Religion News Australia 2010 - 25 (June 27

Religion News Australia 2010 - 25 (June 27 - July 4)

(03 July 10)
by Greg Spearritt

Religion News Australia

June 27 – July 4, 2010

Religion news stories from Australia

(Research: Greg Spearritt)

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

ABUSE

Paedophile priest apologises to victims (ABC News)

June 29 - A former Catholic priest tried to bribe his way out of an Indonesian jail while facing child sex charges, the Adelaide District Court has heard.

Paedophile priest 'felt pity on victims' (ABC News)

July 1 - A Sydney court has heard a former priest who sexually abused 39 young boys preyed on them because he felt sorry for them.

Melbourne archbishop apologises for sex abusers (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 3 - THE Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne will apologise for crimes of sexual abuse by clergy and will acknowledge the church's shame and failures this weekend in a pastoral letter sent to every parish in the archdiocese.

Also: Archbishop apologises to sex abuse victims (ABC News)

July 3 - Melbourne's Catholic Archbishop has apologised to church sex abuse victims for what he describes as an unacceptable evil.

Also: A distressing time for Catholic faithful (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 3 – (Opinion: Denis Hart) The church will do all it can to bring to justice those responsible for abuse.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Absence of malice (The Australian)

July 3 – (Review) Marilynne Robinson says it's time to end the phony war between science and religion.

CATHOLIC CHURCH

Italians to toast saint with Aussie wine (ABC News)

July 1 - Coonawarra winemakers in South Australia are sending 1,200 bottles of wine to Italy, as part of Mary MacKillop celebrations.

EDUCATION

Charles Darwin's grandson says it's okay to teach children creationism (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)

July 4 - CHRIS Darwin is a thinker and his children are thinkers too.

INTERNATIONAL STORIES

Abuse

Pope attacks Belgian police over pedophilia investigation raids on bishops (The Australian)

June 28 - POPE Benedict XVI has accused Belgian police of "deplorable methods" in raiding a bishops' meeting as part of a pedophilia probe.

Also: Churches raided for 'hidden' documents (The Age, Melbourne)

June 30 - FOUR days after a series of police raids of Catholic institutions in Belgium that drew sharp criticism from the Pope, the reason for the unusually aggressive operation emerged: a formal accusation that the church was hiding information on sexual abuse lodged by the former president of an internal church commission handling such cases.

Vatican's appeal for immunity over sex abuse case rejected (ABC News)

June 29 - The United States Supreme Court has rejected a Vatican bid for legal immunity over the sexual abuse of children by a priest in the US.

Atheism/Secularism

Brothers at war over belief in God (The Australian)

July 3 – (Opinion: Bryan Patterson) THIS is the tale of two talented and opinionated brothers, born three years apart, who have become known as the Cain and Abel of the modern age.

Buddhism

Monk charged with filming women (The Age, Melbourne)

June 29 - A Cambodian court charged a Buddhist monk on Tuesday for secretly filming hundreds of women as they bathed naked with holy water at a temple and then sharing the clips, officials said.

Dispute over identity of real Panchen Lama (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 2 - SHIGATSE, Tibet: Tibetans Buddhists all agree that Tashilhunpo Monastery is the home of the 11th Panchen Lama, their second-most important religious leader.

Also: In search of the real Panchen Lama (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 3 - Exercising the ultimate political control, the Chinese Communist Party manufactured a 'holy' ceremony to appoint its own living god

Catholic Church

Italy appeals rights court's school crucifix ban (Sydney Morning Herald)

June 30 - Italy, backed by a dozen countries, began Wednesday its appeal against a European court ruling condemning the display of crucifixes in Italian schools in a case that could affect all of Europe.

Islam

Malaysia's got talent: imams take their chants at victory (The Age, Melbourne)

June 28 - Instead of singing pop songs, male contestants on Young Imam chant passages from the Koran to prove they are the best mullah.

Also: Hit Malaysian TV talent show stars Muslim scholars (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 2 - Like the stars of smash-hit television talent shows around the world, the eight young men in sharp black suits and matching skullcaps draw adoring fans and dreams of marriage.

Sultan gets direction from queen of spirit world (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 3 - Mudaffar Syah is happy to speak openly of his belief in the supernatural…

Harry Potter actress 'threatened with death' (The Australian)

July 4 - The strict Muslim father and brother of "Harry Potter" actress Afshan Azad have been charged with threatening to kill her because she has a boyfriend.

Religious Violence

Crowd protests Taliban attack (The Age, Melbourne)

July 3 - Angry protesters have taken to the streets in Pakistan, burning tyres and condemning Taliban extremists, after two suicide attacks killed 43 people at a shrine in the eastern city of Lahore.

Pakistan suicide bombers may be a new force (The Age, Melbourne)

July 3 - TWO suicide bombers have killed 42 people and injured more than 170 at the shrine of a Sufi saint in what could be the work of a dangerous new militant group, out to avenge a deadly army assault on a mosque in the nation's capital, Islamabad, three years ago.

Other

Holy water professor faces fraud charges (ABC News)

July 1 - A South Korean medical professor who invented a digital device he claimed could transform tap water into holy water is facing fraud charges, Seoul police say.

