John Pollock says it’s unfair that he could ask for euthanasia in some countries, but not here, when he finally finds his suffering intolerable.

He has told New Zealand Doctor magazine that the law should be changed so that people have the comfort of knowing they can control their death, and says many doctors already practise euthanasia: a third of them admit to having hastened death….

Unlike Dr Pollock, perhaps, I see a difference between hastening inevitable death compassionately and killing, and I can’t reconcile having a doctor who treats me as a living person one minute having the right to kill me the next.

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The Anglican Archbishop of Melanesia says the church is being called on more often to inform communities of important social and health issues.

Archbishop David Vunagi is in Auckland for the Pacific Conference of Churches.

He says in recent years, the church has been called on to mediate between government and the community.

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The recent Australian Institute of Family Studies report highlighting the changing nature of family forms should come as no surprise. The rate of children born outside of marriage has reached one in three births and many more children are now likely to have experienced a series of parent-type relationships before they reach the age of 18.

What should surprise us, however, is the continuing lack of desire from government to institute social policies that support family forms that are in the best interests of children. So much of the debate around family forms is founded in what adults and parents primarily want for themselves. It is worrying that there is no collective social resolve to promote and encourage the natural family, given the proven capacity of this family structure to contribute to child wellbeing.

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Why do we react so badly to young suicide? The young suicide is particularly unacceptable: he or she appears to engage in the reverse of Pritchard’s ultimate rejection ”” it is not we who are rejecting the individual suicide so much as the young suicide cohorts who are rejecting us ”” our love, family, faith, imagination, creativity, culture, civilisation. We are, in many senses, as much affronted as confronted by each such event. But this is essentially because we view the individual as belonging to us, to our society. For some religions, life and death belong only to God.

We need to reflect that even the most rejected, lonely, desperate, hopeless and helpless individual still has one little domain of sovereignty: his or her physical being. Continuation or cessation of that physicality is the only decision they can make ”” and who are we to deny them that exercise?

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The Australian Institute of Family Studies recently held its biennial conference, celebrating 30 years of “advancing understanding of Australian families”. The conference recognised key statistics that illustrate some of the dramatic changes in the landscape of families, including declining marriage rates and the increase in cohabitation and ex-nuptial births.

One only has to glance at the 500-plus comments expressing outrage at Bettina Ardnt’s “backward opinions” (which suggested that Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s de facto relationship might not be setting the best example for young female onlookers) or, more recently, the response to the article by Chris Meney to conclude that we seem to have reached consensus: cohabitation is another stage on the pathway to a family.

When it comes to children’s wellbeing, AIFS director Professor Alan Hayes recognises that the function of the family unit is what matters, rather than the form. What is crucial is that children have an example of a loving relationship that doesn’t disappear before their eyes; that they’re brought up in an environment of love.

Please take special note of that line: “the function…is what matters, rather than the form.” A better statement of modern gnosticism you will rarely see. Read it all–KSH.

What a day. Who would have thought they would live to see a female prime minister sworn into office by a female governor-general? And not only that. The man Julia Gillard vanquished for the top job, Kevin Rudd, declared that God was a goddess, too.

“To the great God and creator of us all, I thank him ”“ or her ”“ as well,” Rudd said during a poignant, at times tearful, valedictory speech to the nation.

Gillard, 49, said before going to visit Quentin Bryce at Yarralumla she was well aware of being the first woman to become prime minister.

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Defending champion Italy was held to a second 1-1 draw, this time by lowly New Zealand in the latest World Cup stunner.

The 78th-ranked All Whites took the lead after only seven minutes of Sunday’s Group F match when Italy’s 36-year-old captain Fabio Cannavaro made a horrendous error, handing a goal to Shane Smeltz. A long free kick from Simon Elliott sailed deep into Italy’s area, off Cannavaro’s hip as he fell and directly toward the waiting Smeltz for the tap-in.

