Catholics in Nigeria have buried many priests and believers killed in their country’s brutal wars over land, cattle, honor and religion. But this was the first time Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Sokoto Diocese had preached at the funeral of a seminarian.
A suspect in the crime said 18-year-old Michael Nnadi died urging his attackers to repent and forsake their evil ways.
“We are being told that this situation has nothing to do with religion,” said Kukah, in remarks distributed across Nigeria in 2020. “Really? … Are we to believe that simply because Boko Haram kills Muslims, too, they wear no religious garb? Are we to deny the evidence before us, of kidnappers separating Muslims from infidels or compelling Christians to convert or die?”
The bishop was referring to fierce debates – in Nigeria and worldwide – about attacks by Muslim Fulani herders on Christian and Muslim farmers in northern and central Nigeria. The question is whether these gangs have been cooperating with Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
The conflict has claimed Catholics, Anglicans, Pentecostal Christians and many others, including Muslims opposed to the violence. Prominent Muslim leaders have condemned Boko Haram, and church leaders have condemned counterattacks by Christians. In recent years it has become next to impossible to keep track of the number of victims, including mass kidnappings of schoolchildren and the murders of clergy and laypeople, including beheadings.
“Religion is not the only driver of the mass atrocities,” said Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, in December testimony before members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “Not all 40 million members of the Fulani ethnic group in the region are Islamic extremists. However, there is evidence that some fraction of the Fulani have an explicit jihadist agenda. …
“A mounting number of attacks in this region also evidence deep religious hatred, an implacable intolerance of Christians, and an intent to eradicate their presence by violently driving them out, killing them or forcing them to convert.”
In a sobering Feb. 23 statement, the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of Nigeria warned that the “nation is falling apart.”
But conditions could quickly get worse, the bishops said, because the “clamor for self-defense is fast gaining ground. Many ethnic champions are loudly beating the drums of war, calling not only for greater autonomy but even for outright opting out of a nation in which they have lost all trust. … Calls for secession on an ethnic basis from many quarters should not be ignored or taken lightly.”
During the Lenten season preceding Easter, which is on April 4 for Catholics and Western Christians, the Nigerian bishops led a protest march in the rain, starting at the National Christian Center in the capital city of Abuja, in the center of Nigeria.
“We join you in deploring … wanton violence and in calling on the international community to assist the security forces of Nigeria to protect all life and reestablish the rule of law,” wrote Bishop David J. Mallory, head of the Committee on International Justice and Peace for the U.S. Catholic bishops.
Before that protest, Lagos Archbishop Alfred Martin posted an online appeal to his flock, urging them to resist the temptation to fight back. There is “so much mutual suspicion, ethnic and religious, and sadly it is gradually degenerating into hatred and loathing of one another. This is made worse by the perception that government – that has the responsibility of ensuring equity and justice, the two values that assure peace and mutual love – is perceived as not doing its duty, or even worse, as promoting the activities that lead to mutual suspicion.”
In the end, he said, “It takes supernatural grace to love those who hate us.”
Bishop Kukah was even more blunt during his funeral sermon for the murdered seminarian.
“Through violence, you can kill the liar, but you cannot kill lies or install truth,” he said. “Through violence, you can murder the terrorist, but you cannot end terrorism. Through violence, you can murder the violent, but you cannot end violence. Through violence, you can murder the hater, but you cannot end hatred. Unredeemed man sees vengeance as power, strength and the best means to teach the offender a lesson. These are the ways of the flesh.”
Terry Mattingly leads GetReligion.org and lives in Oak Ridge, Tenn. He is a senior fellow at the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi.
Pope Francis sent a video message to the Irish faithful on Friday marking the elevation of the National Sanctuary of Our Lady of Knock to the status of International Marian and Eucharistic Shrine.
“I gladly take advantage of this means of communication in order to be with you at such an important moment in the life of the Shrine,” the Pope said.
The date chosen for the occasion is 19 March, the liturgical solemnity of Saint Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
“Ever since the apparition of August 21, 1879, when the Blessed Virgin Mary, together with Saint Joseph and Saint John the Apostle, appeared to some villagers,” the Pope said, “the Irish people, wherever they have found themselves, have expressed their faith and devotion to Our Lady of Knock.”
