]… is having a hard time holding things together, in the face of religious and ethnic divides, political battles, and economic challenges.
New probe on Hezbollah TV (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 5 - HEZBOLLAH'S TV station is to be investigated again to see whether it breaks Australian rules on supporting terrorism, racial vilification and hate speech.
Virginity plea electorally painless for Tony Abbott (The Australian)
Feb 2 - TONY Abbott's fatherly advice for teenage girls not to give their virginity away "lightly" has cost him some support among women voters after a week of concerted attacks from government ministers and feminists.
Also: Our Tony, who art in Speedos (Sydney Morning Herald)
Feb 3 – (Opinion: Catherine Deveny) Please tell me it's not too late to nominate Tony Abbott for a Queen's Birthday honour for his services to patriarchy and his commitment to turn back equality 1500 years.
Also: Captain Catholic has an awkward fellow traveller (The Australian)
Feb 6 - (Opinion: Emma Tom) ALL this hoo haa-ing over Tony Abbott's comments about gift-wrapped virginities has left me, like lots of other Australian parents, in an extraordinarily awkward position.
Church challenged to inquiry (Sydney Morning Herald)
Feb 6 - THE independent senator Nick Xenophon has challenged the Church of Scientology to agree to a Senate inquiry after the church succeeded in having Hansard altered to include its response to his attack on its activities.
Aussie passengers face full-body scans (Perth Now)
Feb 1 - AUSTRALIAN airline passengers face tougher security screening - including possible full-body scans on US flights - in a $400 million-plus strategy to tackle terrorism.
Oh, my God - atheist convention sells out (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 2 - AN ATHEIST convention in Melbourne has sold out six weeks before it opens despite no aid from any level of government, organisers said yesterday.
Ringing in the modern ritual (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)
Feb 3 – (Opinion: Jane Fynes-Clinton) 'I AM looking for a divorce ring, if there is such a thing," the man in the fluoro work shirt and heavy boots loudly asked the jewellery shop saleswoman.
Female circumcision happening in Australia (ABC News)
Feb 6 - Health authorities in Australia say they are concerned about the growing number of women who have undergone some form of genital mutilation.
Australian pause tomorrow to remember the horror of Black Saturday (The Australian)
Feb 6 - AUSTRALIANS around the country will pause tomorrow to remember the day, 12 months ago, when bushfires ripped through the heart of Victoria killing 173 people and wiping towns and communities off the map.
Bright keeps faith to rise above temptation (Brisbane Times)
January 31 – (Sport) TORAH BRIGHT has revealed how her devout religious beliefs have led to conflicts during her stellar career.
Drag racer prays for victim (Adelaide Now)
Feb 2 - A DRAG racer says he will pray for a woman who suffered brain injuries when hit by his car - but has denied any responsibility for her suffering.
AVO for anti-Scientologist crusader (Daily Telegraph, Sydney)
Feb 4 - A SCIENTOLOGIST has launched private legal action to prevent a former member coming anywhere near her and the Church, with bizarre claims of harassment and intimidation.
From the Archive…
Religion News Australia 2010 - 4 (January 24 - 31)
Religion News Australia 2010 - 3 (January 17 - 24)
Religion News Australia 2010 - 2 (January 10 - 17)
Religion News Australia 2010 - 1 (January 2 - 10)
Religion News Australia 2009 - 50 (December 27 – January 2)
