Senator Corey Bernadi’s call to ban the burqa is more sinister than many other similar calls around the world. Do his comments amount to religious vilification?
Religion
Plain-talkin’ Pell to get a promotion
Word is that Aussie Cardinal George Pell is about to be appointed as the Vatican’s head prefect, putting him in charge of 5000 Bishops worldwide. Heads will roll, predicts Damian Thompson.
Undercover at a Christian gay-to-straight conversion camp
Singing, sharing, snuggling, shame and secret erections: straight, atheist journalist Ted Cox goes undercover in the Christian “ex-gay” movement.
Can all the celebrity atheists please shut up?
Pope Benedict XVI is being crucified over the sexual abuse scandals, when he’s the Pope who’s made the biggest attempts to rid the Catholic Church of abuse, writes Mary Elias.
Noonan: How to save the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church is not beyond salvation, argues Peggy Noonan, but it will take a new culture of openness and repentance, and a new generation of priests and nuns, to do it.
The best way to defeat terrorists is to take the piss out of them
A new study has found that the most effective way to deter young Muslims from joining extremist groups is to make them “uncool”. Just like drugs — and governments have done such a job with that problem…
Pope speaks: We need to “do penance” for our “sins”
Pope Benedict XVI has ended his silence on the sex-abuse scandals engulfing the Catholic Church, saying that the Church had avoided using the word “penance” but it was now obvious that was needed.
exposed How predator priests were hidden around the world
An extensive investigation by the Associated Press has found 30 cases of Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse being transferred or moved overseas by the Church, evading police and often reoffending.
PHOTO GALLERY: Creepy Pope pictures
Yes, serious scandals are unfolding down at St Peter’s Basilica, but perhaps it’s no surprise judging on this terrifying gallery of Pope Benedict XVI looking evil and battling his flying cape.
Buddhists and Christians battle for North Koreas’ soul
Religion is strictly forbidden in North Korea, but evangelical Protestants like a challenge, and aren’t letting a little dictatorship get in the way of saving the nation’s souls. Buddhists are trying too, but can’t quite match that Protestant work ethic.
PHOTO GALLERY: Feel the Catholic guilt
The Catholic Church is playing the blame game, accusing anyone and everyone it can for the horrible paedophilia scandals engulfing the church. Salon wraps the list of culprits, from the gays to the NY Times.
exposed The signed letter that damns the Pope
The Associated Press has its hands on a smoking gun on the Pope: a signed letter from 1985 that shows he delayed the defrocking of a pedophile priest for “the good of the universal church”.
Undercover with American Evangelicals
Atheist and author Gina Welch spent two years deep undercover inside the world of America’s evangelical “megachurches”. The biggest revelation she uncovered? She actually enjoyed it.
Battlefield Earth screenwriter: I’m sorry
Screenwriter J.D. Shapiro apologises for penning “the suckiest film ever”, the big-screen version of L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth — he only hung out with Scientologists to meet chicks.
Christian militias on the rise in America
The FBI raid and subsequent arrests of a “Christian warrior” militia known as Hutaree in Michigan yesterday is part of a larger rise in US militia groups since the election of Barack Obama in 2008.
Dowd: We need a female Pope
The Catholic church needs to dump Ratzinger, allow priests to marry, and put a nun in charge if it’s to have any chance of cleaning up the big mess it’s gotten itself into, says Maureen Dowd.
Church abuse victims have been trying to speak for 50 years
Church documents reveal that the deaf boys sexually abused by a Catholic priest in America have been trying to tell the church and local authorities about it since the ’50s — but no one listened.
Sullivan: The Pope must resign
Atlantic columnist and Catholic Andrew Sullivan says the Catholic Church will have to undergo a “wrenching transformation” if it’s going to survive its recent scandals: the Pope must quit, and priests must be allowed to shag.
Sinead O’Conner: How I was abused by the Catholic Church
In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Irish songstress Sinead O’Conner recounts the horror of her childhood years spent in one of the infamous church-run “Magdalene laundries”.
The Last Supper gets super-sized
It isn’t just fat 21st century Westerners whose meals are getting bigger: scientists have found that depictions of the food being eaten by Jesus and his disciples in paintings of the Last Supper have gotten progressively larger over the past century, too.
Why the Pope should resign
To address the latest sex scandals involving paedophilia and sexual abuse by priests in Ireland, Pope Benedict XVI has penned a letter to the Irish faithful. But did the Pope know that priests were being protected from their crimes?
A Bali without bogans, touts or yoga
Ashlee Betteridge reports from Bali on its day of silence to mark the beginning of the Hindi Saka New Year. Yes, commercialism does take a back seat in Bali, at least once a year.
God and Aborigines under Abbott
The “Welcome to Country” skirmish was a call to Howard’s lost battlers: voters who deserted the Coalition for Labor at the last election, writes Dr Leslie Cannold.
“My father founded Hamas; now I work for Israel”
A fascinating interview with Mosab Yousef, the Christian, former Israeli spy son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, who has just released a tell-all book about growing up in the world of Islamic extremism.
Welcome to Country: a token debate
The Mad Monk has got the nation arguing again this week, after labeling Indigenous “welcome to country” ceremonies as “tokenism”.
