Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Keywords: Ceremony

  • RELIGION

    Contemplating Fred Hollows

    • Frank Brennan
    • 11 February 2013
    9 Comments

    'I have been asked to provide a spiritual reflection for Fred who was not always given to spiritual conversation. I find the Old Testament prophecy of Isaiah helpful. He came to bring good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives, bring freedom to the oppressed and sight to the blind. Fred did all these things, sometimes brusquely.' Frank Brennan on the 20th anniversary of Fred Hollows' death.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Negotiating Catholic healthcare moral dilemmas

    • Frank Brennan
    • 05 October 2012
    15 Comments

    The nation is the better for policies and funding arrangements that encourage public and private providers of healthcare, including the Churches. The public may need to be patient with Church authorities as they discern appropriate moral responses to new technologies. This is a small price to pay.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Aboriginal Catholics' culturally enriched living

    • Frank Brennan
    • 02 October 2012
    6 Comments

    'It has been helpful to have the Pope offer the encouragement that there need not be any conflict between Christian faith and Aboriginal culture. But Aboriginal culture is often founded on religious beliefs which find and express God's self-communication outside of Christ and the Church's seven sacraments.' Fr Frank Brennan SJ's address 'Culturally Enriched Through the Gospel' at the NATSICC Conference on 1 October 2012.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Fuzzy thinking on obeedjunt wives

    • Brian Matthews
    • 14 September 2012
    15 Comments

    An old Dublin man once observed to me that my wife must be an 'oncommonly obeedjunt woman'. Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Peter Jensen's argument regarding the suggestion in his diocese's draft new prayer book that brides be invited to 'submit' to their husbands is equally fuzzy.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The Paralympics as a work in progress

    • Michael Mullins
    • 03 September 2012
    5 Comments

    The Paralympics opening ceremony shows how far we've come in reversing the exclusion of disabled athletes. But they encourage physically disabled athletes at the expense of the intellectually disabled. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    What's the point of the Olympics?

    • Fatima Measham
    • 01 August 2012
    16 Comments

    The games are an escapist spectacle, where the flags of Iran, Palestine and Syria flutter without irony alongside those of the US, Israel and Turkey, and delegates from Spain and Greece wave as if their nation's economies have not fractured the Eurozone. The dissonance between the games and reality has become hard to ignore.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Truth and reconciliation in Toowoomba

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 19 July 2012
    35 Comments

    The consecration of Bishop McGuckin in Toowoomba threw into relief the poverty of our public life and the need of symbols of trust. In applauding dismissed Bishop Morris, the people expressed their esteem for a man who was deeply trusted, but also expressed their judgment on what had been done to him.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    POW priest and the sacrament of sport

    • Brian Doyle
    • 18 July 2012
    3 Comments

    The Japanese had taken the island and the priest was imprisoned with many other residents. One Sunday, the POWs set up stumps in the morning, dressed in the best clothes they had left, and assigned teams. One captain was a minister, the other a teacher. The priest opened the bowling. The guards were angry.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Little Adonis and the fruit box

    • Helena Kadmos
    • 11 July 2012
    21 Comments

    When my father was born his parents named him Adonis, but for the first few years he was called Adonaki, Little Adonis. I picture him standing in the classroom on a fruit box, with his dark curly hair. His hair is still curly if it gets long enough, but it is very soft and silvery. He listens as I read this story to him and he wants to set some things straight.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The footballers who booted out Australian racism

    • Brian Doyle
    • 11 April 2012
    6 Comments

    At this juncture in the life of the Mighty Currawongs the usual bigotry poured forth. One columnist raged and sputtered about invasions by 'evil, small statured people'. The ensuing burst of street protests against racism in every corner of Australian life would permanently alter the course of Australian history.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Stynes a man of flesh and steel

    • Joe Caddy
    • 27 March 2012
    8 Comments

    Jim Stynes was such a determined character that he joined me in swimming the 1985 Pier to Pub at Lorne, even though he did not know how to swim — he completed the 1200m open water swim doing a kind of dog paddle. In 2001 I officiated at his wedding. Today I will officiate at his funeral.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    The Pope in Alice: 25 years on

    • Frank Brennan
    • 29 November 2011
    19 Comments

    Protocol dictated that he could not wear Aboriginal colours. But local custom won out when he donned a black, red and yellow stole given to him on the track. His speech put strong challenges to the Church, but offered too optimistic a reading of the prospects of Aboriginal Australians taking their rightful place in it.

    READ MORE