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  • religion

    Vatican invites global discussion on human dignity

    • David Kirchhoffer
    • 18 April 2024

    Though there are few surprises in Vatican document Dignitas infinita, this summary of Pope Francis’s moral theology on dignity invites a reevaluation of our shared humanity in the face of an increasingly complex ethical landscape.

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  • australia

    Freud's last session

    • Neil Jeyasingam
    • 18 April 2024

    Freud’s Last Session pits the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud against Christian apologist and author C.S. Lewis, a powerful concept, given the sheer cultural heft of the two historical figures. 

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  • australia

    The inheritance of Anzac Day

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 16 April 2024

    Anzac Day draws us away from the geopolitical chess board to consider the price that so many persons have paid for the wars in which their leaders join. It reminds us of the need for diplomacy based on respect for the humanity of persons on all sides of conflict. 

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  • arts and culture

    Escaping expectations

    • Michele Frankeni
    • 15 April 2024

    What is so desirable about erasing our experiences from our faces? After all, they’re not called character lines for nothing. Shaw may have said youth is wasted on the young, but really youth is wasted on the aged.

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  • australia

    Australia's dysfunctional housing quagmire

    • Peter Mares
    • 12 April 2024

    The ABC’s recent Q+A housing special left many questions unasked and unanswered. Labor, Coalition and Green MPs all say they want more people to be able to buy their own homes. The most obvious way to achieve that would be to reduce the price of housing. Yet no politician will make that an explicit policy aim.

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  • international

    Kate Middleton and the end of all boundaries

    • Laura Kings
    • 09 April 2024

    In a world where the public appetite for private news on public figures is insatiable, how do we foster ethical media behaviour that respects privacy and dignity in situations like this? Would well-wishes for Kate's recovery, even before her diagnosis was public, have been too much to ask?

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  • Between sense and sensation

    • Nathan Scolaro
    • 11 April 2024

    Can a chatbot write a poem? The answer reveals something about the heart of human interaction. True connection, like true poetry, requires discomfort, vulnerability and a richness of experience that defies the simplicity of algorithms.  

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  • The Dinner Guest

    • Damian Balassone
    • 09 April 2024

    The rhetoric of elites / sets off his built-in shit detector. He much prefers to eat / with hookers, drunks and tax collectors.

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  • Easterwards

    • John Kelly
    • 28 March 2024

    Dante and Hopkins named it lavishly: Christ’s vita nuova, shared to Easter in us;  Ignatius of Loyola called it: magnanimity . . . How could we then, receiving,  hoard or dispense it stintingly, like Scrooge before his Christmas haunting?

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  • When helpers become victims

    • Joe Zabar
    • 16 April 2024

    When a missile strike in Gaza killed seven aid workers, it sparked global outrage and demands for accountability and raised questions around the protection of those who risk everything to provide aid in zones of conflict. 

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  • When war becomes personal

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 10 April 2024

    Our attitudes to war change drastically when it becomes personal. The killing of Zomi Frankcom, together with other members of the Charity organisation World Central Kitchen, made the war between Israel and Hamas personal. It has led many people to see the destruction of Gaza and its people as not only regrettable but intolerable.

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  • Americans look after each other because their government won't

    • Sarah Klenbort
    • 03 April 2024

    Americans, facing high healthcare costs, frequently resort to crowdfunding for essential treatments, highlighting a reliance on volunteerism to fill government gaps. Meanwhile, Australians, benefiting from a higher tax-funded safety net, donate less to charity. So how do differing approaches to social welfare influence the spirit of community and generosity?

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  • By the world forgot

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 10 April 2024

    For the men in these conflicts, there was an expectation they would resume the lives they had left behind as if nothing had happened, as if they had been on an extended business trip. It calls to mind a phrase that has become common in recent years: unexamined trauma.

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  • Dodgy brothers lawmaking

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 04 April 2024

    This week, the Federal Government quickly introduced a new policy in response to a recent High Court decision that prevents them from indefinitely detaining a small number of individuals they wish to remove from Australia. 

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  • Will AUKUS lead Australia down the nuclear path?

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 04 April 2024

    Nuclear energy has snuck its way onto the table of Australian public policy. Given that Australia is a country that hosts military nuclear platforms, the impetus to translate it into a civilian context is proving powerful.

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  • The optimism of Timothy Radcliffe

    • John Warhurst
    • 09 April 2024

    Timothy Radcliffe has a hopeful vision for the Church, yet noting the slow pace of institutional change in his recent visit to Australia, he presented a sort of optimism that eschewed any hope for immediate outcomes. The basis for Radcliffe’s optimism seems to be his assumption that it is acceptable for the Church to take its time. 

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  • Old rituals, new revelations

    • Geraldine Doogue
    • 02 April 2024

    Each year, the Stations of the Cross liturgy affects me more than I had planned. Annually, I am left wondering: why does this ritual work? Well, it has much to offer: a narrative with exposition, climax and denouement; characters big and small; blood, gore, politics, virtue, cowardice and a pointer towards mystery.

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  • Flowers for Father Rahner

    • John Honner
    • 02 April 2024

    Karl Rahner, a Jesuit priest whose ideas helped modernize the Church, left an indelible legacy on contemporary Catholicism. On the 40th anniversary of his death, what can a flower left at his niche tell us about the lasting bonds between belief, memory, and the enduring search for human connection?

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