Religion News Selection
August 29 – September 5, 2021
A selection of religion news stories from Australia
(Research: Greg Spearritt)
ABUSE
The church’s silence is deafening, but these men are righting its wrongs (ABC News)
Sept 5 – For a long time, Jarrod Luscombe thought he was the only one.
EDUCATION
Calls to extend school chaplaincy program to help deal with pandemic (Sydney Morning Herald)
Sept 1 – School chaplains would gain more federal funding to help young students through the pandemic under a proposal from Coalition MPs to extend what Prime Minister Scott Morrison called a signature government program.
Emails revive elite school jab scandal (The Australian)
Sept 2 – A NSW health official made a ‘personal approach’ to secure Pfizer vaccines for 163 students at St Joseph’s College in Sydney.
INTERNATIONAL STORIES
Catholic Church
Pope inadvertently quotes Vladimir Putin in Afghanistan comment (The Guardian, Australia)
Sept 2 – Pope Francis has criticised the west’s recent involvement in Afghanistan – inadvertently quoting Vladimir Putin in doing so.
Religious Violence
‘Good’ Taliban, ‘bad’ Taliban and IS-K: For Afghanistan, it’s never a simple story (ABC News)
Sept 5 – I was sitting in Starbucks in Doha looking out at the water in the middle of a lush green park when I tapped my son on the leg and pointed to a group of men out for a morning stroll.
NZ terrorist’s family ‘heartbroken’ over attack (The Australian)
Sept 5 – The family of the attacker responsible for the NZ knife attack tell how he was radicalised as surgeons recover a knife tip from one of the victims.
New Zealand stabbings: officials tried for years to deport terrorist prior to Auckland attack (The Guardian, Australia)
Sept 5 – New Zealand had tried for years to deport the terrorist who stabbed shoppers in an Auckland supermarket on Friday before being shot dead by the police officers tasked with watching him, the country’s prime minister has said.
RELIGION & SOCIETY
Pat Dodson condemns ‘rogue’ Christian groups spreading anti-vax propaganda in remote WA (The Guardian, Australia)
Sept 1 – Pat Dodson has condemned fringe Christian groups for promoting anti-vaccination propaganda in remote Western Australia, saying people who spread fear and misinformation around coronavirus vaccines are “evil”.
Australian Christian Lobby received JobKeeper despite revenue surge (Brisbane Times)
Sept 5 – The Australian Christian Lobby received $138,000 in JobKeeper payments last year despite reporting surging revenue, while the organisation’s managing director Martyn Iles bemoaned that the federal government was “out of money.”