Religion News Australia 2012 - 17 (Apr 29

Religion News Australia 2012 - 17 (Apr 29 - May 6)

(07 May 12)
by Greg Spearritt

Religion News Australia

Apr 29 – May 6, 2012

Religion news stories from Australia

(Research: Greg Spearritt)

abuse / catholic church / education / international stories / religion & society / other

ABUSE

'It's been 33 years in the making': ex-priest charged over sexual abuse (Sydney Morning Herald)

May 1 - A retired Catholic priest and a one-time close personal friend of the Attorney-General, Greg Smith, has been charged over alleged sexual abuse of four children in the 1970s and '80s.

Also: Priest friend of Attorney-General Greg Smith arrested (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)

May 1 - A CLOSE friend of NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith, Catholic priest Father Finian Egan, has been charged with rape and indecent assaults today in connection with alleged child sex offences.

Fight for church abuse damages (The Age, Melbourne)

May 3 - ELEVEN Victorians abused by a jailed paedophile Christian Brother have lodged joint claims in the Victorian County Court in the first of several looming and large legal actions aimed at forcing the Catholic Church to compensate victims.

CATHOLIC CHURCH

Church lobbies for casual staff (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)

May 1 - THE Catholic Church has called for a new approach to work claiming there was no dignity for the low paid and vulnerable and the flexibility of modern work failed families.

Church dumps priest who wed (Sydney Morning Herald)

May 2 - A SYDNEY Catholic priest who revealed he has been married for a year has been removed from his post by church officials.

Sister act spreads story of inspiring Australian (ABC News)

May 4 - She plays touch football, has a computer science degree and brings to life the story of Australia's first Catholic saint.

EDUCATION

School closed over gay message (The Age, Melbourne)

May 1 - A SEVENTH Day Adventist church has closed down a language school for international students, migrants and refugees because its founder publicly supported gay marriage.

INTERNATIONAL STORIES

Abuse

Ireland's top Catholic rejects abuse cover-up claims (ABC News)

May 3 - The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is refusing to step down from his position despite a report accusing him of helping to cover up sex abuse in the 1970s.

Buddhism

Afghan museum highlights country's Buddhist heritage (The West Australian)

May 3 - KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan, which achieved global notoriety for cultural barbarism when the Taliban blew up the ancient Bamiyan Buddhas, this week opened an exhibition highlighting the country's rich Buddhist heritage.

Catholic Church

Nun's numbers on the rise, as women turn to religious life (The Australian)

May 2 - UNTIL recently, nuns in Britain had fallen out of the habit.

'Modern Family' honored by Catholic group (The West Australian)

May 4 - LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Modern Family" might not be the most obvious choice to be showered with accolades by a religious organization, but the ABC comedy was honored by the Catholics in Media Associates over the weekend anyway.

Islam

Xenophon to sue Malaysian newspaper (Adelaide Now)

May 2 - SOUTH Australian senator Nick Xenophon will take legal action against a Malaysian newspaper over accusations he made an anti-Islamic speech in parliament.

Also: Xenophon verballed in Malaysia (The Age, Melbourne)

May 3 - INDEPENDENT senator Nick Xenophon has been subjected to an extraordinary attack by a state-controlled Malaysian newspaper - publishing a 2009 speech in which he was critical of Scientology, but replacing it with the word ''Islam''.

Also: Senator caught in Muslim slur row (The Australian)

May 3 - A MALAYSIAN newspaper has quoted independent senator Nick Xenophon as declaring Islam is a "criminal organisation", after it misreported excerpts of a parliamentary speech in which the South Australian MP attacked the Church of Scientology.

Also: Newspaper apologises to Xenophon (The West Australian)

May 3 - A Malaysian newspaper that wrongly said South Australian independent senator Nick Xenophon had made an anti-Islamic speech has apologised to him.

