Religion News Australia 2012 - 18 (May 6

Religion News Australia 2012 - 18 (May 6 - 13)

(13 May 12)
by Greg Spearritt

Religion News Australia

May 6 - 13, 2012

Religion news stories from Australia

(Research: Greg Spearritt)

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

ABUSE

Budget cuts spark fears for clergy abuse inquiry (ABC News)

May 7 - There are concerns a parliamentary inquiry into clergy abuse could be undermined by Victorian Government budget cuts.

Rabbi ignored warnings on sexual abuse, say parents (The Age, Melbourne)

May 8 - ONE of Australia's leading rabbis told a man whose son had been allegedly sexually abused by a youth group leader at a Melbourne Jewish school that the child would not need counselling because he was under eight years old, court documents say.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

A liberal bishop and his doubts about religion (The Australian)

May 12 – (Review) THIS is the fascinating inside story of one of the most controversial churchmen of our times. Richard Holloway rose to the heights of his church, becoming Anglican Bishop of Edinburgh in 1986, and a little later primate, or head of the church, in Scotland.

CATHOLIC CHURCH

Cardinal backs away from threat to sue Twitter (Sydney Morning Herald)

May 8 - Cardinal George Pell has backed away from a threat to sue Twitter for defamation over a comedian's tweet, after it was removed from the social media website.

Also: Pell's threat to sue Twitter highlights law's use-by date (Sydney Morning Herald)

May 9 - A THREAT by Sydney's Catholic Archbishop Cardinal George Pell to sue Twitter for defamation over an offensive tweet by the Melbourne blogger Catherine Deveny has revealed the increasing threat social media poses to the reputations of public figures.

INTERNATIONAL STORIES

Buddhism

Gambling, drinking monks raise hell in South Korea (The West Australian, Perth)

May 11 - SEOUL (Reuters) - Six leaders from South Korea's biggest Buddhist order have quit after secret video footage showed some supposedly serene monks raising hell, playing high-stakes poker, drinking and smoking.

Lama fears all-girl hit squad (news.com.au)

May 13 - THE Dalai Lama says he has been told that Chinese agents trained Tibetan women for a mission to kill him.

Catholic Church

Stradivarius violin played for pope in Vatican concert (The West Australian, Perth)

May 12 - VATICAN CITY (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI was serenaded on Friday with a religious-themed classical concert conducted by Italian maestro Riccardo Muti featuring rare instruments, including a Stadivarius violin from 1720.

Islam

For a real spin-out, give Kolya a whirl (The Age, Melbourne)

May 10 – (Travel) Konya, the birthplace of the Whirling Dervishes, is a city still rooted in its Muslim heritage.

Lady Gaga facing hardline Islamic opposition in Jakarta (The Australian)

May 10 - A HARDLINE Islamic group has warned it would not let Lady Gaga set foot in Indonesia as part of her tour of Asia and Australia, challenging an army of fans awaiting a concert in the nation with the world's largest Muslim population.

Exclusive: Tunisia licenses first Islamist Salafi party (The West Australian, Perth)

May 11 - TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia's Islamist-led government has granted a license to a political party based on puritanical Salafi Islam for the first time in one of the most secular Arab nations, the party founder and a government source said on Friday.

Famed Shiite clerics meet in wax in Iraq (The West Australian, Perth)

May 12 - NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) - Some of the most famed Shiite clerics of modern times have gathered together in a modest room under a religious school in Najaf in central Iraq -- as wax figures, waiting to be put on display.

Saudi king sacks cleric who attacked social reform (The West Australian, Perth)

May 13 - RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has sacked a senior cleric after he decried cautious reforms in the world's top oil exporter that allowed women to mix with unmarried men, Saudi Gazette reported on Saturday.

Judaism

Professor's irrational criticism of Jews crosses the line (The Australian)

May 10 – (Opinion: Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz) NORWEGIAN professor Johan Galtung, an "off-site lecturer" at the University of Sydney's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, recently exposed himself as one who irrationally criticises Jews.

