Religion News Selection
March 15 – 22, 2020
A selection of religion news stories from Australia
(Research: Greg Spearritt)
ABUSE
Convicted paedophile Vincent Ryan confessed to a priest — then he continued abusing children (ABC News)
Mar 17 – Vincent Ryan is a Catholic priest and a paedophile, convicted of sexually abusing more than 30 children.
You’ll need a strong stomach to digest insights into child sexual abuse in the Catholic church (The Guardian, Australia)
Mar 17 – (Opinion: Brigid Delaney) ABC’s documentary about a convicted paedophile priest is difficult to watch, but perhaps it’s necessary to bear witness
INTERNATIONAL STORIES
Religious Violence
Delhi’s Muslims despair of justice after police implicated in riots (The Guardian, Australia)
Mar 17 – On one side of the marketplace, it was carnage.
Other
‘Dead Sea Scrolls fragments’ at Museum of the Bible are all fakes, study says (The Guardian, Australia)
Mar 17 – When Steve Green paid millions of dollars from his family fortune for 16 fragments of the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls, it seemed the perfect addition to their new Museum of the Bible in Washington DC.
Church of England suspends all services over coronavirus (The Guardian, Australia)
Mar 18 – The Church of England has suspended all services until further notice, saying it must become “a different sort of church in these coming months”.
ISLAM
This is what moving to regional Australia is like when you’re a migrant (ABC News)
Mar 17 – “Life was not easy for us in Pakistan,” Rahila says simply.
POLITICS
‘A right to be nasty’: Older Australians at risk under religious discrimination bill (Sydney Morning Herald)
Mar 15 – Legal experts have warned that LGBTQ people in aged care facilities will be at risk of ridicule, humiliation and intimidation under the federal government’s religious discrimination bill.
RELIGION & SOCIETY
Church services go online and Muslims urged to avoid mosques (Sydney Morning Herald)
Mar 15 – Large religious gatherings have been cancelled and churches plan to video-stream services from this week to help contain the coronavirus.
Meet the former violent Nazis who now preach compassion (The Age, Melbourne)
Mar 17 – Tony McAleer, a dapper Canadian in his early 50s, is unrecognisable from his previous life as a violent skinhead and organiser of hate group White Aryan Resistance.
We broke the rules – and coronavirus is our punishment (Sydney Morning Herald)
Mar 21 – (Opinion: Elizabeth Farrelly) Absence wakes me. No planes.
