She spent endless days and nights fleeing a warzone as a tiny child, first on foot through the darkness and then by boat after they shut the borders in her native Sierra Leone. But when Yarrie Bangurra saw the camp she was supposed to be staying in, she couldn’t understand what it was her family Read more
I was passing through airport security somewhere in North America in October 2001 when I realised it: I was no longer the face of terrorism, and might never be selected for one of those comprehensive “special clearance procedures” again. Until then, that’s what a passport with a Northern Irish birthplace had got me – it Read more
The papacy only gained complete power over the appointment of bishops in the mid-19th century; it’s that recent. Previously many different systems operated, but the key issue was that the local church had a major say in who was appointed bishop, even if it was only the local lord or king. Nowadays episcopal appointments result Read more
The Australian Sex party has taken aim at the Catholic Church in an election ad it says may offend some viewers. The ad, released on Youtube on Friday, shows a flamboyant dancing priest leading a congregation in a sing along. The ad accuses the Catholic Church with its “sleazy priests” of “making the world less Read more
The death this week of Omid, a young refugee held on Nauru, brought feelings of sadness but also great anger. News that a second refugee, a young Somali woman, has self-immolated and is fighting for her life in a Brisbane hospital only adds to this. These are tragic, entirely predictable and preventable consequences of our Read more
Despite the unpersuasive Vatican spin on Cardinal Pell’s appearance last week before the Royal Commission into child sex abuse in institutions – that his performance was “dignified” and “edifying”, his performance, in the assessment of most observers including this one, was inept, cowardly and unconvincing. Cardinal Pell is only one Australian Catholic and he has Read more
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi described the testimony made by Cardinal George Pell before the royal commission into child sexual abuse as “dignified.” Pell “must be accorded the appropriate acknowledgment for his dignified and coherent personal testimony, from which yet again there emerges an objective and lucid picture of the errors committed in many ecclesial Read more
Cardinal George Pell admitted that he did not act on a complain made by a boy in 1974 that Brother Edward Dowlan was “misbehaving” with students at St Patrick’s College in Ballarat. Dowlan, who has since changed his name to Ted Bales, was jailed last year for abusing boys in the 1970s and ’80s. “With Read more
Cardinal George Pell will give evidence to a child sex abuse inquiry in Australia through video link from Rome later this month. In a ruling released on Monday, the head of Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Justice Peter McClellan, accepted medical evidence of a risk to the cardinal’s health if he undertook Read more
Australia’s Catholic bishops have offered the Church’s help for the Australian government’s international work to abolish the death penalty. The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president, Archbishop Denis Hart, wrote to a parliamentary inquiry into Australia’s advocacy for the abolition of the death penalty. “The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference would be happy to assist the Australian Read more