AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
August 31, 2014
Damien Murphy
The former president of Ireland Mary McAleese will deliver the Rosemary Goldie Lecture at Sydney Town Hall on Sunday week but local Catholics, it seems, are being discouraged from attending.
The Catholic Weekly newspaper refused to take advertisements for the lecture which honours an Australian Catholic theologian who became the first woman to serve in an executive role in the Roman Curia.
Professor McAleese had criticised the former Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal George Pell for his “boy’s club” appointment of a Sydney colleague to a key position in the Vatican.
She had also openly attacked Rome over its refusal to ordain women and said it should rethink it stance on homosexuality, saying the issue was “not so much the elephant in the room but a herd of elephants” for the church.
The Irish Echo, Australia’s Irish newspaper, ran The Catholic Weekly‘s refusal to run the McAleese advertisements as a front-page story this week.
The story claimed the advertisements were refused because Professor McAleese’s views did not accord with the Church.
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