Religion News Selection
January 10 – 17, 2021
A selection of religion news stories from Australia
(Research: Greg Spearritt)
CATHOLIC CHURCH
Philip Wilson, former Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, dies aged 70 (ABC News)
Jan 16 – Former Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson has died aged 70.
INTERNATIONAL STORIES
Abuse
Irish prime minister to make formal apology over deaths of 9,000 children at Catholic-run care homes (ABC News)
Jan 13 – An inquiry has found thousands of infants died in Irish homes for unmarried mothers and their offspring run by the Catholic Church from the 1920s to the 1990s, an “appalling” mortality rate that reflected brutal living conditions.
Catholic Church
Pope says women can read at Mass, but still can’t be priests (Sydney Morning Herald)
Jan 12 – Rome: Pope Francis has changed church law to explicitly allow women to do more things during Mass, granting them access to the most sacred place on the altar, while continuing to affirm that they cannot be priests.
Religious Violence
‘Our souls are dead’: how I survived a Chinese ‘re-education’ camp for Uighurs (The Guardian, Australia)
Jan 13 – (Opinion: Gulbahar Haitiwaji) After 10 years living in France, I returned to China to sign some papers and I was locked up.
Mahatma Gandhi’s killer venerated as Hindu nationalism resurges in India (The Guardian, Australia)
Jan 17 – Last Sunday, in a nondescript building in the India city of Gwalior, 200 miles south of Delhi, a large crowd of men gathered.
Miniskirts and mujahideen: how did Afghanistan come to be defined by war? (Sydney Morning Herald)
Jan 17 – As Donald Trump’s aides packed boxes for the President’s final withdrawal from the White House, one of the last men he ever appointed to an important government job released a statement on Friday, January 15, local time, to say that his mission had been accomplished: the US had withdrawn all but 2500 troops from Afghanistan, the lowest number of American boots on the ground in 20 years.
Other
Outcry as Trump officials to transfer sacred Native American land to miners (The Guardian, Australia)
Jan 17 – As one of its last acts, the Trump administration has set in motion the transfer of sacred Native American lands to a pair of Anglo-Australian mining conglomerates.
