Experts agree that the way celebrities portray themselves on our screens is piling on the pressure for ordinary older women to look just as good.

There’s been an increase in the number of women experiencing eating disorders in middle age according to Professor Phillipa Hay, Foundation Chair of Mental Health at the University of Western Sydney. Hay says a rise in body image and weight and shape concerns is to blame. “There may be more pressures on older women to retain the appearance of youth,” she says and “there may be more pressures to be a ‘super woman’ ”“ successful in the workplace and at home and ‘looking good’ as well.”

Celebrities, such as Angelina Jolie, “appear to ‘prove’ that thinness in midlife bestows many real-life benefits, for example, sexual desirability, happiness, and wealth that may be particularly persuasive,” said a recent study in Psychology of Women Quarterly co-authored by Professor Marika Tiggemann, a psychologist and body image expert at Flinders University. The research, which looked at the influence of television shows such as Desperate Housewives on women aged between 35 and 55 concluded that “exposure to thin idealised images in media content may have an adverse impact on body image and eating practices in midlife.”

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The immediate future of the global economy, including Australia, now depends on Europe, and whether it can restore confidence to markets. If European leaders can resolve their tangle of problems, growth is ahead of us. If they can’t, all bets are off.

Pessimism comes more naturally than optimism. It is now five years since we first heard the phrase ”the sub-prime crisis”, which rang the end of a golden era of debt-financed growth. Since then, we’ve had years of recurring crises, summits and resolutions that promised to solve the problems, but haven’t.

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Bathursty will become the sixth diocese in Australia to formalise the relationship between its Anglican and Catholic churches when Bishops Richard Hurford and Bishop Michael McKenna sign a covenant of friendship next week.
Representatives will travel from across the state on Thursday to witness the historic event, which will consolidate the connection between the two Christian denominations.

Catholic Bishop McKenna said the covenant was a celebration of a “long-standing friendship and cooperation”.

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Pope Benedict XVI will continue the expansion of the new Catholic Church structure created for former Anglicans by launching an ordinariate for Australia on June 15.

“I am confident that those former Anglicans who have made a journey in faith that has led them to the Catholic Church will find a ready welcome,” said Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, who serves as president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.

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Christopher Wright is a great Old Testament scholar. His work on Old Testament ethics for the people of God has been foundational in my understanding of the character of God through the laws he laid down.

So to have him admit that there are difficult parts of Scripture, for which pat answers will not suffice, is”¦ spirit warming. Some evangelical writers are so adamant in their writing that they leave no room for doubt, no room for mystery, no room for limits in human understanding!

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For 10 years we have tried to combat poverty, corruption and state failure by birthing a strong Afghan government. Not an easy task in a country hard to govern from the centre, and where our favoured regime is an unloved kleptocracy.

As Canberra looks to extricate Australia from this long hard slog, it declares victory of sorts, presenting its phased withdrawal as a successful handover to indigenous security forces.

But Afghanistan is not the centre of this war. This is primarily a war over – and against – Pakistan.

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We will all die, and how we respond to illness and suffering says much about who we are, reflects Nicholas Tonti-Filippini in his recent book, “Caring for People Who are Sick or Dying,” (Connor Court Publishing).

Tonti-Filippini is the Associate Dean and Head of Bioethics at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, in Melbourne, Australia. He was Australia’s first hospital ethicist, 28 years ago, at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne.

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In 2008, a High Court ruling opened the door for bookmakers to sell beyond their state border.

The aftermath represented a kind of Wild West in the Australian betting landscape. The big companies swaggered into town, staking claims, crossing boundaries and making a killing.

They really pushed their luck with the promotion of live odds. One Anzac Day, no sooner had the bugler wrapped up the Last Post than the market for the upcoming contest flashed on the scoreboard….

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Anglican SA boss and former premier Lynn Arnold has resigned from his post to become an Anglican minister.

The former South Australian Labor leader will announce his resignation as chief executive officer today to undertake full-time theological study.

“My great Uncle Dave, as we called him, became something of a role model … he changed his career to become a (Presbyterian) minister,” Dr Arnold said yesterday.

