Queensland Synod News

Singer Madonna, who has often been at loggerheads with the Roman Catholic Church in which she was brought up, has been praised for her controversial adoption of a Malawian boy from a justice group of the church. The Lilongwe diocese’s Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) on 13 September praised the US pop star Madonna for adopting David Banda, ...

Churches in Britain have joined the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition and aim to mobilise Christians to take stewardship of a threatened earth just as a critical United Nations conference on the planet is taking place in Nairobi. The Anglican Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, led churches’ Operation Noah campaign supporters bearing banners to a rally at London’s Trafalgar Square on ...

Congregations, faith communities and small groups in the Uniting Church are being encouraged to reflect on and celebrate international Human Rights Day through a suite of internet based resources being made available by UnitingJustice. International Human Rights Day is celebrated on December 10 each year and commemorates the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted unanimously on 10 ...

The president of the US National Association of Evangelicals who often preached virulently against homosexuality, and who resigned after allegations he paid for sex with a male escort, has told his congregation he was a "deceiver and liar". Evangelical preacher Ted Haggard admitted to "sexual immorality" in a letter read to his Colorado Springs congregation at a 5 November Sunday ...

A united Christian platform of Caritas Internationalis and the All Africa Conference of Churches has urged industrialised nations to compensate poor countries for damage caused by high carbon emissions, which scientists and activists say are causing global warming. "We are urging delegates meeting here to agree there is an urgent need for industrialised nations and their corporations to compensate poor ...

Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, 52, has been installed as the first female presiding bishop in the US Episcopal Church and in the Anglican Communion, at a time when the denomination’s relationship with the Worldwide Anglican Communion is tense. She was installed in her leadership role for the 2.4-million-member US church in a ceremony at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. ...

A retired Protestant pastor in Germany has died after dousing himself with petrol and setting himself on fire, leaving behind a note saying he was worried about the spread of Islam. Roland Weisselberg, aged 73, died in a special clinic on 1 November after setting himself alight the previous day at a service in the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt in ...

A Roman Catholic archbishop has urged Poles to take direct action to prevent drink-driving, which has helped give the country Europe’s highest road fatality rate. "If they see a drunk trying to move a car, they should take the keys and call the police, and above all prevent him taking to the road," Marian Golebiewski, the archbishop of Wroclaw, said ...

Uniting Church members are invited to join other Christians in a prayer campaign this month to break the drought hurting so many Queensland families. The Moderator Rev Dr David Pitman will join Queensland Premier Peter Beattie and other Heads of Christian Churches for the launch of “Water: a Time for Prayer” at a morning prayer service at St John’s Cathedral ...

British Airways has become embroiled in a dispute with a check-in official at Heathrow Airport in London who refused a company request to cover up the cross she was wearing around her neck. Nadia Eweida, aged 55, who is on unpaid leave until the dispute is resolved, claims the right to display her Christian religious affiliation in a discreet way. ...