Pope Francis I’s weekend announcement of a new council, the Group of Eight (G8), to advise him on Catholic Church governance and reforming the Church’s central administration (the Roman Curia) has been…
In his first meeting with the media Pope Francis has said he will lead a church “that is poor and for the poor”.
EPA/Radek Pietruszka
The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and the subsequent election of Pope Francis have provoked intense public interest and media attention across the globe. How could it be otherwise? The Catholic Church…
New Pope Francis I has a controversial past in his home country.
EPA/Andrea Solero
Today Australia woke up to its first Latin American and Jesuit pope. Although apparently being second choice behind the former pope Benedict when he was elected in 2005, Pope Francis I was seen as an outside…
Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel before the start of the conclave in the Vatican to elect the next Pope.
EPA/Osservatore Romano
This morning, Australian Catholics awoke to the news that black smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. The seat remains vacant, there is no Pope.
By now many of us will have learned through…
Pope Benedict XVI open to prosecution after he steps down?
EPA/Claudio Peri
Not a day goes by without further allegations of rape and sexual abuse being made against the Catholic Church. The vast majority of accusations relate to abuse perpetrated outside the Vatican’s walls…
Pope Benedict XVI, who recently announced that he will resign from the papacy this month.
AAP/Claudio Peri
Pope Benedict XVI announced his historic decision to step aside as Pope yesterday. This is the first time in 600 years a Pope has resigned. And in 1415 when Gregory XII resigned, he did so not to retire…
Pope Benedict XVI has announced plans to step down on February 28, citing the job’s pressures and his advanced age.
Alessandro Di Meo/EPA
“There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving examination as the Roman Catholic Church.” So wrote Thomas Babington Macaulay in his review of Leopold von Ranke…
Justice Peter McClellan (centre), Chair of the Royal Commission into child sex abuse, delivers a media statement with his fellow commissioners in Sydney.
AAP/Damian Shaw
The awful record of the institutional Catholic church’s leadership in dealing with the scandal of clerical sex abuse of minors has clearly, and rightly, been a trigger for the federal government’s Royal…
Attorney-General Nicola Roxon, Families Minister Jenny Macklin and Prime Minister Julia Gillard have announced the royal commission’s terms of reference.
AAP/Stephanie Flack
The terms of reference for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse were released this afternoon in Sydney.
In speeches that emphasised the need to acknowledge the experiences…
Labor elder Senator John Faulkner has called for a thorough reform of internal party practices.
AAP Image/Dean Lewins
Since its nineteenth century birth, the Australian Labor Party has helped to define the country’s institutional landscape.
But according to one of its most respected members, party grandee Senator John…
People who were abused as children are more likely to suffer mental health and substance abuse disorders.
Dawn Ashley
There is great support within the community for the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse. Many people have high hopes it will right the wrongs of the past and help us, as a nation, to eliminate future…
The Catholic Church’s cover-ups have all the markings of a corrupt organisation.
AAP/April Fonti
The Catholic Church has constructed a white curtain behind which networks of corruption have been allowed to deepen. Professor Patrick Parkinson, a senior lawyer who formally supported the Church’s “Towards…
Should the law of God or the law of the land govern the confessional box?
flickr/emilio
In response to the ongoing cascade of accusations and evidence of systemic and decades long child abuse, the federal government finally announced a Royal Commission into institutional responses to child…
Evidence shows sexual abuse is more likely to occur in particular kinds of institutional cultures, such as the Catholic Church.
Roger Smith
For victims and their advocates, the Prime Minister’s announcement of a Royal Commission into the role of institutions in the abuse of children represents a long-awaited shift in the way Australia approaches…
A royal commission into institutionalised sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Australia has been announced.
AAP/Dave Hunt
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced a royal commission into child abuse in churches, schools and foster homes.
The inquiry will include, but not be limited to, allegations of abuse in the Catholic…
Cardinal George Pell says there is insufficient evidence to hold a Royal Commission into claims of sexual abuse by the Catholic Church.
AAP/Dean Lewins
Report after damning report is rapidly revealing the dirty secrets of the Catholic Church. As fresh allegations and evidence abound, it seems we have a seismic shift in the battle for justice for victims…
As the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into child abuse looms, Archbishop Denis Hart and three of his bishops have forewarned their Victorian flock of imminent disturbing reports about past failures of…
Cardinal George Pell has faced questions about what he knew regarding allegations of sexual abuse by priests.
AAP/Dean Lewins
The ABC’s 4 Corners this week exposed blatant concealment of a priest’s sexual assaults and rapes of children by the Catholic church in NSW. Admissions of guilt were made by the offender and documented…
The Pope’s decision to allow Anglicans into the Catholic Church may be the first step on the way to a unified church.
EPA/Alessandro Di Meo
In his first message on becoming Pope, Benedict XVI said the impelling duty of the successor of Peter was “to work tirelessly to rebuild the full and visible unity of all Christ’s followers”.
“Concrete…
Offenders such as Gerard Ridsdale, jailed on paedophile charges in 1994, must be exposed.
AAP/Ballart Courier
Victorian victims of clergy sex crimes and their families have been fighting for justice for years – some for decades. The previous Labor state government did nothing for them.
The Baillieu government…
