Keywords: The House On The Hill
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
I was brought up to become a Scottish Protestant boy in exile from the country that was my father's homeland. You grew up to be at home in your history and tongue; my father banned your accent, set me to elocution, as if your speech was my speech-defect. Our history lay elsewhere, even as we were living it.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 02 November 2013
7 Comments
'There have been innumerable post-mortems and words of advice as to how the party with new structures, election rules, and policies can pick itself up, dust off, and win the next election. Sadly some of those post-mortems have come with more coatings of spite and loathing. It is no part of my role in the public square as a Catholic priest to offer such advice.' Frank Brennan's address to the Bathurst Panthers Club, 2 November 2013.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Duncan MacLaren
- 10 April 2013
72 Comments
While any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind', I must admit to pouring a glass of good malt at the news of Thatcher's passing. The Southern English may laud her as the greatest prime minister after Churchill but for us Scots she was a hate figure who in the last days of her premiership scarcely dared to cross the border for fear of being assassinated.
READ MORE 
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Andrew Hamilton
- 07 March 2013
9 Comments
In Australia the child's welfare is trumped by the demands of a justice system focused on containment of risk, and by populist calls to get tough on crime. When offending children are seen through a judicial lens, and justice is seen as retributive, the support society offers them to become responsible adults is fragmented.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Kevin Gillam
- 22 January 2013
dear hoist, still standing? still spinning? still lapped by buffalo? we loved you. weren't allowed to of course. but we did. draped over, swung from, cranked up and down, merry-go-round on green sea. Mum's peeling carrots, voice piercing the flywire.
READ MORE
-
RELIGION
- 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.
READ MORE
-
RELIGION
- 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
- Mark Austin
- 20 March 2012
2 Comments
A drink from the sole is more refreshing than any bottled river. I felt the cushion of grass. It did not exclude, but wrapped its spines around me, tickled my dying ankles to rattle, greasing the bearings of my toes.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Frank O'Shea
- 14 March 2012
6 Comments
The theory that the person we know as St Patrick is an amalgam of a number of holy men is now respectably mainstream. The idea that Patrick came to pagan Ireland and changed it to an island of saints and scholars is an attractive one, however shaky that conversion has often seemed.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Matthews
- 11 November 2011
1 Comment
Bush towns settle into their landscape. The galvanised-iron roofs and encircling verandahs squat with a certainty and a determination that only nature at its worst — fire or flood — might disrupt. Coastal towns, conversely, know all about the uncertain nature of existence.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- John Warhurst
- 17 October 2011
10 Comments
Gillard's atheism puts her in stark contrast to her immediate predecessors Kevin Rudd and John Howard. We consider several implications of Gillard's position, including her relations with church-state issues and community attitudes towards gay marriage and euthanasia.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Paul W. Newbury
- 19 April 2011
21 Comments
In 1790, resistance hero Pemulwuy killed Governor Phillip's convict gamekeeper for his abuse of Aboriginal women. The subsequent Frontier Wars raged for 140 years. Anzac celebrations tend to neglect the many Indigenous Australians who died in defence of their land.
READ MORE