Religion News Selection
July 18 – 25, 2021
A selection of religion news stories from Australia
(Research: Greg Spearritt)
CATHOLIC CHURCH
Father Mick is Mount Isa’s priest with a purpose and locals say he’s turning troubled lives around (ABC News)
July 24 – It’s just 4 degrees outside on a chilly Mount Isa morning.
EDUCATION
Satanists play devil’s advocate over religious instruction in court fight (The Age, Melbourne)
July 20 – Satanists are crying foul about their human rights being breached after being refused access into Queensland state schools to teach religious instruction classes.
Top private school’s attempt to climb out of the legal trenches and start to heal (The Age, Melbourne)
July 24 – For a few years now, the principal of Melbourne’s Xavier College, William Doherty, has wanted to do something meaningful beyond apologising to students whose lives have been irreparably damaged by sexual abuse perpetrated at the school in the past.
INTERNATIONAL STORIES
Religious Violence
Top US general admits ‘complete Taliban takeover’ looms in Afghanistan (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 22 – Washington DC: The US military’s top officer has offered a glum assessment of the security situation in Afghanistan, saying the Taliban had seized “strategic momentum” over Afghan military forces who were falling back to protect important cities, including the capital Kabul.
Other
A Hindu married a Muslim for love. Her parents called the police (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 22 – Srinagar, Kashmir: Manmeet Kour Bali had to defend her marriage in court.
Radicalism mixed with openness: How Desmond Tutu used his gifts to help end apartheid (ABC News)
July 24 – A court in Colombia has recently been working to uncover the dread secrets of a long and bloody civil war.
Vaccine sceptic who joked he ‘got 99 problems but a vax ain’t one’ dies from COVID-19 (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 25 – New York: A California vaccine sceptic and Hillsong church member said to have “so much in front of him” has died from COVID-19.
POLITICS
Liberal MPs want ‘Folau’s law’ removed from Religious Discrimination Bill (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 24 – A group of Liberal MPs has warned Attorney-General Michaelia Cash that several parts of the draft Religious Discrimination Bill are unacceptable to them, including the so-called “Israel Folau law” that would give legal protection to “statements of belief” made in the name of religion.
‘Lipstick on a pig’: Sydney MPs scorn safeguards in assisted dying bill (The Age, Melbourne)
July 25 – MPs opposed to voluntary euthanasia say they are not satisfied with the “conservative” safeguards in Alex Greenwich’s bill and have warned its passage is not a fait accompli, vowing to marshall a wall of opposition across suburban Sydney.
RELIGION & SOCIETY
These Australians were cast out by their religions. But they have no regrets (ABC News)
July 24 – After taking on one the world’s most powerful institutions, Peter Kennedy has spent more than a decade living “in exile”.
Dozens of religious clergy and assistants granted travel exemptions to enter Australia (Brisbane Times)
July 25 – The Australian government granted exemptions for 75 foreign nationals with critical skills in religion or theology to enter the country in the first half of this year.
