Mission & Justice

Emma-Kate Symons; 27/9/08

Social revolution and “hedonism” are coming to Asia’s only Catholic country as The Philippines’ Congress prepares for the first time to back government distribution of free condoms and the pill to poor families. The historic law defying church teaching could be voted on as early as next week. Couples would be offered a choice between natural family planning - based on abstinence during women’s fertile days in their menstrual cycles - and artificial methods. President Gloria Arroyo’s administration favours the former option. Sex education, including family planning, would be mandated for pre-teens and adolescents in schools, a move one priest condemned as “child abuse”. If advocates of contraceptive choice win, as expected, the movement is expected to grow to embrace reform of marriage laws, and even legalisation of abortion.

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27/9/08

The government yesterday deployed hundreds more federal policemen to eastern India after one person was killed and several injured in fresh clashes between Hindus and Christians triggered by religious conversions. More than 700 federal policemen are being sent to Orissa state after the death in rural Kandhamal district following clashes between Christians and Hindus on Thursday. Several houses were also set on fire. The violence came after a string of attacks on Christians in three Indian states that has left at least 20 people dead and dozens of churches damaged in the last month. Christians have responded with some violence in Orissa state.

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Jano Gibson; 26/9/08

A large Islamic school proposed for a rural area in south-west Sydney is facing fierce opposition from residents just months after Camden residents waged a racially charged battle against a similar development in their area. A company called ASFA Limited has applied to Liverpool City Council to build an educational facility called Qaadiri College for 600 primary and high school students at Gurner Avenue in Austral. But neighbours of the site are adamant a development of that scale will destroy their peaceful lifestyle. They insist their concerns have nothing to do with Islam and would oppose similar-sized projects if they were proposed by other faith groups. But there are signs that known anti-immigration activists are keen to join in a campaign against it. The online forum, www.australianidentity.net, which openly declares that “views, ideas and contributions that are hostile to [an Anglo-Celtic-European-white heritage] are not permitted” on it, received several postings about the proposal after the development application was lodged in April.

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Linda Morris; 25/9/08

An Islamiac cemetery will be built in the grounds of a historic Anglican graveyard near Camden where plans for an Islamic school were rejected this year following fierce community opposition. The Lebanese Muslim Association paid $1.5 million for the St Thomas Anglican Cemetery at Narellan in July. The site has space for almost 4000 bodies and will help overcome an acute shortage of gravesites in Sydney. The prospectus for the An-Nur Islamic Cemetery and Burial Ground, obtained by the Herald, shows the cemetery will have capacity for 1900 single plots or 3800 double plots and would be able to cater for the needs of the growing Muslim community in Sydney’s south-west for 10 to 15 years. But the sale has angered locals fiercely protective of the heritage values of the cemetery and who say the Anglican Church should never have sold it. Len English has 33 relatives buried at the cemetery and mowed it until the church sold it to a funeral firm headed by William Cole in 2004.

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23/9/08

Communist authorities in Hanoi have threatened to take legal action against the city’s archbishop unless he immediately disbands illegal prayer vigils to demand the return of former church lands, state media reported yesterday. The government campaign against Archbishhop Ngo Quang Kiet escalated over the weekend as state television called into question his patriotism in an apparent attempt to turn public opinion against him. State-controlled newspapers yesterday quoted from a letter to Archbishop Kiet by Hanoi mayor Nguyen The Thao, accusing him of instigating the unrest. “Stop your illegal acts immediately or you will be dealt with according to the law,” Mr Thao wrote. “You have a responsibility to persuade priests and parishioners to abide by the law.”

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Joseph Marques; 22/9/08

For the past few weeks, a systematic attack is being carried out on the Christian minority in India. It started in an eastern state called Orissa and the flames have spread to Karnataka, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh, where a number of churches and other Christian places of worship have been desecrated. The anti-Christian violence began when a Hindu religious leader, who was opposed to conversion of tribals to Christianity, was killed in Orissa. Hindu fundamentalists blame the Christians for the heinous act, although Maoists who are active in that area have claimed responsibility. Indians, by nature are secular, and most of them have condemned the atttacks on the Christians.

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21/9/08; Ron Rolheiser

Henri Nouwen once remarked that he found it curious that many of the people he knew who were very angry and bitter were people he had met in church circles and places of ministry. He is not alone in that. Many of us, I suspect, could say the same thing. We often find more anger and whining than joy within church circles because there we can justify anger and disappointment in the name of something sacred. There is a biblical name for this particular type of anger and whining. This is called being on the shores of Babylon, feeling exiled from your own faith experience. We are all familiar with the Psalm 137 (popularized in songs) that sings out the lament: By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, remembering Zion; on the poplars that grew there we hung up our harps. How could we sing a song of the Lord on alien soil? Let my tongue cleave to my mouth, if I remember you not, if I prize not Jerusalem above all my joys!

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Matthew Moore; 20/9/08

It is two months since Pope Benedict elbowed aside punters at Randwick to celebrate the final World Youth Day Mass and we still do not know the financial details of the week of festivities. Before the event the Catholic Church and its State Government financial backer were remarkably reluctant to reveal details of who was paying for what. Now that it is over, not much has changed. One document blocked from release back in May was described as “setting out the World Youth Day commitments of the NSW Government and WYD 2008″, the company the church set up to host the event. Although dated 2007, and apparently well out of date, access was refused. The Premier’s Department said we could not see it because it underpinned a proposed formal agreement between the church and the Government that was at a “sensitive stage of negotiation”. So, once the Pope had boarded Shepherd 1, we submitted a new freedom of information request for two documents. The first was a copy of that agreement that had been at a “sensitive stage of negotiation”. The second was the 2007 document dividing up who was to pay for what.

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18/9/08

Britain’s national academy of science parted company with its director of education yesterday after a furore over the teaching of creationism in schools. Michael Reiss agreed to step down from his position at the Royal Society, which claimed he had unintentionally caused lasting damage to the organisation’s reputation. Professor Reiss was reported to be in favour of teaching creationism in school science lessons after a speech he gave in Liverpool last week, but the following day he issued a clarification arguing his comments had been misinterpreted. In his speech, Professor Reiss said that while creationism had no scientific basis, science teachers risked alienating pupils who believed in the idea by dismissing it out of hand. “They should take the time to explain how science works and why creationism has no scientific basis,” he said.

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Harriet Alexander; 16/9/08

Three clergymen at the centre of an alleged pedophile ring at Bathurst’s St Stanislaus’ College pleaded not guilty to a total of 125 offences yesterday during proceedings their lawyer later claimed had been blown into a “witch-hunt”. Brian Spillane, formerly the school chaplain, Peter Dwyer, a priest and former college president, and John Gaven, a former brother and dormitory supervisor, have been charged with sexually assaulting students at the Catholic boarding school during the 1970s and 1980s. The Department of Public Prosecutions expects up to 40 alleged victims to give evidence against Spillane alone, the court heard.

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