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01 Aug 2010 |
 When Church leaders get involved in secular politics... In recent days some comments by Perth Archbishop, Barry Hickey, on the professed atheism of Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, have caused a minor storm in the media. Archbishop Hickey had objected in a story on his own archdiocesan website that his comments had been misconstrued by The West Australian newspaper. Meanwhile someone in Ms Gillard's entourage appeared to believe some rapprochement was needed and yesterday the archdiocesan website carried photos and a story of a very happy meeting between Ms Gillard and the Archbishop. Today's commentary by Professor Allan Patience, writing from Tokyo was submitted to Catholica before the latest developments on the Perth Archdiocesan website. Dr Patience has updated it the last few hours before publication after we alerted him to the new developments. While both Archbishop Hickey and the Prime Minister's office seem to have been involved in some deft footwork in the last 48 hours to neutralise the damage caused by his remarks in The West Australian, Dr Patience's commentary raises more general issues about how the nation's spiritual leaders ought endeavour to intersect with the great moral issues of our time. [more]
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