Religion

The late pope John Paul II was the greatest celebrity of modern times. Although he was the sovereign of the world’s smallest state, his influence seemed greater than that of any secular ruler. Did he not bring down communism in Poland by sheer spiritual power? Did he not provide a new moral leadership for mankind, speaking simple truths to millions seeking guidance in a confusing world?

For Germaine Greer, the nuns at the Star of the Sea Convent in Melbourne provided ‘a terrific education’. ‘They really loved us,’ said Greer. Not so Amanda Lohrey. Her experience of a working-class convent school in Tasmania so scarred her that still today, visiting a church in Europe, she feels a ‘physical revulsion’ for ‘the naked martyrs, staked out, flayed alive, crumpled, bleeding’. For former Catholic schoolgirls, a reunion is a chance to laugh together over some of the more outrageous things taught to them by nuns. But Lohrey can look back only with bitterness, in particular on the nuns’ ‘intense but evasive’ preoccupation with sex. ‘Boys are after only one thing, girls. They’ll suck you dry like an orange,’ she was told. She cannot laugh.

To the outsider, the Anglican Church may well seem one of the more liberal of the Christian denominations. While the Roman Catholic Church refuses even to debate the issues, Anglicans have gone ahead and ordained both women and homosexuals to the priesthood. In Canada, one Anglican diocese has gone so far as to bless same-sex marriages. Theologically, the best-selling books of retired US bishop John Shelby Spong represent progressive Anglicanism at its extreme. Not only does Spong argue that the world view of the Bible is incompatible with contemporary scientific knowledge, but he also suggests that St Paul was gay and that Christians need not believe in god.

In the era of gay liberation, ‘coming out’ has for many taken on the character of a religious experience. Gays and lesbians in the US draw easily on a religious culture of personal salvation even while denying the sometimes oppressive institutions it has created. In Australia, we are not given to the same public display of emotional and spiritual commitment, but ‘coming out’ has nevertheless come to be regarded as a gay rite of passage.

The Anglican Church worldwide is currently facing the gravest threat ever to its international unity. Where the vitriolic debates over the ordination of women failed to shatter the Anglican Communion, the ordination of an openly gay bishop in the US in late 2003 may well succeed. Conservative bishops have demanded that the American Episcopal (Anglican) Church’s leaders be disciplined. If the Archbishop of Canterbury does not oblige once an international report has been tabled later this year, the break-up of the Anglican Communion is highly probable.

With the growing politics of fear focused on Islam, and the pervasive ‘Othering’ of Muslims both nationally and internationally, this book on the everyday lives, beliefs, and practices of Australian Muslims is an important social antidote. Abdullah Saeed, a leading Australian Muslim scholar of Islam, provides us with a readily accessible book that introduces the basics about the religion of Islam, and a short social and cultural history of Muslims in Australia. It explores Islamic religious organisations and leadership in Australia, the diversity of Muslim communities, common stereotypes and misunderstandings about Islam as well as the difficulties and discrimination Muslims have experienced in Australia. This is a clear, concise, culturally sensitive and diplomatic little book for a general readership.

It wasn’t long before myths and legends grew up around the story of St Francis of Assisi. James Cowan is right to suggest that this process began before Francis died and that Francis himself allowed or willed it to happen. He may even have encouraged it: ‘Francis endeavoured to make a metaphor out of his own life.’

The huge changes that have occurred in Australia in the space of a century were reflected in the recent centenary of Federation celebrations in Melbourne. They were evident, for example, in the repeated acknowledgment of Aboriginal Australians and in the selection of a young female Asian-Australian to speak on behalf of the future.

This lengthy analysis of Catholics and the anti-Communist struggle in Australia during the 1950s uncovers important and previously unreleased primary sources. In line with the author’s background as a Catholic Redemptorist priest, this particularly applies to material from Australian church archives and those of the Vatican, and from the files of B.A. Santamaria’s anti-Communist ‘Movement’. At the time, Santamaria’s ‘crusade’ against the atheistic and allegedly revolutionary Communist Party was strongly supported by the Redemptorist order, especially in Victoria.