A judge has granted the extradition of former Catholic brother Bernard McGrath to Australia to face hundreds of sex abuse charges. The Australian Government’s application for extradition was granted by Judge Jane Farish in the Christchurch District Court today. In Australia, charges have been laid against McGrath, 65, alleging that he raped, molested and abused Read more
Charter schools will give Maori more input into a school model they can adapt to suit their children, the chairman of the Iwi Education Authority says. Toby Curtis, a Te Arawa kaumatua, defended the controversial charter schools model, saying Maori under-achievement was a big problem charter schools could improve. Continue reading
A statue of the Virgin Mary has been smashed in an act of vandalism. Church staff noticed the shattered shell in its grotto behind the church building in Maxwell Rd yesterday after the Queen’s Birthday Weekend. Continue Reading and more
The New Zealand Superannuation Fund has excluded seven companies with operations in nuclear bases from its $22 billion portfolio, while clearing the return for four firms which had previously been excluded for their involvement in cluster munitions. The Cullen Fund, so-called for its architect former Finance Minister Michael Cullen, will exclude public companies Babcock & Wilcox, Read more
“I live like a monk and I’m fine. I pray and I read,” Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI has told a German friend who visited him recently at his new residence in the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in Vatican City. Manfred Lutz, a German scholar who is a member of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and Read more
The Church isn’t a business but without money there can be no mission, Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane has said in a message to his diocese. Introducing a new approach to archdiocesan fundraising, he said some of the strategies that worked well in the past no longer work as well as they did. “Therefore, we Read more
Although the archdiocese of Cincinnati has been ordered to pay $NZ216,000 to a lesbian teacher fired after she became pregnant through artificial insemination, a spokesman says it has no intention to end morality requirements. “For the archdiocese, this case has always been about an employee violating a legally enforceable contract that she signed,” said communications Read more
Fr Edmund Little, of the Archdiocese of Wellington, New Zealand, died on Sunday 9th June at the Takaka Hospital. Thomas Edmund Little was born on 15th Dec 1941 in Romford, Essex, England, son of Thomas James Lewis and Muriel Claureen Jones. He was educated at St Mary’s Prep School, Havering Road School, and the Royal Read more
Papua New Guinea’s Muslim population has grown by some 500 per cent since the September 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001, according to research by an Australian academic and expert on Islamic studies. Listen
A Waikato kaumatua says there is a cultural shift from burial to cremation. A Maori funeral director in west Auckland, Francis Tipene, says he is seeing more and more bereaved whanau choosing cremation over burial because it is a less expensive option. Continue reading