Queensland Synod News

ABC RADIO National has announced The Religion Report will be axed as part of major changes to its 2009 schedule. Staff were made aware of the changes but it was outspoken Radio National presenter Stephen Crittenden who made the cuts public in a strongly worded two minute preamble to his program. "The decision to axe one of this network’s most ...

Blue Care is modernising residential aged care living by launching a new service that rivals franchises like Starbucks, the Coffee Club and Gloria Jeans. Freshly brewed coffee, baked cakes and gourmet style sandwiches are just some of the menu items residents, their families, visitors and staff can enjoy at the new café at Pinewoods Aged Care Centre at Lawnton. “You ...

Church leaders in India have said an inquiry ordered into the case of a young nun allegedly raped in Kandhamal province, amid anti-Christian violence in the state of Orissa, had been instituted only because of media criticism of government inaction in the case. Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of Bhubaneswar, whose diocese covers Kandhamal, said that what he described as belated action ...

A poverty statement released today by the Queensland Council of Social Service (QCOSS) shows a massive income gap between Australia’s poorest and richest households. It also reveals many households have virtually no money left from their weekly income for essentials such as education and transport. The top 20% of households earn an average of $225,350. This is ten times the ...

The current global banking crisis indicates that the modern world economic order is "built on sand", Pope Benedict XVI has told Catholic bishops meeting in Rome, and only the "word of God" can offer a solid foundation for life. "He who builds on sand only builds on visible and tangible things: on success, on career, on money," Pope Benedict told ...

South African church cleric Allan Boesak is on the verge of giving up his church positions and returning to a leadership role in politics. Boesak, a leader of the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s, was sidelined by his organization, the now-ruling African National Congress, in the 1990s after becoming embroiled in an extramarital affair and a corruption scandal. He served ...

The Moderator of the Uniting Church in Western Australia, Rev Ken Williams, has urged the Australian community to reject the fear mongering surrounding the most recent arrivals of asylum seekers arriving in WA by boat. “As a people who value fairness and justice, we must remember to share those values with those vulnerable people who come to our shores seeking ...

Increased stereotyping and degrading depictions of women in the media still occur in many countries, members at a global congress of Christian communicators have asserted. Some participants at the World Association of Christian Communication gathering, held every six years, noted that in 2005, a decade after the implementation of projects in 76 countries by the Global Media Monitoring Project, little ...

A Roman Catholic journalist has said her church should wait "at least one hundred years" before canonising a controversial pope, who one critic has accused of "sheer cowardice" but who the current pontiff recently said "spared no effort" in trying to save Jews from the Nazis. Fifty years after his death, the role played by Pope Pius XII during the ...

While fewer Europeans are going to church than ever before, a large majority still consider themselves religious, recent research by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, Germany’s largest privately-operating foundation, shows. "Although everyone has been talking about religion, there has been no reliable information about what people actually believe and its consequences for everyday life," said Martin Jaeger, a project manager with the ...