Seventh-day Adventist-owned Hope Channel has become the most popular Christian broadcaster in New Zealand after only a year on the air. New data from market researcher Nielsen indicate that Hope Channel New Zealand has an average monthly viewership of 200,000 people, more than local Christian broadcasters SonLife, Firstlight, and even Shine TV (Rhema Media), which Read more
An Australian court may prosecute an archbishop if can prove he hid sex abuse The archbishop failed for a second time last Friday to stop a criminal prosecution against. He is defending allegations he covered up for a pedophile priest. Archbishop Philip Wilson, 66, was charged in April last year with concealing serious child sexual Read more
New Zealand has the highest rate of teen suicide in the developed world, an OECD report reiterates. Despite the alarming information the report revealed nothing new. New Zealand continuously ranked among the worst in the world for our levels of teen suicide. In a normal week two teenagers or two children kill themselves, Youthline director Read more
Fancy a holiday at the Pope’s house? Pope Francis has opened his private apartments at Castel Gandolfo to tourists. The Castel is about 25 kilometres from Rome. He has only visited Castel Gandolfo a couple of times since his 2013 election. He has never spent the night there. Nor has he moved into his sumptuous Read more
The general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, opened his ecumenical and interfaith tour of New Zealand and Australia on 6 October. The first stop was Auckland with a powhiri at Te Karaiti Te Pou Herenga Waka Maori Anglican church in Mangere. Tveit will visit the region between Read more
Forty-one baptisms were included in a Chinese Catholic church’s 300-year anniversary celebrations last week. Thousands of people attended St Francis Cathedral of Xi’an in China’s Shaanxi province four days of celebrations. The celebrations included music, lectures, a cultural show, the installation of a relic of St Francis of Assisi and the unveiling of a tablet Read more
The Dixie Chick will be the lead act at the 2017 Mission Concert. The country/pop act has won 13 Grammys, including five in 2007 for Taking the Long Way, which received the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and have sold 30 million albums worldwide. The group will be coming to New Zealand as Read more
Gays, Catholics and Pope Francis’s view “Who am I to judge?” is confusing the clergy. Now, some gay Catholics and supporters who hoped for rapid acceptance find themselves hampered by many bishops and pastors. Read more
A West Auckland mother is stunned after superstar songstress Lorde donated $10,000 to help her struggling family. Family of Devora Busch and Richard Barry started a Give a Little page to help the family after they faced losing their home if they could not raise more than $250,000 to fix their leaky home. The Titirangi Read more
Biased coverage of Syria’s six-year conflict has been criticised by a religious sister working with Christian families in Aleppo. Sister Annie Demerjian, a member of the Sisters of Jesus and Mary, questioned why Western journalists focused on the plight of people in areas held by rebels and jihadis but seldom those in regions controlled by Read more