Notes: Tuesday, May 6-Thursday, July 31, 2014 (part 2 of 4)

5. "the OECD has found that paid parental leave beyond 20 weeks “appears to have a negative effect on female participation”"

The quotation in that headline comes from the opinion piece "Abbott has dug himself into a hole over paid parental leave", by Dr. Anne Summers A.O., dated May 5, 2014, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/abbott-has-dug-himself-into-a-hole-over-paid-parental-leave-20140505-zr4r4.html?skin=text-only

(Originally, I was also going to quote Dr. Summers regarding her statement in that opinion piece that women who earn less than the minimum wage would be worse off under The Hon. Tony Abbott M.P.'s paid maternity leave plan compared to the current one (because the current one pays the minimum wage to those women, whereas Mr. Abbott's scheme would pay them, so Dr. Summers thought, only their pre-leave level of income) but it turns out that Dr. Summers was mistaken; see the letter published under the sub-heading "Low paid will benefit" on the Herald's letters page of May 6, 2014 ("Reconsider Bondi brawler's gaming licence") (and that letter has been appended to Dr. Summers' article, with her response to it below it.)

Labels: economics, P.P.L., work

6. A few recent items regarding divorce

6.1 The late Prof. Becker on no-fault divorce

See the opinion piece "Exposing the dangers of welfare", by Mr. Adam Creighton, dated May 9, 2014, downloaded from (behind the paywall at) The Australian's website:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/exposing-the-dangers-of-welfare/story-fnc2jivw-1226910947505

Labels: divorce, law, marriage

6.2 "DIVORCE and family breakdowns are costing the national economy more than $14 billion a year in government assistance payments and court costs"

The quotation, including the capitals and bold type, in that headline comes from the article "Divorce is costing the Australian economy $14 billion a year", by Lauren Wilson and Lisa Cornish, dated July 6, 2014, downloaded from the Herald Sun's website:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/divorce-is-costing-the-australian-economy-14-billion-a-year/story-fni0dqfm-1226979027353

(That article came to my attention via this blog post by Mr. Muehlenberg.)

Labels: divorce, marriage

6.3 Mr. Creighton on no-fault divorce

See the opinion piece "Divorced wives deserve compensation for hardship", by Mr. Adam Creighton, dated July 11, 2014, downloaded from (behind the paywall at) The Australian's website:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/divorced-wives-deserve-compensation-for-hardship/story-fnc2jivw-1226984851502

Labels: divorce, law, marriage

7. A couple of recent Gay/sport items

7.1 In order "to send a clear message" about discrimination, the National Rubgy League penalised, with a two-match ban and a requirement "to attend an anti-vilification education and awareness program", a player "for breaching the League’s anti-vilification policy" by calling another player "Gay" (though the player called "Gay" isn't Gay)

The first two quotations in that headline come from the article "Mitchell Moses has been banned for two matches for breaking the NRL’s anti-­vilification policy", by Mr. Dean Ritchie, dated May 5, 2014, downloaded from the Sydney Daily Telegraph's website:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl/mitchell-moses-has-been-banned-for-two-matches-for-breaking-the-nrls-antivilification-policy/story-fni3fbgz-1226906300123

(That article came to my attention via the version printed under the headline "Young Wests Tiger's two-week ban for homophobic slur", by the same author, on p. 67 in the "NRL" pages of the "SPORT" section of The Daily Telegraph, Tuesday, May 6, 2014, ISSN 1038-8745, published by Nationwide News Pty. Ltd.) The third quotation comes from the press releases "NRL suspends player for homophobic remark" and "Moses banned for two games for homophobic comment", neither of which has a byline, both dated Monday, May 5, 2014, both downloaded from NRL.com:

http://www.nrl.com/nrl-suspends-player-for-homophobic-remark/tabid/10874/newsid/78159/default.aspx

http://www.nrl.com/moses-banned-for-two-games-for-homophobic-comment/tabid/10874/newsid/78160/default.aspx

See also the opinion piece "NRL bosses are totally gay", by Miranda Devine, p. 13, The Daily Telegraph, Wednesday, May 7, 2014, ISSN 1038-8745, published by Nationwide News Pty. Ltd., available online under the same headline, by the same author, but dated Tuesday, May 6, 2014, at Ms Devine's blog:

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/mirandadevine/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/nrl_bosses_are_totally_gay/

Labels: G.L.B.T., sport

7.2 "Our sponsorship of the Bingham Cup [a rugby union competition for gay players] has been a catalyst for change: we were able to use our leverage as a major advertiser to persuade the main sporting codes to sign up to an anti-homophobia policy, which they all did at the bank a few weeks ago."

The quotation, including the square-bracketed interpolation, in that headline comes from the appendix "SMASHING THE GLASS CLOSET" to the article "Don't ask, don't tell", by Jane Wheatley, dated June 7, 2014, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/dont-ask-dont-tell-20140602-39d0g.html?skin=text-only

(The sub-section (presumably minus any editorial interpolations) from which that quotation comes is attributed to Andrew Hall, "head of corporate affairs at the Commonwealth Bank", so the pronoun "we" and the possessives refer to the Commonwealth Bank.)

(That appendix and article came to my attention via the versions printed under the same respective headlines, with the same respective authors, on, respectively, p. 25 and pp. 22-25 of Good Weekend magazine, June 7, 2014, published by Fairfax Media Publications Pty. Ltd., inserted in The Sydney Morning Herald, Weekend Edition, June 7-8, 2014, Issue No. 55118, ISSN 0312-6315, published by Fairfax Media Publications Pty. Ltd.)

Labels: G.L.B.T., sport

8. Some recent items regarding abortion

8.1 "UP to 23,000 abortions take place in Victoria each year", as at 2008, and "180 late-term abortions were carried out in 2005 on healthy fetuses for "psycho-social" reasons"

The quotations in that headline come from the article "Victoria is Australia's abortion 'capital'", by Laurie Nowell, dated June 1, 2008, downloaded from the Herald Sun website:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/victoria-abortion-capital/story-e6frf7kx-1111116500184

(That article came to my attention via this blog post by Mr. Gaynor.)

Labels: abortion, Victoria

8.2 "In 2009 there were 154 stillbirths related to termination of pregnancy for congenital abnormality and 42 neonatal deaths where the parents decided to have labour induced early resulting in the early birth of their infant (Table 96)."

The quotation in that headline comes from p. 111 of the Annual report for the year 2009, by the Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity, ISSN 1327-4473, authorised and published by H.M. Victorian Government, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, July 2012, © Copyright, State of Victoria, Department of Health 2012, downloaded from the "Document library" at the official website of the Department of Health, Victoria, Australia:

http://docs.health.vic.gov.au/docs/doc/Annual-Report-for-the-Year-2009-%28including-Births-in-Victoria%29--Full-Report

or go straight hither:

http://docs.health.vic.gov.au/docs/doc/C3F3B2341D9B4F99CA257A5C00099475/$FILE/1202025_CCOPMM_AR_2009_WEB.pdf

(That report came to my attention via this blog post by Mr. Gaynor.)

Labels: abortion, Victoria

8.3 "Of the 51 neonatal deaths[ in South Australia in 2008], 42 (82.4%) were lowbirthweight babies and 10 resulted from terminations of pregnancy."

The quotation, excluding the squate-bracketed interpolation, in that headline comes from p. 24 (p. 28 in your reader) of Maternal, Perinatal and Infant Mortality in South Australia 2008, by the Maternal, Perinatal and Infant Mortality Committee of the Pregnancy Outcome Unit of SA Health, H.M South Australian Government, ISSN 1032-4801, published by SA Health, H.M South Australian Government, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, November 2009, © SA Health, downloaded from the official SA Health website:

http://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/6f561300440868f38a40aa5fc19a2cbb/mortalityreport-operations-sahaelth-2008.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=6f561300440868f38a40aa5fc19a2cbb

(That report came to my attention via the comment by Heidi on May 10, 2014 at 6:52 pm in the combox of a blog post by Mr. Gaynor.)

