Religion News Selection 6 (Feb 3

Religion News Selection 6 (Feb 3 - 10)

(09 February 19)
by Greg Spearritt

Religion News Selection

February 3 - 10, 2019

A selection of religion news stories from Australia.

(Research: Greg Spearritt)

Inclusion here does not endorse the veracity or quality of any particular item – it just means
I found it worth reading and reflecting on (even if badly conceived or poorly written).

If you’re after the unexpurgated (and reasonably unbiased) version,
see Religion News Australia which appears weekly on our website.

ABUSE

Archbishop spent $473,000 in child abuse inquiry legal fees without proper authorisation (The Guardian, Australia)
Feb 8 - The former Anglican archbishop Roger Herft spent almost half a million dollars for his legal representation before the child sexual abuse royal commission without proper authorisation from the diocese of Perth, which has not asked him to reimburse the money.

EDUCATION

Tasmania has shown it can protect LGBTI students' rights — why can't the rest of the nation? (ABC News)
Feb 8 – (Opinion: Sam Watson) I came out as gay in Year 9 at a Tasmanian Catholic school.

'We could be fired tomorrow': Activists demand support for LGBTI teachers (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 9 - Armed with signs, and the occasional umbrella, a small group of activists braved Melbourne's summer rain to demand Australian politicians end discrimination against LGBTI teachers.

INTERNATIONAL STORIES

Abuse

Priests held nuns in 'sexual slavery', Pope Francis admits (ABC News)
Feb 6 - Pope Francis has for the first time publicly acknowledged the scandal of priests and bishops sexually abusing nuns and says he is committed to doing more to fight the problem.

Judaism

Trump shamelessly used Jewish Americans in State of the Union address (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 6 – (Opinion: CJ Werleman) When US President Donald Trump delivered his second State of the Union, he had one objective in mind – to re-energise his to-date failing effort to construct a wall along the southern US border.

Antisemitic incidents in UK at record high for third year in a row (The Guardian, Australia)
Feb 7 - Jewish community leaders and politicians have condemned a third successive year with a record number of antisemitic incidents.

Religious Violence

Isis leader believed to have fled coup attempt by his own fighters (The Guardian, Australia)
Feb 8 - The Isis leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, survived a coup attempt last month launched by foreign fighters in his eastern Syrian hideout, intelligence officials believe, and the terrorist group has since placed a bounty on the main plotter’s head.

'The Taliban took years of my life': the Afghan women living in the shadow of war (The Guardian, Australia)
Feb 9 – (Opinion: )g Homeira Qaderi was ironing her headscarf for school when her father came to tell her she would no longer need it, because the Taliban had captured her hometown.

Other

'I would stay far away': Katherine Kelly Lang's strong message on Scientology (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 4 - Controversial religious system Scientology might be popular among the Hollywood elite, but don't count The Bold and the Beautiful star Katherine Kelly Lang as one of its fans.

The life and death of John Chau, the man who tried to convert his killers (The Guardian, Australia)
Feb 4 - One day, as a small child, John Allen Chau was rooting through his father’s study when he found something curious and alluring: an illustrated edition of Robinson Crusoe, the classic story of a sailor shipwrecked on a deserted island.

Many people in mostly Christian countries believe values clash with Islam – poll (The Guardian, Australia)
Feb 4 - Large numbers of people in Christian-majority countries in the west see a fundamental clash between Islam and the values of their nation, according to a survey.

ISLAM

Lawyers back Muslim community after controversial comments from bench (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 8 - The peak body for the legal profession in Australia has called for better "communication and understanding of the Islamic faith" by lawyers and judges, days after a NSW Supreme Court judge courted controversy by urging Muslims to publicly disavow violence in the Koran.

JUDAISM

Anti-Semitic attack part of a growing trend of “extremely worrying” behaviour (news.com.au)
Feb 10 - Australia’s Jewish community is disgusted by the latest targeted anti-Semitic attack, which they say is part of a growing racist trend across the country.

POLITICS

‘Remove the burqa’: female tradie named as One Nation’s star candidate for NSW election (news.com.au)
Feb 4 - Pauline Hanson’s One Nation yesterday named a Muslim woman as its newest candidate for the upcoming New South Wales election.

RELIGION & SOCIETY

Female genital mutilation: 53,000 Australians have had procedure, report estimates (The Guardian, Australia)
Feb 5 - An estimated 53,000 women and girls born overseas and now living in Australia have undergone female genital mutilation in their lifetime, data released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on Wednesday found.

Franklin Graham walks in his father's footsteps - and Trump's shadow (The Age, Melbourne)
Feb 9 - In 1959 American preacher Billy Graham came to Australia in what proved not only the most important religious event in Australian history but has been called the most successful evangelistic endeavour in the history of the world.


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