Religion News Australia 2010 - 28 (July 18

Religion News Australia 2010 - 28 (July 18 - 25)

(25 July 10)
by Greg Spearritt

Religion News Australia

July 18 - 25, 2010

Religion news stories from Australia

(Research: Greg Spearritt)

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

ABUSE

Former principal guilty of sex with student (The Australian)

July 23 - A FORMER high school principal, currently serving time for sexually abusing a student, has been found guilty of aggravated sexual assault of a second student.

Child sex accused priest given a blue card in Queensland (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)

July 25 - A PRIEST stood down by his church over allegations that he had sex with a teenage boy has been handed a blue card to work with children by a Queensland tribunal.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Rodney Glick's work shows Balinese influence (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)

July 22 - RODNEY Glick finds talking about his work difficult.

CATHOLIC CHURCH

Feudal Catholic church at risk, says theologian (The Age, Melbourne)

July 22 - THE ROMAN Catholic Church is the last feudal institution in the Western world, a mediaeval bastion of secrecy and privilege that cannot survive in the modern world, according to a visiting theologian.

Losing my religion (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 24 – (Opinion: Michelle Dunne Breen) A new website has made it easier for lapsed Catholics… concerned about the church's teachings and scandals, to stage an official defection.

EDUCATION

'Gutted': shoplifting students appall Xavier principal (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 19 - The principal of one of Melbourne's leading private schools says he was "gutted" to learn 16 of his students had gone on a $5000 shoplifting spree while on a school trip to New Zealand.

INTERNATIONAL STORIES

Abuse

US priest accused of abusing boy defrocked (ABC News)

July 23 - Pope Benedict XVI has defrocked a US priest accused of sexually molesting a teenage boy more than 30 years ago, the disgraced cleric's Ohio diocese said.

Anglican Church

Desmond Tutu to retire at 79 (The Australian)

July 23 - ARCHBISHOP Desmond Tutu, the implacable, irrepressible and fearless voice of South Africa's conscience, will retire on his 79th birthday.

Hinduism

Holy cow, no beef in Delhi for the Games (The Age, Melbourne)

July 24 - INDIA'S holy cows have trumped Delhi's Commonwealth Games organisers.

Islam

UK rules out 'rather un-British' burka ban (ABC News)

July 19 - The British government says it will not be following France's lead by moving to ban the full-face Islamic veil, the burka.

Hamas clamps down on water-pipe smoking (ABC News)

July 19 - The Hamas-run government in Gaza has banned women from smoking water pipes in public, placing an unpopular restriction on one of the few remaining vices left there.

Syria bans veils from universities (ABC News)

July 20 - Syria has banned women from wearing the full face veil on the campuses of the country's universities.

Spanish MPs to debate burqa ban (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 20 - MADRID: Spanish MPs are preparing to debate banning burqas in public, joining other European countries considering similar moves on the grounds that the body-covering garments are degrading to women.

Covered face breaks social contract (The Australian)

July 20 – (Opinion: Charles Bremner) Wearing the burka in France is a challenge to the values of 'public space'

Muslims told not to wear ManU jersey (The Age, Melbourne)

July 21 - Muslims must not wear the famous Manchester United red jersey because of the "devil" emblem on its team crest, Malaysian clerics said on Wednesday.

Also: Malaysian Man Utd fans cry foul over ban on 'devil' shirts (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 24 - Manchester United's fans in Malaysia erupted in astonishment and anger on social media Thursday after clerics warned Muslims against wearing the team's famous jersey with its "devil" emblem.

Muslim women 'refused bus ride' over veil (ABC News)

July 24 - London bus company Metroline is investigating claims by two Muslim women that they were not allowed to get on a bus in the capital because one of them was wearing a face veil.

What wearing Speedos tells us about the burka (The Australian)

July 24 – (Opinion: Daniel Finkelstein) WHY doesn't the Kettering MP Philip Hollobone attend his constituency surgery wearing Speedos?

Influential Saudi cleric says Muslim women can respect veil bans (Adelaide Now)

July 25 - A LEADING Saudi cleric has condemned France for moving to ban Muslim face veils, but approved of Muslim women foregoing veils when visiting a country which outlaws them.

Religious Violence

Yemeni terrorist group outlawed (The Age, Melbourne)

July 20 - AUSTRALIA has outlawed a Yemen-based jihadi group with connections to al-Qaeda, following a recent increase in the group's terrorist activities and suggestions it is recruiting radicalised foreigners to undertake attacks in the West.

Khamenei blames US, UK for 'terrorism' (The Age, Melbourne)

July 21 - Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called on Muslims to fight the "blind and savage terrorism" fuelled by US and Britain, whom he blamed for deadly bombings of an Iranian mosque.

US couple had terror hit list - court (The Age, Melbourne)

July 22 - A US man has been charged after he compiled a hit list of 15 people he believed had harmed Muslim civilians and deserved to die, court documents showed on Wednesday.

West braces for a difficult conversation ... with the Taliban (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 22 – (Opinion: Dan Oakes) As the NATO-led coalition grasps that it cannot win militarily in Afghanistan, talking with the Taliban is fast gaining favour as a way of bringing the West's involvement in the country to an end.