Labels: abortion, S.A.

8.4 Some up-to-date figures on contraception and abortion in Australia

See pp. 149 ff. and 195 ff. (but add 18 to desired page numbers when typing them into your reader's page number field) of the report Reproductive and sexual health in Australia, no author credited, ISBN 978 1 877026 29 4, published by Family Planning NSW, Sydney, N.S.W., Australia, 2013, © Family Planning NSW 2013, downloaded from Family Planning NSW's website:

Warning: Given the subject matter, beware of potentially scandalous terminology:

http://www.fpnsw.org.au/688423_21_13559012.html

Or go straight hither:

http://www.fpnsw.org.au/rshinaust_book_webedition_1.pdf

(That report came to my attention via this or this Herald article.)

Labels: abortion, contraception

9. "the more children a family has, the less likely it is that both parents will remain in paid employment. Therefore, encouraging larger families will increase the number of future workers and taxpayers, including women."

The quotation, including its italics, in that headline comes from the article "CHILD CARE INQUIRY: Should parents or paid strangers raise children?", by Mr. John Ballantyne, dated May 10, 2014, downloaded from News Weekly's website:

http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=56572

Labels: economics, families

10. "The early moderns wanted to get rid of formal and final causes as immanent features of nature, and thus replaced them with the notion of “laws of nature” conceived of as externally imposed divine decrees."

The quotation in that headline comes from the blog post "School’s out forever?", by Dr. Edward Feser, dated Friday, May 2, 2014, downloaded from his eponymous blog:

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/05/schools-out-forever.html

Labels: philosophy, science

11. "a quarter of our students[, i.e., of pupils in nominally Catholic schools in New South Wales,] are not Catholic", and "[a]t 44 per cent, SA Catholic schools have the highest proportion of students from non-Catholic backgrounds of any mainland state" ("[t]he national average is 29 per cent")

The first quotation, excluding my square-bracketed interpolation, in that headline comes from the letter published under the heading "Not weeds, flowers", from Dr. Brian Croke ("executive director, Catholic Education Commission NSW"), on the May 22, 2014 letters page (headline: "Tony Abbott lacks John Howard's bravery in facing Deakin University protesters"), downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-letters/tony-abbott-lacks-john-howards-bravery-in-facing-deakin-university-protesters-20140521-zrjwl.html?skin=text-only

The last two quotations, excluding my square-bracketed replacement of capital letters with lower-case ones, in that headline come from the article "Big growth in number of non-Catholics attending Catholic schools in SA", no byline, dated June 1, 2014, downloaded from news.com.au:

http://www.news.com.au/national/south-australia/big-growth-in-number-of-noncatholics-attending-catholic-schools-in-sa/story-fnii5yv4-1226939166470

(That article came to my attention via this CathNews post.)

Labels: Catholic schools

12. "It is significant that at a time when the federal Coalition government is cutting support for single-income two-parent families by cutting Family Tax Benefit B and increasing costs of medical treatment and pharmaceuticals, it is increasing spending on institutionalised child care (primarily used by two-income families), on top of its paid parental leave scheme which is also a subsidy for two-income families."

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "CANBERRA OBSERVED: Single-income families bear the brunt of Budget pain", no byline, dated May 24, 2014, downloaded from News Weekly's website:

http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=56587

Labels: childcare, economics, families, tax

13. Mr. Muehlenberg with some recent items regarding Gaiety

See the blog post "Truth-Telling and Homosexuality", by Mr. Bill Muehlenberg, dated June 9, 2014, downloaded from his CultureWatch blog:

http://billmuehlenberg.com/2014/06/09/truth-telling-and-homosexuality/

(And read the comments there, especially the one by Dr. van Gend.)

Labels: G.L.B.T., mental health

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Confessor, A.D. 2014

Notes: Wednesday, December 4-Tuesday, December 31, 2013 (part 1 of 3)

1. "The location of the site of Golgotha and the tomb of Jesus is solidly attested by a critically tested pre-Constantinian tradition. Both are enclosed in the Holy Sepulchre church."

The quotation in that headline was attributed to the late The Rev. Dr. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor O.P. in the feature article "Fr Jerome Murphy-O’Connor: Why scholarship trumps archaeology", by Jill Hamilton, dated Wednesday, November 13, 2013, downloaded from CatholicHerald.co.uk:

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/features/2013/11/13/father-jerome-murphy-oconnor-why-scholarship-trumps-archaeology/

Labels: history

2. "By 1990, support for abortion rights became the one issue on which the leadership of the Democratic Party would tolerate no deviation among members seeking high state or national office."

The quotation in that headline comes from the feature article "Kennedy: the man who led Catholics to a new frontier", by Kenneth L. Woodward, dated November 14, 2013, downloaded from The Tablet's website:

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/827/kennedy-the-man-who-led-catholics-to-a-new-frontier

Labels: Democratic Party (U.S.)

3. A couple of recent items regarding legalisation of Gay Marriage

3.1 "A strong majority in staunchly Catholic Croatia voted on Sunday[ (presumably December 1, 2013)] to outlaw same-sex marriage"

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "Croatians vote to outlaw gay marriage", by Lajla Veselica, dated December 2, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/croatians-vote-to-outlaw-gay-marriage-20131202-2ym69.html?skin=text-only

Labels: Croatia, G.L.B.T., law, marriage

3.2 "Utah became the 18th US state to legalise gay marriage, just one day after New Mexico became the 17th."

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "How Duck Dynasty exposed a new Christmas culture war", by Nick O'Malley, dated December 4, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website (though the original text had the "th"s after "18" and "17" as superscripts):

http://www.smh.com.au/world/how-duck-dynasty-exposed-a-new-christmas-culture-war-20131224-hv6qm.html?skin=text-only

See also the article "Utah to force justices to revisit same-sex marriage", by Adam Litpak, dated December 27, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/utah-to-force-justices-to-revisit-samesex-marriage-20131227-hv6zu.html?skin=text-only

(That article was also printed under the headline "Utah's same-sex ruling highlights speed of change", with the same author, on p. 11 in the "WORLD REPORT" section of The Sydney Morning Herald, Weekend Edition, December 28-29, 2013, No. 54981, ISSN 0312-6315.)

Labels: G.L.B.T., law, marriage, U.S.A.

4. A couple of recent items regarding legalisation of sodomy

4.1 "Homosexual sex is illegal, and punishable by life in prison, India’s highest court has ruled."

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "Gay sex ruled illegal by India's highest court", by Ben Doherty, dated December 12, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/gay-sex-ruled-illegal-by-indias-highest-court-20131211-hv5b7.html?skin=text-only

Labels: G.L.B.T., India, law

4.2 "Uganda has passed an anti-gay bill that imposes life sentences for some homosexual acts."

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "Life sentence for gay Ugandans", no byline (though the source is the London Daily Telegraph), dated December 22, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/life-sentence-for-gay-ugandans-20131221-2zrzt.html?skin=text-only

Labels: G.L.B.T., law, Uganda

5. On Wednesday, December 4, 2013, at Buckingham Palace, H.M. The Queen handed Lord Guthrie His Lordship's Field Marshal's Baton.

See the Court Circular of the day. For a good, clear, but rather small image of the Baton, see Her Majesty's official flickr account:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/britishmonarchy/11219672955/

Labels: British Army

6. "we are finding more Anglicans than Catholics in high-fee Catholic schools, and as many Catholics as Anglicans in high-fee independent schools"

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "Demographics change the schools game", by John Black, dated December 7, 2013, downloaded from The Australian's website:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/demographics-change-the-schools-game/story-fn59nlz9-1226777459375

(That article came to my attention via the version printed under the same headline and with the same byline on p. 29 in the "INQUIRER" section of The Weekend Australian, December 7-8, 2013, First Edition, No. 15286, ISSN 1038-8761, published by Nationwide News Pty. Limited.)

