Religion News Australia 2012 - 22 (June 3

Religion News Australia 2012 - 22 (June 3 - 10)

(09 June 12)
by Greg Spearritt

Religion News Australia

June 3 - 10, 2012

Religion news stories from Australia

(Research: Greg Spearritt)

Please note: This weekly roundup of religious news from Australia will be
in abeyance for a few weeks and will resume on Sunday, July 14.

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

ABUSE

An unbearable secret (The Age, Melbourne)

June 6 - As a child and young man, Tony Hersbach was regularly sexually abused by a Catholic priest.

Also: One man's struggle to be delivered from evil - and indifference (The Age, Melbourne)

June 6 - MELBOURNE'S Catholic archdiocese permitted a priest charged with child sex offences to be the ''spiritual director'' to another priest accused of child molestation.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Pop star's early illness prompted him to look at life's serious questions (Sydney Morning Herald)

June 3 - THE long spiritual journey of Yusuf - the artist formerly known as Yusuf Islam, and before that as Cat Stevens, and somewhere in the mists of time as plain old Steven Georgiou - began when he fell ill at the height of his first blaze of fame in the late 1960s.

Hymns no match for thrums (The Age, Melbourne)

June 9 – (Review) YOU'RE almost asking for trouble when you stage a gig in a church.

CATHOLIC CHURCH

Set and match as church sells tennis courts (The Age, Melbourne)

June 9 - The Catholic Church has a sold a big development site in the heart of Camberwell for $3.55 million, with the proceeds set to go towards the restoration of the nearby Basilica of Our Lady of Victories.

Nuns versus the Vatican? I know which side I'm on (The Age, Melbourne)

June 9 – (Opinion: Martin Flanagan) I'm not a Catholic as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's thought police, would see it.

Critic bishop exits church (Sydney Morning Herald)

June 10 - A DISSIDENT Catholic bishop who criticised the church's ''authoritarian'' nature and doctrines on celibacy and female priests has resigned.

INTERNATIONAL STORIES

Buddhism

Thou shalt not launch IPOs, China tells temples (The West Australian)

June 7 - SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Buddhist and Taoist temples have no right to go public and list shares on stock exchanges, a Chinese official was quoted in state media as saying of an issue that seems to have touched a nerve with the officially atheist government.

Catholic Church

Nun's sex talk raises the Vatican's ire (ABC News)

June 5 - The Vatican has denounced an American nun after she wrote an award-winning book on sexual ethics, which includes topics such as gay marriage and masturbation.

Also: Vatican criticises nun's book on sexuality (Daily Telegraph, Sydney)

June 5 - THE Vatican has sharply criticised a book on sexuality written by a prominent American nun, saying she has a "defective understanding" of certain core church teachings on issues like masturbation, homosexuality and marriage.

Also: Of noble nuns and a venal Vatican (Sydney Morning Herald)

June 10 – (Opinion: Maureen Dowd) It is hard to say what is weirder: a Sister of Mercy writing about the Kama Sutra, sexual desire and ''our yearnings for pleasure''; or the Vatican getting so hot and bothered about the academic treatise on sexuality that the Pope censures it, causing it to shoot from obscurity to the top tier of Amazon.com's bestseller list six years after it was published.

Butler quizzed on Pope papers theft (The Age, Melbourne)

June 7 - VATICAN investigators have begun interrogating the Pope's butler on suspicion of stealing confidential documents, as it was claimed he had been acting as a ''double agent'' to help officials uncover others involved in the scandal.

Vatican bank-money, mystery and monsignors (The West Australian)

June 8 - VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - For a financial institution whose ATMs offer Latin as a language option, whose offices are below the pope's windows and where tellers work under the gaze of crucifixes, one might assume the Vatican bank would have a dispensation from earthly travails.

Also: Post your pro-pope postcard to "sad" pontiff now (The West Australian)

June 8 - BERLIN (Reuters) - German Catholics upset about media attacks on Pope Benedict over the "Vatileaks" scandal can now show solidarity with the German-born pontiff by sending pre-printed postcards bearing the message "We are with you!"

Also: Leaked Vatican letters reveal plot to oust banker (The West Australian)

June 9 - ROME (AFP) - Vatican bank board members plotted to oust their director, letters leaked to an Italian newspaper on Saturday showed, as prosecutors investigated possible money-laundering operations at the bank.

