Church attendance my be declining, but real individual religion has undergone a huge revival in the past 30 years. Look for the religion section of almost any bookshop in Britain, and you’ll find it’s been subsumed under “Mind, body and spirit”. The reason is simple: what we call religion has changed – dramatically – in Read more
In the US, it’s an election year, and the atmosphere is toxic. The incumbent president Barak Obama is up for re-election in November. The Republican primaries have taken a lot of airtime. One of the contested policy issues is Obama’s 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA). Many of the US Catholic Bishops have been critical of Read more
When our pilgrim group of Sydney teachers was sitting in the ancient amphitheatre at Ephesus, another group of Australians started to sing Advance Australia Fair for the tourists from many nations. They were pleasantly surprised when our group joined them. Mostly young, they were on their way to Gallipoli, with many New Zealanders. Officials estimated Read more
Has the tradition of the crude and often cruel laboratory experiments, conducted in the name of psychology explained the human psyche to us? Has it brought us the understanding of how low humanity might sink, or of the importance of love? Or can we learn more from the laboratory of real life? These are the ethical Read more
Some of our bishops are acting like bullies, abusing the authority of their offices in the name of enforcing orthodoxy. Dealing with U.S. women religious, these bishops’ actions appear governed more by a desire to enforce obedience than to develop fidelity in our sisters. Catholics see through this guise. They are upset, fed up with Read more
As the spokesperson of a Catholic bioethics centre, there are some who discount my message because of my religious affiliation, rather than on the basis of its merits. It’s a classic case of “playing the man instead of the ball”. As two commentators noted in response to comments I recently made about the dangers of Read more
Imagine the fury of the men of Galilee when a young, unmarried girl showed up in their village pregnant. They must have talked about punishments. Stoning — a legitimate penalty, condoned by Deuteronomy — would have been appropriate, although the more compassionate among them might have suggested something gentler: ostracism or banishment. If the girl Read more
Archbishop John Dew discusses meeting Pope Benedict XVI, studying horticulture and whether he wished he had a family. You grew up in Waipukurau. Was it a farm upbringing? My Father had a transport company business, but I spent a lot of time on farms. I had cousins who lived on farms and would visit them during Read more
They are called “clergy-killers” – congregations where a small group of members are so disruptive that no pastor is able to maintain spiritual leadership for long. And yet ministers often endure the stresses of these dysfunctional relationships for months, or even years, before eventually being forced out or giving up. Adding to the strain is Read more
A small bronze crucifix welded from World War I rifle bullet cartridges stands as a testament to the bravery and selflessness shown by an Auckland bishop who tried to rescue the wounded on the fields of France. The crucifix belonged to Bishop Henry Cleary, the Catholic Bishop of Auckland from 1910 to 1929, who took Read more