Labels: Catholic schools

7. Prof. Williams on abortion law in Australia

See the opinion piece "Decriminalise abortion: pro-choice in practice is not the same as legal protection", by Prof. George Williams, dated December 3, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/decriminalise-abortion-prochoice-in-practice-is-not-the-same-as-legal-protection-20131202-2ym16.html?skin=text-only

Labels: abortion, law

8. "The unspoken truth about marriage and kids"

The quotation in that headline is the headline of an opinion piece by Bettina Arndt, dated December 16, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-unspoken-truth-about-marriage-and-kids-20131215-2zf3f.html?skin=text-only

In that opinion piece, Ms Arndt restates, in a shorter form, some of what she wrote in the article about which I blogged in item 3.2 of this Notes post.

Labels: cohabitation, demography, marriage, social trends, vice

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Tuesday in the Octave of Christmas, and the feast of St. Sylvester I., Pope, Confessor, A.D. 2013

Notes: Wednesday, June 26-Monday, August 5, 2013 (part 1 of 2)

1. A couple of recent items regarding Australian foreign policy and Feminism, abortion, and contraception

1.1 What AusAID's Feminism-abortion-contraception training programmes look like

See the article "Ladies dispense tough justice", by Rosemary Neill, dated June 29, 2013, downloaded from The Australian's website:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/ladies-dispense-tough-justice/story-e6frg6z6-1226671595465

(That article came to my attention via the version printed under the same headline and with the same byline on p. 24 of the "INQUIRER" section of The Weekend Australian, June 29-30, 2013, First Edition, No. 15153, ISSN 1038-8761, published by Nationwide News Pty. Limited.)

See also item 12 of this Notes post and item 1 of this Notes post.

Labels: abortion, contraception, feminism

1.2 Mr.—now Sen.—Carr "makes his case for … Australian foreign aid tied to population control policies."

At the end of last year, I logged, in item 7 of this Notes post, Sen. The Hon. Bob Carr, Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs, writing that

On the Security Council we'll be working for the rights of women and girls - to education, training and jobs, and to maternal and reproductive healthcare. Its what we're already doing in Myanmar, Indonesia and elsewhere in the Asia Pacific.

The following quotation—Sen. Carr's answer, presumably in late 1999 or early 2000 (when Sen. Carr was The Hon. Bob Carr M.P., Premier of New South Wales), to an interview question—might shed some light on Sen. Carr's motives for that work:

Well, all our foreign aid has got to be made dependent on population control policies in these countries[, i.e., "Third World" countries] and on the empowerment of women. The most useful nexus here is the empowerment of women, their empowerment through legal rights, legal entitlements and education. That's the indicator that most effectively curbs population, and we've got to think about this. We are all citizens of this planet, there is no other planet and NSW is not a region of the Federal Republic of Mars. State leaders are quite entitled to discuss global warming because in the end it affects us all.
[bold type in the original (the interview answers were in bold, the questions not in bold), my interpolation,
interview "populate & perish?", with The Hon. Bob Carr M.P., Premier of New South Wales, downloaded from The University of Sydney's Work and Organisational Studies' "workSite" ("issues in workplace relations") website:
http://worksite.econ.usyd.edu.au/carr.html]

(That interview came to my attention via the Cut & Paste installment "Robert No Headline Carr does a tedious dance before creating a Cut & Paste headline", dated April 15, 2013, downloaded from (behind the paywall at) The Australian's website:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/cut-paste/robert-no-headline-carr-does-a-tedious-dance-before-creating-a-cut-paste-headline/story-fn72xczz-1226620292926)

Labels: abortion, contraception, feminism

2. "In NSW more than 50 per cent of school-age Catholics at-tend non-Catholic schools"

The quotation, including all the dashes (the second of them resulted from the word "attend" spanning two lines), in that headline comes from the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (Archdiocese of Sydney) Noticeboard article "80 attend Northern Mass", no byline, p. 32 (the "Classifieds, What's on and CCD Noticeboard" page), the Sydney Catholic Weekly, Vol. 72, No. 4679, published by The Catholic Press Newspaper Company Pty. Ltd.) (That article is apparently not available online.)

Labels: Catholic schools, education

3. "Ms Plibsersek said two drugs used to terminate pregnancy for medical reasons would also be available through the PBS[ the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme] from 1 August 2013"; those drugs, namely "Mifepristone (Linepharma®) and misoprostol (GyMiso200®)[,] will be subsidised for medical terminations up to 49 days of gestation."

The quotations, excluding my square-bracketed interpolations, in that headline come from the Ministerial media release "New Generation Medicines Added to the PBS", dated June 30, 2013, downloaded from the Ministerial subsite of the Federal Department of Health and Ageing's website:

http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/mr-yr13-tp-tp068.htm

(The Minister in question is the Minister for Health, The Hon. Tanya Plibersek M.P. (who is also the Minister for Medical Research).) See also the article "Julia Gillard's cut-price abortion drug as RU486 slashed to $12", by Samantha Maiden, dated June 30, 2013, downloaded from the Sydney Daily Telegraph's website:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/julia-gillards-cut-price-abortion-drug-as-ru486-slashed-to-12/story-fni0cx12-1226671939686

(That article came to my attention via this blog post by Miss Edwards.) See also the article "‘Horror’ at RU486 move", by Damir Govorcin, dated July 3, 2013, downloaded from the Sydney Catholic Weekly's website:

http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/article.php?classID=1&subclassID=2&articleID=12397&class=News&subclass=CW National

(That article came to my attention via the version printed under the same headline and with the same byline on p. 2 of The Catholic Weekly, July 7, 2013, Vol. 72, No. 4680, published by The Catholic Press Newspaper Company Pty. Ltd.)

Labels: abortion, RU486

4. "Kasper Admits Intentional Ambiguity" (in Vatican II's documents)

The quotation in that headline is the headline of a blog post by Boniface, dated Sunday, April 14, 2013, downloaded from the Unam Sanctam Catholicam blog:

http://unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com/2013/04/kasper-admits-intentional-ambiguity.html

(That post came to my attention via this AQ post.)

Labels: Vatican II, Walter Kasper

5. "The percentage of wives having affairs rose almost 40 percent during the last two decades to 14.7 percent in 2010, while the number of men admitting to extramarital affairs held constant at 21 percent, according to the latest data from the National Opinion Research Centre's General Social Survey."

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "In US, cheating is not just for husbands anymore", by Frank Bass, dated July 2, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/in-us-cheating-is-not-just-for-husbands-anymore-20130702-2p971.html?skin=text-only

Labels: adultery, marriage, social trends, vice

6. Sydney's "Archbishop[ Michael] Kelly had been created count of the Holy Roman Empire and assistant at the Pontifical Throne in 1926."

The quotation, excluding my square-bracketed interpolation, in that headline comes from the Australian Dictionary of Biography entry "Kelly, Michael (1850–1940)", by Patrick O'Farrell:

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kelly-michael-6920

(Msgr. Kelly's creation as Count of the Holy Roman Empire came to my attention via a photo caption in this Catholica post.)

Labels: Holy Roman Empire

7. A couple of recent items regarding the Australian Defence Force

7.1 "THE person behind the stirring speech delivered by army chief Lieutenant General David Morrison in the wake of shocking revelations about an army email sex ring was his transgender speechwriter, Lieutenant Colonel Cate McGregor."

The quotation, including its bold type (it was the first paragraph of an article), in that headline comes from the article "Transgender Lieutenant Colonel Cate McGregor speaks out about abuse and support", by Ian McPhedran, dated July 5, 2013, downloaded from the Sydney Daily Telegraph's website:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/transgender-lieutenant-colonel-cate-mcgregor-speaks-out-about-abuse-and-support/story-fni0xqrc-1226674523255

(That article came to my attention via the version printed under the headline "Courage and true defence of choice", with the same byline, on p. 25 of The Daily Telegraph, Friday, July 5, 2013, Vol 1, No. 2891, ISSN 1038-8745, published by Nationwide News Pty. Ltd.)

