Shock, horror – Pope is Catholic

Damian Thompson
(Photo:
telegraph.co.uk)

The UK Daily Telegraph’s Damian Thompson writes: “He’s done it again. The Pope has reiterated unfashionable Catholic teaching on sexuality. And at Christmas! What poor taste. Moreover, he has dared to do so in the context of a discussion of (pause to genuflect) the environment. Is nothing sacred?

“Benedict XVI stands accused today of ecclesiastical gay-bashing. When I was woken up very early this morning by a radio station looking for a quote, I was given the impression that he’d given a speech saying homosexuals More

Why Christmas matters

Traditional Americans want to hold on to the beliefs and institutions that, they believe, have made this country great; while secular-progressives lobby for aggressive change. Bill O’Reilly

Religious faith matters today

The pressures of globalisation are pushing people together, obliterating boundaries through trade, travel, telecommunications and mass migration. If religious faith in such an interdependent world acts to push people apart, it becomes a force for division and conflict. Tony Blair

Muslims plan $10m enclave

The Islamic community plans to build a Muslim-only housing development and recreation centre as part of a $10 million complex in Rivervale. The West Australian

Hage-Ali sues NSW Government

Iktimal Hage-Ali is suing the State Government for unlawful arrest and wrongful detention. Daily Telegraph

Ruling on school rebuffs secularists

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a school that teaches a biblical view of creation in science classes has been cleared of breaching state curriculum requirements for the teaching of evolution.

The NSW Board of Studies has found that Pacific Hills Christian School at Dural has met its requirements for teaching the science syllabus, More

Feminist assault on Islam

Islam in the West faces a challenge from rampant feminism. Most societies have caved in to the sisters’ demands – will Islam succumb? Australian journalist Naida Jamal seems to be doing her bit: “I recently walked out of a Muslim fundraising event organised by the Lebanese Muslim Association. The event was for a good cause, and I wanted to support it. But I refused to support being treated like a second-class citizen by a few of my ‘brothers’ in Islam.” Sydney Morning Herald

Excommunicating Obama voters

Cranmer speculates about the same standard being applied in the UK. “Labour has done more in the past decade to erode the Christian foundations of this nation than any monarch or prime minister in centuries.” Archbishop Cranmer

How the religions voted

From the Archbishop Cranmer blog: “According to the exit polls, President-Elect Obama built a winning coalition of religious voters of all persuasions, significantly closing gap which traditionally shows frequent-worshippers leaning towards the Republicans. Despite the abortion furore and his avowed liberalism, he won over a majority of Jews and Roman Catholics, made significant inroads into the younger Evangelicals, and persuaded vast numbers of the minor religious groups to buy into his vision.” READ THE STORY

ACL welcomes Internet filtering plans

Better Internet safeguards are needed to protect children and the community from the increasingly abusive and degrading material that is too easily available, the Australian Christian Lobby’s managing director Jim Wallace said today. More

The progress of Sharia law in the UK

ConservativeHome’s Parliament Page has a thread on Muslim Arbitration Tribunals.

Unholy spray: Crittenden lashes ABC

Stephen
Crittenden
(Photo: ABC)

The ABC’s decision to axe a number of Radio National programs sparked a backlash this morning from the presenter of one of them.

Stephen Crittenden opened the Religion Report with a stinging 94-second critique of the decision.

Crittenden said the management move to axe his show “almost beggars belief … effectively spells the death of religion at the ABC … and will condemn Radio National to even greater irrelevance.” More

How many Islamists?

Daniel Pipes
(Photo:
danielpipes.org)

Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes writes, “The recent distribution of some 28 million copies in the United States of the 2005 documentary Obsession has stirred heated debate about its contents. One lightening rod for criticism concerns my on-screen statement that ‘10 to 15 percent of Muslims worldwide support militant Islam.’

Pipes describes how he arrived at that figure in this interesting post (also in today’s Australian).

Also see Pipes’ website columns on Barack Obama’s early years as a Muslim.

Gerard Henderson on “Pope bashing”

Gerard Henderson

There’s an interesting column in today’s SMH by Gerard Henderson on the “new sectarianism”. Henderson asserts that “sneering secularism’s” assault on religion, and especially the Catholic Church, has replaced the Protestant v Catholic sectarianism of old. He points to the concerted attacks by elements of the ABC against World Youth Day and Catholic leaders. More

Sheik says polygamy on the rise

The Melbourne Age reports that the leader of Melbourne’s Somali community has backed calls from other Muslims for polygamy to be legalised. The newspaper also says an Islamic women’s organisation claims the practice is on the rise in Victoria. More