Religion News Australia 2014 - 25 (July 13

Religion News Australia 2014 - 25 (July 13 - 20)

(19 July 14)
by Greg Spearritt

Religion News Australia

July 13 - 20, 2014

Religion news stories from Australia

(Research: Greg Spearritt)

abuse / anglican church / catholic church / education / international stories / islam / politics / religion & society

ABUSE

Pope's estimate on paedophile priests only half of real number, Australian Catholic Church body says (ABC News)
July 15 - A key Catholic Church body says 4 per cent of priests in Australia have been paedophiles, double the number estimated by the Pope.

Interview: Salvation Army victim Graham Rundle (Brisbane Times)
July 20 - GRAHAM Rundle was seven when he became a number, in the quiet outside a storeroom at a Salvation Army boys' home in the Adelaide Hills.

ANGLICAN CHURCH

Central West Anglican parishioners asked to bail out Bathurst Diocese (ABC News)
July 17 - The Anglican Diocese of Bathurst will ask it's Central West parishioners to help fund it's legal fight with the Commonwealth Bank.

CATHOLIC CHURCH

Memorial service farewells Sydney nun Philomene Tiernan (ABC News)
July 19 - A Sydney school community has paid its respects to one of its nuns who was among those killed in the Malaysian Airlines MH17 crash.

Also: Malaysia Airlines flight MH17: grief and happiness at memories of Sister Philomene's life lived well
July 19 - Sister Philomene Tiernan was "on a spiritual high" the night before she died, according to a friend.

EDUCATION

Ethics classes rolled out to kindergarten students in New South Wales public schools (ABC News)
July 17 - Ethics classes are being introduced to kindergarten students in New South Wales public schools this week.

Catholic teachers to strike over new pay structure (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 19 - Catholic school classrooms will be disrupted next week when teachers strike in protest against a planned new system which will for the first time pay teachers according to standards and not just years of service.

INTERNATIONAL STORIES

Abuse

Pope says 2 per cent of clergy are paedophiles, flags celibacy reform in article refuted by Vatican (ABC News)
July 14 - Pope Francis has been quoted as saying reliable data indicates about 2 per cent of the Catholic Church clergy are paedophiles, in a report that was quickly refuted by the Vatican.

Also: Two per cent of Catholic priests are paedophiles, says Pope: paper (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 14 - Rome: About two per cent of Roman Catholic clerics are sexual abusers, an Italian newspaper on Sunday quoted Pope Francis as saying, adding that the pontiff considered the crime "a leprosy in our house".

Also: Pope puts level of pedophilia in church at 2pc, La Republicca reports (The Australian)
July 14 - POPE Francis promised “solutions” to the issue of priestly celibacy in an interview on Sunday that raised the possibility the Catholic Church could eventually lift a ban on married priests, but was quickly refuted by the Vatican.

Anglican Church

Church of England votes 'yes' to women bishops (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 15 - London: The Church of England voted on Monday to allow women to become bishops, a historic decision which overturns centuries of tradition in a Church that has been deeply divided over the issue.

Also: Church of England approves women bishops in historic vote (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)
July 15 - CHURCH of England parishes across the UK were celebrating today as centuries old laws were swept aside to allow women to become bishops.

Also: Church of England votes to allow women to become bishops (ABC News)
July 15 - The Church of England has voted in favour of female bishops, sweeping aside centuries of male-dominated tradition.

Religious Violence

Malala Yousafzai vows to help free missing Nigerian girls (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 14 - Pakistani teen Malala Yousafzai, shot in the head by the Taliban after campaigning for the right to education for girls, promised on Sunday to help free a group of Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Islamist militants, multiple news outlets reported

Possible terror group links for Australian cleric (Brisbane Times)
July 14 - Philippine police are investigating whether Australian Islamist cleric Musa Cerantonio has had contact with outlawed separatist terror group Abu Sayyaf, which is an offence that could see him jailed in Australia.

Iraq crisis: Twelve found dead north of Baghdad as Sunni insurgents turn on each other (ABC News)
July 15 - The bodies of 12 men have been found with execution-style bullet wounds north of Baghdad after fighting between rival Sunni insurgent groups that could eventually unravel the coalition that seized much of the north and west of the country.

U.N. accuses Islamic State of executions, rape, forced child recruitment in Iraq (The West Australian)
July 18 - BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United Nations accused Islamic State fighters in Iraq of executions, rape and forced recruitment of children during a campaign to seize much of northern Iraq, part of a conflict it said has killed almost 5,600 civilians this year.

Islamic State killed 270 in Syria gas field battle: Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (ABC News)
July 20 - Militant group Islamic State killed 270 soldiers, guards and staff when they captured a Syrian gas field in the bloodiest clash yet between the Al Qaeda offshoot and president Bashar al-Assad's forces, according to a monitoring group.

Also: Battle for Syria gas field after jihadists execute hundreds (The West Australian)
July 20 - Beirut (AFP) - Syrian regime forces launched an offensive Saturday to retake a gas field in Homs province seized two days ago by jihadists who killed 270 people, most of them executed, a monitoring group said.

Five car bombs in Baghdad kill 28 (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 20 - BAGHDAD - Five car bombs killed at least 28 people in mostly Shi'ite Muslim neighbourhoods in Baghdad on Saturday, police and medics said.

