The media are not inherently hostile to the Catholic Church, CatholicVoices founders Jack Valero and Austen Ivereigh told an international conference in Sydney last month. Most of the time journalists are just doing their jobs. Catholics could run from their difficult questions or, in the spirit of Vatican II, seize on them as opportunities to change the world, reports Robert Hiini …
How can confident lay, religious and ordained Catholic communicators grasp the opportunities presented by controversy? CatholicVoices co-founder Austen Ivereigh gave a concrete example at The Great Grace Conference in Sydney, last month.
Apparent a-religiosity among Catholic schools and hospitals was a major sign an authentic reception of the Second Vatican Council had yet to take place in Australia, a leading Australian Catholic intellectual told an international conference last week.
Advocates of the Church accommodating itself to the ‘signs of the times’ were hopelessly out-of-date, even at the time of the Second Vatican Council, Australian Professor Tracey Rowland said at The Great Grace Conference in Sydney last week.
The Catholic Church has to be honest with itself in assessing why many former Catholics have switched to Pentecostal Christianity, a leading Holy See official in ecumenical affairs said in Sydney recently.
Diocesan priests may get the opportunity to live a more fraternal life with the Archdiocese of Brisbane announcing an Oratory will be established in the city by 2016, the first of its kind in Australia.
Catholic Health Australia will not stand in the way of proposals to remove Catholic health providers’ current exemption from anti-discrimination laws which allow them to discriminate in who they employ and serve on religious grounds.
‘Our Father’ might not be the best way to think of God, according to a document released last week by the Office for the Participation of Women (OPW), an official body of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC).