Pope John Paul II on Oct. 23, 1996 met with the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and recalled that Pope Pius XI, who restored the academy in 1936, called this group of scholars 'the Church's 'scientific senate' and expressed delight on the plenary's theme on the origin of life and evolution, 'a basic theme which greatly interests the Church, as Revelation contains, for its part, teachings concerning the nature and origins of man."If the scientifically-reached conclusions and those contained in Revelation on the origin of life seem to counter each other, he said, "in what direction should we seek their solution? We know in effect that truth cannot contradict truth."
In the domain of inanimate and animate nature, the evolution of science and its applications make new questions arise. The Church can grasp their scope all the better as she knows their basic aspect.

Regarding the origin of life and evolution, the Church's magisterium is cited in particular in Pope Pius XII's 1950 encyclical 'Humani Generis" and the conciliar Constitution 'Gaudium et Spes."

A city built on a mountain cannot hide from the world, and if Mr Abbott aspires to be prime minister, people need to see muscular Christianity, and that's nothing personal, thank you very much.

Tony Abbott's Federal Liberal Party, the NSW Labor Party, and the new Democratic Labor Party - two are right wing Catholic led parties, and the other is the DLP.

One cannot separate one's personal, moral and social convictions from one's policy decisions, just as one cannot separate one's personal, moral and social character, from political reputation.

What is wrong with Tony Abbott is that he has committed himself to political compromise, notwithstanding his convictions. It's just one of the two versions of big party populism on offer.

The new DLP, which is registered federally, and registered in NSW for local elections, and is seeking registration to contest state elections is very different. Conviction first, policy second, and popularity optional. It's an old style labor party to the left of the current NSW ALP, but with a strong moral base, opposed to the irresponsible individualism of the Liberal party.

In case your wondering, I'm a member and I'm Protestant.

Geoff

Before you criticise Tony Abbott's view, it is best to know what the Catholic Church teaches on evolution. I find this repeatedly with so called experts, they just "know" what the Church teaches and proceed to tell the world. But they never actually make the effort to find out what the Church in fact teaches. Within the Church framework Catholics are entitled to a personal view.

The faith of any politician should be totally irrelevant to their role as a politician. Faith is what someone thinks is true without having any evidence to support their position. Politicians have to make decisions for the good of society by weighing up all the evidence they have before them and choosing the most reasonable and logical course of action. Good politicians are those who adhere to this kind of process. Religious people make many decisions that have no foundation at all in the laws of reason and logic. Often when pressed they will try and present an argument but ultimately their position is a matter of ‘faith’.

If politicians begin to make decisions for the public welfare based on nothing else but faith then we have a problem. Whose faith do we accept? Since there is no way to evaluate them then they must be all judged as equal. Why should only ‘religious’ faith be accepted? Why not the faith of those who believe in UFO’s or the healing power of crystals? Every decision would only need to be claimed as based on ‘faith’ to be put into practice. We would have utter chaos.

Human beings are defined by their rationality and not their proclivity for religious or any other type of faith. Once we allow important decisions to be made without reference to properly reasoned argument we have become less than human. If politicians want to make personal decisions based on faith then that is their democratic right but I do not want them making decisions about my future unless they have considered all the relevant evidence and argument.

Politicians should be asked why they decide what they decide and if the only answer they can supply is ‘faith’ then their value as a politician must be suspect. All other things being equal it would be much better to have a politician that was not religious rather than one who was.

Religion has no place in the public domain and the clergy should keep out of it, they are not welcomed and nor are their bigoted views. They're number one allegiance is supposed to be to their God not to their country and every time they join the public domain humanity usually suffers.

The US has just produced a disastrous decade. Two completely avoidable wars with deaths in the hundreds of thousand the end of which we won't see for a very long time (even when the Americans pack up and go home) and those wars resulted from the malign influence of the so called neo-cons and their interference in the public domain.

Examine how the church’s contribution in the public domain has adversely effected humanity throughout history: Hiding or burning books to keep the people ignorant, the taking of women and burning them to death as witches, their ambiguous stand on Hitler’s final solution of the Jews, their dictate to the faithful in Africa not to use contraception causing untold millions of men, women and children to suffer and eventually die from the ravages of HIV AIDS, their instance that woman is somehow inferior to man, their sexual abuse of children, their ostracising of homosexuals condemning them to a life time of misery.