US Politics

Mitt Romney woos social conservatives, rejects same-sex marriage (The Australian)

May 13 - REPUBLICAN White House challenger Mitt Romney, wooing social conservatives, has adamantly rejected same-sex marriage and trumpeted his belief in Christian values and the family.

Also: Romney seeks evangelical votes; opposes gay marriage (The West Australian, Perth)

May 13 - LYNCHBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney sought on Saturday to calm fears that his Mormon faith would be an obstacle to evangelical Christian voters, stressing shared conservative values while acknowledging religious differences.

Religious Violence

Al-Qaeda urges firebombing Australia (The Age, Melbourne)

May 6 - AL-QAEDA has named Australia as a prime target for terrorism by firebombing in an online terrorism and bomb-making magazine.

Bali bomb-maker was 'ignorant' Westerners would be targeted (Sydney Morning Herald)

May 8 - BALI bomb-maker Umar Patek claims he learnt only after he came to the resort island that Westerners were to be the target of his explosive devices, which ultimately killed 202 people.

Islamists burn tomb (Sydney Morning Herald)

May 8 - BAMAKO. Residents going to pray at a saint's tomb in north Timbuktu say a member of an al-Qaeda-linked group in North Africa attacked and burnt a tomb classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Al-Qaeda leader killed (The Age, Melbourne)

May 8 - SANAA. A senior al-Qaeda militant in Yemen, Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso, 37, who was linked to the bombing of the destroyer USS Cole that killed 17 sailors in 2000, has been killed in an air strike, the Yemeni government said, as a US campaign to counter the terrorist threat continued to escalate.

The new faces of terror (The Age, Melbourne)

May 11 - One year after the killing of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda is alive and well.

US class suspended for its view on Islam (news.com.au)

May 11 - A COURSE for US military officers has been teaching that America's enemy is Islam in general, not just terrorists, and suggested that the country might ultimately have to obliterate the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina without regard for civilian deaths, following World War II precedents of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima or the allied firebombing of Dresden.

'We just killed bin Laden' (The Australian)

May 12 - IN late August 2010, top officials in the CIA's counterterrorism centre briefed Leon Panetta, the agency's director, about a new lead in the nine-year hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Terrorists urged to protect their reputation in latest guidelines (Sydney Morning Herald)

May 13 - LONE jihadists have been told to avoid blowing up synagogues, churches or mosques under new guidelines to protect their ''reputation'', according to the latest edition of the al-Qaeda-affiliated magazine Inspire.

Other

Czech restitution plan may unlock vast church lands (The West Australian, Perth)

May 11 - CERVENA RECICE, Czech Republic (Reuters) - Wires hang out of the walls, windows are smashed and the grass grows tall in the gardens of the once-elegant archbishop's residence in Cervena Recice, a 16th-century chateau left to rot after the communists took over in 1948.

ISLAM

Are Aussies too biased to try this Muslim man? (news.com.au)

May 9 - ISMAIL Belghar is believed to be the first Muslim in Australia to be granted a judge-only trial on the grounds that a jury may be biased because of his religious beliefs.

Also: Jury is still out on trial debate for Muslim Ismil Belghar (Daily Telegraph, Sydney)

May 10 - THE controversial decision to grant a Muslim man a judge-alone trial divided the legal fraternity as well as elements of the Islamic community yesterday.

Female Muslim artists explore controversial topics (ABC News)

May 12 - Divorce, assimilation and the brutality of war are among the themes covered in the first national art exhibition for Muslim women which is being held in Sydney's west.

RELIGION & SOCIETY

Hindu holy man led by example making his mark in Australia (The Age, Melbourne)

May 4 – (Obituary) CHINTAMAN Datar, known affectionately to Melbourne's Marathi community as "Madhukaka" (uncle Madhu) and to other expatriate Indians in Australia as "Datarji", has died in Brisbane.

Where lies the real enemy in Afghanistan? (Sydney Morning Herald)

May 7 – (Opinion: Patrick Porter) THE conflict in Afghanistan has been Australia's longest war.

The politics of projection: there's a reason we can't all just get along (The Age, Melbourne)

May 13 – (Opinion: Chris Berg) POLITICS is almost entirely in the eye of the beholder.