Religion News Australia 2012 - 4 (Jan 22

Religion News Australia 2012 - 4 (Jan 22 - 29)

(28 January 12)
by Greg Spearritt

Religion News Australia

Jan 22 - 29, 2012

Religion news stories from Australia

(Research: Greg Spearritt)

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

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Heavenly vision on the road to hell (The Age, Melbourne)

Jan 28 – (Review) The secular world has plenty to learn from religion, according to this atheist's beliefs.

CATHOLIC CHURCH

Sister advanced interfaith harmony (The Age, Melbourne)

Jan 27 – (Obituary) SISTER Shirley Sedawie, who succeeded in building bridges of understanding between the Catholic Church and Jewish people in Australia and beyond after World War II, has died of dementia at the St Vincent de Paul Nursing Home in Box Hill.

Tireless worker behind first saint (Adelaide Now)

Jan 26 - DETERMINATION to see Mary MacKillop become Australia's first saint and tireless work for the Catholic Church have earned Father Paul Gardiner an OAM.

Bishops call for detention limits (The Age, Melbourne)

Jan 26 - Australia's Catholic bishops have called on the government to limit detention of asylum seekers to a maximum of three months, the church has announced in an Australia Day statement.

Father Bob hurting and fearful (Herald-Sun, Melbourne)

Jan 27 - FATHER Bob Maguire fears he won't be welcomed back at the church he served for almost 50 years after he holds his final Mass on Sunday.

EDUCATION

Unbending public system renews faith in religious schools (Sydney Morning Herald)

Jan 23 – (Opinion: David Hastie) In recent decades, the easy habits of local public comprehensive schools, considered for so long to be intrinsic for social democracy, are being replaced by anxious aspirations to private schooling.

INTERNATIONAL STORIES

Catholic Church

Pope calls for silence against Internet noise (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)

Jan 26 - POPE Benedict XVI has hailed the benefits of silent reflection and encouraged people to stop being "bombarded" by information from the Internet,

Hinduism

Chicago art museum gets grant from India (The West Australian)

Jan 28 - CHICAGO (AFP) - The Art Institute of Chicago has won a major grant from the government of India in honor of a landmark 1893 speech there by a monk, Swami Vivekananda, who introduced Hinduism to the United States.

Islam

Rushdie says Indian police invented death threat (ABC News)

Jan 23 - British author Salman Rushdie has accused Indian police of making up an underworld plot to assassinate him that forced him to pull out of a literary festival in Rajasthan over the weekend.

Also: Rushdie video address 'too risky' (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)

Jan 25 - A VIDEO address by author Salman Rushdie to a book festival in India has been scrapped as too dangerous.

Also: Rushdie gag order highlights India's battle for free speech (The Age, Melbourne)

Jan 29 - The crowd was waiting for Salman Rushdie, but things got complicated.

Fears of Islamist alliance in Egypt (The Age, Melbourne)

Jan 23 - FOLLOWERS of a puritanical form of Islam will fill about a quarter of the seats in the lower house of the new Egyptian parliament today, underscoring the political power being wielded by Islamists in the wake of the Arab Spring.

Also: Islamists get legislative power in Egypt (The Australian)

Jan 25 - EGYPT'S ruling military yesterday handed legislative powers to the new Islamist-dominated lower house of parliament, which convened for the first time since a popular uprising ousted Hosni Mubarak.

Major exhibition on Hajj opens in London (The West Australian)

Jan 26 - LONDON (AFP) - The British Museum in London opens its doors on Thursday to the first major exhibition in the world on Hajj, the Islamic pilgrimage to the heart of Islam.

Also: Voyage to heart of Islam opens at British Museum (The West Australian)

Jan 27 - LONDON (AFP) - It is a rite that all followers of Islam are supposed to perform at least once in a lifetime, yet for the rest of the globe the hajj is veiled in mystery.