Also: Vatican bank's ex-boss fears for his life (Sydney Morning Herald)

June 9 - The former head of the Vatican bank compiled a secret dossier of compromising information about the Holy See because he feared for his life, it has been claimed.

Islam

Tweeter gets 10 years for prophet insult (Adelaide Now)

June 4 - A LOWER court in Kuwait sentenced a Shiite tweeter to 10 years in jail today on charges of insulting Islam's Prophet Mohammed, his wife Aisha and companions, his lawyer Khaled al-Shatti said.

Police blush over nail polish row (news.com.au)

June 4 - A SAUDI religious police officer ordered a woman to leave a mall because she was wearing nail polish.

Brotherhood's campaign reach is crucial (The Australian)

June 5 - IN the run-up to the first round of Egypt's presidential polls the Muslim Brotherhood's downfall was anticipated.

Wider world opened to Saudis studying abroad (The West Australian)

June 6 - RIYADH, Jun (Reuters) - Wearing the black face-covering veil favored by Saudi women, Maha Mazyad looked through leaflets for prospective jobs with some of the Islamic kingdom's largest companies at a recent career fair in Riyadh.

Judaism

Ritual circumcision kills two boys (news.com.au)

June 8 - A JEWISH ritual in which a circumciser sucks blood from a newborn's penis has killed two babies in the past decade, US authorities said overnight.

Religious Violence

How the SAS freed hostages from Taliban caves (Sydney Morning Herald)

June 4 - THE dramatic details of how the SAS completed a ''brilliant'' rescue of a British aid worker and three other female hostages in Afghanistan has been revealed.

Claims top Al Qaeda strategist killed in drone strike (ABC News)

June 5 - One of Al Qaeda's top strategists and a prominent figure in the network, Abu Yahya al-Libi, may have been killed in a drone strike in north-west Pakistan, the country's intelligence officials say.

Also: Al-Qaeda No.2 killed by US drone (Sydney Morning Herald)

June 6 - A US drone strike has killed al-Qaeda's second-in-command, in a significant blow to the terrorist network that has lost a string of top leaders since the death of Osama bin Laden last year.

Also: Al-Libi's death 'crippling blow for al-Qaeda' (news.com.au)

June 7 - THIRTEEN months after Osama bin Laden was killed, the loss of charismatic propagandist Abu Yahya al-Libi is a crippling blow to al-Qaeda that could break up its central leadership, US experts say.

Yemen clashes kill 23 al-Qaeda militants (Sydney Morning Herald)

June 5 - Fierce clashes in Yemen's south have killed at least 23 al-Qaeda militants.

Suicide bomb fuels political fears (news.com.au)

June 5 - A SUICIDE attacker blew up a bomb-packed car in Baghdad yesterday, killing at least 25 people.

At least 20 dead in Afghan bombing (ABC News)

June 6 - A suicide motorcycle bombing has killed 21 people and wounded 22 others in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar, police said.

Distrust fuels anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar (The West Australian)

June 6 - SITTWE, Myanmar (AFP) - An eruption in religious tensions in Myanmar has exposed the deep divisions between the majority Buddhists and the country's Muslims, considered foreigners despite a decades-long presence.

Also: Four killed in Myanmar religious clashes (The West Australian)

June 8 - YANGON (AFP) - Four people were killed on Friday in religious clashes in western Myanmar, where police opened fire and the authorities declared a curfew to tackle the escalating unrest, officials said.

Also: Myanmar beefs up security as new unrest hits west (The West Australian)

June 9 - YANGON (AFP) - Buddhist villagers fled their homes Saturday as renewed sectarian violence hit western Myanmar, officials said, blaming Muslim Rohingya people from a "neighbouring country" for the unrest.

Dozens of civilians die in bloody day in Afghanistan (ABC News)

June 7 - Dozens of civilians died in a bloody day across Afghanistan as a twin suicide bombing ripped through a crowded makeshift bazaar and a NATO air strike hit a home, officials said.