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Around 40 people gathered at the cleared demolition site on the fringe of the city’s red zone cordon to hear the official announcement of the city’s $5 million temporary cardboard cathedral.

The Anglican Church today revealed plans for the “transitional” cathedral designed by a top Japanese “paper architect”.

While debate rages over the decision by the Anglican Diocese of Christchurch to demolish the crippled city centre landmark, work will start on the temporary A-frame building in nearby Latimer Square next week.

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Reason can be a corrective to the blind acceptance of certain religious beliefs and practices and atheists are correct to employ it in that service, particularly in the face of a growing fundamentalist mentality. But serious, thoughtful Christians do no less. They know that biblical scholarship can refine our understanding of the extent to which the Gospel accounts are meant to serve as recorded history and the extent to which they have been written to construe the key characters and events into the prophetic narratives of Old Testament texts. They accept that, eventually, forensic archaeology may help unravel important questions about the ultimate (human) fate of Jesus. And they encourage moral theologians in their continued speculation about the prescriptions for modern living that flow from the witness of Jesus’ life and death. Not to accept these things is to substitute the dead hand of dogma for a genuinely living faith.

But such a faith draws strength from its own internal consistency rather than historical or cultural attempts to articulate its detail. The internal consistency of Christianity was highlighted by the Kantian scholar Herbert James Paton in The Modern Predicament: A Study in the Philosophy of Religion, which was published in 1955. “It is hard to see why [people] should abandon the hope of immortality,” wrote Paton, “if their assumption of human freedom has led them to a belief in the goodness of God.” Again, this proves nothing but it captures a certain logic that only the truly irrational would deny.

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Archbishop Aspinall told gatherers at St John’s Cathedral in central Brisbane that it “feels like darkness has engulfed the world”, using social media as an example.

“It turns ingenious technology with amazing potential for good into a weapon for bullying, brutality and destruction,” he said.

“Some of our young people are taking their own lives to escape the pain and others take a sinister delight in violence on YouTube grievously mistaking it for entertainment.”

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Tim Sims recently shared some statistics on the lostness of Australia at a recent conference there. Scott Sanders provided these highlights of that research which I’d like to share with you:

“Church” has a negative perception among Aussies due to: church abuse, religious wars, hypocrisy, judgmentalism, and issues around money, as well as being seen as outdated, authoritarian and exclusive. Those not attending church have issues– real or perceived– which need to be addressed. The great news is Jesus is still viewed positively by the average Australian.

There have been little change in ‘Christian’ beliefs during the last 50 years: 74% of Australians still believe in God, 53% in heaven, 45% in life after death and interestingly 43% in the resurrection of Jesus. Yet as a church we tend to agree with the media’s perception that there is widespread disbelief. The reality is “Australians are very concerned about religion, just not sure that the religion we promote in our churches is the religion of Jesus.”

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E-prayers, cabaret-style worship, video sermons and tongue-in-cheek advertisements are just some of the ways local Christian churches are boosting their numbers….

St Thomas’ Anglican Church in Werribee, which has the largest Karen refugee congregation in Victoria, is among them.

Its 150 Karen worshippers have breathed new life into a church that has been part of Werribee since 1856.

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Australians who spent a lot of time sitting at a desk or in front of a TV were more likely to die of any cause during a three-year period than those who were only sedentary a few hours a day, in a new study.

Researchers found that the link between too much time sitting and shortened lives stuck when they accounted for how much moderate or vigorous exercise people got as well as their weight and other measures of health.

That suggests shifting some time from sitting to light physical activity — such as slow walking and active chores — might have important long-term benefits, researchers said.

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Sydney’S acute shortage of burial space is set to hit the Muslim community hardest, with Islamic plots at Australia’s largest cemetery expected to run out – again – within a year.

When space dedicated to Islamic burials was last exhausted in Rookwood Necropolis two years ago, some Muslims were forced to fly their loved ones to Lebanon because they couldn’t afford to bury them here.

