Category Archives: Religion

The Coalition’s religious discrimination bill: what’s changed and can doctors refuse treatment?

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The new bill is designed to respond to a revolt from conservative religious organisations that forced the Coalition to miss its self-imposed deadline

On 10 December, Scott Morrison and the attorney general, Christian Porter, released the second draft religious discrimination bill.

The new bill is designed to respond to a revolt from conservative religious organisations that forced the Coalition to miss its self-imposed deadline to introduce the bill to parliament by year’s end.

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Academic quits C of E body over chief rabbi’s Labour antisemitism comments

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Gus John lambasts Justin Welby’s support amid church’s ‘woeful’ record on racism

A leading campaigner against racism has resigned from a Church of England advisory body in protest at the archbishop of Canterbury’s support for the chief rabbi’s comments last week on antisemitism in the Labour party.

Gus John, a respected author and academic, said: “As a matter of principle, I cannot continue to work with the Anglican church … after the archbishop of Canterbury’s disgraceful endorsement of the chief rabbi’s unjust condemnation of Jeremy Corbyn and the entire Labour party.”

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World’s largest ritual animal slaughter goes ahead despite ban

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Thousands of Hindus head to southern Nepal for festival honouring goddess of power

Thousands of Hindus have gathered in southern Nepal before a festival believed to be the world’s largest ritual animal slaughter, despite court orders and calls by animal activists to end the event.

The sacrifices, set to begin on Tuesday, take place every five years in the village of Bariyarpur close to the Indian border, in honour of the Hindu goddess of power.

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Catholic priests in Argentina sentenced to 45 years for child abuse

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Court convicts two priests and former gardener at school for deaf students on counts of sexual abuse and corruption of minors

A court in Argentina has convicted two Roman Catholic priests and the former gardener of a church-run school for deaf students on 28 counts of sexual abuse and corruption of minors, in a case that has shaken the church in Pope Francis’s homeland.

A three-judge panel in the city of Mendoza sentenced Nicola Corradi to 42 years and Horacio Corbacho to 45 years for abusing children at the Antonio Provolo Institute for Deaf and Hearing Impaired Children in Lujan de Cuyo, a municipality in north-western Argentina.

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India: Muslim Sanskrit professor forced to flee by Hindu students

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Feroz Khan in hiding after nationalist group protested he ‘cannot teach us our religion’

A Muslim scholar of Sanskrit has gone into hiding after protests from some rightwing Hindu students claiming that, as a Muslim, he cannot teach Sanskrit, the ancient classical language of Hinduism.

Feroz Khan, 29, was the unanimous choice of a selection committee at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi for the post of assistant professor of Sanskrit literature. The committee members were impressed with his erudition, which stems from a childhood passion for the language that continued into further education.

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Scott Morrison condemns Israel Folau for linking bushfires to same-sex marriage and abortion

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Former Wallabies player’s comments in sermon follow controversy over his sacking for social media posts

Scott Morrison has labelled comments by sacked rugby union star Israel Folau linking devastating bushfires to Australia passing laws to legalise abortion and same-sex marriage “appallingly insensitive”.

Although both the prime minister and the Labor leader Anthony Albanese defended Folau’s right to express the view, condemnation on Monday was swift and bipartisan.

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George Pell high court appeal: cardinal granted final challenge against child sexual abuse conviction

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Full bench of seven judges will decide on Cardinal Pell’s appeal, likely to be heard in 2020

Cardinal George Pell will have a final chance to overturn his conviction on historical child sexual abuse offences after the high court in Canberra agreed to hear appeal arguments in a special full court sitting.

A date for the appeal hearing is yet to be set but it is likely to be early in 2020, by the full bench of seven judges. Led by the high-profile silk Bret Walker SC, Pell’s legal team will argue that the majority of judges in Victoria’s court of appeal erred by finding in August that jurors were not unreasonable to believe the testimony of Pell’s victim.

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Donald Trump plans to make foreign aid conditional on religious freedom

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President wants to apportion aid based on how countries treat religious minorities

White House officials are reportedly drafting plans to make US foreign aid conditional on how countries treat their religious minorities, in an effort that is seen as a sop to Christian evangelicals in Donald Trump’s base.

The move, which threatens to impose further constraints on a US foreign aid policy already heavily restricted under the Trump administration, was first reported by Politico after briefings from White House aides.

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Ayodhya: India’s top court awards disputed religious site to Hindus – video report

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India’s supreme court has ruled that a Hindu temple can be built on the country’s most hotly contested religious site, ending a legal dispute that has run for decades between Hindus and Muslims.

The restoration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya was a key pledge of Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government. The ruling, which came just six months after his landslide election win, is another huge victory for India’s prime minister

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Ayodhya: India’s top court gives Hindus site claimed by Muslims

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Supreme court says site where mosque was torn down in 1992 should become Hindu temple

The Indian supreme court has ruled that India’s most hotly contested piece of religious land rightfully belongs to Hindus, and has granted permission for a temple to be built on the site in Ayodhya.