Drones "inhumane", dead al Qaeda man's family says (The West Australian)

June 7 - TRIPOLI (Reuters) - The brother of al Qaeda's second-in-command, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike, said Washington's use of the remote-controlled weapons is inhumane and makes a mockery of its claims to champion human rights.

Bombing kills 14 in Pakistan's Quetta: police (The West Australian)

June 7 - QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - A bomb exploded in the city of Quetta in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, killing 14 people including three children on Thursday, police said.

Kony kidnapping children (Sydney Morning Herald)

June 8 - JOSEPH Kony's Lord Resistance Army (LRA) has abducted more than 600 child soldiers and sex slaves over the past two years, the United Nations says.

12 killed in Pakistan school bombing (ABC News)

June 8 - At least 12 people have been killed and more than 20 others wounded in a bomb blast outside a Muslim school in the Pakistan city of Quetta.

Also: Bike bomb hits seminary students (news.com.au)

June 8 - A BOMB attached to a bicycle has exploded outside a seminary in southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 14 people.

Seven dead in Baghdad area attacks (news.com.au)

June 9 - ATTACKS in central Iraq have left five security members dead, while an alleged al-Qaeda fighter has killed two prison guards, amid a recent spike in unrest that has broken a relative calm in Baghdad.

Subway fugitive's capture revives sarin gas trauma (Sydney Morning Herald)

June 9 - SAGAMIHARA: For two years, the woman who called herself Chizuko Sakurai lived with her boyfriend in a rundown old barn on the far western edge of Tokyo's sprawl, where tracts of identical suburban homes fade into farms and mountains

Suicide blast kills 5 at police HQ in Nigerian city (The West Australian)

June 9 - ABUJA (AFP) - A suicide blast at the police headquarters in Nigeria's restive city of Maiduguri on Friday killed at least one police officer and four civilians as well as injuring several others, officials said.

Afghans accuse spies in school attacks (The Age, Melbourne)

June 9 - WHEN the Taliban was ousted from Afghanistan in 2001, there were 5000 girls enrolled in schools across the country.

Other

Women's religious lock-up (Adelaide Now)

June 5 - A study on how cultures control women's infidelity… found religion helps, because the major religions all have some way to bridle potentially wayward women.

China says saves children from illegal preachers in Xinjiang (The West Australian)

June 6 - BEIJING (Reuters) - Police in China's far western region of Xinjiang have rescued 54 children from illegal preachers, state media said on Wednesday, in what an exiled rights group said was a violent raid on a school teaching the Koran.

New Danish law lets homosexuals wed in church (The West Australian)

June 8 - COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Denmark passed legislation that permits homosexual couples to be married in full church ceremonies, not just via the brief blessings or civil registration of partnerships allowed earlier.

US televangelist Creflo Dollar arrested (The West Australian)

June 10 - A prominent megachurch pastor and televangelist - who has drawn scrutiny for his flashy lifestyle and preaching that prosperity is good - has been arrested after authorities said he slightly hurt his 15-year-old daughter in a fight at his metro Atlanta home.

RELIGION & SOCIETY

Jehovah girl remains in hospital (Adelaide Now)

June 3 - A JEHOVAH'S Witness girl who was granted medical treatment by the Supreme Court despite her parents' objection remains in hospital.

Rundle Mall sermons are 'a lost cause' (Adelaide Now)

June 3 - CHURCHES need to learn from their controversial pasts and preach messages of love instead of guilt and shame, a visiting New York minister says.

Christians slam gay marriage support (Sydney Morning Herald)

June 7 - THE Australian Christian Lobby has complained to the media regulator about the involvement of Channel Seven's Sunrise program in a campaign for same-sex marriage.

Also: Christian lobby slams Seven's Sunrise for supporting GetUp! campaign on gay marriage (The Australian)

June 7 - THE Seven Network has been accused of betraying its audiences by allowing its flagship morning show Sunrise to support a campaign launched this week in support of marriage equality for same sex couples.

Celebrations take off for outback ministry (ABC News)

June 8 - A flying outback ministry will mark its 50th birthday this weekend.

Christian Lobby analysis reveals strong gay focus (The Age, Melbourne)

June 9 - The Australian Christian Lobby has been criticised for its relentless campaigning on gay issues by other members of the Christian community after data revealed the group raised LGBT issues almost five times more than any other issue.