Prime Minister Imran Khan would be no friend of the West (Sydney Morning Herald)

Jan 27 – (Opinion: Vidya Sharma) Since Imran Khan switched to politics in 1996, the Pakistani superstar cricketer's Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice, MJP) party has been a one-man band nibbling at the periphery of Pakistani politics.

Prostitutes in Java's red light district get paid to quit (The Age, Melbourne)

Jan 28 - WITH its brightly lit glass cubicles displaying scantily clad women to the passing pedestrians, there's no place in Indonesia, or the Islamic world, quite like Surabaya's Dolly district.

There's a glimmer of hope for Indonesia's forgotten poor (The Age, Melbourne)

Jan 28 – (Opinion: Tom Allard) FOR a self-styled non-practising atheist, I was surprised to find one of the great pleasures of living in Jakarta was the call to prayer.

Tunisian leaders vs the radical fringe (The Australian)

Jan 28 - TUNISIA'S moderate Islamist leaders are under pressure from a radical Muslim fringe, forcing them to stress their liberal democratic credentials without alienating their base, analysts say.

Also: Radical Islam sparks angry protest (news.com.au)

Jan 29 - THOUSANDS of Tunisians angered by the rise of ultra-conservative Islamists have hit the streets in protest.

Also: 8000 protest conservative Islam in Tunisia (The West Australian)

Jan 29 - More than 8,000 Tunisians marched on Saturday through Tunis denouncing violence committed by ultraconservative Islamist groups in recent months.

Dutch plan ban on Muslim face veils next year (The West Australian)

Jan 28 - AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch minority government plans to ban Muslim face veils such as burqas and other forms of clothing that cover the face from next year.

Judaism

Editor regrets calling for Obama assassination (The Age, Melbourne)

Jan 23 - Assassinating US President Barack Obama for refusing to wage war on Iran is an opinion Andrew Adler wishes he never published.

Chief rabbi upholds role of science (Sydney Morning Herald)

Jan 26 - IT'S NOT difficult to imagine whom Lord Sacks is referring to when he complains that ''the angry atheists had all the best lines''.

Religious Violence

Talks with Taliban the only way for US to escape from the mire (Sydney Morning Herald)

Jan 23 – (Opinion: Tariq Ali) This week Afghan guerillas carried out yet another raid on the Kandahar airbase.

President vows vengeance after Nigeria attacks (ABC News)

Jan 23 - Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan said arrests have been made over a wave of deadly attacks in the city of Kano, while vowing to hunt down the backers of Islamist group Boko Haram.

Car bombings kill 14 across Baghdad (The Australian)

Jan 24 - A WAVE of car bombings hit the Iraqi capital today, killing 14 people and wounding more than 70 as violence surges in the country amid an escalating political crisis a month after the US military withdrawal.

Female flogging on rise in Maldives (The Age, Melbourne)

Jan 25 - WHEN the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay visited the Maldives late last year, she urged that the practice of flogging women for having sex outside marriage - and very rarely punishing men in the same way - should be abolished.

Tibetans fearful as China ups security (The Australian)

Jan 25 - TIBETAN monks in a Chinese region rocked by a deadly protest say they are too afraid to leave their monastery where injured people had taken refuge, as hundreds of armed forces patrol outside.

'Grave concern' as Tibetan death toll rises (The Australian)

Jan 27 - THE US has expressed "grave concern" over violence in Tibet that has seen Chinese security forces shoot up to a dozen people in the past week.

Gunmen open fire on police station (news.com.au)

Jan 29 - GUNMEN in Nigeria have killed at least one officer after opening fire on a police station in the city of Kano.

Nigerian army kills 11 Boko Haram Islamists in shootout (The West Australian)

Jan 29 - LAGOS (AFP) - Nigerian troops killed 11 Boko Haram Islamists during a shootout Saturday in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, a stronghold of the group blamed for more than 200 deaths this year, the army said.

