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Keywords: Conformity

  • RELIGION

    How can the Catholic Church contribute to a better culture for life?

    • Frank Brennan
    • 18 March 2013
    3 Comments

    Change is upon the Church. Just recall the scene when the new pope emerged on the Vatican balcony. He appeared with none of the papal trimmings of office, and did not once did he refer to the papacy. Could something of this new papal style help Catholics engage more creatively with their fellow citizens? Text from Frank Brennan's lecture 'How Can the Catholic Church Contribute to a Better Culture for Life?'

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Peer pressure could save the military

    • Evan Ellis
    • 28 November 2012
    9 Comments

    The pack mentality that led military personnel to ingore instances of rape seemed also to be at play on the Melbourne bus where a French woman suffered a tirade of abuse while most passengers sat silently by. An American journalist has argued that a peer group's creation of a social norm of human kindness could be the most effective way to encourage defiance to an immoral order.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Music rising from the ashes of abuse

    • Frank O'Shea
    • 24 October 2012
    8 Comments

    In their stylish red and blue uniforms, they were a central part of big football games. They played before the game and at half time, led the teams in a formal march, 60 or more kids blowing brass and beating drums. The thousands in the stands were unaware of the harshness that these boys faced every day.

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  • RELIGION

    Reflections on the death penalty on the tenth anniversary of the Bali Bombings

    • Frank Brennan
    • 12 October 2012
    2 Comments

    Fr Frank Brennan SJ's paper 'Reflections on the death penalty on the tenth anniversary of the Bali Bombings' presented at the Australian Lawyers for Human Rights and Australians Against Capital Punishment Dinner, Red Hill, Brisbane, 12 October 2012, Commemorating the 10th World Day Against the Death Penalty.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Back-pedalling on Vatican II

    • Michael Kelly
    • 08 October 2012
    30 Comments

    The fresh wind of Vatican II has been reined in, with the focus turned to shoring up 'the firm wall of religion' against threatening forces from a world that had grown tired of the Church. As Christianity faces minority status in Europe, the Pope offers an intellectualised version of the ghetto mentality that Vatican II sought to break down.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Families only a means to an end

    • Michael Mullins
    • 01 October 2012
    8 Comments

    Family life  holds no value in itself but is an often fruitful means to a morally good life. There are other means for those who do not marry, such as voluntary work, single-minded dedication to a profession, or caring for ageing parents. Why, then, do the Catholic Bishops, and indeed governments, go to so much trouble to support the family?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Curing Kerouac's misogyny

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 27 September 2012
    2 Comments

    The book is essentially misogynistic. Women are objects of hedonistic possibilities in the same way that drugs are. Even the Kerouac figure Sal's self-deprecating account of failing to impress a virginal lover manages to marginalise the woman in question. The film seeks to rectify this by giving flesh to its female characters.

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  • RELIGION

    Vatican II then and now

    • Frank Brennan
    • 24 September 2012
    10 Comments

    'Looking to the future, I want to focus on the role of the laity in the growing absence of priests. And I want to insist on the need for due process, transparency and respectful dealing within the Church.' Full text of Fr Frank Brennan SJ's presentation 'Looking Back and Looking Forward Over Church and Life on the 50th Anniversary of Vatican II' at the Spirituality in the Pub Goulburn Valley Annual Dinner, 21 September 2012.

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  • RELIGION

    Religious freedom and the law

    • Frank Brennan
    • 18 September 2012

    'The common law leaves a gap between the mandates of the law and the conduct that we choose to engage in according to our individual moral standards. We call that gap 'freedom'. The challenge is determining the width of that gap for groups bound by religious faith which differs from the Australian majority.' Frank Brennan launches Carolyn Evans' Legal Protection of Religious Freedom in Australia. Full text

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  • RELIGION

    Exempting churches from anti-discrimination laws

    • Frank Brennan
    • 07 September 2012
    18 Comments

    Church groups in Australia have vigorously campaigned to protect themselves from particular equal opportunity laws. While there is agreement about a faith community's right to employ practising believers, there is plenty of room for disagreement as to how most prudently and charitably to exercise that right.

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  • RELIGION

    Greater transparency will evolve the Church

    • Frank Brennan
    • 24 May 2012
    44 Comments

    Bishop Morris wrote at considerable length to Archbishop Chaput, in a highly respectful and fraternal tone. To be fair to Chaput, I will quote his breathtaking response in full. It illustrates what still passes for due process and pastoral care in the Roman Church. We have to insist on something better. And with greater transparency, we will get something better.

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  • RELIGION

    On Jesuit collaboration

    • Frank Brennan
    • 26 April 2012
    4 Comments

    'This Jesuit network will not succeed where Copenhagen failed, but it is an incremental contribution to one of the great moral challenges of our age [climate change].' Text from Frank Brennan's paper 'An interpretation and a raincheck on GC 35's call to develop international and interprovincial collaboration', Boston College, 28 April 2012.

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