Following the apparitions 142 years ago, Knock has become one of Ireland’s popular religious sites, welcoming thousands of pilgrims annually. In 1979, Pope St. John Paul II visited the Shrine. Pope Francis also visited Knock in August 2018 during his Apostolic Visit to the country as part of the World Meeting of Families.
Acknowledging the many Irish priests that left their homeland in order to become “missionaries of the Gospel,” as well as the many lay people who emigrated to far-away lands but still kept their devotion to Our Lady, Pope Francis highlighted the service of the Church in Ireland to the faith.
“You are a missionary people,” he said.
“How many families in the course of almost a century-and-a-half have handed on the faith to their children and gathered their daily labours around the prayer of the Rosary, with the image of Our Lady of Knock at its centre.”
The great value of silence
“The arms of the Virgin, outstretched in prayer, continue to show us the importance of prayer as the message of hope which goes out from this Shrine,” the Pope affirmed.
He recalled that in the apparition of Our Lady at Knock, “the Virgin says nothing”, yet, her silence is a language – “the most expressive language we have.” The message from Knock, therefore, is that of the “great value of silence for our faith”.
This silence in the face of mystery does not mean giving up on understanding, but rather “understanding while aided and supported by the love of Jesus,” the Pope explained. It is also a silence in the “face of the great mystery of a love which cannot be reciprocated unless in trusting abandonment to the will of the merciful Father.”
The Holy Father further noted that this is the silence that Jesus asks of us in the Gospel of Matthew: “When you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:6-8).
The responsibility of welcoming all
Pope Francis went on to emphasize the “great responsibility” attached to the newly elevated International Sanctuary of Our Lady of Knock.
“You accept to always have your arms wide open as a sign of welcome to every pilgrim who may arrive from any part of the world, asking nothing in return but only recognizing him as a brother or a sister who desires to share the same experience of fraternal prayer,” the Pope urged.
He further expressed his desire that this welcome may “be joined with charity and become an effective witness to a heart that is open to receiving the Word of God and the grace of the Holy Spirit which gives us strength.”
Concluding his message with an invocation of God’s blessings upon everyone, Pope Francis prayed that the Eucharistic Mystery, which unites us in communion with Jesus and with one another, may “always be the rock on which to live faithfully our vocation as ‘missionary disciples’ like Mary. He also implored Our Lady to “protect and console us with her merciful countenance.”
Concrete proposals were handed to the European Commission’s Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans by high school students from all over Europe, who took part in a virtual Youth Summit on Climate organised by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) on 18-19 March 2021.
Young Europeans have a say in the EU’s future: without your calls for action the European Green deal would not have been here , said Mr Timmermans welcoming the event Your Europe your say 2021. I am really impressed at your in-depth understanding of the climate change problem and at the way you presented your proposals to me, this is the way to live, understand each other, it’s extremely difficult to hate a person that you can understand, he concluded.
After two days of lively virtual discussions and debates, over 234 students aged 16-18 participating in #YEYS2021 developed concrete recommendations, which they presented during a final plenary session.
The students had to wear the hat of a stakeholder group in a simulation of a United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP) and work together with other groups to create a plan to limit global warming to safe levels of well below 1.5º C by the end of the century. The groups represented real sectors and industries, whose activities and advocacy influence global warming.
Planting city trees and installing vertical gardens
“Ecological-Manhattan-Project” for the EU, investing vast amounts in new technologies
Investing in more education for the general public
Implementing tailor-made policies that respond to each country’s specific circumstances
Supporting afforestation as one of the most efficient long-term solutions in carbon removal
Introducing hydrogen and biogas while phasing out fossil fuels
Closing the gap between developed and developing nations
The final plan created by the young Europeans predicted a temperature increase of +1.4°C by 2100, thus reaching the goal of the exercise, and was presented by eight students.