Other

Communist past catches up with bishops (The Australian)

Jan 22 - THE ghost of communism has resurfaced in Bulgaria, with 11 of the country's 15 top bishops exposed as former secret police agents, shaking the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and its image just as it readies to choose a new patriarch.

Jesus statue decapitated outside Boston church (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)

Jan 26 - POLICE in the US are hunting vandals who decapitated a statue of Jesus outside a Roman Catholic church in Boston.

ISLAM

Niqab row woman loses bid for costs (Sydney Morning Herald)

Jan 23 - The woman at the centre of the niqab row has lost her bid for NSW Police to pay her legal costs on the grounds that she was improperly prosecuted.

ASIO seeks to recruit Muslim spies (ABC News)

Jan 25 - A Muslim community leader has welcomed comments from the head of Australia's intelligence agency that it needs to recruit more Muslims.

Rodney Hogg sorry for Australia Day Muslim tweet (Herald-Sun, Melbourne)

Jan 26 - FORMER cricketer Rodney Hogg has apologised for an offensive Australia Day tweet aimed at Muslims, saying it was a poor attempt at Aussie humour.

Also: Hogg bowled over by his own tastelessness in pot shot at Muslims (Sydney Morning Herald)

Jan 27 - RODNEY HOGG took fans ''inside the mind of a lunatic fast bowler'' in his autobiography and did so again yesterday with a Muslim slur that has landed him in controversy.

JUDAISM

PM's Jewish move queried (The Age, Melbourne)

Jan 25 - JULIA Gillard has moved to strengthen her already close relations with the Jewish community by giving her new business liaison adviser, Bruce Wolpe, the specific task of liaising with it.

RELIGION & SOCIETY

Tankard Reist explain yourself (Sydney Morning Herald)

Jan 24 – (Opinion: Kate Gleeson) Many feminists are suspicious of Melinda Tankard Reist.

Margaret Court 'is closed on gay rights' (The Australian)

Jan 24 - MARTINA Navratilova says attitudes towards homosexuality and gay marriage are a question of human rights, not religious rights, but concedes she will never convince Margaret Court.

Also: Slap for anti-gay Margaret Court (The Age, Melbourne)

Jan 25 - WRITER Christos Tsiolkas has hit out at tennis champion Margaret Court for her anti-gay views.

Also: Don't deny us same-sex marriage laws, says Martina Navratilova (Herald-Sun, Melbourne)

Jan 27 – (Opinion: Martina Navratilova) DEAR Margaret, Do you remember the first time we were on the same court?

Also: Row over tennis legend Margaret Court's view on homosexuality (news.com.au)

Jan 29 - TENNIS great Margaret Court claims homosexuality is often the result of sexual abuse.

There's life in the old God yet (Sydney Morning Herald)

Jan 28 - THE man who is, quite possibly, the world's richest philosopher is hard at work in his private study at 9 o'clock on a wintry London morning.

OTHER

Crash mum was fearful of 'cult' (Adelaide Now)

Jan 25 - CONVINCED her children were about to be brainwashed by their "cult leader" grandparents, a young mother decided her family's salvation lay in death.

From the Archive…

Religion News Australia 2012 – 3 (Jan 15 - 22)

Religion News Australia 2012 – 2 (Jan 8 - 15)

Religion News Australia 2012 – 1 (Dec 25 – Jan 8)

Religion News Australia 2011 – 52 (Dec 18 - 25)

Religion News Australia 2011 – 51 (Dec 11 - 18)

Religion News Australia 2011 – 50 (Dec 4 - 11)

Religion News Australia 2011 – 49 (Nov 27 – Dec 4)

Religion News Australia 2011 – 48 (Nov 20 - 27)

Religion News Australia 2011 – 47 (Nov 13 - 20)

Religion News Australia 2011 - 46 (Nov 6 - 13)

Religion News Australia 2011 - 45 (Oct 30 – Nov 6)