And the amount of wars and deaths caused in their name, the most shameful example, Irish civil war saw the Christian Protestant church pit their soldiers against the Christian Catholic church. Don't you think the church’s interference in the public domain has done enough damage, caused enough death and spread enough ignorance and intolerance?

You are wrong, the Protestants have it right, keep your opinions to yourself, you and your views have caused enough deaths throughout the centuries. For those who want to listen to your point of view let them go to your churches to listen to your arcane views.

Thanks Ulis .......my sentiments exactly .

Abbott is right on this matter. Religious faith is a personal matter. Of course, strong faith inevitably shapes one's view on a whole range of issues. So does a belief in socialism or liberalism. The problem arises if a political leader's actions are based on the text s/he believes in - whether that be the Bible, the Koran or even Che Guevara's greatest hits. Ours is a democracy and political decisions are based on the will of the people, not some ancient text. Politics is not, and should never be, a tool for evangelism. So, the issue on abortion, for example, is not whether Abbott (or anyone else in politics) supports it or opposes it. It is whether they think the state should intervene on the basis of a religious belief. My understanding is that Abbott opposes abortion yet, as Minister for Health, did not seek to impose that on the community through law. Compare that with those who claim people should have a right to circumsize their kids or bar marriage outside their faith because of some passage in an ancient text. Being a secular state doesn't mean religion is banned!

Rudd, on the other hand, does use his religion for political gain - as a kind of fashion accessory. He has crossed that secular line, albeit by a small step, whereas Abbott has not.

I think the more important question here is who gives rats?

Once again Thank You OLO. This is a subject that will probably decide the next Federal Election, just as it decided the last one. The central theme is Tony Abbott has a Christian faith, despite taking a University Brainwashing Course and getting an LLB, and becoming a Rhodes Scholar. There is no monopoly on thinking Christians by either the Roman Catholic or Protestant Churches, and men and women have unique thinking processes, and have plenty to contribute to Australian Political Life.

So far most of the usual suspects are silent. During the past month I have had two major experiences. The first was obtaining a copy of the Australian Style Manual where the Australian Government gives guidance to authors editors and printers. Authors should include authorities, because on Page 300 it speaks of a Royal Identifier. It stops short of saying that a Royal Identifier should be affixed to every Act of Parliament put forth by any Legislature, but the Australian Courts Act 1828 says just that. That is published under a Royal Identifier, just as the Australian Constitution was in England in 1900, but not in Australia today.

The second major experience was discovering a Royal Identifier on a copy of the Holy Bible. The Cambridge University Press is the publisher under Royal Letters Patent of the Authorised King James Version. They range in price from $35 to $1,200 as befits a document that is the foundation of all our laws. It makes Church into a Law School, because as Archbishop Jensen said, any law in conflict with the Holy Bible is illegal.

The word Commonwealth comes out of it where it is used in Ephesians 2 Verse 12, and the requirement in S 22 Australian Courts Act 1828 that all laws and ordinances be registered in a Supreme Court is evidence that Christianity is central to good government. The Supreme Court used to be the court of the supreme being, to Christians this is Almighty God. To Muslims it is Allah. And the procedures prescribed by the Holy Bible should be the process followed by every Supreme Court

Geoff's absolutely right.

I very much want to know who I'm REALLY voting for- especially whatever theological quirks they have- as Australia is finding out the hard way with Rudd.

Although remember that this is Australia- if everyone knew what REALLY went through the heads of half of our crooked pollies we'd probably have half of them give up and retire on the spot!

Abbott is now controlling a party and therefore a future government which will go out of its way to implement all the archaic teachings and the dogma of the Roman Church, steeped in the middle ages but which has gone from strength to strength due to the failure of secular governments to separate the activities of weekend religion from the task of governments, representing the great majority of peoples.
His agenda comes from his mindset as a committed Catholic and all that means, totally subservient to the church and not an original idea to be found anywhere that has not had the imprimatur of the Pell's of this world.
We demonstrate against one Islamic school but accept 36 Catholic schools and colleges in Canberra alone, the ownership of three hospitals, 80% of social clubs, golf courses, Rugby clubs, Cruise boats and at the present time trying to force the ACT government to sell them the only palliative care centre in the city as well. This is just one city. Is this what religion is all about in 2009, tax-free to boot? This is Abbott's home base.
It is about power and control and that's the environment that controls the thinking of 50% of the front bench of the loyal opposition (loyal to whom, one should ask) and might I add, the same percentage of the current Federal government.
We promote multiculturalism yet encourage all religions to offer and promote religious education through religious controlled primary and secondary schools and colleges, further dividing the objects and ideals we had in the early days of this country, united then through a struggle just to make a living but feeling part of one country, Australia, not a separate set of cliques with their own separate philosophies which now control their lives and certainly control their thinking. All we like sheep is apt.
Any person, who promotes the kind of thinking that allows the likes of Abbott to influence government and keep us in the dark ages, is a traitor to the progressive ideals of this country, whatever political colour they may be