Students were welcomed by Christa Schweng, President of the EESC, who said: I am full of hope for the future of Europe and confident that the next European generation is in good hands. We need a green transition to a green economy that leaves no one behind. To achieve this, we need active citizens. This starts with involving young people.Cillian Lohan, Vice-President of the EESC in charge of communication, closed the event with these remarks: I hope the experience of YEYS has given you the desire to be active citizens, we need your participation for democracy to be strong. The youth movement has shown that change can come from the streets. Today we help those demands for more action to resonate in the corridors of power.
During the event, the students had the opportunity to share their ideas and views with different guests, such as the Belgian climate activists Anuna de Wever and AdelaideCharlier; Samuel Masse, President of the European Council of Young Farmers; and Ska Keller, Co-President of the Greens/European Free Alliance Group at the European Parliament, who said: We are not inventing the wheel; there is a lot of research! We know what procedures to adopt and implement at national level! The Climate Law is a very important step! This is really thanks to the outside pressure and youth engagement.
Background: After its cancellation due to the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020, the 2021 Committee’s flagship event for young people selected 33 schools, one from each of the 27 EU Member States and five candidate countries (Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey) and one from the UK.
Through this initiative, the EESC aims to ensure that the views, experiences and ideas of the younger generation are taken on board in EU policy-making.
Liu Zhenmin, head of the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), issued the call during a virtual event to commemorate the International Day of Forests, observed annually on 21 March.
He said the forest sector has provided essential and lifesaving health products during the pandemic, such as face masks, cleaning supplies and ethanol used in sanitizers.
Meanwhile, green spaces, parks and forests have been vital during “these times of social distancing”, and healthy, well-managed forests also act as natural buffers against zoonoses, thus warding against the risk of future pandemics.
“Yet, despite their obvious importance, forests continue to be under threat”, Mr. Liu said.
“Every year, seven million hectares of natural forests are converted to other land uses such as large-scale commercial agriculture, and other economic activities. And while the rate of deforestation has slowed over the past decade, tree-cover loss has continued unabated in the tropics – largely due to human and natural causes.”
A path to recovery
The UN believes sustainable management of forests is critical to combating climate change and to ensuring a better future for all.
The theme for this year’s International Day – “Forest restoration: a path to recovery and well-being” – also aligns with the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, from 2021-2030.
“If we fail to act now, we risk a point of no return”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned in his message for the Day, though noting it is not too late to act.
“The crises our planet faces require urgent action by all – governments, international and civil society organizations, the private sector, local authorities and individuals”, Mr. Guterres said.
“Indigenous peoples are leading the way. They care for the Earth’s biodiversity and achieve conservation results with very few financial resources and little support.”
For people and planet
The Director-General of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Qu Dongyu, underscored how restoring forests and managing them sustainably, benefits both people and the planet.
This investment will also contribute to economic recovery from the pandemic, he added, as “forest restoration activities create green jobs, generate incomes, improve human health and increase human security.”
While COVID-19 has been “a harsh wake-up call”, it also presents a unique opportunity to recover better and stronger, according to Mr. Liu.
“Let us use this International Day of Forests to send a strong message,” he said. “Let us restore and protect our forests, our planet, and all its vital ecosystems for generations to come.”
UNICEF/Vincent Tremeau
Members of an indigenous community, living in the forests in one of the most remote regions of Republic of the Congo.
This week, WHO/Europe participated in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s 2021 Regional Forum on Sustainable Development. Held under the theme “Sustainable and resilient recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and action and delivery on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the UNECE Region”, it included a specific focus on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1, 2, 3, 8, 10, 12 and 13, and the 2020 targets.
Beginning on 10 March 2021, the Regional Forum included peer-learning round tables and side events. It concluded on 18 March with a hybrid plenary.
Delivering a keynote address during the Opening and High-Level Policy Segment, WHO Regional Director for Europe Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge said, “The pandemic has harshly exposed the inequalities that exist in our societies: it has disproportionally affected the elderly, youth, women, migrants and refugees, it has magnified health, social and economic vulnerabilities.”
Investments and reforms in health- and social-care systems are essential to deliver on the 2030 Agenda and leave no one behind. These efforts will contribute to healthy and resilient systems and societies for generations to come.
