Religion News Australia
September 4 – 11, 2022
Religion news stories from Australia
(Research: Greg Spearritt)
ABUSE
Victoria’s Secret model reveals Perth teacher struck off for ‘serious misconduct’ against her (Brisbane Times)
Sept 11 – A Victoria’s Secret model from Western Australia has revealed a music teacher at a prestigious all-girls school in Perth has had his teacher’s licence suspended for serious misconduct against her while she was a student there.
CATHOLIC CHURCH
Wyndham’s asbestos-ridden historic convent to be demolished sparking sadness among residents (ABC News)
Sept 9 – With faded turquoise walls and a rust-streaked corrugated iron roof, the old Wyndham convent acts like a time capsule from half a century ago.
Young and old reflect on life as Catholic priests in 2022 (ABC News)
Sept 11 – Becoming a Catholic priest would not rate as a palatable career choice for most young men these days.
EDUCATION
Catholic bishops urge schools to resist gender affirmation ‘rhetoric’ (The Age, Melbourne)
Sept 6 – Catholic schools have been urged to resist rushing to affirm students who are going through gender transition and instead offer them psychological and family care and counselling, in the hope that a child’s feelings of gender variance will “pass safely”.
Cranbrook School delayed acting on Nazi salutes, anti-Semitism, families say (Sydney Morning Herald)
Sept 8 – Eastern suburbs private school Cranbrook was made aware of anti-Semitic bullying and provided with video footage of a boy in full uniform at school performing a Nazi salute but did not respond for over five weeks, families say.
‘I’ll stop your bloodline’: Anti-Semitism reports grow across Sydney schools (The Age, Melbourne)
Sept 11 – A Jewish student at a Sydney high school was told by another student that he would go back in time and become Hitler to “hunt down his family and stop the bloodline”.
INTERNATIONAL STORIES
Abuse
Judge indicts 19 in yoga sect that used sex to lure powerful (Brisbane Times)
Sept 11 – Buenos Aires: A judge in Argentina indicted 19 people for their alleged involvement in a yoga school in Buenos Aires that operated like a sect and coerced female members to have sex with rich and powerful men in order to obtain money and other benefits.
Religious Violence
Russian embassy staff killed in Islamic State suicide blast in Kabul (WA Today)
Sept 6 – Kabul: Two Russian embassy staff in Kabul were among six people killed when a suicide bomber detonated explosives near the entrance of the embassy, in a blast that injured at least 10 others, the Russian Foreign Ministry and Afghan officials said on Monday.
Other
POLITICS
Labor approves removal of sacred rock art on the Burrup Peninsula (The Saturday Paper)
Sept 10 – Jesse Noakes As Tanya Plibersek grants final approval for a fertiliser plant on the Burrup Peninsula, Woodside has quietly begun expansion of its enormous Pluto gas project.
RELIGION & SOCIETY
‘Religiously motivated’: Family kidnapped women at knifepoint, police allege (The Age, Melbourne)
Sept 9 – Two young women were kidnapped at knifepoint by relatives in a bid to rid the family of “shame” after they had fled their Sydney home to live in Melbourne, police allege.
Broadcaster Tom Tilley on questioning religion – and the ‘fornication risk zone’ (Sydney Morning Herald)
Sept 11 – (Interview) The journalist and broadcaster, 41, was a long-time host of Triple J’s Hack and currently hosts news podcast The Briefing.
