Keywords: Central America
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AUSTRALIA
- Jeremy Tarbox
- 01 October 2012
9 Comments
A Dominican drivers license specifies skin colour: white, light, dark, almost black or black. 'Black' likely brands the holder as a poor and inferior Haitian. Understanding this pigmentocracy is especially relevant now, on the 75th anniversary of the worst peace time human rights abuse of civilians in the Americas during the 20th century.
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MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD
- Evan Ellis
- 12 September 2012
12 Comments
St Benedict of Nursia knew about living in a dying world. He was born 25 years after the Vandals sacked Rome and died months after the Ostrogoths had their turn. He watched as old certainties went up in flame. As existing institutions were hollowed out or winnowed completely, Benedict started a revolution.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 05 April 2012
4 Comments
Legend has it that upon its original release, Titanic was listed as running for two hours and 74 minutes, to placate 'dumb' Americans averse to films over three hours. Titanic's strength is not its trite central 'lust story' but its accumulation of small human tragedies against the disaster of the ship's final hours.
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AUSTRALIA
- Duncan MacLaren
- 03 April 2012
Australian aid worker David Savage was severely injured by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. The Taliban tried to kill him in revenge for the shooting of 17 unarmed Afghan civilians by a deranged American soldier. In more innocent times aid workers were regarded as angels by all sides.
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AUSTRALIA
- Edwina Byrne
- 09 January 2012
3 Comments
The speeches of the Tea Party movement, for all their faults, are notable for their vivid symbolism and appeal to values. When was the last time you heard an Australian politician invent their own intelligible metaphor? Published 20 January 2011
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Chalk
- 11 October 2011
5 Comments
Many Australians have reached a point of believing that the difficulties afflicting Aboriginal communities demand the heavy handed, and often humiliating, approach. But the Philppine grassroots Gawad Kalinga model, based on 'the giving of care', offers a realistic alternative.
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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 31 March 2011
43 Comments
In a recent speech titled 'The Fall of the Christian West', American Cardinal Raymond Burke was concerned with Catholic identity. Questions about identity fix our attention on the group to which we belong, when Christian groups should instead begin by looking outwards.
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AUSTRALIA
- Edwina Byrne
- 20 January 2011
16 Comments
The speeches of the Tea Party movement, for all their faults, are notable for their vivid symbolism and appeal to values. When was the last time you heard an Australian politician invent their own intelligible metaphor?
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 25 November 2010
The Exorcist upheld an essentially fundamentalist, even romantic vision of religious experience. Its central character was an agnostic Jesuit whose encounters with demonic forces restore his faith. The Last Exorcism substitutes for the jaded Jesuit a troubled Middle American preacher.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Mark Raper
- 17 November 2010
3 Comments
May I tell you about one refugee whom I met during the 20 years I lived and worked JRS? The story has no happy outcome, indeed far from it. But it may help to communicate some of the feelings that inspire many who accompany the refugees.
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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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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Peter Kirkwood
- 01 September 2010
28 Comments
On his return to Europe after many years absence, Raimon Panikkar said: ‘I left as a Christian, I found myself a Hindu, and I return a
Buddhist, without having ceased to be a Christian.' This statement of
his own multiple religious belonging is just one of many challenging
insights and ideas that he wrote about with passion and eloquence.
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