Those of us who write regular columns have little time for introspection. We are too busy getting up the next article. But we are frequently prompted, sometimes by our disappointed readers, to ask what we are up to. Every now and then our readers deserve a personal response.
In my case, the questions go like this: What am I, as a Jesuit priest, doing writing about all topics except the woes of the Catholic Church? And as a follow up question, what are the Jesuits, a Catholic religious congregation, doing sponsoring Eureka Street, a magazine that has little Catholic content and regularly publishes articles that might be more at home in The Guardian than in the scriptures?
Such questions touch on integrity: the coherence between our public commitments, our behaviour and our inner thoughts.
My initial response is that I do write often and happily in magazines that address a Catholic audience on Catholic teaching and issues within the Catholic Church. Eureka Street, however, is a public magazine written in a publicly accessible language for a public audience on issues of interest to a wider public. Issues affecting the Catholic Church, therefore, need to be addressed in a language and in arguments accessible to that audience.
The specialised language of Catholic theology and an appeal to the authority of Catholic statements are not appropriate in this forum.
Another factor limiting what can be written for Eureka Street is its commitment to a public conversation that is open and courteous. Its editors hope that readers will engage with what is written, explore the arguments deeply, and be open to modify their own views.
This excludes both directly polemical writing and also participations in debates where the guns are already trained from both sides, ready to fire at any provocation. Direct attacks on highly controversial figures in church or state are therefore off limits: they may be justified, but they will not generate conversation, only shouting.
"In my judgment, the root of many of our current discontents lie in the shallow and self-seeking emphasis on the competitive individual. This has led to a self-generating structural inequality in society."
The orientation and Catholic sponsorship of the magazine make it particularly difficult to publish defences of Catholic positions on controversial positions, particularly if written by Catholic priests. They will be assumed to be microphones for a party line, with the result that the response will focus on authority and not on the topic at issue. For those with a taste for such debate, there are other forums.
These are external limiting factors on what I contribute to Eureka Street. But there is an inner coherence between my writing and the various relationships that compose my identity as person, Catholic, Jesuit, priest, writer and contributor to public conversation. A coherence in aspiration, I should add, but too often not in performance.
The coherence is grounded in my personal conviction that each human being is precious and demanding of respect, that human beings depend on one another to survive and thrive, and consequently are responsible to one another, particularly to the people who are most disadvantaged. The health of society depends on the quality of respect embodied in the interlocking relationships between people, groups and the world in which we live.
My conviction and commitment to a vision of the good society as cooperative, communal, and equitable is also supported by my personal Christian faith and by the Catholic social justice tradition that I have inherited. It leads to a desire to make the world a better place, and also provides criteria for assessing the manifest failures in respect that mark our society, both secular and church. These are the major themes in my own writing.
From that perspective I am comfortable with the characterisation of Eureka Street and of my own writing for it as reformist. The articles it publishes, whose writers reflect the diversity of Australian society, generally reflect the conviction that we can do better. In my judgment, the root of many of our current discontents lie in the shallow and self-seeking emphasis on the competitive individual. This has led to a self-generating structural inequality in society. In reaction it has led groups based in identity to see themselves as competing with other groups for resources and not as fellows seeking the common good.
In such a society it is essential constantly to return to the realities of human life, and particularly to the dignity of the human beings who are excluded from society, and to demand respect for their humanity. They include people discriminated against on the grounds of their background, race, religion and sexuality, often by Christian churches as well as by the wider society.
In a polarised society you can be dismissed if you constantly insist on the humanity we share with people commonly regarded as being beyond the pale. But might that dismissal be a sign of integrity, not of its lack?
Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street.