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My hope is that the summit will recognise that the hierarchical nature of the institutional church, and its corollary, clericalism, is the biggest stumbling block to making the church not merely a safe place for all, but the welcoming, compassionate, open community it is intended to be.
On the flight out of Manila / clouds sculpt prancing herds / & then the long drive south / to a home as we know it / back to a sound of almost rain.
When Parliament resumes, one outstanding item of business will be Penny Wong's bill dealing with religious schools' capacity to discriminate against students on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation. I support the bill subject to the proviso that religious schools should remain free to teach their doctrine respectfully and reasonably.
Various bishops and Catholic educational leaders last week assured their communities and the Australian public that Catholic schools do not exclude the enrolment LGBTIQ young people. In actual fact, Catholic schools are being encouraged to do more than not exclude.
Data published by the ABC has revealed the shockingly low threshold for entry into tertiary teaching programs. On one hand, there are some legitimate concerns here. But the problem isn't with who gets accepted to university; it's with what happens to them while they are there.
Instead of following platform prompts to connect more, or logging out entirely, it could be time to get mindful of our audience and develop ways to nourish the online relationships we enjoy. After all, intimacy is still important in the age of the high follower count.
In the 26 August ministry reshuffle, Senator Canavan retained his portfolio. As Resources Minister, he often repeats his assurance: 'Australia's nuclear waste facility will not be imposed on an unwilling community.' The marchers across the Port Augusta Bridge bore banners printed with a single word: UNWILLING.
I have the controversial opinion among my colleagues that teachers, on average, actually get paid pretty well. Averaging, however, is the crux of debate. Yes, if a teacher's job is averaged over the year, their pay is reasonable and their workload is manageable. Alas, teachers are mere mortals; they aren't Time Lords who can redistribute their work to a time of year when they are less busy.
I often feel I have the best job on the planet. Teaching English to adult refugees should be a daunting task. Yet these classes are especially warm and congenial places to be. Human beings at their most vulnerable possess an extraordinary fund of light and laughter despite, or perhaps because of, the darkness they have left behind.
For the past several years, education has been treated as solely a technical problem. One of the pitfalls of this is that political will becomes a function of money, which in turn rests on political expedience between federal and state governments, further complicated by external lobbying. Education gets ground to a grain.
As someone who has a language background which will in all likelihood not make it past one more generation in my family here in Australia, I've long understood the way language loss can occur as a result of migration, to say nothing of acts like colonisation. These are great forces that are difficult but, as I've found, not impossible to resist.