The five supreme court judges based their unanimous and historic judgment on Hindus’ claim that the site is the birthplace of the god Ram.

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India tense before ruling on holy site claimed by Muslims and Hindus

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Supreme court due to decide fate of Ayodhya, where mosque was torn down by Hindu hardliners in 1992

India’s supreme court is expected to make a historic ruling on Saturday over the highly disputed religious site of Ayodhya, which is claimed by Hindus and Muslims.

The site has been one of the country’s most controversial religious grounds since the Babri mosque, which had been standing since the 16th century, was reduced to rubble by Hindu fundamentalists during a 1992 riot in which more than 2,000 people died.

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How an isolated group of Mormons got caught up in Mexico’s cartel wars

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The deaths of nine women and children has thrust into focus a small religious community and their long history in a remote corner of northern Mexico

Amid the scrubby foothills of Sonora’s Sierra Madre mountains, they farmed pomegranates and pistachios, raised large families and preached a fundamentalist Mormon faith.

Related: Child survivors of massacred family spent 10 hours hiding in Mexican hills

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Mexico: hymns and tears as victims of attack on Mormon families are buried

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  • Dozens of vehicles from US travel to La Mora to mourn victims
  • Mayor of La Mora in Sonora state says violence has worsened

With Mexican soldiers standing guard, a mother and two sons were carried to the grave in hand-hewn pine coffins on Thursday at the first funeral for the victims of a drug cartel ambush that left nine Mexican American women and children dead.

Clad in shirtsleeves, suits or modest dresses, about 500 mourners embraced in grief under white tents erected in La Mora, a hamlet of about 300 people who consider themselves Mormon but are not affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some wept, and some sang hymns.

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‘Fear factor is broken’: protesters demand removal of Iraqi government

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Crowds of dissenters in central Baghdad want Iranian influence banished from Iraqi politics

The biggest protest movement in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein has pressed its demand for the removal of the elected government, staring down an embattled political elite and the widespread influence of Iran.

Friday’s rallies of tens of thousands came a day after supporters of Iraq’s embattled leader, Adil Abdul Mahdi, believed they had won the backing of one of two powerful figures that threatened his premiership, a development that appeared to stabilise his position on Thursday.

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Lebanon protesters form human chain across entire country

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Anti-government grassroots movement says it wants to foster feeling of national unity

Tens of thousands of protesters in Lebanon have attempted to form a human chain running across the entire country to symbolise newfound national unity.

Demonstrators planned to join hands from Tripoli to Tyre, a 170km (105-mile) chain running through the capital, Beirut, as part of an unprecedented cross-sectarian mobilisation.

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Pope apologises for theft of Amazon statue from Rome church

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Incident at end of Francis’s Amazon synod blamed on conservatives and ‘racists’

Pope Francis has apologised to Amazonian bishops and tribal leaders after thieves stole indigenous statues from a church close to the Vatican and tossed them into the River Tiber in a show of conservative opposition to the first Latin American pope.

Speaking as “the bishop of Rome”, Francis dismissed allegations that the wooden statues of naked pregnant women were pagan symbols and said they had been placed in the church “without any intention of idolatry”.

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British bishop rebukes Sydney Anglican leader’s call for gay marriage supporters to leave church

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Bishop of Liverpool says he regrets that Archbishop Glenn Davies ‘seems to want to exclude people rather than to engage with them’

A senior Church of England bishop has expressed regret at comments by the Archbishop of Sydney that supporters of marriage equality should leave the Anglican church.

Reflecting sharp divisions within the global Anglican communion over LGBT+ issues, the Bishop of Liverpool, Paul Bayes, said: “I regret that the archbishop [of Sydney] seems to want to exclude people rather than to engage with them within the wider Anglican family.”

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‘Cluck off’: UK’s only Chick-fil-A outlet to shut in LGBT rights row

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Reading branch of US chain to close after protests over stance on same-sex relationships

A US fast food chain is to close its first branch in the UK after protests and boycott calls by LGBT campaigners.

Chick-fil-A faced demands to “cluck off” when the fried chicken outlet opened in a shopping mall in Reading this month.

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Pro-gay marriage Anglicans are walking a fine line in the Australian church | Andrew West

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The blunt words of Sydney archbishop Glenn Davies come at a critical moment for Australian churches and demands for religious freedom

For a man renowned for his civility, the language was blunt. During his annual speech to the Anglican Church’s Sydney synod, Archbishop Glenn Davies told supporters of same-sex marriage to “please leave us”.

“My own view is that if people wish to change the doctrine of our church, they should start a new church or join a church more aligned to their views,” he said. “But do not ruin the Anglican Church by abandoning the plain teaching of scripture.”

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