If the breathless anti-Catholic ranting of Ulis and rexw is a fair indication of the calm, rational approach that atheism is claimed to bring to important national issues, it would be hard to find a better argument for having more practising Christians involved in the political process. Christians, at least, are taught to be truthful, and not give gratuitous offence purely for the childish pleasure it may bring.
It is nothing less than the truth to state that Australia owes its democratic system to the Christian beliefs of those who founded it, and it is therefore the ultimate absurdity to claim that Christians should now be excluded from the democratic process. It's also worth noting that our hospitals and our entire education system owe their existence to the Christian (principally Catholic) churches.
We have some wonderful examples of countries run by intelligent, rational atheists - China, North Korea, the former Soviet Union, Vietnam, and there are no boatloads of refugees fleeing our Christian democratic way of life to live there. Nobody ever got shot fleeing east across the Berlin Wall to live in an atheist paradise.
Ulis, you stand the truth on its head when you state that "untold millions" are dying of AIDS in Africa because of Catholic teachings. The spread of HIV-AIDS in Africa and elsewhere is a direct consequence of a promiscuous lifestyle which the Catholic Church has consistently condemned. If you live by those teachings, you have virtually nothing to fear from HIV-AIDS, and if you need the protection of condoms, you have already turned your back on the moral question, and are hardly likely to listen to the Church's view on the issue. Uganda has achieved a dramatic reduction in HIV-AIDS infections as a consequence of the Catholic Church's promotion of a responsible monogamous sexual lifestyle, while other African countries, awash with condoms, have failed miserably.

Oh Peter me and many others soon to follow are going to have a field day with what you just wrote:

"Christians, at least, are taught to be truthful, and not give gratuitous offence purely for the childish pleasure it may bring."
BWAHAHAHA! Yes- we've seen a LOT of that from our Christian politicians in recent years haven't we?!?
Which is why Christian Rudd hid his censorship bill from voters and why Christian Tony Abbot tried to play down health risks associated with smoking, junkfood advertising while playing UP the health risks of contraceptive drugs, why Christian Tony Blair hid his Christianity from voters and also lied about the Iraq war- do you really want me to go on?

Anyway- we 'owe' democracy to the PAGAN GREEKS who founded it, and also to the SECULAR enlightenment-era Christians who resurrected it later. And Christians DO deserve a place in democracy- it's called referendums (which our democracy strangely lacks)- if enough people are Christian enough to want Christian policies- then Christian policies they will get. It does NOT qualify one person who happens to be Christian to hold the entire nation hostage to his own beliefs at his own discretion.

As for contraceptives- the CORRECT stance for the church should be to DISCOURAGE sexual intercourse, but failing that, REVOKE the evilness of using contraceptives- because it just means that when some less-than-ideal persons finally give in to carnal desires, they do so without protection and contraceptives because these make their sinful act even "worse" than unsafe sex- despite the consequences of NOT using it actually causing problems (unwanted pregnancies and thus abortion, disease transmission).

It's really not hard to grasp.

So, King Hazza, Christian politicians should publicly live out their Christian faith, not just be nominally Christian, and must not tell lies? Thank you. That's one more affirmation of Christian morality from the other side. Atheists, presumably, since they have no defined set of moral principles, can lie if they feel like it, and there is no case against them since they are the sole arbiters of what is "right", and it's quite alright for them to legislate on this basis. Back to the Berlin Wall. You make a strong case for more practising Christians in parliament.

PeterD:

How is not telling lies a particularly Christian morality? People were honest long before Christianity ever came along. Our democracy or morality is not based on Christian principles it is based on justice and peace which are universal human concepts based on our biological responses to anger and fear. They have nothing to do with Christianity.