The event was held in the lead-up to the 2021 United Nations High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development (6–15 July 2021), where United Nations Regional Commissions will convene a multistakeholder forum in their respective regions to share experiences and discuss concrete ways to achieve the SDGs.
A sustainable, resilient recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic can be achieved, and the SDGs are central to this process. To discuss the way forward, the first part of the hybrid plenary session brought together delegates from Portugal and Romania alongside President of the Economic and Social Council Mr Munir Akram, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Ms Amina J. Mohammed, and Executive Secretary of the UNECE Ms Olga Algayerova.
This was followed by a session exploring how to tackle the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 and promote a sustainable recovery. It built on virtual peer-learning sessions on the themes of people, prosperity and planet to identify what Member States can do to address these issues.
Earlier this week, the Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development, convened by Dr Kluge and chaired by former Italian Prime Minister Professor Mario Monti, released a call to action identifying how countries and decision-makers must rethink policy priorities in the light of pandemics. It highlighted the need to cooperate and protect against future health threats while ensuring the inclusion of marginalized socioeconomic groups.
Voluntary national reviews
The second day of the hybrid plenary session focused on experiences from the Region with voluntary national reviews (VNRs). These are developed by countries wishing to present their progress towards the SDGs at the HLPF. This year, 10 countries from the WHO European Region expressed an interest in presenting a VNR: Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Norway, San Marino, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden.
For health stakeholders, participating in the process of development of a VNR is an opportunity to promote leadership for health and well-being and appeal for recovery efforts that are transformative for health- and social-care systems.
Between 2016 and 2020, 52 countries of the European Region submitted 60 VNRs. Analysis of the VNRs and surveys carried out by WHO/Europe show that all Member States of the Region have established new forms of leadership, governance arrangements and policy measures, and taken actions to advance implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
Most Member States report health and well-being as a development priority. The most frequently reported health priorities are universal health coverage, reduction of premature mortality from noncommunicable diseases and access to health services for all.
However, there remains considerable scope for intersectoral action for health and well-being at national and particularly subnational levels, and for the health sector to influence not just a country’s policies on their health system but also policies affecting the wider determinants of health.
Many Member States also point to priorities related to eliminating poverty in all forms; ending malnutrition, with an emphasis on reducing overweight and obesity; creating safe and inclusive cities; addressing climate change and air pollution; as well as a range of migration-related issues.
Financing for health remains a problem, with reported challenges including inefficient and insufficient public spending for health, continued reliance on development aid in some countries, and difficulties in mobilizing resources for sustainable development.
Weak national and subnational health information systems, poor data quality and availability, and poor analytical capacity are core challenges to monitoring and reporting on health and well-being and the SDGs.
European Programme of Work
Ensuring more people have access to universal health coverage, enjoy better health and well-being, and are better protected from health emergencies are core pillars of the European Programme of Work 2020–2025 – “United Action for Better Health in Europe”.
Connectivity forms an important pillar of India’s Act East Policy, says Secy Riva Das
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MEA Secretary (East) addressed a Webinar By — Shyamal Sinha
The ‘Act East Policy’, announced in November 2014, is the upgrade of the “Look East Policy” which was promulgated in 1992. It aims at promoting economic cooperation, cultural ties and develop a strategic relationship with countries in the Indo-Pacific region with a proactive and pragmatic approach and thereby improving the economic development of the North Eastern Region (NER) which is a gateway to the South-East Asia Region.
The policy has been continuously evolving since the early 1990s and involves intensive and continuous engagement with South-East Asian countries in the field of connectivity, trade, culture, defence and people-to-people-contact at bilateral, regional and multilateral levels.
Connectivity forms an important pillar of India’s Act East Policy and its doctrine of Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR), which form the building blocks for India’s Indo-Pacific Vision, said Riva Ganguly Das, Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
Secretary Das made the remarks while addressing the inaugural session of a webinar today on “Connectivity Cooperation for a Free, Open and Inclusive Indo-Pacific”.
“At home, India has taken several initiatives to improve physical and digital connectivity. Bharatmala Pariyojana is a new umbrella program for the highways sector that envisages building more than 80,000 kilometres of roads with an investment of around USD 107 billion,” Das said.
