New Zealand

Management of marine and coastal claims in breach of Treaty Comments 0

breach

The Waitangi Tribunal has found the way the Crown is managing claims under the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act is in breach of the Treaty of Waitangi and prejudicially affects Māori. The legislation replaced the controversial Foreshore and Seabed Act in 2011. It allows Māori to gain legal recognition of their customary rights Read more

NZ Catholic editor wins international award Comments 0

award

The editor NZ Catholic, Michael Otto, has won a second-place award from the Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada (CPA). The 2020 awards were announced during the 2020 Virtual Catholic Media Conference on July 2. Otto’s award was in the category, Best News Writing on National or International Event – International Event, Read more

Analysis and Comment

Religion remixed Comments 0

Religion

It is often said that we live in a godless age – that Western society is secular and “post-Christian.” In fact, something more nuanced is happening: we remain “religious” but spirituality is both personal and elusive – and outside the institutional status quo. We live in a godless age. Don’t we? The dominant cultural narrative Read more

Cardinal Bo: Let us pray for Hong Kong Comments 0

hong kong

On behalf of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, I call on Christians of all traditions and people of all faiths, throughout Asia and the world, to pray for Hong Kong, and indeed for China and all her people, with great insistence. The government of China has imposed a new national security law on Hong Read more

Facebook is out of control. If it were a country it would be North Korea Comments 0

Facebook

There is no power on this earth that is capable of holding Facebook to account. No legislature, no law enforcement agency, no regulator. The US Congress has failed. The EU has failed. When the Federal Trade Commission fined it a record $5bn for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, its stock price actually went Read more

Protesting injustice is a fundamentally Christian act Comments 0

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” And the Lord said, “What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground! And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth Read more

When pornography comes knocking at the door Comments 0

pornography

New Zealand recently launched a government safety campaign that provides content to help parents to protect children from pornography on the Internet. It gained positive attention this month through a video ad about Internet pornography, using their motif of every parent’s worst Internet nightmare knocking on their front door. “What is interesting about the New Read more

  • World

  • Vatican commission trying to answer new reality Comments 0

    Pope Francis has set up a COVID-19 commission to identify what needs to be changed in the wake of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In his view, the human person is always impacted by crises. Being better or worse after each one, he’s often said, is “up to us.” “The COVID-19 commission is trying to answer Read more

  • Asian Bishops’ Conferences concerned about new Hong Kong law Comments 0

    The Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences is concerned about China’s new security law in Hong Kong. In a statement, Cardinal Maung Bo, Archbishop of Yangon in Myanmar and president of the Asian Bishops’ Conferences says the bishops are calling for Christians to pray for the people of Hong Kong and China. China’s President Xi Jinping Read more

  • Church should empower victims to disclose abuse Comments 0

    The Catholic Church needs to empower victims of clerical abuse to disclose their predicament, says Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna. It’s been more than a year since Pope Francis published “Vos Est Lux Mundi (You are the light of the world)” – a document that ushered in a new wave of transparency and accountability for abuse Read more

  • Lourdes launches online pilgrimage Comments 0

    The Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes is organising an online pilgrimage and crowdfunding drive to try to make up a US$9 million deficit. “Lourdes needs the world, and the world needs Lourdes,” said Monsignor Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, rector of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes. The online pilgrimage, entitled “Lourdes United”, will take Read more

  • Irish Church exempt from indoor gathering restrictions Comments 0

    Places of worship in Ireland have been exempted from the country’s indoor gathering restrictions. The relaxation of the rules responds to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin’s concerns about the feasibility of enforcing the restrictions. Ireland’s Phase Three set a limit of 50 people for indoor gatherings and 100 people for outdoor gatherings. In Phase Four Read more