People tell the truth because it is the most human thing to do. You can never be sure with a Christian whether he is telling the truth out of a sense of justice or out of a sense of fear of punishment from God. I know which I would prefer in my politicians and who would have more integrity under pressure.

'' If Tony Abbott’s faith is actually a faith worth having, then he owes it to us to be a good Catholic and place it in the public square''.

I have no idea, based upon this quote how one could ask the question if Tony Abbott is a closet Protestant.

Unless you know for sure, he does not believe in idolatry or does not believe in the living spirit of Christ Jesus within the bread and wine scarcement.

What should be asked is, after the learning of the definition of a Catholic or Protestant, is whether Tony Abbott is prepared to publicly display his faith.

Based upon his support of abortion he would be going against the current belief and practice of the Australian Catholic church in the first instance. Based upon him supporting any legalised abortion in the first instance.

A public faith has nothing to do with weather he is a catholic or a protestant.

It is his absolute beliefs that are the only clue to this question, which by the way is a question of theology.

Tony Abbott's Catholic faith is subservient to his politics. At once populist and inhumane, like Abbot's line to 'turn the boats (carrying asylum seekers)back out to sea'! And when it suits, a Catholic mouthpeice, like his unshakeable anti-abortion stance. Which is 'personal'? Which is 'political'?

Peter D, humans are anything but perfect. God gave humanity 10 commandments to obey and I bet that every person of adult age has broken at least one. That is the nature of the beast; we are a frail species when it comes to morals.

I learnt that the church be it Protestant or Catholic worship a God that understands the frailty of the creature he created and is all forgiving. It appears from your comment on the faithful dying in their millions due to the ravages of HIV-AIDS that they deserved to die for not obeying the CHURCH not God’s message on contraception.

And if the Roman Catholic clergy can't refrain from sexual intercourse as the church (not God) instruct, and molest defenceless children under their sacred trust as representatives of the church then what do you expect of the average human being? What example is the church setting its flock?

Jesus we learned was a prophet of immense wisdom, patience and compassion and rallied the unwanted and outcasts of society to his side. Does the church believe it is superior in its knowledge than Jesus, who they worship as the son of God?

The church is there for those who find comfort in its teachings and for who it strengthens their spirit in face of advesity of a modern society and I sincerely hope they find whatever they need.

The majority of people of all religions keep that part private and separate, it is between them and their God or whatever deity that they turn to seek strength.

I don’t need nor want the opinion of the Church after all we live in a secular society for good reason.

And now we are coming to a time in our history that will be immensely confronting, stem cell research and all the off shoots associated with it. The last thing we need is for a Church who only recently realized that the world is in fact round to advice the public domain on such an exceptionally confronting issue.

My first advice to you, Ulis, is to go back to school for a few years to learn to spell correctly and write gramatically-coherent sentences. Secondly, don't deliberately misrepresent what I have said. Nothing in my post could be construed honestly to imply that I believe people "deserve" to die from HIV-AIDS. Your deliberate fabrication. Again you imply, falsely, that the tiny (and still unacceptable) minority of priests who abuse children represent the whole church. All properly instructed Catholics understand that this behaviour constitutes mortal sin, which confines the unrepentant to hell, regardless of what the law may say. Your concluding remarks about "a Church who only recently realized that the world is in fact round" is pure verbal garbage, and a further example or your willingness to distort facts for the childish pleasure of giving offence. When you refer to the "exceptionally confronting issue" of stem cell research, there is nothing "confronting" in this issue, except when human embryos are destroyed for the purpose, a line of this research which is now virtually obsolete. If you don't want to hear the ethical arguments, don't listen.

Paedophile priests don't represent the whole church, but the whole church DID collude to protect them. How is that any better?

We live in a peculiar age where people are free to loudly pronounce their opinions in any number of public fora and do so to acclamation - so long as those proclamations reflect the currently prevailing wisdom. Anything that is not so acceptable is decried.
At the same time we are free to bring all of our own thinking and learned materials to the debate - so long as they are completely free from religious influence. We can support and quote secular humanists, environmental evangelicals and campaigners for every perverse behaviour until we are blue in the face - but dare to mention a verse from a book which has influenced western thought for thousands of years and you must hush your mouth.
What a strange world we live in.
(While I'm here I will again declaim the quandary of the Christian - perpetually condemned to hypocrisy for the flaw of being human while trying to be like Christ)