St Thomas Becket looks down from Canterbury cathedral’s window.
renaud-camus
Henry II wouldn’t be amused – but rehoming relics is a way of making peace with the past.
With attendance at mass continuing to flag, the Catholic bishops’ influence has waned with it.
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The Catholic bishops have exhorted Australians to cast a “vote for the voiceless”, but it is doubtful that their plea will be paid much heed – by politicians or the public.
Both major parties have a platform that could ultimately facilitate same-sex marriage in Australia.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Experience in the US serves to highlight the potential long-term economic consequences if Australia fails to legalise same-sex marriage.
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Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are helping change the top-down nature of organised Christianity.
Clergymen who conceal sex abuse offences are guilty of betraying the trust vested in them.
Dean Lewins/AAP
Church cover-ups are extremely serious. Child victims are especially vulnerable and often suffer long-term psychological harm.
The rules for schools could change.
Mark Skalny/www.shutterstock.com
Local education authorities have mediated the RE syllabus for decades. Now, there might be a free-for-all.
Helen Sloan / HBO
It looks as if the story of the red priestess Melisandre is only just getting started. But is she a prophet, or a witch?
A photograph from The Sabbat Cycle’s Austin stop, where a screening of ‘The Witch’ was held, followed by a satanic ritual.
The Satantic Temple
What, exactly, are the political goals of The Satanic Temple, which formed in 2013? A religion professor attended a recent satanic ritual to find out.
Preaching to the converted.
EPA/L'OSSERVATORE ROMANO/Handout
Pope Francis’ mercy mission to a migrant camp in Lesbos is another effort to rescue the tarnished and failing brand of Catholicism.
Charles Manson, pictured during his trial.
AP Photo
What makes cults so attractive to their followers?
Pope Francis exhorts the faithful to accompany each other on their life journey, and help each other be free in love.
Reuters/Alessandro Bianchi
In his new exhortation, Pope Francis issues the Catholic Church and its followers a bold challenge: to live God’s mercy more authentically.
Feeling blessed?
Nick Lehr/The Conversation
The prosperity gospel – a uniquely American strand of Christian theology – creates a dilemma for its adherents.
Brussels Airport bombers Brahim and Khalid el-Bakraoui had previously spent time in prison.
EPA/Interpol
Apart from having little or no knowledge of religion, the new crop of Islamic State recruits come primed for violence with a different set of skills, honed through criminal activity.
The last census revealed that just over 60% of Australians identified as Christian, but only one in seven of those attended church regularly.
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Church affiliation and attendance is on the wane in Australia – a trend that is unlikely to be reversed be the recent slew of sex abuse scandals.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
The Athenaeum
Most scientists don’t think there’s an inherent conflict between their field and religion, so why do we?
Iakov Filimonov/Shutterstock.com
Indigo, pink, saffron: colour for India isn’t just for throwing. It’s political, too.
Franzi/www.shutterstock.com
Complex issues require a greater degree of literacy.
A tense start to the year in New Delhi.
Rajat Gupta/EPA
To know India’s future we must first understand Hindu nationalism’s past.
The Statue of Liberty stands as a beacon of the civil religion that is the contemporary faith in human rights.
Pixabay.com
The tradition of republicanism offered us civil religion, a foundation of belief that could counter any politics or policy that demands sacrifice in this world to be compensated in some “beyond”.
While some conservatives worry about the Safe Schools program ‘turning’ kids gay, they in turn seem determined to turn queer kids straight.
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The review of the Safe Schools program is yet another example of the misguided conservative anxiety that talking about homosexuality can “turn” children gay.