It was New Zealand’s only shot on goal the entire match.

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We used to talk about children learning from their elders and betters.

How do we explain it when the situation is getting worse? Whose fault is it?

Recently statistics in N.S.W. emerged to show that physical attacks between girls have risen by 15 per cent each year since 2005. Most of this violence takes place outside schools, but the Bureau of Crime Statistics demonstrate the increase of 70 per cent over this period.

By and large young people go where they are led by the society that surrounds them. It is too easy to blame the young and absolve ourselves, but more difficult to identify causes accurately and more difficult again to put strategies into place that will help.

Read the whole article.

While discussing the subject of ”vice and virtue”, the students in the Leichhardt Primary ethics class compiled a list of things 10-year-olds consider wicked – stealing pencil cases, telling secrets and lying to secure the last piece of birthday cake.

The litany of sins, carefully devoid of any reference to religious morality, was unintentionally sweet because while children furrow their brows over these issues, adults are clashing over their right to do so.

The trial in 10 NSW schools of secular ethics classes, held as an alternative to special religious education (SRE), has sparked a culture war. It has pitted the faithful against the secular, church against state, and parent against parent. The debate has sparked allegations of lying and scare-mongering from both sides, and feeds into wider anxiety about the forces of militant atheism and the power of church lobby groups.

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Thw Catholic Church has joined the chorus of religious voices opposing the trial of ethics classes in schools.

It has organised a petition arguing that the classes should not be held ”in competition” with scripture because it means religious children miss out on ethics.

This latest protest, which the Baptist and Uniting churches have also joined, takes a different tack to previous objections.

This latest protest, which the Baptist and Uniting churches have also joined, takes a different tack to previous objections.

Whereas the Anglican church has argued children absorb ethics through the school curriculum and do not need the subject to be taught separately, the Catholics say their children should be able to take ethics classes too.

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The recent Labor cabinet decision to suspend the processing of new asylum applications from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan for three and six months respectively has prompted the Anglican Primate of Australia, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall to write to the Federal Labor government.

Dr Aspinall, the Archbishop of Brisbane, questioned how such a decision could be made when the United Nations Refugee Agency, which has been conducting a review, had not yet reported its findings. The UN, at this time, did not support a suspension of applications from those countries.

“The Australian Government says asylum seekers should only be granted the right to live in Australia if they are genuinely in need of protection,” he said. “I agree that this is a complex issue, but genuine asylum seekers are deeply distressed when forced to flee their homeland. They should be treated with compassion and dignity.”

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On June 21 – in the lead up to the federal election ”“ the leaders of Australia’s two major political parties have agreed to speak live to Christians across the nation. We want you to be part of this landmark event.

”˜Make it Count 2010’ will see Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott address Christians and answer questions from Christian leaders in a live webcast to churches throughout Australia from Canberra’s Old Parliament House.

The event follows on from a similar one held prior to the 2007 federal election in which John Howard and Kevin Rudd addressed 100,000 Christians meeting at 846 churches across Australia. This year we are hoping to triple those numbers.

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Anglicans can no longer speak of “swimming the Tiber”. Pope Benedict XVI has built a noble bridge, a symbol chosen as the cover illustration for the Catholic Truth Society edition of his Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus. Today I want to try to describe where that bridge leads.

The Tiber crossings of those Anglicans who have gone before us have often been difficult and dangerous ”” and, in any event, it has proven difficult to organize a group swim. Not only is the Holy Father’s bridge a noble construction that lifts us high above the perilous waters, it allows us to pass over the deep without breaking ranks. And, as Fr. Dwight Longenecker has observed, this comfortable crossing may appeal to other Christians inspired by the ordered march of the Anglican host towards the threshold of the Apostles.

I have already summed up the papal offer as “united in communion but not absorbed”, words which resonate with the ecumenical vision of the recent past, particularly the era of Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey. Now “United in communion but not absorbed” is realized in “a Personal Ordinariate for Anglicans who wish to enter full communion with the Catholic Church”, to use the Holy Father’s words in his Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus.