See also the blog post "Some jokers are real", by Mr. Bernard Gaynor, dated July 20, 2013, downloaded from his website:

http://bernardgaynor.com.au/some-jokers-are-real/

Labels: A.D.F.

7.2 (More from) Mr. Gaynor on the Australian Defence Force

See the blog post "What I note about the Australian Defence Force", by Mr. Bernard Gaynor, dated June 28, 2013, downloaded from his website:

http://bernardgaynor.com.au/what-i-note-about-the-australian-defence-force/

(That post came to my attention via this True Catholic thread.)

Labels: A.D.F.

8. Mr. Parrett and Prof. Williams on 'separation of Church and State' in Australia

See the letter which was published under the heading "Education funding: Separation of Church and state", by Mr. Colliss Parrett, dated July 3, 2013, downloaded from the Sydney Catholic Weekly's website:

http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/article.php?classID=2&subclassID=5&articleID=12404&class=Comment&subclass=Letters

(That letter came to my attention via the version published under the same heading and by the same author on p. 8 of The Catholic Weekly, Vol. 72, No. 4680, published by the Catholic Press Newspaper Company Pty. Ltd.)

See also the opinion piece "Nation's very foundation built on right to choose own god", by Prof. George Williams, dated July 16, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website, in which Prof. Williams writes that

Australian law establishes a separation between church and state, and provides for religious choice. However, the regime is not complete. The constitutional protections say nothing about the states, which remain free to prefer one religion over another, and can ban the employment of people based upon their beliefs.
[http://www.smh.com.au/comment/nations-very-foundation-built-on-right-to-choose-own-god-20130715-2q05e.html?skin=text-only]

(But see, again, Mr. Parrett's letter, and also Dr. Zankin's letter, headed "Christianity holds sway until we become republic", published on the Herald's letters page of July 17, 2013 (headlined "Rudd, Abbott both fail on real action on climate change").)

Labels: Church and State, law, Constitution

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of The Dedication of Our Lady of the Snows', A.D. 2013

Notes: Wednesday, March 27-Tuesday, April 23, 2013 (part 2 of 2)

8. Some points of interest from "A Profile of the Catholic Community in Australia", March 2013, A.C.B.C. Pastoral Research Office, Australian Catholic University, Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia:

In the following bullet points, the smaller-type parts are quotations from that profile:

• In 2011, the total number of people at Mass in Australia on a typical weekend was about 680,000, only about 12.5 per cent, or one-eighth, of the total number of Catholics. Most of those who attend, about 85 per cent, are there every weekend, but the individuals who make up the other 15 per cent vary from week to week.
  p. 2

• Labels: The 2011 Census tells us that 272,542 Catholic children of primary school age attended Catholic schools, and 210,514 Catholic students of secondary school age attended Catholic schools. That means that 52.8 per cent of Catholic students attend Catholic schools – it’s the same percentage for primary and secondary students. But it also means that almost half of all Catholic students do not attend Catholic schools. Most of these go to Government schools, although six per cent of Catholic primary students and ten per cent of Catholic secondary students attend other non-Government schools.
  p. 3

• The Census also tells us that Catholic students account for 72.5 per cent of Catholic school enrolments.
  
  Another 14.9 per cent are from other Christian traditions, 2.6 per cent belong to a non-Christian religion and 7.8 per cent have no religion.
  p. 3

(The profile came to my attention via the blog post "Going to Mass this Sunday? If so, you are one of less than 12.5% Oz Catholics to do so... ", by Miss Kate Edwards, dated Sunday, April 7, 2013, posted at her Australia Incognita blog:

http://australiaincognita.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/going-to-mass-this-sunday-you-are-one.html)

Regarding the second point: See also the A.C.B.C. Pastoral Research Office's "E-NEWS BULLETIN", Issue No. 3, August 17, 2012, on "Students attending Catholic schools":

http://www.pro.catholic.org.au/pdf/ACBC%20PRO%20E-%20News%20Bulletin%203.pdf

Labels: Catholic schools, demography, social trends

9. "What happens to marriage and families when the law recognises “Same-Sex Marriage”?"

The quotation in that headline is the title of a submission, from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, London, U.K., dated March 1, 2013, to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill Committee of the British House of Commons. The submission is available here:

http://www.spuc.org.uk/campaigns/ssmsub20130301

(That submission came to my attention via the comment of 2.4.13 / 10am by Mr. Gerard Calilhanna in the comments section of Mr. Muehleberg's CultureWatch blog post "Conservatives and Homosexual Marriage", dated March 30, 2013.)

Labels: families, G.L.B.T., marriage

10. Fr. Zuhlsdorf responds to the question of "How should a bishop carry the crosier?"

See the blog post "QUAERITUR: How should a bishop carry the crosier?", by The Rev. Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, dated April 10, 2013, downloaded from Fr. Z's Blog (olim: What Does The Prayer Really Say?):

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2013/04/quaeritur-how-should-a-bishop-carry-the-crosier/

Labels: Hierarchy

11. "Data from the ABS 2006-07 Family Characteristics Survey reveal that around one in four (23%) young adults aged 18-34 years reported experiencing the divorce or permanent separation of their parents before they were 18 years old. In contrast, the same survey revealed that less than one in ten (8%) young adults who were aged 18-34 years in 1976 had experienced parental divorce or permanent separation before they were 18 years old."

The quotation in that headline comes from the "Young adults: Then and now" webpage of "4102.0 - Australian Social Trends, April 2013", downloaded from the website of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (A.B.S.):

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features40April+2013

The relevant section of that webpage refers to the A.B.S.'s "Parental divorce or death in childhood" webpage of "4102.0 - Australian Social Trends, Sep 2010", which is available here:

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features40Sep+2010

Labels: divorce, families, marriage

12. Some points of interest in connection with Rio+20—The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development

Rio+20 came to my attention via the article "$900,000 spent on failed Brazil talkfest", by Mr. Steve Lewis, under a page headline of "158 DAYS TO GO", p. 08, the Sydney Daily Telegraph, Tuesday, April 9, 2013, Vol. 1, No. 2818, ISSN 1038-8745, published by Nationwide News Pty. Ltd., a version of which article is available online under the headline "Julia Gillard's delegation to Brazil for climate change summit cost taxpayers $900,000", by the same author, on the same date, at The Daily Telegraph's website:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/julia-gillards-delegation-to-brazil-for-climate-change-summit-cost-taxpayers-900000/story-fnho52jp-1226615165919

Here are some points of interest to me (the parts in small type are quotations):

• Rio+20 reaffirmed the world’s commitment to women’s equal rights, including in economic and political decision making, and committed to removing barriers to the equal participation of women in sustainable development. Rio+20 agreed to promote equal access by women and girls to education, health care services, and economic opportunities and to ensure universal access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable modern methods of family planning.
  [p. 6, Rio+20 Outcomes for Australia, Australian Government, downloaded from the website of the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population, and Communities:
  http://www.environment.gov.au/about/international/rio-plus20/pubs/rio-outcomes-australia.pdf]

• … The National Women's Health Policy aims to improve the health and wellbeing of all women in Australia and the National Family Planning Program aims to coordinate national family planning efforts, which allow individuals and couples to anticipate and attain their desired number of children through the use of contraceptive methods and the prevention and treatment of involuntary infertility.
  [p. 8, ibid.]

• 145. We call for the full and effective implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, and the outcomes of their review conferences, including the commitments leading to sexual and reproductive health and the promotion and protection of all human rights in this context. We emphasize the need for the provision of universal access to reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes.
  