Noting the importance of Sagarmala projects, Riva said, “Sagarmala aims at Port Connectivity Enhancement, Port-linked Industrialization, Coastal Community Development and giving impetus to Coastal Shipping. Multi-Modal Logistics Parks shall act as hubs for freight movement enabling freight aggregation, distribution and multi-modal transportation.”
Secretary Das said India has devoted more resources and assigned greater priority to build connectivity in our immediate neighbourhood.
“Since 2005-06, India has extended Lines of Credit worth nearly USD 31 billion to more than 64 countries. Our Act East Policy is at the centre of our connectivity orientation and a fulcrum of our broader approach to the Indo-Pacific. Our efforts are focused on connecting our North-East with the dynamic economies of South East Asia, and enhancing connectivity within the North East itself,” Das said.
“On multilateral/regional front as a member of mechanisms such as the ASEAN, BIMSTEC, Mekong Ganga Cooperation, India is also undertaking various regional connectivity initiatives. We are currently discussing a Coastal Shipping Agreement and Motor Vehicle Agreement in the BIMSTEC format and also in the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal (BBIN) group,” she added.
Talking about Prime Minister Modi’s IPOI initiative, Das said, “Our efforts to build connectivity can only succeed in synergistic partnership with other countries sharing the same purpose and objectives. And this synergistic partnership was the vision behind Prime Minister Modi’s announcement of the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI) in 2019 as an initiative for the countries in the region and beyond to collaborate for security and growth of the region.”
“Seeking the synergy between India’s “Act East” policy and Japan’s “Partnership for Quality Infrastructure”, the two countries have agreed to develop and strengthen reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructures that augment connectivity within India, and between India and other countries in the Indo-Pacific region.”
Das further informed that Japan has undertaken a number of connectivity initiatives in India.
“The Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail, the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC), the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, the Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor (CBIC) are all mega projects on the anvil. Japan is also partnering in various connectivity projects in Northeast India including the 20 kilometres long four-lane bridge between Dhubri in Assam and Phulbari in Meghalaya,” she said.
“Given Japan’s expertise in the development of quality infrastructure we believe that Japan’s lead on the Connectivity Pillar of IPOI will give a boost to connectivity in the Region and contribute to unlocking the potential for an equitable, positive and forward-looking change in the region contributing to Security and Growth of the Indo-Pacific.”
The first joint COVID-19 weekly surveillance bulletin was released on 19 March 2021 by WHO/Europe and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
For the first time both surveillance and vaccination data on COVID-19 in all WHO European Region countries and territories are accessible on one platform. The bulletin incorporates visualization of data on COVID-19 cases, deaths and vaccine uptake by age group, and hospitalizations.
The COVID-19 surveillance bulletin will be published on a weekly basis, presenting data reported by country for the week prior to each publication.
Catholic Church and EU Commission: “facing this historic period together”
Participating in the Spring Assembly of EU Bishops held online on 17-18 March 2021, European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas acknowledged the Church’s commitment to the promotion of the European project, and conveyed willingness to move the EU-Churches Article 17 TFEU dialoguetowards policy-based exchanges.
Bishops of EU Episcopates held their second online assembly since the beginning of the current pandemic in March 2020. In dialogue with Margaritis Schinas, Vice President of the European Commission, the Bishops exchanged on some of the most pressing topics on the EU agenda, highlighting the need to work together in facing this historic period marked by the ongoing Covid-19 and climate crisis.
Together, they discussed the current status of the recovery process in the EU and its Member States. In this context, the Assembly emphasized the importance of people-centred and value-based EU policies to protect the poor and the most vulnerable, especially in light of worsening socio-economic conditions deriving from the pandemic.
Vice President Schinas – who is also the Commissioner responsible for Article 17 TFEU – acknowledged the commitment of the Catholic Church to promote the European project and conveyed willingness to move the EU-Churches dialogue towards policy-based exchanges.
The participation of the EU Commissioner was also an occasion to exchange on the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, proposed in September 2020 by the European Commission. While recognizing the efforts to set out a new and comprehensive framework aimed to create a fair and predictable migration management mechanism, the EU Bishops urged all negotiating actors to promote a welcoming context as well as a fair and just approach to those in need.