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Here is one:

So what is the take-home lesson from the decimation of scripture classes by the ethics-course trial that Anglicans had predicted?

It’s not a judgment on the quality of SRE classes, because it was parents who made the choice, without attending SRE classes or the trial classes. It’s not a judgment on the quality of SRE teachers, because the ethics course teachers are simply civic-hearted volunteers like those SRE teachers who do not have theological or teaching qualifications (as many do). And it’s not a judgment on the relative value of religion or ethics.

The take-home lesson is that the implementation of the ethics course created an ethical dilemma, which was the need to choose between ethics and religion when that choice should not have been necessary. The timetable slot is for SRE.

If the ethics course is not SRE, it should not be scheduled then and parents would not be forced to choose between a (heavily promoted) ethics course and religious education.

Claire Smith Roseville

Read them all.

After a private meeting last month, Archbishop Peter Jensen says Premier Kristina Keneally has assured him there will be a full independent assessment of the trial of ethics classes in NSW schools.

A secular group, the St James Ethics Centre, has been allowed to conduct classes in 10 primary schools across the state, although the syllabus has not been made public.

Two heavyweights of Labor’s socialist left faction ”” NSW education minister Verity Firth and former premier Nathan Rees ”” overruled existing guidelines to allow the trial in term two of this year. The Left has long championed secularist policies.

Dr Jensen met Premier Keneally ”” a Roman Catholic and member of Labor’s Right faction ”” early last month to express his concerns.

“She has promised the trial will be fully evaluated and that we and other SRE providers will have the opportunity to discuss important matters of principle,” he says.
Roman Catholic educators have indicated they have received similar promises from the Labor Government.

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The Anglican Archbishop, Dr Peter Jensen, wrote an article entitled ”Ten reasons the ethics trial is not a good idea” in the Anglican publication, Southern Cross.

“The non-religious St James Ethics Centre has already received wide exposure ”¦ boosted by those who see this as a chance to break SRE and remove all trace of religion from public life,” Jensen wrote.

He argues that there is an implication that teachers are not doing their job teaching mainstream ethical behaviour and that the course is presented as new, exciting and more useful than SRE, which may lead to fewer children choosing it.

The study of religion is vital to an understanding of our culture, art, faith and human history, Jensen writes.

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Public schools will continue to avoid labelling children failures in school reports which grade students A to E, but principals believe it is time to abandon false praise and give students a more realistic impression of their abilities.

Jim McAlpine, president of the NSW Secondary Principals Council, said schools should praise students who ”achieve great things”.

”If they don’t achieve as much as they should, there is no point giving them false praise,” he said. ”They need to know they have to achieve to get the rewards.”

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The Anglican Church is urging Australians to reach out to each other this Easter.

In his message, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Reverend Peter Jensen said loneliness is a problem that affects too many people.

‘The Christian message is about restoring relationships,’ he said.

‘First of all our relationship with god – that’s what he was doing at the first Easter, when Jesus died to take away our sins.

‘As a result of what Jesus did, we are meant to reach out to each other, to care to love to serve.

‘We’re not meant to be alone.’

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“Benefits provide security to our society’s most vulnerable people, and people who claim them are a part of our society ‘whanau’. Also, this government is working to overcome family violence, so the idea that John Key should want to give some of the most vulnerable in society a kick in the pants is both offensive and absurd. Kicking someone in the pants always does more harm than good,” says Dr Anthony Dancer, the Anglican Church’s Social Justice Commissioner.

“We need to be clear that with the number of redundancies and rise in unemployment, particularly prominent among Maori and Polynesian people, even the most highly qualified are finding it hard to find good jobs. Just because a solo parent’s kids go to school, it doesn’t necessarily mean a good job can simply be found at the drop of a hat. Or are beneficiaries supposed to do any work that is going? The kind of work the rest of society doesn’t want to do?”