  146. We commit to reduce maternal and child mortality and to improve the health of women, youth and children. We reaffirm our commitment to gender equality and to protect the rights of women, men and youth to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including access to sexual and reproductive health, free from coercion, discrimination and violence. We will work actively to ensure that health systems provide the necessary information and health services addressing the sexual and reproductive health of women, including by working towards universal access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable modern methods of family planning, as this is essential for women’s health and advancing gender equality.
  [p. 28, The future we want (annexed to the United Nations General Assembly resolution "66/288. The future we want", 123rd plenary meeting, July 27, 2012, downloaded from the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development website:
  http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N11/476/10/PDF/N1147610.pdf?OpenElement]

• 241. We are committed to promote the equal access of women and girls to education, basic services, economic opportunities and health-care services, including addressing women’s sexual and reproductive health, and ensuring universal access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable modern methods of family planning. In this regard, we reaffirm our commitment to implement the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the key actions for the further implementation of the Programme of Action.
  [p. 46, ibid.]

• … nearly half of Australia´s aid expenditure in 2009-10 was in support of activities promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women.
  [from the "Address to the High Level Summit of the Women Leaders' Forum on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Sustainable Development, Rio de Janeiro" by The Hon. Julia Gillard M.P., dated Thursday, June 21, 2013, downloaded from the "Press Office" section of the Prime Minister's website:
  http://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/address-high-level-summit-women-leaders-forum-gender-eqaulity-and-womens-empowerment-su
  According to the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID),
  Nearly half of the overall aid program is invested in activities that have either a primary or secondary objective of promoting gender equality and empowering women. …
  [p. 17, Promoting opportunities for all: Gender equality and women’s empowerment[; ]Thematic Strategy November 2011, published by AusAID, Canberra, A.C.T., Australia, December 2011, © Commonwealth of Australia 2011, downloaded from AusAID's website:
  http://www.ausaid.gov.au/aidissues/Documents/thematic-strategies/gender-equality-strategy.pdf]]

• Today[, Friday, June 22, 2012,] the plenary adopted the Rio+20 outcomes document - with Australia’s priorities well reflected. …
  [p. 1, Australia at Rio+20, downloaded from the website of the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population, and Communities:
  http://www.environment.gov.au/about/international/rio-plus20/pubs/rio-daily-updates.pdf]

For more on Australian Government foreign-affairs activity regarding Feminism, abortion, and contraception, see item 1 of this Notes post and item 7 of this Notes post.

Labels: abortion, contraception, feminism, U.N.O.

13. According to New Zealand's "Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act 2013", "marriage means the union of 2 people, regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity".

The second quotation, including the bold type, in that headline comes from p. 2 of the PDF document which you can download from this webpage at the New Zealand Legislation website:

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2013/0020/latest/DLM4505003.html

Labels: G.L.B.T., marriage, New Zealand

14. "As well as the changes to succession, the bill would limit those who needed the monarch's consent to marry to only the first six in line to the throne."

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "Queensland warned for dragging heels on royal succession changes", by Judith Ireland, dated April 18, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/queensland-warned-for-dragging-heels-on-royal-succession-changes-20130417-2i0lb.html?skin=text-only

Labels: monarchy

Reginaldvs Cantvar
St. George's Day, A.D. 2013

Notes: Wednesday, February 13-Tuesday, March 26, 2013 (part 1 of 2)

1. "Vatican Apostolic Library uploads 256 digitized manuscripts"

See the article "Vatican Apostolic Library uploads 256 digitized manuscripts", no author credited, dated January 30, 2013, downloaded from the Rome Reports website:

http://www.romereports.com/palio/vatican-apostolic-library-uploads-256-digitized-manuscripts-english-8886.html

or go straight to the relevant webpage of the Apostolic Library's website:

http://www.vaticanlibrary.va/home.php?pag=mss_digitalizzati

(That Rome Reports article came to my attention via this Catholica thread-starter.)

Labels: books

2. "these two documents, on religious freedom and Nostra Aetate, linked to Gaudium et Spes, make a very important trilogy"

The quotation, including its italics and hyperlinks, in that headline comes from the Vatican website's translation of the Address of H.H. The Pope Emeritus (then gloriously reigning) at the Meeting with the Parish Priests and the Clergy of the Rome Diocese on Thursday, February 14, 2013 in the Paul VI. Audience Hall. (That Address came to my attention via this article from the Vatican Radio website.)

Labels: Dignitatis Humanæ, Vatican II

3. "about one in five students at Sydney Catholic schools comes from other faith backgrounds or is not religious"

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "School choice is not just keeping the faith", by Josephine Tovey and Georgina Mitchell, dated February 18, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/school-choice-is-not-just-keeping-the-faith-20130217-2el4a.html?skin=text-only

That quotation is the authors' report of what "the executive director of Catholic schools for the Archdiocese of Sydney, Dan White", told them.

Labels: Catholic schools

4. Mr. Gutierrez on how, in his opinion, "Dignitatis Humanae, the Council document on religious freedom, represented a development of Church teaching, not a reversal of it."

See the article "Vatican II and Religious Liberty", by Omar F. A. Gutierrez, dated January 14, 2013, downloaded from The Catholic World Report website:

http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/1883/Vatican_II_and_Religious_Liberty.aspx

(That article came to my attention via this True Catholic thread.)

Labels: Dignitatis Humanæ, religious liberty

5. A couple of recent items regarding the death penalty

5.1 A potentially useful website on the death penalty

See here:

http://tcreek.jimdo.com/

(That came to my attention via this comment.)

Labels: death penalty

5.2 Prof. Feser on the death penalty

See his blog post "Capital punishment lecture", dated Wednesday, March 13, 2013:

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/capital-punishment-lecture.html

(I log that post because Prof. Feser doesn't use subject labels for his blog posts, so if I need to see what he's written on the topic I can refer to that post.)

Labels: death penalty

6. "All [U.S. ]states are within a couple of percentage points of the overall LGBT national average of 3.5%."

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "LGBT Percentage Highest in D.C., Lowest in North Dakota", by Gary J. Gates and Frank Newport, dated February 15, 2013, downloaded from the Gallup Politics website:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/160517/lgbt-percentage-highest-lowest-north-dakota.aspx

See also the press release "LGBT Percentages Highest in Washington, DC, and Hawaii", no author credited, dated February 15, 2013, downloaded from the website of The Williams Institute (a "national think tank at UCLA Law", which (think tank) "is dedicated to conducting rigorous, independent research on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy"):

http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/press-releases/lgbt-percentages-highest-in-washington-dc-and-hawaii/

(I found both that article and that press release at this Williams Institute webpage, and the findings originally came to my attention via this or this Sydney Morning Herald article.)

Labels: demography, G.L.B.T.

7. The report, by one of the (Australian) Senate Standing Committees on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, on the Exposure Draft of the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012 is available here:

http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate_Committees?url=legcon_ctte/anti_discrimination_2012/report/index.htm

(That report came to my attention via the article "Criminals on payroll", by Natasha Bita, p. 19, the Sydney Daily Telegraph, Friday, February 22, 2013, Vol. 1, No. 2779, ISSN 1038-8745, published by Nationwide News Pty. Ltd., available online under the headline "Crime doesn't pay, unless you're promoted", by the same author, dated February 22, 2013, at The Daily Telegraph's website here:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/crime-doesnt-pay-unless-youre-promoted/story-fncvk70o-1226583085494)

Labels: discrimination, human rights, law

8. A couple of recent items regarding the 2013 Sydney Gay Mardi Gras

8.1 "Mardi Gras spending" "has already been given more than $600,000 in funding and in-kind works from the [Sydney City ]council"

(Presumably the $600000 refers to this year's funding, rather than the funding over all the years during which the Council has been funding it. I say that because in this "Facts and figures" post from early 2009 I logged that Sydney City Council was spending $240000 in cash and in-kind support, collectively, on the Mardi Gras that year; even assuming that the nominal value of the support hasn't increased, clearly it would have greatly exceeded $600000 just for the years 2009, 2010, and 2011, collectively.)

