Religion News Selection
June 18 – July 2, 2023
A selection of religion news stories from Australia
(Research: Greg Spearritt)
ABUSE
Australian Anglican schools left exposed as insurers refuse to indemnify church against claims (The Guardian, Australia)
June 25 – Private insurers are refusing to cover Anglican schools in southern Queensland for child abuse claims, leaving individual schools and dioceses financially exposed for the past two years.
‘Leifer stole my body’: Sisters reveal lasting legacy of abuse by former principal (The Age, Melbourne)
June 28 – With the court lectern turned to address her rapist – former ultra-Orthodox school principal Malka Leifer – Elly Sapper stood up, gathered her courage and revealed that just six days before her abuser was convicted, she lost her unborn child.
ANGLICAN CHURCH
Anglican Diocese fights heritage orders that prevent church redevelopment (Brisbane Times)
July 2 – The Anglican Church is at loggerheads with parishioners over proposed heritage protections that would prevent a Sydney church from being redeveloped, potentially as housing or commercial premises.
EDUCATION
‘Love is love, cat food is cat food’: Scots parents outraged by ‘homophobic, misogynistic’ sermon (Sydney Morning Herald)
June 22 – Image Seven, the PR firm of choice for Scots College in Bellevue Hill, has been getting a workout of late.
INTERNATIONAL STORIES
Abuse
‘A stain on Ireland’s conscience’: identification to begin of 796 bodies buried at children’s home (The Guardian, Australia)
June 25 – On a balmy summer day, the site of the children’s mass grave in Tuam appears deceptively bucolic.
Islam
The road to Mecca is fraught – but there’s nothing like the hajj pilgrimage to turn hearts (The Guardian, Australia)
June 28 – (Opinion: Ali Hammoud) Millions of men, women and children converged on Mecca this week for the hajj pilgrimage.
Other
Will India embrace the Uniform Civil Code and finally have a single common law for its 1.4 billion citizens?
July 2 – Within months of being re-elected as prime minister of India in 2019, Narendra Modi’s first big announcement was to strip Kashmir of special status.
ISLAM
How a deployment to the Middle East led this Australian to Islam (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 2 – Myles Hembrow’s first exposure to Islam was on one of his deployments to Oman during his service with the Royal Australian Navy.