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Culturally speaking, the abortion question seems to have slipped under our guard. Society has grown aware of its ecological responsibilities. The recognition of endangered species calls forth prompt and effective protection. But here we are dealing with a danger rather closer to home. Up to a third of the next generation is being terminated. A 30% casualty rate would point to a particularly bloody military engagement. Ecologically speaking, it would be an unacceptable proportion, say, in regard to Black Cockatoos or Great White Sharks.

Still, a dramatic ethical development has occurred in many areas. The death penalty has been outlawed. Violence, rape, racial prejudice and the corruption of children cause moral revulsion and are met with the full force of the law. More positively, the principle of equal opportunity, extending especially to the handicapped and the underprivileged, is taken for granted, even at considerable economic cost. Further, any form of cruelty to animals provokes outrage. More positively, the generosity of the Australian public towards those who suffered recent natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts and floods in our region and beyond, has been inspiring.

We might expect that such instances of genuine moral sensitivity would create a climate of grave concern over the present scale of abortions. But our social conscience is strangely tongue-tied on this question. However the silence might be explained, public reflection on abortion is episodic and is usually “no-go zone” in political discourse.

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Speaking to a media conference in the Botanic Gardens on Friday afternoon, Bishop Victoria said no bulldozers or wrecking balls would be used in the deconstruction.

She acknowledged “the high level of community interest and sense of ownership as the cathedral was both an iconic building and a place of regular worship by many.

“However, this is now a very dangerous building that needs to be made safe….”

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Anglican breakaway archbishop John Hepworth has been removed from his post as the global primate of the church at a meeting of bishops in South Africa.

Archbishop Hepworth, the Australian leader of the Traditional Anglican Communion, last year claimed he was raped by three Catholic priests nearly 40 years ago.

He had planned to step down at Easter after bishops in several countries lost confidence in him and opposed his attempts to reunite with Rome.

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On Wednesday the Anglican Bishop of Christchurch Victoria Matthews said the proposal, mooted by owners of buildings in the Square, could help make the earthquake-damaged area “welcoming and engaging” again.

“People [are] saying, ‘What would happen if this became a place of creativity and not a ruin?’ ”

However, residents and city councillors did not warm to the idea yesterday.

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Western society has had little success in recreating institutions and forms of solidarity to replace those that declined in importance in the past 100 years, such as the family or the church.

This wholesale loss of group membership is manifest in a heightened desolation of liberal autonomy.

The rise in mental health diagnosis is a sign of this. It is the new market society expressed in emotional terms, a privatisation and categorisation of all human distress. Its costs have passed out of the community and on to the balance sheet of the state.

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‘Corporate paedophilia’ is a worrying global trend on the rise.

For those who might have missed it, Witchery has just launched a new clothing range for eight- to 14-year-old girls called “8fourteen”. In a brilliant stroke of imagination, the launch occurred on Valentine’s Day ”“ because, of course, girls from the age of eight need to understand that male romantic approval, and attracting it through your physical appearance (euphemistically termed “personal style”), is what really matters in life.

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Two Australians – a “paranormal writer” and a documentary filmmaker – have locked horns over a hoax “woolly mammoth” video that started down under but quickly circled the globe, writes Asher Moses.
It was a mammoth yarn, but as ever with the notorious British tabloid The Sun, there’s more to it than meets the eye – literally.
The red top earlier this month published “shock footage” of a “woolly mammoth” – thought to be extinct for thousands of years – lurching through icy waters in Siberia….

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It lasted just under 5 hours. Wow. I saw the last four sets.

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(“US election race baffles the punters” is the title SMH gives it)….

Assuming no imminent foreign policy crisis, the election will depend on two things: whether undecided voters blame the congressional Republicans more than the President for the state of the economy, and how many potential supporters the candidates can motivate to vote….

Voting for a president is also voting for a certain image of America, which explains the jubilation felt by so many when a young African-American with a radical past broke through conventional assumptions. Rekindling that excitement is difficult for Obama, but no one has claimed Romney is a charismatic candidate.

He will, however, be seen as safe, prepared for the job, and able to re-energise American business. Expect a Republican campaign that promises a more aggressive and dominant United States, and remember that American campaigns do not revolve around policy details in the way to which …[Australians] are accustomed.