Christians flee jihadist ultimatum in Iraq's Mosul (The West Australian)
July 20 - Mosul (Iraq) (AFP) - Hundreds of Christian families fled their homes in Mosul Saturday as a jihadist ultimatum threatening their community's centuries-old presence in the northern Iraqi city expired.

Other

Archaeologists discover Roman 'free choice' cemetery (The West Australian)
July 20 - Rome (AFP) - Archaeologists in Italy have uncovered a cemetery in the 2,700-year-old ancient port of Rome where they believe the variety of tombs found reflects the bustling town's multi-cultural nature.

ISLAM

Muslim youth leader Fadi Abdul-Rahman pleads guilty to drug supply (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 14 - A prominent Muslim youth leader who helped young men in his community turn away from drugs and crime has pleaded guilty to supplying $2 million worth of cocaine.

Hijabs get a guernsey in AFL team colours (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)
July 15 - MUSLIM head scarfs in the colours of every AFL team will go on sale from today, in the lead-up to the league’s multicultural round.

More businesses targeting Ramadan, says expert (Brisbane Times)
July 17 - It is one of the holiest times of the year for Muslims around the world, and for some it is also one of the busiest.

‘Executioner’ Khaled Sharrouf taunts authorities (The Australian)
July 17 - KHALED Sharrouf, one of Australia’s most hardened terrorists, has posted fresh pictures of battlefield executions conducted in Syria and claimed he received religious instruction from a notorious jihadi scholar while in prison in Australia.

Returned radicalised jihadis ‘a significant risk’, says ASIO (The Australian)
July 17 - AT least 20 Australians, possibly many more, are back home after fighting in Syria and pose a serious risk to national security, say the nation’s intelligence chiefs.

Bendigo mosque Facebook administrator loses VCAT battle to have identity suppressed (ABC News)
July 17 - A Bendigo woman behind the Stop the Mosque Facebook page has lost her bid to have her identity suppressed in a Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) appeal against the planning approval of a mosque in the town.

Religious extremist Musa Cerantonio set to walk free after his deportation (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 18 - Philippine authorities are treating Australian religious extremist Musa Cerantonio as a "high risk and high value" prisoner but he is set to walk free after his imminent deportation to Melbourne.

First Australian suicide bomber in Iraq reportedly kills three people in Baghdad (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 18 - The first Australian suicide bomber in Iraq reportedly killed three people in the heart of Baghdad on Thursday, raising the involvement of local jihadists in the spiralling violence to a chilling new level.

Also: Iraq suicide bomber was Australian, say ISIS fanatics in sickening tribute to ‘Abu Bakr al Australi’ (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)
July 18 - THE suicide bomber at the centre of one of Iraq’s most recent bloody tragedies was an Australian, according to the brutal fanatics wreaking havoc across the nation.

Muslim bin John made bid to recruit Sydney man (The Australian)
July 18 - AN Australian al-Qa’ida foot soldier killed in a US drone strike in Yemen last November had tried to recruit a former Sydney man to the terrorist group in 2009.

Halal food outrage from anti-Islam critics (Herald-Sun, Melbourne)
July 18 - MAJOR food companies are paying Islamic organisations millions of dollars to ensure their products comply with religious laws.

POLITICS

Political parties walk a fine line pandering to the views of the religious right (The Age, Melbourne)
July 20 - Margaret Tighe calls it “punishment politics”.

Unholy discourse clouds debate on Australians fighting in Syria (The Saturday Paper, Australia)
July 20 – (Opinion: Martin McKenzie-Murray) Ben “Ballistic” Meadows skipped imperiously towards the ring, draped in an Australian flag, buoyed by the strains of gangsta rap.

RELIGION & SOCIETY

Ian Thorpe comes out: Ken Thorpe says he loves his son ‘unconditionally’ (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)
July 14 - IAN Thorpe’s deeply religious father Ken has spoken for the first time since his son’s coming out interview with Sir Michael Parkinson on Sunday night, saying “God loves Ian and we love Ian unconditionally”.

Shite mosque approved next to Assyrian Christian church, triggering tension (The Age, Melbourne)
July 15 - A new mosque in Melbourne’s outer north proposed next door to an Assyrian Christian church - many of whose members fled persecution and violence at the hands of Islamic extremists - has been approved.

Anti-gay and anti-Islam activists team up (Brisbane Times)
July 17 - One of Australia's highest-profile anti-gay activists has recruited one of the nation's busiest anti-Islam campaigners to help him get his job back as an Army Reserve officer.

Koori courts will divide, not bind our society (Herald-Sun, Melbourne)
July 19 – (Opinion: Tom Elliott) DIFFERENT courts for different racial or religious groups are a divisive concept in countries where every person is supposed to be equal before the law.

Malaysia flight MH17: Victims remembered at Sydney Ukrainian church memorial service (ABC News)
July 20 - A group of parishioners has gathered at the Ukrainian Catholic Church in western Sydney to pray for the victims of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 which was shot down over eastern Ukraine.

Queensland sees surge in ‘no body’ funerals as more opt out of formal services (The Courier-Mail, Brisbane)
July 20 - QUEENSLAND families are opting out of any form of send-off for their deceased.