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Though the Independents are raising expectations about a 'new politics', the forces behind the status quo are strong and the public is fickle. If they fail to deliver they might eventually suffer a backlash, like Kevin Rudd and the Democrats before them.
Tony Abbott is wrong to suggest that B. A. Santamaria made Australian Catholicism 'more intellectual'. Santamaria embraced a form of doctrinaire conformism that is the death of thoughtful commitment. It would be worrying if this kind of integralist Catholicism infected contemporary public life.
How times change. Early in the 20th Century, it was Protestant Orangemen who warned Australians not to vote for a Catholic. In the early 21 Century, such warnings are now delivered by a former Catholic priest in a publication of the Jesuit Order. –Gerard Henderson, The Sydney Institute
I differ with Frank Brennan in his belief that there is no harm in voting Green. The Greens' policy on funding for Catholic schools will force closures, increase fees and change the ability of Catholic schools to be genuinely Catholic. Stephen Elder, Director of Catholic Education, Melbourne
It would be regrettable if an attack by Cardinal Pell and the Australian Christian Lobby on the 'anti-Christian' Greens could be construed as an indirect shot across the bows of the atheist Prime Minister. On some policy issues the Greens have a more Christian message than the major parties.
Gillard was photographed looking up to Cardinal George Pell with an admiring glance, and attended a fundraiser for expenses associated with October's Mary MacKillop canonisation in Rome. She offered $1.5 million in government money, but much more than that in flattery to Catholic electors.
Christians rarely agree on what they want from government. The Australian Christian Lobby jumped the gun last week with its forum for political leaders to address Christian voters: the elevation of Julia Gillard means it now needs to engage afresh with a new Prime Minister.
In his Easter message, Cardinal George Pell made an oblique reference to sexual abuse in the Church. While most Australians dismiss such utterances as too little too late, it is possible to look at them optimistically when set against actions of the recent past.
Tony Abbott had a close association with B. A. Santamaria and personifies church ties with politics through his relationship with the man he has called his confessor, Cardinal Pell. The question is whether Abbott is a one-off or represents a larger group of Catholic Liberals.
Text from Fr Frank Brennan SJ's presentation Poverty and Plenty: Where Do or Should Christians Stand? at the Centre for an Ethical Society as part of the 2010 Series Forum at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, 17 March 2010.
The challenges and opportunities are to fund equitably all networks in education and to ensure that robust morale and community engagement are hallmarks of all parts of the network, including state schools and emerging schools such as Muslim schools.
'Tonight I want to reflect in light of the National Human Rights Consultation how we as Church can do better in promoting justice for all in our land. Full text from Frank Brennan's 2010 McCosker Oration, 'The Church as Advocate in the Public Square: Lessons from the National Human Rights Consultation'.
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