The quotations in that heading come from the comment piece "This is a rainbow that's costing us a pot of gold", by Vikki Campion, immediately below her article "$110,000 wasted with gay abandon at Taylor Square", dated February 27, 2013, downloaded from the Sydney Daily Telegraph's website:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/wasted-with-gay-abandon-at-taylor-square/story-e6freuy9-1226586361494

(The information in this Notes item's headline came to my attention via the comment piece "A pot of gold to pay for rainbow" (commenting on the article "$110,000 wasted with gay abandon", by the same author, immediately above the comment piece), by Vikki Campion, p. 16, the Sydney Daily Telegraph, Wednesday, February 27, 2013, Vol. 1, No. 2783, ISSN 1038-8745, published by Nationwide News Pty. Ltd.)

Labels: G.L.B.T., Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

8.2 "Gay members of Australia's defence force (ADF) marched in their uniforms for the first time"

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "Mardi Gras celebrates its founders in Sydney", no byline, dated March 3, 2013, downloaded from The Australian's website:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/mardi-gras-celebrates-its-founders-in-sydney/story-e6frg6nf-1226589176589

The article also reports that one of those who marched in uniform, namely the R.A.A.F.'s Squadron Leader Vince Chong

said the decision to allow members to march, reflected the ADF's policy to encourage more workplace inclusion.

“It shows the priority that's been placed on diversion and inclusion in the Australian Defence Force. This is just the start of many things to come under the pathway to change. We will see more and more about generating a culture of inclusion.”

Labels: A.D.F., G.L.B.T., Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

9.1 Dr. van Gend on how "making abortion legal or illegal has never, historically, made the slightest detectable difference to the safety of women", because "medicine alone, not the law, has achieved all the magnificent gains in maternal safety."

See the article "Backyard distortions", by Dr. David van Gend, downloaded from the website of Life Ministries:

http://lifeministries.org.au/internal.php?content_id=125

(That article came to my attention via the comment of 17.2.13 / 3pm by one Philip J. Rayment in the comments section of this blog post by Mr. Muehlenberg.)

Labels: abortion

9.2 Dr. Summers on recent changes in pro-abortion rhetoric:

… the words[ "safe, legal and rare"] were removed from the Democratic Party platform in 2008. No one uses them any more and for a very good reason: women find them offensive.

Dawn Laguens, of US Planned Parenthood, said earlier this year that language about making abortion ''rare'' polled very poorly because women found it judgmental and shaming.

Similarly, Planned Parenthood has made the momentous decision to drop the language of ''pro-choice'' after research that shows most Americans feels the pro-choice/pro-life polarity fails to represent the actual complications of what it's like to find yourself with an unwanted pregnancy. Women complained that the word ''choice'' made the decision seem frivolous.
["Abortion zealots a risk for Abbott", by Dr. Anne Summers A.O., dated March 16, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/abortion-zealots-a-risk-for-abbott-20130315-2g5sn.html?skin=text-only
Dr. Summers' article is also available at the same website and with the same date under the headline "It's a woman's right to choose":
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/its-a-womans-right-to-choose-20130317-2g8d8.html?skin=text-only]

(That article came to my attention via the version printed under the headline "Abortion zealots a risk for Abbott", by the same author, on p. 12 in the "OPINION" pages of the "News Review" supplement of The Sydney Morning Herald, Weekend Edition, March 16-17, 2013, No. 54738, ISSN 0312-6315.)

Labels: abortion

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Tuesday in Holy Week, A.D. 2013

"the Holocaust [will] now be included in the mandatory world history overview for years 9 and 10 in the new national [Australian ]curriculum"

See

• "Study of Holocaust mandated for schools", by Anna Patty, dated December 8, 2012, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:
  http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/study-of-holocaust-mandated-for-schools-20121207-2b10k.html?skin=text-only
  That article came to my attention via the version published under the same headline and with the same byline on p. 7 of the main "NEWS" section of the Weekend Edition of The Sydney Morning Herald, December 8-9, 2012, No. 54656, ISSN 0312-6315. Note that the first paragraph of the print version differs from that of the current online version. This is my transcription of the first paragraph of the print version:
  

  THE study of the Holocaust will become compulsory for all NSW school students in years 9 and 10 after a lobbying campaign by the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies prompted the state government to include it in the syllabus.

  Google searching indicates that the websites of some of Fairfax's regional mastheads still carry the original version, but, oddly, when I went to the web-pages for the first three of those newspapers to come up in the results, the first paragraph was the new one.
  I'm not sure why Fairfax made that 'clarification'. Perhaps the Jewish Board of Deputies did not alone prompt the curriculum change, but surely it was indeed a factor (and perhaps the decisive one) in the prompting of that change? Maybe the Herald made the 'clarification' because the Australian Curriculum, Assessment, and Reporting Authority (A.C.A.R.A.) is a Federal rather than a State organ, and the Jewish Board of Deputies' lobbying was of the New South Wales (State) organs, the Board of Studies and (State, not Federal, judging by the context) Department of Education. But that would just mean that the influence of the Jewish Board of Deputies over the Federally-set curriculum was indirect—passing by way of the aforementioned State organs—rather than direct; but then, the 'clarified' first paragraph still says that "the Jewish Board of Deputies lobbied the state government for the curriculum change" (my emphasis), and it's the Federal organ, the A.C.A.R.A., which sets the curriculum, which (curriculum) New South Wales, and presumably the other States and Territories, implements through new syllabuses.

• "Holocaust study to be compulsory for NSW students", by Simon Benson, dated December 8, 2012, downloaded from the Sydney Daily Telegraph's website:
  http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/holocaust-study-to-be-compulsory-for-nsw-students/story-e6freuy9-1226532472597
  That article came to my attention via this blog post, which I found while Google searching key words from the Herald article.

• "Holocaust to be part of Catholic syllabus", by Damir Govorcin, downloaded from the Sydney Catholic Weekly's website:
  http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/article.php?classID=1&subclassID=3&articleID=11402&class=Latest%20News&subclass=CW%20World
  That article came to my attention via its printing under the same headline and with the same byline on p. 5 of the Sydney Catholic Weekly, December 16, 2012, Vol. 75, No. 4652, published by The Catholic Press Newspaper Company Pty. Ltd.

Mr. Benson was one of the participants in "the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies’ annual Journalists Mission to Israel" last November. Another participant in that "study tour" was the editor of the Herald for the day on which Ms Patty's article was published, namely, Judith Whelan. (The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council was also involved with that tour, though it was the N.S.W. Jewish Board of Deputies, not the A.I.J.A.C., which sponsored Ms Whelan and Mr. Benson. (The A.I.J.A.C. sponsored other journalists on the same tour.)) As for Mr. Govorcin, the only person named as a source in his article, namely, Anthony Cleary, was a couple of years ago a recipient of "a scholarship from the Gandel Foundation and Yad Vashem" for attending an international programme in Jerusalem in order "to develop a greater understanding of the Holocaust which he can then share with teachers and students in Australia".

Here is how I would summarise the information in the three articles:

• From 2014, it will be mandatory for all Australian Year 9 and 10 History pupils to study "the Holocaust … as a major world event along with World War II in the 20th-century world history curriculum."

• That comes after private lobbying of a very favourably-disposed New South Wales Board of Studies and Department of Education by the N.S.W. Jewish Board of Deputies for at least about three years, concluding in November 2012, though the Board of Deputies made no public submission to the Board of Studies during the consultation phase for the drafting of the new New South Wales syllabus (by which New South Wales, and presumably the other States and Territories, mutatis mutandis, implements the new national curriculum).

• The mandatory inclusion means that Australian classes "will mirror compulsory Holocaust classes in most US states, the UK and many European countries".

• The N.S.W. Jewish Board of Deputies "is now calling on the Gillard government to join about 28 other Western nations and sign up to the Task Force for International Co-operation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research."

• As for nominally Catholic schools, the mandatory inclusion "has the capacity to try to advance genuine inter-faith dialogue and relations, says Anthony Cleary, director of religious education and evangelisation for the Catholic Education Office Sydney."

