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:
“The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“Religion is a great force: the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows don’t understand is that you must get at a man through his own religion and not through yours.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“The religion which is to guide and fulfill the present and coming ages, whatever else it be, must be intellectual. The scientific mind must have a faith which is science.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)