Man of God believed flying saucers were sent by the devil (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 2 - Father Paul, otherwise known as Lieutenant-Commander the Reverend Paul Inglesby, held unconventional views on the origin of UFOs and once tried to stop the Queen watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind, claiming it was a satanic plot to seize control of her mind.

ISLAM

Supporters gather as Islamic cleric deported (ABC News)

June 27- A large crowd turned up at Sydney airport to farewell Sydney's most senior Islamic cleric, who was deported on Sunday night.

Also: Deported cleric Mansour Leghaei returns to Iran (The Australian)

June 28 - MANSOUR Leghaei -- the Sydney Islamic cleric accused of spying for Iran -- will arrive back in his birth country today after being deported.

Islamic hardliners return for Sydney convention after push for ban fails (The Australian)

July 3 - HUNDREDS of Islamic activists are assembling in Sydney for a convention being held by the controversial Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Also: Extremists with caliphate on their minds, not bombs in their belts (The Australian)

July 3 - Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir eschews violence, but it has no problem with incendiary rhetoric about the demise of Western democracy

The conrtroversial 'ban the burka' debate reaches Australian shores (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)

July 4 – (Opinion: Des Houghton) AS A controversy, it has some powerful ingredients: religion, racism, identity politics, privacy, male domination and sexual repression.

JUDAISM

Opinion split over Jewish boundary (ABC News)

July 3 - A plan to erect a wire boundary with symbolic importance to Jewish people is dividing residents of a northern Sydney suburb.

Also: Residents draw line over Jewish boundary (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 3 - IT IS A SPIRITUAL boundary made from wire just one centimetre thick but a planned Jewish eruv around St Ives has divided residents of the upper north shore suburb.

POLITICS

Murder in the party room: Rudd and the martyr complex (ABC News)

June 28– (Opinion: Scott Stephens) There is a question that lingers.

MP defends burka ban legislation (ABC News)

June 28 - Independent MP Bob Such is defending his private member's bill in South Australia which could see any face covering banned from some public buildings.

Keneally says religion won't impact bill (The Age, Melbourne)

June 28 - NSW Premier Kristina Keneally says her personal religious views won't sway her support for an upcoming bill in state parliament on same-sex adoption.

Gillard won't play religion card (ABC News)

June 29 - Prime Minister Julia Gillard says she has no intention of pretending to believe in God to attract religiously-inclined voters.

Also: Julia Gillard respects religious beliefs but will not 'pretend' (The Australian)

June 29 - JULIA Gillard conceded today that she is not a "religious person" and declared she would not "pretend" to be for the sake of votes.

Also: Julia Gillard risks Christian vote with doubts on God (The Australian)

June 30 - THE Australian Christian Lobby has warned that Julia Gillard might have alienated Christian voters by declaring she does not believe in God.

Also: PM tells it as she sees it on the God issue (Sydney Morning Herald)

June 30 - Just nine days ago, the prime minister of the time, Kevin Rudd, drew on the words of the 18th-century Christian theologian John Wesley to explain his international view.

Australia lags shamefully on gay marriage (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 2 – (Opinion: Rodney Croome) Gillard's "no" to equal rights for same-sex couples is bewildering.

Politics will eat you for breakfast (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 4 – (Opinion: Philippe Mora) One wishes the new Prime Minister well, but one would also advise her to be paranoid.

Regrets, I've had a few (Herald-Sun, Melbourne)

July 4 - VICTORIAN Senator Steve Fielding has told how he wanted to hide forever after he fumbled a press conference so badly he felt he had to reveal his learning disability.

Senate investigation into tax-free status of churches

Senate probe into tax-free credentials (ABC News)

June 28 - Former members of the Church of Scientology today will tell of the need for charities and religious groups to pass a public benefit test to receive a tax-free status.

Scientology says it's just like Salvos (The Age, Melbourne)

June 28 - The Church of Scientology has compared itself to The Salvation Army, while defending its benefit to the community in a Senate inquiry.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t fund abuse”: ex-Scientologists (The Age, Melbourne)

June 29 - FORMER members of the Church of Scientology have told a Senate committee of the “ruthlessness” of the church and its judicial system, and argued it should not be eligible for tax-free status.

Inquiry hears Scientology cash siphoned overseas (ABC News)

June 29 - A parliamentary inquiry has heard claims the Church of Scientology leaves members to fund local charitable activities out of their own pockets, as it siphons donations to church officials overseas.

Charity is for rich and poor: priest (The Age, Melbourne)

June 29 - Caring for the rich is as charitable as feeding the poor, and just as worthy for taxpayer funding, a Catholic priest has argued to senators scrutinising tax breaks for religious groups.

RELIGION & SOCIETY

Porn industry, Christian lobby unite against .xxx domain (ABC News)

June 28 - The pornography industry and the Christian conservative lobby have united in opposition to a proposal to create a new domain name catering specifically for pornography on the internet.

Qld homeless facing a tough winter: Salvos (ABC News)

June 29 - The Salvation Army says there has been a 50 per cent increase in the number of people who say they are homeless or sleeping rough in Queensland.

We're not nutters - we're Christians: Agape couple deny 'malicious lies' (Adelaide Now)

July 1 - LIKE many suburban couples, Raphael and Patricia Azariah work and study hard, raise their children and attend church every Sunday.