Religion News Selection
June 27 – July 4, 2021
A selection of religion news stories from Australia
(Research: Greg Spearritt)
ABUSE
Indigenous survivors add voice to concerns over National Redress Scheme following critical review (ABC News)
July 2 – After decades of living with trauma from the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of Catholic institutions, Nyul Nyul man David Francis received compensation earlier this year through the National Redress Scheme.
EDUCATION
Private schools reap hundreds of millions of dollars in jobkeeper funding (The Guardian, Australia)
June 29 – The private school sector in Australia has likely reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in extra government funding from jobkeeper and other schemes designed to support not-for-profits during the Covid-19 crisis, despite few recording any significant impact on their revenues.
INTERNATIONAL STORIES
Abuse
Pope Francis to meet Indigenous survivors of Canadian schools abuses (The Guardian, Australia)
July 1 – Pope Francis has agreed to meet Indigenous survivors of Canada’s notorious residential schools in December, amid calls for a papal apology for the Catholic church’s role in the abuse and deaths of thousands of children.
Catholic Church
Behind the Vatican’s London real estate scandal and charges faced by senior officials (ABC News)
July 4 – The Vatican has set the trial date for 10 people, including Cardinal Angelo Becciu, on charges related to the Holy See’s 350 million euro investment in a luxury London real estate venture.
Islam
‘We won’t be silent!’: Women clash with police in Istanbul over femicide (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 2 – Istanbul: Women marched in Istanbul and other cities to protest Turkey’s formal exit from a European treaty aimed at preventing violence against women, saying the move stripped them of critical protection at a time when femicides are on the rise.
Other
America’s evangelical church is being torn apart by culture wars (The Guardian, Australia)
June 29 – (Opinion: Barry Hankins) Is the Southern Baptist Convention – the largest and arguably most powerful Protestant denomination in the United States – being held together by culture wars instead of Biblical teaching?
ISLAM
Half of Aussies say they’re ‘feminist’. For Muslim women, it can be more complicated (ABC News)
July 1 – Maab doesn’t look like a typical ‘feminist’. Or at least, that’s how she’s been made to feel.
POLITICS
The B-team’s deeply cynical politics will generate more, not less, persecution of the religious (Brisbane Times)
July 3 – (Opinion: Malcolm Knox) Last time the country was locked down, the Morrison government put its religious freedom law, three years in the making, on hold.
RELIGION & SOCIETY
Why some Aboriginal people are too scared to get vaccinated (ABC News)
July 4 – Indigenous pastor Geoffrey Stokes and his paediatrician wife Christine Jeffries-Stokes are worried something sinister is deterring Aboriginal people in their community from getting vaccinated against COVID-19.