Malaysia mosque a source of hope for heroin addicts (The West Australian)

May 3 - KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - For 30 years, Feisal Fakharudin lived a heroin addict's life, sleeping on streets, getting into trouble with police and rotating in and out of drug treatment centres.

Iraqi aims to write world's longest copy of Koran (The West Australian)

May 4 - NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) - Hussein al-Kharsan kneels, bent over a giant sheet of paper, laboriously writing the words of Islam's holy book, the Koran, in beautiful Arabic script with a traditional wood and feather pen.

Tunisian court fines TV boss on morality charges (The West Australian)

May 4 - TUNIS (Reuters) - A Tunisian court on Thursday fined a television boss 2,400 dinars ($1,550) for showing the award winning film "Persepolis" after a trial that deepened a growing divide between Islamists and secularists.

Love-struck Iranians lose themselves in world's biggest book labyrinth (Sydney Morning Herald)

May 5 - THE idea of an international book festival in Tehran might sound incongruous. Leaders of the Islamic Republic are not great book enthusiasts.

"Sin" has led to Middle East unrest - Saudi cleric (The West Australian)

May 5 - JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's top religious official has blamed Muslim sinfulness for instability in the Middle East, where pro-democracy unrest has toppled four heads of state.

Syria's Muslim Brotherhood rise from the ashes (The West Australian)

May 6 - ISTANBUL (Reuters) - At a meeting of Syria's opposition, Muslim Brotherhood officials gather round Marxists colleagues, nudging them to produce policy statements for the Syrian National Council, the main political group challenging President Bashar al-Assad.

Judaism

Hardline historian imbued PM son with hawkish views on Palestinians (The Age, Melbourne)

May 2 – (Obituary) BEN-ZION Netanyahu, a historian who raised his son, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on uncompromising Zionism, has died at his Jerusalem home.

For Tunisia's Jews, hope and fears post-revolt (The West Australian)

May 4 - DJERBA, Tunisia (Reuters) - In the Jewish quarters on the Tunisian island of Djerba, only menoras or Hebrew letters painted in blue against the whitewashed walls distinguish a Jewish home from the Muslim family living next door.

Bedside chat that changed Israel's rules for organ transplants (Sydney Morning Herald)

May 5 - AS SURGEON Jacob Lavee was preparing to perform a heart transplant on an ultra-Orthodox Jewish patient, they had a conversation that changed the way he thought about organ donation forever.

US Politics

Nixon's hatchet man saw the light, sought moral redemption (The Age, Melbourne)

May 1 – (Obituary) CHARLES ''Chuck'' Colson, who as a political saboteur for president Richard Nixon masterminded some of the dirty tricks that led to the president's downfall, then emerged from jail to become an important evangelical leader, saying he had been born again, has died of a brain hemorrhage in Falls Church, Virginia.

Religious Violence

Al-Qaeda in Yemen frees 73 prisoners (news.com.au)

April 30 - AL-Qaeda in Yemen says it has released 73 soldiers captured by its fighters during battles with government forces in the south of the country.

Documents reveal Bin Laden kept up links to Taliban (The Age, Melbourne)

May 1 - DOCUMENTS found in the house where Osama bin Laden was killed a year ago show a close working relationship between top al-Qaeda leaders and Mullah Mohammed Omar, the overall commander of the Taliban, including frequent discussions of joint operations against NATO forces in Afghanistan, the Afghan government and targets in Pakistan.

Fast-tracked terrorists worry security forces (The Age, Melbourne)

May 1 - WESTERN security officials are worried about a wave of ''fast turnaround'' volunteers who travel to Pakistan and obtain training from militant groups so quickly they escape detection before returning to their home countries to launch attacks.

New York man convicted in subway bomb plot (Sydney Morning Herald)

May 2 - A New York man has been convicted of plotting an aborted suicide mission against New York City subways in 2009 - a case that featured the first-time testimony from admitted homegrown terrorists about al-Qaeda's fixation with pulling off another attack on America soil.