It is unclear if the Government thinks it will be easier for beneficiaries to find work because they should take whatever work they are offered, while the middle classes continue to make more discerning choices.

Read the whole thing.

The word ”militant” has become synonymous with atheist. Militant is simply a word used to describe someone showing opposition in a way the people being opposed don’t like.

And yes, atheists have killed, tortured, lied and stolen – never in the name of atheism, but because they’re bad.

Jews, Muslims, Christians and atheists are generally moral people. But that’s not because they’re Jews, Muslims, Christians or atheist. It’s because they’re people.

I do hate. I hate religion taking credit for most people’s innate goodness.

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Seventy-five years ago, on August 8, 1935, the United States Congress passed the first sweeping legislation creating a welfare safety net for the American people, the Social Security Act 1935. Its champion was President Franklin D. Roosevelt….

Support in Congress was both overwhelming and bi-partisan.

Thirty years later, in July 1965, Congress passed the second major piece of the national safety net, the Medicaid and Medicare act.

It, too, passed by an overwhelming majority with bi-partisan support. That bill was championed by another Democratic President, Lyndon B. Johnson….

Now comes the third major piece in the safety net when tomorrow (local time), President Barack Obama signs the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010, introducing almost universal health care.

The bill passed yesterday in the House by a slender and contentious majority, 219 vote to 212.

Not a single Republican voted ‘yes’.

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One running theme in recent comments here, but also for a long time now on many blogs, is the plea to see some real discipline of TEC. Something which did not occur with any substance after 2003 (the closest was the suspension of TEC for one ACC meeting at which its suspended members were observers), and something which should now happen with the Glasspool confirmation. So the argument goes, and it is an argument with merit because the Glasspool confirmation has a deeper significance than being the confirmation of a partnered lesbian person to be a bishop. That deeper significance is this: following Gene Robinson’s consecration a series of restrained decisions on the part of TEC’s GC meant that there was plausible argument in response to calls to discipline TEC that TEC might not actually be walking apart from the Communion, the Robinson consecration being a temporary diversion from the one path of Anglican polity; now however TEC has effectively announced that no temporary diversion has taken place, it is walking apart from the Communion.

Actually I want to suggest it is walking apart from the Communion in two ways. The first is walking apart from the common direction in the Communion, that Anglican bishops who are neither single nor married are living contradictory to Scripture and tradition. The second is walking apart from an emerging direction that the Anglican Communion cannot remain as it is, essentially a meeting point of Anglicans, but must move forward to becoming a worldwide church. To me it is inescapable that a consequence of the Glasspool confirmation is confirmation that TEC under no circumstances will be beholden to any authority larger than itself and thus is deeply opposed to any movement of the Communion towards becoming a worldwide church.

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Four bishops, 40 priests and thousands of parishioners from the Traditional Anglican Communion will petition the Vatican by Easter to be received into the Catholic Church.

Archbishop John Hepworth of Adelaide, primate of the TAC, said 26 parishes in Western Australia, Tasmania, NSW, Victoria, far north Queensland and South Australia hoped to be united with Rome by the end of the year.

The move comes as 100 Anglican parishes in the US and some in Canada have announced their decisions to convert to Catholicism en masse, voting to take up an offer made by Pope Benedict XVI in November in his apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus (On Groups of Anglicans). The initiative allows Anglican bishops, priests and entire congregations, if they wish, to join Rome.

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In a move described as “dreadful” for Perth’s CBD, the Anglican church has withdrawn from the $81 million Cathedral Square project pushed by national property developer Mirvac.

The church’s decision means demolition of its eyesore Law Chambers Building on Hay Street will be shelved indefinitely.

On February 22, the church told Mirvac and Perth City Council it would not proceed with the project – planned for the existing Cathedral Square beside recently-renovated St George’s Cathedral.

