News & views
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Just war?
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Catholics in the USA could be forgiven if they are confused by the apparent conflict between their President and ‘their’ Pope. It must be especially troubling for the more conservative among them. Over recent decades they stood firmly behind two conservative Popes, John Paul II and Benedict, but found Francis sufficiently confronting that many rejected
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Authentic tradition, authentic voices and religious nationalism
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J P Grayland In this article, J P Grayland looks at the recent “war of words” between the U.S. President, Vice President, and Pope Leo XIV. “Understanding the recent conflict within a broader setting helps Christians avoid resorting to popularist responses or adopting oversimplified theological commentary.” He goes on to raise questions about the implications
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“I don’t know what God is”
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When I read this piece, I don’t know what God is. But the search keeps me grounded and feeling alive, by Karen Rinaldi in The Guardian recently it spoke to me sufficiently that I posted a link on our parish Facebook page. A few days later I received an email message from our priest saying
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Your Pope Leo Weekly for March 23, 2026
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SARAH CARTER MAR 23, 2026 Leo XIV Reopens the Amoris Debate Highlight of the Week: Pope Leo Calls a Meeting of Bishops to a “Synodal Discernment” of Amoris LaetitiaThis week marked ten years since Pope Francis published Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”), a papal exhortation that served as a compendium of the 2015 Synod on the
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A Reflection upon a Reflection
‘The self-imposed constraints on an effective priesthood’ On the last day of the 2025 school year, as is traditional at my school we started the day with a Christmas liturgy for all teaching and non-teaching staff, followed by farewell speeches for those not returning the following year. A congregation of over one hundred well educated,
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Signs of departure
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It is now long enough since the election of Pope Leo IV to see how he is continuing in the path of Pope Francis and how he is treading his own path. Catholic Outlook from the Diocese of Parramatta has highlighted an article, originally published in Commonweal magazine. The author is Massimo Faggioli, a professor in
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Not what I imagined or hoped
I approached Eugene Stockton’s pieces in ARCVoice 97 (Jun 2025) with interest and hope. Three ‘articles’ appeared in that issue with the rest to follow in subsequent issues. Part 1, Times are a-Changing, seemed to strike the right notes, acknowledging that the world had changed and our church must change in response. The observation that “the
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Reflection on spirituality
“Religion is a person sitting in church thinking about kayaking. Spirituality is a person in a kayak thinking about God.” This observation, used by some religious writers, is often attributed to Roger Caras, an American writer who is also a wildlife photographer. It creates a contrast between a structure with tradition (religion) and a more
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New Windows for Religious Belief and Practice
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The human species is in its infancy, not in maturity, as it deals with scientific understanding of its place in the universe and how it should (and must) develop. The windows used for centuries to understand our place in the universe and to shape religious faith have been upended and can no longer be relied
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Exploring Faith and Reason
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Dr. Peter Vardy outlined the development of Christian doctrine in the early centuries and the later centrality of St. Thomas Aquinas in establishing the link between Philosophy and Theology.This led on to the tension between science and faith in the modern world, including Darwin’s theory of natural selection, and alternative approaches culminating in the contrasting