“We have to workto ensure the full respect of the individual right to apply for asylum for anyone reaching the EU territory, without pushbacks at our borders,” the COMECE Assembly stated. Climate change and its ecological impact in third countries are also provoking large influx of migrants to the EU. The EU Green Deal– the Bishops stated – would be beneficial not only for the EU, but also for peoples in third countries who suffer the effects of climate change in their daily lives.”
During the Assembly, Bishops also analysed the current trends on Freedom of Religion across the EU, expressing their concerns for the rise of religious illiteracy, which can often lead to negative perceptions of religion.
In discussing recent restrictions to freedom of religion – e.g., Covid-19 measures, ritual slaughter of animals, religious symbols at the workplace – Bishops also underlined the importance of a dialogical approach to public authorities, while avoiding self-censorship and fostering interreligious initiatives to promote this Fundamental Right.
The dialogue with Commissioner Schinas was held in the framework of Article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which establishes an “open, transparent and regular dialogue” between Churches and EU institutions.
Until Australia becomes a republic, our democracy still embraces archaic religious ideology with institutions that rely on taxpayers to survive, writes Max Wallace.
To explain this perspective, I argue here there are three dimensions to Australia’s Christian, monarchist, soft theocratic form of government: constitutional, symbolic and financial.
There are nine jurisdictions in Australia: Federal, two territories and six states. There are seven Constitutions: one Federal and six State. The British Queen, who is Supreme Governor of the Church of England, in England, is also Queen of Australia, so a religious figure symbolically sits atop the Commonwealth of Australia and atop the State jurisdictions.
The only section that mentions religion in the Federal Constitution is s.116. That section does not say there is a separation of church and state, or government and religion. Given that is so, it was up to the High Court to interpret s.116.
One could glean some subtle inferences that there is a separation from various cases, but there has never been an unequivocal statement to that effect. In fact, in Attorney-General (Vic) (ex Rel Black) v Commonwealth (Defence of Government Schools 1981 case), Sir Ronald Wilson said s.116 “cannot answer the description of a law which guarantees within Australia a separation of church and state”.
Sir Ninian Stephen said s.116 “cannot be viewed as the repository of some broad statement of the principle concerning church and state”. The Chief Justice, Sir Garfield Barwick, concurred.
Nothing has changed in the constitutional monarchy of New Zealand since then.
The point of s.116 could be said to merely deny the Commonwealth the ability to pass laws concerning religion, giving it a veneer of secularism. However, as we saw in the 1996 Andrews Bill concerning the Northern Territory’s Rights of the Terminally Ill Act, and the High Court Williams cases in 2012 and 2014, the Federal Government was able to do constitutional workarounds to quash the Territory law and fund religious-only chaplains in public schools. If there was a constitutional separation of government and religion in Australia, those manoeuvres, I suggest, would not be constitutional.
The Federal restriction on passing laws relating to religion does not apply to the states. There is no section in any State Constitution separating government and religion. The states still pass religious laws to do with churches’ trusts, incorporations and property matters and this has been the case since colonial times. The territories also pass this legislation.
There is a subculture of state legal bureaucracies corresponding with churches and other religious organisations, with specialist advice to governments on church legal matters, involved in this enterprise that goes sight unseen. This legislation is rarely, if ever, debated in parliaments or reported in the media except when a dispute over property between different branches of a church attracts attention.
A useful description of this legal phenomenon is the 2013 ‘Queensland Law Reform Commission Report, A Review of Religious and Certain Other Community Organisations’. This report, to review out-dated Acts, was chaired by a judge, four part-time Commission members including three QCs and one other lawyer. They had a supporting secretariat of seven. They recommended 14 Acts be repealed by the Queensland Government. These included Acts concerning All Saints Church, the Anglican Church, the Ann St Presbyterian Church, the Chinese Temple Society, the Queensland Congregational Union, the Roman Catholic Church and the Wesleyans. The Acts dated from 1830 until 1977.
As noted, much of this legislation concerns property matters. Colonial state governments simply gave parcels of lands to churches and legislated their rights to them.