• Mr. Cleary also says that “The Catholic Education Office has a wonderful working relationship with the NSW Board of Jewish Deputies and we consider that this would be another project that we could work in partnership on.”

Finally, here are a few links to related material which I found through Google, together with their respective excerpts of interest in the present context:

• http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/12/16/3114606/holocaust-to-be-part-of-australias-national-curriculum
  

  The move follows a submission first lodged by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry in 2010 for the framework of the new national curriculum.

• http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/schools-failing-to-teach-on-holocaust/story-e6frg6nf-1111116872017
  

  The only mention of the Holocaust in the NSW syllabus for Years 7-10 is in the beginning, with the rationale for the course starting with a quotation from a Holocaust survivor about the importance of learning history.[ … ]The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies said yesterday it had been concerned for some time about the omission of the Holocaust from school history, and was working with the education department and the board of studies on the issue.

• http://forum.codoh.info/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7454&sid=55fa821447011d7f0db790cf327fae26&start=15
  

  On 16 October 2012, the Board of Studies NSW released the new History K-10 syllabus incorporating the Australian curriculum content descriptions.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
9.I.2013

Notes: Wednesday, December 7-Tuesday, December 20, 2011

1. "If present trends continue, Europe and Japan will lose half their population by the end of the century"

http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/article.php?classID=3&subclassID=7&articleID=9327&class=Features&subclass=Cardinal's Comment

Labels: demography

2. Several web-pages on or relating to a recent development in U.S. foreign policy

2.1 "US ready to push for gay rights abroad"

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/obama-warns-world-against-gay-and-lesbian-discrimination/story-e6frg6so-1226215897814

http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-ready-to-push-for-gay-rights-abroad-20111207-1ojak.html?skin=text-only

http://www.smh.com.au/world/rights-of-gays-to-figure-in-us-foreign-aid-20111207-1oj4l.html?skin=text-only

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40020

http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2011/12/09/obama-the-real-ugly-american/

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/12/06/presidential-memorandum-international-initiatives-advance-human-rights-l

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40069

http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2011/12/14/yet-another-ugly-american/

Labels: G.L.B.T., human rights, U.S.A.

2.2 "Nigeria’s bishops praise ban on public expression of homosexuality"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40081

Labels: G.L.B.T., Hierarchy, Nigeria

2.3 "[U.S.] Senate blocks El Salvador ambassador over homosexual-rights advocacy"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40099

Labels: G.L.B.T., U.S.A.

3. On two recent court cases involving polyamory:

Two court cases, one in Canada last month and one in Australia earlier in the year, show that while British-based law remains resolute against multiple partner marriage, it accepts that a common law threesome is not illegal or even necessarily family-unfriendly.

In the Canadian case, British Columbia Chief Justice Robert Bauman upheld Canada's anti-polygamy law, but left polyamorous families free from sanction if they do not commit an overt act of multiple marriage.

The Australian case involved a man whose wife had left him for another man and a woman, and taken the children. When the trio set up house together, mingled their respective offspring, and shared the same bedroom, the jilted husband applied to the court seeking an urgent order that the children be removed from the "immoral" household.

But magistrate Philip Burchardt rejected the application, saying the threesome seemed to be "thoroughly decent and honest people" and "I do not regard the relationship . . . as being damaging to the children."
[ellipsis in the original,
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/three-in-marriage-bed-more-of-a-good-thing/story-e6frg6z6-1226218569577]

(See here for Mr. Muehlenberg's reaction to that Weekend Australian article.)

Labels: families, marriage, polyamory

4. "Under a new policy approved by Pope Benedict XVI, the heads of other Roman dicasteries who wish to apply to the Pontiff for "special faculties" to handle problems outside the normal processes of canon law must apply through the Secretary of State, rather than appealing directly to the Pope"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40051

You can read the relevant Rescript, in its original Italian, on pp. 127-128 (pp. 41-42 of your browser) of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, here.

Labels: Roman Curia

5. "[Catholic] School forced to take same-sex couple's daughter"

http://www.smh.com.au/national/school-forced-to-take-samesex-daughter-20111214-1ou92.html?skin=text-only

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/senior-bishop-orders-school-to-reverse-ban/story-e6frg6so-1226221684482

Related coverage:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/school-rejects-daughter-of-same-sex-couple/story-e6frg6nf-1226221339567

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40072

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=29441

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=29456

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=29483

http://coo-eesfromthecloister.blogspot.com/2011/12/bishop-lesbians-and-poor-little-child.html

http://australiaincognita.blogspot.com/2011/12/holy-father-please-terminate-mandate-of.html

http://australiaincognita.blogspot.com/2011/12/campaign-to-abolish-religious.html

Labels: Catholic schools, G.L.B.T.

6. Dr. Arndt on the inadequacies of research findings which purport to show that children in the custody of same-sex couples do at least as well as those of opposite-sex ones:

It has never made sense that gay parents complain of prejudice and exclusion and in the same breath propose their children are suffering no adverse consequences. In fact, in recent years the research allegedly supporting these rosy claims has come under scrutiny and found to be sorely lacking.

"The methods are so flawed that these studies prove nothing," say Robert Lerner and Althea Nagai, experts in qualitative analysis.

"Not a single one of these studies was conducted according to generally accepted standards of scientific research," concludes sociology professor Steven Nock.

Most of the scholarship on gay parenting is conducted by researchers sympathetic to gay concerns and fails to include proper controls, relies on very small samples and uses unreliable or invalid measures.

The reality is that while resilient children may do well despite the prejudice many encounter, others have a hard time.
[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/prejudice-can-make-life-miserable-for-children-with-same-sex-parents/story-e6frgd0x-1226223351222]

I include the first and last sentences of that quotation in order not to seem to suggest that Dr. Arndt questions the findings because she thinks that same-sex 'parenting' is innately inferior to opposite-sex parenting; apparently, Dr. Arndt would attribute disadvantage experienced by children in the custody of same-sex couples relative to those of opposite-sex ones to 'discrimination', 'prejudice', 'homophobia', 'exclusion', the usual buzzwords.

Labels: families, G.L.B.T.

7. "JAY Weatherill[, the South Australian Premier,] has backed a push by a gay MP on his frontbench to allow same-sex couples to access IVF in South Australia"

And a "new law will at last give de facto lesbian couples in South Australia the same rights as others to be formally recognised as co-parents and ensure their child has two legal parents":

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/weatherill-backs-ivf-for-gays/story-e6frgczx-1226223400827

Labels: birth certificates, G.L.B.T., I.V.F., S.A.

8. "The Irish Government is now issuing the certificates to applicants who can prove their Irish ancestry"

http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/article.php?classID=1&subclassID=3&articleID=9314&class=News&subclass=CW World

This is the website of that initiative:

http://www.heritagecertificate.ie/

Labels: Ireland

9. The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference's (A.C.B.C.'s) Media Blog has, apparently, been officially launched

Here is its U.R.L.:

http://www.catholic.org.au/mediablog/

I say "apparently", judging by a recent article in the Sydney Catholic Weekly which provided a round-up of the acts of the recent A.C.B.C. plenary but which does not seem to be available on-line; the Media Blog has been on-line for some time now, so I presume that what occured at the plenary was its official launch.

Labels: A.C.B.C., blogs

10. Mr. DeLano has a blog:

http://magisterialfundies.blogspot.com/

(That came to my attention via this comment at Fr. Zuhlsdorf's blog.)

Labels: blogs

Reginaldvs Cantvar
20.XII.2011

Notes: Wednesday, October 19-Monday, October 31, 2011

1. On recent Australian Government treatment of de facto marriages compared to (recent Australian Government treatment of) de ivre ones

Can anyone provide an answer to this recent comment of mine at Mr. Schütz's blog?