Al-Qaeda chief 'worried about public image' (The Age, Melbourne)

May 2 - A FEW months before Osama bin Laden's death, websites linked to al-Qaeda ran excited commentary about a proposed new killing machine dubbed the ''human lawnmower''.

US releases bin Laden documents (ABC News)

May 4 - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was not the "puppet master" of jihadi groups around the world and complained of their "incompetence" in letters seized from his hideout in Pakistan.

Also: Worried Bin Laden's last words go online (Sydney Morning Herald)

May 4 - In letters from his last hideout, Osama bin Laden fretted about dysfunction in his terrorist network and crumbling trust from Muslims he wished to incite against their government and the West.

Suicide bomb in Pakistani market kills 20 (The Australian)

May 4 - A SUICIDE bombing in a Pakistani market close to the Afghan border has killed 20 people, a day after the US released letters seized from Osama bin Laden's compound that criticised Pakistani militants for killing too many civilians.

Anger and doubt in Taliban verse (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)

May 6 - A GROUP of researchers are preparing to release an anthology of Taliban poetry, translated into English.

Al-Qaeda dominates north Mali, desecrates Timbuktu tomb (The West Australian)

May 6 - BAMAKO (AFP) - An offshoot of Al-Qaeda now dominates northern Mali, regional security sources said Saturday, as militants brazenly began to impose their radical vision of Islam by desecrating a holy tomb in Timbuktu.

Other

Forget Disneyland, I want to go to Noah world (Daily Telegraph, Sydney)

May 1 - THE world's only full-scale replica of Noah's Ark stands as the centrepiece of a religious theme park on a tiny, barely inhabited island a ferry ride away from the skyscrapers of Hong Kong. But it won't be the only one for long.

Nun's numbers on the rise, as women turn to religious life (The Australian)

May 2 - UNTIL recently, nuns in Britain had fallen out of the habit.

As Dutch churches shut, sacred art finds new use abroad (The West Australian)

May 3 - S-HERTOGENBOSCH, Netherlands (Reuters) - When Christianity fades, it doesn't just leave empty pews behind.

Libya drops ban on religion-based parties (The West Australian)

May 3 - TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya has dropped a ban against parties based on religion, tribe or ethnicity, an official said, after the law irked Islamist parties in the run up to the first free election in June.

Hitler had a Messiah complex new papers reveal (Herald-Sun, Melbourne)

May 4 - ADOLF Hitler had a "Messiah complex" and became increasingly obsessed with the perceived Jewish "enemy within" as World War II turned against Germany, according to a secret 1942 assessment unveiled on Friday.

US shootings: Korean pleads not guilty (The Australian)

May 5 - A KOREAN-AMERICAN former nursing student has pleaded not guilty to killing seven people in a shooting rampage at a religious college in California.

RELIGION & SOCIETY

Faithful 'need a bill of rights' (Adelaide Now)

April 29 - AUSTRALIA should have a bill of rights to protect human rights such as freedom of religion, an Adelaide law professor says.

Hatred of women exists in the West as well as the Arab world (Sydney Morning Herald)

May 3 – (Opinion: Ruby Hamad) Egyptian-American commentator Mona Eltahawy has caused a storm with her Foreign Policy essay, Why Do They Hate Us?

Parramatta Eels prop Tim Mannah is a Christian, but it doesn't mean he is soft (Daily Telegraph, Sydney)

May 4 - NOT all toughness comes tattooed on a forearm.

'Praycations' a new source for enlightening travel stories (Sydney Morning Herald)

May 5 - BEWILDERED by Buddhism? Don't just turn to Google or Wikipedia. Shave your head, pick up your begging bowl and live in a monastery for a month, immersing your self in the religion from the inside.

Online virtual prayer room for parishioners (Adelaide Now)

May 6 - CHURCHES are going online to reach the faithful and the curious who may not occupy the pews on Sundays.