On page 152 of the above Review, we read:
This was to erect a “temperance hall” that was built in 1869.
These land grants occurred in all states. They set up the churches to become the very wealthy organisations they are today. More recently, in 2008, the NSW Government gifted the Catholic Church an estimated $100 million for the church’s World Youth Day in Sydney. It could not be argued in a NSW court that this use of taxpayers’ money was unconstitutional. Furthermore, the Government would not answer questions in Parliament about the funding and stonewalled the Sydney Morning Herald’s FOI requests.
The Australian flag features the British Union Jack with the three crosses of Christian Saints George, Andrew and Patrick;
the state flags also have religious symbols;
Christian prayers are said before the commencement of business in all jurisdictions except the A.C.T.;
in the Senate, the President is compelled by Standing Order 50 to say a Protestant prayer;
the Great Hall of the federal parliament has been used for prayer breakfasts;
before the commencement of a newly elected government, there is a religious ceremony in a church where the prime minister and leader of the opposition read a lesson, usually a verse from the Bible;
knighthoods, awarded by the Queen upon recommendation, have their origin in a religious ritual;
in the High Court, when the full bench is sitting, the Usher declares “God save the Queen!” before the judges enter and sit;
each year, the Catholic Church sponsors a “Red Mass” where scores of lawyers file into a cathedral to receive God’s blessing for the legal year ahead;
important Christian days such as Christmas and Easter are celebrated as public holidays;
ANZAC Day is to all intents and purposes a religious event with the anthem God Save the Queen often played at the Dawn Service;
Australian postage stamps have Christian images on them every year; and
we carry the image of the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, the Queen, in the loose change in our pockets.
Out of all this symbolism, the only secular thing is the Australian national anthem, Advance Australia Fair. Even there, it has been reported that private religious schools have added their own religious verses, against protocol but without sanction from the Government.
Financial
Religious organisations are income tax-exempt as they are legally charities that ‘advance religion’. They also usually do not pay land tax, capital gains tax, stamp duty, payroll tax, local government rates and many other smaller taxes. Ministers of religion pay income tax, but they can claim very generous fringe benefits which can have the effect of lowering their due income tax.
In a review paper on these matters, Alec Spencer asks:
This question squares with my 2007 definition of a church in The Purple Economy: a church is ‘an on-shore tax haven, subsidised by taxpayers to pursue the supernatural’.
In the James Cook University Law Review, (Vol. 22, 2016, revised 2019, p.84), Alec Spencer neatly summarised the cost of financial assistance to religion to Australia:
There is so much politics unrelated to the relationships between government and religion that all of the above usually flies under the radar of political discourse in Australia, including in universities. It is, for the most part, sight unseen. Sure, churches have lost ground on issues like gay marriage, decriminalisation of abortion and voluntary euthanasia. But these social issues involve little taxpayers’ money.
To have any chance of changing our historical political-religious complex – our soft theocracy – Australia would have to become a republic with an amendment to the Constitution to separate government and religion. Only then would it be possible to argue, on grounds of separation of government and religion, that religious privileges of one kind or another are unconstitutional.
Until recently, that was the case in the Republic of the United States in respect of the big-ticket item of Federal funding of religious schools. In the 2019 case Espinoza v Montana Department of Revenue, the Trump appointees on the Supreme Court put a legal torpedo into the hitherto bipartisan support of the principle of separation of church and state, a principle on which the United States was partly founded. This demonstrates that even a republic is not safe from the churches who believe they have a right to impose their theocratic beliefs and they will do whatever it takes to get access to taxpayers’ money to promote them.
So, from a strictly secular perspective, Australia is not a secular democracy that favours neither religion nor atheism. It is a soft, Christian theocracy that has subsidised religion into the powerful position it has today where just five per cent or less of very religiously committed voters can frighten the more enlightened members of political parties into silence or sycophancy to continue their financial and other privileges.
Max Wallace, PhD was the tutor in sociology and also occasionally politics at the Centre for Continuing Education at ANU from 1983 to 2003. He is now secretary of the Rationalist Association of NSW.