The council has been a strong advocate of the project since 1992 after City Vision chair, architect/planner Ken Adam, first proposed it in 1991.

“I’m absolutely distraught,” Mr Adam said when WAtoday.com.au told him of the church’s decision.

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[Peter Kennedy] doesn’t believe in the priesthood anymore, nor the virgin birth, nor the infallibility of the Pope. In fact, he doubts that Jesus ever existed and although he is the spiritual leader of a 500-strong Christian community, he says he no longer prays because there’s “no one to pray to.”

“We have made God in our own image. I can’t believe in a God that grants some people miracles but punishes others, but I do think there is something more, but what it is, I have no idea.”

The controversial and charismatic ex-priest, who made headlines last year when he refused to leave St Mary’s as instructed by his Bishop, will preach tomorrow at All Saints’ Anglican Church in Simpson Street, North Rockhampton.

Last night he launched his book ”“ Peter Kennedy. The Man Who Threatened Rome ”“ at the same venue, as part of a nationwide promotional tour which will include Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne later this month.

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We know how important faith is, because we’ve known what it’s like for people to have faith in us. And we all have this faith, consciously or unconsciously. We’ve all given it, and we’ve all received it. We know what it is and how it works. Having faith in others, and others having faith in us, isn’t a sign of weakness or mental deficiency. It’s reasonable and logical.

And it’s also reasonable and logical for us to have faith in the promise of a person in whom is found all that there is to be found of God.

And this promise is that, amid the darkness of our lives, there will always be that critical pinprick of light that will take away our fear.

We’ll still have disappointment, and rejection. We’ll still have to face failure, possibly tragedy. Let’s hope not, but the darkness will still be there.

Faith in God won’t take away the darkness. But what faith in God will do is to free us from the fear that the darkness will destroy the value and meaning of our lives.

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Virginity is a hot topic at the moment, prompted by comments from the Leader of the Opposition. He may have copped a lot of flak but Tony Abbott’s advice makes a lot of sense and there’s nothing alarming in it. Besides, being a parent gives him a right to express his views publicly.

I am not embarrassed to admit that my ”gift” remains unwrapped – at least for the time being. Losing your virginity or ”V-plates” (as some of us like to call it) has always been a preoccupation of adolescents. Where to do it? When to do it? Who to do it with? Parents advise us to put it off, young men argue that right now would be the best time and some religions insist we must wait until marriage.

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This month Manly Council erected a surfboard-shaped sign at its most famous beach to instruct board-riders how to behave in the surf. Two years ago the council installed a $26,000 safety fence at the notorious ”jump rock”, where the young and young-at-heart plunge into the ocean below. This year it pledged to have rangers patrol the area, intent on catching thrill-seekers in the act. But their efforts haven’t stopped the kids from jumping, and the fence has simply turned out to be an expensive ratepayer-funded diving platform.

That parents, teachers, doctors, priests, and other assorted experts claim to know best about the potential risks and dangers we face – both individually and as a community – is nothing new. But the expectation that government should legislate to protect us from these risks and dangers is.

This poses some fundamental questions about citizens’ relationship with government. Protecting our physical security – for example from threats of war, violence and other types of crime – is at the core of what governments do. But how far does the definition of security extend?

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New Year Fireworks 2010 – Sydney from Digital Documents on Vimeo.

Makes the heart glad–watch it all.

The editors at the Post really needed to ask if Cardy was saying that his church (as in his parish) does not believe in the Virgin Birth or if his Church (as in the Anglican Church in New Zealand) no longer teaches this ancient doctrine.

Either way, the story is that a congregation or a national church in the Anglican Communion put up a rather shocking billboard ”” at Christmas ”” attacking ancient doctrines about the Virgin Birth. The heart of the story should consist of Cardy and other members of his parish explaining why they believe what they believe and why they did what they did.

In other words, don’t bury the lede.

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