Keywords: 21St Century Man
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 24 August 2011
1 Comment
'We need to break down the silo mentality between health, welfare and education. This exists in church agencies as much as elsewhere in society. We must be committed to providing first rate health care to our patients, but also to creating a more equal society.' Text from Frank Brennan's MercyCare Oration.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
In the tiny church built of ecumenical brick, with barely any aesthetic pleasure to distract from the humility of the message, Patrick and his cohort in both the earlier football match and in the communion to come, sat quietly, though with the telltale legs of novices swinging restlessly under the front pew.
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AUSTRALIA
- John Stuyfbergen
- 24 March 2011
10 Comments
In a park for a Sunday barbecue, suddenly a few men from our group separated from the rest of us. I asked the woman next to me what they were doing. They were Muslims, and they were praying. Suddenly the men were back. They switched on the radio, and we all listened to and argued about the cricket scores.
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EDUCATION
- Fatima Measham
- 15 December 2010
6 Comments
The National Curriculum has sparked passionate debate. An enlightened society upholds that its young people are more than just future workers; they are human beings first. Unfortunately, it is easier to generate data for the knowledge and skills that we expect of future workers.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 04 November 2010
15 Comments
Cardinal Pell, with whom I have voiced disagreement, preached superbly at the mass of thanksgiving after the canonisation of Mary MacKillop. 'She does not deter us from struggling to follow her.' As we wrestle with the common good, let's make a place for all our fellow citizens.
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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 14 October 2010
4 Comments
It is possible to represent MacKillop as a brave woman, a feisty woman, her own woman, a feminist before her time, a woman who resisted clerical tyranny, a scourge of pedophilia and an activist for the poor. Each of these descriptions misses what was central in her.
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RELIGION
- Moira Rayner
- 11 October 2010
12 Comments
Men's control over Christian women's religious lives has grown vastly over the centuries. Perhaps MacKillop might have agreed with Virginia Woolf, 'The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.'
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Matthews
- 11 August 2010
1 Comment
For all our modern sophistication, refinement and technology, we remain in imaginative thrall to one of the most venerable and terrifying of folk figures. The vampire combines two of human kind's profoundly obsessive preoccupations: mortality and sex.
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AUSTRALIA
- John Falzon
- 11 December 2009
7 Comments
Aside from a few fanatical poverty-deniers, there is a broad consensus that we have a serious problem. Frantz Fanon reminded us nearly 50 years ago that we need a redistribution of wealth. 'Humanity must reply to this question, or be shaken to pieces by it.' We have been shaken to pieces.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Thor Beowulf
- 07 December 2009
5 Comments
Trees are recognised as powerful cosmological agents in many of the earth's myths, rituals and religious beliefs. A worldwide 'bell ringing for climate justice' on 13 December will signify a vocal, moral and spiritual re-engagement of churches with nature.
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AUSTRALIA
- Luke Fraser
- 09 September 2009
2 Comments
Throughout the 19th century, Russians developed a
keen interest in Australia, describing it
as a 'working man's paradise' and a 'key trading partner for the future'. This forgotten relationship has potential for building a shared future.
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RELIGION
- David Holdcroft
- 17 August 2009
7 Comments
Reflections on the 40th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing can help us understand the major themes of Pope Benedicts's social encyclical, and explain why many critics of this radical document have
missed the point.
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