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If Rome could survive Caligula and Nero, says American geographer Joel Kotkin, the United States can probably survive George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Indeed, he says, the U.S. and its “anglosphere” allies ”“ Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand ”“ will continue to be the primary economic, scientific and cultural force in global commerce well into the 21st century. The economic and political crises of the moment will pass. For the English-speaking world, the best is yet to be.

Author of the 2010 best-selling The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, Mr. Kotkin is singularly optimistic in his latest assessment of a world in which the anglosphere appears to be in truculent decline. The U.S. and Britain, after all, are experiencing serious crises of confidence. Now, in The New World Order, a study published in November by the London-based Legatum Institute, Mr. Kotkin and nine academic associates conclude that the anglosphere will remain the ascendant player on the world stage for a long time to come….

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The western tradition has infused and guided and built this nation, and all of us – whatever the position we hold in life – should take care to fight to retain it.

Eighteen months ago the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne – admittedly, an institution on the conservative side of our intellectual and political life – decided to launch a project in defence of western civilisation, and I was paid the honour of being invited along with Cardinal George Pell to a joint presenter at the launch.

The whole purpose, of course, was to remind people in all walks of life – and particularly those who might seek to influence public thought in Australia – that we should not take our inheritance for granted.

His Lordship Bishop Geoffrey Jarrett in his homily made reference to an issue of particular relevance: the attempt to persuade the Australian public to believe that changing the definition of marriage, which has lasted for time immemorial, is not an exercise in human rights and equality, but an exercise in de-authorising the Judeo-Christian influence in our society – and anybody who pretends otherwise is deluding themselves.

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Auckland’s most provocative church is at it again with a billboard showing Jesus’ mother Mary staring at a positive pregnancy test.

St Matthew’s, also responsible for the well-known Gay-Dar billboard and another suggesting God was good in bed, has placed the new version outside its central city church in a move, it says, is designed to highlight the fact that Christmas is a tough time for many people.

Erected yesterday, it shows Mary staring at a home pregnancy test which reveals she is pregnant.

In a statement, Vicar Glynn Cardy and priest associate Clay Nelson said Christmas was about “a real pregnancy, a real mother and a real child. It’s about real anxiety, courage and hope”.

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Update: Lyndsay Freer, a spokesman for the Catholic diocese of Roman Auckland, has responded:

“Once again, St Matthew’s shows us that they have moved away from traditional Christianity, even though their hearts might be in the right place,” she said.

“It is true that Christmas is real and celebrates a real pregnancy.

“It is also true that the anxiety and needs of young solo mothers today need to be addressed with compassion and care.

“But in making this point, St Matthew’s ignores the gospel account of matters surrounding the pregnancy and birth of Jesus, in which Mary is not a shocked solo mother but a young woman who has given her assent and trust to God.”

During his homily at the Mass pro eligendo Romano Pontifice (for the election of the Roman Pontiff) on April 18, 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger cautioned his fellow-cardinals that John Paul II’s successor would have to deal with an emerging “dictatorship of relativism” throughout the western world: the use of coercive state power to impose an agenda of dramatic moral deconstruction on all of society.

Some Catholic commentators charged that Ratzinger’s warning was so over-the-top that he could never be elected pope. Others thought the formula “dictatorship of relativism” a neat summary of a grave threat to freedom and believed that a man with the courage to call things by their true names would make a fine pontiff.

Recent events throughout the western world have fully vindicated the latter.

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Newcastle’s Anglican Cathedral parish has been urged to become ”˜”˜entrepreneurial’’ after a failed attempt at a $100,000 lifeline to keep it afloat in 2012. Fund-raising options including charging visitors to view Newcastle from the cathedral tower could be considered, along with cutting at least $60,000 from its budget.

Diocese trustees, including former MP John Price and former Lake Macquarie mayor John Kilpatrick, refused last week to issue an episcopal certificate, or diocese guarantee, for a $100,000 bank loan, just weeks after questions at a synod about $43million in outstanding loans across the diocese.

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