Blasphemy accused freed after 14 years (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 22 - A Pakistan high court has released a mentally ill woman held without trial for 14 years on allegations of desecrating the Koran, her lawyer and court officials say.

al-Qaeda-linked prisoners escape Iraqi jail (The Australian)

July 23 - FOUR al-Qaeda-linked detainees have escaped from a Baghdad area prison that was handed over by the US to Iraqi authorities a week ago, Iraq's justice minister said.

Reconciliation plan unlikely to bring peace (The Australian)

July 23 – (Opinion: Frud Bezhan) THE landmark international conference in Kabul, attended by 40 foreign ministers and international delegates from more than 70 countries, ended on Tuesday with the official endorsement of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's reconciliation program with armed insurgent groups, including the Taliban.

Perilous days for Christian churches on Jakarta's fringe (The Age, Melbourne)

July 24 - A SURGE in anti-Christian violence in Jakarta's satellite cities, almost always unpunished, has exposed alarming new fissures in Indonesian society.

Other

Pilgrims flock to Way of St.James during Holy Year (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 25 - They come from around the world to have time to think, fulfil a promise or have an adventure: the gruelling "Camino de Santiago" has seen an influx of pilgrims this year, a Holy Year, for a variety of reasons.

ISLAM

There is nothing to fear from the burqa (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 24 – (Opinion: Elizabeth Lakey) Sharing a joke cements our common humanity, dress sense be damned.

POLITICS

Sex Party calls for church abuse inquiry (ABC News)

July 20 - A Senate candidate for the Australian Sex Party is calling for the Federal Government to hold an immediate royal commission into child sex abuse in religious institutions.

PM must dump candidate: Abbott (The Age, Melbourne)

July 20 - Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is demanding the ALP disendorse a candidate who has linked his religious views to suicide.

Also: Labor candidate’s abortion comments wrong: PM (The Age, Melbourne)

July 21 - Prime Minister Julia Gillard has distanced herself from a Labor candidate who linked Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's religious views to suicide.

McGorry, churches slam major parties (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 21 - Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry has joined major church groups in slamming the mental health policies of both major parties.

Don't let her off the hook (The Australian)

July 22 – (Opinion: Editorial) The Prime Minister needs far greater media scrutiny.

Liberal candidate rebuked by Tony Abbott over holocaust jibe (The Australian)

July 22 - TONY Abbott has been forced to rebuke the Liberal candidate for Ballarat after he compared the Government's Building the Education Revolution scheme to a holocaust.

Small election in Australia, not many interested (The Age, Melbourne)

July 22 – (Opinion: Barney Zwartz) The most unimportant election in recent history, according to one commentator. An insult to voters, according to a church leader.

MP seeks ban on burkas in banks (ABC News)

July 22 - A private member's bill to ban women from wearing a burka in some circumstances in South Australia has been introduced by Independent MP Bob Such.

Crash rules out controversial ALP candidate Adrian Schonfelder (Adelaide Now)

July 23 - CONTROVERSIAL ALP candidate Adrian Schonfelder has pulled out of the federal election contest for the Victorian seat of Flinders following a car accident.

Revealed: Liberal candidate David Barker's anti-Muslim campaign (News.com.au)

July 25 - A LIBERAL candidate has been sprung posting anti-Islamic entries on Facebook and has written to church leaders asking for their support against his "strong Moslem" Labor opponent.

Also: Liberals sack anti-muslim candidate (Daily Telegraph, Sydney)

July 25 - THE Liberal Party has dumped its candidate for the western Sydney seat of Chifley after he posted anti-Islamic entries on Facebook.

RELIGION & SOCIETY

Not miraculous, just good luck (Sydney Morning Herald)

July 19 – (Opinion: Sarah McKenzie) Every time you check the news lately it seems that God has performed another miracle.

Religious discrimination trial set to start (ABC News)

July 21 - The hearing into complaints by a group representing young gay people in regional Victoria against the Christian Brethren religious group continues in V-CAT this week.

Heterosexual marriage is society's bedrock (The Australian)

July 21 – (Opinion: Bill Muehlenberg) SADLY Derryn Hinch manages to mangle just about everything in the marriage debate.

Abortion trial 'strange, bizarre' (The Australian)

July 21 - A YOUNG woman and her boyfriend will stand trial in Queensland in October for illegally procuring an abortion.

Hillsong - why people sign up for a lifetime deal (Adelaide Now)

July 24 – (Opinion: Brenden Hills) EVERYONE in the building has a common understanding: 10 per cent of your income - at the very least.

Tax office push for charity monitoring (Adelaide Now)

July 25 - THE tax office wants a special national body set up to monitor "not for profit" charities, admitting that churches - such as the multi-million-dollar phenomenon Hillsong - are literally "invisible" to it.

Manly residents rally against Exclusive Brethren plans (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)

July 25 - RESIDENTS are calling it a cult "invasion".

OTHER

Court fines Agape firearms offender (ABC News)

July 20 - A man arrested for firearms offences over raids on Agape Ministries premises has been fined $2,000 and released without conviction.

Agape leader Rocco Leo, who fled Adelaide, ordered to disclose fortune (Adelaide Now)

July 21 - RUNAWAY Agape Ministries leader Rocco Leo has been ordered to disclose the extent of his fortune to the District Court within 21 days.