Labels: marriage, taxation

2. Some information regarding Catholic schools in England and Wales

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=28664

Labels: Catholic schools

3. According to Cardinal Tauran, "[r]eligious freedom necessarily includes immunity from coercion by any individual, group, community or institution"

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20111020_diwali_en.html

(That message came to my attention via VIS 20111020 (300), "CHRISTIANS AND HINDUS: PROMOTING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM", an item in a recent edition of the Vatican Information Service's daily e-mail bulletin.)

Labels: Jean-Louis Tauran, religious liberty, Roman Curia

4. Pius XII. on the death penalty

http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P12PSYCH.htm
(section 33)

(That came to my attention via this comment in the combox of this recent blog post by Prof. Feser.)

Labels: death penalty, morality, Pius XII. Pacelli

5. Some recent information:

5.1 On Australian demography:

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mediareleasesbyCatalogue/8668A9A0D4B0156CCA25792F0016186A?Opendocument

Labels: demography, marriage, social trends

5.2 On world demography:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/shift-of-young-population-to-cities-may-leave-elderly-without-support-they-need-un-report/story-e6frg6so-1226177302868

Labels: demography

6. "That [I.C.E.L.] translation [of John Paul II.'s 1990 revision of Paul VI.'s ordinal for priestly ordination] was so bad that in 1997 the Congregation for Divine Worship issued in response a letter of a harshness that [Fr. Zuhlsdorf] had never seen before from any dicastery of the Holy See"

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/10/quaeritur-the-novus-ordo-ordinal-for-ordaining-bishops-priests-deacons/

Labels: I.C.E.L., Priesthood, Roman Curia, Sacraments

Reginaldvs Cantvar
All Hallows' Eve, A.D. 2011

Notes: Wednesday, August 24-Monday, September 5, 2011 (part 2 of 2)

8. Dr. Soutphommasane on Federal funding of State school chaplains

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/religion-is-not-a-state-obligation/story-e6frg6zo-1226117970883

I'm logging that opinion piece because of this excerpt:

What is really at issue is the state's neutrality. As American legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin wrote, liberalism says "political decisions must be, so far as possible, independent of any particular conception of the good life".

This isn't an argument about whether religion is good or bad; it is about the proper limits of government power. The liberal state should generally aim to be neutral on matters of the good life.

The problem is that Dr. Soutphommasane describes himself as "one who believes in a value of national solidarity based on the common good" (source), and the importance to him of the common good has been evident in his previous "Ask the Philosopher" columns, such as when he wrote that a "politics of a common good, conducted by enlightened representatives and citizens, is unimpeachable in theory" (source). The common good is indeed the end, or purpose, of the State, but how can a State form the right understanding of the common good of its populace when the common good of a society is to that society none other than what the proper good of an individual--his corporal and spiritual well-being--is to that individual, yet we are, so liberals would have us believe, supposed to refrain from taking "any particular conception of the good life" as normative?

Labels: liberalism, morality, political science

9. Earliest Papal reference to 'healthy secularity'?

As you know, I'm no fan of talk of 'healthy secularity/secularism'; leave secularity and secularism to the secularists, I say. So it dismays me whenever I see that diction coming from the Holy Father, whose fullest treatment of the notion/s of secularity and secularism can be found, to the best of my knowledge, in his "Address to the participants in the 56th National Study Congress organized by the Union of Italian Catholic Jurists (December 9, 2006)", available in English here and in what I presume is its original Italian (since it was given to an Italian audience, though I can't find it in the A.A.S.; if any of you can find it there please let me know) here. (That Address came to my attention via this AQ post.) Now I had thought that Papal use of the term 'healthy secularity' only began with the present Pope, or perhaps with one of His Holiness's Conciliar/post-Conciliar predecessors, but reading Msgr. Lefebvre's They Have Uncrowned Him the other week I was surprised to learn that Pius XII. had spoken of 'the legitimate and healthy secularity of the State' in His late Holiness's Allocution to the inhabitants of the Marches, March 23, 1958. The text of that Allocution is available in AAS 50 [1958], p. 216, here and also here, and in both those sources we see, in the fourth-last paragraph, the words "la legittima sana laicità dello Stato"; perhaps it was with that very expression of Pius XII. in mind that the present Pope put the words "sana laicità" in quotation marks in that December 9, 2006 Address. But while the teaching of Benedict XVI. on the distinction between Church and State seems to be the same as that of Pius XII., distinction does not mean, and should not imply, separation, and whereas Pius XII. spoke approvingly, on at least two occasions before that Allocution, of the kind of union which existed between the Church and history's Catholic Confessional States, Benedict XVI. has, to the best of my knowledge, never done so, and indeed seems to favour the kind of 'union' in which Church and State co-operate but without any priviliging of the Catholic Church over non-Catholic sects; see item 6.2 here, for instance.

Anyhow, is the Allocution to the inhabitants of the Marches the earliest Papal use of the term 'healthy secularity' (or any equivalent expression), or are there earlier ones? If the latter, then what and when were they, and which is the earliest?

Labels: Benedict XVI. Ratzinger, Church and State, morality, Pius XII. Pacelli, political science, secularism

10. Leo XIII. on, among other things, the formal cause, analogically speaking, of the State

This is a quotation from Libertas, praestantissimum as found in the on-line version of ASS 20 [1887], p. 604 (the text of that Encyclical begins on p. 593) (there is at least one, quite obvious, typographical error in the quotation, as in the proximate source from which I quoted it):

... Etenim dubitari non potest quin sit Dei voluntate inter homines coniuncta societas, sive partes, sive forma eius spectetur quae est auctoritas, sive caussa, sive earum, quas homini parit, magnarum utilitati! m copia. ...
[http://www.vatican.va/archive/ass/documents/ASS%2020%20[1887]%20-%20ocr.pdf]

The Vatican website's English version of that sentence is as follows:

21. ... For it cannot be doubted but that, by the will of God, men are united in civil society; whether its component parts be considered; or its form, which implies authority; or the object of its existence; or the abundance of the vast services which it renders to man. ...
[http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_20061888_libertas_en.html]

But in the translation in Msgr. Lefebvre's They Have Uncrowned Him, the section corresponding to "which implies authority" is give as "which is authority" (my emphasis in both quotations). I don't speak Latin, but judging by a critical use of Google Translate, the latter translation would seem to be the more accurate one. Would any Latinists reading this be so kind as to suggest their own translation?

Labels: Leo XIII. Pecci, morality, political science

11. Yet more evidence of the Sodomites' League's success in diverting public discourse on homosexuality away from a focus on behaviour and towards a focus on 'identity'

These are excerpts from a letter by Josie (no surname given) of Andrews Farm which was published under the heading "Live and love" on page thirty of the Sydney Daily Telegraph of Thursday, August 25, 2011:

To deny humans the right of identity and companionship is inhuman. ...
... We cannot stop biology/chemistry, we can only control behaviour and mutual consent.
[...] Marriage is for people who seek to share family identity in the formal bounds that marriage gives.
[I include the second paragraph excerpt there solely in order to avoid being accused of implying that the letter contained no reference at all to behaviour; clearly Josie does mention behaviour, but she fails to show any understanding of its significance to marriage.]

But marriage is not just about sharing 'identity'; it is about sharing a certain kind of behaviour; it is not merely some kind of Platonic relationship, but a conjugal relationship. Hence any discrimination on the basis of sex or sexual disorientation involved in upholding the natural law's design for marriage is only indirect, since the direct discrimination is only against those who cannot consummate their respective putative marriages, and this discrimination applies equally to opposite-sex couples in which one (or both) prospective spouse(s) is (are) absolutely or relatively impotent and to same-sex couples.

Labels: G.L.B.T., marriage, morality

12. "Almost 20,000 of South Australia's 48,783 Catholic school students are not members of the church"

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=27937

Labels: Catholic schools

13. Some recent AQ posts regarding the Russian Orthodox Church

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38781

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38811

Labels: R.O.C.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Lawrence Justinian, Bishop, Confessor, A.D. 2011