Religion
Abbott is a socially conservative Catholic. As a former Catholic seminarian, Abbott's religiosity has come to national attention and journalists have often sought his views on the role of religion in politics. Abbott says that a politician should not rely on religion to justify a political point of view:
| “ | We are all influenced by a value system that we hold, but in the end, every decision that a politician makes is, or at least should, in our society be based on the normal sorts of considerations. It's got to be publicly justifiable; not only justifiable in accordance with a private view; a private belief. | ” |
Various of the political positions supported by Abbott have been criticised by church representatives, including aspects of Coalition industrial relations policy, asylum seeker and Aboriginal affairs policy. After criticisms of Liberal Party policy by clergy, Abbott has said: "The priesthood gives someone the power to consecrate bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. It doesn't give someone the power to convert poor logic into good logic."
According to John Warhurst from the Australian National University, academics have at times placed an "exaggerated concentration on the religious affiliation and personal religious background of just one of senior ministers, Tony Abbott." Journalist Michelle Grattan wrote in 2010 that while Abbott has always "worn his Catholicism on his sleeve", he is "clearly frustrated by the obsession with and what might hang off that".
Read more about this topic: Tony Abbott
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“What is a wife and what is a harlot? What is a church and what
Is a theatre? are they two and not one? can they exist separate?
Are not religion and politics the same thing? Brotherhood is religion,
O demonstrations of reason dividing families in cruelty and pride!”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“In full view of his television audience, he preached a new religion—or a new form of Christianity—based on faith in financial miracles and in a Heaven here on earth with a water slide and luxury hotels. It was a religion of celebrity and showmanship and fun, which made a mockery of all puritanical standards and all canons of good taste. Its standard was excess, and its doctrines were tolerance and freedom from accountability.”
—New Yorker (April 23, 1990)
“Religion is this. They act as in religion that is to say they neither wait nor stay away. Religion is best as it is. If they like it at all they like it all, not only more than once but often.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)